D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 10

So on our penultimate session of the season we were very thin on the ground down at Tabletop Tyrants. But as people had put themselves out to come down we ran with reduced numbers anyway and had a blast.

The heroes had already planned to head from the Seclusion Crypt to the Temple of Fortune. Appearing through the black gate they recognised the halfling Curran from Daggerford and set about freeing him from the wizard, flesh golem and wight in the room.

By the end of the fight they had captured the wizard (he had a broken arm and was manacled and gagged), destroyed the wight and forced the golem to be ordered to stand down (prior to gagging the wizard).

Between them they disable the dias and rescued Curran then as they had taken quite a beating returned to the gatehouse and the seclusion crypt to rest up once again before returning to the room and heading to the next chamber – The Temple of Savagery.

They focussed their attacks on the particularly sneery Red Wizardess, taking her out reasonably easily before the Dread warriors assaulted them. The particular effect of the room didn’t have a major issue with such a small party but I could see it providing major amusement with a large group especially if they clump together.

Once they defeated the warriors they freed the trapped Chosen, realising the female figure was a wight (and undead Rilsa Rael from Baldur’s Gate) as she spat curses of Bhaal at them and attacked. They knocked her unconscious before taking her back to the gatehouse too.

When they arrived they were told that Kelson and Jekk had led a force to the Abyssal Prison to free Shalindra, and that was where we left it, ready to head into the finale next week with hopefully a few more bodies. Unfortunately it’s that time of the year, good weather, the holiday period, combined with a couple of our regulars starting new jobs and another pair being off on their well-deserved honeymoon.

We’re planning on taking a short break before starting the new season in August and using the finalised rule set.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 9

Just one table again this week down at Tabletop Tyrants, though this time I was back in the DM seat and as his group were unavailable Vipin joined us with his half-elf barbarian.

Adam’s ranger rejoined the others in the corridor between the Pale Garden and the Dreaming Garden, and once he convinced them to use one of the remove curse scrolls they had acquired and had his voice restored, he was able to relay the findings from the other group regarding the draining of the Chosen and the need to disrupt the process.

The group advanced into the Dreaming Garden to see a red wizard lounging on his literal garden furniture with two armoured figures before him and a group of shabbily robed figures around them. A couple of them noticed a black winged shape drop the lifeless form of a slave to the floor before flying up to the ceiling.

As the shabby robed figures shuffled forward the party skirted clockwise around the room but were pulled up a little short as Patrick and Heather suddenly fell asleep due to the soporific musk of the flowers in the room. Adam and Vipin picked them up and continued on until one of the armoured figures blocked their path demanding they explain their presence. They realised the red wizard was speaking through the obviously undead figure.

When they tried to say they were bringing sacrifices to the Undying Laboratory the wizard said the sacrifices could be left here, for his pet. At this point the black creature dropped from the ceiling behind the heroes. Vipin (still carrying a sleeping Patrick) leapt over one of the flowerbeds, dumped patrick on the floor and threw a bottle of Alchemists Fire at the wizard, igniting him and some his topiary furniture. Oliver blasted a fireball to add to the conflagration before being engaged by the undead warrior. Adam faced off with the black creature.

During the fight both Patrick and Heather eventually woke up and joined their allies, but despite having 2 rangers, a druid and the multiclassed cleric/bard/druid/mage no-one could actually identify the black creature correctly – not even when it spat a stream of acid over Adam.

The shambling figures joined the fray, revealed as zombies, along with the  other undead warrior and the heroes, despite having dealt with the red wizard (he failed his saves against the fiery attacks and died the next round), were soon hard pressed and had to use a lot of their healing magic before they finally won out.

The fight between Vipin and the wight was particularly funny as it quickly devolved into a series of innuendo’s regards Vipin being a dungeon trying to grasp Mt Grey’s weapon before thrusting it back into him – Adam joining the fight with the comment of “I’ll help finish him off” was met with more hilarity.

Eventually the battered and bruised heroes were able to gather their loot, though as most had been on the wizard or in his topiary furniture I decided to see if it had survived the fiery doom that claimed the former owner. They lost out on the scrolls but everything else survived, along with the two undead warriors weapons (a +1 battleaxe, and a longsword that while held could detect living beings within 30 foot even if hidden or invisible). Gathering their gear the ran through to the Undying Laboratory and used the gate to return to the Seclusion Crypt and rest up, planning on heading to the Temples of Turmoil next session.

The only dampener on the session was when we realised that Oliver’s multiclass caster’s spells were incorrect due to a confusion on level 3 spells not being available at character level 3. But after the session we went through build to clarify it and the pc’s now have the opportunity to level up to 8th level so they can make any necessary alterations.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 8

This week down at Tabletop Tyrants we only had the one table as my group couldn’t make it for various reasons (work, illness, etc) so I had the opportunity to sit in on Vipin’s game as a player.

I decided to run a tiefling spellcaster that I had used in another game and after a discussion with Vipin we decided I was working in the room the party were about to enter alongside the Red Wizard there, but I was a member of the Resistance.

The room in question was the one with the nutcase wizard imbuing oozes with intelligence. Vipin described her as looking similar to Emma Thompson’s character from Harry Potter (Professor Trelawny) and the name stuck for the rest of the encounter.

Once the heroes entered the wights attacked and I tried to gain mental control of the wizard but failed. During the fight a gelatinous cube emerged close to the monk who had a strange obsession with wanting to be engulfed so as to fight from the inside, well he got his wish.

The half-orc fighter concentrated bowfire on the wizard while the elf ranger traded blows with a wight. I skipped over the troughs of ichor to get to the wizard but failed to land a blow, only to have a ochre jelly crawl out behind me and attack, to which I responded with a reaction that fried it to ash.

The wights used Misty Step to retreat and use their ranged attacks on the party as a small black pudding slithered out. I managed to finally drop the nutty wizard as the ranger danced over and sliced the monk free.

As I was still in my robes as a Red Wizard I commanded the wights to return to their duties and get the oozes back under control (backed up by a good persuasion roll) and they grudgingly did while we searched through the wizards private chamber.

