{lang: ‘en-GB’}We all have a vague recollection of swimming down through a deep pool of blood to pass through a portal to a desert land—or ‘Thursday’ as we normally call it—but can’t quite remember the details until the GM reminds us. ‘You have gone through the portal to Orcus’s realm…’ ‘What?! We didn’t know this [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}Having played many years of 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons, and 3.5e, it is difficult to be unbiased towards a review of the 4th edition of the rules. This review is so far removed from the release of the game partly because of this potential bias, and partly because of the casual schedule with [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}The fight with the vampire continues. The GM gives us a quick update on how the fight is progressing, ending with ‘…and Adran is weakened’. ‘Oh, balls. I’d forgotten about that.’ It surely is a fine update from the GM, even if it gets Adran started early about which status conditions are worse and [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}A spatial vortex opens and drags our dwarf fighter Gruknal away. Knowing what it means to lose the party’s defender, Velma, Grimstorm and Krafft all hang on to Gruknal’s legs to keep him from going, but only succeed in disappearing themselves. To restore balance the vortex spits out a new defender, in the form [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}Losing our dwarf defender may mean restructuring the party somewhat, or our squishy strikers and leader may not complete the adventure. A small encounter is run to test a new party composition, although Adran is quite happy to continue his prowess as a hard-hitting ranger. Fighting snowmen minions and icy constructs, Adran revels in [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}'I must get an item to stop me getting knocked prone’, says Adran from the ground, ‘because it is a pain in the arse.’ Of course, last time the most annoying condition was being ‘dazed’, but even that didn’t make him crave a magical cure. And he only gets knocked prone once.
{lang: ‘en-GB’}Zombies, dragons, and ninjas, oh my! What else could there be for us to fight in this adventure? ‘You see she is no longer a drow, but… a vampire.’ ‘Oh, nice’, says Adran, missing one of the most repeated call-backs heard around the table in our D&D history, when Adran’s player was somehow astonished [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}We exit the darkness of the drow cathedral to be greeted by the similar darkness of the underground drow city. The matron is defeated, now we must face, um, some other drow. The plot is all kind of bleeding together at this point, a bit like our party after the first round of combat. [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}Her protective giant spider is killed, the companion priests are ripped to shreds, and the smaller spiders caught in cups and put outside. With only the arch-priestess left to defeat, our combined might quickly overwhelms her. In a final bid to escape, the priestess risks a ranged burst attack whilst surrounded, an attack that [...]
{lang: ‘en-GB’}”Dazed’ is the most annoying status effect in the game’, spits Adran, as he stumbles after the priestess, bearing the brunt of her psychic attacks. But for ‘dazed’, read ‘whatever status effect is current affecting Adran’ for a more accurate critique.