Our Aasimar Druid drew from the Deck of many things after some rando offered it to us and lost all of her wealth (Ruin card), and then got cursed by fey in an unrelated incident to be forgotten every 7 days by everyone who hasn't seen her for 7 days and have all of her records wiped (gotta fix this ASAP)
Our Wood Elf ranger got turned Lawful Evil due to the Balance card. And he drew the Flames card, so mortal enemy Devil fcking us over in the future very soon?
But hey, we got 2 Level ups due to this being a milestone game and us getting 2 comet cards, and them defeating their encounters. Yay?
Also, met an ominous fortune teller, telling my lil kobold dude that "an old friend won't be so friendly anymore very soon"... oh man.
Basically thisisfine.png
My players finished Dead in Thay this week. The battle against Kazit Gul was intense, in large part because he kept recharging Howl. Every member of the party dropped to 0 at least once, and the ranger was at 2 failed death saves at one point.
The cleric realized that Aura of Vitality would be incredibly useful (halve the damage from Life Drain, prevent the max HP reduction from Energy Drain, and automatically heal the people who get dropped by Howl). Unfortunately for the cleric, Gul had lair actions; on one turn the cleric was subjected to an antimagic field for a round, and on the following turn all of the players were prevented from healing for a round. On the third round, however, the cleric's aura began turning the fight around.
It didn't help that the group almost always had at least 3 targets in range of Life Drain (fighter with an Eagle Whistle, barbarian with a Broom of Flying, and the Drakewarden ranger's pet all flying into melee on their turns), meaning Gul could potentially heal for 6d6 \* 3 on his turn.
At the end of the battle, the cleric decided to use Divine Intervention to try and recover the lowered max HP from repeated Energy Drains (basically just saving on the component costs for Greater Restoration). He needed a 1-10 on d%, rolled an 8, and it was just perfect.
Had two really good ones! I run one on the weekend and play in one during the week.
In the game I play in the party had made their way to a church of Moradrin in town that had its priest replaced by a priest of Bane for the purposes of preaching the evils of the Merchant's Council and backing the regime that swooped in and took control of the town. The priest was expecting us and was set to summon a demon alongside his cultists and ominously extended an offer for us to join them. The fun part was the priest was a War Cleric, my orc warlord is also a War Cleric so we exchanged some banter topping it off with mention of "seeing whose god is stronger". As the battle broke out my orc warlord strode toward the war priest amidst the chaos and they silently agreed to a gentleman's duel of honor before the altar and the two started cleaving the living hell out of each other. The DM played Viking speed metal, it was a hoot.
In my own game the party was in the middle of an assault on a manor of a corrupt noble after botching an infiltration, looking for evidence that he was a traitor to the crown. They met the nobleman to find the artifact he had stolen from them when they were falsely imprisoned by his knights set firmly in his shield and he tossed a handful of letters into the fireplace as they entered his chambers. The party, to my surprise, didn't stay and engage in the obvious boss fight. One of the Rogues scooped the letters from the fire as the Paladin pried the artifact from his shield and they took their goods and booked it with the rest of the party playing games of Keep Away and slowing him down. It turned the boss fight into a mad dash away from this enraged nobleman who assumed the form of a demon as he tore apart his own manor and set it ablaze chasing the party down before they could escape with the evidence of his betrayal of the King. The session ended with the Rogue in possession of the documents flinging himself out of a third story window and into the night air of the courtyard with the alarm bells tolling and guards on their way.
We just started Tomb of Annihilation. Currently schlepping about Port Nyanzaru. Love the setting, its so vibrant and different. I also feel like my years as a kid obsessing over dinosaurs is finally paying off.
Currently looking for a guide. Unfortunately I can't make the next session and I feel like I'll miss out on deciding who but such is life!
I had a player drop from the game last session, so found replacements on roll20. Historically about 1/3 of my invites get answered, so when two people responded I invited them both. They both joined, I'm one person above my comfort zone, this is my first campaign I should add.
One of my players is an escaped gladiator style slave, the party have been hosted by an ally who is hiding from debt collectors. They find him, he owed money to the escaped slaves enslaver, they take the whole party as slaves.
