This is part of a series about my DMing Princes of the Apocalypse, a D&D 5e adventure by and copyright Wizards of the Coast.

There will be SPOILERS. If you are playing in a PotA game, please don’t read this. If you are DMing a PotA game, or are a DM who wants to see what the ride was like … read on!

GM Recap

Session 29 (Day 32)

Hell Hounds and a guard! Spiky Growth! More guards on the scaffolds with crossbows! Alarums!
Druid Attendants invoking something and/or hurling fireballs. Huh. Hit Point problems.
Holy Crap!

Crap! Big Fire Elemental. Big Fire Elemental … is setting tents and scaffolding on fire and killing their own people. Oh, now coming over and killing us. Run!
Moony climbing walls! William orbital death laser! Theren grasping rock hand! Faith thunderwaving the elemental that was from the orbital death laser! Nala taking down guards and jumping around burning scaffolding!
Fire Elemental stomps on Theren and sets him on fire, then stalks after Faith. Theren stops, drops, rolls, metamagics, metamagics more, lightning bolts the Fire Elemental to death.
Heals! Many, many heals!
The cranky druids from down the hill show up. “What have you done?!”

Player Recap

Are you ready to rumble?

Two Hell Hounds and a guard race to attack the party. Moony opens the battle by spreading out and plunks the first Hell Hound. Nala moves up using her ice breath and sword. William casts Spike Growth on the area around them. Theren adds to the damage on a Hell Hound with Ray of Frost. The tide quickly turns and the Hell Hounds are rapidly defeated.

The guard flees south sounding the alarm. Before the group can react, a second guard appears on the scaffolding above William and fires a flaming crossbow bolt at him. William returns the favor by using Thorn Whip to pull him down from the top to the lower level of the scaffolding. He is damaged and prone. Bootsteps sound on the scaffolding on the far side of the manor. A second shooter takes a shot at Theren.

Insert Additional Fight Details Here

Guards come and are defeated. Eternal Flame initiates come and release the Fire Elemental contained in the Wicker Man and are defeated. Said Fire Elemental is defeated.

In the end the courtyard is devoid of enemies and the group debates their next move.

Game Notes

Big Battle

After multiple sessions of small battles and talkity-talkity, the big battle at Scarlet Moon Hall was quite a palate cleanser. The approach to the hilltop ended up spreading the bad guys a bit, but the complexity of the battlefield — walls, tents, building, scaffolding — still kept things pretty interesting, and the party scattered in different directions.

And then, of course, there was the Wicker Giant …

… who was, of course, an ever-burning Fire Elemental. Who managed to do a fair amount of damage amongst the various combatants until the Action Economy inevitably caught up with it.

Overall, it was one of the most fun battles to date in the campaign (from my perspective), with lots of complications, maneuvering, spell-casting, combat, and times when it wasn’t altogether clear who was going to win this thing.

So now what?

The most immediate problem is that, as far as the Cranky Druids know, Our Heroes just disrupted and murder-hoboed the whole Rite of the Wicker Giant that would restore balance yadda-yadda. Will there be further conflict about that?

More importantly, there’s the ~~elephant~~ Scarlet Moon Hall in the ~~room~~ hilltop. Yes, it’s under partial reconstruction (with the scaffolding still on fire). But secrets definitely lie within … and an unexpected challenge that not only faces the players, but the DM of anyone running this particular campaign ….

<< Session 28 | Session 30 >>

Princes of the Apocalypse, Session 29: “Arson-io Hall”