D&D 5E D&D Encounters - Scourge of the Sword Coast play report (spoilers) - Complete!

[Mistwell]

I ran a part of this adventure last night (the Duerger area) and I ran into a problem that others had already noticed but I had forgotten about.

The map. It's in 10' squares, not 5' squares.

So I reproduced it as pictured, with 5' squares, in Roll20.

Yeah, that wasn't pretty. My players were saying, "Damn, it's cramped in here, kinda hard to fight". As first I just shrugged and figured dwarves like tight quarters (it was a previously dwarven area).

But then when the big battle came, where most of the Duerger were laying in wait for the party to arrive (four barracks worth of them, all in an inter-connected area), that's when the real trouble happened.

I couldn't attack the players effectively with the Duerger. The damn things couldn't fit in the corridors, and due to turns in the corridors many couldn't even get line of sight on the PCs to use a ranged weapon. It just ended up looking like a snake of a line of Duergers all lined up to be slaughtered almost one at a time.

Not pretty. That's when I looked at the map again, saw the 10' notation, and did a forehead slap.

I was able to quickly expand some of the corridors (the parts the players hadn't seen yet) and had the Duerger retreat to those areas, so it all managed to work out OK. But damn, that was a blunder.

I also wish there were more notes on recommended tactics. For example, there is a trap where Duerger can set off streams of fire at the PCs, but no recommendation as to when they would set this off. Several other areas where the Duerger have arrow loops looking into areas where the PCs are likely to go, but no description of what the Duerger are likely to do at this point when they do spot the PCs that way. I am not looking for much here, just a single sentence on those highly likely scenarios.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

You may have the wrong scale, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], but that map is gorgeous.

 

[Mistwell]

You may have the wrong scale, [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION], but that map is gorgeous.

Yeah Roll20 is pretty awesome. You can build just about anything you want with it, for free.

 

[MerricB]

Various factors combined to have us with fewer players this week than last week, which left my table of keen D&D players with only three players: Tim, playing a paladin, Tait and Harry, both of whom were playing rogues. As Tait and Tim were using characters they’ve played in previous Encounters seasons, that meant we had a 2nd level rogue, a 5th level rogue and a 4th level paladin at the table. It was a strange group of characters, and I threw some tough encounters at them during the session.

The game began where they ended the last session: looking at the river village of Julkoun and noticing that the guards on the walls were actually goblins! As the group began to absorb more of the details of the town, they realised that a squirrel was watching them. A squirrel, which had a leaf tied to its leg! Harry lured it down with some of his rations (as he was playing an elf, I assumed they were dried fruit per Dragons of Autumn Twilight), and recovered the leaf, on which was elven writing - a message from a dryad who had seen the goblin attack and wanted to aid the adventurers. The group visited the dryad, who told them of what happened to the town: how goblins and hobgoblins had overrun it, and many of the villagers taken northward. She offered her glade as a safe place to rest, which the three gladly accepted.

Based on her information, the group decided to take out an encampment of goblin wolf-riders to the north of the village. They discovered the camp in a meadow glade to the north of the woods, and the two rogues hid in the trees as the paladin stayed back. They saw the goblins were somewhat disturbed, as some of their colleagues had not returned from patrol (in fact, slain in the last session!) Feeling the time was right, they launched arrows at the group, killing one of the wolves before any of the goblins could react!

Working out exactly how many goblins and worgs would be in the battle was somewhat challenging – only three PCs, a moderate variance in levels, and the adventure doesn’t come with XP values for monsters. I turned to my slightly more complete playtest materials to estimate XP values (the monster stats are not quite the same as in the last bestiary), and decided upon five goblins and five worgs. The goblins took a couple of rounds to reach the party, which allowed them to inflict some significant damage, which was really important because three worgs against one paladin was not great for the paladin, although Tim was definitely holding his own. The rogues stayed in the cover of the trees, attacking and then fading into the cover so that the goblins were kept disorientated and mainly concentrating their attack on Tim. The worgs were eventually killed, and then the goblins likewise. Tim needed to use his Lay on Hands power to stay up, but it was a pretty successful (and intense) combat. Searching the goblin camp afterwards revealed nothing of particular interest, but at least they’d denied the goblins their scouting ability.

Not surprisingly, the group then rested for a night in the dryad’s grove to be fully healed!

The next day saw them entering the village. Their initial scouting attempts were too bold, and the goblin guards raised the alarm upon seeing Tait; the party retreated and stayed away for a few hours until the alert died down. Their second scouting attempt was more successful, with Harry finding a covered bridge that led into the hillside beneath the town.

