Nope! Tordeck's wife failed a dex save, suffered a broken hand!
Rescheduled for Dec 27.
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D&D 5E AL Season 5 without AL
- Thread starter Burnside
- Start date
Nope! Tordeck's wife failed a dex save, suffered a broken hand!
Rescheduled for Dec 27.
EPISODE 4: INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART ONE
Only a month behind schedule!
We're stepping outside the Adventurer's League to run this adventure, which is available on the DMsGuild here: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/209...t--Adventure?term=into+the+belly&test_epoch=0
Side note. I'm gonna do some plugs. I have a LOT of adventures in my DMG library which is fortunate because out of nowhere I was asked to run a TON of games during the week between Christmas and New Year's, all for different groups of people.
On the train up to Boston on Christmas Day, my wife and I played TYRANT OF ZHENTIL KEEP, a DM-less solo adventure for 1 or 2 players. This the the second one in a series. If anybody is on the fence about these, they're great: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/228...ep--A-5E-Solo-Gamebook?term=zhen&test_epoch=0
My nephews had never played before but have been watching Critical Role and wanted a one-shot. They got Temple of the Basilisk Cult from the Arcane Library. This one is free, excellent, and you can get it here: http://www.thearcanelibrary.com/the-arcane-library (For level one)
On Thursday night I ran Dan Coleman's BAD APPLES for one of my regular groups. Like most of the material from this author, this was brilliant: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/198662/Bad-Apples-Level-3-PCs (For level 3)
And some of my friends wanted a game for New Year's Eve, including one newbie. They got another Dan Coleman, Cryptic Entry. This is a Pay-What-You-Want and it's one of the best level one adventures I've ever run: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/185231/Cryptic-Entry-Level-1-PCs?term=cryptic+&test_epoch=0
And FINALLY we continued this campaign.
INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST is a tier two adventure so there was no need to modify the combat.
Black Wizma received the message from the previous post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...out-AL/page3&p=7283436&viewfull=1#post7283436
So they trudged into the Marsh of Chelimber and almost immediately they observed that the ancient map they'd been given had some inaccuracies. Instead of a castle at the edge of a swamp, they could see only a single tower protruding 30' from the swamp. They crossed a patch of trembling earth. Nobody puts two and two together here, so everybody but Klegg fails their dex saves and plunges through the grass into the sunken castle. Klegg catches himself at waist level and is able to make his way safely down.
They explore the submerged ruin and scavenged a little treasure (dagger +1 and a philter of love, which Wizma had her familiar sip to test) and open the wrong door and get ambushed by a giant constrictor snake. This isn't too much trouble and eventually they find the base of the tower and climb out of there.
Next stop is a bridge linking two swamp islands, where a pretty backwoods half-elf is fishing. Everybody makes friends and since night is coming on they head to her cabin (which is on stilts) for dinner. Lots of rodent skulls hung up to dry in here. Huh. Delicious soup. Hey, Klegg bit something hard. Is it a toenail? Something is making a racket in the closet. Wizma mage-hands the closet open. It's a bound and gagged goblin missing a foot! Crap, half-elf is a green hag! And planted outside the cabin is her pet roaper and it's on like neckbone.
Great knock-down drag out fight here as the roaper immediately grapples everybody but Tordeck and pulls them out through the windows and door. Tordeck thinks quick and gets off a silence spell in round 2, but the hag is still owning him with her claw attacks. Mille cuts herself loose and uses her Boots of Striding and Springing to quickly get back in and help him. Klegg is bitten to death by the Roaper! Everybody is wrecking each other in a nail-biting fight. The goblin's works his gag off: "SOUP IS FOOT! SOUP IS FOOOOOT!" Our heroes pull it out and Tordeck, with a single hit point left, makes it out to revivify Klegg with a round to spare before he's done. Wizma was also down to less than 5hp and cantrips. Millie finishes the roaper with a well-placed longbow shot from the cabin window and a revivified Klegg action surges inside and cuts off the hag's head.
Long rest with new friend Me-Jerk the goblin. Searching the cabin, they find a sending stone and have a whispered conversation with a gnome who has the other stone. He is apparently a captive of a tribe of swamp goblins. Me'Jerk confirms the story but assures the party that his tribe is peaceful. They found an ancient shrine in the swamp and want the gnome to unlock it. Also, they have boats, which the party needs to reach the island with the cave.
On the way to the village, we pass a weird altar where the local goblins are leaving offerings of free fish. Me'Jerk doesn't want to linger here, and the party agrees. If they had been here at night, they would have met the ghouls who come out of the swamp for the fish.
Goblin village, as promised, is friendly, has a well-treated gnome prisoner, and a rather unremarkable puzzle which the players solve in about 90 seconds. Goblins share the shrine treasure, so everybody gets a silver bar and the chief throws in a goblin canoe.
