Silicon

Good morning everything. I am at work, and all the things I'm trying to do keep giving me computer errors. Or we're missing the necessary supplies. I don't really mind, since it's no real problem or fault of mine, but I don't like the feeling of company money being wasted as I try to find workarounds. But it's a good day. I had an apple fritter at Sunrise Donuts, and sold my rainsuit, and some unspecified college football game is on in the background. And I read my bible, and I think I'm caught up on 1 Tim.

Last night's game was pretty epic. For the second time in as many weeks, the key changes I made to the combat encounters turned out to be the only reason that the players survived. They had made camp next to a mystical circle carved into the floor of a cave, and it turned out to be a portal through which bad guys suddenly began to spill. The "wave-upon-wave" nature of the fight made it interesting, since the players had no idea how many rounds of reinforcements there would be, only that the boss of the monsters was on his way. As-written, the boss was supposed to be this axe-wielding death machine berserker, but I didn't think he was a good fit for the fight so I swapped him for another boss from later in the same adventure: an extremely fat goblin who was deceptively quick and had a lot of tricks up his sleeve. He was a great opponent, and everyone cheered when he was beaten.
The fight began well for the players, but the tide quickly turned against them as more and more bad guys joined the fray. When David's healer fell, everyone suddenly realized how dire the situation was. A heroic effort was made to fight through the enemy line, and on a last-chance dice roll, Josh's wizard succeeded at applying first-aid and saving David's life. Things were still touch-and-go for the rest of the battle, with all four characters coming close to death at various points. when they fianally triumphed there was much relieved sighing and celebration.
In the published adventure (from which I am constructing our game), the fight was supposed to throw all of the enemies at the players at once, with the much more difficult boss monster (who I will save for another fight later), and extra reinforcements. they wouldn't have stood a chance. As it was, I was genuinely worried that they wouldn't survive a couple of times during the night. I'm glad that I've played some 4th edition so that I can see where things need tweaking and rebalancing.

Next week the players will meet Ech, the runty goblin. I am excited by this; he's going to be a great source of role-playing for the group.

- J