We started our first ever D&D game at the start of the year by playing through Lost Mine of Phandelver, and when the players encountered Droop, they decided to keep him with the party as a tag along. They gave him "Talon", the +1 longsword, so he can defend himself if needed and helped him fight. During the Wave Echo Cave dungeon, they got in a really tight spot pulling enemies from multiple rooms and we nearly faced a TPK. The flaming skull, zombies, giant spiders and hobgoblins all attacked together, and Droop got the killing blow on the flaming skull.
From there, one of my players put the skull in their bag and they went into a nearby room, barricaded themselves in so they could short rest. Well the flaming skull reanimated during that, stopping the short rest and they pulled off another close encounter to defeat it (they learned to spread out to not get fireballed again!). The skull was then run to the northern room and locked in there, the party head back to Phandalin, and to commend Droops bravery in battle (and because I wanted him gone, he was an annoyance!) the Lords Alliance made Droop the "Defender of the Cave", where the locked room to the flaming skull should never be opened.
In the middle of all that, the party encountered the young green dragon, and decided to stand and fight, lots of crits were rolled, they started the fight spread out so were in a great tactical position, and nearly defeated it, he flies off with his tail between his legs. They loot the lair, set it on fire (yes, we have a pyromaniac in the group that burns EVERYTHING).
Fast forward quite a bit, lots has happened, they are now ready to level up to 6, but I like to give them an epic fight to end each level, so they had a big fight in a tavern where an evil outcast Paladin sets fire to the building whilst they are fighting, this is a signal. They kill the bad guys, use up a lot of their resources, get out of the tavern, and a very F'd off young green dragon lands behind them (this is who the bad guys signalled). 1 PC dies, and get's revivified, then another player dies (i had lost count on the failed saves and he was gone!), the remaining 3 PC's are in very bad shape, and the dragon is about to make another attack but he is very low on HP. That's where the session ended.
This coming session: A hooded figure appears, fires an arrow badly wounding the dragon, leaving the other PC's to hopefully finish it off before it can do too much damage or even kill another PC. The hood is pulled back to reveal Droop, the replacement PC for the dead player, a level 6 ranger trained (very briefly) by the Lords Alliance.
My players had a connection with this NPC, but he was a royal pain in the butt. He had actually died during the Wave Echo Cave at one point, I played him as a Leeeroy Jenkinsss character, and they used a scroll of revivify on him! I hope this turns out to be a great reveal for the other players, of course I'm plotting this with the player who will control him, it was actually his idea, and he's really excited about it. We have a whole backstory planned covering the missing time period, he finds them because he was tracking the dragon after it destroyed Phandalin in a rage.
Just thought I'd share, as since I finished LMOP I have been using my own story, but I'm finding that the players are practically writing it for me. Everyone has said they have seen a great improvement in the RP'ing and world since that point. And although I have a general plot line to where this is going, I listen to all of the ideas and "maybe this is what's happening" from the players and either think "yea, that's great, that's where the story is heading" or make a note to use it later. I only have to half throw a plot at them, and let them finish it albeit without them knowing they are doing a lot of the work for me!
That's a fun little story :) I remember my players got really attached to Droop as well when we played through Phandelver. Fortunately, for me at least, they didn't think to try and recruit him into the party. Not that I would have fought back against that too hard or anything, but it would be an NPC I'd have to keep track of constantly lol
My table adopted Droop as their mascot. I think I had him killed, I kid you not, on 3 different occasions, and I swear the lengths they went through to keep that little pest alive. It was funny, and he made for some fun interactions. This was back when Sidekicks were intro'd as UA, so I converted him to one, and ran him as a cowardly sniveling little tag-along who held on to the community bag and popped health potions into fallen barbarians and fighters if needed.
I once played a oneshot where we were encouraged to build funny characters so I played as a monk Droop. I had so much fun I started playing him on a server run in a similar way to AL (one shots within a level range but you gain XP to level up). Backstory was he was saved by a group of adventurers and was so in awe of them he wanted to be an adventurer to, they saw his potential (with a lot of training) so took him to a monastery. He is now level 20 with epic boons .
