In our last session, the player characters continued their exploration of the Warlord's Tower, battled some cultists, succumbed to magical fear, nearly died, fought a magical hand, and liberated the captive stonemason's they'd been hired to find.
The hirelings, Terris and Yinvalur Sparkguard, were taking the unconscious cleric and thief, Bernhardt Dalton and Karven Stone, to the mercenaries' barracks on the second floor of the tower. Karven had leveled up last session, so he had gained some HP. He regained consciousness and decided to split from the others to sneakily poke around the tower some more. Meanwhile, the fighter and paladin, Haymond Baler and Rozidien Stoneskull, looked around to make sure their position was secure.
Splitting the Party
When the party splits, I handle it similarly to how I normally conduct exploration turns. At the beginning of each turn, I ask everyone what they're doing - searching a room, moving on to another room, investigating a specific object, talking to someone, etc. Then, I resolve those actions in order, assuming all actions take roughly the same amount of time. In the case of a split party, I simply jump back and forth between the groups to keep everyone engaged.
Haymond and Rozidien soon stumbled upon the three mercenaries who had fled their initial encounter at the tower's entrance. The mercenaries, having lost morale, didn't want a fight.
Their Heart's Not In It
When my monsters and NPCs fail a morale check during a combat, I treat it as meaning that they want nothing to do with the PCs, combat-wise. They're scared of the PCs and will do more or less whatever they say.
Alternatively, one could rule that they simply retreat until they're able to regroup somewhere else - either with additional allies or in a more defensible position - in which case another reaction roll to determine disposition, or a morale check to determine renewed will to fight, might be necessary the next time they're encountered.
The way I see it, the PCs defeated them once - we don't need to play all that out again. Also, if monsters and NPCs who flee combat later regroup to attack the party again, it communicates to the players that they should never let enemies flee, which I don't love. Sometimes, it might be appropriate, but in this case, I saw no reason for it.
The mercenaries pleaded for their lives and were allowed to go on their way. They immediately ran into Karven Stone in the next room, who, sensing their fear, threatened to kill them unless they handed over their valuables. Having none on them, the mercenaries offered to retrieve a chest full of coin from upstairs and bring it back to him. Karven, knowing he had already looted the chest in question, allowed it, and the mercenaries ran off.
Haymond and Rozidien barely missed crossing paths with Karven, like ships in the night, as they left one room and he entered it moments later. They went in opposite directions - Haymond and Rozidien climbing a flight of stairs they hadn't previously explored, and Karven going to explore a room with a collapsed floor which he had briefly investigated earlier.
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| Beneath the Archon's Tower, by Dyson Logos |
Karven looked down into the pit and saw a pile of crumbled masonry, upon which a foursome of giant, nasty-looking rats feasted on the corpse of a stonemason. I pointed out to the players that the room Karven was in was directly above the room from which they had heard sniffing and scurrying during the last session. Karven threw a few daggers into the pit at the rats, but missed, and they fled into the shadows.
Haymond and Rozidien ascended the stairs into a pitch-black secret chamber (in the northeast corner of the above map). There they found a group of cultists gathered around a female cultist in the regalia of a high priestess. They all knelt in front of a makeshift throne which held a robed skeleton with a greatsword across its lap. There was a pile of coins and gems at the skeleton's feet.
The cultists turned to glare at the two PCs, contemptuous of the torchlight they had brought into their sacred darkness. The cultists were unfriendly and drug-addled. They threatened the party to leave at once. The PCs reluctantly obliged, not ready for another fight just yet.
Haymond and Rozidien headed towards the barracks to regroup with the others. On their way up, they encountered the mercenaries again, arguing over their loot, which they now realized had been stolen. To placate them, Haymond gave each five gold pieces (two-and-a-half days' pay), and the mercenaries grumbled appreciation as they headed to the tower entrance to gather their unconscious allies and depart.
Karven, who was just a bit behind the other two at this point, had to pass through the room where the mercenaries were gathered in order to reach the barracks. Knowing that they would be sore about him stealing their pay, he sneaked through the room and darted silently up the stairs to regroup with the others.
The party, now reunited, settled in to rest in the barracks on the tower's second level. Karven climbed out the window to collect Bernhardt's donkey and hide it along the side of the tower, out of sight of the possibly vindictive mercenaries. Karven eventually spotted the mercenaries leaving the tower and heading down the mountain, shortly before nightfall. The party set up watches and waited to see if anyone came after them while they slept.
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| Archon's Tower, by Dyson Logos |
During the dead of night, Karven and Terris noticed a flickering light ascending the stairs to their hiding spot. The cultists and their leader had come looking for them. Karven won initiative and managed to kill a cultist in one hit. The rest charged him and Terris, and Terris took a wound as he retreated to wake the others.
