Our first 5e session!
Last Sunday we had our first session of 5e and so, since it was quite the joyous occasion for us, I thought that it would be a good idea to take some pictures and share the fun that we had.
We started out with character creation, which seemed pretty fun; I think that all of us chose to use point buy instead of rolling our stats. This edition has a cap on attribute scores, as you can't improve a stat more than 20 with your level-dependent attribute increases, which makes them more significant; in 3.5e, a score of 14 was acceptable, but not anything ground-breaking - now an easily attainable 14 is just six points away from the highest that you're gonna achieve without items and counting race and class bonuses you can easily raise it to 18 by level 4. Bottom line, I'm under the impression that it would be better to spread out your points if you're using point buy, instead of investing heavily in a single stat.
The rest of the character creation was pretty easy to do, as we started at first level, however, I'd like to say that I was positively surprised about the inclusion of Backgrounds. Recently, I started investigating indie roleplaying games, which feature mechanics that influence roleplay, an idea that I find fascinating. The backgrounds of 5e, not only provide some basic mechanic bonuses, but also give the dungeon master some basic story hooks to use as he sees fit (bring the party together, create a bad guy, give the players a macguffin, etc). I must admit that I don't find that the execution is perfect, but it's a nice addition.
So our party consists of:
Currently this is our party composition, but it may change later, as more of our friends get back from their summer vacations or start being busy with the new school year.
On to the pictures!
This is my first roll ever in 5e: it turned out to be a natural 1. I'm pretty sure that this is a prophetic message of some kind.
And so the adventure begins! This is our party as we're following a shady guy running through the streets of a city.
The rough draft of my first 5e character sheet!
Our rogue decided not to turn in the street that the shady guy we were chasing turned, suggesting that it may have been an illusion; so he decided to check the next alley and this is what he found!
I guess they must've been waiting for us, because they immediately attacked the poor rogue.
Our paladin joins the battle!
This is my first attack roll, using my shortbow. Thanks to my +5 bonus to hit, I managed to hit the bad guy!
The first guy we drop in 5e, thanks to sneak attack! (I honestly don't remember how the rogue got advantage on his attack).
Which lead to a staring contest between the other bad guy and the rogue ...
... which the rogue won, because the bad guy just dragged his opponent back to the alley!
Only two of those guys remaining in battle, which are going to be taken care of by our paladin!
Our warlock picks off the guy in the back with a critical hit!
I get closer and do some damage with my shortbow, but the battle ends, as the boss of the alley thugs begs us to spare their life and come inside for a cup of tea!
We decide that we can be civilized, so we reluctantly agree! In the mean time, the boss offers us a job, as he was "surprised" that we defeated his thugs.
Our rogue continues to be paranoid about the good intentions of our new boss, so he decides to snoop around. In the right the thugs-turned-to-kittens are trying to tend to their wounded.
Our first gig with the new boss! It turns out that we have to patrol a country road for some reason.
The rogue decides to get closer and hide prone in some vegetation, but it turns out that the bear has already spotted him! Guess who has advantage on her attacks!
Me and the warlock rush closer to help out our teammate, who is currently trying to stay alive. I try to faerie fire the bear, but she unfortunately saves against it. Our paladin is already there exchanging blows with it!
Unfortunately, the bear manages to bring down the paladin with a natural 20.
So I decide to heal him back up by spending my last 1st level spell for a cure wounds casting.
However that didn't work out that well, as the bear killed the paladin again and decided that she wanted to chew on my neck. Me and the warlock managed to get some damage through using the range to our advantage, but she eventually caught up to me and slashed me.
After bringing the bear's hit points down to single digit levels, our boss enters the battle and lands the killing blow and then proceeds bragging that he killed her alone. Our warlock was still up, but the rest of us where trying to stabilize.
The battle was close, so we decided to have a souvlaki break!
Second battle after getting employed by this weird selfish bastard: we now have to do patrol duty in the city, next to the docks area. We find some sneaky figures trying to climb a wall, but our boss promptly stops them and orders us to attack them.
Thanks to my darkvision I'm able to see them in the dark better, so I decide to go closer and be all friendly, by casting faerie fire on them, who both succumb to. Our paladin gets closer to talk to the sneaky guys, but one of them attacks him.
You shouldn't have done that man... me, the rogue and the warlock take out his friend with ranged attacks, while the paladin takes care of his attacker. By the way, this was my first kill of 5e!
Our final task was to kill some random crazy guy that had something of value that our boss needed; we were starting to get seriously annoyed going around killing people for him.
Thankfully, the guy seems to be both crazy and bad, as he gets out of his hut and attacks us with two of the special wolves he's allegedly breeding.
I cast faerie fire which affects the crazy guy, but not the wolf; having advantage is quite in this edition, as we manage to get some damage through and our warlock critical hits the crazy guy dead!
This fact obviously makes the wolf angry and he proceeds to bite my neck as well, making him the second creature to do that in a single session and manages to bring me down, despite the fact that it had disadvantage on his attack (because I was standing next to our paladin).
The last wolf is dead and our paladin is good enough to lay on hands 1 hit point in order to save me from dying. He is generous like that.
So, this was what our first session looked like. I obviously didn't include much information regarding the storyline, as I was taking pictures when we were in battle.
Until the next time!
We started out with character creation, which seemed pretty fun; I think that all of us chose to use point buy instead of rolling our stats. This edition has a cap on attribute scores, as you can't improve a stat more than 20 with your level-dependent attribute increases, which makes them more significant; in 3.5e, a score of 14 was acceptable, but not anything ground-breaking - now an easily attainable 14 is just six points away from the highest that you're gonna achieve without items and counting race and class bonuses you can easily raise it to 18 by level 4. Bottom line, I'm under the impression that it would be better to spread out your points if you're using point buy, instead of investing heavily in a single stat.
The rest of the character creation was pretty easy to do, as we started at first level, however, I'd like to say that I was positively surprised about the inclusion of Backgrounds. Recently, I started investigating indie roleplaying games, which feature mechanics that influence roleplay, an idea that I find fascinating. The backgrounds of 5e, not only provide some basic mechanic bonuses, but also give the dungeon master some basic story hooks to use as he sees fit (bring the party together, create a bad guy, give the players a macguffin, etc). I must admit that I don't find that the execution is perfect, but it's a nice addition.
So our party consists of:
| Player | Character |
| myself! | Half-Elf Bard (probably going Valor) |
| Thodoris | Elf Rogue (heard that he will possibly multiclass to monk) |
| Andreas | Variant Human Paladin |
| Ilias | Variant Human Warlock |
On to the pictures!
The rough draft of my first 5e character sheet!
So, this was what our first session looked like. I obviously didn't include much information regarding the storyline, as I was taking pictures when we were in battle.
Until the next time!