Our Droop was rescued by the wizard of the party - much to Halfling rogues distain and mistrust - and brought along as a added level of sneak as a standard NPC. However as the game progressed to session 6 and King Ghrol was humbled and spared by the party (later becoming a NPC in a second campaign of a path of redemption) I decided that he needed to be more than a 11HP goblin and decided to elevate him to a arcane trickster and allow him to level now as a full member of the party with only a D4 as his hit dice
210 hours of gameplay later and his exploits involved taking down the Doppleganger in Wave echo, putting the killing blow on Venomfang before he could escape in the final stage of LMoP, being front and centre of the stealth aspects of Icespire peak, taking out Gorthak saving the life of Don Jon Raskin in the process and being heavily involved in the fight against Cryovain.
After all that we ran a invasion to Conyberry to reclaim it from the orc hordes, including using a cloak of the bat for some funny infiltration moments and backing up our parties barbarian - a displaced Loxodon from Ravnica - while the wizard left for a time to practice darker arts with a necromancer
Even after all this I still had him played as a sneaky thieving menace who referred to everyone as "Boss" or "Bosses" respectively and my players were dreading the day some enemy got lucky enough to kill him
Next came Ravnica, a trip to the world of politics and infighting, to round off the Loxodons arc as the dealt with the various Guilds and ever growing threat of the Eldrazi I had made the final villain of the arc, challenging everything the world had to offer n even being part of a intense effort to lay Isperia the sphinx low and STILL no death for him, not even a revivify moment, the goblin was just untouchable no matter what happened, few close calls but getting away with the party saving him even at a detriment to the flow of battle so integral to their team as he'd become.
Departing Ravnica the Icewind Dale beckoned, and I ce more he proved invaluable to the scouting missions, using the perpetual dusk to his advantage until reaching the Missing Spire of Netherese. There the party was gifted the medallion of the shield golom and began following the strange pull of it coming to Karkolohk. Here a simple plan was hatched to keep the Gnome ruling over the goblins in check but grant him his freedom - leave Droop with a headband of intellect and let him rule in the mechanised suit of Spellix while the wizard sneaked out the Gnome via invisibility
When the went to leave a entourage of untrusting goblins tried to reveal that the boss was in fact not a goblin, tearing off his mask to reveal Droop underneath who in a power play used Shadow Blade to end the issue in one death and cement himself as the definitive boss, and having a touching moment where he finally called the wizard by his first namee
The party then left leaving him behind to become Yarb Gnock, but forever Droop the Arcane Trickster. He never once died, much to our collective disbelief
My players killed, or allowed to die, everyone except Sildar.
All three Rockseeker brothers - dead. The nothic - dead. Droop - dead.
Glasstaff escaped, because the players used speak with animals on his familiar (thinking it was just an ordinary rat) and told it all their plans. All the dopplegangers escaped, because the party kept going into a place, clearing two or three rooms, then leaving for another location. The party ran away from the wraith and never even visited the green dragon.
In the end they only defeated King Grol and the Black Spider. The final fight against the Black Spider almost killed half of them because as some of the party didn't enter the room. The Black Spider's response was to close and lock the doors, splitting the party.
In our game, one of the doppelgangers had killed Iarno and took his form by the time the party went after the Redbrands. After a comical battle involving a hastily thrown pot of tea and a near TPK as Redbrands and Bugbears converged on the area, Dopple-Iarno fled the scene, killed Droop, took his form, and now sits as the party's adopted mascot happily being a comical idiot who occasionally throws out weird, provocative backhanded compliments and is feeding Black Spider intel on the party's whereabouts and actions while I sit back and wait for this particular timebomb to go off. Bwahahahahaha!
I had something similar. My players took a liking to Droop so set him free. I then had him follow them through the rest of the dungeon.
One of my players was knocked unconscious but passed his death saves, so was then sleeping it off. When he awoke Droop was cradling his head and stroking his face.
