Xorn
First Post
So I ran The Second Son for a new group of people wanting a taste of 4th Edition (at least what we know of it) and I'm posting our play report here. First I want to thank the EnWorld community for putting together everything we have here, especially the PrRC and Michael Shea for the adventure, which was excellent! Links to everything is stickied at the top of the forum. I ran the game over Fantasy Grounds II (virtual tabletop) and included some screenshots, though I did forget to snap one during the skeleton fight, because it was just so much fun!
The Dungeon Master:
I started playing D&D in 1983, when I came down with the chicken pox in the 4th grade. My father bought me that glorious introduction to D&D, the Red Box Basic Set (Revised). I can still draw the solo adventure map from memory. I've played most tabletop RPGs, D&D and the entire Palladium megaverse the most heavily. I probably DM 95% of the time I'm involved with tabletop games, and 3.x had really kind of sapped the life out of me for it--at least for a campaign beyond about level 5 characters. The 4E sneak peak has really turned that around for me, and I hope it continues to hold up to what I'm feeling right now after release. I think the GameTable specifically is trash (it will be really hard to find a thread where I mention not liking it
) but I'm excited about the awareness for VTTs it has generated.
The Players:
Four players were present for the whole game, and the fifth got on late, for the last 2 encounters. One of them is a friend in town who has played in every one of my games so far (played the Ranger, only one he hasn't played), another was a FG2 forum-goer who played the wizard in a previous game (played Figher this time), and the last three were newcomers. None of them had messed with 4E yet, and two of them were new to FG2. This isn't a FG2 pitch though, so I won't get into how quickly they acclimated to the VTT, no more than I just did, anyway. Two of them played the Cleric & Paladin for the whole game, and the Wizard was our late arrival to the adventure. (The game started at 6 AM, can't fault him.)
Encounter 1: Hobgoblin Soldiers
Hobgoblin Soldiers
The group approached the tower with some stealth, and noticed the torchlight coming from the tower ruins. A fantastic Nature check led the ranger to believe there were large humanoids, probably goblinoid, in the tower... based on the freshness of the tracks he found. Somehow managing to sneak up on them (all four of the party) they get a surprise round with the hobgoblins! They quickly tore into them, charging, letting arrows fly, and the fighter quickly dropped an action point, landing first with a Tide of Iron, then with a Passing Attack, splitting the soldiers up (killing their AC bonus) and really dealing a ton of damage. Soon the soldiers were separately marked and quickly dispatched, though the last soldier held up for quite some time before the fighting finally ended. With a quick rest and a heal from the cleric, they party delved into the ruins, only short 2 surges among them.
Encounter 2: Hobgoblin Warband
Hobgoblin Warband
The archer and warcaster on the ledge continually rained down attacks on the party, but the crunchier paladin and fighter did a good job of maneuvering the soldier out of the mouth of the cave, where he could attack. With a horrible set of recharge rolls, the warcaster continually cycled through his magical attacks, waiting for one to recharge, but it just wouldn't happen. Soon the warcaster had retreated from the ledge (out of sight) while the paladin locked up the soldier, and the fighter made for the toppled ladder. The ranger teleported up to the ledge and began to put the hurt on the warcaster, who just couldn't get that recharge he needed, and even his Shocking Staff was met with Fox's Cunning. The soldier was downed finally (though both the paladin and fighter took a lot of punishment in the process) and the fighter got up on the ledge and sent the archer flailing down to the ground with a Tide of Iron then set into the warcaster. Finally the warcaster started seeing some recharges, and to his credit--really held off the party for awhile. Between dropping repeated Force Pulses over the area (though the fighter just wouldn't go prone), the ranger and cleric both ended up flying off the ledge before the fighting was done. Even though the fighter and the cleric both went to negative health, they finally got the warcaster pushed close enough to the ledge for the ranger to get a shot, and he put the shaman down!
Bloodied but most of their dailies and surges still intact, they only rested for about 15 minutes (I told them they can only have one extended rest per day, so use it wisely) so they only rested long enough for the cleric to re-use his Word of Healing four times, and recover them. The pressed onward, determined to find the body of Rakin.
Encounter 3: Skeletons
Oops. I forgot to take a screenshot of this fight!
