Roger's Blogspot

NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement

2012-01-25T10:18:00.000-06:00

As mentioned previously Dungeons and Dragons Experience (DDXP) is being held this coming weekend in Fort Wayne IN. As the name might imply Wizards puts a lot of emphasis on this convention and this year is no exception. With the recent announcement about the development of the new version of DnD, aka DnD 5E, aka DnDNext, Wizards has targeted DDXP as the place to where the announced playtests will begin. Wizards is also making almost the entire development team available to provide support and to participate in a series of seminars and discussions as well.

When Wizards conducted their new version preview to journalists and RPG insiders this past December they asked the attendees to sign an NDA because that version was an obviously very early rough draft and they wanted more time to hone their product. Another month or so has passed since then and one of the attractions at DDXP this year is the opportunity for members of the larger gaming community to get their first view of the new draft of the game. In order to do a playtest it will be required that Wizards get the new core rule set documented and written down on paper for the players to have access to - otherwise how can they play?

Wizards announced this week the players, those that will have access to the playtest material, will also be asked to signed an NDA. I am slightly disappointed, not because of the NDA issue per se, but because I had signed up to be part of the larger playtest community (you can do so here) and was thinking that the material to be used this weekend might be distributed to those who had signed up through the web page. I suppose it does makes sense to wait for the mass official release playtest release until after they have had some time to digest the feedback they get from this first playtest event.

Just to clarify, those attending the seminars and discussions will not be asked to sign an NDA, only those who will be reading and touching the physical material. If Wizards thinks the material is still too rough for a larger distribution that's fine, but over this weekend and the next week I fully expect the RPG blogs and twitter feeds to explode with comments, feedback, criticism, and maybe even praise. I wouldn't be surprised if pirated copies of the restricted material eventually (eventually = sooner rather than later) find their way around the internet as well.

Wizards to Re-Release DnD 1.0 Books

2012-01-19T12:12:00.001-06:00

My intention was to get back to doing a weekly post here, but even though had I posted last night I thought this deserved a mention. This morning Wizards announced (here) that they will be putting out a limited release of the original first edition Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. The scheduled release date is April 17, 2012, but be warned they do carry a premium price tag - $34.95 per book. A percentage of the money is designated to support the creation of a memorial to Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva WI, although if you prefer you can always donate directly through the Gygax Memorial Fund website.

$100+ dollars for the complete set is pretty steep though. The first DnD books I purchased were of the AD&D variety (copyright 1978), although I didn't actually acquire my copies until maybe 1983 or so (just looked ... yes, I still have them). I suppose I have a certain amount of interest in older material ... maybe if I'm employed by then and I get some good discounts ... we'll see.

Wizards obviously has a profit motive here, and the Gygax donation is good PR for them as well, but with the DnDNext discussion revolving around tying the different version of DnD together then I suppose it might be a good thing to understand exactly where the game started as part of understanding how it has evolved over the years. I guess I'm curious as to whether other DnD source material is going to be made available and whether PDF versions are going to again be part of the Wizards plans. It seems like a natural tie-in.

Enworld.org has a good post on the release of the first edition books here. A first pass through the comments sections shows a very positive response to the announcement.

DnD News

2012-01-18T20:16:00.002-06:00

The latest update for the DnD tools was pushed yesterday (announcement here). There isn't much new information to be included in the updated Character Builder (CB) this month, but the list of corrections (here) seemed pretty healthy. Some of these corrections seem pretty esoteric, so if you do come across anything that looks hinky I would say go ahead and submit a bug report as I feel pretty confidant that it will get looked at. I was working up a 15th level Bard a few weeks ago and came across one of the power cards that was obviously missing to-hit and damage information ... but then I neglected to save the character so I didn't forward the problem.

The DnDNext announcement a few weeks ago had really provided a spark to the general RPG blogger and twitter universe. Over the past year or so things had gotten pretty moribund and even many of the haters had finally began to fade away. There's nothing like a new version of the flagship of the RPG market to get things stirred up again.

The first wave included general discussion about the announcement. Over this past week the next wave of discussion has moved into the "what would an all-encompassing version of DnD look like" area, including ideas on what should go and what should stay. Many of the bloggers and twitterers I follow either currently work for Wizards or formerly did, plus there are many others who work for other RPG companies. This would therefore be a group that has spent a lot of time thinking about game design issues, so you can imagine this kind of new-release tease would really be blood in the water for them. I don't contribute much of anything to these discussions beyond my own lonely blog posts, but it is interesting to read what the pro's think.

The first official playtest sessions are still scheduled for the end of the month at DDXP and I expect that this will serve as the fodder for the next level of discussion, especially since some set of rules will have to be set on paper for everyone to use and play with. At this point the overall discussion will have something specific to talk about, even if the rules would clearly still in an alpha state. The general thought is that Wizards wants to use this year to playtest and collect customer feedback, with periodic releases of the updated material that will likely correspond with major gaming conventions across the country throughout the year, with an unofficial target of the official release at Gencon in 2013.

You can sign up to be part of the playtest team (here) and I assume that you will periodically receive an updated "rules manual" directly for use in your at-home group. I haven't seen anything official yet but I am also assuming there will be a special local game store game day event to get people to come in and do a one shot introduction and playtest as well. I expect we will hear plenty about this over the upcoming year, so buckle up, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

New DnD Version Announced

2012-01-10T10:00:00.000-06:00

I made some minor speculation in my previous post about the likelihood of a new version of DnD with the assumption that this would happen at some point in the future. I guess this past Monday would qualify as "some point in the future". Over this past weekend several DnD bloggers had stated that on Monday they would be blogging about a big announcement from Wizards and the twitterverse lit up with speculation as to what the announcement might be. A new computer game? A movie or cartoon TV show? Some announcement concerning the usage of PDF's? Most of the speculation was not around a new release because it just didn't seem like the timing was right.

The original Wizards announcement is here. Several points: Wizards is not technically calling the new release "Version 5.0", but is externally referring to it as DnDNext. Wizards intends to have a year or so of public gametesting and feedback and the link above provides the opportunity to sign up to be part of the playtest. There are not a lot of details today, but the DnD Experience (DDXP) game convention (Fort Wayne IN) is scheduled for the end of the month so I am expecting that we will start seeing more details shortly.

Late last year several journalists and prominent DnD bloggers were invited to the Wizards headquarters in Renton WA, ostensibly for a tour and a round table discussion about DnD, but while they were there they were pleasantly surprised to be asked to participate in a playtest of the new version. They had to sign an NDA to not provide to any details, but the embargo on their blog and news articles ended this past Monday when Wizards made their announcement. You can read about this visit here and here, and the article in Forbes is here.

If players are going to be playtesting they will need to be provided copies of the rules, and as time passes and feedback is gathered and the rules are tweaked later versions of the new rules will have to be made available. Paizo had a year+ of playtesting before they released Pathfinder and they publicly released PDF version of their playtest rules for any and all to peruse, so I am assuming Wizards will do the same. DDXP is advertising that they will be running playtest sessions and will be hosting seminar sessions for discussions about the new rules (here), so we will likely have an early draft copy of the new rules as soon as the end of this month.

There is obviously a lot of speculation as to what the new rules are, and everyone seems to have their own specific pet peeve as to what they would like to see ironed out of 4E. Wizards stated goal of trying to bring together the larger DnD family around a version of the game that will satisfy all seems to be a large order. I expect to see a flurry of new blogs pop-up over the next few weeks and months for the purpose of discussing the new version and playtest experiences plus I expect Wizards to be a little more forthcoming from their end, so this should be a very interesting year for DnD.

DnD: A Retrospective and Some Speculation

2012-01-05T22:53:00.001-06:00

I haven't blogged much during the second half of 2011 due to a variety of issues, but I want to try and pick it up again here in 2012. Our Sunday night DnD group is still going strong. Scott had adapted some older Ravenloft modules for 4E usage and we are having a blast. I will blog more about our Sunday night capers in a future post, but in the meantime you can follow our walk through Ravenloft here.

With a nod towards Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol Escapist Magazine, a website dedicated primarily toward computer games, over the recent holidays published a series of three articles on DnD, where it began, where it is now, and then some speculation as to its future. These links are here:

The Ghosts of DnD: Past

The State of DnD: Current

The State of DnD: Future

The article covering the past is pretty much what you would expect, Gary Gygax, TSR, and then including Wizards of the Coast and the 3.0/3.5 versions of DND. Current covers the 4E release and the internal strife it has caused in the larger DnD community. Pathfinder, the version 3.75 variant of DnD has overtaken Wizards in many areas and they get covered in this as well.

Lastly, the future includes speculation on the future of the larger RPG industry, but of course as the brand name DnD is still seen as the bellwether for the industry as a whole. Is there going to be a version 5.0 of DnD? Well, of course there will be, but when? Will it be a continuation of the current 4E arc, or will it be more of a revision based around the simplified Essentials line. Given the success of Pathfinder, and given that Wizards has hired Monte Cook (on of the version 3.0 guru's that has also worked on Pathfinder), are they looking to build a bridge to all of the disaffected DnD'ers that have rejected 4E outright?

Of course no one from Wizards will speculate openly on the future, the articles do includes quotes from plenty of former and current Wizards/DnD employees. The articles appear to be pretty objective in general and do manage to avoid descending into yet another version of the Edition Wars. These articles have of course lead to other postings and commentary on other RPG-related blogs about the future of the RPG as a business and a pasttime.

Ryan Dancey, one of the former DnD employees quoted in the article, took the opportunity to further expound on his views of the RPG marketplace at enworld.org (the article is here). This kicked off a storm of comments, questions, and responses, so enworld.org pulled out some of the more relevant responses here. I am not sure I really learned anything here, but from a sausage making perspective it is interesting to be read about some of the external pressures that went into the decisions Wizards have made over the past decade.

I've had this thought roiling in the back of my head for sometime now ... what is it that I think caused the disconnect between 4E and pre-4E (including Pathfinder) versions. Previous versions of DnD maintained the fighter / cleric / rogue / wizard model of characters roles, but 4E came out with the striker / controller / defender / leader model. There is some advantage toward having all characters follow a similar game mechanic, but it seems to me that part of the DnD orthodoxy is that your four main character archetypes indeed follow different mechanics.

I realize a 4E fighter and a 4E wizard both have a very different skill sets and powers, but at some point, well, they just play the same. That was not true in earlier versions. Previously a Wizard and a Fighter were not anything alike, whether it be in game play mechanics, hit points, or in general philosophy of life. Most fantasy literature is not about how similar the character heroes are, but how different they are and then how they are able to mesh their skills together to succeed.

The other issue with the release of 4E and its ensuing problems is that I think at some level some people just want something to bitch about and with the existence of an an internet megaphone it is a lot easier to raise mild levels of discomfort to full blown levels of frustration ... but that's a different topic for a different day.

Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble

2011-08-16T21:33:00.000-05:00

As I have always freely admitted I buy too many books. I don't get crazy with it - I consider my options, get the best price, and I read everything I buy. I like to go in a bookstore, walk around, poke through the stacks, read the cover blurbs, and every once in awhile I'll just take a chance on something that looks interesting. Sometimes I make a mistake, but for the most part I'm happy with my purchases.

Of course, when Borders would e-mail me a 33% coupon twice a week I was always ready when I wanted to make my once-a-month purchase. The Borders card gave me an extra 10% on top of that as well.Occasionally they would send a 40% coupon, and around the holidays I would get a 50% coupon. I was a satisfied customer.

But of course, Borders is now in the process of going out of business. Not because of me personally, but likely because of a lot of people like me all across the country. Regardless, as of today everything in the stores is 30% off, and this percentage will go up as the weeks pass. There are still plenty of D&D books there if there was something specific you were looking for, but in general they are starting to reach the point where I would consider them picked over. Still, when they get to 40% I will likely make one last trip just to see what I might find.

So the obvious question is: what now? I have a Barnes & Noble (B&N) card, but that only gets me 10% off. They regularly mark down new releases up to 40% off, but that is a category of book I tend to avoid. I guess 10% is better then nothing, but let's face it - I'm spoiled.

And before you ask, I am avoiding the whole e-reader / IPad / tablet PC thing for now. First of the DnD books are not (legally) available in electronic format, plus I think the whole tablet PC thing is really going to evolve over the next few years. I may be in lust with the IPad, I am going to hold out for a little longer.

So what are my options? I spent some time poking through amazon.com, got an account, even got an IPhone app, but haven't purchased anything yet. I know I can save money ... but where's the tactile feel of a new book in your hands? The smell of the paper and cardboard? And poking through the stacks really isn't the same as poking through a web page is it?

Example: We played Dominion a couple of weeks ago and I really liked it. I'd like to buy a copy because I think I might be able to coerce the family into playing. But, jiminy christmas - it's $45? Well, does Borders have ... no, not anymore anyway. B&N? The local one doesn't have it. Amazon.com? It's always in stock, the price is about 1/3rd off list, plus this item has a free shipping option. Now the free shipping is the 5-8 day kind of free shipping, but you can't beat free.

Will my disdain of paying full price outweigh my covetous desire to buy that next book I want? Will heavy discounts and free shipping at amazon.com wear down my resolve? I guess I could always go to B&N to browse, but buy on-line. I wonder how long B&N will stay business? I suppose Borders failure will drive enough traffic their way to keep them going a little longer.

Summer Delves

2011-08-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

It's been 2+ months since my last post. Mark is running our Sunday night games (read more here), plus I am back to full-time IT work, so my schedule has been a little topsy-turvy. It's nice getting a regular check again - I was finally replaced my ~9 year old desktop pc - but as I had mentioned previously with a schedule shift and not otherwise engaged in any DnD activities, I just have not been in a writing mood.

I did run a couple of delves for our Sunday night group this summer though. If Mark was out or just back from various work or family activities we used this as an opportunity to put together a one-night only dungeon delve. The Dungeon Delve book from Wizard really is excellent for this. I was able to tell the players to work up an X level character and then we used the X level delve from the book - easy peasy.

Our first one was for 5th level characters, although I used the 7th level delve and downgraded the monsters slightly to accommodate. I had a miniature for a Feymire Crocodile, so I took it as destiny and chose accordingly. For the sake of experiment I doubled the monster damage but halved their hit points to see how that would affect the speed of play. We only had five players this night instead of seven on this night, so between the two adjustments we were able to get through all three sections of the delve in one three hour session.

The first room went very quick - the players were rolling the dice extremely hot and the monsters never knew what hit them. In the second room two huge snakes slowed the players down, but this went pretty quickly also. The highlight of this encounter was Mark's Cleric running up and jumping onto the huge snake, and then immediately teleporting off the snake as part of his action. This took some discussion, as the writhing body of the snake wasn't exactly a stable platform, so we determined that there would be a chance of failure - which he overcame - and the move was successfully completed.

The last room was a hoot. The party surged in and started easily cutting down the minion defenders and Mark's cleric did a critical ranged hit to the big boss and killed him in one blow. In the middle of the battle Brian's character was eaten by the Feymire Crocodile. It went like this - Brian's character was standing at the edge of the platform when the huge crocodile raised up and bit/grabbed him. The crocodile then used its action point and successfully swallowed him.

The crocodile then made a break for the exit. The party members tried to slow it and to kill the beast before it escaped, but it came down to their absolute last chance to kill it before they were successful. Brian's character was "extracted" from the gullet of the crocodile, a little worse for wear, but still barely alive.

When you read the encounter description the monsters are often provided roles and actions, but a lot of times these plans are immediately disrupted by what the players do. It was particularly gratifying to see one of these plans actually be able to come to fruition, especially in a one time only situation such as this. Yeah, we'll be talking about this Brian and the crocodile for years.

A few weeks later we did a 15th level dungeon with 15th level characters. We had not played with characters of this level before, nor had I DM'd with characters of this level as well, so this made for an interesting challenge for all of us. I used the "double damage/half the hit points" model again for the monsters, and we had six players for part one of this encounter and then all seven for part two. We were only able to finish the first two encounters the first night, so we decided to finish the following Sunday. A mysterious additional encounter appeared before the party could reach the finale, so the DM allowed the reinstatement of one Daily power for each player since we really had originally budgeted for the additional room.

The first couple of rooms were pretty standard dungeon fair, but the finale was a really humdinger. Fire Giants, minions, and Fire Giant Minions all combined to give the players a real test and to push the characters right to their limit. Leo's character got caught between two of the giants and was knocked unconscious, and several others were getting close when the final opponent fell.

As the DM I don't necessary feel compelled to make every encounter a maximized test of character skill, but when this does occur I want the players to know it. This encounter certainly did that.

Post-Rapture Blog Post

2011-05-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

It's been a few weeks since my last post. I've started a new job and am taking the train downtown to Chicago (and back) everyday so my schedule is obviously in transition. Mark is doing a great job blogging our Sunday night DnD sessions (here). I am not participating in DnD Encounters this summer, but if you want to keep up with these sessions I suggest following them here. Scott is preparing a 4E Ravenloft adventure for us that we will attempt when Mark's dungeon is completed and I am hoping that later this summer I can get him to put together some notes on updating pre-4e Ravenloft modules to 4e. Maybe some of my Gencon attending friends will be kind enough to provide a trip report in August as well.

So I guess what I am saying is that I am inbetweenies for blogging right now. The two hours on a train everyday for the past two weeks and the opportunity to take short break from posting has given me time to consider what do I wish to continue the blog with. I do want to keep the blog DnD or RPG oriented, and there are several books I have acquired over the past year or so that I would like to go provide a review of, there is always 4E news to discuss, plus I always have some story lines roaming around in my head so maybe I can put together some short fiction posts.

Most serious Christians put no stock in the avalanche of interest around the announcement that the rapture was to occur this past weekend, nor do they put much stock in the rapture reschedule date for this October. But there is apparently no shortage "dopes who want to be on TV" or "dopes who run TV" so things like this get completely blown up all over the place. The next prophecy of apocalypse is always good for ratings though, so whoever our next Chicken Little is is getting ready for their big moment right now.

As I was watching the rapture news it occurred on me ... didn't I have a source book written about a post-rapture world? As a matter of fact I did. It was entitled "The End" and was written by a gentleman by the name of Joseph Donka (you can see more here at rpg.net), published by Scapegoat Games in 1995. Apparently this group got kicked out of Gencon one year for walking around with placards that that read "The End is here", which, while not very original, was pretty clever anyway. The guy behind the counter at the game store in Fox Valley Mall (circa 1995) told me it was written by some local people (the book included a special acknowledgment to the Denny's that still stands outside the mall), plus the topic interested me, so I purchased it.

The gist of the story is that the rapture did indeed come and the blessed were taken away to heaven. Then the day of reckoning came and the evil were swept away to hell. At this point the meek really did inherit the earth, which is where the game kicked off. Think of it as a post-apocalyptic America, just without the atomic apocalypse part. But it's a game (as they repeatedly stress in the book), so like any other RPG the DM described the world in front of you and as the characters you decided what to do next.

The book did provide some short fiction to help set the stage for the world the players would find themselves in. Details were provided about the various settlements across the country that have arisen over the short time and short backgrounds were given to the prominent characters that players might interface with over time (The Shadowrun books had a similar "tribal america" theme to them as well). Various skills and levels were included, basically everything one might need to subsist in the bleak new world.

The soft cover book was 182 pages long and included plenty of illustrations. It was a nicely done book by a group of people that were certainly passionate about their topic. There are plenty of other post-apocalyptic world type of games out there, but I think the real-life religious implications made this game just a little too creepy, even for the standard DnD crowd. Give these guys credit though - apparently the book was re-released in 2002 after it had been rewritten for the D20 rule set.

Character Builder Update ... Not So Fast There Partner

2011-05-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

Wizards is releasing The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set tomorrow (05/17). There was a DDI CB update scheduled for tomorrow as well, one that would coordinate the latest tool updates and fixes with the release of the new material from the boxed set. As of last month Wizards finally gotten caught up by being able to provide updates to the CB tool in coordination with releases of new products and after several false starts appeared to finally be back on something resembling an actual release schedule.

Unfortunately the CB update will not be ready for tomorrow - read here. Aye yi yi. On the one hand Wizards did find bugs in testing and they stated so beforehand and if the product really wasn't ready to release then it really wasn't ready to release. I don't have real expectations here, but when you've managed to disappoint someone who has no expectations in the first place you've really done something.

My belief was that Wizards was trying to tie the new virtual table tool (VTT) and the CB and the Monster Builder (MB) into one seamless package. Well, OK I guess, but in the mean time we have three not slow, not fast, but sort of half-fast tools. Let's look at the calendar ... this is mid-May, Gencon is the first weekend in August ... two and a half months until then ... Wizards needs to come through on some of those delivery's. I'd hate to be the Wizards employees sitting there en masse at Gencon if they don't.

DDE Season 4 Post-Mortem

2011-05-09T19:36:00.000-05:00

With Season 4 (March of the Phantom Brigade) of Dungeons and Dragons Encounters (DDE) now completed I wanted to take a moment to collect my thoughts and write a review. I had previously participated one night during the Dark Sun season (DDE Season 3) at a Comic Connections in Oswego IL, but with job and family situations lining up as they did I was able to participate in all thirteen Wednesday night sessions of Season 4. Beyond that I have played DnD for 25+ years, almost exclusively with the same group of people, so it's always good to play something new with a different set of players every once in awhile.

First of all, the whole DDE Season 4 experience was totally enjoyable. There were several elements that went into making this fun.

Our game night host, The Gaming Goat, in Elgin IL proved to be an excellent host. Despite having just opened for business in January of this year they made all the necessary preparations to allow us to start the season on time on Wednesday, February 9. The store set-up allowed us plenty of space to push together two tables and give the DDE players more than enough space to spread out and to still allow plenty of space for the other activities in the store. There were always Magic games being played whenever our DDE sessions were in play, so the store was routinely a beehive of activity.

Our DM, Jack, also did an excellent job running the adventure. Besides giving a regular weekly event for gamers to get together at their favorite local game store (FLGS) DDE is also intended to serve as a way for new players to be introduced to the game. With a wide variance in gaming experience sitting around him Jack was easily able to blend in the experienced players in with the less experienced to ensure the adventure was run smoothly and to ensure a good time was had by all. Jack was also able to marshal resources as needed - Steve provided the miniatures, I was able to help with the maps for several of the sessions - plus he was able to adjust from week to week dependent upon who was able to attend that week. We only had enough players for two tables twice over the thirteen weeks and both times Steve put down his character sheet to DM the second table.

The players themselves mostly consisted of those with considerable 4E and RPG experience, but also included some who had never played DnD/4E or only had a limited exposure to RPG games. The more experienced players helped the newer ones get going and after a round or two our new friends were able to easily jump in full speed ahead in the encounter at hand. The experienced players were able to meld their various own playing backgrounds and styles to work together to make the whole season a pleasant experience for all. I do worry about a disparate group of players being brought together like this but my worries were for naught - everyone played together well and there was no rancor or animosity among the group.

As for the adventure itself, it was fine. There is an inherent limitation to story telling in the "one encounter per evening once per week" format, but having said that the encounters were level appropriate and challenging. Over the course of the second half of the thirteen weeks we would routinely have 2-3 characters knocked unconscious, but it was also routine that teammates would step in and help as needed. Remember - we were the group that revived Splintershield three times during the encounter in which he was actually supposed to have died. Another positive was the each encounter session included a specific game element that the DM could use to drive role-playing instead of just hacking and slashing through whoever stood in front of us.

The pre-generated characters that came with the adventure packet were well-rounded and more than sufficient. The DDI Character Builder tool included the pre-gens characters as choices on their opening screen, thus making it easy for any one using the pre-gen characters to print out a full size character sheet (instead of the laminated card) but to also allow the player to up-level their character as needed. Most of the experienced players in our sessions created and used their own characters, although some of the players exhibited a willing flexibility with their character choices to ensure the party makeup was well rounded.

Now that Season 4 has been completed, why aren't this adventure and its predecessors downloadable (free?) from the Wizards website, including the maps and the pre-gen characters?

Apparently in earlier DDE seasons characters were automatically leveled up at the end of each chapter, but this season the characters earned XP and were leveled up whenever they happened to have accrued enough XP. The way this worked out is those that attended every session leveled up one encounter into both chapters 2 and 3. This also meant that, since not every player attended every session, that in our case when we faced the final encounter we had characters at 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level. The chapters were designed to be tougher as you went through them as well, so if the point was to introduce new players to the game throwing a newby 1st level player into the heat of a battle at a much tougher level than he might normally be ready for would be a bit tough.

The adventure consisted of three "chapters", with chapters 1 and 2 consisting of four encounters and chapter 3 consisting of five encounters. Extended rests occurred between chapters, so even though short rests occurred between encounters it was safe to say that by the end of a chapter each character was pretty drained of powers and hit points. As much as I like the idea of rewarding those that showed up every week with the requisite number of XP, perhaps for a "friendly format" such as this it might be better if every character arbitrarily was leveled up at the end of each chapter.

Part of the adventure packet provided to the game stores were Fortune Cards. The DM's were provided packs that could be distributed to players before every game (and collected back at the end of the evening). The overall reaction from the players was: meh. The most common response among our group of players was "I forgot to even look at the card."

Several points are due here. First of all the card distribution were pretty random. If my Paladin drew a card that didn't particularly mesh with his characters skills and abilities it was pretty much a wasted card. Once that happened 2-3 cards in a row ... well, it turned into a "who cares" situation.

On the other hand Steve had invested his own money and bought cards and built himself a deck that had boons tailored specifically toward his character's clerical abilities. This was almost too much in the other direction - Steve always seemed to have a card (or two) available that brought a considerable bonus to whatever action he was attempting. I guess my concern here is that 4E already has enough problems with power creep and being able to explicitly tailor additional boons seemed a bit over the top.

It was nice our DM was able to provide Fortune Cards to the players for their use, but I am not sure I would require my players to acquire cards to build their own deck, I also don't think I'd allow one player to use fortune cards when the other players aren't - I'm not sure it would really be fair. It's almost an "all or nothing" situation. I'm glad I got the opportunity to try them out, but yeah, "Meh."

In conclusion I must say that overall this was a tremendous experience that I truly enjoyed. I recommend that if you are interested that as a minimum you find a local game shop and go and play one Wednesday night and try it out. Unfortunately I will not be able to participate in the next season in a full-time fashion due to new job responsibilities, although I hope to attend a few of the sessions over the course of the summer.

So, speaking of what's next, what's next? DDE Season 5 will start this next Wednesday (May 11, 2011) with the Dark Legacy of Evard adventure. This adventure will utilize the new character data available in Heroes of Shadow source book and The Shadowfell: Gloomwrought and Beyond boxed set (release date May 17, 2011). I am assuming the DM's will be provided with several packs of Despair Deck's, kind of the opposite of Fortune Cards in that they inflict minor penalties on characters that can turn into boons once the hinderances are overcome. Supposedly this would allow the DM to bring in the sense of danger and foreboding that the Shadowfell (or Ravenloft) is supposed to have on its visitors. I am definitely interested in seeing how the cards from the Despair Deck play out in a game setting.

DDE Season 4 Session 13 - The Finale (05/04/2011)

2011-05-07T08:30:00.000-05:00

For the night of the finale to season 4 at The Gaming Goat we had a total of nine players in attendance. With this number of players it was decided to break into two groups so regular DM Jack ran with David, Dustin, Don and myself, and our occasional DM Steve ran with Kyle, Danny, Zach, and Daniel. Since tonight was to be the finale the groups were eager to get started so the maps were quickly placed and the evening's fun began.

The party stood poised at the top of the stairs. As they gazed down into the darkness they knew the great dragon Actherimos likely lay caught in the time stasis effects of the Arrow of Time. The effect was diminishing though. Perhaps this might be enough of an advantage for the party if perhaps maybe they could gain an advantage on the "sleeping" dragon. The party members were also sure he would not be alone. With a determined grimace the party headed down the stairs into the darkness below.

As the party moved down the stairs the atmosphere of the cave below the dwarven monastery was considerably colder than the area above. The first room the party entered was filled with the chill of winter and occasional patches of ice that made footing treacherous. The first room was empty though, so once everyone was down the steps the paladin offered to take the lead and moved into the next room.

In the second room ... well, it was just odd. Pebbles, rocks, debris and dust all lay in the air, as if it was a cave-in that had been caught in the same time stasis that had affected the rest of the area. If Actherimos really was an earthquake dragon ... well, what kind of power did he really possess? If the affects of the time stasis were going to continue to diminish then there was no need to dawdle so the party made an effort to move quickly though the floating debris.

And that was then the affect of the time stasis on this room evaporated and the rocks and debris began to rain down on the party. The party avoided any serious damage from falling boulders, but the cloud of choking dust enveloped three of the four party members. The dusty and coughing members of the party emerged from the cave-in room into a much larger room, a room where the time stasis was still in effect.

The affect of the stasis was obvious. Eight duergar warriors stood frozen as statues, similar to what the party had seen upstairs in the monastery. Also frozen in time was a large (large!) grayish colored dragon a the back of the room. Figuring the time stasis would wear off shortly, the party quickly arrayed themselves around the room. The paladin approached the dragon, only to find the body of Salazar Vladistone at the feet of the dragon. Long dead, but caught in the affect of the time stasis, Vladistone's body lay in repose on the floor of the dungeon, a mysterious arrow clutched to its chest.

