David Given Schwarm

Married, Father, United

Tag: Dungeons and Dragons

  • DM Summit II–D&D Encounters Hoard of the Dragon Queen @ Urban Plates

    Nathan & I meet at Urban Plates this week to discuss this weeks D&D Encounters at Comic Quest.


    The guy who worked the counter brought Heidi the Dog a glass of water



    I also got some water–it was a very hot day in Southern California; but, the Urban Plates patio had a nice cross breeze. 

    It was a nice environment to discuss D&D Encounters Week Four.



    I got a cheap pizza that was a nice snack.



    Nathan went big with some serious food porn–I think that there was a cookie somewhere in there as well!



    Here are my notes



    Recap of Last Week
    1. DM David ran the Sally Port & the Last Dragon Breath–party had no problem
    2. DM Nathan ran the Tunnel & Ambush–party struggled.

    Rules Review
    1. Difficult Terrain
    2. Healing
    3. Death Saves

    Guilds Update
    1. Not really using the Guilds yet.

    Plans for this week
    1. Continue being awesome.

  • Lennithon — Hoard of the Dragon Queen


    This season of D&D Encounters, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, has a bunch of Dragons in it. Here is my custom paint of the first one Lennithon. And a quick background on my thinking of the Three Adventure Themes:

      1. Evolution
      2. Escape
      3. Mana

    Evolution
    I am changing the Dragons a lot at the table. 

    Basically, the Cult of the Dragon [who have always been obsessed with Dracoliches] are trying to bring back Tiamet & I plan to build on the themes of metamorphism & evolution which are occurring within the Cult of the Dragons objectives–and also with Tiamet herself. 

    Specifically, I am looking to have the Dragons in the adventure be slightly different than normal–for example, Lennithon is a Blue Dragon in the Adventure, but I have made her a Blue/Black Dragon who has been transformed by the spell plague or something similar. She is bored and she is bruised [black and blue–get it?]. Other Dragons & members of the Cult of the Dragon will be similarly modified…



    Escape

    Another Tiamet related theme that I plan to build on is Escape–in her case from the First Level of Hell, but in the story I am not really sure how I am going to apply this.

    Lennithon is trying to escape her responsibility of helping with the attack, but I think other NPC’s embody this theme more clearly.


    Mana
    And the third theme, that I am still researching, is the idea that the Five Heads of Tiamet are the same colors as the Magic: The Gathering Color Pie [White, Black, Blue, Red, & Green] which I plan to introduce some how as well…

  • Actual Play Hoard of the Dragon Queen–D&D Encounters S19 S3

  • Hoard of the Dragon Queen–D&D Encounters S19 S3

    Another Fantastic week of D&D Encounters at Comic Quest.

    DM Nathan had a full table full of superstar players on the end table by the window.


    DM Brian was on the inside table–also with some great players




    Some of whom possed for extreme close-ups




    The had a fantastic time developing a great river bank map



    My table was Jack who is playing Sin Bad the Tiefling Fighter, John [Alyssa the Halfing Cleric], and Ben [ Greymalken the Half-Orc Cleric]


    John is playing a human paladin named Lantos. 


    Jessica is playing Ranitae the Halfling Sorcerer. And Leo is playing Dexter the Drow Fighter.

    Lots of healers and fighters at our table made for a great Encounter.


    I had plenty of space to spread out.


    The Heros spent most of the night battling in the Keep. Please note the Ape figure which is actually Sin Bad’s Camel. 


    This is the preparation for the Camel Charge Battlement Dismount Attack on the Kobolds. One of Jack’s great moments.



    No Crits or Fumbles this week which is too bad since I will be using the Pathfinder Crit & Fumble iPhone Apps this season.



  • DM Summit I–D&D Encounters Hoard of the Dragon Queen @ Veggie Grill


    Nathan, Brian, & I sat down to review Week One, plan for Week Two, discuss Doctor Who, and discuss our plans for this season.

    It was a great event.

    Week One Review

    1. 21 players & two DMs is not good
    2. Got to the Governor
    3. Combat takes at least 45 minutes
    4. Need to end at 9:00 PM–one table went to almost 9:45.


    Week Two Plan

    1. Discussed bringing everyone together for a mission. Nathan liked it, Brian did not, still discussing.
    2. We have 5-6 weeks to get to the Boss Fight for the first section–likely not enough time.
    3. David planning to play outside
    4. May need a fourth DM. Nathan had Mike [?] who is interested.


    Doctor Who

    1. Completely great


    Season Plans

    1. Have as much fun as possible

  • Official Response to Character Creation–Can We Use 4d6 Method

    Thank you very much for your patience while this was escalated to my attention. To answer your question, the D&D Adventurer’s League has specific character generation rules that ensure fairness and equality in character generation. The system allows you to generate your character’s ability scores using only the following methods:

    • Standard set (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)
    • Customizing ability scores variant (Player’s Handbook chapter 1)

    Notice that the “Standard set” is an array of numbers that you can get with the “Customizing ability scores variant”, so they are indeed balanced with one another.

    To be clear, it is not allowed to roll random ability scores in the D&D Adventurer’s League.

    Please let us know if you ever have any further questions or concerns. We’ll be happy to help as best we can.

    We would appreciate your feedback on the service we are providing you. Please click the following link to fill out a short questionnaire:
    http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1414803/Customer-Service-Email-Survey-October-2013

    To login to your Wizards.com Help account, or update your question please click the following link:
    http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/myovr.php&quot/track/AvOxywr4Dv8S~VhlGpga~yInHuUqZi75Mv8u~zj~PP~n;>click

    Sam
    Team Lead
    Online Response Crew
    Wizards of the Coast
    1-800-324-6496 (US and Canada)
    425-204-8069 (From all other countries)
    Monday-Sunday 7am-7pm PST / 10am-10pm EST

  • Something Evil Stirs in the Gnoll Fortresses of Menectauren

    Another fun week in Vandale’s Garage playing the Bake–a 4th Edition Eberron game.

    We started things off, like all real gamers, by having the Pizza delivered


    Our Pizza man has been working there for 30 years… 

    Set up in the garage was, like always, awesome–of course, I forgot my dice!

    DM James was in fine form for this RP Session

    Andrew character was the focus for a lot of the investigation this week–he is part of some evil shadow House Thuranni that left house Phiarlan 

    Brett is playing Vassa, but we are getting closer to finding and killing Shooter.

    Cameron hurt his knee & is playing Fiddenmar who is now in charge of Brett’s ranger house.


    David is playing a Warlord who is also in the evil house–and running G riff when Watson cannot make it.



    I am playing KUBA, the final Shardmind who is a monk–I need to do a lot of min/max work on him. 

    The session when well into the night–when things start to get distorted.


    We listened to some really great music during this session–the Indie station was killing it!

    Oh yeah, and we are gearing up to fight gnolls–some kind of demon gnolls–it will be great.


  • Actual Play Hoard of the Dragon Queen–D&D Encounters S19 S1

  • Hoard of the Dragon Queen–D&D Encounters S19 S1


    Hoard of the Dragon Queen kickoff at Comic Quest in El Toro!

    We had three tables which is awesome! Here is my quick attendance.
























    The players self sorted by the time that I showed up.




    I had created some tables to help with character creation.







    Only about one third of the players rolled on the tables. 

    Once we had Race, Class, and Background players got busy with some serious character creation.




    Jack accurately recorded the hit points for his Tiefling Fighter Sailor.



     Brian gave us some very psychedelic gum.


    And that was it for Character Creation!

    Next week, I am out of town and the week after that….

  • Actual Play Dead in Thay–D&D Encounters S18 S14