D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[Blue]

In one group we've been playing Strahd and following up on some stuff and I think the DM got tired of running it. He had given us new clues that took us towards the Amber Temple (we didn't even know if it) a previous session, then we had a big delay in the summer with vacations, and then the DM strongly hinted to abandon it and go attack Strahd's castle and mad eit possible (free teleport into it, instant way to contact our allies to attack).

This was the second session of the castle, out of the three he suggested it would take, and while he's not railroading, he's just handwaving combats and having us automatically notice secret doors and everything so it can move faster. Oh, at the end of both sessions in the castle he leveled us to get us ready to meet Strahd, a much faster rate then up until now.

We had one satisfying encounter with an early party member who left alone to meet with Strahd when we turned down his black carriage and invitation, whom had turned into a vampire, but everything else it feels like we're makign calls which way to turn on the map (he purchased it on Roll20) but the rest of the exploration and combats are on easy mode to just get it out of the way.

He's normally a very entertaining DM, I don't rate him by this at all. And he is getting us to some of the most interesting places in the castle to show them off which may be his goal. But it really feels like he's either burned out running or just wants to go back to be a player and just speed-running (and speed-levelling) us through the castle.

 

[el-remmen]

Here is a video showing the set-up for the final encounter I discussed in my last post. I actually made this video months ago when I was still designing this - so something minor things are missing (like the braziers that are supposed to be in front of the columns).

 

[THEMNGMNT]

3rd session of my Night's Black Agents campaign. The agents were infiltrating the real-life Citadel of Aleppo, which had become a field hospital for a Doctors Without Borders analog...yet was under the protection of Russian troops. Syrian militia members had captured the agents handler and taken her into the Citadel...then deeper into a quarantine zone purportedly used to isolate cases of leprosy. Something strange was going on.

Most of the session involved the agents navigating the Citadel, hacking the Russian computer network, using a huge spend of Preparedness to find a hidden weapons cache so they could re-arm, and just generally gathering intel. Then they spent Architecture to find a hidden way into the quarantine zone.

There, they discovered over a dozen sedated individuals strapped to gurneys. Including their handler. They were attended by a pair of well-built orderlies and a French doctor from not-Doctors Without Borders. The team medic knew he was a world-renowned specialist in blood diseases. So what's he doing in a leprosy ward? He seemed to be guarded by a pair of Russian soldiers. Also present was the Butcher of Aleppo, a local warlord the agents had been tasked with capturing.

The agents ambushed the group, cutting them down quickly, but spending most of the points in their Shooting pools. Once it became clear that defeat was inevitable, the Russians turned their guns on the French doctor. Hmmm...looks like they had something to hide.

The medic went over to check out the body of the Butcher -- and found out the hard way that the Butcher had come back to life. The agents don't have the lingo for it yet, but he's a Renfield. The Butcher tried to rip out the medic's throat. Fortunately, the Butcher was outnumbered and outgunned by the other agents, and this time he sustained more damage than his regeneration could overcome.

As the session concluded, a transport helicopter landed next to the quarantine zone. The doors opened. And Spetsnaz special forces troops disembarked to pick up the sedated patients.

Next session: This time there's a vampire. For real. I promise.

 

[pogre]

Just caught up. Thanks for your session reports. Good stuff!

 

[not-so-newguy]

I just finished running Veiled Society. I got completely lost, nothing made any sense, and the players had a blast. Go figure

 

[turnip_farmer]

Over prepared a whole bunch of different content because I could see too many different ways that things could go.

Players came up with an ingenious solution to their problems which bypassed almost everything I had planned.

Now I have nothing ready for next time again. Oi vey.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

4th session of my Night's Black Agents campaign. This was the climax of the introduction, which was meant to explain how the agents became disavowed superspy vampire hunters. After three sessions of nonstop action, the 5 agents were pretty beat up. I gave them all a refresh of one pool plus some XP to help top up their skills.

The agents had recovered their CIA handler from a Russian/Syrian stronghold in Aleppo. Along with about 20 other individuals, she'd been sedated and strapped to a gurney for transport on a military helicopter back to Russia. Exactly why, no one knew.

The session started with the helicopter landing next to the stronghold/field hospital. The ramp dropped. Two Spetsnaz special forces troops emerged, led by a hulking figure that was clearly bad news. Mechanically, he was a dhampir. All of them wore hazmat suits.

The agents tried to bluff their way past the Russians into the helicopter. Their goal was to get on the helicopter, jack it, and fly off. Things didn't go as planned. They'd been in a firefight earlier, their own hazmat suits were peppered with bullet holes, and the ruse lasted about two seconds.

The dhampir grabbed the agent trying to bluff him by the collar and threw him thirty feet straight up into the helicopter blades. This was when the jaws hit the floor. The player of the agent who went into the chopper blades is also a DM, and he was delighted to be the example used to set the stakes. Which is fortunate because he spent the next 90 minutes with nothing to do.

