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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MoutonRustique" data-source="post: 6647710" data-attributes="member: 22362">For 1st level - Reavers of Harkenwold.It is excellent.For the long combat problems (which 4e does face), there are a few solutions on your end and a few on the players' :1 - you can reduce the monster hp (1/3 off does the trick for me)Why : 4e tends to have ~3-4 hit foes. Removing one of those greatly shortens the number of rounds.2 - you can have foes flee or surrender when a good portion of their resources go downWhy : all of D&D adventures (IME) have very poor advice for retreat or surrender. Have foes behave in ways you can imagine such foes would act. Ex: a goblin party could very well run away after 2 rounds if one they've taken hits and no PCs are down. They don't need to wait until 4 fifths of their force is dead and the rest are bloodied...2.5 - make sure that foes that surrender, surrender!.Why : players learn quickly (really, really quickly) to kill over having a chance to be betrayed later. You can have them attempt to run away (I'd suggest to frame it as an SC). Only very, very rarely and only when it is essential to the story that this foe betray his word should you feign surrender.3 - have the players know their main powers.Why : The default presentation of the character builders don't really showcase this, but it's usually pretty simple - the "little card" presentation is not my favorite and, I believe, over-exaggerates the amount of significant information per power. Taking a turn in 4e doesn't really require more than ~30 seconds for a prepared player (if that!)4 - have the players w/o built-in options for their minor action forget it exists - do a full exorcism if required.Why : players that "look for something to do with their action" can slow things to a crrraaawwwwllll. Kill them - the others will learn the lesson <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" />... that's it form me. Others have, and will have, better advice shortly.Last advice :Use the SC structure as an aid, not a straight-jacket. My preferred method is to have ~4 outcomes per situation presented (2 kinds of successes and 2 kinds of failures) and then I can more easily provide a satisfying narrative that applies to what my players did/attempted to do.Last, last advice :When you have a situation (often from a failed SC) that leads to combat with penalties imposed to the PCs, I've found it more fun to have the players loose hp instead of healing surges - starting the battle at bloodied really re-enforces the idea of hp as a global resource including fatigue and moral. But with 4e's healing mechanisms, it isn't overly punishing.Last, last, last advice (this is getting ridiculous!) :If you're going with Reavers of Harkenwold, you should build yourself ~2 or 3 "regular" Skill Chanlenges (that's what "SC" stands for, btw... maybe should have said that earlier in the thread... naw, you're smart, you'll figure it out!) such as : - moving from A to B w/o being seen - escaping from a patrol/situation - convince someone to helpYou'll get a lot of mileage out of those and they open up situations that will really help that adventure come alive as a mini-campaign.Suggestions (not advice per se, so I'm not being ridiculous right now) : - have the Church of X in Fallcrest have an available stockpile of weapons very useful against the devils (I used crates of holy water) to help the people defend themselves - deal with the river halflings to ferry those weapons into occupied territory - you can use the crypt to plant an old religious text of church X - to "buy" that water - offer to players an option to learn some of the foes' spells (some are very, very cool) - build around the adventure, it is excellent, but it is also rife with possibilities!... ok, I'm done now. For real.</blockquote>

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