Tag Dialogues

D&D Dialogues 7: Fuddled and Muddled

Kasey-Rayn 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I told an actual D&D story, for a number of reasons. In fact, my group of friends has since started two new campaigns since my last story: with the old one petering out and a new DM taking over a new story, as well as the addition of the campaign I’m DMing in a new world called Aleor. I plan on writing the full Aleor story in broader strokes on this blog at some point rather than the detailed dialogues of these stories, but that’ll have to wait for another day.

So, onto the story.

This new campaign is a little crazy—fun overlaps realism a bit when the two are at odds. Not my favorite style of play, but it isn’t bad, either. We have a party of 6 level 10 heroes, and in this specific scene we have three NPC’s following us (however, none of them are important in this instance, so they’ll be left in shadows today).

We’ve recently acquired the deed to a keep by magical means, and while we’ve had the deed for a while, we haven’t been in this area until now. So we’re investigating only to find that the keep is abandoned, yet occupied. The people there are something of a cult, and they explain that they have friends that went down into the dungeons to fetch something and haven’t come back. Obvious red flags there, but they seem like chumps compared to us so whoever went down probably isn’t much stronger. Plus, if we’re going to claim this keep and restore it, we should make sure there’s no murder monsters in our house.

We go down inside and find a cave bored into the cellar, and following down the path we see umber hulk corpses. My character, (an orc mystic named Ki) is the only one that knows anything about them, and he just knows that looking at them makes you feel weird, so we don’t really worry about it. We kill some bugs and end up at this pool of water with an aboleth inside. The aboleth mind controls one of our party members, unbeknownst the the rest of us, and tries to control another before teleporting away. As we are searching for him, four umber hulks jump out on us, and this is where things start to get dicey.

My character is the only one that is effective at a range, and being near an umber hulk can confuse or paralyze you unless you avert your gaze. These corridors are pretty small, and one of us is mind controlled. As soon as combat happens, the traitor runs away, saying there’s more on the other side of the tunnel. One of us follows her to help while the rest of us fight the four.

Problem: one of our monks is wearing the Cloak of Eyes, meaning he cannot avert his gaze. He spends basically every round paralyzed as the umber hulks close in. I try to mind control one of the umber hulks but fail, and the tunnel is cramped so it’s difficult to get any good angles.

The monk that ran after the traitor almost dies instantly when the traitor turns against her (the traitor is a barbarian). I spend two turns building our psychic defenses back up after losing that turn, and so far, we have only landed one hit against these things. It looks really bad. The “words” (acronym?) TPK starts coming up in conversation.

This combat is one of those examples where things really could have gone either way. We really might have died. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it), we had to speed things up due to time constraints, so I feel as though the DM loosened his grip on us to be able to finish the scene. One of our NPC’s cast Hold Monster, and he ruled that its weird eyes didn’t work when it was held, one of our party members shot the ceiling and caused a small cave in that instantly killed another umber hulk, and I made another one flee (for one round, though in the narrative, it made a tunnel and was literally never brought up again for some reason).

Now, if the DM had just decided that we live or die by the dice rolls, I still think we would have came out on top… eventually. It would have taken another three rounds at least—three rounds we didn’t have, so his method for speeding up the combat was totally fine. But I do wonder if we were all destined to die in that cave, because… maybe we should have.

 

D&D Dialogues 6.5: Taldarrin of the Twiceborn, Pt. 2

Kasey-Rayn 2 Comments

In my last post talking about my D&D character Taldarrin’s experience, we talked about his personality: how he goes out of his way to help people, but is on a constant quest to find his runaway/kidnapped daughter, and along the lines we’ve seen some red flags. And as before, I’ll explain the story chronologically as the rest of the party came to understand it.

We left off in the Tine Woods, where a small circle of druids is resisting the logging operation of the local wizard city Arx. Upon seeking a means to peacefully discuss a compromise, the party meets with Jog, the local archdruid, and happen across Rinn, the daughter Taldarrin hasn’t seen in nearly a decade.

He sees her lean figure and confident posture—the form of a woman accustomed to combat and hardship—but most striking to him is her new golden eyes. Taldarrin scowls and approaches.

“I see you have new eyes,” he says, scorn coloring his tone.

“I have,” she replies with the same hostility.

“You know I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Have you now?”

“I couldn’t stay home when the Nightcrawlers took you. It didn’t feel right anymore.”

She shrugs. “Well, you found me.”

“Yes, and now we can go home together.”

Rinn’s laugh contains no mirth, and she shakes her head. “No, dad. I’m staying here. These people need me. Need us.”

Taldarrin nods. “We’ll see.”

