D&D General How Was Your Last Session?

Session 3, the players fought Harpies who were roosting in an old broken tower and were annoyed when I forced the charmed players to climb up to the singer, lol.

But getting fresh saves when taking damage meant that didn't last long.

The found a passage down into a subterranean complex, where they had to fight:

More Jermlaine, Giant Rats, and 1st levels Jermlaine "shamans" and the Jermlaine boss, with lair actions, took 2 hours and really drained everyone's resources. I'll be so happy when the party levels past monsters with less than 1 CR!

They then fought an Otyugh, but being one enemy against an entire party, it opened up strong, and never got a third turn.

Moving on ahead, they chose to head towards the most dangerous area- the Duergar sector!

I missed my last session, but apparently my PC was crucial in spotting an inscription on a cavern wall that solved a puzzle making a bridge rise up out of the lava.

In today's "Dreams of Erthe" campaign (we delayed a day since yesterday was a player's birthday), the PCs:

• Met up in the Dreamlands, to be given a wild moogle as a guide that in theory could track the advanced hypnalis vipers from last adventure back to where they originated: the heart of the Nightmare Lands
• Got ambushed by a nightmare beast, which killed the half-orc cleric/paladin (but since this was in the Dreamlands, he merely woke back up in the Mortal World and had to get back to sleep to rejoin his companions - which he eventually did, but after the fight with the nightmare beast was over); the human bard/rogue did a lot of damage from inside its mouth, stabbing at it with his magic rapier
• Tracked the advanced hypnalis vipers to a "snake farm," where normal hypnalis vipers were being mutated into larger forms by siphoning off dream energy from other dreams
• Fought the Overseer, a 12-foot-tall nightgaunt (faceless, black-skinned gargoyle), and the three advanced hypnalis vipers he freed from their pens one per round before they could stop him
• Had the elf sorcerer put prismatic spray to good effect, turning one of the three to stone instantaneously
• Had the dwarf cleric grappled by the Overseer and flown straight up for 90 feet, only to be dropped - she crashed through the wooden roof of the viper mutation cages, but survived
• Managed to slay the Overseer and the remaining two advanced hypnalis vipers (plus 14 regular ones waiting to be mutated), without any permanent losses on their side
• Leveled up to 16th

Next adventure, they'll finally cross the halfway point of the Asia-sized continent they're trekking across; the rift delineates the "savage" east (where dinosaurs of all sizes roam free) from the "civilized" west, which is covered with surface drow cities.

Johnathan

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

• Listened as the human sorcerer explained a dream spell he'd received the previous night, wherein a bard associate of theirs said he was stranded on an island 20 days' ship travel south of Greyhawk City and needed a rescue
• Had the druid cast a scrying spell on the bard, seeing he was in no immediate danger (which was good to know, since we could teleport to Greyhawk but had no idea which island he was stranded on, just the general area, so it was going to be a pretty slow-motion rescue, taking at least 20 days)
• Teleported to Greyhawk City and got the assistance of the sorcerer's older brother, who ran a fleet of merchant ships, and determined the island the bard was likely shipwrecked on
• Spent the next 19 uneventful days on a merchant ship heading to where we wanted to go; since the bard's ship had been wrecked by a kraken and we didn't want the same thing to happen to the merchant ship, we agreed we'd teleport to the island as soon as it came into view and the ship could continue on without us (we could teleport back to Ghourmand Vale once we'd rescued the bard)
• Were approached by a pirate vessel the night before we were scheduled to reach the island, but our elf archer set all three of the pirates' sails ablaze from half a mile out with a bunch of alchemist's fire arrows (heightened with a maximized flame arrow spell cast on her ammo by my sorcerer)
• Once the pirate ship was dead in the water with no sails, had my sorcerer's grackle fly over for a look-see under a greater invisibility spell, and he reported back it would likely take them hours to get back up and running
• Got awakened the next morning by a sudden windstorm out of nowhere, the initial attack by the kraken coming for our ship
• Fought off the kraken and killed it, but not before two of the 19 crewmen were slain
• Continued heading for for the island, still about two hours away

We leveled up after the adventure was over - we're now all 13th-level PCs. Next session, we'll get to the island and see about rescuing the bard.

Johnathan

In the most recent session of Primordial Evil Campaign, the player characters:

• Making their way through unfamiliar wilderness to get off a mountain they were teleported to by a series of mysterious towers
• Having heard a couple of trolls arguing over the bones of a giant sheep, the tabaxi druid wildshaped into a weasel to scout them out.
• Despite having marched all day, they decide to force march another hour or so to put distance between them and the trolls when they make camp.
• It starts to snow. A couple of PCs take a level of exhaustion from the first hour of forced march.
• Two hours (but only three miles due to the landscape - mountainous, no roads or notable trails) from the trolls, party ranger spots a box canyon before they ended up in it but they decide to scout it out to see if there is a cave they can use for shelter from the storm
• The owlbear who makes its home there was not happy about this, but the party defeats it, despite the druid getting dropped to zero in the very first round while separated from the party.
• Another full day of harrowing journey and cold.
• The ranger had an encounter with a giant lynx during his watch the next night. It was curious, but did not talk bc the ranger did not talk to him.
• At the end of the third day of wilderness travel they realize they are within reach of some village at the base of the mountain, so again force march to get there before camping. More exhaustion.
• They meet some villagers, hear about the local problems, figure out where on their region map they are, and learn that the local druid in a nearby cwm might be who the party druid is looking for based on a prophetic dream.
• They visit the druid two days later (taking some time to rest) and learn the location of the fallen star from their dream.

