KotS session 1 questions and comments

[SDOgre]

Ok so the game itself, well it played slow! but I was really surprised by how slow actually, movement felt more complicated to be honest with all the shifting going on (especially since it kept provoking attack of opportunities even though it was a shift from this that or the other power!).

I think they made some major mistakes publishing KotS as the introduction module.

Mistake #1: They made the first three fights with kobolds. With the kobold shifting abililty they picked perhaps the most difficult type of fight for a DM and most frustrating fight for players to start with. And then again. And then again.

Did they playtest this with people who weren't already playtesters?

Mistake #2: The quickstart rules are horrible for seasoned players. It just feels like minature rules light. It gives the wrong feel to the game out of the box. First impressions are important. They should have waited to release this module with the handbooks.

 

[The Sword 88]

My 2 cents on subduing, i am only allowing an enemy to be subdued by a basic attack with a -2 penalty to hit. I think subduing someone with a meteor strike or a super pissed off power slash of doom is ridiculous.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

2 players were brand new, so when one of them says "I want to use my sly flourish thing", I had to stop and look it up... as for looking it up in the quick guide it kept sliding off the table and onto the floor if I opened it and set it down, its very glossy and likes to tumble so I just gave up. so yea by the end of the session I had the at will ones down, but I definitely wouldn't say I was familiar on the in's and outs of the encounter ones, and they were most of the way to a new level which means new powers (I assume). And its not that I don't trust them, its that we're all sort of new to this... not that it was any different for 3.x with the perpetual newness of extra supplements brought in what seemed like every other session, but I'm just saying, stopping to read over nitpicks and abilities each time did seem to slow things down every bit as much as 3e, which was kinda lame.

And by and large I tried not to take anything for granted because as you said theres a real tendancy to want to treat it like 3e.

I think one of the best things you can do to help your game is to let the players learn what their characters can do by actually doing it.

If your players are refusing to follow the really clear instructions on their characters sheets (+7 vs Reflex for one rogue attack) then you taking it off them, looking at it and handing it back is going to really slow everything down. Have them read it off the sheet and then say "So roll a die, add seven, tell me what you get and what defense I'm looking at" and the game will really speed up.

You need to trust your players - the whole point of having the details of the powers on the characters sheets is so that you DON'T have to keep referring back to the book. All the info you need should be contained in the power description.

 

[Tambryn]

-- minions (a few players still insisted on rolling damage, and most everyone seemed to dislike the 1hp thing, one dwarf even switched to chucking daggers, instead of using his maul as a sign of protest)

Were your player's fully in the know about all the Kobold Minion's stats? How do they even know that they were minions? How did they know that they only had one hit point?

My players wouldn't have, preventing this from becoming an issue.

Tam

 

[Bigwilly]

-- minions (a few players still insisted on rolling damage, and most everyone seemed to dislike the 1hp thing, one dwarf even switched to chucking daggers, instead of using his maul as a sign of protest)

I would possibly just have ignored damage from the dwarf's daggers when he targeted a minion but still have them go down when hit by anything else. Or I would have had the kobolds close to melee with the dwarf and give them CA if he had continued to try and throw daggers. Or I would have had them swarm one of the squishies while he stood around throwing daggers.

 

[Mengu]

HP's are an abstraction (if this hasn't been said a sufficint number of times yet). Kobold's Minions, Skirmishers, and Dragonshields are all made of the same flesh and bone. Minions play the role of red shirts. They have no luck, and not enough skill to deflect lethal blows to glancing blows. As such they go down when they are hit. This is what 1 HP represents. Skirmishers are the lucky ones. As they charge in for battle, they just happen to duck under a branch and an arrow barely grazes an ear, instead of lodging in their throat. But they do eventually run out of luck (usually after dodging 2-3 such blows). The Dragonshields have slightly more training and can deflect would be lethal hits off their shields, and parry with their weapons, but they to eventually get worn down (after 3-4 such deflections).

As far as game mechanics go, for an encounter to be a meaningful challenge, the monsters need to have a certain amount of resilience. HP's represent that resilience. The difference in HP's between 3.x and 4.0 is alarming for a lot of people who look at 4.0 for the first time. Hopefully they will eventually except that this is a new system, and new pictures of combat will form in their minds eye as their warrior delivers blow after blow on those skirmishers, as a pair of skirmishers dodge around a bush, darting in and out to deliver their own stabs. Leaves and branches fly about, and after several such swings, the debris settles and the warrior is the only one standing with a satisfied smile on his face.

