Jasper runs Portal and Season 6.

[Pauper]

The bard with a 27 persuasion roll talked Qesnef out of fighting and said Qesnef could leave. So Qesnef, not the bard, walked out with Blackrazor.

Ah, my bad. I assumed the PC had left and didn't check that Qesnef was the NPC who the PCs are intended to take the blade away from. In that case, I think we can assume that the authorities have already dealt with the situation.

Thanks again for these updates.

--
Pauper

 

[jasper]

Ok Dead in Thay Session 2
Nearly have player vs. player. The noise level in the game store cause some problems. Rooms 7, 12, 13, 14, 11, 9, 10 were explored. I only had 4 players and a weak party. Nice role play. One player hated demons and had fun. Reducing the number of monsters was easy but I need a general rule of thumb on how much % do I need to take off of most monsters hit pts. They discover their first block by white gates after the ghost encounter.
The red wizard Conjurer in room 14 was an easy encounter but the group debated on releasing the caged demons. They agreed to leave them caged. Room 11 is where the party lost it and left me giggling the rest of night. The demon talked 3 out the 4 members into freeing it. So combat started with the most of the group trying to destroy the chains. I think I said AC 12 hit points 8 on the chains. One of the clerics used his turn undead ability to destroy all but 1 skeleton and made the wight flee. The Glabrezu was very nice. It handed its +1 pike to the fighter who help free it. Then started the whoop ass on the cleric who had been throwing guiding bolt at it. This where me reducing the total hit points of monsters help. The cleric hit with a critical a third level guiding bolt. Total damage 51. Monster hp 51. Then I took 3 (I was having stomach problems all night and most of the weekend). The player chewed the rest of the party out. But the players were going to release the DEMON. I gave the offend player Inspiration.
Room 9 they attacked the darkness. Okay some of did. Add in fits of giggling here.
Room 10 Tarul Var. I reduced his HP and dropped his circle of death. This was a very swinging combat. When it came to parlay the does not play well with demons or undead did not parlay. One player ran away after the parlay went south. And arcana locked the doors to keep the rest of party and the lich in room ten. Again the group survive by their teeth and my traitorous dice rolling low.
The runaway character ran to room 11 and teleported to safe house but the rest of the group could not break the arcana lock. A long rest later. What is with these people hiding inside the dungeon and lucking out on wandering monsters? A brief troll battle later due to the troll breaking the arcane lock. The group escaped to the safe house. I broke the xp down into two parts with the troll battle being separate. The runaway pc leveled out of adventure. He may not attend the next session.
The group is having trouble remembering the keys and some information. So I having to keep an information sheet updated for the group. They also not keeping up with the lore I pass out so neither am I.
Edit to add
The group decided to give the departing pc the magical loadstone. heee heee heee.

 

[jasper]

Dead in Thay Session 3.
I have not had a regular group sitting down to the tables. So I created an information sheet for the players. Here it is will the current results of Session 3. Some of you may get some use out of it.
****
Light. Bright by magical orbs. Unless boxed text says otherwise
Gate House Entry Points
Area 1 Abyssal Prisons Open. Room 7 Open. Room 11 open. Room 15 open.
Area 23 Blood Pens Closed
Area 33 Masters Domain Closed
Area 38 Far Cysts Closed
Area 49 Forests of Slaughter Closed
Area 61 Ooze Grottos Closed
Area 77 Predator Pools Closed
Area 98+ Temples of Extraction. Room 98 Temple of Anguish (key 10). Need to open 3 more places to get to the vault.

ALERT LEVEL. 5

Glyph Keys are Crystal Pendant on bronze chain. Keys can have multiple attunements. Keys can be attuned to another key by Arcana 15 DC as an action by owner. Attunement is by zone or area. If checks FAILS by 5 key is destroyed. Keys will open areas they are attuned to. Anyone can use a key or try to rekey (attuned) a key.

Contact stones. Phone Syranna. Or automatically attune keys to the zone the contact stone is in.

Keys are numbered by the room they are discovered in. Keys Owned. Key 0 . Abyssal Prisons. Key 2 Abyssal Prisons, Temple of Chaos 4,5,6,7. Key 5 Temple of Chaos 4,5,6,7 Black gate room 11. Key 10 Temple of Chaos, Temple of Anguish (room 98). Key 14 Abyssal Prisons . Key 98 Temple of Anguish skeleton key 98-100. Key 99 Temple of Anguish.

