Saturday night nerding

Caution possible Tomb Of Annihilation spoilers. 

After a six month (or what seemed like it) hiatus I jumped back in with the 5e group.  They have been playing thru "Tomb Of Annihilation" and are now at level 9.  Rather than play my original character (who was only leveled up to 4th) I decided to just print off a pre gen.  From the original group of adventurers only one was left.  As we had one new player that evening, the DM took both of us aside to try and figure out how we would meet up with the group in the Forbidden City (it's ormu or whatever, but it's the forbidden city only titled).  I came up with the concept that we had left the port city around the same time and were slowly following the group of intrepid adventurers.  Hoping to meet up with them.  However there was a LOT of complications and we only finally caught up with them inside the city.  I stepped out of the bushes to say HI! and was blasted by the warlock with eldritch blast (I hate that damn spell).

We ended up doing a bit of exploring of a amphitheater, apparently looking for a place to take these weird square stones (honestly I don't know what is going on in the game, I've been following the play reports, but if your not there it really makes no sense). 

As is typical with fifth ed,  we got into a large fight (with some smaller dinosaurs).  During the combat (which basically lasted most of the session) we started hearing THUNKS coming from the jungle. 

CUE every Jurassic Park joke you can think of.

And on CUE after a few rounds of combat with the smaller dinosaurs, a very large hungry T-Rex came out of the bushes.  (Because challenge ratings).

My character (a rogue) decided to bum rush the T Rex, because after all I'm just AC and HP on a piece of paper. 

A few of the others stayed back, covering themselves with dung (this was happening when the first set of dinos showed up).  They did however finally get into the melee, but at that point we had almost decimated the t rex.  Seriously whilst I bitch up about eldritch blast, the sneak attack feature is friggin deadly.

Anyways, we killed the thing, did a bit more exploring, then found this weirdo tomb.  A bit of a puzzle.  Which none of us were awake enough to figure out.  Bunch of statues, apparently they looked like the stones we were carrying around (ancient evil gods).

I then did some investigating, found a secret door and a necklace, put it on.  Which then lead me to the correct place to put the stones.  (another entrance).  Which was a bit of hand waving by the DM but that's fine as we were all quite tired at this point.

As a personal note, I'm unsure as to whether the DM is getting bored with the campaign, or burned out.  It feels like he's trying to push it thru a bit.  I really hope that, that is not the case.  As well I hope that we aren't handwaved another level next time (for challenge levels), I like the idea of growing into a character and it's skills.  Whatever the case, it's gaming and it's fun. 

Part of the problem I feel is the following:
1.  This group owns/collects all of the WOTC sanctioned material.

2.  All of these adventures are made (for the most part) to be campaigns that take you from level 1 - 20

3.  Playing these campaigns on a weekly basis would get you thru them a lot quicker.  (we meet every three weeks).

4.  People have the new BRIGHT and shiny module and they get excited about playing that one, which makes people want to fast forward the current module.

All of this would be thrown out the window if I was running a game, as I'd want to do a sandbox, home brew thing.  That said I don't really want to DM 5e for awhile.  However after having picked up a copy of Greyhawk, and playing a game on the weekend I got a LOT of inspiration.  That's another post, I've got a lot of ideas rolling around my head.

I didn't make it - TOA Session 2 Notes

I wasn't able to make the latest 5e session, but thankfully the DM sent this along to keep me updated. 

Caution may contain spoilers. 

The party made their way down the River Shoshenstar, along with their companions, Azaka, Xandala and Eshek.

Making their way along the river, they encounter a few people who look like lobsters, who tell them to leave their area, to which the party high tails it out of there, and some hungry schools of fish, of which they are able to catch a few to eat.

Continuing their way along the river, they come upon a deserted camp, with evidence of a major battle having taken place there, and a large statue with a crocodile on top of a man. The only living thing in sight is a large bird with a head that looks like a hatchet frantically running around a pen. Ren casts Speak with Animals on herself, and finds out that the bird got itself trapped in the pen. She also finds out that there are wood people around to the north. She opens the pen and lets the bird out, and it quickly takes off into the woods.

