5e Game - Part 17

(This is becoming a habit of mine - this post contains the report from the last two gaming sessions, again because there is not a lot of out of combat action going. And yes, again, because I am lazy and didn't get around to writing up the first session by itself. Part of this was that the first gaming session was only about half the time of a normal session as I was expecting the session to be the last of the year due to holidays cancelling out the last two weekend games of the year. So I threw my players a party, cooked them lots of good food and forced them to watch a favorite movie of mine from the '90s, PCU. Then we gamed with the time we had left, at which point I said, "happy holidays! see you next year!" and my players were like "no, we'll be back next weekend to game, right?" So we gamed. The things I do for my players. *sigh*)

The party moved on from the site of the chuul attack, the more adventurous of them munching contentedly on giant, lobster abomination claw (in butter and lemon). I've long said that Kenzer Co's Hacklopedia of Beasts for their Hackmaster RPG is doing it right, by providing not only the usual monster stats (hit points, armor, etc), but also a "yield" box that tells you what you get from the monster. For instance, the Owlbear (Common, Lesser, Great Horned, and Spotted) will yield up the following:

• Medicinal (what medicinal components can you gather from the beast) - Nil
• Spell Components - Although the Owlbear is a very magical creature, no magic-user has yet determined the possible uses of its fur, feathers, bone, horn, blood or eggs
• Hide/Trophy Items - Nil
• Treasure - Nil
• Other - Common Owlbear eggs are worth 200gp and the young are worth 500gp alive. Lesser eggs are 100gp and young are 300gp. Great Horned, 300gp and 700gp. And Spotted, 400gp and 900gp.

I have been planning on adding this to my own copy of the Monster Manual, Volo's Guide to Monsters, and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, if for nothing else than to make my own games quicker when the players go to plundering the bodies of the dead bad guys. In addition to all of the above, I would also add in Food, just to also note what monsters you can eat the flesh of and those you can't. Note, I am not here to argue cannibalism in a fictional game, or the implications of the psyche's of the players who may or may not have their characters participate in those acts in game. I am merely interested in trying to figure out which monsters are edible, and which are not. Plus, I like the manga Delicious in Dungeon, which is all about a party of adventurers living off of the monsters in a dungeon to make it through, if you hadn't heard of it before. I like the idea, iron rations are so boring (hey, I did my time in the US Army and MREs, the modern version of the iron ration, will fuel the fire, but definitely not as appealing as real food) and do weigh down the party that can't fit a pack animal into whatever environment they are exploring.

Anyway, enough of my rambling on about projects I wish I had time to complete, not just contemplate. The party continued on, drawing closer to the lake that now covered the capital city of the long dead empire. As the party drew near to the lake in the middle of the swamp, the ranger began using his Primeval Awareness to suss out the various baddies in the area. Unbeknownst to the ranger, the big bad of the area, also a ranger, was doing the exact same thing, and immediately began chain casting Pass Without a Trace on himself, covering his presence and those around him who the ranger was also detecting (humanoids and fiends, favored enemies). The big bad's spell covered only so much area, leaving plenty of uncovered space that included a watchtower full of hobgoblins and patrolling lizardfolk bands. Many little bands of lizardfolk, scattered around the lake.

"We are so close to leveling up," the party told each other, as they sat around my table, ruining the 4th wall meta and any sense of immersion any of us might have had to that point. "Let us slay the lizardfolk and level before we face the lieutenant in the middle of the lake." Yes, the muderhobo in my players took front and center stage at that point, as they had not even begun to think whether or not the lizardfolk were peaceful or working for said lieutenant (they were evil, these lizardfolk, and under full sway of the lieutenant, but the players weren't thinking about any of that beyond the XP gain). They sneak up and ambush a small party of the lizardfolk, easily dispatching the low CR creatures, and patting themselves on the back, say "this is an excellent plan! on to the next patrol, we still have a few more to reach next level!"