The party quickly weighted their options. They could likely just take the arrow and run, give the arrow to the ghost of Salazar Vladistone, and bring the relief to the vale from Vladistone's ghostly army. Of course this would also likely allow Actherimos to resume his own personal reign of terror on the Vale.

The party also knew they could use the Arrow of Time to effectively "go back in time" and kill the dragon at some point in history, ensuring the Vladistone was never killed in the first place. Valdyra had told the party the dragon would have to be "double bloodied" for the power of the arrow to be effective, and even if the dragon was killed in this fashion it didn't necessarily mean that Vladistone's ghostly army would be disbanded.

So it was decided - kill the dragon. After the dragon was dead the party could then return the arrow to Salazar and end the march of the phantom brigade ... although if the party really did get in trouble we could still use the arrow to kill the dragon. With the decision made and with the effects of the time stasis continuing to dissipate the party members quickly rearranged themselves around the room. The paladin stood directly in front of the dragon, while the rogue could then backstab from behind. Our ranger would provide artillery fire from the wings, and our magic user would hang back and deal with the duergar.

As the party members scurried into place the affects of the time stasis evaporated and Actherimos and the eight duergar warriors stirred to life. The party's plan worked well - the paladin, rogue and ranger all got in some quick but serious blows against the dragon, and the magic user was able to use his shock sphere to take out five (five!) of the duergar with one shot. Actherimos had an aura that caused the ground around him to rumble and shake, but as long as the party remained focused on him its effect was negligible.

For whatever damage was done to Actherimos, reality soon set in - he was a dragon, a big dragon, and he still wasn't even bloodied. Actherimos flew up to land on a rock formation to get a better vantage point for his attacks but the party kept up their attacks. The magic user had found himself pinned in a corner by two of the duergar minions but was able to extract himself with an arc lightning, while the last remaining duergar moved up behind the paladin. The other party members kept dealing damage to the huge dragon and he was finally bloodied.

Unfortunately for the party their dice grew cold at this point, and if there is something we all have learned over the years is that you don't want to give a dragon a few extra turns to perform his mischief. An attack from the remaining duergar and a critical hit from Actherimos knocked the paladin unconscious, so the ranger used a shot to knock the dragon prone, which in turn allowed the dragon to knock everyone else prone. Regardless the rogue was able to crawl over and stuff a potion of healing down the throat of the paladin to put him back in the game,

And then from the entrance to the room the ghost of Salazar Vladistone appeared. As the ghost appeared to shake in fear at the sight of his ancient nemesis he spoke, saying, "I remember now. I know what to do with that arrow. Do not send me back without Oldivya." Confident that actually killing the dragon was the right thing to do, another arc lightning from the magic user took out the last duergar minion and helped to finally "double bloody" the dragon.

The dragon responded by knocking the rogue unconscious and continuing to flail at his enemies. Still prone, the paladin weighed his options. He really needed to take a second wind and further restore himself, but even if he did he wasn't sure it would make a difference against the mighty blows of the dragon, plus he wasn't sure if the others would be able to finish Actherimos off before the dragon acted again.

So from his kneeling position the paladin lunged forward with his mighty long sword and struck directly into the heart of the beast. Actherimos was dead. The magic user revived the rogue, and the party members sat in the quiet of the post-battle cave to collect their thoughts, their wits, and their breaths.

Note: The other group did things a little differently from our group. They nickled and dimed Actherimos at first, but once he was bloodied then they turned on the big guns and quickly slew him.

With nothing more to do here, the Arrow of Time was collected and brought outside the monastery. There it was presented the ghost of Salazar Vladistone, where he graciously thanked the party for doing what he could not do. He stated that he would return the arrow to the Ghost Tower and as promised he would put an end the ghostly army he had commanded.

With the Nentir Vale now safe again the adventure was over - or was it really? Who wants to bet more danger lies ahead? Visit The Gaming Goat (or your local game store) this Wednesday and every Wednesday to participate in upcoming Encounters sessions.

Note: I will post a post-mortem in a separate blog post in a few days.

DDE Season 4 Session 12 (04/27/2011)

2011-04-28T19:19:00.000-05:00

The weekly encounters group at The Gaming Goat met this week with eager anticipation. All knew an encounter with a dragon was in the offing, but tonight the plan was to visit the room on the other side of the hallway and to not go down the stars to the supposed dragon's lair. It should be easy! Don, Steve, Daniel, Danny, Kyle, and Dustin ... uh-oh, we've got a problem - no magic users tonight. OK, maybe not so easy. Let's open the door anyway ...

Last week the party had seen that the time stasis magic that had blocked the door was now slowly dissipating. The party creaked the door open slowly, revealing a large but completely darkened room. One of the clerics threw his sunrod into the room and a huge statue with an altar in front of it could be seen. There were also several duergar statues in the room, but with no attack forthcoming the party stepped into the room to investigate further. As had happened several times already the scene in the room twisted and again the party saw the four adventurers from time past. The mage of the illusionary party spoke and said "I have a spell. Our enemies will not age or die, but will no longer be able to affect the world around us."

As also had happened before the illusion faded from view, again placing the party back into the darkened meditation chamber. As the party moved the rest of the way into the room it was further revealed that the duergar statues were really not statues at all, but were rather real duergar that had been somehow had been frozen in time. An arcana check revealed they were affected by the same time stasis spell that had been seen in other parts of the monastery, and just like the party had also seen the time stasis spell affect on the duergar was beginning to diminish in effect.

Just as this discovery was made the four duergar became unfrozen and after a second of disorientation the fight was on. The duergar wielded fearsome hammers and sturdy crossbows plus they had the ability to fire poisonous neck quills from their thick and bushy beards. The party quickly moved to deploy themselves around the duergar when the other duergar feature revealed itself - the ability to disappear. The duergar could do regular damage from their weapons, but the ability to strike while invisible provided a serious amount of damage to several different party members (Our ranger took 60+ points of damage for the evening).

The party's strategy was to concentrate their attacks on the duergar that were visible, and as the duergar eventually began to fall one at a time the remainder were eventually forced to reveal themselves and to meet the full metal wrath of the party. As the last duergar finally fell, invisible, but completely surrounded and unable to escape, the post fight quiet again filled the room. A quick sweep of the room revealed a +1 Luckblade Sword and was claimed by Daniel for his slayer.

After a short rest the party moved out of the meditation chamber and toward the stairs. The same time stasis magic still covered the stairs as well, and while the party would have likely been barred from proceeding down the stairs previously, the diminishing magical affect now left them open for passage. With the thought that the time stasis spell was also unraveling on whatever beast lay at the bottom of the stairs, the party moved forward..

Suddenly the view twisted in front of the party. The members of the party from long ago stood arguing. A much younger Salazar Vladistone stood at the top of the stairs and grimly said to the other members of the party, "You go. I will stay behind to ensure your escape."

The eladrin fighter argued back "But that is suicide. There must be another way"

The illusionary Vladistone gave a stern grin and said, "It is too long since I have seen my fair Oldivya."

Knowing Vladistone's determination the eladrin spoke, "Take the Arrow of Time with you. It may protect you throughout time."

As the illusion faded the party stood at the top of the stairs. Was there really a dragon down there? Was the Arrow of Time still down there after all these years, and what magic did it really carry? Could it really be as easy as running down the stairs and fighting the dragon? What other surprises might lay at the bottom of the stairs, or along the way?

DDE Season 4 Session 11 (04/20/2011)

2011-04-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

Another series of college visits and a head cold has rendered another late posting for this past week's recap. We had seven players, the regulars that have been present from the beginning (Dave, Don, Steve, and myself) and the might-as-well-be-regulars-now (Zach, Kyle, and Dustin). We had reached the ancient dwarven monastery last week and had fought our way in, but we are also aware that an always dangerous dragon lay in our future.

After a short rest the party prepared to open the door that would allow us to exit the foyer and enter the depths of the monastery. Hearing nothing, the huge doors were opened and - nothing. Darkness, silence, and the musty smell of a long abandoned building all filled our senses, so sensing no immediate danger the party stepped into the long hallway.

All of a sudden the view of the hallway twisted. It was no longer dark and dreary, but well lit and well maintained. Four adventurers walked up the hallway directly at the party. This new party consisted of a gnome illusionist, a human mage, an eladrin knight, and of all things, a very young and a very much alive Salazar Vladistone. As the group approached our party the gnome said, "The duergar brought dangerous help." And then just as quickly as the visitors appeared they were gone, the hallway restored to its dark and musty reality.

What was that? Some kind of time slice remnant from history perhaps? If the Arrow of Time is within these walls what kind of power does it truly have? The mage told us that the power of the arrow had likely infiltrated the entire monastery. Who knew what other effects the party might come across. If the party did find the arrow ... how could we safely deliver it ... yeah, that, and still more questions than answers.

With quiet now restored the party moved further down the corridor until they came to two doors, one on each side of the hallway. The door on the right was unlocked - at least physically - but it wouldn't budge otherwise. The mage declared there was some sort of time-related spell upon the door that might be unraveled as we moved further into the building.

Temporarily stymied, the party moved to the door opposite. As before there were no physical locks, but the glimmer of magic on this door was comparatively insubstantial. Hearing no stirring on the other side, the door was opened and the party viewed what must have been a barracks of some kind. There were four musty beds, each with a chest at the end of the bed, but the room had the same dark and musty feel that the hallway had.

Sensing no immediate danger the party stepped into the room and as they did the room twisted again and before the party stood the same four ethereal adventurers. They were bandaging themselves or fixing their equipment when one of them spoke, saying "Actherimos is too strong. We can not win without dying ourselves," As the illusion faded from view those in the party that new of the legend of Actherimos filled in the story. Actherimos was an earthquake dragon that had terrorized the Nentir Vale for many years, but according to legend around 100 years ago he had disappeared, never to be seen again. The thought that perhaps the party had solved this age old question did little to ease their fears.

With thoughts of the dragon-kind filtering through the heads of the party members we decided to further investigate the room. The lure of unopened chests hurried several of the party members forward and as they approached the chests several ghouls materialized in front of them. The two ghouls and two ravaging ghouls were also supported by a huge carrion crawler that appeared from a hole in the wall towards the back of the room.

The battle was fast and furious. The ghouls managed to get in their damage, and our mage was knocked unconscious on a first round critical by one of the ravaging ghouls, but other than that the DM had a tough night rolling for damage this night. Our cleric was able to quickly revive the mage, and we were able to determine that radiant damage seemed to have an additional affect on the foul fiends. Several party members were eventually bloodied, but it didn't take long for the party to knock out the carrion crawler and then the ghouls.

As the post-battle quiet filled the room the party took a moment to rest. Inspection of the chests found nothing of value, but Zach crawled up into the carrion crawler's lair and found a +1 Safewing Amulet.

With a short rest completed the party moved back out into the hallway. As they discussed where to proceed the mage announced that the magic on the opposite door had been diminished and that we would likely be able to enter that room now, or at least when we reconvene next week.

Heroes of Shadow and DDI Update

2011-04-16T15:02:00.000-05:00

Heroes of Shadow is due to be released this coming Tuesday (04/19/2011). The book goes back to the original hard cover and 8.5 x 11 size format of the DnD core books, but the content is to be a mix of original 4E and Essentials data. The next update for the on-line DDI Character Builder (CB) is to be released the same day and is supposed to include all of the data provided in Heroes of Shadow (read here). I have not seen any news concerning updates to the Adventure Tools and the monster builder tool. The next release of a new monster book, Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, is due to be released in June, so hopefully we'll see significant updates and fixes before then.

There is still a lot of speculation as to what exactly Wizards is trying to do with the original 4E product and the new Essentials product. I understand that Essentials is a more "introduction friendly" version of the game and Wizards has a goal of expanding their player base beyond those of us that have been playing for ~25 years. Wizards insists this is not a repeat of "release Version 3 and then just a few years later release version 3.5" incident from a decade ago, but running and maintaining two almost identical versions of the game has got to be problematic, costly to some degree, and something I just don't think that can last in the long run.

As for the new book containing material for both versions here is a link where a player and blogger provides a product review (here) but then simultaneously (but separately) (here) asks the same questions about what exactly Wizards is trying to do. Having now played both versions I can honestly say I really don't care which version I play. Just give me a character sheet, a DM, and an adventure and I'm ready to go. Of course I'm pretty easy to please, although I would say the thing I would miss in the original 4E is the myriad of choices when it comes to character creation, but that's character creation, not actually playing the game.

Of course the real nut of this whole debate is money. After all, Wizards is billing users monthly for access to their on-line DDI tools for which they have openly admitted they have over-promised and under-delivered. Throwing in a change in platform in mid-stream didn't help matters either (although I still think it was a necessary step). Wizards is currently spending a lot of time (and money) trying to coordinate the production, testing, and release of their own virtual tabletop tool that has direct links into the monster and character builder tool. That will be a pretty nice tool when it is completed ... I just wish I was a little more optimistic.

The debate over the value of DDI continues. Here is a nice point and counter-point as to the value of the DDI tools and their associated cost. I suppose you could also make the argument that the existence of the myriad of choices I mentioned above would require a tool to ensure all of the features, powers, and corresponding math are correct, so I suppose there is a "chicken and egg" element to all this as well. As for me, well, despite all of its problems, who exactly has a better character builder tool than the one provided in DDI?

But is it worth it? Well, it's not for me to decide how you should spend your dollars, but yeah, I think it's an OK deal, and I am at least mildly optimistic Wizards will (finally) get their DDI tools straightened out over the course of this year ... at least until they realize they really should be migrating to an IPhone / IPad / Android-based platform.

DDE Season 4 Session 10 (04/13/2011)

2011-04-16T09:39:00.000-05:00

After having had eleven players present last week at The Gaming Goat we were back down to only seven players this week. Our DM, Jack, has been doing a great job of working with the ebb and flow of players who show up, including making sure players who are being introduced to the game are having fun and getting a proper education at the same time. He does it all in good humor while successfully ignoring the distractions of DM'ing in an otherwise busy store.

Last week the party(s) had been temporarily held up from reaching Faldyra by a bunch of ghostly dwarves and goblins. With these ghosts now facing another long term repose the party quickly moved forward towards the library. The presence of ghosts were still present on the streets of Hammerfast, but the party was able to negotiate their way through the chaos in the streets to reach the front doors of the library. The doors were locked, but a knock at the door brought Alzar Scrollkeeper to the door. The ancient dwarf librarian quickly motioned the party inside and then promptly locked the door behind them.

The library had the same musty smell that every library in time memoriam has maintained, but the party also noticed that for all the ghosts floating around outside inside the silent walls of the library there were no ghosts present. Alzar led the party through the library, past many rooms of books and scrolls, to a room deep within its bowels. There the party found Lady Faldyra deep in study, with many tomes and parchments arranged around her.

Faldyra looked up as the party arrived, quickly and firmly stated, "I have found something." Faldyra went on to explain that much of what the party had previously learned about Salazar Vladistone was indeed true. In his time, some 60 years hence, Salazar was a hero. His party had been named The Silver Company and indeed they had successfully penetrated the Ghost Tower of Inverness. While there they had discovered a great magical item and while most of the party was successful in their escape Vladistone's dear wife, Oldivya, had unfortunately been killed.

According to the texts Faldyra had been reviewing the Silver Company continued to function for many more years in the area. Over this same time though Salazar's behavior grew more and more erratic as he became known for taking dangerous risks. There seemed to be some hint that Salazar merely wanted to be rejoined with his departed wife. Salazar met his end at a dwarven monastery up in the mountains, not far from Hammerfast. In an epic battle against a host of duergar he had apparently sacrificed himself in order to save the rest of the party.

Faldyra paused for a second from her story and reached into a pile of parchments and pulled out a piece of particularly dusty paper. "The key to Salazar Vladistone," she read "was the missing magic item that the Silver Company had found in the tower." The magic item Faldyra explained was the Arrow of Time, a deadly weapon that when used would transport its victim back through time and then kill them at a time most beneficial to the one that wielded the great weapon. Faldyra went onto explain the histories of Salazar and the Silver Company grew sparse after this, and furthermore there are no further mentions of the Arrow of Time and it was assumed to be missing.

With a pause Faldyra continued and said that Salazar was too powerful and he would surely conquer the entire Nentir Vale in a straight up fight. Therefore the party had two options, neither of which Faldyra knew to be the absolute right answer. The party could go to the monastery and discover who or what had killed Salazar and then if necessary defeat it. This might require finding the missing Arrow of Time to go back in time and ensure that Salazar wasn't killed in the first place.

Or perhaps the party could go to the monastery and recover the missing Arrow of Time and return it to it's home. Faldyra further speculated that the reason the tower was unaccessable was that it wasn't "complete" and that returning the arrow would restore it's magical wholeness. Further, Brother Splintershield's protection from evil had been overcome by Salazar's magic, but Salazar still couldn't commune with his long dead wife. It was therefore likely that the magic of the tower was itself overriding Salazar's wishes.

There were a lot of unanswered questions, but Faldyra was convinced that finding the arrow was the answer and the monastery was the place to start, and with Salazar's minions attacking the city time was certainly of the essence. The party decided to take a short rest before taking off, and Faldyra provided chits that allowed the party to draw horses and passes that allowed the party to exit and enter the besieged city. She then drew a crude map to the monastery and provided the magical password that would allow the party to enter the ancient monastery. She then rooted around in a closet and found a set of +1 Dwarven Armor that was claimed by the second cleric in the party.

As the party rose to its feet to begin their trek to the monastery Faldyra had one more trick up her gauzy sleeve - she produced a ritual that restored hit points and daily powers to the party. Now refreshed and renewed the party made their way out of the library, drew their horses, and made their way to the gate to leave town. Unfortunately the presence of the exiting party had been spotted by Salazar Vladistone and as the party rode off into the mountains Salazar and several of his minions gave chase. Guards outside the city were notified and while there was no thought given that they might actually stop Salazar, the party hoped the guards might slow them down enough to allow the party to reach the monastery unhindered.

Having the horses cut down the trip time considerably and by following the map the party soon found themselves outside the huge front door an an ancient dwarven monastery. As the party members arrayed themselves in front of the huge doors Salazar and his minions rode up behind them, effectively trapping the party. In a booming voice Salazar demanded the party not enter the monastery and that he would grant the party safe passage if they would simply just leave.

Taking a hint from Faldyra's findings the paladin approached Salazar, stating the party was the answer to Salazar's pain. If the party could be allowed to enter the monastery and reclaim the Arrow of Time they would give the arrow to Salazar who could then in turn return it to the Ghost Tower of Inverness which would then be made whole, and Salazar could then again commune with his wife. At first Salazar was resistant, stating that to enter the monastery was certain death - a dragon lay inside, the dragon that had killed Salazar, plus the party could be sure the dragon had many minions of his own. Nevertheless the offer intrigued Salazar, and after further persuasion Salazar agreed to the deal. All Salazar would say further about the layout of the monastery was that the dragon lay at the bottom of the stairs.

The party arrayed themselves outside the massive monastery doors again, spoke the magic word, and the huge doors creaked open. Rays of sunlight penetrated the darkness and revealed a medium size foyer. The cleric shot a light rock into the room to bring more light into the room and as he did so the party found themselves swarmed by undead duergar - four ghouls, two zombies, and a mysterious flaming skeleton.

The ghouls and the zombies quickly moved forward and blocked the party's entrance into the foyer area. This also prevented the party members from arranging themselves into more beneficial positions, so there was nothing left to do but slug it out. The ghouls and zombies proved to be tough to hit (the party had four different attack rolls miss by 1), but the party proved to be equally tough. The flaming skeleton managed to maintain the attention of the party's artillery by throwing great balls of fire at them. All in all it looked for a moment like a real stand-off had been reached.

Then the mage executed a critical hit on one of the zombies and it died instantly. All of a sudden those oh-so-close misses began to hit and the party began to slowly push back the wall of undead creatures. And then the mage critted on the other zombie as well, plus the mage was also able to take out two of the already weakened ghouls and the rout was on.

As the flaming skeleton finally burned out the party found themselves safely in the foyer of the monastery. Behind them they could see Salazar Vladistone watching silently, ahead of them were another set of massive doors. Did a dragon really lay ahead?

DDE Season 4 Session 9 (04/06/2011)

2011-04-10T11:03:00.000-05:00

DnD Encounters ran on Wednesday evening at The Gaming Goat and a good time was had by all. The regulars were present per usual, Anthony joined us as a first-timer, plus we had several of our part-timers join us this week, so with eleven people present the decision was made to split the group into two parts. After a brief discussion to ensure the two groups had an appropriate split of character types a night of double barreled fun was ensured. After the usual set-up with maps and miniature selection the two DM's (Jack and Steve) began to read through the adventure set-up, often in unison.

It had been two months since the razing of Inverness. Brother Splintershield's dream of establishing a new town had been burnt to the ground by Salazar Vladistone and his ghostly henchmen, and the villages and party members had been forced to trudge back to Hammerfast to ride out the winter. The first few weeks found everyone adjusting back to life in Hammerfast, whether it be helping to build up the towns defenses or more mundane day-to-day efforts. Splintershield had left town to further recuperate at a Temple of Moradin elsewhere, and Faldyra had been working furiously in the library looking for an answer to Vladistone and his ghostly minions.

After a few weeks back in Hammerfast the rumors began to swirl about Vladistone. The party had defeated Vladistone back at Castle Inverness, but his death only appeared to have made him stronger. The stories told that Vladistone was currently roaming the Nentir Vale to raise an invincible ghost army, and that he was currently headed towards Hammerfast. The current town of Hammerfast had been built upon the ruins of an ancient Dwaren settlement that had been destroyed and served as the burial ground for thousands of dwarves, orcs and goblins. It was not unusual for the residents of Hammerfast to see ghosts floating harmlessly around the town, but if Vladistone could successfully reach the town who knew what kind of influence he might have over the formerly friendly specters.

Early one morning one of the guards on the wall gave the alarm. From the early morning mists emerged a ghostly army, lead by their commander, Salazar Vladistone. Vladistone bellowed at the city, demanding that the leaders of Hammerfast, the Highmaster and the Lady of Gold, allow him to extract his revenge for the injustice that had befallen him. The Dwarves of Hammerfast, using the elements of Dwarven tact that we have all come to know and expect, politely told Vladistone where he could stuff his request.

Enraged, Vladistone spat, "I warned you. I gave you a chance. Now you will pay the price." and his army began their attack. Just as the attack commenced a runner found the members of the party with a message from Lady Faldyra, saying, "Please come to the library. The lady believes she has found an answer for defeating Vladistone." Given the size of the ghostly army arrayed outside Hammerfast's walls the party decided Faldyra was more likely to have come up with a better solution to this problem, so off they ran.

Salazar's presence outside the city was already having an effect on the ghosts living inside Hammerfast. Many ghosts began to unnaturally rise from their resting places and the party was forced to attempt to dodge as many of them as they could on their way to the library. As the party ran past the plaza area in front of the temple five ghostly warrions arrayed themselves in front of the party, allowing no further anvance without a fight. The ghosts, two dwarves and three goblins, began their advance towards the party, so the brave paladin ran forward and began with a series of sharp blows. Unfortunately the brave - but maybe not so smart - paladin found himself fighting four ghosts at once and almost immediately found himself unconscious.

The remainder of the party stepped up with their attacks, and the rogue was able to sneak through to the paladin with a Potion of Health. With the party now back in tact, they began the process of hewing down these ghostly warriors. As the battle continued, the party noticed several things. First of all, the ghosts seemed to be struggling against themselves, as if whatever had called them to fight had overpowered their natural instincts. The party wondered if they could avoid actually killing a ghost, maybe only maim it, if perhaps the spell would be broken.

Secondly, the party had a terrible night for rolling attacks. Our ranger had performed as a dependable source of long range damage for several months now but tonight was mostly frustrated as his arrows went for naught. In fact the other table was already wrapping up at about this point. The ghosts were insubstantial so damage was halved, but no damage was still no damage.

Finally the party's luck began to change. The first ghost was knocked unconscious (i.e., not killed), and after a turn the ghost arose and began to fight with the party. The magic user finally fired a magic missile and as usual it's force damage was not halved, but it also forced the ghosts to stay in a substantial form for a turn. As individual ghosts began to turn substantial the party ganged up on them, and as they became unconscious they too revived and began to fight for the party.

With the battle finally tilting in the direction of the party the paladin used his healing power to revive the fighter and then charged and destroyed a ghost threatening the magic user. The rogue cleverly kept his combat advantage over the ghost as he attacked and did his damage, and even our ranger, frustrated with his lack of success with his bow, drew his sword and entered the fray.

As the last of the ghosts died or drifted away the plaza in front of the temple was again quiet, but the party knew they still had to get to the library and to Faldyra. A quick look around resulted in two additional Potions of Healing being found, and after a short rest the party was on their way again.

One more note: Those of us that have attended all nine sessions so far have reached enough XP to get promoted to Level 3.

DDE Season 4 Session 8 (03/30/2011)

2011-04-01T20:05:00.000-05:00

Despite making college visits to Iowa earlier in the week and to Michigan later in the week I was still able to make it to The Gaming Goat for the DDE session #8. Most of the usual suspects were present, but several of our part-timers were absent this night. Two newcomers, Kyle and Danny, joined us this week and performed admirably. We had printed out a nice color map of Castle Inverness last week and we knew looking forward to be able to use it again this week.

In the front half of the courtyard that made up the town of Inverness the party had just defeated a set of undead warriors and their squires. Before they ran away the last of the villagers had warned the party that Salazar Vladistone had captured Faldyra and was in the back corner of the courtyard, somewhere near the the graveyard. The party was certain that Vladistone wasn't likely to be by himself, so they took a quick five minute rest and then dashed off with the intent to put an end to this horror.

Toward the back portion of the courtyard the buildings had already burnt to the ground and the area was dimly lit. As the party drew close to the graveyard they could hear Vladistone berating an already beaten-up Faldyra, demanding to know what she had done. He had apparently routinely come here to the grave of his wife, Oldivya, although Splintershield's Protection from Evil had prevented him from doing do for the past six months. Now that Splintershield's protection was broken and Vladistone was able to reach the graveyard he was distressed to find that he could no longer communicate with his long dead wife. When Faldyra was unable to produce a satisfactory answer he lashed out with a fisted blow and knocked her into unconsciousness.

The party quickly moved into a position to swarm Vladistone and his four ghostly Brigade Templars. As he saw the adventurers move forward Vladistone roared with rage. "Advance! What chance do the living have against the dead. The soldiers of ancient Nerath will bring their wrath to the Vail and I will have my vengeance." It didn't sound like Vladistone was in much of a mood for negotiation and as the party continued to advance Vladistone ordered his templars to advance and to guard the grave of his wife.

Similar to the ghostly soldiers the party had fought over the last few days the insubstantial bodies of these ghostly warriors seemed to resist some portion of the damage delivered by the party (i.e., they took half-damage from everything but Force damage). The party charged ahead regardless and began their attack. The two mages managed to slide several of the templars into a convenient pack adjacent to each other and the party was then able to unleash several burst spells that soon began to bloody the templars.

The templars were sturdy creatures though and were able to deal some damage of their own as well. Our ranger was able to put up an area of obscurement around those going hand-to-hand against the templars, and one of the mages put up a Phantom Chasm underneath the templars. With their movement slowed and their attacks diminished the templars fought furiously, but the blows against them were beginning to mount.

It was then that Vladistone moved forward and joined the fight. He avoided the area of the Phantom Chasm and went after the cleric, quickly bloodied him and then knocked him unconscious. While this was going one of the mages had slipped through to revive Faldyra and she was able to add her Magic Missiles (Force damage - woo-hoo!) to the combat. Kyle's cleric was able to revive the unconscious cleric, but by this time the fight was almost complete.

During this encounter the party rolled 20's for critical damage seven different times, three times by Zach. Even if the damage was halved is still began to add up, and as three magic users threw their Magic Missiles the templars began to go down one at a time. When the last templar was defeated the party was able to turns its collective wrath toward Vladistone and it wasn't long before he too was destroyed.

With Vladistone defeated the bodies of the spectral soldiers that still remained in the area dissipated and disappeared into the early morning mist. The party turned to look at what remained of the town of Inverness when the spectral form of Salazar Vladistone took shape once again, rising above the adventurers. Shaking his spectral sword at the the party he spoke, saying "You shall regret what you have done here today. I will have my revenge." As the last words of rage spat from his ghostly mouth the specter flew off into the night.

The night was almost over by this time and dawn drew quickly nigh. The party could now clearly see the remains of the ruins Inverness around them. The wooden buildings they had all helped to erect over the past six months were now all burnt to the ground, as wisps of smoke still lifted up from the freshly charred timbers. With no shelter and little in the way of supplies, Faldyra and the party decided they had no choice but to join Malgram and Splintershield and to return back to Hammerfast.

The party scavenged what provisions they could find and then bundled themselves up against the winter cold and hurried up the road, hoping to catch up with the rest of the refugees. As they took one last look back at the town they could see the Tower of Inverness stood unchanged, quiet and resolute in the middle of the courtyard, its secrets still unknown.

