D&D Game Day at Atlantis

I ended up going to the D&D Game Day at Atlantis Games in Portsmouth after swinging in last week and making sure they were doing anything with it.

Sure enough, I showed up and a game was in full swing. I had approximately an hour or so with which to spare, so I asked if there were any other games starting up soon. The group who was currently playing invited me to play, since they had only just began the first encounter. I sat down and was given the character sheet of Balastar of Bahamut, an 11th level Dragonborn Paladin.

The party had just stumbled upon a Dire Bear, two Troglodytes and a Quickling in a town square, and as the group’s Defender, I stepped up and rushed headlong against a Trog with the Dire Bear one square away.

Then I waited.

Waited.

Waited.

The problem, as I saw it, was a bunch of players unfamiliar with the characters and powers. It made it difficult to decide what powers to use at any given point, because there were at least a dozen of them.

Also, we had a DM running it whose only goal was the destruction of the party.

We only ended up getting through about 3 rounds in the hour I was there.

If Wizards is attempting to get new players into the hobby with their Game Days, they shouldn’t ever have 11th level encounters. Last year’s with 1st level characters was perfect, as my wife can attest. It made her want to play for the first time, and worked out well.