Demons abound in the well of demons, no big surprise. I combined the first three encounters (all the gnolls) with the possibility for a skill challenge to lesson the impact (two separate, lower level encounters). No such luck, the party jumps straight into the fray, and the gnolls attack. The pack attack ability of the gnolls is devastating at times. At one point in the encounter, one of the party fighters takes three consecutive hits, including one critical. It's enough to take him from "not bloodied" to -14 hit points. The party's reaction was interesting, they were actually disappointed that he wasn't dead. In some ways it felt less austere, and the fact that he was merely "winded" for a second to get "charged" from the cleric seemed a little disappointing. The party must hold the battle on two fronts successfully, and by shifting their resources, and splitting the fighters, they do so well. The ranger used his ability to "shift out of the way" as an immediate interrupt to move behind the fighter and draw more attacks to him. That is so cool.

I skipped the "speak with the dead" skill challenge as I didn't find it very interesting, or tied to the characters, per se. I provided them with the information on their own about the tools they would need to find in the dungeon. They party seemed to react positively to this, and were very interested in finding and using each of the items.

The party recognized the bronze warden room immediately (from playing through a similiar encounter in KoTS). This one was interesting because the party actually had a chance to disarm/disable before they were threatened. That was a cool interaction, that built up the suspense, but rewarded the player's "good play" with a distinct advantage in the room. Getting the implement from the room turned out not to be difficult, and the carnage demons seemed a little weak by themselves.

Demons abound in the mirror room, and the players' interaction with the mirrors was very interesting. Although I like the interesting and compelling room/environment, it's difficult to not coordinate this with the party's ability to walk out of the room with the mirrors for their own use. And what exactly do they have to do with this location, who put them here, and how are they powered. Hmmm....

Discussion with the players after the game compared 4e with 1e and 3e. The analagy that I use is the 4e seems like vanilla ice cream. Really good, Breyer's natural, vanilla ice cream. If you're looking for ice cream, this will be a great experience. You can "add" about anything in the world to it, and it will go together well. Further, it will be good for pretty much everyone. However, I'm used to going to Baskin Robbins. I like all 34 flavors! Vanilla could get bland, over time, in a campaign.

ashockney

Tonight we had a transition adventure. Having been jumping through the "module" hoops, I wanted to take some time to unpack this adventure, and bring some more meaning and value to the characters. I had most of the characters backgrounds push forward with events in the Seven Pillared Halls. The party got access to some rituals. The rituals from 4th - 6th in the heroic tier can open up some doors and make a party much more independent in operating.

The party got a note from Paldemar (trap!) and went down the Road of Shadows to the ambush. This encounter played very well. The combination of powerful artillery behind an excellent tank worked really well. The warlocks teamed up on the first fighter into the room, and the combination of multiple attacks with the ongoing damage was too much for him. He ultimately ended up retreating from the ambush to find cover and heal. The Warder was powerful, and his ability was excellent when I first used it, however, with several different ways to immobilize an opponent, they prevented it from using rampage again, which turned it into a pretty obvious one-trick pony.

The second encounter was with the gnolls and Bar-lgura (random encounter 10). I was a little disappointed in this encounter. At times, it seems to easy for the PC's to negate the most powerful enemies. Although I did deal over 100 points of damage to the ranger in this combat (who survived), it never seemed like the party was really threatened. The wizard opened with sleep and then froze the front ranks of the gnolls. Both of these reduced their effectiveness. The gnolls and bar-lgura hit like a truck, but against the defender (fighter's) 26 AC, it was not a significant threat. The cleric kept everyone in the fight, and threw a little damage into the mix as well.

Tonight we got to see first hand how powerful the damage over time (continuous damage) can be in the game. I really like how this mechanic works, although I'm not a HUGE fan of all the accounting.

Also, there were concerns expressed about the flow of the story-arc that come with the initial adventures. They don't seem to be pointing to some dark, brooding master villain behind the scenes. I noted that I'd read that in reviews and on the internet, and that we were not alone in his experience.

After tonight's game session, we had an interesting discussion about taking monsters straight from 4e and plugging them into a 3e campaign. Could it work?

ashockney

Session 11

Tonight's session was a test of the pacing of 4e. I made it clear to the players coming into the evening that I had prepared at least six encounters for us to get through. No skill challenges, limited RP, which fit with the theme of the adventure. I did a 10 min recap at the beginning and we were off on a dark dwarf hunt! I wanted to see how many encounters we could play through, if really focused and engaged, in three hours. My hopes going into this experiment was that we would complete from four to six encounters, and optimally five or six (completing an encounter in an average of around 30 minutes).

