Bensentials Session 6

Game Date: 3/30/2025

Location: Home Game
Campaign: Bensentials, Session 6

System: D&D 5e
DM: Matt

The Party:

Ben - Changeling Sorcerer (Draconic)

Bryan - Human Fighter (Champion)

Rick - Tabaxi Rogue (Assassin), Tiefling Druid (Running for absent player)

The Session: When we left off last session, the town had been attacked by giants, and our heroes had accepted the mission to teach them a lesson. I used the version of Against the Giants that appears in Tales from the Yawning Portal, but mostly just for the map of the compound.

The PCs approached the giant compound from the south, listened at the door, and heard snoring on the other side. They sent the rogue in first, and managed to kill the first giant in his sleep. The other guard woke up but found himself surrounded, and was quickly dispatched shortly thereafter. They looted a couple of storage crates, then explored the staircase in the southwest corner.

In the original module, this staircase goes up to a guard tower, I believe. But I had it go down to a maze room. I got the maze layout (mostly) from an adventure in the book "One-Shot Wonders" by Roll-n-Play Press. This is a fantastic book for DMs who need a quick idea for an impromptu session, and they're not even paying me to say that.

The maze paths were only five feet wide, and the walls were electrified. The only light came from electricity sparking on the walls. Touching the walls produced the same effect as the Lightning Bolt spell: If a PC touched the wall, they would have to make a DC 15 Dex save or take 8d6 lightning damage (save for half). The players figured out not to touch them after seeing the walls spark, and experimented by throwing copper pieces at the wall and watching the sparks.

So, don't touch the walls. Easy enough, right? But some hallways also featured electrodes that fired bolts of electricity every five seconds. Getting their timing right to pass through these hallways also required a Dex roll to keep from getting shocked.

The whole thing gave us something of a Pac-Man vibe. The maze was populated by some creatures I made up, which I haven't really named. For the sake of this blog, we'll call them Orbies. They looked like beach balls with rubbery skin. They had feet and eyes, but no mouths or arms. Behold my MS Paint skills:

Of course, they don't look like they present much of a challenge. No teeth, no claws, no weapons.. what harm could they possibly present? Here's the stat block I came up with, in case you want to use them:

Orbie

AC 15, 20 hit points, Speed 30, Initiative 5

Immunities: Lightning

Resistances: Bludgeoning

Weaknesses: Piercing

Attack: +8

On hit, 0 damage, but the target is knocked into the nearest wall within 10 feet.

The PCs learned pretty quickly to defeat these monsters fast, lest they get pushed into the shocking walls. The creatures popped like balloons when reduced to 0 (originally I was going to have them explode on death, but the encounter turned out to be hard enough without that).

Getting past the electrodes was difficult for the party. The sorcerer managed to block one off with his immovable rod. But later he left the party to backtrack and retrieve it, and he got shocked to death. He failed his three death saves while the rest of the party worked their way to the center of the maze.

They found that the Orbies themselves could help them get past some of the electrodes. If they kept an Orbie between the electrode and the party, the electric jolts would be blocked by the Orbie, allowing the party to pass through the tunnel harmlessly. So they had to think tactically to keep the Orbies where they wanted them.

They finally reached the center of the maze, where three large treasure chests lay in the center. I let them draw Treasure Trove cards from Nord Games to determine the loot. That's my second product plug in this blog and I'm still not getting paid, I promise. Each card has the players roll a d12 to pick the treasure.

They also found a control box down there that allowed them to turn off the electricity in the maze. Then they found the sorcerer's body and took him back to town.

There were three churches in town with resurrection services, and they paid to have the sorcerer brought back to life. Then they stayed in town a couple of days so he could recuperate. When they were well-rested, they returned up the mountain to take another crack at the giant compound.

Along the way, they came across a druid grove being attacked by a couple of hill giants. The party joined the fight and the druid priestess thanked them by leveling up their pet wolf (he's now dire) and blessing each member of the party with an inspiration die. She also informed them that the giants were on an angry rampage now, due to the party's earlier intrusion into their compound.

The rest of the session featured a lot of exploration, taking out giants one at a time as they traversed the compound. They rarely had to fight more than two giants at a time. The sorcerer managed to befriend three wolves that were being held at the compound - they'd been taken from the druid's grove and they'd been mistreated by the giants.

As they cleared out room after room, they liberated several human slaves. Some fled the compound, but others joined the party, though they were too weak to be of much help.

The party took a counter-clockwise route through the giant compound, saving the main hall for last. This is where they finally fought the leader and his closest allies. The sorcerer, who is a changeling, enlarged himself and made himself look like a giant. He was still quite short for a giant, but it was close enough to cause the confusion he needed.

The disguised sorcerer burst into the main hall and shouted, "There's been a rebellion! The slaves are escaping!" The leader pushed past him into the hallway, and the sorcerer braced the doors closed with his immovable rod. Then the rest of the party rushed in through the other doors on the opposite side of the hallway.

The giant leader banged on the doors while the party, the wolves, and the freed prisoners took out the giant's minions. After a few rounds the leader burst through the doors, only to find half his allies had been wiped out. The party had saved all their best moves and resources for this fight, and they took the leader out a few rounds later.

We wrapped up pretty quickly after that. The party looted what they could, then returned the wolves to the grove and began to lead the ex-prisoners back to town.

I ignored a large portion of the Against the Giants adventure, but we might revisit it at a higher level.