D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[kenada]

Last session ended in a rout. The cleric in the party really wanted to do something about the pack of ghouls they’d encountered while exploring a barrow. The party bought tons of oil and hired retainers to help them with the plan. They were going to liberally apply the oil, lure the ghouls, and spring the trap (lighting the oil on fire). When they got to the barrow, they completely abandoned the plan.

When I checked for repopulation, some of the ghouls had moved out of the main room the PCs planned to attack. I don’t know if that’s what convinced them to abandon the plan, but they pretty much just charged into the room and attack the ghouls there. We’re doing OSE, and they’re a 1st level party against a couple of 2HD ghouls. They weakened one ghoul, but it got away to get reinforcements. They took down the other one, but then reinforcements started spilling from the rooms across the hall from where they were.

They made a valiant retreat, dragging about half their party with them (who were paralyzed). One of the retainers went down, and they proposed he could be the food you need to drop for OSE’s escape procedure. I rolled, and the ghouls went for it. I suppose it’s good the party managed to make it out with only the loss of the retainer, though people were banged up a bit (e.g., the cleric was at 1 hit point), but that could have gone a lot better.

 

[jasper]

Boring. I go about maybe 30 minutes of play. We are all doing our own thing building things in Waterdeep at -246. And 3/4 of the foes are one on one. Third I getting tired of the table hog.

 

[el-remmen]

In my Revenants of Saltmarsh game, which has taken a side-trek away from the main adventures to pad the ole XP finished up Roarwater Caves - a 1E Dungeon adventure by Willie Walsh, I converted to 5E - in which they came to the aid to local community of xvarts who had been taken over by bugbear layabouts and disrupting the business deal they had going with a local fisherman.

This campaign has been unusual in that the paladin of redemption really works to avoid killing anyone and even made sure the bugbear bullies were bound and stable after defeating them. The xvarts were less willing to be merciful - nevertheless, the party did succeed in making an alliance with them.

The other cool thing is that a player we used to game with back in the early 00s was able to join the game! He played an NPC for this session, but he should be deciding on his permanent character by next session or so.

 

[humble minion]

In preparation for our upcoming attempt to steal a teleportation key from the hill giant stronghold at Grudd Haug (in Storm King's Thunder), we ambushed a hill giant patrol. The idea is to draw forces out from Grudd Haug itself, so there's less to oppose us when we do get there.

Well, despite having an NPC on our side who's considerably more powerful than any of the PCs (and who is of questionable trustworthiness, given the whole 'being a vampire' thing an all...), we had a really tough time and it was a quite close-run thing, our dice rolls were awful, we didn't expect the oni who counterspelled our opening fireball gambit, and some of the variant ogres that the hill giants had conscripted had some brutal special actions. The cleric went down to 0hp and a couple of other PCs were one hit from going down too.

We spent almost all of our daily resources on knocking out a single patrol of one hill giant, a couple of ogres, an oni, and a smattering of hobgoblins, and we got beaten to hell in the process and only really got saved by the presence of an overpowered NPC who might actually be a bad guy. Lesson #1 learned (or re-learned) was to concentrate attacks rather than spread them around, but jeez, we're rethinking whether taking on Grudd Haug is going to be a smart idea, even if we're probably going to have a fair few more allies by that time...

 

[Older Beholder]

So, we went to investigate a small forest outside of town after hearing reports of the sound of crying babies coming at night. Hidden in a cave we found an empty bassinet. (the item was magical, cursed to produce a new born infant each night)

My Tortle monk took the crib and we continued to search the woods, eventually finding a clearing in which a dozen cultists and a demon were beginning a ritual. We charged in and saved a small child and stopped the cult.

Nearby there was a great twisted tree with an entrance at it's base that led down into a dungeon inside. As we explored inside the tree the session took on a bit of a Mandolorian vibe, as my monk had to keep finding somewhere safe to put the baby whenever a fight broke out.

