That is my take away from trying to change the day of my game. Oh it will eventually happen and I will loose my players but for right now until I form a new group I will continue with my current game and try and get a game going when I can.

This week the new packet for D&D Next came out and it will have some profound changes on the game for sure with my groups characters. The rogue will for sure change. Not all of my players can make it this weekend but that is fine I will make do with what I am given.

I will be running Dragonlance still as we begin the DL2 Dragons of Flame adventure.

I am really looking forward to what prestige classes will look like as I want to make some for the Dragonlance setting like the Order of the Holy Stars and such.

I really have not gone into a lot of detail with the Towers of High Sorcery and what not, I mean I am allowing a Kender to be an illusionist so pish posh on all of that. Right now it is all about testing the ruleset and having fun. This was a quick update now it is back to preping my game.  

I was tired.

I did manage to get all the characters written up and printed out my tiles sorted and my tokens ready to go. We managed to just get the first encounter done and did a lot of roleplaying up until the start of the 2nd encounter when I had to call it on account of everyone needing to get kids home or going to bed so they could work the next day.

Some highlights. After rescuing Regina and despite her protests they took an extended rest because they felt it would be safer to travel during the day. That got them into town just as the portal to the Fey Wild opened.

It also gave them less time for chit chatting and I totally caught them off guard with the start of the 2nd encounter. They did piece together that the town would probably be attacked that night so they started making plans to protect people.

Now I have a group of 8 yes I said 8 players. I will be making some changes to the 2nd encounter when we play again.

Here are a few of the players stat blocs. NOTE: I typically gave out some bonus feats to the players during creation.

====== Created using something======
Scion, level 6
Drow, Hunter
Hunter Archery Style: Bow Hunter Style
Level 1 Wilderness Knacks: Wilderness Tracker
Level 1 Wilderness Knacks: Watchful Rest
Level 4 Wilderness Knack: Mountain Guide
Darkfire: Darkfire Wisdom
Background: Pivotal Event - Escape (+2 to Stealth)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 13, Con 12, Dex 20, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 10.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 13, Con 12, Dex 17, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 10.

AC: 21 Fort: 15 Reflex: 19 Will: 16
HP: 49 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 12

TRAINED SKILLS
Dungeoneering +11, Stealth +18, Acrobatics +13, Nature +11, Perception +11

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +3, Bluff +3, Diplomacy +3, Endurance +4, Heal +6, History +3, Insight +6, Intimidate +5, Religion +3, Streetwise +3, Thievery +8, Athletics +5

FEATS
Level 1: Weapon Expertise (Bow)
Level 2: Cunning Stalker
Level 4: Battle Trample
Level 6: Weapon Focus (Bow)

POWERS
Lolthtouched: Darkfire
Hunter aspect of the wild 1: Aspect of the Seeking Falcon
Hunter aspect of the wild 1: Aspect of the Regal Lion
Level 2 Utility Power: Entangling Roots
Level 6 Utility Power: Healing Lore

ITEMS
Adventurer's Kit, Foe-Seeking Bow Longbow +2, Duelist's Short sword +1 (2), Sylvan Leather Armor +1
====== ======

Rahl, level 6
Eladrin, Mage
Level 1 Apprentice Mage: Pyromancy Apprentice
Level 4 Apprentice Mage: Enchantment Apprentice (Secondary)
Expert Mage: Pyromancy Expert
Background: Oathbound Fellow (Bluff class skill)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 19, Wis 13, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 16, Wis 13, Cha 13.

