u/myshkingfh

Last night we finished off mission one, doing the Racketeer and the Gambler.

The Racketeer is probably the easiest of the three, as his gang sets up in a perfect ambush spot and allows the party an hour to set up. It went pretty quickly given that. The henchmen’s flashbang grenades were the most effective enemy tactic; the party really cemented their victory with a wall of light - a spell I had never seen cast before.

The Gambler was the target they’d been most concerned about it, and they made a real hash of it. They didn’t engage the bartender about gladiatorial combat, and finding him disinterested in their bribes, tried going around back to go in the window. Not having the key to the third room, they tried knocking on the door, and didn’t succeed in convincing the gamblers that wasn’t suspicious, got caught in a fight they’d have preferred to avoid. Things seemed to be Going against them, but an overlapping fog cloud, stinking cloud and upcast spirit guardians allowed them to get the upper hand. The Champion Fighter doled out massive melee damage and the Bard tried to planar bind one of the elementals (from the elemental gem listed in the treasure) but discovered the one hour casting time. Oh well, that would have been cool.

In this encounter, keep in mind that the Gambler and the Cultist are not offensive juggernauts; most damage to the party came from the two assassins.

In both encounters the party convinced the target to renounce Szass Tam. In the Gambler, they left behind enough witnesses and blood that I think Tam’s forces will have their first clues to the existence of Project Deadfall.

In an adventure crawling with wizards, the writers gave little regard to the casters’ spell books. Every monster and npc with a mage-based stat block would, or at least might, carry a spell book. parties with wizards will want these. Have any of you thought about how to deal with this?

So Tam is doing this big ritual to create an army of demonic undead. I’ve only read the first three chapters so far, but the malefites just so far seem to be ordinary undead, which are common in Thay, so at this point I wonder what’s the big deal?

I was thinking of modifying the malefites so that they’re not much harder for the PCs but would be a much stronger force than ordinary undead.

1. Weapon attacks can only harm the malefites if the weapons are magic. The PCs will have magic weapons, but most armies' soldiers would not.
2. The malefites cannot be turned. I don’t want these six skeletons being blasted into nothingness as soon as my cleric gets a turn.

I think these changes would mark the malefites as special and dangerous without changing their CR much. However, I haven’t read the full adventure and maybe I’m overlooking something in enacting these changes. What do you all think?

** Edit

3. Resist cold, fire, and lightning

Am I wrong that Red Wizards and Thayan Knights are neither classes nor subclasses nor backgrounds? Do they have no technical rule implications at all?

Until July 1st I worked for a state agency with an elected leader that was not subject to the Governor’s RTO mandate. I went into the office once a week, but it wasn’t really required. On July 1 I switched to an agency under the Governor’s purview. I understand that this change comes with a change of expectation about RTO, but I‘ve been extended a transition period to move from SoCal to Sacramento that ends on October 1.

Everything about RTO seems very up in the air and I’m leery about uprooting my life entirely for an RTO policy that may change. Also, my wife isn’t keen on the move if it can be avoided. I would love any advice from you all about how to proceed. Is this policy likely enough to change that I should look for short term housing in Sacramento and keep our San Diego apartment? The cost of this strategy means we wouldn’t be able to maintain it for long. Should we accept that a Sacramento job means Sacramento living? Help me skate to where the puck is going to be.

Thanks!

I really thought that the new Ravenloft book would be an opportunity for WotC to finally show that they’ve learned how to braise a good short rib, but when I read this book, it still doesn’t seem like they understand that a short rib really needs time to break down the collagen or it’s going to be tough. The short rib content seems like reheated leftovers from 5e and I’m afraid they just learned nothing about low-and-slow cookery.

what do you think?

tldr: the new Ravenloft book is tough and flavorless and I don’t think it was actually braised at all.

My 22 XLT is on its original rubber and at 28,000 miles it’s looking like time to replace. What do we like?