Finally ran some 5th Ed for my son. He made a wood elf former-criminal Barbarian named Rex. (Originally he suggested "Stealth", as in Stealth Elf from Skylanders. When I told him "no" he suggested "Tree Rex". We compromised with "Rex".)

I threw together a wood elf Cleric of Nature named Amerielle to accompany him, who was a childhood friend of Rex's. The pair encountered a group of goblins in the woods near their village and decided to try to drive them off.

I discovered that 4 goblins is a bit too much for two first level characters. If I hadn't played them like Pathfinder goblins they would have easily killed both of them. As it was they dropped Amerielle and Rex only had 2 hit points left even with his rage halving the damage he was taking before he managed to kill two of them, causing the other two to flee.

Rex then carried the unconscious Amerielle back to village where the village healer was able to tend to her wounds. We left off with the village elder calling for volunteers to find out why goblins are so close to the village.

The mechanics were smooth and easy to deal with. I just need to get a better grip on appropriate challenges.

Yeah, the CR thing takes some getting used to. I ran a pickup game at a local gamer Meetup a while back, and ran into the same thing; two adventurers, 4 goblins = TPK. 3 rounds! Ouch.

Apparently what it is now is: CR equivalent to level of party of four characters means that they MIGHT not die. But it'll be a challenge. Before, CR equivalent to party level meant that the encounter would probably consume about a quarter of the party's resources (HP, spells, etc.), so you'd be able to work through about 4 CR equivalent encounters before you're done for the day. Now, you're gonna wanna take a long nap after one, and you might hafta replace a couple of dudes the next day.

Yeah. Someone on another board described it as "CR is now the equivalent of 'You must be at least this tall to ride.'" Which is fine. It makes it easy for DMs to look at and know what is definitely too tough for their party, but it's a definite adjustment. I'm used to goblins with maybe a +1 to hit and 1d4 damage. +4 to hit for 1d6+2 is brutal in comparison.

Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Curtain Call has just come out.

Now I will never get anything done.

(Also, my eyes aren't quite focussing.)

hmmm I might have to give that a try. FFXIV is the first Final Fantasy game I have really enjoyed.

hey so it turns out there is a nation-wide (maybe worldwide) D&D Next campaign going on Right Now (AIFG) and D and I have gotten in at lvl 3. He's a Bronze Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut and I'm a Rock Gnome Bard. I forget the name of the campaign but we're investigating dragon cultists and we'll be playing about three encounters each Wednesday night. We showed up at the local comic & game store and found around 25 people in the back room. They sorted us into four tables and we each played separate "instances" of the same leg of the campaign. I can provide more details if anyone is interested.

Horde of the Dragon Queen. I've been reading some play reports, but getting out to the local Game store once a week is unfortunately impossible for me. Same reason I never got involved in Pathfinder Society.

I do think it's very cool that the attendance has been really good for a lot of places. It bodes well for the hobby.

you don't have to go every week! If someone is missing they just juggle people around.

While I couldn't get into the podcasts, I did just watch the Acquisitions Incorporated video from Pax 2012 and found it highly entertaining. Of course, Wil Wheaton chucking his treacherous d20 into the audience reminded me of my brother, who is a notorious dice-chucker.

I carefully selected the dice to accompany me to my first official game store campaign.

My trusty pink and black D20 is so far serving rather well but I have a couple in reserve in case pinky decides to take an evil turn.

I'm loving "advantage" and "disadvantage" where you roll 2 D20s and either take the higher or lower roll. Halflings have a 'lucky' ability where they get to reroll any 1. A halfling rolling two D20s can still reroll any ones. My next character will probably be a halfling.