D&D General How Was Your Last Session?
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In a word: FREAKINGAWESOME. We had the climactic fight, via roll20, of Sunless Citadel.
It was one of the longest fights I've had in 5e. Well over 10 rounds (bless and another 1 minute spell both wore off). I truly thought it was going to be a TPK for the majority of it. At one point 2 of us (out of 4, plus 2 NPCs) were at low health and got hit with a sleep spell. Our DM plays his NPCs to win.
Our monk dropped to zero HP at least 4 times. Maybe more. We got him up with spells, Channel Divinity, potions, and on the last one he rolled a nat 20 on his Death Save. Hilarious. Initiative order worked out great, too. He hardly ever missed a turn. The 2nd to last time he got back up he took out two bad guys on his next turn. Move, punch, move, punch.
The fight would have been much different if we had started with a short rest (I was at 2/3 HP, with Action Surge and Second Wind both consumed), but the cleric charged ahead and got us into the fight.
It was one of the longest fights I've had in 5e. Well over 10 rounds (bless and another 1 minute spell both wore off). I truly thought it was going to be a TPK for the majority of it. At one point 2 of us (out of 4, plus 2 NPCs) were at low health and got hit with a sleep spell. Our DM plays his NPCs to win.
Our monk dropped to zero HP at least 4 times. Maybe more. We got him up with spells, Channel Divinity, potions, and on the last one he rolled a nat 20 on his Death Save. Hilarious. Initiative order worked out great, too. He hardly ever missed a turn. The 2nd to last time he got back up he took out two bad guys on his next turn. Move, punch, move, punch.
The fight would have been much different if we had started with a short rest (I was at 2/3 HP, with Action Surge and Second Wind both consumed), but the cleric charged ahead and got us into the fight.
The absolute highlight, though, was Meepo, the NPC kobold. Not only did Meepo hit with almost every shot of his sling, with good damage rolls, he also crit multiple times. At the very end of the fight, the last surviving baddie tried to flee and risked an opportunity attack from Meepo. Bad idea. Another crit, baddie dead, fight over.
After roleplaying Meepo as timid and bashful the whole adventure, every time he killed another bad guy or got another critical, the DM had him saying, "I AM INVINCIBLE!!!!" or some such in roll20 chat.
I ended up with Shatterspike, but really it should have gone to Meepo.
After roleplaying Meepo as timid and bashful the whole adventure, every time he killed another bad guy or got another critical, the DM had him saying, "I AM INVINCIBLE!!!!" or some such in roll20 chat.
I ended up with Shatterspike, but really it should have gone to Meepo.
My last session... was a screaming success.
In that there was a banshee in it, whose wail downed three out of four party members. The GM was kind, and allowed the remaining PC to feed the unconscious cleric a potion of healing, and she then got the rest of the party back on its feet. Touch and go for a minute, though.
In that there was a banshee in it, whose wail downed three out of four party members. The GM was kind, and allowed the remaining PC to feed the unconscious cleric a potion of healing, and she then got the rest of the party back on its feet. Touch and go for a minute, though.
We were attacked by assassins - apparently somebody doesn't want us gathering together an alliance of surface kingdoms against an upcoming drow attack from the Underdark. Now, I wonder who might be behind our attempted deaths....
Oh, and my PC got to eat some eyeballs. (He's a lizardfolk - it's perfectly normal. Quit trying to apply your mammalian standards to him!)
Johnathan
Oh, and my PC got to eat some eyeballs. (He's a lizardfolk - it's perfectly normal. Quit trying to apply your mammalian standards to him!)
Johnathan
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darjr
I crit!
Fantastic!!!! It was a playtest of “something” (not WotC) and tier 4 with three 20th level chars and one 18lvl. And one simulacrum. The players could see the monster MILES away. They teleported within a few thousand feet and dropped FOUR meteor swarms and attracted its attention. It began to pummel them with rocks and it’s “lackeys” attacked. They RAN! OK they ran TOWARD danger, but also away from the death trap they were in. And it was plain shift.
Ended up with two PCs conscious, one using up his precognition dice to guarantee his blink ethereal and the other flying. When they had a cockamamie crazy idea involving a 1st level cantrip and the Paladin going ALL in.
They survived! And the big bad died hilariously!
Ended up with two PCs conscious, one using up his precognition dice to guarantee his blink ethereal and the other flying. When they had a cockamamie crazy idea involving a 1st level cantrip and the Paladin going ALL in.
