Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 8: The Moathouse Finale

 

Yeah that's a pretty terrible picture of him

Back in Hommlet our heroes rest and prepare for another expedition into the dungeon beneath the Moathouse. Our Heroes:

Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 2 or 3 at this point. Grognard Mike is out this week so Malice is hanging out in Hommlet and Inigo the Rogue is also absent - as he often is)

The much more entertaining players account, written in-character again "As told by the Illustrious and Mighty Xyzzifax" is here.

The Ranger and Cleric head to the Temple of St. Cuthbert seeking holy water and information. They acquire the holy water and then meet with Terjon to discuss the symbol they found on the guards/bandits/armed hostile humans in the last expedition (The Flaming Eye). Terjon knows a little about about the organization of the temple and explains that while theoretically unified under "Elemental Evil" the four major factions compete with and seek dominance over one another. He also mentions that they have always sought to control the lands around the temple as well and so are probably building an army. 

The rest of the party makes some minor purchases and checks in on friends. Samson constructs a crossbow that can be attached to Lantor's arm & armor giving him an easier ranged option when called for as having to swap between a crossbow and his greatsword has been tricky for him. Samson is happy to help and Lantor is happy to have it.

After two days in Hommlet the team returns to the Moathouse and heads down to check out some of the areas they did thoroughly explore before. Spotting a pair of bugbears via the Miraculous Recon Owl they start a pretty serious discussion about how to proceed as the bugbear fight (see Session 6) was a tough one and they do not want to end up fighting the human cultists from last session and the bugbears at the same time, possibly being cut off by one or the other. They end up deciding to have the mage wizard-lock the door to the cult area first and then go back and deal with the bugbears. It's a solid plan - shame it didn't work.

Most of the party hangs back while the Braeden and Xyzzifax sneak up towards the cultist door and I will transition here to the first-person account:

The recently promoted Minion #3, Braeden, accompanies Xyzzifax, to provide support. The Ranger loses all recently gained respect, and falls in the rankings to minion #4, when he fails to spot a noise trap, a tripwire is triggered, causing a cascade of scrap metal to fall, with the clanging and crashing echoing through the dungeon. The pair’s presence is now surely known.

Xyzzifax ceases all pretense of stealth, spreading his wings, and launching himself into the air to cover the remaining distance to the door. Upon reaching it, he immediately begins to chant, casting his arcane lock spell on the door, betting that he can resolve his spell before the guards open the door. 36 seconds later, 4 cult guards fling the door open, brandishing crossbows! All four loose bolts at the chanting wizard, yet arcane shields spring forth, and all four bolts fall harmlessly to the ground. Combat ensues!

Yes, the all-about-perception-and-sneaking ranger blows a check and snags a tripwire and blows the entire plan to hell! This turns into a pretty serious fight with eight guards including another leader type who does not go gently.

After this the mage tries to wizard lock the door again and is again interrupted by more guards who kick the door open and start another fight! They push these guards back, heal up, and decide to push on into the cult lair. 

Passing through the second door (now safely wizard locked as well) they encounter a third door and pick the lock, open the door, and immediately encounter the cult guards and leaders waiting for them with spells and weapons readied. The cult leader orders his men to kill the party and the battle is on. 

Kentor, Lantor, and Samson all take a good beating - which is becoming pretty normal. Samson drops at least once and Lantor gets Held when Lareth the cult leader manages to get a spell off and then later gets Blinded. Xyz invokes a flaming sphere which is also becoming a pretty standard tactic for him. Eventually Lareth is the last bad guy standing and finally drops as the entire party lays into him. The party gets a ton of loot from this including +1 plate, a Staff of Striking, and a Ring of Free Action, all of which will prove to be a thorn in my side for the future. 

Definitely better with the helmet on

DM Notes:

This was the big finale for the Moathouse and ended with an appropriately spectacular battle that they kind of stumbled into. That last fight went about 5 rounds and they fought Lareth, 2 guard captains, 11 guards, and a Cult Fanatic. With spells going off on both sides, some vicious melee engagements, and at least one PC dropping, it felt like a pretty dangerous fight. Certain trends are emerging:

• The Ranger is the sneaking specialist who mostly fights at range with his bow, jumping into melee when one of the fighters drops. He's very much a pragmatist and rolls with whatever comes the party's way.
• The Cleric started off as the healing guy but has moved into more of a combat role as the game has gone on. He usually opens with Spiritual Weapon and goes from there. Now he has the Staff of Striking and will quickly develop into the Kill-Stealing Cleric as he wades into battle and clocks somebody already wounded with a triple-charge staff strike and blows them into vapor. Yes, it is annoying. Yes, the player is eating it up.
• The Fighter is not really a glass cannon but he does tend to be the one who drops in most fights. He's armored up but he uses a two-hander so he cannot use a shield and that means of the melee types he has the lowest AC. He also is the youngest player and tends to charge into a fight in round one regardless of what the rest of the party is doing so he ends up surrounded and gets pounded on first and most. As the campaign goes on this continues but he does work on upping his armor class so it gets a little better.
• The Paladin is the experienced melee combatant who is taking all of the "tanking" type abilities that he can. Most of these punish an enemy for not striking him, as in giving them a negative modifier or giving him a free attack. He is very conscious of his AC and wants it to be the highest in the party - and it usually is, barring some spell going off. Also Smite is a devastating thing and he is very good at choosing his moment of glory to use it. He's still being played as Lawful Good even with alignment not being in the game and his loyalty to the party is unquestionable.
• The Mechanist is an interesting new type of character. He doesn't cast spells but he can buff his party (including himself) with various gadgets and enhancements to equipment. Here the paladin is carrying a hammer enhanced with a +1 and "returning" to give him a good opening ranged attack. The fighter now has a light crossbow built into his armor keeping his hands free for melee.
  
