The session was solid. Some good fights, a little dungeon crawl creepiness, and a great use of corridor tactics and warlock tanking. Vic abused 2024 Fiendish vigor. The party used Oil utilize. The 2024 rule differences are really coming up and it’s great to see the changes.
We kicked things off with the necromancer fight. I nerfed her. I did. She was supposed to have two Fireballs, but the damage math was just unfair for a level 2 party. I had her Scorching Ray the squad instead. Still got the point across. By the way, have you seen the new Witch Bolt? It does the tic damage on a Bonus Action and even if the initial misses, impressive.
The dungeon played out like it’s meant to. A long string of fights with just enough plot and treasure to keep things interesting. They found some prisoners. Used skeletons as trap scouts. Lit corridors on fire to bottleneck enemies. It was great.
And then there was the bean.
They found a bag of beans earlier in the dungeon. Didn’t ID it. Nobody rolled Arcana. Nobody asked the Detect Magic caster if it pinged. But when the imp dropped a bean between two cultists in combat, the player expected fireworks. When nothing happened, they DMed me a screenshot of the item, from 2024, not the version that’s actually in this module. In the older version, it only explodes if you dump the whole bag (not a single bean).
We talked it out afterward. And look, I’m not mad. But it hit on something that matters: meta-knowledge isn’t wrong, unless you’re the only one using it. If the whole table is meta savvy and playing fast and loose with rules? Fine. But if one player is referencing modern item stats that their character doesn’t know and the group hasn’t even identified? That’s a different story. Maybe? Or maybe I should rethink it.
It’s about staying on the same page. Our table, our rules.
The combat in question was against five fist’s of bane. 18 AC, advantage on saving throws. Tanky boys. There was a single token hallway the party lined them up at and sent Vic with his False Life in to tank. The party lined up Oil in the hallway, and lit it. Things were looking very good for the party until, one of the fists grappled Vic and pulled them through the fire with them. On his turn Vic could have recast False Life. Instead, he cast Arms of Hadar (which nuked all the fists of bane). Shortly after he was unconscious. The party barbarian stepped forward to defend his body, with a small heal and thorn whip to move Vics body, the party was able to stabilize him before it was too late. It was a tense, exciting and memorable moment. Session ended right after that combat. Still deep in the dungeon.