They survived! And the big bad died hilariously!
the Jester
Legend
Just finished up. It was a really good session. I ran my Delta group. To make a long backstory short, they're looking for the three pieces of this map. They've gotten one by stealing it from the hell maidens of Winwillow (yes, that's an Arduin conversion). They're performing a variety of tasks for the King of Birds to earn the second one; the current task is to raise a baby roc to adulthood. Simultaneously, they're trying to find the third piece in the Aquan Pyramid, a dungeon that is a submerged pyramid that rises up every 17 years. (They are using water breathing to explore below the water level.)
Okay, so they started the session heading down some stairs they found in the pyramid last time. They explored the new level they reached until they got in a fight with some sea spawn and, 3 rounds into that fight, with some deep scions. They slew the spawn and broke the scions' morale, and by taking them prisoner, the pcs learned that they were on a dummy level- an entire level of the pyramid that didn't actually connect with the bottom, where an undead king/warrior waits.
The scions led the pcs back up two levels, then down a secret staircase that descended several levels. At the bottom, they fought some lacedons and a wraith. They got a good amount of treasure throughout the session, too, and still have the scions as prisoners/uneasy allies.
We had three pcs level up- the monk hit 9th (run on walls!), as did the bard (greater restoration and mass cure wounds!), while the fighter hit 8th (whoo!). And now they're actually on the right track instead of heading into a couple of levels of red herrings and death traps.
Okay, so they started the session heading down some stairs they found in the pyramid last time. They explored the new level they reached until they got in a fight with some sea spawn and, 3 rounds into that fight, with some deep scions. They slew the spawn and broke the scions' morale, and by taking them prisoner, the pcs learned that they were on a dummy level- an entire level of the pyramid that didn't actually connect with the bottom, where an undead king/warrior waits.
The scions led the pcs back up two levels, then down a secret staircase that descended several levels. At the bottom, they fought some lacedons and a wraith. They got a good amount of treasure throughout the session, too, and still have the scions as prisoners/uneasy allies.
We had three pcs level up- the monk hit 9th (run on walls!), as did the bard (greater restoration and mass cure wounds!), while the fighter hit 8th (whoo!). And now they're actually on the right track instead of heading into a couple of levels of red herrings and death traps.
Epic climax to the latest adventure, with the player characters advancing to level 14 at the end of it. I'm running a modified Storm King's Thunder. The characters are in Skyreach Castle attempting to free Hekaton from Zhentarim mind control and thereby stop the giants' rampage across the North. Unfortunately, they're up against three clones of Manshoon, a dozen storm giant zealots, and an ancient blue dragon under a geas to guard Hekaton. Some highlights:
I wasn't expecting the adventure to come to such an abrupt close, but I was really happy with how it all turned out. Lots of surprises against a widescreen backdrop. One PC killed outright, two making death saving throws, two dead allied NPCs. Not bad for a night's work.
Everyone had a blast.
Next session is in two weeks. It'll be interesting to see if the players realize they have a traitor in their midst. I expect skullduggery to ensue.
- The characters were atop a hundred-foot tall tower that was collapsing on a flying castle in the middle of a massive thunderstorm.
- The beast master ranger, arcane trickster rogue, and vengeance paladin were all giant-sized thanks to a magical boon. As was the ranger's drake. And the paladin's pegasus.
- They were surrounded by Manshoon clones atop neighboring towers, two Zhent champions circling on nightmares, four storm giants rushing through the ground-floor door, and a roc.
- The Ranger blocked up the front door and went toe-to-toe with the storm giants to stop them from entering the tower.
- One Manshoon clone nullified the halfling bard with a Feeblemind spell.
- The rogue took out one Manshoon clone with a giant-sized arrow that did over 100 points of damage.
- The vengeance paladin dodged two Disintegration spells in the same round to close with two Manshoons and smite them both.
- Knowing they only had seconds to live, the two surviving Manshoon clones both cast Meteor Swarm.
- The meteor impacts devastated Skyreach Castle. It listed like the Titanic and started to fall out of the sky.
- Thanks to Meteor Swarm, half the characters were knocked out and had to make death saves. One allied NPC was killed outright. The tiefling shadow sorcerer was slain, as well. She was previously revealed to be Manshoon's daughter, so that's going to make family reunions a little awkward.
- The halfling used a divine blessing acquired one year ago IRL to regain consciousness and shake off Feeblemind.
- The paladin started loading dead or dying characters onto his giant pegasus to ferry them off Skyreach Castle.
- Meanwhile, a drow priestess of Lolth who is an allied NPC had found an orb of dragonkind aboard the castle. She took it to the ancient blue dragon in hopes of negotiating his help in escaping. Then she spotted Hekaton. Stepping forward, she cast Remove Curse to break the Zhentarim spell that held him in thrall. Unfortunately, the blue dragon was still under geas to guard Hekaton. With a single bite he dropped the priestess, then tore her apart with two claw attacks.
