D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[James Gasik]

The bulk of two whole sessions later, we managed to scrape out a win.

We had entered a chamber with a locked iron door. Frescoes on the wall depicted warriors, and we saw two other iron doors. Braziers on the far wall were lit, emitting black smoke, and a skeletal figure perched on a stone throne.

Cautiously we entered, but of course, the skeleton was in fact, a Cleric Lich. The throne made them immune to our magic. And then, of course, the frescoes actually covered concealed alcoves in which were entombed warrior Wights that started busting out, four a turn, until we had 16 of them.

We should have ran away.

But instead, the Cleric wrestled the Lich off the throne and we stole a MacGuffin from her which could open a sealed sarcophagus elsewhere (the inscription on which promised us aid against the forces of darkness). We downed the Lich and I was reduced to chucking Fireballs to try and thin out the Wights.

Things were looking winnable, when the Lich got back up...along with several Wights! The smoke from the braziers forced a Con save at the start of each turn to avoid necrotic damage which lowered your maximum hit points, so I quickly ran to the door poked my head in only to cast spells.

I truly despise things that don't have the good grace to stay dead when I kill them.

Soon the Monk was down and the Ranger and Cleric's path to the exit was blocked. In desperation I gave the MacGuffin to my familiar and had it fly to the sarcophagus chamber, out of which was released a Spectre, who immediately summoned a horde of Shadows.

As the two forces of undead clashed, we retrieved the Monk (though then the Ranger went down). We were very low on useful spells when we realized that behind one of the doors was a necromantic power that kept reviving our foes.

The DM was mostly reduced to rolling attacks against his own NPC's while we beat up the lich (again) to steal another MacGuffin from her, a magic staff that we noticed had glowed brightly when she passed the door.

With staff in hand, the door opened easily, revealing some indescribable undead abomination, chained to a wall.

So now, running on fumes, we ran in to slaughter it, while we closed the door. To our delight, it was actually vulnerable to Radiant damage, which the Cleric and the Monk could inflict. After, we healed as best as we could, only to find the Lich and 6 Wights standing victorious, having defeated the Spectre and his Shadows.

Uh oh.

While they would stay dead now (we hoped), two Wights blocked the exit. The Cleric (armed with their last Spirit Guardians) and my Wizard ran for the door...but then the Ranger did something wholly unexpected, and charged the Lich!

The Monk joined the Ranger and even though we'd managed to kill the Wights blocking the exit, the Cleric turned to join the fray. And I was reduced to firing my +1 crossbow from the safety of the door.

We won, somehow. Everyone has their maximum hit points reduced, we're all fuming on hit points, and we have no choice but to rest here, in the den of evil. I cast Alarm and Tiny Hut (thank the Gods for Ritual casting!) and we'll find out if our rest is interrupted in two weeks!

The only good news was that the DM awarded us xp, allowing us to reach level 8. Forget 20 Int, I'm taking Resilient (Con)!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

59th session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup. Three player characters of 12th level: Half-orc cavalier fighter, halfling swashbuckler rogue, and half-elf evoker wizard/grave cleric. With them is an NPC drow mage.

In this short session, the characters emerged from the collapsing Xanathar's Guild headquarters into Skullport. There, they were ambushed by the rogue's rival for control of the Shadow Thieves. There was trash talk. There was fighting. And when it was over, the rogue was the reluctant leader of his guild.

Next session: The end of the campaign!

 

[Older Beholder]

I've played another couple of sessions of OSE,

We finished exploring a sword themed dungeon. In the end we found all the pieces of a sword that we needed to remove a curse on one of the PC's. At level 3 the Duergar in our party one-shotted a God, at which point any of our characters that had died during the adventure were brought back to life if we wanted.

I must admit, when the motivating factor is 'go on the adventure or your character will die' and the reward for finishing the adventure is dead characters come back to life, (same thing happened on the first adventure) it does make it all feel a bit pointless.

We had a short session after that where we were just levelling characters, etc... with a bit of short intro for the next adventure.

There are 3 players in our group with 2 characters each, at the end of the adventure we'd all had one character die.
Only one player wanted his character brought back, the other player doesn't like having to run two characters. I decided to just make a new character, my rolls weren't great, so I've made a fighter (with 7 Str and 7 Con) named Fodder, so we'll see how he goes next time.

 

[cbwjm]

I've played another couple of sessions of OSE,

We finished exploring a sword themed dungeon. In the end we found all the pieces of a sword that we needed to remove a curse on one of the PC's. At level 3 the Duergar in our party one-shotted a God, at which point any of our characters that had died during the adventure were brought back to life if we wanted.

I must admit, when the motivating factor is 'go on the adventure or your character will die' and the reward for finishing the adventure is dead characters come back to life, (same thing happened on the first adventure) it does make it all feel a bit pointless.

