Tabletop Fun

[Jay 2K Winger]

No Dragonlance Week So Let's Do A One Shot--

Mike, who plays Sir Evrouin (Lord Evrouin, now) at our Dragonlance table, was in Japan last week (and this week), so we couldn't continue the campaign, not with us on the cusp of our first major military engagement. So Bob ran a Level 6 one-shot for the rest of us (minus Jesse, who was in Seattle for work). Simple enough mission-- there's been a series of kidnappings of children from villages around Neverwinter, coinciding with an uptick in Infernal activity around a disused fortress called Hellgate Keep, which used to be owned by a family of devil-worshippers until they were put down by the Harpers and Church of Selune.

Our team were going to be sent in to 1) locate and neutralize the source of the Infernal problem, 2) determine if the Infernals are connected to the kidnappings, and 3) rescue said children if so. Priorities in that order. And our team is called... the Helldivers.

Our team was going to be literally sent in via air-ship, jumping out with Potions of Feather Fall (Hellpods dropping), loaded with three potions that give the benefits of short or long rests (stims), we had been given the benefits of Rary's Telepathic Bond (squad comms), an item to cast Sending up to the skyship, and an item that would trigger a beacon to signal the skyship (evac/strategem). We'd also been told that we could call in "the nuke" if need be with the code phrase "broken arrow." (Hellbomb)

I rolled up with a Level 6 version of my human Kensei Monk, Camilla with a tiefling Circle of Stars Druid, and Eric with an aasimar Life Domain Cleric. Eric's character being an aasimar (part celestial) let me make the pun as we dropped face-first into hell from the skyship of it being a "literal halo jump."

We fought our way past various devils and cultists, and yeah, my monk being the tank meant I was taking a lot of hits, but we were able to keep things moving. Just... not quite fast enough to save the kids, as it turned out. DM Bob said we'd taken a bit too long, so by the time we reached the center of the Infernal presence, the cultists had sacrificed the children to open a big hell portal... out of which came a Marilith. This is a CR 16 creature, which can attack 7 times in a round, with a +9 to hit, and which he hinted could swap out one of its melee attacks with a spell. It could move faster than most of the party (my monk excepted) and could also teleport 120 feet in a round. This was an enemy we were in no way prepared to face.

So, since the children were already lost, we pulled out the Sending item, popped our beacon, and said, "Devil threat confirmed. Kidnapped children located, all dead. Marilith on site. Broken Arrow. Send it."

And so the sight got "nuked" -- a bunch of archmages on the skyship just unloading with 9th-level spells to level the site from orbit. While my monk raised a fist in the Helldiver salute and said, with tears rolling down his face, "For the children."

When Jesse asked on our Discord how the one-shot went, I replied, "If I had a nickel for every time we ended with one-shot with a nuke, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened more than once."

[Nunavut Pants]

Some Klahd skeeving off from the Jahks?

Yet another response that make me wish this forum had a "like" or "love" button!!

[dalesys]

... the client wanted an important trophy stolen before it could be awarded as part of a game tournament...

Some Klahd skeeving off from the Jahks?

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers League--

Back at one of DM David's tables for a Tier 1 game, an adventure I've participated in before, with a different character. I was a bit constrained with which to bring, because I have a smaller amount of Tier 1 characters now and didn't want to roll up with a level 1 new character. So I brought along Jito, a level 4 Kensei Monk. (Kensei Monks are essentially weapon specialists.)

There were three level 1 characters at the table-- one of them admitted she hadn't played D&D since the pandemic, and was using a pre-gen druid-- but all of the players were leaning into the roleplay side of things where they could, and one of them actually angling to make his character backstory work for him when making some History checks and similar.

The adventure was a casino heist-- the client wanted an important trophy stolen before it could be awarded as part of a game tournament, as well as 5000gp that the casino's owner had stolen from her-- and while things got a bit scuffed, we were generally able to pull it off with minimal chaotic problems.