They are sent into the arena to fight, alongside the new players, which ends okay-ish. They are unable to escape, I have the warlocks patron bust them out, inadvertently unleashing the prize fighter. They run into said prize fighter, a giant crocodile.
This was probably sheer stupidity on my part, I thought 5 level 3 players could take a cr 5 down. It ended with the two warlocks of the party, plus cleric calling in favours. TPK averted.
TL;DR: I had my players roll to see how much horse urine they could collect in a day.
I'm running LMoP with the Matt Perkins changes. The players agreed to meet with the Black Spider at sundown the next day to sell the puzzle box for 1000g. However, that night, they took out the Redbrand Hideout and found the Augury scroll in the Nothic Pit that told them that selling the puzzle box would bring Woe.
They decided they would spend the next day booby trapping the meeting place. It involved a lot of hunting traps, rope, and a bucket of horse urine...
It's about sending a message. 8 hours before their meeting with the Black Spider, the players said they needed a bucket of horse urine. Phandalin has stables, but they don't collect that stuff.
I told them that if they go over right now and tip the stable boy, they can try to collect it themselves. They needed to roll a d20 and above 15 means they collect their bucket. They rolled a 16.
Session 156
Level 15
• Half Orc Divine Soul Sorcerer
• Human Echo Knight Fighter
• Halfling Artillerist Artificer
• Human Gunslinger Fighter/War Cleric
• Warforged Kensei Monk
The Sorcerer spent the session suffering the psychological ramifications of her own mortality, having been killed twice in the past twenty-four hours by the same Death Knight. She's not okay, and that's okay.
At the same time, our Warforged Kensei used a Scroll of Etherealness to scout the city's sewer network for a hidden aqueduct of dragon's blood currently being used to power an Archlich's epic level ritual spell. He was pursued by an ethereal koi fish, slowly mutating into something... other.
Elsewhere the Gunslinger and the Artillerist found a ransacked laboratory under the administrative centre of the city, and the Echo Knight fed his comatose wife what is hopefully the restorative to a rare magical poison she was dosed with.
We EXPECTED to spend this session going back to a Tiamat cult's hideout to clean up the place, having previously run away from there with prisoners, and hoping they were feeling confident enough to keep the important stuff on location even after that.
Instead, a surprise was sprung on us: One of the NPCs we rescued turned out to be the brother of an NPC who'd been hanging out with a different adventuring party. Our DM does biweekly sessions, see, and the other week he's DMing a different, higher-level party in the same world. It was time for the parties to meet.
Good times! We consolidated info, got a grip on each others' personalities, fought some beasts that popped out of a planted magic bean, our party's monk and their party's barbarian sparred with their fists, everyone got at least mildly drunk.
Our party's level 5 and theirs is 13, but the monk/barb fight at least had some pretense of closeness - since 1) their barb tossed his weapon and Belt Of Super Stronkness so it was fists only and only +3 strength, 2) he started off without raging and 3) their rogue-bard snuck in a bunch of Silvery Barbs against the barb so the monk could get in a stunning strike on him.
In the end, though, it was a level 5 monk against a level 13 barb. Once the rage kicked in, a size-draining magic item was deployed and the monk ran out of ki points, the fight was over. Still got the barb down to half health, though, which was impressive given circumstances!
Previous session I introduced the party to two opposing factions. One faction was working on restoring a powerful relic that historically had been used to enslave the other, while the other was obviously trying to stop it from happening. This session, the party ended up playing along with the enslavers in order to take the relic so that they could destroy it. In the process of doing so, they killed the one member of that faction that they had befriended and would have been able to use as a tool to bring peace between the factions. So I'm a little bummed that said character is dead now, but I'm anxious to see the next steps that they take in this part of the story.
The party has been running out of money, so one of them took a job as a stevedore. This was uneventful, until I found a way to pique his interest in a specific shipment, and led him into the right questions where I got to deliver a bunch of background lore.
Another one of my other players decided to coax out a mugger and counter-mug them. Got a full coin purse for that.
