My last session was a lvl 14 Death match! I am pretty new to the game so I thought I am familiar(ish) with Warlocks as I play one in our regular Waterdeep game so will just role a lvl 14 tomelock it should be easy. Well after the best part of the week figuring out my spells (I didn't go for max damage, I went more for flavour, entertainment with a touch of shits and giggles) we had 1400gp to spend so studded armour, a load of ball bearings, caltrops some poison for the caltrops, alchemists fire and a few vials of acid for good measure. Didn't use any of them except for the armour (a lot lol). I took the magic initiate feat just so I could get featherfall as combined with dimension door I thought it would be an interesting way to kill someone (or at least severely damage them) once I had used mass suggestion on them so they would willingly follow me. Well the DM screwed that up we were in a cavern that was 60ft tall and had lava rivers (in hindsight I could've dropped them from 60 ft into lava, but hey ho) The ranger was a pain in the ass and had to go, so three shots of eldritch blast with both agonising blast and repelling blast to push him through a lava river (extra 10d6) closely followed by hurling him through hell (another 10d6), the bugger had something going on so he only took half damage tricksy bugger! I charmed him later on with mass suggestion so that he would only go after the barbarian that was left on the field, then I killed him so that I could get some temp hp back. Barbarian comes after me, batters the ever loving crap out of me. I am low on hp and will not survive that again, I have two options 3 shots of eldritch blast (agonising and repelling) to push him into a lava river from close range with disadvantage cancelled out because of his reckless attack or cast levitate on myself, float 20ft up out of range and then blast him on the next round, safe from his attacks as he has used up all of his throwable weapons (2 of the javelins on me earlier on in the match). Guess which really safe and easy to win from option I didn't take? However 2nd in my first deathmatch with 4 other people who have been playing a lot longer isn't too bad. Can't wait for our next session and the ongoing exploits of a lvl3 party in Waterdeep, Trollskull Manor has been renamed the Stolen Tankard on account of when Volo gave us the reward we walked out of the Yawning Portal with our Ale (and a table strangely) to go and view our new property and every bar we go into now it is a mission to acquire at least one tankard between us.
It was a couple sessions ago at this point, but my players decided to use Wish to summon the King, her 2 Lords, and the Traitor to a room to kill them all.
... I'm not sure why...
They didn't know that the King was merely a puppet for the real BB, who teleported there and summoned 2 Liches and a Nightwalker. Ended up killing the main good NPC, 2 minor ally NPCs, and a PC.
The King, Lords, and Traitor were killed, of course, but... it was a rough battle.
Last game I played in was a Christmas-themed adventure.
All four players including myself played half-siblings - we had a real 'adventurous' father, whose identity we wanted to uncover. But we wanted Christmas presents first, so into the dungeon we went.
Long story short, I kept failing Dex saves and slipping on the ice and falling on my giant half-orc butt, we killed a Yeti who Kool-Aid Man charged through a wall, answered a bunch of riddles for Frosty the Possessed Snowman and also almost died of psychic damage when we failed a bunch of them, opened all of the presents we found including the trapped ones, fought a bunch of toy soldiers, completely ignored the potential meanings of the mistletoe traps until the DM put us in a room where we had no other choice but the figure it out, Rudolph the Demon Raindeer gored one of our twin sorcerers to death (she got better), and we met Frost Giant Santa, who allowed us to ask him one question each and he would answer truthfully. We learned that our father was Johnny Appleseed and got some sweet presents.
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"Can we please stop debating philosophy with the dapper crab?"
New DM and new 5e players working through LMoP. I have 6 PCs, so I'm adjusting the encounters accordingly. I decided to not only introduce Glasstaff to the group as they cleared Tresendar Manor, but also a Drow wizard (the part don't know if it's the Black Spider or just some other wizard). Anyway, after some bantering and sarcastic & disrespectful remarks between both sides, the Drow casts Fear on 4 of the party who were in range. Only 1 didn't make the save, but he was one of the 2 fighters (PCs are the pregenerated characters), and he went running out the door full-tilt with giant spiders on the mind. As he's running around, one of the rogues of the group decided to try to intervene and help him. She asked if she could try to "fix him". As the DM, I said, "Sure, I'll let you 'smack' some sense into him ala Avengers when Black Widow 'smacks' Hawkeye's head into the wall, BUT...you have to roll a 17, 18, 19, or a 20, no bonuses." So she tried and failed. The beginning of the next round had the group take a few crossbow shots, which missed. The cleric attempted Sacred Flame, which singed Glasstaff for a measly single point. This couldn't have worked out any better. I wanted to make a dramatic exit for the enemies to allow the party to know that they're going to have a fight on their hands later. So, <FOOOSSHH> goes a fireball, taking down the other fighter, and badly injuring the others in the area. Glasstaff then cast Darkness. For the next two rounds, more crossbow bolts were hurled into the darkness. The fighter was revived and swung wildly into the darkness. The cleric dispelled the Darkness with Light, and the baddies had vanished out the back through the hidden passage. I felt like I couldn't have directed a better movie if I had tried. I was soooo thoroughly excited, and still am!! I think everyone had fun and quickly realized just how deadly the world of Faerun can be.
Yeroc, (level 5 gloomstalker half-elf mark of detection ranger), is taken by a group of soldiers who are believed to be slavers, and most of his party track him. Felix, level 3 Eldritch Knight fighter/2 paladin Human mark of making, Gronkar half-Orc Barbarian Berserker level 5, and Tall Grey, level 1 Barbarian/4 Moon Druid Firbolg. Dust, the level 5 Tabaxi Swashbuckler Rogue is in town, trying to fix his missing left eye.
After following the signs of movement, they catch up and buy Yeroc back from the slavers. They slavers return *most* of Yeroc's belongings. Everything but a Potion of Climbing. Yeroc notices, but says everything is there. He watches them leave, as everyone goes to turn back to town to meet up with Dust, Yeroc proclaims "Nobody steals from Yeroc. I will hunt them to hell and back if I have to." Still watching them go off in the distance. Yeroc begins to make camp, Felix and Tall Grey groan, Gronkar excited for a fight. The next morning they follow after, Yeroc tracking them down. Tracking them the entire day, after their headstart, and into the beginning of the night, shortly after entering a forest the coterie finds a revitalizing spring. Whilst drinking from the spring they are attacked by two ankhegs near the fountain of healing. Felix lights a light so that he can see. Yeroc curses him for lighting the light, and dashes off into the brush, to continue his pursuit of the slavers that stole from him. Yeroc heads out alone towards what turns out to be a significantly larger slaver compound than he expected to reclaim his stolen potion of climbing. While he himself was in a cage with 4 elven sisters, lead by 3 humans, a dwarf, and a halfling. The slaver encampment had 16 cages filled with slaves. 3 cart and wagons. 5 dogs, 20 guards, 10 bandits, and 1 mage.
Leaving a trail for the others to follow to the encampment. yeroc circles it once, then proceeds to infiltrate, to find the halfling, whom he believes took his potion. Yeroc, sneaks past 18 people and 3 dogs, to get within 60 feet of the cages, when his friends show up. (here's where it gets more fun). Tall grey notices the torchlight of a patrol. So the 3 attempt to hide in the bush while helped by Tall grey's pass without a trace spell. Tall grey, 30 with mods. Gronkar 28 with mods. Felix, at disadvantage because of heavy armor, with his mods... 2 nat 1 crit fails. Initiative as they blow it. They get lucky, only 7 people and 1 dog have noticed them so far. Tall Grey, whom is now an Allosaurus, tries to pounce the man with the torch to put the light out but misses. Gronkar throws a javelin through the dog. the fight is on. Another guard on a further patrol notices the kerfluffle with his perception and begins sounding a horn as he leads his 2 others in patrol and their dog their way, but they were close-by to Yeroc. Yeroc lets loose arrows at the dog and horn blower ambushing them from the dark as he moves along towards his halfling "friend", he misses the man but kills the dog without being noticed as he moves along. Felix joins in, and lights a light so he can see (humans amiright?), the Allosaurus Tall Grey turns and snarls at him as he does it.
MEANWHILE, one of the slaves breaks out of his cage that he was in.... Dust. The Tabaxi Rogue, had somehow found a way to be captured by the slavers while trying to get his eyes fixed, and hearing the horn, figured now was the best time to try and break free. (not knowing we are there).
After the horn, 5 more people and 1 dog join the fray for the slaver encampment. They attempt to take down the allosaurus with crossbows, but miss, and one person even breaks the bolt in his crossbow and it backfires on him slightly. 2 more bolts fly past before 1 hits into a mended kobold shield of Felix's. But the shield seems fine. Another bolt wizzes past Felix harmlessly.
Dust, sneaks over to the nearest guard, who is seemingly distracted by the commotion. He goes to stealthily take him out... and in his stab attempt with the dagger slips, and ends up giving him a hug. But it was not a friendly hug, as his 2nd dagger, found purchase and gave the guard a quiet peaceful slumber. Dust slips into the shadows. A crossbow string breaks, and a guard starts cursing off in the distance as an Allosaurus roars in possible mocking laughter?
Yeroc, obsessed with getting his potion of climbing back, sneaks closer still to the center of the encampment, 50 feet away from Dust, not knowing Dust is there. Dust not knowing Yeroc is there. and yeroc spots him.... no not Dust... The Halfling. the man he thinks has his potion of climbing. Yeroc places a "Hunter's Mark" on him as he smiles in victory.
Another corssbow bolt misses Gronkar, and Felix attempts a firebolt, but only manages to shoot out a signal flare for their position. Perhaps aided by the extra light, a bolt finds purchase into Felix's shield again, his rotted Kobold shield has broken. Tall grey attempts to pounce a new torch beaer, but he misses, so he roars to scare the guy (10), it works, the man is freaking out from the allosaurus and not paying much attention to Gronkar. A dog bites into Gronkar, not phased by the Allosaurus. gronkar cleaves the dog in two with his greataxe. A bolt hits his shoulder. Felix is now set upon by the man who's crossbow misfired, but Felix casts "Shield", a longsword misses, a spear misses, a longsword covered in sweat comicly slips out of a guys hand. A bolt flies into the Allosaurus. But he maintains his concentration save for pass without a trace (not really working too well so far).
2 guards on the opposite end of camp don't seem to be paying much attention. Dust pops out using his feline agility to pick one off without the other noticing and dip back into his hiding spot. A scimitar finds purchase on Felix despite his magic.
