A Shot in The Dark

This might be a bit tough, use your own judgement.

The door to this room is closed, but it is neither locked nor jammed. If the players do not have combat directly before this room then roll listen/move silently checks against the grimlock. If they have a battle or create some other ruckus (as adventurers often do), then the grimlock is already prepared.

Description if the check succeeds 
You open the door to a large room that has been roughly hacked out of the earth. Bones and decaying equipment litter the floor with some coins glinting in the light. Off to the side of the room is a small cot with a grayish humanoid laying on it. Its head turns to face you and it would be staring if it had any eyes to stare with. It hisses and throws a glass vial filled with inky blackness at you.

The grimlock will make his way to the back of the room slowly, firing bolts at the party as they stumble out of the darkness.


Description if the check fails
You open the door to a large room that has been roughly hacked out of the earth. Bones and decaying equipment litter the floor with some coins glinting in the light. You see a overturned cot on one side of the room.

At the back of the room is a small nook that the grimlock is hiding in. As the party makes it to the middle of the room he throws a Darkblot potion at the party. He will then circle the room to confuse the party about his location.

Grimlock
HD 2d8+2 (11 hp)
Initiative +1
Speed 30 ft
AC 15  (Touch 11, Flatfooted 14)
Battleaxe + 4 ( 1d8+3 / x3)
Crossbow +2 (1d8 / 19 - 20 x2)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +2

Terrain notes

The rough spots in the room count as rough terrain. It takes two squares of movement to move one square through this terrain. If a creature that cannot see moves through it, that creature must make a DC 10 balance check while moving through the square for each square or fall prone.

Darkblot Potion

A Darkblot potion is a black colored potion that is made by mixing Inkroot, Powdered Onyx and a Pseudodragon Claw.  Inkroot can be found glowing in shadowy area deep in the forest.  Powdered Onyx is often seen in the apothecary chests of Witch Doctors, and a Pseudodragon Claw can be found on, well, a Pseudodragon.  These must be ground together, along with 33 gold pieces worth of common material.  It takes a DC25 Craft (Alchemy) Check to create a Darkblot potion.

This potion mimics the darkness spell. It shatters on impact, creating a 15 ft radius circle of darkness as listed in the the players handbook that lasts 10 rounds. If it is thrown at a creature, that creature is partially coated with Darkblot, gaining a +5 bonus on all hide checks for 10 minutes. It can also be poured onto a creature to give this bonus without creating an area of darkness. Treat it as a splash item when thrown. Its market price is 100 gold pieces per vial.

Aftermath and Loot
The grimlock has few possessions besides those left by adventurers that it has neglected to move. 50 silver pieces, 60 gold pieces and 2 Darkblot vials are scattered about the room. With a DC 20 search check the party also finds a gem worth 20 gold pieces.

Joe's First Encounter: A Trial Run

Alrighty.  Now that you know the both of us (if not check the first two posts), let's get down to business. I'll be writing up a lot of the encounter and drawing images to go with this post. Eventually we might actually put that all into a PDF for easy download and what not.  Now I've said eventually, so don't get a knot in your dice bag if we don't have those for the first few posts.

I'm going to start with some EL 1 encounters and work my way up to more powerful encounters. Then I'll kind of hop around on the power scale for a while. We'll see where that takes us: hopefully to better places and greater adventures, but I won't complain about it too much if things go the other way.

Comment or contact us if there is an encounter or idea that you would like us to create. If we like like it we may write it and post it here.

And back to the actual post, I swear there will be an actual encounter somewhere in here.

The Roadside Merchant  (EL 1)

Opening Description:
As you walk up the road you come to a wagon that has pulled to the side of the road. One of its sides is open to reveal a man sitting inside surrounded by an assortment of goods and wares. He greets you kindly to ask if you would like to purchase anything today in a loud booming voice. He offers a few skeins of cloth and some wine skins.

If the players ask he doesn't have any weapons larger than a pocket knife or any armor more than a buckler.

