"Fear of Monsters" back into 4th Edition

[Manbearcat]

I hear this again and again about how this or that edition is 'more dangerous', but this is ENTIRELY up to the GM and the table! You can play with as much or as little character mortality and as much or as little adversarial challenge type of play as you wish in any rule set of D&D. Even given the basic standard conditions and expectations of, let us say, 4e the variation can be huge (IE there is no hard and fast rule about how much difficulty a party has to face in a day, and mechanically you can impose harsher or less harsh DCs and whatnot within a broad range and still live within the guidelines in the DMG).

Absolutely. And again, as I posted upthread, the dials and toggles for 4e to ramp up the difficulty (or outright lethality) are overt, intuitive, and well-integrated into the system as a whole. Things don't go utterly wobbly with overwhelming 2nd and 3rd order interactions when you flip them/turn them. The results are predictable. Increase encounter budgets by x, up-level foes by y, and z happens.

As you say, most parties will at least have one character who has training in Heal and high ability in it, which will make the mummy rot quite trivial to the whole party, unless you make a special rule that mummy rot is more of a curse, and the Heal skill will have no effect on it.

This is interesting to me. I think Healing being commons is likely the product of larger than average tables. Personally (and again, this is just personally...plenty of others have anecdotes on here of the opposite), I would never run 4e with 6 or more players. I've only ever run it with 3 players (2 campaigns 1-30), three short games (spanning about 7 levels) of 2 players, and a pair of solo adventures (5-6 levels).

In all of those levels of play, with all of those characters, I've seen Heal taken as a Skill one time...and that was for a Skill Power primarily. In the hierarchy of Skills in 4e, it is pretty bloody awful. Its application is extraordinarily narrow in Skill Challenges, it isn't Group Check relevant, and really has no use in combat Stunting, no use in overcoming Traps/Hazards, or combat generally. That leaves the activation of a few solid Skill Powers, a few relevant Rituals (CD, RD, RA), and the Disease Track. Conversely, I've had plenty of folks take Endurance as a Skill because it has a myriad of applications in Skill Challenges, has multiple solid Skill Powers, is extremely Group Check relevant, is a classic Countermeasure for a large number of Traps/Hazards.

Consequently, virtually every Disease/Condition Track that PCs have been afflicted with in my games have involved Endurance rather than Heal. The only time I can recall Heal being deployed was when a non-trained, high level Druid (huge Wisdom obviously) with a + Heal item treated a middling Con (maybe 14ish) Rogue that didn't have Endurance trained.

I've had 5 Ritual Casters in all of those characters/levels. None of them had Heal trained (so no CD, RD, or RA).

 

[MoutonRustique]

Touching on a couple of things that have been said in this thread : this discussion is very interesting!

As someone alluded to earlier, 4e is the edition where all published monsters are fine as random encounters as they don't impose very serious conditions, are predictable in their outcome, and just work right off the page. On the flip side, we have older editions where this is not the case (by a long shot) - and yet, there are no habitual ethos of "random encouter" in 4e while there are plenty of those in those same older editions!

And the talk about the feeling of a form of ~loss~ is quite important - since it's "truïckly" true. Add to that the concept that D&D is now it's own type of RPG for some, while a sort of general catch-phrase for "fantasy RPG" for others, and you really get a sense of how complex creating an RPG is.

This may sound bad (but I assure you it's not!), but I've kind of gotten on board with the idea that 4e isn't D&D. [please hear me out]

For me, 4e is D&D in a way that all other editions are not. When I read novels, saw movies, and even read the rule books, I wanted to play awesome heroes and characters, play out intricate campaigns and face clever dragons and fiendish... well fiends!

But the rules were always in the way - I had to houserule so much stuff to get a semblance of the play-style I wanted, I had to start characters at levels 5+, I had to go through all the spells and curate it all to allow for a world with any kind of sense (to me.) 4e came along and ... BAM! Everything just worked! Pretty much all my issues were fixed! The world made sense, the kind of powers that were available made the world make sense. The separation of PC and NPC structure made sense. The DC setting made sense. Everything made sense! I had tools that worked the way they said they did. If I wanted a specific outcome, I could get it. On the DM-side, if I wanted something completely different for X or Y - bam! done! Everything was easy.

