Orchard Episode 11: What We Think Is Best

Last Monday we played some more Orchard on the Greyhawk channel.

Here's the group:

• (Tommy) Ciaran: He's a barbarian, a pretty dark character. So far in the campaign, he turned into a wendigo and lost an eye.
• (Bree) Caeli: A rogue who is linked to the Suel empire. She grew up as a slave and is also a pretty dark character.
• (Heavenleigh) Seraphina: A cleric who is sort of the "mom" of the group.
• (Me) Neil Zarkanen: A paladin who is super-nice. 

High Level: Not sure if I mentioned this last time, but we are 16th level! I've run a fair amount of high level 5e stuff, but as a player I don't think I've run a character this high.

What's weird about it is that I don't feel that powerful. The paladin spell list is very weird. It's a lot of utility stuff. I can do a bit of damage with melee, but it doesn't feel that big.

I can see how some people might have a hard time juggling all the weird powers you accrue, but I've found that the best way to keep track of it all is just to list it on a piece of paper. Here's the stuff that I like the most:

• (Reaction) Protection: When a creature attacks an adjacent ally, I can use my shield to pose disadvantage. 
• Aura of Protection: When an ally within 10 feet of me makes a saving throw, they get +4 to the roll.
• (4/day) Cleansing Touch: I can end one spell on myself or on a willing creature that I touch. I actually haven't successfully used this once, but I really like it.
• (Reaction) Rebuke the Violent: When an attacked within 30 feet deals damage with an attack against a creature other than me, They must make a Charisma save. Fail: They take radiant damage equal to the damage they dealt. Success: They take half damage. This one is the most effective. The monsters hit hard at this level, and them having to take it makes a big difference.
• Protective Spirit: Once I drop below half my hit points, a spirit appears and heals me for d6+7 HP every round until I am above half my hit point max!

Having them all right there in front of me, with reactions and bonus actions clearly noted and easily spotted, makes it much easier to run the character without missing things.

Sharing a Bed

My character, Caeli and Seraphina shared a room to rest in. I figured that I'd be sleeping on the floor, but it was decided that all three of us slept in the bed together. My character is a weird, innocent man-thing, so he was wearing his newly purchased Lolth pajamas adorned with cartoon spiders.

Seraphina was wearing "the clothes you wear when you're about to start making your character in an MMO", which amused me greatly. I picture this scene like in the movie Three Amigos.

This got me thinking about that movie. I used to watch it all the time when I was little. We used to sing the "My Little Buttercup" song when I worked at the movie theater. I sang some of it for Kelli (@TheOperaGeek) and she was quite surprised/alarmed to hear my warbling.

Drow Intrigue: From there, we learned a number of things. Ciaran has this secret backstory involving his mom. Apparently, his mom somehow made her way down into the drow city, and she brought along Ciaran's sort-of ex-girlfriend!

We were given a mission, more or less. House Eilservs is supposedly planning a coup. They've aligned themselves with the evil deity Tharizdun, and are looking to overthrow the Lolth-worshiping houses. Our job was to prevent this.

We mulled over two options:

1. Go meet with Eclavdra (a pretty famous D&D NPC) at a gallery.
2. Meet Niverma at a playhouse.

We discussed our options for a good bit. Somewhere in here, Seraphina's new sword started messing with her. It forced her to toss her ring of mind-shielding and she ended up alone in the city fighting a slaver.

Slaves: Toward the end of the session, Seraphina and I were in the city rescuing a kid who was a slave. We were bringing him back to our place, when he spotted his family in a cage. He begged us to free them.

Seraphina pointed out that there was no way to do this in public without being noticed. My character insisted on trying to figure something out. We're good guys, right? It was made clear to us that they were sick and dying. Their "owner" had been killed and they were rotting away in a cage.

Seraphina surprisingly insisted that we leave them, and I got into a spot where I realized we were about to fight about it. As in, character vs. character.

I started looking over my sheet for spells to use. I really didn't want to go into a big thing where we rolled initiative, as it felt like a waste of time and I didn't think anything good would come out of it. It was quickly decided we'd resolve it with one contested grappling check, which seemed like a great idea to me. I lost!

So we left the kid's family to die! My character angrily told Seraphina that she's not who I thought she was, and she sadly agreed.

It was good stuff, but I'm a bit worried about how I should handle it next week. I really don't like running my character as angry, but I feel like there should be some kind of lingering tension.

I guess I'll focus on trying to keep the slave kid alive!

You can watch this episode right here:

Watch Orchard episode 12 What we think is best from thegreyhawkchannel on www.twitch.tv