The party hit 4th level during this session (once reaching the village).

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

• Entered a halfling monastery to gain entry to the cliffside tunnels that lead to the upper surface of a continental tectonic plate shift (100 foot difference - it's what sets the eastern part of the continent - filled with dinosaurs - apart from the more civilized surface drow cities of the western part); the monastery sits on a slab of stone 40 feet above the lower ground
• While there (during which time their pachycephalosaurus mounts were lifted up by an elevator platform, one by one, a process which took a fair bit of time), there was "another message" - the words "WHY DID YOU RUN FROM ME?" appeared in blood in Halfling script on the wall of the women's bathroom
• Talked to the Abbott and learned there had been 2 previous messages: "YOU CANNOT ESCAPE" and "YOU WILL BE MINE" in the last few days; each had been found in an area close to the female monks' cells
• Talked to the various monks and learned three had joined their ranks in the last two months, two men and a woman, all of whom entered the monastery solo
• Talked the newest female monk and learned she had fled her tribe after being promised in marriage to a brute of a halfling from a violent tribe
• Pretty much figured out the "brute of a halfling" had been slain while trying to find his promised bride and was manifesting as a ghost; this was proven to be the case when he walked through the wall of the dining area they were in, having finally tracked her down on foot
• Fought the ghost, throwing a dimensional anchor on him to keep him from getting away, separating him from the female monk with a wall of force, and then getting the female monk to explain to him how she'd never agree to be his wife, wanted nothing to do with him, and would rather kill herself than be given over to him
• Slew the ghost, confident that he wouldn't rejuvenate now that he knew there was no chance of ever getting his "intended" to love him
• Were given access to the switchback tunnels leading to the upper surface, the official "crossing over point" between dinosaur jungles and surface drow civilization
• Got to the last section of upward-sloping tunnel only to have a boulder rolled down at them (which the dwarf cleric "melted" to harmlessness with a soften earth and stone spell)
• Went up to attack the cyclops, only to find out he had a pet Gargantuan fiendish monstrous centipede named "Tiny"
• Killed Tiny fairly quickly, then popped out to the surface to fight the cyclops, where they found out Tiny had a larger (Colossal) counterpart, Biggie
• Eventually killed both Biggie and the cyclops, but not before three PCs and a pseudodragon familiar were all rescued seconds from dying by hastily-applied healing spells

The common supposition among the players is that whatever killed the woman whose body the PCs are traveling the continent to fetch has somehow learned there are others willing to pick up where she left off (she was searching for "The Forbidden Lands") and is trying to seal off all access points to the western half of the continent to keep them away.

Johnathan

My last session can be summed up by this drawing, which one of the players dashed off:


All the players rolled on the carousing tables. When we put all their results together, we ended up with a story where the barbarian and fighter won huge amounts of money from a gambling house run by a criminal organization that already has it in for both of them. The bard caught the house cheating and started to argue about this, and when that argument started to turn ugly, the warlock--who is a gumiho (Korean equivalent of a kitsune, more or less)--quietly sneaked off and set fire to the place as a distraction. It burned to the ground, and nobody knew who was responsible for starting the fire.

Direct quote from the warlock's player: "I want to carouse more if it means I can set more things on fire ... I like arson."

In last night's "Ghourmand Vale" session, the PCs:

• Temporarily lost three of their number to a mirror of life trapping that managed to snag them up despite them not being in the line of sight that would have allowed them to see their own reflections (a prerequisite to being caught up in the mirror's extradimensional spaces)
• Had to fight not only an evil human monk and a human fighter with the two PCs that were left (a halfling rogue and an elven druid), but also the DM who at first didn't want to allow the sorcerer's shield guardian to fight back because "the last thing he'd been instructed to do was to destroy a magic water pitcher" - as if defending against attacks from those out to harm his master and his master's adventuring friends wasn't already an in-born "prime directive"
• Defeated the two, smashed the mirror, and rescued three PCs who should never have even been captured by the mirror in the first place (our DM was leaning back into the "adversarial DM" end of the spectrum, apparently his comfort zone), and went downstairs
• Fought and slew an evil rogue (archer called shot to the eye) and an evil wizard (via baleful polymorph "bunnification"), then went down to an even lower level
• Fought a bunch of skum and the aboleth wizard 10/cleric 3/mystic theurge 3 that had dominated our bard friend we'd come to rescue (and yes, for those keeping score, that was a CR 23 foe our DM threw at our 13th-level party of five PCs)
• Took the aboleth down the hard way after discovering there was a permanent mind fog effect blocking access to his water pool and he had a spell reflection spell up keeping him safe from targeted spells (as my sorcerer found out by having a 50-points-of-electrical-damage chain lightning spell redirected back into his face), forcing our paladin to resort to his longbow, our druid to cast "non-direct-damage" spells like wall of fire and wall of thorns to whittle it down, while our elf archer brought the big pain via her own arrows and magic longbow

