D&D 5E Princes of the Apocalypse campaign recaps

Nebulous · Feb 22, 2017

Session #63 - "Where the Flame Still Flickers..."

https://app.box.com/s/90ddnpq45u7ncagrqxnd0uth0n6koajv

Please let me know how you liked this last session in Yartar. It was intense in game, I'm not sure how it comes across in the recap. I sort of glossed over all the player debate at the table, it was deep and complicated.

Rabbitbait · Feb 23, 2017

It was awesome. Stressful, intense and led by the players decisions. That was a DMing masterclass.

HalfOrc HalfBiscuit · Feb 23, 2017

Nebulous said:
Please let me know how you liked this last session in Yartar. It was intense in game, I'm not sure how it comes across in the recap. I sort of glossed over all the player debate at the table, it was deep and complicated.

That sounds like an amazing session. I really like all that you've done with the side trek to Yartar - I can only hope my campaign turns out half so well.

At the moment, my PCs have just been through the Tomb of Moving Stones under Redlarch. One of the Bringers of Woe got away (after they brought no woe at all - the PCs mowed them down without a scratch), as did Larrakh (who at least put up a fight and had two of the PCs in trouble for a bit). So the latter in particular will have to come back to haunt them.

At the moment I'm caught in two minds on that front - whether to play Larrakh as described in the book as being out of favour with the Black earth temple, so any revenge will just be him and maybe a few low level mooks, or whether to say that he was acting with the temple's authority so that he has greater resources to call on in seeking retribution.

I've pointed the PCs to the main plot now, both by telling them about the missing delegation (the elven druid and ranger came to Redlarch via Goldenfields, so they know about Teresiel being expected there and feel compelled to look into the disappearance) and by pointing the bard to Feathergale Spire as a destination of her mentor (for whom she's looking and who was also Windharrow's mentor before he went all culty).

My biggest concern here is that they are still 2nd level, which might not be too bad for Feathergale Spire (supposedly aimed at 3rd level characters), but I've got a feeling that a likely outcome of their visit there is that Merroska will point them at the Sacred Stone Monastery and that the PCs will bite after their encounter with Larrakh and discovering his sacrifices with the Black Earth symbols carved on their heads - and the monastery is supposedly aimed at 5th level PCs!

Nebulous · Mar 7, 2017

A player has the flu, so no game tonight, and we missed last week too, so it's postponed to next week. Sadness! I had the Fire Temple map all built and everything, miniatures picked out and notes made.

I'm bumping up the Fire cultists a wee bit, giving them all some extra feats and Bloodied reactions, and a few have death reactions. The priests have a cool one, when they die they are instantly immolated, but their fire spirit lingers, and they get an instant chance to possess someone nearby, which amounts to a 2nd level Suggestion spell, then the priest is dead.

The ground troops, the eternal flame guardians, can light their swords on fire for 5 rounds, +1d6 damage and +1 enchanted. When Bloodied they turn Reckless. I'll need to come up with some more interesting abilities for the named Enemies, I haven't gotten to Vanifer yet. Bastian has sorcery points and feats, so Vanifer will probably have some of that too.

Also, Imix is probably already in the Fire Node, guarding it until the stars are right and the proper ritual can be completed in the Fane to draw the One Eye into the Realms. The fifth secret cult of the One Eye are three undead drow wizards, The Triad, and they are in the Fane and I don't think the PCs will have the manpower to kill them.

So we have a lot of Princes of the Apocalypse still left, but the end approaches.

Nebulous · Mar 16, 2017

Session #64 - Temple of the Eternal Flame

https://app.box.com/s/g3wnpdz40jpluqtkp2va4n2vjk2z4845

Nebulous · Mar 23, 2017

Princes Session #65 - Temple of the Eternal Flame - Part 2

https://app.box.com/s/aa66gti9wmrp94ci9vchr7mt57l6dxva

Kyvin · Mar 23, 2017

My princes campaign came to an end last week. The party had one final portal to close. This was the earth portal. Before reaching it, the party had to face three bulettes along with burrow sharks and stonemelders. The encounter was really tough and took down one or two pcs before the life cleric brought them back up. After a short rest, the party found the armory with the final Mirabar captive, along with some more stonemelders and the mud sorcerer Miraj Vizann. This was also a very tough fight for the group and Miraj ended up escaping behind a wall of stone spell. The dwarf volunteered to lead the party to the earth portal and Marlos. Of course, when they got there, Ogremoch was being summoned.

This final encounter wasn't as tough as I thought it would be for the pcs. They knew to focus fire on Marlos to get the weapon away from him. I had Ogremoch creating earth elementals and gargoyles to harass the group. The paladin was knocked out and the sorcerer was petrified by Marlos. But the Firbolg cleric picked up ironfang, turned invisible, and managed to close the portal on his next turn, taking Ogremoch with it.

The 3 pcs then had to all work together to carry the petrified warlock out (the cleric did not have greater restoration prepared).

In the epilogue of the story, I gave out some of the keeps as rewards. The paladin of Tyr got rivergard keep and group of younger knights of Samular to train. The warlock got feathergale spire and the wizard got sacred stone monastery. The characters leveled up to 11. It took about 28 sessions for the campaign, with each session taking about 6-7 hours.

