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Post by Meph on Dec 13, 2016 21:18:38 GMT
Session 5 - Agatha's Lair & Old Owl WellFollowing the leads that they picked up in Phandalin, the party decided to head East on the Triboar Trail to the ruins of Conyberry and investigate Agatha's Lair to the north and Old Owl Well to the south. Both of those required minimal setup and I didn't really bother making up a set piece for either of these encounters. The bulk of the evening was either roleplaying in Phandalin, with Agatha, or random encounters. This week doesn't make for such a thrilling journal but next week should be a doozy when they make their way to the Ruins of Thundertree! The party head out down the Triboar trail for Conyberry which was a 3 day journey. On the first night they had a random encounter with 5 wolves that attacked the camp. 3rd watch was the Gronk the Barbarian and Branson the Wizard. Gronk was able to detect the wolves circling the camp and shouted the alarm while moving in to fortify the camp. Two of the wolves attacked Damakos the Rogue and Derik the Ranger, one of them hitting and knocking Derik prone. Much to my own stupidity, I forgot all about their pack attack and knocking the players prone so this encounter ended up much easier than it should have been. For some unknown reason, Badger the Cleric decided to cast Guiding Bolt on one of the other group of 3 wolves, grabbing all of their attention. The Cleric took a good bit of damage in this encounter but Gronk was able to make it to his side and save him. On the 3rd night the dice gods were in my favor and they again had another random encounter, again on the 3rd watch. The camp grew quiet and after a short while the silence was broken by a horrendous screech. Gronk heard some more loud "chirps" and then heard the sound of pounding feet rushing at the camp. He bolted into the camp and quickly woke the Fighter as an Owlbear rushed into camp and attacked Gronk. This battle was a bit insane with the Barbarian and Fighter's taking massive damage. The Barbarian almost dropped after the first round while the Cleric was healing as fast as he could to keep the Fighter & Barbarian alive. The battle was pretty intense but everyone lived. My party now has a healthy fear of Owlbears. The next day the party made their way to Agatha's lair. As the party approached and investigated the lair Agatha made her appearance behind the party scaring them half to death. By the book, this encounter is a simple roleplay scenario with no chance of death. If the party acts hostile then Agatha disappears. There is no way that was going to fly. I really played up the setup to this encounter with the forest around the lair being devoid of animal life and the trees & plant life was twisted and deformed. There were bones of her victims littered around the camp and the path leading up. For some reason again the Cleric decided he was going to roleplay this encounter and do all the speaking. It didn't occur to him that his 8 Charisma might be a hinderance. When Agatha approached she sneered at the party that they were fools to approach since intruding on her lair was certain death. For once the party was smart enough not to attack and they immediately offered her the Silver Gem encrusted Comb that Sister Garaele gave them and asked for one question. The Cleric luckily made his persuasion check and she granted them one question. They had the ability to ask anything they wanted but they stuck to the script and asked what Sister Garaele wanted. They got their answer and were granted passage to leave, which they did in haste. They made their way back to Conyberry and south to the Old Owl Well. They chose to camp before heading in so they weren't approaching in the evening. They made their way to Old Owl Well and they found the ruins of a settlement surrounding by a crumbling wall. Inside the wall was a large ruined tower with only the ground story left, a functional well (namesake of the settlement) and a large circular tent with a burning campfire. The Rogue and Fighter decided to scout out the tower while the others stayed outside the wall. As they rounded the front of the tower a group of 4 zombies exited the tower. Being the brave Fighter he is, Xavier attacked with Damakos following. The rest of the party scrambled to start making their way inside. Next round another 4 zombies dragged their way out of the tower and the party started getting nervous. Others made it up to them as the zombies began surrounding them and an additional 4 advanced