A skeptics 1st 4E game

[Shadeydm]

Hi folks, before I share me first 4E plyer experience let me set out a few disclaimers. The game had 7 total people 4 of whom had basically never played dnd before and three who had never played 4E before (one of whom was kind enough to DM).

The Party; a Dwarf Cleric, Human Fighter, Halfling Rogue, Human Ranger, Elven Wizard, and my character a Dragonborn Paladin. Yes although I dislike the Dragonborn as a PHB race I could not resist the enticement of +2str and +2 chr for my pally I think its kind of amusing that none of the 4 players new to dnd chose to play either a dragonborn or a tiefling.

The game started off with a bang. A Kill Bill style Battle Royal in an Inn with 20+ goblin Minions. It was a blast and I didn't mind them dying so easily at all when there were so many. The db paladin was lots of fun to play between marking opponents spewing acid breath on them passing out the occasional healing surge via Lay on Hands etc.

The evening ended with a climatic battle against what was basically a dragon (in a crow suit long story but cool) Who was a very tough opponent and took a whole lot of damage before he was finally bloodied.

Class impressions: the halfling rogue totally kicked ass, the cleric was able to contribute to combat in a number of ways including both offense and healing from a distance (quite well I might add). The drama about rangers being over powered would seem to have been overblown (at least after one session). Don't really have much to say about the fighter will need to see him in action more and using his marking ability which seemed to get overlooked. I really enjoyed the new pally my biggest disappointment was whiffing on my daily (I don't really see why these can't be encounter powers but thats a discussion for another day). Most disappointing class was the wizard (not the players fault btw) the daily (sleep) had little effect on the battle and MM seemed to miss a lot.

All in all it was a lot of fun and yes it felt like dnd a different kind of dnd perhaps but still dnd.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Hi folks, before I share me first 4E plyer experience let me set out a few disclaimers. The game had 7 total people 4 of whom had basically never played dnd before and three who had never played 4E before (one of whom was kind enough to DM).

The Party; a Dwarf Cleric, Human Fighter, Halfling Rogue, Human Ranger, Elven Wizard, and my character a Dragonborn Paladin. Yes although I dislike the Dragonborn as a PHB race I could not resist the enticement of +2str and +2 chr for my pally I think its kind of amusing that none of the 4 players new to dnd chose to play either a dragonborn or a tiefling.

The game started off with a bang. A Kill Bill style Battle Royal in an Inn with 20+ goblin Minions. It was a blast and I didn't mind them dying so easily at all when there were so many. The db paladin was lots of fun to play between marking opponents spewing acid breath on them passing out the occasional healing surge via Lay on Hands etc.

The evening ended with a climatic battle against what was basically a dragon (in a crow suit long story but cool) Who was a very tough opponent and took a whole lot of damage before he was finally bloodied.

Class impressions: the halfling rogue totally kicked ass, the cleric was able to contribute to combat in a number of ways including both offense and healing from a distance (quite well I might add). The drama about rangers being over powered would seem to have been overblown (at least after one session). Don't really have much to say about the fighter will need to see him in action more and using his marking ability which seemed to get overlooked. I really enjoyed the new pally my biggest disappointment was whiffing on my daily (I don't really see why these can't be encounter powers but thats a discussion for another day). Most disappointing class was the wizard (not the players fault btw) the daily (sleep) had little effect on the battle and MM seemed to miss a lot.

All in all it was a lot of fun and yes it felt like dnd a different kind of dnd perhaps but still dnd.

Spoiler

Yes... come to the dark side...

Nice story, happy to see that you enjoyed it.

Interesting, your Wizard took Magic Missile. The one in my KotS did not - Thunderweave and Cloud of Storms though, and killed or hurled quite a few Kobolds...

I have seen Sleep in action only once, during a playtest, and it proved quite effective there. Seems very "dice luck" dependent, but so does everything in D&D...

 

[Shadeydm]

I was really convinced that I would hate the whole 1 HP minion thing, but in actual play with like 20 of the critters running around it was both fun and exciting.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Glad you had fun, but I would be interested, was there anything other than minions that made you skeptical and what do you currently feel about those issues?

 

[Shadeydm]

Glad you had fun, but I would be interested, was there anything other than minions that made you skeptical and what do you currently feel about those issues?

I would prefer not to reopen any edition warring but here are a few thoughts and impressions.
Well, I was doubtful about the whole encounter, and daily power limits. They sound difficult to swallow. After one session it's a little too soon to make the call one way or the other but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected last night at least. My quick impression was that encounter powers didn't really jump out or seem to jarring to the play experience. Daily powers on the other hand seem to me like they should simply be made into encounter powers once per day for my pally judgment and then to miss on that one attempt seems lame. Also give how weak sleep seemed I don't see how it would be game breaking as an encounter power.

The pacing of combat was very slow but this can be written of as inconclusive as we had 4 people new to dnd and 2 players and a DM new to 4E which is bound to have an effect. Battles in 4E didn't last nearly as long (in terms of rounds) as I had been lead to believe by some posters/playtesters in fact battles seemed to go about as many rounds as thier earlier edition counterparts. Again this is simply a first impression.

