Category: D&D Encounters

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (Week 3)

After securing the armory, Captain Grimbold and the rest of the volunteer militia arrived and equipped themselves. Now the townsfolk were armed and capable of defending Duponde from the shadow creatures that were running rampant throughout the city. Grimbold asked the PCs if they would assist the militia and take to the streets, helping the locals and destroying or chasing off any threats that may be lurking in the shadows. The PCs eagerly agreed.

At our local FLGS we again had enough players to run three tables. At my table we had five PCs: Jarren, a Dragonborn Paladin, a Human Warlock, a Human Vampire and a Githzerai Swordmage. This is the first time in about 20 sessions that there wasn’t a leader at my table.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (Week 2)

Trapped in the Shadowfell, the adventures looked for answers. How did the entire town of Duponde end up here? More importantly how will they return home? And what happened to the Wizard and his Halfling companion? Could they have anything to do with this or were they dragged out of the Old Owl Inn while the heroes fought the Gargoyles last week?

My FLGS ran two super tables last week with eight players at each. We even had to turn players away after we began. Anticipating another strong showing we were prepared to run three tables in stead of just two. As it turned out we ended up with three DMs and 13 players. So we ran two tables with four players at each and a third table (mine) with five players.

The party at my table was made up of Jarren 1, Jarren 2, a Dragonborn Barbarian, Eladrin Warlock and Half-elf Druid. I’d say that the players ranged from moderate to almost no experience. Realizing that the group lacked any hard-core veterans I decided to take it easy on the party when it came time for combat. As it turned out they still had a lot of trouble, but well get to that shortly.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (Week 1)

This week marks the beginning of D&D Encounters season 5, Dark Legacy of Evard. After two weeks of discussion and speculation, the new season is finally here. Some DMs are starting at level 1, as the program intends, while others have decided to let players keep using characters developed during previous season of D&D Encounters. This season will no doubt be full of excitement, so let’s embark on the 13-week adventure together with our field report on week 1.

We expected a good turn out for the first night of the D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard but we had no idea just how good our turn out would be. By the time we were ready to begin we had two tables with seven players at each table. A few minutes later we had two more players show up bringing each table up to eight players. About half way through the encounter four more players showed up. Regrettably we had to turn them away. In part because the tables were already so full and in part because we were well into the combat by then. It looks like we’ll have to enlist another DM for next week. Hopefully our FLGS can get another copy of the adventure by then.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Pre-Generated Characters (level 3)

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (season 5) is underway. If you’re looking for pre-generated characters, we’ve got them for you. There are the repeats from last season that Wizards of the Coast provided and then there are the four brand new pre-generated characters that we created using the new Players Option: Heroes of Shadow.

Since many DMs have opted to let their players continue using the same characters from last season of D&D Encounters, we decided to provide level 3 versions of our pre-gens.

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D&D Encounters Editorial

D&D Encounters: March of the Phantom Brigade – Report Card

Another season of D&D Encounter comes to an end and once again I feel it’s my responsibility to sum up the whole experience and provide some honest feedback.

The Characters

Of all the Pre-generated characters that Wizards of the Coast has provided since D&D Encounters began, these were by far the best. All six characters were fairly well-rounded and easy to play. None of the players felt that any one pre-gen was worse than the rest (Barcan, you know what we’re talking about).

This season more than any of the previous season we had a lot more players make their own characters. Although the character were all supposed to be created using D&D Essentials products, I wasn’t that restrictive. If you made a character in character builder I allowed him regardless of class or race.

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D&D Encounters Player Resources

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Preview

With the thrilling conclusion to March of the Phantom Brigade only days away, we’re looking ahead to the next season of D&D Encounters. The next adventure, Dark Legacy of Evard sets the bar even higher as D&D Encounters continues into its fifth season.

The Adventure

This article is spoiler free, even though I am sharing some exciting tidbits. I want to begin by thanking Wizards of the Coast for listening to feedback. Every season they’ve improved the quality of the adventure, often based on feedback from the field. This adventure is no exception.

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D&D Encounters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Using Leveled Up PCs

Should players have to begin at level 1 again? I know that Wizards of the Coast wants all character to start on equal footing with 0 XP, but is this absolutely necessary? After all, some of the players have come out every Wednesday for over a year now. This is going to be the fourth time that they’ve worked a character up to level 2 or level 3 and once again they’ve being asked (forced) to start all over again.

What makes it even more insulting this time is that there are no new pre-generated characters. So if you’ve been using the PCs Wizards provided not only do you have to go back down to level 1 but you have to begin anew using a character you’ve already seen advance at your game table.

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D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard – Pre-Generated Characters

D&D Encounters: Dark Legacy of Evard (season 5) begins on Wednesday, May 11. Although the pre-generated characters provided are the same ones from last season, we’ve created a few of our own.

This is the first time since D&D Encounters began that Wizards of the Coast has not provided six new pre-generated characters. For season 5 we’ll be seeing a lot of familiar faces in the party, namely the six heroes that were introduced when March of the Phantom Brigade began 13 weeks ago. Belgos, Brandis, Fargrim, Jarren, Keira and Valenae all return for another season of D&D Encounters. Just to be clear, these aren’t leveled up versions of the pre-gens, these are the exact same level 1 versions.

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun Player Resources

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Character Skill Cards

The six pre-generated characters provided for D&D Encounters Dark Sun are so condensed that they only list the three or four skills each PC is trained in. So for everyone playing D&D Encounters season two, I’ve created skill cards for each character.

I’ll admit that the character sheet cards Wizards provided look great, but other than the aesthetic quality, the cards are terrible. They provide the absolute bare minimum detail required to play the characters. Some might even argue that they don’t even contain that much.

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D&D Encounters Dark Sun Player Resources

D&D Encounters Dark Sun Character Builder Files

D&D Encounters: Dark Sun – Fury of the Wastewalker begins Wednesday, June 9. Wizards of the Coast has provided six pre-generated characters – all of them highlighting unique aspects to the upcoming Dark Sun setting for 4e D&D. Over the past week there has been a great deal of discussion about the character sheets provided. More than a few errors have been pointed out as well. Below are four of the six characters available in character builder format for download along with the cards provided by Wizards of the Coast.

In rebuilding the characters there are obviously certain aspects that can’t be reproduced. Namely the theme’s and the new weapons. In the case of weapons I’ve selected the closest item available through Character Builder. For theme’s player’s will need to manually add the appropriate power onto the character sheet. All the characters are as accurate as I can make them based upon the information available. If you plan to use a character builder version of one of the characters I would advise you to check with the DM who is running your encounters session and to double check that no errors were made in rebuilding the characters.

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