Session Sixteen Recap 31DEC2016

Our party had just discovered a secret door behind a fake teleportation ring behind another secret door behind an ornate tapestry in what looked to be some kind of meeting room, dominated by a long table. the meeting room w long table

The irregularly shaped room, roughly carved in some places but primarily still natural formation, sloped gently down to pool of cool, black water that vanishes under the wall on the far side of the room.

(To make the map below easier to follow, the party has seen underwater only up to the purple areas or the southern edge of the map. The red lines show where the cavern ceiling comes down far enough to touch the water, meaning that beyond that point characters must either breathe water or start holding their breath and hope to find another air pocket.)

Submerged caves explored so far

Before entering the briny water, the party found an odd wooden club, made of some dark timber or perhaps painted, with an oily sheen to the whole weapon. The water itself was cool and fairly clear, allowing about 30' of vision underneath with a light source or darkvision.

Ali used alter self to gain gills and the ability to breathe underwater. A short distance to the nort, the cavern floor sloped up into a chamber where a humanoid figure lay.

The trip underwater was short enough that the party as a whole ventured to the chamber to discover a human chef bound. The poor gourmand rattled on about not wanting to be kidnapped underground to cook before the party could get any useful information from him. Apparently one of the drow smugglers had told him, "You're lucky! You don't die today!" before poisoning him into unconsciousness.

Ali scouted more to the south, finding more tunnel branches but no indication of air pockets. A chuul followed her back to the party, which they killed before anyone was seriously hurt.

With no obvious leads, the party returned to the unflooded portions of underground complex, helping the chef escape along the way. Going south, they found the kitchen, mess hall, pantry and a room where all the rubbish was thrown. They also found two very not stealthy otyughs and killed them before anyone got eaten.

Past the dining area, a small temple was found. A wraith was guiding one secret alcove to the east, and a secret door to the west revealed another set of hallways not on Razazco's map. The first room of this section was a storage room holding large quantities of wooden crates and broken down boards. The boards appeared to be normal pine and looked similar to those used inside the burning safehouse for smuggling magic weapons.

A few rooms later, the party found two trolls using lathes, saws and other woodworking tools. Ample use of acidic magic facilitated the destruction of the two ersatz carpenters, but the party felt quite drained at this point, requiring rest before continuing on.

At the end of the session, each member of the party had earned 1,983 XP, bringing the total of all characters to 12,567 XP. This amount is just under the 14,000 required for 6th level. (Looking ahead, it also takes 14,000 XP to get from level 8 to level 9, so it sounds like I need to start throwing bigger and more numerous encounters at the party to continue advancing with any semblance of speed.)

~Tidwin

01/07/2017

Session Fifteen Recap 17DEC2016

With the fire at Rozazco's clandestine storehouse extinguished, the party had myriad questions. The trick would be where to find the corresponding answers.

First things first, though. It would not be subtle to walk about town with an animated stove. Stopping by Hope's mentor, they asked him to watch the stove for now. The sage agreed, and so the party ventured to the archway which houses the barracks of the Knights of the Coronade to talk to Sir Richard and possibly talk to the captured dragonborn that apparently started the blaze.

Sir Richard was willing to confide what he knew of the situation with the dragonborn. The unadorned metal artefacts recovered from the amateur arsonist were both examples of prinsteel. This metal has never been worked or crafted according to any records available, but pieces of this material show up infrequently. They come in various shapes, such as tubes, boxes, cones and plates. Somehow these metal relics do not radiate as magical, but are capable of producing effects that can be described in no other way.

Sir Richard warned the party of his conundrum. Finding dangerous items like these within the walls of Bellstone Keep is a significant matter that should be brought to Baron Xenith's attention. However, dragons have behaved erratically and in highly destructive fashion in the past upon gaining possession of prinsteel objects. The name itself is both a play on the word pristine (due to the unmarred surface) and because the first dragon to take a keen interest in these devices was Prince Forgotten ("the prince's steel"). As son of the then-dragon emperor, the Prince was able to collect a vast number of prinsteel devices, but at some point the silver dragon gathered up maybe a dozen or so of these strange implements and went on a violent rampage. He first slew his father and much of the emperor's court. Declaring himself the new Dragon Emperor, he then flew quickly across the land, destroying swaths of large cities and obliterating isolated hamlets. The other dragons eventually killed the prince and secreted away all recovered prinsteel.  This tragedy took place over a thousand years ago, but even with their power and control of the world, the dragons could not eliminate knowledge of this material. They never speak openly about prinsteel or how it affects them, and Sir Richard cannot be sure what the Baron knows. The lead knight cannot even guess if Xenith might already possess any examples of this metal within his trove.

So the loyal knight confides to the party that once his investigation of the housefire is complete, he will likely have to disclose the existence of the cone and panel to the Baron. The report itself will take many days to prepare, but sooner or later Sir Richard must update Baron Xenith about what started the fire.

