NOTE: If you are playing SKT and happened to come across this, there be spoilers around!
My players made it to Maelstrom and dodged a massive encounter with Iymrith and the counsel of giants as Iymrith rolled a nat 1 on her deception to convince everyone that the players were evil and came to kill the King's daughter and current heir to the throne. Then, after resurrecting Hekaton's wife, she offered them some treasures. Some rolls on treasure tables and the Artificer got a hold of an Efreeti Bottle. He put it in his bag for later. As they got it at the end of a session.
Heading out to free King Hekaton, they clear most of the boat as the Kraken arrived and tried to take down the ship while the players tried to unchain the king. After he was unchained he began lashing out at everyone thinking they were there to kill him. A couple horrible persuasion rolls and things weren't looking good. The Artificer breaks out and uncorks the Bottle. I rolled a 91 on the dot. Armed with 3 wishes, the Artificer says "I wish the King was friends with us and would get on our castle" (Yes, the took over the Cloud Giant castle and used it to find the ship Hekaton was trapped in).
I thought it was clever so Hekaton referred to all of them as "Bros", got on the castle, and invited them back to his place to chill. He used his conk and they were immediately back at Maelstrom. After some quick reunion emotions, the King asked the group for help defeating Iymrith. The Artificer piped in and said "I wish Iymrith was here right now."
They had used up a lot of spells and items....why not! POOF, Ancient Blue Dragon dropped onto the table. I gave them all a surprise round, which they did about 150 damage. Then we rolled initiative and I rolled Iymrith a nat 1. They went through another entire round totalling 130 damage. With about 200hp left, Iymrith unleashed hell and feared most everyone except, of course, the melee players. It wasn't even a contest, but I did get to throw some breath weapons at them and hit them for 109 damage which was pretty sweet.
The players loved it, and I still rolled on the treasure tables for what they found as the artificer wished for all of the treasures in her lair. They thought it was an awesome and I agreed. Sure, I spent days planning the lair encounter and about 30$ at FedEx printing massive versions of the above and below ground lair, but so what? This was much more their style. One of the players is taking over as DM for the next campaign and this sped things up enough for us to also roll stats for our new characters that night as well!
TL;DR; don't be afraid to let your players completely ruin your plans at the end of a campaign. It might turn out more epic than you originally planned, especially for them.
I am DM-ing for a group of (from my point of view) incredibly young people and we, as a group, are about four months in. Thus far they have destroyed a world (they blame the NPCs), had their Cleric willing turn himself into an undead (Moradin was shocked!), have made a bargain with the Arcane in exchange for some interesting magic items (they got to the Arcane by an amazing series of Nat 1's), torched a component of the primary means of communication for the people of the region they are in, got all the hostages killed and let the bad guys go a few times, and even traded services with a servant of a Cat-lord. My point is, they have spent a single session, and ONLY that single session doing what I had planned. The rest of the time they kind of say (while looking at the last person to arrive at the table): "Hey, he said something about that thing over there that we were suppose to go do for those people but we want to spend the next two weeks of game time traveling across the mountains to see if we can find any dragon eggs." To which the immediate reply is something in the area of: "He's not going to let us find dragon eggs but there are people up there that don't know that we got that mayor we took to the Astral plane killed so let’s go!" Notes: "That Mayor" was one of the primary sources of information and an integral part of the overall (initial) storyline I had devised. A Month later I have doubts any of them could tell me his name but I believe they are having fun with their roundabout way of getting to the root of the problem. Your group sounds a lot like them!
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I do not like the word... prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless.
--Artemis Entreri
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NOTE: If you are playing SKT and happened to come across this, there be spoilers around!
My players made it to Maelstrom and dodged a massive encounter with Iymrith and the counsel of giants as Iymrith rolled a nat 1 on her deception to convince everyone that the players were evil and came to kill the King's daughter and current heir to the throne. Then, after resurrecting Hekaton's wife, she offered them some treasures. Some rolls on treasure tables and the Artificer got a hold of an Efreeti Bottle. He put it in his bag for later. As they got it at the end of a session.
Heading out to free King Hekaton, they clear most of the boat as the Kraken arrived and tried to take down the ship while the players tried to unchain the king. After he was unchained he began lashing out at everyone thinking they were there to kill him. A couple horrible persuasion rolls and things weren't looking good. The Artificer breaks out and uncorks the Bottle. I rolled a 91 on the dot. Armed with 3 wishes, the Artificer says "I wish the King was friends with us and would get on our castle" (Yes, the took over the Cloud Giant castle and used it to find the ship Hekaton was trapped in).
I thought it was clever so Hekaton referred to all of them as "Bros", got on the castle, and invited them back to his place to chill. He used his conk and they were immediately back at Maelstrom. After some quick reunion emotions, the King asked the group for help defeating Iymrith. The Artificer piped in and said "I wish Iymrith was here right now."
They had used up a lot of spells and items....why not! POOF, Ancient Blue Dragon dropped onto the table. I gave them all a surprise round, which they did about 150 damage. Then we rolled initiative and I rolled Iymrith a nat 1. They went through another entire round totalling 130 damage. With about 200hp left, Iymrith unleashed hell and feared most everyone except, of course, the melee players. It wasn't even a contest, but I did get to throw some breath weapons at them and hit them for 109 damage which was pretty sweet.
The players loved it, and I still rolled on the treasure tables for what they found as the artificer wished for all of the treasures in her lair. They thought it was an awesome and I agreed. Sure, I spent days planning the lair encounter and about 30$ at FedEx printing massive versions of the above and below ground lair, but so what? This was much more their style. One of the players is taking over as DM for the next campaign and this sped things up enough for us to also roll stats for our new characters that night as well!
TL;DR; don't be afraid to let your players completely ruin your plans at the end of a campaign. It might turn out more epic than you originally planned, especially for them.
Absolutely Beautiful!
I am DM-ing for a group of (from my point of view) incredibly young people and we, as a group, are about four months in. Thus far they have destroyed a world (they blame the NPCs), had their Cleric willing turn himself into an undead (Moradin was shocked!), have made a bargain with the Arcane in exchange for some interesting magic items (they got to the Arcane by an amazing series of Nat 1's), torched a component of the primary means of communication for the people of the region they are in, got all the hostages killed and let the bad guys go a few times, and even traded services with a servant of a Cat-lord. My point is, they have spent a single session, and ONLY that single session doing what I had planned. The rest of the time they kind of say (while looking at the last person to arrive at the table): "Hey, he said something about that thing over there that we were suppose to go do for those people but we want to spend the next two weeks of game time traveling across the mountains to see if we can find any dragon eggs." To which the immediate reply is something in the area of: "He's not going to let us find dragon eggs but there are people up there that don't know that we got that mayor we took to the Astral plane killed so let’s go!" Notes: "That Mayor" was one of the primary sources of information and an integral part of the overall (initial) storyline I had devised. A Month later I have doubts any of them could tell me his name but I believe they are having fun with their roundabout way of getting to the root of the problem. Your group sounds a lot like them!
I do not like the word... prisoner. It implies a helpless state, and I assure you, I am never helpless.
--Artemis Entreri