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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LostSoul" data-source="post: 4805552" data-attributes="member: 386">Last night's game.  Started off okay, but over time I got frustrated; I was in a bad mood, I guess.  We all have our off days.The PCs were outside the entrance of the burial mound after retreating from the goblins within.  They just killed Ral, one of the River Rats (a gang run by Kelson out of his tavern), who was captured in the Tombwood while graverobbing - digging up corpses to sell.  They decided that they'd rest up in town and take it easy.  The Tombwood attempted to block their path, but Hrogar's spirit companion sniffed out a trail.DM's Notes: I'm treating the Tombwood as a "creature" in itself, with malign intent.  It's pretty handy for forcing choices. The Tombwood also hates the goblins, but I missed a chance to use this to cool effect later on in the game.  Just bad DMing on my part.The PCs head back to the Silver Unicorn Inn and rest up for the day, gaining a level.  Hekubus decides to send an anonymous letter via stupid, illiterate halfling messenger boy to Kelson during the day; I forget exactly what it said, but it was something about "We killed Ral, now stay out of the Tombwood or we'll come for you too".That night, Apothis wakes up hearing some commotion outside his room.  A bunch of thugs are pressuring the halfing innkeeper into telling them where Hekubus is!DM's notes: I had Kelson make a Streetwise check to see if he could figure out where the note came from and by whom.  It was against Hekubus' passive Streetwise score.  He won; I told the players that Kelson smacked the messenger around a bit and he got a telling description.  If Hekubus made a Streetwise check to hide his location, that would have been the DC. Hekubus knows the River Rats, having grown up in Fallcrest.The bad guys are: Grug the half-orc bartender, wielding a torch and a flask of strong liquor; Fargarson Vilebrew, the cook, a dwarf exiled from Hammerfall for making a bad batch of ale, wielding a filthy cleaver and a pot of stew; a human bandit, an elf archer, and a halfling slinger.Grug goes first and he tells Apothis: "Tell us where Hekubus is or else."  He readies an action to charge Apothis if he does anything hostile; I know this is not by the rules, but it made sense.Apothis shouts as a free action which wakes everyone but Lendil, who sleeps the peaceful sleep of the Shamed.  But Apothis opens up a door and shouts again, and Lendil wakes.  Apothis drops a blast of grasping shards which nails the bad guys and slows them down.Grug charges at this point and punches Apothis.  The other bandits hold off, readying actions against the first guy who comes out of his room; this turns out to be Hrogar's spirit companion, who triggers all their attacks and is not (cannot be) hurt.Vilebrew dips his ladle into his hot stew and throws it at Lendil, scalding him.Hekubus wakes, the only guy on the second floor, and challenges Grug, sending an Eldritch Blast at him.More fighting; here are some highlights:-Hekubus swings over the railing and crashes into Grug, knocking them both prone in the same square (and Hek takes some falling damage)-Grug takes a swig of booze and lighting it on fire, breathing a blast of flame on Apothis and Lendil, hurting them badly-Vilebrew takes a bite of raw meat and makes a mad charge against Hekubus, but he can't seem to hit anything-The elf archer doing some nice skirmishing from the rear ranks-The human bandit performing to expectations and doing nothing of value-Apothis triggers an OA from Grug and the half-orc wraps his meaty hands around the deva's neck; on the next round, Grug chokes Apothis and drops him unconciousIn the end, the PCs were victorious, though it was pretty close.  The elf archer took off and Vilebrew tried to drag Grug out, but he was taken down.Hekubus convinced the others to let them live, though they stripped them naked and painted humiliating graffiti on them.  A clear message!DM's notes: I like designing monsters.The innkeeper complains about the damage the fight caused.  "Look at all the mess you caused!"  The PCs threaten her, and she keeps her mouth shut from then on.The PCs take the rest of the night off and head out for the Tombwood in the morning.  The innkeeper is nice and she's obviously spent all night cleaning up the mess; when the PCs leave, she slams the door behind them and says, "Don't come back!"Too bad for her, the PCs were her only customers.In the Tombwood, the PCs try to navigate through but their path is blocked and they are exhausted (re: lose a healing surge) hacking their way in the thick wood.They head back into the barrow mound and engage a pair of goblin sharpshooters and three guard drakes near the entrance.  The guard drakes do some awesome damage and the sharpshooters remain hidden, sniping for most of the fight; one of them breaks to alert the drunken hobgoblin commander.The PCs clean up the drakes but the goblins get away.  They decide to head back outside the mound to take a breather; before they can, they hear some commotion - more goblins and drakes and their leader.They decide to try and hide from the goblins but the drakes sniff them out; before they can get their short rest in, they are attacked.DM's notes: That was an interesting choice; they could have tried running off into the Tombwood but instead they decided to hide. When the group hides, I have the PC with the lowest modifier roll his Stealth, and everyone else Aids.The fight does not go well for the goblins; most of the PCs barely move from the blessed circle of protection that Hekubus creates with a short prayer to the Raven Queen.  At this point I was getting irritated; I meant to have the Tombwood do something cool, something like randomly swatting characters, both goblin and PC, or pushing them, or doing something when a character was bloodied, but I didn't.  I was frustrated, I guess.  Lame.One of the goblins surrenders and tells them what he knows, which isn't much:-They set up a guard post to watch this exit-Their hobgoblin leaders are on the lower levels, though you have to pass through a level full of undeadHe guides them through the barrow mound.  They search it and they don't find any Staff of Defense +1, which is what brought Apothis here in the first place, but they do find a walled-off tomb.  They know that this is probably the ancient king's burial chamber, and that he's related distantly to the Tigerclaw Barbarians in the north.They start digging through the wall.  Hrogar guides the dig, because as a dwarf he knows where to dig without bringing the whole place down on top of them.  Hekubus presses the goblins into service, whipping them.  Apothis helps people who are getting tired by rubbing down sore muscles, and Lendil keeps blasting away.There is one small hiccup; some stones fall after Hrogar gets too tired and chips away at the wrong stone.  This attracts some skeletons, but once they are destroyed (and how easily!) the PCs make it into the tomb.In the tomb they find the Staff of Defense +1, a relic of the ancient chieftan, and his shield.  Both are of value to the Tigerclaw Barbarians.This was a skill challenge; 6/3 and any failed roll would lead to an encounter.  They made most of the rolls, only failing at the last one, and that triggered the 4 skeletons + 4 decrepit skeletons who wandered in. Those skeletons, I though, would have been tough, but no - they were just creamed.  The PCs hit nearly every time and I wasn't rolling too well. I didn't run this skill challenge well at all.  I should have taken a more pro-active stance with the wall, but instead I said, "Okay, what next?"  It was removed from the fiction and turned into the boring series of rolls some people get.  Oh well. The relics from the tomb are actually valued by the Tigerclaw Barbarians, and that might come into play if the PCs decide to go there.  No one uses the shield, so they'll probably sell it; if they sell it to the Tigerclaws then they'll get more cash, and if they give it to them they'll gain a friend.  If they sell it on the market the Tigerclaws might get upset with the tombrobbers who desecrated their ancient chieftan's final resting place.Next time: I am not sure what the PCs are going to do.  I think they might sell/trade the shield to get some info from the wizard in Fallcrest for the location of a Chaos Tooth.  They might also decide to deal with Kelson.  Or they might just explore the lower levels of the Tombwood Crypts.  Luckily I have all of that written up, so we're good.</blockquote>

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