30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 21 - Favorite Dragon Color/Type

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 21 - Favorite Dragon Color/Type

Blue.  It's my favorite color, so it's my favorite type of dragon.  For metallic dragons, my favorite is silver.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 20 - Favorite Monster (Humanoid/Natural/Fey)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 20 - Favorite Monster (Humanoid/Natural/Fey)

The Displacer Beast (I'm not up on monster categories, but the the 4e Monster Manual assures me is that the Displacer Beast is of Fey origin).  I've always liked creatures with tentacles, and I love any sort of cat.  Though as cool as these creatures are, I do hate fighting them.

Runner-up: Nymph

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 19 - Favorite Monster (Elemental/Plant)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 19 - Favorite Monster (Elemental/Plant)

The way they categorize these questions is really odd.  Why are we grouping elementals with plants?  I'm not very fond of either.  I like Dryads a lot, but I think I would classify them more as fey. But I'll play fair.  The Shambling Mound is pretty cool looking, as is the Vine Horror.  Sticking to elementals, I like the ice-based ones the best.  Fire is too mainstream.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 18 - Favorite Monster (Immortal/Outsider)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 18 - Favorite Monster (Immortal/Outsider)

I confess I had to Google what qualified as an Outsider.  I like the Xorn, just because they're freaky looking.  Runner-up would be the Succubus.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 17 - Favorite Monster (Animal/Vermin)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 17 - Favorite Monster (Animal/Vermin)

The common housecat, because in some editions it can easily kill a 1st-Level character.

I am Fluffy, the Destroyer of Worlds.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 16 - Favorite Monster (Aberration)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 16 - Favorite Monster (Aberration)

The next few questions are a little difficult because different editions have different ideas of what monsters qualify as Aberrations or Outsiders or just plain ol' animals.  But hey, my blog, my rules.

The Rust Monster holds a special place in my heart.  There's an old story that Gary Gygax stole the design of the Rust Monster from a cheap plastic toy.  Long before I liked D&D, I used to have one of those toys.  I called it a Clodhopper, and one of my Star Wars figures kept it as a pet.  The first time I saw a picture of one in a D&D Monster Manual, the first thing I thought was, "Hey!  I used to have a toy of that!"

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 15 - Favorite Monster (Undead)

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 15 - Favorite Monster (Undead)

The Dracolich.  Because I can't imagine a scarier creature than a giant skeletal dragon. It combines the sheer power of D&D's most iconic creature, with the natural fear we have of all things undead. 

To be honest - and no offense to the person who made this challenge - but the next few questions feel a bit lazy to me.  It's like they couldn't quite think of 30 questions, so they stretched "favorite monster" out over several posts.  Personally I would have just kept it as "What are your favorite monsters and why?", then used the extra room for questions like:

What is your favorite miniature?
Do you prefer miniatures or tokens?
What are your favorite dungeon tiles/maps?
Do you prefer grids or hexes?

Then again, I'm obsessed with minis and tiles.  Still, it's a D&D quiz and it doesn't even ask you for your favorite spell.  Maybe this isn't the first time they've done a 30-day challenge, and all the good questions were asked last year.  Or maybe they just didn't want to ask some of the more obvious questions, because those get asked enough.  I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. 

Maybe, if I have time after the 30 days is up, I'll make a bonus post with some of the extra questions I've thought of.

LFG: Why Did It Have To Be Snakes?

Game Date: 9/14/2013
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 11
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Baer "Halfbeard" (Bryan, subbing for Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Barad Stronghollow (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Demethius (James) - Human Cleric
Jared (Rob) - Elf Druid
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Steif Tartaus (Thomas) - Human Monk
Zuul (Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
We've been given a mission to travel to an island and find a mysterious black pearl.  After a lot of preparation, we finally set sail on board a ship called the "Unlucky Halfling", named after its captain.  We spent nearly two weeks at sea, facing a couple of storms and some minor challenges.  On the thirteenth day, as we approached the island, we hit a reef.

While the crew worked on repairs, Halfbeard, Barad, and Zuul went clam diving.  They found a few pearls, but their activity also attracted several large water snakes.  They were unarmored to make swimming easier, which of course meant the snakes had an easy time hitting them.  They were bitten, grappled, and dragged underwater.  Steif jumped in after them, while the rest of us fired at the snakes from the ship, letting loose the occasional healing spell.

It was a difficult fight, and the divers took a lot of damage.  Zuul fared the worst, and for a minute we thought he was a lost cause.  But Barad managed to save his life at the last second, and eventually everyone made it out of the water.  Low on spells and hit dice, we took an extended rest before going any further.  We sailed around the reef and made landfall at the village of Mora.

The village elder, Wan of Clan Hawk, invited us to a feast.  Then she asked us to travel to their sister village of Tanaroa, and meet with the chieftess Mira.  It was a large group of us making the trip, with all our guides and henchmen.  Due to the tropical heat, we had to make a lot of endurance checks, and it was slow going.

We encountered a group of pirate slavers, but it wasn't a difficult battle.  The only hard part was that a lot of us were fighting at disadvantage, due to endurance failures.  We kept the last pirate alive so we could interrogate her. We took their armor because light armors are less exhausting in this heat.  Sweating bullets, we took another extended rest and made the rest of the trek in the cool of night.

Eventually we reached Tanaroa and explored the town.  It was home to four clans, each represented by an animal: Hawk, Elk, Tiger, and Turtle.  It was mostly a normal tribal town, with a religion based on ancestor worship.  The one odd thing that stood out was that they used zombies for labor.  But there wasn't any evil intent to the process.

Just so we wouldn't have to be too far from our ship, we sent an animal messenger to the Halfling captain, requesting that he bring the ship around and dock closer to Tanaroa.  Now that we were all refreshed and ready for adventure, we ended the session.  Next week our search will really begin.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 14 - Favorite NPC

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 14 - Favorite NPC

Yeah, that's how I remember it.

Tough call, but I think I'll go with Thuldrin Kreed from our Unlikely Heroes campaign.  We was both our nemesis and our chief employer, and probably the most fleshed-out NPC I've met in a game so far.   The DM said the character reminded him of Gene Hackman's character in - well, some Western.  (Sorry, Western fans, I just don't find the genre very entertaining or memorable.  Westerns are too manly to hold my interest.)  Also, Kreed had a bodyguard named, um... Payden?  Paydum?  Paycheck?  Payday?  Never did get that right…  Anyway, Kreed’s henchman was a pretty cool character too.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 13 - Favorite Trap/Puzzle

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 13 - Favorite Trap/Puzzle

I'm heavily into miniatures and props, so I'm drawn toward any cool visual display of the trap or puzzle.  I saw on Penny Arcade where they used a laser pointer for a mirror puzzle; I thought that was pretty nifty.  I even stole the idea for my "Sunken Temple of Pelor" module, but I never got a chance to run it.  That module later evolved into "Zombie Cyborgs from Outer Space", but the laser puzzle didn't make the transition.

