D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[ccs]

Slow & slightly irritating.
Slow: It was always going to be relatively slow as it was a session of setting up some new plot hooks, describing Waterdeep to players #1 & #2 who have ZERO knowledge of it, player #3 with only cursory WD knowledge, & general RP.
Irritating: Because of vet player #4 who has a bunch of 2e/3.5 FR knowledge - that is both outdated AND doesn't (necessarily) apply to my Waterdeep - continuously talking about details that his character is established as absolutely not possessing. By him. He doesn't seem to understand/care that when I'm describing something it's A) FOR A LATER REASON, B) not solely for HIS benefit. And as long as he's talking our newest player sits quietly, tunes out, & plays on her phone. It's already hard enough to get her to do stuff in-game. She'll get there, but this just makes it harder.
And to top it off? Player #4 had the gall to complain that nothing was getting done. "Well maybe more progress would be made if you shut up long enough to hear the story hooks & let others accomplish their RP/down time goals...."

Story: So after having burnt the the Frost Giants longship, the party arrives in WD aboard the dwarf merchant vessel. They'll arrive several days before the Day of Wonders parade from Dragon Heist. And if they intend to hitch a ride further south on this boat, they've got a weeks downtime.
Things to do:
*Get oriented in a completely foreign city magnitudes greater than what they're used to. Requires considerable description at times. This includes reading the Code Legal & realizing they won't be stabbing their way about.
*New clothes/baths - they've been adventuring for the past 3 weeks in sooty Fire Giant forges, covered in Yakman blood, nearly drowned in sea water, several days on a dwarf run cargo ship....
*Get random $/loot converted to Waterdeep currency. This was actually fun listening to player #4 rant about how he's never had a DM care about this detail & pitch a fit over paying money changers fees. Complaining that the only reason I'm doing so is because that book in front of me TELLS me to do so. In fact it's probably because it's absurd to be paying for stuff in a mix of random foreign coins/coins minted BY FIRE GIANTS, & 400 GP value of "Troll Stuff" back in civilization.... )
*Get a curse removed from a magic sword they found
*Visit the Clerics church so that he can tithe.
*Then visit a few taverns & celebrate their victories by drinking/carousing/whoring.
While on their pub crawl they met Floon & Renear(sp?) Nevermember & related some of their tales of adventures. This earned them an invite to the Yawning Portal the following evening. Floon & Renear are set to meet up with an old friend who's in town - Volo. The pair are sure that Volo would LOVE to hear the groups full story!

And so the session ended with introductions being made all around a table in the YP as the ale began to flow again.

So what's next?
Well into the evening a mechanical assassin is going to stab a shifty looking Gnome, steal the Stone of Gollor(sp?) from him, and shove someone down the YP's well in order to cause a distraction while it escapes.
Will the PCs chase after or rescue the person shoved in the well?

 

[THEMNGMNT]

The latest session of my Dragon Heist/Deck of Many Things mashup was probably the most fun I've ever had with 2nd level characters.

To recap: The halfling rogue, half-elf wizard, and half-orc fighter are breaking into an island prison off the coast of Waterdeep to free the dwarven architect of a secret vault filled with a legendary treasure hoard created by a draw from the Deck of Many Things. Last session, they discovered that dwarf's cell wasn't designed to keep him in -- it was designed to keep something out. Something...extraplanar...like a devil, an angel, or perhaps a deadly avatar summoned by the Deck. (Hint, hint.) I'm leaning heavily into factions, and the Xanathar's Guild and a drow house are significant enemies in this session, while the Shadow Thieves are allies of the halfling and half-orc.

The session starts with a mind flayer arcanist working for the Xanathar plane shifting into the dwarf's suite. The guards, including the prison's minotaur warden, mistakenly assume the PCs are working with the mind flayer. The guards attack the mind flayer while the minotaur takes on the PCs. A mind blast and confusion spell from the mind flayer takes out the guards and befuddles the PCs. The wizard throws a bead of force -- a magic item he discovered in their first adventure. The mind flayer fails its saving throw. Suddenly, it is encased in an indestructable force field that weighs only one pound. The wizard picks it up and hurls it out the window into the storm-tossed sea 80 feet below.

Taking the fearful, panicked dwarf with them, the PCs descend one floor to resolve some unfinished business with other prisoners. First, they free an old blind man who used to work for the orc fighter's evil stepfather -- a powerful noble in Waterdeep. Next, they seek out a traitorous rogue that once worked for the Shadow Thieves. But she has already escaped her cell with help from the mind flayer.

At the ground floor, the players find the prison guards locked in battle with agents of the drow house -- a half-dozen chitines led by an ettercap. Outside the prison, the traitorous rogue is stealing the player's boat and making her escape from the island. The halfling pursues her. But she gets the best of him and he has to jump into the ocean to save his life. Meanwhile, the half-orc dismembers several chitines (with the help of his orc racial power that pops him back to 1 hp when he's knocked out) and the wizard uses another bead of force to neutralize the ettercap.