Armed with new knowledge, the party was allowed to see the dragonborn that began the whole fiasco. He lay on the floor of the cell, being too bulky for knights to lift his limp form up onto a cot. Nothing spoken or done to the prisoner elicited a response of any kind. Even bringing the prinsteel cone into contact with the comatose dragonborn changed nothing.

Disappointed with the mixed success so far, the party pointedly altered Sir Richard that they intended to next speak with Rozazco. Traveling to his mansion, they party was ushered in by a servant, their arrival having been anticipated.

Inside, the party began the interview by placing the nobleman under a zone of truth. While some of his responses were evasive, at no point did Hope receive notice from the spell that Rozazco had blatantly lied.

They learned that the house was indeed used for smuggling. In the event of some mishap that risked discovery of the entire operation, all pertinent documents were to be destroyed and the residents instructed to wear a special magical hat to protect themselves. The hat would obliterate the last year of the wearer's memories, so in a way they were protected by this inflicted ignorance from being drawn into any protracted investigation of the smuggling operation.

Rozazco had become aware that some entity or group was running an independent smuggling operation, but he had little information about their goals or methods. He spoke of a passage leading from the house to a network of underground rooms, but the large stone slab concealing the stairway down proved too problematic. However, he determined that the underground rooms were now being utilized by the independent smugglers and had arranged for a massive bone golem to spring into existence the next time that the entrance was tampered with. It sounds like that part of his plan went off without a hitch, forcing the five smugglers to fight the creature before being able to escape under the stone slab.

Armed with Rozazco's information, the party took the day to prepare for exploring the network of rooms described by Rozazco. Once rested and prepared, the party returned to the damp and smokey building to find the underground passage. The stone slab was lifted with relative ease and the party proceeded below the house.

The first room confirmed some suspicions. The two missing smugglers from the fire were lying lifeless on the ground. No wounds were immediately visible, but closer inspection revealed a small puncture wound under the left arm, conveniently close to the heart. Both had died from poison. Two sets of human-sized prints and a smaller set of prints led down one of the hallways.

Continuing through the halls, Ali sensed a briny tang to the smell of the air. Once alerted, the rest of the party could tell that they were near some sizable quantity of salt water. The next few rooms revealed cots for dozens, all currently empty, personal items strewn casually about. Nothing in the rooms indicated violence had taken place.

In the second of these barracks, a halfling rogue was found hiding far in the back. Hatcher had escaped the drow by being invisible. The halfling had drunk a potion of invisibility back when the fire first broke out and the rogues headed below the house to ask the drow what to do next. Apparently the drow had been constructing crates of unenchanted dampine to ship Rozazco's magic items and then absconding with the wood once the nobleman's network had transported the crates into the city. All previous shipments of dampine were sent to these underground rooms, but none had been requested for many weeks. Along with Markus and Jerhro, Hatcher had defeated the bone golem and survived the fight. Once underground, the drow waiting for them shot the two visible smugglers with poisoned crossbow bolts and left. Hatcher couldn't move the stone slab alone and didn't know what to do once the potion's effect wore off.

Satisfied with the information received, the party released fortunate smuggler, who quickly fled to the surface. The party found a few more rooms that showed recent evidence of habitation, but no bodies or evidence of a fight.

The doors up to that point had been light in colour. Now a dark coloured door barred their path. Going through, the sleeping area had a different feel, and the party surmised that the drow sequestered themselves to this section of the complex. Again, the room showed evidence of part activity but gave no clue to the current location of its occupants.

The group then opened another black door. The room was featureless except for a tapestry featuring a strange spider-woman hybrid. Easily recognizable as drow-crafted, the party examined the wall behind the hanging to find a secret door.

This room bore the obvious marks of arcane activity. A red circle was painted on the floor, marked with abstract symbols. But those symbols, once under scrutiny, appeared to be selected almost at random, being an odd mixture of draconic signs, dwarven runes, elven words, and other nonsensical characters.  But even if the script was gibberish, the circle still radiated illusion magic. Some of the party ventured cautiously into the circle, but learned nothing more. But once the drow sorceress stepped over the center of the circle, a magnificent display of magical light and sparkles engulfed the circle, and when it subsided, those near the entrance of the room could no longer see the party members who had ventured through the circle.Yet those party members found themselves in the same room, still able to see their compatriots across the chamber. For whatever reason, the circle is activated by the presence of a drow and serves to obscure the presence of those on the far side of the room.

Pushing through the invisible barrier, the party searched the blank wall behind the circle and discovered another secret door, this portal much better disguised than the last one. Once open, the smell of salt water was unmistakable as the party peered into the inky depths of a natural cavern.

~Tidwin

12/31/16

Session Fourteen Recap 10DEC2016

I'm throwing this statement out at the beginning of this post. I have no good idea how to comprehensively recap the adventure from this session. The party of six characters was split into five different groups at one point in the evening, pursuing a strange creature fleeing a burning house, searching for survivors, taming an animated oven, preventing the conflagration from spreading to adjacent domiciles, bargaining with captured fairies, and in general taking care of every conceivable problem piecemeal instead of in one concerted albeit plodding effort like I had planned.

