Another night of D&D this week, this time with my friend Stephan playing as Mika, a fae-loving cleric (I think). We met in the Green Griffin Inn (franchise pending), and decided to travel together so he could learn skills to help his home area, and I could learn tales to recite as a bard. We set off on our quest towards a mine that was marked on a map that I got last week from the dead goblins.
Along the way, we found a pit with a dead mule that was an obvious trap that had been sprung. Mika and I, Torinn, the silver dragonborn Bard, avoided any issues with the trap but upon investigation, found human tracks mixed with prints of goblins and wolves heading off into the woods. Now, here was a dilemma. We are low-level characters with little power and easily killed. Our compatriots (2 other players) were absent on this night, so we could either risk all to save a human or go to the village and try to bring people back to help. We opted to save the human, which ended up as a small battle with a wolf. A larger wolf had run off, with the goblins gone before that, so we saved a villager. I healed him and we got to the village next to the mine relatively easily after that…we named the mine/village area Stonehaven.
Upon arrival, we discovered a house was on fire from a goblin attack, so we helped put it out and then I regaled the townsfolk with an impromptu tale of our mighty battle near mule pit. I might have embellished a little, but nevertheless, all the villagers were more interested in us two strangers than they were in the house fire we helped to extinguish. Nice, more interesting than a house fire. It should be on the Yelp reviews of my performance.
We spent the night at the human’s home, entertained the family, Mika helped improve their marriage, everyone loved us. We got some better weapons and lots of information about the mine, some nearby ruins, a village elder, etc. And some rations. We went off to explore the ruins while everyone else went to the mine to dig. The ruins turned out to be magical, with evidence that dwarves and goblins used to live there together, which is odd for mortal enemies. We found an evil altar in a basement, found some magic was active, collected some artefacts, and tried to leave. The two goblins and the wolf were not fond of us being in their basement altar and attacked when we left. A short battle later, and the wolf was dead, with the two goblins trussed up and ready for transport. We ended the night by deciding to haul the goblins to the fae and let them decide what to do with them.
Surprising gameplay elements
I thought most of the story would be created/run by the DM, and most things would unfold as turns. Not so much. For example, as we approached the pit with the mule, we knew it had been a trap but weren’t sure if it was an ambush, too. Mika led the way with us using our stealth to sneak through the adjoining underbrush to get to the pit without being detected. I would never even have thought of it. I just assumed we’d walk over and be presented with several options, some rolls, and then the story would continue.
Even when we started the night, at the Green Griffin Inn (franchise pending still), we did a small role-play where Mika and Torinn met each other and agreed to travel together. It’s all backstory of course, but I wasn’t really expecting that aspect as much. Then later, when we were at the house fire, Mika had some spells to help put out the fire. I had nothing that would help, but the DM asked me what I was doing…umm, I don’t know. What am I supposed to be doing? Oh, I can pretend I’m part of the bucket and sand brigade. Okaaaay. And when it was over, I performed for the crowd with our tale (not really, just said I did…I didn’t act it out or anything). But we were improvising our story more than I expected.
And then later, when we were at the villager’s house, Mika and Torinn were talking about other weapons and Mika decided that Torinn should have a short bow and 40 arrows. So out of nowhere, he just asked Deganar if he knew someone who could make them for us. Apparently, he knows a Fletcher, and thus he arranged it for us for free. Of course, we had saved his live, a friend’s house, and his marriage, while also entertaining his kids AND deciding to buy him a new mule. (Don’t ask; I only helped pay for it, I thought it was a bit over the top, but it sure convinced him to help us for life. I hope he doesn’t get unalived helping us, seems like a good bloke). We had another dilemma after the night’s last battle, which was the goblins were asleep and I wanted to kill them. But Mika doesn’t like to kill sentient beings unless he has to when they’re attacking us. Wuss. 🙂 I wanted to notch an arrow between their eyes. I didn’t even get to use my Thunderwave for the night.
But I did use my new blue dice that are easy to read with my tired eyes. I just need to find a good figurine to be my silver dragon bard. 🙂 With a horn and a lute, and a lyre and a flute!
Sorry, can’t stop to chat right now, we’re off to give the tied up goblins to the fae. Cheerio!