When they left the dungeon Droop ran off into the sunset, but I think I might bring him back before the end of the campaign
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We started our first ever D&D game at the start of the year by playing through Lost Mine of Phandelver, and when the players encountered Droop, they decided to keep him with the party as a tag along. They gave him "Talon", the +1 longsword, so he can defend himself if needed and helped him fight. During the Wave Echo Cave dungeon, they got in a really tight spot pulling enemies from multiple rooms and we nearly faced a TPK. The flaming skull, zombies, giant spiders and hobgoblins all attacked together, and Droop got the killing blow on the flaming skull.
From there, one of my players put the skull in their bag and they went into a nearby room, barricaded themselves in so they could short rest. Well the flaming skull reanimated during that, stopping the short rest and they pulled off another close encounter to defeat it (they learned to spread out to not get fireballed again!). The skull was then run to the northern room and locked in there, the party head back to Phandalin, and to commend Droops bravery in battle (and because I wanted him gone, he was an annoyance!) the Lords Alliance made Droop the "Defender of the Cave", where the locked room to the flaming skull should never be opened.
In the middle of all that, the party encountered the young green dragon, and decided to stand and fight, lots of crits were rolled, they started the fight spread out so were in a great tactical position, and nearly defeated it, he flies off with his tail between his legs. They loot the lair, set it on fire (yes, we have a pyromaniac in the group that burns EVERYTHING).
Fast forward quite a bit, lots has happened, they are now ready to level up to 6, but I like to give them an epic fight to end each level, so they had a big fight in a tavern where an evil outcast Paladin sets fire to the building whilst they are fighting, this is a signal. They kill the bad guys, use up a lot of their resources, get out of the tavern, and a very F'd off young green dragon lands behind them (this is who the bad guys signalled). 1 PC dies, and get's revivified, then another player dies (i had lost count on the failed saves and he was gone!), the remaining 3 PC's are in very bad shape, and the dragon is about to make another attack but he is very low on HP. That's where the session ended.
This coming session: A hooded figure appears, fires an arrow badly wounding the dragon, leaving the other PC's to hopefully finish it off before it can do too much damage or even kill another PC. The hood is pulled back to reveal Droop, the replacement PC for the dead player, a level 6 ranger trained (very briefly) by the Lords Alliance.
My players had a connection with this NPC, but he was a royal pain in the butt. He had actually died during the Wave Echo Cave at one point, I played him as a Leeeroy Jenkinsss character, and they used a scroll of revivify on him! I hope this turns out to be a great reveal for the other players, of course I'm plotting this with the player who will control him, it was actually his idea, and he's really excited about it. We have a whole backstory planned covering the missing time period, he finds them because he was tracking the dragon after it destroyed Phandalin in a rage.
Just thought I'd share, as since I finished LMOP I have been using my own story, but I'm finding that the players are practically writing it for me. Everyone has said they have seen a great improvement in the RP'ing and world since that point. And although I have a general plot line to where this is going, I listen to all of the ideas and "maybe this is what's happening" from the players and either think "yea, that's great, that's where the story is heading" or make a note to use it later. I only have to half throw a plot at them, and let them finish it albeit without them knowing they are doing a lot of the work for me!
That's a fun little story :) I remember my players got really attached to Droop as well when we played through Phandelver. Fortunately, for me at least, they didn't think to try and recruit him into the party. Not that I would have fought back against that too hard or anything, but it would be an NPC I'd have to keep track of constantly lol
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My table adopted Droop as their mascot. I think I had him killed, I kid you not, on 3 different occasions, and I swear the lengths they went through to keep that little pest alive. It was funny, and he made for some fun interactions. This was back when Sidekicks were intro'd as UA, so I converted him to one, and ran him as a cowardly sniveling little tag-along who held on to the community bag and popped health potions into fallen barbarians and fighters if needed.
I once played a oneshot where we were encouraged to build funny characters so I played as a monk Droop. I had so much fun I started playing him on a server run in a similar way to AL (one shots within a level range but you gain XP to level up). Backstory was he was saved by a group of adventurers and was so in awe of them he wanted to be an adventurer to, they saw his potential (with a lot of training) so took him to a monastery. He is now level 20 with epic boons .
