D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

[THEMNGMNT]

56 sessions into my 13th Age campaign. Eyes of the Stone Thief expanded to cover all 10 levels. Five player characters who were 5th level for most of the events below but are now finally 6th level.

I've not been posting regular updates. Due to (my) life, we also didn't play much over the last few months. Fortunately, we're now back in it. Three months ago I said I'm going to begin accelerating leveling as I'm hoping to wrap this campaign in about 6 months. This time I mean it.

Since I last posted, the characters:

• Made an alliance with the Witch of Marblehall, who is the sister of the Rogue.
• Discovered that the crystal ball they took from the Cult of the Stone Thief allowed the Cult to spy on them, so all their secrets are known, and the Cult is several steps ahead of them.
• Got ambushed when the Cult twisted the Witch's magic so the illusory servants of Marblehall attacked the characters.
• Fled Marblehall with the Witch as the Stone Thief consumed it and ground it to rubble.
• Traveled to the Pit of Undigested Ages, which looks like Smaug's treasure hoard, only bigger.
• Looted it for the most powerful magic items from a dozen Ages.
• Climbed the Pyramid of Skulls to retrieve the Sword of Boundless Slaughter.
• Got caught in a dream sequence where the characters fought each other to the death over the Sword of Boundless Slaughter with the winner claiming the cursed blade.
• Awoke to discover the undead guardians of the Pit had stirred and were attacking them.
• Narrowly escaped utter destruction by the White, the dracolich of the Empire's greatest white dragon, slain in a previous Age by the Lich King.
• Teleported to the shadowed heart of the Labyrinth of Darkness, the last step before confronting the Secret Master who rules the Cult.

More to come in 2026!

 

[Richards]

In yesterday's "Down to Erthe" campaign session, the PCs:

• Were asked by the family whose son had been recently slain to intercede with a local dwarf gemcutter, who had agreed to carve the diamonds needed for a raise dead spell and then recently told the parents he couldn't continue working on their order in time for the ritual, as "something had come up" - there wasn't time to have another gemcutter start fresh before the son would have been dead too long for the spell to be effective
• Approached the gemcutter's workplace to find it locked; unable to pick the lock and finding no other way in, the wu jen purchased two scrolls of knock and they got in that way
• Found the dwarf slumped over a desk in his workshop, but found he'd merely fallen asleep from overworking
• Got the story from him: a drow necromancer had insisted he craft a diamond to be used in his transformation into a powerful undead, and when the dwarf refused, the necromancer charmed the gemcutter's fiancée into doing his bidding, giving him a deadline to complete the drow's diamond or he'd start parading the dwarf woman through a variety of ever-increasingly bad scenarios
• Got the gemcutter to continue work on the original set of three diamonds while the PCs tracked down and rescued the fiancée
• Based on the first threat (which was to occur that evening), they found the bard performing topless in a gentleman's club, which they forced their way into through the back door when denied entry through the front doors
• Fought the invisible drow (the changeling PC used his true seeing to discern his location), forcing the drow and the dwarf bard to flee using potions of gaseous form once hidden inside an area of darkness, with the drow telling the PCs beforehand to tell the gemcutter he was advancing the timeline due to the dwarf having hired the PCs to try to stop him
• Spent some time trying to track the drow necromancer and the dwarf bard to the next threatened scenario, in which he entered her as a "voluntary priestess" at a "temple" of the goddess of fertility (so, a whorehouse), eventually finding her in the third place they tried
• Split up, with the men (human monk, changeling rogue, mongrelfolk adept and his rat familiar) fighting off the three skeletons and the drow necromancer waiting outside the "temple" in an alleyway while the two women (snow fox hengeyokai wu jen and mermaid scout in a human body) went inside the "temple" and paid to spend some time with the new dwarf recruit
• Ended up with the monk almost immediately blinded and the rogue exhausted by the necromancer's spells, although they managed to take out the skeletons fairly easily
• Rescued the dwarf bard (and undid the drugging she'd endured at the "temple" via a potion of delay poison), got her geared up, and fought their way out of the "temple" by taking on the two half-orc fighters serving as security and the trained krenshar serving as a guard dog
• Survived the drow's spell onslaught and sicced the adept's rat familiar on him; the rat only dealt one hp of damage per round, but almost never missed, and gradually ate away at his hp total until he was out of attack spells and decided to flee
• Chased down the necromancer and eventually killed him
• Reunited the bard with the gemcutter, got paid a reward for her safe return, and the gemcutter managed to finish the three gems for the parents of the slain son (from the previous adventure) in time for him to be raised