Common Features. Atmosphere Dry. Detect magic reveals faint aura everywhere. Room Ceilings 20 to 30 feet.
Corridors 20 feet.
Doors. Player knowledge not pc.
Locked DC 15 Dexterity check or DC 20 strength
Secret Doors DC 20 Wisdom Perception
False Doors DC 20 intelligence Investigation

Pit Traps DC 20 passive perception. DC 15 Perception if actively searching. DC 15 Dexterity to jam. Damage DC 15 dex save 20 feet fall 7 blunt, and 13 piercing.

Temples of Extraction Room 98+ Doors are locked.
PCs need 4 keys to fully enter shrine. Key 10. Key x. Key y. Key z.
Shrine info. Stepping on DC 10 Cha or 5 forced damage. Movement is difficult terrain unless DC 15 Cha. DC 10 Wisdom to know how to disable and where it channeling life energy. Disable Shire DC 15 Str. DC 15 Dex. DC 15 Int .
Getting into vault. 6 black gates in other sectors must be overloaded simultaneously. Overloading a black gate requires a key attuned to the zone/area, the key must touch the gate and a DC 15 Arcana check. Failure 7 force damage.
*****
The table almost did not make and the game room was loud that I was having a hard time tracking what was being said and getting a headache.
Only 4 rooms were cleared. 98, 99, 100 and 15. By the rules they were a very weak group but after the first room, I just went with what was written. The combats in 99 and 15 were hard due to liar actions of the room but the others were almost a cake walk due the group prepping spells or the monsters going nearly last on init.
I do not like how the chosen are describe and to move the story along I may just do allow a rescue and disappear for the npc.
One bit of cheese. When a player knew the gravity would flip at the end of his turn in room 15, he tired to move so he could fall on the demon to do damage. I made him roll to hit with just his proficiency.
Insert standard map rant.

 

[jasper]

I will be going to Gump City Comic Con this Saturday AUg 12th. One day con in Montgomery Al. I will be running A Thousand Tiny Deaths.

edit to add.
My table did not make. So I just helped out with the con. Back to Thay Friday night.

 

[jasper]

Dead in Thay Session 4.
Rooms 8,16-19.
Small group of 4 adventures with APL 8. The group enjoyed the combat and some of the combats went longer than they should. Some were not happy with ZERO gold.
I am taking the suggestion of "magical shortest path to key/monster" idea to heart. As we are 4 session in and it appearing to be a grind. Also the hardcopy of room keys are not working. So I doing the following changes. If they return to the safe house all keys will be attuned to locations discover. A store is open for shopping. I had people burn thru 6+ healing potions Friday night.

 

[jasper]

Dead in Thay Session 5.
The short route work very well. Had a 6 pc party which match the APL. This included a level 12 who had level out two or three sessions ago. I did have to step on the side chatter a little to get done before 11. The party did fear the KEY MASTER. And were surprise when my monsters played average. They stacked up at the door of Hatching Pens and were surprised when they dropped the nearest warrior in half a round, none of the other warriors charged to assault them. Instead they played defense. The key master started opening cages and sending the monsters to attack the party. As the key master died or was locked down, it either toss the keys to another. Or the new key master recovered the keys and started opening the cages. I did wish I had the correct monster minis for this encounter. It would have looked cool. The Carrion crawlers, Hook Horrors, and Wyvern were released. One thing that was different is my dice rolled average. Sometimes by dice either hate or love me. This time most combats were even.
The boss battle Dreaming Garden was almost one sided. The old 1E fart bought a dmg and read up on his bowl of water elemental and summon one just before the door was open. The pcs were not happy with the flying dragon.

 

[jasper]

DDAL 06-01 A Thousand Tiny Deaths, 40 hotdogs, 32 burgers, and one mac and cheese.
I hosted a kill and grill Saturday. Simple cook out with gaming and option of some D&D being played. I had a 6 person group which were strong but for some reason I played as average. I did have 2 new to 5E players who had fun. I made one other mistake which was going to be interesting. Instead letting the players choose from Beeker's (the lab room C) table. I let them choose from the kobold inventor list. They also choose to capture some Kobolds for information. So on the dirty caltrop trap I allow for save for no damage.
It was late for us when we got to the boss battle. So after a quick conversation with the boss, someone called for a persuasion check to force the boss to leave. I asked the group, "Combat, or resist the persuasion with advantage?" So it was combat or let the dice decide. 4 out 6 called for the dice. And I rolled a double nickel.
Then we packed up and started cleaning the house.

