D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[cbwjm]

My party of 5 is level 4. We had left the session previous at a point in an inn along a mountain road where a hulkomg dragonborn smuggling boss with his 8 henchmen had just met with an evil witchdoctor, who stepped through an arcane gate, to hand over an ancient ritual book that the PCs were chasing. Everyone, myself included (I'm the DM), was expecting heavy losses on the player side.

The fight began after the witchdocter stepped back through his portal the dragonborn sorcerer toasted 2 out of 3 bad guys who were in the inn. More bad guys from outside poured in to take on the PCs, I forgot how hard some of them are to hit so even though I attacked the barbarian and the warforged artificer in the party, they each have really good defences (we roll 4k3 for stats). The smuggling boss got some really good hits against the spider shifted druid forcing him out of spider form but before the battle with the boss could really be joined, my counter hit 0 and a horde of orcs swept down the mountain road causing the party to hole up in the inn and the smuggling boss to take a dive into the ravine to avoid them.

The dwarf and gnome innkeepers are already set up for this, the inn was barricaded and they help the PCs through a secret passage to the ravine below to escape the orcs. The PCs have made it up the other side of the ravine thanks to a fly spell cast on the barbarian who ferried everyone up the side where they now wait at the witchdoctor's former campsite for the night before tracking them down.

Sidenote. Playing with an artificer with the archivist subclass and I really hate the completely invulnerable pet that the class has. It was able to harass the orcs while they couldn't retaliate. If this subclass comes out in the future, I hope this is edited.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

I thought Misty Step you had to see your destination?

I didn't know that, but I'm sure you're right. One player used it when he was grabbed, so that was correct RAW. Another player used it after he got swallowed, so that apparently broke the rules. Thanks for the tip!

And I love reading your campaign recaps!

 

[Nebulous]

I didn't know that, but I'm sure you're right. One player used it when he was grabbed, so that was correct RAW. Another player used it after he got swallowed, so that apparently broke the rules. Thanks for the tip!

And I love reading your campaign recaps!

thanks!

 

[cmad1977]

The heroes have been fighting Strahd in his Castle. The last session they made their way down into the catacombs, teleported into Strahds Tomb, desecrated(consecrated) his coffin and then accidentally got a bit separated. Now Strahd has the rogue in his grasp and is about to dish out a potential death blow while the rest of the party desperately climbs/flies/ up a 40’ shaft to save him. It’s entirely possible they’ll be too late.

 

[Richards]

We just played tonight. My PC got a +1 battleaxe. And then his first three rolls with it were a 1, a 3, and a 2. I may end up selling the battleaxe and buying a pair of pom-poms, so I can just stand on the side and cheer on the dwarf PCs, who pretty much slayed all of the enemies we were facing tonight.

Johnathan

 

[cbwjm]

We just played tonight. My PC got a +1 battleaxe. And then his first three rolls with it were a 1, a 3, and a 2. I may end up selling the battleaxe and buying a pair of pom-poms, so I can just stand on the side and cheer on the dwarf PCs, who pretty much slayed all of the enemies we were facing tonight.

Johnathan

I can see your PC swinging away with his new axe yelling "It's cursed! I have a cursed axe!"

 

[Richards]

My PC is a lizardfolk with a 6 Intelligence. We were joking that he was probably holding it the wrong way around, trying to hit his enemies with the handle while holding onto the axe-head.

Johnathan

 

[Urriak Uruk]

You know, my last session I DMes was kind of rough. I had been building towards exploring one character's backstory, so was trying to get people into the Elemental Plane of Water. Since they were on a ship, the idea was they'd be sucked up into a whirlpool, while another pirate ship attacked (think Pirates of the Caribbean 3).

Anyway, they resisted the whirlpool hard, which I didn't expect because I had asked beforehand whether they were interested in going to the Elemental Plane. One player was especially annoyed that they're weather controlling spells weren't just ending the storm (even though I said that this storm is also magical, and of much stronger magic than an individual's).

They also wanted to one-shot the pirate ship a Control Water spell (just having it drop in water and enveloping it) which I think would have worked but would have considerably shortened the material I had prepared, and honestly just been less satisfying than them having a ship-to-ship battle.

Thankfully they failed their checks so they did go into the vortex, and the pirate ship succeeded so they didn't get close enough for the control water to happen. But anyway, the players felt like I robbed them, which I sort-of did though not really intentionally.

I think it was a learning experience, but I'm pretty frustrated as the whole point of going to the Elemental Plane was for more role-playing (which some of the players have requested more of) but every time they're given the choice, they always want to attack instead of talk.

I'm taking a break for a few weeks so hopefully I'll be back in a good place when I return to it.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You know, my last session I DMes was kind of rough. I had been building towards exploring one character's backstory, so was trying to get people into the Elemental Plane of Water. Since they were on a ship, the idea was they'd be sucked up into a whirlpool, while another pirate ship attacked (think Pirates of the Caribbean 3).

Anyway, they resisted the whirlpool hard, which I didn't expect because I had asked beforehand whether they were interested in going to the Elemental Plane. One player was especially annoyed that they're weather controlling spells weren't just ending the storm (even though I said that this storm is also magical, and of much stronger magic than an individual's).

They also wanted to one-shot the pirate ship a Control Water spell (just having it drop in water and enveloping it) which I think would have worked but would have considerably shortened the material I had prepared, and honestly just been less satisfying than them having a ship-to-ship battle.

Thankfully they failed their checks so they did go into the vortex, and the pirate ship succeeded so they didn't get close enough for the control water to happen. But anyway, the players felt like I robbed them, which I sort-of did though not really intentionally.

I think it was a learning experience, but I'm pretty frustrated as the whole point of going to the Elemental Plane was for more role-playing (which some of the players have requested more of) but every time they're given the choice, they always want to attack instead of talk.

I'm taking a break for a few weeks so hopefully I'll be back in a good place when I return to it.

Tell them that you are trying to give them more RP opportunities but they always attack first.


That aside, dumping water on a ship won’t actually sink it. Ships are built to survive large waves dropping enormous amounts of water atop them.

 

[the Jester]

Just ran my Alpha group two nights ago (as opposed to Teams Beta and Delta). They were picking up after some political stuff, and there was some shuffling of pcs (most of my players have a sort of 'stable' of characters available). They have a bunch of loose ends dangling, so they decided to go after Heshwat, the hobgoblin mage who was in charge of an evil army called the Scarlet Fist, but who was driven off about five years ago. Recent events have revealed that a hobgoblin mage styling himself "Grimfingers" has been assembling a conspiracy including the Winter Court of the Feywild, dark elves, and giants to attack the pcs' city.

The pcs set out to first determine whether Grimfingers and Heshwat are the same person. A commune spell gave them the answer- "In a sense". Hmm.

The pcs journeyed toward Heshwat's location, as revealed by divination spells. Along the way, they had a few encounters, including dodging part of a digester migration, before they encountered a pair of goblin deserters from Heshwat's force. Between the goblins and those aforementioned divinations, the pcs learned that Heshwat's hands are bony now, and he's very different at night. Indications are that he works for or is working with Orcus.

The pcs found Heshwat's fortress and located a secret underwater entrance to it. Then we realized it was late and a work night, so we called it a night.