D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure
Wrathamon
Adventurer
Klaus said:I took the liberty of using Olgar's and Xorn's files and putting them together as a formatted PDF. It's 7 pages long, with 1.2 Mb. Since I knew an artist around these parts (), I used a couple of pictures to help with the formatting (but then I had to change the description of the hobbos from green- to orange-skinned).
Enjoy!
http://www.enworld.org/Pozas/raiders_of_oakhurst.pdf
Which version is this?
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Wrathamon said:
It looks like it is built on version 2 (with the Kobold Slinger).
Klaus did a great job with the art & layout (even if I do prefer my hobgoblins to have green skin
). I added the link to his pdf to the original post.
Last edited:
Klaus
First Post
Green hobgoblins? You take that up with diaglo!Olgar Shiverstone said:It looks like it is built on version 2 (with the Kobold Slinger).
Klaus did a great job with the art & layout (even if I do prefer my hobgoblins to have green skin
I finally got the chance to run this last night.
The group started out in Oakhurst where they found out about the problems being caused by the raiders. They saw the broken fences, chicken carcasses and livestock with shocked expressions wandering around. There were 5 players so only 5 PCs: the cleric, ranger, fighter, warlock and wizard, with the paladin being left out. They managed to bargain Teren into paying them 10 silver pieces each, making 60 sp in all. This is what happens when the DM has had a beer before playing.
They followed the trail of destruction, dead chickens andduct tape barnyard animals to the dark, damp gash in the hillside which constituted the dungeon. Play stopped here for a minute or so while we got the images of rockets taking off and trains entering tunnels out of our system.
ANYWAY, they had little trouble dispatching the first mob of kobolds, although the warlock kept missing her attack rolls -- a sign of what was to come. I got the map messed up, so instead of more kobolds coming to join the fight, it was the hobgoblins who surprised the party while they were checking the cave out. That was a much tougher fight, with the fighter being knocked out and knocked into the water from the warcaster's force lance. But then they killed both the warcaster and the soldier, and the two archers ran away.
After retreating for a bit to rest up, they came back, fought the remaining kobold minions and skirmishers and killed them quickly. Advancing further, the ranger walked into Meepo's cave and underneath Ix the spider, who was hanging from the ceiling. Ix scored max damage with the ensuing death from above and took him down in one hit. This brought a brief flurry of panic, but Ix with a spent DFA wasn't much of a threat and they killed it too.
Meepo put up some token resistance after they killed his spider but quickly surrendered. He wasn't one for personal dignity and was entirely willing to debase himself in the interests of self-preservation. "Meepo appeal to mighty warriors' better side! Meepo give out information about evil dragon who is wreaking havoc!", "Meepo appeal to greedy adventurers' baser side! Meepo let you clean up all his treasure!" and so on in a rather unseemly and embarrassing way. The cleric pointed to his crotch and said hey Meepo, if you're serious, clean this. Meepo, being a mere kobold with no idea about human social mores and innuendo, pulled out a wire brush and detergent, and got clipped around the ear as a result.
They finished him off ("for heinous and unspeakable crimes against innocent livestock"), rather cold-heartedly I thought, and went off to confront Nightscale. It wasn't quite a massacre, but it was close. The dragon's AC and defenses were basically too high for them to handle, and the fighter got repeatedly punished by the reactive tail slash. I even nerfed the dragon inadvertently by forgetting its action points and reach, and they still only did about 70 points damage to it before running away. The party got separated, with the fighter, ranger and cleric escaping while the wizard got killed and the warlock pledged her service to the dragon. Karma bites, literally in this case.
. . .
The warlock's player was frustrated by always missing. That was more due to rolling badly, but for a striker class, the warlock didn't prove that much more dangerous than the other PCs.
The cleric proved surprisingly effective as an attacker. His daily power took down the hobgoblin warcaster after the fighter was knocked out, which swung the fight, and his lance of faith was also very useful.
The fighter was frustrated at being a damage sponge. Not having the paladin probably hurt him more than the others, since he was basically the only melee guy (the cleric tended to hang back and use lance of faith). This might be a play style issue more than anything; this player usually plays characters who hang back and avoid tangling in melee.
1-1-1 diagonals didn't bother anyone, and being able to count off squares rapidly helped keep things moving at a fast pace.
