Into the ruins beneath Eldermere....the party fleeing the blazing fire now engulfing the village above descend into the forgotten depths beneath the town. I had a few traps and encounters planned for the first level of this dungeon, but it was not overly large in concept. 5 rooms consisting of burial chambers and crypts of a long forgotten king. Each of the crypts set to provoke an encounter if messed with with a minor undead entity (skeleton) with the final crypt holding the champion of the forgotten king (skeletal warrior). Of course the group was out for the goodies so all of the crypts were disturbed, with final encounter with the skeletal warrior grinding their resources down a bit further. There was one last room remaining which contained the sarcophagus of the court wizard, along with the secret entrance to the second level of the dungeon....
I always love the dialogue that arises from a group debating how far to push their luck in a dungeon when their resources start to be consumed. This harkens back to the days of my youth running 1st and 2nd edition games...when those resources run out, death is not far behind for the player characters. They decided to push onward...the "boss" of this level was a specter which had beefed up a bit and included a mechanic in which only allowed the creature to be hit / damaged when exposed to direct light. The theme of light vs. shadow is something I wanted to introduce here and now, because it will be ongoing through the rest of the dungeon as well as the remainder of the campaign.
Have I mentioned how much I love undead, they are great creatures, I miss the danger of level drain, but 5E has some included the mechanic in their HP and stat draining abilities in some of the more powerful undead. My wizard-shadow specter could drain HP's and it made this encounter some lethal...the group was definitely caught off-guard by the shadow/light mechanic and I was able to drop the wizard before they could get their footing on the fight....he survived based on the death saving throws, but hey enjoy your new HP max of 4!
I digress....the group was pretty beat up at the point, but they did pick up this sweet sword off the skeletal champion...did I mention it was cursed? +1 to hit and damage, but if you do not spill blood every 24 hours for the sword to "drink" you take 1d8 damage that cannot be cured...have fun you murder hobo's! Have I mentioned how I love to reward my groups with cool, fun and usable magic items...this being my first campaign I had run in 5E, this turns out to be a bad idea in this edition, but more on that later.
The party decided to hole-up and take a long rest at this point, but I did have an encounter planned to foreshadow some of the shadows associated with the Book of the Shadowhorn.....don't forget, this is what they were here to find after all. The hope was to show that something truly evil, powerful and ancient was lingering here....this was the book. During the rest, I random rolled to see whose watch was affected...Petros, the warlock, he's evil by the way....during his watch, there in the darkness of the hallway something is moving swirling about, almost in macabre dance...risking a little more light, he reveals that innumerous shadows are floating and swirling about, too many to count as they withdrawal from the light. Mission accomplished as this set a sense dread upon the party, what were they actually up against here?.......
Friday, November 30, 2018
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Session 2
We were back in action of 4/5 of the players present for this game, no Aaron (Avaros the bard) for this one...it may have proven costly. Fresh off the heals rescuing Raeynar Neverember from the clutches of the Xanathar guild, the group decided to call it a night, rest, regroup and set off to find Floon in the morning.
They played this part pretty cautiously, recruiting help from the Street Sweepers guild of Waterdeep, thinking they may have better information as to where Xanathar sewer hideout would. Thanks to some quick NPC random rolling, I had a crippled dwarf lead them down into the sewers and get them going in the right direction.
The first noted encounter is with a solo gazer prior to reaching the hideout. I'm not really sure what the point of this encounter is...maybe to ahold to the fact that Xanathar is a beholder....regardless, the group blew right through this, the only drama was them making checks to leap over the sewage channel to the other side, which some promptly failed. I took my time to describe the smell and just pure awfulness of this....fecal matter hanging on their robes, bits of torn and stained cloth wrapped around their legs, make it gross!
