NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="THEMNGMNT" data-source="post: 7948003" data-attributes="member: 6809274">I'm running a modified version of Storm King's Thunder for my online group. We live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Guadalajara, Mexico. Most of us are under shelter in place orders. So we're now trying to play weekly (rather than biweekly) to fill the time. Characters are 12th level and, as of the end of this session, are right on the cusp of 13th. That's the highest level I've ever played by a significant margin.In this version of STK, the giants are being manipulated by the Zhentarim, and Manshoon rules the Zhentarim using an army of clones that share a hive mind. In the previous session, the characters slew the fire giant chief Duke Zalto and freed an elven warrior princess that was his captive. (Actually an archfey pact of the tome warlock with an emphasis on infiltration-style spells.) In gratitude, she gave her magical sword to the elf rogue arcane trickster. It's a Sword of Answering in the form of a rapier, so it's a big melee boost for a rogue. The player of this character isn't the most tactical, and doesn't expect (or want) to be the best in combat, but does notice when he's being significantly overshadowed by other characters. I've been loading him up on powerful magic weapons to help get him back into competition.The battle with Zalto left the characters mostly tapped out of their spells and powers. Basically, they're now at the point where they can be truly challenged. (12th level characters are hard to wear down.) I dangled several temptations in front of the players to get them to make some dangerous decisions, but they were just looking for a way out. The players made a plan to get to the prison and bust out their frost giant ally, Harshnag. Harshnag knows the location of the Eye of the All-Father. That ancient temple to the giant gods can somehow lead them to Hekaton, the storm giant priest that's giving orders to all the other giants. The players busted some other prisoners out of their cells, distracted the fire giant guards, and snuck into Harshnag's cell. Then they used a scroll of teleport to escape Ironslag and teleport to the Eye of the All-Father. The rest of the session involved them scouting the entrance to the Eye. Oh, and they got a mysterious vision of Manshoon slaughtering all the prisoners in Ironslag in retaliation for the characters' actions. Manshoon is meant to be a big bad evil guy, but he hadn't done much that was truly villainous yet, so I took advantage of this opportunity.Overall, it was a fun session with some good roleplaying and a fair amount of sneakiness, which is something this party struggles to do well. Mostly they just hit stuff until it stops moving.Next session they'll take on the temple's guardians and maybe even level up.</blockquote>

Verification