Session 51: Smashdown in the Sand

General Summary

Summary: 3 points

Clothday, 17th Saltmeat

The party starts a new day, eyes open for potential threats as they head towards where Woodenhelm's Company was ambushed.

Approaching trouble

The group proceeds with caution. About midday the the scrubby plain gives way to desert sands, and there's a scent of salt in the air. The desert resolves into small hills, some of the same sand as the lower areas and others outcroppings of rock. The ground is treacherous, and the group must slow down even further to keep their feet.
As the day wears on, there's what appears to be a rising sun glow coming from a mountain peak in the distance. Into the afternoon, as the group slowly negotiates the unfriendly terrain, they hear some muttering at the top of a hill in a language they do not understand.

Smashdown in the sand

Movement rules

Due to the terrain in this combat, certain actions or movement require skills rolls as follows:

• Light brown squares - sandy and unstable, treat as difficult terrain with the following additions:
  • Move carefully - 25% speed, no ill effects
  • Move normally - 50% speed, DC 15 Ath/Acr at the end of turn; drop prone on fail.
  • Dash - 100% speed, DC 20 Ath/Acr at the end of turn; drop prone on fail.
• Dark tan squares - rocky and uneven, cannot be traversed except by climbing or falling:
  • Climb carefully - 25% speed, no roll, but you cannot take actions requiring hands.
  • Climb normally - Roll Athletics/Acrobatics:
    • <9: 50% speed, cannot use Dash action or take actions requiring hands.
    • 10-13: 50% speed, cannot take actions requiring hands.
    • 14-20: 50% speed.
    • 21+ 100% speed.
  • Any skill used to move downhill can be rolled with advantage.

Round 1

• Harb moves halfway up the nearest hill and holds out his hand to assist other climbers.
• Lil climbs awkwardly to the top of the hill, and sees a pair of sallow and underfed-looking minotaurs gripping javelins. She stands close enough that she can smell alcohol on its breath. She calls back "drunk minotaurs" to the rest of the group.
• Reg climbs the same hill and takes a shot with his shortbow, but it only impacts the armor.
• Kolvonnin climbs the hill and casts Shield of Faith on Lil.

Round 2

• Harb closes with the two javelineers and summarily executes both of them with one rapier strike each. The old sailor attempts to identify the alcohol by its scent but can't place it.
• A pair of comparatively healthy minotaurs carrying mattocks run in at the ground level and fall prone.
• Lil climbs down the south side of the hill a bit.
• A larger minotaur wearing stained hide armor and frothing at the mouth thunders into the near vicinity. It's carrying in two hands a strangely proportioned hammer with obvious reach. He also falls prone when he stops moving.
• Reg sinks an arrow into the big guy.
• Kolvonnin closes on the big enemy and strikes the prone minotaur with his morningstar. The first hit is a critical (using a level 2 smite) which fully cracks the minotaur's skull, but he seems undeterred. The paladin notices that the minotaur seems crazed, and the hammer he's wielding appears to be a claw-foot tub with a skin stretched across the top and a small tree lashed to it. Kol feels something vaguely wrong with this foe and smells alcohol.

Round 3

• Another pair of minotaurs run into the fray and fall prone.
• Two more javelineers come down from the other nearby hilltops but can't hurl because the climb required their hands.
• Legendary Action: At the end of the javelineers' turn, the hammer-wielder slams his fist against the skin side of the hammer. A loud drum beat is heard, and all the prone enemies rise from prone.
• Harb takes a flying leap onto one of the minotaurs at ground, knocking him prone nearby and then attacks him savagely with his rapier twice.
• The minotaurs near Harb yell and grow to Large size, then attempt to retaliate with their mattocks but fail.
• Lil lands an eldritch blast on the hammer minotaur and shoves him away with minor damage.
• The hammer-wielder attempts to move past Kolvonnin and gets stopped by a Sentinel attack for his trouble (level 1 smite). The minotaur wheels back with his giant hammer and brings it down hard on Kolvonnin in a blow that would have been even deadly without his adamantine armor (a critical reverted to a regular hit). Kolvonnin notes that the sheer size and some magical effect on the weapon causes it to score criticals more readily than otherwise.
• Kolvonnin takes another pair of strikes (one with a level 2 smite) on the hammer-wielder. When the paladin channels the will of Pelor into his blow, he can feel something resisting - there's a wavering of the air and a whiff of brimstone. Kol is convinced that the strike should have killed his foe, but some infuence kept it from doing so - he determines there's some sort of fiendish protection on this enemy, and it seems to originate from the hammer itself. The minotaur doesn't look healed so much as "alive despite clearly lethal damage."

