My character is actually building up funds to run a spy network using his supply wagons.
As for tapping into extra content concerning running an enterprise, I plan to purchase Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers book. I believe it has more content on this subject than anything else out there.
The idea of casting that spell is very interesting to me. I may have to look that up. In my situation right now each settlement I have visited has a dedicated area, like a parking lot, for folks to come into the settlement in the morning and set up a market stall to sell their wares. My bard just brings his cart into town, raises his banner, and starts selling fruit by the bushel. When he is sold out, he visits the other vendors to see what they are selling and then runs over to the tavern to purchase some of their casks of lager and ale.
I have even thought of hiring or becoming a brew master to begin my own type of ale to sell.
wellp if you want an really good alemaster, i'd suggest hiring an magewright or an artificer who casts their spells via brewers supplies (becuase the artificer class can do that) if you ever decide to get ebberon: rising from the last war, until then you might have to settle for an nonmagical alemaster who makes completely nonmagical ale that is in no way magic
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Well, thanks to a busy schedule and COVID-19 we have been inactive until last Saturday. We got together in Roll 20.
We gathered in the tavern and heard rumors from the town council that there was trouble in North Wind, a prominent city on the border with the nearest empire. A "messenger" has failed to return with a message he was asked to retrieve. Cadenza immediately volunteered to go, with his party, and check into things in North Wind. He did this to give him reason to visit North Wind to further his enterprise and to further ingratiate himself to his patron, Rose, a member of the town council. The town council accepted his offer and none in the party objected.
The next morning they departed. It would be a two day trip on a good road to Crossroads, and then a two day trip further on to North Wind. Arriving in Crossroads without incident, the party was again given the cold shoulder. They stayed at the inn and paid full price for everything in spite of having saved the town from the monster raid six to eight weeks earlier. Departing in the morning, they encountered a group of orcs, about eight that had very recently killed a traveler and broken his wagon. We killed the orcs, repaired the wagon and brought it with us to North Wind to return to the next of kin. The rest of the trip passed without incident.
Arriving in North Wind, Cadenza wished to settle the matter of the wagon and introduce himself and the party to the authorities. After this, he sought out the tavern, The Drunken Goblin, where they were supposed to find their 'contact' in North Wind, Jonas, an elf known to consume large quantities of alcohol often. They found The Drunken Goblin, but did not see their elf contact so they figured to have a look about and come back for dinner. The two paladins & the cleric went to the temple to pray. Cadenza and the teenage magic user went to sell their wares and have a look about in the market. They got some good intel on the lay of the land but were cautioned that The Round Corner district was a shady place. There were plenty of reputable dealers they could talk to in The Great Tower (wizards) district and Smith's Alley. The paladins and cleric prayed and came back with no other news.
We met up for dinner and also met Jonas. He told us the messenger disappeared while looking for the Dark Flower (a shop Around the Corner) seeking or carrying a small statue. We also learned the oldest son of the king in Orlanthi was a righteous person expected to rule when his father died. The second son, Prince Bentaro, was a paladin sort but he was into magic. The youngest was a princess that was supposed to be married to someone from Willowdale, but the groom decided not to go through with it, and there are lingering hard feelings over this issue.
Today we pick up the story the next morning where it appears we need to go to Around the Corner to see what happened.
We also met a character named Gladshield (in the temple?) and another named Milterd, who I think was the fellow I spoke to in the market.
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It's good to hear you're enjoying your adventures.
Our group has been on hiatus for a while, so I took the opportunity to rebuild my Bard as though I'd actually known what I was doing from the beginning.
He's now College of Swords 5, with a 1 level dip into Hexblade for the martial weapons and shield proficiency. Ours is a small party (typically 3) so Adelberto gets pushed onto the front lines quite a lot, so he values the extra defence.
So the follow-up session this past weekend was much more interesting.
In North Wind, I went with the Rogue and the teenage magic user and we broke into an abandoned house to look for clues about the disappearance of our "messenger" ally. We found an abandoned house with a cave cellar. I sent my familiar (a mink I nicknamed W&L) down there, and he quickly ran back up frightened. We sent back for the rest of the party. We went down there and killed three or four giant poisonous spiders and a Drider. We got plenty of loot, including an Elven Chain Mail shirt I could use to significantly raise the AC of my Lore Bard.
Then after some discussion we made up a story to visit a warehouse that was rumored to be able to identify many things including the nature of ores. My Rogue companion stuffed a rock in a sack and took it with him to ask if they could identify it because he "thought it was a moonstone." He went inside with four other party members while I stood outside with our paladin. His plan was to wait for a distraction and sneak into the next room behind the locked double doors and see if there was something in there he should steal (he thought there was a valuable crystal there). My paladin companion wasn't down for the deed, so he wanted to wait outside. I figured if the rest of them get thrown in jail, I might be able to talk them out from my side of the bars, so I stayed out with the paladin.
Well our rogue friend rolled very well and unlocked the doors without being discovered. Our rogue friend rolled very well and slipped into the other room and closed the door without being noticed. And then our rogue friend didn't roll so well and he bumped a table making a sound while grabbing the crystal which alerted a "Glaive Guard" in this other large room with many many tables and an altar draped in a red cloth. Well the "Glaive Guard" stood up and walked over toward our friend and said, "Well, it looks like this won't be another boring afternoon like yesterday after all." and he swings his glaive, hits, and does about 3/4 damage the level 3 fellow can take.
Well this quickly leads to an all out throw-down. We hear the commotion and figure the jig is up. I roll top initiative so I run in there (movement) and try to keep the appearance that I'm not with them, so I say, "What is going on in here?" And then seeing the other two warehouse attendants grab weapons I (interact with an object) whip out my Pipes of Haunting and (take my action) try to cast a fear effect on all three of them. It works (they all missed their wisdom save) and all three of them freeze and won't come near me. This allows the rest of my party (except the paladin) to run to the position they want and the paladin comes running in to see what is going on too.
My guys deliver some solid blows but nobody drops the first round. The Glaive Guard transforms into an Oni and swings twice at our other paladin, the tank, missing. Our war cleric drops one of the warehouse workers. Our other paladin intercepts the other warehouse worker and fights him. The rest of our team dogpiles the Oni except for me because I cast Hold Person and succeed. (The DM ruled the Oni was a person and not a monster and looked it up later and realized he called it wrong) So the Oni is frozen, one warehouse worker is dead and the other is on his way to the River Stix right behind him. I'm thinking we're going great! The Oni is down to about 2/3 HP according to his health bar.
Well, then things take a turn for the worse. The Oni snaps out of his hold Person and whacks the rogue killing him (he has something like -7 HP) and strikes someone else and misses the tank. Then four armored mannequins come to life in the four corners of the building. I'm still on my side of the double doors with the lawful good paladin who drops his warehouse worker and moves to engage one of the mannequins so I run over and heal the rogue and tell him to drink a healing potion. Then I give the tank a Bardic inspiration cause he needs to 'thump' the Oni. He does strike the Oni and uses his Divine smite or whatever that is to put his extra damage on the Oni. The Oni drops an invisibility and runs off leaving us to fight the mannequins.
We got the mannequins pretty good, so our teenage magic user subtly pick pockets the rogue of the crystal thing he stole when he bumped the table. Then he goes off to fight a mannequin by himself. He gets thumped pretty bad in reply. The other party members move to attack the mannequins and we get bunched up. In the process I have to heal another player.
The Oni reappears and blasts us with a Cone of Cold, dropping another player and severely wounding another. The teenage magic user needs a save against being petrified so I shoot him a bardic inspiration and I cast bane on the Oni and the two nearest mannequins. The magic user makes his save. The rogue runs over during the end of the battle and steals the crystal thing back. Things get pretty crazy cause I'm down to my last spell slot and I'm out of bardic inspiration. The Oni disappears a second time. We kill the mannequins and then the Oni reappears and we finish him. Folks upstairs start making a lot of noise and we grab a couple things and run out unobserved (we think).
Now we have the crystal and some other thing and we think they are components needed to revive the Evil Witch Queen or something, a demigoddess of the Barbarians. We're only level 3 and we know this is out of our league, so we decide to beat it back to our main town where we have high level NPC contacts.
In a group text the DM said we leveled up and asked us to decide if we were going to immediately run out of town or spend the night in the tavern so we could slip out the next morning. We decide that would be betterto stay the night because if we just ran then we would cause immediate notice, but things are more involved than that. We have been tipped off that the contact we are using is a shape shifter with a dubious background. That could be misinformation to throw us off track but it seems plausible right now. So the suspected shape shifter could be keeping an eye on us and we'd not know it.
