D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[ilgatto]

During the last session of my pirate campaign, my players finally confronted a gargantuan octopus/beholder hybrid in a lake on the island of Stoneoar. This creature (named Cyratophobia) (...)

Excellent battle scene!

I would definitely have tried to find out what a "cyrato" was...

 

[Andvari]

While traveling through the woods and hills in search of the kobold lair, my group had a random encounter with a drider sent by the BBEG to assassinate them. Two party members immediately tried to flee as I described the drider as it ambushed them and cast a fireball that enveloped the whole party. Fortunately, they reconsidered and returned to assist the paladin and ranger against the monster.

The drider was more dangerous than I anticipated due to the druid and rogue wasting turns running away and then having to run back, combined with the druid being too scared to attack it with her animal companion and the rogue being too scared to run into melee for sneak attacks. 1d6 shortbow damage against a 95 HP creature just isn't that useful. And the druid's panther could have been doing 2d6+4 points of damage, +1d4 if flanking, per attack.

In our previous session, the party split up as a horde of kobolds attacked the nomad camp they were visting, which resulted in the party's barbarian getting killed. Perhaps that combined with my description of the drider and its initial attack of a powerful spell and hit with its composite bow had turned them cowardly. After all, they had to watch the nomads as they burned their lost ones on funeral pyres, their barbarian friend amongst them. And they don't quite trust the paladin who turned up to join them there, despite him having been sent by one of their benefactors, the bishop of the Temple of Tyr in the city the party is working for.

Fortunately, the dwarf ranger succeeded his Will save against the drider's suggestion spell so he could keep shooting it within its globe of darkness (in Pathfinder 2E, Darkvision sees in darkness unless the spell is heightened). Had he failed the save, he would have been going through all of the party's inventory one item at a time to ensure nothing was missing, while the drider from the relative safety of the darkness globe attempted to murder his friends. The drider eventually got quite low on HP, turned invisible and fled, hoping for another chance to lay the party low. But the druid's panther sniffed out its general location, allowing the druid to get a lucky ray of frost critical hit and killing the monster before it could get away.

As the party got closer to the kobold lair, they and a patrol of 15 kobolds noticed each other from a distance of 220 ft. The dwarf ranger immediately shot a kobold crossbowman through the eye. The kobold rushed to get within range, but soon started barking amongst themselves in panic as a wyvern cast its shadow across the battlefield. The wyvern, having taking an interest in the party, attack them as the kobolds turned tails and fled.

The druid immediately yelled to flee, but fortunately stayed to fight. The wyvern was a similar threat level to the drider, but less intelligent about picking its targets. It swooped down to grab players one by one, stinging them with its tail and dropping them from height. The druid was able to keep them alive easily enough, and eventually the party chased off a greatly wounded wyvern.

Looking forward to the next session. The kobold lair is the first real dungeon setting they'll be in since they explored a small catacomb area at level 2, and I'll get to use my troll minis there. The only party level+2 monsters there will be two wyverns who lair there. But one is already nearly dead from the previous encounter and will back away until forced to fight, and the fresh one won't be as dangerous as it can't leverage its flight ability and attacks within the cave. So hopefully the next few sessions will reset their confidence level a bit so that running away isn't the go to tactic for the druid and rogue. Perhaps they will grow to trust the paladin as well as he continues to prove his valor.

 

[Richards]

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" session (we delayed a day due to injury of one of our players), the five PCs were invited by a nobleman on a wild boar hunt after they saved the son of one of the noblemen from a dream coma. (He'd been dreaming his skeleton crawled out of his mouth, leaving him a helpless flesh-blob. They put the bones back where they belonged.) That, of course, meant no armor and none of their traditional weapons, merely a longspear and a rapier each, with a strong horse to ride and two commoners leading three hunting dogs to sniff out the prey.

They eventually found a small group of eight wild boars, which scattered in all directions. The PCs managed to slay two of them on their own, while the three NPC noblemen made a bit of a hash of it (they kept rolling low on their attacks). Three of the boars seemed abnormally intelligent (moving into flanking positions instead of merely attacking from the closest position), but eventually six of them managed to flee off the edges of the battle map.

The PCs and noblemen pursued, and the wild boars ran into a clearing with a simple log cabin and a nearby cave opening. The PCs allowed the noblemen to take the lead (hopefully so they could at least kill one boar between them and save a little face), but all they did was trigger a tripwire trap that nearly killed two of them. Our two cleric PCs healed them up while the boars ran behind the cabin. Our spellsword approached the cabin and stepped into a shallow pit trap, getting a bear trap caught around his ankle. The cabin's inhabitant was a human wereboar ranger, who battled two PCs while the three other wereboars (the "smart" boars from the first part of the adventure) took on the other PCs and the three normal boars ran into the cave, which alerted the female hill giant dire wereboar that there was trouble. By the time she made an appearance, the PCs had slain the other wereboars (and accidentally set the cabin ablaze with a misfired scorching ray), but our cleric-paladin managed to calm her down with a calm emotions spell, at which time they decided to skedaddle rather than face her in combat when the spell wore off.