  Samson is also good as a skill monkey focused in on detecting traps and picking locks - any gadget-related thing he is unstoppable. Also, he can basically "Identify" magic items by touch. This is also pretty annoying at first as a DM because that whole sub-section of the game of figuring out what an item can do has been part of the fun for a long time and this just eliminates that entirely. It does get to be fun later when they find a cursed item though so it's not entirely one-sided. There have also been many jokes about "hey, bring your magic hands over here ..."
• Xyzzifax - the wizard has been the real revelation here. He speaks in an immediately identifiable voice, he has questionable morals, some fuzziness on party loyalty, and often refers to the other characters as "minions", sometimes ranking them on the fly. Game-wise he is powergaming the shit out of ToV's wizard options and showing me just how ridiculous they can be at maximum effort which I suppose I deserve since he is my kid. The familiar rules are very lenient and he has used them ruthlessly to make mapping the dungeon and recon in general a very low-effort undertaking for them. He knows his spells like a pro and knows when to cast them, when to use a wand, and when to just go with Ye Olde Firebolt. He is also not averse to jumping into a fight up close when needed, made easier with his built-in wings (He's a ToV "Beastkin" lineage, which gives a fair number of options to cover a variety of animals, one of which is wings & flight = to your walking speed). That said, he is also quick to jump out of combat when hit with anything significant as he is fairly concerned with his own skin.

It's been a lot of fun up to this point and it only gets better.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 7: Ghouls, Guards, and a Giant Crayfish

 

Back at the remote camp near the Moathouse our heroes prepare for another expedition into the dungeon beneath ...

Braeden (Human Ranger)played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

 All are level 2 or 3 at this point. Grognard Mike is out this week so Malice is back in Hommlet and Inigo the Rogue is also absent - as he often is)

The much more entertaining players account, written in-character "As told by the Illustrious and Mighty Xyzzifax" is here.

The goal this time is to explore the passage downward hidden in a column that they had discovered previously. The portcullis is still down so they work around that and make their way to the prison area where they had fought the zombies and start inspecting the passage. 

DM aside: Once again we have the totally engaging exercise of the wizard's familiar scoping out the various rooms and tunnels like a recon drone. I have been a fan of wizards having familiars since I started playing way back but this version is pretty ridiculous and has become an annoying thorn in my side with it's unlimited range-flying-stealthy-darkvisioned self. Yes the owl is the power choice here and of course my son jumped on that right away and has been abusing it ever since. I am seriously considering locking it back down to the earlier 5E limit of 100' or whatever it was. The running joke is that Bubo's nemesis is the closed door which is the only thing that stops his out-of-control scouting. Coincidentally just about every door in the dungeon is closed and some new doors might have been added recently ...

Once they determine it is safe to proceed the group climbs down the hidden rungs and figures out they are in a crypt area as demonstrated by the large number of burial niches and the smaller but still concerning number of ghouls. The Cleric turns most of them and they run a pretty good distance away while the party handles the one that sticks around. As the turn wears off, the other ghouls come back but the party is ready and has a chance to hit them at range on the way in, thinning the numbers and in the end only the Fighter gets bit and paralyzed.* The area is searched, minor loot is found, and the party continues on ...

Next, to quote from the players log ...

Xyzzifax and his minions venture forth after some scouting by the faithful minion Bubo, and advance down a set of stairs into a square room with a pool of water in its center. To investigate the pool, minion Samson creates a 10 foot pole, and gives it to the only one in the party stupid enough to do it, Minion Lantor, who sticks it into the pool. Before he can react, minion Lantor is seized by a giant claw which locks onto his torso and clamps down, locking him in place!**

...and the battle against the giant crayfish is on!

For one (1) round!

Even at only (only?) six members, this group is hell on single large targets. Everyone in the room opens up on the thing and the Fighter (even grappled) and Paladin just tear it up using their special abilities. I thought it would be tough enough to go a few rounds with them - nope! So the pool is searched and looted of some scrolls and jewelry and the party continues onward.

Coming down the long diagonal passage they encounter locked doors - which they unlock - and then armed guards - who proceed to feather the party with crossbow bolts! The fight starts with just 3 guards and then escalates as 3 more plus a leader type charge around the corner  to join the battle. This proves to be a bigger challenge than the crustacean as at the end we have the Paladin, the Fighter, and the Ranger all in melee with the guard captain who finally succumbs but not before dealing out some punishment of his own as his minions fall around him. 

The team quickly checks the fallen then heads out and back to Hommlet to recover and recount their adventures.

They are still not completely sure what's going on with the Moathouse but they are almost done with it. signs of Bandits up top then Bugbears, Gnolls, and organized humans in the dungeon have them discussing who or what is running this place which is a good thing to have. Mechanically it's working well with PC's feeling like they are in danger but not dropping dead like some of our older edition attempts at this one. My group works together at this point like a machine most of the time and there is a ton of banter along with teasing Lantor's player about dropping every fight. They are having a lot of fun so now I have to maintain it.

For a better fight with the Crayfish from back in 4E here's a link to one of the old session reports.  Where we had a different mix of players and characters.

*This will be a recurring theme as Lantor (the Fighter) is constantly in melee, uses a greatsword, and so has a lower AC than some and is in a position to get multi-attacked almost every fight.

** See?

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 6: Bugbear Battle

 

Time to start catching up!

This is the DM's Summary and Notes - for more details and the players' take on things take a look here.

We begin in Hommlet after a night's rest. The prisoners have been escorted to safety and various abilities have been recovered. After some light shopping the party returns to the Moathouse area and sets up a camp some distance away. Our protagonists are:

Malice (Human Bard) played by Grognard Mike

Braeden (Human Ranger) played by Battletech Terry

Sir Kentor (Human Paladin) played by Paladin Steve

Sir Lantor (Human Fighter) played by Boom Gun Brandon

Xyzzifax (Human* Wizard) played by Blaster
     (He's not an Apprentice anymore, and really past Journeyman, but I just will not call him the obvious)

Samson (Halfling Mechanist) played by Shootist Will

Jaric (Human Cleric) played by Variable David

All are level 2 or 3 at this point

Heading down into the dungeon beneath the moathouse they start poking around some empty rooms and manage to trip a falling portcullis. The sound draws the attention of some Gnolls which starts a fairly vicious fight where Malice the Bard starts to look a lot like a 4E Warlord and the Flaming Sphere spell plays a big part. As the fight winds down the magical owl familiar spots a new set of creatures creeping down a corridor towards them.

As the party reforms to face the new threat Braedon the Ranger starts taking shots at anyone he can see and the flaming sphere rolls over to intervene as well. The beasts manage to drop Lantor the Fighter with concentrated javelin fire but their follow-up charge is thwarted by the traps laid down on the way in by the ranger. Kentor the Paladin is bearing the brunt of the melee attention now and he too drops. The bugbear leader is a tough customer as he stays on his feet despite multiple melee attacks, missile attacks, and being partially petrified! 

