You shall not pass. Ok, you might.
In a nutshell, the campaign is one of adventure, discovery, and colonization. A New World far to the south has opened up to the people of Shalazar and a ship full of colonists are being dispatched to claim the territory in the name of the Immortal Queen of Shalazar. The characters have one fyear to seek and make their fortunes and to ensure that the colony survives and flourishes by the time the supply ship returns.
The character building process was fairly strigthforward, and would have gone more quickly except that we took our time with the since it was new to all of us. And since tater tots and hot dogs (or the wierd dishes they inspired) took much of our time we didnt get to test out our new characters with the initial encounter as I Had hoped and planned. I ate quickly then spent twenty minutes or so reading the list of major changes from the last version, then onto each of the race and class choice descriptions and key features. Ah well, another week of planning can only help this sudden campaign game change. And finally, having just received the print-outs today, most of my time was spent collating, sorting, stapling, and three-hole-punching the dozens of provided pages.
I read thorough the character generation process, and as a group we went through the steps of creating a character. This reading was my first impression of the new and improved rules and they were a big hit around the table. Everyone was invested with every step and choice, and part of the reason for the lengthy char gen time was due to high interest level in weighing all the options. And that is a good thing. I absolutely adore the way that skills are rolled into backgrounds and feats into specialties. Brilliant, thematic, simple, and straightforward.
The chapter labelled “Character Creation” offers a step by step process of creating a character, and I read this allowed (my first time as well) and we as a group The first step is rolling up ability scores: 4D6 drop the lowest in any order. It was important to note to the players that both race and class would also give bumps to ability scores. I also let anyoe who was unsatisfied with their rolls to use the stanad aray instead. One player, the sorcerer opted for this.
We Then went on to pick our races, and each race other than humans added a +1 to one ability, depending on the subclass. Humans on the other hand add +1 to EVERY ability except +2 to one of them — just wow! Two of our players opted to be human – a new record! I made sure to point out that race and class went hand in hand and that they should be thought of together, each complementing the other.
We picked our choices, opted for starting equipment packages, with a few tweaks here and there, and then I gave out some campaign specific “professions” for each character and voila, it was time to wrap up for the night. Here are the charaters we came up with:
Gnar the Gnome. She is a “lightbeard gnomling” a cleric, essentially a lightfoot halfling without halfling luck but with speak with animals twice daily instead. She is also a healer, and common sailor as well as the envoy to the lost gnome city of Blindingstone. Her job is to discover the fate of her lost homeland.
Next we have Litha the Atisan weaver wood elf cleric, acolyte, and also the missionary of Erathis, devoted to spreading the faith in civilization that Erathis offers. Her job over the coming year is to ensure that Erathis is the main deity on the new land, and 75% of the sentient entities must pay obeisance.
Her sister wood elf is a rogue charlatan thief, with no name as yet. Her profession on the expedition is royal scribe and she is also secretly a spy for the elvish nation. Her duty is to ratify any treatise in the name of the queen of Shalazar.
Next we have Sharif the sherrif, a human sorcerer and thug whose specialty is survival. Her character’s profession on the journey is the peace keeper, and her duty is to keep the colonists alive and healthy.
Agnes the dwarf fighter is a soldier and holds the rank of corporal, as well as being a survivor. On this adventure she acts as the federated trade representative and prospector, whose job is to set up a trading depot, dock, and also to find mineable ore for which half the earnings are hers. She has one year to accrue 1,000 gold pieces worth of tradeble goods for when the supply ship returns.
Next up is William, a dual weilding duelist fighter and nobleman who is a nobleman without land, who has the chance to forge a new seat for his noble family, if he can pay the 1,000 gold piece tax that is due one year from colonization.
Finally we have John SMith the 42nd, a high elf wizard, sage, and magic user who also has the role of royal cartographer and naturalist, whose job is to completely map the new world in one year as well as catalogue all species of plant and animal with a focus on what will be beneficial to Shalazar.
There you have it.
[...] time with more keep) Game night June 15th – D&D Next Playtest 4 – Yes, they burn the babies D&D Next Playtest Friday Aug 17th – Rolling up characters for a new campaign D&D Next game night Aug 24 – Conquistadors sets sail Game Night D&D Playtest Aug 31st – [...]