AC: 18 Fort: 15 Reflex: 17 Will: 18
HP: 44 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 11

TRAINED SKILLS
Perception +9, Arcana +14, Bluff +12, Insight +9, History +14

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +4, Diplomacy +5, Dungeoneering +4, Endurance +5, Heal +4, Intimidate +7, Nature +4, Religion +7, Stealth +4, Streetwise +5, Thievery +4, Athletics +3

FEATS
Level 1: Immolate the Masses
Level 2: Expanded Spellbook
Level 4: Staff Expertise
Feat User Choice: Ritual Caster
Feat User Choice: Arcane Familiar
Level 6: Melee Training (Intelligence)

POWERS
Expanded Spellbook: Summon Magma Beast
Expanded Spellbook: Sleep
Level 1 Mage At-Will Powers: Scorching Burst
Level 1 Mage At-Will Powers: Erupting Flare
Level 1 Mage Daily Powers: Flaming Sphere
Level 1 Mage Daily Powers: Fountain of Flame
Level 1 Mage Encounter Powers: Burning Hands
Level 1 Mage Encounter Powers: Charm of Misplaced Wrath
Mage Cantrips: Light
Mage Cantrips: Suggestion
Mage Cantrips: Mage Hand
Level 2 Mage Utility Powers: Instant Friends
Level 2 Mage Utility Powers: Feather Fall
Level 3 Mage Encounter Powers: Cinderfall
Level 3 Mage Encounter Powers: Blissful Ignorance
Level 5 Mage Daily Powers: Fireball
Level 5 Mage Daily Powers: Tasha's Forcible Conscription
Level 6 Mage Utility Powers: Invisibility
Level 6 Mage Utility Powers: Memory to Mist

ITEMS
Intensifying Quarterstaff +2, Fireburst Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing) +1, Blessed Book (heroic tier), Backpack (empty), Belt Pouch (empty), Journeybreads (10), Silk Rope (50 ft.), Waterskin, Spellbook, Bedroll, Alchemical Reagents (Arcana), Residuum (Any), Riding Horse
RITUALS
Amanuensis, Arcane Mark, Brew Potion, Comprehend Language, Explorer's Fire, Magic Mouth, Secret Page, Silence, Tenser's Floating Disk, Unseen Servant, Pyrotechnics, Spirit Fetch, Detect Secret Doors, Arcane Lock, Enchant Magic Item, Knock, Disenchant Magic Item, Fey Passage

Now mind you the new Character Builder has been out roughly 36 days depending on how you look at it. So they had major stability issues, many bugs, lots of missing or broken content (depending on who's view you listen to) and it took 36 days to get a few things fixed.

Onto the praise...

They updated the character builder today and fixed one particular bug that annoyed me to no end. Mage At-Will's, you could not pick from other sources just the first essential book. I wanted my players Pyromancer to have more than just the couple of fire spells available to him. Oh there was a work around thanks to dbmeboy over on the DDI forums but that was a fan work around, not official as much as the imported file helped me somewhat it was limited.

Well they fixed it this month. Great job! Kudo's.

Also Fixed... or added as new content. I can choose languages, this was such an ugly miss for the launch of this product. Good it is in, bad it took 36 days, almost 5 weeks, to get this added/fixed.

Now I am feeling all light headed with all the praise I am dishing out so here comes some things to bring it back down to Earth a bit.

Still missing things.

If I am not a Ranger or a class that can use two-weapons or multi-class into this ability, I can not choose to have an off-hand weapon. It is just not there, even though I can choose two-weapon fighting feat.

Not like it matters because both character sheets do not show that weapon in the combat section of the sheet. Even when you have the Ranger multiclass feat the basic attack card only lists your main weapon.

Again its been 5 weeks.

Now HotFK is in the new builder and I will give praise to finally see it, this should have been in at launch seeing as both of these products were launched on the same day and this would allow Players in D&D Encounters to build the new content right away. If your store is one of the premier retailers you got that content even earlier, Nov 5th in my case. 46 Days by my count. Praise and a Frown for those keeping score.

But officially its been 5 weeks. Premier or not.

On November 12th a great article was posted for the Cavelier for their mounts. I have a player using this content, I have been feeling the content poor and lacking for a while and I got a few that were right up my campaigns alley so to speak, uh-oh more praise.

But, and we knew that was coming, the content did not make it into this builder. Which kind of makes it pointless for my player to use the new builder.

I want to know what the offical stance is on when we will and wont get certain content? When will new books make it into the tools and when will online magazine content make its debut? Is there a guideline at least? Books during the next months update and magazines a month after that? A lot of some of this content seems to go along with the current months release, delaying it just makes it seem less important.