More of the bugbears drop but Lantor and Kentor  are healed and then fall again. The wizard uncloaks, revealing some insectile wings and starts throwing thunderwaves to drive the creatures back which actually works. The enemy leader is beaten and battered when he finally shakes off the petrification and staggers back with his one remaining warrior ... "next time, humans ..." is the last exchange as they slink off into the darkness. 

The familiar monitors their retreat as the party pulls itself together and heals up to the point of mobility. Our heroes find the way back out blocked by the fallen portcullis and Sir Kentor has to strain and break it to open the way.

Back at the camp Xyzzifax shares his origin story as a once-normal man warped by his former master into an insect-man on a quest for power.

DM Commentary

This session started with some banter and exploration but turned into one long, running fight through a small complex of rooms as the noise from the initial trap drew the attention of the gnolls and then that noise drew the attention of the bugbears. It's all fun and games until the Fighter and the Paladin both go down and the Cleric and the Ranger become the new frontline with the halfling Mechanist trying to help out. The Bard usually fights from the second line when needed - with a glaive so she has reach - but she's much happier doing that with the two tanks in front. 

Having realized that a group this large was going to be tougher to challenge and knowing how this level was set up I started making notes on who would react to the alarms and also to the sounds of fighting in different parts of the dungeon. The familiar being both recon drone and security system continues to be a bit annoying and I'm having to get picky with the wizard about when he is seeing via the owl vs. seeing out of his own eyes at times.

The Gnolls were Tome of Beasts Gnolls and they're fine - the "taunting bark" ability forces an opponent to move towards the Gnoll and attack it on its turn - shades of 4th edition! The Bugbears were led by a Bugbear Champion from that book and he is a little bit nastier and made the whole thing better. He is tougher, has more attacks, and has a Recharge reaction ability to change one miss to hit so he can really put out the hurt. He ended up becoming a bit of a nemesis as he spoke, survived their best efforts, and threatened to come after them again. They would hunt for him in the next few sessions but he did not return - though he will later. 

The wizard has become one of the stars of the campaign as Blaster uses a distinct voice when he speaks and tends to refer to everyone as minions. Getting his backstory out there for the group was a good moment and made everything that much more personal for everyone. Also his in-character writeups are pretty funny if you get the chance to check those out.

Overall I really like the system. There are some potential concerns with a few things and with the size of my group but we are going to finish the Moathouse mostly as-is and then see how things stand.

Encounter Balance in Modern D&D and Tales of the Valiant

I've never been too concerned with "encounter balance" as in most editions the guidance and numbers given for it are terrible. In my experience 4E did a pretty decent job at providing something useful but that's the only one I liked. I haven't been worrying about it much with the current game but now I feel like the group is verging on having too easy of a time with a lot of the dungeon and then suddenly ending up in a life and death struggle when they hit a certain area or combination of inhabitants. 

I'm running Temple of Elemental Evil but the characters are from Tales of the Valiant. So the old school encounter setups are somewhat offset by them having old school numbers in the party and then being characters in a post-5E system and having much greater individual power than an AD&D character, slightly balanced out by using late/post-5E monsters with more interesting capabilities as the opposition most of the time. I mean, in the end they will most likely win but I do want them to work for it. 

Given the way my players are flattening a lot of the opposition now I am paying more attention to how the various CR's in an area add up and I intend to do some tweaking for some of them - mainly the big temples as they should be some epic, memorable, fights and they should involve some actual elementals which are surprisingly sparse in some areas. Between the various monster books, some allegedly solid encounter guidelines, a big dungeon map, and the 3D printer, I can drop all kinds of elemental evil on them. But ...

What is "balance" when it comes to a dungeon-crawling D&D game? Is there a solid way to define that? How about ...

• 0 characters drop = easy encounter
• 1 character drops = challenging encounter
• 2+ characters drop = hard encounter?

I mean words and descriptors get tossed around with this stuff without any real definition but the focus on systems like this is on math. ToV's system is this for 5th to 10th levels, which is where we will be living for most of this game:

• Half of total PC levels in the party is your "Benchmark"
  (so this is 15-20 for me depending on who shows up)
• Add up total monster CR in an encounter:
• Total > Benchmark = "difficult or dangerous" encounter
• Total < Benchmark= "Less challenging" battle
  (So going by this a total CR of 10 would be easy, 15 would be average, and 20 would be challenging)
• Maximum single monster CR = average party level x 1.5
• Minimum monster CR = 1/2

Now to be fair they do mention adjusting these to better fit your own party and there is a handy chart with average level in the left-hand column going from 1-20 and the top row covering number of PCs from 3-7 and then the cross reference gives you the Challenging Benchmark. 

As far as adjusting for my game I decided to count them as one level higher due to magic items in the party and figured I would start with a 6 character party as my target. That means my Min CR is 1 and my Max CR is 9 and my Benchmark is 18. To try this out I threw two Young Green Dragons at them on the return trip from Verbobonc as that made some kind of sense for the region. That's two CR 8 critters for a 16 total. We only had 5 characters for that session  which made the Benchmark CR 15 so we were right there. 

The party knew something was up as they heard traffic on the road had dwindled over the past week.  They spotted something up in the air as they traveled and made for the ruined keep that marks the halfway point between Hommlet and the city. They determined that it was a dragon about the time they reached the keep and that's when the second dragon stepped out from behind a tower. 

The fight lasted 5 rounds which is probably fine. The fighter charged one, caught the breath weapon, then caught it again when the other one landed nearby and that was it for him - down. The wizard hit them with a Slow spell and that really reduced the melee output as it means even if they have multiattack - they do - they can only make one attack per round so instead of a claw/claw/bite they get a claw or a bite. I think the first one dropped round 3 or early round 4 and the second one was attempting to flee on round 5 when it got fireballed by the wizard (wand) and blew its save. 

Going by their method and my own method mentioned up there I'd say this was in the "challenging" ballpark. One character down, most of the party damaged in some way, they had to use at least one potent spell followed by a powerful wand ... sounds like "challenging" is a good description. 

The party mix in this case was fighter, cleric, ranger, wizard, mechanist. Typically we would have a bard and/or a paladin in there too but not this time. I have seen discussion online that having a second healer in the party really amps up the difficulty in challenging them and I do concur with that - between a full cleric, a paladin who can heal here and there, and a bard that can give out the option to use healing surges during combat they do tend to be very resilient. I will watch the specific party mix  to see if I notice any patterns developing.

