3rd level characters and some ramblings

Hi there,
So we had a few weeks away from the game and this weekend played one session, with a returning player to join our ranks. We have a sort of guest player who doesn't live near the rest of us so when he visits he joins the game. Last time his character was killed off to facilitate him not being around to play but this time the DM has found a way to keep him behind the scenes by being the captain of our very own flying ship!
A fantasy setting isn't complete without a magical flying ship, so this was very cool in my opinion. My character got to dress up as a pirate.

The flying ship gives us the ability to travel at a relatively good pace which helps to keep the game flowing. Because we never really know when we can play next I think its a good policy for the game to focus on the main quest without being too drawn out. Sometimes drawing out a journey to a goal can be fun, as it increases the tension and the feeling of questing for a hard earned prize. Sometimes a quest is stretched out over great distances (in the campaign) and if this is not portrayed it can make the world feel too small, and not the untamed wilderness it is meant to be.

Our game session consisted of only two combat encounters, which was less than in previous game sessions, but what happened was a higher level of roleplay and encounter exploration. There was some interesting discussions over whether or not we should free a giant spider, including investigative spell casting, use of non-rollable and well as checkable skills and a small amount of in party tension, where the more good aligned characters wanted to show greater compassion than the more direct pragmatic characters would have wanted.

The players are getting into their characters well, and you can see how as players they are making their characters interact and work well together. One of our first encounters (back against the zombies) we had to retreat and prepare ourselves and organize a plan of attack. The fight against the spider was supposed to be avoided - well that's what we were trying to do - so when the fighting broke out there was no time to organize a plan. Yet players had already prepared their characters and paced them in position just in case. That encounter saw some good team tactics and support, made all the more easier to see and describe by miniatures.

DnD Next is has been designed so you can play without miniatures but there is nothing to stop you using them, and it does make it a lot more fun. The game mechanics make battle quicker than 4e and this flow can be maintained even when using miniatures, because you don't have to be as tactical in your execution of skills. A few props were used to represent spell effects and important objects.

The character classes being played are getting quite fun now they are 3rd level and we have had some hours to play them at this power level. Its good to see the Fighter using sweeping strike to take out two opponents with one hit, and the Ranger picking injured targets to maximize the use of his Colossus Slayer perk. I'm playing a sorcerer and I am loving the metamagic, being able to change how spells work makes this character so much fun. It also adds a new level of tactics which for me is important as I do like to play complex characters.
You can see how each class has its specialty and we as players are now getting the first real chance to let our characters special skills show. The fighter is the the primary melee attacker being able to easily wade in and take on multiple enemies, but also ( and this is very good in DnDNext) aid in he defense of nearby allies. The fighter is the natural leader in combat.
Our ranger is mightily skilled in ranged combat and is the guy to dish out massive damage on a single target to help bring down the enemy boss, a very good support roll in a fight and a very good scout of course. Just coming into spellcasting we have yet to see the rangers full potential but his tracking skills are very useful.
The sorcerer is the fire brand. Busting out massive damage in the first couple of rounds to devastate the enemy before running of of steam and having to flit around the battle field helping where she can. The sorcerer has been able to take down enemies with one spell hit. Maybe the dice rolls have been unlucky but even though she is dexterous and is using finesse weapons in melee she can't hit a cows arse with a banjo!
The Druid is the controller and support, able to deal damage from a distance, heal, and do well in melee combat. The Druids massive choice of spells makes her a very versatile character able to offer aid and has good roleplay / noncombat powers which are very useful.

Out of all the characters the druid seems to be the hardest to play which is down to the fact that it is very much a multitasking character and so does not really specialize in anything. The large number of spells available compared to the number that can actually be memorized for the day, while very useful does mean that quite often the player is having to wait until the next day to perform a spell task. As we continue to play we will no doubt see a natural selection process of 'day to day' spells but for the moment its an overwhelming choice and of course a lot of spells to try and learn.

The power levels seem right. The sorcerer can deal the most damage in one hit but can only really do this twice before having to fall back on spells that equal the fighters damage output for a few rounds and then is relaged to low damage output, and then the enemy can save for half damage. The fighter can dish out extra damage on a few attacks but has the advantage of being a constant slogger. The ranger is like a weapon wielding version of the sorcerer but can maintain the damage output against a single creature. The druid can deal out a lot of damage as well with some spells but also has a lot of other non damage spells.

