Puck’s Blog

Sorry to ‘advertise’ here, but I have something to gain.  No, not money, but more friends to play Left 4 Dead with!  It’s half price on Steam right now.  That’s only $25 for the best coop zombie shooter game ever.

Seriously this game is a total blast, especially when played by four friends.  Here’s the intro movie.

And here’s some gameplay.

After lazily planning to run a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign for nearly a year, we finally had our first session yesterday. I’m running our party through the first of the 4E modules, “The Keep on the Shadowfell”. I’m normally a pretty lazy Game Master, playing most of an adventure on the fly, but I really wanted to be prepared for this one and did a lot of reading and researching and memorization in advance. I think it paid off.

This was our first actual experience with the 4E rules, and they were very well received. I used the free (for levels 1-3) D&D Character Builder to create the character sheets for all our players, so we knew the numbers and abilities were all properly set up. In addition, the Character Builder prints out “ability cards” so keeping track of what a player can do each round is quite simple. “At-Will” abilities — usable once per round any number of times a day — are green-bordered, “Encounter” abilities — usable only once per encounter — are red and “Daily” abilities are grey.

Here’s our stalwart band of adventurers. It’s a good sized group as I invited a lot of people and they all accepted!

• Gallindann (Pat Thornley) – Eladrin Warlord (Good). Eladrin are basically “High Elves” and the Warlord is a new character class whose abilities involve buffing and aiding teammates. They’re sort of a “Bard” type character but without the silly singing-during-battle thing.
• Grabthar (Steve Zillwood) – Dragonborn Paladin of Kord (Unaligned). Dragonborn are draconic looking humanoids, large and powerfully built. Grabthar is an “Avenging Paladin”, concentrating mostly doing damage rather than protecting and healing, though he can do those too. He wears plate armor but wields a two-handed greataxe.
• Kava (Jessica Tarzwell) – Dragonborn Paladin of Torog (Evil). Yes, an Evil paladin! Torog is the god of the Underdark, imprisonment and pain, so Kava isn’t a very nice person, but that doesn’t mean she can’t work with the party for their own mutual benefits. Jayne from Firefly would probably be an “Evil” character, and rather than detract from their group he adds tremendously and the interaction between him and those who aren’t so morally flexible is great fun.
• Lindal (David Schneider) – Halfling Rogue (Unaligned). A pretty straightforward character who sneaks around, stabs people in the back, and steals things yet isn’t all-bad.
• Melasra (Melany Fulgham) – Half-Elf Warlock (Good). Another new character class in 4E, Warlocks are casters who have gained power by making a pact with another entity or ideal. Melasra is a “Fey Pact” Warlock, meaning her powers come from the Feywild — a magical nature-based plane. Warlocks have some really fun, interesting abilities including an At-Will power that makes her invisible to the target if she hits, and the ability to teleport 15 feet as a reaction any time anyone she has “cursed” dies.
• Radivis (Jim Allison) – Eladrin Wizard (Unaligned). A hard-hitting battlemage, Radivis sits back and hurls powerful magics at his enemies.

Spoilers for the adventure begin!

Continue reading ‘Dungeons & Dragons Report #1′