D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

47th and 48th sessions of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. Three player characters at level 9: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

They are in a pitched battle with an Arcane Brotherhood wizard, a major campaign antagonist. Using the Book of Vile Darkness he intends to turn himself into a demigod with a ritual involving the fighter's mother. All he needs to complete it is a chalice possessed by the characters. The wizard has fortified himself in an abandoned seatower off the coast of Waterdeep. The tower is full of undead the wizard raised, including the fighter's stepfather, now a Death Knight.

The most recent session opened with the characters surrounding the wizard. They had the numerical advantage, but they were running low on hit points, spells, etc. The wizard offered to trade them the chalice for the fighter's mother -- and everyone could just walk away. They accepted. What the wizard didn't realize is that the magic of the chalice was exhausted. (The characters had used it to resurrect a dozen NPCs; long story.) The wizard completed the ritual and drank from the chalice...and was transformed into a Bodak. As the wizard screamed in agony and horror, the characters brought him down for the last time.

The Death Knight reappeared, now free of the wizard's control. He was flying outside the tower. (Can Death Knights fly? This one can.) With a wave of his hand he ripped away the exterior wall to where the characters were. The tower began to rumble, shake, and collapse. The characters grabbed the fighter's mom, who was unconscious. The Death Knight monologued semi-villainously...explaining why he was no longer interested in vengeance against them, as he had been in life. He took the Book of Vile Darkness and began to fly away.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, the wizard hit the Death Knight with a fireball -- snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Sighing, the Death Knight turned around. (Can undead sigh? This one can.) The players fled down the staircase toward the ground floor, as the Death Knight pursued them through the collapsing building.

Next session: Daddy issues!

 

[Nightfly]

My character dropped dead without taking a single point of damage. He died of fear! So sad. Fortunately, the rest of the party revived him. But still, kind of embarrassing, right?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

49th session of my Neverwinter campaign. Three 9th level characters: half-orc vengeance paladin, human genie warlock, drow evoker wizard.

The characters are infiltrating the residence of the Tower Arcane's ambassador to Neverwinter. (Tower Arcane is my version of the Arcane Brotherhood.) They want to steal his spellbook, which is themed around teleportation, and is being used to gate in personnel and supplies that will be used for nefarious purposes.

In this session, the paladin dueled with a wizard/warrior. I used the CR10 stat block for a Gith Gish, IIRC, which is a great stat block and a formidable opponent. Unfortunately, my virtual dice were cold, and the battle turned in favor of the paladin.

Meanwhile, the warlock and wizard moved through the residence, overcoming illusions and discovering hidden magic items. On the second floor, they encountered a crystalline golem that shot laser beams and cast hypnotic pattern. It easily shrugged off their spells. They fled. It followed.

Next session: Nefarious schemes revealed! For realz this time.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Session 5 of Free League's edition of Twilight: 2000. This time, I'm a player! Player characters:

• 26 year old American spy with a history of criminality
• 56 year old Polish truck driver who spent 30 years in prison
• 33 year old American special forces NCO who is career military
• Not-sure-how-old American who has done literally everything: military, police, criminal, blue collar
• Me: The Baroness Petra von Breza, age 30, Polish special forces descended from a noble family

We are defending a small village where the military-age men and women are being kidnapped by marauders from a nearby city. A dozen marauders, their police car, and APC vs our 5 characters and a handful of old people.

Lots of time spent maneuvering and closing the distance. Actually kind of fun.

The police car drove into the town, with a passenger throwing a white phosphorus grenade into the town church. The leader of the townsfolk took some splash from the white phosphorus. As the police car rolled to a stop, nearly our entire team focused their aim on the police car.

Meanwhile, the APC rolled in. My character had the RPG. I fired. The explosive charge hit the APC, destroyed the radio, and damaged the suspension. One more hit would destroy the APC. Unfortunately, the gunner turned his weapon on me, striking me in the head, and scored a critical hit that fractured my skull. My character was knocked prone, losing a turn. And the RPG still needed to be reloaded.

