Trial... jog?
My group ran through the rest of the DMG's trial scenario a week ago. I gave them some time to think, and have collected their thoughts.
In general, the session ran smoothly. The second and third encounter of the scenario went well, with pleasing amounts of dynamic action - climbing walls, dodging, unforeseen enemies, and all. The final encounter, however, turned into a grinding slugfest.
It seemed the party and the BBEG settled into what, for each, seemed to be the optimal configuration. And everyone - PC and monster alike, rolled miserably. Several encounter and daily powers outright failed and were wasted. The BBEG's recharging power didn't, and when it did, it rolled poorly too. It turned into a grind - who could deal out more damage with basic attacks soonest. The party won by having their string of bad luck break before the BBEG's, not by any strategy or tactical failure on anyone's part.
Personally, I felt this showed a bit that the system has not really met all the claimed goals. While supposedly discouraging the "15-minute workday", this encounter was precisely that. The party had to go in fully charged to have a chance of winning, and burned through all their powers in the process. Not much different than what was supposedly a sub-optimal play experience in 3e that this edition was supposed to fix. YMMV, of course.
In general, the basic problem was that the introductory scenario was very combat-intensive, not leaving a whole lot of leeway for some of the more social or puzzle-solving activities my players like. A group that normally has only one fights per session didn't find it terribly satisfying, except as an adventure board game.
So, now the question - do I buy or try to design a more rounded adventure, or do we call it a wash and play another game. We shall see what the players decide. So far, it is a bit of a split decision, but not everyone's answered their e-mails yet.
In general, the session ran smoothly. The second and third encounter of the scenario went well, with pleasing amounts of dynamic action - climbing walls, dodging, unforeseen enemies, and all. The final encounter, however, turned into a grinding slugfest.
It seemed the party and the BBEG settled into what, for each, seemed to be the optimal configuration. And everyone - PC and monster alike, rolled miserably. Several encounter and daily powers outright failed and were wasted. The BBEG's recharging power didn't, and when it did, it rolled poorly too. It turned into a grind - who could deal out more damage with basic attacks soonest. The party won by having their string of bad luck break before the BBEG's, not by any strategy or tactical failure on anyone's part.
Personally, I felt this showed a bit that the system has not really met all the claimed goals. While supposedly discouraging the "15-minute workday", this encounter was precisely that. The party had to go in fully charged to have a chance of winning, and burned through all their powers in the process. Not much different than what was supposedly a sub-optimal play experience in 3e that this edition was supposed to fix. YMMV, of course.
In general, the basic problem was that the introductory scenario was very combat-intensive, not leaving a whole lot of leeway for some of the more social or puzzle-solving activities my players like. A group that normally has only one fights per session didn't find it terribly satisfying, except as an adventure board game.
So, now the question - do I buy or try to design a more rounded adventure, or do we call it a wash and play another game. We shall see what the players decide. So far, it is a bit of a split decision, but not everyone's answered their e-mails yet.
Total Comments 4
Comments
-
I find that when running solo monsters, their high defense scores change the game much more than their bottomless hit points and area attacks. Next time your group has a solo encounter, try the following:
1. Have the creature move around, even though he will take some opportunity attacks. His high defenses should compensate for what would otherwise be a lousy tactic and will make the fight more interesting for all involved.
2. Encourage players to build up bonuses before spending Daily powers. Move into flanking, or get the cleric to toss the warlord a righteous brand so that his lead the attack can hit, stuff like that. Players should be doing this anyway, but in a typical encounter it doesn't matter much; it can make a huge difference during a solo fight, though.
Don't judge 4e by Kobold Hall. It's a pretty boring and straightforward combat exercise. I don't know what your criteria for RPG rules are, but you should try building and running an adventure in your personal style and see how well D&D supports that.
-- 77IMPosted 30th September 2008 at 08:10 PM by 77IM
-
1. Once the daily and encounter powers were used up, moving would not have opened up new opportunities for the PCs. And I'm not a fan of playing the monster contrary to what is good for it just to make them move parts around the board in lieu of having actually interesting events.
Plus, they bunched themselves up - sitting still, taking minimal damage and waiting for the recharge should have produced some really spectacular results. TPK was a distinct possibility, if the thing ever made the recharge roll.
2. They did try all the tricks available to them. That didn't overcome the 2s and 3s we were seeing on the dice.Posted 30th September 2008 at 09:14 PM by Umbran -
I wouldn't rate 4e based on that final battle in kobold hall - now, if they didn't have fun in the other encounters, it may not be for you.
I believe there are some free options out on the net that have RP hooks, more interesting encounters, etc. I think KH suffered from wanting to restrict the types of creatures encountered too much and not wanting to confuse the players and DMs by making that final encounter actually have terrain, extra minions, and other touches to make it more exciting.Posted 2nd October 2008 at 10:40 PM by keterys -
Your experience seems to have mirrored quite well that of the group I played with to see if it was something we would like.
4E's supposed benefits in limiting the time spent disengaged due to negative effects, and the ability to keep playing were not evident in our run through Kobold Hall.
In 3 of the combats the dwarven fighter basically sat out the fray due to the the movement delaying goo, and bad saves, even with aid another, which kept another character tied up helping. Until finally the helpers left to actually help the characters that were getting beat on.
Then of course it turned around. We engaged the dragon, were all stunned, weakend and slowed for two rounds while he missed, then we ran forward, surrounded him, dumped everything we had for 2 rounds, then spent another 6 rounds beating him to death while he ineffectually attacked the fighter who marked him, despite others doing considerably more horrible effects to him.
In the end, it felt very anti-climactic, and areas supposedly fixed to encourage teamwork and maintain action seemed to fail repeatedly to do so.
End result: Meh response, and a move on to other gaming. So I definitely sympathize with where you are coming from.Posted 2nd October 2008 at 11:00 PM by The_Warlock
Total Trackbacks 0
And yet another word from our sponsors
