Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System Coloured Hero Levelling Cards

Don't know why it's taken me so long to get round to this but here they are - the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System Coloured Hero Levelling Cards:

Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System Single Monster Cards

Drizzt Vs Strahd – The Hunt For Strahd Part 2

Drizzt and Artemis and Vs Count Strahd – The Hunt For Strahd Part 2

We have played a LOT of the D&D Adventure System.  But I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve lost to this scenario.  Actually I can: every time we’ve played it.  But this time we were determined to defeat the evil Count.  So much so, in fact, that we also agreed to follow the adventure book’s advice for when you’re feeling down and take three healing surges with us instead of two.  Two surges is just never enough for this high level scenario.  Especially when you start out a player down.

Drizzt: “This shit just got real yo.”

Artemis: “What?”

Drizzt: “When we finish this Count Drac-...  Strahd off for good, we’re going to go and pummel that stupid red dragon Asharno-Ashnoarad-Ashlonaren-....  Ashley.  We will end him.”

Artemis: “You see, this is why you and I are mortal enemies.  I just can’t stand even the way you speak.  You know, this celebrity team-up is not going to last much longer, I’ll tell you that right now.”

Drizzt: “Shh.  Look, a messenger pigeon.  It’s from Jarlaxle.  It says...

“Dear Guys,

I’m sorry I can’t make it tonight.  I know we agreed we’d kill Count Strahd and end his centuries-long evil reign of tyranny, but I have football tonight.

All the best,

Jar.”

Artemis: “I knew that bastard would let us down.  I told you he would last time when he kept saying his leg was feeling better.”

Drizzt: “Let’s split his treasure.”

We’ve been playing the campaign rules with treasure tokens, which means actual treasures are few and far between but you get to keep them between adventures.  It’s more difficult, but more fun, and kind of balances out in the long term if you can survive.  On the last adventure I actually played Jarlaxle, but since the guy playing Drizzt wasn’t with us last night I took up the mantle of the the Realms’ Greatest Ranger instead and we decided to leave Jar-Jar at home.  Mmzomba loves Artemis so he stuck with the Realms’ Greatest Assassin, who was currently already level 2.

Assembling our powers and treasures we had a good start.  Artemis had some speedy boots which made him run as fast as Drizzt, plus he had a magic sword and a few one shot items.  Drizzt was carrying the Sunsword over from the Sunsword Adventure and had his good friend Guen the panther with him and with our pansified third healing surge we were feeling pretty confident.

As well as destroying Strahd for good, you also need to destroy all his coffins in this adventure.  This is tricky because if you wait until you’ve beaten Strahd you have to waste 10 turns smashing coffins and continue surviving any encounters and monsters left over.  However if you start too early you can have Strahd appear very early on and start munching on you – this is also bad because when you then reveal his lair he heals back to full strength.  So we decided to leave the coffins alone until after roughly the halfway mark before tipping them over and smashing them up good.

The brutalising nature of Castle Ravenloft Encounters never fail to surprise me, especially after a few games of Wrath of Ashardalon, or particularly Drizzt, which are almost friendly by comparison.  Within a few rounds the passage of time was sapping our strength, and every ounce of monster we defeated got discarded as soon as possible to cancel traps and nasty environments.  As usual, whilst beating up the minions we consistently drew “100GP” treasure tokens with nary a treasure card in sight.  But it didn’t matter, we had the Sunsword!

Guen made a guest appearance early on and dived onto a wolf for a tussle, which then promptly killed her.  I couldn’t roll for crap, so every attack Drizzt made with his paltry +6 to hit was a waste of a roll.  Thank goodness for Artemis then, who was plonking drawn monsters down as far away from us as possible.

As we plowed through the blazing skeletons, zombies, rat swarms and human cultists (swapped in from Wrath of Ash for the kobold skirmishers) the attrition kicked in and our hit points dwindled away alarmingly fast.  By the time we started kicking over coffins Strahd appeared in his crypt with a maniacal laugh, and a string of encounter cards saw him popping in and out of shadows, whispering in our ears, firing off fireballs at us and generally messing with our heads.

Artemis had set a conga line of monsters up chasing us from as far away as possible, which bought us a few turns to try and bring the pain on the old vampire lord.  But Strahd has this nasty healing bite which he does.  As quickly as we hacked chunks out of him, he’d heal back up by feeding on our blood.  Out with the Dailies!  We laid down everything we could on him, some of my attacks even landed – and when they did the Sunsword boiled through him with the +1 damage to Vampires.

Due to the layout we couldn’t effectively kite Strahd, and the monster conga was catching up.  Artemis fell into a sliding walls trap and was knocked unconscious.  I hammered away at Strahd and when he reached 5HP I smited him into mist on his own crypt tile.  This meant his next villain phase he merely reformed instead of fighting back.  I thought this meant I’d have a breather but a blazing skeleton rounded the corner and wiped me out with a ball of fire.

Artemis popped back up to his feet with a surge and some more precious HP before running over to Strahd, using his magic longsword to whittle away at the seething count.  The approaching monster horde included a ghoul, a wolf, a spider swarm, and the dreaded grey hag but we couldn’t afford to take our attention away from the count, who was fighting back valiantly.  With another nasty nip he brought Artemis down to 1HP.  I stood up after spending our second surge and redoubled my attacks.

After rolling like a n00b the entire game I cranked out a strong hit followed by a natural 20 which saw Strahd’s arm lopped off shortly followed by his head and a comforting musical chord as Drizzt levelled up.  Slaying villains always gives you a treasure card in our games because there’s nothing like killing a centuries-old vampire and getting a bag of copper pieces.  So I excitedly drew my reward from the combined treasure deck of LoD/Cr/WoA.

A scrimshaw charm – “reroll one die”.  Yay.  It was Strahd’s last laugh.

