My last adventure was a flop, but everyone had fun, or so they say.
We were missing 2 players for the campaign that was supposed to happen so the DM let me run a one-shot. I brought a new player to the table, and by new I mean they've heard of the game and watched a video or three. Took the time to roll up characters and explain the numbers to the new player and started the game. Simple concept, a bunch of level 5 players get captured by Drow and have to escape while rescuing the prisoners.
As the inciting incident is happening, a few Umberhulks burrowing up through the city streets, the new player goes and blows my mind. He claimed to be a smooth talking charlatan when, in this moment, he grabs the nearest wealthy npc he can see, slams him against an alley wall and proceeds to mug him and chop off his hand. Then, runs away from the Umberhulk leaving the npc to bleed out and die at the claws of this creature. Two of my other players took to the plot hook just fine, attacking the nearest Umberhulk. The other two players decided to run away rather than fight after watching a child and their mother get killed by the Umberhulk in front of them.
I introduce the Priestess of Llolth and have her fighters attack with poisoned darts. All of the characters fail their saves, then the Paladin decides to Lay on Hands...and finds out that it was better to just go to sleep. They wake in a cell with about two dozen other prisoners, the men are chained to the walls, the women are shackled and able to lay on straw pallets. The new player, Black Dragonborn Rogue, starts verbally accosting the Silver Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut saying that "You wench of a diety will die by my hands". I'm done with this new player's inability to be a team player, so I have Bahamut tell him to change his ways or die, and change him into a Silver Dragonborn. Every time he starts to act all angsty and murderhobo, Bahamut starts making things difficult, such as burning his holy symbol into the Rogue's chest.
After a while they finally did make their way out of the cages and up to the surface, but I spent most of the game trying to use my game to teach this kid how to be a team player rather than a murderhobo. Ahh the joys of DMing for teens....
My party got into an intense conversation/fight with a custom Balhannoth, one who had been experimented on by Mind Flayers and is much smarter then a normal creature. It had teleported the party Barbarian into it's lair and was asking it questions, requesting information, toying a bit with the character. The Barbarian kept trying to avoid answering questions, or gave vague answers, so the Balhannoth would probe his mind deeper and deeper looking for information. By the time the rest of my party finally found the lair, the Balhannoth had grown tired of being toyed with and had grabbed and attacked the Barbarian. As the party arrives it tells them it wants information or it'll kill them. They throw insults and attack.
But the Barbarian hadn't raged yet. And the Balhannoth rolled a Nat 20 on one of it's attacks, and had a few lair and legendary actions. It would keep asking for information to spare their lives, and when the party would ignore it and attack it would use a legendary action to bite the Barbarian. Eventually the Barb was at 1 hp thanks to relentless endurance, and when the Balhannoth once again asked for info instead of a fight, the cleric agreed. The rest of the party agreed to stand down for a moment, and we left the game on the cleric promising to tell a story from her backstory in exchange for not killing the Barb.
I think if the party kept attacking they would have killed the Balhannoth, but maybe not before the Barbarian was eaten. Maybe. But I'm super happy this happened this way, as now a tense negotiation is about to happen! We return next week to a tense standoff and the party potentially agreeing to tell some stories about their history in order to save the Barbs life!
Woah DmThaco your tough on rogue elements! Good luck table training murderous moppets.
Last session, finally the jungle explorers finished sucking the Lore and background marrow out of the City of Radiant water. Oddly they were collaborating with the Yuanti (serpent tribes) as they felt either a) sorry for them being attacked and killed by the wave of undead spreading through the jungle. or b) felt they were nice people (despite the slave-conomy/sacrifice/torture-transformation and feasting on everything not snakelike, they had witnessed and seen advertised and glorified in art statues and altars.) when a whole 4 of the serpents decided to appeal to their sense of mercy after the majority of the surviving tribes people discovered they shouldnt have brought blowpipes and wooden weapons to a spiritual guardian fight.
One priest is really crushing on their god and is now using Divination to ask variations of 'Are you feeling well today?' Its probably going to be a creepy voicemail/prayer thing.
I wonder at what point they will refuse to accept a surrender, or consider the consequences of letting those surrendering go free.
Woah DmThaco your tough on rogue elements! Good luck table training murderous moppets.
It sounds harsher that it actually was. Basically if he chose to do something that was blatantly murderhob-ish Bahamut would do something to prod him in the right direction. The holy symbol would get hot and make him uncomfortable. If he chose to do something altruistic then he would be rewarded.
Example: In one situation during the game there were 3 hostages being held by Drow, they had just witnessed the Drow killing hostages with no problem when the party didn't stand down. The player asked me how many prisoners were in the cage with them, I answered that there were probably two dozen or so. He then asked if there were any children, to which I said yes. His last question was if there were any children between him and the Drow holding hostages, to which I said no.
He then decided to use his breath weapon to kill the Drow. I asked why, both as a story question and as a way to see where his mind was when making the decision. His answer was simply, I don't want to kill the children, but losing 3 hostages to save everyone else seems like a fair trade. I had the Drow roll their saves and...they failed miserably lol. I then described how his once acid breath now issued for a radiant cloud that enveloped the Drow but somehow managed to avoid doing any damage to the hostages.
I've dealt with many teens, and some adults, using D&D as an outlet for emotional issues. So, rather than being goaded by their actions and fighting fire with fire, I try to use the actions/consequences of the game to redirect those issues in a way that re-enforces healthy decision making rather than rewarding the angsty/negative behavior.
I wrote this "blog entry" after our last session. I'm playing a tiefling urchin who uses illusions and charms. She is the cheerful optimist of the group:
Ok so tonight we had to escape town. After fighting off the cultists of Orcus and saving their human sacrifice, we found ourselves exiting the tower into the middle of town, alarm bells ringing and guards everywhere. The winery front for the cult gave credence to the shouting and pointing and other judginess coming from the surviving cult members who sought assistance from the guards.
We’re brainstorming ideas and I’m sure I can charm the guards to let us go and use deception where that doesn’t work. Yadda yadda yadda the Paladin and the Ranger want to be goody goodies and tell the truth. I grew up on the streets and know the authority can be a no-go. After all, our party includes a half-orc, dragonborn, tiefling, dwarf and elf in a human city with dwarven criminals. Seriously, I’d arrest us too and I know the truth.
But noooooo, we have to tell the truth and stuff. Anyways it works, which is the bigger rub. I mean seriously, what flubbed roll happened behind the DM screen to make this crap work? After reconsidering offering Inspiration to the DM just to get my way, I decided to follow the Paladin like a doting minor.
Next time I’m casting Darkness, gut punching a guard and letting myself out of town. Ok not really but I am going to pick their pockets or at least leave a nasty note.
Also, apparently some dwarf killed the king while we were in town, giving the guards something else to worry about. Priorities I guess?
I am that one DM that puts deadly encounters everywhere. I'm running an aquatic intrigue/war game and I put my four level 2 players up against seven bugbears.
The party:
Tamarin, a firbolg warlock who made a pact with an otherworldly angel council to find his abducted children (NG bordering in LG)
Valeri, a wandering dwarf barbarian who uses his long-dead tribe's collective spirits to give him power (N)
Hecyee, a secluded and awkward water genasi druid who looks mysterious and cool until you talk to them and realise they have a 6 in Charisma (NG)
Bearlei, a sea elf rogue/paladin who comes from a tribe of sahuagin. Escaped later but has slightly malformed social skills, brash and arrogant and sometimes repeats clichês over and over again. (Token irritating CG)
The fight starts off basically, with Hecyee being introduced (couldn't make the first session) and the bugbears clumping on valeri. Hecyee has no ranged cantrips so entangles some bugbears and repeatedly casts ice knife and shillelagh. Leader has a death wish against Tamarin, because Tamarin killed his mate like two rounds before, so he starts beating the crap out of him.