- Hekaton threw himself at the dragon and battle ensued.
- The halfling bard used Dimension Door to appear in the middle of the giant/dragon throw down, grabbed the orb of dragonkind, and then used Teleport to take the orb to Waterdeep. Unknown to the other players, the halfling's soul is trapped in Hell and the soul occupying his body is the lackey of an Archdevil. Once in Waterdeep, the bard delivered the orb to his devilish masters (off camera).
- Looking out across Waterdeep, the bard saw that it had been attacked, conquered, and occupied by frost giants.
- The remaining characters escaped Skyreach, watched it crash, and then sorted through the rubble. They found a massive treasure hoard...and the body of Hekaton. Of the blue dragon there was no sign.
- The paladin used Revivify to bring back the sorcerer. The other dead NPC is likely to be brought back by the bard in the next session with Raise Dead. The drow priestess is dead and unlikely to return.
I wasn't expecting the adventure to come to such an abrupt close, but I was really happy with how it all turned out. Lots of surprises against a widescreen backdrop. One PC killed outright, two making death saving throws, two dead allied NPCs. Not bad for a night's work.
Everyone had a blast.
Next session is in two weeks. It'll be interesting to see if the players realize they have a traitor in their midst. I expect skullduggery to ensue.
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Hey, it's me again. Last night I had my first session DMing a new campaign with three players. This campaign is a modified version of Dragon Heist.
One player is a veteran who is also in one of my campaigns where the characters just hit level 14. The second player has played about 10 times total, and is in my campaign where the characters are at level 4. The third player is brand new to tabletop RPGs (but familiar with CRPGs). Respectively, they are playing a half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf wizard.
So, yes, I'm currently running three campaigns. It's a lot. It's fun. But...it's a lot. Probably too much for me in the long term, but during quarantine it's keeping me sane.
[BEWARE OF SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST BELOW]
Basically, I'm using Dragon Heist as the spine but changing just about everything else. Originally, my plan had been to run the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist, which I like a lot. If you've not heard of it, the Remix outlines how to run the adventure with all 4 factions in play simultaneously, rather than just selecting one. It's excellent. But...
Manshoon and the Zhentarim are major players in my current high-level campaign. As for the Cassalanters, I'll likely use them in place of the Vanthampurs if I ever run Descent Into Avernus. And I'm lukewarm on Jarlaxle (even though I'm partial to drow). So...I decided to create new factions using 13th Age's Icons as inspiration.
I wrote up 15 factions such as the Xanathar, the Blackstaff, a drow House, the Masked Lords, Waterdeep nobles, etc, etc. Each player chose one faction with which they have a positive relationship, a negative relationship, and a conflicted relationship. The factions the players chose determined who the opposition was. This turned out really, really well. I'll likely re-use it for most of my future campaigns. It gives the players some authorship and makes them give a damn what happens next.
Finally, just to complicate my life some more, I decided to throw the Deck of Many Things into the mix. I've never seen it in play but have always wanted to. And as I become more experienced as a DM, I'm less concerned about "breaking" my game. In fact, these days I kind of want to break my game!
With that out of the way...
Our first session had the player characters getting a job from a mysterious patron to recover a playing card from an abandoned estate in Waterdeep. I used the Vanthampur Villa map from Descent Into Avernus. The estate belonged to a once-famous group of adventurers called Fortune's Fools, who are going to have a major role in the backstory of the Deck of Many Things. The characters soon discovered the estate was occupied by boggles and rigged with traps. They faced 4 flying swords, a suit of animated armor, a pit trap, and 3 boggles who kept stealing their gear and then teleporting away. Honestly, it was too tough for three 1st level characters. We ended with the halfling rogue stable but unconscious, with no immediately clear way to get back on his feet and continue the adventure. We'll cross that bridge when we play again in two weeks.
Everyone had a good time. I really like how quickly the game plays with three 1st level characters (as opposed to five 14th level characters and their henchmen) but it's also very swingy.
One player is a veteran who is also in one of my campaigns where the characters just hit level 14. The second player has played about 10 times total, and is in my campaign where the characters are at level 4. The third player is brand new to tabletop RPGs (but familiar with CRPGs). Respectively, they are playing a half-orc fighter, halfling rogue, and half-elf wizard.
So, yes, I'm currently running three campaigns. It's a lot. It's fun. But...it's a lot. Probably too much for me in the long term, but during quarantine it's keeping me sane.
