cat /proc/claus

Tonight I got to DM my second live session of Swords and Wizardry. It was a continuation of last week’s game. We’re currently running the dungeon in the Quick Start guide, and now that the party has cleared half the rooms and returned to town, I started filling the cleared room with new, bizarre monsters.

In the first session, the team invaded this ancient temple and started exploring, with Timmy, a young torchbearer, and Ed, a mercenary. They found Cristina, an Elvira-like evil cleric, and with clever use of a “Sleep” spell, put her to sleep, and turned her into a sexual-slave-trap-detector-monster-bait. After exploring a bunch of easy rooms, they ambushed a group of goblins and made short work of them, returning when facing the goblin mage.

In the current session, they were recovering from the encounter with the goblin mage when they met the new PC, who was accompained by a full entourage of 5 hirelings. They started investigating again when a goblin ambush took out half the hirelings (and poor Timmy!). Having get rid of the goblins, the group had some fun at a talking statue room, and almost got killed by a pack of giant rats. Only two PCs survived the onslaught, and one of them was unconscious (Yay! my first PC-kill!)

They returned to town, to re-stock on hirelings and PCs (this time a full 8 hireling mini-army, including Barack Obama :-P), and returned to the dungeon. It was different now, though - all rooms were deathly cold, and strange translucent zombies were everywhere, claiming for “revenge” — the zombies would meld in certain places, and managed to remove and eat the brains of one of the hirelings - who later turned back into a frog zombie! Aaaie!

We finished around here… This was a “replacement” game (the main GM for our regular game was missing), so I’m not sure when I’ll get to play it again, but we had laughs and laughs during the whole thing, so I hope it is soon

So I’m really enjoying this old school thing. The lightweight approach to PC death (the characters suck anyway, and it is so fast to make another one!) allows me to play more fast and loose with the rules, and have the monsters try interesting things, like ambushes and rush tactics on the players. I also invent a lot of stuff on the spot, knowing that if I make anything too broken, it is really easy to erase it later.

On the other hand, I still have to get the hang on how to deal with time and weight in order to better make sure that the party’s resources are taxed. Their lamps are almost running forever now, and they are lugging a LARGE ammount of treasure now without a problem. Also, the large amount of hirelings made things a bit… “strange”, but nothing that can’t be fixed by having the city block them from sending any more of its young men to their deaths

I’ll put some links later, I’m dead sleepy now.

This post describes a combat encounter for the D&D 4th edition RPG game. I ran this encounter today for my gaming group, and we liked the result so much I decided to share the encounter.

Scenario

4-5 lv 4 players. The group is clearing/investigating a temple defiled by demons. This is the “final” encounter - this demon is protecting the room that houses whatever the group came to search (in the case of my game, a portal that draws energy from the lower planes into the prime material). The group must overcome this last challenge to reach their goal.

Battle Map

The combat takes place in a 2 square wide, 2 square high, ~20 squares long corridor. A double door is in one end, and the demon is waiting for the party in front of the double door. The party comes from the other end of the corridor. There are NO light sources, so take this into account for surprise/initial distance for both sides.

The battle map may seem a little dull, but this will soon change.

Demon Corridor Guardian

These are the stats for the Demonic Guardian. For some reason, I can’t get Dungeonmastering’s “DM tools” style to play with Wordpress’ style, so I will have to improvise. Sorry about that (if anyone knows how to help, please contact me!)

Demonic Guardian Level 7 Solo Brute, 1500 XP
Medium Demon Humanoid

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Initiative: +5 Senses: Perception +4; Darkvision
HP: 360 Bloodied: 180
AC: 21 Fortitude: 25 Reflex: 19 Will: 21
Immunities: Variable 10; 1/encounter
Saving throws: +5
Speed 6 Action Points 2

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(Basic Melee) Claw Slash (Standard, At-Will)
+11 vs AC; 2d8+5 damage and the target is pushed 1 square.

(Melee) Slash and Slam (Standard, At-Will)
2 “Claw Slash” attacks in one target. If both attacks hit, the target is also knocked prone.

(Melee) 4-armed Raise (Standard, Recharge 5,6)
+9 vs Fortitude; 3d8+5 and the target is grabbed

(Ranged) Throw (Minor, At will (grabbed target only))
Ranged 3; 1d6+5 damage and the target is slided 3 squares and knocked prone.
Secondary Attack: +9 vs reflex - target must be another creature adjacent to the target of the primary attack. 1d6+5 damage and secondary target is knocked prone.

(Melee) Invoke Pit Soul (Minor, Recharge 5,6) * Fire
Targets a creature in Range 15 adjacent to a pit. +9 vs Reflex, 1d6+5 fire damage and target has -2 to hit until the end of the Demon’s next turn.

(Area) Demon World (Minor, Recharge 3,4,5,6) * Fire, Psychic
The corridor is enlarged one square in each direction (up to 12 width), and 4 empty squares adjacent to enemies become pits.

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Alignment: Chaotic Evil Language Demonic
Skills: Athletics +14; Stealth +10
Str: 20 (+8) Dex 15 (+5) Wis 12 (+4)
Con: 16 (+6) Int 8 (+2) Cha 6 (+1)

Tactics

The demon will try to use “Demon World” as much as possible to Change the terrain to its favor. It will try to throw
the defender away from it, and then generate pits to prevent the defender to reach him. If he can’t keep the defender away, the demon will try to use Slash and Slam to push him into one of the pits.

The demon will also keep some of the pits near the back line of the party, and try to keep the striker with the attack penalty as often as possible. If the striker of the party is on the back line, the demon will accept some opportunity attacks to rush into the striker.

If bloodied, the demon will use both his action points at once to hit one target with three “Slash and Slam”, to put one player down. He will fight to death. Also, he will wait two rounds before activating “Variable Resistance”, to make sure he chooses some kind of resistance which is useful to the Demon.

Note
Falling in the pit causes no damage, but requires a Athletics roll of 15 to leave in one turn. You cant do melee attacks from
inside the pit to the outside.

Suggestions

Try to concentrate on the dramatic effect of the “Demon World” and “Pit Soul” attacks. The Demon corrupts the foundation of the stones around him, and enlist their very help to fight the characters. The Pit souls are pale shadows of the demon the party is facing. Make sure to describe how the earth shakes and moans as the demon distorts it.

You know you are doing it right if the players are afraid that the “expand the corridor” power means that the room will fall to the ground in a few turns.

Also, since this is a solo fight with a Brute (lots of HPs!) don’t be shy about having the demon ignore the Defender and go straight for the squishies - your defender will be excited by the attacks of opportunities, and the fight will go faster (either towards victory or defeat!), and be more interesting.