First of all, you should already know there will be spoilers. So don't read on if you're worried about that.
I've had the starter set since day one and last night we were finally able to get people together to play.
We have an Human Acolyte Fighter, a Hill Dwarf Sage Cleric, a Mountain Dwarf Soldier Wizard, a Wood Elf Soldier Rogue, and a Wood Elf Folk Hero Rogue. Here is a brief run through about how things went down.
We started out like every other adventure, on the road to Phandalin. Our First encounter with the goblins was over quickly with a good perception roll from the wizard, soon to be followed up by a sleep spell. He put the three remaining goblins (Two at full health and one with only one remaining hp) asleep, along with the fighter. 
Then they began to murder. :/
The trail they found to be fraught with traps that were all undetected, but narrowly avoided. Once they entered the clearing and saw the cave, the wood elf folk hero quietly crossed the stream and noticed the goblins messing around and generally not paying attention. What followed was much like scene from Partners in Crime episode of Dr. Who. Where the Doctor and Donna see eachother and start having a silent conversation with the bad guys between them. The rogue is trying to send signals to the party, the party is sending signals back. There is confusion, they try again and again. Meanwhile, the goblins notice him, and fill him with arrows! The encounter is quickly over with one goblin surrendering and being interrogated.
They then enter the cave. The wood elf folk hero and the human handle animals on the wolves and then lead them out to eat a goblin. The wood elf soldier stealthily climbs the crevas up to the big bad guy and surprises him with a sneak attack. The battle, despite one of the characters stopping to look at the trade goods, went quickly. Due to poor rolls, Klarg didn't land a hit. But they soon had to deal with the rest of the goblins all rushing to see what was happening. Negotiations happend and the goblins left.
What happened next left me scratching my head. Four of the group decided to send Sildar back to Phandalin with their wizard! The wizard goes to town and delivers the goods and suddenly has pockets full of gold. Meanwhile, the rest of the group head off to where they think Cragmaw Castle is. Then they get their first random encounter! Four Ghouls creep out of the darkness and attack. The whole party was nearly eaten alive. I was hoping for it. They're really down on their HP and aren't getting much rest.
We stopped after that encounter and they leveled up.
Thanks knight serpent for the write up. Sounds like everyone had a lot of fun. It was interesting to hear how the adventure actually ran as well
You're welcome.
I did have a few issues. People wanted to flank a lot to gain advantage. I had to explain that's replaced by the help action.
People liked how the death rolls worked. That was well received.
The two guys that played the wood elves hadn't played before and were confused why they couldn't hit them with cover and has to go into detail about that.
There was another thing I wanted to talk about with the rules but I forget at the moment.
Also something I didn't mention before, the fighter was using a mace. Silly fighter.
Thanks for reporting. I love reading about real gameplay. I love your description, the Doctor Who episode. I could totally picture that moment.
Cheers.
cool, thanks for the play story! fun read.
Thanks for sharing, knightserpent. Actual play posts are much more interesting than all the "white room" theorycraft. We need more!
pukunui wrote:
Part 2!
We begin with our intrepid heroes breaking camp after eating and searching for water. Our Fighter is a bit stiff from wearing the armor all night, but everyone else is rested and ready to go.
They enter into the Neverwinter Wood and begin heading in a north easterly direction, not knowing exactly where Castle Cragmaw is. For this, I did a series of survival checks to allow them to be on the right track and not become lost. This was like the death saving throws. Three successes and they find it, three failures and they get lost and have to start over. They got lost, but after that, they managed to find their barings. But not before they wandered into a small swarm of stirges. The stirges attacked and attached themselves to the party and were quite dangerous creatures. They never had a chance to attack them. Instead they used their actions to pull the stirge suckers out of their wounds. And from there it was just a matter of squeezing them until they popped. A bit of healing and a quick rest and they resumed their journy to the castle.
