RQ Solo Adv Log 1 Nerrip

For when my wife is at work and non one is over I started a solo adventure using RuneQuest 3rd edition. I belive the adventure is 2nd edition. Scorpion Hall.

My first character (Nerrip Evets) was a barbarian farmer. He had access to a heal spell and a chance for divine intervention. 

I decided he was a viking, as I went with an axe and a viking round shield for his primary weapons.

My first runequest encounter ever. A scorpion hunter spots Nerrip in the forest. Nerrip was prepared to throw a javelin but the hunters first sling bullet injures his left arm.

He drops his shield and is now worried about entering melee without it but still moves closer and throws. Misses.

Another sling bullet comes and hits his leg. He draws his axe but decides to heal. The first heal attempt works and moves closer. Planning to heal again then enter melee.

Another sling bullet, he is struck in the abdominal with a lot of damage. My first runequest character dead without even landing a blow.

At this point I decided the stories of lethality of this game are true. Normally I never erase a character or throw away the sheet. But this time I figure its only a solo game and may lose a lot of characters.

So I jot down a quick note about his death then take a big eraser and erase everything. Only then do I remember he could have had a chance for divine intervention.

Click here to read part 2

D&D Next: Future of Edition Wars.

For Many people the ideas behind D&D Next were exciting and appeared to be a chance to bring together many different play types and maybe bring a change to the conflicting world of Dungeons and Dragons editions. Most of this however was based on various promises by the development team.

“We saw an audience that had been divided by differences in editions and play styles, and wanted to design a version of D&D that all players could experience and enjoy” ~Mearls

I have been following D&D next as closely as I could as soon as I heard about it. I have joined in on the play test, read the blogs, and filled out the surveys and polls. Here is my opinion of what is going on in D&D next.

Wizards of the Coast Spoke very highly of these three things; finding what was common in every edition, establishing a strong and simple core and then adding in modularity.

In my opinion they are not doing this at all. First I’ll start with an example of not doing what is common in every edition. In at least three versions of D&D skills were optional, you could play completely without out them, with the exception of the rouge/thief. Currently in D&D next every class gets skills, every background gets skills and there is a skills specialty.

However maybe you could just cut all that if you wanted, right? Well that brings me to my next point every melee class gets Expertise Dice and practily every class feature is depend on these Expertise Dice, so to cut them would be cutting everything they currently have for the Fighter, Rouge and Monk. What makes it even worse is the Rouge is touted as being different from the fighter because he has Skill Mastery. So now skills are being used to balance classes against each other.

Sure maybe you could cut skills from all classes except the rouge and let them have skill mastery. But then lets not forget a lot of the rouges skills are not just “Rouge Skills” it could be Knowledge or Profession or Track it’s basically a complete list of 3.x skills with specific stat dependencies.

Well lets move on.

So what about these expertise dice, don’t like them and now every melee class doesn’t have their class features. Maybe you could play with no class maneuvers. Lets see you could rework sneak attack as that is now a maneuver and then remake the entire monk class and be left with a fighter who has no ability to cleave or precise shot. But that’s ok right not every fighter has to have maneuvers right, surely they even have an option for that. Nope every fighter has Expertise Dice if you don’t like it then rework the system yourself. Many people on the forums just say “well assume you use deadly strike every time.”

So for a straight and simple melee attacking fighter your either juggling when and how to use these special dice or at least assuming your spending them on Deadly Strike so for damage you’d be rolling something like 1d10 + 1d4 + Your Strength. That’s not too bad but certainly doesn’t look like a common thread throughout editions or a strong simple core.

Maybe you disagree with me though, maybe you think skills are a common thread and the Expertise Dice are a new way of handling common abilities. So lets move on again.

How about a very common thing like flanking or surprise, well in D&D Next this would give you advantage so Roll 2d20 and take the highest…..? Seriously roll 2d20 is a core rule for flanking and such. In what edition was this common? How about if your in a situation that’s bad were you would normally get a penalty; roll 2d20 and take the lowest. So unless your combat has nothing interesting going on your more then likely rolling two dice to hit. Sure you could just ignore it but as it stands that’s a core rule and has been for multiple playtest packets. I have seen no evidence that it will be bumped to being an optional rule, so you can’t just assume that either.