Yeroc, smelling the victory before him, casts "Pass without Trace" and moves into the center of the encampment and hides under one of the slave wagons with his stealth of 30 after mods.
A great axe finds purchase into the Allosaurus, but his concentration seems stronger than ever. Felix misses with his longsword on the guy with the scimitar.
The commotion has gotten loud enough that another of the 6 remaining sentries, (including the halfling), 2 dogs, and the mage join in. 2 sentries and dog walk within inches of Yeroc but don't notice him. The lone sentry not paying attention to his dead friend doesn't even notice the dead body 15 feet from himself.
A dog misses Felix. the Greataxe misses Tallgrey, Tall grey is clipped with a longsword as he runs off to pounce the light source, his concentration is lost. But, The Allosaurus goes carnosaur (movie, google it-warning graphic) on the guy with the light. Gronkar cleaves down 2 bandits that had attempted to encircle him and begins to rage. Felix gets encircled and Shields again, as 2 longswords slash ineffectively at him. Sensing the threat that is Gronkar 2 great axes find purchase on him. a 3rd longsword missing Felix.
Dust, still unknowningly there to everyone else. and not seeing Yeroc and vice versa despite being within a stone's throw of each other, Takes out the lone, unaware sentry. But he is spotted finally. The fight begins for him as a 3rd sentry around the corner finds him and misses with scimitar.
Yeroc, now slips out from the wagon, into the middle of the entire encampment. quietly killing a dog with his bare hands, as he stands 10 feet behind the halfling, leaning against the guard tower. (no chance to hide) out and exposed. glaring daggers into this halfling's back.
Felix whittles down 1 of the 4 surrounding him. gronkar laughs off another feeble great axe slash on himself. the remaining 6 slavers alive and their dog join in after noticing Yeroc, standing in plain sight, in the middle of the camp, grinning, as he stares at this halfling slaver. 2 attacks miss gronkar feebly. And the halfling turns and surpised to see Yeroc attacks him with his scimitar but misses. Tall grey tears through another torch bearer on the other end of the camp. The man who's dog had just been killed by Yeroc flanks Yeroc. and scores a vicious gash with his scimitar. a 3rd guy joins in giving a small wound. Gronkar gets flanked by 2 more people. the longsword misses horribly, but with tremendous skill and effort (a crit), Gronkar gets a small (2 damage after rage resistance on a crit) cut on his forearm. Dust Disposes of one of his assailants with exteeme predjudice and turns to face another. who rushes in but misses.
Yeroc leans in and whispers to the halfling "your friends can't save you now" and casts "Silence" on himself and then takes a swing at the friend of the halfling, wounding him bad, but not killing him. The 3rd one turns his attention to the allosaurus and runs off to shoot at it with a crossbow. A great axe hits the allosaurus. Felix cuts down 1 of his attackers. Yeroc takes a mighty blow from the halfling's friend whom he wounded. Yeroc falls unconscious, the silence is lost.
Felix still surrounded desperately throws up another shield to ward off a dog and attacker. Tall Grey misses a pounce chance. Seeing opportunity on this a bolt whizzes past and a dog bites into him. "nearly" knocking him prone. This was a fine specimen of the dogs, and clearly their alpha. Gronkar, seeing the overwhelming numbers still running at them goes into a frenzy and cuts down 2 more. A scimiatr finds purchase on Tall grey. as Felix manages to shield away a scimiatr 2 bolts and a longsword.
But the Mage has finally gotten close... and not liking what he sees, unleashes a huge Cone of Cold (60 foot cone), allies be damned. Felix, Gronkar, and Tall grey hang on... but 4 slavers and 1 dog weren't so fortunate and are frozen statues. Dust dispatches another sentry and makes his way closer to the center of camp, where more sound is coming from. Not a second later, Yeroc's eyes shoot open "I WANT MY POTION OF CLIMBING" (nat 20 the death save), he roars, Dust, now knowing Yeroc is REALLY nearby to him. A sentry attacks dust but drops his sword, then tries to run. Dust dispatches him as he tries to run off. Felix attempts to take out one of the crossbowmen with a firebolt and wounds him.
A longsword hits tall Grey, who is no longer an allosaurus after the cone of cold. He attempts to convince the Mage to call it quits and give it up. Yeroc, not hiding the fact he has awakened, the friend of the halfling, attacks the prone Yeroc, the light of life, once again fading from his eyes...
Gronkar takes down 2 more sentries.... the gore piling up on his axe. Tall Grey gets hit by an axe as well, and pretends that he was unaffected by the blow. the Halfling, startled by Yeroc, attacks his unconscious body "And F----G stay dead this time!". 2 Crossbow bolts fly towards Tall grey in front of the mage, one finding purchase. He again, tries to pretend it had no effect, while whimpering. the mage moves away to give himself space, and Tall grey misses with his staff.
The mage casts "Fireball" Gronkar shakes it off, Tall grey and Felix caught in it, and Felix is looking bad. Dust, having run out of sentries on his end, goes over to where he heard yeroc, to find 2 guys attacking his unconscious body, he throws a dagger at each of them and then bares his Tabaxi claws and Tabaxi face and hisses menacingly. Yeroc then AGAIN SPRINGS life into his eyes "NOBODY STEALS FROM YEROC" and he very feebly swings his sword at the halfling in a very pitiful manner.
Late to the party, a sentry from the far end fires a bolt at Dust who dodges it very uncannily. Felix has a second wind of energy it seems but he's struggling. The Halfling's friend turns to charge Dust when he steps, his foot is gone, Yeroc, had cut it off as he stepped past him from his back on the ground, he falls down and then bleeds out. Tall Grey turns into a bear and charges the Mage. tearing small pieces out with his mouth and claws. Gronkar cuts down another smallfry but one of the 2 still surrounding him finds his thigh with the scimitar, he's looking bad shape now too. the halfling and the crossbowmen decide to flank Dust and blitz him, he shakes off the first, but the 2nd one hits him. Felix was not so fortunate on the other end of camp, the mage drops him like a bad habit in an "Ice Storm". Felix has gone down.
Tall grey fails to connect with the mage again. Dust tears through the throat of the halfling. Yeroc screams in frustration as he gets up and looks for someone to vent it on, and sees the mage. he marks the mage with a hunter's mark and lets 2 arrows fly from his longbow dropping his swords. 1 flies by but the second finds purchase. a crossbow bolt misses Gronkar. and Felix is not looking good.
Tall Grey starts to look a little better, Gronkar, on the verge of death himself, recklessly tries to take down the 2 guys on him. His momentum cleaving through the first goes straight through the 2nd. The mage, and the sentry by Dust and Yeroc, are now the only ones still standing, not in the form of an ice sculpture.
A firebolt slams into Tall grey. Dust, sees an opening and dashes in with feline agility and disembowles the mage who turned a second too late. Yeroc, Limps over to the dead halfling and begins rummaging through looking for his potion of climbing. He can't seem to find it. Yeroc eats a goodberry as a Crossbow bolt whizzes over Yeroc's head while he's doing this. Felix is turning really really pale. Tall grey casts "Healing Word" on Felix. The lone slaver, sees this, and decides to run. Between Yeroc's longbow, and a Javelin from Tall grey, he doesn't get very far. Yeroc, satisfied with Jungle law, eats another goodberry......
(and that's where we ended) some dialogue left out. Gronkar made some hip thrusting motions. Yeroc has broken ribs and some internal organ damage. Felix is missing a chunk of his face and not in a cool way like Zuko from Avatar.
Two words: Holy shit Party composition: Paladin, Monk/Warlock, Rogue, Bard, Wizard, all at L9/L8Mon-1War.
This was the culmination of about three months of buildup and work towards this point, as well as the year anniversary of the campaign so it was always going to be a doozy of a session. I'd like to say my party is a well oiled, efficient machine. I'd like to say that but I'd be lying. Still, we've just fought our way through eight myrmidons, several traps and a college of mind-flayers, wherein we engineered a purge of the college's senior management, and finally we're at the door of the Beholder's inner sanctum. We're all at various levels of injured and we've expended various levels of equipment/spell slots. The Beholder has set up a shrill sounding mechanism to keep us from taking a long rest so we can't hit this fresh, but the DM threw me a bone and let me pray to my god, getting two L2 and one L3 spell slot back.
So we kicked down the door and found Mr Beholder, with four mobile crossbow type arrangements. Monologues were had, initiative was rolled, and we started with a touch of ranged cuddling with spells and killing the mobile crossbows. The Beholder started shooting rays, mostly at the monk, who had some godly dex and wis rolls. We then split into two groups and started pushing up, killing the last of the mobile crossbows and starting to move up, me with the bard and monk, and the wizard and rogue moving up together. I was doing my best to keep the bard in my paladin bubble of +3 to saving throws, but she still got paralysed. I dispelled that, and then my paladin ate a death ray and he fell over.
So the rest of the party carried on kicking seven bales of shit out of this beholder, who kicked right back. He managed to petrify our wizard, and do a few other major effects to keep us honest, throwing us around the field, but our rogue managed to get in a couple of godly sneak attacks, one of which crit with a life stealer sword. Our bard followed up with emptying a wand of fireballs into the beholder's face, which did the honours.
Cue loot and congratulations all round. We got a pile of money and art treasures, along with an ice staff and some other things, including a deck of many things. Ioun was very happy with the bard, and made her the champion of knowledge. We then went back home and I and the DM had a discussion about rezzing my paladin (He being a samurai whose culture is generally opposed to being resurrected) and the decision was made to res him because there may be a plot hook for him. He got up and drew from the deck of many things... drawing a Holy Avenger and a fight with the avatar of death... whilst being under a -3 to a few stats due to being recently rezzed. The fight with the avatar of death hasn't happened yet.
Party has level 5 Half Orc Druid, level 6 Dwarf Ranger, level 4 Dragonborn Paladin, level 4 Human Wizard and level 4 Tiefling Warlock (me)
We had been fighting gnolls off and on for two play sessions, working our way to their cave complex to recover a MacGuffin and return it to the city. Our party typically resolves conflict through violence. Only one member of the party is a session 0 character, the rest are replacements from various deaths.
The BBG turned out to be the half-brother of the druid and called for parley. The party didn't know what to do, except the Druid who rolled with it and started negotiating. I was hidden out of sight, so I cast invisibility and began sneaking up with the intent to go past the bad guys, grab the MacGuffin and book it before a fight started. Instead, the Druid deftly negotiated a trade for the MacGuffin in exchange for a magic item that he was carrying.