But then we realised we still needed to destroy 4 coffins, all blocked by an army of incoming minions who were really unhappy to see their landlord obliterated in front of them.  “But we’ve FREED you!” I cried.  To no avail.

We had 1 hit point each and that precious third healing surge between us.

Artemis used his cloak of the bat to race right across the dungeon, through the line of monsters, eviscerating a ghoul en route and landing next to a coffin which he promptly threw open.  A trap!  The poison dart shot out and knocked Artemis unconscious.  Despair set in.  We’d come all this way, killed Strahd, and now we were going to die because of a bunch of trapped sarcophagi??

I seemingly had nowhere to run and was seriously contemplating charging into the middle of the monster swarm to go down in a blaze of glory when Mmzomba pointed out a corridor tile equidistant between monsters which would leave Drizzt unreachable to monster attacks this turn.

Leaping across the monsters in the way I bravely went and hid in the corridor.  Since Artemis was down the monsters started moving towards me instead, and the encounter card for not exploring turned out to be a crippling miasma which slows movement.

Artemis spent our last third surge, stood up and raced to the next coffin, flipping it over and discovering some holy water!  His encounter revealed a gargoyle, which he cleverly placed miles away from anywhere so it would not affect us.  The monsters nearest to him had headed towards me last turn and would slowly but steadily start making their way back towards Artemis now.

Which meant I’d have to charge through them to reach the coffins.  If I ran with a double move I’d reach a tile with two monsters on it, and automatically die from their attacks, so instead I walked over and attacked the spider swarm.  The scrimshaw charm turned my two pathetic misses into one successful hit and the spider swarm went down.  I opened the nearest coffin: empty.  The blazing skeleton and grey hag reached Artemis and laid into him brutally bringing him down to 1 measly hit point.  Again.

Recovering from the attacks, Artemis turned to the monsters with revenge in his eyes and Mmzomba picked up the die to roll.

“No!  Leave them!  Get that last coffin!”  I cried, happily risking waking the baby and thus potentially bringing the wife charging downstairs in a fume.

Reluctantly leaving his quarry, Artemis raced over to the final resting place of Strahd and smashed it up with an angry pair of Boots of Speed, probably destroying the Wooden Stake that was hidden in there.

Victory at last – Strahd was defeated and our heroes were all well and healthy!!  Well.  We had two hit points between us anyway.

We’ d also accrued over 2,000GP so the shopkeeper in Barovia was very happy to see us and Artemis bought a shiny new ring which fired shooting stars.

“Save it for Ashardalon,” Drizzt winked...

Legend of Drizzt Review - Boardgame Review Written by MattDP

Neat review of Legend of Drizzt from our friends over at Fortress Ameritrash:



http://fortressat.com/index.php/articles-boardgame-reviews/2928-legend-of-drizzt-review

'via Blog this'

Legend of Drizzt: Hero Levelling cards for campaign play

Legend of Drizzt: Hero Levelling cards for campaign play

The following are the Levelling Hero cards for the Heroes of Legend of Drizzt.  They are for use with the Dungeons and Dragons Adventures System campaign rules which can be found here:

http://ratdorg.blogspot.com/p/index.html

Thanks to Malone76 and GeckoTH for the templates!

Legend of Drizzt, Artemis and Jarlaxle vs Count Strahd of Castle Ravenloft

Drizzt, Artemis and Jarlaxle vs Count Strahd

And since I can't find an image of Drizzt Vs. Strahd, here's an image of Drizzt Vs. Red Sonja instead:

From the moment LoD was announced I always liked the idea of taking Drizzt Do’Urden up against Count Strahd in his Castle to see what happens.  For our group the setting of Castle Ravenloft is always the most interesting and exciting to return to.  Thematically it wins out over Wrath of Ashardalon and Legend of Drizzt, and in terms of difficulty you have ridiculously tough encounters that really paste the heroes over time, combined with standard monsters like the Wraith which casually spit out THREE damage at a time.  Much more intimidating than WOA or LOD.

Drizzt and Artemis were quickly chosen as heroes by me fellow adventuring buddies, and picking through the leftovers I thought I’d give Jarlaxle a try.  So, you know, don’t go looking for any narrative justification of our hero choices here.

It’s worth mentioning that we always use the Treasure Token rules from Wrath of Ashardalon which can seriously handicap your heroes, especially in the early adventures.  Basically instead of drawing a normal treasure card you usually end up drawing a measly 100 gold when you kill a monster (always draw treasure cards for beating villains though).  When you do finally draw a treasure, even if it’s just a Potion of Healing, you end up dancing a little jig at the prospect.  After each adventure you draw three treasures and may buy one with your haul of gold pieces.  Usually this results in the untimely murder of all the heroes after one or two adventures.  But if you do survive you can start building up your hero over the adventures, which is really satisfying.

Our favourite mini campaign is the triptych of the ‘Search for the Sunsword’ Adventure followed by the ‘Hunt for Strahd Parts 1 & 2’.  Search for the Sunsword eases you in nicely and you also get a cool boost – the Sunsword - when you beat it for taking on the next two adventures as the difficulty quickly spikes upwards.  Usually.

Last night we staggered into the crypts looking for Sergei’s Tomb and the fabled Sunsword.  Or half of it anyway.  For some reason we already had half of the sword, and for another reason we didn’t know who had the half that we already had...  had.  In any case spirits were high as we laughed about our mighty powers and Drizzt called in Guen the friendly panther straight away.  We shouted down the passageways at any hidden monsters, goading and verbally abusing the poor, restless dead as they awoke from their coffins and meandered towards us.

Things started off okay, as they always do, a little bit of damage here and there from monsters and nasty encounters with pseudopods and angry butlers and some gone off food which had become sentient.  Artemis went exploring and then throwing the revealed monsters for miles so that they’d never bother us – particularly useful against Gargoyles which he can place back on the empty start tile where they just resume their stone forms and sit there.

