Session #2
Alright, so this session started at about 530 with my two players (Ateic (the Divine Soul Sorcerer) and ended up being Kale for the Half-Oluk Monk) and they were in the Loch Brech camp and they had been asked by the camp leadership to go and find Grandmother Hawkins, who had been sent to another such refugee camp to the northeast that had asked for assistance. Grandmotehr Hawkins was due back a few days ago and hadn't shown, and so the leadership in Brech was getting nervous.
I explained to Ateic's player that the Folk Healer feature works both ways, that yes, you can get audience where you ordinarily couldn't - but that it may also work in reverse, and so sometimes important people or groups will seek you out (whether or not you want the audience, haha). I didn't use the journey mechanic or even give them a real random encounter roll on their way because at this point in time I had a divine soul sorcerer & a monk and so with what I had waiting for them in the 1 room kobold cave dungeon I had made, I didn't want to tax too many of their resources just yet.
They came across the other camp, which appeared to be in the midst of picking up stakes and moving on. They talked to one of the elder types there and learned that the camp had recently been attacked by kobolds and they were moving their site, because if the Dark Folk had found them, they couldn't stay where they were. They asked about the missing healer and were told that the Healer had been carried off by the kobold attackers.
The players asked about how many kobolds had attacked, rightly thinking that they didn't want to go charging into a veritable horde of dark folk alone, but the camp said they had killed 7 or so of the attackers, and there had only been 15 at the start, so maybe there weren't that many kobolds left. The campers said that the kobolds had come from the north, and so that is the way our heroes went.
They came across a pair of kobolds, and well, a word I guess about the Half-Oluk character. So the backstory the player decided on was that Kale (formerly an orcish name I've forgotten and didn't write down last night in addition to their current name of Kale) had been a small unit leader in the Lord of Sloth's forces, but had decided to turn away from their evil life. So they arranged the death of those under their command and disappeared, presumably slain with their men. A feature they wanted to have was that they still sometimes feel the tugging of the Dark Will, and so they wanted me as the DM to sometimes give hints, or tips, or prompts that may or may not be the effects of the Dark Will. Haven't used it yet, but it seems like an interesting idea, so I'm game. (This'll be really interesting when we talk about what happened in the kobold cave).
So, Kale the Half-Oluk tried to talk to the Kobolds to find out what they were doing, wanting to play on the visual effect of being a Half-Oluk dealing with kobolds. Oddly- the kobolds acted afraid(not odd) but defied him and decided to fight instead. This surprised the player, who is like 'but I was a warleader' and I talked about how big the forces were, and how indeed it was odd that kobolds completely blew them off.
So they fought and killed the two kobolds. Easy. The player is really enjoying the bonus action attacks from the monk martial arts feature, they dropped the two kobolds themselves in the first turn just rolling well with damage and attacks. The reckless feature from being a Half-Oluk also got used heavily last night and to great effect. (they also picked up on the potential synergy of that and one of the Ki maneuvers they got once they hit level 2).
They continued heading north and eventually found the door sized opening of a cave, they went inside and spotted a trip wire and successfully avoided the first of the kobold's traps (a net). I was experimenting with using roll20's dynamic lighting feature to help with dungeon exploration, and with the smaller group this worked out great. They liked the visual, I liked not having to worry about what parts of the dungeon they saw, etc (more on this with the bigger group later though, mixed results but I'm not sure if its a people or procedure problem just yet).
They ran into and fought and killed 3 kobolds in the first chamber, but the kobolds managed to trigger a rock slide that blocked off of one of the passage ways, leading them with 2 ways to go. 1 was going across a sketchy looking rope bridge (that if it broke would have led to a probably lethal fall into a dark abyss) My thought process for the kobolds was that the rope bridge is only strong enough for small characters, so if bigger people go across without thinking about it, they break the bridge and fall to their deaths. I have warned my players several times of the difficulty of the setting, and that while *I* am not trying to kill their character, the monsters they fight most certainly are and I'm doing my best to reflect that as realistically as possible.
