The Session

So, I didn’t have much time to plan anything for this session I was kept busy with a toddler and making dinner before people showed up but it was still a fun session which changed some things up again. You can catch up on what happened in what I called Session 22. But the players immediately jump back into it filling in Assendial on more of what had happened.

They were also curious about what was going on with the Winter Court. It turns out that the member of the winter court has been trying to broker and agreement with Strawgoh to use some students to deal with a Rainman. The group, Barrai, Bokken and Kip immediately volunteer. And try and broker a deal which the school actually takes care of for them. They wanted 60 gold for it but ended up getting 250 which they do agree to split 4 ways with Thrain.

They kill a little bit of time with Bokken getting another fight scheduled at the bar and Barrai wrote a letter to his patron. But Kip puts the time to good use and researches what Rainman are. They are fey creatures who hide in the rain and aren’t fully corporeal. But more so, they try and drown you with their aqueous form and that will turn you into a puddle.

Going over to the embassy of the Winter Court in the town they set-up a trap for the Rainman. They make it look like the powerful fey princess of the Winter Court is standing out in the courtyard talking. Bokken spots the Rainman who is watching what is going on, but has realized that something is off. Mainly that the rain is still rain not snow like it’d be turning into surrounding a member of the winter court. So the Rainman is looking around for someone who is controlling this illusion. Bokken charges and the group gets into battle.

Things didn’t go completely as plan. Barrai does a great job opening up a barrage of magic missiles on the one of the Rainmen. And that’s where the issue really is, while the Winter Court had thought there was one Rainman there win in fact two that had been stalking the embassy. They initially focus on Kip because he looks like he’s the smallest and weakest. But when Barrai uses his magic missiles which is way more effective against them, the second one switches it’s focus to try and drown Barrai. Unfortunately for Barrai he rolls a 0 (1 with a -1 modifier) when it grapples him and he gets hit hard with a lot of damage. Eventually he becomes a puddle.

Bokken finishes off the last Rainman and feels very guilty about letting Barrai die. Some of that also due to the fact that one of his attacks had dealt damage to Barrai while he was trapped inside the figure. Kip and Bokken manage to get the puddle that was Barrai into a water skin and they rush his puddle to Assendial whom Bokken had seen use the reincarnation spell before. She is able to use it on him, but he comes back not as a Tiefling but as a forest Gnome.

Behind the DM’s Screen

Like I said, this was a lightly planned session. When they started asking about the member of the Winter Court, I knew that is the direction that I’d been taking the session and two Rainman were going to make a hard/deadly encounter for the three of them. Turns out it was in fact deadly.

And Barrai, and the player, actually got to pick between two different races. Normally you just get whatever you roll but because Kip had used prestidigitation to help get the puddle form of Barrai into the water skin. I decided to make it more interesting than just a straight roll. The player could have picked between human and forest gnome. Thematically they decided that it made more sense to be a forest gnome after all the torturing of Dorin that he had done over the school year.

Have you had a character die and become reincarnated in a game before?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

The Session

After spending last session continuing their investigation, the party, Thrain, Barrai, Bokken, and Kip head back to the school to talk to Assendial. The school is still in chaos as the teachers are talking to the Half-Orc, Lasanial, whose room the group had found the second scarab in. Catching Assendial’s attention, they get her to come over and talk with them.

The chat is pretty brief. They fill her in on some of what happened and asked if they thought Lasanial was the culprit. Assendial says that he seems to be telling them the truth that he had no idea what had been going on. And they find out that Lasanial has made of lot of money in the fights which is why he had so much money and stuff in his room. They tell her a little bit about their suspicions of Addrus, but don’t go into full details as to why. But they do confirm that he should have only had four keys for the bank, from the school. Assendial says that she saw Addrus going to their barracks with Parrag while the party was out looking for him.

The party rushes over to the barracks to look for Addrus and confront him and try and get more information from him. They burst in and see Parrag lying face down on Barrai’s bed. Addrus is no where to be found in the room. Barrai goes to try and wake Parrag and Bokken steps outside to see if he can see anything suspicious. The place is still noisy, but Bokken hears something from the other side of the barracks and decides to investigate.

We drop into combat at this point; as Bokken goes around the corner and sees Addrus, the friends whom he’d met with in the market for a meal the time Bokken was following him, the adult whom had been with them, and Castillia. They are all making their way towards a wagon, though for Castillia it’s against her will. Bokken raises the alarm to the other three and charges into battle.

Things start out going well for the group. Bokken takes out one of Addrus’s friends in the first round and makes his way towards the wagon where it looks like they are going to try and kidnap Castillia. The other three come around the corner to see the battle in full swing. Turns out that Addrus friends can use magic and are slinging around magic missile spells at everyone and they do a fair amount of damage to Bokken. Everything moves along nicely for our players as Kip, Thrain, and Barrai keep things interesting for the friends and Addrus, including Barrai throwing down a sleep spell. However, that sleep spell knocks out the two friends who are moving Castillia and Castillia just as Bokken reaches the wagon.