The skeletons were a great fight, and the fighter really maneuvered well. I played the skeletons completely mindless, wading through Shift attacks from the fighter and making opportunity attacks despite having the Divine Challenge on them (which really tore one of them up). The blazing skeleton was across the room chucking Flame Orbs at the paladin, then at the cleric when the paladin gained cover from the fighter shifting in front of the badly hurt paladin. The cleric kept them standing with well-timed heals, and spread out AC boosts between the two was helpful. Riardon flanked the room quickly, putting damage on the blazing skeleton, and after shoving the last skeleton into the electrified pool, they converged on the flame-shrouded skeleton and quickly brought him down, the cleric finishing with a turn undead that, "I'm saving for the burning one!"
Again only a short rest used (as they had 3 dailies still and almost half their surges) they pressed on. A great Insight check had the cleric recalling that the mayor seemed pretty insincere about his brother, which the cleric was prompted to ask about after finding the door to the tomb barred from the outside.
Encounter 4: The Chillborn
The Chillborn
This really was a brutal fight. The large crevice in the center of the room was initially intended as a means to push the level 6 undead down to their dooms, but the party hesitated to engage, and had a long way to move the chillborn to accomplish that, and it was really hard to hit them. Not having the Arcane casters (who can attack their Reflex like crazy), they were finding that 22 AC to be monstrous, and the ongoing cold damage was really adding up over the rounds. Still, one of the chillborn fell to a max damage shot from the ranger, and the other was finally cut down after a lot of fighting, some dailies, and many blown heals, lay on hands, and even some second winds. No one went down though, and the party recovered a bit.
As they approached the north end of the room, they spotted the repeating crossbow trap and rested while thinking about how to handle it. With no one there having Thievery, I decided to "wing it" with a skill challenge. As there were 2 crossbows and Rakin behind the door, I made it 3 successes before two failures, 10/15/20 difficulties.
The fighter wanted to shove one of the statues into the hallway to neutralize the trap, and I let him roll a difficult Athletics, which he succeeded. The cleric threw a rock at one of the crossbows from behind the statue (Athletics again) and hit it (Easy check) and the crossbow fired into the statue. The Ranger asked if he knew or heard anything about the tomb from local history, while one of them was asking about Streetwise. Passing a difficult check, I mentioned that back in the tavern when people were talking about Rakin (the ranger knew of him) he had held off a mob of goblins with a setup like this in a narrow hallway!
Successes made (but they didn't know), one of them said, "Rakin?" down the hallway. The door opened and Rakin was relieved to have saviors! It was sloppy and from the hip, but they actually really enjoyed it, and everyone was paying attention!
Encounter 5: The Chainfighter
The Chainfighter
After an extended rest (I decided to hold off on the chainfighter walking in on them, it was going to be a nasty fight) they decided to get Rakin out of there. (They fed him, dressed his wounds and made him a crutch.) During this time, the wizard finally catches up to the group (we started play at 6 AM, didn't want to tell him he couldn't play because we picked an ungodly start time), and the ranger had scouted ahead to drag the bar to the door back to their chamber (to prevent whoever barred it last time from doing so again).
As they enter the room the skeletons were in, Keit and his henchmen fight the party. The Dance of Death went off on the first round (Keit delayed till the end of the round) then recharged and he did it again! Landing 6 hits in two rounds, the group was more than flustered with Keit! However they made short work of the henchmen (including the fighter using Tide of Iron to shove a bandit to the edge of the electrified pool, and the wizard using mage hand to "shove" him. I wouldn't let him Bull Rush with such a simple action, but I gave a bonus to anyone shoving him before his turn started. The ranger stepped over and booted him into the lightning water, and he fried. Keit was causing some serious damage across the room, but the wizard stopped that short with a magic missile that dropped the chainfighter dead. Another quick rest and more thanks from Rakin later, they headed out into the sunlight!
Encounter 6: The Second Son
The Second Son
The final fight was actually pretty exciting, even if it was a one-sided victory for the party. They locked up forces with the guard and berzerker quickly (the fighter would position herself to form the "front line" at the start of a battle, it was excellent) as the ranger and wizard put down the heavy firepower. Several action points and daily powers went off, sensing the climax to the adventure, and the wizard Jentzen really didn't put up much of a fight. The Sleep spell was not terribly impressive, only slowing the enemy for a round, who all easily saved, but the ranger, wizard, and cleric all switched to focus fire on the enemy mage, and he went down very quickly. The front guard died fast to the fighter and paladin, and the real threat on the battlemap was that berserker! He repeatedly nailed the fighter, actually putting her down to negative after his bloodied reaction attack. The paladin roused the fighter with a Lay on Hands, and the berzerker dropped shortly after to a magic missile!
