D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

Not sure what session it is in our Twilight: 2000 campaign. A lot has happened. And as a player I've been in and out. To summarize, our group got pressganged by a rogue unit of American soldiers. They had occupied a prison and allied with a cult of religious prisoners. They were in the process of conquering the area. They had a half dozen armored vehicles, which made them virtually unstoppable.

In the most recent sessions, we were sent to conquer a small outpost of marauders. We discovered that these marauders were actually a group of civilians led by an American soldier who had defected from the rogue unit. Basically, they were the good guys. We turned on the rogue soldiers in our squad and gunned them down. Then we called the rogue Americans and told them we had secured the outpost. They sent in a another squad to reinforce us.

We prepared an ambush. Unfortunately, it turns out they sent two squads -- a dozen soldiers with two Soviet tanks and an APC. S--t! We were heavily outgunned. Fortunately, they thought we were allies. We were able to get close enough to drop grenades in the tank. The civilians came out of hiding and started shooting. It was a slaughter.

Unfortunately...one of the grenades detonated a tank's ammo supply. It blew the turret off the tank -- and the leg off one of the player characters. After approximately 20 session, we had our first taste of this game's arbitrary death.

Then a second character got unzipped by one of the last surviving enemies, taking a critical hit that shattered her spine and left her immobilized for 4d6 days.

Twilight: 2000 got dark!

 

[Richards]

We did two short adventures in today's "Dreams of Erthe" game session. In the first one, "Spirit Quest," the PCs:

• Were told by the Queen of Dreams to head out into the middle of the Centralia Desert, where she had directed a non-dreamwalker minion to set up five carved dreamstones into a pattern that would open a gate to the Dreamlands to allow the physical bodies of the dreamwalkers to enter the Dreamlands
• Traveled to the nearest Temple of Delphyne so they could teleport to a city abandoned by the living, as it's been overrun by undead - it's the nearest Temple of Delphyne to the Dream Gate
• Fought off three bloodthirsty zombies and a dread wraith, then the half-orc cleric/paladin had the other four PCs enter the extradimensional lamp while he summoned his aerial steed to fly them to the Dream Gate
• Entered the Dreamlands, met up with the Queen, who informed them she was taking them on a spirit quest in another Dreamlands altogether, one formed by the dreamers of a completely different world
• Got dropped off in a cave on the side of a cliff, with instructions to meditate and fast for three days, then climb to the top of the cliff on the morning of the fourth day, where she would be back to meet them; in the meantime, she removed their ability to sleep and took their extradimensional lamp from them, so they wouldn't be tempted to exit the alien Dreamlands for more comfortable terrain
• Were attacked on the third day by a dreamthief hag riding a cauchemar; they'd been sent by the Nightmare King to prevent them from stopping his plans
• Slew the cauchemar fairly easily and had the hag fairly low on hit points when she pulled a dreamstone necklace out from her top, kissed it, and activated a heal spell that restored her to full power (and released one dream victim from his coma back on the Mortal Plane)
• Managed to grab the necklace away from her, only to have it snatched back the following round
• Finally managed to take her down before she could use the dreamstone necklace a second time to heal herself again
• Learned how to release the remaining 14 dream coma victims tied into the dreamstone necklace (and confirmed with their moogle dreamwalking trainer that there were now 15 people awake from their dream comas throughout the continent as a result)
• Climbed to the top of the cliff on day four, to meet up with the Queen of Dreams
• Watched as the Shobijin (twin female clerics, each six inches tall) introduced the five dreamwalkers to their spirit kaiju, who appeared on the landscape below the cliff, as follows:
  • Alewyth, female dwarf cleric 12 - Anguirus, as she worships the God of Earth, Stone, and Protection and Anguirus is a burrowing kaiju with spikes across his back
  • Wakuren, male half-orc cleric 6/paladin 6 - Gamera, as he worships the God of the Air and of Healing and wears heavy armor into combat and Gamera is a thick-shelled turtle capable of flight
  • Xandro, male human bard 6/rogue 6 - Gigan, since he's learning sneak attack maneuvers as part of his rogue training and Gigan is a cyborg reptile whose stomach spines are really part of a buzzsaw (and thus a form of sneak attack)
  • Zander, male elf sorcerer 12 - King Caesar, a kaiju appearing as a humanoid foo dog, since Zander's closely associated with the elven cooshee who accompanies him on all of his travels
  • Thurloe, male human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 6 - MOGUERA, a flying robot (animated construct) with ranged attacks similar to the ranged spells Thurloe casts as a spellcaster, and whose heavy armor mirrors Thurloe's ability to still cast spells when wearing armor