Reaching the hideout, things got interesting....first encounter is with some goblins behind arrow slits, with the hopes of catching the unwary in a crossfire. Some impressive rolls and Amber the cleric "getting her hands dirty" made this encounter trivial.....she through shit at them. Moving into the hideout, the next scripted encounter turned the evening sour for the group. A duergar and Xanathar thug waited to ambush the party. Invisibility and surprise attacks can wreck a low level party....case in point: Moving deeper into the hideout, when suddenly the duergar strikes the sorcerer from behind...I crit....one down. Initiative and the thug moves in engaging Brian's character Paul, the duergar, now enlarged, cuts down Amber the cleric....the thug is dispatched, but the party is seriously hurting and my dice were hot. Have I mentioned I make all of my rolls out in the open, I don't fudge the dice rolls at least. It's now 2 versus 1, the rogue goes down next....I'm really sorry guys. Paul managed to score a hit on the duergar and I had him drop, perhaps a little before his HP total said he would.
Death saves and Paul trying to stabilize those who he could was high drama with everyone watching the rolls...I love these moments at the table, there is no talking, just the sound of the dice spinning. They all lived, but Cody's was on 2/3 death saves with the last roll, sealing his fate...he lived. My hands were tied for a couple of hours in-game as Paul barricaded and hid the recovery party and himself...some random noises deeper in the hideout, could I possibly through a random encounter at the one upright party member....maybe not this time.
Now recovered they move deeper into the hideout, a quick detour to check out a hastily barricaded closet door...surprise, it's a slime! Amber goes down and is nearly pulled into the pit....barely spared. Which leads to the final encounter...
So let me pause for a second and state, I'm really not a fan of the recent WoTC releases and this encounter is pretty poor in my opinion. If I had to do it over again, I'd change a lot...especially the whole mindflayer part. I get they are trying to allude to more danger and sinister things at work with the Xanathar guild, but it's just kinda poorly done.
OK, back to it...Bloth the rouge sneaks ahead and sees a red-headed man being tortured by a robed half-orc while this otherworldly, almost alien like creature looks on, its tentacled mouth twitching in perceived boredom. The group did pretty well, not to meta this encounter and proceeded ahead despite the quite obvious danger. As the group enters, I had the mindflayer exit with a dismissive hand...deal with these...The group had no issues here and Floon...beaten and scared was saved. I have to admit, I modeled my NPC Floon from Adam Koebel's stream of this same adventure on the Roll20 broadcast of their games. In fact I model a lot of my NPC's from him, fantastic DM.
That about wrapped it up....the party headed back, Floon in-hand, to collect their reward from Volo.....surprise it's Trollskull Manor. We'll pick up from here when I run the next session. If I could change anything about this session it would definitely be to remove the mindflayer from all of this..its is just a little much and awkward. I'd also make some more consequences for delaying in getting to Floon...perhaps they just find him dead, I don't think this really impacts anything. The group is still going to get the house. Anyways, stay tuned, I've got some good things planned heading into the next session as I start to deviate a lot from the book.
They played this part pretty cautiously, recruiting help from the Street Sweepers guild of Waterdeep, thinking they may have better information as to where Xanathar sewer hideout would. Thanks to some quick NPC random rolling, I had a crippled dwarf lead them down into the sewers and get them going in the right direction.
The first noted encounter is with a solo gazer prior to reaching the hideout. I'm not really sure what the point of this encounter is...maybe to ahold to the fact that Xanathar is a beholder....regardless, the group blew right through this, the only drama was them making checks to leap over the sewage channel to the other side, which some promptly failed. I took my time to describe the smell and just pure awfulness of this....fecal matter hanging on their robes, bits of torn and stained cloth wrapped around their legs, make it gross!
