The Valley #7
Have any of you heard any rumors about 5E being worked on?
If so, have you heard anything about it being dice-less?
If that happens, I guarantee you that I will drop D&D immediately.
No hesitation.
No regrets.
Hackmaster here I come.
Personally I think Dale will love Hackmaster, due to its joking references to AD&D 1E.
The rest of the group probably not so much as none of them have played much of anything before 2E.
Why would I give up a game I love over the removal of little plastic polyhedrons?
Because it would be just another step in removing what makes D&D into D&D.
At this session we discussed how D&D could be made dice-less, and we could only come up with something very similar to Magic: the Gathering.
Each round you gain X amount of a power, let’s call it mana, and you use that power to perform certain special actions, like spells.
You can add certain mechanics to make it different, but it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck named M:tG.
I’d rather be an anachronism than play that.
I just hope those rumors are just rumors or a joke.
There’s been a running joke in group – one day we’ll have to buy new PHB’s every couple of years, and if we’re lucky we’ll get the one with the rare fighter class in it.
Yeah I know; it’s only a matter of time before I just say “Screw this game! I’m done with it!” unless WotC/Hasbro cuts the crap.
This session consisted of a decent amount of role-playing followed by one long fight and one average length fight, both of which were very tough.
Our cast:
Admon (Scott); level 4 human war wizard
Ander (Dale); level 3 halfling sorcerer
Duncan (Justin); level 4 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 4 human paladin of Brekaneth
Kergan (Mike); level 4 Silverhome dwarven rogue
Ander, finding that all of his friends had disappeared on him and still feeling under the weather (hangover), chose to sleep in a full day. Then on the morning that the rest of the group found the Voice of Brekaneth and returned with it, Ander began a search for other sorcerers in the Valley.
But sorcerers aren’t exactly on a list (anymore), and he has no contacts with the rogue’s guild, so he decides to head to the Valley’s newest dive-bar.
So he gets relatively naked and brings only 2gp with him and heads to an open-air bar in the Crag area of town.
The place’s name is Hellcrag’s Diner, but the only food served there is low quality cheese.
Of course the bartender was neither nice nor helpful, especially not for two gold pieces.
As is required with a stereotypical dive bar, several less-than-savory characters decided to take out their mommy issues on the halfling sorcerer.
That’s when Bobby McDonaldson showed up.
With a few words, none with any kind of obvious malice, the thugs left.
Bobby, a dark haired halfling, with a pleasant smile and demeanor immediately befriended Ander. According to him, it never hurts to have friends of Ander’s sort.
When Ander filled him on his idea of creating a group or sorcerers, Bobby let him know that it was not the best of ideas to create a sorcerers’ cabal in the Valley, but he’d try to get in contact with some other sorcerer friends of his.
They made plans to meet at the Roaring Bull Inn the next day and Bobby would bring some of his friends.
The other four members of the group had returned to the city with the Voice of Brekaneth hidden under Admon’s robes.
After reporting in what they’d found about the destroyed goblin encampment, Kergan and Duncan headed back to Silverhome (for some relatively sundry role-playing) while Admon and Edward took the Voice directly to the Grand Temple of Brekaneth.
Upon walking into the temple Edward had a vision of him leading a troop of men into battle while he wore gleaming armor and wielded his sword that now had alternating bands of steel and onyx on its blade.
They first showed Girvan Torl the Voice, who then takes it to Father Jason Adrek.
Adrek is quite shocked and pleased to have the Voice back, but when he hears that those who don’t revere Brekaneth were involved in its reclamation, he sent someone to summon Kergan and Duncan immediately.
When the two dwarves were arrived, Adrek almost bluntly asked “What do we need to do to keep you quiet about this?”
Kergan had some requests at the ready – he wants information about the platinum pick his father gave him and he wants to know about someone in the Thieves’ Guild named “Sam”.
Duncan asked for nothing more than to aid the church without betraying his own loyalties to Moradin. Adrek is pleased by this response (because Justin rolled a 30 on his diplomacy check).
Admon asked for information about the Herollus family.
Edward is not asked, but sought nothing either as it was his duty.
Later that day Ander goes to report his activities to the ever-unpleasant Sibylline Tarn.
After berating Ander for something insignificant he states/asks him “You don’t smell it do you?”
“Smell what?”
“That’s what I thought.”
The next day Bobby and Ander meet at the Roaring Bull Inn but Bobby sadly responds that none of his sorcerer friends seem to be available for anything. Ander fails to add 2 and 2, and it gets him killed.
