Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Last Friday, I ran my first regular Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition game. I used Keep on the
Shadowfell.
Some boring background stuff:
[sblock]
I am playing roleplaying games only since 1999/2000, thus I am "young" by ENWorld Community standards. I started playing with Shadowrun, and got into D&D with my current group (which are all approximately ~10 years older in general, and also have ~10 years more of experience in RPGs then me.) The group wasn't a D&D only group, but it became at least a d20 focused group. They played Torg a lot before my time, but also Midgard, Warhammer, Shadowrun and the German RPG Das Schwarze Auge. We continued playing a lot of these games, but d20 was becoming pretty standard with 3E.
As a DM, I ran Shadowrun, d20 Star Wars ("1E", before revised or Saga) Dragonstar, Arcana Evolved, D&D Core (homebrew setting) and finally Iron Heroes.
We already played a playtest, using a homebrew adventure based on the DDXP material and the great community work on ENWorld, and it went pretty well.
[/sblock]
The group consisted of 4 players and thus 4 PCs:
- Half Elf Paladin (Correllon)
- Dwarf Wizard (Orb)
- Elven Cleric ("Laserbeam"
, Colleron)
- Halfling Rogue
First observation: For some reason, no Humans! I think we rarely have that, and I actually didn't notice until now that I am writing this!
Warning: My memory becomes more and more sketchy over the actual play-out of the adventures. I remember the final encounter best.
The adventure flow:
[sblock]
I began the adventure "in medias re", with the first Kobold attack. The group managed themselves pretty well and had little trouble.
We taught the Cleric player what the difference is between a Blast and a Burst (Blast comes from "blasen" (German for blowing) was the shorthand that worked for him), and we taught the Paladin players that he should read his powers and ability descriptions to the (bitter?) end. (He missed the limitations of the Divine Challenge. I am not sure ye if he _really_ learned his lesson in reading powers, but it's a start )
Afterwards, I made a short "flashback" to explain how they got where they were, by handing out prints of the Quests. I decided to use all 3 Quests. They might need the XP, given that I didn't modify any encounters based on their smaller party size.
The Rogue got the "Mentor" quest, the two divinely inspired characters got the Cult investigation quest, and the Wizard got the mapping quest (I found it fit a Dwarven Wizard astoundingly well.. )
They headed to town, got directions and went to the inn. They got their room, and made their first inquiries. The Halfling tried to hit on the Elven female (which I found funny and should be expanded upon. But I don't know yet what to do)
Okay, so after they get some information on the Dragon Burial Site, they decide to go there first. The Kobold ambush hits them hards, so hard in fact that they decide to go back to town. The townspeople are a little surprised that they are back so soon, and when they hear about the Kobolds, they point them towards Lord Pandraig, so the players also negotiate a deal with him to take down the Kobold Camp. But they still decide to go to the Burial Grounds first.
When the go to the burial ground, I first introduce a small "cut scene", something I added to give a little more background - a flashback to Sir Keegans history. The scene describes the aftermath of the Dragon burial, where he negotiates with the surviving Kobolds following the read Dragon that they may stay in the area, but should never threaten any Nerahti citizen again. (I decided that Keegan and his Imperial soldiers fought a Black Dragon to secure the Keep. Black Dragons are listed as attracted to the Shadowfell, so I thought it as a natural fit, tying the Keep, the Burial Site and the Kobold lair together).
The encounter at the Dragon Burial ground goes pretty well. The Rogue and the Wizard are threatened mostly by the Slinger and the Gnome, but the Gnome is also quickly taken down. The Slinger retreats shortly to avoid further fire and hides in the tree, but later returns to bother the enemy again. But the Flaming Sphere of the Wizard proves very valuable against him.
They free Douven and he tells them that he was captured and that the Gnome refered to Karalel in some of his talks. He hands them the amulet as a thanks, and the group gets their Quest XP.
Since this encounter didn't prove too hard, they moved towards the Kobold lair.
I inserted another flashback, about the beginning of the Sir Keegans fight against the black dragon.
They failed at their stealth approach (Sir Clonk-A-Lot the Cleric in action ), and engaged in a not quite easy combat. I can't remember any serious trouble, but they still expended some resources to handle the enemies. Both sides used a little bit of stealth while in the forest part. They decided to retreat again. (probably a little bit because I was hinting that the next encounter would be very difficult.)
I decided against re-organizing the Kobold lair (I didn't want a boring fight with less enemies at the front, though maybe it would actually have been a good idea to do so. But I also wanted to see how they fared against the "TPK" encounter...)
