TirionAnthion
First Post
I ran my first playtest of D&D Next over the weekend. I had four players in my group of various levels of experience. Everyone at the table had played a prior edition, primarily 3.5 and fourth but some had played 1st and 2nd. Each player had read and reviewed the playtest materials prior to play and were prepared for the game. I have DM'ed since 1983 and have run games in every edition. Recently I run Encounters every Wednesday, as well as a monthly 1e game and a monthly 2e game. I also play in a monthly Basic game.
I played 8 sessions of the Caves of Chaos playtest in January so I had some familiarity with the new rules. That being said, I noticed quite a few changes. Most of them seemed to address things that I found to be problematic in the playtest so I was excited to see them fixed.
For the adventure, I was using the intro adventure from the Menzter Red Box. I was modding some of the monsters on the fly, but mostly I just reskinned monsters from the bestiary. I kept the number of monsters and treasure the same as the original module. I have run this adventure many times and I feel very comfortable with knowing how this adventure should play out.
The players had a few questions about the characters. We had the fighter, the rogue, the wizard and the melee cleric. The spellcasters had some questions about how spell slots worked. The cleric was unclear about how to choose his spells, which then caused the wizard to question how his spells were memorized. The rogue was worried about the amount of content that relied on Wisdom which seemed like his dump stat. The fighter seemed content with this scores.
The combat in the game was run entirely in the theater of the mind. I used the battle grid to map out the keep as they explored it but we did not use that map for combat. It did help the players to visualize positioning but it was not necessary.
For the first encounter, the characters explored the rotted remains of the keep's outer doors. They were attacked by a carrion crawler that lashed out at the party. I rolled poorly for initiative so the entire party struck first. They focused fire on the creature and it went down in one round. I noticed that the descriptions of the PCs actions were much more vivid than they are during Encounters. The lack of a grid seemed to bring out more narrative from the players than normal.
After looting the carrion crawler lair, the PCs advanced on the keep. Someone had closed the inner doors of the keep, and the fighter wasted no time breaking down the doors. The player rolled a nat 19 which easily bashed open the doors, surprising the 10 kobolds on the other side. Once again the party dashed forward and laid into the kobolds. The fighter and the wizard were autokilling a kobold every turn, while the rogue skirted the combat to get closer to the doors. The cleric also advanced up, shield bashing kobolds as he went. I failed to injure the PCs at all in this encounter, and several of the kobolds fled.
Once inside, the PCs began exploring the keep. The rogue was frustrated that he had no dark vision and was not terribly good at searching for things. I pointed out that he could not roll less than 10 on an attempt to locate traps and this made him feel much better. We also realized that hiding requires an action, so the rogue should be slightly less effective than he had been.
The party next encountered a group of zombies. The cleric turned one and the wizard set the others on fire. The rogue sniped from cover while the fighter engaged the zombies directly. The party did take some hits in this fight, but nothing that required healing.
As the party moved deeper into the keep, they split up to search. They felt confident of their ability to overcome challenges. The cleric ran into a group of kobolds but he was able to fend them off until the party arrived, with only minimal damage. The rest of the party easily drove off the remaining kobolds.
The party pressed on into a dining room which contained a chimney full of stirges. The PCs were initially worried about the stirges but the cleric used a sleep spell while the fighter and rogue batted clean up. The wizard blundered into the yellow mold and was stuck coughing and hacking for the rest of the session. The stirges took some hp off the wizard and the fighter, with the wizard requiring some healing.
The party also triggered a trap as the rogue had forgotten to seach the room. The trap did very little damage and the group pressed on. The final room contained a bed that magically compelled anyone who cam near it to climb in and fall asleep. The rogue succumbed to the effect and fell asleep on the bed. The characters were still trying to determine how to wake him when the session ended for time reasons.
All in all, the players had a good time. The adventure is designed as an intro experience and is not very taxing. That said, the PCs seemed to have a fairly easy time of things. They were never in much danger and only had to scratch the surface of the healing available to them. The wizard also only burned one spell slot.