The PCs load the dwarf and old man aboard a boat and make for Waterdeep.

What made the session so much fun is that I had stacked the deck so strongly against the PCs. At only 2nd level the PCs were one or two hits away from going down. There was no way they were going to keep hold of that dwarf -- the mind flayer or the drow were sure to get him. Yet, somehow, the players lucked their way through three Deadly encounters and completed the mission. The beads of force -- which I've never before seen in play -- obviously made a huge difference. The session felt like total chaos throughout.

 

[Richards]

We finished off my 5-year "Kordovian Adventurers Guild" campaign with a bang: an assault on the Underdark drow city that's been sending waves of orc and goblin slaves into the PCs' kingdom for the past two decades. Three of the PCs had powered combat armor suits (like Iron Man) and three others were driving full-on mechs, all courtesy of a recent excursion into Gamma World. So the six of them plus six other NPCs against an entire city of drow, including a 20th-level drow cleric Matriarch capable of summoning an aspect of Lolth to the Material Plane.

The drow had no idea what they were up against. And despite the deaths of one PC and one NPC, they were successful in their mission: the drow city of Arachnespinnacle is no more. It was a six-hour gaming session well spent, and now in two weeks we start up our next D&D 3.5 campaign, which will take place in an entirely home-brewed game world.

Johnathan

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Currently in the climax of my Storm King's Thunder (engineered by Manshoon and the Zhentarim) campaign arc. I've split it into three simultaneous scenes to give it a sense of scale and scope. In this session, the players created all-new 11th level characters to represent a strike force attacking the frost giant iceberg lair of Svardborg, which is currently parked in Waterdeep's harbor and is the source of the supernatural cold that has frozen solid both the harbor and the city itself. The characters' goal is to destroy the frost giant leadership and lift the curse of the cold.

Svardborg is one of my favorite locations in SKT and I've been dying to play it.

One player is running Harshnag (called Harshang in my campaign), the frost giant member of Force Grey. He's roleplayed with a "now it is the time on Sprockets where we dance" voice and has become a favorite of the group. Same player also rolled up a halfling evoker wizard to fit in Harshang's pocket. There was also a goliath totem barbarian, gnome battle smith artificer, and aasimar lore bard/hexblade warlock.

In my Realms, the frost giant jarl, Storvald, is the brother of Harshang. Storvald's wife, Gremgerda, is the shaman of the tribe. Because the characters chose to infiltrate Svardborg through the Temple of Thrym they ran straight into Gremgerda. She was in the middle of a mass sacrifice of prisoners which would make permanent the cold weather. The characters fought her and her priestesses. When Gremgerda fell, her blood spilled on the altar to Thrym. Suddenly, the entire Temple shook. The floor erupted. And from the ice below emerged a 100 foot tall elemental of ice and snow.

And that's where we wrapped. It was a short session.

 

[KlausMikalson]

The last game session was the first session of the new campaign I'm, using a mash-up of Lost Mines of Phadelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak. There was a lot of last minute character finalizing and introduction to some of the new features I'm using on Tabletop Simulator (health bars and condition statuses on the showbox.bio/ tutuapp.uno/ https://vidmate.cool/ minis, and other stuff), but we got on with the show after some technical difficulties (the wonders of internet gaming). The actual game went pretty well, and I think all of the players had fun.

 

[Azzy]

Having previously clered the Cragmaw Hideout in the last session, the PCs finally made it to Phandalin. There, they heard about the Redbrands and decided to immediately tick them off the next day. They managed to (unsubtlely) bring attention to themselves and promptly find themselves tailed—and start a fight. They kill the ruffians and then stack their bodies in one of the ruined houses (because they didn't want to leave them in the middle of the road).

Then they spend the next 30 minutes discussing how to approach the Sleeping Giant tap house. Eventuall, they decide to have the bard go up to the two Redbrands that are lingering outside the door and tell them that some of their friends had been attacked by some adventurers (prompting a Deception roll) while the other PCs remain hidden. One of the two Redbrands immediately becomes suspicious (stellar Insight roll despite having a negative modifier), and starts drawing his weapon threateningly (Roll Initiative). Combat ensues.

The bard, Farrus, casts Vicious Mockery on one, the other PCs come out of hiding (except for the Bladesinger, who casts Grease on the area where the two are standing (whic is right in front of the door to the Sleeping Giant). One of the two decides to go inside and get his buddies, with the other starting the attack (well, he slips and falls gets up and doesn't have enough movement left to get to the bard, who is closest). The PCs do the rest of their attacks, and next round a group of Redbrands start coming out the door, and fall on their butts because of the Grease (I rolled like craop for their saves). What ensuse is a Kingstone Cops situation where the Redbrands keep falling down, and some of them decide to crawl out of the Grease.