Even having played one I still don't see the need for Dragonborn (or Tieflings for that matter) to be PHB races. Who knows if I play one enough it might grow on me but I still say they should have been relegated to the MM or a later PHB or campaign specific player guide. In one tiny sample (our 4 new to dnd players) none of them were enticed into playing either race which casts some doubt in my mind as how much thier inclusion in the PHB will attract new players as some have claimed. Still I did get a kick out of spewing acid at my enemies lol. It even kept my Pally mark going once when I wasn't able to make a melee attack against a challenged critter.

What I really want to see/hear from 4E is how much simpler/faster it makes running combat and preping adventures/encounters. I imagine it will take a lot more experience to make an informed opinion on these things.

After only one session I can honestly say that I didn't get the whole "doesn't feel like DnD" vibe some have posted about. It felt like DnD to me perhaps a different flavor of DnD but still DnD.

My biggest disappointment by far was the wizard class but it was only one session so who knows.

It was overall a fun experience and I will gladly play again sometime and hopefully gain more insight into this new edition and its strengths and weaknesses.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

I was the DM for this session and it's great to get such detailed feedback!

This was an unusual one-shot because it was suggested by some non-gamers who enjoyed the PA podcast so much they wanted to give the game a try. So I whipped something up that was lighthearted and filled with movie and PA references. The final boss was a young black dragon skin changed into a Deep Crow.

The four new players had PC's made for them by guys from our regular group, who also haven't played 4e yet but have 20+ years of other editions to build from. The newbies got to chose classes and races but without PHB's of their own, they didn't really know what DBorn and Tieflings were, so that's one reason they didn't occur.

I thought the minion battle went well but took too long, and had planned to drop a goblin hexer in the middle of it, but had him flee instead, as the battle was dragging on. By game's end I noticed a huge difference in how long turns were taking from the start of the 5 hour session and the end. The two experienced players were right at home and doing more each turn but taking about as much time as a 3.5 turn, so that was encouraging. Some newbies really picked it up while others were always struggling.

We had a skill challenge also. I just lifted the negotiation example from the DMG. I think that was the biggest hit for a few of the new players, as turns came much more swiftly than in combat. Everyone seemed to get into the RP aspect and payed close attention to every die roll.

The Deep Crow was a great fight that also got a bit bogged down, imo. Also it was very un-4e as there was very little motion. A lot of that was my taking it easy on them, as I quickly realized that the dragon had all it needed to ruin inexperienced players in no time flat. Still, I'm glad I finished the night with a bang. I knew this was a lark and we weren't in danger of recruiting any new regular players, but everyone enjoyed themselves as least as much as, say, a night of Soul Caliber round robin or Boom Blox, so I put it in the win column.

--Z

 

[Shadeydm]

Thanks for chiming in Z. I am ashamed to admit I totally forgot about the skill challenge. It was very cool, and I was quite convinced we were going to fail and genuinely suprised when we suceeded.

Great fun last night thanks for DMing!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Em, two replies for the price of 1.

So fat I have run 3 session of The Keep on the Shadowfell with players aged 10 to 18 and have had a blast even with a half tpk in the last session.

The two older players have expressed an interest in running a campaing, though one of them had run several session in 3.5 before.

I have played one session as a player, Elf warlock.

As regards to Tieflings and dragonborn, well I don't care much for them but my two younger players love them. One wants to be dragonborn all the time and the other wants to be a tiefling only.

In all session, so far we have only stopped the game once to look something up and it took only a couple of minutes. Not that we have not been making mistakes. We have, a lot of them but we did not notice. I expect to get more rules queries when people get more familar with the game and begin to try things a little out of the box.

I agree that at low levels combat is about the same as 3.5 but with prepped powers I suspect it will be faster at higher levels. I have added typed sheets to the character sheets with the powers and precalculated the to hit number. So only the circumstantial stuff needs to be added in the game.

 

[SSquirrel]

Printing off power cards can be a big help to speeding things up. My friend's wife was looking up Cleric stuff a lot b/c she hadn't done that and she has nevr played a Cleric in any previous edition. She has played one in WoW and felt more comfortable stepping into the class in D&D now w/4E. I kept all my power cards in lil stacks based on what kind of powers they were. Worked very well.

Interestingly enough, our 3 player group was a Tiefling Cleric, Dragonborn Fighter and Human Wizard. My wife was DMing for ehr first time, but I already talked about that in another thread (or 3 or 4 heh)

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

Thanks for chiming in Z. I am ashamed to admit I totally forgot about the skill challenge. It was very cool, and I was quite convinced we were going to fail and genuinely surprised when we succeeded.

Great fun last night thanks for DMing!

Twice when Boggy the Halfling got 30+ on his bluff and then thieverey, I awarded him two successes. It was seriously cool when a newbie player came up with using his thievery skill to convince the NPC that you guys could in fact sneak into the lair.

--Z