You are trying to see what we like as fans, quick turn around on content in the books and online mags in the tools is one way.

Some of the things that made me smile today while shaking my head in disbelief.

New Character Portraits - Cool, but wait I chose Cavalier and am I seeing Half-Orc pics? Is the Half-Orc even a suggested race? No yet there is a pic for a male and female.

The character portrait selection defaults (at least for me to the female) it used to change to a male portrait if I chose male as my sex but that no longer happens. Is this a big issue? No just something that made me laugh, fix something break something. Not a deal breaker.

All in all I am happy but I still can not use it for my campaign, I am one of the early adopters of new content. Much the same way as people who bought into the first Blu-ray or 3D TV's (which I do not do that as I work at Best Buy I steer clear of new tech until it is proven, who got into HD-DVD?). I like to have that content available right away.

Am I in the minority?

So all is not lost, I do have options right now for players using content not in the Online Builder. Nuff Said.

But is this enough changes in 5 weeks? Do they get a passing grade? That very day Trevor posted that today we would get an update I was on my way home from work saying I was going to cancel.

This update gave them a stay of execution on my rolling back on my gaming tax as it were. I do not think it was the best effort they could have put out but it is a step, albeit a tiny one, in the right direction.

I had a session planned for the 11th but a few players were unable to commit with prior engagements so I planned not running anything till the beginning of the year. Well low and behold the players started asking for action on the 18th a week later than what I had intended to be a nice relaxing day before xmas.

I have committed to running my game. Now I need to make plans.

Unlearn what you have learned, or the last game session did not happen... whaat?

In my Halloween episode I set the stage to kind of show the group what D&D had to offer their characters if we stuck with the game if they liked it and they really did. I had set them all at 4th level and let them power through all the simple encounters I threw at them.

I had just picked up Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdom and Monster Vault the night prior to the game session. I had made a Hunter and Cavalier for two of my players and really did not like where I had done a few things for them when we finished.

I also really wanted to get the group to play at first level and pick where they went from there. They love to have me make the characters for them and tell me what they want to do and I go from there. But a few of them will get into reading a book and seeing a power and want it for their character.

So I am going to encourage that trend going forward.

That being the case they will all be level 2, and I can start with some retro-inspired action by running some of Keep on the Borderlands or even the Monster Vault adventures. I want these guys to travel the lands of Nerath all the while building the adventure up around them and revealing story as we go.

I am a seat of your pants style GM. I have alway operated that way, but it does cause me problems. The lack of planning can sometimes paint me into a plotline corner. I sometimes feel I am sucking big time as a DM only to find out how much fun they all had.

I think this time I am going to have several plot lines set in stone, list where I am going with them and stick with that plot as I usually alter it if the players either hose the plot or give me a better idea as they go along planning their moves.

Prior planning might not be how I do things but I really want this campaign to set the bar in our gaming circle. This is also a training of our newest player, my friend Enrique's 12 year-old son Angel is going to start officially with us this session.

I am going to save my thoughts on this for later, I am excited though. It has been a long time since I had a real newb player :)

We need some new tiles other than the Master Set: Dungeon. And we need more tokens.

Here is a pic from tonights session.

I was playing a Storm domain Warpriest. He was pretty cool I think. I had a lot of fun. Two of the players lost connection during the course of the session which total was like 3 hours. I was in for roughly one and a half hours but still had fun.

In this picture I had already used my Heroic Effort racial ability, that gnome token is actually a Goblin Hexer (see we need more tokens)

They currently have the encounters pregens for us to download and import into the session we are in along with monsters and maps. When I say import it is limited, you need to have exported it from VT to allow others to import the file.

I think I am going to put in my Pyromancer Mage and try that at some point. I need to work out some adventures and try my hand at DMing a session or two.

I can say this. It was nice to finally get to play a game for once. More later as I learn more about how to use the VT.

One more picture.

I was hit with a Stinging Hex from the Goblin Hexer! I have the conditions tab open so you can see that.

More to come.

The setting is Nerath, I like the Realms but not enough to run a game there. Nerath is just right, with little to no backstory I can do what I please and retcon anything wotc might throw in later to fit my story. In any case I am calling the Heroic Tier campaign arc.

Empires Heir

Basically the store will be that one of the PC's is possibly the Heir to the throne if not one of the PC's then it will be one of the NPC's that will be a major part of the story arcs early on.

I am more keen to let it be an NPC than PC because at least with my group the temptation to misuse the power of the throne would be greater than being tempted by the One Ring in LotR.

I am trying to wrap my thoughts around some cool quests and hooks that will get the players motivated into their roles as protectors and the heroes of the local area and then soon the world of Nerath.

I tried to stoke the fires of imagination within my players and I have just one real back story for the Cavalier.

His name is Priadon and he was not a real nice guy when he started out his adventuring life. He was downright nasty and well evil. He turned to the good side after killing another paladin and seeing the path to righteousness. He wants to make up for his misdeeds and he has been sent on a quest to redeem himself.

I have asked the players to give me three (3) things that they would want out of the campaign taking this tip from one of the many blogs for 4e out there. So far no responces, looks like I am going to have to wave the proverbial carrot in from of them and see who nibbles.

I plan on letting the players build strongholds at level 10 and attracting followers and such. Should be interesting.

So WotC has announced the new Virtual Table. This has made me quite a bit more happier, although I do not see my friends buying into it I can probably find some decent online games now.

Keep plugging away WotC and I am glad that communication is still kinda trickeling out from behind the castle walls.

Now the wait to see who gets invites to the Beta and what kind of info we get from the testers.

Is this the reason?

Do not get me wrong I like the new character builder but all the initial problems, the fact I can not swap out at-wills for my essentials pyromancer mage. Just two character sheets, no house-rule options.

I could go on and on then it becomes a rant and we have enough of those over in the forums. I am not saying they are wrong to complain, or rant for that matter but the message gets drowned out if with every one of them there is the "I quit DDI or we will no longer buy D&D or I will get my group to stop D&D over this."

It is all well and good but when the entire lot of complainers goes and does this and well... they really do not? They are just showing WotC we will take anything shoved at us.

I will not deny that I quit when they were not updating the Classic Builder or the Monster Builder and giving us basically crap in Dragon and Dungeon Magazines. That as DDI subscribers we were not getting an Inside on anything really.

We still need a lot better communication, they have been posting a bit more but come on, we have questions on where DDI is going and we are not getting any answers. What about a Monster Builder? Encounter Builder? Map Maker?

in the words of Dr Evil, throw us a freakin bone here people!

• Group Makeup
  • Human Cavalier
  • Human Knight (I have to say that the session saw the Knight get hit repeatedly with my rolls no lower than 18. I will also say that the night had a lot of natural 20's)
  • Drow Hunter
  • Halfling Rouge
  • Eladrin Pyromancer Mage
  • Longtooth Shifter Swordmage
  • Halfelf Warpriest (Sun Domain)

The warpriest was played by our friends 12 year old son who really wanted to learn how to play. His friends play and he wanted so bad to learn. I was arguing in our 3.5 game to get him into D&D since he is so interested. My friend Neal and his uncle Julian coached him in some of the finer points of playing.

It was probably not the best starting choice for him because of all the options in combat but in the next game I am making a Slayer for him to play. He was so excited about how he did, he took out one of the big bads almost single-handedly at the beginning of the game with one of the many natural 20's.

Everyone was made at 5th level because I wanted to get them all into some heavy action right away. They were following the Kings Road into Fallcrest, it had been established that they had been in the area prior and knew the lay of the land. It was the middle of fall harvest and surprising no one was out in the surrounding farmsteads.

I had just picked up the Monster Vault and wanted to get some quick use of it. I used the encounter straight from the adventure book in the Vault with no changes. A 5th level encounter with 7 players. The Hunter, Knight and Cavalier got right into it with the speed they had at the beginning of the encounter. Minions dropped quickly. The Flesh Crazed Zombies took the Swordmage by surprise, and the warpriest had a field day with one of them scoring his first critical hit and doing some substantial damage.

