Pausing only to fall into, then cross a large pit hidden by illusion, the group continues into a large amphitheater. The seats surround a central raised dais of black stone and are surrounded by black tapestries showing scenes of decay and death. Although there is an exit directly opposite the entrance, the group decides to investigate . They are attacked by tapestries and the dais sprouts tentacles tipped with fanged mouths.
Deciding that this brand of horror can wait till later, the group presses onwards, moving into a short hallway that ends in a door.
Door is opened, room of statues that animate and dance, delaying the party members long enough for the gas in the room to render half of them unconscious. The fallen are dragged away until they regain consciousness. The group returns to the room and dashes through it, exiting through a door and once again find themselves in a short hallway. Beyond a door, a room with three fountains. Once runs clear, two are full of scummy water. When the group pauses to investigate, two of the fountains start to spray acid on the party members. They flee into a short hallway that ends in another door. Beyond the door, a room with statues on raised pedestals. The statues are identical to the ones seen near the entrance of the underground complex. The group decides not to dally and dashes ahead, Reza using his boots of springing to leap across the floor of the room and out the opposite side through an archway.
That act animates all the golemstatues and they begin to rain death on the party members – mages casting feeblemind, lightning bolt, polymorph, magic missile, clerics casting hold person and finger of death and curse and blindness, fighters attacking savagely and a pair of thieves slipping from held victim to held victim, stabbing and slicing and killing.
Reza is slain twice in the encounter and Humbar dies as well. Lubbitch is also killed and all but Dalliance suffer grievous injuries. In the end, a few rings of spell turning and the odd disintegrate and the party survives. Casualties never went above 50%.
The group hibernates in the underground and broods on the thrashing they have received. Days pass and they rest, resurrect and repair battered party members. Finally they venture onwards, into the burial chamber of Hestrin.They prepare for a battle tot he undeath, but the mummy within the sarcophagus is decidedly inert and does not resist as they strip it of it’s burial plunder – Girdle, Rod and gems and jewels.
The group returns to an island still gripped by storms and high winds, though it seems the hurricane is moving away and the winds are
abating. They wait it out and in a few hours the day turns bright
and sunny. They unroll the carpet and fly along the waves to the Sentinel island. They are skirting its northern edge when an other storm rolls into the area and they are forced to land. They use the bard’s Lyre of Building to construct a shelter out of the lava fields and wait out the storm…

“Thursday, 3 0′clock?”

On August 22 the players become the villains. That’s right, this season the PCs get a chance to become members of Drow society along with all the plotting and scheming that accompanies it. The PCs don’t necessarily have to play evil characters but they will want to watch their backs as everyone could be out to get them, even the other PCs.

Season 10 of D&D Encoutners: Council of Spiders continues the world-shaping Rise of the Underdark story arc and is closely tied to the latest product offering from Wizards of the Coast, Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue. Below is a high-level overview of what you can expect during the coming season of D&D Encounters. It relatively spoiler-free.

The Adventure

This season runs only 9 weeks. Week 0 is for character creation, chapter 1 covers weeks 1-3, chapter 2 covers weeks 4-6, and chapter 3 covers weeks 7-8. I really, really like that the chapters are short. Completing each chapter will provide PCs with enough XP to level, so that should give players an indication of how difficult each week’s session will be.

This adventure is only peripherally connected to last season’s Web of the Spider Queen. The players are expected to create new heroes based on very specific and tight guidelines (more on that below in Character Creation). There was a lot of speculation that this adventure might present options for more advanced levels of play than 1-3. I regret to inform you that this season is exactly like every one that came before it and is intended for new players starting from scratch. However, I don’t see experienced DMs having much trouble pumping up the encounters to make it suitable for a tougher party (I know that’s what I’m planning to do).

At the outset the PCs know the following details. Lolth is trying to create the Demon Weave (similar to Mystra’s Weave that was destroyed in the Spellplague) and grab dominance over arcane power. The arcane casters, predominantly male, are all for this as they see it as a way to give males more power and prominence in Drow society. The Priestesses fear it for exactly the same reason. A third group, a secret society of Drow, want Lolth to fail and be destroyed, freeing Drow from the Spider Goddess once and for all. Everyone else is waiting in the wings to see how things play out and then decide who to support (as is the Drow way).

Before the first session the PCs need to decide which of three Drow Houses they want to be aligned with or working for. Although there will be a common goal that defines the overall adventure, each House has their own agenda and the PCs will have to decide how to react to certain situations depending one which House they belong to. Acting in your House’s best interest will earn the PCs Worth points (more on that below in Fortune Cards & Worth).

Session 6 will really be the deciding encounter of this adventure. This encounter is all role-playing and skill checks, there is no structured combat. During this session the PCs will have to decide where their loyalties lay before proceeding to the final chapter. The decisions the PCs make during week 6 and the results of their actions during the role-playing will have a direct impact on how things play out for the final chapter.

Although this is a short adventure I think it will prove to be a lot of fun. With the players given the opportunity to play evil PCs and allowed (even encouraged) to actively waylay others in the party with different goals than their own, this is going to be one fun season.

I would caution rookie DMs looking to take the reins for this season. Just because the adventure is short doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to run. There is a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes and it’s important that the DM keep track of it all. Although a lot of DMs only read the adventure one week at a time (I know I’m guilty of this) I strongly encourage you to read the entire thing all the way through before beginning the first session. The actions the PCs take each week will have repercussions on subsequent sessions so be prepared to adjust on the fly.