Nonetheless, I still want a record of events for players to examine at their leisure, so bear with me if this story seems jumbled in portions.

Last week, a sarcophagus spilled onto the street released a mummy and two mummified cats. The majority of the party dealt with the undead menace. Early on, Ali cast fly on Kaden. Three undead combatants in the street would probably pose little challenge to the party so the half-orc left the fight and flew into the house, breaking through a window on the third floor*. (*In case this distinction comes up later, I'm using American numbering convention for buildings, so the first story would be ground level, the second story would be one floor up from that, and so on.)

He startled a bookish, exasperated clerk shuffling through a large desk of papers, almost oblivious to the impending inferno. When questioned by Kaden, the red-faced man indicated that he was in no danger and quite capable of saving himself. Satisfied with this answer and concerned that others inside this structure might not be similarly able to save themselves, Kaden flew into the main hallway running the length of the building.

At least it looked like it should run the length of the building, but maybe a few yards away a metal wall cut into the walls, blocking the hallway completely in that direction, an unremarkable steel door facing Kaden from that wall. Knocking on that door, the would-be rescuer was rebuffed by the individuals on the other side. Having failed to find anyone in need of saving, he flew to the spiral staircase leading up from the far end of the hallway.

In the attic, the rustic ranger encountered a dragonborn flying about the room, occasionally shooting a blast of fire from his hand. On closer examination, Kaden could tell the dragonborn stood on a flat metal plate, maybe a shield, which carried the firebug through the air. The flames originated from a metal device held in one hand. Kaden quickly knocked the dragonborn off the panel and forced the dropping of the source of the flames. After securing the inert dragonborn with rope, Kaden scooped up the pyromaniac and the two metal objects.

The rest of the party, having defeated the undead creatures on the street, prepared to enter the main door of the house. Suddenly a winged humanoid flew out the window Kaden had used to enter the burning building. Ali cast fly on herself and took off after it. Her airborne quarry never looked back but flew at a steady pace similar to the sorceress' speed. Traveling north across the city, the winged person alighted on a second story balcony of Rozazco's mansion.

Ali landed cautiously and without discovery was able to eavesdrop on a conversation between Rozazco and another gentleman presumed to be her target. Under questioning, the unknown man indicated that all evidence was in the process of being destroyed as planned. Stealthily returning to the air, Ali sped south to rejoin her comrades.

They had entered the front door like respectable visitors only to meet a large mechanical automaton guarding the main vestibule. It seemed incredibly upset at any magic items near the front door, repeating the confusing phrase, "No magic items leave the house." The sentry calmed down once all party members were standing away from the front door.

The first resident encountered was found wandering aimlessly with no obvious concern for his safety. The party directed him to the front door where he could make his own way to safety.

At that point the party split up due to different movement speeds. Hope soon discovered a group of huddled survivors. The five residents assured her they were fine and would safely escape the blaze. When approached a little later by Willow and Nimblethorn, the nonplussed lot repeated a similar promise to not allow any harm to befall them.

Willow and Nimblethorn continued to the next room and discovered a strange humanoid-shaped creation formed of bones. It bellowed in rage and directed a stream of bone shards at them. The two halflings backed away from the room. The gruesome creature did not follow, so they decided to resolved this opponent later.

Hope ended up in the kitchen, face to face with an animated stove. The metal menace was wildly running about, occasionally adding to the existing conflagration with its own blasts of fire from the oven. With luck and persistence (and probably relying a bit on her natural defenses) the paladin calmed down the erratic contraption. It stopped spouting new flames and making the fire worse.

The party quickly discovered evidence of a smuggling operation specialized in magical items. Rooms full of armour and weapons were found. Other chambers held wooden crates and packing material. Nimblethorn and Willow came across a library of scrolls and magical tomes where the burning books literally flew off the shelves and around the room, trying to quench the flames but in actuality spreading them. Willow cast create water inside the room, filling it completely and smothering the blaze in this room. This tactic would prove successful a few more times during the evening.

In a room on the second floor, the some of the party members inside the house briefly reunited to deal with a miniature prison holding many different fey creatures inside cages fashioned from cold iron. After promising Willow to not hurt anyone in the house, the trapped faeries were freed and they promptly flew away, scampered away or vanished into puffs of glittering dust to never been seen again.

Or did they?

Between Willow flooding a few more rooms and Nimblethorn casting thunderwave to strategically snuff out flames, the fire soon appeared under control. Outside the Knights of the Coronade were keeping citizens back a safe distance and starting their own fire-suppression efforts. Ali and Kaden flew one each to the neighboring domiciles to ascertain any potential ignition of those homes.

With the immediate danger passed, Ali related the story of her pursuit, while Kaden described the confrontation in the attic and displayed the strange metal objects used by the captured dragonborn. Checking another loose end, the five residents huddled on the first floor not exited the house onto the street. Searching inside, the party found three of their bodies and copious amount of bone fragments, indicating a massive combat had ensued.