A creepy boat-ride later and we're on the shore of Darkroot's island. This area is guarded by a treant who demands a service before the party can proceed. Party has a choice of taking out a local troll (which would have turned out to be the more complicated option as he has his own small cave complex) or eliminate a newly-arrived catoblepus who is befouling the swamp. They opt for the latter, and the beast is not hard to find. These things are reasonably tough, but it's four-on-one and we know how that goes in 5E.
We were out of time at that point, but all that remains is for the players to enter the cave, confront Venomfang, and retrieve the book of rune magic. I removed from the module a tribe of hostile lizardfolk and their village, as they didn't seem particularly interesting.
We're scheduled to play again this Sunday; they made it through 75-80% of the adventure already so I may pad out part two with one more swamp encounter, and then for the cave I think I'm actually going to drop in the bottom level of Forge of Fury from ToTYP.
Playing time: Right around 3 hours; we did not finish and I also cut the lizardfolk which could have added anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour plus, depending on how they were handled. Going after the troll instead of the catoblepus could also have added easily another 30-45 minutes.
Rating: B+. Really solid adventure, which obviously we haven't quite finished. I've undersold the comedy value of Me'Jerk here. The players LOVED the hag/roaper fight. Goblin village puzzle was weak. Adventure needs some polish in pulling together some of the locations and elements. Plenty of additional optional content is provided (like the altar for the ghouls; there are half-a-dozen things like that for you to drop in as needed). Fit very well with the AL Season 5 adventures; players don't know it's not officially in the season and stylistically it's very much in keeping with the other adventures.
NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART 2 (Sunday, Jan 7)
Only a month behind schedule!
We're stepping outside the Adventurer's League to run this adventure, which is available on the DMsGuild here: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/209...t--Adventure?term=into+the+belly&test_epoch=0
Side note. I'm gonna do some plugs. I have a LOT of adventures in my DMG library which is fortunate because out of nowhere I was asked to run a TON of games during the week between Christmas and New Year's, all for different groups of people.
On the train up to Boston on Christmas Day, my wife and I played TYRANT OF ZHENTIL KEEP, a DM-less solo adventure for 1 or 2 players. This the the second one in a series. If anybody is on the fence about these, they're great: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/228...ep--A-5E-Solo-Gamebook?term=zhen&test_epoch=0
My nephews had never played before but have been watching Critical Role and wanted a one-shot. They got Temple of the Basilisk Cult from the Arcane Library. This one is free, excellent, and you can get it here: http://www.thearcanelibrary.com/the-arcane-library (For level one)
On Thursday night I ran Dan Coleman's BAD APPLES for one of my regular groups. Like most of the material from this author, this was brilliant: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/198662/Bad-Apples-Level-3-PCs (For level 3)
And some of my friends wanted a game for New Year's Eve, including one newbie. They got another Dan Coleman, Cryptic Entry. This is a Pay-What-You-Want and it's one of the best level one adventures I've ever run: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/185231/Cryptic-Entry-Level-1-PCs?term=cryptic+&test_epoch=0
And FINALLY we continued this campaign.
INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST is a tier two adventure so there was no need to modify the combat.
Black Wizma received the message from the previous post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...out-AL/page3&p=7283436&viewfull=1#post7283436
So they trudged into the Marsh of Chelimber and almost immediately they observed that the ancient map they'd been given had some inaccuracies. Instead of a castle at the edge of a swamp, they could see only a single tower protruding 30' from the swamp. They crossed a patch of trembling earth. Nobody puts two and two together here, so everybody but Klegg fails their dex saves and plunges through the grass into the sunken castle. Klegg catches himself at waist level and is able to make his way safely down.
They explore the submerged ruin and scavenged a little treasure (dagger +1 and a philter of love, which Wizma had her familiar sip to test) and open the wrong door and get ambushed by a giant constrictor snake. This isn't too much trouble and eventually they find the base of the tower and climb out of there.
Next stop is a bridge linking two swamp islands, where a pretty backwoods half-elf is fishing. Everybody makes friends and since night is coming on they head to her cabin (which is on stilts) for dinner. Lots of rodent skulls hung up to dry in here. Huh. Delicious soup. Hey, Klegg bit something hard. Is it a toenail? Something is making a racket in the closet. Wizma mage-hands the closet open. It's a bound and gagged goblin missing a foot! Crap, half-elf is a green hag! And planted outside the cabin is her pet roaper and it's on like neckbone.
