D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Richards]

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

• Learned of an army of orcs and ogres led by a half-orc barbarian, ravaging from the southeast
• Were hired to take out the half-orc barbarian leader and his command staff (two ogre mages and a half-orc cleric) and return the ring of the Pomarj, an artifact that allowed him to summon armies three times a year
• Were loaned a guide who knew the layout of the small hamlet they'd likely be staying at that evening, who could "pilot" our thieves' coil (a teleporting rope device)
• Teleported to the forest just outside the hamlet two hours after they'd likely all gone to sleep, so we'd only be dealing with sentries
• Cast prep spells (to include a veil spell making us look like orcs and the paladin's celestial pegasus look like an ogre mage) and started moving in
• Had our invisible halfling rogue start slitting the throats of sleeping ogres while my sorcerer's grackle familiar flew around looking in windows of the largest building in town (which, sure enough, was where the half-orc leader was sleeping, being guarded over by an ogre mage)
• Watched as one of the three ogre guards on duties left his post to chase after the paladin and his pegasus after they flew by overhead (no Listen or Spot checks, he just automatically saw them, apparently), calling out to them and not getting a reply (as we didn't speak Giant; this after I specifically pointed out we'd need to remain hidden and not interact with the orcs/ogres, as none of us spoke their languages); my sorcerer shut him up with a flesh to stone spell that turned him into a statue
• Had our elven druid, wildshaped into an eagle, cast a transmute metal to wood spell that made the leader's armor and favored weapon unusable
• Had the half-elf paladin and elf archer take out the other two sentries on duty
• Had the druid cast a fire storm spell that burned the spaces of a lot of the smaller buildings and the ogres sleeping therein
• Caught the half-orc leader and ogre mage guard in a wall of thorns spell, pinning them in place and allowing my sorcerer to cast a cone of cold spell that slew the ogre mage
• Slew the half-orc cleric and three remaining ogres with a bead from a necklace of fireballs and a delayed fireball spell (hold the delay)
• Had the archer kill the leader with a called shot to the eye
• Fought and killed the second ogre mage after it cast a cone of cold spell on the paladin and my sorcerer; the paladin took him out with a smite evil confirmed crit and two other sword strikes that did a combined 117 points of damage in one round (making my nephew, who runs the paladin, very happy indeed)
• Grabbed up a bunch of loot and skedaddled out of there, leaving the orcs and ogres nearby to fight among themselves when they awoke the next day

The DM gave the enemies a ton of high-powered weapons and armor, which we're now distributing among ourselves and selling what we don't want for ridiculous amounts of gold. (My sorcerer can now afford that robe of the archmagi he's been looking to buy.)

Johnathan

 

[el-remmen]

For the second time in this campaign, the session ended with a total party defeat. At least this time no PCs were killed. Everyone was captured by these Olhydra worshipping giant beaver loving river-damming woodsmen, as three PCs were at 0 hps but stable (everyone was lucky enough to succeed at their death saves) and the remaining PC surrendered when he got to 1 hp.

Much like last time this happened (at level 2, they are now level 4) they were in a disadvantaged position, but rather than wait for a better shot or even come up with some plan, they started a fight when they were the most vulnerable and spread out. I felt especially bad for the party Druid, who had argued for a different course of action earlier.

It was cool that the fight started by the paladin purposely setting off the glyph of warding on a chest carrying the mcguffin, but unfortunately I rolled amazingly well for the foes caught in the blast (of the 7 it caught, 6 made their saves!). And it essentially contributed to the eventual death of the party’s two NPC goblin companions. This did set the dam on fire and each round I rolled to see if it spread or died down and each turn it got bigger, so it may collapse!

Here is the video I made on Instagram showing the fall out: HOW I RUN IT on Instagram: "In session #20 of my Primordial Evil campaign the PCs were defeated

Anyway, I assume next session will be an attempted breakout though there will also be a show trial for some roleplaying fun. There is also another faction trying to get the McGuffey, so I may have them strike potentially causing a distraction the PCs could take advantage of. We’ll see.

