The Gang’s All Here
My Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons group consists of the next participant characters: a tiefling sorceress and her clone brother, a tiefling hexblade; a gnome artificer; a human rogue; and an elven druid and ranger. The hexblade does many of the tanking with assist from the rogue, whereas the artificer and druid (and, in dire want, the ranger) handle therapeutic. Mostly, the get together retains monsters off the sorceress till she will begin slinging fireballs.
The steadiest gamers are the sorceress, hexblade, artificer, and druid. The ranger and rogue present up every so often as their time permits. Those two additional gamers deal vital injury (at a distance and up shut, respectively) and might strongly swing issues within the get together’s favourite in the event that they win initiative … which the rogue typically does.
We play over Zoom for about three hours every week, however often cancel resulting from not having sufficient gamers or my very own schedule not accommodating our recreation time. Each session is self-contained, a recreation show-style contest with occasional role-playing interludes “off camera” in between.
The session in query concerned a Breakout-style fight with rows of descending blocks and a large flying stone head, guarded by smaller stone heads, behind these blocks. The thought was to shoot by the seams of the blocks, which gave cowl to whoever was on the opposite aspect.
That’s not the way it performed out.
“You’re nonetheless right here?“
As the blocks started to descend, two issues turned obvious: for one, the ranger had an oathbow and as soon as she swore the principle dangerous man as her enemy, the arrows ignored cowl. The dangerous man’s essential protection was completely circumvented. For one other, the hexblade dimension doored the rogue over to the monster, bypassing all of the blocks and guardians to ship a really stabby murderer proper within the enemy’s face.
The different heroes busily blasted away on the descending blocks. The sorceress acquired off two fireballs to open a gap within the defenses whereas the druid and artificer labored to guard her.
The mixture of the ranger’s punishing strikes that ignored cowl and the hexblade/rogue mixture eradicated the principle monster in three rounds. And identical to that the gamers defeated the principle dangerous man.
I had a call to make.
“It’s Over.“
There have been a couple of issues at play.
Our heroes have been in punishing conditions earlier than the place they barely survived. They wanted a win. The recreation earlier than, the three gamers who confirmed up (sorceress, druid, artificer) got here by by the pores and skin of their enamel, however they actually loved that recreation.
In this session, two of our gamers weren’t feeling nicely and wouldn’t have the ability to play for very lengthy.
And the get together did all the things proper. The head monster’s dying prompted the blocks from above to fall in a single last strike for many who have been nonetheless beneath them, however all advised the sport was brief (simply an hour in whole).
I made a decision to name it a win and finish that session.
“Go Home!“
Each of those classes is an experiment in terrain and ways. Some classes play to their strengths whereas others capitalize on their weaknesses. The same battle involving Space Invader-style monsters descending from above was a lot more durable as a result of there have been solely three characters current; with the extra characters, this recreation was lots simpler.
And that’s okay. The gamers have been having a tough day, the characters rightfully outsmarted my (admittedly dumb) monsters, they usually circumvented the obstacles utilizing the powers at their disposal. The gamers drastically loved the win and had fun at how shortly they overcame the obstacles.
That mentioned, I didn’t finish the session with out cautious consideration. Because we play weekly, we at all times have one other probability at an extended session. If we didn’t get collectively as typically I might need provide you with extra content material to play.
Conversely, as busy adults with households which can be typically sick or burdened, I’m grateful once we can get collectively in any respect. Sometimes that point collectively is essentially brief, and that’s okay.
But largely it was about placing my ego apart as a DM. The heroes did all the things proper, I used to be experimenting with a special set of monster ways, they usually “solved the puzzle” shortly and effectively. That deserved a reward in feeling like a hero. There shall be different alternatives for lengthy, drawn-out battles … and certain sufficient the following session was simply that.
Your Turn: What occurs while you get extra gamers than you deliberate for?