Character Creation

This season everyone is strongly encouraged to play Drow characters. The adventure assumes that the PCs are aligned/affiliated with one of three Drow factions in the city of Menzoberranzan. Anyone not playing a Drow is assumed to be a Drow slave and is limited to one of these six other races – Dwarf, Goblin, Half-Orc, Human, Kobold and Svirfneblin.

Once again Wizards provided sharp-looking character sheets for anyone who wants to make a character old school using pencil and paper. These are great if you have people showing up for slot 0 to make characters. However, since most of the regulars use character builder to create their characters this is basically just flare that goes unused at my FLGS.

Pre-Generated Characters

For the first time in six season we finally have new pre-gens. Given the nature of this season’s adventure it only made sense that Wizards would provide Drow pre-gens. So over the next eight weeks we’ll get to know six new Drow: Belgos (Ranger Hunter), Chali (Rogue Thief), Drisdhaun (Wizard Evocation Mage), Ryltar (Fighter Slayer), Syndrina (Paladin Cavalier), Zarra (Cleric War Priest). We’ve scanned and posted copies of all six D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders – Pre-Generated Characters. They are also available in the Dungeon’s Master Pre-Generated Character Library along with all of the other pre-gens that Wizard has provided to date.

Treasure Cards

I was surprised at how little fanfare these cards generated last season. The idea was that anyone who played the first Drow adventure during PAX East would receive a code that they could give to their FLGS to redeem a free item card. I suppose so few people actually did this to make any real impact.

This season the prerequisite adventure is called “The Dawn of Night.” I’m not sure where one would play this adventure (GenCon maybe?) but if you do your PC gets this treasure to being the season. It offers resist 5 poison which will certainly be useful when facing Drow opponents.

Front

Back

Amazing Maps

Every season we showcase the fantastic maps Wizards provides with the new adventure. I find that the maps more than anything else are the real treasures for the DMs. I use and reuse the D&D Encoutners maps almost every week in my home games. This season we get maps made using the recently released Urban Underdark terrain tiles. It’s a healthy mix of dungeon and caverns.

Initiative Tracker

There’s not really much more I can say about the Initiative Tracker cards that I haven’t said before. They look great and they’re convenient to use. If you’ve got Initiative Trackers from multiple seasons mixing and matching them will certainly make it easier to distinguish the heroes from the monsters.

Fortune Cards & Worth

The new Treachery Fortune Cards will really spice things up this season. They’re designed to basically wreak havoc on your allies. Using them will certainly cause a stir at your gaming table as it really goes against the whole teamwork thing. I see the cards as a way to play your character as a self-centered jerk and shrug off any responsibility you might have for acting that way. “It wasn’t me, it was the card.” For advanced players who really want to get into playing Drow PCs these cards will add a new and unexpected element to the game you think you know. However, I don’t think that newer players will like these cards at all.

A new mechanic that is tied into the Treachery Fortune Cards is Worth. This is a way to assign a score to your characters station and importance in Drow society. Each PC will begin with a Worth score based on modifiers provided in the adventure. As you complete goals and play Treachery cards your Worth will change. The idea is that you will do what’s best for your PC to increase his Worth, even when those actions don’t necessarily align with the party’s greater goals. I see tremendous potential, but I fear that for newer players this will not give them a true reflection of what D&D is all about. I can already see new players getting screwed over by someone else hungering for Worth, and when that happens the new players will decided that they don’t like D&D and won’t come back.

This season players can earn up to three special promo Treachery Fortune Cards exclusive to D&D Encounters.

When a player earns 20 Renown Points, they earn the Hands Off! (promo 2) Fortune Card.

When a player earns 40 Renown Points, they earn the Overextended (promo 3) Fortune Card.

When a player earns 60 Renown Points, they earn the I See What You Did (promo 1) Fortune Card.

Instructions

Poster

Every season Wizards provides the FLGS with a poster to advertise the current season of D&D Encounters.

Renown Tracker

Download the Renown Tracker (PDF) for Council of Spiders.

The Adventure Begins

Council of Spiders is the second of three adventures featuring the Drow of the Forgotten Realms. This season clearly seems to focus on the Drow way of life, the self-centered, egocentric and deceitful elements of their society. It’s a short adventure (the shortest yet for D&D Encounters) so if this experiment doesn’t work as well as expected we won’t have to tough it out for very long. Season 10 begins on Wednesday, August 22.

Be sure to visit Dungeon’s Master every Thursday for our ongoing weekly coverage of D&D Encounters. Also be sure to listen to the weekly podcast in which Alton (from 20ft Radius) and I provide our post-game report.

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Following a brutal encounter in the Drow Torture Theatre last week the heroes took a short rest and then moved onward in search of the Slave Pits. After some exploration the passage seemed to open into a larger cavern. The shouting from a Drow guard and the screams from victimized slaves left no doubt that the PCs had found the Salve Pits.

While hiding in the passageway the heroes spotted a Drow leading a Svirfneblin slave back to the pens. Before them stood a large creature made entirely of webs. It seemed to have some recognition of the Drow guard as it stepped aside to allow the slave to pass. The guard left the slave in the creatures charge and retreated the way he came, oblivious to the PCs’ presence.

