Caves of Chaos Update: They Survived

If you've been reading the blog of late, you know that my wife and 10 year old daughter have been navigating the kobold lair in the Caves of Chaos, and as I pointed out in my previous entry, got themselves into a particularly bad spot losing 3 of the hirelings and forced to hole up in the food storage room.  I posted an entry here on how some of you might handle the escape from  the room (and the lair.)  As it turned out, they managed to live and escape.

 

A few moments after they barricaded themselves in the room, they heard a knock.  It was the cleric.  Feeling around blindly in the dark, he managed to make his way to the food storage room.  They moved the barrel they had propped against the door and let him in.  Then they proceeded to devise a plan of escape.  The elf, having infravision, was essentially the only one able to see down the long, dark cooridor, so they cracked the door open so she could get a peek.  Sure enough, two of the kobolds were positioned behind some cover at the end of the hall, bows at the ready.  They quickly closed the door, arranged some of the crates in the center of the room for their own cover, emptied one of the barrels of water, and proceeded with their plan.  Much of it was flying by the seat of their pants.

 

After taking some time to prep some spells, the cleric opened the door.  The thief, hiding in one of the barrels positioned behind the door, popped up and fired some arrows blindly down the hall.  Some arrows were fired in response, striking the barrel, and nearly knocking her over in the process.  They closed the door promptly realizing this was going to be more of a challenge than they might have forseen.  After a few moments they heard a low gutteral voice speaking out in common echo down the hall, challenging them to open the door and reveal themselves.

 

They responded by bluffing.  Attempting to convince the kobolds they had a few kobold children as prisoners in the room with them, the elf squealed out in her best kobold immitation, feigning death.  At this point, I rolled an intelligence check for the chief (who was speaking to them, although they didn't know it at the time.)  The chief failed his check, and falling for the bluff, he charged down the hallway.  Once he came into view, the elf hit him with the sleep spell.  The thief popped some arrows into him, while the cleric moved out into the hall (with a sanctuary spell castt), grabbed the chief to use as cover and dragged him into the room.  They quickly tied him up, and when he awoke, essentially used him as a shield to ensure safe passage out of the caves.

 

Overall I was impressed with how they handled the situation being newbies to the game.  While it may seem like old hat to most of the gamers who read this blog, watching new players figure out a clever means to escape a situation always impresses me as a DM.  So, they have arrived back at the keep and live to fight another day.