Game Day Observations

[PoeticJustice]

Hello all,

I DM'ed two sessions of "A Dark Night in Weeping Briar" and I just wanted post my impressions with the pre-genned characters that were including in that adventure. In my opinion, arguing about the merits or weaknesses of a class aren't as useful as watching them in play. With that in mind, here's what I found:

1) The Bard is very good
I'm not sure how they rigged it, but Roswyn the Bard healed Surge Value + 2d6 + 10. Even using the house rules mentioned in my sig, this more than adequate to the party's needs at any time. Other standout powers were Allegro (which I thought was ridiculously bad until I saw it used) and Unluck (a great update on one of my favoirte 3.5 spells). For the purposes of the module, the Bard definintely achieved its design goals. The class is tricky, unpredictable, but a solid addition to the lineup.

2) The Barbarian doesn't seem as powerful as before
I had a friend play a Barbarian in a short campaign over winter break and his character was outreagously powerful. While I'm not sure what they did to tone it down, the Barbarian definitely feels more managable than it did in playtest.

3) The Invoker has a bit of an Identity Crisis
The names of their powers sound really epic, but in the end, the class doesn't play any different from a wizard. On a certain level, all classes of the same role probably play similar, but this invoker seemed totally indistinguishable from a wizard.

4) Avengers also seem really cool
Even if an Avenger's damage output wasn't great compared to another striker, my the ability to roll attacks twice means having a lot more fun doing what you can. This class felt mobile and versatile. Kind of like a Scout.

5) Can't wait for Divine Power
Balasar of Bahamut was my favorite of them all. The 1st session had a really cool moment when, after spending an action point and granting +2 AC and Ref to the party, 3 PCs were attacked by an area effect spell and the extra bump to reflex made the difference between getting hit or not.

I'm really glad Wizards put this together. Running the adventure was easy and very enjoyable. I hope they do the same for May's game day.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I wish I could have stayed and played through the whole adventure. I had to leave to go to work during the second battle.

 

[MadLordOfMilk]

When my group first started playing, another player and I doubled up on characters just so we could get started until other people showed up. Thus, I got a chance to play both the Avenger and the Invoker.

The Avenger was totally awesome, but I didn't have a single time where Censure of Pursuit came up, which I'd feared might happen with the class. There might've been a time or two when it came up and I just didn't think about it, but that would be because it was so rare. I'm sure if I played an Avenger more I'd think of it more often.

Invoker, a class I felt very "meh" about when I'd skimmed it in PHB2, turned out to be really fun; I enjoyed playing the Invoker a lot more than I did playing a Wizard, but that might have a lot to with her being level 11 rather than 2.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

We had 4 players, so I doubled up on Avenger and Invoker.

1st encounter went awsome, the bard kept missdirect mark to my invoker who was no where near melee, so they could not hit me. And the quickling kept try to run from my avenger, making me more damaging, then agin the paliden marked him twice, leaving him in a bad spot...

the funy part of encounter 1, the Barbarian didn't kill anything...

the skill challange was way too easy, Our store ran it 3 times, and not 1 failer in 3 shots....not just no over all, I mean no missed rolls all 3 ended 8/0

the second encounter went FUBAR when the monster blew up the room before half of us were in there, then the barbarian charged the minatour, action pointed and blew a daily droping it in 1 round...my invoker never even entererd the area, he used range the whole time.

the 3rd encounter sucked...it was a slug fest. My avenge still had all his dailys, as did the paliden, and we still out of game took almost 3 hours for this 1 fight...

 

[jaw6]

I played the Gnome Bard, thought it was pretty cool. I normally DM for our group, so this was my first chance to actually *play* 4E. Not a lot of damage output, but every attack had an additional effect - make something invisible, slide the enemy or an ally, etc. Also, there were a number of "reactive" powers (when an enemy misses, slide the ally; when damaged, turn invisible; etc.) and Minor actions, that made me feel like I was actively scanning the battlefield for strategies / opportunities.

My wife played the Avenger, and had a blast. She got one seriously impressive critical hit (damage totaled somewhere in the 50s). It looked a lot like playing a Rogue, except you're positioning to be "alone with the enemy" rather than trying to set up flanking.

