Impressions from KotS

[D'karr]

It didn't appear, however, that there were prices for the kobold's gear you can collect when you try to sell them in town.

Our writeup is here:
http://www.critical-hits.com/2008/05/20/session-report-keep-on-the-shadowfell/

There are no prices for any items at all. And even the mention of the rituals directs you to the PHB.

There are two gripes that I have with the product. The flimsiness of the paper for the booklets and the fact that there are no prices even for general goods.

Besides that I'd say this is really a fantastic product. At $30 that is still less that 25 cents per hour of play of this adventure. The maps are very nice and can definitely be reused. So I'm very happy with this product, except for the two things mentioned.

 

[Echoes]

As much as I like the adventure and most of 4e in general, I'll admit that I too am at a bit of a loss regarding the equipment rules and such, especially as they concern Keegan. I'm pretty much a gamist at heart but things like that make my heart...sad.

Also did anyone total up the treasure/gp value and see if it matches the Rewards article from a while back? It seemed to me that it might be shortchanging PCs a bit given that they will be level 3 by the end of the adventure (I only saw maybe 4 or 5 magic items throughout the entire module from what I recall).

 

[Lizard]

I also can't find how Resistance works in 4e. Several critters have it, but the rules don't seem to be in the obvious places. Help?

Also -- zombies grab you until you escape.
What is the effect of a grab?
How do you escape?

I have to assume these rules are somewhere in the book, but I can't find 'em.

Also -- I just noticed, the human rabble are level 2, but they don't have the +1 bonus to their modifiers that I'd expect. Do minions not get +1/2 level? The level 2 guard drakes, above, do get this.

 

[Lizard]

=
Besides that I'd say this is really a fantastic product. At $30 that is still less that 25 cents per hour of play of this adventure.

You expect this to take ONE HUNDRED TWENTY HOURS?

Are you playing it over a 300 baud modem?

I'd expect 9-10 hours at most, or about 3 dollars/hour. Not bad compared to, say, going to the movies, but pretty poor compared to the cost of a PHB.

 

[Echoes]

I also can't find how Resistance works in 4e. Several critters have it, but the rules don't seem to be in the obvious places. Help?

I had been assuming it worked like damage reduction, and that Resist 5 all meant that they had DR 5 to everything, even physical attacks. This could of course be incredibly wrong.

Also -- zombies grab you until you escape.
What is the effect of a grab?
How do you escape?

I have to assume these rules are somewhere in the book, but I can't find 'em.

I think the first encounter with zombies mentions that you can make an athletics or acrobatics check against their reflex to escape, but I may be misremembering.

And I'm not sure about the human rabble minions.

 

[Lizard]

I had been assuming it worked like damage reduction, and that Resist 5 all meant that they had DR 5 to everything, even physical attacks. This could of course be incredibly wrong.

Call me a rabid foaming anti-4e fanatic, but I'm one of the crazed, biased, psychotic madmen who think an adventure released as an introduction to the game and aimed at new players as a 'lure' should include all the rules needed to play that adventure, with no unexplained terms. So I'm still assuming the definition of implement and how resistance works are buried in there somewhere, because otherwise, WOTC has some serious quality control issues -- or should have released this alongside the PHB and not made it a standalone product.

 

[D'karr]

You expect this to take ONE HUNDRED TWENTY HOURS?

Are you playing it over a 300 baud modem?

I'd expect 9-10 hours at most, or about 3 dollars/hour. Not bad compared to, say, going to the movies, but pretty poor compared to the cost of a PHB.

If you complete this adventure in 9-10 hours you must be playing the abridged version. Double that is probably the minimum and that if you skip any kind of roleplaying in Winterhaven. It is much closer to 20-25 hours.

Let's see. 6 players / $30 = $5/player. $5 / 20 hours = $.25

So yep, for a group of 6 that comes to about 25 cents per hour of play. And I've already run the adventure, I'm not guesstimating how long it takes.

 

[Incenjucar]

Yeah, the ink on this thing is horrible. I was hoping for something that would be a more effective keepsake.

Love the adventure though, albeit there is definate room for improvement...

 

[Lackhand]

There are no size penalties on forced movement? Or is it just not relevant due to the foes in the adventure?

Still too soon to say -- I'd assume not relevant due to chosen foes, but no real idea.

I like how clear it is which actions you can take during the upkeep phase...I mean, at the start of your turn. But what happens if there are interrupts on the stack?

You snark 'cause you love, right?

By "shatter armor and bone" we mean "do more damage". Don't expect sunder rules, bucko!

Unlike the detailed armor sundering rules in 3e, 2e, 1e...

Unconscious: An unconscious high level character is harder to hit than an equally unconscious low level character.

Heh. I didn't know that. I assume that's only in combat, though -- out of combat, long term helplessness leads to, um, even longer term helplessness. I hope.

DOTs of the same type don't stack? Interesting. Makes sense, too.

Acronym soup! What?

No 'common villager' stats? No stats for, well anyone you aren't expected to kill? How about just for basic bluff/insight/diplomacy checks? Sheesh, even Village of Hommlet statted out the local yokels.

They're all at +2 to everything except the things you want them to be good at -- those are +6, assuming it's John Q Yokel. Was that so hard?

If you kill Keegran, can you take his stuff? Same with the hobgoblin's armor. It's not clear if these items are "real" and can be looted or are "flavor text". (In any other version of D&D, I wouldn't even think to ask, but 4e follows a different paradigm...)

Wait, never mind. Just saw that the blade "falls to pieces" if you fight him. Yeah. THAT'S not lame. Railroad plot, boarding at station 3...last call, station 3 for the plot railroad.

Uhm...wait a minute...the sword you get if you're nice to Keeran has totally different powers than it does when he wields it? The FRACK? What, is this some sort of "magic" sword? (Well, yeah, but really...)

"It's Magic" is more than sufficient for me
Isn't objective, scientific magic one of the things people like to rail about?

I'm going to guess "Village" is a keyword with meaning in the DMG.

Huh.

Looks like falling damage is 1d10/10 feet.

I feel like someone had leaked that already. Meh. I still like 1d6/3d6/6d6/10d6/... and just scale the depths of my Cliffs of Insanity and Pit Traps of Doom appropriately


Good gaming!

 

[Halivar]

Call me a rabid foaming anti-4e fanatic, but I'm one of the crazed, biased, psychotic madmen who think an adventure released as an introduction to the game and aimed at new players as a 'lure' should include all the rules needed to play that adventure, with no unexplained terms. So I'm still assuming the definition of implement and how resistance works are buried in there somewhere, because otherwise, WOTC has some serious quality control issues -- or should have released this alongside the PHB and not made it a standalone product.

Except it is defined in KotS, in the same section as "immune" and "vulnerable." It does, in fact, work like DR.

EDIT: It's in the DM's booklet, in the "How to read a monster stat block" section.