Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 12

 

I'm playing a mashup of Scarlet Heroes and Basic Fantasy RPG with a few supplements to turn it into a solo fantasy hexcrawl in the world of Eilobar, a doomed land entering its end times. I'm using the Level 0 Character Tumbler, Hexcrawl Aventures and also 47 Critical Hit Tables to Spice Up Your Game. Starting with level 0 characters I'm attempting to keep them alive long enough to level up from -100 to 1 XP and become actual heroes.

Introduction

The heroes are on their way home after an abortive attempt to find Mothric in the Tunnels - Bryne was knocked into a pit the monsters used as a toilet, so she has to go home and clean up.

The Adventure

While crossing the ruined village in the swamp, Cyna discovers she has foot fungus (a random weather event). Stilda bandages it but it will stop them from moving for four days while it heals. I'm going to let Stilda roll a check using her Heal skill to see if she can reduce that time by 1D4 days.

Check: Hard (DC13). 2D8 +1 Heal.

Failure!

The party make camp and settle in. They're still going to attract wandering monsters on a roll of 1-2 though, since Bryne is still covered in shite. On the third day they see the tribe of chelonians approaching the ruins again, 29 of them this time (what's with these huge encounter numbers in the BFRPG rules? That was 5D8 of them!).

Reaction roll: Favourable. The chelonians pass by close to the party, making gestures that might be greetings. Obviously they haven't heard about the one that was killed by the heroes a few days ago in the name of magical research. We'll let them go on their way.

On the fourth day they set off with Cyna feeling well again. After crossing the wasteland they arrive home, and Bryne goes to the village baths to perform thorough oblutions. Stilda sells the gold inlaid bangle they found for 58GP. Stilda stocks up on rations, bandages and buys arrows for Helia. Then Cyna sells her leather armour and buys a chainmail hauberk. I realised Helia doesn't have any thieves' tools, so she buys some, leaving the party with roughly 8GP left.

So let's get back out there! Hopefully we won't be slowed down by more random encounters. What we should be doing is searching each hex around the village for monster lairs, clearing them out and then the wandering monster roll would go from being 1 on a D6 to 1 on a D12, much less likely, and also awarding them with XP. But the heroes are desperate to kill Mothric now, so they're going straight there.

They arrive at the tunnels after an uneventful journey through the swamp, and continue searching the place. They open the next door along from the latrine and find it's a common room of sorts, with roughly made furniture strewn around. There are 5 kobolds here, who immediately attack.

They don't prove much of a challenge. One manages to hit Stilda, who then swings her sword in a wide arc, killing it and the one next to it. The other three are armed with shortbows and a sling, so they try to keep their distance. Bryne strides up to them, brains one and shoots an energy bolt right through the other. The last one backs into a corner and flings stones from its sling, bruising Helia and Bryne and dodging their arrows and strikes, before Stilda catches up with it and runs it through easily. Stilda bandages the wounded, healing them fully.

They loot 23GP and a copper and clear quartz anklet worth 70GP from the bodies. There is also a secret stash hidden in the wall here. Let's see if anyone finds it.

Check: Average (DC 11) +Wisdom modifier

Stilda notices the hidden panel in the wall and pops it open to find 2GP inside. Woohoo!

My Thoughts

I've been reading the Hexcrawl rules again and noticed that I've actually been too hard on the heroes. When I'm generating dungeon rooms, any max roll on a die is meant to be one monster, not one group of monsters (using the "number appearing" section of the monster description). So the gang of kobolds should have just been one. This also means you could have three or four different monsters hanging out together in one room rather than only finding groups of the same type. Lairs are a different matter and are supposed to have lots in.

Not only this, but the maximum number of monsters per wilderness encounter is supposed to be capped at the number of hexes distance you are from the nearest settlement, up to four, at which point you start rolling dice for how many you encounter. This will make travelling around a lot easier for the heroes, plus they'll be able to clear the Tunnels of Mothric faster.