Playing The Styes from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, my players decided to deal with the Mr. Dory and his mutated Skum in the hanging boat-conundrum by dropping the entire boat onto the street below and then looting its remains. It took a couple rounds of combat and nearly killed two of them, but they pulled it off. It's a classic example of something I didn't anticipate them doing at all, which what I absolutely adore about this game.
I killed my first PC during my friday night Adventurers League game. Flames of Kythorn DDEX2-05. The party had been riding the line between bad guys and good guys the whole game. Destroying any art they got their hands on.
Blundering through somehow, they triggered arcane defenses in an art shop, and the druid almost got bag-over-the-head nabbed by the Hawks after failing a perception roll to see them approaching. After some firefighting the party rushes to the center of town to see a bunch of magmin wreaking havoc.
Into the fray leaps the level 1 Halfling barbarian, raging and convinced everything will be fine. Until they started exploding. Bringing her to 2 out of 14 HP. Next attack on her crits for 16 damage. Instantly killing her and setting her on fire. She burned to ashes as per player request.
He pulled out a new character he rolled, an Earth Genasi Monk named D. Wayne Johnson.
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Lark- Goblin Bard 2- Lost Mines Gr-A/ AC 13 HP 15, passive perception 11
Finished our homebrew campaign last night. Whew, what a ride. There were tears of laughter and of sadness!
Everything culminated in an epic army-versus-army battle with the BBEG's hordes. The party manage to isolate and engage him, taking him out pretty quickly to be honest (the rogue did over 70 points of damage when she crit on her sneak attack). Of course, that wasn't the end as the death of the villain unleashed a monstrous corrupted ancient dragon upon the battlefield. It was a close call for several party members, one of them was a single die roll from death, only to get a few points of healing up and finish the job with an Eldritch Blast to the dragon's head. In it's banishing throes, the dragon bound him and sucked him through a planar rift to...who knows where?
Campaign one is over. Campaign two? Let's go looking for our missing friend...
I had my first character death last session. Its a fairly impromptu sort of game, in a pirate setting. My character Mordon Stormsfury (tempest cleric of Talos) and Sofia the drow rogue have been fighting a warship with the help of an island tribe and an intelligent crab. With a decent amount of luck we managed to bombard and disable the warship, forcing them to stand and fight. Then my character managed to reach the enemy ship and disable the rudder, after almost dying twice from being unconscious in the water. Luckily there were a lot of medicine men around for healing. After the rudder was disabled, the warship ran aground, and Mordon enters the fray on the deck. After barely managing to hit anyone, and getting hit several times in the process (Mordon is cursed with incredible bad luck, literally 8 out of 10 rolls will be under 10), Mordon is down to 1 HP. At that point the warship captain comes out onto the deck, and challenges all who stand there. He also turns out to be the feared privateer who destroyed Mordons first ship, and killed allthe crew exept for Mordon (pirate background). So Mordon immediately rushes over to engage the enraged captain who is wielding a huge sword. (Mordon is not the most intelligent). Amazingly, due to very lucky rolls, Mordon lasts three rounds against the boss, still on 1 HP, 0 spell slots (boss has multi attack, but rolls about 3 nat 1s, Mordon has three attacks, actually hits with one) and we use a crit table, so on one of the nat 1s, the captain went to pinch Mordon, and got blocked my Mordons own fist, taking half damage. Then finally, the boss lands an attack, which I had been waiting for all along, because I stil had one use of Wrath of the Storm left and my channel divinity option.(and there were plenty of medicine men on the deck, what could go wrong??) The DM rolls for damage, on 3d6 rolls 6 6 5. Enough to kill Mordon outright. So Mordon shouts "bear the wrath of Talos" (Mordons favourite warcry) and Mordon's lifeforce is channeled into the blast of thunder and lightning that slams into the captain for max damage cause of channel divinity (so 16 dmg) as the blade swings into Mordon and Mordon is blasted back lifeless from the force of the blow and drops to the ground dead. The captain is wounded, bit not dead unfortumately. Still, was an epic character death, as Mordon avenged the fallen crewmembers and used that last use of Wrath of the Storm, and also taught me how much everything just depends on the dice sometimes. If 1 point less dmg had been rolled it would have been very different, but I feel its a very fitting end to the character, and an epic first character death.
Playing with a nephew and niece. The niece had been wanting to play for a while and had come up with a whole intricate, lovely backstory about her Lawful Good exiled prince and his strange quasi-divine heritage. She was chosen by the Duke for her diplomatic skills and sent to investigate smugglers in the north. Upon arrival, she went straight murder-hobo. Tried to kill some random critter and when an old man on the street told her she had bad manners, she flat-out murdered him. Broke out of jail, stabbed a guy in the back by surprise, threw a few injured prisoners off a boat into the ocean to drown, then took a nap.
Started with some heavy inner party drama, conflict and intense roleplay. Between the cleric of avandra gradually turning mad and "evil" vs the tabaxi rogue/bard. Using spells in their "discussion" such as hold person, hideous laughter, entangle arrows. Was a good discussion with a lot of moral dillemma's in regards to making deals with devils, breaking the law and how far they're willing to go etc. Firbolg ranger interrupting at times when things got to intense stating: "whatever the deal is between you two, sort it out. just no killing nor maiming!". was really cool. I just sat back for 45mins and watched the group do their thing.
my players interrogated an orc. got some information regarding political intrigue. apparently the orcs got hired as mercs, but no idea by whom. it sure wasn't the crimson tigers or black death assassin's. which the players don't know who is in control of those organisations. instead of bringing the fight to the orcs they holed up in town. got the militia and local sherrif on their side. with a couple of days to prepare for the potential of a next incoming orc raid... so we finished the session with a small orc raid they had to defend against. 35-40 orcs, an orog, shaman of gruumsh, ogre with two dire wolves and a dozen or so black scaled guard drakes vs the 5 PC's and 40 militia. Had to improvise this and used matt colvilles Stronghold&Followers ruleset as much as i could remember of at that moment in time.
