The party finally reached the giant's lair, a very aged keep in the woods. This particular tribe of stone giants had taken to the ways of the forests for several generations, but this last remaining patriarch was all that remained of that tribe. His descendants had left and returned to the mountains from whence they had originally sprung. He was still strong, the old bull, sickly and old yes, but still dangerous. He greeted the party over roasting giant boar, not caring if they stayed for dinner or died under his boots.
We come in peace, the party cried, handing over pilfered treasure from the keep, the magical, giant-sized gauntlet the former lords of the keep had hidden in their secret treasure room, lo these many years. The giant was intrigued, he cared not for the masters of the hobgoblin horde nor their goals, and impressed the party had the guts to come ask him personally. He would help the party, he said, with but one condition - you now own the keep, and I'm dying soon, bury my body in the courtyard of the keep. His father died to those in the keep (which is where the gauntlet came from) and many others of his family also died assaulting the keep, it would only be fitting to be buried there. Like I said last game recap, the deed to the keep would be more useful than the keep itself.
It was also this adventure that the wizard changed for the 3rd time. He was first a human war mage (that first player suffered a mental event and decided to leave the party), then for one session became a female dwarf evoker (that player thought they would enjoy the game, but didn't really try to fit in with the rest of the party, so I asked her to leave), then went back to the original character with a new player who had just moved here, and finally this game session we got that player in early and rolled up a new wizard, a human diviner. This is a very odd choice, but can be very powerful, as you'll soon see.
The party, having convinced the giants to help as they can, trotted off to find the bridge the hobgoblin horde was bound to take. Not only was it the logical choice, but having found intel pointing out several key pieces of the horde's plan, the party moved quickly to beat the horde to the bridge. Fortunately, they had not dawdled quite so much and did beat the horde to the bridge, but not by much, as the vast horde's campfires brightened the horizon as night approached, even from several miles away. They found an advance guard at the bridge, many hobgoblins, some hell hounds, and a wyvern. The plan was set - some of the sneakier PCs would get close and start off the show, and everyone else would pile in at that point - and the party executed. The icing on the cake was the diviner giving the archer-specced ranger a natural 20, which he used to wipe out the wyvern in one round of combat. Yes, we still use an alternate critical/fumble table, and not only did that nat 20 on the to hit roll give them a crit, they rolled on the table for quadruple damage.
Yeah, pretty anti-climactic, but that's the double-edged sword of a min-maxer - they can be so effective in a combat that they make it boring for everyone including themselves. Yeah, it means the party "wins" but if it's boring enough that no one wants to play anymore, did you really win? Let's talk about this player for a second, so you understand that I'm not just picking on him out of spite. This player is my biggest grumbler, and there's a reason for it - out of my players, he has the most experience of playing D&D, but it's more as a DM than it is as a player. Another double-edged sword of the game - if you have been a DM and go to play a game, you have to remember the game you are playing in IS NOT YOUR GAME. It's hard to separate the DM from the player, but it has to be done. Otherwise it's just not going to be fun for you or your DM (and possibly the rest of the party, too), at which point you'll leave and run your own game again, or be unhappy in another group. I'm still working on him, I haven't booted him right out of the group, as honestly it took me until now to figure out what the issue was with him.
After the wyvern fell, it was but a pittance to clean up the rest of the baddies, find the weakness in the bridge, and bring it down to keep the hobgoblin army from crossing the gorge. The original plan was for the party to discover the bridge's weakness and position themselves so the wyvern could bring it down for them, but my party went a different way and still accomplished the mission. And the ranger's player grumbled more because, as he put it, "I guess I'm only good at shooting stuff" when other players tracked down and slew the last of the bridge guards as they tried to escape back to the army. That's another issue you have to deal with as a DM or a player - not every character can be good at everything. Characters can be good at one or a few things, but they have to be bad at something. Yes, I realize that the ranger, out of your average party, should be good at tracking down prey, but this party also has a druid who was a dire wolf at the time, and again, if one character is doing everything, it's boring. After one-shotting the wyvern, the ranger would have been a better teammate by just letting the druid have their moment.