My reaction to 5e was honestly along these lines (and this is a translated quote - my friends and I speak French) : "There's too much D&D in my D&D". What I meant was : there is too much "having this rules-set espouse a certain ethos" where I wanted a rules-set to play a fantasy RPG without that ethos being so strongly imposed (and thus hard to remove).

Now, you can flip all of that around - and it's just as valid! So in that sense, I guess, 4e isn't D&D as understood by a vast amount of people who considers it it's own thing. For my part, when I ask my friends to "play D&D", we mean "play and RPG". I never thought of the rules-set has having it's own "ethos" - I always thought the settings were where that mattered. Obviously, I was wrong!

Slightly Back On Topic
I guess I see 4e as such a easy thing to manipulate that "making it deadlier" or making it "more unpredictable" seem like non-problems for me. I'm always interested in the how people are going about what they're going about - but I don't see where the "blockage" is.

The beholder feels to easy as presented? The disintegrate ray is changed to [Hit: You are dazed, weakened, phasing and insubstantial (save ends all). First failed save: you die. You, and your possessions turn to fine dust.] Do the equivalent with a couple of other rays, and you've got a killer creature! If you use the regular foes and do this to those creatures you feel your players should fear!, I'm pretty sure your players will fear those creatures. Kind of like my players always fear "Ets-made" creatures (that's me, btw, Ets is short for Etienne) - since I kind of over did it a few times... ok, it was a lot of times... ok, pretty much everything I created in 2e and up was pretty strong... ok, a lot strong... But, I mean, come on! The glory is only as high as the DANGER! Plus they always (well, almost) prevailed! They're just pansies.

Again, Back On Topic ~ sorta
The 4.5 mods suggested by [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] seem like they allow for a more "classic" D&D experience without sacrificing a lot of what was gained in terms of game design with 4e - and I'd wager that this is something a good many people would find of great value.

In many ways, it really is 4.5 - it's an evolution of 4e towards facilitating another approach.

As to the topic directly at hand - in 4e (or 4.5 for that matter), it would be easy to add the (deadly) or (plot) or ([something evocative]) tag to a creature with an especially nasty power or effect. Everything else could easily stay the same:
- we get a sense of when this creature is appropriate for use (by level)
- we get useful stats for when the players circumvent it's power (regular stats, based on what it's supposed to do)
- we get a useful warning that this isn't something that can be thrown-in with serious consideration
- those that want/need it get the design space to create "I hate this creature!" creatures

It works, it doesn't brake anything (yea exception based design!), and it opens up space to do funky stuff!

 

[Igwilly]

Touching on a couple of things that have been said in this thread : this discussion is very interesting!

As someone alluded to earlier, 4e is the edition where all published monsters are fine as random encounters as they don't impose very serious conditions, are predictable in their outcome, and just work right off the page. On the flip side, we have older editions where this is not the case (by a long shot) - and yet, there are no habitual ethos of "random encouter" in 4e while there are plenty of those in those same older editions!

And the talk about the feeling of a form of ~loss~ is quite important - since it's "truïckly" true. Add to that the concept that D&D is now it's own type of RPG for some, while a sort of general catch-phrase for "fantasy RPG" for others, and you really get a sense of how complex creating an RPG is.

This may sound bad (but I assure you it's not!), but I've kind of gotten on board with the idea that 4e isn't D&D. [please hear me out]

For me, 4e is D&D in a way that all other editions are not. When I read novels, saw movies, and even read the rule books, I wanted to play awesome heroes and characters, play out intricate campaigns and face clever dragons and fiendish... well fiends!

But the rules were always in the way - I had to houserule so much stuff to get a semblance of the play-style I wanted, I had to start characters at levels 5+, I had to go through all the spells and curate it all to allow for a world with any kind of sense (to me.) 4e came along and ... BAM! Everything just worked! Pretty much all my issues were fixed! The world made sense, the kind of powers that were available made the world make sense. The separation of PC and NPC structure made sense. The DC setting made sense. Everything made sense! I had tools that worked the way they said they did. If I wanted a specific outcome, I could get it. On the DM-side, if I wanted something completely different for X or Y - bam! done! Everything was easy.

