By now you should have a brief description of the scene above, as well as an atached file in your email that shows the same area in a map with appropriate quardinates.
With that in mind, bearing the description and location, what is your next move?
Smendor will take a few minutes to look at the area below. He is mostly looking for movement.
Perception
what do ya think? Maybe a feeding area for some nastiest?
Difficult to say... the terrain falls in a steep drop in all areas to this point. At any point you could travel down into the area, fairly easily. Someting COULD have taken them into the area, but you see nothing that indicates that.
Well I am not much of a sneaky person. I say we just jump up and down and make whatever may be down there run up this hill after use.
FYI, I'm on SKYPE for those of you who want to listen in or participate that way...
FYI, I'm on SKYPE for those of you who want to listen in or participate that way...
Smendor is on his horse, and bellows out a loud "here we are" sort of statement, attempting to get the attention of whatever is down there...
You notice your horses are sweating and seem fairly nervous.
Brett turns and looks at Smendor and does what he can to calm his pony, then kicks the mounts flanks and moves away from Smendor.
"If you're going to be doing that, then I think we best spread out a piece... I don't want to get jumped in a bundle," he mutters, seeing nothing moving below.
His pony slowly begins a trot in a wide circle. You see them disapearing between the trees, but not too far. He seems to be moving around the eastern edge of the rocky open space. He will eventually check his mount at point S-24.
Smendor, your shouts seem to have not gotten any response, except for a feeling of dread. What do you, or Alaric, do next?
I need perception checks from Alaric and Smendor... Smendor, apologies that you had left, we're NPCing you, but you will get full credit for XP.
This is vs an opposed stealth Roll...
Perception Check
You both observe from above you a small blob-like creature crawling softly toward you. It drops on your horse and falls... 50% chance on landing on either one of you
1-10 Alaric
11-20 Smendor
Roll Initiative... sense you saw the creature you are not surprised...
it's a giant spider... of a sorts!
Ini
Alaric
Smendor
Save vs Sleep
smendor
alaric
Spring attack vs you and your horse...
60% your horse, 40% you...
1-12 horse 13-20 you...
A huge horrible spider leaps from a gray stone. This is a "trap-door" spider, and is massive, the size of a small pony... It leaps up and tears into its prey...
As a surprise round and with Spring Attack, the creature attacks Alaric, avoiding his horse...
If he is hit...
Alaric, save vs Poison.. Fortitude DC 14
Stealth check from..
another of these crawling nasties fall on Smendor and his horse... If the spider makes his stealth check vs smendor then he will go fist with surprise, otherwise inititative puts him in orer.
Init.
50-50 on Smendor vs Horse, as he is smaller then Alaric...
1-5 Horse
6-10 Smendor
He will attack his target if he can...
Damage, if any
Horse makes Fort Roll...
Has only 14 HP Left...
Brett's Ini
Horse fails Fortitude Roll...
takes 1d2 Str Damage per round until it makes the save.
Horse currently has 16 stregnth...
Round 1
Small spider on Smendor and horse attempt to attack Smendor now...
attack vs Smendor
IF he hits
Fort save for Horse
IF horse misses Fort save
Brett's attack on Spider on Smendor... uses a pistol...
IF he hits...
via surprising the creature for sneak attack..
The spider on Smendor is blown apart like an oversteamed sack of Haggus... the blood and organs scatter everywhere...
Brett ducks back behind the tree...
Alaric, you're up...
Spider will come up again, Alaric has a readied Sleep spell prepapred... he will cast it on the creature as soon as it makes Its presence known... The Spider gets a Will Save
IF It succeeds, it will attack Alaric again, and attempt to grapple him...
CMB for Grapple
Vs Alaric's CMD of 12
Two climb checks for the Giant Spider to drag Alaric down the shaft to his dark lair... There it is going to bite you and attempt to poison or kill you...
Alaric gets to take his action at this time, as he is now in the spiders den, as they say...
Smendor and Brett are on their way...
The spider has you grappled, so you are flat footed to him (alaric) he will attempt to bite you, and you may attempt to break out of the grapple...
Also, when you get a minute, I will need three climb checks for Smendor, DC 10.
Attack vs. Alaric...
damage IF he hits...
Climb Check Number 1
Climb Check Number 2
Climb Check Number 3
This is to reflect the three rolls made by Smendor to get down the tunnel. Each roll will take one round to get ten feet. Further, he is at a -2 to Climb as he is at a -5 to his armor check penalty, and has no ranks in climb at this time.
Smendor crashes down the tunnel, and suffers 3d6 falling damage
Escape artist
Okay, the spider will attempt to bite Alaric a second time... Alaric may ATTEMPT to escape artistically... and Smendor gets a chance to attack this thing in its back... which he does...
Spider attack
IF he hits
fortitude save
Alaric takes 1d2 Str Damage this round
Smendor rushes up and smashes this scum in the back of its hairy backside...
To hit..
To dammage (IF he hits)
Smendor roars out in rage as his axe goes sailing out of his hands and crashes into the wall... on the next round he will draw his morningstar and attack...
Meanwhile, Brett is no where to be seen...
Spider attempts to attack Logan again...
damage IF he hits...
Smendor swings his morning star at the creature, and Alaric does what he does (including a Fortitude Roll)
Damage IF he hits...
The spider, seeing that his first treat of the day is out cold will now turn on Smendor and attack...
IF he hits...
Smendor offers a cool rebuttle...
damage, IF he hits...
Spider Responds...
IF he hits
SMENDOR responds...
IF he hits...
At this point Alaric loses another HP... Remember, in my game you can go to negative CON, not 10.
fort save
Alaric takes another Strength damage
Spider attacks Smendor
IF he hits
Smendor attacks then takes a 5 foot step backward...
and attacks
IF he hits...
The spider moves up, attacks Smendor again...
IF he hits...
Smendor attacks again, takes another five foot step back...
IF he hits...
Alaric takes another Str drain...
The spider drops, even as Smendor crumples it faceted eyes with a mighty mash of his mace...
He moves over to Alaric, his leg dragging, limping slightly... Looking the young man over he tries to use first aid on you...
to staunch your wounds...
Smendor lays there panting for a moment trying to figure out what he is going to do next. A brief "Hellooo...come from above.
It is Brett, he is calling from above.
"You alright down there? I'm up here holding the horses, making sure they don't bolt and we don't get another one of these them there little spider-whore's attacking us... brr... I hate those things,"
"Well, how are you doing down there?"
"We're alright... for now... the little bugger's done and got himself near dead; but I saved him, as to be expected..."Smendor calls out.
"Is there anything down there... I mean, can we get going? I really hate this place..."Brett adds, looking around at the trees, Alaric's sickened horse dizzy and disoriented.
Smendor grunts.
"Bit of a nasty climb... fell down, near twisted something. I need to get out, and this one can't climb worth a piece anyway, at least for a moment. I'm going to look around down here, see what I can find. Then, I'm going to get out of here..."
"What about Alaric?"Brett asks somewhat anxiously...
"Hrumph... he failed in the pit, he ought to STAY in the pit... but nothing's for it yet. Let me look around a piece first, then I'll see what I can see. We ain't getting him out until I make sure there's nothing else dangerous down here."
Brett seems fairly nervous, but Smendor is stubborn and makes a Perception roll to search the lair while Alaric lolls feverishly on the ground.
Perception roll
Smendor looks around in the pit for a while.
The spider’s lair is at the bottom of a 5-foot-diameter,
25-foot-deep shaft. The lair itself is a long tunnel about 50 feet long, and ten feet high, and five feet wide. Thick webbing along the walls makes it relatively easy to clamber up and down the shaft (DC 10 Climb check). Although the spider often cleans out the skeletons that accumulate within its den, it hasn’t done so for a week or so and a few bodies still remain at the bottom of the shaft, including the body of a dead bandit, still dressed in leather armor and carrying a short sword and 10 gp. He also wears about his neck a silver Stag Lord amulet worth 20 gp. Smendor pockets both, and then moves to the tunnel and calls out to Brett.. He's not clear on what to do with these items yet, but no doubt he'll decide when the time comes.
"Well, he's not going anywhere for a time down here... what's for it? What do you want to do?
Brett seems distressed, to say the least. He grudgingly decides to lower some rope down the pit and try to rig up a tackle and harness with it to drag Alaric from the shaft. It takes some doing, but soon Alaric is out of the shaft and his body is taken back to the horses.
"Well, now what?Brett asks, they are about a hundred yards from the gravely area, and stand there trying to decide what to do. Alaric's bruised body is draped over his horse, and Smendor is covered in blood as well...
(Alaric being at negative 4, Smendor now down to three HP; Brett is currently at full HP).
"We have a few options here, as I see it,"Brett says anxioulsy... "We could press on... "he hurries forward, ignoring Smendor's shocked look "we could ride straight back to Oleg, or you could ride back to the lad's hut up where we were before and try to get him to help. But as I see it,"his tone switching to matter of fact business "if you ride at your normal pace, that is; hard for Oleg, and don't pray no mind to mapping, you should get there around four or five hours, at a decent speed."
"Hmm... not bad... what do YOU have in mind?
"Not much for it, is there,"Brett said, his eyes glinting. "Looks like I need to go on... this land needs exploring. You lads head back to Oleg, see if he can't fix you up. I'll finish this hash here... If you ride hard, you'll be back by Oleg's late tonight, maybe by ten o'clock. I'm going to push on, and I should see you back there by suppertime tomorrow... hopefully,"he adds with a frown, looking up at the sky.
There's a 55 percent chance of rain tonight...
1-11 rain, 12-20 No rain
If it rains, I need Smendor and Alaric to make a Fort roll on the way home to avoid getting sick.