SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else. Just say no to metagaming!
Our fifteenth session. How did that happen?
We were on player down this session due to life events.
The “Hamund’s Harvesting Handbook: A Complete Guide to Harvesting and Crafting in D&D 5e” was used a couple of times to harvest from fallen opponents. I thought they worked well from a DM’s point of view. I do need to get some player feedback on them at some point. But they do make a lot of sense both mechanically and thematically. I’ll definitely be purchasing the two remaining pdfs that cover the other two official monster books. I’d love it if they covered the Tome of Beasts series of books also. But sadly they don’t. Hopefully my work-in-progress will help on that front.
Most of the session was a combat encounter between an orc, four thugs, and two gnomes.
I don’t like fudging dice rolls. So it is very very annoying that I roll high on initiative for the monsters, but mainly low on combat rolls.
In the combat I did split the party using a portcullis that provided an extra challenge to the situation. But see the previous paragraph for why this just delayed things instead of making the situation more dangerous.
I did have the monsters walk into the trap that the adventurers set, not to just reward the party for thinking of it, but it also felt like something the monsters would do.
Our session was cut short when one of the group had life call them up and call them back to base. We could have continued however having just finished the combat we were at a natural break point.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.
It’s that time again to start thinking, planning, and plotting for the next session.
I finally got my hands on a wooden box to home a certain infamous deck. I think this will make an intriguing prop for the players.
I want a bag for the deck of illusions. However I’ve not found one I like yet.
Another arrival as a quality of life thing as a DM is a card quiver. This is now the home of my npc, dungeon map, quest, taroka, condition, and encounter decks.
As the photo shows I’ve added one or two stickers to the case.
A Three-Dragon Ante deck also turned up. I think this will be an interesting prop for one or two sessions. I want to make taverns more interesting.
I need to finish my harvesting sheet (it’s two pages) for use at the next session. I’m sure they will want to harvest the basilisk, and the “Hamund’s Harvesting Handbook: A Complete Guide to Harvesting and Crafting in D&D 5e” has some great rules for doing this.
After that I need to look at crafting.
This next session the party will finally meet Rullus and his minions. I’ve not decided how it will play out. I still need to stat him out. Although his minions will be thugs.
Right time to end this post and play a little Doom for that mega series of hot air.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else. Just say no to metagaming!
Over the course of this campaign we’ve had one founding player leave (personal reasons). Plus two new players join. With one of those briefly with us before our schedule got back on track and clashed with other stuff.
So we had space at the table for a new player.
Graham is a friend of Shane’s who he plays in another group with.
He’s playing a cleric sent to look after Jeb.
I think the session went well with Graham and looking forward to adventuring with him.
The session itself was once again wandering around the endless warrens looking for Rullus Hobb and his hostages.
The party awoke from their long rest to lizard folk holding the hostage Luke’s character Drenol and Grahams. This was the best I could come up with of introducing a new character to the game mid dungeon.
I think this could have been better. Especially if I’d made the game of Life or Death best of three for the freedom of the hostages.
I’ve tried not having this dungeon crawl be one where the players are fighting for every foot they explore. However I think the players are not enjoying the exploring side based on comments like “not more tunnels and doors”.
Despite that major drawback. I think using the Caves of Chaos map, alongside the dungeon encounters deck has worked well from a DM make it up as you go way.
The dungeon encounter cards have been interesting especially in seeing how the players react or interpret the cards encounter. Sometimes they read too much into the encounter and I’ve just rolled with it.
The big combat encounter at the end was a “swarm” of skeletons. However with the rogue character using psychic blades from a distance I decided to introduce a second threat (a basilisk) coming in behind the rogue.
The reason I went basilisk was because one of the encounter cards had one on, I had the 2D standee handy too.
I think it went ok. The basilisk did some damage. The rogue learnt hiding and throwing psychic blades is not always going to be safe.
Right I’ve got some prep to do for the next session.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.
It’s the morning of game day. So it’s time to go through the Lazy GM (rebranded during the OGL Fiasco of 2023) steps to get ready.
But before I do that I was processing some last minute ideas for this session and future ones.
Yesterday I went to the online printer in the UK that I found (Doxzoo) and had the WotC plane shift booklets for Ixalan and Innistrad ordered along with a copy of a book I got off the DMs Guild on harvesting monsters (there is no print option).
