Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events

In no particular order:

TPK in a casual release game with casual players unattached to the characters, which wins us prizes and status as the (likely) first post-release 4e tpk in Winnipeg = awesome!!!

People have dissed Splug the goblin for trying to be Meepo (Sunless Citadel) for 4e.  Well, for the short time we were with him, he was better!  Not only did the PCs take to him as a slave quickly, he soon assisted in combat (hitting the enemy none of them were hitting, by swinging a bag of rocks), and then saved our Warlord’s life with a heal check to stabilise her.  After this encounter, someone else took over DMing the game, and I joined in as Splug the goblin cleric, inspired to do more healing!  So much fun!

We played 4e with a random pickup group for 18 hours, as level 1 characters.  Never in that time period did the game stop being fun.  That says something.

We played Keep on the Shadowfell for 18 hours, with 2 DMs, without either of us ever having read the adventure.  The town RP was tricky, but not bad.  But the game never slowed down because of this, especially in battles.  The 4e game is just that easy to pick up and DM.  I predict that 4e will see the return of the true D&D pickup game.

Level 1 has never been so interesting.

People have been complaining about things conceptually online a lot, but these complaints disappear once you’re in the game.  Minions fucking rock, and make the battle that much more fun!  The at-will/encounter/daily power split works perfectly.  Clerics and Fighters are cool again!  I would play either again by choice.  Dragons!  Oh, dragons are so much fun!

The complaints:

Not everything is explained perfectly in the books, causing a bit of confusion.  These are minor, however, and just call for a quick ruling most of the time.

Paladins are… well, unimpressive.  I mean, they’re alright and they do what they’re meant to, but I much prefer the battlefield control powers of the Fighter.  This is a personal thing, though.  I probably won’t play a Paladin any time soon, but someone in my group (or yours) might love it.

That about covers it for now.  Caffieeeeeeennnne!!!!!!!!!!

32 Hours of 4e D&D!!!

Well, here we go. Today is the release date for 4e D&D, and we’re having our giant gaming event at Gameknight.

Today is opening up the books and playing for 24 hours. Tomorrow, I’m DMing for D&D Game Day. And the whole time, I’ll be posting occasional updates here with impressions, rants, and notifications of TPKs. Oh, and despite Dave’s assertion, we’ll see just how high level we can get in 24 hours of straight gaming.

You can read the updates here. If you use Twitter, you can also get them at http://twitter.com/ve4grm

(If the widget below doesn’t show up, just refresh the page, or use the link above. Twitter seems to be sketchy sometimes, but it’s the best way I know of to do this from a cell phone.)

Pathfinder 15 – Holy fuck, it’s a dragon!

Now that we’re finished with Book 3 of the adventure path, I want to make my feelings about this campaign series clear. Book 2, as anyone who reads the site regularly knows, had some serious issues, both in the writing and in the monster balance. Some of these were to the point that I was almost ready to give up on the adventure path altogether.

And then we hit Book 3, the Hook Mountain Massacre. Though it isn’t the type of adventure I’d run regularly (it’s a bit too… disturbing at times), this book saved the path for me. It’s creepy, flavourful, fun, and just plain awesome. The writing is great, the monsters are great (including the second Lamia Matriarch), and Nicolas Logue is one warped writer.

As such, the game is still going strong. Book 4 looks to be pretty solid as well. We should be done it this weekend, and aside from one minor issue (which I’ll go into next post), I have yet to see any major problems.

Present this session:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarven Cleric
• Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

The party had decided to stay in Fort Prefect, their new home.  The winter passes, cold but enjoyable.  They enjoy their much-deserved downtime.

Read more

To 4e, or not to 4e

Yeah, imaginative title, I know.

It’s not really the question, anyways.  Our group has been pretty excited about 4e since the announcement.  Well, at least I have, and my excitement can tend to be contagious.

We’re finishing off the Pathfinder series in 3.5e, still.  Unless everyone rebels and demands an upgrade, which I doubt will happen.

But the big topic right now is the release on Friday.

Our FLGS, Gameknight, is hosting an event for the release.  Starting Friday morning at 10 am, they’re keeping the store open for 24 hours of D&D.  At 10 am on Saturday, D&D Game Day begins.

Grand total?  32 hours of D&D.

I’m planning on being there for the whole time.  Playing and DMing for the 24-hour event, and DMing on Game Day.

Should be fun.  I’m going to need a lot of this.

In addition, I’m considering doing a bit of live-blogging during the ordeal.  I doubt we’ll have wireless internet access, so I’ll make a post when I leave for the day, with a Twitter feed embedded in it.  I’ll update it via SMS every so often with news and happenings.  I’ll grab pictures as well, and post those afterwards (or during, if I can figure out a way).