As a DM, though, I don't usually use a lot of puzzles or traps.  I'm too nice, and traps often come across as random DM jerkiness.  Sometimes it's like, "You didn't actually SAY you were staring ahead of you while you were walking down the hallway, so now you've fallen into a pit trap, OKAY?"  (I'm so glad passive perception was invented.)  I don't tend to put a lot of puzzles in my modules either, other than the "this door's key is held by a villain all the way on the opposite side of the dungeon" type.  I did make a few traps and puzzles in my "Temple of Elemental Weevils" session, but none of them were particularly difficult.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 12 - Favorite Dungeon Type/Location

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 12 - Favorite Dungeon Type/Location

Typically, whichever one I'm currently in.  I do have a slight preference for traditional dungeon crawls, but only because it took so long for me to get in one.  The first D&D campaign I played in, while an excellent campaign, never had any dungeons in it.  As a new player, I was itching to get into my first dungeon and fight my first dragon, but it would be a long time before I experienced either.

When running a game, a lot of my dungeons seem to be of the "abandoned lab" variety.  Players find an old, usually underground research facility, which is still populated by the weird experiments of a long-dead scientist.  "Zombie Cyborgs from Outer Space" is a prime example, but "Death By Chocolate" also has elements of this trope, as do several areas in my old NeverWinter Nights module, Itropa.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 11 - Favorite Adventure You Have Run

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 11 - Favorite Adventure You Have Run

Easy.  That would be my Itropa module, "Zombie Cyborgs from Outer Space".  Unfortunately we had to call the session short, but we got through the most important encounters, and a good time was had by all.  Runner up would be my Halloween Gamma World session, "Death by Chocolate".

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 10 - Craziest Thing That’s Happened

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 10 - Craziest Thing That’s Happened That You Saw (to party/character/your players etc)

It was at a Living Forgotten Realms game, and it involved a player who later wound up in my regular D&D group.  Now, this guy's play style might not be everyone's cup of tea, but he's definitely one of those players who makes games interesting.  He was playing a Drow Rogue named Dee.  We had been hired to track down a bad guy.  We were told that if we managed to bring him back alive, we would get an additional reward.

Later in the session, the bad guy attacked us, and we fought his henchmen while trying to convince their leader to surrender.  We succeeded in convincing him, though his henchmen continued to fight us.  Dee was still angry about the leader's opening attack, and wouldn't accept the surrender.  While the rest of us were still busy fighting henchmen, Dee fought the boss solo.  Despite the fact that the leader was worth more alive, and despite the rest of the party shouting death threats, Dee killed the boss before we could get over there to stop him.  (A more complete recap of the session is here.)

Honorable mentions:
Morrigan attacks a party member's mount during battle.
Alek fights the cave squid.
Vex and Durp kill the party ninja.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 9 - Favorite Character You Haven’t Played

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 9 - Favorite Character You Haven’t Played

I usually have several characters wandering around in my head, waiting for the perfect campaign.  I've got quite a few Bards hopping around in there, but I really don't want to be one of those players who constantly plays the same class, so I keep those at the end of the line.  The most fleshed-out non-Bard I can think of is Vanya, a Human Barbarian.  She has a hefty backstory, but she'll probably never get used because I've yet to really fall in love with any edition's Barbarian class.

Another one I've really wanted to play is Lynnia Krynn, a Half-Elf Warlock, though she might be too similar to some of the Bards I've played.  I actually have played Lynnia once, but it was just a test game.  I have summaries of Lynnia and Vanya (and several others) in this post.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 8 - Favorite Character You Have Played

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 8 - Favorite Character You Have Played

Between pencil-and-paper and NeverWinter Nights, I've played a variety of characters.  My favorites usually have bubbly personalities, and generally aren't that great in battle.  For PnP, my favorite character was probably Aria Thatcher, the Half-Elf Bard from our Scarred Lands campaign.  In NeverWinter Nights my favorite was Brynwyn Elswyth, an Elf Arcane Archer that I played on the Silver Marches server.  I also liked Dervish a great deal, but she was a bit more serious than my other characters.

LFG: Squid Happens

Game Date: 9/7/2013
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 10
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Barad (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Demethius (James) - Human Cleric
Flip (Eddie, subbing for Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Keyleth (Matt) - Elf Druid
Steve (Daniel, subbing for Thomas) - Human Monk
Woil (Daniel) - Gnome Wizard
Zuul (Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
I missed session 9, in which they cleared out a few more rooms in the Lost Temple. They encountered a powerful Wight who gave them clues to complete the dungeon.  They fought a grey ooze, which damaged Halfbeard's weapon.  They also fought some rats, Zuul collected some tapestries, and they kept hearing a ghostly xylophone sound.

This week began with us barely avoiding a blade trap.  We entered one room and found the body of a dead Dwarf, reaching toward a pool of water in the center of the room.  The room also contained a giant toad statue, which came to life and attacked Barad.  Once we killed the toad, we looted the Dwarf and found a map, along with some notes about a mysterious island.  More on that later.

Another room contained six statues of female warriors.  On the opposite side of the room was a bricked-up doorway.  As we entered the room, the statues requested that we identify ourselves.  Since it was his church, Zuul took the lead and told them of his mission.  The statues parted, and a speaker over the doorway asked Zuul a history question.  He gave the correct answer, and the bricks opened up to allow us to proceed.

In the next room was a giant statue of a dragon, holding a book.  While Zuul read the book, the rest of us explored the room until we found a secret door.  The secret room held the shield we had been sent to find.  One final puzzle requested that we "prove that you are Halav's friend."  Since Halav was cremated, the correct answer was to produce flames.  Out-of-character, none of us figured it out, but the DM gave it to us due to some high religion checks.  Our Cleric used a flame spell, and the shield was ours.

But wait - Zuul and Barad each wanted this artifact for their own church.  We had a neutral party member carry the shield until we got back to town, then we voted on whether to give the shield to Barad or Zuul.  Although it meant a much smaller monetary reward, we gave it to Zuul because it was more closely related to his religion.  He took it to his church, and they requested he hold on to it a bit longer.  They asked us to take it to their main church in the capital city.

We were smuggled on board a Gnome-run riverboat called the "Prancing Queen".  It was a four-day voyage, with stops at a few towns along the way.   On board we met the Gnome Wizard Woil, who joined our party.  It was a relaxing cruise filled with fun and gambling.

Release the Kraken!

One night, while Halfbeard, Flip, and Barad were up on deck, several giant tentacles burst out of the water.  The paddle boat was being attacked by a giant squid.  Tentacles grabbed several passengers and crew members, dragging them beneath the waves to their deaths.  As the party members above decks attacked the tendrils, the rest of us made our way past the fleeing passengers to join the fight.

It was an exciting battle.  Several party members were grappled at various points during the battle, some getting dragged underwater to fight the squid itself.  Flip was brought very near death, at one point getting accosted by two tentacles at once.  Woil managed to push the monster away from the boat using a Thunderwave spell, while other party members used automated Gnomish rescue boats to retrieve some of the overboard party members.

