MortalPlague
Adventurer
Pun intended.
My buddy was running some 5th Edition to get a feel for the system. He ran a session previously, which saw the PCs roll over everything thrown at them with little trouble, and ended with the characters reaching level three. Now we were rolling for hit points each level with no minimum (trying to keep things a little more risky). So some of the hit point figures are lower than usual.
Felicia Lunarlynx - Human Slayer Fighter, Dual Wielder Specialty (35 hp or so, AC 16)
Omen Ra - Dwarf Guardian Fighter, Guardian Specialty (37 hp or so, AC 16)
Solere - Human Cleric of Pelor (22 hp or so, AC 15)
Allesia Morningsong - Wood Elf Thief Rogue, Noble Archer (13 hit points, AC 14) (My character)
When I say that some hit point figures are lower than usual, I mean my poor elf.
We began the day dealing with some goblins attacking our camp. Our DM put some down, then read the goblin over, then doubled the number of goblins he had put down. The session was a little more informal than usual, since (a) we knew it was the last session before their regular game resumed and (b) we wanted to see what 5th Edition characters can handle.
We easily took care of about 10 goblins, including a couple of tougher ones. It wasn't even close.
Full of confidence, we marched into some hobgoblin caves. This was a heavily modified Caves of Chaos, where we only used the vague idea, and completely homebrewed the caves themselves. My character, being a rogue, took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, then began to scout around.
She found a couple of forking tunnels. One fork led to a cavern about sixty feet across, with a rope bridge crossing a chasm, where rushing water lay down below. The bridge was trapped to fall when someone was in the middle. It was also worth noting that the bridge had no handrails, so it would require a dexterity check to cross for anyone except my extremely dextrous rogue.
Deciding that the hobgoblins wouldn't trap a bridge for no reason, my rogue collected the others. We stood on the near ledge, and Felicia took the iniative to cross first. She managed to make it halfway when my character stepped out to follow.
Well, we learned that it would make the crossing much harder for both of us to have two on at one time, so Allesia aborted her attempt, and waited for Felicia to cross. In fact, Solere wound up being the second to go across, though the cowardly cleric got down on hands and knees and crawled along the bridge.
When Solere was nearly across, the hobgoblins attacked in force. Two of them appeared on the far side by Felicia, where she rushed to bottleneck them in the doorway (only two could attack her at once). Omen, the stout dwarf fighter, and Allesia, the elf archer rogue could hear the sounds of hobgoblins marching up the passage behind them to cut them off.
Solere, most of the way across the bridge, clung to it desperately and prepared to blast hobgoblins with radiant lance.
Alas, Omen being the battle-eager dwarf, charged into the tunnel to meet the hobgoblins. Some of them were wielding longspears, which meant two could attack him in melee while he could only strike one. On top of that, there were two at the back with bows. In the hall, we counted six hobgoblins, and there was only Omen and my elf rogue to combat them. Allesia stepped into the hallway and spotted the leader, and spent an action to take aim at him (Archer Specialty Level 3 Ability).
Omen was holding his own against the hobgoblins, using his d8 expertise dice to soak up damage, while Felicia was doing the same on the other front, with the cleric Solere backing her up. Slowly but surely we were battling down the hobgoblins; Allesia followed up the aim with a 21 damage strike on the hobgoblin commander. But on the Dwarf / Elf front, they were really punishing us with the archers. Omen and Allesia both retreated around the corner into the chamber, ready to destroy the hobgoblins when they came around the bend.
The hobgoblins were using their ability to get advantage to great effect, and they took the opportunity to move into the room and surround Omen and Allesia (mostly, Allesia still had a square to move to). And while Felicia and Solere had blasted all their hobgoblins on the far side, they could see a new threat emerging, climbing up from a cave below.
It was an owlbear.
Omen was in rough shape, with about 11 hit points left. Allesia had taken a graze for 3 damage, but that put her down to 10 hit points remaining. As for Felicia, she had the benefit of Solere's cleric healing to keep her rolling in hit points, but that healing had now been spent. It was all up to her expertise dice.