 

[Zalgarde]

HP's are an abstraction (if this hasn't been said a sufficint number of times yet). Kobold's Minions, Skirmishers, and Dragonshields are all made of the same flesh and bone. Minions play the role of red shirts. They have no luck, and not enough skill to deflect lethal blows to glancing blows. As such they go down when they are hit. This is what 1 HP represents. Skirmishers are the lucky ones. As they charge in for battle, they just happen to duck under a branch and an arrow barely grazes an ear, instead of lodging in their throat. But they do eventually run out of luck (usually after dodging 2-3 such blows).

The difference in HP's between 3.x and 4.0 is alarming for a lot of people who look at 4.0 for the first time.

Yes they are an abstraction, an abstraction of Damage. It sounds all fine and good to describe them as "I don't get hit" points ALA starwars till one gets acid arrowed, and you're left saying things like "wellll he dodged it but yknow... the acid is still inside him, and hmm I guess he sort of, dodges the continuous acid damage? who knows how much longer he can keep that up.." because at the end of the day they DID get hit. Or how about reaping strike... "well you almost crack him really good but he slips past the worst of it" player(now angry): "Then hows that different from when I don't get him with my main attack and he avoids getting cracked really good but can't avoid all of it" Me: "hm, well that wouldn't have tired him out as much?" A lot of these powers players have paint a picture all on their own, leaving me to unpaint it to explain HP.

And as for the guy talking about mobbing a squishy with the minions, he was still setting up a wall of dwarf blocking with his pal and his daggers would still let him AoO if they ran past.. and his dagger was every bit as capable in melee against those minions, which the thing had explicity told me to send in first without any heavies mixed in. basically as soon as he figured out they were one shots he switched to one shot weapons, its metagaming, but it did sort of make a point about the system to me. It'd be straight up AWESOME for a Kung Fu game where that'd allow the players to use rolling pins or birdcages or anything else on hand to dispatch their foes with (I'd even hand out bonus xp in a game like that for such antics), but one dwarf fighter was talking about trying something similar if he found a quickdraw feat.
"This here's my Clubbin Fish" was uttered. Not cool, but if the quickstart guide is to be believed a large stiff trout would work just fine.

 

[Mengu]

"This here's my Clubbin Fish" was uttered. Not cool, but if the quickstart guide is to be believed a large stiff trout would work just fine.

True. It probably seems sillier when you think about taking down level 25 minions with said trout.

It's just that a Kobold with 5 HP's would go down to most any hit the characters can dish out. And heaven forbid if he doesn't, than you have to start tracking his hitpoints along with his 11 cousins on the table. Suddenly it becomes easier to use d6's to represent goblins. It is assumed that characters will use one of their powers to attack. While they do have rules for swinging a trout (or other improvised weapons), this is not the default expectation.

As for the dwarf, there is a very good reason for him to use his maul instead of a dagger. He can take out two kobolds a turn with the maul. Not sure if you can cleave with a dagger.

 

[brehobit]

As for the dwarf, there is a very good reason for him to use his maul instead of a dagger. He can take out two kobolds a turn with the maul. Not sure if you can cleave with a dagger.

To the OP: This is a gamist game. In other words, things aren't overly realistic. IMO that means you've got a (good) minis game tacked onto an RPG. At the moment that doesn't bother me much, but we'll see how it plays out.

And as far as the above goes: yes you can cleave with a dagger.

 

[VannATLC]

An abstraction doesn't mean they don't get hit, or injured.

That acid is slowly eating through that mobs flesh. It's just hard enough it keeps fighting anyway.

Anybody with any actual fighting experience will tell you that most non-fighters go down easy.. no matter how minor their injuries. Thats a minion.

If they've never been in a serious fight before, they might break early. They might get distracted, drop their guard, and the lowliest dagger can spill their entrails.

The hardened guys, their flesh is bubbling.. but it doesn't stop them from swinging that sword straight at you.

Hit points are a lot of things. But mostly, they are flesh wounds.

The only serious wound you take is the one that drops you under your negative bloodied score. IE, the one that kills you. The rest, you can recover from. Generally, without serious work.

I've never understood why people have issues understand it. I really don't.