D&D Encounters: Keep on the Borderlands (Week 11)

Using the keys found in each of the previous two rooms the heroes opened the doors and entered the vault. They’d found the treasure room. Now all they had to do was find the treasure. The only question now is what kind of guardians will they have to defeat to gain their reward?

Our party had six members this week: Berrian, Eldeth, Hagen, Quinn, Sola and another Wizard. We began the encounter by recapping the events to date for one of the new players. It’s amazing just which details players remember and believe are important when compared to what actually happened and what is actually important.

As the back-up DM for my group I have a copy of the adventure, just in case I need to step up and run an encounter or two. I also use it as a reference after Wednesday night’s game while I’m writing up the weekly article. This gives me a lot more insight into what’s actually going on and is one of the big reasons I try not to be the decision-maker for our party.

When the other players recapped the events from the previous 10 weeks I have to bite my tongue and not chime in with important details that they forgot or overlooked. Fortunately the DM of10 does jump in with subtle reminders when this happens, but not always. This is a problem that happens all the time in D&D, but I think it’s even more prevalent with D&D Encounters. After all we only do one encounter a week. After 10 weeks we’re bound to forget some of the details. Unfortunately for us, forgetting those details, even from just a couple of weeks back, made things a lot more difficult during this week’s encounter.

We entered the room and immediately realized that there were no other doors or exits beside the one we came through. This was clearly our final destination. Knowing that all of the room before this one had traps and guardians, we proceeded with extreme caution. The party moved up, one-by-one spreading out around the first pit and taking up a tactical position behind the pillars. When Eldeth moved closer to the coffins a ghostly form began to take shape at the far end of the room.

The undead creature (which we identified as a Specter) addressed the group and we quickly deduced that it was Greysen, or at least some twisted form of his essence. The Specter rambled on but none of the PCs knew what he was talking about. Finally Eldeth got fed up with trying to talk to a creature that was obviously insane and charged him.

Greysen let forth a Howl for the Dead and then disappeared before Eldeth reached him. Quinn and the Wizard, both of whom had moved closer to the Specter during the dialogue, now stood adjacent to the nearest coffin. From within the nearby pit three undead Witherlings emerged. Each one engaged the closest PC and attacked.

With the three new combatants still clearly visible and posing an immediate threat to three of the heroes, the party followed their standard operating procedure – everyone take on a different creature rather than work together to drop one at a time. You’d think after 10 weeks we’d know better. Guess not.

Sola moved toward Quinn to help him fight his Witherling. These two characters have worked together quite effectively over the past few encounters. Facing undead opponents for the first time Sola was finally able to use her Smite Undead channel divinity power. But first thing’s first, she moved in and used Sun Burst to deal some radiant damage and grant the party temporary hit points. After hitting with that attack she used her action point to use Smite Undead and again hit for big damage, bloodying the Witherling.

Quinn acted next. Using he radiant weapon he acquired in one of the previous encounters, he finally had a chance to use it against some undead foes. He scored a solid hit and destroyed the first Witherling. Undead beware, Quinn and Sola are here to kick some butt!

Next up was Hagen, who charged the Witherling nearest the Wizard (and managed to get a flanking bonus in the process). A solid hit but not enough to bloody it. The Wizard meanwhile was focused on the pit nearest the front door. As Sola passed by the pit earlier, she noticed that some of the bones were moving and possibly trying to stand up. The Wizard decided to ready Beguiling Strands just in case the bones became animate skeletons. Sure enough five skeletons emerged from the pit. The Wizard missed the closest one but rolled no less than 17 on the four subsequent attack rolls, killing those minions before they were ever a real threat. The remaining skeleton had no trouble hitting the Wizard.

Seeing only one minion remaining, Berrian decided to destroy it with a Magic Missile rather than risk missing it with Arc Lightning.

With five of the six PCs grouped together, the Specter moved in between us and used his Bone Barrage. The close burst 2 attack hit everyone but Quinn for 3d6+4, sliding us two squares, bloodying the four of us who got hit and knocking the Wizard unconscious. The Specter then used his action point to go invisible again.

Quinn and Hagen teamed up on the Witherling that originally engaged the Wizard. Although they both hit they rolled really low damage, leaving the creature alive and above bloodied. It then shifter out of harms way and moved towards Eldeth. The two Witherlings flanked the Dwarf and attacked her with everything they had. Fortunately only one hit.

Berrian attacked with Arc Lightning dropping the one that Quinn and Hagen sof10ed up earlier. Eldeth decided to charge the remaining Witherling even though she was already adjacent to it. So she moved away, drawing an opportunity attack in the process, but avoiding a hit. She then turned around and charged the Witherling. She hit and rolled the maximum damage. She decided to use Power Strike and throw on another 1d12 for good measure. That killed the final Witherling.

Hagen and Quinn couldn’t find the Specter so they decided to open the first coffin in hope of drawing out it out into the open. It worked. The Specter appeared in between the heroes again and attacked with Bone Barrage. Hagen and Quinn were both hit. The Wizard, low on hit points and out of healing surges attacked from a safe distance with Magic Missile to guarantee a hit. This bloodied the Specter which resulted in another Howl for the Dead. Five more minion skeletons were summoned around the Specter.

Berrian used Arc Lightning to hit the Specter and take out one of the minions. Sola stepped up and used Brand of the Sun to inflict more radiant damage to the Specter. Quinn used the daily power on his weapon to attack in a burst 1. He missed the Specter but killed three minions. Hagen moved in and used his Smite Undead, scoring the first crit of the night and inflicting maximum radiant damage to the Specter, killing it for good. Berrian used another Magic Missile to take out the final remaining minion.

When the combat was over we rested and searched the room. We found a lot of coins, mostly copper, valuing about 600 gp. It’s a good thing Gorn gave us all of those backpacks and sacks to carry out the treasure. We also found a magical weapon and magic arm item. The DM told us that there was another item hidden but that we needed to be very specific about where we searched in order to find it. He gave us each one chance to guess correctly and make a Perception check. We failed miserably and didn’t get the final item. He told us if we’d continued talking with the Specter at the beginning it would have revealed the location accidentally. Oh well.

Our group found the role-playing at the beginning of this encounter difficult. We didn’t know or understand what the Specter was talking about. I think this is a problem with the way D&D Encounters is set up. If we’d been playing this as one long adventure we’d likely have remembered the names and history that the Specter was talking about. But since it had been a couple of weeks the names and events meant nothing to us. We didn’t know what to say so we decided to destroy the undead monster.

How did week 11 go for your group? Did you have better luck than we did with the dialogue or did you just attack? Anybody loose a PC this week? With the both Clerics present this week, the extra radiant damage made the encounter a lot easier for us. Was our experience unique or did other groups find this week’s combat easier than the past two weeks?

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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