Session 13: Treasure Aplenty

Reprinting the combat set-up to begin the session, the battle took 11 rounds to settle, with two or three additional rounds of mopping up the last two participants. Six party members attacked or took 66 actions, while on average, due to getting stunned a lot, the trogs managed an average of about four attacks per round. The combat took two hours and 10 minutes to play out, which no doubt sounds slow... but the average time per action/attack works out to about 71 seconds, which includes time taken for characters to fetch salves and cast spells on themselves and others, movement, jokes, uncertainty, tactical discussion, rule explanations, movement, spell effects, stun tracking, saving throws, damage, and players recalculating encumbrance as their Strength scores fell. In fact, the pace was fairly brisk — with all the players utterly engaged, especially as moments occurred that led them to doubt their success in the end. The number of attacks does not include actions performed by Fenwick and Edvard, who acted in a support capacity sufficiently enough to get a share of the bonus experience, but did not take or do damage.

The experience for just combat at the end looked like this:

It can be seen that Zoltan alone took 38 damage, whereas at one point Pandred was criticaled for 20 damage in one hit. Both Ti and Pandred are heavily armoured, so that I needed a 16 on the die to hit Pandred and 17 to hit Ti... this is why Ti manages to get through the battle unscathed, but his suffering from the trog's nausea explains why his damage done was quite low.

Coincidentally, both sides did the same damage; for an AD&D hit point system, 290 damage in 13 rounds is considerable (counting the mopping up rounds): that's a total of 22 damage done every round, which is a lot considering the party rates between 3rd and 5th level. As a result, experience was considerable. The additional 11% bonus the party got from visiting Buda-Pest had it's last hey-day and is gone now, though the party took good advantage of it.

Total treasure was 2,367 c.p. (at 1 xp/4 cp), 4,264 s.p. (at 1 xp/sp) and 10,135 g.p. Fourteen gems included a cherry-sized alexandrite, an almond-sized aquamarine, four peach-sized carnelians, a marble-sized emerald, a walnut-sized fire opal, a walnut-sized garnet, two almond-sized jets and three almond-sized topazes. Total value of the gems in x.p. equalled 1,113.

Six pieces of valuables/jewellery included:

• A fine-work silver-alloy balance scale, 10 inches high when assembled, with a folding beam, two shallow pans, suspension chains and a nested set of brass weights; weight 4 lb. 12 oz.
• An 18K gold-alloy covered cup with two handles and a fitted lid; weight 1 lb. 8 oz.
• A 14K gold-alloy covered cup with a hinged lid and thumbpiece; weight 4¼ oz.
• A silver-alloy handbell with a turned hardwood handle; weight 1 lb. 4 oz.
• A 14K gold-alloy candlestick, 5 inches high with a broad weighted base; weight 3 oz.
• An 18K gold-alloy necklace set with twelve matched garnets and a large central beryl pendant; weight 11 oz.

The total x.p. value of these was 1,750.

The party came in with a +1 spear, which they lost during one of their earlier expeditions. That was regained, along with another +1 spear, which I rolled on my random table here, along with a +1 dagger, +2 vs. smaller than man-sized. Total experience for the magic items, 1100. Since the character got 500 a second time for recovering the same spear lost.

Total experience, for combat, coins, gems, valuables and magic: 24,766.

Four full sessions were necessary to accumulate the above; Zoltan, Ti, Mikael, Lexent and Arduin has all previously gone up a level during the other two assaults on the dungeon... on this last, only Arduin advanced of this group, along with Pandred, who progressed from 5th to 6th. Because Arduin started the dungeon at level 2, he was the one most likely to advance. Everyone, including Pandred, got a big push toward their next level, even if they did not advance with this session.

I'll remind the reader that Lexent, Pandred, Mikael and Arduin are all from the pre-Covid Juvenis campaign, played in text. But in 13 sessions, both Zoltan and Ti have managed fourth and are now more than halfway to 5th. Zoltan, who only needs 13,000 as a cleric, is actually quite close.

I think it says something about the quality of a lengthy campaign; most do not even last long enough for the players to engage in four sessions... this spent that many sessions just running this one dungeon. That over a period of six weeks, starting with the first Friday and playing two weeks apart. Thus the dungeon started on the 12th of June and finished on the 24 of July.

I didn't have much to do after pouring out the treasure. The party were engaged in dividing it and then ascertaining the effects of it, how to move the weight of it out of the dungeon and attending to themselves, rather than showing any interest in what would come next. Some might call the treasure excessive, but honestly, I don't consider it anywhere near to being enough to break the party's game experience.

What's more, it's about what I would have given ad hoc... which supports the quality of the system I spent the prior two weeks building. I'm quite pleased with that work, especially as it made me feel guilty free over the amount given, while not feeling that the system did not provide enough abundance to justify the party's efforts or risk.

I must add as an aside: these players survived largely because they played highly intelligently. They had lots of opportunities to break their line in the trog combat, trying to push into the cave, and they did. Several times they made their minds up not to advance, letting the less intelligent trogs come on. Magic use was well-considered and effective, though the party's main artillery had been used in the third session at the start of the party's third dungeon assault. This continued that assault, with the party pressing their advantage. I'll say honestly that, having earlier established that these trogs had a second exit available, if the players had made a plan for a fourth assault, they'd have found all the trogs gone, and their treasure too.

It meant this last fight was battled with second-tier spells and cantrips... but these were used well. The balance between the combat and spellcasting players was tight, well-considered and reliable. It's a pleasure to play with players who know how to manage their characters and support the party they're with.

I would have undoubtedly killed a less careful party.