The party got into an interesting conflict over the fate of a certain poltergeist who haunted a certain erstwhile tavern in an alley in the North Ward of Waterdeep. The paladin and cleric were ready to throw down by the end of the session. It was running long so I closed the session there and the players agreed to pick up where we left off. There were so many good character interactions that I awarded inspiration. It was an interesting turn of events for what I am sure is normally a minor encounter during this adventure.
Tbh my sessions lately haven't been going too well. The characters are able to topple everything I throw at them (including a white dracolich) and the quest is progressing a lot faster than I expected. I've made some custom creatures that I plan to throw at them in hopes of giving them a challenge. In fact. that's where we left off is with them having encountered an Adult Megatooth Dragon (a creature of my own design, look it up in the homebrew area if you're curious, but note that I forgot to give it the Frightful Presence ability even though it's listed in its multiattack). If they can beat it relatively easy, I'm out ofideas for how to challenge them short of the Tarrasque.
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Characters: Lar-Dun Vanthaft - Human Warlock - Yawning Portal with Artymis, Moril - Tiefling Sorcerer - Dragondenn's Dragonlords, Paquinal Dalanthan - Eladrin Wizard - ShadowThorn's Out of the Abyss
Campaigns: Rod of Nankon, Darkness Reborn, Dungeonverse, Alycron - A Cosmic Horror West Marches (Co-DMing), One-on-Ones
Tbh my sessions lately haven't been going too well. The characters are able to topple everything I throw at them (including a white dracolich) and the quest is progressing a lot faster than I expected. I've made some custom creatures that I plan to throw at them in hopes of giving them a challenge. In fact. that's where we left off is with them having encountered an Adult Megatooth Dragon (a creature of my own design, look it up in the homebrew area if you're curious, but note that I forgot to give it the Frightful Presence ability even though it's listed in its multiattack). If they can beat it relatively easy, I'm out ofideas for how to challenge them short of the Tarrasque.
It sounds like you've got a tough and clever party!
There are a few monsters that are higher than level 20 aside from only Tarrasques, such as some ancient dragons and krakens, for example. You can also make things a lot more difficult by throwing a group of slightly lower CR enemies at them. Once you have multiple enemies, the difficulty of an encounter goes up a lot.
That said, there was recently a really good article about ways to keep D&D interesting for a party at high levels. They had some really good suggestions aside from simply increasing the power of the enemies they encounter in combat (for example, having a low CR villain who has things organized such that his death would actually lead to things worse than what he is currently doing).
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Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken. Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing. Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan. Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer. Plays god on Saturdays.
Tbh my sessions lately haven't been going too well. The characters are able to topple everything I throw at them (including a white dracolich) and the quest is progressing a lot faster than I expected. I've made some custom creatures that I plan to throw at them in hopes of giving them a challenge. In fact. that's where we left off is with them having encountered an Adult Megatooth Dragon (a creature of my own design, look it up in the homebrew area if you're curious, but note that I forgot to give it the Frightful Presence ability even though it's listed in its multiattack). If they can beat it relatively easy, I'm out ofideas for how to challenge them short of the Tarrasque.
Are you just throwing single large monsters at them and letting them resource dump? Try bleeding their resources a bit, and give the BBEG some minions to soak fire. If they try the one encounter work day, jump them while they are trying to rest and interrupt it. Single big monsters are usually curbstomps in favor of players.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tbh my sessions lately haven't been going too well. The characters are able to topple everything I throw at them (including a white dracolich) and the quest is progressing a lot faster than I expected. I've made some custom creatures that I plan to throw at them in hopes of giving them a challenge. In fact. that's where we left off is with them having encountered an Adult Megatooth Dragon (a creature of my own design, look it up in the homebrew area if you're curious, but note that I forgot to give it the Frightful Presence ability even though it's listed in its multiattack). If they can beat it relatively easy, I'm out ofideas for how to challenge them short of the Tarrasque.
