13 Gnolls

[RangerWickett]

Aha! We killed the three gnolls who were waiting to ambush us in the entrance to their cave, and none of us were hurt! We're bad-asses!

Hm, but if they were waiting in ambush, that means they knew we were coming. I creep up to the corner to make sure no one's coming.

Oh, two gnolls coming up the stairs? Oh what, I hear more coming? Eh, okay. They shoot arrows and miss? Cool, I fall back to the entry cave.

Well, we can't really outrun them if they chase us, because of heavy armor. I've already got my one spiritual hammer up, so I'll summon another and have them flank the near side of this hallway. Let's fall back and wait for them to come through. We'll cut off the first two from the rest of their group, then bottleneck anyone behind them.

What, they shot the wizard? Why weren't you behind cover? Well, better not risk any of them getting to the wizard in melee. I take my turn. The hammers go into the hallway to attack the same archer, and I step up to block the hallway. The dwarf follows me to seal- . . . what, oh, it's not his turn yet? Well, okay.

Six gnolls stream past me and my hammers, and they killed the wizard?

And the fighter just got shot four times by gnolls with spring attack, who can aim almost perfectly through the swarm of allies in the way? Dwarf, um . . . Oh, you missed your attack.

My hammers attack. Hit! Well great, that's only 9 gnolls left.

They killed the dwarf? And the halfling already ran away? I run too. No, halfling, I won't throw you my healing potion, so that the gnolls can't loot my body.

Oh, the gnolls shot me to death? And the one who we injured drank my potion. Well great.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Oooch!


Tonight I dmed a game like that.

I always roll in front of players as part of our social contract. Tonight "guard #1 " rolled an 18, a 19, a 20, and a 15 versus their escape spells to get out of jail.

Had he failed the first one, it would have gone very, very smoothly.


But instead, it was a situation just like yours. They killed him, but not before he raised the alarm. Then, instead of one or two guards at a time...it was half dozen and another half dozen (with the players rolling 1's and 2's and the guards rolling critical hits).

It was rough, but due to geography, they are now on the run, sealed in a tower with a hostage...and they're out of just about every conceivable resource.

It'll be interesting what they do next.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Thanks for the playtest report! I like the format you used. Very droll.

 

[howandwhy99]

Gnolls are bad news. They can be almost as tough to deal with as bugbears. My sympathies.

However, they used to be neutral and fine mercenaries for hire, as long as you're the highest bidder.

With that many you might want to ask questions first and shot later. Also, share initiative, determine actions jointly (like helping out the wizard's PC), and think about getaway plans before they're needed.

Also, send the no-good halfling thief in first next time. Shouldn't he be scouting like, 100' ahead?

 

[Dragoslav]

Oh, the gnolls shot me to death? And the one who we injured drank my potion. Well great.

Haha! I never thought of that. Good one.

In our first session, the party ended up in the gnoll cave at level 1. Considering the power jump from level 1 to 2, they probably could have survived if they had been level 2, but... They killed the guards in the first room, so they couldn't raise an alarm. Then they killed all 8 guards in the guard room, but the dwarf cleric was killed dead when the gnolls swarmed him (if it hadn't been my first time DM'ing, I probably wouldn't have had 4 or 5 move up to him and all attack at once). After that, I let them get away with sneaking past the common room, and they did pretty well fighting the pack lord, but two more party members went to 0, and they just couldn't whittle away his HP fast enough. He escaped out of the secret exit and went back into the cave for reinforcements, but I let the party (all 2 of them) run into the wilderness and escape back to town.

Gnolls are brutal.

 

[RangerWickett]

Not much time to make plans or react. It seriously was:

Turn 1 - gnolls spring their ambush and miss. We kill two.

Turn 2 - the third ambushing gnoll tries to run, but the wizard pegs him with ray of frost

Turn 3 - gnoll dead

Turn 4 - other people move to loot while I check the hallway

Turn 5 - two gnolls pop up and shoot me. I hear 'more' but I expect maybe a total of 3 or 4. I fall back and try to communicate my plan.

Turn 6 - the gnolls charge in and kill the wizard

Turn 7 - the fighter's dead and I'm surrounded by 4 gnolls.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Do you think it would have been more enjoyable if there was something akin to OAs so the gnolls couldn't swarm past you and your hammers to pummel the wizard? Or was it just as fun how it played out?

 

[RangerWickett]

We were irked in the aftermath because our narrative intention did not line up with the way the rules played out. Now, we still would have probably died, because we were simply outnumbered and should have run. But because they were able to swarm through us, there was no way for one of us to hold the line while the others fled.

 

[Agamon]

Reminds of the old days when I first played KotB. We made our 1st level, 3 basic PCs and proceeded to Cave K (as a kid, I used to lay the DM map flat for all to see. Fog of what? lol).

Well, first thing we meet is the wight. We fight valiantly, but all three are killed. Resolute, 3 more PCs are rolled up, and back we go to Cave K to avenge the last party. Well, now there's 4 wights waiting for us, and they make short work of the party.

Rolling up another party, we decide to stay the hell away from Cave K.

30 years later, I still game with one of my childhood friends. "Hey Steve, the DDN playtest is the Caves of Chaos. Cave K, remember?"

"I don't care if the playtest PCs are L12, I'm not going in that cave."

This game can be traumatizing.

 

[Agamon]

We were irked in the aftermath because our narrative intention did not line up with the way the rules played out. Now, we still would have probably died, because we were simply outnumbered and should have run. But because they were able to swarm through us, there was no way for one of us to hold the line while the others fled.

There's a fine line between DMing a fun game and a realistic, living game. Swarmming en masse might be the smart thing for the gnolls to do, but it makes for an unplayable game.

But yeah, Mearls states on the AMA on reddit that they looking at simple OAs for running past frontliners. That would have "helped" (ie, you would have TPK'd less quickly, lol).