Great knock-down drag out fight here as the roaper immediately grapples everybody but Tordeck and pulls them out through the windows and door. Tordeck thinks quick and gets off a silence spell in round 2, but the hag is still owning him with her claw attacks. Mille cuts herself loose and uses her Boots of Striding and Springing to quickly get back in and help him. Klegg is bitten to death by the Roaper! Everybody is wrecking each other in a nail-biting fight. The goblin's works his gag off: "SOUP IS FOOT! SOUP IS FOOOOOT!" Our heroes pull it out and Tordeck, with a single hit point left, makes it out to revivify Klegg with a round to spare before he's done. Wizma was also down to less than 5hp and cantrips. Millie finishes the roaper with a well-placed longbow shot from the cabin window and a revivified Klegg action surges inside and cuts off the hag's head.
Long rest with new friend Me-Jerk the goblin. Searching the cabin, they find a sending stone and have a whispered conversation with a gnome who has the other stone. He is apparently a captive of a tribe of swamp goblins. Me'Jerk confirms the story but assures the party that his tribe is peaceful. They found an ancient shrine in the swamp and want the gnome to unlock it. Also, they have boats, which the party needs to reach the island with the cave.
On the way to the village, we pass a weird altar where the local goblins are leaving offerings of free fish. Me'Jerk doesn't want to linger here, and the party agrees. If they had been here at night, they would have met the ghouls who come out of the swamp for the fish.
Goblin village, as promised, is friendly, has a well-treated gnome prisoner, and a rather unremarkable puzzle which the players solve in about 90 seconds. Goblins share the shrine treasure, so everybody gets a silver bar and the chief throws in a goblin canoe.
A creepy boat-ride later and we're on the shore of Darkroot's island. This area is guarded by a treant who demands a service before the party can proceed. Party has a choice of taking out a local troll (which would have turned out to be the more complicated option as he has his own small cave complex) or eliminate a newly-arrived catoblepus who is befouling the swamp. They opt for the latter, and the beast is not hard to find. These things are reasonably tough, but it's four-on-one and we know how that goes in 5E.
We were out of time at that point, but all that remains is for the players to enter the cave, confront Venomfang, and retrieve the book of rune magic. I removed from the module a tribe of hostile lizardfolk and their village, as they didn't seem particularly interesting.
We're scheduled to play again this Sunday; they made it through 75-80% of the adventure already so I may pad out part two with one more swamp encounter, and then for the cave I think I'm actually going to drop in the bottom level of Forge of Fury from ToTYP.
Playing time: Right around 3 hours; we did not finish and I also cut the lizardfolk which could have added anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour plus, depending on how they were handled. Going after the troll instead of the catoblepus could also have added easily another 30-45 minutes.
Rating: B+. Really solid adventure, which obviously we haven't quite finished. I've undersold the comedy value of Me'Jerk here. The players LOVED the hag/roaper fight. Goblin village puzzle was weak. Adventure needs some polish in pulling together some of the locations and elements. Plenty of additional optional content is provided (like the altar for the ghouls; there are half-a-dozen things like that for you to drop in as needed). Fit very well with the AL Season 5 adventures; players don't know it's not officially in the season and stylistically it's very much in keeping with the other adventures.
NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART 2 (Sunday, Jan 7)
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EPISODE 5: INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART 2
Holy crap, we played for two weeks in a row.
I Frankensteined together elements from a few different sources for this session.
Darkroot the Treant was grateful to the party for dealing with the catoblepus, and created a gate through his bramble barrier that allowed them to access the interior of the island. Millie asked him if he knew anything about the cave they were looking for, and he explained that when he was a young sapling it had been the lair of a black dragon. A storm giant priest and his human allies had killed the beast, and the cave entrance was now decorated with its skull. The cave later became a sanctum for the storm giant, and Darkroot believed the giant had hidden something in there - and that whatever it was had not been let unprotected, as others had entered the cave over the ages but none had come out.
The party entered the cave and soon detected the tell-tale scent of chlorine that they recognized from Thundertree in LMoP - as sign that Venomfang was already in here.
For the basic layout of the cave, I used the Blacklake, which is the bottom level of the Forge of Fury dungeon from Tales of the Yawning Portal. This involved navigating two natural bridges over a subterranean river. The first was crossed without incident; the second gave out when Klegg stepped on it, though with a dex save he was able to grab the ledge and save himself the fall. Wizma had already crossed, but as the bridge was now destroyed, a complicated passage using Klegg's ring of jumping, several ropes, and Millie's Boots of Striding and Springing was necessary to get everyone across.
The path then descended to water level, and into Darksquall Cave, a location I got from backing Dan Coleman on Patreon. I used this for the Storm Giant's sanctum - it was the tomb of his favorite human follower, who had been interred with the book of rune magic the party was after. Unlocking the cache involved the manipulation of three sparking nodes of energy into position to power three storm giant runes that would unlock the tomb on and island in the middle of a shallow lake of cold water. Also on this island, razorvine was growing - a hint that there was something otherwordly about the runes and the tomb.