I will say I do find this kind of thing fairly tedious. I lean much more towards the "natural world" kind of approach where asking around, looking for rumors, and doing research will tell you what kinds of things live in an area and then knowing that some of those are extremely dangerous will guide your decisions. The world is the world and your characters are living in it - it doesn't level up or down with them. 

If I were to take this way too seriously and actively recalculate each possible encounter every session for the number of players I had it would rapidly drain significant fun from the run. So I won't ever be doing that. These things may work alright as guidelines but don't take them too seriously. All of the math presumes that each creature has been given a CR that accurately reflects the danger they pose to a party. Given the variation one could have in a typical group I think that's optimistic at best and misleading much of the time. If everyone in the party has fire resistance then that red dragon is somewhat less threatening than if no one does. There are ranges give for things like damage output and hit points at each CR but having lived with these kinds of frameworks for 25-ish years now I remain skeptical. That said I will give it a chance, keep trying it out, and see what I find.

This did not go well for our greatsword guy

The Tales of the Valiant Temple of Elemental Evil Campaign Details

 

Well we are 22 sessions into the campaign now and the party is at 5th level. That's despite using individual per-session XP. One character is lower but he's only showing up about every third session so that's how it goes. I wanted to share some thoughts about how the game is going.

First up - how we run: We get together on Saturday nights and run about six hours. Now the first hour or so is eating and catching up so we actually play more like 4-5 hours. We play in-person, sitting around a table, moving miniatures on a battlemat when useful, typically rolling real dice. 

This campaign started in July of 2024 and while the goal is "weekly" we do have occasional skips when the DM (me) has other obligations but I've made this a priority so I keep those to a minimum. I have things 2 out of the next 3 weekends so we will likely only have two sessions in March. If a player can't make it we just play short. With 8 players though, "short" means 5 or 6 players most sessions - we almost always have one or two out - and it's very rare that we cancel a game due to lack of players. I'd say we would have to drop under 4 available to really consider that and it almost never comes up. We did have a long pause at the end of the year when I lost my dad but we've been rolling pretty steadily since then.

People ask about keeping a game going for the long term and honestly it's not that hard to find the plan: commit to running a game and stick to it. Now actually executing it can be challenging, but it has to start with that commitment from the person running the game. Individual players will miss here and there but if the GM is available then things can happen. I probably have enough on this to make a whole new post so let's leave it there for now.

As far as the system we chose for this one I am very happy with Tales of the Valiant. It feels like 5E+. My players are also very happy with it and they too feel like it's a step up from 5th in both the mechanics and what their characters can do within the framework of the rules. I have used 2014 Monster Manual monsters, new monsters from the adventure itself, a whole bunch of creatures from the Monster Vault (the ToV monster book) and a few from Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts series. It's seamless. That said I like the newer critters better as far as having interesting options before and during a fight so I use them most of the time.

For the adventure we are playing through well it's the TOEE - it's a big old-school dungeon with traps and secret doors and exploitable fragmentation amongst the enemy factions. Now are my players exploiting this division in the ranks? No ... but they could if they wanted to. Hommlet makes for a nice base area where we have had quite a bit of interaction with the locals and the wizard is planning to build a tower himself and supplant Burne as the official resident mage*. Nulb has not seen as much action but I suspect some see it as a future opportunity while others are probably looking to make it the target of some kind of war crime as a warning to the Temple, Hommlett, Verbobonc, or possibly all three - time will tell. 

One of the other fun things about this adventure is dusting off my wandering monster skills. traveling the countryside near Hommlett? Random encounter checks! Pushing through various temple dungeon levels? Random encounter checks! Taking the road to Verbobonc? Random encounter checks! It has been fun using the tables provided in the adventure and tuning them up to keep things both thematic and at least somewhat challenging. 

That leads into my one concern about the whole thing and that's that my party is very strong in a fight - and there are theoretically 8 of them. Now this is an old-school module and was not rewritten into 5E's encounter balancing numbers based on a 4-person party so it is meaner - if the old one had 8 bugbears in a room on the first dungeon level then the new one has 8 of them there as well. BUT ... they wipe the floor with most of the things they encounter unless it's a very nasty batch. They have old-school numbers with new-school power levels so it's not quite as even as I had hoped.

I did some of this to myself by giving them more access to magic items than just "what they find in the dungeon" via a traveling merchant I used to use in the old 3E Return to the Temple campaign and also by being able to go to Verbobonc to seek out magic item crafters and a bit of a market. Most of it is checking for a few random items when they seek them but ToV does have rules for crafting - as did 3E and 4E - so I want to give them some options to play in this area. Even then, the strongest items have come straight out of the adventure itself so it's not -all- my fault.

The two hairiest fights so far happened when a)they pulled the inhabitants of 4 rooms all at once by making noise at a bad time and b) the fight for the Water Temple which had multiple lighter creatures and a juggernaut fighting in melee while some clerics stayed back and cast at them. A serious fight means that usually the greatsword-wielding fighter (no shield) drops, then the paladin may or may not go down, then the ranger switches to melee and the cleric wades in with his staff of striking and the wizard and bard start pulling out the big spells like haste or fireball.

Part of the challenge here is that even though I went through beforehand and figured up all of the XP available in the adventure my party ended up going in through a side entrance and punching their way into the dungeon starting in the middle instead of starting at the top and working their way down like most people would - theoretically at least. So they were immediately in some tougher encounters than I had expected but I pulled no punches and their larger numbers helped them power through. We've had no permanent deaths though we have come close a few times.

Seeing that I began to realize that I may need to do some tweaking. Really, I started doing this from the beginning and it takes three paths:

• I started using later monster designs right from the start. These are generally better than the early 5E "bag of hit points" style monsters and have started to find their way back to 4Es ways of making things interesting. With the Monster Vault pretty much replacing the Monster Manual 1 for 1 I have a good supply of opposition.
• As they have pushed into the temple dungeon proper I am keeping in mind that this is more of an organized facility than a random set of monster lairs - noises and alarms will draw a response. One of the signature features of the temple is the competition among the 4 temples and the ways players can exploit the factionalism to avoid being overwhelmed. Well, my players do not seem concerned about being overwhelmed and are not at all concerned with infiltration or deception thus far so I'm going to play it as more of a rivalry between the elements than open conflict. That should lead to some challenging escalations as they plunge ahead.
• I have also, somewhat reluctantly, started digging into the encounter design math given for ToV. I find most of these systems terrible as they fail under scrutiny almost immediately. 3E was bad pretty much from the start, as was 5th edition. 4E's encounter design was the best in my experience but even it was not always great. An overland trip to Verbobonc gave me the chance to try it our with some wandering encounters on the road, culminating with a pair of dragons and ... I am withholding judgement for now. I want to see how it works in the dungeon environment and it really only aims at a "challenging" encounter with some guidance as to harder or easier around a calculated benchmark. I am somewhat skeptical that a thing like a dragon can be reduced down to a single numerical rating when it comes to danger factor but I will give it a try.

