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21 February 2025
It’s the eve of our ongoing Dungeons and Dragons Home Game, so DM Ben is back to share his prep plan for the Acquisitions Incorporate 5e module. Let’s see what’s on deck for this coming weekend!
Our home game is a newer gamer group with several first-timers. Naturally, we picked the free D&D 5e Acquisitions Incorporated module. We’ve already run it once here at the office, and the book’s premise is just really fun! Let’s see what’s in store for our bonding TTRPG players!
The game group is only two sessions in so far, so they’re still “pretty squishy.” They tricked their way into their first job assignment from Waterdeep’s Omin Dran and descended the Fissure in search of two City Watch guards, Sergeant Ava Teeshe and Constable Yander Boot.
DM Ben always starts a session off with some previous sesh housekeeping. Usually, there are some item or face cards to pass out from last time that were the result of high Investigation checks or a new notable NPC encounters that DM Ben wants the group to track.
So, we made the following:
One player used a prepainted mini at first, but we finally found an STL she liked. So, we 3D-printed it, had her paint it, and dropped it on a flocked base. She’s going to be thrilled with the final miniature. 🙂
The group has already fought off rats, completed the pool trials, trudged through plenty of traps, explored several tunnels, and will start this next sesh rolling initiative against a giant spider (with plenty of annoying minions).
DM Ben will have each character roll a DC 17 Perception check to avoid a surprise round. If our mean momma spider gets down to 10 HP, she will retreat through a narrow crack in the ceiling.
Party treasure is solid here with a vial of acid, a flask of alchemist fire, and a vial of antitoxin, all loosely found throughout the webbing. The first corpse (Yander Boot) still has a flask of holy water and even a healing potion. DM Ben has item cards for all these goodies, as these game aides are an obsession of his. He’ll also do the usual d20 (copper), d12 (silver), and d10 (gold) loose coin rolls.
Let’s look at what we’ve set up inside our Wyrmwood game table in advance of this sesh. Now, we never build our rooms to match the module exactly and definitely take artistic liberties to fit everything within the overall table space (and using all the available terrain on hand). However, we got pretty close this time when comparing it against the original module map.
You’ll notice above we have “Area 10: Shrine of Destruction” on standby. Meaning DM Ben doesn’t think the group will get this far, but he doesn’t want to be flat-footed if they blow through those other areas.
So, he’s using this cool 3D Egyptian Print for the Construct gearwork on the wall, an altar, an arcane hand for the massive maul attack, and lastly, this Wizkids mini for poor Sergeant Teeshe. We’ll use a corpse marker for the deceased Caerhan Coalsmith.
DM Ben could build out a room to represent “Area 10: Shrine of Destruction” reasonably quickly with all these items already in hand.
We already did a fun post yesterday on “Area 6: Goblin” so that’s a good read in case you missed it. The goal here is to just get the scared Gorkoh the Goblin to become a temporary party member so he can help the group eliminate the injured Carrion Crawler ahead.
DM Ben already has the +1 Longsword and red garnet gem item cards ready when they loot the corpse. He’ll also include 47 gp and d20 copper/d12 silver dice rolls. If Gorkoh does indeed join the group, he will pass out its character stat sheet to the group (but tweaked his HP to 12).
Next up is “Area 7: Stomp!” We’ve already created a post to showcase our unique 3D prints for this encounter, so be sure to read that one, too. The goal here is simply to survive the encounter and figure out the runes on the two walls sooner rather than later (or just eliminate all the monsters in battle).
That brings us to “Area 8: Tentacles.” The players have actually discovered an old sewer system below Water Deep that has gone horribly wrong. We utilized Dwarven Forge’s sewer set for the primary terrain tiles, and then we 3D-printed some cool modular pipes by Custom Miniature Maker for the actual dirty brown drainage.
We made our own tentacles out of an old cheap octopus toy by cutting them out individually and then simply rebasing each one. So, instead of one large tentacle, DM Ben will do three of them (with a reach of 15 feet). This is a 60 HP monster, so each tentacle will have 20 HP.
The players won’t see an obvious exit from here, but a DC 14 Investigation Check will reveal that there’s a loose drainage grate that they can squeeze through.
Lastly, there’s “Area 9: Dragon” to explore! Even though our beloved game is called Dungeons and Dragons, it’s rather rare for Dragons to make physical appearances in earlier character levels. So, we’re digging this encounter. The players will hear these creatures loudly fighting it out before they get to the actual area on the map.
DM Ben will use four Dark Mantle miniatures here (prepainted from the Night Below set or Storm’s King Thunder set). Our Medium Copper Dragon is from WizKid’s Blood War set.
The players can let the pinned Dragon and annoying Dark Mantles wear each other down. Or, the group can try to save the Dragon and win over another ally to go along with the Gorkoh the Goblin. DM Ben has the Dragon’s stat sheet printed out (but he upped Brass Dragon Wyrmling’s HP to 27 Hit Points for the start of the encounter/fight).
And there you have it! Fingers crossed for a great sesh, and the same to you and your pals if y’all are dropping some dice this weekend! Until next time!
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