Here we go again
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
Welcome back, glad to see you. Please grab a glass of your favorite beverage take a seat right over there and let me tell you of the days of high adventure! We start off here on the morning of October 9th mostly recovered, but starting to have concerns about food. Unwilling to return to town empty handed the ACKSgrinders return to the dungeon to see if they might be able to find something worthwhile to have made this journey worth the effort.
First however, we have some bookkeeping to take care of. Bill has, of course, prepared his old friend Charm Person again. In addition, I wanted to check to see if I needed to make some checks to see if any restocking would occur in the dungeon, but it seems like in the borderlands those checks would occur weekly, so we’re still good on that front.
Returning to the manse the party is confident they’ve fully explored the upstairs and aside from that hidden chest upstairs they haven’t yet found a way to open. Downstairs they’ve got that awful horrid kitchen full of winged death so this time they decide they’re going to check out the areas on the western side of the ground floor.
Checking the double doors they do not appear trapped to Elvis (18) or Briggy (no actual skill, but he’s helping!), clearing the way for the front line to open up Davedor and Carl pop open the double doors into what appears to be a wrecked dining room. As they peek in to get a look at the room surprise is rolled and with a -1 modifier to the party’s roll (they get a 1) and are surprised by a trio of bugbears feasting on the rotten food left out on the dining table.
Seeing fresh meat, they grab their spears and toss them at the surprised adventurers hoping for a quick snack. Looks like thrown spears have a 40’ medium range, imposing a -2 to their attack throws, offsetting their +2 bonus to hit from surprise. Thus the normal bugbears would have a target of 14+ to hit, and the champ will hit on 13+ (both Carl and Dave have 7 armor). Yikes! On an 18 Carl is hit by a normal Bugbear for two damage in a glancing blow, and the Champion misses Dave with a 10. Phew!
Ending the first round the ACKSgrinders are no longer surprised. Bill sees an amazing opportunity here and declares that he is going to cast a spell. The front line intends to set against charge (not that this needs to be declared prior to rolling). With all necessary declarations complete the initiative die is cast and here are the results.
Elvis, Carl and Briggy set their weapons. Frank takes a shot at a bugbear and on a 16 hits and deals 4 points of damage. Bringing us to the charge of the bugbears. Gaining a +2 to hit from the charge, we’ll resolve the simultaneous interaction between Bugbear One and Carl’s set axe. Bugbear (10+2 vs 14) misses, but Carl succeeds with a 14 and deals 6 more damage to the wounded bugbear. Elvis also takes a swing at the Bugbear when it approaches hitting with a natural 20, but only dealing a single point of damage with the blow.
Davedor did not have the time to set against the charge before his foe got there, but he does still have a long spear and will attack simultaneously. In a completely on brand move I roll a natural 1 and he misses completely, while the bugbear’s attack on him succeeds and drops him to -10 HP (Morning star 1d10 +1 did 11 damage to the 1 HP fighter.) bringing us to another feature that absolutely terrifies me.
Cleaving
It hasn’t really come up yet, but when a combatant drops a foe to 0 HP it can make another attack with some stipulations relating to movement and such and number of levels / HD the combatant has. In this case a 3HD bugbear could cleave up to 3 times (assuming it drops 3 foes) and may move no more than 5’ between each strike. He steps over Davedor’s body and swings at the cowardly elf hiding with his bow… and strikes again dealing 9 damage to Frank (who is also presumably dead). Carrying forth his momentum he next swings at Biggy who has finally realized just how bad hanging around this group is going to be for his health. With a 10 he’ll hit AC3 and that’s better than his leather provides. And with 4 damage vs his 3 hit points we have another casualty sustained. Finally he cleaves a third time (dear god this is terrifying) at the cowering acolyte. Scoring yet another hit for 4 damage dropping Andrew to 0. Thankfully the carnage is over, but this one bugbear just steamrolled through four or Grinders in one combat round. Yikes!
Finally the champion will walk up his full 30’ movement around the table and take a shot at Carl. He again needs a 13+ to hit Carl’s AC 7. With an 11 Carl survives another day. Bill’s Charm Person finally goes off against the demon that just tore through nearly his entire party within the past few seconds giving it a saving throw vs Spells at +5 due to hostilities (saving as a F3 with +5 to the check Bugbear of Doom will need an 11+ to save.) On a 3 the save is failed and Bill promptly begs Buggy to save him from the bad guys.
Bringing us to the end of round 2 and this absolute disaster.
This is probably not going to come as any surprise, but the time for retreat has come. Carl will do a Fighting Withdrawl to the outside, but Bill and Elvis are in a full on rout. Buggy will turn on the wounded Bugbear. A new round’s initiative is now rolled. On a 5 Elvis leaves the building running (the full 120’ of running distance) for the hills. The champion misses Carl, as does the other hostile bugbear. Bill then also follows Elvis out into the hills as well. Buggy turns on the other bugbears and takes a swing as Carl moves 10’ down toward the door and is now disengaged.
One more round of combat to play out here with the remaining PCs running for the hills and Buggy heroically making a last stand to buy his best friend Bill a chance to escape. Carl successfully escapes on 5, and then Buggy misses. At this point as no PCs are involved a bit of handwavium is about to happen here. Buggy and the other bugbear both die, and the champion proceeds to pick one PC corpse per day to eat. He drags Frank off to the table to eat. RIP Frank, there’s no surviving this one. In the meantime he leaves the other bodies behind for now.
As far as our survivors, with a con of 9, Elvis is the one least capable of distance running and will be able to run for 18 rounds (~2160 feet / yards) away from the manor. As he stops to breathe and determines they aren’t being followed, the three of them take a moment (turn) to rest. Carl Demands to go back to check on their comrades. Bill & Elvis disagree and want to return to town. Realizing that going back alone would likely be suicide, Carl relents and heads back to town with the other survivors.
Meanwhile, as mentioned above, the surviving bugbear will eat daily. Lets take a look and see where the victims are by the next day.
Andrew: 0HP(+5), Treatment: None, Timing: -10, Con: +1, total mod -4, Result: 0 / 1 (A red stain and shards of bone are all that remain.)
Davedor: -10HP (-5), Treatment: None, Timing: -10, Con: -1, total mod: -16, Result: 3 / 5 Blinded (-4 to all attack throws, no line of sight for spells, movement reduced to 1/4 normal, -2 to surprise rolls). Davedor isn’t dead, but might as well be alone in the wilderness and blind.
Frank: Already bugbear chow.
Briggy Smalls: Not even a PC, just gonna die.
Two days of travel through the outlying farmlands see the survivors returning to Origin on the 10th. Back within the confines of safety with minimal coin available we’ll go over what we’ve learned from this expedition in the next episode.
I think if I’ve learned one thing today it was just how much more dangerous higher HD opponents can be to low level groups in this system due to cleaving. Here’s hoping your day has gone better than theirs did.