Huge Spiders scuttled along the floor and walls, threatening the Svirfneblin. Suddenly a Human woman stepped out to confront the Spider, shouting at them and kicking them. It was Khara Sulwood.

The number of players toughing it out to the very end of this season continues to dwindle at my FLGS. We continue struggling to fill two tables. This week we eventually had 10 players and ran two tables of five. My group was unchanged from week 11 with four Drow and one Dragonborn.

• Drow Druid
• Drow Cleric
• Drow Rogue #1
• Drow Rogue #2
• Dragonborn Fighter

This was one of those encounters where the party make-up ended up having a huge impact on success or failure. In this case all four roles were represented with an extra striker in the wings. The PCs were also fortunate (lucky) that the powers they still had in their arsenal were particularly effective against the monsters in this combat. Hot dice also helped, as they often do.

Before any combat began the Druid, for the first time this season, asked to make a monster knowledge check on the Web Golem. He rolled a natural 20 so I read him the stat block. The thing he really wanted to know was whether or not the monster had vulnerabilities, which it did: vulnerable 5 fire.

The Web Golem and the Spiders all noticed the approaching party before any of them got a chance to act. One of the Spiders attacked the Fighter and landed a solid blow while another attacked Rogue #2. Next the Web Golem took two steps forward, effectively blocking the entrance to the Slave Pits, and swung at Rogue #1 and the Fighter. Both hits connected, Rogue #1 getting caught in the webs as part of the initial hit.

Rogue #2 decided to seek reinforcements so he risked an opportunity attack and moved past the Golem, or at least he moved as best he could as the aura of webs slowed him. He did manage to get close enough to Khara that he could toss her weapons from his backpack and her shield which they’d recovered from the Demonspur.

The Cleric used her daily power Cascade of Light and hit the Web Golem. The power gave the monster vulnerable 5 to all attacks (save ends). This effectively gave all of the heroes +5 damage with their attacks until the monster saved.

Note: I thought this seemed like a really powerful effect for a level 1 daily but at the time I didn’t question it. I’ve since looked up the power and realized that the monster should only have been vulnerable 5 to the Cleric’s attacks and not everyone else’s.

With the Web Golem vulnerable everyone unloaded on it, completely ignoring the Spiders. Those with action points used them to get multiple attacks and almost all the attacks connected. So 25-35 extra damage from the vulnerability. Rogue #1 couldn’t escape but did mange to get a good blow in on his turn. Rogue #2 meanwhile got free of the slow zone, unlocked the Svirfneblin and gave them all daggers before he found himself face-to-face with a giant Spider.

The Web Golem, now marked by the Fighter, included him in the barrage of attacks, scoring a crit and knocking him unconscious. With Khara now armed and in the combat the player just traded one defender for another.

One of the Spiders managed to get around to the softer PCs, attacking the Druid and Cleric now that their defender meat shield was down. The Cleric revived the Fighter and he went to work on the Spider, marking it and locking it down.

The Web Golem failed to shrug off the vulnerability 5 and for another round everyone pounded him as best they could. It took another 20 additional points from the vulnerability. It attacked Rogue #1 and managed to bring him down to exactly 1 hit point. The Web Golem then failed to save for the third time so it ended up taking another 25 extra points of damage this round before it finally saved. All told it ended up taking around 75 extra points of damage (more than half of its total hit points) thanks to the vulnerability.

Khara kept the Web Golem in her defender’s aura so it eventually shifted its fury onto her. She took a couple of good hits but managed to stay conscious. In the end it was Khara who landed the killing blow which seemed fitting. Rogue #2 and the Fighter each took out the Spiders attacking them, while the Druid and Rogue #1 tag-teamed the final Spider and easily killed it.

As the combat progressed I needed to figure out a good was to determine if the Svirfneblin would join the combat or not. I decided that each round they’d all get morale saves. Success meant that they’d mustered the courage to join the fight; failure meant they were still too scarred or weak to be helpful. The first round after they were freed they all failed. The second round a couple made their saves, armed themselves, and moved towards the combat. By the third round those in the fight were close enough to be helpful but by then the PCs had things well in hand.

When the combat ended Khara and the Svirfneblin were extremely grateful for the party’s help to defeat their jailers. However the Deep Gnomes told the heroes that more Drow would be along soon and that they needed to move quickly. Returning the way the PCs came would not work with a party this size. However, the Svirfneblin had an escape plan. While working the mines they found cracks and crevasses that they believed would lead them out of Zadzifeirryn. The only reason they hadn’t tried escaping this way already was that they didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Now that the Web Golem was destroyed they could all leave together.

With the help of the former slaves the heroes managed to escape Zadzifeirryn undetected. However, the party ended up in an area of the Underdark they were not familiar with and had no idea how to get back to Shadowdale or the surface. The heroes asked the Svirfneblin for assistance but they were extremely reluctant to be guides. The heroes tried Diplomacy with no success. One of the Rogues decided to offer the Deep Gnomes money which they were a lot more receptive to. With a sizable enough payment one of the Svirfneblin produced a map he’d stolen from a Drow guard that showed the route the PCs needed to follow to return to Shadowdale.