I’ve been on the edge of pulling the trigger on purchasing the latest D&D adventure compendium Keys from the Golden Vault to get the gambling games rules.
However a quick Google got me those rules. So I can punt that decision into the future. So I have the ability to run Three-Dragon Ante and Life and Death during a session.
I like the idea of having this as an option to make visits to a tavern more interesting. I’m also toying with the idea of possibly using Life and Death today!
It’s possible that the lizardfolk the party will bump into will challenge the party to a game with some reward other than money as the prize for winning, such as a map.
I’ve also this morning ordered a copy of Three-Dragon Ante off Amazon along with a wooden box to keep the deck of many things in.
Obviously with Three-Dragon Ante arriving tomorrow playing that will be an option in future sessions. Whilst I could use the deck of many things today if I so wished. I think the mystery box will add to the theatrics when it is final found. Although I do like the idea of using it for the deck of illusions as well.
I’m also working on my own cheat sheet, slash riff on the generator tables by Sly Flourish for harvesting based on the pdf book I bought on harvesting. As I want to use harvesting of monsters more productively with the party seeing as they have been harvesting corpses! The hope of this sheet is that it will help me improvise harvesting during a session. Or during planning for a monster I stat out using the Folio of Fiends.
I also whilst skimming through the stuff about the latest WotC adventure thingy got reminded of the arcane lock spell. A spell that will be used either in this session or the next I think.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.
So I have a stat block for the Bagman (see last planning post) but I’m pretty sure that before I need that I’ll need a stat block for Rullus Hobb.
As the back of his npc card shows he’s a sorcerer. Sadly there are no official npc stat blocks!
The ideal time to use the Folio of Fiends preview.
I’ve also spent a morning playing with heroforge to create my take on an avatar of death, and one or two different Harengons.
I just need to buy the stls and get them printed.
My priority is multiple angels of death to use with a certain deck of cards!
I’ve also been approached by a player about another player joining the group.
We have room for one more. The group is currently five in size. A player has dropped out because of life stuff. Plus we are looking like we will lose one more due to other commitments that clash with the game now regularly happening on a Saturday again (thanks to my life events changing).
I kinda like the group size at four. It’s a nice size.
So this session will see a new player come along for a trial session to see if our game is a right fit for both parties.
Now I just need to work out how they can join mid dungeon!
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else.
We were two players down this session. For one it was the second session in a row they had missed so I need to find out if they are still wanting to be in the group.
The second was due to illness. So instead of some-one controlling their character I made an excuse up that the character needed to rest after the previous sessions efforts and would catch them up.
Even so we started later than planned which meant a shorter session.
The party are still working their way through the endless warrens (or the Caves of Chaos map I am using for them).
This part of the campaign is a bit of a dungeon crawl. But not a slugfest for sure. They are getting encounters of some sort in most of the rooms on the map that are driven by the dungeon encounters deck.
I’d like to think that the players are having an interesting exploration of the dungeon that isn’t just a murder hobo slaughterhouse with a combat in each room.
In fact the only possible combat they could have had didn’t happen as the ogre failed the check and had to go off and eat the ogre corpse in a nearby room.
But the next session things are going to be more violent.
They still have no idea about the two fungi they are carrying. We’ll see what they will do with them. The temptation to say “just eat them for crying out” is just so strong sometimes during the session. But I resist and don’t give in.
Right I think that covers it for the session I’ll see you in the next session prep post.
The party woke up to their neighbour telling them that she was unable to find the jewelled idol she was planning to sell to pay them for getting rid of the rats. She suspected it had been stolen and had reported it to the authorities.
Further up the street there was a commotion and wailing when a dead body had been found in one of the houses. It was a mystery as to what had caused the death. But foul means were suspected.
The streets were also abuzz with the rumour that Rullus Hobb had kidnapped members of the Golden Council.
After a shopping trip to stock up on supplies the party headed off to the Endless Warrens in search of the hideout where Rullus Hobb was hiding with his hostages.
The party found an entrance to a cave that they suspect was the hideout. After fighting an undead drake, the party continued exploring the caves.
Post Mortem
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else.
Has it been two weeks already? Time flies by.
