|
Post by Meph on Jan 17, 2017 22:42:19 GMT
Thanks margaret , I really wasn't sure many were reading my game thread. It doesn't get much feedback. sgtslag, I am really enjoying utilizing all these options. Depending on the week I might be in the mood for one style or it just comes down to convenience like this week. I do believe though that once I get around to building my table I bet the most weeks I will probably fall back to digital and work on large set pieces for epic battles. It definitely frees me up to work on the big pieces rather than keeping up with having a set for every week.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 17, 2017 3:59:14 GMT
Next week my party begins and possibly finished Wave Echo Cave, wrapping up Lost Mine of Phandelver. Wave Echo Cave is huge and I really didn't want to try and lay it all out so I decided next week will be our first foray into a digital layout. I will be displaying it on the wall and we will run combat on the table using a battle mat. I found a great remade version of Wave Echo Cave on Cartographer's Guild where they did proper 5 foot squares instead of the 10 foot squares they did in the original map. I pieced the 2 maps together in photoshop, blew them up and created about 40 layers. Every hall and room is individually blacked out so I can show and hide any part of the map. I am planning to run fog of war and even darken it behind them as they go. This is gonna be fun.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 14, 2017 17:15:14 GMT
I started working on a new campaign and have been torn on buying the new Monster Menagerie 2 set. There are a bunch of minis I want but there are also a bunch of minis that I already have way too many of. I have some small adventures I am planning for my home brew campaign so I picked up some stuff I needed. First was a Cyclops. I have a great adventure in my head based around an old Cyclops that is terrorizing a village. Next I am planning an adventure based around the Assassin's guild in my main city of Black Bay. The guild has their hideout in the maze of sewer tunnels below Black Bay and they use Neo-Otyughs as guardians. The leader of the Assassin's guild is a female. I also wanted some evil clerics for an encounter. Lastly I picked up some stuff I wanted such as another Cleric and an Elven Fighter. Grabbed a couple Rat Swarms, some Cerberus, a couple Hippogriffs, a Mummy, and lastly a Clay Golem to whoop some ass with I bought them from Auggies Games which is much cheaper than buying from Coolstuff or Miniature Market. 18 Minis cost me $50 shipped. I know it's more expensive than many on here want to spend but I think it's a better than buying a $90 brick of 36 random minis and getting 20 commons that I already own other versions of.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 9, 2017 3:10:13 GMT
Session 7 - Venomfang and the bad day!So I really had no idea how this week was going to go. I planned for the possibility that the party would engage Venomfang but I had nothing planned past that. I was going to have something written in case a TPK and something in case they won....none of that happened. The party got together and we refreshed on what happened the previous week and the party decided they were going to go talk to the dragon. I did a lot of research this week on how others ran this encounter and I really wanted to play this one up properly. I also resolved myself to the fact that if the party chose to fight Venomfang then the gloves were off and I was going to play him properly regardless of the outcome. I had a whole dialog written up which took us about 20 minutes in real time to role play out this encounter. As the party approached the tower they decided to go right into the cottage. Finding nothing in there the barbarian looked inside the tower. The tower raised up 40 feet to the ceiling with a spiral stair case curving around half of the tower going up to an opening in the ceiling. There were a couple other openings in the ceiling. There were support beams going across at about 30 feet up from what was once another floor that had completely rotten and fallen though. Sitting in the floor in the center of the tower was a rotted broken chest with hundreds of coins scattered around the floor. The Barbarian walked into the doorway and the dragon make his presence known. For this whole scenario I had removed all of my stuff from the table. No books, no screen, no anything. I had drawn out the tower on my battle mat and placed the dragon at the top of the tower. As he spoke to the players I asked them repeatedly for positioning as the dragon slowly crept around the support beams above after he entered from a hole in the ceiling. He moved with a natural grace among the beams constantly keep his eye on the party and engaging them in conversation. He explained to them how he could kill them but preferred easier prey. While he would win, he would be licking his wounds and preferred a mutual arrangement that would benefit both parties. He told the party about another Dragon whose lair he wanted to take and would gladly leave Thundertree if the party helped. He offered them a map to the location and they could keep the treasure. He explained to them how he was speaking to them under a banner of truce and encouraged them to sheath their weapons. He wouldn't dare break a Draconic Guest Rite so they were safe with him. He told them how the druid was really just using them but he was their friend. If they would just go to the treasure pile in the center they would find the map to this other dragon and they could make an arrangement. Now this is where my mind is officially blown. The party sheathed their weapons and eventually agreed to help the dragon. 