David was surprised when I revealed part of my character build in combat. Jito has the Fey-touched feat, which allows me access to the Misty Step spell (basically a short-range teleport) and one other 1st-level spell of my choice. I chose Hunter's Mark, which lets me mark a target, letting me track them and deal extra damage. On the initial turn with that spell, I still only get my single attack option (casting Hunter's Mark uses a bonus action), but on subsequent turns, if I'm melee attacking, I'm going in with bare-fisted unarmed strikes (I have a +1 dragonhide belt that gives me a bonus to hit with my unarmed strikes), while holding a dagger in my off-hand to allow me to parry (adding +2 to my AC), and on my bonus action use Flurry of Blows to make two more unarmed strikes. Effectively three attacks as a level 4 character (most martial classes don't get an extra attack until level 5), and all of those attacks have an extra 1d6 worth of damage because of Hunter's Mark.

Combine this with my Kensei Monk feature Kensei Shot, and Hunter's Mark makes my attacks with my longbow that much more damaging, since that's an additional 1d4 worth of damage with Kensei Shot.

After successfully bugging out with our client's loot, we were given a bunch new loot ourselves. Among which were a +1 weapon (I chose a longbow so my ranged attacks have equal bonus to hit as my unarmed strikes) and our choice of several magic items. I chose Slippers of Spider Climbing, so Jito gets a climbing speed equal to his walking speed-- and he's already pretty damn fast as a monk. Now Jito can literally wall-run to make it that much harder to get away from him.

[Nunavut Pants]

Something has clicked for me in Terraforming Mars. I've had two "NOT LAST" games in a row now. I was ahead in the last game, but peaked one generation (turn) too soon. Another player managed to pull off a *30* point final gen!!! I started that gen 10 up on him, and made 10 more points, so obviously he won.

He had *three* cards with "1 VP per Jovian tag" and EIGHT Jovian tags!! That's a whole lotta points...

I've started concentrating more on my Terraforming Rating early on, rather than on income and on fulfilling Milestones. Each TR is one victory point, and also one monetary income per turn. So it makes sense to maximize it--but generally what gives you TR are things that advance the game state toward the end of the game, so there is a bit of a trade-off. Also, if everyone does the same thing at the same time it does get messy. So I had been trying to do other stuff, but obviously that didn't work that well. Now I'm doing better by trying to get more TR early on.

[Ceir]

After playing it a couple times at my weekly meetups, I picked up a copy of Apiary and its expansion.

It's a midweight worker-placement base builder, which I'm usually kind of iffy on 'cause so many of them just become multiplayer solitaire. Apiary has a couple mechanics to encourage player interaction, and I think the themeing is neat enough to balance it the rest of the way out - in the far future, humanity is a non factor (elsewhere, gone, whatever), and instead bees have evolved into sapience and gotten busy exploring the galaxy. The faction names are derived from the species names of actual honeybees, and astoundingly there are no bee puns in the rules. (We make plenty at the table anyway.)

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL--

So Brian H. recently became one of the rotating DMs for our chapter of Adventurers' League. He's the guy who likes to come up with backstories for his AL characters, even when said backstories are by and large irrelevant. He's the guy who was playing the idiotic elven ranger Boron in the Frostmaiden campaign. While Brian's DM'd a couple of games for the chapter, it was on weeks when I either in a higher-tier game (I'd been itching to play in a Tier 3+ game, all of which had been on Frostmaiden weeks) or was unable to sign up in time before all seats filled up. But this week I was able to sign up in time.

Brian's already made himself stand out from other DMs by being generous with Heroic Inspiration (basically a free re-roll of a d20), giving everyone one to start with and handing them out when someone makes a good joke or otherwise helped out other players with their play. This was good this week, since we had a new AL player at the table. In fact, at one point, as the player sat next to me was consulting the Player's Handbook, he and I found out a nice factor about Heroic Inspiration: if you're awarded it and already have it, you can pass it to another player who doesn't have it. When we brought this up at the table, Brian immediately tossed me one of the coins he uses to represent Inspiration, and I then immediately went, "Anyone need some Inspiration? Cuz I still have mine."

Brian also liked to frame his narration as if he were describing the action in a cinematic style, even leaning on that by describing the VFX and/or captions identifying the town of Saltmarsh, etc.