Bottom line we are playing regularly and consistently, my players are having fun, some memorable characters are developing, it's a classic D&D  module, and I am enjoying it quite a bit myself. I can see that it may be quite a challenge to keep things interesting for another 5 or 6 levels but I am looking at that as a positive. Barring some unforeseen complications I expect we will finish this adventure this year, probably this summer or fall. I have given some thought to what might come after but for now I am going to aim to finish this one up right.

* Of course he also refers to the other PCs as his "minions" and ranks them, offering the occasional opportunity to move up in his rankings so it is in character.

The 2024/5 Monster Manual Kerfluffle

 

Yeah ... yeah ... so they took orcs out of the Monster Manual. Drow too. It's the "50th anniversary of the game" edition and they took two pretty significant D&D monsters out of the monster book. 

Now I've read massive discussion threads online about how this is good or bad and watched some takes on YouTube as well. I've seen WOTC's sort-of-stated position that "if it's a playable race in the PHB then it's not a monster in the MM" which is just a ridiculous take. Let's look at why:

First up there is a set of generic NPC statblocks in it which are pretty much human. The suggestion is that one can just reskin those as an orc commoner or wizard or whatever. Except that there is nothing provided to further customize them by species such as orcs, say, seeing in the dark, or being tougher than a human, or perhaps going berserk or hitting harder in some way.

So what are we trying to do here?

If the point of the book is to provide the numbers a DM needs to run opposition for their party of player characters then there should be ready-to-go stats for all of the typical D&D monsters. I shouldn't have to make calculations or edits or apply templates for the typical common versions of these things. If this is a great approach then why not use it for other beasties too? How about a single "dragon" statblock for each age category and then just reskin it by saying what color it is and changing up what kind of damage the breath weapon does? You could do the same thing for giants and many demons and devils as well.

Except the point of the monster book is to provide a variety of interesting things for players to encounter. Quite a bit of time they will end up fighting but not always. But if they do end up opposing each other then mechanical differences matter a great deal - even if it's not a straight-up combat. Does this thing have a high save vs. charm abilities? How about AoE damage spells? Does it get by with a higher armor class or is it a huge block of hit points?  Does it have any special senses? Immunities? What is it good at? What is it terrible at? All of this matters.

Taking iconic D&D "monsters" out of the core D&D monster book is a terrible decision made for no solid reason. 

Secondly I saw some discussion of how the tastes of modern players are different than they were years ago which is why Orcs are a playable race - players today, mainly younger players in this discussion, expect different things in their fantasy. Sure, that's fine - we've had half-orcs in the game from very early on and it's not a huge leap to just go full-orc. That doesn't concern me a great deal. But D&D is it's own fantasy "thing" at this point with its own settings and assumptions and expectations and one of those is that orcs are a very common low-level opponent and Drow are a pretty common mid to high level opponent. Adding in some new player options - sure. Taking DM options away? Why? How does it make the game better? I have yet to hear how this makes for a better game.

World of Warcraft is often cited as an example of how players have come to see orcs as a playable race. Sure, they are in that game and that spilling over into D&D really isn't a huge problem. But if one plays an  Alliance character you will be fighting orcs in great numbers in the game. So why do we only get one part of that situation and not the other?

Next up I believe that organized intelligent races as enemies are hugely important to a D&D campaign. Sure, the big monsters are cool but infiltrating the underground Drow city full of a variety of dark elf types is a huge challenge. Orcs, Drow, Goblins, Bugbears, Giants ... all of these should have multiple statblocks reflecting different roles in whatever civilization they have - not fewer, and not "zero". Sure there can be a basic Orc Warrior entry but then there could also be Orc Berserker, Orc Ambusher, Orc Fire Wizard, Orc Priest of X, Orc Necromancer, Orc Greater Chieftain, etc. Drow could have similar takes and specialists. This has been a concept going back to AD&D even if it was often "for every 50 orcs there is a boss that fights as a hobgoblin and for every 100 there is a big boss that fights as an ogre". 

Third edition pretty much went back to one entry per monster but then had a bunch of templates you could add to these statblocks for the weird stuff but it also had a the option for adding class levels to monsters which opened up a huge number of options by turning the PHB into a monster options book as well. Now granted, you had to do the work ahead of time but on the upside you could end up with the Fiendish Orc Priest of Gruumsh who had a magic item he could use and 7 levels of cleric so it was a lot of fun with a bit of prep. 

Fourth edition went with my favorite approach to this by including no less than 7 statblocks for orcs alone: Orc Drudge, Orc Warrior, Orc Raider, Orc Berserker, Orc Eye of Gruumsh, Orc Bloodrager, and Orc Chieftain, tactics for each type, sample encounter groups for various levels, and a list of results for an Orc Lore check at various DCs!

But sure, just taking them out is much better. 

(Drow have 4 entries + bonus info in MM1. They get more later. Goblins get 7. Hobgoblins get 7. Humans get 6)

The 2014 5th Edition Monster Manual carried this forward with 4 distinct statblocks for Orcs and Drow. Goblins were down to 2 and Hobgoblins had 3. 

So yes, this is a weird direction to take. As a DM more mechanically distinct representations of a type of monster give me more options to work with when placing that monster in my campaign. That helps me differentiate "a patrol of" vs. "a camp of" vs. "a city of" as my players journey around the setting. Having some other ways to adjust them as well like templates or level adjustments or size adjustments just enhances those selections, and even if I don't intend to use goblins in this campaign, reskinning is only made better with more complimentary types - those 4E goblins made a mean band of gnomes if the PC's got on the wrong side of them. 

