They say it's better the second time, they say you get to do the wierd stuff: Summer D&D session 2

Session 1 ended on a small cliffhanger as my new players approached the ruins of the Keep, the object of their quest, and a mob of bullywugs emerged and surrounded them, led by a giant half-dead staff-wielder (a Mud Lord with the Deathhunger template from Open Grave applied and a few custom changes). When the time came for session 2, the players were eager to blast some zombie frog.

Plan of Attack

Between sessions 1 and 2 I finally decided most of the details of the inner Keep: an underground dungeon with two levels. The second level, which I planned first before I was even certain there would be a first level, would be the laboratory of the ancient gnome artificer whose work would be the focus of this first quest. One of my players was surprised upon reviewing the Monster Manual that there were "robots in D&D": I was already strongly considering including warforged and that comment just cemented it. The lower level thus evolved fairly quickly as a facility for the production of warforged, albeit it with some more sinister details (which I will not discuss as the players have yet to discover them).

The first level proved much more difficult. My thoughts returned frequently to an illusion-based security system: the first level would in essence be a giant booby-trap designed to discourage and ultimately eliminate trespassers. Gnomes, of course, are known for illusions, and I liked the idea of players gradually recognizing that their experiences were not real (it appeals to my postmodern/self-referential sense, I suppose). Actually coming up with mechanics to produce that experience, though, proved quite difficult, and in the end mostly failed, with the exception of the final trap, which succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams.

Session 2

But first the players had to face the bullywugs. The initial description of the mud lord's escort, a pair of bullywug twitchers wielding javelins that seemed much better made than the previous twitchers' rough wooden spears and actually had metal tips, prompted the first great meme of the summer campaign: one of my players asked seriously if the bullywugs made the spears themselves or stole them, as "they don't appear to have metalsmithing capabilities". This comment prompted uncontrollable laughter from one of the other players, apparently amazed that anyone would consider such a question. To reward the first player for his thoughts, I told him what I had actually planned to inform them after the fight was over: the javelins bore Dwarven runes that suggested they were in fact stolen.

When we finally started combat, the players already demonstrated a firmer grasp of both combat mechanics and tactics. The players recognized the bullywug croakers for what they were: minions with a close blast attack that made them extremely dangerous while the party was grouped together and thus important initial targets. After those had been dispatched, the players focused primarily on the mud lord, reasoning that although it was obviously tougher than the other enemies, its death might cause the others to flee (a suspicion that was in fact in my combat notes). The combat took some time due to the mud lord using his template's abilities to heal himself: I tweaked the death hunger's abilities to allow it to intentionally sacrifice one of its own (in fact, a twitcher at full health) to use its Consume ability, describing it grisly grabbing the adjacent bullywug and biting off its head, which successfully incensed the players at both the brutality of the description and the mechanical effect of the healing.

After a brief interlude in the surface ruins of the Keep, the players proceeded to the first underground level, where I made my first major mistake of the session. I had continually returned to the idea that the gnome had not only set up illusionary traps but also attracted the bullywugs or other creatures in the past as savage guardians by posing as a Wizard of Oz-esque god. The first room, containing a crude, blood-soaked altar, was to have this illusionary figure appear when the players entered, but I forgot to put it in my notes, having never decided exactly how I wanted the effect to work, and thus did not implement it. This didn't impact the players much, luckily: the relationship between the bullywugs and the Keep's lower inhabitants was in no way an important part of the (meager) plot I had planned.

The first illusionary trap, an artificially lengthened hallway in which apparations appeared to attack trespassers, also failed to work as planned, due once again to my conceiving of an idea but not figuring out the details necessary to make it work. Thus it appeared to the players that they were simply being attacked by ghosts, a misunderstanding which, as before, did not really negatively impact the players. After the encounter with the ghosts, the party's third fight of the day, many of the players were almost entirely out of healing surges and thus they requested an extended rest as we ended the session. I considered it over the time inbetween and agreed, recognizing that the number of upcoming combats and/or possible damage would require a rest at some point.