The second path led them into a hatchery - where the den mother tried and failed to get surprise, and they killed her - and then they had a bit of discussion about what to do with the 10 kobold eggs they found in this room. Kale argued that the kobolds would grow up to be dark folk, and so they squished all the eggs. Then they went and tried to figure out how to deal with the rope bridge. They settled for tying ropes to eachother, and crossing one at a time as their perception checks had given them hints that the bridge wasn't super stable.
I had originally planned for the rope bridge to collapse no matter what, but in action I didn't think they had a good way across without it, and that they needed a chance. So I set a 50% chance for failing for the human crossing, and a 75% chance for it failing when the bigger Half-Oluk did. They both rolled fortunately and got across, where they were attacked by 2 more kobolds. They made short work of them, and then discovered that there were no less than 15-20 additional kobolds laying around on makeshift cots and beds, looking as if they have been tended to by a skilled healer.
They interrogated one of the kobolds and learned that the healer had been here, helped them, and then left on her own. Which the players caught as a bit odd with the story they were given by the camp that had been attacked, (as intended by me, I'm tying this into the spy angle in Towers of Waiting adventure). Again, they had another moral discussion here and ended up deciding to leave across the rope bridge, and then set that compartment of the cave on fire and the ropebridge with the sorcerer's firebolt cantrip.
Despite having questions about the motivations of the kobolds, they did eliminate the entire cave, to include the sick and the young with impunity. They then returned to the Loch Brech camp, and informed them that the healer was still missing.
Session 2 Part Two
So I'm going to summarize how my experience with Towers of Waiting went with my group. I was trying a few new things this game night and so I was expecting some bumps, but I also have some newer players and I think this affects how well my game runs on both ends (my DM expectations and things I assume, and then the players not doing or knowing things because well, they are new and I made assumptions).
So, for this group after the random encounter grind of last game - I had meant to start using the journey mechanic, but I forgot to review it before the session because I was too busy messing with roll20 and the dynamic lighting features and getting my screens set up for the game and everything so I didn't, so I just skipped random encounters this session. They showed up and since I had a big group, instead of having the kobolds with the skeletons flee, I had them fight.
Kind've conflicts with the hints I'm dropping about the kobolds maybe not wanting to be evil, but I think I'm gonna have to hit the players over the head with some npc plot exposition for them to get that (and I think I'm going to tie it into a missing Gnome kingdom somehow) there in the mountains to the west and east of Sarumvest, thiey dealt with those and then went into the (I forget right or left) but it was the one with the necromancer on top.
They went down first after seeing some movement, had some antics about throwing a torch with the light cantrip cast on it down there trying to see what was down there - and I'm not sure if its me or them, but I think I need to work on my descriptions of rooms and things, because then I had one of the players decide to jump down into the bone pit from the entry level, and I was like - you sure want all that 4d6 falling damage? I gave them a mulligan because they were like 'but shouldn't it be assumed i'd use a rope or do it the smart way' and then we had a talk about how, no, the DM won't assume you were doing it the smart way, when you say 'im gonna jump down' we're gonna take you at your word.
They make their way through the tower down and then back up, and I don't know what it is, but they are trying each and every way possible to avoid taking any sort of risk, which, I guess is fine, and maybe I was just having a blah DM night but it go annoying because its like, you're adventurers going into a dangerous place, but you're literally the biggest chickens I've ever met, haha. I dunno, I just wasn't having a lot of fun this half of the session, I made a post in the GM discussions about it asking for advice from the hivemind and got some stuff that may help.
So they fight the ghoul, kill the ghoul (looking back, I should have added another ghoul due to party size, but oh well) and then they killed beryn on top. The combat was dragging a bit because they players weren't paying attention to the roll20 grids, so I went to theater of the mind, and of course I'd go around the table and have off task players so it got confusing, so when Beryn went down I sent the skeletons with him.
Then 2 of the players had to leave, so when the group left the first tower - I had the forces in the second tower come out and attack, and I realized I over compensated and could have wiped them so I nerfed the hobgoblin, they killed him and his forces and went back to the camp.
Not my best session ever. I don't know if I wasn't prepared enough, if the group was too big, or they were just too off task, or if that was my fault, I dunno. I'm thinking I'm gonna make some sort of dungeon to do next session (either this saturday or next) and see if going all original doesn't help, give myself more time to prep the 2nd Farland adventure because I really do want to get through an entire string of pregens.