In three hours, we were able to complete...three encounters. Almost exactly. For a fifth level party, these were an EL 6, EL 6, and EL5. The battles were pitched, and provided an "appropriate" level of threat, without being overwhelming. They required consistent use of encounter powers, action points, and a couple of daily powers. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. One of my players pointed out, however, that the pacing of the action in 4e is different. It rarely if ever feels like you're waiting "a long time" for your next turn, and that the action is consistent and well paced. Each encounter typically lasted for 6 or more rounds, so that's averaging a round about every ten minutes, with six players and five to eleven villains all taking turns. In conclusion, the pacing is very different than previous editions of the game, and there are few, if any, quick combats or quick encounters. With the limited actions, reduced damage/attack, and the elimination of "insta-kill", most encounters will need to be played out fully for five or more rounds to determine the outcome.

The first encounter tonight led the party to the trading post in the Seven Pillared Hall of Clan Grimmerzhul. Having completed an extended rest following the Chamber of Eyes, the party was ready to find the missing slaves, and punish responsible. The encounters with the duergar were fun. Their abilities were interesting (compared to kobolds, goblins, and hobgoblins). The Theurge's abilities were powerful, and caused the party to stop and take notice. Notably, these encounters held no minions, so there was a pitched battle at every turn for the party. Some unlucky player dice, and some EXTREMELY hot dice for the DM made the trading post encounter closer than it should have been. Everyone survived, but second winds, healing words, and a whole bunch of healing surges were blown. My favorite moment was running a duergar out one of the windows of the trading post, which surprised several party members that were staying out of the fray and casting from just outside the door.

The party quickly proceeded to the Horned Hold. I broke the hold down into three encounter areas. North Tower, South Tower, and West Tower. The north tower held orc berserkers, duergar scouts, and the master smith. I LOVED the re-charge invisibility on the scouts. The healing on the bloodied orc berserkers put an interesting twist on these brutes. The master smith's "heat metal" encounter power was a very cool, and was an elegant interpretation of this power. What an interesting and unique way to flavor this npc. The smith's power also pleasantly didn't have a "standalone" sub-system of things to track, along with who was affected, who was holding what type of weapon, etc! My players began to see the emerging theme of the dwarves, and their historical "in-game" abilities: invis, poison, warhammers, psionic blast. On one hand, they were jealous, "why can't I get that spell/power???" On the other hand, they noticed and appreciated how each type of villain they fought added a unique, flavorful and memorable punch to the encounter. One player even wondered aloud, what will their enlarge be like?

The south tower held Rundarr, the Duergar Champion, two more Duergar Scouts, and two Duergar guards. I LOVED the build on Rundarr, and it was an awesome moment when as an immediate reaction he polymorphed into a size large creature. Just awesome! I had the primary fighter at the time down below bloodied, and the tables were suddenly turned! Both the fighter and a nearby warlock found themselves "based" to this beast, and bloodied! Of course, we got to see that the cleric ALSO got a new daily power, which came in very handy here to help heal, while the other party fighter jumped in to take the lead with Rundarr.

