Rialacha Teach Mhorgunna

“Please Sir … May I have some … more???”

Last night, my crew was at long last at that section of Cragmaw Hideout from Lost Mines of Phandelver. It is the stuff of which separates the men from the boys. In different streams I have seen it do a TPK (Total Party Kill.)

72430bd209f80998b50f82977f0afe2a.jpg

Basically, the party enters into a pitch dark cave. (My players are all humans and need a light source) [3] Sneek past three chained wolves. (The Barbarian threw them some food which would of given a bonus to mollifying them. But not leaving them chained up freed them. And doing so … made quite a racket.) [5] You then need to get past a distracted goblin guard. (Due to the noise freeing the wolves and the lights they were caught in the flood trap.) If discovered the goblins let loose a pool of dammed up water, which lets loose a surge that can sweep the characters and drive them out of the cave a little bit worse for wear. ( They got caught by one but managed to to hold on … they avoided the second wave by hustling it into the wolves cave. They retreated to the outside and waited 15 minutes and tried creeping in again. This time gave the goblins enough time to refill one of the pools. They survived the last flood but it made the pathway slick aka rough terrain.) Because the alarm was set off I moved 2 of the goblins to the bridge as archers. (The players moved smart using duck and cover to move their way up taking out a few of the goblins and final finished them off in the pool room [7]) [8]This leaves the last conflict with the Klargg the Bugbear, his wolf and two goblin snipers. (Unfortunately for the players the loosened wolves join the battle, complicating matters.)

I purposly gave them a bonding mini adventure on the zero session not only to build team comradery but to give them enough XP to make second level by the time they make it to the Cragmaw Hideout Cave. It still was an exciting game and they made it by the skin of their teeth. They at this point have two broken weapons, no spells left but cantrips and one character with one hit point. These are seasoned players … this is not their first rodeo. I asked Jim for his assestment and what he thought about running this at first level.

*“Death sentence. No chance. Lower hit point total, Lower spell total, Lower hit probability... The hit points alone meant Kevin lasted long enough to let me kill one of the wolves (and for Will to spare him) and allowed me to survive the initial wolf*attack. At first level two would have been down before the second wolf died leaving the caster, dwarf and bear (all wounded) to face two wolves, a hidden goblin archer and the bugbear - even the Ripper might have still been up so yeah – overkill. ... They would have ripped us all new ones.”

The one thing Jim did not take into consideration is a little house rule that is implemented into my campaigns. When I have them build a character, I add a heaping helping of hit points. I add an extra die.

Do you need smelling salts?

Are you appalled?

Wait a minute … let me explain my thoughts on this. When the D&D started adding backgrounds to flesh out a character, they, in essence, said that every fighter, cleric and rogue was something else before they became adventurers. Once they begin they gain hit points, all according to the class they chose. However, in the game there are NPCs all with their own hit points. Logically Player Characters would have the hp their backgrounds would offer. Their class level upon entry … even at 0 XP offers all the benefits and powers such as spell casting and such show training and learning accomplished that 1st level allows. This elevates the PC from the NPC, with the beginning of the class hit die. Thus a first level character should have the extra points.

And as I see it without this cushion this would have been a Total Party Kill.

Hmmmmmm!!! Maybe I need to think about this again.

<evil laugh>