D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign session, the PCs:

• Met up with the same three drow warriors they'd rescued two adventures ago, who refused to return to the tribe until they had captured some game on their own, while they were stalking a group of six axebeaks busy pulling huge berries off of 10-foot-tall bushes
• Promised not to get in the drow's way while they picked off an axebeak on their own (for the sake of the warriors' honor)
• Found out there were actually two dozen axebeaks and a gray render protector, the axebeaks drunk on guzzleberries that had fermented on the vine, making them particularly aggressive (at which point the drow decided, "You know what? Those 15th-level heroes can go ahead and give us a hand after all!")
• Funneled the foes with a wall of force spell and two black tentacles spells, allowing the three drow to take on two axebeaks on their own without interruption
• Let the drow take off with their downed prey while the heroes dealt with the rest of the flock and the gray render, then moved on
• Met up with half a dozen non-expressive lizardfolk, who immediately attacked the PCs; most were taken care of with a prismatic spray spell, but that's when the three giant dragonflies showed up....
• After dealing with the remaining pod-spawned lizardfolk (they were plants!) and the flying insects, the PCs continued along the path of the stream they'd been following, to meet up with a giant bodythief plant stuck between a ring of massive, stone plinths
• After the elf sorcerer zapped it for 96 points of electricity damage (maximized chain lightning), they hid behind a 50-foot-tall wall of force (after it used a 12d6 acid stream breath weapon on the sorcerer in retaliation) and summoned monsters to go fight it (a greater earth elemental, Huge fire elemental, celestial polar boar, dire elk)
• Watched as the ruckus outside their cave brought out a mated pair of jungle giants and their styracosaurus draft animal
• Finally braved coming out from behind the wall of force once the bodythief plant was almost dead, then quickly slew the three cave dwellers
• Found a gemstone mine at the back of the jungle giants' sleeping quarters, in which was a crystallis - a being from the Elemental Plane of Earth that just wanted to get home (it had fallen through a rift to the Material Plane and hung around the gemstone cave because it reminded it of home)
• Talked to the crystallis, convinced it they could return it home if it didn't resist their spell, and had the dwarf cleric cast a banishment spell on it
• Had the greater earth elemental gather up the gemstones embedded in the walls of the deeper cave, garnering the PCs about 40,000 gp in all

The jungle giants had "corralled" the bodythief plant with the stone plinths, preventing it from moving away, since their main attack (swallow a creature, absorb its essence, and grow a plant version of that creature which is now enjoined with other of its kind and the bodythief via a telepathic link) only worked on creatures of size Large or smaller, and they were Huge.

Johnathan

In tonight's "Ghourmand Vale" game session, the PCs:

• Headed to an abandoned shrine up a mountain slope, finding the entire place shrouded in heavy fog
• Approached the shrine as follows:
  • The elf druid wildshaped into a dire bat, which was ridden by the human sorcerer (on top) and the halfling rogue (on the bottom, by using her spider climb ability to stick to the druid/bat's chest while upside-down
  • The half-elf paladin rode his celestial pegasus, which followed closely behind the dire bat, following her flight path
  • The elf archer rode behind the paladin
  • Using her blindsense ability, the druid flew up while 15 feet away from the cliffside, then 10 feet above the surface of the ground upon hitting the plateau upon which the shrine was located
• Since everyone could only see 20 feet away, we had to "stumble" across the foes as we moved; first up were two ogre barbarians which we mostly ignored at first
• Once she saw an annis hag, the druid alerted everyone else of its location over the Rary's telepathic bond spell we had up and running, and then she cast an insect plague spell around the annis, which (accidentally) also encompassed the greenhag standing beside her (which the druid hadn't gotten close enough to detect yet)
• Eventually determined we were up against a fire giant, a night hag, and a cauchemar (Huge nightmare) as well
• Took out the ogres with physical attacks (mostly the paladin charging on the celestial pegasus and the halfling making sneak attacks)
• Dealt significant damage to the fire giant, annis, and greenhag with a couple of cone of cold spells, and then the druid caught everyone but the night hag in a wall of thorns spell
• The cauchemar went ethereal to escape the thorns, but the others were all trapped; the annis even knocked herself unconscious trying to escape the thorns after we'd brought her down to single-digit hit points
• The paladin and celestial pegasus slew the cauchemar when it returned to the Material Plane
• The night hag was the last foe standing (as we'd guessed would be the case), but even she couldn't stand up against getting an arrow into the eye (our elf archer had pulled the same trick on the cauchemar earlier, as well as the fire giant)

