Hi to my players and readers,
It has been a roller-coaster couple of months since I last posted on 9d20. We had sporadic DnD sessions during that time, with two of my original players not appearing from time to time due to RL commitments. Funny thing was, it all worked out rather fine in the end. (Out-of-game Hindsight check)
Weilian was MiA in his army camp for weeks, so I revamped him as one of the key NPCs instead. Pongtau moved over as a dwarven cleric to Shell's campaign, due to our lack of numbers in that campaign after Alex left the game (quit).
The party size was reduced to four- Guy, Fel, Trogdor and Drefonis.
The last two weeks have been great, with the first chapter of my story drawing to a close after the party returned intact from the Oasis, and were largely pivotal in the success of the double trial of Nate Bankers and Weilian.
We had great fun as the smaller group maintained cohesiveness while tackling battles and roleplaying encounters in a shorter timespan. Time was efficiently spent due to lesser distractions about, and we achieved more in the process.
I now firmly believe that DnD 4th Edition is best played with four or five players, period. No more, no less.
Of course, the four of them had to adapt to the new party size and increased danger factor. Some of the tactics formerly employed by the party had to be changed due to the reduction of AoE effects, and lesser DPS on the whole. (Both players who left were striker classes.)
Guy changed his build into a more offensive one, Fel changed his feats and improved his survivability. Trogdor is now making more use of his sacrificial and healing abilities, and Dre slowly honing up his rogue combinations.
They coped fine, with a few hairy moments here and there but nothing much that they could not realllly handle. (Mandingo's minions did give them quite a scare though.)
The party is now wiser, freshly level 8, and have clearly sorted out their characters' motivations as the chapter drew to its conclusion. The upcoming hooks are many, and the rewards unimaginable.
Meanwhile, we have decided to take a break from Caen for a couple of months.
I will be using this period to integrate new game-table rules (e.g. the DM rolling selected skills like Stealth, Perception and Insight for the players, so as to add an element of uncertainty).
I will be posting up carefully hand-selected Caen lore to allow players a deeper knowledge and feel of the world they have been adventuring in for the past year.
With these, I hope that the players will be able to understand more of Caen, and also make better choices for their characters' futures. A loose episodic theme will also be implemented as I revealed before in an earlier post (Heroes Encapsulated) on the blog.
I look forward to our next foray into Caen, and may the "Heroes of Maya" continue to write themselves into Caen folklore.