The Queen of Dreams then returned them to their home Dreamlands, from where they were able to return to their own Mortal Plane.

The second adventure was "Giant Monster Rampage," and consisted entirely of a five-way free-for-all between the five dreamwalker PCs in an effort to learn the abilities of their kaiju forms, which they can adopt while in the Dreamlands. They're planning on changing into these forms when they return to the four dreamers they were unable to awaken the first time through, as they were up against kaiju in the individual dreams that were too tough for them at first. They fought, in turn, Dream Ghidorah, a three headed dragon; Dream Kong, a giant ape; Dream Warbat, a giant winged serpent; and Dream Hedorah, a giant mass of sentient sludge. In each case, the kaiju continued to "slay" the PCs no matter how many times they entered the dream, and in the end the coma victims were left sleeping with a dreamstone tied to their foreheads, hoping they'll attune to them and the next time the PCs try to awaken them from their dreams, the attunement will help...now they're eager to go fight the dream kaiju on their own terms.

The second adventure was simply an opportunity to teach the players the simplified rules of Giant Monster Rampage, a game where you use plastic toys as your monsters and fight it out using only d10s. Of my four players (one was absent; his dad ran his PC/kaiju), only my son had ever played the game before, years ago.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

In last night's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:

• Went to a burlesque club ("The Topsy Curvy Club") at the behest of their 60-year-old author friend, E. L. Grimwade, who wanted to check it out (as it was the site of one of our earlier adventures right there in town, back when it was a front for the local thieves guild)
• Recognized a dwarf in the bar area as the one who had stolen my sorcerer's elven masterwork silver dagger, although the paladin didn't detect any evil about him (and he had detected him as evil on the day he stole my dagger)
• Confronted the dwarf, who was pretending to be staggeringly drunk, only to make a break for it by leaping onto and over the table and making a dash for the exit door - only to be tripped the the author's cane and then knocked unconscious by a sleep arrow from our elven archer
• Dragged him back into the bar
• Met up with Mabel, the owner/lead performer in the burlesque club, who was as big a fan of the author as my PC was, and got her to agree to give us all a tour of the place (to specifically include a look at the dwarf's room)
• Realized an elf wizard looked familiar as well, and the archer recognized him as the wizard who'd been directing the two dwarf thieves in the crowd to help find likely marks - and then noticed the elf's face blurred and changed a bit
• Guessed the elf was a doppelganger and got him to confirm it after we stated (and he read our minds to be sure were telling the truth) that all we were interested in was the new thieves guild rumored to be headquartered here in the Topsy Curvy Club
• Found out the new guild had hired the doppelgangers to disguise themselves as select members of their group and hang out at the TCC as alibis, while the real thieves were out plying their trade
• Found the two dwarves had cleared out their rented room
• Got attacked by the real elf wizard (whose appearance the doppelganger had taken on), who cast a slow spell on us, only to have everyone but Mabel and the author save
• Watched as the paladin's holy flaming burst longsword ripped into the wizard, then saw the elf get baleful polymorphed into a bunny (courtesy of our elf druid)
• Had a nearby "statue" expose itself as a shield guardian, obeying its last command to cast a confusion spell at anyone attacking the wizard; the paladin and the archer both failed their save
• Brought the shield guardian down to 19 hp before noticing it wasn't fighting us anymore (the elf wizard had been planning to give it other commands during the combat, but he now had the intellect of a rabbit) and let it be, thinking we'd claim it as treasure
• Had my PC's grackle familiar take out the elf wizard's raven familiar in his most spectacular bit of claw-to-claw combat he's ever performed (we'd already staggered the raven; the grackle merely had to deal 1 hp of damage to it, which he did rather admirably)
• Chased down the paladin and archer (who had alternately babbled incoherently in place, fled the shield guardian at top speed, and attacked each other (as the nearest person in range) before we chased them down (aided by a haste spell my PC cast on the rest of us and our halfling rogue's web spell from her cloak of arachnida) and let the confusion spell run its course
• Fed the polymorphed bunny to the druid's wolf, so in death it would revert back to elven form and we could retrieve the shield guardian control amulet he wore (we made sure to get a real dead rabbit to feed to the wolf after his first meal got turned into an elf - no need to tease the poor thing!)
• Said farewell to the author, who's going back to her own city to start writing her next book

