Dragon Con 2018

So we went to the 2018 Dragon Con.  Fun times!  It was extremely hot and crowded, and we spent a lot of the time thinking, "Why do we do this again?"  But now that we're back home I'm feeling  extreme euphoria when I think back over the weekend.

This is the longest we've stayed at Dragon Con.  Usually we only go down for Saturday, but this time we splurged and bought memberships to the entire con.  We still didn't get to stay in one of the host hotels, though; we'll save that dream for another year.  Commuting in each day from Alpharetta was much cheaper.  We used a website that lets you book parking spots in advance, so that was one less headache. 

The parade was fun, but it's getting harder and harder to find a good place to sit. You have to get there earlier every year.  This year we got there nearly two hours before the parade, and Peachtree Street was already full.  This meant we had to go further down the parade route, on an East-West street instead of a North-South street.  This is significant because it means instead of the sun being blocked by all the skyscrapers, the sun now shines directly upon you.

So we sat in the hot sun for about two hours before the parade even started.  We misjudged how much water to pack, so by the time the parade was over, we both had a bit of heatstroke.  We were so worn out that it affected our energy levels for the rest of the day.

But the parade?  Worth it.  There were so many people in creative costumes, some 100% movie authentic, others clever mashups or puns, and some so obscure or meta that they only make sense at Dragon Con.   There were a couple of celebrities - John de Lancie, Joel Hodgson, maybe more.  The crowd went crazy for them.

We didn't go to any symposiums this time.  We rarely do.  For us, Dragon Con is mostly about seeing all the geeks and taking lots of pictures.  In the artists hall, I got to meet comic book writer Gail Simone.  To be honest, I know her more because of her politics than for her actual writing, but she's still one of my favorite people.

At first I was too nervous to approach her.  It wasn't just that I was intimidated, but I also just didn't know what I wanted to say.  When I told my wife about my embarrassment, she pulled me over and introduced us.  "Hi, are you Gail Simone?  This is my husband, Matt.  He's a huge fan, but he's really shy."  That didn't exactly make me less embarrassed, but at least it broke the ice.

She was signing things for free, and I wanted to buy a comic for her to sign, but she didn't take plastic and we rarely carry cash.  A stranger behind us was so sympathetic that he bought me a comic book.  I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't hear of it.  Again, embarrassing, but really nice.  I swear they must think I'm mentally challenged or something.

On Sunday I had a photo op with Felicia Day.  This is the third celebrity photo op I've done (the others being Matt Smith/Karen Gillan, and John Barrowman).  I'd really like to start a collection, but it's an expensive hobby.

You don't get to talk much at the photo ops (if you want a longer conversation, go to the autograph halls), but Felicia was extremely friendly and made a point of saying something to everyone.  When it was my turn, she told me she loved my MST3K shirt, and I tried to say "thank you" but I don't think any actual sound came out.  After the photo, she said to make sure I watch the new season, and I think I replied something like "larfleglimph." 

They had a deal where if you give blood, you get a free T-shirt.  There were people all over the con holding up signs for the blood drive, usually announcing "No waiting", but I didn't want to risk not having enough energy for the rest of the day.  So once we were nearly done on Sunday, since I knew my wife would be driving home, I decided to go for it. 

And everyone else had the same idea.  There was a pretty long line to give blood, but I got to listen to a lot of interesting people.  It was strange to see all these costumed people giving blood, especially when some are dressed like creatures you wouldn't want to receive blood from.  Even the Flying Spaghetti Monster was sitting in line.

The actual process was relatively painless, no different from having blood drawn at the doctor, it just took a little longer.  I strongly encourage others to give blood if they can.

When I got home, I posted my Felicia Day pic on Twitter, and Felicia Day herself liked it.  Okay, she probably "likes" every post she's tagged in (and she might even hire somebody to manage her Twitter account), but it still gave me a little thrill.

All in all, it was a great trip.  I don't think we're going to go to Dragon Con very often any more; it's just getting too crowded.  Attendance has nearly tripled since the first time we attended, and between the heat and the people, we just don't have the energy.  The only way I will go there from now on is if we can actually stay in one of the host hotels, which requires a lot of money and fore planning.  My dream vacation would be to stay at the Marriott from Thursday all the way until Monday, so I can just go back to my room to rest whenever I want.

Maybe some day!

Pathfinder Playtest: Doomsday Dawn (Redux)

Game Date: 8/12/2018
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: PF Playtest, Part 1
Module: Doomsday Dawn

System: Pathfinder 2nd Edition (Playtest)
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Alchemite (Nick) - Goblin Alchemist
Corbis (Gary) - Elf Ranged Fighter
Dane (Daniel) - Elf Wizard
Eldal (Jonathan) - Human Cleric
Furi (Matt) - Human Barbarian

The Session:
Same plot as last week - Lady Kendra Questgiver III, mayor of Plothook, sent us to the Sewers of Horrendous Peril to find the MacGuffin of Desna.  This week seemed a little bit easier, probably because we had a Cleric in the party.  The final boss was still brutal, though.

