Month: April 2010

This is the second time I’ve played The Night I Called the Undead Out. I’ve liked it both times! Susan and I went down to Games & Stuff to play it, cause it’s nice to get down there every now and again. Mac was our GM, and he did a great job. Chris, Tom B., and Jonathan were our fellow players.

The usual complaint about TNICtUO is that it’s really long, which it is. I am inclined to think that cutting out the third fight would not be the worst thing in the world, and it’s how I’d abbreviate it if I were running it in the 3.5 hour slot that Games and Stuff allows. But that’s after playing it twice and thinking about it some more. And the thing is, it’s an awesome module no matter what.

For a relatively new GM, I’ve got to give Mac kudos for being really snappy and on the ball. Actually, strike that – he deserves unambiguous kudos regardless of experience level. He also dealt with Chris really well; I’m sure Chris is a nice guy but I’m gonna unabashedly say that if you don’t like 4e much and you can’t be bothered to learn your powers in four levels of play… yeah. Don’t play LFR just because it’s an RPG. Play what you love. So it’s not that Chris was a problem player, but he was pretty slow, and Mac did a good job of keeping up the pace regardless.

This was also Collin’s first adventure at level 5. I rebuilt him a bit to take advantage of the Dragon #385 article on fighters, which is all about shields. It worked well. He now has Dual Strike and a heavy shield that he can use as a weapon, which means he can double mark every turn. This is quite good.

Gangs of Wheloon is a classic I’ve never played, so when Matt J. was kind enough to offer to run it online for me I took him up on it. My fellow players were Darksydex, Eltherian, Knight4612, Tracker (aka Kevin from GASPCon), and Xalcairn. It’s a fun module with a few branching paths you can take, and I got a kick out of meeting one of the Valwaters, who I’d encountered as a DM in Head Above Water (CORM 1-3).

Collin took 8 points of damage across the entire module. 4 points of that was from a fellow PC – damned warlocks – and 4 points was from voluntarily entering a zone. I guess he’s properly defensive, huh? Now that the Fighter article from Dragon 385 is legal, I bought him a nice magic shield/weapon and redid his powers a bit. We’ll see how it plays out tonight.

April’s LFR began with Sense of Wonder, with Susan GMing. My fellow players were Mark, Tom, and Jason B. for a full set of the Bradleys; we also had Hudson and Jonathan. Legends was closed at the last minute so we jaunted on down to Games and Stuff, which is still an awesome space to play, I gotta admit. But 40 minutes away. C’est la vie.

The module is pretty decent. Not insanely challenging, but lots of roleplay and some fun NPCs, which Susan did a great job with. We had the double leader double defender configuration. That always makes combats feel a bit like pillow fights, especially since my Collin is rocking two daily healing powers himself. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself mightily. I’m looking forward to Collin’s first 4-7 outing this Thursday.

Hm, which is BALD 1-2 with three defenders and two leaders. This’ll be a hoot.