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| #1XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:14:07 | I finished up DMing the first book (of three) of the 2e adventure Night Below about a month ago. I wrote up notes and impressions on... most of the sessions, and figured I'd share them here. Here is a link to the thread I had before WOTC re-did the forums. I'd love to hear your impressions on these, and any suggestions you have on things I did wrong. |
| #2XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:17:21 | Session 1 – Character Creation
What ho, fellow RPers! I've just started a new campaign using the last 5e playtest rules, and I figured I'd start a thread here to keep track of my session notes. It was somewhat unplanned that my group was going to play D&D this week, as we've been playing Star Wars RPG (the one with the D&D 3.5 rules) for a few weeks after we ended the Isle of Dread.
So this week I helped my players roll up characters and got the Night Below campaign started. Night Below, by Carl Sargent was actually the first adventure I bought, along with the core rulebooks for AD&D 2e. For some reason, I never got around to running it, so it has been collecting dust in my closet for 19 years now (wow!). It's a 3-part box-set that covers levels 1 to around... 12 or 14 or so. It's a pretty interesting campaign that includes quite a bit more diplomacy and tactical thinking than seems to be the norm in many adventures. It's also one of the few adventures that deals with underdark WITHOUT even mentioning Drow.
I had fortunately already done some prep work, such as reading through the first book and making some notes, mostly on recurring NPCs and their distinguishing features. The adventure is pretty well written, but it was written quite some time ago and it's pretty hard to find that sort of information on the fly. My plan for adjusting the adventure for 5e is this: Drastically reduce the amount of magical items, leave everything else alone. I'm planning on just running enemies with their 2e stat blocks and seeing how it works (other than swapping THACO to attack bonus and flipping AC so 0 AC(2e) is 20 AC(5e). There shouldn't be ACs higher than 20 anyway, since I'm removing all the magical armor and whatnot).
One of the things I found I really enjoyed about the Isle of Dread was its sandbox nature. Night Below is a bit more linear, but does include a gazetteer section with quite a few quest threads, so I think I'll just lay 'em all out and see where my players take it. They're bound to stumble upon the plot threads and follow 'em along in their travels.
As for the characters... Two of them are related to the characters in the last adventure. It's been about five years since the events on the Isle of Dread, which ended with the party hounded by a green dragon, which they eventually got fed up with and assaulted his lair, slaying him in a tough fight and laying claim to his treasure. After that, most of the party made their way back to the mainland and settled down.
The Paladin of the group, Belendor, built a keep with his share of the dragon's treasure and trained more paladins. His ranger daughter Lesandra though, was just hitting her adventerous age, and after a few years chafing under being treated like a child, she has set out on her lonesome, and started an adventuring group of her own. Well, she has not quite gone on her lonesome, as Lamyl, from the Isle of Dread adventure is journeying with her.
Lamyl was a barbarian at that time, but has spent several years (and most of her treasure share) finding people to help her remove the Bear Spirit (god) that was infesting her and slowly consuming her. When it was fully removed, she lost much of her strength and skill, and is restarting as a level 1 dexterity based dual-wielding Fighter. Lamyl and Lesandra both enjoy wandering around and nature and became fast friends in the 5 years since the Isle of Dread. Lamyl has another reason for setting out on a journey though, as she has been having nightmares lately of the Bear Spirit whom she was sure was gone for good.
They have been joined by two others, the male Gnome Cleric Tim the Timid, and the female Dragonborn Wizard... Gus. Tim is a neutral cleric who doesn't follow one diety or another strongly, and instead practices polytheism (he has a key-ring with 10 different holy symbols on it). He dreams of being an armor-smith one day, and forging the kind of magic armor that is currently very rare. He decided to start adventuring because he needs both capitol and strong reagents that he can use to craft with.
Gus the (remember, this is a) female Dragonborn Wizard mostly joined an adventuring group because she needs to get out of town, quickly. She has been a petty thug for most of her life, and the law has been catching up to her lately. She has been keeping her eye on adventuring groups, and the heat has just gotten to high for her now, so she decided that now was the time to make a break for it. Apart from her staff and spellbook, all she has to her name is a loincloth and backpack with the bare essentials.