The first encounter (sewer ooze) went by pretty quickly.  Our party's goblin, Alchemite ("Al"), attempted to talk his way out of the second encounter, but the enemy goblins wouldn't have it.  That fight wasn't too difficult either, but Dane did go down to zero at one point.

In the room with the pool, we tried drinking the stone face's tears before they hit the pool, and found they had healing properties.  I don't think we tried that last time.  Nobody found the submerged statue this time, which kept us from having to fight the imps.

We never tried the locked exit, instead going through the door that set off the hanging armor alarm.  Knowing our enemies were alerted, Furi rushed down the stairs to fight the goblins around the campfire.  Dane managed to hit a few of them with burning hands, which was nice - we didn't see enough area spells last time.  Corbin rolled a lucky crit that killed the Goblin Commando.

Dane went down to zero again in this battle, but we healed him later.  Corbin killed the Pyro Goblin, Furi massively slaughtered another goblin with a crit, and Corbin killed the final goblin.  Bow fighters seem to be pretty good in this game.

Leaving this room the way we came, we checked out the room full of skeletons (which we bypassed last week).  Furi was in front, and got surrounded by skeletons.  They didn't do much damage, but Furi still almost went down just because there were so many, and they were attacking three times each.  It was like by 1,000 paper cuts.

Al tried alchemist's fire, only to find the skeletons were immune.  Eventually we finished them off, but Furi was down to 3 hit points.  Healing her a little, we went up the next hallway.  When we passed the hall statue, those of us who had swallowed the tears from the fountain room were able to pass it freely.  But the first time someone who hadn't partaken passed it, a sandstorm trap went off.  And I will rewrite a sentence all kinds of ways to avoid trying to figure out which form of "drank" to use.

To avoid the sandstorm, Furi pushed through the door at the end of the hallway, and found herself face-to-face with the hobgoblin boss.  He was accompanied by a dire rat, unlike last week.  Furi squared off against the hobgoblin, who changed into his Faceless Stalker form right away.  Corbin followed Furi into the room, and targeted the rat.

As the rest of the party gradually entered the boss room, Furi went down hard.  She spent a few rounds unconscious while the boss chased everyone around the room.  Our Wizard, of all people, finished off the rat with a dagger.  Then he tried using Color Spray on the boss, but our foe made his save.  Then Dane went down to zero again.

Corbin managed to do some decent damage to the boss, while Furi kept making rolls to wake up.  The boss started to use a Drain Blood attack on Dane.  Furi finally woke up, stood up, and finished off the boss.  Everyone survived, though it did take a few more rounds to rouse the Wizard.  We did a bit more exploring until we found the quest item.

Afterthoughts:
Last time I tried this module, I played a pregen.  While I did look through all the steps of character creation to see how the pregen got its stats, it wasn't the same as making a character from scratch.  This time I built a character from the ground up, so I could see what that was like.  It wasn't too bad. 

There were times when I was annoyed at having to hop around the PDF so much.  For example, one of the barbarian feats is called "Raging Intimidation" (page 57).  It give Demoralize actions the Rage Trait, and gives you the feats "Intimidating Glare" and "Scare to Death" once you meet the prerequisites.  (This is a system built on feats, and some of the feats don’t do anything but grant you additional feats.)  So now I have to look up those two feats. 

"Scare to Death" has a prerequisite of level 15, so let's ignore that one for now.  "Intimidating Glare" (page 167) allows you to use the Demoralize action by staring at people instead of speaking, which would make sense if you new what the Demoralize action was.  So after checking the index, we jump to Demoralize (page 150) and learn it lets you use an action to cause a single enemy to become Frightened 1.  (On a crit success they get Frightened 2 and flee.)

Okay, I have a pretty good idea what Frightened is, but it's a new system so I have to look it up anyway.  Another jump to the index, then on to page 322 where we learn that Frightened causes the enemy to have a penalty to checks and saving throws, which usually goes away after one round.

Okay, so after flipping around to all these different pages, we learn that this first level feat allows you (if you are raging) to cause a single enemy to take -1 to their checks and saving throws, for a round.  I honestly can't think of a lot of good uses for this.  Maybe if you coordinate with the party wizard, to give a boss a saving throw penalty before the wizard casts a spell.  But how often do raging barbarians cooperate tactically with wizards?

It gets a bit better when you get "Scare to Death" at level 15 (target now gets Frightened 2 and flees, and might even die if you crit), but it's kind of weird to grab a first level feat and then sit on it for 15 levels.  So to me, it seems like a bad feat.  And that's okay, different people play different ways.  My point isn't that it's a lackluster feat, it's that I had to jump to 15 completely different pages in the PDF to find that out.

Instead of having me look all over the place for the definitions of "Scare to Death", "Intimidating Glare", "Demoralize", "Frightened 1", etc, what if the original feat "Raging Intimidation" simply said something like this: "While raging, you can glare at one enemy with 30 feat.  If they fail their save, they get -1 to all checks and saving throws for one round.  At level 15, increase this number changes to -2, and the enemy flees."  It seems like that would be easier.

Perhaps instead of a physical book or PDF, the new edition should just be an app.  Then you could just highlight the keywords you don't understand, and the definition would pop up in a smaller box.  It might be easier than all the page jumping.