All of the players then either switched pcs or made adjustments. One of the characters has a more complicated backstory in that he was an eldritch knight from a group that had been TPKed by an adult black dragon. His character in PotA was "brought back"as a warlock by Orcus making a deal with the character's family. That character was now "restored" to his former life but his soul is still owned by Orcus. So at some point the party is going to want to take on Orcus to get the soul back.

In the meantime, a year has passed and the players are enjoying life and are invited to Goldenfields for a celebration and to visit the sacred grove they helped establish by rescuing Teresiel and the Magic seeds. And then the events from SKT took place. So at this point I think I will run the party through some of the events of SKT, and maybe add some stuff from Yawning Portal to challenge them. Then I guess they'll be figuring out how to get to Orcus.

Nebulous · Mar 23, 2017

Kyvin said:
My princes campaign came to an end last week. The party had one final portal to close. This was the earth portal. Before reaching it, the party had to face three bulettes along with burrow sharks and stonemelders. The encounter was really tough and took down one or two pcs before the life cleric brought them back up. After a short rest, the party found the armory with the final Mirabar captive, along with some more stonemelders and the mud sorcerer Miraj Vizann. This was also a very tough fight for the group and Miraj ended up escaping behind a wall of stone spell. The dwarf volunteered to lead the party to the earth portal and Marlos. Of course, when they got there, Ogremoch was being summoned.

This final encounter wasn't as tough as I thought it would be for the pcs. They knew to focus fire on Marlos to get the weapon away from him. I had Ogremoch creating earth elementals and gargoyles to harass the group. The paladin was knocked out and the sorcerer was petrified by Marlos. But the Firbolg cleric picked up ironfang, turned invisible, and managed to close the portal on his next turn, taking Ogremoch with it.

The 3 pcs then had to all work together to carry the petrified warlock out (the cleric did not have greater restoration prepared).

In the epilogue of the story, I gave out some of the keeps as rewards. The paladin of Tyr got rivergard keep and group of younger knights of Samular to train. The warlock got feathergale spire and the wizard got sacred stone monastery. The characters leveled up to 11. It took about 28 sessions for the campaign, with each session taking about 6-7 hours.

All of the players then either switched pcs or made adjustments. One of the characters has a more complicated backstory in that he was an eldritch knight from a group that had been TPKed by an adult black dragon. His character in PotA was "brought back"as a warlock by Orcus making a deal with the character's family. That character was now "restored" to his former life but his soul is still owned by Orcus. So at some point the party is going to want to take on Orcus to get the soul back.

In the meantime, a year has passed and the players are enjoying life and are invited to Goldenfields for a celebration and to visit the sacred grove they helped establish by rescuing Teresiel and the Magic seeds. And then the events from SKT took place. So at this point I think I will run the party through some of the events of SKT, and maybe add some stuff from Yawning Portal to challenge them. Then I guess they'll be figuring out how to get to Orcus.

Fantastic! Good to hear that your campaign ended on such a good note. We are drawing nearer to the end, but having only 2 hour sessions each week REALLY draws it out, so that's why it's going to take up to 80 sessions probably. I wasn't planning on running past 11th/12th level, but you had the good idea of YAwning Portal, maybe I could just take one adventure from that. We were going to skip D&D for a while actually and try something else, I need a break from D&D. Especially the high level where we are at, I have to really plan out encounters and it takes a lot of time.

LapBandit · Mar 23, 2017

I too ended my more than a year long Princes campaign recently. The party had some good rolls and strategy which saw them easily handle the final water node even though I played it pretty hard.

One thing I would suggest to any DMs considering running the campaign, do not follow the level suggestions. It might be correct for a party brute forcing their way through the adventure with little thought, but for a thoughtful, optimized party I think 11th level is all that's necessary to soundly defeat the adventure. It looks like a few posts up, someone's group beat it at 10th!

Nebulous · Mar 23, 2017

LapBandit said:
I too ended my more than a year long Princes campaign recently. The party had some good rolls and strategy which saw them easily handle the final water node even though I played it pretty hard.

One thing I would suggest to any DMs considering running the campaign, do not follow the level suggestions. It might be correct for a party brute forcing their way through the adventure with little thought, but for a thoughtful, optimized party I think 11th level is all that's necessary to soundly defeat the adventure. It looks like a few posts up, someone's group beat it at 10th!

3 of my guys are 11th, one is 12th (the sorcerer and most powerful) and there's an warpriest NPC who is almost as strong as a character. However, I'm bumping up the power level of the bad guys too, increasing and decreasing numbers of foes where necessary. PLUS - the tougher bad guys (priests, flamewraths, razerblasts and bosses) carry multiple potions, such as Extra Healing, Dark Blessing, See Invisible, Haste and Invisibility. They've been waiting for this invasion a long time and bolstering their defenses.

EDIT - We have ruled that if you have a potion on your belt, you can drink it as a bonus action. So the PCs are all carrying potions, some quite powerful, and I need the bad guys to do the same to keep up).

D&D 5E Princes of the Apocalypse campaign recaps

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LapBandit

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