Post-session #8: "Kobolds"

General Wallace strode up through the ramshackled tents of his men, scowling as he observed the ptiful attempts of his men's equipment. His fitted plate armor moved neatly with him, showing off the scenes of his greatest battles that had been drawn across its sleek surfaces. His masterwork armor was a sharp contrast to the men around him. Some had no more than a few ragged pieces of hide that they could scavange.

The General sighed. It was not as if he didn't want to supply them; the materials simply weren't there. He would give up his armaments in an instant if he knew someone else could have possibly used them. These people too ... "soldiers," that was a stretch of the word. Although there were some veterans and local heroes among his group, the majority were poorly trained and he had not nearly enough time to instruct them. It was a pitiful fighting force.

Still, he had some hope that the assault on the black dragon's post would turn out in their favor. Although unseasonsed, they were spirited, and he had been promised a large compliment of Kobolds from Meepo to assist. He didn't trust him at all, but it benefitted them both to take on the dragon, so he was reasonabily sure he could count on his help for now. Still, he didn't like the way he looked at him; glossing over his armor and offering to decipher its secrets. He unconciously sneered as he walked. If anyone knew the armor's history it was him - not some Kobold slaver!

He'd deal with him when the time came. For now, his only objective was the coming battle. Once his scouts returned from the local villages it would be time. Hopefully they would have drummed up some more support from the freed slaves and they would be willing to join them in the battle. Hopefully.
As he came to the Kobold's area of the camp he stopped at one of their holes and peered down. "Grand Poobah," he called down, with obvious sarcasm, "I need to discuss battle plans with you. Come on up." There was no response. That was strange, he was usually accousted by the bodyguard by now. "Hello?" he called uncertainly, "is anyone there?"

"Yo." A voice came from behind the general, causing him to start and spin around. A small, blue Kobold's head popped up from another hole. "You need something, general?"

Wallace quickly composed himself and turned around to fully face the Kobold, bringing his massive form to bear down on it. "Yes," he said coldly, "I wish to speak with your master. Where is he?"

The Kobold hesitated and clawed at the ground. "Uh, he's not here."

"Here? You mean he went out?"

"Yeah, kind of," the Kobold said, starting to back down its hole, "he went to some ruin to get some thing; took a lot of the others. Said he was meeting with some others or something for some business. I dunno what it was about."

His face turned purple as Wallace digested what the Kobold said. "He LEFT?!? At a time like THIS?!? We're moving out in three days and he just LEAVES?!?" The Kobold let out a shrill yipe and quickly disappeared down the hole as Wallace shouted down the hole after it, almost burying his head in it.

"You let your 'master' know that he'd better be back here and ready in three days! I'll hunt him down before the dragon if he isn't here! YOU HEAR ME?!?"

The only answer was a small pebble hitting his face.

Oh, I see you've captured Deke's perspective on the Kobold race as a whole.

Be honest, do you think we stand a chance of surviving the split encounters, or were you just being facetious?

Also, pure coincidence: I've been using that word more often lately.

Hey Rory, to give us more chances of surviving the next encounter, maybe you should give me the cursed hand so that I get a little more powerful.

It doesn't make me happy, but that might save us.

Rory wrote:Oh, I see you've captured Deke's perspective on the Kobold race as a whole.

Be honest, do you think we stand a chance of surviving the split encounters, or were you just being facetious?

Also, pure coincidence: I've been using that word more often lately.

No, I wasn't really kidding about that. A split party battle is not good.

I haven't had time to remove the soul's connection to the Hand yet. It would take you over again.

Unless... How many spell slots do you have left, and more importantly, how many Command slots?

Snarg, have we figured out how the hand benefits the wearer, or do we only know it just makes them "better"?

We haven't had a long rest, so I have no spells that I can use. Except my special ability that allows me to give 15HP to anyone under half their health. And my cantrips.

Snarg, when someone touches the hand, is a saving throw required?

Zeiss, do you have "Resistance" as one of your cantrips?

Nope.

Then we are doomed, DOOMED!

I suppose you'll have to try or research the hand to find out. I can't just tell you exactly how an artifact works. None of that stuff you really know IC.

I'm sorry, Zeiss. I'm pretty certain the Hand helps in an offensive manner, and I'm the only one with slots left to cast offensive magic above Cantrip level, so I'm going to go ahead and risk sacrificing my mental faculties for that extra boost, whatever it is.