Round 4

• The javelineers loft a javelin each at Harb and Kol for minor damage.
• Harb murders one large minotaur attacker with his rapier, and lands a critical on a second. The old sailor pops a glittergum (tasting much like spoiled food soaked in spoiled alcohol) and chews it vigorously.
• A minotaur swings his mattock at Harb and connects but is thwarted by the Initiate's Gorget's Shield (DnD Beyond) effect.
• Lil pulls a bead off her Necklace of Fireballs (DnD Beyond) and catches the bulk of the crowd, completely roasting the two javelineers. Against all logic, the hammer wielder continues despite the roasting.
• The hammer wielder takes another swing at Kol and lands a solid hit.
• Reg backs away from the oncoming fight and sinks an arrow in one of the minotaurs engaged with Harb.
• Legendary Action: At the end of Reg's turn, the hammer-wielder roars defiance and attacks everyone within range with his massive hammer. Kol clouts with him his morningstar as a Sentinel reaction, but can't stop the onslaught. The hammer wounds several and absolutely splatters one of the other minotaurs - the energy of the carnage seems to flow up the hammer into the body of the wielder.
• Kol calls out to the Lil for aid, then takes the Dodge action and channels divinity to Turn the Tide.

Round 5

• Harb runs another minotaur through with his rapier, spits his glittergum at a second one, then dispatches that one as well with his Action Surge and moves to the hammer-wielder.
• Lil calls upon her patron's Healing Light for Kol (5d6) and then moves in to cast Cure Wounds (totaling 40 hit points of healing).
• The hammer wielder continues to lay into Kol, but can't seem to knock the paladin down.
• Legendary Action: At the end of Reg's turn, the hammer-wielder again attacks everyone within range. Kol catches him his morningstar as a Sentinel reaction again, but the minotaur is able to strike Lil (critical, 31 damage), Harb (who triggers the gorget but take the blow anyway), and Kol.
• Kol strikes at the hammer directly, and tries to lodge the spikes of the morningstar in the wooden handle. The dragonborn then exhales acid onto his foe. Armor and flesh melt, exposing hide and bone; there's the brimstone stink and hazy wavering in the air again as the unholy force of the hammer keeps its wielder upright.

Round 6

• Harb gathers his Second Wind, then drops his rapier in favor of his battleaxe and strikes at the minotaur's wrists. Each strike successully behands the foe, but a tendril of smoking black blood reconnects the limb before the weapon drops. Harb gets a sense that there's almost nothing left of the hammer's magic keeping this creature upright.
• Lil casts Dispel Magic (DnD Beyond) on the hammer, and through her understanding of Arcana and connection to a celestial determines there's an unholy force at work. The magic from her celestial patron strikes against the fiendish power of the hammer, and the minotaur's body is consumed in sickly green flames, which disappear into the hammer itself.

Combat summary:

• Total duration: 6 rounds
• PC drops: None
• Kill board:
  
  1. Harb:
     • Round 2: 2 minotaur javelineers (rapier)
     • Round 4: 1 minotaur infiltrator (rapier)
     • Round 5: 2 minotaur infiltrators (rapier)
  2. Lil:
     • Round 4: 2 minotaur javelineers (fireball)
     • Round 6: 1 minotaur ??? (Dispel Magic)

Session end

Next session will pick up in the middle of the day on Clothday, 17th Saltmeat - doing cleanup after combat.

Overall Next Steps

1. Between session tasks:
   • DM: Generate loot/links
2. Out of Character tasks:
   • Meg: Consider possibilities for bonus action.

Feedback

Eddy: I want to apologize to Jerm for all those times complaining about Battletech mechanics to have a whole team act at once. It was good watching everyone do cool stuff pretty consistently. Being a small group really helped with that since there were lots of opportunity to act. I think allowing us opportunity to figure out stuff is key. Because we started off in a combat and how things played out, it could have been a short or long scenario and I think the way we handled it, the size of the group, and the way the enemies attacked and approached us smoothed it out so it went relatively quickly. Whenever movement gets messed with, it's such a pain from the player side, but it made sense in this particular instance. I apologize, Meg, for suggesting too much as an old hand at this stuff - don't feel obligated to take my advice.
Jeremy: It was cool getting into combat. I had a few stumbling blocks in mechanics. Combat was different, especially with the way the terrain was set up. Legendaries are new, and they were really cool - it makes sense given how scaling works. The two abilities he had really made sense - standing everyone up really rocked on this terrain, and hitting everyone was huge - he hit like a train. It was cool to see what everybody was bringing to the table - Eddy merc-ing two guys in one turn, plus Death From Above. A lot of good rolls on both sides. It was an enjoyable combat, learned a lot - a lot of new takes on combat.
Meg: Yay figuring out combat as a warlock. I need bonus actions besides the distant heal. The terrain being difficult was annoying, especially with the lighting issues. Yay small party.
John: I was trying to do elevation with the dynamic lighting, and that's probably not going to keep being a thing. I wanted it to make sense that they had home turf advantage, a guy who could stand them up when they fall down. I'm glad y'all had a good time with the combat, even if the movement was annoying it never stung as much as it could have - you could always move, but maybe you had your options narrowed a little. The big guy was critting on a 17+ and rolling with advantage; he's homebrew, so there is no other guy like that. This would be too much, but I knew what the party had, so it didn't seem like too much. It was nice to see Eddy use the gorget, even if it didn't work the second time. It was nice to see the glittergums get used, I wrote up the flavor stuff for it ages ago. This combat has been cooking for six months or a year. There's a thing going on here that y'all haven't spotted yet, but I'm sure you'll get it next session.
This combat was a calibration - I feel like it was a challenging combat without the party feeling doomed (though the "what does it take to kill this guy?" towards the end was getting to be the feel toward the end).