Topic: The Dungeon and Dragons Thread

@Themagusx1 it’s been running almost a year now. Been taking longer due to schedules, as one of the original players had to back out. This summer has been slow because something always happens on Tuesday when we play.

@Tyranexx With us being a level 7 party facing against 3 CR 5 monsters, it should have been a TPK or severely injured us. The Steel Defender’s deflect attack helped, along with it taking damage since it annoys the DM, plus some timely heals and shields pulled us through.

The truth is that the Eldritch Knight that walked into the room should have been the primary target, and they should have paralyzed, grappled and beat him to death for disturbing them. Any of us that likewise entered the room should have become the next targets once he died.

@Darknyht Seems like your party was well coordinated for that encounter then. Seems as though everything fell into place to avoid a TPK, which is always a desirable outcome (minus some DMs if they're the chaotic sort lol).

Your Eldritch Knight's playstyle isn't quite unlike one of our own players. I think he runs somewhere between chaotic good and chaotic neutral in real life. XD I'm not the best tactician - probably means I need to spend more time with Fire Emblem, which I do like - but I would've tried having them swarm the closest player immediately.

@Tyranexx Yeah, I gave it too much thought to be honest. My bard was from the College of Valor. I gave him a decent Strength score, Brawler, Athletics and Expertise in Athletics. Before I go into my tactic, here are some relevant rules.

Grapple: Special attack that is a skill check of your Athletics vs their Athletics or Acrobatics. Winning this check results in the Grappled condition.

Grappled: A grappled creature’s speed becomes 0, and it can’t benefit from any bonus to its speed.

Shove: Special attack that is a skill check of your Athletics vs their Athletics or Acrobatics, if you succeed against their check you can move the target or knock them prone.

Prone: Creature has disadvantage on attack rolls and anyone within 5' has advantage on attacks. Condition can only end when creature stands up (requires 1/2 of movement to stand).

So with a decent Athletics skill, I would go in with a shield and armor and grapple an opponent on the first attack and then shove them down on the second. Since they can't natural 20 out of a skill check (Natural 20's only apply to attack rolls), I would lock them in place. I would then start beating them with the shield next round Captain America style. Friends would eventually join in and just brutalize whomever I had locked down. I probably could have used a dagger or short sword, but the shield just made it funny.

So, my play with the reverants would have been to focus on the Eldritch Knight. Strike him with paralysis and fear. Have the second one grapple and shove him down. Then have the third one start the process of beating him to death. The second round would have been all of them brutalizing him. This would have created panic for the party, and hopefully taught the Eldritch Knight a lesson in the risk of barging into a dangerous situation.

@Darknyht Heh, a D&D version of Captain America. I could definitely get behind that! Not a bad strategy at all. The party in my main campaign has a couple of ways to grapple targets - particularly the Sorcerer's pet croc - but most of our arsenals don't readily cause the prone condition to my knowledge. The closest equivalent my Ranger has to grappling is the Entangle spell.

That would've been a hard lesson for the Eldritch Knight, but a very effective one. I hope the random barging is more in-character and not how that player likes playing their characters in general.

@Tyranexx they like combat more than RPing. We have a lot of story and talking the last few times we played. I think that plus the fact we couldn’t play for weeks made him more gung-ho than usual.

I always didn’t like how combat focused DND can be, so I played around with how to be as non-combat as possible. It is extremely hard if not impossible due to the design.

@Darknyht I like a good mix of both but lean more towards RPing when possible. Sorta depends on the character I'm playing. I almost dragged us into combat a couple sessions back since I wanted to feed the poor, deprived wyverns lol. Thankfully some of the rolls went well.

I get being crazy about seeing some action after a long hiatus though. Which unless we play this weekend or on a Sunday for a next while will be driven by me. I'm very busy in the fall between some of the usual + volunteer haunted house stuff.

@Tyranexx I don't mind combat unless it is a battle of attrition or it's just something where everyone is doing the exact same move repeatedly without really talking it out. One of the flaws of Foundry is that it is really easy to fall into video gaming it and forgetting that you are playing a cooperative game.

I don't know if I have ever heard anyone speak of poor, deprived wyverns before. So what was the story behind you deciding that was a good idea (Character's point of view that is)?

I did name a horse Horsey McHorseface this campaign and led him around Barovia because he was more effective at killing things than certain members of our party at the time. That was just plain getting under my friend's skin for the laughs.

@Darknyht I understand the whole scheduling element. It can be tough for the stars to align for a game session. Did you guys get to play this week? I am starting my campaign Monday.

@Tyranexx Those boots sound very useful. I think you told me before but I forgot what magical items your character has?

@Darknyht I agree regarding battles of attrition; outside of some pretty fun strategies those can spawn in the right circumstances, I've never been a huge fan of very spongy bosses just for the sake of being spongy (and not a decent big bad) in any medium. Your allusion sounds like grinding in classic RPGs...Which is why I don't touch many before the 16-bit era unless they've been remastered or made less of a slog in some way.

Regarding the wyverns, our characters rode to the castle on three of them. They were led off to the stable area by some of the resident ogres, so we didn't know where that was until the stables were discovered near the kitchens. My Ranger could tell they were quite hungry, and with the sheer abundance of meat thought it was a no-brainer. We enlisted the help of two ogres (they're currently neutral parties where we are) to help block the doors while we threw in some large meat slabs, but some throws didn't go well. 2/5 of the wyverns made it out. Thankfully I did well on an animal handling check, otherwise we would've had a couple angry wyverns to subdue. My Ranger is a bona fide animal and creature nut when it comes to their welfare.

Please tell me Horsey McHorseface is still a thing, because that name is awesome lol.