Once they reached the “bridge”, they discovered that it was completely enclosed with no entrance from either side; it just went into the hill sides on either side of a chasm! However, it did have two windows, one of which was open, with a rope dangling from it… a human corpse at the other end. The group climbed down to the bridge and, with a little effort, entered through the open window (above the chasm… not too hard with a little muscle and some rope!) They found themselves in a corridor going north-south, with iron doors at each end. They pulled up the body and discovered it belonged to the village’s priest of Chauntea; obviously the goblins had hanged him.

Faced with a decision of where next to go, the group decided to go north, away from the village. Beyond the iron door was the village’s “bolt-hole”, one that unfortunately the villagers had not been able to use. Instead, the group found themselves in a fight against a dozen goblins who were now using it as sleeping quarters. Not all of the goblins were awake when the combat began, which made the adventurers’ job an easier one, but it was still a difficult combat. As I’m not using miniatures, I didn’t feel constrained by the “one goblin per 5 foot square” that has been the norm through 3rd and 4th edition, instead allowing four of the small goblins to fight abreast, which forced Tait and Tim to likewise fight abreast whilst Harry fired arrows at the goblins when they became visible in the melee.

The combat was going pretty well for the party when the goblin shaman arrived, accompanied by two large vipers. The shaman, with strong powers of elemental fire, created a flaming sphere which caused a lot of damage to Tait and Tim – unable to go back, and with the goblins in front of them, they needed to make a hole. This they did, and with a couple of goblins dead, they pushed through, leaving goblins behind them… but they were safe from the sphere! The shaman rolled it on towards Harry.

The vipers could have been quite dangerous, but Tim, realising that they needed to slay the shaman as quickly as possible, slew both in consecutive blows by using his Divine Smite power, which allowed Tait and Harry to finish off the shaman. She exploded in flames, burning Tim severely, as she died. The group realised they needed to rest, but first they needed to make sure that the place was defensible!

Their exploration of the bolthole revealed a storeroom, a number of bunks, and a shrine to Chauntea, now defiled. Harry was able to make sense of the writing, which seemed to have some relevance to the goblin attack, and he copied it down. The group then cleaned the shrine, and used they key they’d found on the shaman to lock the door to the bridge. As they got ready to sleep, a goblin knocked on the door, asking if the shaman wanted anything. Thinking quickly, Tim imitated a goblin in a rage and made the inquirer flee – they were then able to have a night’s rest, which they really needed at this point.

At this point, I ended the session; it felt about the right length, and it was a natural break point. Next week (with a couple more players, I hope!) the group will investigate the rest of the village, fighting the goblins and hobgoblins that remain. I’m very much enjoying how this adventure is starting; it feels like a properly heroic tale.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Yeah Roll20 is pretty awesome. You can build just about anything you want with it, for free.

Hear, hear. Give me four hours (three if I'm drinking!) and I can knock out enough content to keep my players happily engaged for about twelve hours of play.

Though I find it well worth it to subscribe for the dynamic lighting effects.

 

[MerricB]

This season has been quite unsettled for player attendance at our store, with a number of new players trying out the game and then deciding it isn’t for them. Understandable, but when coupled with quite a degree of irregularity of attendance from the “regulars”, it’s made running tables rather tricky, especially given the wide variety of approaches to the game.

My table had two new players, who were playing D&D for the first time. They were joined by Tim and Tait, with Harry, Kalum and Glen unable to make it. Ben’s table had three players, whilst Paul’s table, the most stable, had four. I took a bit of time at the beginning of the session to create characters for the two new players – a gnome rogue and a half-orc wizard. Some people would have pre-generated characters with them, but as it happened I’m glad I didn’t. It invested the players better in their new characters, and allowed some nice bits of role-playing.

This session saw the group dealing with the remaining goblinoids in Julkoun. The most dangerous goblins had been slain last session, so this session saw more exploration and mopping-up. As usual, I assumed the new players had been with the group all along (it’s like a set of alternate realities, each session), and after filling them in on what had happened so far, it was time to go back across the bridge and see what else lurked in the cellars of Julkoun.

The exploration led them to the last of the really significant fights: the leader of the goblin raid, a rather large and brutal hobgoblin and his guards. Tait was the one to discover the leader, as he was scouting ahead. He loosed an arrow at the leader, missing, and raced back to warn the party. The leader’s guards followed in pursuit, one catching Tait and striking him from behind. Tim struck one of the guards, and Josh’s wizard cast sleep – he rolled very well for its effects, and two of the guards went down. Tait and Danielle dealt with them as Tim raced forward to engage the last of the guards. He didn’t stand long, and the group were left facing Shorg, the hobgoblin leader. Unfortunately for Shorg, he had two rogues and an annoyed paladin attacking him, and so soon he was down as well.