We had a short session after that where we were just levelling characters, etc... with a bit of short intro for the next adventure.

There are 3 players in our group with 2 characters each, at the end of the adventure we'd all had one character die.
Only one player wanted his character brought back, the other player doesn't like having to run two characters. I decided to just make a new character, my rolls weren't great, so I've made a fighter (with 7 Str and 7 Con) named Fodder, so we'll see how he goes next time.

Sounds a lot like my OSE experience, I've lost 2 characters, two other players have lost a character. I admit that one time it was definitely my fault, another time, it was a sad, sad Goblin arrow to my necromancer's chest

 

[Richards]

We played through two short adventures in today's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign. In the first one, "Welcome to the Jungle," the PCs:

• Arrived on the continent of Talonia, were warned to be wary of predators, and were given directions to the Fleetfoot tribe of halflings' encampment
• Were surprised to see said encampment was a cave network dug into the side of a cliffside, but with a square, stone building jutting out from the cliff, which had seven heavy wooden doors along its three exposed sides (the spellsword's arcane mentor Andrea had cast wall of stone spells to create the building as her pre-payment for a guide, a halfling ranger named Beetle Darkcloud) to the Forbidden Lands
• Were met by the Fleetfoot Tribe and were told Beetle had returned and they'd let him take them there (they're seeking Andrea's body for return to her home for burial) if they'd slay Cunning-Devil, a fiercely intelligent tyrannosaur ("swordtooth titan") who had been eating their fastieth dinosaur mounts
• Were set upon by a pack of five velociraptors ("clawfeet") while headed to the fastieths' watering hole and killed them, mostly by the elf sorcerer's chain lightning spell
• Found the watering hole and 12 fastieths drinking from the river, overseen by two male halfling rangers mounted on fastieth mounts, when Cunning-Devil rose up out of a nearby lake and made his way towards the panicked flock, grabbing up the rearmost in his teeth and chewing him up (I used a Godzilla "mini" for Cunning-Devil)
• Fought off Cunning-Devil (who turned out to be a fiendish tyrannosaur with 36 HD and 413 hp!), eventually slaying him but not until after the elf sorcerer had been bitten and almost swallowed (escaping by drinking his last gaseous form potion), whittling him down by the elf's chain lightning spell, the half-orc cleric/paladin's smite evil/shield bash attack while riding an air elemental warhorse, the dwarf cleric's summoned greater earth elemental, the human spellsword's draining him with a ray of exhaustion spell, and the bard/rogue's sneak attack/crit with his magic rapier, stabbing him in the head while under the effects of an air walk spell (he made the killing blow)

The PCs were then offered a feast of celebration that night, where they were served meat from Cunning-Devil's flank (which they ate, but only after the cleric/paladin cast a purify food and water spell upon it).

In the second adventure, "Looking for Some Boneheads," the PCs:

• Went off with Beetle to start their months-long trek to the Forbidden Lands (which the halflings believe to be a land of ghosts, where those who enter are never seen again), but 3 hours down the road was a band of lizardfolk ranchers who raised pachycephalosauruses ("boneheads"), dinosaurs of a suitable size as mounts for the PCs
• Were attacked by a hunting party of six deinonychi while traveling through tall grasses, but they were all slain by the elf sorcerer's prismatic spray spell which slew 4, petrified one, and sent the sixth to a random plane (after blinding him to make things even worse for him)
• Stored the four slain deinonychi and the petrified statue in their extradimensional lamp as barter for the lizardfolk (they, like the Fleetfoot halflings, don't use money)
• Made it to the lizardfolk arroyo, only to find they had no "spare" boneheads, just the six the barbarians among the tribe used as mounts
• Talked to Thassp, the lizardfolk barbarian leader, through Beetle, who spoke a pidgin version of the Draconic language (although the elf sorcerer understood everything through his permanent tongues spell effect); Thassp had never before seen a "pale elf" (as the dark-skinned drow are rampant through the continent), "wide one" (dwarf), or "round ears" (the three humans), and asked Beetle if he knew what they tasted like
• Were told to be ready to run for it by Beetle after Thassp said he'd take the wide one and one round-ear and the others could go free, much to Beetle's consternation (Thassp had never treated guests like that before) and the other lizardfolks' confusion (why were they attacking these visitors?)
• Had the dwarf cleric seal off their dead-end arroyo canyon with a wall of stone spell
• Fought off the lizardfolk, slaying about half of them and hurting Thassp to the point he revealed himself as a newly-bitten lycanthrope - a were-pteranodon
• Killed Thassp before he could summon other pteranodons and the were-quetzelcoatlus who had recently bitten him
• Accepted the surrender of the other lizardfolk, who gave the PCs the six boneheads in payment for having had their leader attack them (they were all unaware of his lycanthropic status)
• Each named their new bonehead mount and rode off out of the arroyo and back on the road to the Forbidden Lands

