| Post/Author/DateTime | Post |
|---|---|
| #1PolarisAug 17, 2014 21:28:57 | Everyone,
The other day (Friday), I started my first campaign in D&D 5e with a group of four of my regular players. They are all experienced RPers, but three are new to DND (yes apparently they DO exist...). The campaign I am running them in is Lost Mines of Phandelver from the Starter's Set. In consideration of those that are either playing it or might in the future, I warn everyone now that this post and future posts (of future games) will be RIFE with spoilers. If you don't want to be spoiled do not read below the dashed warning lines. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started the campaign in Neverwinter, and I had all of my PCs have definate reasons to want to adventure. My motley crew consisted of Tama, a Lightfoot Female Halfling Thieve originally from Waterdeep that while not malicious always seemed to be up to 'no good'. She left the Thieves Guild in Waterdeep under 'less than ideal' terms, and has been scrounging for an easy gold elsewhere since. She's been living in the docks in Neverwinter the past few months, but the hairs on the back of her neck are starting to twitch again, and she's pretty sure that if she wants a future to go with her past, she probably should move. Soon. She is a CN Halfling Thief with the following relevant stats: Dex 18, Con 14, Wis 14, Cha 14 with 10 hit points and an AC of 16 (Studded Leather).
Next up was Baydon, a Wood Elven Scout (first class) recently discharged from the service of Silverymoon in the Silvermarches up north...and not honorably discharged. His crime. He followed orders. *Any* orders and specifcially he followed orders that didn't sit well with his superiors in the Silver Marches. Fortunately for him, he wasn't blacklisted because he did turn over and testified against the source of those illegal orders. Baydon is willing to do anything and follow any order to 'got the job done' and is fairly ruthless about it. He is a LN Wood-Elf Fighter (archer style) with a Dex of 20 and Con and Wis both of 16. Of course he has a 'massive' 9 strength :-) [He choose to roll for his stats and got incredibly lucky.] He started with 13 hit points and a 17 AC [studded leather] He had been doing odd jobs for the City Watch until the City Watch started objecting to suspects winding up 'dead' when told 'dead or alive'. He later found work with some less than reputatable nobles until members of the Watch quietly informed him that he was being investigated for being a hired assassin. He promptly turned 'state's evidence against those nobles' and now figures that his employment opportunities in Neverwinter have about 'dried up' [and his enemies seem to be increasing....]
Next you had Flint Firemane of the Ironfist Hold near Icewind Dale. He is a humble and pious acolyte of Berronar Truesilver (consort to Morodin). He had been putting up his traditional pilgrimage to the outside would until one day his superiors took matter into their own hands and he wound his quarters taken by another novice, his bags packed, and was given a small amount of gold and told "good luck" on his pilgrimage. He's now in Neverwinter trying to do the right thing but is discovering the hardway that 'doing the right thing' and 'getting enough to eat' are too often not the same thing, and that gold didn't last very long. He is now looking to do something worthy that hopefully pays better than charity work [yes he's a bit naive]. He is a NG Hill Dwarf Cleric (Life Domain) with Wis and Con scores of 16. He wields a Warhammer and Shield and wears Chainmail, wearing a holy symbol on his neck and emblazoned on his shield. He has an AC of 16 with 12 Hit Points.
Last but not least was Kane Jerrodson who was once a Landesknecht of Cormyr (sp?). That is he was one of the soldiers drawn from the wealthy middle classes and lower nobility not good enough to be cavalry or Purple Dragon Knights, but wealthy enough with enough spare time for training to form the bulk of the heavy armored infantry that provided brutally effective striking support and defensive support for the same. He had PTSD and was discharged after his unit had an unfortunately encounter with a Dragon (a small one). He and a few others of his unit survived and the dragon didn't, but the scares (mental ones) never faded and was discharged. He is a NG Human (Varient) Fighter with a Str of 18, Con of 16. He wields a Greatsword and wears Chainmail, and is a heavy armor master in heavy armor [from his training in Cormyr] giving him a DR of 3 against most weapon attacks. He has an AC of 16 and 13 Hit Points. He had been doing work for the Greycloaks (Neverwinter's army) but with the progress the Greycloaks had made around Neverwinter, work was getting harder to find and paying less.
I had the group meet up with Gundren Rockseeker in the Sunken Flagon in the Dock's District [run by a less than reputatable human or half-elf (hard to tell) called Branden who claimed to be the 'true' grandson of the lost captain of crossroads keep]. Based on her Street Knowledge, I was able to tell Tama that Gundren had an honest reputation but also a reputation of being a 'hard luck' story and always had some scheme that 'this time for sure' would bring him out of debt and into wealth and fame for him and his backers. This reputation was why he was having a bit of a hard time finding good applicants for what should have been a simple caravan escort job to Phandalin. However, the group for various reasons decided that this was as good an opportunity as any (and it got them out of Neverwinter). The group took possession of the loaded wagon, was told where to deliver it in Phandalin for a wage of 10gp each ON DELIVERY. They were told that Gundren and his bodyguard/minder left the day before.
