Jarric

Perfect gif is perfect. Thanks man No, you didn't care, but you knew the rest of the party probably would That was truly special, I love that spell and @Charlie_Quinn's use of it! Without spoiling it, that cave didn't go as I expected but I don't think you deviated too far from the book. It's also free on D&D Beyond and Roll20 right now, so if you want to read it it might be good to download it now to read later.

Yes, go Terra! You need to love and take care of yourself, and sometimes that means tough love and giving yourself a damn good talking to. You've got this!

That's an extreme example, but certainly some players would prefer to have the plot presented to them in a fairly obvious way rather than having an open world with too many choices. You're right though, style of play is definitely something that should be discussed early on. I would call those adventurers murder hobos, i.e. they are of no fixed abode, and travel from place to place killing things and taking their stuff.

Thanks. And yes, it was! Chicken sandwich, albondigas, pear and rhubarb crumble, far too many slices of rocky road, and some Brewdog West Coast Pale Ale . I don't think we're particularly documentary worthy! But thanks. And yeah, I'm spending a lot more time on playing, running and planning D&D, which doesn't leave as much time for everything else. It's a good problem to have though.

I thought it would be fun to do some recaps of the Ranger D&D games I'm currently running, so, without further ado, I give you: Ranger D&D - The Fate of Sildar Hallwinter Our cast: The story so far: The party were tasked with escorting a wagon of goods from the city of Neverwinter to the small frontier town of Phandalin, by a dwarf named Gundren Rockseeker. After a few days of travel they came across two dead horses in the middle of the road, and were ambushed by a group of goblins. Troublingly, they recognised that the horses belonged to Gundren and his travelling companion, a human named Sildar Hallwinter. The party left the road, and followed a trail to the goblins' hideout - a cave in the side of a hillside with a river flowing out of it. Entering the cave they engaged with battle with goblins and wolves, fell foul of torrents of water unleashed by the goblins, and took some grave risks. Spreading themselves thin, no less than four of the party fell in battle at various times, only to be revived by Pheelie's medicinal skills and Rowan's divine healing. The fate of Sildar Hallwinter We join the party as they regroup at the mouth of the cave. Pulling off to the side of the cave mouth they bandage their wounds, eat rations, and try to recover their strength. Vutha uses his time to craft some throwing darts from goblin bones, and gifts them to Dragtald. A swift discussion begins about the best strategy to take on the remaining goblins, and on the merits of sticking together and not spreading the group too thin. The plan is set - Dragtald, being the stealthiest, will head in first moving from cave to alcove in order to get cover, with the rest of the party taking cover behind him and following his lead. As the party are having this discussion they hear strange noises from deep within the cave. Metallic crashes and the sounds of construction can be faintly heard over the constant flow of water within the cave depths. Dragtald sets of cautiously, and rolling excellently for both stealth and perception he is able to guide the party deep within the cave. On their way they stop at the base of a steep escarpment, and send Tilean's cat familiar to investigate. The cat is unable to see anything in the pitch dark (don't ask me why cats don't have darkvision), so Pheelie casts a light spell on its collar. As the cat materialises at the top of the escarpment it briefly lights up a group of very confused goblins. The cat flees, and after a brief discussion Vutha plants some javelins to prevent this group from coming up behind them before moving on. Dragtald is able to notice that the goblins have constructed a simple trap; a trip wire which would bring down a net on the party with a crash of metal implements to alert the goblins of their presence. Guiding the party round the trap, they set about designing an ambush of their own. Xan will cast a minor illusion, making a noise to draw the goblins out, as which point everyone will attack simultaneously and swiftly resolve the goblin threat. Unfortunately Pheelie and Rowan are not as adept at moving quietly as