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D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
pukunui said:
I don't mind the cleric's attack and buffs as long as many powers have the buff separate from the condition of the attack.
For example, the cleric gives the fighter X benefit, and while he's doing that can also make an attack that does Y. Those I'm fine with, because then the cleric can choose just to do the buff if he has no one to attack. Powers that require hitting a creature to give a buff seems a bit more far fetched.
Dr. Strangemonkey
First Post
Stalker0 said:
Outside of combat I just let the holy symbol and a prayer count for the attack.
Alright so I'm going to be running this bad boy tonight, with 5 players. The one character that will be missing from the group will be the dwarven fighter, so I don't know how that's going to play out, but we'll see.
I plan on giving all the players this at the begining:
Potion of Healing (Level 1)
Use: Activate Healing Surge + 1d6 extra healing
Can only be used once
I'm also going to plant a magic item or two Meepo and the Hobgoblin leader, because I mean why not right.
In addition I'm going to lower the dragons defenses by 2 and see where that gets me. The darkness looks pretty nasty though, but me likey. Should be a blast. I'll report what happens.
I plan on giving all the players this at the begining:
Potion of Healing (Level 1)
Use: Activate Healing Surge + 1d6 extra healing
Can only be used once
I'm also going to plant a magic item or two Meepo and the Hobgoblin leader, because I mean why not right.
In addition I'm going to lower the dragons defenses by 2 and see where that gets me. The darkness looks pretty nasty though, but me likey. Should be a blast. I'll report what happens.
Xorn
First Post
Delgar said:Alright so I'm going to be running this bad boy tonight, with 5 players. The one character that will be missing from the group will be the dwarven fighter, so I don't know how that's going to play out, but we'll see.
I plan on giving all the players this at the begining:
Potion of Healing (Level 1)
Use: Activate Healing Surge + 1d6 extra healing
Can only be used once
I'm also going to plant a magic item or two Meepo and the Hobgoblin leader, because I mean why not right.
In addition I'm going to lower the dragons defenses by 2 and see where that gets me. The darkness looks pretty nasty though, but me likey. Should be a blast. I'll report what happens.
I recall reading that the dragon stats floating around the intarweb have defenses that are 2 higher than they should be, actually.
Re: Paladin Divine Challenge
The mechanics for that have been changed since DDXP--apparently they were changed before that, but the change didn't make it to the character sheets. The broad description is they have to "paladin up" to keep the mark going. I settled on the paladin must attack the mark on his next turn, or it fades. (Same for the fighter.) "If the paladin ends his turn farther from the mark than he started, it fades." is another house ruling that's being used, but still sets up the "immobilizing fighter" combo.
Okay I figured I'd just post here the Magic Items I'm planning on placing in the module:
Gnarl will have this:
+1 VICIOUS LONGBOW
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with weapon
Critical: +1d12 damage
Ichi-Ichi will have this, he can't use it, but it's an item he picked up in a raid and he thinks it's pretty
+1 SYMBOL OF LIFE
Implement (Holy Symbol)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with implement
Critical: +1d6 damage
Power (Milestone): Free Action. Activate when you use a power that heals damage. Add +1d6 to the healing provided.
Recharge: Milestone
Meepo will be wearing this and using the sword:
+1 DELVER'S LEATHER ARMOR
This armor is good for a character in light armor, such as a warlock.
Armor: Any
Enhancement: AC
Power (Encounter): Free action. Gain a +2 power bonus to a saving throw.
+1 FROST SHORTSWORD
This is a good weapon for a fighter to wield.
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with weapon.
Critical: +1d6 cold damage.
Power (Encounter): Free action. Activate when you hit with this weapon. The target takes +1d10 cold damage and is slowed until the end of your next turn (Cold)
This will be found on Varakaze:
+1 CLOAK OF RESISTANCE
Body Slot: Neck
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Gain resist all 5 until the start of your next turn.
I know it's a little magic heavy and I know that the items have level requirements but as a one off it will be fun for the players to pick up a few trinkets on the way.