As the party worked on the puzzle, Venomfang rose from the water and greeted them. She claimed that the tomb was a door that could send her back to her own plane, and that all she had ever wanted was to return home ever since Wizma and her brother had accidentally summoned her. She called the resulting death of Wizma's brother a tragic accident. She proposed they work together to solve the puzzle. When Klegg asked what would happen if the refused, she replied that this would be another tragedy.
As Veomfang complimented their cleverness and encourage them while offering no substantive help, The party solved this puzzle (a very fun and clever one) and opened the cache, but that also activated the tomb's guardian (a storm spirit, an elemental monster from the Coleman thing). This was a tough fight during which Wizma was badly wounded and Tordeck was KOed and revived, and he and Wizma used up about half their spells. Of course, as soon as the guardian was defeated Venomfang attacked the weakened party with her breath weapon - all she had wanted here was the treasure.
The characters had luckily spread out while fighting the elemental, she she was only able to breath on Wizma and Klegg. Wizma was immediately KOed, but Klegg largely shrugged it off due to making his saving throw and wearing Dragonguard. This was my players' first dragon fight, and I was really happy with it. It went down to the wire as they threw everything but the kitchen sink at her, and she turned tail and tried to flee down the entrance tunnel with 50 hp left, but a combination of Wizma's very last spell slot (magic missles at level 2) and Millie chasing her down with her boots and landing a hit and a crit finished her off. Players cheered at the table. ("We killed a dragon!" - Millie)
Wizma thanked her friends for helping her to avenge her brother and vowed to leave behind her life of crime now that she had redemption.
The hidden cache contained a suit of Plate Mail of Lightning Resistance ("Safety from the Storm"), a Javelin of Lightning ("Ride the Storm"), three healing potions, and the book of rune magic (to be examined further next time.
PLAYING TIME: Just over 2 hours.
Rating: A-. Hard to say what I'm really rating here; this sessions had a character and location from Jeff Stevens' INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, a location, puzzle, and enemy from Dan Coleman's Patreon page, a location from TotYP, and an enemy from LMoP. It all worked really well together. I guess the lesson is "don't be afraid to cherry-pick the good stuff."
Everybody gets 1 rep point; Millie gets an extra for the Razorvine and Wizma gets an extra for the death of Venomfang (a wanted enemy of the Harpers).
NEXT EPISODE: DDAL-05-12: BAD BUSINESS IN PARNAST (Sun, Jan 21)
Holy crap, we played for two weeks in a row.
I Frankensteined together elements from a few different sources for this session.
Darkroot the Treant was grateful to the party for dealing with the catoblepus, and created a gate through his bramble barrier that allowed them to access the interior of the island. Millie asked him if he knew anything about the cave they were looking for, and he explained that when he was a young sapling it had been the lair of a black dragon. A storm giant priest and his human allies had killed the beast, and the cave entrance was now decorated with its skull. The cave later became a sanctum for the storm giant, and Darkroot believed the giant had hidden something in there - and that whatever it was had not been let unprotected, as others had entered the cave over the ages but none had come out.
The party entered the cave and soon detected the tell-tale scent of chlorine that they recognized from Thundertree in LMoP - as sign that Venomfang was already in here.
For the basic layout of the cave, I used the Blacklake, which is the bottom level of the Forge of Fury dungeon from Tales of the Yawning Portal. This involved navigating two natural bridges over a subterranean river. The first was crossed without incident; the second gave out when Klegg stepped on it, though with a dex save he was able to grab the ledge and save himself the fall. Wizma had already crossed, but as the bridge was now destroyed, a complicated passage using Klegg's ring of jumping, several ropes, and Millie's Boots of Striding and Springing was necessary to get everyone across.
The path then descended to water level, and into Darksquall Cave, a location I got from backing Dan Coleman on Patreon. I used this for the Storm Giant's sanctum - it was the tomb of his favorite human follower, who had been interred with the book of rune magic the party was after. Unlocking the cache involved the manipulation of three sparking nodes of energy into position to power three storm giant runes that would unlock the tomb on and island in the middle of a shallow lake of cold water. Also on this island, razorvine was growing - a hint that there was something otherwordly about the runes and the tomb.
As the party worked on the puzzle, Venomfang rose from the water and greeted them. She claimed that the tomb was a door that could send her back to her own plane, and that all she had ever wanted was to return home ever since Wizma and her brother had accidentally summoned her. She called the resulting death of Wizma's brother a tragic accident. She proposed they work together to solve the puzzle. When Klegg asked what would happen if the refused, she replied that this would be another tragedy.