How are you using the Dragons? Is it like Skyrim where they stand in front of them and use their attacks? What I do is I have them fly around (A dragon will Never fight in their cave that's where they keep their stuff) Stay at a breath weapon range and fly circles around the party and stay out of combat range. One of the things I learned over the years is Learn how these monsters fight and if they have any kind of intelligence they should be able to fight smart. When you think that way and fight the way these creatures would it makes them scarier
Finally got in another FaceTime game with the nephew. Having had their secret lair raided three times in the last few days, the band of War Chief Willie Girl decides to pack its ill-gotten loot and leave the area. Perindash, the lizardman druid and his trusty donkey, Apples, fight their way through a rear-guard ambush and catch the band at a campsite in the Goblin Hills. Stealthily surveilling, he finds the war chief and sees, chained by the campfire, a troll, captured from the orcs' former base. Perindash summons an elemental to distract the orcs from one direction. He sneaks around and unchains the troll, distracting them from another direction. Then, while the orcs' attention is divided, he one-shots Willie Girl with a blight spell, decapitating their leadership structure. Mission accomplished.
That's when he gets a bit greedy.
The troll has eaten one or two orcs whole and decides to make a run for freedom before they get organized again. Perindash, buoyed by his success, runs after the troll alone. He chases the troll over five miles of open country on foot, hitting him with two very good blights, knocking him down with a tidal wave and trying to squish him as a constrictor snake. But the troll keeps getting back up and running (and of course, regenerating). I know that the nephew knows that trolls don't like fire, but I'm not sure he knows why, even though I sincerely thought the kid had the MM memorized. I also gave him an Arcana check, but no luck.
Anyway, five miles later, the nephew is out of big ticket spells and wild shapes. The troll, back up to full health, decides it's had enough, turns around and attacks. Perindash finally starts using create bonfire. At this point though, even without regeneration, the troll's claws are more than a match for the druid, and he has to make a run for it. Basically, the troll chases him all the way back over the same five miles they'd just come from. I don't know what the rules are about endurance, I'm certain something with a 20 CON and regeneration will eventually outrun a guy with 14 CON and no regeneration, but it didn't come to that. Because one of Willie Girl's lieutenants had re-established enough order to organize a party of orcs with torches to try to recapture their valuable prize. Perindash spots them before they spot him and dives into a bush. They spot the troll and go charging at it, past the bush, leaving Perindash and his 6 hp to catch his breath. The troll, who I kind of want to make a recurring character now, changes course again and runs back the way it came, orcs in hot pursuit. The whole thing was very Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd. Perindash decides to call it a day and heads back into town to collect the bounty on Willie Girl.
I recently started DMing a game for my family, all new players, some never even hearing about DnD before. I started them off with LMOP, since they are beginners, and we have played three sessions so far.
First session: This session went pretty well, with them taking out the goblin ambush easily, and making their way to Cragmaw hideout. They had some shenanigans in the hideout, but nothing too crazy. They rescued Sildar, and ended the session.
Second session: We spent almost fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to do, and ever since one of my players heard about the castle from one of the goblins, every time I asked her what she wanted to do, it was always "I'm going to the castle" or "I'm looking for the castle". Another one of my players found the Redbrand hideout, and while my "Castle player" was taking a nap in game, he was trying to fight all the Redbrands by himself. My third player came to the rescue, after waking up "Castle player" and they saved him.
Third Session: They are fighting through the Redbrand hideout still, they killed the wizard, and player 1 (Castle player, also a rogue.) tried to charm the redbrands, which didn't work at all, and then tried to give them a LONG speech, which ended in a fight. This session was pretty quick.
So my players finished Dragon Heist Abridged and leveled up to 15. They decided to use the money to help the Cassalanters. They also uncovered a plot that the Mayor of the town is horribly corrupt and an absolute monster who uses blackmail and human trafficking to stay in power. The party confronts the mayor and battle ensues as the mayor transforms into this massive bull-like monster.
Basically I merged Don Corneo and his pet Abzu from Final Fantasy 7 into one boss fight.