And, since this was the replacement game day for our normal New Year's Day session (in which the two families comprising our gaming group exchange Christmas presents), we did that after we finished the adventure. But we determined Scruffy, the mongrelfolk's rat familiar, had been the MVP for the adventure, as not only did he continually harry the drow necromancer (even following him up the outer wall of the "temple" - rats have climb speeds! - when he tried using spider climb as a means of escape), but earlier got a confirmed critical hit with a shared cure light wounds spell cast by his master, which dealt double damage to one of the skeletons and destroyed it outright with a single bite. You go, Scruffy!

Johnathan

 

[pukunui]

In my last Eberron campaign session, we kicked off my conversion of Grasp of the Emerald Claw. I have not only converted it to 5e but have also upscaled it to account for the PCs being level 8 rather than level 6.

The PCs successfully rescued Lady Elaydren d'Cannith from the Karrnathi undead soldiers and took on her quest. They enjoyed the submarine ride. But then came the giant shark.

Now, a giant shark is only CR 5, and I was expecting all four PCs to engage it in battle, so I gave it max HP (136). I wanted to increase the danger of fighting underwater as well, so I said the crew had four caps of water breathing rather than a bucket-load of water-breathing potions. The PCs have one cap of water breathing themselves, and the ranger has a swim speed. I was anticipating that the PCs would either be willing to hold their breath or would volunteer to take the place of one of the NPC gnome crewmen (and thus gain a cap of water breathing).

The ranger took the party's cap of water breathing.

The artificer took the place of an NPC, gaining a cap of water breathing.

The monk has an amulet of health so chose to hold his breath since he can do so for 5 minutes!

The paladin's player, however, chose to have her PC remain on board the sub. I made the mistake of not including the paladin in the initiative order, thinking that she wouldn't be able to do anything from inside the sub. However, in retrospect, I should have made it so she could still contribute. The sub has a magical viewport but the pictures show it also having regular windows. She should have been able to cast sacred flame at the shark through the window, since the magic doesn't need to pass through the glass.

When the shark showed up, the ranger decided to use speak with animals to talk to it. I had to explain that that didn't mean the shark would necessarily listen or obey, and it being a dumb animal with Int 1 means it can't say much more than "hungry", "hurt", "kill" or whatever. I gave her the sense that the shark was like a bull dog and was afraid of being punished if it didn't obey. Anyway, the point is, the ranger spent the fight trying to talk to the shark instead of fighting it. It ate her.

It also ate the monk, who was fighting it.

The artificer spent most of the fight helping the NPCs cut the nets holding the sub.


Needless to say, we all made some poor choices this session.

Next session, when the sahuagin rock up on the beach while the sub is being prepared, I'm going to play it more as a "You need to give us money for trespassing" negotiation that shouldn't devolve into combat. If it does, the players of the dead PCs can control some of the NPCs fixing the boat.

Once the PCs make it to Stormreach, they can rock up to the House Jorasco enclave and get the two dead PCs raised.

(Looking at the old City of Stormreach book, not only is there a Jorasco healer with enough cleric levels to cast raise dead, but the facility also has a magic altar of resurrection. The party has plenty of money, and there's also a House Kundarak enclave nearby, so they can easily withdraw funds from their bank vault in Sharn. Easy-peasy!)


I subscribe to Keith Baker's idea that, while Jorasco healers will always cast augury before raising someone from the dead, PCs should always get a pass (unless their player wants to make a new PC). That said, the ranger has already died and been raised from the dead once, so I feel like there should be some kind of lingering consequence ... like the ennui of Dolurrh is hanging on more than just the -4 penalty that raise dead and resurrection impose. I'm looking at the Shadowfell Despair rules for ideas.



(As an aside, I've found giant beasts to be especially lethal in my 5e games. Pretty much every time I've included a giant crocodile, for instance, it has managed to kill a PC.)

 

[el-remmen]

See this thread: D&D General - What would you do? (Example from my game)