We ran through both adventures in a little over four hours.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

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

• Were traveling back home through the forest when they encountered a pack of six displacer beasts, the leader being a Huge pack leader
• Fought off said displacer beasts, using the following tactics
  • The sorcerer stuck to cone of cold spells, which didn't need to be targeted other than "in this direction"
  • The druid pinned them up in a wall of thorns
  • The rogue got her wand of magic missiles to work finally (good rolls on Use Magic Device, at long last!)
  • The archer shot at the three displacer beasts the druid cast faerie fire upon, outlining their actual locations
  • The paladin likewise focused upon those with the faerie fire outlines
• After slaying all six, we advanced to their nearby lair, a set of ruins in which they fought off an undead umbral displacer beast, who didn't even last a round (the DM didn't have an explanation for him, he just wanted to try out the template)

Next adventure we'll be in the town of Littleberg, having an in-town adventure.

Johnathan

 

[Richards]

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" session ("You and What Army?"), the PCs:

• Saw a tyrannosaurus running up a hill at them, followed shortly by a triceratops, which was odd ("Why is a plant-eater chasing a meat-eater?")
• The half-orc cleric/paladin had his cloud-horse fly up 100 feet, and saw half a dozen or more horse-sized ants approaching at the bottom of the hill, plus a bunch of something else causing the grass to move about; he could have sworn he saw a humanoid figure there as well, but when he looked again he was gone
• Had the elf sorcerer cast a wall of force to separate them from the tyrannosaurus
• Had the dwarf cleric (the only one on the other side of the wall of force by the tyrannosaur) try to cast hold monster on the tyrannosaur when it went for her bonehead mount, but the spell failed and the mount was bitten and mouth-grappled, spilling the dwarf to the ground
• Had the half-orc cast freedom of movement to let the bonehead escape the tyrannosaur's mouth (at the cost of 2d6 points of falling damage)
• Fought off the advancing army ant swarms and giant army ant soldiers for a while (mostly using the sorcerer's cone of cold spells and a prismatic spray spell)
• Had an allip pop up out of the ground, whose babbling paralyzed the sorcerer's bonehead mount; the allip was slain by the half-orc who cast a healing spell at it
• Tossed the bonehead into the extradimensional lamp, then had to do it again when another mount got paralyzed by another allip (this one got slain within a lucky cone of cold spell)
• Fled the oncoming ants, following their halfling guide who led them to a rope bridge over a river they could cross
• Made it across the bridge (slaying a bunch of giant ants and ant swarms behind them, as well as a third allip) and cut the ropes, only to see the ants start building a bridge using their own bodies, causing the PCs to flee to a branch of the river some miles away that would be too wide for the ants to cross
• Had to fight off 2 dimetrodons at the river's edge, only to be attacked by five ichthyosaurs once their bonehead mounts entered the river
• Fought off the ichthyosaurs long enough for everyone to get across

The allips were jungle drow who had been slain by being eaten alive by the marauding ants swarms; the horror of the attack being enough to cause their horrified spirits to become allips; I just wanted a cool reason for allips to hang out with the ants, since their babble attack caused those who fail their saves to remain immobilized for a few rounds, a nice wrinkle for the PCs to have to worry about with dozens of approaching army ant swarms.

I played the usual various "Music from the Hearts of Space" episodes as background music, but once the ants first arrived on the scene I put that music on hold and played "Ants Invasion" by Adam Ant, then returned to the normal music once it was over.

Johnathan

 

[humble minion]

First session of the new campaign! Dragonlance, stealing the early bits of Shadow of the Dragon Queen then heading off in an entirely different direction.

PCs meeting each other, roleplaying out the paladin getting his holy calling, fighting some draconians, meeting a few NPCs, saving some and failing to save others...

Very strange to play Dragonlance with a group that has, except for one player, never read the books and has no investment in the Heroes of the Lance or the canon or anything. And who've gone hard into the 'play your concept' thing rather than building for power or even party balance. Centaur paladin, kagonesti Dex-based barbarian (skinning an eladrin as a wood elf, with the fey step ability representing acrobatic dances and leaps), human alchemist artificer (secretly a dhampir looking for a cure), human warlock, human warlord (the kibblestasty one).

No cleric or druid or even bard for healing. No conventional Mage of High Sorcery. No kender. No Guidance. The Warlock doesn't even IC know she's a warlock yet. And the Solamnic knight PC, who'd otherwise be the obvious choice to eventually wield a Dragonlance from dragonback, is a centaur.

 

[Queer Venger]

awesome!
my gang is almost 3/4 through Curse of Strahd, half-way through the Amber Temple. Just found the Tome of Strahd and being transported to Stahd's childhood. Oh and there was a Lich who enjoyed polite conversation

 

[Bitbrain]

Canceled. The guy currently DMing caught COVID. Again.