Monday, May 4, 2009

More Gaming Photos

Have I mentioned that I love using my Dwarven Forge? Here are a few snapshots from tonight's game:

From Gaming Photos


The PCs had to make their way through the sewers beneath the city of Greyhawk.

From Gaming Photos


Umber hulk attack!

From Gaming Photos


Xalor, cleric of Iuz, and servitors.

From Gaming Photos


The characters prepare their assault.

From Gaming Photos


Xalor's view of the chamber. A mob of dread warriors emerged from the central chamber when the PCs approached it, while an animated statue rushed around the other side of the chamber to attack from behind.

In the end, the PCs were victorious. On to 16th level!

10 comments:

Scott said...

That looks great. Pretty as the dwarven forge stuff is, the part that actually makes me jealous is that you have an umber hulk mini- I've yet to pull one or find it online at a price I'm willing to pay.

travisjgordon said...

Pretty Cool, I'm jealous!

Cheers,
Travis
Spellfury.com

Windjammer said...

Mike, these dungeon rooms look a great deal more spacious to me than the ones you posted on April 20. You said the characters are now level 16 (or onto 17). That means they've got powers enabling them to shift quite some distance. Here's my question: How do you reconcile that with building dungeons with small rooms?

I remember a complaint about the (otherwise quite brilliant) P2 module (Demonqueen's Enclave) how the rooms in that dungeon were too small to let PCs and monsters of that level take full advantage of their forced movement abilities. I'm seeing that in your diorama of April 20 too, so I'm just asking.

Mike Mearls said...

Hey man,

The earlier dungeon had a lot of the action spill from one room to the next. The dungeon was essentially a circular track, with monsters in one room moving in opposite directions of the track to trap the PCs.

In most cases, the fighting spilled from one room to the next.

The final battle was in a fairly large room, probably on par with the rooms I posted here.

P2 is a bit of a weird case, in that maps were done for it before I worked on it. I actually only worked on the final segment of the adventure (the stuff in the Shadowfell) and I did all the drow RP/alliance stuff.

Anonymous said...

I totally misread one of those labels. Now I want to work out what a "cleric of lulz" would do... and do it to my PCs.

dave said...

These look fantastic. Portability is always an issue for me. Portable 3d terrain would be awesome.

I was thinking that something along the lines of constructable terrain that I can easily fold flat or break down would be awesome.

The PDF paper stuff, once glued together, is light but very bulky and not that portable, the tiles are cool but not 3d.

Paper 3d terrain like a pop up book that I could fold and put away or something like the 'pirates' constructable stuff that I cold build quickly at need but dissable and put back in it's 'card' for portability, either of those I'd love.

Just an idea I had looking at all that fabulous dwarven forge kit.

lessthanpleased said...

Mike:

I don't want to trod on any sacred cows by asking you an off-topic question, but I figure I'll give it a shot and will just be really happy if you respond.

I love 4e, and it's brought half of my gaming group back from non-gaming land - one hadn't played since 2e, and disliked it for many of the reason you cited in your 20th anniversary post. I'm the DM, and having a blast.

The problem I'm having is that one of my players is moving halfway across the country at the end of the summer, and I want to do something special for his last game.

I want the party to fight a dragon. The player in question - none of them actually - have ever fought a dragon before. The player who's leaving adores dragons, and I've been studiously refusing to give him one because it was outside my comfort zone and experience.

I've never run a dragon encounter in any edition of D&D (much less 4e), so I'm not exactly sure what would be awesome to make this encounter memorable.

I'm also not sure what would be a reasonable difficulty solo monster for them to fight. It's a party of 4 PCs (defender, striker, controller and leader) that will probably be 5th level or so.

Do you have any pointers on what I should do? Do any of the commenters have pointers? I'm just trying to send my player off with an encounter he'll remember for years to come (and I want this to rock for my own bragging rights).

Again, sorry if asking for off-topic advice violates the blog's nomoi, I just figured I might as well ask the guy who wrote the books for pointers. My group will thank you (if they survive).

Anonymous said...

From the various things I have read, two things you might want to do with a solo are:

1) Give lots of neat "combat" terrain - both hazards/traps to replace minions/servants, and as things the players can use against the big bad. ("I cut the holding wire on the airship, so it whips around into it's face!" "That's a 4D10 and a Dazed effect per pg. 42!" Etc.)

2) Make a changing set of terrain. For example, the enemy is going to be constant, maybe the terrain can change ala a videogame battle

("Ok, first part it attacks and you have to fight it from the roof of the airship. Second part is after the airship crashes and is careening down the river. Third part is when it finally crashes up on the bank.")

It lets you have the same enemy in 3 different terrains and give players new terrain options to help fight the big bad

Loonook said...

Is that one of the players dressed up... as the Burger King?

Slainte,

-Loonook.

Christian said...

DF's Medieval Buildings sets are pretty awesome, too. I want to experiment with using stairs and pillars to create two-level terrain. I just have to practice a few set ups to find something I like.

And yes, it does look like the Burger King in that last one.