(I’ll step out of the story here to make a comment. In this moment at the table, Taldarrin came to accept the fact that she would “need encouragement” to come home with him. I learned a lot about who he really is, and Kollin suddenly grew very interested in where this would lead.)

Taldarrin returns to the party and explains that Rinn is his daughter. When they ask what happened, he tells them about his history with her. When she was a little girl, Taldarrin’s wife was killed, and it shook the two of them a great deal. Taldarrin’s means of mourning was through a special ritual that attuned him to nature. By accepting the ‘soul of nature’, he became Twiceborn, allowing him to transform into animals. Rinn took exception to this, and they grew apart very quickly.

Eventually, a nomadic group of druids came: the Nightcrawlers. The Nightcrawlers are all lycanthropes, and they travel from druid circle to druid circle, taking the ‘lessers’ of the circle when they leave. Taldarrin saw their lycanthropy as a curse—an abomination and perversion of nature. To him, becoming Twiceborn was a blessing of the highest regard, and a heavy burden, too. Not only is lycanthropy an imperfect transformation, but it is often uncontrollable, and taints one’s own blood. Seeing Rinn’s new eyes came as no surprise to him, but it meant that he’d have to find a cure as well, once the two of them returned home.

But for now, he’d have to start there.

He went into the woods alone and cast Animal Messenger, giving a squirrel a secret message and describing its intended recipient. The squirrel dashes off and Taldarrin returns to the village.

While the rest of the party met spoke with Rinn (whose new name was Lys), Taldarrin strolled the village, meeting the denizens and getting to know them. There were about fifty people living here, ten of them being full, shape-shifting druids, and another ten of them were the Nightcrawlers that had taken temporary residence as they saw the Tine Circle through the ordeal of deforestation. (Taldarrin wasn’t present for this, but the rest of the party meet Lys, and it turns out she’s pretty cool. Some of the party are even vaguely interested in lycanthropy, despite Taldarrin’s obvious disdain for it.)

As the sun goes down, he once again excuses himself, this time departing for Arx.

Outside the gates, he finds Alan, the mage that spoke with the party when they had first come here to explain that druids were not allowed. Message received:

Alan,

I wish to discuss the issue of the Tine Druids. I have a solution. Meet me outside Arx at sundown.

                                                                                 Taldarrin of the Twiceborn.

“Uh, hey, what’s up?” Alan asks, cautious.

“I know how to solve the problem of the druids destroying your automatons,” Taldarrin explains.

“Oh, uh, okay. How?”

“There numbers are few. All you would need to do is show a display of force. They can’t face a full army. Scare them and they will have no choice but to flee.”

“Uh… alright.”

“But I want you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“You will not harm them. There does not need to be any bloodshed.”

“Okay. Uh, how many of them are there?”

Taldarrin sighs. This is the moment of truth. There is no turning back from this point, but he is resolved. Having no choice but to flee and the battle lost, he hopes his little girl will come home with him. “About fifty,” he admits.

Alan nods.

“No bloodshed,” Taldarrin repeats as the mage walks away, mumbling something about promotions.

Returning to the druids, he turns in for the night with everyone else. Carefully choosing his spells for the next day, he wonders how much time he has left, and he prays to The Great Oak that everything will turn out okay.

 

D&D Dialogues 6: Taldarrin of the Twiceborn, Pt. 1

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This is the story of Taldarrin of the Twiceborn, an elf druid from a small druid circle, and my current character in our weekly campaign. (For the record, this campaign has met weekly pretty consistently for three months, so I think it’s almost our longest stretch of a single storyline in a long time!) This story is the beginning of the most intense roleplay I’ve ever had in a session of D&D (which I will be honest, is not covered in this post), and I think it’s made Taldarrin the best player-character I’ve ever had. I’ll tell the story based on the information the rest of the party had and when they acquired it.

Taldarrin is a simple man. For a good while in the party’s adventures, he’s been kindhearted and protective. He genuinely tries to seek the most reasonable solution in things, and in general I would say he does a good job. He knows death is a natural part of life, and has no qualms with killing if the person or thing is harming or threatening the livelihood of others. When he got involved with multiple coups/rebellions, he did so with discretion and realism, approaching the problem that would get the least amount of people hurt.

Throughout the party’s journeys, he’s also been very upfront with his goals. He is searching for his daughter, who was kidnapped by a group of malicious druids called the Nightcrawlers. She left their druid circle about eight years ago, and he departed soon after in search of her. He’s traveled halfway across the world in search of her, but there has been no sign. On the way, the party finds a teenager dabbling in necromancy, and Taldarrin makes a point of him returning home and trying to convince him that a quiet life with his parents is a noble pursuit. It doesn’t work too well, but it’s here that the party begins to see his true colors. He doesn’t really care what the kid wants for his life, he wants his parents to know he is safe, and for them to raise him better so that he doesn’t want to leave.