from the tower. At this point they had 12 zombies out and had the party split up a bit. The party really got scared when they started dropping zombies and they kept getting back up. They have low hit points and don't hit for much, but there were 12 of them and several were getting back up after dropping. The Cleric stepped up with Turn Undead and managed to turn 5 of them, giving them a little breathing room. At this point the flaps to the tent opened and a red robed Wizard with Necromancer tattoos on his head popped out. He screamed at the party asking what was the meaning of their intrusion. The zombies paused for a second when the necromancer came out and I gave the party their option to parlay. Of course Gronk the Barbarian rushed towards him and launched his spear but missed the Necromancer. The next round the Necromancer had initiative and since they obviously weren't in the talking mood, he cast Charm Person on both Gronk and Branson the Wizard. Gronk saved but Branson failed, even with advantage. The brave cleric decided he was all about killing the Wizard and cast Guiding Bolt on him and this time he hit. He cast it with a 2nd level spell slot so it did 5d6 damage and he rolled well, killing the Necromancer. So at this point I faced a dilemma but I ruled that since a round was 6 seconds and Branson hadn't gone yet, he was still charmed until the end of the round. As he watched the Necromancer fall Branson went into a rage and wanted to kill the Badger. I had a few options and this is where I got soft. The party (other than Branson) did not yet know that he was charmed. They also didn't know he had a scroll of fireball on him. If I had played it like I should have then Branson should have fireballed the party. They were all grouped up and away from him. It was the perfect opportunity. Since I am soft and didn't feel like killing off the whole party I decided that in a rage he targeted the cleric with his Magic Missile. Looking back I chose it because I knew it wouldn't kill him and that is my bad. I feel I played the encounter too softly. The party finished off the 7 zombies and had 1 round left before the 10 rounds of Turn Undead wore off. I reminded them that next round it would wear off and asked what they were doing, then began counting down from 6! By the time I got to two the party had figured it out and they all ran into the tent and waited while the returning zombies all headed back into the ruined tower. That is where we ended the night. I wasn't happy with how I played that last encounter but that's life. I need to decide about the necromancer's spellbook because it doesn't state if he had one or not. I also found this week that I am not a fan of casters gaining 2 spells of their choice every level. Spells were ALWAYS gained in my campaigns through treasure (scrolls), looted and researched spell books, or seeking out training for a specific spell. Right now this adventure has given out 3 wizard scrolls, the wizard began with 6 spells of their choice. By 3rd level our wizard has 10 spells of his choosing as well as the 3 scrolls. While I don't want to dial them back to the 1E days, I think this is pretty overboard and really takes away from the mystique of a wizard. In 5E they already have their light cantrip and damage dealing cantrips, but not they get the best spells of each level just by choice. House rules are coming. I have already started compiling a list of things I don't like. All that said, the players and I have been enjoying 5E and they have all been really cool with my house rules. One thing I already changed was anyone being able to do class defining abilities. I don't care what the book says, just because a wizard has a high intelligence and can make the checks, doesn't mean he can pick locks like a thief. I decided and the players agreed that class defining abilites would be restricted to the appropriate classes unless there is a story reason to do otherwise. Next week, Thundertree!
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Post by kgstanley81 on Dec 14, 2016 1:21:13 GMT
Yeah, I was playing the bard, with the 18 charisma, I did all the talking, and we talked to the necromancer, great reading how others are dealing with the adventure
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Post by DnDPaladin on Dec 14, 2016 4:07:40 GMT
lucky you, my players have gone directly to the main storyline and forgot about everything else. even going to get treasure from the undead city was made easy because the warlock could shoot undeads 400 feets away.
