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Almost lost my beloved Barbarian tonight.

Two solid attacks eaten, then a critical hit for 34....

Dude deals massive damage, but is behind the curve in the AC department. 18 normal / 16 while raging.
 
Almost lost my beloved Barbarian tonight.

Two solid attacks eaten, then a critical hit for 34....

Dude deals massive damage, but is behind the curve in the AC department. 18 normal / 16 while raging.

Why 16? What edition are you playing?
 
So we got to play this weekend. I can say as the DM, I was not prepared (insert Liam O'Brian as Illidan Stormrage). We played for no shit probably a total of 6 to 8 hours between yesterday and today. The party just wanted to keep going.

I had prepped for arrival in Phandalin, as well as the Orc Trouble Encounter. They completed those 2, the Redbrand Hideout, Agatha the Banshee and just arrived in Thundertree.

Breakdown of the adventure so far (Warning long read with spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver).
They arrived in the town with wagon, recovered supplies and Sildar. They turned in the supplies and delivered the wagon for their rewards. As soon as they learned of the Redbrand Ruffians they immediately went to confront them outside the bar.

So 4 redbrands are chilling at the front of the tavern and the party immediately picks a fight. Redbrands roll horribly on initiative and so the majority of the party goes before them. Fighter (my 5 year old) engages the first does a bit of damage as he describes his acrobatic attack and rolls well for both the acrobatics check then the attack. Druid(My GF's 11 year old) goes next and casts Thunderwave. Now here is where I fucked up as DM, the alignment of the Redbrands has 3 of them perfectly placed to be hit by the cube from Thunderwave. He rolls a nat 20 to attack (even though its a con save) and Redbrands straight roll a 1 so I gave him double damage for thematic fun. He proceeds to obliterate the 3 Redbrands. Leaving 1 alive. Who doesn't even make a scratch on the fighter in his 2 attacks and is then finished off by the party.

So since they caused a ruckus, I had the barkeep come out of the tavern and the mayor to see what was going on. They follow the mayor back to the Townhall area and the bar patrons then loot the bandits.

At the Townhall they see the wanted poster for the orcs causing a problem and decided to immediately go there to solve it. So I subbed the Cave Monster Encounter from DND Beyond for the orc bounty. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/767-tactical-encounters-cave-defenders

So here they do pretty well overall. They get backstabbed by one of the orcs (i subbed orcs for bugbears in the encounter but used the stats in the encounter for the orcs). They then got sneak attacked by the kobolds, who all rolled horribly and barely managed to damage the party. They defeat the kobolds in about a turn and then are off to free the prisoners. As soon as the do so, they get ambushed by the ogre. Again they do fairly well with combat, only the druid and barbarian (my GF's character) take hits from the ogre. So they almost get him finished off and he goes into the circle with like 1 hitpoint, regains health and battles some more, until they finish him off and drag him out of the power circle.

Now they go back, collect the bounty and immediately go to the hideout after collecting their reward. In the hideout they manage to fall into the trap, damaging 2 players, decide to split the party investigation the armory and cells, leading to the fighter getting surprise attacked for a big chunk of HP.

They recover fairly well, defeat those Redbrands and then find the door to the cavern. They miss the other secret door to Glass Staff and fight the Nothic. Nothic scores a decent amount of damage on the druid, who has wild shaped into a wolf. Enough to knock him back to a druid. They defeat it and then roll a 19 on investigation, finding the treasure.

They decide to back track and enter the wizards workshop and quarters, instead of the barracks and break room area. They did not follow the prompt of finding the secret door ajar. They dilly dally in there giving Glass Staff time to escape, but they had already found his cache in the entrance.

So now they open the break room, successfully persuade the Redbrands they are new recruits since they donned their cloaks prior to entering. They get them drinks and when given the prompt about one of them cheating, they instigate a huge brawl, then leave and talk to the bugbears. They convince them the same and ask about giving a book (that they had looted from the Wizards room) to the boss. Bugbears direct them back to the wizards room and they realize to follow the open door.

So they finally go back, I give a bit of prompting about seeing a trail through the cavern and off they go. Since the kids especially wanted to confront the "boss", I gave them a chance for a chase encounter on a road. They manage to ensnare the Glass Staff and quickly surround him and beat him into submission.

