D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

14th 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. Created by House Vladaam to replace a child they kidnapped and held in servitude. Naturally, she wants revenge. 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.

The player characters have just breached the seal to the Outer Vaults. However, a strike team from the Pactlords of the Quaan entered the Banewarrens and began trailing them. At the start of the session the players debated whether or not to ambush the Pactlords. Ultimately they decided against it. Instead, they withdrew into the Outer Vaults and began to explore.

In their explorations, the PCs set off several traps. One trap froze the dwarf solid. The PCs had to lasso him and drag him out of the trap, then thaw him with torches. Elsewhere, they found a puzzle room with a series of levers. The cleric threw one of the levers and vanished. After some discussion, the other players decided to throw the lever and follow him to whatever waited on the other side. It was a reckless decision but courageous. I loved seeing it. They were all teleported above a pit trap. They barely managed to grab the edge before they fell to their deaths. Finally, they stumbled into a booby trapped corridor. Several gems inset into the walls fired beams of energy at them. They used a combination of magic and might to yank the gems out of the wall -- loot! The session ended with the PCs battling an undead monstrosity called a Chainbound.

The Banewarrens is more of an old school dungeon crawl than I anticipated. Neither me nor most of my players are experienced with that style of play. It's punishing. Yet the players are having a blast.

Next session: Deeper into the Banewarrens!

 

[el-remmen]

Fantastic!

Alston and His Big Folk went to investigate word of an entire forest on the march, leading to the potential destruction of nearby human settlements and an ecological disaster. Arriving they encountered a large force of four ogres and 12 goblins, led by two trolls, which they surprised though both sides had to deal with trying to avoid being pummeled, impaled, or trampled by moving trees!

At one point one of the players said (very seriously), "This is where we die." Two PCs ended up nearly dying, being carried off by the trolls unconscious for a later snack, but quick thinking got them free. Unfortunately, in using fire to fight the trolls, the set part of the moving forest on fire. Later, they ran into some firbolgs in the guise of fey children but gained their trust enough to see their true forms and learn some of what was going on - though why the trees were moving was still unclear. When the druid used speak with plants to talk to a tree, it explained in its slow myopic way, that the forest was obey the commands of the Forest Queen of the Tree Shepherds (so the party figured, treants?) The firblgs explained that the troll forces had devastated their community and the six young adult firbolgs that were left (the children, elderly and adolescents were sent away to safety) had pledged a blood oath to destroy the troll forces even if it meant giving up their own lives and burning down the whole forest in the process

They left off splitting the duties of dealing with the threat. While the firbolgs would be investigating some caves where they though the troll chieftainess might be, the PCs head off in the direction of a dry river gorge where another source had suggested they might find a rebel faction of goblins to recruit to their purpose.

 

[the Jester]

It was great, we actually played in person for the first time in forever.

I'm running an episodic module-based game using an alternate xp system where you get 1 xp per gp you spend on "ale and whores"- basically anything that doesn't actually provide anyone with any benefit. The first adventure I'm running is "The Whispering Cairn," the first Age of Worms adventure. This was our third session, and nobody has gotten any xp yet! - but they did end the session having reached town and able to do so before next session starts. This time the party met a farmboy ghost, found his bones, took them to bury them, discovered that his family's remains had been stolen, found a severed arm, and made a wee little furry and feathered friend.

 

[TarionzCousin]

It was great, we actually played in person for the first time in forever.

I'm running an episodic module-based game using an alternate xp system where you get 1 xp per gp you spend on "ale and whores"- basically anything that doesn't actually provide anyone with any benefit. The first adventure I'm running is "The Whispering Cairn," the first Age of Worms adventure. This was our third session, and nobody has gotten any xp yet! - but they did end the session having reached town and able to do so before next session starts. This time the party met a farmboy ghost, found his bones, took them to bury them, discovered that his family's remains had been stolen, found a severed arm, and made a wee little furry and feathered friend.

Congratulations on getting to play in person.

I have run Whispering Cairn and really like it. Did they explore it all?

 

[wedgeski]

After narrowly escaping a mind-flayer laboratory (with one PC insensate amd another in dire need of a new brain), the party regrouped in Waterdeep to report to the Lords Alliance on a truly dreadful set of discoveries down in Athkatla. Wild elves are being used as carriers for a curse that can summon Demogorgon and Chaotic forces in Amn are preparing to enact the ritual. The mind flayer connection has everyone stumped, but a decision has been made to return to the city and deal with the Demogorgon connection once and for all.

 

[the Jester]

Congratulations on getting to play in person.

I have run Whispering Cairn and really like it. Did they explore it all?

Yeah, up to where they need Alistair's help. They actually solved the notorious tpk trap/puzzle- you probably know the one I mean- before they even found it! Next time they'll be trying to deal with the bones/missing remains. I'm pretty sure they will level up, too, since they're in town and can burn some $$.

EDIT: I really like the adventure, too- it's got a pretty great mix of types of encounters, a little of everything.

 

[Blue]

We started a new Theros campaign recently and had our second session. We have been making decent progress on the plot, but we have such a fantastic crew of characters we're spending even more than our usual on incidental RP.