That's where that session ended. Another very busy week passed out here in the real world and I didn't get this update typed up before another game session happened. The party, flush with success decide they need to tell the giants they have dropped the bridge and then get back to civilization to convince those idiots to run as far and as fast as they can. They arrive at the giant's keep, to find no one there and set up their protective magical sleeping area and take a long rest. Before they come out of the bubble, a very large, hirsute man wanders in and sits down to watch their bubble. They communicate through the bubble with the man who passes on the knowledge that the giants are coming and will harass the horde after it works its way around the now bridge-less gorge, and also reminds the party of their promise to bury the head giant in the keep they now own. The party says they remember, thank the man, and back the way he came he summarily disappears. After leaving bear tracks. My players still think he's a druid and haven't pegged to a possible lycanthrope which I felt was an interesting use of a werebear - he can't really hurt stone giants even as a bear and can't turn them into lycanthropes (at least in my world and in this edition... oh, how I miss 3rd edition's templates that made any monster so much more interesting - yup, wrote up my share of half-dragon vampiric ogres back in the day), so he finds hanging out with them less full of guilt - but it wasn't of direct import to the campaign so I let it slide.
The party immediately packs up and begins the day and a half march back to civilization. They run into a small band of raiders and lose even more horses (I've regularly killed the paladin's magical steed, and been whittling away at the party's supply of everyday, average horses) but kill them handily. They eventually make it back to civilization and present the evidence they have - "Look, here's the map from the bad guy's lair showing where the army is gathering at!" "Sure sure, looks like you made that one up, to me." - and even talk to a soldier who came from a different part of the northland with dire news of hobgoblin raiders and roadblocks in the area the party is looking to go next, but the townspeople are still just not believing the danger they are in. That's not me being difficult, that's just how the campaign is written and the party is playing it right - these people cannot hold back the coming horde and the only way they'll live is to fall back and regroup in the only city in the area with any physical defenses. But the campaign provides the final proverbial straw in a raiding force, which the party faced at the end of the session, taking much damage due to some really good initiative rolling on my part and some really crappy initiative rolling on their part. The combat only lasted one round, however, with the party wizard down but many of the goblins and worgs dead (from their own side, no less - friendly fire isn't, and hobgoblins give zero fucks about stupid goblins and their dogs) and a bit of damage to several other heavies. Looking forward to this weekend when we can finish out the combat. I may actually get a player kill, but I still doubt it. We roll initiative fresh every round - it slows down combat just a bit, but it makes every round more interesting as everyone's order in the combat changes constantly - so I expect the party to come back, swinging.
The party immediately packs up and begins the day and a half march back to civilization. They run into a small band of raiders and lose even more horses (I've regularly killed the paladin's magical steed, and been whittling away at the party's supply of everyday, average horses) but kill them handily. They eventually make it back to civilization and present the evidence they have - "Look, here's the map from the bad guy's lair showing where the army is gathering at!" "Sure sure, looks like you made that one up, to me." - and even talk to a soldier who came from a different part of the northland with dire news of hobgoblin raiders and roadblocks in the area the party is looking to go next, but the townspeople are still just not believing the danger they are in. That's not me being difficult, that's just how the campaign is written and the party is playing it right - these people cannot hold back the coming horde and the only way they'll live is to fall back and regroup in the only city in the area with any physical defenses. But the campaign provides the final proverbial straw in a raiding force, which the party faced at the end of the session, taking much damage due to some really good initiative rolling on my part and some really crappy initiative rolling on their part. The combat only lasted one round, however, with the party wizard down but many of the goblins and worgs dead (from their own side, no less - friendly fire isn't, and hobgoblins give zero fucks about stupid goblins and their dogs) and a bit of damage to several other heavies. Looking forward to this weekend when we can finish out the combat. I may actually get a player kill, but I still doubt it. We roll initiative fresh every round - it slows down combat just a bit, but it makes every round more interesting as everyone's order in the combat changes constantly - so I expect the party to come back, swinging.