But overall, character creation was easier than I thought it was going to be.  I did have a problem where I kept thinking my character was done, and then I remembered something and had to get everything back out.  All told, I think I spent about an hour making my character, but the process should get faster once I get used to it.  I don't think it will ever get as fast as making a character in D&D 5e, though.

I can't wait to play some of the higher level playtests, but at the same time, I'm not looking forward to the time it will take to build and level up these characters.

By the way, "Your Innate Spells" sounds a lot like "Urinate Spells."  I can't unhear that now.

Pathfinder Playtest: Doomsday Dawn

Game Date: 8/11/2018
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: PF Playtest, Part 1
Module: Doomsday Dawn

System: Pathfinder 2nd Edition (Playtest)
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Delman (Gary) - Gnome Sorceror
Ezren (Henry) - Human Wizard
Lavena (Matt) - Human Fighter
Marcius (Martin) - Human Rogue
Merisiel (Brian) - Elf Rogue
Sig (Mikhail) - Dwarf Monk

The Session:
An aristocrat in Magnimar sent us on a mission to retrieve a family heirloom, the Star of Desna.  Her vault had been robbed by goblins, and our investigation led us to an old lair called the Ashen Ossuary.

The first room of the dungeon was round, with a few puddles and a grate in the middle.  As Lavena went to examine the grate, she was attacked by a sewer ooze.  This fight lasted approximately one round, with Lavena landing the final hit.  The grate didn't seem to lead anywhere important, so decided to go through the tunnel on the far side of the room.  Sig used his stealth to scout ahead.  The DM rolled Sig's stealth checks so he wouldn't know how well he did.

The tunnel went around a short bend, and ended in a long room with lots of alcoves.  Eight goblins inhabited the room.  Ezren cast Light on Lavena, who led the charge into the room to start the fight.  We quickly found ourselves surrounded, but the goblins weren't too difficult.  Delman cast Bless on all of us to give us a bit of an edge.

Once all the goblins were defeated, we investigated the three side rooms.  One room had a collapsed wall, covered in giant centipedes.  We avoided them.  Another room had some dead goblins hung on the wall, and the third room contained a large fungus.  We ignored that as well, and took another hallway.

The next chamber we explored contained a pool of oily black liquid.  Sig was brave enough to investigate the pool, where he found a small statue of an evil goddess.  The statue cracked open, and two quasits burst out.  This was a difficult fight only because the dice gods cursed us.  The players kept rolling badly, while the DM was on a roll.  Once the quasits were hit a few times, they turned invisible.  We kept rolling flat checks to attack their last location, and finally finished them off.

There were two exits from this room, though technically they led to the same hallway.  One of the doors was locked, and it took three successful thievery checks to get it open.  One of our rogues broke his thieve's tools in the process. At the end of one hallway was a large statue of the Goddess of Death, who happened to be same goddess Sig worshiped.   Lavena didn't want to go near that statue, so she exited the pool room through the other door, which turned out to be rigged to make a lot of noise.

At the end of one hallway, a short tunnel led down into a lair containing seven goblin warriors, one goblin commando, and a goblin pyro.  At first it was a standoff - we tried to get them to come to us, and they stayed where they were with readied actions.  Merisiel attempted to shoot them from a distance, but got taken down instead.

One of the goblins ran forward and started to drag Merisiel's unconscious form deeper into the room.  Lavena couldn't let this stand, and rushed into the room.  We lost a lot of hit points in this fight, but eventually we prevailed.  On the far side of the room was a 15-foot high cliff.  It took a lot of attempts, but eventually a couple of us made it up the wall and let down some ropes for the rest of us.

Down another hallway, we found a room with a couple of treasure chests.  One was unlocked, but the other gave us a lot of trouble.  We couldn't pick the lock, and so we made a lot of noise trying to smash it.  The racket drew the attention of the chest's owner, a hobgoblin.  Lavena was first in line to fight this boss, and while she managed to get one good hit in, the hobgoblin took her down.  Sig went down soon after.

The battle kept going for a few rounds, and the hobgoblin transformed into a Faceless Stalker.  Those of us who were 0 hit points used our Hero Points to save ourselves, but we kept failing the checks to become conscious again.  Apparently the DC for waking up is tied to the level of the creature that downed you.

Finally we defeated the hobgoblin.  Three of us were unconscious at the end of the fight, but nobody died.  The hobgoblin held the key to the chest, which contained some decent loot along with our quest item, the Star of Desna.

Afterthoughts:

After nearly a year without gaming, I finally got to play again.   “Doomsday Dawn” is the first sample adventure for the Pathfinder 2e Playtest.  Full details of this adventure are available on Pathfinder's website.  Earlier this week I posted my first impressions of the Playtest materials, but today I actually got to see it in action.

I do think it plays better than it reads.  I'm not sold on some things, but it was a fun session.  I still like D&D 5e better, but I'm going to give PF2e a few more sessions before I really judge it.  The two games are on such opposite ends of the spectrum that it barely feels like the same genre, and I think there's room in the world for both.  The playtest materials are so robust, I can't help but wonder how much will change in the final product.

