Adventurer's League--
I was at DM David's table again. I've played at his tables many times at AL, and like any player/DM he has his quirks of playing. One of his tricks is to roll for damage, then ask the player "you can either take what I rolled, or [average]." He refuses to say what he rolled until you give your answer and mark the damage down. Twice during last night's session, the party's (level 1) wizard got attacked, and when prompted, the average was always either at or more than the wizard's max HP. I advised him both times, "Just take the [average]. If the options are possible death or certain death, take the possible death." (It paid off the first time, but not the second.)
Anyway, as it happened, the module David ran last night was one I'd played in with one of my other characters, but this time I was playing with Seb, my half-orc barbarian. David was very happy about this. (Seb turns out to be a popular character among the DMs at AL.) David thanked me for not metagaming, which wasn't too difficult since I was just doing what Seb would do, and Seb's a good dumb barbarian.
We also had an observer. This girl wanted to sit in and spectate, since she didn't know how to play but was curious. So every so often David would aside to her and explain some of the mechanics. At one point, as there were some NPCs that spoke Druidic (which none of the party could speak), David tried to explain what Druidic was like as a language, that it was especially used in Druid magic, so I added, "It's like, Wizards cast their spells by speaking Latin, Druids cast their spells by speaking Celtic."
After we finished the main module, since we still had some time left before the store closed, David offered to run a bonus encounter-- one which would have no bearing on our experience/loot-- using "an NPC I like to bring out whenever I'm in Icewind Dale." We all agreed, though I had a suspicion about who it would be. We took a brief break so people could stretch and grab a last snack or something, and when we came back and began the encounter, David brought out Frostclaw, a notorious awakened owlbear. And I went, "Oh, no."
While there were a couple of Level 4's in the party, there were also several Level 1's. And Frostclaw fights dirty--she will target weak party members, prioritize the spellcasters, and even try to use the environment to her advantage. During our fight, which was on a partly-collapsed bridge, she tried to throw Seb off it, but I passed the STR save. We managed to deal enough damage that Frostclaw retreated, but it was still a brief, tense encounter.
I was at DM David's table again. I've played at his tables many times at AL, and like any player/DM he has his quirks of playing. One of his tricks is to roll for damage, then ask the player "you can either take what I rolled, or [average]." He refuses to say what he rolled until you give your answer and mark the damage down. Twice during last night's session, the party's (level 1) wizard got attacked, and when prompted, the average was always either at or more than the wizard's max HP. I advised him both times, "Just take the [average]. If the options are possible death or certain death, take the possible death." (It paid off the first time, but not the second.)
Anyway, as it happened, the module David ran last night was one I'd played in with one of my other characters, but this time I was playing with Seb, my half-orc barbarian. David was very happy about this. (Seb turns out to be a popular character among the DMs at AL.) David thanked me for not metagaming, which wasn't too difficult since I was just doing what Seb would do, and Seb's a good dumb barbarian.
We also had an observer. This girl wanted to sit in and spectate, since she didn't know how to play but was curious. So every so often David would aside to her and explain some of the mechanics. At one point, as there were some NPCs that spoke Druidic (which none of the party could speak), David tried to explain what Druidic was like as a language, that it was especially used in Druid magic, so I added, "It's like, Wizards cast their spells by speaking Latin, Druids cast their spells by speaking Celtic."
After we finished the main module, since we still had some time left before the store closed, David offered to run a bonus encounter-- one which would have no bearing on our experience/loot-- using "an NPC I like to bring out whenever I'm in Icewind Dale." We all agreed, though I had a suspicion about who it would be. We took a brief break so people could stretch and grab a last snack or something, and when we came back and began the encounter, David brought out Frostclaw, a notorious awakened owlbear. And I went, "Oh, no."
While there were a couple of Level 4's in the party, there were also several Level 1's. And Frostclaw fights dirty--she will target weak party members, prioritize the spellcasters, and even try to use the environment to her advantage. During our fight, which was on a partly-collapsed bridge, she tried to throw Seb off it, but I passed the STR save. We managed to deal enough damage that Frostclaw retreated, but it was still a brief, tense encounter.
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