The owlbear climbed up onto the north ledge and began to fight Felicia and Solere in close. The cowardly cleric managed to back away up the north tunnel (where the hobgoblins had come from), while Felicia stayed in tight with the owlbear, weathering its vicious attacks. On the south ledge, the hobgoblins were pressing. Omen managed to slay the leader, but the others were harrying him fiercely. He dropped to 4 hit points under the sustained assault. With Omen imposing disadvantage on the odd attack against the elf, she managed to escape unscathed. Omen then struck down one of the hobgoblins, and Allesia stepped out onto the bridge, taking her action to aim at the owlbear.
A couple of heavy rolls from the hobgoblins dropped Omen; the dwarf lay dying on the south ledge. And the hobgoblins were now looking at Allesia, who was trapped on the bridge. At the north end, a furious owlbear. At the south end, a pair of cruel hobgoblins. And they were preparing to cut the bridge.
Allesia let her aimed shot fly. A pair of fours rolled meant she missed. Cursing her luck, Allesia decided she might fare better with Felicia and Solere; she dashed along the bridge, making it most of the way. Then the hobgoblins acted. One cut the bridge. The other one took aim at the dangling elf.
Crit.
Eight damage to the back, leaving poor Allesia at 2 hit points, dangling from a broken rope bridge ten feet below the platform where an owlbear is slowly but surely tearing through Felicia's defenses. And a raging underground river far below which would surely kill her if she tried to swim.
Allesia scrambled up the ladder, ducked into the owlbear's reach (no opportunity attack for entering or moving in threatened space), and she had two choices. She could try and help the situation by striking the owlbear in melee, or try and disengage and run further down the corridor. She went with the part of valor, but missed the owlbear with another lousy roll.
The owlbear's attacks were coming close to Felicia, but between her expertise dice and her armor, she was still standing. Omen was bleeding out on the far ledge, however, steadily failing death saves. The hobgoblins took aim at Allesia, and let two arrows fly, missing her each time. One hit would have dropped her!
Between Solere, Felicia, and Allesia, the owlbear was finally dispatched. As it fell away into the raging river, we were left with a tough situation. There was a huge chasm, and on the other side, two hobgoblins were taking aim with bows. Allesia was at 2 hit points, while Felicia wasn't much better, sporting a little over 10. Solere was actually doing the best for hit points, hovering near full. Omen, however, had slipped to -11. If he reached -17, he was dead.
Arrows were traded as the Felicia and Allesia darted in and out of cover, though they were careful to leave something for the hobgoblins to fire at (lest they not have a target and decide to finish the dwarf instead). Solere explored further up the tunnel to the north, figuring that it must come around and connect up. Sure enough it did; Solere showed up on the far side, but he botched his stealth roll and the hobgoblins spotted him. One of them crit him with a long spear, bringing Omen down to half hit points in one blow.
The other hobgoblin was killed by Felicia's arrow, leaving Solere spitted on the remaining hobgoblin's longspear. He decided to try and use the spear to push the hobgoblin off the ledge and into the river. He forced him forward, rolled the opposed strength check and succeeded, and sent the hobgoblin spilling away into the stream. Then he knelt and stablized Omen Ra, saving the dwarf from an ignoble death.
At the end of the combat, we all breathed a sigh of relief around the table. The whole fight gave me a new appreciation for 5th Edition's combat. The way it's tuned now, battles can be extremely exciting, with life or death hanging on a single die roll many times throughout. There were at least six attacks against my 2 hit point rogue, and if a single one had hit, she'd have been down and dying. Omen made just enough death saves not to actually bleed out. And had Solere failed on his strength contest, he might have been killed by the hobgoblin the very next round.
Following the combat, we decided to really see what PCs could handle, seeing as it would be our last combat of the one-shot game. We were healed up to full (though not given spells back), and our DM pitted us against four dire rats, four zombies, and two trolls. The battle wasn't quite so interesting as the previous one, but each fighter took a troll, and Allesia and Solere tried to burn one down at a time. Trolls are tough, but they don't quite deal as much damage as I'd expected (although part of that was likely the fighter's AC and expertise dice coming into play). It was another fight where the outcome was in question; Omen ended up with 4 hit points, while Felicia had 8. Allesia took one hit for 7 damage, bringing her down to 6, and Solere was savaged by zombies, bringing him down to 8 as well. But since the fight was largely static, it doesn't bear much description.
All in all, though, it was a lot of fun to see the player's side of things. I've been running so much 5th Edition, but I hadn't had the opportunity to see things from the other side of the screen.