Valeri is dying, Bearlei is unconscious, Hecyee is fending off three bugbears, and Tamarin saves everything. Valerie is about to be killed by a stealthing bugbear that only Tamarin noticed, so he Guiding Bolts it to death, turns invisible, and flits to Hecyee just in time to stop a mace from smashing into them, taking the damage instead. Next turn, he runs to an unconscious Bearlei and casts Curs Wounds, then uses Minor Illusion to create a copy of the leader's mate, allowing Beatles to sneak attack his head and make him dead. Hecyee kills a bugbear in the meantime and as they're about to be overrun, Tamarin kills one and gIves space for a shillelagh to the face of the last. Might I say, Tamarin was on oñe hit point after taking the hit for Hecyee. One. Hit. Point.
Note #1: we frequently use the Rule of Cool, and had to because this situation was amazing
Note #2: writing this at nearly 2 am on mobile so spelling errors galore!
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I'm the idiot that decides to make Phil Swift in DnD.
I wish I could upvote that twice, sounds like a heck of a moment for you guys/gals.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It was! Next session, everything fell apart and one of us died, but it was one of the best D&D moments I've ever experienced. (First being either bombing a ship full of frost giants when the DM was sure they'd TPK us, or being a bard killing a dragon with vicious mockery)
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I'm the idiot that decides to make Phil Swift in DnD.
Dwarf fighter, heavily bedecked with weapons and clad in splint mail, falls through a weak floor at the top of the East tower of Argynvostholt. His plummet was arrested by the candelabra on the way down. The monk then tries to grab him from a balcony, fails, and they both fall. Monk rolls out of the way of descending armoured dwarf...thump as he hits the flagstones. Shortly followed by ritual impalement by the spiked gothic candelabra.
Did I mention the player was absent this week?
The other player who missed this session, the party rogue scout, was sent off to scout ahead at the beginning of the session and hasn't been seen since.
I'm not a cruel DM; no PCs were worse than severely maimed in this episode.
We just started out today! I got a couple of really good rolls (and a few bad ones), but it was a good session overall. While I wasn't always successful on rolls, my defenses were great and I made it through both of the day's encounters without taking a single hit.
I finally got around to starting a campaign with my kids and wife. I'd tried out a few simple one-shots based on the Heroes of Hesiod to see how the kids would respond and they've been excitedly asking when we'd start a "real" game.
It'd been long enough since the one-shots that everyone wanted to roll up new characters and had different ideas about what was cool now. Finally got everyone settled and we got started. I had them all brought together "by chance" at an overcrowded inn where they were hired to deliver supplies to a nearby town. I was enjoying setting up the story and it was fun watching my wife and kids settle into the characters they'd created.
I had an ambush set up down the road and they rolled well enough to not be surprised when goblins jumped out of the bushes at them. However, my first attack came from a goblin that had held back in the bushes and picked my wife's unarmored monk as a likely target for his short-bow. I rolled a natural 20. This was followed by maximum damage on the die roll.
Luckily my two eldest kids were paladins and immediately ran to save the monk with their Lay on Hands. Waking up gasping, the monk sees a goblin running up behind one of the paladins and whips her quarterstaff out with a natural 20 of her own. They managed to demolish the remaining goblins with little fuss, but for a moment there I had some cold dread about having killed my wife's first serious character before she even had a chance to do anything other than accept the quest.
They managed to demolish the remaining goblins with little fuss, but for a moment there I had some cold dread about having killed my wife's first serious character before she even had a chance to do anything other than accept the quest.
I always dread the first couple levels of a new game, that nat 20 is one of the scariest things when you first start out a game, I'm glad they managed to overcome the challenge!
---- Warning: Long Read
My group finally finished up the 3 year long arc that I had been teasing them with.
After finding out that the big bad they thought they were fighting wasn't what they thought things got crazy. One player tried to deceive the actual villain, a Priestess of Vecna, she was having none of it and went to follow up on the threat to destroy the rest of the party in retaliation. A well placed Misty Step and absurd Monk speed got her back into camp as the illusion the Priestess had placed fell. The Dryad grove they were in changed from a lush forest to a desecrated graveyard, the Orcs they thought they were captives of turned into undead monstrosities, and they watched as the leader of the "orcs" turned into a massive amalgamation of skeletal parts. Surrounded by the undead, still trying to put the puzzle pieces together, they fought with the few remaining living Orcs in a harrowing battle.
5 level 7 players, a Barbarian of the Totem, a Circle of the Land Druid, a Mastermind Rogue, a College of Etymology (my homebrew class) Bard, and a Shadow Monk/ Great Old One Lock multi-class, with 9 living Orcs, and their Guild Leader Aerik (my dmpc) fought for their lives. They were against 4 skeletons, 4 Scarecrows, 15 undead Orcs, 1 large skeletal abomination (homebrew), 2 undead Circle of the Moon Druids (lvl 10), and a Priestess of Vecna (lvl 10 cleric). My original intent was to have the Priestess escape and become a new villain to chase, but my players ended up doing amazing and changed my mind!
Mhurren, the barbarian, ended up facing the skeletal abomination, trading blows back and forth. In the end Mhurren did somewhere along the lines of 400 damage to this creature. Karrana, the druid, controlled much of the battlefield with Call Lightning, at one point in time destroying 5 creatures with one almost max damage bolt. Vistra, the Bard, and Aloxyis, the Monk/Lock, fought with Alaria, the Priestess of Vecna. Naivara, the Rogue, darted back and forth picking off foes with her shortsword and dagger. Aerik the undead Gazmon, the druid they originally thought was the big bad, and kited him away from the combat eventually killing him. The orcs tore into the last undead Druid, Tillman, almost taking him out. The skeletons and scarecrows were taken down quickly by the group.
Mhurren was still going at the skeletal abomination, there seemed to be no end to the creature. The skeletal abomination started to change, a wolf like head extruding from it's chest, or back, was spewing for necrotic winds (Chill touch), making it much more dangerous to Mhurren. Aerik returned from his fight with Gazmon calling out to Mhurren. The abomination toppled Mhurren with an arcing swing of it's greataxe and was closing in for the kill. Aerik tossed a bag to Mhurren, inside was the artifact that the group had been trying to stop Gazmon from completing. As Mhurren took it out he realized it was still incomplete, Aloxyis had hidden the last piece in a pocket dimension with her familiar. Suddenly Aerick and Mhurren noticed that the abomination was starting to crumble and act strangely.
While Aerik and Mhurren where having their interaction Alaria started to get serious with her fight. She banished Aloxyis, sending her to the plane of Limbo, and turned to finish off Vistra. Vistra managed to get a solid blow on Alaria and it seemed that Alaria was going to fall. In that moment Alaria grabbed her holy symbol and broke it, the energies creating a vortex of black and purple energies. When the vortex settled Alaria was a different creature, normally a Black Dragonborn, she was now so dark she absorbed light and her claws had grown into ominous dagger like spikes. With two swift swings she downed Vistra like it was nothing. However her hold on the undead creatures was failing, and it caused the abomination and the rest of the undead to become undone.
Karrana, having finally maneuvered to where she could get a good line on Alaraia, dropped a bolt of lighting on her, disrupting her concentration on the Banishment. Aloxyis returned, this time she looked just like her Patron, all of her colored gray, and she unleashed her attacks on Alaria. Her attacks seemed more effective, the necrotic damage of her Hex now becoming Radiant for some reason. With a combination of her Warlock powers and Martial Arts prowess she struck Alaria with a combination of Eldritch Blasts causing her to bend forward just far enough to where Aloxyis struck her with a powerful kick....a sickening snap was heard as Alaria's head twisted into an unnatural direction...and she fell.
