Or maybe that’s just my group…

Encounter 3 (E3) 5 goblins, 1 overseer / currently going through old bones and boxes, organizing and cleaning

Our 3rd encounter is now going to be testing our players in being able to deal with a combat that lasts longer than 1 or 2 rounds. With a total of 6 goblins (one of them will be the overseer with double hit points), the party can’t just mop the floor but rather will have to expend a few resources and get their hands dirty.

If the party has allowed the goblins from E1 to escape and alert these ones, the party will have to rethink their position and might have to run out as 8 to 9 goblins can be incredibly deadly to deal with. This can be used to make the party to think about their actions and whether they need to wait until the goblins are less alert and try again a few hours later after a nice short rest.

On the other hand, if the party does fall to the goblin horde, we are going to write in that the goblins/hobgoblins are ordered to take prisoners alive if possible. These goblinoids aren’t smugglers, but rather checking out the area for the future invasion and need to question anyone who finds their operation to see what they know, and if they can provide valuable information on the defenses of the city.

Encounter 4 (E4) 1 Nanti, 2 goblins / Nanti ordering goblins about and unloading sloop

This is the ‘final’ encounter for clearing out the cave and features our homebrew Hobgoblin Nanti and two goblins being ordered about. The nanti acts as the captain of the sloop and the operation, being the main scout for this advance exploration team. This hobgoblin is currently overseeing the goblins unloading the last of their supplies off the sloop, and checking inventories. They are probably not going to be alert to whats going on unless the party is creating a lot of noise and they are creating loud noises, shooting guns or announcing their prescence.

This is a very dangerous fight as the Nanti is a CR 2 hobgoblin, but definitely doable for a party of smart adventurers who don’t just run in expecting to mop the floor… which is why we introduce the horde of goblins before this one. It’s a gentler fight than taking on a CR 2 creature as it is a visible demostration of strength via quantity, as opposed to just quality (the CR of a creature being its quality).

The sloop could definitely be taken by the party if they really wanted a ship/boat thing.

Encounter 5 (E5) 1 skeleton / secret area w/ magically animated skeleton upset that it’s treasure is being taken

This is an optional encounter that brings great rewards. In the Loot 1 (L1) the party can find information about a hidden/secret place in this cave and finding this location, they’ll find treasure for their hard work! Unfortunately, the smuggler isn’t going to let them take his treasure, even after that smuggler has been dead for a while.

This skeleton will animate and attack anyone that tries to take treasure, prioritizing those adventurers, even if that is a mistake. This skeleton will be more than just a regular skeleton but have some pirate-y flavor attached… but that’s for later.

There are two ways of reaching this encounter, either through the main tunnel at the beginning or by finding the access in the E4 room. The tunnel entrance will have some sort of small puzzle to unlock it (which will be hinted at in the journal) while the secret door in the E4 room will just be hidden, but easy to open.

Trap 1 (T1) Trip Wire - Perception 13, Survival 13 to spot it/footsteps jumping over it

Our first trap is pretty easy any wisdom classes to spot or for our rogues to spot. This trip wire will stretch across the entire tunnel, including just over the water so that boats will automatically trigger it. This wire continues into the wall and connects to a bell in E2.

One small flavor thing we can add to this trap is that if characters are using Survival to look at footsteps to try to guess how many are in the cave, they can see that the tracks suddenly jump over a section of the tunnel, hinting at the trip wire that exists in the tunnel. Its a fun detail to add for your players, and helps make a world feel more lived in.

Trap 2 (T2) Pit trap - 15 ft deep, Perception 15, dead body of a goblin, too lazy to pull out

This pit trap is just a classic and is designed to drain resources and make characters work together. 15 feet is pretty deep for just getting yourself out, requiring you to plead with the party to help drag you out of the pit.

