Thread by @Shadumura

Good morning friends!
Last night was my first session in a second campaign for a module called Claws of Madness. I played a Tabaxi Revised Ranger with 3 other players.
Here are the escapades of the night, by yours truly:

Fist of Fangs [The Tabaxi] is not much of is social butterfly, so he let his 3 allies gather information from the townfolk as he tagged along. After stopping at the general store for supplies [for allies] & healer's kit [for himself], it was too late to set out so we stay at inn.

Upon waking up to a girl's scream, we head out and find that her brother -- whom we tried to ease his pain from being mutated by letting him stay in the town fountain [water seemed to make it less painful for him] -- had lost his head and it got stuck in the water intake hole.

After the events, and Zieg [our tankadin] tending to the girl, we went to the boathouse & paid for use of one of the lady's boats. As we all got on, undo the mooring [with instructions on the boat handler's special knot], we forgot something: Nobody asked for directions to island

So we row the boat back to dock, tie it to pier, our warlock runs back to the boat handler for directions to Elmer [sp?] (which was a very straight forward route), we make way for the island a second time. After bracing harsh winds, dense fog and high winds, we made it to island.

We got to the island and after some attempts at tying the boat to a tree [after long dragging it from the shore, cause it was a hefty investment in gold & didn't want to lose it], we came across a camp and fresh tracks of people being here before us. I got a grappling hook!

Poor Fang, took a nat 1 on his conc save to brace against the cold winds of the island [cause it got a lot colder as we made it inland] and Zieg was kind enough to lend his fur cloak, which lead to a [20] on the second check for Fang. Good cloak.

Before we start winding up the pilgram's path set in the moutain, Zieg spotted a bandit that was on lookout. Sadly, both mine & the warlock's initial shots went wide, unaccustomed to such high winds before. We made battle and killed the bandit. Fighter got bolts & I got scimitar!

Before we even made it around the first bend, I rolled a perception check, rolled high and the DM revealed 2 bandits 2 bends higher up on the path, higher up on the mountain. I pointed them out to the group and we try to be "Stealthy".

Can you imagine a 6'4" [horned helmet] human paladin trying to 'stealth' behind a 3' path wall? We joked that the bandits might mistaken him for a normal sized human. Fighter was a little better but the warlock had little better as well. Me?

Natural. Fucking. 20.

At this point, the group turns to talk to me.... and I'm gone.
I had effectively pulled a Batman on my group, blending in with the environment.
We continued to get closer and as we made it to the second bend, the first bandit spotted us and tried to warn his buddy. I reacted...

My arrow from my Longbow -- "The Saber's Maw" -- nails him right below the ribcage, in a surprise attack. We roll for initiative. I rolled among the highest. I draw my bow for a secound round....

Natural. Fucking. 20. AGAIN.
As you can probably imagine, I didn't even need to roll damage & I told the dm this shot had mmph to it. DM tells me the arrow pierces his chest, goes through his back & takes THE BANDIT'S STILL BEATING HEART WITH IT, sticking into the wall behind em.

His buddy has to make a wisdom save from being frightened, which he passes, but he doesn't pass my tankadin's challenge to throw down. Bandit jumps down and meets Zieg in hand to hand combat. Let's just say it didn't last very long, against the four of us.

After coming across a crate that had a pouch of gold, sack of salted fish, sacks of wheat & fruits and vegetables, we reach the top of the path...
... straight into two gnolls waiting at the camp that's past the path.
Your poor Fang rolls a nat 1 on his initiative.

Fang proceeds to have bad luck with his shots, missing a total of 5 or more arrows between the 3 gnolls and later on, their big gnoll leader. Zeig, always leading from the front, faced the leader himself, with dirc on the flank. Me and Theo kept our distance.

Poor Zieg, on his attack after being hit with advantage by the gnoll leader, rolls a nat 1 on his warhammer & it goes flying into the nearby grove to our right, in the camp. In my attempt to come to his aid, I throw one of my short swords to him. He rolls low on sleight of hand.

The sword lands just to his left, out of reach. Zieg gets downed on the next attack and dirc taunts the boss himself, holding his attention. It was our warlock that saved the fight with a witchbolt. 3 rounds of damage from it, which last one being max damage, and boss goes down.

Now, you're probably thinking: "You have no potions, no healing [cause we're level 1s] and your only healer is downed and on death's door. What do you do?" And remember that Healer's Kit I bought yesterday? KITTY SAVES THE PALLY. Zeig then lays there, sleeping off the aftermath..

DM has us roll perception checks. I, of course, rolled nat 1 [my luck is fickle as the wind itself], and theo rolled low, so we're "Keeping Zieg warm with our bodies" while dirc rolled reasonably high. To dirc, a muffled sound came from the back left tent of the camp...

... Dirc finds the appraiser's daughter, bound in chains and a rope over her mouth. Unfortunately, Dirc can't get the chains undone and calls out to the rest of the party. This may seem odd, but the tabaxi ranger in the party also carries... thieve's tools. There's a reason 4 it.

Fang often was in situations that required him to disable traps or unlock restraints, in his travels. He picked up a kit before coming to the port city, valuing the utility of having them. So Fang takes his kit off his belt and goes into the tent, unlocking the chains ✅[22].

