Going Back to Basics – DnD 4th Edition

Posted on March 27, 2009
Filed Under DnD, Games, Rambling

So my friends have recently started getting really bored with MMORPGs in general. While I still play Warhammer Online daily, they have all unsubscribed from their accounts. Even though I try to see if I can get them to resubscribe so that I can get an in game pet they refuse to do so. So now what are my friends delving into? They are going back to the basics, and origins, of all MMORPGs. Yes, you guessed it, good old fashioned table top gaming via Dungeon and Dragons(D&D) 4th edition(4e).

Who would have thought that when I was playing this sort of game with some friends a good 15 years ago that I’d be back at it again. The other day a group of us all gathered after work to do the initial rolling of our characters. Now if you’re not familiar with D&D, this is when we decide who’s playing what character classes (warrior, cleric, rogue etc). It also starts off with a minor encounter so that people can get used to the dice rolling, ability usages, and other little quirks that come with the game. We kind of started with a pretty large group, of about 8 of us + the DM. This is a fairly large party size, but we also knew that probably 3-4 of our friends wouldn’t like it after the first run. We just included them just because, who knows maybe they might enjoy it, and its more fun when we have a raucus party playing punt the goblin. (which btw our party somehow has a good aligned goblin)

For anyone who is just starting up a new campaign with some people, and you need dice, I highly recommend picking up a ‘pound o dice‘ from chessex. Its about $25 bucks, and you can get enough dice for everyone in the party. Probably the best bang for the buck instead of having to pick up multiple 7 piece sets for each person (usually $3-10 a set). I also recommend getting something you can reuse for maps, like a vinyl map for those who really want one. Personally I’m gonna pick up a bunch of cheap 8 x 10 dry erase boards, and make grids on it via permanent marker to use as mapboards. Also the free character builder from Wizards of the coast is fairly nice, and can be downloaded here. The only other real big cost is getting some 4e dnd player manuals, which seems to only come in hardcover. Thankfully my friends splurged on those.

As for the character class I decided to pick up for this level 1 campaign? I picked up an Eladrin Warlock, that follows the inferal pact. I picked up some stats I thought maybe good, but after reading the dnd boards, I may want to adjust it before we actually start the campaign. It looks like for being a damage dealing type of class, it doesn’t really do that much damage. Oh well, I’ll just have to play the fumbling warlock for comic relief, as the min-maxed barbarians and rogues of the party 1 shot everything.

Fast forward a few hours of taking turns on the character builder, giving tips to the new guys who’ve never played dnd before, and eating some tacos that someone decided to make while setting up. We finally get to start up the introductions of characters, and decide on calling our company name “Legitimate Targets”. The reason? We’ve got ourselves quite an interesting mix of party members. A Goliath barbarian, Goliath Fighter (that promptly fell asleep), an Elven Druid, Tiefling Warlord, Draconian Paladin, Eladrin Warlock, Goliath Fighter, and yes, a 3′ tall Goblin thief. (kind of reminds me of the goblin comics I read)

I offered the Goliaths to play soccer with the goblin for a few silvers, but noone took me up on the offer. It took us about 2 hours to get through one encounter against 6-8 Kobolds and their minions. Just getting through all the rules, and first time players. That and level one players tend to miss, alot, and my warlock missed all my encounter/daily powers. At the end of the night I think we accomplished a bit, we fought off all the kobolds, didn’t lose anyone, and well trying to figure out when to get together again to play next.

In the meantime I’ve been updating myself on the rules as I listen to the guys over at Penny Arcade plaing DnD via their Podcasts.

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One Response to “Going Back to Basics – DnD 4th Edition”

Pozycjonowanie Poznan (3 comments.) on April 3rd, 2009 1:31 am

I know that feeling, mate. I used to play a lot of rpg back in high school, but once college rolled in, and work after that, my priorities shifted. To a large extent thanks to the fact that I have about 10% of the free time I used to have Anyway, we recently managed to get the old group back and started tossin dice and whatnat… it was fun! A different kind of fun than 10 years earlier, but I’ll risk saying it was even better.

Pozycjonowanie Poznans last blog post..Gry dla dzieci