D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Richards]

We played through a session of our "Dreams of Erthe" campaign today, running through an adventure I named "Hyena Arena.". The party was ambushed while traveling by 8 gnolls, a gnoll druid with a hyena animal companion, two gnoll fighters, a dire hyena, and a leucrotta. It was a pretty tough fight, but the fact that my dice betrayed me on several occasions helped them to take out all but one of the gnoll fighters (who scarpered while it was still possible).

They tracked him down to the lair the pack has been using, an abandoned dwarven arena at the foot of the mountains, where the PCs rescued a half-dozen human slaves, ended up killing off the rest of the pack, and finding their pack leader asleep in a dream coma. After deciding whether or not to kill her (would doing so deprive the Nightmare King of whatever he gains by putting people into these dream comas?), they decided to tie up her physical body and then go rescue her from the dreamlands. In her dream, she was fighting off a dozen hyenas in the arena, but each time she'd kill one it would remanifest. The PCs quickly learned that when they killed a hyena, it stayed dead, so eventually they were able to kill them all and awaken the pack leader.

Once awake, the pack leader explained she saw the dream as a sending from the god of battle that she had led her pack onto a wrong path (why else would the hyenas be attacking her like that in her dream?) and vowed to lead her pack away and go back to the old ways of hunting for their own food instead of buying slaves. (Too late: the rest of her pack had already been slain.) The PCs let her go, though, after the half-orc cleric paladin insisted she be given an opportunity to turn her life around.

Johnathan

 

[Greenfield]

My last session? It wasn't. Sort of.

We meet virtually, except for one player who comes over to my place. (He doesn't have a computer that can run Skype.) My computer went down and we couldn't get it running again.

As I "host" the game, I usually have the battle-mat laid out and manage the miniatures, so people were essentially saying that they'd skip the game that week.

I later learned that the DM went ahead and ran, voice-only. Good for him!

One of our players is something of an issue, and she went on a tear in my absence. She complained that the party Bard "wasn't playing it right" when his character finished his evening and took his hat to the innkeeper, so the innkeeper could claim his share. As far as she was concerned he should have been hoarding his wealth to buy more gear. (She's something of a power gamer at a table full of role-players. Not a good fit.)

She then tried to sabotage his stealth attempt (Invisibility) by following him and repeatedly trying to find him by sweeping her staff through his area.

Her character is new, and she flatly refused to let anyone know what the sheet had. She's always been reluctant to share that, but this time she openly stated that nobody would ever see her character sheet.

The DM was made aware that she'd implemented Pathfinder feats/rules in a D&D 3.5 game, so next week won't be pleasant.

We take turns DMing, and if she refuses to let me see her character next time I'm in the DM's seat, her character will be excluded. Really tired of her Bandini

 

[THEMNGMNT]

34th session in my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. 7th level half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

Two sessions ago they were knocked out and captured by the Xanathar Guild. They were shrunk down to 1" tall and fed to Xanathar's pet fish, Sylgar. In the previous session they escaped from the bowl, destroying it in the process, and killing Sylgar. They started this session trapped in the Xanathar's boudoir. They proceeded to:

• Find a magic device that returned them to full size
• Loot the Xanathar's treasure chest, obtaining a Luxon Beacon, a Crystalline Chronicle, and the sentient battle axe Azuredge
• Elude a banderhob enforcer, a night hag torturer, and the Xanathar's personal servant, a blind man wearing a Robe of Eyes.
• Rescue a drow prisoner with whom they have a complicated relationship

However, they are still without most of their gear (or clothes!) so they are looking to avoid combat and find a way out of the lair.

Next session: Escape from the Xanathar! (Or not!)

 

[Older Beholder]

After a bit of a break due to the holidays, I got to run the 4th session for a group of new(ish) players.

In the previous session the group were tasked with defending a magical pool from various invading undead. The session ended with a flameskull having made it to the pool and being transformed into a Demi-Lich.

This session opened with the now Demi Lich attacking the characters, it's main goal was to recover one of the other fallen undead. The group was only level 4, so it was a crazy unbalanced encounter that had three quarters of the party at 0 HP in the first round. The Barbarian was the only character still standing (also the only one without healing) so she attacked the Demi-Lich while an NPC tried to get the rest of the party back on their feet.

The Barbarian rolled a natural 20 on her attack, so I had it knock loose one the Demi-Lich's gemstone eyes. Now I have to consider what the eye of Demi-Lich might be/do.

After the Demi-lich got away the group explored some more and found the lair of an ancient faerie dragon before returning to the city. The session ended with the group securing a small warehouse for a base after clearing it of Gricks and Grells.