Good thing they scouted ahead and chosen their own battlefield and prepped various traps and hazards. A trench filled with spikes and oil that got put to flame with an alchemist's fire. on an elevated bluff they rolled down barrels of oil onto the incoming horde. Which got exploded putting orcs to flame as well as barrel schrapnel. From a large rock overlooking the battlefield the militia with arrows. with a line of fire a la the greeks to light their arrows before shooting at the orcs. the druid using AoE entangles to control potential flank. the firbolg ranger thought to be smarted and made a vietcong hole in the ground. waiting for all orcs to pass, then come out and take out the backline if possible. but that got him the ire from the ogre and dire wolves. He did manage to take out the ogre by himself though. half the party was close to death, the other barely a scratch. some militia were hurt in the end. ended the session with the firbolg ranger saying: "i'm going to hunt down some of the wounded stragglers. who is coming?"
Our DM killed it in our last session! For a little context, I'm playing as a barbarian who was banished from his tribe. We're about 3 months into our campaign and while taking a long rest my character had a nigtmare/vision of his people being slaughtered by a group of unknown foes. As my character watched helplessly, the tribe's shaman approached him carrying the symbol of Tempus. All he managed to say was my name before a sword was thrust through his chest. Then my character awoke in a frenzied rage and thought his comrades were the enemies from his vision, so I had to fight my party! They were surprisingly gentle and ended up disarming me (after I got a hit off on our druid) and casting dispel magic on me. And that's the cliff hanger we ended on. Now we have to try to determine what this vision means and how to handle it. Also, my tribe is located in Icewind Dale and we're currently in/near the Endless Wastes lol.
Homebrew campaign. Party is level 15. We're in the Fey Wild and the Winter Court is summoning demons and using giant undead golem type creatures to make a move on the Summer Court.
I'm a fallen Aasimar Paladin, oath of devotion to Sune, with a Pegasus as my mount. When I activate my necrotic shroud my Pegasus becomes a nightmare. I previously served Asmodeus. The rest of the party consists of a tiefling warlock, an Aasimar cleric, a wood elf ranger and a Water Genasi fighter. The cleric had to miss the last session.
We make it to the outpost where the summoning is being done and while everyone else is sneaking in I fly right inside the front gate and say that I'm an emissary of Sune on a mission to speak with the Winter Queen and I'm lost. The Winter Eladrin give me hospitality and offer to take me the rest of the way tomorrow.(oops)
So, I'm eating in the banquet hall(it's really a tent) and my companions are making it through the camp slaying all the eladrin they come across. They successfully take out 52 without anyone noticing. I get shown to my tent by a servant girl and try to seduce her for information. She leaves immediately and later tells me I should go back to my tent while I'm combing my pegasus's mane. In the wardrobe I find a book that's a log of the camp. She says that as repayment I have to free her. (Now I owe a debt)
My tent is near the Captains' tents and the Marshall's. My party has made their way to the tents by mine, I hear a racket from the other side of the camp amd go to check it out. I see one of the casters thrown against a wall by a huge minotaur looking demon(there are 2 of these and I see a Balor climbing out of the summoning portal.
Back at the Captains' tents everything has went to help in handbasket as well. My party is in a fight with the rest of the camp. I get on my mount and fly over the party and warn the Eladrin that the demons have turned on them.. Then fly over to the fight with the Balor, 2 minotaur looking demons and like 6 flying demons that we've faced before. The Eladrin have 2 of their undead golems facing off with the minotaurs. I activate my shroud, my channel divinity weapon for a +5 to attack and cast blinding smite on the turn before my attack.
Fortunately, the Balor teleports next to some Eladrin to fight them(we use flanking for advantage) I attack with a level 4 divine smite and do 108 points of damage with my holy avenger. I cast blinding smite, make my second attack for a crit and do 182 damage. 290 damage in the first round. First hit in the next round kills it.
We finish off the rest of the demons and the undead are killed by the demons. I still haven't broken hospitality as far as they know and all that's left are 8 Captains and the Marshall. My aura indicates that they've given me hospitality. Meanwhile, our ranger, while under greater invisibility steals as many of their weapons as he can including the Marshall's attuned weapon that only he can draw from the sheath. The remaining eladrin don't know that they're all that's left and the warlock says they're with me.
The plan is to take a long rest outside the walls and then finish them off. I've got 1 level 1 spell slot and 1 level 2 left. I had cast dispel magic on the portal which was a gate spell and a permanance spell. I managed to roll a 19 and a 15 to dispel both after I killed the Balor. I've only got 15 lay on hands left and still have my 15 points of healing from my race.
Unfortunately, the Warlock attacks one of the Captains and that's where we ended the session. We've got a hell of a fight coming up next week but at least our cleric has all his spell slots.
It was extremely fun.
The Marshall was going to let me know the next day how much it would cost to buy out the servants contract. Guess I'll have some repercussions coming from breaking hospitality and now I don't know how to free the servant girl. I dont know if the contract is null if the Marshall dies.
Alright, as a bit of backstory, my character is a Lawful Evil Hobgoblin Hexblade in a party of Good characters. His personality is somewhat modeled after Steel Brightblade with his outlook on honor and all that, but his big mission was to gather the shards of Maglubyet's Battleaxe once more to bring back the Goblinoid host. They didn't know that, but he was hinting at it for some time. Well he was also on a task given to the party by their queen to return a pet to a lord of another Kingdom as a sign of good faith. Well on this quest, they went through these shenanigans that which one moment involved an attempted amputation, but through all of this, he found all of these shards and now he has the axe reforged and one of the party members attacks him. The session ended there, but it was definitely crazy and I am looking forward to how it plays out.
