D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Hexmage-EN]

The harengon barbarian, plasmoid fighter, halfling cleric, and their satyr companion all ended up reconvening with each other at a dryad's tree and were requested to go deal with an ettercap. The monster has both been eating smaller fey and has also kidnapped a halfling tinkerer. The group headed towards the ettercap's lair, defeating some twig blights (with the help of a swarm of magical birds who have been following the harengon due to enjoying her flute playing), heckled some red caps who were immobilized by a curse making their iron boots too heavy to walk in, and encounterd some frightening illusions and animated roots in the tunnels of the ettercap's lair.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn’t die!
It was a close call, but in this last Saturday’s game in my buddy’s world, my level 10 rogue/wizard managed to not die at he hands of a behir that kept rolling 5 and 6 on it’s damn recharge roll, so it had a lightning breath every single round!

I’ve got 59hp, and no evasion until next rogue level, but I managed to save 3 times, and use Ansorb Elements to keep the damage low. Even then, it took some heals to keep me up.

Finally got the kill shot with a Shadowblade Booming Blade with sneak attack, for almost 40 damage, just as we were preparing to run and regroup. DM let’s me put my own sauce in my Spellcasting, so I described Shadowblade as me reaching into the shadows, grabbing hold of something, and drawing out a blade from the darkness, and then when it did enough damage to kill the thing I described myself grabbing it by the jaw, stabbing into its throat, and opening it all the way to the jaw in one quick motion as I launched myself off the window it was poking its head out of.

Very satisfying lol

But I was down below 10hp twice. Definitely a case where the heals were better spent before the character dropped. (IME that is usually the case)

 

[THEMNGMNT]

12th session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.

Five player characters at Level 3:

• Dwarf Fighter/Warrior. Heir to a lost kingdom -- in this case, Dwarvenhearth, deep beneath Ptolus. His trinket is half of a treasure map.
• Elf Wizard/Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, Chaos, and Fey.
• Goblin Oracle/Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions.
• Changeling Spellbinder/Magician. Outcast by her "adopted family" and looking for her "sister"--the child she replaced. Celestial and Battle traditions.
• Human Paladin/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.

This was a short session as two players were out. We spent a good amount of time reviewing the abilities of the characters, who just made the jump to Level 3 and their Expert Path. Fun stuff. SotDL requires that characters replace all their gear when they choose a new path, so the characters are effectively broke once more. Which is one of the things they love about SotDL. Players spent most of the session reviewing their options and planning next steps. It was clear that their newly acquired Bane Key was desired by multiple factions. Ultimately they decided the smartest move was to take the Bane Key and get back into the Banewarrens as quickly as possible.

Next session: Back to the dungeon!

 

[Richards]

Our last "Raiders of the Overreach" session was suboptimal. As two of our PCs needed atonement (they had agreed to secretly serve the illithid Elder God we were supposed to be fighting, swayed by the prospect of a permanent +6 CHA bonus for the sorceress and a permanent +6 CON bonus for the barbarian), and had only recently come to the realization their bargain had consequences - as in there was a good chance they were going to mutate into tentacle-monsters the next time they were exposed to the chaos energies of the Far Realm. So this whole adventure was a trip to the Halls of Redemption, a hall of mirrors overseen by a celestial, where one could face one's demons (in the form of mirror duplicates who would try to kill you).

It should have been a pretty easy mission, too - and would have been, if anyone had listened to me. There are mirrors on either side of the Hall with a wide red carpet going down the middle. It's only when you stray off the carpet that you get within range of the mirrors to spawn a mirror duplicate. So I thought it would be in our best interests to have all of us stay on the red carpet, then have only one PC at a time step forward to summon a duplicate. That would then be a 5-on-1 fight in our favor; five such fights and we'd be in the clear.

So what did the party do? They sent both of the two PCs who actually needed the atonement (the other three of us were just along for the support) to opposite ends of the Hall, to summon two mirror duplicates at once. The cleric and barbarian had worked out this scheme where the cleric would cast a silence spell on the barbarian, who would then use his great speed to run over to the mirror-sorceress, preventing her from spellcasting. Of course, the mirror-duplicates each got their own initiatives, so the mirror-sorceress got to act before the cleric. And as soon as the duplicates of the barbarian and the sorceress stepped out of their mirrors, the +6 ability score bonuses were stripped from the PCs and added to the duplicates (who had stepped out with a +6 bonus already in play, so this bumped them up to +12 each - a tough fight indeed, but who ever expected an atonement to be a cake walk?).

