Swatting Stirges

They called the stirges mosquitoes!

Exploring the Keep

They took their time searching the Keep.

Forgotten Wand

They remembered an item they had forgotten about.

Cryovain

I played this scenario out for weeks and it turned out 50/50. Regardless of the outcome, the party got beaten up badly no matter what the result.

I made the dragon asleep because they were still only level 3 and were outmatched, giving them a chance to set up an attack plan if they could remain stealthy. I had no intention of giving them a surprise round, which would have turned the battle considerably in their favor.

They walked in, set the casters in the arrow slits in the battlements, used Winnie, Yami’s owl familiar, to set the snare spell under Cryovain, using a hundred feet of rope to complete the circle. I let them do it because it was pretty smart, and what are the chances it works, right? Winnie rolled a natural 20 on her stealth check and succeeded in setting the spell.

Next, I had everyone roll initiative to set up the battle. Cryovain would wake up as soon as she was hit by anything and be able to take her turn in the order normally. She rolled low. The casters held their ranged spells from their safe positions. Yami, Zend and Lazmr made their way onto the roof – I did the ice check wrong, but didn’t realize it until after the session, Lazmr fell each time he rolled a dex save and was unable to do anything. Zend was able to make his way across the roof before they woke Cryovain.

When she woke, she rolled a natural 1 on her Dex save (Yami has a 17 spell save) and was suspended, upside down, above the roof of the Hold and the party unleashed the power of the hells on her. She did manage to put her breath weapon to use against Zend, who was shooting at her with his longbow from across the roof. She took him out with that, failed her Dex save at the end of her turn, took another round of blows from the party (except for Lazmr, who couldn’t stay on his feet). On her turn, her breath weapon did not recharge and there was nobody in melee range for her to strike out at. She went down in the third round.

I couldn’t believe it! Two bad rolls and a party of six level three characters defeated a Young White Dragon – a CR 6 creature! It was at this point I decided that my party was way more overpowering than I had previously thought. I’d have to adjust things to compensate for that.

Level 4!

The XP gained from defeating Cryovain was enough to put the party across the finish line for advancement to level 4. I ended the session there and gave them the week to make their choices.

Character Upgrades

The 2024 Players Handbook was released this week and, after reading it, my son was hyped to be able to upgrade his player’s character to the new version. I told him that everyone would have to agree to do it because it would be unfair to only upgrade one player and not the others. I told him to present it to the group and, if they were all amenable, they could convert their existing 2014-based characters to the new 2024 version.

Guess what, they’re upgrading their characters.

I offered to review all of them to make sure there was parity, and they didn’t lose any features. I guess I may have a busy week ahead of me.