That evening the whole group is back together relaxing at the inn. Everyone around them seems to be irritated as if it was a hot and oppressive summer’s day.
While just chatting away, Ander is yanked out of his chair and through the door of the inn (breaking it) into the area outside of the inn that has been recently converted to a small grove of trees. All was done by some unseen force.
When he moves to run back into the inn, he is hit by a blast from a multi-colored point of light that coalesces out thin air. That same point of light pulls a woman from out of another building and disintegrates her on the spot and then it shoots out a red, black, blue, and green bolt of energy that form into a fiery harpy and a black, blue, and green humanoid dragon creatures. None of them look like they want to play Twister.
The party immediately rushed into action.
This combat beat the hell out of the party with almost everyone dropping at least once. The fire harpy did 5 fire damage to everyone on their round and the dragon-men did poison, acid, and lightning damage to the party in addition to dazing them.
If anything, this combat showed me the upper limits of the party’s abilities as the plethora of healing and damage prevention the party had was pushed beyond it limits.
The most interesting tweak to this combat was the “Chaos Spark”, the multi-colored point of light that started the whole thing. After a few rounds Admon and Ander realized that they (“they” meaning those with arcane abilities) could possibly take control of the Chaos Spark to prevent it from randomly striking out at the party (2 attacks per round and +8 vs. AC for 2d8+3 damage). By using a standard action they could make a DC17 Arcana check to force the Chaos Spark to include the party’s opponents in its random attacks. On a DC27 Arcana check, they could force the Chaos Spark to shoot only at their opponents, and on a natural 20 (still DC27) they could force the spark to attack specific targets.
This control must be done every round, so Admon was pretty much relegated to spark duty for the rest of combat. This was arguably the most important job in the party at the time, if anything just to keep the Chaos Spark from attacking the party.
On the second to last action of the combat, Ander died due to the ongoing fire damage.
On the last action of the combat, Kergan got a critical hit on the harpy, killing her and ending the combat.
But before they had the opportunity to mourn him, everything that the Chaos Spark spit out got sucked back into it while everything that had happened during the combat was put back together (in a reverse action like in bad sci-fi movies). When that was complete the spark spit out some items and turned into a gem, then fell to the ground.
Then the officials showed up to ask questions.
The lady who was disintegrated was back together, but she was hysterical for quite a while.
Then the sorcerers began showing up, and all were upset (or worse) that they had missed it.
Even Sibylline arrived, and was quite irritated that Ander was the lucky one who was gifted with the appearance of the Chaos Spark.
Ander, after the usual berating from Sibylline was done, got a little uppity with Sibylline. Ander was rewarded with being thrown into the wall with a flick of Tarn’s wrist.
The officials nearby did nothing to help.
The next morning Bobby shows up at Ander’s home and rapidly tells him that he was finally able to contact a couple of his sorcerer friends. And although Ander doesn’t quite trust him, he follows Bobby.
An hour later Duncan, Edward, Kergan, and Admon each received a letter stating something like “If you ever want to see Ander alive again…”
A short while later they all had gathered together outside the warehouse they had all met at.
They knew it was an ambush, and they discussed whether or not saving the halfling was worth it, but at least one person in the group has a good alignment so they went in.
Inside they found the warehouse slightly cleaner than the last time they saw it, but it had a pair of unconscious halflings hanging upside down from the ceiling.
On the ledge was “Evil Bobby” laughing at the party and talking rapidly.
“Hi! Remember me? Kill them!”
With that Evil Bobby laughed and turned into the quickling from the last session, plus a displacer beast and owlbear appeared.
Ander wakes up early in the combat, and is cut loose by Kergan, but that doesn’t help the party much.
Instead of this simply being a tough fight, the party made some bad decisions, and later that night they knew it.
Early in the fight they focus on the displacer beast, but once he’s bloodied they ignored him and started going after Evil Bobby and the owlbear. This means that for several rounds longer than it should have the displacer beast was able to rip into the party.
When they finally started focusing on one target at a time, the combat ended fast, but not before Duncan died from failing three death saves.
Lucky for him he didn’t ask for anything from the church earlier in the session.
Quests completed:
Starting quest – Your First Steps [Level: 1. Reward: 100XP. Use the Ritual of the Younger to enchant the Armor and Sword of the Younger to at least a +1 status.]
New quests:
None
If so, have you heard anything about it being dice-less?
