So, if you clicked here then you're reading my DnD blog. I'm starting at Session Three because, well, I just finished it and I wanted to talk about it. I'll start with backstory(the last couple sessions, my character, my group, stuff like that) and then head to this session, and then(If you're still here) put up my newbish thoughts and notes on it. Obvious my DM is running the official Wizards of the Coast Hoard of the Dragon Queen so if any of you plan on running that campaign and haven't please avert your eyes. I'd hate for some story to be ruined for you.
My Character
Rolled a fighter because we needed a tank and named him Jaxton Ravos, because easy to remember right? When we start Hoard of the Dragon Queen it's actually my second DnD session overall, as we did the 'starter' campaign a week ago before our DM found Hoard of the Dragon Queen and decided it was a vastly superior campaign. I remember from the first time we all had figured and decide to myself "Hey, I've got figures. My little brother play Disney Infinity and have a ton of figures!" So I head over there and find one that looks the most fighter-ish of the ones I have. Here's a picture.
So I decide "Jaxton will be Thor!". Figure ends up being waaaaay too big for a DnD board but every once in a while I mess with the DM and switch out one of his smaller DnD/WH40K figure for this guy, only have him switch them back in a second or two. As a result this Jax-Thor ends up becoming an extremely religious fanatic, devoted to spreading word of the power and glory of Odin. This causes him to do a lot of nonsensical things, which end up being hugely amusing later.
My Friends:
The DM is a big Warhammer/DnD guy(primarily Warhammer though. Dark Eldar player if you're curious) but the rest of us are all co-workers who have no previous DnD experience. We don't end up doing the 'always IC' thing a lot of groups do but we have a ton of fun, and it feels better to know that I'm not that noob slowing down the party. We have a rogue whose mainly sniping and sneaking around(LE), a wizard who uses his err, his parts, to cast fire from(N so far), a Half-Orc paladin who enjoys tanking(LE IIRC, Oathbreaker), and a Life Domain Cleric who fulfills the general healer role. We never have everybody there of course, but that's everyone whose been to a session so far.
Previous Sessions:
First session we roll into this town that's under attack by dragon cultists. DM rolls for each attack party we fight and each group except the third one is six kobolds. we pretty much steamroll. The third(penultimate IIRC) encounter we have three kobolds and an ambush drake. I ask him about this ambush drake.
"How big is it"
"Uh. Around horseish size I guess?"
"Can I ride it?"
"Well, it's trained to fight with for the dragon cultists. You can try I guess."
My friend tries to mount it with a grapple check. Rolls a 19. I have 4/5 animal friendship so for the rest of the battle I try to calm it down. So does my friend. We end up rolling like seven times, never getting less than a 16 before my DM is like "It's calm. If you make it a lead it'll follow you around." So I take rope, make a macguyver muzzle and lead and carry it with us to the next encounter(six kobolds again). I spend the entire fight keeping the Drake calm by reciting to it tales of Odin's valor. It doesn't understand because apparently I need to speak Draconic, but I calm it down regardless. We end up having to persuade the town keep's guards to let the drake in(our Rogue rolled an 17) but we get it in, and begin discussion of how we're gonna train it, get it a saddle, who's gonna ride it, etc.
Later turns out it's a medium sized creature, so we can't do that, but we get to keep it as a party member, and in the next session it gets possessed and gets character levels as a mute NPC. He ends up being a bit OP in session's 2 and 3 so I'm hoping he'll get nerfed a bit before next time, but for the DM to reward our actions like that and remain somewhat true to our intent makes me feel better about him.
Second session we end up going places, rescuing prisoners, doing recon, etc. Typical stuff but I'm liking that we have objectives rather than straight combat. Anyways, we're nearly done when we're at the keep and this one huge half dragon man comes in with four prisoners and sixteen kobolds. My party members start freaking out IC and OOC, but I'm fricking Jax-Thor, so the first thing I do is point a finger at him and say.
"I challenge you to single combat for the prisoners."
My DM just kinda looks at me and goes "Re- really? Because that's exactly what he was about to do to you."