DDE Season 4 Session 7 (03/23/2011)

2011-03-24T13:00:00.000-05:00

There were only six of us tonight at The Gaming Goat so we did not have to break the group up into two different tables. There was not a real game map provided for this encounter, so we sourced the provided picture of the town into a spreadsheet, stretched and pulled the map into an appropriate size, and then printed and taped up a game map from there. We will apparently need that map next week as well.

Brother Splintershield was still alive, but was not healthy. He had been knocked unconscious three times in last week's encounter but the party members had made a combined effort to keep their leader alive. And worse, his protection from evil spell had been obliterated. After a short rest the party decided it was time to get Splintershield back to safety in Inverness so he could rest.

Side note: Apparently the encounter, named something like "The Death of Splintershield", had a different intended outcome.

As the party made their way back through the woods they began to see a red and yellow glow in the sky emanating from the direction of Inverness. Concerned, the party moved quickly forward until they could see that yes, the newly built structures inside the walls at Castle Inverness were indeed on fire. In the flickering firelight the party members could also see towns people being chased and attacked by more of the ghostly Phantom Squires and Phantom Armigers that the party had just defeated back in the woods.

Of more immediate concern though was that other phantoms were prowling in the woods surrounding the town. If the party was going to get inside the castle walls they would have to sneak past these phantoms first. A skill challenge was deployed to test the party's various skills and the party quickly met the challenge and was able to sneak through the woods successfully and reach the castle walls (and earned a +2 to their attack rolls for the night as well).

Upon reaching the walls they were met by a stream of townspeople leaving the castle, led by the half-orc guard captain Malgram. He warned the party about who or what was inside the walls, and said the phantoms inside were being led by that ghost that had failed to gain entry to the castle grounds six months previous - Salazar Vladistone. The party gave warning to Malgram about the phantoms prowling in the woods, and Malgram agreed to take the ailing Brother Splintershield with him. Malgram stated there were several townspeople still inside, plus Faldyra was missing inside as well. As Malgram herded his band of refugees up the road and away from the castle he bade the party well and expressed hope that we would meet again,

The party then quickly concocted a plan of attack. The paladin and the cleric would walk through the main entrance and draw the attention of the phantoms inside, the rogue would sneak around and attack from the back, and the two mages and the ranger would clamber up the wall and do their damage from above.

Everything went as planned. The six Phantom Squire minions were taken out almost immediately, leaving only two Phantom Armigers and two as-of-yet unknown phantom types. Unfortunately our rogue got distracted by saving a towns person from a burning building, so despite the cleric being able to push and then immobilize one of the phantoms inside a burning building, and despite excellent artillery fire from the wall, and despite having bloodied three of the four remaining phantoms, the paladin and cleric quickly found themselves on their backs in a state of unconsciousness.

Things looked dire for our two heroes in repose but the remainder of the party quickly stepped up to finish the job. Our rogue reappeared to finish off one of the Armigers, one of the mages put up a flame wall to otherwise protect the dying, and as the other phantoms split up to go after the rest of the party members they were eventually knocked off one by one.

The ranger was able to critically hurt one of the remaining phantoms, although he couldn't finish the job because he tried to get tricky and managed to fall off the wall. While one mage finished off that phantom the other mage was able to stabilize and revive the cleric, and the rogue used a Potion of Healing he had "found" to revive the paladin. The newly revived paladin then threw a hand axe at the last remaining Phantom Armiger to kill the final phantom in sight.

With the phantoms defeated and with the party members all back on their feet the adventurers quickly took assessment of their situation. For one thing, Salazar Vladistone was still inside the castle walls somewhere, and Faldyra had not been found yet either. A group of fleeing townspeople told the party that there were more of the phantoms in the area of the graveyard, and after a short rest that is where we will pick it up next week.

And during all this time, the mysterious tower stood there, mute and unchanged from when it had first appeared. The light given off from the burning houses drew ever changing shadows across the tower - what is it's secret? Will Salazar Vladistone re-enter the tower? Will Splintershield recover, and if so, will he want to rebuild his fledgling village? Stay tuned!

New DDI Monster Builder Tool Released

2011-03-23T16:14:00.000-05:00

As promised Wizards officially released the new web-based Adventure Tools yesterday, which specifically meant the new Monster Builder tool (the announcement can be read here). The announcement seemed to include as much text about what the new tool wasn't as opposed to what it was. Regardless, you can find the link to the new tool - and to the still available to be downloaded but never to be updated Adventure Tools - here.

The new Adventure Tool has been available to a limited set of customers for beta testing over the last several months. Wizards was trying to link in the use of the Monster Builder with the new Virtual Table Top tool, so they have essentially been beta testing both simultaneously. With that amount of testing and feedback one would think that the Adventure Tool release yesterday would have been more well received. It was apparently immediately clear that the release was the same beta version with very few if any of the promised features or corrections (read more here). Apparently the tool also had to be taken offline briefly yesterday when a major bug was discovered.

I have avoided accessing the new tool so far. I figure that whenever something new like this was rolled out there would be issues with too many users overloading the servers, but after a few days these things have usually sorted themselves out. I understand that Wizards has been trying to push the envelope of gaming by providing tools and on-line content that all link and work together, but they still appear to have trouble getting the basic building blocks done, much less done well.

DDE Season 4 Session 6 (03/16/2011)

2011-03-17T13:16:00.000-05:00

Another excellent night of fun at The Gaming Goat. We were missing Jorie and Dave (uh-oh, our mage!) tonight but two new players, Daniel and Devon, joined us for session six of the fourth season of DnD Encounters. The other issue of note was that this was our first session after having changed the clock for daylights savings time - it was kind of odd to start playing when it was still light outside.

We had ended last week after having defeated a group of eight zombie-like former townspeople that had all been infected with those odd red crystal bumps. Brother Splintershield stated he knew where the blight was coming from and he wanted to keep moving so he could consecrate the ground and put an end to this mysterious disease. The party managed to talk him into taking a five minute rest before we moved on, giving all the party members a few minutes to do some healing and to gather their thrown weapons before pressing on.

After their rest the party then moved past the area where last week's fight had occurred, keeping their eyes open for whatever may lay ahead. Those to the left came across a crater, where at first glance it appeared something had fallen from the sky, displacing and twisting trees in the bottom of the pit. Further investigation showed that the edges of the pit seemed to fade in and out of reality, thus giving a hint that this was something not natural. Mangled brush outside the area of the crater showed that whatever had fallen into the crater had been drug out of it.

In the center of the area several party members came across a small pond. There was an expectation that any small body of water would have been covered with ice at this time of year, but that was not the case here. Small sections of ice bobbed around the edges of the pool and red crystal dots were scattered across those pieces of ice. The water itself appeared to be quite warm and little rivulets of steam could be seen to be rising from the pool. Was this the water we had been warned about by the dead workers found outside the castle grounds (two weeks ago)?

On the right side of the area a small cave was discovered. Despite the smell of something dead emanating from the cave our ranger crept in to investigate. There he discovered the body of a dead bear. Vicious claw marks could be seen on the body of the bear and the ever present red crystal bumps were present as well. The ranger was of the opinion that the bear had been dead for about a week but in that time the body had not become part of the food chain.

The skirmish line of adventurers then continued on and moved into a batch of trees that were all infected with red crystal bumps and were also twisted and bent into unnatural shapes. Around one set of trees sat a small stream in which lay a odd looking body of some sort. It was not something of this world, but whatever it was was covered with ready crystal bumps and despite having been dead for several days and sitting in cold water was still emanating a palpable amount of heat. After some discussion it was determined that this was a demon that had somehow been plucked out of - or pushed out of - another dimension and had fallen here, causing the crater and it's blinking edges, and was now the center of all the blight in the forest.

That was enough for Brother Splintershield. He immediately began to prepare his ritual of cleansing that would consecrate the ground in this area and would purge the forest of the blight. The other party members set up a protective circle around the chanting Dwarf priest to ensure Splintershield's cleaning ritual was not interrupted. After about ten minutes of preparation and another ten minutes of casting a wave of righteous energy flowed from Brother Splintershield and rolled out into the surrounding forest.

Just as quickly as the cleaning spell appeared it was immediately overrun by a wave of evil that seemed to push back against and then evaporate the initial wave. As the wave of evil pushed back several bodies exploded from the ground immediately around the party. Five ghostly looking Phantom Squires were armed with swords and cross bows and five slightly larger ghostly looking Phantom Armigers were armed with spears, with one of the Armigers immediately plunging a spear into Splintershield's chest.

And so the battle was on. The Squires proved to be tough to hit but easy to kill (i.e., minions), while the Armigers were easier to hit, but much tougher to kill. The party responded with a vengeance and was quickly able to bloody several of the Armigers, but then the battle drew more or less to a standstill as the party's dice grew cold. The Armigers odd ghostly bodies also seemed to be able to diminish some of the damage done to them as well, and the longer they managed to stayed alive the more damage they were able to do. That, plus the squires had the annoying habit of jumping in front of a swinging sword to take the damage and spare the adjacent armigers.

Brother Splintershield was the clear focus of the undead's ire. The party did their best to rally to his defense, but the combined and furious attacks managed to knock Splintershield into a state of unconsciousness three separate times. My paladin stayed close with his Defenders Aura to help with its bonus, plus the cleric and the druid used their spells to keep the old cleric from reaching a state of death. The Druid took 50+ points of damage for the evening (and his little dog too) and found himself in a state of unconsciousness for several rounds as well.

With the Squires eventually cleared the party finally began to do some damage again to the Armigers until finally they were all defeated as well. Despite the repeated attacks Splintershield was able to make it through the encounter alive. It was not clear if his original cleansing spell was now in force or if it had been overridden by the wave of evil that followed it - we'll find out next week.

This encounter really tested the entire party, with several key misses causing the encounter to go much longer than expected. Many of the party members were bloodied, some severely so, and while everyone in the party struggled with poor dice rolls at times we wouldn't have made it through the encounter without everyone in the party contributing as well. It would have been nice if we had our mage for this encounter though.

With the combat over the party stopped to take a five minute rest. A set of +1 Magic Armor was uncovered and was claimed by our rogue (Dustin), and we'll pick it up from there next week.

Note: We are expecting several missing players to return next week, so we may split into two tables.

Character Builder Updated (03/15)

2011-03-15T14:48:00.000-05:00

Wizards announced today that the updated character builder tool was released. I had posted previously (here) that the update was to have been released a week ago, but apparently Wizards found a serious printing problem and opted to hold it back for another week. The Wizards formal release announcement can be read here.

If you read the announcement the really big news is that the new on-line Monster Tool is scheduled to be released March 22. I must admit I haven't thought much about "Essentials Monsters" versus "Core DnD Monsters" ... I going to go with the assumption (always dangerous, I know) that the tool will allow to you select from either category. The Monster Tool has been beta tested for the last three months so hopefully it should be pretty solid upon release.

DDE Season 4 Session 5 (03/09/2011)

2011-03-10T09:54:00.000-06:00

Another Wednesday night at The Gaming Goat and another good night of DnD fun. The regulars (DM Jack, Roger, Dave, Don, Robin, and Steve) were all present along with those that have missed a few of the sessions (Tim, Jorie, and Dustin), plus we picked up another first timer (Zach) last night. That meant we had nine players, so Robin decided to sit out for the night. Eight players would still be a challenge though, but after some discussion we decided to run as one table for tonight since there really wasn't a second DM that was prepared to run for the evening. At least two of our players announced they would miss next week, so we'll play it by ear for now.

Six months of game time has passed since we last met. The basic structure of the town had taken shape by this time. The crumbling walls of the keep were still there, as was the mysterious tower in the middle of the courtyard, but now several commonhouses, a temple, a stable, and a tavern/inn had been built around the tower. Several farms dotted the landscape outside the walls of the courtyard and the road back north had started to have been rebuilt. Most importantly Brother Splintershield's magical Protection from Evil spell for the area had held and the town had encountered no more wandering ghosts.

The party members had spent the last six months doing what normal settlers would do. They had participated in the construction of the new buildings, had worked as caravan guards as new materials and citizens were delivered to the town, and had participated in patrols in and around the surrounding Harken Woods. Given that the original caravan would have arrived in spring or early summer now that six months had passed winter was fast approaching and recently there had been a major effort to make final preparations to get the town ready for the coming cold season.

On this day a light snow had fallen and as the sun drew down the party members joined the reverie in the tavern. A warm fire, a drink (or two or three) of ale, and the proximity of new friends had given everyone a warm glow. Faldyva Allariel soon arrived and joined the party members as well. She had spent much of the last six months studying the tower, but had not made much progress. The tower has finally been scaled, but still no doors or windows or even any sort of writing or clues had been found. Its looming presence over the new settlement was a constant reminder to the townspeople of the mystery of the Castle Inverness.

The Druid overheard several foresters talking about mysterious animal deaths that had been encountered over the past week in the forest. Animal carcasses had been found that had a diseased look to them, sickly, emaciated, and covered with a red crystalline spots that had a gold fleck to them. The foresters all agreed that what ever it was wasn't natural. When asked further the only thing unusual they had seen was a set of glowing lights that had floated around in the dark - a will-o'-wisps maybe, a ghost, something from the fey realm perhaps, but they didn't know much more beyond that.

Just then there was a a loud boom as the door to the inn burst open and in strode Brother Splintershield. He had a stern look on his face, and was looking for somebody. Spotting Faldyra he marched over to her, waving over the party members as he strode across the floor. "Come take a look at this," he murmured, trying not to alarm the others in the inn.

Splintershield turned and strode out of the inn, Faldyra and the party members in tow. He led the group through the front gate where Malgram (now the town constable) stood over six dead bodies. A quick check was able to identify the bodies as those of workers from the town who had been part of a larger group that had left the town earlier in the day to work in the woods. There was no obvious cause of death and there appeared to be no poison involved, but the bodies were covered with red crystalline bumps that had a gold flecked appearance to them. A quick arcana check determined that the pustules were indeed magical in nature, but the magic in them was now either dormant or non-existent, and in their current state were not contagious.

Malgram told the party that the workers had been walking toward the town, only to collapse once they stepped inside the area of the Protection from Evil. He further reported that a working party of 15 had left the town with a wagon that morning but he did not know exactly where they had gone, nor did he know the fate of the missing workers. Just then one of the "dead" workers lurched back to life, grabbed the startled mage, and croaked out the following words: "A Demon of the forest, a plague. Drank the waters that others yet may live." The worker then resumed his state of permanent repose, and the arrows that Malgram pumped into the corpse didn't make much difference as to its state.

Splintershield was now determined that the source of this blight be found and taken care of immediately. The party knew of several springs in the area, as well as several creeks that wound there way through the forest. After some discussion it was decided the party would visit the springs located to the east of town, and Malgram would dispatch several of the town guards to inspect the ones to the north and west. Then Splintershield announced that he to would be coming with the party. Several party members and Malgram tried to dissuade the determined Dwarf from this course of action, but he stubborn cleric would hear none of it - he was going and that was it.

The party, with Brother Splintershield in tow, began their trek east through the Harken Wood. There was a full moon that provided some illumination, but most party members had torches. There was a cool breeze, a gentle wind that provided the rustle of leaves to an otherwise silent forest. The party made good time as they approached the closest spring, until they noticed several changes to the trees. Several of the trees appeared to have red crystalline bumps on them, and as the party entered this area the noises of the forest suddenly went quiet.

From out of the darkness ahead stumbled eight lurching figures. They carried axes and wore tattered clothes, and in the glow of moonlight gave the appearance to have been the missing workers from the town. But whatever they might have been then didn't matter any more - they were zombies now and intended to do the party much harm.

The party quickly deployed to handle the wave of zombies, the fighters in the front and those providing long range support doing their damage from the rear. As the zombies drew close the red crystalline dots with the gold flecks could be seen on their bodies, giving the party concern about the possibility of becoming infected with whatever it was that affected the zombies. One of the mages was able to determine that the red spots likely gave the infected body some additional resistance based on the type of damage done to it, i.e., a zombie taking fire damage would have some level of resistance to fire damage after that point.

But by then the battle was on and the fighting was fast and furious. Jorie's rogue ran forward and nailed one of the zombies for a massive 27 (!) points of damage, but then left herself exposed to the blows of other advancing zombies. By the time the night was over she had taken 50+ points of damage, with several of our clerics having stepped up to pump up her hit points and keep her in the fight.

Even with eight players and eight zombies the fight went pretty quick. Several party members got bloodied but other than the aforementioned rogue no one was hurt seriously. As the fight drew to a close the party saw no more immediate danger and decided to take a short rest. Splintershield stated he could tell the location of the foul blight was nearby and he was anxious to move further into the forest so that he could eliminate its presence.

As the party members poked around the bodies of the zombies they came across a +1 set of Delver's Armor that Don claimed for his ranger. With the 250 XP earned tonight the party members that had attended all five sessions had earned enough XP to reach level 2 (woo-hoo!).

Rules questions for next week: The Druid's wolf has an Aura 1 that states "Enemies in aura grant combat advantage." Is that combat advantage to the wolf only, or does that include other members of the party?

News and Links

2011-03-04T22:11:00.000-06:00

This is GM Weekend (Friday, March 4 though Monday, March 7). Online game stores are offering most of their PDF formatted products at 25% off. I have purchased from rpgnow.com and goodmangames.com in the past, but I know there are others. If there was something out there you ever wanted that was obscure, hard to find, out-of-date, out-of-print, or just long forgotten then this is a way to fill out your library with a little savings included.

Wizards has made a couple of announcements this week as well. There is to be an update to the character builder tool this coming Tuesday (March 8). This link gives more details. It looks like they are still squashing a lot of bugs, but it also looks like they are going to start including some enhancements and new features as well.

Wizards also posted some information on the upcoming DnD releases on the schedule for the first half of 2011 here. Earlier in the year Wizards announced some items that were scheduled to be released this year had been canceled, but there are still some interesting items upcoming.

I like Essentials and I like the Core 4E line, but I often wonder if Wizards has somehow simply muddied the waters by releasing two separate DnD lines even though they both use the same game mechanic. Separating the product line has also forced the Character Builder tool to change platforms, and while I think the browser platform is the better choice, it still means that considerable time and effort must be placed into getting the new tools tightened up. There is also considerable work that is going into the Virtual Table Top (VTT) tool, currently undergoing beta testing.

I guess what I am saying is that Wizards seems to be going through a lot of churn and most of the output seems to be in the form of sidesteps, not really steps that take the game forward. Mike Mearls, one of the RnD managers for Wizards, recently posted an article (here) that gave a little history of product release schedules through the years and the different versions of the game. The article then segues into a discussion of how much is too much too fast and then ends with a survey for what would of most interest to the reader. I suppose that if Wizards is in the middle of some necessary retooling then this would be a good time to feel out the customer base to find out where they might go next.

DDE Season 4 Session 4 (03/02/2011)

2011-03-03T11:08:00.001-06:00

Our mage was back this week, but our druid was sick. A new player, Dustin, joined us and played the rogue. The DM recapped last week for us - we had entered the courtyard to ensure it was safe, had been attacked by three ocher jelly's, but by the end of the night had defeated the jelly's and had inspected the four crumbling turrets in each corner of the runs of Castle Inverness.

That meant tonight the only section left to inspect was the handful of standing stones in the middle of the courtyard. Faldyra had expected a full size tower to be here, but as the party moved cautiously forward the only thing that was found there now were the upright stones and a single cornerstone. If there has indeed been a tower here at some point the party would have expected some amount of leftover rubble, but as it was, other than the single cornerstone, there wasn't even any sort of stone base or floor, just a grassy knoll.

Inspection of the single cornerstone revealed that it was quite a bit older than any of the other structures of the castle courtyard. There was an inscription on it, but the language was not a familiar one. The mage and Faldyra spent some time trying to decipher the inscription, and decided that the inscription was from an old world "Oerth" tongue and it read: Galap-Dreidel. It was nice to have it interpreted, but that still meant nothing to the party.

Side note: Apparently Galap-Dreidel was the owner of the tower in the original module.

With the courtyard of Castle Inverness now deemed safe the party waved the caravan forward. While the wagons creaked up the hill and arrayed themselves around the vast courtyard the party members reviewed the Iron Skin Belt found last week and decided that Robin, our full-time rogue, should get it.

It was dark once the once the wagons were safely in the courtyard so the settlers quickly set-up torches and camp fires and began to unload the wagons and prepare for a night's rest. The party members were all settlers as well, so they also jumped in to help as needed, although there was apparently a rumor that our new rogue had taken advantage of the confusion to help himself to some snacks found in one of the wagons.

While this was going on Brother Splintershield and his acolytes had begun their preparations for casting the ritual spell that would consecrate the land in and around the castle ruins. Malgram had posted a pair of his guards at each corner of the courtyard, and for a few minutes the only noise of the quiet evening was the hustle and bustle of the unloading of the wagons and the setting up of camps for the evening.

And then the tower simply appeared. Vaguely translucent at first, the glowing structure quickly transformed itself into a physical structure. The base was set directly in the middle of the courtyard and was large enough to encompass the area that included the standing stones. The mysterious tower rose to a height of around sixty feet, and a quick inspection revealed no doors, windows, terraces, balconies, or battlements of any kind on the tower.

There was some initial amount of confusion and panic among the settlers but seeing no immediate danger the party calmed down the settlers and encouraged them to get back to work. Malgram was consulted and it was agreed that his team would continue as outer guards and the party would concentrate on guarding Splintershield in the courtyard. As for Splintershield his initial caution in preparing the ritual was now sped up and with the assitance of his acolytes was soon repeating the ritual as handfuls of consecrated dirt were spread around the courtyard.

Then one of the outer guards gave out a warning. Several skeletons and zombies were approaching the castle courtyard from the road and the surrounding woods. The party quickly moved forward to block the entrance, the mage casting a very effective 3X3 wall of fire directly in front of the gate. With most of the party taking on the undead at the gate the ranger climbed up onto the wall to loose his arrows from above and the paladin made haste to move around the wall and then to the back of the monsters to wreak his havoc from behind.

The zombies proved to be tough to kill, but they soon succumbed to the steel of the party's weapons. The skeletons proved to be minions and they too were quickly cut down. But then another spate of skeletons appeared and the battle resumed. As soon as this second set of skeletons was destroyed a third set appeared, and then eventually a fourth. The guards at the corners of the courtyard were also fighting their own sets of skeletons and while everything looked to be in control for now, the party new this couldn't go on forever.

The next wave of skeletons appeared - 40 of them in all - just as Brother Splintershield completed the ritual. A wave of righteous energy emitted in all directions from the courtyard and every skeleton in the immediate vicinity of the castle was immediately destroyed. The sense of gloom or foreboding that had hung over the castle ruins was also lifted. Splintershield was very happy to see the ritual had worked so effectively, and even grumpy half-orc Malgram gave the party their due for their efforts in the fight.

With the zombies and the skeletons destroyed the party members moved back inside the castle walls and awaited to see what might come next. One of the guards soon yelled a warning and the party moved forward to see what had arrived - a single ghostly warrior mounted on a ghostly steed ambled up the road. His trip in the direction of the castle was interrupted when he reached the boundaries of the protection from evil ritual that Splintershield had just completed.

Side note: I know my quotes below are not completely accurate, but I think I have paraphrased everything sufficiently for game purposes.

In a rage the ghost spoke, saying, "I am Salazar Vladistone, hero of Castle Inverness. Who blocks my path? "

Brother Splintershield moved forward to engage the ghost, although he safely stayed within the boundary of the ritual. "I am Aldus Splintershield, priest of Moradin,. What business have you here?"

The ghost sneered a response, saying "You must face me in combat or you must leave this place."

Splintershield replied that no, he would not leave. He had overcome to many obstacles to reach this point and he intended to not only build a town here but he also intended to recast his ritual to expand it out even further. The stubborn Dwarf further asked "And who are you to claim this area?"

"I am Salazar Vladistone, leader of the Silver Company. My wife is buried in the graveyard inside these walls. The ghost tower is here, and you have no claim to it."

The party members nudged Splintershield and insisted that he do what he could to keep the ghost talking, in case the ghost might reveal more about the mysterious tower. When asked more questions about the tower the ghost replied "The tower means death to you all. A terrible artifact - a soul gem - lies inside, and it will certainly mean death to each of you."

Splintershield laughed confidently and told the ghost these were just empty threats and the stories of the tower were nothing more than old wives tales. Splintershield then was prodded to ask about the lack of doors on the tower, to which the ghost replied "Of course there are doors," but when asked would say no more. The party members decided that the ghost likely knew more then he was letting on, when the ghost said "The tower is no longer whole."

The ghost and Dwarf continued their verbal joust as the ghost continued to make threats and Splintershield laughed at them from safely within the boundaries of the protection from evil spell. Finally the ghost turned to ride away, and offered a final curse: "You may have denied access to a single soul, but you will not deny access to the phantom brigade."

When the ghost was gone the settlers all moved back within the walls of the castle ruins and continued their preparations for a night of rest. Splintershield was quite gracious to the party for their efforts and provided the, with two rewards: a +1 Safewing Amulet and a +1 set of Dwarven Armor. It was decided the ranger would get the amulet and the cleric would get the armor.

When we meet next week the party members will have had time to get an extended rest, and we will see what happens the following day, week, or month, depending where the module takes us. The party members that have attended all four sessions are currently at 963 XP, with 1000 needed to reach level 2.

We have been using the encounter cards during each session. The DM was provided with more than enough packs for each of the players to shuffle together two packs for use during a game session. But, for the most part, they have not been very useful or interesting. However, tonight there were several opportunities when the right player had the right card at the right time and they were very useful. I know several times I have drawn cards that just didn't really apply to my character at all, but that +4 to defense until the start of my next turn was pitch perfect tonight.

Wizards has encouraged some level of deck building (of course) and I assume if you were to attend a gaming convention their use will likely be encouraged. I suppose that if I had a large selection of cards I could construct a deck that could really maximize benefits for my specific character, but for now using a non-maximized deck just to experiment with is sufficient for my needs.

DDE Season 4 Session 3 (02/23/2011)

2011-02-24T21:30:00.000-06:00

We were missing our mage this night but we added Jorie, who played the Elven Rogue Keira. The game play this night did run a bit long - OK, it ran really long. We got off to a late start to begin with, some of the players were late, and I asked too many questions, but our DM patiently led us through the encounter and we had a good time. Also, one of the players had rolled up a Druid character with a wolf familiar - the wolf turned out to be very useful during the encounter, but we did have to consult the rulebook several times to ensure character/familiar actions were being played correctly.

After killing off the goblins last week the Elven scholar Faldyra Allariel had apparently decided that we were a worthy group to cultivate a friendship with. As the caravan made its final leg of the trip to the ruins of Castle Inverness she told us more about what she knew of the castle. She explained the ruins were said to be haunted and there was a ghost tower located here. There was also a second ghost tower located in the Witching Fens, and a third was rumored to exist somewhere in the Nentir Vale, but the mysterious third tower had not yet been located. She further explained the presence of the towers allowed "the spirits of the wandering dead to wander by night."

To allay this potential problem (you know, dead people walking around and all) Aldus Splintershield desired to cast a cleansing ritual to consecrate the grounds and to ensure the safety of the fledgling colony as soon as the caravan arrived. The day had started to grow long so the caravan continued to push on until they arrived on the crest of a hill overlooking the castle ruins. From that viewpoint the adventurers could see the four standing walls of the castle and they could see the four crumbled turrets at each corner of the standing wall sections. There also appeared to be several large stones standing in a circle in the center most area of the courtyard. With the sun retreating, and with not all of the castle grounds readily viewable, Malgram asked the party to scout ahead before the rest of the caravan moved forward.

The group, including Faldyra, moved ahead to the front entrance of the castle walls. No gate existed anymore, and after listening and a few furtive peeks inside it was decided the place was empty, but we still needed to explore further to ensure this truly was the case. Before entering Faldyra used her arcana skills to determine that the gate area held a remnant of a protective magic spell, but in its weakened state it would not be a hindrance to the party. Further, it appeared to Faldyra that the castle walls were also tied into the magic of the gate, and that the magic was of a type unknown to her.

But for now it appeared safe to pass into the inner courtyard, so one by one the party stepped through the front entrance. Following the right hand rule the party decided to visit each of the crumbled turrets and to make their way around the courtyard to ensure the grounds were indeed safe, ending up at the standing stones in the center of the courtyard. The first turret was crumbled to the ground, leaving some rocky terrain and some unsafe places for one to step, but it was otherwise empty.

The party then moved to the next turret, but had to pass a small graveyard along the way. For having been undiscovered for so many years the graves appeared to have been kept up a little. Three of the headstones were broken, nine were intact but otherwise unremarkable, but the remaining headstone was easily readable: Aldivya Vladistone, Wife and Friend. The name was unknown to most of the party, but Faldyra recognized it. She told the party that Aldivya had been part of the Silver Company, the group of adventurers party that had ventured into - and then back out - of the mysterious castle some 60 years ago.