My reaction to 5e was honestly along these lines (and this is a translated quote - my friends and I speak French) : "There's too much D&D in my D&D". What I meant was : there is too much "having this rules-set espouse a certain ethos" where I wanted a rules-set to play a fantasy RPG without that ethos being so strongly imposed (and thus hard to remove).

Now, you can flip all of that around - and it's just as valid! So in that sense, I guess, 4e isn't D&D as understood by a vast amount of people who considers it it's own thing. For my part, when I ask my friends to "play D&D", we mean "play and RPG". I never thought of the rules-set has having it's own "ethos" - I always thought the settings were where that mattered. Obviously, I was wrong!

Slightly Back On Topic
I guess I see 4e as such a easy thing to manipulate that "making it deadlier" or making it "more unpredictable" seem like non-problems for me. I'm always interested in the how people are going about what they're going about - but I don't see where the "blockage" is.

The beholder feels to easy as presented? The disintegrate ray is changed to [Hit: You are dazed, weakened, phasing and insubstantial (save ends all). First failed save: you die. You, and your possessions turn to fine dust.] Do the equivalent with a couple of other rays, and you've got a killer creature! If you use the regular foes and do this to those creatures you feel your players should fear!, I'm pretty sure your players will fear those creatures. Kind of like my players always fear "Ets-made" creatures (that's me, btw, Ets is short for Etienne) - since I kind of over did it a few times... ok, it was a lot of times... ok, pretty much everything I created in 2e and up was pretty strong... ok, a lot strong... But, I mean, come on! The glory is only as high as the DANGER! Plus they always (well, almost) prevailed! They're just pansies.

Again, Back On Topic ~ sorta
The 4.5 mods suggested by [MENTION=6694190]Myrhdraak[/MENTION] seem like they allow for a more "classic" D&D experience without sacrificing a lot of what was gained in terms of game design with 4e - and I'd wager that this is something a good many people would find of great value.

In many ways, it really is 4.5 - it's an evolution of 4e towards facilitating another approach.

As to the topic directly at hand - in 4e (or 4.5 for that matter), it would be easy to add the (deadly) or (plot) or ([something evocative]) tag to a creature with an especially nasty power or effect. Everything else could easily stay the same:
- we get a sense of when this creature is appropriate for use (by level)
- we get useful stats for when the players circumvent it's power (regular stats, based on what it's supposed to do)
- we get a useful warning that this isn't something that can be thrown-in with serious consideration
- those that want/need it get the design space to create "I hate this creature!" creatures

It works, it doesn't brake anything (yea exception based design!), and it opens up space to do funky stuff!

I understand what you are saying, and yes, it's perfectly possible to make 4e (or any other edition) a lot more challenging. However, by *default* 4e is too easy. You need some work if you want to bring so many mechanics back - as if you want all these effects - and "standard" sets up expectations and the game's overall image.
It's basically why the Oberoni fallacy is a fallacy: default matters and if there's no problem, why do we need to change the game?
Default matters especially for new people. If the group is new to the system, the edition, or the entire hobby, almost never* he/she wants to change standard expectations about difficulty: he/she tries to run the game as "faithfully" as possible, therefore creating the "feel" that 4e is easy.

* Well, people like me, with an innate interest for game design and/or have OCD (as I do) will always want to tinker with the system as it pleases, but don't think for a moment this is common for all RPG players. It's quite the opposite: most people want as small changes as possible; and if it requires too much work, they change rulesets (something we should learn to do more).

Edit: I don't know about the 4.5 mods, but it seems interesting. I'll check that ^^

 

[MoutonRustique]

I understand what you are saying, and yes, it's perfectly possible to make 4e (or any other edition) a lot more challenging. However, by *default* 4e is too easy. You need some work if you want to bring so many mechanics back - as if you want all these effects - and "standard" sets up expectations and the game's overall image.
It's basically why the Oberoni fallacy is a fallacy: default matters and if there's no problem, why do we need to change the game?
Default matters especially for new people. If the group is new to the system, the edition, or the entire hobby, almost never* he/she wants to change standard expectations about difficulty: he/she tries to run the game as "faithfully" as possible, therefore creating the "feel" that 4e is easy.

