Dungeons and Dragons Encounters: August 2014

2014-08-22

Something Evil Stirs in the Gnoll Fortresses of Menectauren

Another fun week in Vandale's Garage playing the Bake--a 4th Edition Eberron game.

We started things off, like all real gamers, by having the Pizza delivered

Our Pizza man has been working there for 30 years...

Set up in the garage was, like always, awesome--of course, I forgot my dice!

DM James was in fine form for this RP Session

Andrew character was the focus for a lot of the investigation this week--he is part of some evil shadow House Thuranni that left house Phiarlan

Brett is playing Vassa, but we are getting closer to finding and killing Shooter.

Cameron hurt his knee & is playing Fiddenmar who is now in charge of Brett's ranger house.

David is playing a Warlord who is also in the evil house--and running G riff when Watson cannot make it.

I am playing KUBA, the final Shardmind who is a monk--I need to do a lot of min/max work on him.

The session when well into the night--when things start to get distorted.

We listened to some really great music during this session--the Indie station was killing it!

Oh yeah, and we are gearing up to fight gnolls--some kind of demon gnolls--it will be great.

2014-08-21

Actual Play Hoard of the Dragon Queen--D&D Encounters S19 S1

2014-08-20

Hoard of the Dragon Queen--D&D Encounters S19 S1

Hoard of the Dragon Queen kickoff at Comic Quest in El Toro!

We had three tables which is awesome! Here is my quick attendance.

The players self sorted by the time that I showed up.

I had created some tables to help with character creation.

Only about one third of the players rolled on the tables.

Once we had Race, Class, and Background players got busy with some serious character creation.

Jack accurately recorded the hit points for his Tiefling Fighter Sailor.

Brian gave us some very psychedelic gum.

And that was it for Character Creation!

Next week, I am out of town and the week after that....

Ready Set Play with D&D R&D (GenCon 2014)

This is a great introduction to the new edition of D&D--they review some of the design goals, talk through character creation, and describe the public play landscape.

Short easy listen with a lot of good information if you are new to the system.

Planescape PDF review featuring Monte Cook (Tome 236)

The Tome Show regulars review some recent Planescape adventures.

A Monte interview is always great--and his background in this one is uniquely fun.

The overview of the PDF's is really excellent. I like the discussion on how the PDF's work on different devices.

Private Sanctuary 246 – Harrow Crunch

This is a very fun Pathfinder crunch review for the Harrow classes--basically the Tarot card set of skills, class bonuses, etc.

The bit about Gambit is priceless.

An extremely useful overview if you are interested in playing a Harrow based Pathfinder themed character.

2014-08-18

Week One Preparation of D&D Encounters Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

1. Read the EnWorld updates.

2. Get a mini like this

3. Encourage the Players to select a Party theme on GroupMe.
They are leaning towards Halflings, Doctor Who, and Bronnies. All rather awesome selections.

4. Ensure that we can roll our characters

If you see magic items of very high rarity or strange arrays of
ability scores, you can ask a player to provide documentation
for the irregularities. pg.3

Looks like we are good. But the Adventure League Players Guide has:

Determine Ability Scores
You can generate your character’s ability scores using
one of the following methods:
• Standard set (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)
• Customizing ability scores variant (Player’s Handbook chapter 1)
After assigning ability scores, apply your racial benefits to derive your starting ability score

I have opened a case with WotC & taken the issue to social media.

I have lost this argument on Social Media--still waiting for the WotC &
Twitter responses--but it is not looking good...

5. Validate the Appendix A backgrounds

6. Listen to the Tome Show podcast from GenCon--Ready Set Play

7. Read up on Inspiration from PHB.

8. Listen to the GenCon Panel When Kobolds Meet Tiamat (Kobold Press Tyranny of Dragons Panel; GenCon 2014)

9. Read the Module

2014-08-14

Actual Play Dead in Thay--D&D Encounters S18 S14

2014-08-13

Dead in Thay--D&D Encounters S18 S14

Final week of Dead in Thay at Comic Quest.

Jack and I got the new Players Handbook!

Good crew showed up again this week.

We are integrating better with the Legacy kids

I got some of the new WotC mini's--this one is great!

John has been painting T-hamas' old lead minis. This one came out really nice

Fun week and a great season!

2014-08-10

M15 Game Day

Team Tuesday went to Magic and Monsters and for M15 Game Day. Team Milne was there--we had 11 people total. We split into two pods and drafted.

First round I played Lucas from the Milne Team--he had a good deck, but my Mono Blue was just to fast for him.

My second match was the big event against Cameron--a rematch from last time.

My removal hurt him a lot & he could not draw anything to get out of a stalled bored state.

I was able to move past him as well..

Final round was against Jack and mostly just a friendly...he still has the best Mat & Deck combo:

Jack had a very fast deck that when it went off there was nothing I could do about it, but he struggled with my removal & blockers--he did not have that many tricks.