Weeks go by, and the party defeats a supposed god-king and battles with one of the party member’s evil mentors. They uncover an ancient petrified forest that used to be a druid circle. Taldarrin is fascinated, but they don’t tarry long, for they have places to be. This is where we get to the most recent two sessions of the campaign.

The next stop is a metal city called Arx, famous for its wizard’s college. Elaine, the party’s cleric who studied there, has clues that further her own goals, and wants to find out if the answers she seeks can be found there.

Upon arriving at the gates, however, the giant metal automatons halt Taldarrin, Cael, and Mike. The party finds out that the city does not allow druids inside its walls. And also apparently Mike is evil, unbeknownst to all of us (including Mike). Accepting this, the party decides to seek out the nearby druids who are giving the city trouble. Taldarrin thinks that he might be able to get the two groups to meet and discuss things peacefully.

They find the druids, who let them in because the party has druids among their ranks. Arx has been deforesting the region for some time, and the druids have been destroying the offending automatons, raising tensions between the two factions. At this point, Taldarrin’s plan is to set up a meeting with the ruler of the city as well as Jog, the local archdruid, and get them to find a compromise while he himself communes with nature to try to speed up the regrowth of the forest.

All of this is sort of thrown out the window when he sees Rinn, his daughter, living among the druids here. She has her hair cut short, she’s very toned, and her eyes show the golden luster of a lycanthrope.

 

I’ll be honest. The following conversation and ensuing roleplay was a day I had both been looking forward to and dreading since I made this character. My friend’s campaign leans more towards combat and action rather than conversation and roleplay, and our campaigns often run into long unrelated tangents or silly shenanigans (though the actual canon of our stories tends to be pretty level for typical fantasy stories), so asking him to roleplay a serious conversation between an estranged father and daughter was treading into uncharted territory.

What happened next will shock you!

Clickbait aside, turns out I had nothing to fear. He did a great job and played the character and conversation exactly as I imagined it to go. Tune in next time for what will basically end up being a specific retelling of what happened in our most recent session.

(Fun fact, this art is literally the miniature I use for Taldarrin! I just found this picture online and it matches the mini’s features exactly, though I have no idea what the origins are for either.)

D&D — Dialogues 5: The Death Dungeon

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Yesterday (as of writing this) my brothers and a couple friends were caught without board games to play. They were all at somebody else’s house and nobody wanted to go back to get them. Usually, we just play Telephone Pictionary instead (you draw a thing, pass it to the next person, they write what they drawing is, they pass it, they draw the description, etc.), but we weren’t really feeling it.

So we improvised a D&D session. We only had flash cards, two sets of dice, and the internet at our disposal. Most of us randomized pretty much everything. Random race and class, and randomized stats. In fact, for stats we just rolled 1d20 each. One of my brothers got two 20’s (at level one). He only ended up with 3 HP, though, so as a wild magic sorcerer his character was bound to be interesting.

When I rolled my d20s, my highest roll, and the only one above 10, was a single 12. Two of my rolls were 1s.

So naturally I made a goliath rogue with 1 Intelligence and 1 Wisdom. His name was Gerg, because that was the only sound he was capable of consciously making. Most of his modifiers were -2 or worse (even his Dexterity). The only thing he was kinda sorta good at was Strength and stealth specifically, because his Rogue expertise brought his Stealth roll to +2.

The session was fun, and I won’t get into the more mundane details. We had four rooms to explore and we only got to two of them. Each door had different monsters to fight. When another friend stepped in mid-game as a half-orc sorceress, we were really surprised when she just attacked us.

Now, Gerg was an interesting character to roleplay. You can’t really use logic to explain his actions because, well, he’s real dumb. A baby step away from catatonic, in fact. So he tries to attack the other half-orc in the party, and chaos ensues. The only normal person in the party died due to collateral damage, both of the half-orcs got away, and Gerg stalked after them with pokey intent. (Very loudly, I might add. That particular stealth roll was a 1.)

The person whose character had died re-rolled a new random character and followed into this new fray where we fought the Spanish Inquisition (literally). Gerg poked the nearest targets before losing the remaining 4 HP from the previous fight, so two out of the five players were down, one not in the room, and all of our loyalties to one another questionable at best.

So this True Neutral gnome druid walks into the room and sees this chaos happening. She can’t tell who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy, so she walks up to Gerg and casts Healing Word, which brings him to full health.

It was a mistake. Gerg wasn’t smart enough to know that this small thing was the thing that saved him. So… he poked.

And rolled a 20.

A sneak attack and 22 damage later, Devon’s poor second character met and instant, tragic, and hopefully painless demise. As Kollin I feel really bad still. It’s hard not to when you’re technically making the conscious decision to murder somebody you know helped you, even if the situation justified it.