Movement (voluntary or involuntary) didn't play as big a role as I thought it would. Possibly as we get more experience with 4E tactical options, this will change.
The fights were fast and we managed to do the whole dungeon (5 fights plus out-of-combat interaction) in about 4 1/2 hours. I didn't count the rounds, but I think most of them were 10 rounds or less. The Nightscale fight was about 20 rounds; the characters survived that long because the dragon also kept missing with its attacks.
From this, I conclude there's not as much "shock" as in 3E fights. Except for Ix's death from above, none of the enemies could really deal large chunks of damage in one blow, so the fights were more tactical: a process of outmaneuvering/out-attritioning the enemy. Say what you will about 3E combat, there's something viscerally satisfying about removing half or more of someone's hp in one hit (that spike damage I keep harping on about). Hopefully this is something that will change at higher levels.
The group started out in Oakhurst where they found out about the problems being caused by the raiders. They saw the broken fences, chicken carcasses and livestock with shocked expressions wandering around. There were 5 players so only 5 PCs: the cleric, ranger, fighter, warlock and wizard, with the paladin being left out. They managed to bargain Teren into paying them 10 silver pieces each, making 60 sp in all. This is what happens when the DM has had a beer before playing.
They followed the trail of destruction, dead chickens and
ANYWAY, they had little trouble dispatching the first mob of kobolds, although the warlock kept missing her attack rolls -- a sign of what was to come. I got the map messed up, so instead of more kobolds coming to join the fight, it was the hobgoblins who surprised the party while they were checking the cave out. That was a much tougher fight, with the fighter being knocked out and knocked into the water from the warcaster's force lance. But then they killed both the warcaster and the soldier, and the two archers ran away.
After retreating for a bit to rest up, they came back, fought the remaining kobold minions and skirmishers and killed them quickly. Advancing further, the ranger walked into Meepo's cave and underneath Ix the spider, who was hanging from the ceiling. Ix scored max damage with the ensuing death from above and took him down in one hit. This brought a brief flurry of panic, but Ix with a spent DFA wasn't much of a threat and they killed it too.
Meepo put up some token resistance after they killed his spider but quickly surrendered. He wasn't one for personal dignity and was entirely willing to debase himself in the interests of self-preservation. "Meepo appeal to mighty warriors' better side! Meepo give out information about evil dragon who is wreaking havoc!", "Meepo appeal to greedy adventurers' baser side! Meepo let you clean up all his treasure!" and so on in a rather unseemly and embarrassing way. The cleric pointed to his crotch and said hey Meepo, if you're serious, clean this. Meepo, being a mere kobold with no idea about human social mores and innuendo, pulled out a wire brush and detergent, and got clipped around the ear as a result.
They finished him off ("for heinous and unspeakable crimes against innocent livestock"), rather cold-heartedly I thought, and went off to confront Nightscale. It wasn't quite a massacre, but it was close. The dragon's AC and defenses were basically too high for them to handle, and the fighter got repeatedly punished by the reactive tail slash. I even nerfed the dragon inadvertently by forgetting its action points and reach, and they still only did about 70 points damage to it before running away. The party got separated, with the fighter, ranger and cleric escaping while the wizard got killed and the warlock pledged her service to the dragon. Karma bites, literally in this case.
. . .
The warlock's player was frustrated by always missing. That was more due to rolling badly, but for a striker class, the warlock didn't prove that much more dangerous than the other PCs.
The cleric proved surprisingly effective as an attacker. His daily power took down the hobgoblin warcaster after the fighter was knocked out, which swung the fight, and his lance of faith was also very useful.
The fighter was frustrated at being a damage sponge. Not having the paladin probably hurt him more than the others, since he was basically the only melee guy (the cleric tended to hang back and use lance of faith). This might be a play style issue more than anything; this player usually plays characters who hang back and avoid tangling in melee.
1-1-1 diagonals didn't bother anyone, and being able to count off squares rapidly helped keep things moving at a fast pace.
Movement (voluntary or involuntary) didn't play as big a role as I thought it would. Possibly as we get more experience with 4E tactical options, this will change.