I'm DM:ing and I use a lot of homebrewed stuff. I take all the monsters, magic items and even some of the spells in PHB and Monster manual as a baseline and add my own stuff to them to make enemies and abilities more interesting. The campaign I'm running now is based on Against the Cult of the Reptile God. The group consisted of a druid, a ranger, a bard and two rogues. They had been hired by a merchant to act as guards through a troubled region to the capital. During a short, two day stop at a village, the merchant disappeared and the group started searching for him, noticing that something strange was going in the village. People went missing, were very rude and were very interested in what the group was doing there. The group followed a few leads and found themselves in tunnels under a burned spa. There they found 3 gnolls and two guards talking about transferring someone tonight.
The session started with the group ambushing the guards when they were leaving and of course gnolls noticed them. Now, the group didn't know that the priest, that had been bullying them to leave the village, had an alchemists workshop down in the tunnels, in the section the group ALMOST explored, but at the last moment decided not to. So when the priest hears sounds of battle from nearby, he drinks an invisibility potion and rushes off to investigate.
The group was tearing through the gnolls and the two guards. Bard had cast Hold Person on the biggest and strongest gnoll and rest of the group tore it apart. I had the priest use his special ability (my own addition) to boost his certain allies with a bonus to hit and temporary hit points. Then the priest cast Spirit Guardians and charged the party, knocking the bard unconscious. This proved devastating, as the priest proved to be quite a challenge. The situation looked dire, with the ranger being beaten up by all three gnolls and the druid and one of the rogues trying desperately to kill the priest, or at least break his concentration on the Spirit Guardians. Then, the other rouge who had managed to stay unscathed, fired a single arrow at the priest, killing him instantly (damn you, sneak attack!). This turned the tide and they managed to clean up the rest of the enemies and barely saved their two unconscious members.
After the battle was over, they healed themselves and explored a little, finding the missing merchant and the alchemists workshop. In the workshop was a small puzzle, a riddle to open a chest with four different potions inside. They solved it pretty quick and looted the place, including corpses. The ranger found a strange scimitar and a fake medallion on the priest's corpse and noticed that the medallion was hollow and there was something inside. He did not open it, however, but instead stripped the priest and wrapped his loot into a bundle using the priest's robes. The session ended with the group gathering around their employer, the merchant, and deciding to carry him outside.
The session went well and I was happy to see how engaged players were. We all are pretty new to D&D and it's my first campaign as the DM, so it was nice to see everyone react so strongly when one of the players rolled a crit or fell unconscious. We also have a bit flimsy understanding of rules, but only once we had to stop the game to solve a rules issue we couldn' agree on.
We're currently trapped in an illusory library and are trying to find a way back into the real world. We found a red dragon (in disguise of a pretty elf woman) who has a book that might help us, but she wants something for it, so now we're on the way to get her stolen dragon egg back from somewhere in the library.
Highlights from yesterday's game:
our bard slept with the red dragon <-- the whole party got new clothes out of it xDD
our barbarian failed a WIS save and nearly got abducted (again) by a plant that wanted to eat him, which we then had to fight
The Party finally found out who the big bad is, and it's part of a long-dead and mostly forgotten race but is not the same one they have been playing this cat and mouse game with. That person sent their animated armor to attack the party while they stayed out of range and cast Meator Swarm on the temple the party was in killing the party cleric and the 2nd soul that was in the barbarian that formed a type of shield around them. So the party now used all their cash to pay for the cleric to be brought back, while the fighter is at 0 hp stable but in a dream state that will be solved next game. Now the party is in the Endgame
We decided to Long rest in the same open plain with no cover 3 times after being attacked every single time. Of the 9 of us in the party, several came quite close to dying in each fight, and at the end of each fight... the party would just decide to sit back down and resume their long rest. This ended up with an insanely powerful necromancer our wizard helped resurrect last session catching up to us and kidnapping our Ranger, only giving him back later.
My Polymorphed footstool cleric of Furniture spent all 3 fights hidden inside his animated companion Chester- a medium sized chest he found in a dungeon- floating around in chester and dragging players out of the fight and lobbing guiding bolts when it called for it. Best part was because i was hidden in a chest, most of the enemies saw no reason to attack me, and I avoided many of the saves the rest of the party would have to make.
All of this ultimately ended with us finding ourselves in a goblin camp our npc goblin friend led us to, whereupon my cleric had intimate relations with the goblin chief's bed, and our wizard was kidnapped by the big bad necromancer, and one immaculate conception later, the party are now the caretaker of this campaigns anti-christ.
Did my first Adventure League game at a convention. Got super lucky and the table was a lot of fun with a fantastic DM. Lots of roleplay with the other players. About the point I got run over by a panicked draft horse being ridden by a bunch of lava monsters and then watched it gallop off with a cat familiar hanging on for dear life and being chased by a wizard on a cow, I felt right at home.
My poor paladin was not having a good day for dice rolls and spent quite a bit of the encounter blinded or being run over by very large livestock. Managed to dodge the cow at least.
The first one was the kind of story where you got hurled into the fantasy world and given your class ability's.
After a disturbing meet with the mayor, a trip too a nearby quarry and a clever-ish use of prestadigitation too open a toolshed the section ended on a weird, but fun note.
The game I dm'd for was almost as strange. As seeming as I was underprepared, and had too throw some odd encounters out too test brain and brawn...sort of.
Some easily beaten twig blights, and a land shark with human legs(two separate encounters).
Leading up too an encounter with an elk that would tower over an elephant. That just happened too be loitering in the middle of a town.
The dwarf rouge flung a sack of ballberings, at the elks.....ballberings......and it freaked out and fled down the road out of towntown, causing property damage of course.
It was kinda fun, and this will be good practice for some bigger games, and bigger groups.
Characters: Level 3 Human Fighter (Champion) and level 3 Human Rogue (Assassin)
- This time events turned chaotic.
- Characters got a quest to find missing merchant and got a hint to investigate a village for more information.
- On a way to village a man was swimming towards coast and reef shark was chasing him. Rogue throw a rope towards man. That man survived the shark but when he asked for help to mend his wounds characters decided to kill the man and ate him.