Battling underwater, it was Barad who dealt the final death blow, using some fancy shmancy Paladin power.  The ship's captain was very appreciative of our service, and invited us to a fine dinner featuring calamari.  Our ship was detained a bit to assess the need for repairs, so we didn't reach the capital city until after midnight.  Nevertheless, we headed straight to the church and woke up the staff.  They were a little bit miffed until they saw the shield.  Then we were heroes.

We were given rooms at the best inn in town, and invited to a conference the following morning.  Reasoning that this shield should be used for heroic deeds rather than sit in some cathedral gathering dust, they decided that Zuul should keep it to protect him in battle.  During the debriefing, Zuul gave them the map and notes we'd found on the dead Dwarf.  They looked over the notes and gave us a new quest.

We've been tasked with finding a black pearl hidden on an island.  They gave us 3500 gold to buy supplies for the mission.  We debated a bit on whether to rent a boat or buy one, finally deciding to buy it.  We'll be ready to set sail next session.  Hopefully we won't see any more squid.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 7 - Favorite Edition

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 7 - Favorite Edition

Tough question.  For tactical fighting, nothing beats 4e.  But for a roleplay-heavy campaign, I'd rather go with 3rd.  The real truth is, my favorite edition is the version of 3rd used in the NeverWinter Nights computer game.  The character creation rules are basically the same as in PnP 3e, but I like the fast healing and simplistic shortcuts they had to use to make it work as a computer game.  NWN's Bard is especially different from the PnP version, and yet it's one of my favorite versions of the Bard.

I like having a lot of options to customize my character.  One thing that bugs me about 4e is that the classes don't feel very customizable to me.  Yes, they published over 100 builds, which should be more than enough for me.  But if you have a character concept that doesn't fit one of those builds, it can be difficult to make what you want.  It's hard to explain what I mean, but the best example I can think of is my friend Bryan.  He loves to play rogues, and he loves to wield two weapons.  In 4e, there's only a couple of builds that really work for two-weapon fighting.  The Tempest Fighter, the melee Ranger, and maybe one or two more... but no Rogue.  A Rogue can still hold two weapons, and even take a couple of feats that give you better AC or whatever when dual-wielding, but they have very few options if they want to attack twice in one round.  Again, over 100 builds... and a dual-wielding rogue never occurred to them.

But in 3rd, you could turn any character into a two-weapon duelist.  All it took was a DEX of 15 and three feats.  It wasn't always the best idea, but if you had a particular character concept in mind, you could usually build it.  On the other hand, I don't want too much freedom when building my character, because then things get too complicated.  I've found that I don't really care for point-buy systems like GURPS, because (in my experience) making a character takes longer than it should, and dopes like me can easily build a completely useless character.  So when it comes to character creation, I want a good balance between customizability and simplicity.  With any luck, 5e will draw the best elements from both 3rd and 4th.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 6 - Favorite Deity

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 6 - Favorite Deity

I don't really have one, but generally I favor Corellon and Melora.  Generally it depends on the character concept.  When I was playing the Cleric Nara, she was extremely devout and mentioned Pelor all the time.  But Pelor isn't actually one of my favorites.  I've always wanted to play someone who worships Sune, but I don't think such a character would really work with most groups I've played in.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 5 - Favorite Dice

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 5 - Your Favorite Set of Dice / Individual Die

The first set of dice that I used regularly was this blue set of Chessex Lustrous dice.  These are still probably my favorites, though I don't use them as often as I used to.

More recently I've developed a fondness for this set of Chessex Festive dice, because they look like tie-dye.  However, I tend to roll badly when I use them.  Well, worse than usual.

Honorable mention goes to these Q-Workshop Forest dice.  They are beautiful, and I absolutely love them for Ranger/Druid-type characters (I often like to use dice that match my characters).  However, they are difficult to read, which makes them less useful.

As for favorite single die, just for the fun of it, I'm going to go with the Smiley Face die.  It's just fun.

More pics of my dice collection can be found here and here.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 4 - Favorite Gameworld

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 4 - Favorite Gameworld

This one's a bit tough.  I've played in several worlds, but in most of them the world itself didn't have a lot of effect on gameplay.  But having read a few of the D&D novels, I'm going to have to go with Greyhawk.  There's no specific reason why; I just enjoyed the universe presented in those books.  My second choice would have to be Forgotten Realms, but only because I'm most familiar with it.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 3 - Favorite Playable Class

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 3 - Favorite Playable Class

Bards are generally my favorite class.  I like Charisma-based characters, and I like "Jack of all trades, master of none" types.  It's fun having a lot of options in front of you.  You'll never outshine the other players, but you can bet the party will always have use of you. 

My second choice would be archers, regardless of the base class.   They could be a Ranger, Fighter, Arcane Archer, or even Bard, as long as they're build around archery.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 2 - Favorite Playable Race

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 2 - Favorite Playable Race

I would have to go with the Half-Elf, but it's hard to say why.  I can relate to them somehow.  They're torn between worlds.  In an all-human environment, they're a little bit magical.  In an elven village, they're a little bit down-to-earth.  In a way they seem sort of androgynous to me - the human side representing the male, while the elf side represents the female. 

But that's just roleplay.  Mechanically, in most editions they suck.  If I'm actually trying to build an effective character, I tend to go full-Elf, assuming it works for the class.

30 Day D&D Challenge - Day 1 - How you got started

Note - This post is part of the 30 Day D&D Challenge.

Day 1 - How you got started

I have previously posted a long version of my D&D history here, but to sum up:

I got into D&D late in life.  There were several times in my youth that I almost played it, or sort of played it, and I was always curious about it.  But most of my friends came from religious families that wouldn't let them play, and my brother kept telling me those kinds of games were boring.  In college I got addicted to a MUD, but I still wasn't sure if pencil-and-paper games were for me.  Later I started reading Knights of the Dinner Table, and the table dynamic looked like a lot of fun.

Several years ago I got into a deep depression, and the ability to live another life for a while was very enticing.  I spent a lot of time on NeverWinter Nights roleplay servers, where I could stay in character and think through my characters.  In retrospect it probably wasn't the healthiest thing I could do, but I bet it saved me from suicide.

As I got better, I knew it would help me to make more friends with common interests, so I started looking into finding a PnP group.  I used Pen And Paper Games to help me find a group, and I started playing D&D 4e.

30 Day D&D Challenge

I'm a little behind on this because I just came across it this morning, but all this month I'm going to be posting my answers to the "30 Day Dungeons and Dragons Challenge."  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it.  Some days I'll post several paragraphs; other days it's just going to be a sentence or two.

From the other sites: "The 30 Day Dungeons and Dragons Challenge is a take-off on the 30 Day Photo Challenge, but even more fun, because it's for nerds!! Entries may be a photo, a short write up, and can take any form you like! Status updates, notes, blog entries ... have fun with this!"