 

[Richards]

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

• Slew a snake charmer's cobra when it got out of its basket and threatened to bite the townsfolk
• Paid 150 gp to a shady guardsman to replace the cobra (he said the owner was pressing charges, and wanted a bribe on top of the cobra replacement cost)
• Were approached by a 14-year-old drow girl who'd been sleeping in the back row of a temple when it was suddenly "closed for cleaning" and she saw a "snake with arms" wrenching the head off the statue of the Goddess in the back; she wants them to go save the temple from being desecrated
• Follow the girl to the temple and try to enter, but are told to come back in several hours by the four drow on guard duty in the temple
• Force there way in anyway, end up in combat with the four "drow" (who call for three more reinforcements from the back of the temple), kill all but two, and find out they're yuan-ti disguised as drow (three of them as church leaders)
• Notice the stature of the Goddess has a fully intact head
• Interrogate one of the two they left alive using a discern lies spell, find out they're to keep the temple vacant for the next couple of hours so the "leaders" can finish up some ritual below the church
• Figure out the statue of the Goddess has a head that can rotate at the neck; the dwarf cleric flies up there, gives her head a twist, and the entire statue and plinth moves forward, revealing stairs leading down to a hidden sublevel below the church
• Head down and end up fighting four yuan-ti halfbloods and a yuan-ti anathema (six headed abomination)
• Have the dwarf cleric seal off the back doors with a wall of stone while they slay the five yuan-ti, then use a soften earth and stone spell to open the doors when they're ready to go through them
• Meet up with four yuan-ti tainted ones, who are quickly slain with a wall of fire spell
• Hear chanting coming from around the corner, so the elf sorcerer uses a passwall spell to open a passageway in the wall (past the wall of fire), revealing five yuan-ti abominations summoning a marilith demon
• Have the half-orc cleric/paladin try using a greater command spell to get the five abominations to "Halt!" - but only one obeys, and it's too late anyway - the marilith has appeared
• Fight the five abominations and the marilith, taking the yuan-ti out with a prismatic spray spell, empowered flame strike spell, and some nasty bladework by the spellsword and the bard/rogue
• Get chewed up by blade barrier spells before slaying the marilith
• Slay three yuan-ti broodguards and put three transforming drow out of their misery
• Notify the city authorities and turn over the two captured yuan-ti purebloods as evidence
• Destroy the summoning circle so it can't be used again

Johnathan

 

[James Gasik]

Unknown Lands continues.

*45 minutes before game start, two players cancel. We schedule these sessions two weeks in advance. Very annoying, but we soldier on.

*For the current adventure, I tried something new, and each encounter had two difficulty settings. So I went with the easy versions for the group. I'm left wondering if I should have or not.

*The party faces a Froghemoth, which is a daunting challenge for three level 5's to be sure, but it's a Juvenile version with weaker stats. The encounter also included some swarms of aquatic eels that function like pilotfish, happily munching on the Froghemoth's prey while not attacking it. I only went with one such swarm for the encounter, a CR 1/2, and it was quickly dispatched.

*The Froghemoth was a terrifying foe, with 15' reach, a hard to escape (well, sort of, as you'll soon see) grapple, and the ability to swallow whole with it's bite.

*At first the encounter proved very tough, reducing the Warlock to 0 hit points, but in desperation the Cleric used Command to demand the creature to "vomit".

*The Froghemoth didn't understand the Cleric's Command, but I let it work anyways, as they didn't have much other way to save the Warlock. It spewed up the hapless Warlock, who was quickly healed and back in the fight.

*Next up was our Witch (new character class from Deep Magic 2 by Kobold Press) who also got swallowed, but then asked how a fear spell she had would work, since it forced the target to dash on it's turn to flee. I was stumped for a few minutes, but again, as she had no real way to deal 15 damage from inside the creature to escape, and it still had a lot of hit points, ruled it spit her up to flee.

*Then the Cleric used a new spell (also from Tome of Magic 2), an improved version of Bane. As the creature had no Charisma save to speak of (-3!), it was affected, and suddenly it not only couldn't land any hit on the party, due to high AC, reaction abilities, and a large to hit penalty, but it was rendered unable to make a save against Hold Person and I called the encounter there.