The exchange was made, including agreement to free any slaves the gnolls had captured. With one small exception, no blood was shed. Scratching our heads and patting the druid on the back, we headed back to the city confused that a non-violent solution worked. We're now facing a tactical crisis as whole new options are open to us.
XD
UPDATE: Apparently the magic item the druid was carrying WAS the MacGuffin and the item we traded for wasn't really necessary. After discovering this fact the next scenario involved violence. Sigh.
It was New Years, and we were visiting some friends. A bunch of kids were there, and I thought to get them invested in D&D. So, I brought the pre-made characters from the starter set and the monster manual, picked a few enemies and set a short story about them (based on one I read long ago, but can't remember where), and convinced a few of the children to join me.
It was a lot of fun. Because they were so unfamiliar with the game, and to make it easier on them, we used basic character monikers instead of names or classes. We called the rogue the Thief, the cleric (no one wanted to play the cleric) the Priest, the fighter the Warrior, and the wizard the... Wizard. The plot hook I set up for them was that the roads east of Daggerford were haunted by a beast said to be part man and part rat. The characters were promised a reward of 100 gold for the head of the creature, and had borrowed silver weapons for the task. After being on the road for a day, they met a woman, who desperately asked them to find her girlfriend, who was attacked by monsters. The players were suspicious, and two of them wanted to move on, though they decided to help (I had to nudge them a bit, can't just ignore the call to adventure). They tracked the monsters to a cave, and found a pack of goblins around the corpse of a woman. After a pretty good fight (the wizard rolled a crit on his Ray of Frost, which I judged to freeze the goblin to the ground), they looted the corpses, identified the female as the girlfriends and prepared to move on. When suddenly, the woman they had met earlier appeared in the cave opening. She was the wererat they had looked for.
The Thief had to leave shortly after, and left his character to be played by the Warrior. It went poorly, and the thief was infected with lycanthropy, but they eventually chopped her head of. Returning to Daggerford, they left the Thief at the temple to be healed, and collected their award. The adventure was short, but sweet, and all the players expressed interest in playing more.
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"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
Spent 8 hours with my group, 4 of which were devoted to creating new characters. Since everyone was new to the process, save me, it was an educational experience. But everyone is much more invested in their characters than using the pre-gens from LMoP. We then ran through Cragmaw Castle, where a deal was struck with some hobgoblins to overthrow King Grol. The hobgobs led the group to the back and then proceeded to vacate. I had Glasstaff in with Grol and his pet wolf. Our wizard unleashed a fireball scroll, cooking the wolf. Grol took the full brunt, and Glasstaff made his save, but he was still down significant HP. The group easily dismantled the two, taking Glasstaff prisoner to be returned to Sildar in Phandalin. Then, in a creative stroke of genius, they let the owlbear out to wonder around the castle, and he cleaned up the goblins, like a dozen of them, with ease. Then, for some reason, instead of just leaving which they could have very easily done, they decided to take out the owlbear, who had 4 goblins holed up in their guard towers. After an easy fight, the owlbear was felled, and the goblins slain. Now the group will have a choice - escort Glasstaff back to Phandalin and risk losing Gundren and his map to the unknowns at Thundertree, or drag Glasstaff along while they attempt to rescue Gundren and retrieve his map.
Most recent: Unearthed Arcana type campaign. I raged quit because The DM would get upset at little things. He also treated the new players like they were Noobs. Then my piece of resistance moment was. A 50 feet circumference pit that our druid made for a trap. The enemies are partying, and we're sneaking into the camp. So I'm a sun soul monk. I need to get in range to attack. I can only move 40 feet... It would take a few turns to sneak up and attack. My Dm questions why I'm not attacking. I'm out of range because of where I am. Then belittles my PC. Sorry, I'm not IN RANGE. Phew
I've had other worst times with DnD. From clicks "You cannot hear what we're saying because you don't speak this ONE language the click has." to DM's mistreating PC because they don't like them (10 int Barbarian treated like a ******) or (Pay me rent so we can live in a fort we found, or live in the street. If you fail a skill check then you'll be living in the street. The Skill check was proficiency in something. It was 3.5 ) Or even...plot armor for no reason.
However, The best game I've played was. Adventurers League. Our DM never DMed Curse of Strahd, The shop already had 6 groups of Tomb of Annihilation. So, He wanted to be different. I joined in after a week in game. The group was in the murder house at this time. We had a bad player in our group but we worked with him as much as we could. While we play the campaign. It felt like we were bonding after a while. Our characters were strangers but later on, would quip about things like they were friends for years (That's how I see DnD) Expect the bad player(who did not want to work with the party or listen to the DM). Trust me this is the best part. He was impulsive (To shoot first, ask questions later). We just battled Strahd (nearly killing him at level 5, But also almost TPK) We stay the night in the windmill we owned because of a deed in the murder house. The hag that lived there let us stay. The Dm informs us about the pastries after an investigation check. They did not seem right to eat. Our bad player, out of impulsive eats one (We double confirmed, even tho he acted back we weren't going to force with so we Double confirmed he wanted this to happen). He gets drugged and becomes addicted to them. Because he wasn't listening. He had to make a con save every 6 hours or he eats the drug pastries. I bagged a few pastries for later. (Don't even insight check me, You know it to be true.) Our druid (Who wanted and carries the deed) now argues with the hag over rent. Which then devolves to "Okay, so gold plus one kid a month? Ahhhhhh I don't know?" This was an hour-long argument where we're all laughing on bartering rent with kids lives at stake.
I still talk to the DM and a few players. The Dm and I are working towards playing again.
We had an exciting session yesterday. The party resolved one of the smaller quests on the campaign arc and in the process, they fought the toughest monster they have ever gone up against (CR10). It gave them a tough challenge and a long fight. The party had to modify their tactics and use spells creatively and, in the end, they emerged victorious and the party reached level six at the end of the day.
The session started with the adventure in a Stilben, having gone to their ship in search of a small ship of goblins heading out to sea with a bunch of captured gnomes to sell them as slaves in a distant city. Other sailors had reported the ship not so far away sailing erratically as though the crew had no idea what they were doing. That’s because the goblin crew had no idea what they were doing. The adventurers sailed out to the area where the ship had been reported and found it had run aground on a tony island that was on nautical as stone island.
Getting closer to the ship, the party saw it was being dive-bombed and harassed by a handful harpies and the goblins on the deck were trying desperately to defend themselves. The party sailed their ship as close to shore as their dared and then split up into two rowboats—one heading for shore, and the other heading for the goblin ship. Along the way, Thud the cleric, who spoke goblin, called out to the goblins that the party was here to fight against the harpies. The goblins took them at their word and continued fighting off the aerial attackers. The harpy’s song entranced several party members and drew them out to sea from the shore and out of their approaching rowboats.
Things on shore were not much better. As soon as Zarrak the sorcerer and the party’s bard Melias stepped onto the beach, a blue eight-legged lizard ran out at them while another scampered away into a cave. These were basilisks and the reason the island was called stone island. The sorcerer had to be somewhat clever in attacking the basilisk while averting his eyes, but fortunately he had the ability to outpace the creature. As the harpy menace was slowly reeled in and destroyed, the party members regained their faculties and in short order, it was just the ship and the goblins.
Assembling on deck, Cyrus slipped below deck and confirmed the gnome prisoners were there. He came back up top and struck down a goblin and battle kicked off. The fight went the way you would expect five level five players versus five goblins to go. In the end, two goblins surrendered and explained their actions.
This goblin tribe, the Bonebreak tribe, are nomadic raiders, hitting villages they think they can get away with, as they have for generations. More recently, they started capturing prisoners that hobgoblins offered to pay. The goblins overheard the hobgoblins were taking these prisoners to a city across the sea to sell as slaves. But recently, the hobgoblins had stopped coming to buy prisoners (because the party had been hard at work smashing the evil hobgoblin cult story arc) so the goblins decided they would do it themselves. The fact that none of them had been on a boat before didn’t deter them and Grok, the smartest goblin of the bunch, had captained the ship until they ran aground here.
The party still wanted to explore the island cave and they knew a basilisk was inside, so they forced the goblins to march inside to see what they could see. Inside a dark twisty cave, Beelock the blood hunter and Thud became invisible to scout ahead, thinking that if the basilisk couldn’t see them, it could not turn them to stone. Meanwhile, the goblins were marched around a corner and came face to face with the basilisk. The lizard quickly attacked and killed one goblin and the other one fled. The invisible adventurers pressed deeper into the cave, exploring it and revealing its main resident—a greater basilisk.
The smaller basilisk was easy enough to finish off, but the party knew a special strategy would be required for the big guy. Cyrus used his Shademist armor and set off a fog cloud at a choke point in the cave. Any close-range combat would happen within this petrification-free zone. We use a house rule for heavily obscured conditions that says when you are blinded, attacks against you have advantage as long as the attacker can see you. This means that two blind people fighting each other both have disadvantage.
With the fog cloud in place, the battle mostly involved using spells that did not require seeing the target as well as hit and run weapon tactics. The basilisk, knowing its own lair very well, would progress until it bumped into someone and then attack them. This resulted in a few party members taking grievous damage from the basilisk but being able to place a newly-healed party member in the line of attack while the injured party member retreated out of the fog cloud to heal. The battle was pitched and after several close calls, the party managed to defeat the basilisk with Cyrus landing the killing blow.
After searching the cave and recovering a couple basilisk eggs, the party freed the gnomes and brought them over to their own ship to take back to the mainland so they could attempt to piece their lives back together.
