So my group finally ran this today We intended to run about an hour or one encounter befor transitioning to our regular 3.5 campaign, but went two hours as the 1 encounter became ... extended. Everyone had lots of fun. I'll provide an overview of what happened first, then provide observations.
The Adventure
When everyone arrived, we divvied up characters ... ending up with all seven in play (six D&D XP characters plus the EN World elf rogue). This made the party a bit more resilient than the adventure anticipated; I corrected by adding some additional kobold minions but didn't go quite far enough (more below).
They started by coming down the steps single file and hailing the kobolds around the fire, which resulted in the alarm being raised immediately. The fighter, paladin, and warlock charged into the room, and minions began dropping to wizard, cleric, and warlock at-will powers. The fighter and paladin, both played by the same player, rolled extremely poorly and were sorely pressed by Ichi-Ichi and three minions. Kobold reinforcements arrived, and engaged the first group, plus the rogue and ranger who had moved farther into the room. There were all challenged by the skirmishers ... and despite my use of goblin minis for the non-minions, and descriptions of them as "tougher" kobolds, they didn't concentrate fires, and switched back and forth between attacking minions and tougher foes. The ranger (fighting with his longsword) and rogue were soon bloodied, and it took the cleric a while to decide to assist with some healing as he was having too much fun blasting opponents.
The kobolds tried to send a runner to Meepo, but he was dropped to an opportunity attack, so finally Otto-wombo went for help, just as (a round late, on round 4) Varkaze entered, firing off a Force Pulse. I rolled badly for Varkaze the entire time, and not a single one of his spells hit, so as he retreated the PCs began to concentrate on him.
I gave the players an option at that point, as the remaining two enemies (Varkaze and Otto-wombo) were retreating: continue to pursue and stay in combat rounds, or break the encounter and let the enemy withdraw. They chose to pursue (much to the chagrin of the ranger player, who wanted to use some healing surges) -- throwing light spells and sun rods ahead of them for light as they separately pursued the retreating monsters in separate directions, splitting the party.
The rogue pursued Otto-wombo to Meepo's room, caught the spider with a Perception check, and decided discretion was the better part of valor and turned tail to rejoin the rest of the party.
The rest of the party pursued Varkaze, who beat a fighting retreat, pausing to fire blasts behind him, all of which missed, while he was steadily being worn down in hit points by the wizard, cleric, and warlock. He managed to make it back to his allies, who pincushioned the pursuing fighter, before the cleric finally dropped him. Then the party ganged up on the hobgoblin soldier, eventually bringing him down, and then were finally able to mop-up the two archers (with the fighter/paladin player finally having fun by killing the last two).
Total: ten rounds of combat, all the opponents from rooms 1 and 3 defeated except Otto-wombo, room 2 sighted but not engaged, 3 action points spent, two daily powers used, 3 second winds/lay on hands spent, and 4 characters bloodied (the rogue twice, though no character reduced to unconscious).
We stopped at that point to swith to our main campaign, so they didn't go on to face Nightscale.
Observations
Pro
1. Everyone had tremendous fun.
2. 1st level characters are tough -- they charged in with abandon. They admitted afterward that had these not been playtest characters, they would have been more cautious. The warlock player played his low Wis to the hilt -- it was he who pursued the warcaster despite the others wanting to stop.
3. They enjoyed the mottoes on the character sheets -- after each spell cast, the wizard would say "You know, this isn't as easy as it looks."
4. They definitely had lots of options to choose from, which made it fun for everyone -- no character lacked for an interesting option.
5. It felt like combat moved faster than it actually did; those rounds flew by even with a lot of questions about how certain powers or rules worked.
6. The movement-based powers were a lot of fun; the warlock and ranger were shifting, fey-stepping, teleporting, etc all over the place.
7. Monsters have some cool features, and the encounters are easy to plan using the XP-based system.
8. Minions = teh fun. Easy to run for the DM, fun to kill for PCs.
9. Rolling lots of dice & lots of damage = happy players.
10. Action points -- made for combining cool combos when a character had at-will or encounter powers across multiple action types.
Neutral
1. Several players remarked: "This feels so much like World of Warcraft" -- which was a positive for some, a negative for others.
