4e Campaign - Thunderspire Labyrinth - Well of Demons

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.