Tuesday, April 26, 2016

4AD The Mines at Dewham

In the South West of An-mor is a small town called Embershire. Embershire is struggling to stay alive, being close to the Savage lands to the south. Just inland about 20 miles to the East is an old sliver mine called Dewham. The mayor is looking for a party to clear out the upper levels of the mine, and find the main shaft down to the lower levels. He has sent in a number of towns folk only to have a very few return alive. Some have been brought back as solid stone.

The Mayor sends out notice for a party that will bring back the head of this Medusa monster keeping the mine closed to the towns folk. He offers a 100GP for the head, and another 50GP for the map to the shaft.

The party that answers this call is made up of a Barbarian called Vulr Nurato, from the wilds to the East. Galan the Elf from the forest lands in the North, The Wizard Arius Pufyane, who left his school early as he could not stand any more lessons. Then lastly the Rouge Dyer Rassler, form no ware, and every ware. This party is all armed, and equipped to take on the mines and bring back what is asked of them.

They head off to the East with a guide to Dewham mines, and arrive after a days hike. The next day the wake to see the guides gone. With the mine entrance 200 yards away, they make a quick march to the door, and bash it in. They party enters a dark and wide room. It is littered with old timber, and debris. They see three doors on the North wall, and decide to take the middle of these doors. They open the door to a long corridor with a branch to the East. 

1)As they enter the corridor 4 goblins jump the front of the party. The party reacts and kills this scum quickly. But behold the Rogue finds 110Gp in the dead.

2) Pushing forward they venture North skipping the Eastern branch, near the end of this long corridor it opens in to a medium room. As the pass the entrance a fierce Minotaur charges them. The party erupts into battle, that lasts a few rounds leaving Galan the Elf wounded twice. The Rouge finds 80Gp, while Galan bandages up his wound.

3) The party passes through the door to the North in to a corridor shaped like a 4. They also find a puzzle box, and quickly open it. In side is a wand of fire balls.

4) Taking the North East branch the party enters a corridor turning to the East with a room. As they party was all talking about the puzzle box they walked right in to 10 Fungi Folk. The battle is all in favor of the party, as the Fungi fall quickly. This allows Galan to level up, and they find 15Gp.

As this room had no other doors, the party headed back to the last corridor, and move to the North West door. 

5) In this corridor it is shaped like a Y, with 2 Goblin Samplings waiting to be killed, and they were. 

6) Pressing to the North East again the party finds them selves in yet another corridor heading North, with a bend to the West then back North again. As they wander through this corridor Arius tripped on something and all most got hit with a dart. Dyer examines the trap finding it held 9Gp. With traps now in mind the party puts Dyer in the lead.

7) At the end of the corridor was a door, and the party went through it. This was an empty room with a door to the North. The party took a moment to rest and found a ring on the floor. A ring of teleportation. Vulr is not happy and wants to keep moving so the party hit the Norther door. 

8) This was a medium size square room with doors on each wall. Also there was 14 vampire bats. Once more the party battles on killing all but 2 that got away. The party is faced with three doors and they decide on the East door, and make their way in to it. 

9) They find another medium sized room but with only one door to the East. But in the middles of the room under a pile of junk the Rouge finds another puzzle box, and quickly tries his hand at it. Ouch He cries, and it cut in to him for a wound. The Wizard takes the box and tries him self also feeling the pain of this box. Vulr, takes the box and outs it back, saying it is bad magic do not touch it again, and heads to the next door. 

10) The door opens to a long corridor to heading East, ending in a square room, with another 10 Fungi folk. Both the Barbarian, and wizard get wounded, but the Fungi folk are all killed in the end. They find 5Gp, and Vlur levels up.

11) The door to the East leads to the very same room, but for the 3 Orcs, ready to kill. The wizard drops an Exploding 6s, to finish them off. There was a small pile of 7Gp on the ground. As this was the last room on this path the party heads back the way the came, and was lucky not to run into anything along the way.

12) Taking the West door in room 8, finds the monster they were looking for, but before they knew it Arius, was turned to stone. In the battle that followed no one else was hurt, but the Wizard was smashed (no one had a bless scroll), and left for dead. The party grabbed the head, and found a small fortune in gold on the floor. 200Gp, and fire ball scroll.

13) The party, with out a lantern made a wrong turn and started down a new path, but stumbled in to a small sack on the floor with gem worth 110Gp.

14) Heading North the ran into a door, and passed through it to find darkness, and 11 rats. The three danced around in the dark squishing them.