Then its back to town, they turn him over and are off to confront Agatha the Banshee, possibly Old Owl Well and end up in Thunder Tree after successfully speaking with the Banshee.

I had to stop them after about 2 buildings in Thunder Tree because I was definitely not ready for that whole encounter area.


All in all it was an absolute blast. Everyone had fun and they can't wait for more.

Awesome recap. We play Wednesday. Can't wait! I've actually been journaling (nerding) everything into a Word document for posterity lol.
 
So we got to play this weekend. I can say as the DM, I was not prepared (insert Liam O'Brian as Illidan Stormrage). We played for no shit probably a total of 6 to 8 hours between yesterday and today. The party just wanted to keep going.

I had prepped for arrival in Phandalin, as well as the Orc Trouble Encounter. They completed those 2, the Redbrand Hideout, Agatha the Banshee and just arrived in Thundertree.

Breakdown of the adventure so far (Warning long read with spoilers for Lost Mine of Phandelver).
They arrived in the town with wagon, recovered supplies and Sildar. They turned in the supplies and delivered the wagon for their rewards. As soon as they learned of the Redbrand Ruffians they immediately went to confront them outside the bar.

So 4 redbrands are chilling at the front of the tavern and the party immediately picks a fight. Redbrands roll horribly on initiative and so the majority of the party goes before them. Fighter (my 5 year old) engages the first does a bit of damage as he describes his acrobatic attack and rolls well for both the acrobatics check then the attack. Druid(My GF's 11 year old) goes next and casts Thunderwave. Now here is where I fucked up as DM, the alignment of the Redbrands has 3 of them perfectly placed to be hit by the cube from Thunderwave. He rolls a nat 20 to attack (even though its a con save) and Redbrands straight roll a 1 so I gave him double damage for thematic fun. He proceeds to obliterate the 3 Redbrands. Leaving 1 alive. Who doesn't even make a scratch on the fighter in his 2 attacks and is then finished off by the party.

So since they caused a ruckus, I had the barkeep come out of the tavern and the mayor to see what was going on. They follow the mayor back to the Townhall area and the bar patrons then loot the bandits.

At the Townhall they see the wanted poster for the orcs causing a problem and decided to immediately go there to solve it. So I subbed the Cave Monster Encounter from DND Beyond for the orc bounty. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/767-tactical-encounters-cave-defenders

So here they do pretty well overall. They get backstabbed by one of the orcs (i subbed orcs for bugbears in the encounter but used the stats in the encounter for the orcs). They then got sneak attacked by the kobolds, who all rolled horribly and barely managed to damage the party. They defeat the kobolds in about a turn and then are off to free the prisoners. As soon as the do so, they get ambushed by the ogre. Again they do fairly well with combat, only the druid and barbarian (my GF's character) take hits from the ogre. So they almost get him finished off and he goes into the circle with like 1 hitpoint, regains health and battles some more, until they finish him off and drag him out of the power circle.

Now they go back, collect the bounty and immediately go to the hideout after collecting their reward. In the hideout they manage to fall into the trap, damaging 2 players, decide to split the party investigation the armory and cells, leading to the fighter getting surprise attacked for a big chunk of HP.

They recover fairly well, defeat those Redbrands and then find the door to the cavern. They miss the other secret door to Glass Staff and fight the Nothic. Nothic scores a decent amount of damage on the druid, who has wild shaped into a wolf. Enough to knock him back to a druid. They defeat it and then roll a 19 on investigation, finding the treasure.

They decide to back track and enter the wizards workshop and quarters, instead of the barracks and break room area. They did not follow the prompt of finding the secret door ajar. They dilly dally in there giving Glass Staff time to escape, but they had already found his cache in the entrance.

So now they open the break room, successfully persuade the Redbrands they are new recruits since they donned their cloaks prior to entering. They get them drinks and when given the prompt about one of them cheating, they instigate a huge brawl, then leave and talk to the bugbears. They convince them the same and ask about giving a book (that they had looted from the Wizards room) to the boss. Bugbears direct them back to the wizards room and they realize to follow the open door.

So they finally go back, I give a bit of prompting about seeing a trail through the cavern and off they go. Since the kids especially wanted to confront the "boss", I gave them a chance for a chase encounter on a road. They manage to ensnare the Glass Staff and quickly surround him and beat him into submission.

