General Chat

Winks. Less dead bodies would solve the problem. :)

I'm the last that joined so right now I do as you prefer. But in case I die, please...leave my body stranded to the goblins, steal everything I have and go on. You have my blessing🤣

I agree, we don't need to walk every corpse up to the surface. Let's just turn the roleplaying down about 15% and carry on with the dungeon crawl. When Ricard dies please just chop him up and eat him for dinner.

I do however think it's too soon for us to try to tackle the second level...

I say loot the body and move on. Old school gaming can be quite deadly. We could run out of space in the courtyard. XD

In all seriousness, it is a very deadly risk for the party to bury the dead. We could have been in some really hot water if only a few PCs were left at the bottom of the well to deal with a level 2 wandering monster. There's no way the rest of the group could climb down in time.

I do think we'll more likely want to bury a dead PC when they have advanced a couple of levels, and have been in the group for a while. That is when the death could have a real impact on the rest of the group.

I don't know how much old school gaming anyone has, but old school game designers did not worry about balancing encounters. If 50 orcs in a lair makes sense, then there's 50 orcs in a lair. Tiberious can only hope to outrun the rest of you. ;)

Re: 2nd level vs. 1st level:
Here's why I keep trying to get us to go down to level 2. The only clue we have for any treasure is for the 2nd level. The trap on the 2nd level was no more deadly than the trap on the 1st level. We know that the higher trafficked areas of the dungeon have been much more "picked clean" (according to the introductory background material the DM provided us). So the risk is comparable, but the chance of reward is greater the deeper we go. Mechanically, we gain experience primarily through finding treasure and bringing it out of the dungeon. Fighting monsters, avoiding traps, clearing out rooms...none of these award enough XP to approach gaining a level. Ideally, we gain XP by pulling off what are effectively heists: we research/investigate, find out where there is (likely to be) treasure, scope out the area, and come up with a plan to get the treasure while minimizing risk. We pull off the heist, handle any unexpected twists, get out with the loot, and gain XP.

Right now we have two leads on possible treasure:
1) stealing from the "tax collectors"
2) Finding the jewels on level 2

The problem with 1 is that there's a bunch of risk, and the reward is uncertain. They probably have money that they got by robbing others - there are signs like the chopped trees that someone has been living in the canyon for a while - but we don't know that for sure. We also don't know how many there are; if we want to pursue this avenue for wealth, we should probably explore a bit more on the surface.

The problem with 2 is that we need to explore level 2 more to find the area described in the clue...and we need to "deal with the wasps." Jewels are likely better treasure than what the robbers have, but we don't know where on level 2 they are. We know where the robbers are.

So maybe we should decide which lead to follow and start making plans?

We were in here when we heard the voice...



Now we're trying this way...

The door I was thinking of was south 1 and west 2 of the trap. The maps above do not really show me the room with the portcullis in it. The first map is where I think that room is.

Gabbro's map does show the portcullis ...

Gabbro and Tiberious are doing a fantastic job of mapping, and I include links to their maps at the bottom of every post to make it as easy as possible for you to track your progress.

Just FYI: I'm going to a game convention - DunDraCon 47 - this weekend, so my posts will be slow in coming, and probably brief. I've just updated the map, but I can't guarantee that I'll be able to update it for the next few days.

Have a great time! I hope you get into a lot of games

We need to find someone to interrogate and find out more about this place. The Kobold's probably would have been good for information (sorry - my bad). If we find someone or a group, keep at least one alive. We need information.

that's our chance to get information, and directions possibly. I think you all agree we play this friendly with the dwarves

So we're in the blue stone room, and looking to go back rather than confront the approaching voices. If I understand it correctly, Swan's proposal is to return to the third intersection, then head north and take a left to head west from the second intersection. Any other suggestions, or are we all heading that way?

I'm not disputing that we need to retreat (although we did just rest for an hour); we just have a lot of options of where to go next.

Edit: AND I wanted to make sure I understood the path that Swan was suggesting!