- When they arrived to village they went to local tavern and bought drinks but bartender tried to overcharge them. That turned into very eventful tavern brawl with 4 non-hostile Commoners, 1 Orc and 1 Thug. After few combat rounds Orc left the tavern and asked help from Guard. Guard came to inspect the tavern. Characters were blaming Orc and Thug for beginning of the tavern brawl. Rogue threw natural 20 for the Performance check when guard asked who started the fight and as result guards took Orc and Thug to jail instead of characters who actually began the brawl.
- After tavern brawl characters got information from villagers about missing merchant. Merchant is captured by evil humanoid faction in nearby jail.
Characters: Goliath Barbarian, Changeling Sun Soul Monk, Abberant Mind Sorcerer (The race of the character is undisclosed atm), Autumn Eladrin Elf Celestial Warlock. All level 5.
-Just left Argynvostholt Manor with a couple of upgrades, two cloaks of protection for Warlock and Sorcerer, a custom homebrew upgrade for the Barb's 2 handed sword, a ring of protection for the Monk.
-Also got a very cool homebrew item that functioned as a slightly better version of Leomund's Tiny Hut that's set in a different plane that can't be entered when it's locked from inside.
-Silver Dragon Statue decided to join us as a companion with the Silver Dragon Wyrmling stat block.
-Decided to go to the von Richten for more clues on how to beat up Strahd.
I forgot to mention that our party currently has treated Strahd like a Saturday Morning Villain in our campaign. The first encounter with him as he was trying to take Irena resulted in him eating the dirt with some very lucky rolls from the Barb with grapple checks and halted regeneration from the Sun Soul Monk. The party was very close to defeating Strahd until he was forced to retreat but not before summoning some wolves to try and clean up the party.
-Once night fell the party decided to sleep in the safe room and the next day Strahd came to terrorize us as the party was exiting the door. He also was accompanied by 5 werewolves.
-Barb immediately flew into a rage and decided to charge Strahd with his new weapon, dealing lots of damage to Strahd on a surprise round because the vampire decided to monologue.
-Abberant Mind Sorc ended up charming 2 werewolves, Sun Soul Monk stunning another, and Celestial Warlock Fey Stepping extra effect into charming the last two werewolves and casting Summon Lesser Demon (rolled a 6, 8 CR 1/4 demons are now beset upon Strahd).
-Barb still continues to dish out damage, pretty much doing 145+ damage to Strahd in 2 rounds because of exploiting vulnerabilities.
-Strahd decides that he had enough of the bullying and decides to whip out 9th level disintegrate on Barbarian
-DM decides to end the session before the dice are rolled.
-We all "AWW CMON"d but had fun in the end.
Spoilers: I had Counterspell prepared for that day (Celestial Warlock) and was ready to use up that 2nd spell slot already but seeing as it's a 9th level disintegrate that's gonna be a DC 19 for me to try and beat and I have a +4 CHA modifier.
Seems like only a month ago I had just killed my first PC. Let me tell you the story of my second.
I was DM'ing DDAL9-01 Escape from Elturel, which is an awesome adventure with pretty well written plot lines. The party consisted of a rogue , a ranger, 2 clerics, a barbarian and a druid. All were level 1 except ranger and rogue at level 2. But, enough bread let us get to the stew.
The party at this point has been battered by river waters, stung by wasps, and had had quite enough of wading through mobs of lemures. Settling in for the "quiet" ride to Baldur's Gate via refugee caravan. Yet, somehow, on their first night encamped the party find themselves spearheading a murder investigation. Compiling suspects and interrogating witnesses quickly became the MO of everyone in the party. Except for the ranger, who decided he wanted to rifle through the supplies of the caravan. A short fight with one of the clerics resulted in the ranger being tied up, unconscious, behind one of the tents.
Party narrows the suspect list down and makes an accusation. They gather the ranger and make for the tent of the suspect. Silly chaotic ranger announces to party that he is going to circle the tent and approach from the rear. He hands me a note saying he is just wandering off into the woods because party won't let him be mean to the refugees. Off he goes, crashing through the underbrush like a gorilla. Right into a clearing where the suspect is standing over a freshly murdered victim. Ranger catches a surprise crossbow bolt to the gut. He turns tail and races back to party crying about needing help now. The party heads back to clearing where killer is waiting with some friends now. Battles ensues.
Judging on the way this story has gone so far, I bet you are thinking to yourself that the ranger is going to die. You would be wrong.
After removing minions from the field of battle, the party focuses on the suspect. The druid, who is almost out of spell slots and can't compare to the damage output of the rogue or barbarian, goes wildshape into a weasel and crawls up the suspects pant leg and begins racing around their chest. In effect, distracting them as per the help action. The suspect tries to grab the offending weasel while casting inflict wounds and crits the attack roll, blasting the poor druid out of wildshape and then sucking up the other 23 points of necrotic damage as a squishy level 1 druid with 9 HP. I am quite sure the rogue was crying, in and out of character.
R.I.P. Cil the druid. We hardly knew ye.
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Lark- Goblin Bard 2- Lost Mines Gr-A/ AC 13 HP 15, passive perception 11
Playing The Styes from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, my players decided to deal with the Mr. Dory and his mutated Skum in the hanging boat-conundrum by dropping the entire boat onto the street below and then looting its remains. It took a couple rounds of combat and nearly killed two of them, but they pulled it off. It's a classic example of something I didn't anticipate them doing at all, which what I absolutely adore about this game.
I killed my first PC during my friday night Adventurers League game. Flames of Kythorn DDEX2-05. The party had been riding the line between bad guys and good guys the whole game. Destroying any art they got their hands on.
Blundering through somehow, they triggered arcane defenses in an art shop, and the druid almost got bag-over-the-head nabbed by the Hawks after failing a perception roll to see them approaching. After some firefighting the party rushes to the center of town to see a bunch of magmin wreaking havoc.
Into the fray leaps the level 1 Halfling barbarian, raging and convinced everything will be fine. Until they started exploding. Bringing her to 2 out of 14 HP. Next attack on her crits for 16 damage. Instantly killing her and setting her on fire. She burned to ashes as per player request.