4 of the 6 party members moved to the center of the room to look for this map and the dragon saw his chance!! With a great smile the dragon thanked them for volunteering to be his next meal and combat began. The thief and barbarian rushed up the stairs headed for the beams that the dragon was crawling among. The ranger let loose an arrow hitting the dragon. At this point it all went to hell. The dragon turned on the thief and barbarian who were running up the stairs and hit them both with his poison breath. The thief failed his save and fell dead on the spot from massive damage, no death saves necessary. The barbarian saved and took half damage. The ranger and wizard spent the battle firing arrows and magic missiles at the dragon which using there movement to keep themselves just outside the door and in the cottage. The cleric for some reason stood on the floor of the tower trying to cast guiding bolts at the dragon. The fighter joined the barbarian and rushed up the stairs and across the beam to melee fight with the dragon. Overall the party did good damage. 2 rounds later the dragon refreshed his breath weapon and chose to hit the barbarian and fighter. Both of them were knocked unconscious (below 0) and proceeded to fall from the beams. The fall alone with them in the negatives surely would have killed them except the mage used his reaction phase to case feather fall on both of them, saving them from the falling damage. The wizard used the fireball scroll he had been holding and centered it about 30 feet above the ground, keeping it out of range of hitting the party but in range of the dragon. The dragon saved for half and the tower took some major damage. With all of the party on the floor hitting him from range and no breath weapon refreshed he decided to fly down and engage the cleric. On the final round of the combat, the mage and ranger did a good amount of damage to the dragon. In a fury the dragon made one final attack at the cleric, who was the only one in range. All 3 of his attacks hit for a total of 42 damage, killing the cleric. With that he cursed at the mage and ranger (only remaining players) and flew through the ceiling. The two of them using their medicine checks to stabilize the barbarian and fighter, and the ranger healed them. They grabbed what little treasure they could quickly and ran before the tower collapsed or the dragon came back. In the end the Thief and Cleric died. The Barbarian decided to retire his character to make a Cleric to replace the one we lost. They rolled new characters and ended up making a Fighter and Paladin. The party is now fighter heavy with 4 of the 6 players being fighter types. Not sure how that will play out. After about an hour for them to make characters, the living characters used that time to head back to neverwinter and rest up. They identified the couple items they had. Once all characters were made up they decided to head to Cragmaw Castle and look for Iarno (Glasstaff). The party walked right up to the front door of the castle, triggering the goblin guards who began firing arrows from inside. The party rushed in to attack the goblins alerting the 3 hobgoblins in the northern room and then 2 rounds later the 3 more goblins in the southern room. 7 goblins and 4 hobgoblins later the party was victorious but not without a battle on their hands. I forgot all about the hobgoblin's "pack" ability which is probably good because the extra damage would have killed the party. The new fighter and cleric took a lot of damage and we thought they might be rolling again. So that is where we left off for the week. Next week we finish cragmaw castle and then I move them to Wave Echo Cavern for the finale of Lost Mine. Lastly, tonight began our wall of shame. Our first 2 character deaths on week 7 of our game. I foresee many more to come in the future.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 9, 2017 2:22:06 GMT
just so you know... after the hot glue on your river, you can simply put some heavy books on the piece and get it to bend back into position. after about a day they do unbend. thats pretty much what we did with the glue thing on the cork mats when doing tilescape tiles. works like a charm. did it on cardboard as well. Unfortunately that wont work with PLA. Once it's warped, it's pretty much warped. You might be able to reform it with a heat gun but it will never be right. 3d printing without warping can be difficult especially on these thin pieces. She warped it with hot glue, my first print warped simply because it lifted from the bed. It's touch and go.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 8, 2017 20:43:57 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 8, 2017 20:39:36 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 8, 2017 12:39:26 GMT
Those look great. That single pic got me thinking of a new D&D adventure for my 5E group. Nice job. Maybe someday I might actually get to play a game of Frostgrave.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 7, 2017 14:31:41 GMT
Nice, I just got around to downloading all of my Printable Scenery stuff to start printing some things. I need to pickup the Hero's Hoard stuff next. Been printing so much pinball stuff that I need another printer just for D&D stuff
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 7, 2017 12:41:16 GMT
They look good Jen. I still haven't decided what to do with my bases.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 4, 2017 1:44:19 GMT
I have one player that is new to D&D after a 20 year hiatus. He is completely new to 5E and has had a tough go of learning his character and the rules. One thing he has done though is decide to go out and buy the PHB (great) and the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (Good). He also decided though to go buy the DMG and Monster Manual and is already quoting me monster stats. He bought the Starter Kit with Lost Mine of Phandelver which is the part that really irritates me. A couple times things have come up with him that pretty much tipped us all off to the fact that he is reading the module. I am sure he has read all up on Green Dragon stats already. Just recently he bought Volos about a week after I did and is already talking about how great the monsters are.