Pathfinder 2e Playtest: First Impressions

This Saturday I’m going to join a playtest campaign for Pathfinder 2^nd Edition.  I’m trying to read over the rulebook, but it’s already giving me a headache.   At first glance it’s less complicated than Starfinder, but I still prefer the simplicity of D&D 5e.  I promise I will keep an open mind, though.  A lot of games play better than they read.

Here’s some things that jump out at me so far.  Disclamer: I might be wrong a lot.  So far I’ve only skimmed the PDF, so I may have missed a few things.  I also might mention some things that haven’t changed from Pathfinder 1e, because I’m used to playing D&D.

Action Economy – You get three actions per round (plus 1 reaction and unlimited free actions).  These actions can be movement, attacks, or all kinds of things.  To discourage people using all three actions to attack, the second and third attacks have a cumulative attack penalty.  Many spells cost multiple actions to cast, so you can only get one out per round.  I find this elegant, and a lot easier to remember than “Standard/Move/Minor” or whatever.

Attacks of Opportunity – I’ve gotten used to D&D 5e, in which you provoke when you leave an enemy’s threat range.  PF2e has you provoke when you make any movement while inside a monster’s threat range, which is going to get me in trouble.  One the bright side, it’s easier to Step (aka shift, 5-foot-step, withdraw, etc) in PF2e than in D&D 5e.   Just use one of your actions to Step one square, without provoking.

Diagonal Movement – Uses the 1, 2, 1, 2 method again.  I’ve always hated that.  I know it’s not strictly realistic having diagonal movement equal horizontal/vertical movement, but it’s not as exploitable as people seem to think.  Simpler is better.

Feats – The biggest part of character customization appears to revolve around feat selection.  It looks like you get at least one feat at every level.  Some feats come from for your ancestry, others from your class, and some are related to your skills .  So even if you have multiple Elven Fighters in the party, they’re still going to play very differently.  However, one downside is that each class’s section in the rulebook looks very similar to D&D 4e.  Yeah, feats aren’t quite the same as powers, but the aesthetic still brings back bad memories.

Stats – The method for generating your stats is a lot different than what I’m used to, but I really like it.  You start with all 10s, then you get bonuses from your Ancestry, Class, and Background.

Races – They’re now called “ancestries”, which is more accurate than “race”, and has the advantage of pissing off the neckbeards.   The Half-Orc and Half-Elf ancestries are now first-level feats that can be taken by Humans, which is pretty cool, but it makes me wish they’d taken the opportunity to add a few more half-ancestries in.  And why only for Humans?  Hopefully the final product will have more.

Goblins and Alchemists – Pathfinder’s most signature race and class are finally in the core rulebook.  I’m personally not interested, but I know a certain player who is probably thrilled.

Proficiency Bonus – I’ve never been fond of the “Base Attack Bonus” some RPGs use, and found D&D 5e’s proficiency bonus much easier.  Glad to see it here as well.  However, as I understand it, your level is part of your Proficiency bonus, which seems like will translate into absurdly bonuses at high levels.  I hope I’m reading that wrong.  I’m so used to D&D 5e’s tight math, that I don’t want to see another system where you roll a d20 and add something astronomical.

TEML – This is another thing that gets added to most die rolls.  You get another bonus to the roll depending on whether you’re Untrained (-2), Trained (+0), Expert (+1), Master (+2), or Legen... wait for it... dary (+3).  It seems as good a method as any.

Touch AC – Seriously, I hate systems with two types of AC.  If you know most characters’ TAC is going to be a little lower than their regular AC, why not just have one AC and raise the attack bonus to touch attacks?

Encumbrance – I’m not a fan of strict encumbrance rules, but this one’s at least kind of interesting.  Instead of keeping track of the exact weight in pounds, it uses a "Bulk" system that categorizes items in terms of size and shape.  It reminds me of how certain video games have you fitting different-sized items into your inventory pages.  It's neat, but it's yet another system-within-a-system I have to learn when all I want to do is pick up some dice and play.

Healing – Don’t get me started.  There’s no such thing a short rest, and long rests don't heal much (your CON mod times your level).  If you don’t have a healer in the party, you’re going to have a really slow campaign.  Most people reading this already know my feelings on hit points (Hint: I mostly consider it Stamina), and it’s hard for me to get excited about a campaign where I’m going to spend so much time recovering in bed. 

Resonance – This seems like a complicated addition, but it’s kind of interesting.  Basically it’s a score (CHA mod + level) that affects how many magic items you can carry and/or use at a time.   Charisma is my favorite stat, and I’m all for finding more uses for it.  Plus it’s kind of cool that you can build your character with the intention of specializing in magic items.

Hero Points – These days every system has to have some version of Action Points or Bennies or Inspiration or whatever.   I don’t have a problem with it, but it’s one more thing to keep track of in a game overloaded with different kinds of points.

Spellcasting – At first glance, it’s not too different from D&D 5e, but it shares some of the same problems.  Certain characters will end up having to juggle Vancian “spell slots per level per day” spells, as well as dealing with spell points, and some specific spells that have their own “per day” limit.  It seems like a lot of different systems to keep track of.