But man, it was hilarious, too.

So, about three hours and a bloody mess of level 1 corpses later and we called it a night. I had a blast, because having a bunch of confused characters in a room doing crazy stuff is just silly on a level scarce achieved elsewhere.

We’ve discussed the possibility of making a random generator just for the purposes of a Death Dungeon. Spitting out random characters, random rooms, etc. I hope we do, because that was a ton of fun.

D&D — Dialogues 4: Do You MIND?

Kasey-Rayn 2 Comments

Sometimes, things just don’t go as well as you expect they might. Or sometimes they go just as poorly as you feared. It all depends on the dice with D&D. This one isn’t a funny story, but instead was a great moment of just how frightening some moments can be if done right.

 

This is the same campaign of Dialogues 2 and 3, only my character, a human priest named Kallos, has since died. In the session immediately after Dialogue 3, in fact. After getting knocked unconscious, he was thrown across the room (1 failed Death save) and then he rolled a 1 on his turn immediately after, so… dead. It happened really quick, and the party was only level 3, so there’s really no coming back from that.\

My new character is a halfling barbarian named Xiuhcoatl (pronounced Shee-uh-ko). She’s something of a monotone character, deadpanning everything, but she’s also a sadist, so it’s an interesting combo. This Dialogue, however, isn’t really her story.

The party has ventured deep into a tunnel, chasing an evil duergar who attacked our town. We have to find him to stop him from telling his people of the surface’s defenses. As we delve further into this cave (we’ve been in here for hours), we find a man sitting in the middle of a pile of bodies, all cut in half. He stands in darkness, mumbling to himself, and in walks my brother, who then joined the party. (This was a welcome surprise to the half of us who hadn’t been told he was coming.) His character seems a little… unstable. We warily accept him into our fold as we continue on.

Now, the party didn’t rest before following the dwarf down here. We fought him, he ran off, and we gave chase. My level 4 barbarian is at 18/53 health, our other warlock is tapped out for spells, and we’re all but spent as it is.

So our DM was surprised that, when we find a crumbling door and some tents nearby, we don’t rest and plan. In fact, we don’t even take the sneaky approach.

I accidentally alert the dwarves to our presence, and the party takes cover. Theren, our spent warlock, casts Grease at the choke point in the doorway. Jod, the crazy warlock, and I hide behind the doors and whack them as they walk through. There’s three duergar. Then, three more show up. Things are going well. The duergar are rolling pretty low and, miraculously, we haven’t taken any damage yet (in this fight, that is).

But as I said, we’re already tapped out. By the time we take out three of the dwarves, a mind flayer steps out of the third and last tent. As soon as all the players see this, we decide it’s best to retreat. We can’t take on three more duergar and a mind flayer. And while Kollin the player knows how dangerous they are, Xiuhcoatl has never seen one, and she likes to grapple people. If an illithid is grappling you it can eat your brain, which will kill you outright. So she might unwittingly get herself killed just because she doesn’t know what she’s up against.

On Theren’s turn, he takes out Remnant’s Necklace (as mentioned in Dialogues 2). We’ve since learned that this necklace will “greatly empower a single spell cast through it”. We haven’t been told what that means, exactly, so Theren casts Eldritch Blast through the necklace at the mind flayer. He does this to push him back and to discourage him from following the party as we make our escape.

The DM asks him to roll 5d10, as opposed to the normal Eldritch Blast damage of 1d10.

A giant beam blasts through the fray, slamming into the mind flayer and throwing him back into the tent. The party sort of mutually misinterprets this as a signal to go in, so we do.

Jod walks up to the mind flayer and casts Arms of Hadar, thrashing tentacle-like wads of paper (part of his backstory) wildly at him and the three remaining duergar.

On the illithid’s turn, he casts a wave of psychic energy outward, and the DM asks all of us to make an intellgence saving throw. If I recall correctly, our rolls were 3, 4, 4, 5, and 6. Our best score against this save was 10, and we needed to beat a 15. Think about that. Out of 5 people, all of us failed what could be considered a fairly average spell save DC. This also dealt about 12 damage, if I recall correctly.

So all 5 of us, in addition to the duergar, are stunned for 1 minute, or until we make the saving throw on our respective turns. Our monk has fallen unconscious. I’m at about 4 health. Theren’s almost down, too. All of us are stunned, and since Kallos died, the party no longer has a healer.

At this point, I would have said the chances of a TPK right here and now would be over 70%.

Jod and Xiuhcoatl make their save on their next turn. Theren and our artificer are still stunned, and our monk is unconscious.

On the mind flayer’s next turn, he walks up to Jod and grapples him with his tentacles. Really bad news.

