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TPK.

I only had four players--down from seven--and did not do a good job scaling back the encounter.

I have a photo review & video of the session on my blog.

In general, I thought that the Moat House battle was done very well--my plan is to have the defeated PC's captured by the bandits & sold to cultists & then have the remaining PC's come to their rescue...should be able to make it work a little in the framework of the Adventure--not exactly sure how yet, but I will work on it this week.

 

For my group this was the third session. After retrieving the item at the Caves they headed back to town. Upon arriving they saw that a building was on fire and that a search was goin on for the leatherman and his wife. They assisted in putting out the fire and then left Otis at the druid to get some help. They slept peacefully again at the Golden Grain Inn. The next morning the item started to have an effect on the warlord who was wielding it. Yhe player character and I decided that he could not knock unconscious anyone and would go after bloodied targets more often. This led to funny stuff later.

The group headed out following the ghost's lead to the moathouse. Upon arriving they noticed the frogs but left them croaking alone. The eladrin bladesinger, new to today, and the githyanki witch, new to today, used their cantrip water walk to go to the side entrance. A minotaur barbarian  failed a jump to get to the dry land by the side entrance but they waited until he got there to do more. The warlord, pre-gen paladin, and two weapon fighter went in via the drawbridge. The minotaur moved into the courtyard without searching for traps and set off the fire. The two weapon fighter went into the courtyard and set off the surprise round on himself and the minotaur hitting all but once. The hafling opened her door and moved out a bit. The archers went again hitting every time bloodying both characters (15 of 16 attacks also). Party members moved up but then the dwarf from inside charged the group. I created a swinging ballista like crossbow for the dwarf in the tower that did an extra d8 so 2d8+5 damage (+8 to hit) for him and had him fire it at a pc just on the drawbridge right by him. It missed but the pc fighter ran in there and easily handled him. While that was occurring, the hafling got involved with its cool tumbling dagger attack. It kept recharging (3 times in a row) but eventually the defenders aura stopped it. The smartest PC tactical move was the eladrin teleporting the minotaur and himself into one of the bedrooms with the sight from the murderholes. That helped a lot.

The hafling gave up so they finished mopping up the fight. They searched the area and left the "don't open" room alone. They found the new wall but couldn't open it. A couple of the party members saw a weird look in the warlord's eye as he slowly crept toward the hafling. The bladesinger used suggestion and a high roll to talk him into not killing her since something was compelling him to do so. They searched the hafling's room, found and disabled the trap and got the shoes and journal. They then questioned the hafling but no password was known. The ledger gave them the lead so they headed back to town. I gave them a wagon found in the moathouse so the minotaur and the two fighters dragged all the stolen goods back with them. Upon arriving in town, they went immediately to the constable and turned in the leader hafling. They then went to the general store. They decided to try to convince the enemies that they were brigands bringing goods to sell. I made a map of the store, the attached house, and the warehouse. The minotaur and two weapon fighter hid by the warehouse. The paladin and warlord hid around back of the house under a window that had drapes on it (bad idea). The two characters who had not met the women (witch and bladesinger) went to their door and talked to the boss. She believed him and gave the bladesinger the keys to the warehouse to stock it. While this was going on the new hafling, Gremash, pulled the curtain aside on the window and the light lit up the unsneaky paladin alerting the women to an ambush. The warehouse was open though and two characters rushed in where they saw more contraband and two guards. Gremash was the first to go and I gave her FIRST STRIKE since she seemed like a rogue. She hit and bloodied the bladesinger. The guards flanked the paladin who had already got inside the warehouse but they both missed with basic attacks. The lead woman (name eludes me) attacked and missed. The party then all went for their first time. The guards were attacked by those inside the warehouse or just outside it. The minotaur took two move actions to rip a different set of warehouse doors open so the tempest fighter could charge in. Dailies were used by over half the group since the time of day was after 10 pm. They took down the guards who couldn't hit more than once in a total of seven tries (bad rolling.) The hafling Gremash fell next. Finally the lead woman gave up when the others were down.

The party killed the guards and left the others to be taken to the constable. The warlord wanted to kill the two women because the sword told him to do it. The bladesinger once again talked him down. They searched the warehouse and found the robes. They searched the house finding more incriminating evidence on a desk but the paladin foolishly set off another fire trap and didn't acrobatically rescue any of those documents. The lawful good bladesinger had the keys to the store so he did not let the party loot the actual general store.

They traveled to the constable again. He was agitated upon opening the door since he had already been awakened by the group earlier. The bladesinger shoved the women in and said that he knew more about the town's problems because of a journal which he whipped out. Just as he was about to give the journal, he said "when we looked at this was the constable in it?" I said not that you noticed. He then stood there and made a perception check to scan the journal making a very lucky roll and finding the constable's name in the book. He then blackmailed the constable to keep all the prisoners in the jail and not to let on about the group. I only told the group that the constable knew something weird was going on at the inn. He really didn't know anything more than the moathouse groups bribing of him. He bolted himself back into his house and will hide out until the end of the adventure. Finishing that the group went back to the inn to sleep. They noticed a new visitor in the bar (a merchant with a big red hat). They all arranged to share rooms in the inn this time and all retired but the bladesinger who went to talk to the merchant thinking he was up to no good. The merchant related a tale or two of his travels and then retired to his room inviting the party for breakfast.

Since they were staying at the inn for a third night I rolled to see if anything would happen to them. I had designed that a 5 or 6 on a d6 would trigger a capture event but alas I rolled low again. They got up, went downstairs, and saw the merchant was gone. They immediatly thought he had been captured and that is our ending for the week.