After that we retreated back to the Gatehouse for short rest before using one of the glyph keys to enter the Temple of Nature.

Here we found another Red Wizard and wight, with an orc suspended in a golden glow on a dias behind them. The wizard challenged why we were there and I quickly said we had brought another chosen (gesturing to the half-orc) adding “let me show you what she can do” as Hannah prepared to charge in.

Thankfully I just beat her on the initiative roll and blasted off a Fireball, both the wizard and wight survived (though barely) but the orc in the glow wasnt so lucky.

The wizard managed to rush past all of us and escape but the wight was brought down by our ranger. Approaching the dias it had an aura that threw the monk backwards but the rest of us made it and realised it was being used to siphon the divine energy from the Chosen for the phylacteries. Between us we disrupted the magical effect, the restraining pillars and the carved runes. During this we realised that it was using the black gates to channel the energy and after a couple of attempts we were able to disable the gate.

Gathering our belongings we headed out of the north door…..

Wow that was great fun. Thankfully my character didn’t overshadow the regular pc’s. As Richard and Hannah are going to miss for a couple of weeks (due to getting married this weekend and going on honeymoon – congrats again guys) it will probably just be my table (if enough bodies are available) and we have agreed that my character has returned to the gatehouse to pass on the findings about the chosen while Adam’s ranger will rejoin the other party to do the same.

With the release of the Basic D&D rules pdf now on wizards.com we have agreed to stick with the playtest packet we have been using until the end of this season (only 5 weeks left).

It’s all heading for a climactic season/playtest finale 🙂

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 7

Well after missing a week of Encounters down at Tabletop Tyrants due to neither myself or the other DM being available, this week we had just the one table under the watchful gaze of Vipin as I was still under the weather.

I can’t  comment too deeply on what occurred but the information fed back from Vipin was:-

Annoyingly, no deaths.

They ran across the ooze master. Who could cast two spells per round, had an aura and intrinsic charm. Combat lasted 3-4 rounds and they made all but 2 of their saves.On the plus side Adam and Hannah were blind for a while.

They decide to take a short rest in the gatehouse, and since the ooze master can’t really be killed and the number of rooms they cleared (61 properly this time, 65 and 66) this probably means that the alert level goes up by 2 (I warned them this will happen if they rested outside the seclusion crypt. It was a calculated risk they decided to take).They also know about penalty to hp they take when they use the seclusion crypt.

We decided that Adam used the Immortal Caves Glyph key your group had to join my group. Also that Patrick will at some point deliver a spawning pools (also ooze grotto) to your group at some point before coming back to our group.

Hopefully myself and the other players will be back tableside next week for more shenanigans.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 6

Another great session down at Tabletop Tyrants this week. My table exited the Seclusion Crypt and were surprised by the aging effect (a couple asked if it had any mechanical effect but I told them it was nothing that would be relevant within the season), and re-entered the Doomvault in the Dark Gardens.

Exiting the black gate they found themselves in the Dead Garden, the network of vines gave them concerns but they quickly switched their attention to the undead at the rooms exits (I split them evenly between the two doors). Still disguised as a group of Red Wizards they approached the group by the south door – and were attacked by the vines. Two pc’s got entangled but easily hacked/burnt their way free and the remaining vines retracted.

Captain Skill Monkey marched up to the wight who stepped in front of him and asked “Password?”, this certainly took the player back a little but he quickly countered with a bluff of “how dare you interfere with my business, stand aside!” the wight bowed apologetically and stood aside saying “apologies, Master” so that the undead formed a corridor to the door. The heroes walked to the door and as they picked the lock they heard the sound of a blade being drawn as the undead attacked.

The fight wasnt particularly long or vicious, with the skill monkey finishing the last of the undead off with a fireball (using his Evokers ability to shape the spell and avoid his allies), a quick search of the bodies revealed a pair of glyph keys to this zone and one of the wights had a magical longsword. Taking the time to perform an Identify ritual they discovered it was a +1 Elfbane (+2 v’s Elves/Half-elves) which the Elven ranger (ironically) took as a backup weapon.

Cautiously they entered the Pale Garden and after waiting to see if the skeletons reacted to their presence headed south down the path. I called for perception checks (against the stealth rolls I had made for the monsters) and while no-one spotted one they all located the second creature slowly on an intercept course. As they began assaulting it with ranged attacks the stealthier Shambling Mound lunged out and grabbed the cleric, dropping him to single figures in the first round as it pulled him into its bio-mass. The druid made a nature lore check and recalled the mounds immunities etc (oh dear, most of  Captain Skill Monkeys spells did either fire, cold or lightning damage).

 

While Captain Skill Monkey tries to tackle the Mound engulfing the cleric, the ranger and druid hustle down the path and try to lure the second mound into a trap of smashed oil flask. The beast rumbled over the oil obliviously. Realising the cleric had stopped struggling skill monkey headed down and joined the others, igniting the oil as he hit the mound with a sacred flame. The players then found themselves on the path between both mounds.

The ensuing combat was brutal with the mounds hitting hard, though being unable to engulf anyone else. Eventually the heroes  hacked the piles of vegetation apart and pulled the desiccated corpse of the cleric free before taking refuge in the next corridor. As they paused to catch their breaths the clerics body began to twitch…

I know in the adventure it says there are three mounds but as I only had four players this week I thought two would be plenty, especially as the party consisted of a ranger. druid, cleric, and captain skill monkey (cleric/bard/druid/mage). The cleric player has said that he wants to come back as undead next week, which should be fun.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 5

At Tabletop Tyrants this week we continued events in the Halls of Necromancy with the heroes thoroughly searching the corpses of their enemies, gaining a dagger, scroll, potion and another glyph key, before placing the corpses back on the stone biers. The elf ranger Kelson Darktreader imparted a couple of nuggets of Lore before heading to the gatehouse.

