Manbearcat
Legend
Just watched this again. Two things 4e (at inception) got wrong reared their ugly head in this session:
1) Overabundance of stun effects (Original 4e Dracolich) utterly shutting down player or monster actions. That ghoul fight should have been a TPK. 3/4 of the party was stunned and multiple people were stunned progressively. Loose use of Stunned (save ends) or Stunned (use your action to attempt a save) and sit on your hands and hope you don't fail your save or sit on your hands some more is terrible. Mearls pulled punches to avoid a TPK; dragging off the PC's to eat them is a total waste of the Ghoul's action economy and I'm fairly sure that they're supposed to dogpile a paralyzed PC in the module. That would have been a TPK after a combat bogged with multiple people doing nothing...not such a great marketing expose of their shiny, new product. Abundant (at-will especially) SoS at low levels (PC-side or NPC-side) is not so good.
2) "You enter town. Make a Charisma check" for the information dump/plot reveal eg RAW Streetwise "rumor-fetching" in 4e. If the PCs need to know something tell them...don't create the illusion that they're involved with legitimate resolution by the ole "roll a Charisma check" shtick. If you want the PCs to interact, let them ask questions about the setting and interact. If the PCs want to create content and drive the game forward ("The barkeep of Fist Full of Ale owes me a favor, lets go there") and actively seek out an information dump as part of a Transition Scene, let them do that and then play out the conflict resolution. Information dump via Charisma check as stand-in for social interaction/rumor-fetching doesn't instill a lot of confidence that the Social Pillar has robust conflict resolution mechanics.
1) Overabundance of stun effects (Original 4e Dracolich) utterly shutting down player or monster actions. That ghoul fight should have been a TPK. 3/4 of the party was stunned and multiple people were stunned progressively. Loose use of Stunned (save ends) or Stunned (use your action to attempt a save) and sit on your hands and hope you don't fail your save or sit on your hands some more is terrible. Mearls pulled punches to avoid a TPK; dragging off the PC's to eat them is a total waste of the Ghoul's action economy and I'm fairly sure that they're supposed to dogpile a paralyzed PC in the module. That would have been a TPK after a combat bogged with multiple people doing nothing...not such a great marketing expose of their shiny, new product. Abundant (at-will especially) SoS at low levels (PC-side or NPC-side) is not so good.
2) "You enter town. Make a Charisma check" for the information dump/plot reveal eg RAW Streetwise "rumor-fetching" in 4e. If the PCs need to know something tell them...don't create the illusion that they're involved with legitimate resolution by the ole "roll a Charisma check" shtick. If you want the PCs to interact, let them ask questions about the setting and interact. If the PCs want to create content and drive the game forward ("The barkeep of Fist Full of Ale owes me a favor, lets go there") and actively seek out an information dump as part of a Transition Scene, let them do that and then play out the conflict resolution. Information dump via Charisma check as stand-in for social interaction/rumor-fetching doesn't instill a lot of confidence that the Social Pillar has robust conflict resolution mechanics.