The party is starting to notice there are a lot of demons and fiends running around in positions of power and connecting the dots to the big plot and who is pulling all the strings
One thing about the whole playing at home and playing almost every day is they went through months of content in a few weeks
It felt like my DM didn't read the rules section of the PHB...
How so?
He thought initiative mattered outside of combat, I had to tell him how two-weapon fighting works if a character doesn't have the two-weapon fighting style or the dual-weilder feat, etc.
2 Fighters lvl 9 and 11 ( Humans variant ), 1 Cleric Halfling lvl 8 ( Circle of Tempest ), and me a Human Wizard lvl 10( evocation school ) went in on a hut in the middle of a forest. We found there an ugly old female Druid cooking a random something with a big wooden spoon and a metal marmite. Then the DM said to us: GUYS, roll a Constitution saving dice.
Everyone there rolled a decent saving dice but, 1 of those fighters rolled a NAT 2. Then the DM said, OK, you start regurgitating your last food & drink you've eated and, you start PUKING at the marmite !!!!!! . The old Druid argued over us, using some un-understoodable words ( druidric language ), and began to cast a Curse spell. We had to kill her, loosing the opportunity to recall information about the lore of the main quest we were involved into.
Geez, sometimes I hate that......... just sometimes.
Wait, did the fighter vomit the lore he learned as well as his lunch?
However, the D&D session I played before the day I played with the DM who doesn't know rules well went really well. It was ran by my sister (who is actually an experienced player and actually owns the DMG), and the players were me (playing human gunslinger Max Fred), my Mom (playing high-elf evocation wizard Caelynn), my dad (playing dwarf life cleric Voldrack Hammerholder), and my aunt (playing human fighter Queeny). Our characters were all from the LMoP/starter kit, btw. My sister allowed me to go gunslinger with my fighter (the folk hero one) because she is nice and I wanted to play a character that uses guns. We just finished up LMoP, spent an ENTIRE SESSION getting to Waterdeep before this one, which picked off when we were 1 day away from the city.
Here is the scene: the party just finished off fighting a pack of gnolls/hyenas during the night time. The next morning when everybody was awake, the party got up and straight onto the cart. Voldrack was driving it, with Max sitting next to him, pistol resting readily in his hands, keeping watch. Caelynn and Queeny were sitting on the back of the cart. (high perception roll by me) Max noticed a flipped-over row boat on the side FURTHEST away from the water (something is obviously hidden there). We flipped the boat over, and, lo and behold, there was a tunnel entrance hidden there. We went down, and realized, well, a couple members of the cult of the dragon were there. I commented on how they picked the most obvious way to hide a secret base, and both attacked my character (he was the only one they could see). I managed to execute both almost single-handedly (those two weren't wearing good armor, and they had low HP).
We then found that in the next room, there were two more cultists. One in the middle of a ritual, and the other rumaging throw a chest. We killed them, Voldrack got a fancy dagger that deals extra force damage, I picked up 4 ritual gold from what looked like to be an offering bowl, and everybody got some gems. In the next room, there was a sleeping young black dragon. Caelynn opened combat with a fireball as a surprise attack. I had the highest initiative, so I went first, going for a Deadeye Shot with my pistol (nat 20 to 18 advantage). However, on the dragon's turn, it targeted me with its acid breath, I failed the con save, and got knocked out in a single hit from that. Fortunately, Voldrack used his turn to heal me, so I didn't need to do death saves (however, I don't think Max Fred's skin would look the same again). We eventually killed the dragon, got exp.
Sildar (he needed to be in a meeting along with Caelynn with the Lord's Alliance in Waterdeep) helped us enter Waterdeep for free, we had a day of shopping and stuff (I bought a dagger of venom), and then we killed a couple of lizardfolk and their winged kobold leader who were making trouble on a road. We killed them.
Then we cleared an abandoned mine full of kobolds.