Day 1-How you got started
Day 2-Favorite Playable Race
Day 3-Favorite Playable Class
Day 4-Favorite Gameworld
Day 5-Your favorite set of dice/individual die
Day 6-Favorite Diety
Day 7-Favorite Edition
Day 8-Favorite Character You Have Played
Day 9-Favorite Character You Haven’t Played
Day 10-Craziest thing that’s happened that you saw (to party/character/your players etc)
Day 11-Favorite Adventure You Have Ran
Day 12-Favorite Dungeon Type/Location
Day 13-Favorite Trap/Puzzle
Day 14-Favorite NPC
Day 15-Favorite Monster (Undead)
Day 16-Favorite Monster (Abberation)
Day 17-Favorite Monster (Animal/Vermin)
Day 18-Favorite Monster (Immortal/Outsider)
Day 19-Favorite Monster (Elemental/Plant)
Day 20-Favorite Monster (Humanoid/Natural/Fey)
Day 21-Favorite Dragon Color/Type
Day 22-Favorite Monster Overall
Day 23-Least Favorite Monster Overall
Day 24-Favorite energy type
Day 25-Favorite magic item (your character’s or someone else’s)
Day 26-Favorite nonmagic item (your character’s or someone else’s)
Day 27-A character you want to play in the future
Day 28-A character you will never play ever again
Day 29-What is the number you always seem to roll on a d20?
Day 30-Best DM You’ve Had

$50 Gamer Giveaway at The Gamer Effect!

Want to win a $25 gift certificate?  My friends at The Gamer Effect are currently running a contest, and two winners will receive a $25 certificate.  You should definitely go check it out!  You can enter by leaving a comment on their contest page, and bloggers like myself can also enter by linking to the contest.  And while you're there, stick around and read some of their articles.  They've written some great stuff.

Head on over there and check it out!

$50 Gamer Giveaway at TGE

LFG: The Lost Temple

Game Date: 8/24/2013
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 8
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Barad (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Damithus (James) - Human Cleric
Flip (Graham, subbing for Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Steif (Thomas) - Human Monk
Tamel (Andrew) - Elf Ranger
Zuul (Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
Our two Paladins, Zuul and Barad, belong to different churches.  Each church wants us to go on the same mission: to find the Lost Temple and return the "Shield of Halav".  For now that means we're all on the same side, but what will happen once we find the shield?  Looks like there could be some in-party conflict coming up.  Can't wait!

"Many Bothans died to bring us this map."

Zuul's church gave us a blood-soaked map to guide us through the Lost Temple.  During our trek through the woods to reach the temple, we encountered a party of nineteen griffons, but Barad talked our way out of that one by telling them about our quest.  When we reached the site of the temple, we were attacked by some skeletons.  After defeating them, we found a hole in the ground, with stairs leading down into the temple.

In the first hallway of the temple, we saw a face on the wall.  It said, "Greetings visitors.  Kneel and knock."  We didn't do either fast enough, and a pit opened up beneath our feet.  Halfbeard, Steve, and Barad fell into the pit, and the party was attacked by giant ants.  We killed two of them, but the final ant fled down a hallway.  We explored the adjoining room and studied our map.  The map was a bit confusing at first because we assumed the face we'd seen was the one drawn on the map, and therefore thought we were in the NorthEast corner when we were actually in the SouthEast.  But then we started finding more faces - each with their own vague warnings - and the map made sense again.

In the hallway marked "Sounds Bad", we fought several bats.  In the next room we fought some fire beetles, followed by more bats in the room after that.  Steve, the party monk, proved to be an incredible damage machine, often pulverizing two enemies each turn.  We found a library and looted some of the books.  A face in one hallway told us we needed to find a certain relic to go any further, so we turned back.

Dead ant... Dead ant... Dead ant dead ant dead ant...

The final battle of the day took place in a large worship room, where we fought four ants (including the one that had fled earlier).  Zuul rushed in first and quickly found himself surrounded by three of the giant insects, while the fourth ant went into the hallway and blocked us from helping him.  Halfbeard took a lot of damage before chasing the ant back into the room.  Despite this early setback, it was not a difficult battle and we didn't have too much trouble exterminating the creatures.

Once the ants were all dead, we took a short rest in the worship room and ended the session.  There's still plenty of temple to explore.

Afterthoughts: 
The most recent playtest update brought in a lot of changes.  My character was nerfed to the point that I've had to change my entire combat strategy.  No more morphing into a bear and barrelling through every encounter, at least not until level 6.  That doesn't leave me with a whole lot.  I've got a couple of decent spells, but I don't get very many per day, and I prefer to save what I've got to heal people.  Which leaves me with my bow, but I'm not that great a shot.  I wish the Druid had one good cantrip I could use as a bread-and-butter ranged spell, like the Wizard's Ray of Frost.

But they weren't just picking on the Druid.  They nerfed most classes to some extent, because they wanted to stretch out the early levels and give us a more old school experience.  That's fine for nostalgic players who want to relive their games from the 70s, but I didn't get into RPGs until the 90s and I greatly prefer the modern improvements.  What's next?  Are they going to bring back THAC0 and have races as classes? 

Look, I understand nostalgia.  I still have an irrational fondness for 8-bit Nintendo games.  It reminds me of a simpler time in my life, when I had fewer responsibilities and a lot more time for fun.  But that doesn't mean I want them to stop improving modern graphics and only use primitive sprites from now on.  There's a reason we don't still listen to music on vinyl.  MP3s are more convenient, take up less space, don't degrade, and have more consistent sound quality.  Some modern advancements are simply better.

And if they want to keep the old school stuff as an option, great!  Have a version of the game that appeals to the veterans, but also have options that keep things interesting for the more easily-distracted modern gamers.  They've been saying from the beginning that they were going to have lots of optional rules in the hopes of pleasing everyone, so this is one place where that would be very appropriate.

Moving on...  They removed skills almost entirely, replacing them with straight ability checks.  Frankly, that sucks.  Skills represent practice.  Not everyone is good at climbing just because they're strong, some people are good because they practiced the skill.  This takes out so much customization.  Now you'll almost always be able to predict what skills a person has based on their class.  Okay, to some extent that's always been true (ever met a rogue who couldn't sneak?) but now they're just throwing creativity out the window.

I'm told that there's only going to be one more publicly-released update for the playtest, and after that they're going to start being more secretive.  That makes sense - you don't want to give out free copies of of it too close to completion.  Otherwise there's less incentive to buy the actual game when it comes out.

My prediction is that the September update is also going to have even more radical changes, but that none of these last few updates are actually indicative of the final product.  Right now they just want to show us as many different versions of the game as possible, to see which ideas get the best feedback  So it makes sense to make each update as drastic as possible.

My next prediction is that the players won't understand this at all.  They're going to expect the final product to be a tweaked version of the September update, rather than a compilation of the most popular ideas from all the updates.  People seem to think each playtest update is supposed to represent an improvement on the last set of rules, rather than different examples of possible options.  When the September update comes out, half the players are going to scream and rant and rave about how stupid 5e is going to be.  Then, when the final product comes out, the other half of the players are going to scream and rant and rave about how it's nothing like that excellent September update.