If that happens, I guarantee you that I will drop D&D immediately.
No hesitation.
No regrets.
Hackmaster here I come.
Personally I think Dale will love Hackmaster, due to its joking references to AD&D 1E.
The rest of the group probably not so much as none of them have played much of anything before 2E.
Why would I give up a game I love over the removal of little plastic polyhedrons?
Because it would be just another step in removing what makes D&D into D&D.
At this session we discussed how D&D could be made dice-less, and we could only come up with something very similar to Magic: the Gathering.
Each round you gain X amount of a power, let’s call it mana, and you use that power to perform certain special actions, like spells.
You can add certain mechanics to make it different, but it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck named M:tG.
I’d rather be an anachronism than play that.
I just hope those rumors are just rumors or a joke.
There’s been a running joke in group – one day we’ll have to buy new PHB’s every couple of years, and if we’re lucky we’ll get the one with the rare fighter class in it.
Yeah I know; it’s only a matter of time before I just say “Screw this game! I’m done with it!” unless WotC/Hasbro cuts the crap.
This session consisted of a decent amount of role-playing followed by one long fight and one average length fight, both of which were very tough.
Our cast:
Admon (Scott); level 4 human war wizard
Ander (Dale); level 3 halfling sorcerer
Duncan (Justin); level 4 Silverhome dwarven cleric of Moradin
Edward (Aaron); level 4 human paladin of Brekaneth
Kergan (Mike); level 4 Silverhome dwarven rogue
Ander, finding that all of his friends had disappeared on him and still feeling under the weather (hangover), chose to sleep in a full day. Then on the morning that the rest of the group found the Voice of Brekaneth and returned with it, Ander began a search for other sorcerers in the Valley.
But sorcerers aren’t exactly on a list (anymore), and he has no contacts with the rogue’s guild, so he decides to head to the Valley’s newest dive-bar.
So he gets relatively naked and brings only 2gp with him and heads to an open-air bar in the Crag area of town.
The place’s name is Hellcrag’s Diner, but the only food served there is low quality cheese.
Of course the bartender was neither nice nor helpful, especially not for two gold pieces.
As is required with a stereotypical dive bar, several less-than-savory characters decided to take out their mommy issues on the halfling sorcerer.
That’s when Bobby McDonaldson showed up.
With a few words, none with any kind of obvious malice, the thugs left.
Bobby, a dark haired halfling, with a pleasant smile and demeanor immediately befriended Ander. According to him, it never hurts to have friends of Ander’s sort.
When Ander filled him on his idea of creating a group or sorcerers, Bobby let him know that it was not the best of ideas to create a sorcerers’ cabal in the Valley, but he’d try to get in contact with some other sorcerer friends of his.
They made plans to meet at the Roaring Bull Inn the next day and Bobby would bring some of his friends.
The other four members of the group had returned to the city with the Voice of Brekaneth hidden under Admon’s robes.
After reporting in what they’d found about the destroyed goblin encampment, Kergan and Duncan headed back to Silverhome (for some relatively sundry role-playing) while Admon and Edward took the Voice directly to the Grand Temple of Brekaneth.
Upon walking into the temple Edward had a vision of him leading a troop of men into battle while he wore gleaming armor and wielded his sword that now had alternating bands of steel and onyx on its blade.
They first showed Girvan Torl the Voice, who then takes it to Father Jason Adrek.
Adrek is quite shocked and pleased to have the Voice back, but when he hears that those who don’t revere Brekaneth were involved in its reclamation, he sent someone to summon Kergan and Duncan immediately.
When the two dwarves were arrived, Adrek almost bluntly asked “What do we need to do to keep you quiet about this?”
Kergan had some requests at the ready – he wants information about the platinum pick his father gave him and he wants to know about someone in the Thieves’ Guild named “Sam”.
Duncan asked for nothing more than to aid the church without betraying his own loyalties to Moradin. Adrek is pleased by this response (because Justin rolled a 30 on his diplomacy check).
Admon asked for information about the Herollus family.
Edward is not asked, but sought nothing either as it was his duty.
Later that day Ander goes to report his activities to the ever-unpleasant Sibylline Tarn.
After berating Ander for something insignificant he states/asks him “You don’t smell it do you?”
“Smell what?”
“That’s what I thought.”
The next day Bobby and Ander meet at the Roaring Bull Inn but Bobby sadly responds that none of his sorcerer friends seem to be available for anything. Ander fails to add 2 and 2, and it gets him killed.