* Well, people like me, with an innate interest for game design and/or have OCD (as I do) will always want to tinker with the system as it pleases, but don't think for a moment this is common for all RPG players. It's quite the opposite: most people want as small changes as possible; and if it requires too much work, they change rulesets (something we should learn to do more).

Edit: I don't know about the 4.5 mods, but it seems interesting. I'll check that ^^

I agree - presentation matters. And it matters a lot!

4e was/is a curious beast : most of the evidence points to the conclusion that it was/is something new. The* (actually, it is more accurate to say: "those that were left in charge of it after conception") designers, and pretty much every other producer of 4e content, didn't really know what the game actually was. And so, in the early days (the most important days!), created content for it that was, on the whole, fairly bad - thus setting the (very important!) default play experience in a pretty awkward position (to be polite).

Plus all the marketing/ software/ GSL/ etc... Let's just say it didn't get the best "out the gate" it could have had...

The only counter-point I'd like to make is this: I don't think there are

...so many mechanics back...

. Since the effects we're talking about are those meant for "exceptional monsters", not the "run of the mill" kind, there shouldn't be that many to do. If we're talking about 20 monsters/special effects, that's something I feel comfortable saying one should be able to do all of them in an afternoon or two (ideally, two as I would wish for that dudette to post his ideas on a forum so I can steal.. I mean critic them!)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Answer:

Not so quite.
As I’ve said, you can raise or lower difficulty as you want, but default expectations matter. The very book suggests that most of the encounters should be at even level. That’s not the problem. The problem is even-level challenges are too easy. The game just assumes even-level challenges are median mode (as they should be), but they’re not. I order to get even a median mode game, you need to go outside the expectations. This can be very confusing to new DMs, or people simply picking up the new edition, or a system they’ve never seen.
Yes, DMs in all editions have a lot of space to change things. I’m just dealing with default expectations because, if one expectation is more common above all others, is the default one. So yes, it is perfectly possible to have a difficult 4e. It just that this is not apparent and every encounter must be level +3 or so (and this tends to get worse in high level).

I did not said that. What I’m saying is that even-level challenges in 4e are too easy.
True, in 4e you can predict very accurately if a giving encounter will be easy or difficult. This is tremendously useful. However: 1) You have to adjust the metric. Even-level is not median. 2) It was not without cost.

I think we're just talking past each other. In 1e a 1HD orc is the equivalent of a 'level 1 monster' but a group of those equal in number to the party is nothing like a big challenge under normal circumstances. The PCs will defeat them with some expenditure of resources and perhaps some injury, but they will be defeated and the group will go on. This is much like a 4e at-level encounter. You see the parallel? I don't think in ANY EDITION that 'stock' encounters that are considered baseline are really a huge threat. In 'classic' D&D the possibility, at low levels anyway, was greater, since PCs were one unlucky weapon blow from death even at full strength, but then you had rather easily accessible cures for that, hirelings, henchmen, Sleep, etc. that would let you control the actual risk if deployed with any intelligence (and that's not even counting ambushes, flaming oil, using traps against monsters, and other clever ploys that are quite easily engaged).

It’s not even about magic: magic can be quite hard to do, even in D&D. These solutions are too easy and accessible, that’s the problem.

Well, I'm not sure what is hard about AD&D magic, for example, and 3.x magic is pretty trivial in almost all cases. 4e and 5e magic no more so. There are sometimes non-magical fixes as well, or more likely preventatives, but in any case they are not that hard to enact, so we aren't in disagreement here.

This is why I say that really you need plot device kinds of curses and effects.

The fear of being killed. This is the most important and powerful of all fears. Monsters in folklore, myth and such usually are feared because of that or something equivalent (being turned to stone, being stuck in a bottle forever…) I would say it’s the most legit fear.

Meh, I entirely disagree. Death is trivial. Either the PC is low level and easily replaced (particularly in the troupe play oriented classic versions of D&D), or you're in a higher level situation where raising is quite accessible and other preventatives are often feasible (Contingency and such for example can be quite effective).

