DnD Encounters

[Ktulu]

I've DM'd every week thus far and I can say that, while tough, when you've got 4-5 players (and covering each of the roles, save for controller) the party should be able to survive most of them.

I've only had one TPK, against the

Spoiler

plaguechanged eladrin

. There were only four players and they were missing their striker for the week. Even still, they almost won.


I get a frequent turnout of 4 at my table, with an occasional extra. The other table also sees their regular 4-5 players, as well.

 

[Saracenus]

I posted in the other thread on this topic:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/275741-d-d-encounters-just-what-dr-ordered.html

I will say as the DDE organizer at my FLGS (shout out to Angel and Guardian Games) We have about 30 players a week running 5-6 tables. I would say about 25 of them are regulars.

In this time we have never had TPK but a few character deaths. I trust my DMs to adjust the encounters properly for the number of players at the table and adjust the encounter on the fly if the players are not having fun.

My players are pretty much all new to organized play and a few are new to RPGs in general. All have told me they are having fun.

Right now we are done with Session 8 and the Session you are running is number 10. You are playing things 2 weeks ahead of schedule.

My Two Coppers,

Bryan Blumklotz
Guardians of the Gameday Organizer
Guardians of the Gameday : Event Overview

 

[Jdvn1]

I trust my DMs to adjust the encounters properly for the number of players at the table and adjust the encounter on the fly if the players are not having fun.

My understanding is that this is also the advice of the author.

 

[the Jester]

Hmm, not my experience... although a couple of the fights have been deadly, the worst one for my group was the rats (two dead characters fell out of that one).

I'm running, btw.

 

[firesnakearies]

I haven't played or ran any Encounters, but I'm wondering if it's any harder than LFR or the published modules. Anyone with significant experience with both have an opinion on that?

In the experience of my local core group of 4E players, the LFR adventures and the H1-E3 series of published adventures are really easy. The encounters as written are almost always really non-challenging to the main guys I play with.

So I'm curious if Encounters is really harder than the other WotC-written stuff, or not?

 

[Caliber]

[sblock]Assuming you're correct on what you fought, that's a little tougher than written. He might've scaled it for a party of 6, but it's also designed for an average party level of 2. And, I'm guessing that due to the number of deaths, you don't have an average party level of 2.

Still, I wouldn't have thought that was a TPK. Maybe he always rolls really well?
[/sblock]

Our DM is something of a dice rolling power house. He's also an exceptionally skilled DnD Minis player, so there is certainly the possibility of a tactical misalignment between the two sides of the table.

I'm surprised no one else is reporting any challenge here though; my group is getting our clocks cleaned regularly.

Are groups mostly using pregens or home made characters? Are most parties rather balanced over their combination of roles, or ? Just confused why we seem unable to go a single battle without losing someone while you guys are complaining about being unable to even knock anyone down.

 

[Ktulu]

I haven't played or ran any Encounters, but I'm wondering if it's any harder than LFR or the published modules. Anyone with significant experience with both have an opinion on that?

In the experience of my local core group of 4E players, the LFR adventures and the H1-E3 series of published adventures are really easy. The encounters as written are almost always really non-challenging to the main guys I play with.

So I'm curious if Encounters is really harder than the other WotC-written stuff, or not?

I couldn't really say whether or not they're "harder or easier" to play. The combats never seemed that challenging, but I have killed 2 people and had 1 tpk in the last 7 weeks. Some encounters are over fairly quickly and others seem to kick the utter crap out of the players. Give it a try, it's very little work to get it going (they technically provide everything outside of dice)

 

[firesnakearies]

Give it a try, it's very little work to get it going (they technically provide everything outside of dice)

Anything I can't run in my home is a bit of an issue for me. I think it's great that they're doing stuff to support game stores, but it does cut some people out. There are game stores semi-near me, but not near enough. The one store that's reasonably close, for some reason doesn't want any organized play D&D going on at their store. The other stores are far enough away that it's just not really worth it to me, personally. (I don't have a car, and I live sort of way out on the edge of my metro area, so spending four hours round trip riding/waiting for the bus/train to play an hour or two of D&D is . . . not really very attractive.)

If I could run D&D Encounters at home, I'd be all over it, and I know a lot of people who would come play, too.


Edit: If I did want to get into running Encounters (or playing, for that matter), how big of an issue is the fact that it's already been going for awhile? Am I pretty much out of luck since I didn't start at the beginning of the "season", or what? I'm not really sure exactly how it works for people trying to come in mid-season.

 

[renau1g]

Are groups mostly using pregens or home made characters? Are most parties rather balanced over their combination of roles, or ? Just confused why we seem unable to go a single battle without losing someone while you guys are complaining about being unable to even knock anyone down.

Well...pregens are likely a bit weaker than the average D&D PC put together by a reasonably optimizing person (now this is based on my previous experience with WoTC pregens, KoTS & old Worldwide Game Days). Why not make your own PCs? It's likely more fun that way as I would assume you'd be a bit more invested in the PC.

 

[Ktulu]

No one at my table uses a pregen. They're only used when someone shows up and decides they want to play, but haven't put anything together.