This last weekend we started our D&D campaign in earnest, with actual adventuring. Still a lot of backstory to fill and NPC’s and world to flesh out, but I think we can do that as we go. This session we did our first actual combat, with our part of two witches and a rogue being waylaid by four goblins on the road. It turned out to be a pretty exciting and well-matched melee, with our heroes killing three of their foes in the end and chasing of the last one. I’m reading the player handbook on the train these days, and only after the session did I review the section on combat, so I see there are a few things I didn’t do correctly, but I’ll get there next time. I kinda winged it thru Lizzy’s Summon Monster I spell, and I forgot that a character can run to double-double their movement rate. Ah well.
My other train reading these days is The Hobbit. I reread LotR a few years back just before the movies came out, but I don’t think I’ve read the Hobbit since high school. I’m happy to say it still holds up, and even thought I remember the story, the telling is full of surprises. The writing style is just great. Witty, gripping and evocative all at once. The nature of magic is much more subtle and nuanced than say Harry Potter. Plus it’s given me a lot of ideas for little things to work into my campaign. I’m also surprised at what a quick read it is because I remember LotR being, well, epic. I started it on Thursday and will finish it tomorrow. My last book before this was a biography of Thelonious Monk, which took over a month.