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Post by Meph on Dec 20, 2016 2:09:19 GMT
Session 6 - Old Owl Well & Travel to ThundertreeThis week was a little different than most because it consisted mostly of random encounters, and very few of them at that. The player's began the session hiding in the Necromancer's tent as the remaining 7 zombies returned to the tower. The players were convinced that the zombies might be guarding some type of treasure so they lured them out to kill them off. The fight was pretty uneventful given they knew what they were going up against and planned out their attack. I didn't bother with any pictures. The group decided that they wanted to head to Thundertree to seek out the Druid Reidoth and see if he had information about the location of Cragmaw Castle. The Ranger told the party that he could guide them through the Neverwinter forest which would save them days of traveling. I warned them that traveling through the forest would increase their chances of random encounters but they decided it was worth the risk. I didn't give them overwhelming risk but it went from a 15% chance on the Triboar trail to a 25% chance traveling through the forest. That check was made twice daily, once traveling and once at night. It didn't take long and they ran into an encounter on their first day of travel. I kept to the random chart for the Triboar trail and rolled an encounter of 7 Goblins. Now 7 goblins vs 6 level 3 characters shouldn't have been a big deal, but they quickly learned how brutal 5E truly could be once I take the gloves off and play monsters to their potential. The party, several clad in metal armors quickly alerted the goblin raiding party of their arrival so the goblins set an ambush for the party. With their superior stealth, only 2 members of the party were able to spot the goblins and react, while the others were all surprised. Our Thief with Cunning Action loves to attack an already engaged creature for a Sneak Attack, then disengage and move out of range avoiding an Attack of Opportunity. The engaged creature can't follow or he will trigger an Attack of Opportunity himself. Next round the Thief will again move in on a target, attack, disengage and finish his movement away. While he thinks he is clever, the DM can also employ those tricks. Goblins in 5E have a similar ability to Disengage or Hide as a bonus action and I used it to it's potential. The goblins began the combat by ambushing the party from the trees using their shortbows. After their attack each goblin used their movement and hide ability. Given their +7 stealth they were able to successfully hide from the party most of the time. The battle was pretty intense as the goblins waged some nice guerilla warfare. The Cleric, Ranger, and Wizard all dropped in two rounds. The remaining members ended up burning their 2nd Wind, Rage, and healing potions. I showed mercy once half the party dropped by having the goblins move in to engage with their scimitars, giving them a chance to properly fight back. It was close and the party only lived because of DM mercy! While I never set out to try and kill my party it was nice to humble them, especially against what they though of as "just a bunch of goblins". The final goblin made a break for it, avoiding an Attack of Opportunity from the Fighter and surviving a hit from the Barbarian. He took off into the trees and made a successful Hide. They might just run into that goblin in the future. Later in their travels they ended up having a random encounter during the night. This time they ran into 7 Stirges. 2HPs each, hit for 1d4+2 (I think) and then do damage per round until dislodged. Again the party started taking massive damage as they split up, focusing on their own targets and allowed some players to get attacked by multiple stirges. I ended up ruling that like a mosquito, removing the stirge basically smushed it, killing it. ps.) I had no Stirges so I used Sprites instead. After this encounter the party seemed a bit discouraged about the ass whooping they had been taking so I ended up pushing them on to Thundertree after that encounter. They entered the village from the south which put them right at Reidoth the Druid's quarters, right on the edge of the village. We were wrapping the night up so we role played their encounter with the Druid. He told the party that he had returned to the ruins because a Dragon had taken up residence and was causing problems. He needed to restore the balance and asked for assistance from the party. He told them the location of Cragmaw Castle and also informed them about a group of Cultists that was currently trying to court the Green Dragon. I am replacing the Cult of the Dragon cultists with Elemental Cultists which will tie in with Princes of the Apocalypse, which they will be moving on to after LMOP. The party has decided they will help the druid rid the ruins of the Green Dragon. I am really curious to see if they actually choose to try and fight this dragon at 3rd level or if they will role play the encounter. We are off for Christmas but back to the game on New Years day, so.....more to come.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Dec 20, 2016 20:13:26 GMT
big jump in power once players gets to level 3 though. but its always nice to see them take massive damage during the course of combat. wait till they realise druids of the moon are unkillable in this game.
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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
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jan 4, 2017 1:03:11 GMT
i just hope your guys aren't greendragon o phobic like mine did ! my players never wanted to speak to a gren dragon becaus ein the MM it says they aren't trustworthy and big liar and manipulative. this is why i hate those descriptions in the MM. makes the players phobic to a crisp.
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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.
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Post by Sam on Jan 4, 2017 12:49:18 GMT
Damn, I hate rule lawyers. You did right to point out that his character does not know what he knows. There is usually one in every group to some extent. I once had a kid that wanted to wear full plate all the time, (his dad told him knights could move in it like they were in normal clothes) and thought he should be able to to travel 30 miles a day over poor terrain in it. Darn it, I hate arguing with kids. It really sucked when he got too close to a large natural magnetic boulder just before the rust monster riding trolls arrived. It was not a TPK, but everyone got the point. A nice dream (nightmare) sequence for him.