We broke the encounter that my DM has planned. He had us pretty nervous about the fight because the party was fairly low on party resources. he admitted that he had a plan for us if things went south on us (he thought we should take a rest, we didn't want to because it didn't make narrative sense)
We got creative though, and ended up trivializing things via the party's necklace of fireballs. It was two guys, one of which we had fought at level 3 and f'd us up pretty badly (death cleric rolling with spirit guardians), and another one we'd beaten before after a hard fight who later escaped from jail. THIS time, we had the necklace of fireballs with three charges left. we opened with the fireballs, back to back. We were planning on a third, but the guy who messed us up at level 3 teleported out with a quickness and left the other guy to die (after both failed their saves and took max damage from the first two fireballs). The wizard then cast levitate on the guy who was left, and we proceeded to use him for target practice. The battle that we and the DM were both worried about was settled decisively in the surprise round, and his monsters never got a chance to act. Frankly, we should have been able to kill the cleric too, but he allowed him to react and teleport out to save the story line.
There was some mop-up action, but for level 5's a bunch of skeletons were a cake-walk. Ironically, had he not bled our resources so dry, we'd have likely not tapped into the necklace so liberally, and he'd have had the hard fight he had planned on. We ended up stopping early because he wasn't prepared for the next stage, this fight was supposed to last a lot longer than the 1 round it did last.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
The session I DMed started out rocky, and because the players acted differently than I expected, I had to cut a ton of content. But I think the final portion of the session was satisfactorily exciting and intriguing.
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Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken. Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing. Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan. Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer. Plays god on Saturdays.
Perindash the lizardman druid awakens in a cell. On the walls all around him are scrawled drawings of eyes staring back at him. On the ceiling are doodles of tentacle-headed monsters devouring the city and a strange constellation of stars. On the floor is the mark of the Yellow Sign, a rival Thieves' Guild which has made inroads among the poor and dispossessed with sales of a powerful hallucinogen. His fingers are covered in chalk.
He can taste the stench of unwashed humans and their waste in his Jacobson's organ (which is a thing lizards have). All around him, he can hear their wailing and screams. He easily escapes the cell in wild shape and finds he is in St. Senara's Convalescent Hospital for the Less Mentally Well-Balanced, colloquially known as The Fishponds. He needs answers, so he switches back to lizardman form and starts questioning the doctors, who immediately call the orderlies and offer him a nice, calming, cup of tea.
Things are about to get passive-aggressive when the door is kicked in by Isaiah, the incredibly evil dragonborn hell-paladin. Isaiah tells Perindash that he is in the asylum because he went crazy and "ludicrously murdered" a bunch of people. But now Isaiah needs his help. He has received a new mission from his hellish masters. To destroy the Yellow Sign. The asylum workers decide this is above their pay grade and watch helplessly as the unlikely allies march off to adventure.
So I ran a one shot I wrote last night (well attempted to anyway pesky Internet). Basic premise my Warlock (from my current campaign) has stopped adventuring and become a motivational speaker/life coach offering advice to potential warlocks. The party is an all warlock party or "guest speakers" as I like to call them. Long story short just as the party finish introductions, the door at the back is kicked in and a Paladin with 5 acolytes burst in threatening to destroy all the evil in the name of their God yada yada yada, same old goody two shoes stuff. Zyon(my warlock) negotiates to allow the audience out after all they are not evil, no patron has chosen them they are merely curious.
So one Paladin of helm and 5 acolytes.
Vs
18yr old son - Orc, Undying Patron Chainlock
His girlfriend - Tabaxi, Great Old one, Chainlock
Their usual DM - Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Hexplade, Bladelock
15yr old son - Shifter, Celestial, tomelock
10yr old daughter - Tiefling, Hexblade, chainlock
Easy fight, nice little warm, yeah I thought that too.
5mins in 10yr old daughter exits stage right, complaining of headache and boredom (she's more of a visual fun kinda kid).
10mins in nobody has cast eldritch blast, but eldest son has cast Summon Lesser Demons and rolled high so 8 dretches appear, I throw him a bone and ask him where he says in between us and the enemy. OK so 4 dretch go after the Paladin and his goons 4 come after you!
