This week I wasn’t quite as prepared as I should have been, so the night started off with my pulling a skill check out of thin air and then stumbling a bit through the parties meeting with a lone dwarf wanderer named Ralo.
After a diplomacy check to ease Ralo’s mind and ensure him they weren’t brigands the party received its first knowledge of the Wastewalker. The Wastewalker of course being the campaigns primary antagonist, a lizard shaman who for some reason has become convinced all arcane magic users are defilers and has pledged to wipe to world clean of them. Thus of course its Barcan’s fault the party has been harassed for so long.
After a short discussion the party was attacked in what had the potential to be the most brutal fight of the campaign so far. Three dust devils and a shaman were set to surprise the party. Had the surprise gone through dust devils would have used an ability that let them shift five squares and attack anyone they passed while the Shaman used a burst three poison attack. In essences every member of the party had a chance to get hit twice before they even got to fight. And if I rolled high the dust devils would then get to start the round by doing their own burst three for 3d6 of damage each. Which meant that if I rolled well the party could potentially be wiped before getting a single attack in.
Instead I gave the party a chance to get in the surprise round with some perception checks. Luckily four members of the team rolled high enough to fight in the surprise round, which really made a difference as the fight progressed. I also toned down my attacks slightly by not using the dust devils bursts until round two of the main fight. Figured this would give the party a fighting chance, and they’d managed to take out two of the dust devils by then. They then started ganging up on the shaman, and they’d started to think the fight was breeze when the last dust devil swung up and set off its burst. Dropped two of them with that and left two more at one and three hit points respectively. Seeing that told me how good an idea it was to delay it. In the end the party was successful in defeating the shaman and his dust devil minions and Ralo thanked them with a few boons, some more information, and allowed them a short rest at his camp before kindly requesting they move along and take the storm and their relentless hunters with them.
Overall a good evening of Dungeons and Dragons. My goal is always to give the party a challenge without actually wiping them out. The goal after all is to tell a story and have fun. Too often I think DM’s see themselves as the parties enemy. In my opinion the moment you think that way you might as well stop playing.