We played the 18th session of our AD&D 2e campaign last night. The play report for our last session is here.
To recap briefly, the party had just defeated a clan of ogres at great cost - Derrell, their druid henchman, had died. The rest of them were low on hit points. They took two nights to recover in the empty den, then headed back to Grasshold. From there, they traveled to Mythshire to deliver the share of treasure from another fallen companion, Ash, to the elf enclave he called home. There, they learned that a nearby elf tomb was overrun with undead. The tomb's custodian, Themar, had turned to dark powers. The party recruited a new henchman, Orlina, a cleric, to join them, then headed out.
On the journey, the party evaded a warband of 50 orcs, who destroyed the party's campsite. The party decided to return to town to resupply, then set out again. Upon entering the tomb, they were ambushed by turn resistant, spellcasting zombies that dragged themselves out of the stream flowing through the complex. Corym Vadercast was brought within an inch of his life as the party attempted to make a fighting retreat.
Party Roster
- Bernhardt Dalton, NG human cleric 4
- Magicheart, NG pseudodragon
- Orlina, CN human cleric 1
- Yinvalur Sparkguard, NG elf fighter 3
- Corym Vadercast, NG elf fighter 3/mage 3
- Haymond Baler, LG human fighter 4
- Yuliana, NG human cleric 2
- Karven Stone, LE dwarf thief 5
- Sheyla, LE human thief 3
For this session, I gave Corym's player control of Yinvalur, since otherwise the player would be sitting around doing nothing until the combat ended.
The session did not get off to an auspicious start. Sheyla was bloodied, so Karven's player wanted her to withdraw immediately. Since she was badly wounded, I made a morale check for her. If she passed, she would keep her cool and withdraw carefully, without provoking a free attack from the zombie she was in melee with. If she failed, she would turn her back and flee as quickly as possible, which would provoke an attack.
She failed quite handily. She turned and fled, and the zombie clubbed her in the back of the head, killing her.
The party continued to fight. They missed a lot of attacks, and when they did hit, they almost always did minimal damage. Haymond's player rolled minimum damage three rounds in a row, in fact. The party took a few more licks, but after some nice damage rolls from Yinvalur (again, the chad elf henchman saves the day), they eventually prevailed.
The party collected what little valuables the zombies had on them (2d4 gold pieces each), and Karven took Sheyla's hoarded wealth (about 450 gold in platinum pieces, plus a healing potion - if only I had remembered she had that!). The party dumped the zombies' bodies back into the water, lest they be discovered by whatever else lurked in this tomb.
The party was not enthusiastic about continuing to explore the place, so they headed back to town. It would take them the rest of the day (they had five hours of travel time left), plus the better part of the next day.
Encounter Fatigue
I am still trying to decide whether to continue using the AD&D 1e or 2e wilderness encounter tables. The 1e tables use d100 and have more entries as a result. The 2e tables use 2d10 and have fewer encounters. I'm trying to get a sense for which set of tables is better for my purposes. For now, when an encounter is rolled, I roll d2 to determine which set of tables I use.
The greater issue is that I'm beginning to reconsider using these tables during a session at all. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't become fatigued by having to improvise up to seven random encounters per session, depending on how far the party is traveling and in what terrain. It's no problem if the party is traveling through settled farmland, but the forest (and dense forest in particular) is proving to be more of a problem.
For example, this session ended up having four random encounters, and I would say we spent no more than a third of our game time on travel. One of the encounters happened in the middle of the night and involved 60 human pilgrims traveling in the woods. Perplexed, I ruled that instead, there was no encounter (this is somewhat of an entertaining challenge - either I improvise something on the spot to the best of my ability, or the players luck out, and nothing happens).
I think I maybe could have made something of this encounter if I'd had time to prepare it in advance. Loosely interpreting the result, perhaps the pilgrims are actually elves on their pilgrimage to the afterlife. Maybe they're skeletons on a "pilgrimage" to the tomb. But I don't know, I shy away from twisting the original intent too much.
In an ideal sandbox, the DM creates custom encounter tables for the environments in their region. The problem is that my region doesn't have clearly delineated territories. Sure, there's a big forest and a big swamp and a big desert, but there are also smaller forests and bodies of water, and multiple mountain ranges. Does each of those need an encounter table? In my 5e game, I made tables for each terrain type, which worked well, but in that case, I might as well use the tables I'm using already.
Another option is to decide how many encounters I want to detail ahead of time, then roll in advance on the existing tables that many times to determine what those encounters are, then detail just that handful of encounters. This is maybe the best solution, and allows me to save table time by predetermining encounter distance, the number of monsters, their disposition, treasure, names, motives, and the like.
That might be what I end up doing, but it's a lot of work, and I'm currently in a bit of a "prep less" mindset, so I'm not sure. Something to think about.
Encountering Elves
The party was a few hours out from the tomb when they encountered a scouting party of wood elves. The elves had the best possible reaction - helpful. I decided that they were related to the elves in Mythshire, but that a dispute had caused the two groups to fracture. These elves continued to live in the forest and monitor the tomb, and Themar's activities.
The elves offered to lead the party to their sanctuary, where they could recuperate before returning to the tomb. The party was about equidistant from town and from the elves' settlement, but the elves' settlement was closer to the tomb, so they agreed to follow.
