Trolls in the Moors

September 7, 2020

The group finishes up dividing some of the treasure they found then discussing what to do.  Drewgan says that the trolls are east of here and the group decides to go see them.  Drewgan then casts a spell and awakens an oak into a Treant.  The treant names himself Basher and the group welcomes him as they move toward the group of trolls.  

Raz and Shyrrik scout ahead and find a group of trolls.  Two bigger trolls are talking about revolt and at first Raz thinks that maybe this group might attack the other group, so they should wait it out and see.  After listening for a while, Raz realizes it's doubtful they will act soon and he's not going to wait.  Attack!  

The do get a plan, with Raz and Shyrrik attacking from the south and the rest from the north.  Marcus recently learned some new spells and drops a fireball into their midst, killing many and wounding the bigger ones.  Shyrrik's arrows take down many trolls.  Drewgan has Basher protect the casters and Basher's limbs do take out any trolls that get too close to him.  Raz's attacks also take out trolls close to him and his new armor means he isn't hit often.  The few times Raz gets hit, he barely notices.  This group of trolls is soon down and sadly they have nothing of worth, not even their weapons.

Traveling further east, the group sees an even bigger group of trolls and also within the group of trolls, a camp of humans.  Shyrrik does not want to have to attack the humans and wonders if Marcus can take them out with that new sleep spell of his.  Marcus ponders it and then slowly nods, saying that might work.  Shyrrik wants to make a plan around that, so they can rescue the humans and not have to fight them.  They decide to have Raz and Volhoric go to the center, invisible, hopefully near Raposo to take the caster out.  The rest will be on the north side.  When Marcus has knocked out all of the humans he can, he will start things off with a fireball.

The plan goes well!  Marcus drops the humans into a deep slumber then blasts most of the trolls in the center fire.  Drewgan puts up a cloud of ash and embers, terrifying all but the most stalwart of trolls.  Shyrrik's arrows continue to take out troll after troll.  Even Basher is able to move forward and splat a few with limbs.  Raz and Volhoric attack the one in the center they think is the caster and soon take that one down, plus a few stragglers that come their way.  Soon, this group of trolls is no more.  

The group is sad to find no more treasure among this group of trolls as compared to the last.  They wake up the humans and find the enchantments on them ended and they don't want to fight.  They want to head back to Nesme.  The scouts can get themselves, and the others, back there and the group tells them to let Tessa know what the group has done and that they are going to continue here with other things.  The scout do say that there is supposed to be a huge fifty foot giant that the trolls thought would unite them all and they saw it from a distance.  It had tattoos all over it's body and sparked when it spoke angrily.  They shiver at the memory of it and are glad to head to Nesme.  

Drewgan explain that he thinks this big giant, is that even a thing a big giant?  That the big giant came up as very powerful on his commune spell and is worried about what they can do.  He says they still need to deal with the hags or at least see what they are doing.  And there are ruins as well that could be explored to find out more about the Nope area.  Plus a potential corrupted area to the south that they can check out before trying Nope.

2800 xp

GM Notes

• My accents were really bad.  
• Like, really bad. 
• I think that having the sorcerer gain evocation after basically being an enchanter is a lot more satisfying to me as the DM and I hope to the player as well.
• The DCs for the area damage spells were not impossible, although John is a min maxer, so not surprising that his main focus of spells have a high DCs. 
• His enchantment spells were still very effective, causing trolls to be confused and attack each other, which in turn led other trolls to attack them with no spell needed!  Stupid trolls.
• It widens Marcus' abilities and what he brings to the table without making him so overpowered.  At least in these fights.   
• I did set up two troll fights. 
• The first troll fight was to show that most of the trolls are PF1 minions.  Not exactly one hit point but low enough that those built to take on trolls take them down with one hit. 
• The rest could take down these minion trolls with their own forte, whether sneaking or spells.   
• It was also to show that when there was a bigger camp with more of these trolls, that it was possible for them to do.
• I also admit that I liked this kind of progression and fight.  It's how I see DND go.
• I don't think that 1E/2E were intended for this but that's how it worked out.  I remember many large fights against clans that went like this.  
• I also don't know how a 5E party of the equivalent level could have killed this many bad guys.  The minion trolls barely hit the PF1 group but would have been a big threat for a 5E group. 
• I think this is what I miss in running a 5E game.  Maybe they succeeded in making combat more deadly or more important when any combatant is a threat but I wonder if it lost some fun, like killing lots of trolls? 
• It doesn't help that I still think of monsters in terms of clans or tribes, which aren't going to be ten or fifteen but fifty to a hundred or more!  The ability for an adventuring group to take them out differently at different levels is satisfying rather than it always being tough and having to break off smaller groups as a 5E group might have to do.   

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