Up until this point in our visit to Big Island, we had driven across the Northern part of the island, gone down the eastern coast to Hilo and explored the surrounding area, moved back along the southern coast to Black Sand Beach, and worked our way back up the western coast to Kona and the surrounding area. We had, in fact, gone around the whole island. We were starting to wind down our time on Big Island, and we wanted to do a few more things. First and foremost, we wanted a beach somewhere. And we wanted to see another waterfall, perhaps where we could go swimming.
For Day 9, we headed back to the northern coast. We booked an excursion with a local company that promised us views of Waimea Valley. It’s advertised as stunning in all the guidebooks, but when you look a little more closely, it is clear that there is a big limitation. The road down into the valley is super steep, and just as with limitations that you do not go to the top of the summit road, most car rentals are NOT rated for this hill. Heck, even hiking on the northern coast comes with multiple signs of a dangerous shorebreak, hazardous cliffs, strong currents, falling rocks, and even the dangers of monk seals on the shore.
The excursion started past the Valley, at a small office overlooking the ocean. Almost like a small cottage village, not the heavy loads of the rest of the island. Looked more like where locals might go, except for the entrances to golf courses and country clubs down the road. A short bus ride later, and we were hiking along an access road, before diverting onto a trail. It basically took us along the ridge of the valley, so you didn’t have to go all the way to the bottom and all the way back up. Fine with me. Some parts of the trail were pretty close to the edge of a long slide to the bottom. Not particularly dangerous, and Andrea and I had proper footwear for the hike. But still, a bit more rugged in places than what we had done earlier, before opening up into wider fields. The views were awesome.
There were lots of cool trees and canopies. The only real challenge in hiking was not to trip over really complex root systems.
Eventually, we got near the end of the valley to a waterfall. Most of the waterfalls in the area were not particularly “running” right then, a bit drier than normal, but we found a working waterfall and pond. And we got to swim.
After the swim, we headed back to the bus and then drove around a bit on our own to get pics of the entrance to the valley. I find it a bit odd on my Apple TV that there are a series of screensavers, one of which is a drone flying out of this valley towards the ocean.
I think I mentioned back on Day 1 that we found the Northern part of the Island kind of odd. While we expected lots of lush green tropical land, there are parts that are almost desert or tundra.
We had done our hike on the eastern side of Waimea Valley, and if you continued west past the valley (as per a shot above of the mouth of the valley), there’s a long unbroken coast. Quite spectacular and totally inaccessible. Well, mostly. You can go all the way around and come at it from the west, which is where there were all the signs about danger. Decent view, though.
We hiked part of the way down (the Pololu Trail), but it was a bit more rugged and tiring than I wanted. Instead, we headed across the rest of the northern coast and then down the western coast back towards Kona. Andrea really wanted a nice beach to visit but the views were pretty great along the way.
Eventually we came to one along the Kohalo Coast.
But we got to walk on a real beach with nice sand.
Unfortunately, we were still a fair distance from Kona, looking forward to a late dinner, and then we would leave this island the next day. We drove more across the northern and western coasts, and finally pulled over to watch a very nice sunset for our last night on Big Island.
Writing up the summary for Day 09, I realize that I have forgotten some stuff. I don’t have our travel diary handy, and I relied heavily on our pictures to remind me of the story. Some things I never covered:
On the day where I referenced the Ironman starting point, we drove up the side of the mountain into some smaller switchbacks and towns. There was an “artist” village where a bunch of local artists or mainland transports have set up little buildings and we could walk from store to store seeing some of their products.
Somewhere around Day 07, it was Andrea’s birthday and we went to a really nice restaurant a minute or two past the downtown strip for Kona so Andrea could have some good seafood. It was our second “outing” to get good seafood for her, with a previous attempt at Hilo. This one was far superior, no idea the name of the place, but we had a great dinner.
I’m sure there are other missing elements, some other meals we went for, or outings for supplies. I really didn’t want to leave Kona the next day. The fact we were moving on to another island took some of the sting out of it, but it remains the best vacation I’ve ever been on. I would love to retire there, or even just move there if we could do remote work across borders. 🙂
I know, I know. You know that I’m nerdy, socially awkward, into fantasy, a bad dresser, and your immediate thought was, “How is it possible that Paul has never played D&D before?”.
