Daniel D. Fox
Explorer
No longer needed, I edited the original post. ~ Piratecat
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D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
Dreams of 4e
Thanks - this is just great!
my current DM can be as much as 1.5 hrs late to our game, so the pregens and your adventure are setting up shop in my gaming bag, to be run the next time he is detained.
Although I do partially blame the OP for such an intensive study of the 4e characters..
that I Dreamed of a Sitcom involving a female warlock, engaged to an elderin ranger, from my view point as the halfling paladin. The Plot involved an accident with runaway truck driven by kobolds. All six of us shared 2 new york apartments, across a hall from each other (one apt may have been painted purple).
Thanks - this is just great!
my current DM can be as much as 1.5 hrs late to our game, so the pregens and your adventure are setting up shop in my gaming bag, to be run the next time he is detained.
Although I do partially blame the OP for such an intensive study of the 4e characters..
that I Dreamed of a Sitcom involving a female warlock, engaged to an elderin ranger, from my view point as the halfling paladin. The Plot involved an accident with runaway truck driven by kobolds. All six of us shared 2 new york apartments, across a hall from each other (one apt may have been painted purple).
Ebon Shar
Explorer
Teaching 4e to non-gamers
Tonight I attempted to teach my kids to play 4e. For the most part, they are not familiar with D&D or roleplaying in general. My 14 year old, however, is an avid player and participant in the RPGA. She is well versed in 3.5. My boys, 11 and 12, and my other daughter, also 12, have played the 3.5 intro game a few times, but are not at all familiar with the rules. In addition, my 11 year old boy has ADD and his medication had long worn off.
Sooooo....
It didn't really go well. I started the game by trying to explain the basics. I had assumed from their past experience that they would at least be familiar with the basic concepts. That proved not to be the case. As a result, I had a hard time explaining any of the new 4e concepts, such as at-will powers, etc. The experienced 14 year old was dismayed at the drastic changes to the game, but was enthusiastic to get started.
We only got through the first cavern, and just barely. Before all the kobolds and Varkaze fell, two of the players had asked to be excused from boredom. Of course, one was the lad with ADD who really struggled to focus on anything when it was not his turn. That was not the fault of the game, of course. The 12 year old girl also quit, but D&D for her is just something she does to humor her geeky old dad.
The interesting thing, I found, was that my 14 year old kept trying to help her siblings by making tactical suggestions, all using 3.5 rules. I had to constantly remind her there was no such thing as Precise Shot anymore, nor was there 1-2-1 movement. Also, the kids could not really grasp the use of their at-will powers, and kept trying to default to their standard attacks. Due to the complexity of record keeping that they seemed to have no interest in, we didn't use any of the "marking" abilities of the PC's. The wizard ended up using MM almost constantly, but was able to use Scorching Blast effectively when the Kobolds grouped. The Ranger used Careful Attack during every round. The Fighter, my ADD afflicted 11 year old, just wanted to smach skulls and did not have the patience to learn about or use his at-will abilities. Only the Cleric, of course played by my experienced child, made careful use of her at-will and per-encounter abilities.
I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this brief game, other than that half my kids have little to no interest in the game. The inexperienced child that was interested did well, but required constant reminders of his character's powers. It seemed to me that the amount of choice and the varying tactics that he could have employed was a bit confusing for him. He was just a bit overwhelmed. My experienced daughter picked up everything pretty quickly, but she had a hard time discarding ingrained 3.5 rules. Again, constant reminders were needed to get across to her that the rules were completely different and that she should just let go of all those 3.5 artifacts she was dragging around. She is looking forward to future games and had an overall positive experience with the new rules.
Bottom line: I expected the kids to pick up the rules and concepts easier than they did. Teaching them the 3.5 basic games was less stressful and was more easily accomplished. Perhaps, as I've heard others state, streamlined does not necessarily mean easier.
I look forward to playing with more experienced gamers to get a better grasp of the game myself, but I enjoyed it.
Tonight I attempted to teach my kids to play 4e. For the most part, they are not familiar with D&D or roleplaying in general. My 14 year old, however, is an avid player and participant in the RPGA. She is well versed in 3.5. My boys, 11 and 12, and my other daughter, also 12, have played the 3.5 intro game a few times, but are not at all familiar with the rules. In addition, my 11 year old boy has ADD and his medication had long worn off.
