Topic: The Dungeon and Dragons Thread

Refer to post #87 in this thread for last session. A lot of this is still fairly fresh mentally despite a sleep cycle, so grab a drink and/or snack of choice!

Our D&D group met yesterday afternoon/evening, and our six hour session was QUITE interesting. We spent the beginning of the session finalizing plans; one of our PCs (half-elf bard) and an NPC traveling with our party (gnome with some Rogue/arcane trickster capabilities, lucky but squishy) was to do what they could in the kitchens, our Dragonborn sorceror (with "ninja" croc) was quietly helping the Lizardfolk in the forge, and my human ranger was out in the stables tending to the giant lizards the Lizardfolk ride and rigging the stables to "accidentally" allow the giant lizards to get loose at the right time. Our Tiefling paladin and her Kobold follower were still hidden in our quarters, ready to strike when the signal was given. Everything was laid out to go down the next evening. Problem is, laid plans have a tendency of going AWOL.

At breakfast the next day, a human caster affiliated with the Cult of the Dragon, along with a ton of new Kobolds - some heavily armed - showed up. Yay, more baddies to contend with. During breakfast, we could hear the head dragon lady (Rezmir; finally recalled her name) arguing with the other half dragon guy who showed up earlier (Landragosa, IIRC; this is the guy who downed my character at one point). Turns out he's NOT happy about being summoned back to the middle of nowhere. Problem is, he came into the hall where we were eating and recognized the Dragonborn (he failed his check, I passed mine). Didn't say anything and moved on.

In the stables later, one of the Lizardfolk informed my character that the chapel in the moldering castle had a secret item that could "help us" hidden in the black dragon head. The problem? Landragosa was currently in there. A passed Insight check revealed that I recalled seeing him previously near dragon shrines; turns out this male half-dragon is quite religious. I mentally filed the information away for later.

Come evening, right before supper....Everything went VERY wrong. The bard thought it would be funny to sabotage some of Rezmir's supper since she's served food before anyone else - think the chocolate pie scene from The Help - and detected that something was VERY off. Cue her, Landragosa, the cultist just under Reznir in rank (Boringrey or something like that; full elf), and the new human caster all heading towards the kitchens. Rather than try to pass it off on the other kitchen NPCs, he cast Invisibility on himself and the gnome NPC. Instantly, they vanished, saving the NPCs from needless death...I don't blame them from taking cover. The gnome fled up the stairs to the food stores temporarily, while the bard tried to sneak out...but their tracks on the muddy castle floor were spotted by Landragosa, who began swinging in the general area with a weapon...and scoring some hits. From previous experience, this guy hits HARD.

A lot of yelling and confusion, bringing my character and drake companion from the stables (they're actually indoors) and the Dragonborn and his croc friend from the door of the forge; the hidden paladin/Kobold could only hear echoes from the clamor in our quarters. I passed my perception check (Dragonborn failed again) and figured out what was going on based on the yelling and footprints. The Dragonborn cast Message and asked me what was up - we were within sight of each other - and I informed him as well as mentioned the hidden item in the chapel shrine. My original plan had been to quietly tell the group over supper. We kicked off the plan early. TONS of chaos and NPCs; two Lizardfolk piled out of the stables with eight giant lizards in front (I passed an Animal Handling check, otherwise this could've been hairy for my character as she was nearby), Bollywogs piled out of their nearby quarters, the Lizardfolk out of their quarters, and the newly arrived Kobolds also joined the fray. This whole time, the bard is trying to run towards the forge, and makes it there before Landragosa downs them - one character making death saves now.

To impede passage to the forge, my character cast spike growth over a wide area and got in a better position so that some of the enemies couldn't see me. A ton of chaos in the main room; I burned through my two level 3 spell slots to down several Bollywogs with two Lightning Arrows (wish I'd rolled the damage higher the first time, but that still helped a lot as they were grouped together), and the resulting shocks also did a bit of damage to Boringrey. He was not happy about it, so I fielded four Magic Missiles at one point...and that broke my concentration on Spike Growth (to mild irritation; it was up for three turns, but no baddies ever traversed it....). The Lizardfolk engaged Landragosa, the Bollywogs were mobbing in behind them, the Giant Lizards went for the Bollywogs, the Sorceror's croc was attacking Bollywogs...beautiful, beautiful chaos. Our Dragonborn Sorceror cast Greater Invisibility to get to the chapel and retrieve the item from the shrine (he was closest) which he eventually did...and the rest of us have no clue what was on the sheet the DM handed him lol. the Sorceror also threw out a Synaptic Static at one point, seriously affecting the Kobolds and Rezmir to an extent. He also threw out a Counter Spell to help the croc once.

