Category: D&D Encounters

During last week’s encounter the PCs entered the Sunset Shrine, fought some of the Dwarven fanatics who had taken up residents and then after defeating them explored the east wing of the dungeon’s first level. When we joined the party this week they picked up back in the main entrance of the dungeon shrine and now had the opportunity to explore the dungeon’s west wing.

Our numbers dwindled a bit this week as we only had three of our regulars for our all-Genasi party. Fortunately the other table had six players and one person graciously jumped ship to join us. And what do you know; he was playing a Genasi so that worked out really well for our party’s theme.

Our party shaped up like this:

• Sandsoul Genasi Ranger (Hunter) [Unseelie Agent]
• Windsoul/Firesoul Genasi Assassin
• Earthsoul Genasi Swordmage [Earthforger]
• Cindersoul Genasi Swordmage [Ironwrought] (player from the other table)

The group ended up with two strikers and two defenders. Still no leader but they seem to be getting adept at playing without a healer. However, the healing potions are starting to run out so things may get ugly soon.

This week marks the beginning of chapter 2. We decided to have all character advance to level 2 whether or not they’d actually played all of the previous encounters. We realized after tracking XP over the previous few seasons that when some of the party lags behind in the XP department it just weakens the party as a whole. It makes the encounter unnecessarily more difficult and people don’t have as much fun. Moving forward everyone will level simultaneously at my FLGS.

We continue to have good numbers for this season, with brand new people joining us every week since we began this adventure. At the FLGS where I played the adventure you’re going to read about below we’re holding steady with two DMs and 12 players. At my other FLGS we’ve gone from 8 players last season to over 20 this season. This week we had three DMs all running tables of six. Our fourth DM can’t play every week so we’ve begun actively recruiting another person to DM. I have no idea why this season has attracted so many new players and frankly I don’t care. I’m just glad we continue to have strong attendance. It wasn’t that long ago we could barely put together one table.

With the addition of a new player last week, our all-Genasi party became 1/6 Halfling. The new player came up with an interesting reason for why the Halfling joined this elemental-based group – he believes that they’re deities. He professed his devotion to them and literally worships the ground they walk on. He’s so humbled to be in their presence that he does whatever they ask him to do. It’s already made for some great role-playing moments and the Genasi PCs are certainly letting the admiration go to their flaming heads.

During last week’s encounter the party was ambushed by Dwarves. After defeating them, the party continued though the Badlands south of Easting in search of The Sunset Shrine where they hoped to find a cure for the Abyssal Plague.

The terrain ahead was treacherous and would require perseverance in the form of a series of skill checks if they were to avoid any serious hardships and still make the Sunset Shrine before nightfall. Fortunately two new adventurers arrived on the scene to assist them in their endeavour.

Welcome to the beginning of another season of D&D Encounters. This season (season 8 for those keeping score) is set once again in the Forgotten Realms. The adventure is called The Elder Elemental Eye and sees the return of the Abyssal Plague to D&D Encounters. If you haven’t already read our Elder Elemental Eye Preview I suggest you check it out.

This season I will again be running two sessions a week. However, I’ve decided to cover only one session in my weekly write-ups. As much as I enjoyed providing the often contrasting tactics I found that many of the articles ended up being really, really long. It also required a lot more work on my part. I’m still recording both sessions and will provide links to them each week.

The Party

Knowing we would have a lot of returning players again this season, I suggested that they get together and come up with some kind of shared theme or back-story to help unify the party and give them more details to latch on to when role-playing. They all ended up making Genasi characters. We’ll see how this choice affects the role-playing and the overall enjoyment of the adventure. I’m expecting great things.