Along the way, they had to rest. While camping, the party spotted a pair of minotaurs prowling in the forest. The minotaurs were indifferent and, not wanting to fight minotaurs, the party let them go on their way.
That night, they heard a huge creature crashing through the trees overhead, clumsily flying or leaping from tree to tree, making both animal sounds and speaking in a man's voice. It sounded like it was moving around their camp, not towards it, so the party kept a watchful eye, but didn't seek the creature out. (It was a manticore - again, indifferent.)
The next day, the party reached the elves' settlement without incident. Corym and Yinvalur were honored guests at the feast that night, and the local elves thought it cute that they had brought along their human followers and their nasty pet dwarf.
Karven paid an elf to deliver Sheyla's body to Mythshire and pay for a proper burial. The party also asked around and hired seven (!) elf hirelings to help them when they returned to the tomb.
The elf settlement had a population of 70. I determined that there were no henchmen there to recruit (my rule is that 1 in 100 people in the setting have class levels), and that one in ten elves there would be the fighting type. Haymond's Charisma alone is sufficient to have up to 10 followers, so I ruled that the party could recruit all of them, if they were willing to pay (2 gp per day for 2 days, so 4 gp per elf).
Now that I've had the chance to actually review the exhaustive Monstrous Manual entry for elves, I see that there is supposed to be one 2nd- or 3rd-level fighter for every 20 elves, and one 2nd- or 3rd-level mage for every 40 elves, meaning this group of elves would have three 2nd- or 3rd-level fighters and one 2nd- or 3rd-level mage. Furthermore, in a camp, for every 40 elves there are an additional 4th-level fighter, 4th-level cleric, 2nd-level fighter/mage/thief, a 4th-level fighter/7th-level mage, a 5th-level fighter, a 6th-level fighter, and a 7th-level cleric. Like I said, exhaustive.
Only Karven is high enough level to recruit new henchmen of 2nd-level, and he is Evil (and a dwarf, to boot), so the elves wouldn't have followed him anyway, making my in the moment oversight a non-issue.
I'm also seeing now that wood elves avoid contact with strangers 75% of the time. They also only speak their own language and the languages of forest animals and treants. They keep the locations of their camps secret from outsiders, going so far as to kill people who stumble upon them.
So uh, yeah. This encounter probably shouldn't have happened this way. All the more reason for me to prep this stuff ahead of time, I guess.
Seven Elves
The party spent a night recuperating among the elves. The clerics in the party burned some spell slots topping off their wounded members' hit points in the morning. Then, the party took their seven elves back to the tomb. One player named them: Inky, Blinky, Pinky, Stinky, Finky, Winky, and Clyde. Another named them: Inhale, Sociable, Awake, Sad, Cheerful, Alert, and Civilian.
The party arrived at the tomb without incident. Bernhardt cast invisibility to undead on Karven, who proceeded to scout ahead.
Karven found a cavern where ten zombies stood guard in front of an alcove blocked off by curtains. Beyond the curtains, he found an elf priest with sallow grey skin and black veins, a cloud of flies buzzing about his head. To the south, across the stream, was a smaller cavern where eight more zombies were digging a pit with shovels. Inky black, malicious-looking magical tendrils were snaking out of the cracks in the walls of the pit. All of these zombies were noticeably different from the ones they fought earlier. They looked less powerful - more like zombie rabble than especially potent zombies infused with malign, god-denying dark energy.
The party devised a plan. While invisible, Karven would get into position to backstab the priest. Bernhardt would also make himself invisible to the undead, then get into position in front of the north tunnel and prepare to reveal himself and turn the zombie rabble. Just behind him, Corym, Yinvalur, and Orlina would wait out of earshot, ready to charge in. Meanwhile, Haymond and Yuliana would take the seven elves around the south, across the stream and in front of the dig site, ready to either open fire on the zombies to the north or cut off the zombies to the south.
This took about 30 minutes for the players to devise, and I actually really enjoy these moments. It can feel like nothing is being accomplished as the players go back and forth with ideas and hemming and hawing, but they're actually playing the game by making strategic decisions based on the information they have. The fact that they have to take this time to figure out how to approach the situation makes me feel like I managed to devise an actually interesting, complex scenario. I'm more than happy to let the players talk it out, answer their questions, clarify their intentions, and help them implement their plan as they describe it.
Once everyone got into their positions, the party launched its attack. I gave them a surprise round as a reward for good planning. Karven successfully backstabbed the priest...for minimal damage, again. Bernhardt revealed himself, turning eight of the ten zombies. Yinvalur and Orlina positioned themselves in front of Bernhardt, with Corym bringing up the rear. Haymond and Yuliana moved in with their elves, launching a volley of ranged attacks at the unturned zombies - as well as the turned ones, who were fleeing in their direction.
All told, the party killed one of the two unturned zombies and two of the turned ones. Unfortunately, Karven's backstab did little to deter the priest commanding the undead, who turned angrily to face him.
That's where we wrapped up the session. Next time, the party must deal with the heretical priest, Themar. Haymond, Yuliana, and the elves will have half a dozen frightened zombies bearing down on them, and perhaps half a dozen more emerging from the pit to attack their flank. Themar has a few nasty tricks up his sleeve, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we had a few casualties.
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