Our Droop was rescued by the wizard of the party - much to Halfling rogues distain and mistrust - and brought along as a added level of sneak as a standard NPC. However as the game progressed to session 6 and King Ghrol was humbled and spared by the party (later becoming a NPC in a second campaign of a path of redemption) I decided that he needed to be more than a 11HP goblin and decided to elevate him to a arcane trickster and allow him to level now as a full member of the party with only a D4 as his hit dice
210 hours of gameplay later and his exploits involved taking down the Doppleganger in Wave echo, putting the killing blow on Venomfang before he could escape in the final stage of LMoP, being front and centre of the stealth aspects of Icespire peak, taking out Gorthak saving the life of Don Jon Raskin in the process and being heavily involved in the fight against Cryovain.
After all that we ran a invasion to Conyberry to reclaim it from the orc hordes, including using a cloak of the bat for some funny infiltration moments and backing up our parties barbarian - a displaced Loxodon from Ravnica - while the wizard left for a time to practice darker arts with a necromancer
Even after all this I still had him played as a sneaky thieving menace who referred to everyone as "Boss" or "Bosses" respectively and my players were dreading the day some enemy got lucky enough to kill him
Next came Ravnica, a trip to the world of politics and infighting, to round off the Loxodons arc as the dealt with the various Guilds and ever growing threat of the Eldrazi I had made the final villain of the arc, challenging everything the world had to offer n even being part of a intense effort to lay Isperia the sphinx low and STILL no death for him, not even a revivify moment, the goblin was just untouchable no matter what happened, few close calls but getting away with the party saving him even at a detriment to the flow of battle so integral to their team as he'd become.
Departing Ravnica the Icewind Dale beckoned, and I ce more he proved invaluable to the scouting missions, using the perpetual dusk to his advantage until reaching the Missing Spire of Netherese. There the party was gifted the medallion of the shield golom and began following the strange pull of it coming to Karkolohk. Here a simple plan was hatched to keep the Gnome ruling over the goblins in check but grant him his freedom - leave Droop with a headband of intellect and let him rule in the mechanised suit of Spellix while the wizard sneaked out the Gnome via invisibility
When the went to leave a entourage of untrusting goblins tried to reveal that the boss was in fact not a goblin, tearing off his mask to reveal Droop underneath who in a power play used Shadow Blade to end the issue in one death and cement himself as the definitive boss, and having a touching moment where he finally called the wizard by his first namee
The party then left leaving him behind to become Yarb Gnock, but forever Droop the Arcane Trickster. He never once died, much to our collective disbelief
The Goblin
The myth
The legend
My players killed, or allowed to die, everyone except Sildar.
All three Rockseeker brothers - dead. The nothic - dead. Droop - dead.
Glasstaff escaped, because the players used speak with animals on his familiar (thinking it was just an ordinary rat) and told it all their plans. All the dopplegangers escaped, because the party kept going into a place, clearing two or three rooms, then leaving for another location. The party ran away from the wraith and never even visited the green dragon.
In the end they only defeated King Grol and the Black Spider. The final fight against the Black Spider almost killed half of them because as some of the party didn't enter the room. The Black Spider's response was to close and lock the doors, splitting the party.
In our game, one of the doppelgangers had killed Iarno and took his form by the time the party went after the Redbrands. After a comical battle involving a hastily thrown pot of tea and a near TPK as Redbrands and Bugbears converged on the area, Dopple-Iarno fled the scene, killed Droop, took his form, and now sits as the party's adopted mascot happily being a comical idiot who occasionally throws out weird, provocative backhanded compliments and is feeding Black Spider intel on the party's whereabouts and actions while I sit back and wait for this particular timebomb to go off. Bwahahahahaha!
I had something similar. My players took a liking to Droop so set him free. I then had him follow them through the rest of the dungeon.
One of my players was knocked unconscious but passed his death saves, so was then sleeping it off. When he awoke Droop was cradling his head and stroking his face.
When they left the dungeon Droop ran off into the sunset, but I think I might bring him back before the end of the campaign