DF Whiterock Session 69: Trag and His Mom

Date:

2019-10-18

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 366 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 433 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 430 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 421 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 437 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, Centaur Leader

Grisby, Faerie Dragon

Mortra, Fire Giantess

5 Bugbear Officers

Trag, Bugbear/Giant Martial Artist

We started again right after the PCs defeated a goblin burning crew.  They looted the bodies of the goblins and bugbears that weren't completely obliterated by the fire wagon's explosion.  One of the bugbears was unconscious but still breathing.  There was some discussion as to whether to fix that, but the consensus seemed to be that they wanted to interrogate a prisoner, and once they let him live to answer questions, they couldn't just kill him.  After the digression into the Laws of War, Seépravir decided to short-circuit the whole interrogation process by casting Possession on the bugbear, knocking him out and giving her access to all his memories.  She then said "just ask me questions."

The group learned that Trag lived in a mostly-burned-down house to the east, that he lived with his mom (who was a really old fire giantess), and that he also had a bunch of bugbears around.  Also that he knows kung fu.  They asked if he kept any wizards at his house, and possessed prisoner said that he didn't like wizards in his house and mostly sent them out to kill people and burn stuff.  Garreth asked what would happen if they killed Trag, but the prisoner could not answer that question as the premise was impossible.  Then the spell expired.

Garreth left a scimitar on the ground, hoping the bugbear would try to kill him with it, but the prisoner passed out instead.  After some more discussion of what to do with the bugbear and the annoying druid on the bridge, they decided to just collect the loot (putting much of it into the magic backpack that they'd received as a reward) and continue toward Trag, leaving the unconscious bugbear behind.

After some rest and some healing, the group continued following the trail south and east.  Eventually, Zaber spotted a large building in the distance, with the top floor missing, and a red glow coming from the back side.  Seépravir cast Invisibility on Polly and Zaber, and they scouted ahead.  They found the red glow was coming from the back side of the house, which was as hot as an oven.  It was hard to see anything inside through the small cracks in the walls.  Flying back around the side of the house, Zaber found a window, and on the other side of the window was a bugbear standing guard.  The other side of the house had a similar window, with another bugbear standing guard.

Zaber and Polly snuck back to the others, and they decided to also make Garreth Invisible, and cast Mage-Stealth as well, and have the three ambush the bugbears through the windows.  Garreth went to the north window, and Polly and Zaber to the south one.  Eventually Polly got tired of waiting, and shot an arrow through the window into the bugbear's skull.  (The shot was hard enough to break through the window, so I had Polly make a second attack roll to see how much the window deflected the arrow, and she rolled a 3.  So, not at all.)  Polly followed up with a second shot into the bugbear's brain, and it fell down unconscious.

Garreth responded to the noise of the screaming bugbear by smashing through his window (silently due to Mage-Stealth), then making an Escape roll to slide through the broken window quickly, then All-Out Attacking the nearby bugbear from behind, with two katana slices to the back of the neck.  This did massive damage, but somehow the bugbear survived, and yelled a warning.

Zaber flew in through the window that Polly had broken, and easily made his Escape roll to avoid getting caught on any broken glass.  Inside, he saw a huge red-haired black-skinned fire giantess, and a few more bugbears.  Seépravir and Elias had stayed well back from the house, but both heard the commotion and started flying toward the fight.

The bugbear that Garreth had backstabbed made his consciousness check, yelled a warning to his comrades, then spun around and hit Garreth in the face with his axe.  A second bugbear sentry with a flail ran up to Garreth and took a swing, but missed.  The giantess was also near Garreth, and took a swing at him with a huge warhammer.  About this time, Garreth regretted All-Out Attacking.  She hit, Garreth used Luck, she hit anyway after rerolling, and the damage would have been 23 points impaling.  At that point, Garreth's Bless decided to save him, and she missed, but the Bless was gone.

Polly flew in the window, avoided getting stuck, and looked for targets to shoot.  She loosed 3 arrows at a bugbear with a flail and bucker.  He blocked the first, dodged the second, and ate the third in the vitals, dying.  Garreth All-Out Defended and stepped back.  Zaber, still Invisible, watched the doorway to the east for the expected arrival of Trag.  Two bugbears charged at Garreth.  He dodged a flail, but took an axe to the face.  The giantess followed that up with her huge warhammer, which Garreth parried, at the cost of a broken katana.  (Signature Gear meant he could get it fixed later, but he'd be without it for the rest of the session.)

Polly kept flying around the room, shooting at enemies who were focused on Garreth.  First she plugged a bugbear in the skull, then tried shooting around the giantess at another bugbear, but missed, and accidentally hit the giantess instead.  Then she shot the other bugbear in the skull and knocked him out.  Garreth flew out the window to get away from the warhammer, and met up with the approaching Seépravir and Elias.  The giantess yelled some orders at the last surviving bugbear, who dutifully charged Polly, but missed.  Polly flew away while loosing bodkin arrows, first fatally plugging the bugbear in the skull, then failing to hit the giantess, who dodged.

Elias flew in through the window that Garreth had just retreated through, but failed his Escape roll and was slowed a bit.  The giantess started running east, right near Zaber, who chose to stay Invisible rather than going for the backstab.  Polly shot her in the eye, and she fell down, dead.  Fortunately for Zaber, she didn't land on him.