The group, after getting aquainted over ale (as is standard) was approached by a portly perveyor of reagents, and tasked with taking a sealed chest to the remote town of Thurmaster in the land of Haranshire for the sum of 200 gold (for the group, not apiece). We ended the session with the party setting out.
Current prep plans: Print out spell cards for the players so it's easy to look up spells. Print out NPC reference chart (self-made)
I'm quite looking forward to this campaign. Has anyone on here played through Night Below? I'd be interested to hear others' impressions, and things to watch out for. I've heard that the middle section can be a slog-fest, so I still need to do some prep work on that book, when I get to it. Very few people seem to have actually completed the campaign, but I'm pretty excited to try. If any of you have questions about the campaign, let me know. I'd be interested in talking it over, and it'd probably help me prepare better. |
| #3XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:16:58 | Session 2 – Capture them alive!
PCs: Lesandra Human Ranger, Lamyl Human Fighter, Tremolo (Hope I spelled this right, last week I couldn’t remember his name and called him Tim) Gnome Cleric, Ar’Lii Wood-elf Bard, Grimgor Half-orc Barbarian
The player playing Gus was not here this week, as he was on vacation in Germany. We did, however, have 2 additional players: Ar’Lii the Wood-elf Bard and Grimgor the Half-orc Barbarian. It took about a half hour to help create Ar’Lii from scratch, and finish Grimgor who had already been started previously in the day.
Ar’Lii comes from the same clan of wood-elves that two characters from the previous adventure I ran came from. She’s the daughter of a pyromaniac Druid and the grand-daughter of a fairly renowned elven Wizard. There’s certainly some dysfunction in that family. Her grandfather is very disapproving of her mother, who pretty much got wanderlust and left Ar’Lii to be raised by her grandfather. Ar’Lii showed promise with bard-ery and attended a Bard College. She was involved in some illicit activity, falling on the more sketchy side of bard-dom, and has currently run away from home to spend some time adventuring.
Grimgor’s player is new to the group, but he’s a friend to most of the players, and more actively plays RPGs than most of the rest of us. I didn’t get too much of a backstory from him yet, other than Grimgor being a guide through the wilderness, and being somewhat Chaotic. If the other players in the group have a ‘fault’, it’s that they are somewhat overly cautious. This is probably good for their health, but Grimgor seems like he will add a sense of recklessness and adventure, which I hope will increase everyone’s fun.
So we left off with our party of adventurers leaving the city they met in and heading eastward for about a week toward the area of Haranshire. Their end point was Thurmaster where they planned to deliver a chest of reagents to a Wizard, but on the way they planned to catch a barge in Millborne to make their journey a little easier. During the trip Lamyl asked the Cleric, Tremolo, about whether he had ever heard of a God dying before, and if so, how. The question confused and somewhat unnerved Tremolo and Grimgor. Tremolo had never heard of such a thing (he rolled low on his Religion check, or he might have known about a couple of dieties who had ‘died?’ such as Orcus). Lamyl had trouble with a minor God inhabiting her and slowly consuming her essence, and she was not sure whether or not she had fully been rid of it yet.
When our adventurers were only a few hours from Milborne, they met a few weary looking farmers passing them on the road. They hailed the farmers and asked how far from town they were, but before they could get an answer, they were attacked by arrows from the forest they were passing close by! When they turned to fight the archers, the ‘farmers’ closed ranks and attacked the party as well, calling out to ‘Capture that one alive’ (pointing at Tremolo). They fought off the 7 gnome-nappers (apparently) without too much trouble, though Lesandra and Grimgor got close to 0 HP and Tremolo was forced to cast some healing spells. Near the end of the fight, our party was helped out by a few silvery Magic Missiles, which finished off the last gnome-napper.