Then Drizzt decided to start rolling low, like really low.  And before we realised it, the monsters started stacking up and duplicate monsters came pouring out of the endless tunnels.  As the duplicate monsters activated, their monster friends whom Artemis had thrown back to the start tile began to catch up and before long we were running around fighting for our lives, wishing we’d brought a cleric along for some healing, cursing the stupid treasure token rules and getting generally pummelled and pinballed between monsters all over the dungeon.

Soon enough the 4XP Grey Hag (sitting inside the card sleeve of a Wraith) reared her ugly head from the monster deck and started moaning and throwing lightning at us, Drizzt got immobilised on her tile by a trap – but crucially not adjacent to her, as Jarlaxle I had spent every last utlity, daily and treasure I had, and Guen got taken out by a malicious fireball from a Blazing Squad (Skeleton).

Artemis was faring a little better and managed to level up after throwing a natural 20, then following it with two more natural 20s just to show off, but his misplaced monsters had all but caught up and after Drizzt hit the dirt we had to spend a healing surge.  This caused a Young Vampire Villain to appear and start waffling at us with theatrical gesticulations and amateur dramatics level direlogue about how we were powerful, but not that powerful, etc.

Rolling his eyes at the Vampire’s theatrics, and with just a handful of HP left Artemis found Sergei’s Crypt and grabbed the Sunsword.  Quickly realising it would be more effective in Drizzt’s multi-attacking hands he begrudgingly handed it over.  And then began the race back to the stairway where a frozen Gargoyle sat, waiting to attack.

Our feet beating stone we legged it back through the dungeon, some of us more quickly than others – hello Speed 7 Drizzt.  Piling onto the Gargoyle we took him down with a flurry of blows and then formed up on the stairway together.  A wandering Ghoul and some nasty friends (baffled discussion arose here: spider is ‘vermin’, but rat swarm is ‘animal’?) charged us at the stairway whilst the Young Vampire could be heard mincing and waltzing through the dungeon somewhere in the near distance.

We fended off the monsters’ attacks and Drizzt’s turn came around, since he was stood on the stairway with the Sunsword we were able to dash up the stairs and back out into the safety of daylight – a victory!

Our slim pickings had procured us a few hundred gold and we nipped back to Barovia for supplies from the moody townsfolk.

“One single Healing Potion?  That’s all we can afford?” spat Jarlaxle. 

“Be thankful we can afford even that, thanks to your pitiful efforts,” snarled Artemis.

“Can’t we all just get along, guys?  Group hug?” beamed Drizzt.

Counting our blessings that we even finished the adventure, we prepped ourselves for part one of the showdown, dubious of the fact that we’d have to take down Strahd’s Villain henchmen before we can even approach the man himself.  Considering we’d literally just run away from a weedy little Young Vampire and barely survived things were looking grim.  Artemis was level 2 and had his precious extra Daily power, but we were actually lower on treasures than we were before the first adventure.

Holding our breaths we descended once again into the crypts...

Relatively more cautious in our approach we sneaked about, concentrating on trying to take monsters out where possible instead of blindly exploring ahead.  A run of black tiles saw us fetch up many of the quest items quickly (Wooden Stakes, Silver Daggers, etc.) but also gave us a nasty run of encounters.  Constantly fighting enemies to keep our experience pile stocked for encounter cancelling we stumbled into the Arcane Circle where Strahd’s henchman awaited.

The Zombie Dragon.  We decided to stop exploring until we could take him out.  Artemis, having the most HP and feeling the most confident whilst boasting of his Parry and Strike power, went toe to toe with Strahd’s pet.  Meanwhile Drizzt, Guen and Jarlaxle circled the beast, taking potshots and collecting the remaining quest items, including the currently useless Dimensional Shackles (although in a distant room somewhere, Klak began to cack himself).

Throwing a hissy fit at the sniping heroes, the Zombie Dragon snarled and took a swipe at a passing Guen and sent her back to her home plane of existence.

“Nooo!” squeaked Drizzt.  Despite wanting to save our dailies for Strahd we instead decided to run in and blow them all on the Dragon.  Clouds of Darkness engulfed the poor thing as Drizzt used Twin Strikes, Artemis duelled it with his magic longsword, and then Jarlaxle launched a bracer of daggers at the beast, spectacularly missing it by miles.  Eventually the undead monstrosity went down and we tottered away from its spasm-throwing body.

Collecting our breath, with Drizzt and Jarl on low HP, Artemis explored the next tile only to discover the Secret Stairway where Strahd awaited.  A string of events summoned a human cultist to his side (we swap the cultists from WOA for the Kobolds of CR) and the bloody unwelcome Grey Hag appeared again too.

With resources low and HP lower we set about alternately attacking the Count and his allies.  With no powers left my attacks against him were going to be pretty ineffectual on account of the Vampire’s healing ability so I took aim at his cultist minion and launched a dagger into its cowled head.  As luck would have it I drew a Treasure Token with ‘Treasure’ on it, which meant I could actually draw a treasure card this time.  After my little “yay, a treasure” jig I performed an even bigger jig when the Dragontooth Pick (or Dragon Toothpick) turned up: +1 to hit and +1 damage if you roll 19+.

Drizzt and Artemis laid into Strahd and started well enough, especially since we only needed to get him down to 5HP before he turns into mist and we win this scenario (you only get to properly ‘kill’ him in part 2).  But our XP had dried up and the Crushing Walls trap came into effect followed by another series of ingenious traps.

Sidenote: every time we fight Strahd we get hammered by Traps in the final confrontation.  Every time.  I’m sure the encounter deck knows when we find him.  Anyway...

