My XP at DDXP

I was at D&DXP on the Thursday and Friday. I was able to play the 4th edition preview adventures 3 times. I played the eladrin ranger, halfling paladin, and half-elf warlock. Much of what I learned is on the character sheets that are posted on the WotC site. But there are a few other things that I learned, such as:

Some weapons are versatile which means they are one handed weapons that will do +1 damage if used two handed. Halflings can only use these weapons two handed.

Some weapons, like the great ax, are High Crit weapons that do max damage + a die roll on a crit.

There are no fumbles on a natural 1.

Slow effect reduces speed to 2 squares. It does not affect attacks or reduce how many actions can be done in a round.

Shields add to the reflex defense.

Sleep spell slows the target the first round then they fall unconscious the 2nd round.

You add half character level to initiative.

Longbows do d10 damage.

The warlock had rogue skills like thievery.

A 5 minute rest renews per encounter abilities and a long rest is now 6 hours instead of 8.

My game play experience gave me a few impressions:
There are a lot of on going effects that go on for multiple rounds. This becomes so much for the DM to keep track of that the playtesters who DM’d came prepared with colored tokens or checkers to mark miniatures on the battle map. For instance, if someone became bloodied a red token was put under the mini. If someone became dazed a blue token was put under the mini. If someone was marked a yellow token was put under the token. Etc.
Some of the things a DM has to keep track of ever round are: who is bloodied, who is marked and by whom (there is a lot of marking), spell effects like slow & sleep, on going damage from fire and acid, and who has to make a saving throw to end effects.

The cleric was a damage dealing spell caster. There was no need for the cleric to pull out his mace and attack in melee, he just cast his radiant light spells from range. The ranger was an awesome damage dealer, he did 6-22 points of damage per hit. Most of our table’s enemies were killed by the ranger. I was told the ranger’s careful strike had a misprint in that it can be used with melee weapons as well as missile weapons.
The warlock and ranger played a lot alike. They did have encounter and daily powers that were different but there main at will attack was mark the nearest enemy for extra damage (ranger had hunters quarry for 1d8, warlock had curse for 1d6) then use a range attack for 1d10 (bow or eldritch blast respectively).
On going damage messes with your mind. Several times someone was down to less than 5 hit points and had on going fire or acid damage for 5. So you would sit there waiting for your next turn knowing you would drop before you could do anything.
Everything has more hit points. Our first level characters were fighting hobgoblins that had around 40 hit points each. Kobolds had much more hit points than in 3rd edition also.

That’s all I can think of for now. It was fun to play.

Slow effect reduces speed to 2 squares. It does not affect attacks or reduce how many actions can be done in a round.

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Do you know if it's possible to run while slowed?

Running while slowed did not come up in our battles so I don't know the official answer.

Yeah, it was a long shot. Thanks for the review.

Good report and you actually hit on a few things that I hadn't seen mentioned before. For instance, I never thought about having continual damage and waiting in dread for your turn to come around so you can automatically drop to 0 hit points.

I guess that's when you start begging the Cleric to do SOMETHING.... QUICK!

Regarding the Ranger and Warlock playing similarly... that's what I expected, as they are both strikers. I would expect that the flavor would be dramatically different, even if the mechanics were similar. It seemed like the Ranger had more direct damage and maneuverability powers, while the Warlock had more debilitating powers.

That brings up all the continuing effects... Does it look easy for a DM or players to keep track of? 4e is supposed to be easier to run, but I'm concerned now that there will be even more to keep track of during an encounter, so much that effects will be continually skipped or forgotten.

I suppose as a DM, we can make it the responsibility of each player to keep track of their own mark or effects that they've put on monsters, while the DM can just focus on what the monsters do to the PCs. Still, this will take getting used to and could make for some DM nightmares if your group has lazy or forgetful players

SCMrks said:

There are a lot of on going effects that go on for multiple rounds. This becomes so much for the DM to keep track of that the playtesters who DM’d came prepared with colored tokens or checkers to mark miniatures on the battle map. For instance, if someone became bloodied a red token was put under the mini. If someone became dazed a blue token was put under the mini. If someone was marked a yellow token was put under the token. Etc.
Some of the things a DM has to keep track of ever round are: who is bloodied, who is marked and by whom (there is a lot of marking), spell effects like slow & sleep, on going damage from fire and acid, and who has to make a saving throw to end effects.