With the XP from a CR 23 aboleth propelling us what would normally be completely past 14th level and well into 15th, we ended up one XP short of 15th level (with the excess XP dissipating into nothingness), so we upgraded to 14th level and will upgrade to 15th level at the end of the next adventure session. And if our DM keeps throwing foes at us with CRs 10 points higher than our own level, this campaign should be over quickly, either via rapid advancement through the class levels or an unsurprising TPK. I think either event would be welcome to my nephew, my son, and myself - this DM keeps taking giant steps backwards after improving his default antagonism for a short while.

Johnathan

A little late, since last session was the previous Sunday, but here we go-

After dispatching the otyugh, the players headed into the section of the dungeon claimed by a group of duergar. The first encounter, with duergar scouts astride steeders went longer than expected, despite being an "medium" encounter- part of this had to do with a series of bad rolls on the party's part, but the worst was yet to come.

Having made a lot of noise, the duergar were ready for the next fight, and were both enlarged and invisible. With disadvantage on passive perception due to dim light (the party again forgetting that darkvision isn't a cure-all for low light), some of the characters were actually surprised by the duergar, who inflicted heavy damage in the first turn. The party's middling luck continued, and the warlock found himself adjacent to two of them. The first attack he used shield on, thinking he was safe, but the second duergar, having no better targets, rolled a natural 20, completely ignored the warlock's 23 AC and dropped him to 0 hit points (while I normally use average damage for NPC's, I do roll critical dice and I rolled quite well. Duergar enlarge is pretty busted, and I may need to reconsider it's effect- equipped with a maul, the CR 2 duergar inflicts 17 (2d6+3 becomes 4d6+3 with enlarge, which doubles damage dice) plus another 4d6 that I rolled, getting 21 more damage thanks to a lucky roll. Yikes.

During the fight, other duergar responded to the scene, but seeing how strong the party was, they caused a cave-in, trapping the party in the room, along with three duergar prisoners, a halfling who was once a sapper for the army, a goblin berserker, and a drow hexblade.

The party's hexblade took an instant dislike to the drow, but the rest of the party quickly recruited the prisoners.

Normally, being trapped in this area, the party couldn't take a long rest without running out of air, but the cleric was able to cast fog cloud, which i ruled could refresh fouled air, giving them the ability to take a long rest while they planned their next move.

There is no other way out, but they have an idea for clearing the rubble (taking advantage of the halfling's know how). Their next move is to escape and return to town to resupply.

The duergar have other plans, however, so next session will probably open with a much more deadly encounter than I'm really happy about.

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

• Were asked to check out the local silver mine by the guy in charge of running it, as he saw the owner bring 10 dwarves in a week ago and hasn't seen them since; he thinks they're dead and he's next, as he was "invited" to the boss's personal vault by the boss and a wife he has all of a sudden
• Meanwhile, a local wizard my sorcerer knows was spending money freely at the local pub, buying drinks for everyone; a discussion with him revealed he'd just made a fortune selling a cubic gate to the dwarven mine boss
• Asked which planes the cubic gate connects to, found out it's the Material Plane, the Nine Hells, the Abyss, the Plane of Shadows, the Ethereal Plane, and the Elemental Plane of Earth; decided the boss's new "wife" is probably a succubus
• Went to visit the mine boss, bringing the worried dwarf along, but while the druid impersonated him with her "a thousand faces" ability, my sorcerer cast a veil spell on the rest of us, making us look like out-of-work dwarven miners (and a Rary's telepathic bond spell let the real dwarf feed lines to the druid, so she could answer as he would)
• Met up with the "wife," the paladin sensed she was evil, and my sorcerer cast a touch of idiocy spell on his grackle familiar (veiled into looking like a miner's canary), who then delivered it via touch on what turned out to be a succubus (we were right!)
• Slew the succubus, but not before she warned the four vrocks the next room over via telepathy
• Had 16 vrocks teleport into the entry cave, but when the druid dropped the ceiling on them via a rock to mud spell, the 12 that were really just mirror images popped out of existence
• Got a decent workout fighting 4 vrocks - two of them got to use their stunning screech (which took out 2 PCs one time and 3 the other), two exploded their spores all over the paladin and the rogue, but the demons were taken out by the archer's well-placed arrows, the paladin's holy sword (with which he critted twice), sneak attacks from the flanking rogue, a firestorm spell from the druid, and two maximized cone of cold spells cast by my sorcerer
• Found the dwarf mine owner almost dead (drained to near death by the succubus), and he admitted to offering up the 10 missing miners as sacrifices to bring the vrocks over before he died
• Recovered the cubic gate

And we're now all 15th level, not too surprising since we ended up 1 XP short of 15th level at the end of last adventure.

Johnathan