When it looks like clearing the rest of the Sacred Stone monastery will proceed without incident, a tactical retreat by the monsters forces them into a tricky negotiation.
D&D
Episode 9: Fighting Gargoyles for 45 Minutes
We fight gargoyles for 45 minutes. That’s all this episode is. However, it does showcase the lovely abuse potential of the heallock build.
I’m not the expert on the build; so I’ll just talk about what it does and, generally, how.
The Heallock
It’s a warlock / cleric multiclass build.
Tim is playing Gallidon, a half-elf, level 4 at the moment, evenly split between cleric and warlock. Not sure about domain or pact.
Here’s the point, though:
- Your warlock spell slots refresh each short rest.
- You can use your short-rest-refreshing slots to cast any spell you know
- Including cleric spells
- Which means you’re a never-ending healing battery and never run out of heal spells
In the episode you can see this at work. There happens to be, at this point in the module, little threat of wandering monsters, which means short rests are readily available.
After the first fight with the gargoyles, the party retreats and rests and can heal up without expending any HD. After the second fight, the same.
A bit situational, but pretty powerful, and that’s just one feature of the build. There may be others, but I don’t delve too deeply into that part of the game.
Episode 8: Dojo Showdown
The party encounters the Abbess, the big boss of the Sacred Stone monastery, and there’s a pretty tactically interesting fight. When I see the way the tide is turning, I have her retreat, and it’s a game of cat and mouse from there.
And, at the end of the episode, someone lies dying—BUT WHO!?!?
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| eastern temple layout |
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| fighting the abbess |
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| pursuit ends |
Episode 7: Hulk Smash
The party is camped outside the Sacred Stone monastery when something very bad happens.
More analysis later, but, for now, pics:
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| casualty markers |
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| torchbearer ring |
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| the ill fated watch |
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| ambush start |
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| ambush retreat |
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| Daniel: player killer |
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| wake up call |
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| aftermath |
Episode 6: Masters of Disguise
2/3 of the party is composed of new characters, fresh, shiny, and chrome. But eternal??? They infiltrate the Sacred Stone monastery, home to the earth cult, and engage in hijinx involving excretory functions on command, stacking bodies in the washroom, and abusing prestidigitation to clean up after themselves.
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| Shadow, disguised as a monk, signals for the party to break in |
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| fighting a lieutenant in the chapel |
Shadow was tanking hard this session. As a DM, I felt like I had no chance. I downed him once and was shocked—but of course he was back up before the round was over.
Moose’s new fighter-archer build with Geth Stormwind is serious business, especially combined with the optional flanking/facing rules we’re using from the DMG. If he stays behind targets at range, he has advantage all day and can use his battlemaster options to really lay the hurt on.
And I really wish I would have known how to use the black earth priest before running him in this session and getting straight pwned. Here’s my post on the proper tactics to use with these guys: http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2015/05/princes-of-apocalypse-tactics-black.html.
Episode 5: The One Where (Almost) Everyone Dies
Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you. Or the giant vulture does. Or you get crushed by a tidal wave.
The party takes a (really long) journey to Womford and encounters many, many cultists.
Daniel shows that he doesn’t read spells before casting them.
Moose hath made a death cleric.
We talk about casting more than 1 spell per turn and if people can turn into wolves, and what about if they’re already wolves, can they THEN turn into wolves, smartypants?
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| crit by Shadow on the sleet-priest |
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| giant vultures are a good thing to kill PCs with |
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| a busy night in the graveyard |
Episode 4: A Boo-ring Sidequest
This is a brief episode in which the party handles a single (and the last) low-level sidequest: The Haunted Tomb. Audio quality is the best so far and representative of the trend for later episodes. We’re getting the hang of this.
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| new facing rules |
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| fighting a goblin riding a half ogre |
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| specter down, making with the loot |
References: here’s some info about Great Grey Wolf Sif from Dark Souls: darksouls.wikidot.com/sif-the-great-grey-wolf.
Apologies: NONE. We’ve taken our audio quality to another level. Hope you enjoy.
Episode 3: Jackalweres are a Serious Thing
The party meets the fancy Feathergale Society, rides hippogriffs to hunt a manticore, choreographs an action movie, finds a high level area, and has a deadly encounter with jackalweres. Someone dies. But who!?!?!?
Corrections: the adventure does in passing mention the history of Feathergale Spire and the other haunted keeps (page 5 and 33, column 2).
Rules discussions of interest: how warlock spell slots interact with spells and slots from other classes on a multiclass character.
Apologies: sorry about the chair squeaking. We’ve since learned to use wooden chairs.
Episode 0: Character Generation & Intros
We make characters and introduce the concept of the show. Skip if you like.
We’re running through the Wizards of the Coast 5e D&D module, Princes of the Apocalypse. It’s an actual play and a review-in-process, where we’ll pause to talk about our opinions of the product, and the DM will discuss techniques in general and specifically for this module.
Note: we are n00bs at the podcasting game! Expect chip crunching, dice clattering, and other background noise. We get better about it in later episodes, promise.
gg no re 