of course, but like I said, we enjoy challenge, and a short 5 minute rest resetting a brush with death is a bit silly. Thus, 3 failed death saves before an extended rest will kill you.
Essentials Game Day recap
- Thread starter OnlineDM
- Start date
of course, but like I said, we enjoy challenge, and a short 5 minute rest resetting a brush with death is a bit silly. Thus, 3 failed death saves before an extended rest will kill you.
Festivus
First Post
Sunderpeak Temple writeup (massive spoilers within)
[sblock]
This adventure takes place somewhere after the adventure in the red box (there are references made to the red box adventure within that it takes place after the Twisting Halls adventure). A dwarf scholar has hired the party to escort him to Sunderpeak Temple, where the priests there have a ritual that can be used to destroy an evil artifact (a skull) that is in the dwarf's possession. There hasn't been any word from the temple, hence the journey to find out. Why he's bringing the macguffin with him I have no idea... seems an odd thing to do. Did I mention it's set in the Nentir Vale? I thought that was kind of fun to have a place where it was at.
The adventure is split into two parts... the surface, which is two encounters and the dungeon, which is either 2 or 3 encounters depending upon time.
When you arrive at Sunderpeak it is in ruin and orc can be seen in the courtyard. The first encounter involves some orcs with a nasty area burst 1 within 20 "volley" shot, a pair of drakes, and a couple sneaking bandits. The second surface encounter is inside the temple, where kobolds are busy wreaking havoc on the temple interior at the direction of an Orc boss. The kobolds are mostly minions who had a neat trick, if hit with a burst or blast attack, they roll a saving throw and if they make it, shift 3 squares (possibly out of the burst) as an immediate interrupt.
After clearing the surface, the players head down to a underground tunnel. There are two doors, a wooden one (behind which can be heard some voices) and a stone door with a crude marking of "DED" painted on the floor in front of it. The wooden door is what I called the "Rune room" because there were runes all over the place. If a player stepped on the rune (even through forced movement) it reacted randomly. Sadly, the players were smart enough to realize they were probably something bad, and avoided it. Second time through I made the runes react in a close burst 1 fasion, which was overpowered. I think if I run it again, they will react with a 25% chance of being a burst 1 formation. There were some orc savages that if they got a run at you did some nasty damage, some human guards with reach weapons to trip players, and another orc archer who could volley. I really think a controller that could slide things around would have been really nasty in that encounter as another way to fix it. There was a skill challenge that could be undertaken during the combat to disarm the runes or turn them to your side. New runes randomly appeared in the room at the end of each round.
The undead room I didn't get to run, but I would have loved to see the faces of the players as zombies you thought you killed rose again. You had to perform a standard action (I think) to damage them while they were at zero to keep them down.
The dragon fight was the last fight, and it was interesting. I heard tell of many TPKs from the shroud and the breath weapon combo... but my table won initiative and defeated him and his hobgoblins (the party focussed on the hobogoblins and orcs before focussing on the dragon). I don't think this scales well for a table of 4, but with 6 is was challenging but still doable.
In the end, the dragon was having the orcs excavate a wall in the temple, which exposed a hidden staircase that lead to a runic cicle, now inactive but aracana checks tell you it was designed to keep something IN... that is now gone. So the party was basically too late to discover what the dragon has unleashed... but a fun plot hook.
[/sblock]
Feel free to ask questions, I happened to have it in my backpack today when I went to work
[sblock]
This adventure takes place somewhere after the adventure in the red box (there are references made to the red box adventure within that it takes place after the Twisting Halls adventure). A dwarf scholar has hired the party to escort him to Sunderpeak Temple, where the priests there have a ritual that can be used to destroy an evil artifact (a skull) that is in the dwarf's possession. There hasn't been any word from the temple, hence the journey to find out. Why he's bringing the macguffin with him I have no idea... seems an odd thing to do. Did I mention it's set in the Nentir Vale? I thought that was kind of fun to have a place where it was at.
The adventure is split into two parts... the surface, which is two encounters and the dungeon, which is either 2 or 3 encounters depending upon time.
