The party helped the villagers put their town back in order and then got down to business. They learned who the gnoll was and what was going on. They were also inadvertently given information about Karak. They kept that quiet and left in the morning. They marched for a while before seeing what appeared to be a human female crawling between some dunes. They cautiously approached her and when she noticed them she shrieked a warning of sorts before shifting into her natural form--that of a hag. Three shifters rise from the sand near her and the party sees a great deal of sand being tossed into the air behind her as something large pulls itself out of the sand.
Rime's spirit companion was on her in moments as the group moved in. The shifters charged forward, but the sand was slipping beneath their feet making it difficult for them to move. They were also having difficulty navigating a little bit. Molurus slipped into snake form and bit into the hag before realizing that some of the sand is very slick. The hag turned and shrieked at him before slipping away. Uriel met the hyena head on as Ilia and Üg went after the shifters. Balar stayed back and kept his attention on hyena. Molurus attempted to bite one of the shifters as it moved to attack Ilia but it riposted with its short sword leaving a gash above his eyes. He hissed and vainly struggled to free himself of the sand. The hag saw the party grouped up and floated back to them in order to screech at all of them. Only Uriel succumbed to the psychic assault and fled a short distance before recovering his composure and charging back to attack the hyena. The rest of the party continued to deal with the shifters and weak sand.
Molurus finally escaped and attempt dazed the hag with a slap of his tail before attacking the hyena, but as he slipped through the fight focused on the dog-like creature he fell into more sand and was trapped again. At the bottom of the dune Uriel continued to fight the hyena and managed to land a few solid blows on it including one that left a wide ring of divine fire around the creature. One of the shifters stumbled into it as Üg sliced it with his greataxe and yelped as the fire burned him. Balar meanwhile was casting a spell to call down a mighty thunderclap that slammed into the dog killing it and pushing the corpse away from the party.
Uriel immediately joined the rest of the group and quickly killed one of the shifters as the hag teleported away from the fight in order to gain some time to summon the energy to scream at the group again. Molurus shifted back into his humanoid form and threw a fiery seed at a shifter that exploded leaving a ring of fire around it before pulling himself free of the sand and going after the hag again. Except for the patches of weak sand he was able to move quickly and easily over the dunes to close the distance and strike the hag again. It screamed at him, pushing him back into some weak sand. Ilia then teleported to the hag's side and tried to smite her with thunder the way Balar did the hyena. The hag was dazed by the thundering strike, but she didn't show any signs of pain.
On the other side of the battlefield Üg was having his way with the shifters. One fell fueling his rage as he charged another, but the shifter deftly dodged the giant axe once before it came back and sliced into him. The last shifter continually moved as it tried to get into a better position, but the party had found all of the areas of weak sand and were easily avoiding them. Ilia managed to connect with an overhead strike to knock the hag prone and Üg charged her and with a long wind up managed to separate the hag's head from her body. Uriel and Molurus kept attacking the last shifter and it died as Uriel pushed it into the fire of another one of Molurus's flame seeds.
This fight went surprisingly well. The surprise was that no one was in real danger despite the splitting up of the party's damage dealing abilities. With our avenger on the hyena, the shifters were able to survive much longer than they should have. In D&D, monsters (and players) typically do not get weaker as their hit points go down. It takes a reduction to 0 HP to lower an enemies ability to hurt you. This makes killing one enemy much better than hurting two. Add in abilities like "bloodied breath" and "Dragonborn Fury" and hurting two enemies actually makes them stronger while killing one before touching the other would make the fight much easier.
The other bit of advice has to do with planning. Make sure you have some idea of what you want to do. Who you want to hit and/or heal and where you want to be before/after you do so are things to keep in mind as the turns progress so that once your turn comes up you can make your moves and roll the needed dice without taking up much time. "Level appropriate encounters" shouldn't take much longer than an hour though sometimes the enemy hit point totals can extend (or reduce) that estimate quite a bit. Keeping the fight moving helps keep it more engaging for everyone and keeps people on their toes.
The terrain for this fight was ridiculous. The whole map was difficult terrain if you were walking up the dune, but easy if you were going down and the sand traps were hidden all over adding extra complexity to the fight. Despite my ability to not roll above a 9 whenever I was trying to escape it was fun dealing with the traps and avoiding/escaping the problems associated with them.
