4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

First off, before I go into detail about the 4e experience I would like to say that I decided against writing my own encounter in favor of using Olgar Shiverstone’s “Raiders of Oakhurst”.

It can be found here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220317

I went with that adventure for 2 reasons.  1) I was short on time, I did not convince my group to try out 4e until this morning just before lunch, and 2) it looked solidly put together and was very close to the adventure I was planning.  All in all I think Olgar did a GREAT job and recommend this adventure to any and everyone.

Secondly I want to say that most of my group was either apathetic to 4e or openly against it. The responses I got ranged from a plethora of “I do not care"s to “I have to use a premade character? I dunno, that sucks.”

OK, on to the meat of the post. WARNING SPOILERS IF YOU PLAN TO PLAY THIS MODULE.

The Session

I asked everyone to show up as early as possible.  They all knew we were using premade characters and I told them that the characters were on a 1st come 1st serve basis as an incentive to get there early. My group of players consisted of 1) my wife, 2)my brother-in-law, 3) his best friend (who was only there -because- we were running 4e) 4 and 5) friends.

As people showed up I had them read the 2 page rules primer, then pick a character.  Play time starts at 7:30 PM at the SuperJosh household and as usual I had 2 players missing until 7:45.  I used that time to go over specifics of play with the players that showed up and explain how stuff like healing, minor, move and standard actions worked, etc.  Mostly fill them in on the basic characters and playing.  Once the last 2 players showed up it was game on.

The module I ran is for groups to try out the 4e mechanics and it makes no pretenses otherwise, it states that in the beginning of the module and starts the characters off in a room looking at 6 kobolds.  I thought that was a little harsh so I started the party off at the beginning of a tunnel that leads to that room. 

The wizard decided to use his “at will” ability of create noise to make it sound like a lost child had wandered into the cave looking for her kitten.  Kobolds, being kobolds, fell for it. One of the minions went in to investigate.  The paladin charged down, swung at the minion and missed.  The cleric was fast on his heels and cast “sacred flame” and burnt the minion to a crisp. 

Upon hearing a dieing yelp as the minion burnt a kobold skirmisher started asking what was going on. As no one spoke kobold no one answered and the alarm was sounded.  Upon hearing the alarm the party ran forward, but only the fighter made it out of the tunnel (and even he only made it 1 square out), he was quickly surrounded on 3 sides by kobolds with the pali at his back.  The minions all attacked and missed but the skirmisher was able to attack and hit since he got a +1 for each of the 4 minions flanking the fighter plus an additional +2 for actually flanking the fighter (combat advantage).  The fighter used at will power “cleave” to kill 3 of the kobolds his first attack and moved up so others could enter.  At this point the paladin used divine challenge to mark the skirmisher.  Anytime the skirmisher attacked anyone but the pali he (the skirmisher) was at -2 to hit and took 8 points of damage.  The rest of the party quickly dispatched the remaining minion and the skirmisher as 4 more minions and 2 more skirmishers ran in. 

The wizard used his “per encounter” spell “force orb” to kill off 3 of the minions as the fighter and paladin ran to the skirmishers and marked them.  The ranger quickly finished off the last minion and the warlock, cleric and wizard started in on the 2 skirmishers. As the skirmishers were keeping the party busy a hobgoblin warcaster came to investigate, critted the cleric for 20 points of damage, which also pushed him back 3 squares and out of range, then promptly ran away. The party finished off the skirmishers, and healed up then waited 5 minutes to get back their “per encounter” spells.

They then headed up the right tunnel after the hobgoblin warcaster only to find… a hobgoblin soldier, 2 hobgoblin archers and the warcaster waiting for them.  The archers had upset a table and were taking cover behind it so they got +2 to their AC, the soldier charged in and held aggro as the party struggled to decide what to fight first. 

The warlock decided to try and flank the soldier and cast a “Curse of the Dark Dream”, her daily power, on the warcaster.  She succeeded and hit for 21 points of damage.  Seeing a lightly armored character hurling balls of dark fey power at their leader the archers decided to open fire in her.  Take 18 of her 28 HPs they opened her up. She ran for cover and used her “2nd wind” ability to recover 7 of the HPs and add +2 to her defense scores for the rest of the turn.  As this was going on the party was hacking at the hobgob soldier as the caster used force spells to tear into their ranks. 