On Jod’s turn, he casts Cloud of Daggers at 3rd level. This spell deals 4d4 (6d4 at 3rd level) damage when a creature enters the cloud or starts its turn in the cloud. So he deals 6d4 now.

Xiuhcoatl is too far away to get to the illithid without using a dash action. Instead, she rushes over to the monk and gives him a healing potion.

On the monk’s next turn, he jumps up and runs over to the mind flayer and starts clobbering him. He’s looking rough.

Everyone else is stunned. Theren would have cast Eldritch Blast to knock the mind flayer away. Our artificer could have dealt tons of damage, but they can’t.

I’m panicking because this is only the second time my brother has played D&D. I don’t want his character to die after him barely playing, but I’ve done all I can.

The mind flayer’s turn begins, and before anything else happens, Cloud of Daggers deals its damage.

The numbers on these d4 were 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4. He dealt 21 out of 24 possible damage, and because he rolled so well, the mind flayer dies, and Jod lives to see another day.

We were pulled to the brink, and as far as Jod’s life was concerned, that fight could not have been any closer.

 

Needless to say, we rested after that fight.

D&D — Dialogues 3: The Law of Averages, Pt. 2

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Two (in-game) days later. Our party had been rescued by a stranger (the paladin’s new PC), and taken to the secret base of the resistance. The leader, a ripped dwarf lady named Boulderback, says that she could use our help toppling the ruthless leadership of the dwarves currently in command. We owe the resistance our lives, for rescuing us in the first place, but its also personal. We lost a friend in that fight. They would have their help.

The party is instructed to go attack a guard tower at the same time as the rest of the resistance. A coordinated attack meant to be swift and decisive. Our rescuer, a female artificer, joins us for the battle.

Now, it’s worth noting at this point that out of character, I’m telling the monk in our party that Kallos is going to destroy these guys this time around. I (jokingly) argue that since Inflict Wounds rolled so low the first time it hit, the second time I hit with it it would have to deal at least 30 damage. It’s called the Law of Averages. Our monk remains skeptical. Plus, I tell him, it’s my birthday, so the universe has to cut me some slack. Kallos (and I) want revenge for being humiliated in that last fight. And this time, Kallos has a plan.

The party is in an open, garden-like area with statues placed throughout. These provide half-cover, and if we’re careful we can use them to sneak up on the guards.

Kallos casts Invoke Duplicity, making a perfect copy of himself behind a nearby statue. Then he sneaks towards it and fumbles a stealth roll (-1 Dex is a real killer).

As soon as the guards come out to investigate, however, our artificer engages. She deals an incredible amount of damage in the first round, nearly killing a guard right off the bat. The rest of the party moves in to engage while Kallos sneaks around the statues, still not quite involved in the combat.

While the guards are distracted with our warlock and artificer, Kallos sneaks up to the nearest one and casts Inflict Wounds. This time, with Invoke Duplicity right next to me, I have advantage on my attack roll, meaning I roll twice and take the higher number.

I didn’t need the advantage, though. I rolled a 20 on the first roll. I believe this is also Kallos’ first crit.

Now, in this particular session, the way our DM rules crits is “Double dice roll, then max damage”. So, if your attack would deal 1d6 damage, it would turn into 2d6, and immediately take the max without needing to roll, meaning it would automatically deal 12 damage. Inflict Wounds, of course, deals 3d10, so when it crits by these rules, I deal 60 damage.

Now, I didn’t have enough movement speed to get to the boss-man. This guy was just a lackey. He gets disintegrated. Literally.

At this point, the DM has me roll initiative, as I’ve entered the combat. I don’t roll very high, but I still move before the boss. So when it creeps up to my turn again, I walk over to him, and realize it is the same guard captain that killed my friend.

“Thought it tickled last time, did you?” Kallos says, casting Inflict Wounds at 2nd level again. I still have advantage, but again, I don’t need it. I roll another 20 on the first throw. 4d10*2, maxed, equates to 80 damage. (Again, for perspective, Kallos has 27 health. That amount of damage would take him down nearly 3 times over.)

So, having crit with Inflict Wounds twice in a row, he’s dealt 140 damage in one turn. Our monk is at this point nodding sagely. “I didn’t realize how powerful the Law of Averages was.”

Now, this guy doesn’t die. Instead, he does what anyone else would do when faced with certain death at the hands of dumb luck. He turns into a demon.

That’s pretty much the end of the exciting part of the tale. He turns all of his buddies into husks as he mind controls them using lampreys (which was, may I say, exceedingly gross). He keeps fighting Kallos, unwavering, and with his two attacks a turn (and terrible armor due to my wanting to be more sneaky this combat), he doesn’t do so well. And, I kid you not, the die that rolled two crits (not technically back-to-back, since I had advantage) proceeds to roll 4 2’s in a row.