As Veomfang complimented their cleverness and encourage them while offering no substantive help, The party solved this puzzle (a very fun and clever one) and opened the cache, but that also activated the tomb's guardian (a storm spirit, an elemental monster from the Coleman thing). This was a tough fight during which Wizma was badly wounded and Tordeck was KOed and revived, and he and Wizma used up about half their spells. Of course, as soon as the guardian was defeated Venomfang attacked the weakened party with her breath weapon - all she had wanted here was the treasure.
The characters had luckily spread out while fighting the elemental, she she was only able to breath on Wizma and Klegg. Wizma was immediately KOed, but Klegg largely shrugged it off due to making his saving throw and wearing Dragonguard. This was my players' first dragon fight, and I was really happy with it. It went down to the wire as they threw everything but the kitchen sink at her, and she turned tail and tried to flee down the entrance tunnel with 50 hp left, but a combination of Wizma's very last spell slot (magic missles at level 2) and Millie chasing her down with her boots and landing a hit and a crit finished her off. Players cheered at the table. ("We killed a dragon!" - Millie)
Wizma thanked her friends for helping her to avenge her brother and vowed to leave behind her life of crime now that she had redemption.
The hidden cache contained a suit of Plate Mail of Lightning Resistance ("Safety from the Storm"), a Javelin of Lightning ("Ride the Storm"), three healing potions, and the book of rune magic (to be examined further next time.
PLAYING TIME: Just over 2 hours.
Rating: A-. Hard to say what I'm really rating here; this sessions had a character and location from Jeff Stevens' INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, a location, puzzle, and enemy from Dan Coleman's Patreon page, a location from TotYP, and an enemy from LMoP. It all worked really well together. I guess the lesson is "don't be afraid to cherry-pick the good stuff."
Everybody gets 1 rep point; Millie gets an extra for the Razorvine and Wizma gets an extra for the death of Venomfang (a wanted enemy of the Harpers).
NEXT EPISODE: DDAL-05-12: BAD BUSINESS IN PARNAST (Sun, Jan 21)
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I'm torn -- these are interesting reads, but as they involve scenarios that aren't legal for AL play and aren't run according to AL rules, I'm not convinced the AL forum is the proper place for them.
Moderators, please consider moving this thread to the general 5E forum.
--
Pauper
Moderators, please consider moving this thread to the general 5E forum.
--
Pauper
My feeling in posting the thread here was that it's AL-related even though I don't use AL rules. It's an example of how a DM can incorporate AL adventures into a homebrew campaign, and therein demonstrates an added value in AL material (or at least explores the possibilities; it's kind of an ongoing experiment in using AL material differently and seeing how it works).
Obviously if the mods feel it belongs in the General area I'm happy to continue it there though.
Yep, and it seemed that way at the start. There was even a blueprint of AL adventures that would comprise the bulk of the (early?) campaign.
Here's the thing, though -- the last two adventures, the two part "Into the Belly of the Beast", are not AL-legal as far as I'm able to determine. So what you're really doing is talking about a game in which you use whatever material you like, with whatever rules you like, and shape it into your own story. That's absolutely cool -- it's called a 'homebrew game' -- but it's not AL.
It just seems like it's going to be confusing for people who come to the forum looking for AL-specific information and find references to non-AL rules and non-AL adventures. Plus, really, your target audience would seem to be people who *aren't* currently running AL material, to show them how they can use AL adventures in their homebrew campaigns. I honestly think you're limiting your audience by posting here.
Still, if the admins don't mind, I'll keep reading.
--
Pauper
Well, if you look at that original blueprint, you'll note that it was always my intention to drop in the one non-AL adventure to replace two AL Season 5 adventures that I didn't want to run. So it's not like the thread has now changed into something it wasn't; I'm just following the plan I laid out in October, which nobody objected to at the time.
Next session will be back with the AL adventures.
Sorry for lack of updates; this campaign has been very much snakebitten by scheduling issues.
We will ALLEGEDLY run DDAL05-12 on Feb 19th.
EPISODE 6: DDAL05-12: BAD BUSINESS IN PARNAST
After a brief delay of only two-and-a-half months, I'm surprised as anybody to say that we picked up this campaign last night. I had pretty much figured it was dead and had given up trying to organize dates. I figured that if my players in this group really wanted to continue this campaign, they would take the initiative on getting it going again. Well, they actually did so here we are.
BAD BUSINESS IN PARNAST is not an ideal adventure to jump back in with on a campaign that's been on hiatus for several weeks. It requires more prep to run than any season 5 adventure I've run so far. It's a mystery/exploration story, pretty sandboxy, but with a timeline of events and activities happening behind the scenes and a large cast of NPCs. I had introduced most of these people (Ragnar Redtooth and his daughter Elspeth, Gundalin Cartwright and his son Wallace, Tove Brandiman, Chandra Stole, Sylas the apothecary, Culver the halfling who runs the trading post, the priestess Chandra Stol) but now after such a long layoff I was dreading an evening of "Wait, who's that again?" from my players. But for the most part a one or two sentence reminder on my part was fine and they got back into the swing of things.