The agents lacked a coordinated plan. Some ran into the helicopter. Others tried to fight the dhampir. The dhampir regenerated half its health every turn, so without focused fire it was impossible to bring down. Mostly they just got shot up by the Spetsnaz soldiers without returning fire. It was a fiasco.

The hacker got close enough to the dhampir to get drained. Twice. Yet somehow he managed to grab the agent who went into the chopper blades and drag him aboard the helicopter. The explosives expert had killed the pilot and grabbed the stick. So they took off.

It was a narrow escape. Three of the five agents were at negative health. To my surprise, none died. I was confident that I'd kill at least one, for the most of the session I thought I'd kill two, and at times I believed it might be a TPK.

The players had a lot of fun. They like how scary the vampires are. We're all looking forward to playing more NBA.

At session's end I asked them which lead they wanted to pursue. They unanimously voted to go to Vienna, where they can intercept the founder of the Spetsnaz bioweapons cadre they'd just escaped from. This will be a tweaked version of Out of the House of Ashes, which is a pretty cool published adventure from The Zalozhniy Quartet.

 

[roll_for_deception]

they baked a cake and the wizard got beated for his jerkness, pretty average i would say

 

[Richards]

We went through another session with two shorter adventures in my "Dreams of Erthe" campaign, in which the PCs are all now 4th level.

In the first adventure ("Forest Dreams") they were on their way through a forest to the next dream coma victim when they found a dire wolf eating a deer carcass while next to him lay a gnome-sized guy covered in sticks and leaves. While dealing with the dire wolf, they started taking damage from unseen enemies hurling flaming javelins from the trees above, which turned out to be a group of tree goblins. (Most goblins in this campaign were wiped out centuries ago, with those surviving becoming servants to important humans. This is a band of goblins secretly living an arboreal existence and in fear of being discovered, lest the humans wipe them out like they did most of their ancestors.) They killed off the tree goblin ambushers (who had attacked mainly to burn the corpse of the tree goblin hunter the dire wolf had slain along with the deer), then went to try to find the dream coma victim - who ended up being a dryad trapped inside her oak tree. With the help of another dryad, they entered the sleeping dryad's dream and rescued her just before a bigger group of tree goblins arrived on the scene, desperate to kill the party before news of their existence could spread. The PCs killed them off as well.

In the second adventure ("Down Among the Dead Men"), the PCs entered a tomb to fetch a large dreamstone said to be stored inside. A crypt thing teleported two of the PCs elsewhere in the tomb, where they ended up fighting off a lesser grave medusa (imagine a skeletal medusa with earthworms instead of snakes for hair, who has a three-round petrification gaze) by themselves while the other three fought and destroyed the crypt thing. They ended taking on an animated skeleton, carrion crawler, gelatinous cube, and gargoyle before finding the dreamstone they were after. The fighter/wizard got petrified, but fortunately one of the clerics was right there with him and had just enough stone salve (thanks to the grateful dryad from the previous adventure) to return him to life.

They'll be spending the next four adventures in a large city, where they'll get to spend some of the money they've been gathering and try to awaken several other trapped dreamers.

Johnathan

 

[Musing Mage]

1e Continues...

The team had spent a few weeks training, where everyone made level 2, and one made level 3.

Royal proclamation indicated that the area where they'd buried the 750lbs of electrum was now off limits until further notice, and despite the Chaotics in the group insisting that they could be in and out before any patrols caught them, the lawfuls on the team insisted that no, they could wait, it was safely hidden.

One of the two Kensai had finished her level training for level 2, and a % roll was made to see if she faced a level challenge, a 17 on the dice said yes. She duelled and was defeated, so back to the beginning of level 1 for her.

The group ponders their next step, and are delivered a treasure map that was a part of a payment for a magic item they had previously sold. The trip is a 5 day journey to the location indicated on the map, but they have no other information. The trip is easy enough, but they soon find that X doesn't necessarily mark the spot as they spend the next several days searching the area for a possible burial site of hidden treasure... all while ignoring the coded text on the map which is the clue to the location. After finally putting their minds to it and cracking the code the team finds a path to another marker with another clue. The session ended with them deciphering the 2nd clue and pondering its meaning... so close, yet so far away.

Miscellaneous happenings:

• The Ranger/Cleric is teetering closer and closer to losing ranger status by ignoring the plight of farmers being raided by humanoids in order to go treasure hunting. Vivid nightmares are the first warning, also ignored.
• The defeated Kensai reduced back to level 1 was 'avenged' by her fellow PC Kensai who promptly challenged the level 2 Kensai to a duel. Non-lethal subdual rules were followed, as all of these characters are on friendly, respectful terms. Our level 1 Kensai defeated the NPC Kensai with some epic rolls.
• A pack of wolves that could potentially have spelled a TPK for the group was fortunately spooked away by a morale failure when fire was introduced into the situation.