After pasting in the obligatory "you win" cutscene, the group celebrated their victory, and asked when we were going to play again.
Sad Victory... *sniffle*
Impressions from the players:
Ranger - He's played in every fan game I've run, he's as excited about 4E as I am. Not sure which character has been is favorite so far--he really likes playing the Paladin and yelling out Second Chance! when I crit him. He played the Ranger masterfully though, probably the best I've seen him played. Really took advantage of the escape options of the ranger.
Fighter - He played the wizard last time, brilliantly I'll add (regretfully since he'll read this, and it'll go to his head)--and while it sounded like he found the wizard more fun (or maybe easier) I think this was some of the best tactical play with the fighter I've seen. It was really hard to maneuver near him!
Cleric - This person was brand new to FG2 and 4E, and for the first encounter or two he was kind of shaky on his options, and took him a little bit to figure out how MANY choices he had! By the end of the adventure he had picked up on finding the weakest defense to attack and use that route and was really doing a great job at finding the flanking position and boosting AC around him.
Paladin - Also new to 4E, he took to the paladin very quickly, and played the Divine Challenge very well (I went with--You must be trying to engage.) which honestly wasn't really hard to judge. If he challenged before taking his move, he needed to advance on the guy. Never had a moment that I felt the challenge should fade except the time the paladin said, "I'll let the challenge fade, I need to let the fighter mark her!" (He was really tore up.)
Wizard - Only there for the last two encounters, he was also new to both the VTT and 4E, and by round 2 he was fighting in full swing. I'm not sure how he felt about the wizard specifically, but he mentioned he had a great time, and he definitely kicked some ass with the wizard, whether he liked it or not!
Hope you've enjoyed this review of the adventure, I thought it was pretty well balanced, though the final fight could maybe have used one more guard there for a 5-6 person group. Because they blew action points and daily powers in the first round, it's hard to gauge how the fight would have gone, otherwise. Still, this was a very well designed adventure, and I had a great time with it--looking forward to running this for my regular play group now!
Thanks, mshea!
The Dungeon Master:
I started playing D&D in 1983, when I came down with the chicken pox in the 4th grade. My father bought me that glorious introduction to D&D, the Red Box Basic Set (Revised). I can still draw the solo adventure map from memory. I've played most tabletop RPGs, D&D and the entire Palladium megaverse the most heavily. I probably DM 95% of the time I'm involved with tabletop games, and 3.x had really kind of sapped the life out of me for it--at least for a campaign beyond about level 5 characters. The 4E sneak peak has really turned that around for me, and I hope it continues to hold up to what I'm feeling right now after release. I think the GameTable specifically is trash (it will be really hard to find a thread where I mention not liking it
) but I'm excited about the awareness for VTTs it has generated.The Players:
Four players were present for the whole game, and the fifth got on late, for the last 2 encounters. One of them is a friend in town who has played in every one of my games so far (played the Ranger, only one he hasn't played), another was a FG2 forum-goer who played the wizard in a previous game (played Figher this time), and the last three were newcomers. None of them had messed with 4E yet, and two of them were new to FG2. This isn't a FG2 pitch though, so I won't get into how quickly they acclimated to the VTT, no more than I just did, anyway. Two of them played the Cleric & Paladin for the whole game, and the Wizard was our late arrival to the adventure. (The game started at 6 AM, can't fault him.)
Encounter 1: Hobgoblin Soldiers
Hobgoblin Soldiers
The group approached the tower with some stealth, and noticed the torchlight coming from the tower ruins. A fantastic Nature check led the ranger to believe there were large humanoids, probably goblinoid, in the tower... based on the freshness of the tracks he found. Somehow managing to sneak up on them (all four of the party) they get a surprise round with the hobgoblins! They quickly tore into them, charging, letting arrows fly, and the fighter quickly dropped an action point, landing first with a Tide of Iron, then with a Passing Attack, splitting the soldiers up (killing their AC bonus) and really dealing a ton of damage. Soon the soldiers were separately marked and quickly dispatched, though the last soldier held up for quite some time before the fighting finally ended. With a quick rest and a heal from the cleric, they party delved into the ruins, only short 2 surges among them.