So here is my issue with this scenario. For my group in the last almost 30 years, I have been the DM. I have taken a couple small breaks but we end up back with me running the game. There is no need at all for him to own these books at this stage, but he has the right to buy what he wants. The problem with it is that 5E has drastic changes to monsters over 1E and 2E. They have new abilities, new tactics, and just a whole lot of flavor. Encounters that would have been boring and trivial in 2E can be downright epic in 5E. Our previous run in a couple weeks ago with a Goblin ambush. Goblins sniping with bows from the trees and then using their Hide ability to disappear back into the trees really unnerved my PCs. A few of them dropped and if I had been a hardass and finished them off, those goblins could have wiped the party out.
It really opened their eyes to the potential danger of 5E and to not underestimate any creatures in this edition. A lot of that goes out the window when the PCs start studying the Monster Manual and imo, robs them of a whole lot of wonder that the game has again.
Last week the same player said something out of character to the group about some ability that a monster had. The next round he was trying to direct them to act on the info he told them.
I reminded him that:
A: His character wasn't in the vicinity of the player he was trying to direct. B: His character didn't know the ability he was trying to tell them about anyways, only he did because he read about it. C: His character never said anything in character anyways so it was a moot point.
Combat in 5E should be lightning fast but ours has slowed to a crawl. Each round the players are discussing their "plans" before they take their turns. Starting this week I am trying something new. Once combat begins, out of character discussion ends. It's a 6 second combat round, not a round table discussion. Each player will take their turn and they can respond to events that happen, not plan them ahead of time while the combat stops for them. Asking for a clarification on a rule or effect is one thing, having everyone coordinate every attack each 6 seconds is absurd. I am also thinking about instituting a stop watch for initiative rounds. Sick of the cleric spending 5 minutes to decide if he is going to cast sacred flame, swing his hammer, heal someone, and/or move. It's just absurd. I think giving each player 10 seconds to decide on their action is more than enough especially when they go last in the round.