"Well I fething beat him too it."
"Okay, okay, but can I finish the scene first?"
He finishes the scene and we do single combat. I roll pretty well and cut him down about halfway, but he still beats me pretty badly. I end up stabilzing and not having to re-roll a char, but Jax-Thor is devastated and swears revenge on half-dragon man in the name of Odin, and Session Two Ends.
Session Three:
We begin rested and healed up(Much to my recently curb-stomped Jax-Thor's pleasure) and go to meet with the Keep's Mayor/Govenor. He's thankful for our/my bravery and ask that we infiltrate this Dragon Cult's main camp and come back with a list of information, for compensation of course, and we head over there. Encounter a guy asking us to find a monk that was trying to infiltrate the cult and rescue him. We encounter a few advance scouts along the way, take some of them out, and I decide to subdue one of them. My friends are like "Just kill him." and I'm like "I can interrogate him. Or sacrifice him to Odin." My friends are like "Man, you're an idiot." but my DM says "Man, Odin totally accepts sacrifices. His preferred method of sacrifice is hanging."
So naturally our next two encounters I make sure to subdue at least one enemy and then hang them in the name of Odin. My DM think's it's awesome and gives me something called "Inspiration". Our rogue ends up converting to become an Odin-worshiper and our Cleric begins to think I'm crazy. Our possessed-drake man that can't talk finds us rather strange but sticks around because we're taking down the cult that killed him in his old body. Last encounter we find some Dragon cultist disguises, dress up, and head to the main camp.
The main camp has somewhere around 200 guys. While a bit daunting it was nice to see a problem that couldn't be solved by force, but rather espionage, deception, observation, etc. We have the Rogue, Cleric and I for this session(along with the NPC drake who can't do too much out of combat) so the Rogue sneaks around and watches the more heavily fortified part of the camp(a cave), the cleric goes to talk with some cultists, and I go to mess tent to get some mead. Find a Merc and tell him "Hey, armwrestle me. Loser buys the other a drink." Throw it so I can buy him a drink and start talking to him for info. Play some other drinking games with him(Our DM is like "You teach him how to play Beer Pong with rocks and flagons") get him a few more drinks in and get just about everything I'm looking for in him(I also notably ask him about my new Mortal Nemesis from last session). I buy him another drink and tell him "Hey, if you're ever in Rivendale look up Ysmir Stormbringer and I'll treat you to a drink." Roll deception with advantage because my DM was impressed with my lie and got it on the second roll. Felt good man.
We eventually regroup, share info, find the monk-infiltrator we're looking for, and decide that we're going to switch him with another guy disguised as him. Naturally we end up going back to the bar/tent and finding my old drinking buddy(Who is still there xD) and play some more 'beer pong' until he's about to ready to pass out. Knock the guy out, switch him out with the monk. Drake creates a distraction at the other end of camp and we head out the front door with no problems as the Rogue rolls a 20 on the stealth check. We get a plethora of XP for gathering info, sneaking out a load of prisoners, switching the body, not being detected, etc. Not that I'm excessively worried about level or anything like that, but it's nice to see us rewarded for the afore mentioned espionage, deception, observation, etc. Overall I was very pleased with the infiltration section. While it certainly kept me on my toes it felt about as organized as a random cult of Dragon worshipers mixed with random hired on mercenaries. Felt pretty realistic, our random BS aside.
When we get back into town we're rewarded with cash and supplies, and I buy an armor upgrade(Splintmail woohoo). When we talk with the monk guy he says he's been investigating the Dragon Cult for a while and was planning on meeting some dude, but before he goes he needs to know where and when exactly the cult is attacking next. So we have to go infiltrate/scout out the main camp again. Our rogue is a little peeved OOC but we head back to main camp and find it deserted, except for a few people heading into the caves with food. We talk to the hunters about where the guys went, and what's inside the cave, and I again asking "Have you seen this Blue Half-Dragon man?" They say yes, and Jax-Thor is pumped.
