Game mechanics you’d need a computer to work out

I’ll be damned if this isn’t an accurate representation of some so-called tabletop roleplaying games out there…

Insect Shrine, session 6

Goblin bloodbath!

Clearing out the rest of Insect Shrine proper yielded plenty of valuable gems, some insect bites, and a few bruises. We’d pretty much cleared the adjoining cavern system as well, so it was time to rest up, level up, and start making plans for the goblin tribe, some 400 strong.

Reaching level 3, my Magic-User got his first second level spells. The first one, Web, is even more effective than Sleep at clearing rooms full of low hit die -creatures. You see, the Labyrinth Lord version of Web has a range (kinda short), but no radius, and no saving throw. As written, the spell entangles every single enemy in the room in which is it cast, and if the creatures have less than human level strength (18 or less), it will take them 2d4 turns to break free. Turns, not rounds. On average that’s 50 minutes of time to finish off the entangled creatures with missile fire. Another new spell I’d copied into my spellbook was Invisibility, which, strangely enough, has a duration of infinite, or until the invisible character makes an attack. The latter pretty much allowed me to scout out the whole goblin village. As written I could have set fire to the whole village, one hut at a time, without becoming visible. It was however ruled, that setting fire to someone’s home would constitute a hostile enough act to be considered an attack, thus ending the spell.

Our chosen point of entry into the Goblin Hill was an unconventional one; the latrines. Catching the goblins (pun intended) pants down, we proceeded to massacre around thirty of them, along with half a dozen bugbears. Over half of these fell victim to the spells Sleep and the Cleric’s Hold Person (which, curiously enough, only affects d4 creatures and has a saving throw, unlike Sleep, which affects 2d8 hit die of creatures with no saving throw).

By this time the goblins had managed to raise the alarm, and reinforcements were on their way, so, our lightning attack of terror warfare done, we retreated the same way we came in, that is, down the shitter. Our own casualties were limited to two retainers we’d recruited at the inn, their fate best summed up by the scan Jim put up on his own blog. Adventuring is a dirty business. Sometimes quite literally.