D&D Adventure System Board Games

[HEEGZ]

Regas posted a thread just over a week ago asking about the D&D board games. I hadn't seen them before and bought one, and fell in love after a couple of games. I ordered the other two games a few days later and they have just arrived in the mail. For a fun addition to my gaming, I've decided to take pictures and give some short summaries of the types of things that happen in these games. Note that I am mixing the pieces for all three board games and using some house rules. Also, the names of the three games if you are interested in Googling them:

Castle Ravenloft
Wrath of Ashardalon
The Legend of Drizz't

Played my first game today with combined card decks and selecting from the 18 possible character combinations. The adventure came from Castle Ravenloft and was the hunt for the Icon of Ravenloft, an item of power stashed in a lost chapel in the crypts. Today's heroes, in their marching order were:

Drizz't, male drow ranger
Allisa, female human ranger
Thorgrim, male dwarf cleric
Arjhan, male dragonborn fighter
Kat, female human rogue

Things started off well enough, and we discovered a large central room and killed about a dozen monsters. Drizz't went off to the right solo (with his panther) and the other four paired off and pressed on searching for the chapel and icon. Drizz't ended up finding the chapel all by his lonesome and triggered all of the guardian monsters. This game was dominated by water elementals, and you can see all three of them on the board. You can see them and how far away Drizz't was from the others in this image:



He took a bunch of wounds and was 2HP from dying after the monster turns. The other heroes ran to his aid but only closed the gap halfway. His panther drew off some of the heat and helped tank a hit. Fortunately one of the water elementals missed both attacks.



Drizz't took his next turn and he is the most OP of all the heroes due to an extra attack. He took out both water elementals and the cave bear using his daily power. His panther took out the skeleton warrior. He was also saved by a Healing Word from the Dwarf Cleric allowing him to press ahead revealing more of the map and monsters.



The game ended when Kat came out of hiding and nabbed the icon, used it's powers to heal our party, and then one turn later ran off to the stairs winning the scenario. Total time was about an hour and a half, with me controlling the cleric and my kids each controlling two of the other heroes. I spent an hour setting up and cleaning up as I combined the pieces for the first time into ziploc baggies.

I can answer any questions and will be running another game tomorrow probably.

[Analogkid]

I've been playing these for awhile now. I've found they're great as a means of introducing people/kids to the basic idea of D&D. Also, the fact that no DM is needed is a huge bonus. What i've ended up doing though, is adding a bit of flourish to the game by having the players RP to a certain degree.