D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Umbran]

Our session today was... a little puzzling, and a bit rocky...

Coming back from killing the dragon, the PCs learn that a nearby dwarven mine (Wave Echo Mine, from LMOP - our campaign is set some 20 years after adventurers cleared the mine) is having some issues. It seems a minor quake has opened up a new cavern, and an exploration party, and the following rescue party, both disappeared and didn't return.

So, of course we just walk in.

Turns out the caverns are some place used in the past by some Unseelie Feywild King for... something. He had weird thoughts on how one should lock doors. And just before the end of the session, we discovered that he kept a basilisk as a pet in here...

 

[Azzy]

The last session was a bit annoying for me as most of the players kept talking over everyone and it was a pain in the but to get in a word edgewise.

We had left off last session with the encounter with the nothic, not having engaged in combat. The paladin, Gundar, decided that it had to die and, thus, initiative was rolled.

The players ended up finishing out the Redbrand hideout and, after chumping the boss last session, were almost brought low by a group of bugbears. While I didn't play the bugbears stupidly, I decided not to play them optimally after a while considering how bad things started out. Even then, I almost killed two PCs and severely injured the others. After that, they became extremely cautious.

Eventually they freed the prisoners and went back to town. for a nice long rest, and reward collecting.

 

[Reynard]

The Avernus crew explored the Tomb of the Hellriders. They were pretty careful overall and did not disturb the dead (except fore the warlock mummies which turned out to be a tough, scary fight for them). They found Olanthius' journals early on but did not open them and instead finished their exploration. They uncovered the ritual chambers and freed the damned Hellrider souls, which got the attention of the death knight. The session ended with the PCs hearing his ironshod footsteps coming down the hall.

 

[Richards]

Tonight's session was short, in part thanks to a well-placed Evard's black tentacles spell that took out two-thirds of our foes in one fell swoop. (One eventually escaped, but he was already pretty much toast at that point and was easily dispatched.) And my Int 6 lizardfolk found himself in a situation where he had to play dumb, a task for which he is eminently suited.

Johnathan

 

[Monayuris]

I got to play in a B/X (Old School Essentials Game). Rolled up a level 1 Magic-User. With a Con bonus, I actually had 5hp!

I then learned to not show up to an undead fight with a charm person spell. Died in the first round of the first combat to an undead cultist.

My next character, an Elf, did much better. Although, I had to run him like a Magic-User because I didn't roll enough gold to afford good armor and good weapons. BUT, he survived.

Unfortunately, he's an Elf. If you don't know B/X, the Elf class is the ultimate gish. It can fight like a fighter and cast like Magic-User. But it takes a time span that feels equal to the age of the universe to level up. So, even after some significant treasure hunting, he's still level 1.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

This was a short session, with only 3 out of 5 players available. The characters were infiltrating the underground laboratory beneath Darkhold where Manshoon's clones are created and stored.

Posing as Zhentarim, they bluffed their way past clone guards into the chamber that held the laboratory's power source. Their schtick was to basically act like magical IT bros that had been assigned to diagnose some glitches in the system. They overloaded the power source to start a self-destruct sequence. Then they told the guards to stay put and walked away briskly. The lights in the laboratory turned red. An alarm blared. The entire lab began to shudder and shake.

On their way to the teleportation circle that would get them out of the laboratory, they passed clones -- of themselves. (This twist got a lot of smiles from the players. "Of course we got cloned!") Fortunately the characters were disguised. Nevertheless they got some suspicious looks from their clones.

They reached the teleportation circle and swiftly dispatched the clones guarding it. By this time cracks were appearing in the walls and the ceilings were collapsing. They jumped into the teleportation circle. The runes flared as the circle powered up...then powered down...then up again.

Suddenly the suspicious clones of the characters appeared in the doorway -- lunging toward the characters -- just as they teleported to safety. Behind them, the laboratory imploded, and the entirety of Darkhold collapsed.

Did their clones survive the collapse? Only time will tell...

 

[DND_Reborn]

Our last session was great! After defeating three red dragons, the party pushed on and battled Drow and Mind Flayers. The final battle was climatic but survivable thanks to our bard/wizard who used his portent to charm the last dragon and persuade it not to take part in the battle against us. We vanquished the drow Inquisitor and lackeys, and just managed to save our poor elf retainer from death in the lava river when a salamander grappled him and pulled him under the lava!

Now, we are transitioning over to finish CoS, but then when we return to our main game, we are off to find our ally archdruid and have him send our party into Hell so we can rescue our comrade who is still trapped there.

Our transition was delayed and instead we prepared, met our archdruid ally, and he sent us into Hell!

After hours of trekking across the ruins and fires of Avernus, encountering dozens of devils along the way, our friend and his new companions were in sight. We had caught up to the Abishai that had captured them! But as we crossed the bridge, a Red Abishai and Pit Fiend descended towards us! Our sorcerer cast a Wall of Force, angling it to protect us from above. It looked desperate. Low on spells, low on hit points, resources nearly exhausted, when once again our Paladin/Cleric saved the day! Praying to his deity and begging for intervention, the player rolled 09 and everyone cheered! We could not believe that feature would be what saved us twice in a row (each time he's used it, 04 and 09... incredible...).