One item of interest recovered during the rescue was a note hastily hidden in one of the dorms. The letter reads as follows:

Favoured sibling,

It was with great anticipation that I set down your last missive. The expectation of fair weather and a bountiful harvest pleased me greatly. I can say without contradiction that many customers await eagerly the arrival of your wares.

Sadly, I must concur with you opinion regarding your animals. They have been dutiful and hard-working throughout this endeavour but they have passed the zenith of their utility. It would not be an unkindness to relieve yourself of the burden of caring for those beasts at this time, provided the harvest is safely on its way to market. Their braying could both distract you or worse arouse the notice of your most proximate neighbours.

Regards,

Mos⟆step

The letter, translated from elven, bears signs of drow authorship.

The party knows that someone tried to eliminate this house and its contents to hide a terrible secret; now they only have to learn whose secret was dangerous enough to risk burning down a city.

~ Tidwin

12/30/16

Overview of the Sheinnarm Festival

First off, I enjoy running this campaign. I have not enjoyed such immediate rewards for my work and creativity in many long years. The players are enthusiastic, clever, outrageous, empathetic, frustrating and hilarious for all the right reasons and at all the right times. They challenge me to delve deeper into the history of my world and the goals, psyche and idiosyncrasies of my NPCs than I originally believed I would need to, have derailed more carefully laid plans, encounters or ambushes than I care to let on. (After all, I may get to use those unused tricks again in the future!)

The downside is that in always looking ahead, making sure I have every decision branch worked out in plausible detail, always planning two or three encounters more than I'll expect to need during a session, I have neglected looking back in review. Some sessions have been chronicled in sufficient detail. (By "sufficient detail"of course I mean "acceptable to my standards" which tend to be more exacting than they really need to be for a hobby.) More often than not, however, a recap has been started and left unfinished for various reasons: awaiting XP totals, leaving rulebooks behind when elaborating on particulars of a judgment call from that session, or just running short of time or energy.

With that in mind, now is probably the best time I have to give at least an overview of the recently ended Sheinnarm Festival. The threat to the city is ended for the time being, and the machinations of various dragons will pause for now. The obvious mysteries have been resolved. While unanswered questions and clues to other events below the surface remain unresolved, their day will come, possibly sooner than later.

So to recap...

The Sheinnarm Festival began with the traditional procession of the invited crafters into the Coronade, or innermost ring of Bellstone Keep.. The characters, traveling along with their different employers, found themselves in the middle of an ambush as goblins crept from the sewers. The City Guard on the scene were poorly prepared for the attack, so the characters swiftly dealt with the interlopers. Suspicious of the tepid response from the City Guard, the players banded together to track the goblins into the sewers, defeating several exiled desert goblins and a humanoid contrivance made of muslin, wood, gears and springs. Inside was a crystal that might control the strange contraption.

At the suggestion of Sir Beckley, the group talked to Sir Richard, leader of the Knights of the Coronade. Sir Richard suggested that a magical adept known as 'the Guy' might shed some light on the source of the gem. The Guy was able to cast a spell that indicated a distant magical connection still clung to the gem. The party followed this connection to a hut deep in the swamps northeast of the Keep. Once there, they were greeted by an old woman who indicated both that she had been waiting for them and that it was her responsibility to keep them busy for five days, which would take the party past the end of the Festival.

For the next few days, the party trudged and rested inside a maze build from the loamy mud and plant debris of the swamp, encountering troglodytes, kobolds, goblins, a minotaur, ice-covered gelatinous cubes and more. After the proscribed time had passed, the group found themselves again at the hut with the old lady, who revealed herself to be an efreeti under the service of another with designs to disrupt the Sheinnarm Festival and possibly harm Bellstone Keep. Giving them a magic carpet, she encouraged the party to seek out the Guy to regain some of the lost time spent in the maze.

The magic carpet arrived back at Bellstone Keep as distant figures could be seen in the sky far to the south. The Guy welcomed them inside and gave them a key that would unlock his front door four days ago. Once inside his house in the past, the characters were directed to a magical chamber pot that teleported anything placed inside directly to the sewers. Escaping through the sewers, the party again contacted Sir Richard to explain the situation.

The immediate mastermind behind this plot appears to be a disgruntled crafter named Torrence Zant. Five years ago he was passed over for recognition and personally blames Baron Xenith for the disastrous outcome of the Festival. In the intervening years, the erstwhile competitor has possibly received assistance from both the efreeti at the swamp hut and maybe the green dragon Vavassor Ihkorr, who rules the marshy wasteland northeast of the Keep. Torrence's plan is to convince different desert goblins through intimidation or trickery to launch an attack on Bellstone Keep from the south. The desert is ruled by a blue dragon named Mirage. The aggression of the goblins would encourage factions in the Keep to retaliate against the goblins, and the escalation would soon embroil the dragons in direct conflict. Regardless of the victor, Torrence would see Baron Xenith suffer and Ikor might be able to advance his own position with two nearby rivals weakened.

