Category: Writeups

The second module of the day was The Missing and the Missed, which I ran. Emily, Susan, Meaghan, Geoff, and Jeff played. It’s a solid Waterdeep module with a pretty challenging pair of combats. The first one has the best use of minions I’ve seen to date: four minions who provide combat advantage against anyone they’re next to, and a bunch of normal monsters who get bonus damage with combat advantage. So I demonstrated the joy of focus fire by burning down Jeff’s Thick Eddie. I ran two leaders out of healing. Booyah.

I let up a bit on the second fight, with lots of monsters going in many directions, but it was still fun. Weird to see a combat-oriented Waterdeep module, though! I like the way the authors (Jeanette Martin and Sara Green) build combats; I hope to see more of their work in the future.

Oh, I am so far behind. Bad blogger. Last Saturday (5/8) we trucked up to Wilmington to play LFR with Jeff and Emily and people as a housewarming thing. They have an awesome house! And it’s good for gaming. So we played three games. The first one was Silver Lining, with Jeff running. Emily, Susan, Meaghan, Geoff, and I played.

Fun little H1 module. I played Cine, my eladrin noble psion who hasn’t been allowed out of the ancestral manse for 45 years. He’s a bit naive but very bright. I discovered the awesomeness of the telekinetic psion encounter power; being able to slide someone as a free action is superb. I’m definitely upgrading to twice per encounter.

And, as they say, “save the goblin, save the world.”

Some would say that my players (Matt J., spayne, Darklord, Eltherian, dakhran, and Zalarian) were mad for playing High Infidelity on high with no leader. I say they had two paladins who didn’t stint on the healing, plus a pair of really good wizards, plus two excellent strikers. Yes, warlocks can do significant damage. I wouldn’t characterize the adventure as a romp, but they did a really good job of handling everything I threw at them.

I really like Dave Kay adventures. He’s got this trick to making monsters challenging; he layers PC templates on top of his monsters, which gives him the scope to pick a wide range of powers. That means he can tailor the terrain to the powers, and his synergies are really good. It makes for a more involving fight.

I want to run this sucker face to face sometime and see how the differences in format shake out. Definitely worth running again; a good way to finish up April.

I am not sure why Drawing a Blank is a Core adventure, rather than a Dragon Coast adventure – it’s set in Westgate, after all, and it ties into a bunch of Dragon Coast story awards. Susan and I wanted to play it because we like Westgate, in fact. Matt J. was kind enough to DM on request, and we were joined by Newpaintbrush and choroidplx.

This was another one of those bard/sorcerer/paladin/warlock ridiculously attractive groups. As a result, the module provided absolutely no opportunities to use social skills. I snickered. I also got more satisfactory use out of Reed’s bard multiclass, both with nick of time heals and skillful acrobatics. Fear the half-pint.

The intro to this module is really atmospheric. The module itself is short and challenging. I know the second fight has gotten a lot of flak for being overly dependent on status conditions, and I think that’s a valid criticism, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it a lot. Then again, I used a lot of Snap Out of Its.

And Westgate owes us yet another favor.

Crystal Clear is the sequel to Sense of Wonder, and Collin and Ensa played that, so we wanted to do the followup. Happy day: Matt J. was willing to run it online! Our illustrious fellow players were Eltherian, Xalcairn, Kazordan, and Ryven. Good crowd, well-balanced party.

Matt brings the tactical challenge in a way I find really enjoyable. Tough but fair! And he doesn’t slack off roleplay-wise either. The first fight was a tad dull only because Collin can’t pull out all his tricks against single opponents. The second fight was brutal – we lost initiative and people didn’t spread out very well. But thanks to Collin’s Heal training and Ensa’s quick heals, we survived. The last fight was less challenging and still fun.

Also, it was cool to play a module set in Amn. Nice flavor. I’m looking forward to the last module in the series.

And at last, we reached the grand finale of the Embers of Dawn mini-campaign with Quench the Fire of the Raging God. That is pretty damned epic for a campaign that takes the PCs from level 1 to level 4. I, for one, am pooped. Although man, such a great group – I’d run for those guys forever. (Jon, Peter, Mark, Noah, and of course Susan.)

The module… you know, it’s not as good as MINI 1-2 or MINI 1-5. Those two were the pinnacles for me. But it wasn’t bad at all. The combat with the slew of insubstantial monsters was tough and a bit grindy; the skill challenge that called for six successive Thievery checks would have been bad if I hadn’t modified it liberally. On the other hand, I like the opening sequence of investigations, I love the party, and the final fight is nicely epic. 

So no real complaints. I wish the upcoming Raven’s Bluff campaign was going to be exactly like this, instead of being a quarter the length. I hope LFR sees another sequence like this one. 

On Saturday, Xalcairn ran The Thin Grey Line for me, darksydex, Elden, Genolen, Neofax, and Blackmantle. It was nice and smooth and fun. We kind of floundered in the early portion of the module, thanks to a completely non-social party, but with liberal use of assists and lucky die rolls we worked through our tongue-tied problems. The combats, conversely, were not too bad at all.

There’s an annoying sort of cliffhanger at the end. I guess DRAG 1-3 is the sequel? I’ll have to keep an eye out for that.

Did I run The Sea Drake last night online? Yes I did! Chalk up another new module for me; I’d never played or run it before. My players were Xalcairn, Domingo, Dareus, Genolen, Tracker, and Zeitgeist. Good crowd, balanced party, fun times.

I really dug the combats. Which is a good thing, since this is one of those modules with no skill challenges. I think the second roleplaying encounter in the beginning was a bit much; the author wanted to get some Moonshae Isles feel in there, but it’s kind of NPCs talking to NPCs blah blah. I maybe could have GMed it better face to face, not sure.

But yeah, the combats are quite good. Challenging without being grinds. I do not count the optional fourth combat there, which is just a thing to pad time, I guess. It’s a challenging fight in theory, but since the PCs can take an extended rest before that combat, the challenge pretty much vanishes in a cloud of dailies.

The rest of the fights were good enough so that I came within a nose of a TPK. Genolen’s warforged warlock (so cool) delayed one monster’s arrival by a round, and given that one extra hit from that monster would have killed the warlord, I think it’s fair to say that was a vital contribution. Said warlord also made the death save that would have killed him if he’d missed. Then he got back up, healed up everyone else who’d fallen over, and they won the fight… but man, it was close. I love those.

Storyline, eh, it’s a trading voyage. I think, again, in the face to face context you could make something really cool out of it. It needs some GM effort to do so, but I never mind that.

So I don’t forget:

• Ring of the Dragonborn Emperor (+3 damage on close attacks)
• Ring of the Radiant Storm (roll radiant damage twice, take the highest)