Reaching the hideout, things got interesting....first encounter is with some goblins behind arrow slits, with the hopes of catching the unwary in a crossfire. Some impressive rolls and Amber the cleric "getting her hands dirty" made this encounter trivial.....she through shit at them. Moving into the hideout, the next scripted encounter turned the evening sour for the group. A duergar and Xanathar thug waited to ambush the party. Invisibility and surprise attacks can wreck a low level party....case in point: Moving deeper into the hideout, when suddenly the duergar strikes the sorcerer from behind...I crit....one down. Initiative and the thug moves in engaging Brian's character Paul, the duergar, now enlarged, cuts down Amber the cleric....the thug is dispatched, but the party is seriously hurting and my dice were hot. Have I mentioned I make all of my rolls out in the open, I don't fudge the dice rolls at least. It's now 2 versus 1, the rogue goes down next....I'm really sorry guys. Paul managed to score a hit on the duergar and I had him drop, perhaps a little before his HP total said he would.
Death saves and Paul trying to stabilize those who he could was high drama with everyone watching the rolls...I love these moments at the table, there is no talking, just the sound of the dice spinning. They all lived, but Cody's was on 2/3 death saves with the last roll, sealing his fate...he lived. My hands were tied for a couple of hours in-game as Paul barricaded and hid the recovery party and himself...some random noises deeper in the hideout, could I possibly through a random encounter at the one upright party member....maybe not this time.
Now recovered they move deeper into the hideout, a quick detour to check out a hastily barricaded closet door...surprise, it's a slime! Amber goes down and is nearly pulled into the pit....barely spared. Which leads to the final encounter...
So let me pause for a second and state, I'm really not a fan of the recent WoTC releases and this encounter is pretty poor in my opinion. If I had to do it over again, I'd change a lot...especially the whole mindflayer part. I get they are trying to allude to more danger and sinister things at work with the Xanathar guild, but it's just kinda poorly done.
OK, back to it...Bloth the rouge sneaks ahead and sees a red-headed man being tortured by a robed half-orc while this otherworldly, almost alien like creature looks on, its tentacled mouth twitching in perceived boredom. The group did pretty well, not to meta this encounter and proceeded ahead despite the quite obvious danger. As the group enters, I had the mindflayer exit with a dismissive hand...deal with these...The group had no issues here and Floon...beaten and scared was saved. I have to admit, I modeled my NPC Floon from Adam Koebel's stream of this same adventure on the Roll20 broadcast of their games. In fact I model a lot of my NPC's from him, fantastic DM.
That about wrapped it up....the party headed back, Floon in-hand, to collect their reward from Volo.....surprise it's Trollskull Manor. We'll pick up from here when I run the next session. If I could change anything about this session it would definitely be to remove the mindflayer from all of this..its is just a little much and awkward. I'd also make some more consequences for delaying in getting to Floon...perhaps they just find him dead, I don't think this really impacts anything. The group is still going to get the house. Anyways, stay tuned, I've got some good things planned heading into the next session as I start to deviate a lot from the book.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Waterdeep Dragon Heist, Session 1
When the announcement came from WoTC about their adventure release for the year being Waterdeep Dragon Heist and the remake of Undermountain, Dungeon of the Mad Maze, my group is super excited so I decided that is what we would start as new campaign. If you have read any of my previous post, you know that I'm not in love with 5th edition like many players and DM's these days, but I want to run games that my players enjoy and have fun with and if that is what they like, so be it. I'm going to add my flare to any published adventure regardless.
We started the session with character creation as group, allowing the players to link backstories and fill in any gaps on their character ideas as a group. Plus, everyone likes to see the roll of the dice as a group. Players for the campaign are as follows:
Aaron playing Avaros (half-elf bard)
Brian playing Paul (human fighter and former Waterdeep Watch)
Scott playing Fairend (human sorcerer, phoenix bloodline)
Cody playing Bloth (human rogue)
Daniel playing Amber (dwarven forge cleric)
The only things I changed up with character creation for this campaign were that I awarded some homemade boons to the players who had completed our Tomb of Horrors one-shot (I'll do a separate blog post on this) and I had the players define belief, instincts and traits for their characters. The only way they can earn inspiration is through excellent roleplaying scenes or from using those beliefs or traits to put their characters in compromising situations based on what their characters would do....doing my best to add in some elements of Burning Wheel / Mouseguard into my games!
