D&D 4E Good adventure that shows 4E's strengths?

[D'karr]

Another action that slows things down is the immediate action. Not using it, but almost using it. When a player declares an immediate action, then decides not to do it, or realizes he can't, that's wasted time and interrupted initiative flow for nothing. Penalizing the player with loss of the action (or even the power) might be a good policy if it's happening a lot.

Penalizing the player with the loss of the action is counterproductive. It just reinforces the analysis paralysis, since they don't want to be penalized and they take a lot longer analyzing their options.

Letting that stuff slide, and even providing an incentive for taking quick turns (bonus to rolls) is probably more productive.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've yet to completely solve my "must-use-all-actions-to-100%" problem, but what usually happens is I have a fair idea of what's possible and we often move along to other players and creatures while that player finishes his turn. It's much easier when foes are the next in line as I don't need a lot of time to run them or change their action - I keep the same die rolls, just change the targets/positions/results as required.

Penalizing the player with the loss of the action is counterproductive. It just reinforces the analysis paralysis, since they don't want to be penalized and they take a lot longer analyzing their options.
Letting that stuff slide, and even providing an incentive for taking quick turns (bonus to rolls) is probably more productive.

Those are reasonable ideas for on-turn actions, like the minor action fishing. Of course, the incentive is also just something else to think about...

With Immediate actions, though it's not the player's turn, and he's not slowing the game down by considering the option of using an immediate action /unless/ he declares it. If he's "analysis paralyzed" it doesn't matter, the game continues with no disruption. He might have missed an opportunity, but he hasn't disrupted anything.
Thus 'punishing' him for delay of game when he declares an action but it turns out can't or chooses not to go through with it - because determining that can eat up some time, and it disrupts the initiative order.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Just go with the 10 second rule. You have 10 seconds to decide what to do in your turn, if you haven't declared an action in 10 seconds, you're done with your turn, your character has stood in indecision too long and you'll just have to get faster. You can make allowances for starting players and some situation where things were confused, whatever, but make it clear from the start that unless the DM calls it 'time out' the clock is ticking.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Again, create cheat sheets. When players see that it is actually quite easy to manage a 4E PC if they actually prepare for a few minutes before they turn up, eventually they start doing it for themselves.

Hopefully....

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'll be watching this thread for suggestions.

And here I thought, "Hey, I should get TS on the horn--he'd love to see this, I'm sure!" Perhaps, instead, I should keep my big nose outta here. I've successfully resisted the temptation to "look ahead" with adventure content before (specifically, with the Dungeon World built-in story for the Holy Avenger), but it's never a good idea to court temptation if you can avoid it!

I'm currently DMing a Dungeon adventure -- a Perkins adventure, in fact! I like the plot and the details that I don't have to come up with myself; but I see what other 4e fans mean when they say that WotC never realized 4e's potential. There's an encounter with a single ghoul, for example, where the PCs have no reason not to take an extended rest afterward. I re-statted the ghoul as an N-level solo, because the adventure stats it as an N+3ish level (standard) monster, which would have been far less exciting for my players, who ended up fighting the ghoul.

I'm betting that single ghoul was our very own Mr. Skull Head--and I think you made the right call. Even if I got chomped on because of it!

Next session, the players will be delving into the labyrinth of 5-foot corridors that is the adventure's classic-dungeon finale, and I suspect it'll be less than ideal.

Heh, and then we threw you for a loop and made it all go beautifully pear-shaped, didn't we? Nobody seems to mention that "no plan survives contact with the PCs" can swing in the DM's favor now and again. Hope this doesn't count as spoilers for what's coming up. I'd figured some corridor-crawling was in order, given your comments at last night's session, but...if I have gotten spoilers, I apologize.

One adventure path that I saw just the very first taste of, and which looked promising, was War of the Burning Sky. We only got one session into that campaign before the DM had to call it quits (attack of the wild grad school), but WotBS had some neat stuff. Possibly the coolest bit, which I probably should've floated your way, Tequila: every character gets an extra "fluff" skill, something that describes their background, training, vocation, or some other meaningful character trait, to be worked out with the DM. The examples given in the free intro download are "singing, carpentry, painting--even origami!" It's a neat little freebie that helps establish each character as a person with a hobby, passion, or vocation, without crimping in-character resources. For my character, I chose metalwork--including both functional (weapons, farm tools) and aesthetic (jewelry, artistic work); I want to say one of the other characters was a calligrapher. Just a neat little thing.

