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<blockquote data-quote="Burnside" data-source="post: 7276458" data-attributes="member: 6910340"><p>EPISODE 3: GIANT DIPLOMACY</p><p>I kinda thought this might have been the weakest of the three AL05 adventures we’ve played so far, but I don’t think my players thought so. Two-Hits Millie’s player said she thought, “this one was really engaging.”</p><p></p><p>We start off in Parnast. It’s the morning after Gralm’s raiders attacked the feast and the town is picking up the pieces. Players meet with Raggnar Redtooth, Azam, and HSING at the Golden Tankard. They’re hired to travel to the Lonely Moor on a diplomatic mission to Gralm, to try to convince him to join forces with Parnast againt Bad Fruul or, failing that, to at least remain neutral in the conflict. Because they have the “Protectors of Parnast” story reward, Raggnar provides a potion of healing, a potion of greater healing, and directions to Gralm's territory. Azam mentions that one of his camels vanished last night and he fears the worst. “Oh, yeah, it’s probably that chuul again,” says Millie. And they still refuse to deal with it!</p><p></p><p>To reach Gralm’s encampment in the Lonely Moor, the party has to travel through “The Forgotten Forest”, which seems suspiciously similar to the “Weathercote Wood” we were in last episode. Are these supposed to be two different faerie forests next to Parnast? Whatever, this is Weathercote Wood again; we’ve already established it’s there and that it borders the moor, I’m not throwing a new forest in here for no reason. The players have enough names to learn.</p><p></p><p>In Weathercote Wood, they fought off an ambush by hobgoblins and goblins. CR balance was interesting in this one, because the default scale was for 5 4th-level characters, but it included options for scaling up. We had 4 5th-level characters, so I went with “Strong”. Two hobgoblin captains, two goblin bosses, and some goblins. The enemies spread out to try to surround the party and this was actually kind of a tough fight. Millie got KOed at one point. To add a complication to this encounter, the battlefield is littered with fey portals. The adventure doesn’t really provide a clear dynamic on how these should affect the fight, so I decided that anybody rolling a crit fail during the fight would stumble into a portal, and anybody landing a crit on an enemy had the option to knock that foe into a portal (the portals triggered a random d6 of wild magic effects if activated). This was pretty fun; for the next hour, Millie was shadowed by a cloud that rained meat and cheese on her. </p><p></p><p>They enlisted the aid of Oblivish, a whiny cursed sprite who had fallen out of favor with Prince Thornacious and was reluctantly serving Gralm.</p><p></p><p>On the way to Gralm's camp, they passed through a shortcut into the Feywild and solved some puzzles for a rainbow dog. The players seemed to really enjoy the dog but the tangram puzzle kind of fell flat. It’s probably a little too open-ended. The dog told them “make me a cat”. They made a cat which looked almost totally unlike the cat shown in the book, but whatever it was a cat. </p><p></p><p>They arrived at the encampment and began negotiations with Gralm. Tordeck handled negotiations here and made a really good case that Bad Fruul was bad news for Gralm. Gralm incidentally is an Ettin with one smart head and one stupid head, which was great for me to RP. Before making his decision, Gralm invited the party to participate in a series of contests against the ogre Grindle. Grindle of course had the voice and speech patterns of Randy Savage. This was Klegg’s time to shine, as he annihilated every challenge including a nat 20 on the Pig Ups. Tordeck sealed the deal by eating one more hot dog than the ogre could. Their efforts met with great success and Gralm agreed to an alliance if the party would bring him the heads of some local fey creatures whose music has been troubling him. This whole sequence was amazing. </p><p></p><p>Oblivish led them to their old satyr buddy Blassios and tried to convince the party to attack him, but Blassios and Klegg are buddies so instead they parlayed with him. Blassios commiserated with Klegg about his wild magic issues and gave him some advice on how to use his spells. He was able to point them towards some members of the Unseelie Court whom Prince Thornacious wanted dealt with, and whose heads would satisfy Gralm's request.