I was playing a somewhat disused tier-1 character of mine, Lucent the Cleric. So when our party is invited in to speak to the town councilman who hired us, Brian starts out by saying (IC), "I'd like to hire you to find my thing. My thing is gone, and I really need it back." Half-loaded with innuendo. (Maybe that should be "half-cocked?" Haaa.) We were all quick to pick up on it, with me interjecting, "I don't know what you've heard, but I'm not that sort of cleric, I don't have that kind of healing magic..." But we were rolling with the vibes at the table, everyone was doing optimal stuff, by and large, and if they weren't, they were still acting 100% as their character would.

The gist of the job was the councilman had invested a great deal of money, and this was being transported back to him on a ship that had vanished at sea before re-emerging, looking quite the worse for wear. We were to sail out to meet the now-derelict vessel and get the box with his money back. Brian did describe the box was going to be tricky to maneuver-- just big enough to be difficult for one person to carry, just small enough that it would be awkward for two to carry, and just heavy enough to impede movement.

The derelict, as one might expect, was full of monsters. Mostly spiders or spider-adjacent creatures like ettercaps (humanoids with spider-like bodies) and a druid that served Lolth the Spider Queen. During the fight against the ettercaps, the first one was killed when the party's wizard hit it with Toll the Dead, and Brian described the monster clutching its head and writhing as it fell over dead. And then, with every subsequent kill, Brian described "cinematically" as the monster died in the exact same manner, regardless of the method of death. Explicitly comparing it to a recycled animation due to a low budget. Almost everything got the same death animation.

The finale of the adventure ended up getting trivialized due to a couple of factors. We were in the bottom deck of the ship, a half-flooded cargo hold which had some ghouls in it. While most of the martial characters fought them, our rogue-- who had backed out of melee range for better aim with his bow-- was encouraged to find the macguffin, since we needed to get off the ship pronto-- there had been a loud Godzilla-like roar, and the ship had already been rocked by something big hitting it. Not only did the rogue find the box, but he rolled a Nat-20 on his Athletics check to pick it up.

Secondly, the ghouls were incapacitated thanks to my cleric using his Turn Undead feature, rendering them frightened and incapacitated, and easy pickings for our party, keeping them from tying us down with multiple rounds of combat.

Thirdly, the party's wizard had-- against all expectation-- prepared a great utility spell called Tenser's Floating Disk. This disk can hold up to 500 pounds, lasts for an hour without requiring concentration (meaning the spell just lasts until it expires or is dismissed), and would follow the wizard wherever he went. The DM was aghast at this, because it negated the awkward maneuvering of the box by the party, allowing us to rapidly escape the ship before it sank under the kraken's attack.

(No, we didn't try to fight the kraken. We were all levels 1-4, in no way equipped or prepared to engage a gargantuan sea creature like that.)

After the session, Brian asked me how well he did, and I told him he did a great job. He admitted he hadn't actually read the module before that night, and I assured him I couldn't tell. Which was encouraging for him to hear.

[Nunavut Pants]

More Terraforming Mars--

Had a game where I built a pretty good VP-generating engine. Got into the lead in the mid-game, was leading going into the last generation. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, and as often happens this one player pulled off a stupefying last generation and got a ton of points, putting me back into second place.

Still, it wasn't last!

The next game, I was able to buy a number of cards that let me draw cards. I also got a bunch of science tags by mid-game, which allowed me to play the "spend 6 energy for 2 VP" card. Plus I had pretty good energy production. I also bought a card that once per turn gave me 1 money for every science tag I had; and I had quite a few! I had also played the "tardigrades" card, which you can play early but takes a lot of activations to make points. (1 "microbe" per activation, 1 VP per 4 "microbes".) I had played a couple of cards that let me just add microbes to any card, plus had one that added one per science tag I had--which again, was a lot by the end of the game. So I had a bunch of card draws, a bunch of income, and some discounts. I was able to use that to fund two Awards (I missed all of the Milestones) and placed first in those and second in one funded by an opponent.

It all turned out to be just enough to win by a single VP!

The following game, I came in 2nd. Then I was back in last again. We'll see how this current game goes...

[Jay 2K Winger]

Artists are running the Library?