Two Soviet soldiers got out of the police car and were immediately blown apart by our trusty villagers. Our Special Forces NCO used his .50 to kill the driver behind the wheel. The passenger sat frozen, suppressed.

More marauders deployed from the APC. They tried to enter the church but were blown away by villagers. The APC gunner turned his heavy machinegun on this group of villagers and cut down all but one. A continuing back and forth between the villagers and the marauders saw the villagers come out ahead, but just slightly.

Finally recovering I loaded the RPG. The APC continued to chew up anyone that came in its sights. It had maneuvered deep into the village, putting it in medium range, slightly lowering the chances of hitting it. I took my shot. And missed. But, using the push mechanics, I rolled again. The RPG hit the APC. Rolling for damage, the explosives destroyed the ammunition, blowing apart the APC.

Huzzah!

Next session: Triage!

 

[Richards]

In this week's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:

• Finally returned to the Vale after weeks of travel, to and north of Greyhawk City and then back
• Met up with a bard contact, who'd found a wizard with a journal detailing some stuff about the Blood Mirror, a magic item currently carried by our half-elf paladin
• Met up with the wizard, Blorkane, only to find the journal (and a bunch of magic items he'd been gathering to support a rescue attempt of his sister, who'd been abducted by an aboleth) had been stolen by the local thieves guild
• Infiltrated the thieves guild, only to be "outted" when one of the guild members recognized our archer from a song my PC had written about her (and which had been sung in taverns all around the area by our bard contact)
• Slew the wizard and fighter in the main tavern area, then chased down a rogue who had fled downstairs and killed him as well
• Explored the lower level, encountering another rogue who fled further downstairs to an even lower level
• Fought and killed the rogue, a cleric, and another fighter
• Explored the area and eventually found their treasure vault, which had all of the items stolen from Blorkane plus a bunch of cash
• Cleaned them out of their treasure stash, then escaped in a couple of stolen boats down a water-filled tunnel leading out to a stream behind the town
• Were just out of range when two more figures appeared from upstairs: another rogue and a cleric, who for some reason couldn't follow us; exactly why became apparent when the cleric - a vampire who couldn't cross running water - slew the rogue (whom he'd dominated to bring him to the journal)

We now know the vampire - sire to a vampire spawn we'd killed earlier in the campaign - is one of the two factions fighting to get hold of the Blood Mirror, the other one being a rakshasa trapped in a pseudo-India section of pretty-much-Ravenloft.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign session, the PCs:

• Met up with Wangle Turdblossom, one of ten gnomes who run a "Hidden Market" where one can purchase magic items for sale (and a few of the PCs took him up on his offer)
• Agreed to listen to the 10 gnomes' proposal: they can open a teleportation circle to the treasure cave of a slain red dragon, but the dragon's got magical protection that will slay any gnome stepping into the area, so they want to send the PCs in their stead, then split the hoard 15 ways (10 shares for the 10 gnomes, 5 for the 5 PCs)
• Agreed to the proposal and the splitting of the treasure, and then bargained to be able to keep two-thirds of any magic items on the bodies of the four slain adventurers who slew the dragon (and were slain in turn by him)
• Stepped into the cave, refused to touch the pile of coins and gems stored there (and a good thing too, for it had been protected with a spell that would have animated the treasure into a coin hydra had they done so), and anchored a rope so they could climb down into the cave below with the slain red dragon and four dead adventurers
• Had the half-orc paladin/cleric cast a dispel magic spell on the treasure pile and he rolled a natural "20", making the coins/gems/jewelry nonmagical and safe to gather up
• Started stripping magic items from the adventurers when sure enough, the dragon started lurching to (un)life
• Were amazed that the undead red dragon ignored them and started chewing off the flesh of its own left forelimb
• Attacked the undead red dragon with spells and summoned monsters, only to have it ignore them and continue eating away its own flesh
• Saw four lizardfolk fighters and a lizardfolk cleric approach from a cave higher up and farther away
• Fought off the lizardfolk while the undead dragon continued eating its own flesh
• Finally glommed on to the fact the lizardfolk cleric's ruby necklace was the phylactery of a slain dracolich they revered, and it was reanimating the red dragon corpse so it could be "reborn" in that body
• Slew the dragon, the lizardfolk fighters, and finally the lizardfolk cleric, preventing the reanimation of the red dragon corpse as a dracolich
• Sundered the phylactery to shards, preventing the dracolich's reanimation ever
• Returned to the gnomes and split the treasure up as agreed upon
• Headed back out on the road to the next dream victim, after peeking into his dream: a humanoid owl is being surrounded by humanoid versions of a rabbit, hedgehog, weasel, ferret, squirrel, otter, and mouse, all wielding melee weapons and eager for the owlkin's blood (they don't realize it yet, but the dreamer is the owl familiar of a wizard)