We head into the cave and convince the guards(with a deer carcass) that we're here to drop off some food. We roll persuasion and get it because our rogue has +4 or 5 or so and head in un-tested. First thing we do inside the cave is roll a perception check. I roll the highest of our guys at a thirteen but we get the DM to roll for the drake and it rolls a 20. He finds a hidden passageway and digs into the wall and shows it to us. The DM later tells us that anything lower than a 20 and we wouldn't have found it. Heading in we keep going forward to find some guard barracks, a group of a dozen cultists/kobold mix. Because our rogue is an assassin(We're a tad overleveled at this point) and we get some good rolls we take out half the guys in a stealth round, and I subdue the last enemy. Roll a strength check to wake him back up out of conscious and ask him what's ahead and where my Mortal Nemesis(and his boss) are at. After he tells us I ask if there are any stalactites in the cave, to which he says no, so I tell the cultist that Niflheim will not warm him in the afterlife and finish him with my warhammer. Our rogue maintains an "As long as he's not screwing us over he's okay" philosophy but our cleric is getting a bit freaked out at me and our Drake is getting visibly uncomfortable.
We continue sneaking along and find the boss of the dungeon(It seemed that 20 we rolled let us circumvent most of the dungeon). Our rogue maxes out his sneak + critical hit damage and I crit later(my fighter spec lets me crit on 19's), our Cleric casts a nice spell, the drake-barbarian gets pretty nice damage on his attack and the poor boss ends up dying before she can move. It's at this point I tell our DM to tone down the drake or up our encounter difficulty before the next session. My friends begin searching the room, we figure out where the next cultist attack is, that they worship some Dragon God named Tiamat, and all sorts of things.
I instead yell my Mortal Nemesis's name across the hall and tell him that I've come for his head. Our DM gives me inspiration, my teammates are cursing at me, and the four guards(Something called a Dragonclaw) we convinced to let us pass by at the entrance have come up to fight us. The each get to attack twice a turn. We manage to take down two of them and get one to half-ish health before my mortal nemesis reaches us with two berzerkers behind him. He has 50 something health and moves twice, while the berzerks get auto-advantage with one of their skills(But take advantage hits from us) and have 60+ health each.
Needless to say I move away from our party(notably our cleric was face-tanking one of the dragon-claws) and head up to block my Mortal Nemesis in a hallway and do battle. Cuz, gotta uphold Odin's good name right? I facetank a little better than I did before(The berzerkers blocked in a hallway behind him) until my party comes up to help me as they finish off the Dragonclaws. We end up getting through the monster of a fight by the skin of our teeth and subdueing my Mortal Nemesis. I tie him up with my fifty feet of rope and leave him close while we go into the next room. It's a shrine to Tiamat.
So naturally I take my Mortal Nemesis into his shrine, rope him up on Tiamat's Shrine, wake him up, tell him "Tiamat's power is insignificant in comparison to the Mighty Odin." and then hang him. Our Cleric is freaking out, our Rogue is ideciding to ignore me and loot crap, our drake is trying to remain indifferent, and our DM is trying to figure out what the hell he's going to do in response to me hanging Tiamat's champion on Tiamat's shrine for Odin. He decides to put it on hold and we finish the dungeon, hefting Dragon Eggs on the way out. I take the one with the Storm Dragon in it and decide to find a Nordic Priest to raise it as a Storm Dragon for Odin. It's probably an evil dragon(chromatic I think) but I decide my character isn't smart enough to make that distinction. Realizing that we'd been playing DnD for seven hours straight we decide that the cave is a good stopping point and I head home.
Ultimately I did a lot of stupid crap, barely managed to get away with it, and I'm utterly loving how it's all playing out. Wizards of the Coast did a good job(so far at least) with this campaign in rewarding someone for getting skills other than combat skills, and our DM has been very accommodating to getting us into the story without railroading us, adapting to what we're trying to do, and adding in his own flavor. Seven hours passed far faster than I'd imagine they'd would last night. During certain parts(Such as the single combat and rematch with my Mortal Nemesis) I've gotten extremely pumped, during certain parts I've thought tactically on how I want to approach things, and during a ton of parts I've laughed, in no small part due to who I'm roleplaying with. If this is a typical experience I can see why a lot of you guys have gotten super into DnD. I'm having a blast.
