The new “edition” of Dungeons & Dragons, which I guess I’m calling D&D 2024, has started landing. Except physical editions of the Player’s Handbook in Australia, which are somewhat delayed. As it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a gaming store, I’m not sure how long they’re delayed. Reports vary. (October 11?)

But as a digital denizen these days, running D&D on Roll20 every week, I’ve had access to the new Player’s Handbook. And I’m mostly happy with it. There are a few decisions that are actively terrible (tying ability score modifiers to backgrounds immediately made my players unhappy). But for the most part, I keep on seeing things that are great.

My Vecna: Eve of Ruin campaign finished – and it has a lot to do with why I haven’t blogged recently. That and winter. There were more fun things I could do than write about what I found a tremendously flawed campaign. It’s not actively terrible (except for the bits where a lore-happy Merric was reading about what they did to Dragonlance). But as an actual epic level campaign? Oh, boy. It reads like a lot of Tier 2 adventures, though its penultimate chapter finally wakes up to some epic level fun.

You can have an enjoyable time playing Vecna: Eve of Ruin. But I don’t recommend it. It doesn’t do anything that makes me think it is aiming for the stars. It’s groundbound and lacking inspiration. Vecna hardly plays a role, and even when you consider the plot as an excuse to revisit some classic settings, the adventure rarely does justice to them.

That group, my Monday nighters, have started playing Empire of the Ghouls by Kobold Press. It feels a real relief to move away from Wizards of the Coast and their mediocrity. (Good for rules, mediocre for adventures). And all the characters were built using D&D 2024. We’ve mostly finished the first chapter as I write this, and though I think the chapter ends poorly, it’s been a promising start to the campaign.

Each of us has perused the new rules to varying extents, but I think none of us has read the entire thing. Which means that we keep on learning things from each other as we find a rules change to tell the others about. Such as moving through allied characters no longer counts as difficult terrain. With dwarves and halflings now also moving at thirty feet a turn, battlefield movement is a bit more free.

Have player characters gained a power-up? Some have, certainly. The rogue running around dual-wielding a scimitar and shortsword and using the new Weapon Mastery abilities to Vex and Nick the opponents seems distinctly better, but in the grand scheme of things probably isn’t much better than the standard tactic of Hiding and Shooting.

For those unfamiliar with those terms:

• Vex – if you hit the creature, you gain advantage on your next attack
• Nick – if you dual-wield this weapon, you may use it as part of your Attack action rather than using your bonus action

Thus, the rogue attacks with scimitar. If he hits, the shortsword attack has advantage (and sneak attack). He then uses a bonus action to disengage. The player has been happy doing that. But while it looks great, it’s a small damage bonus compared to regular tactics.

Our Barbarian is using the Cleave property – or, at least, he wants to. It turns out that much of the time, he doesn’t have two opponents adjacent to each other. This isn’t me being unkind with monster movements. It’s just worked that way, although every so often it’s due to “helpful” allies taking down the other monster first.

Are combats taking longer with Weapon Mastery in play? Hard to say – more of a problem getting used to the rules!

My ongoing Greyhawk 5E game is also converting to the new rules. Sort of. It’s really odd, because one of the characters is an artificer, and they aren’t updated at all to 2024 rules. The other players are doing it as it strikes their fancy. The sorcerer has fully converted – and he took full advantage of the expanded spells known to take teleport and then teleport several hundred miles home with the party, leaving the area they’d been exploring for the past few months. (The Flooded City, off the west of the map in the Plains of the Paynims).

They managed to wake a palace that had been in stasis for about 2000 years, and it included an Empress who had been fighting off a rebellion that had been raised by her own sister – Xan Yae. Lots of fun lore for people familiar with the setting there. (Yes, I don’t think Xan Yae has ever had this background before). But the party didn’t want to face the Empress, and didn’t think one palace of inhabitants out of time could cause much trouble. So they teleported back to their homeland, Veluna.

One of the players kindly asked if this would cause me trouble because I’d prepared an adventure for the evening. Ah – my preparation isn’t so much of that sort these days. I’ve got the outlines and parameters worked out, but not so many of the details. Changing locations – even that drastically – allowed me to pick up some of my other dangling plot threads and get back to them.

It was a nice reunion in Brusington. The Baron had sent them to recover some stolen statues, and they’d ended up halfway around the world! Stopping an invading horde was a thing! But it was comparatively quiet in Brusington. Except for those stone giants causing problems on the borders.

My players have wondered what (or who) is behind the giant attacks. I guess they’ll find out!

But in the overland trip to reach the giants, I called upon Uncharted Journeys for a couple of encounters on the way. Which included a blind farmer caring for basilisks. This proved a bit too sinister for our wizard, and there were no basilisks left when the party moved on. However, there is a mysterious stranger who was the one who paid for the care of the basilisks.

It’s another dangling plot thread! Who knows when I will take that one up? But they’re very useful for the games I like running these days.