A 4e DND Newbie GM Log

[Sergeytov]

My first post, so I hope this is in the right place for this kind of thing, but I figure keeping a log like this might be of use/interest to someone.

Also, a confession. I'm not wholly a newbie GM. I've ran MUD/MUSH based roleplaying action for quite several years, and ran a tabletop in the past. What I'm new to is running DND4e on a regular basis.

Right now I'm teaching my players the basic rules of how to play, helping them set up characters, and generally diving headlong into things. I modified the Loudwater segment of the FR Campaign Guide a bit as a starting point. The major difference is that I'm throwing in a young brown dragon at the end of the Tomb of the Ogre King (a low level basic dungeon environ).

My players are 14-17 years old (a much younger sibling and his friends).

My immediate concern is that I have one player who's constantly trying to make extra money/take anything not bolted down (the rogue, no less). No, wait, I'm not even sure bolting things down would work. The other players are split, I suspect they're bored of his hijinks, however. Trying to convince him that he'll get richer much quicker if he does the adventuring thing rather than trying to scam/loot a small town.

Right now I'm largely running the game as a series of tactical encounters linked by a (weak) story. I'm hoping to try and incorporate more role playing elements soon. My goal is to try and bring them into a storyline about the Zhents and Cyric's imprisonment, but I suspect that it will take several sessions before I get the chance.

My players sound enthused and are having fun, overall, from what they tell me, so I shouldn't complain too much about the little details.

 

[Sergeytov]

Been looking around these forums (and elsewhere) for various resources. I have to say there looks to be a lot of good stuff.

I've been playing with a combination of stuff right now, mostly for monster making.

*http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/230805-monster-project.html - The Monster Project that's offered a good number of lower level ideas from what I've seen. So I ought to throw in a thanks to the Jester and other contributors.

*The Asmor monster maker, mostly since it throws things in a nice html format and gives some recommendations for damage expressions and whatnot.

*A HTML to PDF/Image converter to get an image of the stat block.

*Finally, using GIMP2 (an image editing program) to put the stat blocks of multiple monsters together so I can print out and toss into my GM binder.

- Anything to help save steps for a similar result (and a minimal waste of paper) would be appreciated.

I was originally going to do some goblin dungeon delving this next session, but I'll probably make things a bit more hectic with wild critters to challenge the party with (and prevent them from trying to have 1 battle/day on a regular basis, which they seem fond of).

 

[Sergeytov]

Ran the Raid on Loudwater encounter (from the FR Campaign Guide) in the next session. The surprise round the goblins got kept them off guard. The party was level 2 at this point, which meant they had utility powers to help them out. The rogue discovered the greatness that is Tumble (the ability to shift multiple squares at a time being awesome when there's the potential for attacks of opportunity all around).

Plenty of minions down, a couple warriors, and the party was certainly sweating with death saves. I also used this opportunity to introduce a companion character (an NPC with a warlord template, and thus inspiring word to heal with), which turned the battle in their favor.

I used the raid as a way to give two points of entry to the Barrow of the Ogre King. One was acquiring the Goblin Horn Totem (a +1 dagger) and being asked to find the corresponding Skull Totem (a +1 mace). The other was that another raid in another part of Loudwater captured some local children, and they were asked to find them.

The big thing I notice at this point is that the players/characters are greedy. I can't say I blame them, they hadn't been getting rich at this point. The players looked at each other a bit funny as they determined who would get to use the Horn Totem (their first magic item). Eventually it went to the rogue, given he gained the most benefit from it.

I also complicate this by adding a countdown timer. They had roughly 15 hours in game time (clearly marked on my giant whiteboard) to find the kids before bad things might start happening to them. This was largely to prevent the 1 fight a day, and see how they fared when their resources were pushed to the limit.

So our heroes prepped to go out venturing. I introduce them to rough terrain and wolves. An easy encounter.

Finally they reach the opening of the Barrow of the Ogre King. They see the courtyard, and keep making active perception checks to try and find a trap. They kept failing. Finally they trigger the trap (it fails). And they have a lower level with goblins to fight. The terrain makes this difficult, as it's on an upward inclined that they additionally iced with magic (I let the wizard use an encounter power to freeze part of the incline).

This battle was far tougher for them. The incline worked against them, as did the ice, as warriors could javelin them at range, and the Goblin Hexer kept firing hexes as long range.

My players hate goblin hexers, they've learned the annoyance that is a battlefield controller. The sad thing is I can't even use most of its abilities optimally, it feels like.

Anyway, the battle ends. They have a surrendered goblin that they don't know if they should kill or not. This, sadly, causes substantial conflict in the group. Finally some gold coins paid between party members solves the crisis and the second session ends.

At this point they have almost 8 hours to get to the bottom of the cavern, and they don't know how deep it goes. (They have two more battles before the bottom where they need to go).

Also, the configuration of the current party. At this time they're all level 2.
1 Wizard
1 Warlord
1 Warden
1 Rogue
1 Companion with inspiring word.

 

[Sergeytov]

Thankfully, any hard feelings between players cooled off between sessions. Session three started with the issue of, 'what do we do with this captured goblin?' They don't want to kill it, they don't want it to escape, and they don't want it causing trouble deeper in the Barrow.

They spend a surprising amount of time on this. Asking about the courtyard previously visited for a place to 'stash' the goblin. After several real life minutes, and a couple players looking a bit bored, I end it not with a firm word, but by going to my giant whiteboard and reducing the 'time left' box. This gets action. Their decision?