At this point, we had exhausted our three hours. We played through three good encounters, but they took every bit of three hours to run back-to-back. We decided to press on and complete this part of the adventure for the evening, and so I skipped the two encounters I'd prepared for the western tower (Ogre/Wights/Orcs and Duergar Thuerge/Guards). Instead we jumped to the finale, an EL 9 scenario with two elite bosses. I had combined the final two encounters (H7/H8) with two elites, two devils, two Duergar shock troops and two Duergar guards. This was a very, very tough fight. The party used their stealth to reach Murkelmor's inner sanctum. Positioned in the foyer (room 27) they heard the activity in both rooms 26 and 28. The warlock/thief came up with the action on the spot to use his thievery to bar/lock the door to room 26. Their hope was to prevent one group of opponents from engaging them, while they dealt with the others. The fighters charged into room 28 and confronted Murkelmor and his shock troops. The elite boss used his action point at the top of the combat with devastating effectiveness. When one of the shock troops went through the secret door adjoining the rooms, the party was SHOCKED. This was a great "in game" moment, and was a very nice complement to the designers of the adventure! The mage cast his stinking cloud into the room to discover the Duergar resistance to poison made it far less effective than it was in the Chamber of Eyes. The stinking cloud was then moved into the adjoining room through the secret door, in an effort to prevent those opponents from entering the melee. The elite caster came through from room 27, however, and used an action point to drop two very well placed AoE effects (fire and poison) on the entire party. Several lucky rolls later, and the party was seriously injured, and outgunned. Further compounding their problems, another lucky roll on the part of the villains led to them bursting down the blocked door, and the party was suddenly surrounded. Things looked dire, and I noticed the players noticeably slowing down and offering each other advice on optimal moves to position, obtain combat advantage, or use their daily and encounter abilities to maximum effect. One player commented that two elites, might have been too much. There was tension around the table at the prospect of a TPK. Dailies were flying, action points were all used. Several lucky critical attacks (one from a fighter daily power) turned the tide. As a strategy, one defender fighter tanked both of the elites, pinning the caster to either provoke OA's or not cast, while Murkelmor failed to strike his phenomenal AC. The other fighter quickly positioned himself to protect the casters in the back. Combined with the warlock's aura, and the wizard's stinking cloud, they made quick work of the guards and devils swooping in from behind. The ranger, cleric, and fighter in the front were able to hold their ground on the elites and shock troops, although almost all the players were in bloodied condition. One shock trooper finally fell, and then the other. Ganging up on the elites, the fighters were re-united, and now outnumbered, even two elites were outmatched by the consistent thrum of the player's damage machine. This was an excellent encounter. It was extremely challenging and demanded effective gameplay to survive. The players really had an opportunity to show off their "high end" powers, and also required teamwork to get every advantage they could use to position themselves to succeed.

By the time we were done, it was very late (an hour and a half to run the finale). Tallying up the XP, I commented that I find it interesting that although we're not hitting all the encounters in the book, it certainly seems like we're pacing ourselves to hit the appropriate XP thresholds required to level. I would hope to level about every other time that we game. Adding up the xp from the three encounters last week (Blood Reavers + Chamber of Eyes) and the four encounters this week (Trading Post + Horned Hold), we had enough "out of the book" XP for every member of the party to achieve sixth level! That pacing certainly matches my expectations. So, like many other things that are different from previous editions of the game, the pacing is not necessarily "worse" simply because it's different. If the player experience is such that it is more "action oriented" and "fast paced" and we are accomplishing the DM's goals for character development and pacing, then the system seems to be working as it was intended.

ashockney

Session 10

Having reviewed the layout for the beginning of the adventure, it seems like the flow of the module was leading you to an opening encounter with the Bloodreavers, followed by interaction in the Seven Pillared Hall, then more Bloodreavers at the Chamber of Eyes. I determined I'd like to throw another skill challenge in, and I didn't want to use the "labyrinth" theme to early in this adventure. Noticing that the chamber of eyes has an interesting entry room, I decided to place the skill challenge there, instead of at the opening (finding the labyrinth) or in the Seven Pillared Hall, which would mostly be uncovering information that I want the players to have (ie, it does not benefit me for them to "fail" at finding this out). With this in mind, I decided to begin the adventure "in medias res" for the first Bloodreaver encounter. I laid out the first encounter on the dungeon tiles, and I placed all the bad guys (upgraded slightly to a 6th level encounter). I then had the party "dice off" to determine their placement on the board. Those with the highest rolls got to place anywhere on the board, as the rolls went lower, they had a more constrained space to choose from. Finally, the players that rolled a 3 and 1, I placed their characters, specifically in disadvantaged locations (ie, flanked). Initiative! This worked out very well, and was fun to play out. I liked roll-playing the arrogant Warcaster in this room, who taunts the party throughout the challenge. The encounter was made more difficult and threatening because of the setup. This also clearly reinforced to me how CRITICAL space, spacing, and tactical map considerations are in 4e.

The halfling captured by the Bloodreavers leads the party back to the Seven Pillared Hall, and the party moves forward along their "personal" quest lines, gathering information about the module, location, significant npc's, and factions within the module. Almost all of these characters went over well, and I think the writers for the adventure did a particularly good job. This setting is uniquely fantastical, and the npc's the party engages are some real characters, which I think makes the story more engaging. The party has found particular interest in the drow Gendar, Brugg the Ogre, the Mages of Saruun, and the Deepgem Company. That's cool! The party gets all the groundwork laid, in the process, for what mean and nasty guys the duergar are, which will be an easy feeder for the next session.

