The Gaming Den

Fuck all of that noise. Backtrack and try northeast.

As much as I want to go Tarzan, the only plant related spell Christov knows is shrink plant. Thile that might be reversible to plant growth in this edition (which would presumably make the vine easier to climb/swing on), he doesn't have it prepared.
Go northeast.

The flagging here is cracked and tumbled. You pick your way carefully across the court, when suddenly huge tentacles erupt from the floor and slash at you. One of the tentacles bears a deadly (d6) thorn. (We are instructed to fight monster statblock #27, but with 50 hp.)

We [d6:3] are not surprised. The tentacles [d6:4] are not surprised.
• Spell?
• Talk?
• Fight?
• Evade?
• Item?

Fight, probably. Although what does evading entail?

• Evading is an attempt to escape, and rolls 1d20 vs the enemy's evade TN. If you are already fighting, the enemy gets a free attack at +2. You can get +4 to your evade roll by throwing down a ration (if the monster is dumb) or a treasure (if the monster is smart).

A successful evasion usually means we can just move on, but the monster (if a fixed encounter) will be there again if we come back.

Item, maybe we can burn it with the oil.

The plant apparently uses the statblock of a Wyvern, but with more hp.

Wyvern; Save 14; Evade 8
Talk –; AC 3; THAC0 13; Atk: 2d8/d6
Spcl: Any sting (M97), 11-12 (M98), 20 (M99)
Immune: Fire Wall, Hold, Sleep; TS coin + scroll
XP 10; HP 30 50

Round 1: We lose initative. It misses with both tendrils and thorn [d20s:7,9]. We go to the item entry for oil.

Are you trying to...
• Trip your foe?
• Loosen a stuck object?
• Burn a foe? √

You strike a flint to the oily rag and hurl the fiery missile – roll to hit. The fire burns for 2 rounds. If you miss, your foe must Evade to avoid being forced back into the flame. He will take 1d8 points each round in the fire.

[d20:11] We land the burning oil, but its effect is underwhelming. [d8:2]

Knowing what we know now, what's the plan?
• Attack
• Evade
• Item

Ergh, that's tougher than anticipated. Though with the x2 bonus, that fire might do something over the next two rounds.

I say fight it out and hope the scroll is worth it. If its still alive and has at least 16 hp left after the fire burns put, throw more oil, if we have some.

Against AC 3, we don't hit on a 2+, so we can't double attack. Ordinary attacking averages (0.85*7.5=6.4), while smashing averages (0.6*=11.7); Christov smash!

Round 2: Plant tendril [d20:9] misses, plant thorn [d20:4] misses; Christov smash [d20:3] misses; fire burns [d8:7]. All told, the oil did 18 damage, leaving the plant at 32.
Round 3: Plant tendril [d20:13] hits for [2d8:13] damage, plant thorn [d20:3] misses; Christov smash [d20:13] hits for [d8+15: 23] damage.
Round 4: Plant tendril [d20:15] hits for [2d8:10] damage, plant thorn [d20:10] misses; Christov smash [d20:9] hits for [d8+15:19] damage, plant over.

We gain 10 XP, as well as treasure. There are four scrolls and it's a blind choice, so I'll roll for the first one: [d4:4]. Scroll #4 is +2 to the treasure roll of 1d4+32, so [d4+34:37] gets us...

This scroll is waterstained and useless.

...dick.

The coin treasure is a slightly more interesting situation. We can pick coin #4 which gives us a known modifier of +5, or we can pick one of the other five coins, basically blind. Let me know which coin you want to pick for our second loot chance, and also whether you want to continue north or east.

East for no particular reason.

if we hadn't been screwed with the scroll, I'd suggest we take our chances with the coins, but I'd like to be sure we get something of value out of this, so take coin #4.

East, and sure, play it safe on the coin.

Coin treasure [d6+20:22]...

In a small mahogany box, you find five bars of pure platinum, worth 500 gp each.

Not very interesting, but the best we've seen so far.


The path branches.
• North?
• South?

Back west and go north.

West then north.

The path branches.
• West?
• East?

East.

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 points. A web will prevent this.

• Use web to cross safely?
• Cross boldly, sucking up the chance of piddling damage?
• Go somewhere else?

West, south, east, north, to see if there's anything behind the crumbling area that we'd care about.

Yeah, seconding scouting round first.

South, west, north, west.

But if someone else wants to go straight south first, I'll vote for that.

In the center of this great hall, wreathed with ghastly vines, towers a grim giant. He looks at you, but his eyes are glassy and unseeing. "COME IN. I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU." You feel great evil about him.

• Attack?
• Try to dispel the evil?

Aww, crap. We brought along sodding Remove Curse, but not Dispel Magic?

Why are we even being offered the choice- is there no check on it right now, it's just going to ask us to pick a spell from our list, and then tell us we didn't pick right?

Edit: I vote to pull back, if it'll let us, and see if we can't find a dispelling doodad somewhere in these ruins. I feel like freeing the giant is going to be quite important, although maybe he's holding a crystal piece and killing him will get us the same result, but make us miss out on a couple of Honour points and a chance to skip the fight.

SlyJohnny wrote:Aww, crap. We brought along sodding Remove Curse, but not Dispel Magic?

Why are we even being offered the choice- is there no check on it right now, it's just going to ask us to pick a spell from our list, and then tell us we didn't pick right?

Dispel Magic isn't a spell we could have chosen, I'm guessing "Try to dispel the evil" is an ability. Possibly one we'd need an item for, though.

Half a vote for trying to dispel.

Try to dispel the evil.