Khara and the PCs bid the Svirfneblin farewell and began the trip home. The natural hazards and inconsequential combat encounters they faced along the journey resulted in each PC loosing a healing surge, but eventually they returned to the Tower of Ashaba where they first entered the catacombs and Underdark. As they began ascending the stairs from the cellar to the main floor Valan Jaelre stepped into view.

“As I feared, my worthless cohorts below have failed to protect that which I entrusted to them. As it always does, it falls to me to finish the task. You will return the pendant, then you will surrender to me. If you make any attempt to stand against House Jaelre, I swear that your deaths will be painful and slow.”

This has been an unusual chapter and I had to make some significant judgment calls along the way. In the first session (week 10) I opted to eliminate combat in favour of more role-playing and skill checks. The encounter turned out ok, but the party expended almost no resources. For the next session (week 11) I decided to ramp up the difficulty to make up for the easy encounter the week before. This time the party got hit hard and expended a lot of resources – way more than I expected. This week (week 12) I didn’t want to unnecessarily overburden the party in what I thought was going to be a tough encounter so I ran it exactly as printed. As it turned out the encounter was pretty much a cake-walk and only a coupe of PCs took any real damage (thanks in large part to our misinterpretation of how the Cleric’s daily power worked).

So with one more encounter to go the party is still in really good shape. They all have healing surges left and everyone has one action point. I know that the final encounter is going to be tough, after all it is the thrilling conclusion, but I think that this party will find the task fairly easy. My instinct is to pump up the difficulty to make it more challenging, yet at the same time I don’t want to rob this party of a victory that is rightly theirs. I guess I’ll just have to make a decision in the moment and see where the dice fall.

How did this week’s encounter go for your party? Did your PCs have fire in their arsenal, thereby gaining an advantage when fighting the Web Golem? Did the heroes manage to free and arm Khara or the slaves? Did anyone suffer a TPK? How are everyone’s resources (specifically healing surges) heading into the final fight?

Reward Summary Sheets

The summary sheets detail the XP, gp and magic items found during each encounter. The Chapter 3 summary sheet includes the XP and loot up to week 12. I encourage DMs to print copies of the summary sheets ahead of time so that they can hand them out to their players the following week.

• Chapter 3 Reward Summary
• Chapter 2 Reward Summary
• Chapter 1 Reward Summary

Podcasts

Each week I join Alton from 20ft Radius as we discuss the week’s encounter. We summarize our experiences and provide our thoughts on what worked, what didn’t, and what we’d do differently.

We continue to record our D&D Encounters sessions and make them available to you for download every week. These recordings are made in a loud, crowded game store so at times it may be difficult to hear everyone.

• Week in Review Podcast (Week 12) at 20ft Radius
• Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Week 12)

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Wizards of the Coast provided new pre-generated characters with the materials for the upcoming season D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them. After five seasons without any new pre-gens we get six Drow characters to choose from for D&D Encounters season 10.

As I actually read through the new adventure I realized that playing any race other than Drow would present players with considerable challenges this season. With that in mind it only made sense that Wizards would give us Drow pre-gens. After all, D&D Encoutners is still an introductory program so they needed to give us more than Belgos if new players wanted to play Drow PCs.

Now before you get too excited about having these new pre-gens I have to warn you that they will seem remarkably familiar. It looks like whomever was in charge of making these new pre-gens just took the old ones, changed the races to Drow, slapped new pictures on them and left the rest pretty much unchanged. In the case of Belgos, who was already Drow, his character sheet is the same (although the card’s layout was adjusted slightly).

The other five pre-gens are a Cavalier, Cleric, Mage, Slayer, and Thief. The only one of these five that has any significant change is the Cleric and that’s only because the previous pre-gen worshiped a sun god. I did a very quick check of the numbers and it seems that two of the characters have the incorrect point-buy for their abilities: Chali, the Rogue, is 1 point under the normal spend and Syndrina, the Paladin, is over by 4 points.

However, despite my nit-picking criticisms of these pre-gens I must admit that I’m still very pleased and excited that they were provided. I know we have some players who only ever want to use the pre-gens so they’ll finally have something different to pick from this season. It might even be an interesting change for an experienced party to play nothing but these pre-gens this season.

You can find these six official pre-generated characters along with all of the other pre-gens Wizards has provided since the inception of D&D Encounters in the Dungeon’s Master Pre-Generated Character Library.

• Download PDFs of all 6 new pre-generated characters.

	Belgos Male Drow Ranger (Hunter) Difficulty *** High Resolution Download (6.4 MB)
	Chali Female Drow Rogue (Thief) Difficulty * High Resolution Download (5.9 MB)
	Drisdhaun Male Drow Wizard (Evocation Mage) Difficulty ** High Resolution Download (5.7 MB)
	Ryltar Male Drow Fighter (Slayer) Difficulty * High Resolution Download (5.3 MB)
	Syndrina Female Drow Paladin (Cavalier) Difficulty ** High Resolution Download (5.6 MB)
	Zarra Female Drow Cleric (War Priest) Difficulty *** High Resolution Download (5.6 MB)

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Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Following a brutal encounter in the Drow Torture Theatre last week the heroes took a short rest and then moved onward in search of the Slave Pits. After some exploration the passage seemed to open into a larger cavern. The shouting from a Drow guard and the screams from victimized slaves left no doubt that the PCs had found the Salve Pits.