Acastus is our ship's cook wizard. Who seems more into finding recipies for seafood than finding recipes for spells. His Grease spell smells like bacon. The player is great, but sometimes a little quiet - though willing to get into philosophical debate. Especially about death and destiny.

Ember is a anvilwrought forge cleric. It is the first time their player is trying an accent and she is killing it. (Ember is ungendered.) They value hard work and one day says instead of dying she we be recycled into something greater. She has managed to keep hidden that she can't taste so as not to offend our chef.

Psaras is an elder, dignified triton paladin, slightly inspired by Sturm from Dragonlance. He's a bit full of himself, but in a slightly bumbling way that makes it hilarious for the rest of the players. He's also not completely accustomed to how landlubbers do things.

Spyros is a satyr hunter - rogue by class but not by mindset. He's still finding himself. He's definitely got ADHD, though whether it's focusing on everything that catches his interest (what is percieved as the "oh shiny" distraction from the outside) or hyperfixating on something, or just stimming. He is honestly confused about the poleis (Polis = city in Ancient Greek terms, and the plural is poleis) because why how can people live so close to each other without becoing friends. He is writing a journal of his journeys, and is a bit of a poet - including coming up with an impromptu death poem when Psaras went down first session.

One of the big things behind Theros is piety to your gods, and the DM made sure we knew that before Session 0. So we all have characters that have some strong opinions. So we have hilarious tears punctuated by in-game philosophy. Is very satisfying.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

36th session in my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. 7th level half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

Short session. The player characters finally escaped the Xanathar's lair. With them was a drow captive, Savraal, who is the brother of the wizard's love interest and an on-again, off-again ally (or enemy). Savraal convinced the PCs that the Xanathar's minions were raiding the drow lair, and the wizard's love interest was in grave danger. After debating their options, the PCs agreed to follow Savraal into the drow lair. The characters leveled up to 8th.

Next session: Drow!

 

[Musing Mage]

Been a while since I posted, but here's a short version of recent events:

Team 'Good,' my in-person 1e table game which currently has a roster of Arash (5th lvl Human Ranger); Bodlhakh (4th lvl Human Monk); Ersey (3rd/4th lvl Gnome Fighter/Thief); and Ry-Lee (4th lvl Human Druid). (Feltuun the dwarf met a grisly end after a 50ft fall, and Kyla the Kensai is on sebbatical both as player and therefore character.)

Team good was investigating the Pod Caverns of the Sinister Shroom, going in for quick sorties and retreating - trimming the Sinister Shroom's forces by attrition. Finally, with only a few baddies and the Shroom left, the team (not realizing just how close they were) decided that the dungeon had beaten them and gave up, but not before finding a shrunken bag of holding in a nesting doll. After identifying the bag, they restored its size and sold it for some good cash and leveled up. They passed all the information of the Shroom's activities they had along to the Purple Dragons and moved on.

Currently, they are descending into the depths of the Earth, running through the 2e Module 'Shattered Circle.' I have never run this one, so it's brand new for all of us. So far so good. This was our proper recent session (sorry for padding, just catching up). They investigated the first level, slew some shadow spiders and a couple of Chitines, avoided some traps, and mapped half of the level before retreating out. The druid proved to be the MVP action hero with his Shillalegh and some max damage hits against the shadow spiders, but the Ranger's plea for everyone to start fighting as a unit and not doing their own thing in combat made a difference as they started planning out strategies instead of just barreling into fights.

The real meat of things will begin next session in two weeks. Should be fun!

 

[OB1]

Just had the climatic session of a two year Wildemount campaign that began on Roll20 in the first months of the pandemic. This was only our 3rd in person session (mostly due to it being easier to schedule online than irl) of the campaign, and what a glorious end it was.

The session picked up moments after using a Wish spell to travel 3 hours back in time to try and prevent the evil Cerberus Assembly from acquiring an Age of Arcanum superweapon in the form of a powerful, wizard modified Tarrasque that had been contained by the curse of the Savilirwood (which the party had just recently ended, not knowing about the Tarrasque).

In the previous session, the party had a chance to destroy the beast, but decided to try and find some more advantages for the fight, only to later discover that they returned too late and wished themselves back in time to give it another go (there is a whole lot of time travel rules and shenanigans I won't go into here, but suffice it to say, they found an interesting loophole that I decided to allow them to exploit.)

After a quick meeting with the Brightqueen, the party made their way back into the long lost Biological Weapons Production center below the ruins of Molysmar in the Savalirwood to destroy the creature. After an epic, 4 hour, 13 round combat in which every PC was knocked to 0 HP at least once, 3 characters were saved from being swallowed before death by acid damage, and the party's only cleric rolled a Nat20 with 2 failed death saves on the board then promptly casted Heal on the battered group of adventurers, the party slayed the beast and went back to their tree home in Bysaes Tyll to clean up and party with an Archfey.

I've never heard a group cheer like they did when that Cleric hit the Nat20 on his death save, it completely changed the direction of the combat in round 8. They may have had a chance without him, but it likely would have been just the fighter walking out of there alive. I freaking love this game.

Will have a wrap up session next week to tie up loose storylines, but it was an amazing final challenge to wrap up 20 levels and 60+ sessions of play. Next up, my long planned campaign set in my heavily modified version of Sigil.