Mike Shea

But we'll start with the stone giants. So the stone giants are CR sevens, 126 hit points, a little bit below the 140 AC 17. So pretty hard to hit two attacks plus nine to hit 22 bludgeoning damage. That's a good pile of damage. They could throw boulders for 15 damage each.

So not quite as much damage, but you know, now there's a reason why you would want to stay away from them rather than get on top of them. And then they had the deflect missiles trait, which did come up in play. They were happy and the players were interested to see how that played out.

So not quite as much damage, but you know, now there's a reason why you would want to stay away from them rather than get on top of them. And then they had the deflect missiles trait, which did come up in play. They were happy and the players were interested to see how that played out.

So not quite as much damage, but you know, now there's a reason why you would want to stay away from them rather than get on top of them. And then they had the deflect missiles trait, which did come up in play. They were happy and the players were interested to see how that played out.

One thing I did with the stone giants, and I'll get into this for the encounter overall, is I threw in another idea from Tales of the Valiant called doom points. In my game, I call them dreadful, dread, dreadful incursions. No dreadful, dreadful blessings.

One thing I did with the stone giants, and I'll get into this for the encounter overall, is I threw in another idea from Tales of the Valiant called doom points. In my game, I call them dreadful, dread, dreadful incursions. No dreadful, dreadful blessings.

One thing I did with the stone giants, and I'll get into this for the encounter overall, is I threw in another idea from Tales of the Valiant called doom points. In my game, I call them dreadful, dread, dreadful incursions. No dreadful, dreadful blessings.

So dreadful blessings are essentially replace legendary resistance and let me do other things other than just automatically saving on a saving throw. And in this case, I use dreadful blessings in order to drain the life from the stone giants and give it to the adult black dragon, which you'll see.

So dreadful blessings are essentially replace legendary resistance and let me do other things other than just automatically saving on a saving throw. And in this case, I use dreadful blessings in order to drain the life from the stone giants and give it to the adult black dragon, which you'll see.

So dreadful blessings are essentially replace legendary resistance and let me do other things other than just automatically saving on a saving throw. And in this case, I use dreadful blessings in order to drain the life from the stone giants and give it to the adult black dragon, which you'll see.

So I wouldn't say that it was a pure vanilla, perfect scientific experiment running these monsters, but I did get to see the stat blocks run and I thought the stone giant worked really well. The adult black dragon also works really. CR 14, good pile of damage, right? Acid breath for 54 points of damage.

So I wouldn't say that it was a pure vanilla, perfect scientific experiment running these monsters, but I did get to see the stat blocks run and I thought the stone giant worked really well. The adult black dragon also works really. CR 14, good pile of damage, right? Acid breath for 54 points of damage.

So I wouldn't say that it was a pure vanilla, perfect scientific experiment running these monsters, but I did get to see the stat blocks run and I thought the stone giant worked really well. The adult black dragon also works really. CR 14, good pile of damage, right? Acid breath for 54 points of damage.

I really like the rend attacks, which do, you know, 17 damage on a hit, 13 plus four acid damage. They do three rend attacks and then can do three additional rend attacks as legendary actions if they want to. I loved the cloud of insects was really cool. Like cloud of insects uses one legendary action, DC 17, 22 poison damage and disadvantage on saving throws to maintain concentration.

I really like the rend attacks, which do, you know, 17 damage on a hit, 13 plus four acid damage. They do three rend attacks and then can do three additional rend attacks as legendary actions if they want to. I loved the cloud of insects was really cool. Like cloud of insects uses one legendary action, DC 17, 22 poison damage and disadvantage on saving throws to maintain concentration.

I really like the rend attacks, which do, you know, 17 damage on a hit, 13 plus four acid damage. They do three rend attacks and then can do three additional rend attacks as legendary actions if they want to. I loved the cloud of insects was really cool. Like cloud of insects uses one legendary action, DC 17, 22 poison damage and disadvantage on saving throws to maintain concentration.

Fun way to break concentration, right? So then I got to the things I didn't like. And it turns out I was right, at least for me, right? I really hate it when you bury your effects under a spell. And in this case, frightful presence. The dragon uses spell casting to cast fear. And I was like, fear, that's probably like one target. I'll just do the thing. Oh, it turns out, no, fear is a cone.

Fun way to break concentration, right? So then I got to the things I didn't like. And it turns out I was right, at least for me, right? I really hate it when you bury your effects under a spell. And in this case, frightful presence. The dragon uses spell casting to cast fear. And I was like, fear, that's probably like one target. I'll just do the thing. Oh, it turns out, no, fear is a cone.

Fun way to break concentration, right? So then I got to the things I didn't like. And it turns out I was right, at least for me, right? I really hate it when you bury your effects under a spell. And in this case, frightful presence. The dragon uses spell casting to cast fear. And I was like, fear, that's probably like one target. I'll just do the thing. Oh, it turns out, no, fear is a cone.

I had to go look it up in the player's handbook in order to figure out what fear did. That kind of sucked. I wish you'd just tell me what to do in here. Don't make me go look it up. Too late. We already have the book. It already was the way it is. So this worked very well, but 195 hit points is actually not nearly enough hit points against six ninth-level characters.