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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 7:58AM
#1
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Use this thread to discuss your experiences with week 2 of D&D Encounters Season 4 - March of the Phantom Brigade. For more reports and reviews of Encounters check out these blogs (and please suggest more): Dungeon's MasterGlitterdust
Perpetual Geek Machine
Wielding a Bohemian Ear SpoonPlease realize that both players and DMs read these threads, so do not put spoilers in your posts. If your post goes into enough details, then you absolutely must use spoilers. Enclose the spoilery bit in [*sblock=spoiler stuff][*/sblock] (just remove the *) spoiler block tags so that players who haven't played yet don't have the surprise ruined for them.
[*sblock=spoilerey stuff]
blahblahblah
[*/sblock]
will produce
spoilerey stuff
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blahblahblah
once you remove the *.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 8:38AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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I went from 8 PCs in week 1 to 4 PCs in week 2. My over/under for the season will probably be 5 PCs, all regulars. This week we had the Drow Hunter, the Human Cavalier, a Half-Elf Sun Warpriest, and a tiefling Evoker Mage. The first time I've ever gone striker-less, though the regulars prefer the more versatile characters than the melee basic strikers. Spoiler:
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I was suprised that each PC was easily able to come up with something that their character would do after settling into the new town. The drow hunter talked about hunting the mysterious "raccoon", so I played that up quite a bit for some good fun.
The encounter turned out to be the plant-creature, so I put out markers for the seed pods and a Greenvise Vine named Audrey, who could talk, and pulled heavily from Little Shop of Horrors. The combat itself was better in theory than in practice, however, as the PCs didn't seem to understand that the 8 seed pods were all one monster, and there were questions about what happens if you can target multiple foes that I had to address. Regardless, it was too easy, even without the strikers. Having only 120 HP was extremely achievable, especially once they realized that they could use Arcana, and that it was vulnerable fire. I had to tell them multiple times when they asked if the thing was bloodied that "It started with 8 pods, now there are 4" before they got the mechanic.
It was still a lot of fun though, and I hope they have combats that are inventive like this in the future.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 9:30AM
#3
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As a player I had much the same experience. Our party found the second encounter to be too easy. I found the first encounter more difficult because PC's can lose wagons and settlers if they just hack away.
They are great encounters for new players. Not simple hack and slash, but not overly complex.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 10:44AM
#4
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I have a blog and for four seasons now have posted a weekly session report! panzerleader.wordpress.com/
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 11:22AM
#5
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Really looking forward to seeing other groups' reports, as there were multiple possible encounters to be challenged. This is definitely going to be a season that I will want to read the full book after to see what I missed! Played at Warp One in Edmonton, Canada again. Two tables, five and six players, mostly experienced players, two fairly new and one first-timer. My table was:
- Eladrin Knight, Quarterstaff (me)
- Dwarf Sentinel, Summer
- Half-Orc Scout, Dual Axes
- Halfling Hunter, Crossbow
- Half-Elf Warpriest, Storm
No idea how much of the story/set-up was unique to the encounter we faced. The DM had me roll a d6 while everyone was sitting down (rolled a 4 FWIW). A few hours after our successful crossing of the river and defense of the caravan, Malgrim (the half-orc ranger helping lead the caravan) came up to us with Faldyra, an elven healer and herbalist. Faldyra had sought permission to search the nearby forest for herbs, Malgrim asked us to escort her for safety. As we ventured out of sight of the caravan, the Knight stayed close beside Faldyra but spent more time with his nose in a book then looking out for trouble (i.e., crappy passive perception). The Sentinel and the Hunter tried to assist in her search, the Scout headed to a nearby tree to look for danger, and the Warpriest hung around nearby, bored with all this hippie nonsense. The Sentinel and the Hunter noticed a number of strange pod-like shapes sticking out of the ground. The Hunter's Nature skill wasn't strong enough to identify them, but she did feel they were "dangerous". The Knight's (strangely high) Arcana knowledge provided quite a bit of frightening information about the "pods", but unfortunately, before he could finish his examination, the Scout decided to try and bury his axe in the nearest one ("Hunter said it was dangerous!"). Aaaaand roll for initiative... Spoiler:
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The pods unfurled and revealed that they were actually tentacle-like vines, with a huge range (3 squares I think) and a grabbing attack. Knight's Arcana knowledge check (29!) revealed that they were all part of a single creature that had somehow crossed over from the Feywild. Immunities to forced movement and Will attacks was disappointing news for our Hunter and Warpriest. The other interesting bit of information gleaned was that a successful Arcana check would allow someone to banish pieces of the creature back to the Feywild.
Right off the start Faldyra was hit hard and bloodied, and our two most mobile allies (Scout and Hunter) were grabbed. Despite a rough start, the battle went fairly quickly afterwards, with everyone doing their jobs well. The Scout dished out some incredible damage, Hunter got her shots in (even without being able to have her usual slide/prone/slow effect fun), the Warpriest and Sentinel both dropped party-buffing dailies and kept Faldyra and Scout on their feet after some heavy hits.