The group was very happy to find he had a copy of healing potions on him, which Tim took; his paladin would often come out of combats quite hurt!

Although there were stairs leading upwards, the heroes continued to explore the tunnels. A couple of abandoned rooms were well searched by them and found to be what they appeared to be. However, an underground tavern proved to be where a few bugbears were lairing. Tim and Danielle fought side-by-side in this encounter, despite Danielle’s rogue’s low hit points, but Tim’s paladin was able to protect her, and Danielle proved quite able at dealing a lot of damage to the bugbears. Tait sniped from back in the corridor, and Josh’s wizard used mage hand to throw chairs at the bugbears.

Yes, I know that it’s not a standard use of the spell, but it sounded good, so we just used the attack and damage bonuses for his ray of frost cantrip and went with the visual. Every so often, when he missed, the bugbear would catch the chair and then attempted to hit Tim with it. The fight was hard, but the group were victorious.

Searching the ruins of the tavern, Tait opened a door that reveal an old, grizzled worg, which sprang at him! Before anyone else could react, Danielle’s rogue jumped on its back and commanded it into submission! She’d chosen when creating her gnome to make a moderately charismatic one who was especially skilled at intimidation, and she rolled really, really well (total of 26) against the worg. It seemed amusing, and so I ran with it. She called the worg, “Fluffy”, and proceeded to ride it and care for it for the rest of the session. In fact, it was Shorg’s own worg, and he would have been quite apoplectic with rage seeing how it was treated if the group hadn’t killed him!

The group emerged into the light on top of the hill that held “Upper Julkoun”. Goblins still manned the towers around town, unaware that most of their fellows had been slain. Soon, they were joining their companions in death, as Tait sneaked about, killing each with a single arrow shot. Tait is exceptionally good at sneaking, and the goblins did not have the perception checks to stop him!

Upper Julkoun thus cleared – and no villagers in sight, at least not living ones – the group made their way down the earthen ramp that connected the upper town to the lower. Tait killed the remaining few goblins, and the group discovered the desecrated shrine of Chauntea. They’d discovered the unhappy fate the priest last session, but now they found another set of tracks leading from the priest to the water mill. Making their way carefully over to the mill, they could just see the shapes of hobgoblins inside, who launched javelins at the party. Tim raced in, Josh and Tait stayed back, and Danielle urged her worg to take her into the fray. At this point, I was allowing both her and Fluffy to attack, with disadvantage on her attacks. This maintained some sort of balance in the game, whilst keeping Fluffy as an actual asset to the group. The hobgoblins fought well, but not well enough and Fluffy was the one to slay the last of them.

With no goblins still living inside the walls, the lack of villagers was of real concern to the group. They went to the local dryad and asked her for more details on where she’d seen the villagers being taken (to the north), and resolved to follow them on the next day.

That was it for this week’s session. Paul’s table will be spending a third week in Julkoun, whilst Ben’s has gone in a different direction. Join us next time when we see if any of the players return for part four of Scourge of the Sword Coast!

 

[dd.stevenson]

This season has been quite unsettled for player attendance at our store, with a number of new players trying out the game and then deciding it isn’t for them.

Would you be interested in sharing more about this? Numbers, expectations, reasons, etc?

 

[MerricB]

Would you be interested in sharing more about this? Numbers, expectations, reasons, etc?

A large part of it is just Life - we've had a few people who really would like to come every week, but other things have been getting in the way.

We've had a few people trying D&D Encounters for the first time as well, and - as I'm sure you know - the program isn't for everyone.

Then you have people who are naturally unreliable. Ooh, look! Shiny!

We ran three tables, 1 DM and 5 players on each for the Launch Event. So: 3 DMs, 15 players, including 3 players who were relatively new.
The next session we had 3 DMs and 10 players: 8 returning, 2 new.
This week we had 3 DMs and 11 players. 9 returning, 2 new.

My own table had Glen in one of the three weeks - he's a priest, and his weekends can be busy. Kalum's a young kid, he was there for two weeks and not this week (he was a regular last season); not sure where he was. Harry is a Year 12 student at my school - he has sporting obligations at times. All three of them were missing this week, and I ended up with a table of four because Josh and Danielle wanted to give the game a try. (I think they enjoyed it, but we'll see if they return).