While most Festival attendees remained unaware, Sir Richard began working to defend the city without alarming the Baron. Meanwhile, the party journeyed south, underneath the Shiftless Mountains and into the desert. They soon discovered evidence of Torrence's unsuccessful interactions with the desert goblins. The Sandslayer tribe found the party and agreed to help them stop the vengeful artisan.

Tracking the Stomper tribe, the mingled group reached the foot of the mountains where some Stompers were camped. Torrence had led the rest of the tribe up into the mountains with various crates, contraptions and supplies. Carefully ascending the mountain, the group found the goblins' camp during the night. Set up along the ridge, facing north, were several winged conveyances ready to launch towards Bellstone Keep.

Under the cover of a silence spell, the flying war machines were disabled. The activity evetually roused the goblins, but when the truth of the fake Chief Gritsnot was revealed, they were eager to abandon this mad enterprise and return home to their desert.

Torrence emerged from his tent, ready to somehow salvage his plot but was quickly subdued. With the mastermind and some of his creations in hand the group was ready to warn the city and diffuse the inter-dragon conflict before it could even begin. However, their brief celebration was interrupted by Stubtoe the Greater, a blind goblin from the Eremite tribe (the goblin mystics) who congratulated the group but told them not to worry, he had foreseen these events and had sent the Feathershadow tribe (goblins that train giant vultures and even rocs(!)) to fly north to Bellstone Keep to warn the citizens of Torrence's plot.

Of course, the party, having warned Sir Richard about an impending aerial assault on the city, knew that a flight of goblins coming from the desert would be mistaken for that attack. While they scrambled come up with a way to return to the city, Stubtoe gestured to a wicker elephant he had prepared. The party climbed in with some hesitation and a waiting bird grasped the pachyderm-shaped basket and whisked it to the city, dropping from beyond the range of any nervous archers. The spectacular arrival caught the attention of nearly the entire city, including of Baron Xenith and other important personages. The party was briefly detained to verify the incredible information presented, but with knowledge of the most pertinent portions of the plot now widely available and accepted as fact, the threat was averted and the festival could conclude.

Willow's mentor created magical serum that grows a tree with silver and gold leaves and rubies for flowers. This glittering display won the overall prize from the Baron, along with the attendant perks of residence in a magnificent house for a year and the potential for lucrative patronage from nobility both near and far.

After an evening of post festival celebrations, the characters were woken by a messenger from Rozazco. The florid nobleman of questionable business practices apparently learned of a disruption in communications with one of his clandestine warehouses. With a simple request to just check in on the premises, the party headed south towards the address given.

Even without Rozazco's information, locating the house in question was a simple task, as the upper floor were on fire and walking around the street in front was an ancient mummy and two embalmed cats. The party quickly dispatched the undead threat and now will try to learn the secrets hidden inside the burning house.

~ Tidwin

12/30/16

Math Attack!

I know it's been a long while since there has been a meaningful update to the information here, and the characters have unearthed a veritable library of secrets, rumours and innuendo. I will delve into those next, but to get back into the practice of writing about Bellstone Keep, here are some math (yes!) problems that the players have been dealing with.

A while back I was marvelling at the concept of advantage/disadvantage as a game mechanic.
(Hey, Jonathan Tweet! Advantage dice were an awesome facet of Over the Edge. Why didn't they make it into D&D 3.0?) Advantage or disadvantage as a general rule applies only to d20 rolls like attacks, saves or ability checks. For advantage, you roll two icosahedra and take the greater of the two results. Disadvantage is similar, but taking the lower number from the two dice. It seems reasonable to assume that results with advantage are better than average, but is it possible to prove that conjecture mathematically? Is there some way to quantify what numeric benefit advantage confers? Conversely, can we compute the penalty incurred when rolling a penalty die?

Well, yes! If you want all the details, the raw calculations are on the spreadsheet here. To calculate the average result, all possible results were added and that total divided by the number of outcomes. For example, a standard d20 has twenty possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4...18, 19, 20. The sum of all those numbers is 210. 210/20 = 10.5 as shown in the chart below. The other results were obtained in a similar fashion.

The basic overview is that you gain better than a +3 bonus on your result when rolling with advantage. With disadvantage, your result is impacted worse than if you rolled d20-3.

Out of curiosity, I extended my computations to allow for rolling three twenty-sided dice and taking the best (or worst) result. As expected, the results were more pronounced. The benefit from advantage is just shy of +5 (Paging Holy Avenger! Mr. Avenger, will you please pick up the white courtesy phone?) The penalty also computes to roughly -5 as well. I don't know if I'll ever call for a "double advantage" roll but at least I know what to expect.

Two sessions ago, the party encountered a burning house. In an effort to douse the conflagration, our cleric Willow cast create water inside several rooms within the house. Without crunching the numbers, I allowed the 30' cube of water that spontaneously sprang into the room to extinguish the flames therein. But was that snap decision accurate?