Hope y'all are too.
Good night Chaos.
My Character
Rolled a fighter because we needed a tank and named him Jaxton Ravos, because easy to remember right? When we start Hoard of the Dragon Queen it's actually my second DnD session overall, as we did the 'starter' campaign a week ago before our DM found Hoard of the Dragon Queen and decided it was a vastly superior campaign. I remember from the first time we all had figured and decide to myself "Hey, I've got figures. My little brother play Disney Infinity and have a ton of figures!" So I head over there and find one that looks the most fighter-ish of the ones I have. Here's a picture.
So I decide "Jaxton will be Thor!". Figure ends up being waaaaay too big for a DnD board but every once in a while I mess with the DM and switch out one of his smaller DnD/WH40K figure for this guy, only have him switch them back in a second or two. As a result this Jax-Thor ends up becoming an extremely religious fanatic, devoted to spreading word of the power and glory of Odin. This causes him to do a lot of nonsensical things, which end up being hugely amusing later.
My Friends:
The DM is a big Warhammer/DnD guy(primarily Warhammer though. Dark Eldar player if you're curious) but the rest of us are all co-workers who have no previous DnD experience. We don't end up doing the 'always IC' thing a lot of groups do but we have a ton of fun, and it feels better to know that I'm not that noob slowing down the party. We have a rogue whose mainly sniping and sneaking around(LE), a wizard who uses his err, his parts, to cast fire from(N so far), a Half-Orc paladin who enjoys tanking(LE IIRC, Oathbreaker), and a Life Domain Cleric who fulfills the general healer role. We never have everybody there of course, but that's everyone whose been to a session so far.
Previous Sessions:
First session we roll into this town that's under attack by dragon cultists. DM rolls for each attack party we fight and each group except the third one is six kobolds. we pretty much steamroll. The third(penultimate IIRC) encounter we have three kobolds and an ambush drake. I ask him about this ambush drake.
"How big is it"
"Uh. Around horseish size I guess?"
"Can I ride it?"
"Well, it's trained to fight with for the dragon cultists. You can try I guess."
My friend tries to mount it with a grapple check. Rolls a 19. I have 4/5 animal friendship so for the rest of the battle I try to calm it down. So does my friend. We end up rolling like seven times, never getting less than a 16 before my DM is like "It's calm. If you make it a lead it'll follow you around." So I take rope, make a macguyver muzzle and lead and carry it with us to the next encounter(six kobolds again). I spend the entire fight keeping the Drake calm by reciting to it tales of Odin's valor. It doesn't understand because apparently I need to speak Draconic, but I calm it down regardless. We end up having to persuade the town keep's guards to let the drake in(our Rogue rolled an 17) but we get it in, and begin discussion of how we're gonna train it, get it a saddle, who's gonna ride it, etc.
Later turns out it's a medium sized creature, so we can't do that, but we get to keep it as a party member, and in the next session it gets possessed and gets character levels as a mute NPC. He ends up being a bit OP in session's 2 and 3 so I'm hoping he'll get nerfed a bit before next time, but for the DM to reward our actions like that and remain somewhat true to our intent makes me feel better about him.
Second session we end up going places, rescuing prisoners, doing recon, etc. Typical stuff but I'm liking that we have objectives rather than straight combat. Anyways, we're nearly done when we're at the keep and this one huge half dragon man comes in with four prisoners and sixteen kobolds. My party members start freaking out IC and OOC, but I'm fricking Jax-Thor, so the first thing I do is point a finger at him and say.
"I challenge you to single combat for the prisoners."
My DM just kinda looks at me and goes "Re- really? Because that's exactly what he was about to do to you."
"Well I fething beat him too it."
"Okay, okay, but can I finish the scene first?"
He finishes the scene and we do single combat. I roll pretty well and cut him down about halfway, but he still beats me pretty badly. I end up stabilzing and not having to re-roll a char, but Jax-Thor is devastated and swears revenge on half-dragon man in the name of Odin, and Session Two Ends.