Dragtald, and when the goblins look out to see what is causing the noise they see the pair of intruders. Pheelie is quick enough to move out of the way in time, but three arrows fly in Rowan's direction. The first two go wide, but the final goblin gets a lucky critical hit and Rowan is dropped to the floor. Battle ensues. The goblins are reluctant to leave their cave and stick to firing arrows and ducking back into cover. Vutha charges in, spear in hand, and takes on a room of no less than 5 goblin fighters. Emerging from the corner of the room, a wolf comes to join the fray, and he's soon followed by his owner. A Bugbear charges forward, shouting "Klarg will kill puny lizard man," and taking a swing at Vutha with a huge, crude morningstar. Luckily for Vutha he misses - this thing hits hard! Dragtald charges in to help Vutha, while Pheelie calls down diving power and Tilean throws bolts of fire at the goblins. Xan has a more unusual approach, hurling insults so dangerous, so Shakespearian, and so confusing that he manages to kill a goblin through the power of his words alone. Meanwhile the battle inside the cave rages, and with a swift combination Dragtald and Vutha are able to kill Klarg the bugbear, Vutha impaling him on a spear that passes so far through his body that it nearly knocks Dragtald's hat off on the far side. The wolf takes a pummelling of magical fire and ice from Tilean and Pheelie, but Dragtald has the honour of finishing him off. Xan takes an errant arrow to the chest and is knocked briefly unconscious, but soon after the goblins are quickly dispatched. The last two make a run for it, one falling to his death as he tries to climb down a hole in the corner of the room, and the other surviving the climb only to be finished off by one of Dragtald's darts. After the battle the party bring Rowan back to consciousness and take a few minutes to regroup and explore the cave. They find a large amount of supplies which bear a symbol of a blue lion. This represents a trading post known as the Lionshield Coaster, which has a branch stationed in Phandalin. There's too much here to carry, but the party resolve to bring as much as they can back to Phandalin in hope of a reward. The party are more excited to find Klarg's personal stash, containing hundreds of copper coins, over a hundred silver coins, two healing potions, and a well made from ornament that must be worth a significant amount on its own. The party know that there's still the group of goblins the cat saw left to face, and so they concoct a plan. They behead Klarg, and mount his head on a javelin for Vutha to carry. He will take the lead with Dragtald, and Dragtald will try to intimidate the goblins into leaving. Dragtald calls out in goblin that the clan's leader is dead, and that they should flee or be killed. In response an older goblin comes forward, dragging a human with him. Beaten and bloodied, this figure is a far cry from the chainmail clad warrior the party said goodbye to in Neverwinter. There's no mistaking though, this is Sildar Hallwinter, Gundren's travelling companion for the trip to Phandalin. "Throw down your weapons, of the human gets it," cries the goblin. Without missing a beat Tilean calls back "Oh, we don't care about him, we're just here to loot the place." There is some back and forth, with some very good deception checks on Tileans part and some terrible insight from the goblin (he managed to roll a total of 0 on one of his checks, seriously), and the goblins are convinced that the best thing they can do is leave while they have their lives. The first goblin goes to climb down the escarpment to escape, falls on Vutha's javelins, and is dead before he stops sliding down the spikes. The rest of the goblins are allowed to move round the group, dropping Sildar and fleeing from the cave. Gundren is nowhere to be seen, and Sildar confirms that he was taken away to see someone, or something, called the Black Spider. Sildar is healed, as much of the Lionshield Coaster merchandise as possible is carried back to the cart, and the party travel on to Phandalin. On the way back Sildar explains that Gundren had found the site of Wave Echo Cave, an ancient mine where rare metals were found and magical items were created, and that he fears Gundren and his map to the cave were taken for that very reason. And that's where we finished the session. This is a long post and I'm not going to proof read it, so sorry for the (presumably) numerous errors!