And then everyone leveled up to 9th level.

Johnathan

 

[Imaculata]

Total party wipe! My first in... ever!
After our party fled the bad guys and their creepy castle, they came after us with a vengeance. It did not go well for us.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First session of a short adventure in my own rpg, Quest for Chevar.

Teddy the Human Bridger, Eskinder the Were-Hyena Maker, and George the Werewolf Benedante, hired by an NPC I’ve used before, a Human Alchemist named Garret Ayala.

The adventure starts in a kitchen in a farmhouse in Tehachapi California, in September of this year. Our three Rangers are getting information from a local, who is Wise but doesn’t get involved in fighting unless he has to. But information, healing, crafting, these he’s happy to do.

Turns out a string of deaths in the Tehachapi mountains might be connected to the supernatural world, and so the Ranger Captain of the region has asked Garret to gather a team and look into it.

A few quick rolls to get their bearings, and they’re off down to Bakersfield to talk to local Elders, Ester and Bernice Valmont.

Lots of investigation and research and making phone calls and calling upon contacts, and they figure out that there is a spell being laid in a ring through the mountains around Kern country, and the mystical pollution of that spell is reaching from the coast to the Mojave, and from the northern end of LA up to Fresno, which is a huge area. Like, immense. The focus of the spell is an old Methodist church in a railway ghost town by Tehachapi, called Tehichipa.

They also gather other useful intel, but that’s the main points. When they leave the house a car matching the description of a car they need to find drives by, full of people they need to talk to or investigate. Seems they were being spied on.

The sessions ended at the very start of the chase.

It was awesome. Idk if it sounds awesome but it was awesome.

 

[Cadence]

Wrong thread!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

First session of a short adventure in my own rpg, Quest for Chevar.

Teddy the Human Bridger, Eskinder the Were-Hyena Maker, and George the Werewolf Benedante, hired by an NPC I’ve used before, a Human Alchemist named Garret Ayala.

The adventure starts in a kitchen in a farmhouse in Tehachapi California, in September of this year. Our three Rangers are getting information from a local, who is Wise but doesn’t get involved in fighting unless he has to. But information, healing, crafting, these he’s happy to do.

Turns out a string of deaths in the Tehachapi mountains might be connected to the supernatural world, and so the Ranger Captain of the region has asked Garret to gather a team and look into it.

A few quick rolls to get their bearings, and they’re off down to Bakersfield to talk to local Elders, Ester and Bernice Valmont.

Lots of investigation and research and making phone calls and calling upon contacts, and they figure out that there is a spell being laid in a ring through the mountains around Kern country, and the mystical pollution of that spell is reaching from the coast to the Mojave, and from the northern end of LA up to Fresno, which is a huge area. Like, immense. The focus of the spell is an old Methodist church in a railway ghost town by Tehachapi, called Tehichipa.

They also gather other useful intel, but that’s the main points. When they leave the house a car matching the description of a car they need to find drives by, full of people they need to talk to or investigate. Seems they were being spied on.

The sessions ended at the very start of the chase.

It was awesome. Idk if it sounds awesome but it was awesome.

Following the above playtest session for my game system Quest for Chevar:

It was a bit rough. Sinusitis had me a bit off at the start, and I dragged out a simple scene where they tailed the station wagon full of cultists all the way back to the Tehachapi area. Really good rolls and ideas meant they didn’t get spotted at all the whole time, and they took out a tire up in the mountains on a two lane road through a ghost town. Perfect place for a fight. If only it hadn’t gotten almost to 9pm by that point…

During the “chase”, they made their initiative checks. In QfC initiative checks are checks made before a conflict or at the start of it, wherein each PC tries to find or create an advantage over the opposition. This can be nearly anything, but requires a skill check. Any success adds 1 initiative die to a pool, as do things like having the high ground, and before Phase 1 of the first round begins, you roll a check using the combined initiative dice of the group.

Eg, each of the 3 PCs succeeded on thier checks, and Teddy got a critical success, which adds an extra die forward that can be used either on initiative or during the conflict. She chooses to use it immediately, so the group rolls 1d12 action die plus 4d6 initiative dice, and get a total in the low 20s, which means a total success. The Rangers have the initiative, and get to choose turn orders and have access to certain tactical options the opposition doesn’t.