Give me more monsters - not less, especially in the "Monster Manual" that so many campaigns will be based on. Taking them out means that if I want to run old adventures (like I am doing) using the 2024 rules I have to either sub in another statblock (hopefully not one I'm going to be using in the same adventure), make up my own entirely (seems kind of stupid to have to do this for orcs of all things), or I have to fall back on the 2014 version since this edition is Totally Backwards Compatible. This feels like a lot of effort for something as common as "orcs"  in a D&D campaign - because they should have just been in the MM to begin with.

Finally, The idea that being a playable race should mean no entry in the monster book is just a strange take. No other game does this. 

• In Runequest I'm pretty sure you can play a Troll via one of the supplements but you will also likely fight them at some point. They are one of the signature races of Glorantha and have been detailed pretty extensively as a culture for over 40 years but they are also still opponents to be fought. 
• In Pendragon you play knights and you will also likely fight some knights. 
• In Traveller you can find character creation options for almost any intelligent race and you can also find statblocks for them to be used as opponents. 
• In Star Trek you can play as a Klingon or a Romulan or any number of aliens and you will often end up fighting any of those plus other Federation species! 
• Even Paizo, who gleefully included goblins as a playable race in Pathfinder 2E, have a "goblin" entry in Monster core - with multiple statblocks to boot!

(Honestly, think about how many times Klingons end up fighting Klingons in the shows and movies.)

Again, no other game takes this stance because no one feels like it is necessary or improves the game. 

Yet here we are. Thankfully Tales of the Valiant does include a couple of entries for Orc in the Monster Vault (Drow too) so we will just continue using that for this campaign.

RPG Stuff

 

Yeah I'm still running that. We did take a break while I was dealing with the other stuff but we have started back up and Session 16 will happen this weekend barring extended weather complications. They actually made it into the Temple Proper last session in a way I have never seen before. There were several highlights (including an illusion that fooled everyone for a bit) but nailing multiple party members with a lightning bolt -twice- was particularly enjoyable. If the old bounce-it-off-the-walls rules were still a thing they would have been in serious trouble. The players take on it is available here. I am looking forward to the next visit as they try to figure out where they are and what is going on in the temple.

Beyond that I haven't done a whole lot else. With one game running every weekend there is not much need for active development on another. I offered to split our time between two games (alternating weekends) if it would make scheduling easier for some of my players but it was universally rejected - they want to stay focused on the one game. So for now that's what we do.

I have gotten some Kickstarter stuff in and there is probably more on the way but for now it's mostly being set aside for future use.

The I-Took-A-Month-Off Update Post

 

It wasn't really planned but it ended up working out that way. No particular crisis, just fell down the priority list in a busy month. I do plan to do more here in November and December to finish the year strong. 

That said last night was our 3rd Halloween in this house and years 1 & 2 we had all of one trick-or-treater each year. We do live out in the country a bit and the houses are spread out and there are no street lights so we just assumed that was normal. Then last night we had at least twenty! So it almost turned into a crisis. Had to pull some reserves out but it ended up OK. We do a lot of outside decorating so maybe that has some kind of cumulative effect and it finally came together this year.

The Temple campaign continues - I stopped posting about it here but we have not stopped playing. I will start catching up on session reports next week and link over to the Obsidian Portal report for each one as reading the players' take each week has been a lot of fun. I do love having a steady, regular campaign with a real commitment from the players so it's a good thing right now. 

I have picked up some new RPG stuff - rulebooks and supplements here and there. The revised Necessary Evil set came in, as did the anniversary edition of Night Train for Deadlands so the Kickstarter stuff is feeding that need but I am trying to maintain focus and not get distracted with other games.

We haven't been playing much in the way of miniatures lately but of course that hasn't stopped me from reading rules and acquiring figures. Last month the big 40K focus was all the new Blood Angels stuff  so I am amassing a nice new pile of Primaris Blood Angels that I will be working on for the foreseeable future. I've decided to treat them almost as a separate new army - combined with the Primaris stuff I already have - and see what I can do using that mindset. More on 40K stuff next week.

My dissatisfaction with the current state of 40K in general did send me off down a seemingly inevitable path: Exploring One Page Rules and Grimdark Future. This is a set of rules (and figures) that have been developing for around 5 years now as a lighter (and cheaper) replacement for 40K. The basic rules are free, the army lists and builder are free, and the bigger Advanced Rules document is all of $4.99. The rules are solid, the army lists re-create every 40K faction (including Knights) and add some new ones as well and they also have 3d printer files for a bunch of alternate figures for these armies too.

Now I admit the OPR/GDF fanatics showing up in every damn 40K group or forum over the last few years had me rolling my eyes on an almost daily basis. When someone in a 40K forum asks about a particular army or rule problem they have encountered I don't need three people telling them to  go play OPR games - it got to be really irritating and I think it's bad behavior to evangelize one game every time someone mentions a different game. The answer to every 40K rules question is not "go play Grimdark Future" and this habit amongst some of its players put me off of the whole thing for quite a while. 

But ...

Seeing my Space Marines losing units this codex ... seeing my Orks losing units to Legends ... knowing my beloved Grey Knights are rumored to be getting a revamp next year, and then seeing the Blood Angels losing multiple unique characters ... I felt like I had to take a look at other options. Having done that now I have to tell you that it is a very very good option indeed. I won't get too into it here but I will talk more about it next week too.

Oh look they decided to combine the 4 books I bought a few years ago into one and add in the minor powers as well - maybe I'll pick it up down the road.

Now besides the 40K and 40K-adjacent stuff I also got into a WW2 mood and decided to revisit my Flames of War stuff. I had been working on a North Africa Mid War setup with British, Americans, Germans, and Italians, but I just wasn't feeling it. With a couple of books about Soviet tank units sitting on myself I started looking at what I had and ended up working on T-34s and KV-1s for a mid-war eastern front army. It looks like I have enough Germans to make a decent opposing force for them as well but getting the Russians built and painted is the priority right now. It's going to take some time but the numbers are still smaller than most of my 40K armies so I'm going to prioritize it and see how much I can get done in November. 

I also picked up the new 3rd edition rulebook for Bolt Action. Haven't read it yet but I have some starter sets sitting around and for this game I want to focus on the Pacific option and finally build those Marine and IJA forces sitting on the shelf now. This will probably come after I get the FOW stuff at least built and basecoated so it may be next year but reading the rules and sketching out a force for each side will give me some non-paint work to do. 

