CC: On a scale of munchkin . . .
If you've played any tabletop RPG for any length of time you've undoubtedly heard of the term munchkin. And no, in this context it does not mean short person pointing to a yellow brick road. It actually means . . . well, thanks to a cursory google search, I can say there is no one agreed upon definition. For our group it means a person who cares only for the combat and loot, and completely ignores the role playing portion of a role playing game.
I used to think a person either was or was not a munchkin. Turns out, there's a little munchkin in all of us, just waiting for the right moment to pop out and make us look foolish. But I'll get back to that.
Where we left off, the group had just gone to return the belongings of the wife portion of the crazy primal duelist couple introduced in the last chapter. They did so without incident, and were given a cursory thank you for their trouble. Then they were patted on their heads and sent on their way.
On their return to the tavern, Hyalnik suddenly remembered his quest, and began asking about for his kinsman. Apparently Dwarves were something of a rare curiosity in those parts, because it wasn't long before he found someone that remembered his quarry.
The group was directed to a female Dwarve's . . . orphanage, of sorts. An orphanage guarded by pet Allosauruses.
And they were apparently expected. Only Hyalnik was allowed to alight the steps of the orphanage to talk with the Dwarfly matron. An exercise in racism that was quickly pointed at by the rest of the group. Until said matron silenced them all with a spell (that contained a suspiciously high DC). Not that this minor setback stopped any of them from trying to speak, or be annoyances in other ways. But it did lessen their annoyance value, and quite possibly kept the matron from sicking her pet dinos on the group at large.
She informed Hyalnik that his clansman had gone off one direction, but also sprung on him that his family had apparently arranged a marriage with one of the Dwarven women of the establishment. Alas she'd run off with another female Dwarf for some reason or other, and the matron was fairly certain they were in danger. Who could have guessed, right? Boy, its a good thing you adventurers came along when you did!
He was also told that if he rescued them he could have his pick. Which lent the whole establishment a sort of bordello/human trafficking air to it, really. Not that the dwarf questioned any of it.
{Player's Note: Don't you hate the overused trope of the super powerful quest giver (as evidenced by the incredibly high DC of her silence spell) who could easily take care of the issue themselves needing the help of some low level schlubs?}
And so, off the dwarf went, as if being shot out of a cannon, actual quest completely forgotten. No doubt he had visions of some form of bearded threesome already promulgating within his brain as he shot past the group without so much as a 'hi'. The rest followed, curiously.
They found him squaring off against a group of cultists, and a very large construct, over what appeared to be the bodies of the innocent. Two of whom were Dwarven women. The group rushed into the fray to help their outnumbered ally. And thus comes our collective moment of munchkin. It's perfectly reasonable to assume there are forces beyond the group's ability to engage successfully. There are those fights that would be simple suicide. Turns out this was one of those fights. Though none of us knew it. Yet.
And why did none of us know it? Because not one of us decided to roll any sort of knowledge check on the construct. Had we done so, we'd have seen that our group of level 8 characters was staring down the loaded barrel of a Juggernaut, with friends.
We did quite well for some time. Feorge even managed to revive the innocents slumped on the ground when he rolled a mass heal Wild Magic addition to a spell he'd cast. Sadly it was random so he also healed one of their enemies back to full. That enemy being the one that insisted on casting annoying spells at the group. Glares were had by all as the noncombatants fled the scene.
And technically, though only one of us knew it, we'd achieved our goal of rescue the Dwarven women. But we stayed of course; there's evil needs killin!
The moment we'd killed the last cultist it all went sideways. No longer restrained by friendlies in the field, the construct (a Juggernaut if you will recall; that's important) charged through our group. The only member he didn't hit just so happened to be the only one that had any chance of making the DC 30 (methinks the DM was playing with templates again) reflex save to avoid ending up like the famous coyote illustrated above. The rest of us took over 70 damage in that one hit. Those that survived then had to make a massive damage roll.
More than half the party would have died right then and there, but the DM remembered that, while he wouldn't allow hero points, he had given each of us one get out of death free card, which was used now.
{Player's Note: But he did rule that we'd technically died, so Feorge just met the criteria for the Grave Risen achievement feat. What's worse, once I get to level 16 (I should really have a Robe of Arcane Heritage by then) my Phoenix Bloodline capstone power will make it so I have to be killed three times in one day just to actually die. My character will become known as the cockroach! (AKA Daniel Jackson)}
The group used that second chance to run like hell all the way back to the matron.
#CC #CaravanOfChaos #MunchkinsAtPlay #TheDeliciousCupcakes