Character Art in KotS

[Torchlyte]

I agree with the Boarstorm that the picture complaints are a little silly.

On the other hand, I am in agreement with respect to the Half-Elf's sheet.

 

[Gorrstagg]

I immediately saw the discrepancies when the pages were scanned, and put up last week. I thought it was a bit funny, that the images, looked nothing like what the characters ended up being.

Is it a bad thing? Not so much bad, as it shows it was inefficient, or sloppy attention to detail. Is it the end of the world no. Could they of used sketches from the various mini's they are to represent. Sure. (Dwarven Maul-fighter, easy enough to drop in. It's a mini after all.)

 

[Wolfspider]

I agree with the Boarstorm that the picture complaints are a little silly..

Hmmph.

 

[Jer]

... but it's an introduction to the 4E ruleset, not an introduction to D&D or role-playing in general. The entire module is waaay too complicated for that.

Wha? Really?

Wow. I disagree almost 100%. I've been reading over this adventure and it's a classic "welcome to roleplaying" adventure. The adventure text practically holds the DM's hands every step of the way. It starts off with really easy-to-run combat encounters, sprinkles in some easy "in town" roleplaying encounters (including scripted responses for every NPC the players might encounter at the local tavern), builds in a number of ways for a newb DM to keep the plot moving when the action inevitably stalls, starts the DM out with some simple encounters and builds to more and more complex encounters...

This is just about one of the best "intro" D&D products I've seen since the old Metzner Basic Set - it doesn't assume that the folks reading it are complete idiots, but it lays things out in a clear manner, builds things up slowly, and introduces the complexity at a decent rate. It handholds in all of the right places and gives fairly decent advice at just about the points where the newb DM is going to need it.

 

[direkobold]

I agree with the Boarstorm that the picture complaints are a little silly.

Fair enough, I granted that I was being a little bit picky, but when you start looking at some of the other stuff they did, DDM Maps, Half-Elf, inconsistent rules, other errors, it appears that they may have cut some corners.

I have all the sympathy in the world for how difficult it must have been to crank out an adventure right in the middle of crunch time on the books, but that's not going to keep me from pointing out where they could have done better.

For the record I am more convinced than ever after reading the quickstart and some of the other stuff that I'm going to have more fun with 4E than 3E, and that's why I'm disappointed, I want it to get the best launch possible.

 

[jackston2]

Its better that the pics are inaccurate, gives people a general idea of what they look like without forcing them to be exactly that character.

 

[Boarstorm]

Wha? Really?

Wow. I disagree almost 100%. I've been reading over this adventure and it's a classic "welcome to roleplaying" adventure. The adventure text practically holds the DM's hands every step of the way. It starts off with really easy-to-run combat encounters, sprinkles in some easy "in town" roleplaying encounters (including scripted responses for every NPC the players might encounter at the local tavern), builds in a number of ways for a newb DM to keep the plot moving when the action inevitably stalls, starts the DM out with some simple encounters and builds to more and more complex encounters...

This is just about one of the best "intro" D&D products I've seen since the old Metzner Basic Set - it doesn't assume that the folks reading it are complete idiots, but it lays things out in a clear manner, builds things up slowly, and introduces the complexity at a decent rate. It handholds in all of the right places and gives fairly decent advice at just about the points where the newb DM is going to need it.

For you and me, it comes off as very introductory indeed. A lot of the "DM Advice" and such is obviously aimed at newer DMs. But for those DMs who've only run two or three adventures so far and are just getting into the swing of things, it could be quite helpful. This is where we agree.

The level of tactical thinking and monster look-after-ing, however, is more geared toward those who have at least some experience with roleplaying or wargaming -- at least, if you intend to get the most out of the encounters. This is where we disagree.

However, look at the box sets WotC put out as introductory sets for 3.X. Here, we're getting a whole 'nother ballgame. The rules have all the complexity of monopoly without the money, and each adventure (which exists totally in a vaccuum, like some demiplane of the world's smallest dungeons) takes all of 10 minutes to complete.

I guess what I'm getting at is I see it more as a "skill-building" module instead of as a "start from scratch with children" introduction to the hobby like most "introductory" products tend to be these days.

 

[MindWanderer]

They had plenty of room for it. I don't mind they left it out it makes sense. It has no bearing on the character or the adventure. I think they should have left more things out of the character sheets.

It's not really on topic for this thread, but they could have easily just used a different race that didn't have a power built in, like an elf. (Interesting, I just noticed: of the 8 races in the PHB, only the elf and dwarf lack a power of some sort. Humans and half-elves get a bonus class power, and eladrin, halflings, tieflings, and dragonborn get a racial power.)

 

[mhacdebhandia]

That being said, there's some counters available that might make do.

In the future, can I make a pair of suggestions? Try drawing some non-white PCs, and either mix up the genders more evenly (one woman and four men kind of bothers me) or, better yet, draw a full set of male and female contenders for each class.

I'm planning to use these counters for my own game, and it's cool that they've been made available, but I have two female gamers in my regular group, and since they're both playing women at the moment, I imagine they'd prefer to have the choice to use a counter that actually could represent their character.

 

[Klaus]

In the future, can I make a pair of suggestions? Try drawing some non-white PCs, and either mix up the genders more evenly (one woman and four men kind of bothers me) or, better yet, draw a full set of male and female contenders for each class.

I'm planning to use these counters for my own game, and it's cool that they've been made available, but I have two female gamers in my regular group, and since they're both playing women at the moment, I imagine they'd prefer to have the choice to use a counter that actually could represent their character.

Well, I had to make do with mostly pre-existing counters. FDP's counters have traditionally been very varied in both etnicity and gender. I did make a point of darkening the halflings' skin from the original rosy beige to a slightly olive tan.

Don't worry, your concern is duly noted.