Pens and Papers

[Ruki]

A good week for D&D! Spelljammer tomorrow, and announcements on upcoming products this Thursday!

[Toe]

I got to run a game for my group on Saturday. They are flying through Curse Of Strahd, and just had an encounter against over 60 enemies. It was a close fight, but it was awesome seeing them using AOE spells to control the battlefield and take out whole groups of enemies each turn. 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

1 hour ago, Toe said:

I got to run a game for my group on Saturday. They are flying through Curse Of Strahd, and just had an encounter against over 60 enemies. It was a close fight, but it was awesome seeing them using AOE spells to control the battlefield and take out whole groups of enemies each turn. 

Can you spoil where you had that fight set up? Running Strahd now and super intrigued.

[Toe]

I'll put it in tags just to be safe.

Spoiler

At the Wizard Of Wines Winery. There are 30 needle blights in groups of 5 roaming the fields, then further reinforcements of druids, twig blights, and vine blights in the house if the party is not quite. It wasn't too hard to run since the needle blights and twig blights are pretty weak when it comes to HP. Just be careful - the needle blights can shoot needles that hit pretty hard, especially against the squishy spell casters.

 

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

8 minutes ago, Toe said:

I'll put it in tags just to be safe.

  Hide contents

At the Wizard Of Wines Winery. There are 30 needle blights in groups of 5 roaming the fields, then further reinforcements of druids, twig blights, and vine blights in the house if the party is not quite. It wasn't too hard to run since the needle blights and twig blights are pretty weak when it comes to HP. Just be careful - the needle blights can shoot needles that hit pretty hard, especially against the squishy spell casters.

 

Right yes! That's a very fun encounter.

Spoiler

I have an aarakocra who flew just out of their range so all of their attacks were at disadvantage and used persuasion checks to try and lure as many of them away so the others could tackle the beefier enemies. 

 

[Toe]

25 minutes ago, Mx. Canadian Destroyer said:

Right yes! That's a very fun encounter.

  Hide contents

I have an aarakocra who flew just out of their range so all of their attacks were at disadvantage and used persuasion checks to try and lure as many of them away so the others could tackle the beefier enemies. 

 

Spoiler

My group tried to sneak in, but the blights have 60 feet of blindsight so that didn't work. Then, when fighting the first group, they made a ton of noise. 

They used a similar tactic though - they all stayed on one edge of the map to draw in most of the blights, then the Sorcerer used Thunderstep to wipe out a group and teleport the groups Cleric to the druids. The Cleric then pummeled the druids and any surrounding blights with his Spiritual Guardians. 

 

[Ruki]

My group was on the way to that location before we got side tracked by werewolves (and game coming to an end). I would have been useless as a paladin, as I only had single target abilities. 

[Ruki]

Sounds like the Dragonlance book is the only one coming out for the rest of the year, no October/November rules book

 

But next year, oh boy...

 

And in 45 minutes, they are releasing the first play packet for One D&D (the next 'edition' if you will)

[Toe]

I've now had three sessions in a row that boiled down to "travel to X, huge fight for 4 hours". Players have enjoyed it though. This last fight finally had them get their hands on some magic loot and ended with Strahd inviting them over for dinner!

[GhostMachine]

4 hours ago, Toe said:

I've now had three sessions in a row that boiled down to "travel to X, huge fight for 4 hours". Players have enjoyed it though. This last fight finally had them get their hands on some magic loot and ended with Strahd inviting them over for dinner!

How many of them did Strahd eat? 

 

[Toe]

19 minutes ago, GhostMachine said:

How many of them did Strahd eat? 

 

We haven't got to the dinner party yet, haha! They are all level 6 now, so I think Strahd would actually have a tough time in a fair fight. I need to think up some ways to split up the party and have Strahd hit-and-move.

[Ruki]

22 minutes ago, Toe said:

We haven't got to the dinner party yet, haha! They are all level 6 now, so I think Strahd would actually have a tough time in a fair fight. I need to think up some ways to split up the party and have Strahd hit-and-move.

Yeah, Strahd's stat block isn't special. But if he's fighting in his castle, he's basically unkillable.

[Toe]

16 hours ago, Ruki said:

Yeah, Strahd's stat block isn't special. But if he's fighting in his castle, he's basically unkillable.

I'm thinking of mixing up his spell list too, just to add in some more spice. 

[Hajjhowe]

Throwing in a Shield or maybe giving him some Meta Magic or something could make him pretty tricky. Quickening spells would buff his defense while letting him cause some damage as well.

Also I'm always a big fan of minions.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

7 hours ago, Toe said:

I'm thinking of mixing up his spell list too, just to add in some more spice. 

Strahd should have full access to the wizard spell list so you can gear him up if he thinks a fight's about to break out.

Spoiler

Make sure you charm some players and use your legendary actions to move in and out of the room, only showing up to fight when he knows he can get in enough attacks and move out.

 

[GhostMachine]

I'd really love to put my old 2E main in a group that goes up against Strahd. A dual-wielding Ranger/Thief whose species enemy is Vampires and uses a Compound Longbow that can fire Sunray spells besides arrows...

Only ever fought him as part of a 5 character team, and it was more or less an `escape without getting our asses killed' type situation. Was running a different character, then. (One death (not mine), and the rest of all were all below half hp by the time we got away.)

 

Edited September 7, 2022 by GhostMachine

[Benji]

Anyone ever joined a game via Roll20 or something? I'm not above paying for a DM or something if they're the right choice.

[Toe]

40 minutes ago, Benji said:

Anyone ever joined a game via Roll20 or something? I'm not above paying for a DM or something if they're the right choice.

The group I've played with for a couple years now used Roll20 and we've recently moved to a different virtual tabletop called The Forge. 

I like Roll20 as a player. I find it pretty easy to use, and it has a lot of support for D&D. I could never quite get a grip of it from the DMs side, but I think I could get a handle of it if I watched some online videos or something. 

[Benji]

Sorry, I mean more in an LFG kind of sense. I didn't explain that well.

[Toe]

2 minutes ago, Benji said:

Sorry, I mean more in an LFG kind of sense. I didn't explain that well.

Haha, no worries. I've seen horror stories on Reddit, but I've only had great experiences finding a group on Roll20. It's actually how I met the group I've been with for a couple years now - I wanted to try out the new Star Trek Adventures RPG, and found someone putting together a game.

I've never paid for a DM, so I'd be curious to hear some experiences from people that have.