The adventure began in the evening as the party returned from the Marsh of Chelimber and turned over the Rune Magic spellbook to HSING. HSING also had a letter for Tordeck and Klegg from their Order of the Gauntlet contact in Phandelver - shrines and symbols of Cyric had been discovered in the countryside around Parnast; such shrines if discovered were to be destroyed.
Parnast is now filling with refugees as orc raiders from Bad Fruul's army are hitting the outlying farms. On their way to the Golden Tankard, they pass the stables, now sheltering farmers and livestock. The hunter Tove Brandimen meets them outside and shares info about the orcs. This character is the villain of this adventure and I was glad I had introduced him a few episodes ago, because it made him a far less suspicious character here.
At the tavern, Raggnar Redtooth briefs the characters. While they were away, the town had begun to prepare fortifications against a possible assault. But these efforts have been hampered by mysterious accidents. Raggnar suspects sabotage, and that his political rival Gundalin Cartwright may be involved. The romance subplot between young lovers Elspeth Redtooth and Wallace Cartwright was re-introduced.
With the town rapidly closing up for the night, the players visited the trading post. After some banter with the halfling proprietor about local happenings, they learned that all of his lamp oil had gone missing. They were immediately alarmed by this and suspected a fire or explosion would be forthcoming. They returned to Raggnar and successfully persuaded him that buckets full of water should be prepared around the town and that all militia members should also have buckets filled and ready. I decided this preparation would give them a mechanical benefit in fighting the fire later.
It was now getting late but they investigated the site of a watchtower that had collapsed and via a detect magic spell and interviewing guards, they were able to determine is had been brought down using magic.
That was it for the night and they retired to the inn, only to be awoken just after dawn by panic from the stables as some horses had been poisoned. Tordeck was able to both detect and cure the poison; and examination of the feed revealed that yew needles had been mixed into the hay. The players summoned Chandra Stol and asked her to speak with the horses to see if they knew who poisoned them. As she is a priestess of Mielikki, I thought this was a pretty reasonable request but I didn't want to give away the whole plot. So the horses knew that a man they didn't know had visited the stable and put some leaves in their hay, but that's it.
A subsequent conversation with Chandra at the Shrine of Axes elicited her thoughts on Gundalin and Raggar (she think they are both fools, but need to work together for the sake of the town). A visit to Sylas the alchemist and investigation of his garden revealed that someone had clipped yew trimmings from there. A successful survival check by Millie discovered foorprints leading from the garden to Gundalin's house.
At this point I was pretty surprised at how much info the players were turning up; it escalated from there when they confronted Gundalin and Wallace at their house. Tordeck tried to talk to him about making peace with Raggnar. The players insisted on searching the place and found a bag of clippers and yew trimmings that Tove had planted in the workshop to frame the Cartwrights. Gundalin and Wallace strenuously denied having seen it before. A high insight check roll by Millie revealed that Wallace seemed nervous and might be hiding something.
The players got Wallace alone and Klegg screamed at him to tell them everything he was hiding. Successful intimidation check revealed that Wallace knew nothing about the sabotage but was planning a secret rendezvous with Elspeth in the woods and didn't want Gundalin or Raggnar to find out. He showed them a note he believed to be from Elspeth (it was actually forged by Tove to lure him into the woods). The party suspected some sort of shenanigans and Millie and Wizma trailed him into the woods (Tordeck and Klegg hung back because they are not stealthy).
They successfully interrupted Tove assaulting Wallace and Wizma immediately took him down with hold person. They tied him up, but immediately accepted his story that the orcs had his mom prisoner at his cabin and he was acting under duress (he had a severed human finger and a threatening note to back his story). They didn't even insight check him.
Feeling low on spell slots, they took Tove back to the inn to rest, but did say they made sure he stayed with them. When a fire broke out at a watchtower, they also explicitly took him along to fight it so he was not able to execute his plan of burning the tavern. Since the party had insisted on buckets of water all over the place, they were even able to partially salvage the watchtower.
So there are tons of "if x then y" eventualities and plot developments in this adventure, which try to anticipate different actions and lines of inquiry the party might or might not take and what Tove and his SECRET TWIN BROTHER will do in such-and-such an eventuality. It's laid out reasonably well but even a DM who has done prep is probably going to be flipping around to try to track references and developments spread throughout several pages. I don't object in principle but I'm not sure the pay off - a fight with orcs and ogres at a cabin - is really interesting or rewarding enough to justify the extra work involved.
