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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Andor" data-source="post: 5924823" data-attributes="member: 1879">(continuing)Ted's player decided he wanted to continue playing another dwarven fighter, Ted's brother Det. I told the party Det caught up with them trying to bring Ted his medicine which had run out, thereby leading to his abberrant behavior. The party made sure Det was on his meds and then accepted his help as he felt he needed to finish his brothers unfinished work. (Helping the party, not conquering the Keep.)They consulted with the Lord of the Keep about their plan to farm the valley using kobold serfs (they were a little vague about what exactly they would be growing) and he approved and granted them title to the valley but warned them they were now also responsible for it's inhabitants. They decided to get back to their rural renewal program. 50 Copper asked what he could make with 11 lbs of rat meat. I said "Stew". How much? A cauldrons worth. He brought it along intending to bribe the Ogre with it, having heard from the Kobolds that the Orge was willing to provide mercenary services.They consulted with their new Kobold henchmen about the inhabitants of the valley. I gave them a rough map with inhabitants indicated although the toughest caves were simply labeled "Death".They decided to keep working their way up the toughness scale and went after the goblins next. Luddadrizzit now cast light on the skull of Bubba JD (which they had not returned with the rest of the body and used mage hand to float it around "like a servo-skull." They found the entrance unguarded but while searching the 4 way room for traps the messengers stumbled across them and attacked with surprise on the side of the monsters for once. The rogue and Aeryhana were wounded but the party managed to strike back. In the next round 3 more goblins attacked from the guard room on the other side. The party was now surrounded with more goblins on the way. The wounded Aeryhana didn't like this an flambed the bulk of the goblins with a fan of flames. This dropped three of the five and wounded the other two. The party dropped one of those two and a guard and the goblins ran. The party was now confused about how to chase the goblins. 50 Copper snagged the servo-skull and ran after the wounded goblins and killed one. This broke the mage hand/suspension field but Luddadrizzit dribbled the skull back the other way soccer style and they pursued the other group of goblins. The light from the servo-bubba only extended partially into the room and they only knew there were more goblins and movement beyond the light. At this point the goblins tried to bribe the ogre but failed. I decribed this to the party based on how well they rolled perception, the best roll (the Cleric of Pelor) heard what sounded like a door opening, a clink of coins, and a grunt and crunch followed by the door closing. (The goblin failed his "Bribe the Ogre" roll with a 4 on a Charisma check.) The party, nervous after hearing a meaty crunch advanced slowly into the room engaging the goblin guards. This gave the other survivor time to rally the second lot of guards and the party found themselves surrounded again. Never-the-less they quickly brought down the goblins although the fight did take a bit longer than the Kobolds as Goblins were not automatically slain on any hit and the party kept rolling poorly for damage. After the fight they looted the room, and meticulously searched every side corridor, but somehow never the main room and so missed the concealed door in spite of their nervousness about the crunching sound.50 Copper skulked his way further into the complex and found the entrance to the Goblins main chamber. Now reluctant to engage entire populations at once they decided to try subterfuge. They sent in the floating, glowing skull of Sir Bubba accompanied by 'ghost noises'. Most of the Goblins started to panic but one good wisdom roll meant that one was trying to rally them. The party couldn't understand this of course so Luddadrizzit cast "comprehend languages" (This shouldn't have worked, but I hadn't read the spell description and didn't know you have to be touching a speaker of the language.) On finding out that one of the goblins was trying to explain that a real ghostie would be see-through they tried to make the skull swoop and scream in an especially scary manner. I treated this as an opposed charisma check. They rolled a 19, the sensible goblin rolled a 5. A mass exodus ensued as the entire goblin population fled the hall. Most ran for the storage room, one ran to the chiefs door and pounded on it. "Boss, Boss! Help us Boss! There's a wight or sumpin!" The party quickly advanced into the room and 50 Copper hid by the corridor to the chieftains room and started laying down more oil. The Cheiftain finally emerged follwed by three goblins with bows and 3 with negligees and axes. They threw their weapons, damaging Det and Aeryhana again and then the lead 3 charged, straight into the oil. 2 fell prone, one rolled a 20 on his dex check and skated smoothly through the oil like Brian Boitanao. Brian tried to hit 50 Copper with his axe, but his moment of glory had passed. A fan of flames did for the goblins in the front and set the oil ablaze. The party started throwing the goblins own weapons back at them and then the Cleric of Pelor rolled a crit with her Searing Light and dropped the chief from full to dead in a single hit. Now wounded the party wanted to rest and decided to hole up in the chiefs room. After extingishing the oil and a quick loot and search they started to rest but were interrupted by the sound of the goblins returning. Once again Bubba the servo skull went out to greet them. Upon seeing the glowing skull swooping over the bodies of the chieftain and his retinue dead from burns and their own weapons the goblins decided this was Acerak himself come to devour their souls and they left again. The party finished their rest. While they were resting the Goblins kicked up such a racket that the hobgoblins decided to investigate. They were skeptical of the claims of the goblins but decided to allow them through and set up an ambush in the storage room. The party, after resting, looted the chieftain of his loot, and skull. Apparently if one servo-skull is good, two must be better. Moving further on they came to the door of the storage room. 50 listened at the door. He heard the sound of something trying to be quiet and then fumbling it's weapon. Prepared for an ambush they tried to sneak the door open just a bit and float in the skull of the Goblin chief. It did not last long as the Hobgoblins chopped it down. Combat ensued. The storage room held the Hobgoblin warlord, her retinue and consorts as well as a few guards. Det dropped under a hail of spears and the Cleric of Pelor quickly followed, but she at least was dragged back and fed a healing potion. While a pair of Flaming hands dropped the bulk of the hobgoblins in the room the rather beefy warlord looked merely annoyed and more hobgoblins were entering the room. The party decided discretion was the better part of survival and ran, carrying 50 Copper who dropped his sack of potatos from the Kobolds larder to save weight and avoid encumbering the cleric who was the strongest remaining party member. (He kept the stew.) They left the still bleeding Det. Since the elves and humans all had more movement speed than the Hobgoblins I allowed them to retreat without major difficulty and we called the session for the day.XP Totaled out to a few hundred short of second level.Observations:This was a blast!The wizards, especially during the kobold fights, were a bit bored. No rolling to hit, and no rolling for damage (since magic missiles auto-killed kobolds) left them a bit bored. Luddadrizzit started favoring shocking grasp just to give himself something to roll. As an at-will spell magic missile might benefit from a to-hit roll and a die bump. Or maybe leave it as it is, but provide an alternative cantrip like ice dagger so Wizards are slightly less on autopilots.While the wizard rules for area damage, the Clerics Searing Light was definitely the partys "big guns".The party burned through dwarves at a brisk rate, but everyone else survived, although it came close a couple of times. In fact everyone but the wizards dropped at some point. Some of the players felt very unclear at first about how skills worked, but quickly settled down. We felt it was clearly still an alpha-test with a lot of work and polish to be done, but nonetheless had a great deal of fun and look forward to continuing. This represented probably about 6 hours of continuous play with a break for dinner. In that time they had multiple forays back to the keep, with some role-playing. Two asaults on the Kobolds and one on the goblin complex. Several fights which all went quickly and one near party wipe before they decided to flee the Hobgoblins. Signs are looking positive. It felt very "old school" to me. I was practically having red box flashbacks. The younger players thought it felt more 3e than 4e, although they saw 4e elements in it. (Wizard at-wills, etc.)</blockquote>

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