First Game for 4E!

[Xorn]

I used the DMG intro adventure for the first game of our 4E campaign, and it went great! They started out in Fallcrest and headed for the Kobold Lair.

They are playing a 4-person group:
Dwarf Fighter: Wearing scale mail and using a maul, he laid down a devastating front line.

Tiefling Warlord: Also in scale mail, using a greataxe, he specialized in healing and slide abilities (and chopping people in half).

Halfling Rogue: Wearing leather, and wielding a dagger and hand crossbow, he was built for sneak attacks.

Elf Ranger: Also in leather, with a glaive strapped on her back (that never saw use) and a longbow, she was laying down so many arrows she was practically a controller!

The first room they were feeling themselves out, with the warlord and fighter charging across the room and jumping over a slime pit to bash in the kobolds heads! The rogue moved around the side laying down punishment while the ranger dropped back behind cover and proceeded to Twin Strike over and over. That ended fast.

In the second area they were trying to fight more skirmishers, but spent more time getting hit by poison dart traps, except for the ranger, who just continued to put one arrow after another into the badguys! Finally the dwarf jumped up onto one of the coffins, ran along it, and brained the last kobold over the head! Once the fighting was over, the elf pointed out the trigger plates like they had beacons flashing on them.

Next they found themselves taking a barrage of ranged fire while the melees tried to bash in the doors leading up to the balcony level. There was a lot of damage trading back and forth, with the guard drakes in the doorway really tearing up the fighter. The ranger killed four minions in one turn, using Twin Strike to kill two, action pointing, and repeating the shots again!

They confronted the leader of the kobolds and his entourage, but the warlord and fighter (using Athletics for the 4th or 5th time) climbed over the wall the kobolds were using to stay out of melee, and began crushing their heads in. Meanwhile the ranger deftly shot a spiretop drake out of the air, and the whole party avoided a giant boulder rolling about the room. Finally they cornered the wyrmpriest and his dragonshield guards, and proceeded to chop them down, blowing their dailies.

Then they found a key, leading down to the lair of a young white dragon. They dropped her, but it was a really nasty fight. The fighter reached single digit health three times, everyone but the ranger (safely in cover drilling the dragon over and over) blew their second wind, and were all on the verge of dropping. But they managed to kill the beast and loot the treasure chest in her lair.

They had complete confidence when the rogue said the chest wasn't trapped.

At the end (after turning in the bounties for the kobolds) they had 1018 experience, so they'll be starting KotS at level 2. Which I don't think will hurt since I probably won't scale down Irontooth now. They left the lair with a magical dagger for the rogue, and a magical greataxe for the warlord, plus the dwarf will be able to upgrade his armor, and the ranger will... well I don't know what she's doing with her gold yet.

 

[fnwc]

Yaargh matey! Avast!

 

[Shroomy]

Interesting that all your players went with martial characters. Was it kind of weird to play a game of D&D (any edition) that didn't feature a divine or arcane spellcaster?

 

[FreeXenon]

It sounds like you have some experienced players who work well together.

It's nice to see validation that the Warlord is able to keep people up and running.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Xorn]

Interesting that all your players went with martial characters. Was it kind of weird to play a game of D&D (any edition) that didn't feature a divine or arcane spellcaster?

Their 3.5 characters were a ranger, monk, fighter, sorcerer, bard, and barbarian, so no, it's not that weird.

The warlord was great for keeping them standing--and I actually forgot to scale down the encounters for 4 people, too. They've had some experience getting used to 4E through fan delves though, so they basically knew what was going on already.

 

[ozziewolf]

I just wanted to state as the Halfling Rogue involved... my level of awesomeness and contribution was significantly downplayed!

First fight encounter I didn't do anything to spectacular and just helped kill.

The second fight I won initiative and took cover in an alcove nailing a 24 point sneak attack on one of the Skirmishers... I did hit one of the traps but thanks to my Halfling encounter power to reroll attacks I was able to avoid it.

Later is where I really got the feel for my 4th edition power. I had 21 AC against attack of opportunities and made good use of it. (+2 Racial to AC against OA and +3 CHA modifier.) With this and my halfling encounter power I basically learned that I could basically move as I pleased with impunity and stopped bothering to shift. A few times at the beginning the fighters marked target would try and miss me but get nailed by the Fighter wielding a Maul. (For 20 damage!) They learned pretty quickly and the target just stopped trying to hit me when I moved.

I know I rambled a bit but after playing 4E I'm really excited about it!

P.S. Those guys all hiding at the end led to my pocketing a pearl... so it wasn't all bad. (Luckily it wasn't trapped though as I learned later that I had rolled a one.)

edit: I also found I had a lot of control on when and where opportunity attacks could occur through my attacks that allowed me to slide an enemy on a successful hit.