I spoke too soon, my Monster Manual arrived today. Mephits! And flumphs! And a hook for actually seeking out a flumph, interesting.

I like it. I think they've done a good job with the flavour text, and the mechanics look pretty workable. (Just one thing I've notived so far: they've changed the golems' magic immunity to advantage on saves against magic. I think that should work nicely.)

Hey switch-hitters. Do you feel that your dice roll better for you when you are the GM than they do when you are a player?

It certainly seems that way to me. I've had complaints from players when I get on a got streak and start critting the hell out of them.

Then again, in my Roll20 Rise of the Runelords game right when they were attacked by a monster that I'd been building up for several sessions beforehand I got stuck in a horrible cold streak and couldn't roll above a 10. I think one PC got hit for minimum damage in the fight.

Ran some more 5th Ed for my son today.

Answering the call for volunteers to seek out the goblin lair from the village elder were a ranger and a fey pact warlock, in addition to Rex the barbarian and his cleric friend. I let my son roll for all the characters in his party, while I still made the decisions for them.

I'm running a modified version of the adventure from the Pathfinder Beginner's Box. The party tracked the goblins to a cave a couple miles from the village and managed to sneak up on the two goblins keeping guard, dispatching them easily. Moving on, they encountered a fountain glowing with golden light, but after no one in the group could decipher the runes on it, my son decided they should leave it alone.

Hearing the sounds of goblin voices, they moved down the tunnel and came upon 4 goblins having an intense argument while a bigger goblin sat on a rough throne, holding his hands over his ears. At the party's approach, the big goblin demanded "Who dares enter King Fatmouth's throne room?" My son thought this was hilariously funny, and Rex laughed in the big goblin's face, then attempted to intimidate the goblins by screaming and swinging his greatsword around. His intimidate check was enough to cow the lesser goblins, granting them disadvantage, but the goblin boss bellowed for them to attack.

After a hard fight, the party managed to put the four goblins and their leader down (with Rex landing the killing blow on King Fatmouth) and ransacked the treasure hidden behind the throne, earning themselves a handful of pearls, some gold, a strange ring and couple healing potions. They then decided to hole up and take short rest (after I explained the mechanics to my son as a suggestion), as everyone was at half HPs or less.

That was where we called the session on account of bedtime. My son asked if we could play again tomorrow. If we do, he'll likely hit level 2, as he's only 75XP shy.

ETA: Also, forgot to mention that my son decided to open the fight with the goblins by hurling a lit torch at King Fatmouth. While the damage was minimal it got the goblin boss' attention and made him focus on Rex instead of his squishier teammates.

That's fantastic. I think that when Ryan reaches Cragmaw Castle, he will find it groaning under the iron rule of King Fatmouth.

I also forgot to mention that Mattias saw a mimic in one of my books awhile back and asked what it was. Every time he's encountered a chest so far, he declares that he makes sure it's not a mimic before he gets close to it.

Next up, introduce him to Trappers and Lurkers Above.

I saw gas spores are back in the new MM. Those never made sense to me. If your method of reproduction requires physical contact with living creatures, appearing as an apex predator is a horrible way to go about it.

Man, mid-to-high-level Pathfinder/3.x is ridiculous. Just plugged a baddie from the Adventure Path I'm running into Roll20 and his minimum damage on a crit is a 100 points of damage. (Granted, his maximum is only 28 points more.) Double-checked that against the party and the only one in danger of getting killed in a single-blow is the wizard, who should hopefully know better than to get in the face of the big ugly giant with the glowing heavy pick.

So Rex and companions defeated the (wyrmling) dragon Black Fang and returned to his home village victorious, thus completing the (converted to 5E) Pathfinder's Beginner's Box adventure. They ended up missing half the dungeon (and treasure) but they took care of the goblin threat and the dragon they were working for, so mission accomplished.

The original dragon in the BB is a good deal older, but I didn't want Mattias' first D&D experience to be "horrifically murdered by a foe that thoroughly outclassed us." Also, skipping half the dungeon meant they faced the dragon still at level 1 and without the dragonbane sword conveniently hidden elsewhere in the dungeon.

As it was, it was a tough fight, with lots of misses on the part of the heroes and the dragon kept successfully rolling its recharge on the breath weapon. Since we were playing mind's eye, I assumed the party was smart enough to avoid standing in a line, so the dragon only caught one person at a time with it's three breath attacks over the course of the fight. Rex got hit first and took 12 of his 15 HP in damage with a successful save. (Yikes!) In later rounds the ranger and the cleric both ate breath attacks and were dropped despite making their saves. Had any of them but Rex failed, it would have killed them outright. (Which brings back to our earlier discussion of how CR means the entry point in 5th Ed. The CR 2 was downright deadly to 1st level characters.)

The cleric managed to get a Bless off earlier in the fight (after healing Rex) and it helped turn a couple misses and missed saves into hits until she went down and could no longer Concentrate on the spell (though even if she stayed up, I doubt she'd have made her check to keep the spell going anyway.) She also managed a crit with her Shillelagh, which is what turned her into the target for the next stream of acid.

The warlock opened up the fight by trying to hit the dragon with Faerie Fire, but it made the save easily. Advantage would have helped them a lot, I think.

The party lucked out in the only character that got hit with the dragon's bite attack was Rex, and he took half damage since he was raging.

Near the end of the fight, the ranger rolled a natural 20 on his death save, leapt to his feet (at 1 hp) and whacked the dragon a good one, dropping it to 1hp as well. Rex then finished it off with his greatsword on his next attack. After that, Mattias decided they were going to climb out of the cave and head home.

I threw a quick adventure together after he went to bed tonight. Next session, a pixie will arrive in the wood elf village seeking aid from the now 2nd level party. It seems there's an ettercap who has taken over the nearby dryad grove with his giant spider minions. There will be some web-traps to avoid, some fairies to rescue and spiders to squash. Should be fun.