As the players begin to talk to him have make listen checks as the orcs the merchant has hired move into position on the other side of the road. One of them has a heavy crossbow and a spear; the other simply has a long sword.

There is a ditch on the side of the road.  It is about 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep. Characters can move through it, treating it as rough terrain or jump over it(DC10). Failing the jump check means they land prone at the bottom of the ditch.

The merchant has a dagger on him that has been coated with Drow sleeping poison (stats below). He will use it only if the battle goes south for the orcs.

As the orcs stand they threaten the players and the merchant and ask for payment. Merchant suggests they both give the orcs 10 gp so the orcs will leave in peace.

Orc
1 HD

5 hp (1D8+1)
13 AC  (13 Flat, 10 Touch)
long sword +4 ( 1d6+4 / 19-20)
heavy crossbow +1 ( 1d10 /19-20)
spear +4 ( 1d8 / x3 )
move silently +0, hide +1
Fort +3, Ref +0, Will -2 

Merchant
1 HD
4 hp (1D8)
10 AC (10 Flat, 10 Touch)
dagger +1 ( 1d4 / 19 - 20 ) + poison (1)
fort +1, Ref +0, Will -1



(1) DC 13 Fort save to avoid unconsciousness. DC Fort save a minute later or asleep for 2d4 hours.  Elves and Half-Elves are not immune to this effect.

The orc with the crossbow will stay in the woods and fire off bolts until he needs to draw his spear. The other will simply charge the party. In the confusion the merchant will act scared but, will try to get stabby with someone. He prefers to attack a spellcaster, but will settle for anyone in reach.

Aftermath and Loot
The merchant will stop fighting immediately after the orcs die and (with some intimidation) will offer to give the party some of the things he has stolen from travelers. If he is already dead, it will take a dc 15 search check to find the hidden door on the wagon leading into the merchants stash. There is about 150 gold pieces in it along with three gems worth 20 gold pieces (appraise DC 12 ). If the merchant is dead the party can search him to find 3 doses of the sleeping poison (each worth 75 gold pieces, appraise DC 15).


Notes
That's about it for today. If you know of any good programs for drawing maps let us know about it.

Howdy, and the other half

Howdy cyber cowboys!  As promised I am Noah, the yin to Joe's yang, the Ancient Wyrm to his Tarrasque.  As Joe has previously mentioned, the (primary) purpose of this blog is to share with y'all encounters, adventures and dungeons we create for DND 3.5 (maybe other stuff as I learn it).  We hope that you might be inspired by something or borrow it for your own purposes.  The overall goal we have is to introduce more interesting events to the game.

The current plan is to post at least once a week.  As there are two of us, this seems likely, although life is busy so it really depends on a number of extraneous things.  We also plan to introduce an adventure or dungeon each month.  I'm toying with the idea of having them have a fun theme each month (for instance, for October, you could fight a cult of people dressed up as undead), although that could go either way.

Now, you have at least a basic understanding of the two of us.  If you have anything you'd like us to do (for instance, if you really want a tutorial for clever wizardry [Joe is something of an expert at this]) , just say so.  We will be receptive to your desires, as our goal is to be helpful.

Cheerio!

Greetings and My Half Plan!

Hello Denizens of the Internet! I'm Joe and somewhere around here is Noah. We both play Dungeons and Dragons as DMs and wanted an extra place to throw weird, strange and off the wall encounters, challenges, Scenarios (etc.) at. Also to get the ol Imagination thumping along.

Anyways, we'll try to post at least one encounter a week (and do our level best to post more than that). We'll try to update Fridays for now although that may change due to Fridays having no relation what so ever to any of our plans.

I'm also thinking of posting a whole dungeon/adventure once per month, although We'll see how that goes with our current workload. I'll start posting things as soon as possible, so hang on to your character sheets.

Noah should have more of an Idea than I do about any of these things so mayhaps he'll know.