Our group barely finished the second combat, in almost 6 hours of play. However, we were actually playing with 6 players for the first combat (we doubled the Paladin).

I'd be amazed if anyone actually finished this (successfully!) in the projected 2-3 hours.

 

[WalterKovacs]

My notes:

The first two combat encounters were a bit of a slog, but I think this was because the PCs didn't kill the troglodytes first. They concentrated fire on the biggest threat, but it was already the hardest to hit without having another -2 because of the trog smell. Killing the stinkers first would hav meant a lot less mising.

The barbarian used a rage attack at the start of every fight, so that he'd constantly benefit from the bonuses to damage, and to his at-wills, etc. Also waiting to be bloodied before asking for healing meant the warforged resolve (which was not on the character sheet despite two feats boosting it) gave him a lot of extra health. The barbarian ended the first fight by finishing off Jack and charging the entire length of the encounter (thanks to the +2 boost to speed from raging) and finished off the other target. The jagged weapon meant a lot of criticals, which helped finish off a number of bad guys [In the final encounter, the Mezzodemon was bloodied in the first turn because of critical hit with the rage attack, with a basic attack follow up, an action point into avalanche strike which also criticaled.

The Avenger's overwhelming strike was extremely useful in the encounter at the mill because it was able to open up the log jam at the door.

The bard used fast friend's to useful effect in a number of encounters (it was helpful in the barn to get the invoker away from the scythejaw without provoking or needing to waste an action on shifting), not to mention the ability to make people invisible.

In general, between the paladin and the bard, and occaisionally the invoker, there were so many defense buffs and attack penalties that many of the enemies were unable to hit. I recall on a number of occaisions rolling a 19 that failed to hit for the troglodytes.

 

[catsclaw227]

Our gameday was packed and all tables were filled when I arrived. There were some others who wanted to play, so I ran a delve for the same PCs. Unfortunately, we only had three players and so they had to double up on running some PCs.

The difficult part of this kind of game is that at 11th level, the PCs are much more powerful, with many more options, and the synergies were unknown to the players. Add in the fact that they were running all new classes< I was DMing a delve, sight unseen with 10min of prep, and it made our first combat a grind.

Also, in the delve I ran -- it was in a death giant shrine on the shadowfell -- the first encounter had a Shadofell Spirit Shaman that would eat the spirit of the player it hit (and it hit on like a 6+ most of the time) and the PC would be removed from play. I didn't like that monster ability at all.

For us the Bard didn't get the love it deserved, teh Barbarian did some killer damage, the Paladin was effective, and the Drow Avenger kept getting eaten.

Funny how differently they can play when the scenario is changed.

 

[darjr]

I blew up the mill.

I. Blew up. The mill.

Great fun. I downed three PC's right there. No, I'm not a 'killer' DM. But it was fun, and the evil grin I got from the PC's was priceless.

Oh and the mill stone was fantastic. As soon as I snagged one of the PC's they got the clue by four and started pushing the bad guys into it.

And I love scythjaws.

 

[Shroomy]

I got to play the barbarian yesterday and I had a blast. I just loved the character. However, I hated the third encounter for three reasons. First, you started the encounter in a bottleneck that was hard to escape from because of the difficult terrain that surrounded it. If you were lower in the initiative order, as our entire party was, you were going to get pounded by the runespiral demons, who were absolutely nasty. Second, there was way too much hindering terrain IMO, which played havoc on our melee characters (BTW, for the third encounter, two of us had to play two characters; I played the avenger, but without any really familiarity, so it was kind of a struggle). Third, a 15th level soldier against 11th level characters; I know that a Level + 4 monster is technically acceptable, but IMO, higher-level soldiers are problematic due to their higher defenses and should be used sparingly, if at all (and if you do, level +4 is excessive). An AC of 31 against characters with an attack bonus of +15 is just a recipe for grind. We only won because three of the PCs unloaded daily after daily with miss effects against it; hardly a satisfying conclusion to the module IMO.

 

[Mark]

BTW, for the third encounter, two of us had to play two characters

Why is that?