He pulled out a new character he rolled, an Earth Genasi Monk named D. Wayne Johnson.
Lark- Goblin Bard 2- Lost Mines Gr-A/ AC 13 HP 15, passive perception 11
DM- Sunless Citadel PbP// Waterdeep Dragon Heist (IRL F2F)// Adventurers League (F2F LGS)
Finished our homebrew campaign last night. Whew, what a ride. There were tears of laughter and of sadness!
Everything culminated in an epic army-versus-army battle with the BBEG's hordes. The party manage to isolate and engage him, taking him out pretty quickly to be honest (the rogue did over 70 points of damage when she crit on her sneak attack). Of course, that wasn't the end as the death of the villain unleashed a monstrous corrupted ancient dragon upon the battlefield. It was a close call for several party members, one of them was a single die roll from death, only to get a few points of healing up and finish the job with an Eldritch Blast to the dragon's head. In it's banishing throes, the dragon bound him and sucked him through a planar rift to...who knows where?
Campaign one is over. Campaign two? Let's go looking for our missing friend...
I had my first character death last session. Its a fairly impromptu sort of game, in a pirate setting. My character Mordon Stormsfury (tempest cleric of Talos) and Sofia the drow rogue have been fighting a warship with the help of an island tribe and an intelligent crab. With a decent amount of luck we managed to bombard and disable the warship, forcing them to stand and fight. Then my character managed to reach the enemy ship and disable the rudder, after almost dying twice from being unconscious in the water. Luckily there were a lot of medicine men around for healing. After the rudder was disabled, the warship ran aground, and Mordon enters the fray on the deck. After barely managing to hit anyone, and getting hit several times in the process (Mordon is cursed with incredible bad luck, literally 8 out of 10 rolls will be under 10), Mordon is down to 1 HP. At that point the warship captain comes out onto the deck, and challenges all who stand there. He also turns out to be the feared privateer who destroyed Mordons first ship, and killed allthe crew exept for Mordon (pirate background). So Mordon immediately rushes over to engage the enraged captain who is wielding a huge sword. (Mordon is not the most intelligent). Amazingly, due to very lucky rolls, Mordon lasts three rounds against the boss, still on 1 HP, 0 spell slots (boss has multi attack, but rolls about 3 nat 1s, Mordon has three attacks, actually hits with one) and we use a crit table, so on one of the nat 1s, the captain went to pinch Mordon, and got blocked my Mordons own fist, taking half damage. Then finally, the boss lands an attack, which I had been waiting for all along, because I stil had one use of Wrath of the Storm left and my channel divinity option.(and there were plenty of medicine men on the deck, what could go wrong??) The DM rolls for damage, on 3d6 rolls 6 6 5. Enough to kill Mordon outright. So Mordon shouts "bear the wrath of Talos" (Mordons favourite warcry) and Mordon's lifeforce is channeled into the blast of thunder and lightning that slams into the captain for max damage cause of channel divinity (so 16 dmg) as the blade swings into Mordon and Mordon is blasted back lifeless from the force of the blow and drops to the ground dead. The captain is wounded, bit not dead unfortumately. Still, was an epic character death, as Mordon avenged the fallen crewmembers and used that last use of Wrath of the Storm, and also taught me how much everything just depends on the dice sometimes. If 1 point less dmg had been rolled it would have been very different, but I feel its a very fitting end to the character, and an epic first character death.
Playing with a nephew and niece. The niece had been wanting to play for a while and had come up with a whole intricate, lovely backstory about her Lawful Good exiled prince and his strange quasi-divine heritage. She was chosen by the Duke for her diplomatic skills and sent to investigate smugglers in the north. Upon arrival, she went straight murder-hobo. Tried to kill some random critter and when an old man on the street told her she had bad manners, she flat-out murdered him. Broke out of jail, stabbed a guy in the back by surprise, threw a few injured prisoners off a boat into the ocean to drown, then took a nap.
She's a natural gamer.
Started with some heavy inner party drama, conflict and intense roleplay. Between the cleric of avandra gradually turning mad and "evil" vs the tabaxi rogue/bard. Using spells in their "discussion" such as hold person, hideous laughter, entangle arrows. Was a good discussion with a lot of moral dillemma's in regards to making deals with devils, breaking the law and how far they're willing to go etc. Firbolg ranger interrupting at times when things got to intense stating: "whatever the deal is between you two, sort it out. just no killing nor maiming!". was really cool. I just sat back for 45mins and watched the group do their thing.
my players interrogated an orc. got some information regarding political intrigue. apparently the orcs got hired as mercs, but no idea by whom. it sure wasn't the crimson tigers or black death assassin's. which the players don't know who is in control of those organisations. instead of bringing the fight to the orcs they holed up in town. got the militia and local sherrif on their side. with a couple of days to prepare for the potential of a next incoming orc raid... so we finished the session with a small orc raid they had to defend against. 35-40 orcs, an orog, shaman of gruumsh, ogre with two dire wolves and a dozen or so black scaled guard drakes vs the 5 PC's and 40 militia. Had to improvise this and used matt colvilles Stronghold&Followers ruleset as much as i could remember of at that moment in time.
Good thing they scouted ahead and chosen their own battlefield and prepped various traps and hazards. A trench filled with spikes and oil that got put to flame with an alchemist's fire. on an elevated bluff they rolled down barrels of oil onto the incoming horde. Which got exploded putting orcs to flame as well as barrel schrapnel. From a large rock overlooking the battlefield the militia with arrows. with a line of fire a la the greeks to light their arrows before shooting at the orcs. the druid using AoE entangles to control potential flank. the firbolg ranger thought to be smarted and made a vietcong hole in the ground. waiting for all orcs to pass, then come out and take out the backline if possible. but that got him the ire from the ogre and dire wolves. He did manage to take out the ogre by himself though. half the party was close to death, the other barely a scratch. some militia were hurt in the end. ended the session with the firbolg ranger saying: "i'm going to hunt down some of the wounded stragglers. who is coming?"