The group won the battle, the leveled up to 8, and they are asking a lot of questions about the Dryad, why this happened, what was the connection with Gazmon, and so many others. All in all they were thrilled and it was such a satisfying conclusion to an arc.
Bobo, there are a couple of encounter generators online that will give recommended CR and numbers for party size and level. Try this https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html which recommends for 4x lvl1 PC that at CR0 you want between 5-14 enemies lol I think you overdid it lol.
The recap of today's session should be: "A coven of hags is no joke!"
The party of five characters just reached level six at the end of last session and they routinely punch well above their weight due to strong party synergy and a solid tactical understanding of the rules. A Green Hag is CR3 so even three of them isn't much of a challenge. But in a coven, they all go to CR5 and they collectively draw from a pool of spells. That's where things got nasty.
Our party was sent on a side mission into a boggy marsh at the behest of a nearby village whose agricultural trade in a magical mushroom used for healing potions throughout the land had been interrupted by the arrival several weeks prior of some kind of a dangerous creature. No mushrooms meant no export and no export meant no money and the little village was in rough shape. When a party of adventurers showed up, it was a rare chance they couldn't pass up and they offered whatever they could scrape together for some assistance. The limited information about the enemy was that a village mushroom-harvester had been killed and his boy who was with him ran back to the village talking about how a beautiful strange woman in the swamp had said something to his father and then attacked him.
The party really didn't know what they were looking for when they went in. The dwarf cleric in heavy armor isn't gifted at stealth and even though a few members were sneaky enough, the party's overall presence was still given away quickly, but not before they saw the aforementioned beautiful young lady by the water's edge in the swamp, along with two old women as well--one of whom immediately blinked out of sight upon seeing the party. The other two began to approach the party cautiously, but before the distance was closed well enough for melee or even conversation, the visible old lady let loose a Lightning Bolt that hit three members of the party all in a row--the Cleric, the Sorcerer, and the Blood Hunter. To make matters worse, only the cleric made his saving throw. The Blood Hunter and the Sorcerer went to single digit hit points instantly and the Cleric had to switch into support mode right off the bat.
The group's Bard opened up with his longbow from distance and the Arcane Trickster tried to close on the young lady, but she, too, blinked out of sight before he could get to her. The old lady who had first disappeared popped back in because she polymorphed herself into a giant crocodile who jumped into the water and swam over to the trickster, knocking him prone with its tail, then chomping him with its giant jaws, making him grappled and restrained in the process. He, being one of high dexterity, was ably to shake himself free on his turn, but even after disengaging, he only had half his movement to make it a few steps away.
Once all three hags were visible and the party had a chance to coordinate some offense, they wisely picked one to focus on, withering her down and forcing her to use counterspell on the wand of magic missile that would have finished her off. Before going down, she got off one more nasty lightning bolt against two of the group, but it was her last gasp and she fell before the party's coordinated attack. Once one hag died, the coven was broken and their precious spell pool was no longer available to them. The crocodile was next to be taken down and it reverted back and the two remaining hags went invisible and beat a hasty retreat.
The victory was bittersweet for the party, whose collective noses had been bloodied by a particularly vicious opening salvo and they didn't get the satisfaction of crushing their enemies completely. Nonetheless, they returned to the village with good news that the coven had been broken and the remaining hags would be unlikely to return to that swamp to trouble the mushroom gatherers in the future.
------
My thoughts:
In hindsight, had the hags all gone invisible right off the bat, they could have gotten the drop on the players with a Level 6 lightning bolt and two Level 5 lightning bolt spells all in the first round. That would have been crushingly brutal and easily enough to kill any member of the party, had they focused on one. Even worse, if they attacked early before the party had split up, they likely could have hit two players per bolt, potentially knocking out two or even three of them before the party even had a chance to respond. I think a lot of people see the rather mediocre level 5 and level 6 spells the hags have access to (eyebite, contact other plane, scrying) and don't consider that an already-powerful spell like [spell[lightning bolt[/spell] can effectively be (up)cast up to nine times (Level 3 x 3, Level 4 x 3, Level 5 x 2, Level 6 x 1) assuming the requirements are met. Even without such a narrow focus on offensive spells, the coven has access to a handy set of spells to draw from.
This encounter was a lot of fun, tactically speaking. I don't consider myself an adversarial DM, but every now and then, it's fun to take the gloves off and make the players question their decisions for a couple of rounds.
This recap will actually cover two sessions, as I have to keep them fairly short due to my younger kids' inability to focus in for too long at a time. In fact the two of them have stayed engaged much longer than I had been anticipating which is quite satisfying.
After being ambushed, the party finished their delivery, but hurried back to track down the hideout that the goblins had come from. They're still level 1, and my nerves over accidentally killing one of them are still in force. I needn't have worried.
The party successfully sneaked up to the apparently very lazy and distracted goblin guards and dispatched them with no fuss. From there they continued into the cave hideout being very careful not to alert any goblins inside. The one room I expected to really give them some trouble was filled with seven goblins lounging about and arguing over whether to cook their captive for supper. My middle kid lights up and proclaims that he wants to get quickly to the entrance of the room and use his dragon-born Lightning breath. Dice are rolled and the room now has one absolutely terrified goblin and six smoking sparking piles on the ground. They rescued the goblin's prisoner and after some healing they insisted he follow along behind while they dealt with the remaining goblins. The rest of the hideout went about as smoothly as the party made their way through. Any attempt by goblins to alert those further in were quickly stopped using trips, darts, and monk blows to throat. The boss goblin at the back of the hideout managed to get one solid blow in, but he was already surrounded and all his minions dead. We called the session here as I explained the various loot and stolen supplies they'd found.
Over the next few days I sat down with everyone and progressed them to level 2. My oldest chose to shift her paladin into a protective build and switched to sword and shield rather than greatsword. My middle kid latched onto the Thunderous Smite as he seems to be building a very lighting and thunder type paladin with a warhammer. My youngest was happy to finally gain Wild Shape and eagerly picked Circle of the Moon for his druid. Our next session was interesting as the younger two had more interesting things to do, though they stayed close enough to hear how things went and I asked for decisions from them at several points.
The party arrived in town with their rescued friend and happily made their way to the local inn to settle in for the night. There they listened to various rumors and especially picked up that there was a nasty gang of troublemakers in town trying to bully everyone. In fact the only person to stand up the bullies had been killed outright and their family was now gone. Despite urging from various scared townsfolk, the party decided that these troublemakers needed some looking into, first thing in the morning. After a nights rest they made their way to the town's general store, sold and bought a few items, informed the owner of supplies found in the goblin's cave, and listened as the owner revealed that the murder had happened just across the street in full view of everyone. The owner lamented the town mayor's cowardice and encouraged the party to do what they could to help the town rid themselves of the bullies. The party proceeded across the street intending to investigate things and found evidence that the family had left suddenly and not necessarily by choice. They were interrupted when a group from the gang wandered up in the street calling the party out and demanding that they leave town and while they're at it pay the nice gang members for not being rougher with them. The party didn't think much of the gang's blustering and instead called for the gang members to turn themselves in. After a bit of back and forth that went nowhere, the gang members drew swords and attacked. At first, the four on four fight seemed fairly balanced. Then I rolled a natural 20 followed by max damage. I wasn't too worried as the attack had been against the druid who was currently using Wild Shape. I thought worst case he'd be reverted to normal form. I'd asked my youngest what he wanted me to shift his character into, but hadn't payed much attention. He'd chosen a Brown Bear who took the full crit damage and still had more than half health left. The party went out of their way to incapacitate rather than kill these bullies, and when the dust cleared, that vicious hit against the druid was the only damage the party had taken. They dragged the bullies off to town hall and through a mix of good rp and very good rolls convinced the mayor that they would handle the remaining gang members so he needn't be worried about reprisals for locking these members up. We wrapped up the session here with the party planning to storm the gang's headquarters.