You gotta love gamers.

LFG: The Bells of Saint Elwyn

Game Date: 8/3/2013
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 7
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Barad (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Flip (Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Nameless Pregen (Mike) - Elf Wizard
Tamel (Devin, subbing for Andrew) - Elf Ranger
Zuul (Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
When we left off last week, we had just killed a young black dragon while searching for a stolen bell.  A couple of our party members attempted to skin the dragon for its hide, but were unsuccessful.  However, they did manage to rescue a wizard who was trapped in the dragon's belly, and the wizard joined our party.  The next room had several curtained niches, each with a painting depicting a robed woman in various scenes.  The woman was Elwyn, who had stolen the bell we were tasked with rescuing.

At the far end of the room was a pedestal, upon which sat the bell.  After some discussion, Tamel ran up and grabbed the bell.  Immediately the party was attacked by two gargoyles and two shadows.  The gargoyles swooped in first, attacking Tamel from both sides and dropping him quickly.  Several other party members were up and down over the course of the fight, but Tamel spent the most time waiting for aid.  Later in the fight, Flip stepped out into the hallway to get a better vantage point.  There he ran into Elwyn, who joined the battle. 

It was a tough fight, but luckily the DM had a few bad die rolls.  Eventually we killed the gargoyles and shadows, and got all our party members back on their feet.  Then it was the seven of us against Elwyn, which was pretty good odds despite her high AC.  We finished her off, leaving her alive so we could collect a larger reward.  Then we rested and headed back to town.

Reminders:
We collected 1642 gold each.  We are not playing this campaign the next two weeks, so our next game should be on 8/24.  A controversial new playtest packet update was released last night, but it was short notice so we didn't use it today.  That should give us time to rebuild our characters using the updated rules.

LFG: Spiral of the Bells

Game Date: 7/27/2013
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 6
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Barad (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Flip (Jeremy, subbing for Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Halfbeard (Jeremy, subbing for Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Tamel (Matt, subbing for Andrew) - Elf Ranger
Zuul (Matt, subbing for Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

Recap: 
Once again I missed a session.  While I was out last week, the party was offered three different quests.  Barad's church asked us to retrieve a bell.  Zuul's church gave him a mission of his own, but he is forbidden from telling rest of the party what it is.  Tamel was asked to deliver a package somewhere far to the North of the city.  We started with the bell mission.  The party sneaked into a castle, and an iron door slammed shut behind them.  We found an iron bell, then fought six well-armored clerics.  We barely survived the battle, and used most of our healing resources in the process.

The Session:
We had a low turnout today, so we didn't do a whole lot.  We explored a few more halls of this castle, which seem to be spiraling inward.  We found a few more bells this session, and we've kept all of them, just in case.  But I'm betting the bell we actually need is at the center of the spiral.

First we found a copper bell, then a brass bell.  Down another hall we encountered a wood golem.  Barad threw a torch at the creature, starting the fight.  The golem only took half damage from our attacks, but there were six of us, so he still only lasted a couple of rounds.

Around the next corner we found a silver bell.  Then we saw a statue.  Zuul rolled a religion check, but wasn't sure what he was looking at.  We sent Flip to check it out, and he was promptly hit in the face with a blast of magma.  Once we destroyed the magma-spewing statue, we heard a voice mocking Zuul's religious knowledge.

A bit farther on we saw a statue of a horse.  Again our knowledge checks yielded nothing, and we decided to just walk around this one.  Next we found a gold bell.  A little later we came across a small black dragon, fast asleep.  We debated a little on whether to sneak by, kill it, or talk to it.  Finally we had Flip attempt to sneak up and give it a coup de grace, but the dragon woke up before he reached it.  Since it didn't attack right away, we tried talking to it.

"Mmm... snacks!  Crunchy, crunchy snacks!" it said.  We tried diplomacy, but the dragon wouldn't allow us to pass without a bribe.  It requested 500 gold pieces per person, which was more than we were willing to pay.  When we refused, the dragon blasted us with acid breath.  It was a tough fight, and the party lost a lot of hit points, but we did survive.

After the battle, Keyleth expended the rest of her spells healing the party, so we decided to take an extended rest.  We found a safe-looking alcove and got comfortable.  Then we heard a woman's voice laughing, and a gate dropped from the ceiling, trapping us in the alcove.  There was a key in a keyhole on the wall opposite the alcove, and the mysterious voice told us we could get out if we could reach it.  Luckily, Keyleth had recently leveled up, and now had a rat form.   She skittered through the bars and raised the gate.  Then we took our extended rest, and ended the session there.

Reminders: 
So far we will be playing next week, but we won't be playing this campaign on 8/10 or 8/17.

Books: Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Queen of the Demonweb Pits
by Paul Kidd
Published 2001
Part 3 of the Justicar Trilogy

The final book of this trilogy is just as good as the previous two.  The first book, White Plume Mountain, introduced us to the Justicar and Escalla.  The second book, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, gave us Escalla's background story and had her face her past.  So naturally, this third book does the same for the Justicar.

Unfortunately, his origin story is fairly mundane.  While Drizzt's beginnings took an entire trilogy to tell, the Justicar's backstory doesn't even make up a quarter of this novel.  That's too bad, because I like these characters a lot more than anyone in Salvatore's novels.

This book also gives more screen time to Henry and Enid.  Henry has taken a level in badass, having trained with the Justicar between novels.  Enid was always a monster, but she never got to do much fighting in the previous books.  Even Polk gets a couple of chances to be a hero in this one, though he's still mostly there for unfunny comic relief.

It's interesting how the gods are represented.  I don't know if this is true of Greyhawk, or just this author's interpretation of it, but the gods in this book are basically just really tough mortals.  Lolth reminds me a lot of the Queen of Hearts in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland: she has a huge ego, is very demanding, and a bit whiny.  Her marilith secretary, Morag, reminds me of Kif from Futurama.  There are a lot of funny interactions between the two.

The story itself is epic level.  I don't know what levels the characters would have been in the previous books, but in this one they're traveling to other planes to directly challenge gods.  It seems like an especially huge jump for Henry, who was extremely green when he was introduced in the second book.

Again, the series is written in a modern style that might annoy a lot of serious readers, but I enjoyed the lightheartedness.  The author sneaked in a lot of movie quotes and other little geek jokes.  If the nearly fourth wall humor bothers you, just think of it as an aspect of Escalla's fairy magic.  She comes from a race that specializes in planar travel, so it's no surprise they pick up language from all over the multiverse, including the real world.

I'm sorry to see the end of this trilogy, and I wish the characters had appeared in more books.  If you're looking for some D&D books for some light reading, you could do a lot worse than this trilogy.

