NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 9184279" data-attributes="member: 3586">Seventh Session (Monday, November 6, 2023).Continuing through the Lost Mine after a couple of weeks with no session. Party had had a LONG rest. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The party returned to where they left off, and encountered the Spectator guarding the Forge of Spells. As it was describing its master, I accidentally described someone quite similar to what the fighter looked like - which Nymia, our Satyr Cleric took advantage of. She quickly befuddled it into thinking Simeon was its master, and then Simeon dismissed it back to its home plane. The party took possession of the Forge of Spells, and the magic items that lay nearby.Continuing around the edge of the map, anticlockwise, they came to the watery cavern that provided the Wave Echo part of the name. And were surprised by the Giant Octopus that lurked below. The octopus rolled poorly, they did not. Note: The Octopus is a new addition.The next chamber brought them to the Spider's forces - a group of bugbears and a drow excavating a cave. They surprised them, but the terrain (with a rift) meant that they couldn't overwhelm the foes. An entangle spell from Syzoth could not stop the drow from fleeing to warn the Spider, but the bugbears were dealt with. Note: One extra bugbear is on guard.Following the trail of the drow, they came to the chamber of the Spider. Two bugbears attempted to hide behind pillars (Simeon saw them), and the Spider stood proud and defiant. Pleasantries and insults were exchanged as the foes tried to gain each others mettle. The Spider did try to gain them as allies, but the party weren't willing to compromise. Nor was the Spider willing to follow Sune! Eventually combat started... and it went very bad for the spider. Velrari (divine sorcerer) won initiative and struck the Spider with a Guiding Bolt for 20 damage. Simeon (fighter) acted next, ran into melee and scored a critical hit to kill the Spider! The other forces (the bugbears and the wounded drow) tried to flee, but the party caught and slew them. Not to anyone's surprise, the drow was a doppelganger like the one in Cragmaw castle. (The surprise was that the Spider was a drow!) Note: The original version of this room had 4 giant spiders instead of 2 bugbears - the new art for this room still depicts the giant spiders!Taking a key and the spider staff from the Spider, they returned east to a locked room where they found the last of the Rockseeker brothers.  Alive! Hooray!The party then returned to Phandelver with the two brothers (one alive, one dead), and celebrations and a funeral ensued.Gundren still needed the rest of the mine cleared, so we did that during the rest of the session. I adjudged the rest of the Spider's bugbears fled, so that just left various undead - including one of the most difficult encounters, the fight against the flameskull. They knew where it was, as it was in the notes the Spider had kept, and so Syzoth the artificer was able to have his construct provide everyone with 12 temporary hit points before combat began. Just as well, as the flameskull won initiative and fireballed the group for 36 damage! A couple of characters who failed their saves would have been down.The flameskull actually survived into a second round (hitting Simeon with a pair of fire rays), before the incredibly accurate guiding bolts of the divine sorcerer took him down. (In my experience, guiding bolts typically miss. But this sorcerer is uncannily accurate with them!) The zombies in the chamber took a couple more rounds to defeat.One final encounter for the evening was a fight with 5 ghouls in the great hall. Note: This is against seven in the original. The ghouls surprised some of the characters, and managed to paralyse Simeon with their attacks! Nymia had lesser restoration prepared, though, and unparalysed him before a lethal attack was made. Area of effect spells from the sorcerer helped finish them off.Looking over the notes, there were two encounter areas left - a giant snake in a pool, and an ochre jelly. I chose to omit them due to having to end the session, and it wasn't really worth running those next time.XP-wise, the group is about 1400 away from level 5; there are a couple of Chapter 3 sidequests left, which they'll deal with next time.Sadly, there's another missed session next week, but after that we should be back to a regular schedule.I've no problem with the changes to the adventure this time around. The Spider is still an incredibly weak villain, but I don't think that's a bad thing - especially as he's no longer the final boss of the adventure.Cheers,Merric</blockquote>

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