A Nouveau Campaign
Date: February 20nd, 2020
DM: Luka De Souza
Party: Friar 1, Hunter 1, Dowser 1, Moss Dwarf 1, Woodgrue 1 (Ursequine Weavilmen [Tori Brooks], Brom Mckaregg [Anthony Cruz], Dimothy [Chris Klett], Tomdown [Serena Lopez], Rufus [Nathaniel Decker], respectively). …and Rocky, Brom’s Dolmen Pinscher.
Session Summary
After supplying and hiring, the party leaves Castle Brackenwold with two noncombatants: Borrid and Esme. PCs leave for the Tumulheights, and fast track to the maw-in-the-roots that is The Hole in the Oak (set in the Tumulwood). They are chasing a chalice of life giving. They also hear of a previous inhabitant’s dealings: A wizard and his now autonomous bronze golem. A ghoul surprises the party from behind, and the hunter presses onward instead of fighting. PCs mixed attempt at fighting and retreating leads to a TPK.
Re-do! 😊
To save time, we re-named PCs but the friar was switched out for a fighter with the optional-ruled combat talent of Defender.
New PC names: Gwendolyn Dregger, a fighter. Alexander Ross, hunter and dog, Rocky II. Dimothy Fraggleton, a dowser. Dombo, the mossdwarf. Remus Woodfuffle, woodgrue.
The PCs encounter the gold-hungry faces and glean cave rumors. PCs meet further denizens, the trogs, and find a key in a nook. Exploring further, they meet fauns who attempt to feed the PCs sleep tea. The woodgrue hangs back, hiding in the shadows. A random encounter with an ogre ends in the PCs teaming up with the fauns to trick the ogre into drinking a fake gnome tea. The diseased ogre falls on hireling Borrid who is recovered with skin blotches.
 Feedback
In previous games, we house-ruled stats with a single stat switch, from LotFP, so my players didn’t like the optional point buy from the play test. It’s possibly a good optional feature but my players found stat rolling more limiting as far as choosing classes.
The friar seems like a great class, but most of my players were not willing to choose the friar because accruing wealth is typically a huge part of our games outside of the play test. Unfortunately, in our first session, the friar died immediately and was re-rolled into a fighter with the optional talent.
We were confused about the dowser. Is the level progression chart for the dowser the total number of spells they can possibly cast whether or not they tap a ley line? Does a first level dowser begin with a spell, or do they have to tap a ley line first to get one? It seems we played the dowser wrong because I gave him a spell to start and then allowed him to gain another through a tapped ley line. This might be poor interpretation but going forward we will allow the dowser to have any spell they tapped on subsequent days, but they can always tap a ley to replace it with the magic-users spell list of that level. The chart is what led me to believe the dowser starts with one spell because I am familiar with the magic-user chart.  We added a spell due to the dowser skill tap ley line.
We didn’t get to rigorously test the hunter because we were in a dungeon and most of their abilities rely on wilderness travel. I allowed the player to purchase a dog from the hounds list and considered it an animal companion. He chose a Dolmen Pincher/Pinscher.
The mossdwarf’s biggest claim to fame is that her knack was yeast master and she fermented her sleep tea, so I didn’t make her save vs spells to fall asleep because she changed the beverage.
The woodgrue really wanted his dark vision to matter. Initially, he wanted to scout ahead but it would make the party move through the dungeon at a very slow pace. So instead he took up the rear and was able to create a flank if necessary or otherwise hold up the rear. I rolled his move silently in secret and otherwise let him creep behind the party from a distance. Against infravision that most B/X races have, he never interacted with random encounters. Maybe in the future he can stop a random encounter or surprise short, but he only encountered an ogre from the rear and decided not to inform the party. The ability seems pretty powerful overall, but it wasn’t important in this session.