Character Sheet – The default character sheet appears to be in Landscape mode, which is awesome because I usually make myself some landscape sheets anyway. 

Overall, I like some of the changes, dislike others, and hate some of the things they kept the same.  I’ll have to wait until Saturday to know what I think for sure.  But even if it turns out to be excellent, I keep wondering, is a new edition a good idea?  Is this ultimately going to be a good thing or a bad thing for Paizo as a company? 

Here’s the thing:  D&D 3.5 was the most prolific version of D&D ever released.  When WOTC went on to 4^th edition, many people felt this was a bad idea, because it abandoned so much existing content.  I still say what I’ve always said: 4^th edition is a pretty fun game, but it should have been a spin-off product, not a replacement for 3.5.  I’m having similar thoughts about PF2e.

Today, Pathfinder has a very niche market.  It caters to the people who didn’t want to move on from D&D 3.5.  I wouldn’t be so skeptical if the new edition was a spin-off product, but by calling it “Pathfinder 2^nd Edition”, it replaces their masthead product.  Many gamers play Pathfinder for one reason: 3.5 nostalgia.  Throw out that reason, and suddenly there are hundreds of RPG systems out there to try.  Without that 3.5 connection, Pathfinder 2e is going to have a lot more competition.  I honestly think they are going to lose business over this.

I hope I'm wrong.

Starfinder: First Impressions

Well, I had high hopes, but so far I have to give Starfinder a thumbs down.  Now before I get into things, some caveat:

1. I actually haven’t played it yet.  So far I’ve just skimmed the book.  I do still plan to try it.

2. I’m more of a casual gamer, so I’m more impressed by rule efficiency than tactical realism.

3. I’ve been spoiled by the simplicity of D&D 5e.

4. Pathfinder players will probably love it.

I’ve always wanted to try Spelljammer, but I don’t like older RPGs so much.  It took decades to streamline D&D’s rules to create the elegant system we have today, and it's hard for me to go backwards.  I keep wanting to try modern sci-fi RPGs, but the few I’ve tried haven’t really done it for me.   Starfinder is Paizo’s newest attempt to create a sci-fi RPG, and I was really looking forward to it. 

They obviously wanted to make it as cross-compatible with Pathfinder as possible, and those who are used to Pathfinder will be right at home. Unfortunately for my tastes, that's where things went wrong.

Where do I begin?  Pathfinder was already pretty complicated compared to D&D 5e.  Being based on 3.5, the most prolific version of D&D, it had to compile years of content and errata into a coherent system.  I’ve always respected Pathfinder so doing it so thoroughly.  But now that I play D&D 5e, I was glad to be rid of things like flat-footed AC, diagonal squares taking more movement, ability damage, negative levels, and so on.  Now Starfinder comes along and adds two kinds of AC, separate stamina and hit points, resolve points, and so on. 

This would all be okay if any of the new stuff impressed me, but it doesn’t.  I’m disappointed there aren’t more races, and the ones it does have don't wow me.  Sure, it has rules for using existing Pathfinder races, but I never really wanted to see any of those in space.  The classes are mildly interesting, but none of them really jumped out at me.  Usually when I read a new RPG book, my biggest problem is narrowing down all the cool new stuff I want to try, but for some reason none of the Starfinder classes really sparked my imagination.

I do like that it has separate classes and themes.  The themes remind me of the backgrounds in D&D 5e.  But there's only ten of them in the PHB (including "Themeless").  And some of the ones they have are more specific than others.  I can understand Mercenary or Spacefarer - those are fairly generic and are likely to describe a lot of adventurers.  But "Icon" (i.e. celebrity) seems a bit specific when you only have ten themes.  I much prefer 5e's spread of backgrounds.

Of course, by the time I get my next haircut they'll have released a dozen splatbooks full of new races, themes, and classes, and eventually I'll see something I want to play.  And that's great and all, but I'm still not sure I like Pathfinder rules in space.  Every three pages I'll run into a paragraph I have to read three times to really "get", because it's phrased like a calculus problem.

But that's my fault.  I knew Starfinder was going to be kinda/sorta Pathfinder compatible, so I should have expected that from the beginning.  And to be fair, I don't dislike Pathfinder.  I've played it before and the rules don't feel nearly as complicated in context - they just don't read well.  Again, 5e spoiled me.

From my point of view, it feels like a wasted opportunity.  They had the chance to create an RPG from scratch, but instead they built on top of Pathfinder's tried-and-true rules.  It was actually a very smart decision, and it will probably sell a lot more copies than the hypothetical RPG I would have preferred they made.  In other words, Starfinder, "It's not you, it's me."

TL;DR: I think Starfinder is a high-quality RPG... I'm just not sure it's for me.  My new hope is that WOTC releases a 5e version of Spelljammer or Gamma World.  But I won't hold my breath.

Painting Miniatures - Part 2

Just posting a few more pictures of miniatures I've painted (see previous blog here).  I'm still not happy with my skills, but I'm having a blast (and killing my back).  For the most part I've given up painting the eyes - I just can't get them even and they always end up looking cartoony.  I think I've been putting more creativity into the bases than the actual miniatures so far.
 

