D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

It's been a long time since we've been able to play, but our move is (hopefully) just about over. I am hoping that we'll be able to have a session next weekend, but we are at a point where I have to do some prep work, so it could very easily be another week after that.
 

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Mistwell

Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
Last session our 5 7th level adventurers were trying to leave White Plume Mountain with their stack of artifact weapons when FOUR Efreeti attacked!

We're in tight corridors, so no room to maneuver. The Efreeti are lined up well for a lightening bolt, but alas allies are blocking the path! Two Efreeti cast Wall of Fire at us, hemming us in and forcing damage from both walls on all of us every round! Panic sets in as the Walls of Fire are sure to kill us before we can kill the Efreeti.

In desperation, our wizard hits the Efreeti with a Hypnotic Pattern. It works as the two Efreeti who had cast the Walls of Fire are each hypnotized (one fails their save thanks to the divination wizard using one of his portents to cause the failure)! The hypnotism causes the Efreeti to become incapacitated, and incapacitation breaks concentration! Hurray, we have a chance!

But swiftly other Efreeti break the hypnotism. So we're still facing four Efreeti even though two have already used their biggest spells. We still could be doomed as this battle is clearly above our pay grade and we've all already taken damage. But one Efreeti does go down to damage (another is completely fresh though, and has reduced himself for some reason).

Next session we'll see if our adventurers can survive. It's going to take some luck and skill.
 

Heavily modified version of Dragon of Icespire Keep. 12th session. Five player characters at 4th level.

This is a group of players who are new to me and new to the game. They're all working film and television writers. I have a hard time getting a read on one of them in particular. She plays an elf beastmaster ranger. She seems to veer between a watcher who plays pretty passively, and a highly engaged storyteller. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe she gets bored? Anyway, in this session, the storyteller came out. It was awesome.

The characters were in Axeholm, an abandoned dwarven stronghold occupied by orcs. The half-orc vengeance paladin was pretending that the other characters were his prisoner and that he was seeking an alliance with the orcs. The orcs were seeking a magical spear in the dragon's hoard. With it, they would be able to rally numerous orc tribes to wipe Phandalin off the map. The half-orc said he would travel to Icespire Keep and return with the spear as a way of proving his loyalty to the orcs. The orc warchief decided that he would be joined by an orc champion and two orogs, all riding worgs. Did I mention that the warchief is the half-orc's father, and the two champions are his half-brothers?

The players decided they would ambush the orcs as they made camp for the night. Meanwhile, the player of the ranger was trailing the other characters from a distance. She asked me if she could summon some ranger allies. Of course, I said. How do you do it? We discussed options and agreed that the rangers of the region had a network of stones they used to leave each other coded messages, as well as predetermined meeting points and ambush locations. So the characters led the orcs to one of those ambush locations -- a shallow cave that had a secret passage into the back that the ranger could use to flank the orcs.

I told the ranger that she was joined by another ranger in the conclave who had spotted the coded message left on the stone. Who was this other ranger? What was their relationship? She decided that the other ranger was a drow and former rival who now owed her a debt. With that in mind, I decided the drow was a beastmaster mounted on a giant spider and wielding a magical bow.

During the fight with the orcs and worgs, the drow ranger's giant spider was slain. The ranger player character was controlling the drow during combat...and when the drow's turn came up next she decided that the drow would attack her, seeing her responsible for the death of the spider companion. Then, she had her ranger parlay with the drow to de-escalate the fight, and asked the other player characters to heal the dying spider. At the end, ashamed of her behavior and seeking to make things right, the drow ranger loaned her Oathbow to the player character's ranger to slay the Dragon of Icespire Peak.

(I'm intentionally giving the characters magic items that are too powerful for their level to give them a taste of what makes D&D so awesome.)

Not only was the collaboration with this player a ton of fun but it solved a major problem. I've been using each quest to spotlight a different player character, explore their backstory, and reward them with a cool magic item. Unfortunately, we've not yet gotten to the ranger's spotlight quest, and may never do so based upon the choices the players are now making. I was feeling bad for the ranger's player and struggling to figure out how to give her more spotlight time. Tonight, she figured it out for me.

