Okay, week two in play. Beware of the Spoilers!
1. Introduced Reserve Points to the game. No one playing a cleric and I don't feel like bringing an NPC into the game with five players. Four players I might do it, but five? Nah, someone should've either made a cleric or they're prepared for the consequences. Reserve points worked pretty well. Since I'm keeping track of the hit points seperately from the group, I've reminded them of when they're 'healing' using the RP. Didn't make the characters unstopable or anything as they still ran out of hit points in big fights, but did prevent them from having to run upstairs every three seconds.
2. Lots of dungeon exploring at this point. The whole party was there and did dungeon crawling for roughly four hours. Next week looks to be a continuation of this theme. Lots of traps. This is part of the charm of the dungeon as the gnomes have different traps for each lettered gear door. The DCs were a little high for the rogue, who even at 2nd level, missed more often than made it. At the end, they have about four different letter keys.
3. Party is still exploring the first "dungeon" so to speak. One player contracted the magical gnome disease, "the vanishing". Of course it was the elf mage since he's the one using the wands and everything. Worse for him, he also suffered a viscious poisoning effect, losing 9 points of dexterity!
4. Dark Creepers and Dark Stalker and Skulks and... lots of creatures from the Fiend Folio involved in this book. Something I forget. Nice thing is having all the stats updated to 3.5 (which is minor due to the low hit dice/abilities involved). Used some ambushes on the players but they managed to overcome pretty easily due to the poor fighting abilitiy of the monsters and they're fairly good AC's.
5. The big fight in the game came against the grell! The party broken open some barricades and went into a huge room and the grell swooped down on them. Almost everyone made their spot rolls though and saw it coming. The one guy who didn't was grappled, lifted up, dropped, and knocked out from damage. The rest of the party peppered the grell visciously and had it wrapped up in three rounds. Ouch!
6. Part of the reason the party has been doing so well up to this point I think, is that they remembered to use their action points this game. Next game though, they'll be just about out. The wizard, man he took a beating, used his to help on saving throws vs poison a few times and for defense. Worked well for him. Another player oftne used the action points for another attack via the Unearthed Arcana option, using a double move to get into position and then an action point for an attack.
The party is just about third level in terms of character advancement. A few hundred experience points shy of it. Ah, the beggining I got to hear. "But dude, what about role playing?" And I'm like... "You're in a dungeon. Explain to me what role playing you refer to." The tears of the players are sweet!
Most of the characters continued into their core class. The one playing the scott went with a fighter level using the Thug Variant from Unearthed Arcana. Bigger skill list, but missing that first bonus feat at first level. Fair exchange I think.
Accessories I had this week.... for dark stalker and dark creepers, I had Reaper miniatures fully painted up a few weeks ago in anticipation of sometime running this game. I had a grell and some other creatures via the D&D minis. Ah, random sucks, but getting the right figure? Awesome! Had the tact tiles as always for mapping. Had the Battle Box from Fiery Dragon. Came in handy for the grapple rules and grenade rules at least once. Didn't get a chance to use the ray template as the rogue made the disarm traps on a few of the traps with magical rays on 'em. Still usining the initiative cards from the Game Mechanics, and they're still working well.
Overall, good stuff and still on the first of thirteen arcs. I suspect next week will be near the end of the first adventure which means that I've got one arch down in roughly four weeks if I'm reading it right.