The party rested and continued on finally arriving at what looked like a rough stone fortress. They approached cautiously but could not see any guards at the logical posts. As they got closer Molurus and Uriel noticed murder holes in the passage leading to the main gate as well as another portcullis ready to drop in the hallway. It reeked of a trap. Suddenly they saw figures in the arrow slits, but a closer look revealed them to be straw dummies. More curious than afraid they approached the entrance to the tunnel leading to the closed gate ahead. Molurus stopped the group and told them to hold where they were. He suspected the gate was barred from the inside and that the portcullis would fall as they approached leaving them trapped. He turned himself into a very small snake and was lifted into an arrow slit. He quietly passed by a couple more creatures before reaching another closed door. He wiggled through a crack in the door and found himself just behind the gate. It was barred from this side.
He silently turned into an elf again and quickly pulled the barricade apart and opened the door signaling the rest of the group to rush in. As the group charged the now open door the portcullis came down separating the group. Balar made it through, but the rest were stuck as a surprisingly alert troglodyte flipped the switch and let it crash down and lock. It took them a few moments before Balar was able to pull it up. Troglodytes above them threw javelins at the party. Balar was hit twice and Üg was impaled. As the party tried to push past the goliath a curse chanter cast a curse on Ilia which slowed her as it began to rot her flesh. Molurus had turned himself back into a serpent and was waiting for the large creature he had slipped passed to come through the door.
The door exploded as the offalian hit it and looked through. In front of it stood Ilia and Uriel, to the side sat Molurus who struck and missed. It paused for a moment then belched acid on all three of them leaving them burning and blind. Ilia and Molurus were quick to get it out of their eyes, but Uriel couldn't seem to get it out for a long time. All around him the battle raged.
Seeing his allies weakened around him Rime called upon the spirits to aid them. All around the battlefield a cold wind blew and helped to loosen the javelins and wipe away the acid. Üg couldn't break free though. He was pinned by the javelins multiple times. Molurus shifted to back to his elven form and helped pull the javelin free. Üg ran through the portcullis and the troglodytes above cried out and began to run to the stairs in order to cut them off.
They didn't need to though. The offalian was doing a terrific job holding the party at the door. Ilia couldn't push past the creature and no one else was able to slip past the monstrosity. Rime took the duel between the undead creature and Ilia as a great time to heal everyone before sending his wolf past the offalian to attack it.
Ilia finally managed to push the creature back and step into the room only to meet the troglodytes. Üg stepped up next to her and hammered the undead dealing a severe blow to it. Molurus, seeing an opening, tried to slip past the creature but it caught him in his grip as he slid by. He quickly wiggled free and went after the troglodytes that had fled down the hall to regroup. Their curse chanter had arrived and it chanted some restorative spell that healed the few wounds they had suffered. Üg saw them all grouped together. He charged the group attempting to cleave his axe through them. They all managed to lean out of the way of the spinning barbarian and weren't harmed. Angry the barbarian went into a rage. Uriel finally got the acid out of his eyes and stepped forward to abjure the undead creature. The offalian took it and kept fighting Ilia. The party quickly finished it as they started to close in around the troglodytes. Balar rushed them and breathed ice then fire on all five of them. Molurus cast a spell on them that caused little motes of light to stab at their eyes before exploding in front of them. He then hissed at them with such power that they were all dazed. Moments later they fell one by one as the party took them down.
Looking around to make sure there we no other enemies in their immediate vicinity, the party stopped to rest.
Balls. This would have been a stupidly easy fight if not for the acid spewing offalian. Stupid jerk.
Despite that the party did exceptionally well. Everyone worked together and we never had to call a retreat or regroup. We made it past the undead creature that blocked the door and cut the troglodytes down in no time at all. It took almost an hour to get past that offalian though.
I read the forums sometimes. There has recently been a bit of complaining about the versatility of the druid in this edition compared to the last. Yes, they are less versatile. No, that's not a bad thing. I can still kick ass as a druid even though I can't turn into any animal that I wish for any amount of time and do everything we need. Stop complaining. Thanks.