So we're going to work out our leveling mechanics and get together next weekend, waking up in the tavern. Hopefully I will get another chance to play for free room, tips and my supper to save money, not that I need it, just the principle of the thing. All this shenanigans with the Oni happened right before dinner time.
So we officially leveled up after the Oni fight. In my opinion, we got off light in that one, but who's complaining.
I had the following spells: Mending - Vicious Mockery: Bane - Charm Person, Cure Wounds - Comprehend Languages: Hold Person - Phantasmal Force
Maybe Prestidigitation is better than Mending, but I feel it is close. I'm adding Prestidigitation. I consider Hold Person situational because most of the time I expect to fight beasts, so I decided to drop that one. The DM didn't treat Phantasmal Force as I expected, so I'm dropping that. I decided the three 2nd level spells I will pick up will be Heat Metal (also situational, but I'm going to give it a try), Invisibility and Silence. Silence will allow me to shut down many magic users if I think we're totally outclassed, but we have a War Cleric, a Sorcerer and myself as full-casters, and we have two Paladins and a Ranger. I don't think we're going to be outclassed often. Silence will have a number of applications out of combat so that helps. Invisibility has applications out of combat, and will help me set up our rogue ahead of combat.
I took two points of Charisma to get my Charisma score up to 18, giving me one more Bardic Inspiration, and next level I get Font of Inspiration and I will be able to recharge my Bardic Inspiration after a short rest. I got Elven Chain in the Loot this session so my AC is now up to 16, which I feel is pretty good for my character. My character is a little over blessed with equipment in my opinion, but not by comparison with the party; we just have a generous DM who wants us all to have fun.
I think things are going well, but we have to get our McGuffin back to town in the next session so I'm sure we will be ambushed in our convoy or while having our long rest. It is a two day journey by road to the next town, and a two day journey to our town after that.
Maybe Prestidigitation is better than Mending, but I feel it is close. I'm adding Prestidigitation. I consider Hold Person situational because most of the time I expect to fight beasts, so I decided to drop that one. The DM didn't treat Phantasmal Force as I expected, so I'm dropping that. I decided the three 2nd level spells I will pick up will be Heat Metal (also situational, but I'm going to give it a try), Invisibility and Silence.
remember, rules as written you may only change a single spell you know for another one whenever you level up, since you are level 4 you will be stuck with some of the spells you dont want untill you reach level 6.
Remember that heat metal is not as situational if you bring metal objects with you, such as ball bearings, caltrops and metal bolts of ammunition
also how can your interpretation of the spell differ so wildly from the interpretation of the dungeon master as to make the the spell useless in your eyes? It does not seem like the kind of spell that is very open to interpretation
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
We encountered Giant Poisonous Spiders and a Drider. At first we knew there were two spiders, and didn't know how many more or anything about the Drider. In a tight cavern space there was a stalagmite in the middle and enough space for one spider to go around either side to run into melee contact with the party. I cast Phantasmal Force (after rolling a good score on insight to determine if Spiders were afraid of birds) and produced an image of a giant hawk (within the limits of the spell) between us and the spiders on one side of the stalagmite. It 'scared' the spider for 1d6 damage, but on its turn the spider just walked right through the phantasm and attacked the party. I had figured the spider would be terrified of the bird and they would not come around the stalagmite from both sides. After the battle I said as much to the DM, "Yea, I had thought the bird would scare the spider so they would only come around the other way." He responded, "No, the spider was too stupid to understand that." So for 1d6 damage and no other apparent benefit, I thought I'd go with something else. The DM even said, "Y'know, those aren't the best spells for your character." But on the plus side, in the heat of the moment he ruled the Oni was a "person" for the purpose of Hold Person, so he isn't trying to screw me over every chance he gets. We just see some things differently.
As for the spell count, RAW I believe I could drop one spell and pick up a different one, and pick up the new spell too. Yes, I dropped two spells, but the DM said, "You are now leaving levels 1, 2 & 3 behind. If there is anything you want to do to rebuild your character, you can do it now for the last time." I think he would have allowed redistributing AS or anything, so dropping a second spell and picking something else was pretty tame. But I agree with you ... RAW I would have to spread it out into my level 5 changes too.
As for heat metal, yea, I carry three extra daggers for throwing. One of those babies stuck in your back (maybe with the help of our rogue) and a little heat metal and it's "Dancing for Dollars in the Dungeon", the newest preindustrial sitcom for a relaxing Tuesday night.
Hopefully I arrive in the home town, alive and with the McGuffin, Saturday night. We might not make it that far. There is a town half-way to home town. At least I will have completed a long rest.
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As for the spell count, RAW I believe I could drop one spell and pick up a different one, and pick up the new spell too. Yes, I dropped two spells, but the DM said, "You are now leaving levels 1, 2 & 3 behind. If there is anything you want to do to rebuild your character, you can do it now for the last time." I think he would have allowed redistributing AS or anything, so dropping a second spell and picking something else was pretty tame. But I agree with you ... RAW I would have to spread it out into my level 5 changes too.
yes, when you level up if you learn a new spell that level you can learn that new spell and replace an old spell just fine, that is correct, and of course raw does not matter in this instance if the DM out right lets you re-build your character
I cast Phantasmal Force (after rolling a good score on insight to determine if Spiders were afraid of birds) and produced an image of a giant hawk (within the limits of the spell) between us and the spiders on one side of the stalagmite. It 'scared' the spider for 1d6 damage, but on its turn the spider just walked right through the phantasm and attacked the party. I had figured the spider would be terrified of the bird and they would not come around the stalagmite from both sides. After the battle I said as much to the DM, "Yea, I had thought the bird would scare the spider so they would only come around the other way." He responded, "No, the spider was too stupid to understand that." So for 1d6 damage and no other apparent benefit, I thought I'd go with something else. The DM even said, "Y'know, those aren't the best spells for your character." But on the plus side, in the heat of the moment he ruled the Oni was a "person" for the purpose of Hold Person, so he isn't trying to screw me over every chance he gets. We just see some things differently.
also were there any birds in the room? was there something that aproximated an bird in the room? is it somehow common knowledge? how did you figure out that the spiders were afraid of birds? and would not phantasmal force still be effective against smarter, non-spider opponents?
As for heat metal, yea, I carry three extra daggers for throwing. One of those babies stuck in your back (maybe with the help of our rogue) and a little heat metal and it's "Dancing for Dollars in the Dungeon", the newest preindustrial sitcom for a relaxing Tuesday night.
interesting, very interesting
regardless, i will bother you no further, have an nice day and an nice next game session
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Artifice, no bother. Concerning the birds thing, it is simply a matter of the food chain. Birds feed on insects, worms, seeds and stuff like that, so I figure Spiders would be on the same list. So I rolled insight to confirm with the DM that birds are something that spiders are afraid of because of the natural food chain. I then made the bird a giant variety to make sure it kept me away from any turn-about like the giant spider catches birds in his web and eats them. So I figured I had my bases covered on finding a terrifying predator against the spider.
Well the DM agreed that birds would be scary to spiders because of the food chain ideas but then said the spider was too stupid to be effectively afraid of the phantasm. This gave me the idea that my phantasms would be unreliable as a means of battlefield control. The DM added to my thoughts by saying he didn't think I had selected good spells. So I figure I can think of good uses for the others so I'm going to roll with them.
Take care and stay healthy.
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Well the DM agreed that birds would be scary to spiders because of the food chain ideas but then said the spider was too stupid to be effectively afraid of the phantasm. This gave me the idea that my phantasms would be unreliable as a means of battlefield control. The DM added to my thoughts by saying he didn't think I had selected good spells. So I figure I can think of good uses for the others so I'm going to roll with them.
well to be fair an spiders brain stucture wise is pretty diffrent from that of an human or mammal, so i would agree that they might not be able to feel fear per se becuase such behavior is not coded into them (in dwarf fortress spider people and other arachnids typically posses immunity to fear, but that might just be dwarf fortress), but on the other hand spiders will in general still try to avoid predators that try to eat them, especially giant spiders since they have twice the int stat of an normal house spider, if giant spiders did not evolve to avoid predators in your game world should they not be extinct by now?
but even if you discard its abillity to work specifically on spiders, it can still be an great tool against creatures who are smart enough to realise that if there is a threat in front of them, they should probably avoid it. And remember it is an pretty convincing illusion, you can just create a wall and by the nature of the spell the target will be convinced that the wall is real and that there is no way for them to pass it without trying to climb on it, if you make the illusion so that the floor in the 10 ft cube is made of spikes, it will feel pointy when an target steps on it and they will still feel the pain from something that is not there, and if you make the cube look like fire the victim will feel very very warm while near it, and the only way for the spell to end is if the target uses their entire action to examine the illusion, or once your concentration ends, even if their allies are telling them that it is a trick and the illusion is not there, even if the target sees their allies and enemies walk through the object like air, even then they will still believe in the illusion until they use their action to make an intelligence investigation check and succeed, so if they fail the check or they use their action for something else like attacking its belief that the illusion you have created is not an illusion will remain strong, it is almost silly how powerful this illusion spell is, and it is even more ridiculous out of combat in interaction scenes where you can use it to trick anyone.