This session was extremely satisfying because the party faced a tough enemy and had to use clever tactics to counteract one of the ubiquitous dangers. Everyone got to struggle and contribute and nobody broke the fight. And the danger of death was there right up until the end. My preparation was pretty minimal for this session. Here is everything I had laid out ahead of time:
The Great Goblin Caper
Party knows who they are looking for, what they have, and where to find them
Search at sea and find the goblin ship wrecked on Stone Island
After clearing Cragmaw Castle, the group of 6 I DM for was directed to Thundertree in the hopes that they would find Gundren Rockseeker and his map there. Setting out northwest to the ruins of the little town that was abandoned after Mt. Hotenow's eruption 30 years prior, they quickly met a group of 10 hobgoblins who launched arrow after seemingly endless arrow at them in an ambush. The hardy adventurers were out in the open, and had no choice but to return ranged attacks and cast ranged spells while trying to move closer to engage the beasts. A critical hit by a raging half-orc barbarian led to not only a decapitation of a hobgoblin, but also cleaving the foul creature's torso in two. Having survived the ambush with only a few scratches and nicks, the party healed up and arrived that evening in Thundertree. The fog got thicker as they got closer. It had a green-hue that clung to it, carrying with it an off-putting acrid scent. Eventually, the group made it to the outskirts of the town where the foul scent was mixed with an even more putrid smell...the undead. Indeed, zombies were lurking about in the dense fog that was made even more intense as the sun set. A ranger in the group discerned that the fog was not natural, leading to the party's sorcerer who used a dispel magic to provide some line of sight in a 120' radius for approximately a minute. But a minute would be about all they need and her timing could not have been any better as the zombies were nearly on top of them when they gained visibility. As the group engaged the undead, the rogue desperately attempted to enter a building that appeared intact and with all its doors closed and windows shuttered. Just as the door opened, she was grappled by a zombie who inflicted a bite upon her. Meanwhile, the half-orc barbarian and the dragonborn paladin were swarmed by 5 zombies before they were able to dispatch them and the group beat a hasty retreat into the house, barring the door to deal with their wounds. The rogue has a disease, one that seems to be only slowed by the paladin's attempt to cure the disease. In the house they met an elf spy - Tauberel - who is a member of the Order of the Gauntlet sent to infiltrate a group known as the Cult of the Dragon. She revealed that across the town were 6 cultists holed up in another house as the zombie infestation in Thundertree proved too dangerous and overwhelming to them. She relayed that she had sent a message via a bird to the Order, but suspects that the message may not have been received, as she believed the party was supposedly the backup she sent for, but are actually redknives of the Lord's Alliance.
The next session will start with the party getting to figure out how to handle their zombie-infected companion, look to see if Gundren Rockseeker is truly there, and how to deal not only with the cultist, but to dispatch the green dragon, too!
Hi I'm new here and even still relatively new to D&D, though it's already the best thing ever. like...EVER.
anyway, Our last session wasn't particularly eventful but I still think it was one of the funniest we've ever had. 3 main great moments:
1 - Our group's Tiefling Warlock was wandering around town and came across a blacksmith, there was a guard outside yelling at the blacksmith for, at best, questionable reasons and so she went over to see what was going on. The guard, noticing her, whipped round and said "what are you doing?" in that kind of way that means you know there is going to be a fight soon. However Celestia, fast as lightning said "what am i doing, what are you doing?". Our DM is great so the guard made a wisdom saving throw and lo and behold he failed. He began stuttering and didn't know what to say. Then to top it all off Celestia pulls out a medal she had got from a race earlier (basically a medal of participation) and gave it to him. So when I picture that whole encounter in game, it is just the best thing ever.
2 - There was a whole escapade with our Paladin who had basically kidnapped this random man he found around town earlier that day and led him out into the woods to look for clues in the current part of our campaign. She came to a house in the middle of the woods and some people came out to ask her to help with something. Firstly she takes two attempts to knock down a door with her 20 strength, then manages to effectively scalp someone, takes a flying leap at a window and bounces off of it back into the room, tries again, goes through and crashes through the balcony in the lower level, through a floor and lands in the basement. It didn't end here though. She went back out to the front, takes the kidnapped man (who is currently tied up), storms back upstairs, throws him under the bed, jumps back out of the window, through the floor again and lands on this man's legs breaking both of them. She does lay-on-hands and makes them a bit better but by this time all the people in this house are trying desperately to get away from her. She then finally leaves and we are all in fits of laughter from the sheer ineptitude of the whole operation.
3 - To be fair this one seems kind of timid after the last one but i've started now. We had all run into this reporter guy that we had come across a few times before and he was telling us about why he was there and mentions a huge encampment of the military around a large magical site a couple of days east of where we are. I, taking a hint that he was not trying to give, said that we would go and check it out. He very clearly said that that wasn't what he meant but because my character is kind of bad at picking up on things said, "Ah so you're saying that you DON'T (winking at him) want us to go and check it out." He said that he didn't want us to but I persisted for perhaps longer than i should have and eventually said, and I quote "So if the magical site was a delicious slice of apple pie, you're saying don't eat the apple pie but you are, in fact, serving us a slice; secretly."
That's all I got, I hope i didn't go on for too long and I hope that found this funny.
SO this one I played with two of my friends and one of my friends wanted to bring their brother along so 3 players I was DMing for like the 3rd time so I considered my self a pro and wrote my own story and... well... yeah they all died in the end 'sigh' lets start
I started off telling the group about the situation you see they where travellers and needed a place to stay so the group decided to stay in Daggerfall a reference to a town from elder scrolls 1 but it was a small village with 6-7 houses or so and they where kindly brought in and cared for until one day they found the whole village with Dogma the druid who is also the mayor gathered around with a big bonfire in the middle the dwarf of our group Denton asked what was going on and the druid was like 'our almighty God came to me in a dream and spoke words of enlightenment he spoke of an evil that goes by the name of dark wing and he is EVIL this EVIL dragon born is full of EVIL so travellers in return for 500 gold pieces will you do it and rid this world of this EVILLL man and if so may God bless you and your soul.' so you know..... my group burned the village stole everything they had got like 70 pieces of steak using the dead bodies of the villagers as fuel and cooked the pices of steak murdered all of the towns near it stole every thing they had and left the mayor alive so that they could tie him up and torture him for his money. 'Sniff' and they are all lawful good. But I mean they ended up trying to get rid of Darkwing so I mean if you like this post and it gets over like 12 then ill tell you part two
I altered LMoP's Thundertree encounter by integrating homebrewed zombie (death) virus. Last time, I wrote about our tiefling rogue being bitten and infected. Mind you, I DM for 6 people, their characters having just hit level 4. The dragonborn paladins lay on hands alleviated some symptoms of the zombie virus, but it was evident that there was still infection in her wound. As night had set in, the party occupied the southwestern house of the town (#4 on the map). I also swapped out Reidoth for an elf spy who is working for the Order of the Gauntlet, and has infiltrated the Cult of the Dragon to roll into the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. Also, the party has Droop along, and Glasstaff, who they believe is attempting to redeem himself after succumbing to temptation at the beginning of LMoP.
So, the party split up, believing that they'll be able to find some plant to make a balm that may help alleviate the infection. As they leave, a few zombies are meandering their way towards the house. Believing the house should stay intact, it takes them 3 hours to find a shrub and an hour to head back to town. @ 2am in the morning, no one has had much rest, and a dozen zombies have descended upon the house, with more making their way from the northeast square in town. The party engaged the zombies, and I rigged a system to allow them call head-shot with crossbows or melee weapons - zombie's AC is 8, so the first roll was to see if the attack would hit. If yes, then they could roll another attack roll - AC 15 - to specifically hit the head. If it was a head hit, I counted the zombie as being automatically dead. This seemed to work about 1/4 of the time, so plenty of zombies got arrowed, but it still took time to whittle their numbers down. I presented 26 zombies by the time the encounter was done.
Within the house, the sorcerer conjured up a great idea - she cast Dancing Lights around a tree off in the distance, drawing a large crowd of the zombies that were making their way towards them to that instead. This set up Glasstaff to cast a massive fireball, incinerating 11 of the undead, which burned to a crisp a round later. It was such a fun encounter! It took a while, but everyone was thoroughly invested as more and more walkers emerged from the shadows. They had not idea how many I had planned. Each round, I rolled a d6 and introduced that many more zombies skulking down the path! They were feeling the intensity and the pressure, and being the murder-hobos that they are, relished the opportunity to play with the fodder.
After getting some rest, the party encountered the Cult of the Dragon on the far side of town. Our paladin was having none of the "restoring Tiamat to rule over this land!" talk from Favric, and he proceeded to skewer him with his lance. The other five cultists tried to surrender, and after our half-orc barbarian axed two of them in the head, the other three were left sobbing and crying for mercy in puddles of their own pee. They bound them after they were made to "curse" Tiamat and swear allegiance to Bahomet.
Lastly, in the town's square was a wooden statue on a stone base. Once again, the paladin could sense great evil infused within the wooden creation, and began striking at it. The sorcerer sparked it on fire with a firebolt, burning it to a crisp. This was fairly timely as Favric's skewered corpse had reanimated and was meandering toward the group. Not that it was a threat, but it was wonderful to see how they were able to tie the evil within the statue to the zombies that I altered there in town.
I really enjoy reading what other people are doing with adventure modules, how they modify them to give their own spin.
I also ran Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I used it to set up the introduction of a cult attempting to find a way to summon their demonic patron to the material realm. The Black Spider was a lesser cult fanatic that had drawn to himself others that the cult had rejected or discarded. Mechanically speaking, the lower leveled cultists. At Thundertree, a gaggle of cultists were going to try and parley with Venomfang. The Black Spider wished to ensure that his studies within the mines were left undisturbed, and hoped a dragon threat on the horizon would keep the local population suitably distracted.
Then the party came along, and dealt with those cultists. Unfortunately, they did it loud and explosive enough that it of course caught the attention of Venomfang.
They've also dealt with Black Spider and thwarted his investigation into the Earth Elemental Plane. They found information that the cult is trying to bore a hole through the Elemental Planes, a connecting tunnel from the Abyss to the Material realm, to bypass certain divine protections.
By going over his notes, they've found evidence that another cult leader, the Blue Heron, is currently looking into the Plane of Air upon a mountaintop aarokocra city. One of the players is an aarokocra ranger. This mountain city (modeled after Machu Picchu) is the capital of his country of origin, and his faction (modeled after the Harpers) stands guard over a portal to the Plane of Air that is within that city.
Rather than immediately go after this clue however, they've opted to stick around to deal with a particular hobgoblin/hill giant threat. I'm using AL quests from Storm King's Thunder to populate the nearby region with it's own dangers and events. Bad Fruul is coming, and they won't leave the local people defenseless.
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My last session was a lvl 14 Death match!
