The local wood craftsman is highly skilled and can create masterwork equipment. Masterwork weapons give you a +1 on your attack roll and are a pre-requisite if you want to craft magical weapons (or armor). However, in order to craft masterwork equipment, he needs good quality wood.
Fortunately for us, the local woodcutter informs us that there is a source of good quality wood in the nearby Deklo grove. Unfortunately, the grove is currently overrun with spiders. Hmm, not quite the easy "giant rat" fight that I'm used to getting as level 1 adventurers in D&D games but still, spiders should be easy to take out right?
Of course, they would be giant spiders...
Wow - two giant spiders for my first real fight. Granted, I outnumber the giant spiders by a factor of 3 but considering that my guys are level 1 and liable to go down in a single hit, lets just say I'm not exactly filled with confidence.
The other big threat from the spiders is that they can cast web which can really frak up your party. To counter this, and against the advice of Wizards of the Coast marketing campaign, I immediately split the party.
Sonora, my thief, goes straight for the top left spider while Meleny goes for the top right. By locking down the spiders in melee, we get an Attack of Opportunity if they cast the Web spell and a chance to disrupt their spellcasting. Jaheira, my druid, summons a wolf to help Meleny while the other PCs split up so that we wouldn't all get caught in a web just in case the spiders manage to successfully cast.
Two web spells later, both Coryn, my mage, and Meleny are locked down in webs.
My plan didn't work out exactly as I had hoped. Still, at least my melee fighter and cleric aren't locked down in web spells. Sir Galahad, my fighter, starts to head top right to help out Meleny. Unfortunately, the web spell also slows down movement so its slow going for him. Meanwhile, Falgur, my dwarven cleric, charges the top left spider.
Critical hit!
And wipes out the spider with 27 damage on a critical hit! What a start to my first real fight as adventurers! With one spider left, time to pile on and overrun him.
Or rather, pile on and get caught up in webs
Unfortunately, things don't go so well with the second spider. Due to its position, its in a natural bottleneck and only two melee characters can engage him at a time (three if you include Falgur who has long reach with his spear). Naturally, I found this out the hard way when I tried to send Sonora in to help out but found that she could only stand around helplessly. The web also gives me a -2 on my attack rolls so even hitting the spider is proving difficult.
Naturally, the spider doesn't have any trouble hitting us and as you can see, Meleny has already taken 8 damage (on one hit).
Poor Melany
I eventually manage to take out the spider but not before it hits Meleny one more time. For 10 damage.
Alas poor Meleny, I barely knew ye. But this does show you how lethal combat can be for 1st level adventurers in D&D.
No comments:
Post a Comment