With nothing having sprung out of its grave the party moved onto the second crumbled turret. As before the area included several piles of rubble, but nothing of interest. It was at this time the party started to notice several oddities about the castle grounds. For one thing, the collapsed walls of these turrets included no huge pieces of rubble. Secondly, the castle walls didn't seem to flow with the surrounding area on which they sat. It was almost if the castle had been picked up from somewhere else and simply placed here. And lastly Faldyra was actually expecting to find a standing tower here, and even if it had crumbled within the last 60 years, where was its debris now?

The sun continued to dip in the western sky so the party decided to scoot forward to the third turret. As previously seen there was a small amount of rubble in the area of the turret, but this corner of the courtyard also included an empty fountain. No water bubbled forth and upon further inspection three large-sized ocher jellies emerged. The party quickly shifted into an attack formation, but the jellies used their slippery movement ability (Shift 4) to get out of trouble and to attack the party members arrayed toward the rear.

The party members delivered a good amount of damage to two of the jelly's, only to see each of them split into two smaller jelly's once they were bloodied. The secondary jelly's were soon dispatched and the party was able to concentrate on the third jelly, and soon it's too smaller descendants, until the battle was completed.

With quiet having returned to the courtyard, the fountain was further inspected and something was found to have been stuffed into part of the fountain. Several bad rolls later several party members were able to release the clog when they pulled forth an Iron Skin Belt (Minor: Gain Resist 5 All Damage until the end of your next turn).

With the evening running long the party was able to explore the fourth crumbled turret, again finding nothing. When we meet next week we will further investigate the Iron Skin Belt and the last section of the courtyard, the standing stones in the middle of the yard.

Side Note: Per comments from my previous post (here) I used the Defenders Aura and Righteous Radiance combo to some degree of success, and I suppose for a first level character it was sufficiently powerful. The jelly's were large creatures and my character was able to shift and keep two of them in his aura almost all the time. I thought I would have done a little more damage from my RR though ... I hope I didn't miss a damage dealing instance (or two) along the way.

Essentials Rules Point

2011-02-22T22:36:00.000-06:00

For my 100th blog post (100! woo-hoo!) I wanted to walk through a wording and rules issue that came up at last week's DDE session. While the issue caused no rancor, the wording of the powers seemed a bit obtuse at the time so the DM and I agree to go with it as was last week and to then discuss it further outside the game session. I'm fine with that. I'm sure I played it wrong to begin with, but the rules as written severely diminish the power below the way I originally read and envisioned it.

I was playing a first level Dragonborn Cavalier (Paladin) who came with the following powers:

So the way I read it originally was that anyone swinging at an ally in my active Defender Aura took a -2 to attacks, and that anyone who attacked an ally in my Aura took Righteous Radiance damage. A careful re-read of the powers doesn't quite say that though.

At first glance it would appear that any ally of mine in the bounds of the aura would gain a defensive bonus, but what the power really says is that any enemy in the aura instead has a -2 penalty to attack. So my Aura 1 affects the eight adjacent squares around where my character was standing, but if the opponent was outside of that range attempting to hit an ally within the bounds of the Aura would otherwise be unaffected. The net of this would be that I really couldn't use Defender's Aura to extend a defensive bonus to allies but rather I would more likely use it to affect a specific opponent(s) I might be facing to minimize their attack(s) on me, to force them to focus on me, and then maybe affect another opponent(s) who may happenstance into the zone of affect.

As a combo power Righteous Radiance essentially allowed me to more-or-less "Mark" the opponent(s) in my Aura. If the affected opponent(s) then Shifted or attacked someone besides me I would do an automatic amount of damage to the opponent (but the opponent(s) doesn't get the RR damage if they were to hit one of my allies who might happen to have his or her own Defender's Aura activated). I suppose if the opponent Moved my character would get an Opportunity Attack, so maybe the Shift/damage thing does pin them down a little.

So it looks like my play would be to bring my character forward, engage a targeted opponent in my aura, and if the affected opponent then did something stupid they would take extra damage. I originally saw this as a way for my character to provide a boon to my allies and to punish opponents who attacked them, but upon a second reading it looks like I would be using this combo a little more selfish manner.

Side note: I mentioned in last week's DDE recap that the Essentials Character Builder didn't have a Flaming Weapon option. Per a suggestion from the DM my resolution was to add a basic +1 Longsword to my character sheet - that took care of all the basic math of bonuses and such. I then created a temporary regular DnD character, gave that character a +1 Flaming Longsword, printed out the single sheet with the +1 Flaming Longsword card on it, and then cut/pasted that card onto my character sheet. With the math already taken care of all I really wanted to see was the special affects text of the flaming sword card, so for all intents and purposes my updated character sheet now has a +1 Flaming Longsword on it.

DDE Season 4 Session 2 (02/16/2011)

2011-02-17T09:45:00.000-06:00

Wednesday night at the Gaming Goat and all of the players from last week were back this week, plus Tim joined us to play one of the pre-gen characters (Valenae, the Eladrin Cleric Warpriest). Besides myself, Steve and Robin had made up their own characters via the Essentials Character Builder tool, although we all chose to build the same type of character that we played during week 1.

After the battle at the stream crossing last week the party members struggled to get the caravan reorganized and with some pushing we managed to get caught up to the first half of the caravan. Malgram, the half-orc guard captain, even gave the party a bit of begrudging respect once the story of the stirges (not Preston Sturges) was related to him. The caravan hoped to reach the settlement point by the end of the day, but travel had been slow so far and Malgram was pushing everyone to keep things moving.

Later that day Malgram approached the party members, this time with a female elf in attendance. He introduced her as Faldyra Allariel, the sage. She was insisting on finding some rare herbs that grew in this area, but Malgram didn't want to slow down the caravan and he didn't want her wandering off by herself. Aldus Splintersheild held her in high regard, so would the party members please accompany her to ensure her safety?

The party had been told the sage was the one who knew the most about the Castle Inverness and the area to where the caravan was heading, so if nothing else we could use this as an opportunity to find out information about what might lay ahead. An agreement was quickly struck and the group took off cross country in search of the rare herbs.

Along the way Faldyra answered our questions about the castle as best she could. The castle was now a ruin, although the central tower apparently still stood. Adventurers had cleaned out some sort of evil there many years ago and the tower had been sealed since, so she wasn't expecting any problems, although she did say she had lost a relative in the tower many years ago (here). Most of the problems she expected were the ones might find in the Nentir Vale the further one got away from civilization. She hoped that the town would provide a new point of light in an otherwise dark part of the world.

After some searching a large patch of the rare herbs were found and Faldyra began to dig and the party arrayed itself in a protective perimeter. As she dug she came across something metallic. Our mage insisted on inspecting it further, and pulled out from the ground a long lost long sword. Some successful arcana checks later it was determined that the sword was indeed magical, and after some additional handling that it was a flaming long sword. After some discussion it was determined that my Dragonborn Paladin could made the best use of a flaming weapon and a long sword to boot (more on the flaming weapon later).

As the party resumed their defensive perimeter a pack of goblins attacked. Five of the goblins were wielding bows and stayed toward the back to let their arrows do their talking. Five others wielding short swords attempted to flank the party. The mage was the first to act and he quickly moved up to drop some sort of flame burst onto a group of the goblins. The burst was successful, but the left the mage open to the attacks of the goblins.

The paladin directed one of the rangers to protect the other flank, told the cleric to stay with the sage, and then directed the rogue and the other ranger to move forward to take their attacks to the goblins. The paladin then moved forward to support the mage and do some damage of his own.

The goblins managed to get in some damage of their own, but the party soon took command of the situation and the goblins were quickly struck down. Our rogue was able to do back stab damage to two different goblins, including doing 19 points of damage with one of his attacks. One of our rangers was able to do 15 points of damage with each of two arrows on one of his attacks. The mage was bloodied, but the cleric came through with a timely heal, and the cleric was also able to do some healing on the sage who had taken an arrow at the beginning of the encounter.

With the goblins vanquished javelins and arrows were reclaimed and restocked, and any of the goblins weapons that were any good were bundled up to be returned to the caravan. Faldyra was a bit shaken from the attack and wanted to return to the caravan, but sheepishly asked that Malgram not be told that he was indeed correct that Faldyra really would need an escort. Promises were made and the party returned to the caravan.

We used the fortune cards again, but not to much avail. The mage had a card that allowed him to reroll a missed attack roll, but he rerolled worse. I had the same card readied, but the encounter only took three rounds and I connected on all of my swings so I didn't need it. Tim, our first timer who was playing the cleric, was voted player of the night for having forgone the opportunity to jump into the fight when he stayed back to protect the sage and for having delivered some critical healing when needed.

Character Builder comment - Since it was my character that claimed the +1 flaming long sword I went to the CB tool to add the new weapon to my character sheet - but "flaming" wasn't available as a choice. It was in the book (Essentials Dungeon Master's Book, Pg 257), just not in the tool. I had a choice of a magic, luck, vicious, or defensive long swords, but flaming was not there for me to select. I really like to keep items on my sheet and to not make up separate items or special cards ... I'll talk with Jack and we'll figure something out. Jack and I were also going to discuss "Defensive Aura" to make sure we are playing it correct.

When we meet next week the caravan will still not have made it to the destination point, so we will still be on the road. Each of the players earned 203 XP for the evening and picked up a Action Point as well.

Google Blogger Tool

2011-02-12T12:13:00.000-06:00

I also wanted to talk about Google Blogger, the tool I use to host my blog entries. I've been using Blogger for a year plus now I wanted to give a review of it as a tool. I am doing this in a separate post from my Post-Mortem note because it really is a different enough of a topic.

I initially chose Blogger because at the time I had already been toying around with other Google tools - Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Talk specifically - so when I was looking to jump start a blog using Blogger was a logical choice. That, plus it was free, and that counts for something. Blogger allows for a myriad of customization options and provides plenty of pre-designed templates to choose from as well. Getting started with a new blog was quick and easy, although I did spend several weeks making minor tweaks to the layout options before I finally settled on this particular combination. Once the initial design issues were resolved it was just a matter of spitting out blog posts.

While the targeted audience for the blog was specifically our Sunday Night DnD group I did occasionally came across other people that read the blog and enjoyed it. The tool provides metrics so you could see how many distinct page views you received (more than 3,000!), from what countries (all over the world!) and how the viewers were directed to your page. It looks like a lot of my page views were from people that were looking for something via a Google search and a link to one of my posts came up. The tool provides ways to include ads for some sort of monetary benefit, but I wasn't interested.

Lastly, the editor provides a certain level of frustration. When I look through old blog posts I see unexplained font and font size changes and the occasional unequal spacing between paragraphs. There is a preview page option, but sometimes what finally gets published isn't exactly what is previewed. Adding pictures is easy enough but getting them to display the way I want is a bit of hit and miss and sometimes requiring several attempts before I finally get what I want. There is a misspelled word option that highlights misspelled words that works most of the time, just not all the time.

The editor sometimes jumps between sections of the document, and when I get to the end of a paragraph and hit enter to open up new lines to the beginning of a new paragraph routinely doesn't display properly. It's all minor stuff, stuff that with practice and patience I learned to work around, but the kind of stuff that just really annoys me. Again, as simple as I tried to keep this and to get this level of angst from a simple editor is a puzzlement to me.

Side note: I would occasionally start typing a blog post in a different editing tool and then cut/paste the text into the Blogger editor. The best PC tool for doing this is Wordpad. The native RTF text format worked the best when sourcing the text into the Blogger editor, including remembering spacing, paragraphs, and line wraps. MS-Word includes a lot of meta-data text strings in its files and Blogger couldn't handle them when I tried to paste in text from an MS-Word file. Editors like VI or Notepad didn't include line wraps, so it was necessary to essentially recompile each paragraph so I would get the word flow I wanted.

The tool was perfect for what I wanted to do with it - it's just a simple blog. But I think if I wanted to do something more substantial I am not sure Blogger is the way I would want to go. I just think that if I was looking to push a blog out to a national (international?) level of audience and start getting thousands of pages hits, tons of comments, etc., I think I might want something a little more substantial.

In conclusion, no, I'm not going to move to a different blog tool. I'm happy with what I've got, plus I've already spent the time to learn the workarounds with the editor. I would recommend it to anyone starting a blog of their own, but just remember you get what you pay for.

Thunderspire Labyrinth Post-Mortem

2011-02-12T11:14:00.000-06:00

After having spent the last year completing the Keep on the Shadowfell (KotS) and Thunderspire Labyrinth (TL) adventures our Sunday night DnD group is going to do a 2E adventure with Mark as the DM (here). After that Scott is working on converting his 2E Ravenloft adventures to a 4E format and we will likely do that next. We will probably finish this adventure triad at some point and do the Pyramid of Shadows (PoS) adventure. I have looked it over and I am looking forward to running it.

After we completed KotS I did a post-mortem (here) and I want to do the same here, although I am sure there will be some duplication between the two posts. Since this was our initial foray into the world of 4E I want to expand the post to include some general discussion of 4E as well. This was also my first attempt at DM'ing a DnD game of any version and I certainly learned a lot over this past year. All of the players were on the same learning curve as me though and that helped.

First of all I must say I am extremely pleased the way things went. I really did enjoy the adventures from my end of the table, although the 4E learning experience really did turn out to be a shared experience for the group as a whole. I think we got most of everything right eventually, even if that included playing something incorrectly one week and then correcting our play the following week. There were a few times when the DM had to make an arbitrary decision while he simultaneously provided a caveat that the DM had reserved the right to change his mind at a future date.

The maps and sharing them with Mark worked very well. The use of grid based maps was unfamiliar to us as a group, and with Mark in North Carolina this originally looked to be a real problem. The "maps on spreadsheets" solution worked very well. It was easy enough to create the maps, and then once they were shared Mark developed his own processes for hiding unexplored areas of the map and for adding and moving tokens for the characters and the monsters. Apart from having to remind players to let Mark know what cell address the character moved to this was actually pretty seamless.

For the KotS maps I used a lot of text strings, i.e., "Chairs" or "Tables", to denote items on the map. Originally I had purposefully avoided using artwork, i.e., a picture of a chair or table, but eventually I came to the conclusion it just wasn't providing the right aesthetic. I replaced most of the text strings for the TL maps with artwork that was cut/pasted in. The chairs and tables tokens occasionally required further clarification during play, I tried to be careful to identify everything in a room when the room was entered. The real difference here was that I was able to have pillars that didn't take up the whole square and could be angled past to save a movement point, but still provided cover.

Most of the individual rooms in TL were laid out on separate spreadsheet tabs. This worked OK to a point, but when the party moved from room to room the addressing of the individual cells would never match up. Starting with TL I created single maps on a tab with all of the rooms contained therein, and then I would print out small sections of the larger map, i.e., the individual rooms. While transitioning from room to room was a bit of a hassle, at least all the cell addressing lined up for those who were still behind in the previous room or hallway.

The use of the miniatures was easy once the maps were laid out and the movement rules were learned. The selection I had was sufficient, plus the generic black markers that I numbered worked well when dealing with minions. I did borrow some of Leo's miniatures as needed, plus it was Leo who built the mini-table so we could place the maps on the larger table and keep them away from the food.

The initiative cards worked well also. Brian and I had learned that idea at Gencon, and we were able to enhance it by cutting and pasting the character skills card from the character sheet for each player. We also utilized separate color cards for players versus monsters. Having a designated "initiative cop" for the evening to update and then run through the initiative order was helpful to the DM as well.

The "bloodied", "marked", and "other" markers worked very well. The colored foam cut-outs were just the right circumference and the right height for our purposes. I was never able to find a way to clean up the sloppily cut edges which still bugs me, but regardless, they worked. I will need to create larger markers for larger creatures for next time. Tracking these conditions and effects was one more thing Mark had to do via long distance as well.

I also printed out a character sheet for each monster for each encounter, using the Adventure Tools monster database. This provided me with the latest tweaks and corrections to the monsters themselves but also provided a place for notes and tracking HP per monster. With the maps already created, printed, and assembled, with the monster character sheets already provided, with all the necessary accessories collected, and with the adventure data taken right out of the book, preparation time was minimal once we got started.

The two adventures were very combat focused, but they were the first two adventure modules released after 4E was released, so there was no doubt some impetus to teach the new combat mechanic. I should have probably pushed more on skill checks. There were some skill challenges in the TL module, although I am sure I didn't do a good job laying them out for my players. I was sure there would be a proper treatise written on skill challenges by now, but maybe I just haven't come across it yet. Hopefully the Wednesday night DDE games will have more examples of how to use skill challenges.

As far as 4E goes, I like it. I like the maps. I like the miniatures. I like the movement rules. I like the character sheets as produced via the character builder (CB) tools. I understand that Wizards is still essentially in the middle of the development process, but none of the angst from the gaming community about the constant changes prevented us from playing our game and having a good time with it. Rules would occasionally change underneath us (i.e., magic missile), but we just rolled with it.

There was one particular rule I felt to be a bit egregious though. Let's say Krstic was standing near the door and in rushed six goblins. He would get an opportunity attack at every goblin as it rushed by him. Really? Six separate opportunity attacks as they each simultaneously passed by him? And if the monster Krstic was already was engaged with then tried to move away Krstic would get yet another opportunity attack? That's a bit much is all I'm saying.

As far as the length of combat encounters,well, sometimes they took a long time. Sometimes they took a real long time. There were several factors at play here.

First of all, this was our first exposure to any post-2E DnD version. We acknowledged there would be a learning curve for the players and for the DM, so we purposefully walked through the first several encounters to make sure we had a good feel for how to play our characters within the new mechanic. Things picked up from there of course, but so did the level of monsters and the increased player levels brought along increased options on their part as well.

Secondly, we had seven players, and then eight, for modules that were designed for five players. I upped the number of monsters and adjusted monster levels to ensure the proper level of encounter was maintained, but there were still a lot of turns between each individual players turn. And more often than not the action a player might have originally intended to use would be rendered moot by the time the turn actually rolled around to them, so they essentially had to start all over in sizing up their actions.

Thirdly, the culture of our gaming group is that we don't particularly rush through things to begin with. I would occasionally push people to hurry up when it would get to be 10:00 or so, but in general that's just not the way we play.

I suppose I could impose more on our "initiative cop" to remind the next player in the queue to be ready, but in general it probably it what it is. One of the things Scott and I talked about was the idea of doubling the damage a monster could do, but halving its hit points. In theory they would do about the same amount of damage, but do so in the half of the time. Another option is that Essentials characters are supposed to provide a more streamlined character which should speed up combat as well.

The other thing with adjusting the monsters encounter XP value by 7/5 (and then 8/5) was that it wasn't just as easy as throwing in more monsters. Sometimes the room size was a limiting factor, so I would bump some monster levels up to adjust. I would also break like monsters up into different initiative groups just to break up combat order a little. The adventure modules provided a section on monster tactics that I always intended to stick pretty closely to, but once combat started most of that went out the door.

When the evening was over sometimes I was would be pleased at how well the encounter went, but sometimes not. I am not sure there really is an exactly even balance to this - we do roll dice to determine our outcomes after all - but overall I thought it went well. I didn't want every encounter to be like our next-to-last one where almost every party member was really bloodied and beaten. If every encounter was like that we'd never get done. My goal for the regular encounters was to be able to push the players just that little bit, just enough so they knew they would have to work to succeed.

It was easy to adjust for any GP or Gems that were supposed to be in a particular room - I just multiplied the total by 7/5 (later 8/5). Magic items weren't so easy to scale, so I went with the "magic item as reward at the end of the adventure" idea to account for that discrepancy. That would mean the characters might be lacking some minor level of fire power during the current dungeon, but would guarantee them to be well compensated in time for the next adventure.

As far as including the NPC Renny as part of the adventurers, well, it wasn't part of the plan. Krstic opted not to kill him, and then the party spent a day or so to wait in the Chamber of Eyes, and that gave Eldred a chance to take pity on him, so it just kind of worked out that way. Mark and I worked up a fundamentally flawed character, gave him a little background as someone who wasn't evil, but through a series of misfortune and poor decisions had ended up working as a slaver. Mark and I had talked a few times about what to do with Renny, but I think I have decided that in the future any NPC interaction will be on a more short term basis.

In conclusion I suppose I can't consider myself a "Novice DM" any more. An Acolyte maybe, perhaps an Adept? Regardless, I am looking forward to being a player again, plus Mark does an excellent job with his self-produced adventures, so it will be fun.

Dungeon and Dragons Encounters - Session 1 (02/09/2011)

2011-02-10T08:44:00.001-06:00

I participated in the initial session of the fourth edition of DnD Encounters (DDE) Wednesday night. Jack, our DM, provided the laminated character sheets, provided each of the players with two packs of Fortune Cards, Steve had a plethora of miniatures for us to pick from (plus he lent me a set of dice to use because I forgot mine), and after some general discussion about the rules we got started.

The players and characters were as follows:

Jack / DM

Steve / Valenae (Eladrin Cleric Warpriest)

Robin / Keira (Elven Rogue Thief)

David / Jarren (Human Wizard Evocation Mage)

Roger / Brandis (Human Paladin Cavalier)

Don / Belgos (Drow Ranger Hunter)

These are all Essentials characters. It is easy enough to sit down and just pick up a character and play, but the character sheet still requires a careful read so that all the powers are properly understood, including knowing your minor or special move abilities, special opportunity affects, and your stance choices. However reading and reviewing your character still usually requires further distillation once play begins, but that's all part of the fun and our DM handled this very well.

The DnD Fortune Cards are cards that generally provide a small bonus when used by the player. It adds a bit of randomness to any encounter, and yes, it is an effort by Wizards to sell product. Basically you initially draw a card on your first turn, if you choose to use it it gets discarded and you draw another card on your next turn. You don't have to use the boon, and you can discard it and redraw on your next turn.

Opinion: They seem OK. I probably won't buy them. It's an 80 card set (8 cards to a pack), with commons, uncommons, and rares. However, later this year Wizards is releasing another card set that can be used in a more ominous environment such as Shadowfell or Ravenloft. These cards are more like mood setters, with players being negatively affected by the overpowering sense of gloom, fear, pain, or panic. I could really see someone who was interested in a Ravenloft setting using this to his advantage.

As in the past DDE sessions the DM was provided with a game module, maps, the laminated players cards, basically all the tools a DM would need to run the adventure. Once the player cards and the fortune cards were distributed the DM began the session.

The players were part of a caravan leaving Hammerfast for a three day trip where they intend to populate and start a town around the newly found ruins of the Castle Inverness. The caravan was led by a Dwarven Cleric named Aldus Splintershield. The first two days and nights passed uneventfully, with different adventurers taking turns to see what additional information they could find about their destination, specifically the castle.

As the road roughened Splintershield and Malgram, his half-orc guard captain, got into an argument about which path to take. Several of the adventurers attempted to step in to help resolve the issue (but most figured we'd get attacked no matter if we took the road near the forest or near the mountains). This turned out to be a designed role playing opportunity that was built into the adventure that the adventurers were later rewarded for.

The caravan neared a small river and once half of the wagons were safely across the party and the half of the wagons not yet across were attacked by stirges. The stirges attacked horses, NPC's (i.e., minions) in the area, and the adventurers, but the attack was soon repelled with only one NPC being killed. I tried to have my character run and jump across the 10 foot wide river (creek?) and managed to make it exactly half way across.

The Essentials characters may be a little more streamlined, but they are no less deadly. Three different players delivered individual blows of 15 points or more, and the stirges were all dead in just 4+ rounds.

The evening ended with the awarding of XP and renown points, plus there was some additional discussion on alternate playing schedules. We agreed to stick with the every Wednesday schedule as originally designed. Although the pre-gen characters were used this first week, several of the players announced they were going to use the CB tool to cobble up their own characters for next week.

All in all I was very satisfied. Jack did a good job as DM, and the other players have all played before and were able to quickly jump in and work together as a team.

Dungeons and Dragons Encounters

2011-02-08T18:51:00.001-06:00

DnD Encounters (DDE) is a Wizards sponsored event that is scheduled to run on Wednesday evenings from 6:00-8:00. They just completed their third session this past week and the next session - March of the Phantom Brigade - starts Wednesday (02/09/2011). I attended a single session this past summer when a Dark Sun module was being played and I enjoyed it quite a bit (read here), so I thought I'd make a commitment to see if I can do a whole ~20 week session.

The premise is that Wizards will provide interested local game stores with a complete adventure module, a set of pre-gen characters encased in lamination, and some advertising material to display in the store. The store provides the DM (or 2) and a place to play. The intent is to draw in new customers and expose them to the game in a friendly fashion and with minimal commitment. The store also gets the benefit of potential sales, whether it be from DnD or other gaming products.

There is a new game store in South Elgin IL - The Gaming Goat - that will be hosting, and it is closer for me than Comic Connections in Oswego I visited their new location this past Sunday to 1) ensure they were hosting DDE, 2) ensure a table spot was available for me, and 3) ensure I could actually find the place. And they've got plenty of parking - are my needs are simple or what? And no, I don't know why the store is named "Gaming Goat," but I suppose a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Players are encouraged to create their own Essentials character instead of arbitrarily being forced to use the pre-gens, so I went ahead and worked up an Eladrin Scout (Ranger) with Two-Weapon Fighting abilities. I guess it ultimately depends on who or what else makes up our group - if everyone is playing a striker then I'll adjust. I haven't talked to the DM yet, but regardless, I am looking forward to it.

I don't intend to post full recaps like I did for Keep of the Shadowfell and Thunderspire Labyrinth, but I will provide a weekly synopsis of the Wednesdays I can attend. I am particularly interested to see how combat in Essentials really is that much more streamlined (or simplified) than in regular 4E, so expect to see some commentary on this in the future. I still consider myself a novice DM, so I have full intention of outright stealing any new DM tricks I might come across as well.

The Tower of Mysteries (3, Pt 2) (02/06/2011)

2011-02-07T23:09:00.001-06:00

We were unable to wrap up Thunderspire Labyrinth last week but the completion of the final battle seems to be close at hand. Can the party defeat the Bronze Warder? What other secrets may yet lay in the Tower of Mysteries? Can the party then find their way home?

With Paldemar and his minions - except for the Bronze Warder - all dead, the party crept in for the final kill. Krstic, Bogar, Oester, and Eldred stood toe-to-toe with the warder, while the remainder of the party continued to cast their ranged effects. The warder was obviously taking some damage, but even after a few more rounds he had just become bloodied. Meanwhile the sweeping axe of the warder kept delivering solid damage to those within range. Akta managed to swap/teleport himself with a severely weakened Oester, and the other nearby party members were now all bloodied as well.

Jenneth had finally decided that wearing the control amulet and yelling was not sufficient for being able to control the warder, so she took a turn to analyze the amulet. She first determined the amulet required a control word, but then had to spend yet another turn before the control word could be determined. The Bronze Warder took yet another mighty swing, delivering his mighty blow once again, when Jenneth finally blurted out the proper word and followed up with a command for the warder to attack the statue of Vecna instead.

Party members tried to remove themselves from the vicinity of the warder, although the daze spells from the statue continued to hinder their escape. All of a sudden the warder turned and flashed his great axe in the direction of the statue, the sound of the clash of metal upon metal filling the room. The statue was easy to hit, but not so easy to damage, and the daze affects on nearby party members continued unabated.

Now safe from the attacks of the warder, Renny inspected the room to the southeast, where the Bronze Warder had originally been hiding, and found nothing more than an empty room. Akta further inspected the corpse of Paldemar, found a magic staff, and then removed the head of the once mighty mage. Miave inspected the dead Enigma of Vecna, although no further magic was found.

With the Bronze Warder now ordered to stand guard, the party prepared to enter the room located in the southwest corner. Both doors were locked, and were locked by something more than mechanical. Jenneth determined a Knock ritual could overcome the Arcane Lock spell, but the ritual would take ten minutes to prepare and cast. At the other door Oester was able to use his thieving skills to unlock the door, and Krstic opened the door and marched in.

The room contained a desk with several books and papers strewn about on it, a glass globe on a wooden tripod stand, and a large curtain that hid something in the back corner of the room. Krstic strode forward and pulled back the curtain to reveal a bed. Further inspection of the room revealed that the globe, several of the books on the table, and the curtain were all magical.

It was determined that the curtain was able to provide some sort of defensive bonus to whoever cast the spell, but Krstic pulled the curtain down and began to prepare it to take it with him. Jenneth inspected the globe and was surprised to see it was able to scry directly into the great hall. This was no doubt how Paldemar was able to keep track of the comings and goings of his former acquaintances in the Mages of Sauron.Jenneth then made a second attempt to use the globe to scry, only to have it fall and smash to pieces - and deliver a bolt of psychic damage to Jenneth as well.

Oester and Eldred inspected the books and papers on the table. Most of the books gave off a feeling of evil when touched and any pages looked at were blank, similar to some of the books found in the library on the previous level. One ritual book was not otherwise protected, and was found to contain the following rituals: Arcane Lock, Brew Potion, Leomunds Secret Chest. A partially completed scroll gave hint to a ritual that would allow a mage to effectively siphon off the spell ability from another magic user. It wreaked of evil and necromancy and was quickly set aside.

A crude map was also found. It contained the picture of a pyramid, and contained the words "much power" and "Karavakos." The map was kept by Eldred, but the evil books and the partially completed scroll were scraped into a pile and bundled in a blanket from the bed, there which a chest with 1600 GP was found under the bed.