LFG: Two Wights Don't Make a Wrong (Sorry)

Game Date: 7/13/2013
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 4
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Barad (Jeremy) - Dwarf Paladin
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Flip (DM, subbing for Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Tamel (Cliff, subbing for Andrew) - Elf Ranger
Zuul (DM, subbing for Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

Recap: 
We'd been tasked with clearing the squatters out of a mansion, so the new owner could safely take possession of the property.  We'd explored nearly every inch of the building, and only had a handful of challenges left before us:  A gelatinous cube in one room, some giant wasps in another, a locked door we couldn't open, a vengeful doppelganger running around, and the fact that we were trapped in the basement with no visible exit.

The Session:
When we left off last week, we had just defeated some hobgoblins.  Under a pile of treasure, we discovered Barad, who had been tied up and badly beaten.  We introduced ourselves and he agreed to join us.  When we opened up the door to leave the room, we found the doorway was blocked by the gelatinous cube we'd been putting off fighting.  Convenient.

We fought the cube in the doorway.  It didn't seem as dangerous as the cubes in previous editions of D&D.  No one got engulfed, though Barad was injured pretty badly.  Once we killed the cube, we found a magic dagger in its remains.  We gave the dagger to our party rogue.  We continued down the hall, and found the next door had been spiked shut.  We assume it was the doppelganger we've been chasing around this basement.  We managed to push it back open and kept going.

Last session we passed a locked door with an ornate keyhole.  We'd recently found a key, so we headed back to see if it was the right one.  The key unlocked the door quite easily.  Inside, there was some glowing treasure in one corner.  We sent Flip to check it out, and he vanished when he got near it.  We experimented a little with some rope to find out if he'd been disintegrated or just teleported.  Unable to know for sure either way, we finally just said "what the heck" and followed the rogue. 

We were transported into a room with walls lined by sarcophagi.  Barad used his channel divinity power to detect undead, and we learned that two of the coffins contained something evil.  We decided to save those two for last.  We opened the coffins one at a time, having the rogue check them for traps.  The one time the rogue rolled a 1, it turned out to be trapped, but luckily our heroes were not harmed by the acid spray.  Most of the sarcophagi contained treasure, and we wound up with a big pile of coins to divide. We also found a map that promised to show us the way out of the basement.

The last two coffins each contained a wight.  These monsters are bad news for a first-level party, but our paladins managed to obliterate them with channel divinity spells before they had a chance to mess us up.  (Though we did have to take an extended rest between the first and second wights in order to regain the power.)  One of the coffins activated the portal to teleport us back to the previous room.

At this point, there was only one room we'd passed on, which contained four giant wasps.  We'd promised to clear out the entire mansion, so we were obligated to do this last bit of pest control.  Keyanna turned into a bear and charged into the room, only to roll badly and get swarmed.  She hit zero hit points twice this encounter, but she also managed to do her fair share of damage in the fight.

Our mission now complete (with the possible exception of the missing doppelganger), we examined the map to figure out how to get out of here.  We returned to the room where the trapdoor had been, and found a brick on the floor.  There was a hole in the wall where the brick had been, in which we found a piece of paper.  It was a short note directed at Tamel, and we can only assume it was written by the doppelganger.  It was nothing particularly informative, just a brief statement of disrespect, expressed in the eloquent style we'd come to expect from the doppelganger.

We played with the brick and the hole (no giggling), and heard a click whenever it was inserted or removed.  But we couldn't figure out how that helped us, so we consulted with the map once again, paying more attention this time.  It directed us to go to the Eastern corridor and chant some magic words.  Doing so opened up a new corridor, which eventually led us into the woods outside the mansion.

Tamel searched for the doppelganger's tracks.  He did find some barefoot humanoid tracks leading from the exit to the road leading to town.  Due to an extended rest we'd taken earlier, we knew the doppelganger had a huge lead on us, but we still rushed in hopes of catching up to it.  Keyanna turned into a horse and carried two of the party members, and the trio reached town well before the rest of the party.

Once the party was reunited, we received our payment from Caldwell, divided our treasure, and took advantage of the hospitality granted by Barad's church.  Next session we will find a new mission to keep us busy.  I still wonder if we'll ever see that doppelganger again, though.  He seems to have a personal grudge against Tamel, which could come back to haunt us.

TL;DR Version:
We finished clearing out the mansion and collected our reward.  Next week we'll pick up a new plot hook.

LFG: A Tale of Two Tamels

Game Date: 7/6/2013
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 3
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Flip (Trevor) - Halfling Rogue
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid
Tamel (Andrew) - Elf Ranger
Zuul (Graham) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session: 
I missed the last session.  I'm told we hired a couple of new characters and cleared out the first level of the mansion.  We were unable to open one magically-sealed door, so we headed back to town.

We reported our progress to Clifton Caldwell, the mansion's owner.  Finding herself short on help, Keyleth brought on more new party members.  She set out for the mansion with Flip, Tamel, Zuul, and a wizard we hired to open the door for us.  The final room had a trap door, which we opened and descended to the basement.  Once we were at the bottom of the stairs, the trap door disappeared behind us, turning into a solid ceiling.

An elf approached us and asked for our help finding a relic.  Naturally we were suspicious, and besides, we had a job to do.  When we refused to come with him, he offered to show us another exit.  We didn't trust him, so we tied him up and took him with us while we explored the level.  The next room we entered contained a couple of cultists.  We thought about trying diplomacy, but our Half-Orc Paladin failed his Charisma check, and they went on the offensive.  The cultists kicked things off with a sleep spell, immediately taking Tamel and Flip out of the fight.

In bear form, Keyleth rushed in and attacked, failing to impress them by rolling 1's and 2's for the next three rounds.  But when she finally hit, it was a good one.  Once the cultists were dead, we went to revive our sleeping companions.  We quickly discovered Tamel was missing, along with our elf captive.  A few minutes later, Tamel came walking around the corner.  Shortly after that, another Tamel came walking around the corner, this one accusing the first Tamel of being an imposter.

We attacked the closest one, initially just trying to restrain him but doing more damage when he fought back.  When we finally knocked him unconscious, he reverted to his natural form, revealing him to be a doppelganger.  We continued exploring the basement, dragging the tied-up doppelganger with us.  We found one room with some giant wasps, but skipped it for now.  We also found a couple of empty rooms, and one with a lock that we could not pick.

 A few rooms later, we opened a door to find a gelatinous cube.  We shut the door on it and decided to deal with that later.  In another area, we fought four humans.  Afterwards, we found a lot of coins and our paladin looted a nifty new sword.  Unfortunately, during the fight/looting, the doppelganger managed to slip his bonds and sneak away.  In the next room, we fought three hobgoblins, killing them before they had much chance to react.  On one of their corpses we found a key that hopefully fits the door we passed earlier.  We ended the session there.

Reminders:
Next session we'll probably start by trying our key in that locked room.  If we're truly to do our job thoroughly, we also need to kill the gelatinous cube and the wasps.  We'll need to be wary of more ambushes from the doppelganger.  And of course, we also need to find an exit, seeing as how our trap door has wandered off.

