Shannon wasn't feeling well, so Auryx took a hiatus. But three younger players were orphaned, so we adopted them into our table: Douglas playing a wood elf rogue named Bruidist; Victoria playing a wood elf druid named Nyalda; and John playing a human wizard named Rein.
Jeff also decided to restat Hiro as wild magic sorcerer. And Will restatted Squiz as a dwarf wizard.
We returned to Waterdeep after getting our reward from the Sunless Citadel. There, we learned the tale of Durgeddin the Black and Khundrukar, a redoubt he had taken his clan to after their homeland had been invaded by orcs. From this fortress he declared war on orc-kind. He and his clan were renowned weapon-smiths. This news alone got Phox's interest. Lydia, who's developed a habit of reading her book and muttering to herself in in strange languages, felt this was a good portent to follow. We haggled for a map to Khundrukar, under a mountain called the Stone Tooth near small town called Blasingdell.
Our newest recruits and Squiz went shopping. I had done some before leaving Waterdeep: acquiring a rapier for a better melee option when forced into it. Squiz got a potion of healing while the new recruits bought some weapons. I also bought a potion of healing, depleting the town's stock.
The local militia had captured an orc raider, but it didn't have much in the way of information. The militia did offer us a reward of 25 gp per orc head. We walked to the Stone Tooth and camped at it's base, hiding but still able to view the trail leading up. During third watch, the watch Lydia took, a group of orcs were bound up the trail. She woke up everyone. The rogues managed to ambush the orcs while the rest of the group rushed them.
This degenerated quickly into a running battle. Hiro used an unusual tactic: setting a twig in the midst of the orcs on fire with fire bolt, then causing a blinding flash with pyrotechnics. Then Nyalda hit a bunch with faerie fire. The non-blinded ones made a break for it.
Phox did what any good barbarian would do: she took off after them screaming at the top of her lungs. Lydia finds her pet human too interesting to let her die, so she followed. Vrinn and Hiro didn't want to watch us both die, so they followed.
So everyone else finished off the blinded orcs, and Squiz started harvesting orc heads, in the form of left ears.
When Phox, Lydia, Vrinn, and Hiro finally caught up to the fleeing orcs, they only managed to pin one of them, and the rest continued running up the path. At one point Vrinn even took off through the forest to skip the twitch-backs climbing the hill. Here though, Alec did some clever DMing. Orcs have a feature called Aggressive, which lets them use a bonus action to move up to their speed toward a hostile creature. They moved toward Vrinn, then used Dash and their normal movement to move past him.
Incidentally, PC orcs also get Aggressive. If something ever allows a creature to use 2 bonus actions on a turn, an orc monk or rogue could theoretically move up to 120ft (rogue) or 240ft (maxed out monk) in 6 seconds. That's a 27.28 miles an hour sprint for the monk. That's just shy of Usain Bolt's current record. We all know what has to happen: Wizards needs to release that rule. I suppose, as the rules stand, you could put haste on that maxed out orc monk. Which, even with only one bonus action (for either Aggressive or Step of the Wind), adds up to 480 feet per 6 seconds. That's 54.55 miles an hour. Highway speeds for a car. Nice! That is, of course, assuming haste doubles speed after the Unarmored Speed feature is applied and not before. I'm sending that one in to Sage Advice. Incidentally, assuming a monk's Unarmored Speed applies directly to an aarakocra's flight speed, a maxed out monk, hasted, would make 73 miles an hour or so flying.
At this point, we did catch up with the fleeing orcs. Because they had run into reinforcements near the top of the path. Vrinn managed to get surrounded and dropped by those orcs before we got in enough support to kill the lot.
Then, after healing Vrinn's wounds, we did the only ethical thing: sent him ahead to scout again. He spotted a stone door and several arrow slits. Not satisfied with that information, we sent him back for more. This time, however, he was spotted and had a few crossbow bolts to show for it.
