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Cast of Characters

Shaun - Lanstaf the Realmstrider, Male Human Wizard
Ed - Adrik Flamebeard, Male Dwarf Fighter
Pete - Erdan Woodsinger, Male Elf Ranger
Liz - Finduiloth of Winterhaven, Female Half-Elf Cleric of Avandra
David - Ulmo Brownbottle, Male Halfling Rogue

Introduction

In our last session summary, I posted what essentially turned out to be a schedule for what the characters did and when they did it, without really going into much detail. As a result, I've become much more attentive to the amount of time that the PCs are spending in the Dungeon or out of it and have scoured the libraries of the internet for information on better ways of tracking IGT¹.

What I've found is basically series of "segments", "rounds", and "turns". These terms are all familiar to me from AD&D but, considering ...

Cast of Characters

Shaun - Lanstaf the Realmstrider, Male Human Wizard
Ed - Adrik Flamebeard, Male Dwarf Fighter
Liz - Finduiloth of Winterhaven, Female Half-Elf Cleric of Avandra
Pete - Erdan Woodsinger, Male Elf Ranger
David - Ulmo Brownbottle, Male Halfling Rogue

Intro and Recap

As I'm waiting for my D&DNext playtester e-mail link to arrive in my inbox I thought I'd go ahead and summarize last week's Keep on the Shadowfell session. If you recall, the PCs had already been ambushed (twice) by kobolds, rescued Douven Staul, discovered the treachery (and then neutralized) of Ninaran, saved the town of Winterhaven from undead doom, and finally cleared out the lair of the annoying kobolds destroying their goblin chief Irontooth in the process.

Now, after an extended discussion with Valthrun the Prescient...

Cast of Characters

Shaun - Lanstaf the Realmstrider, Human Wizard
Ed - Adrik Flamebeard, Dwarf Fighter
Liz - Finduiloth of Winterhaven, Half-Elf Cleric of Avandra
Pete - Erdan Woodsinger, Elf Ranger
David - Ulmo Brownbottle, Halfling Rogue

Sunday evening, Mother's Day here in the US, we had ourselves a late night session since most of us were spending time with our moms during the day. We gathered and recapped the last session, which, for those of you who need a refresher, ended after the heroes rescued Douven Staul from the gnome skulk and sold some sort of relic to Ninaran, who promised to keep it safe (that greed may come back to haunt them... mwahahaha). The heroes were in the tavern of Wrafton's Inn in Winterhaven and we would have started the adventure with the following day if Pete (Erdan)...

Cast of Characters

Shaun - Lanstaf the Realmstrider, Human Wizard
Ed - Adrik Flamebeard, Dwarf Fighter
Liz - Finduiloth of Winterhaven, Half-Elf Cleric of Avandra
Pete - Erdan Woodsinger, Elf Ranger
David - Ulmo Brownbottle, Halfling Rogue

Sunday (5/6) we had our second session which encompassed the first few encounters of H1: Keep on the Shadowfell (available for FREE from the Wizards' website, even though I paid full retail price for it... but I'm not bitter. At all).

Pre-Game

Everyone showed up more or less on time, and we ordered some pizza (Papa John's is my favorite) and had a couple of beers before settling in for the night. David and Ed were going on and on and on about The Avengers, which I haven't seen, and, thanks to them, don't have to because I now know every cool thing that happened. ...

Gunpowder, Kingdom, Glory and Saecula were rejoined by Power, and had recruited Salt, the elf wizard who had appeared in War of Dragons, to their ranks.

The party arrives in Winterhaven to map a nearby keep for Parle Cranewing, who is writing a history of the Nerath Empire. They encounter some kobolds before they reach the town. A man called Valthrun tells them that there are kobolds living there. He suggests that the PCs should see Lord Padraig, who offers them a commission to deal with the kobolds. He points them towards the keep and also tells them about the dragon's burial site, which is being excavated by a man called Douven Staul.

The adventurers head off and duly encounter some kobolds, discovering that they're under the command of a goblin called Irontooth, who answers to someone

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Curious occurences have we undergone since last I journaled. We have returned to the recovered Shrine of Bahamut for another extended rest, as this is the safest place we've found while in this cursed Keep.  As before, Lady Sariel and I sit in Trance, each at opposite altars and keep watch over the other members of our company as they rest.

Jake There the Spattered Sorcerer has disappeared, apparently with no cause for alarm, as this "happens sometimes", according to his brother Croaker, attributing it to a side-effect of his connection to his magical medium of choice, chaos magic.  "Artists." the dragonborn snorted in dismissal with an accompanying burst of smoking flame.  As little as most of us have known Jake, it all seems indeed to be consistent

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Session 2 was last night, and it left me with a headache at the end of the night.

First, I had a missing player which I had to play. I hate playing characters and DMing at the same time. I kept trying to role play him the best way I could think of but still, its hard enough just to DM.

Second, had a couple rule lawyer incidents. The first one was actually my mistake. I thought that Flanking and Combat Advantage were two seperate/stackable modifiers. Weird thing is though, the player was the one with the bonuses when he called it out.

The second one, the player is wrong but I just let it go because the combat was getting way to long to begin with. It was about Close Blast and how the diagram in the PHB is "totally wrong." From what he was saying, a close blast starts in the origin square

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First off, two weeks between game sessions is already starting to wear on me, but what can you do...

I thought about getting a weekly game going on Wednesday nights for a few hours but I would be afraid of getting burnt out..

Then again, I've quit all my MMOs, and I spent a lot of money to play so I might just have to take that risk.

On another note, I had this really good idea for an adventure hook just to find out that the plot is already been published which, to me, is kind of disheartening. My cousin said to not sweat it because everything has been done before, but I can't believe that and I don't want to plagiarize.

So I've been trying to come up with an alternative story line for my campaign. They've just started an extended version of H1:KotS. I'm potentially running 9 players (a

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