My buddy was running some 5th Edition to get a feel for the system. He ran a session previously, which saw the PCs roll over everything thrown at them with little trouble, and ended with the characters reaching level three. Now we were rolling for hit points each level with no minimum (trying to keep things a little more risky). So some of the hit point figures are lower than usual.
Felicia Lunarlynx - Human Slayer Fighter, Dual Wielder Specialty (35 hp or so, AC 16)
Omen Ra - Dwarf Guardian Fighter, Guardian Specialty (37 hp or so, AC 16)
Solere - Human Cleric of Pelor (22 hp or so, AC 15)
Allesia Morningsong - Wood Elf Thief Rogue, Noble Archer (13 hit points, AC 14) (My character)
When I say that some hit point figures are lower than usual, I mean my poor elf.
We began the day dealing with some goblins attacking our camp. Our DM put some down, then read the goblin over, then doubled the number of goblins he had put down. The session was a little more informal than usual, since (a) we knew it was the last session before their regular game resumed and (b) we wanted to see what 5th Edition characters can handle.
We easily took care of about 10 goblins, including a couple of tougher ones. It wasn't even close.
Full of confidence, we marched into some hobgoblin caves. This was a heavily modified Caves of Chaos, where we only used the vague idea, and completely homebrewed the caves themselves. My character, being a rogue, took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, then began to scout around.
She found a couple of forking tunnels. One fork led to a cavern about sixty feet across, with a rope bridge crossing a chasm, where rushing water lay down below. The bridge was trapped to fall when someone was in the middle. It was also worth noting that the bridge had no handrails, so it would require a dexterity check to cross for anyone except my extremely dextrous rogue.
Deciding that the hobgoblins wouldn't trap a bridge for no reason, my rogue collected the others. We stood on the near ledge, and Felicia took the iniative to cross first. She managed to make it halfway when my character stepped out to follow.
Well, we learned that it would make the crossing much harder for both of us to have two on at one time, so Allesia aborted her attempt, and waited for Felicia to cross. In fact, Solere wound up being the second to go across, though the cowardly cleric got down on hands and knees and crawled along the bridge.
When Solere was nearly across, the hobgoblins attacked in force. Two of them appeared on the far side by Felicia, where she rushed to bottleneck them in the doorway (only two could attack her at once). Omen, the stout dwarf fighter, and Allesia, the elf archer rogue could hear the sounds of hobgoblins marching up the passage behind them to cut them off.
Solere, most of the way across the bridge, clung to it desperately and prepared to blast hobgoblins with radiant lance.
Alas, Omen being the battle-eager dwarf, charged into the tunnel to meet the hobgoblins. Some of them were wielding longspears, which meant two could attack him in melee while he could only strike one. On top of that, there were two at the back with bows. In the hall, we counted six hobgoblins, and there was only Omen and my elf rogue to combat them. Allesia stepped into the hallway and spotted the leader, and spent an action to take aim at him (Archer Specialty Level 3 Ability).
Omen was holding his own against the hobgoblins, using his d8 expertise dice to soak up damage, while Felicia was doing the same on the other front, with the cleric Solere backing her up. Slowly but surely we were battling down the hobgoblins; Allesia followed up the aim with a 21 damage strike on the hobgoblin commander. But on the Dwarf / Elf front, they were really punishing us with the archers. Omen and Allesia both retreated around the corner into the chamber, ready to destroy the hobgoblins when they came around the bend.
The hobgoblins were using their ability to get advantage to great effect, and they took the opportunity to move into the room and surround Omen and Allesia (mostly, Allesia still had a square to move to). And while Felicia and Solere had blasted all their hobgoblins on the far side, they could see a new threat emerging, climbing up from a cave below.
It was an owlbear.
Omen was in rough shape, with about 11 hit points left. Allesia had taken a graze for 3 damage, but that put her down to 10 hit points remaining. As for Felicia, she had the benefit of Solere's cleric healing to keep her rolling in hit points, but that healing had now been spent. It was all up to her expertise dice.
