D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Immoralkickass]

My last session was an epic battle against a huge black dragon and its minions. While fighting the minions, on a platform built on a swamp, the dragon appeared from the water, breathed on us and flew 50ft into the air. A few failed spells later, my Command manage to stick on the dragon, and it was forced to land. The DM later hinted that it could have Legendary Resist it but chose not to. Big mistake.

Our resident GWM Vengeance Paladin was up next. He Vow of Enmity + GWM attack. Critical hit. Level 3 smite was added. Big damage. 2nd attack hit as well. That took a large chunk of its HP.

Immediately after, my DM soon realise his mistake. Our GWM homeboy was famous for rolling crits when we need it the most. So he made the Dragon take a legendary action to Wing buffet, knock the paladin prone and fly away. Another big mistake. Our GWM boy made his Opportunity Attack while prone, but his disadv was canceled out by Vow of Enmity. Natural 20. Another level 3 smite. A few small attacks later, the dragon is down.

 

[Azzy]

Closing in on the final session of this campaign (this may have been the penultimate session). Successfully switched over to Foundry VTT (I will shill for that program) and things went a lot smoother. I wish I had discovered it when I had started my campaign (oh well, there's always another campaign to run).

Getting the PCs to learn of the location of the Lair of the White Wyrm (or young dragon, rather) went easier than expected. The PCs made their way to Icespire hold with only a "random" encounter with an owlbear to help them learn the ins and outs of Foundry. Next session will likely have them fight Cryovain, the young white dragon. Considering that they're above level for this fight, I've beefed up Cryovain by way of Dave2008 to something that I hope won't be an anticlimatic battle. Fingers crossed.

 

[Umbran]

Played a session tonight - someone in the area is calling up aberrations, and we are expected to try to stop them. While this may be a foolish task for 1st level characters, we are trying it anyway...

Following the trail of what we hope are the bad guys, the party found their way into a dungeon complex remaining in some ruins of a past settlement, with significant magics concealing the whole thing. And we began exploring. Begin dungeon crawl...

The place is tough. A couple of the encounters have been quite able to down a PC on a single hit, which has been worrisome. But we talked our way past one, and managed to beat our way through another, with only one PC going down, but with enough healing in the party to get them standing again afterwards. It'll be an interesting exercise in resource management.

 

[billd91]

Closed in on the end of Chapter 4 - The Hall of Harsh Reflections of Age of Worms. The characters killed Zyrxog. They encountered him from his scrying pool chamber and the balcony overlooking his Cathedral of the Mind. Minah the minstrel enshrouded him in a stinking cloud as Fergus the smith jumped the 40-odd feet down into the chamber from the balcony. Zyrxog used his levitation to come out over the top of the stinking cloud so he could clear his lungs and throat, about 70 feet above the floor of the chamber. That's when Locwyn the priest hit him with a blight that ended up breaking his concentration. Zyrxog fell, back through the stinking cloud, 70 feet where Fergus was happy to go meet him.

A bit more exploration next session and some wrangling and we'll move on to the Champion's Belt.

 

[ccs]

Deadly. Two (of three) PCs died. Both to random encounters - before reaching the "adventure site".
And it was the players own fault.

I'm running a 5e version of Ravenloft II: House on Gryphon Hill.
In this adventure the alchemist Strahd has built a mad science device & has been experimenting with separating the good/evil from mens souls.... Yeah, it hasn't gone well.
As with the original, the party treks about searching for several items/clues/info & then solves the problem.
They've accomplished several of the steps. All clues keep pointing them to the abandonned House on Gryphon Hill. They (rightfully) assume it's haunted. They'd like to attack it during the day....
But during the day they keep running about the town/countryside etc as they try & coral body/soulswapped villagers/monsters and trying to solve the problem in various other means (all destined to fail because there comes a point where villains must be confronted).

Now this adventure has a progression track where, over several days/nights more & more villagers are turned into monsters, the plot thickens, and the problem generally worsens. You're supposed to solve it before the end of the track....
The players have noticed things are getting harder & harder. And more dangerous.

