Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goonalan" data-source="post: 5461336" data-attributes="member: 16069">Fallcrest- Finding DreusSession 12 Part 1And so with Bith in tow the PCs head off to the Tombwood, from there a short search about reveals the right cave, Bith motions for the PCs to get in and get to work, he reminds them that destroying the Kruthik nests will cause the Kruthik to flee and abandoned the lair.In truth this session doesn't go well, for a variety of reasons, first is we have a lot of technical issues with Skype and not least Maptools, at various stages Skype just insists on not working at all for various players. As for Maptools in the three plus years I've been using it then... just horrible at times- the map wont load for some of the players to begin with- even though it did last week, and all data has been transferred to the players asset caches. Later the game just crashes out, due to internet connections going down and... we just don't know- all the creatures lose their initiative scores at one point, every time I move a creature it causes a stream of errors- on everyone's screen. Now I don't want to put anyone off using Maptools, what I mean to say in three years this is the worst it has been, maybe once every three or four sessions the game crashes out, but that's mostly (90%) due to my internet connection going down, and is usually solved in a matter of minutes. This session everything that could go wrong- did.To make matters worse I and the players became frustrated by the situation, which left us doing the best we could, rather making the most of a bad job.It also didn't help that during the session all of the players were called away at some point or another, real life conspires at times.Let's get on with it...The PCs mooch in to the cavern, none of them do anything for a while, it seems the session of RP only has thrown them- it was a real struggle getting started, the PCs have no natural scout, Rogar has done the job once or twice but he's loathe to do so. The PCs therefore just clump together and move forward in slow shuffles.They hear clicking and scraping sounds from behind a stand of tall fungi- no they don't try to identify the fungi, they just head on...It's odd as a DM at times I foolishly presume ahead of time I know what the players will do, I'm usually happily surprised when they do something different, in this session they seemed content to be doing little- they shuffle forward some more, not investigating anything as they go.Eventually round a corner and come face to face with... Kruthik and nests.<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/40504969@N08/5425560898/" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/5425560898_b29b99f67d.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /></a>Rogar finds the Kruthik. The Kruthik find Rogar.And so it begins- a majority of the Kruthik are Hatchlings, actually underpowered Hatchlings without their aura attacks, I did this on purpose in the hope that the PCs would try to get to the nest and destroy them quickly, and thus save us all an extended fight. Bad move.The PCs chose to hold station, and fight wave after wave of the creatures- basically I have 20+ Hatchlings and a few Adults to play with, the game is each round I roll and the nests spit forth whatever I roll (I have a little table- at worst each nest births 3 more Hatchlings, at best just 1). To make matters worse every round there is a 100% chance a Kruthik Adult will burrow in to the chamber, reduced to 50% if one of the nests is destroyed, and obviously 0% if both are destroyed.Lastly if both nests are destroyed then all remaining Hatchlings just scurry about confused, attacking each other, fleeing- whatever is funnier at the time; while any Adults left get away as fast as they can- never to return.As I say, the PCs basically form a line, edge in a little and fight wave after wave of the things- even when Neb managed to drop a Scorching Burst on a nest, and I made it clear that fewer Kruthik where being spawned because of the hit... Nope.Oh, and the nests were a very Minor Skill Challenge, basically any damage to the nest counted as a success, I also ruled that a Scorching Burst or other area effect counted as two attacks on the nest, just to try and get them gone.I have saved everything that appeared in the chat window from the session, the entire who did what to whom for this fight, but I'll not go through it (as I have done in the past), instead here are the highlights-Rogar is soon Bloodied.Lots of Kruthik Hatchlings are killed.Lots more arrive.Jeb Dimensional Warps in to the middle of the fight and gets surrounded by Hatchlings- they all miss him as I fail to roll over ten with six die rolls.Jeb Swordbursts and kills three out of the six. More Hatchlings die.Neb is dropping Scorching Bursts on clumps of the beasts- alas he can't roll for <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, with one attack on four enemies his highest roll was a '3'.Drake uses a Healing Word on Rogar, he's no longer bloodied.Maptools crashes.Neb is hit by a Poison Spike from a Kruthik Adult and is taking ongoing Poison damage, he fails to save against the Poison for something like four rounds.More Kruthik arrive, including another two Adults.The first Kruthik Adult is taken down, as are a lot of Hatchlings, approaching fifteen I'd say.At this point only one of the nests has taken any damage- that being one hit from a stray Scorching Burst, which I have now ruled only misses on a '1'.Resolute is Bloodied.Drake crashes out of Maptools.Drake uses his second Healing Word on the big man.Drake is hit by a Poison Spike for 16 damage and ongoing 5 Poison, he's down to 8 HP.Jeb crashes out of Maptools.Then Neb says in chat- well, if these guys keep spawning we need to hit the nest quickly.And I Hallelujah silently.Maldor agrees and takes charge- I agree... Resolute and Jeb go for the nests. We'll kill these and join you.Neb ignores his own advice and Scorching Bursts a bunch of Kruthik, he manages two rolls of '1' in his four attacks- and one hit, a Hatchling dies.Jeb's mic stops working altogether.Resolute charges for the furthest nest, the artillery concentrate fire and take down the first nest.Resolute Action Points to deliver more damage to the last nest.Drake is reduced to 1 HP, he has to grab out a Potion of Healing to save himself going down, and then spend an Action Point to get away from the Kruthik as best as he can.Maldor is Clawed by a Kruthik Adult, blocking it getting to Drake, and takes 18 damage- he's on 10 HP.Neb is being bitten by Hatchlings (although few remain as one nest is destroyed and the other only needs two more hits). Neb has to use his Staff to fight the creatures off- he even manages to hit.Rogar comes to the rescue, three enemies with his Steel Wind- he misses all three, best roll '7'.Rogar is almost bloodied again.Jeb & Maldor take hits, they're both nearly bloodied again.Drake is again reduced to 6 HP, he uses his Healer's Mercy to help his friends.Rogar Opens the Gates of Battle, in combo with a Sneak Attack and Ironsoul Flurry and does something like 28 damage on a Kruthik Adult.Resolute comments- Grrrr.. die stupid thingies.Resolute hits the last nest again, they need one more hit for it all to go away.Rogar comments- Resolute's tearing into the other nest. We will still manage this!Neb tries for a Scorching Burst on the remaining nest, and '1' misses, he Action Points and gets it right second time around- the one Adult Kruthik left flees, the three Hatchlings still standing scurry and panic and are swiftly cut down.OMG!That was like pulling teeth at times, obviously I can't say anything but the fight lasted 9 rounds and it wasn't until something like the end of the 6th round that the PCs decided that it might be wise to go for the nests.Am I bad for cursing my players beneath my breath, I mean I realise and all that I have 20:20 on this but... I think I am a bad person. Maldor is down from eight to four Healing Surges left, the above wasn't all the action of course, things got missed out- but the gist of it.The area is searched, there's nothing of interest to be found, a patch of Fungi is investigated, and then incinerated, and I live in fear- I know what's coming next, let's just say the finale involves three nests.That was a Level 4 Combat Encounter (PCs Level +2)- Kruthik, Hatchling (Level 1 Minion) x23 & Kruthik, Adult (Level 2 Brute) x4.I really don't know what to add here, in my mind (foolishly) I had the PCs investigating the Fungi stand and spotting a way through to the furthest nest, possibly scoping out the entire area ahead of time. Regardless I definitely thought they would concentrate their fire on the nests, I made a point of telling them this session and in the previous (as Bith) that destroying the nests would cause the creatures to flee and/or panic...We talked about things afterwards, although no reasons were offered for the PCs choice of tactics, they seemed to understand the above- Kill nests = Kruthik flee, but were content to try it the hard way, for some reason.I guess I shouldn't try to second guess the PCs, what's more I should be happy if they chose to do things the hard way, I will endeavour to make it better next time.All of the above said and done, the PCs damn near died, and certainly were panicking again as the tide of Kruthik attempted to roll over them. It made for some tense play, but a lot of it was grindy, particularly the myriad Hatchlings that seemed to distract them entirely- several PCs were content to kill a Hatchling in a round rather than go for the prize- easy kills nearly did for them.Again it didn't help that through the above fight players were called away, and Skype and Maptools repeatedly failed us.Next Time... Lesson Learnt?</blockquote>

Verification