D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

LostSoul · Jan 9, 2009

Cool!

Any chance we can see the stats on Sarothic?

Zustiur · Jan 9, 2009

Sagiro said:
We were aided immensely by Toiva’s challenge, which meant that with every tail-slap against a different target, lizard-king was taking additional damage. Logan also gave us all a round of Combat Advantage against him with Dazing Strike. Strontium polished him off with a last magic missile.

Umm, I'm pretty sure the damage from a paladin's challenge is only supposed to occur once. The mark stays in place, but after the first round of it, it only applies the -2 penalty, not the damage.

Hypersmurf · Jan 9, 2009

Zustiur said:
Umm, I'm pretty sure the damage from a paladin's challenge is only supposed to occur once. The mark stays in place, but after the first round of it, it only applies the -2 penalty, not the damage.

The damage applies the first time he makes an attack before the start of your next turn... as long as he's marked.

If he's still marked next round, then "your next turn" is another round away.

If he's still marked the round after that, then "your next turn" is another round away.

He can only take the damage once per round, but he can take it in multiple rounds.

-Hyp.

Piratecat · Jan 9, 2009

Hypersmurf said:
He can only take the damage once per round, but he can take it in multiple rounds.
-Hyp.

Which is what happened. Those jerks! That 7 points per hit can add up. I didn't expect Sarothic to get involved in the fight this early, but he is a lizardman of great strength and intimidation but very little patience. He really didn't expect to do anything other than kill, brutally and single-handedly, everyone in the tower.

Guess he should have given that more thought. Our heroes put out a lot of damage.

To get Sarothic's stats: take a lizardman blackscale bruiser (lvl 6.) Make him elite (double his hit points to 172, etc.), lower his AC down to 16 because he's not well armored, and give him a second action point because he's feeling feisty. (He couldn't actually attack twice a round per se, he was just using his APs.) One of the things I love about 4e is that I could do all this on the fly, in my head. I was worried he'd be too tough for them. Not so much, mostly due to good tactics that kept him off-balance.

The exploding barrels: These suckers were meant to burn down the town of Floodford, and Sarothic paid good money for them! They use the limited damage expression, so each exploding barrel does 3d8+3 damage to everyone in a burst 5. Watching all three go up at once was a thing of beauty.

Stron: Fiery burst is so, so good against minions. Swoon.

The little lizards: kobold minions who have swampwalk. They look a little bit like baby raptors, only somewhat more humanoid.

The hooded spokeslizard: The person talking to the PCs, so far unseen, may have been the one person riding in a boat instead of moving through the swamp. He somehow knew to call Cobalt by name. Can he read minds, or is it someone who knows Cobalt from Floodford? He's certainly very well spoken.

So, next game! A mysterious leader? Half a (demoralized) army of lizardmen, along with a few giant frogs? An urbane spokeslizard? A wargod in the flooded basement? Stay tuned!

Ashrum the Black · Jan 9, 2009

Arg! I hate these little cliff hangers. The writers of these shows must be rodents of questionable parentage to keep tomentig us with cliff hangers!

Great campaign so far folks. Sounds like you're all having a blast with the new rules and with the story.

PC, I've always wanted to ask. How much prep work do you do for each game night? I know it must vary, but an idea would help. And has the change to 4e vs. 3e helped with those times?

I'm currently running the Rise of the Runelords pathfinder series so I can have some more free time. I was running a high level Arcana Unearthed session and simply found that I spending far to much, of my very little free, time prepping for each new session. So I'm curious if I was just overthinking things, or was I in the right ballpark with my prep.

-Ashrum

Piratecat · Jan 9, 2009

This game took me half an hour to prep, all while I was walking my dogs. Because my plot-noodling happens in my off time (in the shower, while falling asleep, dog walking, etc.) so far my biggest time commitment has been in sorting through the PHB and Adventurer's Vault in search of fun loot. Selecting monsters was easy and took about 2 minutes, max.

This is a huge change from the Defenders game. 3.5 baddies were more complex, and the party was epic level. That translated to a more onerous time commitment for prepping games.

WizarDru · Jan 9, 2009

Piratecat said:
This game took me half an hour to prep, all while I was walking my dogs. Because my plot-noodling happens in my off time (in the shower, while falling asleep, dog walking, etc.) so far my biggest time commitment has been in sorting through the PHB and Adventurer's Vault in search of fun loot. Selecting monsters was easy and took about 2 minutes, max.

This is a huge change from the Defenders game. 3.5 baddies were more complex, and the party was epic level. That translated to a more onerous time commitment for prepping games.

Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.

I promised myself we'd finish our 3.5 "Rise of the Runelords" game before I start my 4e campaign. I promised myself we'd finish our 3.5 "Rise of the Runelords" game before I start my 4e campaign. I promised myself we'd finish our 3.5 "Rise of the Runelords" game before I start my 4e campaign.

I can be strong. I can DO this.

Aravis · Jan 9, 2009

Sagiro said:
2. I see now from reviewing last session that we had a bound prisoner in the tower with us. Both DM and players forgot about him, too. I guess he hasn’t managed to escape!

Really? I could have sworn we killed him.

Sagiro said:
Finally, Toiva confessed her secret to us, by briefly changing her appearance to look like a lizardman, and then back again. Whoa, she’s a Doppelganger! But there was no time to gawk and babble much about that – the mob was in range!

Toiva revealed herself in hopes that folks smarter than she (or in this case me) could come up with a way to use that to our advantage. I only hope that turning into a lizardman in the midst of battle helped confuse them somewhat.

Sagiro forgot to mention that just before Sarothic entered, a bunch of lizardmen minions flooded in. However, since each one tried to push past us in the doorway to make room for more of them, Logan got an Attack of Opportunity (yes, I am aware that WOTC has tried to rename them) on each one. I don't think any of them made it past the door.

Aravis

Piratecat · Jan 9, 2009

Aravis said:
Really? I could have sworn we killed him.

I thought so, too. If not, he has since died of ennui.

Sagiro said:
Some spokeslizard then tried to parlay with us, offering us clearly-bogus promises of safety if we’d abdicate the tower.

Interestingly, at the time the offer was mostly sincere. One harms the Grey Guard at their peril, and he wanted those weapons more than he wanted you dead. They could have let you go, gotten their weapons, and been attacking Floodford hours before you managed to slog your way back through the swamp at night.

That changed after Toiva (played by Aravis) called him a flunky. Even spokeslizards have feelings too, you know. Words hurt. Sniff.

Aravis · Jan 9, 2009

Piratecat said:
That changed after Toiva (played by Aravis) called him a flunky. Even spokeslizards have feelings too, you know. Words hurt. Sniff.

Awwww...That was, after all, her intent. Our biggest fear was that they would try to siege us. We knew we could not last a prolonged siege.

I realized later that we missed the opportunity for a skill challenge there. I should have been using my diplomacy skill to conduct those, er, um, reverse negotiations.

Aravis