The Magic Missile-er introduced herself as Jelenneth, and asked if she could come with them the rest of the way into town, which they were happy to agree to. They chatted as they walked and she suggested they stay in town at The Baron of Mutton, the nicer inn/tavern in Milborne, and suggested they stay away from The Silver Crown, and DEFINATELY stay away from the meat-pies there. Once they got to Milborne, Grimgor (followed by Ar'Lii) immediately made for The Silver Crown and ordered their strongest ale along with a meat-pie. Heartened by his lack of food poisoning, he ordered another and promptly became ill. Meanwhile, Tremolo and Lamyl checked out the local temple, where the young priest there treated Lamyl well and Tremolo (the party cleric) with a cold shoulder. Tremolo thought it was because he is a gnome and thus decided to use his racial cantrip, minor illusion, to disguise himself as a human for the rest of the time he was in Milborne.
The party ended up staying the night at The Baron of Mutton, which had pretty nice rooms, and even provided them with baths in the morning (wow!). In the morning, they met Jelenneth in the dining room, with her fiancee. They chatted for a bit longer with her, then split up to make a few final preparations before catching a ride on the ferry to Thurmaster. Grimgor bought some smoked eels (yum?) from the odd-looking and slightly off-putting store owner Rastifer. Ar'Lii talked to the local carpenter/bowyer (a retired ranger) about making a bow for her. Lamyl, Lesandra, and Tremolo bought some bread from the town baker, Jelenneth's mother.
After that, the party met up at the docks and caught a ride on the ferry as paid guards. Tremolo saw a wolf in the underbrush, and cast a minor illusion of a wounded-looking ewe nearby, but strangely the wolf seemed to ignore it. Grimgor's curiosity was getting the better of him and he voted to open the chest the party was transporting, but Tremolo cast Detect Magic on it and it had a couple of spells upon it, so the rest of the party outvoted Grimgor and nobody opened the chest. Other than that, it was a peaceful day's ride to Thurmaster.
In Thurmaster, the party met up with Tauster, to whom they delivered the chest. Everyone was curious as to what was inside, so Tauster grudgingly showed them. A spool of silver thread, a cone of horn, a tiny bell, vials of bat guano… basically, spell components for evocation spells of low level. Tauster signed their contract and told them they could get paid at any Temple, suggesting they head back to Milborne the next day. He also asked them for a favor, if they were heading that way. When they agreed, Tauster asked them to send his apprentice Jelenneth to him. We ended the session with the party finding lodging in a less savory tavern than the one they had stayed at in Milborne.
Notes: We only got to one combat, which was fine. The Adventure said the combat would probably be hard for a group of less than 8, but it was pretty easy. I may need to re-tune future combat to be more challenging. Then again, if there is only one encounter in a day in D&D, it’s generally not challenging unless it almost kills someone.
Socially, the party went through a LOT more interaction than I was expecting, and that was a lot of fun. The adventure calls for Jelenneth to already have been kidnapped (Spoilers for next session!) before the PCs met her, but I felt that they would care much more about her if they met her (and fought alongside her) beforehand.
The spell cards I printed out worked quite well, as prior to that I was the only one at the table with a printout of the spell rules, and it used to take quite a long while anytime anyone wanted to cast a spell more complicated than Cure Wounds. |
| #4XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:18:27 | Session 3: Lured Into Darkness pt. 1
PCs: Lesandra Human Ranger, Lamyl Human Fighter, Tremolo Gnome Cleric, Ar’Lii Wood-elf Bard
I just noticed I marked Lesandra as a Paladin last week. She is a ranger, I just got her confused with her father, who was the Paladin in the last group I ran (and who was played by the same character).
Gus was still in Germany, and Grimgor was sick, so they did not attend the session. I was very busy with work all week including the weekend, so I am just now getting around to writing down what happened two weeks ago. Here’s hoping I remember most of it.
Tauster had requested that the party head back to Millborne to send his apprentice Jelenneth his way, which the party had agreed to since they were to be paid in Millborne anyway. Ar’Lii and a couple of other PCs had also spoken to Jelenneth and started up a tentative friendship, so they wanted to see how she was doing. The ferry they had come to town on was heading back to Millborne the next morning, so they took up guard duty on the way back as well.