So, needless to say, Kallos doesn’t last long against him. He falls unconscious, and I legitimately thought he was going to die that session. The rest of the party manages to pull through, however, and the would-be valiant end of Kallos Mortani instead became “That time Kallos wasn’t useless in combat”.

D&D — Dialogues 3: The Law of Averages, Pt. 1

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(Story isn’t ready yet. Will post it tomorrow!)

 

This is one of those stories that prove insanely strange and awesome things can happen just by how you roll the dice. Hilarious characters and circumstances are great and all, but there’s something to be said for the occasional instances where statistics just… no longer applies. In short, this is the story of the time my level 3 cleric dealt over 100 damage in one turn. (And by coincidence, this session took place on my birthday, so I consider it a literal gift from the gods.)

Before we get to that particular session however, some background. Kallos (my cleric) and friends had just cleared out a tunnel to a nearby dwarven village. Upon arriving there, however, the half dozen guards at the gates immediately attacked us, after a brief and pathetic attempt at a peace talk.

The guard captain attacks first, and he has two attacks, meaning he is (at least) two levels higher than us. Considering that, and the fact that they also outnumber us, this sends some serious red flags. So what do we do? The same thing any respectable D&D party does. We charge right in.

Kallos tries fighting toe-to-toe with the captain, since he can easily heal himself if need be. With 18 AC and Mirror Image up, he can also soak up quite a bit of damage, hopefully giving the monk and warlock some time to pick a few off. Our paladin, who was right beside Kallos in combat, takes some savage blows dealt by the captain, who doesn’t seem interested in the many clerics running around right in front of his face.

The battle rages on, and our paladin is forced to disengage. It comes to my turn, and I have exactly one spell slot left. I can cast Cure Wounds on my ally, or…

Hoping to end things then and there, Kallos rushes towards the captain and grabs him, channeling powerful necrotic energy as he casts Inflict Wounds at 2nd level.

I don’t have high hopes for his ability to hit. Kallos has literally never hit with this spell, try as he might. It’s high damage potential (3d10 baseline) is pretty high, but you have to land the attack, and you have to be close enough to touch the guy.

Kallos, miraculously, rolls a 17. So he hits! And since the spell is 2nd level, he gets to add another d10 to the damage. So he has a potential of dealing 40 damage here. And for perspective, at this level Kallos has a maximum health of 27.

In order, the dice I roll show these numbers: 1. 2. 3. 4. A total of 10 damage. Less than half the average amount of damage 4d10 would normally roll. I could have swung my hammer at the guy and dealt more damage, for crying out loud!

Hopes and dreams crushed, the captain snickers. “As reward for fighting so well,” he says, “I’ll only kill one of you if you surrender now.”

We have nothing left. I’ve got no spells, and most of us are on the brink of death as it is. We’ve killed exactly zero guards. Having no other options, (and honestly getting the hint from the DM that this is the way he wants it to go), we accept. Our paladin’s throat is slit then and there, and we’re taken to the dungeon.

 

D&D — Dialogues 2: Remnant’s Necklace

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This story happened in the most recent session of my PC campaign (the one I’m not DM of). The party consists of: A human cleric (me), a human warlock (my brother), and a wood elf drunken master monk (another friend of mine). We have a fourth, but she couldn’t make it to this particular session. Now, there are a lot of spells and names used in this story. For the less obvious ones I’ll add parenthesis immediately afterwords to explain.

A little backstory, my character is a liar. His Divine Domain is Trickery, and by virtue of his religion, he never tells the truth when he doesn’t have to. He invented a fake religion and likes to convert NPCs to it in his spare time. My brother’s warlock simply loves chaos. He likes playing tricks on people, casting Prestidigitation (A spell that can do lots of things. You can mess with senses, temporarily make objects, etc.) and Minor Illusion just to get into their heads.
As a side note, it’s worth noting that so far, my cleric has rolled terribly throughout this campaign. In the most recent fight against about a dozen goblins, he missed every single time, and when he cast Sacred Flame (a fire-like radiance burns something, and it always hits) never rolled higher than a 2 on the damage roll. His biggest contribution that fight was casting Bless beforehand to give everyone an extra boost to their attack rolls. Suffice to say, luck hasn’t gone his side.

This story begins in a town called “Daybreak”. In the center of this town there is an immense tower that goes further than the eye can see. Maybe Kami lives up there, who knows. The party got word that a mysterious being called “Remnant” lived there, and has been there a long time. He doesn’t come down often and doesn’t like talking about himself. The gates to the tower are closed, and there is no easy access point.