It becomes clear to the party that the Bloodreavers are an imminent threat, so they party acts to go deal with them.

For the Chamber of Eyes, I've broken this up into as many as three encounters. The first is a skill challenge to "break in" to their stronghold. The second and or third will be encounters with those inside (a level 5 and a level 6 if separate, or a level 9 encounter if the alarm is raised).

First is the skill challenge, which is a level 5, complexity 1 skill challenge using bluff, stealth, thievery, and athletics. Failure results in the level of readiness for the Bloodreavers inside the chamber of eyes. The party begins wisely moving a fighter up the balcony with athletics, followed closely by a ranger with stealth, who sneaks into the Chamber of Eyes to get the first count of villains (two successes). As is common, when the party is going too smooth, I throw in a wrinkle, and indicate the goblins behind the door have "spotted" the party and begin to question them. The fighter tries to bluff. Hysterics ensue, a failure (initial alert). The charismatic warlock moves to pick it up, but completely blows the roll (two failures), the goblins have now spotted the enemy on the balcony and begin to open fire. The mage uses a spell to get a bonus to another attempt at intimidating the goblins to open the door, posing as a Mage of Saruun (success). They are of the impression there is a threat, but that they are also not obeying a powerful overseeing force, and begin to hesitate. It all comes down to the last check (seeking 4 successes before 3 failures). Instead of using thievery, stealth or athletics to position themselves, they go for the bluff, and miss it. The alarm is raised throughout the chamber of eyes, as the guards realize this is a ruse.

The second encounter to the chamber of eyes is a HUGE brawl with goblin sharpshooters, goblin skullcrushers, hobgoblin soldiers, hobgoblin archers, Bugbear warriors, a vicious dire wolf, duergar soldiers, and the hobgoblin chief. In they swarm through two main check points into the entryway. The first was through the double doors, and the second was out the balcony. The mage drops his stinking cloud daily in the double doors hallway. This was devastating. A fighter at the top of the balcony, uses tide of iron to systematically throw each opponent coming down the hall over the rail for additional falling damage. Their tactics were sound, and the fighters did a good job of holding their ground against overwhelming odds and powerful foes. The ability to block line of sight (with the cloud) turned into a big factor. In addition, we got to see the Warlock's daily, Crown of Madness, which is powerful when targeted effectively, which it was. This was still a pitched fight, with several of the players bloodied, but with the positioning of the room, and the tools at their disposal, the players felt in control.

It should be noted that in this level 9 encounter, not everyone used a daily power, and since the party is now fifth level, they have access to more than one daily power now! I've got to think it will be harder to challenge this party, and am genuinely surprised at the proposed string of "lower powered" encounters proposed by the adventure. I may try this with Horned Hold, just to see the difference, and to see if we can accomplish these encounters faster if they are broken down (in number of creatures and actions) more easily.

I have to admit that it was challenging at times keeping track of all the villains, their powers/abilities, who was marked, what effects were up/required saves, which villain powers needed a recharge roll, and hit points.

Overall, the evening went well. We accomplished a couple of bigger combats, a skill challenge, knocked out a major quest, and spent a chunk of time on roleplaying and moving forward the character background stories.

ashockney

Session 8

The grand finale to the KoTS. Tonight's session consisted primarily of the last two battles at the end of the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure. We picked up tonight's adventure from where we left off last week. It was interesting that it's much easier to "pick up where we left off" than in previous editions of the game. Previously, there were a number of sub-systems and game elements (such as spells or hit points) with limited uses, and little to no rhyme or reason to their condition or storage. 4e presumes a few things, you are likely at maximum effectiveness in each encounter, can use most of your abilities, and have access to almost everything. The only things that were really variable were daily powers (including magic items), and healing surges. That was pretty minimal in terms of bookkeeping, and the use of daily powers was much easier to recall, because their effects were so significant.