and even if you find it completely unappealing for combat, it is perfect for tourture/ interrogation scenes, yeah it deals some pitiful damage, but the victim belives that the illusion is completely real and this spell can trigger any stimuli, including pain, create an horrid phantasmal spider that injects the victim with an painful poison, force the victim to stand on steaming hot phantasmal spikes, have the victim be metally tormented by an phantasmal mind flayer, create the phantasmal image of one of their loved ones and threaten to harm them. This spell really lets you be creative and cruel, and i really think that it might be an spell you might like if you give it a second chance, you seem like an creative player and this is a spell with no limit to its possibilities if you just realize its potential
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Our ambitious, albeit sometimes naive, party went to our hometown and rolled well enough (both rolls over 50% on a d100) to avoid any encounters on the road. We reported in to my patron, Rose, the owner of the most important tavern in town. She advised us that much of the information we received was correct but presented to indicate the good guys were the bad guys. So we got that straightened out before she asked us to go to a community on the other side of the mountains to our east. There were three paths to get through the mountains; the northern passage through a bog, the middle passage through a winding mountain pass and the southern passage, effectively going around the southern tip of the range which required us to traverse some desert. We needed to go back to North Wind straight away so we opted for the middle passage which was accessible using a road leading east out of North Wind.
On the way back to North Wind we were ambushed by a group of Orcs and a Ware-boar. We got through that pretty easy. Let me digress about our interface at Roll20. The DM is making the maps as we go and I love the ability to play on a map that permits the proper management of line-of-sight. The maps he produces on Roll20 block line of sight where there are obstacles, and in this case the obstacles were trees. So it was something like looking through prison bars to see what was beyond as the Orcs ran up to fight us. The Ware-boar approached from another direction after the orcs had our attention. Fortunately our ranger was sticking close to the convoy proper. In the dark places, each player is afforded the light they would experience given their race and the conditions of torches. This was something we never had when I was growing up and it is a welcome enhancement to the battles. In our second battle, in a cave, my halfelf had trouble understanding the scope of the battle. There were something like 21 Orcs against the seven of us and our rogue went scurrying off. They were coming from everywhere and with the LOS it made it much more intense. The rogue was so excited when combat was over he immediately ran to the chest and opened it up receiving 11 pts (2d6) of trap damage. maybe he learned a lesson.
So we pressed on to North Wind. We made more contacts with the temple and enjoyed the last five days of the festival commemorating the ascendancy of the current ruler, King Bentaro. I was able to perform in the tavern where I had a miserable failure rolling a Nat 1 last weekend (giving me a performance score of 8). The DM started to inhibit me from performing again, but I pressed for a second chance. I received Enhance Ability from our cleric, allowing me to roll with advantage, and our sorcerer cast a spell to produce visual effects to enhance the closing number. With all that, I rolled a Nat 20 on the first roll and got a huge reception and invitations to play in other taverns in the surrounding area, and 6gp for the performance.
We stayed in North Wind until the end of the festival. From there we left our animals, except for one donkey, in the hands of my hireling, Joseph, to manage their stabling care. We loaded the donkey with rations, tents and his animal feed, and took off east on the road to the village Quail Hunt on the banks of the Meandering Brook. As we arrived in Quail Hunt in the late afternoon we were told and observed the aftermath of a raid by more Orcs. They had killed many citizens, made a mess of the place and run off to the northeast with two dozen prisoners. Folks were picking through the mess and burying some of the dead and lamenting their plight. We promised (with two paladins and a cleric what else were we going to do?) to track down the Orcs and see if we could reclaim the prisoners. We set off in the morning.
Our ranger rolled very well and we followed the trail easily to a cave. Our rogue entered the cave and assassinated the principle lookout at the mouth of the cave. He then sneaked up on two more sentries and killed both of them without the alarm being raised. Then we decided to help him scout out the caves to give us an idea what was going on. I sent my familiar with him to deliver an invisibility spell if necessary, should he get into a pickle. He was a little too quick in his scouting and we didn't get a good idea what was up. We knew to the south inside the cave there was a prison cell with a dozen live villagers. There was a group of Orcs celebrating in a wide cave to the north and more passages to the east. He got excited and decided to assassinate another Orc rather than prioritize his scouting. This initiated a battle inside the cave. We rushed in from the west. The rogue received invisibility and hid (and my familiar safely extricated himself from that portion of the cave).
Our tankier paladin blocked the group from the north and was assisted by four members of the party. I went to check on the prisoners and the rogue and I convinced our other paladin to come behind me. He is a human and couldn't see so I had to tell him where to run. The rogue is an elf. At the right moment I lit a torch and threw it in the direction of an advancing group of Orcs for the paladin to be able to see. I used V-M to give disadvantage and between him and the rogue they killed the Orcs coming from the unknown passages to the east.
We rescued the prisoners, collected the loot and brought back the remains of a few more townsfolk. The townsfolk thanked us but had no meaningful help they could lend to us in our mission to cross the mountains.
The next morning we departed Quail Hunt and arrived a few days later, safely at Dragon's Eye Fortress, a walled village (town) in the mountains. That concluded the session.
So Cadenza's brave and noble followers joined him on his journey to Dragons Eye Fortress, a settlement along the pass through the Dragon's Teeth mountains. The party arrived after a long day of traveling and were met by a barbarian in the town who appeared to have a bit of contempt for such a squishy party. Two of the players, a dwarven paladin and a dwarven war cleric were not impressive, nor was the teenage kid or the bard. The ranger and the rogue were just elves, and the ranger was a woman to boot. Whatever. But they came from North Wind and asked to see the chief so he said, "Well you'll find him in there", a barbarian long house. They went and Cadenza spoke to the chief. The chief and his men got a bit excited at hearing the name of the Red Queen, but settled down when Cadenza told them they were seeking information only about the queen and did not in any way desire her to return to power, but the rumors needed to be investigated.
They were permitted to stay and even found a guide among the barbarians, although a scrawny fellow himself. Cadenza's performance in the Meade Hall that evening received a very good reception thanks for the Cleric casting Enhance Ability. So with a solid start for establishing relations with the barbarians of Dragon's Eye Fortress, they set off northeast through the mountains with their guide. For three nights they gathered around their campfire, and each night the party, after an appropriate ballad from Cadenza, described one of their fearsome encounters and their esteem was raised even further in the eyes of the guide, Rattafok. They passed shrines and took careful note of the runes; particularly noting the symbols were interpreted as good or ill by their guide. It became apparent that the lands behind them were heavily influenced or even dominated by Air Elemental influences and their enemies were dominated by Fire Elemental influences.
Along the way they encountered five Ogres. They were not ambushed, but the rogue went off sneaking too far and too fast and essentially blundered into an ogre. The rogue went down in the second round as the party came running to the sounds of a fight. The party killed the five ogres quickly because they were somewhat spread out and did what they could to converge on the party. Cadenza himself kept the ogres at disadvantage with V-M and even ran in twice and used his light rapier and dagger to attack. In one such instance he withdrew allowing an attack of opportunity so he might cast Bane on the last three ogres. In the aftermath of the battle, Cadenza urged the rogue not to drink potions of healing since the party could replace spell slots, but he ignored the advice and drank two of them anyway. Cadenza then urged the paladins to heal the rogue so he would stop doing that. They received only the smallest number of coins for their efforts, but Cadenza had the ogre's tusks pulled as trophies believing this is the sort of thing that might impress the barbarians.
On Day 5 they found the abandoned library they were seeking for Rattafok. They went in and started their first classic dungeon crawl (Map courtesy of Donjon). In about a day and a half they cleared the first level, and that is where session 7 ended. We killed several swarms of normal spiders, a few zombies, some more goblins, some giant centipedes, a wandering troll that joined in the fight with the goblins, a Minotaur, some giant spiders and something else just as they finished level 1. They received 10,000cp, 5,000sp and 1,400gp, a large number of valuable gems and a handful of magic items including a +2 dagger with a permanent light spell on it.
The rogue was provided an opportunity to be the star of the party, investigating every door, disarming traps (about half the time), unlocking many doors, helping push some open, hacking some open and then having the first look into the rooms. It went on so long that our other teenage players decided they would start running up to the doors and investigating the doors first. That eventually became a problem because they would run ahead on the passages and leave the party strung out. However, the DM never pounced on them while doing that.