</p><p></p><p>They ambushed the evil fey during a poker game, and returned with their heads to Gralm. This actually turned out to be the easier of the adventure’s two combats. Three evil Halfling wizards, two dryads, and some lions and black bears. The party got a surprise round and Wizma fireballed the poker table, killing a dryad and badly wounding the other one. She didn’t think the halflings were evil so she spell shaped around them, but soon enough she realized her mistake when I explained that one Halfling had an eyepatch and another had a black goatee. Millie webbed up one Halfling with her Spider Stick and Tordeck slowly and incompetently beat him to death with his mace Lightbringer. I’m sure that made him feel like a big man. One historical note about this fight: a halfling tried to hit Tordeck with a magic missle spell, and he was immune due to the Brooch of Shielding that he got last session; first documented instance of this item proving useful?</p><p></p><p>Blassios helpfully scooped up two dryad heads (one badly charred) and two halfling heads (one Halfling turned invisible and escaped when the web beating went down) and put them in a head bag.</p><p></p><p>Gralm signed the treaty of alliance with Parnast. Blassios gave Klegg a Ring of Jumping as a token of his esteem, and offered Satyr training (a story reward where Klegg can go on a vision quest with Blassios and come out with one free poison success save). A giant eagle gave Millie a necklace. </p><p></p><p>They also fulfilled Thornacious's challenge of befriending a giant (Gralm), and used their downtime to get his reward (advantage on all charisma checks vs good-aligned fey). </p><p></p><p>Raggnar rewarded them with 100gp upon return to Parnast with the treaty. </p><p></p><p>They all achieved the second tier of renown for their factions, and are now Greater Defenders of Parnast, and will receive a 10% discount on all goods and healing services in town. </p><p></p><p>They correctly pointed out that most of their options for how to use downtime are pretty crappy. I noted that Xanathar’s come out this month and maybe there will be some better options in there. </p><p></p><p>Playing time: A leisurely and enjoyable 3.5 hours. Again, no idea how you’d get through this in 2 hours. I really did not add much of anything. </p><p></p><p>Rating: A-. The players I think liked this one slightly more than I did, but there’s no denying it’s a fun adventure. The dog part almost, but not quite, works as written but a good DM could probably improve it. I didn’t realize the issues with that part until playing. Ogre contest sequence is just wonderful and I’m sure will be the highlight of any play-through of this one. </p><p></p><p>NEXT EPISODE:</p><p>INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART ONE (Dec 3)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Burnside, post: 7276458, member: 6910340"] EPISODE 3: GIANT DIPLOMACY I kinda thought this might have been the weakest of the three AL05 adventures we’ve played so far, but I don’t think my players thought so. Two-Hits Millie’s player said she thought, “this one was really engaging.” We start off in Parnast. It’s the morning after Gralm’s raiders attacked the feast and the town is picking up the pieces. Players meet with Raggnar Redtooth, Azam, and HSING at the Golden Tankard. They’re hired to travel to the Lonely Moor on a diplomatic mission to Gralm, to try to convince him to join forces with Parnast againt Bad Fruul or, failing that, to at least remain neutral in the conflict. Because they have the “Protectors of Parnast” story reward, Raggnar provides a potion of healing, a potion of greater healing, and directions to Gralm's territory. Azam mentions that one of his camels vanished last night and he fears the worst. “Oh, yeah, it’s probably that chuul again,” says Millie. And they still refuse to deal with it! To reach Gralm’s encampment in the Lonely Moor, the party has to travel through “The Forgotten Forest”, which seems suspiciously similar to the “Weathercote Wood” we were in last episode. Are these supposed to be two different faerie forests next to Parnast? Whatever, this is Weathercote Wood again; we’ve already established it’s there and that it borders the moor, I’m not throwing a new forest in here for no reason. The players have enough names to learn. In Weathercote Wood, they fought off an ambush by hobgoblins and goblins. CR balance was interesting in this one, because the default scale was for 5 4th-level characters, but it included options for scaling up. We had 4 5th-level characters, so I went with “Strong”. Two hobgoblin captains, two goblin bosses, and some goblins. The enemies spread out to try to surround the party and this was actually kind of a tough fight. Millie got KOed at one point. To add a complication to this encounter, the battlefield is littered with fey portals. The adventure doesn’t really provide a clear dynamic on how these should affect the fight, so I decided that anybody rolling a crit fail during the fight would stumble into a