In the last session my group started the Reavers of Harkenwold adventure. They learned of a group of evil mercenaries called the Iron Circle having taken control of the Barony of Harkenwold, and started helping the resistance movement by going after a tribe of bullywugs that was allied with the Iron Circle. In this session their fight against the bullywugs continued. Having dispatched the bullywug guards in the entry part of their cavern the last time, the party now advanced into the interior of the cave.

There a more epic battle ensued. Besides regular bullywugs there was their leader, a sorcerer hiding in a dragon’s skull, which gave him cover against attacks by the players. And there were two grey oozes as a kind of surprise arriving only in the second round of combat behind the players. The whole thing was pretty well balanced and challenging, with the group succeeding in the end. But as soon as they had rested a bit and found some treasure, a patrol of bullywugs returned, getting them into the fourth fight of that game day (second of the session).

The main challenge of that fight was two giant frogs, who swallowed characters whole, taking them out of combat until they succeed a saving throw. The 4th edition of these giant frogs has been discussed on other D&D sites and forums, with some DMs feeling that they need to be nerfed. The have the potential to take a character out of combat for quite a while, without him able to do anything but take damage and roll saving throws. But I felt that this would mainly be a problem for smaller groups, while I have a six player group, with enough damage potential to take out a frog that is getting too dangerous. And I distributed their swallow attacks around, so as not to take the same character out of combat repeatedly and make the combat boring for him.

The group succeeded this battle as well, and found a halfling boy who had been taken prisoner by the bullywug patrol. The boy led the group back to his clan, a group of Vistani traveling folk on a barge on the river. The Vistani being travelers not only of this world, but of parallel worlds as well, they could advise the group on their enemy of the previous adventure, the ancient vrock Jaazzpaa. They suggested that if Jaazzpaa’s chalice of planar travel had been weakened by centuries of contact with holy water, the demon would need a place where the barrier between the worlds was thin to reactivate the chalice. And they knew of the Keep on Shadowfell being built just on top of such a rift in the barrier between worlds.

Exhausted from a day of fighting, the group decided to spend the night with the Vistani, and we ended the session there.