Of course, WotBS is a complete campaign world with a specifically chosen intro adventure, so it might not be the easiest thing to adapt. But I've heard good things about it nonetheless. Same goes for Zeitgeist. Haven't heard anything about the other ENWorld paths yet, so I couldn't say.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I'm betting that single ghoul was our very own Mr. Skull Head--and I think you made the right call. Even if I got chomped on because of it!

Haha, yes, the very same Mr. Russian Skull. There's nothing quite like opening the first combat encounter with a new group with a crit by a solo!

Heh, and then we threw you for a loop and made it all go beautifully pear-shaped, didn't we? Nobody seems to mention that "no plan survives contact with the PCs" can swing in the DM's favor now and again. Hope this doesn't count as spoilers for what's coming up. I'd figured some corridor-crawling was in order, given your comments at last night's session, but...if I have gotten spoilers, I apologize.

No worries! I'd spoiler anything I didn't want you to know about.

One adventure path that I saw just the very first taste of, and which looked promising, was War of the Burning Sky. We only got one session into that campaign before the DM had to call it quits (attack of the wild grad school), but WotBS had some neat stuff. Possibly the coolest bit, which I probably should've floated your way, Tequila: every character gets an extra "fluff" skill, something that describes their background, training, vocation, or some other meaningful character trait, to be worked out with the DM. The examples given in the free intro download are "singing, carpentry, painting--even origami!" It's a neat little freebie that helps establish each character as a person with a hobby, passion, or vocation, without crimping in-character resources. For my character, I chose metalwork--including both functional (weapons, farm tools) and aesthetic (jewelry, artistic work); I want to say one of the other characters was a calligrapher. Just a neat little thing.

Of course, WotBS is a complete campaign world with a specifically chosen intro adventure, so it might not be the easiest thing to adapt. But I've heard good things about it nonetheless. Same goes for Zeitgeist. Haven't heard anything about the other ENWorld paths yet, so I couldn't say.

Hm, not having to convert or re-stat [presumably] does make WotBS tempting, and the adventures are only ~$3 a pop... Of course I already have Gardmore Abbey, and its dungeons look well designed, so it's in the running for our next adventure too.

In any case, I'm sure I'll bring this topic up at the conclusion of our current adventure. Hopefully we'll have a stable group by then, and I'll want to know what adventures everyone may have already played in full, and get opinions.

 

[MoutonRustique]

[MENTION=40398]Tequila Sunrise[/MENTION]
My goal isn't to deprive ENWorld of revenu - but instead of buying them, I would suggest becoming a silver member. This grants you access to all of WotBS and Zeitgeist to boot!

 

[Oldtimer]

I have one player badly afflicted with the must-use-minor-action compulsion. I'm open to suggestions. Maybe I could come up with a simple default minor that they can fall back on, instead of searching for possibilities? Maybe I should inflict a 'lame minor action penalty?'

Faced with the same problem, I added a very simple minor to the game in order to absorb that compulsion. "Aim. You get +1 on one attack roll this turn." It's just a no-brainer to use, unless you have something very important to do (like quarry an enemy or healing an ally).

 

[Celebrim]

I'm not sure I can recommend an adventure for showing off the system, as Madness at Gardmoor Abby would be a pretty good setting with interesting features of its story regardless of what system it was implemented in.

I would say that of all the D&D implementations, 4e is most likely to have a module that works well in 4e and is not easily translatable but one way that 4e suffered is such modules were not published to increase the excitement and devotion people had for the system. Instead, you had a lot of grindy tactical skirmish situations that were probably more enjoyable implemented in BECMI or Savage Worlds. I suppose if you like what 4e brings to the table there, Reavers of Harkenwold is for you, but I'm not sure that is the same thing as what you are asking for.

I agree that over the top roller coaster ride Michael Bay CGI packed action movie would be the right way to run 4e, but I've not seen it in a module.

But overall, a good story and a good scenario translates from rule system to rules system.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

(snip) I agree that over the top roller coaster ride Michael Bay CGI packed action movie would be the right way to run 4e, but I've not seen it in a module.(snip)

On that note - and I certainly agree with your recommendation of Reavers of Harkenwold - I find 4E works best around a delve-like format of three (possibly four) encounters of building intensity in a single session that then result in a minor or major story goal being achieved. It's like the classical three acts of a play... and it's all done in one night.