#346

The Halls of Arden Vul

This week’s session needed way more prep work than usual, as the players would be dealing with an ambush by a similarly powerful NPC adventuring party, all kitted out with magic gear and spells. Additionally, the NPC statblocks are in typical terse Arden Vul style, with only the information needed to know what to look up elsewhere (e.g., why bother to include saves when you can just say they’re a level 11 cleric?).

Beforehand, I noted down all their attack bonuses, damage bonuses, ascending AC, and how many uses of all consumables / charges of magic items they had. I also worked out what their tactics would be: an opening strategy for the first round of combat, and then a standard procedure for each of them to follow. I read so many descriptions of spells and magic items.

And, ultimately, the NPCs were defeated thanks to the players coming up with an incredible strategy. We ended the session last week with them hearing the ambush sneaking up on them, so the NPCs didn’t have a surprise round. Then the PCs won the first round of initiative, and they did something absolutely devastating to my tactics:

1. Cast Sticks to Snakes
2. Cast Haste on all the party and the snakes
3. Cast Silence 15’ Radius on one of the snakes
4. Cast Invisibility 10’ Radius on that snake

The Invisibility caught a bunch of the party members, too. So at the end of this first round we had 10 invisible snakes, one emitting a field of magical silence, plus 5 invisible party members; also everyone can move twice as fast and attack two times in a round.

In round 2 they set the snakes on the NPCs, with the silence-snake keeping to the centre of the group, shutting down the NPC spellcasters. This utterly destroyed my plan, which relied a lot on spells and magic items with command words.

The combat, and cleaning up the aftermath, was still difficult and took the whole session, but it was a lot less close than I planned. We ended with a week of downtime to get all the loot identified and to resolve a few other things, which brings us into the new year: the second in-game new year of the campaign!

House Buying

No progress this week, we’re still waiting for the sellers to resolve a couple of queries with their onward chain. The conveyancer is still optimistic that we’ll complete on the 29th or 30th (as the sellers proposed), with exchange some time next week. I’m skeptical, and definitely glad I extended my tenancy.

On the other hand, I have made quite a bit of progress in preparing for the move. I’ve packed away all my books and CDs (in 37 boxes!), disassembled all the bits of furniture and other things I’m not keeping, and arranged for a guy to come collect and dispose of it on Wednesday. Next week I’ll pack away everything I’m not going to need before the move and, after we exchange, book in removals. I also need to start ringing up utility suppliers and so forth to arrange cancelling services at the flat on the tenancy end date.

I’m thinking of actually moving on Saturday the 7th (assuming we complete on time), as that gives a week to set up utilities, get some new furniture delivered, and, hopefully, get the rooms painted and carpets replaced (though I’m not holding my breath on that).