With the level now cleaned out the party began to spend some time to use what healing they had left and took a short rest. Jenneth determined the magic staff was a +2 Staff and claimed it for herself. Without much healing remaining the party considered taking a long rest, but only about four hours of dungeon time had passed since they took off from the great hall that morning. No one was sure they wanted to stay in this temple of evil for that long, so the next step was to determine exactly how to get out of here. As the party looked around they saw:

4 Norker Slingers, each wearing leather armor, wielding a sling and a dagger and carrying 20 sling bullets

1 Enigma of Vecna, wearing robes and wielding a dagger

1 Norker Berserker, wearing leather armor and wielding a flail

Paldemar, wearing a mantle (a type of loose garment usually worn over indoor clothing to serve the same purpose as an overcoat) and wielding a staff

The party inspected the remainder of the level and found no other secrets or magic, nor did they find some way on effecting their exit. With no other obvious exit, the party approached the glowing teleportation circle at the south end of the level. Jenneth gave a command and the Bronze Warder moved onto the circle and after a brief second disappeared. Jenneth and several other party members stepped up to the circle and they too quickly disappeared. Oester, Renny, and Eldred then discussed the benefits of taking an extended rest instead of leaving, but as the others before stepped up to the teleportation circle and they too disappeared as well.

The warder appeared on the second level and as ordered stepped off the circle and prepared to protect the party members that were coming behind him. The first group arrived, and seeing nothing of danger began to hightail it for the other magic circle. The last set of adventurers appeared, and they too began to run toward the other circle, although Eldred detoured through the library and started a fire of the gathered evil books.

Something had previously appeared in the summoning circle and it had knocked a door off its hinges just as the last set of party members had moved up to the third level, but whatever it was wasn't apparently around any longer. As an oily smoke from the fire began to fill the level the warder stepped onto the magic circle and disappeared, followed by the Jenneth, Miave, Akta, Bogar, and Krstic. Oester, Renny, and Eldred stepped on to the circle for their turn, but just as they did an Imp appeared and attempted to use a tail sting on Eldred.

The warder had moved forward and prepared to defend as he had been ordered, and the first set of party members started to move toward the other teleportation circle. There were two small rooms that had not inspected when the party was here the first time, so Jenneth ducked into the southeast room and after some inspection found a bag of gems (800 GP Onyx, 600 GP Ruby, 600 GP Quartz in the shape of an eye) hidden underneath one of the three beds.

When the final three party members appeared - with the Imp in tow - Eldred was still a bit discombobulated from the affects of the teleport and the missed attack and didn't give off a warning. The imp promptly went invisible, and with no enemy in sight the party began their race toward the other teleport circle. Jenneth left the corner room and then ran directly into the path of the invisible Imp. Jenneth managed to give a proper warning and decided that it might be better to run then fight and began to charge in the direction of the other circle.

The adventurers tuned their senses toward finding the imp, all the while continuing to move closer to the circle. First the warder stepped up and disappeared, then a group of four party members, and as they disappeared the Imp reappeared yet again, but the remaining party members were able to deliver several quick and hardy blows, killing the Imp. Krstic grabbed the dead Imp as he and the remaining party members stepped on to the teleportation circle.

The entire party, including the Bronze Warder and the dead Imp, then found themselves back in the original teleportation circle that initially had allowed them to access the Tower of Mysteries. No apparition of Vecna was there to question them this time, so the party followed the hallway out and back into the labyrinth and then quickly retraced their steps to the northern door of the Great Hall.

Once inside the hall the party was surprised to see normally placid hall was in an uproar. Several Enigma's of Vecna lay dead on the floor, the towering presence of the Bronze Warders standing mute guard over their fresh corpses. Several other bodies, undoubtedly the bodies of some of the denizens of the great hall, lay about the floor as well. Several of the Mages of Sauron ran back and forth across the hall, their black robes flowing as they hastened toward their destination. The sudden presence of the party caused all the commotion in the hall to come to a complete stop. Every eye of everyone in the great hall turned towards you.

The first voice heard was that of Rendil Halfmoon yelling "The heroes! They've returned. The heroes!" As Rendil ran across the hall toward you so did many other of the halls inhabitants. You quickly found yourself surrounded and overwhelmed with babbled questions. You answered some questions, and tried to ask a few of your own, but the situation was chaos as people pushed and shoved to get close.

Finally several Bronze Warders started to push through the crowd, bringing behind them several of the Mages of Sauron. The first Mages to arrive took a step back as an obviously older mage stepped forward. He held up a hand to bring a silence to the crowd around him and he spoke, saying "Greetings friends. My name is Altam, Dane of the Mages of Sauron. Orontor has told me of your intentions to find and defeat the evil Paldemar. We have deduced that you have been successful, although the details are unknown to us."

As he waved his hand about the hall he continued. "Apparently your attack triggered Paldemar's minions to attack us here in the great hall. The attacks were weak and quickly quashed. We can only surmise that further delay would have only served to strengthen Paldemar and these attacks. Your efforts in defeating the scourge of the Mages of Sauron has earned our eternal gratitude. A reward has been promised to you, and you will be forever regarded as Heroes of Sauron."

That night a great banquet was held in the midst of the great hall. Foods of all kinds were prepared, and various selections of ales, ~~wines~~ wine, and whiskey's helped create a mood of merriment. It seemed as though all the party members had their back slapped or hands shook by absolutely every occupant of the hall, plus none of the adventurers would be surprised if maybe a few revelers from outside the hall might have slipped in for the free food and drink as well.

The next morning the Mages of Sauron kept their promise and as their reward they upgraded via enchantment one item of each of the party's choice (a single mundane item improved to a level 8 magic item). Rested, fed, healed, leveled, and duly rewarded, the party exited the hall and returned to Fallcrest.

Upon return to Fallcrest the party met with Menos and told their mentor of their adventures within the Thunderspire Labyrinth. Menos listened intently and absorbed every detail, occasionally interrupting to ask a question to fill in details. After your story was completed Menos stated "You have done well my friends. The Nentir Vale is a safer place for your efforts. The bandit king Gharash Vren, the dragonborn marauder, and his band of thieves have recently been driven off from this area. The Vale has entered a period of peace."

With a pause, Menos continued. "Peace can sometimes be a deceitful apparition to those who desire it greatly. I have no doubt I will have need of your skills once again. Until then go, return to your homes, resume your lives, and hope that our period of peace will outlast you." And with a wry grin Menos finished by saying, "But do not be surprised if you find yourself seated in these same seats some day soon though."

DM Notes: For defeating Paldemar each member of the party earned 410 XP, and finishing the adventure earned another 300 XP. Each member of the party also earned 100 XP and 100 GP for the "private" quests they were able to complete. To simplify the Gold/Gems distribution all were converted to GP and divided, with Renny getting a half share.

Score Card: With the completion of the Thunderspire Labyrinth adventure the party had accumulated an additional 2164 GP and 2300 GP in gems. With some minor rounding Renny's share was 300 GP and the other party members earned 600 GP. With the 810 XP earned during these encounters the party had accumulated 10800 XP (10,000 needed to reach Level 7). Including the previous encounters Renny was sitting at 7500 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6).

We may yet see these characters again, so I suggested that each player wait to determine their gifted magic item and their additional power from leveling up until it is time to dust these characters off. I will update each of the character sheets as is and will send out the updated copies to everybody, but then will just store my copies until it is time. The third adventure of this series, Pyramid of Shadows, is quite a hoot, so I do hope we get to complete it.

Next week: We will start Mark's dungeon next week. Mark has his own blog (here) started to document our next adventure. We will meet at R and J's and Roger will bring snacks.

I will be posting a couple of post-mortems on our year of playing 4E over the next few weeks. I will also be playing DnD Encounters on Wednesdays, so I will be blogging these sessions as well.

The Tower of Mysteries (3, Pt 1) (01/30/2011)

2011-02-02T13:19:00.000-06:00

Having cleaned out the second level of the Tower of Mysteries left our adventurers bloodied and beaten. This had been their toughest and most brutal encounter to date. But worse, one of the Enigma's of Vecna had escaped via the teleportation circle. The party could only assume he had gone ahead to warn Paldemar of their presence, but of more immediate concern was the need to get in a short rest, get some healing, and explore the rest of level 2 before moving on.

Following the short rest the party discussed what do do first. There were three doors that were still unopened as-of-yet, but they decided to further inspect the rooms they had already been in. Two of the rooms had the magical teleportation circles, and further inspection revealed nothing new there. The bodies of the norkers and the enigma revealed no magic as well, except for an amulet around the neck of the remaining enigma. It was decided that the amulet was how the destroyed Bronze Warder was controlled.

The other room included three tables that were covered with various bottles and beakers, and the odd looking machine - a glass covered box that contained tubes, wires, a bubbling acrid liquid, and the floating head of a Bronze Warder. The party also noticed an acrid smell that emanated from the machine and the beakers on the table. There was discussion about knocking over the tables and smashing the bottles and beakers, and there was also some discussion about destroying the machine, but it was decided the party could also do that on the way out, so the room and its items were left alone for now.

The next step was to inspect the room to the south. The party assiduously avoided the teleportation circle while Oester opened the lock. The room turned out to be what appeared to be some sort of holding cell. It was empty, and no further magic or secrets were found.

The next step was to inspect the area in the southwest corner of the room. The door opened to reveal a library. Three long sets of shelves contained many mundane books and perhaps a dozen book that gave the appearance of being magical. Jenneth took one and immediately felt a sense of evil emanating from it, but when he opened the book there was no writing on any of the pages. No other secrets or magic were found, and after some discussion it was decided the magical books would be left behind.

A door led north out of the library and appeared to lead into the same room as a door from back out in the hallway. The party coordinated entering the room from both doors simultaneously, but the only thing in the room was a magic circle that was inscribed on the floor. Krstic attempted to see if he could rub out a portion of the circle, but to no avail. Jenneth determined the magic circle was likely some kind of summoning circle, and the party soon decided that perhaps it really was time to use the teleportation circle to advance to the next level.

With a quiet breath the first half of the party members stepped up to the teleportation circle and disappeared. As they disappeared the party members temporarily left behind heard a crack of lightning from the room with the summoning circle. The adventurers quickly stepped up to the magic circle, and as they disappeared they saw the door from the summoning room blown off its hinges.

The full party found themselves surrounding a teleportation circle with four pillars standing around it, similar to the architecture found in the other levels. They stood squeezed into a small foyer with doors to the north, east, and west. The doors were each adorned with an engraving of a single eye. The only monster in sight was the body of the Enigma of Vecna that had escaped the party from the second level - its corpse included a throat that had been slit from ear to ear. Was this his punishment for failure, or a reward for his success?

As the party pondered their next step the doors to the north flew open, revealing a norker and a human dressed in robes that awaited them. The human spoke, his voice filling the room. "Greetings, and welcome to the Tower of Mysteries. You've interfered with my research for far too long. Prepare too die."

From the vantage point of the foyer looking north the party could what could only be described as a temple to Vecna. A statue of a skeletal character missing one hand and one eye stood inside the doors, and directly in front of the statue stood a Norker Berserker wearing leather armor and wielding a flail. Behind the statue stood a human dressed in a mantle and wielding a staff, and behind the human stood a huge metallic skull, complete with a missing eye. Not all of the temple was visible, but the sound of scurrying feet could be heard from the unseen corners of the room.

Renny was the first to react, dashing forward to strike the Berserker. Renny's blow dazed the norker, which, as it tuned out, happened to be the most important blow delivered all evening. The norker was temporarily unable to deliver opportunity attacks and several other party members were able to sneak past the norker and were able to engage Paldemar directly. Unfortunately for Renny he was knocked unconscious by the end of the first round, but the stage for the evening had been set.

As the first batch of party members entered the room they saw four Norker Slingers deployed around the side of the rooms and their sling bullets provided effective artillery. Another Enigma of Vecna moved up to support Paldemar, and the party also found that the statue toward the front of the room was essentially a trap, repeatedly nailing nearby party members with a daze spell.

The remaining party members opted to stay back and to used their ranged attacks, but that option quickly changed as a Bronze Warder busted down the door on the east side of the foyer. The last set of adventurers scrambled out of the foyer, only to find themselves now ensnared in the statue's daze trap.

Meanwhile Paldemar found himself surrounded by Krstic and Akta, with Bogar and Oester engaging and quickly eliminating the Enigma of Vecna. Paldemar was able to deal a good amount of damage on his own but soon found himself overwhelmed and defeated when Jenneth finally broke away from the daze area and was able to administer the coup-de-grace.

With the huge Bronze Warder still squeezing his way through the foyer and into the temple the party members soon eliminated the Norker Slingers. The Norker Berserker in front of the statue, proved to be more difficult to kill. Renny had been revived, Eldred was fighting and healing to his best, and Miave finally slipped past the daze area to continue her arrow attacks unimpeded.

Then the Bronze Warder entered the room. Krstic found the controller amulet on Paldemar, but simply wearing the amulet and yelling at the warder seemed to have no affect. Jenneth tried the same with the same result.

DM Note: The Bronze Warder did his bit by flushing party members out of the foyer and into the daze trap, but I had originally anticipated more of the party members being stuck there with Paldemar free to do his damage. Renny's blow at the beginning of combat inadvertently upended all that. Having said that, I should have been more aggressive in bringing the Bronze Warder into the combat.

The evening drew to a close when the Norker Berserker finally took his last breath. With only the Bronze Warder remaining - in the daze area - the party members stepped forward cautiously and began their final assault. And we'll pick it up there next week.

DM Note: Time was running late so the DM considered cutting off the combat expeditiously, but then the Warder delivered a Sweeping Axe blow that delivered ~15 points of damage to four different party members. Given this had a way to go yet, and that we would have to finish next week anyway, I decided to let it play out.

Next week: We will be at Leo's and Dave is bringing snacks.

D&D Experience 2011

2011-01-27T20:16:00.000-06:00

Wizards is putting on the D&D Experience 2011 convention this weekend in Fort Wayne IN. It is obviously targeted towards D&D games and gamers, although apparently many gamers from the east coast have been unable to get out because of the snow.

One of the highlights is that Wizards uses this as a forum to discuss the plans for the upcoming year. Critical-hits.com has provided an excellent summary of this years New Product Seminar (here). Obviously there is a lot going on in the Hasbro / Wizards / D&D world, and while the speakers can't go into a lot of behind-the-scenes details on business plans, they are at least trying to make the case they are listening to the D&D community.

I am not going to recap the linked article here but if you are interested in what has been pulled off the production calendar and what has been added it's all there. The one thing I did find interesting is that they have decided to hold back on a Ravenloft release for the time being (coughScottcough).

The Tower of Mysteries (2) (01/23/2011)

2011-01-25T15:42:00.001-06:00

As we ended last weeks session instead of finishing the encounter at hand and taking a much needed short rest the characters instead used the teleportation circle to exit the encounter, knowing not where they would emerge. For game play purposes we played out last week with the players that remained on level one of the tower, until they all had exited the room. We therefore started this week with the players, one by one, as they emerged wherever the teleportation circle took them.

Krstic appeared in a room on top of a magic teleportation circle that had four nondescript pillars surrounding it. A door stood closed along the east wall, and a passageway led south. Krstic's first concern was that he had not landed in the middle of a new combat - indeed, there was a gentle hum that emerged from beyond that set of closed doors, but he was otherwise alone. Krstic first action was to move off the circle and over to the door to listen for what may be inside and to get a better view down the hallway. Down the hallway there was a door along the west wall and then the passage turned into an open area to the east. As he waited, all alone in the silence, somewhere off to the south he heard some large footsteps, heading his way.

Then Bogar appeared on the magic circle. He moved over to the door next to Krstic and Krstic then spun south to stand next to the passage opening. Again, silence, until from around the corner to the south emerged a Bronze Warder, it's giant great axe in hand.

As the warder moved north up the hallway Miave appeared on the circle, and she moved to gain a sight line on the intruder. With Bogar in clear view the warder moved up to attack and became engaged with Krstic.

Then Akta appeared, a norker slave in tow. But it was the sound of battle that cause the occupants of the room behind the closed door to appear - a norker and an Enigma of Vecna, plus another norker arrived from behind the warder. The warder was already enough, but suddenly the already weakened party found the numbers suddenly evened.

And then the party went into full swing - Jenneth, Oester, Renny, Eldred, and an Enigma of Vecna appeared on and around the magic circle. With the remaining Enigma of Vecna teleporting in on the next turn, mayhem ensued.

The norker slave and the two already bloodied Enigma's that teleported in were quickly dispatched to open the field of fire a little. The two norkers proved to be tough to kill, the warder prevented anyone from moving south, and the enigma used his ranged attacks to cause mischief from afar. And just as the party seemed to be getting the upper hand yet another norker and another Enigma of Vecna appeared.

Finally Renny went down, in a state of unconsciousness. Eldred moved up to provide assistance to the fallen comrade, but found his advance otherwise blocked by the last norker. Already at risk of dying himself Eldred was teleported/swapped away by Akta. It was about this time the two norkers in front went down and the focus turned to finishing the warder and the two enigmas and the last norker. One of the enigmas was next to go down, and Jenneth teleported in behind the remaining enigma.

The enigma pushed Jenneth away and moved up to engage in the fight. This then gave Jenneth a chance to force a Potion of Healing down Renny's throat. The enigma saw his remaining comrades fall, including the Bronze Warder, and decided to make a break for it. He tore south through the room and out the door, temporarily disappearing from view.

As the party gave chase they saw that the remaining enigma had stepped onto another teleportation circle located in the south end of the complex. A few got off ranged attacks, and Krstic managed to at least push the enigma off the center of the circle - while avoiding to remain on the circle himself - but alas the evening ended as the remaining enigma disappeared.

DM Note: Wow! This was the best battle the adventurers had all year. Well, OK, maybe it was the best battle the DM had. The players were each pushed to their maximum, resulting in much scrambling to look at otherwise unused items or powers to squeeze out whatever amount of healing they could find or to provide what extra amount of damage they could deliver.

The second level of the Tower of Mysteries had not been completely inspected yet, but in the room in the north east corner the party found three tables covered with beakers and vials that contained odd looking liquids. They also found a glass enclosed device that was giving off the hum Krstic had heard initially. It contained several piped and tubed from which different color fluids passed and percolated, but most importantly it also contained the floating head of a Bronze Warder.

There was some discussion about following the enigma as he was no doubt giving warning to whatever lay ahead, but with many (most) of the party already bloodied and without major powers it was decided a minor rest was needed before even exploring the rest of the rooms on this level. As the party looked around they saw (between the two levels):

12 Norker Slaves, each welding a battle axe

10 Norkers, each wearing leather armor and wielding a battle axe

4 Enigmas of Vecna, each wielding a dagger

1 Bronze Warder, wielding a large great axe

The party has not found any GP or magic as of yet. Each member of the party earned 420 XP for the entire encounter.

Score Card: With the completion of the Level 1 and 2 Tower of Mysteries encounter and the party had accumulated an additional 164 GP and 700 GP in gems. With the 420 XP earned during these encountered the party had accumulated 9990 XP (10,000 needed to reach Level 7). Including the previous encounters Renny was sitting at 6690 XP (7110 needed to reach Level 6).

Next week - R and J's.

Character Builder(s) - Updated

2011-01-25T14:41:00.001-06:00

When Wizards released their new web based character builder (CB) tool last fall I played a little with it the first day it came out, but I suspect that most of the DnD world was doing the same. Basic network performance and system overload seemed to be the order of the day, it since it wasn't a necessary tool for me at the time I arbitrarily decided to just let it sit for a month or so. This would allow the initial surge to die down, allow Wizards to fix whatever bugs did come up, and then once things calmed down a little I would try it again.

So of course I had to have a plan:

Create a new "test" character using the old CB tool.
Can I could import the .dnd4e file into the new CB?
Does the imported character match the original?
Can I print the character sheet (printer and PDF)?
Can I duplicate the character by recreating it step-by-step in the new CB tool?
Can I export a .dnd4e file from the new CB tool?
Can the old CB tool could process the exported .dnd4e file?

I also wanted to test the new CB tool using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and MS Internet Explorer. Once MS-Silverlight was installed (no problems) I was not really expecting different results, but I was curious to see if IE8 had some inherent advantage because it was a Microsoft product.

Just for the sake of completeness, my home network connection is via ATnT DSL and my home PC is an ~8 year old no-name house brand model I got at Best Buy way back when, running Windows XP. It is admittedly under-powered, under-memory'd, and my video card won't run Civ 4 much less Civ 5. Having said that, it really does runs like a champ so I really can't complain, and for what I am trying to do here I was not expecting any problems (OK, I do complain, but that's more of a personal issue).

Using the old CB tool I created Keokuk, an 11th level Goliath pit fighter. He had an extensive set of powers and feats that, when his off-hand was empty, allowed him to grab opponents and cause further havoc. Once the Keokuk.dnd4e file and the Keokuk.pdf file were successfully created, I was ready to move to the new CB tool.

Observation: Using IE8 and Firefox it took 5-7 minutes for the tool to start, but with Chrome it took 3-5 minutes. The difference is during the initial screen (the little circles) that came up Chrome seemed to zip right past that, while the other two browsers required 1-2 minutes to get past it. Once the next screen came up (the scene of the adventurers sitting around a fire) the final data loading required the remaining time. Once the tool actually started they all seem to work similarly well, with only the occasional random slowdowns.

Importing Keokuk.dnd4e went quickly, and a quick review showed all of my feats, powers, attributes, etc. were present, plus all the numbers added up to replicate the character as produced in the old CB tool. The new character sheet display has two choices - an Essentials look or a CB look. The new CB look is different from the old CB tool, but not drastically so. At some point as long as all the data is there I suppose it really doesn't matter.

First major problem: Printing directly to my local printer went very well. However, printing to a PDF file still hasn't worked properly for me, regardless of browser choice. I can select it, after a few minutes I get to select a file name and location, and then it goes into never-never land. Chrome gave me plug-in (i.e., Silverlight) errors, Firefox had a plug-in crash, and while IE8/Silverlight never crashed, I never did get a complete PDF. Sometimes I wouldn't get any PDF file, but most of the time I would get 2 or 3 complete pages (out of 6) and then an error page. More investigation showed my under-memory'd PC was thrashing because of a lack of available memory, and on occasional test efforts I would get an "out of virtual memory" error from Windows.

PC Note: I killed my anti-virus, ITunes, and mail to free up memory and CPU availability, but the PDF problem never went away. For what it's worth, running nothing but the browser really did help improve my performance in other areas, but just wasn't enough to resolve the PDF issue.

One more thing - when creating a PDF file from the old tool the final PDF file size was ~400K for a 6-7 page PDF. Using the new CB tool the incomplete PDF (only 2-3 pages out of 5) was ~3,000K in size, again, for a still incomplete print-out. Perhaps there is some clean-up that occurs when the PDF creation process completes. I have used cutePDF for my PDF creation for several years now with no problems ... I'm going with lack of memory as my issue here.

I suppose I could print out one PDF page at a time, but that's really not a solution. Since the new CB tool is web-based I decided to try this another way. I got my son's laptop, logged in, accessed my character, and completed printing the six page PDF in less than five minutes. The PDF file size (~8,000K) is still quite a bit larger then I would have expected, but it did complete successfully. And yes, the tool loaded quicker and ran faster on the much newer laptop with more memory regardless of browser choice.

The next step was to step through the new CB build process and see if I could recreate Keokuk via the new CB tool. It took awhile to figure it out, but once I chose Fighter (under the defender category) and not Fighter/Slayer (under the striker category) I was able to find all of the powers and feats as I expected and was able to recreate Keokuk completely.

Given the problems with printing to a PDF I wasn't sure how exporting from the new CB tool to a new Keokuk.dnd4e file would work, but it was almost instantaneous. The size of the file more-or-less matched with what I had expected as well. I was able to load the exported Keokuk.dnd4e file into the old CB tool with no problems, and further inspection showed all the data was present as expected. I loaded the recreated character (Keokuk2.dnd4e) as created and exported on the new CB tool and once loaded in the old CB tool everything appeared as expected as well.

Out of curiosity I created a fighter(slayer) character, exported it, and tired to read it in the old CB tool but it didn't go as well. The file loaded, but upon inspection none of the new powers were listed, some of the feats (new ones I assume) were incomplete, and my trained skills weren't designated as such. After doing this I began to ponder why one would actually want to move a character from the new tool to the old tool, so maybe it doesn't matter. Regardless, the import and export features appear to work on the new CB tool.

Linux notes: Just for grins one day I used Firefox on my Ubuntu Linux laptop to attempt to start the new CB tool via the link on the Wizards web page. I got a page that said I needed to load the moonlight plugin (mono is a joint development project between Microsoft and Linux developers). The plugin loaded fine and when I attempted to restart the new CB tool the initialization page (the little circles) came up, but there it sat - it never went any further than that.

Given that new CB tool is web-based I assume (always risky, I know) that active development is going on to allow non-Win/Mac devices to access the tool (i.e., smart phones, IPad's, Linux, etc). I'm going with the "not ready for prime time" excuse for now, but I'll keep checking.

Conclusion: I found out what I wanted to know, everything seemed to work as expected, plus having the character files stored on-line really helped when I was switching between PC's to do my testing. I suppose it is safe to move all of our current characters to the new tool, but given that we will be done this week or next I do not plan to re-send out new character sheets to everybody at this time.

An update to the new CB tool was released this past week, mostly bug fixes, of which there have been quite a few (here). I know Scott has submitted several bugs. Regardless, it might be worth your while to review any characters you might have created previously.

Update: I thought of two more things I wanted to check, so I imported one of our characters into the new CB tool:

1) We have agreed to adjust our ability points back to legal once the characters reach level 8, but until then they are too high. The new CB tool flags them as such, but accepts them and provides no penalty for them being too high.

2) I have included a lot of text in the journal pages for each character, and have commented as to how I can not print out the entire body of text for my journal pages. The new CB tool doesn't even have journal pages. They are text boxes for notes or characteristics, but at least for now when a character with journal data is imported the journal text is lost.

The Tower of Mysteries (1) (01/16/2011)

2011-01-18T22:11:00.000-06:00

The entire party ("entire" because David was indeed able to join us tonight after all) paused for a moment before stepping into the circle of magical runes in front of them. Gear was checked, belts were tightened, and Miave assured everyone that this teleportation circle was indeed the way to the Tower of Mysteries and to the evil mage Paldemar. Stepping into the circle might be easy, but what lay beyond?

The party stepped into the circle and after a brief moment of disorientation found themselves in a small room in the first level of the Tower of Mysteries. The walls of the smaller room were lined with faces etched into the wall - on some of the distorted faces gags covered the mouths, on the remainder blindfold's covered the eyes. Passageways led off to the north and to the west into a larger room. Outside the two passages the party could see pillars with faces carved into them as well - the pillar faces were all missing one eye.

As the party appeared the ungagged mouths on the walls of the inner room began to moan and speak/chant in an unknown language and the unblindfolded eyes glared at the party in a hideous rage. The noise wasn't shrill, nor did it appear to do any harm to the party, but there was no doubt the alarm had been raised as somewhere to the south several guttural voices could be heard in response to the alarm having been given.

Most of the party moved through the western passage and towards the south, but Oester moved through the north passage in an attempt to sneak up on whoever the party might meet. The northwest and northeast corners of the larger room contained no monsters, but additional "faced" pillars resided in these corners. As the party moved out a bolt of lightning shot out from one of the pillars, nailing Bogar, while a bolt from a different pillar narrowly missed Oester.

To the south Bogar and Renny could see four strategically placed pillars that surrounded a magic circle. They could also see a closed door to a small room in the southeast corner of the room, and while a door couldn't be seen the layout gave hint to another small room in the southwest corner of the room. Bogar and Renny also came face-to-face with three norkers, small grayish goblin like creatures that wielded deadly looking battle axes. Between the lightning bolt and the norkers Bogar was the first to be bloodied. The rest of the party moved up to engage, although Krstic and Jenneth felt the cold fingers of missed mental attacks that came from ... somewhere.

Just about this time three more norkers burst out of the room in the southwest corner. One moved up to support the first three norkers that were holding off the party from advancing further south towards the magic circle and the other two moved up and around to the east hall in an attempt to circle behind the party members.

In the course of sneaking up the east hall the two norkers ran into Oester, who had the same intentions of his own. Deciding discretion was the better part of valor, Oester turned tail and ran back around to the rest of the party, the two norkers in close pursuit. Between taking necrotic damage from standing next to the pillars, the occasional lightning or psychic attacks emanating from various pillars, the norkers in the front, and with more norkers moving up from behind, the party appeared to be in a spot of trouble. That is when four norker slaves appeared from the magic circle located in the south end of the room. Two moved up the front to immediately engage the party and two others moved up the back hallway to come up behind the party.

DM note: The DM had been able to bloody several party members at this point, but like the battle versus Maldrick it was at this point the DM's dice went cold.