Well, never fear! Your expectations have been met. A friend and I were talking at work about video games, fantasy stuff, MtG, and all things related, and I mentioned that I’ve never played D&D but was open to it. A few months later, he’s starting a quest, needs more cannon fodder, err, players, we canvassed some people, and lo and behold, we have a crew!
I had five people in mind to ask if they were interested. One was out of the D&D world these days, mostly into regular board games, but thanked me for the invite. Another apparently has a real life, who knew? Well, I did, but I asked anyway. Another declined because, well, he’s in TWO other games that have been running for more than 5 years. He’s covered.
And two more said yes. So we’ve got a core group of 4 plus our DM, and two others who are likely but busy at the moment. We all had to start our quest with character design.
What’s good for a newb?
We’re playing version 5 / 5th edition D&D; I didn’t even know there WERE editions. So, yeah, total newb. They asked what clan / class / character I wanted to be, and I had no idea. So I googled things like “Good characters for newbie”. Inherently, I don’t want to be necessarily “leading” a quest, I’m more like hero support. Which matched well with a bard aka the storyteller. Toss a coin to the witcher, and all that. It kind of resonated with me so entertainer / bard / dragonborn / silver etc. came together relatively easily.
I have a rapier, dagger, and four musical instruments to focus my bardic powers — a horn and a lute, and a lyre and a flute! The lute was automatic, the rest I had some choice, but no real guidance as to which would be better or worse. I got to choose some spells (Thunderwave!), but the book had strong guidance as to which were good combos for first-timers.
Devin (as DM) and Owen aka Timm the Cleric helped me hone my combos, and distribute my points across the six attributes. Vicious mockery sounds like a great weapon to wield constantly. And we calculated a bunch of #s that affect things, but I just went with the numbers they gave me and left the formula to some future consideration if needed.
Putting it to the test
The DM laid out a quick landscape with a bridge, and Timm (the Cleric) and Torinn (the silver dragon Bard) got to fight them. Timm attacked — and missed. I attacked and also missed. The goblins attacked Timm and did a bit of damage. Then they attacked me — and rolled a natural 20. Timm and the DM went, “Oh. Well. We don’t have to count that. This is just practice.” Apparently, a natural 20 against me is not good. They did something else, and I took an 8-point hit when I only had 9. Umm, that seemed bad.
Timm healed me on the next round, attacked and missed again. I gave him a Bardic Inspiration (extra die role for the next time) and did Thunderwave (magic spell) that pushed them back 10 feet and did massive damage but not enough to kill them, apparently. Another round, I did Thunderwave again, and they were dead.
Timm examined the bodies and learned some stuff about maps and types of poor armour / who made it, etc., and got some basic loot. I don’t really understand what any of that meant and whether it would be relevant in the future, but I got a basic feel for the game.
I don’t really understand how time works in the game. 10 rounds equals a minute, and you play for X amount of minutes before rest, etc. It felt like Hagrid’s explanation of currency to Harry Potter that there are 29 Knuts in a Sickle and 17 Sickles in a Galleon, i.e., 493 Knuts in a Galleon. Simple as pie, right?
Anyway, I’m more along for the ride; everyone else has played before, and we can “table talk” / “strategize” out loud, so it’s all good.
What if I die?
When I dropped to one point away from death, my game mortality suddenly seemed super-important. I wanted to know, what happens if I die? Is it just that I’m out? I don’t need to come back next week? Apparently, some games do work that way, particularly in older versions, but this team’s rules basically would have me “respawn” as a new character. Psst…it might be Torinn’s cousin Tarinn with all the same characteristics. Or I could do it randomly by rolling. Worth a consideration at some point, but in the short-term, dying isn’t fatal. Get it? Hehehe
So I killed my first two goblins, cast two spells, gave Bardic Inspiration to my quest team, and swung my rapier and missed. Or was it my dagger and I threw it? Something sharp and pointy that did nothing. I like Magic better, Magic can’t miss.
What’s next?
Three things happen next. First and foremost, we launch the quest together. Seems obvious. Secondly, I decide if I want to get my own dice (I’m leaning towards yes, just so it’s easy to read with my tired eyes). And third, I COULD get myself a silver dragon bard to be my physical character. Yes, I’m geeking out. Hey, I already bought decent large font playing card decks this week…does that have anything to do with D&D? Absolutely not, I just wanted some nice cards to practice some tricks with, but it is equally pretty geeky. A silver dragon ain’t too far off that scale.
