When goblins are cool!

[MerricB]

The situtation: we were playing the Shackled City adventure path (chapter 2 of the book). The PCs are currently exploring a goblin warren. It has a bunch of 5' wide corridors, but unlike There is No Honour, there are plenty of connecting passages (it's non-linear, in other words, so the goblins can approach from many directions), and the rooms are quite big. In this case, the room was 25'x25', and had two exits (N and S), both of which were accessible to the goblins.

Oh, and we only had 4 PCs at this time. Not that it would have mattered for what I'm about to relate:

The PCs had set off an alarm, alerting the goblins to their presence. They retreated to this room, with goblins pursuing from the north. Goblins on guard to the south made their Hide checks, and attacked with sniper fire. Right... Most PCs moved to the south entrance and killed those goblins, leaving one PC stopping goblins from coming in from the north. (Standing directly in front of the 5' wide door).

A lot of goblins ran down from the north. The first tried to Bull Rush his way past the PC, and was slain by an AoO. The second tried to Bull Rush... and the PC lost the opposed roll. (I think I rolled a natural 18). Then all the rest of the 15 goblins ran into the room, provoking AoOs from the remaining PCs, but pretty much filling the room completely and flanking everyone!

That was fun. Yes, the 4th-level PCs killed the goblins, but it was a nice moment.

(I ran 7 combats in that 3-hour session. )

Cheers!

 

[Mortellan]

Low level play is so much more fun than high level play I think. The tension is high even vs weak creatures and every trick in the book must be employed to stay alive. You lose that goblin fun at mid levels and up.

 

[MerricB]

Low level play is so much more fun than high level play I think. The tension is high even vs weak creatures and every trick in the book must be employed to stay alive. You lose that goblin fun at mid levels and up.

Depends a lot on encounter selection. I can still do goblin fun at high levels, just by choosing vanilla melee monsters.

Cheers!

 

[Mortellan]

Unless those vanilla monsters are scaled to the PCs its nerfed by high PC skill checks (hard to Hide from those Spot-characters) and numerous combat busting feats/class abilities (Oh Mr Monster has improved grab? too bad, PC has Close Combat Fighting). I still stand by the low level is more thrilling stance. It's also that players have fewer HP's and thus know each decision risks -possible- pain. When you have 100hp you tend to get PCs that will want to go toe to toe with everything even if it will result in -certain- pain.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

My group got schooled in Drakthar's Way. I think it took them something like 4 forays into the dungeon before they finally killed off Drakthar, with a total of 2 characters killed (both NPCs). It was a fun little section, but ground on a little too long for them. The second encounter in Chapter 3 was an interesting one though (and I think might hold the record for longest combat in my campaigns in quite awhile - approximately 38 rounds).

 

[Woas]

7 combats in 3 hours?
Was there anything else to the encounter or just four characters 1-hit killing 15 goblins in succession?

What were the other encounters like?

 

[Ry]

Low level play is so much more fun than high level play I think. The tension is high even vs weak creatures and every trick in the book must be employed to stay alive. You lose that goblin fun at mid levels and up.

Hey Mortellan, I might be able to help you there. That links to a house rules I tested extensively in my home game, and it's a blast, let me tell you.

 

[Crothian]

My group is in the middle of the adventure as well. How did they do against the goblin adepts? Those were the biggest problem my group had