Impressions from KotS

[Stormtower]

My group just did this last night. We have two DMs in the group, myself and another, and our group plays Pathfinder at the moment. For KotS, I DMed and the other DM played. The players enjoyed the game while us DMs had a more negative reaction.

Having played some at DDXP, I was pretty excited going in and had a feeling that I'd be starting a new 4e campaign after this (my books are on pre-order for a Midnight Madness sale)---and, wow, I really hated running this game. The whole thing felt entirely too cold and too alien---and I now know with certainty that Pathfinder is the correct choice for me.

As a recovering 4E skeptic, I've found my own reaction to be almost the complete opposite of yours (I love the new system... at least what we've seen of it, but I have serious issues with the product presentation). What is it about the game you find to be cold and alien?

I ask because I was all ready to hate on 4E but I find myself drawn in more and more by the simplicity of the monster stat blocks and other streamlined conventions... IMO they didn't quite go far enough in that direction.

Would like to hear your thoughts.

 

[drjones]

Its not a lot of money, but just like in the UK its the same amount as one of the core books.

This is a 'DM item' however, you might have several PHBs for a group but you only need 1 copy of this product to run a game for 4-7 peeps. Also this item is an entirely optional add on for early adopters and folks who don't wnat to write their own mod, the core stuff is low margin to get folks hooked while mods like this are higher margin. At least that's my guess.

But yeah, for most nerds in industrialized countries this is chump change.

 

[sunbear]

I would like to add a bit to my early posted impression (complaints about the paper quality, cost and mistakes):

The Adventure is FUN. Or at least I dont know how it could possible not be. All most every encounter has one or two cool things you can do. Like push or slide enemies into wells or fire pits. The traps are neat and the last two encounters will be really great. I cant wait to run the adventure.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Just ran it last night. Pretty good stuff. The players seemed to enjoy the new system, and I'd read the book thoroughly enough that I had the rules issues pretty much down. Also, I hate reading text out loud to players, so I just glanced to see who knew what and then winged it* and roleplayed. Villagers and so forth came up to buy them drinks and ask the news from down the road. I made "market day" a once-a-week occurrence because having travelling merchants every other day is just too much for "points of light." So, the plot's a bit thin, but I wasn't expecting Masks of Nyarlathotep or anything anyway. It's easy enough to add in more stuff. I mean to add in some gnolls. Both because I love them, and because the image of a bunch of hunched-over hyena-men cackling and playing soccer with a severed head is too good to pass up.









*Going to the mexican place a few strip mall slots down from the gaming store and downing some cheap equatorial beer does wonders for improv GMing.

 

[Boregar]

My group is going to be starting it tonight, and then deciding once we've seen it in play whether to go for a wholesale swap to 4th edition, or stick with our old campaign. But at the moment I'm cautiously optimistic, which to be honest is more than I was previously.

Well we did, and I can say that I've moved from cautiously optimistic to very optimistic.

We managed to play through the initial encounter, some dealings at the village and then completing the job asked of us by Lord Padraig. (I just removed the encounter directly after leaving the village, to allow a bit more variety during the session). And despite the fact that three of the four PC's should technically be dead at the moment, all the players thought it was great.

I asked for feedback by e-mail this morning, and it ranged from 'I enjoyed it. It made combat flow more quickly, and the maps and miniatures approach did help with the visualisation of the scene. I still think the rules are geared towards the computer game/munchkin crowd, but I'm sure we could work around that.' to 'Awesome! It was totally awesome!
Everything seems to be running so much smoother! ...Also got a better picture of how the fight was happening with these new abilities too...eg. When I used the attack between the kobolds legs to then kick him over, only to then spend my action point to throw the maul in the air and bring it down heavily onto his head! Being able to imagine that clearly in my head was awesome! "

And as the DM, despite still finding my way with the new rules, I actually felt more comfortable than I have done with our recent mid-level v3.5 campaign. We also hadn't used a battlemat before, and that seemed to work quite well too. The counters from Fiery Dragon were excellent.

So a definte thumbs up for me, and my group are now all looking forward to the switch.

 

[Enaloindir]

Ouch! And I thought gas here in New Zealand was expensive! We're paying roughly US$6.00 per gallon at the moment. US$8.50 definitely tops that! Just one more reason why I'm glad I don't live in the UK ...

And in Belgium, it's more than US$10 per gallon... So buying KotS is not even the equivalent of only a single stop at the gas station...

- Enaloindir

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Quick question that's probably been addressed somewhere, but [sblock]In Kelarel's statblock there's mention of a Shadow Form (or something like that) ability. However, I scanned his statblock a few times and didn't see it. Am I going blind, or is this another editorial snafu? I noticed he has two values listed for his stats, and assumed these were related, but wasn't sure.[/sblock]

Thanks for the help!

 

[legiondevil]

Quick question that's probably been addressed somewhere, but [sblock]In Kelarel's statblock there's mention of a Shadow Form (or something like that) ability. However, I scanned his statblock a few times and didn't see it. Am I going blind, or is this another editorial snafu? I noticed he has two values listed for his stats, and assumed these were related, but wasn't sure.[/sblock]

Thanks for the help!

[sblock]
Shadow Form was removed from the NPC. However I have yet to figure out what the second set of stat mods is for/from.
[/sblock]