This thread will be my attempt to chronicle my experiences DMing the
4e version of the War of the Burning Sky. I hope to detail things I had issues with and how I got around them. We are hoping to play every Sunday afternoon, schedules permitting and we had our first actual session this last weekend. The party consists of:
Nalla - Dragonborn Warlord
Nuella - Eladrin Ranger (Archer)
Tuf - Warforged Fighter
Halkad - Kalashtar Cleric of Pelor
Crux - Razorclaw Shifter Avenger of Melora
Janus - Human Wizard
Everybody except Hal is associated with some part of Gate Pass. Which works out great as they really do care about the city. Also, I should note that all but one of them have never played
4e before and with two of them never played D&D at all. After the first session we were all settling into our grooves, though I know I messed things up in a couple of the encounters which I will detail below.
First off, they decimated the first encounter "Ambush". Mainly my fault as I forgot to account for the 6th player and some really bad rolls on my part. The war wizard got off a nice Scorching Blast that obliterated all the minions at the front door before they could get in and attack. After they took down the Thug, I had Kathor and the dogs retreat. I believe the only damage sustained was from the burning flames. Good enough for a first encounter, things went relatively smoothly.
They managed most of the small encounters along the way to the Depository fine. Though watching the big tough fighter run like a sissy was quite entertaining, he wasn't too happy about rolling 3 2s in a row for his saving throw
The ranger just about managed to kill herself by falling off the burning building to save the lady, meanwhile the fighter's second attempt to climb the building was a success, with a Nat 20 on the roll to climb down with the girl. Oh a note about the Kiki Skill Challenge, I have decided to go with Stalker0's Obsidian system for Skill Challenges. It went well, though getting over them trying to pick their best skills is a hard one, I am going to have to keep fiddling with the system a bit. I also started to write up a document that tracks the changes in Skill Challenges from the original. Let me know if you are interested in the info, I am also willing to send the info to the designers for them to post as well, if they are interested.
"Shocking Revelation" was entertaining and brought up a whole slew of questions that I need to ask the rules forum about. Larion got away in the end but nearly ended up dying to a well placed grease from the wizard, for a guy that has never played D&D he is really picking things up fast. The Solon was neigh impossible to hit with his aura and managed to dish out some good hits on the party. Though the one good hit they got in was from the cleric who dropped it into bloodied and think did more damage to the party than to the Solon. We gave him a hard time about that. Nearly dropped the Avenger into dying territory, but she was waving off heals until she dropped to bloodied. In the end, after Larion escaped they talked the Solon down and it took off, nearly dead I might add. Larion was quite the wimp and never got a chance to get in a good shot, the one time he had CA against the fighter, I rolled a 2... sigh silly dice. Oh last thing to mention, I totally forgot about the trap in the room, making the encounter quite a bit easier for the party, though they were really frustrated with trying to hit the Solon.
That was it for the first session, everybody had a blast and are starting to get a hang on their characters and me with the bad guys. One question though, I probably missed the reason behind this somewhere, but why is it that Larion and the Solon dislike Dragonborn so much? I didn't really have a chance to play this up since I really didn't get it.
Well, next session won't be for a few weeks as everybody's schedules are conflicting. Hoping that things settle down in September. Thanks for reading.
Cheers,
E
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