The heroes wanted to spend half an hour here to allow the bards to recover one of their abilities and to perform a couple of Identify rituals, revealing the properties of the dagger (+1) and potion (water breathing). While doing this a Gnoll patrol came in and captain skill monkey convinced them that “the invaders” had fled through the east door. The non-too-bright creatures eagerly gave chase.

The heroes then moved on via the west door where Adam’s still mute ranger was barely able to prevent captain skill monkey from triggering a hidden pit trap. Opening the white gate for the party, Adam went through first – right into another of the pit traps! The rest of the party skipped past before lowering a rope and helping him out. They then entered the room ahead – the Temple of Blood.

As four clouds of red mist coalesced the heroes began searching the north wall and trying to open the northern doors (as the map Syranna had given them showed another room to the north but with no connecting passage) while captain skill monkey tried to disrupt the forming mist with Prestidigitation (to no effect). Once the mists were an sized and advancing towards them the heroes decided to flee south, pulling the door shut behind them as they squeezed into the corridor between door and white gate.

They began to regret this as the mist seeped under the door and swirled around them, beginning to drain their life-blood in the process. By the time they decided to flee through the white gate the tiefling bard had been reduced to a maximum of 5hp and the mute ranger had been dropped unconscious and had to be healed to stay in the fight.

Once through he gate they didn’t pause in the intervening courtyard but hurried through to the Wizards Court and holed up in the northeast chamber. They bolted the door and the ranger set a pair of hunters snares before they elected to try and take a long rest.

A little over 3 hours in and the door was being banged on loudly, the druid pulled the bolt back and hid behind the opening door as a pair of undead wizards (deathlock wights) entered and triggered the snares. Another trio of human voices could be heard still outside the room.

The heroes tried to bluff their way out of the situation and intimidate the trio of apprentices – one totally bought it and backed down but another became suspicious when captain skill monkeys eyes glazed over (due to a badly timed mental communication from the other tables leader) and gave his answer in the form of spellcasting and combat began. I had some truly dire rolls for the bad guys and pretty soon all that was left was the cowed apprentice who realised his mistake and tried to flee, getting a sword across the back from the ranger before captain skill monkey finished him with a Ray of frost.

Realising that they were unlikely to get a rest here the heroes decided to risk the Seclusion Crypt as they were in dire need of a long rest to restore drained HP and spells.

That’s where we left it this week, and the players were informed to level up to 7th ready for next week.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Session 3

Following last weeks session myself and Vipin decided which zone we’d each like to run and I got my choice of the Masters Domain.

The heroes activated their glyph key and appeared in the entry chamber only to be immediately accosted by a bunch of gnolls. Captain skill-monkey (the cleric/bard/druid/mage pc) attempted to convince them they were meant to be there but they didn’t believe him. The fight was reasonably quick and one-sided and the heroes then moved on to the next chamber.

With much discussion on the possibility of the chamber being trapped, the druid and bard got bored with waiting and walked through following the path. Neither chose to hustle and so triggered the expected trap, the damage of this certainly encouraged them to run the rest of the way through and up the stairs where they encountered the Dread Legion patrol and the trolls, though none of them were moving to attack. The bard used message to tell the others to hurry through and it was all clear. The only member of the party that struggled was the paladin with a slower movement rate but eventually everyone was back together.

Skill-monkey managed to persuade his way past the various guards (who seemed more interested in their bedrolls than the heroes) and the party advanced north through the door.

This is where they found their first white gate, but remembering the information Syranna had given them the passed the gate without incident and moved on to the next chamber.

Here they found a group of Red Wizards meditating upon a tiered pyramid and taking no notice of the heroes entrance at all. The party began to feel a disorienting sensation coming from the top of the pyramid and while they stood discussing their options the door behind them opened. Another Wizard leading several guards and a handful of chained prisoners travelled through and left via the northern exit wordlessly.

The heroes then decided to each move beside a Wizard and simultaneously stab/slash/bludgeon them, I told them that as the targets were taking no notice of them it would count as a Coup De Gras. What I didn’t say was that the Wizards were not unconscious, so it wouldn’t be instant kills – I know I’m a horrid person, but worse was to come.

Even without the instant kill, the automatic crits were enough for two of the pc’s to “gank” (I’ve been watching way to much Supernatural) their Apprentice targets, the bard had an abysmal damage roll and didn’t kill hers. The skill-monkey and paladin had chosen to target the higher tiered Wizards, who then retaliated with their magics. I hadn’t used the Blight spell before and I must say I’m loving the 8d8 damage output but both pc’s made their saves (though even half damage staggered the skill-monkey). The remaining Apprentice sent an Acid Arrow at the already injured bard (stabbed by gnolls and shredded by the trap but hadn’t asked anyone for healing) and despite saving the splash damage dropped her unconscious.

With the emanations of the pyramid affecting their physical attacks the heroes had slow going against the unarmoured casters and only one of the Wizards got dropped before the other blasted off another Blight spell, this time at the ranger. Despite failing his save my d8’s decided it was time to take pity and a measly 21 points of damage was all he could muster before being struck down.

Captain skill-monkey suggested they take the Wizards robes as disguises and used Mending and Prestidigitation to clean and repair them, and as the party licked their wounds and began to loot the bodies we closed the session.

So 3 rooms in and already lots of resources used, this could get very interesting in the next few sessions.

D&DEnc 18 – Dead in Thay – Launch Event and Session 2

As I’ve fallen a little behind on my blog posts I’ll cover our Launch Event and the following Session 2 in this post, also due to time constraints I wont be posting in the usual story style of previous seasons but rather from the DM’s perspective.

We had quite a good turn out for the Launch, giving us enough for two tables, so after myself and Vipin did the read aloud intro from the NPC’s the players split themselves up and chose which of the elemental nodes they wished to tackle first. Vipin’s table chose the Water Node, while my table headed into the Earth Node.

A couple of good Nature checks identified the skull-faced hedgehogs as Earth Grues,  and as the paladin got knocked to the floor by the circling blocks the grues swarmed at him. They didn’t pose too much of a threat to start with but when the skill-monkey (cleric/bard/mage/druid) tried to assist one of them score a big fat critical on him and dropping him to the floor. Aside from this the grues were dealt with swiftly and the party advanced through the tunnels. They had to make a couple of detours as the unstable node collapsed the tunnels on occasion but eventually made it to the central chamber and spotted the glowing crystal atop the boulder.

