First off, let me start by saying I have a party of 4 that is running this. A Mountain Dwarf Barbarian, a Half-Orc Barbarian, a Human Bard and a Half-Elf Warlock. I started them all at level 2 because prior to this campaign I had them do a starter mission each on their own to learn the game, netting them enough EXP to gain to level 2.
Let me describe the characters a bit. The Half-Orc Barbarian is a huge brute with an greataxe, who is dumb as all hell yet uses might to resolve most conflicts, yet is always out to want to defeat evil and protect the little guy. The Dwarven Barbarian however is a drunk, with a huge hatred for Goblins, Orcs and Elves, did I mention the Dwarf's clan was slaughtered by Orcs? Anyway, the Dwarf is the tank who can soak up all the hits yet deal some decent damage with his two handed hammer. The Bard is a snob, he hates all races non-human and is reluctant to travel with the group. He has a wagon which he promptly set a tent up in, stores all his gear in it and is pulled by two asses. By the way, the Bard is selfish yet very charismatic, and only spends gold pieces because other coins are for peasants. Lastly, the Warlock who is apparently around to study all that he can so he can gain knowledge and power so he can use it as a form of domination. This guy has 20' of chain which he wraps around himself which on each end he has a Mastiff who guards and attacks for him.
To cut the description short I had one of the first encounters in town be a roll off the encounter table, 4 cultists and 1 guard. The party goes in there, talking their way to the group, but failing and shortly being attacked afterward. The Bard from the safety of his wagon yells some Vicious Mockery at the guard they were trying to parlay with, and shortly after rides his cart away from combat.
The two Barbarians do as usual, just attacking things to protect themselves and the party, while the Warlock sicks his dogs on enemies and uses his Eldritch Blast. Once the enemies are finished off he strips and ties two of the clutits to his dogs so they could drag it behind them as they walk through town.
Combat ends, the Bard is so far away from them right now in his cart, the party sees it off in the distance heading toward the keep. So, as the party moves forward I initiate the first encounter that was supposed to happen, the family with the three children, the hurt husband and the wife trying to fend off the attackers. Since the Kobolds are uninterested in the party, this
allows the Warlock to walk right in the middle of them, casting Arms of Hadar. He wound up killing 6 of the 8 Kobolds, doing 8 damage to them. Then, instead of continuing to fight the enemy, on his next turn he goes over to the injured husband and intimidates him into drinking wine to help heal/make his injury feel better. The husband is reluctant because the Warlock wants his wife as a prize instead. So the Warlock sicks his dogs on the man and intimidates him again. The guy gives in and drinks the wine.
While this is happening the Dwarf and the Half-Orc are finishing off the Kobolds. Then the Dwarf sees what is happening and goes over to join the Warlock in what he is trying to do, using his hammer to crush the chest of the husband. The Half-Orc sees all of this and stands inbetween the now horrified family and his party. He tells them to run to safety while he holds off their attackers. The Warlock releases his two dogs to go chase them down, while the Dwarf challenges the Half-Orc in a battle. By this time the Half-Orc was down to 13 HP while the Dwarf had full HP at 29. Regardless, the Dwarf came in, the Half-Orc used his readied action to attack, bringing the Dwarf down to 13 HP and then missing his attack at the Half-Orc. They battled back and forth, the Half-Orc dodging blows, bringing the Dwarf down again. The Warlock puts a stop to this fight by intimidating (at disadvantage mind you) the Half-Orc to stand down.
Needless to say the party eventually catches up with the dogs, the family not in sight, yet the dogs are distracted in combat by some Kobolds and a Drake. The Warlock tries to convince the Drake that the Half-Orc has slain some of their brethern and it should join them in incapacitating the Half-Orc, but not killing him. It fails, the Drake isn't having any of it and the fight (probably due to the naked cultists still tied to the dogs) continues as normal.
While this is happening the Bard sees a group of 4 women in distress heading toward the keep. He pulls up using persuasion to get them all into the cart by saying, "You will all make it to the keep faster and safer while in this cart." He rolled a 20, they went right in. On his way to the keep he introduced them to weed and got them all high so they felt euphoric and didn't care much about the outside happenings.
Eventually he pulls up to the keeps walls without the rest of the party, and the four women. They tell the govenor he had saved them. The govenor sees he is an abled body, crafty fellow and looks like the adventuring sort. He is hailed as a hero, given 100 gold and granted 20% off at the keeps shops as well as his own bedroom for the duration of his stay. He buys a Hand Crossbow and Studded Leather (because he bought no weapons and armor when he set his character up) and gets for the second part of his task. The govenor asks if he can investigate the windmill, it seems as if they are trying to burn it down, the govenor also tells his plans of wanting a prisoner so they can ask what is going on. He agrees, so they go to let him out the sally port. The Bard devises a plan to use disguise on himself to look like a cultist and to set up an ambush at the Sally Port to bring them back so they can be taken as prisoner. Basically, he was going to tell the cultists he found a secret way into the keep. By the way, this also nets the Bard 200 EXP since he brought 4 survivors back to the keep...