And then my PC had enough material to write a song about the Topsy Curvy Club, which he's hoping to sell to his bard friend who's always looking for new material.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

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

• Hunted down the next dream coma victim in the middle of the Broadleaf Forest, determining the location was this one particular oak tree.
• Discovered a secret door in the tree, but couldn't figure out how to open it without destroying it (which they didn't want to do, as they were anticipating a nymph or dryad stuck in the dream coma)
• Had the half-orc cleric-paladin cast gaseous form on himself and slip through a crack in the door, then check out the interior, which was the home of a female gnome
• Decided to perform the dream-waking ritual inside their extradimensional lamp, after the half-orc placed the gnome inside the lamp and then went to go open the front door for the others so they could also enter the lamp
• Survived an acorn bombardment from the squirrels in the tree branches above as they tried defending their gnome friend's home
• Performed the dream ritual, entered the gnome's dream, to find another guardian kaiju (Megalon) there to fight them off
• Transformed into their spirit kaiju forms, fought and killed Megalon, only to have another one pop up as the dream reset upon his death
• Found a hidden door in the back of the dream, and entered it to find the gnome having a tea party with Princess Caroline Devlin and her boon companion Mr. Toad
• Explained to the gnome about the dream victims, causing her to announce she knew the other four who the PCs had been unable to awaken
• Allowed Princess Caroline, a dreamwalker herself with the ability to cross over into others' dreams, to take them to the dreamscape of an elf they'd been unable to months rescue earlier
• Explained the situation to the elf, who opened contact with the other three (dwarf miner, human bard, human paladin) who were still stuck in their dreams
• Determined the five were spread out around the continent, forming a five-pointed star with the Dream Gate (which the PCs had used to physically enter the Dreamlands in the previous adventure) in its exact center, and that the Nightmare King had set things into motion to allow him to step through into the Mortal Plane with a physical form
• Had the elf explain to them (after swearing them to secrecy) that the five dreamers were all dragons in humanoid form, and that dragons habitually communicate among themselves using the Dragonmind, a voluntary telepathic network that taps into the Dreamlands, when they're sleeping for years at a time
• Got a panicked message from their moogle dreamwalking instructor Mogo that the Queen of Dreams' throne room had been sealed off by a greyish mist they couldn't penetrate, and that whatever scheme the Nightmare King was likely being put into effect
• Had the gnome (a young adult silver dragon) tell them how to get to the scroll of teleport in her treasure room so they could teleport to the Dream Gate and try to stop the Nightmare King from entering the Mortal Realm and taking it over

So the whole adventure was a setup for the next session, which will be the final fight with the Nightmare King on the physical plane. (The PCs killed him once in the Dreamlands, but as a dream figment he just remanifested.) This was the session where the last 59 adventures, and the reasons behind why what was happening with the dream comas, was all explained. The players are all looking forward to the final showdown, but I still have a few surprises left to drop on them, and then the next 40 adventures will take a significantly different turn.

