Long weekend for me. Played in a long session Friday, ran one Saturday, and then went out for drinks with a couple friends. One of them plays in my campaign, the other has never played. After a couple beers they decide they want a one-off campaign and - tired as I was - I couldn't pass that up.
I decide immediately this is going to be randomly rolled / defined by whatever piques the players' interest. One rolls an Aarakocra Ranger + the other a Half Dark Elf Sorcerer. Sounds fun. I like Rangers, so I decide early on we're going for a Witcher 3 vibe.
They walk up to a job board in town, and I use this random encounter generator to populate it with random requests from townspeoples. Of all the ones I read off to them, they found "Oi thar's a giant snake eatn' meh sheep!" the most interesting. Who wouldn't?
They meet up, negotiate a price for the head of this snake, and set out to collect evidence. They end up at a suburb/farming community on the outskirts of town, and sure enough after talking to some locals they find evidence that a snake had been around. Animals were disappearing in the middle of the night, yet no blood was seen. They conclude it's probably eating them whole - as a DM I'm internally saying, Good idea! I'll make it a giant constrictor snake.
They follow the trail, and conclude it's been living in and climbing around in giant trees in the nearby forest. The playeres ask if it will be voiced by Scarlett Johansson. I'm a 6'2" man with a deep voice; Sadly I was not able to pull that off.
I describe the tracks of this thing as being as big around as a refrigerator. They (smartly) decide they want to go get a mercenary. Again, I randomly roll some NPCs that can serve as mercs. After talking to all of them (and after I'd done unique voices for all of them - helps that I was buzzed) they select a Monk named Caelian. I look back at his character description and noticed I'd missed something - so on their way out of the Bagger's Sack Pub, he whistles for his animal companion (my players' eyes light up) and a fucking Tiger trots out. "His name is Dagi," says Caelian. My players are delighted.
"So we call him Doggy, right?" they ask. OBVIOUSLY we call him Doggy.
They head out to the Forest - on their way, they rent a goat named Shirley as bait. Jurassic Park references went on for about five minutes.
They find a clearing in the dense forest (convenient) and tie the goat up in the middle of it, letting it bleat its heart out.
I let one hour of game time pass. I want them to be impatient. They are hiding behind a large tree, waiting for something to happen. I'm ominously rolling die while they wait. The Aarakocra Ranger decides to fly above and get a better look - bad choice. The Giant Constrictor Snake (hiding above them in the large tree) tries to snatch him out of mid-air, and gets a surprise round on the group. "Roll Initiative."
First round, the Ranger makes a successful opposing strength check to escape the grapple they were in. They head to the clearing, and are pursued by the snake. It's a Huge Class creature, and I represent it using d6's in a line, slithering along.
One by one, it starts taking out the party. First the Monk is constricted and takes 2d8+4 bludgeoning every turn. Nasty. The Monk Caelian dies, and Dagi the Tiger roar/howls in anguish.
The Ranger mixes it up in melee combat, and gets constricted again. The Ranger goes down. I let him control the actions of Dagi at this point.
The sorcerer is pursued through the trees, and is grappled as well. The tiger is flanking + bite/slashing. Sorcerer goes down to a nasty bite after valiantly firebolting for a few rounds.
Now it's Doggy vs a Giant Snake.
At this point, grapple contest checks are being made every round. The tiger fails multiple times, but is doing solid damage to this snake. Dagi is also taking 2d8+4 bludgeoning damage each round from constriction.
Last Round. One last strength contest - Dagi rolls a 16. The Snake rolls a 15. Dagi the Tiger escapes with 1 HP left, and makes a last ditch effort to murder this snake with the corpse of its former master nearby, and our player characters helplessly crumpled in a heap.
Dagi rolls a 14 vs AC - Snake has 12. 8 damage - more than enough to finish this thing off. It sags and drops its head to the ground in a large thud.
Dagi the Tiger channels its inner Lassie, and sprints to the village to get help - he brings back the woman who sold them Shirley the Goat. The party is saved, the snake is dead. The group gets a long rest, retrieves the head of the snake, and they receive their reward.
EPILOGUE
The Ranger sits down in front of Dagi, and says "Dagi. I swear it on my life, come with me and we will honor your fallen master - I will protect you and care for you if you do the same for me." I was like, fuck. That's good RP. Roll animal handling w/ advantage. 19.
So now the Aarakocra Ranger has a Tiger companion lovingly named Doggy, and the Half Dark Elf Sorcerer player immediately asks when we're playing next.
Submitted July 24, 2017 at 10:33PM by chucktowski http://ift.tt/2uRlshI DnD
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