DF Whiterock Session 78: All the Money

Date:

2019-12-20

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 388 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 454 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 447 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 459 points

Significant NPCs:

Garreth, Half-Orc Fighter

2 Huge Invisible Animated Scales

Phasm

We started in mid-combat, after 2 huge invisible scales, one with fire in one of its pans, charged at Zaber.  (Polly had entered the west door of the scales' room, with the others just behind her, while Zaber had circled around and entered the east door, which apparently the scales didn't like.  The scales were invisible, but both Polly and Zaber had See Invisible.)

Zaber backed away from the approaching scales, not wanting to be weighed.  Polly fired three arrows at one of them.  Two were dodged, but one left a small mark.  Garreth drew his katana and All-Out Defended, guarding Seépravir, while trying to sense the invisible enemies.  Elias charged toward the general direction of the fight.  Both scales continued approaching Zaber.

Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  Zaber flew back out the east door and slammed the door behind himself.  Polly fired three more arrows at the same scale, this time achieving three solid hits, one of them a critical hit right in the chain.  Garreth continued all-out defending, while asking Polly what she was shooting at.  She responded "Dire scales!  South one has flames!"  Elias asked if the plan was just to charge in, because he was all for that.  Polly said that sounded good, so he continued charging toward the pile of arrows.  (The scales were still invisible.)

With Elias out of the room and the door closed, the scales reversed direction and charged back west, toward Polly and the charging Elias.  Seépravir asked who wanted buffs, then gave Polly and Garreth each a Great Haste.  Zaber, hearing the scales moving away loudly, cracked the door back open to peek.

Polly tried to draw the scales to herself, while firing three more arrows at a scale, and hitting three more times.  Garreth continued defending, while trying to use his blind fighting ability to find the scales.  One of the scales charged Polly with the intent of trampling her.  Elias considered blocking for her, but realized the huge scale would probably break his shield.  Polly retreated and dodged, as the scale became visible.  The second scale also approached, but wasn't quite close enough to attack.

Seépravir cast See Invisible on Garreth, just as the still-invisible scale, which had eaten several arrows, fell over.  Zaber came back into the room, now that the scales weren't near his door.  Polly fast-drew her rapier and started chopping at the pan-chains of the scale that was still standing.  Garreth continued all-out defending, to Seépravir's aggrevation since she had used a Great Haste on him.  Elias smashed the visible and still-standing scale twice with his flail, hitting both times, with one of the hits a double-damage critical that knocked it back and appeared to end its animation.

With both scales apparently defeated, Polly started cutting their chains off with her rapier to make sure they were really dead.  A few seconds later, the invisible one appeared, and the fire on the flaming one went out.  Zaber and Polly started asking questions, like why they only cared about the east door, and why there were scales without a puzzle, while Seépravir rested.  Zaber started trying to use the scales to weigh something, in case that was a puzzle.  There was a bunch of rubble in the room to the south, so he dragged some of that in, until he realized he was doing work.  Then he asked Garreth, who was much stronger and less lazy, to carry rubble for him, and also tip one of the knocked-over scales back upright.  (The other, which Elias had critically smashed with his flail, was too broken to stand up, without major repairs.)  Zaber played with the scales for a few more minutes, then searched the alcoves they came out of, then gave up on the room and put his Invisibility ring back on.

Zaber went back out the east door, then touched the door on the other side of the hallway.  No illusions of halflings appeared, so he tried opening it, but it was locked.  He picked the lock, then opened it.  On the other side of the door was a large room that looked like a natural cavern, with stalagmites and pillars, some of which had marks carved on them.  Zaber investigated the marks, and found that they were about 3' off the floor, which he and Polly thought meant they were probably made by a halfling.

Polly looked closely at another stalagmite -- and then it turned into another Polly, and attacked her!  This totally unexpected event surprised both Zaber and Polly.  (Their friends were still outside the room.)  Fake-Polly attacked Polly with her rapier, and Polly couldn't retreat because of stun, but she successfully Acrobatically Dodged anyway.  Fake-Polly attacked again, and Polly failed to dodge this time, and took a serious enough cut that Polly's Bless spell decided to avert it, and went away.  Fake-Polly attacked a third time (just like real Polly), hit again, and put 19 points of cutting damage into Polly, which failed to stun her.