All the players enjoyed the feel of the game, although the rogue did not like the hiding mechanic and felt that it minimized his utility. The fighter had a good time and felt very powerful in combat. The wizard seemed to always be doing something while the cleric played a very defensive game, focusing on defending his allies and trying to intimidate the monsters.
We will definately be doing some more playtesting and everyone is excited to see what is going to happen.
I played 8 sessions of the Caves of Chaos playtest in January so I had some familiarity with the new rules. That being said, I noticed quite a few changes. Most of them seemed to address things that I found to be problematic in the playtest so I was excited to see them fixed.
For the adventure, I was using the intro adventure from the Menzter Red Box. I was modding some of the monsters on the fly, but mostly I just reskinned monsters from the bestiary. I kept the number of monsters and treasure the same as the original module. I have run this adventure many times and I feel very comfortable with knowing how this adventure should play out.
The players had a few questions about the characters. We had the fighter, the rogue, the wizard and the melee cleric. The spellcasters had some questions about how spell slots worked. The cleric was unclear about how to choose his spells, which then caused the wizard to question how his spells were memorized. The rogue was worried about the amount of content that relied on Wisdom which seemed like his dump stat. The fighter seemed content with this scores.
The combat in the game was run entirely in the theater of the mind. I used the battle grid to map out the keep as they explored it but we did not use that map for combat. It did help the players to visualize positioning but it was not necessary.
For the first encounter, the characters explored the rotted remains of the keep's outer doors. They were attacked by a carrion crawler that lashed out at the party. I rolled poorly for initiative so the entire party struck first. They focused fire on the creature and it went down in one round. I noticed that the descriptions of the PCs actions were much more vivid than they are during Encounters. The lack of a grid seemed to bring out more narrative from the players than normal.
After looting the carrion crawler lair, the PCs advanced on the keep. Someone had closed the inner doors of the keep, and the fighter wasted no time breaking down the doors. The player rolled a nat 19 which easily bashed open the doors, surprising the 10 kobolds on the other side. Once again the party dashed forward and laid into the kobolds. The fighter and the wizard were autokilling a kobold every turn, while the rogue skirted the combat to get closer to the doors. The cleric also advanced up, shield bashing kobolds as he went. I failed to injure the PCs at all in this encounter, and several of the kobolds fled.
Once inside, the PCs began exploring the keep. The rogue was frustrated that he had no dark vision and was not terribly good at searching for things. I pointed out that he could not roll less than 10 on an attempt to locate traps and this made him feel much better. We also realized that hiding requires an action, so the rogue should be slightly less effective than he had been.
The party next encountered a group of zombies. The cleric turned one and the wizard set the others on fire. The rogue sniped from cover while the fighter engaged the zombies directly. The party did take some hits in this fight, but nothing that required healing.
As the party moved deeper into the keep, they split up to search. They felt confident of their ability to overcome challenges. The cleric ran into a group of kobolds but he was able to fend them off until the party arrived, with only minimal damage. The rest of the party easily drove off the remaining kobolds.
The party pressed on into a dining room which contained a chimney full of stirges. The PCs were initially worried about the stirges but the cleric used a sleep spell while the fighter and rogue batted clean up. The wizard blundered into the yellow mold and was stuck coughing and hacking for the rest of the session. The stirges took some hp off the wizard and the fighter, with the wizard requiring some healing.
The party also triggered a trap as the rogue had forgotten to seach the room. The trap did very little damage and the group pressed on. The final room contained a bed that magically compelled anyone who cam near it to climb in and fall asleep. The rogue succumbed to the effect and fell asleep on the bed. The characters were still trying to determine how to wake him when the session ended for time reasons.
All in all, the players had a good time. The adventure is designed as an intro experience and is not very taxing. That said, the PCs seemed to have a fairly easy time of things. They were never in much danger and only had to scratch the surface of the healing available to them. The wizard also only burned one spell slot.
All the players enjoyed the feel of the game, although the rogue did not like the hiding mechanic and felt that it minimized his utility. The fighter had a good time and felt very powerful in combat. The wizard seemed to always be doing something while the cleric played a very defensive game, focusing on defending his allies and trying to intimidate the monsters.
We will definately be doing some more playtesting and everyone is excited to see what is going to happen.
