Forum

[Rel]

Overall thoughts:

So far everything is working pretty great! This is what I expected but you always worry when putting it into practice.

The party composition is good. All the characters have interesting roleplaying angles. I started off with giving each player a folder with their character sheet and power cards in it. Since they made the PC's with the Character Builder they just e-mailed me the finished characters and I looked them over (less for approving them and more just to make sure I designed the adventures with their capabilities in mind). Thanks to my wife for using her Stamp It Up stuff to cut the cards out. They turned out great!

Anyway, in each PC's folder I put a yellow note card with a Quest on it that is specific to that character. I won't spill the beans here if they want to keep them quiet but these Quests pertain to events that are already unfolding. During the session I gave them a new Quest card that said:

Quest: "From Vond With Love" : Escort Lord Harrix to Sinking City in Opkhar and keep the Urn safe.

I've made it clear that all Quests, whether they be assigned to the party (like that one) or to an individual will result in the whole group getting Action Points. But they might also have specific rammifications or rewards for a particular character. In addition I've told them that they are free to come up with their own Quests, subject to my approval. For example I think it very likely that this Quest will soon be in effect:

Quest: "That Griffon Riding Son of a Bitch Who Attacked Us on the Bridge" : Let's kill him.

Anyway the whole Quest thing is dovetailing with my Milestone/Action Point house rule very well so far and I expect that to continue. It is requiring a lot of organization on my part however, which isn't always my strong suit. Ok, it's actually never my strong suit. But I'm making an effort by having my own folder where I can put stuff to keep track of like that handout that I didn't hand out. I know right where to find that next time I feel like not handing it out.

This whole system we've implemented for skill rolls with the multiple exploding d6's is taking some getting used to. So far my thoughts are that:

It takes longer to resolve each roll than it does with just a straight d20+bonus. Because you have to add together multiple smaller numbers and possibly roll more dice and then add those numbers and possibly more dice and add those numbers. The good news is that my players are good at this and it doesn't take them much longer than the normal method. I also expect that they will get even faster with it as the campaign progresses.

Everybody at the table watches when these rolls happen. Seeing multiple 6's come up on some of the dice leads to instant cheering. That's all pretty fun.

Setting DC's is something that I'm still getting used to. My instinct is to cheat a bit higher on them because of the possibility that they might roll huge. But I'm resisting that inclination and keeping them reasonable. Then, if they roll a number so big that it's double (or more) the original DC then I am giving them some kind of extra for such amazing success. In Skill Challenges such rolls are counting as two successes toward resolving the challenge. This kind of "critting" on Skill Checks is making them as interesting as combat rolls in many respects.

So far the players seem to really like it and I'm betting they vote to keep it when they hit 2nd level.

So anyway, I think we're off to a good start and hopefully I can get the players to comment further in this thread.