Gnarl will have this:
+1 VICIOUS LONGBOW
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with weapon
Critical: +1d12 damage
Ichi-Ichi will have this, he can't use it, but it's an item he picked up in a raid and he thinks it's pretty
+1 SYMBOL OF LIFE
Implement (Holy Symbol)
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with implement
Critical: +1d6 damage
Power (Milestone): Free Action. Activate when you use a power that heals damage. Add +1d6 to the healing provided.
Recharge: Milestone
Meepo will be wearing this and using the sword:
+1 DELVER'S LEATHER ARMOR
This armor is good for a character in light armor, such as a warlock.
Armor: Any
Enhancement: AC
Power (Encounter): Free action. Gain a +2 power bonus to a saving throw.
+1 FROST SHORTSWORD
This is a good weapon for a fighter to wield.
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls with weapon.
Critical: +1d6 cold damage.
Power (Encounter): Free action. Activate when you hit with this weapon. The target takes +1d10 cold damage and is slowed until the end of your next turn (Cold)
This will be found on Varakaze:
+1 CLOAK OF RESISTANCE
Body Slot: Neck
Enhancement: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will defenses
Power (Daily): Minor Action. Gain resist all 5 until the start of your next turn.
I know it's a little magic heavy and I know that the items have level requirements but as a one off it will be fun for the players to pick up a few trinkets on the way.
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Delgar -- if you're interested, the Reloaded version of the module has a number of magic items placed, as well as potions for some of the monsters to use (I went with a straight +8 hp for a potion of healing for simplicity).
For some reason I can't download the reloaded version.
Anyway I did run it last night and it was a blast. I had 5 players and no dwarf fighter. The players pretty much pasted the kobolds and I only slightly wounded them the Meepo and the Hobgoblins. They killed Varkaze in one round.
Now the dragon that was a battle. I lowered the defenses by two on the dragon and I couldn't bring myself to use his darkness ability as written. As far as I'm concerned as written it just locks down too many classes and would pretty much ruin the fun of the encounter.
However, I surprised them as he popped out of the water and breathed on three of them, he then won initiative and I rolled a 5 on the breath recharge. I'm not sure at what point you roll that, so I breathed on them again. The warlock was hurting badly.
I think the combat lasted about 10 rounds or so I didn't count. The players were on the edge of their seat for the most of it. The cleric's first attack was a crit with his daily combined with his power of amunator for 45 points of love. 1 other player critted with a daily and 2 other players critted with an encounter power. Every round they would ask is he bloodied yet? followed by @#$$!
I had given them the magic items, in the end they had about 8 potions of healing, the ranger had run out of healing surges and couldn't shrug of the burning acid and was the first to die. The warlock and Cleric were next to go unconscious (the warlock was unconscious at least 2 times during this fight). Leaving only the paladin and the wizard left, the dragon couldn't afford any more radiant damage so the paladin had to die and I hit with my bite, but was thwarted by the halflings racial. The wizard hit the creature with magic missile and the dragon was down to 1 hitpoint. The acid that the halfing couldn't shrug off from ealier knocked him unconscious and the dragon went after the mage and the mage hit killing the dragon. The warlock rolled a 20 so I ruled he activated a healing surge and became conscious. The wizard tried to kill him and missed and then the warlock killed the wizard, and coup de gras the rest and took all the treasure for himself.
I liked the dragon combat it was really challenging. However, my players up against the fixed dragon, without healing potions and if you run the darkness ability correctly basically stand no chance. I had everyone down and I forgot to use my immediate tail slap ability several times, I forgot the bloodied breath weapon activation and I even accidentally missed it's turn once. After realizing I missed it's turn I just had it laugh at them, mock them and flex.
Ongoing damage is really deadly, especially if your dice are not friendly too you. I however made the mistake of stacking the breath weapons ongoing acid damage twice which doesn't work as I understand it now. All in all it was a blast, thanks for the mod Olgar.
Anyway I did run it last night and it was a blast. I had 5 players and no dwarf fighter. The players pretty much pasted the kobolds and I only slightly wounded them the Meepo and the Hobgoblins. They killed Varkaze in one round.
Now the dragon that was a battle. I lowered the defenses by two on the dragon and I couldn't bring myself to use his darkness ability as written. As far as I'm concerned as written it just locks down too many classes and would pretty much ruin the fun of the encounter.