I want to allow more role play and theater of the mind play. I want to allow more "fantastic" play, but first I need to stop the metagaming that is bringing parts of the game to a crawl. I am less inclined to allow the players to do some off the wall stunt when they try and squeeze ever possible hit point out of every single action even if it slows the game and hinders the story.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 3, 2017 22:35:55 GMT
Session 7 - The Ruins of ThundertreeThis week doesn't really require much of a writeup. The players systematically moved around Thundertree clearing EVERYTHING they saw. They ended up clearing out all the twig blights and ash zombies. They did learn that the ash zombies really aren't to be trifled with. No matter how many times they did it, they would still attack a fresh zombie while he stood within a crowd of players, release his cloud of ash, and inevitably give someone disadvantage for the rest of the combat. The Spiders could have been much worse than they were but the only one bit in combat was our Dwarf Cleric. He made his poison save and with his dwarven resistance ended up taking 1/4 damage. The hardest part of the night for them was the Cultists. I kept them as Dragon Cultists and had them report directly to Langdragosa, the Half Dragon Champion from Horde of the Dragon Queen. The party approached the old inn where the cultists were held up and tried talking with them. The Cultists told them that they had come to Thundertree to speak with the great dragon, but also made it clear that they wanted nothing really to do with the adventurers. The adventurers decided to make some veiled threats towards the cultists. The cultists again stated that they wanted nothing to do with them and the party eventually left. The moved just north to the square to the barracks which were boarded. They could smell the odor of death which reminded them of the ash zombies from earlier, so of course they headed right in to kill them. The party decided to attack through front and back doors, splitting up the group and putting them in different rooms inhabited with zombies. When they moved in, the cultists decided that they weren't going to have their plans for the dragon ruined by a group of adventurers that had just threatened them, so they moved in to attack. This was by far the toughest battle of the night. The party burnt their spells, their abilities, their potions....they did all they could to keep it together. Other than the final fight, the night was pretty much a 4 hour cake walk session for them which is something they aren't used to. Of course we finished up the night with the party planning how they would storm the Dragon's tower. I now have a week to plan out my tactics. During the fight with the cultists, the Wizard heard the flapping of wings as Venonfang parked himself above the tower to watch the puny adventurers duke it out. A sneak attack just isn't possible. They have spent a good couple days ridding the ruins of all it's inhabitants and the Dragon is ready for them. I have been plotting out my plans and lets just say, this is one conniving, crafty, lying dragon. I hope the party brings their A game. They can easily walk away but knowing them they wont. They can play it smart but knowing a couple hot heads in the group, they wont. If they get super lucky with some rolls maybe they can do enough damage to force Venomfang to flee before they are all dead. I plan to roleplay Venomfang as the very chatty and trustworthy, honorable dragon that he is. I sure hope they believe me As a side note....they did manage to keep one last cultist alive long enough for the Thief to interrogate him. He rolled a natural 20 on his check so the cultist spilled his guts. He told them about his boss Langdragosa and the Cult of the Dragon. He told them how they were here to form an alliance with the Green and bring him to their side. When asked about the location of Langdragosa he told them that when they left for Thundertree, Langdragosa was headed with his small army to the village of Greenest on their quest to collect treasure. On our first failed attempt at 5E with another group (2 current members) we played Horde of the Dragon Queen. Being the first official 5E adventure it was lacking in many ways including the total railroad of an adventure. Now with most of the 5e rules firmly under my belt and me already deviating some of the plot of LMOP, I think if they survive they might find themselves in the middle of the cult of the dragon. Should be interesting especially once I move past LMOP and my one player that seems to be reading along
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 2, 2017 22:40:31 GMT
In the monster manual it talks about dragons being powerful enough to effect there environment, where their lair is, so terrain to represent those changes could be neet Yeah I was actually just reading about them earlier. Not sure yet what I am going to do. I need to plan something out for this encounter as well as plan Cragmaw Castle...if they make it past Thundertree. Also need to plan a level 1 introductory adventure if they DON'T make it past Thundertree
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 2, 2017 13:11:33 GMT
Including lair terrain markers? Not sure what you mean.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 2, 2017 2:47:53 GMT
Well they never made it. They decided they wanted to clear all of Thundertree tonight. The only thing left is the dragon so they decided to leave it for next week. That gives me a week to plan. I think I am going to build a multi-story tower to play out the whole battle. Should be a good time.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 1, 2017 18:00:08 GMT
I am not sure what the party is going to do. They told me 2 weeks ago before we took our Christmas break that they were going to help the druid by "killing" the Dragon. The druid asked for help driving him off but they immediately took that as kill him. We'll see how it goes. Might have some new characters before the night is through.
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 1, 2017 17:36:58 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 1, 2017 17:36:13 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Jan 1, 2017 17:33:38 GMT
|
|
|
Post by Meph on Dec 30, 2016 11:00:13 GMT
Designed and printed an oblong base for my boar which I got for $1 from ebay-- came in set of ten medium to large size miniatures for $10 (including shipping), from China. For some reason all ten of these Pathfinder minis I got did not come with the bases. The oblong base is customizable OpenSCAD program and I am sharing it along with a 25x50x2 mm base STL file, on thingiverse: www.thingiverse.com/thing:2004540They didn't come with bases because you most likely bought a batch of factory seconds. Were they really cheap also, maybe $1 each or less? If they were all complete, just missing bases, then you made out.
|
|