We finished session 7 about half way to level 5. At level 5 the bard gets some nice benefits, including allowing Song of Rest to get back things you usually have to wait for a long rest to receive, including all of his used bardic inspiration slots.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
The session today, last for a couple weeks because of schedule, completed (almost) the abandoned library dungeon. We got loads of lute (loot, ha, ha) and 47xp more than we needed for 5th level.
We started after a long rest and headed down the stairs into the very hot lower level of the "Library". At the base of the stairs we were in a room with several doors to exit. We went one way and started down a long corridor. We fought fire themed monsters. In the second encounter we got into a pickle. We entered a room with a large pillar in the middle. There were two other entrances from the other side separated by about 60-70 feet. We rolled a random monster encounter just as a salamander entered the room in a hurry from the NW entrance (we came in from the NE). Our primary tank went running off to the NW to lock down that side. The rest of us followed him into the room. As he engaged the salamander we saw the DM rolling initiative on a number of monsters described in the window as "Salamander" or "Magmet" or "Azar". Then we saw the "AOE" ring of a monster entering from the lower west entrance and our comparatively squishy Rogue went running over in that direction. I went halfway between them and well behind because I was in the back of the group that entered the room. Our ranger with the "sniper feat" set up in the lower east corner of the room where she could see all three entrances. The teenage sorcerer went running over to help the rogue because there were a number of monsters coming from that direction. As we got in the middle of the room a noise came from the corridor behind us and our war cleric went back to have a look down the corridor. A salamander, and several magmets were approaching from that direction. The cleric went to lock down that entrance, hopefully supported by the ranger. Our last paladin decided to double back and help him out which left the tankier paladin by himself in the upper west entrance and two squishy (rogue and sorcerer) players trying to tank the lower west entrance, me in the middle and the ranger where she could shoot the bow at one entrance each turn. Having a cure wounds spell (4th level player) I decided to run after the squishy characters to keep them in the fight. I cast Bane on the salamander and his two sidekicks.
The tank was doing fine. The two other strong fighters were doing OK but rolled badly and received a few attacks from the salamander's tail. The squishy fellows were taking a beating. The rogue ran straight at the salamander leading the charge from the lower west entrance. The salamander had a magmet (which was determined to be an abbreviation for magma mephit) on either side of him and several more behind him. The rogue struck and killed the first magmet and then struck and killed the other magmet with his bonus attack. Both dealt him damage when they "blew up". At this point the sorcerer arrived and attacked the salamander and I was a short distance away from that fight. The salamander attacked each of them and delivered damage. Our rogue was down to about 12 health. The sorcerer was down to 18 health but I couldn't touch the rogue so I did CW on the sorcerer.
In the next round the rogue was face-to-face with the salamander and delivered damage and wasn't killed by the salamander. Five more magmets ran into the room on the other side of the salamander (sort of squeezing past him into the room) so the sorcerer shifted around and cast an AOE spell he calls "Lowering the Boom." He killed three magmets and took explosion damage and harmed the salamander. I ran over and cast a 2nd level CW on the rogue.
In the third round the rogue dealt a huge attack on the salamander taking him down to about 10% health. We were all giving a "big hoorah." The last magmet in that area came and was killed by the sorcerer. I ran over and cast a CW on the sorcerer. He somehow delivered another hit on the salamander leaving him about 1hp (maybe 2hp). The salamander took off back down the corridor and I began to hope I might chase him down and kill him myself. Well that was not to be because the rogue ran him down and delivered the killing blow.
While all this was going on our primary tank was just about finished with his horde. I ran up there and delivered a killing blow on one of the critters. We got loads of cash and stuff including 2100 platinum.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Later we had another big fight and this one went more to plan although my two squishy partners once again ended up holding down the edge of our line where they were more exposed than the tanks. We pumped about 40 hp into the rogue to keep him alive again, and some of that came from your average healing potions (which is a particular point of contention with me because they are expensive, although we have more coin than we know what to do with).
At the end we arrived in a ritual chamber with a large pool of lava or something. A short while after we entered a voice sounded and then a fire elemental appeared over the pool. The party began to freak out and I had to tell them to calm down. As long as it was only talking to us, this doesn't have to be a combat encounter. Well the fire elemental was an avatar of some fire god connected to Nysalor. He asked us why we had invaded the sanctity of this holy place and the party kinda went dumb. I spoke up and said we were told this site was a library and we could obtain knowledge about our quest by coming here. When we came we were met with a number of monsters in the rooms around and above, and as far as I know we have dealt with them all.
At this point our guide steps forward and talks to the elemental and drops an urn into the pool of lava, and says goodbye to the fire elemental.
We continue to talk to the fire elemental to see what knowledge he is able to give us. We share the knowledge that we have been sent to learn about the red queen or the barbarian goddess that has been divided (to take away her power by the old deity accords to prevent deities for killing each other permanently). He tells us he hasn't heard the name red goddess in a while but he represents another god that has been divided. He then goes on to tell us we have been deceived, which doesn't mean anything by itself to me because of course we have been deceived by someone. The barbarian leader was kinda cagey as an example. Then the suggestion is made that we make an offering and he will dispense more knowledge to help according to our worthiness. Now it doesn't make a lot of sense to dump perfectly good stuff into a pool of lava because that doesn't allow the lava god or the red queen or anyone to advance anything, but what the heck ...
So one member of our party steps up and puts in a staff that has some meaning to him personally. Then another member of the party and another steps up throwing in items of successive value. It is getting down to just me and two others (one being the cleric). I have the bag of holding. I say that I step towards the pool and several of the members yell out that I better not throw the Bag of Holding into the pool. I begin by saying that I take the Bag of Holding off my shoulder (and they're all waiting with their mouths open), and I fumble around to get (and they are all about to die in suspense) an ingot of gold, and I place the ingot in the lava. Then I pull my magic rapier from its scabbard and I set it in the pool and finally I retrieve my wooden flute (which is my normal spell casting focus) and I place that in the pool. I step back and bow, and then step backwards away from the lava pool and join the party. The last two characters make their offerings and the DM says he'll provide the god's response to our offerings next session.
So our next session, which will be held after exams, will begin with that and then we have to get out of the dungeon and back to a civilized place.
I will then get my original rapier out from storage and set about obtaining a new magical one so I can deal damage to monsters that only can be damaged by magical weapons. My original rapier has been silvered so it is a little better than a 'normal' rapier. We also have a ton of gems so I may have several of those added to my original rapier and offer to have some others used to make the new magical one. I will want to carve a wooden whistling device ASAP so I might use that as a focus until I get back to civilization. I carry several daggers and a silvered shortsword just in case, so I still have melee weapons in addition to my light crossbow.
We also attained level 5, so I get another class feature and we all move up one level of proficiency so my skills will all step up another notch. My skill numbers are about to go crazy. And at level 6 I will get my first magical secrets.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
We also attained level 5, so I get another class feature and we all move up one level of proficiency so my skills will all step up another notch. My skill numbers are about to go crazy. And at level 6 I will get my first magical secrets.
there are a lot of good options for magical secrets, from beacon of hope that will significantly benefit healing powers, conjure animals for some disposable minions, conjure lesser demons and animate dead if you just want to be evil, the ever problematic counterspell and revivify for when your healing comes just a little too late, or maybe even some lower level spells you can cast more often like the mighty eldrich blast, or absorb elements if you ever need to fight creatures with that amount of fire damage, or acid or cold or lightning damage. Among all these great options, and more whom i have not mention, what fantastical spells do you plan on choosing for magical secrets?
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
At level 6 the only spell I am committed to is Counterspell. I haven't settled on the other spell, but like many folks I like the iconic spell Fireball. I am going to talking to the other casters to see what they are planning in their builds.
For level 5, I am thinking of giving up Comprehend Languages and picking something else when I add my other new spell. The DM has never provided an opportunity to use C-L and in the few instances when he could have he declared the writing is in something I would not understand. Since he is very liberal about us buying scrolls, I figure I can buy and carry two scrolls of C-L and then use the other spell slot for something that might come up in an encounter.
Let me know what your favorite spells are in the context of the adventure I am describing.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
At level 6 the only spell I am committed to is Counterspell. I haven't settled on the other spell, but like many folks I like the iconic spell Fireball. I am going to talking to the other casters to see what they are planning in their builds.
For level 5, I am thinking of giving up Comprehend Languages and picking something else when I add my other new spell. The DM has never provided an opportunity to use C-L and in the few instances when he could have he declared the writing is in something I would not understand. Since he is very liberal about us buying scrolls, I figure I can buy and carry two scrolls of C-L and then use the other spell slot for something that might come up in an encounter.