Aesthetics generally would mean artistic principles.

Ascetics are people who generally are isolated from society and try not to do anything enjoyable.

That... makes more sense, I did mess that up. In my defense, I've only seen the word "ascetics" like three times previously, it hasn't properly secured itself in my brain for regular usage yet.

[Kit-Ginevra]

Orangutans are running the Library!

Fixed that for ya....

[dalesys]

...

Oops, looks like I forgot to turn off the "smartass" setting this morning! Sorry!

Well paddle my bum!

[Nunavut Pants]

The aesthetics who run the Library...

Artists are running the Library?

Aesthetics generally would mean artistic principles.

Ascetics are people who generally are isolated from society and try not to do anything enjoyable.

Acetics are vinegars.

Aestheticians are make-up artists or hair-dressers.


...

Oops, looks like I forgot to turn off the "smartass" setting this morning! Sorry!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

DM Bob does put in his prep work, and we all have appreciated it when he does. But after last session's "Scroll-Con" and the formation of the Whitestone Forces for Krynn (WSF), he turned up this week with like twenty pages listing out the Whitestone Forces' order of combat. Bob is (ex?-)military, and has a lot of experience with logistical stuff, so this was just him applying some of his work experience. It also gave our party titles as part of the main war council.

Lord Commander: Lord Evrouin Brightblade
Master of Wands: Justinius of the Red Robes
Master of the Crozier: Gavin of Erol
Master of Arms: Runa Firebrand
Master of Scouts: Catt Trapspringer

Some of the named NPCs from Scroll-Con were listed as commanders of various parts of the WSF, too, and most of the session was centered around some of the logistics of mobilizing our forces and getting them to the High Clerist Tower, a strategic choke-point where we hoped to stop the Blue Dragon Army's march. We started by heading to Palanthas.

As irony would have it, Jesse (Justinius' player) was absent this week, which was hilarious to the table, because Justinius has been keen to return to Palanthas to try to get into the Great Library there, as he's a keen student of history. To explain his absence, Bob decreed that Justinius was spending his time stuck in "Wizard Zoom." (Justinius was elevated to the Wizards' Conclave within the Orders of High Sorcery, which includes a modification to his robes that allow him to essentially remotely project himself to the conclave meetings.) Bob joked that he was having to sit through "orientation videos" and other HR-mandated stuff.

While other members of the party helped arrange for establishing our garrison near Palanthas, and scouting missions to send out to scout the Blue Dragon Army, the High Clerist Tower, and so on, Gavin went to the Library to see if they had anything that would help us out when we got to the High Clerist Tower. The aesthetics who run the Library were a little surprised at first at Gavin's backstory, but this was-- as I expected-- the "in" we needed, as he was invited to speak with the master of their order, Astinius. He is, like Gavin, an ageless mortal, tasked with the duty of recording everything that happens on Krynn. He has tools to help him in this regard, but as he admitted to Gavin, even these can't see certain events, such as the Battle of the Pit, from the Third Dragon War-- where Gavin's friend Huma Dragonbane died to banish Takhisis to the Abyss. So, in exchange for providing his account of the battle, Gavin would get access to any information he needed about the High Clerist Tower. We all noted that Justinius would probably be quietly fuming about it.

While in Palanthas, Lord Amothus (lord-mayor of the city) said that as the city didn't have any martial forces they could add to the WSF, they would instead foot the bill for whatever needed paying. We did end up having to attend a fancy dinner with a number of the city's nobility-- all wealthy merchants and their spouses-- and having to field some questions, like how did Evrouin become head of the WSF, where is Runa (the barbarian) from, what do you mean Gavin is married to a dragon, etc. All of these nouveau riche types really failed to realize the gravity of the situation-- the Chromatic Dragon Armies have basically conquered or besieged nearly every major settlement on the continent, and Palanthas is next on the list-- and we walked away from the dinner thinking of them all as "useless people."