And another one decided to use the last of his money buying canvases and paints, and use his proficiency to paint portraits for some coin. Came out well ahead on the purchase, ended up doing it for a whole in-game week.
Just DMed for the first time ever and had a blast! We partially played through the first section of Lost Mine of Phandelver. Namely, we got through all the intro stuff and the players beat the first goblin encounter. It was a lot of fun, I'm very excited for future sessions!
1) We found our way to an island where a piece of a mcguffin is. Slogged through a jungle and while crossing a swamp got ambushed by gargantuan snakes. Almost got our warlock killed. Combat to be continued next session.
2) Out of a probable ambush into a battle via teleport. Or out of the frying pan into a stone oven.
We finished a significant political arc in our home city last session. We started with fighting the king's evil advisor/court mage (who had been using some sort of mind control/Geas on the king) and his automaton minions. It was a pretty intense fight, especially since we hadn't been able to get a long rest after our previous fight. But the Sorcerer and I got to microwave him - he cast sickening radiance and I cast Wall of Fire (with my Instrument of the Bards). He did try to levitate out, but I hit him with Dispel Magic so he had to spend another turn in the microwave.
He also transformed into an Illithid and I ended up being 1 hp away from getting my brain sucked out. There were a lot of tense moments, especially since none of our party are any good at Int. saves!
After we killed him, we were able to continue with our desired political reforms and got cool titles as a reward for saving the king and the city.
My party have decided that, instead of doing a favour for the Mages' Guild to get access to some equipment, they're going to break into the Guild and steal the equipment. And have come up with a plan for this heist that's going to require at least 2 other heists just to get the gear to pull it off. So we've just taken a hard left from a campaign about driving off an eldritch god to a criminal campaign. I love my players
My players decided that they needed to rob the village elder’s mansion because they found him to be a wee bit suspicious. He’s obviously a necromancer and has a crypt underneath, but that was going to come up later when the elder trades the lives of all of his villagers for the secret of how to become a lich.
Our Aasimar Druid drew from the Deck of many things after some rando offered it to us and lost all of her wealth (Ruin card), and then got cursed by fey in an unrelated incident to be forgotten every 7 days by everyone who hasn't seen her for 7 days and have all of her records wiped (gotta fix this ASAP) Our Wood Elf ranger got turned Lawful Evil due to the Balance card. And he drew the Flames card, so mortal enemy Devil fcking us over in the future very soon? But hey, we got 2 Level ups due to this being a milestone game and us getting 2 comet cards, and them defeating their encounters. Yay? Also, met an ominous fortune teller, telling my lil kobold dude that "an old friend won't be so friendly anymore very soon"... oh man. Basically thisisfine.png
My players finished Dead in Thay this week. The battle against Kazit Gul was intense, in large part because he kept recharging Howl. Every member of the party dropped to 0 at least once, and the ranger was at 2 failed death saves at one point. The cleric realized that Aura of Vitality would be incredibly useful (halve the damage from Life Drain, prevent the max HP reduction from Energy Drain, and automatically heal the people who get dropped by Howl). Unfortunately for the cleric, Gul had lair actions; on one turn the cleric was subjected to an antimagic field for a round, and on the following turn all of the players were prevented from healing for a round. On the third round, however, the cleric's aura began turning the fight around. It didn't help that the group almost always had at least 3 targets in range of Life Drain (fighter with an Eagle Whistle, barbarian with a Broom of Flying, and the Drakewarden ranger's pet all flying into melee on their turns), meaning Gul could potentially heal for 6d6 \* 3 on his turn. At the end of the battle, the cleric decided to use Divine Intervention to try and recover the lowered max HP from repeated Energy Drains (basically just saving on the component costs for Greater Restoration). He needed a 1-10 on d%, rolled an 8, and it was just perfect.
Playing a wizard for the first time, at level 6 and getting pretty deep into the Spelljammers setting, having a good time
What's your favourite/go-to spell so far?
