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Well it has been a few weeks since my last blog as things have gotten crazy. Needless to say I have fallen in love with my Drow Hunter, sadly though he has been shelved and a new season is upon us.

For the new season I have chosen a Halfling Rogue, Ciche much. Anyway. last week was our first week and it was a very interesting session. the whole "getting to know you" deal.

The group found ourselves at an Inn, with a tale of a wandering spirit that haunts the area. The group quickly came to the concensus that we would investigate the ghost and try to find out why it was roaming the area. we followed it through the town, some wilderness, killed some Orcs, and came to an old ruins. 

We had a slight run in with some treasure seekers. and quickly made our way into the ruins. We did some searching and found some cool items. There was pool of reflection that we all took turns looking into. My character looked in and saw an event from his past. As he reflected on the events he gained a bonus to our rolls. My character also found a fountain and collected some "special" water. 
As we left the ruins the world started getting darker and darker. 

It was my goal to get to the table early this week.......fail. I was actually 3 or 4 minutes late. After dropping my wife and daughter off at the ice rink I had only three minutes to make a 7 minute drive. 

So I arrive at the table. and two things are different; One: We have a new face at the table and 2: We are missing one of our players from last week. The new player was using a premade Drow Rogue. Yay more Damage. But the player that is absent was our Drow Cleric boo less healing.

So we have around the table, The DM, Mr Knowitall, Me, The Couple, and the New Guy.
The adventure starts off with the DM making sure we all had level up to 2nd level. Then we start with the handing out of our house goals. For those who don't know what these are, they are little things that you can do to win little prizes and achievements. So we each get a little slip of paper with our goals on it. Mine says I need to keep a certain groups involvement a secret, I frame another group by planting some evidence against them, and I need to find a character relevant to the story.
Ok, no prob. right?

Right off the bat Mr Knowitall is already letting us know that he has already pre read all the details of the encounter. (a fact that really bugs me cause he tries not to but fails at Metagaming.) So he is already trying to tell us what we should be doing. I like the fact that he is trying to be helpfull but he can, at times, be overbearing.

Ok so there we are in some temple hoping to find Mr X. We affectionatly dubbed him Lonestar cause no one could pronounce his name off the tip of our tongues. We are met by a couple of guardsmen and we try to talk our way into a non violent solution. Being that all but Two of our group are Drow females we thought this would be the easiest way to go. NOT! even with some impressive DC's we end up in a fight, and I choose my stance and ready my magic longbow.
 We found ourselves surrounded quickly, Mr Knowitall is trying as best he can to stay one step ahead of the DM. I roll a 17 for initiative and on my first shot I miss. I was sure it was going to be one of those nights for me, again. To my surprise I found myself with an opportunity to use a Skill from my repatoire that I have yet to use, Rapid Shot. Baiscally I get to pick a location on the map, within range, and roll a hit against every target adjacent to that location. Oh did I mention Mr. Knowitall was in one of those squares....
So I make my rolls, I take out 2 minions and deal some damage to the third. Mr Knowitall escapes un touched... lucky bastard.

My character is starting to feel like I have some strength. I'm no longer gimped with one hit and my arrows are starting to do some damage, as long as I get the Die rolls I need that is. I start taking some damage, and found myself teetering on the verge of death with only 3 hp. Bloodied and weak I relentlessly give chase to the enemy. The Paladin hits me with a heal. and that brings me up past half so I am no longer Bloodied. Yay! The Rogue and Paladin are kicking ass left and right. The Wizard is moving about the board keeping tabs on the Paladin and laying waste with his Magic Missiles. The enemies are falling fast. I position myself in a room out of sight from Mr Knowitall, so that his character doesn't see my drop my item.
 My method for doing this was this.
  I moved myself into the room. I positioned myself between two beds, I used my Cloud of Darkness, and I fire at the last enemy in the room. As a minor action, I drop a piece of cloth with the Insigia from the faction that our Drow Priestess belongs to. (Mr Knowitall) and since I was both in a seperate room, and inside my cloud there was no way for him to be wise to it.
Goal achieved.

 So we end the night adding up our rewards. This time I get 3 votes for Moment of greatness. as did the Rogue for dealing some serious damage.
We all got 50 gold and 350xp. 

On a side note I was chatting with one of the counter people that run the game shop. getting some inside info on the dynamic between Mr Knowitall and our tables DM. Appearently these two go back a ways. And it will, as it seems, be a constant struggle for run of the show between these two. No big deal really. It was metioned that I could just change tables, but that is not my style. I feel that would be in poor form. I do like the group and yes I even like Mr Knowitall. So I just take it with a grain of salt. 

Someday I will run my own table. Then I can run it my way. Until then, I will do the best I can with what I have and do my best to have as much fun as I can.

Until next week.
May all your rolls be Crits.








 

Time to report on week 3.

I managed to get to the table a few minutes early this week. No real bonus for this except the personal acolade of managing to do this....Finally.

So I sit down and start unloading my stuff and setting up my space.
I found that if I set my power cards in two colums to the left of my character sheet I can easily pick one out before the DM calls on me to take my turn. Something that I kinda like. Again this is another one of those things that made me feel like doing a somewhat tiny dance on the outside, while on the inside I'm doing a full on Micheal Flatly in Lord of the Dance.

The rest of the group is all ready, and it is the very same group from last week. The player that was running the Dwarven Slave last week had a new character this week. and to our benefit he is playing a cleric. Yay heals. So we get ourselves situated and the DM starts us off.

