D&D Telemundo: Buzz Buzz Watch That Trap!

(Editor’s Note: Today’s post comes from my buddy Daniel, who played with me in the last season of D&D Encounters. This season, he’s taking over.)

I have recently started the new season of D&D Encounters. I am a week late, but that is due to a blizzard we had in the Midwest. I am playing my hand at being an official Dungeon Master since the previous Dungeon Master wanted to spend more time with his family or some nonsense like that (Editor’s Note: That would be me. *Mark).  I came into this season with an idea. I participated in the last season of encounters and noticed we didn’t get many magic items nor did we face much of a challenge.  I wanted to up the ante in the difficulty and in doing so, award magic items. I also created two additional characters; a Hexblade and a Scout in order to encourage more class exposure.

*WARNING: ENCOUNTERS SPOILERS AHEAD*

So what happens when you go off the Encounters path? Eh… not much this time.  I only had five players this session, so I didn’t have much to alter it much.  My group consisted of 3 kids and 2 adults. I tweaked the Stirge encounter with a dead adventurer on the side of the road. The party did Arcana and Perception checks to find out he had on +1 dwarven armor.  The party’s dwarf slayer immediately grabbed the armor setting off a trap that roused the Stirges to attack the party. The majority of the Stirges attacked the slayer while the rest attacked the nearby caravan of settlers. My bad rolls for the Stirges combined by the good rolls of the party prompted an easy end of the encounter without anyone wounded and the settlers safe. The dwarf slayer immediately began to gloat about his fortune and made bold claims which annoyed other members of the party.  A party member actually stole his armor during the night in retaliation. The morning followed with an angry dwarf causing a ruckus and making threats to party members. The armor was eventually returned, but not without a promise of retribution.

It’s going well so far. I have thought about implementing an Ally/Rival mechanic. Since a couple of the party members are at each other’s throat.  It basically stems down to providing a power bonus for good role playing and good tactics between players and taking things away for character infighting. I am interested to see how it goes.