Dateline – Storm Point

We ran the most recent session of Storm Point this past Sunday. Things were a little bit more distracted than usual, because the Fringe Festival is going on in Winnipeg right now, and sometimes it seemed like the entire city was walking by the store windows. And some of the passers-by were very distracting, indeed.

After the last session’s marathon grindfest with the two vrocks, I had revamped the next encounter to be a fair bit easier for the party, but I still wanted it to be an interesting challenge. I kept the monster composition – it was the three minotaur warriors and the minotaur cabalist that had fled the field during the last fight* – but decided to have them make a fighting withdrawal through a narrow corridor with lots of little niches to hide in. I also gave the warriors crossbows, so they could take shelter behind the rocks and such and snipe at the party as they came down the corridor.

I think it would have worked pretty well, with a bit of a chase through the tunnels under enemy fire, but the initiative order totally pooched that idea. The entire party rolled well, and the monsters rolled crap, so the party was able to rush the first held position and engage one of the minotaur warriors in melee. I had the others fall back firing, but really, that first little closing moment was enough to take a lot of the advantage away from the minotaurs.

It was still an interesting fight, and it was neat to watch the players’ reactions when they realized that their enemies were making a fighting withdrawal. It really made them want to chase them.

What with the distractions, we wound up taking longer on this encounter than I had expected, so we wrapped up a little early, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

I used DM’s Tracker on my iPad for most of the combat*, and I’m liking it more and more. The only real problem I see with it is that it’s an iPhone app, and I’d love an iPad version that took advantage of the larger screen. I see on the developer’s forum that an iPad version is in the works, so I’m awaiting it with some anticipation.

I was also inspired to dig out my Dungeon Tiles for this session, after seeing this new product coming. Seeing as I’m planning a “Bridge of Khazad-dum” -style combat in the abandoned dwarven city of Silverfalls, I immediately started salivating. Gonna have to check these out at GenCon. Strange thing with using the Dungeon Tiles: one of my players looked at them and commented on all the work I was putting into the game as I layed them out. Considering it was a lot less work than my normal method – drawing the scene out on battle tiles with markers – it struck me as odd. But it definitely added something to the game. I think I’m going to have to use them more.

This is going to be our last Storm Point game for a few weeks, because GenCon is coming up fast, and I’m heading down again. I’m curious to see if I wind up doing a little more frequent blog updates using the iPad, and maybe even Twittering about what’s going on. For that to work really well, though, I’m going to need to get a micro-sim from a US provider and a pay-as-you-go account for a week. Have to see what I can put together.

*2300 xp, a level 8 encounter for 6 characters. Back

*Somehow, it didn’t get turned off when I loaded it into the car and drove  back to the city this weekend. And the cell data functionality was active. Man, that sucks the power quickly! Back