Boardgame-wise I picked up the 40th anniversary (!) edition of Axis and Allies which I will likely manage to play sometime soon. Other than that I added a few wargames that I likely will not get to play anytime soon but hopefully that changes. The occasional eBay deal plus GMT's annual Fall sale plus some of their P500's fulfilling now as well mean I have to find some new shelf space this month. It's not a terrible problem to have but it's a still a problem on some level.

So there's the catch-up talk - steady RPG time, continued work on old miniatures while checking out some new stuff and some new wargame stuff as well. More on all of this next week!

2024 D&D PHB Not-So-Shockingly Sets New Sales Record

 

This isn't exactly a surprise but according to the press release posted in this thread at EN World the new PHB is the fastest-selling D&D thing of all time. Alright. That's good for the game and for RPG's in general to a degree and promoting numbers like this is what companies do when launching a new product. It is still a little weird to see D&D treated like a mainstream product - like a videogame launch in many ways. They quote a number of 85 million "D&D fans" and I expect people on the internet to run with that number as though it's the number of people actually playing D&D which we know it is not - because if it was they would have said so. That's a nice squishy number that could include anyone who's played Baldur's Gate 3, for example, and should not be taken as hard evidence of anything.

That said I don't want to downplay WOTC's success here: they've helped to make D&D a bigger thing than it has been in a long time, if ever. They don't get all of the credit, as despite my own lack of interest the streaming stuff like Critical Role clearly had an impact, and they've had some stumbles as well like the OGL thing last year. But, even given the boost from other factors, they a) made a version of the game normal people - casual players - could understand and b) came up with a business model that involved a limited number of books per year that didn't drive everyone crazy or radically change the game - issues with 3E and 4E that limited their success to a degree.

They also appear, at least right now, to be successfully pulling off an edition change that they aren't calling an edition change. One might say "desperately" trying to call it not an edition change. I get it - a new edition is a great reason for people to jump off of the train, especially when you have the mass market audience D&D has achieved. Most normal people are not excited about paying for another set of rules for a game they already play or learning a new set of rules: "Why can't we just keep playing with what we have?" That's a completely reasonable point of view. But much like the videogame industry I mentioned above - particularly with bigger members of the industry - many game companies depend on new editions to make money because the main rulebook is the one thing everybody tends to buy. Games Workshop is the king of this and has been for some time but TSR/WOTC and Paizo are members of this society and I'd say Modiphius is moving in this direction as well. WOTC has not used the word "edition" much at all in their conversations instead using "revision" as more of the go-to descriptive term and bending over backwards to emphasize "backwards compatibility" which ... ah ... sure. It's nice and to some degree correct but I don't know that it's built to let you run a 2014 Paladin right alongside a 2024 Paladin - will the subclasses cross? I don't know yet but I would guess not without some rejiggering on the DM's part. 

Looks a lot like the last one on the inside

I do have a copy though I have not yet read it and have no plans to run it at this time. I made my D&D-type-fantasy-rpg-of-choice some time ago in favor of Tales of the Valiant and I (and my players) are perfectly happy with it. I do figure it's worth going through to see what the new standard will be. I'll post up my thoughts once I do that with comparisons to the prior version and to ToV. 

Outside of interesting ideas from competitors my other issue is the continuing push by WOTC to move towards D&D Beyond as the "standard" way to play the game and consequently the push towards a subscription fee for a tabletop game. I will not be joining this particular bandwagon and while a lot of companies are busy cross-promoting streamers and setting things up on various online tool sets I just have zero interest in playing the game this way so my take on D&D 2024 will strictly be as a set of RPG books used at the table. 

So it looks like 6th edition will continue to be the juggernaut when it comes to RPGs. Not really a surprise and it is nice to see a company making an effort to not instantly invalidate everyone's books for a new release of their game. Time will tell how it all goes but it all looks pretty optimistic for now. I'm going with the Rising Tide outlook here and hoping that continued good news for D&D will help all of those other games we like too, from ToV & PF2 to smaller names like Mutants & Masterminds, Twilight 2000, and Savage Worlds. It's all looking good for now.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 5: In the Dungeon of the Moathouse

 

We begin with a round of stew and stories back at camp as the ranger and the paladin and the fighter all utilize their backgrounds to buff the rest of the party - this is a Tales of the Valiant thing where some backgrounds get a nifty ability to add temp hit points by various means. Beyond the mechanics this has added some fun during exploration and combat as party members speculate on what's going in to the Paladin's chili pot next.

Note: This is the DM's take on the session. For an in-universe player's perspective on the thing click here.

As we sit in camp the party eventually realizes that there is an 8th figure seated at the fire - Inigo Vulnstack, a roguish elven associate of Braeden's (the ranger) - has appeared seemingly out of nowhere and offered to join the group's expedition. With the ranger vouching for him, the rest of the group accepts - another sword will no doubt prove useful.

This was the session where one of my regular  players who has thus far been absent was finally able to join us and so we worked him in as quickly and simply as possible, which turned out to be pretty damn appropriate for the character he created. The relationship with the ranger was invented on the spot to be fleshed out later. This was probably the least painful way to bring in someone new and a bit of a surprise to my players as I have dropped in new characters in far more complicated ways such as being carried off in a sack by beggars, as the only intact statue outside a basilisk's lair (where a convenient stone to flesh scroll was discovered), and via the traditional found chained-to-a-wall-upside-down-and-naked approach  - but I went easy this time.

As the day dawns Bubo the Owl familiar plays recon drone again and surveys the moathouse from the air. They poke around the upper level a bit more finding an empty tower and an abandoned hideout of some kind in the main hall but soon enough it's time to head down the staircase and into the dungeon.

The familiar thing may turn into a serious annoyance at some point as it feel more like a Shadowrun rigger thing than typical D&D fantasy as there's no limit on duration or distance like there would be with a spell. Basic 5E familiars were only good out to100' or so - this came up in a prior campaign - but ToV's ritual makes some significant improvements. In general I play with an attitude that the bad guys don't care about your pet rat or bird or whatever until it attacks them but I will probably be keeping an eye on this one for AoE spells and things to interrupt Bubo's ridiculous efficiency - he ain't flying 100' overhead in a dungeon. There is also a lot of humor tied to him now too as it was noted that if he just had a printer option he could spit out a map after doing recon of an area ... then the dot-matrix sounds start coming out and the whole group cracks up. 

