Whew... if last run was nine kinds of awesome, this one was something like twelve. Most exciting run yet so far in this young campaign. As with all of these updates, I may forget or misremember details, and I invite Piratecat and the other players to chime in. (Also, I’m not going to cover all the cool fictional touches – that’ll be for PCat’s Story Hour!)
As you may recall (or you can go read the last run-summary post), we started deep in enemy territory. We were at a three-way intersection in the underground complex of the dog-gobblers, on a mission to rescue a kidnapped baby before the monsters could eat it. Going left would take us into an empty-seeming barracks. Going right would take us right into a battle-arena filled with dozens (maybe hundreds) of screaming gobblers. Following the distant sounds of both a crying baby and barking dog, we went straight, unnoticed by two nearby gobblers with their backs to us, watching the Big Arena Fight in which the monsters were choosing the King’s Successor.
This led us down a wide, straight hallway, and past a number of tables that were covered with little straw dolls in various stages of construction. Near the tables was a hackle-raising greasy circle on the floor. This was clearly where the goblins made their homunculus baby-replacements – and there were about 20 of them! We speculated that the greasy ring was what brought them to “life.” We thought about sabotaging the place, but that would have both made noise and slowed us down, so we pressed on, with the two rogues (Logan and Cobalt) scouting 20’ or so ahead of the other three.
We soon came to a “T” junction. To the left we heard the barking dog, along with a gobbler voice and an ominous “thwacking” sound. To the right we heard the crying baby. We tried to sneak our way past toward the baby, but as a group we’re not so stealthy. (Probably true of most groups, which move with the stealth of their least stealthy member, though it’s to our benefit that
only the least stealthy PC rolls.) We were spotted by a pair of gobbler matrons, preparing a filthy stew in a small kitchen. Battle ensued, and it was quickly (and relatively quietly) won by the heroes, though one of the cooks wielded a mean cleaver and did significant damage to Toiva. We rescued the dog caged in the kitchen, placed it in our Sack of Muffling, and having dealt with that threat, moved quickly in the other direction toward the baby. We moved through a dark trophy room, mostly ignoring it since we could hear the baby crying more loudly. There was a door at the far end of the trophy room, and beyond that door we could hear a gobbler shouting at the baby. Worse, it sounded like the gobbler was
striking the baby in an attempt to quiet it down. Infuriated, we kicked in the door.
Logan dashed in first. The room was large, stretching both to the left and right of our doorway. To the left was a cradle, and an old, mean-looking gobbler shaking a crib in frustration. We could see the top of a halfling baby’s head inside the crib..
To the right were three gobblers, who were looking out from a large balcony (backs to us) onto the combat arena below. One of these three wore a crown and wielded a huge bone longsword – ack! The King of the Gobblers! The shouts and hooting of the gobblers in the arena were extremely loud, but not loud enough to mask the sound of our door-kicking; they turned to face Logan. Logan dashed immediately to the gobbler guarding the baby and launched a sneak attack. The rest of us intended to join him, but one of the King’s Minions pulled a lever which brought a portcullis crashing down in the doorway (and onto Cobalt’s feet – hello 5 points of damage.) So there was Logan, on his own against four goblins, with only a single Healing Surge remaining. Uh oh.
But fear not! With a prodigious feat of strength – and with a keen eye for how the portcullis operated mechanically – Dr. Caldwell managed to force the portcullis back up, and the rest of us streamed in. Cobalt ran to flank with Logan, while Strontium dropped a Freezing Cloud on the King and his Minions. The King and one minion were struck by the ice (dropping the minion). Toiva ran to the edge of the icy zone and waited for an enemy to emerge.
The gobbler “babysitter” turned out to be the most dangerous – once bloodied, he did 21 points to Logan in a single hit, nearly dropping him unconscious. The three strikers were able to drop him with concentrated attacks before he could land a second hit. Doc Caldwell then used his First Aid skill to allow Logan to use his last Healing Surge without having to spend an action himself. Logan went back to the battle, while Doc secured the baby.