Onward the party traveled, sneaking up on two more bands of lizardfolk and slaughtering them in turn. One of the players did start questioning if they were being a bit overzealous and not even offering the lizardfolk parlay before offing them, but it was also about this time that the party started noticing a dragon (not very big, but big enough) flying around the center of the city. The ranger exclaimed that he was checking his Primeval Awareness again, and I informed him that now the band of hobgoblins he had detected earlier was gone, but a fiendish presence had now appeared in the city inside the lake. The dragon had been seen heading in the direction of the hobgoblins, and the party shrugged their collective shoulders, declared that the dragon had eaten the hobgoblins and forgot about it. In reality, the lieutenant, still with his magical protection against detection up had been moving about the city on his friend, the dragon, and giving orders to his underlings while the party was killing some low level lizardfolk. The party didn't wonder too hard at this whole change in the numbers of the bad guys, so I figured that meant the bad guy was wise to the party using his lizardfolk minions as XP boosters and so he gave out his marching orders.

I ran the first two encounters with the lizardfolk as normal, give the players the feeling they were doing something, but both of these fights were so bland that I decided the third fight went off without too many complications to skip past the boring and get to the good stuff. And good stuff it was. The lieutenant, while the party was busy slaughtering evil minions, had gotten word to all his remaining lizardfolk minions, ordering them to converge on the party's location and eliminate them with extreme prejudice. Flush with killing yet another little band of lizardfolk, the ranger turns on his Primeval Awareness one more time to find no less than 42 lizardfolk bearing down on their location from two different directions, a mere 30 minutes away. Suddenly taking this very seriously, the party gets their shit together and finally starts trying to act stealthy to ambush the lizardfolk. The ranger casts his Pass Without a Trace and the party sets an ambush. The lieutenant knows when the party disappears from his own Primeval Awareness, but what does he care about some mere lizardfolk?

The lizardfolk, knowing they faced a superior foe, spread out in a skirmish line at the edge of the lake and headed inland. Yes, the party had concealed themselves and removed their tracks, but the lizardfolk knew the boss goblin had moved the rest of his forces into the buildings at the edge of the sunken city, so if the party had gone that way, they were his problem. That left only inland (well, inswamp) from the lake, so inswamp the skirmish line of lizardfolk moved. The party launched their ambush, killing all but 8 of the lizardfolk (who ran away, terrified but still alive). The wizard fried many with a couple of fireballs, which attracted the attention of many lizardfolk, and he almost died. The paladin and his squire made as much noise as they could to attract attention, and attention they got, with the paladin going down from a triple critical strike in one round. The druid summoned an allosaurus, which occupied the attention of one flank for a bit before succumbing to multiple attackers. The ranger and the rogue killed their fair share, firing their bows from concealment. But, like I said, the party overcame and survived, even the paladin (just down and only one round of making death saves before he was healed) and the wizard (who never got to negative HP, merely coming awfully close).

Yes, yes, CR 1/2 creatures aren't terribly exciting for characters on the cusp of level 7, unless you throw 42 of them at the characters at the same time. It was either this or have them attack along with the lieutenant and all of his lackeys, which is going to happen next session and be bad enough. Dragon. Big bad ranger with the same powers as the party's ranger. Spell caster hobgoblins. Lots of regular hobgoblins who are going to engage with bows at range. An ettin. And ogre bolt launchers, because when I saw them in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, I couldn't say no.

I did not have the conversation with the player of the ranger like I thought I would in the last post (or couple of posts). I think he is realizing that always winning (at least, when winning is "doing more damage than the rest of the party combined") is boring and that there needs to be some excitement, some chance for failure. My next 5e campaign is going to be a lot different than this one but that is at least another 13 levels away in this campaign before I switch over, but this is good training for what I want to fix about the ruleset. No, the biggest problem I had was another player, the recent joiner of the playing group, the wizard's player.

This particular player is known to me, as we had gone to Iraq together as part of an Army deployment in the same Company back in '05. He had some issues in his life, and wandered about the state ever since we got back, just recently moving into the city I live in and joining the game. I thought he had left most of his life problems behind them, but instead, while he was good for the first month or so of game sessions, his old life issues have caught up with him, full force. The first session, he literally passed out for large portions of the game, and this most recent session, he was noticeably drunk - slurred speech, talking too fast, random changes in the conversation with no warning, and playing the game so badly I basically had to take over for him. On that last, I'm not saying he was playing tactically wrong or insultingly to any of the other players, but he was so out of it that he couldn't remember the initiative he had rolled, what spells he was going to cast or even if he had gone that round or not. I am unsure how to proceed. He had been going to Alcoholics Anonymous for a while, but has fallen off the wagon rather hard for at least 3 weeks now, going on 4.