LFG: More Playtesting

Game Date: 6/22/2013
Campaign: Looking For A Group, Session 1
System: D&D Next / 5e Playtest
DM: Rusty

Players:
Golag Bonesmasher (Bryan) - Half-Orc Ranger
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Keyleth Siannodel (Matt) - Elf Druid

The Session: 
We're still trying to gather enough players to make a stable campaign.  Today we played a session of the D&D Next playtest, and plan to continue this story next week.  All three of us created our characters from scratch, there at the table.  It took a little while, but it was still faster than most editions.

We started in the village of Threshold, where we asked around for rumors and work.  We learned of several potential jobs.  The one we picked was an eviction.  There was a castle down the road that had been unoccupied for a few years.  The new owner wanted us to drive out some goblin squatters.

On the road there, we ran into a man who was suspiciously interested in our business.  Or he was just genuinely friendly.  It's hard to tell.  But being paranoid genre savvy players, we assume he'll be a major villain later in the campaign.

We reached the castle and went inside.  In the first room we found four goblins, and dispatched them quickly.  We left the last one alive to ask him questions, but he wasn't much help.  We tied him up and left him in the corner, revisiting him occasionally to ask him more questions.

When we interrupted the goblins, they had been sorting their treasure, so there were piles of silver and copper pieces in the middle of the room.  We were wary of filling our bags with heavy coins in the very first room, hoping for better treasure later.  So we covered up the coins in the hopes of gathering them on the way out.  We did pocket a valuable gem, though.

In some other rooms we encountered three humans.  They claimed to be tradesmen, resting on their way to town.  According to them, lots of traveling merchants use this abandoned castle to rest.  We found this a little hard to swallow considering the goblin infestation, but we gave them the benefit of the doubt.  We ordered them to leave in the morning, and we rested overnight.  True to their word, they left in the morning.

The traders had encountered a couple of wolves and locked them in the castle courtyard.  Golag used his animal empathy spell on one of them, and the other one came along as well.  We continued opening doors but didn't find much to write home about.  In one room we fought a few stirges, but took them out pretty quickly.  We ended the session there.  It looks like we've investigated maybe a third of the castle.  But character creation took up a significant portion of the session, so we could still finish out the castle next session.

Afterthoughts:
I chose Druid on a whim.  I have a small amount of experience with Druids in 4e, but for the most part it was new to me.   I mostly stayed in animal form and fought melee.  In Elven form, I tried using my bow a couple of times, but I kept missing.  I've yet to cast a spell.  I'm still not a fan of Vancian magic, and it was difficult to choose which spells to prepare.  But overall I'm happy with my Druid; it seems like a pretty versatile class.

I really enjoyed the session, but I'm still torn on what I want out of D&D Next.  On one hand, I'd like it to be the "definitive" version of D&D.  On the other hand, some of the newfangled stuff they're throwing in is pretty cool.  For example, one of the first significant rules introduced in 5e was Advantage/Disadvantage system (roll two d20s and take the higher or lower depending on what's going on).  I really like this idea, and it works great in practice.  But I think I would have liked it better in 4e than in 5e. It just seems to fit 4e's flashy style.

So this is where I debate with myself.  Half of me wants 5e to be like one of the retroclones, with a half-page character sheet and simple characters that can be built in five minutes.  Something similar to first edition, but more balanced and no hint of THACO.  The kind of thing they tried to do with Dungeon Crawl Classics or Castles and Crusades, but with official "D&D" branding.

My other half wants them to throw in every neat idea they can think of, as long as most of it is optional.  I could even see making "basic" and "advanced" versions of the rules (gee, that sounds familiar).  You could get by with just the 40 page "Basic Rulebook" that doesn't even include backgrounds or specialties.  But to get the most out of the system, you'd pick up the "Deluxe/Advanced Rulebook" which has everything.  But I don't know if it would be in WOTC's best interests to divide their fans up even further.

I've heard some grumblings that the game is too easy.  I know they've spent a lot of time trying to configure hit points and healing.  The problem is, the amount of health needed really depends on whether your campaign is roleplay-heavy or mostly combat.  A single system isn't going to satisfy all D&D campaigns.  Some games are going to have one fight a day (or less), and the DMs are going to say, "These guys never get low on hit points!  There's no drama!"  Other games are going to have 10 fights a day as the characters work their way through dungeons room by room, and people are going to complain that the slow healing really bogs the game down.

So IMO, D&DNext's biggest failing might turn out to be the options they've promised.  They act like they want it to be the one and only, end all be all, all things to all people, ultimate universal gaming system.  The problem is there's no way to really do that.  They can give all kinds of optional healing systems, but it will take more than that to balance the game for different play styles.  This is something that affects all aspects of combat, from monster hit points to attack rolls and AC.  Even within the realm of high combat, there's tweaking to be done.  Do you want your session to consist of lots of short battles, or two or three really long fights?  Sooner or later they may have to pick a target audience and cater to them.  Otherwise they could end up with a product that nobody wants.

D&D 4e: Kobold Hall

Game Date: 6/8/2013
System: D&D 4e
DM: Rusty   

Characters:
Kris (Matt): Half-Elf Hexblade
Matilda (Cliff): Dwarf Paladin

Our potential GURPS campaign ended before it even began.  Two of our players (who were also our hosts) had to suddenly move out of state, leaving us with too small a group and no place to play.  So for now we're playing at the Game Keep, with the hopes of attracting a few more players.  Today we played the starter module Kobold Hall.  As a DM, I had run this module once before (2/21/09), but this was my first time playing it as a PC.

We only had two players, and the first encounter nearly killed us.  We rolled lots of 1s, and at one point each of us found ourselves at 0 hit points.  The final kobold fled (probably as a mercy) and the DM realized he would have to nerf the encounters from this point on. 

The second encounter was a little better, but the paralytic darts gave us some trouble.  Matilda went down again, and the encounter might have been lost if not for a lucky 20 on death save.  We came out okay, but Kris was low on healing surges, so we took an extended rest afterwards.

The third encounter started out rough because the enemies were out of reach.  Matilda had no ranged attacks whatsoever.  Kris managed to kill a kobold with Eldrich Blast, and used her teleport reaction to reach the rest of the enemies.  Meanwhile, Matilda opened some doors, where she found some stairs - and a drake to fight.  Once again, the final kobold fled.  Not having taken much damage, we chased the kobold rather than take a short rest.

In the fourth encounter we faced the kobold boss.  It wasn't easy, especially since one of the enemies could fly.  But we finally took them out.  One more time, the final kobold fled, back the way we'd come.  Instead of chasing him, we explored the room and found the key to the secret passage.  We had fulfilled our mission.  As players, we both knew that the fifth encounter was a dragon, and our chances of winning were iffy.  But we knew that our characters wouldn't know about the dragon, and would be anxious to find any treasure that might be below.