I love it when my players surprise me.
 

FXR

Explorer
Actually quite good.

Having saved from the clutches of the Yuan-Ti a merchant's adopted daughter, a former soldier from one PC's army and a wild elf, the PCs stole back their horses which were in the village next to the Yuan-Ti compound and startey their journey back to Karaal, the city of sages, to get their payment for rescuing the merchant's daughter.

When they stopped for the night about midway, they were woke up by the sound of thunder. The wild elf and the PC rogue/ranger immediately saw the problem: the lighting lit the dry grass of the savannah on fire and the blaze was sweeping toward the PCs!

The PCs, saved one who dislike horses, ran toward their horses and galloped toward the nearest river. The fire was spreading unaturally fast. Two PCs fell from their horses while jumping from a small cliff. Three PCs were engulfed in the blaze, but managed to reach the safety of the river. In the flames, they saw snake-like figures.

At Karaal, one PC noticed a disturbing sight: the sage who had given him information had been hanged. They proceeded cautiously toward the merchant's villa. The whole building had been burned and pillaged. A wounded servant told them the merchant had been killed two days ago by another of his servant, with a dagger, which the PCs recognised as typical of the Yuan-Ti. Save for the rogue, no PC had the guts to ask for its payment, considering the merchant had already given them a very generous advance.

When they exited the village, the PCs were accosted by a street urchin who showed them a similar dagger. The urchin explained he had been paid to show it to the PCs and tell them that each of them would receive such a dagger. It was a clear warning about meddling with the Snake People.

The wild elf had offered them to guide them to the Cradle of Humanity, the most populous regious, by elf paths. It would permit the PCs to avoid encounters with the Iron Hounds slavers who controlled a part of the main road to the Cradle of Humanity. The PC gladly accepted.

One night, when the group was camping in elven ruins. A sinister grey-face elf came to them. The ranger/rogue PC had already saw him several months ago in a caravanserail in the Ruthless Desert, trying to assassinate another elf. The grey elf explains he wished no confrontation with the PCs, explaining he had come for the wild elf. The party banded together with their elven friend. The sinister grey elf departed. but came back later in the night with several ghost-like fey hounds.

The party killed the sinister elf, but the wild elf had been seriously wounded. The paladin NPC explained that the problem lay not with the body but the soul. The wild elf asked them to bing her to a glade about two days from their camp. The PCs did, but one by one, became lost in the forest until only the wild elf, the ranger/rogue and the minotaur barbarian remained. Surrounded by crows, a young girl with monstrous traits welcomed them and accepted to save the wild elf, but explained one PC had to pay a terrible price: he would have to renounce to what is due to him. The ranger/rogue accepted. The elf's dying soul was fused to his own, which caused him great pain. When he woke up, his hands were clutching the elven cloak and he fell different, having became something like the first half-elf from the Savage Wilderlands (my homebrew world).
 

Blackrat

He Who Lurks Beyond The Veil
We took a stab at roll20. After some technical difficulties to start with, it ran pretty smoothly.

The actual game part of the session was a boat chase across the Sea of Fallen Stars. From Suzail to the Pirate Isles. It culminated in a clash that sunk both ships and the pc’s getting marooned on an island with the vampire they are chasing...

The kicker is, one of the characters has a prophesy/omen on their name, and in the language of her people, her name means The Sinker. This was her first ever trip on the seas, and already she sunk two ships. I wonder if the prophesy has yet been fulfilled... 😂
 

atanakar

Hero
Very short. Two of the players couldn't log in the Skype game until 8h30 and we stopped at 10h15. I'm used to 4 hours. We put the game on hiatus until September when people are less busy Friday nights. Maybe we can meet face to face.
 

Nebulous

Legend
Jeebers...that roper encounter in the sinkhole nearly tanked the party! So, so dangerous, but they pulled through. No deaths, but damn close.

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Nebulous

Legend
We took a stab at roll20. After some technical difficulties to start with, it ran pretty smoothly.

I resisted Roll20 a long, long time, but I've come to really like it. I spent so much time on it during quarantine I have been giving technical advice to my guys who have used it the past 5 years.
 



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