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By Mark D, November 10, 2012 11:19 am

Unfortunately this was my last session, as my new job has me up early in the morning and unable to stay up all night.

Watch live video from webbard on Justin.tv
Continue reading 'Let’s Play D&D Session 3'»

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By Mark D, September 27, 2012 1:26 am

So this week we played our second D&D session (which I stream live and from now on will announce on twitter) and here’s how it went.

I am Hamish the Dwarf Fighter
Gooster is Akane Alinari the Tiefling Rogue
GreatManInGreyAndYellow is Dwarak Floornom the Half Elf Druid
CBeary is Cyril The Grey the Human Cleric – Missed this session due to Sickness
Luiz is Armil Tristan the Human Warblade
Dumpledore is our DM and Dumpledore
Derresh is Lex the Sorcerer -New Member this session

Watch live video from webbard on Justin.tv

Rest after jump
Continue reading 'Let’s Play D&D Session 2'»

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By Mark D, September 20, 2012 3:33 am

I happened to play in my first D&D game in over a decade (I still miss AD&D and all the stuff I had for it) and since it was over the internet,  it is recorded for your pleasure. There are some sound issues, but that’s a computer problem that may be worked out in the future.

I am Hamish the Dwarf Fighter
Gooster is Akane Alinari the Tiefling Rogue
GreatManInGreyAndYellow is Dwarak Floornom the Half Elf Druid
CBeary is Cyril The Grey the Human Cleric
Luiz is Armil Tristan the Human Warblade
Dumpledore is our DM

Watch live video from webbard on Justin.tv

Continue reading 'Let’s Play D&D'»

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By Mark D, January 24, 2012 5:16 pm

Tonight I am going to try doing a Liveshow at justin.tv, nothing interesting most likely. But if you want to stop by, it’ll start at 7PM EST and I’ll try to keep it going for about an hour.

So a friend of mine knew I was looking for a D&D type game and recommended Knights Of The Chalice to me. KOTC is based on the 3.5 D&D open license, so some things have to be changed but otherwise it should be familiar. I played a lot of the early D&D games in my youth (Gold Box Games and Neverwinter Nights on AOL) and this definitely took me back. It is probably the best implementation of the 3.5 rules I have played, or of any D&D based games. I enjoy the tactical combat, turn based combat and having to use the surroundings to your advantage.

The game also tends to be a bit unrelenting at first. They send you to a cave south of your starting point, figuring that you’ll face a few hordes of kobolds and goblins who won’t stand much of a chance. Then you take one wrong turn in the cave and you’ve discovered the spider queen who is going to flat out slaughter you if you aren’t prepared. Even some of the other areas in the cave aren’t all that easy, especially if your not prepared. This was a game that frustrated me often, but I would keep going back for the challenge.

Unfortunately about halfway through the game, the challenge really drops. There are some spots you can’t get past without taking advantage of “creature” slaying arrows. For example there are Dragon Slaying Arrows, Human Slaying Arrows, Giant Slaying Arrrows, etc… If you hit and the creature fails his save roll, he takes 10K damage pretty much instantly dieing. So sometimes the solution is to find (or craft) these arrows before the battle. Of course some enemies have such great fortitude that you’ll find yourself constantly replaying the same battle hoping to connect on the role. Also once you are able to craft the arrows, it makes other battles easier.

For that matter, once you are able to craft in general in makes the whole game a lot easier. This is more a problem with 3.5 then the game itself, as it seems the solution to everything in 3.5 is “More Fireballs”.  Fireball has a large area effect, and since a good number of encounters take place in small rooms, you can guess how it works out. Also there appears to be no pre-required material needed to craft something. IE: You don’t need to find mithril to craft mithril. It just comes out of air apparently.

But the game is a solid, fun frolic through a fantasy world. I miss being able to slash and bash my way through enemies and having to rely so much on magic casters. But too often I play a game and just charge through everything anyway. This was actually challenging, and forced me to change my way of thinking while I was playing it. That is worth much more then just being able to do things my own way. I like being challenged like that.

One other complaint is that some of the middle game battles can be a tad repetitive, especially when your equipped up fully. Since you can only rest at campfires (which are sparsely spread out) it does get a tad annoying when the game finds ways to surprise you by blocking you from going back to campfires. Especially if your playing the game without spoilers and you find yourself stuck behind a wall and out of spells. I still can’t believe I got through some of the areas I did with everything drained.

Knights of the Chalice is a fun little game that isn’t too expensive (roughly 20-25 dollars depending on the exchange rate) from an independent developer that is working on a sequel. Most of the problems are more due to failings with 3.5 as compared to failings with the game. It isn’t going to be an easy game either, so be prepared for that. But if you’ve been looking for an old school game feel with very solid 3.5 rules, this is it. I don’t think there’s been a better implementation of 3.5 rules, which really haven’t been used for that many games anyway.

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By Mark D, January 5, 2011 11:22 pm

Ahhh Dragon Quest. Playing D&D Heroscape made me think of it, so I decided to play it again. Now I had complained that it was a pain setting up the Heroscape board, and it was. It probably didn’t help that it was my first time dealing with Heroscape. Dragon Quest comes with a board much like Hero Quest, you add doors and whatnot to the already existing board in order to shape it out.

If you know anything about D&D, it’s pretty much the AD&D (2nd edition) rules that existed at the time simplified. There are no levels, characters improve for every “adventure” finished. Warriors and the fighting classes improve their Fighting stat, Wizards, Clerics and Elves gain the ability to learn another spell. The fighting stat is used in combat, you minus your opponents armor class from your fighting stat and you have to roll higher then the result. If you hit you then roll your dice according to the weapon.

I always found it odd that the game made races as classes. Listed as classes are a Fighter, a Cleric and Wizard, but then they have Halfling, Dwarf and Elf as classes too. Since they expect people to eventually move on to the core D&D I don’t understand why they didn’t just have other classes that are in the core. There’s also no rules to generate your own character, although the book does come with a blank character sheet. It wouldn’t take too much work to create a character and just borrow the fighting scores from the included characters.

Cards, Cards, and more cards. This is where the game gets a tad obnoxious. Everything is on cards. Traps, Spells, Treasures, Enemies, Characters, Equipment all have their own decks. Although somewhat helpful for quick reference, unless your a bit of a sorting nut it is going to take a while to find all the cards you need. The Enemy deck for example is particularly large, nearly as big as the rest of the deck combined.

Outside of the minis mentioned on the cover (which come in plastic too) the rest of the pieces are all those A-Frame thick paper punchouts. Some of them gave me trouble since I had bought the game second hand and the previous owner had given them a beating. But they kind of make me wish I had more minis or sculpts to throw around the board and really flesh things out.

One thing I do love is that all the artwork on the cards is from other TSR projects at the time. Quite a bit of it is artwork from Dragonlance (which will throw you for a tizzy when you see Tanis is the generic Elf) and from the D&D collector cards (I had the complete set back in the day, and it’s lost to time, so of course it’s worth a fortune today). They do factor in as a game mechanic other then as quick reference sheets. For example when finding different items or springing different traps you would randomly draw a card from those decks. Unfortunately the random part is a bit hard as all cards have their name on the front, but it is a small typeface.

Another good thing is that the game comes with a good number of blank cards so you can create things to your heart’s content. For me, that meant adding to the fighter only the greatest piece of equipment ever:

Which worked especially well given that the Fighter Mini was carrying two swords. The game also comes with a blank map so you can writeup your own adventures.

Sadly though I think after a while your characters would become a tad too uber due to the way levels work. So your limited on how long and how many adventures you could play with the same characters. Also the adventure book only comes with three adventures, although these are tied together. It does leave you with a feeling that the game is somewhat lacking. It wouldn’t have taken them that much work to push out another handful of adventures. I guess they expect you to move on after the first handful of levels and play the full D&D.

I wouldn’t recommend running out and buying Dragon Quest. It goes for 15-20 on ebay depending on shipping, and really there’s probably better things you can spend your money on. It might be worth it though if you are in need of the board for other adventures. It’s big and sturdy and appears able to take a beating. Or if you are like me and you love nostalgia and remember playing this alone in your dark room for hours. Now as an adult you can drag your friends out of hiding and force them to play this in exchange for going to their awful parties. Otherwise you might as well just buy some real D&D stuff, or even Castle Ravenloft.

Made another video, it’s after the jump.

Continue reading 'A look at Dragon Quest by TSR'»