Despite the damage the party had taken to this point they had been dealing some damage of their own. Miave, Jenneth, Akta, and Eldred continued to cast their ranged effects, and Renny, Krstic and Bogar held the line in the front. Oester had successfully led the other norkers around the backside to the party, although he did manage to do 40+ points of damage to one of the norkers with an especially successful backstab.. The norkers finally began to fall, and it turned out that the newest latest arrivals were actually minions, so while they were able to do damage they were easily killed (if they could be killed at all).

But the tide had been turned. The norkers in front continued to fall, the ones attempting to sneak in from behind were nailed, and even the appearance of four more norker slaves could not hold the party back. Oester moved to an as-of-yet unopened door only to come face-to-face with yet another norker. Behind the norker was another creature, one who flung a lightning bolt in Oester's direction - a lightning bolt that looked identical to the ones that had been shooting out of different pillars during the encounter.

The newest norker was tough to kill but Renny, Oester and Eldred put on the finishing touches when the two remaining creatures in the room emerged. Their distorted bodies presented a hideous appearance and they struck with a rage and a fury, but as Renny and Eldred held them off behind them something else had happened.

After a fireball from Jenneth managed to take out most of the third batch of norker slaves that appeared next to the magic circle Krstic has stepped onto the magic circle - and disappeared. Bogar was followed suit, followed by Miave. Then Akta, although his disappearance also took with him the remaining norker slave. Jenneth, Oester and Renny stepped on or next to the circle and disappeared as well, and as Eldred stepped up to do the same one of the Enigmas's of Vecna joined him.

Where did the teleportation circle lead to? We'll find out next week.

DM note: I think I got the order of disappearance above correct. The way we will play this out next week is that the party members will appear, in order, at the new location and we'll just play it out from there. And yes, you can safely assume that second Enigma of Vecna will be close behind. Also, the way this played out the initial encounter has not ended so you are still in the same initiative order, plus you have not had a chance to take a short rest (insert maniacal DM laughter here).

Reminder: We will be at Leo's next week and Brian is bringing snacks.

Maldrick Scarmaker (01/09/2011)

2011-01-12T10:48:00.002-06:00

Last week, after having defeated the guardian, a young green dragon, the party finally entered the real inner chamber and met Maldrick Scarmaker, the gnoll leader. The party also discovered the two missing slaves, which Maldrick had been slowly draining their life force as part of his evil ritual. Maldrick had several bodyguards willing to fight to the death for him and when we left off last week the battle was well underway.

Krstic had found himself teleported next to Maldrick and was quickly able to draw his attention. The barlgura had previously rushed at Miave and continued to flail at her with both its large apelike fists. The barlgura and the skeleton, both huge creatures, and two evistro's managed to bottle up Bogar, Renny, Jenneth and Oester. A third evistro had tried to slip up behind the party by going behind one of the smoking cauldrons, only to run into Akta who had a similar idea of his own. Eldred had stayed in the doorway to direct his ranged attacks and provide additional healing as necessary.

Renny had just slipped behind the skeleton, but had received a great club to the head and had been knocked prone. Bogar was suspended five feet in the air, essentially looking directly into the eyes of the one evistro that was still standing on the raised area, and thus the nights activities began.

DM Note: The DM had been rolling'em hot last week and several party members were bloodied. Fortunately for the party the DM couldn't roll to hit any bloodied party member this week.

In a smaller room there wasn't much room for jockeying for position, but after standing back up Renny slipped up the stairs to attempt a rescue of the slaves withering in the magic circle. He managed to pull one out of the circle, which drew the attention of Maldrick. Maldrick flew over to keep the slave from being drug further away from the circle and even managed to have the circle magically draw the slave back in to its glowing runes. By now Jenneth had arrived and with Krstic, Renny, and Jenneth wailing on him Maldrick soon succumbed.

DM note: I still consider myself a novice DM so on the trips home after a game night I always pick Scott's brain with questions. My question this night was "I don't think Renny would have really done that. Mark's other character, Eldred the cleric, certainly would - and should - have. As a DM, what's my best play here?" On the one hand I don't want to kill a players initiative in taking a potentially risky action, but on the other hand, it's not really role-playing if every character is equally smart, strong and virtuous despite whatever their numbers or background may say. We pretty much agreed that there was no clear cut answer, and I had obviously already let Renny play it out as it was, and I'm really not picking on Mark, I was just asking the question.

The huge skeleton was the next to go. Despite his size and threatening reach he had been blasted by Eldred and kept taking damage every time he hit something. In his rage he ended up doing more damage to himself than the party was able to do to him. Bogar and Oester eventually put down two of the evistro, and the barlgura was next. Unbeknownst to the rest of the party Akta was able to put the finishing touched on the last evistro and suddenly the room was quiet.

The party quickly drug the severely weakened slaves out of the magic circle and a quick inspection of the room revealed no other monsters or secrets. Miave inspected Maldrick and took his magical cloak and also grabbed a silver key that was around his neck. Miave also found a sheaf of letters to Maldrick from Paldemar, the missing Mage of Sauron, promising an alliance between the two. Paldemar had been gathering magic items, sacrificing them to Vecna, all in the hope of toppling the Mages of Sauron and then expanding his power beyond the depths of the labyrinth. He was currently consolidating his power in his hide-out in the Tower of Mysteries.

As the party looked around they saw:

3 Evistro (carnage demons)

1 Barlgura

1 Bonecrusher Skeleton, wielding a great club

Maldrick Scarmaker, wearing leather armor, a cloak, and wielding a rod and a mace.

The party exited the room, took a five minute rest, and then exited the Well of Demons and returned to the great hall. Phaledra at the Temple of Hidden Lights was overjoyed to see the final two missing slaves returned and promised to ensure they would arrive home safely. Uthland Deepgem was elated that his pet pig had indeed wandered home by itself and he had been treating the huge dire boar's wounds over the past few days. Orontor, the party's contact to the Mages of Sauron, was happy to know that his suspicions about Paldemar had been correct and was happy to know the party planned to continue after the rogue mage.

The one thing the party didn't know was how to get to the Tower of Mysteries. It wasn't on any of the maps, and they were loathe to ask to many questions because it might tip off the wrong people, plus they wanted to claim their eventual prize from the Mages for bringing in the bad guy. It was later, while at dinner at the Halfmoon Inn that Miave revealed that she knew exactly how to get to the Tower of Mysteries - the silver key had shown her a path to a secret door the key could open. Behind the secret door was a teleportation circle that would transport them directly to the Tower of Mysteries.

After an evening of good food and plenty of refreshing drink and then a full nights sleep in a real bed in the morning the fully rested party followed Miave out of the great hall. After a brief walk they reached a rather anonymous section of wall and Miave placed the silver key directly into what was essentially a hidden lock. The section of wall opened and the party moved up the passage beyond until the glow of a magic circle could be seen ahead.

Suddenly a ghostly vision appeared in front of them. The skeletal apparition wore a robe of deepest scarlet and was missing a left hand and a left eye. With a sneer in its voice the apparition said "The secrets of the tower come at a price. You must each pay for the right to enter this place. What can you offer the dreaded lord of secrets? I seek lore, power, and your souls."

If Paldemar was truly aligned with Lord Vecna, then the party was sure they were on the right path. Knowing that Vecna was keen on gaining information and secrets the party also knew they would have to try and sate Vecna's eternal quest for knowledge. After some deliberation the party members took turns attempting to tell the manifestation of Vecna different bits of information. Members that attempted to provide the apparition with bits of History, Arcana or Religion were generally well received. Eldred was successfully able to use Insight to determine that flattery and exaggeration might also work if a Bluff could be successfully attempted. However, no further attempts to use Insight were attempted.

After 2+ rounds the image of Vecna suddenly began to fade and its voice spoke, saying "You may now enter the Tower of Mysteries. May its secrets intrigue you." As the evil laugh of the apparition filled their ears the party stepped forward toward the teleportation circle with two less healing surges ... and we will pick it up there next week.

Score Card: With the completion of the Guardian encounter and the Maldrick Scartmaker encounter the party had accumulated an additional 164 GP and 700 GP in gems. Miave claimed the +2 Elven Cloak and gave Renny her Amulet of Resolution, Krstic claimed the Bracers of Respite, and ~~Jenneth~~ Renny claimed the Boots of Water Striding. With the 500 XP earned during these encountered the party had accumulated 9570 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including the previous encounters Renny was sitting at 6690 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6).

We will be at R and J's this week and they will provide snacks. Dave will likely miss this week.

Into the Inner Sanctum (01/02/2011)

2011-01-09T10:13:00.001-06:00

When the group ended our 2010 sessions we left off in a face-to-face battle with a young green dragon. As 2011 started all the players were present and anticipated defeating the dragon and hopefully having the secrets of the Well of Demons revealed.

After getting the map laid out and getting all the players placed combat resumed. Miave shot her arrows and hit the dragon, causing six, no wait, seven points of damage.

DM Note: This left the dragon with 1 HP. If this had been the end of the night I might have just declared him dead, but it wasn't. Plus I had hope the dragon might be able to hold out for one more attack, so we played it out.

Then Krstic threw his hand axe and gave the dragon a paper cut, but it was enough. The dragon suddenly turned into a green whirlwind that flattened most of the party members. The green whirlwind then spun up towards the ceiling and then quickly dove down into the pit from whence it came.

The statues could still be heard to be screaming, the party assumed the vat and crossbow traps were still active as well, plus the ball of energy continued its trek around it's worn track. Several party members peered into the pit but it was just as empty as it had been the first time they found it.

Suddenly a metal screech filled the air - the metal bars that allowed passage into the room where the remaining door was had raised up into the ceiling. The ball of energy shot through the opening and crashed into the locked door. Bolts of magical light, similar to what the party had seen when they originally placed the four artifacts into the magical circles, shot through all the Well of Demons. The ball of energy was gone, the screaming died down, the skeletons no longer attacked, and further investigation revealed the vat and crossbow traps were now negated as well.

Investigation also revealed that the door into the inner sanctum that had been magically locked previously was no longer locked, but was in fact opened, albeit slightly. The party crept forward to open the door the rest of the way and found a ten foot hallway that led to another door. Oester inspected the second door - it wasn't locked, but small tendrils of smoke or mist curled out from around its edges.

At this point the party decided a five minute rest was in order. Much healing was done and plans were made, but without any knowledge of what lay beyond the door not much real planning could be done. Finally the party assumed its marching order and Krstic and Bogar opened the second door.

A thick wall of hot, humid mist greeted them. It completely filled the hallway in front of them, so with some trepidation Krstic and Bogar stepped into the wall of mist. The mist provided no ill effects, but it did obscure any vision of more than a foot or two away. Krstic and Bogar took another step, only to find more of the same. With still no ill effects a third step was taken, putting the two face-to-face with yet another door.

Krstic and Bogar communicated to the rest of the party as to what they had found, and as several of the party members entered the smoky hallway they opened the door, revealing another scene out of the depths of the abyss. Four large iron cauldrons bubbled out the hot, humid mist that partially obscured the cauldrons themselves and it was the excess mist that filled the hallway. An altar with a large leering idol depicting a minotaur resided on the southern wall. To the north a small carved stairway led to a raised area where three of the four iron cauldrons spewed forth their obscuring mist.

Also atop the raised area stood a huge skeleton wielding a great club and an apelike demon, a barlgura, a monster the party had encountered several times recently. Three evistros, or carnage demons, also stood guard. Behind them stood a bat winged gnoll with curved horns that wielded a rod in one hand and a sheaf of parchment in the other. The gnoll, irate at having been interrupted at whatever magical rite he was attempting, turned and spit out a string of crude curses and with a command the monsters moved to attack the two party members in the doorway.

Before the battle started the party also spied two humans laying in a runed circle next to where the gnoll was standing. They seemed to be in some sort of trance, as if the gnoll's magical incantation was using them for its own purposes. The party quickly assumed these were the two slaves the gnolls had acquired and taken from the duergar back in the Horned Hold. That would therefore mean that this gnoll was none other than Maldrick Scarmaker, the one the party hoped would lead them to finding Paldemar, the missing Mage of Sauron.

The huge skeleton and the barlgura stepped forward to hold battle Krstic and Bogar, and as the remainder of the party streamed in the evistro stepped up to attack as well. Maldrick provided direction to his cohorts and threw in his ranged effects as well. The mist surrounding the cauldrons provided cover to both monsters and party members and several have attempted to take advantage of this.

We'll pick up from here next week.

Scoreboard: I'll catch this up at the completion of this battle.

Facing the Guardian (12/19/2010)

2010-12-21T20:05:00.000-06:00

The group was intact again this week as we move towards the finale of the Well of Demons. The party had accumulated all four of the magical items (bell, book, blade, and mask) and they knew where the four magical circles were, plus there was one door that has not been opened yet. Who was the guardian? Would they see the tieflings again? How about the pesky imp and stirge - they were still flitting about somewhere as well.

After a brief rest party moved back to the center area around of the Well of Demons. Nothing there had changed, so the party quickly moved past the manacled skeletons to look at the last door. It was large, heavy, had no handle nor did it have a key hole anywhere visible. It was locked, and further investigation showed the door was heavily magicked and the magic was somehow tied to the larger magic of the room itself. It was decided the placing of the four items in the magic circles was likely the key to advancing further.

After some discussion the eight party members broke into four groups. One party member would set their assigned item into the circle and the other would stand watch and coordinate actions as necessary. Initially the uncoordinated setting of the items into the circles had no affect, so it was decided the items really did need to be placed simultaneously. With all the open doors and with the party members able to yell to each other, one, two three, drop, the four items were placed into the four magically runed circles.

After a brief moment the four items glowed magically and then disappeared. Then the runes of the circle began to glow and began to shoot out streaks of light all about the dungeon. A roar could be heard coming from somewhere, and in each of the rooms where the circles resided different traps activated. Mark and Renny were grabbed by skeletons. Howling statues cast fear affects at Jenneth and Oester, causing Oester to run panicked into the hallway. Akta and Krstic were able to move out of the vat room, although a watery arm barely missed Akta. Jenneth and Bogar came under fire from a pair of crossbow bolt shooting devices that lowered from the ceiling.

There was also a huge spiked ball of energy that began to roll about the track surrounding the innermost section of the area. The ball took up the width of the passageway leaving no doubt that harm would come to any in it's way. And from the center of the room, arising from the pit therein, a flapping sound could be heard and a huge set of wings began to rise from the pit.

As the party spent their first round either evading or avoiding the traps close by or the wrath of the spiked ball circling in its path a green dragon emerged from the pit in the center of the dungeon and flew out the north entrance toward Jenneth and immediately bloodied her already weakened body with a poisoned breath. The dragon then followed Jenneth into the room where Miave and Bogar were attempting to disable the crossbow traps. Krstic and Akta soon joined the party, as did Eldred, while Renny and Oester looked to avoid the ball and the dragon and the other traps.

The dragon might have found itself surrounded by the adventurers, but it was not powerless. Using its bite, its claws, its tail, its ability to fly as well as it's poison abilities each of the party members in the area took damage at some point. But six capable party members can eventually begin to wear down a dragon, and just when things looked grim for the dragon it spun and flew out of the room, ensuring it placed itself between the party and the rolling ball of energy.

The dragon used its brief respite to resume its attacks in another direction, this time flying into the center area and going after Oester and Renny. Most of the party was able to resume the fight, but as the evenings activities drew to a close the bloodied dragon was still alive, as were all of the party members, everyone having survived nine rounds of ferocious combat.

When we resume in two weeks we will pick this up where we left off and see if the door to the inner chamber has opened. There are still plenty of active traps to work through as well. And once the last door is opened, what lay beyond?

Score Card: With the completion of the previous encounter the party had accumulated an additional 164 GP and 700 GP in gems. With the 0 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 9070 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including the previous encounter Renny was sitting at 6190 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6).

DM Notes: We neglected to discuss the magical bracers and the boots from the previous weeks episode. The bracers seemed to have some level of healing ability, while the boots were a bit harder to discern. The only clue were the three wiggly lines magically worked into the weathered leather on each boot.

We will see everyone at Leo's on Sunday, 01/02/2011. Brian is bringing snacks. Everybody have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The Shrine to Baphomet (12/12/2010)

2010-12-19T10:29:00.000-06:00

We started this session with Mark still out on his SE Asia trip, although as of this writing he is home safe and sound and we look forward to catching up with him on Sunday. We also started this session without the maps, so there was a slight delay as that was rectified. The party had completed a long rest and was determining which of the two eastward facing doors was the first to be investigated.

The party had collected three of the four objects they were looking for (the mask, blade, and bell) and were looking for a book. The items had been carefully placed behind traps and monsters that tested the players abilities and so far they had overcome everything that had been thrown at them.

The decision was made to double-back a bit and investigate the area back where the dire boar had been freed. The door there was unlocked, and once opened revealed a small hallway made of carved black rock. The floor tiles each had blood red minotaurs carved into them. A single door and a double door could be seen, and at the end of the hallway there appeared to be some sort of open room. The party crept forward carefully and Krstic reached out and yanked open the single door. Inside were two smaller gnolls wearing leather armor, a small shield, and a spear and a larger gnoll wearing hide armor and wielding a flail. The latter also had some sort of priestly vestment made out of bones as part of his armor.

Both sides were equally shocked to see the other and the battle quickly ensued. Upon having been interrupted the larger gnoll roared out, angered at the interruption, but poor initiative rolls by the DM gave the party a quick advantage. One of the gnoll guards was killed before he could make an attack, although the other gnolls proved to be a little more resilient.

It was then the party identified what the gnoll priest might have yelled. From behind the set of double doors a sound like the crack of a large whip could be heard and the smell of sulfur filled the hallway. With half the group engaged with the gnolls the others considered entering the second room but instead the set of double doors was blown off its hinges and out strode a barlgura, a large demon the party had fought in our previous session.

Two smaller creatures also flew out and created their own level of mischief. A stirge and an imp flew past the barlgura and set to attacking the party, with the imp having the added ability to hit and then disappear.

The battle was fast and furious. The remaining gnolls proved to be tough to kill, the huge barlgura was also tough, and the small flying creatures proved to be a nuisance as well. The tide finally began to shift towards the party though, and as the larger creatures began to go down the flying ones flew away and were not seen again.

DM Note: This combat didn't go that well from the DM's perspective. My monsters were pretty well bottled up to begin with, and the gnolls weren't really able to take advantage of their bonus for being in a pack. However, half of the party was bloodied, so maybe it wasn't that bad after all. The party has reached a point of group and individual strength, and while I try to adjust the monsters accordingly it is a crap shoot sometimes.

With the imp and the stirge gone the party looked around and they saw:

2 Gnoll Cultist Enforcers, each wearing leather armor, a light shield, and wielding a spear

A Gnoll Demonic Scourge, wearing hide armor and wielding a flail

A Barlgura

The party also found two tieflings quivering underneath a table in the room at the end of the hallway. Oester had discovered them initially and had ordered them to come join in the fight but they had instead remained in this hiding place. Their story was that they were treasure seekers and had stumbled across the Well of Demons. They had been negotiating with the gnolls and were hoping to be given information on treasure that lay within this area. They certainly were scared, and their story seemed at least mostly believable. The party felt the gnolls were more likely discussing how to kill the tieflings, and there was some sentiment that the tieflings might have been likely to jump in the fight against the party if things had gone better for the gnolls.

The decision was made to let them leave, and they gladly took advantage of the offer, After they left the remaining rooms were inspected. The Scourge carried a key that opened a small chest and inside lay a 500 GP gold necklace inlaid with diamonds and rubies, and jade bracelet worth 200 GP, and 100 GP. Also inside the chest lay a set of bracers and a pair of old boots..

In the other room a pair a large candle holders each holding a black candle stood in front of an altar made of humanoid bones. A book, the Book of Wrath Unveiled, lay on top of the altar. Each member of the party earned 250 XP for the encounter.

While taking a short rest the party discussed their options. They now had the four items, and they knew where the four runed circles were, but they were not sure what would happen after that. There was still one door remaining to be investigated.

Did the tieflings really leave? What about the stirge and the imp? So many questions.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 164 GP and 700 GP in gems. With the 250 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 9070 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 6190 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6).

Hall of the Howling Pillars (12/05/2010)

2010-12-06T22:18:00.000-06:00

The group was missing Mark and Scott this week, although Scott will return next week. Mark has one more week remaining with his southeast Asia trip. The adventurers had ended the previous session having walked into a room that featured pillars made of compressed body parts that writhed, twitched, and moaned. After having stepped cautiously past several of the pillars to get a better look at the as-of-yet unseen corners of the room several hands shot out from the pillars and grabbed Renny, Bogar, and Jenneth.

All three were able to break away from the grabs, but each of the party members made an effort to give the pillars a wide berth as they investigated the remainder of the room. Regardless, the pillars struck again, this time spewing acid on unsuspecting party members. By now the party had made its way to the back corner of the room where, besides three more pillars of flesh and bone (a total of six) there was a solitary altar with a bell sitting all alone atop it. Akta crept into the room where the altar was but before he could get to close monsters jumped out of each of the six pillars.

The five pillars closest to the front of the room each had a misshapen horror that while basically humanoid, it's dark twisted body could only be that of an Evistro, a carnage demon. The demons took a second to materialize, giving the party members a chance to attack, but it was what came out of the sixth pillar that gave the party a fright.

A Barlgura also appeared, and one that was plenty perturbed at having been disturbed. In the immediate turmoil it was Oester who decided that discretion was the better part of valor so he swooped in, grabbed the bell off the altar, and began to make a run for the door. The possessor of the bell seemed to draw the interest of the demons and soon Oester found himself surrounded by bad guys. Krstic and Akta were there to help Oester, but the rest of the party had their own demon problems.

And then the pillars struck again, this time pushing several players - and several of the demons - up to three squares. The battle lines reformed and the battle continued when the pillars then threw a real twist into the mix - more than half the party and monsters were teleported to random places in the room. With new opponents often looking at them directly in the face any battle plans soon evaporated and an all-out brawl ensued.

So of course the pillars then teleported half of the adventurers and monsters yet again. The Barlgura had kept Oester in his sights as Oester had continued to work his way toward the door. With a spurt of speed the well-bloodied Oester finally reached the door, and in doing so rang the Bell of Fury's Calling that he had picked up off the altar. Waves of crimson energy engulfed Oester, Akta, a demon and the Barlgura, putting all four of them into a fit of rage (-4 to all defenses, +2 to hit and damage).

Luckily for the party Krstic and Miave were able to finish off the Barlgura, but it was at this point that Oester stopped running and turned to vent his rage at the closest opponent. Bogar and Jenneth took down demon or two, and Renny and Eldred took out another. With only a few of the demons remaining it took only two more acid attacks from the pillars for the party to kill the remaining demons and safely exit the room.

As the party looked around they saw:

5 Evistro (Carnage Demons)

1 Barlgura

For having overcome the traps and defeated the monsters therein each member of the party earned 250 XP for the encounter. The adventurers had also found the third of the four artifacts they were looking for, a bell called the Bell of Fury's Calling.

The party members earned another action point for this encounter, but the consensus was that perhaps it was time for an extended rest. A review of the map revealed there were two areas not yet explored, through a door near the cell rooms in this area and there was also an eastern hallway back at the beginning that had not yet been explored. But after a day full of battles many of the party were pretty wore down, so when we resume next week the party will be well rested (DM note: insert maniacal DM laughter here) and ready to finish the Well of Demons.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 64 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 250 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 8820 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 5940 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

DM Note: I will have a 5th Level character sheet for Renny next Sunday.

Hall of the Crimson Whip (11/28/2010)

2010-12-05T11:45:00.000-06:00

After last week's tardiness issue I was resolute that I would get my blog posts done early this week but instead I got sick and spent two days in bed and two more in some sort of head cold induced fog. But despite all the external family and health issues it is comforting to know that no matter what happens I'll still make it to game night. Mark will miss this week end the next two on his trip to southeast Asia, so for the first time in a long time we will be playing without his friendly voice on the phone.

After having found the Face of Baphomet last week the party was looking to find the remaining three artifacts necessary to reveal the secret of the Well of Demons. After a brief rest they stated down the western facing hallway before coming upon an unlocked door. Hearing no noise on the other side, the party opened the door and stepped into a vision from the abyss.

From a small platform the party stood before a pool of blood. The room was cut in half by a room wide platform, but then another pool of blood filled the back half of the room. In the middle of the each of the two pools was a platform that contained truly huge statues of a minotaur wielding some sort of whip. But most importantly in the back two corners of the room were two small platforms, one containing a blade and the other a hilt. There were steps that led in and out of the pools of blood to the main platforms, but the pools looked to be around six foot deep so any kind of movement through the blood would likely be inhibited.

Further inspection of the room revealed that the statue had articulated features and could likely move. It wasn't clear whether or not the statue could actually take steps, but the dried blood on the whips barbs revealed a more sinister warning. Nothing could be seen moving in the pool of blood, but the dark red color didn't provide much a viewing advantage.

Most importantly the second member of the artifacts was clearly on display, so it was just a matter of figuring out how to retrieve them. The idea was made to attempt to destroy the closest statue first, and then see of the party could somehow jump from platform to platform and retrieve the artifacts without gaining further damage. The ranged attacks began and the statue did take damage, but initially there was no response.

And then all of a sudden the minotaur statue swung into action. With a quick flourish the whip (reach of 7) lashed out and struck almost all the party members that stood on the platform near the door, knocking several party members prone and sliding Jenneth and Krstic into the pool of blood. With the ensuing chaos the party members didn't see any of the ripples in the water and several creatures began to approach the Jenneth and Krstic as they floundered in the pool of blood.

The adventurers on the platform gathered themselves and continued their ranged assault on the statue. Oester took a running leap, landed at the feet of the statue, and began to apply his damage more directly. Jenneth managed to climb out of the pool of blood, but Krstic was able to use his height to grab a gulp of air and took a defensive position before attempting another further advancement. He immediately found himself flanked by two dark, misshapen bodies that attacked him with claws, although there was little doubt their bite could be equally dangerous. After the attack Krstic then decided that perhaps discretion might be the better part of valor and he too clambered out of the pool.

And then the statue attacked again. With a mighty metallic groan and a swing of the lash ... nothing. The statue had become damaged to the point where it had been disabled. Several more party members were able to leap across to the statue platform. Akta had circled back around to come through the other door into this room, but with the statue disabled and the mysterious creatures in the pool of blood lurking in the depths somewhere, things looked to be safe for now.

Jumping directly to the middle platform from statue platform was too much for anybody except Oester, so Jenneth and several others took a running start and jumped into the pool of blood at a point close to the set of steps that led out of the pool. Even with the reduced movement they would be able to climb out of the pool before inviting any additional attacks. As this was going on the ranged attacks on the statue at the back of the room commenced, and as before it appeared to take damage but no attack yet ensued.

Jenneth devised a plan to use her Tenser's Floating Disk to ferry Oester to be able to grab both the hilt and the blade without getting into the second pool of blood. Similar to the first statue when the second statue attacked it instead groaned to a halt from the damage it had already taken. Once acquired, the disk was used to ferry members back to the statue platform and then eventually out of the room. As the party took a five minute rest Oester was able to fit the hilt and the blade together successfully, creating a very nice magical dagger.

For having overcome the traps and defeated the monsters therein each member of the party earned 250 XP for the encounter. The adventurers had also found the second of the four artifacts they were looking for, a knife called the Bloodhorn Dagger.

The party then decided to try the room down the south leading hallway. As before no noise was detected from the inside so the door was opened and another vision from the abyss appeared before them. As rolls of wet, warm air spilled over them the party saw a room carved out of the blacked of rock and supported by several pillars. No mirrors here though, but instead the pillars were made of the still living bodies of different people. Lips moved, eyes darted, fingers waved, flesh twitched, and a tremendous collective moan filled the air.

From this vantage point three of the hideous pillars could be seen, but there appeared to be a back corner of the room that was not yet visible. Several party members launched ranged attacks at the closest statue, but with no attack otherwise forthcoming the party members decided to mover into the room. Slipping past the pillar of quivering bodies didn't invite an attack, so the party members began to further explore the room.

Just as the party members took up their new positions the statues did attack, with several sets of hands reaching out and successfully grabbing whoever might be close.

And we'll pick it up there next week.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 64 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 250 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 8570 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 5690 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Hall of Enforced Introspection (11/21/2010)

2010-12-05T10:28:00.001-06:00

Sorry this post is so late. Need an excuse? I got a million of them. We hosted Thanksgiving, Jacob's wrestling matches started, I worked Black Friday, and my parents stayed with us for three days. Once the dust settled and everything quieted down instead of getting caught up the wife and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie.

All the members were in attendance this week and were eager to further explore the Well of Demons. The meeting with the ghosts of failed expeditions past had provided the group with a lot of information, but there were still a lot of unanswered questions remaining still. The party ended up exploring most of the core of the Well of Demons, finding the following:

A room to the west that contained several statues - and a magical runed circle.

A room to the southwest that contained several vats of different colored liquid - and a magical runed circle.

A room to the southeast that contained two empty cells, a handful of dessicated skeletons chained to the floor, and a set of bars that blocked one entrance to this area - and a magical runed circle.

A room to the east that featured many statues, an altar, and several trails of dried blood that led back out into the entrance to this area - and a magical runed circle.