Zaber and Polly both recovered from mental stun, as their friends outside the room heard the sounds of fighting and started approaching to help, but then Fake-Polly got another turn.  She landed three very deceptive rapier strikes on Polly, but Polly fast-drew her own rapier, then retreated and parried all of them.  Zaber all-out defended, as he wasn't sure which Polly was which and didn't want to attack his friend.  Polly had no such confusion, and so attacked her doppleganger three times (with defensive attacks as she was wounded), but all were dodged or parried.  Garreth, outside the room, started flying toward the battle.  Elias waited until after Seépravir cast Great Haste on him before following.

As the real Polly had stepped back away from her, the fake Polly said "Let me try this bow" then quick-readied her bow and fired two arrows at Polly.  One was a critical hit, so Polly used her Luck to force a reroll into a regular hit.  Badly wounded Polly was at half Dodge, so these hit, and inflicted major wounds and a death check, but Polly stayed up.  She then fired a third arrow at Zaber, which he dodged.  Now Zaber knew which Polly was the enemy, so he tried Slamming her, but she dodged.

Garreth finally flew into the room, saw two of Polly, didn't know which was which, and asked Seépravir to tell him.  Seépravir and Elias also flew into the room.  Not-Polly fired some arrows at Elias, which told them all which one was which.  He blocked one and dodged the others.  Zaber tried another slam, but fake-Polly dodged again.  Elias tried to shield rush the one that had fired arrows at him, missed, then tried flailing her, but she used her Luck to reroll her dodge and avoid the hit.

With all of Polly's friends joining the fight, Fake-Polly felt surrounded, and decided to turn into a small (SM-3) black bird and fly away.  Zaber tried slamming it, but the raven dodged, and told Zaber to eat its shorts.  Polly shot three arrows at the raven, and one was a solid hit, but the raven was tough enough to keep flying.  Seépravir tried Rapier Wit on the raven 9-yard range, not expecting much, but rolled a 3 for a maximum critical success.  The raven thought her joke was so funny it forgot how to fly straight and bounced off the ground, stunned.

Elias flew up and did an all-out attack (double) on the stunned raven, achieving a solid hit with knockback, which caused the raven to slam into Zaber (who chose not to dodge) then bounce off Zaber and land at his feet.  The raven recovered from stun, then Zaber tried grabbing it, but it dodged.

Polly loosed an arrow at the bird, which dodged, then had a chance to hit Zaber, who also dodged.  He asked Zaber if he was okay with this, and he was, so she kept trying, but didn't manage to hit anyone.  Garreth ran up and tried rapid striking at the bird, which retreated out of Zaber's hex and dodged, and then he missed his second attack.

Zaber, not fearing the raven, went for another all-out attack (double) and used Luck to avert a critical failure, and got a critical hit instead.  This achieved knockback and bounced the raven off the cavern wall for more damage, then back into his second flail strike, which got knockback again, and also stunned the raven.  The raven changed form again, into a large oozing blob.  The blob failed to unstun on its turn.

Zaber stabbed the blob with his knife, causing mauve liquid to leak out.  Polly stayed conscious, then stabbed it three times, the final one fatally.  As the phasm died, a Polly torso appeared, then a raven head, but finally its corpse stabilized into its natural form, dead blob on a puddle of mauve pus.

After a bit of rest, Seépravir cast See Secrets on Zaber.  Polly, barely holding on to consciousness, asked Elias for another Bless spell before she even asked for healing.  With a full power item, he was able to give her Bless +2, and she then grabbed the wineskin of healing potions and drank four doses.  Elias suggested burning the phasm, so Seépravir cast Create Fire on its corpse.

Polly, suspicious that more rocks might conceal more shapeshifting horrors, got the pickaxe out of the Bag of Holding and smashed various rocks for a while.  She didn't find any more enemies.  There was a locked door on the west wall.  Zaber picked the lock then opened it.  It led to a north-south passage leading nowhere, with another double door on the far wall.  The passage to nowhere was suspicious so Polly attacked the doors, leaving small dents from bodkin arrows.  Zaber opened the doors.

Beyond was a round room, containing a pretty marble slab on the floor with a poem inscribed in it.  On the far side of the room were two tables, one with three iron containers (box, pyramid, globe), the other with several small knickknacks (wood, iron bar, golden disc, shard of glass, purple fabric, rock).  There was also a lever on the wall.  And there was a secret door, which Zaber easily spotted thanks to See Secrets.  There was also a trap on the secret door, which he disabled.

