D&D Encounters Lost Crown of Neverwinter Week 9 – Rat Fink Halflings

This week was marked by a table of uproarious adolescents around the gaming table. We had our two stalwart youths, and another 3 more they have recruited. All in all, the play was made up of Quinaro the ranger, Suldin the illusionist, Lord Frost the Dragonbon Vampie, Alvin the Paladin, and finally my son, the Jabber to my jibber, who played Edith the axe-wench. We left them last week floundering in the sewers after a battle with some rats and crocs. Searching amongst the sewer, they found 4 piles of slimy filth. Two of them held healing potions, while the third held an old moldering pouch with 7 gold. The dragonborn meanwhile was able to skin a croc and make a wonderful cloak to help protect his hids from the sun.

So doing, they continued down the sewer pipes, following foot prints and the squeaking of rats. Eventually they came to a long hall with a dim light at the end of it. Quinaro snuck forward to find that around a corner the passage opened into a wide chamber lit by a flickering candle, but the way was blocked by an iron portcullis. He reported his findings, then they charged forward.

Edith was first to go, and her muscles rippled as she pulled on the barbican. With a shriek of iron hinges, it began to rise, halfway up just to the level of the sewer flowing down the center of the hall. Edith paid for her success with 2 daggers thrown from hidden figures peering around a corner of wall.

Quinaro was next and he took a deep breath and dove in, swimming as far up the vile stream as he could. Alvin went next, and the paladin wrenched the portcullis the rest of the way up. He took three daggers from Halflings peering around the other side of the chamber ahead.

Lord Frost charged forward and sunk his fangs into a halfling, who began to transform into a rat even as he was struck. Then Sulding cast his spell, and the 5 halfling transformed into half rat half halfling and attacked. A wild melee ensued. Nobody was killed but the rats, though it was tough going for awhile.

I introduced a new house rule, (a variation of my home game houserule) that an action point can be used once per encounter but only if a successful save is made. This seemed to work well, since I didn’t want to keep track of everyone’s action points from session to session, especially since I am playing with a table of kids. The less tracking we have, the more fun they seem to have. My intent is to make each encounter its own story, since many of the kids have erratic schedules and are not their every week.

During the battle Quinaro discovered 2 silver short swords with jeweled hilts, and Suldin found a pile of coins and jewels that they divided, worth 100gp apiece. Lord Frost was lucky enough to find a suit of fine cloth armor that boosted his armor class by 1, while Edith uncovered a magic great axe +1. The way I hand out magic items, is that I have each of them roll a d20 and whoever gets the highest roll finds the item. (unless they already have found one.) In this case both players rolled natural 20s, so they each got items. When rolling on the table, they were sad to roll 2 and 3, but it worked out well for them!

I discovered while handing out this treasure that ALL the kids wanted to find something, so I had one find the short swords, one find the gold, and another find the jewels. Gotta be fair after all. Playing for kids is tough, but it does bring out my juvenile sense of humor, so I have a blast.