With no visible opponents remaining, the PCs regrouped.  Garreth took two swigs from the wineskin of healing potions.  Zaber looked for pieces of katana that Garreth had missed and brought them to Seépravir, who used a Repair spell to fix it.  (Though this didn't fix the Penetrating Weapon spell that it used to have.)  Polly scouted east, and found a very hot room full of rubble, with two windows on the east wall.  Garreth opened the house's front door and invited Seépravir in.  Elias, with Resist Fire active, went running through a doorway to the east, and found a courtyard with a pool of lava, and a huge bugbear / small fire giant sitting in it, wearing a black cloth belt that was somehow not on fire..  It was Trag, and he announced "You killed my mother prepare to die!" and then threw a bead at Elias.  He blocked it with his shield, but the Bead of Force's area attack took effect anyway.  Fortunately for Elias, the bead rolled horrible damage, not enough to penetrate his heavy armor.  But it trapped him within a sphere of force!  

Polly flew into Trag's lair through a different doorway, and took damage from the heat.  She shot three arrows at Trag.  The first was deflected by the waves of heat, and he dodged the others.  Garreth used the pearly spear to Great Haste himself.  Elias was unable to push forward through the force sphere, but was able to make a ST roll to squeeze out of it backwards.  Trag fast-drew another Bead of Force and threw it at Polly, who critically succeeded on her dodge and avoided being trapped.  Zaber, still Invisible, was also in the area of effect, but also dodged.  But the force sphere blocked that doorway.  Polly shot 3 more arrows at Trag, who dodged one and parried the other two with his bare hands.

With both doorways blocked, Garreth looked for another way in.  There were a couple of windows, but the wall itself looked kind of rickety, so Garreth decided to just bull his way through.  He made his ST check by 4, enough to shake the wall, but not quite knock it over.  Zaber flew around behind Trag, and took some fire damage.  Trag threw his last Bead of Force at Polly, who dodged it.  Polly responded by shooting Trag in the skull.  He failed to parry, but used Luck to reroll, then parried her second arrow with his other hand and dodged her third arrow.

Garreth made a second attempt to knock down the wall, and this time it came tumbling down, and made a bridge partway over the lava.  He then threw the pearly spear at Trag, but missed.  Zaber realized that he'd probably die of fire damage before he could land a backstab in Trag's eye, and flew away from the lava.  Elias, with Resist Fire protecting him, charged forward over the lava.  Trag went for a triple karate kick on Garreth, who managed to dodge all three.

Polly ate some more fire damage, then launched another salvo of arrows at Trag.  He failed to parry one, then failed to dodge another one, and took enough damage to be slowed by his wounds.  Garreth charged in and went for multiple blows on Trag, who parried them all, but left himself open to Elias.  Elias charged in from behind, and went for an All-Out Attack (Strong) to Trag's skull.  He missed, used his Luck to reroll, hit, and inflicted two death checks and a nasty stun roll.  Trag made the death checks, but failed the stun roll by enough to be knocked unconscious.

Elias dragged Trag out of the lava, and then gathered other visible loot, as the others retreated from the fire damage.  Garreth decapitated Trag.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic, and found a couple of potions on the fire giantess, in addition to Trag's magic belt and magic bag that Elias had already grabbed.  Elias cast some Stop Bleeding and Major Healing on the burn victims, while Seépravir cast Seek Earth looking for gold and platinum, and found none.

The group headed back to Dawn-on-Stream, and presented Trag's head to Loras.  Soras announced that with Trag gone, it was time to defeat the leaderless goblins and bugbears, and their gate guardian, and then destroy their gate so no more could come through into the Far Garden.  Garreth asked about the gate guardian, and Soras said that he'd heard it was a giant bug.  Garreth asked if anyone could fix the broken enchantment on his katana, and Grisby said he could do it, though it would take all night.

Polly asked about the druid on the bridge, but Soras and Grisby had never heard of it.  They indicated that if he was blocking the bridge, he'd need to be removed before the centaurs could cross, unless Seépravir could cast Flight on all of them.  Soras asked that the PCs be ready to attack at dawn.

GM's Comments:

The double ambush through windows on opposite sides of the house worked well, except only 3/5 of the PCs participated (because of the limits of how many spells Seépravir could keep up), and Garreth made a mistake by All-Out Attacking into not-fully-explored territory and almost died.  However, once he survived, attacking from both sides meant that Polly had back shots on the enemies who were focused on Garreth, which ruined their day.

Beads of Force are quite powerful in D&D 3.5.  I depowered them a bit when converting them to GURPS, to prevent a PC hit by one from being completely out of the fight.  (I allowed a penalized ST roll to force one's way through the weakest side of the sphere instead.)  This let Elias back into the fight against Trag, which he eventually finished, by back-attacking Trag while he was busy with Polly and Garreth.

Outnumbering and surrounding most boss monsters is still quite effective.  Trag was smart enough to control the environment by hanging out in a lava pool, but too dumb to have allies actually in the same room with him, so he died.

Next time, we'll probably see the conclusion of the Far Garden arc.