And, as a mirror-duplicate, she had the exact same spells known as the real sorceress. And to make things worse, we had just leveled up to 18th level the session before, so the sorceress had just gotten her first 9th-level spell and she had chosen wail of the banshee. So that's what the mirror-sorceress went with as her opening salvo (and can you blame her?), resulting in the immediate deaths of the sorceress and our dwarven fighter. The remaining three of us had all we could do to take out the mirror-barbarian (fortunately for us, the mirror-sorceress returned to her mirror upon the death of her original), at the end of which I was ready for a full-fledged retreat, knowing our cleric could return the two slain PCs to life.

But the DM went easy on us, with the celestial providing a free true resurrection on our fallen PCs and offering another attempt. So I used my lizardfolk PC's low Intelligence as a means of asking questions he didn't understand. "Why did we activate two mirrors at once instead of one at a time? And why not two mirrors right next to each other instead of two across the room from each other? If we wanted the mirror-sorceress to be inside a silence spell, why didn't we have the spell cast on a coin and thrown over by the mirror she would step out of, so she couldn't cast a spell before we were able to get the spell over to her? If our barbarian's mirror-duplicate has already been slain, couldn't he stand by the mirror with his greataxe ready to strike the duplicates when they stepped out of the mirror?"

Eventually, we started using some more solid tactics (although after having slain the mirror-sorceress in one round while inside a silence spell, the cleric stepped forward to do the same thing to his mirror-clone, only to point out after he had done so that he had a rod of silent spell that allowed him to cast spells of up to 6th level inside a silence spell - sometimes, we're our own worst enemies!) and were eventually successful. The three of us "companion" PCs who hadn't needed atonement spells got to choose between "knowledge" and "power" as our rewards; the cleric used his "knowledge" reward to check on a friend's satisfaction with his status as a drow matron's "boy toy" while the dwarf fighter and my lizardfolk both got free weapon upgrades. My PC might only have a 6 INT, but he's no dummy!

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

Tonight's "Raiders of the Overreach" was much better. We teleported to a cloud island cavern, the location of the next Writhing Gate we were to destroy, and this one was supposed to have the last remaining members of the drow House Bel'vior who were enemies to our own House. But when we got there, the first thing we ended up fighting were a pair of 48-HD advanced greater air elementals, which the DM had given electrical attacks in place of the standard whirlwind abilities. Then, while we were engaging them, the five drow popped out - a cleric of Uboros (the illithid Dying One we're trying to take down by destroying all ten Writhing Gates) and four fighters. It was a combat slog, but we eventually took them all down - and gained 19th level as a result.

There should now be about 4 game sessions left to this campaign, then we're switching DMing hats and allowing one of our players to give it a try behind the DM screen, something he hasn't done since the AD&D 1E days.

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

13th session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.

Five player characters at Level 3:

• Dwarf Fighter/Warrior. Heir to a lost kingdom -- in this case, Dwarvenhearth, deep beneath Ptolus. His trinket is half of a treasure map.
• Elf Wizard/Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, Chaos, and Fey.
• Goblin Oracle/Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions.
• Changeling Spellbinder/Magician. Outcast by her "adopted family" and looking for her "sister"-- the child she replaced. Celestial and Battle traditions.
• Human Paladin/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.

In the previous session, the characters stole the Bane Key from the sinister House Vladaam. The changeling discovered that she had been been created by the Vladaams, who had swapped her for a human child -- her "sister" -- kept as a servant in their household. In fact, all the servants and guards of House Vladaam were abducted as children and replaced with changelings.

The session opened with the players meeting their contacts from the Church of Lothian at a safe house. They asked the Church to take the changeling's sister and keep her and her family safe from the Vladaams. There was a tearful goodbye.

The characters travelled back through the sewers to the Banewarrens. Rather than use the key to unlock the door leading deeper into the Banewarrens, they decided to spend more time exploring the Broken Seal area.

They used the key to open a magically sealed vault door. From the vault emerged three ghoul-like undead, their skin flayed from their bodies. The fight was brutal. The changeling went down fast, and the wizard followed in the next turn. The paladin was able to use his healing magic to get everyone back on their feet. Eventually all three undead were destroyed. The vault itself held nothing of value of interest. The players are beginning to wonder if all these locked doors in the Banewarrens are locked for a reason...

