After 20 three-hour sessions, we have finished Storm King’s Thunder. We started in February; we finished in the last week of June. It was an enjoyable experience.
The final session consisted of the six adventurers accompanying five storm giants as they attacked the Ancient Blue Dragon responsible for the chaos in the Storm King’s demesne. The session could have been better. I should have excluded the storm giants. They reduced the combat to the dragon attacking with claw & bite in melee, and the giants far overwhelmed it in strength. This was fun for the players who I gave a storm giant to run, but – as advised – I kept Hekaton for myself. As a result, two players didn’t have storm giants.
The initial assault on the dragon’s lair saw the giants throwing lightning bolts at the great ballistae defending it. I ruled that they were too far away to determine exactly what was defending the lair. They could see the ballistae being blown apart, but not who was manning them. Once they got closer, they discovered it was gargoyles! Lots of gargoyles! This combat took a small amount of time to resolve; I think a couple of gargoyles managed to land blows, but mostly the adventurers and giants made short work of them.
Once their force reached the lair – a ruined amphitheatre – the adventurers noticed several ways into tunnels below. To my astonishment, they went in single file. Huge characters take up 15 feet of space; the corridors were 20 feet wide. The mathematics wasn’t hard. The dragon heard them coming, sat at the termination of the corridor, and used its lightning breath on the party. The storm giants were immune; the party wasn’t. At that point, only a single giant could melee the dragon, and no-one could get past it! They began a slow retreat down the tunnel – something that took time.
The final encounter involved large distances, and the poor paladin spent a lot of time running to get into melee rather than fighting. That was a mistake on my part. The rest of the party appreciated her bonuses to saving throws, but even with a bow the damage she dealt was insignificant, especially compared to the rock-throwing giants. I needed to have more things attacking, and some in melee range of the melee fighters.
Once the giants and adventurers found another way in, the dragon retreated further into the lair, disappearing out of sight. The party approached where they thought it was hiding, but the wyrm attacked from behind – it had teleported outside the lair and then burrowed back in. More melee combat ensued, which wasn’t good for the dragon. It retreated again.
The adventurers, not realising that the wyrm had teleported, continued into the lair, trying to find how she got out. At this point, the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed, splitting the party in two, and more of the ceiling collapsed over the back half of the party, burying one under the rocks. The wyrm revealed herself once again, descending from above! Rraggh!
Unfortunately, the wyrm didn’t have enough hit points to withstand the attacks of the remaining party members. They slew the wyrm, Hekaton dug himself out of the rockfall, the party looted the lair, and the campaign was at an end.
My thoughts on the campaign as a whole? It was fun. It presents a lot more going on than gets resolved in the regular play of the campaign. I was glad it ended when it did; after a while, the novelty of going up against giants wears off!
There’s a lot of potential for role-playing throughout and for additional faction-related activity. I was uncomfortable with adding material to the adventure, as I ran it as a D&D Adventurers League-legal game, but given the right group, you can expand this one a lot. The adventure seeds given by the NPCs you rescue in the opening chapters have a lot of potential. Make sure they don’t all die!
My final session should have had all the of the players controlling giants, or none of them. It’s hard to judge the balance of the encounter with just the PCs – the dragon is terrifying for 9th or 10th level characters, but with the potions of giant size, I think they could have taken it. Even with legendary actions and lair actions, the dragon’s damage is limited. Six formidable characters against a dragon? Yes, that sounds good. I’ll know better if I get a chance to run the adventure again.
After all, there’s a lot of content we didn’t see! It’s meant to be replayable. The quests the characters get in the initial town and the giant lair they explore? That’ll be different next time!
But until then, I’m going to have a break from Wednesday night campaigning until Dragon Heist is released. I’ve still got to finish Tomb of Annihilation on Saturday nights as well!