D&D Encounters – Session 1

This is a mostly spoiler-free account of my D&D Encounters experience. Just don’t click to view the picture linked below.

Wednesday night, I set aside my general dislike of gaming with complete strangers and headed over to Total Escape Games in Broomfield for D&D Encounters.  I’m generally a shy person, so sitting around a table with a bunch of guys I don’t know is not high on my list of things to do on a Wednesday night, but I thought I’d give it a try.

Traffic lights foiled my attempt to arrive early, but I managed to get to the store just in time to get started.  We had one player completely new to 4E.  Four players used pre-gens, while two of us had rolled up original characters.  We had a warlock, a ranger, two monks, a psion and my invoker/avenger hybrid, Atora.

Our DM was awesome!  She was very good about describing how skills worked in our non-combat environments.  She handled combat very smoothly.  She was familiar enough with the source material to not have to read verbatim.  It was a good gaming experience.

Combat was a little rough on us as a group.  Our monks did a great job of engaging in melee combat, with a little help from the warlock and the ranged attackers.  Only one monk fell in battle, but he did not die; Atora managed to revive him (hooray, bonus renown point).  I think it would have been a bit smoother if we’d had a leader in the party to help with healing, but in the end, we survived.

I play to recap my Hybrid character experiences after I’ve had a little more game time, but I wanted to share a bit of Atora’s combat experience.  Rolling a 1 and a 2 on two of the three attacks I attempted meant I didn’t manage to do much damage during combat.  But I figure reviving the melee combatant had to count toward my damage count!

At the end of the session, I’d accumulated 12 renown points, earning me the Delver Reward.  All in all, it was a fun experience, and I’m looking forward to playing again next week!