It's hard to say how many don't come back because they don't like the people, the system, the adventure, the DMing... so many things can go wrong.

Cheers!

 

[koga305]

Oh man. That adventure sounds fantastic - nice DMing skills on your part!
The call on having the Warg in combat looks pretty good - disadvantage on attacks to someone not trained in riding feels about right.

 

[MortalPlague]

I had the chance to run this adventure during the internal playtest, so I'm getting a huge kick out of your play reports, Merric.

My group also had the idea to go after Julkoun. I also felt it necessary to have a random encounter on the road, but I ambushed them with some unmounted goblins being watched by the terrifying Darkenbeast. The beast was slain by a few lucky rolls, and when it turned back into a cow, the party was pretty nervous. And confused.

Following that encounter, they made friends with the dryad, who pointed the worg camp out to them. Sure enough, they stormed the camp and took a worg prisoner, with the intention of coming back to them. Then they circled Julkoun, looking for a way in. Eventually, they also settled on the covered bridge.

The climb down was easy enough, and they slipped through the window into the bridge. My group decided on the southern passage instead, and crept through the tunnels. They heard the sounds of Shorg drinking and joking with his comrades, so they crept that way. With speed and stealth they dashed in and tried to slay him in the first round, but a few poor rolls made that impossible. The fight was fierce and brutal, and Shorg was on the losing end, but he managed to bellow for help.

One of my PCs tried to imitate his voice to say that everything was fine, but they botched the roll badly. The hunt was afoot. Goblins were moving about up top in the warehouse, which drove the PCs back into the tunnels. They tried the other passage and came up into the Inn's cellar. Our ranger (clad in his lucky hat) had the brilliant idea to tie the doors on the landing to each other so that neither party could open it. Then the party advanced to the top. Our ranger opened the door to see a whole host of hobgoblins and about a dozen terrified goblins, all pointing bows at him. He took about four arrows and fell down the stairs, unconscious.

The other PCs managed to close the door, and there was a tense standoff. Whatever lurked in the rooms off the landing were trying to get out (with no success), and the hobgoblins up top were clearly content to wait. Our valiant party had no mage, so there was no ability for area damage. Instead, they tried to use the door for cover and take pot shots, while also being subjected to some missile fire.

The Cleric of Bane decided to try and terrify the goblins with a serious intimidate check (and he spoke goblin to boot), which scattered the dozen and left the hobgoblins cursing them. Then the PCs charged up. The ranger was first through the door, and he took another volley of arrows, which left him pretty hurt but still fighting.

They managed to kill some of the hobgoblins and chase off the others, but at that point, the cook escaped the doors below, and so did the bugbears. A vicious fight in the tunnels occurred, and the characters decided they'd be best served to retreat back to the dryad's grove and camp out for the night. They fought a retreat from the bugbears, killing most of them, and then they reached the doorway to the covered bridge.

Unfortunately, they didn't realize that some of the hobgoblins had moved to flank them, and had climbed down into the bridge from above. The ranger, with his lucky hat slightly askew opened the door and took four more arrows. A running theme to the session, it seemed!

It was a pitched fight, even more so as the door at the other end opened. The PCs were scrambling out the window as the flaming sphere emerged behind them and began to light the bridge on fire. Climbing out of the bridge, our 'lucky' ranger failed his climb check so badly that he fell out the window instead, and caught himself by the hanging corpse, dangling from the window of a burning bridge.

He just managed to climb up in time, the party escaped onto the cliff walls where they began to move along the incline towards the west end of the little 'valley'. A goblin archer from the top of the wall was firing pot shots at them (at disadvantage for range), but the ranger managed to shoot him while clinging to the wall (also at disadvantage). The party managed to escape Julkoun, battered and bloody, but alive.

---

We had a quick wrap-up after that, where the PCs came back the next day to find the goblins had put Julkoun to the torch entirely. They had lost so many that they couldn't hold the ruins. I also have the PCs level 3, and they came in and had a quick and dirty rumble with the leader and her surviving hobgoblins. I really wanted to jump to the next part of the adventure, since Julkoun was effectively done (and we wanted to playtest as much as possible), so we shoehorned a quick resolution in.

This was probably one of the best WotC adventures I'd ever played. Some of the other parts I didn't get a chance to run, or they weren't as stellar as Julkoun, but on the whole, Scourge of the Sword Coast was truly excellent. I just love the sandbox approach here; one could think of almost a dozen plans to take Julkoun, and any of them could work (or go horribly awry). All in all, tons of fun.