The real stress though was wondering what we're going to do with a magical item that produces a baby each night.
All up though, it was a heap of fun.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

In preparation for our upcoming attempt to steal a teleportation key from the hill giant stronghold at Grudd Haug (in Storm King's Thunder), we ambushed a hill giant patrol. The idea is to draw forces out from Grudd Haug itself, so there's less to oppose us when we do get there.

Well, despite having an NPC on our side who's considerably more powerful than any of the PCs (and who is of questionable trustworthiness, given the whole 'being a vampire' thing an all...), we had a really tough time and it was a quite close-run thing, our dice rolls were awful, we didn't expect the oni who counterspelled our opening fireball gambit, and some of the variant ogres that the hill giants had conscripted had some brutal special actions. The cleric went down to 0hp and a couple of other PCs were one hit from going down too.

We spent almost all of our daily resources on knocking out a single patrol of one hill giant, a couple of ogres, an oni, and a smattering of hobgoblins, and we got beaten to hell in the process and only really got saved by the presence of an overpowered NPC who might actually be a bad guy. Lesson #1 learned (or re-learned) was to concentrate attacks rather than spread them around, but jeez, we're rethinking whether taking on Grudd Haug is going to be a smart idea, even if we're probably going to have a fair few more allies by that time...

Not sure what level you're at, but that could definitely be a very tough group of monsters. I've played Grudd Haug as both DM and PC. At lower levels, sneaking and infiltration is warranted. At higher levels, it can be a bone-crunching brawl. It's great either way. Good luck!

 

[THEMNGMNT]

My main group got together 2 weeks after the end of our 4 year long campaign to reflect and reminisce. And to drink. We spent two hours talking about our favorite moments...as well as what we want more of and less of in our next campaign. There were so great many moments I'd completely forgotten about. (Funny how one tends to dwell on the missteps and not the triumphs.) And some moments that I thought were among the weakest but turned out to be favorites of the players. It was an illuminating discussion!

After that, we kicked off a session of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. I bought a couple used MHR books a few years ago and have wanted to see the game in action ever since. Cortex is a fascinating system. Not sure I really have my head wrapped around it. Anyway, we're playing the introductory "Breakout" event from the core book, which is a great launching pad for just about any set of heroes. Currently we have Hulk, Spidey, Ant-Man, Punisher, and Wolverine. That's a solid line up. Not sure how many sessions this will last, but it's a refreshing change of pace.

 

[Richards]

The real stress though was wondering what we're going to do with a magical item that produces a baby each night.

I know what my eminently practical lizardfolk barbarian/fighter PC would think about it: "Meat is meat."

Johnathan

 

[Blue]

One of the retainers went down, and they proposed he could be the food you need to drop for OSE’s escape procedure.

The real stress though was wondering what we're going to do with a magical item that produces a baby each night.

Never, EVER let these two groups meet up and trade items.

 

[SiCK_Boy]

My wizard was swallowed on the first round of a fight with a Froghemoth. That made me realize how debilitating the "blinded" condition is; my character's new goal in life is to find a solution in case this ever happens again.

The DM was lenient enough to rule that I could still target the monster itself from within, so that allowed me to banish it (which led to another round of questions about whether I would be sent to the demiplane along with the monster - basically, when a PC is swallowed and in a monster's gullet, does that PC becomes an object carried by the monster); in the end, the ruling was that if the banishment succeeded, I would be freed and safe (and it worked, barely, with some assistance from the paladin).

I don't think I would have died (the rest of the party should have been able to kill it before I was digested by the internal acid's 3d6 dmg/round; I still had some 60 hp), and I guess I could have had a chance at being expelled with a solid damage spell from inside (although reaching 20 points of damage is not easy when the monster has resistance to fire and lighting while your primary attack spell is Lightning Bolt, but I think upcasting it would have given me a fair shot).

Still, a bit of a traumatic session for me. To think all I did is try to grab a pink flower (with no particular use or plot relevance) from a pond that I assumed was only a couple feet deep...

If people have good suggestions for a Lvl 8 abjuration wizard that ends up blinded and restrained inside a monster's gullet, I'm open to hearing them!