Building Bhakashal – Session Report - Dad’s Game April 7

Tamoachan!

The lads finished off last session 2 weeks ago. The game has got to the point where I don’t make the arrangements anymore, the players organize the date and time, I just show up.

They are super stoked to play, and making it happen on a regular basis.

That’s the sweet spot.

They started in the cat room, which they had explored the last time fairly thoroughly. They went to a door on NE side and found a hallway with a number of consecutive pits. There was a lot of discussion as to what to do about crossing the pits. They considered the old boards but were worried about them breaking. Eventually they decided to have one of the PCs do the jump over each pit, then at the other end hold a rope. Then the party warlock cast Levitation on himself, and carried one person as he was pulled across, then he was pulled back, then he took the next person across.

This whole process took 2 turns, so two wandering monster rolls, but nothing came up.

One neat thing was that they couldn’t see the end of the corridor, so they didn’t know exactly how many pits they would be jumping. Even better, when the party thief was ensconced at the far end of the hallway with the rope it was far enough away that she was entirely covered in darkness. So they were hearing her but not seeing her as they coordinated efforts.

Little details like that really make the environment come together and keep everyone on their toes.

Every time they came to a door the party thief checked for traps. Then, if the door was clear, the party tanks tried to pry or shove the doors open. Some came open easily, some were quite difficult.

And of course wandering monster rolls were made, every time the thief checks for traps that’s a turn and one wandering monster check.

They encountered a huge room with a partially collapsed ceiling that let in fresh air and sunlight. At that point the PC Seer (cleric) decided to cast Continual Light on a dagger rather than rely on the torches.  He rummaged around the skeletons, found a bunch of miscellaneous loot, and disturbed a 2 headed snake. Fortunately for him the snake didn’t surprise him, so it was a direct initiative comparison. The Seer smacked the snake on one of it’s head, and the party NPC mercenary (fighter) beheaded the snake with his bastard sword.

That was pretty cool.

They looted the room (found some jewelry, coins and a pair of potions).

They checked for traps on a NW door, I rolled for wandering monsters (none) and they  followed a corridor to the base of a set of stairs. I was ready to roll out the encounter, but they decided to bail and return here after finishing the level they were on.

Clever lads.

At this point they returned to the  cat room and found a door to the West, the party Spider (thief) checked for traps (I checked for wandering monsters) and they entered a dust filled room.

The dust formed into humanoid shapes, a woman in distress, soldiers, and they watched in rapt fascination. They weren’t sure what to do, they had no idea what these creature were. This was an odd room as the creatures don’t do anything, and there is no loot here. This is what you could call a “flavor” encounter, it didn’t have any game-mechanical content.

But the players ADORED it, they wanted to know the story behind it (the module has no story), they even considered using Speak with the Dead to try and find out if it was some sort of revenant, and see what the figure was trying to tell them. They eventually decided to bail on the room as it was kind of giving them the creeps.

They returned to the large rubble filled room and explored the next door. The thief found no traps and they found a room with a strange sight, what appeared to be a misshapen tree. They tried to go around it and it attacked, fortunately there was no surprise (the party had been suspicious of this “tree” from the second they saw it, “How can it grow here without sunlight!”). 

The creature lashed out with multiple tentacles, but the party Mercenary (fighter) got the initiative on the creature and decided to use one of his two Javelins of Lightning. That left a smoking hole in the central trunk, and the NPC Mercenary finished the beast off with his bastard sword.

When the encounter was over they asked to see the illustration again, and you could see the moment they realized, "that's not a tree", it's actually something weirder, the module describes it as, "polyp or sea anemone". Then you see the moment that this is a temple, and this thing was worshipped like something holy, some ancient god. Tamoachan has a lot of uniquely weird things like that. 

They retrieved some loot from the “tree” and moved on.

It’s been interesting to see how this group has grown over the last year, when they started the year they were miserly with their magic, now they were willing to use up one shot items if the need arose. This “tree” was an unknown quantity, and rather than risk whatever it had planned for them, the mercenary threw his Javelin of Lightning, a one shot item.

Dungeons are littered with the corpses of adventurers who died with unused magic items. That’s where all the loot comes from, LOL. I’m happy to see that they have made the correct tactical decision: use it or you die with it and someone else will!

They moved on a found a corridor with statues coming out of the walls.