 

[jasper]

Session 6
Grand Father Oscar Otyugh and his pet Tiefling Storm voice vs. dead in Thay
Ok had an average party level but one fifth level pc. She was a new to me player. One regular player. And two semi regular players. The most straight route rule was in effect.
Due to the Alert level the moment they teleported in they tripped a random encounter. Except for the fifth level this was an average encounter where counterspell was the spice of life.
They were able to talk down Phaia and graciously allowed him to live in exchange of information and his stuff. I called the combat on the room once Phaia left. The next room was 41 where the group ignored the skeletons and discovered Grand Father Oscar Otyugh.
Grand Father Oscar Otyugh and his Clan O loved his new friends. PC ARE FRIENDS. FRIENDS ARE NOT FOOD. Between Storm Voice and Stroman the fighter persuasion rolls, they gained an ally. Oscar. Which the Tiefling proceed to ride into battle of room 44 Chaos Lair. I threw in an evoker in Room 45 and gain him the Far Realm Cysts key from Room 40.
The map again threw me. I had the ledges at only 10 feet difference instead as written. I put the jump 10 safely at dc 12 Athletics or Acrobatics. The combat was very swingy due to the room modifier. So much so three of us had to discuss rules and manners with one player. He was trying to cheat and half the table called him on it. Now he was frustrated but he is also known not know his pc abilities. Counterspell at various levels is what saved the day.
Almost as much role playing when on as combat. There was role playing going on during combat. The session ended with the party attuning 5 keys and releasing the family of Otyugh to devour stuff in the dungeon.

 

[jasper]

Dead in Thay Session 7
First player vs player death. With a little help from my friends. The group teleported in to the Otyugh lair to find it empty. So into to Forests of Slaughter to met and greet the Owlbears. Ok. One of my regulars is a just a hack and slash player. Most of the group threw down food and tried to leave the encounter. Not Rogarsh. He started a fight with most of the owlbears. One of the drop ins playing a warlock was held up and was able to kill momma Owlbear. Rogarsh dropped a baby which was feed a potion of healing by the Battlemaster to try to calm down Daddy. Since Rogarsh continued the fight the battlemaster and defender decide to stop him. All the babies ran away. Rogarsh was KOed. But since this was in the middle of combat with the Daddy Owlbear. Daddy O attacked Rogrash when he was zeroed out. That attack and failed death save added another name to my skull.
None of the players had a problem with combat.
Map and keys BS. The key placement for zones assume players will always enter from the top of the map. I removed some white gates to keep play going.
Grandfather Oscar made an appearance and stuck around for most of the night due to great rolls of his two friends. I did wave two combats away to speed time and the party would crush the encounters.
The final combat from the spawn vats was interesting.
I called a five minute break so I could set up. During this time the Oscar friends rolled a 19 so Oscar stayed with them. And Les (the old fart) summoned a water elemental from his magic item. Two things to note. The combat took about 75 minutes. Second one player just got up and wandered away during the first round. He occasionally does this during the game but I announce this was the final combat. All but one of the players went before the monsters. And that player was in the middle of initiative with the monsters. The problem player was mad when I was at 4 on initiative I would not let him go that round. SO mad he left for the second round of combat, he left the building.
For some reason three of the group hung back in the hallway, which I dropped a fireball in every round. I had Les roll for which monster came out the vats which extended combat. The first three rounds a ooze joined the fight. Due to low fireball scores and healing, the hallway group survived 6 fireballs. 3 are normal level 2 at higher.
Next week. I will give them the choice of a quick fight in the temples or straight to the vault.

 

[jasper]

Sunday I was asked to dm. Crypt of the Death Giants 06-03.
I had a weak party. The group was not happy to fail checks and gain exhaustion. They failed 2 checks in the sandstorm.
The arch encounter they were not interested in roll play and I just called for a check. (I think one player was megagaming but what ever.)
The hallway part 2 encounter no one was really paying attention. I repeated the box text four or five times and no one was taking notes. When they finally chose a hallway a player just wanted to rolled dice to speak the safe word. I did not allow it.
Part 3 was a slug fest for multiple reasons. One I do not know high level spells. Two I let drop what level the Globe of Invulnerability cast at. Three they had heavy magic defenses and one strange build which gave a guy AC 30+. Four they got surprise on the ritual due to all but one of the party being invisible and the visible one being disguise as a drow from the dead group.
This was an interesting slug fest and I like the giants spawning each round. I called the combat at the top of fifth round. The group had killed everyone except the giants. Now they had not did much damage to giants but I could see it was just going to be a numbers game.
If I would do this again, I must read up on all the spells. Find out what a war priest is. I used the necromancer stats for war priest.