Darkness Beneath Level 2 - Trog Warren Session Report

[makofan]

So my overpowered players chose a random descent and headed down to Level 2 and came out in the starting cave. They were a bit freaked out by the warning stakes, so decided to head north. It was a dead end, so I decided to let moon slime drip on the lead character (the ranger). He scraped it off very quickly, made him roll for it but he did not cut of his arm. The party pondered ways to take the slime and use it as a weapon, but had no suitable containment facility so abandoned that idea.

Back to the starting cavern, they headed west, climbed down the small drop, and the two lead characters fell into the spiked pit. On that signal, the waiting trog guards charged! Unfortunately they got slaughtered, and then the cleric healed the ranger. The party headed north from the guard cavern, and encountered the magic mist room. One entered, and promptly fell asleep, so another person entered, and fell asleep, so a third person entered...and fell asleep. The last person made his saving throw, dragged all the characters out the west exit (other side of the room), and discovered some disembodying clairvoyance, which allowed them to sense and locate the badgers, so they were ready for them. I rolled really crappy and the badgers did little damage/ That was about all they had time for, but I am looking forward to unleashing some troglo-knights on them next time

[makofan]

We only had time for a short session, but the boys geared it up again for some action. At the crossroads cavern they were in, they decided not to head down the steps (would have led to an underground lake) and instead headed west out of the cave. At the sinkhole, they branched north to the chained-up giant lizards. The half-dragon breathed lightning on the one lizard, then battle was joined. They were slaughtered quite quickly - in D&D, one tough monster swarmed by the PC's always seems to be a disappointing fight for the GM.

They continued west, and the ranger's Detect Thoughts sniffed out the Trog Assassins. They set a trap, and caught the assassins between two pairs of players. The assassins had a chance to unleash some poison, but I rolled poorly. They then found the room where the trogs were trying to summon the gibbering fungus god. The sorcerer drank his potion of flying, and he and the cleric flew undetected up to the ceiling. The ranger shape-changed into a trog assassin. The three then made their way to the chanting priests and killed them by surprise. A confused melee broke out, which resulted in half the trogs escaping out the north passage, and the rest dying. The party took some minor wounds, but the most important happening was the lich paralyzing the gecko mount. The ranger has now claimed it as his mount, and he will get to ride it through the dungeon like Obi-Wan in Start Wars III.

We called it a day there

[makofan]

Man, 3rd edition seems to take longer than earlier games. We played for an hour-and-a-half and had one combat. The players chased the remnants of the trogs into the throne room. The ranger shapechanged into a trog knight, and thus took them all by surprise when he charged the throne and lanced the king! A massive free-for-all broke out, with the sorcerer and wizard spamming sleep spells, while the cleric and ranger combatted the trogloknights, the king, and his fat, blubbery wives. Things got a bit tense when the ranger was entangled in a troglowife's massive arms and slowly being hugged to death, but he escaped by shape-shifting into a hobbit and slipping through her arms.

Silly events started happening, as the sorcerer's flying potion had not yet run out, so he grabbed a trogloknight's barbed lance and started flying around with lance charges. We had splattered lizard parts, blubbery wives, sonic screeching and a king who died fast to three straight critical hits. The players mopped up, and were out of healing and magic spells, so loaded everything on the pack lizards and headed back to the surface. They leveled up to level 4 (the ranger is Ranger 2/ Rogue 2). The wizard then used his Craft Wondorous Items feat to create four Brooches of Shielding (absorbs magic missile damage) for the party.

They have cleared out the top third of level 2 - next they will explore the bottom half

[makofan]

I had a work emergency, so we got started late. The 4th level party went back to exploring the trog lair, and encountered a blast spore, which of course they attacked. Everybody made their saving throw when it exploded, or there would have been deaths. Unfortunately, they did not heal themselves back up fully. This would be a problem later on. They then encountered Fred, the water dragon, and exchanged pleasantries, but failed to ingratiate themselves with him, so did not gain any useful knowledge, which led to...

...the Sarlaac pit. The half-dragon sorcerer slipped into the pit, and was eaten by the monster at the bottom. The others fled, and we ended the session. The player is now rolling up a 1st-level mind flayer sorcerer as a replacement. It just goes to show, overpowered characters are no substitute for player skill

[kesher]

This is awesome.

What's with all the Ranger shape-changing?

[makofan]

Oh, he is a Doppelganger Ranger. The wizard is a Lich Wizard, and the cleric is a Half-fiend Elf cleric. I am letting the kids play overpowered 'cool' stuff because they are all going to die anyway

[kesher]

...aren't we all.

[calithena]

Very cool.

One thing I find interesting is that the 3e abilities (like Detect Enemies) are formalizing some things I would let 'smart' players with ranger, elf, or thief type PCs do 'for free' as it were - the importance of improv scouting. I think I am an easy DM on this kind of stuff though, because the consequences of failure are so lethal. Some of my dungeons are impossible if DMed 'hard'. The flip side of this is stuff like well-played kobold troops giving high level PCs fits with ambushes and so forth. I like the highly variable information flow in the old rules, but I understand the impulse to codify it a la 3e as well.