As it had turned out, one of the hags (the greenhag, I think) had spent the entire time completely invisible, but we'd never even noticed (the druid's blindsense as a dire bat picked her up just as easily as the visible foes); she was taken down by area of effect spells as collateral damage. And since we'd been buffed up with a mass bear's endurance spell before entering combat, none of us but the pegasus took any real hit point damage. It turns out the control weather spell the covey had used to protect their shrine hideout (they knew we were coming, having scried upon us slaying their minions last adventure session through their "hag's eye") had worked as much against them as it had against us, as they had no real way to see us any better than we could see them. The whole fight was out in the open, with nobody able to see more than 20 feet away (and us passing on info to the other heroes over the Rary's telepathic bond spell whenever anybody saw a new enemy, or the paladin detected a new source of evil up to 60 feet away).

Johnathan

I don’t know where to start with this last session, except the beginning:

Our heroes started in the treetops of a cyclopean forest, named the Abyssal forest. The trees here are so tall that it blocks any light from reaching the forest floor, making it as barren as the ocean depths.

Our heroes were looking for the regisaur graveyard, like an elephant graveyard but for tyrannosaurs.

As they were taking their long rest, a dryad appeared during one of the PC’s long rest (I randomly rolled for who it would be) and this PC was writing a letter to his family. The dryad could feel how the heroes were special and had been blessed with a magical connection to this land. I have been making great use out of this concept. I was inspired by BG3’s tadpole storyline, where the heroes have something about them that changes them, gives them powers and can be noticed by others. It’s like giving the party a heroic destiny that also is connected to mechanics. Back at 1st level when they received this blessing, they each chose a feat to represent their connection to the land of Ixalan, so every time they use it they interact with the plot. Mechanics Story

Anyway, that PC got an upgrade to their Chef feat from this dryad interaction and the dryad would help him deliver the letters through some spiritual forest “all life is connected” magic. Good stuff.

Then there was some party RP where one character used his mace of spider climb to walk on this 600ft tree to just below the canopy, and saw a blinking light. He convinced the party to go there, and they found some kind of metal salvage. It was part of an alien spaceship from thousands of years ago (of course there are aliens connected to a Mesoamerican inspired setting!) They had to go there.

Suddenly there was a human who didn’t make sense with what he told the party, because it was the sulfurous impersonation of an adult oblex. It used to be a bottom feeding ooze, but it changed after it came into contact with a special amulet in the wreckage.

Anyway, the party saw through his impersonation, and it revealed itself to be a memory eating ooze. It was willing to share information from its victims in return for memories. The party decided to attack it, and almost killed it. I described it as losing bits of ooze until it was small, and even though the rules definitely don’t state it, the party decided to threaten it to make him enter an empty vial. Now they carry along an oblex! They don’t trust it, but man what a perfect lore tool!

After that they wanted to take some of this otherworldly metal from the wreckage, and were making headway when the noise attracted an elderly T Rex! This thing would have killed them in one bite. Through the clever use of class features and the firbolg pc being able to talk to animals, they calmed it and with a natural 20 convinced it they wanted to help it reach its final resting place by defeating the corruption at the T Rex graveyard.

Now they are riding this thing to the graveyard! How awesome is that?!

And what makes all of this work is how the players see the world and the mechanics of their characters as one. The role play keeps adding to the whole experience, making an epic story that gets better each session. How lucky a DM am I?

A nat 20 to ride a T Rex!

Also did I say they only just reached level 4?

Session 59 and 60 of my Neverwinter/Sword Coast campaign. Drow evoker wizard, human genie warlock, half orc vengeance paladin. They started at 10th level and ended at 11th.

The characters are infiltrating a sunken castle in a swamp occupied by a warband of orcs. The orcs are allied with sinister nobles. The characters are trying to unravel and thwart their schemes.

The characters discovered that inside the castle was one of the nobles. They killed her bodyguard, captured her, and fled the castle before the orcs could swarm them.

Now aboard their airship, the interrogation commenced. She freely spilled the beans. Our heroes number only three. How could they possibly thwart this vast conspiracy.