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Post by kgstanley81 on Jan 4, 2017 19:18:25 GMT
I think we could have taken the drow in our Wednesday game, but playing the bard, I would have heard how dangerous they are, and I played it that way, ended up paying them for prisoners we were looking for, out of game, I think we would have killed them all
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jan 4, 2017 21:53:05 GMT
what i hate the most is that players wait for their turn to decide what to do just because they think they want the most up to date info to take a decision... i started counting on my group, give them 30 seconds to play. i count in my head never told them about it. at 15 seconds i give them their first warning. like what do "you" do ? then at 25 seconds i'm like times is running out. and at 30 seconds i just skip their turn ! been working pretty good at this point.
as a player i usually find my answers in like 10 seconds. because im used to playing fast chess games. as for player metagiming, the problem is that those players dont know how to differentiate character knowledge from player knowledge. you must teach these playersd to start acting like thier character not like themselves. this is why i hate non-role players at a table. they play a video game using their own knowledge and not caring for the rest. to those players i say "This is not a video game, if you wanna play video games i encourage you to stay home" and usually they get it after a while. if not then i get rid of them if i dont see any changes. its not even a question of rules lawyer its a question of "actually playing"
reading the module you are doing is ridiculous, i'd already throw him out of the game. then again this very problem is the reason i dont play modules.
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Post by voodoo on Jan 5, 2017 18:52:30 GMT
Still looked like a fun gaming night. I ran phandelver for my friend and his kids. (they had got the starter set and read about half of the module) If I run a mod I ALWAYS change up the monsters/abilities of monsters and parts of the story by adding or subtracting NPC's and their motivations. I also rarely run a monster right out of the monster manual. I used one out of tome of beasts because my players hadn't seen it yet. Soooo glad I don't have rules/stat lawyers in my groups. My players hate them too.
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Post by Meph on Jan 8, 2017 20:39:36 GMT
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Post by Meph on Jan 8, 2017 20:43:57 GMT
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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.
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Post by misterc on Jan 9, 2017 13:18:37 GMT
Ouch!
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jan 10, 2017 16:04:38 GMT
6 players means the dragon encounter could be won. but with much deaths. in the end it played out well. i love how the players weren't green dragon o phobic. most of my players would not believe a word fromt hat dragon just because its whats written int he book. reguardless fo the fact i played good chromatics a few times.
aside from druids and clerics, the other caster classes in 5E are much more glass canons. they hit hard by spells but can easily be taken out. i am playing a wizard right now in a campaign and seriously. the fact that all spells are concentration really screw up any type of buffs you may want. can't give haste to many people. and the only real mass crowd spells we have are grease, web and slow. and all of the have concentration. same with protecting himself.
so i understand full well why most just go fighter in this edition. fighter typesa re juust much more powerfull and with archetypes enabling them to go spell caster. the choices are much better.
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Post by Meph on Jan 23, 2017 22:45:38 GMT
Session 8 - Finishing CragmawI never got around to updating last week so here is the session from 2 weeks ago. I am sure I will have forgotten some details along the way. The party continued on in Cragmaw Castle the first week. They proceeded to clear their way through the castle pretty easily. I won't bore you with the details of most of it, but they really were crushing everything they saw.....until...they moved into the Dark Hall. One of the Fighters opened the door to the hall and stepped right in. He carried a torch, saw nothing obvious and declared the room clear. The rest of the party walked right in, failed their perception checks and were surprised by the Grick sitting on an upper ledge. The Grick dropped among the surprise party and hit the Wizard with his tentacles, then hit him again with a crit with his beak, dropping the wizard unconscious in a single round. Once the attack began, the 3 Goblins in the attached shrine heard the commotion and jumped into the fray. The party pulled it off but not without quite the battle. I don't have an appropriate Grick mini. After the Grick the pary decided they needed to hold up and take a short rest. To play it safe they moved outside the castle through the broken wall just outside the Dark Hall. After their rest they decided to move in to finish up the castle. For some reason the party made the assumption that 2 doors went to the same room and decided to make a 2 pronged attack when they heard voices inside. They were partially right; the rooms were connected but had a bit of a bottleneck between them. The party moved in and essentially split the party for most of the last battle. They entered into the barracks intent on killing the Hobgoblins that were in there but in the process, alerted the Bugbear leader with his Wolf and the Doppleganger emissary that was disguised as a Drow. This battle was pretty intense and once the Bugbear went down, the Doppleganger changed into an Owlbear in an attempt to scare the party off so it could make it's escape. Instead the party pulled the door shut and setup outside the door. Eventually they hatched a plan to go in. They opened the door to see the Drow again in the room holding a knife to the chest of an unconscious Gundren Rockseeker. The drow threatened to kill the Dwarf if the party didn't back off. Of course in true form, the party thought they knew better and attacked. The drow plunged the dagger into the dwarf's chest before rushing to engage. The doppleganger was no match for the whole party and they quickly finished it off. Then the reality set in, Gundren was dead. Of course 8 weeks in the party had become a little disconnected from the full story line and barely cared. They searched the Bugbear and found him in possession of Gundren's map with the location of Wave Echo Cave. There was one last room that was barred from the outside. A little investigation told them that the barred door actually DID hold an Owlbear. After the damage they had suffered the party hatched a plan to release the Owlbear and try to lure it out of the castle. It succeeded and the party left the castle and headed back to Phandalin with the body of Gundren Rockseeker.
