I know it's been a while since I posted one of these, but life happens and we weren't able to continue the A Series campaign that we started a while ago until today.

Participants:  
* Talasia (human druid of the land)
* Melgyen (human fighter weapon master)
* Brother Thadeus (human bard of war college)
* Emriss (dragonborn Mage)

Each PC was level 6 during this adventure.  We used the most recent Next playtest packet, and as always, I was DMing the AD&D module.  The only conversion done was with monster stat blocks

After scouting the stockade, the party found the hidden entrance in the well and snuck into the slave pen room with the cloaker and slaves who were catatonic.  Talasia entered the room and tried detecting magic.  They were fearful of the shadows dancing around the slaves, and had detected the magical cloak the entranced hobgoblin wore.  At that point, the cloaker attacked him.  After suffering damage the next round, Talasia rolled well and broke free of the grapple.  This allowed the other party members to kill the cloaker.  When the spell was broken, the hobgoblin tried to flee but the druid quickly charmed him (I rolled a natural 1 on the save, meaning the hobgoblin became the best of friends).  The party as able to get a lot of information from this hobgoblin sergeant, including the layout of the stockade and where the leaders were.

After getting the info, the party made their way to strategically take out the leadership.  First on the list was the Executioner.  Funny enough, the party fell for his ruse of luring them to have a seat, and the Executioner flipped the table on them and battle ensued.  However, it was over pretty quickly.  Thadeus's call of valor added 1d6 damage to all allies' rolls within 25', which had a significant impact.  Especially combined with the fighters' 2 attacks per round, turned 4 with action surge.  The executioner only inflicted minimal damage before falling.

From there they took on Icar and the wereboars in the kitchen.  Talasia charmed Icar and had him leave the battle (he thought that having Icar fight with us against old comrades would break the charm).  The others focuses on the wereboars.  This was a moderately tough battle, but the PCs prevailed pretty easily when they didn't have to worry about Icar.  They tried to convince Icar to join them, but it was too much and the charm was broken.  When Icar was reduced to lower HP, Thadeus cast sleep, taking him out of the fight.  Thadeus opened the closet door and approached the "female prisoner".  Mistake.  Medusa.  Failed his save both times, and was turned to stone.  Luckily, one of the slaves they freed was a bard as well (think Gamers 2 LOL).

In the dungeon levels, the party fell into the magnet trap and the fighter was drawn to the wall.  None of the others wore metal armor.  When that happened, the goblins hidden in the secret room came out to attack.  The druid cast moonbeam to keep them at the far end of the hallway while they escaped and the fighter was able to get past the magnet trap.  The spiders shortly after were quickly dispatched, and in the next room all but the fighter failed their save when the ghostly elf charged them.  The fighter was able to see the elf leave and activate the secret door in a vision similar to in Prometheus with the predators.  AFter the fear wore off, they took the secret passage and bypassed the boggarts.

Shortly after they found themselves in a large room with 15 goblins and four wolves.  The tactical maps included with the module were very helpful, and we used the map and minis for the first time.  This was very helpful, as the PCs cast web first, then flaming sphere to entrap many of the goblins and wolves before going into main battle.  Since the web became alight, having a map made it very easy to see how much was burning each round, and which creatures caught in it took damage.  One item of note:  A party of 6th level PCs, against these level 1 creatures, still had a very hard time beating them.  The goblins in particular swarmed and wore down a few of the PCs to low HP by the end of it.  I like the fact that enough level 1 gobbos can even take down mid level PCs.  It keeps the PCs respecting their enemies, and just wading into battle would result in a TPK.

The party then found the secret door to the alchemist, and went that route, killing him in his chambers.  In the next room, they found the engineer, who was cowering in fear, rambling about the werecreatures who were out to kill him.  Even after taking a crossbow bolt to the face when they burst the door down, the fighter kept his composure and intimidated the engineer to fill him in on what was happening.  They promised that when Markessa was dead, they would split the treasure.

So the party headed to the laboratory to face Markessa.  She was prepared, and had mirror image already cast.  The party came in through the northern door, rather than the main doors.  The fighter went to engage her in melee while the druid moved down next to the fighter and cast moonbeam on the two owlbears who broke free of their cages.  The mage (an evoker with the sculpt spells ability) launched a fireball.  The bard used call of valor again.  Markessa was able to avoid the melee attacks due to her mirror image, and because the fighter and druid lined up, she hit them with a lightning bolt.  Ouch.  The remaining goblins fired arrows at the mage and bard.  The construct/experiment moved to engage the fighter

The next round saw another fireball and another lightning bold.  Shit was exploding left and right.  The owlbears were inflicting serious damage to the mage and bard.  Markessa and the construct did serious damage to the fighter.  The third round saw the fighter use his second wind.  Markess was very hurt, so rather than finish off the fighter at the expense of her own life, she cast darkness and moved south to escape while the experiment kept the fighter busy.  Finally the mage and bard were able to kill the owlbears, but they were very hurt.

Before Markessa could fully escape, the druid cast dispel magic on the darkness, allowing the mage to see her.  He cast magic missile, but her shield spell reaction voided them.  she flung open the doors, calling the worgs for help.  The experiment finally fell.