We made another plan. We used Squiz as bait, since he can get his AC up to 20 with shield going, to lure out the orcs' attacks then shoot back while they're firing. This only sort of worked. So Lydia dropped her Quaal's feather token in front of one of the windows. It blocked the attacks out of one, and provided and convenient way to climb into the other windows. Squiz climbed on up, then used Aganazzar's scorcher on a line of orcs. Parkour! and Fuego!
After dropping these sentries, we took a short rest. We found a secret door out of the arrow slit corridor and into the main gate area. The orcs had barred the inside of the stone door. Opposite the door was a deep chasm crossed by a rope bridge. We heard water gurgling up from the depth. Phox unbarred the door while the rest of us poked around for secret doors, finding an entrance to another arrow slit corridor on the other side of the stone door.
Someone lit a torch and dropped it into the chasm to test the depths, attracting the attention of orcs on the other side. We easily dropped them. The bridge held up under our weight, but the crossing wasn't without incident. It turns out Phox is scared of heights. So Lydia had to encourage her while crossing.
We broke at that point. Next week: more orcs? Probably.
Phox did what any good barbarian would do: she took off after them screaming at the top of her lungs. Lydia finds her pet human too interesting to let her die, so she followed. Vrinn and Hiro didn't want to watch us both die, so they followed.
So everyone else finished off the blinded orcs, and Squiz started harvesting orc heads, in the form of left ears.
When Phox, Lydia, Vrinn, and Hiro finally caught up to the fleeing orcs, they only managed to pin one of them, and the rest continued running up the path. At one point Vrinn even took off through the forest to skip the twitch-backs climbing the hill. Here though, Alec did some clever DMing. Orcs have a feature called Aggressive, which lets them use a bonus action to move up to their speed toward a hostile creature. They moved toward Vrinn, then used Dash and their normal movement to move past him.
Incidentally, PC orcs also get Aggressive. If something ever allows a creature to use 2 bonus actions on a turn, an orc monk or rogue could theoretically move up to 120ft (rogue) or 240ft (maxed out monk) in 6 seconds. That's a 27.28 miles an hour sprint for the monk. That's just shy of Usain Bolt's current record. We all know what has to happen: Wizards needs to release that rule. I suppose, as the rules stand, you could put haste on that maxed out orc monk. Which, even with only one bonus action (for either Aggressive or Step of the Wind), adds up to 480 feet per 6 seconds. That's 54.55 miles an hour. Highway speeds for a car. Nice! That is, of course, assuming haste doubles speed after the Unarmored Speed feature is applied and not before. I'm sending that one in to Sage Advice. Incidentally, assuming a monk's Unarmored Speed applies directly to an aarakocra's flight speed, a maxed out monk, hasted, would make 73 miles an hour or so flying.
At this point, we did catch up with the fleeing orcs. Because they had run into reinforcements near the top of the path. Vrinn managed to get surrounded and dropped by those orcs before we got in enough support to kill the lot.
Then, after healing Vrinn's wounds, we did the only ethical thing: sent him ahead to scout again. He spotted a stone door and several arrow slits. Not satisfied with that information, we sent him back for more. This time, however, he was spotted and had a few crossbow bolts to show for it.
We made another plan. We used Squiz as bait, since he can get his AC up to 20 with shield going, to lure out the orcs' attacks then shoot back while they're firing. This only sort of worked. So Lydia dropped her Quaal's feather token in front of one of the windows. It blocked the attacks out of one, and provided and convenient way to climb into the other windows. Squiz climbed on up, then used Aganazzar's scorcher on a line of orcs. Parkour! and Fuego!
After dropping these sentries, we took a short rest. We found a secret door out of the arrow slit corridor and into the main gate area. The orcs had barred the inside of the stone door. Opposite the door was a deep chasm crossed by a rope bridge. We heard water gurgling up from the depth. Phox unbarred the door while the rest of us poked around for secret doors, finding an entrance to another arrow slit corridor on the other side of the stone door.
Someone lit a torch and dropped it into the chasm to test the depths, attracting the attention of orcs on the other side. We easily dropped them. The bridge held up under our weight, but the crossing wasn't without incident. It turns out Phox is scared of heights. So Lydia had to encourage her while crossing.
We broke at that point. Next week: more orcs? Probably.
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