“I want to pat you!” That was what Ice told the surprised White Dragon, who suddenly was confronting a halfling sorcerer who really, really like dragons. As Ice was especially charming – aided by having advantage on Charisma checks against dragons – the white dragon, whose name was Glazrael, acquiesced and discovered it was rather nice. Then he took Ice for a ride outside the … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 18
Having thoroughly scouted most of the castle last session, the group now prepared to cause as much trouble for the cult as they did. Between sessions, I allowed some retooling of the characters, in particular with their spell lists, as the group was finding that some of their spells were proving far less effective than they needed to be. The most relevant change was that … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 17
Things have been pretty busy around here as we reach the end of the year, so I’ve fallen a little behind with updating my blog. Here’s a combined session report for sessions 13 & 14 of Hoard of the Dragon Queen, which brought my group to the end of Episode 6. We finished the last session with the group having cleared out most of the … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, sessions 13-14
The descriptions for the remainder of the first season of D&D Expeditions have been posted. WARNING: SPOILERS FOR DDEX1-10! DDEX1-11 Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer’s Isle by Claire Hoffman, level 5-10. Duration: 8 hours (2 slots). Premiere: Winter Fantasy. Available: March 2015. Long unoccupied, the pyramid on Sorcerer’s Isle now flows with strange magical energy, warping creatures and the landscape around it. The Cult of the … Continue reading D&D Expeditions descriptions for DDEX1-11 through DDEX1-14
This session, my players followed the tunnel they’d discovered during the last session through to the Mere of Dead Men, a large salt-water marsh that sits between Waterdeep and Neverwinter, created when a wizard caused the land to become flooded to win a battle many centuries ago. I let the players know of its origins as they made their way through its stinking surrounds. After … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 12
We had a couple of DMs missing for this session, but thankfully we were able to cover every table, even though it meant that Paul was DMing Lee’s group rather than playing on my table. Josh also did superb work DMing his regular 7.30pm table as well as filling in for our other Josh at 5.30pm. My own table was full, except for Paul, but … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 11
This week saw the lowest turn-out since this season began, primarily due to a rather major convention (PAX) being run down in Melbourne, as well as illnesses afflicting several players. We had only 25 players – I expect numbers to rebound next week significantly. My own table continued to accompany the caravan north towards Waterdeep. I’ve cut out a lot of the intervening space – … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 10
This session saw the characters proceeding northwards with the caravan, spending a day in Daggerford, and ingratiating themselves with the cultists. I had a full table this week, with seven players and myself as DM. All in all, we had slightly above 30 players participating this week at Good Games Ballarat. My session focused a little more on role-playing and story this time around. I … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 9
There’s a lot of creativity required from the Dungeon Master when running this stage of the adventure, which is aided by preparation. I’ve been a bit distracted of late, so I haven’t been able to prepare as much as I really should be doing. Thus, for this session, I kept things fairly simple as the adventurers continued to accompany the cultist’s wagon up the Sword … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 8
With this session, my group left the safe harbours of the D&D Encounters program and wandered into the murky waters of Casual play. All of which means that I’ve stopped ignoring the pacing guidelines of the D&D Encounters version of Hoard (which would have had us going for a few more weeks in any case), and are now working from the adventure text directly. And … Continue reading Hoard of the Dragon Queen, session 7