Dodging sliding walls and crossbow bolts we continued to fight the good fight and Artemis with his higher fancy shmancy Level 2 Hit Points drew the Count’s attention for the most part whilst Jarl and Drizzt chipped away at him.  After a few misses the Count eventually got a grip on Artemis and began to drain his blood.  Soon he was no longer the hero with the highest HP which meant the Count turned his attention to Jarl and Drizzt.  Activating after every one of our turns meant that the damage we dealt him started to heal when he struck back.

Soon we were fighting a losing battle, and when the Passage of Time encounter card turned up we all dropped down to 1 or 2 Hit Points each.  Grinning through bloodstained teeth the Count redoubled his attacks and took Drizzt out.  Jarlaxle attacked back valiantly and then the Count took him out too, before turning on a suddenly lonely Artemis.

We took a pause in the action to appraise the situation and allow our pulsing heart rates to subside a little.  We rolled up our sleeves, wiped our brows and pressed on.

Artemis attacked Strahd and hit, Strahd was down to 7HP (effectively 2HP because we only needed to get him down to 5).

Strahd and the Hag attacked back and brought Artemis down to 1HP, whilst healing Strahd back up to an effective 3HP.

Jarlaxle spent a surge and stood up, swung for Strahd and rolled a natural 1.  Strahd fought back along with a nasty encounter and Jarlaxle went down to 1HP.  Strahd now on 4HP.

Drizzt spent the last surge and stood up, swung for Strahd twice and hit him once with the Sunsword, bringing him back down to 2HP.  Strahd and the Hag and encounter fought back and Drizzt went down – on Drizzt’s next turn we would now lose.

Artemis attacked Strahd and inflicted 1 damage.  Strahd, Jarl and Artemis stood on (effectively) one Hit Point each.  Strahd attacked Artemis and missed.

All eyes on Jarlaxle.

Strahd has a ridiculous 19AC.  Wielding the Toothpick I’d need an 11 to win the game.  If I failed it would be Drizzt’s turn and we’d lose the game instantly.

50/50 chance (about 25/75 when you factor in my terrible dice rolling ’skills’).

Real life Drizzt decided at that very second he needed to go to the bathroom.

Artemis and I sat in silence and waited for his return.

Drizzt came back.

Sat down.

You could hear a pin drop.

So I rolled.

And this song has been stuck in my head ever since:

The Hunt for Strahd Part 2 to follow next week....

Dungeons & Dragons Castle Ravenloft Adventure Database | BoardGameGeek

For those of you not already on BGG (and you should be!) this is a great resource for finding and rating official and unofficial scenarios for the D&D games. Plus one more vote and my own Kobold Wars adventure will enter the rankings too... ;)

Dungeons & Dragons Castle Ravenloft Adventure Database | BoardGameGeek:



'via Blog this'

Legend of Drizzt: Hero Levelling cards for campaign play

For use with the D&D Adventures System campaign rules:

Thanks to Malone76 and GeckoTH for the templates!

Legend of Drizzt – 2 player session report

Unable to wait for friends to play with I broke open Legend of Drizzt and played about ten solo games after picking it up from my FLGS a couple of days ago.  Winning every game led me to believe that the heroes are a tad stronger in this title than in Castle Ravenloft or Wrath of Ashardalon (and they are).

So when Mmzomba dropped round last night for a gaming session with his brand new copy of Game of Thrones: LCG (boy, are our fingers on the pulse or what?) we contemplated for about 3 seconds which title to play.  Our third player didn’t turn up because he had some kind of ‘date’ with his ‘girlfriend’ - poor lad needs to sort his priorities out.  So we opted for a night of intensive 2-player dungeoneering over political wrangling, intriguing and power token challenging.  Or whatever.  (Still want to try GOT: LCG btw, TV show rocked, made me buy the book, read the prologue, remembered how I never have the time to read books anymore...)

Since Mmzomba plumped for Artemis Entreri we skipped the adventure where Artemis is the baddie and started with the Shimmergloom adventure, i.e.  ‘Find the shadow dragon Shimmergloom, rip his heart out and then show it to him as he dies’ or something along those lines.  If he was going to play the coolest character from the books then I’d obviously have to play the second coolest...

Mmzomba began to grow dubious early on when in my first turn as Drizzt I summoned his pet panther Gwuenwhueevhuarrrarrrer, went into Last Blood Stance drew a monster, jumped forward and chopped said monster into bits and grabbed the treasure spilling from its guts, then had Guen come over and eat the leftovers.

Artemis wandered the caverns, revealing monsters and using his batshit crazy ability to place them on any tile, whilst Drizzt jumped around going “hi-YAH!” and murdering the poor things.  When I finally missed two attack rolls in a row against a measly goblin Mmzomba’s eyes lit up at the prospect of being able to finally attack something.  But Guen jumped over and swallowed the cowering little archer in one gulp.

By the time we reached the Dark Chasm goal tile we’d stocked up on treasures, healed the few injuries we’d taken, Artemis had killed a couple of beasties too (by deliberately placing them away from Drizzt so he could get there first), and we’d both commented on how the new tiles and encounters had great little evocative effects on them.  Volcanic vents igniting lava, narrow tunnels suffocating movement, a hidden tunnel providing short cuts, a secret cave giving reprieve from encounters, a campsite offering temporary safety.  We also learnt to get rid of Lolth’s Curses as soon as possible.  Said Curses only affect you once each time in solo play, but with more than one player they can rapidly start to dish out the damage if you don’t manage them effectively.

Even so, as Drizzt and Mr Entreri sauntered into Shimmergloom’s lair there was only one creature in the Underdark quaking with fear.  The poor dragon put up a meagre defence as we leapt in and tore him a new one.  With two untouched healing surges and maybe 4 HP damage between us it was a relatively unchallenged victory.

After discussing possibly house-ruling Drizzt to one attack per turn we quickly decided to put Mr D’O and Mr E to one side for the time being.  Instead we took Bruenor and Catti-Brie on the quest to save Wulfgar from Errtu the big nasty Balrog who isn’t really a Balrog because his sword is made of lightning not fire, see?

