(TFT) TFT: Tollenkar's Lair (spoiler)

["Dave Seagraves" <dseagraves@austin.rr.com>]

   I just recently completed playing Tollenkar's Lair -- both as a GM and as
a solo adventure -- and even though I had read the adventure from cover to
cover I ran into one or two surprises.
   The first was the frequency of the random encounters: A 1-in-12 chance
every turn!  On average that's about one random encounter every minute, or
one every three minutes (i.e. a resident thug) if you don't count bats and
rats.  (New Yorkers would recognize this labyrinth as "Grand Central
Station.")  Combined with the relatively short distances between thug-filled
rooms, and the fact that sounds of combat can be heard by people up to 30 MH
away, I reasoned that soon after the first underground fight everyone on the
first three thug-filled levels would be alerted to the presence of
intruders.  Then Little Kess and his men would do their best to assemble and
lay an ambush to kill or drive them off . . .  and that's exactly what I had
them do.  My D&D paradigm told me that the party would be able to leisurely
move from room to room and have to face no more than three thugs at a time,
but in actuality it turned into a set of four massive battles.
   My solitaire party consisted of Father Paul (party leader, physicker,
paladin, and all-around nice guy, played by Sean Connery), Sorag (martial
wizard, played by David Warner), Marcos (blademaster and thrown knife
expert), Norrad (moronic human tank, played by Richard Kiel), Jana Gibney
(our new IQ8 front-line martial wizard, played by Susan Gibney of Star Trek:
TNG fame), Dwallir (a dwarven archer, and the group's newest member), ?????
(a spy-type character who's name escapes me), and two of Father Paul's
followers (former slaves from the Silver Dragon adventure, armed with sword
and bow).
   My adventurers managed to make a stand in a 1MH-wide tunnel on the first
level, keeping them from being swamped by 22 thugs all at once.  We lost
Dwallir when a Goblin thug hit him with a lucky arrow shot . . .  triple
damage!  He immediately fell below negative ST, so not even a quick heal
potion from Father Paul could save him.  Father Paul used his jade statuette
won from the previous adventure to repeatedly teleport behind several thugs
and hit them with a sweep maneuver with his bastard sword to quickly take
them out.  Sorag kept busy by hitting thugs with 4-die lightning bolts and
5-die explosive gems.  After the battle we explored and cleaned out the top
three levels, returned home to sell everything and recuperate, and prepared
for the fourth level.  Unfortunately the fifth-level bravos discovered that
all the thugs had disappeared, so they prepared a nice little ambush for us.
   The bravos decided that the main entrance to the fourth level was the
best place to ambush my party.  They set themselves up down the southern
tunnel and blocked off the northeastern tunnel.  The megahex at the bottom
of the stairs they brightly lit with three lanterns, while their positions
down the tunnel they kept in darkness -- but still within crossbow range.
They left Worwackawack and a large supply of molotail oil at the bottom of
Little Kess' bolthole to the fourth level to kill and/or discourage anyone
from coming down that way.
   We cautiously descended to the bottom of the stairs, with our point man
"spy" in the lead.  He was immediately hit by several arrows fired from the
darkness and died on the spot.  We activated our Stone Flesh and Reverse
Missiles items and rushed their positions, and several bravos were clobbered
by their own arrows.  We then engaged their front-line men.  Father Paul got
behind the archers and took them out, and the rest of the battle became a
furball.  We eventually won, taking Captain Littlejohn and Edrick prisoner.
   After the battle, Worwackawack eventually figured out that his comrades
had lost the battle, so he went down to the sixth level and warned Tollenkar
of our presence.  We would have liked to continue, but all of us were badly
beat up from the fight, so we all went back to civilization to recuperate
and dispose of our two prisoners.  Unfortunately this gave Tollenkar time to
recruit more bravos to repopulate the fifth level (as it spells out in the
book).  After calculating the average attribute points of all of the bravos,
I randomly created nine replacement bravos.  As it turns out, these new
bravos were /more/ powerful than the previous ones.  (Uh oh!)
   Tollenkar decided to set up a new ambush in the same spot, but he split
his forces into two teams.  Five bravos, two apprentices, one of Tarve's
zombies, and Ranulf took the southern side, while the other five bravos,
Tarve, his other zombie, Jaggado, and Tollenkar himself took the northeast
tunnel.  Meanwhile I decided that investing in a few creation gems was a