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Post by Meph on Jan 24, 2017 0:57:49 GMT
Session 9 - On to Wave Echo CaveThe party began this week in Phandalin wrapping up some loose ends and then set off for Wave Echo Cave. The caves are about 12 miles East of Phandalin and the party decided to stake out the entrance of it for a full day and see what traffic they might see. I decided to use the random charts for the Triboar Trail area and then use Kobold Fight Club to scale the encounter for this size/level group. The party now consists of a 4th Level Ranger, 4th Level Wizard, (2) 3rd Level Fighters, 3rd Level Cleric, and a 2nd Level Paladin. I gave them a 15% change of a day or night encounter and I rolled 19 for the night....so I randomly rolled the Triboar encounters. It came up as a single Ogre which was designed for a party of level 2s. I scaled it in Kobold Fight Club and it said 3 Ogres would be a "Hard" encounter. Holy crap, I think the party nearly shit themselves. 5E Ogres really are just a bunch of meat sacks. They have no special abilities but the have a lot of hit points and they hit hard. To say hard is an understatement. The fighters used their second winds, the cleric and ranger used their heals, the wizard burnt a bunch of spells....a great time was had by me. The party had to pull out all the stops but ultimately was rewarded well for it and one fighter leveled to 4th and the Paladin to 2nd. This really set the tone for the night and the party was on the defensive. They made their way inside the caves and started exploring. The original map was 10 feet per square so I found one from Cartographers Guild where they redid the map at proper 5" squares with nice graphics. I broke it up into about 35 layers so I could reveal the fog as they moved down halls. Instead of displaying it on the table and using minis on it I opted instead to display it on the wall and we just roughly sketched out rooms when combat required it. I would like to find a mix that doesn't require a TV in the table. I want to keep my tabletop for 3d terrain. So the party only had a few encounters in the cave but it was nearly a deadly night. The first was an Ochre Jelly which the first fighter cleaved with his Great Axe, splitting it into 3 Jellies. That freaked them out and I allowed them to metagame and quickly realize that they shouldn't use slashing weapons. After the jellies they ended up exploring more and found a room with some bugbears barricaded inside. The party tried to draw them out and bottleneck them so I used the push rules to have the bugbears forgo their attack phase to made contested checks and push the party back, allowing the bugbears the stream out. Worked nicely and the party had their hands full. Lastly the party moved out the other side of the barricaded room to find themselves just outside an old dwarven forge room. There were corpses littered around the room with a floating flaming skull hovering over them. The party decided to skip down the stairs instead and avoid the skull. They came into a large room with 2 raised ledges on either side, one set of stairs leading up to each. There were bones strewn around the room. The Paladin decided to use Divine Sense which can detect undead within 60 feet. Much to his dismay he quickly detected a mass of undead on the ledge above them rapidly moving towards the party. This was the final combat of the night and it was a doozy. 7 Ghouls launched themselves off the ledge, 10 feet above the party. I played them like the zombies from 28 days later. The party was freaking out when one of the players was hit with both a bite and a claw in the first round taking 16 points of damage and paralyzing him. At this point the party unloaded everything they had and they needed it. Everyone lived but it took just about all of their resources. When it was all done it was a successful night for them. They gained a good amount of XP and lived, can't say the same for next week though. They ended the night right there in that room and we will pick it up next week with the party out of spells and abilities. They need a rest.
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Post by kgstanley81 on Jan 24, 2017 4:30:08 GMT
I had cast a sleep spell on the goblins, and even with the auto crit if hit in melee my bard only wounded the goblin, it was kinda funny
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