I am pretty new to the game so I thought I am familiar(ish) with Warlocks as I play one in our regular Waterdeep game so will just role a lvl 14 tomelock it should be easy. Well after the best part of the week figuring out my spells (I didn't go for max damage, I went more for flavour, entertainment with a touch of shits and giggles) we had 1400gp to spend so studded armour, a load of ball bearings, caltrops some poison for the caltrops, alchemists fire and a few vials of acid for good measure. Didn't use any of them except for the armour (a lot lol). I took the magic initiate feat just so I could get featherfall as combined with dimension door I thought it would be an interesting way to kill someone (or at least severely damage them) once I had used mass suggestion on them so they would willingly follow me. Well the DM screwed that up we were in a cavern that was 60ft tall and had lava rivers (in hindsight I could've dropped them from 60 ft into lava, but hey ho)
The ranger was a pain in the ass and had to go, so three shots of eldritch blast with both agonising blast and repelling blast to push him through a lava river (extra 10d6) closely followed by hurling him through hell (another 10d6), the bugger had something going on so he only took half damage tricksy bugger! I charmed him later on with mass suggestion so that he would only go after the barbarian that was left on the field, then I killed him so that I could get some temp hp back.
Barbarian comes after me, batters the ever loving crap out of me. I am low on hp and will not survive that again, I have two options 3 shots of eldritch blast (agonising and repelling) to push him into a lava river from close range with disadvantage cancelled out because of his reckless attack or cast levitate on myself, float 20ft up out of range and then blast him on the next round, safe from his attacks as he has used up all of his throwable weapons (2 of the javelins on me earlier on in the match).
Guess which really safe and easy to win from option I didn't take? However 2nd in my first deathmatch with 4 other people who have been playing a lot longer isn't too bad. Can't wait for our next session and the ongoing exploits of a lvl3 party in Waterdeep, Trollskull Manor has been renamed the Stolen Tankard on account of when Volo gave us the reward we walked out of the Yawning Portal with our Ale (and a table strangely) to go and view our new property and every bar we go into now it is a mission to acquire at least one tankard between us.
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
It was a couple sessions ago at this point, but my players decided to use Wish to summon the King, her 2 Lords, and the Traitor to a room to kill them all.
... I'm not sure why...
They didn't know that the King was merely a puppet for the real BB, who teleported there and summoned 2 Liches and a Nightwalker. Ended up killing the main good NPC, 2 minor ally NPCs, and a PC.
The King, Lords, and Traitor were killed, of course, but... it was a rough battle.
Sped up the end-game a bit, though!
We killed some thugs and a Mage that burnt down a farm house.
Then out of exhaustion we just camped there with the farmers son, grieving and passing gas so bad the grass died.
Current game- Pelegos: Coastal Chaos
Game world- Pelegos, homebrew
Role- Player
Players- (Me) Druid/bard : Flower, Dancer of Curses ------- Fighter/rouge : Blackshanks, ruffian --------Sorcereress - Melenie, prodigy
Last game I played in was a Christmas-themed adventure.
All four players including myself played half-siblings - we had a real 'adventurous' father, whose identity we wanted to uncover. But we wanted Christmas presents first, so into the dungeon we went.
Long story short, I kept failing Dex saves and slipping on the ice and falling on my giant half-orc butt, we killed a Yeti who Kool-Aid Man charged through a wall, answered a bunch of riddles for Frosty the Possessed Snowman and also almost died of psychic damage when we failed a bunch of them, opened all of the presents we found including the trapped ones, fought a bunch of toy soldiers, completely ignored the potential meanings of the mistletoe traps until the DM put us in a room where we had no other choice but the figure it out, Rudolph the Demon Raindeer gored one of our twin sorcerers to death (she got better), and we met Frost Giant Santa, who allowed us to ask him one question each and he would answer truthfully. We learned that our father was Johnny Appleseed and got some sweet presents.
"Can we please stop debating philosophy with the dapper crab?"
New DM and new 5e players working through LMoP. I have 6 PCs, so I'm adjusting the encounters accordingly. I decided to not only introduce Glasstaff to the group as they cleared Tresendar Manor, but also a Drow wizard (the part don't know if it's the Black Spider or just some other wizard). Anyway, after some bantering and sarcastic & disrespectful remarks between both sides, the Drow casts Fear on 4 of the party who were in range. Only 1 didn't make the save, but he was one of the 2 fighters (PCs are the pregenerated characters), and he went running out the door full-tilt with giant spiders on the mind. As he's running around, one of the rogues of the group decided to try to intervene and help him. She asked if she could try to "fix him". As the DM, I said, "Sure, I'll let you 'smack' some sense into him ala Avengers when Black Widow 'smacks' Hawkeye's head into the wall, BUT...you have to roll a 17, 18, 19, or a 20, no bonuses." So she tried and failed. The beginning of the next round had the group take a few crossbow shots, which missed. The cleric attempted Sacred Flame, which singed Glasstaff for a measly single point. This couldn't have worked out any better. I wanted to make a dramatic exit for the enemies to allow the party to know that they're going to have a fight on their hands later. So, <FOOOSSHH> goes a fireball, taking down the other fighter, and badly injuring the others in the area. Glasstaff then cast Darkness. For the next two rounds, more crossbow bolts were hurled into the darkness. The fighter was revived and swung wildly into the darkness. The cleric dispelled the Darkness with Light, and the baddies had vanished out the back through the hidden passage. I felt like I couldn't have directed a better movie if I had tried. I was soooo thoroughly excited, and still am!! I think everyone had fun and quickly realized just how deadly the world of Faerun can be.
Thursday 12/27/18
Yeroc, (level 5 gloomstalker half-elf mark of detection ranger), is taken by a group of soldiers who are believed to be slavers, and most of his party track him. Felix, level 3 Eldritch Knight fighter/2 paladin Human mark of making, Gronkar half-Orc Barbarian Berserker level 5, and Tall Grey, level 1 Barbarian/4 Moon Druid Firbolg. Dust, the level 5 Tabaxi Swashbuckler Rogue is in town, trying to fix his missing left eye.
After following the signs of movement, they catch up and buy Yeroc back from the slavers. They slavers return *most* of Yeroc's belongings. Everything but a Potion of Climbing. Yeroc notices, but says everything is there. He watches them leave, as everyone goes to turn back to town to meet up with Dust, Yeroc proclaims "Nobody steals from Yeroc. I will hunt them to hell and back if I have to." Still watching them go off in the distance. Yeroc begins to make camp, Felix and Tall Grey groan, Gronkar excited for a fight. The next morning they follow after, Yeroc tracking them down. Tracking them the entire day, after their headstart, and into the beginning of the night, shortly after entering a forest the coterie finds a revitalizing spring. Whilst drinking from the spring they are attacked by two ankhegs near the fountain of healing. Felix lights a light so that he can see. Yeroc curses him for lighting the light, and dashes off into the brush, to continue his pursuit of the slavers that stole from him. Yeroc heads out alone towards what turns out to be a significantly larger slaver compound than he expected to reclaim his stolen potion of climbing. While he himself was in a cage with 4 elven sisters, lead by 3 humans, a dwarf, and a halfling. The slaver encampment had 16 cages filled with slaves. 3 cart and wagons. 5 dogs, 20 guards, 10 bandits, and 1 mage.
Leaving a trail for the others to follow to the encampment. yeroc circles it once, then proceeds to infiltrate, to find the halfling, whom he believes took his potion. Yeroc, sneaks past 18 people and 3 dogs, to get within 60 feet of the cages, when his friends show up. (here's where it gets more fun). Tall grey notices the torchlight of a patrol. So the 3 attempt to hide in the bush while helped by Tall grey's pass without a trace spell. Tall grey, 30 with mods. Gronkar 28 with mods. Felix, at disadvantage because of heavy armor, with his mods... 2 nat 1 crit fails. Initiative as they blow it. They get lucky, only 7 people and 1 dog have noticed them so far. Tall Grey, whom is now an Allosaurus, tries to pounce the man with the torch to put the light out but misses. Gronkar throws a javelin through the dog. the fight is on. Another guard on a further patrol notices the kerfluffle with his perception and begins sounding a horn as he leads his 2 others in patrol and their dog their way, but they were close-by to Yeroc. Yeroc lets loose arrows at the dog and horn blower ambushing them from the dark as he moves along towards his halfling "friend", he misses the man but kills the dog without being noticed as he moves along. Felix joins in, and lights a light so he can see (humans amiright?), the Allosaurus Tall Grey turns and snarls at him as he does it.
MEANWHILE, one of the slaves breaks out of his cage that he was in.... Dust. The Tabaxi Rogue, had somehow found a way to be captured by the slavers while trying to get his eyes fixed, and hearing the horn, figured now was the best time to try and break free. (not knowing we are there).
After the horn, 5 more people and 1 dog join the fray for the slaver encampment. They attempt to take down the allosaurus with crossbows, but miss, and one person even breaks the bolt in his crossbow and it backfires on him slightly. 2 more bolts fly past before 1 hits into a mended kobold shield of Felix's. But the shield seems fine. Another bolt wizzes past Felix harmlessly.
Dust, sneaks over to the nearest guard, who is seemingly distracted by the commotion. He goes to stealthily take him out... and in his stab attempt with the dagger slips, and ends up giving him a hug. But it was not a friendly hug, as his 2nd dagger, found purchase and gave the guard a quiet peaceful slumber. Dust slips into the shadows. A crossbow string breaks, and a guard starts cursing off in the distance as an Allosaurus roars in possible mocking laughter?
Yeroc, obsessed with getting his potion of climbing back, sneaks closer still to the center of the encampment, 50 feet away from Dust, not knowing Dust is there. Dust not knowing Yeroc is there. and yeroc spots him.... no not Dust... The Halfling. the man he thinks has his potion of climbing. Yeroc places a "Hunter's Mark" on him as he smiles in victory.
Another corssbow bolt misses Gronkar, and Felix attempts a firebolt, but only manages to shoot out a signal flare for their position. Perhaps aided by the extra light, a bolt finds purchase into Felix's shield again, his rotted Kobold shield has broken. Tall grey attempts to pounce a new torch beaer, but he misses, so he roars to scare the guy (10), it works, the man is freaking out from the allosaurus and not paying much attention to Gronkar. A dog bites into Gronkar, not phased by the Allosaurus. gronkar cleaves the dog in two with his greataxe. A bolt hits his shoulder. Felix is now set upon by the man who's crossbow misfired, but Felix casts "Shield", a longsword misses, a spear misses, a longsword covered in sweat comicly slips out of a guys hand. A bolt flies into the Allosaurus. But he maintains his concentration save for pass without a trace (not really working too well so far).
