Session Two Recap 2JUL2016

Session two went quite differently than I planned. It would appear that the players are trying to gain all of their XP without having to slaughter thousands of creatures like nearly every other party ever in existence in the history of FRPGs. This week the combatants were a rust monster and a houseful of animated carpets, both of which the party (or at least individuals therein) were trying to capture rather than kill at some point that evening.

Nonetheless, the party made it through, even when facing two batches of carpets simultaneously. The rust monster is safely hidden away back at the Inner Market, and the party has earned the respect of Sir Richard and the Knights of the Coronade. With the friendly commander's help, they party secured an audience with a mysterious magician known only as the Guy. It was the party's hope that maybe he could uncover more information on the gem from the automata wizard from the sewers. After retrieving a favourite rug from a past incarnation of the house (as well as three bottle of chocolate syrup), the Guy was able to cast a spell on the gem that will obstensibly lead the party to its owner.

not normally found in spell component pouches

As rewards, the party received 200 XP each as well as a sack full of the Guy's glass recyclables. The contents of the sack break down as follows:

• 1 nondescript orb of glass
• 4 potions in clear flasks that give off a faint red glow
• 1 potion in a clear flask giving off a stronger red glow
• 3 clay bottles with an imprinted image of a sword
• 3 vials made of black glass etched with a pale eye
• 3 glass flasks with an flame painted on the side
• 4 glass bottles with a green unhappy face and then a yellow smiley face
• 3 crude clay vials with a skull and crossbones in black and a red line through it, then another skull and crossbones with a red circle, but then crossed out and...never mind, it will be much easier if I just show you:

this label has NOT been approved by the FDA

As far as rules concerns, I don't remember any issues over interpretation that was the source of debate. There was one issue we hammered out fairly quickly, and another issue where, like the SCOTUS, I punted at the time to resolve the problem later after much deliberation.

(When I say, "I don't remember any issues" I am being forthright. I completely forgot to bring my sticky notes so I would possess a physical, written record of the night's conundrums. However, I have a brilliant idea to solve this problem...a sparkling, brilliant idea!)

1) OMG They Didn't Kill Kenny!

My party is composed of very thoughtful players, willing to consider a wide variety of options in solving situations where most groups would just slaughter anything that moved. So far they have spared marauding desert goblins, paid assassins, a clueless bugbear, and a potentially destructive rust monster. They also tried to wrestle several magically animated carpets into submission, though that did not work as intended.

These actions have been made more remarkable when you consider that Fifth Edition has no subdual damage or non-lethal damage. Gone are the days of tracking two types of damage as the players attempt to bludgeon an opponent into unconsciousness. Instead, the game has a simple rule for Knocking a Creature Out (PHB, pg. 198):

When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable.

No more tracking damage or trying to guess how weak a creature is. (And good riddance to the spell deathwatch!) The only occurrence that might prevent a non-lethal capture is our friend Instant Death (PHB, pg. 197):

Massive damage can kill you instantly. When damage reduces you to 0 hit points and there is damage remaining, you die if the remaining damage equals or exceeds your hit point maximum.

This doesn't necessarily contradict the first rule, but reading down a bit on page 197 to the section on Falling Unconscious and we learn:

If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and fails to kill you, you fall unconscious. (emphasis mine)

When using the rule to knock a creature out, you are choosing to render a creature unconscious rather than dying at the point where your target reaches 0 hit points. However, falling unconscious is not an option if the amount of damage delivered is sufficient to instantly kill the defender. The rule for knocking a creature out does not say the damage dealt is ignored, only what happens when the creature could start dying.

In short, subdual damage vanished from this edition but death from massive damage received a makeover. Please be warned; scoring a critical hit on a severely wounded adversary might preclude the opportunity to ask questions later.

2) Identify crisis

Okay, this is where my style of playing D&D might be interfering with how the players want to approach D&D. I've always viewed magic items a bit like computer programs or web pages or technological devices with no instructions included. One can learn what this unknown item does or how it functions through a mix of examination, experimentation, intuition, research and blind luck. In some ways, Fifth Edition intimates such a universe, listing four ways that players can learn the properties of magic items on page 136 of the DMG:

1. cast an identify spell
2. focus on a single item during a short rest
3. discover some clue (keyword, feathery motif, etc.) on the item
4. wear the item or experiment with it

However, method #1 seems the most fool-proof, given that the spells says (page 252, PHB):

You choose one object that you must touch throughout the casting of the spell. If it is a magic item or some other magic-imbued object, you learn its properties and how to use them, whether it requires attunement to use, and how many charges it has, if any.

Identify takes one minute to cast if prepared, or 10 minutes if performed as a ritual (giving the party the equivalent of a short rest). This method takes all guesswork out of an item and essentially declares the party knows the entire rules entry on the given item. However, even this course of action is not perfect, since when it comes to cursed items (page 139, DMG):

Most methods of identifying items, including the identify spell, fail to reveal such a curse, although lore might hint at it. A curse should be a surprise to the item's user when the curse's effects are revealed.

Again, we're given a rule that covers "most" circumstances, excepting, of course, the circumstances that are not covered, which unfortunately are not named. So what's to be done?

So this issue is the one I chose to punt at the last session. Having had a weeklong beach retreat over which to mull this problem, I have developed a more elaborate system for identifying and attuning magic items, which you can find here.

~ Tidwin

07/15/16

Session One Recap 25JUN2016

I intend for these session recaps to achieve three objectives:

• provide a hard copy of the rewards received in game
• address any rules questions from that session
• force me to write up each session by Sunday PM

It will also give me the opportunity to wax philosophic regarding the passed session but that's a secondary goal.  However, like this week, the minor aim could often serve as my introduction.

