D&D: Fool Around & Find Out, part 2.

[canyonwalker]

I ran session 4 of my D&D game, City of the Dead on Friday night. I already blogged about the first half of the game. Here's part 2.

I left off the previous blog with the group reunited after brief splitting 4-1. Needless to say the 1 PC who went on his own was in pretty rough shape, having narrowly escaped with his life. D&D players would do well to remember a rule I learned in the Boy Scouts years ago: "If one goes, two go." Nobody ventures off alone.



The group quickly decided that they needed to head into the City of the Dead even though the day was more than half over and they were getting low on resources. At that point 3 of their 4 pack animals were dead or incapacitated, and the animals that fell into the sinkhole beneath the streets of the city had much of the group's gear. If they didn't try to recover it they'd have no food or shelter for the night— and the next city (their home) was 2 solid days away.

Entering Graymount was eerie. The city shows signs of one-time opulence, with stone buildings shouldering in close to each other in a compact city center. Doors hang ajar and windows are busted out, signs of abandonment and decay for over 100 years. The main road is paved with huge stones, 20 feet long, now slightly tilted. Then there's the sinkhole in the middle of the road just inside the eastern edge of town. It looks like a cave in from something... really big... that dug a tunnel beneath the road. In fact, there is a tunnel visible from atop the sinkhole.

Birds Get Lit 🔥

The group knew about the swarm of crows. Indeed they saw the birds perched, waiting, on the edges of the roof. They— the PCs, that is— had a plan. When the birds swarmed, Meraxes the mage would ready a fireball spell, and the other PCs would clear out of her way. It took two rounds of maneuvering to set it up correctly, but once everyone was in place *FWOOSH* Meraxes lit the place up. The swarm failed its saving throw and took full damage. A kettle of hundreds of crows caught fire, briefly flapping around with wings aflame like dozens of little phoenixes before dropping, dead, to the ground.

The Darker in the Darkness

With the harrying crows out of the way the PCs set to rigging a rescue plan to pull at least Herran's horse out of the sinkhole. (The pack mule was expendable, they decided.) Scout Herran got busy rigging ropes while paladin Astrin stood guard and everyone else just stood around. Astrin detected that some evil creature was hiding in an abandoned building, just 15' from her, watching the party. Nobody seemed to care. Even Astrin was like, "Tell me if the evil thing moves." 😳



Finally I got somebody with a good enough Spot check to pay attention to what was going on. A shadowy figure was lurking inside the building. It was like an apparition of darker darkness in the deep shadows. It was clad in flowing robes that billowed in the non-existed breeze.

Cleric Terence stepped up to the door for a closer look, ready to Turn Undead. Inside he saw the ghostly figure dressed not just in a billowing cloak but, underneath that, armor emblazoned with the symbol of his faith— the goddess of death who opposes undead. Dual points of light smoldering like candles in its empty eye sockets focused on Terence as the creature's gaunt face contorted into a rictus snarl. "You!" the monster hissed. Terence was almost sure he recognized who this… was.

At some point it was Bainor, his senior cleric in the faith of Charonne. But now it was a mockery of that faith.

Terence thrust forward his staff with Charonne's holy symbol. "The power of the Lady of the Grave compels you," he intoned, "BEGONE!"

But his d20 roll for Turn Undead was weak, and the wraith of Bainor's corrupted spirit was strong. With a sinister laugh at Terence's attempt it reached out a bony hand that seemed to pass right through Terence's protective mail shirt, through his skin even, and chill him right to the bone. Terence felt health sap away. He had been Con drained.

The group tussled with the wraith for a bit before realizing they didn't quite have the strength to defeat it. They at least managed to drive it off, though Bainor suffered another draining touch in the process and was near death himself. One or two companions helped protect him afterward while the others worked on rescuing Herran's horse.

To be continued....

Update: they group's not out of danger yet. They've got one more fight before calling it a day.

Comments

[some_other_dave]

Is the draining in this version of D&D permanent, or do those afflicted recover on their own? I remember in early versions draining undead would drain character levels from you! That was pretty vicious...

[canyonwalker]

We're playing D&D 3.5 edition. Some undead, like vampires and wights, are level drainers. 3.5 rules have a simplified set of penalties for a "Negative Level" imposed on the victim for the first 24 hours. After that the victim gets a saving throw to see if they slough off the penalties, or-- if they fail the save-- suffer an actual level loss. You can read rules online at https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#energyDrainAndNegativeLevels. Either way, too, there are spells that can reverse the loss.

Wraiths are a bit different in that they are drain points from the Constitution ability. Their attack allows an immediate save to avoid the drain, but a victim who fails that save loses Con points immediately. Details for the rule are at https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#abilityDrain. And again, there are spells that can reverse the loss. Terence happened to have one on a scroll (it's 1 level higher than he can cast) as a "Break Glass In Case Of Emergency" measure.

[some_other_dave]

Thanks! Sounds like things are rather more nuanced (and complicated) than 1st ed.

[canyonwalker]

Yes, that's one of the nice things about versions 3.0 and 3.5: they purposefully rewrote a lot of the harsh, "Save or die"-type rules of the previous editions. There are still significant penalties that can hit immediately with negative levels, ability drain, poison, etc., but the rules now allow tough and resourceful people a shot at recovery.