Session Three:
We begin rested and healed up(Much to my recently curb-stomped Jax-Thor's pleasure) and go to meet with the Keep's Mayor/Govenor. He's thankful for our/my bravery and ask that we infiltrate this Dragon Cult's main camp and come back with a list of information, for compensation of course, and we head over there. Encounter a guy asking us to find a monk that was trying to infiltrate the cult and rescue him. We encounter a few advance scouts along the way, take some of them out, and I decide to subdue one of them. My friends are like "Just kill him." and I'm like "I can interrogate him. Or sacrifice him to Odin." My friends are like "Man, you're an idiot." but my DM says "Man, Odin totally accepts sacrifices. His preferred method of sacrifice is hanging."
So naturally our next two encounters I make sure to subdue at least one enemy and then hang them in the name of Odin. My DM think's it's awesome and gives me something called "Inspiration". Our rogue ends up converting to become an Odin-worshiper and our Cleric begins to think I'm crazy. Our possessed-drake man that can't talk finds us rather strange but sticks around because we're taking down the cult that killed him in his old body. Last encounter we find some Dragon cultist disguises, dress up, and head to the main camp.
The main camp has somewhere around 200 guys. While a bit daunting it was nice to see a problem that couldn't be solved by force, but rather espionage, deception, observation, etc. We have the Rogue, Cleric and I for this session(along with the NPC drake who can't do too much out of combat) so the Rogue sneaks around and watches the more heavily fortified part of the camp(a cave), the cleric goes to talk with some cultists, and I go to mess tent to get some mead. Find a Merc and tell him "Hey, armwrestle me. Loser buys the other a drink." Throw it so I can buy him a drink and start talking to him for info. Play some other drinking games with him(Our DM is like "You teach him how to play Beer Pong with rocks and flagons") get him a few more drinks in and get just about everything I'm looking for in him(I also notably ask him about my new Mortal Nemesis from last session). I buy him another drink and tell him "Hey, if you're ever in Rivendale look up Ysmir Stormbringer and I'll treat you to a drink." Roll deception with advantage because my DM was impressed with my lie and got it on the second roll. Felt good man.
We eventually regroup, share info, find the monk-infiltrator we're looking for, and decide that we're going to switch him with another guy disguised as him. Naturally we end up going back to the bar/tent and finding my old drinking buddy(Who is still there xD) and play some more 'beer pong' until he's about to ready to pass out. Knock the guy out, switch him out with the monk. Drake creates a distraction at the other end of camp and we head out the front door with no problems as the Rogue rolls a 20 on the stealth check. We get a plethora of XP for gathering info, sneaking out a load of prisoners, switching the body, not being detected, etc. Not that I'm excessively worried about level or anything like that, but it's nice to see us rewarded for the afore mentioned espionage, deception, observation, etc. Overall I was very pleased with the infiltration section. While it certainly kept me on my toes it felt about as organized as a random cult of Dragon worshipers mixed with random hired on mercenaries. Felt pretty realistic, our random BS aside.
When we get back into town we're rewarded with cash and supplies, and I buy an armor upgrade(Splintmail woohoo). When we talk with the monk guy he says he's been investigating the Dragon Cult for a while and was planning on meeting some dude, but before he goes he needs to know where and when exactly the cult is attacking next. So we have to go infiltrate/scout out the main camp again. Our rogue is a little peeved OOC but we head back to main camp and find it deserted, except for a few people heading into the caves with food. We talk to the hunters about where the guys went, and what's inside the cave, and I again asking "Have you seen this Blue Half-Dragon man?" They say yes, and Jax-Thor is pumped.
