Worldwide Gameday: Neverwinter Campaign Setting

8/6/11 - Next Level Games

DM: Rusty

The Party:
Belgos (Matt) - Drow Hunter
Brandis (Cliff) - Human Cavalier
E.J. (Andrew) - Warpriest
Fargrim (Rick) - Dwarf Slayer
Gorak (Bryan) - Half-Orc Slayer
Nameless One (Michael) - Elf Hunter
Shecky Greenbaum (Greg) - Elf Thief
Zandara (Chere) - Human Mage

Today's Gameday was based on the new Neverwinter Campaign Setting for D&D 4e. As you can see, we had a rather large party, but that doesn't mean it was easy.  Several times we came close to losing party members.  This was my first time playing the Hunter class.

Our characters were hired to be bodyguards, on a sea voyage from Waterdeep to NeverWinter.  The voyage itself went without incident, but when we arrived at the dock, we were attacked before we could even get off the ship.  A large number of aquatic zombies crawled out of the water and climbed aboard the ship, and we found ourselves surrounded.  This was especially difficult for ranged characters like mine, because there wasn't a whole lot of maneuvering room. 

The second and final combat had us fighting a Necromancer in a graveyard.  At first the boss was only accompanied by a pair of gravehounds, but he soon summoned a bunch of zombies to surround our party.  Once again, my character started the battle in a difficult position.  However, once I was able to get away from the enemies, the Hunter turned out to be a really interesting class.

Early in the battle, the boss teleported into the middle of our party, in order to effectively use his aura power.  It was an Aura 2 which did 5 damage each turn, so we all did our best to keep our distance.  Additionally, the boss had the ability to steal energy from fallen PCs, and could even recover from death itself.  But again, we had eight party members, so we managed to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.  A couple of our party came close to death, but we were all on our feet at the end.

This wasn't a particularly long session.  We only fought two combats, though I'm told we avoided at least one more potential battle.  It was a fun module, if a bit forgettable.

I have, however, reached my personal limit on Essentials-only events. It's not actually so, but it just feels like this is the 14th time in a row I've been in an event/campaign/whatever where someone said, "Hey, you know what would be a neat change of pace? Let's all play Essentials characters!" Don't get me wrong, I actually like Essentials. In some ways, I prefer it. However, as of 8/6/2011, the concept of the Essentials-only event has officially been done to death. It is no longer creative or different, it's just restrictive. By my count, Fourth Edition has 26 classes, over 100 builds for those classes, only 11 of which are Essentials builds. Asking us to only consider 10 percent of 4e's wonderful content is like giving us wings and then throwing a net over us. In recent months I've found that one of my favorite things about Essentials characters is how well they integrate with "classic" 4e builds. At this point, Thief is just another build, and can be played right along next to the original PHB's Fighter and Wizard. So come on, DMs and event organizers, it's time to showcase that ease of integration, and let players have their freedom back.

Worldwide Gameday - Red Box

9/11/10 - Next Level Games

Today's Gameday introduced us to the controversial "Essentials" line of D&D products. Essentials is a new line of D&D 4e options that are designed to appeal to new players, and to recapture some of the flavor of previous editions.

I played Brannus, a Human Fighter (Slayer build). He did not have any Daily powers. Rather than distinctive At-Wills, he just had basic attacks which were affected by battle stances. I had a couple of Encounter powers, but I spent most of my turns just making basic attacks.

Sitting next to me was an Elf Wizard, whose bread-and-butter power was the new version of Magic Missile, which uses neither an attack roll or a damage roll. On my other side was an Elf Rogue, who had some great At-Will movement powers to make up for her lack of interesting attacks.

So basically, it's all about simplicity. I can see how it would be a lot easier for someone unfamiliar with 4e to just pick up and play. I, however, missed having more things to do. Still, D&D is D&D, and we had a great time.

The worst mistake made was when the party's other fighter opened a door before we'd had a chance to rest from our recent battle. So we went straight from one encounter into a boss battle without a chance to recover, and it very nearly killed us all. My character would have died if not for grace of the DM. But in the end we survived.

The characters (along with new Essentials-style character sheets) can be downloaded here.
The newest Essentials-related rules updates can be downloaded here.

LFR: Lost Temple of the Fey Gods

7/10/10 - Next Level Games

Module AGLA1-1: Aglarond: Lost Temple of the Fey Gods (1-4) (High Difficulty)

Characters:

Kryla Bloodfang (Matt) - Level 1 Dragonborn Sorcerer (Cosmic)
Rhogar Bloodfang (Bryan) - Level 4 Dragonborn Fighter (Great Weapon)
Vanri - Level 2 Genasi Stormsoul Swordmage
Pak'Cha - Level 1 Thri-Keen Shaman (Dark Sun Pregen)

Hooo boy. This was a doozy.

We knew in advance that it was this DM's first time running LFR. And I want to mention in advance that he did a great job for a first-timer. Anyway, we started out with an abundance of players, and an extra DM who just wanted to watch. With such a large party, it looked like we were going to breeze through the session. We did our introductions, found the plot hook, and were just about to leave town when... another player showed up.

This put us over the max limit, but we had an extra DM so we split into two tables. Ours was the "high" table, because we had the only Level 4 character (Rhogar), even though there were only four of us and most of us were Levels 1 and 2. One of our players (Pak'Cha) had never played 4e before. He still impressed us with his strategies (especially since he was playing a complicated class), but it still put us at a disadvantage.

The first encounter was a bunch of skill challenges. We had to entertain some creatures. And not a bard in the group. Rhogar thought it would be funny to throw his sister Kryla up into the air. Rhogar nailed his Fastball Special roll, but Kryla fumbled the landing. The good news is, that probably made it even more delighting to our audience.

Without wanting to go into too much detail for those who haven't played the module, there were three more encounters in the session (all combat). They took a lot longer than they probably should have. Now, I would have expected the combination of small/low-level party + high difficulty + 1 new player + newbie DM to equal a long session. Not to mention we had a lot of bad die rolls, which wasted some of our best attacks.

However... the game was scheduled for 12:00 to 4:00. We got out of there sometime well after seven. We had fun, and if it weren't for real-life concerns (we were hungry and Bryan needed to walk his dogs), we would have been happy to play all night. But as it was, the nearly double-length session made us a little impatient towards the end. But I don't blame anyone. I think both players and DM did a great job, all things considered.

Btw, this was our first time playing at The Next Level Games in Rivergate. It is very nice, clean, and surprisingly large. I know gaming stores tend to do poorly, but I really hope this one manages to stay in business for a long time.

Rewards: 560 XP & 100 GP