D&D 4E My final 4E session

the Jester · Jun 30, 2014

Halivar said:
LOL maybe I play too many paladins, but my epic response would be, "Good! If we can't get home, we can't run away! Charge!"

The next session, the player's replacement pc- a dragonborn warlord- had essentially this reaction.

(And yes, there's a damn good reason why a replacement pc was available in Hell.)

Halivar said:
Sounds like a seriously epic campaign. Then again, given the campaign advice I've gotten from you over the years, I was already quite envious of your players!

Awww, thanks! If we're ever in the same area, I'd love to do some gaming with you. If you ever make it to NorCal, make sure you let me know!

Halivar · Jun 30, 2014

the Jester said:
Awww, thanks! If we're ever in the same area, I'd love to do some gaming with you. If you ever make it to NorCal, make sure you let me know!

If a Temple of Chaos (and chart rolling) is involved, I am so there. B-)

MerricB · Jul 1, 2014

the Jester said:
I'm still a few sessions away, but my 4e group is around 25th level, and their last two sessions they've been holding the throne room of Dispater against Dispater's minions (and one of his aspects). They're growing increasingly desperate, and they've pretty much realized that Dispater himself isn't coming to fight them (one of the pc has the Lord of Hell epic destiny and is struggling to conquer Dis). After their wizard was unexpectedly annihilated by a blackball, they are now also without any method of escaping Hell- nobody else has the requisite rituals or powers!

Trapped in the halls of the Iron Tower, they don't know what the hell to do now, and the 4e game may end before they figure it out... if I get a TPK.

Doesn't seem that unlikely, does it?

The 4E campaign has been more about story than deadly challenges to the players, just based on how the rules work. I expect I may have a TPK pretty soon in 5E, especially if I send them up against hobgoblins.

The plan for the 5E campaign is to set it in Onnwal, with the Scarlet Brotherhood in control of the capital and the players as brave rebels in the countryside...

I haven't had a campaign with the Scarlet Brotherhood as the main villains yet, so that should be fun. Especially as 5E looks like having monks that are actually worth playing. (As opposed to 1E, 2E and 3E).

Cheers!

Lanefan · Jul 1, 2014

MerricB said:
In general, we get about 20-24 sessions per year. It's meant to be fortnightly, but things interfere. (Martin was badly ill for about 6 months at one point, which really delayed the completion of the campaign).

Three of the players will have been there from the beginning. The other three have joined in along the way as replacements for regular attrition. (One has been there for about 20 levels, the other two for about 10 levels).

Congrats!

Interesting to hear that both you and [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] managed to eke a long campaign out of the 4e system.

Did you intentionally slow down the level advance to allow this to happen? 22 (avg.) sessions a year for 6 years gives 132 sessions, so for 20 levels you've gone up about 1 level per 6.5 sessions; I think 4e expects faster advancement than this.

Lan-"also running current campaign since 2008, it and this probably couldn't be more different"-efan

MerricB · Jul 1, 2014

Not intentionally, but our sessions might run shorter than normal, and if we have only a couple of fights in a session, it slows things down significantly.

Cheers!

Obryn · Jul 1, 2014

Always good when a great campaign reaches a satisfying resolution.

I'm still early in my new 4e campaign!

MerricB · Jul 1, 2014

Obryn said:
Always good when a great campaign reaches a satisfying resolution.

I'm still early in my new 4e campaign!

It will be the second 4e campaign I've run to end at 30th level. A couple of years ago, my HPE series ended (which was less hit by illness). So, I will have run two 4E campaigns from 1st to 30th level.

Cheers!

the Jester · Jul 1, 2014

MerricB said:
Doesn't seem that unlikely, does it?

Not at the moment, it doesn't, but high-level pcs have a long tradition of surprising me.

MerricB said:
The plan for the 5E campaign is to set it in Onnwal, with the Scarlet Brotherhood in control of the capital and the players as brave rebels in the countryside...

I haven't had a campaign with the Scarlet Brotherhood as the main villains yet, so that should be fun. Especially as 5E looks like having monks that are actually worth playing. (As opposed to 1E, 2E and 3E).

Mine is going to be this urban game I occasionally rattle on about. Actually, my 1e game is set in the same place- I'm currently doing some conversion of a megadungeon from the 4e version to a 1e version...

Lanefan said:
Interesting to hear that both you and [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] managed to eke a long campaign out of the 4e system.

Did you intentionally slow down the level advance to allow this to happen?

Me too!

For the purposes of helping provide a larger sample set: I've been running my current 4e game since somewhere around fall of 2009. My group meets about every two weeks, but plays two days when we do, almost every time. So we have averaged probably just under 1/week over that time, taking into consideration occasional misses and other games we play instead.

I've not adjusted the rate of xp gain down, but I find that you have fewer combats than expected by the advancement system in a typical 4e session. In fact, because it's so important that the level difference within the party be fairly small, I actually have a system by which pcs who are behind get bonus, catchup xp to help out.

pemerton · Jul 1, 2014

Lanefan said:
Interesting to hear that both you and [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] managed to eke a long campaign out of the 4e system.

Did you intentionally slow down the level advance to allow this to happen? 22 (avg.) sessions a year for 6 years gives 132 sessions, so for 20 levels you've gone up about 1 level per 6.5 sessions; I think 4e expects faster advancement than this.

I'm in the 6th year of my 4e campaign (started in Jan 2009). The basic rate of levelling has been 5 levels a year. The number of sessions per year has been probably 20 or so, of 4 or so hours each. (Our ostensible schedule is fortnightly, but holidays and other commitments knock a few sessions out every year.)

That's pretty close to the levelling rate the books suggest, I think.

TerraDave · Jul 1, 2014

Lanefan said:
Congrats!

Interesting to hear that both you and [MENTION=22260]TerraDave[/MENTION] managed to eke a long campaign out of the 4e system.

Did you intentionally slow down the level advance to allow this to happen? 22 (avg.) sessions a year for 6 years gives 132 sessions, so for 20 levels you've gone up about 1 level per 6.5 sessions; I think 4e expects faster advancement than this.

Lan-"also running current campaign since 2008, it and this probably couldn't be more different"-efan

I think some of the others have touched on the reason...for us, part of it was just sporadic play. We would do 1 game a month on good stretches, and for various RL issues, had some down stretches. On the other hand, we do long sessions, and PbP in between, so our total play may not be that far behind other posters.

Which leads to the reason in common. I think advancement in 4E was supposed to be fast. But with 10 encounters per level RAW (or 8 with quests), and 4E encounters easily taking 1-2 hours, and potentially more at higher levels, once you add non-combat roleplaying, you might only have a couple of encounters in a session. So 4-5 sessions per level could be the norm, and you could go even slower.

After all these years of 4E, 5E should feel like greased lighting.