However, I surprised them as he popped out of the water and breathed on three of them, he then won initiative and I rolled a 5 on the breath recharge. I'm not sure at what point you roll that, so I breathed on them again. The warlock was hurting badly.
I think the combat lasted about 10 rounds or so I didn't count. The players were on the edge of their seat for the most of it. The cleric's first attack was a crit with his daily combined with his power of amunator for 45 points of love. 1 other player critted with a daily and 2 other players critted with an encounter power. Every round they would ask is he bloodied yet? followed by @#$$!
I had given them the magic items, in the end they had about 8 potions of healing, the ranger had run out of healing surges and couldn't shrug of the burning acid and was the first to die. The warlock and Cleric were next to go unconscious (the warlock was unconscious at least 2 times during this fight). Leaving only the paladin and the wizard left, the dragon couldn't afford any more radiant damage so the paladin had to die and I hit with my bite, but was thwarted by the halflings racial. The wizard hit the creature with magic missile and the dragon was down to 1 hitpoint. The acid that the halfing couldn't shrug off from ealier knocked him unconscious and the dragon went after the mage and the mage hit killing the dragon. The warlock rolled a 20 so I ruled he activated a healing surge and became conscious. The wizard tried to kill him and missed and then the warlock killed the wizard, and coup de gras the rest and took all the treasure for himself.
I liked the dragon combat it was really challenging. However, my players up against the fixed dragon, without healing potions and if you run the darkness ability correctly basically stand no chance. I had everyone down and I forgot to use my immediate tail slap ability several times, I forgot the bloodied breath weapon activation and I even accidentally missed it's turn once. After realizing I missed it's turn I just had it laugh at them, mock them and flex.
Ongoing damage is really deadly, especially if your dice are not friendly too you. I however made the mistake of stacking the breath weapons ongoing acid damage twice which doesn't work as I understand it now. All in all it was a blast, thanks for the mod Olgar.
Flynn
First Post
Another Playtest Run...
Good Morning, All:
Yesterday I ran the 4E playtest adventure "Raiders of Oakhurst" for the local D&D Meetup group. Five players participated, covering all of the pregens save for the Halfling Paladin. We had a lot of fun, and the players enjoyed the game overall. More explicit feedback is given below.
As many of you have already read, ran or played through the adventure, I won't go into details on the overall plot. Essentially, the party came in to the first room, slaughtering the kobolds as well as Varkaze as they each came out. The non-minion did give them a little pause, but the players handled themselves with overall ease. As I had given a lengthy description of the rules and rule changes, the players spent a little time exploring their powers in this encounter. The tiefling, in particular, enjoyed her Curse power. (I fear that I probably ran that incorrectly, but as it read, you choose a target within 10 squares and they automatically take a d6 damage every round until dead. Seems to me that it should work more like Hunter's Quarry, in that it adds to the damage of successful attacks, but that should be clarified one way or the other when the rules come out in June.) It was during the fight, as well, that we noticed the ranger's trend of rolling low consistently. Like any other version of D&D, if you do not successfully hit your target, you can't do your damage, powers or otherwise. Still, they had fun, and they dropped the hobgoblin warcaster within one round (this includes the only shot from the ranger that hit anything that encounter.)
Following the river from which Varkaze came, they came around the bend to find the archers behind an overturned table and the soldier coming at them. I rolled a 20 on the soldier's initiative, and they were bottlenecked at the entrance to the chamber for a time. This caused a longer, drawn-out combat affair, with most attacks being focused on the soldier while the archers just picked away at people from a distance. The wizard used his Mage Hand power to set some of the chairs up and put them in the way of the archers as cover, which I thought was very creative. Once the soldiers finally fell, the party swarmed over the archers and dropped them within a round or two. This was also the first encounter in which we saw people taking enough damage to use Second Wind or the cleric's healing talents during the encounter itself, and about half the group used their Action Point to gain an additional action. It seems that this is where they came into their own in regards to starting to understand their powers.