Do not misunderstand, I am an adult of legal drinking age, and I too drink alcohol. But not all the time, I do not "need" it, and I only enjoy it when I am not required to do anything else. Plus it's been a very, very long time since I was what anyone would consider heavily drunk, like my player was. As long as it's legal (and yes, I think marijuana should be legal, it's about as damaging and addictive as alcohol is, but until it is legal, I do not partake), and you partake of it in such a way as to not harm others (no drunk driving, etc), then enjoy away. However, if you have altered your mental state enough that you are not functional, you are not being a good friend to the rest of the party (unless everyone is playing drunk, at which point, are you really playing, or just having a drinking party with your D&D books out?). If this describes you, damaging yourself and others with your addiction, seek help. There are many programs out there, seek one out and if you can't do it for yourself, do it for your friends, your family, or anyone else that matters to you.

I honestly don't know what to do. I did what I could back when this player was still in the Army with me, but what responsibility do I have as a mere DM now that we're both out of the military? The game is suffering (it won't die, but the other players are going to kick him out if this continues), and if it was just a bad player, I'd ask them to leave. The game is held at my house, after all, and if you're not welcome in my house, you can't play the game. However, I think this would only worsen this player's situation, not improve it. He is on the edge of it, he's got no car (and due to many DUIs in the past decade, no legal vehicle for a long while), a job that's nothing special, and the game seems to be the only bright spot in his week. I need to have a talk with him, preferably before the day of our next gaming session so I can encourage him to show up for the game sober.

5e Game - Part 16

(This post covers three gaming sessions since the last session post, partly because the combats have grown so large that not many combats take up a significant portion of each session, and partly because I'm a lazy bastard and didn't get around to typing this up in time.)

The party was in dire straits - one bad round of combat saw the wizard down, several of the party's other big guns hovering close to negative hit points as well, and only a few goblins and worgs down on the other side, and those at the hands of a hobgoblin devastator, not the party. That last was a mistake on my part, I didn't read the stat block close enough and didn't realize that devastators can sculpt their spells to miss comrades, but in afterthought I realized the devastator, leader of this particular raiding band, was tired of the little bastards and their smelly dogs and wouldn't have sculpted the spell for them anyway. He probably would not have also hit the hellhound and chimera, but eh, they were still standing and the party was hurting.

As predicted though, the party rallied, got the wizard back on his feet and proceeded to mop the floor with the remaining monsters. They did receive some help in the form of the dire wolf that had been shadowing the party as they (particularly the ranger) amused the large wolf, who came swooping in to challenge the devastator head-to-head, keeping him from fireballing the party for even more damage. The devastator did return the favor, dropping the dire wolf (the druid healed him not long after, so no big deal) before finally dying himself.

The attack in broad daylight in front of the townsfolk, plus the attackers killing and burning many on the other side of the river, the once wishy-washy townsfolk are convinced and they are leaving. The party, heady with success, head on towards the north, see if they can't break the blockades on the northern trade roads, take care of this pesky lieutenant, and get the elves to throw in on the side of everyone else in the vale.

They travel through many little villages, some taking the storm warnings seriously and preparing for war, others scoffing at the very idea of it. The party drives on each day, passing out warnings everywhere but moving on no matter if the warnings are heeded or not. Eventually they find the blockade on the trade route north, a small, hastily constructed fort containing a few ogres and some hobgoblins. The druid summons giant owls, the rogue and ranger sneak up for ranged attacks and the lobbing of fire bombs, and the paladin, his retainer, and the wizard gallop up from afar to clean up. The hobgoblins and ogres did not stand up long to the onslaught, and the party, intent on unblocking the road to the northlands, burned the block house to the ground ending that particular threat.