Our DM killed it in our last session! For a little context, I'm playing as a barbarian who was banished from his tribe. We're about 3 months into our campaign and while taking a long rest my character had a nigtmare/vision of his people being slaughtered by a group of unknown foes. As my character watched helplessly, the tribe's shaman approached him carrying the symbol of Tempus. All he managed to say was my name before a sword was thrust through his chest. Then my character awoke in a frenzied rage and thought his comrades were the enemies from his vision, so I had to fight my party! They were surprisingly gentle and ended up disarming me (after I got a hit off on our druid) and casting dispel magic on me. And that's the cliff hanger we ended on. Now we have to try to determine what this vision means and how to handle it. Also, my tribe is located in Icewind Dale and we're currently in/near the Endless Wastes lol.
Homebrew campaign. Party is level 15. We're in the Fey Wild and the Winter Court is summoning demons and using giant undead golem type creatures to make a move on the Summer Court.
I'm a fallen Aasimar Paladin, oath of devotion to Sune, with a Pegasus as my mount. When I activate my necrotic shroud my Pegasus becomes a nightmare. I previously served Asmodeus. The rest of the party consists of a tiefling warlock, an Aasimar cleric, a wood elf ranger and a Water Genasi fighter. The cleric had to miss the last session.
We make it to the outpost where the summoning is being done and while everyone else is sneaking in I fly right inside the front gate and say that I'm an emissary of Sune on a mission to speak with the Winter Queen and I'm lost. The Winter Eladrin give me hospitality and offer to take me the rest of the way tomorrow.(oops)
So, I'm eating in the banquet hall(it's really a tent) and my companions are making it through the camp slaying all the eladrin they come across. They successfully take out 52 without anyone noticing. I get shown to my tent by a servant girl and try to seduce her for information. She leaves immediately and later tells me I should go back to my tent while I'm combing my pegasus's mane. In the wardrobe I find a book that's a log of the camp. She says that as repayment I have to free her. (Now I owe a debt)
My tent is near the Captains' tents and the Marshall's. My party has made their way to the tents by mine, I hear a racket from the other side of the camp amd go to check it out. I see one of the casters thrown against a wall by a huge minotaur looking demon(there are 2 of these and I see a Balor climbing out of the summoning portal.
Back at the Captains' tents everything has went to help in handbasket as well. My party is in a fight with the rest of the camp. I get on my mount and fly over the party and warn the Eladrin that the demons have turned on them.. Then fly over to the fight with the Balor, 2 minotaur looking demons and like 6 flying demons that we've faced before. The Eladrin have 2 of their undead golems facing off with the minotaurs. I activate my shroud, my channel divinity weapon for a +5 to attack and cast blinding smite on the turn before my attack.
Fortunately, the Balor teleports next to some Eladrin to fight them(we use flanking for advantage) I attack with a level 4 divine smite and do 108 points of damage with my holy avenger. I cast blinding smite, make my second attack for a crit and do 182 damage. 290 damage in the first round. First hit in the next round kills it.
We finish off the rest of the demons and the undead are killed by the demons. I still haven't broken hospitality as far as they know and all that's left are 8 Captains and the Marshall. My aura indicates that they've given me hospitality. Meanwhile, our ranger, while under greater invisibility steals as many of their weapons as he can including the Marshall's attuned weapon that only he can draw from the sheath. The remaining eladrin don't know that they're all that's left and the warlock says they're with me.
The plan is to take a long rest outside the walls and then finish them off. I've got 1 level 1 spell slot and 1 level 2 left. I had cast dispel magic on the portal which was a gate spell and a permanance spell. I managed to roll a 19 and a 15 to dispel both after I killed the Balor. I've only got 15 lay on hands left and still have my 15 points of healing from my race.
Unfortunately, the Warlock attacks one of the Captains and that's where we ended the session. We've got a hell of a fight coming up next week but at least our cleric has all his spell slots.
It was extremely fun.
The Marshall was going to let me know the next day how much it would cost to buy out the servants contract. Guess I'll have some repercussions coming from breaking hospitality and now I don't know how to free the servant girl. I dont know if the contract is null if the Marshall dies.
Alright, as a bit of backstory, my character is a Lawful Evil Hobgoblin Hexblade in a party of Good characters. His personality is somewhat modeled after Steel Brightblade with his outlook on honor and all that, but his big mission was to gather the shards of Maglubyet's Battleaxe once more to bring back the Goblinoid host. They didn't know that, but he was hinting at it for some time. Well he was also on a task given to the party by their queen to return a pet to a lord of another Kingdom as a sign of good faith. Well on this quest, they went through these shenanigans that which one moment involved an attempted amputation, but through all of this, he found all of these shards and now he has the axe reforged and one of the party members attacks him. The session ended there, but it was definitely crazy and I am looking forward to how it plays out.
Campaign 2, 2nd session:
Characters: Level 1 Half-orc Fighter, Level 1 Rock Gnome Sorcerer and Level 1 Mountain Dwarf Ranger
- We went to investigate a giant boulder and found some symbols carved on it. We wrote the symbols to our notes.
- On a way back to town a group of bandits invited us to their camp and demanded to see our notes. It turned into fight.
- Our questgiver translated more pages of the book and we got more information about strange symbols and vampires.
- We went to investigate a cave. Cave was filled with stalagmites that dropped from the roof if our party made too much noise.
- We found some barrels with blood and acolytes who served vampires.
- We have seen 7 different symbols so far and we know meaning of 4 symbols.
- We will start next session from level 3.