It was mostly a relaxing trip. On the way, Tremolo spoke to a small sparrow and asked it to fly ahead to Millborne and let him know if it was on fire or if there were any disturbances. It gratefully accepted a bit of bread as payment and flew off. Lesandra and Ar’Lii caught a few fish on the way, and the party as a whole noted a farm off to the north of the Churnette River. They asked the Halfling ferry captain, who informed them it was a livestock farm belonging to a man named Kuiper (Note: Kuiper is hard to say. In the future, his name shall be pronounced like Cooper). Temolo’s bird friend flew back after this and informed him that people in Millborne were agitated, but there was no fire or disaster that it could see.
When they got to town, the party saw that The Baron of Mutton inn was in disarray. They discovered the cause from the inkeeper’s grandson Andren, Jelenneth’s fiancé. Apparently, Jelenneth had gone missing overnight! The party split up at this point, some to investigate and a couple to get paid at the temple.
The investigators turned up a few clues: None of the townsfolk had seen anything suspicious overnight. None of the party could find suspicious tracks leading out of town. Andren had not left town recently or acted suspiciously lately (Ar’Lii was convinced he was to blame, for some reason. Possibly the way I RP’d Andren?) There was no sign of struggle in Jelenneth’s room. However, the party found a bag under Jelenneth’s bed that they determined to be her spell components. Jelenneth’s parents seemed very concerned, as she would not have left without it.
Finally, the party grouped back up and spoke to the local constable/carpenter, Garyld, who was a retired ranger. He asked for their help in finding Jelenneth. Lamyl remembered that Jelenneth had mentioned she sometimes picked herbs for Tauster at Hog’s Brook, so Garyld suggested they go talk to another Ranger who lived near there, Kuiper. The party agreed and headed to Kuiper’s farm on foot, following the river.
Once they got there, they met Kuiper, a tall, dark (and handsome, apparently) man, chopping wood. Lamyl and Ar’Lii both ended up over-estimating how handsome he was, and both spent some time semi-flirting with him. He was concerned when he heard Jelenneth had gone missing, and asked the party to accompany him to Hog’s Brook to look for her. On the way, he gave them some backstory history on the area, how he, Garyld, an old druid, and a couple of others had banded together about 8 years ago to drive off bandits, but they had never found the base of operations from which the bandits had been working.
After several hours of looking for traces of Jelenneth without finding anything but a scrap of brown cloth (Jelenneth’s signature cape was blue), there was a rustling in the woods followed by a wolf (who was then followed by a girl wearing rags). Kuiper went to speak with her in a language none of the PCs knew, but sounded similar to Sylvan. He then motioned the PCs over, and introduced them to the girl as Oleanne, the former apprentice to the old druid whom he had worked with before. Oleanne was agitated and attempted to explain something about a missing boy… or was it a bear? The party agreed to help Oleanne and Kuiper look for the boy, who Kuiper recognized by description as Maxim, from a local farm. They followed Oleanne back to where she had been tracking the boy, but night was falling and they decided to make camp.
Just before dawn, the party was attacked by a band of 11 Orcs, who fired a volley of arrows and then charged the camp. The fight was short but somewhat brutal, the party taking some moderate injuries and Tremolo using two out of three spells for the day. I feel like Ar’Lii was disappointed during the fight, as she missed every attack and had taken utility spells and no attack spells. During the fight, Tremolo had cast burning hands at the orcs and had noticed that the leader seemed to have a shield that deflected his attack. He was excited to get a magic item and planned to re-forge it to a buckler that he could use later if possible.
After the fight, Oleanne was very agitated and decide to track the Orcs back toward the heart of the forest. Kuiper though, requested that the party go with him and find Maxim. After a break to bind wounds and be healed by Oleanne, the party followed Kuiper and Lesandra, who were both able to track something large and clumsy.
