This is a walktrhu report about the PCs moving through the rest of Redbrand hideout. You can find all the other walkthrus on this page, which also details the PCs, somewhat. The PCs are second level.
Before we begin, I’ll mention I feel like I struggled with this evening’s affairs, that is, not my best DM work. I think that is because I am (was) playing a DMPC because, well, they wanted 4 PCs and I thought I could do it. I’ve done this before, but I just couldn’t reconcile my play and knowledge well this evening. Maybe it was just me having an off night, but I’m bowing out as a PC. We’ll look at sidekick rules in the coming weeks….In the meantime, I’ll adjust the side quests some to balance them out.
One final note….I haven’t proof read this post yet, as I’m about to run my in person game and just wanted to get this up. I’ll fix the errors after my players let me know what to add / change. One more! I didn’t take any screen shots (ooops) during play, so for now there are no pictures here. I might, might, create a post just about the 3D map and how creating it went.
A Quick Review:
The PCs breezed through the first two rooms on the left with the guards (and one blue skinned goblin they teamed up on) and barely took a scratch in doing so. They quietly moved, and opened the doors, burst in, and surprised the bad guys, killing them almost before they could act. In the first room, two NPCs surrendered. Ergo, I made some changes to the adventure for night two.
What I Changed:
I took out the imp (quasit, whatever) familiar and replaced him with an invisible blue goblin monk. I changed the Nothic (as I always do) to be much more about creeping out PCs and scaring them (and had they saved differently, making promises). I decided Glasstaff would hear them in his study if they spent any time there. I also has previously adjusted the skeletons to be more deadly.
How It Went:
The players went into Glasstaff’s study, did not perceive the invisible monk, and proceeded to search the table and bookshelves. This alerted Glasstaff to their presence, and he left through the other door. When they moved into his room, they spotted the ajar secret door (this and the narrow hallway with the Canvas 3d module kept them from moving their 3d minis, so I had to move them). Two of the PCs wanted to chase down the wizard (they figured it was him) and proceeded to run after him. The other two moved more slowly, and my PC (Blanth) watched our backs, which was about all that kept him alive. He was still surprised by the monk, but it could have been worse. When the monk hit him, he yelled, the others came running……
The monk put up a good fight, but decided to disengage into the crevasse room. He collapsed the north bridge behind him. The paladin/barbarian caught up to him, but the monk pushed him into the crevasse (remember Shove/push/whatever DMs!) causing damage and knocking him prone. The druid was in dire wolf form, and collapsed the South bridge when he tried to cross it. That left the faerie and the monk PC…but the faerie was scared off by the nothic entering his mind….(I literally can’t recall who killed off the monk at this point, sorry).
After dispatching the monk, the PCs put on red cloaks and walked through the skeleton area w/o issue. They easily dispatched one of the Redbrands and the other two surrendered. After some discussion, the evil doers were locked in the cell that wasn’t holding the innocents (though Kisme insisted we strip the bad guys naked first). The PCs learned of a potential reward, and escorted the prisoners to safety (but not before dispatching the Redbrands sleeping in that store room / bedroom).
On returning to town, Halia informed them that there were still Redbrands at the Sleeping Giant. The PCs went there, talked briefly with the miners sent there earlier, and then threatened their way into figuring out which patrons were Redbrands and which were honest folk drinking in the wrong place at the wrong time. The PCs quickly dispatched (and captured) the Redbrands there and returned to Halia to report all was taken care of.
Aftermath and Thoughts:
It all seemed way too easy for my players, though Glasstaff got away and the nothic is still there. We decided to handwave taking care of the skeletons. Halia hinted at recruiting the PCs…..
We had issues with 3D Canvas (we’re running in Foundry with 3d, you can see pictures in the previous walkthru). The players couldn’t move their tokens past some doors (regular and secret) and in the narrow passages. I’m fairly sure this is user error….
The adventure itself was a cakewalk for the players. They burst into rooms, surprising the guards in the first two rooms and only BLanth took damage until the monk pushed Poncherulo into the crevasse and Twitch fell into it. PERHAPS I should not have let them surprise the second room, but that likely barely mattered (though it did, oops on my part). Not getting hit by spells from the wizard also helped, but they would have overwhelmed him easily. I’d give him Expeditious Retreat or something like that to let him get away if I ran this again. He’d also leave a scroll behind that exploded into fire when touched, I think.
Overall, though, the players said they had fun (but, you know, they are friends and were maybe just being nice). I think 3D Canvas is great, though I think it works best for us in 2.5D. I think Foundry is working quite well for us, and when we remember to target guys the effects are cool to look at.
The players have decided to head to Thundertree, and we might do that in full 3d, or in another application entirely to test how we like it.
I’m sure I forgot something……