December 16, 2024

Our First D&D 2024 Adventure – Greyhawk ’76 (Ep. 4)

9 minutes

Ken talks about lessons learned during his first Dungeons & Dragons 2024 adventure, “The Lost Coins of Cousin Ernest”, including:

Blade Ward

Rules guide in the 2024 Player’s Handbook

The Thief

Hand-drawn maps in Roll20

Weapon Mastery

Chapters

0:00 Intro
0:35 Setting the Scene: The Treasure Mine
1:50 Rival Factions: Fairheights vs. Witherwinns
3:10 Water Weird Ambush
4:20 Rogue Abilities Shine
5:15 Hand-Drawn Maps and Retro Vibes
6:30 Lessons Learned: Rules and Mechanics
7:45 Blade Ward: Overpowered or Balanced?
8:30 Teasing the Next Session
9:10 Wrap-Up and Final Thoughts

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Show Notes

We had our first Greyhawk ’76 session, in which the adventurers got recruited to recover a lost family treasure from an abandoned mine.

I played on the High Ery / Erybend family rivalry subplot from the DMG:

Fairheights vs. Witherwinns (their client is James Fairheight, and he found deciphered a map to the family treasure).

Started the action IN the mine, with the adventurers and their client having just discovered the treasured.

See the “Ignite Your Next D&D Campaign” episode of Campaigns and Coffee

Setup is an old mine.

The first level has a main shaft and lots of side passages.

Mine tunnel collapses created a jumbled, partly flooded cave lake on the second level.

The treasure, gleaming in light from a ventilation shaft over head, was located in the center of the lake.

The bludgeoned corpses of a previous crew were on the island, having just reached the treasure.

The treasure was protected by a water weird (inspired by a re-read of the Dungeon of Dread “Endless Quests” book)

The cavern was multi-teared, with a walkable rim surrounding it, and multiple entrances.

At intervals, additional crews would show up to challenge the party, because James couldn’t stop humble bragging about his find.

Goals:

Give each character a chance to try out class abilities in a multi-level environment.

Inject role-playing opportunities to help define character personalities and priorities.

Lean into the DMG as a campaign source book.

The Adventure

It went well.

Water weird attacked “Predator”-style, leveraging disengage and its’ innate invisibility in the water maneuver around the cavern and threaten heroes.

The arrival of the Witherwinn faction delivered additional drama, as some players chose to intimidate through force, while the Trickster cleric charmed other Witherwinns to his side … and used “calm emotions” to keep them disinterested.

Set up the next confrontation: The Burrow Brothers, a murderous band of halfling cutthroats and their ogre allies.

Lessons Learned

I’ve got a bunch, some of which will be covered in upcoming episodes.

The Rules Guide in the Player’s Handbook is pretty great.

Death Saving Throws: Work the same as they ever did (the save is a straight d20 roll, which happens at the start of your turn).

Finding Traps is a Wisdom (Perception) – it counts as finding a hidden object. Check the Compendium

The Rogue’s Thief gets a Climb speed. Handy when moving down the crumbling walls of a collapsed cave.

The Rogue’s Thief also gets to substitute Dexterity for Strength when Jumping

Hand drawn maps work well in Roll20

Weapons Mastery represents weapon-specific features that certain characters (rogues, fighters) can use take special actions (like “Nick” or “Vex”. More on that next time.

Blade Ward is a powerful cantrip. I hate it. Ok, I don’t like it. Ok, I’ll wait to pass judgement, but right now, I’m not a big fan.

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