Auteur : David Skelector

A note on Troglodytes

David Skelector Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Homebrew, Monsters, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Been a while since I’ve done « A note on » post, but it’s been slow on the ttrpgaming front over here those last few weeks so I’ll put out this little filler.

Troglodytes in Heroes 3

I’ve been playing the venerable computer game Heroes 3 with my sons for the last few weeks and we’re having great fun. My youngest is fond of the Dungeon faction, mainly for their strongest unit, the dragons unsurprisingly. Their weakest unit, the troglodyte, is MY favorite though. I love their design!

They don’t have eyes!
or the « improved » stronger version

Contrast it with the current D&D version:

Not bad but it looks like some kind of ugly lizardman, nothing special here.

The one thing that differientate troglodytes from other monsters in D&D is their horrible stench. It’s okay, I have nothing against it but I think I can offer alternative features that are more interesting.

Now, troglodytes, as befit the name should be a mostly subterranean species. Making do without eyes could actually make a lot of sense (pun intended).

damn, the stuff we can find on the internet

New features for D&D

Anyway, yeah, I think eyeless troglodytes should have echolocation like dolphins or bats for that matter. The adventurers would hear the eery screams of the troglodytes coming for them, wouldn’t it be scary/cool? That could be a fluff thing or it could also means mechanically that Trologodytes are simply immune to anything that need eyesight to be affected (i.e illusions, or blindness obviously) AND would be vulnerable to silence effects (would be effectively « blinded »).

Now, a more audacious feature I would give troglodytes is darkvision camouflage. As in modern D&D something like three quarters of people have darkvision for some reason, what about the one species that would have evolved to mess with this sense? Be it low body temperature à la Predator, or some special skin pattern, the Troglodytes are basically invisible to darkvision users.

You hear the screams of those awful troglodytes adventurer? Hope you didn’t only banked on your darkvision and brought ye ole torch!

Frosthaven – The Face of Torment (68)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We played this session four weeks ago, my laptop died and huh – me being me, it took this long before I defaulted to another computer…

This is the final scenario of the Aether Outpost personal quest.

The first one was Strong Foundation, the second: Elemental Cores, the third: Core Attunement.

Characters

  • Thousand Teeth the Trapper (David) lvl 2, brings innumerable lethal or helpful contraptions
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 7, a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 7, Master of the 4th dimension

As befit a final challenge we’re now in a boss fight, against the Face of Torment.

Mr Face is accompanied by 2 regular, blue-collar Chaos Demons and we know that Fire Demons and Sun Demons will join them soon enough. No time to lose.
Mr Face is clearly a in-your-face type. Boson and Britney start to work on him.
The Trapper making sure that we won’t have foes at our back.
Boson stabbing Mr Face in the face like 20 times.
Britney efficiently pushes Mr Face in TWO traps behind him.
The Blinkblade is now in a worrying position, surrounded as he is
But Mr Face takes more damage and faceplants never to get up again.
One last treasure grab and we’re done!

Closing comments:

  • Our second Boss of the campaign and like the first one it took only a few rounds to kill it. The meta seems to go toward tense, quick battle in which unleashing potent damage is more important than safety for the characters.
  • We were quick enough but otherwise having to deal with the incoming Fire and Sun demons would have been painful.
  • Retirement of the Blinkblade, our strongest character to date I think.

Frosthaven – Core Attunement (67)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re advancing once more the Blink Blade’s agenda with the third scenario out of four of his personal quest.

The first one was Strong Foundation, the second: Elemental Cores. This series has been very challenging to date and the trend did not change this time.

Characters

  • Thousand Teeth the Trapper (David) lvl 2, brings innumerable lethal or helpful contraptions
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 7, a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 7, Master of the 4th dimension

It’s a timer scenario, we start in the middle and must protect the four pillars for 12 rounds as more and more enemies (demons) appear from both sides of the map to threaten us.

Four Chaos Demons are already there. Eager to fight us.
Thousand Teeth: « Give me time, I’ll put some traps around… »
our foes are closing in.
Boson quickly gets in melee on the left. Britney calls reinforcement.
Two Chaos Demons jump on the Banner Spear, will she be overwhelmed?
And more demons start to emerge from the corners.
Meanwhile the Trapper has been very busy.
The foes won’t relent.
But at least the pillars are still in good shape.
A litlle reshuffling of traps confuse the enemies.
Is the Trapper overdoing it a little? A Chaos Demon is stunned after having step on a trap and is the target of the archer.
This Earth demon hurls a huge boulder on the pillar and nearly topples it!
Fortunately, time is up, the Core as been attuned. Our job is done!