First, a bit of backstory:
I'm DM:ing and I use a lot of homebrewed stuff. I take all the monsters, magic items and even some of the spells in PHB and Monster manual as a baseline and add my own stuff to them to make enemies and abilities more interesting. The campaign I'm running now is based on Against the Cult of the Reptile God. The group consisted of a druid, a ranger, a bard and two rogues. They had been hired by a merchant to act as guards through a troubled region to the capital. During a short, two day stop at a village, the merchant disappeared and the group started searching for him, noticing that something strange was going in the village. People went missing, were very rude and were very interested in what the group was doing there. The group followed a few leads and found themselves in tunnels under a burned spa. There they found 3 gnolls and two guards talking about transferring someone tonight.
The session started with the group ambushing the guards when they were leaving and of course gnolls noticed them. Now, the group didn't know that the priest, that had been bullying them to leave the village, had an alchemists workshop down in the tunnels, in the section the group ALMOST explored, but at the last moment decided not to. So when the priest hears sounds of battle from nearby, he drinks an invisibility potion and rushes off to investigate.
The group was tearing through the gnolls and the two guards. Bard had cast Hold Person on the biggest and strongest gnoll and rest of the group tore it apart. I had the priest use his special ability (my own addition) to boost his certain allies with a bonus to hit and temporary hit points. Then the priest cast Spirit Guardians and charged the party, knocking the bard unconscious. This proved devastating, as the priest proved to be quite a challenge. The situation looked dire, with the ranger being beaten up by all three gnolls and the druid and one of the rogues trying desperately to kill the priest, or at least break his concentration on the Spirit Guardians. Then, the other rouge who had managed to stay unscathed, fired a single arrow at the priest, killing him instantly (damn you, sneak attack!). This turned the tide and they managed to clean up the rest of the enemies and barely saved their two unconscious members.
After the battle was over, they healed themselves and explored a little, finding the missing merchant and the alchemists workshop. In the workshop was a small puzzle, a riddle to open a chest with four different potions inside. They solved it pretty quick and looted the place, including corpses. The ranger found a strange scimitar and a fake medallion on the priest's corpse and noticed that the medallion was hollow and there was something inside. He did not open it, however, but instead stripped the priest and wrapped his loot into a bundle using the priest's robes. The session ended with the group gathering around their employer, the merchant, and deciding to carry him outside.
The session went well and I was happy to see how engaged players were. We all are pretty new to D&D and it's my first campaign as the DM, so it was nice to see everyone react so strongly when one of the players rolled a crit or fell unconscious. We also have a bit flimsy understanding of rules, but only once we had to stop the game to solve a rules issue we couldn' agree on.
We're currently trapped in an illusory library and are trying to find a way back into the real world. We found a red dragon (in disguise of a pretty elf woman) who has a book that might help us, but she wants something for it, so now we're on the way to get her stolen dragon egg back from somewhere in the library.
Highlights from yesterday's game:
ETA: JFYI the dragon seduced the bard xD
The Party finally found out who the big bad is, and it's part of a long-dead and mostly forgotten race but is not the same one they have been playing this cat and mouse game with. That person sent their animated armor to attack the party while they stayed out of range and cast Meator Swarm on the temple the party was in killing the party cleric and the 2nd soul that was in the barbarian that formed a type of shield around them. So the party now used all their cash to pay for the cleric to be brought back, while the fighter is at 0 hp stable but in a dream state that will be solved next game. Now the party is in the Endgame
We decided to Long rest in the same open plain with no cover 3 times after being attacked every single time. Of the 9 of us in the party, several came quite close to dying in each fight, and at the end of each fight... the party would just decide to sit back down and resume their long rest. This ended up with an insanely powerful necromancer our wizard helped resurrect last session catching up to us and kidnapping our Ranger, only giving him back later.
My Polymorphed footstool cleric of Furniture spent all 3 fights hidden inside his animated companion Chester- a medium sized chest he found in a dungeon- floating around in chester and dragging players out of the fight and lobbing guiding bolts when it called for it. Best part was because i was hidden in a chest, most of the enemies saw no reason to attack me, and I avoided many of the saves the rest of the party would have to make.
All of this ultimately ended with us finding ourselves in a goblin camp our npc goblin friend led us to, whereupon my cleric had intimate relations with the goblin chief's bed, and our wizard was kidnapped by the big bad necromancer, and one immaculate conception later, the party are now the caretaker of this campaigns anti-christ.
Did my first Adventure League game at a convention. Got super lucky and the table was a lot of fun with a fantastic DM. Lots of roleplay with the other players. About the point I got run over by a panicked draft horse being ridden by a bunch of lava monsters and then watched it gallop off with a cat familiar hanging on for dear life and being chased by a wizard on a cow, I felt right at home.
My poor paladin was not having a good day for dice rolls and spent quite a bit of the encounter blinded or being run over by very large livestock. Managed to dodge the cow at least.
Recently I have dm'd and played in two games.
The first one was the kind of story where you got hurled into the fantasy world and given your class ability's.
After a disturbing meet with the mayor, a trip too a nearby quarry and a clever-ish use of prestadigitation too open a toolshed the section ended on a weird, but fun note.
The game I dm'd for was almost as strange. As seeming as I was underprepared, and had too throw some odd encounters out too test brain and brawn...sort of.
Some easily beaten twig blights, and a land shark with human legs(two separate encounters).
Leading up too an encounter with an elk that would tower over an elephant. That just happened too be loitering in the middle of a town.
The dwarf rouge flung a sack of ballberings, at the elks.....ballberings......and it freaked out and fled down the road out of towntown, causing property damage of course.
It was kinda fun, and this will be good practice for some bigger games, and bigger groups.
Current game- Pelegos: Singularity
Game world- Thad'thra, homebrew
Role- DM
Players- Maro: Light Cleric, Rivqah: Feind Warlock, Kortek: Artillerist Artificer
Plot: Uncover a conspiracy and truth behind the Dragon, Blasphemy, and the light of the kingdom that was stollen. Drenching Baranara into shadow.
Campaign 1, 5th session:
Characters: Level 3 Human Fighter (Champion) and level 3 Human Rogue (Assassin)
- This time events turned chaotic.
- Characters got a quest to find missing merchant and got a hint to investigate a village for more information.