They then used the Bane Key to do what they had come here to do -- open the door leading into the Outer Vaults. They entered and began to explore. The Outer Vault entrance is riddled with traps around every corner. Fortunately the characters were cautious.

As a DM, I have never before run a large dungeon. I'm both nervous and excited to see how this plays. So far, so good. Really curious to see if Monte Cook keeps it interesting or if it will devolve into a slog. If the latter, I can cut whole sections out of the Banewarrens and shorten the campaign.

Soon it occurred to the players they had left the door to the Outer Vaults open behind them. They returned to the main door only to discover that their Bane Key opens doors -- but it cannot close them. For that they'll need a different key. Which means they have opened the way for their enemies to follow.

As that realization dawned, they heard another group approaching...

Next session: Pactlords of the Quaan!

 

[Richards]

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign I ran a quick side-mission to a hidden gnome market; I had decided in this campaign there weren't going to be magic shops, but now that the PCs are 6th level and have amassed a decent amount of gold I want them to be able to spend it on something besides the occasional potion or scroll. (Single-use items can easily be found for sale.) So the Hidden Market is run by a group of ten gnomes who specialize in procuring magic items for a select client list and the PCs were invited to join that illustrious circle. All but one of the five PCs bought something, the fifth didn't have enough money on hand for what she wanted but put down a down-payment.

Then the real adventure, "Serpentine Dreams," began. They awakened the latest dream victim who was dreaming of being bound by ropes and calling for help to escape. However, when the PCs cut his ropes in the dreamscape, he still called to be rescued, demanding they peel off his skin. Eventually, one PC tried cutting him in half (knowing full well it was just a dream and hoping to get it to start over from the beginning so he could see who had tied him up), but this only allowed a snake to crawl out of the hollow human and thank them for freeing him. When he awoke, he recognized the heroes from his dream and blurted out to his parents, "They saw me in my true form! They know what we are!"

That was actually a bit premature (as the players hadn't yet figured out what was going on), but the farming village was slowly being taken over by a band of yuan-ti, led by the new cleric at the Temple of the Goddess of Harvest (after having slain the previous cleric and leaving a note from him saying he had to leave on a personal family emergency). The PCs had to fight off not only the townsfolk already transformed into yuan-ti but also a half dozen normal human farmers who had been told the PCs were bandits attacking the family whose son they had just rescued from the dream. That made the fight a bit more difficult, but for the most part they managed only to kill the right people and were able to prove to the rest what the yuan-ti had been up to.

Johnathan

 

[not-so-newguy]

Link to blog post recap. Warning: there's cursing. Also I did my best to make sense of the chaos, but I may have failed. At least there's a couple of pics

#4 A Beautiful Mess, Part 1: Shock & Aaawe Yeah

Please check out "#3 Observations of the Jawalaas" before reading this. The post will have the same pic as the one to the left here. It might help explain things a bit. Also everyone is getting 500 xp bonus......Flo'rel was in a moral quandary as he raced after Cid (aka "El Cid" / aka "The Rook"...

admo3of4.wixsite.com

 

[cbwjm]

Last session was pretty much just roleplay as we locked our wounds, met the replacement character for our bard, who died in the opening salvo of a dragon headed hydra, and geared up to head back into the dungeon that we recently fled from. I think everyone is looking to get back to some combat encounters, though without the dragon headed hydras.

 

[Older Beholder]

At level 18 now, and we're getting ready for the end of campaign battle with dragon cultists / dragons / etc that are intent on summoning Tiamat. There's 10 days to enlist as many people as we can for final fight.

We made a deal with a Devil for aid, I also cast Planar Ally to enlist help from some angels, (I'm thinking of trying this again to maybe seek aid from some elementals.)

Then we headed off to find a floating castle run by dragons and cultists that we'd encountered previously in the campaign, with the aim of stopping this group joining the battle on the other side. As we were flying in a dozen Ogres as well as a Red and Black dragon attacked, the session ended after a pretty epic battle.

At one point the Red dragon used it's breath weapon on my character and our monk, we both saved so the monk took no damage, and my character took half from the save, halved again from being fire resistant (Fire Genasi) and half again for having armor that's resistant to dragons breath attacks. All up resulting in 8 damage total.

We heard there is an ancient dragon somewhere in the castle as well, so we have that to look forward to next session.