Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4393759" data-attributes="member: 40961">I've just completed about my 7th game of 4e.  Here are some random thoughts.I've been playing in an unusual context- a solo game run for my fiance.  She's running two characters at once, an elf melee ranger and a tiefling orb wizard.  I'm running three characters and acting as DM.  I've got a lot of D&D experience, mostly as DM, she's got none.  The lack of 3e preconceptions has probably helped.She's picked up the game just fine, and is making tactical decisions quite well.  In fact, we may move another character to her control soon.Due to the nature of our game, in-game roleplaying is nearly nonexistent.  It would only be a conversation between two people anyways.  Roleplaying is relegated to a sort of informal bluebooking.  But we're having a lot of fun with it.Combat is faster.  Anyone who says otherwise is crazy.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  Of course, we've been using the equivalent of power cards from the very first session (we copy powers onto the character sheet at this point, may move to cards as we advance in level).I never used miniatures in 3e.  I just used a sketched pencil map.  Having used miniatures now, I will never go back.We had a hard time remembering action points.  I'm going to add tokens so that we remember.We just finished Keep on the Shadowfell.  We didn't have any character deaths.  We did have about 500 exp going into it, and I used some of the Dungeon Magazine extra encounters, which meant that we were often one level ahead at crucial fights, but I don't think that was the reason we got through so well.  I think the reasons we did so well were 1) excellent party composition- fighter, cleric, rogue, ranger, wizard, and 2) excellent cooperation.I adjusted the difficulty of a few fights ad hoc- mostly to increase it.  I gave a few enemies special attacks that weren't in their stat block.  For example, I wanted the hobgoblin war leader to actually use his magic weapon, so I gave him a charge attack where he through his spear, draw his sword, and charged with it, all in one action.  I also let Maw summon extra zombies at will, rather than only once per encounter.  Our PCs kill low AC minions so fast that it didn't matter- the ranger accounted for two per round, as did the fighter, and the wizard for lots more.  It made Maw cooler.I had a few enemies run away, but that was mostly to avoid turning fights into grinds.  I never had anyone run away while there was a remote chance of them prevailing.  That was really the only way I adjusted the difficulty downwards, other than by providing the opportunity for extra fights.  Then again, I didn't use wandering hobgoblins, so that probably evened out a bit.Overall, we're having a lot of fun, and she's very enthusiastic about the game.  And that's what D&D is all about to me.</blockquote>

Verification