I'm still feeling my way through at the moment as DM. I thought for a bit that I had accidentally given my youngest an overpowered Wild Shape(which I wasn't going to take away after letting it happen in the first place), but upon further reading realized that his Circle of the Moon choice actually allowed for a higher CR shape. I think I may be giving away too much information, but it's in large part due to my wife playing a very investigative character with high perception and insight with good rolls and rp backing her up. She's also playing a Kalashtar with a racial auto advantage to persuasion. One of the townsfolk they interacted with was a very young kid which I had fun with. Basically the kid was a torrent of words interspersed with questions.
My first time ever playing 5th Edition D&D was a keeper. So I was playing with a bunch of 7th and 8th graders I this was happening, so a lot of this has to do with recent memes okay. So it started in a cities tavern, apparently the party just destroyed a secret devil worshiper's house, and while we were there, I my friend decided to make a blood pact to the devil he was worshiping, that made it where forever he now knew Mage Hand, but the next five fights he would get into, he would be brought to a different dimension, to fight demons. So it started the tavern, and apparently the tavern owner asked the party to get rid of the bandits in the alleyway that had him pay, "security money", so we went into the alleyway, this is where it all went to crap. We got jumped by eight bandits, eight! We were all level one! But their was one minor thing that helped us, Shrek comes out of nowhere, has a humongous onion that had speakers in them, of course playing All star, and fricking used it as a bowling ball. While this was all happening, my friend was in a different dimension, fighting drek. He got raped to death, yes raped, by a donkey. My gosh, throughout the entire campaign he died about 5 times. I still think about this to this day, and laugh about, but that is one of many of sessions I have to tell you about. -Jedi
I've played for about a year, and I just had my first confrontation that I would consider truly epic. Let me set the stage: It was the final part of our Waterdeep campaign. It had been short, but sweet. My first character, Hara Huleheim (Halfling cleric 5), had retired after finding the treasure and was given a noble title, and was now running the Helm's Hand tavern (former Trollskull). I was currently playing her girlfriend, a level 2 Orc monk named Malwyn. This was also on Adventures League, so sessions were always cut short by the store closing. The climaxes were thus usually narrated instead of played.
We had tracked a few stolen books to Manshoon's hideout. Through interrogation, we had found that Manshoon was planning to blackmail the Masked Lords, but didn't have any evidence. The rest of the party wanted to go confront Manshoon, but I knew we were massively underpowered (6 players, level 1 through 4), but played it off as Malwyn being Neutral Good, and wanting to warn Hara. Eventually, we found a group of summoners keeping a demon in check. Malwyn may have been very dumb (6 intelligence), but she knew demon summoning was very bad, and probably illegal, so she decided to fetch the guards. The rest of the party pressed on, though didn't try to fight the demon. Malwyn found that the guards were already paid off, but got away from them by using her girlfriend's title. She decided that she would run to warn Hara, so she could get the message to the Blackstaff. Meanwhile, the party had gotten to Manshoon's sanctum, and were now talking with him.
Manshoon offered them all a position within the Zhenatrim. They were considering it, the barbarian had already accepted, when Malwyn, Hara, and Vajra Safahr the Blackstaff arrived in full force. Things looked uncertain. Vajra and Manshoon were roughly equal, and if it was an actual battle, it would have been up to the players. Hara, Malwyn and the Dragonborn sorcerer sided with Blackstaff. The Barbarian sided with Manshoon, and the rest of the party waited to see what happened. Things went south fast.
Manshoon had a lucky initiative throw, and managed to cast Imprisonment on Vajra. She had to do a wisdom save.
Natural 1.
Vajra was drawn into the crystal. Everything looked bad. Manshoon would threaten or bribe the party to his side. Malwyn and Hara would surely refuse to submit, and be killed. Hara was prepared to meet Helm, but she knew that it was not only her own death on the line, but the death of innocents, the death of her beloved, Malwyn, and the freedom of countless Waterdhavians. Compared to Manshoon, she was nothing. A historical footnote, a dabbler in the Divine arts. She would be no match for him. In a moment of pure faith and stubbornness, she closed her eyes, and emptied her mind of everything except a simple prayer to Helm, her god, and the face of her beloved. She uttered two simple words.
Dispell Magic
She was merely a level 5 cleric. A single 3rd level spellslot, only one shot to stop Manshoon. The odds were against her. I had rolled bad the whole night, the DM admitted that he had thought it was over. I cast the die.
19
With a boom, the jewel in Manshoon's hands shattered. The shockwave ripped of his mask, and tore apart his hood. Vajra was free, and wasted no time. With a word, she had frozen Manshoon in place. With a second, she returned the favor, imprisoning him in a gemstone, and Waterdeep was free of his threat.
Vajra expressed her deep gratitude to Hara for saving her, the other party members from discovering Manshoon's plot, and Malwyn for bringing it to her attention. As a reward, she gave each a Cape of Mountebank and Wand of Lightningbolt, which Malwyn gladly accepted, though Hara refused. To Hara and Malwyn, she offered a position within the Gray Hand, which they both accepted.
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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"?
Let's be honest, Warlocks are just crazy power beasts. In my first Campaign that I was the DM, it was kind of scary, not because it was my first time, or that I had to make an adventure all by myself. It was the fact we had 3 Warlocks, there was only 5 players at the time.
So when they were first level, and they leave tavern, they defended a priest from a bunch of bandits, who had talked about them serving under someone called, Gumdar the Blade. This would be their first ever boss. So during this entire time, they were first levels, until they met the boss. So they had to fight their way through to get to the cave that Gumdar was holding in. They fought the first couple of bandits in the entrance.
So this is when things went a little flip-flop.
One player had rolled to open a door, fricking Natural 20, so it opened a wormhole, and they got to skip half the dungeon! So this is where they started noticing some weird stuff, Draconic writing on the walls, only one was a Dragonborn, so he read out a few words, and had the rest of the party know what they meant. They went through the rest of the corridor, and they finally got to the boss room, 5 bandits, 5 players, players won, and leveled up! When the boss came out, it wasn't fair.
You see, all of the warlock player's had a spell known as Hellish Rebuke, that basically made the last person to hit them, take 3d6 damage. This was a first level boss, I didn't want to kill my player's, so he had a low hp count, he also had first hit, with three attacks.
He hit one Warlock, Hellish Rebuke! Hit the other Warlock, Hellish Rebuke! Hit one other Warlock, Hellish Rebuke!!!
Then it was the barbarians turn, he raged, then killed him by decapitation. We all remember how over powered Hellish Rebuke is in the first 3 levels, but me and my friends still joke about it. This actually lead them on the chase against a cult, who are Dragon Worshipers, and the dragon they Worship is actually an illusion produced by a powerful Mind Flayer, who was trying to destroy multiple dimensions, not for fun, not just because he was evil, but so he could infinitely get revenge on those who wronged him, his original colony. So yeah, I thought this through from the beginning. So yeah, that was their first boss fight, and I still play D&D with the same people from that group too.
Thats sounds just like how I had that child play out as well. Hardly taking a breath between sentences string of swords. My players laughed a bit about me stumbling over words and just keeping right on going. Sounds like a good start to the Lost Mines.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
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My last adventure was a flop, but everyone had fun, or so they say.
