D&D 5E A playthrough of The Shattered Obelisk (spoilers)

[MerricB]

Fifth session - Monday, October 9th, 2023.

• Journey to Cragmaw castle!
• During the evening, attacked by an Ogre who sees them all as food! It was burnt by Syzoth, but it took a round before it realised it had been hurt.
• Took the back (hidden) entrance into Cragmaw Castle
• Discovered the kitchen, and decided not to attack the goblins within
• Through a curtain there were hobgoblins! But the hobgoblins couldn't alert their leaders because that's the direction the PCs came from.
• As the party moved into the hobgoblins' room, one hobgoblin ran away, through the chambers, until it looped back behind the characters - and bashed on the leader's door. Then the characters killed it.
• The players rushed into the bugbear's room, where the bugbear tried to threaten the life of the unconscious Gundren. The players didn't let him speak, just attacking. The emissary of the Spider who was hiding nearby attacked the druid. Big battle, lasting six rounds (30 minutes of real time). But the players were successful.
• Gundren rescued! He was worried about his brothers. The party didn't continue exploring the castle, but returned to Phandalin without issue. They now had the map and directions to the Lost Mine!
• However, before going to the Lost Mine, the party decided that picking up their necklace reward for rescuing the villagers from Thundertree would be a good idea.
• Stirges at night! While camping, they camped near a nest of stirges. Waking up with the little blighters feeding on your blood is not great!
• In Thundertree, they first met the druid Reidoth (another gender-swapped character). She warned them about the threats in town. The players promised to only get the necklace then leave.
• Of course, they were then ambushed by Giant Spiders. The fighter of the group took a lot of damage, but the party were successful in defeating the spider. They found the corpse of one of the spiders' victims, wearing a suit of +1 leather. Guess who wears light armour in the party? That's right, no-one! (They plan to sell it).
• They found the old herbalist shop and retrieved the necklace! Treasure!

With that, we ended the session. (about 3 hours of play). Next week, they'll probably visit the Lost Mine. Or they might explore Thundertree more. Not sure yet.

One note: The leader of the Cragclaw Castle forces no longer has any treasure - that entry has been omitted. Unfortunately, it also describes where Gundren's map is. If Gundren gets killed in the standoff, does that mean the party can't find the Lost Mine?

 

[pukunui]

One note: The leader of the Cragclaw Castle forces no longer has any treasure - that entry has been omitted. Unfortunately, it also describes where Gundren's map is. If Gundren gets killed in the standoff, does that mean the party can't find the Lost Mine?

That’s an unfortunate oversight! Weird that they would remove that.

 

[MerricB]

That’s an unfortunate oversight! Weird that they would remove that.

It is very weird. There are references to the plans for the map in the description, so I expect that a new DM might just play as if it were there, but this is one of the odder changes that doesn't make sense to me.

Cheers,
Merric

 

[pukunui]

It is very weird. There are references to the plans for the map in the description, so I expect that a new DM might just play as if it were there, but this is one of the odder changes that doesn't make sense to me.

Cheers,
Merric

It may have been unintentional.

Those of us who have the original can refer to that, but as you say, new DMs are going to be confused by this. Reminds me of how they left out the sovereign glue from one of the adventures in Ghosts of Saltmarsh but kept the reference to using the glue to seal up a portal. I ended up having to refer back to the original Dungeon mag version to figure out where the sovereign glue was supposed to be!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Mistakenly lost in the edit. It happens.

I remember a physics textbook which had a question that went something like "Using your results from question 6..." The only problem is, question 6 had nothing to do with the later question. The original question six had been removed in the current edition, but the question referring to it had not.

NB, where is the Sovereign Glue meant to be? I might write it in just in case I ever run that adventure!

 

[pukunui]

Mistakenly lost in the edit. It happens.

NB, where is the Soveign Glue meant to be? I might write it in just in case I ever run that adventure!

In the hidden cache in the wall of the wizard’s chamber in the tower. (Tammeraut’s Fate)

 

[BookTenTiger]

I'm having a great time reading these, keep it up! I'm looking forward to seeing more clues to future weirdness in the adventure.

 

[MerricB]

Sixth Session - Monday 16th October, 2023

The party finally went to Wave Echo Mine! Hooray! (This is only the sixth session - we're well on track!)

Entering the Mine, they discovered the corpse of one of Gundren's brothers and looted his cloak. Cause it looked magical. And adventurers.

The way forward was in a pit. There they discovered the body of a goblin with a deformed head. Foreshadowing!

Heading east, they found a lot of skeletons in rusted armour. The party expected them to animate. Surprise! Stirges attacked from above - but they weren't able to inflict many wounds. Just one, in fact, on Nymea the Satyr Tempest Cleric. (Change to the adventure: 10 stirges became 6 stirges).

The party headed south, and discovered 2 ogre zombies and 6 dwarf zombies in a ruined guardroom. Syzoth cast a fog cloud to help the party withdraw into the corridor, because the Satyr - in particular - had gone too far in before the zombies animated. And got knocked unconscious, with our divine sorcerer healing her so she could retreat (before the Fog Cloud went up). (Another change: 9 skeletons becomes the zombies, and a much, much harder fight).

Fighting in the corridor alerted ghouls in a nearby chamber who came to fight. Lots of interactions with "do I need to see the opponent to cast this spell?" And the fun that two characters that can't see each other attack... normally. Disadvantage cancels Advantage.

A shatter spell from Vel'rari left the ghouls all on 4 hit points. Syzoth the Yuan Ti Artificer was able to take down the last. The battle against the zombies took a long, long time - one zombie succeeding 5+ times on its Undead Fortitude save - until finally it fell.

Gathered treasure from the room the ghouls came from (this is a mistake in the Roll20 implementation - the ghouls were placed in the wrong room, as well, the Ogre Zombies were given incorrect hit points). A short rest allowed Nymia to identify Gundren's brother's cloak of resistance and wear it.

Exploring around to the east the party came to a chamber of many fungi. They correctly identified with good Nature checks the violet fungi lurking in wait and avoided it.

Found some human-sized ruins. The first held a wraith. The party is devoid of magic weapons - and force damage - so had to take it on with mostly weapons it was resistant to. The divine sorcerer hit it twice with guiding bolt, while missing with all his sacred flames. Eventually it went down - Simeon the fighter was left on 1 hit point!

The construct of the artificer that gave everyone 1d8+4 temporary hit points at the beginning of each round was definitely very important to the party's success.

After the fight with the wraith, the party were low on hit points and spells, and retreated out of the caves for a short rest.

Area explored:

 

[MerricB]

Ten-foot wide passages! And much, much, much better combat experiences as a result.

(Though not as mobile as you got in 4E with all its combat-map specific abilities).

Cheers,
Merric

 

[aco175]

I recall my PCs negotiating with the wraith for information and eventually it became part of the quest to rebuild the Spellforge. I think the main problem was that it could not turn the pages in his books and needed someone to do that once/day.