Meanwhile, The King grabbed the hapless surviving minion, used him as a living shield, and charged forward. He was an extremely formidable gobbler, who lacked the damage-dealing mojo of the babysitter but had a huge amount of health. Still, faced with a striker-heavy team, and a Challenging Paladin, the fight didn’t last too long. His undoing turned out to be an overzealous desire to finish off the obviously-wounded Logan – he ended up enduring three OA’s, one of which was a sneak-attack from Cobalt, as well as suffering the various penalties for not engaging the paladin. So, while he was able to knock Logan down again to a precarious health total, he didn’t survive the following round. (An Intimidate check from Cobalt actually convinced him to flee, and he was killed by the resulting additional OA’s.)
Down below, the arena battle had just ended, and the goblins were now waiting for the King (mysteriously absent from the balcony, from their standpoint) to acknowledge the victor. We wasted no more time. We grabbed some easy-to-snag loot from the King’s opulent chamber, but left a lot behind as we dashed back to the lift. This time the gobblers who were watching the arena heard us arrive, and started shouting an alarm. Not caring much if the lift became unusable later on, we cut one of the tension ropes, which caused the lift platform (with us on it) to rocket upward, just ahead of the surging mass of angry gobblers. Once at the top we shouted some warnings down to them, kicked some burning logs from the bonfire down onto their heads, and closed the huge trapdoors. Strontium, examining the seal that had been placed on the doors, had the sudden realization that the gobblers were Fey-touched, and thus hated iron. We dashed back out to the waiting halflings, and instructed them to bring us all the iron they could find; we used that iron to seal the trapdoors.
We also returned their missing baby and dog, much to the delight of the locals. With the gobblers effectively sealed in their lair, and the baby returned, the halflings hailed us as heroes, held an impromptu party in our honor, and showered us with gifts. Victory! And better, victory with no party member even going unconscious, despite our lack of leader.
Some tactical notes:
- The Gobbler King was a Goblin Underboss – a Level 4 Elite Controller (leader), and his “babysitter” bodyguard was a Goblin Skullcleaver – a Level 3 Brute. I’m not sure about the minions and the cooks.
- Combat was again extremely fast-paced – even the one against the Elite, who had 110 hit points. I’ve oft read the complaint that boss battles can drag on, with the conclusion inevitable yet time-consuming to reach. Not so here! We were all pretty nervous (especially after the 21-point strike from the Skullcleaver), and yet the battle was over quickly. I think our striker-heavy party will help mitigate against the “tree-chopping” complaint about boss battles.
- We finished the adventuring day having completed 8 encounters – the five listed in the previous write-up, plus the fight with the cooks, the fight with the King & Co., and the skill-challenge-ish dash to escape. By the end, Logan was out of Healing Surges, and Cobalt and Toiva each had one remaining. Three of us had used our Potions of Healing. Caldwell was relatively uninjured (I think), and Strontium was unharmed. I think Caldwell was the only one who hadn’t used their Daily. (Hey, Blackjack... is that true? And if so, what were you waiting for?
)
- The following Skills were rolled during the session: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Dungeoneering (fat chance), Endurance, Heal, History, Intimidate, Nature, Perception and Stealth. (Thievery was used in a light-hearted way during the party, but shouldn’t really count.)
- Have I mentioned that two flanking rogues can really dish out the damage? Great googly moogly.
- Between the stuff we snagged from the gobblers and the gifts from the halflings, we ended up with a great haul of cash & magic items:
420 GP in jewels and coins, so 84 GP each.
6 more Potions of Healing, a gift from the halfling matriarch
a Dagger of Thieving +1 (level 5 item, AV p.80). Went to Logan.
A Helm of Tactics (Level 4 item, AV p.139) Went to Cobalt.
A Vanguard Longsword +1 (Level 3 item, AV p.81) Went to Toiva.
We also still have the Bag of Muffling, and the halflings gave Strontium a Ritual that fixes leaky boats and improves the quality of one’s fishing.
Next game, as far as we know, will involve reporting back to Commander Pikeline at the Grey Guard, and getting our next assignment. Can’t wait!
