Ran this for a full group of six this morning, wanted to share my report! I included a screenshot of each encounter, taken with Fantasy Grounds II, just to get an idea of the layout of things.
We started off with the Fighter, Paladin, Cleric, Wizard, and Ranger (in that marching order) delving into the mines to end the misery of the townsfolk. I was actually finding it funny that when I say, "We're gonna go role-play lite and focus on test driving the rules." they seem to role-play even more.
They reach room 2 and they each kind of pick their own thing to do, but the fighter plops down at the east entrance and says they are watching down the tunnel for anything heading towards them.
Kobolds!
So no surprise round. They lock horns in the hallway, and between the fighter and paladin, I couldn't get a minion in the edgewise. The kobolds got obliterated by the party, though using some creative shifting I was able to get several attacks launched on them. Unfortunately, it got the fighter and paladin starting to think about 4E combat in a different light, getting away from the stand and fight idea, to control who they can attack tactics.
After a quick rest the party moves down to the mess hall, and after a little listening, the dwarf decides to just kick in the door and ask questions later. Around this time the player using the warlock showed up as well, joining right at the start of the fight. The fighter and paladin proceeded to wreck whatever plans I had for maneuvering from the start. The fighter waded in and locked down their area, making 8 squares that were like fly paper around her! Then the paladin trudged in behind her and locked down what I call the "mid-field"; anything that could actually get around the fighter was just facing another meatshield.
More Kobolds!
The ranger, wizard, and warlock starting delivering punishment, and while the defenders soaked up a hit or two, it was nothing that wasn't healed at the end of the fight easily. The flour bombs were a great surprise for them, although the damned wizard was actually astute enough to ask if the flour cloud would be flammable. With 20 intelligence and a player having the forethought to ask, I told him and he decided to be a little more careful with scorching burst. Speaking of scorching burst--well... back to that later.
So they take these kobolds apart, too. Some injuries suffered, but primarily it was the defenders doing a bang up job of making the front line solid.
After ransacking the mess hall for themselves (the dwarf was delighted to get the honey), they noticed the stink in the air was getting stronger as they went deeper. As no one bothered to ask me about anything peculiar during the 500 foot journey, I didn't do any active perception checks, and no one noticed the boulder. Getting to the very bottom, they weren't particularly quiet, but they were cautious enough at the entrance to avoid a surprise round.
This fight could have gone a lot better than it did, for the kobolds. A serious of bad rolls left the fighter and paladin charging steadily up the ramp, gluepots and firepots just not hitting effectively. The ranger, warlock, and wizard again set up shop and started delivering punishment, while the cleric got in good position to support them while dropping those lances up to the cheap seats.
Mysterious Cavern!
Then that boulder rolled over the wizard! LOL. It really, really tore him up, but he lived, and the ranger dove clear in time. I think we all laughed harder about the critical boulder hit than anything else in the adventure--it was just awesome. After that, it just got worse and worse for the kobolds. The few hits they were scoring were easily healed by the cleric, and pretty soon the wizard starting reigning down firey death--then finished off the wyrmpriest with a critical magic missile!
Incidentally, when they got to the sick kobolds, the dwarf wanted to put them out of their misery, the cleric wanted to cleanse their dark souls from the world, the paladin said the plaguebearers must be burned, and the wizard was just pissed off about the boulder. So they left a flaming room behind them, with some dog-lizard shrieks fading away.
The sacrificial pit was probably the scariest room, primarily because those skeletons are
mean. The defenders ran up to do their work as usual, but this time the skeletons
hit. They hit
hard, too. The fighter went to negative in the first round! A quick Lay on Hands kept her in the fight, and the cleric managed to drop a perfect heal (18 points) to keep the fight going, but that first exchange was brutal.
Sacrificial Pit
One really cool moment was when the wizard asked to use mage hand to hoist up one of the rib cages in the pit in the middle of the undead and blast it with acid arrow! I couldn't deny such a cool idea, and after making a hit roll to blast a helpless target, he showered them all with acid, which did a significant amount of damage!
But after seriously underestimating the undead's ability to opportunity attack, the party was really left licking their wounds. Turn Undead was a pretty impressive blast, and most of the damage to the skeletons came from the paladin and cleric. Finally putting them down, the party rested only briefly before continuing down the hall, the wizard's arcane sense feeling a perversion of the natural world ahead.
Finally, the last encounter--the entire adventure took 5.5 hours from first fart to last flush, and that was with 2 people brand new to the rules, and it was actually kind of a landslide for the party. The defenders again locked up and engaged the soldiers, and while neither side was scoring a huge amount of damage on the other, the line wouldn't budge. Then the wizard--that damned wizard--dropped a double scorching burst on them via an action point, and really weakened them all, badly.
Final Battle!
There was a scare when the archer
nailed the wizard with a crit, followed by the warcaster stepping into position to Force Pulse the entire group (save the warlock) and send them flying! The fighter managed to hold her ground, but everyone else went down, and the wizard was
down down. The party answered with a round of action points, that ended with a downed soldier, another badly wounded and "Tided" back far enough for a Brutal Strike to END the warcaster with one shot! (Well, the double scorching burst tore him up, too!) The last moments included the warlocks dark dream missing, but shifting the soldier away from the fighter, ending him with the combat superiority attack, and the ranger justly finishing the archer with an arrow to the face. He had the first kill, and the last.
The wizard got one strike on his turn, but the cleric brought him around before the ranger's shot and then the warlock played Final Fantasy victory music over Ventrilo! (I take it back, that was the funniest moment.)
Player Comments
Everyone had outstanding fun, positive comments all around. The new folks really liked how smooth everything played, and how the mechanics carry simple elegance but allow for complex strategy.
Everyone said it FELT like D&D, or at least like they thought D&D should feel, even if they didn't realize it till just then. Underlined for emphasis on a point that even applies to me, in retrospect. I was excited about 4E, but after tasting it, I'm reluctant to run 3.5, because it doesn't... feel like it did, I guess. I
was happy with 3.5, at least as happy as I felt was reasonably due. Now I find I'd rather play another 4E playtest with characters that can't level. My players want to see more, but want to LEVEL for once. Me, I'm just having so much fun RUNNING everything, that I've lost sight of my 3.5 campaign. I'm just going to end the world in a giant fireball.
DM Comments
4E rocks, I think my opinion on that is clear. I know it will be even better than it feels now--because the design direction things are going just feels right to me. In regards to the adventure, it felt a little too easy, though I don't know if that's because my player's really put forth great tactics, or the encounters weren't big enough. I felt like the terrain for encounter 1 crippled the minions, and in the second area it felt like there should have been more kobolds--as they went down in droves. The cavern needed some heavy hitters (dragonshields, maybe--at least skirmishers) on the ramp to prevent the party from doing exactly what they did, marching up and stomping those poor slingers.
The wyrmpriest was too little, too late, really.
The skeletons felt perfect, and scary as hell when they nailed that fighter right off the bat.
The hobgoblins were good--I think the party's high rolls and action points (5th encounter is obviously going to have a lot of AP ready) turned the fight around. After the warcaster nailed them all with Force Pulse and dropped the wizard, every single character used an action point on their turn--it just obliterated the hobbos. I'd be nervous to rebalance the encounter off this experience, but I think a second archer wouldn't be over the top.
GREAT adventure though--the list of people asking me to run fan playtests is getting longer and longer.