Anyway, Tove leads them to the cabin and gives them a general description of the area. A reconnaissance fly-over by Snarf the Tressym yields detailed info and enemy positions. That's about where the good strategy stops as the players spend about twenty minutes devising what turns out to be a pretty rubbish covert assault plan. I went with "Very Strong" difficulty on the enemies, but the players did get the drop on them. This included Klegg taking off his armor to sneak up on a goblin, Wizma casting invisibility on herself to sneak up on another goblin and only realizing after the fact that she had no idea how to take him out quietly, Tordeck casting silence on a cluster of enemies in the middle of the camp.
A knock-down drag-out fight ensued that included Klegg getting KO'd twice, but our heroes prevailed. They completely disregarded Tove once the fight started, and had not restrained him, so he and his brother simply left (in fact they never found out there was a brother). They did figure out Tove had hosed them when he vanished and there was no mom held prisoner in the cabin.
A search of the cabin revealed a shrine to Cyric in the basement; the party looted the place and then Tordeck and Klegg torched the entire cabin and shrine.
The party returned to Parnast and got a hero's welcome, but in the coming days the countryside south of town became dotted with the campfires of a massing orc army.
PLAYING TIME: Almost 3.5 hours. Enjoyable, but I defy anybody to run this in 2 hours as advertised.
Rating: B. After the layoff and considering the complexity, I was just happy this wasn't a mess. Hard to evaluate given the circumstance of this start-and-stop campaign, but my sense is this is a perfectly good, but not great, adventure that calls for more work from the DM than most AL mods.
Everybody gets 1 rep point; Tordeck and Klegg get an extra point for destroying the shrine. No storyline rewards in this one. Klegg recovered Gauntlets of Ogre power from Kagrota Three-Teeth, the orc leader. Side note: there are too many magic items in AL. I would never award a magic item basically every two hours of play in a homebrew, nor is that the case in the hardcovers. There is definite power creep with everybody at level 5 having 3 really good attuned items.
Next: DDAL-05-16: Parnast Under Siege. I hesitate to even speculate as to when.
After a brief delay of only two-and-a-half months, I'm surprised as anybody to say that we picked up this campaign last night. I had pretty much figured it was dead and had given up trying to organize dates. I figured that if my players in this group really wanted to continue this campaign, they would take the initiative on getting it going again. Well, they actually did so here we are.
BAD BUSINESS IN PARNAST is not an ideal adventure to jump back in with on a campaign that's been on hiatus for several weeks. It requires more prep to run than any season 5 adventure I've run so far. It's a mystery/exploration story, pretty sandboxy, but with a timeline of events and activities happening behind the scenes and a large cast of NPCs. I had introduced most of these people (Ragnar Redtooth and his daughter Elspeth, Gundalin Cartwright and his son Wallace, Tove Brandiman, Chandra Stole, Sylas the apothecary, Culver the halfling who runs the trading post, the priestess Chandra Stol) but now after such a long layoff I was dreading an evening of "Wait, who's that again?" from my players. But for the most part a one or two sentence reminder on my part was fine and they got back into the swing of things.
The adventure began in the evening as the party returned from the Marsh of Chelimber and turned over the Rune Magic spellbook to HSING. HSING also had a letter for Tordeck and Klegg from their Order of the Gauntlet contact in Phandelver - shrines and symbols of Cyric had been discovered in the countryside around Parnast; such shrines if discovered were to be destroyed.
Parnast is now filling with refugees as orc raiders from Bad Fruul's army are hitting the outlying farms. On their way to the Golden Tankard, they pass the stables, now sheltering farmers and livestock. The hunter Tove Brandimen meets them outside and shares info about the orcs. This character is the villain of this adventure and I was glad I had introduced him a few episodes ago, because it made him a far less suspicious character here.
At the tavern, Raggnar Redtooth briefs the characters. While they were away, the town had begun to prepare fortifications against a possible assault. But these efforts have been hampered by mysterious accidents. Raggnar suspects sabotage, and that his political rival Gundalin Cartwright may be involved. The romance subplot between young lovers Elspeth Redtooth and Wallace Cartwright was re-introduced.
With the town rapidly closing up for the night, the players visited the trading post. After some banter with the halfling proprietor about local happenings, they learned that all of his lamp oil had gone missing. They were immediately alarmed by this and suspected a fire or explosion would be forthcoming. They returned to Raggnar and successfully persuaded him that buckets full of water should be prepared around the town and that all militia members should also have buckets filled and ready. I decided this preparation would give them a mechanical benefit in fighting the fire later.
It was now getting late but they investigated the site of a watchtower that had collapsed and via a detect magic spell and interviewing guards, they were able to determine is had been brought down using magic.