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This is quite possibly the first thing I've heard about 4e that makes me unhappy. As my group's DM, I struggle to keep track of all the ongoing effects in our 3.5 game. The WotC PR machine gave me the impression that they were reducing the number of effects you had to keep track of during an encounter, but from what I've seen of the DDXP stuff, there are just as many, if not even more, things to track during an encounter. I'm sure some of it will become easier to manage as you grow more familiar with the rules but still ... I'm not liking what I'm hearing about this right now.

pukunui said:

This is quite possibly the first thing I've heard about 4e that makes me unhappy. As my group's DM, I struggle to keep track of all the ongoing effects in our 3.5 game. The WotC PR machine gave me the impression that they were reducing the number of effects you had to keep track of during an encounter, but from what I've seen of the DDXP stuff, there are just as many, if not even more, things to track during an encounter. I'm sure some of it will become easier to manage as you grow more familiar with the rules but still ... I'm not liking what I'm hearing about this right now.

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This has been bugging me as well. I've been consoling myself with the idea that:
1) The fighter doesn't have to mark his foes. If it feels like a burden to the player, they can opt not to do it or do it less often.
2) You don't need to track the bloodied condition unless creatures can capitalize on it. If you have a tiefling in the party, you can stop tracking once he uses his infernal wrath.
3) A number of monster token powers last only 1 round. I'm hoping I can notate this on my init tracker by writing in the monster's number next to the player's initiative.

I'm going to use glass beads next to minis to denote marking and bloodied. For ongoing effects, I'm going to hand every player an index card tented in half with the condition affecting them written on both sides. For example, "Poison 5", or "Dazed". The player can just set that card in front of their character for all to see.

That way both that player and the other players and DM are reminded of what's effecting that player every round. For monsters, I'll just keep track of their ongoing conditions on scratch paper behind the screen.

It doesn't seem any harder to manage than 3.5, especially because I no longer have to track durations. Simply whether a condition exists or not.

In 3.5 I would have to track multiple buffs, and spell results, each one with differing durations and effects. Furthermore, I would often have to recalculate multiple stats on the fly. Bad guy has Bull's Strength, then gets Enfeebled, and finally Greater Dispelled. What was his Strength again?

1) Bloodied - I do not see this as an issue. DMs already keep track of damage, this is just a degree of damage - Is the creature half dead or not?

2) Dazed, Stunned, Slept, etc. . . can be marked on the monsters stat sheet. There were more conditions in 3.x e and we survived.

3) Marks - this is the one that I see the need to mark on the mat somehow. Any kind of colored chit should work, a different color for each pc with the ability to mark, and another the same for monsters. For example:

the fighter's marks are blue, the paladin's are green; the smashing hulks marks are blue, the creeping hulks marks are green.

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Any PC with a blue mark is markedby the smashing hulk; any monsters marked with blue are marked by the fighter.

I have been my group's DM for 20 years and I thought it was a lot to keep track of. Each of the playtester DM's had some token system prepared to mark mini's on the battle mat. One had checkers, one had colored chips that people use to mark BINGO cards, and one used tiny pieces of paper. When you got affected by a condition you marked your mini, when you got healed or recovered from the condition you unmarked it, then you mark it again when you got affected the next round. The DM needs help from honest players who know the rules because the DM has to keep track of all of the monsters too.

As an example there was no Bless spell to give the entire party +1 against all enemies. Instead when the cleric hits an enemy he gives one other character a bonus against that enemy for the next round. It like the dodge feat party wide. Who got the bonus this round and against which enemy was it? By itself it is no big deal but then the DM needs to remember who the paladin marked, who the fighter marked, who the warlock cursed, who the ranger made his quarry, who has on going damage, who needs to make a save for effects like dazed, who is bloddied and what activates when that person/monster is bloddied, etc. With practice I'm sure DM's will come up with systems to track all of this but it seemed like a lot for us beginners.