When you arrive at Sunderpeak it is in ruin and orc can be seen in the courtyard. The first encounter involves some orcs with a nasty area burst 1 within 20 "volley" shot, a pair of drakes, and a couple sneaking bandits. The second surface encounter is inside the temple, where kobolds are busy wreaking havoc on the temple interior at the direction of an Orc boss. The kobolds are mostly minions who had a neat trick, if hit with a burst or blast attack, they roll a saving throw and if they make it, shift 3 squares (possibly out of the burst) as an immediate interrupt.
After clearing the surface, the players head down to a underground tunnel. There are two doors, a wooden one (behind which can be heard some voices) and a stone door with a crude marking of "DED" painted on the floor in front of it. The wooden door is what I called the "Rune room" because there were runes all over the place. If a player stepped on the rune (even through forced movement) it reacted randomly. Sadly, the players were smart enough to realize they were probably something bad, and avoided it. Second time through I made the runes react in a close burst 1 fasion, which was overpowered. I think if I run it again, they will react with a 25% chance of being a burst 1 formation. There were some orc savages that if they got a run at you did some nasty damage, some human guards with reach weapons to trip players, and another orc archer who could volley. I really think a controller that could slide things around would have been really nasty in that encounter as another way to fix it. There was a skill challenge that could be undertaken during the combat to disarm the runes or turn them to your side. New runes randomly appeared in the room at the end of each round.
The undead room I didn't get to run, but I would have loved to see the faces of the players as zombies you thought you killed rose again. You had to perform a standard action (I think) to damage them while they were at zero to keep them down.
The dragon fight was the last fight, and it was interesting. I heard tell of many TPKs from the shroud and the breath weapon combo... but my table won initiative and defeated him and his hobgoblins (the party focussed on the hobogoblins and orcs before focussing on the dragon). I don't think this scales well for a table of 4, but with 6 is was challenging but still doable.
In the end, the dragon was having the orcs excavate a wall in the temple, which exposed a hidden staircase that lead to a runic cicle, now inactive but aracana checks tell you it was designed to keep something IN... that is now gone. So the party was basically too late to discover what the dragon has unleashed... but a fun plot hook.
[/sblock]
Feel free to ask questions, I happened to have it in my backpack today when I went to work
GRStrayton
First Post
I DMed it and had almost the exact same situation as Festivus! Nearly killed the party twice, had multiple characters down several times, but in the end they destroyed the dragon and won the day! Everyone seemed to have a good time.
I wasn't aware there were any gaming shops left in Southern, Oregon.
Was this in Medford?
tuxgeo
Adventurer
Oops. My "location" listing might be confusing: I've been spending 60% - 70% of my time in Brookings (where my parents retired to), which is SW OR, so that's listed as my location; but I was conveniently in Eugene on the day of the Red Box Game Day event. (Yes, the 225 mile drive each way takes a few hours.
)But I still didn't play at a gaming shop, though there are a few such in Eugene; instead, our game was hosted at a local sandwich shop on the main drag through town. (COGS website for those interested; maybe you could e-mail JGattie about how he arranges to have organized and officially supported gaming events without using a gaming shop for it?)
Sorry if I confused anyone with that story. . . .
[Furthermore, lack of competition can spell opportunity: maybe you could find some dedicated person in Medford who is willing to start a new gaming shop there! They could call it something regional like "Dire Bear Creek Games," and start a gaming group named "Rogues of the Rogue River Valley" or something similar. Maybe "Wizard Island Irregulars"? Ah, enough silliness for now.]
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Neonchameleon
Legend
Is the adventure online anywhwere?
cdrcjsn
First Post
I played it at Black Diamond Games in Concord, CA.
There were 6 players, 4 people new to 4e with varying experiences of playing D&D ranging from pathfinder players to people still playing 2e in a home game. The fact that a lot of the rules had to be explained to people meant that we didn't get to do the entire mod and each of the new players needed more time to do their turns (which I used to doodle sketches). I think we only did the first two encounters, a skill challenge, and the final dragon encounter.
I just got the Heroes of the Fallen Lands book so I decided to create a new character rather than play the pregen. Another player used the storm priest so I made a sun priest. I named him Pholtus and played him accordingly.