After a half day of tracking, they came across the source of the tracks: a Werebear (how shocking, right?)! The party managed to subdue the werebear, with only one notable happening. Lamyl (who had previously been (and possibly still was?) inhabited by a minor Bear God) got close to the werebear to try and calm it down. She failed her ‘calm the enraged bear’ check, and it ended up biting her. She then proceeded to fail a saving throw. Insert evil DM laughter here. Tremolo cast Detect Poison/Disease and saw that both the werebear (Maxim, naturally) and Lamyl both had some sort of disease, though Lamyl’s was… slightly different.
After the fight, Kuiper managed to calm down Maxim and the group began heading back to Kuiper’s farm. Along the way, Maxim managed to return to his human form. He revealed he had turned into a bear and been very confused and scared, and had run away into the woods. He had been attacked by a group of Orcs, and managed to kill 5 and drive another 5 away. We ended our session when the group made it back to Kuiper’s farm.
Notes: Regarding Lamyl… heh… Heh-heh… Mwa-ha-ha-haaaa!
I’ve been having a lot of fun with social interactions. I used to be pretty bad at those, and I feel like I am getting better this year. I find having a couple of notes on people’s general personalities and mannerisms helps me be much more evocative and memorable (I hope).
I have been running the stats of NPCs and monsters pretty much exactly the way they appear in this adventure (after converting THACO to Hit Bonus and AC to… AC (it’s different, I swear!)). I looked up Orcs later in the playtest bestiary, and they have a cool ability called Relentless which lets them roll a con saving throw to keep fighting for a turn after they would be killed/knocked out. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t use the playtest version, since I think it would have added some flavor to the fight. |
| #5XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:18:59 | Session 4: Lured Into Darkness Pt. 2 – ‘Burn down the Tavern!’ interlude
PCs: Lesandra Human Ranger, Lamyl Human Fighter, Tremolo Gnome Cleric, Ar’Lii Wood-elf Bard, Grimgor Half-orc Barbarian , Gus Dragonborn Wizard
I did not take good notes on this session. The most interesting thing to happen was that Gus got food poisoning from repeatedly eating suspect meat-pies from a local tavern, threw up, was kicked out, swore enmity toward the owner, was banned for life, and attempted to burn down said tavern, unsuccessfully. |
| #6XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:19:57 | Session 5: Lured Into Darkness Pt. 3 – Mystery of the New Mire
PCs: Lesandra Human Ranger, Lamyl Human Fighter, Tremolo Gnome Cleric, Ar’Lii Wood-elf Bard, Grimgor Half-orc Barbarian , Gus Dragonborn Wizard
The party set off to investigate the New Mire, starting by checking out some of the farmsteads that were close to the spread of the mire. They spent most of one day investigating the area using their knowledge of nature and the arcane to try to determine what could be the cause, but apart from coming to the conclusion that the spread was unnatural, and perhaps caused by some form of conjuration, there were not many clues outside of the marshy area.
The next day, they set out for the middle of the marsh to see if there were further clues to be had. They investigated a deserted farm, and found some week-old tracks that seemed to converge around an abandoned animal pen. The tracks were humanoid but small, just a bit bigger than the Gnome’s feet, but the party were unable to determine what exactly caused them. Unable to determine much useful information, they continued to the other side of the marsh and spent the next couple of days walking around the perimeter to look for further clues. Finally they decided to go back to one of the so-far unaffected farmsteads and ask some questions.
While inquiring at a farm, they overheard a child talking about ‘Giant, fire-breathing blue demons, with pointed ears like yours,’ pointing at Ar’Lii the elf, ‘flat faces, and mouths full of hundreds of sharp teeth!’. The party determined that the lad was probably exaggerating, but decided to investigate the headwaters of the brook that wound through the New Mire, as that is where the lad had seen… something.
After a couple of hours searching the next day, the party found more tracks matching those they had seen at the abandoned farmstead, leading to a cave. The ground became very muddy in the area, giving them a good clue that this could be where the waterlogging was originating. They girded themselves for battle and charged into the cave, Grimgor the barbarian and Gus the wizard leading the way (He is a very squishy mage, but does not yet realize this fact).