While hiding in the passageway the heroes spotted a Drow leading a Svirfneblin slave back to the pens. Before them stood a large creature made entirely of webs. It seemed to have some recognition of the Drow guard as it stepped aside to allow the slave to pass. The guard left the slave in the creatures charge and retreated the way he came, oblivious to the PCs’ presence.

Huge Spiders scuttled along the floor and walls, threatening the Svirfneblin. Suddenly a Human woman stepped out to confront the Spider, shouting at them and kicking them. It was Khara Sulwood.

The number of players toughing it out to the very end of this season continues to dwindle at my FLGS. We continue struggling to fill two tables. This week we eventually had 10 players and ran two tables of five. My group was unchanged from week 11 with four Drow and one Dragonborn.

• Drow Druid
• Drow Cleric
• Drow Rogue #1
• Drow Rogue #2
• Dragonborn Fighter

This was one of those encounters where the party make-up ended up having a huge impact on success or failure. In this case all four roles were represented with an extra striker in the wings. The PCs were also fortunate (lucky) that the powers they still had in their arsenal were particularly effective against the monsters in this combat. Hot dice also helped, as they often do.

Before any combat began the Druid, for the first time this season, asked to make a monster knowledge check on the Web Golem. He rolled a natural 20 so I read him the stat block. The thing he really wanted to know was whether or not the monster had vulnerabilities, which it did: vulnerable 5 fire.

The Web Golem and the Spiders all noticed the approaching party before any of them got a chance to act. One of the Spiders attacked the Fighter and landed a solid blow while another attacked Rogue #2. Next the Web Golem took two steps forward, effectively blocking the entrance to the Slave Pits, and swung at Rogue #1 and the Fighter. Both hits connected, Rogue #1 getting caught in the webs as part of the initial hit.

Rogue #2 decided to seek reinforcements so he risked an opportunity attack and moved past the Golem, or at least he moved as best he could as the aura of webs slowed him. He did manage to get close enough to Khara that he could toss her weapons from his backpack and her shield which they’d recovered from the Demonspur.

The Cleric used her daily power Cascade of Light and hit the Web Golem. The power gave the monster vulnerable 5 to all attacks (save ends). This effectively gave all of the heroes +5 damage with their attacks until the monster saved.

Note: I thought this seemed like a really powerful effect for a level 1 daily but at the time I didn’t question it. I’ve since looked up the power and realized that the monster should only have been vulnerable 5 to the Cleric’s attacks and not everyone else’s.

With the Web Golem vulnerable everyone unloaded on it, completely ignoring the Spiders. Those with action points used them to get multiple attacks and almost all the attacks connected. So 25-35 extra damage from the vulnerability. Rogue #1 couldn’t escape but did mange to get a good blow in on his turn. Rogue #2 meanwhile got free of the slow zone, unlocked the Svirfneblin and gave them all daggers before he found himself face-to-face with a giant Spider.

The Web Golem, now marked by the Fighter, included him in the barrage of attacks, scoring a crit and knocking him unconscious. With Khara now armed and in the combat the player just traded one defender for another.

One of the Spiders managed to get around to the softer PCs, attacking the Druid and Cleric now that their defender meat shield was down. The Cleric revived the Fighter and he went to work on the Spider, marking it and locking it down.

The Web Golem failed to shrug off the vulnerability 5 and for another round everyone pounded him as best they could. It took another 20 additional points from the vulnerability. It attacked Rogue #1 and managed to bring him down to exactly 1 hit point. The Web Golem then failed to save for the third time so it ended up taking another 25 extra points of damage this round before it finally saved. All told it ended up taking around 75 extra points of damage (more than half of its total hit points) thanks to the vulnerability.

Khara kept the Web Golem in her defender’s aura so it eventually shifted its fury onto her. She took a couple of good hits but managed to stay conscious. In the end it was Khara who landed the killing blow which seemed fitting. Rogue #2 and the Fighter each took out the Spiders attacking them, while the Druid and Rogue #1 tag-teamed the final Spider and easily killed it.

As the combat progressed I needed to figure out a good was to determine if the Svirfneblin would join the combat or not. I decided that each round they’d all get morale saves. Success meant that they’d mustered the courage to join the fight; failure meant they were still too scarred or weak to be helpful. The first round after they were freed they all failed. The second round a couple made their saves, armed themselves, and moved towards the combat. By the third round those in the fight were close enough to be helpful but by then the PCs had things well in hand.

When the combat ended Khara and the Svirfneblin were extremely grateful for the party’s help to defeat their jailers. However the Deep Gnomes told the heroes that more Drow would be along soon and that they needed to move quickly. Returning the way the PCs came would not work with a party this size. However, the Svirfneblin had an escape plan. While working the mines they found cracks and crevasses that they believed would lead them out of Zadzifeirryn. The only reason they hadn’t tried escaping this way already was that they didn’t want to leave anyone behind. Now that the Web Golem was destroyed they could all leave together.

With the help of the former slaves the heroes managed to escape Zadzifeirryn undetected. However, the party ended up in an area of the Underdark they were not familiar with and had no idea how to get back to Shadowdale or the surface. The heroes asked the Svirfneblin for assistance but they were extremely reluctant to be guides. The heroes tried Diplomacy with no success. One of the Rogues decided to offer the Deep Gnomes money which they were a lot more receptive to. With a sizable enough payment one of the Svirfneblin produced a map he’d stolen from a Drow guard that showed the route the PCs needed to follow to return to Shadowdale.