Johnathan

 

[el-remmen]

Brutal.

The second session of my "Primordial Evil" campaign, which is based (loosely) on Temple of Elemental Evil had a complete defeat which included our first PC death since we started playing together in 2020.

Unfortunately, the players overestimated their abilities and went in aggressive when outnumbered and did nothing to attack tactically, leaving themselves open to unreachable archers. The only decent archer in the group also just rolled terribly repeatedly. I think after playing 7th level characters they forgot how fragile 1st level characters are.

We left off with a dead paladin, the druid and the rogue at zero and stable, and the halfling ranger surrendered and had manacles slapped on him.

The remaining three have a chance to escape and I guess the next session will determine if they do.

 

[Foodgeek]

We spent 2 hours "discussing" how to handle a kidnapping situation. The DM even had an NPC try and talk us through it but the party is all neutrals (CN and LN, but I'm TN) mostly more interested in keeping the ransom money (we are allowed to IF we save the kids) than actually saving the 5 kids. And there isn't a clearcut solution either (where the kids survive). So, the DM called the session for the night. I'd like to save the kids (the reputation is necessary in our line of work ... and why not save them?) and if possible, keep some funds. Next morning, I sent the group a message with my suggestion....2 members (plus me) have agreed to it so far (out of 7). No other responses. Let's see what happens next week. My guess is they go with my suggestion, but you never know.

 

[el-remmen]

Brutal.

The second session of my "Primordial Evil" campaign, which is based (loosely) on Temple of Elemental Evil had a complete defeat which included our first PC death since we started playing together in 2020.

Unfortunately, the players overestimated their abilities and went in aggressive when outnumbered and did nothing to attack tactically, leaving themselves open to unreachable archers. The only decent archer in the group also just rolled terribly repeatedly. I think after playing 7th level characters they forgot how fragile 1st level characters are.

We left off with a dead paladin, the druid and the rogue at zero and stable, and the halfling ranger surrendered and had manacles slapped on him.

The remaining three have a chance to escape and I guess the next session will determine if they do.

A photo (with notations) of the aftermath

 

[James Gasik]

Yesterday, got together with my AD&D DM to catch up with two of my old PC's. Kiryu, my Aasimar fighter/mage (raised in a monastery by fighting monks devoted to guan Yu), found himself cast adrift on the open sea, and was fished up by privateers. After a scuffle with the first mate, Mr. Gaff, captain fiora broke it up and made kiryu an offer at gunpoint to join or get tossed back to the sea. Thus began his brief career as a pirate hunter, using his magic to great effect and learning mage armor is great at level one and not so great at level 5. Now at port and dropped of with some plunder, he sought out a local priest to give him a lead on finding his former companion, the ex military fire wizard, Mary Margaret, who was captured and tortured by Alicia Alazar, an enemy officer who utterly trashed Kiryu when they last met.