Second week of Tomb of the Serpent Kings. This time with six players!
Last week they lost 3 characters. This week they lost 7 more!
They came back to the dungeon with fresh recruits, lost the cleric with the lightning bolt trap (-1 PC), took heavy losses from the black pudding (-3 PCs) but defeated it, retreated from the dungeon, returned with fresh recruits, and lost some more against the living statue guardian (-3 PCs).
They retreated again and will return next week with more new recruits. But some players are starting to grumble - "what are we doing wrong?" they say, "is it supposed to be this tough?" "I can't think of a way we could have defeated that thing - 2d6 damage per hit? There's no way!"
Players are still in it, still enthused, still ready to give OSR a try, but cracks are starting to show. Losing half your party in one room, retreating, then losing half again in the next room can be demoralizing.
I tried to give them some gentle direction - maybe you could have used your rope to drag the statue guardian to the ledge and push it into the abyss - maybe you didn't have to fight the black pudding - I specifically gave you an out, you could have just walked away, but the desire for XP was too great. Even after they activated it, they could have just ran away, but they got cocky - we have a plan, we can defeat it with fire - not if you lose initiative and it kills the guy holding the flash of oil you won't.
And for those who cheered Jeff on from last week, he's still alive. He nearly died from the lightning bolt, but kept fighting! He's still in it!
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