The weekend was good. On Saturday I got out for my run - 11 miles (~17.6km). Felt good for the most part, though I was running out of steam towards the end. Mostly chilled out for the rest of the day, and did some reading up of stuff for the Ranger D&D game. In the evening I cooked albondigas (meatballs) with pasta. A new recipe for me and it came out really well, which was cool! For some reason I was in a bit of a weird mood on Saturday. Not sure why - I wanted to eat all of the things and didn't want to do anything productive. I ended up going well over on calories (I hit 3,900, with the target for a high calorie day being 3,250!) and didn't do my hip exercises in the evening. I also stayed up too late drinking beer and reading D&D stuff. Not sure where any of that has come from really, though I have a theory it may have to do with not eating enough good food, and not being full enough when I eat high-calorie/low-satiety foods. Or maybe I was just in a funny mood. * * * Sunday I ran first thing, this time 4 miles (~6.4km) including 6 x 110yd (~100m) sprints. This felt good to start with, but the last couple of sprints were pretty damn tough. In the afternoon I ran the Ranger D&D game (details to follow), started prepping for next session, and watched High Rollers D&D. Calories were well over again - 3,132 on a day that should have been 2,410 - but I did at least hit all of my other goals for the day. * * * Stats for Week 3 Hip Physio - 4/7 and my hip hurts, must do better here Teeth - 4/7, mainly due to failures above Exercise - 4/7, all days hit but failed above Calories - 2/7, and an average daily calories of 2,900. This is barely a deficit if it's a deficit at all, so I need to improve this. I've also gained a pound (~0.45kg) on last Monday, which makes sense. Alive time - 2/7 - did ok here, but no marks due to failures above.

Sounds to me that you had a DM/game that didn't suit your style. Some people like an open sandbox where they can do literally anything, and some people play it almost like a board game, or like a movie where you're moved from one predetermined scene to the next. Most games are somewhere on a spectrum between those points. In general though you can't ruin D&D by playing your character. The only real way to ruin D&D is to be disrespectful or rude to the other players (though you can be rude to the characters without disrespecting their players, that's an interesting line).

I could not agree with this sentiment more, well put.

Yesterday was a good day. Worked out in the morning - handstand flutter kicks, weighted pullups (20#/~9kg again), and 100m sprints. Work was less busy, or equally busy but the work was less urgent. I'm experimenting with Pomodoro timers for productivity, because it's hard to focus on wading through work sometimes unless the work is really urgent. I think it will help, if I'm disciplined with it. After work we went straight to the supermarket and got our weekly shop in. Then we came back and WW cooked up a platter a various fish items, including smoked mackerel, prawns, cod bites, and homemade hake goujons, which we had with salad and homemade bread rolls. Food was well over for the day thanks to a big lunch followed by a slice of rocky road, another slice when we got back from the supermarket, and a massive amount of fish with dinner. Didn't want to do my hip exercises, but did them eventually in front of the TV. because I stalled on them so long I did end up going to bed at nearly midnight. So hip physio, teeth, and exercise done, calories and alive time failed.

Yeah, they really give you a sense of how big it is. Also how fucked up it is

Yesterday was a good day. Worked out in the morning, and with some slight changes to my programme: Handstand flutter kicks - 5 x 10 - basically kicking up into a handstand, and then trying to transition from having one leg on the wall to the other really slowly so there's a bit of free-standing handstand in the middle. Weighted pullups - BW+20# (~9kg) - 3 x 1, 2, 3 - adding 20# adds approximately 1/8 of my bodyweight to the movement, and it felt ok for the few reps I did. Hangboarding - tried some without resistance bands and didn't get very far, so did the rest banded. QL stretches Hip exercises Work was busy, and I was totally knackered come 5pm. In the evening WW roasted a chicken joint with potato gratin, broccoli and carrot. * * * D&D was cool. After a bit of faffing and wondering where we were going to go, we found out that a sink hole had opened up underneath the town we started in. Venturing down we met a truly insane spirit. When we entered the next room it shouted at us and told us it would force us to leave. And then the GM revealed what we would be fighting - a Glabrezu. To give you the full effect, if you don't know what a Glabrazu is, they look like this: That bastard is 12 feet tall, has something like 8 attacks every round, and is resistant to all the types of damage he isn't immune to. And then the GM pulled out a second Glabrezu, because apparently one isn't enough. Also a handful of other daemon things. We finished after a couple of rounds of combat, because these things are going to take a while to kill (or to kill us). * * * Again by the time I'd finished D&D I just wanted to sleep, so I skipped my hip physio and did that. I can't be making a habit of this, so I need to prioritise doing this before D&D if possible, and if not I need to suck it up and stay up late. No points for anything else, but teeth were done, calories were in a range for a medium day, exercise was done and alive time (or getting killed time) was done. Thinking ahead calorie wise, the plan would normally be a low day today (Friday - 2,410kcal), a high day on long run day (Saturday - 3,250kcal), and a low day Sunday (2,410kcal). But I'm going to experiment with carrying over any leftover calories from Saturday into Sunday's allowance. Hopefully that should make it feel less like I need to drink a load of beer or eat crap to use up Saturday's calorie allowance.

