Thank you.

Session 18: 12/10/2023

Cormak’s player went ahead and took me up on the Dex/Str swap that he had not made when switching from Trickster to Tempest cleric. He now has Strength 14 and Dexterity 10. We also remembered that he had not rolled on the Tainted Mind table when leveling up. In addition to his telepathy and Jump abilities, he now has Levitate! Not a great roll, but at least he has a theme going on. It’ll come in useful sometime, maybe.

I whipped up a summary sheet like I use for NPCs listing everything except his spells in one place, including his Reactions (get hit/deal damage and knockback) and Bonus Actions, and all 4 possible Channel Divinity uses. Character sheets are criminally poorly designed for players who don’t have an easy time holding a ton of options in their heads!
I think it helped some, although he still didn’t remember to use his reaction when getting hit.

The group moves to the library, where they fight an ice troll. They damage it down to 15/42hp, and then manage to roll misses and minor damage for 2 rounds so it heals back to nearly full hit points, and then Ludwig managed a crit or good sneak attack for 27 damage, and that was about it. Fire resistance and requiring acid to put down makes ice trolls tougher, even if they have ½ hit points and have less strength and fewer damage dice.

Checking over the library, they find a scroll of Minor Globe of Invulnerability and Conjure Minor Elementals, both 4th level spells. CME is on the Arcane Trickster list, but not the Sorcerer list, because Wizards of the Coast hates Sorcerers. Sorcerers also don’t get Magic Missile or Bigby’s Hand. Boooo.

There’s another door leading out of the library into a short hallway. The far end of the hallway is a secret door leading into the Lord’s bedroom, and just across and slightly down the hall is the Lord’s office / conference room / map room. Nalia is perturbed that the door out of the library is unlocked instead of being forced open. Odd.

They enter the office and see a man in full plate sitting in a chair, rocking back and forth, with a greatsword on his lap. “Glacius!”
“Ah, you’ve come. I will kill you for the glory of my new master, who’s magic has shown me the way!” Glacius slugs back a potion of Haste.

Glaicus:
AC 19 (Plate+Defense) or 21 hasted
HP 135
Speed 30 or 60 hasted
Str 18, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12
Saves Str +7, Dex +5 (Adv while hasted)
2x Attack +8 for 2d6+3 damage, or 3 attacks w/ haste

Action surge 1/encounter
1 potion Haste (1 minute; +2 ac, adv dex saves, extra action)

This was a pretty tough fight. In the second round, Cormak cast Bestow Curse. It doesn’t require an attack roll despite being a range of touch…it’s just a short-ranged spell! Instead of picking option #3 (roll a 15 or higher with +0 or do nothing), he picked the “disadvantage on wisdom saves” option. Glacius used action surge and threw out 5 attacks, knocking Cormak to 0. Glacius sort of didn’t want to kill Nalia, so on the next round, the hasted fighter pursued Mergand, who had been playing peek-a-Hunter’s Mark Firebolt from the hallway. Mergand had earlier used 2 sorcery points to create another 1st level slot, and Shielded from 3 attacks before Misty Stepping and then dashing away through the library. Nalia followed while Ludwig the rogue healed Cormak.

Cormak got up and cast Spirit Guardians, then backed up a bit too far. Glacius charged in and engaged Ludwig. Despite the lower AC, our rogue has 60-ish HP (Tough feat, +5 from Helm of Balduran, 16 CON) and didn’t mind getting hit twice for 11 (uncanny dodge) and 11. By this time, Glacius was fairly worn down. Nalia ended up ending him with a critical-hit Chromatic Orb to the back of the head for 34 damage. Poor guy. I’m glad Cormak’s player is expanding his repertoire of spells!

This was a fun fight. Despite being only one fairly simple enemy, it had a lot of the characters moving around… mostly because nobody wants to stand next to a blender.

Looting the room, they got a set of full plate (Glacius), a flail head (acid), 3 potions of superior healing, and Nalia extracted a Wand of Frost (3 charges, 6d8 or 8d6 – don’t recall which I told them - cold damage, 1 target, Con DC 14 half) from her father’s desk.

