Replay 1 - Session 3 - Dungeons and dungeons...

I will not describe right now all of the preparation I've done for this game. There are definitely things that I must change for the future. But I'll comment more on that later. Perhaps not even in this session, it depends on how long it goes for.

Alright, we left off near the door. The party goes down the stairs and opens the wooden door, Suilandos's lantern casts light down the steps. There they find a small corridor of stone, the walls are full of inscriptions of the night sky, and then there is a door, also made out of stone. There are various symbols and circles, at the center of the door there are three discs which can be rearranged; each one with a different symbol.

Wait a minute... that's the Skyrim puzzle — yeah... I was thinking about using some classic riddle, but I decided to do this instead.

Gertosel: "Dammit, we can't turn away now. Is there another entrance?"
Demdem: "Maybe we can't try to move these discs."
Ferem: "Perhaps it is a trap, let me check the door first."
Ferem: Wisdom - Fail (5) "Okay, it seems safe."
Demdem: "Let's move it then, maybe something like this..."

Demdem tries to match the images in the disc with the ones presented in the maps of the sky drawn over the walls. Intelligence — Success (8). As he does, there is a clicking sound and the door slides up, revealing a large room.

The room has an orb, emitting a dim light, over a pedestal. There is also a painting of a man with a large brown beard, sitting on a throne, wearing a red cloak. The room has chairs and one table. At the other side there is a door.

Suilandos: "Careful, there's something weird about this room."
Gertosel: "Yeah, a weird sense of style."

Gertosel looks at the painting of the man, he extended his arm to grab it, but before he could touch it—

Demdem: "Don't touch anything!"
Ferem: "If it isn't treasure we should keep our hands to ourselves."
Gertosel: "Ugh... What about the orb, is the orb valuable?"
Suilandos: Wisdom — Success (10) "It may be, perhaps it is a crystal ball."

Ferem walked up to the northern door.

Ferem: "So it's either the orb or the door. Which one first?"

This is one of those cases that, as the person who designed the dungeon, I know that one of these is good and the other is not. Of course, if I were a player I'd just choose the good option. But I must know what the characters want to do, so I'll ask the oracle.

Q: Does the party want to inspect the orb? (½)
A: Yes.

The moment Gertosel's hands touch the orb it starts shining red.

Gertosel: "This doesn't seem good."

A screech is heard resonating in the room, the party looks around but they are unable to find the source. Soon enough it makes itself visible, it appears through the painting; a large beast with a red leathery round body, with two human arms dangling, a large eye, flinging its large wings, and sharp exposed teeth.

Ferem: "Through the painting?!"
Demdem: "The painting is an illusion!"

And thus begins combat with this creature, there is no way to reason with it, it was made for the purpose of fighting whatever touched the orb. The name of the creature is Evileye, and it's a level 3 monster.

Evileye surprised the party so it goes first. He stares at Gertosel, who is holding the orb, their eyes meet. There is a power that tries to alter Gertosel's mind but he brushes it off (9). It is his turn now, he tries to strike the creature, but the ax only manages to bruise it slightly (3). Suilandos and Demdem move away from the creature. It is Ferem's turn, he strikes with his daggers (7) the first swing misses, but the second one slams under the arm (8) dealing 3 damage.

It is Evileye's turn. It will try and bite Ferem, who just attacked him, but he quickly moves out of the way (5). Gertosel attacks him while distracted (1) but the human arm pushes him away. Ferem's turn, he attacks with his first dagger as the creature moves forward, piercing its wing (8) and dealing 5 damage. The second dagger follows suit, but he's thrown away with a swing of the wing.

Their eyes met, Ferem's mind felt altered by the creature... (5) suddenly he feels incredibly dizzy and falls to the ground unable to stabilize himself. Gertosel tries to put an end to the creature but his attack seems to have little to no effect (7).

Suilandos casts a Level 2 spell (Mana Spear). It is an ancient spell so it is cast with Intelligence. 9 + 3 - 2 = 10. The spell is cast. It deals 7 damage.

As Evileye lunges itself toward Ferem, a flash of light lits the room, a bolt of sparking blue crosses through the air in an instant, splitting the air — a buzzing sound follows, and then there is silence, until the creature's body falls to the ground; a giant hole burn where once its eye was.

Magic users are very good, the only problem is that they only get to use as many spells as they have saved in memory. If they fail to cast a spell they also lose the use of that spell in memory. Also, as you may have realized, they can't do anything other than casting, so in most combats they just stay behind and wait until necessary. In this case, I saw that it was necessary. Gertosel was never going to hit, and Ferem was out, that only left both of the magic users, it was that or wait for Ferem to recover... but that wasn't going to happen without taking damage.

I must say, they were so lucky. An attack from this monster can knock Ferem unconscious in a single strike. The wisdom save by Gertosel was insane too. Well, let's keep moving, let me add that crystal ball to his inventory.