A 30' cube is 30 x 30 x 30 = 27,000 cubic feet of water. The rooms targeted were 40' wide and 35' long with a 15' high ceiling. 40 x 35 x 15 = 21,000 cubic feet of water. So each room could be filled to the brim with water, leaving an extra 6,000 cubic feet of water to drain onto fires elsewhere in the house.

If the room had been 20' high instead, would the spell have been as effective? 40 x 35 x 20 = 28,000 cubic feet, so there would have been a thousand cubic feet of space left untouched by the spell. Arguably the fire might exhaust all the oxygen in that air pocket and extinguish itself, so the desired outcome of the spell probably would have been just the same.

(Brief aside: so how much weight did this spell add to the already damaged structure? At room temperature, a cubic foot of water weighs more than 62 pounds. The full spell summons over 1.6 million pounds of water into existence, similar to inviting 140 Asian elephants to march in and make themselves at home. Even the 6,000 cubic feet rushing back into the hallway weighs over a third of a million pounds. Did I mention that the cleric casting this spell from outside the room is a halfling?)

(Last brief aside: When will the United States switch over to metric? A cubic meter of room temperature water weighs a ton. 30 feet is roughly 9.144 meters. That length cubed comes to just under 765, so that's 765 metric tons of water. Finito!)

So last session, the party ventured under the saved if smouldering edifice to search a secret area mentioned by Rosazco the Rapscallion. (That's not slander; the nobleman will happily answer to that moniker!) The entrance was blocked by a stone slab 10 feet long and 5 feet wide resting over a depression and concealing a staircase. With great feats of strength and engineering, the party breached the subterranean vault. For visual reference, I stated that the slab was angled up at 30 degrees, allowing the party access to the descending stairs.

On the way home, Robin pensively asked, "Would everyone in the party fit under the slab if it was only raised 30 degrees? That would only be five feet of clearance."

I quickly answered, "Well, the staircase also started down at the lip of the opening, so there was more than five feet." That reply satisfied Robin but I wondered how accurate I was.

As Robin correctly computed, a ten-foot slab lifted at 30 degrees rises five feet above the ground. If it helps, think of a 30 degree angle as part of the right triangle formed when an equilateral triangle is cut perfectly in half.

Before even figuring how quickly the staircase descends, remember that the ten-foot slab is rotating at one end to form that 30 degree angle. So the base of the triangle formed is less than ten feet long, but the opening still stretches for the full ten feet.

 If only there were some way to mathematically determine the length of the base of this triangle.

Pythagoras is judging you with his dead, dead eyes.

Okay, so yes, the Pythagorean Theorem teaches us that the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two legs of a right triangle equals the square of the length of the hypotenuse. Simple, right?

Rounding, we find that the base of this triangle would be 8.66 feet. But the slab and the hidden aperture were both ten feet long. So where would the stairs begin?

Lifting up the slab also moves that edge away from directly above the rim of the gap. Subtracting the two values shows that the stairs run a full 1.34 feet before coming under the cover of the lid again. So how much staircase is that?

For simplicity's sake, I judged that the staircase would slant at a brisk 45 degrees. The benefit of this presumption is that the two legs of a 45 degree right triangle are congruent, so the length of one equals the length of the other. If the stairs go across 1.34 feet before reaching the slab, then the stairs go down 1.34 feet in that same space.

With a total of 6.34 feet of clearance, all but the most colossal half-orcs should easily get below the house without banging their heads.

I felt a 45 degree incline was reasonable on a staircase, but modern construction yields a less demanding flight. Today stairs are commonly built with eleven inch landings and seven inch risers, making the slope easy to figure out. (We don't need the angle of decline for our calculations, but it works out to roughly 32.47 degrees if you were curious.) We know how big the gap is (1.34 feet) and we also know that for every 11 inches over, the stairs drop 7 inches. Multiply 1.34 by 7/11 (or 0.63 repeating as a decimal) to get roughly 0.85 feet of decline for that gap. That's another 10 inches, so only the tallest characters would have to stoop to get into the secret tunnel. (Given our reflex to NOT bump our heads, probably some characters under 5'10" would still have ducked a wee bit.)

One last math question came to me while working on another campaign with a sailor turned druid. Before taking to adventuring, he was a fisherman. So could he wield a harpoon or trident or another nautically themed weapon?

Druids are proficient only in simple weapons. This restriction covers the spear but not the trident. (A "harpoon" does not exist specifically in the rules currently.) While bristling at this exclusion, I started comparing the statistics on the two weapons. What I saw was confusing.

Other than being half as heavy but twenty-five times the cost(!), there is no difference between the two weapons. None. They throw the same distance, do the same damage whether using one or two hands to attack. So maybe the answer to this question isn't found in math, but what makes the trident a more selective weapon?

~Tidwin

 12/29/16

Just Deserts

So I've made a large expanse of arid wasteland south of Bellstone Keep the focus of attention for the next few sessions. Unfortunately, like a shipwrecked survivor scouring a beach littered with flotsam for vital supplies, the rules about deserts are scattered throughout both the DMG and PHB in a haphazard fashion. Having pulled together the different sections, here is my concise guide to 5th Edition rules about deserts.