What of the Tiefling Paladin and her Kobold Sorceror lackey? They're trying to fight through more Kobolds to get to the main room, but they're contending with an AOE darkness type of spell cast by Rezmir, who left the main room and is trying to navigate through that hall space now; we kept track of this on a separate marker board. Not sure if she's trying to escape or getting some more "help"....As for our Gnome Arcane Trickster NPC, she snuck back down from the food stores - now visible again - and is contending with some of the Kobolds and a skunk that one of the Kobolds (an inventor type) released....She got away from smelling rosy with Color Spray, but was ganged up on by some of the Kobolds.

...And that's unfortunately where we had to leave it for the evening. Being a Sunday, some of us had to work today lol. We took pictures of the marker positioning before packing everything up. The good news for the poor DM is that we took out quite a few NPCs at least...just not the ones that really mean business.

@Tasuki It seems to depend on the DM. Our current DM is pretty new to that side of the game, so I think for now he's happy to use existing material. He does have some unique "house rules" and has made some nice rulings. He isn't intentionally evil!...so far.

(Tagging @Themagusx1 as well for the campaign update)

@Tyranexx Wow sounded like such a great session you guys had!! I use the existing material as well, right now my group is wrapping up the adventure titled Frozen Sick and I am preparing one of the adventures from Tales From the Yawning Portal.

Speaking if which my players ended up finishing up the ruins last night and ended up finding the cure that they were looking for. The also came across a Wight who had ties to Orcus. The manged to defeat the wight after a fierce battle, which almost killed the Bloodhunter. Next session they begin their trek back to the town.

@Tyranexx that sounds like an awesome session, the chaos sounds great…..you really do have good sessions. We did not play last night due to cancellations, but we played last week. And things got crazy. The villain the group is investigating had an assassination attempt done upon him, but the group decided to save him, so they can continue figuring out what his plans, but win a little bit of magic they found out he is at war with soemthing called star scourge. It’s goimg to be interesting to see where this goes.

I did forget to mention that one of the Lizardfolk tried to stabilize the bard, but he failed; he wasn't exactly experienced with medicine unfortunately.

@Tasuki Oh yes, it was intense! And a nice tradeoff since most of us didn't see combat during the last session; we wisely held off from having a very long session before that since we knew we'd likely engage in a large scale battle soon....Just sooner than anticipated. "Frozen Sick" sounds like an apt description of the players' environment, and "Tales of the Yawning Portal" sounds intriguing too.

Sounds like some nice progress from your own group. Not only did they clear the ruins and get through a tough battle (Your Bloodhunter sounds like almost as much of a trouble magnet as our paladin lol), but they also found the cure! Hopefully they go the "wight" way back to town. Audience boos

@Themagusx1 A very good session, with a ton of action! I still wish I didn't burn through my two highest spell slots, but the results were good overall. Interesting that your group decided to save their villain despite the assassination attempt, but I understand their reasoning; due to my ranger's alignment, she probably would've done the same. If this guy is at war with this "star scourge"....That could be interesting indeed. Is he really a villain then? :thinking_face:

So Wizards of the Coast have revealed the next set for D&D

So by 2024 One Dungeon & Dragons as it's called now will combine digital and physical together. What they are saying is it won't be a new system but will expanded and update the rules of 5th Edition which sounds to me like an advanced version like the had with the older D&D systems. It will be backwards compatible with 5th edition.

Also they will be making so if you buy a digital copy of say the Players Handbook Digital you can also get a physical copy or vice verse so you won't have to pay twice if you want both versions.

Of course this means now that Wizards owns D&D Beyond it will be integrated into One D&D as well as a virtual table top system called for now, Dungeon and Dragons Digital, which would be used for maps and virtual minitures.

In all I am excited for this news it takes care of one of my gripes with 5th Edition and I really like how they aren't introducing a whole new system so my books now will still be relevant.

Very excited to see how it all turns out!!

@Tyranexx So apparently I have the chance to playtest One D&D (the next system of D&D see my post above) supposedly its suppose to be compatible with 5th edition but I shall see.

@Tasuki Is One D&D its own thing (6th edition?), or is it 5e+ in a sense? I'm curious how that playtesting will go! Interesting that it'll combine digital and physical assets. Though I admit I do think there's something great about using physical marker boards and small pieces or mini-figs. I fully realize not everyone has the means or space for that (Space was an issue last session), so digital is a nice alternative.

@Tyranexx No, One D&D will use 5th Edition material so you can use say Curse of Strahd with One D&D. I read over the rules last night and they are basically doing what TSR did back in the day and it'd pretty much Advanced 5th Edition. So rather then a whole new rule set it just adds options and updates.

@Tasuki So basically a New Game+ in a sense. Interesting indeed. I'll need to do some cursory reading in time. Busy weekend, so hopefully next weekend lol.

@Tyranexx No not so much New Game+, more like a Patch with updates.

@Tasuki As long as they don't get into loot box territory, I'm fine with it. XD

Unless something changes, it looks like we're meeting again this coming weekend.