The group started in a tavern, the infamous Yawning Portal to be exact. The action starts right away in this campaign as a tavern brawl between two criminal factions, the Zhentarim and Xanathar guild, soon turns into a dangerous encounter as a troll crawls its way up out of the well leading into Undermountain....the look on their faces was pretty great, it was definitely an unexpected encounter and put them on edge right away. With some help from Durnan, the owner of the Yawning Portal, the troll and the stirges that accompanied it were put down and sent back down the well.
With the wheels turning on the adventure, Volo, whom was also in the tavern that night approaches the group following the troll encounter with an opportunity. He asked the group help track down and find his missing friend, Floon Blagmar, who had gone missing a couple of nights ago. Right off the bat, my group was trying to extort Volo for additional reward, but finally an agreement was reach and the group set off for the dock ward that evening towards the last known location of Floon.
So...one of the tools I'm using to help me run this adventure is the excellent Vornheim by Zak S. This book is invaluable for any city adventure for the random tables that are included. Any time my group goes off the rails a bit, I can pull upon this help with any NPC's or other wackiness I want to pull into my game...so back to the adventure....the group headed for the Dock Ward of Waterdeep which is a rougher part of the city. Saltwater, shit and dark alleys are the atmosphere here. With arm twisting and forceful persuasion at the Skewered Dragon, the group learned that Floon and unexpected guest, Raenar Neverember (son of Dagult Neverember the former open lord of Waterdeep) were followed by a group known Zhentarim leaving the tavern two nights ago.
With a heading of a warehouse also in the dock ward, the group set out again closing in on the trail of the missing Floon. So, let's talk about this next encounter. There are four kenko in the warehouse, members of the Xanathar guild, who ambushed the group whom had captured Floon and Raenar. Granted my group was not very stealthy, knocking on the door and generally being noisy, but this one turned deadly for them. By the time they decided to pick the lock on the door, the kenku had heard them and were ready behind cover...as Brian's character, Paul, entered in he was immediately gunned down by crossbolt fire. The next few rounds were pure chaos as the group tries to make their way into the warehouse under heavy fire, two characters were dropped and Daniel's character, Amber, was 1 HP away from an outright killing blow based on a lucky critical roll by me....but they survived.
Exploring the warehouse they found Raenar, where Brian's character again was extorting and lying for some additional reward, noting it was his father that I had sent them to save him....well played, but he may be flirting with disaster if this keeps up. Before they could finish exploring the warehouse, the Waterdeep Watch finally arrived and after a tense stand-off they were allowed to leave with Raenar who advised that the Xanathar guild now held Floon and likely headed for the sewers nearby. This brought us to the end of the session, but we'll see if the group can indeed save Floon and how big will their reward actually be!
We started the session with character creation as group, allowing the players to link backstories and fill in any gaps on their character ideas as a group. Plus, everyone likes to see the roll of the dice as a group. Players for the campaign are as follows:
Aaron playing Avaros (half-elf bard)
Brian playing Paul (human fighter and former Waterdeep Watch)
Scott playing Fairend (human sorcerer, phoenix bloodline)
Cody playing Bloth (human rogue)
Daniel playing Amber (dwarven forge cleric)
The only things I changed up with character creation for this campaign were that I awarded some homemade boons to the players who had completed our Tomb of Horrors one-shot (I'll do a separate blog post on this) and I had the players define belief, instincts and traits for their characters. The only way they can earn inspiration is through excellent roleplaying scenes or from using those beliefs or traits to put their characters in compromising situations based on what their characters would do....doing my best to add in some elements of Burning Wheel / Mouseguard into my games!
The group started in a tavern, the infamous Yawning Portal to be exact. The action starts right away in this campaign as a tavern brawl between two criminal factions, the Zhentarim and Xanathar guild, soon turns into a dangerous encounter as a troll crawls its way up out of the well leading into Undermountain....the look on their faces was pretty great, it was definitely an unexpected encounter and put them on edge right away. With some help from Durnan, the owner of the Yawning Portal, the troll and the stirges that accompanied it were put down and sent back down the well.