The player who plays the Dwarf had to leave, so he left early. He continued on without him, so for the remainder of the session, we said he was resting in the keep, drunk as a pig. However, the Warlock and the Half-Orc had other iedeas, they wanted to find some sort of town horn. So they went to where town square was (or appeared to be on the map). Instead of a horn they found a gong, so the Warlocok with his infinite "wisdom" decides to have the half-orc rip the gong down and they were going to bend it into a giant horn. Through some amazing strength rolls they get the Warlock's way and the gong is crudely bent into a giant horn. Well, the Warlock, again in his infinite "wisdom" decides to call out to the dragon, invoking the name of a dragon diety. He passes his religion check, I give him the choices, Bahumat or Tiamat. The Warlock unwisely chooses Bahumat yet catches the dragon's attention (a 22 passive perception will do that...). The dragon flies over, mocks the Warlock, who appologises, the dragon then says he will let them live if he can best him in combat. The Warlock then tells the dragon that the Half-Orc will be fighting for him, who is still at 13 HP. Anyway, both parties agree, the dragon lands, tells the Half-Orc he can have the first shot and he wont even move. I give the Half-Orc advantage, he lands a hit, dealing 9 damage to the dragon. The dragon tells the puny Half-Orc he will only use one attack on him and the Half-Orc gets to choose, so he choose the tail, the Half-Orc amazingly dodges it which impresses the dragon. So, the dragon will no longer just stand there, the Half-Orc attacks, misses his next attack. The Warlock goes to go around to the back of the dragon, the dragon swats the Half-Orc with a claw, knocking him out and swatting the Warlock with it's tail, knocking him out. It then flew away.
So, the Bard sneaks past the first group of cultists, walks down to the windmill to see 4 guards and 1 acolyte. Through some dialogue he convinces them to go check out the secret enterance into the keep, they agree, reveal to him about their ruse to lore the adventurers into the windmill and ambush them. Before they go to check out the secret entrance, they do however want to go check out the town square to see why the dragon landed over there. So they do, they find the two unconcious but not dead party members, tie them up behind the wagon having them drag and have the dogs pull the wagon. The guards load up in the wagon, the acolyte leading it down the banks of the steam. When they get to the secret entrance the Bard heals the Half-Orc with a spell and uses a potion on the Warlock. The ambush is a success and the keep has a prisoner.
Next, the govenor convinces the Half-Orc (who was the only one awake at the time) to drive the dragon off if he could, since he was the only one to damage it. He agrees, the comotion a top the keep wakes up the Warlock, the Bard complains and goes back to sleep in his bed filled with women. Since the Half-Orc has no ranged weapons he decides to throw his greataxe at disadvantage at the dragon, misses and it goes over the keep's walls. The Warlock runs toward the town square, going for the gong horn, and on his way back into the courtyard grabs the axe which he happens to see on the ground in the courtyard. The Half-Orc relying on spears he found downstairs (which were the Warlock's) to throw at the dragon. When he went to run downstairs to get the last spear (because he grabbed them 1 by 1 for some reason) he crossed paths with the Warlock. They used their combined might (mainly the Half-Orcs) to bend the gong back into a disc shape the best they could. They run a top the keep, the dragon recognizes them, and flies at them with it's mouth open, breath attack ready. The Half-Orc hurls the disc, gets a 20 on the die and lands it right in the mouth of the dragon. This causes enough damage to drive the dragon off, as it spits the gong out of it's mouth mid flight. The Half-Orc feels amazing and the Warlock feels accomplished.
I still have more to tell, so I will post it later!
The Bard I guess the whole time was making love to the four ladies he saved. Well, the Warlock ate some strips of the Drake they had killed, hoping it was an aphrodisiac (it was), because he wanted to find where the Bard was and join in with the ladies. Needless to say it gets really out of hand here. First off, he doesn't know where the Bard's room is. So he searches, gives up, retreats back to his room and decides to lay with one of his dogs instead... (don't ask me, I have no idea why, some people just play screwed up characters). After successfully laying with the dog, he decides he wants to create a cult, so he sneaks around the keep looking for children. He finds one, brings it back to his room, there he intimidates the child and deceives it into believing it's parents wanted the kid to grow up to be a sorcerer and that they wanted him (the Warlock) to teach him. He also threatened the child with, "And if you disobey me or tell anyone you're here, I'm going to kill your parents." So the child naturally sobs, is upset but "understands" and is told to go sleep next to the dogs.