We were missing 2 players for the campaign that was supposed to happen so the DM let me run a one-shot. I brought a new player to the table, and by new I mean they've heard of the game and watched a video or three. Took the time to roll up characters and explain the numbers to the new player and started the game. Simple concept, a bunch of level 5 players get captured by Drow and have to escape while rescuing the prisoners.
As the inciting incident is happening, a few Umberhulks burrowing up through the city streets, the new player goes and blows my mind. He claimed to be a smooth talking charlatan when, in this moment, he grabs the nearest wealthy npc he can see, slams him against an alley wall and proceeds to mug him and chop off his hand. Then, runs away from the Umberhulk leaving the npc to bleed out and die at the claws of this creature. Two of my other players took to the plot hook just fine, attacking the nearest Umberhulk. The other two players decided to run away rather than fight after watching a child and their mother get killed by the Umberhulk in front of them.
I introduce the Priestess of Llolth and have her fighters attack with poisoned darts. All of the characters fail their saves, then the Paladin decides to Lay on Hands...and finds out that it was better to just go to sleep. They wake in a cell with about two dozen other prisoners, the men are chained to the walls, the women are shackled and able to lay on straw pallets. The new player, Black Dragonborn Rogue, starts verbally accosting the Silver Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut saying that "You wench of a diety will die by my hands". I'm done with this new player's inability to be a team player, so I have Bahamut tell him to change his ways or die, and change him into a Silver Dragonborn. Every time he starts to act all angsty and murderhobo, Bahamut starts making things difficult, such as burning his holy symbol into the Rogue's chest.
After a while they finally did make their way out of the cages and up to the surface, but I spent most of the game trying to use my game to teach this kid how to be a team player rather than a murderhobo. Ahh the joys of DMing for teens....
My party got into an intense conversation/fight with a custom Balhannoth, one who had been experimented on by Mind Flayers and is much smarter then a normal creature. It had teleported the party Barbarian into it's lair and was asking it questions, requesting information, toying a bit with the character. The Barbarian kept trying to avoid answering questions, or gave vague answers, so the Balhannoth would probe his mind deeper and deeper looking for information. By the time the rest of my party finally found the lair, the Balhannoth had grown tired of being toyed with and had grabbed and attacked the Barbarian. As the party arrives it tells them it wants information or it'll kill them. They throw insults and attack.
But the Barbarian hadn't raged yet. And the Balhannoth rolled a Nat 20 on one of it's attacks, and had a few lair and legendary actions. It would keep asking for information to spare their lives, and when the party would ignore it and attack it would use a legendary action to bite the Barbarian. Eventually the Barb was at 1 hp thanks to relentless endurance, and when the Balhannoth once again asked for info instead of a fight, the cleric agreed. The rest of the party agreed to stand down for a moment, and we left the game on the cleric promising to tell a story from her backstory in exchange for not killing the Barb.
I think if the party kept attacking they would have killed the Balhannoth, but maybe not before the Barbarian was eaten. Maybe. But I'm super happy this happened this way, as now a tense negotiation is about to happen! We return next week to a tense standoff and the party potentially agreeing to tell some stories about their history in order to save the Barbs life!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Woah DmThaco your tough on rogue elements! Good luck table training murderous moppets.
Last session, finally the jungle explorers finished sucking the Lore and background marrow out of the City of Radiant water. Oddly they were collaborating with the Yuanti (serpent tribes) as they felt either a) sorry for them being attacked and killed by the wave of undead spreading through the jungle. or b) felt they were nice people (despite the slave-conomy/sacrifice/torture-transformation and feasting on everything not snakelike, they had witnessed and seen advertised and glorified in art statues and altars.) when a whole 4 of the serpents decided to appeal to their sense of mercy after the majority of the surviving tribes people discovered they shouldnt have brought blowpipes and wooden weapons to a spiritual guardian fight.
One priest is really crushing on their god and is now using Divination to ask variations of 'Are you feeling well today?' Its probably going to be a creepy voicemail/prayer thing.
I wonder at what point they will refuse to accept a surrender, or consider the consequences of letting those surrendering go free.
It sounds harsher that it actually was. Basically if he chose to do something that was blatantly murderhob-ish Bahamut would do something to prod him in the right direction. The holy symbol would get hot and make him uncomfortable. If he chose to do something altruistic then he would be rewarded.
Example:
In one situation during the game there were 3 hostages being held by Drow, they had just witnessed the Drow killing hostages with no problem when the party didn't stand down. The player asked me how many prisoners were in the cage with them, I answered that there were probably two dozen or so. He then asked if there were any children, to which I said yes. His last question was if there were any children between him and the Drow holding hostages, to which I said no.
He then decided to use his breath weapon to kill the Drow. I asked why, both as a story question and as a way to see where his mind was when making the decision. His answer was simply, I don't want to kill the children, but losing 3 hostages to save everyone else seems like a fair trade. I had the Drow roll their saves and...they failed miserably lol. I then described how his once acid breath now issued for a radiant cloud that enveloped the Drow but somehow managed to avoid doing any damage to the hostages.
I've dealt with many teens, and some adults, using D&D as an outlet for emotional issues. So, rather than being goaded by their actions and fighting fire with fire, I try to use the actions/consequences of the game to redirect those issues in a way that re-enforces healthy decision making rather than rewarding the angsty/negative behavior.
I wrote this "blog entry" after our last session. I'm playing a tiefling urchin who uses illusions and charms. She is the cheerful optimist of the group:
Ok so tonight we had to escape town. After fighting off the cultists of Orcus and saving their human sacrifice, we found ourselves exiting the tower into the middle of town, alarm bells ringing and guards everywhere. The winery front for the cult gave credence to the shouting and pointing and other judginess coming from the surviving cult members who sought assistance from the guards.
We’re brainstorming ideas and I’m sure I can charm the guards to let us go and use deception where that doesn’t work. Yadda yadda yadda the Paladin and the Ranger want to be goody goodies and tell the truth. I grew up on the streets and know the authority can be a no-go. After all, our party includes a half-orc, dragonborn, tiefling, dwarf and elf in a human city with dwarven criminals. Seriously, I’d arrest us too and I know the truth.
But noooooo, we have to tell the truth and stuff. Anyways it works, which is the bigger rub. I mean seriously, what flubbed roll happened behind the DM screen to make this crap work? After reconsidering offering Inspiration to the DM just to get my way, I decided to follow the Paladin like a doting minor.
Next time I’m casting Darkness, gut punching a guard and letting myself out of town. Ok not really but I am going to pick their pockets or at least leave a nasty note.
Also, apparently some dwarf killed the king while we were in town, giving the guards something else to worry about. Priorities I guess?
I am that one DM that puts deadly encounters everywhere. I'm running an aquatic intrigue/war game and I put my four level 2 players up against seven bugbears.
The party:
Tamarin, a firbolg warlock who made a pact with an otherworldly angel council to find his abducted children (NG bordering in LG)
Valeri, a wandering dwarf barbarian who uses his long-dead tribe's collective spirits to give him power (N)
Hecyee, a secluded and awkward water genasi druid who looks mysterious and cool until you talk to them and realise they have a 6 in Charisma (NG)
Bearlei, a sea elf rogue/paladin who comes from a tribe of sahuagin. Escaped later but has slightly malformed social skills, brash and arrogant and sometimes repeats clichês over and over again. (Token irritating CG)
The fight starts off basically, with Hecyee being introduced (couldn't make the first session) and the bugbears clumping on valeri. Hecyee has no ranged cantrips so entangles some bugbears and repeatedly casts ice knife and shillelagh. Leader has a death wish against Tamarin, because Tamarin killed his mate like two rounds before, so he starts beating the crap out of him.
