Surprise Playtest

[Iron Sky]

So, I wasn't expecting to be able to playtest DnDN, but had a buddy in town unexpectedly that made this last-minute late-night playtest possible. I ran it for about 3 hours and it went something like this:

Players(1st wave)
Twinkle Cheese-Thief (aka Cheese Maestro or Cheese) - Halfling Rogue 1
Eldar Goblinsnack - Elven Wizard 1
McMick "Mick" McCormick - Human Cleric 1

The group headed out upon hearing the settlements in the area were suddenly being raided again after years of relative peace. They were promised rewards if they could stop or at least determine why the raids were suddenly happening again, give the location of the valley where the raids were suspected to be coming from.

They headed out, reaching the valley at mid-day, the cleric spotting the goblin cave.

The wizard cast Light on one of the halfling's sling stones and they launched it into the hallway, spotting the 4-way intersection. I rolled to see if the goblin messengers/patrol was there to spot it, but they weren't.

They marched forward into the intersection, the cleric in the front since he was the "tankiest". No sooner had they reached the intersection than they ran into the goblins. "Bree-yark" and whatnot. They dropped a couple goblins, the goblins got some lucky rolls, and the wizard almost went down.

Another wave of goblins came up behind the others, causing the group enough alarm that the wizard dropped Sleep on them, putting four of them to sleep. I rolled a Charisma save for the goblins to see if the magic-use was enough to spook them and make them run. They made it.

They dropped a couple more goblins, then the cleric went down. More lucky goblin rolls. The wizard and halfling had been slowly backing out of the tunnel as the fight went on, so they had a tough call on whether to leave him to die and save their skins (Cheese Maestro suggesting this course of action) or to try to rescue him. About that point, three more goblins came out of another tunnel to join the fight.

Burning Hands made quick work of those new three, Cheese dropped another of the survivors, and the two remaining fled. Failed their Charisma saves. As Goblinsnack the wizard dumped their sole Healing Potion into the cleric, Cheese Maestro slit the throats of the sleeping goblins.

With the cleric awake, they headed outside to hide in the trees near the Ogre Cave to rest. Cheese Maestro made his Stealth check easily and, surprisingly McMick did too. Goblinsnack rolled a natural 1 just as twenty goblins came boiling out of the cave. Goblinsnack lost his s**t and ran screaming into the woods, the goblins chasing after him. McMick and Cheese looked at each other, shrugged, and snuck back into the cave the goblins had abandoned.

They picked up the sling stone with Light on it, McMick looked at it and said "Guess we'll know when they kill the wizard."

Hearing some noise down the leftmost tunnel, the checked the opposite one, finding the guard post. Cheese managed to find the sack of silver in the keg while McMick found the secret door. I forgot that the goblins used the sack to bribe the ogre, so I removed the sealed jar from the king's room and assumed they paid the ogre with that.

They crept into the ogre's cave and promptly stole the brandy and the huge sack full of coins forgot what the normal weight/coin was and went with 100 to make it easy. Cheese tried to hide the fact they he had the sack of coins while McMick quirked an eyebrow at HalflingClause with 30lbs of coins on his back trying to hide it under his cloak. "Keeping it safe." "Uh huh." "You know, for us." "Uh huh."

Advancing to the main room, Cheese identified the bear as dead, said nothing as he ran up and kicked it, nearly giving McMick a heart attack. "Funny" the cleric said as the bear skins flipped apart and the Light spell winked out.

They decided they had enough loot for one run and needed reinforcements with their wizard now dead, figuring they'd wait in the cave until the goblins passed. They saw the goblins march by, dragging Goblinsnack the wizard by his heels past them. The coast just seemed to be clear when the ogre came crashing through the woods. Cheese moved back into the cave to find a place to hide as McMick made a run for it, slipping by the Ogre. "Dur?"

Cheese changed his mind and decided to run after McMick, but by then the Ogre was in the doorway. A failed awesome Dex check (halfling Lucky) had him power-sliding between the Ogre's legs and off to hide in the trees like a coward ninja.

McMick had his robes hitched up and was running for all he was worth as the goblins now posted at their cave entrance hooted and shot a dozen arrows at him remarkably all missing.

McMick, figuring Cheese was dead, headed back to town. Cheese arrived later, walking into a store to offload his "wealth", saying "Made a killing - literally - just too bad neither of my companions..." spotting McMick leaning behind the door with crossed arms "... helped me carry this the whole way."

Their loot was enough for herbs that McMick turned into two Healing Potions.

They rested at the temple Cleric's theme allowing free room and board in temples there meeting the Whorehammer brothers:

Hungloose Whorehammer - Dwarf Cleric 1
Rockhard Whorehammer - Dwarf Fighter 1

Their tales of the vast wealth 65 gp and minimal danger one party member left to die and everyone else seriously messed up was enough to get the dwarven brothers to agree to come along the next day.

