Mechanics on Tonight Session

Tonight was the second session and we completed it about an hour ago.  I have to say I'm not feeling all that great about the session.  My mojo level was low.  I'll break down the mechanics of the session more than I will the adventure recap itself.

Tonight I had the party scattered to the three winds.  Also, I needed to introduce a new party member.  So I had a lot to do.  The session is 2.5 hours at most after a bit of a BS session.  Then we had echoing issues to two guys.  When I GM that distracts me and then having to repeat it a few times is frustrating.

For the adventure itself I like to keep the player engaged so I broke up the adventure in small parts so I could shift back and forth.  Leave one group to move onto the next.  Even if you spent 15 minutes with one group that means there was a 30 minute gap in the play. 

The setup was good overall and the events fairly well done.  But it still felt clunky.  I came up with scenarios for the players to meet again in another village.  Again, all for very different reasons.  There was a interesting scene outside a guard barracks where all three groups met up again.  The first time they saw each other since the party fight.  Even at this time I hadn't introduced the new character.

The adventure was fairly simple.  The party members would all be in the Stone Fields completing whatever task they chose.  I railroaded the location, but no the tasks within.  Two of the groups joined in an uneasy alliance.

Some of the things I need to develop more is exactly the combat I'm using.  Here's what I've used so far.

• Cleave rule from Tenkar's game.  All classes can cleave once when they kill an opponent.  A fighter can cleave a number of times equal to his level.
• You can attack two handed.  Standard -2 in the primary hand and -4 in the off hand.  Dexterity mods will modify these penalties.  
• Using shields will be shattered rule.  Works great for normal shields, but I don't use plus shields very often.  I think I am going to offer the players a save on their magic shield (it would be assigned a number) and if they fail it breaks, if they succeed they can continue to use it.
• -10 hit points for death.  I'm not a fan of the 0hp and your dead for my game.  I think the -10 gives them a slight chance to survive after being taken out in a fight.
• For critical hits and misses we are using the deck from Pathfinder to determine the special effect.  I like having something happen.  So do the players.

I'll go into detail about the adventure in the morning.  Hey, even though I don't feel I did all that well tonight, a bad game session is better than no game session.