Johnathan

 

[James Gasik]

After a few grueling sessions, this one was surprisingly less so. The Midgard Misfits are still exploring the Scarlet Citadel (from Kobold Press), and plundering the tombs left behind by some cultists, which were sealed by someone apparently fascinated by puzzles. Our group seems to consist of A) people who are very wise, but not smart, and B) people who are very smart but not wise. The interactions between the characters leads to a lot of "hey we succeeded by accident!" moments.

For example, after much brainstorming, we figured out how to open a sealed magical door by sheer chance, figured out how to safely bypass the magical guardians of the sealed vault to retrieve a MacGuffin we needed...and the Ranger triggered the guardians anyways. Two animated stone constructs attacked, but our Wizard found out to his amazement that the golems were vulnerable to the confusion spell, which made the fight a lot easier than we'd expected it to be.

Emboldened, we took the MacGuffin to open another magically sealed door, where we got into a fight with 6 Wights, one of whom could cast spells! The first few rounds were brutal thanks to some very low damage rolls for fireball and spirit guardians (the DM was sure both spells would quickly end the fight, but to no avail). 5/6 of the party succumbing to fear didn't help much either.

But we won, and there was just one door left, one the Ranger had been warned not to open by a ghost several sessions ago. It wasn't until we opened it that he bothered to mention this, of course!

Inside was another construct, the tomb guardian. Which was programmed not to let any of the tomb's contents leave (it would have animated if the wights had tried to exit, for example). This would have been fine if the Bard hadn't insisted on wearing the 6000 gp (!) silver crown we'd plundered from the wights.

A fight ensues, which starts with the golem exploding in magical energies in a 20 foot radius for 10d8 force damage! 42 damage save for half was thankfully below average, but even then, it was a close call for the Wizard, who only has 38 hit points- a natural 18 on the save left him battered, but alive!

But then, again emboldened by his past success against constructs, he took out his new Wand of Binding. "Hold Monster says it works on constructs!"

"It won't work!" Someone (in the confusion, I don't recall who) said.

The DM rolls the save (with advantage!) and says: "Huh, they failed, what does it do?"

"Ok, it's paralyzed and on the end of it's turn..."

"Oh, it's immune to paralysis."

"...drat."

"Actually, to my knowledge, all constructs are immune to paralysis..."

"Autognomes aren't!" Someone supplied.

"Ok, most constructs are immune to paralysis."

(Indecipherable grumbling from the Wizard). We patted him on the shoulder. How could he have known?

"I'll tell you what, Wizard. Make an Arcana check", the DM said, kindly.

"Uh, 15?"

"You would have guessed that the construct would be immune to the effect, if not the spell itself. You can do something else."

"Slow!" The Wizard said, brightening.

"Wait, that won't..." (again, the source of the advice lost to time).

DM scans the stat block. "Huh. That's not an effect that alters it's body or form...." (rolls dice with advantage) "It...fails?"

(Party quickly flees from slowed golem to regroup). "Quick, Wizard, how much time do we have?"

"Uh, one minute, why?"

"We need to slow this thing down, what do we have to work with?"

"I have a spell that creates difficult terrain." The Bard says.

"You do, since when?"

"Uh, picked it up with my magical secrets when we leveled."

"What, instead of haste, slow, or fireball?" Someone asked.

"Never mind that, cast it!"

The Bard casts their strange spell (likely from Deep Magic, by Kobold Press).

"So it's difficult terrain, and it has to make Strength saves not to be restrained." The Bard explains.

"Let's set up an ambush!"

A few rounds later, the creature comes into view, still moving at a slow pace, and the party unloads on it with ray of frost, arrows, crossbow bolts, and a guiding bolt from the Cleric, all taking advantage of it's -2 penalty to AC.

"Ok, it crumbles into stone."

"Wait, that's it?!"

"I mean, it had 140 hit points, you guys just do good damage."

We look at each other in disbelief. "Since when?!"

