Session Three

XP: Monsters: 6 Giant Ticks (100xp) = 600 4 Zombies (50xp) = 200 3 Apprentices (100xp) = 300 Treasure: from the iron vault: 217 gp = 217 Total: 1317 / 4 = 329 xp each In addition, each necromancer carries a dagger and 3 darts.

Sweet! I had a lot of fun with this session, its nice to finally be free! Also, so close to level 3! I think we'll make it to 3 by the end of this dungeon :D Also, Poe grabs a dagger of one of the necromancer corpses.

Those apprentices folded faster than Superman on laundry day. Let's grind those guys for the next three levels... I'm only 21 away from 3rd level. So if we don't die in Zonay tonight, perhaps we'll see some people get their sub-classes! What's everyone thinking of taking? I'm probably going to go with Thief. I don't think I've been into magic or assassination much so Thief seems the best choice.

sub classes?! I gotta like...read more of this rule book...

OH! I thought Pact Boon was only for one sort of Pact. Awesome! Decisions decisions!

Feel free to ask questions, and yeah, Warlocks in particular have a *lot* of customization options.

"Those apprentices folded faster than Superman on laundry day." Unfortunately yes. That's what happens when you're a level 1 mage without any armor, good Dex scores, and haven't bothered to learn Mage Armor or Shield.

Pact of Tome seems to offer the most utility since I'm not planning on getting into melee range on purpose but Pact of the Fiend offers some fun RP (and utility too)

Are there any resources online that has all of the different classes cantrips in an easy to read location? Because right now going back and forth in the PDF is a massive tedium.

<a href="http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/spells/" rel="nofollow">http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/spells/</a>

sorry to be spamming but Cure Wounds is a Paladin Cantrip? Cantrips can be cast without expending spell slots, yes? That seems a little OP? like, post battle everyone get in line to get their HP topped off. Right? What am I missing here? edit: oh, i misread entirely paladin's dont have cantrips! edit2: thanks for the source though I'm not seeing where it provides spell descriptions (if it does)

So, what I'm considering at the moment is thus for level 3: Take Pact of the Tome which lets me learn 3 cantrips from any class. I've narrowed it down to: • Guidance (for utility throughout the game) • Vicious Mockery (fits the theme of The Great old One) • Sacred Flame (Radiant damage and I assume it catch things on fire such as hay stacks or wood) • Spare the Dying (in case we're somewhere without a cleric and someone dies...) • Thorn Whip - (I feel like this is only useful if I get to control the direction the target is pulled, off a cliff, into water, etc. Pulling it 10' closer to me isn't all that helpful in most instances.) • Fire Bolt - (if Sacred Flame doesn't catch things on fire) • Prestidigitation - (lots of RP and general utility uses, maybe some creative combat uses depending on what the GM thinks) • Shocking Grasp - (for times when I'm forced into melee and i dont want to take a penalty to casting. Then again, I have a dagger...) I am open to suggestions. Edlritch Blast is already stupid powerful so more DPS spells aren't necessarily necessary except to have more offensive versatility. I was thinking Guidance, Sacred Flame and Thorn Whip but I am interested in what you all thing. In addition to Pact of the Tome, at level 3 I was going to forget my detect magic power in favor of Book of Ancient Secrets which lets me learn 2 level 1 ritual spells which I've narrowed to: • Comprehend Languages • Detect Magic • Identify • Illusory Script • Purify Food and Drink • Tenser's Floating Disk • Unseen Servant Detect magic would obviously be chosen as one of the rituals. For the 2nd ritual, Tenser's could be useful for cleaning up a dungeon at the end by loading it up with all the loot to sell. Comprehend Languages has it's uses as does Purify Food and Drink. The others have less use but I can see myself using them in certain situations. and as the campaign goes on I might discover a spell to write into the book to also have access too. Again, what do y'all think?

