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Chapter 39 “Bloody… hells,” Greghan gasped, as Leana worked another of the goblin arrows free. “Gods above, Gregho, how many times did you get hit?” Ravani asked. “I thought the armor was supposed to protect against that?” “Little bastards were good with those bows,” Greghan admitted, as...

Chapter 38 Leana was at Ravani’s side in moments. “Take it easy,” she said, helping the injured elf to a heap of animal furs that apparently served as beds for the cave’s inhabitants. She examined the deep wound, careful not to touch the arrow sticking out of his belly. “I can get this out...

Chapter 37 Ravani cautioned them to quiet as he carefully pulled open the secret door. They were immediately greeted by the sounds of voices; Greghan couldn’t understand the language, but it sounded like an argument was taking place. “Goblin tongue,” Folgar whispered, just loud enough for him...

Thanks for the praise. After so many years of writing D&D stories, I think combat scenes have become a specialty of mine. I think it helps with my narration in the tabletop game as well. I have finished writing the story, though I still have a month's worth of posts. Once it's done I'll see...

Chapter 35 Leana didn’t hesitate; she sprinted to Greghan’s side, knelt beside him, and channeled a healing spell into his battered body. For a moment she thought she she’d been too late, that the minotaur had killed him, but then his chest arced as he drew in a deep breath, his eyes flicking...

Chapter 34 The three stirges, roused from their slumber by the shattering of a burning flask of oil, quickly darted to attack the prey that had been presented to them. Ravani, in the lead, drew the attention of two of them. He swatted the first one away with the stave of his bow, but the...

Back in the day I used to run a lot of campaigns in the CRPG Neverwinter Nights, which used the 3e ruleset and had a great toolset for developing user-created campaigns. In addition to a dozen or so generic D&D campaigns, I created an Ancient Greece/Bronze Age campaign, a Star Wars campaign, and...

Chapter 33 This time, the party was extra careful; they advanced along the road slowly, with Ravani frequently scouting ahead to check for ambushes. But there were no bandits or monsters waiting to attack them. “Maybe that jerk Pral finally learned his lesson,” Ravani said, after returning...

Ammann might not have said those exact words, but they seem to be implied in his original post with language like, "MOAR POWER," "ludicrous overuse," and "All three [books] are flawed." And plenty of people in this thread have been happy to chime in about 5e.2024's purported "design flaws,"...

I've had characters with low stats, and didn't mind it. Interesting role-playing opportunities and all that. Back in the Basic/1e days, having at least one really low stat was very common if you used the rolling techniques outlined in the rules. But as a DM now I never use dice rolls for stat...

The assumption that "other humans" (and using that term itself shows a bias) should fall in the 3 to 18 stat range per an average 3d6 distribution is where I break with Ammann's analysis. I think that PC-exceptionalism taken to this degree makes the world less realistic, not more (whatever that...

Chapter 32 The mood in the private back room at the Drunken Dragon was somber, as the companions gathered for a last meal and to discuss their plans for the final assault on the Caves. A few neatly-wrapped bundles sat on the edge of the table. In addition to fresh supplies and ammunition...

Chapter 31 “The cult has an agent here in the Keep,” Leana said. “It’s the only possible explanation for what we experienced on this last expedition.” The halfling’s announcement was greeted by a moment of silence. The conference room was full; in addition to the Castellan and his two...

In my current 2024 game I just gave out the bastions recently. This was our first time using them. Two PCs are sharing one site and another three are sharing another. One site was the headquarters of a bandit gang that kidnapped a friend of one PC (that friend became their first bastion...

I haven't seen a barbarian or bard yet in my current 2024 game, so I don't have any in-game experience with those classes other than solo playtesting. However, my experience overall (~50 sessions in) has been that the 2024 classes and subclasses are better balanced with each other, especially...

Chapter 30 “Say goodnight, monster,” Ravani said, lifting his bow to strike. But Leana stepped forward before he could fire and touched his arm. “You’ve got to be kidding, Leana,” the elf said. “This thing just tried to kill us!” “Let’s see if we can learn something first,” Leana said...

Thanks again for the kudos. I think I’ll stick with the Tuesday/Friday update schedule for now. Chapter 29 Folgar was the first to react, but in his haste he misfired his ray of frost, the beam splashing across the threshold of the door, creating a rime of ice on the stone blocks but failing...

Chapter 28 They were all exhausted, and with the exception of Folgar, badly hurt. Leana’s healing magic was completely exhausted. Folgar did what he could, using up what bandages and medicines he had left in his healer’s kit. They decided to take a short rest before heading back to the Keep...

For my tabletop game, I used to use a gridded battlemap with dry-erase markers. Earlier this year I switched to a flat TV using Fantasy Grounds (FG) on my laptop. It took some getting used to, especially running the two screens with two instances of the software (a DM's instance on the laptop...

This it the last chapter that I have finished, though I have an outline for the next few. I'm almost done with my NaNoWriMo novel, so I should be able to get back to this story next week. * * * Chapter 27 The companions reacted quickly to the triggering of the trap. Ravani gestured Greghan...