Another long time between posts. Apologies all around.

At any rate, I’m in the process of migrating the wiki to a new wiki software, and should be done relatively soon. I’ll post a link (and change the link on the left-hand sidebar) once it’s done, and it will include our newest PC, Silus, as well as any missing session reports.

In other news, I’ve recently started reading a blog called Encounter-a-Day, which is a fantastic DM resource for D&D. Oh, and if you’re a player in my game, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t read it, as I plan on pilfering from it. You wouldn’t like it anyway. Ahem.

Also, a week and change ago, we had another D&D Day, and it was a good one. Sadly, Sredni’s player was absent, so Shava’s player pulled double duty and played him on the side (wouldn’t want the party to be down a warlord; that would seriously hurt the defenders of the party). Here’s the short version, with some thoughts.

The session started off with a big fight against a blue slime in a water-filled cave. This was an interesting encounter because it was the party’s first fight with a solo monster, and the terrain was very much in the slime’s favor. The slime started off by dazing and weakening most of the party with a stench pulse, which panicked them a little, then hitting them with a burst of damage, then attacking Kraygin and Sredni (it burned through both of its action points pretty quickly). After the party shook off the stench pulse’s debilitating effects they were in much better shape, and while it was a tough fight, they won.

They continued on (after an extended rest) to fight a hive of kruthiks. Again, the terrain was against them, and Shava in particular suffered because of this. The normally arrow-slinging ranger had to go melee with the giant bugs, while the other striker, the warlock Silus, was able to teleport out of dodge.

Then they backtracked out of the caves and into the keep proper, and entered a crypt where they fought some zombies (a very easy fight), and encountered a room lined with sarcophagi that continuously generated skeletons. Chance spotted some altars to Bahamut with draconic script on them, and the party decided early on that Kraygin (the only one in the party who speaks draconic) should go read the script, as they were probably important. Turns out they were the key to making the skeletons stop attacking. In this fight, the combination of dragon breath and marking everyone you attack came into play; Kraygin breathed fire on four skeletons (two of them minions) and hit only one of them (not a minion), leaving four enemies marked by him in close proximity. Luckily he was backed into a corner between two sarcophagi, and Silus managed to immobilize the two skeletal warriors, which saved Kraygin’s bacon to some extent.

Finally, the PCs continued into the crypt of Sir Keeghan, an undead former paladin of Bahamut who was initially suspicious of the party. This was a skill challenge, but we played it out as a roleplaying encounter with some skill checks thrown in, which was satisfying and suitably tense for the party. They were never sure where they stood with Keeghan (it’s hard to read a skeleton’s mood), and I think a collective sigh of relief was breathed when he decided not to attack them, and everyone was pretty happy when he offered to help them. He even gave them his weapon, Aecris, a lifedrinking halberd that Kraygin will no doubt put to good use. Also, he told them about a hidden armory somewhere within the crypt that the party is now on the lookout for.

Again, a great session and I can’t wait for the next one.

One final thought: I had the players choose backgrounds for their characters during this session, and while some of the players had already thought out their characters’ backgrounds, this gave the others some impetus to think about it some. It turned out well.

It’s pretty sad that I went an entire month without posting. Yeesh. Anyway, I thought I’d better get my ass in gear and post something here, and I do have things to post about.

I got a new computer, which is causing me to play lots of games on my new computer. I’m currently making my way through Crysis Warhead, and having quite a lot of fun with that, as well as Assassin’s Creed. Good stuff.

Also, last weekend was a D&D Day. I don’t have a session report up yet; this is partially due to the fact that I’m going to be migrating the wiki to a new wiki because my current wiki won’t allow me to insert pictures anymore for some reason. I can, however, tell you some stuff about the game.

We’ve got a new player. Silus, the half-elf warlock, has joined the party, and he’s having all kinds of fun cursing people, teleporting around the battlefield, and dishing out lots of damage. He gets attacked pretty infrequently because he stays out of melee most of the time, and between his cloak of distortion and his shadow walk class feature, he usually imposes a -7 penalty on people attacking him from range, which discourages that somewhat.

The players have finally ventured into Shadowfell Keep, and things are going well. The first encounter started with a bang, with Shava the elven ranger scoring a critical hit with one of her two twin strike arrows on her first turn of the encounter, killing a goblin sharpshooter outright, before it even got a chance to really do anything. In the next encounter, we thought we had lost Kraygin the dragonborn fighter to a pair of guard drakes. Those things are pretty dangerous when they gang up on one PC, and between the two of them they wound up dishing out about 29 points of damage in one round to poor Kraygin, taking him down to -18 (-16 would have been the lowest he could go without dying). However, we had neglected to take into account the fact that Kraygin is a battlerager fighter, and gets temporary hit points every time he suffers a melee attack; with all the forgotten temporary hit points, he managed to squeak by at about -15, just barely surviving the encounter.

The night ended with an encounter against some giant rats and an ochre jelly, an encounter that wound up being easier than anticipated because of the narrow tunnels and good PC positioning. I think the rats wound up doing more damage than the jelly, and the jelly was supposed to be the real threat of the encounter. We stopped just before another ooze encounter, an encounter with a blue slime in a water-filled chamber. We’ll pick up there next time.

I’ll post a full session report when I get the wiki sorted out.

Oh, also, I got the Player’s Handbook 2, which is excellent. Gnomes are pretty frickin’ cool in 4E, as are the other four races in the book. I can see some of the racial paragon paths being popular in my group. And the classes are fantastic. I really want to play them all, particularly the avenger and the sorcerer. I have a concept for an assassin not unlike Altair from Assassin’s Creed who is an avenger, maybe with some rogue multiclassing, and I also have an idea for a half-orc sorcerer (much more viable than in 3E) who uses a lot of effects that push people around the battlefield, almost as if he’s brawling using magic. Good stuff.