Sunless Citadel Session 2.
Okay including Meepo in the party (the group agreed to it), the party was a strong party but I only bumped one combat up.
The party had rescue the dragon baby, made allies with the kobolds, and were neutral with the most of the goblins. They first back track to front of the dungeon to get rooms 6-12. And due to bad perception rolls they missed room 5 AGAIN.
Most of room 6-12 were how things work. Ex. Room 7 music room. I did have fun with Jot “Hit me with your worse shot!” Jot was try to pick a fight but most of the players were not biting. Until the paladin stepped up and hit for max damage. Jot “I said hit me with your WORST shot you Moron. ACK!” Dead Jot. They got the dragon priest to surrender and left him to stay in his room.
The only combat on ground floor was with the Hobgoblin King and Goblin Shaman. I set it up where they talked for a few minutes, then the npcs pointed to each other and said kill him/her. Then I started initiative. When asked who the pc should attack, I told to tell when it hit their initiative. They did follow the paladin who was attacking the hobgoblins. Note the “Martial Advantage” will drop a first level on a hit. Boy some of the players were surprise I did that too them. Having saved the goblin shaman this moved the group into allies with goblin. To keep things moving I just did an info dump for parts of second level. Beware of Bugbear, pass word for the goblins etc.
And they all don’t fall down. Well except for the monk and then I was nice. With all the extra rope, etc. I decide the climb dc was 5. The monk rolled a 1 which came up to 4. So combat begins in the 42 with the monk bleeding out and everyone else in the tree. I stacked the pcs by their initiative. First 2 were 5 feet up, second 2 10 etc. They defeated the monsters in the garden and rolled very well against Balsag the bugbear. After a quick lunch for cheese and rat which the sword coast Tiefling enjoyed. Balsag decide the Underdark was safer.
The group started to make a bee line to the grove. They rolled well on their bluff type checks. I did bump the only combat they had in room 48 to 2 bugbears. There were some placement issues about where I placed the pc before combat. The group never said they all entered the garden or gave me any clue of what they were doing. So combat started with 2 bugbears, and then the two goblins they had threaten turning on them. Meepo was a big help for feeding the Tiefling her own potion of healing when she was down.
Final combat Room 54 thru 56. BEEP BEEP BEEP did it drag. It took over an hour almost 80 minutes. The goblins bit it early. The twig blights in the briar patch did little to no damage. I think only one got a swing on the party. The group was scared of taking damage from the briars so they only move 10 feet per round. This was so slow I just told the group to move their pcs to the opening of the grove. Three problems here. One, had two players had leave due to curfews. Two the group decide to do range attacks which would nickel and penny the npcs. Three a dead not dead thingy. I did not make any adjustments to final encounter. So losing 2 people did not harm the party. But the party staying at range, and not using their magic items dragged out the combat. A Wand of web was used by a pc but the staff of charming was not used. And the group could not decide to attack the tree or not. The dead not dead thingy. The monk was left to himself and got dropped by the twig blights. Rolled a 1 on his death save. And then the next round I had the twig blights kill him. This was a dick move. Which I fixed after I thought about it as I was packing up. My SOP is under Int 8 the monsters look for new target generally. (I still have remove the name from my skull). But except for Meepo being swallowed by the giant frog, the combat was close but not deadly.
Things learn. The maps suck. I will have to make adjustments on the fly due to conversion not being done well. The free form a book allows the group does has the possibility of more sessions than the AL think will take. A group may skip whole parts of the adventure. My group ignored half the basement level. Also the dungeons will be magic heavy. Ex. Sunless Citadel magicTorch, candle, Feather token, whistle, wand, sword and that does not include potions and scrolls.
I will need to use differ pens in different sessions. I lay out the encounters like this Room 1.Giant Rat AC 12 HP 7 xp 25 Giant Rat AC 17 HP 7 xp. This is messy if I don’t line thru the encounter from the week before, or get distracted.
Ok. Now I think the publishers could have done a better job on the conversion. One a full star off on the maps. I wear glasses and had to take them off to read the numbers on the map. And they were too tiny. I did have the module from 3E so I just photocopied them. I think they just scanned, reduced and painted the maps. This is going to be a recurring gripe for the rest of the book. Maybe they could do simple black and white maps in a pdf form at little to no costs for DMS Guild.
Some of the monsters need to be reduced or notes saying don’t use these actions, like the dragon encounter.
The 2.5 pages about the Yawning Portal could have and should been dropped. It adds nothing to adventures since there is a small paragraph about placement in the adventure itself. And it just flavor text if you don’t follow Forgotten Realms lore.
Pictures later.