The adult, clearly frustrated with how the battle is going, decides to join the fight and drops a fireball on everyone, minus himself and the horses. Most of them manage to make the saving throw, but with the damage that they already have taken, it takes down all of Addrus’s friends, Bokken, and Kip. Thrain casts a magical darkness over the wagon as Barrai heals Kip getting him back into the fight. Addrus comes charging out of the darkness and throws two daggers taking down Barrai. And the adult, in the darkness, disappears, which surprises Thrain as he can see through magical darkness. Thrain rushes into the dark, to avoid being attacked and seeing both Castillia and Bokken down casts Spare the Dying on both of them. Outside of the darkness, Addrus comes to attack Kip to take him out, but Kip casts the second sleep spell of the battle and Addrus falls asleep.

At this point in time we drop out of combat and the teachers, some second years, and Sanphire come around the corner to see what has happened. Thrain drops darkness so that they can see everything, and Assendial heals the party and Castillia getting them back to their feet. She tells all of them to come join her for a conversation. As they head back, Bokken grabs a few things from the wagon, Addrus’s trunk, a cloak with the initials L.M., F., and A.O., he also stops to check on Parrag and grab Dorin’s trunk again. Parrag is just unconscious, so Bokken lugs all of that to Assendial’s office. She heals them all again and that brings Parrag back to consciousness.

They fill in Assendial on what happened with the fight, but then say that Castillia might know more. She tells Assendial that she’d seen Addrus go out of the barracks with some people so she’d decided to investigate because Barrai and Kip had asked her about Addrus. Going into the barracks, she’d found Parrag unconscious and been grabbed two of Addrus’s friends who were still in the room, shortly after that the fight started, so Parrag might know more. He says that he wad spotted Addrus so he’d gone to ask him about the extra key, why Addrus had borrowed his shirt, and why he’d gone missing. Of course, Addrus’s friends had been there and they knocked him out. Assendial asks them some more questions, but nothing much more comes to light. The group tries to get paid for their investigation, but Assendial basically tells them no because she knows they’ve taken money from some of the other rooms.

Behind the DM’s Screen

I came up with this idea for a fight after last session. I had originally planned for them to run into Addrus at the bazaar, where he’d been before, but the group went to the bank and the bar to look for him instead. I figured, since time has passed, he’d have made it back to school, but with the year end, he’d probably be looking to ditch quickly as well, especially once he knows the party has been sniffing around.

I actually had a plan of how I wanted this fight to go, did it go that way, nope. In my plan it was going to be a countdown of a few rounds until something happened, the fireball, and then whomever was left in Addrus’s group would make a break for it on the wagon. However, I put in modified Acolytes into the fight as Addrus’s friends, they can do some things, but not take hits from Bokken when he attacks it turns out. I should have gone with less but tougher ones if I were to do it again. So when Bokken got close to the wagon and the boss who was based off of the [redacted] template. That boss decided it might be better, not really planning on fighting, to set off his attack early and drop a fireball on everyone. I let the players roll for that just in case it waited a round before it happened, but it didn’t.

I wanted this more set piece type fight also in this session as we’ve gotten through the first year. Now the players have their next mission that they decided, deliver Dorin home, and also have a villain who can come back. Overall a successful and fun session.

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

In my opinion, the best starting point is to look and determine if your character is a “support” or “attacker” character. Now, It’s possible to be a blend of both, and even if you lean towards being a support character, you should have at least an attack spell option, and if you’re an attacker, you should have some more support style spells for non-combat situations. It’s very tempting to go all in on either side, but there will be times when you need the other spells.

For example, if you’re a support character and you’re in combat, you’re at the point where most of the party is down but the monster is mainly dead. If you take a good hit from the monster, you’re probably dead as well, and that would end the combat with you all losing the fight. You could get someone else back on their feet with a couple of hit points, but at this point in time, you’re more apt to survive an attack than they would be. Do you just do the support thing and heal someone, watch them get knocked out again, heal them again, and keep that up until you run out of spells? That doesn’t sound like that fun at the table, and it also doesn’t really sound like it’s going to win the combat for your adventuring party. So you can attack, but you didn’t take a good attack spell or any attack spells, so you’re kind of stuck just healing.