When the paladin clambered up and grabbed the crystal key a pair of huge earth elementals appeared and the whole node began to collapse. After urging his allies to flee the paladin tried outrunning the elementals who gave him a sound beating before he finally caught up with his allies and received some much-needed healing.

Arriving back at the gate, and knowing the elementals were hot on their heels they found the way blocked by some Thayan warriors. The party quickly decided to try ignoring the warriors and charged past them into the gate, risking opportunity attacks but easily making it and activating the magic of the gate. Through the magic of the circlets the two team leaders had agreed to meet up in the Fire Node while the NPC party tackled the remaining Air Node.

With both groups tackling the same node we let a single DM (Vipin) run it, the party pretty much ignored the fire grues but had to tackle the fire elementals while they grabbed the key and once again fled back to the gate as the node collapsed.

As the heroes exited the gate we closed the session as the store was closing, we had been playing for 3.5 hours but still had the Bloodgate Nexus to run which we planned for the Wednesday evening session. Between the sessions I decided to print out a battlemat sized map so to show the enormity of the task.

Starting the Wednesday session we gave the players the option of splitting into two groups to tackle the Thayan forces separately but they decided to stick as one group, so we had Vipin DM while I took the role of co-ordinator and monitored the gates power level etc.

The heroes were taking a massive beating at the hands of the Thayans (the monk getting knocked unconscious in round 1) so after only 2 rounds we had Mennek’s betrayal and the appearance of Baazka. The fiend made his offer and we continued the initiative order. The paladin and skill-monkey both headed for the spirit-fiend but it was the skill-monkey that got there first and pulled the blade free. The fiend kept its word and stopped the ritual before telling the heroes he would kill them last as a thank you, but the pulling of the blade dropped the gate power below 0 and it blew.

Isteval sent his telepathic message that he would transport the heroes to safety – but they re-appeared instead in a chamber with the vision of another Red Wizard. She told them what had happened and what they would need to do to get out of the Doomvault. She gave them gate keys to some of the destinations within the vault and once they had chosen 2 (Ooze Grotto and Masters Domain) – we didn’t tell them which of us would be DMing which zone, and let them split themselves between the zones/tables.

So all in all we took 5.5 hours to complete the launch event and the non-combat based session 2 and begin the adventure in earnest this coming Wednesday. Having looked at whats coming I’m predicting some considerable carnage and we’ve already told the players to expect brutal beatings and not be afraid of running away if necessary – of course there’s only so far you can run in any dungeon….

D&D Enc Murder in Baldur’s Gate – Session 1

Well both my own and my fellow DM’s packs arrived during the morning, giving each of us about 6 hours to read through them (less for Liam who was at work) and although the players at the end of Saturday’s Launch Event had chosen to only attend the one meeting with Rilsa, we both decided to let them change their minds and attend up to 2 meetings of their choice. Arriving at our FLGS (Tabletop Tyrants) we had 10 players so split into 2 tables of 5 each and will try and keep to these groups throughout the season to avoid confusion.

My group consist of :-

•  Shane – Human Fighter
• Vipin – Halfling Cleric
• Adam – Half-Orc Barbarian
• Hannah – Half-Orc Fighter
• Richard – Halfling Rogue

After a quick recap of the Launch Event for any that missed it (only Adam in my group but 3 players in Liam’s group) each group made their choices and we began…

The party decided that while they still wanted to meet the shadowy figure at dusk in Little Claimsham they would also like to go and talk to Ulder Ravengard at the Flaming FIst’s bastion on Wyrm’s Crossing and so headed off through the city.  They realised they had to pass through a city gate en route but the press of people passing through was slow and crowded. Asking someone in the queue they were told that “some shield of something has gone missing from the harbour, so the watch are searching for it. Don’t worry though, if you got nothing to hide.” As they approached the front of the queue they could see half a dozen watchmen with a gaunt, wide-eyed dwarf apparantly in charge, searching peoples bags and charging a toll to pass the gate. They were recognised as “Heroes of the WIde” but the dwarf took a dislike to the pair of Half-orcs and demanded a toll of 5gp for the party to pass through the gate. Not wanting to tackle a watch squad in public the party paid up but as the dwarf put the coins in the collecting chest the Halfling rogue realised he only heard 4 out of the 5 coins go in. Once past the gate he informed his companions that the strange looking dwarf was skimming the tax.

Reaching Wyrm’s Crossing they announced their arrival to the guards and were shortly escorted to a meeting room with Ulder Ravengard. He told them that while the watch police the Upper city, his Flaming Fist keep order in the Lower city. “Originally we were hired to help defend the city from attackers but now we provide an internal peace keeping force. Just as well with the rapidly growing hive of lawless scum outside our gates. The Outer city slums and ghettoes are a breeding ground of criminals, collecively known as the Guild. Duke Adrian was trying to forge alliances between the social classes but then those Guild assassin’s cut him down in broad daylight. I need dependable people such as yourselves to help quell this, I can offer money, or even a position within the Fist’s and all that comes with it.”

The halfling cleric was happy to offer to help but didnt want to join up on the spot and Ulder revealed that he needed the party to close down a pair of illicit gambling dens as every time his Fists had tried they seemed to disappear before they got close. Ulder offered them lodgings for the night within Wyrm’s Rock and one of his underlings showed them the way.

The heroes made use of the facilities for an hour while they cleaned up their injuries from the Wide before setting off for their other meeting. As they were heading back Hannah noticed a pair of Fist soldiers shadowing them, and so she and Richard hung back while the others continued on. As the soldiers approached they called out to them to ask why they were following them. The soldiers were flustered but stammered a reply that they were going into the Lower city to visit one their mothers who was ill. “Oh, we’re heading that way, we’ll walk with you” the heroes cheerily said and fell into step with the soldiers.