The cleric decided he had had enough and used a minor action to heal the fighter, used a free action to add +1d10 to his next attack that caused radiant damage, moved up so the warcaster was in range and cast “sacred flame” on the warcaster.  So for those of you keeping count “yes” he moved and cast -3- spells one of which was an attack in 1 round.  The changing of healing to a minor action is AWESOME as you can now heal and still attack in a round.

The fighter decided to use his “brute strike” daily ability to hit for 3d10+5 damage, this was enough to take the soldier down.  Once he was down the wizard was able to focus on the archers and used his AoE ability to hit them both for 9 damage while the ranger used his “split the tree” daily ability to hit them for 18 damage. The pali marked the warcaster so he would not cause any more havoc to the party (forced the warcaster to attack him) and the rest of the fight was fairly straight forward.

The last encounter of the night was with a large spider.  It was a fast 2-3 round fight that was not overly taxing nor very interesting.  The party did not get to the BBEG of the adventure (the black dragon) and they are in the process of deciding if they want to fight him next Monday or go back to our regular 3.5 game.

My opinions and my groups reaction

I will start this off by saying I was a die hard fan of 4e, liking almost everything I had read.  That being said the night definitely delivered. Some of the stuff I was iffy about actually works out well, and combat was a bit faster than it is in 3.5 but that is with us not knowing how to play.  We never once needed to consult my printed out rules as everything is fairly self explanatory.

Random opinions:

*Minions are awesome.  They have 0 HPs and die when hit for damage.  They are great for 1) helping out other monsters and 2) making the PCs feel powerful.

*Healing is VASTLY improved since each character can heal themselves once an encounter and the cleric can heal as a minor action.

*I ran an encounter with 13 creatures in it and never broke a sweat.  I could NEVER do that in 3.5.  This is a another great improvement as those kobold and goblin warrens can not actually be FULL of kobolds and goblins.

*Even at 1st level PCs feel powerful.  Hacking through a wave of kobolds is great, but conversely…

*Hacking your way through a group of kobold minions makes the “regular” kobolds feel like big baddies by comparison.  I have never seen my players freaked out because they did not 1 shot a monster before and they were actually AFRAID of the hobgoblins!

*After the session my brother-in-laws friend asked me to DM the campaign Tuesday night (tonight) for his regular group… that is still playing 2e.

I do not know how many times I heard the dreaded word “cool” bantered about, but it almost always followed or was followed by a new spell a player cast.  Heh, it even followed the spell the warmonger cast when he shoved the cleric back 2 squares.  All in all I know all my players are excited about 4e now.  Even the neigh-sayers are looking forward to it and my friends and my brother-in-law are planning on preording the books (through dragonavenue, thank you very much;)).  My wife wants her own PHB, but since I preordered the boxed set through the site I plan on getting it from my local game shop.

I do not know what better compliment I can give 4e than after 2.5 hours of play it sold 4 PHBs, as well as 1 DMG and 1 MM (my brother-in-law is getting the box set).

If you are interested in playing at your table you will need:

Rules Primer: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/news_20080228.zip
Adventure and quick play rules: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=220317
Character Sheets: http://www.dragonavenue.com/downloads/ExperienceCharacters.zip

Correct stats for the “Deathjump Spider”
Deathjump Spider
Medium Natural Beast (Spider)
Level 4 Skirmisher
AC 18, Fort 14, Ref 17, Will 14,
HP 38, Bloodied 19,
Init +5, Speed 6, Climb 6, Jump 6
Senses darkvision, Perception +9
Attacks:
Melee Bite +11 vs AC; 1d10+4
Limited Powers:
Melee, Death from Above: Standard, jump 6 AND bite +11 vs AC 2d10+4. Recharge 6
Prodigious Leap: Move, jump 12, no opportunity attacks. Recharge 5, 6.
Str +4 (15), Con +4 (15), Dex +5 (16), Int -2 (2), Wis +4 (14), Cha +3 (13)

I could probably for on for another 8000 words and not hit whatever topics you all are interested in so I am going to open the floor up for questions, both specific and general.

Wow… thanks for the great game report!  Adding this to the front page as a news item.  Definitely worth the time to read.

Woohoo a link to the front page, thanks Jim!

A few things I wanted to add that forgot to last night because sleep overcame me:

1) The -feel- of combat is decidedly different than 3e.  To me (coming from a 2e background) it felt more like DnD should than 3e ever did.  I am not saying it feels the same to play as 2e did, just that it feels closer, it feels more like “real” DnD to me.  Looking back today I think it is because the rules were more streamlined so we focues more on -WHAT- we were doing than -HOW- we were doing it. To me this is a major plus, hopefully it will be to you all as well.

