Tabletop Fun

[Ghel]

Thanks! I appreciate that info.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I believe the module was called "The Peculiar Case of the Selptan Felines"

[dalesys]

It was a FurSchlinger adventure!

[Ghel]

Omigawd, I need to remember this. LOL. I want to get back into D&D and eventually run a campaign. I'd love to do something like this. Basically, anything with cats is right up my street.

[Jay 2K Winger]

D&D Adventurers League--

So Minmaxer from our Spelljammer campaign is now putting in work as DM for the store's weekly D&D AL roster, and he's good at it. I took part in his first DM'd game for our AL nights last week, which went well and was fun.

But then this week as I sat down at the table, he asked me which of my characters I was bringing to the game. My usual go-to is Seb, my level 4 half-orc barbarian, but lately I've been trying out a tiefling cleric called Lucent, and debated bringing him out, but I ended up going with Seb. Minmaxer told me, "I'm happy, cuz I may have planned on you bringing him this week."

After the initial combat encounter, we end up arriving at this small town where... that's a lot of cats. And all the people seem to have one. Seems a little strange.

Then the DM looked at us all, counted off numbers for each of us for a d10, rolled, and pointed at me. "Excellent." And then described this ginger Maine Coon cat sort of wandering up and looking at Seb, who-- like a good dumb barbarian-- extended a knuckle for the cat to headbutt. Then the DM said, "Make a Charisma saving throw." Which, naturally, was my dump stat. When I failed the save, he sifted through some printouts, folded one and handed it to me. "Don't show this to anyone, yet."

I backed up from the table, read the printout, and started cackling. Basically the cats in the village had formed a hive mind and were bonding with their chosen people, which mostly just gave the benefit of the mind blank spell (which protects against charm effects and psychic damage), but also let the cats auto-succeed on the suggestion spell against their bonded person. The DM had given Seb the feline equivalent of a fightin' cat, named Cupcake.

I happily played along, with Seb very quickly adapting to having this big-ass ginger cat making biscuits on his armor pauldron and otherwise lazing about on his shoulders, going all 'oo's-a-good-Cupcaaaake, etc. Even went, "This is Cupcake, and I've only known her for a few hours, but if anything happened to her, I'd kill everyone in the room, and then myself." The DM immediately turned to the rest of the party and says, "This is not normal." As in, the party knew that Seb's newfound attachment to the cat was not normal.

Eventually, everyone at the table ended up bonded to a cat, even if they passed the charisma save, because the DM thought it was funnier that way.

[Jay 2K Winger]

So my Strahd group won't do our after-action report until next week, as our Warlock's player was unavailable this week (attending a bridal shower), so our meet up turned into Session 0 for our next campaign, the concept of which is best summarized as "steampunk fantasy London detective agency." Yes, as in Sherlock Holmes. And the DM has admitted that one of our cases may be Jack the Ripper inspired.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd--

There is nothing like being the one to land the final blow on the devil Strahd with a natural 20.

Paladin hit him with the Sunsword (1d8), plus a maxed-out Divine Smite (6d8 + 2d8 for attacking an undead), plus his divine Boon (1d6 for attacking an evil/undead) -- all those dice doubled for the crit.

I borrowed a bunch of d8's from the other players and started totaling up the damage. I got above 50 and the DM started trying to stop me, but the rest of the table insisted I finish it. Ended up at 57 points of radiant damage to kill Strahd after 22 sessions.

"For Argynvost, for Tyr, for the Morninglord! SOL INVICTUS!"

Next week's our sort of "after action report," as we'll meet up to talk about the campaign, pull back the curtain, and maybe pre-session zero our next campaign. (Which is sort of "steampunk fantasy London detective agency.")

[Jay 2K Winger]

Curse of Strahd--

We're storming the castle! We're into the endgame, we've got our macguffins and we're ready to take on Strahd von Zarovich!

Some various quotes from the session--

"I'm gonna attack Fuck-knuckle over here--" "That's Sir Fuck-knuckle to you!"

"Baroviaaa~ Fuck yeah!"

"You're not the dumbest man in Barovia, but you'd better hope he doesn't die."

[Jay 2K Winger]

I did D&D online briefly last year, but when we'd only had nine sessions in nine months, some of the players lost interest and so our group just stopped. It was a month or so later that I found the game store near my house where I do D&D Adventurers' League, and it was from their Discord that I met the DM for our Curse of Strahd game.

Haven't really done too much online play since, though.

[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.