Tabletop Fun

[Kit-Ginevra]

Are you online at all? I've been thinking of taking up D&D online since pandemicytime but not really sure where to start-not helped by the fact that my computer could be used as an Artefact of Useless Antiquity (seriously,it's on Windows 7,not even memory to load Discord,it has an added keyboard since only half the buttons on the original work and the left click button has now fallen off...) I've done some online LARPing which was very useful as it gave a chance to progress the quest between in person meetings in pre-COVID days.
And for my first LARP we were a seagoing people who had a lot of dead bodies of enemies.As we were sea-lovers we couldn't just chuck them overboard, so when a nice man offered to take them off our hands and give us some gold I happily accepted. Pity he turned out to be a necromancer....

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd--

While being confronted by a pack of vampire spawn, our Warlock uses Wall of Light and catches nearly all of them in its light, hitting them all with radiant damage. My Paladin compounded it by using the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind to cast Hold Vampire and paralyze two of them inside the wall. Neither was able to cure their blindness (from the Wall) or their paralysis (from the Symbol), and they spent their turns basically getting cooked.

We dubbed it "the Microwave."

EDIT--

Our Strahd DM has let us know that we're moving into the endgame (since we now have the macguffins we need to defeat Strahd) and is already planning our next campaign, which will be in a homebrew alternate version of Earth, a sort of steampunk urban fantasy Victorian London-type setting. (Same basic map, but all the countries are called different things, that kinda thing.) We the players are debating what characters to portray, based on what information the DM's provided about the setting.

Bob, our most experienced player, has said he's planning on playing a Druid from "Ireland" who will probably use his druid-staff as a shillelagh, and wants to try to convert the heathens in "London" back to the old magic ways, and basically drinks a lot because no one's really interested. (He's intimated that "Father Ted" might be a source of inspiration.) Meanwhile, Jesse (who plays our Ranger in Strahd) has been thinking about playing a Paladin of the Church of the Four (official church of "England") with his inspiration specifically being Father Anderson from Hellsing Unlimited.

When they were talking about this, I started laughing and pointed out the potential fun in the dynamics there-- an "Irish Catholic fanatic" and a "zealous Anglican priest." They both thought it was hilarious as well. Meanwhile, I've got two possibilities-- a cockney Rogue or a pro-wrestler inspired Barbarian or Monk.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL--

Presented without context: Everyone at the table this week agreed that Kitchen Barbarians sounds like a damn entertaining reality show.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers' League--

The dice gods did not like us this past Thursday. People were rolling generally low, but my Barbarian just could not attack things due a combination of low initiative roll and then bad rolls. I rolled three Natural-1's in a row, off two different dice.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd--

Our Half-Elf Ranger has now become the barbarian King of the Mountain (Mt. Ghakis) after slaying a "great beast" with his Blood Spear. Which only made his already large ego get even bigger. (Ranger's player was disappointed to learn that he doesn't have the required STR score to take a level in Barbarian.)

When he started annoying my Dwarf Paladin, we got this exchange--

Paladin: "You keep that up, I'll put you under this goddamn mountain."
Ranger: "Would that make me King Under the Mountain?"
Paladin: "That's cultural appropriation, and I won't be havin' it!"

[Jay 2K Winger]

Spelljammer--

This was the final session of our campaign. Our ally had turned on us and was all in on also destroying our world for the sake of their own power. A plot device went off that restored the party-- full effects of a long rest and a Greater Restoration-- and we found ourselves facing off against the big bads, two guard commanders, and eight guardsmen. But we all prioritized targeting our former ally, who got melted when Wenbin dropped a necrotic Fireball on them. And the other big bad, who tried to run, got lit up and then burned to a crisp.

But the guards didn't stop fighting. And the only way to save our world was to send one of the two royal magic rings into the heart of the star. And the guards-- who hit like tanks-- managed to down everyone except our ranger (who was on the far corner of the battlefield) and my warlock, Wahei, who was nearly surrounded. But Wenbin's owl familiar flew over to assist Wahei, allowing her to slip past the guards closing in on her without provoking an opportunity attack, and to get to the magical pool in the middle of the battlefield. We'd found out last session that drinking the water would trigger a WIS save, which if passed would allow the drinker access to one 7th-level spell from the cleric or wizard spell lists.

The WIS save was a DC 16, and after burning some inspirations, I rolled a total of 16 exactly. So I upcast the normally 5th-level spell Mass Cure Wounds at 7th level and restored the health of every downed member of the party, bringing them back from the brink of death.

It was a clutch moment that saved us from the TPK.

In the end, the ring could only go up through the magical beam of light into the heart of the star if it was in the hands of something organic. And Wenbin chose to sacrifice himself to save our world and destroy the enemy star (and its worlds) in the process.

RIP Wenbin the Magnificent.

[Nunavut Pants]

Played Trans America a couple of weeks ago with some folks who had never seen it before. We had fun. Then a few rounds of "Love Letter", which was also fun.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Spelljammer--

Confronting the big bad, championing our ally, we get thrown into a battle against an aberration called the Zodar.

We learned real quick-- You Don't Mess With The Zodar.

This thing had an AC of 20, +15 to its attacks, legendary resistances, and an ability called Forced Teleport which our DM used frequently. Forced Teleport allowed it to choose any creature it could see within 60 ft (oh, and it has blindsight, so you can't hide from it) and teleport them to somewhere else within 60 ft, and causing them to take 4d10 force damage. It was f**king MEAN.

