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A Sinking Ship: Session 35 Reflections

The best part of D&D is being creative and having fun with friends. We had a whole week off and I really missed seeing everyone and playing D&D!!! The fun part of streaming is being able to see what you make and review how things go. A highlights reel of the best times playing a game with friends is an amazing asset, especially when you need a little boost.
This session was the conclusion of an arc for us. It was designed as a fight on top of a sinking boat with a group of undead. I never saw this as a fatal, deadly fight for the PCs. Frankly, during the last few sessions I've become aware that clerics are awesome at dealing with undead and that the PCs in general are very powerful- and I love it!
I'm also really glad that our group is creative, supportive and ready to improvise. We had the expectation there would be a session that Kat, who plays Aurora, would be out. In the end, every player but Sean was unable to make the game last week, so everyone sat one out. Kat had written a short story about Aurora's time in the undead whale that culminated with her being infected by one of the evil, corrupting gems the party has been searching for.
We get into the session and the party gets moving. Kat's sitting on the sidelines waiting for her reappearance, so we got Aurora back into the action quickly. Just as quickly, she asked Arven, the cleric, to cast Detect Magic. Result: he sees all the magic, including the gem that is lodged in her heart.
Like a good friend, he Dispels the gem. Awesome roll, better than I could have expected. The gem breaks. Later, in looking at Sage Advice we realize this may not be how the spell is intended to work but decide that the gem is a concentrated magic, not an enchanted item. That makes it a little different. So we won't be Dispelling magical items but we will be destroying these gems if it comes up again and the rolls are good.
The remainder of the combats were just interesting tiny vignettes of undead combat. I thought everything went well and the characters were very effective. The end fight with Velok went very well for the party because my initiative dice were incredibly cold! The party was very effective and got the job done.
We did a lot of time skips on the way home to make sure that we handled the story elements that needed handling, but I also wanted to make sure we had a solid end to this arc in this episode and that we're all ready for the next arc, heading underground into the Crypt of Kings in the Dwarven city of Taul'Khazad.

Comments

  1. This sounds so exciting! I also think that slightly tweaking what Dispel Magic could do is very acceptable. I'm 3.5 edition, golems were affected by particular spells in unique ways, and parts of a Prismatic Wall were dispelled with random other spells... So I think having an item that is affected by Dispel Magic is totally fine.

    I once had a cursed item that, when activated, latched onto someone. It was created so that if Dispel Magic was cast on it, it would explode. I'm all about creative uses of spells.

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  2. Thanks for the input! There was player concern about the spell as written- probably because once we establish how something works, I tend to stick to it. Then we'd have NPC spellcasters dispelling their weapons, armor, etc.

    In this case, it's less a magic item and more a concentrated magical substance. But I am definitely encouraging creativity from players as well!

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts and how you run your game!

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