They were met by several very scrawny looking goblins, painted with blue lichen. The goblins were acting defensively instead of aggressively, so the wizard argued with the rest of the group to try talking with the goblins first. Fortunately, he happened to speak Goblin (This is pretty much the first time that I have ever seen a language that a character knows actually matter). Eventually, a giant of a goblin (four whole feet tall!) appeared from a passageway and agreed to parley with the party, leading them further into the cave past hungry looking goblins, including women and children goblins. The party ended up in the goblin chief’s ‘office’, where he and a goblin who seemed to be a shaman of some sort parleyed with the party.
The goblins wanted to be left alone, and not much more. The party explained that they were investigating the waterlogging in the area, at which the shaman looked nervous. Being adventurers, the party immediately zeroed in on the shaman, and noticed that all the other goblins had a tattoo on their foreheads that matched the ring the shaman was wearing. Tremolo the cleric attempted to surreptitiously cast detect magic to see if the ring was magic. The shaman noticed what he was doing, but didn’t say anything, and Tremolo was able to detect traces of both conjuration and charm magic on the ring. Immediately, the party suspected that the shaman was using some kind of mind control on the rest of the goblins, and wanted to attack the shaman.
Once again, Gus the wizard stopped everyone from immediately attacking and asked the shaman about the ring. He claimed the ring had been given to him personally by the goblin god, Maglubiyet, after which the other goblins groveled and made worshipful noises. When the party did not look to be buying in to his story, the shaman asked to meet with them alone. He then explained that he had found the ring two years ago (about when the mire problem started, the party was quick to realize) and didn’t know what it actually did. He just used it to increase his prestige with the rest of the goblin clan. Eventually, the party convinced him to give it to them if they would get a copy made. He also wanted another magical item in return, but the wizard managed to convince him to accept a crate of chickens instead. Hey, the clan of goblins was VERY hungry at this point.
In any case, the party took the goblin shaman with them (disguised by an illusion cantrip courtesy of Tremolo) to see the wizard Tauster, who cast Identify to find out what the ring actually did. It turns out it was a ring of water elemental command that was mildly broken, and ‘leaking’ water from the Elemental Plane of Water. He informed them that if they put it in a lake or ocean or body of water, the ‘leaking’ wouldn’t cause problems like it was with the New Mire. The party took this information back to magistrate Carmen, to help with getting a replacement ring made, and also spoke with the retired ranger Geryld to see if they could just drop the ring in the middle of the Eelhold Dam to the north without it causing any problems. He sent a message via bird to a ranger friend of his, Shiraz, whom he said would meet the party at the Eelhold since she knew the Dam better than he did.
While the party was waiting for the ring to be crafted and sent to Milbourne from a larger town, Gus and Grimgor bought some disguise kits they had ordered the previous week from the town’s shop, and disguised themselves and the goblin shaman so they could sneak back in to the Silver Crown tavern and let the goblin try out the meat pies. Easily fooling Gergel, the bouncer, they devoured some meat-pies (Gus once again failing a constitution check and running out of the bar to get the pie out of his system), and Gus had an Idea. He ordered 100 meat-pies for delivery to a cave (he left out the fact that this cave was full of goblins), and an additional 50 per week for a month. The barkeeper was happy to take Gus’s money, muttering something about needing more rats under his breath. The goblin shaman Gus and Grimgor were with practically cried tears of thankful joy.