Khara and the PCs bid the Svirfneblin farewell and began the trip home. The natural hazards and inconsequential combat encounters they faced along the journey resulted in each PC loosing a healing surge, but eventually they returned to the Tower of Ashaba where they first entered the catacombs and Underdark. As they began ascending the stairs from the cellar to the main floor Valan Jaelre stepped into view.

“As I feared, my worthless cohorts below have failed to protect that which I entrusted to them. As it always does, it falls to me to finish the task. You will return the pendant, then you will surrender to me. If you make any attempt to stand against House Jaelre, I swear that your deaths will be painful and slow.”

This has been an unusual chapter and I had to make some significant judgment calls along the way. In the first session (week 10) I opted to eliminate combat in favour of more role-playing and skill checks. The encounter turned out ok, but the party expended almost no resources. For the next session (week 11) I decided to ramp up the difficulty to make up for the easy encounter the week before. This time the party got hit hard and expended a lot of resources – way more than I expected. This week (week 12) I didn’t want to unnecessarily overburden the party in what I thought was going to be a tough encounter so I ran it exactly as printed. As it turned out the encounter was pretty much a cake-walk and only a coupe of PCs took any real damage (thanks in large part to our misinterpretation of how the Cleric’s daily power worked).

So with one more encounter to go the party is still in really good shape. They all have healing surges left and everyone has one action point. I know that the final encounter is going to be tough, after all it is the thrilling conclusion, but I think that this party will find the task fairly easy. My instinct is to pump up the difficulty to make it more challenging, yet at the same time I don’t want to rob this party of a victory that is rightly theirs. I guess I’ll just have to make a decision in the moment and see where the dice fall.

How did this week’s encounter go for your party? Did your PCs have fire in their arsenal, thereby gaining an advantage when fighting the Web Golem? Did the heroes manage to free and arm Khara or the slaves? Did anyone suffer a TPK? How are everyone’s resources (specifically healing surges) heading into the final fight?

Reward Summary Sheets

The summary sheets detail the XP, gp and magic items found during each encounter. The Chapter 3 summary sheet includes the XP and loot up to week 12. I encourage DMs to print copies of the summary sheets ahead of time so that they can hand them out to their players the following week.

• Chapter 3 Reward Summary
• Chapter 2 Reward Summary
• Chapter 1 Reward Summary

Podcasts

Each week I join Alton from 20ft Radius as we discuss the week’s encounter. We summarize our experiences and provide our thoughts on what worked, what didn’t, and what we’d do differently.

We continue to record our D&D Encounters sessions and make them available to you for download every week. These recordings are made in a loud, crowded game store so at times it may be difficult to hear everyone.

• Week in Review Podcast (Week 12) at 20ft Radius
• Actual Play Podcast at Harry T North (Week 12)

Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Wizards of the Coast provided new pre-generated characters with the materials for the upcoming season D&D Encounters: Council of Spiders. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them. After five seasons without any new pre-gens we get six Drow characters to choose from for D&D Encounters season 10.

As I actually read through the new adventure I realized that playing any race other than Drow would present players with considerable challenges this season. With that in mind it only made sense that Wizards would give us Drow pre-gens. After all, D&D Encoutners is still an introductory program so they needed to give us more than Belgos if new players wanted to play Drow PCs.

Now before you get too excited about having these new pre-gens I have to warn you that they will seem remarkably familiar. It looks like whomever was in charge of making these new pre-gens just took the old ones, changed the races to Drow, slapped new pictures on them and left the rest pretty much unchanged. In the case of Belgos, who was already Drow, his character sheet is the same (although the card’s layout was adjusted slightly).

The other five pre-gens are a Cavalier, Cleric, Mage, Slayer, and Thief. The only one of these five that has any significant change is the Cleric and that’s only because the previous pre-gen worshiped a sun god. I did a very quick check of the numbers and it seems that two of the characters have the incorrect point-buy for their abilities: Chali, the Rogue, is 1 point under the normal spend and Syndrina, the Paladin, is over by 4 points.

However, despite my nit-picking criticisms of these pre-gens I must admit that I’m still very pleased and excited that they were provided. I know we have some players who only ever want to use the pre-gens so they’ll finally have something different to pick from this season. It might even be an interesting change for an experienced party to play nothing but these pre-gens this season.

You can find these six official pre-generated characters along with all of the other pre-gens Wizards has provided since the inception of D&D Encounters in the Dungeon’s Master Pre-Generated Character Library.

• Download PDFs of all 6 new pre-generated characters.

	Belgos Male Drow Ranger (Hunter) Difficulty *** High Resolution Download (6.4 MB)
	Chali Female Drow Rogue (Thief) Difficulty * High Resolution Download (5.9 MB)
	Drisdhaun Male Drow Wizard (Evocation Mage) Difficulty ** High Resolution Download (5.7 MB)
	Ryltar Male Drow Fighter (Slayer) Difficulty * High Resolution Download (5.3 MB)
	Syndrina Female Drow Paladin (Cavalier) Difficulty ** High Resolution Download (5.6 MB)
	Zarra Female Drow Cleric (War Priest) Difficulty *** High Resolution Download (5.6 MB)

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Visit the Dungeon’s Master D&D Encounters Archive for all of our ongoing weekly coverage as well as other great D&D Encounters articles and resources.