But it’s nice to be back to a regular time to meet up.
On a practical level our session was less than ideal with things being a bit cramped. As the photo below shows instead of our usual two big tables giving us space to spread out. We were down to small tables and using chairs!
This was a session that was very much made up as I went along.
I seeded some plot lines such as the Bagman. But the one the party decided to go with was pursuing Rullus Hobb. Especially as it transpired he now had some of the Golden Council hostage. Which might also mean that Adel is amongst the hostages.
This has seen the party enter the Endless Warrens. For this I needed a map so I used the Caves of Chaos map from the classic Keep on the Borderlands module. I keep an A3 copy of the Caves of Chaos in my DM folder along with a two or three others just for this sort of situation. The version of the map I use is the one by Dyson Logos.
Obviously I needed to populate the section of the cave they were exploring. For this I was using the Objects of Intrigue – Underground deck. Along with the fumbled searches deck.
I like these two decks a lot.
The Objects of Intrigue deck did allow me to fill the rooms with “interesting” encounters that weren’t all about combat. From this the party have ended up with two large mushrooms that they haven’t discovered are rather beneficial to them if eaten.
I didn’t get a chance or more likely didn’t need to use the Pathfinder NPC deck.
I did use the jewelled owl puzzle which seemed to work ok.
Before the next session I need to stat out the villain plus the Bagman.
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.
So the Bagman has been seeded in the campaign. Which means I will need stats at some future session.
In Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft (where they introduce the Bagman) they use the stats for a troll (from the Monster Manual) as it’s base.
Taken from the srd 5.1 2023 covered under the Creative Commons
Then they do the following to make the Bagman unique, and feel like the Bagman.
“With tactics and traits in mind, you think of your troll as an abductor and give it the Grappler trait of a mimic and the Amorphous trait of a black pudding so it can sneak in anywhere. Finally, you don’t think of the troll as a minion, but you give it the Alien Mind trait to reflect its tormented psyche.” Page 225,Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Here are the relevant bits from the srd and Van Richten’s for those traits.
“Grappler. The Bagman has advantage on attack rolls against any creature grappled by it.”
With this trait I do need to remember this rule from the Monster Manual for any player the bagman is trying to abduct and is trying to escape.
“GRAPPLE RULES FOR MONSTERS … A creature grappled by the monster can use its action to try to escape. To do so, it must succeed on a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against the escape DC in the monster’s stat block. If no escape DC is given, assume the DC is 10 +the monster’s Strength (Athletics) modifier.” Page 11, Monster Manual
“Amorphous. The Bagman can move through a space as narrow as 1 inch wide without squeezing.” Taken from the srd 5.1 2023 covered under the Creative Commons
“Alien Mind. If a creature tries to read the minion’s thoughts, that creature must succeed on a Intelligence saving throw with a DC equal to 10 + the minion’s Intelligence modifier or be stunned for l minute. The stunned creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.” Page 225,Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
However in the Dragon+ issue 37 article about the creation of the bagman they drop the following that the “bagman should be an entity with high Stealth”.
So in addition to the additional traits that the WotC designers gave the Bagman I’m tempted to also give the Bagman this additional trait.
“Sneaky (Trait). This creature has advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks.” Page 12, The Lazy DM’s Forge of Foes sampler.
Plus an additional skill of Stealth +7
Which I think gives the Bagman that high stealth ability they thought he should have. So that the Bagman can recreate the idea of “nothing’s more disturbing in a horror movie than when something horrible is in the background and the main characters don’t see it.” Dragon+ 37
Going by the “MONSTER STATISTICS BY CHALLENGE RATING” table on page 274 of the Monster Manual the proficiency bonus for the Bagman is +3.
But does the Bagman need to be an “elite” monster? An “elite” monster as described by Mike Shea in his uncovered secrets volume 2 (a pdf for patreons of stuff that didn’t make it into the Lazy DM Companion) “elite monsters are equivalent of two characters of their level”.
“Elite monsters have the following additional traits:
They have double the listed hit points.
They inflict double the listed damage.
They have one use of legendary resistance per day, letting them turn a failed saving throw into a success.
For that last one Mike describes Legendary Resistance as:
“Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the monster fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.”
