OSRIC Sessions Journal: Backstabby & Burning Slime

We found a secret door at the dead end of a passage we'd been exploring last session, which we suspected would lead us to where our opponent was holed up. Demurarg cast invisibility on Gladric, who successfully made his Move Silently roll and crept up behind who he thought was the evil wizard. At the same time, a portion of the rest of the party went back to an earlier location we’d found, where we’d attacked him across a narrow chasm. The ranger abandoned the party, and we had no idea where he went - very suspicious. Perhaps he didn’t like the rough treatment of our captive.

Playing Gladric, I chose to use my once per session d30 option for a backstabbing attempt. I rolled a 29, adding +1 for my DEX bonus, a 30. The DM ruled maximum damage x2, which came to 14 points - the figure collapsed and Gladric became visible. At this point the remaining figure (what we’d assumed was the magic user’s sidekick) threw back his cloak and exclaimed something to the effect that Gladric would now die for having killed his assistant. Gladric took off running back the way he came, as the rest of the party lurking across the chasm emerged to attack with missile weapons. Demurarg cast magic missile which was enough to put the bad guy at the edge of death.

However, the giant yellow slime monster was getting ready to attack. My memory of things is a little fuzzy, but it seems like our cleric Ouze tried to grab the crown from the head of the dying wizard. We knew this was how he controlled the slime monster. Gladric was always a little suspicious of Ouze (maybe because of his name) and yelled “Traitor! Attack him!” It might have been premature or foolish, but in any event everyone else seemed to believe Gladric and Ouze was forced to run away, dropping the crown. The slime monster then attacked, and we allowed the druid to use the crown to keep the thing immobile while we threw flask after flask of burning oil onto it. Finally killing it, we threatened the wizard into revealing his treasure vault location and found a decent haul. I’m a little concerned that the ranger and cleric are in cohoots and waiting in ambush at the entrance to the dungeon. Also that I might have mistakenly made an enemy of a friend. Meh, all in a day’s work for a thief. I offered our captive (Jugarg) freedom and then employment as a porter, and he accepted.

A lot of the session was taken up by discussion of various attack strategies. For me, the funniest part was when Marcus was busted for not paying attention. When it was his turn and asked what his character was going to do, he paused for a long moment and then dropped a d20 into his dice tower. “18” he announced with seriousness. We weren’t in combat and there was no reason to roll a d20. There was another long pause before I burst out laughing as we realized he had no idea what was going on. DM Nick took it in stride though.