With the wheels turning on the adventure, Volo, whom was also in the tavern that night approaches the group following the troll encounter with an opportunity. He asked the group help track down and find his missing friend, Floon Blagmar, who had gone missing a couple of nights ago. Right off the bat, my group was trying to extort Volo for additional reward, but finally an agreement was reach and the group set off for the dock ward that evening towards the last known location of Floon.
So...one of the tools I'm using to help me run this adventure is the excellent Vornheim by Zak S. This book is invaluable for any city adventure for the random tables that are included. Any time my group goes off the rails a bit, I can pull upon this help with any NPC's or other wackiness I want to pull into my game...so back to the adventure....the group headed for the Dock Ward of Waterdeep which is a rougher part of the city. Saltwater, shit and dark alleys are the atmosphere here. With arm twisting and forceful persuasion at the Skewered Dragon, the group learned that Floon and unexpected guest, Raenar Neverember (son of Dagult Neverember the former open lord of Waterdeep) were followed by a group known Zhentarim leaving the tavern two nights ago.
With a heading of a warehouse also in the dock ward, the group set out again closing in on the trail of the missing Floon. So, let's talk about this next encounter. There are four kenko in the warehouse, members of the Xanathar guild, who ambushed the group whom had captured Floon and Raenar. Granted my group was not very stealthy, knocking on the door and generally being noisy, but this one turned deadly for them. By the time they decided to pick the lock on the door, the kenku had heard them and were ready behind cover...as Brian's character, Paul, entered in he was immediately gunned down by crossbolt fire. The next few rounds were pure chaos as the group tries to make their way into the warehouse under heavy fire, two characters were dropped and Daniel's character, Amber, was 1 HP away from an outright killing blow based on a lucky critical roll by me....but they survived.
Exploring the warehouse they found Raenar, where Brian's character again was extorting and lying for some additional reward, noting it was his father that I had sent them to save him....well played, but he may be flirting with disaster if this keeps up. Before they could finish exploring the warehouse, the Waterdeep Watch finally arrived and after a tense stand-off they were allowed to leave with Raenar who advised that the Xanathar guild now held Floon and likely headed for the sewers nearby. This brought us to the end of the session, but we'll see if the group can indeed save Floon and how big will their reward actually be!
Long absent, but I'm back....
Hello All,
Been a long break from the blog posts, but I just started my group on a new campaign last night, Waterdeep Dragon Heist for 5th edition D&D, so it is a good time to come back and start posting. There is a lot of I need to catch the blog up on including a ton of new books to review, recapping the Keep on the Borderlands and Tomb of Horrors one-off adventurers I ran my group through along with just the state of table-top RPG's and the drama / infiltration of the SJW culture into the hobby which causing a lot of blow-back and rightfully so...anyways, look for some new posts soon!
Been a long break from the blog posts, but I just started my group on a new campaign last night, Waterdeep Dragon Heist for 5th edition D&D, so it is a good time to come back and start posting. There is a lot of I need to catch the blog up on including a ton of new books to review, recapping the Keep on the Borderlands and Tomb of Horrors one-off adventurers I ran my group through along with just the state of table-top RPG's and the drama / infiltration of the SJW culture into the hobby which causing a lot of blow-back and rightfully so...anyways, look for some new posts soon!
Monday, February 19, 2018
Character Death
Back from a bit of a break this week, we'll be picking up on our Keep on the Borderlands campaign on Friday....the one where there was basically a TPK to close the previous session. I was thinking how important the threat and reality of character death is to a D&D game. I know that WoTC is pushing more story gaming and plot-armor for the characters these days, but the memorable encounters are those were death is a real and present threat.
My players would likely say that I am not a lethal DM, I always let the dice dictate the action in my games and since we've been playing 5th edition almost exclusively these past few years, there have only been a handful of times that character death was a danger. Those times though, were the most memorable.