15) Heading East they opened another door, and ran into 3 hobgoblins. The Elf ended up with a 6 and took two of them out, and Vlur got the last one. They found a scroll of protection as they felt around with their hands. Knowing they would not do well to continue they turned around and headed out of this foul place.

The party did well till they got back to the entrance room, and found 4 hobgoblins waiting for them. Every one took a wound during this fight, but they made it out alive, plus a potion of healing.

Heading back to town. Here they were able to collect the 100Gp for the monster's head, but nothing for the location of the main shaft. The mayor has asked that when they are healed and find a new wizard, would they try again. The party agreed. In one months time they will return to the Dewham mine.


This was a self made adventure, using the quest table, and some place names. I picked (rolled) bring me the head, as the main goal of this adventure, and finding room 21 on the room tables.

In the next part the party will go back and select a different door, at the entracne, and this time if they find 21 or 35 (rooms with no exits) they will have found the main shaft. The reward will be 200Gp this time. Well the party is now off looking for a Wizard to fill the roll of Airus Pufyne (what a silly name).



Noel

Sunday, April 24, 2016

4AD another game.

Well I spent the weekend playing another game of 4AD. This time I decided to use the party that completed the 4AD adventure from Ganesha Games Caves of the Kobold. I will say it was fun but not much of a challenge for the party. The party was made up of these Char.

  • Soegar (Warrior) Lv 4 Light Armor, +1 sword, shield, rope, bandage, potion of healing.
  • Ja'la (Cleric) Lv 4, Light Armor, mace, shield, ring of telaport, bandage, scroll protect.
  • Vinroc Sacktwo (Halvling)Lv 3, Sling, Light armor, +1 light sword, scroll protect, and fire ball
  • Briothes (wizard) Lv3, Short staff, wand of sleep (2), scroll bless, fire ball wand, scroll fire ball
  • Rikka (warrior) Lv2 Light armor, +1 sword, sling, +1 A goblins.
So I started my adventure and had fun, but nothing could really hurt my party. I fought two dragons, only taking a few wounds from them. I had so much loot from the past adventures I was easily able to dispatch all that can up on my party.

So with this in mind, I will not use a 5 char party any more. Rikka helped for the Kobold game but was over kill for this game. Leveling up is also easy, so I might say they have to roll over what their next level would be to get it. Lv 1 warrior need to roll a 2 to level up, and roll a 3 to level up again.


But in reality I am sure with deeper dungeons will come a more complex game that will handle these challenges. But this just means I have to start a new group of Chars for my next game. and I will build my party randomly again. By random I will roll them as they are in the book on a d8. What ever I get I will play. But no double chrs.  

Also as half the fun is making the map I have decided to complete the maps by rolling the paths I did not complete. So as you can see by the map below the shaded rooms I did not play but rolled to complete the path ways. To make the photo I used MicroSoft Lens (to take a picture of the map) from the App store, saved it to my gallery, edited it with google photos on my iPhone. Then linked it to this blog. MS lens is also in the google play store.

Friday, April 22, 2016

4AD Caves of the Kobold Slave Masters Adventure, Review

4AD Caves of the Kobold Slave Masters Adventure Link 
          4AD rules Link

Last week I was asked to play test a new adventure for 4AD. I was not sure I would be able to devote time to this as weekends are very busy for me. But I was going to play 4AD any way Saturday, and Sunday morning so what the heck, I said yes.

A few minutes later the adventure was in my inbox. Now I was at work and I was trying to do my job, the whole time this file was sitting there waiting for me to read it. So at lunch time I took a bite of my sandwich and started reading. I got in a few pages and realized I have to stop reading, as I was not prof reading this,  I was to play this.

This adventure is broken up in to 3 chapters. The first chapter was a pre-built adventure with a map, and a story line, all I needed was a party. I used the party from my last write up, as I wanted to play not create a party. I read the opening section of chapter 1, and got my party ready to go. I am not going to spoil the chapter at all but to say this I lost my wizard. This looks like a very simple adventure, that turned out to be a challenge. 

After licking my wounds and hiring a new wizard, it was on to chapter 2. Now this chapter was more like the games from the the base rule book. You start with the map entrance table, and then roll for content, but now you will roll on tables created just for this adventure. This was very challenging as well. I started off with great rolls, but ended up 31 room deep before the final boss was encountered. This is not going to be the normal, as it comes down to your die rolls. So I ended up collecting enough life saving items along the way, but I was very close to loosing some of my party during this chapter.

Now on to Chapter 3. This is a solo rpg right? It should be simple right? Well I will say I am not going to say any more about chapter 3 other than it was a challenge for me to get through it. 

