D&D 5th Ed: the Starter Set arrived last week, and Ryan had his first session of proper, more-or-less grown-up D&D on Saturday. It was fun, I think he got a kick out of it, and it was pretty easy to keep his own decisions simple enough to prevent him being overwhelmed. (His choices generally resolved into "I want to cast a spell". For his first game I think he'd be best off playing the archer, but he wanted spells, so he's the dwarven cleric. Eric the cleric. he likes helping people, cleric is a good fit for him. He was pretty excited afterwards that two of his colleagues were down to 1 hit point and he healed them both. We also had a discussion about whether he'd ever be likely to use a Cure spell on a baddie.)

We just had the one combat, against four goblins, and then he found his way to the next encounter setting. Not really enough for it to feel like a distinct edition - we didn't even have any rolls with advantage or disadvantage - but that was ok. It was clearly D&D, and most important was that it was simple enough for a fairly bright five-year old to have fun with it. (And he likes the sound of advantage, because rolling more dice is cool.)

Next weekend he'll be trying a rescue mission. We might even persuade his mother to play, to help him out.

That's awesome, BT.

I ran a little of the Pathfinder Beginner's Box for my son about a year ago (he made an elven fighter named Link) and he enjoyed it but we haven't had the time to break it out since and some of the stuff was a little overwhelming for him.

I'm planning on giving 5e a try with him when I get the PHB. I think the mechanics will be a bit easier for him and the fact 5e doesn't require a grid means we'll be able to play without clearing off the dinner table.

For our own play test the other week we had Aryk the Cleric (the fantasy spelling just makes it more amusing to us) Kief the Thief Rogue, Bashmore Stonefist (race and class should be obvious) and Melifundous the Magnificent (I would have named him Sage the Mage but he already had Sage add his Background and I thought it would be too confusing.)

If you'd like to try Final Fantasy XIV for free (for 14 days) email me (Lagarat at Gmail).

You get a 20% xp bonus and I get a draught chocobo!

Ooops. Darn it, I'd already started the trial.

For those who signed up for the Firefly Online Game, they have delayed release, as they are getting lots of stars to voice characters. They have also changed their programming (or some such), and require you to log in to update the new database. If you do it before the end of August, you get a Kepler ship (the ship Tim Earls flew). Head on over to keepflying dot com. Oh, and it doesn't seem to be iOS friendly just yet, so, do it on a regular computer.

t x-post with firefly thread

No worries, chris. How are you liking it? Which server are you on? What class did you make? Tell me everything!

I've got a Roegadyn Gladiator on Zalera. If you see an eight-foot Drow woman with sword and shield, that's probably me.

ooh tanking is hard. I'm mostly on Gilgamesh these days.

More adventures in 5th Edition. Ryan played another session yesterday, with his mummy helping out with the front-line fighter for a while. Some spoilers for the Starter Set adventure follow, so: They cleared out a goblin hideout, with a final climactic battle against seven of the little beggars. Ryan was getting worried after they won initiative and dropped the front-line fighter, especially as he, the party cleric, was out of healing spells. I held back a bit, had a couple of them just take defensive positions. And the leader spent his turn dropping the hostage to 0 hit points (literally, he shoved him off the embankment). Nonetheless, Ryan was getting a bit concerned because they were outnumbered.

However, while Ryan was out of his 1st-level spells, the party wizard hadn't cast any of his yet. One Sleep spell later, and the number of opponents was halved. Ryan perked up quite a bit with that one. (The leader woke one of them up, but only after the party was clearly going to win.) At one point there were three people down, but Ryan used a Healing potion and some good Medicine checks to stablise them all. It was the last fight, so they could all rest up thereafter.

However, the big news of the day is this milestone: Ryan scored his first ever critical hit! And he did so rolling for the rogue while he was performing a sneak attack, which also benefits from 5th ed crits. 'Twas a wide-eyed little boy who rolled four dice of damage to one-shot one of the baddies.

He was still talking about it this morning, and asking when we can play next. I think he's hooked.

After this session, the whole party levelled up. Second level! He's pretty happy about that too.

That's some fun stuff, BT.

One thing I like about Pathfinder goblins is they're so completely off-the-wall they make for great 1st-level foes because as DM you can just have them start bickering amongst themselves or doing bizarre sub-par tactics if you need to fudge things a bit without it feeling like you're doing so. I'm definitely going to import their personality into my 5e games.

A little over a week until my 5e PHB should be showing up.