Impressions from KotS

[Henry]

There is one thing about Keep on the Shadowfell that bugged me, and I haven't seen the final product to find out if it's been addressed...

[sblock]There's a location that has a pool of blood, and practically a river of it, from human sacrifices. Did they address where the sacrifices were coming from? Given that an adult human only has a little over a gallon of blood, Do you know how MANY people would have to be sacrificed for that much blood to be gathered? [/sblock]

 

[Torchlyte]

Wait, which one is named Keegan? The Undead guy? This is trippy...

<--Keegan

 

[Lizard]

There is one thing about Keep on the Shadowfell that bugged me, and I haven't seen the final product to find out if it's been addressed...

[sblock]There's a location that has a pool of blood, and practically a river of it, from human sacrifices. Did they address where the sacrifices were coming from? Given that an adult human only has a little over a gallon of blood, Do you know how MANY people would have to be sacrificed for that much blood to be gathered? [/sblock]

[sblock]This I have learned from anime:The human body contains about 50 gallons of blood, under intense pressure.[/sblock]

 

[Family]

Wait, which one is named Keegan? The Undead guy? This is trippy...

<--Keegan

That is sooo wierd beacuse...

<--Undead

 

[Colmarr]

Yeah, all my "Die Hard" defenses of healing surges notwithstanding, John MacClane would have had his throat slit in five seconds if one of his enemies came upon him while he was asleep, or bound and gagged. Unconsciousness and defenselessness are two things I'm seriously thinking about altering if 4e is not to my liking on those points, because I just can't argue about the ease of killing a defenseless person in or out of combat.

My understanding is that Coups de Grace still exist in 4e, that they are auto-hit attacks that are auto-crits. I have no source whatsoever for that understanding, but I heard/read it somewhere.

If it's true, and if we are talking about a Coup de Grace on a sleeping target then the Joe Fighter/Jim Fighter example is not a problem for me. Both are automatically hit. Both take maximum damage. Joe's tougher than Jim so he has a better chance of surviving.

If we're talking about attacking an unconscious foe in a whirling combat where you might be attacked by someone else at any time, I still don't have a problem with the rules. The attacker doesn't have or didn't take enough time to make a Coup de Grace. In those circumstances, even if the targets are unconscious, it should IMO be harder to inflict damage on the higher level target.

 

[Propagandroid]

So...if they spent "multiple seven figures" on the development of 4e, why couldn't they spend multiple four figures to make a decent intro product? I mean, are they treating this like software?

It's not just the typos that get me, it's the re-use of DDM maps (that is the lamest thing I've ever heard of), the mismatched character sketches (calling pencil sketches "art" is generous at best), and the poor, incorrect, and missing rules as well.

What a very incredibly disappointing launch. I feel bad for the R&D team that had to watch this product walk out the door.

 

[Celebrim]

That is sooo wierd beacuse...

<--Undead

I'm liking this guy more and more all the time.

 

[Ximenes088]

My understanding is that Coups de Grace still exist in 4e, that they are auto-hit attacks that are auto-crits. I have no source whatsoever for that understanding, but I heard/read it somewhere.

If it's true, and if we are talking about a Coup de Grace on a sleeping target then the Joe Fighter/Jim Fighter example is not a problem for me. Both are automatically hit. Both take maximum damage. Joe's tougher than Jim so he has a better chance of surviving.

If we're talking about attacking an unconscious foe in a whirling combat where you might be attacked by someone else at any time, I still don't have a problem with the rules. The attacker doesn't have or didn't take enough time to make a Coup de Grace. In those circumstances, even if the targets are unconscious, it should IMO be harder to inflict damage on the higher level target.

As I see it, a PC caught asleep by an assassin isn't going to get his throat cut unless critical-hit damage is enough to kill him outright. Hit points are much more emphatically "plot armor" in 4e. An assassin who does 30 points of damage in coup de grace punishment to a PC that has 31 hit points never actually touches him in my world- some random event intervenes to wake up the PC a moment before the knife lands, or distracts the assassin at just the right time. The PC's still left at 1 hit point worth of narrative protection, but he's not physically hurt at all.

 

[osmanb]

Got my copy, been reading in preparation for running it next week. My overall opinion is similar to most folks ... I like it, but the paper/print quality is a little sketchy. I do have a couple more questions that popped into my head while I was reading:

Spoiler

In the absolute first encounter, I still can't understand the proposed initial positioning of the Kobolds. I've read the FAQ, which points out that the whole map is used, which puts the players further away. But from the setup diagram, several of the kobolds are hiding on the EAST face of their boulders. This is the direction from which the PCs approach, and the text claims that none of the kobolds should be visible until they act, even though from the supposed trigger location (which is practically on top of the ambush), at least two of the kobolds should be in plain sight. Or am I reading things completely wrong?

