There is another thread about how 4E reminds many of us of the feel of pre-3E DND (the "retro" thread).
I think the adventures will also be more like 2E adventures, although on steroids. 2E adventures already included the idea of pools of enemies with different roles, combat encounters in large interconnected areas, and group non-combat encounters that are important for the story.
As support, I offer a 2E adventure I pulled out of one of my boxes of old DND stuff, titled “Halls of the High King” (FA1, 1990, TSR). I picked it from the stack because it was written and designed by Ed Greenwood.
The adventure is designed for six, 6th level players but is playable with eight-to-ten characters. The Party faces off against the Risen Cult of Bane.
The adventure uses combinations (frequently a large number) of opponents (undead, minions and spellcasters working together for example), facing the Party in multiple environments (underground, in burning woods, inside the King’s castle, in an air bubble under a lake, evil temples consecrated to Bane and protected by his unholy power, etc.), and interconnected encounter areas that lead to more challenges/encounters. There are also non-combat encounters where the Party has to interrogate prisoners, work out clues, detect and defeat traps, influence guards, etc.
I could very easily see this converted to a 4E adventure, with specific-purpose minions replacing the lower level bad guys (archers, thugs, pirates); narrowly designed opponent wiz/priests, interconnected encounter areas, tailored magic resulting from rituals that change the area to the benefit of the defenders, various traps, skill challenges, and a definite pressure on the party as their limited-times-per-day powers are used up.
I think 2E adventures and characters were much quicker to develop than 3E/3.5E. It was easy to tweak monsters, adventure locations, etc. to build new things for your Party and it did not matter if they were balanced on the same mechanics the Party used as long as they were balanced against other opponents of the Party. 4E seems to share this same design philosophy and structure (although with more consistent rules with more internal balance).
There are a lot of big encounters in this adventure, and I’ve listed some key points in the spoiler along with some notes on the environment of the encounters in case anyone is interested in more details.
There are big differences in how 2E and 4E work, but more and more the feel of 4E and the philosophy of 4E seem to be taking me back to how it felt to run 2E adventures -- fast and furious.
Just my two cents. We'll all have a better idea in a couple of weeks.
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• The first encounter is against a pirate ship with twenty-one F3 with light crossbows using sleep-poisoned bolts, led by a W9 with some significant magic items. The opposing pirate ship starts the encounter with the pirate ship disguised to look like a ghost ship and the crew concealed with mass-invisibility. Some of the pirates can fly and land in the back to attack the helmsman, etc. Grappling hooks pull the ships together and then Katy-bar-the-doors.
• The second encounter starts as the Party is taking their cargo from the port to a nearby castle. The Party is ambushed in the city streets by a well-prepared group of thugs: sixty-three T2 armed with clubs come up various streets and 24 F2 archers with bow specialization attack from various building tops. The groups are led by two evil priests who are 9th level.
• Finishing that, the party may run into a group of 30 bandits (all T2) if they follow-up rumors of problems in the local woods, led by a 6th level fighter.
• Later along the trail there is a rather clever trapped cabin where a group of two mimics, a doppelganger and a hard to detect group of masterminds ambush the party.
• Entering the first-discovered lair of the bad guys, the party has to fight its way past a heavily trapped forest to tackle a group of 10 bonebats (4HD), 16 skeletons (4HD), and three p9’s. Combat is in a corrupted glade in the woods.
• Next comes the cellar of a ruined castle, turned into a maze of locked doors, traps, ettin skeletons, 30 more bandits, and two more priests (P5 and P6).
• The Cult by this point is highly annoyed with the Party and sends a hit team after them consisting of sixteen F2, two war captains (F6), four lower priests (P2) and two over priests (P6).
• Getting past this, the party must enter a corrupted vale to fight eight Firbolgs (HD 13+7), 20 more bonebats (HD4), and seven P6 who start the battle off by setting the forest around the area on fire as an additional challenge for the PC’s.
• Then they have to rush off to save the High King (without time to rest or recover from the earlier, hard-fought battle), who is menaced by twelve P9’s, three Wiz 7, ten battle horrors (HD4+12 suits of armor), and fourteen orcs (HD 1). Complicating things is that the King’s guards don’t know anything about the threat to the King and may end up attacking the Party along with the Risen Cult members.
• The King or other high-ranking noble is kidnapped and the Party has to chase them immediately to stop their evil plan (still no chance to rest)
o This takes the party into the very headquarters of the Risen Cult on this island, where they have to fight a series of encounters with groups of priests, bonebats, magical traps, symbols of death, wizards, golems, battle horrors (potentially up to 70 in one encounter if the party keeps triggering pairs of statues lining a hallway), yuan-ti assassins, and more traps.
o The place is chock full of powerful magical effects that are localized or only work for worshippers of Bane – giving the bad guys a very favorable environment to fight in.
o Failure to stop the sacrifice results in Bane’s son being summoned and attacking the party (and the battle against the demi-god commences the last act)
• At different points, there are Harper reinforcements around to arrive in the nick of time if the Party is totally overmatched, who get the Party healed and back on track. (No reinforcements in the last act, though).
• The adventure includes 9 appendices, detailing all sorts of things about the adventure and introducing seven new monsters, eight new magical items (including two that are basically evil artifacts the party can’t use), nine new spells, and ideas and rumors to extend the adventure into a campaign in the Moonshaes.
