Cave Crawling Blues

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they had fought some guards at the entrance to a system of caves held by the Cult of the Dragon.

But first, we got to level up! Upon reaching third level, clerics get access new their second level of spell slots. From my domain I added magic weapon and spiritual weapon, and then chose enhance ability (a spell that use to be prepared as six different spells). Lokeo, Corrin, and Sandi had far more interesting level ups.

Why? They got to choose archetypes. Archetypes are similar in function to Paragon Paths from 4th or Prestige Classes from 3rd. They provide some specialization and flavor to your character. Paul, Sandi's player, chose Hunter. It's a straight forward archetype for the Ranger, making them better at, well, hunting and killing things. His other option was Beast Master, an archetype that would have provided him with an animal companion.

Both Corrin and Lokeo are based off of characters found in the Starter Set. The vanilla versions of these characters use the Thief Archetype for the halfling rogue and the Champion Archetype for the human fighter. The Thief archetype is pretty straight forward-it adds all kinds of bonus for sneaking, climbing, and stealing stuff. One of its higher level features is Use Magic Device. The other rogue archetype is Assassin, and it does what you think it would do. The Champion archetype is also pretty straight forward for fighters. It adds an Improved Critical and enhances your physical and fighting capabilities. Another option for fighters is the Battle Master, which allows the fighter to play a bit more like a 4e Warlord: buffing his allies and de-buffing his enemies.

Sean, Corrin's player, and Reese, Lokeo's player, (feel free to correct my spelling, guys) opted for the third option: spell caster: Arcane Trickster for the rogue and Eldritch Knight for the fighter. Both add limited amounts of wizard spells. The Eldritch Knight adds mostly abjuration and evocation spells (so mostly shooty spells and protection spells), and the Arcane Trickster focuses on enchantment and illusion (tricking people). In addition, the Eldritch Knight gains an ability to bond to up to two weapons, and he can never be disarmed. The Arcane Tricksters gets mage hand and can use it for all sorts of extra shenanigans. I ended up helping Reese with rebuilding his stats for Eldritch Knight and in choosing spells.

All classes get a feature like these archetypes somewhere within the first three levels. Most pick theirs at third, but clerics, sorcerers and warlocks pick theirs at first, and druids and wizards pick theirs at second.

Although Beld had left, and it became known that Kosef was never joining again, Censura did return. Erevan, however, was absent. (Seriously, if your Wednesday nights are free, and you live in Tucson, come to Isle of Game and roll a front-line tank character to join this group. WE NEED YOU!)

So the next room in the cave involved a set of stairs descending into a garden of mushrooms. After Lokeo made it down the steps, Corrin tripped a trap and fell down, rolling to a stop amid a cluster of violet fungi (mobile plant monsters). We managed to handle the mushrooms without too much difficulty, Corrin even managed to scatter a few using one of his new spells.  But he was dropped during the battle. Fortunately, I was handy with a cure wounds spell.

Past that we found a room full of bats. Censura, being an enterprising fellow, decided to try attracting some and even managed to "tame" four of them. Here, "tame," means got them to eat some scraps of food that he offered. Like good dungeoneers, we suspected mischief, and after examining the room, we spotted corpses of bats with strange bite marks. Corrin spotted some creatures on the cieling that were not bats, then blasted one with one of his new spells. So the bats swarmed, and the other critters joined them. Eventually we were able to identify them as stirges, really big mosquito monsters. Again, we managed them without too much trouble, they weren't hard to hit and had few hit points. Also, unlike kobolds and dragonclaws, they lacked a gang-up bonus. In fact, all attacks against me missed in this battle; and I rejoiced at having the highest AC in the party (18) finally paying off. Unfortunately, Corrin got dropped again.

We actually paused the battle at one point to do a bit of rules lawyering. In the first battle, Sandi had used a ranger spell called hunters mark, which gives him bonuses to damage and track a marked target. The spell has a duration of Concentration, up to 1 hour (more on what concentration means later). It does allow you to pass on the mark. Specifically, it says "If the target drops to 0 hits points before this spell ends, you can use a bonus action on a subsequent turn of yours to mark a new creature." (PHB 251, emphasis added). The question, of course, was, would the spell last into the new battle or would Sandi need to recast it? Ultimately, we decided that yes it would last between battles, and played it that way. This is definitely something that will need to be in an errata document.

Corrin opted to stay unconscious for the moment, and we continued on. I followed a broad corridor into another large cave. On the way in, Censura stepped in a trap: a poisoned needle that had an effect similar to confusion. We let the poison run its course. The next room had a lower level that was locked off. It also had racks of weapons and practice dummies along the upper level. We spotted the tail of a creature prowling on the lower level, and Censura cast a spell at it. We left on that cliffhanger.