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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8282282" data-attributes="member: 20564">Last session was a lot of fun.  The previous session had ended with the party sailing back into their home base port city, and on the way meeting with some merfolk they had dealing with.  The merfolk had important news to one PC, and a few days before had swam into the harbor to give it to her but one of them was captured.So, the party's investigation of whom might have the kidnapped merfolk was pretty conclusively decided as they saw posters for a traveling carnival with hastily added "Come see the fabulous merman!" added to it.The carnival was set up in what was normally the caravan yards.  The two stealthiest tried to reconnoiter but due to an unfortunate and extended series of poor rolls instead alerted the guards and got out.It's evening, and not too long before the carnival closes for the evening, and the party decided to bluff their way in through an employee gate.  They get there to find a bunch of stevedores from the dock unloading a bunch of crates.  One of the things that the party had previously found was that there was a lot of smuggling of dwarven goods without the tax stamp on it, it was even in the recap before this sessions as I reminded them of their home base city, but there was no wonder about that.They all managed to get past except the Dragonborn Barbarian.  His rolls were poor but not horrible, so one of the workers yelled at him no to be lazy and carry a crate.  He could have and got in, but in fashion true to that character started to argue.  At one point he claimed he was with the rest of the party (who was already in) but they didn't claim him (not wanting their cover blown) and took off so as not to get their cover blown further, expecting him to catch up.Well ... he basically forced it into a combat.  With a dozen criminal thugs.  (Well, 11 and a higher ranking one that stayed out of it.)  I had been using toned down hobgoblin stats for them - normally CR 1/2 but with dropping their AC by 5 and reducing their weapon.  The 5th level Barbarian was 1 HP shy of full and thought he could take them, and escalated it until initiative.  As he was the first to break the peace I gave him first action and then went in order.  He found out the hard way that Reckless Attack will pretty much ensure that you down two foes, it also meant they where able to hit him, including two crits.  Even with resistance he only lasted three rounds.Now, one of the downtime activities he's previously done was Pitfighting, and the head of the crew recognized him from there. And no one was striking to kill.  So he's been captured, and I need to work out what will happen to him next.  There's a significant underbelly to this port, with smuggling as it's biggest but not only.  So I might drag him into that.In the meantime the rest of the party found the menagerie tent, snuck in through the employee entrance, and tried to cause a big distraction to get people out of the tent ... by setting it on fire.Queue the Benny Hill song please.They ended up all running around liek crazy, ended up freeing not just the mermaid but everything that was in there, including an ogre they had paid a toll (of a song) to before, a zebra, a manticore who proclaimed a debt, a puma in a cage, and a bear-cat (like a bear-owl) that they had to calm so it wouldn't rampage the carnival-goers outside.  (Which it wouldn't have - animals flee natural disasters.)They convinced the ogre to help them, had it knock down a section fo fence and carry the merfolk to the nearby coast and set him free.  In the meantime, they've been seen by a bunch of people doing a very non-law-following act, and one of their members has fallen into the hands of criminals who will find a good use for him.</blockquote>

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