D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[pogre]

Last session was this past Sunday. The PCs are DEEP in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I won't spoil it, because it is a published campaign, but on the whole it has been an absolute blast. We play every Sunday for four hours and I would say we're a couple of sessions from finishing.

It's kind of like seeing the end of your favorite T.V. series coming up. You cannot wait to see what happens, but are a bit sad it is going to be over.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

The flying bard and wizard chased the bad guy up a long ladder and out of view. The (non-flying, non-climbing, slow-walking) dwarf cleric and dwarf ranger spent several turns setting things on fire.

 

[Richards]

Last night, in the penultimate session of my son's two-year 3.5 Wednesday night campaign, our 19th-level PCs stopped a group of cultists from opening a portal to the Nine Hells that would have allowed the pit fiend known as the Hope Ender to lead a devil army into the mortal world. We all gained enough XP to get us to 20th level.

Next Wednesday, to close out the campaign, we open the portal ourselves after sufficient time has passed so we can take down the Hope Ender. This is of particular importance to my PC, who has a two-year-old daughter named Hope who's one of only two remaining members of a bloodline whose existence prevents the Hope Ender from being able to open portals to the mortal realm at will.

I'm writing up the "Durnhill Conscripts" Story Hour session update and will probably post it this weekend.

And then, the week after we close out "The Durnhill Conscripts," we'll have a PC creation session on a Wednesday night to roll up the PCs for the next campaign, in which we'll all start out as slaves to the drow. I'm planning on running a lizardfolk named Jhasspok, taking levels of barbarian, ranger,and fighter once I pay off my three-level lizardfolk debt.

Johnathan

 

[Len]

It went pretty well. We finished an adventure, and also managed to perform a magic ritual to rid the goblin PC of demonic possession that was causing him to go berserk and attack the elf wizard PC on sight. The wizard had to go around using an illusion to disguise himself as a human, until he got jealous of the attention people were paying to his own alter ego and switched illusions. Anyway, that's over and we're off to the Big City!

 

[Retreater]

So I have to report on the session I ran last night.
Back up to 1989, when I first tried DMing. I couldn't get a regular group together, so I ran solo adventures for my sister.
Last night my fiancée and I hosted my sister and her teenaged kids (and one of their boyfriends) to play D&D. My nephew keeps asking me "when can we play Dungeons & Dragons?" Well, after a bunch of setbacks including family illnesses and deaths, we were finally able to bond over the game.
My nephew got the old Starter Set (with Lost Mines) as a present back for his birthday, so I ran some of that for them. They had a blast. The boyfriend had never played before, but ended up texting his mom to see if he could stay out later to play.
I love this hobby.

 

[Draegn]

One of my players created a new character. This is truly a first, for, he chose to use our house rules to min max. His character's charisma is 2 and comeliness is 1. His character was given the nickname of Triple G, after another player commented "The gangrenous genitals of a gelding are more attractive than you."

 

[doctorbadwolf]

We were in the port and fishing town of Caer Mach to meet with my characters older sister (gnome family, she is 120ish and my char is 36) who is more like an aunt. She is a Watcher, which is like a mix of park ranger, coast guard, and sheriff, in the remote mountain communities of our home, but also maintain the lighthouses.
Anyway, we are seeing her to get her support at the AllThing, where we are going to try to convince the people of the north to form a war council and hunt down a fiendish cult and the dragon-lead criminal organization that is working with them.

So, we pop in to the local tavern for a meal and to see if Meriel was in town or on patrol, and bring some injured folks we saved from a peryton attack. During our meal, we notice that the humans in the corner have rings identifying them as members of the criminal organization, called the Dargon Gul.
We scout out an empty warehouse, and my wife’s Goliath ranger/Druid Thumi turns into a raccoon, steals one guy’s keys, and lured them to us. We bonk the humans on the head, throw them into a big barrel, and Thumi carried them on her shoulder, to the lighthouse.
So, that’s how we meet up with my sister Meriel, who I’ve not seen since the funeral for our Uncle who was captain of my ship, 3 years ago, saying at one point, “this is not the weirdest thing I’ve ever come home with in a barrel.” We interrogate the prisoners, learn there are 20 or so more on their ship.
We investigate the ship, find signs that a rival criminal organization lead by a Medusa already killed the Dargun Gul crew on the ship, and a letter written on shark skin. Meriel reads enough Sahuagin to recognize that it’s an agreement to attack the town, and “retreat” after a mock battle, set up to make the dargun Gul look like heroes.

We alert the town, and stand on the docks as the first line of defense. It’s a tough fight, we all take some good hits, but we ultimately prevail.

And then...I get a wild idea, as the surviving Sahuagin are in retreat, taking their dying Baron with them. (We don’t auto kill monsters at 0hp, they use the same dying rules as PCs) My character is always looking to recruit new allies, even from the ranks of those we have fought, and he has traded with Sahuagin before, years ago. Mostly just for safe passage. So he runs after them, and yells at three that are pulling away one that was stuck in the crown paladin’s challenge effect, indicated that he had a trade for them.
Persuasion at disadvantage. 14. 1 female Sahuagin swims closer, curious. She speaks no common, but a little Gnomish. I yell at the healers to heal the dying enemies and let them go. She sees this, and I explain that the dargun Gul betrayed them. I call for a trade. Parlay.
Persuasion. 24.
She calls to her allies who bring the baron, and I yell at my friends to heal him. “Please just trust me!” They do it. He agrees to meet with me again at a time and place far enough off to recover, agreeing that I’ve provided already a suitable trade, and we will be negotiating his side of the trade. He leaves with about half the force he came with, and new information. Last dealings indicate that he will honor the agreement, and provide good value in trade when we meet again.

So, now I just gotta figure out what I want from a Sahuagin Baron and his people...

 

[Larnievc]

Our last session was great.

We finished up OOTA and turned the first layer of the Abyss into a normal habitable world.

 

[Immoralkickass]

Nothing too interesting, except when our party cleric tried to tap my PC's ass. That came out of nowhere, and the DM told him to roll attack which missed, and i promptly step back and cast Firebolt in his face. I was so hoping that it was a crit.

I always knew the cleric player was kind of a tool, constantly looking for hookers, trying to bone every female NPC (and recently my PC, since she's the sole female in the party who just joined). He even said that his character wanks during downtime. But this is just ridiculous.

I am a little worried that the next time my PC goes down in a fight, he would cast a touch spell on me by touching inappropriate places.

 

[miggyG777]

Awful. It was supposed to be the culmination of a six-month campaign (AL season 4 with medium-to-heavy reworking for a home table). The BBEG won, thanks mostly to a too-powerful charm ability that I should have spotted when reading the statblock, but somehow didn't. So the two heaviest hitters were charmed very early in the fight and the remaining three limped along for about 10 more rounds, doing very little damage and taking turns going down and reviving each other, until the boss finished her goal and left them there.

Have been kicking myself ever since for not realizing that a 24-hour charm without a saving throw every round was something I should have changed or at least planned for. I don't think the players minded losing, but it was unfun, and that's totally my fault. Let all who read this heed my example and watch for pitfalls like this in your games.

We're supposed to have a meeting on Saturday to discuss future plans for the game, so I'm planning to offer the group a couple of options to recover from this disaster. I can't leave it here.

I would change that on-the-fly. There is nothing forcing you to stick with a broken mechanic once you discover it during play (especially if you have 10 rounds to adjust and it is that important, being detrimental to a story finale)... I wonder why you did.