@Tyranexx That's good that you will be meeting again this weekend. My group wasn't able to play this past weekend my two players, the ones that are out of state ended up getting sick so they weren't going to make it. Also the past few nights my insomnia decide to be a pain and then on top of that I had an early work shift today. So yeah we just all agreed to forgo it this weekend. Hopefully this weekend if everyone feels better.

@Tasuki Fingers crossed you can play this coming weekend! Completely understandable in regards to the ill group members, plus I can relate on the insomnia; I occasionally deal with maintenance insomnia.

@Tyranexx that’s a good question is he a villain, or is he just going about thing the wrong way? That’s he tricky part my players have to figure out themselves. I like making complex situations in my games, so there are a lot of player choice but not everything is as black and white.

@Themagusx1 That sounds like a very complex situation to puzzle through. I like trying to figure out puzzles/mysteries like that. Much luck fo your players with figuring everything out.

For new readers, this is part 2 of this post since my D&D group had to break halfway through an epic battle last session. Time makes fools of us all.

Our group did manage to meet yesterday evening. The session was temporarily up in the air since one of the other players wasn't feeling well Friday, but he felt a lot better yesterday; he figured it was seasonal allergies. I admittedly arrived a few minutes late - yay errands + the Ultra Beast raid event in Pokemon Go - but I brought food offerings of the cookie and fruit varieties. XD The chaotic boards were set up from last time via leftover scribbles and snapped phone pics.

The DM showed some mercy to our downed bard and had one of the remaining Lizardfolk in that room fish out his last remaining Potion of Healing, reviving that character (who then healed himself the next turn). My ranger was unfortunately out of useful attacking AOE effects and just started sniping NPCs with her longbow. Our Dragonborn sorceror's croc was banished by the human caster until near the end, so in the meantime he was also sniping various NPCs while also throwing out a couple of Counter Spells (The human caster tried healing both him and Landragosa, the charming half-dragon fighter my character has a beef with). My wonderful drake companion was off in a different part of the room taking care of some Kobolds...including a very curious inventor type that didn't hardly touch him (18 AC is pretty good lol). Our Oathbreaker paladin and their Kobold follower were still tangling with three guard drakes, two cultists, and a fleeing Rezmir. The paladin took a ton of damage from her. The rest of the Lizardfolk were still trying to help us, and their Giant Lizards...were going for the closest targets to them which were, thankfully, cult members.

All the non-important NPCs went down. Rezmir (the charming half-dragon lady running this joint) unfortunately fled the premises - and thankfully WASN'T gathering reinforcements (that we know of) - but that still left us with a very angry Landragosa, Boringray the racist high elf, and the human caster none of us could touch directly since he cast Sanctuary on himself...which meant my ranger was SOL on hitting the guy. I left him to the casters, but I was more than happy to snipe the remaining big bads. Boringray went down first, then Landragosa. Our Kobold fellow also helped us out. Towards the end, the Giant Lizards ran out of targets and went towards our gnome NPC friend (who was somewhat useful in this combat), so my character got them back under control via Animal Handling (Thankful for the +7).

What of the paladin?....She was overwhelmed and went down. The human caster tried fleeing down the way they came (My drake went after him) I don't recall the type of spell, but there was a damaging AOE effect within 15-20 feet around him. The paladin had to deal with a couple of NPC hits, as well as that AOE on top of that. So...no more oathbreaker paladin. Kind of interesting since that was this player's third character in this campaign; they wrote out one, intentionally killed the other on a suicide mission (Remember the forgotten character sheet?), and now this one. The rest of our characters are in somewhat decent shape, but I'm not sure if the rest of us will make it through another crazy battle in one piece anytime soon.

We left off still in the castle. Not sure what's going to happen next. I'm wondering about the item our Dragonborn sorceror found in the chapel, but that hasn't come into play yet.

@Tyranexx Damn that sucks for the Paladin, hopefully they have another character ready. Still I know what it's like to have a character die, especially after you put so much into them.

How do you guys treat death in your games. Do you do the death save rolls or use some other methods? My group doesn't like the idea of death save rolls instead we just do the old 2nd/3rd Edition rule where if you hit -10 hp the character dies.

@Tasuki That guy is pretty used to the game - I think he's been playing since third edition or so - so I'm sure he'll have a new character spun up before long.

We do death save rolls, but we recently switched from having the players do it to leaving it in the hands of the DM; it adds to the suspense I suppose lol. What hosed the paladin was an NPC getting in a hit when she was down - which is two auto fails IIRC - and then that AOE effect is what sealed the deal.

@Tyranexx Right the Ole coup de grace. That's one reason I am not big on death saves. Under some circumstances it counts as a roll. It also doesn't give party members a chance to save a fallen comrade.

I was unaware that there was a D&D thread! Pretty awesome, I've only played 5e, but me and my buddies have had a campaign in Wildemount going for 2 years now, I play a Wood Elf Ranger(Monster Slayer)/Cleric(Tempest Domain) with an electric wolf companion.

Read through all of @Tyranexx stories and that honestly sounds like super cool campaign too