What lives in the desert?

At the back of the DMG, potential monster encounters are sorted by environment, and desert monsters are on page 302. Additionally, nomadic tribes probably live in the desert, similar to our world. Trade routes might be established with small enclaves at an important juncture or an isolated oasis.

What about desert gear?

The biggest enemy in the desert is the sun itself. It can heat you up, making you sweat at the slightest exertion. If you get a sunburn, your body will spend precious water repairing the damaged skin. So how can you defeat an enemy that glares down on you for roughly 50% of the time?

Shielding yourself from the sun takes some work but is vital to prevent sweating that deprives your body of water, and the first step is to dress for the environment. In our world, the optimal wardrobe consists of a hat (wide brim, closed crown), long pants (lightweight, breathable material is preferable), and a long sleeved shirt (same idea as pants).

Unfortunately, there is no listing in the Player's Handbook or the Dungeon Master's Guide for cotton robes, wide-brimmed hats, turbans or any other familiar desert gear. Under magic items, efreeti chain (DMG 167) looks like armor you might find being worn by a desert warrior, but the item makes no specific mention of the desert. I cannot say that this armor offers no benefit to those traveling across the desert because this armor confers immunity to fire damage to its wearer. As we'll see below, this benefit is extremely helpful.

In addition to clothing, characters can rely on shade to hide from the baleful glare of the sun. Shade might be found naturally (cave, rock formation), improvised (strategically place cloak or shield) or prepared (tents or other constructed shelter). In 5th Edition, the only tent listed for sale can shelter two people. This modest tent costs 2gp and weighs 20 lbs. (PHB 150) This limited offering is in sharp contrast to previous editions. Even Pathfinder offers a wide array of tents to suit an adventurer's needs and preferences. However, those prices are more expensive. Their "small" tent also weighs 20 lbs., costs five times as much yet can protect only a single occupant.

In an effort to balance the two systems, here is a breakdown of tents available. Cold weather tents are padded with furs and extra layers to fend off frigid temperatures. A cold weather tent gives advantage to saves against the effects of cold weather. Be warned; those tents provide no protection from cold damage.

The one useful item subject to several rules is the waterskin. (PHB 150 & 153) A waterskin holds 4 pints of water. To those unfamiliar with English measurements (which can even include those who use English measurements), 2 pints make a quart, and 4 quarts make a gallon. Thus, 1 waterskin = 2 quarts = 0.5 gallons. The quantity of water needed to safely traverse the desert is covered below.

Other than Lincoln Chaffee, who wants to use an easy-to-learn system like metric?

What are the consequences of traveling in the desert heat?

Wilderness travel (DMG 106-112) is discussed generally, with specific dangers on pages 110 & 111.
Extreme heat can weaken a creature lacking sufficient water. Extreme heat is defined as sustained temperatures above 100F (~38C). After an hour of extreme heat, a character makes a DC 5 Constitution save. Failure gives the character a level of exhaustion. Remember that the levels of exhaustion (PHB 291) are cumulative and will eventually cause the death of a character. Each subsequent hour, another Constitution save is required, but with an increase of the DC by 1 for every cumulative hour spent in the heat.

Now here's where the efreeti chain comes in handy. Characters wearing medium armor, heavy armor or heavy clothing makes the Constitution save with disadvantage. (I cannot find any definition for "heavy clothing" so your guess is as good as mine.) However, creatures with resistance or immunity to fire damage automatically make those saves, regardless of other factors. (Creatures adapted to hot climes also succeed automatically.)

How much water is required to survive in the desert?

A character needs one gallon of water daily to survive under average conditions, regardless of size. (Sorry, halflings.)  However, this requirement increases to two gallons of water daily in hot weather. (PHB 185)

What is hot weather? I can only presume that it is weather that is a bit hotter than average that does not meet the criteria for extreme heat listed above. If I had to make a call (and I guess I do), then I would list "hot" weather as 80F (~27C) or warmer.

A character could conceivable consume four waterskins daily to survive. If a character drinks only half the required amount, then the end of every day will require a DC 15 Constitution save. Failure means the character gains one level of exhaustion. A character without even half rations of water automatically fails that save. Additionally, if anyone already has one level of exhaustion from any source, then failure inflicts two levels of exhaustion instead.

These rules mean that if a character has no access to water, then that character suffers one level of exhaustion after the first day. The next day takes the character down two levels of exhaustion. Another two levels on the third day drop the character to the fifth level of exhaustion, only one above dying. So on the fourth day, any exhaustion suffered will kill the character. This time limit is a little more generous than the commonly accepted medical wisdom that states it takes only three days without water to kill a human.

What hazards are there in addition to heat?

The section of wilderness hazards (DMG 110) lists strong winds as a threat. In most environments, the wind makes ranged attacks and Wisdom (Perception) checks based on sound more difficult. In a desert, the sand and dust picked up by such winds become a sandstorm, imposing disadvantage on Wisdom(perception) checks relying on sight in addition to other impediments listed.

