Three Faces of Evil, Part 2

Got a longer session in yesterday playing the Age of Worms adventure path, the second adventure, Three Faces of Evil. After the encounter with the tieflings in Part 1, they decided to go through the unmarked door to the west, which led to the Caves of Erythnul and their grimlock inhabitants.

Our cast includes:

Daughter has,
Lylas, drow elf rogue thief, level 4
Third, human fighter sentinel, level 3

Son 1,
Narcisso, half elf life cleric level 4
Dravin, human moon druid level 3

Son 2,
Jackson, human earth wizard, level 4
Kargash, half orc ranger hunter, level 3

Also, 2 NPC’s are tagging along
Rurik, mountain dwarf totem barbarian, level 4
Filch, human necromancer, level 3. This is Filge from the observatory in the Whispering Cairn. He surrendered to the party and is tagging along. The kids, being Harry Potter fans, renamed him.

With the size of the party, I’ve increased the number of opponents they faced in some parts, including the first room. A rough cavern, full of stalactites and stalagmites, had a half dozen grimlocks hiding throughout the room. Even with most of the party using pickaxes instead of their normal weapons, they quickly cut them down, though without armor, most of the party took a few hits as well.

Further down the rough hewn twisting passage, it opens into a second chamber, much like the last, but with a ledge overlooking an open cavern at the far end. As the party entered room, two krenshars lept of of hiding, and a large grimlock blocked the doorway they entered. Dravin wildshaped into a giant spider. With its poison bite, he’s pretty deadly in that form, and severely wounded the one krenshar. Rurik and Kargash closed on the other one, but when it peeled its face back, Kargash failed his save, and fled, but he ended up helping defeat the beast master. Jackson and Filch blast with cantrips, which they do in all of the fights this session, not using any spell slots. Rurik took some hard hits. He should seriously consider using his rage ability to help resist all the damage he’s been taking, but he doesn’t. Still, before long the fight is over, the party victorious, but getting roughed up overall.

Dravin, still in spider form, climbs down the shaft, finding iron spikes driven into the wall beneath the ledge, giving a way for the others to climb down. As they start their descent, arrows fly from the darkness, striking Lylass and Third. They continue down, thinking they set off a trap, while others from the party start to climb down as well. A pair of grimlocks fire another round of arrows from a ledge on the other side. The group scurries down, trying to take cover, but Dravin climbs around to their ledge and rams into them, pushing the grimlocks off their ledge, impaling them on stalagmites below. My one son laid the paper minis on top of a couple d4’s to represent this on our board. Kargash and Narcisso scavenged the short bows and some arrows, and a coil of rope and a grappling hook is also recovered.

Their are two passages to choose from now, a narrow one behind the grimlock’s firing position, and a wider one further down. They decide on the lower passage, finding themselves at the bottom of another shaft. They see the opening of the other passage above them, with a rope bridge connecting it to the other side. A pile of rubble makes a ramp at the far side, but not high enough to get to the far ledge. So they decide to turn around and use the rope to climb up to the upper ledge, but as the party reverses order, Lylass and Third are jumped by two chokers. Both grab hold, but Rurik and Narcisso jump into action, Rurak cutting off the arm of one, Narcisso landing a solid blow with the pickaxe.

After dispatching the chokers, they decide to dig through the rubble, finding a longsword, which Narcisso claims. At this point everyone has taken a beating, so they take a short rest in the lower tunnel, using up a majority of their hit dice.

They make their way up to the second tunnel. Its narrow, so they have to go single file. Lylass takes the lead. The tunnel is guarded by a feral grimlock barbarian. Feeling outmatched, Lylass attempts to dive past the grimlock, but fails her athletic check, and falls prone. Third steps up, striking with her greataxe, while Lylass scrambles past and gets up behind the creature, sinking her dagger into her back.

With the feral creature slain, they make their way across the rope bridge. 3 grimlocks on the far ledge throw javelins at our adventurers, but none hit. Lylass, Third and Rurik make it across and engage these grimlocks. Narcisso, the next in line, fails several athletics checks in a row, and never makes it across in time to join the fight. Jackson does throw some firebolts in to help finish them off. That is where we had to end it for the night.

As for my 5e “conversion” notes for this session…the krenshar I just used the dire wolf stats, but with the scare effect that causes the frightened condition. The chokers I pretty much just used these stats from 3e. As for the kennel master and barbarian grimlocks, I used the hit point totals from the adventure itself, but treated them as grimlocks otherwise, except the barbarian had the rage ability.

Overall I just kind of winged it and made it up as I went as far as conversions go, but I’d like to do some write ups for the krenshar and choker sometime this week.