Though the night passes, commotion can be heard from outside. The Half-Dragon is calling for a challenge, this wakes the party and most of the keep. The Half-Orc gears up and runs to the top of the keep, the Warlock joining him. The Bard instead just opens his window, yells at it to shut up with some explicit language, and then goes back to bed. The Half-Dragon tells it's terms of a fair and open challenge about it's hostages (three children and one woman), the Half-Orc accepts the challenge so the Half-Dragon releases the children as the seargant is restrained because it's his family and he is clearly upset they still have his sister (she is surrounded by 16 Kobolds who will kill her if anything goes wrong). But before combat could start, the Warlock shoots it's Eldritch Blast at the hostage, killing her. The seargant goes nuts, needs to be restrained again, the guards quickly come to arrest the Warlock.
Appauled and confused the Half-Dragon doesn't know what to do or think, but still insists on the challenge. The Half-Orc agrees. Now, this is a level 2 Half-Orc Barbarian with 27 HP mind you vs a level 6 Half-Dragon Fighter with 56 HP (I assume it's a Fighter). Initiative is rolled, the Half-Orc gets to go first, so he goes into a rage, attacks and deals a bunch of damage with it's greataxe it's first hit (15+). The Half-Dragon then goes, misses it's first attack but crits on the second for 17 damage, yet the Half-Orc takes 8 because of his damage resistance during rage. The Half-Orc goes, deals a lot more damage, probably around 15+ again. The Half-Dragon misses both of it's attacks... The Half-Orc goes, misses, the Half-Dragon goes, misses one attack, hits the other for several damage or so. The Half-Orc goes, hits the Half-Dragon for around 10 damage, the Half-Dragon hits both attacks, the second a crit, but due to the Barbarian's resistance during rage he was able to survive the damage. The Half-Orc at this rate has around 5 or 7 HP left. The Half-Orc goes, does 17 damage to the Half-Dragon and KOs it in a crazy turn of events. So the Half-Orc, a level 2 slays this thing all by itself, and nets himself 1,000 EXP bumping him up well into level 3. The Kobolds come and take the Half-Dragon body away. The Half-Orc retreats into the keep, estatic as ever (for his victory over such a what should of been dominant foe).
In the mean time the Bard hears all the commotion of the Warlock being arrested and escorted to the holding cells below by several guards. The Bard casts Disguise on himself so he looks like a guard and joins them. The Warlock is thrown into a cell with shackles holding his arms so he can't cast and several guards at once are watching him. The govenor asks what he did and was told, the Warlock is now awaiting trial to decide his fate which will happen the following day. I assume he will be executed for treason of some sort, but we will find out. The Bard plans on breaking him out...
CCS wrote:
I wonder if this group would prefer a system like F.A.T.A.L.
I have a question, how much weed do you smoke before you play? Not judging you brah.
That was unconventional. To each his own. Just don't let the kids watch.
Nevvur wrote:
Your players are actually playing Paranoia, using the D&D rules. As far as I can tell.
I recommend you sit down and ask the group what THEY think they are supposed to be doing.
Nevvur wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Pretty wild! They seem to have broken the A to B to C design of the module with their actions!
Hope it all heads towards more of a longer term goal or goals - sometimes the crazy sort of burns itself up early and the players stop playing the character for not being able to think of any new crazy to do.
Sounds like you've hit a few 'you're doin' it wrong' nerves amongst posters so take the general advice given here with a grain of salt.
Slit518 wrote:
Well, this session I have coming up this weekend is my wife and her friends. We'll see how this one pans out! This one is a home brew, so hopefully it turns out well. I feel the women will be playing totally different from the men, but, I may be surprised. All will be starting at 1st level, 3 of the 4 never played before. So, we'll see how this turns out!
Slit518 wrote:
Characters know about campaigns? 
Noon wrote:
I seriously don't. I see DM's do this - the PC's are to be motivated by...events they don't even know about yet, in advance of knowing them.
I'd understand what was meant if the DM asked players for some object or person their PC is desperately seeking. Then when he presents greenrest being attacked by an army he adds that that's where their PC had heard there was information on the object/persons location! I'd get that sort of prompting.
Heck, I'd understand if the DM said there's destiny in the world and PC's must be interested in following what that destiny is - and the DM says they feel their destiny lies within greenrest. I'd get that sort of prompting.
But when it comes to saying the characters have little interest in the campaign - no, I sersiously don't know what that means. It doesn't make sense - it's refering to a fictional characters interest in a real world set of texts.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Noon wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
Slit518 wrote:
BRJN wrote: