The Second D&D Tarak Campaign - First Encounter With The Cunning Goblins

4 days ago

Welcome to the ongoing saga of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran a little while back, using The Sunken Citadel module from the Tales From The Yawning Poral source book.

In the last post in this series, the party had a tough fight with giant rats, but saw them off after some initial difficulties.

I hope you enjoy my D&D campaign write-ups, and the commentary I add to them. Questions, comments and feedback are welcome !

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After spending a short time binding their wounds and using a healing potion or two, our party of brave heroes felt ready to move deeper into the Sunken Citadel.

They knew they were traversing a no-man's land, a warren of rooms and passages separating the kobolds (temporarily their allies, sort of...) from the goblins. They also knew they must be getting closer to where the goblins would all be hanging out. They weren't disappointed !

Passing through an empty chamber, they pushed open the far door after only the most cursory of checks. That was what this party was like; headstrong and always moving forward. In this case, a simple check would have spotted damage to the door visible on their side where the goblins had hammered in a bell on the other. Opening the door in any manner other than very slowly would ring the doorbell, and just flinging the door open achieved just that.

What they saw was a short corridor with the floor liberally covered with caltrops.

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At the far end was a crude low wall about three feet high. As they started to pick their way gingerly through the spiky obstacles, the reason for the wall was revealed. Alerted by the ringing of the bell, a pair of goblin archers were hiding in ambush behind it.

Popping up and using the wall as cover, they started to pepper the leading characters with arrows.

Although it wasn't mentioned in the book, I felt it fair to have the goblins shooting with advantage, as the characters were unable to easily manoeuvre to dodge the arrows without risking damage from stepping on the caltrops.

For those who don't play D&D, when you roll an attack normally, you use a single 20-sided die. When you have advantage due to the tactical situation or magic, you can roll two 20-sided dice and the higher one is used, which significantly increases the chances of hitting. Rolling with disadvantage is the opposite - roll two D20's and take the lowest. That happens if something is messing with your ability to tackle a challenge, for example darkness or a slippery surface.

Most parties faced with this situation would retreat, put together a plan, and then approach the situation anew with (hopefully) a better chance of success. Most parties.

This party did the opposite. Throwing caution to the winds and ignoring the risk of damage from the caltrops, Griff (the beasthide battlemaster) and Erioch (the battle priest) charged.

Moving through caltrops at faster than half speed requires a dexterity saving throw. Failure means you take a point of damage and, more importantly, stop moving at that point.

Griff stepped on one and stopped dead in his tracks. Erioch was luckier, reaching the goblins and striking one dead with a single mighty blow.

The other goblin, seeing he was no match for two enraged warrior types, wisely fled at this point.

Beyond the low wall was a small chamber the two goblins used as their living and sleeping room. It was full of junk and awful half-rotten food, but there was nothing of value. The party didn't stop there for long, being keep to continue in hot pursuit of their fleeing foe.

Next time... more sneaky goblins, including the one who just ran away again....

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