About halfway into the second day shortly before noon (and they were about half day out of Phandalin), the group saw the two dead horses in the middle of road/barely improved wagon track. To their credit the group sensed possible trouble right away, and I told the two ex-soldiers that this entire part of the countryside was an ambusher's paradise. I also determined that much of the combat experience Kane and Baydon was against humanoids of various types. Everyone got their weapons out, and the Rogue and Cleric prepped themselves to use the Wagon as cover as the two fighters cautiously moved forward to investigate. Because of their combat experience, Baydon recognized right away that these were goblin arrows as soon as they got within 5-10 feet of the horses....but they then it was too late. For all their caution, the goblins had a 21 stealth which was far above the best passive perception in the group (15). So the goblins got their vicious alpha strike off with advantage and suprise on their suprise round and they concentrated on the two fighters that were out in the open. Kane took two hits but because of his mastery of armor, took a grand net total of 1 hit. Yeah....ONE hit [and yes I roll monster damage]. Baydon wasn't so lucky. Most of the arrows actually missed him...all but one in fact. Unfortunately the one that hit was a critical hit that did 11 damage (two more it it would have dropped him). They then tried to move back and rehide....and completely botched it. Only one goblin successfully managed to rehide. I ruled that because the others failed to beat the party's passive perceptions, they failed to completely cover themselves and so could be targeted [with cover of course].
It was the party's turn now. Three of the four goblins quickly went down first with an arrow by Baydon that hit, cover or no cover. Then Flint got into the act and toasted a goblin trying to hide with holy fire (sacred flame...and funny the cover didn't seem to help :-) ), and finally Tama threw two daggers at long range....and one of the daggers bounced clean off the rocks behind one of the goblins before it ricocheted back into the back of a goblin skull [halfling luck]. Baydon was smart enough to use his second wind on his turn turning what looked to be a nasty hit into 'just a flesh wound' [he maxxed his second wind roll eliminating all damage]. After that it was all over except the shouting....and a charging desperate goblin being cleaved by Mr Greatsword.
After some discussion, the group concluded that if they wanted to be paid they were going to have to rescue their employer (since one of the horses was clearly his). They found an out of the way place to leave the wager (hoping it would still be their when they got back), but decided they couldn't take the time to go to Phanalin or take a long rest because the goblins would 'miss' their ambushers and that could get dicey but if they pushed it, they might get the drop on them. They did take time to eat lunch [short rest].
After spotting and avoiding some traps along the way thanks to Baydon's keen senses and outdoors experience, they found the entrance of the goblin lair. The military experience of both fighters told them that if they were the bandits they'd have pickets in the thickets near the cave mouth. Baydon agreed to go forward alone and scout the 'lay of the land' for more specific intelligence. Unforunately while he did get the intelligence, he botched his stealth giving himself away to the goblin sentrys (who were being vary lazy about their duties until then) and to make matters worse, when he tried to distract them wound up starting a minor rockslide which caused both of them to see him clearly. However since he was at extreme bow range, and it was just a single person, the goblins started acting alert but didn't feel particularly threatened and so didn't alert the rest of the complex. [It looked like one elven hunter/interloper.....enough to be on guard but not a real threat in their minds].
Now that the sentries were alert, the next challenge was to somehow get in WITHOUT alerting every goblin in the lair. Tama was able to lead the group in a group challenge to carefully and stealthily allow the group to approach the entrance of the cave without being seen. [She got a 21 roll for group stealth....far above even the alterted goblin's passive perception.] However, as I warned all of them, there was simply no way they could approach any closer than 60feet of the entrance without being seen for sure [no cover]. The group decided to have Kane charge {dash} the sixty feet and hold the cave entrance against the two sentries. I warned Kane that this would draw an attack of opportunity but he decided that the tactical advantage of holding the cave entrance was worth taking the attack [DM opinion: he was right]. As he did that, the rest of the group would try to locate and rain missile/spellfire on the sentries hopefully taking them out before they could raise the alarm.
And that's pretty much what happened, and again with halfling luck, Tama's dagger glanced off Kane's helmet and buzzed his ears before burrowing it's way into a goblin throat just before the (last surviving) goblin could raise the alarm.
