Session 17 in Rise of the Runelords in 5e

The group went into the Barn wanting to end this with the obese half-ogre sorceress that almost killed them the first foray into the farmstead, revenge is what fueled the group now.
 Charles and Toucan lead the way and killed to penned up hounds that they fought before, no other soul was present, 3 doors faced them now. Two are on raised platforms 15 feet above the floor.

Charles rips one of the doors open, hanging on one hinge the other door is thrust open, waiting a few seconds as the room beyond is filled with spider webs of large size, out of one of the web tunnels a horse sized spider lurches out at Charles!

The upper doors are opened and three half-ogre brutes come out peppering the party with ranged attacks in the form of javelins thrown from the upper levels.

Tamar moves forward as Shalelu begins firing at the giant spider but first drops a hunter's mark on said spider, Ulgar summons a giant octopus and a Deinonychus to push the half-ogres of the platforms, Mama starts casting spells and immediately Toucan disengages to go after Mama.

 
  

Mama gets forced back as one of her sons has to push past her to stop the monk from getting to her, she worries and casts cloud kill forcing the group to fall back out of the barn, in her next round after the cloud dissipates in the clean wooded air she casts Bigby's hand to enter the the fight.
The group falls back from that deadly cloud kill, Tamar enters the barn after the cloud moves and Charles goes screaming through the barn and leaping up and over and on to the catwalk, by now the Deinonychus engages Mama. 

She is getting assaulted on all sides, arrows from the Ranger, a summoned monster from the Druid, the Barbarian and Monk coming towards her from the other side and the Cleric casting a spell, she once again opens Dimension door and gets killed while stepping through the door to safety by the summoned creature.

Toucan and Charles find three prisoners in a holding cell at the back of the barn, freeing them they come to learn that these are Rangers from Fort Rannick, Jakardos Sovark, Vale Temros and Kaven Windstrike.
Shalelu begins crying as she recognizes one of the Rangers, her step father Jakardos
"why, did you abandon us at crying leaf?" she questioned.

Small Goals

I have started changing the way I do things, I always try to have something cool and larger then it needs to be.

I started changing my way of thinking slowly and just recently.

Make a cool encounter next session. I will focus on doing that and make it the best (coolest) one yet.

Random Encounters on Hook Mountain

Random Encounters on Hook Mountain

30% chance on trails leading up to the Kreegs clanhold.
If an encounter is rolled, roll a D6.

1- Three Xorn assult the party going after anyone with metal armour.
2- Three Ettins looking for Ogres to eat, attack. All three ettins are on a slope higher up, 55 feet up the slope, hard climb DC16, roll boulders down at the group.2d8+5 damage.
3- Four Winter Wolves looking for a meal. If party is using stealth roll wolves perception roll vs parties stealth roll (group roll averaged out) for the DC number. If concealed, roll wolves perception with no advantage. If not surprised the Wolves try and ambush the group. 2 wolves attack the party and retreat as 2 hide and try to go after the ones in the back of the group.
4- Three Ash Drakes TOB 149 try and drag one of the party members off the cliff face, later to eat the meal after it's been beaten down the D100+25 foot drop (1D10 falling Damage per 10 feet) use grappling rules from PHB pg.195 to try and grab the player and use remaining move to move grappled player off the ledge.
5- 2D4 Ogrekin, these ogres are looking for people/animals to eat, they are hungry. If 4 ogres are rolled make one a chain brute (Mordenkainen's ToF p.221) If 8 is rolled make the eighth one a ogre warchief (Nerzugal's Extended Bestiary p.79). Group should easily get the drop on these ogres if stealthy.
6-  Two Owl bears, both females, going back to the den with two each offspring. each 2 offspring count as one owlbear, when it takes half damage it does half damage. Party can avoid this if they are smart and leave them alone.


Looking at replacing encounter four,Ash Drakes for two wyverns (mated pair) as wyvern peaks are close by. 

How I do Cold Exposure damage in D&D 5E

I modified the exposure rules in Pathfinder on page 442 of the core rulebook and added it to a 5e spin.
My players are 8th level.

Party members are climbing hook mountain to get to a tribe of ogres. Climbing the mountain is simple enough but a few survival checks will get the party on a path that the ogres use very frequently. They could also try and avoid patrols by climbing.

Exposure to the elements is unused in D&D 5e, at least in my games, but I will change that and make the group fear mother nature. In this three hour journey along the trail they may have a random encounter but the way will be swift up the mountain, but if they decided to climb it will take 6 hours and they will get up without encounters but exposure and falling down the mountain may happen.

Rules, Failure does not mean instant death, but slow or very little progress up the mountain.

Climbing,
DC 14 Athletics check every hour for six hours to climb the mountain (advantage with climbers kit or creative methods (spells,equipment,player wording,etc..))

Search for Trail,
DC 15 Survival check, a success means they find the trail to walk up the mountain in three hours but they have a 30% chance of a random encounter every hour. Reduce percentage chance by 15% for creative RPGing (using stealth, slowing the pace down, using spells,etc,etc...)
Players will use HELP, in my games I allow the HELP action which gives advantage to skill check rolls.

Player's Handbook page 291 has the exhaustion chart, the group will make Constitution Saving throw DC 13, for cold weather under 40 degrees F (4 degrees C).
Partial Winter clothes gives advantage, fully clothed winter clothes (gloves,hats,boots,etc) as do spells that protect against the cold that last one hour requires no roll at all, you succeed.
Each hour of exposure adds +1 to the DC.
Hour one DC 13 Con save
Hour two DC 14
Hour three DC 15, etc...

Each failure does 1d8 Exposure damage, not actual Hit Points but exposure damage.
How many Exposure points do I have? your current H.P's divided by six, why six? Players Handbook page 291 has six levels of Exhaustion.

A 8th level Cleric should have, with a Con stat bonus of +2, 59 HP's at level 8.
59 divided by 6=9.83 round down, 9

First hour of exposure if failed results in 1D8 Exposure damage, lets say a six is rolled.
Second hour of exposure is failed as well, resulting in a further roll for exposure damage, resulting in another six of exposure damage, total 12.
That is below the 9 for level one, which results in level one Exhaustion, disadvantage on ability checks. Level three pretty much would kill the character unless they get out of the cold weather.


Quick google search and now I re-skin each level by using these words to describe the effects,

What are examples of 'nonfreezing' cold injuries?

Chilblains are a mild cold injury caused by prolonged and repeated exposure for several hours to air temperatures from above freezing (0°C or 32°F) to as high as 16°C (or about 60°F). In the affected skin area there will be redness, swelling, tingling, and pain.
Immersion foot occurs in individuals whose feet have been wet, but not freezing cold, for days or weeks. It can occur at temperatures up to 10°C (50°F). The primary injury is to nerve and muscle tissue. Symptoms include tingling and numbness; itching, pain, swelling of the legs, feet, or hands; or blisters may develop. The skin may be red initially and turn to blue or purple as the injury progresses. In severe cases, gangrene may develop.
Trenchfoot is "wet cold disease" resulting from prolonged exposure in a damp or wet environment from above the freezing point to about 10°C (50°F). Depending on the temperature, an onset of symptoms may range from several hours to many days but the average is three days. Trenchfoot is more likely to occur at lower temperatures whereas an immersion foot is more likely to occur at higher temperatures and longer exposure times. A similar condition of the hands can occur if a person wears wet gloves for a prolonged period under cold conditions described above. Symptoms are similar to an immersion foot.

Feats at level 1, for all

I allow the variant rules for humans on page 31 of the player's handbook and I'm currently toying with the idea of allowing all races to do the same, but they would have too take penalties to character creation to get it.

For example. The Dwarf page 20 in the 5e player's handbook.

Constitution Stat bonuses would drop to only a plus one
Would lose the Darkvision ability
Also lose Combat Training in half of the lists proficiency.

Is it worth a feat? maybe?

Session 16 in Rise of the Runelords in 5e

The first foray into The Graul Homestead was and still is a humiliating defeat to the player characters, they did what most parties do not, they ran.

Running away from the enemy saved the lives of three members as two fell in combat to the Grauls, the confined space, mixed with deadly spells from Mama Graul really hampered the abilities of the adventures.
CloudKill took the group down faster then anything I have done to them in the past, running for their lives has made them a little bit nervous for the next engagement with Mama.

  

Arriving back in Turtleback Ferry with the bodies of Toucan and Shalelu, they rushed to the Temple of Erastil where Father Maelin took them in and made arrangements to try and find 300 gold worth of diamonds for the second casting of revivify.
Shortly after the components for the spell was located and purchased and the spell was completed and both members where returned to the group.

After resting the evening and planning a new raid on the farm house brings the party into a fight for their lives, cloud kill spell starts taking a toll on the group faster then they can heal it back.

Clearing the basement out first, the group takes on the largest Ogre they have ever fought with his two giant rats the group falls back and makes short work of the Ogre and his friends.

Mama is a necromancer and she and her three zombie half-ogres start to take the party down again.

With two summoned giant octopuses (Octopi?) Charles holds back the group so that they can start to flee once again.

The group runs out the boarded up windows into the open air as Mama Graul sends the zombies in pursuit as the cleric drops spirit guardian, denoted by the blue bead.

Toucan with an incredible amount of movement runs to the front of the house to battle Mama as the Ulfgar transforms into a giant constrictor snake (represented by the T-Rex) to make short work of the zombie half-ogres.
Mama needs to escape, as the monk is making short work of the sorceress in melee.

A shimmering doorway opens up before Mama Graul as she flees from the group in fear.
They look towards the Barn, knowing that she must have fled into it or the surrounding woods?

To be continued..........  

Surprises Re-skinning

Surprises, some like them, some do not.

I do.

In the near future the group with try to kill Dank Vapour and all his Sons.

Dank is part of one of the players background story they wrote up.

Currently and not in the session reports one of Dank's sons has been killed and more are out there in the wilds and the clan will try to kill the player character (Charles the half-orc barbarian) as he is scene as a mark, a mark upon Nulgreth, the Blood God a Orc Deity. 

The surprise will be the Wyvern that Dank's son rides, it will be a young black dragon rules but will look blue. The surprise is it is actually a young blue dragon (using the young black dragon rules) with lightning attack and the front legs are missing, they were amputated years ago.

I will be using this model

and wanted to freak the party out when a blue wyvern starts spitting out lightning breath weapon attacks. It will be the young black dragon stats and will have to have the thing flying every time it makes claw attacks, but what the hell lets freak them out :)

 

Sons of Dank

The sons of Dank Vapour

DoomSmasha- (LE, male half-Orc, third son of Dank)
Stands 6'4" tall, wears a plate mail and his helmet visor has the skull of an ogre set in the face plate and can be raised up. He is the quiet, attractive, well thought out son that by's his time, waiting to strike the enemy when he has the advantage, not them. He has an un-orc characteristic, that he will fallback in the face of a greater enemy, the reason he does not lead the tribe today.
   He served as a mercenary in the Trunau militia till he betrayed the men he followed in an ambush, he set up and collaborated with Stone giants that he informed where the detachment would be.

Doomsmasha as he is now called among the skull crushes, he took an oath of vengeance against the rangers of fort rannick after he settled in the area of Turtleback ferry for what they did to his tribe.

DoomSmasha's helmet is similar to General Kael's helmet from the willow movie.

I will be using the Blackguard stats for Doomsmasha's (volo's page 211) but adding advantage attacks against all rangers of Fort Rannick.

Working On?

Working on?

Working on converting Rise of the Rune Lords book 3 The Hook Mountain Massacre to D&D 5e

What I did today?

• Listening to: Game Classy episode 173, Androids & Aliens episode 7
• Reading: starfinder
• Watching:all the Marvel season two of Luke Cage, Jessica Jones,season one of cloak and dagger,Wrecked season 3, one episode left, it's always sunny in Philadelphia season 13 and more.... Iron fist season 2 is not watched yet but it was cancelled. I have yet to watch it.

• Playing: D&D 5e in Golarion world
• Eating: nothing, down 13 pounds, goal is to be 190 in the new year
• Drinking: coffee & water, had a beer last night.

1.Ordered 30 D4's to make healing potions out of salt and pepper shakers from the dollar store.
2. Waiting on my Starfinder Dead Suns Pawns coming in from Wordery.
3. Sitting in my cart are 10 Pathfinder pocket 1e books, will not buy them unless I sell 2 lots of my RPG books I'm looking to unload.


Pr-Ordered

1.Starfinder:Alien Archive 2
2.D&D 5e, Waterdeep dungeon of the mad mage
3.D&D 5e Guildmaster guide to Ravnica


Debating buying

1.Vampire 5e

Tools for the DM, currently for D&D 5e

Here is a set of digital tools I use for creating encounters, gaming for D&D 5e

Encounter Building

Kobold Fight Club

Create my own Monsters

CR Calculator

For quick NPCs

RPG Tinker




Other stuff.

Jump Calculator

Orc Pub

5TH edition SRD

Spell Index

Free Audio sounds

Pay for Audio Sounds

 Don Jon

Cold Exposure Rules

How I conceal my maps 

Magic item & Treasure Generator




Where I steal ideas from

Raging Swan

Pathfinder Adventure Paths

Archives of Nethys

Sunday Game Cancelled

This does not happen to often but it does, canceled games get cancelled.

This Sunday's session will be moved due to an illness.
Life sucks once in awhile but you move on and deal with problems as they arise.

Currently the group is level 7 and in the middle of a giant dam that a group of Ogres where trying to destroy.

The next session the party will dive deeper into the skull crossing dam and try to find out what was going on within it.
 The session will begin first with the remaining rangers from fort Rannick taking on the rescue of villagers from Turtleback Ferry, should not take longer then two hours of real time.

Need to set up more sons of Dank Vapour backstory.

StarFinder

Began reading the rulebook, once again and listening to Androids and Aliens podcast from the glass cannon network.
I do miss listening to podcasts at work. Now I can no longer listen while I work due to a position change three years ago. I do have to say I miss that element.

I think to much and have been doing so with my current campaign ending on 36 sessions, what to play next?
I have to say, I would prefer to play starfinder to pathfinder 1e. Pathfinder 2e would make me reconsider starfinder?
I need a little more crunch in my games then D&D 5e allows and I do get tired of house ruling, rules in my game that are well pathfinder versions.
I do enjoy the easy of D&D 5e to pathfinder 1e, and starfinder seems to be a go between for pathfinder 1e and D&D 5e rules wise. 

Time will tell what I do next but by the time this happens Pathfinder 2e will be out almost a year and starfinder, I'm sure will have a second book of classes to add to the core rulebook, I currently have all the books and pawns for that game the is released.
   

Rise of the RuneLords Session Reports

Heroes & Friends

Session 3

Session 4

Session 5

Session 8

Session 9

Session 10

Session 11

Session 12

Session 12.5

Session 13

Session 14

Session 15

Session 16

Session 17

Session 18

Session 15 in Rise of the Runelords in 5e

The road to Turtleback Ferry from Magnimar would take close to 2 weeks to complete, once they raided the Mayors personnel warehouse, some equipment and a little magic was obtained they geared up were met by Shalelu Andosana, Female Elf, Rogue/Ranger, the parties scout was a formidable in all aspects.
She explained the journey a head and help make sure they are prepared for all the issue to come in the wilds.

45 years ago The Order of the Black Arrows have been charged with keeping the lands around Turtleback Ferry safe from, mainly the Kreegs a group of Ogres that have been slaughtering humankind for over a hundred years in that area.
On the way in Ilsurian, a skirmish between a tribe of Orcs known as the Bloody Skulls and the local militia had ended with a defense tower lost to the Orcs and they were looking for adventures to clear it out as the militia was to bust keeping the rest of the tribe at bay. Charles wanted to attack the Orcs as this was his old tribe, the bloody skulls had dome many things to him and his mother, but the past was pushed away for the greater good of the original quest. He walked away with all the old thoughts swimming in his head of what had transpired so many years ago.

Upon crossing one of two rivers that meet at claybottom lake sits Turtleback Ferry, they crossed the river by paying the toll from a ferry crossing, not any boat will do but a upside down gigantic turtle shell, hence the villages name, Turtleback Ferry.
Tamar immediatelywent to the local tempel to introduce himself, Ulgar accompanied him as well.
There they met Maelin Shreed, mayor and Cleric of Erastil, with friendly greetings they got information about the fort,village and surrounding area.
Toucan and Charles went straight to the Bottoms up the local tavern to worship Cayden Cailean and find out as much as they can about the Sihedron Runes, fort, village and what ever else they can turn up.
In time they find out that many of the locals have Runes tattooed on ankles,the shoulder or the small of the back and through interrogation of one local find out that it was a mark that would give you a discount if shown at the local casino. Unfortunately this casino, Paradise, is now at the bottom of the clay bottom lake, sunk weeks ago. 
The people had no idea how sinister this mark real was.

Getting what they thought they needed for the next part of the journey together, the group set out for Fort Rannick on Lamashan (October) 1st, time to see what had happened to the Fort.
Shalelu was dressed and ready before dawn to guide the group to the fort after asking locals how to get to the fort.

After crossing skull river miles from town yowls of pain in the near by woods sends the group investigating the sounds, soon after the sounds intensify to sounds of combat, they emerge from a clearing to see a cougar, a fire pelt cougar to e exact fighting a hound, the cat is trapped in bear trap.

Across from them baying of many hounds and someone signing a children song that sounds made up, the group decides to help the cat after Ulfgar the groups druid senses that it is a pet of someones, the first of many hounds are killed.
From across the clearing a Ogre bursts from the woods surrounded by 9 or 10 hounds as he release the hounds he gives the attack command and begins roaring at the group
" I's huntin' kitty cat! No concern o'you's less you's wanna be hunted too!"

Rukus and his hounds engage the group,

The fight is bloody and short with little problems for the players as they mop up this Ogre and the dogs.

After freeing and healing the cougar, she tugs on Ulfgars cloak to follower her, a brief ritual late and Charles communicates with her finding out her name is Kibb and her master has been captured by Ogre-kin and locked up with other friends.

The party moves towards the farmstead. The farm is over grown and in bad need of repairs everything including crops is suffering from neglect.
A enormousness Ogre and a smaller friend ambush the group pn the road to the homestead. 

They move towards the home on the farm entering it slowly but are immediately set upon by a few traps, going through the house room by room fighting half-oger kin, they were doing well till a sorceress, mama as the others called her.
This obese women and her zombies began killing the party one by one, if they did not flee they would have all died, 2 party members did in fact die.
running back to the road to Turtleback Ferry they ran with Toucan and Shalelu dead.
They only had enough diamonds to revivify one, so Toucan the half Tengu half Aarakocra was brought back from the dead.
Intense negotiation with the Maelin Shreed the mayor and priest of Erastil secured more diamonds to be used on Shalelu, she was back among the living again, time to make Mama pay for crimes against the party! 

Working on?

Working on converting Rise of the Rune Lords book 3 The Hook Mountain Massacre, I mentioned what to do after the campaign and someone said play part 2 next, so took shattered star book one of the shelf to read.

What I did today?

• Listening to: Game Classy eps. 162  
• Reading: re-reading Players Handbook 5e, pathfinder 2e
• Watching:Ozark season 2, two episodes left to watch, all the season two of Marvels members of the Defenders, Wrecked season 3, it's always sunny in Philadelphia season 13 and more....

• Playing: D&D 5e in Golarion world
• Eating: nothing, down 13 pounds, goal is to be 190 in the new year
• Drinking: coffee & water

Bought a few books.

Missing,
Adventure Paths
last 4 books of Jade Regent
last 2 books of Winters Reign
All 6 books of Wrath of the Righteous (this is a maybe)
book 1 of War for the crown (Flags you failed me)

Map Folios,
have all currently

Adventure Path Pawn sets,
I have all current Adventure Path pawn sets

Missing 11 7 Adventure Paths Books or 13 if I buy wrath of the Righteous?


StarFinder

Have everything currently out for Starfinder, not the maps.

What is my favorite class in D&D 5e?

                                                      What is my favorite class in D&D 5e?


That is easy, it has to have religious applications. My first two choices are cleric or paladin, I could play other classes that have a strict religious code or conduct but I would fantasize about a world where gods are real and people would be zealots in faith towards said gods.

Imagine are real world that a priest of what ever religion you currently follow or know about would grant magical powers to you if you followed their code/conduct.   

Remarkable. 

My old campaign was going to end with the players banished to a far realm, it was going to be Earth 1972 and with it, it would herald a new age. I would have combined the 5e rules with modern age of 1985.
Gods would be real, once that campaign ended I was going to do a second campaign of only 18 months of evil characters and do the exact same ending.
Still on my radar, hopefully one day? 

Halfway done the campagin?

           
    I will be shortly halfway completed my current campaign, with being behind three session reports to write up and with three more to complete to hit the halfway mark I have begun thinking of the next campaign.
What to run next?
Pathfinder 1e?
Pathfinder 2e?
Another D&D 5e campaign?
Starfinder?
Vampire the Masquerade 5e?
Warhammer Fantasy role-play 4e?
13th Age?
D&D 4e?
etc,etc,etc......

I still have time to think about it, I already posted the Return of the Runelords adventire path teaser commercial in are group chat and a few said lets do that, but I believe shatter star adventure path is part two the Rise of the Runelords AP?

Time will tell.
I plan on getting a Vegan cake to celebrate the halfway mark, one of are group is a vegan.

But what image should I get on the cake?

Thinking of this one?