5e Grognard

Moved to my new blog here .

Moved to my new blog here .

Working for UPS, I fully expected for the blog to "shut down" for the month, like it often does this time of year. With the overtime that I accumulate this month usually involves me going to work, coming home, and going to bed. Life has a way of throwing unexpected twists your way. One week ago, shortly after punching in to work, I got dizzy and my heart was racing. I had trouble catching my breath. This resulted in an ambulance ride and a couple days in the hospital. The official verdict was a pulmonary embolism with deep vein thrombosis. For those of you that don't speak doctor, a blood clot had developed in my leg. Part had broken off and moved, blocking the artery to my lungs. Being generally young and in overall good health, I showed none of the warning signs, and overall the cause has my doctors stumped. Now that I'm on blood thinners, they can't run the tests that would determine if this is the result of something genetic. At least until they determine th...

So work is getting into a somewhat manageable level, for now. With Christmas around the corner, things at UPS tend to get a bit hectic, so I'll try to get some updates in while I can. I'm still behind in posting some play reports. We had a flurry of playing going on a few months ago. Game prep took some time away from the blog as well, as it should be! This blog pretty much is a Downtime Activity for me as a DM. This session we return to using Basic Fantasy Role Playing's Adventure Anthology One. You can download AAO and a bunch of other free adventures on Basic Fantasy's  download page . While they use BFRP rules, they are very easily converted to 5e, and have a nice old-school feel that I like. This time I used the Deathcrypt of Khaldun, by Scott A. Murray. Again we played this awhile ago, so many of the details are fuzzy, but I do remember this as a great session and a nice little adventure. After the near-TPK of our group during the capture of Iong, they decide...

Wow, over two months since my last blog post. Work has seriously taken a turn for the worse, with overtime taking over my free time. I'll pick back up with another play report. I've gone through some Dragon Magazines recently, but there has been few things to convert for several issues. This is from an older session, so I'll be lacking on some of the details. In our previous game, the party had tracked down the goblin Iong to Cahill Abbey . Iong had incurred some hefty gambling debts and the group was there to collect the bounty. Speaking of our group, they are all 5th level and consist of: Ash.  She's a fire genasi valor bard with the entertainer background. Tulgasora.  Originally a half orc  bull totem  barbarian with the  bounty hunter  background. Since there are no orcs on Eska, but my son liked the half orc mechanics, we reskinned him as a "savage hobgoblin", and not from one of the organized troops. Pyric.   Aasimar   celestial ...

For a variety of reasons, we haven't had a chance to sit down and play D&D at all until recently. Looking back, I see my last play report was in February. I'm sure we played once or twice shortly after that, but I didn't get a report posted. Scheduling provided the biggest setback. Our weekends have been busy. The next biggest competitor for our time has been Magic: The Gathering. My one son was looking around online and "discovered" Magic. Wanted to spend some of his allowance on getting some cards. His brother and sister had been into Pokemon, but it never really interested him. Much to his surprise, I pulled a box of Magic cards out of the closet that I had nearly forgotten about. It has been over 12 years since I last played. I have over 20 decks built and ready to go, as well as a bunch of extra cards and several "idea" decks that are nothing more than a general theme put into a pile. Magic swept through our household, with 1 on 1, 3 player an...

We finally had a chance to sit down and play again, and continued on with our Age of Worms campaign and continued with the Hall of Harsh Reflections . You can read part 1 here . Our party consists of: Lylas, level 6 drow rogue thief Third, level 5 human fighter champion Narcisso, level 6 half elf war domain cleric Dravin, level 5 human circle of the moon druid Jackson, level 6 human fire sorcerer.  A homebrew mashup of a couple origins from Enworld that I'll post later. Kargash, level 5 half orc hunter ranger. They had broken out of the prison and were exploring the Sodden Hold warehouse. A shaft filled with salt water was found, so Dravin wild shaped into a sea turtle, swimming down and finding it lead to a tunnel and a chamber beyond. The group swam down. The chamber had a single pillar, sticking out of water with ladder rungs bolted to the side. A large lever was at the top of the pillar. As Lylas quickly climbed up, a gigantic octopus began attacking the others wad...

Moved to my new blog here .

This is from two different sessions.  The first session was short,  and didn't have enough for it's own blog post. With Narcisso's turning of the wights running out of duration, the party scrambled to open the massive bronze doors that sealed the pyramid. Previous sessions can be found here. With only three players, each is playing two characters. My daughter has: Lylas, drow elf rogue thief, level 5 Third, human fighter  sentinel , level 4 One of my boys has: Narcisso, half elf life cleric, level 5 Dravin, human moon druid, level 4 My other son is playing: Jackson, human earth wizard, level 5 Kargash, half orc hunter ranger, level 4 With the wights closing in, Kargash pulls out the rope of climbing and the group scrambles up the first step of the pyramid.  They stood there, out of reach, before just deciding to climb down and fight the wights.  Kargash and Lylas had each taken a hit from the energy drain, lowering their...