Baydon scouted just inside the caves (area 3) to discover the three wolves chained up. In spite of the fact I gave the wolves advantage on their perception (because of sound and scent), Baydon was still able to sneak in undetected and tell the group about the wolves [his 19 Stealth beat the adjusted Passive Per of 18 for the wolves]. Given the wolves were clearly noisy, cantankeroius, and being used to eat garbage (thrown down a chimney at the far end of the wolf-lair), the group decided not to fight them, but to take what arrows they wanted and then to throw the goblin bodies 'to the wolves' (literally) to hopefully provide an explaination for what happened tot he sentries.
The entire group got to the entrance of area 4 when it bacame clear that the human and halfling couldn't go any further without a source of light. Flint Firemane took one look up the passage to their left with with a good stonecunning roll of 18 determined that the rock that way was 'rotten' and while it might hold Tama it wouldn't hold anyone heavier without causing a big, dangerous, and noisy rockslide. In the meantime, Baydon looking down the otherway say a bridge about 20feet further down and about 15-20 feet up....and he just made out a goblin sentry that seemed suspicous (he just put out his torch...the torch had drawn Baydon's attention initially) and was looking around suspiciously but hadn't *quite* seen anything. The module assumes you either go up 4 or try to sneak past five. However instead of options A or B, Baydon (actually it was Kane's idea) went for option C [don't you just love PCs?] He drew his bow, took aim and took out the sentry with a single shot! [Technically he didn't do quite enough damage but darn it, the plan was too cool IMO as DM for it not to work so I gave the party an inspiration point on the spot and told them they could spend it to reroll the damage.]
The party now "snuck past" the dead sentry [much easier] and had the drop on the goblins in area 6. To maintain suprise, the characters had Kane and Tama in the middle with the stealthy elf Baydon in front and Flint in back (who could both see). The group crept on on three goblins doing their version of "dogs playing cards" which meant there was a single candle providing dim illumination on the table (so the goblins could read the suits on their cards). It was a perfect suprise opportunity...and then Baydon tripped on a rock just at the wrong moment.
Out goes the candle rendering the halfing and human blind, and combat ensued. I also rules (esp since I determinec that one goblin would raise the alarm) that not only would they have to fight these three goblins, but in three rounds Klarg, his 'dog' [wolf] Fang, and two more goblins would show up as well. Two of the three goblins went down pretty quickly and Flint cleverly cast a Light cantrip on one of the fallen goblin bodies allowing Tama and Kane to see.....just in time to see Fang, Klarg, and two goblins reinforce the one goblin that was about to go down. Baydon shot Klarg impressively [maximum normal damage] and Karg just shrugged it off and continued to come laughing at them. It was a brown trousers moment for team PC!
Ultimately after an extremely hard and touch-and-go battle, the PCs won but two of the PCs went down...and that would have been the end of the PCs except that Fint Firemane had wisely retained the bulk of Truesilver's divine blessings for such an emergency and kept his fighter buddies alive with two uses of Healing Word. Kane's DR once again was immensely useful. Not only did it save him from taking too much damage from the initial goblins, but when Klarge faced him face to face and got a critical hit on him, that DR was the only thing that kept Kane from being RIP Kane....giving just enough time for Flint to rescue him.
We had to break off after this last battle because IRL we were running out of time. I decided to go ahead and give the group the Goblin cave XP to get them to 2nd level since I don't think the goblins in Area 5 will provide much of a challenge (and likely won't fighte the group at all under the circumstances). I did tell my players that they will only be allowed to level when they take their first long rest OUTSIDE of the goblin lair [but to come with level 2 character sheets when they do].
*whew*
That was the adventure as best I remember it. Now for my analysis: The Good (what worked), the Bad (what didn't), and the Ugly (things that might have gone better but isn't directly relevant to DND 5e itself)
GOOD:
1. Everyone had fun. Ultimately isn't that why we all play (and run) DND? [Or any game?] If in the final analysis everyone had fun, then the session (and game) was a success whatever else may be said.
2. The combat wasn't as deadly as I was afraid of. Now, having said that, the session could have gone bad had some of the rolls been just a little different, but the PCs are more capable than I expected.
3. The game flowed well and DID feel like the DND I remember from my highschool days (in the early 1980s). I also note that while we had some characters better than others, we didn't have a caster and caddies (or Gandalf and Hobbits) problem at least not yet.
4. Halfing Luck is really, really good.
5. Heavy Armor mastery is really, really good [Kane absorbed about 30 points of damage that the party otherwise might have had to deal with. That may have made a deadly session into a merely difficult one. Food for thought.]