Let me know what your favorite spells are in the context of the adventure I am describing.
well i think that you might find healing word to be more useful than cure wounds, since while healing word will heal slightly less damage on average, the difference is minor (with your charisma score you would heal an average of 8.5 hit points per cast with CW and 6.5 per cast with HW), and healing word is both an bonus action to cast, meaning that you can still use your main action to use an rapier or throw a vicious mockery at your enemies on the same turn, and its range is 60 ft so you can be quite far from your friends and still be able to heal them, that is also a huge bonus, and to top it of it only needs verbal components, you you can cast it even when your hands are full or while you are grappling a foe. It is in almost every single regard a better spell except for raw numbers, it is an great 1st level spell, it will be much more useful than comprehend languages and you might find yourself never using cure wounds again
as for your other magical secrets spell, you might find that the cantrip guidance that is usually only available to clerics can be nice for putting the skill usages of yourself and your rouge to new heights, since with just one action and your concentration you can add an d4 to one abillity check, this can help you with anything from smooth talking a guard to climbing a massive wall to sneaking past the enemy to even just enhancing your performances, it is a cantrip so you can cast it as much as you want, as long as you remember to cast it often Guidance
Our cleric already has Enhance Ability so I will need to consider that as I contemplate picking up Guidance. I wasn't even going to consider a cantrip before you mentioned this. I'll have to see what else our party is doing.
Your case for healing word is made even stronger since I have made it to Level 5 and I have Font of Inspiration that allows me to recover spell slots with a short rest. Therefore casting a 1st level spell in a round when I wish to strike with my rapier or use V-M will burn up my slots quicker, but they can be replaced easily.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
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wellp if you want an really good alemaster, i'd suggest hiring an magewright or an artificer who casts their spells via brewers supplies (becuase the artificer class can do that) if you ever decide to get ebberon: rising from the last war, until then you might have to settle for an nonmagical alemaster who makes completely nonmagical ale that is in no way magic
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Well, thanks to a busy schedule and COVID-19 we have been inactive until last Saturday. We got together in Roll 20.
We gathered in the tavern and heard rumors from the town council that there was trouble in North Wind, a prominent city on the border with the nearest empire. A "messenger" has failed to return with a message he was asked to retrieve. Cadenza immediately volunteered to go, with his party, and check into things in North Wind. He did this to give him reason to visit North Wind to further his enterprise and to further ingratiate himself to his patron, Rose, a member of the town council. The town council accepted his offer and none in the party objected.
The next morning they departed. It would be a two day trip on a good road to Crossroads, and then a two day trip further on to North Wind. Arriving in Crossroads without incident, the party was again given the cold shoulder. They stayed at the inn and paid full price for everything in spite of having saved the town from the monster raid six to eight weeks earlier. Departing in the morning, they encountered a group of orcs, about eight that had very recently killed a traveler and broken his wagon. We killed the orcs, repaired the wagon and brought it with us to North Wind to return to the next of kin. The rest of the trip passed without incident.
Arriving in North Wind, Cadenza wished to settle the matter of the wagon and introduce himself and the party to the authorities. After this, he sought out the tavern, The Drunken Goblin, where they were supposed to find their 'contact' in North Wind, Jonas, an elf known to consume large quantities of alcohol often. They found The Drunken Goblin, but did not see their elf contact so they figured to have a look about and come back for dinner. The two paladins & the cleric went to the temple to pray. Cadenza and the teenage magic user went to sell their wares and have a look about in the market. They got some good intel on the lay of the land but were cautioned that The Round Corner district was a shady place. There were plenty of reputable dealers they could talk to in The Great Tower (wizards) district and Smith's Alley. The paladins and cleric prayed and came back with no other news.
We met up for dinner and also met Jonas. He told us the messenger disappeared while looking for the Dark Flower (a shop Around the Corner) seeking or carrying a small statue. We also learned the oldest son of the king in Orlanthi was a righteous person expected to rule when his father died. The second son, Prince Bentaro, was a paladin sort but he was into magic. The youngest was a princess that was supposed to be married to someone from Willowdale, but the groom decided not to go through with it, and there are lingering hard feelings over this issue.
Today we pick up the story the next morning where it appears we need to go to Around the Corner to see what happened.
We also met a character named Gladshield (in the temple?) and another named Milterd, who I think was the fellow I spoke to in the market.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
It's good to hear you're enjoying your adventures.
Our group has been on hiatus for a while, so I took the opportunity to rebuild my Bard as though I'd actually known what I was doing from the beginning.
He's now College of Swords 5, with a 1 level dip into Hexblade for the martial weapons and shield proficiency. Ours is a small party (typically 3) so Adelberto gets pushed onto the front lines quite a lot, so he values the extra defence.
So the follow-up session this past weekend was much more interesting.
In North Wind, I went with the Rogue and the teenage magic user and we broke into an abandoned house to look for clues about the disappearance of our "messenger" ally. We found an abandoned house with a cave cellar. I sent my familiar (a mink I nicknamed W&L) down there, and he quickly ran back up frightened. We sent back for the rest of the party. We went down there and killed three or four giant poisonous spiders and a Drider. We got plenty of loot, including an Elven Chain Mail shirt I could use to significantly raise the AC of my Lore Bard.
Then after some discussion we made up a story to visit a warehouse that was rumored to be able to identify many things including the nature of ores. My Rogue companion stuffed a rock in a sack and took it with him to ask if they could identify it because he "thought it was a moonstone." He went inside with four other party members while I stood outside with our paladin. His plan was to wait for a distraction and sneak into the next room behind the locked double doors and see if there was something in there he should steal (he thought there was a valuable crystal there). My paladin companion wasn't down for the deed, so he wanted to wait outside. I figured if the rest of them get thrown in jail, I might be able to talk them out from my side of the bars, so I stayed out with the paladin.
Well our rogue friend rolled very well and unlocked the doors without being discovered. Our rogue friend rolled very well and slipped into the other room and closed the door without being noticed. And then our rogue friend didn't roll so well and he bumped a table making a sound while grabbing the crystal which alerted a "Glaive Guard" in this other large room with many many tables and an altar draped in a red cloth. Well the "Glaive Guard" stood up and walked over toward our friend and said, "Well, it looks like this won't be another boring afternoon like yesterday after all." and he swings his glaive, hits, and does about 3/4 damage the level 3 fellow can take.
Well this quickly leads to an all out throw-down. We hear the commotion and figure the jig is up. I roll top initiative so I run in there (movement) and try to keep the appearance that I'm not with them, so I say, "What is going on in here?" And then seeing the other two warehouse attendants grab weapons I (interact with an object) whip out my Pipes of Haunting and (take my action) try to cast a fear effect on all three of them. It works (they all missed their wisdom save) and all three of them freeze and won't come near me. This allows the rest of my party (except the paladin) to run to the position they want and the paladin comes running in to see what is going on too.
My guys deliver some solid blows but nobody drops the first round. The Glaive Guard transforms into an Oni and swings twice at our other paladin, the tank, missing. Our war cleric drops one of the warehouse workers. Our other paladin intercepts the other warehouse worker and fights him. The rest of our team dogpiles the Oni except for me because I cast Hold Person and succeed. (The DM ruled the Oni was a person and not a monster and looked it up later and realized he called it wrong) So the Oni is frozen, one warehouse worker is dead and the other is on his way to the River Stix right behind him. I'm thinking we're going great! The Oni is down to about 2/3 HP according to his health bar.
Well, then things take a turn for the worse. The Oni snaps out of his hold Person and whacks the rogue killing him (he has something like -7 HP) and strikes someone else and misses the tank. Then four armored mannequins come to life in the four corners of the building. I'm still on my side of the double doors with the lawful good paladin who drops his warehouse worker and moves to engage one of the mannequins so I run over and heal the rogue and tell him to drink a healing potion. Then I give the tank a Bardic inspiration cause he needs to 'thump' the Oni. He does strike the Oni and uses his Divine smite or whatever that is to put his extra damage on the Oni. The Oni drops an invisibility and runs off leaving us to fight the mannequins.
We got the mannequins pretty good, so our teenage magic user subtly pick pockets the rogue of the crystal thing he stole when he bumped the table. Then he goes off to fight a mannequin by himself. He gets thumped pretty bad in reply. The other party members move to attack the mannequins and we get bunched up. In the process I have to heal another player.