Valeri is dying, Bearlei is unconscious, Hecyee is fending off three bugbears, and Tamarin saves everything. Valerie is about to be killed by a stealthing bugbear that only Tamarin noticed, so he Guiding Bolts it to death, turns invisible, and flits to Hecyee just in time to stop a mace from smashing into them, taking the damage instead. Next turn, he runs to an unconscious Bearlei and casts Curs Wounds, then uses Minor Illusion to create a copy of the leader's mate, allowing Beatles to sneak attack his head and make him dead. Hecyee kills a bugbear in the meantime and as they're about to be overrun, Tamarin kills one and gIves space for a shillelagh to the face of the last. Might I say, Tamarin was on oñe hit point after taking the hit for Hecyee. One. Hit. Point.
Note #1: we frequently use the Rule of Cool, and had to because this situation was amazing
Note #2: writing this at nearly 2 am on mobile so spelling errors galore!
I'm the idiot that decides to make Phil Swift in DnD.
I wish I could upvote that twice, sounds like a heck of a moment for you guys/gals.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
It was! Next session, everything fell apart and one of us died, but it was one of the best D&D moments I've ever experienced. (First being either bombing a ship full of frost giants when the DM was sure they'd TPK us, or being a bard killing a dragon with vicious mockery)
I'm the idiot that decides to make Phil Swift in DnD.
Dwarf fighter, heavily bedecked with weapons and clad in splint mail, falls through a weak floor at the top of the East tower of Argynvostholt. His plummet was arrested by the candelabra on the way down. The monk then tries to grab him from a balcony, fails, and they both fall. Monk rolls out of the way of descending armoured dwarf...thump as he hits the flagstones. Shortly followed by ritual impalement by the spiked gothic candelabra.
Did I mention the player was absent this week?
The other player who missed this session, the party
roguescout, was sent off to scout ahead at the beginning of the session and hasn't been seen since.I'm not a cruel DM; no PCs were worse than severely maimed in this episode.
We just started out today! I got a couple of really good rolls (and a few bad ones), but it was a good session overall. While I wasn't always successful on rolls, my defenses were great and I made it through both of the day's encounters without taking a single hit.
I finally got around to starting a campaign with my kids and wife. I'd tried out a few simple one-shots based on the Heroes of Hesiod to see how the kids would respond and they've been excitedly asking when we'd start a "real" game.
It'd been long enough since the one-shots that everyone wanted to roll up new characters and had different ideas about what was cool now. Finally got everyone settled and we got started. I had them all brought together "by chance" at an overcrowded inn where they were hired to deliver supplies to a nearby town. I was enjoying setting up the story and it was fun watching my wife and kids settle into the characters they'd created.
I had an ambush set up down the road and they rolled well enough to not be surprised when goblins jumped out of the bushes at them. However, my first attack came from a goblin that had held back in the bushes and picked my wife's unarmored monk as a likely target for his short-bow. I rolled a natural 20. This was followed by maximum damage on the die roll.
Luckily my two eldest kids were paladins and immediately ran to save the monk with their Lay on Hands. Waking up gasping, the monk sees a goblin running up behind one of the paladins and whips her quarterstaff out with a natural 20 of her own. They managed to demolish the remaining goblins with little fuss, but for a moment there I had some cold dread about having killed my wife's first serious character before she even had a chance to do anything other than accept the quest.
I always dread the first couple levels of a new game, that nat 20 is one of the scariest things when you first start out a game, I'm glad they managed to overcome the challenge!
---- Warning: Long Read
My group finally finished up the 3 year long arc that I had been teasing them with.
After finding out that the big bad they thought they were fighting wasn't what they thought things got crazy. One player tried to deceive the actual villain, a Priestess of Vecna, she was having none of it and went to follow up on the threat to destroy the rest of the party in retaliation. A well placed Misty Step and absurd Monk speed got her back into camp as the illusion the Priestess had placed fell. The Dryad grove they were in changed from a lush forest to a desecrated graveyard, the Orcs they thought they were captives of turned into undead monstrosities, and they watched as the leader of the "orcs" turned into a massive amalgamation of skeletal parts. Surrounded by the undead, still trying to put the puzzle pieces together, they fought with the few remaining living Orcs in a harrowing battle.
5 level 7 players, a Barbarian of the Totem, a Circle of the Land Druid, a Mastermind Rogue, a College of Etymology (my homebrew class) Bard, and a Shadow Monk/ Great Old One Lock multi-class, with 9 living Orcs, and their Guild Leader Aerik (my dmpc) fought for their lives. They were against 4 skeletons, 4 Scarecrows, 15 undead Orcs, 1 large skeletal abomination (homebrew), 2 undead Circle of the Moon Druids (lvl 10), and a Priestess of Vecna (lvl 10 cleric). My original intent was to have the Priestess escape and become a new villain to chase, but my players ended up doing amazing and changed my mind!
Mhurren, the barbarian, ended up facing the skeletal abomination, trading blows back and forth. In the end Mhurren did somewhere along the lines of 400 damage to this creature. Karrana, the druid, controlled much of the battlefield with Call Lightning, at one point in time destroying 5 creatures with one almost max damage bolt. Vistra, the Bard, and Aloxyis, the Monk/Lock, fought with Alaria, the Priestess of Vecna. Naivara, the Rogue, darted back and forth picking off foes with her shortsword and dagger. Aerik the undead Gazmon, the druid they originally thought was the big bad, and kited him away from the combat eventually killing him. The orcs tore into the last undead Druid, Tillman, almost taking him out. The skeletons and scarecrows were taken down quickly by the group.
Mhurren was still going at the skeletal abomination, there seemed to be no end to the creature. The skeletal abomination started to change, a wolf like head extruding from it's chest, or back, was spewing for necrotic winds (Chill touch), making it much more dangerous to Mhurren. Aerik returned from his fight with Gazmon calling out to Mhurren. The abomination toppled Mhurren with an arcing swing of it's greataxe and was closing in for the kill. Aerik tossed a bag to Mhurren, inside was the artifact that the group had been trying to stop Gazmon from completing. As Mhurren took it out he realized it was still incomplete, Aloxyis had hidden the last piece in a pocket dimension with her familiar. Suddenly Aerick and Mhurren noticed that the abomination was starting to crumble and act strangely.
While Aerik and Mhurren where having their interaction Alaria started to get serious with her fight. She banished Aloxyis, sending her to the plane of Limbo, and turned to finish off Vistra. Vistra managed to get a solid blow on Alaria and it seemed that Alaria was going to fall. In that moment Alaria grabbed her holy symbol and broke it, the energies creating a vortex of black and purple energies. When the vortex settled Alaria was a different creature, normally a Black Dragonborn, she was now so dark she absorbed light and her claws had grown into ominous dagger like spikes. With two swift swings she downed Vistra like it was nothing. However her hold on the undead creatures was failing, and it caused the abomination and the rest of the undead to become undone.
Karrana, having finally maneuvered to where she could get a good line on Alaraia, dropped a bolt of lighting on her, disrupting her concentration on the Banishment. Aloxyis returned, this time she looked just like her Patron, all of her colored gray, and she unleashed her attacks on Alaria. Her attacks seemed more effective, the necrotic damage of her Hex now becoming Radiant for some reason. With a combination of her Warlock powers and Martial Arts prowess she struck Alaria with a combination of Eldritch Blasts causing her to bend forward just far enough to where Aloxyis struck her with a powerful kick....a sickening snap was heard as Alaria's head twisted into an unnatural direction...and she fell.
The group won the battle, the leveled up to 8, and they are asking a lot of questions about the Dryad, why this happened, what was the connection with Gazmon, and so many others. All in all they were thrilled and it was such a satisfying conclusion to an arc.
