D&D 4E Is 4E Too Easy Anymore? (Game Day Spoiler Alert)

[KarinsDad]

That module may have been too easy. 4e itself hasn't gotten too easy. In fact, with updated monster damage values, 4e has gotten harder. A lot harder.

I thought that when the monster damage was updated too, but anecdotal evidence on how optimized Essentials PCs are for damage seems to show otherwise. Course, in our normal game, the may be due to the fact that we have several PCs that can hand out temporary hit points, so the increased monster damage is diluted somewhat for our normal table game.

I have to ask, how effective were those two Controllers? Which Daily was used, and how? A Controller has the ability to, with the right power in the right situation, completely devastate an entire Encounter. I always say: "A Defender's job is to take hits. A Striker's job is to do damage. A Leader's job is to heal and buff. And a Controller's job is to make the DM curse in rage."

Well, we only had one controller in the first encounter. He didn't especially shine in that fight, but he pulled his weight. In the second encounter, the Wizard and Hounds won initiative over the PCs and the Zombies lost initiative to the PCs. So, the Wizard hit 4 of the 5 PCs and immobilizied them and a few PCs went bloodied in round one before they even got to act. But, since the Hounds had melee attacks, immobilizing PCs did very little since the Hounds had to move in to attack. With such a strong first round for the NPCs, the Bard hit the Wizard with Stirring Shout (Daily), and then the one Controller teleported out of the area, hit the Wizard and then used an Action Point to do Burning Hands on the Wizard and the Hounds. The Wizard was a little close, but most of his At Will powers were range 3 or less, so I had him move in behind the Hounds. A potential mistake in hindsight, but he was not close enough for a Close Burst 1, but he was close enough for a Close Blast 5. The second Controller just did Close Burst 1 attacks on the Hounds in round one and the Zombies in round 2. The PCs formed a line in round 2 that allowed two PCs to burst / blast all 3 Zombies (Zombies are stupid, so I just had them rush the nearest PC and not try to specifically avoid bursts/blasts).

The Daily power used was Stirring Shout which gave each PC who hit the Wizard healing of 4. So, it wasn't a particularly strong offensive Daily used, it just helped the Bard keep the party alive for a round. In fact, the Wizard went down so quickly at the start of round two that we joked about how the Thief should have let him live a few more rounds so that the PCs could heal up.

And if things are too easy, always feel free to toss in an extra monster or two, even in mid-combat, if it is at all feasible to do so. Players like a challenge; if things aren't challenging, few will complain if you make things more "fun", in a Dwarf Fortress sense of the word.

When 4 NPCs (including the BBEG) are dead and 2 NPCs are bloodied at the end of round 2, it's kind of pointless to "just throw more foes" at the PCs. It's also something that I rarely do unless there is a good in game justification for it. I allow players to have their successes, even the fast (i.e. few number of rounds) ones. In this case, three of the PCs went bloodied (one down to 2 hit points, one down to 4 hit points), so they were challenged and the dice gods could have knocked two of them unconscious. It was more the number of rounds in which the PCs cleaned clock and how much average damage they did that caught my attention. These encounters were not easy in the sense that the PCs hardly got touched (they got hit fairly hard, especially in the second encounter), it's that they wiped out 2 tough, 2 moderate, and 6 easy foes in 4 rounds in one encounter and 1 tough and 5 moderate foes in 2+ rounds in the second encounter. The speed at which they wiped out the foes is what surprised me.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is totally unrelated to anything, but how the heck did you get a Bard in your party?

We don't restrict PCs to Essentials PCs at the gaming store that I go to. One of the players has a Dragonborn Bard that she once in a blue moon plays in the Encounters sessions, so she brought the first level equivalent of the Bard to the game. She hardly ever gets to play this PC, so she wanted to use her and the rest of us didn't care. The other four PCs were a Human Wizard/Mage (not sure which), a Human Cavalier, a Half-Orc Thief, and an Eladrin Bladesinger.

 

[pauljathome]

I ran the Game Day adventure on Saturday. I had a table of 7 players. The party composition was as follows:

Ultimately, everyone seemed to enjoy the experience and no one felt that the fight was easy by any means. I also modified the final skill challenge and having two unconscious players for that really escalated the threat.

What I'm reading from this is:

Yes, the modules are too easy. But a good, experienced GM knows how to
rewrite things in order to fix the problem.

That is in absolutely no way a slam at you. It sounds like you made it a fun experience and you are to be complimented for doing so.

But it also very much sounds as if you had to cheat (ignoring action sequences, for example) in order to do so

So, to answer the original question, Yes the modules, as written, are too easy.

 

[Scribble]

I'm guessing, like others have said, they tend to write these a little on the easier side assuming that:

1. A lot of newbies will be showing up and they don't want to scare them off.

2. Anyone running encounters is probably a somewhat experienced DM that can edit as needed.

They've even said they see encounters as their entry level program.

 

[TirionAnthion]

That is in absolutely no way a slam at you. It sounds like you made it a fun experience and you are to be complimented for doing so.

But it also very much sounds as if you had to cheat (ignoring action sequences, for example) in order to do so

So, to answer the original question, Yes the modules, as written, are too easy.

Thanks for the reply and I do not take offense at your statement. Ultimately, you make a fair point about the ease of the module as written.

In regards to the idea of cheating in the above statement, I would like to say that to me I don't see it as cheating. My job as the DM is to provide an entertaining experience for my players. I routinely allow monsters in my home games to break the action allowances to do flavorful story actions. I think of them like cutscenes in a video game.

My players know that in the social contract at the table I, as the DM, may sometimes act outside the rules but that I will do so in the interest of providing an enjoyable experience to the group, not to screw them over or cheat them in any way.

So, I guess what I am saying is that, yeah, I like to cheat.

 

[Lancelot]

I'm glad to hear that the modules were perceived as "too easy" by experienced players. That sounds exactly like it should be for a Game Day.

I attended a 3e game day some years back where we had a mix of experienced (3 players) and inexperienced (2 players), and we were utterly decimated by the WotC module. The DM was pulling no punches whatsoever, and the newbie players were just trying to learn the ropes.

Now, the experienced players were offering suggestions - but there's a subtle line between offering advice, and simply running a person's character for them. And without making exact tactical choices, they never stood a chance.

The thing I remember clearest from the session, though, wasn't that the DM was a [not nice person], or that the module was [seemingly quite] hard. It was the look on the faces of the young newbie players, which was basically: "wow, there are so many rules I have to learn just to stay alive, and only these 30+ year-old guys know them". It was depressing, in the context of the future of our hobby.

As for 4e getting easier in general, no way. PCs may have got more predictable with Essentials, but they haven't really seen a dramatic increase in power. The monsters, on the other hand, are vastly more lethal.