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I think the adventures will also be more like 2E adventures, although on steroids. 2E adventures already included the idea of pools of enemies with different roles, combat encounters in large interconnected areas, and group non-combat encounters that are important for the story.
As support, I offer a 2E adventure I pulled out of one of my boxes of old DND stuff, titled “Halls of the High King” (FA1, 1990, TSR). I picked it from the stack because it was written and designed by Ed Greenwood.
The adventure is designed for six, 6th level players but is playable with eight-to-ten characters. The Party faces off against the Risen Cult of Bane.
The adventure uses combinations (frequently a large number) of opponents (undead, minions and spellcasters working together for example), facing the Party in multiple environments (underground, in burning woods, inside the King’s castle, in an air bubble under a lake, evil temples consecrated to Bane and protected by his unholy power, etc.), and interconnected encounter areas that lead to more challenges/encounters. There are also non-combat encounters where the Party has to interrogate prisoners, work out clues, detect and defeat traps, influence guards, etc.
I could very easily see this converted to a 4E adventure, with specific-purpose minions replacing the lower level bad guys (archers, thugs, pirates); narrowly designed opponent wiz/priests, interconnected encounter areas, tailored magic resulting from rituals that change the area to the benefit of the defenders, various traps, skill challenges, and a definite pressure on the party as their limited-times-per-day powers are used up.
I think 2E adventures and characters were much quicker to develop than 3E/3.5E. It was easy to tweak monsters, adventure locations, etc. to build new things for your Party and it did not matter if they were balanced on the same mechanics the Party used as long as they were balanced against other opponents of the Party. 4E seems to share this same design philosophy and structure (although with more consistent rules with more internal balance).
There are a lot of big encounters in this adventure, and I’ve listed some key points in the spoiler along with some notes on the environment of the encounters in case anyone is interested in more details.
There are big differences in how 2E and 4E work, but more and more the feel of 4E and the philosophy of 4E seem to be taking me back to how it felt to run 2E adventures -- fast and furious.
Just my two cents. We'll all have a better idea in a couple of weeks.
[sblock]
• The first encounter is against a pirate ship with twenty-one F3 with light crossbows using sleep-poisoned bolts, led by a W9 with some significant magic items. The opposing pirate ship starts the encounter with the pirate ship disguised to look like a ghost ship and the crew concealed with mass-invisibility. Some of the pirates can fly and land in the back to attack the helmsman, etc. Grappling hooks pull the ships together and then Katy-bar-the-doors.
• The second encounter starts as the Party is taking their cargo from the port to a nearby castle. The Party is ambushed in the city streets by a well-prepared group of thugs: sixty-three T2 armed with clubs come up various streets and 24 F2 archers with bow specialization attack from various building tops. The groups are led by two evil priests who are 9th level.
• Finishing that, the party may run into a group of 30 bandits (all T2) if they follow-up rumors of problems in the local woods, led by a 6th level fighter.
• Later along the trail there is a rather clever trapped cabin where a group of two mimics, a doppelganger and a hard to detect group of masterminds ambush the party.
• Entering the first-discovered lair of the bad guys, the party has to fight its way past a heavily trapped forest to tackle a group of 10 bonebats (4HD), 16 skeletons (4HD), and three p9’s. Combat is in a corrupted glade in the woods.
• Next comes the cellar of a ruined castle, turned into a maze of locked doors, traps, ettin skeletons, 30 more bandits, and two more priests (P5 and P6).
• The Cult by this point is highly annoyed with the Party and sends a hit team after them consisting of sixteen F2, two war captains (F6), four lower priests (P2) and two over priests (P6).
• Getting past this, the party must enter a corrupted vale to fight eight Firbolgs (HD 13+7), 20 more bonebats (HD4), and seven P6 who start the battle off by setting the forest around the area on fire as an additional challenge for the PC’s.
• Then they have to rush off to save the High King (without time to rest or recover from the earlier, hard-fought battle), who is menaced by twelve P9’s, three Wiz 7, ten battle horrors (HD4+12 suits of armor), and fourteen orcs (HD 1). Complicating things is that the King’s guards don’t know anything about the threat to the King and may end up attacking the Party along with the Risen Cult members.
• The King or other high-ranking noble is kidnapped and the Party has to chase them immediately to stop their evil plan (still no chance to rest)
o This takes the party into the very headquarters of the Risen Cult on this island, where they have to fight a series of encounters with groups of priests, bonebats, magical traps, symbols of death, wizards, golems, battle horrors (potentially up to 70 in one encounter if the party keeps triggering pairs of statues lining a hallway), yuan-ti assassins, and more traps.
o The place is chock full of powerful magical effects that are localized or only work for worshippers of Bane – giving the bad guys a very favorable environment to fight in.
o Failure to stop the sacrifice results in Bane’s son being summoned and attacking the party (and the battle against the demi-god commences the last act)
• At different points, there are Harper reinforcements around to arrive in the nick of time if the Party is totally overmatched, who get the Party healed and back on track. (No reinforcements in the last act, though).
• The adventure includes 9 appendices, detailing all sorts of things about the adventure and introducing seven new monsters, eight new magical items (including two that are basically evil artifacts the party can’t use), nine new spells, and ideas and rumors to extend the adventure into a campaign in the Moonshaes.
[/sblock]