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Next week, thousands of us will be converging on Indianapolis for our favorite consecutive four day period of the year. Sadly, there are countless more of our tribe that won’t be making the trip. Many can’t go because of finances, family obligations, or (like me last year) an unfortunate work schedule.

It sucked.

TLDR: It Sucked

I’m not going  to be so overdramatic as to suggest missing Gen Con ranks among the worst things that have ever happened to me, and that it bears the Seal of Distress Quality™ signifying it contains only the finest quality broken bones and hearts and dreams. It didn’t. Of those disappointments and regrets that deal subdual damage, though, it was at the very least a solo encounter. I missed out on lots of adventures, seeing all my Internets friends and meeting lots of new people, gaming not only my face but my whole torso off, and the chance to stand with my CH brothers as we were recognized for our superior nerdery.

I tried several things last year. One was to sit on Twitter during Drinking D&D. I was sufficiently put off by not being able to go that I decided to mess with people over Twitter to make them think I was there. It didn’t take long before I realized I was simultaneously being not-funny and a-dick, so I stopped doing that (sorry if you were one of the victims of my impotent, pouty rage). Eventually, I decided simply to go dark for the weekend. It was just easier.

I did manage to make it in for the last few hours on Sunday. No gaming was had, save about half a game of Magic while waiting to have dinner with my tribe. However, on the whole, it sucked. I hope I don’t have to repeat that experience.

Bringing Hope To Gamers In Need

For those of you not able to go this year, I find myself at odds with how to bring you solace. Watching everyone else talk about all the cool things going on just depressed me. Therefore, I have decided to go interactive.

Introducing…. the Make-A-Geas Foundation!!!

If you can’t do the stuff you wanted to do this year, maybe I can help. Post a comment detailing the geas you wish to place upon me, and I will perform every last one.

OK, actually that would be completely insane. I know you, Internet. I came of age when you were born. I watched you dance as a baby. I know you would have me do things like obtaining carpet fibers from every floor of every hotel connected to the convention center, grafting them to my face to form the Ultimate Gen Con Beard, or attempting to get Wil Wheaton to say his name backwards so that finally you can control him, or to plank on every table in the Miniatures hall dressed as Drizzt Do’Urden dressed as a member of the US Women’s Gymnastics Team.

NAY.

Instead, I am going to simply pick and choose the Geases I like best.

If you want your Geas to have a better chance of being chosen, please follow these guidelines:

• It can’t cost me money — that is, unless I think it’d be awesome and I can afford it. (Which I probably can’t.)
• I’m not going to wait in line for hours
• I’m NOT going to prison for you bastards
• Funny ideas get +5 Diplomacy
• Ideas that touch my heart, actually help someone, and/or summon the damned stupid onions get +10 Diplomacy
• Ideas accompanied by a donation to the actual Make-A-Wish Foundation get +20 Diplomacy – (Sorry, I can’t cast level 9 spells on my own yet.)

I’m going to shoot for completing 5 Geases, and I’ll announce which those are later this week. I’ll do more if time allows, but it may well be that I don’t finish the ones I set out to do. I’m not actually sure what happens then. Do I get diarrhea or something? Does Pelor garnish my wages? I hope not to find out.

This is either going to be the best idea I’ve had in a long time, or by far the worst. Regardless, it seems like it’ll be fun and I hope I can bring a few of you some Gen Con happiness by acting in your stead. (Forcibly, by magic.)

And now, without further ado, pour your geas on me. In the name of love.

So far the articles we’ve published in anticipation of GenCon were tips to make your gaming experience better; plenty of “dos” that we think are helpful and important. Today we provide a list of “don’ts.”

Although we always try to see the positive side of things here at Dungeon’s Master, every now and then we have to acknowledge that there are some negative aspects of gaming and gaming culture. After last year’s GenCon I felt it was my responsibility to highlight a few of the worst things I saw at the gaming table and shine a big spotlight right on it. Many of the offenders guilty of the things presented in the article below don’t even realize that what they’re doing is considered uncool or rude. My hope is that by actually listing these things here today gamers will realize how off-putting or annoying these things are and avoid doing any of them at this year’s GenCon (or any game table for that matter).

We ran this as part of our Great Hits 2011 at which time I wrote a new intro for it. I think that the new intro is just as important as the original article so I’ve decided to include it with today’s re-post.

Originally published on August 12, 2011, and then again on December 19, 2011, Dungeon’s Master once again presents:

•  7 Appalling Things I Witnessed at the Gaming Table
• Greatest Hits 2011: 7 Appalling Things I Witnessed at the Gaming Table

No matter where you play D&D – at conventions like GenCon, at your FLGS or even at home – there are certain expectations regarding behaviour that all players are expected to follow. We take for granted that most of these things fall into the “common sense” category and assume everyone understands what’s expected of them. However, experience has taught me differently.

I’ve learned the hard way that when people participate in public-play D&D they tend to do things they’d never do during a home game. It’s as if they believe that public-play games give them a free pass with regards to a lot of very obvious objectionable acts. After seeing many of these violations in full force at GenCon this summer I had to write down some of the most egregious and appalling ones. My hope was (and still is) that gamers will read this list, realize they’re guilty of doing some of these things, and make a point of never doing them again.