Let’s face it the Bagman will not be taking on the party with the aid of minions or any other creatures. So when they do finally face off against the Bagman he needs to be tough enough to last longer than a single round.
I think making the Bagman “elite” does that.
So that’s my initial thoughts for a hopefully easy to run Bagman. Now to just fit that all onto an Arcane Library blank monster card!
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.
In a weeks time we should be holding our twelfth session of this campaign set in Sly Flourish’s City of Arches.
We should be back on track now for having the session fortnightly with the change of job.
After the last session turned into a side quest for those that could make it. It did give me the opportunity to give a bag of holding to the party. Which means I can start seeding in a session or two the bagman.
But at the moment I think the session will be an improv session.
At the moment the party are having a long rest, no idea what they want to do next.
I need to get some adventure seeds planted with them, and progress the main one about the cult, maybe even have the rival to Adel popping up.
In between lesson prep, and the #dungeon23 stuff I need to get my head round the direction of some of these potential threads.
I don’t know about you, but these session planning posts are very useful for me to go back and review what I was thinking.
I’m sure there will be at least another prep post this week. Catch you there.
The party hadn’t been back at their digs long before there was a knock on their door. Drenol, Jeb, and Babs answered the door.
It was their neighbour a gnome called Nala. She needed their help. Her husband Hornwin had gone down into their cellar and hadn’t come back up and she was worried. Apparently they had a rat problem.
After a little debate whether they would help, they did indeed end up going next door to find Nala’s husband.
In the basement after destroying a swarm of spiders, triggering a stink cloud and throwing up. The trio found Hornwin lying unconscious in the corner of a room that had dire giant rats in it.
After defeating the dire giant rats and a were rat that appeared the party had the corpse of Hornwin in front of them. It would seem Hornwin had been a were rat.
After breaking the news to Nala that here husband was dead the trio returned home.
Post Mortem
SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following part of the post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign. You may want to avoid this part of the post and join me in a future one. Don’t give in to temptation go read something else.
This was our first session since the end of November.
Work shifts and the seasonal thing that happens in December being the main factors getting in the way of the session happening.
The change of job opened up my ability to say “I’m free on …” and for regular sessions to be planned again. I think if the work front hadn’t changed the campaign would of just ended. My old job was getting so that planning or committing to anything was just not possible.
It was good to be back behind the DM screen.
As there was fifty percent of the players unable to make this session I went with a one shot adventure for those that were there.
I went with a Mike Shae adventure idea he said he used as an introduction adventure for level one characters of clearing out the basement of the tavern of the rat problem.
But my party were a couple of levels higher. So I could use dire giant rats!
I used a map from the Lazy DM Companion for the basement. Well part of it. I didn’t need the whole thing.
In one of the rooms I added a glyph of warding that when triggered (which it was) cast the spell cloud of stink. If any character had covered their nose (as warned) I gave them advantage on the constitution saving throw. It did lead to a comedic moment of describing the character throwing up with reference to the infamous scene from Team America. With the added bonus of the Babs character slipping up in the resultant pool of vomit.
My dice rolling during combat was atrocious. I don’t think I landed one hit! Although I did roll high on saving throws. So it evened out in the end I suppose.
Once or twice I used the fumbled searches deck to come up with items to find. I should of made a note of the items. One was a book that I said was titled 101 rat recipes, and a burnt bit of parchment. Despite the party trying to find any hidden writing on the parchment they found none. But they only used the old heat and lemon juice ideas to find any. I still have an opening to use this as a plot hook at some point. But I did like using the deck and found it very useful.
I felt the dire giant rats were underwhelming. I think the hit points could have been maybe three times the original value, instead of doubling them. It might have helped if I landed an attack.
I did have the npc they were meant to be saving turn into a were rat. Which they killed.
There was a little discussion over whether the npc got death saving throws. My train of thought was they were killed as a were rat, there was no mention before delivering the killing blow they were “pulling their punch” and aiming to just knock out the npc. So taking the were rat down to zero hit points killed them. As they died they obviously reverted to their original form.
I liked the ingenious use of the bag of holding to get rid of the grimiskas. Now theparty have a bag of holding. I have a plot thread there to pull at some point now.
I thought the session worked well as a side distraction from wherever the main campaign is going for those that were able to make the session.
