Murdicog's Manse Session 5: A Back Door, A Butler, A Bomb
Players: Bekhtar Kothar (Jay_Zer0), Talvthus Alyval (oldhawkeyes), Osric of Sophalbelath (EvilTables), Simon Vanade (Klaus Mondo), Xaldun of Portage Town (roguewithwhimsy), Bekhtar Ziphar (Shy Owl)
Summary
Six adventurers gathered in Bar Udartophir & resolved to find locks for the four brightly-colored keys they had looted from Hannibal Brompp's smoking room.
Reasoning that the Electron Sovereign, Bar Udartophir's local reclusive red mage, might have useful information, they knocked on the door of his manor (while Osric surreptitiously tested one of the keys in his lock). The Electron Sovereign, ever curmudgeonly, reluctantly answered from a second-floor window. He was not terribly interested in the keys but offered to pay bounties of gold ducats for fulgrinary paraphernalia extracted from Murdicog's Manse (or anywhere else).
Next, they ventured once again to Murdicog's Manse, equipped with a hemiauch carcass to placate the Dinicthys. But rather than entering through the stream cavern, they took a branching path ouest around the mountain toward a small cave entrance marked by twin boulders. They were ambushed by a trap-door spider, & Talvthus sustained a bite wound (but was spared the beast's venom).
The cave eventually connected with a room that contained urns in niches & long-dead potted palm trees. Osric located 460sp in an invisible urn & set about smashing the remaining urns.
Venturing knorth, they found a small chamber where a mechanical visage uttered cryptic pronouncements. Recognizing it as electrical, the adventurers began to pry it off the wall. While they were working, 10 mantis-headed Gnolls burst in from the knorth. Simon threw his bomb into their midst, instantly killing them all.
While the party was wiping Gnoll innards off their panoplies, Enki of Alindrath, Swashbuckler, strolled in to investigate the noise. A man of affable temperament, he accepted a proffered leg of mutton & directed the adventurers toward the fifth dungeon level.
Aftermath
Treasure Found: 24gp in the spider's lair, 460sp in the invisible urn, 300gp for the fragments of the butler's face.
Foes Encountered: 1 Giant Trapdoor Spider (killed), 10 Gnolls (blown up)
Rumors: The keys open doors on the fifth dungeon level.
Deaths: None
XP Awarded: Base award of 1,770 XP, tripled, divided six ways.
Notes
- I have been using Chainmail "man-to-man" combat matrix with target numbers from the Meatheads version thereof. I am finding that it's resulting in lots of whiffed attacks & repeated initiative rolls. Although the players were really nice about it, I'm considering ways to speed it up, possibly one of the following:
- Bring in the Meatheads damage matrix so that hits, while rare, are very punchy.
- Just have all hits deal 1 HD of damage and stop tracking HP (closer to Chainmail proper, afaik).
- Give armigers a +1 to all attacks (possibly justified by the +1 HD modifier?)
- (Unturned Hovel's suggestion) Give armigers one or two 'favored weapons' with which they get +1 to-hit.
- Remind people playing armigers to have one or two backup weapons, particularly spears that can easily hit monsters in the "large" category.
- I am implementing a x3 XP modifier.