Session 12 Report Hole in the Oak
On Friday, July 17th, I ran the twelfth session of my Hole in the Oak game for OSE via FoundryVTT. Serious combat downed one of the players this session! I had to resort to some houseruling. And, at last, we have another return to town.
Previous session report can be found here. First session report can be found here.
Overall
The PCs were about to head into a stalactite-ridden cave, past the three magical doors at the end of the last session. After establishing that the cavern indeed connects down to a room with 7 fire-beetles, they decided to carefully creep northwards. In the distance, they spotted humongous iguana-like lizards lounging. After much trepidation, discussion, and planning, the assassin Jolik felt a need to explore further and see what was happening. Sneaking forward a little while, they spotted a side-tunnel with two of the large lizards sitting on a nest.
The PCs, never missing an opportunity for a random bit of the old ultra-violence, decided to firebomb the nest using some lantern oil. That plan, unfortunately, quickly backfired on them! One of the lizards, while not downed, was severly harmed and seeing a threat to their eggs lost all will to fight. The other lizard, however, rushed forwards to defend their mate. The fight was brief, and violent, with the lizard immediately downing Jolik.
The PCs, seeing their trouble, went to drag Jolik back in the hopes of making a clean escape. The lizard, fortunately, was more interested in defending the nest than attacking the PCs, and let them leave. The PCs realized that Jolik would need significant healing, and risked a trip back to town instead. They then decided to go on a shopping trip to equip themselves with more fire, to return to the lizards.
What Went Well
Negotiating What Happens
I focused on trying to get clear on what happened, and asking for confirmation from the PCs. That didn’t always work out; for example, when Jolik was scouting out the tunnel, their token was placed in sight of the lizards. I was trying to do too many things at the same time, and though he’d stepped out in front and so the lizards would have seen him. However, the PCs intention was to peek around the corner carefully, and they moved the token simply to get actual vision in FoundryVTT. What went well, is when we figured this out later in the combat, we negotiated out what made sense. I initially thought there’d be no surprise, since the lizards saw Jolik. Once we established the peeking, we defaulted to a roll for surprise to see if the lizards could be ambushed or not.
Deferring Shopping Admin to Discord
At the end of the session, the PCs mentioned they wanted to do a bunch of shopping in town. I suggested we just do this over Discord, since our next session is more than a month away, so I want to maximize our dungeon-time in that one. That was a good call, and there’s already some chatter on the Discord channel about this, which helps.
Disposition and Morale Rolls
When the PCs came across the lizards, I remembered to roll for disposition. The result was actually neutral, so I narrated the lizards looking at the PCs warily but with a fundamental disinterest. Similarly, when the PCs wanted to withdraw, I went back to the original disposition roll to look for inspiration. Given that the lizards didn’t really care about the PCs, I ruled their main interest was protecting their eggs. Therefore, they wouldn’t particularly pursue—they’d chased away the predators coming for their eggs, after all. This also informed their behavior in combat; when one of the lizards failed a morale roll, it was obvious they didn’t fight so they could protect the eggs from the fire.
Lessons Learned
Death and Dismemberment
The lizards thoroughly outclassed the PCs; so, in the fight, Jolik went down with one bite. While that was a correct Rules-as-Written outcome, it felt a little too harsh for my tastes. Luckily, I remembered from listening to 3d6 Down The Line that they used a Death and Dismemberment table. It turns out that it was written by Goblin Punch. At the table I had looked up an older version, but I quickly applied it and it felt more satisfying. I’ll have to codify it in FoundryVTT for easier access in the future.
Cross-referencing Rooms
The Hole in the Oak text has a few entries where there’s an X-in-6 chance of a monster from another room being in a specific room. The FoundryVTT implementation just places the monsters in their original room where they’re indicated. I hadn’t looked at that earlier; so, during the session, I had more lizards on the map then there should have been. This would not have been a problem if I had read up on the rooms surrounding the PCs. I now know they traverse about two rooms away from their location, which should limit the prep I do.