The battle was still fierce. Barbed devils were gated in and we had to fight them while contenting the the greater devils. Ultimately, we triumphed and freed our friend, the monk, and met his new companions.

Next time (on Monday), we will travel to the gate way hoping it will enable us all to return to the prime material plane. But I know hordes of evil will be there to stop us. We can only hope (and pray again LOL) we will be strong and clever enough to prevail!

(It was another long session: 2 PM until 3 AM! I asked our DM afterwards and he said we defeated over 50 fiends, earned a total of over 267,000 XP, which worked out to over 44,500 XP each! Crazy, huh?)

 

[Richards]

We had a somewhat short session today: we got off to a late start and one of our players had hurt herself on Thursday and was still limping. We finished up the short, 1st-level dungeon crawl (where the PCs got just how fragile 1st-level PCs can be reinforced to them once again), and they had to do a fighting retreat while being overwhelmed by dire corbies before being rescued from an unexpected quarter. I had the next short mini-adventure prepped and ready to go, but our hurt player voted to go home and take some of her pain killers instead, so we wrapped it up after about three and a half hours. But I got to role-play a squeaking flumph cleric talking in two-word sentences by pumping air out of its rim-holes, so that was a bonus.

Johnathan

 

[DND_Reborn]

Next time (on Monday), we will travel to the gate way hoping it will enable us all to return to the prime material plane. But I know hordes of evil will be there to stop us. We can only hope (and pray again LOL) we will be strong and clever enough to prevail!

WE ARE OUT OF HELL!!!

After bluffing our way past a flight of abishai who were pursuing our party (we using Seeming and some good persuasion/deception rolls!), defeating a pair of pit fiends, and waging battle against a hunting pack of hell hounds, spined devils, and erinyess, we reached the fog banks at the edge of the gates that would return us to the prime material plane.

Ambushed by ranks of bone devils, we fought our way through the fog and to the crest of the hill and the gates. Approaching the gates, our cleric/wizard stumbled, looked about, and began babbling nonsense. "Feeblemind!" cried our sorcerer and initiative was rolled.

A stench cow from a nearby small herd erupted, its skin tearing open as its form enlarged, growing and growing into a dracolich! The ancient beast blasted our party with a freezing frost, icy shards tearing into our skins and the last remaining survivor of the captives of hell froze solid, his face a mask of terror. Round after round, the party fought bravely. The paladin's mighty blow crushing into the monster. Volleys of magic and heroic charges assaulted the lone guardian of the gates. The titanic battle waged back and forth as heroes fell to the claw, tooth, and lash of the dracolich. Words of unholy divinity wrought terror into the party, pitted against the counterspells of the bard.

As the dracolich took flight, the wizard dimension doored the severely injured paladin on top of the dracolich, as the barbarian atop it raged and struck mighty blow after blow. The beast faltered. Using his last remnants of divine might, the holy warrior struck the final crushing hit and the undead creature fell from the sky! Plummeting to the dusty, cracked, and burnt ground below, the paladin lay dying, the barbarian staggered to her feet, as the others rushed forth to their aid.

Expending the last of our healing magics, the group past through the mists and through the gates, returning to the elven kingdom, holding fast as the gate slowly closed behind them. Several tense minutes later, we breathed a collective sigh of relief as the gate finally closed, leaving Hell behind us and weeks of recovery and celebration lying ahead.

Now, our group will move to our attempt to defeat Straud. It will be nice to play something a little less tense.

 

[Blue]

My last sessions as a player ... didn't happen. Falling through all at the last minute. Feel free to skip this, need to rant a bit.

A few weeks back we had the triumphant end of our Avernus campaign. That campaign got run because the normal DM for that night needed a break, so we were going back to that.

The same DM was talked into a Star Ware 5e (SW5e) game by another player and I was invited to it. Session 0 occured several weeks ago, we would be meeting Wednesday the following week.

And I'm in a long running group that meets alternate Mondays.

So, the Monday (the 20th) game comes around, and like an hour before start the DM begs off due to work. Hey, RL happens.

Wednesday - SW is pushed back a week.

(Thursday - I was supposed to be running but it was one player's birthday, and she and her husband weren't available.)

Friday - The DM is that just mentioned husband, and they are doing a weekend trip for her birthday, so we're not restarting the game.

Following week - DM starting the SW5e game pushes it back from Wednesday to Friday.

Friday - The DM has had work hit them and never did prep for first session of the SW5e game. Last minute "do I start this new SW game which I'm not feeling, but not this week" or "do we restart tonight the complex political game we put off, but pick it up after a few months down time without being sure we'll be able to play in the near future". Oh, and it's mostly but not complete overlap in players, so we'd be leavign behind one player who's ready for SW and hoping one player who wasn't informed happens to be available on no notice for a Friday night game.

He picks the long running game, but still pushes it back a week.

Monday - we're texting to make sure we're going to play,a dn the DM lets us knwo it's his vacation week so no game. That possibly could have been communicated ahead of time, just maybe? And in two weeks we won't be playing because two players have communicated they will be on vacation.

deep breath Ah. better.