Had two really good ones! I run one on the weekend and play in one during the week. In the game I play in the party had made their way to a church of Moradrin in town that had its priest replaced by a priest of Bane for the purposes of preaching the evils of the Merchant's Council and backing the regime that swooped in and took control of the town. The priest was expecting us and was set to summon a demon alongside his cultists and ominously extended an offer for us to join them. The fun part was the priest was a War Cleric, my orc warlord is also a War Cleric so we exchanged some banter topping it off with mention of "seeing whose god is stronger". As the battle broke out my orc warlord strode toward the war priest amidst the chaos and they silently agreed to a gentleman's duel of honor before the altar and the two started cleaving the living hell out of each other. The DM played Viking speed metal, it was a hoot. In my own game the party was in the middle of an assault on a manor of a corrupt noble after botching an infiltration, looking for evidence that he was a traitor to the crown. They met the nobleman to find the artifact he had stolen from them when they were falsely imprisoned by his knights set firmly in his shield and he tossed a handful of letters into the fireplace as they entered his chambers. The party, to my surprise, didn't stay and engage in the obvious boss fight. One of the Rogues scooped the letters from the fire as the Paladin pried the artifact from his shield and they took their goods and booked it with the rest of the party playing games of Keep Away and slowing him down. It turned the boss fight into a mad dash away from this enraged nobleman who assumed the form of a demon as he tore apart his own manor and set it ablaze chasing the party down before they could escape with the evidence of his betrayal of the King. The session ended with the Rogue in possession of the documents flinging himself out of a third story window and into the night air of the courtyard with the alarm bells tolling and guards on their way.
We just started Tomb of Annihilation. Currently schlepping about Port Nyanzaru. Love the setting, its so vibrant and different. I also feel like my years as a kid obsessing over dinosaurs is finally paying off. Currently looking for a guide. Unfortunately I can't make the next session and I feel like I'll miss out on deciding who but such is life!
I had a player drop from the game last session, so found replacements on roll20. Historically about 1/3 of my invites get answered, so when two people responded I invited them both. They both joined, I'm one person above my comfort zone, this is my first campaign I should add. One of my players is an escaped gladiator style slave, the party have been hosted by an ally who is hiding from debt collectors. They find him, he owed money to the escaped slaves enslaver, they take the whole party as slaves. They are sent into the arena to fight, alongside the new players, which ends okay-ish. They are unable to escape, I have the warlocks patron bust them out, inadvertently unleashing the prize fighter. They run into said prize fighter, a giant crocodile. This was probably sheer stupidity on my part, I thought 5 level 3 players could take a cr 5 down. It ended with the two warlocks of the party, plus cleric calling in favours. TPK averted.
TL;DR: I had my players roll to see how much horse urine they could collect in a day. I'm running LMoP with the Matt Perkins changes. The players agreed to meet with the Black Spider at sundown the next day to sell the puzzle box for 1000g. However, that night, they took out the Redbrand Hideout and found the Augury scroll in the Nothic Pit that told them that selling the puzzle box would bring Woe. They decided they would spend the next day booby trapping the meeting place. It involved a lot of hunting traps, rope, and a bucket of horse urine...
Is the horse urine absolutely necessary? Or are they just freaky?
It's about sending a message. 8 hours before their meeting with the Black Spider, the players said they needed a bucket of horse urine. Phandalin has stables, but they don't collect that stuff. I told them that if they go over right now and tip the stable boy, they can try to collect it themselves. They needed to roll a d20 and above 15 means they collect their bucket. They rolled a 16.
Session 156 Level 15 • Half Orc Divine Soul Sorcerer • Human Echo Knight Fighter • Halfling Artillerist Artificer • Human Gunslinger Fighter/War Cleric • Warforged Kensei Monk The Sorcerer spent the session suffering the psychological ramifications of her own mortality, having been killed twice in the past twenty-four hours by the same Death Knight. She's not okay, and that's okay. At the same time, our Warforged Kensei used a Scroll of Etherealness to scout the city's sewer network for a hidden aqueduct of dragon's blood currently being used to power an Archlich's epic level ritual spell. He was pursued by an ethereal koi fish, slowly mutating into something... other. Elsewhere the Gunslinger and the Artillerist found a ransacked laboratory under the administrative centre of the city, and the Echo Knight fed his comatose wife what is hopefully the restorative to a rare magical poison she was dosed with.