So, they entered the fight fresh and healthy. They moved through the waterfall, and saw several Kobolds just waiting for someone trying to enter their lair (in hindsight, it might have been a good idea to move the first wave outside the Waterfall to make the encounter a bit easier).
The Paladin moved into the room, attracting most of the Kobolds to attack him. They swiftly surrounded him, and also did some considerable damage to him, but the Cleric and Wizard then taking down the Minions. The Rogue then goes on to sneak some of the bastards.
The Paladin manages with all that opposition, but the dice are clearly on my side, and his hit points erode, despite some healing from the Cleric. Action Points and area powers are used to take down the worst.
In the third round, the last Minions and Kobolds standing are taken down, and finally, Irontooth, the Wyrmpriest and his Dragonshield body guards enter the battle. The Wyrmpriest manages to use his Incite Faith and his Breath Weapon during the encounter. Irontooth is bloodied pretty quick The Dragonshields are the first to fall, but only after the Paladin (still hurt from the Minion "onslaught") is taken down. Shortly thereafter, the Rogue is also down, and this unfortunately also means that getting Irontooth down further takes more time the PCs can really afford. The Cleric and the Wizard try to retreat slowly, but Irontooth takes down the Cleric, too. The Wizard goes beyond the waterfall, and the Wyrmpriest decides not to follow, relying on Irontooth to take down the Wizard (or scare him off). It's not like it's safe near Irontooth, anyway (and he's injured, afer all). Instead, the Kobold decides to stabilize the PCs - either to eat them later, or sell them as slaves, he hasn't decided that yet.
The wizard uses his Second Wind while retreating from the Goblin, while still attacking him. The Wizard takes another hit from the Goblin, but manages to dispatch him. Wit this success, he decides to take down the Wyrmpriest, and succeeds, with approximately ~3 hit points left.
After all characters are awake again, they loot the place and find the notes from Karalel.
At this point, we concluded the session, the PCs just having gained enough XP to get their 2nd level.
[/sblock]
A few highlights I remember:
- I was realy surprised by the Wizards at-will powers - it was pretty useful to fling enemies around with Thunder Weave, and CLoud of Daggers was painful.
- The Wizards Flaming Sphere did deal a lot of damage and was responsible for quite a few deaths.
- The Rogue dealt amazing damage. He rarely attacked without getting his sneak attack.
- The Cleric relied a lot on the ranged Cleric powers. It was very interesting to observe how the powers differed from the Wizard - Wizards are prone to "friendly fire" accidents (well, if you're not careful. Our group is careful), Clerics just target only allies or only enemies.
- The Paladin really worked well as a "Combat Magnet". None of the other could have stood up against the Kobold Minion onslaught.
From a DM only point of view:
It was very easy to master the game! Usually, at 1st level I am only worried that I kill the Pcs accidentally. The only time I was worried about this was the Irontooth encounter, and it would have been a TPK if the Wyrmpriest had pressed on, or if I hadn't cheated on one or two dice rolls (but to be honest, I was already rolling really well that evening. Normally, so many Kobold Minions shouldn't hit AC 20. Interestingly, one of my rolls ended a 1, just as I had preferred. Otherwise, I'd probably had to cheat that roll, too.)
The KotS encounter format is just great. Everything on a double page. The short tactics section is enough to make the encounter work. I have read the adventure maybe twice in full, and the rest could be done during game.
Minions are definitely a welcome addition to the game. I never had such big, dynamic battles before, and if I had to note the hit points of the Minions, things would have slowed down considerably. The DM turn still takes the most of the time, I think (I am slow ), but it didn't feel too long to me...
I agree with anyone saying that the Irontooth encounter is harder the necessary. I also got the impression that smaller groups might want to rest more. The extra encounter power, healing surges and daily are notable. We'll see how this will be true at higher levels, but I suspect it will stay constant (or get worse?).
Overall, I am very happy with my experience. It was really relaxing to master as a DM, and despite being 1st level, it was a lot of fun for both sides. (As I said somewhere else: "It doesn't feel like D&D to me. First Level shouldn't be that much fun.")
I don't know if it's just because it is also a published adventure, or if it's 4E, but I felt a lot more "safe" then ever before when DMing. I might have to try to homebrew an adventure to see what it was. It definitely felt easy to use the adventure and prepare it. - Hey, I even got time to create a few hand-outs and some "original" material. (If I get around it, I might post translated versions of my "Sir Keegans" visions at a later point, if someone is interested...)
Meanwhile, our Savage Tides DM has reported that his 4E conversion is going well (the first 10 encounters are finished, and it apparently took him like an evening to do so.). And interestingly, one of my players inquired about monster stat blocks Excel/PDF templates today... is he planning to convert his (Pathfinder AP) campaign, too?