In short, the players learned that at tonight's lunar eclipse (the Bloodmoon Conjunction) the orcs will descend on the nearby village (which is the home of the paladin), slaughter the townsfolk, and channel their lifeforce into a necromantic ritual that will power up an orc champion at a distant ruin. The orcs will then help the nobles advance their schemes to conquer Neverwinter.

The players discussed how to thwart the ritual, came up with a plan, and...we stopped there.

Next session: Bloodmoon Conjunction!

In tonight's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:

• Were returning home to the Vale (a three-day trip), when on day two they found a dead gnoll in the road
• Saw the gnoll's head had been crushed to a pulp (likely from one blow), and noted there was no blood and no footprints anywhere around the body (so he'd been killed elsewhere and brought here, likely as bait)
• Heard a call of "Help me! Help me!" from off to the west - so, a trap it is, then
• Cautiously approached the cries for help, which led to a perfectly circular hole in the side of a tall hill, angling down into the hill at a 20-degree angle
• Cast standard prep spells, then entered the tunnel, saw after 20 feet it led to a stone wall (with a perfectly circular hole blasted through it), and a vertical shaft (also circular in cross-section) leading to a parallel tunnel above the ground-level one, which ended in a pair of brass doors
• Advanced down the tunnels (some above, some below), with darkvision spells and an unseen servant carrying a bullseye lantern (plus the paladin's holy flaming burst longsword) providing illumination
• Had the shield guardian try to open the doors, but they were locked, so the halfling rogue and her wand of knock opened them for us
• Fought the beholder in the room beyond, which held a pair of bronze doors bound by a magic knotted rope and two metal statues of warriors, plus a collapsed wall and a bunch of dead gnolls
• Had the archer shoot out the beholder's anti-magic eye, allowing two readied actions to cast spells to kick in (the druid's baleful polymorph spell failed, but two of the sorcerer's scorching rays hit)
• Got targeted by three eye rays (the druid overcame the telekinesis ray, the sorcerer got petrified by the flesh to stone ray, and the shield guardian got hit by the disintegrate spell but survived the attack)
• Had the halfling rogue shoot a 5d6 fireball bead at the wall behind the beholder, enveloping it in flames and killing it
• Checked out the sealed doors, read the inscription about the "slayer of demons" lying behind them
• Checked out the beholder's lair (formerly the gnolls' lair), grabbed up its treasure
• Had the druid cast detect magic and discover the rope binding the brass doors closed and the "statue" closest to the collapsed wall were magical
• Unable to return the sorcerer to flesh, they packed him (and the shield guardian, as the sorcerer was wearing the control amulet when he got petrified) into our extradimensional dwelling, and used a magic item to teleport back to Ghourmand Vale
• Paid a wizard to cast a stone to flesh on the sorcerer
• Made plans to return back to the hill chamber to check out that "statue" (likely iron golem) and the sealed doors, but after first checking with our bard ally to see if he knows anything (bardic lore) about the brass doors and what might lie behind

My sorcerer's petrification actually caused us to stop the adventure session for the evening, as it was getting late (or later than we normally play, in any case) and my nephew has school in the morning, so the rest of the adventure will get repackaged as next week's game session (thereby making things easy for the DM, as he's already gotten everything ready).

Johnathan

The first session of "Unknown Lands" at last...I wish I could say it went off without a hitch, but...

*I have 5 (ish) players. Despite having planned the session a month ago, one couldn't make it because Mother's Day. Well ok, I'd forgotten myself, and had to take Mom out to dinner Wednesday to make sure I could make the first session of my own game.

*One player showed up 10 minutes late, only to reveal they hadn't completed their character yet. One hour wasted as they cobbled together a character. Was it one of those "easy to use/out of the box" simple classes people like to crow about? Of course not, it was a Circle of the Land Druid!

*I somehow misplaced a map of the town the players were in. Not a big deal, but it made them explore less. On the plus side, they not only paid attention to the lore dumps, but even took notes (faints dead away)!

Synopsis (adventure is modified version of HHQ1, Fighter's Challenge. Originally intended for a solo Fighter and whatever henchfolk they could hire/recruit. My party (so far) consists of a Cleric with a shotgun, a Druid, a Sorcerer/Warlock, and a Witch (Kobold Press class found in Deep Magic 2). This may be a problem...(more on this later). All started at level 3.

