D&D 4E Keep on the Shadowfell and 4e thoughts - Spoilers in this thread

[Gort]

First things first, I have just finished running Keep on the Shadowfell with my group. If you are going to play it, leave the thread, don't ruin it for yourself. Everyone else, welcome.

Anyway, I found KotS to be a lot of fun in general - I had my players make new characters from the PHB (dragonborn fighter, human cleric, human warlord, eladrin wizard) - the pre-gens are okay, I guess, but you always feel more attached to concepts you've chosen yourself, and built yourself. I adjusted the first bunch of encounters (up to Irontooth) down by 20% XP worth since we were missing a player, but stopped once we got into the keep - it didn't seem particularly necessary.

From character generation, I noticed that everybody had an 18 in their main stat. The warlord and fighter had 18 strength, the cleric 18 wisdom, and the wizard 18 intelligence. I don't really mind, I guess that's exactly what we'd have seen in 3e, still a little homogenous though. Constitution has been reduced in effect quite a lot - I like it. It's not the king of stats that everyone wants now, but it's nice to have for everyone.

As far as weapons went, the fighter took a greataxe since he wanted a high-damage weapon, and the warlord took a greatsword. I've seen a lot of threads about how greatswords are bad now, but it really doesn't feel like it. +3 proficiency bonus is a big deal when it comes to actually getting your powers to work.

Races - dragonborn and eladrin are really cool. The dragonborn killed a lot of minions over the course of the campaign - it became even more powerful once we realised that you roll a seperate attack roll for everyone caught in the blast. He took the feat to make the breath bigger at level 2 - the area of effect is bloody massive! The damage is puny, though, but since it's a minor action it doesn't really matter.

We only had one death over the course of the campaign, and no prizes for guessing where - Irontooth's lair. Trouble was, the players were reluctant to retreat once things started looking bad. They still had a few of the skirmishers fighting them when Irontooth came out and dropped the warlord. This was followed up a round or so later by the Wyrmpriest breathing fire over the party, catching the warlord in the blast and killing him. A hasty retreat was beaten, involving jumping down a waterfall. They rested, returned, and basically blew every daily and encounter power they could muster on Irontooth - it was still a close fight. They then took his treasure and got the warlord resurrected back in town.

I wasn't particularly pleased that resurrection hasn't really changed. I can't really think of a better way to rule it though - I guess you could say that players don't die unless someone coup-de-graces them, but that kinda robs the game of some of its danger.

I noticed that as we got to the Keep itself, the players were really getting into how to run their characters. The warlord and fighter were sticking together to use things like Hammer and Anvil on tough foes, and Commander's Strike on everything else, and the wizard had a nasty Icy Rays plus wand-specialisation power that immobilised foes, whereupon he would drop a Freezing Cloud on them (which does damage, and then does more damage if they stay in it for longer). The wizard did this trick notably twice - once on the deathjump spider at the start of level 2, and once on the ghoul near the end of level 2. These were both powerful melee foes I didn't get into melee thanks to him! Damn wizards.

Of the cleric and the warlord, it's my feeling that the cleric is better. Clerics just flat out have better healing - four extra points of healing on every healing power is really nice. The warlord had quite a few occasions where he just had to fall back on basic melee attacks - none of his at-wills were really applicable. The cleric never had that problem - he was always blasting away, giving bonuses to his pals. It's a shame, really - I like the flavour of the warlord a lot, but in game he just doesn't seem as good as the cleric in the leadership role. Perhaps this will change as more powers become available for the warlord, but it won't change that the cleric's simply better at healing, which is the main thing you bring a leader character into a party for.

As far as the encounters went, I thought they were generally well designed and solid. I particularly enjoy playing controller monsters - they always have the most interesting powers, and a lot of ways to ruin a players day. I loved dragging the warlord helplessly in an iron grip of force into a pack of angry hobgoblins, and my players were anguished when - in the final fight - I reanimated a skeleton warrior they killed earlier and sent it back into the fray.