Closing comments:

  • Close call, we couldn’t have held on much longer I think.
  • The scenario item was on the bottom of the deck unfortunately. That’s annoying, I think we have earned it!
  • This scenario was the first to really made my Trapper shine with his ability to create a massive maze of traps. The monsters AI, as in the rules, make them never willingly step on a trap unless they have no other path. This can be exploited to make them wander around and around…
  • A few ranged attacks got through (and one 2x damage) but not that many.
  • One last scenario (next one) for the Blink Blade for his retirement. Always thrilling to see another character in play.

Frosthaven – Prison Break (99)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re doing another optional scenario, this one unlocked by a town event. There’s no timer, that feels good.

Characters

  • Thousand Teeth the Trapper (David) lvl 2, brings innumerable lethal or helpful contraptions
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 7, a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 7, Master of the 4th dimension

We have to break in this long-disused prison. Of course, it’s disused but not without its inhabitants.

« Hey, nobody told us anything! Still waiting for my paycheck you know! »
We can’t stay long on the main room as there’s robotic boltshooters above us, on each side, that will rain projectiles on us.
The Blinkblade quickly gets there with his teleport ability.
The Bannerspear has brought her mysterious longbow-woman friend.
Whilst the Trapper will try to eliminate the defenders above on the other side.
As both the Blinkblade and Trapper step on pressure plates, the locked door below opens, liberating rusty machines and a Frozen Corpse.
That will promptly get peppered by arrows from Britney’s teammate.
Meanwhile, the rusty machines slooooowly get out in orderly fashion.
And try to acquire a target.
Meanwhile the Trapper still hasn’t cleared his room and he’s barricaded himself behind all manners of traps.
The blinkblade jumps down just when a Steel Automaton managed to climb up.
With the last defenders falling under our weapons, we’re free to loot the place and get to the objective!

Closing comments:

  • That went incredibly smoothly. And it’s really nice to have time to loot after many scenarios where we couldn’t afford to
  • It took me three rest cycles to kill only 2 enemies, that’s incredibly long, but at least I was never in real danger.
  • Math had the PERFECT plan for this scenario, with his well-placed archer summon boosted by a banner of strength.
  • It’s great that a special rule of this scenario, specifically the one that allowed figures from above to make range attacks on the main room below without range limitations could also be used by the players to their advantage.

Gunderholfen – Bug Squashing – Session 5

David Skelector Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, RPG

I’ve mentionned last session that I thought that the boys relied a bit too much on their aunt when we play together so here’s a session with only the group’s two younger players, my sons, just to remind them how to be more active in the decision-making process.

short session, 1hr

Player Characters (PCs):

  • Aracyne (Isaac), Elf Hunter, Guild Leader
  • Forka (changed his name), (Edmond), Dogman Knight
  • Alfred (Me), Hobgoblin Fighter

Last time we ended up with the party having explored a good chunk of Level 2 and standind beside another flooded area. Three adventurers (I’ll be playing Alfred the Hobgoblin to help them a little) will continue to explore while the two others are resting or something.

Level 2

  • They can see another passage beyond the water but don’t have an easy mean to get across without getting wet. Whilst they think about it, two Walking Puffballs come on sight from the other side ot the water but Aracyne quickly dispatch them with two arrows.
  • They decide to backtrack a little and explore more to the south.
  • They get to the passage where they’ve fought a rats swarm, a Fire-Beetle is busy devouring a fireballed-crispy rat. The insect monster is kind of blocking their way so the PCs decide to attack it. Forka miss with his big hammer but Alfred plunges his dagger in a weak spot and kills the Fire-Beetle. Forka remoces its hard chitin carapace and takes it with him, not without some difficulty.
  • They get past the glowing mushroom area and take the south-east passage. They’re in a small room with crystals on the walls reflecting purple light. There’s a sense of calm in the place but the adventurers are worried that they’ll fall asleep if they linger. Aracyne takes one crystal and they move on.
  • They go further south in a large rooms with boulders here and there. Once they take a few steps in they’re suddenly ambushed by three Vilstraks.
That’s a Vilstrak in case you don’t know what it is. I didn’t.
  • These bipedal insectoids are not very strong but they’re well-armored. Forka misses his first swing and bend his hammer on the hard rock floor. He’ll have to fight with a weird-angled weapon from now on. Alfred slays one foe with a well-placed dagger hit. Aracyne dodges on attack. Three more Vilstraks get out from behind the boulders and several others within the next rounds. Fortunately, Forka, despite his damaged weapon (or because of it we’re joking), is very efficent and smash one foe after the other. Alfred hits more often than not and kill his share of opponents. Aracyne has to focus more on dodging as he’s already wounded from earlier. The last two foes try to flee but are quickly cut down.
  • « Hey boss » Alfred says, « we bleedin’ all over the place, might be a good idea t’make a strategic retreat? » Aracyne takes notice of their many wounds and gives the order to start their way back to safety.
  • They get to the grand hallway’s door without incidents but they can hear the humming of the stirges behind the door. They open the door, shoots down a few flying stirges and then dash to the stairway and upstairs into Hobgoblin territory.
  • The PCs made some dealings with the Hobgoblins. Aracyne paid a 10 gp fee to stay one more day in the territory (plus a room to rest). Forka paid a weaponsmith to unbend his hammer. They also learned that the hobgoblins don’t have food stocks for very long and are worried about that. The fact that they’re cut off from the outside (by the goblins) and don’t have easy food sources inside the dungeons is problematic.