*I keep looking at the spell, and while I think it's too good, I'm not sure nerfing it would accomplish a lot. With a party of multiple spellcasters, synergy like this is a real problem, and I think we've already hit the Godzilla Threshold, where nothing added could really make things worse. It's funny since I not long ago had felt that Magic Resistance was unfair to my party and took steps to defang the trait, now I'm seeing the flipside- when the party's spells work, encounters are basically over. I think this deserves it's own thread however.

*The party proceeded to ace the multiple Persuasion checks (despite two characters Poisoned from catching disease) to convince the Neo-Otyughs that nobody was threatening them, and they made off with bonus xp and their treasure- a psionic item that functions as a magical focus, adding +1 to the save DC's of spells with Int, Wis, and Cha saves (given the Froghemoth battle, I'm already regretting this, lol) and the benefits of the Telepathic Feat.

*They then proceed to turn in a few other side quests and spend some downtime. With two hours left for the session, they decide to head back to the first dungeon to try and make progress on the main quest (they'd previously fled after very tough encounters with Duergar).

The dungeon denizens they did encounter (Jermlaine) wanted nothing to do with them, and they soon entered a room that had once been a living chamber for the Wererats that had once infested the area. All that remained was odd gray sand on the floor, and mixed in with the sand were bones, ruined furniture, and other assorted items.

In the center of the chamber was a floating sphere seemingly made of liquid, which they soon determined was a rift in local space/time that led...somewhere.

Nobody was willing to find out where. There was a fight with elemental creatures made of sand, which formed around the bones of the wererats, making them appear to be skeletons encased in hard packed sand.

The party realized these were definitely not undead. The fight was rough because they were immune to fire and could create blinding, choking sandstorms (I know I said I learned that blinding the party was a bad idea, but to be fair, I'd set up this encounter months ago). Then they learned the creatures were vulnerable to thunder, and the Cleric made short work of them with Shatter.

*They next entered a wrecked sleeping chamber, with coins littering the floor. They paused to loot, and the coins gathered into swarms of living coins! Unlike the previous encounter, the "greed swarms" were vulnerable to fire, and they were basically wiped out by a fireball. I'd designed the encounter for a pre-fireball party, so easy win for them, lol.

*All in all, a good session. We made a lot of progress, and it's surprising how less players actually made things go faster. Granted, I have some reservations about the future, as the party's spell combos are proving to be really nasty, and now the group will be lopsided, with three characters are over halfway to 6th level while the other two literally just hit level 5, but it's a lot better than some of the huge slugfests in previous sessions.

 

[Zardnaar]

Two games.

Thursday Greek theme 432 BC
Left Athens to investigate an island on the way to Cyrene. They'll need to rescue the NPCs smand explore Atlantean ruins. Old adventure from 1987.

Sunday 5E.
Completed Dragon of Stormwrack Isle. New player killed her fist player, another used chromatic orb and inflicted double damage with it. They voted to stay on the Isle to hit lvl 4 then depart to Baldurs Gate.

 

[Zardnaar]

Canceled tonight's session. Raining heavily for 2-3 days. 2 months of rain all at once.

Flood warnings etc.

 

[James Gasik]

Canceled tonight's session. Raining heavily for 2-3 days. 2 months of rain all at once.

Flood warnings etc.

Sorry to hear that. Hope you avoid the worst of it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sorry to hear that. Hope you avoid the worst of it.

I'm 120 metres up a hill. They're filling sandbags below us.

Live: Red heavy rain warning issued after downpours cut power

Dunedinites are urged to head home ASAP and to stay there unless necessary, the council says.

www.rnz.co.nz

 

[Zardnaar]

Derp.

Kayaking thrillseekers take to the Leith

The rising Water of Leith has again proved an irresistible lure to Dunedin kayakers. As persistent rainfall brings flooding fears throughout the...

www.odt.co.nz

No D&D for you. Well C&C.