Nothing sets the players on edge like watching one of the group get dropped. The 5E mechanic of allowing death saves makes it pretty difficult to actually die in these games, but the drama of letting the dice decide their fate in many instances is pretty fun. Everyone holding their breath as the D20 bounces across the table...
Some newer DM's will want to pull punches and lessen the blow on their players, but this is bad DMing...if your players walk into a deadly encounter, then make it deadly. You can't fight your way through everything in these games and sometimes running to survive is the best option. Your players will always remember that time that Joe's character fell into the pit of spikes or Sarah's character was consumed by the black pudding....and that's what playing is all about: having fun and a great story!
My players would likely say that I am not a lethal DM, I always let the dice dictate the action in my games and since we've been playing 5th edition almost exclusively these past few years, there have only been a handful of times that character death was a danger. Those times though, were the most memorable.
Nothing sets the players on edge like watching one of the group get dropped. The 5E mechanic of allowing death saves makes it pretty difficult to actually die in these games, but the drama of letting the dice decide their fate in many instances is pretty fun. Everyone holding their breath as the D20 bounces across the table...
Some newer DM's will want to pull punches and lessen the blow on their players, but this is bad DMing...if your players walk into a deadly encounter, then make it deadly. You can't fight your way through everything in these games and sometimes running to survive is the best option. Your players will always remember that time that Joe's character fell into the pit of spikes or Sarah's character was consumed by the black pudding....and that's what playing is all about: having fun and a great story!
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
The Shadowvale Campaign (thoughts) part 4
So....the group arrives in Eldermere in search of The Book of the Shadowhorn. Upon arriving outside of the small village, the group notes the fires burning and general chaos. Something has already occurred, but before they can figure out what is going on. I launch them into an encounter...a group of zombies....now their heads are spinning, "what the hell happened here and what have we stumbled onto?"
So around this time, the group dynamic was shifting a bit. Two of the guys who were playing had some life changes that were forcing them to leave the group unfortunately and I was in the process of plugging those wholes since the group would be down to 3 people for a short time. Regardless, we ventured on...
Dispatching of the zombies, I next laid out the second the second phase of the encounter before the group could get their bearings. A dispatch of troops from the largest city in the area, Waterford, had arrived and now surrounded the group. The troops also had no clue of WTF was going on in the village, but seeing as how the PC's were the only living beings in site....they were persons of interest now.
The troops were led by one of the more important NPC's I had planned for the campaign, Calais. Modeled from my character from the MMORPG FFXI, he was a by the book, good-aligned and compassionate NPC that I hoped would be somewhat of a friend to the PC's as needed.
For now though, the PC's were surrounded and this group of guards wanted some answers, even though my players had none to give. I really like having these moral and somewhat unwinnable situations presented in my games. The players could run, give up, fight, lie....the players decided to comply and were disarmed and taken to the local tavern for questioning. Now restrained and in the presence of two guards, as the rest of the troops investigated the town, I gave the group a chance to escape...I was being somewhat of bad DM through this planned part of the campaign, I really hate being heavy handed. I prefer to rely on the random tables and players choices, but I wanted to force the players hands a bit here yet still get to the juicy pieces of this part of the encounter.
The players to their credit, took their first opportunity to escape. The guards reacted and to spread more chaos. I had zombies attack the troops outside which in turn set fire to the tavern that the group was held up in.....this encounter was pure gold. The environment itself was a hazard, the group had to think creatively since they were without their gear, and the guards....well they only really cared about getting out of this situation alive.
Each round, I had the fire grow and become more dangerous, until finally the group had no choice but to flee into the cellar to escape the fire. I had planned for this and had the notion to map out an underground passages that ran throughout the village. So into the labyrinth the group went....next session would be their next dungeon crawl and a new player would be joining to create an interesting party dynamic which would fuel the overall narrative of the campaign going forward.
So around this time, the group dynamic was shifting a bit. Two of the guys who were playing had some life changes that were forcing them to leave the group unfortunately and I was in the process of plugging those wholes since the group would be down to 3 people for a short time. Regardless, we ventured on...