Found out after we defeated it and the session was over that the fight was practically intended to be a TPK. The DM was impressed we managed to survive. He was also having fun because he finally put an actual challenge in front of us.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Oh, I forgot to mention this-- our Spelljammer DM has basically agreed to do a Level 20 one-shot after we finish our Spelljammer campaign, in which we'll go tarrasque hunting. Some of us may be playing different characters (I won't be using my Warlock, given that tarrasques are difficult to affect with pretty much any attack spell), and the DM has admitted to trying to think of ways to make it difficult for us to fight it without just camping on a flying spelljammer vessel while taking ranged attacks.

DM also said he was trying to think of a name for the one-shot, and I suggested Tarrasic Park.

[Nunavut Pants]

Nicely done.

My own games have been much simpler. As in, Trans America and some Love Letter. With a few sessions of Chinese-style Mahjong thrown in. Not that exciting.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd--

Paladin is still trying to be the moral center of the party, but that doesn't mean he can't be plenty f'ing mean.

We had to pass by Krezk on our way to our next objective, and we discussed trying to stop a potential plot going there which would bring Strahd's anger down on the town. Paladin was all for stopping it, but the rest of the Party was ambivalent about trying to stop it. The meanness came in when he argued they (the party) didn't want the death of another town on their conscience-- though the party argued the previous town wasn't their fault-- and then he turned to Sorcerer, whose backstory includes her PTSD from a dragon attack which destroyed the orphanage she was protecting, and said, "You don't want the deaths of more children on your conscience."

The entire table, DM included, went "Whoa!"

I did point out-- one, Paladin had expected Sorcerer to back him up, and two, Oath of Conquest Paladin means I'm not always going to be very nice.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Glad to hear that at least one other person is enjoying these!

Curse of Strahd--

We did this one at a game-themed tavern instead of our usual game store, because Strahd had invited the party to Castle Ravenloft for dinner. So we could have dinner at the tavern, while our characters had dinner in-game.

Strahd, being the villain he is, spent the dinner more or less picking at everyone, pushing at their buttons, clearly trying to get a rise out of us. We didn't rise to the bait, though my Paladin did somewhat return fire, after discussing his own past-- his elder brother will inherit the family title and estate, his elder sister will take over the family smithy business, and Paladin admitted to jealousy, but that he channeled his anger by becoming a holy warrior-- when Strahd tried to commiserate with him, but Paladin just replied, "I may not get along with my siblings all the time, but I love them, and I wouldn't try to kill my brother again out of jealousy."

All the other players noted, as I somewhat intended, that I had stated, "try to kill my brother again." As this was the most backstory about Paladin I'd ever divulged, they were very much "Wait, what?!"

[Ghel]

I love these stories. I've played in campaigns where druids and rangers refer to their animal companion as their Pokémon.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Spelljammer--

We're heading into the finale of our little mini-campaign, flying in with the resistance fleet against the evil Xaryxian Empire, and we find ourselves flying toward the imperial flagship. We start taking potshots at it as soon as it's in range, when suddenly Wenbin & Githyanki's players come up with a crazy idea. They even warn us it's a crazy idea, and our reaction is basically, "Crazy ideas have worked for us so far, why stop now?"

Githyanki is a warlock with a genie patron, and has a ring that serves as his genie vessel. Gith can take up to five willing creatures into the vessel (ring) and then release them when he wants. So he takes all of us into the ring, apart from Wenbin, who uses Dimension Door to basically teleport onto the enemy ship with the ring. And he aims for the enemy admiral we'd injured with our potshots, landing on his shoulders and knocking him down before Gith releases us all from the ring.

DM asked Gith's player how it visually appears, and Gith's player read it out of the source book, that basically they appear out of a beam of light.

I went, "So basically it's a Pokeball?!"

Answer: Yes. Yes, it was.

What followed was basically our party just cutting our way through the entire crew of that enemy ship, commandeering it, getting chased by a pair of enemy solar dragons, before managing to convince said dragons to spare us (it helped that we had a macguffin to do this with) and then turning back to sail toward the imperial citadel to try to rescue the princess, defeat the new emperor, and save the world.

But that's for next session.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Did some non-Spelljammer D&D this week, just some Adventurer's League one-shot. Our party were among the only survivors of our caravan in the Frozen North (us + 3 NPCs) and we took refuge in a cave. While exploring it, we came across two gazers (lesser beholder-kin) guarding a gemstone. What transpired next was a brief, stupid conversation as they argued with the party (largely just me, the Barbarian) and told us to go away.

Gazers: Who are you? What are you doing here?
Barbarian: What are YOU doing here?
Gazers: We're guarding the eye!
Barbarian: What eye?
Gazers: This! [gemstone] It's shaped like an eye!
Barbarian: YOU'RE shaped like an eye!
(Cue table breaking down laughing, including me.)
DM: They look slightly offended.
Gazers: Never been so insulted!
Barbarian: Maybe YOU should go away!
Gazers: Maybe we will!
Barbarian: All right then!
Gazers: Fine!
Barbarian: Good!
DM: (beat) And they head out of the cave.

Not quite as epic as Wenbin the Magnificent successfully convincing a pair of spectators to race one another to determine who was more worthy to guard a macguffin, but I still felt quite accomplished for managing to avoid a combat scenario through RP while playing a fight-happy barbarian.