The poem on the floor was:

“Key, Lock, and Chain

Each I Hid in Vain

It Would Be Such Delight

If You Would Make Things Right

Three Containers I Did Devise

To Hold Anew Each Glassy Prize

With Each Should Go A Token Right

That Once Held My Prize So Tight

Return Them To Their Proper Home

Then Pull Yon Lever, ‘Neath The Dome

Do This Thing, Nothing More

To Open Wide My Treasure’s Door”

It appears the PCs had found a really annoying puzzle.  Presumably the right items had to be placed in the right containers, and then the lever pulled.  Polly put the gold disc in the box then pulled the lever, and nothing happened.  (Zaber thought the trap was supposed to go off there, but he had disabled it, so nothing happened.)  Polly then figured it was probably one item per container, so loaded up another try, to no avail.

Seépravir came into the room and said that she was tired and didn't feel like thinking about the puzzle, but with six items and three containers she could write down every single possible combination for them, and then go back in the hall while they tried them.  She suggested that only one person stay in the room, in case there were more traps.  About ten minutes later, she handed over a piece of parchment with lots of combinations of items and containers written on it, then went down to the end of the hallway to rest and wait to see if anyone needed rescuing.

Polly and Zaber and Elias weren't done thinking about the puzzle yet, and tried a few more combinations, to no avail.  Garreth pulled out the pickaxe and suggested just bashing through the secret door.  Polly said to wait a minute, and first smashed the door to the room, so it couldn't lock them in.  Then she tried prying up the marble slab on the floor, but it was too heavy.  Garreth charged up Power Blow then lifted the marble slab.  Underneath was a small coffin.  Inside were some small bones, but no treasure or clues.  Zaber marked the location of the secret door for Garreth, while Polly put the coffin back.

Garreth started smashing down the secret door.  He broke the pickaxe, and brought the pieces down the hall so Seépravir could cast Repair, then resumed smashing.  Eventually he got the door all the way open, and a horrible wail came out of the room behind the secret door.  Everyone except Seépravir (who was smart enough to be out of range) had to roll against HT-3.  Elias failed, and his Bless was blown off, saving his life in the process.  Everyone else made it.

The small secret room was piled high with silver coins.  Thousands of silver coins.  Zaber started scooping them into the Bag of Holding.  Among the coins were some magic boots and a non-magical silver morningstar, which were also thrown into the bag.  Polly got a shovel for more efficient coin-moving.  With all the coins finally gathered up, and Elias's Bless gone and his power item empty, the group decided to finally head back to Cillamar.  They had finished looting Nimboltin's tomb, though maybe not exactly the way he would have wanted them to.

GM's Comments:

Rules question of the day: can you fast-draw (to parry) at the end of a Do Nothing turn forced by mental stun?  I allowed it, but stated that if the fast-draw failed, that was an automatic failed parry on the first defense.  (As well as the next turn's action spent readying.)

When the phasm assumed raven form and dodged his slam, Zaber's player predicted that the raven would tell him to eat its shorts, before I could even finish typing it.  I guess The Simpsons is still big in the Kingdom of Morrain.

The players failed to solve the puzzle at the end (it was a remember-previous-things-from-the-level puzzle, not a logic puzzle, so when they didn't get it immediately I figured they had no chance), but the pickaxe eventually worked, at the cost of triggering the very nasty second trap, which was inside the secret room so not able to be disabled from outside.  At that point everyone had an active Bless though, so it wasn't as dangerous as it could have been.

The scales were not really much of a threat.  They were strong, but not very fast, so Polly could pretty much just pound them with arrows from a distance until they fell over.  Which is mostly what happened, though Elias landed the killing blow on one of them with a great critical hit.

The phasm was an extremely nasty opponent, in Polly form.  However, Polly survived its initial volley of attacks when she was surprised, and then made a death check and all her stun and consciousness checks for the whole battle.  The moral of the story is to have high HT.  Once they surrounded the phasm and it switched to raven form to retreat, it wasn't nearly as much of a threat.  (It could have gone back to Polly form, but by then it was too busy getting stunned.  All the PCs having Flight made the raven's quick escape ability much less effective, as they were almost as fast as it.)

In hindsight, the phasm probably would have been more effective if it stayed in Polly form and only attacked Polly, so the others couldn't be sure which Polly was which.  But it wasn't a super-genius, so I didn't play it with full GM knowledge, only with the programmed tactics from the adventure, which weren't optimal.

Now that they have a huge pile of silver, I suspect the next week will be consumed with PCs dreaming of things to buy, then failing to find those things because Cillamar is a small town and there are no magic item shops.  We'll see what happens when they go back into the dungeon.