I did have a few problems with the encounters though. The trap encounter was rubbish. There are three sets of traps. A big titan statue that swings his sword at anyone within 3 squares, a pair of dragon statues that blast people back into range of the titan, and finally four cherub statues that drown anyone who tries to walk past them. Trouble is, there's loads of places in the chamber that none of the traps can hit! My players walked into the room, immediately sensed that there was going to be a trap onslaught, and cautiously walked into range of the titan, which swung at them a few times and did a bit of damage. They then backed away out of its reach, and chucked javelins, throwing axes and magic at it until it crumbled. They then did the same to every other statue in the room - titan, dragons, cherubs, all piles of stone. Then, still waiting for the attack that never came, they left the room wondering, "Was that it? Was something supposed to happen?"

Given that these were the only traps in the dungeon besides a couple of pits, I was underwhelmed to say the least. The lesson is - don't build obvious traps the players can just shoot to death. If the room had been smaller and the players couldn't get away from the titan (except by running into the cherub or dragon traps), it would have been a far better encounter.

The other problem I had was that the solo and elite monsters tended to live forever - I'm pretty sure the fight with the blue slime went on for upwards of 10 rounds, and wasn't terribly exciting. I think this may be because my party had no striker, however. In my next campaign I'll try and influence my players to play one and see how that goes.

We did have some moments of absolute hilarity though - the best being in the "Corridors of the Cube", where the party battles a gelatinous cube. I told the players the flavour text - the corridors are spotlessly clean, not a speck of lichen or moss or dust. The old-school D&Der (from first ed onwards, I believe) immediately realised it was a gelatinous cube, and he made his Arcane check so I let him pass that on to the rest of the players. They chucked pennies down the first corridor, then the second (trying to hit the nigh-invisible cube) but then the cleric, deciding there must be a secret door in one of the pointless-looking alcoves, walked straight into the cube. I laughed my ass off.

So, how did you guys or your parties find Keep on the Shadowfell?

 

[Infiniti2000]

I haven't run it yet, but I really appreciate you taking the time to type up your experiences. I was worried about the trap room, too. We have an ongoing joke about portcullises, so maybe I'll have one drop down behind the group. My first thought, though, was that the statues would animate their legs, too.

 

[Gort]

I haven't run it yet, but I really appreciate you taking the time to type up your experiences. I was worried about the trap room, too. We have an ongoing joke about portcullises, so maybe I'll have one drop down behind the group. My first thought, though, was that the statues would animate their legs, too.

Oh, the door locks behind them - fairly stiff DC to get out, as well (25). Trouble is that without any way to reach the PCs, they can just ranged-attack the statues to death. Only problem with animating the statues is that then it's not a trap room really, it's just another fight. But it's not a very good trap room anyway, so it's not a great loss.

Oh, there's another situation you might want to change involving a portcullis. In area 14, the hobgoblin chief's room, there's a set of bars that drops down, preventing the players entering the area. Trouble is, none of the hobgoblins have a ranged attack, so they'd be kinda screwed if they leave their hiding places. Far better to have the bars triggered by a button the chief can press once half the party has entered the area. Do the old, "trapped outside watching your friends get chopped up" thing.

 

[zoroaster100]

I ran our first session two weeks ago. There are six players, five of whom had never played D&D before, and one who had played a little third edition, but not fourth edition. We had a blast that first session. I had the marauders attacking a farmstead near town which beloned to one of the player's parents to give the encounter more emotional significance to engage them. I also had the kobolds set the farmstead on fire, and after the fight, I added a skill challenge to put out the fire before the house burned down.

Then they skipped right to the dragon burial site. I had Douvan Staul be the adoptive father of one half-elf character when I worked out the backstory with the player of that character, and her character's first quest was to locate her father who had gone missing a couple of weeks before. They enjoyed the second battle, with the gnome and his lackeys, even more than the first. The especially enjoyed beating the gnome after he kept annoying them by disappearing with his fade away power and taunting them in between disappearances and shots from his crossbow.