These rooms all surrounded an inner room that consisted of a large hallway that surrounded an inner sanctum. The inner sanctum contained two altars and a pit that was maybe 15 feet across and very, very deep.

The party knew they had found the four magical circles that they were to place the artifacts in, but there were no artifacts anywhere to be found. There were still several remaining hallways that led away from the core rooms that were yet to be explored - it appeared likely they may lead to something more.

After some deliberation it was decided to go up the hallway that led to the north. The door was unlocked, nothing could be heard on the other side, so the door was opened only to reveal a large thick curtain that hung all the way to the floor from hooks on the ceiling. The curtain was cautiously opened, revealing a large room with several mirror covered pillars in the room. Krstic moved in first, and promptly disappeared. Several other party members moved in, and disappeared as well, including Miave, Renny, and Elster. Akta, Oester, Jenneth, and Bogar covered their eyes and stumbled around the room, using the outside walls as a guide.

The room turned to the left, and eventually the remaining adventures came across a large curtain that seemed to cut off the back portion of the room. They stumbled behind the curtain and immediately found themselves being attacked by two large scimitar wielding skeletons. The two skeletons were able to deliver some damage, but they were soon overcome. Once quiet had resumed the party could see an altar with a mask laying atop of it. Jenneth used his Mage Hand to reach out a grab the mask, and the four party members then began their blind stumble back through the room to the exit.

Meanwhile the missing four party members found themselves in a small room that featured no doors or windows, no features at all, although it did have a partly emaciated and angry gnoll residing in it. With so many friends present the gnoll was soon overcome. The party members then began to look for magic, exits, traps, or anything that might help them escape, all to no avail. So they waited for those outside to rescue them.

With the mask now in tow, those standing safely in the hallway out side the hall of mirrors began to discuss their options. There must be a way to retrieve their lost comrades, but no handles, latches, or loose bricks could be found outside. It was obvious the answer lay inside, so Oester put on the mask to see if that might reveal some secret to him back around the mirrored pillars. He too immediately disappeared. Jenneth had an idea about destroying the closest mirrored pillar, and while she was successful in that regard, she too found that she became one of the missing as well.

With only Akta and Bogar remaining, the conversation went like this:

Bogar: "I think we should go back and look at the altar."

Akta: "No, that's not it."

But with no other options remaining, the two stumbled blindly into and through the room until they were safely behind the curtain. On the altar was a paw print that lay directly below where that mask had been, so Bogar set one of his big mitts directly onto the paw print ...

Unbeknownst to Akta and Bogar was that on the other side of the curtain all six of the missing party members had suddenly reappeared in various locations around the room. Each was standing right next to one of the many pillars in the room, and while some managed to keep their eyes closed, most did not. Some took psychic damage, while some immediately teleported in a different part of the room, and yes, some disappeared completely again.

It took awhile but eventually all the party was returned and was able to successfully exit the room. As the party looked around they saw:

2 Boneshard Skeletons, each wielding a scimitar

A Gnoll Marauder, wearing leather armor, carrying a light shield, and wielding a spear

For having overcome the traps and defeated the monsters therein each member of the party earned 250 XP for the encounter. The adventurers had also found the first of the four artifacts they are looking for, a mask called the Face of Baphomet.. The mask provided dark vision to whoever wore it.

After a five minute rest the party discussed their next option and it was decided they would investigate the door to west outside of the room with the statues.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 64 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 250 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 8320 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 5440 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Pet Pig (11/14/2010)

2010-11-19T12:36:00.001-06:00

All members were in attendance this week as the party has started moving through the Well of Demons. We left off last week in mid-combat as part of the party was facing a pack of hyenas while the other half was facing a group of Gnolls Huntmasters. After a brief recounting of last weeks story to get everyone caught up - including reminding everyone of the presence of a caged and panicked dire boar in the north end of the room - and we were off and running.

Several of the hyenas had died previously but the remaining three hyenas still had Krstic, Akta, and Jenneth pinned at their end of the room. Eldred was able to cast some ranged spells, and their combined strength looked to have the last group of hyenas in dire straits. Suddenly the four Gnoll Huntmasters at the south end of the room broke away from their combat to support their four legged comrades. Because they were placed behind the cage ranged attacks from Oester, Miave, Renny, and Bogar could only take place after careful placement which allowed the huntmasters to get in extra blows before the overall strength of the party was finally able to overwhelm the gnolls and hyenas.

As the party looked around they saw:

6 Hyenas

4 Gnolls Huntmasters, each wearing leather armor, wielding a hand axe and a longbow, and carrying 30 arrows

The party found no further secrets of magic, and the gnolls carried no GP. Each member of the party earned 220 XP for the encounter.

The party also saw a hippo-sized "pig" which Jenneth had identified as the pet pig that Uthland had asked him to look for. Jenneth reassured the party all they had to do was free the "pig" and he would gladly run home on his own. Of course the dire boar was still injured and angry after having been tortured by the gnolls and the hyenas. The dire boar was chained to a floor peg in the middle of the cage, the only thing that kept him from likely being able to tear the cage apart.

Jenneth deduced that he could use a ritual that allowed him to communicate with animals to reach the dire boar and (hopefully) calm him. Jenneth then initiated a skill challenge using his Nature ability, a series of success or fail dice rolls to see if he succeeded in calming the crazed beast. Krstic also made an attempt, betting his Heal ability might soothe the animal. Successes allowed the two to calm the animal down, but now what to do?

The party members hid behind the row of hay bales in the middle of the room while Jenneth used his magic hand to open the cage - no problem. Unfortunately the heavy chain buried in the skin and bristly hair of the dire boar's neck was too much for the magic hand, so Jenneth stepped into the cage and removed the chain, and once freed the dire boar quickly ran out of the cage and out of the room, and the party assumed that the dire boar also ran out of the Well of Demons and then back home.

DM Note: We have done skill checks throughout the two adventures so far, but this was the first time we had taken on a skill challenge. I went with the challenge as written in the book to use it as an introduction for all the group members. We will see more of these as we move further into the adventure.

With the quiet having returned to the room the party took a five minute respite and discussed where to go next. It looked like the party could choose to go west or east from their current location, and east was chosen. From here the party came to a cross walkway that lead back north to the main entrance, but the party moved south and then further west. The hallway turned south again and led into some sort of foyer or anteroom that seemed to be an entrance area that contained several doors.

A crimson trail of blood led across the floor of the room. The room itself had an unusually chilly feel to it and as the party adjusted to the cold with a shiver three ghostly apparitions appeared in front of them. They took no offensive actions, instead raising their hands in greetings.

Ghost #1 (Valdrog the Brute) - A male human with a thick black beard. He wore a set of chain mail, but the chain mail had been rent in two

Ghost #2 (Sir Terris) - A Dwarf Paladin wearing plate armor and a matching helm. The faceplate on his helm remained closed.

Ghost #3 (Mendara the Mystic) - An Elf Wizardess wearing a green robe and carrying a staff. Her sickly pallor made her quite pale, but she maintained an upright haughty appearance.

The three guardians greeted the party and told they had failed in their attempt to conquer the Well of Demons. As they engaged the party members in conversations they rewarded the party with clues and hints as to what lay ahead, although if they offered insults to party members for questions they felt unworthy.

The net result of the skill challenge was that the party learned the following things:

1) Besides identifying themselves, the party learned they three guardians had all been killed by the guardian of the inner chamber.

2) The Well of Demons included a proving ground for worshipers of the Demon Lord Baphomet. The party must find four items - a knife, a mask, a bell, and a book - and simultaneously place one them on one of the four runed circles located near the proving ground.

3) The first three items were located in chambers that were built to test the character of the worshiper. These rooms were located to the north, west, and south.

4) The book was located on a small shrine in a room to the east.

5) To the east of the proving grounds was the inner sanctum. The door to the inner sanctum would open when the proper ceremony was completed. The four magic items would return to their former location upon completion of the ceremony, as well as if they should try to be taken out of the Well of Demons.

At the end of the skill challenge the three guardians wished the party well and faded into the darkness. The reward to the party was the information provided by the guardians.

DM Note: Each party member was given the chance to select an appropriate ability to choose from and choose to whom they wish to direct their question. This was the first large scale skill challenge for the group and while there was some hit-and-miss as we worked our way through it.

Two small storage rooms in the anteroom were found to be empty, so when we meet next Sunday the party will determine which door to take next.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 64 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 220 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 8070 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 5190 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be at Leo's next week.

Gnolls and Hyenas (11/07/2010)

2010-11-10T16:25:00.000-06:00

After a week off for Halloween the Sunday Night DnD group resumed play this past weekend minus Rich and Joette. They were in North Carolina for the weekend, but unfortunately they were not able to join Mark when he called in this week. The general rules for our group is that if two players miss the remainder can accommodate, but when the number gets up to three it's probably time to skip a week.

During the last session the players had entered the Well of Demons and were promptly greeted by ghouls, cavern chokers crawling down from the ceiling, and a phalagar that exploded up through the floor. This session was a lot of fun as the players were being hit from directions they weren't used to and if the DM could have rolled a little more consistently he might have been able to put down a player or two.

With the monsters defeated the party took a five minute rest and discussed which of the two passageways to take. The south hallway led maybe 50 feet or so before it turned off, but the eastern hallway had a closed door maybe 20 feet down the way. East was the decision, so the party got organized and started moving down the hall. No noise could initially be heard, but once the door was open the smell of rotting food (and likely worse) was overpowering. Also, in the distance, one, then two, and then more high pitched laugh-like dog barks could be heard. The hyenas could heard to be running in the near distance somewhere ahead, but at least for the moment they did not appear to be moving toward the party from wherever they were.

The party moved ahead cautiously, spied a hallway to the left and then just beyond another hallway to the right. In the darkness ahead there was a darkened room, but before any further exploration could be attempted several gnolls moved to attack from the room up the leftward hallway. This room appeared to be some sort of mess hall as it included several tables and a bunch of chairs. Two large gnolls moved forward waving their hand axes while two smaller gnolls hung back with the intent of pelting the party with their arrows.

The party was quick to respond and one gnoll was bloodied before he ever got in a swing. The party was able to avoid being bottled up in the entrance to the mess hall, but just as the fighting got serious another gnoll appeared in the darkness up the hall only to seemingly run away, back into the darkened area ahead. Several party members broke off to follow, only to see the gnoll releasing four angry hyena's from a cage. Bogar tried to pin the gnoll to keep him from opening the cage, only to find the gnoll and all four of the hyena's were now available to attack him.

Back in the mess hall the two fighter gnolls proved to be quite resilient, including the bloodied one, and while one of the gnoll bowmen was quickly dispatched the other bowmen proved to be impossible to hit (DM Notes: It's OK, the party is used to the concept of the "unkillable minion" by now). Krstic kept the bloodied fighter tied up, while Renny and Eldred took on the other. Akta was able to help out Krstic and finally killed the unkillable minion, but not before his arrows and blows from the other gnoll bloodied Renny.

Oester and Jenneth soon arrived to help extricate Bogar from his predicament, and with the tide now turned in both rooms the party soon found themselves victorious again. As the party looked around they saw:

4 Hyenas

2 Gnoll Minions, each wearing leather armor, wielding a hand axe and a longbow, and carrying 30 arrows

2 Gnoll Marauders, each wearing leather armor, carrying a light shield, and wielding a spear

1 Gnoll Huntsman, wearing leather armor, wielding a hand axe and a longbow, and carrying 30 arrows

The room from where the huntsman had emerged was found to have several beds in it but was otherwise empty. The party found no secrets in this area, but 64 GP and a set of dice were found on one of the tables in the mess hall and a +2 Cloak of Resistance was found to have been stashed inside the hyena pen. Akta took possession of the cloak and passed his Safewing Amulet on to Oester. Each member of the party earned 170 XP for the encounter and accrued an Action Point.

After another five minute rest the party moved down the hallway to the south until they came to a set of west-facing doors. The hallway led on maybe another 80 feet or so, but for now the party wanted to investigate these doors first. Oester could hear the obvious hyena barks from inside the room, plus there was an indeterminate high pitched animalistic squeal coming from something.

With more hyena's to be taken out the party burst into the room only to find themselves more-or-less pinned in the doorway because of the presence of a large cage in the room with a pack of six hyena's surrounding the cage. The hyena's reacted viciously to having been interrupted from their snapping at the beast inside the cage - the absolutely, positively largest "pig" anyone in the party had ever seen. The dire boar had several arrows sticking in him, plus if he got to close to the edge of the cage the hyena's could easily snap at him. The dire boar was tired, injured, panicked, and generally mad. Jenneth had been looking for someone's pet pig, but surely this couldn't really be anyone's pet could it?

Krstic, of course, was at the front, and somehow Akta, normally never at the front, found himself fending off the snapping jaws of several hyena's. Several ranged attacks did some additional damage, but with nowhere to go Oester and Renny took off down the hallway to see if there was another entrance. Oester found a door that could conceivably lead into the same room, but when he opened it and peered inside he saw four gnoll huntsman hiding behind a row of hay bales focused on the hyenas fighting at the other end of the room. Oester considered the possibility of a sneak attack, but since there were four of them he instead opted to step back and close the door behind him.

Unfortunately he had been detected and two of the huntsman quickly yanked the door opened and commenced with their attacks. A third huntsman stood back to provide aerial support with his bow. Renny got off a yell and Bogar "quickly" responded by trudging down the hall to jump in the fight ... and we'll pick it up from there next week.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 64 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 170 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 7850 XP (10000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 4870 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be at Rich and Joette's next week. Brian will likely be late, Dave may have to miss.

The New Character Builder Tool

2010-11-02T21:16:00.000-05:00

Wizards of the Coast made their announcement about the new version of the character builder here. For more information Wizards has also posted this FAQ. The first link includes screen shots as well if you keep moving to the bottom of the page.

Summary - Effective November 16 the character builder will be accessed via the Wizards website. Each of us has a DDI login already and the same login can be used to access the new web-based CB. Apparently there are a lot of customers who "share" DDI logins but it is not apparent if the new tool will eliminate this possibility somehow. It does eliminate the practice of getting a only one-month subscription every once in awhile when someone wants to get the current upgrade only. The existing CB tool will receive no more updates, but I guess will continue to work on your PC if you so choose.

If things work as advertised we should be able to import our current character sheets into the new tool, although for the time being we will have to keep the new sheets on-line as the export feature will not be available yet. They can be printed, so I am assuming I can still "print" to a PDF file via tools such as cutepdf as I do now.

The new CB tool will include all the Dark Sun and Essentials updates, which should catch everyone up on all the latest data and updates. The Monster Tool (MT) equivalent web-based tool is scheduled for release "soon." The tool will require a free MS-Silverlight web add-on so it will work on both Windows and Mac based devices, but no IPhones or IPad's at least for now (no Unix either). To see what others have to say the best article and comment section I have come across so far is here.

My $.02 - Well, moving off the 1980's based client-server technology and moving into a more Web 2.0 based environment is probably the right thing to do. I am sure Wizards has done a lot of testing and load sharing estimation, but let's face it - there are going to be roll-out issues. Take a deep breath, let it out, let's let them resolve whatever does pop up, and then once they get past that they can release the new web-based Monster Tool.

I will no doubt show my prejudice here, but in my experience most DnD geeks tend to be at least above average in computer and/or math skills and have a strong opinion of what they want their game(s) to be. Therefore when changes like this come along the opinions and feedback there from tends to be strong because it comes in an environment for which many are familiar. Wizards can never be all things to all gamers, so no matter what middle road they try to take they will be criticized by some for good reason, but frankly, by many who just want to make noise (try following any of the discussion forums on Wizards to see what I mean).

I am sure there will be much more discussion of this over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Enter the Well of Demons (10/24/2010)

2010-10-27T14:04:00.000-05:00

Brian missed this past Sunday but all the players in attendance were happy to review the character sheets of their newly promoted characters. The party had defeated a gelatinous cube and several wraiths on their way to find the Well of Demons and had accumulated enough XP to reach Level 6. They found a quiet hidey-hole where they could take an extended rest and picked up a new Utility Power and a new Feat.

With their morning constitutionals completed the party moved back to what they assumed was the Well of Demons. Two large minotaur statues stood beside a south facing entrance into a darkened hallway. Some cursory inspection revealed the room inside to be quite large, some pillars could be seen, but from the outside most of the room could not be seen. The party decided to creep down the hallway and into the room. Two more pillars could be seen off to the sides, but the room was still large enough that no side or back walls could be seen from in the hallway. The room itself appeared to be old and not well kept up - the floor was cracked and uneven in places, and the walls they could see were cracked and sagging in places.

With no sign of danger the party crept into the room. A fifth pillar could be seen at the back of the room and the walls of the rooms were now able to be seen. Two exits, one south, one east, lead out of the SE corner of the room, and there appeared to be some sort of open hole in the SE corner of the room as well. From this vantage point the party could now see the face of a minotaur carved into each of the pillars and as the party approached the pillars "spoke" aloud:

Greetings, seekers of Baphomets boundless glory.
Those who prove unworthy of his attention
shall be claimed forever as his slaves.
Those who prove worthy
shall be granted power beyond mortal reckoning.
Mask, bell, blade and tome.

The party remembered that one of the stories they had heard back in town was that certain magic items had to be found to reach an inner chamber and this pronouncement seemed to align with that rumor. The party began to fan out to further inspect the room when Jenneth and Miave spotted someone or something hiding behind the western most pillar of the room. Miave managed to get off an arrow at it, but the hiding Ghoul jumped out of the darkness and attacked Jenneth, and a second ghoul jumped out from behind another pillar to attack Oester.

Several of the party members maneuvered to respond to the attack when three cavern chokers climbed down two of the pillars and added their attacks. Their long arms and their extended reach allowed them to stay attached to the pillars and off the ground in their attempt to grab and choke the life out of whoever they should attack.

With the rest of the party now engaged the room provided one more surprise. A rumble could be felt beneath their feet and all of a sudden the several floor tiles exploded as a squid like phalagar attacked. Several long tentacled arms swung about wildly as the creature used its tremorsense in its quest for fresh food. Party members that stood close to the phalagar scrambled for safety only to find that movement only provided extra attacks and more damage.

The two ghouls went down quickly, but the chokers proved to be a bit more problematic. They were able to use their climbing ability to an advantage, but they were soon bloodied and when the first one died the other two scrambled up their pillar and squeezed into a crack in the ceiling. This allowed the party to concentrate on the phalagar, but just as the phalagar collapsed and died in his burrowed hole in the floor the two chokers reappeared and attacked Jenneth, but it was too little too tale and soon the quiet resumed. As the party looked around they saw:

Three Cavern Chokers

Two Ghouls

A Phalagar

The creatures carried no magic or GP, and no secrets or magic could otherwise be detected in the room except for the speaking pillars. Each member of the party earned 180 XP for the encounter.

The hole in the floor turned out to be dry well, perhaps thirty feet deep, with what looked to be a dry stream below. Two passageways led out of the room, one to the south and one to the east, and the party will choose their path when we resume in two weeks.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 0 GP and 0 GP in gems. With the 180 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 7680 XP (10,000 needed to reach Level 7). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 4700 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be back at Leo's in two week, so no DnD on Halloween this year.

Back into the Labyrinth (10/17/2010)

2010-10-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

Everyone one was in attendance again this week and after having survived Paldemar's attempt at a trap the previous week was eager to follow-up on the new clues found in the captured scrolls. The clues included a map showing the location of the Well of Demons, but the party was well aware that in the labyrinth knowing where something was and then being able to find it were often two different things.

With a short rest behind them the party was able to dig their way out of the cave past the large boulder that was now blocking the cave's mouth. The party had decided to bring along the large bronze great axe of the now destroyed Bronze Warder. They had decided it if the Mages of Sauron got involved they might need some additional evidence to back up their claims.

As the party arrived back at the hall they entered through the northern door of the Seven Pillared Hall. Brugg, the ogre guard under employ to the Mages, happened to be nearby, and upon seeing the party immediately reacted.

"Hey! What are you scum up to now?" The ogre seemed poised to continue his string of insults when the bronze axe appeared, bring the ogre to a quick halt. Although temporarily stunned, the ogre stammered on by saying "Oh, you ... you've done it now! The mages aren't going to like this at all." With a spin the ogre turned and trotted off, looking much like someone who couldn't wait to tattle to the teacher.

Much like the previous day when the party had returned from the Horned Hold any hope of discretion soon evaporated. One, two and then a third mage (Orontor) quickly appeared. Rendil also ran to join in the confrontation, thus ensuring the volume level would be raised. Brugg also rejoined the group, and the never ending argument between Rendil and Brugg did little more then add to the confusion.

As the accusations and rebuttals started to fly it was Eldred who suggested that perhaps the Mages and the party should agree to adjourn to a quieter location for a more serious discussion. The mob moved to the Customs House to use the offices therein, but as before Brugg and Rendil were kept outside so that their argument wouldn't hinder the discussion inside. Oester provided the mages details about the tieflings, their offer, their proof of sincerity, and then how the trap in the cave was set. This then gave the party an opportunity to ask a few pointed questions of their own.

The first Mage of Sauron started to answer questions, perhaps somewhat vaguely, by stating that Paldemar had been a member of the Mages, but he had left on his own several months previous and no one knew of his whereabouts since, but yes, it was possible he was still in the labyrinth.

As for the Bronze Warder, the mage stated that they found the warders when they arrived in the hall many year ago and found the way to control the warders through the amulets. It was possible, and indeed likely, that more warders resided in the depths of the labyrinth. But without the amulet and the keyword the warder was not much more than a large bronze statue.

Then the mage asked for the bronze great axe and the amulet the party had acquired while in the cave. The party protested innocence as to the amulet, but the great axe was certainly available for a price. The mage insisted the party had the amulet because they were to clever to not have found it, but the idea of making a deal appealed to him.

So after some back and forth the deal was struck - the party would turnover the axe and the amulet and kill Paldemar and the mages would use their considerable magic abilities to benefit the party as a reward. Specifically, they would create an 8th level magic item for each of the party members of this whole Paldemar business could be eliminated. The party did find it peculiar that Paldemar's existence had barely been acknowledged originally but was now the linchpin to the deal. The consensus of most party members was that they'd kill him for free, but this deal was good as well.

DM Notes: This deal was essentially the same one offered by Menos for the Keep of the Shadowfell adventure, albeit at a higher level. The DM could easily adjust the GP and XP values according to our higher number of players, but adjusting magic items isn't quite as straight forward. I have been sticking to the magic items as provided in the adventure book, but then adding the option to acquire a magic item at the end as part of the reward.

Once the meeting adjourned the party spent a few minutes deciding how to proceed. They had several hints and clues that the next step was to find the Well of Demons and to find what answers lay there. A review of the map revealed a major passageway that would at least get the party near, although some dungeoneering might be required once the party left the main passage. Each party member had previously cultivated a contact in town so after a little sniffing around the party members found out the following:

1) There were certainly a pack of gnolls that ran in the labyrinth, one would assume they had a leader - Maldrick Scarmaker? Sure, why not?

2) The Well of Demons was some sort of ancient religious shrine, one of the dragon gods

3) It was an ancient minotaur training site, one of those "rites of passage" things

4) Demons - and worse - live there now

5) Pffft - there was no such place

6) Supposedly there were ancient relics that were required to open a secret door to some sort of inner chamber

It was early in the afternoon when the party began their trek to find the Well of Demons. The main passage was certainly not a straight one as there were plenty of twists and turns therein. The party moved a little more cautiously this time as well as they had been surprised several times in different passageways already, so travel went at a steady but slow pace. And as before, the ancient halls often reverberated with strange noises, random foot steps, chilling laughter, or a mysterious growl that would echo from some unknown location.

After following the map the party arrived at the junction that looked to be the likely spot for moving into one of the smaller and more unkempt passages in the hope of finding the Well of Demons. Maive looked for tracks and while there were to be find in the occasional spot of gravel or loose soil, nothing specific could be gained. After some discussion it was decided that doorway #2 would be taken when Renny's dungeoneering skills came into play.

It was down this path that Krstic almost walked directly into the maw of a Gelatinous Cube. Krstic immediately yelled for the party to get back as he and Bogar stepped forward to battle the large opaque beast. The cube promptly engulfed both of them. The rest of the party, promptly ignoring Krstic, began to pepper the cube with ranged attacks, but the beast continued to charge, and furthermore, several black flying shadows could be seen flitting around behind the cube as if waiting to attack.

DM Notes: The discussion came up about Jenneth being able to set off spells in the area behind the cube. The DM decided that the cube filled up the hallway enough to hold back the still-as-of-yet-unknown flying things behind the cube, so Jenneth wouldn't be able to affect the area behind the cube.

Both Krstic and Bogar managed to escape their temporary imprisonment inside the cube and began to add their mighty attacks as well. The cube then managed to slam and immobilize Bogar, and of course since the cube got to automatically engulf any immobilized character Bogar got to go swimming in acid yet again.

DM Note: That was the DM's one goal for the night, to get the cube in a position to accomplish this. However, it was not the DM's fault that Bogar was still immobilized ~10 rounds later, even after receiving substantial magical saving throw assistance from several different party members.

Fortunately for Bogar the cube soon fizzled into a meaningless pool of acid and the wraiths that had been held back by the bulk of the cube were now free to attack. The wraiths flew at the party in a frenzy and did their best to inflict necrotic damage and to weaken party members, but it was too little too late and the party soon eliminated them as well. As the party looked around they saw:

1 Gelatinous Cube

2 Forge Wisp Wraith Minions

3 Wraith's

No magic or secrets were found and the monsters carried no GP. Each member of the party earned 165 XP for the encounter.

After a brief rest the party moved on until they reached two large minotaur statues stationed on each side of a passageway that lead into a large room. Had the party reached the Well of Demons?

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 1005 GP, 578 SP, and 1400 GP in gems. With the 165 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 7500 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 4520 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be back at RnJ's next week. Brian will miss this week, and possibly Dave.

Reminder: The original party members made it to Level 6 this week, so please let me have your Level 6 Utility Power choice and your Feat choice before Saturday. I will have updated character sheets in time for Sunday night.

Ambush (10/10/2010)

2010-10-12T14:18:00.000-05:00

Everyone one was in attendance tonight and was intrigued by the offer the two tieflings had made to them last week. They represented themselves as agents of the Mages of Sauron and said they were fronting for an anonymous Mage that was undercover with the evil behind the duergar's plans. The Mage wanted the party to help against this evil, and to back up his claim the tieflings carried one of the Mage of Sauron amulets and they also said that they had one of the huge Bronze Warders with them to ensure everyone's safety. The unknown mage was hiding in a cave near the great hall. Could these tieflings be trusted? After all, what could go wrong?

Rendil Halfmoon thought going to visit the secretive Mage was a great idea, but Rendil's level of support seemed to involve anything that didn't actually involve him. Orontor, the party's contact within the Mages of Sauron, said he didn't know anything specific about this, but he was certainly pleased that the higher ups in the Mages were finally going after the evil that likely included Paldemar. After some further discussion the party decided to go to the cave with the tieflings and visit the as-of-yet unknown mage.

The cave was north of the great hall, maybe a thirty minute walk. The tieflings led the party up one of the main walkways until they eventually turned up a small hallway that led into a small cave. From this hallway the party could see a huge boulder sat near the entrance of the cave and they could also see that a ledged area seemed to surround the inside wall of the cave. The two tieflings walked directly into the dark of the cave, one moving straight ahead and the other one announcing "We're here. We brought them with us." as he moved around the boulder and out of sight.

Jenneth set off a magical light in the middle area of the cave and the party moved in behind it. Akta and Jenneth scrambled up onto the ledge near the entrance while the rest of the party moved past the huge boulder and into the cave. Behind the boulder stood, as promised, a Bronze Warder, standing there unmoving and silent. The party was also able to see a third tiefling standing on a ledge across from the cave entrance.

The party was still very cautious. There was no sign of any Mage of Sauron, although the Bronze Warder was there as promised. As the party moved further into the cave someone dressed as a Mage of Sauron stepped out from behind a boulder near the back of the room and said "They're all here? Good. Kill them all." The tieflings and the mage quickly rained their ranged attacks at the party and the battle began.

The mage drew the attention of Jenneth and Krstic while the rest of the party responded to the attacks by the three tieflings. The party took several hits and soon found that ongoing damage could be a nuisance, and it was Bogar who first found out that the tieflings had the ability to teleport after being hit and the three tieflings soon all found themselves up on the ledge around the cave and out of range of the hand held weapons of the party.

As the fighting started the one non-combatant turned out to be the Bronze Warder. Instead the warder started to push the boulder he was standing next to, slowly at first, and then with a second major push managed to lodge the boulder directly into the mouth of the cave entrance, effectively locking everyone in. The warder took a few blows from the party, but he seemed to simply shrug off the damage as insignificant.

With the escape route blocked the warder started his combat by wading into groups of party members and send them flying and then taking huge sweeping swings with its great axe. He moved slowly and steadily across the room to provide assistance to the mage, leaving a trail of carnage in his wake. The party had done a lot of damage to the mage rather quickly though and the mage soon fell, but the warder and the tieflings continued to fight on.

