A good first encounter for 4E noobs?

[Mercurius]

SETUP: Myself as DM, three players of indeterminate classes, all 1st level. No one has played 4e, although I've been lightly reading the core books and have a general sense of the rules. I've played D&D most recently, about six years ago (3e), but no one else has played since 2e. After background and making characters, I want to get them to a first "on the road" encounter to get a taste of the rules: something relatively simple and not too challenging, but with enough danger for some excitement.

Thanks!

 

[darjr]

How about the short additional encounter for the H1 adaptation to the Forgotten Realms. The one where the PC's confront a cultist in winterhaven.

http://www.wizards.com/files/155_Shadowfell_FR.pdf

 

[Mercurius]

Except I want a wilderness encounter--they'll be camping and, bam, they're attacked by some Fell Creature.

 

[Gruns]

3 lvl 1s

Hello.
Being that you only have three PCs, and they're all level 1, your options are going to be a bit limited. Encounter design gets a lot better with more PCs, and when they get a few levels. For an "average" encounter, you have 300 points to play with. The "more challenging" (+1 level) encounter gives us a 400 point pool. Let's go with one of those. The stereotypical lvl 1 encounter would be a kobold ambush, but if you want this to occur while they're camping at night, undead or bandits is another option.

Kobolds
As the PCs walk down the road, kobolds hide in the bushes. When the PCs walk over square X, a kobold slinger triggers a Rockslide trap set to go off at that location. The slinger tries to Gluepot PCs in the rockslide. When the dust settles, the minions and skirmisher run amok while the slinger continues to fire at range with regular bullets.

Rockslide 100xp
4x Kobold Minion 100xp
Kobold Skirmisher 100xp
Kobold Slinger 100xp

Undead
Just about as simple as it gets. Various undead have picked up the scent of the living and simply march into the camp looking for a meal. Braaains. The PCs will have a tough time with this encounter if they don't take out the Deathlock Wight ASAP.

Deathlock Wight 175xp
Skeleton 150xp
2x Zombie Rotter 76xp

Bandits
Again fairly simple, but the bandits at least try to use stealth to surprise the presumably lone PC on watch. The Bandits do the sneaking while the Rabble lie in wait nearby. Should be a pretty straitforward fight once the PCs get over the initial surprise and chaos.

2x Human Bandit 250xp
5x Human Rabble 155xp


Even on a 300-400 point budget, you can mix and match in a lot of thematic ways to come up with some workable encounters. And like I said, it only gets better once you have some leeway to work with once they get a few levels.
Later!
Gruns

 

[Thanee]

Just start out with Keep on the Shadowfell.

It has small wilderness encounters in the beginning, which tie into the whole plot, so you have a start and also a road to move on further.

It also has nice poster maps for many of the encounters (all of the initial ones), which is always a plus.
And it is surely written with new DM/players in mind.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Mercurius]

Thanks Gruns and Thanee (and darjr) for the suggestions. I'll probably go with a variant of the undead attack; the characters will have to go off road to get to their location and will end up camping by a "small hill", not knowing it is a barrow. Oops.

 

[darjr]

I'm in a game with a brand new GM. She ran us through the traditional 'Wolfs attack the camp at night' scenario. It was all about the flickering dimming camp fire, us rousing from our sleep, and glowing eyes in the dark. A menacing unknown that leapt upon us all at once.

 

[Mercurius]

I'm in a game with a brand new GM. She ran us through the traditional 'Wolfs attack the camp at night' scenario. It was all about the flickering dimming camp fire, us rousing from our sleep, and glowing eyes in the dark. A menacing unknown that leapt upon us all at once.

Ooh, I like, especially because--as a first encounter--it is more "natural" and less supernatural, thus allowing me to build up the supernatural elements rather than de-mystifying them by starting the campaign with "You're attacked by a bunch of undead creatures, roll initiative."

 

[Rel]

How about you lead off with a couple of wolves in what seems to be just hungry predators. It's dark and with only the firelight to see by, it's not until a couple rounds into the fight that they get a chance to make a Perception check to notice...the wolves have collars!

An instant later a goblin arrow zips out of the darkness at them as the pair of dismounted wolf-riders attack! Given a chance, one of the goblins will dart into the camp and grab one of their backpacks and run away. If the wolves are still alive then the goblins can whistle for them and then ride off into the night.

This encounter would establish several things:
There are wolves around here.
The goblins use them as mounts.
The goblins are bandits and raiders who are more than willing to attack even heavily armed groups travelling on the roads.

And those goblins probably have a lair around here somewhere...

 

[Thanee]

That's very nice, and also includes what I think is important... to not just have an encounter for the sake of having an encounter, but also to get them more involved, have them look for answers to questions the encounter gives them.

Bye
Thanee

P.S. Besides, wolves attacking humans (or similar) certainly isn't natural.