D&D 5e gaming weekend - Ghosts of Saltmarsh

The weekend just gone (25th/26th January) saw me take part in a new campaign with a new group of players in the world of D&D 5th edition. This is the first D&D gaming I have taken part in for several years; since I moved from Kent to Hertfordshire.

The DM ran the Ghosts of Saltmarsh adventure...

This appears to be a 5e update of the original U1 to U4 series of TSR UK's designed adventure modules for AD&D 1st Edition (the version on which I really cut my D&D gaming teeth - the version I played for years on end and re-booted with a campaign a few years ago that I wrote up on this blog)...

 

 

I never actually played this series of modules back in the day, so it was a lovely surprise to get invited to play in the latest 5e version. It is one that I always liked the sound of and always wanted to play but my peers and I never got around to it - most of our gaming was home brew, but we did run the Hommlett series, Against the Giants, the Underdark continuation against the Drow, and the finale against Lolth the Demon Spider Queen. There were also a few other official modules that I cannot remember the names of now and the many one-off adventures that appeared in White Dwarf and Imagine magazines back in the day.

This weekend's gaming saw our party of six adventurers (plus a DM) start off at 1st level and end up, after two major scenarios, at 3rd level. The characters were as follows...

Dharion - half-elf ranger

Drakkon - half-orc fighter

Druss - dragonborn barbarian

Gladreth - human wizard

Korum - human cleric

Navda - human rogue

We had a couple of hairy moments throughout the adventure, one where we could have had a TPK, but we managed to pull together and get through them. The party mix and dynamic was excellent, so we not only played well together but also the mix of character types worked very well: two front row fighters, a rogue, wizard and cleric in the second row, with a ranger bringing up the rear and supplying long-range fire-power. Well, that was the plan but it turned out quite differently in the end much to our amusement - whoever heard of a mage and cleric leading combat? We had to run many encounters that way as our fighter couldn't roll above an 8 all weekend!

I will try to write up what I remember of the weekend's adventuring in a future post, but the over-arching feelings I had of the gaming weekend itself was one of great fun, great camaraderie and lots of laughs.