This was a much closer game.  After laughing confidently about our incredible hero powers we ventured forth into the dungeon only to have a Feral Troll appear and start wind-milling its gigantic arms at us.  Catti-Brie ran off and continued exploring whilst Bruenor was beaten to the floor by a rather exciting NINE HP of damage from 3 consecutive Troll attacks.  Spitting a tooth and wiping his mouth, Bruenor got back to his feet and snarled at the troll, “That all you got?”

Then, in a flurry of blows and curses Bruenor brought the troll to its knees before sending its head whirling into the Underdark.  There’s basically no point attacking a troll unless you’re going to take it down fast.  Troll regeneration in LoD is nasty.  And in a two player game they activate every turn, like a villain, so you really have to take it down if one appears.  If two appear together, well, time to go home really.

We ploughed on and when the “Secret Cave: Spa and Hotel Retreat TM” appeared (which stops you from having encounters whilst you’re on it) we made good use of it, Catti-Brie even discovering a Hidden Tunnel that would lead us there and back when we needed it.  As Bruenor finally found the Crystal Shard objective tile Catti was well behind and still discovering tiles but our HP was running low.  Bruenor’s healing Dwarven Ale had long ago been consumed, but a lucky encounter with some moaning spirits had provided him with a Blinding pair of Bracers which allowed him an extra attack each turn.

Errtu the bigass demon appeared, snarled and stalked towards Bruenor swinging its sword and whip.  Catti meanwhile opened up a narrow corridor from which Dinin the Drider emerged.  Quickly realising she was not remotely equipped to tackle the 3HP Drider, Catti ran away and hid in the Secret Cave which meant that the Drider scuttled over at a pace towards the already beleaguered Bruenor.

Realising I was going to be attacked multiple times by two of the toughest enemies I had to decide who to take down first.  Errtu was blocking the path towards Wulfgar, who was trapped in the crystal prison, so I couldn’t free him as an ally and get his help.  But the Drider would keep chipping away at me until I took him and Errtu down.  So I turned my attention to Dinin the Drider.  With a mighty axe swing, a nifty application of one of Bruenor’s Power Strike tokens (+1 damage) and a desperate Headbutt, Dinin the Drider collapsed into a heap of wiggling spider legs.  His treasure was the Girdle/Belt of Storm Giant Strength (+2 damage on adjacent hits).  This is LoD’s ‘Holy Avenger’ or ‘Captain America Shield’.  Awesome.

Sprinting away and strapping on his new belt Bruenor turned to face the demon.  Catti considered exploring because she didn’t want to feel left out, but was also too far away to help battle the demon.  So she revealed a new tile along with a Goblin Archer, took a shot at him with her bow, missed, and got taken down in a hail of goblin arrows.

Errtu stalked after Bruenor and bellowed some curses about Drizzt, who incidentally wasn’t there anyway.  Psyching himself up Bruenor charged the demon and attacked repeatedly.  With a natural 20 level up, using up his remaining power tokens, and by applying the power of the Giant’s Belt and Blinding Bracers, Bruenor started hacking big chunks out of the demon.  The demon struck back repeatedly but Brunoer held.  Catti spent a healing surge to get back up after the goblin’s attacks and shot the little critter through the eyes.

Then Bruenor took his axe in both hands and leapt at Errtu.  With a mighty swing the dwarf’s axe put paid to Errtu’s retirement plans and the demon fell to his knees, looking the dwarf in the eyes.  As a final insult Bruenor stepped forward and head-butted Errtu in the face.  The demon squealed and clutched its broken nose, before falling back over and expiring.

Blowing through all our collected XP to keep encounters at bay we legged it to the crystal shard and smashed it apart setting Wulfgar free and winning the game.

No healing surges left and about 4HP between us this was indeed a much closer session.

And for our final game we played Athrogate and Jarlaxle defending Mithril Hall against the invasion of Matron Baenre and her relentless armies.  This adventure uses the fixed cavern setup and is pretty cool, although you’ll have to fudge some of the encounter events.  For example, I drew a “draw a tile and place it, then put your hero on it” event which would have effectively taken me out of the game straight away.

Basically, running around smashing up fissures to collapse them, and then defending against the monsters coming through the open fissures is the order of the day here.  Whilst I as Jarlaxle was intent that we get the fissures closed as a priority, Athrogate wanted to fight stuff instead.  Which meant monsters kept emerging and keeping us back from our ultimate objective.  And when Lolth’s servant, that nasty Matron Mother arrived we were immediately put under enormous pressure having to deal with her, the encounters she potentially reveals, the monsters pouring through the fissures, and having to destroy the final two open fissures.

Athrogate’s morning star ‘Cracker’ led to an interesting rules situation as it inflicts a -4 AC on baddies.  So can you just keep doing this until you bring a Villain’s AC to zero?  We house-ruled, “no, that would be silly.”  But then I had the Dark Fire ability too, which also brings an enemy’s AC down by 4.  So could I use this in addition to Athrogate’s Cracker and bring the villain’s AC down by 8?  We house-ruled, “no, that would also be silly”.  So I used it on a water elemental instead.  The poor thing died soon after.

After much fighting, running and swearing, eventually Athrogate manged to close the final fissure and Jarlaxle nuked a bunch of underlings with a careful blast of the Lightning Wand.  Then it was just us and the Matron.  She chopped us down a couple of times and poisoned us both, so we spent a healing surge or two before bringing her to her knees and then bashing her skull in.  At that point it was game over, midnight, 3 victories under out belts, and an end to the evening.

Loads of fun and lots to enjoy in this game: cool tile effects, really thematic implementation of hero abilities and monster/villain skills and card and tile effects.  We both felt like there was more to do as the heroes, more options and decisions to make about how to use stances and powers.  Even some strategy about which tiles to move to, and some negating of kiting tactics by monsters who don’t care for kiting heroes (hello teleporting Drow Wizard).  But a huge leap in favour of the heroes in general I feel.  Clearly the designers wanted the Companions of the Hall to be kickarse, and it shows.  I really want to send Drizzt up against Strahd next and see how he fares.  But that adventure belongs to another day...