A pic of the last encounter setup…

 

[AnotherGuy]

Second session in the Obstacle Course level in the DotMM.
They were chasing down a Succubus, a Purple Wearer of the Cult of the Dragon and two Kytons (Chain Devils) - they found them, defeated the fiends and took the cultist captive. The succubus did make a plea for them to join forces against Netherskull but they were too blood-thirsty and I feel this is going to bite them. Any party deaths will be on them. Near the end of the session the cultist led them to the paladin ghost Fidelio whom they agreed to help.

The teleporation circles have separated the party twice, thankfully they survived and found each other, but they are running desperately low on resources.

All the while Netherskull's lair and regional actions have been acting up distrupting the characters' rests, while Halastar has been annoyingly vocal at inopportune times.
I'm using the DotMM Companion from the Dungeon Masters Guild, which depicts Halaster as a game show host while the PCs are unwilling participants. The Companion has great additional content, highly recommend it for anyone running DotMM.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Last session was my Eberron campaign, “The Gathering Storm”.

A random roll from our Ranger during a rest on the side of the road to Greywall (by way of the town of Crossing, at the border between Breland and Drooam). His ferrets (swarmkeeper ranger) found soemthing interesting, and he went off to check it out.

Found a small hill with a standing stone and some ruins around the carved stone. The inscription was in draconic, and seemed to tell the story of how the writer discovered Druidic magic. Following the ferrets from hill to hill he found a standing stone on each, and realized the hills were making a perfect circle, and the stones told the tale of Varaak, how she created Druidic magic, how she met the primal spirits and the Great Trees, and how she taught Druidic magic to first the orcs, and then to others, including the bugbear culture the Ranger is from.

As he read each stone, the fog between the hills rose and thickened, and the team made all kinds of checks to investigate. Eventually they saw that a mound had appeared in the center of the circle, and small stones in concentric circles from the outer circle to the central mound. They figured out the puzzle, walked each circle in alternating directions reading their inscriptions, and an open stone archway appeared on the southern side of the mound.

The Firbolg Bard/Cleric heard a voice welcoming her, and the party entered the mound, following the eager BoV Paladin whose native language was on some fo the stones.

Inside they found a chamber with 13 passages, same as the number of hills. At the center was a gargantuan sarcophagus with a carving wrapping around the side showing the same story as the stone outside.

Investigation lead them to the conclusion that they had been transported to a place that didn’t exist, created by the thoughts of those who’d seen the Circle of hills and wondered.

the phrase “place that doesn’t exist” perked up the ears of the Paladin, due to a riddle she had found that referenced “A place that does not exist, through a door that cannot be opened, which can only found by those who have forgotten to look for it.”

One of the 13 passageways had a sign over it reading, “Forgotten”, and the Paladin raced down it, and soon yelled for her friends as she found a door with no handle, that she couldn’t neither budge nor break.


Some talk, some of the Monk singing an old song with similar language from his home (which is related to the Paladins whole thing), and the people in the group with no relation to this riddle realize that the stone circles outside map to passageways between the outer rooms of this place, which curve in semi-circular paths with alternating directions, and basically they have to come to the door from the other side to go through it. And then they realize that the people whose cultures had no stories of the Lost Island of ancient myth were the ones that figured it out. “Those who have forgotten to look for it”.

That realization basically ended the session, other than a little poking around some of the other rooms, like the library (special both for being large and well stocked, but also for being well organized), the auditorium (massive, carved out of continuous marble, even the stage and seats), and armory (13 alcoves with different kinds of arms, surrounding a forge heated from underneath).

Next time, we shall see if they can find thier way to that lost world, and what awaits them there if they do.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

11th session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.

Five player characters at Level 2:

• Dwarf Warrior. Heir to a lost kingdom -- in this case, Dwarvenhearth, deep beneath Ptolus. His trinket is half of a treasure map.
• Elf Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, and Chaos.
• Goblin Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions.
• Changeling Magician. An awesome background: Outcast by her "adopted family" and looking for her "sister"--the child she replaced. Her magical themes are light and darkness, using the Celestial and Shadow traditions.
• Human Priest. Cleric of Lothian, the core god of Ptolus. His magical traditions are Life, Theurgy, and Battle. His wife was murdered by undead and now he seeks answers.

The heart of this session was a heist of House Vladaam to obtain a Bane Key. To smooth the planning and execution of the heist, I allowed the players to trade in Fortune points for flashbacks that gave them a little narrative control.

The characters had obtained a scroll with the Locate spell. They cast it outside the estate. It revealed the Bane key was on the third floor -- not in the underground vault like they had assumed. Curious.

Most of the characters quaffed potions of invisibility they had obtained from Jevvica Norr, a friendly wizard aiding them on their quest. The changeling assumed the appearance of Navanna, head of House Vladaam. She bluffed her way into the estate. The invisible characters followed. They beelined for the third floor.

Along the way they encountered a servant who looked just like the changeling's default appearance -- a 14 year old girl. The changeling's identity had been discovered by her mother and father and she was banished from home. She now looks for her "sister" -- the girl she replaced, unknowingly. Well, here the sister is, a servant of Navanna Vladaam.