The Oni reappears and blasts us with a Cone of Cold, dropping another player and severely wounding another. The teenage magic user needs a save against being petrified so I shoot him a bardic inspiration and I cast bane on the Oni and the two nearest mannequins. The magic user makes his save. The rogue runs over during the end of the battle and steals the crystal thing back. Things get pretty crazy cause I'm down to my last spell slot and I'm out of bardic inspiration. The Oni disappears a second time. We kill the mannequins and then the Oni reappears and we finish him. Folks upstairs start making a lot of noise and we grab a couple things and run out unobserved (we think).
Now we have the crystal and some other thing and we think they are components needed to revive the Evil Witch Queen or something, a demigoddess of the Barbarians. We're only level 3 and we know this is out of our league, so we decide to beat it back to our main town where we have high level NPC contacts.
In a group text the DM said we leveled up and asked us to decide if we were going to immediately run out of town or spend the night in the tavern so we could slip out the next morning. We decide that would be betterto stay the night because if we just ran then we would cause immediate notice, but things are more involved than that. We have been tipped off that the contact we are using is a shape shifter with a dubious background. That could be misinformation to throw us off track but it seems plausible right now. So the suspected shape shifter could be keeping an eye on us and we'd not know it.
So we're going to work out our leveling mechanics and get together next weekend, waking up in the tavern. Hopefully I will get another chance to play for free room, tips and my supper to save money, not that I need it, just the principle of the thing. All this shenanigans with the Oni happened right before dinner time.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
So we officially leveled up after the Oni fight. In my opinion, we got off light in that one, but who's complaining.
I had the following spells: Mending - Vicious Mockery: Bane - Charm Person, Cure Wounds - Comprehend Languages: Hold Person - Phantasmal Force
Maybe Prestidigitation is better than Mending, but I feel it is close. I'm adding Prestidigitation. I consider Hold Person situational because most of the time I expect to fight beasts, so I decided to drop that one. The DM didn't treat Phantasmal Force as I expected, so I'm dropping that. I decided the three 2nd level spells I will pick up will be Heat Metal (also situational, but I'm going to give it a try), Invisibility and Silence. Silence will allow me to shut down many magic users if I think we're totally outclassed, but we have a War Cleric, a Sorcerer and myself as full-casters, and we have two Paladins and a Ranger. I don't think we're going to be outclassed often. Silence will have a number of applications out of combat so that helps. Invisibility has applications out of combat, and will help me set up our rogue ahead of combat.
I took two points of Charisma to get my Charisma score up to 18, giving me one more Bardic Inspiration, and next level I get Font of Inspiration and I will be able to recharge my Bardic Inspiration after a short rest. I got Elven Chain in the Loot this session so my AC is now up to 16, which I feel is pretty good for my character. My character is a little over blessed with equipment in my opinion, but not by comparison with the party; we just have a generous DM who wants us all to have fun.
I think things are going well, but we have to get our McGuffin back to town in the next session so I'm sure we will be ambushed in our convoy or while having our long rest. It is a two day journey by road to the next town, and a two day journey to our town after that.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
remember, rules as written you may only change a single spell you know for another one whenever you level up, since you are level 4 you will be stuck with some of the spells you dont want untill you reach level 6.
Remember that heat metal is not as situational if you bring metal objects with you, such as ball bearings, caltrops and metal bolts of ammunition
also how can your interpretation of the spell differ so wildly from the interpretation of the dungeon master as to make the the spell useless in your eyes? It does not seem like the kind of spell that is very open to interpretation
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Artifice ...
We encountered Giant Poisonous Spiders and a Drider. At first we knew there were two spiders, and didn't know how many more or anything about the Drider. In a tight cavern space there was a stalagmite in the middle and enough space for one spider to go around either side to run into melee contact with the party. I cast Phantasmal Force (after rolling a good score on insight to determine if Spiders were afraid of birds) and produced an image of a giant hawk (within the limits of the spell) between us and the spiders on one side of the stalagmite. It 'scared' the spider for 1d6 damage, but on its turn the spider just walked right through the phantasm and attacked the party. I had figured the spider would be terrified of the bird and they would not come around the stalagmite from both sides. After the battle I said as much to the DM, "Yea, I had thought the bird would scare the spider so they would only come around the other way." He responded, "No, the spider was too stupid to understand that." So for 1d6 damage and no other apparent benefit, I thought I'd go with something else. The DM even said, "Y'know, those aren't the best spells for your character." But on the plus side, in the heat of the moment he ruled the Oni was a "person" for the purpose of Hold Person, so he isn't trying to screw me over every chance he gets. We just see some things differently.
As for the spell count, RAW I believe I could drop one spell and pick up a different one, and pick up the new spell too. Yes, I dropped two spells, but the DM said, "You are now leaving levels 1, 2 & 3 behind. If there is anything you want to do to rebuild your character, you can do it now for the last time." I think he would have allowed redistributing AS or anything, so dropping a second spell and picking something else was pretty tame. But I agree with you ... RAW I would have to spread it out into my level 5 changes too.
As for heat metal, yea, I carry three extra daggers for throwing. One of those babies stuck in your back (maybe with the help of our rogue) and a little heat metal and it's "Dancing for Dollars in the Dungeon", the newest preindustrial sitcom for a relaxing Tuesday night.
Hopefully I arrive in the home town, alive and with the McGuffin, Saturday night. We might not make it that far. There is a town half-way to home town. At least I will have completed a long rest.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
yes, when you level up if you learn a new spell that level you can learn that new spell and replace an old spell just fine, that is correct, and of course raw does not matter in this instance if the DM out right lets you re-build your character
also were there any birds in the room? was there something that aproximated an bird in the room? is it somehow common knowledge? how did you figure out that the spiders were afraid of birds? and would not phantasmal force still be effective against smarter, non-spider opponents?
interesting, very interesting
regardless, i will bother you no further, have an nice day and an nice next game session
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Artifice, no bother. Concerning the birds thing, it is simply a matter of the food chain. Birds feed on insects, worms, seeds and stuff like that, so I figure Spiders would be on the same list. So I rolled insight to confirm with the DM that birds are something that spiders are afraid of because of the natural food chain. I then made the bird a giant variety to make sure it kept me away from any turn-about like the giant spider catches birds in his web and eats them. So I figured I had my bases covered on finding a terrifying predator against the spider.
Well the DM agreed that birds would be scary to spiders because of the food chain ideas but then said the spider was too stupid to be effectively afraid of the phantasm. This gave me the idea that my phantasms would be unreliable as a means of battlefield control. The DM added to my thoughts by saying he didn't think I had selected good spells. So I figure I can think of good uses for the others so I'm going to roll with them.
Take care and stay healthy.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
well to be fair an spiders brain stucture wise is pretty diffrent from that of an human or mammal, so i would agree that they might not be able to feel fear per se becuase such behavior is not coded into them (in dwarf fortress spider people and other arachnids typically posses immunity to fear, but that might just be dwarf fortress), but on the other hand spiders will in general still try to avoid predators that try to eat them, especially giant spiders since they have twice the int stat of an normal house spider, if giant spiders did not evolve to avoid predators in your game world should they not be extinct by now?
but even if you discard its abillity to work specifically on spiders, it can still be an great tool against creatures who are smart enough to realise that if there is a threat in front of them, they should probably avoid it. And remember it is an pretty convincing illusion, you can just create a wall and by the nature of the spell the target will be convinced that the wall is real and that there is no way for them to pass it without trying to climb on it, if you make the illusion so that the floor in the 10 ft cube is made of spikes, it will feel pointy when an target steps on it and they will still feel the pain from something that is not there, and if you make the cube look like fire the victim will feel very very warm while near it, and the only way for the spell to end is if the target uses their entire action to examine the illusion, or once your concentration ends, even if their allies are telling them that it is a trick and the illusion is not there, even if the target sees their allies and enemies walk through the object like air, even then they will still believe in the illusion until they use their action to make an intelligence investigation check and succeed, so if they fail the check or they use their action for something else like attacking its belief that the illusion you have created is not an illusion will remain strong, it is almost silly how powerful this illusion spell is, and it is even more ridiculous out of combat in interaction scenes where you can use it to trick anyone.
and even if you find it completely unappealing for combat, it is perfect for tourture/ interrogation scenes, yeah it deals some pitiful damage, but the victim belives that the illusion is completely real and this spell can trigger any stimuli, including pain, create an horrid phantasmal spider that injects the victim with an painful poison, force the victim to stand on steaming hot phantasmal spikes, have the victim be metally tormented by an phantasmal mind flayer, create the phantasmal image of one of their loved ones and threaten to harm them. This spell really lets you be creative and cruel, and i really think that it might be an spell you might like if you give it a second chance, you seem like an creative player and this is a spell with no limit to its possibilities if you just realize its potential
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Our ambitious, albeit sometimes naive, party went to our hometown and rolled well enough (both rolls over 50% on a d100) to avoid any encounters on the road. We reported in to my patron, Rose, the owner of the most important tavern in town. She advised us that much of the information we received was correct but presented to indicate the good guys were the bad guys. So we got that straightened out before she asked us to go to a community on the other side of the mountains to our east. There were three paths to get through the mountains; the northern passage through a bog, the middle passage through a winding mountain pass and the southern passage, effectively going around the southern tip of the range which required us to traverse some desert. We needed to go back to North Wind straight away so we opted for the middle passage which was accessible using a road leading east out of North Wind.