My party managed to completely miss the giant spider hiding in the ruined tower because they were very careful about opening the door to it, looking in, but never stepping in, and then closing the door and walking away - even after noting that they saw shiny coins on the floor!

They also let the bandits get away as I had the main bandit lair close and lock the main doors as they saw the group approach. My guys did not try to force them, and then left overnight so I had the bandits sneak out using their escape route. I do have them lurking in the area for a hopefully fun ambush next session but right now as far as they know whoever was in the moathouse just ran off.

Heading on down into darkness various light spells are cast and stealth is employed here and there and a trash pile briefly investigated but as they begin exploring a set of dungeon doors and torture chamber they spot zombies - then more zombies, and more zombies! Reinforcements appear from behind each door until they have fought 12 zombies in all! Recovering from the fight and searching the area they are also apprehensive about what might come through the other door but they do find a secret door and ladder down hidden side one of the columns. 

I could have adjusted the zombie encounter to spring all of them at once but I stuck with the original script of two more zombies from each cell in succession each round because I just like it and it's a little more memorable. With a 8 PC's no, they were not likely to be in serious danger but i wanted to play it out as written. I did use the Monster Vault version where they have a chance to stay standing unless hit really hard and some of them did manage to last longer than they should have.

They do eventually press on though and find a small room with a very slippery floor and ... another door. After some moments of physical comedy here involving bad rolls and heavily-armored-low-dex fighter types they do eventually get themselves organized and open up the other door into the bedroom of a large, angry ogre. Battle commences!

But poor, poor Lubash only lasts two rounds as Xyzzifax the wizard pulls out the Lesser Wand of Petrification he looted in the dungeon outside Saltmarsh and zaps the ogre with it. Lubash promptly fails his save - a Con save no less - and is now Restrained. Undaunted he throws javelins at the party in the doorway as they take shots at him. Then at the end of his turn he fails his save again, and on round 2 he fails it yet again and turns to stone before their very eyes.

Now this was a bit disheartening for the DM as he is supposed to be a tougher encounter but this wand took him out fast. Even if he had made a save or two he was running out of hit points fast as that condition gives attackers Advantage on all attack rolls and gives him Disadvantage on all attack rolls. So it was turning into a very one-sided fight regardless of his actual petrification. Thankfully this item only has 1 charge so it's a 1/day item with a small chance to crumble after it is used but what can I say - they picked a dangerous target and with a little bit of luck they managed to neutralize an otherwise dangerous opponent. 

After this there was exploration and looting and more poor word choices as the heroes discovered another secret door with a staircase and landing ... and some prisoners! Information is gathered and thanks are offered, and they decide to escort the new acquaintances back to Hommlet and safety. 

So far it's so good though I will say there can be a lot of overhead running 8 PC's ranging from 1st to 3rd level. It's manageable for now it just means we run a little slower than we would with  4-5. Right now I am not dramatically changing up encounter numbers even with this many characters in play - I am just working in the Monster Vault versions of the creatures and I will probably work in some other monster book sources as well as the game goes on. I expected more variability in turnout but so far that has not happened. I may tweak some wilderness encounters - since they are mostly later additions anyway - but  once they get to the temple proper I probably won't need to as they don't do stealth well and will probably be pulling in chunks of each level as they start fighting through them. If it gets too stupid I will make some changes but I don't want to punish them for doing well - I just may need to do something to balance out the numbers a little more evenly. Back in the early days 8 PC's was not terribly unusual but 8 5E type PC's are quite a bit more capable then what we had back then. I'm not doing anything yet but I might as things develop.

There was a ton of laughing this session as it felt like we finally had the whole band back together and we were cracking up at inappropriate humor all through the run. It was a lot of fun and that helps to keep these things going.

Valiant Swords of Greyhawk - Session 4: The Moathouse

 

Back in the village the party hands their borrowed gear back and hands the prisoner over to Rufus for questioning and detainment. Then it's off to weapons trading and evaluation and some intra-party deals for components. The village leatherworker makes a deal to patch up some armor for some of our heroes and shares a little background information on the area as well. Then it's time to head for The Moathouse!

Here the party gets cautious: they set up a base camp some ways away from the ruined fort and then have the wizard spy out the place with his brand new familiar. After this they approach and manage to stumble into some giant frogs right outside the main gate. This is a fairly quick fight but it does put some fear into the halfling mechanist as he realizes he might be a swallow-able size for some of the frogs. My veteran players know what to watch for and so slice open the the frogs and find a nice gem for their troubles. 

The upper level of the place is cleared without too much injury ...

• The fighters do the traditional front line thing and hold off a giant lizard in one room. After it is defeated they slice it open and find a magical shield and so likely establish a precedent I will be dealing with for the entire campaign.
• The halfling once again finds trouble as he steps into a room alone and gets chomped by a giant tick. this combat marked the first use of the "I can cast a touch spell through my familiar" option as the wizard manages to shocking grasp the things while remaining at a very safe distance. 
  (and yes, they cut the tick open too but it was item-free)
• They killed a giant snake as well, continuing the tradition in this campaign of giant snakes dying in one round of combat. They are probably going to try and make something out of its hide as the ranger opted to skin the thing afterwards.
• The halfling's personal trilogy of terror wraps up when he steps into a room first (again) and is set upon by a room full of giant rats that put him down quickly, forcing the fighters to wade into the room while the cleric and bard and wizard take shots from the doorway. They do win fairly quickly though no animals are sliced open afterwards. 

A more detailed narrative account of the tale from the players' point of view can be found here.

DM Commentary

It was good to finally get to the moathouse and get some good old-fashioned violence in. Any of you who have played through this know that the dungeon level is where it actually gets nasty - the upper level is fairly easy in comparison and while it's a good warm-up it's almost misleading as to the level of difficulty you are going to see underground. That said maybe the halfling will learn not to go first.

There was also a fair amount of interaction in town, mainly at the inn and with Gipson the leatherworker so my team is not solely consumed with loot and bloodlust. There are still new people to meet and new contacts to make there so it should keep things interesting for a while longer. I have some ideas about adding a few more characters in to the mix as well.

The game continues to run pretty smoothly though it is still challenging to run with 7 when combat lasts a round or two. My position on 5th from  very early on has been that it's the simplest version of the game since 2nd and I still feel that way but it's not quite at the B/X level. I ran 8 in 3E for quite a while so it can be done and it will come easier with time.