Shadowfell.
Some boring background stuff:
[sblock]
I am playing roleplaying games only since 1999/2000, thus I am "young" by ENWorld Community standards. I started playing with Shadowrun, and got into D&D with my current group (which are all approximately ~10 years older in general, and also have ~10 years more of experience in RPGs then me.) The group wasn't a D&D only group, but it became at least a d20 focused group. They played Torg a lot before my time, but also Midgard, Warhammer, Shadowrun and the German RPG Das Schwarze Auge. We continued playing a lot of these games, but d20 was becoming pretty standard with 3E.
As a DM, I ran Shadowrun, d20 Star Wars ("1E", before revised or Saga) Dragonstar, Arcana Evolved, D&D Core (homebrew setting) and finally Iron Heroes.
We already played a playtest, using a homebrew adventure based on the DDXP material and the great community work on ENWorld, and it went pretty well.
[/sblock]
The group consisted of 4 players and thus 4 PCs:
- Half Elf Paladin (Correllon)
- Dwarf Wizard (Orb)
- Elven Cleric ("Laserbeam"
, Colleron)- Halfling Rogue
First observation: For some reason, no Humans! I think we rarely have that, and I actually didn't notice until now that I am writing this!
Warning: My memory becomes more and more sketchy over the actual play-out of the adventures. I remember the final encounter best.
The adventure flow:
[sblock]
I began the adventure "in medias re", with the first Kobold attack. The group managed themselves pretty well and had little trouble.
We taught the Cleric player what the difference is between a Blast and a Burst (Blast comes from "blasen" (German for blowing) was the shorthand that worked for him), and we taught the Paladin players that he should read his powers and ability descriptions to the (bitter?) end. (He missed the limitations of the Divine Challenge. I am not sure ye if he _really_ learned his lesson in reading powers, but it's a start
)Afterwards, I made a short "flashback" to explain how they got where they were, by handing out prints of the Quests. I decided to use all 3 Quests. They might need the XP, given that I didn't modify any encounters based on their smaller party size.
The Rogue got the "Mentor" quest, the two divinely inspired characters got the Cult investigation quest, and the Wizard got the mapping quest (I found it fit a Dwarven Wizard astoundingly well.. )
They headed to town, got directions and went to the inn. They got their room, and made their first inquiries. The Halfling tried to hit on the Elven female (which I found funny and should be expanded upon. But I don't know yet what to do)
Okay, so after they get some information on the Dragon Burial Site, they decide to go there first. The Kobold ambush hits them hards, so hard in fact that they decide to go back to town. The townspeople are a little surprised that they are back so soon, and when they hear about the Kobolds, they point them towards Lord Pandraig, so the players also negotiate a deal with him to take down the Kobold Camp. But they still decide to go to the Burial Grounds first.
When the go to the burial ground, I first introduce a small "cut scene", something I added to give a little more background - a flashback to Sir Keegans history. The scene describes the aftermath of the Dragon burial, where he negotiates with the surviving Kobolds following the read Dragon that they may stay in the area, but should never threaten any Nerahti citizen again. (I decided that Keegan and his Imperial soldiers fought a Black Dragon to secure the Keep. Black Dragons are listed as attracted to the Shadowfell, so I thought it as a natural fit, tying the Keep, the Burial Site and the Kobold lair together).
The encounter at the Dragon Burial ground goes pretty well. The Rogue and the Wizard are threatened mostly by the Slinger and the Gnome, but the Gnome is also quickly taken down. The Slinger retreats shortly to avoid further fire and hides in the tree, but later returns to bother the enemy again. But the Flaming Sphere of the Wizard proves very valuable against him.
They free Douven and he tells them that he was captured and that the Gnome refered to Karalel in some of his talks. He hands them the amulet as a thanks, and the group gets their Quest XP.
Since this encounter didn't prove too hard, they moved towards the Kobold lair.
I inserted another flashback, about the beginning of the Sir Keegans fight against the black dragon.
They failed at their stealth approach (Sir Clonk-A-Lot the Cleric in action
), and engaged in a not quite easy combat. I can't remember any serious trouble, but they still expended some resources to handle the enemies. Both sides used a little bit of stealth while in the forest part. They decided to retreat again. (probably a little bit because I was hinting that the next encounter would be very difficult.)I decided against re-organizing the Kobold lair (I didn't want a boring fight with less enemies at the front, though maybe it would actually have been a good idea to do so. But I also wanted to see how they fared against the "TPK" encounter...)
So, they entered the fight fresh and healthy. They moved through the waterfall, and saw several Kobolds just waiting for someone trying to enter their lair (in hindsight, it might have been a good idea to move the first wave outside the Waterfall to make the encounter a bit easier).