Continuing to explore the camp, Ren investigates the latrines. Inside one of the latrines, they find a corpse that has been dead a few days. Tankard and Ren lower Dain down into the latrine by the ankles, and he ties a rope around the corpse's neck. They manage to pull the corpse out without decapitating him, and find a warhammer, ruined scale male armour, and a pouch containing a handful of gemstones.

Tankard explores a burned down shrine, and finds a holy symbol in the shape of a Silver Gauntlet, which Ren identifies as being a symbol of Torm.

The rest of the camp seemed to contain nothing of interest, so the party decides to explore the statue, which has a large tunnel between the man's feet. The tunnel is laden wit traps, which seem to be magically disarmed when one member of the party rides the other member of the party's shoulders. Travelling along the tunnel, bypassing all the traps by riding on each other's shoulders, they come to a ledge, which they go over leading to a tiled grid, another ledge, and a door at the end of it - the door having a similar pattern to the tiled grid on the floor - with certain tiles being lit up on the door.

The party figures out that they need to step on the tile corresponding to the lit up tile on the door. Climbing up the second ledge, they quickly discover a glyph of warding on the door with a natural 20 on an investigation check. They figure out that how they need to press the button - riding on each other's shoulders, bottom person presses the first two buttons, top person presses the other two buttons.

The door swings inward to reveal a room filled with dinosaur bones, and a spiral staircase with a jug at the pinnacle of the staircase. Continuing the trend of riding piggyback, Ren and Keldren ascend the staircase to retreive the jug. Ren identifies it as being an Alchemy Jug.

Making their way out of the temple the same way they came in, the party finds themselves face to face with the wood people, a tribe of goblin like creatures wearing wooden masks.

After a quick battle, the party dispatches the goblins, but not before one blows his horn. The party reaches their boats in time to see zombies and skeletons crashing out of the bushes.

Making their way down the river again, the party sees a man on the riverbank - Artus Cimber, and Xandala's boat starts traveling towards him. The party shouts out to him, saying they've helped his daughter find him. Artus doesn't recognise Xandala. As she gets closer she starts casting a spell. His face kind of blanks over as her boat reaches him, she has a short conversation with him out of the party's earshot, he hands her something, and then she flys away.

Once she is gone, Artus comes to, and discovers that he gave her the Ring of Winter - which he reveals is what's kept him looking ageless. He says the ring is very powerful, but won't go into detail what other power the ring has. Artus' travelling companion - Dragonbait - crashes out of the bushes shortly after.

Artus and Dragonbait join the party, in the hopes of tracking Xandala down and regaining the ring.

As the party further travels down the river, they come to another encampment, which has piles of dead human bodies around it, and beasts which have had the skin flayed from them, which is where we left off.

tomb of annihilation - Session 1

Caution may include some spoilers.

Our new-ish group of 5e players got together yesterday to play TOA.  The group is comprised of 3 players from the previous 5e group and 3 new players.  Everyone has a lot of experience playing fifth edition, and have read the rules backwards and forwards.  I can't quite remember all of the classes and races we had but I"ll try my best.  It was the first session, I find it difficult to remember everyones names as well.  We have 2 dwarves, one of which is a monk, a dragonborn paladin (who is quite evil), a human druid and myself a human thief (who was previously a pirate).

I have to admit, I think I've found the class that I really like playing.  Just a basic straight up thief (rogue), I'm using the basic D&D rules, not the PHB options for the thief.  I did however use the pirate background, just cuz it worked for me. I normally like playing these type of characters in skyrim, so it seemed like a logical choice to do so playing tabletop.  I decided upon Chaotic Neutral, however I think that I'll have to switch to chaotic evil after this session! 

So as per usual we meet in a tavern.  There was some discussion prior to the start of the game, the DM (Adam) asks us where we met, no one really took the bait right away so I  said "we all met in a tavern ba da ching!".  Turns out we met in the ba da ching tavern in baldurs gate.