Having also sensed other raiding parties in the wilds around them (thanks to the ranger's Primeval Awareness) and still having some owls conjured, the druid decides to use them to capture the party someone to question. The owls bring back a hobgoblin, leader of that particular raiding party. To question the hobgoblin and stay within the boundaries of most of the party's alignments (killing a bad guy, acceptable; carving bits of a helpless bad guy? not cool), the paladin stuns the hobgoblin and then forces it to drink - and I can't believe I've never thought of doing this before - a Philter of Love. The hobgoblin is male (I rolled for it, not a misogynist bastard, I'm just an asshole to everyone) and so is effectively charmed for the next hour, no save. The hobgoblin spills as much as he knows - the lieutenant is here (and a goblin, quite a feat for one so small to command hobgoblins and other dangerous monsters), there are ogres, and ettins in attendance, the local lizardfolk are working for them, and there's a dragon, because of course there is. The lieutenant is also breeding things, demon like things, in his lair, a horde to unleash on civilization. The elves in the area, isolationist, owl-riding wood elves who have been living in the swamps since the end of the last empire in the area, are also being avoided to keep them from joining up with the communities to the south. Having asked their questions, the party slits the throat of the hobgoblin and discuss their plans from here.

They head towards the swamps, hoping to find the elves and convince them to help in the war, but if nothing else, help them find the bad guys' lair and stop his plans. At the edge of the swamps the ranger detects something nigh fiendish (his Primeval Awareness again, pegging to favored enemies) that "smells" like a devil, but not quite, and it's nearby. The party creeps up to find what looks like a mutated abishai, a devil servant of the dark goddess Tiamat, something they have fought before, but this one is different - larger, more aggressive (if that's even possible), acid breathing, and amphibious. They slay the beast and find that it was feasting on a giant owl and en elf that it had slain. Detecting even more elves flying in, the party searches the area while waiting for them to arrive.

The elves arrive, the party gracefully placing their dead comrade and his owl in full view, along with the monster and their empty, non-threatening hands. The elves, suspicious isolationists long separated from other peoples, treat the party brusquely, but finally consent to guide them to their city in the swamp, fairly certain the party was not to blame for the death of their comrade. The party follows on their own giant owls while the elves gather up the three dead bodies, two to bury and one to study. The swamp elves ask the party to relax in their guest accommodations while they (the swamp elves) hold a funeral for their fallen comrade. The elves in the party immediately decide they're going to the funeral (they're elves too, not outsiders...) and everyone else watches, the druid as a squirrel in a tree and through the eyes of the wizard's owl familiar and a handy illusion spell. The party then wonders the next day why the swamp elves don't automatically drop everything they're doing and join them in hunting down the horde's lieutenant.

Having at least put their request to the elves for help, both for themselves and the other communities elsewhere in the vale, sincerely and graciously enough, the party does manage to secure a map to the location of the lieutenant and some boats to haul them through the swamps. The party begins their trek towards the lake containing the sunken city, capital of a long dead empire, and now home to the lieutenant they're hunting and possibly a breeding nest of dangerous devils, like the one they fought earlier. Along the way, they run into some chuul and kill them. The chuul weren't part of the original adventure's random encounter chart for this area, can't remember off the top of my head what they replaced, but whatever it was doesn't exist in 5th edition and the chuul can sometimes be found in swamps, so I put them in. It also has the added benefit of letting the players know that their adventure isn't the only game in town - chuul are escapees from the aboleth, former slaves run away from terrible masters. Where there are chuul, there is an aboleth (or are aboleths) somewhere not too far away. It was a random roll on the encounter table, but it did give an interesting flavor to the evening. Will the party divert from their current goal and see if they can find the aboleth(s) nearby, or will they stay the course?

Next session, I'll be talking with the party. Combat needs to speed up, drastically so, as we are spending a lot of time on small combats. I tried to adopt a faster initiative system to keep combats interesting, but the meta discussion before every action has gotten too much. On top of it, the next big bad they're to face, the lieutenant, is going to use a lot of the tricks they are using and the party is not going to get to sneak up on this group. Yes, I said group, this big bad is bringing friends to the party, and some of these friends can't be detected by the party's ranger, of which they have been relying on too much lately.