Then its back to town, they turn him over and are off to confront Agatha the Banshee, possibly Old Owl Well and end up in Thunder Tree after successfully speaking with the Banshee.

I had to stop them after about 2 buildings in Thunder Tree because I was definitely not ready for that whole encounter area.


All in all it was an absolute blast. Everyone had fun and they can't wait for more.

Are the kids doing much role playing? My wife and son prefer I do more of the role playing then they play off of me saying or doing something.
 
Are the kids doing much role playing? My wife and son prefer I do more of the role playing then they play off of me saying or doing something.

They are doing ok actually. They definitely prefer the combat fun and are very creative with it.

But even my 5 year old is learning the role play part. He does well interacting with NPCs and has surprised me with a few of his actions.

He gave gold and comforting words to the prisoners in the Redbrand Hideout, interacts very well with shop keepers and other NPCs too.

They all definitely like the mystery investigation parts, exploration and combat though.
 
So I gotta prep for Venomfang but since I'm running a group for 2 kids and 1 adult, who are all first time players I want to make sure they don't get TPKd but get the full dragon experience.

The party is 4 level 3 characters. GFs gnome path of the berserker barbarian, her son plays a dragonborn druid of the land, my son is a human eldritch fighter and the NPC they have assisting them is a tiefling hexblade warlock.

I'm thinking of having the druid in Thundertree buff them with protection from poison but warning them strongly about trying to battle the dragon.

If they decide to go battle the dragon I read a few options on how to play the dragon, make him predatory and intelligent and basically make him a tough fight. Gonna incorporate some of those ideas to the fight as well.

The goal is not to have them kill the dragon but have a very hard fight to try and drive it off when it reaches half HP.

We will see how it goes. They have been fairly lucky in their encounters so far and done well in combat so I want to temper that with this fight but not kill them outright due to their inexperience.
 
So I gotta prep for Venomfang but since I'm running a group for 2 kids and 1 adult, who are all first time players I want to make sure they don't get TPKd but get the full dragon experience.

The party is 4 level 3 characters. GFs gnome path of the berserker barbarian, her son plays a dragonborn druid of the land, my son is a human eldritch fighter and the NPC they have assisting them is a tiefling hexblade warlock.

I'm thinking of having the druid in Thundertree buff them with protection from poison but warning them strongly about trying to battle the dragon.

If they decide to go battle the dragon I read a few options on how to play the dragon, make him predatory and intelligent and basically make him a tough fight. Gonna incorporate some of those ideas to the fight as well.

The goal is not to have them kill the dragon but have a very hard fight to try and drive it off when it reaches half HP.

We will see how it goes. They have been fairly lucky in their encounters so far and done well in combat so I want to temper that with this fight but not kill them outright due to their inexperience.
One of the good things about running an intelligent monster is that you can usually make it run away without it feeling like a cop-out. Most long-lived intelligent species have no interest in fighting to the death if they don't have to. Works even better with dragons because players generally have no way of following if the dragon just wings it and flies away. And it's great potential for a recurring encounter if the players had fun. "I'll get you next time, Gadget!"
 
One of the good things about running an intelligent monster is that you can usually make it run away without it feeling like a cop-out. Most long-lived intelligent species have no interest in fighting to the death if they don't have to. Works even better with dragons because players generally have no way of following if the dragon just wings it and flies away. And it's great potential for a recurring encounter if the players had fun. "I'll get you next time, Gadget!"

Definitely the plan and to kind of give them an impending sense of danger with the dragon. Or a follow on for quest options if they complete LMoP.
 
Never played PF. Isn’t it a lot like 3e?
It's basically 3.75. Take 3.5, change some little stuff that needed fixing, change some stuff just to change some stuff, and add a bunch of fiddly stuff to class construction and you get Pathfinder. In my experience it is generally better balanced than 3.5 but at it's core it's too much like a published set of 3.5 house-rules for my taste. I haven't looked at it in ~10 years so I don't know if it's gotten more editions that change that impression.
 
Definitely the plan and to kind of give them an impending sense of danger with the dragon. Or a follow on for quest options if they complete LMoP.

Dragons make great long term enemies...then by the time your players can kill it, they learn it's Older/bigger/more powerful mate/sibling/parent/master wants revenge....
 
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