Dungeon crawl: part 2

Introduction

After a large set of corridors housing zombies as well as magical traps, the party descended to the second level of the dungeon, only to meet the bane of their existence: hobgoblin guards.

Hobgoblin phalanx

The hobgoblins, armed with shield and flails, were a lot tougher than the regular goblins on the first level. They were also supported by archers and a shaman. A tough nut to crack, they managed to kill the wizard in one turn.

There was also a highlight here. When first descending to this level, the party was hailed by the guards and asked for the password. The rogue decided to curse their mothers; funnily enough, they decided to attack.

Using the scenery

The room contained a couple of wells (as visible in the picture), so the adventurers did everything in their power to knock the goblins down the well. That was smart. They also stayed back, so the goblins had no choice but to charge in, and couldn't, in turn, knock the adventurers down. That was also smart. The wizard got impatient, and sneaked past the paladin, going for a thunderwave spell to knock several goblins down at once. A couple of successful saving throws later... not very smart.

They respawn in this room? Can we farm infinite XP?

The party returned to the village to resupply (and fight in the cemetery), then came back. I didn't want to leave the guard room empty - this was, after all, the main entry point to the villain's lair. So I had a similar group of goblins move here from a nearby room. Again, they asked for the password. Now, the elf archer in the cemetery carried a letter on her, which contained a false password. The rogue - this time trying to be smart - spoke the words, but only managed to let the goblins know that the elf had been defeated. I tried to run away with the last goblin, to let the boss know, but the adventurers chased him down. Oh well.

Meeting Sir K*

* Sir Keegan. But my players showed time and again that they are utterly incapable of remembering names. So we settled on referring to him as "Sir Kay".

The adventurers arrived at an isolated chamber, containing a single tomb. The inhabitant of the tomb was the once-commander of the keep, Sir Keegan. The legends were partly right. He did go mad due to the influence of the sealed portal, and did slaughter his family and many soldiers. Unable to put him down, his men locked him in the dungeons. Slowly, he came to his senses and realized what he had done. So he laid down in a tomb an ingested poison. Now, with the portal reactivating once more, he had reawakened along with the rest of the undead, but kept his sanity and his purpose.

The party recognized him as a potential ally (good thing too, with the stats and abilities on the guy) and had a long talk with him: a skill challenge, which, when succeeded, made Sir K look at them as friendlies. He gave them advice on how to proceed, told his story, and gave them his ancestral sword. The paladin was all too happy to receive the sacred blade.