Side note: when allowing a book like Deep Magic 1 or 2, you're going to find some strange spells. Every time a spell was cast, I had to ask "what does that do?". I should have cut this off at the pass by approving each spell as it came, but I'm trying not to be a control freak. Still, it would help that a spell that says "the target can repeat this saving throw" would actually have a saving throw listed, lol.

Ok, synopsis: four (ish) heroes had a run of bad luck on their respective worlds, finding that the life of an adventurer is not an easy one. They get lost in the woods and wake up in a clearing dominated by a stone structure of great age that appears to be stairs leading up to an empty archway, facing one another. After a few tense moments, they realize that while they are all speaking different languages, they all seem to understand the "Common" of one another. Finding strange runes on the "gateway", they find they can understand those as well- "You who come from the place from which no traveler returns, present the key and claim thy reward".

Searching the area, they find a key made out of a bronze alloy treasured in the ancient world (maybe you can guess what that is), and a symbol on the key is deciphered to mean "map". Thrusting the key into the open archway, it vanishes, and a rolled up piece of parchment appears, which turns out to be a magical map which shows their immediate vicinity and updates itself as you explore. Finding their way out of the forest, they find in the pre-dawn light that the stars are not the same, and that it's late spring instead of harvest-time, as it was where they came from.

They made their way to a road that has fallen into some disuse, and then to a town, Sturnheim. The locals are not nearly as suspicious as they ought to be upon meeting a quasi-undead Trollkin, some sort of fairy creature with iridescent wings, a truly edgy elf from the Shadowfell, and a Changeling with the oh so clever disguise of a human child.

The spent much coin at the local Inn (The Three Crowns) gathering information about where the heck were they, and stumbled upon a 40 year old mystery about a stone sword, a missing shipment of gold, and eight adventurers from another world who were defeated by a dragon and went their separate ways.

In the night, someone they wanted to get information from was attacked by bandits, despite the town having 10' high wooden walls coated in resin to be difficult to climb, and the gates were closed. The bandits fled the scene, so only their leader was taken out by the heroes (?). On his body they found the first magic item- a magical short sword named Last Resort!

(Last Resort is a +1 short sword with a secret reservoir in it's hilt that you can pour a potion into. As a bonus action, you can "drink" this potion as long as you are touching the sword. By attuning to the sword, it will automatically apply the potion to you whenever you become "bloodied"- at our less than 50% hit points).

Problem? Nobody in the party is currently proficient with short swords! This might be an issue for other magic weapons in the adventure...


ALSO: the Druid recruited the 19 year-old daughter of the town's locksmith to travel along with the party as a "scout/troubleshooter" (no mention of the word "Rogue"), all for 4 gp/day! It's going to be interesting to see how battles go with extra bodies around, but given I have a player who may or may not show up next session, I'll give it a shot.

In tonight's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:

• Paid to have my petrified sorcerer returned to flesh.
• Queried an NPC bard friend about what to expect in the chamber we'd unearthed (and in which we fought a beholder the previous session), specifically asking him:
  • Is that magical metal statue likely to be an iron golem or some type of inevitable, and what strategies would be best (or best to avoid) in fighting it?
  • What creatures are likely to be able to grant wishes, besides genies? (Since it sounds like whatever's behind the brass double doors can cast a wish spell.)
• The bard suggested it sounded like an iron golem, told us to avoid fire spells and that electrical damage would slow it; the chamber sounded like it houses the glabrezu "Scalptor the Devil-Cutter," who can grant wishes to mortals
• We returned to the chamber the following day (a 6-hour ride), got into position, cast prep spells, and got ready to attack, only to have the DM talk a player into going somewhere other than where she was going to go, which specifically triggered the iron golem into activity (more on this at the end)
• Had the druid and the shield guardian use rusting grasp spells to whittle the iron golem's hp down, while the archer shot adamantine arrows at it and the sorcerer slowed it with a lightning bolt spell
• Had the halfling rogue (spider climbing on the ceiling above it, while under the effects of a greater invisibility spell) entangle it first with a rope of entanglement around the ankles (the AT-AT counter-maneuver) and then with a web spell from her cloak of arachnidia
• Finally took it out with the shield guardian making the final blow
• Figured out how to open the brass double doors (the paladin cut through the magic ropes sealing the doors shut - a holy weapon was needed), to reveal the glabrezu on a pedestal in the chamber beyond, being released from its heavy binding chains once the seal was broken
• Caught the glabrezu in a wall of thorns, then had the paladin confirmed-crit it not once but twice (with a smite evil attack in each case!), the sorcerer cast cone of cold at it, and the shield guardian smack it around, all while the PCs were hasted
• Killed it before it could exit the wall of thorns or summon reinforcements

