Sandbox Campaign Part 10: Nemeses

This is part 10 of my ongoing account of the sandbox campaign I am currently running.  Updates are frequent, if irregular, and at the end of each post I talk about one or more subjects pertaining to the adventure but more broadly applicable to all campaigns.  You can find the previous parts here.

Monty, Sigrid, Kat, and Daphne set out into the wilderness in search of Grothmagog, or Greypeak, supposed location of the dreaded Blackhide's camp.  After a day or two of trekking, with early autumn snow falling around them and catching in the trees, they saw in the distance a mountain peak comprised mostly of sheer stone faces which rejected heavy snow accumulation.  A grey peak amongst white ones.  They headed toward it.  The trees began to shake rhythmically with tremendous footsteps, more and more snow sloughing off the branches as the source drew nearer.  Soon, they heard two voices speaking in slurred, booming words:

"Oy, Filk, 'ow much longer we gotta haul deeze little guys around for?"

"Buck up, Wallitz, it's ee-sen-shull for da war effort!" the second voice replied.

"But our back 'urtz!"

"Well dat's da price we'ze gotta pay in order not to get jumped by packs of greasy, disgusting 'umans, innit?"

Then there was a loud sniffing sound, and a third voice cut in, "Quiet, you two! I smell sommat wot I 'aven't smelt in years..."

"Wuzzat, boss?"

"Turnips!"

At that, Monty charged toward the sound of the voices and footsteps.  As he broke out into the clearing made by a dry streambed, he saw a hunch-backed, two-headed giant brandishing twin flails and with a crude wooden howdah strapped to its back from which three goblin scouts peered over the trees, surveying the land.  Two ogres marched at its side, and leading them all was a brutish, orcish-looking giant in splint mail armour.  

"Grathwar!" shouted Monty.  "You'll pay for what you did to my family!"

As battle raged on, more of Monty's previously secret backstory came out.  Long ago, Monty lived in a fishing village with his wife (a turnip farmer) and their three children.  One day, he returned to find Grathwar the half-orc-half-giant bard/barbarian ripping his wife in half, killing one son, crippling another, and kidnapping his third, Jonnal.  All the while, he sang mocking giantish songs.

Fast forward to now.  Monty is going toe-to-toe with Grathwar, Orc-Gutter dripping with blood.  He shouts at the rest of the party to stay back; Grathwar has no such compunctions and orders one of his ogres to flank Monty with him, singing "Fo fum fee fi, I smell a Dwarf who's gonna die!"  

Sigrid charges the Ettin while the other ogre moves in to strike her horse.  Daphne lays down arrow fire from the tree line while the goblins on the ettin's back plunk arrows ineffectually at the party.  The ettin swings at Sigrid with both flails, then swings again on the backswing.  Kat uses pilfering hand to steal first one and then the other of the ettin's giant flails.  Finally, Sigrid slays the ettin with a mighty blow.  One head vomits black blood and the other turns and laughs, "Ha, I told ya you'd die first, Wallitz!" and then expires.  The goblins on his back go tumbling, and Sigrid mops them up with ride-by attacks.  Meanwhile, the ogres have been vanquished, and Monty continues chopping at Grathwar, who is still singing at him.  "Fo fum fee fay, dwarvish women are lousy lays!" 

Monty finally deals a killing blow, rending a huge gash in Grathwar's chest with Orc-Gutter.  Grathwar is well and truly dead, and Monty realizes that now there is no one alive who knows where his son Jonnal is.  He continues chopping Grathwar's body to bits, then mounts his giant, tusked head on his lucerne hammer.  

They continue on in silence, and Kat decides to wander off in search of a monster to fight all by herself.  She stumbles onto a bear preparing to hibernate in a cave, and springs to attack.  She throws a net over it, then casts grease under it.  A solid opening for a one-on-one bard-vs-grizzly fight, and she lands a couple blows with her bastard sword, Deathfang, but soon the bear shreds her net and embraces her in a deadly bear hug.  Badly bloodied, she manages to crawl out of the cave and send a message to her party, saying she's likely to be killed and would like some help.  

Sigrid rides up, sees an unconscious and bloody Kat, and swiftly dispatches the bear.  

As the party continues, climbing the slopes of Greypeak, they are ambushed by winter wolves, which quickly lay into the party with their frost breath and gnashing teeth. Monty grapples one of the wolves and takes another blast of ice to the face.  Soon, goblin wolf-riders bearing the sigil of Blackhide ride down on the party as  well.  The battle is tough but quick.  Now sure that they are on the right track, but desiring rest before pressing on, the party returns to Castle Morbis, except for Monty, who journeys on in search of his son Jonnal.  