Dispatching of the zombies, I next laid out the second the second phase of the encounter before the group could get their bearings. A dispatch of troops from the largest city in the area, Waterford, had arrived and now surrounded the group. The troops also had no clue of WTF was going on in the village, but seeing as how the PC's were the only living beings in site....they were persons of interest now.
The troops were led by one of the more important NPC's I had planned for the campaign, Calais. Modeled from my character from the MMORPG FFXI, he was a by the book, good-aligned and compassionate NPC that I hoped would be somewhat of a friend to the PC's as needed.
 |
| Calais in all his FFXI glory |
The players to their credit, took their first opportunity to escape. The guards reacted and to spread more chaos. I had zombies attack the troops outside which in turn set fire to the tavern that the group was held up in.....this encounter was pure gold. The environment itself was a hazard, the group had to think creatively since they were without their gear, and the guards....well they only really cared about getting out of this situation alive.
Each round, I had the fire grow and become more dangerous, until finally the group had no choice but to flee into the cellar to escape the fire. I had planned for this and had the notion to map out an underground passages that ran throughout the village. So into the labyrinth the group went....next session would be their next dungeon crawl and a new player would be joining to create an interesting party dynamic which would fuel the overall narrative of the campaign going forward.
Monday, February 12, 2018
The rules lawyer saved my character's life
I've had the privilege of playing in a Pathfinder game over the last year or so. My friend Cody has been running his first game as a DM and we've been playing through Rise of the Runelords. We've just started into chapter 3 and my character for this campaign is Kyrill Four-Finger, a degenerate rogue / mostly trap clearer in this group.
Our last session was played over the weekend, where most of the encounters occurred in the remote town of Turtleback Ferry. To briefly summarize, we're there based on some leads that we have encountered from a cult in the area, we believe they may be planning their next move in this area. We had a very humorous encounter with the town's priest while trying to determine his knowledge of the cult, but major encounter of the night occurred while we were out on the nearby lake searching the wreckage of a noted gambling boat that had recently sunk.
The party was split at this point and we were a bit melee light in a large gar (massive freaking fish) attacked us. The fight was going pretty poorly, our sorcerer had already been knocked out after being swallowed. My thief was in the water as well, attempting to save Aaron's character Zabi.
In the midst of all of this, my character gets gobbled up the thing as well. I basically had one round to live inside of it and my hope was to get a large sneak attack off to get clear of the monster and pull Zabi free....but that didn't happen....at least not at first. Both of your characters died and the session was about to wrap up....when Aaron, who to his credit is the most entune with the rules regardless of the game we're playing speaks and notes that technically the Gar would have lost it's dexterity bonus while I was inside of it and WHAM sneak attack applies. We rewound to the section and played it out from there....both of our character still didn't up knocked dead, but the group was able to claim our bodies and head back to the temple for some awkward roleplaying with the priest to get us both raised...good times indeed.
Our last session was played over the weekend, where most of the encounters occurred in the remote town of Turtleback Ferry. To briefly summarize, we're there based on some leads that we have encountered from a cult in the area, we believe they may be planning their next move in this area. We had a very humorous encounter with the town's priest while trying to determine his knowledge of the cult, but major encounter of the night occurred while we were out on the nearby lake searching the wreckage of a noted gambling boat that had recently sunk.
The party was split at this point and we were a bit melee light in a large gar (massive freaking fish) attacked us. The fight was going pretty poorly, our sorcerer had already been knocked out after being swallowed. My thief was in the water as well, attempting to save Aaron's character Zabi.
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| It was bigger than this, but you get the picture... |
Rules lawyers tend to get a bad wrap from the RPG community at times, but I've always been a fan. As someone who runs games by the seat of my pants most times, I haven't always read every fine detail of each characters abilities. My motto is: "It is on the players to be the expert of their character". So thanks Aaron...Kyrill will be back to fight another day and likely run away next time!
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