D&D & Tabletop

[MsMarvelDuckie]

My group's party consists of Issa "Shadowfox" Mito, the wood elf ninja (and de facto leader), who is on an honor quest to recover her family's missing heirloom katana. She found it, and is now (slowly) returning gome to reclaim her family's honor. With her are Lokran, the kitsune (foxyokai) arcanist, whose main goal in life seems to be to acquire every magical artifact, book or scroll that isn't nailed down, and to get filthy stinking rich. This naturally causes the party some problems when his curiosity gets the best of him.

Then we have Elric, the half-wood elf monk from Issa's clan who wants to prove himself worthy of the clan by helping to recover the blade, mostly so the two can marry, as he is considered an outcast due to being a half-blood.

Lothir joined the group on a whim, as well as for protection from his family's bounty hunters (and sister Morganna) and has been mostly aiding them while keeping out of the spotlight.

The original group also included an orc barbarian named Nodrog, who eventually got killed, ressurected by priests of the god of passion and fertility, and then ended up serving as a temple "companion" as payment. The party left him there.

Then there is Thordar, a dwarf barbarian battlerager from Ironhold. Not too bright, but always ready to slay whatever gets in the party's way. He dislikes and distrusts elves, and thinks everything is always the fault of orcs, even if no orcs are around or involved.

Beznik Bogglewort, my other main NPC helper, is the clutzy gnome pyromaniac- er, pyromancer who likes to use fire a bit TOO much. He has been run out of several towns simply for accidentally setting buildings on fire with his alchemic items or experiments. Or blowing up one too many taverns. But his expertise in elemental magic is second to none, and he has a natural resistance to fire due to some ifrit blood in his family lineage. (I gave him two levels of sorcerer as a way to explain his natural affinity with fire, plus if gives him the ifrit bloodline feats that make his magic so devestating.)

We also have a pair of sorcerers at present, one a female half-vampire (think Blade) and the other a red half-dragon male, who are paramours. Weird couple, and the damphir (half-vamp) likes to taunt Lokran since he hates undead.

At one point there was a halfling paladin, played by my hubby, but that one didn't last long and eventually left the party due to conflicts of morality.

And finally, Jezzendrix, a young red dragon disguised as a kobold via a magical collar, who acts as both guide and patron, and who encountered our party after he had stolen a dragon orb from his own father, who happens to be THE Elder Great Wyrm of the entire realm! Helstrom, as daddy is known, is the biggest, oldest, and most powerful red the world has ever seen, and he hungers for godhood, the ritual for which the dragon orb is essential to. So guess who is now hunting the PC's??

[Utrommaniac]

Today, on Dragon Heist!

The Gang got more information on the Stone of Galore, which is hidden within Tami's Bag of Holding! Which was inside her bedroom at the Trollskull Manor!
...where the game ended with the shattering of glass from the manor, heard from the Gralhund Villa...

And the day before they're opening the tavern.



So we going to workshop if Tami potentially has some kind of security on the Bag of Holding, which goes to her Beholder dad's lair instead of the Astral Plane.

[Candy Kappa]

Our DM made 3.5 a lot more palatable with increased skill points, more feats, ability score increase with 2 points instead of 1, no racial ability score penalty (that's so BS and I hate seeing it return in 5e with Orcs). and all Rituals that was translatable is still available for those who can cast them (mainly our Wizard) as we had shared Ritual Spell list.

First session was pretty intense. After the incident (the in-game explanation for shifting editions), we where tasked by our guild to visit some small villages to check up on them. we arrived to the first village and was told about more humanoid but not goblins or orcs activity in the mountainside, so we checked it out at night.

What we found was a huge red crystal in a crater, a mindflayer propped like a scarecrow with his brains blown out. And a group of 20 something Grimlocks sacrificing a goblin to the crystal.

We took out about half of the group and their leader, a Grimlock with Cleric powers. Things got rough with my character going down, and here we learned that if you don't have ranks in the skill Use Magic Device, you can't use Wand of Healing, what fun. Someone else healed me, though so Inuko lives still. And when we leveled up, I took a rank in that skill, there, done.

The remaining Grimlocks fled when the leader died, and we spent a good time messing with the crystal as it was messing with out minds. Turned out there was a Arcanaloth screwing with us and possessing us.