The high priestess began casting a spell. Karven quickly felled another cultist, then shut the door he was behind and held it fast against a second cultist on the other side. The high priestess conjured a spectral hand, eliciting dread from Haymond and Rozidien as they charged into the room to join the fight. Haymond took a third cultist down with a charging attack with his trident while Rozidien engaged the high priestess. The last remaining cultist forgot about Karven and moved to defend his leader.
The high priestess cast chill touch through her spectral hand, targeting Rozidien (spectral hand grants a +2 to touch spell attacks, and Rozidien was facing away from the hand, so it gained an additional +2 from the rear attack). Rozidien fell to 0 HP and collapsed.
Karven quickly bolted out of a different door and leapt at the high priestess's back, attempting a backstab, but missed. Haymond killed the final cultist, allowing the party to focus their attacks on the high priestess. Out of spells after another (failed) chill touch attack, the priestess defended herself with a dagger and her back to the wall as she took several slashes, stabs, and arrows from her attackers. Eventually, Haymond pinned her to the wall with his trident, killing her.
Natural Healing
With all the enemies neutralized, we went about figuring out how long the party would need to rest to regain their HP. Everyone regained 1 HP after a night of rest, so Bernhardt and Rozidien regained consciousness. Bernhardt used several castings of cure wounds to heal his allies and the wounded stonemasons. Another day of total rest would net them each 3 HP. Bernhardt also has both the healing and herbalism proficiencies, and the description of the former (PHB, page 81) says this:
"If a wounded character remains under the care of someone with healing proficiency, that character can recover lost hit points at the rate of 1 per day even when traveling or engaging in nonstrenuous activity. If the wounded character gets complete rest, he can recover 2 hit points per day while under such care. Only characters with both healing and herbalism proficiencies can help others recover at the rate of 3 hit points per day of rest. This care does not require a proficiency check, only the regular attention of the proficient character. Up to six patients can be cared for at any time."
I took this to mean that Bernhardt could use his combination of healing and herbalism proficiencies to restore 3 HP each to six targets on top of the 3 HP regained from a full day of rest.
Everyone was pretty much topped off at this point, so the party did one final sweep of the tower. They collected the treasure from the secret chamber. This included a magical greatsword, but no one in the party could identify it.
Lastly, they returned to the room with the giant rats, suspecting that there might be something worth looting in their nest. The party fired missiles down into the hole, killing one rat and wounding two others, then dropped down the hole to engage the rats in melee. Haymond took a nasty bite, which required a saving throw vs poison. He failed, and the bite burned like acid. The party otherwise dispatched the rats without trouble.
Bernhardt again used his combination of healing and herbalism to take a look at Haymond's wound. He correctly diagnosef the rats as being afflicted with sewer plague, and administered an appropriate salve to stave off the worst of the disease's effects on Haymond. Unfortunately, the rats did not in fact have anything worth looting.
And that's where we wrapped. Bernhardt, Haymond, and Rozidien all leveled up, and Karven ended up just 36 XP short of reaching level 3! Thieves level faster than any class in AD&D, and Karven gains a 10% XP bonus from having high ability scores. The three who leveled up gained some HP. Bernhardt also gained a 1st-level spell slot, and Haymond and Rozidien gained an improved THAC0 of 19.
The party armed the stonemason's with scimitars and outfitted them with poorly fitting leather armor looted from the cultists. The stonemasons can fight as good as any 0-level NPC, and the players figured that just the look of a dozen armed dwarves might be enough to dissuade anyone from attacking them on the way back to town.
Next time, the players plan to travel back to town (there's still a harpy roosting at the tower's summit, but I don't think they plan to deal with it). I have one encounter planned for their journey back. Beyond that, I think it will play similarly to their journey up to the tower in Session 1. They're stronger than they were on the way up, but at 2nd-level, they are still seriously at risk of running into a nasty random encounter if they're unlucky.
Switching Characters
Rozidien's player expressed that they were not having fun with the character anymore. This same player famously switched characters five times during my last campaign, so I've come to expect this from them. I always tell my players that I want them to be having fun no matter what, and that first and foremost they should play the characters they want to play.
The player already has another character ready to go, so I told them to take the week to think about it. If they decide they want to switch, I'll introduce the new character as soon as possible, and we'll figure out some way to write the old character out at the same time.
New characters have the same XP as the old character, plus or minus the 10% XP bonus gained from having high ability scores, if applicable. I view XP and levels as being gained by the player from participating in the game - again, I want them to play the characters they want, so I don't want to penalize them for switching, and thus disincentivize them from doing so.
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