An observation. The party Thaumaturge (Bhakashal Spider/Warlock, thief/magic-user) is a custom class, and her thief skills have proven to be invaluable. She checks for traps at every door, burning a turn of time and generating a wandering monster check. However, since I’m running the NPC, I have to randomize when she decides to check for traps outside of the doors. You don’t want her checking everywhere and all of the time, as that would be tedious and unfair, but you don’t want her missing anything obvious. So, to deal with this I roll to see if she checks for traps outside of the doors.

She decided to check for traps in the corridor and found a pressure plate. 

She’s earned her keep many times over on this adventure.

I rolled for wandering monsters while she checked for traps, but it did not come up.

 They moved through the room, carefully avoiding contact with the statues and checked for traps on the next door, heaving it open to enter a room with a well and a statue of a huge ogre-like being standing over a bed of hot coals.

They took the coals as evidence of something live being in the area and went on the defensive. They poked around the room, and went over to the well, dropping electrum coins they had found into it. The well was filled with “liquid light”, and I had the dropping of the coins cause a huge plume of the substance to spray up into the air, the PC dropping the coins (the warlock), had to save to avoid being splashed.

There was an ogre magi in a hiding spot in the ceiling, I rolled to see if it would come out an attack when the party was messing with the well. Four of the members of the party had stated that they were on the lookout while the warlock investigated the well. I rolled that the Ogre Magi would attack, so he dropped down from the ceiling, hoping for surprise, I rolled and he did not surprise the party, so it was initiative.

I rolled terribly, and three party members got to attack, the party PC Mercenary threw his net over the ogre, the PC mercenary is essentially a Retiarii, a Saan (lizard folk) gladiator in Samnite armor with net and trident. Once in the net the ogre magi was occupied trying to get free, while the PCs attacked. The party mercenary laid in with his trident, right to the gut, the PC Seer (priest) attacked with his Spiritual Weapon (Bhakashal version of Spiritual Hammer), and the NPC mercenary struck successfully with his bastard sword, running it through.

One thing that you learn early as a AD&D referee is that single mid-to-high HD foes are at a disadvantage with respect to multiple member PC parties, as they get multiple attacks vs one attack each round. In this case they won initiative and slayed the ogre magi before he could even return an attack.

Them’s the breaks!

They scored some loot after investigating the room (and a wandering monster roll) and left.

They spent some time looking around and found a secret door entrance behind a stone calendar wheel and found a secret corridor. They checked for traps at the door at the end of the corridor (I checked for wandering monsters) and they forced the door into the next chamber.

They debated what to do and eventually decided to avoid the door with the infinity symbol but investigate the other two doors. First they went to the door with the bear image. The party Spider checked for traps and found a trap, she determined that there was a pit below the door and that the bear’s arms would move out and trap whomever set off the trap. I rolled for wandering monsters, no good! They decided to leave that door and move to the door with the seal.

I should add that when they check for traps sometimes they find no traps because they made a successful roll and there was no trap there, sometimes it’s because they failed their roll, whether there was a trap there or not.

They checked for traps again and I rolled for wandering monsters. Both came up! A pair of mandrills came into the room; no surprise was indicated. The party mercenary won initiative and skewered one of the mandrills, slaying it instantly, and the other won lost morale and fled. They continued their work and the party Spider disarmed the crossbow trap, fouling the triggering mechanism. They then entered the room.

There were several pillars in front of them, and they gazed at the room in wonder, it was a miniature diorama of a huge Olmec city, complete with little carved people and a funeral raft, as well as a river of liquid metal running through it.

They were impressed.

The room description says the following, “The first character to cross the porch and pass the pillars will activate a spell-trap the pillars contain. An amber wall of flame will spring up between the character and the rest of  the party.”  

This is a trap designed to separate off a PC for a time, traps like this are a source of endless consternation and debate. Fortunately for us, we have an agreed upon marching order for the party, which includes distances between members. They agreed early on not to “bunch up” and provide dense targets for the enemy, but in this case it meant that the lead PC (the party Mercenary) would be separated for sure.

The PCs behind the wall took heat damage and retreated back. The warlock cast a Fire Shield spell from a scroll (one and done), and the Seer cast a Resist Fire spell. I should note that this group has finally learned that saving up your items is sometimes a bad call. So many times a PC will bite the bullet because they didn’t use a magic item or cast a spell that they didn’t want to “waste”. The dad’s have gotten past that.

Sheathed in roiling violet flames, the warlock walked through the wall of fire. The Seer, protected by his god, also walked through.

Badass.