During this time, the moon was nearing fullness, so Lamyl spoke to Geryld (also a constable) and had herself locked in the town stockade overnight, since she was fearful that she would be turning into a Werebear. Strangely, all she felt during those nights was a sense of peace and calm. Bondo cast spells to detect magic and disease on her, but they both turned out negative, unlike previous spells that had pegged her as both magical and diseased. For some reason, the players thought that I had just been playing with their heads previously. (Insert evil DM laughter)
Once the replacement ring came in, Gus travelled back to the goblin cave with the goblin shaman and the rest of the party travelled north to the Eelhold Dam with the real ring. When they got there, the Eelhold was cloudy and agitated, and they witnessed a waterspout out in the middle of the lake. They were met by a woman with sun-bleached hair and a deep tan, the ranger Shiraz. When they told her about wanting to put the ring in the Eelhold Dam so it would not cause waterlogging issues, Shiraz’s eyes lit up when she found out the ring could control water elementals. Apparently, 17 years ago, the Dam had flooded, so a local nixie had worked to tame a water elemental to prevent that from happening again. Lately, however, the nixie’s control over the elemental had been slipping. The party, wanting to kill two birds with one stone, offered the ring to Shiraz. She was very grateful to accept the gift, but refused to take a magical item as charity, so offered the party one of her own magical items, either a ring or a shortsword. We wrapped up the session so that I could figure out what kind of magic was on each item.
Notes: If the three pillars of D&D are Exploration, Interaction, and Combat, the last couple of sessions have been great for Interaction and Exploration. I find it refreshing, actually, that there has not been a single combat in the last couple of weeks. Certainly, the party ALMOST fought the goblins, and that could have turned into a complete slaughter (for the goblins, probably), but I think everyone had fun. The player playing Gus has the least amount of RPG experience, which I feel sometimes helps in not seeing every interaction as a combat. This point of view should serve the group well later on in the adventure, when they will need all the NPC help they can get. It is also helpful for me as a DM as I still need practice RPing NPCs.
I don’t put the MOST trust in D&D alignments, but they can sometimes help players get into character. I was pretty sure that Gus was Chaotic Evil (as he had written on his character sheet), but I think the session today moved him more toward Chaotic Neutral. He was the one in the group who least wanted to fight with the starving clan of goblins, and also the one who gave them food and bought them recurring meat-pie deliveries, for no personal gain.
I dropped two plot hooks on the PC’s laps. One: there were animals found torn apart in the nearby woods. The lumberjack who let that info drop didn’t have a lot of details – he wasn’t really knowledgeable in forestry. This did coincide with the nights Lamyl had herself locked in the town stockade, but without investigating the place in person there weren’t many details to be found. Two: a group of pilgrims had headed up to Parlfrey Keep several weeks ago. They planned to return through Milbourne on their way back home, but have not been heard of since. |
| #7XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:22:39 | Additional sessions until end of book 1
I’m not going to write everything that happened down, because I got lazy and did not take good notes after each session. Sorry. Here’s the highlights reel instead.
The player of Gus, along with player of Grimgor, hated the Silver Crown enough to successfully burn it down. Gus was killed in the ensuing inferno and Grimgor was charged with aiding and abetting him and sentenced to community service until the damages were paid off. Gus’s player made a dragonborn fighter (Chewie), and Grimgor’s made a dwarven fighter (Harbik).
The group made their way to Parlfrey’s Keep and searched for the pilgrims, finding the remains of the bodyguards, but the clerics had been kidnapped. They proceeded to follow hellhound tracks into a forest, and subsequently found that there was a cursed glad inside which they cleansed after fighting off a banshee.
Eventually, they got enough clues to look into Broken Spire Keep in the monster-infested-ish woods. They halfway snuck in, killing lots of bandits, but then slept inside without taking enough precautions, and had a hard time with the priest leading the bandits, and his Orcish companions. They searched and found a secret passageway in the priest’s room leading to a cave network (The adventure suggested not letting them find it, but it also did not have enough suggestions on how they were supposed to learn about the other bandits. Also, I felt it would be cheap if they searched the area but did not find the entrance by GM Fiat).
They stayed in the keep long enough for the moon to become full and were forced to flee into the cave network by Lamyl’s Bear Spirit, which had apparently materialized during the full moon. They fought it off, it being absorbed back into Lamyl when defeated, and explored the caves. They found a huge iron door requiring two keys (one of which they had received from the bandits), and some exits back into haranshire. They took a break from the caves to tell the townsfolk what had been happening and returned to Milbourne.