Legend of Drizzt – Early Solo Impressions

Prelude:

The D&D Adventure System (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, Legend of Drizzt) provides a brilliant and fast dungeoneering ‘hit’ for those of us with no time or inclination to read and write and learn and play D&D anymore.  That it’s coop is just the icing on the cake because no one has to play the Morcar/Zargon/Overlord role and everyone gets to kick monster arse.  Though we’ve modded the hell out of this system and introduced campaign rules, events, new scenarios, heroes and monsters, etc I’m going back to basics for the purpose of this review so it’s just the game as it is.

What is it?

In case you tripped over and landed here without having read another thread before, Legend of Drizzt is a cooperative board game where you and your mates play fantasy heroes who go around bullying monsters, breaking into their homes, and killing all their friends and children before stealing all their stuff.  Ethically dubious, ridiculously fun.

How does it play?

Flip a tile, place a monster, have an encounter, take a hit, move your hero, roll a die, kill the monster, claim its XP, take a treasure, repeat, and either a) complain vociferously and then break out some meeples instead, or b) marvel in the beautiful simplicity of the unfolding story and delight in your hero’s progression through the adventure as the tension escalates into an epic showdown.

What are the bits like?

Ace.  Awesome minis, beautiful tiles (better than CR/WOA), the traps now have art on them too.  Tons of cards and tokens and a massive box to fit it all in.  Plus a massive demon that barely fits in the box too.  Make sure you use the hot/cold water treatment on any bent minis to get them back into shape in a jiffy.

What’s new to the D&D Adventure System?

Not much to be fair.  This is pretty much exactly the same game as Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon.  If you didn’t like either of those games for whatever reason, this is not going to correct any issues you had with them.  It’s more of the same but with different packaging.  If you liked the previous games then you’re in for a treat, because every card, power, mini, tile and token is brimming with fresh new goodness, new encounters, monsters, heroes, treasures, villains, basically everything.

Heroes.  In Legend of Drizzt the focus is on the Heroes and their powers, which make up most of the cards you get with the game.  Because the villains from RA Salvatore’s books are so popular you get to play a couple of them as heroes too.  So having Artemis fight alongside Drizzt is pretty sweet.  But the various adventures will also give you the opportunity to fight against Artemis (and Jarlaxle) as villains, which is also cool.

It’s fair to say that the Heroes in this set are considerably more powerful than the previous two games.  After playing the introductory solo adventure “Exile” with every new Hero once each I haven’t lost a game.  It only came close once with Wulfgar, when I accidentally shuffled the objective tile (the Surface tile) into the rest of the stack and only noticed when there were 13 new tiles in play (there should have been a max of 8), hordes of monsters and encounters going off, and no sign of the exit.  Even then when I corrected the error and placed the Surface exit, I still managed to fight my way out and win.

Drizzt, of course, is a total power house.  Attacking twice per turn instead of the usual one attack is tough enough, but he also has a Stance ability which allows him to move and attack in the villain phase.  Meaning any new 1HP monsters which appear are also likely to disappear in the same instance.  And having his pet panther Guen turn up to eat the bad guys helps too.  I finished the Exile adventure with him having lost only 3HP by the end.

Off the back of this I decided to take Drizzt solo into the first “2-5 Heroes” Adventure.  The goal is to find an item (the Crown) and then kill Artemis Entreri.  Drizzt was able to do this without having to spend one healing surge.  This could be an expected run of luck for the first couple of easier scenarios so we’ll see how it pans out when we’re going up against bosses like Errtu further down the line.

Like the previous games, where adventures say “2-5 Heroes” you can easily take in just 1 Hero for a greater challenge in solo play.  Add in an extra surge or two if you’re really struggling.

How is it better than CR/WOA?

Mini villains.  Trolls, Driders and a truly nasty teleporting Drow Wizard can turn up just from the monster deck.  So just when you’re enjoying a nice run of goblins and spiders, some big bastard will unexpectedly turn up and start pounding you into the floor.

Monster AI.  The monsters have a nice mix of tactics once again, drawing more from WOA than CR, so you have goblin archers who cower when adjacent, and trolls who regenerate, or spirits who lure your heroes in from afar.

Monster deck events.  These aren’t major, but there are a couple of sorely needed cards in the monster deck which mix things up and either give you a break altogether, or double the monster presence in the new tile.

Treasure deck balancing.  Fortunes are back, and they’re welcome!  Whilst mostly items, the LoD treasure deck gives you a number of fortunes too, which will heal heroes, restore powers, remove nasty encounters and similar.  Mix the three games’ treasure decks together now and you have a nice balance of items and fortunes.  So, not necessarily an improvement on the previous games, but I nice balanced mix.

Turbo Heroes!  This again?  Yes.  The Companions of the Hall are bringing mad skills with them.  Criticisms about the game are being answered in unusual ways it seems.  So people who complained about monsters always getting the jump on them can now play Catti-Brie or Drizzt, and start moving and/or acting during the villain phase with their new powers.  Whilst it’s not really changing the rules of the game (which I think some would prefer) the designers are still going out of their way to meet these player demands.  The new heroes play very differently from the previous games, and are more powerful.  Poor Kat the Rogue from CR will be suspicious by her absence, and not because she’s hiding in shadows.  You have loads of options with the cool new Stance powers to go offensive, defensive, healing, moving and generally mucking about with the usual turn order.  They’re pretty thematically integrated from the books’ characters too, considering it’s an otherwise fairly light game.