On entering the town, a crowd gathers, eager to hear news of the demise of the goblins.  Although Blackhide has not been met in battle, the party reassures the townsfolk that they have slain a number of goblins and giants and are closing in on their leader.  One crowd-member, Ryder - a half-elf inquisitor with a dark complexion - offers to join the party on a bet.  Another stranger, Varisana - an aasimar cleric with pale skin and bronze hair - approaches and says she has been sent by her church to serve the knight Sigrid of Karlshus as a loyal retainer.  The party also rejoins with Rikkit, though Zel is still off with Cameo.

Fresh and with bolstered numbers, the party heads out in search of Blackhide.  On the slopes of Greypeak, they discover a narrow defile marked by muddy pathways.  Following it down and rounding a bend, they see a cave mouth surmounted by a crudely-carved goblin head.  To either side of the entrance is a light ballista and a wooden shield with a metal tube poking out of it, both of them manned by several goblins.  The party charges the defenses, and the metal tube envelops them in a 30-foot cone of alchemical flame while the ballista fires a massive bolt into Ryder's chest.  

Wolf-riders charge out of the cave entrance and join the fray.  Soon, though, the party fights their way past the defenders and enters the cave complex.  They follow the tunnel until it opens up into a huge cavern in the center of the mountain, dotted with tunnels and dominated by a stone spire rising through the center of it.  Wooden walkways and rope bridges criss-cross the cavern, line the edges, and wind up the spire, each of them brimming with goblins and their unsavory allies.  

The unsavory allies will be represented here as dice.  Unsavory dice. 

The party tries to rush in, but their advance is impaired by the terrain; the goblin defenders are able to create choke points along the bridges, holding the party up while arrows and alchemists' bombs strike them from above, below, and all sides - including from the central spire, which is hollowed out and lined with arrow slits.  

The goblin encampment consisted of three levels.  The party entered in the middle level, from the lower left.

Kat, Ryder, and Rikkit take the right fork across the rope bridge, where they are met by a swift-moving wolf-rider, while Sigrid, Varisana, and Daphne take the right fork.  Just then, the ample goblin forces are further bolstered when a squad of six spider riders burst out from their lair and begin crawling all over the walls, the goblins strapped into their saddles taking full advantage of the mobility their arachnid mounts provide them.  Sigrid and Varisana cross the rope bridge to the central spire, only to be stopped by some elite goblin guards and spider riders, leaving them open and exposed to fiery alchemist bombs hurled from the catwalks above.  Meanwhile, another alchemist hurls bombs at the underside of the bridge Kat and Rikkit stand upon.  Kat gets off, but Rikkit is stuck there when the ropes burn away, and he desperately clings to the bridge as it splits in half and falls against either wall.  That's when Rikkits discovers an excellent use for his new boots of levitation, hovering in place while he works his magic.  He casts burning gaze on his cat familiar, Bartleby, who spends much of the rest of the fight sitting stoically while firing searing rays of flame at all with whom he is displeased.  

source

A spider rider rides his spider at Ryder (boy did I say that a lot during this battle), hanging from the underside of the planking directly above the inquisitor.  Sigrid continues to hack her way through goblins and spiders while Varisana takes repeated hits from the alchemists above and Daphne fires crossbow bolts at wolf riders.  Rikkit launches a fireball at the upper catwalks, striking all the enemies on the top level (and some on the lower level.  And Sigrid.), and incinerating much of the planking, causing three badly-singed goblins to fall prone near Sigrid.  Rikkit then levitates himself upward to the newly vacated upper levels, where he is soon assaulted by another spider rider hanging upside-down form the charred walkway.  Rikkit dispatches them both with a well-placed shocking grasp to the spider, who then carries the rider down to its death far below.

Sigrid cuts down the last of the goblins outside the middle-level of the spire, then kicks down the door to assault the goblin archers within, while Varisana peers into an arrow slit and casts spiritual weapon, summoning a holy longsword of magical force.  Bartleby advances on a wolf rider to help Daphne take it out, but the wolf attacks the laser-cat and knocks him prone.  An alchemist on the bottom level blows up the underside of the walkway that Ryder is standing on, causing him to fall, and Kat barely catches him.  

