- Falim ibn Adbul Akbar, NG human ranger 1
- Chow-Lin, CG human wizard 1
- Eraergon Patheney, N half-elf druid 1
- Hamlin Hoefurrow, NG halfling fighter 1
We started after tweaking and correcting some small mistakes made by the players for their feat selections and characters' abilities. The wizard chose to arcane bind to her beloved's betrothal ring and went with the Universalist school. The druid selected Nature Bond to the Fire domain since that is his favorite element. The ranger player selected Quick Draw and Weapon Focus (scimitar) for his feats.
After about an hour of talking and converting characters we jumped right into the adventure. The background has the players starting right outside the dungeon and giving them one action apiece to explore before ambushing them with two goblins. I gave the party a chance of surprise but the keen-eyed druid spotted the ambush almost immediately and warned the others before the goblins could attack. They liked the fact that the goblins didn't have like 30 hp apiece - in other words, normal goblins. The attacks worked fine, we remembered all the rules and all the bonuses. The combat went well and was resolved quickly. They looted the bodies and proceeded into the cave.
Once inside they quickly located a locked chest. They searched around and found a key to open the locked chest. They took stock of what they had and continued on, leaving the chest but taking the treasure inside. They found a gem and some coin as well as a potion vial.
They headed north into a room containing a glowing fountain of golden water. The ranger sampled the water and it damaged him for 1 point. They listened at a closed door but heard nothing. Voices from an open passage to the northwest caused them to stealthily approach but their light tipped off the goblins therein. Two goblins were sent to investigate the intrusion. One was slain by the ranger's javelin while the other retreated to warn his companions. The party moved into the room to face three goblin warriors and "King Fatmouth," a goblin witchdoctor (Wiz 3?). Fatmouth had three spells (2 magic missiles and a cause fear). He managed to target the ranger and made him "shaken" for 1 round. He also blasted the wizard with a dose of her own medicine (1 magic missile). The goblins were proving problematic because the halfling fighter kept missing. The druid was injured severely (down to 3 hp) so he withdrew to heal himself with cure light wounds. He then proceeded to use his fire bolt spell-like ability from the Fire domain. The ranger was doing well during the combat, slaying goblins (which he had taken as his favored enemy - who knew?) with his scimitar. After the party finished off Fatmouth, and the wizard was reduced to 1 hp, the last goblin was slain seconds after he tried to surrender (unfortunately, the halfling was the only one who did not speak Goblin).
The party decided to loot the chest in the room and took what they could from the goblin bodies. They got a lot of gold pieces, a wand, a ring, and some pearls. A nice haul and more than they had gotten in the last few editions! They looked around a bit before deciding it was too dangerous to continue with the wizard as injured as she was and no healing left for the day. The party took their loot and left for town. Each character earned 301 xp.
We ended here since it was 12:30 pm. The players all had fun and felt that the system was infinitely more playable than 4th edition (which has since become known as "the game which will not be mentioned by name"). I could tell that we switched rule sets too often because the players were getting confused with some of the terminology and when and how certain things worked. Despite having to repeat myself more than 3 times for each ruling, the session was fun for everyone! I'm looking forward to running the larger group next weekend. Also, the players said that they would like to continue playing THESE characters at a later time, when the other players are not available.... Seems like the session went very well indeed!
I now see that we should have stuck to using these characters through ALL the versions of the game. The familiarity of the characters' personalities and quirks would serve as a familiar touchstone in the changing morass of rules that we've been wading through. I did convert these characters initially, but I also wanted the players to experience new classes and races that they don't normally get to play. We played the original campaign for almost 15 years straight before doing this experiment, so they were due for a change. Now they are talking about possibly converting the campaign to a new system! Imagine that! Now, I prefer to stick with what I started, but the players see the 1st edition version as limiting now. The druid player in particular is not fond of tying himself to the druid organization. The ranger sees some of the followers as cool but doesn't want to settle down. The wizard sees the magic systems of the later rule sets as more inviting and logical. I'm not sure if this is the right move, but we'll see when we get back to that campaign. My suggestion would be to first try dogma rules with the old characters before making a drastic change to D&D 3.5, Pathfinder, or D&D 5.0. Besides, we still have one more Pathfinder run and the D&D 5.0 conversion to try out. Maybe I'll let them play a high level adventure in 5.0 to see if they like it....
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