D&D Campaign 2: D&D Harder

[Mantis]

Ah man, and here's me playing a boring old tiefling again. I'm doing it for narrative reasons, but I almost regret not going with my original choice now.

I was going to play one of these and really complete the random lineup.

Spoiler

[Sly Boots]

You should!

[Wrathbone]

A tabaxi, an aarakocra and a tortle walk into a bar. The tortle says in a thick accent, "Shome sheed for the crow, a bowl of milk for my tabackshi friend and I'll have a martini... shaken, not shtirred."

The barman looks him over curiously. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"Well, perhapsh," says the tortle, "I am a shell-ebrity."


I'm very, very sorry.

Anyway, I've added some links to the first page for convenience and also added some info about the gods to World Anvil (under World Encyclopedia -> Deities & Religions).

[Sly Boots]

[Raid]

Good grief.

Partially for Mantis' benefit; here's a brief overview of my character;

Opus on the Greywood
Tabaxi Wizard (School of Necromancy) at least when we get to level 2

Opus has spent an unknown amount of time trapped in a pocket dimension; the long-abandoned library and workshop of a powerful wizard. Because of the library's abandonment it has started to deteriorate, and the concept of time had become somewhat broken. Tomorrow became yesterday, breakfast was served in the late afternoon, tenses were, will be, or are somewhat tricky. As such, although Opus is physically very young, his mind has been active for potentially hundreds of years.

The library was entirely devoid of life, save for a sentient card catalogue named Melvil. At the time he became trapped, he had begun training as a druid, but suddenly found himself in an environment with absolutely no life. He eventually, through rigorous study of the available materials and considerable amounts of what he perceived as time, learned to manipulate the decayed remnants of whatever beings had passed there. He is far from mastering these skills, however with considerable effort and the help of an enchanted item or two, has created a pair of "helpers" (which I was initially going to pitch as the party's Truss-esque meat-shields, but I think that's probably a discussion we need to have as a group) which accompany him.

I'm still working on some of the details (particularly his motivations), but that's the gist of it.

Incidentally, I'm terrified of only having 8 hitpoints.

[Mantis]

Oh boy, after that joke I think I'll stick with the tiefling.

It's definitely going to be an interesting party combat-wise seeing as we are all playing fairly squishy characters. Blood Hunters are front liners but can be very much like glass cannons with their health sacrifice abilities.

Sorry again for that last minute bail. I ended up getting home at 6am! Hopefully the session was useful for you guys regardless.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, it was nice to talk through our characters a bit as I think both myself and Raid don't have them completely fully formed in ours minds just yet. We didn't touch an awful lot on the setting as we thought it better to wait until we could run through it together.

[Raid]

Yeah, of the setting one of the few things we went over was that we're all playing unusual races, and that could be the basis for our coming together as a group.

[Mantis]

Are we thinking of getting back together again to discuss more of the setting stuff then?

I'll try and get a little info typed up on Dharnon in the mean time so that I can share his background and some of his motivations. It may help with establishing why we'd all come together.

[Raid]

I think we suggested we could get together again after next week when Bird's not about to continue your game.

[Mantis]

I'd be down for that. May be a better idea than running a tomb of horrors one shot across the two weeks as from what I recall that is a rather huge dungeon and in all likelihood we wouldn't be able to do it in just two sessions anyway.

I'm not allowed to log on for work until I've had an 11 hour break so I've essentially got most of today off to sit and read Wrath's world wiki.

[Sly Boots]

Incidentally I've been reading a bunch of guides and advice for blood hunters, and I'm going to lean towards finding ways to increase my survivability, for instance I've changed my mind about going dual-wield in favour of sword and board for a bit more AC.

We also talked briefly last night about sidekicks - Wrath is still going to look into how to implement it, but essentially we can opt for a sidekick class to complement our own or mitigate where we're weak. Raid has got a pretty cool thematic way of having a bit of frontline muscle in his, while it looks like I can have a cleric potentially to be a bit of a healbot.

[Mantis]

I'd be up for having a sidekick, I don't mind the extra micromanagement of having one if Wrath doesn't want to run a full NPC like how Truss worked. You can add them to your character sheet in DnD Beyond so it's really easy to click into it and use the dice roller to carry out their actions. How many we have is a matter of discussion, one each would be my suggestion. They level up with you and you just change which leveled version you have attached to your character sheet as you go. It's quite a neat system.

[Raid]

Yeah, we discussed giving me a couple of low level minions to start with, summoned using an item rather than using spells that Opus himself won't have access to until level 5. I think we'd have to limit them in some way, for example only being able to re-summon them at a long rest, as I don't want to break any early game balance. Reanimated undead seem to be quite limited in terms of their actions; for example I can use a bonus action to give one instruction to all minions, rather than their being separate characters.

I do think we're going to need some sort of healing; once again we've all picked classes that can't really do it. I suspect a Cleric might take issue with a Necromancer.

There are actually some entertaining healing mechanics in the school of necromancy; there's a spell that lets me transfer some of my hitpoints to a target (but it's a 3rd level spell that transfers 4d8 hitpoints, meaning there *is* the possibility of killing myself), and another that lets you roll one of your hit dice (added to my spell modifier) that's a second level spell (although I don't recognise the sourcebook for it so I'm not sure if it'd be available). I think my necromancy kills heal me for a small amount, but that's not going to be reliable.

How do the rest of you feel about maybe having some other healing mechanic than an NPC? Could we perhaps say that one of us is capable of brewing healing potions (limited to one per character per day, say)? What I don't really want to do is overcrowd the board, because there's every chance that at some point I'll have my own little army of risen dead, and I wouldn't want each combat round to take half an hour!

[Mantis]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just give you a Warrior sidekick and thematically say that he is an animated undead? Keeps the number of people down and is easier to manage right off the bat. His powering up as he levels could be explained as you making upgrades to him like some sort of Frakenstein's monster. And for healing purposes there are ways you could narratively brush over the fact that a Cleric is working with a Necromancer, there are Death Domain clerics afterall.

Having a dedicated healer would be my preference as when you're reliant on yourself for healing through potions and such you're effectively sacrificing a round of combat just to heal yourself, which is never a particularly fun or engaging way to spend a turn. Farmed out to an NPC healbot though and it's not an issue.

If I had a sidekick then I was thinking that I could quite easily fit an Expert into being with Dharnon. Then we'd have one each and they'd cover the basis of warrior, healer and rogue; so would be a nice balance.

I personally don't mind a crowded board as I enjoy the larger scale combat. Whether Wrath wants the pain of running it all the time is another matter though as I know it can be quite a handful when there's lots to manage at once.