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.
No comments:
Post a Comment