Bobo, there are a couple of encounter generators online that will give recommended CR and numbers for party size and level. Try this https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/calc/enc_size.html which recommends for 4x lvl1 PC that at CR0 you want between 5-14 enemies lol I think you overdid it lol.
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
The recap of today's session should be: "A coven of hags is no joke!"
The party of five characters just reached level six at the end of last session and they routinely punch well above their weight due to strong party synergy and a solid tactical understanding of the rules. A Green Hag is CR3 so even three of them isn't much of a challenge. But in a coven, they all go to CR5 and they collectively draw from a pool of spells. That's where things got nasty.
Our party was sent on a side mission into a boggy marsh at the behest of a nearby village whose agricultural trade in a magical mushroom used for healing potions throughout the land had been interrupted by the arrival several weeks prior of some kind of a dangerous creature. No mushrooms meant no export and no export meant no money and the little village was in rough shape. When a party of adventurers showed up, it was a rare chance they couldn't pass up and they offered whatever they could scrape together for some assistance. The limited information about the enemy was that a village mushroom-harvester had been killed and his boy who was with him ran back to the village talking about how a beautiful strange woman in the swamp had said something to his father and then attacked him.
The party really didn't know what they were looking for when they went in. The dwarf cleric in heavy armor isn't gifted at stealth and even though a few members were sneaky enough, the party's overall presence was still given away quickly, but not before they saw the aforementioned beautiful young lady by the water's edge in the swamp, along with two old women as well--one of whom immediately blinked out of sight upon seeing the party. The other two began to approach the party cautiously, but before the distance was closed well enough for melee or even conversation, the visible old lady let loose a Lightning Bolt that hit three members of the party all in a row--the Cleric, the Sorcerer, and the Blood Hunter. To make matters worse, only the cleric made his saving throw. The Blood Hunter and the Sorcerer went to single digit hit points instantly and the Cleric had to switch into support mode right off the bat.
The group's Bard opened up with his longbow from distance and the Arcane Trickster tried to close on the young lady, but she, too, blinked out of sight before he could get to her. The old lady who had first disappeared popped back in because she polymorphed herself into a giant crocodile who jumped into the water and swam over to the trickster, knocking him prone with its tail, then chomping him with its giant jaws, making him grappled and restrained in the process. He, being one of high dexterity, was ably to shake himself free on his turn, but even after disengaging, he only had half his movement to make it a few steps away.
Once all three hags were visible and the party had a chance to coordinate some offense, they wisely picked one to focus on, withering her down and forcing her to use counterspell on the wand of magic missile that would have finished her off. Before going down, she got off one more nasty lightning bolt against two of the group, but it was her last gasp and she fell before the party's coordinated attack. Once one hag died, the coven was broken and their precious spell pool was no longer available to them. The crocodile was next to be taken down and it reverted back and the two remaining hags went invisible and beat a hasty retreat.
The victory was bittersweet for the party, whose collective noses had been bloodied by a particularly vicious opening salvo and they didn't get the satisfaction of crushing their enemies completely. Nonetheless, they returned to the village with good news that the coven had been broken and the remaining hags would be unlikely to return to that swamp to trouble the mushroom gatherers in the future.
------
My thoughts:
In hindsight, had the hags all gone invisible right off the bat, they could have gotten the drop on the players with a Level 6 lightning bolt and two Level 5 lightning bolt spells all in the first round. That would have been crushingly brutal and easily enough to kill any member of the party, had they focused on one. Even worse, if they attacked early before the party had split up, they likely could have hit two players per bolt, potentially knocking out two or even three of them before the party even had a chance to respond. I think a lot of people see the rather mediocre level 5 and level 6 spells the hags have access to (eyebite, contact other plane, scrying) and don't consider that an already-powerful spell like [spell[lightning bolt[/spell] can effectively be (up)cast up to nine times (Level 3 x 3, Level 4 x 3, Level 5 x 2, Level 6 x 1) assuming the requirements are met. Even without such a narrow focus on offensive spells, the coven has access to a handy set of spells to draw from.
This encounter was a lot of fun, tactically speaking. I don't consider myself an adversarial DM, but every now and then, it's fun to take the gloves off and make the players question their decisions for a couple of rounds.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
This recap will actually cover two sessions, as I have to keep them fairly short due to my younger kids' inability to focus in for too long at a time. In fact the two of them have stayed engaged much longer than I had been anticipating which is quite satisfying.
After being ambushed, the party finished their delivery, but hurried back to track down the hideout that the goblins had come from. They're still level 1, and my nerves over accidentally killing one of them are still in force. I needn't have worried.
The party successfully sneaked up to the apparently very lazy and distracted goblin guards and dispatched them with no fuss. From there they continued into the cave hideout being very careful not to alert any goblins inside. The one room I expected to really give them some trouble was filled with seven goblins lounging about and arguing over whether to cook their captive for supper. My middle kid lights up and proclaims that he wants to get quickly to the entrance of the room and use his dragon-born Lightning breath. Dice are rolled and the room now has one absolutely terrified goblin and six smoking sparking piles on the ground. They rescued the goblin's prisoner and after some healing they insisted he follow along behind while they dealt with the remaining goblins. The rest of the hideout went about as smoothly as the party made their way through. Any attempt by goblins to alert those further in were quickly stopped using trips, darts, and monk blows to throat. The boss goblin at the back of the hideout managed to get one solid blow in, but he was already surrounded and all his minions dead. We called the session here as I explained the various loot and stolen supplies they'd found.
Over the next few days I sat down with everyone and progressed them to level 2. My oldest chose to shift her paladin into a protective build and switched to sword and shield rather than greatsword. My middle kid latched onto the Thunderous Smite as he seems to be building a very lighting and thunder type paladin with a warhammer. My youngest was happy to finally gain Wild Shape and eagerly picked Circle of the Moon for his druid. Our next session was interesting as the younger two had more interesting things to do, though they stayed close enough to hear how things went and I asked for decisions from them at several points.
The party arrived in town with their rescued friend and happily made their way to the local inn to settle in for the night. There they listened to various rumors and especially picked up that there was a nasty gang of troublemakers in town trying to bully everyone. In fact the only person to stand up the bullies had been killed outright and their family was now gone. Despite urging from various scared townsfolk, the party decided that these troublemakers needed some looking into, first thing in the morning. After a nights rest they made their way to the town's general store, sold and bought a few items, informed the owner of supplies found in the goblin's cave, and listened as the owner revealed that the murder had happened just across the street in full view of everyone. The owner lamented the town mayor's cowardice and encouraged the party to do what they could to help the town rid themselves of the bullies. The party proceeded across the street intending to investigate things and found evidence that the family had left suddenly and not necessarily by choice. They were interrupted when a group from the gang wandered up in the street calling the party out and demanding that they leave town and while they're at it pay the nice gang members for not being rougher with them. The party didn't think much of the gang's blustering and instead called for the gang members to turn themselves in. After a bit of back and forth that went nowhere, the gang members drew swords and attacked. At first, the four on four fight seemed fairly balanced. Then I rolled a natural 20 followed by max damage. I wasn't too worried as the attack had been against the druid who was currently using Wild Shape. I thought worst case he'd be reverted to normal form. I'd asked my youngest what he wanted me to shift his character into, but hadn't payed much attention. He'd chosen a Brown Bear who took the full crit damage and still had more than half health left. The party went out of their way to incapacitate rather than kill these bullies, and when the dust cleared, that vicious hit against the druid was the only damage the party had taken. They dragged the bullies off to town hall and through a mix of good rp and very good rolls convinced the mayor that they would handle the remaining gang members so he needn't be worried about reprisals for locking these members up. We wrapped up the session here with the party planning to storm the gang's headquarters.