So we took a short rest and headed downstairs. We didn't stand a chance.  The dragon rolled a 20 on its stealth roll, and headed straight for us before we even knew he was there.  He used a fear power that paralyzed Matilda, then hit both of us with his breath weapon.  We both began heading for the door, but didn't make much progress because were slowed.  The dragon used its two claw attacks and tore Kris in half, taking her from barely bloodied to completely dead in one round.  Matilda managed to save against slow and fled the scene, surviving to fight another day.

"When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled..."

Afterthoughts:
Stepping back into 4e was kind of nice.  It's still a flawed system, but my familiarity with it made for a comfortable session.  I wasn't really attached to this character, and she had a rather epic death, so I'm not that torn up about it.  Hexblades are interesting, but I don't think they're for me.  However, I have no idea what sort of character I do want to play.  We might resume the Adventures of Matilda in two weeks, though it's up in the air whether we'll be playing 4e or Next.

Books: Descent into the Depths of the Earth

Descent into the Depths of the Earth
by Paul Kidd
Published 2000
Part 2 of the Justicar Trilogy

The previous book in this series, White Plume Mountain, had one of the most "gamey" plots I could imagine for a D&D module.  The dungeon is very obviously set up like a stereotypical RPG dungeon.  Some fantasy stories (or gaming modules) have flimsy explanations as to why such a large variety of creatures have an ecosystem in the villain's catacombs, but WPM actually makes these dungeon tropes part of the plot.  Upon entering the dungeon, our heroes are greeted with a message along the lines of, "Come explore this dungeon, fight its monsters, avoid its traps, and discover its treasures."  It's as if they were advertising a live action video game. 

At the end of the book they find out the reason for all this.  (Spoiler Alert)  The dungeon's owner needs souls for a ritual, but only the best of the best souls will do.  By using the dungeon's traps and monsters to weed out the not-quite-epic adventurers, the villain can make sure that only the strongest souls reach the heart of the dungeon.  It's a simple plot, and the author could easily have churned out a few generic heroes and just followed the module.  Instead, he created what are now two of my favorite characters, and gave them a decent plot leading them to the dungeon's entrance.  Considering the genre, I thought it was above and beyond the call of duty, and I ate it up with a spoon.

The second book of the trilogy, Descent into The Depths of the Earth, feels much less like a module.  Keep in mind that I haven't played any of these modules, so I have no idea how closely the books follow their plots.  The first half of the book - Actually, let me interrupt myself here.  Now that I've read five or six of these Greyhawk Classics, I've noticed a pattern.  Apparently it's boring to simply add lots of flavor text to a module and call it a novel.  So most of these books spend the first half introducing the characters and setting up their motivations for entering the Lair of Unspeakable Doom.  One thing I've noticed looking through my past reviews, is that I'm always surprised that the heroes don't reach the dungeon until the final third of the book.  I should know better by now.

So, as usual, the first half of this book is character development and plot.  The Justicar, Escalla, Polk, Cinders, and Enid get lost on their way to Hommlet, and end up pawns in fairy politics.  It turns out that Escalla's dubious boasts of royalty in the first book are actually true, and her parents try to force her into a kingdom-uniting arranged marriage.  When she tries to escape this fate, she finds herself falsely accused of murder.  The gang has to flee the fairy court and solve the crime while on the run.  The trail eventually leads them into the Underdark, and that's where the adventure really begins.  There's a lot of action as it gets closer to the climax, but it never reminds me of the way a D&D module is laid out.  I kept wondering what the actual module is like.

I like that there's actual character development in this book.  Escalla and Polk both mature a lot, and the Justicar actually shows a sense of humor now and then.  I haven't seen much of that in the Greyhawk books so far.  But then, most of the these books are one-offs with characters you never get to read about again.  I wish more Greyhawk books had been able to reuse and develop their characters.

You know how when the Justice League would fight a villain that Superman could easily beat, Superman would happen to be off on some deep space mission at the time?  Well, there's a bit of "Holding Back the Phlebotinum" with Enid the sphinx.  It's like the author didn't know what to do with her, so he kept finding excuses to leave her behind while the gang had adventures.  I hope she gets more screen time in the third book.

In Enid's place, the book adds two new party members.  Private Henry is a rookie soldier, who doesn't show a lot of personality in the book.  Hopefully he shines more in the next book, but so far he's practically an NPC.  Benelux is a sentient sword with a personality like C3-P0.  The sword even has a gold blade, which strengthens the 3P0 connection in my mind.  Henry was okay (if bland so far), but I'm not yet sold on Benelux.  Once again, the Justicar seems like the straight man for a party of comedians, and I'm not sure another comic relief character was the best addition.

Classic Lolth

The drow feature heavily in this book, especially in the second half.  Having read most of the Drizzt books, I mostly knew what to expect from the species.  However, these Greyhawk drow don't seem to be quite the badasses I'm used to from Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels.  One tiny thing that bugged me was the appearance of Lolth.  The book describes her using the older appearance, back when she was just a spider with a drow's head.  Maybe it's because I got into 4e's lore first, but I've always thought classic Lolth to be very goofy looking.  Heck, she even made an appearance in that "Stupid Monsters" page.  Picturing the scene as described in the book made me laugh at times that were supposed to be scary.  The later, drider-like version of Lolth is much cooler.  But this book came out well before that design; it's not like I expect the author to predict the future. 

Bottom line:  Great book, just as good as the one before it.  It's got a fairy-heavy plot that will probably turn some people off, but as a fairy-lover I was quite happy.  I'm already sad that there's only one more book with these characters. Coming up next: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Character: Danica Branford

This was to be my character in our aborted "GURPS" campaign.

Full Name: Danica Branford
Occupation: Inventor
Age: 23
Height: 5'6"
Weight:101

Advantages and Perks: 
Independent Income, Intuitive Mathematician, Mathematical Ability, Quick Gadgeteer, Signature Gear (Beam Pistol), Single-Minded, Versatile

Disadvantages and Quirks:
Absent-Mindedness, Clueless, Curious, Obsession (Harness the Power of Light), Long-Term Goal, Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen: Woman), Squeamish, Workaholic

Background and Personality:
Danica is an scatterbrained inventor, who specializes in useless useful weapons.  Want a gun that only fires at night?  She can build it.  A bicycle that folds out into a sword?  She's on it.  A crossbow that fires pies?  Just give her an hour.  Sure, there's no point, except to prove that it can be done.  Once she has a project, she is completely focused on it, to the point she doesn't notice the world around her.  When not working, she's always thinking about her next project, again failing to notice the world around her.

Creating This Character:
We spent a session deciding what our GURPS campaign would be about and creating our characters.  To choose our campaign setting, each member of our group got to pick one of the system's hundreds of world books to use as inspiration.  As a result, our campaign was going to somehow involve the Napoleonic Wars, Steampunk, Martial Arts, and Dinosaur Hunting.  Interesting mix.  Since I was the one to suggest in Steampunk (actually Ted suggested it first, but when he changed his mind I made it mine), I wanted to make a character who reflected this choice.