D&D Encounters Season 3 - Keep on the Borderlands

[Festivus]

I picked up my D&D Encounters Season 3 kit last night (and a copy of the Heroes of the Fallen Lands book). After some skimming through here are my initial thoughts:

1. This adventure gives you some NPCs with motivations to inject into the adventure.

2. This adventure is broken into 5 chapters, each chapter is 4 sessions long and an encapsulated adventure.

3. The adventure features more than just combat encounters... there are real roleplay opportunities in it. Not every encounter session needs to resort to violence.

4. You don't have to use pregen characters. You can make your own. I have asked my group to come an hour early next week so we can roll up characters together at the table.

5. The story looks like a lot of fun. It has that old school flavor that will be enough to remind you of the classic adventure, but new enough that you won't recognize the adventure.

I won't go into spoilers, but I do encourage you to find an Encounters session in your area and check it out, if for nothing else than the first 4 week chapter. Then bail on it if it doesn't work for you, or continue on if it does.

If I were to pick a word to sum up season three, "FUN" would be the word.

 

[GRStrayton]

Thanks, Festivus! Definitely sounds worth checking out at least once.

 

[the Jester]

I'm really hoping to get back in to running Encounters this season. I've had some family health issues (stabilized if not resolved), a very busy August (the month that I'm almost guaranteed to not have time for gaming in, gasp!) and early September, and a horrendous sick myself the last week. But here's hoping that after tonight I'll be able to get back into it!

 

[Vael]

Excellent. I found Dark Sun to be a bit of a combat slog, but I signed on to DM Season 3 anyway. I'm glad to know there'll be more to the next season.

 

[nookiemonster]

Twenty sessions is five MONTHS of time commitment for the DMs running this. Quite a lot!

Saw the pregen characters tonight. Not really amazed by the Mage, the stat assignments seem weird (16 to Cha?!) and his feat choice is IMO stupid. The Dwarf Slayer (immediately christened "Buffy" by our group) seems pretty good and straightforward to play. I'll probably play the mage, because everyone else always forgets to make monster knowledge checks.

 

[Festivus]

Twenty sessions is five MONTHS of time commitment for the DMs running this. Quite a lot!

Saw the pregen characters tonight. Not really amazed by the Mage, the stat assignments seem weird (16 to Cha?!) and his feat choice is IMO stupid. The Dwarf Slayer (immediately christened "Buffy" by our group) seems pretty good and straightforward to play. I'll probably play the mage, because everyone else always forgets to make monster knowledge checks.

Here is where I'll add a "Yes, but...", it is 20 weeks long, broken into 5 chapters (1 per month). Each chapter is 4 sessions long and a complete mini-story. So, one could potentially drop in as a player for 4 weeks and get the complete adventure feeling. For DMs, yes, it's a big time commitment in terms of duration, but there isn't much work that needs to go into it to run it, often I read the adventure for the night at lunch that same day and am good to go.

 

[thalmin]

And there is nothing saying it has to be the same DM for all 5 chapters (it is nice if the DM runs an entire chapter).

 

[Festivus]

Yep, in fact it could be fun it the players rotated the duties, each taking a chapter. That way everyone gets a chance behind the screen (my favorite place).

 

[Insight]

4. You don't have to use pregen characters. You can make your own. I have asked my group to come an hour early next week so we can roll up characters together at the table.

Are you required to use a class from Heroes of the Fallen Lands (or an Essentials class)?

 

[thalmin]

From the instructions sheets for Encounters:

Players can use the​

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Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game​

boxed set,​

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Heroes of the Fallen Lands, or (starting in Chapter 3) Heroes​

of the Forgotten Kingdoms to make a character.