We played the 17th session of our AD&D 2e campaign last night (we skipped last week). The play report for our last session is here.
To recap briefly, the party battled a den of five ogres. Karven Stone attempted to kill the ogres' leader with a backstab, his dagger coated with lethal spider venom, but he missed his initial attempt, and the ogre matriarch eventually saved against the poison anyway. A dangerous melee ensued, and Derrell, the party's druid henchman, was killed. Sheyla, the henchman thief, ran off in a panic. Eventually, the party was victorious, slaying all the ogres, but not without their own grievous wounds.
Party Roster
- Bernhardt Dalton, NG human cleric 4
- Magicheart, NG pseudodragon
- Yinvalur Sparkguard, NG elf fighter 3
- Corym Vadercast, NG elf fighter 2/mage 2
- Haymond Baler, LG human fighter 4
- Yuliana, NG human cleric 2
- Karven Stone, LE dwarf thief 5
- Sheyla, LE human thief 3
Recuperation
One thing I noticed while doing my usual prep was that I had misinterpreted how natural healing is supposed to work in 2e. From the PHB:
Characters heal naturally at a rate of 1 hit point per day of rest. Rest is defined as low activity--nothing more strenuous than riding a horse or traveling from one place to another. Fighting, running in fear, lifting a heavy boulder, or any other physical activity prevents resting, since it strains old wounds and may even reopen them.
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.
And even now, reading it back again, I'm realizing that I've made another mistake. Bernhardt has the herbalism proficiency in addition to the healing proficiency, so my original interpretation was that characters he tended to recovered 3 hit points any time they completed what we would call a "long rest". I failed to realize that this only happens when the characters have complete rest.
My new interpretation, as I explained it to the players, was that with complete rest for a day (i.e., no traveling or fighting), Bernhardt could tend to their characters, and they would recover 3 hit points upon completing the day of rest (which I think is correct). If the characters are traveling and fighting, they instead gain 1 hit point per day under Bernhardt's care. The players mourned the loss of their 2 additional hit points per day, and we moved on. Now I'm realizing this is also wrong. I misread "nonstrenuous" in the first sentence of the description of the healing proficiency as "strenuous", somehow.
But it's strange. The default rules for natural healing say that characters regain 1 hit point per day so long as they don't strain themselves (i.e. by fighting). The rules for the healing proficiency then go on to say characters regain 1 hit point under these circumstances only if they're being tended to by a healer. I'm guessing that because the proficiency rules are optional, this redundancy is an oversight, or simply an unfortunate lack of clarification. I suppose the answer is that one uses the regular rules for natural healing if the optional proficiency system isn't used, and that one instead uses the rules for natural healing as described by the healing proficiency if the proficiency system is in use.
Even with the healing proficiency, no natural healing of any kind occurs on a day in which the characters strain themselves (i.e. fight). I guess I've got more bad news for the players next session.
In any case, with my temporary misinterpretation of the healing rules in mind, the players decided to rest in the ogre den for the remainder of the day, plus one additional day, to recover a bit before making the trip back to town. Bernhardt and Yuliana used their spell slots to spam cure wounds during that time.
Karven poked his head outside to find Sheyla (she was hiding behind a rock - I made another morale check for her to see if she'd flee all the way back to town, and she succeeded on the check). He also set a rudimentary trap at the cave entrance in case anything else came sniffing around while the party was resting, but I made it clear to the players that they were unlikely to have random encounters while resting in a known, very recently-inhabited ogre den.
Packs, Laden with Loot
The players determined that between their two mules and cart, they could just barely carry the 37,000 copper coins they found in the ogres' treasure hoard, but they would be traveling at one-third their usual speed. The journey back to Grasshold (normally half a day) would instead take a day and a half. Satisfied with their hit point totals, they set out.
The party encountered a patrol from town on the second day, who escorted them the rest of the way. Back in town, they collected their reward, changed their money into more portable denominations, and spent the night in an inn. Karven bought another mule to ease the burden the next time they find thousands of pennies in a cave.
The players decided to travel next to Southreach, hoping to find an armorer who could make something useful of the ankheg shells they're carrying. Along the way, they'd stop in Mythshire. Ash, their fallen companion, was a member of an elf enclave there. The party wanted to bring his share of gold back to the enclave and inform them of his passing.
They traveled for a day to Spiritbrook, then another three and a half days to Mythshire. The journey was uneventful.
The Death of Elves
In Mythshire, the party sought out Zylra Oakwhisper, the matriarch of the town's elf enclave. There was much melancholy about Ash's death. The demihumans of this world are, in generic fantasy fashion, dying out. The dwarves have been undone by their greed and hubris. The sylvan lands of the elves have become deforested, and their slow reproduction rate can't keep up with their losses. The halfling's shires are being despoiled by industrialization. And so on.
Zylra thanked the party for notifying her of Ash's demise. Since they were here, she asked if they might be willing to help with another matter. An elf burial ground, Ryl Themar, reserved for the honored dead, lay in the nearby forest. The priest there, Themar, who was charged with watching over the place, has been consorting with dark powers, and has raised the elves' magically-preserved dead as unliving abominations. Zylra offered a hefty reward, as well as the enclave's favor, in exchange for purging Themar's insidious influence.
The tomb was just over a day's travel from town, and the reward was significant, so the party agreed to look into it. I also know that Karven's player is fiending for some elven chain mail, so the promise of goodwill with the local elves would be too good for Karven to pass up. With a new understanding of the rules for healing, and knowing that they'd be up against undead, the party sought out and recruited Orlina, a Lawful Neutral 1st-level cleric (she is now a henchman of Bernhardt). With half a day left of traveling time, the party set out immediately.
Encounter Tables
Sometime before I started this campaign, I purchased a PDF of the 2e Monstrous Compendium. The Monstrous Manual (the reprinted version of the Compendium), for whatever reason, doesn't have encounter tables (just advice for the DM to make their own), but the Compendium does (which is why I bought it). For some reason, I had looked at the tables in the Compendium and decided to use those in the AD&D 1e DMG instead. I think it was probably because the 1e tables are more robust (they are d100 tables, whereas the Compendium ones are 2d10, which is the standard in 2e).
In any case, for this session I decided to use the Compendium tables.
The party traveled for half a day and made camp in the forest. This was still close enough to town to be considered "inhabited lands", so the players felt safe to camp there. Otherwise, they would have rested at the edge of the forest and entered the woods the following day.
I rolled a nighttime encounter and got orcs. I rolled d100 and got a 90, indicating that this was to be a high-level encounter. Uh oh. Corym was on watch. With his infravision, he was able to see a group of about 50 orcs (!) moving through the forest towards the party's camp. The orcs would be on them in less than a minute. Corym roused the party, who quickly gathered as many of their things as they could - including the mules - and made a run for it.
I used OSE's evasion rules (2e has no such thing) and determined that the party was able to successfully scatter and hide. The orcs sent about a dozen scouts out looking for them while the rest tore apart their campsite. Eventually, they wandered off, and the party returned to salvage what they could and finish the night.
In hindsight, I wish I'd handled this differently. It doesn't sit quite right with me that the party could gather everything and escape in such a short time. At the very least, they should probably have lost their mules. And the orcs probably should have left some scouts behind to see if the party returned. As is, the party only lost some tents and such, which is a minor inconvenience. In the future, I'll probably impose some penalty on the evasion roll if the party takes the time to gather their things before fleeing, especially since most of them were asleep when this occurred.
My reaction roll determined that the orcs were unfriendly, so they wouldn't have attacked on sight anyway. My plan was for them to simply bully and rob the party. It's somewhat of a boon that the party didn't interact with them, though, as this gives me an opportunity to figure out what a sizeable orc warband is doing in the forest, so close to town. Mythshire's ruler is an evil wizard, so maybe they're in league somehow, but who knows what they're up to.
In the morning, the party returned to Mythshire to resupply and warn the militia about the orcs. Then, they went right back out. On their second night camping in the woods, they encountered a patrol from Mythshire. I determined that this was probably some sort of fantasy special ops team - rangers or the like well-versed in dangerous nighttime forest excursions. They were seeing about those orcs. They warned the party to be cautious and went on their way.
Dead Water
The party arrived at Ryl Themar without further incident. It was a rudimentary burial ground built into a natural cave, with some hastily constructed, crude monoliths atop it. To the elves in the party, it was only a shadow of the grand mausoleums from the height of their peoples' past. A tributary from the nearby river flowed through the cave, with a narrow stone ledge alongside the stream allowing access to the cavern's depths. An intolerable stench emanated from within.
For this small adventure site, I used Dyson Logos's Tombs of the Throl Tribe.
Karven snuck inside to scout ahead. He found a large open cavern alongside the stream. There was a pile of bones on one side of the cave, next to an ascending tunnel where the stench intensified. At the far side of the cavern was a plank bridge across the river to another cavern with a semicircular arrangement of carved wooden doors. The rest of the party followed closely behind Karven, who decided to sneak up the ascending tunnel while the others watched the river.
Before long, bloated, stinking corpses began to haul themselves up out of the river. Despite their suspicions, Haymond and Karven were surprised. Upon laying eyes on the water-logged zombies, the party became nauseated (everyone besides Orlina failed their saving throw vs poison). The sickening effect lasts for 2d4 rounds and imposes a -1 penalty to attack rolls and armor class as the character retches and such.
Bernhardt, Orlina, and Yuliana all attempted to turn the zombies. Unfortunately, these are sea zombies (er...river zombies), which are immune to turn undead. This is because of some baseline D&D lore stuff that I should have probably disregarded, but I wanted to run the monsters as is to stay true to their intended threat level.
The zombies closed in to attack - one went after Orlina, another after Yuliana (these two were now blocking the party's escape), and three (!) after Corym, who happened to be closest to all three of them. Yuliana was quickly bloodied. Corym was overwhelmed and brought to 0 hit points - he began dying.
The party concluded that a fighting retreat was in order, but they'd have to save Corym first. Karven and Yinvalur leapt to his aid. Bernhardt moved to administer first aid. Orlina and Yuliana retreated towards the entrance. Haymond and Sheyla tried to slay the zombies at their rear to clear a path for the others. Two of the zombies were spellcasters, and began slashing at Bernhardt, Karven, and Yinvalur with claws wreathed in life-draining energy.
Bernhardt stabilized Corym at -9 hit points (he would have been dead at -10). Sheyla bloodied the zombie at the party's rear, but was bloodied herself. Yinvalur managed to kill one of the spellcasters.
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| Orlina and Yuliana are just off screen, guarding the rear. |
We were at the top of the next round, and already 30 minutes over our usual time, so we called the session there. Not a super satisfying place to end it, but I think everyone is looking forward to seeing if they can make it out alive. I let Corym's player know that they may want to prepare a new character for next week, just in case.
Next time, the party will either prevail, perish, or escape by the skin of their teeth from the zombies. They may press on deeper into the tomb or simply cut their losses and abandon their quest.
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