The first encounter is the Citadel of Shadows, which turned out to be a tough fight. I had read others indicate that they had a tough time, and I believe the players on the D&D podcast (actual play) got owned in this fight. I made one minor shift in the fight, which was replace the undead minions with Dark Creepers. The party spread out at the very beginning of the fight, thinking at first sight that the priest must be Kalarel. Interestingly, what turned out to be so difficult was that the party was so spread out, and the villains could then easily "group" on individuals who were not "front line fighter" defenders. They took down the warlock, then the mage (both ended up succeeding in death saves). The barbarian ability to take an immediate attack action with bonus to hit and damage was devastating, especially combined with a few lucky rolls. I believe the party was trading blows for survival over a few rounds. Once the party regrouped with the fighters leading the attacks, and marking targets, it all became much smoother for them to turn the tide and finish the battle.

The final battle with Kalarel turned out to be much funnier than we had anticipated. In the beginning, I laid out the details about the blood and the difficulty of getting around in it. The party then proceeded to move easily around the blood with little to no distraction. The villains (namely the wight and a skeleton) proceeded to fail on at least three attempts to move into or across the blood. It almost became a little like the keystone cops. Kalarel's movement over to the portal was a scary moment for the party, however, when both fighters and the ranger were able to triple team him, as well as use tide of iron to knock him out of the magic circle, it was a dramatic shift in favor of the party. It was downhill from there. The reanimation was a cool ability, and one I hope to see more often.

The party returned to town and were celebrated as heroes. They obtained 5th level, and are now ready for the Thunderspire Labyrinth. I planted several seeds for the module in the last few adventures, and the party has really liked them. We seem to be playing a bit "ahead" of the curve, but only approximately a level at this point (5th vs. 4th).

I am continuing my "mash up" theme and have placed the Thunderspire Labyrinth in Draigdurroch Tower, outside of Loudwater in the Dire Wood.

ashockney

Session 7 - The Second Level to KoTS

The party has completed a full rest, by barricading themselves (using a ritual) in one of the Sarcophagi rooms of level 1 on the KoTS. I provide them with some additional information based upon this wise tactical decision. I inform them of the regular hobgoblin patrols. The Hobgoblins have noticed that the KoTS is being assaulted. They successfully time their departure from their sanctuary around the hobgoblin patrol, and proceed safely into the Hobgoblin lair.

The last session went great with a combined "goblin" encounter, so I go for the same thing here. We're starting off the evening with a Level +4 encounter. I built the encounter to begin with a potential skill challenge, with success granting two easier "equal level" challenges. Nope, they were out for blood from the get go, summarily ignore the call for a "password" from the hobgoblins, and the melee ensues. The wizard dropped his daily in an inconvenient spot for me - where most of the hobgoblins were attempting to enter. The fighters do a nice job of "bottlenecking" and not "chasing" for this fight. In retrospect, the Hobgoblin lair needed better ranged attacks to be as big a threat as the goblins. It goes much smoother than the goblin's lair (in spite of being a higher level encounter). Again, the concept of running a "lair" encounter as one "large" encounter instead of several sub-encounters plays very well in 4e, and makes for a much more interesting and dynamic dungeon.

The party proceeds to the room with the Gelatinous Cubes and undead. I love old school Gelatinous Cubes, and the party picked up on the "unusually clean" passageways, as soon as I mentioned it. I was impressed how well the passive perception and invisibility rules worked for this encounter. It made it noticeably more difficult, but not necessarily overwhelming. It was also a very simple mechanic (skill check) without significant complications (targeting, etc.). I also got to surprise the party by adding a second cube to "trap" them in the hall. This made for a fun surprise for me! The players were pleasantly surprised that unlike in 3e, where fighters or melee combatants would be of "no use" in a slime/jelly/ooze encounter. One of the strikers, a ranger, unloaded with his dual weapons and hit with all four attacks (using an action point), and even critted on one...49 points of damage! Wow, that was an eye opener. The player at the time commented how great it was to be "useful" in this encounter.

The next encounter was the enormous trap room. This thing was hysterical. Most of the PC's entered the room to get whacked by the statue. Meanwhile, the wizard runs headlong across the room in an attempt to avoid the statue...only to be trapped in the whirlpool. It was hysterical. The party dealt with it well from there, knocking over the cherub statues. At one point, the wizard asked if he could "ray of frost" a vase to freeze the water? I checked the trap, noticed that a successful "arcana" check vs. DC20 was considered a success, and ruled on the spot he would pull it off with a successful arcana check. He was happy with that answer, and it gave a cool "story element" to what happened in the encounter. In the debrief after the session, I mentioned that I considered running this entire room as a giant skill challenge, with very high complexity (four or five). One player indicated it would have taken a lot longer to run (30+ minutes). Another player thought that would have made for a cool "Indiana Jones" encounter. They were less than thrilled when they discovered the traps required four or more "successes" to disable, each. For this party, with a part time thief, they were severely outmanned on this encounter.

