KotS Session Report (Spoilers)

[Heselbine]

I thought I would indulge myself and post a report on my first KotS session. A little background first.

The players are using four of the DDXP pregens - Skamos, Corrin, Erais and Riardon. I've already run two previous adventures - a kobold caves adventure and a zombie-fest. Both went well.

For KotS I added in Kathra, the dwarf fighter, to round them out a little. We played through the first encounter on the road and the players absolutely breezed through it. Despite carefully preparing, somehow I managed to forget that kobold dragonshields get the extra shift ability - I got confused with the normal kobold shift ability. I wonder whether that seriously impacted the encounter? I suspect it may have done a little. In any case, I'll remember it next time.

What was really nice, though, after all this emphasis on combat and balancing power and character builds and stuff, the players then got down to some serious role-playing. Don't get me wrong - I love the tactical combat stuff - but it was thoroughly refreshing that most of the session was spent wandering around Winterhaven interacting with the characters. I turned getting past the guards at the inner gate into a level 1 skill challenge, and they loved it.

For the next session, we'll all have the books. I want to give them the opportunity to start new characters, so what we've agreed is that the existing characters are going to be wiped out in some spectacular and interesting way, leaving the new adventurers to come in and sort things out. This is helped by the fact that Skamos' player wants to continue running him, so there will be a little bit of continuity.

So, as I suspected, D&D 4e makes little difference to the role-playing aspects of the game. In fact they're a little enhanced by skill challenges and quests. I've been a bit bemused at times by the huge emphasis on these boards on combinations and balance and so on - as an old-time player I don't necessarily expect everything to balance perfectly, and I would rather hope that some players are taking sub-optimal choices sometimes simply because they suit their character.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I turned getting past the guards at the inner gate into a level 1 skill challenge, and they loved it.

Could you please post more details on this? I'm only slightly interested in the skills for the challenge and more interested in how you approached it as a DM and how the players responded, either in character or out. Thanks!

 

[Heselbine]

They approached the gate, and I told them that the guards looked more alert than the ones at the village gate. One of them wanted to do a diplomacy check, I think. Only then did it occur to me that this would be a good skill challenge.

I told them that 4e had a mechanic to make this kind of encounter more fun, which they responded well to and were keen to try out. I explained that if they had a skill which looked like it might be relevant, they should give it a go. I explained that there would be four successes required before two failures.

So the first was a diplomacy roll, fair enough - but I didn't want them just to roll, they had to earn their roll through role-playing! They passed with flying colours and the guards started to warm up. Then one of the players really started to get it - he asked if he could do an Insight roll to see what sort of thing might impress the guards. He passed, and I told him he felt the guards would be impressed by a show of authority. So next, they made another Diplomacy roll, but this time made a whole thing about being very important and "you shouldn't keep us waiting" and so on. They passed that and they were nearly home and dry.

I haven't got the books yet so I don't know the finer details, but the whole concept of skill challenges just allowed me to put a little structure around this interaction which seemed to make it more fun.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Duly noted - that's an excellent idea and I shall steal it.

I'll have a think to see if there is anywhere else that a similar idea could take route.

 

[Heselbine]

Duly noted - that's an excellent idea and I shall steal it.

I'll have a think to see if there is anywhere else that a similar idea could take route.

I think the thing I like best is that we could have a session which is entirely role-playing but where the characters still earn experience points. In the past I've house-ruled this, of course, but it's nice that it's now part of the rules.

I'm particularly reminded of a Forgotten Realms campaign where it took three complete sessions before the characters left the pub. I kid you not.

 

[Regicide]

If you want to wipe them out in a spectacular manner send them to the kobold cave with Irontooth (encounter 3). It's a gaurented TPK. Use Irontooth's action point while he's bloodied and you'll kill a party member, when he gets low use his once per day 26 HP healing surge as a minor action. The wyrm priest buffs all the kobolds with 5 temp HPs and has a nice AE power to hit the party with if they bunch up. It's a slaughter.

 

[Holy Bovine]

They approached the gate, and I told them that the guards looked more alert than the ones at the village gate. One of them wanted to do a diplomacy check, I think. Only then did it occur to me that this would be a good skill challenge.

I told them that 4e had a mechanic to make this kind of encounter more fun, which they responded well to and were keen to try out. I explained that if they had a skill which looked like it might be relevant, they should give it a go. I explained that there would be four successes required before two failures.

So the first was a diplomacy roll, fair enough - but I didn't want them just to roll, they had to earn their roll through role-playing! They passed with flying colours and the guards started to warm up. Then one of the players really started to get it - he asked if he could do an Insight roll to see what sort of thing might impress the guards. He passed, and I told him he felt the guards would be impressed by a show of authority. So next, they made another Diplomacy roll, but this time made a whole thing about being very important and "you shouldn't keep us waiting" and so on. They passed that and they were nearly home and dry.

I haven't got the books yet so I don't know the finer details, but the whole concept of skill challenges just allowed me to put a little structure around this interaction which seemed to make it more fun.

This is very encouraging to read. The skill challenges are one of things I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around. This set up 'on the fly' is exactly the kind of thing I would expect ot be doing.

 

[Deltran]

To reinforce the idea of spontanious skill challenges:

When I ran KotS the players went into the tavern first thing (they haven't explored the town at all, and they've already been to the kobold cave ). Then one of the player's asked if there was a stage in the tavern. After he started dancing around and jumping off of the walls I decided to turn it into a skills challenge - if they where successful NPCs would have been more forthcoming with information and they would have gotten free room for the night (in retrospec I should have just given free food, but at any rate...).

They ended up not succeeding, however 2 party members participated (the wizard assisted with his cantrips, so I just let him give a bonus to the skill check instead of asking him to roll a skill of his own). Everyone enjoyed the antics of the performer, the wizard enjoyed getting to use spells at-will for role-play and enjoyment, and this was all done on the fly.

 

[Heselbine]

Yes - I suspect that I will end up doing this reasonably often. My players often enjoy just wandering around in this manner and it will hopefully make them feel they're not wasting chances to gain XP.