I'd go with Guidance , Resistance , and Thaumaturgy . The first two give bonuses to ability checks and saving throws, respectively. If we know we're likely to be in a situation where an ability check or save may come up, you can put that on someone to help out. (The key point is you have to anticipate this because you can't cast it after the DM has called for the check - it's too late then.) Thamaturgy gives you some fun, often creepy effects to add to social interaction scenes to demonstrate the insane presence of your Great Old One. While there are more powerful invocations to choose from, I'd probably cleave to the theme of "sight" or "vision" which seems more relevant to Hollis. So I'd keep Devil's Sight and Eldritch Sight, then later on take Eyes of the Rune Keeper at 4th level which lets you read all writing. You might even switch out Eldritch Sight at 3rd level for EotRK and then take Eldritch Sight again at 4th level.

"edit2: thanks for the source though I'm not seeing where it provides spell descriptions (if it does)" It doesn't, it's just a sortable list that provides PHB page numbers. Posting all the descriptions would be illegal and get donjon targetted for a take-down. It's still pretty useful for purposed of sorting/filtering and allowing you to not need to flip back and forth. Glad you figured out the paladin thing. :) In terms of your thoughts on character building, it's obviously not exactly my place, but along those lines is probably one of the two ways I'd think about building a warlock if I were playing one. You're essentially buying into Wizard-like utility, and then depending for damage/combat on the superior force that is Eldritch Blast (plus a few other spells when you absolutely need them). It's up to you on giving up the Detect Magic at-will power (I'll go with the books suggestion on allowing players to tweak build choices through level 4), although there are some distinct benefits to be able to cast Detect Magic essentially *all* the time as opposed to needing 10 minutes to fire it off.

Ah, I didn't think I would be tweaking my build, I was basing it off of this, "when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the invocations you know and replace it with another invocation that you could learn at that level." but upon re-reading it I suppose the "at that level" caveat is related to invocations that can't be learned until a specific level like, Bewitching Whispers which can't be learned until level 7. so then, I won't be picking up EotRK at 3!

Guidance seems like it'd be very useful, and Thaumaturgy seems like it would work *very* well for Hollis. It'd help him being all creepy and scary and stuff! As for Poe, I've been thinking of doing beastmaster, but honestly it seems a little weird for him. So hunter is equally as possible right now. For spells, right now I have Goodberry that makes 10 berries that heal 1 HP and provide sustenance for an entire day. I mainly took it for stabilizing people, but they can heal a up to 10 HP in a pinch if needed I also have hail of thorns , normal does-a-bunch-of-damage spell For level 3, I'm thinking of taking animal friendship or speak with animal, not certain yet. Any other suggestions for spells are welcome though!

lee F. said: Ah, I didn't think I would be tweaking my build, I was basing it off of this, "when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the invocations you know and replace it with another invocation that you could learn at that level." but upon re-reading it I suppose the "at that level" caveat is related to invocations that can't be learned until a specific level like, Bewitching Whispers which can't be learned until level 7. so then, I won't be picking up EotRK at 3! At 3rd level, you should be able to swap Eldritch Sight for Eyes of the Rune Keeper per the rules for warlocks. Then at 4th level you can take Eldritch Sight again. If you wanted. I would find more utility in reading multiple languages than in detecting magic. Rowan N. said: Guidance seems like it'd be very useful, and Thaumaturgy seems like it would work *very* well for Hollis. It'd help him being all creepy and scary and stuff! As for Poe, I've been thinking of doing beastmaster, but honestly it seems a little weird for him. So hunter is equally as possible right now. For spells, right now I have Goodberry that makes 10 berries that heal 1 HP and provide sustenance for an entire day. I mainly took it for stabilizing people, but they can heal a up to 10 HP in a pinch if needed I also have hail of thorns , normal does-a-bunch-of-damage spell For level 3, I'm thinking of taking animal friendship or speak with animal, not certain yet. Any other suggestions for spells are welcome though! You could take one of those giant ticks for your beast maybe. If we run across some beast in the dungeon, perhaps we should hold off slaying it until you take a shot at making friends with it. Then when you make 3rd level you can just adopt it for beastmaster. My ranger, Red Creek Rufus, is a beastmaster with a boar named Belvedere. Rufus chiefly uses a net and trident and Belvedere can knock people prone. With a net, that basically means they are screwed because they can't get up until they free themselves. Fun character, even though beastmaster is considered pretty weak compared to other ranger subclasses. Like the warlock, rangers can swap spells when they level. I'd swap hail of thorns for hunter's mark at 3rd level and then take speak with animals . Animal friendship is one of those things that you can probably do with a good approach and maybe a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. Speak with animals is both a ritual (meaning it costs no slot if you take your time to cast it) and is kind of like a divination spell and would be pretty handy in a hexcrawl - asking the chipmunk where the dungeon is could save time. Who's in for Friday? I'm in.

