Random Saturday Notes - I've played a game of 4E D&D!

Well it's a big deal for me as I run almost all the time and I haven't been a player since a 3-session run in the fall of 2009 which was a 3.5 game.  One of my players wanted to run a one-shot game to warm up his DMing skills after a few years so I jumped at the chance. As usual I over thought the whole thing.

With a week's notice I knew I wanted to play a leader type so I made up 3 different warlords and then tried out about 3 different clerics. Then I made an avenger and a sorcerer just in case someone else wanted to play a leader. In the end, I settled on a battle cleric that is the next generation of one of my old sets of characters. We started at 1st level and the party was:

• Dragonborn Paladin of Torm (played by the Warlock player in my usual game)
• Human Avenger of Oghma (it's very funny - DON'T YOU KNOW THE DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM? was utttered more than once during the game - played by the Bard from my usual game)
• Half-Orc brawny rogue with dual daggers played by Lady Blacksteel (very brawny - 18 Str, 18 Dex, another major change from the Wizard she plays in my usual game)
• Dragonborn Dragon Sorcerer played by Apprentice Red (I normally keep the kid game and the grown-up game separate but we needed a 5th player and he was available)
• Human Battle Cleric of Tempus played by yours truly (more below)

I thought I would ramble on a bit about my character since I don't get to play them very often. Butalus Maximus the IVth is the most recent scion of the Maximus family that began back during a 2nd edition Forgotten Realms game. I liked clerics just fine in D&D back then but once Faiths and Avatars came out they were my class of choice for the rest of that edition for one reason: Specialty Priests. Basically each deity in the realms got a custom class that still had some connection with divine magic but got a lot of other nifty powers as well. Tempus specialty priests got to use a nasty spiked gauntlet and got to pick one non-blunt weapon as their signature weapon and they got a +1 to hit and damage with it. So in short order our party had a half-elf cleric in blackened full plate wielding a longspear and refusing to heal anyone who had more than half their hit points left (this wasn't totally dickish behavior - there was a specialty priest of Mystra in the party as well and she was pretty easy with her healing). He eventually died fighting a Red Dragon.

His human nephew joined the priesthood soon after and took up the two-handed sword as his chosen weapon and had a decently successful career (replacing his sword at least 3 times) before retiring with the advent of 3rd edition.

During  early 3E days Brutallus III made a brief appearance but the campaign ran in spurts and never really got a lot of momentum. The new flexibility of 3E meant that he didn't have to be a specialty priest - couple levels of fighter and a whole lot of cleric worked just fine. "Three" followed his predecessor and used the great-sword to great effect in his limited career.

(Yes I still have some of these character sheets. maybe I will post them up one day and look at characters through different editions)

So now a few years into 4E and Maximus IV finally appears. His first outing was not especially impressive - first roll to hit "1". Second roll to hit - "2". Later during the same session he managed a "4" and a "6" and even in 4E those are bad rolls. He did manage to help the rest of his party though, particularly in tagging a beastie with Righteous Brand (at will attack that does standard damage but gives one ally a +3 to hit it on their next roll) and setting the Rogue up to absolutely annihilate things with dagger +Dex bonus + Str bonus + Sneak Attack Damage boosted by a feat. Every time she hit on her turn it was for 20+ points of damage. Whew.

He also talks a little like Hulk Hogan, a lot of "Let's go get 'em brother", "Brother, have you heard the good news about Tempus? -Headbutt - Now you have!" and that kind of thing. Because that's what his ancestors did and it doesn't feel worn out after taking 8 or 9 years off.  He also doesn't heal you if you aren't bloodied. "That'll make a nice scar" was also said more than once during the session.

We fought some crocodiles at a swampy river crossing and some giant frogs near a sunken keep and it was a blast, even with multiple crappy rolls. It was especially refreshing playing with Lady Blacksteel and an apprentice and some friends of 10+ years and finally being on the same side! I really need to get back on that side of the screen more often.