Moreover, you seen to misunderstand these difficult monsters. The goal is not to always run, but to face these monsters as a bigger, risky thing to do. What I (well, my PC) would do if I know I must kill this beholder/big bad monster or otherwise (insert plot reason here)? Prepare my group and myself, investigate its weaknesses, optimize (in game-term here) our efficiency to deal with those weaknesses, and come up with a plan.
I know many people think it’s heresy to bring stuff from video-games, but here I go: In the electronic RPG field, in at least some fandoms, an well-known term is the Superboss. An optional, stupidly difficult encounter created just to be a huge challenge to players with end game characters. Those who defeat them gain cause for bragging rights. Moreover, in some games but not in others, normal bosses are already hard to defeat, and optional bosses, even more so. This is popular among video-game players, especially the more “hard-core” ones. This thing should happen with nasty monsters in D&D.
Although I do think that 1e went too overboard with all poisons being Save or Die. I prefer other methods of dealing with poison.

Eh, sure, but classic D&D is replete with insta-ganks and random encounters. It isn't exactly built around the sort of thing you're talking about, though it is an element that you can use. My point is you can do the same thing in any edition, including 4e. You simply have to DO it, and 4e's mechanical elegance lends itself well to creating these kinds of stories. It isn't exactly like they came right out and told us this was an expected way to run 4e, so I certainly don't think the game couldn't be improved a lot on this point, but its at least quite possible.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree - presentation matters. And it matters a lot!

4e was/is a curious beast : most of the evidence points to the conclusion that it was/is something new. The* (actually, it is more accurate to say: "those that were left in charge of it after conception") designers, and pretty much every other producer of 4e content, didn't really know what the game actually was. And so, in the early days (the most important days!), created content for it that was, on the whole, fairly bad - thus setting the (very important!) default play experience in a pretty awkward position (to be polite).

Plus all the marketing/ software/ GSL/ etc... Let's just say it didn't get the best "out the gate" it could have had...

The only counter-point I'd like to make is this: I don't think there are . Since the effects we're talking about are those meant for "exceptional monsters", not the "run of the mill" kind, there shouldn't be that many to do. If we're talking about 20 monsters/special effects, that's something I feel comfortable saying one should be able to do all of them in an afternoon or two (ideally, two as I would wish for that dudette to post his ideas on a forum so I can steal.. I mean critic them!)

Yes, early 4e material is quite uneven and the HPE series of modules, in particular, are often dull and uninspiring. I'd note however that Kobold Hall is rather different. It hews to the standards of the DMG, illustrates them even, but it is certainly NOT an 'easy' adventure. There isn't a wild sort of plot element tossed in that extends beyond the 'lines' such as what I'm advocating, but the adventure is certainly difficult and requires the players to bring their 'A' game in order to survive the battles (or else use their wits in other ways, you can get through it without fighting to the death).

I agree a lot with what you said in your previous post too, 4e to me is a rule set that makes sense. It creates far fewer issues that need to be addressed and hacked past in order to do more things than AD&D did (I really didn't play 3.x much and never ran it). It just seemed natural to add in the elements I required. When the PCs foolishly ate the food that was offered by the eldar after the fey crossing, well did you think they'd not be needing some serious plot bending actions to undo THAT blunder? There ain't no rule for that, but it was pretty easy to invent one!

 

[Igwilly]

[MENTION=22362]MoutonRustique[/MENTION]
Well, there might be some hyperbole involved.
Remember, though, that D&D has a *lot* of monsters. Even if only 10% of them have any one of these “special abilities”, that is still many monsters.
My particular problem is recording it all. I have to note this somewhere, even if I do it as the game progresses.
Also, there are some things one should be more careful: many of these mechanics can change the face of an encounter – and by extension, the game itself. Old-school petrifying gaze can sure change how some encounters are made. And I won’t even start about classic Energy Drain. So there are some things, I would be more careful.

