We were actually meant to play something else, but life happened, so we jumped into this D&D 2024 adventure instead. Excuse our hastily drawn maps and lack of miniatures. Except me, I had the pool of Lucys to draw from.
Silka the halfling rogue and Daramin the elf paladin already played the first part, where they hunted down cultists for the Flaming Fist, just before Elturel was swallowed by the Hells. Big Baldur's Gate 3 energy. I jumped in as Triss Merigold, human sorcerer - a tribute to my Baldur's Gate 3 character.
While I was still half going through character creation, the party[1] sped back to Baldur's Gate to relay the happening. The Flaming Fist recognised their own and let us in ahead of the throng of refugees. At a little pressure by Silka, and some convincing arguments by myself, the acting captain agreed to give us our reward for defeating the cultists. With cash in hand, we went on a shopping spree for arms, armour and health potions. We also had a lead in the form of a letter found in the cultist camp, pointing to a bathhouse.
We visited the bathhouse during the day, but the personnel did not acknowledge our winking and references to cult activity. So we decided to break in during the night. After relieving the house of the income found in a secret drawer[2], we located a secret door in a massage room and descended into the sewers.
After sloshing through some filthy water[3], we got to dry corridors marked with the symbols of the Dead Three: Baal, Bane, and Myrkul. Soon after, we met some cultists of Myrkul pretending to be asleep. We jumped them and killed them, locating more secret tunnels and a dead body.
Although we had Cultist capes at our disposal, Silka still decided to do rogue things by sneaking forwards and trying to snipe some cultists. It did not work out, so we rushed the ritual chamber where two Bane-affiliated individuals were formerly torturing some unfortunate individual. Silka sent in a summoned skeleton to take the prepared attacks, then Daramin and Reia took the fight to the cultists. Silka shot at them and I tolled the bells. Nothing much happened until Daramin shoved a cultist from behind the altar they were taking cover behind, and I gave him the critical Fire Bolt treatment. The last guy then went down rather easily.
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So what do we think about D&D 5.5? It's more of the same, a bit refined. Character creation is still streamlined, with the backgrounds offering stat changes instead of race. Finally, you can create that dwarven rogue or whatever. Spells are a bit shuffled around, with well used options like Guidance nerfed. Stealth and being hidden is still ambiguous and well suited for a half hour long argument. Melee options seem more powerful which was sorely needed.
So far, so good.
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Session 2, now with props!
We set about properly exploring the dungeon. In the first room, a cultist was trying to raise the dead, having already animated a swarm of undead rats. I tried lying my way in, but he didn't buy it, so we fought him, with me as the tank. I took two spells to the face and went down, but everybody else clobbered him dead. He had a cursed spellbook.
At the end of the long corridor to the right, we found a sarcophagus and some bones. I sensed magic but found no items, so I intuited a trap. We retreated and Silka threw a dagger into the sarcophagus, which triggered the Spiritual Weapon. It couldn't exit the room, so we just waited for it to disappear. Then I threw out the bones, just in case.
Another chamber had an altar of Myrkul with magic bones and black candles, which Silka pocketed.
A waterlogged passage smelled bad, and we extinguished the torches to avoid an explosion. We fished for a dead trout.
Then, three roughly identical chambers with sarcophagi. The first had nothing; the second was a zombie storage. The zombies were imbued with acid. We started clobbering them, and they exploded Baneling-style. Our cleric remembered to level up, and he turned them successfully. Then it was easy to shoot them down, one per turn.
The final sarcophagus held a mummified corpse with moonstones for eyes. Afraid of another trap, I advised to set the corpse on fire. This netted both gems and a seemingly magic bag that was held in the chest of the mummy.
In a torture chamber, we found a chained corpse and a chained almost-corpse. Daramin healed up the injured tiefling with 1 hp of lay on hands; I then gave her water and convinced her we were not, in fact, going to kill her. She was the servant of some important noble house, so we escorted her out. She gave us a hint about a stone door.
We dutifully pressed on, killed a lone sentry and discovered the secret door behind him. Before going in, I advised to explore the rest of the complex. Activating his tremorsense, our dwarf sensed cultists in a chamber. Silka sneaked in and lifted 3 of their maces. Without melee weapons, the cultists proved easy meat.
We were going about our business butchering hapless cultists, when we were ambushed by a baalite assassin from behind. I got knocked down twice, so did Daramin. The guy just kept critting us with his daggers from stealth. So we just blocked the way and waited for the rest of the cultists to die, so we could focus our efforts. By the time this happened, our mysterious enemy disappeared.
We pushed on down the secret corridor, opening a side chamber to avoid further ambushes. Of course he was there, along with several skeletons. Turn undead! The assassin had no stomach for a fair fight and tried to flee, but we cut him down.
Chasing a fleeing skeleton, I noticed the next fight: one big guy fighting several cultists and a skull headed cultist boss we nicknamed "Skeletor". Several Fire Bolts later, the fighter was unconscious but the cultists died and Skeletor retreated.
I rushed to help our potential ally and made him drink his own health potion. Once he was up, we found out he was a scion of the noble house Vanthampur. The head of the house, the duchess commanded him to work with the cultists, who ended up betraying him.
While the others looted the cultists' treasure trove, I tried plying the guy for help and answers. He was sick of fighting and just wanted to leave - no help against the final boss. But we found our next lead, in the form of his brother and mother, conspiring to send the whole of Baldur's Gate into the Hells - following Elturel. Big dislike. We rested for a moment and pressed on, into the final chambers.
Skeletor was hiding amongst the statues of The Dead Three and he proved to be a tough opponent. His aura spread piercing vulnerability and his gaze stunned Daramin several times, leading to bloody knife work. The statues provided cover against ranged attacks, and the few that got through were stopped by his fancy shielding reaction. Reia finally toppled the statue of Myrkul, resulting in a curse that prohibited magical healing. Sigh.
It really came down to the wire, nickle and diming him with 1 damage fire bolts each turn.
We were really sick of this bullshit by the end, and we decided to destroy the dungeon. I set fire to the statues, receiving the same curse. Sigh. We desecrated the altars and knocked out the support beams, demolishing everything in our path. Then, we carried our hard won treasure outside.
Not so fast. At the exit, we were greeted by dragon cultists, who congratulated us on making their job easier and demanded we hand over the treasure. Not on my watch! I intimidated a passer by to call the Flaming Fist down on them, then intimidated the cultist leader by threatening him with execution by the stake. Thanks to Guidance and help from my fellow adventurers, I just made the DC15 skill checks and the cultists retreated.
We burnt the remainder of the session by shopping and leveling up. Triss became a draconic sorcerer -Saskia the Dragonslayer is somewhere among her forebears. I'll pick gold dragon/fire when it will come to that.
Next up: we will visit the Vanthampur family, starting with the little brother who's hanging around portside.
[1] Along with Reia, an NPC veteran from the previous session
[2] Bless the Guidance cantrip
[3] I was carried by Daramin, bless his soul
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