Session 11: 10/8/2023

The party goes in loud, giving the opposition a bit of time to buff. The opposition:
Captain Haegan, Gladiator (PHB 346, AC 17, switched to longsword instead of spear).
3x a5e Thug (CR 1, AC 14, 32hp, 2 attacks w/ shortsword)
1x Order Priest of Cyric (from a PDF, around 6th level, 64hp and slots up to 3rd level but mediocre spell selection)
1x Archer (PHB 348 Scout, upgraded to 24hp and +6 to hit via a +1 bow and +1 arrows)

They emerge into one side an area about 50’ wide by 70’ long, with the area in front of them blocked off from the far side of the grounded ship by a big stack of crates and barrels. At the back of the area is a well-built troll pen containing two doors. A kid is tied up near the door. I end up kind of regretting this because I don’t like kids getting killed, even if there’s no detail.

The Priest has pre-buffed Haegan, the archer, himself, and one thug with Bless. Korgan immediately breaks left and starts dealing with two and later three of the thugs, while the priest tries unsuccessfully to Command him twice and Sacred Flame him once. The dice and his high AC are in his favor, and he only gets hit perhaps twice in the whole battle.
Cormak gets shot a couple of times by the archer and ends up going down. It turns out that he did not heal up in the sewers before they decided to fight a lot. Mergand has decided to put his extra Bhaal power point into his Cure Wounds, which is now cast at 3rd level, so he helps the cleric stand back up “by the power of the god of Murder.” Very helpful. Ludwig swordfights with Haegan, but as he is still suffering from otyugh disease and has the Poisoned condition, he has a hard time doing much. Steady Aim just lets him sacrifice his bonus action to attack once without disadvantage – although he still does manage to add a couple of sneak attacks. Haegan’s +7 to hit for 2dx+3 is much more consistent, although the only time he lands a knockdown with his shield is against Cormak.

Cormak ends up placing Fog Cloud right behind Captain Haegan, cutting off line of sight to the archer. Arounds this point, Korgan has almost finished wiping the floor with the thugs. The archer yells to Haegan asking if he should release the trolls yet, with a “no, I think we’ve got this” type answer back. Ludwig, low on HP, disengages, runs into the fog, and chugs a healing potion. The next round, he uses Disguise Self to make himself look like Captain Haegan and say no to releasing the trolls, and asks the Priest of Cyric for healing.

Unfortunately, this is right around the time when Haegan, pursuing Mergand down the stairs a bit (Mergand has been using Shield and took nearly no damage at all), gets hurt enough that he decides to retreat. He also goes into the fog and uses a healing potion, and then emerges, so there are two Haegans yelling at each other about one or another being an impostor, and giving conflicting commands.
That was pretty fun.

The priest of Cyric can’t tell who is who, so he uses another Cantrip, and then eventually loses Bless and instead hits Korgan with Hold Person. Haegan is low on hit points and most of his minions are dead, so he runs over, shoves the tied up kid in front of the troll doors, and then pulls the level that opens the troll cage, yelling “Here’s a snack, now go kill everyone who’s not me!”

I roll d20s for troll obedience (they aren’t very obedient) and both do. Unfortunately, the kid dies. Nobody had prioritized getting anywhere close. The Priest of Cyric retreats, hopping over the space at the bottom of the stairs (my players noticed me do it with the token and quickly decide that there is a trap there…. There was). The next round, I roll obedience for the trolls again. One goes and smacks Cormak around, knocking him to 2hp. The other one rolls a 6, and, being quite hungry, decides that Captain Haegan is stinky and a good snack, and knocks the slaver to 0hp. He spends a couple of rounds eating the slaver. Cormak uses Stinking Cloud to block off the stairway and prevent anyone from escaping.

The other troll pursues Cormak, grabs him, and tries to hurl him at Mergand, but misses. The fall damage knocks Cormak back to 0hp (2 levels of exhaustion), which ends the cloud. Mergand feeds him a healing potion, and Ludwig uses Tasha’s Hideous Laughter to temporarily disable the troll. They manage to kill the Priest of Cyric with a thrown axe as he’s fleeing up the stairs, and then follow. Mergand puts a Bonfire on the stairs, and they watch… the troll doesn’t know about the trap. After triggering 4d12 of acid damage from the trap, the troll pursuing them decides it’s not worth it.

Left behind in the basement: +1 longbow, +1 studded leather, +1 arrows, misc stuff worth a couple of hundred gp. They are, as of the end of the session, trying to figure out how to get it. Burning the entire ship has been discussed, although starting a major fire in the slums would be an issue.

They check over the store-room they’ve ended up in. There are several chests and barrels, one of which is locked. Ludwig fails in his first attempt at unlocking it, but does manage to trigger a poison-needle trap that does some damage (very bad perception rolls). With locks like this, I say if you take an entire minute instead of 6 seconds, and go slow, eventually you’ll get it…

They find some fire arrows (+1d4 fire damage on hit, 20), several scrolls, half of which are fire spells, some gold, several Greater Healing potions (Ludwig and Cormak consume one each), and a couple of Potions of Neutralize Poison. Ludwig chugs one. It doesn’t cure disease, but does free him of the Poisoned condition for an hour.

They hear noises from one of the doors out of the room. Mergand peers under the door and sees someone putting on boots, so he uses a couple of pitons to wedge the door shut. They go check out the other door, and find a narrow hall and two rooms containing more captive kids. They start picking the lock and trying to reassure the kids that they’re there to get them out, but not quite yet. Ludwig isn’t very persuasive. They do wonder who had the key, and speculate (correctly) that it was probably the guy in charge that they last saw being eaten by a troll.

The door that had someone behind it gets knocked open eventually, and a Berserker (PHB) charges out. Seeing a blood-spattered Korgan holding a bloody axe, there is no viable attempt at misdirection. Battle ensues, and the reckless berserker is cut down swiftly.

Mergand goes invisible and sneaks up the stairs to recon the next floor. On the next floor, he finds what appears to be an eating area. Some of the tables have been overturned and face towards the stairs. There are 3 men visible with bows, as well as two dressed in wizard’s robes. One of the two is a gnome.

They don’t know it yet, but there are also some ball bearings on the floor covered by a minor illusion (unless I forget them by next week).
They say they’re low on resources. Ludwig has cast 2 spells. Cormak’s player forgot he had 3rd level spells until reminded, and still has one of those and both CDs left. He’s still having trouble managing the full range of Cleric abilities, partly because character sheets are terrible at helping organize all the different things you can do. Mergand has both 3rd level slots and at least 2 2nd level slots left, and they have a number of healing potions. They’ll be fine.

I mean, there’s a Fireball in the near future, but they’ll be fine, even if they don’t feel like it.