The Knight ended up being rather unexpectedly effective in this encounter, or rather effective for an unexpected reason. Being an Eladrin Knight built from the Dragon article, I figured I would give him a decent Intelligence and Arcana training, mainly for flavour I had thought. Add the Eladrin bonus and he's at a +10. I found out afterwards the DC for a successful check to banish one vine/pod and deal damage to the main creature was only 12. So I would position my Knight adjacent to as many as I could (to keep them in my aura) and banish another one that was threatening an ally elsewhere (no range concerns for the check apparently). I'm used to playing the meat-shield types, it was kind of fun to get to show off the brains behind the muscle this time! Another fun encounter, with some good story and role-playing opportunities. The battle itself wasn't very challenging, but it was interesting and enjoyable. The overall "trap" functioned well as a part-fight, part-skill challenge, with the added complication of protecting the NPC (who actually wasn't entirely useless!). Fortune Cards and the Twitter Buff (Renewed Boon) were used, but none of the cards were ever put into play; not from lack of trying or interest, just that the cards pulled never seemed to suit the situation. Once again, had a great night, looking forward to next week!
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 11:27AM
#6
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I have a blog and for four seasons now have posted a weekly session report!
panzerleader.wordpress.com/
Awesome, thanks! Added it to the first post.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 17, 2011 - 12:22PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jun 30, 2005
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After the debacle last week, me and my friend decide to try another game, one closer to his house. We had a reasonable group size this time. I played my half-elf warpriest, my friend played his dragonborn cavalier. The other two players were a couple: she picked out the wizard pregen and he chose a ranged rogue my friend had considered switching to. The DM read the opening boxed text, laid down the poster map, and started laying down counters. Spoiler:
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Yeah, so the DM had no clue WTF was supposed to happen with this plant thing. He ran it as 8 separate monsters with 120 hp each, each with its own initiative count and actions. We eventually managed to kill the one closest to us, creating a small safe zone where the tentacled horrors couldn't attack. Once all the PCs fled the threatened areas of the 7 remeaining solo traps, (and once I coached the wizard into heal checking Faldyra to get her back on her feet) we convinced the DM that the wizard, rogue, and Faldyra can just ranged attack the rest to death, so we don't need to play that out. After that he studies the booklet for a moment and says, "Oh! You don't fight three encounters, it's random which one you get!"
At one point, I cried out, "Faldyra, do you know what these things are?" and the DM kind of stammered for a moment. So I tried to get the wizard player to roll nature, but she said she'd wait til her turn. She forgot. Multiple times. At one point, the DM let on that they're vulnerable to fire. At long last a monster vulnmerable to fire shows up in the one format where [b]no one[/i] can have a fire-based at-will power. At this point, I'm so tired of newbie DMs that I'd rather just run the thing myself... except I started going to Encounters to get more chances to play. Leaves me in a bit of a pickle. Oh, and do you get any gold or a magic item in week 2? Or in week 1, for that matter.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2011 - 9:02AM
#8
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Things are still running well for us. Had 2 packed tables again this week, managed to have 1 mostly new people (4/6) and had the more experienced players at the other. My table had the goblin encounter, which scaled up nicely. The table didn't have any real problem overall although I did manage to have 3 of them bloddied at once. I expect we'll have to go back up to 3 tables next week, so recruited a 'stand-by' DM for it 
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2 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2011 - 9:56AM
#9
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He ran it as 8 separate monsters with 120 hp each, each with its own initiative count and actions.
Wow. Just... wow.
Oh, and do you get any gold or a magic item in week 2? Or in week 1, for that matter.
Faldyra's supposed to find an item while digging for herbs, and give it to the PCs. Easy to miss if the DM didn't read carefully; one of the DMs at our store didn't notice it, either.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 18, 2011 - 10:12AM
#10
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Five players at my table this time, with all the roles covered (doubled up on leaders). (IIRC: tiefling cavalier, human mage (Jarren), elf sentinel, human warpriest (Hagen), and elf thief (Keira).) Rolled up the plant encounter, which I modified by including a dryad recluse, because I love the charm and teleport mechanics on it. The plant was deleveled by 1, and the dryad was downgraded to level 2, to keep the XP budget the same. Unfortunately, the dryad only ended up trying to charm once, and missed. Just before her second turn, she went down on a thief's backstab that did 20+ridiculous damage; it wouldn't even have helped if she were her normal level 5 (all hits on her would still have hit, and her attack would still have missed). The plant monster was also easily dealt with, although it did some damage. We were done early (under an hour), and the players were ready for more, so I ended up running the goblin encounter, too. That was more challenging, but the cavalier's righteous radiance caused problems for the shifty goblins, and he used his righteous shield to good effect in protecting the mage. The mage benefited from a Fortune Card (first time I've seen one have much effect), drawing one that let him make a ranged or area attack without provoking an opportunity attack just before he threw a freezing burst. Finished up with the goblins in about an hour, and everybody was happy.
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