On my first turn, I'll cast Mage Armor on the Kobold, while you focus on backing him up, which means we're going to have him roll for Initiative too, Snarg. 

I have a question for you Snarg. Can you spend part of your turn to look for two items instead of one? On my second turn, I plan on digging both the Mage Armor potion and the Hand out. If I can do what I'm asking, I can touch the hand immediately when I find it and use up the rest of my turn to drink the potion.

Let's wait until a fight actually starts before you start a series of actions. Nothing has happened yet. If something really breaks out I'll make sure the Kobold is involved.

No, it's not possible to draw two items at once in combat.

I know it could go differently depending on whether it's one big baddie or a several little baddies.

Well, you each still have a healing potion, and i have 3 heal spells left plus Lay on Hands. I'm not sure how you play a healer tank, but i guess we'll find out.

Okay guys, we just finished killing off a bunch of undead Kobolds(which we could have been better prepared for if I had rolled Insight on whether touching an undead skeleton in a dungeon surrounded by five more just like it was a good idea), and this is the room:

It's like 20x20. In the middle was the pit we dropped into after falling down the chute one by one. To the north(or the right of the chute), there are 3 doors. I think they're the only exits leading out of the room, unless Third wants to correct me(I might be wrong on directions too, but I know that the doors are to the north).

So, we have 3 options from left to right: door B1, door #@, & door #E. Choose wisely(that would be the door to the left in case you forgot).

Also I picked up a fancy hammer, against which rolling Perception or Insight to put a price on it will be my first action. Neat-o! We should try to find a merchant in this dungeon and see if we can pawn it off to him/her.

I'm sorry Rory, I can't help but poke fun at this post.

'Avoid all undead at all times' is present in almost all media we have access at the moment in the whole world, including the campaign world. So I'd not think you'd need an insight roll for that, just roll common sense.

Also... 'merchant' and 'dungeon'. Two words I never expected to read in the same sentence ever... Ok, fine, except in Phantasy Star I, where you have a cake shop inside a freaking dungeon to which only access is blocked by a locked door, I'm not even kidding.

Okay that's weird. I bet it sells confection-themed equipment.

As the technology of the gaming industry flourished, games that were anime-styled became noticeably so. And then more noticeably so. It has left the positive light in my eyes.

Yeah well that second bit was a joke. Y'know, Third could have rolled for/stopped me, like he seems fond of doing when his players are about to do things that are covered on the list of DON'TS in the Idiot's Guide to Dungeoneering. Which make no mistake I am very grateful for and appreciate. I guess I took my..."third" strike that session.

It's true, I do like to do rolls for "hang on, your character knows this," but it's mainly for things that the character would know that the player might not. e.g. politics, manners, arcane knowledge, etc. Going on and deciding to tap anyone, especially a skeleton, on the shoulder and ask it "what's up" is not really anything that a character would really have any more insight on than a player would from the current situation. Plus it's just funny that you did that, because I've never seen anyone approach a skeleton that way before. If it was a death trap I probably would have given you a roll, but it was just a normal combat.

Also, as a side note, you may have noticed that there's no post-session for the last session. I'm kind of holding off on it until you reach the end of this place since time is actually advancing very slowly here and I'm going to run out of things that are going on at the same time unless I just make up other random stuff.

The obvious exits you have in the room are as follows:

#1: back up the chute to the north.
#2: an open corridor to the west.
#3: three closed doors to the south.

If I get a chance tonight, I'm really going to try and update my mapper with fog of war, since that's the big reason I've been holding off on populating it and using it. If I can, I'll try to get some of the dungeon up there using it.

Why thank you! You hear that, guys? My OOC incompetence is justified!

Yeah, I figured you were waiting for something like that.

In that case, I choose Door Near the Southeast Corner of the Room.

Fog-of-war will be a neat feature, and we could have the grid open and see where we're going during non-combat for exploration.

Can we assume I summoned my Familiar after our recent long rest? I prepared a spell slot for it.

Next time on Savage:

Where we last left our heroes, they were attempting to explore more of the dungeon at the insistence of Deke. After waiting on and moving on from their players' out-of-character drama, they stopped to make their camp for a harsh winter while the players took time off to watch a Final Fantasy marathon.

Satisfied, rested, and refreshed, the players have returned, and the dungeon-crawling continues...

Well then, let's see how you can get out of that dude's hand.