They tie the goblin up, gag it, and put it on the wizard's back. Yes, they all had plenty of rope for this, and the wizard had enough encumbrance. I shake my head a bit but allow it, since it's in the 'crazy enough to work' category.

One of the things I did at the beginning was tell every player to get their characters rope. At least 100 feet. For 2gp it's a great deal. You can never have enough rope, as this proves.

So onto the next encounter, the narrow hallway with zombies and a couple goblins. I hated running this encounter. It mostly took place in the 10 foot wide (2 square wide) corridor. No maneuverability made this a rather bland battle, even if it was against zombies (and my players know how to reference zombie apocalypse scenarios reasonably well). This battle wasn't hard, either, it just ate up a couple healing surges.

So we have one player with a single surge left, the warden with two surges left, the rogue with a couple more, and the wizard unhit (which means, admittedly, the warden is doing his job in protecting the squishy). They don't know when their next rest is, but they venture on, that clock looming.

Approaching 7 hours left.

They go into the next area. A nice open room with a magical fountain, a link to the goblin barracks/living area... oh, and a stairway with a chasm that goes down 100 feet, which means falling in would be bad.

A touch battle, here. The warlord was out of surges and down to 9 hp. He fled to the back with the wizard. The goblin hexer kept using blindness and movement hexes as appropriate. Lead from the rear made him hard to damage, too.

Party members fall and need inspiring word. This is going badly.

Finally the climax of the battle comes when the warden decides to make a running jump over the chasm (10 feet wide, mind you). I warn him that failure will very likely kill him. He takes it anyway, jumps across the chasm, and uses his halberd to melee the hexer to 'dead' status.

From there it's mopup.

One fun thing I do in battles in really bad situations, like where the warden nearly died from hitting negative bloodied status from one round's worth of attacks (he set himself up to take all the attacks that round), was have that player roll their damage. I rolled most of it, but there was one damage set left to roll, and the warden was 7 hp from negative bloodied. I give the dice to the warden's player, everyone watches, he rolls.

...and rolls himself 5 damage. He's brought back with inspiring word and leads the climatic charge. There was a minor celebration with this.

The adventurers loot the barracks (including a +1 chainmail armor). They also take a rest here (I told them I'd let them get a 'free rest'). I adjust the clock, they get up with less than an hour remaining and need to get down to the bottom. Thankfully they're almost there, just a flight of stairs to go.

And my players can't just go down the stairs. The perfectly functional stairs. One asks to wall jump down. Yes, wall jump. I shake my head a bit, "It'd take an athletics roll of 25." *roll* "28." "Okay, you wall jump down." Another rappels. The rest take the stairs. I figure the rule of cool applies to this kind of thing, and, well, no reason to ruin anyone's fun because an idea is crazy.

So they meet the goblin shaman at the bottom. A sequence I'll detail in the next post.

 

[Tylerja]

Tyler-I'm going to explain how our npc friend(Weenok) came to be.
We were having a practice game for fun we kept the loot not the xp in other words, Anyway we were on a quest to find and kill a goblin band and me and the wizard were wanting pets so we end up killing all the goblins but 3 (Weenok) a hexxer and a fighter but the rogue(me) successfully gives chase and as they stop I go stealthy like,an i climb a tree jump over a few trees behind the fighter and lets just say i got a wicked fatality on him I tried to bite his head of and the Dm said i had to roll a twenty to do so and guess what i did.

The hexxer in spite of fear ran, the shock of watching a friend get his head bit off does that I guess and he hexxed me and got away but the bound and gagged golbin was left behind.After some diplomacy and a imtimidation role of 20 by the dragonborn mage by talking about eating the goblin lol. Many ideas went around the table like starting a slave trade, a BROTHEL not with goblins of course , mostly just funny crazy ideas that the Dm wouldnt go for we had a deal with the goblin to join us.

My first post, so I hope this is in the right place for this kind of thing, but I figure keeping a log like this might be of use/interest to someone.

Also, a confession. I'm not wholly a newbie GM. I've ran MUD/MUSH based roleplaying action for quite several years, and ran a tabletop in the past. What I'm new to is running DND4e on a regular basis.

Right now I'm teaching my players the basic rules of how to play, helping them set up characters, and generally diving headlong into things. I modified the Loudwater segment of the FR Campaign Guide a bit as a starting point. The major difference is that I'm throwing in a young brown dragon at the end of the Tomb of the Ogre King (a low level basic dungeon environ).

My players are 14-17 years old (a much younger sibling and his friends).

My immediate concern is that I have one player who's constantly trying to make extra money/take anything not bolted down (the rogue, no less). No, wait, I'm not even sure bolting things down would work. The other players are split, I suspect they're bored of his hijinks, however. Trying to convince him that he'll get richer much quicker if he does the adventuring thing rather than trying to scam/loot a small town.

Right now I'm largely running the game as a series of tactical encounters linked by a (weak) story. I'm hoping to try and incorporate more role playing elements soon. My goal is to try and bring them into a storyline about the Zhents and Cyric's imprisonment, but I suspect that it will take several sessions before I get the chance.

My players sound enthused and are having fun, overall, from what they tell me, so I shouldn't complain too much about the little details.

 

[the Jester]

I have to say, it's enjoyable seeing a new party learning the ropes.

However, I don't have the FRCS so I don't have the proper context for these encounters. Personally, I'd love to know a bit more next update.