Slide on in behind this flimsy cardboard DM screen with us and let us chat about the crunch from this weeks session:
Guarding the Dead Pig:
The party spent two night in the forest guarding an elephant-sized dead boar carcass. Typically we hand-wave some of the meaningless night-time checks. In our games we run a 4-watch system for long rests. Lots of time we roll a probability die to determine if an encounter is triggered, then roll a d4 to determine which watch it occurs on. Then whatever watch it happens on we have perception rolls occur, etc. Our table is pretty good about not meta-gaming so this works for us. We also have non-combat encounters regularly so that helps keep them from firing blindly at things after perception checks are called for.
This week we wanted to do something different. Since they were guarding 7,000 pounds of tasty dead boar in a dangerous woodland setting crawling with predatory animals a change of pace seemed fitting. Zaterra had set up a ring of fires to help keep animals away. Building off of that we had each watch make a Survival Check. This check represented their efforts at keeping the noises in the darkness driven away from their encampment. DC12 or higher and they kept the beasts at bay, DC10/11 the beasts approached camp but cautiously, below that and the beasts attacked for food. Worked very well and made the night watches interesting as we described together (DM & Players) how the party used their skills and abilities to drive the animals away.
Moving the Dead Pig
With a 7,000 pound body to move the gang had to come up with a plan to move it. A roller system was devised. We had some INT checks made to determine the amount of construction time (didn’t go so well so it consumed an entire day for the whole party). Then once it was constructed we did a group check to see if they could clear the forest in a day- normal travel they were 4 hours of walking to the edge of the forest so moving the mass of BBQ was going to take longer.
The group check consisted of mostly STR checks (DC14) or for the two smart but weak characters (Magnus and Sidron) and INT check to represent their use of their brains in moving such a large boar. The party rolled really well and smoked the check! They got the pig out of the woods after a full day of exhausting labor.
Those Sneaky Githyanki
With our weather rules in play: see this post if you want to check out our winter weather crunch: https://totmrpg.com/2019/01/05/campaign-crunch-1/ There was a pretty fair amount of snow falling during the night as well as a wintry haze. This meant the Gith had a +4 to stealth rolls while poor Sidron had a -4 to perception. They attacked Sidron because in the party of 7 Sidron is the only one with a solo watch. He literally never saw them coming!
That Crit Hit!
The Gith Misty Stepped from his hiding place to close on Sidron instantly. Side Note: We described their Misty Steps as a shadowy silvery shape zipping from the start point to the end point and then materializing at the end. This represents the weakening of the planar separation (which will eventually become a key plot-point in the campaign). We rule that Misty Step connects two points via a quick jaunt into another plane. Back to the real show: The first hit from the Githyanki Knight was a Critical Hit! So doubling those dice AND rolling on the lingering injuries table made for a bad night for Sidron. One of his legs was severed just below the knee and he was down. Honestly by rules as written should’ve been an insta-kill. We Rule Zeroed it because we were already dropping a Githyanki Knight and a regular Githyanki on a sleeping party of Level 3 adventurers. This is the first time that a party member has serious effects from the lingering injuries table and we’ll see how it shakes out in the weeks to come.
Githyanki Knight??? At this level of play???
Yep! BUT here’s what we did. We wanted them to be up against an enemy that could hit them harder than they could withstand BUT still be beatable. So we had the Githyanki Knight and the standard Githyanki dropped into the material plane by a planar disturbance. They managed to grab their weapons but not their armor. So freezing to death in the Northern Reach they waited for an opportunity to attack the party for their goods! This meant that the Gith in this encounter had ACs of 10+dex (making them very hitable) and we halved their HP to reflect the damage they had sustained from freezing to death for most of the day.
Relentless Endurance:
Relentless Endurance could be the best thing about playing a 1/2 Orc and in this week’s session it kept Jung from being in the same death-saving throw boat as Sidron. Jung should have been down-and-out but because of her racial feature she scampered from the fray with 1HP and managed to fire off a few arrows to help her friends!
Gith Goodies:
We played a little fast and loose with the Githyanki Knight’s Silver Sword, which the party recovered. See the description at the end of this week’s campaign diary to see the experience that Magnus had when he attuned to it (we added the attunement feature to it, just made sense to us) https://totmrpg.com/2019/02/20/campaign-diary-6-the-one-where-sidron-isnt-fit-to-enter-any-butt-kicking-contests/
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