Tomorrow we play again. I have switched the mirror at the burial site for a magic wand and some gold in a tomb buried beneath the site. The gnome already unburied some scrolls buried at the site and sent them to Kalarel, and these provide Kalarel the rituals he needed to begin opening the rift. I didn't see the point of the mirror, since it either provides no benefit to Kalarel, and therefor is pointless, or else if needed for the ritual, the players may complain later if they destroy or dispose of the mirror and Kalarel can nevertheless proceed with his plans. I expect tomorrow they'll face the kobold ambush and then the lair and Irontooth. I have heard so much about Irontooth's deadliness that I'm thinking of leaving the encounter inside the lair as is despite there being six player characters in the party.

 

[Wormwood]

So, how did you guys or your parties find Keep on the Shadowfell?

I'm in the interesting position of being in two groups playing KotS, one as a DM and another as a player.

For the first time in a very long while, I'm having just as much fun on either side of the screen.

I do wish they'd included more in the way of skill challenges---I had to whip one up for when the PCs tried to convince Padraig about the seriousness of the cult threat. Luckily, they're easy to throw together, but it would have been nice to have a few more spelled out in the adventure beforehand.

Also, getting a little tired of Kobolds. Well, at least I was before I saw that Kobold article in the latest Dragon.

 

[Krensus]

I just finished running this adventure tonight with my party, and I agree with you on a lot of points. My party consisted of a Human Cleric, Dwarf Fighter, Half-elf Warlock, Elven Ranger, and Human Rogue. At times some were either replaced with other players or not present, but that's pretty much the static party.

As you can see, the party had a lot of strikers. This led to some interesting twists on the encounters, often times they were either dominating or winning only be the skin of their teeth. The blue ooze, for example, they killed in 4 rounds due to the ranger wailing on it with an action point and 2 crits. The cleric seemed to pretty much hate his job the entire time because there were so many mobs and no wizard in the party, leading to 2-3 people getting damaged per round, most of which really shouldn't be taking hits.

My favorite monster was the little clay humunculous, which I'm sure I'm misspelling. He tried to escape into the next room once the zombies were getting diced, but the cleric cast Sanctuary on himself and ran full tilt through all the remaining zombies to chase it. At this point, the players had already figured out not to let things escape into other rooms, as they had triggered as many as three encounters at once by letting a hobgoblin run to the east in the first encounter on the second floor. He caught up to it and used an action point to try to whap it, but missed. The monster cast his daze spell on him to become invisible, then saddled up to the cleric and waited for the ranger to go to town. He made the arrow hit the cleric instead, then ran up the steps to stand in melee with the ranger. The fighter tank ran up and...well, long story short, it was a rare attack that didn't hit an ally that encounter.

As for Kalarel, I think he's probably a bit too tough. All of his defenses are incredibly high compared to the rest of the module, especially his Will. The tentacles from The Thing in the Portal are almost certainly going to hit players and heal him, and he's not taking all that much damage to begin with. The fighter tank ended up dying pretty early, and he was lucky he was wearing that scale mail that gave resistance 5 to necrotic damage or he would have died even sooner. The players didn't understand that the tentacles healed him, they believed it was the magic circle he stood on, so they all backed off after the fighter fell for the second time and tried to just range him to death or force him from the circle.

At this point, I did something kind of cheesy. The fighter was the only target in range of the tentacles, so it kept attacking him and dragging him closer. Kalarel left the circle to pursue the party, but the tentacles kept attacking the dead fighter to give him a heal for 5 per round. Before he finally died, the only people standing were the warlock and the ranger, the cleric was on the ground out of surges, and the rogue was one save away from death. I can't really judge the encounter objectively because the party did something retarded to trigger it. I told them that there was something going on inside the pit while they stood in the room above kalarel's, with enough xp to level, talking about taking an extended rest because the fighter only had 3 surges left, when the ranger decided to clean up the place to rest and started throwing bodies in the pit. At that point, I triggered the encounter and said they needed to intervene or the ritual would be complete, so I can't really say I didn't give them ample information to avoid the encounter until after a rest.

I actually added some treasure to the Kalarel encounter because it was pretty bare, I went through and selected some 3rd-4th level Rituals to put in his book as a reward to the casters, one of which was Enchant Magic Item. I think that if this edition is going to readily encourage item creation, I might as well go along with it and see if it works well.

