Chokepoint

Last week in Bara-Kraz...

11th of Granite

    The party consists of Elrin the Elven Monk, Guts the Half-Orc Barbarian, Celestia the Elven Cleric, Braytak the Dwarven Cleric, Arwin the Elven Fighter, and Grokk the Half-Orc Fighter. The party decides to try and clear the Red Rocks of gnolls so the Razaldaub clan can establish a land trade route through the Red Rocks.

    While heading south into the canyon, Braytak steps on a cactus. Elrin quickly applies first aid. The party continues on.

    They end up in a large gorge filled with cacti that grow clustered like trees. Arwin and Elrin notice a tunnel in the western cliffside while Grokk notices a man-shaped cactus that is incredibly realistic. He begins to notice other realistic cacti: a goat-like cactus, a cactus resembling a clutch of eggs, another in the form of  a man. With a mounting sense of dread he turns to Braytak, expecting the worst. Panic sets in with the others despite Braytak's assurances that he feels fine. When the dwarf doesn't turn green and prickly after some time passes, they decide to climb the western cliffside and journey through the tunnel.

    Guts leads the way through and is greeted with a vicious sight on the other side. Four humans, obviously members of the Pit Fighter's Association are administering executions to a group of gnolls. He relays this to the rest of the party and as they debate what to do, the leader of the men hears the commotion and turns around. Each group tries to gauge the others intentions but the Pit Fighters quickly tire of the exchange and head back to their camp on the eastern canyon wall. The party tags along and asks a few questions. They learn that the Association is here as guards for the Razaldaub and also to capture a creature called a Barrzoth (a large, toad-like beast) for their upcoming gladiatorial exhibition, that the chief of the gnolls wields an axe made from a demon's spine, and that the gnoll camp is east of the oasis on the southern end of the canyon. The two groups part ways with each other and the party realizes that they made a big loop through the tunnel, they're back at the start of the canyon.

    They head south back through the cactus gorge and converse with some more pit fighters setting up a trap. The exchange is brief and the party continues to press south until they end up at the oasis.

    The group fills their water skins and fool around with shooting a rock that they deemed suspicious before heading through a narrow canyon to the east toward the gnoll camp.

    The party stealthily maneuvers through the canyon besides for Braytak who clunks along and alerts the gnolls. As the party beats a hasty retreat, flights of black arrows crash down. Braytak and Grokk are wounded as the cackling of gnolls sounds just around the canyon corner. The party plants their feet- even bloodied they believe they can take the gnoll pack.

    Arwin lets looses an arrow that wounds but does not stop the lead gnoll. As the battle rges, Celestia tries to gain height on the gnolls and rain down magical mayhem. Her spell misses and hits Braytak who goes down. As the others try to render aid Elrin, Grokk, and Guts give a desperate surge of effort, breaking the gnoll line by eliminating their leader.

    Worse for wear and believing they might have underestimated the gnolls, the party heads back through the night to Bara-Kraz and arrive on the morning of the 12th. They learn that apparently an earthquake hit the city during the night. Luckily, no casualties occurred.

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    Though I summed up the combat quickly in the recap, let me assure you that it was anything but. I did three things wrong during the encounter with the gnolls.

• I decided to attempt to go back to tracking hit points instead of just tracking hits and let me tell you that's a tall order to accomplish for nine 20 hp gnolls and their two 50 and 40 hp leaders. Solution: First, track hits not hit points. It's too easy. Second, when you're fighting 10+ monsters run them as a horde as per 5E Hardcore Mode. # of enemies x 10 for horde HP, d20 + # of enemies for attack roll, damage dice + # of enemies for damage done; have the players divide it amongst themselves. Scary? Yes. Effective? Also yes.
• There was a lot of looking through rulebooks during play. Normally I would avoid this as much as possible but with new players and some 5E experts at the table I feel like I have to do it. Solution: Two-fold. Make a ruling on the spot, correct it at the end of the game and ask the players to be better prepared with how to play their characters. It's not that much to ask someone to write down how their spells work.
• There was no threat, the players just had the gnolls bottlenecked in a canyon. In retrospect it would've been so easy to include some sort of timed threat! Solution: Gnolls in the back rank raining down increasingly accurate arrows, gnolls scampering the walls to chuck boulders, a ritual being chanted by the shaman, etc.

    I felt bad about the way the combat went but most of the players seemed to have a great time. It's good to remember that even though you might set such high standards for yourself, at the end of the day your players just want to show up and roll some dice. 

    This week they're going to head back into the Savannah. Guts was asking around about finding a better sword and heard a rumor about the resting place of a two-handed sword wielding giant supposedly in the jungles on the eastern border of the Savannah.

    In my hobby world I'm preparing for a rather large move in about a month so painting is likely going to fall by the wayside for a while until I get settled in at my new home. That also means this Open Table experiment will end sometime soon. It has been an interesting first try at the format and I look forward to trying it again when I get settled in! 

Until next time!