By the time they were all through, the doppelganger had appeared in the chamber, looking like mercenary, the only thing different about them was their position, one was by the wall of fire, as the mercenary had chosen to wait, one was near the funeral raft. He immediately tried to bamboozle the PCs.

“When I passed through the wall of fire it transported me here, that’s not me over there, it’s a doppelganger!”

The mercenary responded, “No, that’s the doppelganger!, I haven’t moved.”

Who to believe?

Delicious!

The PC warlock thought fast, “What did I instruct the Magic Mouth to say?”

The warlock had set a warning magic mouth at the entrance to shout if any sentient creatures came past it. The mercenary responded, “I have no idea, you didn’t tell me.”

Then he charged at the doppelganger, throwing his net.

The creature was tangled up in the net, and he continued the charge, attacking with his trident. In Bhakashal there are different kinds of criticals. There are “natural” criticals, triggered by circumstances, e.g., a charge doubles damage. There are weapons based criticals, e.g., an arrow, on a critical hit, can “remain” in the victim, doing 1 hp damage per round until removed (an action).

Then there are attack roll based criticals, which include things like temporarily blinding your opponent, getting an extra attack, or disarming them. At 7^th level mercenaries can stack two criticals. So, on charge they get the charging critical (double damage) from the attack, if they roll a critical on the attack, they can stack it. The mercenary rolled a critical, and chose to double his double damage.

He finished the creature off in a single hit.

“Your trident sings through the air and two of it’s tongs pierce the doppelganger’s two eyes, its ear splitting death screech rings in your ears.”

They then did a cursory search of the room, deciding to leave most of it unexplored, as they wanted to move up the shrine rather than spend too much time in one place.

I think my constant rolling for wandering monsters is getting to them, LOL.

They left the room and retraced their steps to the corridor with the steps leading up to the next level. They are mapping as they go, which has been fun, and it has paid off as it has allowed them to move around and explore knowing they could find their way back.

Observations

Once per turn wandering monster rolls make this sort of game play VERY different than the ubran and wilderness play they are familiar with. In the city you do check for random encounters every hour (except in particularly busy places), in the wilderness 4 times a day.

In the dungeon it’s every turn.

That makes for very different play at the table. Suddenly, time is a keenly felt resource, and players begin to understand.

Take lighting.

They started off with torches, but as they burned away (every hour) they had to be replaced. By the point that they got to the 3^rd set of torches, the party Seer decided to cast Continual Light on a dagger. No big deal. However, for the first time I can remember, the party Seer is getting near his casting total for the day. There has been a lot of detect evil, detect magic, find traps, that sort of thing, and the occasional combat spell, and suddenly they are looking at having to rest to cast anything at all.

They are also learning tactics, the party warlock is realizing magic missiles are primarily useful as they always hit their target, so there is no friendly fire problem. They are letting the party tanks charge and strike before casting AOE spells and such. Coordination has improved.

So far they have held their own and even bested their opponents quickly with a combination of good rolls and decisive action.

They are also a bit worn down, all have taken minor damage, scratches and nicks (according to the Bhakashal combat system, any damage less than half of your total is minor damage like this). HP in Bhakashal are primarily non-physical. But they are also feeling the need to get moving, the environment is just creepy and dangerous enough that they want to get to the end.

As they move further up the shrine there will be wonders and strangeness, I envy their experience of this first time.

The best part of this is that Tamoachan has encounters like the dust-spirit room that have no obvious meaning. There’s a mirror in one room that clearly states it does nothing. Then there’s mirrors level up that have wild powers.

I know everyone loves Tomb of Horrors for the big, dramatic death traps, but the tension and flavor in this module cannot be beat, the mashed up Central American themed environment is unique and in places both creepy and cool.

“When the door is opened a rush of warm, fetid air greets the party. The room is lit with a sanguine glow. On the wall opposite the door are tacked several obviously human skins. A cat-o-nine-tails hangs beside them…”

That sort of thing, found in the black, lightless depths of an ancient temple in the swamp, has such a powerful terror factor. 

Only evil things would be here.

They have chosen to leave certain things behind, and taken on a lot of loot they haven’t checked out for curses or magic. I know groups that would turn over every stone and carry every item. Different groups have different dynamics, and face different challenges.

They are enjoying this so much that they are arranging all the game times and locations and just checking with me to see if I’m available, they WANT to play, to explore this strange, evocative place. I love that kind of full buy-in.

Big fun.