Tile effects.  This is one of my favourite touches, and something that came up a lot in previous discussions about the game.  Some tiles are narrow passages which reduce the AC of monsters and heroes on that tile, some have volcanic vents on them which can potentially damage heroes with a bad encounter card draw, some tiles have 1 square-wide areas to move through like the chasm and bridge.  Also the tile art is vastly improved too.  I never had a real problem with the previous games’ tile art but LoD has the best by far, the jigsaw sections now fit together ‘properly’ too because of the new design leaving no ‘black jutting into art’ bits.  The special tiles look great, and you get 3 extra big showdown tiles like the start tile.  These function kind of like the Chambers from WOA.

Competitive Adventures.  For those that want them.  It’s an extra dimension to the gameplay, but not the most successful for this ostensibly cooperative game (see below).

How is it worse than CR/WOA?

Easier?  Bear in mind that these are first impressions, but these new Heroes are hard as nails and leave the CR/WOA Heroes wanting.  Looking through the LoD villains and new scenarios there don’t appear to be any highly dangerous challenges for them either.  Even the Balrog - sorry Balor – is only a 5XP villain and doesn’t seem like he’ll put up too much of a fight.

Lack of Campaign play.  Whilst Wrath of Ashardalon offered progression from CR towards campaign play with the excellent Treasure Tokens rules and the linked adventures in the scenario book, LoD has disappointingly done away with this again.  Prices for Treasures are still included on the cards to provide backwards compatibility with WOA but that’s your lot.

Competitive Adventures.  These are a nice touch and I’ve seen variants leaning towards this kind of game play, so it’s a personal preference but these games shine in the cooperative scenarios and I don’t see the competitive adventures receiving as much replay value.  For competitive play you could easily break out plenty of other games in this genre and get the DM role going again instead.

Adventure Design Innovation.  Most of the new coop adventures are ‘find the boss and kill it’, which is fun enough, but it would have been nice to mix things up a bit more. 

If I only get one of the three games, which should it be?

Well, none of them are mutually exclusive and really you should be getting all three, preferably in the order that they were released.  But for me this is mainly a question of theme:

Are you a fan of crypts, undead, vampires and/or Ravenloft?  Castle Ravenloft.

Do you prefer the ‘classic’ D&D adventure archetypes of Heroes fighting orcs and dragons?  Wrath of Ashardalon.

Or are you mental for Drizzt and co and have all of RA Salvatore’s books?  Legend of Drizzt.

In terms of the game itself:

Castle Ravenloft gives you monster tokens, the most interesting quests and is potentially the most difficult of the three games.

Wrath of Ashardalon gives you campaign rules, big chambers for boss battles, doors, allies, more interesting monsters, and is marginally easier than CR.
Legend of Drizzt gives you super heroes, super villain/heroes, treasure chests, competitive adventures and big bloody trolls that can just show up from the monster deck, also seems the easiest of the three at first impression.

What has the Gears Of War board game got to do with anything?

It’s a space man game with space aliens and space guns set in space*.  Another cooperative minis game often compared to the D&D AS.  It allegedly has more devious AI because instead of drawing a card and getting a random monster from a choice of around 10 types you draw a card and get a random monster from a choice of 3 types.  But that monster will randomly attack you in different ways so you’ll need to spend the whole game hiding like a coward under every table or couch that your space man will see.

* Kind of.

Warhammer Quest?

Beautiful, aging game which is very fiddly, and plays much longer than the D&D Adventure System, and takes longer to set up and take down.  Also needs lots of pen and paper management.  WHQ has superb campaign rules which the D&D AS could learn from and simplify though.

Descent/HeroQuest/Advanced HeroQuest/D&D Adventure Game/Supero Dungeono Exploreo/Etc.

These games all require one of you to sit alone as a baddie and watch telly or read a book whilst you get shafted by the rest of your mates for the whole game.  Win and they’ll resent you, lose and they’ll respect you less.  Kidding of course (a bit), but they’re not fully cooperative games so don’t really do what the D&D AS does.

Is it any good?

Hell yeah - quit reading and get buying!  It’s so quick to set up and play through you find yourself hooked into more and more adventures and time just flies.  And the various community content on BGG is incredible, not to mention the support and new adventures from WOTC.

This is one of the best solo games in my collection and rivals LOTR:LCG in that respect.

The Legend of Drizzt Design & Development by Peter Lee

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Legend of Drizzt): "The Legend of Drizzt
Design & Development"


'via Blog this'

he Legend of Drizzt™ Board Game is the newest addition to the Adventure System. In this Design & Development article, you'll see what's new in this follow-up to Castle Ravenloft™ and Wrath of Ashardalon™.

Heroes and Villains

One of the first requirements of an Adventure System game is a cast of characters. I wanted The Legend of Drizzt Board Game to be a celebration of the entire line of novels written by R. A. Salvatore, so the Champions of the Hall were obvious choices for the players' Heroes.
Each Hero must be exciting to play, because players interact with the Heroes more than any other aspect of the game. Having Heroes based off characters from the novels requires that the characters feel right. Drizzt is a whirlwind of flashing blades, while Regis skulks around and explores nooks and crannies.
To illustrate the best fighters, three of the heroes have a new mechanic: stances. A stance is a choice you make that allows your abilities to shift throughout the game. Bruenor can hide behind his shield, or forgo defense to hustle into battle. Cattie-Brie can be extremely accurate or extremely deadly.
The villains of the novels are nearly as important as the heroes, so characters such as Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle Baenre needed to appear. Choosing the secondary villains was much harder. I first needed to figure out what monsters the heroes would battle in the game.

