How did your DS Game Day go? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

How did your DS Game Day go?

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
el_ahrairah
Aug 22, 2010 19:11:03 Hi all, I'm curious how your Dark Sun Game Day went, regardless of whether you played or DMed.

Edit: Accidently published before I finished. :P

It was the first time running 4e and I had a blast. I'm a longtime gamemaster, but until now had only played.
I started the characters off describing themselves and how they knew or were acquainted with the character to their left. The templar, Tomas, was the catalyst, and he was approached by a messenger from Asticles, telling him to gather a small force for a mission for Tyr.

They arrived at the Asticles Estate, and there was some good RP as they met with Agis in his garden pond, and agreed to the task.

They ACED the skill challenge with only one person in danger of Sun Sickness, who was quickly cured. Arriving at the cistern, a couple PCs thought they heard the guttural language of the Gith beyond the curtain of noise from the wind. Of course, while they tried to plan what to do, the Goliath charged in and brained the first Gith he saw. So they all mopped the floor with the gith, even though Bost was pinned down with Immobilize for the entire combat, and Tomas' player was on fire with numerous crits throughout the day.

They were able to sneak up on the Tembo, and the poor thing never stood a chance. It did do some damage and bloodied a couple PCs, but they freaking wolf-packed the thing, surrounding it with no mercy.

Arriving back upstairs, the combat against the Urik templar and his droogies was the most vicious, with most of the players and enemies being bloodied. Bost again kept getting the smackdown from the dwarves and gladiators. Ut was a tense, very close battle, but the group survived intact.

We ran out of time, so did a quick epilogue of their return to the Asticles Estate.

All in all, it was a great time, and I am now super-stoked to begin running our actual DS campaign next week.
#2
smeej
Aug 22, 2010 19:36:36 First time I've DM'd 4E in the meatspace.

Had some fun with the PCs trying to talk templars into giving them survival days. Kinda glosses over the skill challenge as I couldn't come up with a way to make it interesting.

Had fun with the Gith though. The minion knocked the fighter into the pit on his first turn. By the end, the last surviving Gith flew down into the pit to rouse the tembo, who killed the Gith for being a failure and went invisible, waiting for the PCs.

He was brutal. First two attacks crit and half the party was on the ground by the end. He's a realllly fun solo if you can get the PCs in a cramped place like that.

Had fun but didnt have enough time for the templar fight.
#3
Raddu76
Aug 22, 2010 19:55:08 I had a blast in a game run by Firesnakearies. The skill challenge was a breeze with one too many failed rolls, but that was mitigated by a good Nature roll by the THri-Kreen.

We annihilated the elves in short order.

We had a plan for the gith...but not everyon stuck to it...so the Tembo got roused and it was a near TPK, with only two party members escaping (there were 8 initially).

There was some decent roleplaying, a great game...8 is just too many in the party we played for like 7 hours and ended after the fight with the gith/tembo.
#4
GMforPowergamers
Aug 22, 2010 20:13:49 well my group had no problem with the skill challenge. We hit those elves hard and fast, my barbarian blew his daily and the fight was way easier then it looked.

The gith encounter was very little harder, but our fighter used tempest dance to put a world of hurt on them all...

then came the OMG fight. 6 rounds in a row rechargeing that unholy violation power... aura 2 of 10 damage, and more crits then you could imagin ment we just made it through...

we were limpig out, the fighter was out of surges, my barbarian had 1 left, and no one had dailys when the templar showed up with the dwarf thugs...
#5
smeej
Aug 22, 2010 20:15:08 Ugh, unspeakable violation didn't hit a single time. D: D: D:
#6
el_ahrairah
Aug 22, 2010 20:43:14
Ugh, unspeakable violation didn't hit a single time. D: D: D:

Same here, didn't even recharge. D:
#7
jffdougan
Aug 22, 2010 22:06:20 I posted my summary at RPG.net, but here's the short version:

I ran for a table of 5, with no seeker played. The skill challenge was breezed through, and the elf encounter never triggered. (All the Stealth rolls got passed.)