2) I do have 1 concern that came out of this, I am worried how leveling will work.  Will the group wizard still be shooting magic missile at 20th just for 10d4 instead of 2d4? Does the fighters Brute Strike hit for 15d10 instead of 3d10?  If so I think that the game could start to feel very stale.  However this module had no way to address that since leveling stats have not been released yet.

Well done SuperJosh! Would love to get your players on the boards and posting responses from their own perspectives. We’ve honestly been tinkering with the idea of doing much the same ourselves and videotaping it for posting on the board.

I may just have to run something this Saturday. Time to bust out the new game table. :D

I’m curious if your players had any trouble accepting things with the new rules. Did they jump headfirst into new mechanics? Was there anything that they or you didn’t like or that maybe felt awkward? Did anyone get hung up with anything being different from 3.5?

Also, giant thanks for providing all the resources to run your own 4e-preview adventure.

SuperJosh - 04 March 2008 09:02 AM

...Looking back today I think it is because the rules were more streamlined so we focues more on -WHAT- we were doing than -HOW- we were doing it. To me this is a major plus, hopefully it will be to you all as well…

Thanks for qualifying why it felt 2e instead of making a blanket statement. :D
I’m really curious about this and would love more detail if you think there is anything to provide. In my Age of Worms campaign we are just now stumbling through a bit of 13th level play and while I think we are as streamlined as a group could get, sometimes it feels like we need to focus a bit more on mechanics than I’d like.

Though as you said, we still have no idea what mid and high level play is really like in 4e either.

SuperJosh - 04 March 2008 09:02 AM

2) I do have 1 concern that came out of this, I am worried how leveling will work.  Will the group wizard still be shooting magic missile at 20th just for 10d4 instead of 2d4? Does the fighters Brute Strike hit for 15d10 instead of 3d10?  If so I think that the game could start to feel very stale.  However this module had no way to address that since leveling stats have not been released yet.

Hard to say (obviously), but if the Tome of Battle is any indication, and it’s looking more and more like it is, I expect you’ll have a broad assortment of increasingly interesting and unique abilities as you get higher up in level.

Thanks for the playtest review...I’m even more exicted than ever before, particularly since it’s coming from a good personal friend instead of “some guy on the Internet”.  I may be gathering up these same materials at a good breakpoint in my own campaign and doing the same thing myself.

I’m curious if your players had any trouble accepting things with the new rules. Did they jump headfirst into new mechanics?
It took a few minutes of explaining for them to wrap their heads around some things, the hardest part was getting then to call out their attack rolls in a XX vs Ref (or AC or Fort, etc) since that makes it TONS easier as a DM.  Most changes were greeted with “cools” and awesomes”.  The player playing the ranger (he was the biggest 4e hold out) said “This is what rangers -should- be.”

Was there anything that they or you didn’t like or that maybe felt awkward?
1)The flat d20 for saves still rubs me wrong a bit.  If you are not familiar with it you roll a flat d20 to shake off an effect (poison, slowed, etc) and if you roll a 10 or better it is gone.  As I just said it still rubs me a bit wrong, but it IS simple, and you do get your “traditional” save in the form of the Ref/fort/will defenses.

2) The different “states” that you have, marked, cursed, quarried, etc can get confusing esp when you have 2 players that can mark characters.  That being said I think slips of paper would be an easy, if ugly, way around that.

Did anyone get hung up with anything being different from 3.5?
Not really.  One of the players that was going straight from 2e to 4e had a bit of a problem, but my wife says she is more comfortable with the rules after 1 session than she is 3.5 after 1-2 years.

I think that a major component of the “easy of play” is the addition of the Ref, Fort, and Will defenses.  One of the players wanted to kick out a table a kobold was standing on.  Off the top of my head I ruled Str check vs the kobolds Ref Def.  Alibi that is probably what I would/should have done in a 3.5 fight, but since we were already used to rolling vs Ref it felt more integrated and like it -should- be that way.  Any off the wall action that I can think of (off the top of my head) seems like it could be resolved by a check vs one of the 4 defenses.

Andorax: I think I need to break out my Bo9S and take a gander through it to see what they might be in for, I hope you are right that they are going to go that route.

I will try and talk some of my players into posting here, but they are sometimes flaky so do not hold your breath.

FYI that they have said several times that Bo9S was a sort of alpha-test of some 4E ideas.

Josh, I have a few quick questions.