And we took that **** with us in the village, and the day after some serious horror crap happened. We woke up finding the Inn keeper and his family hanged downstairs, and then we found every single person in the village killed in different morbid ways. And the Runepriest-now-paladin sensed evil from my character.

We quarantined the village and with no longer access to Sending, we where kinda lost. Sending the Scout on horse to the next village as she did not read Evil from the paladin's Detect Evil. When she arrived back to us around midnight, we had thwarted a merchant to enter the village and found out that all life that wasn't us and our horses was dead, even small birds.

Following night we where harassed by some of the dead coming back and wigging us out by staring into the Inn we where staying at. In the end we went full pyromaniac and torched whole damn place, and the village was surprisingly flammable as if someone already had dunked houses with flammable liquids...

We survived the morning and was encountered by Clerics and paladins of Bahamut who had responded to our Scouts report from the neighbor village. Got a deep cleanse, and was told we should visit them after a week for check-up.

Good times with Fiends.

[Utrommaniac]

Well, I've been hit with another character idea and have no where to bring it.

An orc and her drow wife make a deal with a fae so they can have a child, and of course it comes out as a changeling. Which they pretty much expected would happen. Even if Son Boy Allowed basically looked like a bug-eyed goblin with Satyr legs and a tail.

The problem comes when the fae comes back and takes the son to the faeweld, and now the Orc Mom is off to find her way there and bring him there.
Kind of an Awful Hospital/Finding Nemo Meets Labyrinth.
"HaVe YoU SEeN MY SoN!?" Lesbian Orc edition

I just don't know what class to make her. Probably druid...but I'm still working on that

[Candy Kappa]

Sounds like a pretty cool idea.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

I dunno why, but a full-on paladin sounds good. T'would be hilarious, if nothing else!

[Utrommaniac]

I was thinking of going Druid, since that would involve learning about the Faeweld and taking its risks at its most seriously. ("DON'T! EAT! THE! FOOD!")

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

I've been wanting to get around to learning D&D for years, but I've never really had the time to sit down and learn it properly. I know the basics, but not enough to comfortably go in and join in a game

[Utrommaniac]

I just kinda got gently shoved into it with my DM (who I was dating at the time). Sometimes you just gotta take that dive.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

You can dive into a game after just an hour or so of basics. Really all you need to remember is which dice to use when, and to keep track of your abilities, feats, skills, etc. (Or whatever they call it now in 5th.)

[Utrommaniac]

You just gotta remember to actually play your character.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Amen!

In related news, todays session was.... a bit uneventful. Having finally killed the guardian of the golden skull they were after during last week's session(an 11-headed pyrohydra), the group teleported back to the Triceratops lizardfolk village, and arranged a meeting between them and the drow settlement to broker a peace treaty.

Last week, they also found some nice swag in the rubbish pile of the gargoyles they had previously fought (who suspiciously resembled the Wyvern clan from Disney's Gargoyles) in the form of three wands (one of which had clearly been broken and mended at some previous point), an invisibility cloak, and a ring, as well as a large black pearl and a broken broom. The pearl was cursed, and of course the one who picked it up acquired the curse with it. The items were on the bodies of three dead mages, with red and gold robes monogramed with the initials HP, HG, and RW....

[Utrommaniac]

I just DM'ed my first game !

Made a homebrew.

Set on a "Seal Island" that had been a refuge for populations displaced by war, and it ended up being a very...eclectic community. A place where the current mayor (for three years) is a Tiefling named Benjamin (just threw out that name on the spot lol), and the previous mayor was a goblin that died in office. With a nephew in the royal guard.


Anyway, two years previously, an earthquake shook the island...but only sometime after did the water start receding at a rapid rate and flooding the caverns under the island. And not even can the island's secret selkies can find out what's going on. (My players figured out an NPC was a selkie pretty quick)


In the second round, hopefully, they'll discover that a baby aboleth was trapped in a cave-in, and the parents are trying to for the cavern to collapse in a way that will allow it to escape - which includes flooding the cavern more.


I just need to figure out what to do with the population of the island just being really friendly toward each other. "Walk into a tavern and find a goblin making out with a kobold" friendly. Where trolls are basically like TSA agents at the bridgeways. Where most reviled races are welcomed warmly.


Maybe I'll boost that in another game; I just wanted to tell the Selkie and Aboleth story. I just thought it would add some flavor to the island to have a really friendly population...which has caused a tourism boom and created an overwhelming huge influx of money.