During the gith encounter, Bost got down 2 failed death saves. There were assorted other injuries around, but that was the notable one. The party tried to do an extended rest inside the upper level of the cistern, but the Tembo came out and interrupted them. They bloodied it quickly, but it then proceeded to start tearing them apart (I had most of the Raking Assault initial attacks connect.) While the tembo was marked by Bost, it focused fire on him and managed to drop him before moving over to focus on somebody else. By the time the tembo was down, I had killed the Whispereve (aura took her to negative bloodied!), had Bost in single digit hit points and the goliath barbarian at 17 hp. The halfling was also pretty injured.

Because two of the players hadn't thought to eat lunch before an event that started at 12:30 pm, I didn't run the last encounter. I think I could have managed to take down at least one more person, though.
#8
vigilant1
Aug 23, 2010 0:28:53 Well the experience I had wasn't the greatest. One of the people in the group never played D&D before, and another one was blind so he had to be constantly reminded to pick up the correct dice. But what are you going to do?"shrugs"
#9
603
Aug 23, 2010 7:27:50 4e is a red-headed stepchild around here. I only know of one 4e game in my area, with the rest being run by 3.x or Pathfinder grognards. Guess how that affects 4e events like this?

Hint: Lots of people sign up, and then only one or two actually show to play.
#10
slashdevnull
Aug 26, 2010 17:10:44 I ran a game for a group of experienced players, but it's not my regular group, so I'm not sure how well things really went. I was trying to emphasize the roleplaying aspects toward the beginning of the game, and I think that we spent too much time on that and the overland travel skill challenge, which I also had a hard time making interesting as written. I kind of wish I had glossed over it, and perhaps skipped the encounter with the elves entirely.

Before the PCs actually left the city, I had them speak initially to a dune trader (which I subsituted in Mar Juk Adan from Dungeon 181), and then had them held up with a templar trying to get them to pay him a bribe just to leave the city. During that negotiation, they were approached by Agis, who offered the more "duty to the city"-driven mission for them. I was hoping that they would complete the combat portions of the module and we would return to do the city and be able to deal with that dynamic, but we ran out of time.

The templar fight was skipped at the end, end the tembo ended up jumping up to the gith area (after some of the gith jumped down into his section). Part of this was because the gith fight was just seeming to take way too long, and everyone wanted to wrap things up.