Upon reaching the castle, they send the two wood elf rogues to scout the perimeter. Upon searching, they find a couple of alternitive enterances and chose to use the concealed one. The party dashes across the cleared ground to the edge of the castle and waits a moment if there were any alarms. Not hearing any, the fighter (who must not have heard the description of the place), sends the rogues into the building to assassinate anyone in the arrow slits. I believe he thought they were on top of the towers in crenellations instead of within the castle. The rogues get three rooms in, through the abandoned storage, the empty hallway, and into the dark hall. The dark hall had some religious tones to it, and they were about to move to another room when they catch something out of the corner of their eye in the direction of a brazier. Not knowing what they saw, one of them goes over to it and investigates while the other hides. Wood Elf Rogue #1 finds treasure in the basin of the brazier and secrets it away on his person. I have Wood Elf Rogue #2 make two perception checks. One, just to see what was going to happen next, and one specifically vs WER#1's Sleight of Hand. He didn't notice the treasure being tucked away, but he did notice a huge green tail dangling behind WER#1 and then silently touch the ground before rearing up! WER#2 fires an arrow at it as a surprise action but misses. WER#1 things that he was found out and turns around to notice the hulking grick about to latch onto him with flailing tenticles. WER#1 attacks it and then moves to find a place to hide and rolls a 20 on the die. So the grick slinks around and rapidly strikes at WER#2. A few rounds go by and leaves the grick dead and WER#2 badly hurt with one hp remaining. WER#1, a leather worker, decides to skin the grick while WER#2 goes back and gets the rest of the party. When WER#2 reaches the party, the goblins from an adjacent room surprise attack WER#1 while he's skinning the monster. Every one of them slices him with their scimitars and he is hurting badly. The party shows up the following round and the goblins are dispatched. Then healing is distributed, not wanting to take a short rest. They fall back to the hall and chose a different direction to go.
After changing direction, they find a dining hall. Inside the dining hall are eight goblins, one of them is a fat chef! Battle chaos ensues. They save the fat chef for last and get the other goblins first. During the process WER#1 is felled. At this point, most magical healing is exhausted. However they have two healing potions and all of their hit die to use for short rests. They decided to take the goblin and grick bodies and hide them, just outside the castle, and then retreated into the "safety" of Neverwinter Wood.
Fun to read. Thanks for sharing! You can definitely tell there are "new guys" at the table. Their tactical decisions aren't yet guided by a sufficient level of suspicion/paranoia. ;)
Yeah, Three out of the five are new.
Meanwhile, Thanks to a double prepared sleep, the Mountain Dwarf Wizard that was sent back to town, single handedly took out the redcloaks that were causing problems with the locals. This kid rolls D8's like there's no number on the die below six.
tallric_kruush wrote:
knightserpent wrote:
knightserpent wrote:
Part 3
Glossing over the part where the Dwarf Wizard has "borrowed" a teleport spell getting him with the rest of the party, they now venture back into the keep. Once inside, they move with purpose in directions they haven't yet sussed out. WER#1 goes ahead to scout and listen at a door. He hears two voices behind it, one of them loud and gruf while the other is softer and more sweet. He gets the idea that they are arguing about payment. They open the door and attack! WER#1 rushes in and tries to go after the hulking and grizzeled bugbear. The Wizard casts sleep and puts the wolf down but doesn't get anyone else. The human fighter and the other rogue come into the room and go after the drow. That first round of combat was very intense for them, because none of them landed any blows and only one of their enemies fell asleep. The "drow" used its slam attacks and ended up nearly killing the other rogue. They found her to be more intimidating, and so they focused on her and put her down in a couple of rounds (she saved vs death, so they didn't get to see anything cool happen). Then they focused on the bugbear. The bugbear was soon joined by two hobgoblins from a nearby room. This could go very badly for the players, but a critical hit on the bugbear severely staggers him. This lets him re-think this ordeal as fighter convinces everyone to stop and let them have the dwarf and they'll leave. The bugbear tells his allies to stand down. The players grab the dwarf and their fallen companion and retreat.
Later in the evening, they attract the attention of an ogre out on a romp through the neverwinter wood. The fighter takes a small tree and decides he'd rather not let this big guy hit him again. Some magic missiles and arrows bring them victory against this random encounter. They camp for the evening on the edge of the wood and wake up refreshed and ready for a new day on their return to Phandalin.
This is where I tie in HotDQ. They return to Phandalin only to see that it is being attacked by a dragon!
We played through the whole first chapter, but I'm not going to post that here as the title of the thread is for the starter set. But now that the town is saved, they have all of the starter set to go through as well as following up with what is available in HotDQ. Choices, choices!
pedro2112 wrote: