Out of the Abyss

Game Master Angie H

OK, so I got myself stabbed, twice. I should have stayed with trying to knock out the Kuo-toan but they yelled out 'kill them (if you have to)' and it was a REALLY lucky blow. But 'murdering' them all isn't fun for me, even if it is a very desperate situation.

I've had this happen before in games. I've killed NPCs who weren't evil, and I don't think these guys are, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather face justice then do the same to all of the guards here.

Talking our way out of this (even if it gets Hue left behind in some fish jail) or breaking out from another prison situation would be better than 'murder'.

Well, if it's trying to kill you, I think you are well within your rights to try and kill it right back ;^) Time after the fact to worry about the morality of survival.

And there's always this thing: seem to be easier than in any previous edition, as there is no penalty to hit with the intention of subduing rather than killing:

"Sometimes an attacker wants to incapacitate a foe, rather than deal a killing blow. When an attacker reduces a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, the attacker can knock the creature out. The attacker can make this choice the instant the damage is dealt. The creature falls unconscious and is stable."

I agree with all of that.

Alexandra is a ask question first shoot later person, she attempted to parley, in a reasonable way and got a "Voices in the head! Find and destroy (not capture or disable, destroy) the witch!", in response, they also struck first. She was completely willing to parley with a dire badger and with goblins before, and did so succesfully, making friends both times.
We attempted a parley, they immidiatly initiated hostilities, publicly stating deadly intent. We are well within our rights to respond with deadly force, although Alexandra can be convinced to not kill in melee.

Tbh. sometimes you have to show your might first, in order to negotiate later.

Yeah, we came in peace looking for help and these guys ended up having a dwarf in chains and attacked us unprovoked. Ksenia will not be enslaved again, and will die or flee back into the Underdark to avoid it.

...Voices in the head! Find and destroy...

Very good point

We have 2 greatswords? Must have missed that, Alexes Greatsword is her new fangled pact weapon, which she is currently using.

Maddy’s great sword is part of her backstory and the item that Sarith brought back to her.

Yay, Greatsword sisters!

I initially went pact of the blade thinking I would summon a greatsword for maddy to use, stick close to her and blast (given that we didnt have starting items), great that you got your own so thats not needed!

I'm assuming here Precious needs to use an actual action to pull the rope from the Kuo-Toa's fingers... but if it is instead something he can do as part of a move (since moving is what creates the force to pull him free), I'd be happy to take 5e's version of a Withdraw action instead, to avoid those nasty AoOs to his unarmored back ;^)

The big guy is still up.

And will presumably seek to ruin my day his turn :)

@Alexandra: your damage looks like it was 1d26 instead of .. 2d6 maybe?

Youch! And here I thought I hit hard :)

Seconded - yikes.

I think that Kuo-Tua just became one with the underdark, its kind of jucky that our PCs are presumably breathing in his fully atomized remains.

Oh yeah... on a totally unrelated matter, since there are a few new friends here to ask... I'm running out of stuff to read again (currently revisiting Feist's Riftwar series after 10-some years since last re-read), and I'd love some recommendations. Stuff that you have read and loved. Sci-fi or fantasy, heavy and lengthy rather than quick and light is my preference.

My Rising Shadow bookshelf is mostly up-to-date (for the books I have - can't be bothered to add the "have read" tag to them all). If you have free time to take a look, and if you spot some true gem that are not on my list yet, please holler ;^)

I found the trisolaris triology by Cixin Liu fairly thought provoking.

It is slow at the start, but it seriously wowed and surprised me a couple of times.

Joe Abercombie has a pretty interesting take on anti heroes in his blades series. Jim Butcher is also an occassional Guilty pleasure.

Last, I actually reread Solaris and other science fiction by Stanislaw Lem, I am in my 30s now, and it is certainly a lot cooler then I remembered reading it as a teenager.

By "trisolaris" do you mean "The Three-Body Problem" and the follow-ups? Those I have read, a long while ago... can't really remember much about them, so that might be a good enough reason to hit the local library.

** Edit ** It came out in 2008? Still have read it, but I mistook it for something else initially, wonder what that one might have been... **

Joe Abercombie... I have read one of his books (can't remember which) but didn't like his writing style.

Butcher is great, can't wait for the next Dresden Files to come out! Just recently finished my second re-read.

Stanislaw Lem... hmm... old classics. Can't recall if I picked up one of his books when I was a in high school or something... that was the time I delved into "Rendezvous with Rama" and its kindred, read some of Asimov's "Robot" and "Foundations" books, Simmons's Hyperion...

I'm a bit particular when it comes to my sci-fi books these days (I love books that go chapters deep into explaining why their weird tech works) and older books with their 60's vision of future tech tend to rub me the wrong way (although those are still better than hand-waving magic fiction of Star Wars novels "it just works, don't question it" or "let's chain 20 words of techno-babble together and claim it explains everything that needs explaining" of Star Trek books) ;^)

WOOT!

Hey Angie, does the house rule on criticals still apply to a crazy good roll like that - full damage + roll for damage? Would that turn Kalanzar's 47 into a 51 (but a shame to abandon such a good set of d6 rolls)

Stanislaw Lems raunchy love poem in the language of higher mathematics is something I still read when things suck and I need a morale boost :).

Now that sounds like high praise to me :-) Thanks, will see what's available in the libraries and sample some of his works.

Also on a completely unrelated topic... Starfield hype intensifies!

@Angie, just doublechecking: the Kuo whom Alexandra and I were flanking and offered the chance to surrender refused and got killed right?

So I know cause it will affect my post…how much time has elapsed since Maddy began her rage?

@Angie, just doublechecking: the Kuo whom Alexandra and I were flanking and offered the chance to surrender refused and got killed right?

You can assume he didn't understand the offer, as Stool wasn't translating. But he certainly didn't look like he was ready to surrender.

So I know cause it will affect my post…how much time has elapsed since Maddy began her rage?

I'm not sure how many turns it's been off the top of my head, I can go back and count tomorrow.

One questions before I start (maybe) turning into something. Did Stool run to the water? I mean the direction of movement.

There was a round of combat where i noticed Stool north-west of us and 5' into the water. I didn't make anything of it at the time.

Ups yeap, I dont know how precious is called :).

Also, the fight was quickly over, and Stools stubby legs cant have him carried that far, right, right?

I think this might be a "good opportunity for the party to lose another valued NPC friend" -moment we are experiencing here.

And there's a reason why Precious is not eager to rush into introductions. You'll find it out soon enough, unless you have already fit the pieces together OOC, of course :-)

I guess Precious will be repeating himself in Undercommon for Shuushar's benefit, before I forget to mention it.

Hmm Alexandra, between seeing pretty well in darkness, likely incluing water, and having a ray attack may actually be a pretty decent naval combatant, as long as someone else does the swimming! I got a plan!

Alexanra grabs onto our battlesubmarine USS Shushaar, which valiantly delves were no sane warlock has delved to before, and advances into unknown spaces, finding new tentacles to blast at and olfd friends to save.

Shushaar of course is a pacifist, but I can and will blast anything messing with him or Stool.

Holding breaht is a function of con, and hers is quite reasonable.

If anybody is going to shove berries in Stool and Shuushar's mouths, please write that up. So far Alex took 3, and they're just lying there.

The KT corpses are all wearing various strange garments which could be used for rags, but none are very clean. Hue as mentioned a few times that he wants to salvage stuff for an hour for poultices - go ahead and do that.

Each KT has a little pouch of snacks - algae cookies and fish jerky. Each is enough for a half-ration. Other than that, each one has a little memento or trinket of some kind, feel free to make them up (like Ksenia's bag of shiny stones). Much of it is detritus from other cultures - so like the little mermaid's dinglehopper etc.

You'll have enough time for the hour/short rest.

Just for clarity's sake... Angie's briefing did give the proper names for the Kuo-Toa gods, the old established one and the new usurper... but no way in heck will Precious even try to pronounce either :-)

Back to my computer, so I will let you decide on your own which you'd prefer... Sea Mother or Blibdoolvpoolp, and Deep Father or Leemooggoogoon. I know which name I'll be using in my posts ;^) Shuushar can surely provide the proper names if asked.

Explanation for new players if you haven't meticulously read the whole adventure: a while back we found a short sword that Maddy and I can summon back and forth from each other as a bonus action.

Thanks - good to know, and I for one missed that bit when I speed-read your adventures so far.

Something fishy!!!

A nights rest? Is it good enough to get rid of a level of exhaustion?

A nights rest? Is it good enough to get rid of a level of exhaustion?

Yep, only just.

The duergar isn't bound. Hard to tell if he's ambulatory - he's rather beaten. Doesn't look close to death's door, however.

Hue doesn't see any monster tracks, and the idol doesn't look familiar. It certainly looks like it's going to be more of a throat-cutting sacrifice rather than a directly-being-eaten type of a sacrifice.

They're speaking a combination of undercommon, and their own language, but Stool translates for you. He just won't translate back to them anymore. HE'S NOT A WITCH!!

What is Stools charisma? Because make him a warlock reasons :).

Alas, it's 7.

I was pondering a battle map, but there are just too many kuo-toa around to make it feasible. Generally, if there's something you want to do, you can do it. The two archpriests are fighting each other, their guards are fighting each other, and each of you has a guard that will "snap out of it" next round. Your group is mostly clustered together near the idol. There are also 100+ citizens around, some in the shallows of the lake, most on land. On the map of town in the slide deck, the greenish square near the top middle is the idol.

> I can’t quite figure out if flanking to get advantage in melee is a thing under 5e or something commonly house ruled in

It's an optional rule (from PHB as far as I remember). I've never seen anyone use it. It makes almost no sense in 5e, were you have no problem to get into flank (in PF1e you need to escape from AoO for moving in threatened area, for example - what can be difficult, you either need to do an acrobatics check, or go around a long route, or take damage...).

My other DND campaign just gives a flat +2 for flanking. Far less unbalancing.

@Hue
Alexandra and her patron will assume that you are going for the "crouching moron hidden badass" trope, if that is fine with you.

No flanking in this game. If you are one of 3+ allies harrying a single foe, then you have advantage on melee attacks.

Re: guards. You each had one guard prodding you forward. Not one guard for the bunch of you. Apologies for the confusion.

My other DND campaign just gives a flat +2 for flanking. Far less unbalancing.

@Hue
Alexandra and her patron will assume that you are going for the "crouching moron hidden badass" trope, if that is fine with you.

Well put :)