D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure

Olgar Shiverstone said:

3. Which powers are spell-like and draw opportunity attacks when used in a threatened area? We made reasonable judgments, but I didn't see how to determine that clearly from the power descriptions.

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I can answer that for you. Ranged and Area provokes opportunity attacks, while Melee and Close do not.

With that out of the way, can I add my own question? When Erias (the cleric) hits someone with Cause Fear, will he run away immediately (in the clerics turn) or not until his own turn comes around? If the latter, the other characters could set up quite a gauntlet if they get their turns between the cleric and the fearful target. Also, will the target use double move (trading his standard action down to an extra move action) or just a single move to get away? The power description just says "The target moves its speed + 2 squares away from you."

Aluvial said:

Where are the links to the characters?

I can't seem to find them.

Aluvial

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The characters are up at the WotC site: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/ExperienceCharacters.zip

There's also a link in the Raiders v2 document.

Oldtimer said:

I can answer that for you. Ranged and Area provokes opportunity attacks, while Melee and Close do not.

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Thanks. Wish I'd known that today.

With that out of the way, can I add my own question? When Erias (the cleric) hits someone with Cause Fear, will he run away immediately (in the clerics turn) or not until his own turn comes around? If the latter, the other characters could set up quite a gauntlet if they get their turns between the cleric and the fearful target. Also, will the target use double move (trading his standard action down to an extra move action) or just a single move to get away? The power description just says "The target moves its speed + 2 squares away from you."

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You know ... I don't know. Sort of like Turn Undead in 3E. I usually have the creatures run on their turns at max move, but I'm not sure what the actual rule is/should be.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

You know ... I don't know. Sort of like Turn Undead in 3E. I usually have the creatures run on their turns at max move, but I'm not sure what the actual rule is/should be.

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This is an interesting question. Unlike Turn Undead, which is a push(and falls under the forced movement rules), Cause Fear makes the target move. According to the Scalegloom appendix, "Forced movement doesn't count against a target's ability to move on it's turn". Does that imply that Cause Fear 1)happens immediately and 2)docks a move action from the fleeing opponent on their next turn?

Cause fear is normal movement that just happens to be the result of messing with the target's brane. That means it happens on the target's turn, like any other normal movement.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

2. I can see DM load on multiple effects becoming tedious. We didn't have too many in play as the warcaster never managed to land anything, but if he had it would have increased my workload a bit.

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Keeping track of different conditions can be confusing, but I found that using the various condition and other markers from FFG's Descent (and its two expansions) made it easier to keep track of and speed up play, especially since there is a good overlap between Descent condition markers and 4e conditions (i.e., stunned, cursed, poisoned, burning, etc.).

We did the full run today, although they didn't fight the hobgoblins. I'll post the chat and screenshots in the morning, but here's the quick summary:

They used the Paladin, Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, and Warlock. The guy that was going to play the Cleric was sick so he wasn't on.

Kobold Warren:
The paladin & fighter quickly squared off with Ichi-ichi and pressed the attack, while the ranger, wizard and warlock obliterated the first group of minions in round one. As they managed to surprise the kobolds (the ranger made a high perception check at the mouth of the cave, and they all made great stealth checks on their way down), they had killed everyone but Ichi-ichi by round 1 (round 0 being the surprise round). Round 2's wave charged in and scored some minor hits, and Ichi-ichi managed to hit the gong/spring the trap, then he (and the second wave) were slaughtered wholesale, as well. The paladin was using Divine Challenge on Ichi-ichi, then attacking him and shifting back a step. This forced Ichi to either attack the fighter (taking 8 damage) or shift after the paladin (taking the OA from the fighter); brutal synergy.

The ranger and wizard were just picking which minion dies next, while the warlock was demonstrating tactical movement. I don't think there was one time that she didn't have Concealment (oh yes there was--more later), but it was Curse, kill, teleport, move. She was literaly changing sides of the room liberally.

Round 3 Otto-wombo & Pik arrive, and suffer a turn of attacks. The fighter charged and hammered Pik with their Daily (a little early, right?), missed, popped an Action Point and tried again, and critted! Dead Pik in one shot. Otto-wombo missed with a fire-pot then got pulverized by the strikers before fleeing. The fighter missed with the OA so he gets away, and the paladin only moves cautiously after, no chance to catch up.

As everyone was dead at the start of Round 4, I decided Varkaze would not step out to die too, so a quick Stealth check vs their passive Perception had him retreating and prepping for battle. The whole party chases the slinger cautiously (note: NO REST) and moves all the way to Meepo's chamber...

Meepo, King of the Kobolds:
At this point, they took long enough to catch up that Meepo had fled. Because Otto-wombo had 2 hp left, I decided Nightscale ate him for being weak. (And I figured the dragon with Meepo would be bad enough.) Meanwhile the party carefully moves into the room, and Ix death from aboves the paladin for 16 damage. As they collectively themselves hearing that much damage from a level one hit, they quickly pulverized Ix in a round or two. As they decided to rest this time, I let them surge up a bit, and they went back to loot the kobolds, check the previous chamber, and the ranger searched the throne room. He found the secret door with a 19+7 perception check and they gathered up to move forward. I gave them their action point as they had beat 2 encounter areas, even if it was all at once.

Nightscale's Lair:
Rather than throw Meepo and Nightscale at them together, I decided Nightscale was furious at Meepo for him leading the party to her, so she stayed under the water to let the party deal with him first. The group edged around the lake, unable to spot either Meepo or Nightscale, hiding below the water. Meepo slipped out of the water as they passed and attacked the ranger (back of marching order) and nailed him with a critical hand crossbow sneak attack during surprise, then ran him through with the rapier, taking him to unconscious. The party dealt with Meepo quickly though, and he didn't make it more than like 2 rounds before he was down.

The paladin had healed the ranger back up to standing when Nightscale surfaced and let the first acid breath loose. Wow, that moment was so awesome, hearing all the various exclamations they made! (I decided that the hobgoblins would stay holed up after the carnage they saw in the kobold warren.) Anyway, the first breath yields 4 of the 5 lined up for the shot, and hit 3 of them. They kind of guffawed when it was only 10 damage, but after all the second winds and surges blown trying to recover from the ongoing acid damage, they changed their mind.

The fighter was endlessly frustrated with the dragon--he needed a 18+ to hit and the tail slashes were really urking him. Plus the dragon kept dropping the darkness on him to keep him from Opportunity Attacking and stopping her movement. The paladin kept her challenged, but kept falling back--it kind of reeked of cheese, really. He eventually ran out of line of sight, initially just to recover and shake off the bite acid, but finally he decided to run (east) down past the hobgoblins. He ran by so fast that I actually had them stay put, still hearing the dragon fighting and nervous to come out (and I didn't want the TPK to be THAT easy).

Anyway, this brought up the situation--does Divine Challenge keep working? Because we're testing the rules as they read, we let it keep working, but it felt a little silly.

Ultimately, the warlock did a fair amount of damage to the dragon with Eyebites, the ranger peppered her with some Careful Shots (as he could hit from time to time), the fighter got pulverized, unable to hit and getting hit repeatedly, and the wizard just frustrating wiffed away at her 21 reflex (25% chance to hit). They kept spread out and moving though, and kept her from being able to nail them all at once finally.

At one point she popped the frightful presence, stunning three of them, and dropped the warlock at this point (fighter & warlock down). The paladin at this point has circled back around from the south, and revives the fighter, planning on running away, but the dwarf scooped up her hammer and said, "We ain't done yet!" and charged, missing again.

The ranger (who had started to flee south) returned and managed to put a few more shots on target, but half the damage was coming from the Divine Challenge, honestly. Kind of reeked of cheese, but we were having fun, so went with it. Going forward, I would say that the paladin has to remain within close burst 5 range for the divine challenge to apply. Anyway, eventually the dragon dropped darkness and dove into the water again, and the fighter dove in and smashed her on the head with her hammer (crit!) and she surfaced again (ranger had a readied action to shoot, missing) and she bit the paladin, nearly dropping him, when the mage FINALLY hit with a magic missile, and she hit bloodied. Feeling nice, I had her blow a bloodied breath and flee at that point. Honestly, if she had gone another 50 hp before fleeing, it would have been a TPK. The party left to the south, knowing they weren't up for anymore fighting.

Player Feedback:
They loved the new combat, and we're all looking forward to 4E. Everyone felt like they had a lot to do, and outside of wanting some clarification on little stuff, really enjoyed everything.
Fighter - The battlefield control is awesome, not being able to hit the boss sucked.
Paladin - The synergy with the mark was awesome, and healing while kicking ass was great.
Ranger - The accuracy and deadliness rocked, no complaints.
Warlock - Loved the tactical movement and ability to attack the weakest defense. Will play a warlock in 4E most likely.
Wizard - Choosing how to kill the next enemy was great, but hated his daily powers.

We had fun--they way they raced through the adventure really hurt them, but that's their style. They want to do battle with the dragon fully rested and see how it turns out, so we're going to do that this week. We're also really anxious to see how glaring things like the Divine Challenge can be exploited, or why it hasn't been mentioned in playtests. Also, the warrior's ability to immediately attack a shifting target doesn't READ that it's an Opportunity Attack, so does it stop movement? I mean, who's NOT going to shift away? We ruled that it was an OA.

Fun game, had my group not blown all their dailies before the dragon, they might have performed more solidly (only the warlock still had a daily on Nightscale).

Full Chatlog (no pictures)

Xorn said:

We had fun--they way they raced through the adventure really hurt them, but that's their style. They want to do battle with the dragon fully rested and see how it turns out, so we're going to do that this week. We're also really anxious to see how glaring things like the Divine Challenge can be exploited, or why it hasn't been mentioned in playtests. Also, the warrior's ability to immediately attack a shifting target doesn't READ that it's an Opportunity Attack, so does it stop movement? I mean, who's NOT going to shift away? We ruled that it was an OA.

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Divine Challenge has apparently already been errata'd so it isn't cheesy, announced somewhere here on EN World, but I don't believe the exact change has been announced. I'd assume they'd make Divine Challenge damage work only when the paladin stays adjacent to the target or pursues the target, to prevent "mark and run away" cheese (or perhaps it will read ... if the paladin moves away from the target, the Divine Challenge ends).

The fighter's ability has been clarified -- it's an immediate attack, not an OA. So the opponent can still shift away, but gets whacked in the process. If the opponent tries to move (except to withdraw) he gets whacked, and fixed in place. If he stands still, he gets whacked ... so short of withdrawing, anything the opponent does gets him whacked, including doing nothing, and the best the opponent can accomplish is (shift)*whack*, which is probably followed by the fighter shifting and following up with more *whack*. So the ability really doesn't lose much by not being an OA.

I'm still deciding if I'm going to use this adventure for my own 4th Playtest, or end up just writing my own (a mixture of the skill challenge and a good ol' bandit fight). Particularly the dragon fight just looks nasty to me, and even though they're playing with pregens, I'm not gonna throw that down on my players without specifically warning them beforehand.

As to the fighter's ability: has anyone considered the 'shift attack != OA' makes it even nastier? Since it's only possible to make one OA during each opponent's turn, if the attack was an OA, an opponent adjacent to the fighter would be able to shift, get hit by the attack, and then move past him with a move action. In this case, though, the move action would still get him the OA for that turn, potentially stop him in his tracks, and force him to spend his standard action that turn to move past the fighter... after getting hit twice. That's sticky, alright.

Olgar Shiverstone said:

1. How do Run and Charge interact with difficult terrain? I went against 3.5 rules on a whim, and allowed running/charging over difficult terrain, but in hindsight that was a bad idea as it minimized the impact of the terrain (even though it still cost double the move cost).

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That's exactly what Charge states on the quick play sheets. It's only +1 to attack, no penalty to defense, requires you to charge at least 2 squares, and the closest square to the target must be empty. Difficult terrain costs double. I didn't find it imbalancing.

2. How does concealment work? The warlock had several powers that had concealment, which we weren't completely sure how to adjudicate (I ended up ruling that his move power gave Concealment 5, so a roll of 6 or better allowed an attack to proceed, while Invisibility granted Concealment 11).

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As I had no other type of Concealment I gave the warlock Concealment 11; it only helped him once, actually. Remember Invisibility means no ranged attacks on the warlock, too. As 3.5 partial concealment was 25% miss chance, I could see Concealment 6, too.

3. Which powers are spell-like and draw opportunity attacks when used in a threatened area? We made reasonable judgments, but I didn't see how to determine that clearly from the power descriptions.

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That was answered, but Ranged and Area provoke, Melee, Close, and Personal do not.

4. If you do use a spell-like at-will ability when threatened, and draw the OA, what happens? There isn't a Concentration skill ... is it rolled up into something else?

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No idea. We never had it happen, luckily.

5. Are there any limits on single round combos? I don't think so ... we had the cleric blast off multiple powers by combining powers based on minor, move, and standard actions, with an Action Point, in one round ... but I think that's probably how the game is designed.

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Yeah, the biggest thing I had was the ranger did a minor (quarry), move (shift 1 back), standard (careful shot), action point standard (split the tree) on Meepo, which nearly killed him. Then the dragon poked her head out of the water and hit four of the five party members with her breath.

Divine Challenge has apparently already been errata'd so it isn't cheesy, announced somewhere here on EN World, but I don't believe the exact change has been announced. I'd assume they'd make Divine Challenge damage work only when the paladin stays adjacent to the target or pursues the target, to prevent "mark and run away" cheese (or perhaps it will read ... if the paladin moves away from the target, the Divine Challenge ends).

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Sounds reasonable--but still exploitable. I think the easiest solution (and what I'll use in the meantime, my players want to run it again) will be... at the bottom of the post, since it applies to all marks.

The fighter's ability has been clarified -- it's an immediate attack, not an OA. So the opponent can still shift away, but gets whacked in the process. If the opponent tries to move (except to withdraw) he gets whacked, and fixed in place. If he stands still, he gets whacked ... so short of withdrawing, anything the opponent does gets him whacked, including doing nothing, and the best the opponent can accomplish is (shift)*whack*, which is probably followed by the fighter shifting and following up with more *whack*. So the ability really doesn't lose much by not being an OA.

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Okay, we initially ruled it that way, because it reads "immediate attack" not Opportunity Attack, which also means the warrior gets to swing when the dragon shifts away in darkness (with Concealment 11 of course). That's something I hadn't considered, either. That's their move action blown, so they only get to move 1 square. Nice.

Marks:
Okay fixing them seems simple, and logical: "If the fighter/paladin does not attack the target on their turn, the mark expires." There, you have to keep trying to kill them if you want them to try to kill you back.