I've pretty much put the game on hold at this point until the next module comes out, as I'd like to see how they fit together. Overall, I thought the dungeon was well designed from a tactical standpoint, but I was underwhelmed by the amount of actual plot development. I thought it was a good dungeon crawl, but lately my group has moved towards more story driven campaigns and this really feels like "omg there's a guy doing bad stuff down there...go stop him, this is your hook, bite it."

 

[functionciccio]

The other problem I had was that the solo and elite monsters tended to live forever - I'm pretty sure the fight with the blue slime went on for upwards of 10 rounds, and wasn't terribly exciting.

Yes, it seems to be a problem. And not only a problem of the module, but a problem of 4E (imho). The first countermeasure I'm going to implement is to reduce the HP of solo and elite monsters to reflect the # of characters (4/5 HP for a party of 4, 3/5 HP for a party of 3). Then, if this is not enough (with sir Keegan, for example), I will reduce their HP ad libitum until I reach an amount I'm confident with. 1-round fights are not fun, but 20-round fights (expecially against the same monster) are worse.

Overall, I thought the dungeon was well designed from a tactical standpoint, but I was underwhelmed by the amount of actual plot development.

The module is very light on plot. In fact I’m planning to intoduce a twist or two to spice it up (for example I might turn Douven into a cultist... He wasn’t kidnapped, but he was looking for the ancient mirror on purpose, to help Karalel finish his job. Maybe even Lord Padraig is on Kararel’s book... who knows... that’s why he dismisses any rumor about a death cult so hastily).

I have switched the mirror at the burial site for a magic wand and some gold in a tomb buried beneath the site.

I’m planning on using the mirror in a meaningful way.
If they keep the mirror (and leave it in town, since I envision it as a huge mirror), the mirror is going to be the focus of the ritual used by the spy to raise the “undead army” (maybe a litte stronger than the one presented in the module).
If the party destroys it, Karalel is going to suffer some kind of penalty (maybe he cannot be healed by the “thing in the portal”) and the spy will be forced to rise a reduced number of undead.
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[Gort]

As for Kalarel, I think he's probably a bit too tough. All of his defenses are incredibly high compared to the rest of the module, especially his Will. The tentacles from The Thing in the Portal are almost certainly going to hit players and heal him, and he's not taking all that much damage to begin with. The fighter tank ended up dying pretty early, and he was lucky he was wearing that scale mail that gave resistance 5 to necrotic damage or he would have died even sooner. The players didn't understand that the tentacles healed him, they believed it was the magic circle he stood on, so they all backed off after the fighter fell for the second time and tried to just range him to death or force him from the circle.

Heh, funny you should say all this stuff, but Kalarel should have even higher defenses when he's standing on the magic circle - 2 higher, to be precise. And 5 regeneration. Check out where it says, "Evil magic circle" on page 80 of the module.

My players ended up actually grabbing him and dragging him out of the circle before killing him. They were quite lucky he didn't escape, but my dice rolling suddenly turned to a string of 1, 3, 4, and 2.

 

[Zinovia]

I will be changing the back story around some, and adding a bit of prophecy I threw together here
KotS spoiler
[sblock]I agree with those who said my first version gave away too much information too early. However I may use the last 2 verses of the first version of the poem as additional prophecy / instructions from Sir Keegan if they manage to persuade him that they are good guys and are working to stop the rift from opening. I want to give them some clue about interrupting the ritual so I can use the skill challenge that was published by WotC as a supplement to KotS.[/sblock]

There's a nice thread on the WotC forums reworking KotS here. Just skip past a few of the egregious arguments, and right onto the meat of the thread. There are some nice maps, and encounter changes suggested there. I won't be using all of the suggested changes, but will definitely incorporate some of them. It clears up several issues I had.
[sblock]Including the statue traps[/sblock]

 

[beeflv30]

Had no problems with this adventure except for the trap room (Kind of easy).
Combats were great the only really long combat we ran into was with Irontooth and that whole hoard of kobolds. But it was a great combat though.
Combat seems to get a lot faster once you are familiar with combat and the new way things are done in this edition.