The party is in a bad way now, having been burned and slashed and pin-cushioned with arrows, but most of the goblins have been eliminated from the upper levels.  Rikkit, realizing where Blackhide likely is, levitates down to the bottom level and launches a fireball into the hollow spire, yelling "BLACKHIDE!  Come out and face me you murdering coward!"  When Blackhide doesn't show, he fires off another fireball.  The rest of the party begins to clean up and head downwards to help Rikkit, but the only thing to emerge from the central spire is a dire rat trundling along the walkway to the cave on the other side.  Rikkit runs around to aim directly into the central spire, but he is attacked from behind, where the "dire rat" casts aside its Cloak of the Scuttling Rat to reveal Blackhide himself!  Kat and a goblin wolf rider rush over to Rikkit with very different intents; the wolf rider slashes him with a scimitar and Kat heals him with bardic magic.  

Blackhide speaks with the squeakiest and highest-pitched voice of any goblins they have yet heard: "Rikkit, how dare you return to my company, you puny whelp! Die for your insolence!" and he lashes out at Rikkit with his flaming morningstar.  So begins a long cycle of Kat healing Rikkit and Blackhide knocking him unconscious, with brief interludes where Rikkit manages to get off a spell at his nemesis.  Finally, in an epic conclusion reminiscent of the climax of Return of the Jedi, Rikkit strikes Blackhide with shocking grasp after shocking grasp, wreathing him in electricity and burning the life from his husk.  

~~~

Yes, I did just challenge a party of 6th-7th level PCs with a goblin fight.

I know I have talked about running a pitched battle in D&D previously, but I feel I should bring it up again given the epic, three-tiered, five-hour battle that you have just read about.  This battle is as different from previous battles I have run as regular chess is from that awesome 3D chess they play in Star Trek.

"I cast fireball."                                           source

The battlefield was split into three distinct levels and the terrain severely restricted movement.  Ranged attacks had the advantage of being able to strike enemies on multiple levels of the battle, and magic attacks had the same advantage plus the possibility of destroying some of the wooden scaffolding that comprised much of the battlefield, as Rikkit's fireball and some of the alchemists' bombs did.  Melee was important for holding chokepoints to keep the ranged attackers safe from other melee fighters.

Another challenge came from the sheer number of enemies.  I had:

8 goblin warriors (CR1)
6 goblin wolf-riders (CR2) and their wolves (CR1)
6 goblin spider riders (CR2) and their spiders (CR1)
4 goblin elites (CR3)
4 goblin alchemists (CR3)
and Blackhide (CR5)

That's 41 monsters.  It would have been more had it not been for the missing players of Monty, Guy, and Zel.  Imagine how crazy that fight would have been if you added Monty cleaving through goblins like butter, Guy firing that light ballista everywhere, Zel druiding around, and Cameo picking up goblins and dropping them down the pit.  Due to the smaller party, I removed 2 additional goblin elites, plus 4 barghests (CR4) and Blackhide's barghest mount (CR5).  Damn, in retrospect I should have made Blackhide a barghest shapeshifted into goblin form.  That would have been awesome.  Sorry guys.

Anyways, in this campaign we've recently seen three major personal quests completed.  Sigrid finally got her beloved Sir Hardrig resurrected, Monty slaughtered the antagonist who destroyed his family, and Rikkit avenged his mentor's death and his exile by slaying Blackhide.  It is important for the DM to make note of such personal quests and attempt to see them fulfilled within the game (though there might not be chances for all of them depending on the length of the campaign).  Such fulfillment should also yield XP rewards; I gave Sigrid, Monty, and Rikkit 1000xp each for completing their personal quests.  This sort of thing encourages role-playing and investing in your character, and it may prompt other players to begin thinking harder about their own character goals.  These quests need not be common knowledge in the group - Monty kept his backstory a secret from the other players - but they should definitely be made known to the GM.

While I'm on the subject, I'll make a brief note on Grathwar.  Grathwar was supposed to be a half-orc-half-giant bard/barbarian.  To make things easier on myself, behind the screen I made him a cave giant, which is perfect because they already share the ferocity ability with half-orcs.  Then I simply gave him a level in bard and a level in barbarian.  He played exactly how I wanted him to in battle.  I've already mentioned that I am a fan of reskinning monsters.  Let me tell you right now: boy is it a huge time-saver.

One last thing: Leadership.  Sigrid and Kat both took the leadership feat once they hit 7th level.  Ryder and Varisana are their cohorts.  Leadership is always a fun feat because it lets you add some variety to your party and try out a new character and play-style.  I like it because it hearkens back to the days, in older editions, where some classes got cohorts at certain levels.  Fighters would have a following of men-at-arms, rangers would get some other adventurers and woodland creatures, etc.  It really helped in this battle especially, since there were so many enemies and so few players.

-your multi-tiered d20 despot