The High Clerist Tower had been sealed back during the Cataclysm (actually immediately before it), but Evrouin was able to unseal them-- as he was deemed a "worthy" Knight of the Sword. From there, the WSF began building up our defenses in the surrounding fortress and repairing the dragon traps in the Tower itself. But we then found a door in the basement, locked with a rune on the door which Gavin recognized as wizard writing meaning DO NOT OPEN. We all agreed it was a good idea, and basically had Justinius agree not to open it. (Mike/Evrouin: "Justinius, if you agree to leaving it closed, say nothing. ...Excellent.") But, because we still felt we should know what was inside, Runa used her augury ability to remotely view what lay beyond the door:

A Dragon Orb. And she heard a voice whisper (despite her augury ability rendering her deaf while using it) "Free me..." before she was shunted out of her augury vision.

We know from what Gavin learned that during the First Dragon War, the Tower was used as a dragon trap, with the wizards who built the Tower somehow driving the dragons into a blind rage, trapping them when their heads came through the portcullis, clamping their mouths shut, and then slaying them while they were trapped. The Orb was likely how they did it, and they were likely able to do it by dint of being the O.G. wizards who founded the Orders of High Sorcery.

But we also know that meddling with a Dragon Orb is a dangerous prospect. The elven city of Silvanest was lost in a neverending nightmare when their king tried to use one. Justinius got extremely lucky when he used that same Orb to temporarily drive off the ancient green wyrm dragon Cyan Bloodbane, and there's no guarantee he'll be able to do it again.

Next time: The Whitestone Forces play Dragonlance TD against the Blue Dragon Army.

[Nunavut Pants]

I recently came in second out of four in the last Terraforming Mars game, so that's good. I was able to get a lot of titanium and steel production, giving me discounts on building and space cards. I also got the "Von Neumann Machines" card, which you can pair with a card to get a discount--and every turn, you can double that discount! I of course used it on Terraforming Ganymede, which is a fairly powerful card (which can be made more powerful by having cards with Jovian tags on them). I had forgotten that the linked card was public knowledge, so everyone could see I was going for TG. I got teased about it being a "bold declaration" to openly show it early...

Anyway, it wasn't good enough to put me into first, so I came in second. Still, NOT LAST!

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D AL: Rime of the Frostmaiden--

Belatedly realized I never included a little write-up of the conclusion of our little campaign through Adventurers' League.

We made our way through the tower in the ruined Netherese city in search of the staff in it, a macguffin which might be able to resolve the whole "perpetual winter" problem that the Icewind Dale was trapped in. There were a few fights along the way as we climbed the tower, until we reached the top, where the staff was.

Only, there was a Demilich that arrived just as we were grabbing the staff. A Demilich is a lesser version of a classic Lich-- it's literally just a floating skull, but still with powerful magical capabilities-- and this one wasn't happy that we were stealing its staff. We managed to take down a few of its minions, while it kept blinding us and putting the "frightened" condition on us, but once again I ended up scoring a Natural-20 on what ended up being the final blow on the final boss of a campaign. DM David acknowledged that the damage I rolled would be enough to kill the Demilich, but asked everyone at the table to contribute to the narrative to describe how we collectively beat it, with my sorcerer Rhoric getting the final blow. Everyone's describing hitting the Demilich with arrows, punching its jaw off, etc., while Rhoric (who'd been blinded) just tracked the noise, and flung his final spell into the Demilich and blew its skull to smithereens.

The staff, once attuned to, allows the person attuned to it to control the weather in the Icewind Dale. It was naturally given to the idiotic Elf Ranger, Boron, who was able to make it so the weather and seasons passed as they normally would, rather than being locked in a perpetual winter under the Frostmaiden's control. As long as Boron stays on the mortal plane, his attunement and the effects would remain.

Boron, of course, mistook this for "I must never leave the Icewind Dale" (instead of "I must not leave this plane") and maintained this even after the truth was explained to him, which was also after his twin brother turned up and painstakingly explained that no, you're not actually exiled from your homeland what are you doing you idiot mother is worried sick I'm sorry about him he's always been like this.

Rhoric decided to leave the Icewind Dale and take his chances returning to the Sword Coast, since he knows Boron won't follow him there.

Everyone at the table had fun, but we were ready to finally move on to different adventures. I've missed a couple of weeks because I keep forgetting when sign-ups open up, and all the openings get filled before I remember.