On the third floor, the characters entered Navanna's bedroom. They located the Bane Key, looted a magical rapier, and snatched an elven grimoire. They also set off an alarm. Guards surged toward the bedroom. The changeling bluffed her way past them, fleeing the estate with her sister in tow.

Outside, the characters reassured the girl of their good intent, then smuggled her out of the Nobles Quarter. The girl revealed that all the servants of House Vladaam are abducted children replaced by changelings created by Navanna's brother, Aliastar. The changeling now knows her origin story...

They returned to their apartment to plan next steps. That's when something ripped a hole in their roof -- a giant construct made of debris clearly summoned by the Vladaams. Simultaneously, a team from the Pactlords struck -- a swarm of stirges controlled by a humanoid stirge called a strigoi. It was a big fight. The strigoi poisoned the elf magician. The changeling was incapacitated and had to make fate rolls to avoid dying. But ultimately the characters triumphed.

What the players have not yet realized is that this whole heist was engineered by Navanna. She wants it to appear as if the Vladaams have lost the Bane Key, while in reality she hopes to eliminate the thieves, recover the Key, and sneak into the Banewarrens. Plausible deniability. Unfortunately for her, things did not according to plan. Yet.

This session was the climactic battle of Act I. All the factions have been introduced and their goals made plain. In Act II, the factions and the characters will fight and scheme their way through the Banewarrens. We're roughly 1/4 of the way through the campaign now, if I had to guess.

At session's end the characters reached Level 3. In SotDL this is a big expansion in power as players can choose their expert path. Very interested to see what choices they make.

Next session: The players want to reunite the girl with her family and relocate them into "witness protection" so the Vladaams cannot exact vengeance.

 

[Bupp]

We finally got around to playing our Halloween one shot!
(major scheduling issues, and the players more interested in our main storyline)

I ran them through the Town of Brigepuddle. Download a FREE 5e Adventure!!!

I ran it differently than I ever ran a session before. I had given the players the whole pre-zombie apocalypse town descriptions in our wiki, and let them decide their starting location and goals. We play over Discord, and usually on Owlbear Rodeo, but instead we were jumping all around a bookmarked Google Doc as our "tabletop".

They chose to start at one of the taverns, and decided their goal was to rescue one of the academics at the university. Apparently our main characters (on the other side of the continent) will need him for something from in the future. (The one character played a time traveling echo knight.)

The party realized right away they needed to stay off the streets, and actually spend most of the adventure swimming around the river looking for a boat. They accomplished their goal, and escaped with the academic and one other civilian from the town!

We all had a great time, one of the players commenting on how the whole session was more like a puzzle than a regular session. They definitely relied on their brains more than their brawn!

 

[Richards]

Today's "Dreams of Erthe" adventure was cut short - probably in half - when one PC discovered she had a potion of gaseous form in her backpack. Since the adventure hook was to try to infiltrate a wizard's keep (on behalf of the wizard's friend, who hadn't seen him in weeks and feared something had happened to him) and both doors had been arcane locked, floating down the chimney flue was a good way to gain entry - but then she explored the entire keep in gaseous form, bypassing all of the traps and guardians the wizard had put in place since she didn't have a physical presence in the rooms she entered. So she checked out the entire keep, determined the missing wizard wasn't there, and deduced the magic window in his third-floor arcane experimentation room was a gate to another plane of existence, which allowed the other PCs to pretty much jump to the end of the adventure. In all, our Saturday session, which generally lasts from noon until 5 or 6 PM, was finished with the adventure at 2 PM. The PCs then leveled up to 6th, but that took the players all the way to 2:30 PM and we were done.

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

35th session in my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. 7th level half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

Three sessions ago they were captured by the Xanathar Guild. Now they are trying to escape the Xanathar's lair without most of their gear (or clothes!).

With them is a drow captive they rescued. This drow, Savraal, is the brother of the wizard's love interest and an on-again, off-again ally (or enemy).

In this session they finally decided that the best course of action was just to run for it. They bolted through the Xanathar's lair to a stairwell that led up to Waterdeep. The stairs were guarded by a troll. The rogue sneak attacked, attempting to maim the troll so they could run past him. The fighter brought up the rear in order to guard the rest of the party. They fled up the stairs, ascending thousands of steps and hundreds of feet. The troll was close behind, and they could hear the sound of more minions joining the pursuit.

Eventually they reached a door. They locked it behind them and set it aflame with a firebolt cantrip. That slowed down the troll. They now found themselves in a guild hideout in the sewers of Waterdeep. I used the sewer map from Chapter 1 of Dragon Heist. The gauth that controlled the hideout was busy incinerating its minions for insubordination, so they were able to use that distraction to reach the lair's barracks. They found some gear and equipped themselves with the basics. But they're still not free of the Xanathar yet!

Next session: Freedom?