He didn't specify that he had drawn the protective circle around him, hahahahahaha
40 mins later I am having network issues and have resorted to typing to finish off this fight. Eldest son has made two successful death saves and one failure, all the enemies are dead except for one dretch who may or may not cause problems in the future. We ended there because of network issues, plan to carry on another night.
They entered the Forest of Twisted Shadow, which they had been on the edge of. One of them (the rogue) had the brilliant idea of chopping a tree with his shortsword. He missed, but the tree was an awakened tree, and it got a surprise round on them. They did ridiculously bad fighting it, considering it was 4 level 5s vs. a CR 2 creature. The noise they made attracted the attention of a devil cult that had been preforming infernal sacrifices in the forest. They hadn't had any humanoid sacrifices, so they were quite happy about finding the party. The cult consisted of 8 cultists and a cult fanatic. I expected this to bring the party to relatively low hp, but they slaughtered them all in 3 rounds. The session ended there.
The party got into an interesting conflict over the fate of a certain poltergeist who haunted a certain erstwhile tavern in an alley in the North Ward of Waterdeep. The paladin and cleric were ready to throw down by the end of the session. It was running long so I closed the session there and the players agreed to pick up where we left off. There were so many good character interactions that I awarded inspiration. It was an interesting turn of events for what I am sure is normally a minor encounter during this adventure.
Tbh my sessions lately haven't been going too well. The characters are able to topple everything I throw at them (including a white dracolich) and the quest is progressing a lot faster than I expected. I've made some custom creatures that I plan to throw at them in hopes of giving them a challenge. In fact. that's where we left off is with them having encountered an Adult Megatooth Dragon (a creature of my own design, look it up in the homebrew area if you're curious, but note that I forgot to give it the Frightful Presence ability even though it's listed in its multiattack). If they can beat it relatively easy, I'm out ofideas for how to challenge them short of the Tarrasque.
Characters: Lar-Dun Vanthaft - Human Warlock - Yawning Portal with Artymis, Moril - Tiefling Sorcerer - Dragondenn's Dragonlords, Paquinal Dalanthan - Eladrin Wizard - ShadowThorn's Out of the Abyss
Campaigns: Rod of Nankon, Darkness Reborn, Dungeonverse, Alycron - A Cosmic Horror West Marches (Co-DMing), One-on-OnesIt sounds like you've got a tough and clever party!
There are a few monsters that are higher than level 20 aside from only Tarrasques, such as some ancient dragons and krakens, for example. You can also make things a lot more difficult by throwing a group of slightly lower CR enemies at them. Once you have multiple enemies, the difficulty of an encounter goes up a lot.
That said, there was recently a really good article about ways to keep D&D interesting for a party at high levels. They had some really good suggestions aside from simply increasing the power of the enemies they encounter in combat (for example, having a low CR villain who has things organized such that his death would actually lead to things worse than what he is currently doing).
Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken.
Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing.
Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan.
Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer.
Plays god on Saturdays.
Are you just throwing single large monsters at them and letting them resource dump? Try bleeding their resources a bit, and give the BBEG some minions to soak fire. If they try the one encounter work day, jump them while they are trying to rest and interrupt it. Single big monsters are usually curbstomps in favor of players.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
How are you using the Dragons? Is it like Skyrim where they stand in front of them and use their attacks? What I do is I have them fly around (A dragon will Never fight in their cave that's where they keep their stuff) Stay at a breath weapon range and fly circles around the party and stay out of combat range. One of the things I learned over the years is Learn how these monsters fight and if they have any kind of intelligence they should be able to fight smart. When you think that way and fight the way these creatures would it makes them scarier
Finally got in another FaceTime game with the nephew. Having had their secret lair raided three times in the last few days, the band of War Chief Willie Girl decides to pack its ill-gotten loot and leave the area. Perindash, the lizardman druid and his trusty donkey, Apples, fight their way through a rear-guard ambush and catch the band at a campsite in the Goblin Hills. Stealthily surveilling, he finds the war chief and sees, chained by the campfire, a troll, captured from the orcs' former base. Perindash summons an elemental to distract the orcs from one direction. He sneaks around and unchains the troll, distracting them from another direction. Then, while the orcs' attention is divided, he one-shots Willie Girl with a blight spell, decapitating their leadership structure. Mission accomplished.