My players were two half-orcs and a wood elf. "Half orcs" ended up being described as "handsome Shrek".



Also, seals are there.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

When I get some more free time and money, I'll definitely look into jumping into a game (or at least, watch some other people playing first so I can get an idea of an average game)

Anyone know of any sites where you can play D&D online?

[Utrommaniac]

Discord tends to be a good one. Though, I've found D&D is a game best played in person.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Most definitely. Today's session was.... interesting. And fun. The party is currently running through the classic adventure White Plume Mountain, though I have added a few twists of my own. They passed the sphinx last game, and got as far as the water-filled room where the sea hag and chuul (think giant mutant crawfish with mouth tentacles) lurked. Two of the party fell victim to her horrid presence and were weakened. Fun times. One room that was empty in the original version had a table with a mysterious cannister, and a door that wasn't really there. They paid more attention to the door than the only REAL object of interest. The cannister had a large M on it, and had the word "energy" in ancient runic script. It is literally a can of "monster energy" (as in, a trapped water elemental) that they have yet to open. They are presently doing battle with a werewolf sorceress and her sword-weilding lover. All on the way to find Wave, a legendary trident forged by a sea god. And that's just the FIRST of the three artifact weapons in this adventure!

[Candy Kappa]

Saturday's session was pretty fun. After last time the paladin Centaur was adamant that we had to hunt down a vampire we had discovered through magical means in the Ethereal Plane.

The cast was my Hengeyokai Ninja, Centaur Paladin, Human Ranger and Dragonborn Psion. We had been given custom rub-on potions so that we could enter the Ethereal Plane and a potion to end the effect. We traveled a few days to the city we knew the vampire was in and we quickly learned that the city had a ghost problem. Such a big problem that if adventurers tried to fix it and made things worse they would be liable to fines and pay for damages caused by them or the angry ghosts.

My ninja scouted the city as a dog first, and I found several houses that was completely abandoned, and the back alleys had a huge rat and bat infestation, the rats was even cocky enough to almost jump me.

Then my Ninja and the Ranger went into the Etheral Plane and walked to the house where we saw the "thread" the vampire left. A house with 30 other people scattered like they had just died on the spot, but we could see their bite marks and they had no other injuries, so we more or less knew these where also vampires, and the big bad was resting in a coffin in the basement.

we also checked the abandoned houses and found all sorts of creepy ghosts inhabiting it. And we had to combat a old lady and her evil cats, we killed 2 cats and had to flee (a success in my pc's eyes since she is a dog)

Back into Material Plane and getting the rest of the party, we tried a head on assault on the house, buuuut... Our DM loves the Darkness spell, and in 3.5 it can be very powerful and last for hours or days, so when we opened the door all wee saw was darkness, but with some very good Listen Checks we heard people standing up inside.

So, I snuck to the backdoor and the Psion did a breath weapon through the door (ice and a line instead of a cone), and combat ensues as the centaur (with his rider as he's already a "mount" his Find Steed spell was for a rider instead) charged in blind until he hit a wall and was swarmed by vampires.

My character spent some time fidgeting with doors and throwing rocks in windows for distraction and with my awesome invisibility ability got inside the house and managed to sneak attack 3 vampires who was waiting for whoever broke the window but was caught surprised as I was invisible.

You could barely see adjacent creatures, so the miss chance was only 20%, so it wasn't as bad as last encounter we had in Darkness where the miss chance was 50%. Roll attack, and then roll miss chance, yay....

The fight went surprisingly well, the paladin and rider was a huge aggro and he dusted a few with his Turning, the Psion was super slick avoiding getting grappled and the Ranger had a Griffon mount and started to tear up the roof and fire seeking silver arrows from above, sadly the sun light did not help due to the Darkness Spell.

The big bad joined. And boy do I hate 3.5 vampires. Low level vamps are fine, you either need magical weapon or a weapon that's alchemical silvered. But a stronger vampire needs a weapon that's BOTH magical and silvered, yay, this sucks. AND he dishes out level drains, one of the worst ideas in D&D history right next to placeholder alignment languages and never do what Gygax actually intended with those.

Luckily our DM isn't a huge fan of it either, so it goes away after the adventure is over, or you get a save after a night's rest.