The fight starts, with George, Teddy, and the NPC companion Garret taking an Aggressive stance, and Eskinder taking a Ready stance. To interrupt any big magic.

Problems arise from there. It takes Eskinder 2 rounds to clear 12 yards, firstly. Now, he could have done it by sacrificing his action, but he already used 1 of 2 of his Quick Actions (combined bonus and reaction, in 5e D&D terms) to increase his speed.

Then the attacks are traded, and things really show the warts. Basically PCs deal too little damage, and mitigate too little damage with defense checks.

We wrap at the end of round 2, and talk a little about the pain points with the new attack and defense rules we are trying out, with the clarity of building characters that can kick ass (George didn’t feel especially badass even in wolf mode as a shifter), and movement.

Next time we may replay the scene from the ride to Tehachapi with some adjustments.

Overall not a great session, but very informative.

Also I hadn’t had time to print out the enemies, so I was tabbing between the adventure notes, rules, and enemy stats document, which wasn’t ideal.

 

[Richards]

On Wednesday night's "Ghourmand Vale" session, we were guests at a club, sitting in the balcony watching an NPC bard friend sing a bunch of songs (two of which had been penned by my PC, each focused on a member of our four-person adventuring party), when we recognized a serving girl as a vampire spawn we had encountered in a city a week's travel to the north. We went back downstairs, through the kitchen and out into the back alley, where we found her taking the dead body of a serving girl she'd slain and walking off. We attacked her and brought her down to negative hp (like we had done earlier when we had first met her weeks ago), only this time it wasn't foggy out and we were able to track her to her coffin - or so we thought, because she went out into a field and seeped into a hole in the ground at the bottom of a ravine. (Her coffin is likely in a cave down there somewhere, but we have no way into the cave at present.) In any case, sitting on top of the hole and looking like a brush heap was a tendriculos, which gave us quite a run for our money, swallowing, paralyzing, and nearly killing our half-elf paladin (seriously, another round and I think he'd have been done for). it also swallowed our archer, but luckily despite its regenerative properties, i was able to pummel it with scorching rays and magic missile spells (and our paralyzed paladin, inside the creature's gut, held a flaming burst longsword whose fire continued to deal damage from inside the creature even though the paladin was unable to move). So we killed the tendriculos, determined there was no way to get to the vampire spawn, and returned to the club in time for the after-party, at which time we found out the songs had been a real hit and I was paid 15 gp for having written the two songs. So now my PC, a human sorcerer adventurer, will be adding "songwriter" to his list of accreditations.

After the adventure, I released the third song, about our archer (the first two dealt with the paladin and our rogue), which means the fourth will be about my own PC.

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Total party wipe! My first in... ever!
After our party fled the bad guys and their creepy castle, they came after us with a vengeance. It did not go well for us.

I want details!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

40th session of Monte Cook's 3E Banewarrens campaign run with Shadow of the Demon Lord on Owlbear Rodeo.

Five player characters at Level 7:

• Dwarf Executioner/Berserker/Warrior. He seeks the Axehammer of the Lost Clan, rumored to be in the Banewarrens.
• Elf Librarian/Wizard/Magician. Outcast from elven lands, raised in Ptolus, keeper of a dark secret. His magical traditions are Arcana, Teleportation, Chaos, and Fey.
• Goblin Pyromancer/Oracle/Magician. Responsible for the destruction of his tribe. Specialized in the Fire and Forbidden magic traditions, with a dose of Divination.
• Changeling Dervish/Spellbinder/Rogue. Created by House Vladaam to replace a child they kidnapped and held in servitude. Naturally, she wants revenge. Two weapon fighter with the Battle tradition.
• Human Defender/Paladin/Priest. Cleric of Lothian, the primary god of Ptolus. His magical traditions are Life, Theurgy, and Battle. His wife was murdered by undead and now he seeks answers.

The characters debated whether or not to stay in the Banewarrens or return to the surface and alert the Church of Lothian to the danger posed by Matthias von Witten, leader of the Dreadsworn undead cult. They decided to stay and push on to the Baneheart.

To my disappointment, they successfully navigated a really wicked trapped room that could have stolen their magic weapons and then crushed them flat.

They broke their own rule of never opening Vault Doors. Why? Someone got curious. Inside the Vault Door was the Doom Fog, which gives permanent amnesia to anyone it engulfs. Unfortunately (again) the players made their saving throws. The fog rolled out of the room, deeper into the Banewarrens, on its way up to Ptolus. Ooops.

The characters then solved a riddle posed by a magical statue imbued with a spirit of goodness. With that, they each got a fortune point and a way out of this section of the dungeon, the first map of the Inner Vaults.

Next session: Banebrutes!