Well, to be fair, old-school energy drain isn’t one of my favorites, but it was really nasty ^^
[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]
1) AD&D had stuff like long-lasting paralyzing attacks, petrifying gaze, and all such things that you can find in low-level adventures. So, these stuff change other stuff.
2) Oh, there are so many ways one can make magic much more difficult… Aging effects in AD&D really make people scared of this stuff, for example. Even simply requiring: “Material component: a Gold Chocobo’s feather” make a particular spell much more difficult to cast. In addition, you may be underestimating some spells. Restoration was a 7th level (max) priest spell and even so very nasty. A wish could be gained through magical items, but that depends on the DM’s wish, and otherwise it’s a 9th level (max) wizard spell, and still risky. Some of them, however, are too easily accessible.
3) If the fear of your character being killed is “trivial”, then (at least in my opinion) there is something *very* wrong with the particular game. Again, in AD&D resurrecting the dead was much more difficult and involved permanent losses. These drawbacks were gradually eliminated from recent editions. Add to that the overall difficulty of encounters and you have “too safe” editions. However, I do think resurrecting the dead must have serious costs.
4) One thing doesn’t exclude another. There are monsters for surprise attacks and there are Bosses (big monsters you need to plan carefully). They are *not* the same monsters. Water weirds are for surprise attacks in the middle of the dungeon; the beholder is the boss at the end of the dungeon. Monsters in old-school D&D don’t have all the same role

But, of course, if your character cares about nothing in the world, then there isn’t much challenge in the game.
“So what if your character gets killed? You make another one!
Your parents get killed? Well, that’s life.
You cannot leave Feywild? Another character is the way to go!
The world ended? We start another campaign or make a Deus ex Machina.”
That’s a dangerous path to proceed.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Yes, early 4e material is quite uneven and the HPE series of modules, in particular, are often dull and uninspiring. I'd note however that Kobold Hall is rather different. It hews to the standards of the DMG, illustrates them even, but it is certainly NOT an 'easy' adventure. There isn't a wild sort of plot element tossed in that extends beyond the 'lines' such as what I'm advocating, but the adventure is certainly difficult and requires the players to bring their 'A' game in order to survive the battles (or else use their wits in other ways, you can get through it without fighting to the death). [snip]

But even then, I'd argue that [Kobold Hall] is a "bad" 4e adventure : it's patterned on the "one room = one encounter" that so easily leads to the "slog" that 4e is often remarked on (and often, rightly so - because of this structure).

As a fun delve, an almost boardgame evening, yeah! It's really fun! But as an introduction, a learning experience, I feel it's teaching many bad habits.

IMO
The Bad
- linear room progression
- one room, one fight (or rp encounter, but still...)
- little to no plot or world-building (especially world-building, so important, so difficult to grasp, so few good examples)

The Good!
- dynamic encounters with a mix of adversaries
- use of terrain and traps to enhance an encounter
- a good difficulty setting
- kobolds! (I love those little bastards)
- a good example on how variants on the "same" creature goes a long way

Even with all these good points, the [one room, one fight] thing is so high on my list of things to kill that I have to give it a failing grade...

[MENTION=22362]MoutonRustique[/MENTION]
Well, there might be some hyperbole involved.
Remember, though, that D&D has a *lot* of monsters. Even if only 10% of them have any one of these “special abilities”, that is still many monsters.
My particular problem is recording it all. I have to note this somewhere, even if I do it as the game progresses.
Also, there are some things one should be more careful: many of these mechanics can change the face of an encounter – and by extension, the game itself. Old-school petrifying gaze can sure change how some encounters are made. And I won’t even start about classic Energy Drain. So there are some things, I would be more careful.

hehehe - no worries on the hyperbole, I love me some good hyperboling! (well, depends on the situation really, but yours was in good faith: that's the best kind. )

But we might be seeing things a bit differently (which, you know, "sometimes" happens in forums ). What I was envisioning was more along the lines of you wanting a few monsters to be really nasty, super dangerous, PCs fear these creatures kind of situation. The fact that these powers throw the encounter building tools for a loop is kind of the point, no? Of course these are things that aren't supposed to be thrown around willy-nilly, that's why we're building them! How they are used is of utmost importance. These are meant as much as world-building blocks, plot elements, as they are opposition.

In this case, I estimate that you can get away with about 20 powers (or a lot less) which you would apply when appropriate :
petrify (medusa, basilisk, cockatrice) - death gaze (bodak) - death breath (catoblepas, basilisk) - eye rays (beholder)
"level drain" (wights, specters) - something else I'm not thinking about right now

Give us a list and we can work on building something you like!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But, of course, if your character cares about nothing in the world, then there isn’t much challenge in the game.
“So what if your character gets killed? You make another one!
Your parents get killed? Well, that’s life.
You cannot leave Feywild? Another character is the way to go!
The world ended? We start another campaign or make a Deus ex Machina.”
That’s a dangerous path to proceed.