During their time in Milbourne, Chewie and Harbik purchased the burned down Silver Crown and rebuilt it as a brewery/casino/bar. They bought some odd barley from Rastifer and rolled a critical on brewing, so the grog they brewed became the best tasting grog ever. Also, enchanted. Whoever drank it had random things happen to them. For some reason, the group felt it would be a good idea to give out free samples of this grog on the opening night of the tavern. It ended with the tavern burned down (again) and about half the town cursed and pissed off at them. They enlisted the aid of the party Cleric and an itinerant Cleric that wandered about the area to decurse/dispel the angry townsfolk during the next month, and started rebuilding the tavern for the third time.
Unfortunately, one patron was missing. She had had the unfortunate luck to roll 1000 on a d1000 and had been ‘divided by zero’. She was now just a sprit that only Lamyl could see, and only on the nights around a full moon (Lamyl can see spirits by moonlight, because of bear spirit infection). When the full moon actually hit, the bear spirit attacked them again, and upon being defeated was absorbed into the missing patron, as the spirit was attempting to eat her at the time, so she was the closest to it when defeated.
The party, satisfied with their rest from adventuring, kept exploring the cave network and found the back entrance to a mine. They defeated some more priests and a warrior that were the head of another bandit gang and found the second key to the large iron door. Behind this door was a cavern FULL of Orcs. They defeated many, but took lots of damage and were forced to retreat when an orcish warleader started chasing them with his soldiers. The party used some inventive thinking at this point, one character pulling off a 20’ pit patch from a cloak of useful items, and another using an illusion to trick many orcs chasing them into falling down said pit.
They camped outside the caves and returned the next day, finishing the remaining Orcs (and a tough Mind Flayer). They freed two orcish prisoners, one shepherd boy too scared to speak, and a Dwarf named Snagger who was a second cousin to Harbik. The group invited Snagger into their group, and he told them he was a prisoner with Jelenneth before she had been taken further down below. They started to continue further down the caves, but were surrounded by deep gnomes, who wanted to talk to them about their plans. That is where we left our adventuring group. |
| #8XantariFeb 05, 2015 16:22:06 | ENDING THOUGHTS ON ACT ONE:
I had a blast GMing, and asked the players what they thought. Mostly, they were very happy as well, though I did get the complaint of the plot sometimes being too slow, and not enough interaction. There were a couple of times that not every player was included enough. The players of (originally) Gus and Grimgor were somewhat troublemakers at times (in a good way!), and had a couple of sub-plots organically grow from them. They felt that these parts were the most fun, but I worry that I did not include the rest of the party enough during these sections. The whole party also had a blast when I threw a legendary Bear Spirit at them from one of the character’s (Lamyl) backstory. I created it using Surfarcher’s magnificent blog on monster difficulty, and highly recommend that blog if you are interested in statistical analysis of D&D 5e.
I am still having a somewhat difficult time tracking NPCs and RPing them appropriately. There are lots of NPCs and I sometimes forget their names or mannerisms.
Monsters have been somewhat tough to use appropriately. Part of the issue is that I started the campaign before the Monster Manual came out. Once I got that, monsters became much more manageable, but I am still having issues including an appropriate amount of encounters and difficulty. I do not want to have multiple random encounters every day for no reason, but there are often times when the characters will have too many resources, and thus aren’t really threatened enough to cause any tension. There have not been very many ‘dungeons’ so far, instead there have been many one-off encounters, which makes balancing quite difficult.
Magic use seems to slow down encounters the most. I plan on ordering the Spellbook Cards from Gale Force 9 to hopefully streamline this issue.
Before the next act, I am planning on going through the entire book and converting the AD&D 2e enemies to monsters from the 5e Monster Manual. This is going to be a pretty hefty time investment up front, but I hope that it will save time during gameplay. |
| #9ZardnaarFeb 05, 2015 16:38:59 | Part one is a very sweet/easy 5E conversion. I ran it more or less straight form the book. 5E even had the Death Dog in MM. |