Multitude of Monsters

Drizzt has fought a ton of monsters, so I had a lot of choice in selecting the creatures to include in the game. Although drow were an easy addition, it was much tougher to figure out the rest of the foes to include. My first instinct was to add King Obould and his horde of orcs, but we just introduced orcs in Ashardalon. Instead, we went with goblins, which provide a nice counterpoint to the drow and serve the entire Adventure Series well.
After selecting the Monsters, I made changes to the Monster deck. One comment about Castle Ravenloft was that the Monster deck is too predictable: explore a tile, place a monster. In The Legend of Drizzt, we included a few Monsters that don't appear exactly three times in the deck. This change allowed me to include a few large miniatures that aren't villains. It felt right for Drizzt to turn the corner to discover a lumbering troll or drider. Also, for the first time, the Monster deck includes events. Instead of always discovering one monster, you can find a hunting party of monsters or no monsters at all.

The Underdark

Many of the iconic locations in R. A. Salvatore's novels are in the Underdark, so I felt the majority of the game's Adventures should be set there. This setting required a new style of art for the tiles.
In Wrath of Ashardalon, we introduced a few tiles that had game mechanics, such as the Long Hallway. Since one of the core elements of this game is exploration, in The Legend of Drizzt, I added even more mechanics to tiles. The simplest tiles, such as the Long Hallway or Secret Cave, introduce small benefits or disadvantages. Other tiles, such as the Volcanic Vent, don't have explicit rules on the tile, but they have links to the Encounter deck that triggers an effect.

First Time Play

It can be daunting to sit down to play an Adventure System game for the first time. One way we helped the first-time player was to divide the card decks into a starting version and an advanced version. Most of the people reading this article can dive straight into the advanced version, but if you're teaching new players, the starting deck helps.
Alternate Ways to Play
For this third release of the Adventure System, I wanted to provide alternate ways to play the game. The villains in R.A. Salvatore's novels are compelling characters, so I introduced competitive play through Artemis, Jarlaxle, and Athrogate to support the stories and offer new mechanics.
The competitive Adventures feature some exciting events that occur in the novel line. One such adventure features Artemis, Drizzt, and Cattie-brie escaping from the Underdark. Artemis has no obligation to keep the renegade drow alive, but Drizzt offers some protection. In other words, Artemis doesn't have to outrun the Monsters, just Drizzt and Cattie-brie.
In addition, a few adventures don't include an exploration mechanic. Instead, you build a set of caves and try to stop waves of Monsters. In the Adventure featuring the drow's attack on Mithral Hall, the heroes must close off the tunnels that the Monsters are using. In another adventure, the Heroes are simply trying to defeat the most Monsters in a competitive way.

A Final Anecdote

At GenCon this year, I was lucky enough to show this game to R. A. Salvatore. We didn't have a lot of time, so I chose the Heros' powers so we could start playing immediately. Bob played Regis, and he spent much of the second half of the game darting in and out of the Secret Cave, a tile where you draw no Encounter cards. At one point, another Hero was hit with the Fall through the Cracks event, a card that removes your Hero from play until the start of your next turn, at which point you emerge on the start tile. Bob remarked that it was the perfect card for Regis! I then happily pointed out Regis's Hide utility power card, which does something very similar. It was a long road to get the Heroes to feel like the characters from the novels, but I think the effort was well spent.

Legend of Drizzt - Interview With Peter Lee

Diehard GameFAN | Interview With Peter Lee of Wizards of the Coast About the Legend of Drizzt Board Game: "Interview With Peter Lee of Wizards of the Coast About the Legend of Drizzt "

'via Blog this'

The Legend of Drizzt video preview

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs9t-QGw6KY&feature=youtu.be


Rodney Thompson - Tabletop Games Manager at Wizards of the Coast - talks about The Legend of Drizzt: A board game which features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and cooperative game play for up to 5 players. Take on the role of the legendary drow ranger or one of his famous adventuring companions, battle fearsome foes, and win treasure and glory.

Legend of Drizzt fan cartoon - Road to Mithril Hall - YouTube

Road to Mithril Hall - YouTube:

Legend of Drizzt fan cartoon - pretty cool actually...

'via Blog this'

October: Legend of Drizzt Board Game Preview

From the original article here:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pr/20110906

October: Legend of Drizzt Board Game

Continuing the D&D Adventure System of boardgames (following Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon), players can now take on the role of the legendary drow ranger or one of his famous adventuring companions, battle fearsome foes, and win treasure and glory.
As far as these famed companions go, you'll be able to play as Catti-Brie (human archer), Regis (halfling rogue), Bruenor Battlehammer (dwarf fighter), Wulfar (human barbarian), and Athrogate (dwarf battleranger)—as well as Artemis Entreri (assassin) or Jarlaxle Baenre (drow mercenary). And of course, there's the option to play as dual-scimitar wielding Drizzt Do'urden:

For those of you familiar with past D&D Adventure System games, Legend of Drizzt plays just as similarly—except that the dungeon tiles represent the caverns filled with the monsters, traps, and tricks you'd expect in the dark corners of the Underdark. Various scenarios pit you against yochlols, mind flayers, Yvonnel Baenre the drow matron mother, Shimmergloom the shadow dragon, and Errtu the Balor—as well as Artemis and Jarlaxle (that's right, available as both members of your adventuring party or as your party's foes):

Legend of Drizzt New Images!

Drizzt:

 Artemis:

Fortunes are back:

Legend Of Drizzt Board Game Peter Lee interview

Exclusive Dungeons & Dragons Legend Of Drizzt Board Game Preview Video - G4tv.com

Legend of Drizzt Promo Photo

From: Neverwinter

A cooperative game for 1–5 players based on the New York Times best-selling adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden.

The adventures of Drizzt Do'Urden, as told in the New York Times best-selling Forgotten Realms novels by R.A. Salvatore, come to life in this thrilling board game. Take on the role of the legendary drow ranger or one of his famous adventuring companions, battle fearsome foes, and win treasure and glory.

Designed for 1–5 players, this board game features multiple scenarios, challenging quests, and cooperative game play. The contents of this game can also be combined with other D&D Adventure System Cooperative Play board games, including Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon, to create an even more exciting experience.