The last encounter of the night was the undead room with zombies, zombie minions, and ghouls (I simply played the imp as straight "rp" to the story). The players loved the "zombie...brains..." swarming around them. They thought it was great how the zombies could "hold" a person while the ghoul used his vicious bite attack to attempt a brain eating. The ghouls were very tough, and their powers played well, even against the tough and high -AC fighters. The minions did not play well and got destroyed, once grouped, by the turning and the opportunity attacks of the fighters. Once the minions, and several zombies were routed, the fight turned significantly less difficult, and the party had a clear upper hand, especially with easy access to radiant damage.

We ended there for the night and recapped things that we learned. On one hand, we were very pleased and with the fact that everyone's actions are valuable and useful to the party in all encounters. We also really liked how some villians powers played extremely well with one another. The Hobgoblin warchief with his soldiers and minions, the ghoul with the zombies, and the dragon statue traps with the titan statue traps were all examples of this. On the other hand, we started to notice that we miss some elements of 3e. It was surprising how tactically simple the combat with the Gelatinous Cube became, when the fighters could mark it, and each round that it tried to "move" to engulf, the fighters each would get an OA and their mark powers allowed them to "cease" it's movement. Everyone could easily, equally damage the cube. It had a ton of hit points, so it's no pushover, but it wasn't a big "tactical" concern to the party. I loved how simple the "escape" checks are (Athletics or Acrobatics vs. Reflex defense), but this was a particularly easy roll for the fighters that were initially engulfed. It turned out to be much scarier "sounding" than it actually was in play. The cube certainly loses much of it's "EDGE" when compared with a similiar encounter in 3E or 1st Ed where getting stuck in the cube meant a degree of loss to that character and/or his items.

We also really noticed tonight that some of the tactical considerations that added flavor to the combat, the monsters, the PC's, and the story are completely washed away with 4e. There is no "spiked chain fighter build" in 4e, for example. Fighters in generally are much more interesting to play, with marking, a host of different powers, there are many more things they can do, but they're different things.

Do we miss those elements of 3E flavor? Enough to go back to 3e? We got a little "reminiscent" in our musings tonight, but nobody has made any direct overtures or suggestion that we change. In fact, many players suggested their just now starting to get a real flavor for their PC's potential, and how best to play them to unlock it.

ashockney

Session 6 - Keep on the Shadowfell

Tonight's session moves the party from Loudwater and the "intro" encounters into the Keep on the Shadowfell. They are 3rd level, already, so I had to tweak the encounters in the first level.

I thought it would make sense to combine the first five encounters for the goblin encampment. Pit Trap+Rat Swarm, Balgron the fat, the Hobgoblin Torturer, 7 Goblin Warriors, and 7 Goblin Sharpshooters. I laid out all the dungeon tiles for the entire set of encounters, to kick things off. The PC's really enjoyed this fight. This was their "level+3" fight, and it was a real challenge, taking two players to zero hit points, and knocking two other players to bloodied. I was also pleased to start of the night with the party's most difficult encounter, which would test their willingness to use their daily powers. Once things started to unfold, they didn't hold back. This worked out really well, especially with the goblin's effective tactics of "attack and move" as well as hiding to obtain combat advantage from range. The PC's fought very well tactically, and they're really starting to play together better. The encounter did last longer than usual (around 1:15), but we accomplished a great deal in that time, and they got a big haul of treasure.

Lighting was a weird issue. Sunrods (cheap) have a light radius of 20 hexes, and the light spell is only 4 hexes?

Next was the zombie encounter, and the party had no problem avoiding the terror runes, so this turned into a pretty easy cakewalk. Again, two fighters in a 2-by-2 hallway fight is EXTREMELY effective against a party with artillery fire. The fighters and cleric could easily have dispatched thousands of these zombies.