That's when he gets a bit greedy.
The troll has eaten one or two orcs whole and decides to make a run for freedom before they get organized again. Perindash, buoyed by his success, runs after the troll alone. He chases the troll over five miles of open country on foot, hitting him with two very good blights, knocking him down with a tidal wave and trying to squish him as a constrictor snake. But the troll keeps getting back up and running (and of course, regenerating). I know that the nephew knows that trolls don't like fire, but I'm not sure he knows why, even though I sincerely thought the kid had the MM memorized. I also gave him an Arcana check, but no luck.
Anyway, five miles later, the nephew is out of big ticket spells and wild shapes. The troll, back up to full health, decides it's had enough, turns around and attacks. Perindash finally starts using create bonfire. At this point though, even without regeneration, the troll's claws are more than a match for the druid, and he has to make a run for it. Basically, the troll chases him all the way back over the same five miles they'd just come from. I don't know what the rules are about endurance, I'm certain something with a 20 CON and regeneration will eventually outrun a guy with 14 CON and no regeneration, but it didn't come to that. Because one of Willie Girl's lieutenants had re-established enough order to organize a party of orcs with torches to try to recapture their valuable prize. Perindash spots them before they spot him and dives into a bush. They spot the troll and go charging at it, past the bush, leaving Perindash and his 6 hp to catch his breath. The troll, who I kind of want to make a recurring character now, changes course again and runs back the way it came, orcs in hot pursuit. The whole thing was very Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd. Perindash decides to call it a day and heads back into town to collect the bounty on Willie Girl.
I recently started DMing a game for my family, all new players, some never even hearing about DnD before. I started them off with LMOP, since they are beginners, and we have played three sessions so far.
First session: This session went pretty well, with them taking out the goblin ambush easily, and making their way to Cragmaw hideout. They had some shenanigans in the hideout, but nothing too crazy. They rescued Sildar, and ended the session.
Second session: We spent almost fifteen minutes trying to figure out what to do, and ever since one of my players heard about the castle from one of the goblins, every time I asked her what she wanted to do, it was always "I'm going to the castle" or "I'm looking for the castle". Another one of my players found the Redbrand hideout, and while my "Castle
player" was taking a nap in game, he was trying to fight all the Redbrands by himself. My third player came to the rescue, after waking up "Castle player" and they saved him.
Third Session: They are fighting through the Redbrand hideout still, they killed the wizard, and player 1 (Castle player, also a rogue.) tried to charm the redbrands, which didn't work at all, and then tried to give them a LONG speech, which ended in a fight. This session was pretty quick.
So my players finished Dragon Heist Abridged and leveled up to 15. They decided to use the money to help the Cassalanters. They also uncovered a plot that the Mayor of the town is horribly corrupt and an absolute monster who uses blackmail and human trafficking to stay in power. The party confronts the mayor and battle ensues as the mayor transforms into this massive bull-like monster.
Basically I merged Don Corneo and his pet Abzu from Final Fantasy 7 into one boss fight.
The party is starting to notice there are a lot of demons and fiends running around in positions of power and connecting the dots to the big plot and who is pulling all the strings
One thing about the whole playing at home and playing almost every day is they went through months of content in a few weeks
It felt like my DM didn't read the rules section of the PHB...
How so?
He thought initiative mattered outside of combat, I had to tell him how two-weapon fighting works if a character doesn't have the two-weapon fighting style or the dual-weilder feat, etc.
This is the most confusing and concerning series of words I have ever read, and I was forced to read Romeo and Juliet in the 9th grade.
Wait, did the fighter vomit the lore he learned as well as his lunch?