[BEWARE OF SPOILERS FOR DRAGON HEIST BELOW]
Basically, I'm using Dragon Heist as the spine but changing just about everything else. Originally, my plan had been to run the Alexandrian Remix of Dragon Heist, which I like a lot. If you've not heard of it, the Remix outlines how to run the adventure with all 4 factions in play simultaneously, rather than just selecting one. It's excellent. But...
Manshoon and the Zhentarim are major players in my current high-level campaign. As for the Cassalanters, I'll likely use them in place of the Vanthampurs if I ever run Descent Into Avernus. And I'm lukewarm on Jarlaxle (even though I'm partial to drow). So...I decided to create new factions using 13th Age's Icons as inspiration.
I wrote up 15 factions such as the Xanathar, the Blackstaff, a drow House, the Masked Lords, Waterdeep nobles, etc, etc. Each player chose one faction with which they have a positive relationship, a negative relationship, and a conflicted relationship. The factions the players chose determined who the opposition was. This turned out really, really well. I'll likely re-use it for most of my future campaigns. It gives the players some authorship and makes them give a damn what happens next.
Finally, just to complicate my life some more, I decided to throw the Deck of Many Things into the mix. I've never seen it in play but have always wanted to. And as I become more experienced as a DM, I'm less concerned about "breaking" my game. In fact, these days I kind of want to break my game!
With that out of the way...
Our first session had the player characters getting a job from a mysterious patron to recover a playing card from an abandoned estate in Waterdeep. I used the Vanthampur Villa map from Descent Into Avernus. The estate belonged to a once-famous group of adventurers called Fortune's Fools, who are going to have a major role in the backstory of the Deck of Many Things. The characters soon discovered the estate was occupied by boggles and rigged with traps. They faced 4 flying swords, a suit of animated armor, a pit trap, and 3 boggles who kept stealing their gear and then teleporting away. Honestly, it was too tough for three 1st level characters. We ended with the halfling rogue stable but unconscious, with no immediately clear way to get back on his feet and continue the adventure. We'll cross that bridge when we play again in two weeks.
Everyone had a good time. I really like how quickly the game plays with three 1st level characters (as opposed to five 14th level characters and their henchmen) but it's also very swingy.
...and I'm back. This time one of my players was kind enough to buy our group a session on Roll20 with a guest DM. Yes, I got to play!
Everyone flipped the script. So the guy who plays the paladin had a wizard. The rogue played a sorcerer. The sorcerer played a barbarian. The bard played a fighter. Etc. I rolled up a 5th level hexblade warlock with a focus on infiltration. I didn't have any standout moments but I played smart and kept the group focused on completing the mission.
We raided the hill giant den of Grudd Haug from Storm King's Thunder. I ran this as a DM and really enjoyed it. It's a blast as a player, too. Felt really good to be on the other side of the "screen".
Everyone flipped the script. So the guy who plays the paladin had a wizard. The rogue played a sorcerer. The sorcerer played a barbarian. The bard played a fighter. Etc. I rolled up a 5th level hexblade warlock with a focus on infiltration. I didn't have any standout moments but I played smart and kept the group focused on completing the mission.
We raided the hill giant den of Grudd Haug from Storm King's Thunder. I ran this as a DM and really enjoyed it. It's a blast as a player, too. Felt really good to be on the other side of the "screen".
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
So, we had an Epic last session. Epic is the particular catchphrase of a friend of mine, and we resurrected a finished campaign to do a one-shot special surprise game. (Well, ended up being a two shot.)
The campaign had ended quite well, but one of the loose threads was the blue dragon Al'Tinine we had killed in the finale was known to have a huge stash of sapphires that he had been paying a rival group with. And the lost kingdom we refounded was awash with refuges and needing funding.
The birthday one-shot was hearing rumors of another blue dragon taking up the title of Al'tinine, in the rough area we though he had his lair. It was the original five party members, plus two guests for the one-shot who were not as well equipped nor used to the party dynamics - a second barbarian and a battlemaster.
Cool stuff, challenges to get through a whole unnatural lightning storm, a trapped lair, etc. But we came across a blue wyrmling in it's lair, claiming to be the brood of Al'tinine and willing to parley.
We started to talk, actually planning on making it relocate from where it was now (hurting allies) to a nation we wanted to eradicate. Anyway, the sneak attack came, but it was from our side, pre-empting the parley. Suddenly the who floor disappeared and we all fell 40 feet to the real floor - with seven of it's larger brood-mates. Whom because of how we were positioned above were already among us so we couldn't get off effective AoEs of any sort.
