Epicurean Bard

So, I will get to my history later. I need to get this down while I remember. 

After the events of the first part of the campaign, Epicurean had been living in Mithral Hall for a year now, hailed as a notable hero. She’s enjoyed food and drink and company of her friends in high office.

Then the King showed up at her door, dressed in common clothes, bearing a letter from Ka-Zile talking about something not right going on in the mountains. The King also mentioned that the war with the giants took an unexpected turn, that the giants have been rallying to an extent that is not very well explained. So, she gathered another party. She was pointed in the direction of a Drow Cleric who had been followed into the crypts and a Gnome Wizard who’s been nose-deep in research. Since the Drow, Dreali, was a grave cleric, she told him that she would be in need of a cleric, since they were going behind enemy lines and there may be people that need their last rites. He seemed to reluctantly agree, but, to convince him, she asked who he worshipped (he answered Kelemvor) and she told him that she met him briefly. He was immediately on-board. She then went to the library to recruit the Gnome, Percy. Having noticed that he was surrounded by books about rare magics, she told him that they would need someone knowledgeable but he would be able to test out his magic out in the field. He heartily agreed (and my fiancée, the player, was thoroughly encouraged to drop the ridiculously high-pitched voice he put on for the character). 

She’s now got like a gypsy caravan with plenty of storage and a couple beds. Her old goat died, but was replaced with a Giant Elk. However, said Giant Elk has the tendency to go a little berserk when directly threatened, attacking whatever is closest. Cautiously, she accepts the gift of the mount, after all, it is a very powerful mount and graciously given to her. Percy rode his mastiff and Dreali rode his Arabian horse. The details are not too important, but I thought I’d throw them out there if you wanted them.

Anyway, we head out. Going up the road is whatever, Epicurean has a Passive Perception of 19, thanks to Expertise, and the rest of the party spots this big ole spider thing. It’s not threatening, just odd, but we debated about what we were going to do about it for a little while before we decided to keep going. We made camp, had a slight scare with a pack of wolves with a Worg as Alpha. Dreali sent out some Sacred Flame to spook them away. Early in the morning, while still out on watch, Dreali saw a large dark shape in the mist with two heads. I knew immediately what it was, but Epicurean had only seen an undead one in the crypts. Once it disappeared out of sight, the party continued up the road to the encampment of Gutbusters, the elite Dwarven soldiers on the front lines. Only the encampment was completely abandoned. After some investigation, we discovered that there was a trap door under the bar. At first, we tried to open the door, then realized that is was locked from the inside. So Epicurean decided to knock. There were people inside. There were troops, heavily damaged, so we went down and healed them. 

Now, Dwarves are naturally mistrustful of Elves, but Drow receive prejudice to an extreme, so Dreali pulled his hood up as he healed most of the people up to fighting condition and Epicurean worked on picking up whoever he couldn’t. 

After talking with them, the party discovered that they were instructed to stay put until the captain got back, but he was due back over a day ago and they had their orders to head back by noon. So, the party agreed to move ahead to find where the Captain had scouted off too and found him and his 9 other Gutbusters down a cliff, in a scuffle with six giants. Dreali went down first with ease, and so did Percy... Then Epicurean rolled a natural 2 on her Acrobatics check, giving her a total of 6 (Thank Bahamut that is wasn’t a Nat 1) And she took 9 falling damage and got the wind knocked out of her colliding with the thick limb of a tree and had come down screaming. During the fight, Percy cast Suggestion on the giants and found himself in a duel of spellcasters over the minds of these giants. He ascertained that they were affected by a kind of rage spell and an enlarge spell.

One crazy-ass fight later (during which we discovered that healing one member of the group would also help the rest of the group and that giants like to throw dwarves at spellcasters and that said dwarves’ armor are all very sharp and that dwarves are very heavy) the Captain takes off his helmet and Epicurean goes a darker shade of purple as she vaguely recognizes him as one of the dwarves in the orgy she had started at the tavern almost 2 years ago. After a brief exchange during which the Captain teased Epicurean being more dexterous in bed than on the battlefield, they headed back to camp to catch them just before they left. After celebrating the victory for a moment, they were informed that there was another wave of giants approaching with one of their shamans. Obviously, this would be a good time to gather more information about what may be giving them their great power. 

Hours go by, Percy gets a long rest as Epicurean elects for just a short rest and Dreali goes into a trance for four hours, then they see the giants, lead by an even larger Ettin with a staff, approaching and they immediately rank up. We give the troop some buffs... and we wait... and we wait... For hours... as the buffs wear off... and the troop starts to get anxious, so Dreali starts to sing a battle hymn and tries to get Epicurean to chime in. Reluctantly, she agrees by playing her viol... and eventually the whole troop starts to join in and calm down, getting psyched up for the battle. 

Then a dark shape in seen on the ground approaching them, but the troop doesn’t move. It gets closer, but the troop doesn’t move. Finally we can see that it’s a carpet of slithering serpents, and they fire ballista at them, to no effect. Percy fires a firebolt at them, and rolls a natural 18 to hit, but to no effect. Dreali casts Detect Good and Evil and sees a neutral aura... UNDER the ground. Percy had cast a spell that telepathically linked all of us, so we could see it too, so we moved out from underneath the circle while we ascertained what it was. All the while, the giants just kept their formation 300 yards away. Fairly quickly, we discovered that the circle was a summoning circle, and Dreali cast Forbiddance, which denoted a space to keep whatever they were summoning from coming through.

Having failed to summon whatever they were trying to summon, the Ettin bellowed in fury and the battle truly began. Dwarves swarmed the giants, climbing up them and trying to shred them. Meanwhile, Percy was given command of the three Battlemages.

This is where the promised f***ing happened. See, Max (player of Percy) had taken Magic Jar and, expecting to be turned down, said that he wanted to cast it on the Ettin since they were clearly the leader of the group. At first, the DM stared at him and asked him to read the spell verbatim. Then he consulted the Monster Manual. Then he decided that even though he should say that the spell failed because the Ettin isn’t technically a humanoid, he decided that he would allow it because the Rule of Cool applied. 

So, Percy casts Magic Jar and takes possession of the Ettin. Because he took possession of the Ettin, the spells they had been focusing on failed and the Giants lost most of their buffs. Oh, and there was a backfire to the summoning circle, summoning an Earth Elemental that fought on our side against specifically the Ettin. The plan was that he would try to get control of the giants and if he died then the Ettin would die... However, then he read the rest of the spell. 

While possessing a body, you can use your action to return from the host body to the container if it is within 100 feet of you, returning the host creature's soul to its body. If the host body dies while you're in it, the creature dies, and you must make a Charisma saving throw against your own Spellcasting DC. On a success, you return to the container if it is within 100 feet of you. Otherwise, you die. If the container is destroyed or the spell ends, your soul immediately returns to your body. If your body is more than 100 feet away from you, or if your body is dead when you attempt to return to it, you die. If another creature's soul is in the container when it is destroyed, the creature's soul returns to its body if the body is alive and within 100 feet. Otherwise, that creature dies. When the spell ends, the container is destroyed.

Well, needless to say, Max started to panic and backpedal a bit. 

Meanwhile, Dreali and I are working on what we do best, healing the Gutbusters, and, because of their armor having the enchantments that they do and she cast Beacon of Hope on them, we ended up doing HUNDREDS on hit points per round. One round, we ended up healing over TWO THOUSAND HIT POINTS! (0.0)

Then, I started casting Dissonant Whispers on them. And I mean at 4th, 5th, and 6th levels. I was throwing anywhere from 6d6 to 8d6 worth of psychic damage, which they were vulnerable to (BTW only a Nat 20 would save on Wisdom them on these attacks since their wisdom scores were so low). Also, Dreali would cast Toll the Dead, doing 3d12 worth of necromantic damage. And the Battlemages were level 18, so they could use Toll the Dead with 4d12. All this while dwarves swarmed them like the ghosts in Return of the King. At one point, Percy had gained control of two of the giants to attack the others.

Finally, there was only the Ettin (still possessed by Percy) and the Earth Elemental left. Percy tossed the lightning sword he had... and it landed right in the middle of camp... startling the skittish GIANT ELK!!! 

WHO THEN IMPALED TWO OF THE THREE BATTLEMAGES AND RAN AROUND THE BATTLEFIELD LIKE AN IDIOT!

Percy then... ran back within range of his body and returned to his own body, returning the Ettin back to his own body.

…

Then the DM asked if we wanted to begin Phase 2 next session...

before he realized that we had already cancelled out Phase 2 with Dreali’s Forbiddance spell.

In the end, we called it a night, because the fight was basically over. The Ettin would be dead in just two rounds just from sheer numbers alone.

Yeah, at the end of the session he explained that the only reason that the Dwarves were so OP was because the Ettin was so OP and that there was Phase 2, which we completely negated.

This is honestly looking like a short campaign, but I’ll fill in the gaps.

Our story begins in a tavern in a very shady town. Think fantasy Mos Eisley. “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy” and that sort of thing. Can’t remember the name (Toril or something) because we don’t stay there long and I don’t plan on going back. Epicurean, my lovely lavender tiefling Bard, is coming down off something (she heard there was a thriving drug market here and she’s all about chasing happiness and avoiding pain) when she was approached by a High Elf Rogue who was on her way out of town. This was Ka-Zile. Ka-Zile promised gold and adventure if she only went with her to this city in the middle of the desert to broker a deal. Obviously, to get out of town and to see more of the world, epicurean agreed. She would come to regret that decision.

On their way out of town, they stopped by a shop to pick up some supplies. During the haggling process, a name was dropped: Haykon, the Halfling mayor/tyrant of said wretched hive. The shop owner apparently owed him back-taxes and was trying to keep his nose clean, so he gave Ka-Zile a deal. Just as they turned to leave the shop, they felt a rush of wind. When they turned around, the shopkeeper was gone and replaced by a hooded figure. They got the distinct feeling that the shopkeepers bill came due earlier than he had expected. Ka-Zile explained that they were on a mission for Haykon and the deal was to be made between Haykon and the mayor of that city because it was the one area that his criminal underground did not have reach.

That was when the Dwarf was recruited. Flint was a paladin, but he seemed to belong to no particular order and thought very highly of himself. Kept bragging about how he had familial ties to the King in Mithral Hall, the Dwarven seat of power. He could hold his own in a scrap, but he talked a lot, so Ka-Zile called him Parrot. They got into a lot of arguments throughout the journey, to which Epicurean usually responded by finding something else to do.

Anyway, they set off toward the desert and away from the swampy town. Along the way, they found a caravan where they could ride with, but there were strange sounds coming from one of the covered wagons. They sounded menacing and BIG. So, the party quickly decided that they would go their own way as soon as they made a stop. 

The stop they made was in a mining town. It was a bare-bones town that was very dirty. They managed to find a tavern where they could rest up, eat some food, and strategize. Epicurean played for some coin and get a few drinks.