However, the D&D session I played before the day I played with the DM who doesn't know rules well went really well. It was ran by my sister (who is actually an experienced player and actually owns the DMG), and the players were me (playing human gunslinger Max Fred), my Mom (playing high-elf evocation wizard Caelynn), my dad (playing dwarf life cleric Voldrack Hammerholder), and my aunt (playing human fighter Queeny). Our characters were all from the LMoP/starter kit, btw. My sister allowed me to go gunslinger with my fighter (the folk hero one) because she is nice and I wanted to play a character that uses guns. We just finished up LMoP, spent an ENTIRE SESSION getting to Waterdeep before this one, which picked off when we were 1 day away from the city.
Here is the scene: the party just finished off fighting a pack of gnolls/hyenas during the night time. The next morning when everybody was awake, the party got up and straight onto the cart. Voldrack was driving it, with Max sitting next to him, pistol resting readily in his hands, keeping watch. Caelynn and Queeny were sitting on the back of the cart. (high perception roll by me) Max noticed a flipped-over row boat on the side FURTHEST away from the water (something is obviously hidden there). We flipped the boat over, and, lo and behold, there was a tunnel entrance hidden there. We went down, and realized, well, a couple members of the cult of the dragon were there. I commented on how they picked the most obvious way to hide a secret base, and both attacked my character (he was the only one they could see). I managed to execute both almost single-handedly (those two weren't wearing good armor, and they had low HP).
We then found that in the next room, there were two more cultists. One in the middle of a ritual, and the other rumaging throw a chest. We killed them, Voldrack got a fancy dagger that deals extra force damage, I picked up 4 ritual gold from what looked like to be an offering bowl, and everybody got some gems. In the next room, there was a sleeping young black dragon. Caelynn opened combat with a fireball as a surprise attack. I had the highest initiative, so I went first, going for a Deadeye Shot with my pistol (nat 20 to 18 advantage). However, on the dragon's turn, it targeted me with its acid breath, I failed the con save, and got knocked out in a single hit from that. Fortunately, Voldrack used his turn to heal me, so I didn't need to do death saves (however, I don't think Max Fred's skin would look the same again). We eventually killed the dragon, got exp.
Sildar (he needed to be in a meeting along with Caelynn with the Lord's Alliance in Waterdeep) helped us enter Waterdeep for free, we had a day of shopping and stuff (I bought a dagger of venom), and then we killed a couple of lizardfolk and their winged kobold leader who were making trouble on a road. We killed them.
Then we cleared an abandoned mine full of kobolds.
We had fun.
We broke the encounter that my DM has planned. He had us pretty nervous about the fight because the party was fairly low on party resources. he admitted that he had a plan for us if things went south on us (he thought we should take a rest, we didn't want to because it didn't make narrative sense)
We got creative though, and ended up trivializing things via the party's necklace of fireballs. It was two guys, one of which we had fought at level 3 and f'd us up pretty badly (death cleric rolling with spirit guardians), and another one we'd beaten before after a hard fight who later escaped from jail. THIS time, we had the necklace of fireballs with three charges left. we opened with the fireballs, back to back. We were planning on a third, but the guy who messed us up at level 3 teleported out with a quickness and left the other guy to die (after both failed their saves and took max damage from the first two fireballs). The wizard then cast levitate on the guy who was left, and we proceeded to use him for target practice. The battle that we and the DM were both worried about was settled decisively in the surprise round, and his monsters never got a chance to act. Frankly, we should have been able to kill the cleric too, but he allowed him to react and teleport out to save the story line.
There was some mop-up action, but for level 5's a bunch of skeletons were a cake-walk. Ironically, had he not bled our resources so dry, we'd have likely not tapped into the necklace so liberally, and he'd have had the hard fight he had planned on. We ended up stopping early because he wasn't prepared for the next stage, this fight was supposed to last a lot longer than the 1 round it did last.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
The session I DMed started out rocky, and because the players acted differently than I expected, I had to cut a ton of content. But I think the final portion of the session was satisfactorily exciting and intriguing.
Maximilian "Mad Max" Oceanus, transmutation wizard, best known for being on the team that saved the universe from Kozelak's infinite hunger, and also an avenger of the Unspoken.