Alright, so we meet up with this mysterious corpse of a woman, who has apparently died and been resurrected, and is now dying again.  She "used to be an adventurer like us".  (cue a bunch of dumb jokes).  Anyways, her name is Cindra and she needs us to find this gem to help stop this curse/plague been killing people.  My rogue who doesn't quite care was all like "people die everyday", meanwhile the druid seems genuinely concerned for peoples lives. 

I had read that its best to say YES to things when playing D&D to keep the game moving, so that's my new plan, I'm going to be a YES Woman (my PC is a female).  So of course we said yes to the old hag, but not before I asked about gold!  Apparently we are going to get and I quote "rare or uncommon magic items".  Whatever its a quest!  Onward.

I suggested to the party that we get some trade goods before we leave, that way if the place we are going to needs some stuff, we could make a bit of extra coin.

That was disregarded and we were teleport-ed to Port Nanzaru in Chult the very next day.

We find ourselves in the City and start doing a bit of gearing up at the local marketplace.  We are supposed to meet up with the hag later, she is staying with one of the merchant princes (I'm going to call him Wakanda).  We all make it to the red bazaar (one of 3 marketplaces in the city). 

After a bit of buying things, we walk away with some good road items.  I attempted to steal some bug repellent, but the scheme went a bit off, and I dropped it.  The timing wasn't right, and the druid was not helpful hahaha.  One of the dwarves bought some dinosaur meat and decide to attempted to make jerky. 

There are 2 taverns to choose from, some of the players opted for the cheaper rooms, the rest of us spent the gold on a good evening.

The next day we get up to go and see Cindra (hag), as well we have plans to hire a guide.  On the way to Cindras we are met with a guy who needs a debt settled.  3 of us decide to go and figure this out.  The Dwarf and the Druid decide against helping us.

We wander over to a different marketplace to go and shake this guy down for some gold.  When we get there we spot him, but the guy that hired us mysteriously disappears!  We get into a fight, I sneak around trying to hit him with a few arrows.  After a bit of a melee, one of the players talks the guy down and we all go for a drink (it was a lucky deception roll).  The guy Tabin gets hammered at the Inn (day drunk), the dwarf puts him to bed, I sneak up and steal all his gems.  8 in total, I only tell the party about 7, and put one in my boot.

We never find the guy that hired us.  While this side trek is going on, the other 2 players basically lazed around the Inn getting massages, drinking margaritas, etc.

Its got fairly late in the day, so we decide to head off to the tavern across the street and interview some of the possible guides.  The dwarf monk (who might be a racist) wants to only hire a dwarf because beards.  Cue long bit about beards, and their manliness, etc.  Very silly.

Most of the guides have some random quest they need fulfilled, the rest are all really expensive and all seem to be in league with one of the merchant princes who run the city (Jabal).  Luckily we can afford any of them, because I stole a bunch of jewels.

After much debate, we decide we need to talk to Cindra and Wakanada before actually getting a guide. 

We get a bit more intel, decide to hire Azara (who needs a quest fulfilled).  As well we meet a bunch of random NPCs that need side quests fulfilled.  Including one girl whose dad went missing.  Apparently he was with a lizard dude.  The party has got a bit bigger now, we have the guide, the girl whose dad is missing, and I think some other person.  The guide tells us that if we had canoes we would make good time.  Off to the canoe store! Thankfully I have some gems.  We purchase two canoes, and are about to leave town, when two things happen.  One random NPC comes up and gives us another quest! and the big dude from the market shows up and he's pissed cuz we robbed him.  We fight him off and make a deal to pay him back double what was apparently stolen. 

As we are leaving town the dwarf monk is joking about the side quests, and if any other random citizens are going to  come out of the wood work.

And so ends the session.  I think we got a lot done for four hours or so.

Note:  This campaign definitely has waves of Isle of Dread, not an exact copy but there are some similaritys.