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Crosspost from the D&D5 thread here, but man. Last night was one of the most fun D&D5 sessions I've ever run. We're playing the Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign with a party of a yuan-ti barbarian, a half-elf paladin, a v-human rogue, and a satyr warlock, spoilers for it below: For the past few sessions, the party (that had decided to name themselves "The Real Redbrands" after clearing out the original Redbrands, who were bandits that presented themselves as purported law enforcement/peacekeepers) had been exploring the Ruins of Thundertree. Almost immediately after entering the ruins, they stumbled upon the lair of a young green dragon named Venomfang and decided to try to approach him. This resulted in the three of the four party members being robbed of all their gold, the dragon being bribed with a conjured "gold bar" that would later turn out to be a chunk of wood, and one of the party members promised as an underling to the dragon. The rest of Thundertree was eventually cleared out for the most part, and they made a promise to Reidoth the Druid after getting directions to a place called Cragmaw Castle to return to Thundertree to drive Venomfang away when they were stronger. The party left Thundertree and stocked up on supplies in the nearby city of Neverwinter, before setting out for the hidden Cragmaw Castle. After sneaking in the front entrance, the party fought against several goblins and hobgoblins, including cleaning out the mess hall and stealing three fresh legs of ham from the goblin chef. The party surprised the hobgoblin guards that would have alerted the boss and defeated them in the pincer attack, and then burst into the room of the bugbear chief of the Cragmaw clan, King Grol. A pitched battle ensued wherein Grol's wolf, a doppelganger acting as a messenger from the Black Spiider, and Grol himself were felled with most of the party taking little damage (except for the rogue, who ate a critical javelin), and the party's dwarven patron, Gundren Rockseeker, was rescued at last. Before setting out from Cragmaw, the party decided to explore one last room with a barred door, where a jailed owlbear threw the door open as soon as the party lead unbarred it. Faced with the owlbear, an animal handling check brought some of the party members some oddly recalled wisdom: "Three hams will fill him, three hams will thrill him, why don't you feed him -- THREE HAMS?" Upon being prompted by the Barbarian, the Warlock threw the hams to the owlbear, who feasted upon them and then pushed past the party to get out of the castle and into the wild. The party brought Gundren back to the town of Phandalin, and after settling some business, left town to set off to the climactic final dungeon of the campaign, Wave Echo Cave... and then something that wasn't part of the book happened. The party saw something green flying towards Phandalin from the north. After getting a message to the town via the warlock's familiar, they veered off their route to intercept the suspected familiar threat, who landed in front of them upon seeing them approaching. It was, indeed, Venomfang, who was carring something in his mouth - the body of Reidoth the Druid. Venomfang tossed the corpse aside, and casually explained how he would be slaughtering the party for plotting against him and cheating him with fake gold. The party tried to barter with the dragon again, but Venomfang cut them off with a roar and a boss subtitle appeared on the map, causing the players to freak out. Venomfang openly affirmed his intent to kill the party and trash Phandalin, and battle commenced. The battle was very one-sided; the party had gained a level since their last encounter with the dragon, and their attack rolls were great. On top of that, the Paladin got an amazing crit with her longsword and added a smite to it, doing 52 damage to the dragon in a single attack and literally putting the fear of god into the dragon. Venomfang only ever got one round of attacks off, and only one of the three attacks hit thanks to the Barbarian having Shield of Faith on - his second round was spent disengaging and trying to flee at 2 HP, but the warlock sniped him with a Chaos Bolt gained from multiclassing into Sorceror; an icicle lodged itself in the dragon's head, and the corpse crashed to the ground, causing massive cheers to erupt in the call. The session concluded with the party reclaiming their loot from Venomfang, and the loot he was sitting on on top of that, and returning to Phandalin to rest up a little more before the real trip to Wave Echo Cave. This campaign is fantastic, and I'm really enjoying the characters. I'm going to be so sad when I run out of campaign here.
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Oct 21, 2020 17:49
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:07 |
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Are we allowed to link to specific stories that are recounted elsewhere (e.g. Reddit)? Because I just read a really hosed up one. 
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Jun 30, 2021 18:58
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Preechr posted:I’m sorry, we have a very strict post limit and we have to screen for quality mat- Okay, making sure. Before you click this link, I'm giving a content warning for homophobia, censored slurs, neo-nazis, not terribly subtle racism, attempted drugging, attempted kidnapping, and attempted murder. I present to you a story that goes beyond catpiss: "The Time I Traded My Shoes For My Life". ZZT the Fifth fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jun 30, 2021 |
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Jun 30, 2021 20:26
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I will sum up this exchange from my Thursday night Curse of Strahd game I'm running with a piece of art one of my best friends drew.
ZZT the Fifth fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Jul 11, 2021 |
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Jul 11, 2021 05:30
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Captain Walker posted:At least everybody has the decency to look suitably chastised, except Jason Vorhees over there. Which one of these beautiful idiots is speaking? I'm glad you asked! Frey, the Dragonborn Monk, is the one saying the line. From left to right, the party is: Zinfandel, a Pugilist himbo who was found tied up in a sack and stuffed in a cage, and was adopted by the party to keep him from getting himself killed. Niceda, a Bard who inspires through dance and swordplay, very recently joined the party, is often too excited to blink, and is just happy to be here. Grouse, a Forge Cleric who somewhat recently became the tallest party member and does not hesitate to remind the party of that fact. Frey, the aforementioned Monk who said the line, keeps the party's lore, and solves riddles through copious amounts of posing. Qassudusk (she named herself), the Mystic who generally has the highest concentration of brain cells in the party and the lowest concentration of being a polite sapient being.
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Jul 11, 2021 08:49
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 21:07 |
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Welp, it finally happened. I witnessed an extended cat piss moment as a player. I'm crossposting this from my post in the main D&D5e thread. Spoilering things below because it gets kinda heavy. We've been playing a Curse of Strahd campaign. Last night was effectively a solo session with the one remaining living PC, a paladin, since the rest of us were dead, having TPK'd in the previous session due to running over an untelegraphed turn limit for a siege battle and so Strahd showed up, ringed the arena in fire, and murked the party. That was red flag #1. Red flag #2 was a bunch of stuff about the DM not wanting me to play a fighter subclass and demanding a bunch of absurd nerfs to it if I really wantes to play it. Back to last night -- there was a confrontation between the still-living paladin and Strahd in Vallaki. They had a tense standoff where the paladin declared she wouldn't let Strahd hurt anyone. And then the DM was like "btw your plate armor that you equipped like a month or two ago in real time, several sessions ago, is cursed lol" and suddenly she lost control of her character to Strahd (or to the DM, more properly). Red loving flag!! The DM had the controlled PC cut off an important NPC's arms, and when the paladin's player complained, the DM was like "well you put on the cursed armor and you went off on your own! Nobody cast identify on that armor!" There were no signs that the armor had been cursed until last night. The armor fell apart, and the player regained control of her character, but the damage had already been done. The session closed and everyone beside me at the table except the paladin player was like "whoah no way what a twist!" while the paladin player understandably just left the voice call immediately after the session ended. I tried to call attention to the fact that she was genuinely upset and that I was concerned, and the others still in the call were like "oh yeah I know, that session was really intense and heavy! (paladin) went through a lot!" After trying for several minutes to get the other players and the DM to show some concern about the paladin player's welfare, I gave up and bailed from the call as well. I did a wellness check with the paladin player today and she's planning on bailing on the campaign. And honestly? I am too. This was several kinds of hosed up, and horror game or not, I'm not standing for it. So yeah. Time to drop this for a new campaign, I feel.
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Apr 11, 2022 02:27
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