The party enjoyed the skeletal legion room, with skeleton generators. The skill challenge that followed, with Sir Keegan was nice to have scripted, but it seemed a little bit too railroad oriented compared to other skill challenges we've had.

ashockney

The Barrow of the Ogre King from FRCG was the primary basis for tonight's adventure. I was plesantly surprised to figure out that the dungeon tiles I owned, but had never used, matched perfectly with the maps in the FRCG for this adventure. That was fun!

Most of the encounters worked out well. Of note, the two fighter party works very well in "tight quarters". We got to experience cleric's turning for the first time, which everyone was impressed by. It is powerful, but not overwhelming, and as an encounter power, not a lock down for the entire encounter. The players got a nice bump by having two encounter powers now at 3rd level, not overwhelming, but noticeably cooler. In addition to the turning, the ranger's Disruptive Strike was used extremely effectively in the combat.

So once the party gets through the encounters at the top of the Barrow, the party is to descend through the ancient dwarven ruins to find the High Shaman. I thought this would be an excellent place to add a "combat/damage" oriented skill challenge. I made it a complexity 4, level 4 skill challenge. This worked out really well, and the party told a very funny story, and we had a good laugh, in addition to it being a very tough encounter. The mistake that I made was I went with the DMG listed DC's, having thought that we were going a little easily through past skill challenges. We agreed after, to stick with the errata difficulty classes. In this way, the PC's didn't want to feel like they would be "gaming" the system to get as many "aid another" situations as they could dream up.

ashockney

I had some time to prepare encounters, finally, and I was very pleasantly surprised with the results. I have six players instead of five, so I went through about 10 encounters making adjustments from the standard "5 PC" encounters, and there's a very nice table on p57 of the DMG. FOr example, the EL3 encounter should go from 750 to 900xp. A glance at the encounter tells me that I can either bump the minions by 6, or one 150xp creature. Whatever I think would fit. Total time spent for me to adjust all the encounters was under an hour. This included a pretty significant re-working of the Lady of Shadows encounter from the FRCG.

I was pleased that the party moved quickly to complete the "traitor" skill challenge encounter from the previous adventure. I decided to make the traitors both Ninaran, whom they encountered briefly at the tavern, and Curuvar. Curuvar, an elite, attempted to escape from the encounter through a dwarven stepping stone portal. I ruled this would require a succesful DC20 Know Arcana check. The party went through the portal one by one over about a dozen rounds. This moved the party into B2, under the Barrow of the Ogre King. They made quick work of the fleeing Curuvar, however, the battle with the goblins therin was dicey.

I was really pleased with how this evening flowed, and ranged from skill challenge to trap to big combat to big combat. It was extremely challenging to the players. I can't believe this was only a second level adventure, it felt like a much more challenging set of encounters which thoroughly taxed the parties resources.

At this point, I'm prepared to say that as far as first and second level encounters go, these have been some of the best I've ever run for an rpg.

ashockney

In this evening's session, I was most exicited by the possibility provided to me to completely adapt the story/adventure for the evening on the fly.

First, one of the players, in our pre-game "catch up" indicates he had to sit through a girlie movie with his wife all day (The Duchess?), which he really didn't like, and was looking forward to some brutality and violence in tonight's game. On the spot, I switch the order of encounters I had in my head, and I open with a brutal "surprise attack" so that we could get the blood rolling and the tension high right out of the gates. It was a hard-fought battle that introduced a recurring villian I intend to use for a while in Kalarel (from KoS).

Second, we decide to roleplay in town for a while, and we start a skill challenge. The players go off in some different directions, and push the story in ways I didn't expect. We didn't finish the skill challenge we started, but the party gets rolled up in a very interesting "child slavery" ring that has taken root in the town. They pursue this angle vigorously, and what is essentially a one-page writeup in the FRCG became the evening's adventure. On the spot, I had to come up with two encounters for Zark's minions, and then for Zark himself, which appeared would be a solo encounter. Opening up the PH to the "rogue" section, and glancing over the DMG "how to upgrade a villian" I was done in less than 5 minutes. The combat went great, and it was the first solo battle for the party.

I was very, very impressed with how smoothly the system adapted to the needs of the story the players developed and were interested in. I was also shocked at how little from what I had "prepared" that I needed to use.

Kudos to the easy adaptation and simple math that allows for these kinds of "on the fly" adjustments!

ashockney

I've been a bit remiss in posting, so I'd like to capture some of how the story has gone.

Session 1 - Character creation/set campaign expectations, build the "points of light setting" intro, and background the characters together with an opening encounter

Session 2 - Attack on Loudwater by Goblins (FRCG), Roleplaying (general) in town, skill challenge to locate a kobold lair, attack on kobold's lair (KoS)

Session 3 - Assault on Loudwater (Kalarel and Hobgoblins assault the party in town at the Green Takard Tavern, Discovered traitor in Loudwater, begin skill challenge to uncover the traitor, roleplaying in town, battle with Zark's minions, solo battle with Zark (FRCG)

Session 4 - Roleplaying in town, complete skill challenge to identify traitor in Loudwater (Curuvar), Lair of Shadows encoutner (FRCG) with Curuvar, Ninaran and the Lady of Shadows, then Barrow of the Ogre King (FRCG)

Session 5 - Complete the Barrow of the Ogre King (FRCG) with skill challenge to navigate the dwarven halls of Amarindar

Session 5 was run tonight.

ashockney

Ok, I will admit, that I have more than a casual affection for skill challenges in this game. I've been playing for years with characters backgrounds, the stories that surround the characters, the stories that unite the party, and the revealing of information that ties together and interesting and compelling story arc, and ultimately, campaign.

In my opinion, what they've done with skill challenges, is provide a basis from which to build a simple and elegant system to tie these stories together, to move them forward, to reveal information within the "context" of the game, and with legitimate "positive and negative" consequences. This is really, really terrific, and I've enjoyed them tremendously thus far.

An example of a skill challenge I ran in our first story, was that the characters were trying to locate an ally who was taken captive by kobolds, most likely taken to their lair. The party was at a point that they decided they wanted to try to find him. I indicated to them, formally, this would be a "Complexity 1" skill challenge, and I encouraged them to be creative in determining ways to tell the story of how they may have found this NPC. At each step in the process, there were positive and negative consequences. Ultimately, the skill challenge success would lead them to the correct Kobold lair. Failure would lead them to the Keep of Nerath (Keep on the Shadowfell), which had encounters, but they would have grown too difficult very fast for a 1st level party. It creates a much more "real" storytelling aspect, and I look forward to following the story as people do fail, and the individuals and parties react to the consequences and continue to build the story.

Another example of this came from one of the character's backgrounds. He is creating a "Robin Hood" situation for himself, in which he is robbing from the rich to give to the poor in Loudwater. He is busy building his own network that will support him in this endeavor. I am treating this as a Complexity 4, Level 4 challenge (when I anticipate he will complete it), and I'm really looking forward to the different stories that could arise from his success or failure.

The beauty of the skill challenge is that it relinquishes some of the power and control from the DM's hands when it comes to relating the story of the world, backgrounds, and party interaction and places it squarely into the hands of the players. Further, it is terrific fun for improvisational interactions and provides interesting twists to the developing stories that surround a fun game.

ashockney

I'd like to collect some notes on my first 4th Edition Campaign, and what's working. I'd like for the blog to be primarily rules focused on what works and what could use some improvement from a rules perspective with 4th Edition.

First, some housekeeping. I'm running with six players, each playing one PC. I'm running in the FR, largely because of my own familiarity. I am going to use the "core" 4E books for as long as we can, because I really want to see how it plays "as it was intended". I'm also going to use as much as I can from WoTC, Dungeon, and FR. I like to run my games as funny, combat-focused, with some RP and backstory that moves the plot forward that surrounds the mystery and discovery for the campaign. It is fun doing that in an "updated" world that has pre-published setting info, as this adds quite a bit to the journey of discovery for the players, without me having to write/translate this information into the campaign world. I've started the campaign, as designed in Loudwater, with the Keep on the Shadowfell being a signficant contributor to the "low level" adventure material as well. I've got Scepter Tower of Spellguard as a fallback, and there are several adventures in the FRCG that I will work in as well. These will all combine together to allow the players to choose their own adventures, without railroading, but trying at every turn to tie the encounters together in a way that uncovers the mysteries of this campaign.

The players are Dwarven Cleric, Human Fighter, Human Fighter, Human Ranger, Human Wizard, and Tiefling Warlock. Of note, four of these characters have already begun to "multi-class", so there is definitely something appealing here. I've not had any complaints with regard to "balance" and everyone seems able to contribute to pretty much every encounter and situation.

ashockney