Demdem: "So the crystal ball was not a good idea... still, the painting..."
Suilandos: "Are you okay, big brother?"
Ferem: "Yes, I just feel dizzy..."
Gertosel: "Let's wait for Ferem to recover and see what's on the other side of the painting."
Ferem: "What was that thing anyways?"
Demdem: Wisdom — Critical Success "I've never seen anything quite like it... it must be a creature from another plane, summoned here by a wizard."
Gertosel: "The man in the painting looks like quite the wizard. So this is his place and that was his pet?"
Demdem: "That is likely the case."

Gertosel approached the painting and tried to touch it, his hand went right through it. Then, he decided to take a peek at what was behind.

Gertosel: "There's a whole corridor down here."

There was a door north and some stairs going down south, right facing it. Then, the corridor continued and twisted south.

The party takes a look from above the stairs, the descent is not that long, the room below can be seen even from above the stairs. There is a bag with something golden, which sparks Gertosel's interest.

Ferem: "Don't even check it, this is the most obvious trap I've ever seen."
Suilandos: "You can see that there are dead rats in the room, it's obviously dangerous."
Demdem: "How about we check this door instead, Ferem, give it a look."
Ferem: Wisdom — Fail (3) "It seems good, and not even locked."
Gertosel: "All right, I'll open it for you!"

As soon as the door is opened there is a blast that pushes the party, slamming them against the wall. Gertosel, who was the one opening the door, gets pushed down the stairs which were opposite to the door. He hears the sound of a moving mechanism and not a second later acid starts spraying from the ceiling.

All of the party members take 1 damage, and Gertosel takes 3 damages in total due to the acid trap. In addition, I'd like to roll a normal wisdom check for Gertosel.

Gertosel: Wisdom — Success (13) "I need to get out of here."

Yeah, I was wondering, now that he was down... perhaps he would have liked to try and grab the gold. But he's smarter than that.

The party gathered, slightly in pain, some more than others.

Demdem: "Good thing it wasn't trapped."
Ferem: "It was a magic trap, those are hard to detect."
Gertosel: "Stop bickering and let's keep moving."
Suilandos: "But what about the door?"
Gertosel: "I got to see what was on the other side..."
Demdem: "What was it?"
Gertosel: "Nothing, there was just a wall. Whoever designed this place had a sense of humor."
Suilandos: "What do you mean?"
Demdem: "He could have placed a more dangerous trap, a bomb, or anything else... instead he made this obnoxious contraption."
Suilandos: Intelligence — Success (9) "Wouldn't a bomb cause too much damage to the corridor?"
Demdem: Charisma - Fail (4) "It was just an example, perhaps... a magic bomb would be the ideal."

Suilandos doesn't believe that there is such a thing as a magic bomb.

All right, the party advances. I'll make Ferem and Demdem roll their wisdom to see if they notice something.

Ferem: Wisdom — Success (8) "Wait a minute, there's something over there."
Demdem: Wisdom - Fail (3) "Where?"
Ferem: "This wall..."

Ferem approached the wall north of the end of the hallway... after pressing bricks in sequence... the wall is pushed back and it slides down.

Suilandos: "Oh wow, big brother is so cool!"
Ferem: "Hehe~"
Gertosel: "You guys are talking as if I took an acid shower for fun."

The room has a desk and a chair. There are some books stacked over the desk. There is an armor that is in terrible condition, completely unusable. Over the desk there is a tiny sack.

Gertosel: "There are 7 coins in this purse. Better than nothing."
Suilandos: Wisdom — Success (8) "These books are about astrology, biology... this one is a fiction book... and there's also one with a bunch of dates and numbers."
Dedem: "Are they valuable?"
Suilandos: "They may be worth 1 or 2 gold pieces each, but I'd say carrying them is not worth it."
Ferem: "Oh, I found something too."

What Ferem picked up is a small golden sphere that seems to be made out of gold. Probably worth 1 gold.

Ferem: "I'll keep it since it is tiny."

The party left the room a little bit more wealthy, and approached the door south.

Ferem: Wisdom — Fail (6) "It's not trapped, this time for sure. But it is locked."
Ferem: Dexterity — Success (8) "Not anymore."
Suilandos: "Big brother is so cool!"
Ferem: "Hehe~"
Gertosel: "Why don't you try opening the door then?"

Ferem took a hold of the door's handle, and everyone, including his brother, walked away while he was doing so.

Ferem: "Don't leave me to die!"
Demdem: "You need to have some confidence in yourself."
Ferem: "It is you guys who need to have some confidence in me."
Suilandos: "We will mourn you if you pass..."
Ferem: "N-No... I'm not dead yet."

The door opened without much of an issue. The next corridor extended far and twisted to the east. There was a long red carpet; stained with the dark blood of some creature. The corpses remained there; two lizard men. They were close to the only visible door — guarded by two pieces of armor, similar to the one in the room north, but in far better conditions. The swords belonging to the armors were coated in blood.