One of the rogues made good use of his various move powers, but I think both managed to get CA for almost all of their attacks. The dwarf fighter was effective in dealing damage, but I really missed the stickiness of the core fighter. The pregen characters on the cards differed from the Essentials rules, but the DM opted to just go with what was on the cards for ease of play. Consequently, the wizard rarely strayed from his two magic missiles a round, at least until the last fight.
Having two warpriests helped a lot. In the first fight with the drakes and orcs, both of used up our healing words and there were still people bloodied. Those draked did a lot of damage and several of the new players didn't scatter when the orcs started lobbing area 1 attacks.
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/clericVdrake.jpg
Our halfling thief got the moniker "SpiderHobbit" after he showed off his wall climbing skills.
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/SpiderHobbit.jpg
Both priests really liked the at-will orisons that were available. The storm priest liked to insult his enemies by drenching them in water as a minor action. I used my orison to light up the dwarf's helmet to provide light when we got into the dungeon.
By the dragon encounter, even the new players have managed to pick up the various tricks that their characters can do, but it was still a very tough fight. My priest still went unconscious and someone had to use a potion to revive him.
Oh, and Lesser Aspect of Wrath is a really cool spell
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/LesserAspectOfWrath.jpg
There were 6 players, 4 people new to 4e with varying experiences of playing D&D ranging from pathfinder players to people still playing 2e in a home game. The fact that a lot of the rules had to be explained to people meant that we didn't get to do the entire mod and each of the new players needed more time to do their turns (which I used to doodle sketches). I think we only did the first two encounters, a skill challenge, and the final dragon encounter.
I just got the Heroes of the Fallen Lands book so I decided to create a new character rather than play the pregen. Another player used the storm priest so I made a sun priest. I named him Pholtus and played him accordingly.
One of the rogues made good use of his various move powers, but I think both managed to get CA for almost all of their attacks. The dwarf fighter was effective in dealing damage, but I really missed the stickiness of the core fighter. The pregen characters on the cards differed from the Essentials rules, but the DM opted to just go with what was on the cards for ease of play. Consequently, the wizard rarely strayed from his two magic missiles a round, at least until the last fight.
Having two warpriests helped a lot. In the first fight with the drakes and orcs, both of used up our healing words and there were still people bloodied. Those draked did a lot of damage and several of the new players didn't scatter when the orcs started lobbing area 1 attacks.
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/clericVdrake.jpg
Our halfling thief got the moniker "SpiderHobbit" after he showed off his wall climbing skills.
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/SpiderHobbit.jpg
Both priests really liked the at-will orisons that were available. The storm priest liked to insult his enemies by drenching them in water as a minor action. I used my orison to light up the dwarf's helmet to provide light when we got into the dungeon.
By the dragon encounter, even the new players have managed to pick up the various tricks that their characters can do, but it was still a very tough fight. My priest still went unconscious and someone had to use a potion to revive him.
Oh, and Lesser Aspect of Wrath is a really cool spell
http://www.familiar-ground.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/LesserAspectOfWrath.jpg
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Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I would have thought it would have the opposite effect, eliminating suspense and preventing the player doing anything.
I really like the aspect of allowing the player to make his desperate death saves, chanting '20', '20', '20' as they roll, hoping for the magic standupagain result. It makes it more suspenseful and engaging for everybody IMO. The randomness of the death saves themselves means that nobody ever says 'oh, he's got two death saves left, leave him for now'. In fact, the knowledge that fred is bleeding out badly while joan is hanging on in there helps the PCs decide who to attempt to save first, which is all to the good.
I know its horses for courses, but I'd hate to be in a game where the DM didn't let me make my own saving throws!
Cheers
It's a hard line to balance on, really. Some DMs roll perception and other checks for thier players. Some players simply see a low number on the die and say "he must have failed, i'll try searching now", breaking the immersion.
I like to have the option as the DM to say "as you bend down to hold Lidda in your arms and administer a potion, her head lols to the side and you notice she is no longer breathing. She passed from this life while you were getting that last hit on the fleeing orcs."
And, as experienced this past weekend when I rolled 20s for two players, "your eyes suddenly shoot open and you gasp for breath, choking on your own blood, but you are alive and ready for payback."