Continuing up the river, of course, they ran into Nightscale, and as many have reported, the player-characters were hit hard here. It was a game of hide-and-seek in the beginning, and then the dwarf marked Nightscale, so she laid waste to the dwarf, breathing on the rest of the party occasionally as her breath weapon recharged. After the dwarf fell, the warlock was not far behind, followed by the cleric. At that point, the wizard took off back the way the party came, while the ranger fled down the passage towards the king's bedchambers. Nightscale followed the wizard, and dropped him in the stream halfway back to the site of the second encounter. Meanwhile, the ranger discovered Meepo hiding under hides, but was taken by surprise by the deathjump spider, which slew him with its "death from above" power.
Overall Impressions:
The players loved the adventure. The dragon at the end was a nasty surprise, and they didn't like the deadliness of it, but no one felt it was unfair or inappropriate. In fact, many of them got to try all of the powers in that encounter, as many of their encounters and dailies failed against the high defenses of the dragon. Dragons are truely nasty again.
They all felt that the adventure gave them a great taste of the new 4E rules, and I heard many positive comments about the system. Everyone felt that they all had something to do, save the ranger. Part of that was just his bad die rolls, and the other part was that he didn't use a good number of his powers, relying on Careful Attack for a majority of his actions. I don't know if that was a weakness of the ranger build or the player's frustrations with not hitting successfully. Despite that, he still had a good time.
Of particular note was the fact that they all enjoyed the lack of fragility in their 1st level characters. They enjoyed being able to act heroicly and be successful even at 1st Level, and yet the game still felt like D&D to them. I liked hearing that.
As the DM, I felt that I had a lot of fun and interesting powers to play with myself, and so I think it made the game fun to play for me as well. The only downfall was that having fun with monster powers in the dragon fight could promote a "GM vs PCs" perception, which may be a problem depending on the gamers involved. Beyond that, I really didn't find the gaming experience to be that different on my side of things. Most of the differences were with the players and their new extended options because of the healing surges and mix of powers.
Personal Conclusions:
As a first taste of 4E, I enjoyed the game immensely. The players had a good time, the monsters were fun to play, and it was a nice adventure that played out very well. It was quite entertaining. I am still not overly enthused about 4E (I've always been cautiously optimistic about it), but I think 4E will be a fun game to play, and I won't mind running it, I'm sure. It's a worthy successor, and I think the players will have a lot of fun with it. As I tend to fall into the DM role most often, I think it will be a reasonably easy transition to shift to 4E. It definitely captures some of the qualities I love about Savage Worlds, and that is a good thing. Easier prep time, fun and involved combats with interesting monsters, and a system that promotes teamplay and cinematic action (at least, as I like to run it) will make for good selling points in 4E's future. I think that Savage Worlds handles these points better, but I think that those who enjoy more gritty or detailed character powers and the like will probably be well served by 4E.
Thanks For An Enjoyable Afternoon,
Flynn
Good Morning, All:
Yesterday I ran the 4E playtest adventure "Raiders of Oakhurst" for the local D&D Meetup group. Five players participated, covering all of the pregens save for the Halfling Paladin. We had a lot of fun, and the players enjoyed the game overall. More explicit feedback is given below.
As many of you have already read, ran or played through the adventure, I won't go into details on the overall plot. Essentially, the party came in to the first room, slaughtering the kobolds as well as Varkaze as they each came out. The non-minion did give them a little pause, but the players handled themselves with overall ease. As I had given a lengthy description of the rules and rule changes, the players spent a little time exploring their powers in this encounter. The tiefling, in particular, enjoyed her Curse power. (I fear that I probably ran that incorrectly, but as it read, you choose a target within 10 squares and they automatically take a d6 damage every round until dead. Seems to me that it should work more like Hunter's Quarry, in that it adds to the damage of successful attacks, but that should be clarified one way or the other when the rules come out in June.) It was during the fight, as well, that we noticed the ranger's trend of rolling low consistently. Like any other version of D&D, if you do not successfully hit your target, you can't do your damage, powers or otherwise. Still, they had fun, and they dropped the hobgoblin warcaster within one round (this includes the only shot from the ranger that hit anything that encounter.)