Sooooo....
It didn't really go well. I started the game by trying to explain the basics. I had assumed from their past experience that they would at least be familiar with the basic concepts. That proved not to be the case. As a result, I had a hard time explaining any of the new 4e concepts, such as at-will powers, etc. The experienced 14 year old was dismayed at the drastic changes to the game, but was enthusiastic to get started.
We only got through the first cavern, and just barely. Before all the kobolds and Varkaze fell, two of the players had asked to be excused from boredom. Of course, one was the lad with ADD who really struggled to focus on anything when it was not his turn. That was not the fault of the game, of course. The 12 year old girl also quit, but D&D for her is just something she does to humor her geeky old dad.
The interesting thing, I found, was that my 14 year old kept trying to help her siblings by making tactical suggestions, all using 3.5 rules. I had to constantly remind her there was no such thing as Precise Shot anymore, nor was there 1-2-1 movement. Also, the kids could not really grasp the use of their at-will powers, and kept trying to default to their standard attacks. Due to the complexity of record keeping that they seemed to have no interest in, we didn't use any of the "marking" abilities of the PC's. The wizard ended up using MM almost constantly, but was able to use Scorching Blast effectively when the Kobolds grouped. The Ranger used Careful Attack during every round. The Fighter, my ADD afflicted 11 year old, just wanted to smach skulls and did not have the patience to learn about or use his at-will abilities. Only the Cleric, of course played by my experienced child, made careful use of her at-will and per-encounter abilities.
I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this brief game, other than that half my kids have little to no interest in the game. The inexperienced child that was interested did well, but required constant reminders of his character's powers. It seemed to me that the amount of choice and the varying tactics that he could have employed was a bit confusing for him. He was just a bit overwhelmed. My experienced daughter picked up everything pretty quickly, but she had a hard time discarding ingrained 3.5 rules. Again, constant reminders were needed to get across to her that the rules were completely different and that she should just let go of all those 3.5 artifacts she was dragging around. She is looking forward to future games and had an overall positive experience with the new rules.
Bottom line: I expected the kids to pick up the rules and concepts easier than they did. Teaching them the 3.5 basic games was less stressful and was more easily accomplished. Perhaps, as I've heard others state, streamlined does not necessarily mean easier.
I look forward to playing with more experienced gamers to get a better grasp of the game myself, but I enjoyed it.
im_robertb
First Post
4th Edition: Perhaps too hard to handle for 12 year olds.
So probably easier to understand than 3.5, but harder than the old Basic Set in the red box.
I don't know if I'm going to run this or Mike Shea's adventure when I get the chance. Is it sad that I'd rather run a 4E demo than the big dragon fight my PCs are facing?
So probably easier to understand than 3.5, but harder than the old Basic Set in the red box.
I don't know if I'm going to run this or Mike Shea's adventure when I get the chance. Is it sad that I'd rather run a 4E demo than the big dragon fight my PCs are facing?
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
im_robertb said:
My players were dismayed last weekend too when they found out that they'd be exploring the ruins of Dwarven fortified hilltop monestary in 4E rather than looting the pile of 12 dead 5th level NPCs the 9th level wizard had taken out with two spells in my last 3.5 session...
I love the world I've created in my 3.5 game and my players do too (so much that they get pissed when anyone tried to run anything else), it's just hard to stick with it after all that I've learned about 4E.
I spent 4 hours preparing 3 fights a while back(one with 3 monsters that rose as zombies when they died, one with a cool 6th level wizard and his shield guardian, one with a white dragon that rose as a zombie THEN a skeleton when the zombie died THEN exploded - long story), and the wizard was done in the 2nd round of combat from a feeblemind spell from my optimized wizard player(DC 27 vs an NPC with +7 Will). 1 hour of work undone in a couple minutes. The dragon just barely made his save(by 1).
Not looking forward to the higher levels, the monsters killed outright with one spell, the hours spent designing casters that die to a single volley from my optimized archer player or, if they live, kill might kill a party member(or 3) instantly with a spell... Especially unexciting since my optimized archer player said, "just wait till you see the character builds for the two characters I have spreadsheeted in case this guy dies!" - this from the player who once had a minotaur ranger dual-wield/monkey-gripping two keen mercurial greatswords while wearing a bandolier full of enlarge potions and routinely killing npcs and monsters instantly with massive damage, not to mention his crazy reach, combat reflexes, and great-cleave...
Long story short, I think I might have to stop reading about 4E until it comes out, if I want to be able to run my 3.5 game anymore...
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Ebon Shar
Explorer
im_robertb said:
I would not go so far as to say that the game is too difficult for 12 year olds. I would say, however, that the learning curve for inexperienced 12 year olds is steeper than I had anticipated. Given that my kids are as inexperienced as they are, and as disinterested as a few of them were, I would not say that this episode is going to be standard for all kids in their age ranges.
I will say, in case the topic comes up, that three of the four kids are solid "A" students in school who demonstrate excellent creativity and are generally well read and have excellent writing skills. The concept of Role-Playing for them is not completely foreign, just something they don't often participate in.
Again, I probably expected too much, but I found them to be quickly confused and, eventually, somewhat bored.
im_robertb
First Post
Iron Sky said:
I recently ran a wave battle of kobolds and winter wolves against my PCs. 1 wave per 2 rounds dropping off a cliff 60' up and being Feather Falled by a Kobold Sorceror 6 atop the cliff, out of sight. Each wave was 3 winter wolves and a Kobold Dragon Shaman 5 or Kobold Dragonfire Adept 6 (one can feather fall himself, the other can fly). At the end, the sorceror jumped down.
Before he got to act, though, the artificer split+empowered his wand of Scorching Ray, and killed the sorceror while damaging one of the wolves heftily. That sorceror took me an hour, and he might as well have been a level 1 mook with a few extra scrolls of feather fall for all that it mattered.
FunkBGR
Explorer
Hey!
Olgar, thanks for writing this. I ran this last night for a group of 5. We had a Fighter, Cleric, Ranger, Wizard and Warlock.
Room 1: Entryway
Round 1: Minions went down like cake, but by the end of it, we still had a regular minion and a skirmisher. Light damage to people.
Round 2: More minions come running in from the side room. More light damage, and I think I finally got to use the Combat Advantage ability on the Skirmisher. Pretty much all the minions except one, and the skirmisher, died this round.
Round 3: I deviated from your module here. Added 6 regular minions, 2 more skirmirshers, and a Kobold Wyrmpriest coming from the left. This caused some concern, and I got a person bloodied, but it wasn't so bad. The Wyrmpriest is fun, and his granting of temp hp is awesome - every kobold got to shift into Combat Advantage when I did this.
Summary:
I did some damage, and I really like minions. I think that adding to round 3 was a mistake in retrospect though, because I damaged my party probably more than I should have. Wizard was out of Healing Surges by the Dragon fight.
Room 2: Kobold King
Had Caltrops on the entrance, which caused some frurstration as everyone seemed to get hit as they walked over it. Eladrin liked his teleport ability. Also, didn't have Meepo flee.
Round 1: Snap shot the Fighter, then used my hand crossbow on him as a standard, and got him to bloodied in one round. That caused concern in the group. Death from Above'd the Cleric after he moved into the room, hitting him for a lot.
Round 2+: Basically the group failed their rolls over and over again, while I kept pelting them with Combat Advantage and Meepo's nasty sneak attack. I also rolled recharge a lot, letting him snap shot before closing, which really screwed with them. All in all, I dropped everyone but the Warlock and the Fighter. Lasted like 5 rounds total though.
Summary:
This encounter is "tough", but doable. The players appreciated that although they have a lot of hp, they still felt threatened by this encounter.
Room 3: Hobgoblins
Round 1: Warcaster has abilities that require being close, so I ready. Archers zero in on the fighter, and nail him twice. He's bloodied (already, and again!) People start moving in, and attacking. Warcaster goes down in a hail of light, eldritch blasts and arrows.
Round 2: Hobbo soldier gets up on the cleric who's moved in, makes him scared. Ends up running away from a cause fear. Fighter gets next to the Archers, who stop firing and try to attack him in melee - moving or taking opportunity attacks from him sucks! Soldier eventually goes down under striker's barrage.
Round 3+: Cleanup of archers, easy peasy. Takes maybe 2 rounds due to bad rolls.
Summary:
This encounter was fun for everyone. You've got some tougher baddies, with almost 40 and 50 hp, but with some good tactics, they're not too tough. I forced the party to take a Extended Rest here, due to the last room.
Room 4: Nightscale
Summary:
My group got him bloodied, but only just barely. They had a terrible time hitting him, and I knocked people down left and right. I crit'd with him once, and did . . . 9 damage, and everyone kinda looked at me funny. "Only 9 damage?" Yup. Maybe I did critical hits wrong, but I thought it was max damage, not double or anything. Regardless, this guy definitely is tough, and the party enjoyed fighting him (and we called it after he was bloodied).
Very fun - thanks! Couple of notes on characters. I didn't read the character sheets, so don't know how accurate some of it is (first time trying it out, obviously).
General Class Stuff:
We didn't have trouble keeping track of effects, but only just barely. Curse and Quarry were easy, and Mark was a little harder. Going to have to use tokens, or something. Also, power cards seem the right thing to make for each person. We did have trouble healing, as the group could have used more Second Winds with Meepo fight and the Dragon fight. I arbitrarily said that if you survive the encounter, your allies auto-stabilize you, and then also decided the heal check could be used to allow a healing surge to be spent. It seemed alright. I'm curious how potions will work.
Fighter - Very important to know when you can use your abilities. Had a situation with Meepo where his Wicked Dodge would have let me hit the Warlock instead of Meepo, but I didn't because the Fighter used Cleave, which meant he could deal 3 damage to the Spider (for example). Also, has abilities that affect when someone Shifts around him, but not necessarily Moving into a square next to him. That threw us for a loop a bit. Guy playing him liked that he forced me to debate internally whether to shift for combat advantage or not.
Cleric - Hated that a lot of his abililties required him to hit to activate. The guy rolls bad consistently, so I can't blame him. Still, he had a fun time throwing radiant damage every which way, and being able to use his healing ability as a minor was a huge boon to everyone else.
Ranger - The guy loved his mobility and sheer damage output. He couldn't take hits, and so made sure to move around the battlefield. This guy, combined with the Warlock, were eating guys up (which is exactly what's supposed to happen, I'm guessing). His reaction ability is awesome.
Wizard - Starting with area effects, transitioning to magic missiles, and being able to generally unleash a number of variable effects that affected various creatures unlimited times per day - that's what this guy LOVED about the Wizard. Most of the guys in the dungeon have fairly high Reflex, and the guy playing noted that most of his effects were targeting Reflex. Made the Wizard less effective, but still - kept me from grouping guys up.
Warlock - My god. Moving 3+ spaces for concealment, combined with Eyebite, made our Warlock a monster. Guy playing this loved that he had damage, and could make himself a non-target in cases, because he'd just target the toughest looking guy, eyebite him, and go invisible to that one target. I thought that perhaps he might not shine as much as the Ranger, but that's clearly not the case - they're both superb damage dealers.
All in all, awesome. Thanks again Olgar. I managed to convince my group that we're switching to 4th Edition, barring something crazy!
- Bryan
Olgar, thanks for writing this. I ran this last night for a group of 5. We had a Fighter, Cleric, Ranger, Wizard and Warlock.
Room 1: Entryway
Round 1: Minions went down like cake, but by the end of it, we still had a regular minion and a skirmisher. Light damage to people.
Round 2: More minions come running in from the side room. More light damage, and I think I finally got to use the Combat Advantage ability on the Skirmisher. Pretty much all the minions except one, and the skirmisher, died this round.
Round 3: I deviated from your module here. Added 6 regular minions, 2 more skirmirshers, and a Kobold Wyrmpriest coming from the left. This caused some concern, and I got a person bloodied, but it wasn't so bad. The Wyrmpriest is fun, and his granting of temp hp is awesome - every kobold got to shift into Combat Advantage when I did this.
Summary:
I did some damage, and I really like minions. I think that adding to round 3 was a mistake in retrospect though, because I damaged my party probably more than I should have. Wizard was out of Healing Surges by the Dragon fight.
Room 2: Kobold King
Had Caltrops on the entrance, which caused some frurstration as everyone seemed to get hit as they walked over it. Eladrin liked his teleport ability. Also, didn't have Meepo flee.
Round 1: Snap shot the Fighter, then used my hand crossbow on him as a standard, and got him to bloodied in one round. That caused concern in the group. Death from Above'd the Cleric after he moved into the room, hitting him for a lot.
Round 2+: Basically the group failed their rolls over and over again, while I kept pelting them with Combat Advantage and Meepo's nasty sneak attack. I also rolled recharge a lot, letting him snap shot before closing, which really screwed with them. All in all, I dropped everyone but the Warlock and the Fighter. Lasted like 5 rounds total though.
Summary:
This encounter is "tough", but doable. The players appreciated that although they have a lot of hp, they still felt threatened by this encounter.
Room 3: Hobgoblins
Round 1: Warcaster has abilities that require being close, so I ready. Archers zero in on the fighter, and nail him twice. He's bloodied (already, and again!) People start moving in, and attacking. Warcaster goes down in a hail of light, eldritch blasts and arrows.
Round 2: Hobbo soldier gets up on the cleric who's moved in, makes him scared. Ends up running away from a cause fear. Fighter gets next to the Archers, who stop firing and try to attack him in melee - moving or taking opportunity attacks from him sucks! Soldier eventually goes down under striker's barrage.
Round 3+: Cleanup of archers, easy peasy. Takes maybe 2 rounds due to bad rolls.
Summary:
This encounter was fun for everyone. You've got some tougher baddies, with almost 40 and 50 hp, but with some good tactics, they're not too tough. I forced the party to take a Extended Rest here, due to the last room.
Room 4: Nightscale
Summary:
My group got him bloodied, but only just barely. They had a terrible time hitting him, and I knocked people down left and right. I crit'd with him once, and did . . . 9 damage, and everyone kinda looked at me funny. "Only 9 damage?" Yup. Maybe I did critical hits wrong, but I thought it was max damage, not double or anything. Regardless, this guy definitely is tough, and the party enjoyed fighting him (and we called it after he was bloodied).
Very fun - thanks! Couple of notes on characters. I didn't read the character sheets, so don't know how accurate some of it is (first time trying it out, obviously).
General Class Stuff:
We didn't have trouble keeping track of effects, but only just barely. Curse and Quarry were easy, and Mark was a little harder. Going to have to use tokens, or something. Also, power cards seem the right thing to make for each person. We did have trouble healing, as the group could have used more Second Winds with Meepo fight and the Dragon fight. I arbitrarily said that if you survive the encounter, your allies auto-stabilize you, and then also decided the heal check could be used to allow a healing surge to be spent. It seemed alright. I'm curious how potions will work.
Fighter - Very important to know when you can use your abilities. Had a situation with Meepo where his Wicked Dodge would have let me hit the Warlock instead of Meepo, but I didn't because the Fighter used Cleave, which meant he could deal 3 damage to the Spider (for example). Also, has abilities that affect when someone Shifts around him, but not necessarily Moving into a square next to him. That threw us for a loop a bit. Guy playing him liked that he forced me to debate internally whether to shift for combat advantage or not.
Cleric - Hated that a lot of his abililties required him to hit to activate. The guy rolls bad consistently, so I can't blame him. Still, he had a fun time throwing radiant damage every which way, and being able to use his healing ability as a minor was a huge boon to everyone else.
Ranger - The guy loved his mobility and sheer damage output. He couldn't take hits, and so made sure to move around the battlefield. This guy, combined with the Warlock, were eating guys up (which is exactly what's supposed to happen, I'm guessing). His reaction ability is awesome.
Wizard - Starting with area effects, transitioning to magic missiles, and being able to generally unleash a number of variable effects that affected various creatures unlimited times per day - that's what this guy LOVED about the Wizard. Most of the guys in the dungeon have fairly high Reflex, and the guy playing noted that most of his effects were targeting Reflex. Made the Wizard less effective, but still - kept me from grouping guys up.
Warlock - My god. Moving 3+ spaces for concealment, combined with Eyebite, made our Warlock a monster. Guy playing this loved that he had damage, and could make himself a non-target in cases, because he'd just target the toughest looking guy, eyebite him, and go invisible to that one target. I thought that perhaps he might not shine as much as the Ranger, but that's clearly not the case - they're both superb damage dealers.
All in all, awesome. Thanks again Olgar. I managed to convince my group that we're switching to 4th Edition, barring something crazy!
- Bryan
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