In Control - The Botchy Battle of the Dragonborn

I know I promised to deliver my thoughts of The Hunger Games as my next entry but a recent Dungeons and Dragons game has somewhat distracted me.  On Monday night my group met.  This was a special session as our usual playing date is Thursday nights.  The week before we had a very long session in which we only fought one dragonborn (that WOULDN'T DIE) and a few skill challenges.  Long story short the group was demanding some battles or a mutiny would be underway.

For the record, you'd turn and run if you saw this guy chasing you, too!

Our DM, being ever so compliant, accepted our request and scheduled a special Monday game to make up for lost battle time.  We all showed up, got out our sheets, and fired away.  Little did we know of the blood bath we were about to encounter.

Here's the set up.  Our group had previously killed a dragonborn who was recruiting locals into joining his cult.  After we got our information out of him and took him out, we went to the cult and had our thief do some quick record grabs so we could try to get to the bottom of things.  Our night started out with us leaving the cult, turning the corner, and BAM!  Before us stood the same dragonborn we had just killed, bandaged up and with a small army of 5 or 6 dragon borns.  We turned and ran into the nearest building, barring the door behind us.

 It was on.

The beginning of the battle was a success.  Our 340lbs. Minotaur, Zoob, held the door shut, so that left only the windows to guard.  Funny thing is there were some conveniently place vats of cleaning solution scattered throughout the bar.  They were small, about a pony keg, and we managed to tip one out the window and onto some of the less than intelligent dragonborn.  Meanwhile, at the other corner our group bard, Magnus, was having some troubles hitting his target.  The dragonborn was coming through the window and was practically prone but for some reason, Magnus kept missing.  I guess hitting things isn't a bards speciality, so no one took notice.  Little did we know....

I assume the barrels looked somewhat like this....

Magnus, and our assassin, nicknamed "Pony Boy" (because his names too long to remember) were taking care of the two windows.  I wanted to be of some use, but there was only room for one person at each window.  This is where Zoob and I got creative.  I'm an avenger shifter named Rosie and I have what we'll just call a gift for climbing.  I got a barrel of cleaning solution (we are calling it acid now because it's quicker to type) and set it by the door that Zoob was barring shut.  I took my grappling hook, threw into one of the beams above the door and climbed up it.  Once I was high enough to be above the door without being in the way, I tied the rope securely around my waist and had Zoob hand me up a keg of acid (it had a lid).

The DM seemed intrigued with where we were going with this plan and the rolls were in our favor.  Once firmly in place with my acid, we decided to open the door.  One of the dragonborn came charging in, unknown to him, right below the very happy Rosie with a very full keg of acid.  I let it drop and the damage was amazing.  Zoob quickly shut the door before more baddies could get in and disposed of our new guest.  All the while Pony Boy had successfully dunked the head of a dragonborn attempting to get through the window in another vat.  He fell out of the window, onto a comrade, and into where the acid had spilt.  This was getting fun.  The acid barrel was plugging up the window, so Pony Boy went over to aid Magnus  who was still having troubles getting a hit on another window intruder.

Round two for the door acid was about to start.  Zoob opened the door again.  This time I splashed acid, hitting the remaining enemy who had been banging his hands to ribbons by tying to knockdown the door with nothing but his fists (He had lost his weapon trying to breakdown the door).  This might be where you'd say things started to go wrong....okay....this IS where this went VERY wrong.  The new guy wasn't too much of a problem, but our two baddies outside the window decided after their acid bath to try to get in again.  They succeed on getting in (though they slipped on some acid in doing so) and Zoob was worried about having two guys freely walking around.  He charged the two dragonborn.  The charge was so strong that he knocked both of the bad guys through the wall and into the next room.  YEAH ZOOB!   The problem was, little Rosie was left all by herself and she managed to get herself grabbed.  Magnus and Pony Boy were still at the window and their rolls were going down, fast.  Magnus started rolling nothing but 3's 5's and 6's.  The dragonborn weren't too hard to hit, but when they hit, they hit with vengeance.  Pony Boy did his best to quickly get out of battle, try to save my ass, then get to Zoob who was now in a battle of 2 against one.  All the while the rolls were SUCKING!  No one seemed to be able to catch a break (Well except Zoob who managed to crit twice in one night) and we were getting our health drained fast.  After escaping my grab, Pony Boy went off to help Zoob, only for me to get grabbed again!  Magnus came over, but still his bad luck continued.  By some stroke of a miracle we somehow ended up with one enemy.  He started to make a run for it, but we gathered what was left of our strength and took him down with one last volley of attacks.

Ps:  This is Magnus's dice.  It shall now forever be known as The Demon Dice!

I guess that just goes to show you how quickly a battle can take a turn for the worse.  It's not one players doing, it's a collection of bad roles and unfortunate timing.  We started off creative, and being this was a battle of level 2 characters against level 5 enemies, we really beat the odds.  I think we could have had a smoother ending if we would have kept up our ingenuity because in a straight up fight, I doubt we could have made it.  Looks like you always have to be ready to find creative solutions, that and, well- a keg of acid always helps.