good idea, so Father Paul had some made and gave them to Jana.  Sorag had
just gone up an attribute point and decided to increase his IQ and learn a
new spell -- Megahex Sleep.  This was to turn out to be a very fortunate
choice of spell.
   At this point Tom Reckra (a human archer) joined the group, replacing the
luckless character who's name I can't even remember.  Funny, but I was sorry
to see him go.
   On the second assault they of course knew we were coming, but a really
good Tactics roll allowed us to guess where the next ambush would probably
be . . .  and we were right.  On the stairway Sorag took the time-energy to
create not one but /two/ giant octopi with three bastard swords each.  They
were immediately ordered down the stairs and to the northeast . . .  where
they saw bravos and wizards waiting for us.
   Sorag ordered everyone forward with Jana in the lead.  She threw a 3-Hex
Wall gem just past the south tunnel entrance.  With a good to-hit roll it
landed exactly where it needed to, and sprang into being across the south
tunnel . . .  blocking it until any wizards back there could blow open a
hole with lightning bolts.  Marcos, Norrad, and Father Paul charged the
bravo front line, followed closely by Sorag running up to come within
effective range for thrown spells.  All of the bravos in the front line had
bows and crossbows readied.  They fired, the missiles were reversed by our
spells, and they all hit the archers.  Marcos, Norrad, and Jana engaged the
front line.  Tollenkar and Tarve successfully disbelieved in the two octopi,
and they disappeared.
   Father Paul saw Tollenkar in the very back of the pack, so (after winning
initiative and allowing them to move first) teleported right behind him!
Tollenkar had a much higher DX so he got to go first, but he couldn't hit
Father Paul with an offensive spell with his back to him.  Faced with
imminent danger he cast a defensive spell.  Father Paul then risked a head
shot (at -6 DX) and struck home, knocking out Tollenkar.
   I rolled a random spell choice for Tarve, and the dice said "Geas."
Tarve selected the most dangerous-looking fighter on our side -- Norrad.
Tarve just barely hit, and not surprisingly Norrad (with an IQ of 7) failed
his 4-die saving throw.  Norrad now had the Geas "Attack all of my comrades"
on him.  Sorag saw this and cast a Megahex Sleep.  Norrad and five bravos
immediately went night-night.
   Meanwhile the other half of Tollenkar's men were trapped behind a created
wall.  I thought, "Well, this isn't going to slow them down much because one
of the wizards will hit a chunk of wall with 5 lightning hits, they'll all
pour through the gap and slaughter Sorag, then mop up everyone else."  I
then looked at the spell lists for both Winton and Porphyry -- neither one
had Lightning!  They couldn't get through the wall!  So they set themselves
up behind the wall with both apprentices in front and waited for the wall to
disappear, hoping that it was only a 30-second wall (which it was), and also
thinking that some of the bravos would be still fighting (which didn't work
out).
   On the other side, Jaggado nailed Marcos with his big sword and knocked
him out.  The fight lasted for a few more turns, and we managed to take out
Tarve, his zombie, Jaggado, and the rest of the bravos.  Father Paul then
had a serious dilemma: The wall was about to disappear.  He could either
teleport to the wall and hold off the hoard that was probably still waiting
on the other side, or rush over to Marcos and administer a heal potion to
keep him from bleeding to death from his wounds, and hope that Sorag, Jana,
and Tom could deal with the other half of Tollenkar's force.  Jana also had
a heal potion, so he ordered her to help Marcos; then Father Paul teleported
right in front of the wall just before it came down, sword poised to strike.
   The wall came down.  Father Paul hacked at the two wizards, and they went
down too.  The rest of the battle resulted in all of the second force either
killed or surrendered.  We then proceeded to clean out the rest of the lair.
Surprisingly, the haul turned out to be worth over 250,000 silver.  We went
home to count our gold, bury our dead, and get a Dissolve Enchantment spell
cast on Norrad.
   This adventure has really made me rethink dungeon design . . .  and
dungeoning party design as well.  Unless the whole group has at least Silent
Movement and perhaps Spying, and a very fast and quiet way to kill three
people at once, all of the bad guys in a typical dungeon will probably be
alerted when the first fight breaks out.

Dave Seagraves
Seagraves Computers   dseagraves@austin.rr.com   1 (512) 255-2760
Taco Bell: Good food, chintzy portions, false advertising, criminal staff

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