Kallos, at this point, wants to know what all the fuss is about this “Remnant” guy. But he knows just shouting at him won’t get his attention.

So he takes a piece of parchment, and uses Sacred Flame to burn the words “ORCUS COMES” onto it (Orcus is, in a lot of D&D worlds, basically the evil god of murder and death and all that fun stuff). Then, he tosses it past the gate, where it gets swept up by a mysterious wind. It’s at this point that Kallos realizes he has perhaps made a terrible decision, but it’s too late now.

A few sessions later (after dealing with the aforementioned goblins), they return to town. Kallos wakes up before the rest of the party and sets off for the tower. He casts Locate Object to see if he can find the parchment that was swept up the day before. If no lead is between it and him, he can sense it’s presence within 1000ft.

It’s right behind him.

He swivels around to see a robed figure that is largely nondescript. He has an air about him that makes him difficult to look at directly, though.

This wasn’t the encounter Kallos was hoping to have. Especially not alone. Remnant pulls out the note and says “What is this?”

Kallos: Oh, you know. A warning. Orcus is coming, so we gotta stay vigilant and all that stuff. You can never be too careful… *nervous laughter*

Remnant: Who are you?

Kallos: Just a missionary from a far off land. (He asks me about my religion, and I tell him a bit about the fake one. I seem to have passed that Deception check.) I came from the West. Got into a bit of trouble over there and now they don’t like me. I plan on going back, but not until I’m stronger and more prepared and you don’t care about any of that.

Remnant: There’s trouble in the West.

Kallos: I know. I just told you that.

Remnant: The people there don’t serve who they think they serve.

Kallos: OH! Are they actually serving Orcus?!

Remnant: … Yes.

Kallos: I knew it! I told you! I mean, you told me, but I totally also told you.

Remnant: You talk too much. *He hands Kallos the parchment that says “ORCUS COMES”.*

Kallos: Thanks. I’ll alert the masses.

Remnant: Yeah, don’t do that.

Kallos: Yeah, you’re probably right. So like, since we’re on the same side, can you like, help? Maybe tell me what I should do? ‘Cause if I go back there now I’ll just die. Maybe you can give me something that proves I’m working for you? Well, not for you, obviously, but maybe something with like your symbol on it?

Remnant pulls a necklace out of his robes with the symbol of a sun on it and hands it to Kallos, and gives some information about what he suggests of their long-term goals.

Kallos: Alright, cool, thanks. See you later, friend! *He goes for a fistbump, then a handshake, then a high five, but Remnant doesn’t move. Kallos awkwardly leaves*.

Kallos returns to the party to tell them what happened. There are lots of specifics that aren’t relevant to the story, so I’ll leave them out. On Remnant’s suggestion, they go to a tunnel that collapsed. They need to clear it, but have no way of moving all the rocks out.

My brother, whose warlock is named “Theren”, suggests using the necklace, since we know it is magical in some way. Kallos responds by holding it up, but when nothing happens, he throws it at the rocks. It lands on the ground unceremoniously.

Theren goes over and picks it up. “I’ll hold on to this.”

Kallos: What? No way, Remnant gave that to me.

Theren: And you just threw it carelessly!

Kallos: I was going to pick it up!

Theren: No, I don’t trust you with it. What are you even good for anyway?

Kallos, at this point, casts Charm Person (This makes it so the target is more amiable to your commands). Theren succeeds his Wisdom save, meaning he knows Kallos tried to trick him. He responds with Suggestion (basically, the next sentence you say sounds very reasonable), and Kallos makes his Wisdom save. Kallos tries to instead cast Command (A one word verb that the target would have to obey) , but realizes he didn’t prepare that spell.

Theren: Fine, fine. You can have it. *He casts Prestidigitation and gives Kallos a replica necklace. He doesn’t notice it’s fake.*

Kallos: Was that so hard?

They bicker a bit longer, but decide to go back to town to enlist aid in clearing the tunnel. They get back to the tavern, and Kallos is talking to the bartender about getting the local townsfolk to help. Prestidigitation has since worn off, and Theren suspects Kallos will try to pull the necklace out of his bag, which would make him realize he’s been tricked when he doesn’t find it. He casts Prestidigitation to make a new necklace, and tries to make a Sleight of Hand check to sneak it into Kallos’ bag. He rolls a 2.

Kallos, upon catching Theren holding the necklace: Dude, what the heck? You gave it back only to try to steal it again?

Theren: Sorry, you’re right. My bad. Here. *He hands it to Kallos, who puts it in his bag*.

Kallos: We talked about this. Just let me hold on to it, and we’ll be fine.

Theren: Yeah, yeah, got it.