I don't think it matters much, but I didn't see any official description of how recharge powers work. The last time I saw it discussed here, people seemed to think it was a single die roll (at the end of the turn?) and any powers that matched came back?

Seems clear from the wording, but has it been confirmed (or do other people also believe) that charging provokes AoOs from your target? I can't imagine they'd make a special case of saying that charging provokes if it was the movement past other enemies that triggered it, so I'm guessing it must provoke right up until the attack, but that's a potentially significant rule change from 3.x, especially in the module where many of the minions open up encounters by charging.

Spoiler

It looks like they've decided to abstract away any differences in AC granted by different types of armor, for the purposes of looted magic armor? Presumably, there is some difference in the net AC bonus from different types? All of the magic armor that can be acquired just lists a net +1 bonus to AC, which is probably not the case, depending on what your PC was wearing previously.

Spoiler

Are the PCs supposed to know about Keegan (or learn about him in town?) The flavor on p34 seems to indicate that even the incorrect version of his story is not widely known, but then it suggests using that tale to make the Keep spookier. Unless someone (Valthrun) provides this information, (probably after the PCs have accepted his proposition), then they're not going to be dreading that encounter (and the actual encounter with Keegan will seem quite random). Obviously, it's easy to include this information for the PCs, but again I couldn't tell if I just overlooked something really obvious.

I assume that the 'Use Second Wind' usage of the Heal skill doesn't work on unconscious or dying characters? It's mentioned earlier that healing powers can be used on dying allies, and this can trigger the spending of their surges, even though they're unconscious. But given the separate checks listed for Heal, 'Stabilize the Dying' is completely useless unless 'Use Second Wind' isn't usable in that situation.

... That's it for now.

 

[77IM]

This is the first-impression that I wrote up for my gaming group. (We are an eclectic bunch who use many different game systems to play multiple campaigns -- in fact, I've never even played 3e or 3.5 with this group.)


This is the first official adventure. I got it today and have read most of it. Summary:

. . 1. It's HUGE. I mean GINORMOUS. I mean HUMUNGAZOID. There are 24 encounters, not counting investigation/exploration type stuff that happens between encounters. Some of the encounters can be skipped, and some seem like they would be pretty short, but still, with our group's normal pacing, that is still about 6 sessions! It's more like a mini-campaign than an adventure.
. . . . 1. The investigation-type stuff is handled in a sort of FAQ format, in which potential player questions are listed along with the answers various NPCs might give for them. This is a great way to present that info. In addition there are enough guidelines for what's happening in the area to handle the case of PCs going "off the beaten track."
. . 2. The adventure -- like 4e itself -- is focussed heavily on tactical combat. (I think of the 24 encounters, like 20 of them consist purely on fighting.)
. . . . 1. However, the new stat block and encounter format (with tactical advice and interesting terrain features) looks both really cool and easy to use. So while some of the encounters look redundant (wait, ANOTHER room full of goblins? Didn't they hear all the fighting in the previous room?), many of them intrigue me.
. . . . 2. It doesn't include rules for scaling the encounters up to 6 PCs but I don't think that will be hard.
. . . . 3. It occurs to me that D&D is just a wrapper around a Monster Manual. If I have to build and balance my own encounters, I'd rather use a more transparent and less fiddly system like M&M. I just ordered a Savage Worlds out of sheer curiosity, so we'll see how that compares.
. . 3. It's pretty. The artwork and maps are very good (although it only comes with full-sized maps for 8 of the 24 encounters...).
. . . . 1. But, the ink smudges. Yick.
. . . . 2. I'm not sure how well the encounter pages will photocopy, due to color shading. I wish they would design those things to be easier to copy so that I can scribble on the copies (tracking enemy HP, use of encounter powers, etc.).
. . 4. The Rules Quick Start contains very little that I didn't already know.
. . . . 1. The Player's Version is available on-line somewhere.
. . . . 2. The DM's Version contains some extra info about:
. . . . . . 1. combat modifiers: they are much less than in previous editions -- most of the +4/-4 and +5/-5 things are now +2/-2
. . . . . . 2. areas: everything is a square shape now
. . . . . . 3. skills: Athletics FTW
. . . . . . 4. and conditions: most of these FTL
. . . . 3. Nothing about character creation.


-- 77IM