The remaining heroes headed to Little Calimsham and waited at a street cafe that seemd to be open all hours. Shortly a cloaked figure approached and muttered “If your here for the meeting, follow me” before walking off without waiting for a response. With only a slight pause the trio of heroes followed at a short distance, being led through the rabbit warren of streets and up onto the walkway of the walls that divide the enclave into smaller compounds. After a few minutes the figure dropped into a shadowy walled garden and produced a key. It unlocked a door and motioned the heroes inside where they could see a warm welcoming light. Inside the heroes found a large man sat on a cushioned floor with a brightly coloured turban and bushy beard who motioned for them sit with him. As they sat the smaller figure joined them, removing its cloak and a false beard to reveal the woman that had spoke to them in the Wide.

She introduced herself as Rilsa Rael, and representative of the Guild. “No doubt you’ve been told we’re a bunch of cut-throats and killers but thats not true. We might occasionally resort to a little thievery but thats so we can recover the exhorbitant taxes the nobles put in place that are keeping the honest hard-working people from making a living. Event members of the watch are corrupt, taking bribes and over-taking those that can ill-afford to pay. We were working with Duke Adrian to find an equality but now he’s dead we have no allies on the ruling council”. The cleric stated that the Fist’s believed it was Guild assassins that killed the Duke but Rael assured him that it most certainly wasnt.

The heroes appeared sympathetic to her cause and so she asked them to help. Telling them that a despicable worm of a tax collector would be passing through a specific part of the Lower city at a certain time with a chest of over-charged taxes, if the heroes would help “liberate” it she would make sure the people that needed it would get it. The only thing would be to try not to kill any of the watch or Fists as this would definitely not aid their cause, only reinforce the misconception that the Guild were lawless killers. The heroes agreed (the cleric reluctantly) and Rael gave them the route the tax collector would be travelling.

Meanwhile Hannah and Richard had reached the soldiers destination and they wished their sick mother was feeling better. The soldiers entered the building and the heroes heard a womans voice inside yelling “Who the hell are you? what are you doing in my house?” the heroes called out, asking if everything was all right and heard the sound of furniture being knocked over and pottery breaking. The heroes pushed the door open to see the soldiers exiting the back door as the woman who lived here threw a cup at them, when she realised the heroes were there she threw pieces of broken plate at them and grabbed a broom, shooing them out of her house.

The heroes all met back up at the gates of Little Calimsham and caught each other up on events before heading to intercept the tax collector. As they travelled the narrow dark streets of the Outer city they noticed a furtive trio laying in ambush. As the heroes got closer the figures drew wicked looking daggers.

Adam launched one of his javelins, striking one of the thugs squarely, before the target could react he charged up the alley to stand menacingly before him. Hannah and Shane also chose to attack with their ranged weapons, remembering the viscious injuries similar thugs had caused in the Wide earlier that day. Richard tried to climb onto a nearby roof but failed to get a decent grip, deciding to hang back in safety for now. Vipin’s cleric called upon Yondalla and sent a sacred flame at one of the attackers, who seemed to bend almost double as he avoided it (crit’d the dex save).

Wanting to find out who these attackers were and why they had attacked, Adam knocked his opponent out and dragged him back towards his allies. Realising their foes werent of the same calibre as earlier the heroes closed for combat and quickly despatched the remaining two thugs. As they searched the bodies a small coin rolled towards a drain cover, Richard dove along the dirty wet floor and managed to catch it. As they looked at it they realised it was a small bronze medallion bearing the symbol of Bhaal. The thugs daggers also bore the symbol on thier hilts.

Vipin cast spare the dying on the unconscious thug so that they could question him, but all he revealed was that he was a follower of Bhaal and the Lord of Murder shall return, despite the heroes “persuasion” tactics. The heroes planned to let him go and follow him, but as they untied him he lunged for a weapon on Vipin’s belt and before anyone else could react Adam’s half-orc swept his legs out from under him with enough force to smash his face into the floor with a sickening crunch. Rolling the motionless body over they realised the impact had driven his nose cartilidge back and into his brain, killing him.

Gathering their weapons back up the heroes continued on to their appointment with the corrupt tax collector.

Photos from the session.

We closed the session there and thanked everyone for playing. Everyone said they had had fun and were looking forward to more next week. Thankfully I’ll have more prep time and so I plan on trying to bring the city to life around them during the game.

The adventure packs are nice, would be better with thicker covers, but the all colour interiors are of good quality. The DM screen is great, with lots of useful information for the DM to use. There has been a lot of discussion on the forums about the lack of included maps but thanks to the great community of DM’s on there, there are some excellent suggestions of which maps from previous Encounters and other products to substitute.

All in all an excellent start to the season which bodes well for the coming weeks.

{Liam’s write up}

This session was the first time I would be DMing encounters and while a relatively new DM myself (I’ve only been running sessions once a week since May), I was looking forward to it. Given that the adventure arrived in my hands at 10.20 on the day of the session and I was at work, my prep for the session was minimal, but I think I managed to pull it off.

 My group consisted of:-

• Tilly – Elf Ranger
• Jodie – Elf Rogue
• Glenn – Human Wizard
• Sunyi – Human Cleric
• Tan – Half-Elf Paladin

 I had run the launch event for a couple of players previously who wouldn’t be making the Saturday event, with only one of those who will be joining us for Encounters in a couple of weeks, so had a good idea of the goings on but I had run it in 4e and sadly due to unforeseen circumstances, was unable to attend the launch event myself, so I had the players in my group that had attended summarize the events for both my benefit and the groups.

 Prior to the session, both Mik and I had agreed that we would give the two groups the option to change the meeting they had decided on and due to the new players in the group I opted to run through the last part of the launch day event with them again so that everybody got to hear the meeting offers and the group could make a more informed decision. On top of this, we had concluded that the groups would have time for up to two meetings too…

 The party decided that they would meet with the Marshal of the Flaming Fists, UlderRavengard at Wyrm’s Rock and the shadowy figure that had approached them in the Wide, claiming that the two gentlemen that had spoken to them were liars and that the party shouldn’t believe anything they say in Little Calimshan.