With the floor mostly* cleared, we decided to head back to town to rest and resupply, and plot our next move, ignoring the Ranger who wants to take all our loot to the nearest major city in search of "magical swords" (he's still somewhat annoyed that he's forced to use magic daggers as the Citadel is chock full of creatures resistant to nonmagical weapons).

*there was a giant octopus creature that could come out of the water and fill a room with magical darkness, but the only person willing to go back and deal with it is the Wizard, who missed the first encounter with it. The general consensus of the other party members is, "#%&@ that!".

 

[THEMNGMNT]

55th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. Three player characters of 11th level: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

This is the climax! The Xanathar has been co-opted by one of his mindflayer lieutenants and is being transformed into an elder brain. The characters are there, basically, to kill everything. In this session, they teleported into the Xanathar's Lair. The wards on the lair split up the characters, scattering them hither and yon. Each explored a different section of the lair before stumbling across some enemies. We ended the session with each character in a different battle.

Next session: More fighting!

 

[MockingBird]

The Red Brands are dead. Their leader, a red dragon born, named Red Barron (my step son named him) is dead with them. One of the fighters (step son) is a black dragon born (Kriv the Gold) and Red Barron was his son. Kriv felt Red Barron dishonored the family by leading a gang so he killed him. The druid ( River, played by my daughter) tried to save him. At one point River pretended to take Red Barron's side to try and turn him away from his dark path. It got very dramatic, probably the most dramatic any of my D&D games (even with adults) has every gotten. Fun was had by all and that encounter was the highlight of our Sunday. Next game session they will start to notice Phandalin slowly fall victim to the Far Realm.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

56th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. Three player characters of 11th level: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric.

The characters are in the Xanathar's lair. The Xanathar is held captive and about to be transformed into an elder brain by a mind flayer named Tassatar.

The orc has been separated from the rogue and wizard. Independently, they each fought and killed some of the villain's lieutenants. As they continued exploring, they came across several men scattered throughout the lair. Each man floated in a cylinder of purple light. A successful Arcana roll revealed that they appeared to be channeling some sort of magic or power from point A to point B. In fact, the mind flayer is using these men to channel the Xanathar's eye beams to himself (itself?), giving him (it) the power of a beholder. The characters decided to find each man and disrupt the channel, so they begin searching the lair.

In an obscure corner office, they discovered a secret door leading to a room filled with barrels of smokepowder. The rogue decided to strap the barrels to his shield guardian and send it on a suicide run toward the mind flayer.

But it'll be a few sessions till we get to that...

Next session: More floating men!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Twilight: 2000.

In recent sessions I had the greatest glory I've ever experienced as a player.

We were battling a rogue unit of American soldiers. They were split into two units and laying siege to a town. Each unit had a mobile artillery piece. In total, we were outnumbered about 4 to 1. We needed a plan.

So I came up with one.

One of the units was undermanned. Using a T-72 tank we rushed the undermanned mobile artillery piece. It was guarded by a second tank. Things did not quite go the way we hoped. Our tank threw a tread and was immobilized, but we hit the other tank with two shots, and killed the commander with a .50 sniper bullet to the head. We turned the gun on the mobile artillery and demanded the crew surrender. They did.

Meanwhile, we had a dozen allies on horseback recon the other unit. We told them to stay back and radio in the unit's coordinates. That unit had mobile artillery, a couple tanks, several armored personnel carriers, and about 30 men.

My character jumped into the artillery, lined up the shot, and started shelling the other unit. They had no idea where the shells were coming from. They radioed the other unit -- the one we had just defeated. I got on the radio. "Who is this?" the unit's leader shouted. "Can you hear me now?" I asked.

Then I shelled the entire unit into oblivion.

It was so, so satisfying.

These guys had been a thorn in our side for many sessions, they'd killed civilians, and they'd even taken us captive. So to get our revenge was sweet.

 

[jasper]

I DM for 9 people tonight. From someone who started with the 3 little books, to first game tonight. Adventure league for the Shattered Obelisk. It took about 90 minutes for session 0 and PC creation. Most of the regulars took in good faith.