Victory!

After thirty-two scenarios, Valeros and Seoni were ready for their greatest challenge yet: Karzoug the Claimer! As you can see from the card below, the master villain of the Rise of the Runelords campaign is no pushover.

The heroes ended up fighting Karzoug twice during the final scenario, and in both encounters Seoni had to use up every card in her hand to make that ridiculous target of 40 on her combat checks. (Val, with less firepower, was responsible for hitting the 30.) The second encounter in particular was a bit dicey, as it all came down to the final d12 roll of Seoni's check, where I needed a 6 or higher for the win. I ended up rolling a 9, so the heroes of Sandpoint defeated the Runelord of Greed and saved Varisia.

Now, the greater challenge will be playing through the sixth Runelords adventure deck with my second pair of heroes, Kyra the cleric and Sajan the monk; they're solid characters, but they're not quite as buff as Val and Seoni. Good luck, guys! You're going to need it!

The Thing From Beyond Time

If I didn't already love the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, tonight's scenario would've been the clincher. I played through the penultimate mission of the Rise of the Runelords campaign with my top pair of heroes, Valeros and Seoni, and the experience was...intense, to say the least. In fact, it was a game experience I'll probably never forget.

My heroes had chased the villain across three locations, defeating her twice -- at great cost to their own health and resources -- before cornering her in the fourth and final location. As (bad) luck would have it, that location was a monster-infested chamber with a portal that would soon disgorge a hideous, Lovecraftian creature from another universe. See below!

Yeah, crap. Each passing turn brought this beastie closer and closer to entering Golarion (the world of the Pathfinder campaign setting). There was no way my wounded, exhausted heroes could take down the Thing and then defeat the scenario's powerful main villain for a third time. We were down to our last turn before the Thing's inevitable arrival and, with Desna the goddess of luck smiling upon us at last, Seoni uncovered the villain. She and Val unleashed everything they had, burying their foe and thereby winning the scenario a split second before the Thing could arrive.

One more mission to go...we take on Karzoug the Runelord himself.

A Whole New World

After a few weeks away from D&D, Matthew requested that we play again over the long weekend. He remains far more interested in DMing than playing, so this time I suggested that we start by creating a unique and well-developed setting for his adventures. We spent a couple of hours brainstorming -- much more time than his little brother would have liked -- and now Matthew's campaign setting has a home town, some key NPCs, and a few storylines that are directly linked to the characters' backgrounds. I tried to help him come up with plot threads that he can use to create adventures and encounters that aren't quite as random and off-the-cuff as in his first attempt at DMing. We played through the first scenario last night, with my bard Jack of Napes (get it?) and Nathaniel's rogue Dylan joining forces with the dragonborn NPC Rhogar. I hope it was the first of many adventures in a whole new world of Matthew's creation -- a world that already has narrative links to the Front Porch multiverse, of course. The minions of Ophion/Ekhis are, indeed, everywhere.

Timely Assistance

I'm trying to finish up the first campaign for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game -- remember that? -- so that I can turn my attention more fully to Fifth Edition D&D. I'm now playing through the final set of missions, and my top duo of Valeros the fighter and Seoni the sorceress managed to survive a tough scenario against a bunch of electricity-wielding foes thanks to their timely discovery of a Ring of Energy Resistance, which allows the wearer to absorb a significant amount of acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage. That ring was the difference between victory and defeat. Now, of course, I'm wondering how my second pairing (Kyra the cleric and Sajan the monk) is going to survive this scenario when their turn comes up...

Hey, I Know That Guy!

Druid Cycle players: I'm reading through the hardcover Rise of Tiamat adventure module and I stumbled upon a minor but pivotal NPC named Iskander...

DMG Review

And here's a review of the Fifth Edition DMG, coming soon to a game store new you!

Downtime

Cool DMG excerpt today...a preview of downtime activities for PCs. Click here for the article.

Reprieve

Well, the second issue of the new Legends of Baldur's Gate comic book series was a lot better than the first, so I'm not going to drop it from my pull list just yet. The end of the issue even teased an appearance by Coran, so perhaps more characters from the game will show up in the comic. Wait, didn't Coran get killed in Baldur's Gate II? Or perhaps my party just failed to save him...

600th Post!

And for what it's worth, this is the 600th post on the Front Porch blog!

More Amazing Heroes

The Amazing Heroes line of action figures was successfully funded on Kickstarter back in August. Now there's a Wave 1.5 Kickstarter (link is here) to add a few more characters and some nifty packaging options.

Yeah, it's been a slow week for gaming news, hasn't it?

Icewind Dale Reviews

For some reviews of the new Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, click here, here, and here. The reviews are pretty favorable...as if they could be anything else!

More Free D&D

The free online supplement for The Rise of Tiamat -- containing magic items, monsters, and spells that you can use with the free Basic D&D rules -- is available here.

Icewind Dale Party

I'm nearing the end of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition with my super-fun all-evil party, so next up is Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition. I considered resurrecting my first-ever Icewind Dale party from so many years ago, but instead I decided to enlist some new heroes led by good old Mandeville -- or, rather, young Mandeville. Most players know him as the Earth-born knight who has become one of the elder statesmen of the heroes of the Druid Cycle campaign world, but I've also added him to the Shattered Realm setting as a much younger man who is still at an early point in his lifelong journey across the multiverse. We haven't seen much of Mandeville lately in the epic-tier Druid Cycle adventures, but he's going to be a key figure in upcoming events, starting in early 2015. Until then, however, you can find him in Kuldahar...

SEGA!

We were at Bed, Bath and Beyond today to buy a new coffee maker (our fifth in the last three years -- yeah, we drink a lot of coffee! Or we have really bad luck with machines...or both...), and I found a reissued Sega Genesis with wireless controllers and 80 (!) games loaded on the console (details here). For under forty bucks, I couldn't pass it up. The games on this console are about what you'd expect from '90s side-scrollers, but I have to admit a certain nostalgia factor: I have fond memories of playing Genesis after school with Jason and Scott during our teenage years. My boys and I have sampled only a small percentage of the 80 titles, but I'm very much looking forward to playing through the acclaimed Golden Axe trilogy, a D&D-style fantasy game.

Icewind Dale for iPad

Yo, iPad gamers! Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is now available in the App Store!

All Quiet...For Now...

It's been kind of a quiet week on the gaming front, but the players in the epic-tier Druid Cycle campaign have seen some hints about important characters and themes for Quintessence War, the big multiverse-spanning event I've planned for 2015. Those high-level characters are going to be involved by default, but this event is going to involve lots of other heroes, as well. Anyone interested in joining a short-term campaign (using Fifth Edition rules!) should let me know, and we can start working on character ideas.

Another Basic Update

The DM's component of the free Fifth Edition Basic rules has been updated again. Click here to visit the site.