As luck would have it, both of these locations were located through the same gate, into the Outer City, commonly referred to as the “Basilisk Gate”, however, the crowd of people at the gate waiting to go through slowed their progress somewhat. Whilst trying to garner what the hold-up was, the group overheard members of the crowd say that The Watch were looking for “a stolen shield or something from the harbour, they want to search everyone.” The group managed to make their way through the crowd to see a bearded dwarf with wide eyes sitting at a table surrounded a handful of armoured men of The Watch. After observing for a moment whilst in the queue, it became apparent that the dwarf was searching through people’s belongings by emptying them out onto the table before him and then charging them a toll to make their way through the gate.

The dwarf summoned the party over without looking up from the table, telling them in a blunt and disinterested manner that they were to “submit to a search and then pay the fee to make their way into the Outer City through the gate.” The party started to be patted down by the guards surrounding the dwarf and their bags searched before the dwarf at the table, clearly an authority figure among the collection of soldiers looked up and recognized them as the “Heroes of the Wide” resulting in him quickly ordering his men to hand back any belongings and making an apology to them, “I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize you at first. I thought you were another one of these petty thieving scum,” referring to the crowd trying to enter the Outer City. He also referred to them as “the great unwashed” and suggested that they were “a class lower than dirt”. The party became riled up but took the opportunity following some fast talking by the Paladin to enter through the gate free of charge.

They reached Wyrm’s Crossing and were met by two men of the Flaming Fists who guided them through to the fortress and up to the tallest tower in the Keep where they saw the man they had met earlier in the wide, UlderRavengard, gazing out into the city’s harbour. Motioning them to come over to him and look out of the window too, he began to explain that the Flaming Fist were originally hired to help defend the city from external forces but quickly realized they were needed within too and were “the cure to the disease of Baldur’s Gate,” explaining that the slums and ghettos were full of crime, all led by an organization known as “The Guild”. He explained that Duke Abdel Adrian had tried so hard for years to bridge the gap between the classes of Baldur’s Gate, only to be killed by one of the Guild’s assassins. His offer was simple, help rid the city of “the plague that is The Guild” and in return, the party would receive gold and positions of merit within the Flaming Fists which he added would “be beneficial in a number of ways around the city.”

The Paladin and Cleric were more than happy to work with the Flaming Fists, but after a brief discussion amongst themselves, they decided that they would see what the shadowy figure had to offer first. Taking their leave of Ulder, they made their way to Little Calimshan.

It took a few moments once having entered the area for the groups Rogue to spot a similar shadowy figure motioning subtly to them to follow, but not too close. The group obeyed and were led up onto the walls of the enclave, criss-crossing a number of streets before finally dropping down into some form of courtyard where the shadowy figure drew a key and unlocked a door to the building at the end of the courtyard, spilling a warm light out into the yard. The figure motioned the party inside.

Upon stepping over the threshold they immediately saw a number of cushions on the floor and many fabrics adorning the walls, draped from the centre of the ceiling given the impression that they were inside a tent. On one of the cushions was a man wearing a brightly coloured turban. The shadowy figured took a seat next to him as the man poured tea for everyone and motioned for them all to take a seat too. The figure pulled back his hood and removed his beard to reveal that he was in fact, a woman.

The woman introduced herself as RilsaRael, a member of the group known as The Guild. The party remained silent, though given the description they had heard of the organization earlier, the Paladin and the Cleric seemed a little on edge. Rilsa then proceeded to tell the group about the Guild, emphasising that really, they’re the only group “fighting for the poor” now that Abdel Adrian was dead and suggested that he had in fact been cooperating with The Guild to help the poor and bring their standard of living up. It was their goal to take the wealth that had been “wrongly taken” from the poor and give it back to them. She suggested that this was as a result of the “unjust and corrupt bunch of thieves that are the Flaming Fists, one in particular springs to mind. Basilisk. The dwarf you no doubt ran into on your way here as you passed through the city gate. If you were paying close enough attention you may have seen him pocketing small valuables and even charging extortionate tolls to take his own cut.” Rilsa was clearly disgusted by this hideous abuse of power.

Something stirred within the party as they almost immediately offered to help out with the dwarf, thus making their decision for them – they were going to be working with The Guild.

Realizing this, Rilsa suggested that the best thing to do would be to rob Basilisk, so that the stolen gold could be redistributed amongst the people. Though she stressed that she didn’t want him killed as that would only serve to fuel the “war” going on between The Guild and the Flaming Fists and more bad press is the last thing they need.

Rilsa also added that in an effort to protect the identities of the group, they should wear masks and dark hooded cloaks, lest they get captured or recognized.

As proof of the party’s commitment to their cause however, Rilsa asked them a favour. “In the Founder’s Day massacre, a citizen of the Outer City, was killed leaving behind his two daughters. As it would happen, his sister-in-law, the Lady Nidris and her son Zan are visiting from Neverwinter to get away from the aftermath of the storms they endured recently and because of her brother-in-laws death, she has had to stay a while longer but is now ready to leave. We have tried to give the daughters aid towards any funeral arrangements and to pay for anything they need for their house but Lady Nidris has made them refuse every offer. However, she is leaving today and I want to ensure that she gets out of the city safely. I don’t trust the guards. I am charging you with the responsibility of making sure she gets out with all of her belongings and her son with as little trouble as possible. You’ll find her at Mahoud’shouse a few streets from here.”

The group left and made their way there, seeing Lady Nidris and her son readying crates to leave the city as a guard patrol arrived just before the party got there. The leader began arguing with Nidris, demanding she submit to a search while one of the soldiers pulled her son off of the crate he was sitting on and threw him to the ground. The boy retaliated by picking himself up and trying to hit the soldier, but was pushed to the ground again and the soldier raised his hand to punish the boy. At this point, one of Nidris’ companions punched one of the soldiers in the face, causing the soldiers to draw arms and take up positions surrounding Nidris’ small company.