We took an hour break trying to chase down the mouse the cat had brought in the night before as one of the guys tried to pry d10s from his baby's fingers and keep it out of the houseplants.

Damn cat just watched us, a couple of times cornering the mouse, sniffing it, then looking at us as if to say "what do you want me to do about this thing?"

Anyway, we resumed with the Dwarf-reinforced party heading out. I figured they'd be much more survivable with an actual front-line. Unfortunately I've got to run now, but I'll post the rest later.

 

[Rhenny]

Loved reading your experience. I contend that reading these types of summaries is the best way to encourage interesting gaming and help newer plaeyrs/DMs learn how to make D&D exciting and memorable.

Keep playtesting...and writing.

Cheers.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Love the names. Need an epic magic item named "Whorehammer" somewhere.

 

[Iron Sky]

Okay, time to quickly jot down part 2.

The group headed back to the valley, spotting a half-a-dozen goblins on guard outside their cave. Cheese informed them there were probably five-times that many in there, so the group decided to climb up onto the hill above the goblin tunnel and look for more caves up there.

Apparently they suck at climbing, because all but Hungloose ended up slipping down the relatively tame slope and right in the midst of the goblins. I called it a DC 12 Strength check to climb up the hill without alerting the goblins. Two of them rolled 2s (thus falling completely) and I just had the third who rolled a 4 join them. Hungloose laughed at their incompetence as he slid down the hill to join in some goblin killing.

Goblin war-cries brought practically all of the goblins rushing out at once...

The mouse re-appeared, we woke up the cat so it could watch me chase the mouse around for a while before it hid again under the stove. Back to the game.

A minute later, twenty-five dead goblins lay heaped at the mouth of their tunnel, the ogre cowered in his cave nursing heavy wounds, as the group looted their corpses, trading crude banter and tossing the goblin king's head about saying, "I'm king now," then miming dying horribly. They choke-pointed the goblins at the mouth of their cave, the Whorehammer holding them the whole time, except when the ogre showed up half-way through and Rockhard took a break from killing goblins to go kick its a** with some fire-support from Cheese Maestro and McMick's lasers as Hungloose kept the goblins at bay.

The ogre managed to escape with 9hp left and after the king died, his bodyguard grabbed his (decapitated) head and shouted "I'm King now" only to have his head explode via McLaser. A second of his bodyguards repeated the act only to have a slingstone bouncing around inside his head like a pinball.

In game terms, the king waited until about half his gobs were dead before engaging, then died the round he climbed over his fallen minions to "deal with it himself." I gave the rest of the Gobs a Charisma save, which they critted. I decided it was because the bodyguards rallied them so the players (wisely) targeted anyone who showed any initiative that wasn't leading the rout. A couple rounds later the handful of survivors remaining finally failed their save and scattered.

I spotted the mouse ambling across the kitchen, so I grabbed the broom. It made its way over to the glass door, scratched at the glass like the cat does when it wants to go out, so I let it out. It looked around for a minute, then scampered off. I shook my head in bemusement and went back to the game.

Cheese was unhurt and, after their short rest, everyone else was still a bit dinged up, but they decided to press on anyway. They took the branch none of them had been down and looted the now-empty guard post there. Pressing on, they found the locked-and-barred door to the hobgoblin's caves. Cheese said "watch this" and picked the lock like it was nothing, then botched aced crit (Lucky) his Dex check to silently slip the bar free on the other side by sliding it off with a dagger.

They quietly pushed the door open and didn't miss a beat, killing two of the hobgoblin adults instantly. Two of the others grabbed the young hobs and dragged them away to 'safety' as the two that stayed behind as rearguard were butchered.

At this point it was almost 2am and DM drowsiness had set in. We called it a night. Everybody had a good time - even the mouse!

My buddy from out of town didn't like 4e at all, so this was much more his style. Even with 30 goblins, an ogre, and 4 PCs the combat went quick. The dwarf's guardian thing was a big hit. The rogue almost never had advantage since he didn't feel like wasting a turn just to get +1d6 extra damage since he didn't miss much without the Advantage stealth would have given him.

We might play again in the next few days before he leaves again. If so, I'll post more.

 

[MortalPlague]

Great playtest report! I love reading stories like this; hearing how other groups fared in the goblin caves is great fun. Also, I like the character names.

 

[GreyLord]

Hate to be the party pooper...but according to the agreements, don't all players have to sign the WotC agreements also in order to playtest? (also one of the more annoying items, I signed it so I could be a player, I didn't even DM!!)

Of course you guys did this if WotC requires it, but that's the first thought that struck me reading the topic.

Anyways, good to see a playtest report...official or not...either way it's a nice report.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Boarstorm]

Hate to be the party pooper...but according to the agreements, don't all players have to sign the WotC agreements also in order to playtest?

What makes you think they didn't?

Just because someone's from out of town doesn't mean they didn't sign up.

Unless you mean the mouse, but I think WotC will turn a blind eye to that one.

