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: 7972524" data-attributes="member: 6809274">Dragon of Icespire Peak for my group of D&D noobs, 10th session, characters have just hit level 4. In my modified version of the adventure, the characters entered Cragmaw Castle to take out a tribe of orc raiders. These orc raiders had killed another group of adventurers, then tried to ransom one of the survivors to get the blueprints to Icespire Keep. In the keep is a magical spear that the orc chief can use to reunite the clans and destroy Phandalin. However, the characters thwarted the ransom scheme and are now in possession of the Icespire blueprints themselves.In Cragmaw, the characters found the orcs dead by their own hands. They had failed their chief, and he does not tolerate failure. As the players investigated, the dead orcs began to rise as zombies and attack.Fleeing the castle, the characters walked into an ambush from living orcs that were waiting for them. However, the party's half-orc paladin pretended that the other characters were his captives, and claimed he was looking for help ransoming them. The bluff worked. The orcs are now taking the party back to their lair in the ruined dwarven stronghold of Axeholm. Fifty orcs await. The paladin thinks he can trick the orcs into helping them slay the dragon of Icespire Peak, then double cross the orcs. We'll see.What made this session really fun is that I thought it was just going to be a straight up fight and the half-orc's player threw me a total curve ball with a crazy scheme. I had planned for the player characters to arrive in Axeholm much later in the campaign, perhaps even as the climax. They're essentially leapfrogging a significant portion and shortening the campaign by several sessions. Interesting stuff. It's great when your players surprise you.EDITED with some more details.</blockquote>

Verification