I read a thread (
TLG Update) that had some posts about some cocky adventuring groups and how the
DM would spank them when they thought they should be able to take on any monster at any time.
I have a short one for this past weekend.
My grandson and his cousin playing for just the second time with me as the
DM.
We were playing Castles and Crusades, with some tweaking of the rules by me using a few second edition rules from AD&D.
My grandson (Colton, 12) and his cousin (Josh, age 14) were running 2 PC's each.
Colton was playing a Thief, and a Ranger, and Josh was playing a Druid and a fighter.
(I was running an NPC Cleric to try to keep them breathing).....
The boys were playing in a Castles and Crusades adventure called Blacktooth Ridge on Saturday.
It was one of the first Castles and Crusades Adventures published, and is rated for 3-5 PC's of Level 1-3 and difficulty level 0-1.
It was an easy adventure for them, but we were unable to finish it, since the cousin had to leave at about 5
PM.
They were able to knock out the first scenario against a small band of Goblin Raiders in the smaller Goblins hideout.
The group had found a map leading to a larger hideout for the Leader of the Goblin Raiders at the smaller hideout.
We knew we would not have time to complete that second part, so we didn't even start.
But, I have an interesting tale about one of the Players and his Druid PC during that Saturday session.
Josh desperately wanted to play a Druid because they can have animals for companions at First Level (At the
DM's discretion).
Through the Animal Friendship First Level Druid Spell.
After asking him if he knew how to play a Druid he assured me that he had done so before.
I asked some obvious questions and told him to read the Players Handbooks Druid PC section (Just two pages of text) while I finished with helping Colton with his PC's.
I told him to carefully read the Spell Animal Friendship as well.
After he finished reading, he said he understood it all, and I relented and allowed him to play a Druid and to obtain an animal friend.
I limited his choices for an animal friend to natural wilderness/woodlands animals of from 1-3 Hit Dice.
We ended up with his having a Black Bear (2 HD).
He chose the Black Bear because it has three attacks (Claw/Claw/Bite).
So, with the Druidic First Level Spell Animal Friendship (C&C Rules) he was also able to teach it some commands/tricks).
So he taught it Attack, Heel, Protect, Perform (Which is bascially simple trick commands, such as stand on back legs and roar), and a couple of other commands that I don't recall right now.
I allowed that he could do his training of the bear for a couple of months prior to the adventure, while in the woods outside of town before the group left on its mission.
In the VERY first wilderness encounter after leaving town, the group was passing an ancient broken down rubble strewn Tower in a small clearing.
The group had decided NOT to inspect the ruins of the tower, but to continue on to the Pass ahead, where some townsfolks had informed them they believed the bad guys base was located.
Just before leaving that small cleared area, on the other side a Large Brown Bear (5 HD animal) walked out of the woods leading a smaller Brown Bear.
Obviously to anyone who has watched the Discovery Channel at least once, that they were a momma bear and her cub out for a stroll, likely hunting for grubs.
I actually rolled this encounter on the wilderness encounter table too.
All the players PC's decided to stay put until she and the cub had passed… Except the Druid that is.
The Druid draws his bow as he tells his new friend (the Black bear) to run halfway to the Brown Bears, which it obediently did.
The momma bear sees the male black bear coming and this of course gets all her attention, and she stands up and roars, waving her front paws and snarling at the black bear menacingly.
Her Cub turns around and runs back into the woods.
As the
DM, I had the momma just stand up and roar at the intruding black bear, while the cub ran back into the woods.
I did this in order to give the Druid a chance to back off from a possible confrontation.
A somewhat hidden DM hint that was missed completely, or simply ignored.
Instead of backing off, the Druid tells his bear to copy the momma by standing up on it's hind legs and roar right back at her.
Of course momma bear interpreted that action as a direct threat and the black bear was now a menace to her and her cub, so she dropped to all fours and charged, attacking the Black Bear.
The other PC's simply watched all of this in shock and the Druid did nothing to try to stop the madness.
The Cleric tells the Druid that this encounter was a bad idea and that perhaps it would be better for the party to leave the bear and her cub alone.
(I was running the Cleric)
Ignoring DM HINT NUMBER TWO
The Druid begins shooting arrows at the Brown Bear momma…
Three rounds later, the Black Bear is very much dead, and the Brown Bear was never injured by the black bear, and even though one of the Druids arrows had hit her, she never even noticed it as it happened during her fight with the black bear.
(It caused 3 HPs damage)
She sniffs the body of the dead black bear and then with a look around to make sure no one else is being threatening.
She sees the stick and swats it out of her side, then she yawns as if bored, turns and ambles back to the woods to find her cub.
The Druid finally decided to allow her to leave and not give chase, but only AFTER all the other PC's had refused to join him in the chase.
He really wanted to avenge the death of his poor dead Black bear friend!
The Druid then walks up to his dead friend and begins trying to dig a hole to bury him.
The rest of the group refused to help him with that chore and told him that the rest of the group was walking up the trail to the pass and that he could follow them after his chore was finished.
Looking back to the woods, he left the job undone and followed immediately.
If Josh had been an adult player, I would have removed his Druidic status after that encounter and made that PC a simple fighter (In game action, not all at once) but instead I told him that trying his Animal Friendship spell again any time soon would be useless, as his actions had wasted the life of his new friend and he had threatened a peaceful mother bear and her cub for no reason.
Neither of which were Druidic actions.
I told him that the Druidic/Animal gods knew what he had done and would not heed his plee for a new friend.
BTW: Every spell he tried for the remainder of the adventure went haywire for some reason.............