Closing comments:

  • Fun session. There was one dangerous fight against the Vilstraks. Armor in Dragonbane substract damage, something that I’ve always preferred to the usual making you harder to hit. Combat is very fun in Dragonbane, I’m happy with it.
  • Edmond was very happy of his character’s martial prowess with his 2-h hammer. He kept hitting his target despite having a disadvantage with his damaged weapon.
  • Having more than one weapon become a lot more important in a system when damaging one’s is possible.
  • Isaac has thought of a clever plan to help the hobgoblins go through the goblin barricade. That’ll be interesting to see!

Frosthaven – Caravan Guards (116)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

Freed from the Spire at last! We decide to do the last mission of a series related to the establishment of a new trading path linking the now-booming Frosthaven outpost with the capital to the south.

Characters

  • Thousand Teeth the Trapper (David) lvl 2, brings innumerable deadly or helpful contraptions
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 6, a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 6, Master of the 4th dimension

We’re basically protecting caravans in their first run on the new path through the mountains. Remember how we’ve blown-up rocks and, huh, animals blocking the way? Now all is set to a first try-out. Could it be uneventful? No, it couldn’t…

We see algox warriors on the distance preparing to attack the convoy.
I don’t know how he does that but the Blinkblade cross three quarters of the map almost instantly. The Bannerspear activates her strange magnet and covers the distance too!
Just in time to protect the first wagon.
More Algox arrive on the scene but the Bannerspear barks some orders and the two head wagons moves at double speed.
And now three angry Algox Archers (left) take out their frustration and decide to transform the poor frail Trapper into a pincushion. Ouch!
Meanwhile, the first wagon is out of danger.
The Blinkblade ruthlessly stab enemies one after the other.
And it seems like the other wagons will make it.
But another big wave of enemies dashes our hope of an easy success. Two wagons are quickly destroyed.
The Bannerspear to the survivors: « keep moving, faster! »
One kamikaze Algox stand in front of the last wagon but is simply rammed aside.
3 out of 5 made it. Phew. The price to pay for prosperity?

Closing Comments:

  • I had some apprehension on this one as the previous scenarios of this particular series were very hard and now I was starting with a new character, so it means I’m underlevelled and underequipped compared to my teammates. And, yeah, I almost died.
  • I’ve put some traps on each side that prevented some foes to pursue easily but the remainder of the time I was focused on surviving only. Tense.
  • Of course the Bannerspear and Blinkblade were much more useful than that, particularly the Bannerspear that could make the wagons move on her turn. I’d say it saved 2 out 3 wagons in this manner. Great tactic for sure,
  • Meanwhile the Blinkblade is an absolute killing machine and did his best but the fact that our town challenge added 2 hit points to all ennemies, and there was so many of them, meant that we still ended overwhelmed and were in a bad way when the last wagon crossed the line.

Gunderholfen – Stirges & Rats- Session 4

David Skelector Delicious in Dungeon, Dragonbane, Fantasy, Gunderholfen, jeux de rôles, megadungeon, OSR, Play reports, Roleplaying Game, RPG

Short session ( 2 hrs). Isaac is mapping as usual. Edmond has decided that he’s taking notes, so he writes furiously in his little notebook. Olivier is mostly waiting for fights to happen. And Marjorie works hard to solve non-combat challenges.