And that was the whole adventure: destroy an iron golem, then open a door, then kill a glabrezu. Not much to it at all. What we found to be particularly galling, however, was the following:

• At the end of the previous session, we had emailed the DM with our list of questions for our bard friend the day after, so he could get back to us before the next session (tonight's). He never bothered to reply, so we just got his answers at the start of this session.
• He had the bard only answer the original questions and not allow any follow-on questions. So he failed to mention the iron golem had a poison gas breath weapon, and even though our description of the sealed door was enough for him to determine not only that it was a glabrezu behind the door, but the specific one - Scalptor, trapped since the days when Iuz and Iggwilv strode across the Oerth - he didn't give us any tips on fighting that type of demon. Why? Because our email didn't ask those specific questions (had the DM have answered the original email, we'd have had follow-on questions), and our "friendly" bard apparently thought we didn't need any warnings along those lines.
• As for the AT-AT counter-maneuver, we had decided we'd all get into position to attack the iron golem, then the halfling would move up to 20 feet in front of the (not yet animated) iron golem, and her tossing the rope of entanglement at its feet would be the combat initiator - we were fairly certain that would count as "attacking" the golem, which would likely cause it to fight back. (She'd command the rope to wind around its ankles, the D&D combat equivalent of tying someone's shoelaces together.) Then Dan said, "You know, according to the rules, you can attack any part of the golem with the magic rope from any position, so you could have her be on the ceiling (spider climbing) of the 30-foot tall room and drop the rope down on top of it; that way, it would still attack the golem's ankles if that's what you told it to do, and it couldn't reach you on the ceiling to retaliate." The player, his wife, bought the logic and decided that's what she would do instead. The golem was taking up four squares on the map along the second and third rows from the back wall (the wall where the double doors to the glabrezu stood), and although the halfling approached the golem from the front (while on the ceiling), Dan immediately said that by crossing into the second row from the back wall, she activated the golem. Well, if she was going to be directly above the golem, there would only be a 50/50 chance that she'd have advanced to the second to last row, as the third to last row would still be "above it" - but no, he maneuvered her into automatically activating the iron golem.

So not much in the way of an adventure - fight this, then fight this - with some DM antagonism on the rise again, but we still managed to kill the two monsters, and the massive black chains that had been imprisoning the glabrezu turned out to be solid gold underneath the layer of black, so we earned 10,000 gp out of the deal.

Johnathan

My custom Campaign was nearing its end and just needed one final session to be completed. Eventually the only one left playing was the Sorcerer/Cleric multi class player and he was able to convince the demons and dragons from waging war on the entire continent of Xrelon.

It was great. We were down one player, which always sucks, but the session itself was fun as heck. The party negotiated with a tribe of kobolds for passage through their territory to a "backdoor" into the mines the party were trying to sneak into in order to resolve a hostage situation where local human miners (and some disgruntled townguards) have violently taken over the mine to push the dwarven masters to cut the human miners into the profits since they "discovered" the new mine. They achieved this in part by treating the kobolds with actual respect and showing deference to their king (even though they might have been able to kill/route the whole tribe).

After some sneaking around and scouting, the party paladin decided to confront the miners (having cast sanctuary on himself) to try convince them to give themselves up - esp. since the less generous dwarven militia has arrived out fron the mine's main entrance. We called the session there but are playing again on the 1st.

Finally got to get back into our game after a brief hiatus due to my dad getting sick.

So we finished up the first two levels of Zorzulas Rest in the Shattard Obelisk game. Everyone hit 5th level and are really starting to get powerful. We left off waiting to go see the BBEG of the dungeon.

Decided to migrate everyone off of paper character sheets and onto Dndbeyond. It actually went really good. My kids seem to take to using the app a bit better than hunting for things on their character sheets. We will definitely stick to using Beyond fully from now on. Things are just easier to track. I've toyed the maps tool and I really like it but I'll stick to using physical maps and minis since I'm heavily invested in those.

May pick up our game later today, just will have to see. Feels good to get back into our game.