On the way back to North Wind we were ambushed by a group of Orcs and a Ware-boar. We got through that pretty easy. Let me digress about our interface at Roll20. The DM is making the maps as we go and I love the ability to play on a map that permits the proper management of line-of-sight. The maps he produces on Roll20 block line of sight where there are obstacles, and in this case the obstacles were trees. So it was something like looking through prison bars to see what was beyond as the Orcs ran up to fight us. The Ware-boar approached from another direction after the orcs had our attention. Fortunately our ranger was sticking close to the convoy proper. In the dark places, each player is afforded the light they would experience given their race and the conditions of torches. This was something we never had when I was growing up and it is a welcome enhancement to the battles. In our second battle, in a cave, my halfelf had trouble understanding the scope of the battle. There were something like 21 Orcs against the seven of us and our rogue went scurrying off. They were coming from everywhere and with the LOS it made it much more intense. The rogue was so excited when combat was over he immediately ran to the chest and opened it up receiving 11 pts (2d6) of trap damage. maybe he learned a lesson.
So we pressed on to North Wind. We made more contacts with the temple and enjoyed the last five days of the festival commemorating the ascendancy of the current ruler, King Bentaro. I was able to perform in the tavern where I had a miserable failure rolling a Nat 1 last weekend (giving me a performance score of 8). The DM started to inhibit me from performing again, but I pressed for a second chance. I received Enhance Ability from our cleric, allowing me to roll with advantage, and our sorcerer cast a spell to produce visual effects to enhance the closing number. With all that, I rolled a Nat 20 on the first roll and got a huge reception and invitations to play in other taverns in the surrounding area, and 6gp for the performance.
We stayed in North Wind until the end of the festival. From there we left our animals, except for one donkey, in the hands of my hireling, Joseph, to manage their stabling care. We loaded the donkey with rations, tents and his animal feed, and took off east on the road to the village Quail Hunt on the banks of the Meandering Brook. As we arrived in Quail Hunt in the late afternoon we were told and observed the aftermath of a raid by more Orcs. They had killed many citizens, made a mess of the place and run off to the northeast with two dozen prisoners. Folks were picking through the mess and burying some of the dead and lamenting their plight. We promised (with two paladins and a cleric what else were we going to do?) to track down the Orcs and see if we could reclaim the prisoners. We set off in the morning.
Our ranger rolled very well and we followed the trail easily to a cave. Our rogue entered the cave and assassinated the principle lookout at the mouth of the cave. He then sneaked up on two more sentries and killed both of them without the alarm being raised. Then we decided to help him scout out the caves to give us an idea what was going on. I sent my familiar with him to deliver an invisibility spell if necessary, should he get into a pickle. He was a little too quick in his scouting and we didn't get a good idea what was up. We knew to the south inside the cave there was a prison cell with a dozen live villagers. There was a group of Orcs celebrating in a wide cave to the north and more passages to the east. He got excited and decided to assassinate another Orc rather than prioritize his scouting. This initiated a battle inside the cave. We rushed in from the west. The rogue received invisibility and hid (and my familiar safely extricated himself from that portion of the cave).
Our tankier paladin blocked the group from the north and was assisted by four members of the party. I went to check on the prisoners and the rogue and I convinced our other paladin to come behind me. He is a human and couldn't see so I had to tell him where to run. The rogue is an elf. At the right moment I lit a torch and threw it in the direction of an advancing group of Orcs for the paladin to be able to see. I used V-M to give disadvantage and between him and the rogue they killed the Orcs coming from the unknown passages to the east.
We rescued the prisoners, collected the loot and brought back the remains of a few more townsfolk. The townsfolk thanked us but had no meaningful help they could lend to us in our mission to cross the mountains.
The next morning we departed Quail Hunt and arrived a few days later, safely at Dragon's Eye Fortress, a walled village (town) in the mountains. That concluded the session.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I just made my first bard today, and I can't wait to play them.
Hello! I am just a relatively new D&D player, who also likes SimplePlanes and War Thunder.
My characters are:
So Cadenza's brave and noble followers joined him on his journey to Dragons Eye Fortress, a settlement along the pass through the Dragon's Teeth mountains. The party arrived after a long day of traveling and were met by a barbarian in the town who appeared to have a bit of contempt for such a squishy party. Two of the players, a dwarven paladin and a dwarven war cleric were not impressive, nor was the teenage kid or the bard. The ranger and the rogue were just elves, and the ranger was a woman to boot. Whatever. But they came from North Wind and asked to see the chief so he said, "Well you'll find him in there", a barbarian long house. They went and Cadenza spoke to the chief. The chief and his men got a bit excited at hearing the name of the Red Queen, but settled down when Cadenza told them they were seeking information only about the queen and did not in any way desire her to return to power, but the rumors needed to be investigated.
They were permitted to stay and even found a guide among the barbarians, although a scrawny fellow himself. Cadenza's performance in the Meade Hall that evening received a very good reception thanks for the Cleric casting Enhance Ability. So with a solid start for establishing relations with the barbarians of Dragon's Eye Fortress, they set off northeast through the mountains with their guide. For three nights they gathered around their campfire, and each night the party, after an appropriate ballad from Cadenza, described one of their fearsome encounters and their esteem was raised even further in the eyes of the guide, Rattafok. They passed shrines and took careful note of the runes; particularly noting the symbols were interpreted as good or ill by their guide. It became apparent that the lands behind them were heavily influenced or even dominated by Air Elemental influences and their enemies were dominated by Fire Elemental influences.
Along the way they encountered five Ogres. They were not ambushed, but the rogue went off sneaking too far and too fast and essentially blundered into an ogre. The rogue went down in the second round as the party came running to the sounds of a fight. The party killed the five ogres quickly because they were somewhat spread out and did what they could to converge on the party. Cadenza himself kept the ogres at disadvantage with V-M and even ran in twice and used his light rapier and dagger to attack. In one such instance he withdrew allowing an attack of opportunity so he might cast Bane on the last three ogres. In the aftermath of the battle, Cadenza urged the rogue not to drink potions of healing since the party could replace spell slots, but he ignored the advice and drank two of them anyway. Cadenza then urged the paladins to heal the rogue so he would stop doing that. They received only the smallest number of coins for their efforts, but Cadenza had the ogre's tusks pulled as trophies believing this is the sort of thing that might impress the barbarians.
On Day 5 they found the abandoned library they were seeking for Rattafok. They went in and started their first classic dungeon crawl (Map courtesy of Donjon). In about a day and a half they cleared the first level, and that is where session 7 ended. We killed several swarms of normal spiders, a few zombies, some more goblins, some giant centipedes, a wandering troll that joined in the fight with the goblins, a Minotaur, some giant spiders and something else just as they finished level 1. They received 10,000cp, 5,000sp and 1,400gp, a large number of valuable gems and a handful of magic items including a +2 dagger with a permanent light spell on it.
The rogue was provided an opportunity to be the star of the party, investigating every door, disarming traps (about half the time), unlocking many doors, helping push some open, hacking some open and then having the first look into the rooms. It went on so long that our other teenage players decided they would start running up to the doors and investigating the doors first. That eventually became a problem because they would run ahead on the passages and leave the party strung out. However, the DM never pounced on them while doing that.
We finished session 7 about half way to level 5. At level 5 the bard gets some nice benefits, including allowing Song of Rest to get back things you usually have to wait for a long rest to receive, including all of his used bardic inspiration slots.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Excellent.
Keep it up. :)
The session today, last for a couple weeks because of schedule, completed (almost) the abandoned library dungeon. We got loads of lute (loot, ha, ha) and 47xp more than we needed for 5th level.
