Princes of the Apocalypse - Cult of the Crushing Wave

I have been trying to map out this campaign and figure out the best way to try to get the whole thing done by August. We have about 17 sessions worth of Wednesdays until mid-August. If I do just the essential stuff in this adventure, that's 2 more keeps, 4 temples and 4 nodes. That means I'd have to get through each of those parts in about 2 sessions. I don't think I can do that.

It looks like I will have to do a number of Sunday sessions to make sure we can finish it on time. I also do want to include some of the side adventures in the book. Some of them are pretty fun.

Lucky couldn't make it this week, so we had 7 players. I was hoping we would finish Rivergard, but we didn't come close.

Dungeons & Friends

Somehow we ended up talking about a staring contest as a D&D encounter. In my opinion, that would make for a hilarious 4th edition skill challenge.

I was thinking about how Lucky's player likes to make friends with all the monsters, and I thought it would be awesome to have an entire session where every encounter could be resolved by making friends with the creatures and NPCs. You could include the staring contest, and all sorts of goofy stuff, like making a fantasy ice cream cone or something.

Lucky's dad pointed out that if we did have a session of "Dungeons & Friends", Lucky would probably then end up trying to attack the friend monsters. She's funny like that. If you remember, when the unicorn appeared due to the wild surge a few weeks back, she first tried to do it harm before feeding it an ultra-spicy pepper.

The Party   

• Dwarf Cleric: In real life, played by Lucky's dad. He has a scottish accent and worships Ilmater.
• Tiefling Sorcerer: Middle Schooler. His character is apparently a jester. He uses wild magic and his skin is blue.
• Drow Rogue: Middle Schooler. Wants to be evil, but Adventurer's League rules restrict this. Has a dog.
• Goliath Barbarian: Middle Schooler. Really nice guy.
• Human Bard: The player is about 25 years old, knows the rules pretty well. 
• Human Paladin: Worships Helm. Played by the bard's dad, who played old D&D and is new to 5e.
• Human Rogue: A new player. Taking to the game very well.

The adventurers had made their way to Rivergard Keep, secret above-ground outpost of the Water Cult. Last session, the rogues had infiltrated the keep and opened the front gate. The other heroes ran in through the gate and had to pass through the interior of a gatehouse, laced with murder holes.

Crushing Wave Reaver

Bad guys stabbed through the murder holes with spears. I joked that one murder hole had an "out of order" sign on it.

The adventures fought back, casting spells and firing ranged weapons. It was a pretty simple fight. I am noticing that the spellcasters are starting to change the game. In Tyranny of Dragons, the part was almost entirely made of melee. This time around, there's a bard, a sorcerer and a cleric.

The heroes emerged into the courtyard of the keep, which was on alert. They had waited until nightfall to make this assault. I showed them the player map and they chose where to go next. As fate would have it, they decided to head right to the great hall, where the leader of the bad guys was!

The heroes burst in and did battle with Jolliver, a fathomer and 2 reavers. The fathomer turned into a serpent made of water and began constricting a rogue. Jolliver transformed into a half-man/half-boar. He was indeed a wereboar!

He and the fathomer had resistance against non-magic weapons. The casters unleashed a torrent of spells that blinded and scattered the bad guys. There was even a spell that forced Jolliver to lumber in such a way that he provoked three opportunity attacks.

The sorcerer triggered a wild surge that caused him to levitate. I was a little confused as to whether he could turn the effect off - I assume not, as it is wild magic.

It was a long battle, but the heroes weren't really in too much danger. I rolled really high on many saving throws, but when it came to attack rolls I rolled extremely low. In fact, I think Jolliver only hit somebody one time (and the PC made their save against becoming a were-boar... which would have been awesome, IMO).

The sorcerer triggered another wild surge, which caused him to radiate light that blinded those who started their turns adjacent to him. He used this to the party's advantage by standing next to the bad guys, which was very amusing.

Once the reavers were slain, we ran out of time! I floated the idea of splitting the group into two, one group meeting on Mondays, as the group has gotten too big. None of them wanted to do that.

We had a lot of Rivergard Keep left to go. Next week I am hoping to finish it up and then run one of the side encounters, involving rampaging iceshield orcs, which seems like it could be fun.

The adventurers headed up some stairs, looted the bad guys room and battled a pile of reavers.