I'm still feeling my way through at the moment as DM. I thought for a bit that I had accidentally given my youngest an overpowered Wild Shape(which I wasn't going to take away after letting it happen in the first place), but upon further reading realized that his Circle of the Moon choice actually allowed for a higher CR shape. I think I may be giving away too much information, but it's in large part due to my wife playing a very investigative character with high perception and insight with good rolls and rp backing her up. She's also playing a Kalashtar with a racial auto advantage to persuasion. One of the townsfolk they interacted with was a very young kid which I had fun with. Basically the kid was a torrent of words interspersed with questions.
As the DM, I was looking for some challenges to test players. I decided I'd put a prominent thieves' guild as an ally of the BBEG.
mfw the warlock decides to destroy the entire guild
he literally starts recruiting people to destroy every wererat in the city
i'm laughing, but he's dead serious, and starts going full "Inquisitor", looking for one of the most prominent and dangerous guilds in the city
I'm the idiot that decides to make Phil Swift in DnD.
My first time ever playing 5th Edition D&D was a keeper. So I was playing with a bunch of 7th and 8th graders I this was happening, so a lot of this has to do with recent memes okay. So it started in a cities tavern, apparently the party just destroyed a secret devil worshiper's house, and while we were there, I my friend decided to make a blood pact to the devil he was worshiping, that made it where forever he now knew Mage Hand, but the next five fights he would get into, he would be brought to a different dimension, to fight demons. So it started the tavern, and apparently the tavern owner asked the party to get rid of the bandits in the alleyway that had him pay, "security money", so we went into the alleyway, this is where it all went to crap. We got jumped by eight bandits, eight! We were all level one! But their was one minor thing that helped us, Shrek comes out of nowhere, has a humongous onion that had speakers in them, of course playing All star, and fricking used it as a bowling ball. While this was all happening, my friend was in a different dimension, fighting drek. He got raped to death, yes raped, by a donkey. My gosh, throughout the entire campaign he died about 5 times. I still think about this to this day, and laugh about, but that is one of many of sessions I have to tell you about. -Jedi
-Jedi
I've played for about a year, and I just had my first confrontation that I would consider truly epic. Let me set the stage: It was the final part of our Waterdeep campaign. It had been short, but sweet. My first character, Hara Huleheim (Halfling cleric 5), had retired after finding the treasure and was given a noble title, and was now running the Helm's Hand tavern (former Trollskull). I was currently playing her girlfriend, a level 2 Orc monk named Malwyn. This was also on Adventures League, so sessions were always cut short by the store closing. The climaxes were thus usually narrated instead of played.
We had tracked a few stolen books to Manshoon's hideout. Through interrogation, we had found that Manshoon was planning to blackmail the Masked Lords, but didn't have any evidence. The rest of the party wanted to go confront Manshoon, but I knew we were massively underpowered (6 players, level 1 through 4), but played it off as Malwyn being Neutral Good, and wanting to warn Hara. Eventually, we found a group of summoners keeping a demon in check. Malwyn may have been very dumb (6 intelligence), but she knew demon summoning was very bad, and probably illegal, so she decided to fetch the guards. The rest of the party pressed on, though didn't try to fight the demon. Malwyn found that the guards were already paid off, but got away from them by using her girlfriend's title. She decided that she would run to warn Hara, so she could get the message to the Blackstaff. Meanwhile, the party had gotten to Manshoon's sanctum, and were now talking with him.
Manshoon offered them all a position within the Zhenatrim. They were considering it, the barbarian had already accepted, when Malwyn, Hara, and Vajra Safahr the Blackstaff arrived in full force. Things looked uncertain. Vajra and Manshoon were roughly equal, and if it was an actual battle, it would have been up to the players. Hara, Malwyn and the Dragonborn sorcerer sided with Blackstaff. The Barbarian sided with Manshoon, and the rest of the party waited to see what happened. Things went south fast.
Manshoon had a lucky initiative throw, and managed to cast Imprisonment on Vajra. She had to do a wisdom save.
Natural 1.
Vajra was drawn into the crystal. Everything looked bad. Manshoon would threaten or bribe the party to his side. Malwyn and Hara would surely refuse to submit, and be killed. Hara was prepared to meet Helm, but she knew that it was not only her own death on the line, but the death of innocents, the death of her beloved, Malwyn, and the freedom of countless Waterdhavians. Compared to Manshoon, she was nothing. A historical footnote, a dabbler in the Divine arts. She would be no match for him. In a moment of pure faith and stubbornness, she closed her eyes, and emptied her mind of everything except a simple prayer to Helm, her god, and the face of her beloved. She uttered two simple words.
Dispell Magic
She was merely a level 5 cleric. A single 3rd level spellslot, only one shot to stop Manshoon. The odds were against her. I had rolled bad the whole night, the DM admitted that he had thought it was over. I cast the die.
19
With a boom, the jewel in Manshoon's hands shattered. The shockwave ripped of his mask, and tore apart his hood. Vajra was free, and wasted no time. With a word, she had frozen Manshoon in place. With a second, she returned the favor, imprisoning him in a gemstone, and Waterdeep was free of his threat.
Vajra expressed her deep gratitude to Hara for saving her, the other party members from discovering Manshoon's plot, and Malwyn for bringing it to her attention. As a reward, she gave each a Cape of Mountebank and Wand of Lightningbolt, which Malwyn gladly accepted, though Hara refused. To Hara and Malwyn, she offered a position within the Gray Hand, which they both accepted.
"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.
Let's be honest, Warlocks are just crazy power beasts. In my first Campaign that I was the DM, it was kind of scary, not because it was my first time, or that I had to make an adventure all by myself. It was the fact we had 3 Warlocks, there was only 5 players at the time.
So when they were first level, and they leave tavern, they defended a priest from a bunch of bandits, who had talked about them serving under someone called, Gumdar the Blade. This would be their first ever boss. So during this entire time, they were first levels, until they met the boss. So they had to fight their way through to get to the cave that Gumdar was holding in. They fought the first couple of bandits in the entrance.
So this is when things went a little flip-flop.
One player had rolled to open a door, fricking Natural 20, so it opened a wormhole, and they got to skip half the dungeon! So this is where they started noticing some weird stuff, Draconic writing on the walls, only one was a Dragonborn, so he read out a few words, and had the rest of the party know what they meant. They went through the rest of the corridor, and they finally got to the boss room, 5 bandits, 5 players, players won, and leveled up! When the boss came out, it wasn't fair.
You see, all of the warlock player's had a spell known as Hellish Rebuke, that basically made the last person to hit them, take 3d6 damage. This was a first level boss, I didn't want to kill my player's, so he had a low hp count, he also had first hit, with three attacks.
He hit one Warlock, Hellish Rebuke! Hit the other Warlock, Hellish Rebuke! Hit one other Warlock, Hellish Rebuke!!!
Then it was the barbarians turn, he raged, then killed him by decapitation. We all remember how over powered Hellish Rebuke is in the first 3 levels, but me and my friends still joke about it. This actually lead them on the chase against a cult, who are Dragon Worshipers, and the dragon they Worship is actually an illusion produced by a powerful Mind Flayer, who was trying to destroy multiple dimensions, not for fun, not just because he was evil, but so he could infinitely get revenge on those who wronged him, his original colony. So yeah, I thought this through from the beginning. So yeah, that was their first boss fight, and I still play D&D with the same people from that group too.
Thanks for reading,
-Jedi
Thats sounds just like how I had that child play out as well. Hardly taking a breath between sentences string of swords. My players laughed a bit about me stumbling over words and just keeping right on going. Sounds like a good start to the Lost Mines.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."