Player Characters (PCs):

  • Aracyne (Isaac), Elf Hunter, Guild Leader
  • Malique, (Edmond), Dogman Knight
  • Hédralynn (Marjorie), Elf Mage
  • J. Lebeau (Olivier), Dogman Fighter
  • Alfred (Olivier), Hobgoblin Fighter

We start in hobgoblin territory (level1C). The adventurers had permission from chief Nerulf to rest before going to Level 2 and that’s what they do.

Hobgoblins accompany them until they reach the stairs that goes down. They tell them that the grand hallway that they’ll soon get into is infested with stirges. They also tell them that the passage after that has some sort of powerful magical wind activated when walked through.

Level 2

  • Down at Level 2, inside the grand hallway, the light of their torch doesn’t reach the ceiling above. The PCs eye suspiciously the dark corners but don’t see any stirges so they advance tentatively and inspect the double doors at the end of the hallway. There’s an inscription, it’s in old dwarvish and Hédralynn only manage to comprehend the general sense of the words – something about welcoming, politeness and cleanliness she thinks. Acting on that, she remove her boots and tell her companions to do the same but as they do they begin to hear a humming sound coming from the north-east corner. The stirges are coming!
  • The PCs hurry up and push the heavy doors together, quickly get in and close them behind them. They can see a stone visage carved that looks like a dwarf with puffed-up cheeks on the opposite door. Nothing happens, they get to the other side, opens the door and put back their boots on.
  • A bit further they see a stone mouth carved on the wall with its tongue sticking out. They mess with it for a while and discover a small coin-sized depression on the tongue. After losing a few gold pieces to it, they discover that it changes copper coin into silver and change a bit more than a hundred coins that way.
  • Thence, in the next room with a small crevice splitting it in the middle, two walking puffballs run towards them. Malique throws his cloak on top of one to cover it as Hédralynn shoots it with an arrow. It deflates with a hissing sound and stay still. Alfred tries the same manoeuver with his cloak but misses, Lebeau shoots it anyway, kills it, releasing a cloud of spores. Aracyne hurries to cover it but inhales some spores and feels sick.
  • After that, they get to a natural cavern filled with murky water. Hédralynn levitates and ties a rope with a grappling hook on the ceiling and then levitate some more to get herself to the other side. Aracyne get to the other with the rope but Alfred falls halfway and splashes into the shallow pool, disturbing four giant toads nearby. The toads miss their attacks and two get kill in no time. The others, wounded, dive back inside the murky water.
  • Now all across, the PCs continue their way in what is now a series of unworked natural passages. They see an old campfire, there’s graffitis on the walls.
  • Next, they get into a room with faintly glowing mushrooms and they try their best not to walk on them.
  • Thence, they get into a passage with three small tunnels on the side. There’s fur and droppings on the floor. Big rats get out of the tunnels and jump on Aracyne who gets many painful scratches. More rats are coming from the tunnels but the Mage let go of three fireballs, one for each tunnel, ending the threat instantly. Aracyne’s other companions help him get rid of his rat problem.
  • TBC…

Closing Comments

  • Edmond’s character has almost all the group’s torches on him, if he had get wet as Alfred did, their expedition would have suddenly getting much more complicated…
  • Walking Puffballs is my first nod to Delicious in Dungeon, more annoying than dangerous (on this level).

Frosthaven – Top of the Spire (34)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

Final scenario of this thread of three and we’ve got a Boss to defeat, the Chaos Lord, Lord of Chaos? Something like that. Hey, I’m just a player, don’t ask me to remember everything. Or half. A few sketchy details maybe?

Characters

  • Lazy Liz the Deathwalker (David) lvl 3, sun-averse, why walk when I can teleport
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 5, a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 5, Master of the 4th dimension

There’s some kind of energy beam active and if we step on it it’s bad.

Or as Guillaume put it, welcome to the dance floor!
The Evil Dude has finished his monologue, with the usual threats to end the world, yada yada yada. The fight is on!
We all teleport behind him, too bad for his plan of frying us with chaotic particles.
The bannerspear has put her Banner of PAIN on the ground, all our attacks do more damage.
The Evil Dude’s minions has finally caught up, about time ’cause half their boss’ health is already gone.
The Bannerspear seems to be in a bit of a pickle, surrounded as she is.
Or not. (Imperviously shielded)
Meanwhile, all of my shadows are in place, time for one last big attack to kill the Evil Dude.
Triumph and banner swirling!

