Thanks to an open-minded spouse and very imaginative children ages 7,5, and 4, we've embarked on family
4e campaign. Everyone's successfully survived a run through the Kobold Hall adventure from the
4e DMG and I thought I'd share the highlights and lessons learned thus far.
The Party:
Velena (spouse, Sarah) - Female Eldarin Rouge, Brutal Scoundrel Build
Dragon Slayer (7yr old) - Male Half Elf Ranger, Archer
Ashley (5 yr old) - Female Human Wizard
Pink (4 yr) - Female Human Battle Cleric
For balance, the party would benefit from a 5th NPC Defender/Leader but with everyone still very much coming to terms with game mechanics (including myself coming up to speed on
4e) and Sarah and I partially running the younger characters I'm holding off.
Kobold Hall General Lessons:
- Role playing comes easy to the kids, but attention spans are pretty much limited to one encounter per session.
- Role playing is a bit harder for Sarah. She tends to be a 'maximizer' when it comes to card games, computer games, etc. so she's still adapting to the concept that there aren't single 'right' answers or tactics in D&D. Now that we've completed the KH adventure, I'm going to have her read through the scenario to hopefully show how much of the DM side is off-the-cuff as well.
- Dragon Slayer has 'loaded' dice when it comes to initiative rolls and critical hits. Twin Strike w/Longbow is a pretty powerful at-will ability.
- Ashley loves magic missiles and they come in all sorts of colors
- Pink pretty much likes to roll her 'pink' dice set whenever asked
- Just like with adults, an engaging story makes things more memorable
Encounter Highlights:
Being mostly a 'mechanics' adventure, the stock Kobold Hall didn't offer much of a story. I used the simple 'Clean out the Raiders' Fallcrest story hook to get things started. I left all the monsters unchanged, but fleshed out the 'end game' encounters a bit to provide a fuller hook into the H1 KOS module and let the group do a bit more problem solving. (attached is a PDF with the minor handouts I created and my plot expansion notes)
kobold_hold_extras.pdf
I figured a Kobold Lair needed an actual lair, so I added a 'common room' accessed from the ramp where the Kobold Priest fights prior to the dragon. This also gave a more plausible battle set-up as the priest and his dragon shields rush into the trap room when the boulder is let loose. As the battle is won, the kobold non-combatants are heard fleeing into small side tunnels as the PC's enter the lair.
On one side of the common room, the priest had his own locked quarters (which his key opened). Inside I placed a 'goblin firewater' potion (temporary hit points against cold) and a note from 'Irontooth' with allusions to the potion and the lifedrinker longsword in the Dragon treasure. At the back of the priests room a curtain concealed a tunnel down to the dragon's lair.
Due to a high Arcana roll, Ashley correctly deduced the nature of the Golbin Firewater. The party didn't think to take it with them into the tunnel, but when I mentioned the cave was getting colder as they descended, Dragon Slayer offered to run up and grab the potion.
The potion was a hopeful hedge against running a 4-player, inexperienced party against the dragon. I also felt the 'instant attack' setup in the encounter was silly and wasted a chance for the players to practice 'parley' with a equal or greater foe.
The encounter played out pretty much according to plan. Once the dragon 'introduced himself' my wife side-barred to go over negotiating options so I got to introduce bluff/intimidate/diplomacy/... concepts and the kids came up with some fun tactics/questions.
As they parleyed they carefully tried to spread out a bit. Things went downhill when Dragon Slayer tried a bluff and rolled a 3 ('Hey, there's a Kobold stealing your treasure') and the fight was on.
The strikers landed the 1st blows with twin hits from Dragon Slayer and an Acid Arrow from Ashley. The dragon charged in on them (they hand't quite spread out enough as it was), but missed with both it's breath and frightful presence (1 action point).
This let Valena and Pink flank in for CA, but both missed in the 1st round. The dragon connected on round 2 with Dragon Slayer with the 2-claw + bite and just about took him down. That forced a 2nd wind and Pink's 1st healing word. Valena connected with a critical hit + sneak attack at which point the dragon turned on her.
Over a couple rounds, the dragon connected enough with her to force a second wind and Pink's 2nd healing word. By this time the dragon became bloodied and used breath against Velena and Pink and knocked Velana unconcious. Dragon Slayer had reverted to longsword due to adjacency and was landing blows again.
Things were touch and go for a few rounds as the dragon rolled pretty bad and started to get down below 50 hit points. I kept back the 2nd action point for a 'retreat' whenever the dragon appeared to be within 1 round of death. His breath recharged about this point, but missed and he fled.
The strikers tried to take him out with arrows/magic missiles but didn't connect (the dragon had 17hp at the end) so Szatharrax will no seek his revenge another day.
I thought the listed treasure was pretty silly given the premise of the story. If the Kobolds were so aggressive to keep the dragon happy, why would the dragon have less treasure than the kobold underlings gambling at 'skull-skull'?
I had the PC's find the bulk of the 'raided' treasure from the Fallcrest citizens along with the lifedrinker longsword. The kids' 1st reaction was to say how they needed to take it back to return it to everyone so I was quite pleased. They learned about rituals with Ashley casting Tenser's Floating Disk to haul out the treasure chest.
Next up is the return to Fallcrest and the hunt for IronTooth (and directions to Winterhaven). They'll probably meet up with Gervan on the way as the plot thickens.
I'll try to post as the adventure continues and provide the simple hand-outs if anyone finds them useful.
- Virgil
Linear Mode
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