 

[jadrax]

Unless you mean the mouse, but I think WotC will turn a blind eye to that one.

Dispatch the MousePunish LawyerCats!

 

[Iron Sky]

The cat hasn't signed it either, nor has the baby.

We played another 4 hour session tonight. Will write it up hopefully some time in the next couple of days. In those 4 hours we added a new player (replacement wizard), made a trip to town for half-an-hour of shopping, had about 8 combats, explored 90% of the goblin caves and 2/3 of the hobgoblin caves...

 

[Iron Sky]

Okay, so another player joined us for this session with the following character:

Sorcerla Wizlord - Elf Wizard 1

He had bravely (foolishly?) wandered out on his own tracking down his cousin Goblinsnack. He reached the mouth of the cave, saw the heaps of bodies and took it as an omen - good news or bad, he wasn't sure. Wandering into the cave beyond, he heard the sounds of combat down the left-hand tunnel Keen-Senses is gnarly. When the game comes out an elven rogue with his Wis/Dex will make a killer scout!

He found the group looting the dead hobgoblins. They had a brief discussion that went something along these lines:

"I'm looking for my cousin." "Goblinsnack? You look kinda like him except less dead." "I'm sure he died bravely." "You must not have known him very well." "It seems you need a new wizard." "Sure, you look trustworthy."

They pushed on down the hobgoblin tunnels, reaching the branch that led either to the prison or into the hob-warren proper. They heard distant shouts in hobgoblin one way and sobbing from another and decided that sobbing was a curiosity and went that way.

The jailers were waiting for them and put an arrow in Hungloose before dying messily. The guild-woman was tied to the chair, looking like she'd been beaten heavily but it was her portly husband, untouched and chained to the wall who was sobbing. Their guards were also chained fast to the wall with their hands behind them.

Cheese walked in and proclaimed "anyone who wants to be set free, raise your hand!" He laughed at his joke as everyone else rolled their eyes.

As Cheese untied the woman and proposed they go somewhere private together so she could "thank him", Rockhard tried to hack the chains of the guild merchant. McMick went over to prod the feral Gnoll with his staff, only to have the Gnoll rip it from his hands Str vs Str. In retaliation, McMick blasted him with a McLaser, only to take a ringing blow to the head. McMick backed up and blasted the wall next to the gnoll, who threw the quarterstaff at him. They decided to leave said gnoll for the hobs to deal with.

They tried to talk to the orc, who spoke no Common, and through a series of pantomimes decided he was legit and Rockhard shattered his chains Crit Str check with his axe. The orc promptly looted the two jailers including swiping their silver and removed the chains from his wrists with the jailer's keys.

The party exchanged a glance that translates roughly to "duh!" and Cheese said "how sad is it that an orc was smarter than all of us" as said orc cut the jailers into little bits, literally with a vengeance. They let the guild merchants free, who promptly told them about their caravan being raided and offered a reward if they were escorted to safety as they gathered weapons and armor for themselves.

They agreed and started heading back, stepping into an hobgoblin ambush consisting of two shield-hobs protecting two archers. There was a short, but viscous fight in the hallway in which one of the still wounded clerics went down as did the wizard who found out Sleep doesn't do much against hobs but did get himself targeted as the hobs realized he was a magic user. The NPCs made a run for it down the other tunnel.

The wizard dropped right at the end of the fight and they debated whether or not to use their last healing potion on him or just carry him out. The courageous Cheese suggested looting him, propping him up against a wall with a weapon to make him look more threatening, and leaving him to distract the hobs.

They took the middle ground, carrying him off to use the healer's kit on him later, the group leaving the caves without difficulty and heading back to town. On the way back, they ran into a random encounter of seven hobgoblins on their way back from an unsuccessful raid.

McMick and Cheese dispatched one of their archers right off the bat as four shield-hobs marched forward in a phalanx. With 2hp, Wizlord Burning Handsed the phalanx, burning them all pretty heavily with a warcry of "Please kill them before they murder me!"

Yeah, not so much.

Cheese snuck through the grass and assassinated one of the archers, then had a bow/sling fight in a grove of trees that was ended unceremoniously by a crossbow bold from Rockhard, who had finished destroying the last of the shield-hobs the round before. Cheese pouted ("my kill!") but set to looting the hobs out of habit. They poured their last potion into the unconscious wizard, grabbed the hobs weapons and armor they were close enough to town they could justify carrying all that weight and made it back.

The reward from the guild merchants was enough for a Whorehammer-brand Healing Potion and they used the 20% discount to buy a new healers kit and a few odds and ends.

They were a couple-hundred xp short of a level, so I just gave it to them gave some "quest xp" for rescuing the merchants even though it doesn't really seem to exist yet.

They leveled up and headed back, ready to finish their goblicide.

This all took about an hour-and-a-half. We took a quick break to grab some food, feed the cat, change the baby, and stretch, then got back to it.