That evening the whole group is back together relaxing at the inn. Everyone around them seems to be irritated as if it was a hot and oppressive summer’s day.
While just chatting away, Ander is yanked out of his chair and through the door of the inn (breaking it) into the area outside of the inn that has been recently converted to a small grove of trees. All was done by some unseen force.
When he moves to run back into the inn, he is hit by a blast from a multi-colored point of light that coalesces out thin air. That same point of light pulls a woman from out of another building and disintegrates her on the spot and then it shoots out a red, black, blue, and green bolt of energy that form into a fiery harpy and a black, blue, and green humanoid dragon creatures. None of them look like they want to play Twister.
The party immediately rushed into action.
This combat beat the hell out of the party with almost everyone dropping at least once. The fire harpy did 5 fire damage to everyone on their round and the dragon-men did poison, acid, and lightning damage to the party in addition to dazing them.
If anything, this combat showed me the upper limits of the party’s abilities as the plethora of healing and damage prevention the party had was pushed beyond it limits.
The most interesting tweak to this combat was the “Chaos Spark”, the multi-colored point of light that started the whole thing. After a few rounds Admon and Ander realized that they (“they” meaning those with arcane abilities) could possibly take control of the Chaos Spark to prevent it from randomly striking out at the party (2 attacks per round and +8 vs. AC for 2d8+3 damage). By using a standard action they could make a DC17 Arcana check to force the Chaos Spark to include the party’s opponents in its random attacks. On a DC27 Arcana check, they could force the Chaos Spark to shoot only at their opponents, and on a natural 20 (still DC27) they could force the spark to attack specific targets.
This control must be done every round, so Admon was pretty much relegated to spark duty for the rest of combat. This was arguably the most important job in the party at the time, if anything just to keep the Chaos Spark from attacking the party.
On the second to last action of the combat, Ander died due to the ongoing fire damage.
On the last action of the combat, Kergan got a critical hit on the harpy, killing her and ending the combat.
But before they had the opportunity to mourn him, everything that the Chaos Spark spit out got sucked back into it while everything that had happened during the combat was put back together (in a reverse action like in bad sci-fi movies). When that was complete the spark spit out some items and turned into a gem, then fell to the ground.
Then the officials showed up to ask questions.
The lady who was disintegrated was back together, but she was hysterical for quite a while.
Then the sorcerers began showing up, and all were upset (or worse) that they had missed it.
Even Sibylline arrived, and was quite irritated that Ander was the lucky one who was gifted with the appearance of the Chaos Spark.
Ander, after the usual berating from Sibylline was done, got a little uppity with Sibylline. Ander was rewarded with being thrown into the wall with a flick of Tarn’s wrist.
The officials nearby did nothing to help.
The next morning Bobby shows up at Ander’s home and rapidly tells him that he was finally able to contact a couple of his sorcerer friends. And although Ander doesn’t quite trust him, he follows Bobby.
An hour later Duncan, Edward, Kergan, and Admon each received a letter stating something like “If you ever want to see Ander alive again…”
A short while later they all had gathered together outside the warehouse they had all met at.
They knew it was an ambush, and they discussed whether or not saving the halfling was worth it, but at least one person in the group has a good alignment so they went in.
Inside they found the warehouse slightly cleaner than the last time they saw it, but it had a pair of unconscious halflings hanging upside down from the ceiling.
On the ledge was “Evil Bobby” laughing at the party and talking rapidly.
“Hi! Remember me? Kill them!”
With that Evil Bobby laughed and turned into the quickling from the last session, plus a displacer beast and owlbear appeared.
Ander wakes up early in the combat, and is cut loose by Kergan, but that doesn’t help the party much.
Instead of this simply being a tough fight, the party made some bad decisions, and later that night they knew it.
Early in the fight they focus on the displacer beast, but once he’s bloodied they ignored him and started going after Evil Bobby and the owlbear. This means that for several rounds longer than it should have the displacer beast was able to rip into the party.
When they finally started focusing on one target at a time, the combat ended fast, but not before Duncan died from failing three death saves.
Lucky for him he didn’t ask for anything from the church earlier in the session.
Quests completed:
Starting quest – Your First Steps [Level: 1. Reward: 100XP. Use the Ritual of the Younger to enchant the Armor and Sword of the Younger to at least a +1 status.]
New quests:
None
posted by BlueBlackRed at 12:54 PM
2 Comments:
Looking for next installment! dalester
Hey now, I've been pretty busy.
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