We had 6.5 10th level characters (one player was several hours late, so 6 players for the first few rounds) with decent magic items but not a single bit of lightning resistance among us, already worn down a bit. Outnumbered by eight Blue Dragons. Who then proceeded to win initiative, and breath weapon us all to crap. By our first action, no one was above half HPs and one barbarian and the fighter were both down. (Sad note - that barbarian rolled the best initiative of us. What this ended up meaning in practice is that the dragons would knock him out, he's miss his turn, get healed, the dragons would knock him out - lather, rinse, repeat. He didn't have an action for half the combat.)
So we had this amazingly tough encounter with the spawn of our old enemy. Just for shiggles I ran the DMG encounter numbers. Seven CR 9 (5000XP) plus one CR 3 (700XP) is 35700 XP. When you include the multiplier for 7-10 monsters of 2.5, that's 89250. Deadly for seven level 10 characters is 28,000 XP, so that was more than three times the deadly rating, with advantageous positioning and terrain for them.
We were victorious, but it was close and we had people going down every single round, especially when they started making sure the cleric was down. But the bard went right before the cleric in initiative, and both went before most of the rest of the party. So the glamour bard would stand our life cleric back up and use Mantle of Inspiration to give tHP and repositioning, the life cleric would hit us with a Mass Cure Wounds, and we'd do what we could to defeat them. Our rogue was quite hurt when the bard turned her into a Giant Ape who was very effective for the rest of the combat. (Yes, there are higher CR beasts, that was what the character had seen except for a T-Rex and the bard reserved that form for the King. It's right there in the name and names are important to Jillian.)
Anyway, I enjoy combat but am fine with sessions without it, but this was the most skin-of-our-teeth bang-out battle I think I've ever had in the years since I switched to 5e. So much tension, risk, and imminent death that overcoming that and snatching victory was very sweet indeed.
The campaign had ended quite well, but one of the loose threads was the blue dragon Al'Tinine we had killed in the finale was known to have a huge stash of sapphires that he had been paying a rival group with. And the lost kingdom we refounded was awash with refuges and needing funding.
The birthday one-shot was hearing rumors of another blue dragon taking up the title of Al'tinine, in the rough area we though he had his lair. It was the original five party members, plus two guests for the one-shot who were not as well equipped nor used to the party dynamics - a second barbarian and a battlemaster.
Cool stuff, challenges to get through a whole unnatural lightning storm, a trapped lair, etc. But we came across a blue wyrmling in it's lair, claiming to be the brood of Al'tinine and willing to parley.
We started to talk, actually planning on making it relocate from where it was now (hurting allies) to a nation we wanted to eradicate. Anyway, the sneak attack came, but it was from our side, pre-empting the parley. Suddenly the who floor disappeared and we all fell 40 feet to the real floor - with seven of it's larger brood-mates. Whom because of how we were positioned above were already among us so we couldn't get off effective AoEs of any sort.
We had 6.5 10th level characters (one player was several hours late, so 6 players for the first few rounds) with decent magic items but not a single bit of lightning resistance among us, already worn down a bit. Outnumbered by eight Blue Dragons. Who then proceeded to win initiative, and breath weapon us all to crap. By our first action, no one was above half HPs and one barbarian and the fighter were both down. (Sad note - that barbarian rolled the best initiative of us. What this ended up meaning in practice is that the dragons would knock him out, he's miss his turn, get healed, the dragons would knock him out - lather, rinse, repeat. He didn't have an action for half the combat.)
So we had this amazingly tough encounter with the spawn of our old enemy. Just for shiggles I ran the DMG encounter numbers. Seven CR 9 (5000XP) plus one CR 3 (700XP) is 35700 XP. When you include the multiplier for 7-10 monsters of 2.5, that's 89250. Deadly for seven level 10 characters is 28,000 XP, so that was more than three times the deadly rating, with advantageous positioning and terrain for them.
We were victorious, but it was close and we had people going down every single round, especially when they started making sure the cleric was down. But the bard went right before the cleric in initiative, and both went before most of the rest of the party. So the glamour bard would stand our life cleric back up and use Mantle of Inspiration to give tHP and repositioning, the life cleric would hit us with a Mass Cure Wounds, and we'd do what we could to defeat them. Our rogue was quite hurt when the bard turned her into a Giant Ape who was very effective for the rest of the combat. (Yes, there are higher CR beasts, that was what the character had seen except for a T-Rex and the bard reserved that form for the King. It's right there in the name and names are important to Jillian.)
Anyway, I enjoy combat but am fine with sessions without it, but this was the most skin-of-our-teeth bang-out battle I think I've ever had in the years since I switched to 5e. So much tension, risk, and imminent death that overcoming that and snatching victory was very sweet indeed.
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