Rowan N. said: Guidance seems like it'd be very useful, and Thaumaturgy seems like it would work *very* well for Hollis. It'd help him being all creepy and scary and stuff! As for Poe, I've been thinking of doing beastmaster, but honestly it seems a little weird for him. So hunter is equally as possible right now. For spells, right now I have Goodberry that makes 10 berries that heal 1 HP and provide sustenance for an entire day. I mainly took it for stabilizing people, but they can heal a up to 10 HP in a pinch if needed I also have hail of thorns , normal does-a-bunch-of-damage spell For level 3, I'm thinking of taking animal friendship or speak with animal, not certain yet. Any other suggestions for spells are welcome though! Sun - Wed are stupid busy for me and I wasn't able to really read the ranger archtypes to chime in until now. beastmaster sounds like it has more utility but Hunter sounds like you can wreck face more easily depending on how you specialize. I'm not too familiar with the spells, but Goodberry was a neat surprise for me (I'm not as familiar with all the ins and outs of this game as you all seem to be so when things like that happen I'm like 'ooo, neat'.) as for Friday, there is a chance I might not be able to make it, but I'm 90% certain I'll be here. Just a heads up though for the 17th, I'll be in Florida for a wedding and unable to make it.

Yup I will be there this Sat (your Fri)

You could take one of those giant ticks for your beast maybe. If we run across some beast in the dungeon, perhaps we should hold off slaying it until you take a shot at making friends with it. Then when you make 3rd level you can just adopt it for beastmaster. My ranger, Red Creek Rufus, is a beastmaster with a boar named Belvedere. Rufus chiefly uses a net and trident and Belvedere can knock people prone. With a net, that basically means they are screwed because they can't get up until they free themselves. Fun character, even though beastmaster is considered pretty weak compared to other ranger subclasses. Like the warlock, rangers can swap spells when they level. I'd swap hail of thorns for hunter's mark at 3rd level and then take speak with animals . Animal friendship is one of those things that you can probably do with a good approach and maybe a Wisdom (Animal Handling) check. Speak with animals is both a ritual (meaning it costs no slot if you take your time to cast it) and is kind of like a divination spell and would be pretty handy in a hexcrawl - asking the chipmunk where the dungeon is could save time. Hmm, you've sold me on Speak with animals, thats for sure. It'd be nice to repeatedly use it. Still not sure about archetype, we'll see later. And thanks for letting me know rangers can swap spells when they level, I didn't know that! I'll totally be here for the session! Might be a little late (15 or so) because theres some weird school-work time stuff this week.

John/The Rest, how do you want to handle catching up to the group? We didn't speak for you in the last session, which consisted of the group returning to Muta, securing their freedom, taking a week of rest and relaxation in Ophir, then heading back to the Towers to poke around some more, with a short stop at the nearby village. Given the circumstances, I don't mind a retconned or handwavey explanation, just thought it might make sense to think about it a little before the session starts. Also to all: I realize I neglected to handout XP for the RP/Objective of "regain your freedom/get the seal". I thought I had done so in the previous session wrapup but checking it again I did not. Since the group is mid-dungeon the additional XP that would normally push you into level 3 shouldn't matter too much, but I'll make sure to add it after the next session. On Speak with Animals , Rowan won't actually be able to cast it as a ritual: ritual casting requires that your class provides you the ability to use "Ritual Casting" which Ranger does not (but Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, and some specializations of Warlock do).

Drew K said: On Speak with Animals , Rowan won't actually be able to cast it as a ritual: ritual casting requires that your class provides you the ability to use "Ritual Casting" which Ranger does not (but Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Bard, and some specializations of Warlock do). Oh right, fair enough.

Garlel was caught up with rituals of joining the local church as a freeman once again then word had come the group had gone back, and Garlel thought it his duty to join the group out of loyalty and opportunity to spread the good word.