I need ideas for brief, 3 player 4e D&D session

[vagabundo]

Oh relating to my post above, here is a very interesting summery of someone KotS game:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...esting-emergent-features-keep-shadowfell.html

The way I am pushing it you'd think I was getting a royalty for every sale. I amn't though...

 

[malraux]

I'll likely rely on the Keep on the Shadowfell quick-start rules for this first session, including three of the pregen characters, all first level.

If I were doing this, I'd really try to use something with actual power cards, even if its just importing the preg characters to the DDI Character Creator. Personally, I think the game works the best with power cards.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I personally dislike the pregens, but that's just me.

Do you know where I could get some 1st level pregens that have the power cards attached?

 

[malraux]

Do you know where I could get some 1st level pregens that have the power cards attached?

Do you subscribe to the DDI, or know someone who does? The character creator can crank out 1 level characters in about 2 minutes, with power cards. I'd do it for you, but I don't know how to print to pdf in windows.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Do you subscribe to the DDI, or know someone who does?

No, and I was going to wait and see how well my players and I liked playing 4e before I subscribed. Thinking on it, though, it seems I can pay for a month, which seems worth doing. It's just that I thought I remembered seeing some good pregens available online somewhere.

 

[avin]

Kobold hall isn't bad...

 

[JackSmithIV]

I didn't spot where this had been said before, but if you're running it with 3 1st level characters, you're gonna have to tone down the fights a bit. The module is designed for 5 characters, so when I did it with 4 players I compensated by having the monsters simply not take advantage of every blunder (although I wasn't entirely easy on them ). They didn't have a single character death (very resourceful PCs), although each fell to 0 HP atleast once.

I'd suggest toning the encounters by removing a few monsters from each. Make sure the party has a hard defender, and definately a leader. I don't quite remember, but the sample rules should have advice for adjusting the encounters.

Good luck, hope you like 4th Edition!

 

[Grimstaff]

I've been trying to bring together as much of my gaming group from the 80s and 90s as I can. Two of them have expressed definite interest, and one of them has a 1o or 11 year old son that would like to play, also. I was always the default DM, so they told me to try to get something together and we'd play sometime soon.

I haven't DMed in ages, and would like to give 4e a go, as it strikes me as being the kind of game my players and I would've loved back in the day. Given that us old-timers are all rusty, have never played 4e, and the new player is a true newb, I was wondering if anyone out there in EN-World-land had some suggestions for the types of encounters I could run for such a group. I'll likely rely on the Keep on the Shadowfell quick-start rules for this first session, including three of the pregen characters, all first level. We were always more focused on action, especially dungeoncrawls, just to let you know what types of encounters I'm looking for.

Any thoughts, tips, or suggestions?

Hey, Colonel! We were just talking about you over on the Necro boards...

If you're doing a short session, I would recommend breaking out the DMG and whipping up your own scenario - one of the percs of 4E is that its so easy to put together fun, challenging encounters. You'll be surprised how fast and easy it is. I put together my first game of 4E for three players with an old hand-drawn map and a .pdf printout of preview monsters from the DDX - that great first session has become the basis for an entire megadungeon campaign!

If you havn't gotten it yet, pick up the D&D introductory set - its only 15 bucks or so and collates all the monsters you need for groups level 1 through 5, along with a big sheet of counters and some dungeon tiles. Its a worthy set.

Since you have KotS already, you could take the kobold caves portion and make that the goal of the session - seek out and destroy the kobold lair.

Since you only have three players I would strongly recommend halving monster hps.

 

[MichaelSomething]

"Ninjas have kidnapped the President. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?"

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Thanks for all the good suggestions. It still may be a while before we actually play, what with the holidays hitting our doorsteps, so I may very well mix & match a little of everything that's been suggested here. Any other thoughts or suggestions for someone who hasn't run 4e yet would be welcome.