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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7119154" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 36The companions scattered and dove for cover.  None of the scattered rocks were big enough to offer much protection, but dropping prone presented their unseen attackers with smaller targets.  That proved a wise course a moment later as a second arrow shot by above them, followed a moment later by something small and hard that bounced off a rock with a loud “ping.”“Are you okay?” Glori asked Bredan.  The smith’s large pack bulged up, revealing his location, but it actually offered some protection against fire from above.  “Hold still, I can come to you with healing.”Bredan held up a hand as she started to get up.  “No, I’m fine,” he said.  He yanked the arrow out, carefully unhooking the head from the metal links of his mail.  “It barely penetrated my armor.”  It stung like fire, but he tried to ignore that for the moment.  He held up the arrow so she could see the familiar shape of it.  “Guess we found our bandits after all.”“Did either of you see where the shots came from?” Quellan asked.  He and Kosk were above ten steps further up the slope, the dwarf almost invisible in the scattered weeds, the massive half-orc somewhat less so.“No,” Glori said.  “The shot had to come from somewhere up there, though,” she said, indicating the summit of the hill.Bredan shrugged off his pack, flinching as another arrow shot past him.  But it missed by at least five paces, and he quickly reached for his crossbow.“That’s it, draw their fire,” Glori said.  He glanced over at her and saw she had her bow already prepared, with an arrow fitted to the string.  She shot him a grin and winked.“Yeah, draw their fire,” Bredan said, taking a bolt out of the case.“There!” Quellan said, as a tiny head popped up from the rocks about a hundred feet up the slope.  Glori fired at about the same time as another arrow arced down from above, but the thing had disappeared again by the time her shot reached it.  Its arrow in turn landed in the rocks about twenty paces away from any of them.“They’re not very good shots,” Glori said.“Yeah, not very good at all,” Bredan said dryly.  He’d gotten his bow loaded, and lifted his head slowly while he scanned for targets.But before he could locate an enemy, Kosk abruptly stood up.  The dwarf was muttering something under his breath and looked disgusted.  Without waiting for his companions he started running up the slope.“Kosk!” Quellan shouted, but the dwarf ignored him.  The cleric rose and started after him, his shield raised to protect his face and body.  The proved to be a wise precaution as a sling bullet bounced off it, making a clatter as it ricocheted off the stones of the hillside.“Okay, I guess we’re doing this,” Glori said.  She launched one more arrow at the enemy position then rose and rushed forward after them.  Bredan had no choice but to follow.As they ran up the hillside they could see that there were in fact two such positions, separated by maybe fifty feet.  The little heads of their foes popped up and down in a manner that might have been humorous if not for the deadly missiles they launched each time.  Kosk drew most of their fire as the unarmored dwarf pulled ahead of his companions, but either the creatures weren’t very good at targeting a moving target or the monk was proving extremely lucky, as none of the shots even came close to hitting him.  Finally the attacks stopped as the dwarf drew close to the closer of the two positions.  But instead of waiting for his companions to reach him, Kosk leapt forward and suddenly dropped out of view.“Kosk, wait!” Quellan yelled, some obvious frustration creeping into his normally even tone.  Grunting with the effort of charging up the slope, the cleric gestured with his mace.  “Check the other one!” he shouted back to Glori and Bredan.Bredan ignored the sweat running down his back and gathering under the armor protecting his brow and veered after Glori.  It didn’t take them long to check the sniper post, a small pit dug into the hillside.  Rocks had been carefully arranged to provide cover and concealment without revealing their presence to anyone coming up from below.  The two peered into the hole, shared a quick look, and then hurried over to rejoin Quellan.The second hole was just like the first, down to the low, narrow tunnel opening in the bottom.  “The other one’s the same,” Bredan said.  “Except there’s a little dead reptile-man in it with one of Glori’s arrows stuck in its head.  Nice shot, by the way,” he said.“Lucky shot,” Glori said.  “Kosk went in after them?”“It would seem so,” Quellan said.“What are those things?” Bredan asked.“Kobolds,” Quellan said.“We’d never fit in there,” Bredan said.  “Even without our armor it would be a tight squeeze.”“I know,” Quellan said.  His whole body seemed tensed with the need for action.“I can fit,” Glori said.Both men turned on her.  “No, no way,” Bredan said.“We can’t just leave him in there alone,” Glori said.“Hey, he chose to run off by himself…” Bredan began.“Look!” Glori said.  They followed her gaze and just caught a glimpse of another reptilian head another hundred paces or so up the hillside an instant before it dropped out of view.“There must be another entrance up there,” Quellan said.“Go on,” Glori said.  “I’ll follow Kosk, and meet up with you up there.”“But…” Bredan persisted.“Look, I promise if I run into trouble I’ll run back as fast as I can.  I know I’m not a warrior, okay?”“You’re as brave as any warrior I’ve ever met,” Quellan said.She smiled at him, then drew her dagger and jumped into the pit.  Without another look back she bent low and crept forward into the tunnel.“Come on,” Quellan said to Bredan, and the two resumed their climb up the hill.* * *Author’s Note: this encounter was my first experience with layered disadvantages. The kobolds had 3 reasons for disadvantage at one point: for sunlight, range, and prone targets. Per the rules-as-written they had the same chance of scoring a hit whether their targets were 100 feet away and prone or standing in the open 10 feet away. Maybe Kosk recognized this, and that’s why he decided to charge. <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=":)" />I am a big fan of the simplicity of the 5e rules, but they do lead to some odd situations. If I was DMing this I would probably have granted the adventurers 50% cover, even though the description suggested that the rocks weren’t really big enough to hide behind.</blockquote>

Verification