During D&D Encounters over the past year I’ve witnessed a lot of these things with unfortunate regularity. As the DM I try to “correct” some of these poor practices, but it’s tough, especially because I don’t know a lot of these people very well. And I don’t think that it should always fall to the DM to be the bad guy.

I think that we all need to share the responsibility for letting other gamers know when they violate the social contract. Whenever any of us spots the things on this list happening we should do our part and inform the violator of the inappropriate actions they’ve undertaken. By working together we can make public-play D&D better and eliminate the 7 appalling things I witnessed at GenCon.

While at GenCon I played in my share of D&D adventures. For the most part it was a lot of fun and I had a great time playing. But one thing that really stood out for me a lot more this year than any other was the egregiousness with which other players violated the social contract you agree to uphold when playing D&D or any RPG.

I’ve put together a list of all the social faux pas and violations of the social contract that actually happened at my gaming table during GenCon. I encourage you to use the comments section below to add violations you witnessed at your gaming tables to this list. Maybe if we put them in print enough gamers will read them and hopefully stop doing them or at least realize that these actions aren’t acceptable.

I’ll admit that I’m actually guilty of a committing a couple of these myself, but when I do I am aware that it’s a problem and I apologize to the table. Regrettably when these happened at my table during GenCon none of the offenders excused their behaviour because they likely didn’t even realize that they what they were doing was extremely uncool.

1. Answering the phone

   Everyone has a cell phone. It’s instinctual to answer it when it rings. I understand that it could be an important call so I’m fine with someone excusing themselves from the table and answering it. But if you’re in the middle of your turn don’t stop to answer the phone. But if you do, be quick and take a message. Don’t start into a full on conversation. “Oh, hi. I’m just playing D&D. Yeah, that sounds great. I’d love to go there afterwards for drinks. I’ll have to get changed first. Why don’t you call Steve and see if he wants to come with us…” Unless you’re a doctor and you’re on call, let it go to voice mail until after the encounter’s over.

2. Eating at the table

   I’m not suggesting that we impose a no food at the table rule. Snacking is practically mandatory at the gaming table. But if you’re going to eat, be neat. Don’t let crumbs scatter all over the table and the battle mat. If you’re eating something with your fingers please wipe them after you’re finished and don’t touch anything, like the rest of the party’s minis, until your hands are clean.

3. Hogging table space

   There’s plenty of room around the table for everyone to have adequate space for all of their stuff. I usually have two hardcovers side-by-side, my character sheet on top of one and my power cards, dice, pencil, eraser, fortune cards, and note paper on top of the other. If everyone confined themselves to this amount of real estate we’d be fine and have room to spare, but some people have a need to unpack everything they own on the table. I’ve had to politely ask more than one player if he could move some of his stuff over so that I could have more space.

4. Shut the hell up!

   I’ve found that many gamers are very social; at least when they’re around other games. But this doesn’t mean that you need to yammer on throughout the entire game. When it’s your turn, hog the spotlight, ham it up, be the centre of attention, but when it’s someone else’s turn be quite. Don’t have a side conversation with the other players. More than once I couldn’t hear the DM because other players were talking over him. If something is so important that you have to talk about it now, get up and leave the table for a few minutes.

5. Taking without asking

   Just because something’s on the table doesn’t mean that you can use it without permissions. I’m a gamer with many dice superstitions, one being that no one but me can ever touch my dice. If you need to borrow dice, I’m happy to lend you a spare set. But the dice on the table are mine so hands off. If you need to roll 3d6 and you only have two, reroll one of them. I’m not as strict with other things as I am with my dice. If you want to use my pencil or eraser that’s fine, but please ask first. If you want to look at my bag of minis that’s also fine, but please ask first. I was appalled by the sense of entitlement I witnessed at my table. And it wasn’t just in the younger players.

6. Taking forever

   All of the players I gamed with at GenCon were veterans of LFR. Everyone had played before and in most cases had used their character over many levels. The lowest level PC at any of my games was level 6. So you know that these characters were used through many adventures. Why then does it take people so long to figure out what to do on their turn? Maybe you haven’t played this character in a while, but by the second encounter it should start coming back to you. The powers haven’t changed since the pervious encounter. Know your character. And if you’ve got a power that uses d8s for damage then have a few d8s ready. It shouldn’t surprise you that you’re going to need them.

7. Not paying attention

   Some characters are not suited to excel in every situation. If you’re a battle-heavy Dwarven Fighter with no social skills then the encounter where the PCs have to talk to the Duke and gain information is going to bore you to tears. I get that. But have the courtesy to pay attention anyway. I saw people tune out and play games on their iPad or iPhone when their character wasn’t center stage. I even saw one player pull out crossword puzzles. He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he wasn’t paying attention. In my opinion, tuning out to this extent is disrespectful to the other players and the DM.

I’m sure this is just the tip of the iceberg. What did you witness at the gaming table during GenCon or at any game played in public that you feel should be added to this list?

Related reading:

• Don’t Be a Dick – 4 Tips for Following Wheaton’s Law
• The Gaming Jerk
• Are All Gamers Fat?

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