Bard

Weeping Angel - Pretty much just painted it gray.

Fairy

Same Fairy, but invisible

Bookshelf

Maybe my future Starfinder character?

Innkeepers

Mimic

Paladin of Sune

Pirates

Young Displacer Beast - I added tentacles to a cat familiar.

I didn't paint the following sharks.  They're just some toys you can buy in a tube at craft stores.  But I did paint the bases and added some extra flair.  I even glued real sand and seashells to some of them.

The ants below are from a bag of plastic ants.  I gave the bases a dirt-like texture and glued the ants to them to make ant swarms. I'm working on a spider one right now as well.

This is something I made to track flying height:

And lastly, here's some AOE effects I made for tracking the range of certain spells:

OAWYM: Don't Mess With The Johann

Game Date: 8/19/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 36
Module: Queen of the Spiders

System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Meece (Daniel) - Goblin Arcane Archer
Ulmack (Gary) - Halfling Monk
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
To paraphrase an old joke:

A small, timid man was hired as a bartender in a small town.  He worked for a few weeks with no problems. Then one day a someone rushed in shouting, “Everybody clear out!  Big Johann’s comin’!”

The customers quickly abandoned their drinks and cards, shoving each other in their hurry to exit the tavern.  Within seconds the tavern was empty.  The bartender was perplexed, but he figured that he'd best get out as well.  He started putting things away so he could lock up.

But before he could get very far, he heard the stomping of heavy boots approaching the tavern.  The door swung open so hard it fell off its hinges.  A barrel-chested giant of a man - easily nine feet tall - stomped into the tavern, shaking the building with every step.  He approached the bar, and slammed his fist on the counter.

"GIMME A BEER!" he bellowed.  His hands shaking, the bartender quickly pulled out a bottle from behind the bar, and set it in front of the giant.  The bartender started to hand him a glass, but the giant just bit off the top of the bottle and spit out the broken glass.  He swallowed the beer in one gulp and demanded another.

After his second beer, the giant stood up and said, "Sorry about the damage.  I hope this will cover it."  He set some money on the counter, more than enough to cover the beer and damages.  At this point the bartender thought that maybe this wasn't such a bad guy after all, and the townsfolk had just misunderstood him.  He asked the giant if he'd like another drink, on the house.

"Thanks," the giant said, "but I've got to get going.  Big Johann's coming!"

Today we started a new adventure.  Last session we were hired to sail cross the ocean and help some refugees who had been driven from their homelands by giants.  We sailed, we docked, we met some refugees.  We learned that it isn't just one type of giant, but variety of giants, as well as goblins, hobgoblins, human bandits, and several other races besieging the capital city.  Some of these are races that don't usually work together.  It's rumored that there is a greater power at work here, some great force organizing these giant soldiers.  Having read the novelization, I already know the answer to that one, but I'll try to act surprised.

We set out for the capital city, Istivin.  We took three carriages, each drawn by two horses.  Our party was in the middle carriage.  On the first day, Halfbeard noticed that the road led into an area that would be perfect for an ambush.  And he was right.  He spotted an Ogre about to drop a tree on us, and suddenly we were surrounded by at least sixty ogres.  We discussed going out in a blaze of glory, but Ulmack decided to parlay.

The ogres just wanted food.  We agreed to give them some of the horses, and they let us pass.  We combined everything into one carriage and continued the trip.  On the second day, we encountered a single hill giant, but it was a short fight.  We joked about that one all day.  Later we met some soldiers, who gave us news about giant raiding parties in the area.  We told him about our encounter with the ogres the previous day, and he confirmed there were some disorganized groups of monsters wandering around the area.

We finally reached a small town, and in true D&D fashion, headed straight for the inn.  Once seated, we saw a customer harassing a waitress.  Val walked over and intimidated him into leaving.  As he left, he threatened us, telling us that he'd be back with his friends to raze the town.  The townsfolk were not grateful.  It turns out the customer was one of Big Johann's men.  BJ was a frost giant, and his followers had been causing trouble lately.

So, we did our duty.  Not wanting to bring ruin to the town, we marched out of the town's front gate, and prepared to defend it.  We didn't have to wait long.  Big Johann rode forward on a mammoth, surrounded by ten hill giants, and the human Val had threatened.  We didn't bother trying to reason with them, we just rolled initiative.

Halfbeard, now invisible, flew his broom over the battlefield and landed on the back of the mammoth, behind Johann.  Val and Meece concentrated their attacks on Johann in the early rounds, while Ulmack worked his way through the hill giant grunts.  After a few rounds, the townsfolk sent some archers to help us out.  Val dealt the killing blow to Johann, and Halfbeard managed to calm down the panicking mammoth.

Ulmack finished off the human, so now we just faced the hill giants.  They had low AC and for various reasons they had disadvantage on most of their attacks, so it wasn't too difficult a fight.  Once the battle was over, Val took a trophy braid from Johann, and tied it to her armor.  The townsfolk now adored us, and treated us like royalty as we stayed the night.