While not specifically listed in either book, a character could drown in the desert. Dry river beds cutting across the desert might yield valuable water after some persistent digging, but those gullies are also channels where rain can quickly gather into a flash flood. A character trapped in the sudden torrent runs the risk of suffocating. (PHB 183) A character can hold their breath a number of minutes equal to (1 + Constitution modifier). Characters with a negative modifier can hold their breath for 30 seconds (5 rounds). After that time, the character is still alive for a number of rounds equal to their Constitution modifier, with a minimum of one round.

Stay cool!

~ Tidwin

10/07/16

Session Eight Recap 11SEP2016

Last time, the party jumped back in time to about the same time that they left town to venture into the swamp the first time. Having returned to town, the clock is ticking towards a future where a massive wave of flyers approach Bellstone Keep from the desert.

Having established a plan with Sir Richard to gather archers surreptitiously, everyone returned to the Inner Market to meet their Masters. In the early morning, they find Baron Xenith, with a coterie of nobles and important personages, touring the market. The nobles were talking eagerly, offering their opinions about the crafts on display, but the Baron seemed uninterested in the conversation.

• Yward Brightscale: dragonborn captain of the City Guard
• Lady Holly: human First Scribe of the Learned Vassals
• Grover Horntuner: gnome High Foreman of the Miner's Guild
• Harvey Gamblegain: gnome Magnate of the Coiner's Guild
• Reverend Zatapiony: dwarf Skipper of the Sailor's League
• Rosazco Quill: weapons merchant and patron of the arts
• Dame Grace: Knight of the Golden Blade, visiting from Cliffside

While still watching the dragon and his retinue, a familiar voice calls over to the party. The goblin An'stuff is dressed as a toreador, keeping a sluggish bull at bay. With a flourish of his crimson cape, An'stuff explains he is helping a crafter display costumes that let one act with unfamiliar skills or talents. In this case, the diminutive goblin is toying with a bull easily three times his size, magically endowed with the abilities of a toreador. The tailor Eskestash explains that the costumes can imitate and bestow activities which engender some passion: dancing, juggling, bull fighting, and similarly passionate pursuits. Finer skills like crafting remain beyond Eskestash's ability to mimic through his costumes yet.

Suddenly, An'stuff gives a terrified but muffled scream. The luckless goblin has somehow become entangled in the cape. More worrying, though, is that the listless bull has been replaced by a monstrous bull of intimidating size. The beast swings its sharp horns at anyone near, but it also breathes a strange green dust across the market, although none in the crowd seem affected by the noxious plume.

The party deftly works to get the crowd out of the way, release An'stuff and face the terrifying creature. Kaden also spots a city guard slinking away that bears an uncanny resemblance to the illusion of a guardsman created by the recovered magic cap. A few quick shots bring the "guard" to a stop, while the party members fighting the gorgon are joined by Rosazco. The nobleman seems to handle his blade well enough, although his reddish face indicates that combat might be a level of exertion to which he is unaccustomed.

The party successfully smote the foul beast while saving An'stuff. The "guard" turns out to be a goblin wearing another of those illusion-generating caps. The uncooperative troublemaker is bundled off to the custody of the city guard. Glad that his model and his merchandise remained unharmed, Esketash gave the party 500gp in gratitude.

Flush with either exertion or ecstasy, Rosazco invites the party to a Shiennarm celebration at his Inner Ring mansion. Arriving at the appointed time, the party arrives at Quillmere, an opulent dwelling filled with art objects, rare weapons and unusual creations crafted by previous Shiennarm victors.

One guest in particular does not seem to enjoy the festivities. Nimblethorn encounters the glowering human, who curtly asks where the host can be found. Not suspecting any ill intent, Nimblethorn eagerly points out Rosazco among the throng. The human storms up, announces himself as Ulric McMahon and challenges the noble to a duel.

At this point of the evening, hoswever, the large-nosed reveler is in no condition to fight. Before passing out, Rosazco gets Beckley to serve as his second, who then finds himself dueling an angry Ulric. Despite a lucky early blow from Ulric, the knight dispatches the unruly guest and the party resumes.

While Xenith is not at the party, the retinue of significant personages is present, along with Lt. Aden Foxhaven, second-in-command of the City Guard. In particular, the party talks with the two gnomes about their journey to the desert. Instead of a long trek over the mountain range, the gnomes reveal that the dwarves have an extensive network of mines under the mountain, including one path where a railcart can bring them to the edge of the desert. The gnomes warn the party that this route has falen into disuse, so there might be unwelcome guests on the trip.

The next day, the party heads out to the mines. The miners, having been forewarned, escort the party to the railroad in question. Although the trip passes uneventfully, the cavern where the group arrives is dark and a nest of gricks have settled in comfortable. After fighting off the resilient foes, they can venture out and look south onto the desert.

~ Tidwin
10/07/16