6 players, 5 hours, 4th edition

[Henry]

...One instance he mentioned, they didn't get surprised, got lucky and it failed a sleep save, they CdG'd it several times, and managed to win.

Did you run under Mearls, by chance? That sounds exactly like the one he relates in a blog post at the event yesterday.

One question, though: You mentioned 5 encounters in 5 hours. Is that what you would expect your normal speed to be under a 3e game? For first level characters, that sounds about my experience, too, but rising dramatically fast after about 7th level or so.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Excellent Review, man. Seemed very fair and balanced.

 

[malraux]

There seemed to be a lot of stuff where your save was at the end of your next turn, too. That's a pain, as that might mean 10 minutes or more of real time, and by the time your turn comes around again, you forget modifiers, effects, etc. I was hoping for more stuff that was instant or single round. At the least, I'd have rather seen something like 'stunned two rounds, save for one' with the saving throw taking place immediately. It would streamline things and get all the player's rolls out of the way reducing the need to keep track of variables.

Did they have status cards to use? That is, if you get hit with the glue stuff, did the DM have a card to hand out that said "Immobilized, movement = 0, save every round" or the like? That to me seems like the easiest way to track that kind of stuff. That way, at the end of your turn, your last action would be to roll saves against whatever cards you have in front of you.

And if not, this strikes me as a great 3rd party product to get out there. Especially laminated/coated ones so that the DM can write in the variable details (5 acid, etc) on the card so no one forgets what's going on.

 

[GlassJaw]

Finally a balanced review that I can respect. Great stuff Rodrigo.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Did you run under Mearls, by chance? That sounds exactly like the one he relates in a blog post at the event yesterday.

One question, though: You mentioned 5 encounters in 5 hours. Is that what you would expect your normal speed to be under a 3e game? For first level characters, that sounds about my experience, too, but rising dramatically fast after about 7th level or so.

For 1st level characters, with zero 'in between' stuff, that seemed slow to me. (In retrospect, I mean, at the time I was having fun and it didn't seem slow, although it did seem to drag out a little at the end). I mean, literally as soon as we cleared a room, we picked up the minis, the DM laid down the next map, we positioned ourselves at the entrance, and rolled initiative.

The last time I ran a fantasy game was at GenCon last year, and with 6 players, 8th level Grim Tales characters, and some roleplay and story and exploration, we had 4 decent sized combats in four hours.

 

[JeffB]

Indeed. Nice balanced sounding review.

I'm entirely sick of the propaganda reviews and 4E can do wrong mentality posters, as well as the wholesale bashing occuring elsewhere (other sites/messageboards) of the new system. This was quite refreshing to read. Thanks.

 

[Sitara]

But assuming they did a 6 hour rest before facing the dragon, how could it be difficult?

A fresh party drops every daily it has on the dragon + commands/challenges/curses/persistant damage effect. That should amount to around 100+ damage right there.

 

[el-remmen]

Thanks!

Great review! Though I might be only saying that because it confirms some of my growing suspicions.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Did they have status cards to use?

No, and that would have been helpful. But one of the (IMO legitimate) beefs with 3e was the complication of tracking the conditions and modifers and such over multiple rounds. But the change seems to have been making the save DC easier to remember (all saves are DC10, with modifiers based on class, race, or whatever -- eg my eladrin had a +5 vs charm).

But variable DCs I don't think were the problem, it was the modifiers, number of potential conditions, and the necessity of tracking it round to round.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

But assuming they did a 6 hour rest before facing the dragon, how could it be difficult?

A fresh party drops every daily it has on the dragon + commands/challenges/curses/persistant damage effect. That should amount to around 100+ damage right there.

We hadn't taken a 6 hour rest (and honestly, wouldn't have been expecting a dragon!). But I think I was the only one that had used his 'daily' at that point, and mine (essentially multishot) wouldn't have mattered against the dragon. And we were all within 1 or 2 HP of full.

It had breath weapon that did 15+5/round against characters with 20-30 hit points, the fear effect, a retributive tailstrike that it could use when hit, plus it's regular attacks, an AC in 27+ range, 240 hit points, and +5 to evey save (so it would save 75% of the time).