This past session, day 4/5, saw them run into some tough opposition around lunchtime, resulting in them taking a long rest.
Then, that evening, full of HP & spells they FINALLY head out to Gryphon Hill....
And they tell me a most perplexing plan. They intend to dwadle along all night long & arrive in the morning. When the sun is up.
What???
So the PLAN is to spend as long as humanly possible walking down the haunted roads - because you don't want to face a haunted house at night. ??? ....
{I'm thinking to myself: why not stay holed up in town, leave at breakfast time, & make haste?}
Now like with many 1e modules it provides a wandering monster chart(s) and instructions on how often to roll on them. They generally presume a normal rate of travel.
I HAD been planning on reducing the # of checks on the assumption the PCs were making haste towards Gryphon Hill.
Not any more. Now the # of checks just went waaay up. At least triple as they're intending to spend 8+ hours covering about 1/2 as many miles.
En-route they meet a banshee - who damned near kills two of them.
A wraith - who succeeds in killing the elf paladin.
At this point the other two decide to turn around and make haste back to the village priest - in hopes of rezzing the paladin. Even making haste this trek will take considerable time.
So I reduce the # of checks down to my make haste plan.
Within sight of the town they run into a bodak. Wich kills the wizard.

And so, as the sun rises weakly on the dawn of the 5th day, our Fighter/warlock hauling two dead companions bangs on the door of the town priest.

I think Mordentshire is doomed.

 

[turnip_farmer]

A bit dull. I'm sitting on the other side of the screen for once, and I kind of get the feeling this train's going where it's going regardless of what I say or do.

Seems to be a lot of pointless dice rolling as well. We all get told to make an Investigation roll, we all roll crap. DM umms and ahs then tells someone to roll a Nature check instead.

Just tell us the clue if you really want us to see it. Don't just make us roll dice over and over until someone gets higher than 15.

Oh well, it's only supposed to be a short campaign.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Closed in on the end of Chapter 4 - The Hall of Harsh Reflections of Age of Worms. The characters killed Zyrxog. They encountered him from his scrying pool chamber and the balcony overlooking his Cathedral of the Mind. Minah the minstrel enshrouded him in a stinking cloud as Fergus the smith jumped the 40-odd feet down into the chamber from the balcony. Zyrxog used his levitation to come out over the top of the stinking cloud so he could clear his lungs and throat, about 70 feet above the floor of the chamber. That's when Locwyn the priest hit him with a blight that ended up breaking his concentration. Zyrxog fell, back through the stinking cloud, 70 feet where Fergus was happy to go meet him.

A bit more exploration next session and some wrangling and we'll move on to the Champion's Belt.

I really like that adventure...although I've never had the chance to play it.

 

[fearsomepirate]

It was good. We're playing Dwellers of the Forbidden City in 5e. The party, with some shepherding, managed to make an alliance of convenience with the mongrelmen, who dislike living under the cruel hand of the Yuan-Ti.

We just upgraded to FG Unity, and it is a little less terrible than FG. I do not understand why item bonuses do not work without a 3rd-party extension. 5e games are half of their total customers, so it's crazy that something like a Ring of Protection doesn't automatically adjust defenses by 1. So now I'm trying to figure out why I can't seem to get a 3rd-party extension to do this when it seems like a pretty basic feature.

 

[Blue]

Seems to be a lot of pointless dice rolling as well. We all get told to make an Investigation roll, we all roll crap. DM umms and ahs then tells someone to roll a Nature check instead.

Just tell us the clue if you really want us to see it. Don't just make us roll dice over and over until someone gets higher than 15.

I hate that. A check that is needed to be able to advance the plot should always fail forward. Sorry, you didn't find the tracks to bring you to the enemy encampment to find out they are dark elf forces? Okay, then instead while searching you get ambushed by dark elves from the encampment. Poof, exposition in "roll for initiative" form.

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Today in my Tomb of Annihilation campaign, after an incredible 19-days (in-game) speedrun, the party descended into the deepest level of the Tomb. They had already found all the skeleton keys, all the trickster spirits, all the legendary treasures of the Tomb.
There were no PC deaths in the campaign (they are using a tribe of kobolds to discover and disable traps); rather the Tiefling Bard that leads the party recruited a number of NPCs to join the adventure. The Bard is incredible, often doing the right thing at the right time, and very lucky too. I'm really, really impressed by the Bard player (that happens to be my sister).