Still, I had fun, and I think that most of the players did as well. I'm thinking of running the game for my regular group this weekend, so I can see how differently it goes the second time around.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 el_ahrairah Aug 22, 2010 19:11:03	Hi all, I'm curious how your Dark Sun Game Day went, regardless of whether you played or DMed. Edit: Accidently published before I finished. :P It was the first time running 4e and I had a blast. I'm a longtime gamemaster, but until now had only played. I started the characters off describing themselves and how they knew or were acquainted with the character to their left. The templar, Tomas, was the catalyst, and he was approached by a messenger from Asticles, telling him to gather a small force for a mission for Tyr. They arrived at the Asticles Estate, and there was some good RP as they met with Agis in his garden pond, and agreed to the task. They ACED the skill challenge with only one person in danger of Sun Sickness, who was quickly cured. Arriving at the cistern, a couple PCs thought they heard the guttural language of the Gith beyond the curtain of noise from the wind. Of course, while they tried to plan what to do, the Goliath charged in and brained the first Gith he saw. So they all mopped the floor with the gith, even though Bost was pinned down with Immobilize for the entire combat, and Tomas' player was on fire with numerous crits throughout the day. They were able to sneak up on the Tembo, and the poor thing never stood a chance. It did do some damage and bloodied a couple PCs, but they freaking wolf-packed the thing, surrounding it with no mercy. Arriving back upstairs, the combat against the Urik templar and his droogies was the most vicious, with most of the players and enemies being bloodied. Bost again kept getting the smackdown from the dwarves and gladiators. Ut was a tense, very close battle, but the group survived intact. We ran out of time, so did a quick epilogue of their return to the Asticles Estate. All in all, it was a great time, and I am now super-stoked to begin running our actual DS campaign next week.
#2 smeej Aug 22, 2010 19:36:36	First time I've DM'd 4E in the meatspace. Had some fun with the PCs trying to talk templars into giving them survival days. Kinda glosses over the skill challenge as I couldn't come up with a way to make it interesting. Had fun with the Gith though. The minion knocked the fighter into the pit on his first turn. By the end, the last surviving Gith flew down into the pit to rouse the tembo, who killed the Gith for being a failure and went invisible, waiting for the PCs. He was brutal. First two attacks crit and half the party was on the ground by the end. He's a realllly fun solo if you can get the PCs in a cramped place like that. Had fun but didnt have enough time for the templar fight.
#3 Raddu76 Aug 22, 2010 19:55:08	I had a blast in a game run by Firesnakearies. The skill challenge was a breeze with one too many failed rolls, but that was mitigated by a good Nature roll by the THri-Kreen. We annihilated the elves in short order. We had a plan for the gith...but not everyon stuck to it...so the Tembo got roused and it was a near TPK, with only two party members escaping (there were 8 initially). There was some decent roleplaying, a great game...8 is just too many in the party we played for like 7 hours and ended after the fight with the gith/tembo.
#4 GMforPowergamers Aug 22, 2010 20:13:49	well my group had no problem with the skill challenge. We hit those elves hard and fast, my barbarian blew his daily and the fight was way easier then it looked. The gith encounter was very little harder, but our fighter used tempest dance to put a world of hurt on them all... then came the OMG fight. 6 rounds in a row rechargeing that unholy violation power... aura 2 of 10 damage, and more crits then you could imagin ment we just made it through... we were limpig out, the fighter was out of surges, my barbarian had 1 left, and no one had dailys when the templar showed up with the dwarf thugs...
#5 smeej Aug 22, 2010 20:15:08	Ugh, unspeakable violation didn't hit a single time. D: D: D:
#6 el_ahrairah Aug 22, 2010 20:43:14	Ugh, unspeakable violation didn't hit a single time. D: D: D: Same here, didn't even recharge. D:
#7 jffdougan Aug 22, 2010 22:06:20	I posted my summary at RPG.net, but here's the short version: I ran for a table of 5, with no seeker played. The skill challenge was breezed through, and the elf encounter never triggered. (All the Stealth rolls got passed.) During the gith encounter, Bost got down 2 failed death saves. There were assorted other injuries around, but that was the notable one. The party tried to do an extended rest inside the upper level of the cistern, but the Tembo came out and interrupted them. They bloodied it quickly, but it then proceeded to start tearing them apart (I had most of the Raking Assault initial attacks connect.) While the tembo was marked by Bost, it focused fire on him and managed to drop him before moving over to focus on somebody else. By the time the tembo was down, I had killed the Whispereve (aura took her to negative bloodied!), had Bost in single digit hit points and the goliath barbarian at 17 hp. The halfling was also pretty injured. Because two of the players hadn't thought to eat lunch before an event that started at 12:30 pm, I didn't run the last encounter. I think I could have managed to take down at least one more person, though.
#8 vigilant1 Aug 23, 2010 0:28:53	Well the experience I had wasn't the greatest. One of the people in the group never played D&D before, and another one was blind so he had to be constantly reminded to pick up the correct dice. But what are you going to do?"shrugs"
#9 603 Aug 23, 2010 7:27:50	4e is a red-headed stepchild around here. I only know of one 4e game in my area, with the rest being run by 3.x or Pathfinder grognards. Guess how that affects 4e events like this? Hint: Lots of people sign up, and then only one or two actually show to play.
#10 slashdevnull Aug 26, 2010 17:10:44	I ran a game for a group of experienced players, but it's not my regular group, so I'm not sure how well things really went. I was trying to emphasize the roleplaying aspects toward the beginning of the game, and I think that we spent too much time on that and the overland travel skill challenge, which I also had a hard time making interesting as written. I kind of wish I had glossed over it, and perhaps skipped the encounter with the elves entirely. Before the PCs actually left the city, I had them speak initially to a dune trader (which I subsituted in Mar Juk Adan from Dungeon 181), and then had them held up with a templar trying to get them to pay him a bribe just to leave the city. During that negotiation, they were approached by Agis, who offered the more "duty to the city"-driven mission for them. I was hoping that they would complete the combat portions of the module and we would return to do the city and be able to deal with that dynamic, but we ran out of time. The templar fight was skipped at the end, end the tembo ended up jumping up to the gith area (after some of the gith jumped down into his section). Part of this was because the gith fight was just seeming to take way too long, and everyone wanted to wrap things up. Still, I had fun, and I think that most of the players did as well. I'm thinking of running the game for my regular group this weekend, so I can see how differently it goes the second time around.