There are many examples of things like this but I’m going to give just one more. As it stands every current clerical healing spell works at range of 50 feet away. So cure light wounds is not a touch spell it is a power word that lets you heal your ally 50 feet away and still lets you attack that turn. This is the default option.

I have not seen any of these presented as optional or modular or any discussion from the development team saying that this is not their strong simple core. I see no common, strong simple core, and very little modularity. Even their critical hits are strange.

Maybe we will get lucky and by the end of the play test they will have a core that shows the common threads and simplest forms of D&D with options to adjust it to be what you want to play. But as it sits it is nothing more then an entirely new edition for which people will Edition War about!

My best judgment tells me this new edition will do nothing more the splinter the player base even further. I could go on with reasons why but this post is long enough already.

I wish the Development Team luck and hope the playtest goes well.

Unfortunately my players no longer want to play test D&D Next as they don’t want to deal with a new game or edition with new rules. We will likely be playing other editions of D&D and/or our own games. You can expect some future posts about Adventures Dark and Deep as well as a few custom content posts.


P.S. If anyone is interested in play testing the new edition I strongly recommend it as the more people play testing and sharing their opinions then the more likely it will become what the community or a larger community wants.

First time playing ADOM, game log.

I quickly typed this in note pad while playing ADOM, to keep track of the events my charactor was going through. I don't know if I will continue to type these, I suppose it depends on if there is any interest reading them.

Artemis the orc ranger,
found here self amongst some hill on a road that led from the south west to the north east out of the valley.
 Following the road she entered a small hamlet first scaring some children before
 finding and chatting with the village elder.
 He told her that they were attacked by monsters from a cave in the south east and that the village
 carpenter had gone into the cave and not come out.

 Within the village was a baby water dragon, a rather rude druid and a food shop
 where Artemis bought an apple that quickly rotted.

 She left the hamlet going south east into the forest
 where she stopped and gathered a quick meal.
 Upon finding and enetering the cave she found a door that when kicked opened
 shot a blinding
 light into her face both confusing and blinging her.
 She spent a few seconds ramming herself into a wall before regaining her
 sight and find a
 mob of goblins shoving into the doorway

 She had little trouble turning them, some rats and an orc in to a heap of bodies.
 She found a longsword, a sling and some stones, ate the rats and had gained 2 levels
becoming ambiedextous and increasing her ability to dodge, and fight with weapons.

Wandering down a dark hallway she found a throwing club laying on the ground and
was thinking of ways to be better at attacking from behind.
The hall went west along way and then turned south so aretmis back tracked
to a small room with walls made of solid obsidian where she found a light potion,
and was attacked by bats,
in the next room, one that showed the signs of many battles,
 she found a leather cap that was better then her own.

The cave wrapped back west where she shot down a goblin skeleton and ?ate his frog legs?
Searching the room she found some gold coins and then moved back east, where she
used her crossbow to shot down a goblin and scare away a kobold.
Taking from them some gold coins another sling, an arrow and some rations.

Although seh thought these rooms might link back up to the lon hallway they did not,
although they shared a wall she was forced to walk clear back around.
Well she was doing so another goblin rock thrower attacked her
she killed it quickly and then ate his corpse.

Having got back through the hallway it lead to a small room with a passage(stairs) leading
deeper into the ground, however nothing more seamed to be down there.

Artemsi searched all the walls of the room then decided to leave the cave, she encountered more goblins and rats
and even a homculi on the way out, she gathered up all the stones the goblins
had thrown at her, and the homonuclusi's bones.

Upon arriving at the hamlet she found that the food shop, would only buy food.
And that the elder still wanted her to find the carpenter.
Maybe she had gone to the wrong cave.

For information on the game adom click here to go the official site.