IME the problem is all this sort of almost arbitrary lethality LEADS to not caring about your characters. I played in the old White Box/Holmes days of D&D that was filled with random encounters with instantly lethal creatures (The Holmes box I bought contained "Monster and Treasure Assortment" and "Dungeon Geomorphs". Thus they were basically telling you to make an endless underground maze filled with random creatures, and of course patrolled by more wandering random creatures. It was pretty deadly. There's a reason people came to simply calling their characters "Dwarf 2" and such. I recall famously my best friend had 'Tribord I' through 'Tribord VII' (I think #s 3 and 7 actually made it through the meat grinder to level 7+ and then he had to try to explain the names). One day when I was bored I generated about 300 sets of 3d6 in order stats on a sheet of paper. I'd just pick the next one and cross it out and transfer it to a character sheet. Last I recall seeing that sheet of paper I'd run through probably 200!!! of them. Probably used a lot for henchmen stats, NPCs, whatever, but I must have chewed through a solid 50 PC stat blocks basically a year or two of playing. So the average PC life-span in 'by the book' classic D&D was on the order of 1-2 weeks (so probably 1 to 4 sessions, as we did play a lot back then).

No, death was absolutely not something you feared. It was beyond meaningless. If the character had high stats and good equipment you might apply a bit of extra caution and get yourself some hirelings, etc, maybe even spring for a reserve of cash for a RES once you got rolling (past 3rd level, which wasn't that common).

I won't dispute that some cockatrice or whatever wasn't seen as a higher challenge. It COULD be, if it was foreshadowed, outright stated to exist in location X, etc. Truthfully though, unless a monster was completely outrageous there was probably a fairly straightforward way to neuter it, so you could play 'puzzle monster' pretty easily, but it was HARD to play 'plot monster' in classic D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But even then, I'd argue that [Kobold Hall] is a "bad" 4e adventure : it's patterned on the "one room = one encounter" that so easily leads to the "slog" that 4e is often remarked on (and often, rightly so - because of this structure).

As a fun delve, an almost boardgame evening, yeah! It's really fun! But as an introduction, a learning experience, I feel it's teaching many bad habits.

IMO
The Bad
- linear room progression
- one room, one fight (or rp encounter, but still...)
- little to no plot or world-building (especially world-building, so important, so difficult to grasp, so few good examples)

The Good!
- dynamic encounters with a mix of adversaries
- use of terrain and traps to enhance an encounter
- a good difficulty setting
- kobolds! (I love those little bastards)
- a good example on how variants on the "same" creature goes a long way

Even with all these good points, the [one room, one fight] thing is so high on my list of things to kill that I have to give it a failing grade...

Well, hmmmm.....

I certainly agree that you wouldn't want to make endless minor variations on Kobold Hall and it barely scratches the surface of what 4e can do. So, no, it isn't a supreme example of the game in its full glory by any means. I doubt that WotC had a designer CAPABLE of that in 2007 when KH must have been written. So, in a sense it does presage things like H1, which takes the themes of KH and simply repeats them ad nauseum with little to add, at which point it becomes quite icky. KH also utterly eschews any attempt at the SC mechanic, which is a bit sad.

Still, what it does it does well, and it makes no real missteps. The 2nd to last encounter is rather creative, managing to present an early example of a fairly dynamic battlefield with several significant terrain elements and a number of interesting opponents. The finale is a decent attempt at a solo encounter which works pretty well, maybe largely because a level 1 party lacks the means to foul it up, but it does work!

I'm SURE that much better intro adventures could be written, and probably HAVE been. I must admit though, I haven't topped KH by any massive degree. The very first adventure I ran for my first group was probably a bit more varied than KH, but I don't recall that it did much with SCs either, was perhaps not ENTIRELY linear, but wasn't really super meaningfully full of alternatives either. It featured goblins instead of kobolds, for all that really matters. That is to say, the two races are fairly different in 4e, but they both fill the niche of small and easily defeated humanoid menace.