For the price point of $2.00 I am so happy with this. It did take me allot of time to get through this as it was on a weekend, and I have two kids in soccer, and a honey do list to complete. I had to sneak off from time to time to complete the adventures, with me finishing chapter 3 on Tuesday of this week. 

I have thought of way to re-play this adventure already, and I will share them when I do replay this with a new party.

To wrap this up, I loved this adventure, it was more that I thought a solo adventure could be just a week or so after the rules were released. I cant wait for the next one (I do not want to play test it, I want to play as a normal player).

Andrea, once more I want to say thank you for bringing RPG back in to my life. 
I have enjoyed the last few weeks reading all the reviews, and email that have been posted about 4AD, and will continue to look for these reviews and emails for along time.

Noel......

Friday, April 15, 2016

4AD Game After Action Report Part 2

So A Warrior, Cleric, and Halfling crawl our of a Dungeon.......

Part 2
When we last left our adventures they had just mopped up after a battle with some Orcs. They were about to open the North door. 

Part 2: Soegar eager to keep moving opened the North door, and quickly he and the party moved through the door. To their surprise they went right into the lair of a small Dragon. Still on the adrenaline of the last battle Giron launched a Lighting bolt and struck for a wound. This was followed by two more wounds by Soegar, and Ja,la. The dragon reacted in kind with a deep breath causing all to take a wound. The next round of battle was less pain full for the Dragon as he only took one more wound. The Dragon took two big bites, but only hit Giron for another wound. This round was ended but a hit from Giron's little club rolling 6+3.

Mopping up and healing up as best they can the party took stock of the foul beast's hoard. The party ended up with a bunch of gold, and a wand of sleep. 

At this point I have forgotten just how many wounds the party took and who dealt them. I did track the wounds for each Char closely, I just did not note them in my game log I keep.

So the party is now ready to move on. With the only door they could use it to the North they took it. Soegar, cracked open the door, and let out a huge Aw Crap! There standing in front of the party was a Mummy. Ja'la turned and whacked him, saying why did I let you talk me into this stupid adventure bull crap? The party was able to defeat the Mummy in two rounds of fighting, and ended up with a wand of sleep. Now we are approaching the North door in this room, that leads to the corridor #10 from the map. In here the party was confronted by rats and lots of them 16 in total. In this battle Giron and his luck decided to have at the rats and laid out 11 in one blow. All covered in rat guts the party took the West door and battled  some vampire frogs. This time Soegar was luck with his roll and took out two of the 6 frogs in one swipe. Her is that part in a movie when the action speeds up show the adventures killing their way through the Dungeon. A few more rooms and they killed every thing till room #14, This is when a trap was sprung and a rock landed right on the little guy reducing him to one wound left. Ja'la user her last healing on him, and they now faced another door. Following Soegar, the when through the South door to meet the final boss, another Mummy. This was a crazy battle that ended up getting Giron killed, and then the remaining members had to kill Giron as he became a Mummy.

They took stock of the battle, prepped Giron for his passage to the after life (stripped the bastard of his stuff) and set him ablaze in the room. Grabbing the treasure, two magic weapons and a wand they made their way out of the deep dark crawling all the way home.


Till next time Giron........


Noel

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

4AD Game After Action Report

So A Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, and Halfling walk in to a Dungeon.......
Part 1
For this game I did a random party by rolling for each player. I did re-roll one roll as it would have given me two of the same class. I wanted this to be 4 different chr. So I ended up with my normal but for a Halfling.

  • Warrior- Soegar: Light Ar, shild, sword, and a bandage 
  • Cleric- Ja'la: Light Ar, Shild, and Mace, lantern (extra)
  • Wizard- Giron: Light hand weapon, Bandage (x2), rope. Fire ball (3), LB (2), Sleep (1)
  • Halfling- Vinroc Sacktwo: Sling, light hand weapon dagger, lantern
And off to the came entrance they went looking for all the goodies to make for a better life. When the party got to the entrance they had heard about from town locals it was a double door in the side of the mountain. Scratching their heads, that all agreed with the heck lets go for it. Soegar, grabbed the door and opened it. Moving into the large dark room they do not see any thing, but a passage on the West, and East wall at the back of the room. So off to the South they gooooo, bam they bump into 4 Orcs.
Soegar swings taking out one of the ugly folk, Ja'la being surprised missed, So as this was a corridor, the Wizard, and halfling had to sit this one out. The Orcs fought back but missed. Soegar was able to kill another, and Ja'la also landed a kill. With the remaining orc fleeing Vinroc was able to get a kill. Collecting a few GP the moved North into an empty corridor. Taking a their time they searched and found a clue. Giron said I did not come here for a few coins and incomplete info let keep going. Heading East, they found a temple and Vinroc was blessed (+1 ATK to Undead for one Kill). The only door in this corridor was at the North, they decided to take it. Opening the door to find 6 Orcs ready to kill. Soegar, and Ja'la being in the front were able to take the out, but each took a wound. They did find why the orcs were so tough they had 80GP with them, and Soegar leveled up.


Heading East again they found yet another empty corridor, and looking around yielded a Gem worth 40 gp. Giron, belted out this is why I am here, the rest of the party was agreeing with Giron and patting him on the back. Eager to keep going they went through the East door right into another 6 orcs. This fight was a bit tougher with all but Soegar taking wounds. Giron was poking the dead and found a Bless scroll to add to his wealth. This room had a North, and South door, and the party decided to take the North door.

Lets call the the half way point of the game, and this is a good stoping point for now. The game is moving very well, I have not picked up the rule book as much as my other games, I am learning the flow, and tables. and the encounters are getting quicker. So Now I can see me playing this a game in under an hour, but for the fact I love building the map. As you can see below, but this is not the best one I have done so far. My other were better maps, as I was also cooking diner while playing this game. I will post part two in the next day or so. If you have questions please comment.

Noel.


Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Four Against Darkness or 4AD.......

I started to write a game report of this new game from Andrea owner of Ganesha Games, but I have to stop. This new release form Andrea is what I have been waiting for for over 25 years. About 25 years ago I was a big D&D fan, I leaved and breathed D&D. I did not get to be a player much, as I was a very good DM. I would spend days building my own adventures, and the maps to go with them. I even took drafting in school to help with my maps. I have moved away from RPG, as I got tired being the DM, and ended up in the Miniatures gaming. I love small, games with a few minis, and large games will tons of minis.

Now Andrea comes up with a solo RPG, that is fun, it also builds the maps for you. If I had this book 25 years ago it would have saved a ton of time I spent building all of the maps I drew. Fast forward to today, I can see this book in every DM's book bag. This it not only a game, but a very good tool. You can use it as is or use it to build the map and use charts, and tables from any RPG system to fill in the fluff.

Now back to the game play. I have completed the adventure I started to review. It went on for a long time, as I had some great die rolls. I also completed a second adventure, that was over much quicker as I ended up with a final boss on the 12 turn.

I have a new war band, and this one is completely random as I did not pick them but rolled them.
This one will have a Warrior, Cleric, Wizard, and a Halfling. I will post this one for sure.

Noel

Saturday, April 9, 2016

My First 4AD game.

I am going to start by saying I suck at writting! 
So yesterdy I got the game printed it out in my normal booklet format. I sat down and read through most of it. Once I thought I had a handle on this game I sat down to make my first roster. I picked as my first player  Belock the Warrior (Light Armor, Sword, Shield),and bandage. Next I have Grum The Dwarf (Heavy Armor, 2 hand axe) lantern, rope, bandage. Next I have Swann the Cleric (Light Armor, shield, mace) lantern. And lastly a Wizard Misto (small staff) bandage x2, lantern. In hind sight I only needed one lantern.



Now on to the map. I rolled for the entrance and ended up with a 4. As the party entered this entrance they were all excited to start their new careers and get on with it. So they needed to pick the right passage, or the left. As I am right handed that is the one they went for. On a roll of D66 I got 33. This is a corridor with a door on the far north end and on on the west wall. As this did not fit I rotated the room to make it work. The door in now at the south connecting this to the entrance room. And the door is now on the east wall.

As the party enters the door to the passage they see the room is empty. OK now the party is pissed. Their first day on the job, and their first door come up empty. The Cleric decides to search the place, an is rewarded with a clue. So now with only one way to go ( door on the east wall) the move up to it and Belock just opens the door. And to his surprise standing in room 52 from the book is a Boss Mummy. OK Belock says lets get it on. First o fight is Belock and he scores a great hit for one wound on the Mummy boss. Next up is Grum with his mighty axe went for the legs of the Mummy and was supprized  with a great hit, taking the Mummy Boss down to 3 life points. Swann not wanting to be left out went for a bash attach, and also dropped the Mummy down another LP. Misto waved his hands in a great show, and his fire ball grew with every wave of his hands, he then dropped it, finishing his attack with a big old OOPS my bad.

The Mummy took it out on Misto the clumsy with two attacks, but only one landed.
Quickly the party took care of the Mummy boss, who passed his M roll to stay and fight. In the end the party got a potion of healing,and Belock went up a level.

Time for a break. Will pick up the game tomorrow.