We started after a long rest and headed down the stairs into the very hot lower level of the "Library". At the base of the stairs we were in a room with several doors to exit. We went one way and started down a long corridor. We fought fire themed monsters. In the second encounter we got into a pickle. We entered a room with a large pillar in the middle. There were two other entrances from the other side separated by about 60-70 feet. We rolled a random monster encounter just as a salamander entered the room in a hurry from the NW entrance (we came in from the NE). Our primary tank went running off to the NW to lock down that side. The rest of us followed him into the room. As he engaged the salamander we saw the DM rolling initiative on a number of monsters described in the window as "Salamander" or "Magmet" or "Azar". Then we saw the "AOE" ring of a monster entering from the lower west entrance and our comparatively squishy Rogue went running over in that direction. I went halfway between them and well behind because I was in the back of the group that entered the room. Our ranger with the "sniper feat" set up in the lower east corner of the room where she could see all three entrances. The teenage sorcerer went running over to help the rogue because there were a number of monsters coming from that direction. As we got in the middle of the room a noise came from the corridor behind us and our war cleric went back to have a look down the corridor. A salamander, and several magmets were approaching from that direction. The cleric went to lock down that entrance, hopefully supported by the ranger. Our last paladin decided to double back and help him out which left the tankier paladin by himself in the upper west entrance and two squishy (rogue and sorcerer) players trying to tank the lower west entrance, me in the middle and the ranger where she could shoot the bow at one entrance each turn. Having a cure wounds spell (4th level player) I decided to run after the squishy characters to keep them in the fight. I cast Bane on the salamander and his two sidekicks.
The tank was doing fine. The two other strong fighters were doing OK but rolled badly and received a few attacks from the salamander's tail. The squishy fellows were taking a beating. The rogue ran straight at the salamander leading the charge from the lower west entrance. The salamander had a magmet (which was determined to be an abbreviation for magma mephit) on either side of him and several more behind him. The rogue struck and killed the first magmet and then struck and killed the other magmet with his bonus attack. Both dealt him damage when they "blew up". At this point the sorcerer arrived and attacked the salamander and I was a short distance away from that fight. The salamander attacked each of them and delivered damage. Our rogue was down to about 12 health. The sorcerer was down to 18 health but I couldn't touch the rogue so I did CW on the sorcerer.
In the next round the rogue was face-to-face with the salamander and delivered damage and wasn't killed by the salamander. Five more magmets ran into the room on the other side of the salamander (sort of squeezing past him into the room) so the sorcerer shifted around and cast an AOE spell he calls "Lowering the Boom." He killed three magmets and took explosion damage and harmed the salamander. I ran over and cast a 2nd level CW on the rogue.
In the third round the rogue dealt a huge attack on the salamander taking him down to about 10% health. We were all giving a "big hoorah." The last magmet in that area came and was killed by the sorcerer. I ran over and cast a CW on the sorcerer. He somehow delivered another hit on the salamander leaving him about 1hp (maybe 2hp). The salamander took off back down the corridor and I began to hope I might chase him down and kill him myself. Well that was not to be because the rogue ran him down and delivered the killing blow.
While all this was going on our primary tank was just about finished with his horde. I ran up there and delivered a killing blow on one of the critters. We got loads of cash and stuff including 2100 platinum.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Later we had another big fight and this one went more to plan although my two squishy partners once again ended up holding down the edge of our line where they were more exposed than the tanks. We pumped about 40 hp into the rogue to keep him alive again, and some of that came from your average healing potions (which is a particular point of contention with me because they are expensive, although we have more coin than we know what to do with).
At the end we arrived in a ritual chamber with a large pool of lava or something. A short while after we entered a voice sounded and then a fire elemental appeared over the pool. The party began to freak out and I had to tell them to calm down. As long as it was only talking to us, this doesn't have to be a combat encounter. Well the fire elemental was an avatar of some fire god connected to Nysalor. He asked us why we had invaded the sanctity of this holy place and the party kinda went dumb. I spoke up and said we were told this site was a library and we could obtain knowledge about our quest by coming here. When we came we were met with a number of monsters in the rooms around and above, and as far as I know we have dealt with them all.
At this point our guide steps forward and talks to the elemental and drops an urn into the pool of lava, and says goodbye to the fire elemental.
We continue to talk to the fire elemental to see what knowledge he is able to give us. We share the knowledge that we have been sent to learn about the red queen or the barbarian goddess that has been divided (to take away her power by the old deity accords to prevent deities for killing each other permanently). He tells us he hasn't heard the name red goddess in a while but he represents another god that has been divided. He then goes on to tell us we have been deceived, which doesn't mean anything by itself to me because of course we have been deceived by someone. The barbarian leader was kinda cagey as an example. Then the suggestion is made that we make an offering and he will dispense more knowledge to help according to our worthiness. Now it doesn't make a lot of sense to dump perfectly good stuff into a pool of lava because that doesn't allow the lava god or the red queen or anyone to advance anything, but what the heck ...
So one member of our party steps up and puts in a staff that has some meaning to him personally. Then another member of the party and another steps up throwing in items of successive value. It is getting down to just me and two others (one being the cleric). I have the bag of holding. I say that I step towards the pool and several of the members yell out that I better not throw the Bag of Holding into the pool. I begin by saying that I take the Bag of Holding off my shoulder (and they're all waiting with their mouths open), and I fumble around to get (and they are all about to die in suspense) an ingot of gold, and I place the ingot in the lava. Then I pull my magic rapier from its scabbard and I set it in the pool and finally I retrieve my wooden flute (which is my normal spell casting focus) and I place that in the pool. I step back and bow, and then step backwards away from the lava pool and join the party. The last two characters make their offerings and the DM says he'll provide the god's response to our offerings next session.
So our next session, which will be held after exams, will begin with that and then we have to get out of the dungeon and back to a civilized place.
I will then get my original rapier out from storage and set about obtaining a new magical one so I can deal damage to monsters that only can be damaged by magical weapons. My original rapier has been silvered so it is a little better than a 'normal' rapier. We also have a ton of gems so I may have several of those added to my original rapier and offer to have some others used to make the new magical one. I will want to carve a wooden whistling device ASAP so I might use that as a focus until I get back to civilization. I carry several daggers and a silvered shortsword just in case, so I still have melee weapons in addition to my light crossbow.
We also attained level 5, so I get another class feature and we all move up one level of proficiency so my skills will all step up another notch. My skill numbers are about to go crazy. And at level 6 I will get my first magical secrets.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
there are a lot of good options for magical secrets, from beacon of hope that will significantly benefit healing powers, conjure animals for some disposable minions, conjure lesser demons and animate dead if you just want to be evil, the ever problematic counterspell and revivify for when your healing comes just a little too late, or maybe even some lower level spells you can cast more often like the mighty eldrich blast, or absorb elements if you ever need to fight creatures with that amount of fire damage, or acid or cold or lightning damage. Among all these great options, and more whom i have not mention, what fantastical spells do you plan on choosing for magical secrets?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
At level 6 the only spell I am committed to is Counterspell. I haven't settled on the other spell, but like many folks I like the iconic spell Fireball. I am going to talking to the other casters to see what they are planning in their builds.
For level 5, I am thinking of giving up Comprehend Languages and picking something else when I add my other new spell. The DM has never provided an opportunity to use C-L and in the few instances when he could have he declared the writing is in something I would not understand. Since he is very liberal about us buying scrolls, I figure I can buy and carry two scrolls of C-L and then use the other spell slot for something that might come up in an encounter.
Let me know what your favorite spells are in the context of the adventure I am describing.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
well i think that you might find healing word to be more useful than cure wounds, since while healing word will heal slightly less damage on average, the difference is minor (with your charisma score you would heal an average of 8.5 hit points per cast with CW and 6.5 per cast with HW), and healing word is both an bonus action to cast, meaning that you can still use your main action to use an rapier or throw a vicious mockery at your enemies on the same turn, and its range is 60 ft so you can be quite far from your friends and still be able to heal them, that is also a huge bonus, and to top it of it only needs verbal components, you you can cast it even when your hands are full or while you are grappling a foe. It is in almost every single regard a better spell except for raw numbers, it is an great 1st level spell, it will be much more useful than comprehend languages and you might find yourself never using cure wounds again
as for your other magical secrets spell, you might find that the cantrip guidance that is usually only available to clerics can be nice for putting the skill usages of yourself and your rouge to new heights, since with just one action and your concentration you can add an d4 to one abillity check, this can help you with anything from smooth talking a guard to climbing a massive wall to sneaking past the enemy to even just enhancing your performances, it is a cantrip so you can cast it as much as you want, as long as you remember to cast it often Guidance
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Our cleric already has Enhance Ability so I will need to consider that as I contemplate picking up Guidance. I wasn't even going to consider a cantrip before you mentioned this. I'll have to see what else our party is doing.
Your case for healing word is made even stronger since I have made it to Level 5 and I have Font of Inspiration that allows me to recover spell slots with a short rest. Therefore casting a 1st level spell in a round when I wish to strike with my rapier or use V-M will burn up my slots quicker, but they can be replaced easily.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt