Raining Dead

This week’s blog covers last night’s session and some changes I’ve made to how I DM.

Last night’s session was definitely a memorable one.  The players are still in the thick of the battle fighting waves of drow.  It took the whole night to get through the wave I put them against.  I was a mean DM and put the three PC’s up against four drow fighters, one drow wizard, one drow psionic, and two drow barbarians on riding lizards. A trebuchet was manned by the four drow fighters.   Starting out the evening the heroes were at level five, but after working so hard to defeat their foes the rose to level six after the encounter. 

Tyr was still in griffon form when we began but quickly decided that this battle required him in his natural form.  He dove down for a landing knocking three of the fighters on the trebuchet prone as he landed.  Hal’s barbarian raged hard but he was pummeled by the two lizard riding barbarians and the psionic, bringing him near death several times during the fight.  As the party started to worry that they wouldn’t all survive this encounter a goliath in black armor and a ram companion came charging at Gaut’s (Hal’s halfling barbarian) back wielding a great hammer.  Before the party could determine if this goliath was an ally or an enemy the goliath brought his mighty hammer down over Gaunt’s diminutive head……striking the barbarian that was trying to kill Gaunt.  Immediately after striking the barbarian the goliath patted Gaunt on the back, healing him.

The stranger’s presence gave the party a second wind.  They rallied, defeating the last of the wave.  I started a new mechanic last night.   When it gets to the last enemy and a player makes a roll that will be the death blow of that last enemy I ask them “So how do you want to do this?”  They then describe the manner in which they kill the last opponent.  Carter had the pleasure last night, he took out the last fighter by shooting him in the foot with an arrow then dragging him over and loading him into the trebuchet.  The party turned it around so that it would fire back into the enemy’s lines and fired the drow back at his own.  They then proceeded to loot the bodies, taking what was of value and then loading the rest into the trebuchet and firing it.  They also loaded the rest of the dead drow in so that they could send the dead raining down on the advancing army.

The goliath introduced himself as Argon a cleric (played by Tyr).  They know little about him but they can use any ally they can get.

We’ve been playing 5e since it came out last year, and something that my players have whined about is that 5e is a very low magic world and they just don’t like it.  I’ve decided to make it more like 3.5 where magic played a heavy roll.  To do this I’m making scrolls and wands more available.  I’ve also gone through the DMG and made a complete list of all of the potions and they will be available in varying degrees throughout the realm.  Everything is much more common that 5e intends.  They will also be finding magic items more often. 

High magic doesn’t work well with the way 5e is written it makes the PC’s too overpowered so I’m compensating for it by tweeking the monster stats and providing potions and magic items to their enemies as well.  My players are ecstatic that I’m going back to my 3.5 handling of magic items.  Time will tell if this will work but I think I can pull it off.

We will finish the battle next week and I hope it turns out to be worth the build up.