After the daughter was released by Fang, she proceeded to hug him and thank him so much for freeing her. Caught off guard, he sat there and purred into the hug, temporarily restrained. After talk between Fang, Dirc and Theo on what to do, the daughter says to leave the island...

Now, this isn't a typical kid. She's late teens, fiery redhead and supremely beautiful. We're talking 11s on a scale of 10s, and it had an odd effect on us. I noticed nothing but poor dirc rolled a nat 1 and it was sort of charmed by her beauty [no magic, just that beautiful].

At this point, Fang gets the feeling that we won't be here for much longer, if we wanted to or not. Zieg's still asleep and Fang needs him up, so Fang takes out his waterskin... and proceeds to pour some on Zieg's face to wake him up.

Fang felt water would be a better alternative than slapping zieg awake and sure enough, Zieg wakes up with a sputter. Man says "What is this foul liquid?!?" and Fang says dead-panned "Water. I'm not keen on it, either." Zieg gets up and goes for his warhammer...

He rolls high strength check and not only does he pull his warhammer out of the dirt it was embedded in it, out came a chest caught on the hammer and it goes flying into the nearby tree, landing with a thud. Zieg tries it. Locked. Fang, seeing this, gets his tools out again...

At this point, Dirc & the daughter [sorry, name eludes me again], have been making their way out of the camp and back to the way we came up from. I unlock the chest simply enough: 30g, a longsword with an onyx gem in the pommel, a quiver with 13 arrows & a belt w/ silver buckle.

The buckle had styling of a dragon on it. Upon realizing that Dirc is leaving with the lady, I told zieg to grab it all quickly and we'll sort it out later. Asked if he wanted the gnoll leader's battle axe and Zieg raises his warhammer, exclaiming "This is a weapon worthy of me!"

[To backtrack some, back when I was waking him up with water, and he got up, I told him I also saved his life with my Healer's Kit. Much thanks was given and some praise for my swift action to come to his aid]

So, we make our way back to the beach. Because dirc was the only one with the instructions on how to undo the knot that tied the rope -- which was from Dirc's pack, cause the first check for tying the rope ruined the boat's rope -- we couldn't untie the knot.

So Zieg, taking the shortsword he got from me out, proceeds to cut the rope. He rolled so high, he doesn't cut the rope. HE CUTS THE FREAKING TREE LIKE A LUMBERJACK. We pulled off the loop of rope from the stump and proceeded to set sail for the mainland.

[In a single swing of the sword, no less]

Thankfully, travel back to the mainland was met with clear skies, reducing our travel time significantly and we make it to the port town as afternoon was coming to an end. After docking and mooring the boat to the pier, we escorted the lady to the inn next door, to her father.

She was the last to enter, to Zieg's announcement of her as he was telling her that we succeeded in saving his daughter. She ran into his arms and hugged him and when he talked to her, she said... and I kid you not... Dirc was the man who saved her.
Rest of us:

So the father comes up to dirc and shakes his hand, thanking him for saving his daughter and that he was part of his family. At this point, DM has Dirc and himself roll checks. DM rolls a nat 20 on the father's indimidation & poor dirc... rolled a total of 19. He was made to stay

At this point, the father had given Dirc 125g but dirc was fast enough to pass it to us before being taken further into the inn, to be with the daughter [Dirc is 25 but still a teen in elven years]. Theo tries to speak up to help Dirc, but the father shoo'd him & us off.

So, the 3 of us, having been shooed off, went separate ways to tend to many tasks. Theo and I go to the boatowner and we got our gold back plus the 5g as well. We were the first to come back from the island, alive and sane. got a deal to us the boat whenever, any dmgs = 30g.

I told theo to keep it [since it was a pooled sum from 3 of us -- with me having contributed 15g, cause hey outlander bg gave 10g + dm gave us 15g]. Theo goes about his way and I joined Zieg at the nearby blacksmith, where he was getting the longsword looked at.

Apparently, it was among the cargo stolen from the blacksmith, but when zieg mentioned the island, the apprentice holding the sword dropped it like it was the plague. Blacksmith tells Zieg to keep the sword. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on a bench across from the smithy, watching.

When Zieg was done with the blacksmith, I rejoined him and gave him his share of the reward [25g]. I told him to keep what was from the chest [30g] and he thanked me. I also split the reward with theo and dirc, but I kept 50g from the 125g. I felt it was a fair distribution.

15g from my pocket became 50g, but the 15g remained in the "party fund".
Zieg kept 30g from chest plus 25g from his share.
Theo and Dirc got 25g each, from the reward.
Zieg got the belt and sword appraised for 1g each.
Appraiser wanted the sword for 300g. Unusual. It was impasse.

Zieg kept the sword and the belt was only worth it's weight in silver, so basically 15g.
He kept both items and retired to his room, and we all also do the same. That wasn't the end of it though, as we got ready, Me/Theo/Zeig hear "womanly sounds" from dirc's room.... yeah....

Theo buried his in a book and his pillow, I took out my lute and played the loudest tunes I knew and zieg -- at this point -- was probably close to asleep.
And that is how we saved the daughter and reached level 2.

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