We find ourselves in a small section of darkend caveish, cellerish, dungeony something or other. One of our players (Im gonna call him MR Knowitall) starts off by telling us all what we are or should be setting up to do. Knowing that I'm still a novice he takes most of the control of what and where I am going and what I'm gonna do when I get there. 

The game is just starting and I don't want to ruin the mood by getting all bent out of shape over someone "trying" to help me out. But really all you need to do is make some quick suggestions and let me make up my own mind. which seems almost impossible for this guy to do. But like I said sometimes its better to let things  go so as to not ruin the fun.

He set our characters up in a small room just off to the side of the action and it so happens that the room has some small port holes perfect for my archer. "thanks Mr Knowitall-whos wife is DM'ing another table-and has probably read the weeks adventure ahead of time and is totally spoiling the whole........sigh.
Ok so there I am in a room with a perfect spot to shoot at the bad guys and stay out of harms way, while the rest of the group confronts the enemies head on.
I had some nice hits and managed to remain untouched the entire encounter.
but this week we got to do some acutual RP. One of the enemies we were fighting, was part of the objective that 4 out of 5 of us were set out to accomplish so we got to actually play our characters a little. we spent a good part of half an hour trying to convince Mr Knowitall to let us take the Prisoner for our goal instead of Executing her. But it was all for not because after we established that we were going to take the prisoner alive. He says he is going to kill her in the middlle of the night. so we roll to see who is going to prevent this from happening. Me. yay, I think to myself I have has some OK rolls tonight...Ok Mr Knowitall lets do it. the DM says roll I roll an 8 with my modifier of 8 thats a 16 ok not bad he rolls for a total of 17 our prisoner dies and we all lose our task.

I swear I am going to rally the group to lynch him next week.

The fun is getting better, the DM still needs to be more engaging, and Mr Knowitall needs to back up and let the DM run the table. And more importantly he needs to quit reading the adventures ahead of time.

The biggest Bonus for me was the fact that my character managed to level up to second level. And I only hope that I managed to upgrade things properly.
I plan on getting to the game early next week to spend some time with the DM to see if he can look over my sheet and make sure I did everything properly.

All in all not a bad week.

Well week two was a whirlwind of "we almost died"

after our first week, we returned to our small little table at the game shop. Myself, the DM and four other gamers. our group when last we left had just been sealed in a cave full of Svirfniblin. 

So we sit down get out our mini's place them on the designated space and start the session.
being a Hunter I set myself as far in the back as I could.
after a brief DM intro we all make our Initiative rolls. My roll lands me in about the middle of the action.
Our Dwarf slave is the first to attack. He sets up a charge attack and does a little bit of damage but soon get overwhelmed and falls to a failed save. but not before taxing our Paladin for as much healing as she could offer him.

Soon the rest of the party followed suit. either running in to be overwhelmed and bloodied or by using to many of their resources such as dailies, second winds and action points. leaving me to try to fire arrows from the shadows. (which was a lot of fun) we did win the day but not before losing the Dwarf. But since the rest of the group are Drow three of which are mercenaries and one of house Melarn, we could care less. we then follow the cavern to an opening. take a short rest and add up our XP, worth and Renown.

I must say my second session was a lot better. There was more of a family style feel to the group. One thing that both helped and sort of hinderd the game was the addtion of a new face to our table. He was very knowledgable and it was quite clear he was and has DM'd his own table, as he was constantly stepping on the DM's toes by marking things, moving things, and "suggesting" what everyone should do on their turns. Nevertheless, we pushed on and and he was helpful. He just needs to step back and let the DM run the game and focus on playing his character. So there were times, and not to any fault of anyone that this new face made me feel like "I was doing everything wrong" because if I said I am going to fire my bow at target "A" he would immediately sound off with "Are you sure you wanna do that?" or "Why not do this....instead?"
It was helpful in that it helped me to see the bigger picture set forth by my actions. 
i.e. If I fire with this shot that carries this effect, then character A,B, and C get this boon.
But it was distracting at the same time in that it made me feel coerced into a move. or more so that he was playing my character for me.

But all in all I had some good dice rolls and the session was much more fun, even if we almost suffered the dreaded TPK.

One wish I have is for the tables DM to be more descriptive of the adventure and less a text reader. I really want him to bring the paragraphs from the module to life in our imaginations. 
Other than that this session was ten fold better than session one. 

I recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons Encounters at my local game store.

My first week was interesting enough, I got to the table about 10 minutes early to find the DM's putting together their papers. I ask, to make sure that I have everything I need. I was met with a less than enthusiastic "Yeah." Clearly they were invested in their previous conversations and I was made to feel that I was interupting.

So the time comes, A small group assembles. We are prompted to give a brief character intro, so I say hello I give my characters name and class and after everyone has had a turn to speak we set off on our adventure.

Being new, I am not use to finding certain stats or numbers on a whim. So when my turn comes I am often caught off guard. So I fumble my papers and eventually pick a power to play, Roll my die and the turn moves on.

The atmosphere at the table is less than I had imagined, and more that of unimaginative players who just want to call out a power, buff it up as much as possible and roll their dice. I was looking forward to detailed dungeon descriptions and clever banter with my fellow players, and a night filled with epic manuvers to overcome our adversaries.

as the game wrapped up, the DM delt out some goodies such as Worth, Gold and XP.
He also called for something called the "Moment of greatness" the table kinda came to a decision before I could even finish filling out my paperwork.
And the session ended.

Afterwards I tried to speak with the DM and ask some questions about the game. and was sluffed off. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to make the table come more to life. His reply was that of blanket response. Just play the game.

I have never been more disappointed in a game. I hope it gets better.