It is very easy to guess what happened. Lets see if Demdem or Suilandos, the only one who could do something in this position, see the blood in the blade of the armor's weapon. I'll say there is no difficulty to this.

Suilandos: Wisdom — Fail (6) "These corpses..."
Demdem: Wisdom — Success (10) "That's no good! There is someone under that armor, Suilandos, hit them!"

I'll make him cast another Level 2 spell (Forked Lightning), but this time I'll exhaust his intelligence, basically all stats can be used as +1 bonuses for rolls, the number of times is equal to the number bonus. It doesn't affect the bonus, but it takes time to recover the points used for exhausting the stat. Suilandos has a 3 point bonus for intelligence, so he can exhaust his intelligence 3 times. You recover a full stat per long rest and none during short rests.

Suilandos casts Forked Lightning; it succeeds (8).

As Suilandos pointed the staff at the armors and they suddenly jolted into motion, a magic circle appeared under his feet, a current of electricity spread through his staff, a burst was shot through the air and in the second it approached the armor it split into two.

The shock from the hit made both armors take 5 damage. They were paralyzed by the impact, as smoke seemed to rise from the armors, they continued their approach to the party.

Suilandos: "They are moving like nothing happened..."

The party has the initiative due to a surprise attack. The turn order is: Ally, ally, ally, enemy, ally, enemy.

It is Gertosel's turn. He will exhaust his dexterity to try and land a hit, there is a loud clank sound but no real damage was done (critical failure). Ferem will also exhaust his dexterity to try and find an opening in the armor for both of his attacks; the blades only manage to hit the armor.

I am using all of my points to attack because the probability to hit is tied to armor level, since this enemy is so armored it is very unlikely to deal damage to them. Since all of it failed, I guess it's time to try some magic. But I'll pass the turn for now, since we don't want to cast something just for it to be undone by their actions later.

Armor A attacks Gertosel with a kick (8) that deals 1 damage, the next attack made against him will receive +2 bonus to hit, Armor A is going again, this time with his sword, but Gertosel moves out of the way (critical failure). Armor B swings his sword at Ferem, but it misses (3), just to swing once more (7), but he reflects it with his daggers. He retaliates (7) (5) but neither of his attacks could connect.

Demdem tries to cast Enchant Weapon (Level 2) exhausting his wisdom; but as he tries to concentrate the spell vanishes (6). Suilandos tries to cast Forked Lightning (Level 2) exhausting his intelligence; but he can't concentrate (6).

Armor B swings his sword at Ferem (6) but it misses. Gertosel tries to grapple Armor A and manages to grab hold of it (11) but Armor A breaks the grapple (8), it swings its sword at Ferem (4) but it's unable to connect. Demdem will attempt to cast Enchant Weapon (Level 2) again, exhausting his wisdom; critical success.

As the spell is cast energy flows from Demdem's body and a glow appears in Gertosel's axe.

Now that the weapon is enchanted it ignores the penalties from the high armor, and it also ignores Gertosel's abysmal dexterity. So it is time to strike; Gertosel swings his ax but Armor A stops him with its sword (6). Ferem tries to grapple Armor B, exhausting his strength but the armor pushes him away (6). Armor A kicks Ferem (8) dealing 1 damage, he is pushed back and the next attack made against him receives +2 to hit. Armor B takes the opportunity to attack him, swinging his sword, the blade cuts through his chest dealing 4 damage.

Ferem drinks an aid potion, his wounds heal. Demdem tries to cast Vine Grapple (Level 2); it does not work. It is Gertosel's turn and he tries to hit (7) he does not hit... It is Armor A's turn, he kicks Gertosel but he manages to go back before it lands (1). Suilandos attempts to cast Fire Blast (Level 1); he succeeds (10).

Armor B explodes in fire, as it falls to the ground it is revealed that there is no one inside. It is Gertosel's turn he, he attacks, he rolls a 5... dude this system is ass, I can't fucking hit shit.

Demdem tries to cast Guided Bolt (Level 1); critical success. The last armor falls down.

Well, I think that should be enough for the session... that was terrible. I love the roleplaying part but this combat is terrible, it goes on and on... I should try an already existing working system... because damn... I want to die after that. You can read it relatively quickly, but you can see in my descriptions how frustrated I was getting, the enemy is not killing me and I am not killing it - and each number you see is a roll I had to do. Don't comment on it... the worst part is that I was trying to hit just so they would realize that the armors are immune to piercing and slashing damage - I wasn't even trying to deal damage.

I'll do the rest of the dungeon with this system and then switch to something else after it is done. Maybe something that resolves combat quicker... I'd love it if it is still D6 based. I don't know if anyone is reading these (lol), if you've got any game suggestions, let me know.