The first session went incredibly well, namely because several awesome individuals (my players) stepped up and helped gloss over some of the more existential conundrums facing players in the fantasy RPG metagame: Why do our characters want to act in unison? Why accept sensory or conversational information largely unchallenged? Why follow the only lead we've been handed? Why not just skewer everyone in sight? Why not just circle the wagons and hope the storm passes over harmlessly?

So the players have gotten together and are working together for the goal of getting safely through the Sheinnarm Festival. Individually, each player might hope to help their character's mentor win overall, but currently the players are finding their bearings and hoping to make progress.

In my description of the dangers facing the party, I created the Illuminati problem: a villain simultaneously too powerful to underestimate yet weak enough that basic detective work and low-level combat will upset the dastard's plans. This issue meant that the players split the party midway though the session, unwilling to leave their benefactors under the aegis of the admittedly underwhelming Towne Guard, led by Captain Brightscale.

However, the encounter played out and advanced the story to the point where the players moved forward as a group again, eventually confronting the Big Bad Guy in the final act of the night. The climax involved a cell of  exiled desert goblins under the tutelage of an automaton mastermind. Their plans thwarted, the goblins were torching all evidence of their work when confronted by the players.

All players received 192 XP each for overcoming various obstacles through the session. (DM Call: I did not differentiate for the single encounter while the party was split.) As a reward for their actions, players received/recovered:

• A crate of fifteen bottles of wine from Chef Finin (in gratitude for saving his life and minimizing the damage to his establishment) - these exquisite vintage Gnomish whites with a light, fruity bouquet are worth 18gp a bottle
• A pair of daggers from each assassin (4 total) - these function as normal daggers but are set with mother-of-pearl handles, increasing their value to a collector to 12gp each
• One intact white felt skullcap (not burned by the goblins before the bonfire was dispersed throughout the sewers - yay, magic?!) - a bit dingy from ash and smoke but cleaned up could fetch 3gp 
• A copper wire ring worn by Scrunchtoes worth 4sp
• Nine uncut almandine garnets (10gp each), 9 gp, 23 sp and 70 cp in the bonfire's ashes

uncut almandine garnet

As far as rules issues, going forward I will have yellow sticky notes at the table so that we can jot down any issue and a brief record of what we found or decided. This process will help me address any issues in the next recap. As it stands, I remember two different issues from our first game:

1) Octopus Grappling

Embarrasing confession: I have yet to acquire a Fifth Edition Monster Manual. However, two online resources from Wizards have many monsters from earlier seasons of Adventurers' League that frugal DM's can utilize:

• Hoard of the Dragon Queen
• Rise of Tiamat

The giant octopus from the second source lists the following ability:

Tentacles. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it is grappled (escape DC 16). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and the octopus can’t use its tentacles on another target.

According to the rules for Conditions (PHB, 290-292), grappled means the target's speed is 0, and in the Combat section (PHB, 195) indicates that conditions exist to end or break the grapple, but nothing about damaging a grappled creature. Rules also allow the grappler to move the grappled creature as part of the grappler's movement, but the grappler's speed is halved.

Furthermore, restrained characters have a speed of 0 and disadvantage on any attack rolls or Dexterity saves.  Anyone attacking a restrained target gains advantage on the attack roll, be it melee, missile or magic.

Reading the information about its attack originally, it sounded like once the octopus had hold of a creature, it could do nothing except drag its victim to a watery doom. There was neither beak nor bite attack listed. The tentacle attack could not target characters during a grapple. Releasing a creature from a grapple takes no action (again from the Combat rules) so the octopus could release its prey and attack again every round, but this seemed an awful lot of work for a meal.

The players managed to free the trapped character before that happened, and drove the creature away (it still had hit points left - don't worry). However, with the advantage or rereading the rules later, the text seems to say that while the octopus cannot attack a different target while grappling, it can attack the grappled character each successive round but now with advantage!

So fair warning, expect to run into octopi again!

2) Drive-by-halflings

So the penultimate fight of the night involved the players fighting canvas-covered clockworks through a doorway, everyone perched on narrow walkways adjacent to pungent canals of sewage.

While you can make ranged attacks into or through combat, our halfling cleric grew bored at the back or the line and asked to use halfling nimbleness to dart forward and attack with a spell. The ability reads:

Halfling Nimbleness. You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.

I decided quickly that this would work, since an extra attack from the party could help move the combat along, as it was plodding along slowly thanks to the terrain. (I hadn't planned on the party to bang on a secret door like a gong, warning their enemies so they'd be bunched up at the door.) The rules (PHB, 90) definitively allow players to break up their move, travelling before AND after their action if they haven't moved their full Speed yet.

Next round, the frontmost character needed healing, so I figured the cleric would cast healing word across the tunnel and be happy with that. Instead, the player suggested diving through the melee again and using cure wounds this round.

This action, while nigh indistinguishable from the previous action, felt to me to be an incredibly powerful ability: a cleric stays behind the lines and darts into combat with full healing at no risk to themselves. After brief discussion, I allowed the action to continue as the player described. After further research...

I see nothing forbidden in that action, nor is it too powerful with no drawbacks. This maneuver will work only for halfling clerics, and again only if the crowd before them is composed entirely of medium-sized creatures or larger. If at any point during the movement the character is adjacent to an enemy, retreat from that location will provoke an attack of opportunity. Trying to heal near a hostile creature with reach could have the same unfortunate outcome.

I believe that covers the important points and sets the stage for next week, when the Shiennarm Festival builds closer to the final contest, with numerous concerned parties trying to benefit from or even manipulate the outcome.

- Tidwin

07/01/16