Encounter 2: Hobgoblin Warband
Hobgoblin Warband
The archer and warcaster on the ledge continually rained down attacks on the party, but the crunchier paladin and fighter did a good job of maneuvering the soldier out of the mouth of the cave, where he could attack. With a horrible set of recharge rolls, the warcaster continually cycled through his magical attacks, waiting for one to recharge, but it just wouldn't happen. Soon the warcaster had retreated from the ledge (out of sight) while the paladin locked up the soldier, and the fighter made for the toppled ladder. The ranger teleported up to the ledge and began to put the hurt on the warcaster, who just couldn't get that recharge he needed, and even his Shocking Staff was met with Fox's Cunning. The soldier was downed finally (though both the paladin and fighter took a lot of punishment in the process) and the fighter got up on the ledge and sent the archer flailing down to the ground with a Tide of Iron then set into the warcaster. Finally the warcaster started seeing some recharges, and to his credit--really held off the party for awhile. Between dropping repeated Force Pulses over the area (though the fighter just wouldn't go prone), the ranger and cleric both ended up flying off the ledge before the fighting was done. Even though the fighter and the cleric both went to negative health, they finally got the warcaster pushed close enough to the ledge for the ranger to get a shot, and he put the shaman down!
Bloodied but most of their dailies and surges still intact, they only rested for about 15 minutes (I told them they can only have one extended rest per day, so use it wisely) so they only rested long enough for the cleric to re-use his Word of Healing four times, and recover them. The pressed onward, determined to find the body of Rakin.
Encounter 3: Skeletons
Oops. I forgot to take a screenshot of this fight!
The skeletons were a great fight, and the fighter really maneuvered well. I played the skeletons completely mindless, wading through Shift attacks from the fighter and making opportunity attacks despite having the Divine Challenge on them (which really tore one of them up). The blazing skeleton was across the room chucking Flame Orbs at the paladin, then at the cleric when the paladin gained cover from the fighter shifting in front of the badly hurt paladin. The cleric kept them standing with well-timed heals, and spread out AC boosts between the two was helpful. Riardon flanked the room quickly, putting damage on the blazing skeleton, and after shoving the last skeleton into the electrified pool, they converged on the flame-shrouded skeleton and quickly brought him down, the cleric finishing with a turn undead that, "I'm saving for the burning one!"
Again only a short rest used (as they had 3 dailies still and almost half their surges) they pressed on. A great Insight check had the cleric recalling that the mayor seemed pretty insincere about his brother, which the cleric was prompted to ask about after finding the door to the tomb barred from the outside.
Encounter 4: The Chillborn
The Chillborn
This really was a brutal fight. The large crevice in the center of the room was initially intended as a means to push the level 6 undead down to their dooms, but the party hesitated to engage, and had a long way to move the chillborn to accomplish that, and it was really hard to hit them. Not having the Arcane casters (who can attack their Reflex like crazy), they were finding that 22 AC to be monstrous, and the ongoing cold damage was really adding up over the rounds. Still, one of the chillborn fell to a max damage shot from the ranger, and the other was finally cut down after a lot of fighting, some dailies, and many blown heals, lay on hands, and even some second winds. No one went down though, and the party recovered a bit.
As they approached the north end of the room, they spotted the repeating crossbow trap and rested while thinking about how to handle it. With no one there having Thievery, I decided to "wing it" with a skill challenge. As there were 2 crossbows and Rakin behind the door, I made it 3 successes before two failures, 10/15/20 difficulties.
The fighter wanted to shove one of the statues into the hallway to neutralize the trap, and I let him roll a difficult Athletics, which he succeeded. The cleric threw a rock at one of the crossbows from behind the statue (Athletics again) and hit it (Easy check) and the crossbow fired into the statue. The Ranger asked if he knew or heard anything about the tomb from local history, while one of them was asking about Streetwise. Passing a difficult check, I mentioned that back in the tavern when people were talking about Rakin (the ranger knew of him) he had held off a mob of goblins with a setup like this in a narrow hallway!
