Nappendixia Campaign Session Report
Session #- 36 Session Date- 3/15/23 Time Passed- 4 days (1/9-1/12)
Roll Call- Mandigor- ½ Elf Fighter 4
Malden- Paladin 4
Gunther- Dog
Gregory- Paladin 2 Squire
Thantas- Elf Assassin 4
Gruumsh- ½ Orc Thief 5
Ulster- Druid 4
Henchmen
Barry the Caveman
Julius the Caveman
Hirelings
Mondius- Fighter 2
LaSalle- Fighter 3
Adventure Log- After resting briefly from the combat with the Aspis, the party looks at its many options on directions to go, and decides to head south into another rough chamber, this one containing 2 pits filled with grain and some skins filled with what may be honey. They opt not to touch anything at first, but when nothing stirs, Mandigor prods into the pit of grain only to be struck out at by a gray pseudopod. An ooze is nested in the pit, it misses, but the party retreats from the room, realizing they are more injured than they thought from the previous fight, they decide to sneak back out of the trap door and out the ruined front room of the hideout back to their own hidden camp to rest and heal. While there Ulster adds another of his cavemen henchmen, Julius, to the party, and has him and the other cavemen prepare some wooden spears, realizing their value in the close corridors of the dungeon. It takes 2 days of resting and casting to get the party healed, and during that time, on the second evening, the party spots another adventuring party sneaking up for a rear approach at the slavers hideout. They recognize one of the members to be Rev. Ramsey, their former member. Gregory the squire sneaks down the rocky outcropping and safely parleys with him before they make their approach. The party has Gregory negotiate with Ramsey to coordinate the 2 parties, Ramsey will enter the hideout tonight from the southern secret door, and the heroes will enter the hideout at dawn from the NE ruined room. From there they will look for each other and hope the mayhem each party causes will aid in the success of the other party. Gregory returns and says that Ramsey and his party of 4 other adventurers and 8 Lt. Foot agrees and wishes them success. Upon entering, they quietly and safely make it back to the trap door room, but find it has been locked since they last passed through the trap door on the floor. Mandigor decides to smash the lock and drive an iron spike into its keyhole, which he does successfully, but it draws the attention of a patrol of orc guards who burst through the door of the room and fire a volley of bolts at the party, some are injured. Draden’s sleep spell does the heavy lifting in taking them out, and the rest of the party quickly eliminates them, they were only able to get one call for help out, and after pausing and listening, they hear no orc allies movement. Draden casts invisibility on Gruumsh and Thantas so they can be set up for a backstab. They proceed back to the grain pit room with the gray ooze, toss some oil flasks in and from afar Ulster casts produce flame, and the dry grains go up in a flash of smoke and flame. They are pushed back away from the room into the previous chamber and a stream of angry ants begin pouring from the small passages and attack. They handle them for a few rounds, aided greatly again by a sleep spell from Draden, but then 3 larger soldier ants arrive to harass the party. They are taken down by some strong melee swings and 2 good backstabs from the thieves. Recovering from the combat, where both of the henchmen, Mondy and LaSalle were seriously wounded, Mandigor decides to put his Elven Boots to good use and silently move down the tunnel, trying to find the queen or main lair so an assault can be planned. He makes it silently to the east past several small ant passages, but encounters nothing. The tunnel bends south and he continues another 80 feet where the passage branches west once then dead ends with a trapdoor in the ceiling. Not wanting to go any further alone, he heads back to report to the party. However, when he reaches the area with criss-crossing ant tunnels, several creatures move into the main tunnel and bar his path, preparing to attack. The session ends.
Session Report- I’m thinking this module adventure may be down to its last couple of sessions, and it worked out really well to pause time right before a surprise combat type cliffhanger end to the session. I won’t be really able to do this kind of thing again, as after this adventure ends this party will begin to follow 1:1 time. It was interesting to run the last few sessions in 1:1 time with the other party, then shift to freeze time with this group. One of our players was unavailable due to kids sports obligations, so this party kind of had to take a hiatus. That’s one big kind of connection or game philosophy- that the game time is paused in between sessions, and that game sessions are generally not run if the whole group is not available. That’s a major way a lot of groups play, and some groups can’t consider any other way to play. This philosophy causes problems because it creates an environment where lots of game sessions get canceled, at least in a group with several adults with families game night often has to take a back seat to real life stuff. This obviously leads to stagnation and slow progress and an often fizzling of campaigns, and leads to the mindset that the game can’t progress in any meaningful way unless the whole group is present. I think the players that were available for the 1:1 sessions of the last few weeks really saw how it changes things. They were better able to envision the campaign as a stable of characters living in the game world that can be picked up and used for a few sessions, then deposited back into the background of downtime so other characters can be used on adventures, and not a single storyline where their one set of PCs are the sole main characters. They also began to think of ways to better use downtime to their advantage and started to use hired troops to assist them, all staples of good 1:1 time play. They also realize that the game can make meaningful progress despite an absent member, not just running an unconnected one-shot or something like that. The episodic style of play means whatever party actually is present on game night can advance whatever main storyline the party has chosen to pursue, or they could decide to use alternate characters or just take their preferred characters off to do something else for that one session and it's still meaningful to the game. Things are progressing nicely and I’m looking forward to fully changing over the campaign from a module based one to an emergent play one.
Treasure and XP- Monsters- Gray Ooze 295, 15 Worker Ant 570, 3 Soldier Ant 246, 7 Orc 112, Orc Sgt 62= 1015xp. Treasure- 48gp from the orcs. 48xp. Total- 1063xp / 6PCs PCs without henchmen get 177xp, PCs with henchmen get 151xp and their henchmen gets 26xp. Apply % bonus if appropriate.
Graveyard- Larry the Caveman- died from orc crossbow bolts in the Slavers Hideout. #29
Captain Caveman- died in combat with an Aspis Drone in the Slavers Hideout #30
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