Following the river from which Varkaze came, they came around the bend to find the archers behind an overturned table and the soldier coming at them. I rolled a 20 on the soldier's initiative, and they were bottlenecked at the entrance to the chamber for a time. This caused a longer, drawn-out combat affair, with most attacks being focused on the soldier while the archers just picked away at people from a distance. The wizard used his Mage Hand power to set some of the chairs up and put them in the way of the archers as cover, which I thought was very creative. Once the soldiers finally fell, the party swarmed over the archers and dropped them within a round or two. This was also the first encounter in which we saw people taking enough damage to use Second Wind or the cleric's healing talents during the encounter itself, and about half the group used their Action Point to gain an additional action. It seems that this is where they came into their own in regards to starting to understand their powers.
Continuing up the river, of course, they ran into Nightscale, and as many have reported, the player-characters were hit hard here. It was a game of hide-and-seek in the beginning, and then the dwarf marked Nightscale, so she laid waste to the dwarf, breathing on the rest of the party occasionally as her breath weapon recharged. After the dwarf fell, the warlock was not far behind, followed by the cleric. At that point, the wizard took off back the way the party came, while the ranger fled down the passage towards the king's bedchambers. Nightscale followed the wizard, and dropped him in the stream halfway back to the site of the second encounter. Meanwhile, the ranger discovered Meepo hiding under hides, but was taken by surprise by the deathjump spider, which slew him with its "death from above" power.
Overall Impressions:
The players loved the adventure. The dragon at the end was a nasty surprise, and they didn't like the deadliness of it, but no one felt it was unfair or inappropriate. In fact, many of them got to try all of the powers in that encounter, as many of their encounters and dailies failed against the high defenses of the dragon. Dragons are truely nasty again.
They all felt that the adventure gave them a great taste of the new 4E rules, and I heard many positive comments about the system. Everyone felt that they all had something to do, save the ranger. Part of that was just his bad die rolls, and the other part was that he didn't use a good number of his powers, relying on Careful Attack for a majority of his actions. I don't know if that was a weakness of the ranger build or the player's frustrations with not hitting successfully. Despite that, he still had a good time.
Of particular note was the fact that they all enjoyed the lack of fragility in their 1st level characters. They enjoyed being able to act heroicly and be successful even at 1st Level, and yet the game still felt like D&D to them. I liked hearing that.
As the DM, I felt that I had a lot of fun and interesting powers to play with myself, and so I think it made the game fun to play for me as well. The only downfall was that having fun with monster powers in the dragon fight could promote a "GM vs PCs" perception, which may be a problem depending on the gamers involved. Beyond that, I really didn't find the gaming experience to be that different on my side of things. Most of the differences were with the players and their new extended options because of the healing surges and mix of powers.
Personal Conclusions:
As a first taste of 4E, I enjoyed the game immensely. The players had a good time, the monsters were fun to play, and it was a nice adventure that played out very well. It was quite entertaining. I am still not overly enthused about 4E (I've always been cautiously optimistic about it), but I think 4E will be a fun game to play, and I won't mind running it, I'm sure. It's a worthy successor, and I think the players will have a lot of fun with it. As I tend to fall into the DM role most often, I think it will be a reasonably easy transition to shift to 4E. It definitely captures some of the qualities I love about Savage Worlds, and that is a good thing. Easier prep time, fun and involved combats with interesting monsters, and a system that promotes teamplay and cinematic action (at least, as I like to run it) will make for good selling points in 4E's future. I think that Savage Worlds handles these points better, but I think that those who enjoy more gritty or detailed character powers and the like will probably be well served by 4E.
Thanks For An Enjoyable Afternoon,
Flynn
HandofMystra
First Post
That was my situation last night. I did Raiders for my 12 year old, homeschooled son. Two teen agers who played in the same weekly LARP. MY 55 year old friend and an early 30's friend. We had a great time. The ranger could never hit. The wizard loved being able to contribute on every round. I liked how relatively easy it was to run the dragon and the minions.Xorn said:
All the kobold minions died before the skirmishers could order them to "tell the king", so Meepo was never alerted. The warcaster came down and got in trouble so I had him call his support people. IF the hobbos are controlling the kobolds how come none of them have a common language? This was awkward. The party went up to the hobbos cave and then onto the dragon (without recovering their daily powers).
I was wondering what sustain minor means in the darkness power. Does it mean take a minor action to sustain darkness.
Does the warlocks cures stack with marks? I know that marks do not stack.
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