The owlbear climbed up onto the north ledge and began to fight Felicia and Solere in close. The cowardly cleric managed to back away up the north tunnel (where the hobgoblins had come from), while Felicia stayed in tight with the owlbear, weathering its vicious attacks. On the south ledge, the hobgoblins were pressing. Omen managed to slay the leader, but the others were harrying him fiercely. He dropped to 4 hit points under the sustained assault. With Omen imposing disadvantage on the odd attack against the elf, she managed to escape unscathed. Omen then struck down one of the hobgoblins, and Allesia stepped out onto the bridge, taking her action to aim at the owlbear.
A couple of heavy rolls from the hobgoblins dropped Omen; the dwarf lay dying on the south ledge. And the hobgoblins were now looking at Allesia, who was trapped on the bridge. At the north end, a furious owlbear. At the south end, a pair of cruel hobgoblins. And they were preparing to cut the bridge.
Allesia let her aimed shot fly. A pair of fours rolled meant she missed. Cursing her luck, Allesia decided she might fare better with Felicia and Solere; she dashed along the bridge, making it most of the way. Then the hobgoblins acted. One cut the bridge. The other one took aim at the dangling elf.
Crit.
Eight damage to the back, leaving poor Allesia at 2 hit points, dangling from a broken rope bridge ten feet below the platform where an owlbear is slowly but surely tearing through Felicia's defenses. And a raging underground river far below which would surely kill her if she tried to swim.
Allesia scrambled up the ladder, ducked into the owlbear's reach (no opportunity attack for entering or moving in threatened space), and she had two choices. She could try and help the situation by striking the owlbear in melee, or try and disengage and run further down the corridor. She went with the part of valor, but missed the owlbear with another lousy roll.
The owlbear's attacks were coming close to Felicia, but between her expertise dice and her armor, she was still standing. Omen was bleeding out on the far ledge, however, steadily failing death saves. The hobgoblins took aim at Allesia, and let two arrows fly, missing her each time. One hit would have dropped her!
Between Solere, Felicia, and Allesia, the owlbear was finally dispatched. As it fell away into the raging river, we were left with a tough situation. There was a huge chasm, and on the other side, two hobgoblins were taking aim with bows. Allesia was at 2 hit points, while Felicia wasn't much better, sporting a little over 10. Solere was actually doing the best for hit points, hovering near full. Omen, however, had slipped to -11. If he reached -17, he was dead.
Arrows were traded as the Felicia and Allesia darted in and out of cover, though they were careful to leave something for the hobgoblins to fire at (lest they not have a target and decide to finish the dwarf instead). Solere explored further up the tunnel to the north, figuring that it must come around and connect up. Sure enough it did; Solere showed up on the far side, but he botched his stealth roll and the hobgoblins spotted him. One of them crit him with a long spear, bringing Omen down to half hit points in one blow.
The other hobgoblin was killed by Felicia's arrow, leaving Solere spitted on the remaining hobgoblin's longspear. He decided to try and use the spear to push the hobgoblin off the ledge and into the river. He forced him forward, rolled the opposed strength check and succeeded, and sent the hobgoblin spilling away into the stream. Then he knelt and stablized Omen Ra, saving the dwarf from an ignoble death.
At the end of the combat, we all breathed a sigh of relief around the table. The whole fight gave me a new appreciation for 5th Edition's combat. The way it's tuned now, battles can be extremely exciting, with life or death hanging on a single die roll many times throughout. There were at least six attacks against my 2 hit point rogue, and if a single one had hit, she'd have been down and dying. Omen made just enough death saves not to actually bleed out. And had Solere failed on his strength contest, he might have been killed by the hobgoblin the very next round.
Following the combat, we decided to really see what PCs could handle, seeing as it would be our last combat of the one-shot game. We were healed up to full (though not given spells back), and our DM pitted us against four dire rats, four zombies, and two trolls. The battle wasn't quite so interesting as the previous one, but each fighter took a troll, and Allesia and Solere tried to burn one down at a time. Trolls are tough, but they don't quite deal as much damage as I'd expected (although part of that was likely the fighter's AC and expertise dice coming into play). It was another fight where the outcome was in question; Omen ended up with 4 hit points, while Felicia had 8. Allesia took one hit for 7 damage, bringing her down to 6, and Solere was savaged by zombies, bringing him down to 8 as well. But since the fight was largely static, it doesn't bear much description.
All in all, though, it was a lot of fun to see the player's side of things. I've been running so much 5th Edition, but I hadn't had the opportunity to see things from the other side of the screen.
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