The big bad vamp runs away of course. But the centaur rubs on his Ethereal Plane potion and tracks the bloodsucker to a new hide out inside the city jail where he got vampires disguised as guards. The dumb-ass decides that he has to kill the vampire now and isntead of going back and fetch the party, and we had no idea where he is, the guy just finds a nice place inside the teeny tiny office the vampire sits and write his reports while 2 guards is there and rubs on the off-potion, which takes a full round mind you to apply.

Fight ensues with the centaur alone versus the big bad vamp and 3 guards as the third one was standing outside of the office. He actually wins and the big bad mists away. The centaur manages to convince the real guards about the whole ordeal and rushes back to the first house to smash the 1st coffin ans he ruined the 2nd one in the office.

big bad is not there in the house, but the coffin is firewood now. the centaur gathers the party as we ended up in the tavern waiting for the centaur to come back, and with the last Ethereal potion the Psion goes looking for the vampire, as we can still see his "thread". Turn out he's hiding inside a temple of Myrkul, and the Psion was denied access inside by ghost guards, so we had to go in via the normal means.

My ninja and the ranger goes first in, and we're given a tour as we pose as a couple that's planning our death. We're shown resting options, there's the pit they just throw bodies in (it's free of charge) and there's the option of selling your own corpse for 20gp to be used as minor undead servant and lastly the crypt where you can buy a more permanent resting place. I manage to deduce that the tour guide knows about the vampire begin here, but he's very adamant that the church would not house a vampire as it'd be bad for their image. So we turn to the entrance of the temple meeting up with the rest of the party and we find a higher up priest and spill the beans (we also had a city official with us to make it more... official).

At fist the high priest isn't very cooperative, but when we tell that the vampire's master is plotting to resurrect Nerull (a evil death god that was killed by Raven Queen) , the high priest didn't like that as they dislike Nerull a lot as he's giving death gods a bad reputation and having that guy back would be worse then the "sanctimonious bitch" in charge (they're no fan of Raven Queen either).

we get to the crypts, find the one the vampire rests in, and the high priest makes a barrier no one can get out of and we start hacking on the very surprised vampire. He's misted and now he can't escape. We spend 2 hours watching the vampire mist frantically trying to find a way out before he turns to dust, and the high priest collects the dust in a bottle.

of course, now we're trapped in the barriers, and had to do some dimensional astral bamfing to get out, cause the high priest is a dick.

The Myrkul church took upon paying our fines for ruining the vampire nest house and we left the city with a win. And just not enough XP to level up, cause now we're back on XP tracking as we are now level 8 and have been awarded levels almost every session as a 3.5 trial run.


While the session was fun, it did remind me on a lot of the things that I dislike 3.5 about. Level drains, undeads can't be critical hit on, and sneak attack is super wonky and the psion couldn't do much in combat cause undead isn't affected by mind stuff, even intelligent undeads.

[Utrommaniac]

I completed my Homebrew D&D session.

Which eventually ended with them discovering that a baby Aboleth was trapped in the caverns that were being artificially flooded to free it. Initially, the party was set to kill it, until it explained that it had been separated from its parent in an earthquake. So, rather than face the wrath of the parent, they found a way to free it without flooding the cavern any further (the Kuo-Toa assigned to the job were being overly complicated).

In return, the baby Aboleth gave them the secret to curing those charmed by the slime (Just spouted off random stuff. "Slime that's been boiled...Crow's foot", all spoken in the "hewwo" voice)


The session ended with them sailing off with the boat that was their rewarded, being seen off by the freed Aboleth and its parent. And finishing with "they will both remember what you have done."


Which leaves things very open for a second session where they will more than likely be helpful.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Well, last session ended with them having found Wave, after getting attacked by the giant crab guarding the trident, which () botched TWO attacks with crit fails, and burst the air bubble they were inside, and flooded the chamber with scaldinf hot water! Somehow ninja-chick (hubby's pc) managed to jump over the crab, grab the trident, and use it to critically wound it on the way back out before the room flooded and they had to race for the flood doors in the corridor they came from.

Once that was over, they went back to the room with the sphinx, answered her second riddle, and began making their way down the second passage, toward the sword Blackrazor. Which is guarded by, among other things, a dwarven vampire. Who has not fed in weeks..... Can't wait to spring that on on them. Along with some other fun surprises I'm adding in.

[Utrommaniac]

My group just started a new Curse of Strahd campaign.

With:
Tami, a grownup and now a sorcerer, with a Tiefling warlock, an Aasimar bard, and a Dwarf barbarian.
And we basically just did a big "prologue" to the main game to get started on it.