We slammed out another session tonight. Unlike last week where they guys managed to kill everything they met outside of a city, they only killed two lowly kobolds (ok, maybe not so lowly). I started to toy with the individual characters. Lushbaugh was visited by some whispers that promised him power in return for servitude. Miller was given a rock by a Slaad (massive crazy things from the planes of chaos). I did not really give Jim anything, but then again, this world was created in part just to serve as an outlet for his greatest desire, to kill dragons. In all the other campaings we play he rarely gets a chance to go toe-to-toe with them, so I am aiming to toss one in every couple of weeks. I do have some plans for him though.
I feel I am starting to get used to the flow of being a DM, though I am still going to say I am doing well. I am still trying to scale the encounters to where they provide a challenge so it does not feel like I am giving the players everything and speeding up the encounters so an encounter does not take forever. It is a problem I introduced myself. The flexibility I gave the players in creating their characters allowed them to make drastically powerful characters, so I have to scale up the encounters. It is mildly amusing that last week I tossed an encounter that the numbers say was for a party of four level 16 players at a group of three level 10 players and they were fine. But tonight, I gave the same players a level 15 encounter and they only made it out because I let them.
Next week we are off to see the Chaos Caverns and everything that gnomish illusions and machines can give us. I am going to go one of two way with this, but both are going to require plenty of reading of higher level Illusions. As for the machinery, I am sure that a couple of sleepless nights will make me start thinking of the dumb, crazy stuff a gnome would make.