The Hunter found that his rapid shot was great for hitting all those grouped up enemies and the Knight loved his cleaving assault stance. It was cool seeing him hit a flesh crazed zombie and kill a minion. Who did I miss? Oh the Rouge.

Ah the Rouge. He was more interested in seeing what kind of treasure could be had. He saw two of the Skeletons carrying longswords and proceeded to head towards them. As one died he was in there picking up the longsword as the Cavalier killed his next enemy he sees across the battleground this happening. He looked at everyone and just said "REALLY?"

The second skelly drops and in hops out intrepid halfling swooping up the next sword, all in... as I described it, bullet time. His facial expression that of desperation like he was saving a friend who was in desperate need to relief and he scooped up the 2nd sword. What was even funnier was when the Knight asks me, what do the swords look like and I shot him a deadpan look and said "what swords?" He asked again and I repeated myself looking at the rouges player. The Knight said "ah" and I got a chuckle.

Another funny thing happened when the party split (never split the party they say) and the Cavalier, Priest and Hunter when to investigate another house. They find a mutaliated human corpse, hands and feet cut off and stuffed with straw. On its head was a jack-o-lantern with candles in its eyes.

The Cavalier's player says and motions he is closing the door and staring at it then sighs. Then opens the door walks in and around the neck is a message saying Death to the Flesh Long Live the Fire! and the trap goes off with a loud explosion. It is a Blast 3 fire trap and he takes 1 damage (lowest roll I make all night) and fails his save (also a 1) so he will take another 5 on-going.

The Warpriest takes 8 and fails his save. The hunter is right outside the blast range and starts to try and put the fire out on the hunter. Thats when I have the Cavalier shift out of the building dazed, and asking what happened. I had to hand out an action point (to be given out next session) for the way he roleplayed that. He was like "boom, fire, wha happened?" He takes his helmet off and I say he has no eyebrows and where the slits in the helmet were he has soot stripes. He will take ridicule for this all night as people will say they can not read his facial expressions with no eyebrows.

Later in town they find out that strange things are afoot in Falcrest as there is no sign of town guards or any sign of authority and the people are terrified of something. Our intrepid thief is pick pocketing and hits the wrong person, first finding a symbol of Orcus then getting caught by a human barbarian with a poor pick pockets roll. Normally I do not let things get out of hand or have fights start but I was taking a stand for all the thiefing going on.

The barbarian says "Hate to break it to ya kid, but I keep the coin purse up here." pointing to his upper torso and with a flash his axe is out. The rouge goes to run and I hit him with a very high 19 on the die for an opportunity attack which got a rise out of the player. It stings to get caught.

The Cavalier tries to calm the situation, they have a weird guy in fancy robes standing by them who is apparently really old but does not look it and everyone in the inn save a few ruffians look afraid of him. He stops the fight with a name shout to the barbarian and the Cavalier says he wants him out of town now. They prepare to leave they hear a large cart coming down the road and when the Cavalier looks outside and sees the wagon and a kobold wild mage giving orders to a large flesh golem the cavalier player looks at me with a "I hate you look" and says "That must die!"

Now I was NOT looking for this to be the encounter. I was trying to introduce the big bad who was really polite btw, they just pushed the issue. I thought I dodged the big one with him being told to leave town, of course he wont leave you will have to make him leave, but after revealing that there were some real heavy hitters in the inn working for him they knew it might be tough.

The fight was originally set up to have some Humans and a werewolf fight the group but they forced the issue with the golem and the vampire. But here is where it got interesting. The mage cast sleep, and the Vampire, his hexing warlock and tiefling warrior were down for the count and while I only rolled one 1 on the die all night, I rolled 3 constantly for saves. 4 hits later the Vampire was down.

They found out they had the control icon for the golem and eventually destroyed him even though the halfling wanted to keep him as a pet.

Several of them got beat on pretty hard in a fight that yes I could have altered on the fly I let it go especially after they took out the Vampire and his close companions. The Golem bashed the knight from here to the next game session and the only thing that saved him where the bracers of Defense which he activated to keep himself alive.

I had fun, they had fun and for most of them it was the first time playing. They caught on pretty quick with the rules and I have to say it will be run again.