The party arrived to intervene, drawing the attention of the soldiers with one of them charging straight for the Rogue who led the party into the compound while the others rallied around the Sergeant, bows at the ready. The soldier that charged with Rogue drew his sword and struck her in the midriff whilst the soldiers with their bows drawn let loose a shower of arrows upon the remainder of the party. The groups on Ranger meanwhile mounted one of the surrounding walls to get a better view of the Sergeant and let an arrow go towards the man in question, hitting the spot just beneath his collar bone. In reaction to this, he grabbed LadyNidris to use her as a shield.

The Wizard in the group made his way around the side of the ranks of “archers” and unleashed a wave of thunder at them sending them flying and dispatchinga couple of them.

The Rogue was struck once again, this time knocking her unconscious and were it not for the quick thinking of the Cleric, the Rogue may have lost her life. Seeing the Rogue down on the ground, the Sergeant grew over confident, throwing the make-shift cover that was Lady Nidris away before making his way forwards towards the party but was quickly stopped in his stride by another well placed arrow from the Ranger. This finally drew the attention of the soldiers armed with bows, as they released a flurry of arrows towards her, each one missing the nimble elf.

Once the number soldiers had fallen below half, the remainder yielded to the group, scurrying off and swearing that they would make sure that Lady Nidris and her party were left alone to exit the city.

This is where we ended our session. It took a good hour and a bit before the party found themselves in any form of combat and there had been some great interaction between the players – two of which were new to D&D Next, the others veterans from other seasons. I think the players certainly enjoyed themselves and it is already apparent to them that there are a lot of things in play here in Baldur’s Gate.

 The Lady Nidris encounter was actually an extra encounter suggestion from the WotC forums and it worked quite well and I felt comfortable enough to drop it in to enhance the session, which ran the full 2 hour slot we play in.

 On the whole, I think I managed to pull it off with only minor pauses to read thanks to the minimal amount of prep I could do, though hopefully, this is something Wizards of the Coast should have the foresight to rectify with future seasons.

 It’s certainly interesting to see that both tables picked the same meetings and the same side to work for. We’ll see how that plays out going forwards as there are some great ideas knocking about to enhance our players experience of the season in addition to the already free-flowing nature of this adventure.

D&D Enc Murder in Baldur’s Gate – Launch Event

So yesterday saw us gathering at Tabletop Tyrants for the Murder in Baldur’s Gate launch event adventure, the introduction not only to the new Encounters season for Wednesday’s but also the opening event for the Sundering – a major world-shaking event that is set to reshape the Forgotten Realms (again, though hopefully for the last time). As with the previous season and games day we had agreed to play using the latest packet of the D&DNext playtest rules.

With some of the weekend events we’ve previously ran on the day attendance has taken a hit, sometimes only 2-3 players turning up, but I’m happy to say that the latest few (Vault of the Dracolich and this one) have seen us with crowded tables. This time we had 8 players – 2 of which were newcomers that knew one of our Encounters players. With the addition of a Magic the Gathering tournament happening in store at the same time, space was at a premium but we coped albeit with it being cozy and loud.

Although the pack suggested creating characters on the day most of the players had already created the pc’s they wanted and the rest chose from the pregens I had brought with me. The party we began with was:-

• Jodie – Elf Rogue
• Shane – Elf Fighter
• Richard – Halfling Rogue (pregen)
• Rhys – Half-Elf Paladin (pregen)
• TIlly – Elf Ranger (pregen)
• Hannah – Half-Orc Barbarian (pregen)
• Vipin – Halfling Cleric
• Matt – Dwarf Fighter

We began with the read-aloud text as the players looked over the map of the Wide laid out before them (apologies for no photo’s of the session as I was way too busy to take any) and almost covered in guards and civilian tokens. A few of the players chose to interact with the stalls, mainly the rogues trying their hands at pocketing unsecured items, while Matt and Rhys elbowed their way to the front to see the stage and others investigated the curious statue of Minsc and Boo.

Shane and Richard heard a noblewomen calling for someone to find her cat and spotted a feline cleaning itself under a nearby stall, eventually retrieving the animal and proudly returning it to the noblewoman. “That filthy beast isn’t mine!” she cried loudly, “my cat is a Waterdhavian Blue, not some scruffy street cat!” and walked away in a huff.

Meanwhile a portly gent started a bit of a ruckus, accusing one of the players of repeatedly standing on his fine Calishite silk cloak, Rhys noticed that with the uproar someone was trying to help themselves to the players coin purse and rather than call out simply harpooned the would-be thief with a well thrown javelin. Most of the players converged on the disturbance, as did a pair of Watchmen, and when the Watch told the thief to hold his hand on the nearby stall Matt’s dwarf “accidentally” stumbled into the one holding the criminal, allowing the miscreant to melt into the throng and escape having his finger taken off.

At this point the roar of the crowd was quieted from the stage as Duke Abdel Adrian addressed them, halfway through his speech he became distracted, looking into the crowd as if searching for something. As he did so crossbowmen were seen in nearby windows just as they loosed a volley of bolts into the assembled crowd. The honour guard of watchmen immediately ran to the buildings the assailants were in as the crowd burst into a panic, one knocking over a cooking pot and causing the stall to catch alight adding to the mayhem.

Vipin and Matt moved to the stage in an effort to defend Duke Adrian who still seemed oblivious to his surroundings, as a pair of revellers threw off their cloaks to reveal leather armour and readied weapons. These warriors grabbed nearby members of the crowd, drawing their blades across throats and dropping the bodies to the ground to bleed out as they moved on to a fresh target.

Tilly attempted to climb onto the top of a nearby stall so as to get better aim with her longbow, unfortunately rolling a 1 and pulling the canvas down on top of her in a tangled mess. Hannah took a bolt from a crossbow as she tried to lasso Duke Adrian to get him off the stage but her rope fell considerably short, and one of the bloodthirsty warriors attacked her – his blade striking deeply and dropping the half-orc to the floor.

