I’m really like the new spin on things with the First Light starter box. All the same elements are there as in the original campaign box, but… better. The dungeon layouts are more innovative and there’s a lot more strategizing going on.
We have added the house rule that anyone can just toss an item to another player, even if they aren’t nearby. It’s somewhat less critical who loots a thing. You still can’t be saved by someone else if you die. If you die, you die, game over for that character.
After I posted about the first adventure, someone clever asked how I liked the new rules about being able to heal in a room with a hearth. A what now? We’d not read the new rulebook. We should have read the new rulebook.
Searching for Treasure (or as we call it, “Searching for Wandering Monsters”) has been powered up a little. In rooms with hearths, searching for treasure lets you heal a body point. In a room with a cupboard, searching for treasure gets you two treasure cards. Yes, this did spawn two wandering monsters at once. And yes, of course, it was the wizard what done it.
In this adventure, our stalwart crew is looking for evidence of the dark sorcerer Qwindrak. He’s lurking about; our job is to unlurk him. His dungeon uses the game board’s reverse side, made up of nicely paneled rooms so richly detailed, you’d think you were playing Clue.
The concept of the second quest is that this is a magical mansion with rooms linked by magical portals. We tramped down the stairs to find the first such portal in the first room. The portal had the demonic sigil for “7” scratched on it, and there were no other exits. We’d been told that to travel to another portal, we would have to say the number of our destination and then step through. Stepping through without saying a number has no effect. Stepping through and forgetting the number of the room you really wanted to go to is, well, part of the fun.
The barbarian thought I should go first to check things out, and then he could step in and do the killing. That seemed… bad? Bad, yes. Definitely bad. Nonetheless, I stated in a calm and clear elfin voice, “ONE!” and stepped through to a room full of goblins and orcs. I then stated, in a calm and clear elfin voice, “SEVEN!” and ran away. Turns out using portals twice in one turn causes you to lose a body point, and so I took damage on the very first move, losing the Rock Skin I had just finished casting. So that was useless.
The game went on like that. With the wizard wielding the Wizard’s Staff +1 artifact, he could attack worry free diagonally, while the dwarf and barbarian could try to surround. There was a lot of traffic in the corridor, but mostly we were in each other’s way. My elf, with low health, low damage, and low armor, was very very much in the way. Most of the time I could not get into the melee. The other times, I was running away from mobs I couldn’t tank.
I did loot some gold from a chest. I offered to share, but the rest of the team insisted I buy a crossbow with it so that I could finally contribute. I gratefully accepted. Crossbows are 3 attack dice, line of sight, unlimited range weapons and are a true game changer in the most literal sense.
With everyone running on fumes, we cornered Qwindrak, who, dragon lord-like, transformed into a dragon (a wounded one) but soon fell to wizard spell, dwarf axe, and barbarian blade. Elf watched from the door. But, elf would finally have their moment in the sun when they offered to check out room 2 and was slaughtered trying to run. Died tired, etc.
Dead is dead, and it was a race for other characters to get to my gear before the monsters could. They did, and next game, Lego Lass’s daughter will come along — with crossbow.
In the first campaign, we eventually replaced Barbarian and Wizard with Monk and Rogue. We agreed that the Monk is just too overpowering for a starter campaign, but the Rogue isn’t a solo powerhouse, and so the wizard retires, long live the rogue. The wizard agreed to let another character hand the rogue the wizard’s gold. The elf deducted the cost of a crossbow and split the remainder of the gold amongst the other party members. Elf #2 starts with no gold, but with a crossbow.
I’ve been told which monsters I should be sure to have painted for the next quest 🙂
You might notice the doors in the game are not stock doors. Sean remarked last time that he thought the gray stock doors looked like tombstones. Looking for any excuse to use my 3D printer, I printed new ones in color. When he saw those, Sean said he liked the original ones better…