That was it for the night and they retired to the inn, only to be awoken just after dawn by panic from the stables as some horses had been poisoned. Tordeck was able to both detect and cure the poison; and examination of the feed revealed that yew needles had been mixed into the hay. The players summoned Chandra Stol and asked her to speak with the horses to see if they knew who poisoned them. As she is a priestess of Mielikki, I thought this was a pretty reasonable request but I didn't want to give away the whole plot. So the horses knew that a man they didn't know had visited the stable and put some leaves in their hay, but that's it.
A subsequent conversation with Chandra at the Shrine of Axes elicited her thoughts on Gundalin and Raggar (she think they are both fools, but need to work together for the sake of the town). A visit to Sylas the alchemist and investigation of his garden revealed that someone had clipped yew trimmings from there. A successful survival check by Millie discovered foorprints leading from the garden to Gundalin's house.
At this point I was pretty surprised at how much info the players were turning up; it escalated from there when they confronted Gundalin and Wallace at their house. Tordeck tried to talk to him about making peace with Raggnar. The players insisted on searching the place and found a bag of clippers and yew trimmings that Tove had planted in the workshop to frame the Cartwrights. Gundalin and Wallace strenuously denied having seen it before. A high insight check roll by Millie revealed that Wallace seemed nervous and might be hiding something.
The players got Wallace alone and Klegg screamed at him to tell them everything he was hiding. Successful intimidation check revealed that Wallace knew nothing about the sabotage but was planning a secret rendezvous with Elspeth in the woods and didn't want Gundalin or Raggnar to find out. He showed them a note he believed to be from Elspeth (it was actually forged by Tove to lure him into the woods). The party suspected some sort of shenanigans and Millie and Wizma trailed him into the woods (Tordeck and Klegg hung back because they are not stealthy).
They successfully interrupted Tove assaulting Wallace and Wizma immediately took him down with hold person. They tied him up, but immediately accepted his story that the orcs had his mom prisoner at his cabin and he was acting under duress (he had a severed human finger and a threatening note to back his story). They didn't even insight check him.
Feeling low on spell slots, they took Tove back to the inn to rest, but did say they made sure he stayed with them. When a fire broke out at a watchtower, they also explicitly took him along to fight it so he was not able to execute his plan of burning the tavern. Since the party had insisted on buckets of water all over the place, they were even able to partially salvage the watchtower.
So there are tons of "if x then y" eventualities and plot developments in this adventure, which try to anticipate different actions and lines of inquiry the party might or might not take and what Tove and his SECRET TWIN BROTHER will do in such-and-such an eventuality. It's laid out reasonably well but even a DM who has done prep is probably going to be flipping around to try to track references and developments spread throughout several pages. I don't object in principle but I'm not sure the pay off - a fight with orcs and ogres at a cabin - is really interesting or rewarding enough to justify the extra work involved.
Anyway, Tove leads them to the cabin and gives them a general description of the area. A reconnaissance fly-over by Snarf the Tressym yields detailed info and enemy positions. That's about where the good strategy stops as the players spend about twenty minutes devising what turns out to be a pretty rubbish covert assault plan. I went with "Very Strong" difficulty on the enemies, but the players did get the drop on them. This included Klegg taking off his armor to sneak up on a goblin, Wizma casting invisibility on herself to sneak up on another goblin and only realizing after the fact that she had no idea how to take him out quietly, Tordeck casting silence on a cluster of enemies in the middle of the camp.
A knock-down drag-out fight ensued that included Klegg getting KO'd twice, but our heroes prevailed. They completely disregarded Tove once the fight started, and had not restrained him, so he and his brother simply left (in fact they never found out there was a brother). They did figure out Tove had hosed them when he vanished and there was no mom held prisoner in the cabin.
A search of the cabin revealed a shrine to Cyric in the basement; the party looted the place and then Tordeck and Klegg torched the entire cabin and shrine.
The party returned to Parnast and got a hero's welcome, but in the coming days the countryside south of town became dotted with the campfires of a massing orc army.
PLAYING TIME: Almost 3.5 hours. Enjoyable, but I defy anybody to run this in 2 hours as advertised.
Rating: B. After the layoff and considering the complexity, I was just happy this wasn't a mess. Hard to evaluate given the circumstance of this start-and-stop campaign, but my sense is this is a perfectly good, but not great, adventure that calls for more work from the DM than most AL mods.
Everybody gets 1 rep point; Tordeck and Klegg get an extra point for destroying the shrine. No storyline rewards in this one. Klegg recovered Gauntlets of Ogre power from Kagrota Three-Teeth, the orc leader. Side note: there are too many magic items in AL. I would never award a magic item basically every two hours of play in a homebrew, nor is that the case in the hardcovers. There is definite power creep with everybody at level 5 having 3 really good attuned items.
Next: DDAL-05-16: Parnast Under Siege. I hesitate to even speculate as to when.
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