The next day we continued our trip to Istivin. At one point we saw a caravan of stone giants.  They turned out to be peaceful.  One of them approached us waving a white flag, and told us a bit of a prophecy involving the rise of dark forces. Once they had passed, we continued to Istivin without incident.

Istivin had a giant black globe bisecting part of the city.  It looked like a sphere of darkness, except it was actually solid.  We were led to the leader, and he explained more fully.  The sphere had appeared a month ago.  Only natives to the area are able to enter the sphere, but none of them have returned.

Once again we were told of how the giants are more organized than giants usually are, and that there must be a secret mastermind behind these attacks. Some dark, pointy-eared menace that can manipulate other armies with their spider-like machinations, staying in the shadows, emerging only underdark of night.  If only we could figure out this puzzle!

We have been tasked with finding out this secret.  We need to find out who is directing these attacks, and maybe even defeat them.  And if we can recover some of the treasure the giants have stolen, we're allowed to keep it.  They told us we should start with the hill giant settlements, because they are the lowest level closest in proximity.  Mission in hand, we ended the session there.

OAWYM: When Treasure Attacks

Game Date: 7/29/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 35
Module: Scourge of the Slave Lords, Queen of the Spiders

System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Meece (Daniel) - Goblin Arcane Archer
Ulmack (Gary) - Halfling Monk
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
After being asked to retrieve a book from a monastery, we fought several zombie monks and took a short rest.  Once we felt ready to continue, we explored more of the monastery.  We looked into a couple of empty rooms, finding a dorm and a kitchen, before reaching a much larger throne room.

The room had a river of lava separating us from a throne and two chests.  (This world's architects are crazy.)  But before we could think of going that direction, there were nine more zombie monks facing us.  Ulmack and Halbeard managed to kill one before the monks got a turn.  On Val's turn she used Turn the Unholy, causing four of the remaining eight to flee.  Then Val took more damage, lowering her maximum HP, down even more from last session.

Once we finished off the four, we went after the other four that had fled, and killed them one by one.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.  We took another short rest in the dorm area, and headed back to the throne room.  We used our various flying items to get over the lava, and examined the new area.  Val checked out one chest while Ulmack looked at the other.  Val's chest was locked, and Ulmack's was a mimic.

Ulmack thwacked the mimic, and Val ran over to finish it off.  Val used her Detect Undead and felt a strange presence coming from the throne.  A red mist coalesced on the throne, and became a robed Elf vampire.  Meece used his winged boots to fly to the other side of the lava, attacking from range.  The vampire used Charm on Halfbeard, so we now faced two opponents.  The vamp tried to charm Val as well, but she was immune.

Halfbeard attacked Val, and brought her down to 1 very quickly.  Only her Half-Orc Relentless Endurance kept her on her feet.  We hit the vampire a few more times, attacking Halfbeard whenever the vampire was out of range.  We finally did enough damage to the vampire that it dissipated, turning back into a mist and escaping through holes in the throne.

Defeating the vamp didn't end Halfbeard's charm, so we had to take him down to 0.  Then we tied him up and healed him.  He was angry, but we managed to talk him into a truce.  (The Charm finally wore off 24 hours later.)  Then Val smashed open the remaining chest and found the book we'd been sent to find.  Back to town.

Once we gave our questgiver back his MacGuffin, he arranged passage for us on a merchant ship.  We hid aboard the ship until we were out of Iron Circle territory, and eventually made it back to Sarthel.  We managed to claim part of an old Iron Circle barracks to call our home base while we waited on more opportunities.  We have been given the title "The Knights of Sarthel."

A few weeks later Dame Gold requested our presence.  A barbarian prince had come to plead for help. His homeland was being invaded by giants.  The barbarians suspected that a greater force was behind the giants' actions.  He wanted assistance in defeating the giants, and to find out what was behind the attacks.  We agreed to travel to his homeland and assist their efforts.  And thus begins the next module.  We ended the session there, traveling to the prince's country.

OAWYM: Monky Business

Game Date: 7/15/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 34
Module: Scourge of the Slave Lords
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Meece (Daniel) - Goblin Arcane Archer
Ulmack (Gary) - Halfling Monk
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
After winning last week's epic battle, we took an extended rest.  During Val's watch, she became aware of a goblin trying to get into her backpack.  A few threats followed, but the goblin promised to help us get into the city, so we let him live.  And so Meece joined the party.

During the trek towards town, we saw some stone giants mining rocks, but we gave them a wide berth and avoided the fight. The next day we reached the city.  We entered through a sewer grate, and Meece led us though the tunnels.  Eventually we exited through a manhole cover.  We paid a beggar for info on places to hide out, and he directed us to the Thieves Quarter.  He also gave us a small ivory carving of a horse head. 

We wandered around town for a while, went into a few taverns, and finally found an inn with a sign that looked similar to our horse carving.  We asked the manager a lot of questions, and we were told to "seek out the knowledge that never dies."  We stayed overnight and bought some clothing.  The next morning we checked out the docks, but there was too much military activity for us to book a private ship.

