The game mechanics are mostly the same from the last time we played. I should have made myself a quick reference sheet o remind me of key things that come up a lot. As I showed in the comic I forgot to apply the small attribute and remembered the vicious attribute for the orcs, but then jettisoned it when they started to get the upper hand.
Losing a hit 50% of the time when you use magic seems a little harsh. So far my use of magic has not been very effective. I also need to play the monsters a little stupider. While the Imps should be shifty and try to gang up on people I think the Orcs holding back so they could lure the knights into unfavorable situations was too hard for the boy.
Sorry for the dodgy photos. I tried some presets and they stunk. I finally settled on using manual settings and they got clearer, but only realized I needed to fiddle with the white balance on the last photo. I will also play with the EV more next. I'm always trying to strike a balance between documenting and playing. Playing usually wins out.
I hope to wrap this up this weekend, see Mad Max, and get the Talomir battle started.
Great stuff Sean. Really really enjoyed this. What a cracking post and the layouts look very good indeed. I might have to nick this idea for some of my BatReps :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks Blaxkleric, comic book batreps are the way to go. Much more fun than a photo dump. I still struggle with the right amount of images to tell the story, and crap photography. I use Comic Life 3 and that speeds up the process quite a bit. I used to do them in GIMP and they took forever. I'm most happy that I finally figured out how to make the background parchment.
DeleteI quite like this sort of thing - readable and I like the visuals. My own entree into D&D came from my daughter's boyfriend some 5 years back. I sank my identity into one Snorri Hroriksson, a Human Fighter defender. The one time our group was defeated outright, we were all taken alive and rescued by a new member who had just joined our group. After that we went from victory to victory, though we did have some close calls...
ReplyDeleteI still remember some game sessions in late 2010, with earthquake aftershocks going every few minutes...
Glad you enjoyed it AP. Although I haven't played actual Dungeons & Dragons since about 1986, I have very fond memories of high adventure. We died a lot and making it to 3rd level was a big deal. I think the highest I ever got a character was 7th. What I can't seem to get across to my son is the enjoyment of the story unfolding. Maybe you will dust off some old character sheets and they will live again.
DeleteSo...who got to call them "Sir Chicken" and "Sir Waffles"? Most unusual names for knights :-) .
ReplyDeleteHi Hugh, aside from butt, my son thinks it his hilarious to say chicken. Chicken & Waffles is a thing in the US South, so it seemed like a natural. We have a whole bunch of silly names offstage.
DeleteAh, I can remember (a long time ago) playing one of the Metagaming "Fantasy Trip" solo adventures, set in King Arthur's Britain. Had a series of characters such as Sir Loin, Sir Cumference, Sir Cumstance...
DeleteVery nice report!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ricardo, nice to hear from you.
DeleteAwesome report Sean!!! Absolutely brilliant. Bring the rles along with you, I would really like to give this a try at Oldhammer weekend. ;)
ReplyDeleteSounds good airborne. I just have to run it by Rab, as these are his rules in playtest. This set up is with my 1/72 stuff. If you think people would want to play with their own 28mm I'd need to make the tiles full size.
DeleteMaybe I will be able to bring my Heroquest board.
DeleteFeel free to take it along with my blessing, Sean - I don't think it's been played between adults yet so I'd be interested to see if it stands up to more experienced players.
DeleteAwesome. Hopefully we can get a game in. ;)
DeleteLovely looking game report as always, Sean, and the parchment background is perfect!
ReplyDeleteA couple of playtesters are mentioning the difficulty level being high - perhaps my two are just absolute demon dice-rollers (we all know someone like that, don't we?!). Good call to "forget" Vicious when things got tough. Were you using the Heroic Combat option? That has become our standard choice and allows a bit of respite as a lucky Hero roll can then take out a foe in one hit.
I really like the beads as a way of keeping track of injuries. Thanks for sharing :)
Thanks Rab, usually the boy is red hot with the dice. Thus far this game has been streaky. I've stayed away from the optional and advanced rules for now. He has rolled a couple of natural 20's so the critical hit option would be good. We'll have to revisit. I was able to bring him back in to be my dice roller once I got the knights out of the pickle they were in. So far the rules, as i remember to apply them, work pretty well. I feel like magic is a little harsh at the moment. I'll have more thoughts when I complete the adventure.
DeleteI love these comic book battle reports. I particularly enjoy the way you always sneak a couple dice into the shot. It makes the whole thing seem even more playful.
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of a program to you use to get that layout? It's just grand.
Hi Matthew, thanks. When I first started I used GIMP and got pretty close to these results, but it took a long time. The software is called Comic Life 3 and I believe they have a Mac as well as a Windows version. There is a learning curve, and the interface can be a tad clunky, but it speeds up the process a lot. Airbornegrove at givemlead may use something else.
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DeleteI use comic life 1. Im to impatient to use 3 lol.
DeleteYes airborne, CL3 has a lot of lag. Once I got used to the slow save and "Not Responding" thing I was able to do what I wanted to do.
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