The negotiations failed. The Elf Lord, backed by his band of adventurers, repeated his demand that the party surrender the legendary weapons they’d recovered thus far.

Battle commenced.

Previously: 

I’d warned the players in Session 1 that they were under time pressure. Every long rest taken risked an NPC adventuring party arriving in White Plume Mountain to compete with them. It had already happened.
Now it was a party of elves claiming to be from the Tangles.

The Elf Fight

The Elf Lord’s massive War Dog charged Orgrush. Out of a claw/claw/bite, only a claw scored a hit on the half-orc ranger. Orgrush was pleased to see his newly-found plate armor took much of the damage. [Resistance to Slashing damage]

He saw a symbol appear on the front, as the claw grated across the breastplate. The sigil appeared like a sword. Quarion, standing behind Orgrush, noted that two symbols briefly showed on the ranger’s back: a hammer and spear. The party puzzled over that briefly… perhaps it meant something about rear attacks?

Spotting the elf mage at the rear of the party, Emlyn cast Eldritch Blast at her, wounding the enemy wizard.

Quarion attempted to cast Wall of Fire, but was foiled by the Elf Mage’s Counterspell.

Orgrush attacked the War Dog twice with Wave, twice scoring critical hits!

“On a natural roll of 20, in addition to its normal damage, Wave dehydrates its opponent, draining one-half of his or her remaining hit points (compute normal damage first).” – White Plume Mountain, page 9 (PDF/reprint available at DriveThruRPG)
Wave is the legendary magic trident recovered from the crab room here in WPM. The D&D 5e version of Wave has the same effect.

The enormous War Dog was slain on the spot.

Vulnerability

The Elf Archers sent their arrows into the party with uncanny accuracy. Orgrush found out to his dismay what the symbols on the back of his armor meant when he took double damage from an arrow hit!

Orgrush had strapped on Armor of Vulnerability! It was cursed magic, the armor unable to be removed without a Remove Curse spell. He now had resistance to slashing damage, but vulnerability to piercing and bludgeoning.

The Elf Mage went down under concentrated fire.

I got to use my Elf Scream! It was something I remembered from the old SSI gold box Spelljammer video game. Every third elf death cried piteously. My friend found the track online. I played it for the party with every elf death!

Elf Scream

With the pesky Elf Mage gone, Quarion cast his Wall of Fire. Sideways. Barbequing the elves. An Elf Archer went down. [Scream!]

The Elf Lord struck Sir Valler with mighty blows from his Greatsword, felling the paladin, who was now knocking on death’s door.

The archers moved out of the fire, but now into melee range with the party.

Another Elf Archer went down. [Scream!]

Gimlet the dwarf rushed up to the unconscious Sir Valler, pouring a healing potion down the dying paladin’s throat.

One of my few house rules. I borrowed this from the old Guardians of the Flame series from Joel Rosenberg (Amazon link). Healing potions are incapable of hurting someone. You can pour them on wounds, down an unconscious person’s throat, etc.

Sir Valler was rescued, for the moment anyway. The Elf Lord seemed to have it out for him. The paladin used his Lay on Hands power on himself. [cue the usual snickers…]

Gimlet the dwarf cleric spent much of the fight healing the party. Good chance they’d have lost the fight without his aid.

The party surrounded the Elf Lord, who remained defiant. Orgrush attempted to talk him into surrender, invoking the mighty sea god Xerbo. The Elf Lord rebuked his command. Quarion cast Crown of Madness on the enemy leader, but this too was useless. [Elf Lord made his saving throw]

The enemy leader was cut down, not without landing a few blows himself, and soon the last archer was picked off. [Scream!] [Scream!]

NEXT:

WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN: Session 9 – Old Faithful x2

Resources

I hope y’all enjoyed this session recap / walkthrough. Here’s what I used for this adventure.

White Plume Mountain (S2). The original 1979 AD&D adventure by Lawrence Schick, long out of print but available in the used market or PDF / Paperback reprint at DriveThruRPG (currently $6.50 at this writing). Great art by old school RPG artists.

Check Wayne’s Books Inventory

DriveThruRPG

Tales From the Yawning Portal (2017). The White Plume Mountain adventure is included in this D&D 5e hardcover – unabridged and essentially unchanged from the original. One of several classic modules converted to 5e tabletop play. New art, which is also quite good. The map looks great for VTT play.

Amazon