- On a way to village a man was swimming towards coast and reef shark was chasing him. Rogue throw a rope towards man. That man survived the shark but when he asked for help to mend his wounds characters decided to kill the man and ate him.
- When they arrived to village they went to local tavern and bought drinks but bartender tried to overcharge them. That turned into very eventful tavern brawl with 4 non-hostile Commoners, 1 Orc and 1 Thug. After few combat rounds Orc left the tavern and asked help from Guard. Guard came to inspect the tavern. Characters were blaming Orc and Thug for beginning of the tavern brawl. Rogue threw natural 20 for the Performance check when guard asked who started the fight and as result guards took Orc and Thug to jail instead of characters who actually began the brawl.
- After tavern brawl characters got information from villagers about missing merchant. Merchant is captured by evil humanoid faction in nearby jail.
Campaign 1, 6th session:
Characters: Level 3 Human Fighter (Champion) and level 3 Human Rogue (Assassin)
- This time characters saved a captured merchant from jail
- It was very basic dungeon crawl with 2 Thugs, 2 Orcs, 2 Lizardfolks, 1 Guard and 3 Swarm of Rats.
- Honestly it was a bit boring session this time.
- Most fun moment this time was when characters found some papers about prisoners Fighter immediately decided to burn them without reading.
- After session we filled character sheets ready for level 4.
Curse of Strahd Campaign:
Characters: Goliath Barbarian, Changeling Sun Soul Monk, Abberant Mind Sorcerer (The race of the character is undisclosed atm), Autumn Eladrin Elf Celestial Warlock. All level 5.
-Just left Argynvostholt Manor with a couple of upgrades, two cloaks of protection for Warlock and Sorcerer, a custom homebrew upgrade for the Barb's 2 handed sword, a ring of protection for the Monk.
-Also got a very cool homebrew item that functioned as a slightly better version of Leomund's Tiny Hut that's set in a different plane that can't be entered when it's locked from inside.
-Silver Dragon Statue decided to join us as a companion with the Silver Dragon Wyrmling stat block.
-Decided to go to the von Richten for more clues on how to beat up Strahd.
I forgot to mention that our party currently has treated Strahd like a Saturday Morning Villain in our campaign. The first encounter with him as he was trying to take Irena resulted in him eating the dirt with some very lucky rolls from the Barb with grapple checks and halted regeneration from the Sun Soul Monk. The party was very close to defeating Strahd until he was forced to retreat but not before summoning some wolves to try and clean up the party.
-Once night fell the party decided to sleep in the safe room and the next day Strahd came to terrorize us as the party was exiting the door. He also was accompanied by 5 werewolves.
-Barb immediately flew into a rage and decided to charge Strahd with his new weapon, dealing lots of damage to Strahd on a surprise round because the vampire decided to monologue.
-Abberant Mind Sorc ended up charming 2 werewolves, Sun Soul Monk stunning another, and Celestial Warlock Fey Stepping extra effect into charming the last two werewolves and casting Summon Lesser Demon (rolled a 6, 8 CR 1/4 demons are now beset upon Strahd).
-Barb still continues to dish out damage, pretty much doing 145+ damage to Strahd in 2 rounds because of exploiting vulnerabilities.
-Strahd decides that he had enough of the bullying and decides to whip out 9th level disintegrate on Barbarian
-DM decides to end the session before the dice are rolled.
-We all "AWW CMON"d but had fun in the end.
Spoilers: I had Counterspell prepared for that day (Celestial Warlock) and was ready to use up that 2nd spell slot already but seeing as it's a 9th level disintegrate that's gonna be a DC 19 for me to try and beat and I have a +4 CHA modifier.
Seems like only a month ago I had just killed my first PC. Let me tell you the story of my second.
I was DM'ing DDAL9-01 Escape from Elturel, which is an awesome adventure with pretty well written plot lines. The party consisted of a rogue , a ranger, 2 clerics, a barbarian and a druid. All were level 1 except ranger and rogue at level 2. But, enough bread let us get to the stew.
The party at this point has been battered by river waters, stung by wasps, and had had quite enough of wading through mobs of lemures. Settling in for the "quiet" ride to Baldur's Gate via refugee caravan. Yet, somehow, on their first night encamped the party find themselves spearheading a murder investigation. Compiling suspects and interrogating witnesses quickly became the MO of everyone in the party. Except for the ranger, who decided he wanted to rifle through the supplies of the caravan. A short fight with one of the clerics resulted in the ranger being tied up, unconscious, behind one of the tents.
Party narrows the suspect list down and makes an accusation. They gather the ranger and make for the tent of the suspect. Silly chaotic ranger announces to party that he is going to circle the tent and approach from the rear. He hands me a note saying he is just wandering off into the woods because party won't let him be mean to the refugees. Off he goes, crashing through the underbrush like a gorilla. Right into a clearing where the suspect is standing over a freshly murdered victim. Ranger catches a surprise crossbow bolt to the gut. He turns tail and races back to party crying about needing help now. The party heads back to clearing where killer is waiting with some friends now. Battles ensues.
Judging on the way this story has gone so far, I bet you are thinking to yourself that the ranger is going to die. You would be wrong.
After removing minions from the field of battle, the party focuses on the suspect. The druid, who is almost out of spell slots and can't compare to the damage output of the rogue or barbarian, goes wildshape into a weasel and crawls up the suspects pant leg and begins racing around their chest. In effect, distracting them as per the help action. The suspect tries to grab the offending weasel while casting inflict wounds and crits the attack roll, blasting the poor druid out of wildshape and then sucking up the other 23 points of necrotic damage as a squishy level 1 druid with 9 HP. I am quite sure the rogue was crying, in and out of character.
R.I.P. Cil the druid. We hardly knew ye.
Lark- Goblin Bard 2- Lost Mines Gr-A/ AC 13 HP 15, passive perception 11
DM- Sunless Citadel PbP// Waterdeep Dragon Heist (IRL F2F)// Adventurers League (F2F LGS)