Herding Cats - .....

..Or the importance of good team tactics, not splitting the party and what fun can be had when it all goes pear shaped.

Its been a while since we last played and so when we began there was lots of fun had just quickly catching up on what people had been doing. I think the last time the group met up we had gone out to the cinema together so while it didn't feel to long a time since we had all met memories had somewhat faded on where we we in the game.
We had our regular guest player back and a new guest member of the party who was to join us for this game only - (but we are all hoping he can join in again in the future). So a quick how to get him into the party was a rather comical 'I jump out from behind a rock and wave'. Our first human party member yay!

And so we were off into the old mine where the orcs had enslaved the villagers. This was a bit of a side quest from the main adventure and I for one was looking forward to rescuing helpless villagers and their families as my characters Priest background is focused around the projection children and the innocent. Unfortunately my character is sometimes as mad as a bag of cats, which presents itself sometimes in angry outbursts, verbal ramblings, and talking about olives - and so the chaos commenced

Our first plan was to try and catch an orc alive after the party came across a group asleep. All fared pretty well first few rounds until my tiefling was hit by the last living orc and so I asked other players how she should react. Quite loudly came the reply 'badly' and so my tiefling sorcerer used a reaction to immolate the orc and so killed it.
So much for catching one alive for questioning. All good roleplay fun and this then lead to another character reacting to the fiascio and storming off. This sort of started a recurring theme of the players getting their characters to go off and do their own thing without any real party continuity.

The second battle was against a beholder - for some reason only my character had any past knowledge of it ( nice DM gave me a Nature roll) so my sorcerer tried to get the rest of the party to lure it so I could get behind to cast spells. Instead they all went the other way leaving me stranded with two kids. Did I mention we rescued two children? Well yes we did.

Now the human had ran away from the conflict thereby leaving the children to a fate worse than death, or so it was in the eyes of my character. The reason for this became known later on in the game as he only had a constitution of 4 and so only 4 hit points at 3rd level. Of course his character hadn't communicated with the party that he was easily hurt or fainted under the slightest cut. So after the beholder is killed the kindly teifling sorcerer escorts the children out of the mine on her own. Then she sees the human sitting on a rock and goes bat-shit crazy and chases him around the hillside - while magically transformed in to a demi-human half dragon - all so she can angrily tell him off. This was handled very well through a bit of proficiency dice rolling and roleplay and didn't, as can sometimes be the case, end up with players trying to kill other players.

So argument over, and grumpy dwarf joins human (tells him off also)and tielfling and they rest. But where we the rest of the party? After the beholder battle the dwarf went on his own and eventually got to the surface to rest, and the rest ignored the tiefling and the dwarf and decided to explore further into the mines and then rest.
The result of this was they were nearly ambushed by more orcs and a beholder, and the elf ranger accidentally shot a human slave (we think) in the dark. Thus forced a hasty retreat and so the other party members didn't get to rest.
The party had taken a lot of damage from the first beholder and used up half of their spells and special abilities and now were faced by another battle.

It didn't go as well as hoped though we did defeat the enemy,but with two characters very low on hit points and two more dead, the party are in dire straights and the game ended with us being immediately attacked by a mind flayer.
TPK may be just round the corner.

And why were we in such mess? Well the truth is because we didn't plan and coordinate our attacks or actions as well as we had previously done. So rather than whole being greater than the sum of its parts,  we were divided and almost conquered.
This shows not only in roleplay terms but also in team tactics how a coordinated response can be vital to party survival. It also shows with DnDNext how well different classes complement each other so that as a team they can cover many conflicts and scenarios with confidence.

As the characters get to higher levels and get more useful they also get more complicated to play. It was clear, and by their own accord, that some of the players struggled a bit to keep on top on how best to use their characters abilities, no doubt compounded by the length of time since our previous game session. We have now reached 4th level which gives us the option of choosing a Feat so another layer to add to our characters skills.
My sorcerer wants to become a Paladin (or a pirate) and so has begun trying (very unsuccessfully and very comically) wielding a glaive as a weapon. So maybe her chosen feat will be Polearm Master rather than something for sorcerer focused.

I cannot say that everyone had as much fun that day as previously, sometimes a character death can seem unfair especially if the odds (compared to previous game sessions) feel suddenly stacked against you. However it is all part and parcel of the game, and a good learning curve. And of course the added bonus is you get a chance to try a whole new character, or even just play your previous characters twin if you so wish.

I enjoyed it and in truth was ready to have my character killed - whether its from past experience, being able to read the story well or plain luck I somehow knew this mine would hold a much greater challenge than before. And as the DM said , now that were were higher level we needed to face harder monsters, where running away was a suitable option. As a result I had roughed out a new character just in case it was required.

We may see some Multi-classing coming in, there has also been talk of one player maybe switching to a new character entirely which will be interesting to see how that is played through, and especially how this will affect inter party relationships if well established and useful characters are replaced with someone new.

As a last note, it was felt by players and DM alike that we hadn't progressed as far in the adventure as in previous games. Maybe this was down to the fact we were all having lots of fun and so plenty of laughing and joking. Maybe the uncoordinated efforts of our characters made the conflicts and exploration eat up more time.

There were some great little snippets of roleplay, some tiny but evidence of how the players are evolving their characters, the reaction of teifling and dwarf to the human fleeing combat, and the subsequent interaction between dwarf and teifling. The Druid has become the party agent of stealth and is mad about loot - clearly wants to be a thief. The warforged leaping in to save others.

Can't wait to find out what happens next time we play, Total Party Kill probably.