Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 4: The Moathouse

 

Back in the village the party hands their borrowed gear back and hands the prisoner over to Rufus for questioning and detainment. Then it's off to weapons trading and evaluation and some intra-party deals for components. The village leatherworker makes a deal to patch up some armor for some of our heroes and shares a little background information on the area as well. Then it's time to head for The Moathouse!

Here the party gets cautious: they set up a base camp some ways away from the ruined fort and then have the wizard spy out the place with his brand new familiar. After this they approach and manage to stumble into some giant frogs right outside the main gate. This is a fairly quick fight but it does put some fear into the halfling mechanist as he realizes he might be a swallow-able size for some of the frogs. My veteran players know what to watch for and so slice open the the frogs and find a nice gem for their troubles. 

The upper level of the place is cleared without too much injury ...

• The fighters do the traditional front line thing and hold off a giant lizard in one room. After it is defeated they slice it open and find a magical shield and so likely establish a precedent I will be dealing with for the entire campaign.
• The halfling once again finds trouble as he steps into a room alone and gets chomped by a giant tick. this combat marked the first use of the "I can cast a touch spell through my familiar" option as the wizard manages to shocking grasp the things while remaining at a very safe distance. 
  (and yes, they cut the tick open too but it was item-free)
• They killed a giant snake as well, continuing the tradition in this campaign of giant snakes dying in one round of combat. They are probably going to try and make something out of its hide as the ranger opted to skin the thing afterwards.
• The halfling's personal trilogy of terror wraps up when he steps into a room first (again) and is set upon by a room full of giant rats that put him down quickly, forcing the fighters to wade into the room while the cleric and bard and wizard take shots from the doorway. They do win fairly quickly though no animals are sliced open afterwards. 

A more detailed narrative account of the tale from the players' point of view can be found here.

DM Commentary

It was good to finally get to the moathouse and get some good old-fashioned violence in. Any of you who have played through this know that the dungeon level is where it actually gets nasty - the upper level is fairly easy in comparison and while it's a good warm-up it's almost misleading as to the level of difficulty you are going to see underground. That said maybe the halfling will learn not to go first.

There was also a fair amount of interaction in town, mainly at the inn and with Gipson the leatherworker so my team is not solely consumed with loot and bloodlust. There are still new people to meet and new contacts to make there so it should keep things interesting for a while longer. I have some ideas about adding a few more characters in to the mix as well.

The game continues to run pretty smoothly though it is still challenging to run with 7 when combat lasts a round or two. My position on 5th from  very early on has been that it's the simplest version of the game since 2nd and I still feel that way but it's not quite at the B/X level. I ran 8 in 3E for quite a while so it can be done and it will come easier with time.