Clubhouse: The Shearing Pen

[Gansk]

Congratulations! I was sure that it wouldn't take you very long to get an offer.

 

[PJSlavner]

PJSlavner told me he was going to add an NPC cleric to the party, in order to swing a large clue bat.

For example:
U2: "Maybe the lizardmen will negotiate. Does anyone speak lizard-man?"
U3: "A frontal assault will be suicide! Maybe we should disguise ourselves?"

Yes, the NPC cleric has Weapon Focus (clue bat) and the Healing domain, but he was not going to suggest negotiation with the lizardmen. The lizardmen speak Draconic, which one of the party members speaks. The players seem to want to have chances to use their characters' languages, so I think that there will be some attempt at negotiations after a while.

Part of the fun of U2 is having the party kill a few lizardmen before realizing they are not the real enemy. One of the times I ran U2 back in first edition, the party druid took lizardman as one of his bonus languages. In the first room, he started talking to the lizardmen and made friends with them. That made U2 very unfun because the whole module only lasted ten minutes. The player of the druid said something like, "That's it? That's the whole module? What do we do now?"

Every other time I ran U2 it worked out great, as well as the one time I ran U3. The party had only four members, and was very scared of the sahuagin, so made sure they got the information they needed and got out.

I think U3 as written has insufficient magical gear for this entire party to go underwater, so I might have some available in Saltmarsh as a loan. The cleric will definitely use Gansk's U3 quote from above if the players do not catch the other hints that they are not going there to destroy everything in it.

 

[PJSlavner]

Congratulations. Infiniti. I hope you enjoy the job.

 

[ugulu]

Minor U3 spoiler just in case you don't want to know[sblock]The PC who died...3 of them has Poly'd into Sahuagin, but, having read the Sea Devils book, knew that the LE bad guys would eventually ID them - they figured there was a back entrance and the first guy swam into the (alerted) big chamber at the back...and met about 35 javelins as he came through the entrance. The other two reversed and managed to get back up to dry land...but there was not much of the dead guy to recover.[/sblock]

 

[PJSlavner]

Ouch

 

[Greybar]

Guys,

After a long life and a long fading into the sunset, my grandmother passed away this morning a bit shy of her 98th birthday. I will be heading home for the funeral and will have scattered or nonexistent web access for as much as a week. Continuing the BoAA/ToC might be a good mental break when I do have access, but if people really want to jump in for NG (and all those walls) they certainly can.

-john

 

[PJSlavner]

John,

I am sorry to hear about your grandmother. I hope she was not in too much pain.

 

[ugulu]

Best wishes Greybar. If at all possible, I hope the wake is an Irish wake.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Godspeed, Greybar's Grandma!

My father-in-law will pass away, too, soon. Another cancer victim and he's been degrading for a year now. We're just happy he was able to see our second son.

 

[Greybar]

Thanks guys. She hadn't been mentally there for a while, unable to communicate, and just simply started refusing food and liquids late last week. She slipping into an "unresponsive" state last weekend. So thankfully unlike cancer (sorry to hear that I2K) it was probably very easy and painless for her. It had seemed in her increasingly rare lucid moments that a spark of her was there, but trapped in a failing body like a prison, so in a certain guilty way I think it is best this happened. A nightmare ending, I now think, is to be trapped in a body that is unable to express what mentality is left.