The big thing that’s happening in the scenario is that you’re creating a prolonged and possibly stalemated battle for a chunk of time. And while attacking might not be what your character would normally do, a good attack would potentially end that stalemate. But it’s going to cause people to have more fun at the table because it isn’t a cycle of revive, monster knocks out, revive, monster knocks out, and so on and so forth. Adding in attack spell doesn’t stop you from being mainly support, but it can keep the game moving and keep it more interesting. The same goes for the flip side, maybe you’re a fire wizard and you’re up against a dragon that is resistant to fire damage. First, your DM’s a bit of a jerk if it happens all the time, but now you’re out of combat, so what do you do? You can attack, but it won’t do as much, but if you had a support spell or two, you’d be able to still interact with the combat. Or, maybe you want to be the best in combat, why not have your signature attack spell(s) but then also have the ability to support yourself so that you can truly be the best in combat and not have to rely on others for that aid.

This is all good to think about when picking your spells, but not actually picking spells. Let’s go with a Wizard as an example like I did in a previous article on magic. Our Wizard is fairly smart, 16 intelligence, so we get start with 4 spells known and 3 cantrips at first level. We have 2 first level spell slots as well, and I want to be an attacking focused Wizard. I believe in calling down the powers of the elements to smite my enemies and I might like fire a bit too much.

When I’m looking at cantrips, I know for sure that I want to get at least one, if not two attacking cantrips out of the three. These, at low levels, are going to be my go to spells (and even at higher levels), so I want something that feels like a signature ability that I can theme my character off of, or that has fire, because I’m a pyro. So the first cantrip is going to be Fire Bolt, a good attack spell with really good range, 120 ft. That allows me, since I’m a wizard and am always going to have lower armor class and hit points, to be at a safe distance for attacking and not being attacked. The other attack one I’m going to take is Thunderclap, this one is a bit of a jerk spell, because it can hit my allies, but it’s an area of affect, so that is a nice way to hit a lot of creatures if need be. Finally, a utility cantrip of light, simple spell, even if I have darkvision, that doesn’t mean I can see in pitch black, so good utility for outside of combat. Now we’re onto the first level, and with four known spells at first level, I’m going to consider a couple more attack spells, but again, we’re a pretty quishy character, so I’m going to grab shield as a spell. That is going to help keep you up. Witch Bolt is a good ranged spell that does lightning damage. Longstrider is going to be my first enhancing spell for my abilities on the combat field with an extra 10 feet of movement. Magic Missile is then my final one, a spell that doesn’t do massive damage, but it will do consistent damage.

Let’s break down what I picked, I’ve already done some why. Thunderclap and Fire Bolt both give me consistent spells to attack with. Witch Bolt and Magic Missile give me damage when I need a boost of damage. Magic Missile is the consistent damage when I need to finish everything off. The damage ones are definitely the most obvious spells, the others are just fairly obvious, but what I’m trying to create with my attacking wizard is a situation where I can keep out of range, Longstrider, boost my armor class to avoid an attack as needed, Shield, and be able to see outside of combat or even in combat if I’m fighting something with truesight or blindsight. But with so few spell slots available to me, I’m not going to use the first level spells for attacks all that often, it’ll mainly be for shield and then I’ll use my cantrips for attacking. There is a downside for that because cantrips aren’t as good for attack spells, but with a fairly high intelligence, it helps out the odds.

And, I only picked 4 of my 7 spells as attack spells. But even with that, I have a variety of damage, thunder, fire, lightning, and force, so I can get around most damage reductions. And while Fire Bolt will be my signature, the others have good utility for combat. Thunderclap has an area of affect, Magic Missile will never miss, and Witch Bolt can hang around for a while and continue to do damage. When I get to hire levels, I already have picked some utility damage spells, so I can focus in on more fire damage because I know that is going to be my signature element, but I have enough that I can still be effective if fire isn’t.

And when picking utility spells, I looked, besides the cantrip, as to what can boost my effectiveness in combat. Sure, I might want to use magic missile a one of my first level spells, but Longstrider allows me to avoid, which, again, I’m squishy, cause I’m a Wizard, and Shield is there for the same reason. I can’t be an awesome fighter if I’m constantly getting knocked out. At higher levels I’ll be able to improve upon those options as well with spells like Blur which make me even harder to hit.

I can flip this as well, and while I’d probably still keep a spell like Fire Bolt and Magic Missile (it’s kind of a signature of Dungeons and Dragons for a spell), I’d focus more on what can help other people. Longstrider on a Dwarf would allow them to charge into combat faster. Though, a Wizard probably isn’t the best support class out there, they do have some decent options as you get into higher levels. A class like Cleric would give you more support options.

When picking spells do you pick a variety of them or do you really focus in on attack spells or support? Have you every made a mistake with the spells that you’ve picked? I guess, that’s the last bit to write about for me, the mistakes and what what can mean. In Season 2 of Dungeons and Flagons the wizard picked a lot of weird attack spells, but they are were all area of affect spells, so that meant with two melee characters rounding out the party, he was always, when attacking, going to do damage to them as well. So thinking through your spells is important.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.