 

And that’s where we leave off. Kallos still has no idea Theren has the real necklace, and the entire table was having so much fun with the whole scenario. This really highlights my favorite part of Dungeons & Dragons: the dramatic irony that plays out when a player knows more than their character does, and they act appropriately with the information their guy knows (or, more likely, what they don’t know).

D&D — Dialogues 1: Turning the Tides

Kasey-Rayn 1 Comment

I’m going to start a little mini-series in the D&D section of this blog called “Dialogues”, where I tell stories of the adventures I’ve been a part of, either as a DM or a player. Some will be funny, some, like this one, won’t, but overall they will be centered around the idea of “interesting things that happened”.

 

This particular story happened in the most recent session of my campaign, of which there are only three party members (and one DMPC, who is mostly a sidekick). The party consists of a ranger, a sorcerer, and sort of a homebrew fighter-based tank. (The DMPC is a Strength-based ranger.)

They find themselves on the slopes of a mountain, walking a path often referred to as “The Trials”. They’ve heard from the village below that each person faces different tribulations, so it’s impossible to know what to expect. These trials can be faced together, but in order to reach the summit, each person in the group must have faced their own Trial.

So as they walk past an old gate into a wide clearing of snow, they find the air growing warmer and the ground getting coarser. The blizzard around them turns into a sandstorm, and they realize they are now in a desert. The ranger, who used to be a court bard for a desert people, immediately grows suspicious. They see a large structure in the distance, and he smirks.

Ranger: Can I roll to see if I recognize this place?
DM: Make a history check. *The ranger rolls a 19*. Yup, this looks an awful lot like the palace and the desert you spent a lot of time in, hundreds of years ago, in much the same state it was in when you departed.
Ranger: I knew it.

They approach cautiously. Ascending the steps of the palace, they see row upon row of guards. Over two dozen. They all stand firm, but as the party passes them as they walk down the main aisle, each row nods to the ranger and bows.

They walk into the throne room, the doors of which are wide open. At the throne the ranger sees his old king, who greets the party as if the ranger has returned from a long journey. There’s no hostility whatsoever, but while the king is talking, he notices the staff the sorcerer is carrying.

They found this staff a few sessions prior hidden inside an underground temple, behind a locked room that nobody was allowed to enter. They’ve yet to decipher what the staff is or what it can do, but this is the first time anyone has seemed to take particular notice of it.

As soon as the king sees it, he pauses. He points to the sorcerer. “That staff,” he notes.

“What do you know of it?” the sorcerer asks.

“It’s mine,” he replies. And at that, he stands and passes a hand over his face. His visage falls away like scraps of paper being shed. In it’s place, a masked and robbed figure stands before them. He whispers something to a guard, who starts walking towards the door, past the party.

The fighter tackles him, and the fight begins. The guards turn on them, and they are already surrounded.

The masked figure targets the sorcerer, teleporting closer to him and casting spells.

The party falls back, taking out a few guards as they back up towards the door.

But soon, more guards start flooding in from the way they had come. The figure flies past them, blocking their escape, and casts Lightning Bolt down a line, hitting three of them. The sorcerer and the DMPC fall unconscious, and the ranger is hurting bad.

The ranger casts Ensnaring Strike on the figure, who fails his save, and, not having any Strength, spends his next three turns trying (and failing) to break free.

The fighter uses his next turn feeding healing potions to both of their downed party members, and he uses an Action Surge to do so. All the while, more guards keep flooding in.

Despite the restrained figure, they are very clearly losing this fight. All around the palace, however, there were doors that implied a means of escape.

The sorcerer casts Fog Cloud in the doorway, and a huge part of the room becomes enshrouded in fog.

Soon, the ranger, the sorcerer, and the DMPC are out of the fog cloud, waiting for the fighter to join them so they can make their escape. But he’s inside the cloud fighting five or more guards at once. With obscured vision giving them disadvantage on their attacks, and their target having 18 AC, he’s a veritable wall, and their feeble attacks just glance off his armor.

Soon, the Ensnaring Strike effect ends, and the masked man flies through the fog cloud in search of his staff.

As soon as he leaves the fog cover, the DMPC lands a Critical and deals insane amount of damage. He’s seeing stars, and the rest of the party let loose as well.

With no support from the guards, and him being outnumbered 3-1 with few spell slots left, he casts Greater Invisibility and vanishes.

As soon as the masked figure disappears, no additional guards join the fray. They dispatch the rest and, while now severely lacking in potions, they managed to win, and thus passed the first part of the Trial.

It’s worth noting that I had set up this combat as a “flee or die” scenario. With endless guards and a powerful magic user well beyond their level, there was no way they should have been able to win. But with a well-timed Ensnaring Strike and a well-placed Fog Cloud with armor-man inside, they took a hold of their assets and pulled victory out of the jaws of death.