Yeah, it didn't really caramelise though, just cooked really slowly!

Because I'm not a good cook Seriously though, I had the hob on really low (too low, probably) and cooked the veg really slowly. And then the actual risotto bit takes ages anyway, particularly when you're making enough for leftovers and it's so big it barely fits in the pan.

Sounds like your garden's giving you a good workout too, so win-win! Your garden looks really lovely!

Yesterday was a good day. I ran in the morning - 6 miles including 3 x 1 mile tempo intervals. Usually when I do 6 miles I do 2 x 3 mile loops to stay close to home, but on the basis I'm working from home and there's no traffic around to be annoying I decided to go a bit further and did a full 6 mile loop. It was really nice to get out a bit further. Pace was ok, possibly could have pushed a bit more on the intervals but I'm not unhappy with it. Work was busy, but I finished on time and went to chill out and make dinner. I made a chicken, onion, leek and pea risotto which was bloody good if I do say so myself. It should have been, it took me nearly 2 hours to cook the damn thing! Still, I spent the time cooking to read up on the new D&D unearthed arcana options for psionic characters, which I'm pretty excited about. After dinner I did some drawing. I'm working on a portrait of WW's character in our Rise of the Runelords campaign, Linnie the gnome ranger and her pet cougar Angus; I might share it once it's done. It's really hard because I want to capture it exactly as she wants it, but I also have my own composition for it in my head. Will probably be a couple of sessions of inking now to finish, or maybe a big sesh over the weekend. Did my hip exercises, did my teeth, and got to bed about half 10. 100% on my goals for yesterday.

Thank you! I'm moving on to weighted pullups now, though I'm not really sure what a good weight is right now. I don't know about organised! But we do have fun. We need to play a live game together at some point, though we'll have to battle over who would DM it! Aww, thanks. I do like the role of maniacal overlord . Hopefully as internet connections get better you'll be able to see my evil grin that much more .

Glad to see you're back man.

I definitely find them harder with alternate leg and hand, but that's probably a good reason to do it that way. This should be your next workout t-shirt!

Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I worked out: Wall Facing Handstands - 5 x 15 second holds with shoulder stretches in between Pullups - 3 x 1, 2, 3 (only 18 reps total, did these EMOM) Sprints - 8 x 60m Straight leg raises - 3 x 8 Hip physio exercises Work was mega mega busy, and I was knackered by the end of it. Having worked 08:30 - 18:00 I then ate dinner - WW did sausages with lentils and veg - and then played D&D 19:00 - 22:00. By the time I did that I was deliriously tired (and a little tipsy), so I went to bed without doing my hip physio stretches. At least I did the exercise bits in the morning. * * * D&D was interesting. After our TPK last week we started with our new characters. We didn't know exactly how our GM was going to play it, and what he did was start our new characters before the old characters had died. We arrived at the temple hearing sounds of fighting, and so actually heard the sounds of our former characters' grizzly deaths as we approached. When we went downstairs we saw the corpses of our old party, and the statue that killed us standing back on its plinth dripping in blood. So in character we don't know these people, and we did what any good adventuring party would do - we looted the corpses (of the ones we could get to without triggering the statue). Then we went back upstairs to explore further and came across an old library. In the library we found a hidden cubby hole, and contained inside was an old scroll. An old scroll that, a moment later, attached itself to our sorcerer's face and tried to kill her! What ensued was one of the most ridiculous battles I've ever been a part of, with us alternately trying to rip the scroll off people's faces and whacking the scroll and the person attached to it in the process. We nearly lost our sorcerer to that damn scroll - madness! * * * Goals wise I failed everything due to failing the hip goal. But for reference teeth were done, exercise was done, calories I was 39kcal over a medium day because I cocked up and forgot to count my sugar in my tea, and alive time was D&D.

Better late than never! Not too bad thanks, definitely better than it was a few months ago (but also not perfect, unfortunately).

For your hip problems, are you able to get a phone/video appointment with a physiotherapist? Obviously it's not as good as going to see one, but it might be better than nothing in the current circumstances? Also, are you able to get any help from work with getting proper office equipment so that you can work more comfortably from home? In terms of food intake, I'm sorry to say I don't think you can lose weight without tracking what you eat in some way. Whether it's calorie counting, or just writing down and adjusting your food routine, or even plain removing whole food groups, you need to be aware of what you're eating in order to change it. You've got this Terra, you're a viking, and you're stronger than these challenges!

Yesterday was a good day. I got up a bit later than normal as it was a bank holiday for Easter Monday. Spent about an hour and a half on my workout of handstands, pullups, hangboarding, and stretching. I filmed some of it: Then I made scrambled eggs on toast for breakfast. I went to the shop to get some bits (twice in the end, as they were closed the first time) and we spent most of the day cleaning the house after that. In the evening I cooked enchiladas with leftover roast beef, peppers, red onion, mushrooms, sweet potato, and plenty of cheese. They were lovely . Then we watched the new High Rollers D&D - Curse of Strahd campaign - I thoroughly recommend this for anyone looking to get into a new D&D stream as it's only just started and I have a feeling it's going to be excellent. Did my hip physio in the evening, teeth were done, exercise first thing, and calories nicely within limits (despite Easter eggs and homemade roacky road) at 2,384kcal. I'm counting cleaning the house for alive time, as it fits in the ethos of not wasting my day in front of the TV.

Glad you're doing well man, keep it up.

Aww, thank you man. As long as you guys are having fun, I'm happy

Sorry for the lack of updates guys - I haven't quite figured out where updating NF fits in my new schedule. I'll work it out. Last week was a good week. Work has been busy and tough, but with Easter it was only 4 days. Wednesday and Thursday I failed my hip physio goal. Both nights were D&D nights, and after a busy work day and playing D&D I was knackered and couldn't summon the energy to do it. So 5/7 for that, and all other goals capped by those misses. We also had a TPK in my Wednesday D&D game, which was a little stressful and also meant creating a new character this week, which has probably added to the tiredness. Teeth goal generally went well, so 5/7 there. Exercise was done every day, so 5/7 too. Calories I was spot on for 5 days, but went well over on Sunday with Easter eggs in the morning, more Easter egg while running D&D, and then a few beers while playing poker with Hopalong and the Captain (over the internet). So 4/7 this week. Daily average for the week came in at 2,625kcal out of a goal of 2,650, and I've lost another pound this week, so all good here. Overall I've lost 10# (4.5kg) in the last 10 weeks. Alive time I did something for every day. Mostly playing D&D, preparing my new character, and preparing for Sunday's game. ====== Today has been good so far, another bank holiday and we'll have another 4 day work week. I'll do a proper update on today tomorrow, will try updating at lunch and see if that works for this week.