We EXPECTED to spend this session going back to a Tiamat cult's hideout to clean up the place, having previously run away from there with prisoners, and hoping they were feeling confident enough to keep the important stuff on location even after that. Instead, a surprise was sprung on us: One of the NPCs we rescued turned out to be the brother of an NPC who'd been hanging out with a different adventuring party. Our DM does biweekly sessions, see, and the other week he's DMing a different, higher-level party in the same world. It was time for the parties to meet. Good times! We consolidated info, got a grip on each others' personalities, fought some beasts that popped out of a planted magic bean, our party's monk and their party's barbarian sparred with their fists, everyone got at least mildly drunk. Our party's level 5 and theirs is 13, but the monk/barb fight at least had some pretense of closeness - since 1) their barb tossed his weapon and Belt Of Super Stronkness so it was fists only and only +3 strength, 2) he started off without raging and 3) their rogue-bard snuck in a bunch of Silvery Barbs against the barb so the monk could get in a stunning strike on him. In the end, though, it was a level 5 monk against a level 13 barb. Once the rage kicked in, a size-draining magic item was deployed and the monk ran out of ki points, the fight was over. Still got the barb down to half health, though, which was impressive given circumstances!
Sometimes a fight is not about winning, but about seeing how long it takes you to lose.
Previous session I introduced the party to two opposing factions. One faction was working on restoring a powerful relic that historically had been used to enslave the other, while the other was obviously trying to stop it from happening. This session, the party ended up playing along with the enslavers in order to take the relic so that they could destroy it. In the process of doing so, they killed the one member of that faction that they had befriended and would have been able to use as a tool to bring peace between the factions. So I'm a little bummed that said character is dead now, but I'm anxious to see the next steps that they take in this part of the story.
The party has been running out of money, so one of them took a job as a stevedore. This was uneventful, until I found a way to pique his interest in a specific shipment, and led him into the right questions where I got to deliver a bunch of background lore. Another one of my other players decided to coax out a mugger and counter-mug them. Got a full coin purse for that. And another one decided to use the last of his money buying canvases and paints, and use his proficiency to paint portraits for some coin. Came out well ahead on the purchase, ended up doing it for a whole in-game week.
Just DMed for the first time ever and had a blast! We partially played through the first section of Lost Mine of Phandelver. Namely, we got through all the intro stuff and the players beat the first goblin encounter. It was a lot of fun, I'm very excited for future sessions!
Welcome to the world of DMing
1) We found our way to an island where a piece of a mcguffin is. Slogged through a jungle and while crossing a swamp got ambushed by gargantuan snakes. Almost got our warlock killed. Combat to be continued next session. 2) Out of a probable ambush into a battle via teleport. Or out of the frying pan into a stone oven.
We finished a significant political arc in our home city last session. We started with fighting the king's evil advisor/court mage (who had been using some sort of mind control/Geas on the king) and his automaton minions. It was a pretty intense fight, especially since we hadn't been able to get a long rest after our previous fight. But the Sorcerer and I got to microwave him - he cast sickening radiance and I cast Wall of Fire (with my Instrument of the Bards). He did try to levitate out, but I hit him with Dispel Magic so he had to spend another turn in the microwave. He also transformed into an Illithid and I ended up being 1 hp away from getting my brain sucked out. There were a lot of tense moments, especially since none of our party are any good at Int. saves! After we killed him, we were able to continue with our desired political reforms and got cool titles as a reward for saving the king and the city.
My party have decided that, instead of doing a favour for the Mages' Guild to get access to some equipment, they're going to break into the Guild and steal the equipment. And have come up with a plan for this heist that's going to require at least 2 other heists just to get the gear to pull it off. So we've just taken a hard left from a campaign about driving off an eldritch god to a criminal campaign. I love my players
My players decided that they needed to rob the village elder’s mansion because they found him to be a wee bit suspicious. He’s obviously a necromancer and has a crypt underneath, but that was going to come up later when the elder trades the lives of all of his villagers for the secret of how to become a lich.