1) Do the new combat rules reduce or improve the “uniqueness” of the individual charcter classes?

2) Can you use multipul healing surges between combats or are you limited to one per 5 minutes? (Enough time to regain your encoutner powers)

3) Did you feel like there was anything missing from 4ed compared to Core 3.5? (other then the obvious charcter creation rules)

SuperJosh - 04 March 2008 11:58 AM

I think that a major component of the “easy of play” is the addition of the Ref, Fort, and Will defenses.  One of the players wanted to kick out a table a kobold was standing on.  Off the top of my head I ruled Str check vs the kobolds Ref Def.  Alibi that is probably what I would/should have done in a 3.5 fight, but since we were already used to rolling vs Ref it felt more integrated and like it -should- be that way.  Any off the wall action that I can think of (off the top of my head) seems like it could be resolved by a check vs one of the 4 defenses.

Masswyrm -

But those simple rule changes do make life a hell of a lot easier. During our first game, my intrepid game designer buddy decided to throw a monkey wrench into the works by having his character dive under a table and kick it out from under two guys fighting on top of it. He smiled devilishly, looked at me and asked “How are you gonna rule that…DM?” I glanced at the book for a moment and realized “Strength check against their reflexes.” Huh. He shook his head. Made sense. He made the attack, hit the numbers and all of a sudden he had two opponents prone on the floor. The rules are so straight forward now, on the fly decisions are total cake.

Similarities abound.

Great minds think alike or conspiriacy theory?

Black Plauge - 04 March 2008 03:12 PM

Similarities abound.

Great minds think alike or conspiriacy theory?

I’ll bet SuperJosh is Masswyrm’s secret superhero identity!

LOL, I actually baited my players just to see how they felt about that conflict resolution.  I have 1 particular player that is -always- trying to do non-standard actions like that so I knew he would take the bait.

If I could have remembered where I heard about that I would have refrenced it, but I couldn’t so I didn’t. So plagiarism or Flattering imitation… you decide!

Duo - 04 March 2008 03:09 PM

Josh, I have a few quick questions.

1) Do the new combat rules reduce or improve the “uniqueness” of the individual charcter classes?

2) Can you use multipul healing surges between combats or are you limited to one per 5 minutes? (Enough time to regain your encoutner powers)

3) Did you feel like there was anything missing from 4ed compared to Core 3.5? (other then the obvious charcter creation rules)

1)I would say they it is about the same, but until we see the final rules and know how different builds compare to one another I would not want to make that my final answer.  Each class felt unique, but I am sure they were designed that way for DDX.

2)You are limited to 1 “2nd wind” (the only move you can use to regain your own hit points) per 5 minutes, but remember clerics can also use 2 heals in that time that heal you for your healing surge+1d6+their wis mod.  In most of the encounter I ran (I DMed 4e again tonight for a different group) 10 minutes was enough to get everyone to full health.

3)From what I was able to play, not really. I want to point out that there was not much use of skills, so I can not say how that works compared to 3x.  Mainly a few perception checks.  I also saw some pictures of the new PHB armor pages and it looks like there are only 5-6 different types of armor, I do not know why that bugs me but it does.

As I said earlier I DMed for a 2nd group tonight.  I did not enjoy it as much but I think that should be taken with a grain of salt for many reasons. 1) it was my second night of DMing in a row, I was already drained from last night. 2) There were children running in and out of the room as well as one that insisted on being the “bad guys” (good lord could she roll though, I SWEAR she never rolled under a 15) 3) this is agroup that still plays -2e-! they were all openly hostile to the game and I felt uncomfortable DMing people that obviously did not want to play.  That being said I could tell a few of them enjoyed the game even if it did not win over the majority.

Also it was amazing how much of a difference having played on night before helped.  Every encounter was MUCH deadlier and I had my 1st 4e PK (pali got hit for 24 buy a backstabbing rogue), and was well on my way to a TPK with the dragon when we had to break it up.

(good lord could she roll though, I SWEAR she never rolled under a 15)

I used to let my little ones roll whenever I had an important roll… until they kept consistently rolling great, which equalled Bad News for my players.

LOL, yea she had to roll 2d8 and 2d6 damage against her dad and rolled 5, 6, 7, 8.  I think she is grounded now!

thanks, SJP - great write up and review.  Good links too!  I think i’m going to pass all this along to my gaming group and see what they think.

One question : at will powers can be used unlimited (so I understood) so why would the Eladrin ranger ever pass on using careful attack with a longbow?  Or is the point that he wouldn’t?