Richard was busily trying to dodge around the various stalls that were rapidly becoming consumed by the spreading fire, noticing a small child stood by one and crying for her mother, but the halfling was more interested in self-preservation and left the child amidst the conflagration.

Rhys, Jodie and Shane engaged the pair of warriors, trading blows with their foes as Vipin asked Matt to throw him towards the fallen half-orc. Matt’s dwarf grabbed the halfling by the front of the tunic and with a mighty grunt brought him up in an overhand throw – but misjudged the weight of the halfling and only succeeded in face-planting him off the edge of the stage.

By now the sounds of combat and lack of bolts from the surrounding windows were evidence of the members of the watch tackling the bowmen, but a new threat appeared as another trio revealed themselves to be enemies. As Rhys and Shane’s opponent finally fell to the heroes blows one of the  new threats moved to intercept them, pushing panicking townsfolk out of the way as he did so. The other warrior began grabbing members of the crowd and slitting their throats so Jodie and Richard (now he was far enough away from the burning stalls) peppered him with bowshot.

The final figure approached the stage and a flicker of recognition appeared on Duke Adrian’s face. The cloaked figure drew a weapon as he cried out “Now we finish this. There can be only one!” as he and Adrian clashed. Matt was able to shoulder barge the man off the stage even lending the Duke one of his light hammers as he was weaponless.

A friendly dwarven warrior began trying to calm the crowd, calling them to run to safety down a nearby alleyway (Hannah’s half-orc had failed three death saves so we gave her another pre-gen to keep playing), helping several flee the carnage before chasing after them out of harms way.

The flames had spread to cover half the market as the fight continued, Shane and Rhys dealt with their opponent, freeing Rhys to heal the stricken cleric, bringing him back into the fray. Unfortunately the other enemy warrior had succeeded in taking Richard out continued to slaughter nearby crowd members.

Despite Matt’s help the enemy leader was taking a toll on Duke Adrian and he summoned a cloud of darkness. This allowed him to strike a killing blow on the Duke as the darkness dissipated. The crowd fell silent as their beloved Duke fell lifeless to the ground, and were then further shocked as his killer suddenly transformed into a blood-covered monster before their eyes. Matt’s stoic dwarf charged in, weapon hammering into the unnatural beast before him which responded with fiendish claw strikes almost toppling the dwarven warrior, before leaping at a nearby member of the panicked crowd and rending him in two.

The last standing enemy warrior looked as shocked as everyone else and pausing only long enough to smash his foot into the head of Richard’s fallen halfling, fled into the running crowd.

The remaining heroes concentrated their attacks on the terrible slathering monster and brought it down without further losses.  As the killing blow struck the creature seemed to burst, spraying blood in a concussive wave across the Wide with enough force to extinguish the burning stalls and knock most people off their feet. All that remained of it was a strange bloody symbol on floor where it had stood. Vipin and Shane recognised it as the symbol of Bhaal, former god of assassins that had himself been killed by a mortal well over a century ago.

As people began to calm down the party were approached by a well dressed gentleman that had managed to stay out of the trouble. He introduced himself as Imralyn Skoond, a representative of Duke Silvershield “the one that ran at the first sign of trouble” remarked Matt’s dwarf. “If you would discover who took Abdel’s life, if you wish to save Baldur’s Gate from the rot festering in it, meet me at the Three Old Kegs. Everyone there knows me. I will be there until eight bells.”  he then moved off with more of the townsfolk as the returning watchmen began to cordon off the area.

A few more Watch members and citizens congratulate the party before they are approached by a powerfully built man who strides toward them with authority. The crowd parts as he approaches. Emblazoned boldly his tabard is a burning clenched
gauntlet – the symbol of the Flaming Fist mercenary company. “Greetings. I am Ulder Ravengard, commander of Wyrm’s
Rock and – as of now – the Flaming Fist mercenary company. Duke Adrian had been our marshal. The Watch was responsible
for his safety here and should have protected him from this attack. We are indebted to you for your heroic action on the duke’s behalf. Please meet me at Wyrm’s Rock, where we can have a proper introduction. I believe you could be of great service to our city. You’ll find that I can be a valuable friend.” He moves away to consult with the Watch, a group of burly men at his back.

As the heroes prepare to leave the marketplace a peasant they had taken for a stall holder approached them. The cloaked figure muttered breathily, “You are newcomers here, so you don’t know the situation. Don’t trust either of those men who spoke to you. If you want to know what is really happening in Baldur’s Gate, meet me at the gateway to Little Calimshan at dusk.” The figure then melts into the thinning crowd and disappears.

The party considers the three strange invitations they have received, realising that they couldn’t make it to all three due to time and distance and agree to only attend the later meeting with the mysterious figure in Little Calimshan.

And so we ended the session, with the players that will be continuing the adventure on Wednesdays having decided their next course of action (making it easier for the DM’s (myself and hopefully Liam) to prepare effectively rather than have to run totally on the fly. The pack had said that the adventure should take about 2 hours to run, with the larger group we had taken 3 hours and I hope everyone had enjoyed it. Players that took part that may be reading this will notice I have altered the narrative slightly as I made a mistake in-game (yes, as unbelievable as it may seem, I am only human) and had the dying Duke Adrian transform with his assailant fleeing in fear and horror.

Our new players seemed to enjoy themselves, despite being my only victims and having their first characters killed in-game, and are planning on joining our regular Wednesday sessions with another couple of friends too, and an observer in the store has also expressed interest. This could take our Encounters attendance up to 12 so after discussion Liam has offered to run a second table at the same time so that we have two parties adventuring within Baldur’s Gate each session.

Despite trying to use some of the crowd interaction items in the adventure the players were more focused upon the actual threats so most (such as the crying child, and the stumbling dwarf  – who then got shredded by the beast) were little more than window dressing, this was probably because of the group size and the fact that the shop was very busy around us.

My only hope now is that my adventure pack arrives from Amazon in time for Wednesday, with this being the first of the commercially available Encounters packs it feels a little strange to have the release date only one day before the season is due to commence, though apparently several stores (mostly in the USA) received advance copies last week.