D&D

[cellio]

Tuesday night's D&D game was a lot of fun. The story was exciting, and the player issues that had been problems last time were not present.

Ralph used "dirt cheap dungeons" instead of just drawing a map on paper, and I thought that added a lot. We also got a chance to use some of my painted miniatures, which I won't complain about. :-) (We've been using cardboard miniatures, for the most part -- printed ones, not ones we made. My ambition exceeds my artistic skill, so that's ok, but sometimes having something a little more three-dimensional is nice.)

The role-playing was good, and Ralph was really getting into it too. He did a good job of portraying the major character we interacted with. I wonder what he's got in store for the one we didn't get to.

The final fight of this session (and the end of the game day) was our fourth encounter that day. We were running pretty low on spells; Ralph had apparently intended for us to sleep first. We still did ok, though Ralph was also generous on some things. The undead whatever-it-was (spectre, I think) drained two levels from one of the other characters, though, and that's frustrating. (One was permanent, the other wasn't.) Level drains are different, and better-handled, in 3rd edition, but they're still unpleasant. One thing in particular is that the cost of the drain can vary widely. Consider: Kyle was 6th level, most of the way to 7th, and got bumped back to 5th, mid-way to 6th. Net cost in XP was about 6000. If, on the other hand, he had gotten zapped shortly after making the next level, he would have been bumped back to 6th, mid-way to 7th, for a cost of about 3000. That just seems weird to me somehow.