Anyone here currently playing D&D 4th Edition?

^ Well, the party didn't know about the pirates rebuilding the bridge until near the very end of the day you missed. So they thought they had time. Even then, it was like 3 days before they would finish it.

I gave them a bunch of bulletin board postings so they didn't feel like they are getting railroaded into fighting the pirates right away. I didn't know they would take that many of them. :flow2:

You need to include sword of gith and sigil in your game sigil is the center of the dnd multivverse.

Had I been there, we likely would've taken less, because some of them were completely out of the way. Of course, I'm not against them, they fill in the lulls in the action, but just because they're there doesn't mean the party had to take every last one of them It'll work out though...now that we've got some sort of battle plan, we take the city, defeat the reinforcements, and get some sort of town guard set up, then we can hit those quests. We can even skip that whole last part...not gonna get involved in a worker's revolt. Hell, that part was 20 minutes we could've used to get on the road to the attack point, instead of trying to sort out petty squabbles that have nothing to do with our group. You know it's annoying when the party's lawful good cleric basically said he'd look the other way if I assassinated the whole council...and boy was I tempted to do just that

Oh, and you need to get our XP doled out when we get there tomorrow. We never figured that out before we left remember

You need to learn "Pick 3 of these" and work it into the plot somehow!

Another really fun night tonight! I created a makeshift castle out of old foam board and even had stairs and tables in it. The adventurers fought off a ton of pirates and finally liberated the town of Lyons! It was an epic battle, with townsfolk taking up arms and fighting outside to keep another swarm of pirates from entering the castle, and the heroes trying to capture the leader before they got through!

I just got a chuckle out of how he recognized me and decided to not attack me even after I took a swing at his head. Although it's possible that if that swing had hit I would've had his attention...

The problem, as I see it, is my notoriously proclivity for rolling low. I think I rolled over 15 a total of maybe 8 times last night. But I can't make the encounters too hard either because eventually I'll roll normal and TPK the whole group.

Learn to bluff. Roll where they can't see the dice. You roll a one? Ok no problem, it's a 20, and Bob over there in the corner just lost a limb.

Granted, I never do this. I think people have the most fun when the boss fails spectacularly.

When I DM I fudge about 99% of rolls to keep encounters in the "sweet spot" (where the party is slightly worried they're going to die).

That DM screen ain't just for hiding your notes. To quote Gary Gygax: "A DM only rolls the dice because of the noise they make".

We haven't played for a damn month!

But this Friday, we are playing again.

We also got 2 new players, a girl I met at the comic con that was interested in joining, and her husband. So far, I know she is a swashbuckler, and I have no idea what he is going to be.

You have a bag of infinite ohlding?

Nope, no bag of holding. Doesn't really seem like we need it though, we haven't been tracking encumbrance. Just load everything onto our covered wagon

You need to have a minsc like character in your party.

Minsc?

Ugh, DnD has been absolute shit for my group lately.
In my new campaign, I made a rogue/uncanny trickster with an ego the size of a planet. All he's been able to do so far is lose. We have played two long, long, drawn out combat sessions that were PLOT DICTATED TO BE LOSSES FOR US since the main villain is FUCKING EPIC LEVEL.

So we've spent 6 hours fighting and losing, and then some shit roleplaying in between doing "whatever you want" sitting at camp for a month of story-time. It's really, really bad.
If things don't pick up, I'm dropping.

I wrote the background story for the new Swashbuckler coming in. I think it is pretty damn good, but I don't know if I should post it because it would ruin the surprise for the_wizard_666. There are some things that I'd like for him to find out and go "Hoy Shit!"

The last session, it was amusing when the rest of the players found out Arcane Trickster was the son of the leader of the pirates. I had taken that knowledge for granted, and didn't realize the rest of the players didn't know until just then. They were pleasantly surprised, IMHO!

I also just read an awesome awesome article talking about characters and their story arcs as related to DnD:

http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.co...art-2-grognardia-jack.html?zx=b2af23f7319c9a5

It mentioned Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bond and all the stuff most people here like. Worthy of a thread by itself, IMO!

Not sure why they called it DnD with porn stars, as it had nothing to do with that topic. I found it while looking for ideas on story arcs for the other player joining.

Speaking of story arcs, I should probably talk to the_wizard_666 about his character's background/past. I've been putting it off hoping he'd come up with something, but since the players found out about him being the pirate leader's son, there are several ways it could go.

EDIT: Apparently, the DM of that blog does play DnD with porn stars.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Minsc

I'm not an Arcane Trickster yet dude...I'm still several levels away from it. If I work it right, I would need to be at least level 9 before I can claim it.

wizard you guys need to go to sigil one of these days and kill lady of pain.

Doesn't exist in the campaign. Scorponok created it from scratch, so it just plain doesn't exist. Not that we couldn't handle it...last campaign we took out a black dragon after my character managed to tackle and pin it while a badger ate it's face. Seriously, my halfling rogue managed to subdue a black dragon and it got killed by a badger one of the new players summoned with Summon Monster I. Love it when the dice work in one's favor eh

Comeon scorp use the lady of pain somehow.

It is pretty obvious now that you guys can handle the even match CR fights. That Young Black Dragon was a CR5, and you guys are level 4. (Albeit, there were 5 of you.)

I think the next test will have to be at least 3 CR levels above your current levels to be any sort of challenge.

It's only because we're smarter than the average players Sometimes it's less about what you're fighting and more about HOW you fight it.

wizard you think you can hdnle lady o fpain?

Probably not at level 4, but knowing me, yeah, I probably could...even though I don't have a clue who that bitch is

Don't get me wrong. I found it amusing how you were able to climb the dragon. It's just I don't want people going into fights thinking it's going to be a cakewalk. There has to be some danger in order for it to be fun.

wizard here is more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_Pain

She doesn't sound scary. Sounds like she just needs a good hot dicking

With an uber-obsessed group of players, you NEVER fight even-CR mobs, ever. They always destroy them. If you have a group that is too good, you end up setting limits on character building and examining their character sheets, because I have seen groups take something 7 CR above their level and destroy it by power gaming within the rules. The mob was even played correctly. Granted, that was 4E, and 4E is stupid easy to break. Give it to a guy who's read the PHB cover to cover and he'll fight epic shit no problem.

It's super fun

So Scorp, I'll have to keep you posted, but I may be lost for more than just one week after all. I got home last night, checked my email, and discovered I have an interview with Bioware during the week...if I get the job, it may be tough to keep a game going in Calgary when I have to move to Edmonton. That said, I should be able to at least do one more session before having to leave the group, since they're doing interviews all week next week, so if I get the job it would take time to be notified of it and to start, but yeah, things are starting to fall together for me.