2 guards on the opposite end of camp don't seem to be paying much attention. Dust pops out using his feline agility to pick one off without the other noticing and dip back into his hiding spot. A scimitar finds purchase on Felix despite his magic.
Yeroc, smelling the victory before him, casts "Pass without Trace" and moves into the center of the encampment and hides under one of the slave wagons with his stealth of 30 after mods.
A great axe finds purchase into the Allosaurus, but his concentration seems stronger than ever. Felix misses with his longsword on the guy with the scimitar.
The commotion has gotten loud enough that another of the 6 remaining sentries, (including the halfling), 2 dogs, and the mage join in. 2 sentries and dog walk within inches of Yeroc but don't notice him. The lone sentry not paying attention to his dead friend doesn't even notice the dead body 15 feet from himself.
A dog misses Felix. the Greataxe misses Tallgrey, Tall grey is clipped with a longsword as he runs off to pounce the light source, his concentration is lost. But, The Allosaurus goes carnosaur (movie, google it-warning graphic) on the guy with the light. Gronkar cleaves down 2 bandits that had attempted to encircle him and begins to rage. Felix gets encircled and Shields again, as 2 longswords slash ineffectively at him. Sensing the threat that is Gronkar 2 great axes find purchase on him. a 3rd longsword missing Felix.
Dust, still unknowningly there to everyone else. and not seeing Yeroc and vice versa despite being within a stone's throw of each other, Takes out the lone, unaware sentry. But he is spotted finally. The fight begins for him as a 3rd sentry around the corner finds him and misses with scimitar.
Yeroc, now slips out from the wagon, into the middle of the entire encampment. quietly killing a dog with his bare hands, as he stands 10 feet behind the halfling, leaning against the guard tower. (no chance to hide) out and exposed. glaring daggers into this halfling's back.
Felix whittles down 1 of the 4 surrounding him. gronkar laughs off another feeble great axe slash on himself. the remaining 6 slavers alive and their dog join in after noticing Yeroc, standing in plain sight, in the middle of the camp, grinning, as he stares at this halfling slaver. 2 attacks miss gronkar feebly. And the halfling turns and surpised to see Yeroc attacks him with his scimitar but misses. Tall grey tears through another torch bearer on the other end of the camp. The man who's dog had just been killed by Yeroc flanks Yeroc. and scores a vicious gash with his scimitar. a 3rd guy joins in giving a small wound. Gronkar gets flanked by 2 more people. the longsword misses horribly, but with tremendous skill and effort (a crit), Gronkar gets a small (2 damage after rage resistance on a crit) cut on his forearm. Dust Disposes of one of his assailants with exteeme predjudice and turns to face another. who rushes in but misses.
Yeroc leans in and whispers to the halfling "your friends can't save you now" and casts "Silence" on himself and then takes a swing at the friend of the halfling, wounding him bad, but not killing him. The 3rd one turns his attention to the allosaurus and runs off to shoot at it with a crossbow. A great axe hits the allosaurus. Felix cuts down 1 of his attackers. Yeroc takes a mighty blow from the halfling's friend whom he wounded. Yeroc falls unconscious, the silence is lost.
Felix still surrounded desperately throws up another shield to ward off a dog and attacker. Tall Grey misses a pounce chance. Seeing opportunity on this a bolt whizzes past and a dog bites into him. "nearly" knocking him prone. This was a fine specimen of the dogs, and clearly their alpha. Gronkar, seeing the overwhelming numbers still running at them goes into a frenzy and cuts down 2 more. A scimiatr finds purchase on Tall grey. as Felix manages to shield away a scimiatr 2 bolts and a longsword.
But the Mage has finally gotten close... and not liking what he sees, unleashes a huge Cone of Cold (60 foot cone), allies be damned. Felix, Gronkar, and Tall grey hang on... but 4 slavers and 1 dog weren't so fortunate and are frozen statues. Dust dispatches another sentry and makes his way closer to the center of camp, where more sound is coming from. Not a second later, Yeroc's eyes shoot open "I WANT MY POTION OF CLIMBING" (nat 20 the death save), he roars, Dust, now knowing Yeroc is REALLY nearby to him. A sentry attacks dust but drops his sword, then tries to run. Dust dispatches him as he tries to run off. Felix attempts to take out one of the crossbowmen with a firebolt and wounds him.
A longsword hits tall Grey, who is no longer an allosaurus after the cone of cold. He attempts to convince the Mage to call it quits and give it up. Yeroc, not hiding the fact he has awakened, the friend of the halfling, attacks the prone Yeroc, the light of life, once again fading from his eyes...
Gronkar takes down 2 more sentries.... the gore piling up on his axe. Tall Grey gets hit by an axe as well, and pretends that he was unaffected by the blow. the Halfling, startled by Yeroc, attacks his unconscious body "And F----G stay dead this time!". 2 Crossbow bolts fly towards Tall grey in front of the mage, one finding purchase. He again, tries to pretend it had no effect, while whimpering. the mage moves away to give himself space, and Tall grey misses with his staff.
The mage casts "Fireball" Gronkar shakes it off, Tall grey and Felix caught in it, and Felix is looking bad. Dust, having run out of sentries on his end, goes over to where he heard yeroc, to find 2 guys attacking his unconscious body, he throws a dagger at each of them and then bares his Tabaxi claws and Tabaxi face and hisses menacingly. Yeroc then AGAIN SPRINGS life into his eyes "NOBODY STEALS FROM YEROC" and he very feebly swings his sword at the halfling in a very pitiful manner.
Late to the party, a sentry from the far end fires a bolt at Dust who dodges it very uncannily. Felix has a second wind of energy it seems but he's struggling. The Halfling's friend turns to charge Dust when he steps, his foot is gone, Yeroc, had cut it off as he stepped past him from his back on the ground, he falls down and then bleeds out. Tall Grey turns into a bear and charges the Mage. tearing small pieces out with his mouth and claws. Gronkar cuts down another smallfry but one of the 2 still surrounding him finds his thigh with the scimitar, he's looking bad shape now too. the halfling and the crossbowmen decide to flank Dust and blitz him, he shakes off the first, but the 2nd one hits him. Felix was not so fortunate on the other end of camp, the mage drops him like a bad habit in an "Ice Storm". Felix has gone down.
Tall grey fails to connect with the mage again. Dust tears through the throat of the halfling. Yeroc screams in frustration as he gets up and looks for someone to vent it on, and sees the mage. he marks the mage with a hunter's mark and lets 2 arrows fly from his longbow dropping his swords. 1 flies by but the second finds purchase. a crossbow bolt misses Gronkar. and Felix is not looking good.
Tall Grey starts to look a little better, Gronkar, on the verge of death himself, recklessly tries to take down the 2 guys on him. His momentum cleaving through the first goes straight through the 2nd. The mage, and the sentry by Dust and Yeroc, are now the only ones still standing, not in the form of an ice sculpture.
A firebolt slams into Tall grey. Dust, sees an opening and dashes in with feline agility and disembowles the mage who turned a second too late. Yeroc, Limps over to the dead halfling and begins rummaging through looking for his potion of climbing. He can't seem to find it. Yeroc eats a goodberry as a Crossbow bolt whizzes over Yeroc's head while he's doing this. Felix is turning really really pale. Tall grey casts "Healing Word" on Felix. The lone slaver, sees this, and decides to run. Between Yeroc's longbow, and a Javelin from Tall grey, he doesn't get very far. Yeroc, satisfied with Jungle law, eats another goodberry......
(and that's where we ended)
some dialogue left out.
Gronkar made some hip thrusting motions.
Yeroc has broken ribs and some internal organ damage.
Felix is missing a chunk of his face and not in a cool way like Zuko from Avatar.
Blank
Two words: Holy shit
Party composition: Paladin, Monk/Warlock, Rogue, Bard, Wizard, all at L9/L8Mon-1War.
This was the culmination of about three months of buildup and work towards this point, as well as the year anniversary of the campaign so it was always going to be a doozy of a session. I'd like to say my party is a well oiled, efficient machine. I'd like to say that but I'd be lying. Still, we've just fought our way through eight myrmidons, several traps and a college of mind-flayers, wherein we engineered a purge of the college's senior management, and finally we're at the door of the Beholder's inner sanctum. We're all at various levels of injured and we've expended various levels of equipment/spell slots. The Beholder has set up a shrill sounding mechanism to keep us from taking a long rest so we can't hit this fresh, but the DM threw me a bone and let me pray to my god, getting two L2 and one L3 spell slot back.
So we kicked down the door and found Mr Beholder, with four mobile crossbow type arrangements. Monologues were had, initiative was rolled, and we started with a touch of ranged cuddling with spells and killing the mobile crossbows. The Beholder started shooting rays, mostly at the monk, who had some godly dex and wis rolls. We then split into two groups and started pushing up, killing the last of the mobile crossbows and starting to move up, me with the bard and monk, and the wizard and rogue moving up together. I was doing my best to keep the bard in my paladin bubble of +3 to saving throws, but she still got paralysed. I dispelled that, and then my paladin ate a death ray and he fell over.
So the rest of the party carried on kicking seven bales of shit out of this beholder, who kicked right back. He managed to petrify our wizard, and do a few other major effects to keep us honest, throwing us around the field, but our rogue managed to get in a couple of godly sneak attacks, one of which crit with a life stealer sword. Our bard followed up with emptying a wand of fireballs into the beholder's face, which did the honours.
Cue loot and congratulations all round. We got a pile of money and art treasures, along with an ice staff and some other things, including a deck of many things. Ioun was very happy with the bard, and made her the champion of knowledge. We then went back home and I and the DM had a discussion about rezzing my paladin (He being a samurai whose culture is generally opposed to being resurrected) and the decision was made to res him because there may be a plot hook for him. He got up and drew from the deck of many things... drawing a Holy Avenger and a fight with the avatar of death... whilst being under a -3 to a few stats due to being recently rezzed. The fight with the avatar of death hasn't happened yet.
(Game that I'm a player in)
Party has level 5 Half Orc Druid, level 6 Dwarf Ranger, level 4 Dragonborn Paladin, level 4 Human Wizard and level 4 Tiefling Warlock (me)
We had been fighting gnolls off and on for two play sessions, working our way to their cave complex to recover a MacGuffin and return it to the city. Our party typically resolves conflict through violence. Only one member of the party is a session 0 character, the rest are replacements from various deaths.