The next couple of rounds the party was able to finally kill Markessa with a moonbeam and keep the worgs at bay with the same spell before taking them out.  The party was nearly completely out of resources.  They were able to bar themselves in and complete a short rest (1 hour), allowing them to heal up and gain some resources back.  They went back to the engineer and showed him how Markessa was killed.  As they left the room to head towards the treasure, the two werewolves and Blackthorn the ogre mage came charging down the hall.  The PCs won initiative.  The druid used moonbeam to harm the werewolves and force them back into human form.  Blackthorn moved forward and launched cone of cold at the party, nearly killing them.  The party was able to hurt Blackthorn pretty badly but they didn't kill him.  He then assumed gaseous form and escaped.  The party went back to the engineer's room to try to get a long rest in, as they were nearly dead and out of resources.

After only a short rest, Blackthorn busted down the door and fired a cone of cold inside the room (I ruled that since he was a mage type caster, he would have arcane recovery similar to a mage class).  The fighter fell, as well as the engineer.  The dragonborn mage had also used arcane recovery, and was pissed.  He wasn't playing around and fireballed the room.  If it weren't for sculpt spells, he would have killed everyone.  As it was, by the end of the battle, the fighter was down, the druid had 2hp, and the mage had 1 hp left.

They used the scroll of resurrection they found earlier to bring the fighter back.  I rules that since the mage couldn't cast the spell normally, he would have to make an intelligence check at a DC 20 to pull the spell off successfully.  He rolled a natural 20.  Success!

That was pretty much most of the combat, with some other minor skirmishes here and there.

Mechanical observations:
* charm person is the shit.  Just like in AD&D
* sleep is very powerful once creatures have been reduced to lower HP.  A great fight finisher.
* the bard didn't do much damage himself, but his call of valor was a HUGE impact to overall party damage.
* sculpt spells remains a game changer for mages.
* Holy fuck the fighter is a death machine.  Especially partnered with the bard above.

There seems to be more 4e in there than I prefer. Can the parameters be changed both before and during the game like FantasyCraft?

Quote from: Marleycat;709138There seems to be more 4e in there than I prefer. Can the parameters be changed both before and during the game like FantasyCraft?

How do you mean, "parameters"?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;709139How do you mean, "parameters"?

You said you used the AD &D module. So can you modify the setting before and during the game? I assume you can use a certain set of dials before the game. Can that be changed during the game if the feel you want is wrong.

Quote from: Marleycat;709144You said you used the AD &D module. So can you modify the setting before and during the game? I assume you can use a certain set of dials before the game. Can that be changed during the game if the feel you want is wrong.

I guess so.  All I did was use the existing AD&D module and replace the monster stat blocks with the Next ones.  If something came up where I either didn't want to, or wasn't able to look up a rule in Next?  It was easy enough just to come up with whatever one I felt was reasonable.  But I didn't have to swap out monster type or quantity from what was in the original module.

Quote from: Marleycat;709144You said you used the AD &D module. So can you modify the setting before and during the game? I assume you can use a certain set of dials before the game. Can that be changed during the game if the feel you want is wrong.

D&D5e doesn't contain the "modular" options that were promised at the start of the playtest. Its pretty much as hardwired as any previous edition of D&D.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;709145I guess so.  All I did was use the existing AD&D module and replace the monster stat blocks with the Next ones.  If something came up where I either didn't want to, or wasn't able to look up a rule in Next?  It was easy enough just to come up with whatever one I felt was reasonable.  But I didn't have to swap out monster type or quantity from what was in the original module.

I get you.

Hmm…

Quote from: Skywalker;709147D&D5e doesn't contain the "modular" options that were promised at the start of the playtest. Its pretty much as hardwired as any previous edition of D&D.

How disappointing.

Thanks Sacrosanct, great write up. I finally downloaded the latest play test packet (my first look at 5E rules). I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's recognisably D&D (unlike 4E) and they've stripped out some of the complexity of 3E which is a huge plus.

Quote from: Fiasco;709151Thanks Sacrosanct, great write up. I finally downloaded the latest play test packet (my first look at 5E rules). I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. It's recognisably D&D (unlike 4E) and they've stripped out some of the complexity of 3E which is a huge plus.

Agreed, I just wanted more flexibility but I like what I see beyond that.

Quote from: Marleycat;709152Agreed, I just wanted more flexibility but I like what I see beyond that.

IIRC 5e does attempt to make Feats modular by saying you can ignore them, even though everything in the system assumes their use. So, as modular as 3e :/

Quote from: Skywalker;709153IIRC 5e does attempt to make Feats modular by saying you can ignore them, even though everything in the system assumes their use. So, as modular as 3e :/

Well, I am willing to give the benefit of doubt given playtest modules does not a full game make.

Thank you Sacrosanct for your threads about D&D5, very informative. I'm more and more interested in D&D5, and I think I'm going to get it when it's finally released.

Quote from: Claudius;709183Thank you Sacrosanct for your threads about D&D5, very informative. I'm more and more interested in D&D5, and I think I'm going to get it when it's finally released.

I'm tempted, but i'll probably end up borrowing some books like i did with 4e.

I've got plenty of games that i already play/want to play in the future. Yet another flavour of d&d is low down on my list.