How Can It End Like This?

I'm finding myself increasingly dissatisfied with my current campaign - I'm convinced that the concept is good, I'm happy with the preparation I've done, and it's actually playing out in an entirely sensible manner given the material. And yet... meh. Something about it just isn't working for me.

I suspect that part of the issue is that the starting phases of D&D 5e are just naturally slow, because the characters are so squishy. And while those stages are also short, that's only true with something approaching a normal play cadence. As it is, we're grinding through week after week of the PCs at level 2, and they're constantly out of their depth. Which is a shame.

(Plus, all my best material is in the third part of the campaign, which kicks off soon. Maybe things will get better?)

But that's all an issue - I'm pretty certain that this is my final D&D campaign, possibly ever and certainly for a very long time. I'd really hoped to go out on a high, but this is really starting to feel like a damp squib. It's just a real shame.

(Indeed, had I known, I would have been better ending after the previous campaign - that one ended very well, and would have made for an ideal capstone. Oh well.)

Paranormal Power

One last review for a while...

I've always been a fan of psionics, at least in principle. And given that two of my favourite settings, Dark Sun and Eberron, were built assuming that psionics are present, I've always found those somewhat lacking in editions that don't have that support - notably including 5e.

So when a Kickstarter for a small psionics book was launched, I decided to jump on it. "Paranormal Power" is the result, which I received in PDF form.

I should note that due to a computer freeze I don't currently have access to the book, so I'm writing this from memory.

This was a short book of ~65 pages, with a decent amount of art. That art was AI-generated in the initial version, though my understanding is that it is in the process of being replaced with human-generated works instead. But lacking a critical eye, my view was that the art was fine - like all RPG art, it does the job, and then my interest ends.

The game material contains all the things you might expect: a new heritage (race), a new class, new subclasses for all the existing classes, some new spells and magic items, and some new monsters. And, crucially, a psionics system and the accompanying powers.

And it's all fine - good, solid material that I would have absolutely no qualms about allowing into any "Level Up" game I was ever to run. It's a really good work.

But...

My one concern with the book is that it very definitely is a "Level Up" book. And while "Level Up" claims to be 5e-compatible, and consequently so too should be "Paranormal Power", I find myself very hesitant to cross the streams. And where books like the "Dungeon Delver's Guide" include conversion notes for vanilla 5e, this book does not.

That's a very small quibble, but it does affect my recommendation somewhat. Which is as follows: if you like psionics and you're running "Level Up", I highly recommend this book. If you like psionics and you're running 5e, I'd consider it only if you're happy with blending material from LU into your games - this probably isn't the first book with which to do that. And, of course, if you don't like psionics then skip this one - there's nothing for you here.

And having said all that, I will be looking out for the author's name (Rachel Williamson) on future products, either under her own imprint or for other publishers, because this is a solid product that suggests other good things may be yet to come.

The Restart

After a fairly long hiatus for Christmas (and other things), the campaign resumed yesterday. It's fair to say that the first session did not go entirely to plan - there was a little investigation, and then the party was engaged in a combat in which they found themselves badly overmatched, followed by a retreat and another fight where the party was... less overmatched, but with the problem that three members of the party were surprised (and then there was a flurry of terrible dice rolls).

The upshot is that by rights the session should have been a TPK. And, in all honesty, that may have been for the best. But since I'm not quite ready to walk away yet, we contrived a way out for the party, and we'll see if we can pick up the pieces.

One of the problems, the lesser of the two, I think, is that the two encounters were deliberately right at the top end of what the party 'should' be able to handle. That probably wants adjusted down, slightly, for the future.

Another problem is party composition - I wrote the adventure assuming a standard mix of characters, but we've actually ended up with two barbarians, a monk, and a druid - three strikers and a controller. That lack of a dedicated healer and anyone to soak up damage makes this interesting.

But even that would be fine if the party were able to bring their damage-dealing characters to bear, and to focus their fire. But in the case of the first encounter the party was already somewhat split and then some characters hung back, while in the latter case the surprise meant that some characters were disabled even before they were able to act.

So there's certainly some food for thought going forward.

And since I'd prefer not to be entirely negative, I should note that the exploration part of the session did go pretty well, revealing some of the background of the underlying adventure and teasing threats to come.