The fighter has the best armor class and can aid the defense of others. The sorcerer isn't too bad defense wise due to a class perk which gives them improved armor but is limited in combat. The druid has similar limitations on combat but our player has actually made melee a bit of a common fallback.
In terms of non combat character skills the fighter and sorcerer in our group have the fewest. The sorcerer beats the fighter due to a higher intelligence so giving her more proficiencies and languages to choose from. The rangers tracking/hunting and wilderness skills alongside a good dexterity makes him a formidable assassin. Our ranger player has almost exclusively used his bow in combat except for this last game session where he tried his hands at swordsmanship. The druid is the support role with healing and spells, and also her animal form makes her a great scout and burglar.

Third level has given the characters a strong base of skills, and a decent enough number of hit points to allow them to experiment a bit more with their characters without risking an untimely death. We should therefore see the players pushing the boundaries of their characters more to see what they can achieve, and by doing so better understanding their strengths and weaknesses.

Throw the GM a curveball and see if he can catch.

Sometimes,as I know myself from my past 2nd Edition gaming, the players can take the best made plans of the GM and turn them upside down without even knowing. A good player, and especially a seasoned player will try to listen for the telltale clues that the Gm drops to follow the game. Now obviously we are aware that a good rpg isn't run on rails but its a pointless task and frustrating for the GM if the players purposefully head their characters away from the adventure. A good GM therefore guides the players with story and clues etc and the players try to follow, and so the adventure unfurls.

But now and again the players do something that means everything changes, and this sort of happened this weekend. A momentous weekend where we were able to play 3 days in a row, and all the characters leveled up again, we are now 3rd level groovy!

The characters loose their gear to another group of adventurers - in fact they were level 0 wanting to become adventurers and were entirely clueless. We met them via a random encounter roll and decided to give them a lift in our boat down to the next town. On the way we got into an 'altercation' with two wyverns and while we were on land the other group escaped in our boat with most of our characters gear.

Well they didn't get too far and we caught up with them and found out that they had sold all our belongings - we got most of the cost back by re-trading what they had bought ( all of it was useless tat no good to us). Now remember this all started form a random encounter and us roleplaying out the situation and then reacting to the outcome. So it was not a main story plot. What was going to be part of the main story plot was a local murder of a priest by a herbalist - who just happened to have been sold a very important item of ours by the level 0 adventurers. So nicely woven in by the GM, simple and effective.
Unfortunately one of our players characters decided it would be best if his fighter had to prove a point that we couldn't be trifled with and killed one of the other party. Which then lead to the inevitable silencing of the rest of them. This then lead to their bodies being unceremoniously stuffed into barrels and us sailing down stream to dispose of them.

Now our GM did a very good job of weaving this into the main plot and we did get away with it, but there was still the risk of us still being discovered, and so we decided to leave town. Now it was the  intention that we would investigate the priests murder and therefore be in town much longer and no doubt unearth some other interesting things relevant to the main quest. All this had to be changed as we were clearly not going to hang around.

There was nothing that the GM could have done to stop this without making it too obvious we were being railroaded. The death of the other adventurer group was a bit of a mistake, the player sort of realized what he had done just a little to late and the resultant 'disaster' actually was played out very well. We managed to recover from it without too much of an issue but it sort of made it impossible for the party to hang around the town. Oh and did I mention that we killed the herbalist too? That happened sort of by accident.

So much for the in town adventure section. Our GM has been trying to give us (and its a good way to try out the #next rules) a good range of areas to play in. Abandoned dungeon, snowy mountain wilderness, fog bound river, busy merchant town and mysterious forest have been covered up till now.

The town adventure being cut short we did have the option of heading down stream to the next mote of civilization but we instead headed straight into the trees, so again preventing the GM the opportunity for urban encounters.

The game still worked out well in my opinion, though the GM wasn't as keen on how the story had unfurled. Possibly because we had cut out a chunk in a way not expected. But that's the fun of an open world and
we got another step closer to our final adventure goal.