Now this pit is covered in thin wooden boards with a layer of sand covering it just from activity in the cave. At the bottom of the pit is the body of a goblin who fell down there, landing on its head and the goblins were too lazy to do anything with the body but leave it down there. The goblin will have a crossbow on them with 3 bolts for a very specific reason…

Obstacle 1 (O1) gates block all traffic in & out, rope spool get to by climbing over or shooting ropes holding gate up

So, our first non-painful obstacle for our party is a gate that rises up out of the water and is a metal fence to keep boats/creatures from moving in and out of the back of the cave. This also has the bonus of stopping characters who are tritons or similar from just swimming up the river and scouting everything out before the party does anything in the cave.

Of course, a character could attempt athletic checks to climb up and over the slippery metal fence if they want to get past it without making a lot of noise. Or, they can shoot at the two ropes that connect to the gate and try to destroy the rope so that they can swim down the tunnel without having to climb over the gate. Thus, the reason the dead goblin has a crossbow and 3 bolts on it, to provide range options for a party if they don’t have any range options. Gotta help out parties anyway you can!

Loot 1 (L1) old crates, random scraps. Roll 1d4 on trinket table plus old journal falling apart, talks of secret in cave

While this isn’t the first loot the party is going to get it, it is marked L1 because I forgot about the small loot pile that the hobgoblins in E2 are gambling over and marker can’t be erased.

The goblin horde of E3 are currently going through the old crates and materials leftover from the smugglers left in this room, dragging any useful pieces, like rope or shortswords to a pile, and then throwing all the useless stuff, like skeleton bones, old fabric, rubbish, etc into the very bottom of the chamber.

If a party searches through that rubbish, they can find a few trinkets as well as an old journal falling apart in their hands. It talks about how the smuggler can’t remember the correct way to open the door in the main tunnel, and how they hate using the secondary entrance as there is nothing to tie the boat too and they are afraid they are going to slip into the water one day. Just a few hints to help out our party find the hidden treasure!

Loot 2 (L2) secret cache, most is moldy and old. small chest has 40 gold, 2 table A items/1 table B item, or leather mariner’s armor & 2 potions of healing

The secret loot stash of the smugglers! Because this is an aquatic adventure, figured we could introduce our first piece of treasure as leather armor to help one person in the party have the ability to swim… which could prove quite useful in the fight against the Nanti and sneaking up on them. Plus, it has no bonus to AC and isn’t a magic weapon so the armor is relatively harmless when it comes to the bounded accuracy of 5e.

Or you can roll on a table or pick a few items if that is more your speed.

Loot 3 (L3) variety fo weapons, equipment to build 2 explorer’s pack

The equipment that the Nanti is supervising the two goblins on unloading are a few weapons, probably longswords and shortswords and a few bows. The Nanti will also have some valuable information on them about the invasion, and the sloop can even have a few things on it to help paint a picture of what will be happening for the characters. This is a good way to draw them into the campaign, and get them ready for what will come up in the game…. plus, a ship could be good loot! They can sell it at port, probably only for 20 to 30 gold but still… money is money, and players are obsessed with gold.

Loot 4 (L4) gambling table, 15 sp 2gp

So, our first loot is just what the hobgoblins are gambling over. Honestly, it is a lot of money, but its good to get the players excited about what they might find in a cave. If a player is being an asshole and complaining about wanting to get paid, this can help motivate them to explore the rest of the cave to find more money.

That’s the 1st adventure

And that’s our first adventure. Its designed to have a few moments where the players must work together, it has monsters to kill and treasure to find. It introduces water, and how they players are going to have to learn how to work with that as well as introducing our first new monster for this adventure and realizing that maybe… they don’t know all the monster stat blocks for those veteran players.

And, unless I’m doing my math wrong or got the wrong numbers in, that should give out 325 XP per character (for a 4 character party) getting them to 2nd level! I never like level 1 to last for more than a session or two (depending on the typical length of a session), so this is a good session for players to explore their characters and then immediately get to the next level and start playing with more spells and abilities.

Let me know your thoughts, next week this will get clarified and greater detail created as well as a proper map all done up in GM Binder!