DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 7

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     We will finish this season of Encounters on Sunday, and finally see if all of our trials have made us strong enough to stop the Darkening. It will have the most difficult fight of the season, and not everyone is expected to survive so we need as many people as possible for the final act.

     I'm trying a couple new things with this edition and hopefully they will make things easier to follow. Namely I am adding a cast section and a summary.

Adventurers:

• +Unika Cole as Khia-le the Monk/Halfling
• +Sean Hale as Rock the Psion/Shardmind
• NewGuy as a Cleric/Deva [he never filled out the sign up sheet]

TL;DR:
     Our adventurers saved the Blingdenstone harbor from some ice demons, talked with a Dragon Turtle, and helped a bladesmith finish his greatest work. They also learned where the source of the Darkening resides.

     And now for a full recap of this week's adventure Shores of the Darklake.

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 6

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     We spoke a bit more about what characters players would prefer for the custom time travel adventure, and I revealed that the characters would be around level 15-16, putting us on to the Paragon Tier. And I also found out that the next season of Encounters would start on 2013.02.10 for us.

     For the first time in a while, we didn't have any new adventurers join us. This started the adventure with a bit of a problem as we didn't have many characters capable of setting trolls on fire, but we worked our way through the session without too many problems.

     This week had our characters helping to fortify the town of Nesmé in preparation for a large troll army. A lot of work was spent dealing with NPCs and rebuilding damaged defenses.

     And now for a recap of this week's adventure Trolls of the Evermoors.

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 5

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     Continuing our trend to make up for lost time, we did a double session (especially since the second one was rather short). I revealed a little bit more about the time-travel adventure and we'll be hunting down a cleric of a time god that has decided to muck up the timeline. Expect a lot of four-dimensional puzzles.

     We met four new adventurers this week:

• Sean, a Dwarf Cleric using the Devoted build which finally gave our party a dedicated healer and some much needed radiant damage as we moved closer to ending Lolth's Darkening.
• Logan (Sean's son), made a Human Fighter on the Great Weapon build and he gave some of the most damaging attacks we saw in these sessions.
• Unika made a Halfling Monk using the Stone fist build. Her character darted in and out of combat, dazing many foes with her quick hands and feet.
• SeanPrime made a Shardmind Psion using some custom options from Psionic Powers and showed our party just how damaging a Psion can be by using telepathy and telekinesis to deadly effect.

     And now for a recap of this week's adventure where we run both Descent into the Depths and Spirits of the Fell Pass:

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 4

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     This was a make up session on Friday (2012.12.28), as we all got back together from the various Yuletide events we scattered for. We met three new players Shane (Shifter Druid named Shifty Pickles), Ben (Dwarf Paladin/Fighter?) and Alex (Eladrin Wizard) who helped fill in for some missing players.

     We discussed an adventure that I am making to fill in the gap between Encounter seasons and it was revealed to involve time-travel mechanics that I'm working on. More information about this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

   And now for a recap of this week's adventure, the Siege of Mithral Hall:

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 3

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     Like last week, we had three new players (Justin, Myron, and Jeremy) join the adventuring party. Justin rolled a Dwarf Artificer, Myron an Elf Ranger, and Jeremy a[nother] Dragonborn Warlord.

   This week, we'll be continuing our adventure on Friday (2012.12.14) at the regular time of 1300-1500, with the following week moved to TBA date and time, and returning to the regular schedule after that.

   And now for a recap of this week's adventure:

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 2

Greetings Dungeoneers,

     This week we had three new players (Justin, Shawn, and Josh) [don't forget to sign-up on the calendar so I can get you updates] join in and complete the first session of War of Everlasting Darkness. Justin rolled a Dragonborn Sorceror, Shawn a Human Fighter, and Josh a Tiefling Warlock. Their might combined to see their way through quite an adventure.

    We are moving the adventuring time to Sundays (1300-1500) from now on to better fit the schedules of the players and the store. And we'll be playing straight through until the start up of the next season, Against the Cult of Chaos. For which I'll have some documentation on the new character creation and rules used in DnDNext for us all to play with.

   And now for a recap of this week's adventure:

DnD Encounters - War of Everlasting Darkness - Week 1

Greetings Dungeoneers,

   Our WPN representative, Doug, pulled through and we have received a kit for Encounters. We'll be starting the events on Saturday (2012.11.17) and might have to double up on the adventures in order to catch up. I'll DM all of the sessions so that we have an uninterrupted flow this season. Wizards also sent us a couple nifty gifts to hand out to committed players (so keep that in mind).

     Sign-up for the event HERE.

   An interesting aspect of this season is the use of D&DNext (DnD5E) rules. These rules are a mix of 3.5 and 4th editions, in an attempt to balance the "three pillars" of DnD (exploration, interaction, and combat). This is very important, as each session won't be about a singular aspect (normally combat), but rather the adventure will include each pillar in equal amounts. And another improvement is that the story is far less linear, allowing us to branch out and for me to say "Yes" to more suggestions from players. I know that we were bogged down with the combat and linearity last season, and D&DNext is all about fixing that. Story is becoming the driving force of Dungeons and Dragons, as it was in previous editions.