The BBG turned out to be the half-brother of the druid and called for parley. The party didn't know what to do, except the Druid who rolled with it and started negotiating. I was hidden out of sight, so I cast invisibility and began sneaking up with the intent to go past the bad guys, grab the MacGuffin and book it before a fight started. Instead, the Druid deftly negotiated a trade for the MacGuffin in exchange for a magic item that he was carrying.
The exchange was made, including agreement to free any slaves the gnolls had captured. With one small exception, no blood was shed. Scratching our heads and patting the druid on the back, we headed back to the city confused that a non-violent solution worked. We're now facing a tactical crisis as whole new options are open to us.
XD
UPDATE: Apparently the magic item the druid was carrying WAS the MacGuffin and the item we traded for wasn't really necessary. After discovering this fact the next scenario involved violence. Sigh.
It was New Years, and we were visiting some friends. A bunch of kids were there, and I thought to get them invested in D&D. So, I brought the pre-made characters from the starter set and the monster manual, picked a few enemies and set a short story about them (based on one I read long ago, but can't remember where), and convinced a few of the children to join me.
It was a lot of fun. Because they were so unfamiliar with the game, and to make it easier on them, we used basic character monikers instead of names or classes. We called the rogue the Thief, the cleric (no one wanted to play the cleric) the Priest, the fighter the Warrior, and the wizard the... Wizard. The plot hook I set up for them was that the roads east of Daggerford were haunted by a beast said to be part man and part rat. The characters were promised a reward of 100 gold for the head of the creature, and had borrowed silver weapons for the task. After being on the road for a day, they met a woman, who desperately asked them to find her girlfriend, who was attacked by monsters. The players were suspicious, and two of them wanted to move on, though they decided to help (I had to nudge them a bit, can't just ignore the call to adventure). They tracked the monsters to a cave, and found a pack of goblins around the corpse of a woman. After a pretty good fight (the wizard rolled a crit on his Ray of Frost, which I judged to freeze the goblin to the ground), they looted the corpses, identified the female as the girlfriends and prepared to move on. When suddenly, the woman they had met earlier appeared in the cave opening. She was the wererat they had looked for.
The Thief had to leave shortly after, and left his character to be played by the Warrior. It went poorly, and the thief was infected with lycanthropy, but they eventually chopped her head of. Returning to Daggerford, they left the Thief at the temple to be healed, and collected their award. The adventure was short, but sweet, and all the players expressed interest in playing more.
"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
-Actual conversation in a game.
Spent 8 hours with my group, 4 of which were devoted to creating new characters. Since everyone was new to the process, save me, it was an educational experience. But everyone is much more invested in their characters than using the pre-gens from LMoP. We then ran through Cragmaw Castle, where a deal was struck with some hobgoblins to overthrow King Grol. The hobgobs led the group to the back and then proceeded to vacate. I had Glasstaff in with Grol and his pet wolf. Our wizard unleashed a fireball scroll, cooking the wolf. Grol took the full brunt, and Glasstaff made his save, but he was still down significant HP. The group easily dismantled the two, taking Glasstaff prisoner to be returned to Sildar in Phandalin. Then, in a creative stroke of genius, they let the owlbear out to wonder around the castle, and he cleaned up the goblins, like a dozen of them, with ease. Then, for some reason, instead of just leaving which they could have very easily done, they decided to take out the owlbear, who had 4 goblins holed up in their guard towers. After an easy fight, the owlbear was felled, and the goblins slain. Now the group will have a choice - escort Glasstaff back to Phandalin and risk losing Gundren and his map to the unknowns at Thundertree, or drag Glasstaff along while they attempt to rescue Gundren and retrieve his map.
Most recent: Unearthed Arcana type campaign. I raged quit because The DM would get upset at little things. He also treated the new players like they were Noobs. Then my piece of resistance moment was. A 50 feet circumference pit that our druid made for a trap. The enemies are partying, and we're sneaking into the camp. So I'm a sun soul monk. I need to get in range to attack. I can only move 40 feet... It would take a few turns to sneak up and attack. My Dm questions why I'm not attacking. I'm out of range because of where I am. Then belittles my PC. Sorry, I'm not IN RANGE. Phew
I've had other worst times with DnD. From clicks "You cannot hear what we're saying because you don't speak this ONE language the click has." to DM's mistreating PC because they don't like them (10 int Barbarian treated like a ******) or (Pay me rent so we can live in a fort we found, or live in the street. If you fail a skill check then you'll be living in the street. The Skill check was proficiency in something. It was 3.5 ) Or even...plot armor for no reason.
However, The best game I've played was. Adventurers League. Our DM never DMed Curse of Strahd, The shop already had 6 groups of Tomb of Annihilation. So, He wanted to be different. I joined in after a week in game. The group was in the murder house at this time. We had a bad player in our group but we worked with him as much as we could. While we play the campaign. It felt like we were bonding after a while. Our characters were strangers but later on, would quip about things like they were friends for years (That's how I see DnD) Expect the bad player(who did not want to work with the party or listen to the DM). Trust me this is the best part. He was impulsive (To shoot first, ask questions later). We just battled Strahd (nearly killing him at level 5, But also almost TPK) We stay the night in the windmill we owned because of a deed in the murder house. The hag that lived there let us stay. The Dm informs us about the pastries after an investigation check. They did not seem right to eat. Our bad player, out of impulsive eats one (We double confirmed, even tho he acted back we weren't going to force with so we Double confirmed he wanted this to happen). He gets drugged and becomes addicted to them. Because he wasn't listening. He had to make a con save every 6 hours or he eats the drug pastries. I bagged a few pastries for later. (Don't even insight check me, You know it to be true.) Our druid (Who wanted and carries the deed) now argues with the hag over rent. Which then devolves to "Okay, so gold plus one kid a month? Ahhhhhh I don't know?" This was an hour-long argument where we're all laughing on bartering rent with kids lives at stake.
I still talk to the DM and a few players. The Dm and I are working towards playing again.
We had an exciting session yesterday. The party resolved one of the smaller quests on the campaign arc and in the process, they fought the toughest monster they have ever gone up against (CR10). It gave them a tough challenge and a long fight. The party had to modify their tactics and use spells creatively and, in the end, they emerged victorious and the party reached level six at the end of the day.
The session started with the adventure in a Stilben, having gone to their ship in search of a small ship of goblins heading out to sea with a bunch of captured gnomes to sell them as slaves in a distant city. Other sailors had reported the ship not so far away sailing erratically as though the crew had no idea what they were doing. That’s because the goblin crew had no idea what they were doing. The adventurers sailed out to the area where the ship had been reported and found it had run aground on a tony island that was on nautical as stone island.
Getting closer to the ship, the party saw it was being dive-bombed and harassed by a handful harpies and the goblins on the deck were trying desperately to defend themselves. The party sailed their ship as close to shore as their dared and then split up into two rowboats—one heading for shore, and the other heading for the goblin ship. Along the way, Thud the cleric, who spoke goblin, called out to the goblins that the party was here to fight against the harpies. The goblins took them at their word and continued fighting off the aerial attackers. The harpy’s song entranced several party members and drew them out to sea from the shore and out of their approaching rowboats.
Things on shore were not much better. As soon as Zarrak the sorcerer and the party’s bard Melias stepped onto the beach, a blue eight-legged lizard ran out at them while another scampered away into a cave. These were basilisks and the reason the island was called stone island. The sorcerer had to be somewhat clever in attacking the basilisk while averting his eyes, but fortunately he had the ability to outpace the creature. As the harpy menace was slowly reeled in and destroyed, the party members regained their faculties and in short order, it was just the ship and the goblins.
Assembling on deck, Cyrus slipped below deck and confirmed the gnome prisoners were there. He came back up top and struck down a goblin and battle kicked off. The fight went the way you would expect five level five players versus five goblins to go. In the end, two goblins surrendered and explained their actions.
This goblin tribe, the Bonebreak tribe, are nomadic raiders, hitting villages they think they can get away with, as they have for generations. More recently, they started capturing prisoners that hobgoblins offered to pay. The goblins overheard the hobgoblins were taking these prisoners to a city across the sea to sell as slaves. But recently, the hobgoblins had stopped coming to buy prisoners (because the party had been hard at work smashing the evil hobgoblin cult story arc) so the goblins decided they would do it themselves. The fact that none of them had been on a boat before didn’t deter them and Grok, the smartest goblin of the bunch, had captained the ship until they ran aground here.
The party still wanted to explore the island cave and they knew a basilisk was inside, so they forced the goblins to march inside to see what they could see. Inside a dark twisty cave, Beelock the blood hunter and Thud became invisible to scout ahead, thinking that if the basilisk couldn’t see them, it could not turn them to stone. Meanwhile, the goblins were marched around a corner and came face to face with the basilisk. The lizard quickly attacked and killed one goblin and the other one fled. The invisible adventurers pressed deeper into the cave, exploring it and revealing its main resident—a greater basilisk.
The smaller basilisk was easy enough to finish off, but the party knew a special strategy would be required for the big guy. Cyrus used his Shademist armor and set off a fog cloud at a choke point in the cave. Any close-range combat would happen within this petrification-free zone. We use a house rule for heavily obscured conditions that says when you are blinded, attacks against you have advantage as long as the attacker can see you. This means that two blind people fighting each other both have disadvantage.
With the fog cloud in place, the battle mostly involved using spells that did not require seeing the target as well as hit and run weapon tactics. The basilisk, knowing its own lair very well, would progress until it bumped into someone and then attack them. This resulted in a few party members taking grievous damage from the basilisk but being able to place a newly-healed party member in the line of attack while the injured party member retreated out of the fog cloud to heal. The battle was pitched and after several close calls, the party managed to defeat the basilisk with Cyrus landing the killing blow.
After searching the cave and recovering a couple basilisk eggs, the party freed the gnomes and brought them over to their own ship to take back to the mainland so they could attempt to piece their lives back together.
This session was extremely satisfying because the party faced a tough enemy and had to use clever tactics to counteract one of the ubiquitous dangers. Everyone got to struggle and contribute and nobody broke the fight. And the danger of death was there right up until the end. My preparation was pretty minimal for this session. Here is everything I had laid out ahead of time:
The Great Goblin Caper
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Running LMoP...
