So a Dwarven Battlerager Tries to Suplex a Viking...

All the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons that I have played up until this pont has been connected to the Adventurer's League. For the uninitiated, the Adventurer's League is latest incarnation of the RPGA's living campaign for current iteration of D&D, ie 5E. Being a sanctioned play environment, the Adventurer's League incorporates a vetting process even to published rules. Recently, the new Sword Coast book became legal. Today, the local organization set aside time to answer questions and make modifications. That didn't take much time at all. Being gamers we wanted to, well, game. Given the decision between playing an officially sanctioned module or playing a wahoo created-on-fly session complete with new character, everyone decided to go with the latter.


Decided to roll my characters stats and follow a slightly more traditional route of letting the stats determine the class. Rather than switching ability scores to fit the class, I recorded them in order. Not quite old-school, mind you, as I rolled 4d6 and dropped the lowest die. Nothing to brag about; however the Con of 8 and Int of 6 were the most eyebrow-raising stats. Since the characters Strength was the highest ability score I decided to go with a fighter type. Brief digression here: R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books were a huge influence on me. One character type that he portrayed that I never played was a dwarven battle-rager. The new Sword Coast book introduces the dwarven battle-rage option for the barbarian class. So long story short, I made a mountain dwarf barbarian battle-rager.  So a very stupid barbarian that has a Con that's a tad low for a barbarian but it makes for an unorthodox character. Certainly a character that I would be reluctant to play in an actual RPGA game. Since the DM said our characters could be third or fourth level, I chose fourth level. Fourth level characters in 5e receive either an ability score increase or, if the DM allows, a feat. Figured that the Grappler feat made an excellent choice for a battle-rager.


Like many stereotypical RPG sessions, this one began in a bar. Of course, what happens in the bar? A fight breaks out. Now, our characters are on an island where there's a hefty punishment for using a weapon. When a Viking advanced upon a sailor with a battle-axe, my battle-rager decided he would grapple said Viking around the waist. I should point out that I had misread the rules of spiked armor and mistakenly believed the spikes only do damage on a grapple while the character is raging. So no damage was taken by the spikes. The hazards of on-the-fly character creation. To the amusement of the entire table, I decided that the next round my character would try to belly-to-back suplex the Viking. He failed. Another character tried clotheslining the Viking. That character failed. I'm quite certain more characters would have tried wrestling maneuvers of their own but a rogue fire elemental setting things in the bar on fire diverted their attention. Remember, my dwarf has an Intelligence of 6. On the next round, he tries to belly-to-back suplex the Viking again. Again he fails. The Viking punches him. In response the battle-rager rages and attempts another suplex. Fails. His opponent having thwarted the suplex attempts tries to break the grapple. Failure. Both Viking and Battle-rager attempt suplexes and breaking the grapple for the next couple rounds. Yep, nothing. Everyone at the table chuckles. Finally, my dwarf realizes that he should probably leave what appears to be a burning bar. The grapple is released; and he does so.


Been a long, long time since I played any RPG that wasn't RPGA. An immense pleasure it was. I greatly enjoyed throwing some pro wrestling moves into a gaming session. Something I seldom do. Furthermore,  I can cross playing a dwarven battle-rager off my gamer bucket list. An excellent session indeed.