Successes made (but they didn't know), one of them said, "Rakin?" down the hallway. The door opened and Rakin was relieved to have saviors! It was sloppy and from the hip, but they actually really enjoyed it, and everyone was paying attention!
Encounter 5: The Chainfighter
The Chainfighter
After an extended rest (I decided to hold off on the chainfighter walking in on them, it was going to be a nasty fight) they decided to get Rakin out of there. (They fed him, dressed his wounds and made him a crutch.) During this time, the wizard finally catches up to the group (we started play at 6 AM, didn't want to tell him he couldn't play because we picked an ungodly start time), and the ranger had scouted ahead to drag the bar to the door back to their chamber (to prevent whoever barred it last time from doing so again).
As they enter the room the skeletons were in, Keit and his henchmen fight the party. The Dance of Death went off on the first round (Keit delayed till the end of the round) then recharged and he did it again! Landing 6 hits in two rounds, the group was more than flustered with Keit! However they made short work of the henchmen (including the fighter using Tide of Iron to shove a bandit to the edge of the electrified pool, and the wizard using mage hand to "shove" him. I wouldn't let him Bull Rush with such a simple action, but I gave a bonus to anyone shoving him before his turn started. The ranger stepped over and booted him into the lightning water, and he fried. Keit was causing some serious damage across the room, but the wizard stopped that short with a magic missile that dropped the chainfighter dead. Another quick rest and more thanks from Rakin later, they headed out into the sunlight!
Encounter 6: The Second Son
The Second Son
The final fight was actually pretty exciting, even if it was a one-sided victory for the party. They locked up forces with the guard and berzerker quickly (the fighter would position herself to form the "front line" at the start of a battle, it was excellent) as the ranger and wizard put down the heavy firepower. Several action points and daily powers went off, sensing the climax to the adventure, and the wizard Jentzen really didn't put up much of a fight. The Sleep spell was not terribly impressive, only slowing the enemy for a round, who all easily saved, but the ranger, wizard, and cleric all switched to focus fire on the enemy mage, and he went down very quickly. The front guard died fast to the fighter and paladin, and the real threat on the battlemap was that berserker! He repeatedly nailed the fighter, actually putting her down to negative after his bloodied reaction attack. The paladin roused the fighter with a Lay on Hands, and the berzerker dropped shortly after to a magic missile!
After pasting in the obligatory "you win" cutscene, the group celebrated their victory, and asked when we were going to play again.
Sad Victory... *sniffle*
Impressions from the players:
Ranger - He's played in every fan game I've run, he's as excited about 4E as I am. Not sure which character has been is favorite so far--he really likes playing the Paladin and yelling out Second Chance! when I crit him. He played the Ranger masterfully though, probably the best I've seen him played. Really took advantage of the escape options of the ranger.
Fighter - He played the wizard last time, brilliantly I'll add (regretfully since he'll read this, and it'll go to his head)--and while it sounded like he found the wizard more fun (or maybe easier) I think this was some of the best tactical play with the fighter I've seen. It was really hard to maneuver near him!
Cleric - This person was brand new to FG2 and 4E, and for the first encounter or two he was kind of shaky on his options, and took him a little bit to figure out how MANY choices he had! By the end of the adventure he had picked up on finding the weakest defense to attack and use that route and was really doing a great job at finding the flanking position and boosting AC around him.
Paladin - Also new to 4E, he took to the paladin very quickly, and played the Divine Challenge very well (I went with--You must be trying to engage.) which honestly wasn't really hard to judge. If he challenged before taking his move, he needed to advance on the guy. Never had a moment that I felt the challenge should fade except the time the paladin said, "I'll let the challenge fade, I need to let the fighter mark her!" (He was really tore up.)
Wizard - Only there for the last two encounters, he was also new to both the VTT and 4E, and by round 2 he was fighting in full swing. I'm not sure how he felt about the wizard specifically, but he mentioned he had a great time, and he definitely kicked some ass with the wizard, whether he liked it or not!
Hope you've enjoyed this review of the adventure, I thought it was pretty well balanced, though the final fight could maybe have used one more guard there for a 5-6 person group. Because they blew action points and daily powers in the first round, it's hard to gauge how the fight would have gone, otherwise. Still, this was a very well designed adventure, and I had a great time with it--looking forward to running this for my regular play group now!
Thanks, mshea!
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