DM Note: With the existence of the cave ledge the DM decided that he would arbitrarily use a Bull Rush the first chance he could. This was an attack that I don't think we've ever attempted so this seemed like a good chance to roll it out. The perfect opportunity soon availed itself when Oester scrambled up to the ledge and one of the tieflings had an excellent chance to push Oester back off the ledge and on to the cave floor below. So of course the DM rolled poorly and the attack was easily turned away by Oester. Oh well.

The tieflings used their teleport ability to repeatedly escape from immediate danger, but they were soon overwhelmed. Oester in particular took extra effort in ensuring his chosen opponent was quite dead. The warder took many, many blows until the huge pile of metal crashed to the floor. With a sense of quiet returning to the room, and after a few more turns, Oester finally made the two necessary saving throws to stave off the ongoing affects of two different damage spells, although he required the healing effects of several party members to stay conscious.

A further inspection of the mage soon revealed a human wearing priestly vestments underneath his Mage of Sauron disguise. Orontor had described Paldemar to you and this certainly wasn't him. The party then found an amulet with an odd looking symbol on it around the neck of the dead priest. Eldred and Jenneth were able to identify the (non-magical) amulet as carrying the symbol of Orcus, something that came as a surprise to the party. The magical amulet the tiefling had shown you was recovered, but no other magic or secrets were found. As the party looked around they saw:

3 Tiefling Heretics, each wearing robes and wielding a dagger

1 Orcus Underpriest, wearing robes and wielding a mace

1 Bronze Warder, wielding a huge great axe

The party did accumulate a collective 30 GP from among the tieflings and the priest. Each member of the party earned 200 XP for the encounter.

As the party further inspected the bodies for clues three small tubes were found on the priest, each containing a tightly rolled sheet of parchment. The first scroll read:

I don't care how you do it, but deal with these adventurers. Take one of the Bronze Warders if you must. If they remain in the labyrinth they could disrupt my plans. Once you've dealt with them deliver their bodies to our gnoll friends along with the enclosed scroll.

The second scroll read:

To Maldrick Scarmaker, Exalted Chieftain of the Blackfangs and Chosen of Yeenoghu, Paldemar offers you the corpses of these champions as a gift of ongoing friendship that our arrangement might continue to be mutually beneficial. May you savor their blood. Your friend and ally, Paldemar.

The third scroll contained a hand-drawn map of the labyrinth, with the Well of Demons identified and circled with the word "Gnolls" written next to it.

The party took this opportunity to take a short rest and to review what they had learned. Paldemar was apparently real, was aware of the party's actions and was concerned about their prowess, hence the ambush in the cave. Paldemar had likely provided the Bronze Warder and the Amulet to control it to the tieflings and the priest. And exactly how did a Priest of Orcus play into this? The next step in this mystery certainly lay in the Well of Demons and the party now had a map of where the Well was located plus they had Renny, who knew - more or less anyway - where the Well of Demons was as well.

But what exactly was the Well of Demons? The party was going to have to head back through the Seven Pillared Hall so maybe their contacts there might know something. Several party members began to dig out around the entrance so the adventurers could exit the cave past the boulder that blocked the cave mouth. Krstic and Akta removed the priest's head (just to be safe you know) and Akta gave each if the tieflings bodies one final inspection before leaving. The party decided to take the the great axe of the Bronze Warder back to the hall as evidence should the real Mages of Sauron have any questions.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 1005 GP, 578 SP, and 1400 GP in gems. With the 200 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 7335 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 4355 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Game Night - We will be back at RnJ's next week and Roger will bring snacks.

Reminder: The original party members will likely level up (Level 6) in the next week or two. You will get to add a utility power, so it might be a good time to review your choices. There was an spat of e-mail last week requesting a clarification on how stances work, so someone was obviously looking ahead.

The Ruined Chapel (10/03/2010)

2010-10-06T20:21:00.001-05:00

The party had just finished off a group of duergar and a pair of Spined Devils and were able to free a group of imprisoned slaves that had been held in a pair of slave pits. The party provided the freed slaves food and temporarily stowed them across the chasm so the party could investigate the rest of the Horned Hold. Down a hall, up a small set of stairs, around a corner and down another hall the party crept on until they entered a room that appeared to have been a chapel at one point but had fallen into a state of disrepair. The room also contained that certain smell of death and sure enough, a group of wights had appeared just as we adjourned for the evening this past Sunday.

It was Renny who set off the combat when he stepped too close to a wight hiding in the rubble strewn about the room. The fighting was fast and furious as the bites of the wights didn't do that much damage (except to Akta) but they were able to whittle away at the collective Healing Surges of the party. The party responded quickly to the attack and did some whittling of their own. As the last wight fell the sense gloom dissipated and the sense of quiet returned to the room. As the party looked around they saw:

7 Wights

The party found no secrets or magic in this room and each member of the party earned 165 XP for the encounter.

The party moved through the door at the east end of the chapel and stepped out onto a parapet that overlooked the chasm and the two portions of the hall located on the other side of the chasm. From there the party moved back inside and realized they had cleaned out the final section of the Horned Hold. The party took a few minutes to comb through some of the rooms that hadn't previously been thoroughly searched and were rewarded when a bag containing 100 GP and five 100 GP rubies were uncovered.

After the party finished going through the final section of the Horned Hold they moved back across the bridge to the Great Hall where the newly freed slaves were waiting for them to take them out of the depths of the labyrinth and back to safety. The adventurers were surprised to see several of the slaves had gathered some of the halberds that had been stored by the duergar and were holding them pointed in the direction of the party.

Most of the slaves, still emaciated and dressed in rags, cowered behind the four flashing halberds. A small voice squeaked up, saying "They're Bloodreavers! They're gonna sell us to somebody else." A small goblin appeared from behind the halberd carriers and with a small goblinic finger pointed at Renny and said, "He's a Bloodreaver! I know he is. Ask him! Ask him!"

Eldred spoke first, trying to calm the freed slaves. After all the trouble of freeing them in the first place he didn't want to have to turn around and fight them. Through the benefit of his diplomatic abilities he was able to talk three of the four freed slaves into putting down their halberds. While hiding behind one of the slaves Gru continued his stream of allegations about Renny and one lone slave continued to hold off the party with a shakily held halberd.

Renny stepped forward to try and convince the frightened slaves that he indeed had been part of the Bloodreavers, but like them he too had been rescued ad freed by this group of adventurers. Finally Akta took a step forward and with a little intimidation convinced the last halberd to hit the floor. He quickly grabbed Gru around the throat and with a few chosen words in the goblin tongue he turned Gru's cries of protest into whimpers.

The party and the slaves raided the larder one last time and began the trek back to the Seven Pillared Hall. Once on the way the party soon realized that they would not make it back quite as quickly as they had hoped. The slaves were willing travelers, but because of their weakened state they had to travel at a somewhat slower pace. Having found their way here originally and knowing what directional runes to look for the party did not fear getting lost. But traveling through the dark labyrinth reminded everyone of what they did fear - the unknown. Various sounds still randomly echoed through the caverns - footsteps from nowhere, a random laugh that echoed through the hallways, the occasional scream the permeated the consciousness. The party was made of sterner stuff, but the noises often spooked the freed slaves and to keep them moving in the right direction often turned out to be more difficult than originally thought.

After a few hours the party found a place to take a rest with different groups of the freed slaves huddled in different corners. As the slaves and members of the party nibbled on provisions gathered back in the Horned Hold the slaves seemed to relax a little, and soon began to laugh and joke about getting out of this horrid labyrinth and back into the sunlight and then making it back to Riverdown and to their friends and families.

In the middle of this reverie a voice from down the hall could be heard, "Hoy there travelers." A stout dwarf rambled up the hallway, followed by another dwarf and a loose cadre of humans. "My name is Thain Cardanas. I have claimed this labyrinth as my own and I intend to make it an example of the superiority of the dwarf kind. I need an army and I hereby officially conscript you into my service. I can promise you the rewards for your service to your king will be great."

The dwarf behind Cardanas spoke up, bellowing "All hail King Cardanas. Bow and swear your fealty to your king."

Bogar stepped forward and spoke his reply in his native dwarven tongue. The party may not have had a firm grasp on the language but it was pretty obvious Bogar's reply had something to do with Cardanas's lips and Bogar's backside. With a roar the two dwarves erupted in anger and the battle was under way.

The party was primed for the attack and responded with a fury. As the freed slaves cowered in the corners the two dwarf's in front were stopped in the passageway and were soon bloodied. The berserkers threw their hand axe's but any damage was mostly minimal. Once the two dwarf's went down the berserkers got mowed through pretty quickly as well. One of the berserkers tried to make a run for it but was nailed from behind and it was Bogar that provided the final blow.

DM Note: This battle did not go well. First of all, the party absolutely killed on initiative rolls and the king was bloodied before he ever got in a swing. The two dwarf's never got to enter the room thus bottling up the berserkers, who then never got to do any mayhem amongst the slaves. If nothing else Akta continued his role as tonight's damage magnet.

During the excitement Gru was able to slip into the darkness and out of Akta's clutches. Eldred used the devious goblin's escape to convince the freed slaves that Gru was really just a troublemaker and they never should have listened to him in the first place. As the party looked around they saw:

4 Human Berserkers, each wearing leather armor, carrying a pair of hand axes, and wielding a great axe

1 Dwarf Hammerer, wearing plate armor, carrying a heavy shield and three hand axes, and wielding a war hammer

1 Dwarf Bolter, wearing chain mail, carrying a crossbow and 20 bolts, wielding a war hammer, and wearing a slightly dinged up but polished crown

The party found no GP or magic, but each member of the party earned 150 XP for the encounter. Bogar claimed the battered crown as a memento.

Finally the party neared the Seven Pillared Hall. As they passed the small hallway that led to the back entrance to the Grimmerzuhl Trading Post the party saw the door was boarded over from the outside and two human guards sat outside, the guards rising to their feet but not leaving their post as the party walked past.

Upon arriving in the hall itself the party could see a few changes. The windows outside the trading post were also boarded up and one of the Bronze Warders was stationed directly outside its front door. A small ruckus appeared from the direction of the Minotaur Statue an individual dressed in all black (not Orontor) started running across the hall, pointing a finger at you and yelling. "You! Wait right there. The Mages of Sauron want to speak with you.

Breathlessly the mage arrived in front of the group and started by saying "The Mages of Sauron have decreed there will be no violence in this hall. You are accused of breaking our cardinal rule and we will deal with this infraction most severely. What say you?"

Another Mage of Sauron (also not Orontor) appeared plateau near the Minotaur Statue and a third appeared from the Customhouse (Orontor). From across the hall two of the Bronze Warders jerked into action and started moving toward the party at their ponderous pace. Another voice could be heard as Rendil Halfmoon made his way from the Halfmoon Inn "Leave them alone! They've done nothing wrong." And yet another voice could be heard as a female cleric (Phaledra) made her way toward the party from the temple as she yelled "The Riverdown slaves. The Riverdown slaves. The heroes have freed them!" It seemed like every pair of eyes in the hall was on the party as inhabitants of the hall emptied out of every building and billet to see what the commotion was.

Eldred replied that the party knew nothing of anything that might have happened at the trading post after they had spoken with the duergar therein. In fact, the party had been in the Horned Hold freeing this group of slaves. A slight huzzah from the freed slaves was interrupted as the mage continued his accusations, each of which Eldred denied and deflected.

Mage of Sauron #2 had his own accusations to add, but Orontor spoke up to say that this was exactly as he had stated. He had sent the party to the trading post for advice on Murklemor and the the duergar in the trading post had likely sent them on the way so that Murkelmor could enslave them himself. Rendil added a certain level of shrillness to the discussion and once Phaledra arrived she moved in among the freed slaves to ensure they were OK.

Despite the presence of the two slow moving Bronze Warders the party held true to their story and the two Mages of Sauron were reduced to making threats about possible future restrictions and punishments for any and all infractions of the law. Frustrated the Mages finally stormed away taking their Bronze Warders with them. Phaledra took the freed slaves back to the temple and Rendil insisted the party join him at the Halfmoon Inn.

Afterwords the party was at the Halfmoon Inn. Rendil maintained his promise and the party knew they would sleep in a comfortable bed that night, but the prospect of a hot meal and a good ale or two (or three) was of more immediate concern. Rendil wanted to know every detail and peppered the party with questions, and while they may not of told him everything they knew, party members were eventually able to provide enough of the story to eventually satisfy his interest. The party also included a toast or two (or three) to newly ascended Renny deStennett (4th level) for his contributions to the group.

During a lull in the evening a pair of tieflings stopped by the table to offer their congratulations for the party's effort in cleaning out the slavers from the labyrinth. They went on to say in a quiet and confidential way that the Mages of Sauron had commissioned them to contact the party on their behalf with a business proposition, but it could wait until the next morning. To provide a level of proof to their claim one of the tieflings held open his tunic to reveal one of the amulets the party had seen the Mages of Sauron wearing.

Afterwords, when asked, Rendil stated that this was not unheard of. The Mages had a specific area of concern, but sometimes they might have need of someone who's reach may who may extend beyond their own. Despite this reassurance the party was suspicious of the intentions of the two tieflings. Perhaps once they heard more of their story the next morning the party might think different.

The next morning the two tieflings waited patiently as the party members made their way downstairs at the inn. When the party had gathered one of the tiefling bade the other to wait outside, and once Rendil was outside of listening range he pulled out a small piece of parchment and handed it to Eldred. Eldred unrolled the parchment and read:

Your actions against the duergar are commendable. I am a Mage of Sauron that has been implanted into the evil organization behind the duergar's action and I wish to help you defeat my "comrades." I have been seeking a way to put an end to this situation and I believe you can help me. Please follow my confidants so I may speak with you in person.

The tiefling explained it is too dangerous to meet in the hall and this mage was hiding in a small cave area nearby. Again showing the amulet the tiefling went on to explain that the mage had one of the Bronze Warders with him to ensure their safety.

Still suspicious the party agreed to go visit this unknown Mage of Sauron, and agreed to meet the tieflings at a specified time. Rendil still thought it was a good idea, but the party wanted to check with Orontor to see if he knew of what they spoke. Orontor was thrilled to know that senior members of the Mages of Sauron had obviously taken some actions of their own to fight this evil. He provided a detailed description of Paldemar, the missing Mage of Sauron, should the party encounter him.

When we pick up next week the tieflings will introduce the party to the Mage of Sauron that is working undercover. Perhaps they might be able to provide some additional information about the Blackfang Gang and the Well of Demons also.

Score Card: With the completion of the two encounters the party had accumulated an additional 975 GP, 578 SP, and 1400 GP in gems. Jenneth agreed to carry the +2 Flaming Maul for the time being and Krstic stashed the six remaining unexploded pitch bombs from the Orc Pyromaniacs. With the 315 XP earned this night the party had accumulated 7135 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6). Renny was sitting at 4155 XP (5500 needed to reach Level 5).

Reminder: We will meet at RnJ's next Sunday and Brian said he would bring snacks.

The Slave Pits (09/26/2010)

2010-09-29T20:54:00.000-05:00

After a week off the entire Sunday night gang was back, and with Murkelmor defeated the discussion quickly moved to what to do about the slaves imprisoned in the room directly to the west of Murkelmor's chamber. The already released slaves had told the party where were "devils" in the room with the slaves, but since the slaves couldn't tell an Orc from an Ogre there was some concern within the party as to who or what really might be in the room with the slaves.

Murkelmor had attempted to escape through a secret door located behind the fireplace on the western wall, so the party decided to send most of the party through the door in the hallway outside while Krstic and Akta, the two party members with some level of fire resistance, would creep through the fire place and enter the room from the the small hallway there. A five minute respite complete, the party took their respective places and prepared to storm the room.

The six party members in the hallway were startled when an unarmed Duergar suddenly opened the door in front of them. A voice from within the room bade the party welcome, and made an offer - with Murkelmor defeated they would gladly leave and the adventurers could have the slaves and the Horned Hold. From the open door the party could see two Duergar Guards, two Orcs carrying what appeared to be round balls of some type, two unarmored red humanoid things with tails and sharp looking spines up and down their back, and a Duergar Theurge that was doing the talking. There were also three pits in the room as the slaves had described, and while from their vantage point they could see there were indeed slaves in two of these pits, there wasn't much more that could be seen.

Eldred initially stopped to consider the offer. It would allow the party to free the slaves, which was Eldred's concern, and to be able to do it without further conflict might be worthwhile. It was about this time that Krstic burst through the other door. Unaware of the offer that had been put forth Krstic ran right past the second Duergar Guard in an attempt to get to the theurge. The unexpected movement prompted an opportunity attack from the guard when Krstic ran past, and all of a sudden the combat was on.

Krstic got in his lick against the theurge, but was greeted with a hail of spines shot from the Spined Devils that stood near the theurge. The two devils then flew to the backside of the two pits in the back of the room. The remainder of the party roared into the room past the unequipped guard at the door and all were soon engaged. Bogar remained in the door to fight the guard, Akta faced the second duergar that had been standing near the secret door where he and Krstic came through, Jenneth, Eldred, and Miave used their long range attacks to soften up who they could, while Renny and Oester slipped in to see what mischief they could cause.

One of the Orc's approached Renny and threw one of his black balls at him, the ball exploding into a ball of flame on the ground beside him. The party could now see several more of the flaming pitch bombs on his belt, as well as that of the other orc who had lobbed his grenade at Krstic. Renny quickly responded with a quick sword thrust and killed the first orc.

DM Note: I hadn't used any kind of minion characters for awhile and it was quite apparent from their reactions that the party had forgotten all about the possibility of their inclusion. Any time the DM could catch the party completely by surprise like this made it a good evening for the DM.

The theurge was at its best, using its Brimstone Hail to injure and knock prone a large number of the party, plus it was able to blind Krstic and others with a well placed Vile Fumes. The two Spined Devils threw their spines rather ineffectively but were able to use their fly ability to move in and out of danger. But once the two guards went down and then the second orc the party was able to focus their firepower on the remaining combatants and the battle was soon over. As the party looked around they saw:

2 Orc Pyromaniacs, each wearing leather armor, wielding a war pick, and each with three unexploded flaming pitch bombs

2 Duergar Guards, each wearing chain mail and wielding a war hammer

2 Spined Devils

1 Duergar Theurge, wearing robes and wielding a war hammer

A quick scan of the room revealed no secrets, magic or GP, but keys were found and the prisoners were soon released. The group included all but two of the missing Riverdown captives that party had been looking for, but also included three prospectors that had been recently picked up by the duergar and a single goblin named Gru. Gru the Goblin had been part of the Bloodreavers and had worn out his welcome to the point where they had sold him to the duergar just to be rid of him.

The newly freed captives informed the party that the other two Riverdown captives had been sold the the gnolls, the Blackfang Gang to be exact, and just two days previous they had been taken away to the gnoll hideout in the Well of Demons. They were certainly happy to be freed, but really knew nothing else of the Horned Hold. The slaves made it clear they just wanted to go home, but were adamant that they were not equipped or able to navigate the passage of the labyrinth without an escort.

With a large section of the hold yet to navigate, the party decided to temporarily stash the slaves across the chasm in the Great Hall and to ensure they had access to the food stocks kept there. The party took a quick rest, and Oester went ahead through the door on the north wall to see what lay ahead. A hallway led to a small set of steps and then to another door. Unlocked, Oester continued his investigation, seeing a large darkened area of alcoves straight ahead and a hallway leading to the right. The hallway led to a door that was locked, and once Oester picked the lock he found that this door was also jammed shut.

The rest of the party had caught up by now, so with a sturdy push Krstic burst through the door. The room was quiet and nothing attacked, but the smell of death was prominent in the nostrils of the party members. The room had not been maintained and in many places portions of the the ceiling had crashed to the floor, leaving several large piles of rubble. In the middle of the room was a set of steps that led up a small dais which contained a partially destroyed statue of a Minotaur.

Expecting the worst, the party crept into the room. Nothing happened right away, but once Renny took one step to close to one of the piles of rubble a Wight suddenly appeared, along with six other Wights around the room, and we will pick up from here next week.

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 875 GP, 578 SP, and 900 GP in gems. A pair of Dwarven Greaves had previously been claimed by Bogar, but the +2 Flaming Maul still had not been claimed. Krstic claimed the the +2 Amulet of Health and passed his +1 Amulet of Health to Bogar. With the 170 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 6820 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 3840 XP (3750 needed to reach Level 4).

DnD Essentials

2010-09-22T08:10:00.000-05:00

Since the Sunday Night DnD group didn't meet this past Sunday evening there is no Thunderspire Labyrinth recap this week. There is a lot going on in the 4E DnD world however and I thought I would provide some information on the new DnD Essentials line.

Wizards is, as any good company should, looking to expand their market share and last fall announced they would be releasing an new introductory level of DnD material called DnD Essentials. This announcement was greeted with a great deal of consternation as you might imagine. Given the number of existing 4E Core and source books and the collection of errata for these already released source books there was a concern that Essentials would be the new release of a "Version 4.5E" of DnD with a whole new set of rules for that would basically make all the material already purchased outdated and invalid.

Wizards has stuck to their guns though as they have spent the last several months trying to convince their critics to come back in off the ledge. Their argument has been that if you think of 4E as "Advanced DnD" then Wizards is pushing the Essentials line as "Basic DnD" to serve as an entry level DnD product to bring in new players and introduce them to the game we have played for the past ~30 years. Wizards has encouraged its fans to hold their criticism until the new products were actually released, and finally Tuesday this week was the general release date for the DnD Essential line of products (some game stores have been selling these items for ~10 days already).

The first Essentials product to be released was the DnD Essentials Starter Set (follow the link to get all the details of what is in the box). The artwork on the box is a direct replica of the red box set released back in 1987. The new boxed set was used as part of the DnD Essentials Day this past weekend in game stores all across the country and has received generally positive reviews (example). I have seen this in both Borders and Barnes and Noble over the past two weeks, but I probably won't buy this, at least for myself, but it could conceivably serve as an interesting birthday or Christmas present for someone else.

The two other two newly released DnD Essentials products are the Rules Compendium and Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Those of the you that have the Players Handbook know that the book basically breaks down into two major parts: the rules and the characters, including races and classes with all of their related powers and abilities. That is the same breakdown for these two books as well. The Rules Compendium contains all of the basic game play rules, including all of the errata from the last two years (4.1E?) To be fair, much of the errata is simple wording or phrasing changes that ensure consistency throughout the different books. Heroes of the Fallen Lands contains the basic character race and class information along with all of the related powers and abilities.

The books have a soft cover and come in a comfortable 6x9 size, both have over 300 pages of material, and both include an extensive index (something Wizards has been rightly criticized for not including in the past). The best part is these books are only $19.99 apiece, considerably less than previous DnD source books. There is a DnD Essentials DM Guide, another Heroes book, and a Monster Manual scheduled for release over the next two months as well (links included). I've been saving a Borders gift card plus I had a 33% off coupon so I picked up both of the two new books this morning. I am still reading through them and will bring them this coming Sunday.

So what does this mean for us? Probably nothing, other than utilizing the Rules Compendium. Both basic and advanced levels have their own heroic, paragon and epic level paths, with the basic level having a somewhat simplified set of powers to choose from, so I suppose we don't have worry about any kind of crossover. Having said that, if one of us wanted to DM a DnD Essentials dungeon I would eagerly play.

What isn't clear to me though is how the DDI Character Builder (CB) tool will be affected. I suppose there could be an "Essentials Only" button on the opening screen, but there has not been a CB upgrade this month and there isn't one on the calendar for the remainder of this month. The next CB upgrade will include all of the Dark Sun updates as well, so there are a lot of changes yet to come down the pike. I guess I am also curious to see if any more of the rules changes specific to the DnD Essentials line will also be incorporated across and into the advanced DnD rules.

There is also the question of now that the new Rules Compendium has been released, what then for the existing Players Handbooks? Will all of the race/class information with all of its errata be re-published, or will CB be the sole repository for this? Ditto for all the Monster Manuals and the DDI Monster tool. There is no PHB4 or MM4 on the calendar for next year, so I suppose we'll see. I guess this means that some of the worries about the books being relegated out of usefulness is at least partially true. If someone wanted to start playing DnD (and not Essentials) I guess I would have to tell them to buy the Rules Compendium and download the free CB for level 1-3 characters and then purchase CB if they wanted to go beyond level 3.

The Inner Sanctum (09/12/2010)

2010-09-15T10:50:00.000-05:00

The Sunday Night group was all present this week and was eager to learn how their adventurers would fare as they continued to advance through the Horned Hold. The adventurers had closed out last week with the death of the four Orc Raiders, but before that the party had taken out several duergar, a pair of Arbalesters, and an ogre before crushing the orcs. This allowed the party to be able to secure a foothold in the main section of the Horned Hold, but with the knowledge that the opposition wasn't getting any easier.

A sense of quiet returned to the room with the final death. The party listened intently to see if something else might be coming their way. With nothing apparently on the move the party took the opportunity to investigate another bedroom that was just off the hallway that led to the orc's room. It was then decided to take a five minute respite before continuing. The party members spread out through across several viewing points to ensure no one would be able to sneak up on them and then took their deserved rest.

Next - the discussion of where to go and what to do. According to the crude map the rescued slaves had provided the path to the still captured slaves was through the door in the orc's room, and then the door to the left. The debate was if the party freed the slaves first they might have to tote the slaves around while the rest of the hold was cleaned out. But if the party delayed in rescuing the slaves it might put them at further risk as well - the party had been told there were "devils" in there.

It was decided that the party would rescue the slaves first (the DM got out the appropriate monster sheets and miniatures and made sure he had the correct page from the adventure book ready to go) and then the party opened the door and stepped into a small hallway. Just as the crude map showed there was a door to the left and another door straight ahead. After listening and hearing someone or something from behind both doors the party decided to not go after the slaves just yet and instead moved into position to storm through the other door to face the duergar thought to be inside (The DM scrambled to get the other set of monster sheets and miniatures ready and to switch pages) but before attacking the door was yanked open.

This inner room was large, contained not one but two large fireplaces with a crackling fire. A table and chairs and two large statues of leering gargoyles also resided in the lower portion of the room. Up a small set of steps there appeared to be what was someone's living quarters. Of more immediate concern to the party was the Duergar Shock Trooper that stood right in the doorway, with two more just like him right behind him. From the back of the room stood a Duergar Theurge and a large muscular duergar wielding a maul. This other duergar strode down a small set of steps toward the front of the room and snarled, "So, you think to challenge Murkelmor Grimmerzuhl? It's your last mistake you fools. I think I'll sell the lot of you to the mind flayers and count my gold while they feast on your brains!"

Almost immediately the theurge made its presence known as he dropped a Brimstone Hail attack that included three critical hits along with big damage to two other of the party members. Despite two of the party members bloodied right off the bat the adventurers charged ahead and the battle was underway. Several quick blows bloodied the shock trooper at the door when he suddenly enlarged, filling the entire doorway with his bulk.

DM Note: Because of the crowded situation it was obvious the normal "push" rules really couldn't be fulfilled. The DM decided that the creature was going to take the four spaces and the affected character in those spaces could take an immediate shift to any adjacent open space. This happened again later during the encounter as well.

Being huge effectively prevented ranged attacks toward creatures at the back of the room, which just meant they were instead centered on the duergar in the doorway. As soon as he fell the party flowed into the room and the battle continued. Miave and Akta focused on the theurge, although its attacks after its initial burst fizzled. Murkelmor and the shock troopers swung with gusto but even with several of the characters bloodied couldn't put anyone down. The theurge and the second shock trooper soon fell and Murkelmor stepped into the burning fireplace.

But it was too little too late. One more round of attacks was too much and Murkelmor fell down dead in front of the fire place. While the last of the shock troopers was finally finished it was Oester who spied that a secret door in the back of the fireplace had been opened. Further investigation showed that a ten foot hallway sat behind the fireplace, with another west-facing door at the other end.

But with Murkelmor and his coterie all dead the party decided to take another five minute rest. As the party looked around they saw:

3 Duergar Shock Troopers, each wearing chain mail and wielding a maul

A Duergar Theurge, wearing robes and wielding a war hammer

Murkelmor Grimmerzuhl, wearing plate mail and wielding a +2 Flaming Maul

A quick inspection of the room found an iron lock box below the bed at the back of the room. Once opened it was found to contain 420 GP, an onyx demon idol with ruby eyes worth 350 GP, and a +2 Amulet of Health. Each member of the party earned 195 XP for the encounter and accrued an Action Point.

The slaves were reported to be in the room adjacent to the Murkelmor's quarters. Did the secret passage through the fireplace lead to the same room? What kind of creatures were these devils? The players will find out in two weeks as we will not meet next Sunday (09/19/2010). We will resume the following week (09/26/2010) at R and J's

Score Card: With the completion of this encounter the party had accumulated an additional 875 GP, 578 SP, and 900 GP in gems. A pair of Dwarven Greaves had been claimed by Bogar, but the +2 Flaming Maul and the +2 Amulet of Health have not been claimed as of yet. With the 195 XP earned during this encounter the party had accumulated 6650 XP (7500 needed to reach Level 6). Including this encounter Renny was sitting at 3670 XP (3750 needed to reach Level 4).