Closing comments:

  • Okay that was easy. The obvious strategy of getting behind and our ability to ditch out massive damage (particularly the blinkblade’s multi-attacks with the help of the banner and poison) meant that it was a foregone conclusion.
  • Or in other words: one big pinata party with this non-moving big bag of hit points (143).
  • Retirement of my deathwalker, fun character, I liked her. Her biggest flaw is that it takes time for her to get going and she can’t do much the first round at the very least, a big downside in many scenarios.

Frosthaven – Upper Spire (24)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

As we’ve just realized the previous scenario, this one and the next are all linked together. This means we can’t go back to town to upgrade our characters, buy/craft stuff or retire as in my case, etc. So we have to soldier on.

Characters

  • Lazy Liz the Deathwalker (David) lvl 3, sun-averse, why walk when I can teleport
  • Britney the Bannerspear (Mathieu) lvl 5 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blinkblade (Guillaume) lvl 5, Master of the 4th dimension

After defeating the Chaos Demon last time we could choose to inspect the spire’s basement or we could be bold, some would say foolish, and jump into the unknown through a teleporting light beam. Of course we chose the latter.

Here’s the whole thing in all its splendor! We start at the bottom and have to defeat the mobs to go up.
The illuminated tiles have random effects if one walks over them as this poor living bones discovered after being pulled by the Bannerspear and suddenly became all brittle. He was not long for this world…
Here’s the Bannerspear again, fearlessly charging the enemies.
Is it a shadow monster behind her now? No, it’s her cheerleader! Go Britney, go!
Cleaning up the second level of its last minion. Both the Bannerspear and the Blinkblade are seriously depleted by this time.
And the last level won’t be easy…
« A bit crowded over here, we need back up! »
Time for the Deathwalker to fully unleash her dark powers!

Closing Comments:

  • Math, ever the perfectionist, wanted to improve his splendid decor even more but hadn’t enough time.
  • Tough scenario, particularly for my deathwalker who’s a slowstarter character in the best of case and even more so here as I couldn’t afford to quickly bring forth shadows that would be lost after teleporting. Tricky.
  • As it went, we each did a great job on one particular level.

Frosthaven – Ancient Spire (15)

David Skelector Boardgame, Fantasy, Frosthaven, Play reports

We’re still doing the unfettered thread of the campaign and this time we’re entering the eponymous Ancient Spire, which I thought we already did but it was some other place we’d entered previously. Anyway, here we are.

Characters

  • Lazy Liz the Deathwalker (David) lvl 3, sun-averse, why walk when I can teleport
  • Britney the Banner Spear (Mathieu) lvl 5 a great leader, might be related to Bruce
  • Boson the Blink Blade (Guillaume) lvl 5, Master of the 4th dimension

We soon find ourselves in front of a scene of utter carnage as robots are carrying body parts (they don’t discriminate on species) and dump them in a pit. The boss of this macabre operation, a Chaos Demon, directs the machines against us.

Hello friendly lil’ robots, are we intruding on your covert dismembering operation? Is that a kidney over here? Not that it’s any of our business…
But wait there’s more going on: DJ Chaos Demon is on the floor! Or on the scaffold thing above us, whatever.
But the Blinkblade isn’t here to dance, one robotic boltshooter down!
Deathwalker and Bannerspear summon shadows and banner to improve the ambience .
The Blinkblade quickly gets above, leaving us to deal with the noisy assembly below.
The Blinkblade warps space and time and is now behind the clueless Chaos Demon! He then proceeds to shower us with love (healing) and damage our foes with, huh, the accounts differ on what he showered them with exactly. Was it pebbles, acid rain, melting pee, who knows?
He picks up a chest and now has the DJ station all for himself! Way to go!
Blinkblade: « I’ll kill this dude in no time » Deathwalker: « No, no, please take your time. You know me, killing ruined machines is like the thing I enjoy the most in life. No really, I insist. » Blinkblade: « Fine, fine, let’s procastinate some more, »

Closing Comments:

  • Easy one complicated and delayed by the fact that I needed to kill Ruined Machines for my personal quest. I needed five and now it’s done!
  • This scenario is a bit too rigid on its concept (only one character can go above), limiting artificially our abilities (shadows, teleporting, items and so on), a bad case of suddenly you can’t do this anymore.
  • Chaos demons are, yes, chaotic. Their abilities are all over the place, that’s fun, good design.