Category Archives: Dungeons and Dragons

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 6)

D&D #1
D&D #2

It has been quite a while since the last D&D session. A last minute cancellation and reschedule will do that to you, I guess.

This time, I set up a light stand with a pocket wizard attached to it. The light was a little harsh as you can see via the long shadows. And, at 16mm, the lens really distorts people. Jon is not that short and fat in real life. Still, it was an interesting experience. Maybe a second light would soften it out? Let’s see if Chapel minds even more equipment showing up at his front door…

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 5)

Group

After a long hiatus, the group finally got back together and finished the first module. Sadly, Jeff did not show up. And, also sadly, he was our cleric. Coincidentally, Ed did show up to see how D&D compared to Descent. He played meat-puppet (a Paladin that our DM made when the unhelpful NPC gnome was ditched).

It was a little tough without a cleric. We all had used our second winds. And a couple of us were close to death. But we survived! And kicked some ass.

Our D.M. was rather generous at the end. He had bought a new book of magical items and he gave us four of them. He also let us reroll when the dice rolled badly during the treasure generation.

I did not do so well on the luck side. I kept falling down in blood. Repeatedly. Fortunately, I could still long range attack with my magic. And I rolled a couple of 1s. One of the 1s gave me a -1 (?) penalty for four days! Ouch! Another caused my Eldritch Blast to instead hit Jon at a natural-20 strength! Ouch!

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 4)

Our Dungeon Master

It seems that another month has gone by. And we don’t have a pesky hurricane to ruin it either. Ike moved east and completely missed us. Not a drop of rain hit the ground around here. Which is sad. We desperately need the rain in this drought.

Mike bought a new DM screen. Which he was happy to display. And Joe bought some appropriate candies: Mike and Ike Tropical Typhoon flavor.

Ike Sunset

Ike did give us a good show during sunset. The colors were beautiful.

In the Dungeon

We slowly worked our way deeper into the dungeon. And we all gained another level (to 3). I was luckily enough to find a magical wand of Witch Fire. I need the bonus help on hitting monsters. Our new NPC, Brother Tanaka, is a Warforged Paladin and he is very helpful. No close calls this night.

Although the dice was rolling poorly for Jon. He rolled 6 critical fumbles! Amusingly, one of the minions rolled a critical fumble and caused him self a couple of hit points. Which was enough to kill it!

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 3)

Critical fumble for Joe

The D.M. bought a GameMastery Critical Fumble Deck. Every time that we rolled a 1 on a D20, he drew a card and applied the results to us. The deck is designed for the 3rd edition, so some changes had to be made. Joe was the first recipient to win the prize.

New camera for Jeff

Jeff bought a new toy, a Sony A-300 DSLR. Cool, another photo-geek that I can talk with.

Jon's special move

We got closer another level. But we still have not cleared out the building that we are exploring. Since our party seems weak, our D.M. got rid of the unhelpful Gnome and created another NPC for us. His name is Brother Tanaka. And he is a warlord. Chapel gave him to me to control. We quickly nicknamed him “meat puppet” as he was always running to the front and volunteering to be attacked by monsters. Jon finally got to use his multi-strike ability. There were actually three monsters that was attackable by one spot.

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 2)

Group

Tonight we explored the keep a little further. We actually did a little bit of tactics this time. We fell back and range struck a slow slime. Well, until our magic user was a little too slow.

Map part 1
Map part 2

My Warlock is turning out to be quite powerful. Usually, there are a bunch of one hit to kill minions that are associated with a boss monster. I found out that I could curse a minion, watch it die easily, and then gain 4 temporary hit points. These hit points last until the encounter is over and they accumulate. While my AC is not the best, the temporary hit points could be a good substitute.

Evil Dungeon Master

Our evil Dungeon Master was unsuccessful in killing our party off this time!

D&D Shadowfall Keep (part 1)

Old D&D books

With the release of the fourth edition books, there has been a lot of interest in starting up a campaign. Well, the stars must have aligned or something because we actually played tonight. I dug my old D&D books out for nostalgia’s sake. I found out that I had a sixth printing of the Player’s Handbook and a fifth printing of the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Before everyone arrives

I procrastinated as usual and did not create a character yet. So I arrived an hour early and worked with Mike to create one. I decided on a Tiefling Scourge Warlock named Hrothgar.

Group playing

We had 5 players in the party: Jeff, a Devoted Cleric; Joe, a War Wizard; Jon, a Two Bladed Ranger; Mark, a Scourge Warlock; Susan, a Brawny Rogue.

First encounter

Our first encounter was easy. It was on the road on the way to a city. All the minions needed was one hit and they died. But we had to hit them, of course.

Secondencounter

We took the optional side quest. This was much harder for us. One of the special monsters escaped and ran off into the waterfall. There were a lot of minions. And they would hit for four hit points each. This added up. But we persevered and moved into the water fall.

Inside the dungeon

When we entered the dungeon there were a lot more minions and a couple of higher level monsters. We were able to defeat them. And then a whole new set of monsters came at us. At the end, it came down to a die roll. The big, bad, treasure guarding monster was slowly being whittled down. But then he became bloodied and enraged and started dealing out some harsher spells. There was one other special monster. Jon was down. Susan was down. We finally killed one of the monsters. But, by now, Jon and Susan had failed two of their savings rolls vs. death. Both Joe and Jeff volunteered to save their lives. This left me alone with the bad guy. I finally have a clear line of sight to cast my big spell: Flames of Phlegethos. It hits for a lot of hit points. But its not enough. I have to kill the monster before people die for good. Jon is stabilized. Susan is not and bites the big one. I finally kill the monster.

But the DM retroactively made our unhelpful Gnome revive Susan…