Sound like fun, everyone?

Awesome.

Pathfinder 14, part 2 – We finally bought a boat!

Yep.  This session was 8 hours long, and finished off Book 3 (and thus half of the adventure path), and the fact we got a boat is my title highlight.  Damn straight!

So, with the town saved and the floodgates opened, the party set about rebuilding their newfound fort.  Within a couple days, they had a visitor.

A tiny, high-pitched visitor.

Zipping into the fort came a tiny winged man.  A hyperactive, worried pixie.

Named Yap.

He was worried about his mistress, who has fallen into some deep depression since her lover disappeared.  He came to the PCs because they were friends with the lover.

The party, however, has no idea what he’s talking about.

…until they ask what kind of creature this mistress is.

Read more

Pathfinder 14, part 1 – And I was actually up to date, too

Well, I’m a week behind again.  No problem.  We’ll get back on schedule.  Y’know, eventually.

Everyone was present for this game.

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarf Cleric
• Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
• Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

This was a holiday weekend here in Canada.  May 19th was Victoria Day.  Since we play on Sundays, we decided to make this a long session, and we played from 2:00 until around 10:00 or 10:30.

After last session’s adventure in driving off a giant sea monster, the party headed up to Skull’s Crossing, the upstream dam, to investigate the cause of the flood, and attempt to open the floodgates to prevent further damage.

Read more

Pathfinder 13 – “Okay, so this candy bowl is a church…”

Continuing from last time, we began this game by rolling initiative.

Characters present:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarven Cleric, played by another friend
• Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
• Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
• Eretri, Aasimar Warlock

Yeah, that’s right, we got full attendance (with one temporary substitution) on Mother’s Day. Impressive? Sad? Maybe a bit of both?

Initiative is rolled, and we start the fight against the Ogre Sorceress and her guard.

Read more

Pathfinder 12 – Fort of Ogre Decapitation

Well, these reports are still one session behind, since I’ve been getting used to a different work schedule this week. I plan on getting them current again asap.

In any case, we left out group as they were investigating the barn belonging to the inbred ogrekin. With this, they have gotten past the worst of the disturbingness, as far as I can tell, but the rest of the adventure is also quite good, so on we go.

The adventure continued on Star Wars Day. Present this session:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Reza, Dwarf Cleric
• Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
• Ristan, Half-Elf Bard
• and introducing Eretri, female Aasimar Warlock (male player, ran Ristan last game)

Nonnie was missing due to vehicle issues.

Anyways, the barn consisted of two rooms, the first of which had three drunk (passed out) ogrekin. The second contained a cage. In the cage were three unconscious humans.

Read more

Pathfinder 11 – Burned into my brain

Okay, it’s been a while since I updated these. This session took place on April 27. I’ll post the latest session (May 4) in a day or two.

So, to start off, the cast this week:

• Reza, Dwarven Cleric
• Nonnie, Halfling Sorcerer
• Thorbar, Dwarven Barbarian
• Ristan, Half-Elf Bard, played by proxy

Ristan’s player was missing, as was Nox’s. Another player, who will be joining us for the summer, was here, and he ran Ristan for this session. The latest session saw him create his own character for the summer.

For this session, the party was joined by Shalelu, the elf ranger from Burnt Offerings (book 1), who wished to accompany the group to the ranger outpost, Fort Rannick.

Read more

Pathfinder 10 – Evil, nasty clockses, we hates them!

Well, this past session ended up going quite well. Good combat, a bit of roleplaying, and a decent feeling of danger as well.

It took quite some effort to get there, though.

Warning to all reading this, this writeup will be half DM log, half rant. I’ll try to contain the rant to sidebars, so feel free to skip them if you don’t care, don’t want to become disenfranchised with the Pathfinder series and Paizo, or dislike mechanical discussions.

As per usual, let’s start with roll call. Present this week:

• Nox, Changeling Swordsage
• Nonnie, Chaotic Evil Halfling Psychopath Sorcerer
• Reza, Dwarven Cleric of Desna
• Thorbar, Dwarf Barbarian
• Ristan, Half-Elf Bard

So, we started where we left off last time. Actually, that’s a lie. We started this session with Reza and I going through spells. This being her first cleric (and most of the players being relative newbies), she was inexperienced with spell selection, and unaware of the benefits of scrolls. As such, Reza now has more generally-useful spells prepared each day, with her big thematic-but-less-general ones (calm emotions, consecrate, speak with dead) on scrolls. I believe she was much happier with her character’s performance this time.

Read more