@Themagusx1 Not many. I have a Bow of Warning, which is exactly what it sounds like on the tin. It indicates whenever enemies are near by vibrating depending on the proximity and danger. I've had amazingly good luck using it too. I don't believe I have much else besides standard tools, rope, etc.

@Themagusx1 unfortunately two of us had meetings to attend so we will try again next Tuesday.

@Tyranexx Horsey McHorseface is still alive and kicking. He is currently with our Ireena and other allies as we complete the last quest we drew. I pointed out that he had more kills than half the party, so he was up to the task.

I would love to apply Sidekick rules to him and make him a level 0 horse / level 7 warrior for fun.

@Darknyht Horsey McHorseface sounds like a legend. Not too unlike our group's crocodile that I've dubbed "ninja croc". The player who controls it usually rolls well when it comes to attacks and checks; it's amazing how many perception checks it has passed, yet can't communicate the results. XD Really wish you could apply sidekick rules to Mr. H. M.

@Tyranexx funny enough he came out of a random encounter. Some wolves were attacking a girl, her sheep and horse. The horse was supposed to die in the first round of combat but somehow the wolves all missed. Then the horse started putting the wolves down with kicks, and we be determined to save him.

It was much better than the orphan boy we rescued that I tried to protect and care for, but ignored me when I said to stand back and hide. I was triggering a trap and he was incinerated by the resulting explosion.

@Darknyht Nothing like sending some wolves six feet under with some well-aimed horse kicks! That fight sounds like it was really awesome. I wonder if your DM was facepalming a bit. XD

Shame about the orphan boy, but sadly no good deed goes unpunished and all that....Kid should've listened.

@Tyranexx Yeah, he was a little irritated that fight. The worse moment like that was the fight prior when he forgot that I had an artifact that could cast Lightning Bolt and manned to line four of his five cultists in a perfect line for me. I had picked it up months ago and just never had an opportunity to use it until then.

However, he was trying to hastily introduce the Eldritch Knight after his Battle Master was cut down after charging in too deep (a bit of a theme with him). Since we use brutal death save rules, he lost his arm and bled out after taking two critical hits from creatures he didn't initially see. The culprit fled out a window as we chased him. There we discovered that the cultists our new Eldritch Knight held captive in the area in front of the winery. I noticed that four of them were in a line and luckily rolled first in initiative.

8D6 to creatures that only get 2D8 HP meant that I wiped out the majority of the encounter in a single action. He openly swore at that play as it completely derailed his plans.

I am sure you guys have done something similar in your playing or had someone completely derail things with a great idea. What are some of the best you have been part of?

Managed to get a good session in last night. As we further explored the location, we came upon the big bad of the place. I was not able to really input due to having prior knowledge of the location, so had to watch in horror as the Eldritch Knight once again forced us into a combat. We half-joked about leaving him to his fate, but eventually joined the battle and won at the cost of most of our spell slots and HP. The Eldritch Knight narrowly survived a head injury death and now plays with a -2 to attack and ability checks for 2 game days. I am pretty sure he owes our Druid a life debt for keeping him alive through 10 brutal rounds of combat.

It was frustrating to watch, knowing what had to be done at the location but unable to contribute more than RP'ing my character not wanting to be there. I know we got the consolidation prize for the work here, but there was little I could do once the DM described the Greatsword in the room. While we don't get the big reward for this location, we managed to get the Greatsword +2 and Half-Plate Armor. So I now truly look like the part of a Mandolorian as I envision him in my head. This means I have to decide if I am going full tank, Sentinel, or dig into the Ritual Caster as I originally planned.

@Darknyht Dang, talk about an epic play! For the players that is lol. Less so the DM. Sounds like you really derailed him, so he was likely scrambling for the rest of that session unless he had a couple backup plans. Not sure about "best plays" for our group, but our chaotic good (IRL) player who temporarily rolled a Fighter basically took off and did a suicide run in the swamp castle awhile back. The character only surfaced because he forgot his other character sheet. We play mostly with pencils and paper.

Your Eldritch Knight sounds a bit battle-happy to say the least. I can't blame the party for toying around with leaving him to his fate.

We had another session last night. Our group managed to survive the place and get back outside without too many more incidents, but we were greeted by something we found earlier and now are being taken to Castle Ravenloft in search of an item.

I have decided that I will be multi classing in to Wizard next level up. My goal is to become a Battle Smith Artificer/Wizard (Order of Scribes or War Mage). This will get me my ritual casting, some cantrips, and most importantly spell slots. It also gives me a some separation of progression from the Eldritch Knight as I will be focusing on magic a little more than physical damage moving forward. I debated Bladesinger, but I think I am ruling that out with my intent to only take 3-4 levels of wizard.

Glad your Eldritch Knight didn't seem to kick off any other encounters of note for your battle-weary group. I've yet to play a multi class character; what all is involved in this process? Are there general guidelines, or is it pretty freeform depending on the group or DM? Either way, I do quite like the idea of a Battle Smith Artificer/Wizard cross.

Hey guys just a quick update on my D&D game. I still check in with this thread and your posts, I just don't post because I have nothing to say.

Anyway onto my games. They are still on hiatus and quite frankly not sure if I am going to resume them. For one thing I feel it's been to long of a break and quite frankly I don't feel the group will be in the right mindset anymore. Basically I feel like jumping back into a campaign after such a long break it would just be like starting a new one as ideas and such have become lost.

On that note, I did find a bunch of my old D&D stuff, stuff I thought I lost in the fire. Some of my third edition stuff as well as some 2nd survived mainly my Greyhawk stuff and a few odds and ends. I have been reading some it and he has brought back some memories as well as giving me ideas for some game sessions.

Have we had any kitsunes in D&D yet?