The ramblings of a Boston area gamer
Session 3 - Keep on the Shadowfell
Posted 7th August 2008 at 03:31 AM by Elodan
Updated 22nd October 2008 at 07:21 PM by Elodan (clarity)
Updated 22nd October 2008 at 07:21 PM by Elodan (clarity)
Potential spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell herein.
After last week's near TPK, we moved on to our 3rd session exploring the Keep on the Shadowfell. In attendance:
This week we made the trek to Ed's to play. Kevin and Murph had other obligations. Lance called to say he was held up at work and wouldn't be able to make it. During the conversation Lance mentioned how much he doesn't care for 3E and that he really liked what he's seen of 4E so far. Over the past few years he rarely made our games, but I always thought it was because of work demands (He has been showing more frequently since we started playing 4E).
I decide to use Kevin's wizard as a NPC to help tie what happened the week before with the absent/new characters.
I finally started working through the DMG. I discover that the encounter system expects a party's size to be 5, not 4 like previously. With this information in hand and because of last session's near TPK, I decide to scale back the encounter. I have to say this was incredibly easy, I just looked at the table in the DMG, determined the XP difference between four and five PCs, then removed a number of monsters equal to that value. I have to say this is a huge positive for 4E.
The fight outside the kobold lair goes well. Dave keeps getting temporary HP for the deaths of his cursed foes. I think he had 16 by the time the fight was over (he took the feat that gave him +3 bonus temp HPs). We kept saying how that warlock ability seemed really powerful. Dave saw nothing in the class section about any limits and for some reason I refused to look at any of the PHB rules in game.
We move on to the lair itself. The party is doing well when the second wave hits. While Bob's fighter engages Irontooth, Dave uses his Flames of Phlegethos daily power to take the wyrmpriest down to 1 hp before he can enter the fray. Technically he should have died at the start of his turn because of ongoing damage but I gave him the Eff You power to hurl one orb at Dave before he died. This was pretty much our first experience with a striker doing a lot of damage, it was kind of a wow thing after the relatively low damage other PCs have been doing.
The minions were incredibly effective during this fight. One minion was able to outlast all the other baddies except Irontooth. The fact that they attack at the same rate as the other monsters of their level is really nice. The only thing I have concerns about is the fixed damage output. It makes it easy for the players to meta-game. "Oh, he's only doing X damage must be a minion." On the ride home Dave and I discussed ways to hide minions; such as rolling damage dice but using the fixed amount. Maybe giving them +1 damage if I roll max on the dice. (Since then, I roll dice for damage but use the fixed amount. I also double the damage dealt on a crit; 4 becomes 8).
The fight was a real challenge. The fighter was taken down and the cleric was out of healing. He used the Heal skill on Bob's PC to bring him up while the warlock and the wizard distracted Irontooth. I do like that healing starts at zero. Not a fan of being healed only to still be in the negatives. Eventually, the heroes emerge victorious. The cleric ends up with the first magic item found, +1 dwarven chain. Looking forward to seeing magic items in action.
The characters return to Winterhaven and do some research on the Keep. By this point, Bob has to go to work. In about 3 hours we ran two encounters and did some role playing in town before and after the encounters. Everyone seems to have fun.
The next day, I look into the various rules I had questions about. I find that temporary hit points don't stack. I post to our Yahoo group what I found and warn them I'm going to be taking the time to check the rules as the system is new to us.
At this point, based on the group's (mostly) positive reaction to 4E I plan on sticking with it for my campaign. For me the bigger worry is good adventure support. I just hope to see some 3pp adventures as I'm not thrilled with the story for KotS (plus the price for the material is a rip off) and WotC's track record for adventures is not that great.
After last week's near TPK, we moved on to our 3rd session exploring the Keep on the Shadowfell. In attendance:
- me - DM
- Dave - tiefling warlock (new character)
- Ed - human cleric
- Bob - human fighter (new)
This week we made the trek to Ed's to play. Kevin and Murph had other obligations. Lance called to say he was held up at work and wouldn't be able to make it. During the conversation Lance mentioned how much he doesn't care for 3E and that he really liked what he's seen of 4E so far. Over the past few years he rarely made our games, but I always thought it was because of work demands (He has been showing more frequently since we started playing 4E).
I decide to use Kevin's wizard as a NPC to help tie what happened the week before with the absent/new characters.
I finally started working through the DMG. I discover that the encounter system expects a party's size to be 5, not 4 like previously. With this information in hand and because of last session's near TPK, I decide to scale back the encounter. I have to say this was incredibly easy, I just looked at the table in the DMG, determined the XP difference between four and five PCs, then removed a number of monsters equal to that value. I have to say this is a huge positive for 4E.
The fight outside the kobold lair goes well. Dave keeps getting temporary HP for the deaths of his cursed foes. I think he had 16 by the time the fight was over (he took the feat that gave him +3 bonus temp HPs). We kept saying how that warlock ability seemed really powerful. Dave saw nothing in the class section about any limits and for some reason I refused to look at any of the PHB rules in game.
We move on to the lair itself. The party is doing well when the second wave hits. While Bob's fighter engages Irontooth, Dave uses his Flames of Phlegethos daily power to take the wyrmpriest down to 1 hp before he can enter the fray. Technically he should have died at the start of his turn because of ongoing damage but I gave him the Eff You power to hurl one orb at Dave before he died. This was pretty much our first experience with a striker doing a lot of damage, it was kind of a wow thing after the relatively low damage other PCs have been doing.
The minions were incredibly effective during this fight. One minion was able to outlast all the other baddies except Irontooth. The fact that they attack at the same rate as the other monsters of their level is really nice. The only thing I have concerns about is the fixed damage output. It makes it easy for the players to meta-game. "Oh, he's only doing X damage must be a minion." On the ride home Dave and I discussed ways to hide minions; such as rolling damage dice but using the fixed amount. Maybe giving them +1 damage if I roll max on the dice. (Since then, I roll dice for damage but use the fixed amount. I also double the damage dealt on a crit; 4 becomes 8).
The fight was a real challenge. The fighter was taken down and the cleric was out of healing. He used the Heal skill on Bob's PC to bring him up while the warlock and the wizard distracted Irontooth. I do like that healing starts at zero. Not a fan of being healed only to still be in the negatives. Eventually, the heroes emerge victorious. The cleric ends up with the first magic item found, +1 dwarven chain. Looking forward to seeing magic items in action.
The characters return to Winterhaven and do some research on the Keep. By this point, Bob has to go to work. In about 3 hours we ran two encounters and did some role playing in town before and after the encounters. Everyone seems to have fun.
The next day, I look into the various rules I had questions about. I find that temporary hit points don't stack. I post to our Yahoo group what I found and warn them I'm going to be taking the time to check the rules as the system is new to us.
At this point, based on the group's (mostly) positive reaction to 4E I plan on sticking with it for my campaign. For me the bigger worry is good adventure support. I just hope to see some 3pp adventures as I'm not thrilled with the story for KotS (plus the price for the material is a rip off) and WotC's track record for adventures is not that great.
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