The Gaming Den

East and South.

Sounds good to me!

Renegotiating the trap is easy with our rope.

The walls and ceiling here are crumbling. To cross this area, you must roll less than 13 on 1d20 or a wall will crash in for 1d8 damage. A web will prevent this.

What now?

West, southwest, south

There is no west exit from W121. Did you mean East, Southeast, South? That takes you out of the city.

Sorry, I misunderstood where we were. South.

South!

My bad on the delay guys, I actually missed SlyJohnny's clarification somehow.


Trap! [d6+170:173]

Your foot treads on a raised flagstone and a dart shoots from the wall. It's hit roll is 11. If you are hit, take 1-3 points and Save vs Poison at -2 or die.

On some level I miss old-style SoD poison. [1d20:2] The dart misses.

Obvious exits are:
• East?
• South?

No worries. I haven't been posting much lately.

Keep south.

Yeah, south.

Vines trail across the cracked flags and climb stony trellises to either side. An ominous flutter of leaves fills the air and you are attacked by snaking leafy fronds. Use M2.

• Spell?
• Talk?
• Fight?
• Evade?
• Item?

Christov Yetta, 10th Level Elf (2.1 million exp)
125 years old, Lawful
Fair-skinned and auburn-haired, Christov is a sprite 5'3" and 119 lbs. His steel gray eyes and firm jawline present a deadly menace to enemies. Christov is a doughty warrior, but has a kind heart and champions the oppressed. He has a strong love for his people and will do whatever it takes to return the bounty to the land. Considered fearless, Christov in reality is terrified of drowning and falling.
Abilities: Str 12, Int 17, Wis 13, Dex 14, Con 16, Cha 11
Saves: Poison 2+, Wands 4+, Paralysis 4+, Breath 3+, Spells 2+
HP: 29/64, Armor Class: 0, THAC0: 7
XP: 15, Honor: 10, Persistence: 5, Selfishness: 2
Spells:
Level 1: Magic Missile, Read Magic x2, Sleep, Ventriloquism
Level 2: Invisibility, Mirror Image, Phantasmal Force, Web
Level 3: Haste, Hold Person, Fireball
Level 4: Remove Curse, Wall of Fire
Level 5: Dissolve
Possessions: Battle Axe +1, Chain Mail +3, Healing Potion*, Amber Crystal of Escape, Hand Axe*, Rope*, Polished Shield*, Dagger, Grapple*, Backpack, Cloak*, 90 gp, Rations (5 days), Waterskin (5 drinks), 5x Platinum bar (worth 200 gp each), Potion of (Levitation?), Scroll of Fly

Fight. If this is the only way down to this room, maybe there's something worthwhile.

Damn, this is literally the scenario shrink plant was made for.

fight I guess.

2 Ash Crawler; Save 12; Evade 12
Talk –; AC 2(6); THAC0 16; Atk: 2d4
Spcl: Any hit (M100), 1-2 (M29), 14-15 (M30), 20 (M31)
Immune: Fireball, Fire Wall, Hold, Invisibility, Phantasmal Force; TS scroll
XP 2; HP 14 each

These plants use the stats for Ash Crawlers, which were actually created for this module, only later being adopted into the Creature Catalogue.
Round 1: We [d6:2], They [d6:6]; they have initiative!
They attack! [d20:18][d20:13], one hits for [2d4:2] damage. The monster has an effect on 'any hit', which is...

Whatever has attacked you has clamped onto your leg and causes 1 point of damage each round plus 1d4 from its sharp claws. This will continue until you cause it 5 points of damage, when it will drop off and attack normally again. While attached, you may attack it at +4.

With the attack bonus, we can (and shall) double strike it. [d20:8][d20:7], two hits, for [1d8+3:4] and [1d8+3:10] damage, enough to finish it off.

Round 2: We're smashing this round. The remaining plant attacks [d20:7] and misses. Our attack [d20:17] lands, dealing [1d8+15] an amount of damage that cannot fail to kill.

As far as loot goes, we can pick +2, +4, or one of the remaining two unknown modifiers. After that, there's nothing else of note here. The obvious unexplored exit is south.

Remind me again how what unknown modifiers there are is determined... Are we likely to do better than +4, or worse?

I vote for whatever looting plan the next player to post proposes, and to continue south.

There are four scroll icons to choose from. We have previously picked one that had a +2 modifier and one that had a +4 modifier, and there's nothing to keep us from using prior knowledge to pick those again. The remaining two icons have unknown modifiers. The scroll roll is 1d4(+32), so the modifiers definitely make a difference.

So you just don't know what numbers they are unless you've played the gamebook before?

+4 sounds decent I guess, though the odds what we get nothing are similar.

The treasure roll is [d4+32+4:40]

This scroll has three spells, but you need Read Magic to use it.

Let me know if you want to use RM, and also where we're going to next.

So would that be we get to choose any one spell off the scroll, and lose the others (whole scroll is one-use), or does it count as 3 scrolls and would get all of them?

You'd get all of them.

We're not going to do better than a triple, use it. Then go south.

This scroll contains knock, passwall, and fireball.

Here is a locked wooden door. You may not pass unless you have the key or other means. Above the door, a large boulder is balanced.

If you want to keep going this way, you're going to have to propose some way of bypassing the door. If not, let me know where to.

I vote to use Knock, but I could be persuaded to save the spell and backtrack in search of the key. There might be nastier doors to bypass, but we're hemorrhaging HP in here, so I'd rather not go haring off to the other side of the ruins after some fatous key.

If we are going to hunt the key, we should backtrack to the first crossroads and go southeast.

I'm guessing the boulder is either a trap, or a puzzle. No clue how to get it to work, but is there a way to get more information?

Iduno wrote:I'm guessing the boulder is either a trap, or a puzzle. No clue how to get it to work, but is there a way to get more information?

Not really. I checked the rope and grapple entries to see if either offered a way to jerry-rig bypassing a trap, but no dice. I mean, you could take a hint from the Scroll of Wisdom, but I don't think that's likely to offer advice on this one minor encounter.