Impressions from KotS

[Torchlyte]

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

Gears of War confirms your suspicions.

That is sooo wierd beacuse...

<--Undead

Okay, so it's kind of one of those things that nobody cares about... but in context it's kind of funny. Keegan is rare enough of a name that if I tell my PCs that this guy is named Keegan, they'll all roll their eyes. Someone will probably try to stab him.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The quality of the paper is annoying at this cost level. Smudges all over the place and boy does it pick up finger prints.

Art: Okay, this is a minor issue but for a first adventure it annoys the hell out of me. Dwarf fighter has full shield and long sword but is actually wielding a maul. I know paying attention to little things can be hard but come on man. It's a friggin' $30 adventure. Ditto for the dragon born paladin.

Clarity. Sacred Flame.... "and one ally you can see chooses either to gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + one-half your level or to make a saving throw." What does that mean? Am I missing it?

Some potentially interesting stuff here but it's not quite the all purpose classic it should be in terms of quality or clarity. Reading aloud some of the stuff had some of my buddies laughing.

Mini intensive. Okay, maybe it's me but if I'm in charge of Dungeons of Dread, I make sure that the starter set has all of the pregenerated players and major bad guys as opposed to some interesting figs that really don't matter to anything outside of themselves. The first encounter is with eight enemies. This doesn't count the PC's so we're up to 13 minis for the first encounter.

Interesting to note that concealment has the same modifier as cover.

Interesting to see charge only provide +1 bonus and no penalty to AC.

I'm running it next week and using the old cleric as NPC band aid as I only have four players at the moment.

 

[Family]

Pg 80: "At which point [Kalaral] activates the amulet he wears and teleports to the evil magic circle."

What amulet again? Why wasn't it listed in his equipment? If I stop him from being dragged in [or while he is in the process of] can I take it off of him?

Anyone...anyone...Buller...Buller..Fry...

 

[Celebrim]

Anyone...anyone...Buller...Buller..Fry...

Exception based rules mean you can always find a reason to not get off the railroad.

 

[Family]

Sooooo, what you're saying is no magical teleporting amulet for me.

-Thanks, here is a pic of WotC CEO as a token of my appreciation.

 

[Stalker0]

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.

Jack Bauer overcame this little weakness by never sleeping.

 

[pukunui]

It's more like a mini-campaign than an adventure.

Except that it only spans three PC levels out of a total of thirty.

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."

That's quite cool.

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 don't really get what you mean by this. By all accounts, 4e is a much more transparent and less fiddly system than any previous iteration of D&D. And what version of D&D isn't just a "wrapper around a Monster Manual", if I'm understanding that phrase correctly?

1. But, the ink smudges. Yick.

So far the only person who hasn't had a problem with this that I've seen is Jim Goings of Dragon Avenue. I think we should all gang up on him and steal his.

4. The Rules Quick Start contains very little that I didn't already know.

I guess they were figuring that not everyone who buys this module will have been following all the excerpts and leaked info as religiously as we ENWorlders have been.

3. skills: Athletics FTW

Care to elaborate on this?

 

[beeflv30]

Clarity. Sacred Flame.... "and one ally you can see chooses either to gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + one-half your level or to make a saving throw." What does that mean? Am I missing it?

Certain effects may require a save each round this will give a party member another chance in the round to remove any ongoing effect.

 

[Korgoth]

Certain effects may require a save each round this will give a party member another chance in the round to remove any ongoing effect.

Also, you take ongoing damage first thing in your turn, before you get to even make a save. So if the ongoing damage gets applied to you somehow, you know you're going to take at least one turn of it. Unless the cleric acts in the meantime, giving you a save before you even have to endure the effect.

 

[MindWanderer]

Clarity. Sacred Flame.... "and one ally you can see chooses either to gain temporary hit points equal to your Charisma modifier + one-half your level or to make a saving throw." What does that mean? Am I missing it?

I got great use out of this in Escape from Sembia, extinguishing the flames burning on one of my allies and smacking a skeleton for radiant damage.

Here's a question: What happens if you use this ability on someone who's dying? Can they wake up if they roll a 20? Can they die earlier if they fail? Or is that not considered a "saving throw?"