The fights were fast and we managed to do the whole dungeon (5 fights plus out-of-combat interaction) in about 4 1/2 hours. I didn't count the rounds, but I think most of them were 10 rounds or less. The Nightscale fight was about 20 rounds; the characters survived that long because the dragon also kept missing with its attacks.
From this, I conclude there's not as much "shock" as in 3E fights. Except for Ix's death from above, none of the enemies could really deal large chunks of damage in one blow, so the fights were more tactical: a process of outmaneuvering/out-attritioning the enemy. Say what you will about 3E combat, there's something viscerally satisfying about removing half or more of someone's hp in one hit (that spike damage I keep harping on about). Hopefully this is something that will change at higher levels.
NewfieDave
First Post
Ran the adventure last night and we had a blast. There were 3 players so I let each of them play 2 characters. One chose the Warlock and Ranger, another the Cleric and Fighter, and the last played the Wizard and Paladin.
I'm the only person in our playgroup who has been following 4e news, but they all loved the changes. Lots of comments about combat feeling faster. Combats were taking about as long as 3.5 combats, but they had more rounds. Having each player use two characters also slowed down the combat a bit, and the players felt it would go much faster only having to worry about one character's power list. Lack of familiarity with the new rules and characters also contributed to slow play. I can see combat being lightning fast once we've been playing with the full rules for a few sessions and have made our own characters.
Combat was definitely fun AND cool.They ended up defeating all of the kobolds and hobgoblins (except Meepo and Ix who we didn't have time to encounter) in a single encounter thanks to the Fighter chasing down Varkase and drawing the rest of the hobgoblins into the fight. The Ranger was the only player to use a daily in this encounter, and two PCs made use of action points to deal some big damage (especially the Ranger who Split the Tree on the two hobgoblin archers then used a Careful Strike to finish off the one he had quarried). Then they took a short rest before going straight to Nightscale. They got the dragon to bloodied after 9 rounds of combat with the Wizard and Warlock both dying. It would have been possible - but highly unlikely - for them to kill the dragon, so I took it easy on them and had the dragon fly away to tend its wounds. The breath weapon was very effective. On average it can breathe every 3 rounds but back to back happens and it is NASTY! The simplicity of saving throws was very popular at the table.
So from the players' perspective, they are now frothing at the mouth for June to come so we can start a real 4e campaign. From the DM's perspective, I was a little confused because of a lack of rules knowledge (like how to handle the Perception checks for the PCs entering the first room with the kobolds), but I just winged it and it went well for the most part. I was amazed at the resiliency of a six person level 1 party. I might have to buy Keep on the Shadowfell to tide me over until the core books are out.
I'm the only person in our playgroup who has been following 4e news, but they all loved the changes. Lots of comments about combat feeling faster. Combats were taking about as long as 3.5 combats, but they had more rounds. Having each player use two characters also slowed down the combat a bit, and the players felt it would go much faster only having to worry about one character's power list. Lack of familiarity with the new rules and characters also contributed to slow play. I can see combat being lightning fast once we've been playing with the full rules for a few sessions and have made our own characters.
Combat was definitely fun AND cool.They ended up defeating all of the kobolds and hobgoblins (except Meepo and Ix who we didn't have time to encounter) in a single encounter thanks to the Fighter chasing down Varkase and drawing the rest of the hobgoblins into the fight. The Ranger was the only player to use a daily in this encounter, and two PCs made use of action points to deal some big damage (especially the Ranger who Split the Tree on the two hobgoblin archers then used a Careful Strike to finish off the one he had quarried). Then they took a short rest before going straight to Nightscale. They got the dragon to bloodied after 9 rounds of combat with the Wizard and Warlock both dying. It would have been possible - but highly unlikely - for them to kill the dragon, so I took it easy on them and had the dragon fly away to tend its wounds. The breath weapon was very effective. On average it can breathe every 3 rounds but back to back happens and it is NASTY! The simplicity of saving throws was very popular at the table.
So from the players' perspective, they are now frothing at the mouth for June to come so we can start a real 4e campaign. From the DM's perspective, I was a little confused because of a lack of rules knowledge (like how to handle the Perception checks for the PCs entering the first room with the kobolds), but I just winged it and it went well for the most part. I was amazed at the resiliency of a six person level 1 party. I might have to buy Keep on the Shadowfell to tide me over until the core books are out.
Similar Threads