portal, and anybody landing a crit on an enemy had the option to knock that foe into a portal (the portals triggered a random d6 of wild magic effects if activated). This was pretty fun; for the next hour, Millie was shadowed by a cloud that rained meat and cheese on her. They enlisted the aid of Oblivish, a whiny cursed sprite who had fallen out of favor with Prince Thornacious and was reluctantly serving Gralm. On the way to Gralm's camp, they passed through a shortcut into the Feywild and solved some puzzles for a rainbow dog. The players seemed to really enjoy the dog but the tangram puzzle kind of fell flat. It’s probably a little too open-ended. The dog told them “make me a cat”. They made a cat which looked almost totally unlike the cat shown in the book, but whatever it was a cat. They arrived at the encampment and began negotiations with Gralm. Tordeck handled negotiations here and made a really good case that Bad Fruul was bad news for Gralm. Gralm incidentally is an Ettin with one smart head and one stupid head, which was great for me to RP. Before making his decision, Gralm invited the party to participate in a series of contests against the ogre Grindle. Grindle of course had the voice and speech patterns of Randy Savage. This was Klegg’s time to shine, as he annihilated every challenge including a nat 20 on the Pig Ups. Tordeck sealed the deal by eating one more hot dog than the ogre could. Their efforts met with great success and Gralm agreed to an alliance if the party would bring him the heads of some local fey creatures whose music has been troubling him. This whole sequence was amazing. Oblivish led them to their old satyr buddy Blassios and tried to convince the party to attack him, but Blassios and Klegg are buddies so instead they parlayed with him. Blassios commiserated with Klegg about his wild magic issues and gave him some advice on how to use his spells. He was able to point them towards some members of the Unseelie Court whom Prince Thornacious wanted dealt with, and whose heads would satisfy Gralm's request. They ambushed the evil fey during a poker game, and returned with their heads to Gralm. This actually turned out to be the easier of the adventure’s two combats. Three evil Halfling wizards, two dryads, and some lions and black bears. The party got a surprise round and Wizma fireballed the poker table, killing a dryad and badly wounding the other one. She didn’t think the halflings were evil so she spell shaped around them, but soon enough she realized her mistake when I explained that one Halfling had an eyepatch and another had a black goatee. Millie webbed up one Halfling with her Spider Stick and Tordeck slowly and incompetently beat him to death with his mace Lightbringer. I’m sure that made him feel like a big man. One historical note about this fight: a halfling tried to hit Tordeck with a magic missle spell, and he was immune due to the Brooch of Shielding that he got last session; first documented instance of this item proving useful? Blassios helpfully scooped up two dryad heads (one badly charred) and two halfling heads (one Halfling turned invisible and escaped when the web beating went down) and put them in a head bag. Gralm signed the treaty of alliance with Parnast. Blassios gave Klegg a Ring of Jumping as a token of his esteem, and offered Satyr training (a story reward where Klegg can go on a vision quest with Blassios and come out with one free poison success save). A giant eagle gave Millie a necklace. They also fulfilled Thornacious's challenge of befriending a giant (Gralm), and used their downtime to get his reward (advantage on all charisma checks vs good-aligned fey). Raggnar rewarded them with 100gp upon return to Parnast with the treaty. They all achieved the second tier of renown for their factions, and are now Greater Defenders of Parnast, and will receive a 10% discount on all goods and healing services in town. They correctly pointed out that most of their options for how to use downtime are pretty crappy. I noted that Xanathar’s come out this month and maybe there will be some better options in there. Playing time: A leisurely and enjoyable 3.5 hours. Again, no idea how you’d get through this in 2 hours. I really did not add much of anything. Rating: A-. The players I think liked this one slightly more than I did, but there’s no denying it’s a fun adventure. The dog part almost, but not quite, works as written but a good DM could probably improve it. I didn’t realize the issues with that part until playing. Ogre contest sequence is just wonderful and I’m sure will be the highlight of any play-through of this one. NEXT EPISODE: INTO THE BELLY OF THE BEAST, PART ONE (Dec 3) [/QUOTE]
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