After clearing Cragmaw Castle, the group of 6 I DM for was directed to Thundertree in the hopes that they would find Gundren Rockseeker and his map there. Setting out northwest to the ruins of the little town that was abandoned after Mt. Hotenow's eruption 30 years prior, they quickly met a group of 10 hobgoblins who launched arrow after seemingly endless arrow at them in an ambush. The hardy adventurers were out in the open, and had no choice but to return ranged attacks and cast ranged spells while trying to move closer to engage the beasts. A critical hit by a raging half-orc barbarian led to not only a decapitation of a hobgoblin, but also cleaving the foul creature's torso in two. Having survived the ambush with only a few scratches and nicks, the party healed up and arrived that evening in Thundertree. The fog got thicker as they got closer. It had a green-hue that clung to it, carrying with it an off-putting acrid scent. Eventually, the group made it to the outskirts of the town where the foul scent was mixed with an even more putrid smell...the undead. Indeed, zombies were lurking about in the dense fog that was made even more intense as the sun set. A ranger in the group discerned that the fog was not natural, leading to the party's sorcerer who used a dispel magic to provide some line of sight in a 120' radius for approximately a minute. But a minute would be about all they need and her timing could not have been any better as the zombies were nearly on top of them when they gained visibility. As the group engaged the undead, the rogue desperately attempted to enter a building that appeared intact and with all its doors closed and windows shuttered. Just as the door opened, she was grappled by a zombie who inflicted a bite upon her. Meanwhile, the half-orc barbarian and the dragonborn paladin were swarmed by 5 zombies before they were able to dispatch them and the group beat a hasty retreat into the house, barring the door to deal with their wounds. The rogue has a disease, one that seems to be only slowed by the paladin's attempt to cure the disease. In the house they met an elf spy - Tauberel - who is a member of the Order of the Gauntlet sent to infiltrate a group known as the Cult of the Dragon. She revealed that across the town were 6 cultists holed up in another house as the zombie infestation in Thundertree proved too dangerous and overwhelming to them. She relayed that she had sent a message via a bird to the Order, but suspects that the message may not have been received, as she believed the party was supposedly the backup she sent for, but are actually redknives of the Lord's Alliance.
The next session will start with the party getting to figure out how to handle their zombie-infected companion, look to see if Gundren Rockseeker is truly there, and how to deal not only with the cultist, but to dispatch the green dragon, too!
Hi I'm new here and even still relatively new to D&D, though it's already the best thing ever. like...EVER.
anyway, Our last session wasn't particularly eventful but I still think it was one of the funniest we've ever had. 3 main great moments:
1 - Our group's Tiefling Warlock was wandering around town and came across a blacksmith, there was a guard outside yelling at the blacksmith for, at best, questionable reasons and so she went over to see what was going on. The guard, noticing her, whipped round and said "what are you doing?" in that kind of way that means you know there is going to be a fight soon. However Celestia, fast as lightning said "what am i doing, what are you doing?". Our DM is great so the guard made a wisdom saving throw and lo and behold he failed. He began stuttering and didn't know what to say. Then to top it all off Celestia pulls out a medal she had got from a race earlier (basically a medal of participation) and gave it to him. So when I picture that whole encounter in game, it is just the best thing ever.
2 - There was a whole escapade with our Paladin who had basically kidnapped this random man he found around town earlier that day and led him out into the woods to look for clues in the current part of our campaign. She came to a house in the middle of the woods and some people came out to ask her to help with something. Firstly she takes two attempts to knock down a door with her 20 strength, then manages to effectively scalp someone, takes a flying leap at a window and bounces off of it back into the room, tries again, goes through and crashes through the balcony in the lower level, through a floor and lands in the basement. It didn't end here though. She went back out to the front, takes the kidnapped man (who is currently tied up), storms back upstairs, throws him under the bed, jumps back out of the window, through the floor again and lands on this man's legs breaking both of them. She does lay-on-hands and makes them a bit better but by this time all the people in this house are trying desperately to get away from her. She then finally leaves and we are all in fits of laughter from the sheer ineptitude of the whole operation.
3 - To be fair this one seems kind of timid after the last one but i've started now. We had all run into this reporter guy that we had come across a few times before and he was telling us about why he was there and mentions a huge encampment of the military around a large magical site a couple of days east of where we are. I, taking a hint that he was not trying to give, said that we would go and check it out. He very clearly said that that wasn't what he meant but because my character is kind of bad at picking up on things said, "Ah so you're saying that you DON'T (winking at him) want us to go and check it out." He said that he didn't want us to but I persisted for perhaps longer than i should have and eventually said, and I quote "So if the magical site was a delicious slice of apple pie, you're saying don't eat the apple pie but you are, in fact, serving us a slice; secretly."
That's all I got, I hope i didn't go on for too long and I hope that found this funny.
SO this one I played with two of my friends and one of my friends wanted to bring their brother along so 3 players I was DMing for like the 3rd time so I considered my self a pro and wrote my own story and... well... yeah they all died in the end 'sigh' lets start
I started off telling the group about the situation you see they where travellers and needed a place to stay so the group decided to stay in Daggerfall a reference to a town from elder scrolls 1 but it was a small village with 6-7 houses or so and they where kindly brought in and cared for until one day they found the whole village with Dogma the druid who is also the mayor gathered around with a big bonfire in the middle the dwarf of our group Denton asked what was going on and the druid was like 'our almighty God came to me in a dream and spoke words of enlightenment he spoke of an evil that goes by the name of dark wing and he is EVIL this EVIL dragon born is full of EVIL so travellers in return for 500 gold pieces will you do it and rid this world of this EVILLL man and if so may God bless you and your soul.' so you know..... my group burned the village stole everything they had got like 70 pieces of steak using the dead bodies of the villagers as fuel and cooked the pices of steak murdered all of the towns near it stole every thing they had and left the mayor alive so that they could tie him up and torture him for his money. 'Sniff' and they are all lawful good. But I mean they ended up trying to get rid of Darkwing so I mean if you like this post and it gets over like 12 then ill tell you part two
That. That is just pure murderhoboness.
yeah see it sucked cos they where going to be important later on ill talk about that on part 2 of the story
These violent delights have violent ends.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I altered LMoP's Thundertree encounter by integrating homebrewed zombie (death) virus. Last time, I wrote about our tiefling rogue being bitten and infected. Mind you, I DM for 6 people, their characters having just hit level 4. The dragonborn paladins lay on hands alleviated some symptoms of the zombie virus, but it was evident that there was still infection in her wound. As night had set in, the party occupied the southwestern house of the town (#4 on the map). I also swapped out Reidoth for an elf spy who is working for the Order of the Gauntlet, and has infiltrated the Cult of the Dragon to roll into the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. Also, the party has Droop along, and Glasstaff, who they believe is attempting to redeem himself after succumbing to temptation at the beginning of LMoP.
So, the party split up, believing that they'll be able to find some plant to make a balm that may help alleviate the infection. As they leave, a few zombies are meandering their way towards the house. Believing the house should stay intact, it takes them 3 hours to find a shrub and an hour to head back to town. @ 2am in the morning, no one has had much rest, and a dozen zombies have descended upon the house, with more making their way from the northeast square in town. The party engaged the zombies, and I rigged a system to allow them call head-shot with crossbows or melee weapons - zombie's AC is 8, so the first roll was to see if the attack would hit. If yes, then they could roll another attack roll - AC 15 - to specifically hit the head. If it was a head hit, I counted the zombie as being automatically dead. This seemed to work about 1/4 of the time, so plenty of zombies got arrowed, but it still took time to whittle their numbers down. I presented 26 zombies by the time the encounter was done.
Within the house, the sorcerer conjured up a great idea - she cast Dancing Lights around a tree off in the distance, drawing a large crowd of the zombies that were making their way towards them to that instead. This set up Glasstaff to cast a massive fireball, incinerating 11 of the undead, which burned to a crisp a round later. It was such a fun encounter! It took a while, but everyone was thoroughly invested as more and more walkers emerged from the shadows. They had not idea how many I had planned. Each round, I rolled a d6 and introduced that many more zombies skulking down the path! They were feeling the intensity and the pressure, and being the murder-hobos that they are, relished the opportunity to play with the fodder.
After getting some rest, the party encountered the Cult of the Dragon on the far side of town. Our paladin was having none of the "restoring Tiamat to rule over this land!" talk from Favric, and he proceeded to skewer him with his lance. The other five cultists tried to surrender, and after our half-orc barbarian axed two of them in the head, the other three were left sobbing and crying for mercy in puddles of their own pee. They bound them after they were made to "curse" Tiamat and swear allegiance to Bahomet.
Lastly, in the town's square was a wooden statue on a stone base. Once again, the paladin could sense great evil infused within the wooden creation, and began striking at it. The sorcerer sparked it on fire with a firebolt, burning it to a crisp. This was fairly timely as Favric's skewered corpse had reanimated and was meandering toward the group. Not that it was a threat, but it was wonderful to see how they were able to tie the evil within the statue to the zombies that I altered there in town.
Next up - Venomfang!
I really enjoy reading what other people are doing with adventure modules, how they modify them to give their own spin.
I also ran Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I used it to set up the introduction of a cult attempting to find a way to summon their demonic patron to the material realm. The Black Spider was a lesser cult fanatic that had drawn to himself others that the cult had rejected or discarded. Mechanically speaking, the lower leveled cultists. At Thundertree, a gaggle of cultists were going to try and parley with Venomfang. The Black Spider wished to ensure that his studies within the mines were left undisturbed, and hoped a dragon threat on the horizon would keep the local population suitably distracted.
Then the party came along, and dealt with those cultists. Unfortunately, they did it loud and explosive enough that it of course caught the attention of Venomfang.
They've also dealt with Black Spider and thwarted his investigation into the Earth Elemental Plane. They found information that the cult is trying to bore a hole through the Elemental Planes, a connecting tunnel from the Abyss to the Material realm, to bypass certain divine protections.
By going over his notes, they've found evidence that another cult leader, the Blue Heron, is currently looking into the Plane of Air upon a mountaintop aarokocra city. One of the players is an aarokocra ranger. This mountain city (modeled after Machu Picchu) is the capital of his country of origin, and his faction (modeled after the Harpers) stands guard over a portal to the Plane of Air that is within that city.
Rather than immediately go after this clue however, they've opted to stick around to deal with a particular hobgoblin/hill giant threat. I'm using AL quests from Storm King's Thunder to populate the nearby region with it's own dangers and events. Bad Fruul is coming, and they won't leave the local people defenseless.