Olaf Ericsson, a jolly ranger with a bit of an anger problem. Also likes to sing.
Yaethel Akeelan, a druid with a plan; a very, very big plan.
Damien Rook, full time author, part time adventurer.
Plays god on Saturdays.
Perindash the lizardman druid awakens in a cell. On the walls all around him are scrawled drawings of eyes staring back at him. On the ceiling are doodles of tentacle-headed monsters devouring the city and a strange constellation of stars. On the floor is the mark of the Yellow Sign, a rival Thieves' Guild which has made inroads among the poor and dispossessed with sales of a powerful hallucinogen. His fingers are covered in chalk.
He can taste the stench of unwashed humans and their waste in his Jacobson's organ (which is a thing lizards have). All around him, he can hear their wailing and screams. He easily escapes the cell in wild shape and finds he is in St. Senara's Convalescent Hospital for the Less Mentally Well-Balanced, colloquially known as The Fishponds. He needs answers, so he switches back to lizardman form and starts questioning the doctors, who immediately call the orderlies and offer him a nice, calming, cup of tea.
Things are about to get passive-aggressive when the door is kicked in by Isaiah, the incredibly evil dragonborn hell-paladin. Isaiah tells Perindash that he is in the asylum because he went crazy and "ludicrously murdered" a bunch of people. But now Isaiah needs his help. He has received a new mission from his hellish masters. To destroy the Yellow Sign. The asylum workers decide this is above their pay grade and watch helplessly as the unlikely allies march off to adventure.
So I ran a one shot I wrote last night (well attempted to anyway pesky Internet). Basic premise my Warlock (from my current campaign) has stopped adventuring and become a motivational speaker/life coach offering advice to potential warlocks. The party is an all warlock party or "guest speakers" as I like to call them. Long story short just as the party finish introductions, the door at the back is kicked in and a Paladin with 5 acolytes burst in threatening to destroy all the evil in the name of their God yada yada yada, same old goody two shoes stuff. Zyon(my warlock) negotiates to allow the audience out after all they are not evil, no patron has chosen them they are merely curious.
So one Paladin of helm and 5 acolytes.
Vs
18yr old son - Orc, Undying Patron Chainlock
His girlfriend - Tabaxi, Great Old one, Chainlock
Their usual DM - Yuan-Ti Pureblood, Hexplade, Bladelock
15yr old son - Shifter, Celestial, tomelock
10yr old daughter - Tiefling, Hexblade, chainlock
Easy fight, nice little warm, yeah I thought that too.
5mins in 10yr old daughter exits stage right, complaining of headache and boredom (she's more of a visual fun kinda kid).
10mins in nobody has cast eldritch blast, but eldest son has cast Summon Lesser Demons and rolled high so 8 dretches appear, I throw him a bone and ask him where he says in between us and the enemy. OK so 4 dretch go after the Paladin and his goons 4 come after you!
He didn't specify that he had drawn the protective circle around him, hahahahahaha
40 mins later I am having network issues and have resorted to typing to finish off this fight. Eldest son has made two successful death saves and one failure, all the enemies are dead except for one dretch who may or may not cause problems in the future. We ended there because of network issues, plan to carry on another night.
From Within Chaos Comes Order!
It didn't
Everyone said they could make it
No one did
-Jedi
Kind of a mess of a session.
The party traveled 5 miles in 2 irl hours.
They entered the Forest of Twisted Shadow, which they had been on the edge of. One of them (the rogue) had the brilliant idea of chopping a tree with his shortsword. He missed, but the tree was an awakened tree, and it got a surprise round on them. They did ridiculously bad fighting it, considering it was 4 level 5s vs. a CR 2 creature. The noise they made attracted the attention of a devil cult that had been preforming infernal sacrifices in the forest. They hadn't had any humanoid sacrifices, so they were quite happy about finding the party. The cult consisted of 8 cultists and a cult fanatic. I expected this to bring the party to relatively low hp, but they slaughtered them all in 3 rounds. The session ended there.
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses