Rodrigo Istalindir
Explorer
Got to play 4th Ed. last night for the first time. I've had a generally ambivalent attitude (I think). I've tried to avoid delving into the rumours and what not, trying to hold off on forming an impression until I got the books in my mitts. I've been mostly successful. And what things I've absorbed by hanging out here and ENWorld have been a mixed bag.
So, I went into the game last night I think with a pretty neutral attitude. I won't deny a little anticipation, but I'm only human.
For those that may want to play the 'Scalegloom Hall' scenario, there will be spoilers here. Then again, the scenario is really just a sequence of rooms, with nothing but combat, so there really isn't much to spoil. There's probably a fair bit of overlap here and with what others have posted as well, so if I bore you, I apologize. Any mistakes are the result of faulty memory or bad hearing
The DM did a great job keeping things going, and while I'm sure some things may not have been done correctly, it's all new, so it's bound to happen.
The party consisted of a dwarf fighter, wizard, tiefling warlock, halfling paladin, eladrin ranger (me!), and a cleric. Everyone else at the table had played in an earlier game, so I was the sole 4th Ed. virgin. There was the two page summary handout that was reasonably useful, and I picked up the essentials right away. I generally pick up rules pretty fast, and all modesty aside, I think within a few minutes I had a better grasp on them then the ones that had played already.
The first encounter was a rectangular room with a 10'x20' slimey pit. Excuse me, a 2 square by 4 square slimey pit. There were single square corridors N and E. There were kobolds slinging grenades of fire and sticky-stuff. We roll init, and off we go.
I won init, but I was at the back of the group with no clear path forward. Not yet aware that I could shoot through friendlies with no modifier, my ranger used a per-encounter racial ability called 'Fey step' (move action) to teleport 5 squares to the edge of the pit, and a standard action to shoot one of the slingers. The melee types move to engage, more kobolds appear, and they are quickly surrounded. The sticky bombs and fire bombs serve to immobilize and burn the warriors, but eventually the kobolds are killed. I also used the 'Split the Tree' power (daily) to shoot the original slinger and one of his reinforcements. Several of the kobolds were 'minions', who need merely be hit to die. Nothing original there, but there is some room for clarification as the minions have to be hit via an attack roll, but the melee classes had some abilities that would have done damage without the attack roll, and hence the minions were immune.
I wanted to jump across the pit to learn the jumping rules, and everyone else is 'Why would you do that when you could move around it?) (Jumping is a straight check, with 1 square jumped per 10 rolled, so for the 2-square jump, I needed a 20. Running would have given me a bonus).
Due to the sticky pots and continuous damage from the firebombs, there were a lot of conditions that had to be tracked, saves to be made every round, etc.
The party takes a short rest that refreshes 'per encounter' abilities, heals up a bit, and goes to the next room. Oh, and apparently, there is no timescale. Encounters are roughly 5 minutes, for example.
Second encounter was a room with tombs and pressure-plate traps. This room was a paragon of bad design. The person triggering the trap would be immobilized, and if anyone else set off a trap, any character on a pressure plate would take additional damage. So right away, one of the players set off a trap, took some decent damage, and was stuck until they made a save *at the end of their next turn*. And if you're still on a plate, you're still triggering the trap, so you're guaranteed to take at least a second round of damage. And when the second person moved around to engage the kobolds that were closing with us and stepped on a second plate, the first person took still more damage.
This room did give us a chance to use the 'forced movement' rules, so my ranger teleported in front of the first stuck person and pushed them off the pressure plate, and someone else pulled the second person off of theirs. We made short work of the kobolds and moved on.
Again, there were a lot of ongoing conditions to track, and saves to remember, and the stuck until after your next move and take more damage if someone else moving to help you trips a trap wasn't fun, and I could tell several of the players were getting a bit frustrated. Having no rogue in the party was a bad choice.
Having completed our second encounter, we got a second action point (we started with one). The apparent design intent is you get an AP every other encounter, but can use only one per encounter, and when the party takes a long? (extended? I forget the term) rest to heal and regain per-day abilities, APs reset to '1'. This encourages you to use them frequently.
Third room, squarish with tombs and another slime pit. There's a 10' platform at the far end, with kobolds, and a door. (How many squares is 10'?) One of them had a tether-ball thingy that he used to knock the wizard back as he moved into the room. Could have been fun, but movement rates relative to the room size were so fast that it only came up once. On my action, I double-move to get past the party and close to the ledge, then spend an AP to get another move action and Fey Step to the top. Bad idea, as the one kobold I could see was accompanied by several others I couldn't.
Still, it was fun, and I seemed to be the only more interested in exploring the system than in beating the scenario. I get dropped to unconscious in short order, but on his next action the cleric uses a word of healing, and I go from out of it to almost full health. Fortunately, the kobolds had moved in the interim.
A couple more rounds, and it's over. There was some good melee stuff this time, as the kobolds and the fighter engaged in a chess match, with the kobolds using their ability to shift to their advantage, and the fighter using his various powers to counter. Neat to watch, but slow, and I would think playing these kinds of combats in a PbP or electronic tabletop would be excruciating.
Fourth room. This was my favorite. A largeish room, with a 10' wall perimter forming a square in the middle, with kobolds slingers. The paladin moves in, and amid much rumbling, a large rock (ala Indiana Jones) starts rolling around the room. The party splits; I hang in a corner out of the way of the rock, the melee types move to engage some kobolds, including their leader, the casters hung back for a bit and cleaned up the minions that came out from behind the rock.
Seeing the danger the kobold slingers pose with their sticky bombs, I again use Fey step to get to the top of the wall, and push one of the kobolds off directly in the path of the rolling rock (Str vs. Fortitude) He falls down, goes boom. The other kobolds tries to get sneaky and pull the same on me, but fails. I use a move to shift, then Nimble Strike to move another square so he won't get an AoO, and shoot the little bugger.
The rest of the party have the kobolds and their leader cornered. One of the casters uses fear to make them run, causing lots of AoOs and much carnage.
The final encounter was a bloodbath. The six of us fail a Perception check (at 1d20+7, vs. a 30+ DC, not surprising). The large black dragon that was waiting casts darkness over the party, then breathes acid and used some other ability (Dragon fear?) to stun us as well. 80% of the party takes 15 points of damage, plus 5 recurring until a save is made. All but one is stunned, losing their actions until a save is made. So for the better part of three rounds, the cleric is trying to keep up the healing while the dragon keeps breathing, biting, tail whipping, etc. Eventually, we are forced to retreat, with one member dead, and the rest at single-digits or unconscious. The dragon was largely unscathed.
So, I went into the game last night I think with a pretty neutral attitude. I won't deny a little anticipation, but I'm only human.
For those that may want to play the 'Scalegloom Hall' scenario, there will be spoilers here. Then again, the scenario is really just a sequence of rooms, with nothing but combat, so there really isn't much to spoil. There's probably a fair bit of overlap here and with what others have posted as well, so if I bore you, I apologize. Any mistakes are the result of faulty memory or bad hearing
The DM did a great job keeping things going, and while I'm sure some things may not have been done correctly, it's all new, so it's bound to happen.The party consisted of a dwarf fighter, wizard, tiefling warlock, halfling paladin, eladrin ranger (me!), and a cleric. Everyone else at the table had played in an earlier game, so I was the sole 4th Ed. virgin. There was the two page summary handout that was reasonably useful, and I picked up the essentials right away. I generally pick up rules pretty fast, and all modesty aside, I think within a few minutes I had a better grasp on them then the ones that had played already.
The first encounter was a rectangular room with a 10'x20' slimey pit. Excuse me, a 2 square by 4 square slimey pit.
There were single square corridors N and E. There were kobolds slinging grenades of fire and sticky-stuff. We roll init, and off we go. I won init, but I was at the back of the group with no clear path forward. Not yet aware that I could shoot through friendlies with no modifier, my ranger used a per-encounter racial ability called 'Fey step' (move action) to teleport 5 squares to the edge of the pit, and a standard action to shoot one of the slingers. The melee types move to engage, more kobolds appear, and they are quickly surrounded. The sticky bombs and fire bombs serve to immobilize and burn the warriors, but eventually the kobolds are killed. I also used the 'Split the Tree' power (daily) to shoot the original slinger and one of his reinforcements. Several of the kobolds were 'minions', who need merely be hit to die. Nothing original there, but there is some room for clarification as the minions have to be hit via an attack roll, but the melee classes had some abilities that would have done damage without the attack roll, and hence the minions were immune.
I wanted to jump across the pit to learn the jumping rules, and everyone else is 'Why would you do that when you could move around it?) (Jumping is a straight check, with 1 square jumped per 10 rolled, so for the 2-square jump, I needed a 20. Running would have given me a bonus).
Due to the sticky pots and continuous damage from the firebombs, there were a lot of conditions that had to be tracked, saves to be made every round, etc.
The party takes a short rest that refreshes 'per encounter' abilities, heals up a bit, and goes to the next room. Oh, and apparently, there is no timescale. Encounters are roughly 5 minutes, for example.
Second encounter was a room with tombs and pressure-plate traps. This room was a paragon of bad design. The person triggering the trap would be immobilized, and if anyone else set off a trap, any character on a pressure plate would take additional damage. So right away, one of the players set off a trap, took some decent damage, and was stuck until they made a save *at the end of their next turn*. And if you're still on a plate, you're still triggering the trap, so you're guaranteed to take at least a second round of damage. And when the second person moved around to engage the kobolds that were closing with us and stepped on a second plate, the first person took still more damage.
This room did give us a chance to use the 'forced movement' rules, so my ranger teleported in front of the first stuck person and pushed them off the pressure plate, and someone else pulled the second person off of theirs. We made short work of the kobolds and moved on.
Again, there were a lot of ongoing conditions to track, and saves to remember, and the stuck until after your next move and take more damage if someone else moving to help you trips a trap wasn't fun, and I could tell several of the players were getting a bit frustrated. Having no rogue in the party was a bad choice.
Having completed our second encounter, we got a second action point (we started with one). The apparent design intent is you get an AP every other encounter, but can use only one per encounter, and when the party takes a long? (extended? I forget the term) rest to heal and regain per-day abilities, APs reset to '1'. This encourages you to use them frequently.
Third room, squarish with tombs and another slime pit. There's a 10' platform at the far end, with kobolds, and a door. (How many squares is 10'?) One of them had a tether-ball thingy that he used to knock the wizard back as he moved into the room. Could have been fun, but movement rates relative to the room size were so fast that it only came up once. On my action, I double-move to get past the party and close to the ledge, then spend an AP to get another move action and Fey Step to the top. Bad idea, as the one kobold I could see was accompanied by several others I couldn't.
Still, it was fun, and I seemed to be the only more interested in exploring the system than in beating the scenario. I get dropped to unconscious in short order, but on his next action the cleric uses a word of healing, and I go from out of it to almost full health. Fortunately, the kobolds had moved in the interim.
A couple more rounds, and it's over. There was some good melee stuff this time, as the kobolds and the fighter engaged in a chess match, with the kobolds using their ability to shift to their advantage, and the fighter using his various powers to counter. Neat to watch, but slow, and I would think playing these kinds of combats in a PbP or electronic tabletop would be excruciating.
Fourth room. This was my favorite. A largeish room, with a 10' wall perimter forming a square in the middle, with kobolds slingers. The paladin moves in, and amid much rumbling, a large rock (ala Indiana Jones) starts rolling around the room. The party splits; I hang in a corner out of the way of the rock, the melee types move to engage some kobolds, including their leader, the casters hung back for a bit and cleaned up the minions that came out from behind the rock.
Seeing the danger the kobold slingers pose with their sticky bombs, I again use Fey step to get to the top of the wall, and push one of the kobolds off directly in the path of the rolling rock (Str vs. Fortitude) He falls down, goes boom. The other kobolds tries to get sneaky and pull the same on me, but fails. I use a move to shift, then Nimble Strike to move another square so he won't get an AoO, and shoot the little bugger.
The rest of the party have the kobolds and their leader cornered. One of the casters uses fear to make them run, causing lots of AoOs and much carnage.
The final encounter was a bloodbath. The six of us fail a Perception check (at 1d20+7, vs. a 30+ DC, not surprising). The large black dragon that was waiting casts darkness over the party, then breathes acid and used some other ability (Dragon fear?) to stun us as well. 80% of the party takes 15 points of damage, plus 5 recurring until a save is made. All but one is stunned, losing their actions until a save is made. So for the better part of three rounds, the cleric is trying to keep up the healing while the dragon keeps breathing, biting, tail whipping, etc. Eventually, we are forced to retreat, with one member dead, and the rest at single-digits or unconscious. The dragon was largely unscathed.
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