We head into the cave and convince the guards(with a deer carcass) that we're here to drop off some food. We roll persuasion and get it because our rogue has +4 or 5 or so and head in un-tested. First thing we do inside the cave is roll a perception check. I roll the highest of our guys at a thirteen but we get the DM to roll for the drake and it rolls a 20. He finds a hidden passageway and digs into the wall and shows it to us. The DM later tells us that anything lower than a 20 and we wouldn't have found it. Heading in we keep going forward to find some guard barracks, a group of a dozen cultists/kobold mix. Because our rogue is an assassin(We're a tad overleveled at this point) and we get some good rolls we take out half the guys in a stealth round, and I subdue the last enemy. Roll a strength check to wake him back up out of conscious and ask him what's ahead and where my Mortal Nemesis(and his boss) are at. After he tells us I ask if there are any stalactites in the cave, to which he says no, so I tell the cultist that Niflheim will not warm him in the afterlife and finish him with my warhammer. Our rogue maintains an "As long as he's not screwing us over he's okay" philosophy but our cleric is getting a bit freaked out at me and our Drake is getting visibly uncomfortable.
We continue sneaking along and find the boss of the dungeon(It seemed that 20 we rolled let us circumvent most of the dungeon). Our rogue maxes out his sneak + critical hit damage and I crit later(my fighter spec lets me crit on 19's), our Cleric casts a nice spell, the drake-barbarian gets pretty nice damage on his attack and the poor boss ends up dying before she can move. It's at this point I tell our DM to tone down the drake or up our encounter difficulty before the next session. My friends begin searching the room, we figure out where the next cultist attack is, that they worship some Dragon God named Tiamat, and all sorts of things.
I instead yell my Mortal Nemesis's name across the hall and tell him that I've come for his head. Our DM gives me inspiration, my teammates are cursing at me, and the four guards(Something called a Dragonclaw) we convinced to let us pass by at the entrance have come up to fight us. The each get to attack twice a turn. We manage to take down two of them and get one to half-ish health before my mortal nemesis reaches us with two berzerkers behind him. He has 50 something health and moves twice, while the berzerks get auto-advantage with one of their skills(But take advantage hits from us) and have 60+ health each.
Needless to say I move away from our party(notably our cleric was face-tanking one of the dragon-claws) and head up to block my Mortal Nemesis in a hallway and do battle. Cuz, gotta uphold Odin's good name right? I facetank a little better than I did before(The berzerkers blocked in a hallway behind him) until my party comes up to help me as they finish off the Dragonclaws. We end up getting through the monster of a fight by the skin of our teeth and subdueing my Mortal Nemesis. I tie him up with my fifty feet of rope and leave him close while we go into the next room. It's a shrine to Tiamat.
So naturally I take my Mortal Nemesis into his shrine, rope him up on Tiamat's Shrine, wake him up, tell him "Tiamat's power is insignificant in comparison to the Mighty Odin." and then hang him. Our Cleric is freaking out, our Rogue is ideciding to ignore me and loot crap, our drake is trying to remain indifferent, and our DM is trying to figure out what the hell he's going to do in response to me hanging Tiamat's champion on Tiamat's shrine for Odin. He decides to put it on hold and we finish the dungeon, hefting Dragon Eggs on the way out. I take the one with the Storm Dragon in it and decide to find a Nordic Priest to raise it as a Storm Dragon for Odin. It's probably an evil dragon(chromatic I think) but I decide my character isn't smart enough to make that distinction. Realizing that we'd been playing DnD for seven hours straight we decide that the cave is a good stopping point and I head home.
Ultimately I did a lot of stupid crap, barely managed to get away with it, and I'm utterly loving how it's all playing out. Wizards of the Coast did a good job(so far at least) with this campaign in rewarding someone for getting skills other than combat skills, and our DM has been very accommodating to getting us into the story without railroading us, adapting to what we're trying to do, and adding in his own flavor. Seven hours passed far faster than I'd imagine they'd would last night. During certain parts(Such as the single combat and rematch with my Mortal Nemesis) I've gotten extremely pumped, during certain parts I've thought tactically on how I want to approach things, and during a ton of parts I've laughed, in no small part due to who I'm roleplaying with. If this is a typical experience I can see why a lot of you guys have gotten super into DnD. I'm having a blast.
Hope y'all are too.
Good night Chaos.
