Keep on the Shadowfell gameplay.

[Mostlyjoe]

Well, I GMed my first run into Keep on the Shadowfell. As a GM it felt like the typical D&D adventure. Kinda bland and way to dependent on set pieces, but I can deal. Though, some fun things did come out of the game. To add some options I added the D&D Experience characters with a few tweeks.

The Dragonborn Paladin had a field day. Using his Damage Blessing and unarmed tactics he was throwing kobolds around the battle field. I had to impromptu some grapple rulings, but it worked fine. (Keeping with 4E's just wing it approach.)

The Wizard started using his Burst spell to very painful effect. People weren't kidding when they said that even a Burst 1 spell is like a tiny fireball. PC's really have to be careful not to hurt each other with area effects in 4E. The he used Mage Hand and Ghost sounds tricks to put on a kolbold body puppet show, but we'll get to that later.

Second Wind/Healing Surges worked like a charm. Taking my cue from Star Wars Saga Edition, I understood what was going on here and it keep the Paladin and Fighter up longer in the fight.

Our Rouge actually saved the day when a 2way flanking 'sandwich' started and he moved in and used his daily to shift a foe away and opened up the Fighter to mark them and take them out.

My wife a D&D newbie had a fun time and picked the new rules up really fast. 4E is the difinative new player game. That is a very, very good thing.

Only real issues that seemed to come up was the QuickPlay with the Adventure didn't give enough rules to cleanly handle everything. (natch) And some players mentioned that power creep had happened, and the martial characters didn't seem to have as many utility tricks. But everyone said that combat was much, much faster than before so. Lots good, little bad.

That was about it. Good game.

 

[That One Guy]

Sounds good. I'm not a fan of premade adventures, but I'm glad it was fun.


Kobold puppet?

 

[Family]

Kobold puppet?

Bizarro Kermit?

 

[hong]

All these wacky euphemisms!

 

[That One Guy]

I'll subvert your euphemism, puppet kermit!

no really, I do want to hear more about what was great and what was weak.

 

[EricNoah]

Looks like I'm going to get a chance to play a one-shot of this in a week or so. Should be interesting!

 

[Piratecat]

Please avoid spoilers, everyone! Use the [sblock] tag or the

Spoiler

tag to hide them.

 

[Mostlyjoe]

The Wizard asked me if the Kolbold's body was more than 20 pounds. Thinking to myself that they were about the size of a dog I said no. So using minor actions he started floating a kobold body around as a distraction in combat. Only later did we discover he could make it 'speak' with ghost sounds as a second minor actions.

Another plus was my wife a D&D newbie picked the game up in no time. 4E is really geared at Heroic level for new players and it takes little explanation to use.

Is there anything specific you want to know?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

If you will excuse the nerdiness:

I think kobolds are probably more like 30 lbs, certainly more for a Dragonshield. Perhaps the wizard found a particularly skinny kobold minion to drag about.

This is especially true in 4E, where they specifically made the halfling taller and heavier because too many designers have toddlers and couldn't imagine someone 3 feet tall and 30lbs as any kind of threat, so this logic probably extends to kobolds.

Honestly, my baby weighs more than 20lbs and can't even walk.

But don't let me tell you how to run your game!

Fitz

 

[Mostlyjoe]

No, no. It was a iffy call on my part. I knew I was off when he told me what he was doing. Still, imagine taking a cloak or such and doing the same. It's a valid idea, just I screwed up.