The Paladin moved into the room, attracting most of the Kobolds to attack him. They swiftly surrounded him, and also did some considerable damage to him, but the Cleric and Wizard then taking down the Minions. The Rogue then goes on to sneak some of the bastards.
The Paladin manages with all that opposition, but the dice are clearly on my side, and his hit points erode, despite some healing from the Cleric. Action Points and area powers are used to take down the worst.
In the third round, the last Minions and Kobolds standing are taken down, and finally, Irontooth, the Wyrmpriest and his Dragonshield body guards enter the battle. The Wyrmpriest manages to use his Incite Faith and his Breath Weapon during the encounter. Irontooth is bloodied pretty quick The Dragonshields are the first to fall, but only after the Paladin (still hurt from the Minion "onslaught") is taken down. Shortly thereafter, the Rogue is also down, and this unfortunately also means that getting Irontooth down further takes more time the PCs can really afford. The Cleric and the Wizard try to retreat slowly, but Irontooth takes down the Cleric, too. The Wizard goes beyond the waterfall, and the Wyrmpriest decides not to follow, relying on Irontooth to take down the Wizard (or scare him off). It's not like it's safe near Irontooth, anyway (and he's injured, afer all). Instead, the Kobold decides to stabilize the PCs - either to eat them later, or sell them as slaves, he hasn't decided that yet.
The wizard uses his Second Wind while retreating from the Goblin, while still attacking him. The Wizard takes another hit from the Goblin, but manages to dispatch him. Wit this success, he decides to take down the Wyrmpriest, and succeeds, with approximately ~3 hit points left.
After all characters are awake again, they loot the place and find the notes from Karalel.
At this point, we concluded the session, the PCs just having gained enough XP to get their 2nd level.
[/sblock]
A few highlights I remember:
- I was realy surprised by the Wizards at-will powers - it was pretty useful to fling enemies around with Thunder Weave, and CLoud of Daggers was painful.
- The Wizards Flaming Sphere did deal a lot of damage and was responsible for quite a few deaths.
- The Rogue dealt amazing damage. He rarely attacked without getting his sneak attack.
- The Cleric relied a lot on the ranged Cleric powers. It was very interesting to observe how the powers differed from the Wizard - Wizards are prone to "friendly fire" accidents (well, if you're not careful. Our group is careful), Clerics just target only allies or only enemies.
- The Paladin really worked well as a "Combat Magnet". None of the other could have stood up against the Kobold Minion onslaught.
From a DM only point of view:
It was very easy to master the game! Usually, at 1st level I am only worried that I kill the Pcs accidentally. The only time I was worried about this was the Irontooth encounter, and it would have been a TPK if the Wyrmpriest had pressed on, or if I hadn't cheated on one or two dice rolls (but to be honest, I was already rolling really well that evening. Normally, so many Kobold Minions shouldn't hit AC 20. Interestingly, one of my rolls ended a 1, just as I had preferred. Otherwise, I'd probably had to cheat that roll, too.)
The KotS encounter format is just great. Everything on a double page. The short tactics section is enough to make the encounter work. I have read the adventure maybe twice in full, and the rest could be done during game.
Minions are definitely a welcome addition to the game. I never had such big, dynamic battles before, and if I had to note the hit points of the Minions, things would have slowed down considerably. The DM turn still takes the most of the time, I think (I am slow ), but it didn't feel too long to me...
I agree with anyone saying that the Irontooth encounter is harder the necessary. I also got the impression that smaller groups might want to rest more. The extra encounter power, healing surges and daily are notable. We'll see how this will be true at higher levels, but I suspect it will stay constant (or get worse?).
Overall, I am very happy with my experience. It was really relaxing to master as a DM, and despite being 1st level, it was a lot of fun for both sides. (As I said somewhere else: "It doesn't feel like D&D to me. First Level shouldn't be that much fun.")
I don't know if it's just because it is also a published adventure, or if it's 4E, but I felt a lot more "safe" then ever before when DMing. I might have to try to homebrew an adventure to see what it was. It definitely felt easy to use the adventure and prepare it. - Hey, I even got time to create a few hand-outs and some "original" material. (If I get around it, I might post translated versions of my "Sir Keegans" visions at a later point, if someone is interested...)
Meanwhile, our Savage Tides DM has reported that his 4E conversion is going well (the first 10 encounters are finished, and it apparently took him like an evening to do so.). And interestingly, one of my players inquired about monster stat blocks Excel/PDF templates today... is he planning to convert his (Pathfinder AP) campaign, too?
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