BAD:
With the good there was some bad, and here were some [your opinions may differ]
1. I hate, hate, hate, "common language" rules. I really don't see the charm of having to parse as DM two contradictory (but arguably correct) interpretations of hiding and stealth rules and have it dumped in my lap. As I hope I've made clear in my synopsis, I have no problem 'making the call' but the rules shouldn't be written in an obscure way to force me to make calls on common stuff. I'd rather save my mental energy for corner cases (which will arise with PCs....they always do).
2. Even though the encounters weren't as deadly as I was afraid of, IMHO the encounter system needs work. In particular better DM guidance is needed IMO to handle encounters that may be borderline. IMX the fact I ROLLED my monster damage made a big difference and actually made the encounters just a little less deadly [and no I didn't fudge squat!] In particular the initial ambush [and see point 1 about that!] and the battle with Klarg were IMO encounters not appropriate for level 1 characrers even though my group handled both like champs! [I am proud of my players here!] had a rolled a bit higher on the ambushs or had more of the goblins been able to rehide, or even had the lair been alerted, things could have been very different.
UGLY:
1. What gives with having the first combat encounter of the module (and of the PC's careers) involve one of the least clear and most disputed rules in the game (stealth)?
2. I thought the motivation to do things that will lead to the needed information to be a little sketchy at times. This isn't a criticism of 5e (which is why it falls in the 'ugly' section) but there are some loose threads in the module narrative that could cause the entire adventure to fall apart before it really starts [like never getting access to critical NPCs and information] just by taking alternate but very reasonable in-character choices. I would suggest that the writers tighten it up a bit in the future.
I hope this thread is useful. Hopefully I will post session two sometime next weekend. As always your commentary and insight is not only welcome, but sought after. I am starting this thread to help me become a better DM.
-Polaris
|
| #2Plaguescarred1Aug 17, 2014 22:52:54 | Thanks Polaris for the play report, seems like it was a fun session! I liked the PCs backstory a lot, were they crafted by you or your players?
RE Common, if you want, you could ignore it and strickly use the Realms regional languages, having prevalant tongues in a given area depending in which region you are. Ever thought of that? |
| #3PolarisAug 17, 2014 23:21:21 |
|
| #4Plaguescarred1Aug 17, 2014 23:33:06 |
|
| #5RhennyAug 18, 2014 5:17:41 | Great report, Polaris. I enjoyed reading it.
First level is certainly dangerous and depending on the way the dice roll, the PCs may survive heroically, or go down ignominously.
The first time our fighter used second wind (and rolled a 9 or 10 I think) we felt our first dose of edrenaline. At low levels this is a really good ability (especially with lucky rolls). It seems like the players in your group felt that same experience when the fighter nearly went down, and he had to restore himself the next round.
I hope the rest of the campaign runs as smoothly as the beginning.
Cheers. |
| #6KarnosAug 18, 2014 5:46:16 | I think stealth is used in the oepning encounter simply because it is one of the most confusing and complex rules, and they wanted to show how it works right away. I wish the encounter explained it a little bit better, though. |
| #7quindiaAug 18, 2014 8:45:37 | Thanks for that, Polaris. Sounds like fun.
I think I would have allowed perception rolls in the first encounter rather than relying on passive perception. The players were obviously wary and you mentioned the experience of the fighters and the suspicion of an ambush so I would have called for perception checks as they advanced. I only rely on the passive checks when players seem to have ignored clues or take no particular precautions... Say, for instance if they had driven the wagon all the way to the dead horses.
Other than that I am in agreement with the rest of your calls, including the way you adjudicated the stealth rules. |
| #8PolarisAug 18, 2014 8:50:22 |
|
| #9arderkragAug 18, 2014 9:06:35 | I'm going to have to disagree on the first encounter and the one with Klarg being difficult. If anything, they played out a little too easy for the group I'm dming. |
| #10JohnLynchAug 18, 2014 9:21:43 | Interesting read. Thanks for that Polaris. I see there weren't any mountain dwarf wizards. Are there any group tendencies against playing those characters? Or just happenstance?
Would someone mind posting up what they find so confusing about stealth? I didn't realize it was such a confusing issue for people. |
| #11PolarisAug 18, 2014 9:43:26 |
|
| #12quindiaAug 18, 2014 13:07:18 |
|
| #13iserithAug 18, 2014 13:29:59 |
|
| #14TheLyonsAug 18, 2014 13:44:26 | How long did your session last? |
| (Reply to #13)Polaris |
|
| #16iserithAug 18, 2014 18:47:02 |
|
| #17PolarisAug 18, 2014 20:37:50 |
|
| #18iserithAug 18, 2014 20:55:31 |
|
| #19PolarisAug 18, 2014 21:09:12 |
|