We kept looking around town, and got spotted by some slavers.  They tried to give us some orders, but we bluffed our way out.  We kept exploring and wound up at a mapmaker's shop.  We told the mapmaker we wanted to get on a boat out of town.  He offered to arrange it in exchange for a side quest.  We need to head to an old monastery, and find a history book.

We left Dame Gold and the rest of the rescued slaves in a safe house, and we traveled to the monastery.  We had to walk up thousands of steps up a mountain until we reached the giant front doors of the building.  We pulled open the doors and entered the front room.  There were four giant pillars in the room, and we soon saw movement coming from them.

We faced several monk wights, and one wraith.  Meece took to the air using his flying boots, and started firing magical arrows from a distance.  Halfbeard used his invisibility to get a good first hit in.  Ulmack did an especially good job of punching multiple targets.  But these undead monks hit hard, and each hit lowered our maximum hit points. 

Val managed to kill the wraith by critting with an OA and adding Divine Smite.  Then she used her Turn the Unholy power to make two of the wights flee out a side door.  Then we kept hacking away, until we finally finished off the remaining wights.  Once the battle was over, Val did some healing while we waited to see if the two fleeing wights were going to return.  They did not.

We ended the session there, trying to decide whether to chase down the wights, explore more rooms, or take a short rest.  Most of us are currently at full health, but our max hp won't be restored until the next long rest.

OAWYM: Desert Strike

Game Date: 7/1/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 33
Module: Scourge of the Slave Lords
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Karzen (Daniel) - Eladrin Artificer
Ulmack (Gary) - Halfling Monk
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin
Velris (Graham) - Half-Elf Warlock

The Session:
We've defeated most of the slave lords, and now we're backtracking through the tunnels to make our way back home. After fighting our way through a large gate, we entered a tunnel that split into two directions.  The smaller tunnel was occupied by seven slavers, who Velris took out with a fireball (his fireball-spewing staff turned out to be the savior of the session).  There were three doors in the hallway, leading to some empty barracks. 

On the other end of the hall was a door leading back to the larger hallway.  Velris peeked through the door and killed another group of slavers with a fireball, and the remaining slavers fled in a panic.  We chased them and picked them off one by one.  Halfbeard tried to take the long way around and attack them from the other side, but sadly we'd finished them off before he got there.

We picked up a wagon and some horses, and led the rescued slaves out of the dungeon.  At this point we had ten former slaves as followers, plus Dame Gold.  We needed to travel through the desert to head back to the dockside town.  On the second day of our trek, we saw a large hobgoblin raiding party, with slaves of their own in tow.

We attempted to set up an ambush.  We placed ourselves in strategic locations and prepared for a fight.  We faced at least fifty hobgoblins, though most of them were low level.  Val failed a stealth check, causing the hobgoblins to investigate.  Then Velris fired off a fireball, and the battle was on.

It was a long, difficult fight, and we almost didn't make it.  Velris had the most kills, by taking out the weaker hobgoblins with fireballs.  But the hobgoblin captains were heavy hitters.  Ulmack went down several times, with Val healing him each time.  Then Halfbeard and Karzen went down as well.  The rescued slaves helped out, but they were too weak to do much.  It took them the entire battle to take out two enemies. 

It finally came down to Velris and Val.  Val kept some of the strongest Hobgoblins occupied, since they had trouble getting through her Cloak of Displacement.  Meanwhile Velris worked on crowd control.  When Velris finished off his opponents, he went to help Dame Gold, who was making death saves by this time.  Val finished off the final Hobgoblin with a Divine Smite.

After the battle, we healed our wounded and counted survivors.  Unfortunately Karzen didn't make it, having failed three death saves.  Dame Gold is still alive, along with four of the rescued slaves.  We looked for a safe place to take a long rest, and ended the session.

Painting Miniatures

So, I've started painting my own miniatures.  I haven't done anything I'm proud of yet, but I thought I'd show off my progress anyway.

I started looking into it because it's hard to find a decent fairy miniature.  I've always wanted to play a Pixie character, and I want to have an appropriate mini when I finally do.  But it's difficult to find any pre-painted fairy minis online.  There's a few good metal ones, but I don't really like metal minis.  Then one of my fellow gamers showed me a plastic Reaper Bones mini he'd painted (part of a familar set), and I had to have it.

Naturally, once I started painting I found it addictive.  Now that I've got my fairy (and a few extra), and I've started painting other familiars (they're cheap) and a few other creatures.  I've been trying a few techniques I've seen online, using washes and such, but I'm just not good at the fine detail work.  It gives me a headache to focus on parts that small, and I can only ask so much of my dexterity.  But I'm enjoying what I'm doing, even if it's not on par with the paint jobs I've seen online.

Making the bases is kind of fun.  I haven't done anything really elaborate, but I have a couple of easy techniques I enjoy.  In the clearance section of a craft store I found some textured green paint that makes things look like grass.  For stone bases, I paint them gray and then spray them with textured stone spray paint.

Fairies

Fairy Queen

Dryads

Elementals

Strumpet

Swamp Zombies

Bat and Bat Swarm

Birds

House Cats

Faerie Dragons

Ferrets

Wolves

Aasimar

Vorpal Bunnies