2. 1-1-1 movement definitely speeded movement up, but was seen as a bit of an exploit as diagonal movement quickly became preferred.
3. The cleric and warlock were viewed as being more powerful than the other characters ... which might have had a bit more to do with die-rolling success. The cleric and warlock player really enjoyed their PCs, as did the ranger player.
4. As a DM, it was easy to put the encounters together, but harder to synergize the performance of the monsters (though I chalk this up to my own unfamiliarity with the monster abilities).
5. Fun was still proportional to die roll luck -- the fighter/paladin character had a bit less fun as he never landed any of his cool powers.
6. Crits. They enjoyed not rolling to confirm, but missed rolling extra dice (the preference seemed to be for the double-damage potential even if that risked rolling two 1's). What's a crit for a minion who does 2 damage? 2 damage.
Con
1. At least two players asked "This is supposed to be easier/simpler/faster?" It certainly didn't feel that way to them. These players were relatively new to 3E, too, so there was some adjustment there, and didn't have a lot of time studying their sheets -- the ranger missed out on some of his best powers as it took a while before he figured out how to use his powers with his bow. Familiarity should improve that ... but the number options were a bit intimidating for the newer players.
2. I can see DM load on multiple effects becoming tedious. We didn't have too many in play as the warcaster never managed to land anything, but if he had it would have increased my workload a bit.
3. 1st level PCs seem a bit too hardy ... it was remarked that they enjoyed the additional caution required at low levels, where an orc was quite threatening ... it didn't feel the same with 20+ hit points plus action points & healing surges.
4. Need some rules clarifications ... one of the risks of playtest without full rules (see below).
5. You do need a way to track marks & ongoing effects ... it's harder to wing combat with each PC seemingly tied to a particular opponent by different mechanics. "Marks" and similar powers are the major challenges here, at least from this playtest.
6. Multiple defenses mean you have to change how the players and the DM announce attacks. You can't just say "I hit an 18". I kept having to ask "Is that an 18 against AC, Fort, reflex, etc?" -- usually because it was the wizard, cleric, or warlock attacking. I think a good SOP would be to announce the attack type then result; for example: "Hit AC 18" or "hit Fort 15". This adds a bit of complexity to attacks, where before an attack was always against an AC and the other defenses came up as saves.
Rules Clarifications
As can be expected, we came across some unknown or wonky things as a result of not having full rules, and could have used clarification:
1. How do Run and Charge interact with difficult terrain? I went against 3.5 rules on a whim, and allowed running/charging over difficult terrain, but in hindsight that was a bad idea as it minimized the impact of the terrain (even though it still cost double the move cost).
2. How does concealment work? The warlock had several powers that had concealment, which we weren't completely sure how to adjudicate (I ended up ruling that his move power gave Concealment 5, so a roll of 6 or better allowed an attack to proceed, while Invisibility granted Concealment 11).
3. Which powers are spell-like and draw opportunity attacks when used in a threatened area? We made reasonable judgments, but I didn't see how to determine that clearly from the power descriptions.
4. If you do use a spell-like at-will ability when threatened, and draw the OA, what happens? There isn't a Concentration skill ... is it rolled up into something else?
5. Are there any limits on single round combos? I don't think so ... we had the cleric blast off multiple powers by combining powers based on minor, move, and standard actions, with an Action Point, in one round ... but I think that's probably how the game is designed.
The Adventure
1. The first encounter is probably fine for 5-6 PCs; I should have added a slinger or skirmisher for 7 PCs, in addition to the two extra minions.
2. The hobgoblins in room 3 would be more interesting with 2 soldiers and 1 archer rather that 1 soldier and 2 archers ... so the soldiers could use their phalanx fighting ability. Otherwise, the balance is right for 5-6 PCs to provide a bit more challenging fight (and it becomes even more so if they split the party, then charge into it without stopping to recover per-encounter powers!). It probably would have been more deadly had the warcaster not rolled so poorly, nor the cleric so well.
3. Sadly, didn't get to run Nightscale this time ... maybe next time we meet.
We did leave, after a fun session of our regular campaign, wanting to try out some more 4E, so I'd consider that a successful experiment.