Throughout the combat, everyone rolls like crap (including several fumbles)—causing it to go on much longer than I had anticipated. At one point, the Bladesinger decides to enter melee combat and immediately regrets it and disingages the next turn. The half-orc barbarian, Wrath, who has been failing all attacks up to this point rolls a crit against one of the ruffians and proceeds to do 40 points of damag—killing the ruffian in one blow. Here, one of the Ruffians decides to split so he can get reinforcements from their hideout (he doesn't get far), and the PCs kill off the rest except one, who surrenders after Wrath intimidates him. They take as a prisoner and interrogate him and get various details including a description of Glasstaff.

The PCs haul the their prisoner back to the townmaster's hall and discover that Sildar is basing himself there and taking on the townmaster's duties since Harbin has holed up inside his house (he's scared of the white dragon that's been spotted in the area). After locking up the prisoner, Sildar asks the party to find Iarno and gives them a description... The party puts two and two to together, and heads up to Tresendar Manor. They find the stairs going down, but that's where the session has to end.

All in all, it was a good session. Earlier I had made quest cards for the quests in LMoP , using the ones in DoIP as a template and put some quest markers (using images from Neverwinter Online as a wink to the players that also play NW) on the Phandalin map.

I'm getting a lot more comfortable with Tabletop Simulator and have found some neat gadgets and props to make the play expience easier and more fun.

 

[Umbran]

My most recent game was... chilling.

There was a white dragon. Emphasis on was. There almost was my artificer. Emphasis on almost.

Hint - if you start with 45 HP, and then take a blast of breath weapon, reconsider whether you really want to shoot the dragon in the face. They don't seem to like that at all.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

Still playing through the climax of my customized version of Storm King's Thunder. The climax is split into three simultaneous missions, with the main characters taking on one of those missions, and the players stepping into the shoes of other characters for the other two missions. In this session, the players were using 11th level characters they rolled up just for this mission.

The objective was to raid the ice giant lair of Svardborg, which was in the middle of Waterdeep harbor and was the source of a supernatural cold that was encasing the city in ice. Last session, the players disrupted a ritual in the temple of Thrym that would have made the cold permanent. The byproduct of disrupting the ritual was the creation of a 100 foot tall ice elemental. (I used the stats of Olhydra CR21 but reflavored all the water stuff as snow and ice.) Most of the session involved the characters trying to stop the not-Olhydra and the CR5 elementals it spawned. Not-Olyhdra had no interest in fighting the characters--it was headed toward Waterdeep to destroy the city.

Meanwhile, the battle was starting to draw the attention of frost giants from the other parts of Svardborg. And the characters spotted the frost giant jarl, Storvald, approaching on the back of an adult white dragon.

Depleted from the battle, the players came up with a desperate plan. They found a hidden tunnel beneath the altar to Thrym. Most of them snuck into the tunnel in hopes of gaining a short rest before having to face the frost giants and their jarl. Two characters--the gnome artificer and the goliath barbarian--stayed behind in hopes of countering the magic that had summoned not-Olhydra. However, doing so would mean they would be caught in the open when Storvald arrived atop his dragon. In other words, near-certain death. It was a suicide mission.

The artificer passed her Arcana check and disrupted the magic holding together not-Olhydra. But then Storvald arrived. The artificer cast rope trick. Using her boots of flying, she swooped up toward the extra dimensional hole in the sky. The barbarian began to climb the rope. The artificer made it. The barbarian did not. He was felled by a javelin from Storvald and ripped to pieces by a multiattack from the dragon.

Next session should be the finale to Svardborg.

 

[Richards]

Our Thursday game session was short: the manticore rolled a "3" for initiative so we all got to wail on it for a good while before it could counterattack, and then it whiffed with a claw/claw/bite routine that resulted in all misses. It was dead before it got to do a single point of damage to any of us. The annis and harpy fighters took us a bit longer to take out, but as the whole session was just the one encounter, we were finished in a little over an hour. (Normally, we play from about 6:30 until 9:00 or 9:30 or so.)

Johnathan

 

[DND_Reborn]

Our last session was great! After defeating three red dragons, the party pushed on and battled Drow and Mind Flayers. The final battle was climatic but survivable thanks to our bard/wizard who used his portent to charm the last dragon and persuade it not to take part in the battle against us. We vanquished the drow Inquisitor and lackeys, and just managed to save our poor elf retainer from death in the lava river when a salamander grappled him and pulled him under the lava!

Now, we are transitioning over to finish CoS, but then when we return to our main game, we are off to find our ally archdruid and have him send our party into Hell so we can rescue our comrade who is still trapped there.