They looked at the map and decided to check the other rooms, finding one that had an intact door that was apparently blocked from behind. After some knocking and yelling back and forth, the guard recognizes Nalia’s voice. He unblocks the door (takes a little while) and lets the party in. The guard looks both exhausted and very stressed. Nalia’s Aunt Delcia is… very sure of her place in the world, and most people’s place below her. She complained about the filth the party was tracking around on her boots, how long they took, how they are probably looting the place, etc…. nobody liked her. There was talk of barricading her back in, with the poor guard silently shaking his head and mouthing “no, please.” Mergand threatened to make the Aunt clean up the bloodstains herself.

The situation was eventually resolved without bloodshed but with much annoyance. Heading down to the first floor, Aunt Delcia is shown the way out of the castle, and the party reassembles the Flail of Ages.

Flail +2, +1 element damage per head (base damage is thus 1d8+2 magic+3 elemental). If you roll an 8 on your damage roll, the target is Slowed until the end of its next turn: Its AC is reduced by 2, its speed is halved, it cannot take a bonus action, and it can only make one melee or ranged attack even if it could normally make more.

They get the history spiel, and consider whether or not carrying around Rakshasa bait is a good idea. “We’ll get more battles and will level up sooner!”
Cormak, as the only strength-based and only martial weapon user, is now carrying around Frostreaver, Gnasher, the Staff of Thunder & Lightning, the Staff of Healing, and the Flail of Ages. Luckily, encumbrance is weight-based, not “location on your body” based.

They proceed to the basement, where they sort-of surprise a troll who’s sitting there eating. “What is he eating?” “It’s better to not ask.” “Oh, right. Troll.” It goes down fairly easily. Cormak gets to try out the new flail, and the nice thing is that with Str 14, he’s doing 1d8+7 damage. Minimum 8 damage on hit feels pretty good. Checking the room, they find more magic ammo (there’s a lot in this castle) and also a Shield Amulet (adapted version: 1x/day, you can cast Shield as a reaction). Ludwig, as our mid-AC high HP tank rogue, gets it.

The next room has some old torture devices. The room after that contains 2 Umber Hulks. They have 60’ tremorsense, so there is no surprise here. Cormak does pre-cast Spirit Guardians (his last 3rd level slot). Mergand has used his sorcery points to get back 2 more 1st level slots, and is now out of SP. The group is initially taken back by “DC 15 Charisma save or maybe lose your turn” but eventually remembers that Cormak’s shield renders him immune to confusion effects.

The door between rooms here is only 5’ wide, so the first Umber Hulk turn is all misses due to squeezing before it backs up. Mergand drops a fireball into the room, hitting both Umber Hulks for about 34 damage. The next round, the hulk squeezes into the hallway and succeeds in shoving Ludwig back, un-bottlenecking the door and entering. Nalia goes next, fails her Charisma save, and runs into the room with the other Umber Hulk! She manages to Shield most of its hits, and on her next turn runs to the far corner and uses the party’s only scroll of Fireball (which spreads around corners) to hit both Umber Hulks. One Hulk goes down shortly after, then the party finishes off the final one with Nalia briefly dropping to 1! Hit point, barely saved by Arcane Deflection’s +2 AC bump.

They check the old dungeon cells and find where the Umber Hulks dug into the castle. The room also has a few minor treasures (poison crossbow bolts) and some studded leather. “Is it magic? Is it better than +1?” “Yes, it’s a +2.” “I’m putting it on! My AC is now 17!” “Don’t you want to know what it does?” “My AC is 17. But OK.”
Orc Studded Leather +2 (studs are bones and bone pieces instead of metal): +2 AC additional against missile/ranged weapon attacks. Disadvantage on Persuasion checks.
To me, the situational +2 vs ranged weapons is cancelled out by the skill malus and this doesn’t rate attunement. Ludwig doesn’t think he’s used persuasion very much.

It was near 10pm, so we stopped. Next time, Tor’Gal smells gradunk (whatever gradunk means).

This was a lot of fun! Those familiar with the game will see where I moved a few things around a bit to work more smoothly (why was a wand hidden in a fireplace?). We are a bit lighter on some of the random consumables that are normally vendor trash, so I’ll need to calculate and up the GP reward a bit at the end. Cormak has only 2nd level slots left. Mergand has 1 3rd level slot left, and maybe a couple of 2nd level spells. They also have several scrolls left, including Aganazzar’s Scorcher. They have enough healing potions to face 3 trolls while being at nearly full HP, so I think they’ll be fine.