Result!

Last night we had the first session of the "Imperial Fist" campaign for 2014, and it proved to be far more satisfying than the three sessions to date.

Some highlights:

• The issue with the unreliable player has been resolved, with him dropping out of the campaign. This is obviously not the ideal resolution, but at least it is a resolution, and something I can now plan for accordingly.
• The session was much more action-packed than previously. And I think the idea of going for a much more fringe-based campaign is also better. (Coincidentally, this should also allow for a more sandbox-style play, which is something that has been mentioned recently...)
• The 4e-style stat blocks, and the associated methodology, is a massive boon. For the most part, it works indistinguishably from the 'real thing', only it's much easier to prepare for and it allows for some combat stuff that isn't really supported by the rules as written.

Having said that, there were two things that became apparent:

• Vehicular combat doesn't quite work. One of my realisations when setting up the 4e-style stat-blocks was that an enemy on a vehicle could be considered to be nothing other than a 'threat', albeit one with a higher movement rate than normal (and perhaps a few other combat options). Certainly, though, it didn't require a full rewrite of the stat block. However, this only works if PC vehicles work the same way - if the PCs benefit from much higher defences, much higher hit points, and a high level of DR when they get into a vehicle, then they're working on an entirely different scale from the threats, and the system fails. So that will need to be my next fix.
• The game works okay with three players, but it would almost certainly work better with at least one more. Indeed, a full complement of five would probably be best. That said, it seems highly unlikely that that will happen, so I'm going to plan for three going forward. This may or may not result in the campaign being curtailed somewhat compared with my original vision, but that's not necessarily a problem.

All in all, I was well pleased with the way this session went. My hope for the next session is to tie up the current plot-line and set things up for the revised campaign outline, so that the PCs can move forward in a somewhat less constrained manner. This may well involve having them level up a bit sooner than initially expected, but I doubt they'll mind that too much either!