Finished!

[MerricB]

After almost three-and-a-half years or 67 sessions of play, we've finished the entire H-P-E series of D&D 4E adventures - all thirty levels of play.

Orcus is dead, Io has returned, and the fey wizard Underscore has his own plane.

Of the original players, only two managed to make it all the way to the end. Only one original character played through all the levels. For a lot of the way, there were four players and one DM, but the last few sessions saw two of the players forced to drop out due to Real Life, so only two were there for the final sessions.

Incredibly, it still all worked and was fun. We had two NPC characters with the group - Splug the Goblin, who had worked his way up from 1st to 30th along with the group from their first meeting in the Keep on the Shadowfell, and an essentials Knight (of the Raven Queen) I'd designed when we lost our defender's player for the last 4 sessions.

At these high levels, the group rarely felt in imminent threat of death, but there were a few times when it did approach closer. What is certain that the high level cleric aids greatly in keeping the party fit, and the way I created that Essentials Knight also made it a very stalwart and dependable member of the party, who would rarely be in trouble...

In the end, it was the two PCs who took down Orcus. The cleric dazed him, and the wizard slew him as the demon tried to flee. I'd expected Splug to do it, but it is fitting that Adam and Greg took the final blows.

The trouble ahead is to rebuild the group with new players; we hadn't wanted to get new players in just for the last few sessions of the game, but for the next campaign we'll embark on, more than just two players would be very nice!

I'm so happy to have finished this epic. I ran 3E from 1st through 20th level with the Age of Worms. Now I've run 4E through all the levels of its design, and been pleased with the result. If the maths could still do with a bit of tinkering, it's a lot closer to true, and the result was a memorable campaign.

Cheers!

 

[S'mon]

Congrats Merric!

Re players - while I've mostly DM'd larger groups (5-7) in recent years, it's noticeable how much faster 4e runs with smaller groups, 2-4. If speed is a factor for you you might consider only recruiting 1 or 2 new players, at least to start with. The game balance also seems to work better with say 3-5, rather than 6+. With more than 5 players you can see eg multiple Leaders, which can make it really hard to threaten the group.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

With my current group of 6, three of them are strikers. My biggest gripe is how quickly the monsters go down - the monsters don't get to take enough actions to damage them significantly.

 

[was]

congrats

 

[KarinsDad]

After almost three-and-a-half years or 67 sessions of play, we've finished the entire H-P-E series of D&D 4E adventures - all thirty levels of play.

67 sessions / 30 levels ~= 2.25 sessions per level.

Just out of curiosity, did you assign actual XP based on challenges overcome, or did you just kind of wing it? Also, how long were your sessions and how many skill challenges and combats did you have per session?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Congratulations. I'd love to hear more detail on how you feel the two systems compare, taken over a giant arc like that.

 

[Vael]

Congrats on completing that marathon.

 

[MerricB]

Congrats Merric!

Re players - while I've mostly DM'd larger groups (5-7) in recent years, it's noticeable how much faster 4e runs with smaller groups, 2-4. If speed is a factor for you you might consider only recruiting 1 or 2 new players, at least to start with. The game balance also seems to work better with say 3-5, rather than 6+. With more than 5 players you can see eg multiple Leaders, which can make it really hard to threaten the group.

Thanks!

Yes, I've observed that myself. 4E combat length scales fairly linearly with # of players IME, although Essentials speeds it up.

However, the next campaign will probably be AD&D, so a few more players would be very good...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Congratulations. I'd love to hear more detail on how you feel the two systems compare, taken over a giant arc like that.

The big difference is that 3E combats became unwieldy once 12th level was cleared. It has been noted that I run combats a lot quicker than most DMs, and even my high-level 3E combats were taking 1-3 hours. (Very rarely 3). The amount of time it took a fighter to resolve his turn was ridiculous - so many dice being rolled, and then modifier after modifier after modifier...

3E provides more wacky effects in combat from the spellcasters, especially once they get their hands on books like the Spell Compendium. There are fewer "way-out-there" moments with 4e, although there are lovely moments. Our wizard had the ability to banish a foe to a demiplane (for a turn) on a critical, which was pretty amusing for everyone...

One big feature of 4E was how all the characters were relevant throughout. We didn't have a final combat where the rogue was reduced to doing 3 damage to the Big Bad because of Epic Damage Resistance + No Sneak Attack (which is what Paizo inflicted on us with Kyuss). The cleric was more effective against undead; the wizard more effective against minions - or at controlling solos; the fighter was always appreciated and the thief likewise.

Mathematically, the original incarnation of 4E had problems at the higher levels, which mostly translated to too little damage from monsters (and some too-high defenses). Luckily, most of my epic run was after the new maths, so I just upped damage codes. They might still be a little low - it's incredible the healing power the party has - but they're a lot better.

Another interesting point: start of turn auras got replaced by end of turn effects in new monster/trap + spell design. This is so, so much better. In Kingdom of Ghouls, we had a monster that blinded and dazed anyone who started in its aura. (Ghoul Gatherer). It was the most stupidly frustrating monster to play against. There wasn't an escape option for the wizard - it could just hunt him down each turn. Noting the change in design philosophy, I switched it to end of turn, and suddenly it became an interesting monster rather than a frustrating one. (It also turns out that Splug rolled *more* criticals when he was blind...)

The actual structure of the H-P-E adventures didn't allow much ritual use - there was some, but rarely was it needed. I've noticed a *lot* more ritual use in the running of the sandbox-y "Lost City" adventure (which is really worth checking out - it's Logan Bonner + others from the Open Design initiative). Rituals do need work, mostly on a cost basis.

Mordenkainen's Magic Emporium is brilliant, and has much better magic items that what came before - it was much easier to give the party items from it th appreciated than a lot of lackluster ones from the AVs.

Basically, I think 4E has become a lot better recently post-essentials: although it was fun before, it did show all the signs of a system not understood enough; pretty much the same as 3e, although the fundamentals of 3e/3.5e are just so flawed that after a while you can't fix them. Don't get me wrong, I like 3e/3.5e, but at higher levels the gaping holes in the system are a lot more problematic than any with 4e.

There are things I'd still like 4e to do better, but just at this point I'm very happy with how the campaign went.

Going forward, my other 4E campaign (Greyhawk) is about 15th level and exploring the Lost City, I'm playing in a 7th level Eberron game, and I'm hoping the Sunday game will now try some AD&D, so we can get some perspective on how D&D has changed - and see if the faster combats make up for the simpler characters.

Cheers!

 

[Rechan]

Merrick, Congrats!

I'm really interested in the Start vs. End of Turn aura mechanic. Wouldn't doing that mean that players would never get hit - they would let the thing come to them, then on their turn they would attack, then spend a move action to shift away?