D&D: Welcome to Your New Home

So, the party woke up in the dungeons beneath the city’s gladiatorial arena last night. They got a few minutes to familiarize themselves with their surroundings before the guards came round to gather them up for their first fight.

Naturally someone had to try something foolish. The sorcerer, Jerrik, thought he could get them out of this mess with just a first level spell. He cast charm person at the first staff member he could see, hoping to get himself released that way.

There is not a huge magic-dampening field in this prison; that would be far too expensive. There is, however, an alarm that sounds if a spell gets cast in the dungeon. The spell target’s buddies grabbed him and ushered him out before he could go talk to his new friend, and the arena’s chief of security came down to check out the spell caster in cell twelve. Jerrik ended up being knocked out by a color spray spell and waking up with some extra restraints to keep him from speaking or using his fingers for gestures. I guess intelligence was his dump stat.

The remaining party members were escorted one by one to a platform in a machine room, where they were locked to mechanisms in the floor. A little ways away, on another platform, they could see the bugbear they were going to get to fight. As the platforms were lifted to the arena floor, the party could see a nice bloodthirsty crowd and a few simple weapons that would be within easy reach. The locks at their ankles popped open, and it was on.

The party spent their first actions in a mad scramble for weapons while the bugbear charged, getting in one good smack to the paladin (how the heck do you spell that name, William?). Aislinge maneuvered to flank Xobas (the bugbear) while Nafrit put a spell on the club she picked up.

The paladin got in one good whack to Xobas before being knocked out by another solid clubbing. With a slight adjustment of their positions, Aislinge and Nafrit kept Xobas flanked, which allowed a combination of enchanted club strikes and rogue sneak attacks to put him down.

So, the group now knows the consequences of their little flub at the gates. Now I just have to work out what other options they have for attempting to escape. At least they’ve got convenient healing resources (the staff don’t necessarily want them to kick off too quickly) and plenty of opportunities to score experience.