Post/Author/DateTime	Post
General_Ridley 09-02-07, 01:41 AM	About 2 years ago, I moved away from my friends and gaming group, and was unable to find a group where I lived. About two weeks ago, I moved into my dorm room, to start college, and to start playing D&D yet again, as a part of our school's RPSIG. I have to say, the fact that freshmen and new members of the club get first pick of what campaigns to join was very nice. So for the afternoon session (12:00 - 5:00) I joined a campaign called "Life in the Guild". It's set in the Realms, starts at level 1, and everyone has to start out as a level 1 rogue. From there is up to you, but Rogue is required for level 1, as the guild would never notice you otherwise (ninja/spellthief were acceptable too, but no one cared enough about them). We did character creation (32 pt. buy), and then started. Gathered some info, attempted to rob a place (before coming together as a group), and found the place was already being robbed. So as I was hiding inside, and attacked (and missed) as the robbers were leaving, the DM's girlfriend tries to attack, and takes an AoO to be critted and killed. I got knocked unconscious, and woke up outside the building, which was on fire, with a sign around my neck saying "My comrades robbed this place and backstabbed me before leaving me behind. Arrest me, please." After getting out of that situation, and confirming the rumours about town, and the DM's girlfriend simply renamed her character, and changed a minor appearance detail to introduce as a new one, we were taken into the guild and set to training. As we are mostly neutral, verging on or even fully evil, we found the lessons on working together a little bothersome. So much so that when the real training began, we failed epicly. The Ogre, 4th level Barbarian from the monster manual was teleported in. All we had to do was land a hit and he would be teleported out. Padded weapons for all. We fail, as the ogre knocks us totally unconscious. Round two of training against the ogre sees the ogre lose his tower shield and be allowed to use full attacks, still padded. Again, we are knocked into unconsciousness, as no one lands a natural 20. Even the one we assist to attack, giving him an overall +12 manages to roll low enough to miss. Twice. Round 3 gets dangerous. We get our real weapons. But so does the Ogre. Again out biggest attack guy fails when he has a +12 mod to attack. TPK. So new characters, witht he same names come in for round one, and someone lands a natural 20, and the ogre disappears. We rejoice, before fighting rats (and surviving) and then a worg and some wolves (beat the worg, the wolves leave). And so we went to level 2, where we could finally multiclass out of rogue, if our chosen character idea calls for it (Me: Rogue/Warlock/Chameleon/Spymaster). At 6:30 we returned for the night session (6:30 to midnight), where I joined a homebrew campaign. A basic rundown: long ago, two factions of elves split off from the original group. One revered nature, and were good. The other discovered magic, and forgot about nature, becoming evil and twisted. My character is a changeling, and very likely unique. He was bred as an experiment by the evil elves, but escaped, eventually learning wizardry so he could go back and defeat his former masters with their own tricks. Our other party members were a monk and a ranger. I currently assume the form of an Orc. Though I speak none of the language. We got tasked by the newly established local adventuring guild with stopping a small band of gnolls that were encamped on the other side of some hills. On the way we met a giant snake (killed by our half-orc ranger; half-orcs have been beefed up a little to be playable). I got lucky and made the suvival roll to find food for the group before that, managing to catch and club a deer to death (wizard manages to do it). At the end of day 1, we encounter 3 man-sized bees. We beat them, but they nearly cripple our monk. So we go back to town, purchase more rations, and the monk gets healing for his massive Con damage. Back on the trail we encounter a Krenshar, which after killing we determine is safe to eat. We also encounter a wandering Xorn, and fortunately I spoke Terran. It was hungry, and wanted some of our gold for food. The monk had plenty (he bought very little), and tossed 50 gold in the Xorn's general direction. The ranger and I tossed some over, too. The Xorn was looking for a way home to the Elemental Plane of Earth, so I directed him to the nearest wizard's guild I knew of, where he might get someone to plane shift him over. So we reach the gnoll encampment, where I put the guard to sleep. The guard falling over sleeping wakes up the one gnoll with a barbarian level, though. So the Gnoll Barbarian summarily rips into the monk who engages in melee, and the ranger who also makes his way there. As wizard, I avoid melee like the plague and have yet to take damage period. Somehow I also have the most hitpoints. The Monk gets dropped to the negatives, and the Ranger takes exactly 20 damage, putting him at -10. The monk just agrees that he's dying. I stand there, hiding, before slowly going back. As sole survivor, it's my job to go back and maybe find some new recruits to help me. I may have to blame my old fellows' incompetence on the failure, but such is life for a low level adventurer. It's good to play again. Life feels that much more complete.
Thomar_of_Uointer 09-02-07, 02:09 AM	Hehe, college is a great place to play D&D. I'm in this awkward limbo being out of college and not going back for 2 years. Videogames help, but not much.