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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 8183952" data-attributes="member: 20564">Just finished running my last session.  Session ended half hour early because my players were too awesome!Quick context: our party of 5th level adventurers are trying to get to a portal to the Feywild to eventually get home.  The Eladrin can feel there's a portal close, and they have worked out that it opening recently is what cause the volcano to erupt.  So they've been heading for it, through Frost Giant mountains.  They infiltrated the Jarldom pretty deep and at the end of last session met with a Frost Giant, found out they were TN not NE and willing to talk, and were brought to they Jarl's Steading.The Jarl was described as a teenaged Frost Giant, beard still growing in.  Basically he's recently in his position and the older giants are kinda blowing him off and not treating him with respect.  So his goals are to come out of this looking powerful, and also deal with the issues with humans* (well, PHB races) trappers and furriers in the mountains leaving explosive traps - not what you'd use to capture animals.The party picked up on this with lightning speed and kept just the right balance of You're-the-best-thing-since-Betty-White and believable.  Made reasonable concessions (the party has authority in their land) and got a bunch of help.  Including finding out that a red dragon lives in the volcano (which they had seen as a giant winged form hunting at night a several times in earlier sessions), and from the (very long) Giantish Poem/Song recital that the portal was there before the dragon and a rough idea of where.  Plus passage and a guide to the mountain.Once there they waited for the dragon to go out hunting, so now they were on a time countdown.  Mechanically it was to be a number of challenges, all that could hurt the party but more that could take up time.  They had a very rough idea through the lava tubes from the giants, could track the dragon prints (assuming it went to the portal), or could take advantage of cracks and other places too small for giants or dragons to have explored.  (Or do other things I hadn't thought of.)They did the last one - which was the hardest - and ended up getting three fantastic successes in a row, avoiding hazards, fights, and places they would have to double back and eat up time.I had wanted to introduce the heat and lava so there was a scripted hazard they came across no matter what, which really should have slowed them down or softened them up.  They were ingenious in quickly rigging safety equipment, did multiple people at once to keep time spent down, and assumed some risk.  And when one did fall off the ledge towards the lava 20' below, they had both the paladin with a rope tied to them and the halfling druid with thornwhip ready to get them back up.  Beat Initiative 10 do this before he falls the 20' and hits the crust of the lava.  Success.Finally they got to the portal, found out the crystals were out of alignment (which they had gotten clues about from the giant's saga).  Didn't waste much time figuring out what they had to do, had a moon druid that could have a climb speed to deal with the 3D terrain, an eladrin with short term flight, and a ranger companion (from Tasha's) with a climb speed as well.Now, the part they forgot what the the portal opening caused the eruption.  So as soon at they got it in focus with one of the crystals there started to be tremors, after the second one the lava began to rise (which blocked access to some of the terrain by climbing).  They worked out the "solid light' from the crystals to the portal was literally solid and they could move on it to the portal, and that the earthquakes would throw the crystals back out of alignment quickly so they had to brace the focusing crystals.  The group was on fire.  Well, not literally, always a possibility when dealing with lava.The elementals in the lava (of course, why wouldn't there be elementals when the party would need to be split up to three locations surrounded by rising lava in a 3D terrain?), well the Oath of the Watchers Paladin (switched when Tasha's came out - his order guards the portals to hell) was able to use his Channel Divinity: Abjure the Extraplanar and ever since one of the elementals failed a WIS save.They got in, dived through the portal, came up in a pool of water in the feywild, and we ended it there - I wasn't prepped for them getting that far.They were great!  Puzzles, hazards, skill challenges, roleplay and social puzzles - overcame them all.  Avoided all the fights, from some attrition in the tunnels to the elementals to the dragon itself - though at CR 10 I pictured the dragon as more a "survive until we get through the portal".Really, they just hit on all cylinders today and it was such a great session.  Ended with the announcement that they hit 6th, and that next session would be: The Feywild.</blockquote>

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