OK, I ran KOTS for my usual gaming group. We got through three encounters -- the first kobold attack, the ambush, and the 'rescue the mentor at the pit' encounter. Before entering the module, the players wanted to test the rules by having all of the PCs attack each other in an insane wild no-holds barred melee. I'd say we started the actual module about 1ish and finished about 7ish.
General consensus was moderately positive. One extreme negative, one fairly negative, and four mixed positives. (Including me in the latter group) No one was agitating to immediately drop 3.5 and switch. The consensus from the two DMs (me and the guy who runs the game I'm in, and who is a player in my campaign), was "We won't drop our current game, but we'll seriously consider 4e for ur next one." I'd say only one person would be in the "If you switch, I won't play" category.
The biggest negative was the nerfing of casters. The person playing the wizard felt seriously weak, and was really annoyed by the lack of non-combat/utility spells, general spell selection, and so on. A part of this was due to me SERIOUSLY screwing up how burst-1 spells worked and not realizing it until late in the third encounter, so there was a lot of bias there. This same player also felt the game was too combat focused and that to level, "you'll need to spend all your time looking at the grid". (I explained about skill challenges, etc, but she seemed skeptical.) Another person, playing the fighter, said magic was seriously bland and "Pbbbbt". Let's face it, casters are much less flexible and customizable than they were in 3e, even at level 1. The fact the module didn't include rituals, or cantrips for the wizard, helped create this perception. No matter how much I emphasized the limited scope of the module, it doesn't counter the actual experience, at least not until the full rules come out.
There was a feeling as well that fights went on too long. Partially, this was because we were new to the rules, of course. Partially it was due to SERIOUSLY bad rolls. Partially it was due to my screwing up the wizard's burst spell and depriving the party of minion-sweeping firepower. The fact the targets of the sleep spell all made their saves (and didn't give a damn about being slowed) also helped make the wizard feel useless, or at least, use-impaired.
Despite claims of "Easier! Faster! Simpler!" combat had just as many niggling things to track as in 3e, and they start at first level -- they aren't slowly eased into, part of "extending the sweet spot". Keeping track of marks (and making sure they went away), weakened creatures, slowed creatures, creatures who needed to make their second save to sleep or not sleep, etc, was just as much of a pain as buffs, debuffs, and so on in 3e. Not necessarily WORSE, not at all, but also not the miracle of simplicity some of 4e's supporters have been promising. Anyone still expecting 4e to play like a Forge game...give it up. It ain't.
Marks were hard to narrate, and I eventually gave up and treated them as a pure game construct.
The cleric's low attack bonus -- +3 -- kept her from being able to use a lot of her abilities to heal.
There were other, subtler, factors. No one had any emotional investment in their characters or the story. The things that give a game meaning, that elevate play above the mechanics, were absent. There was no desire, really, to finish the module and find out what happens; it was a bog-standard plot.
I also have to ask precisely whom the module was aimed at. 3.5 players thinking of converting? Then why the very simplistic advice to DMs which an experienced one would not need? But if it was aimed at newbies, it was sadly incomplete -- no one with no RPG experience could pick up KOTS and start playing. I suspect that KOTS went through many "repurposing" over the design period, and ended up neither fish nor fowl. I am not a "module person" -- as I said somewhere else, this is the first module I've run since Queen of the Demonweb Pits for AD&D 1e -- so I don't know if this is a typical module or not.
I found the lack of ANY stats for townsfolk to be an extreme disappointment. The PCs got to town and immediately wanted to DO things -- pick pockets, seduce the grumpy elf ranger, get into a barfight...and basically either I fudged everything or just coralled them to the story. Some mechanics for basic interaction would be great. Look, I get the "NPCs aren't PCs" philosophy. I could live with truncated, "monster style" stats for the major NPCs. But none at all? Not even "Generic Townsman", "Village Guard", etc? Ninaren has stats, but there's no reference to them in the text where she first appears (and what's a spy doing without Bluff trained, anyway? Or Streetwise, since her job is to watch the town?) If the answer is "They're in the MM", then why was this released two weeks ahead of the PHB?
OK, so much for the negatives. Now the positives.
First, I found it a lot better than I expected. Many things which looked broken or dubious in isolation turned out to work very well in actual play. The interplay of the different systems was quite elegant. The way in which monster and player abilities synergized was fun. As DM, I was able to take better advantage of the monster's synergies than the players were of theirs, because the PCs were often running all over the place while the monsters, especially the dragonshields, swarmed and shifted to great advantage. Even with a number of tactical blunders on my part, the monsters were effective as all hell. Fears I had about fighting being a cakewalk for PCs were misplaced; unconsciousness was quite common and healing surges were burned through.
The minor/move/standard pattern was easy to grasp after the first few rounds, especially once players clued in on which of their powers were minor -- like the cleric's healing word or the dwarf's second wind. The ability to 'roll up' and use a move as a minor action allowed for some serious annoying flexibility on the part of the kobolds. Some monsters were unexpectedly effective -- good luck and high damage rolls made the halfling slinger one of the deadliest monsters in the game.
The strong emphasis on teamwork and tactics is interesting. In the space of three encounters, the players didn't really manage to come together like a well oiled machine, but it's obvious that with time and experience, that will come.
Attack vs. Defense was quick and easy to grasp. So was how saves worked, though sometimes it was easy to forget to make saves for creatures under ongoing effects.
The fact creatures could make OAs once per round -- not once per their turn -- changed tactics a LOT. No longer could you 'disarm' creatures by sending the fighter through to suck down some AOOs. The need to be in close for many of the characters caused them to have to risk getting the smack down. The 'kicker' to drake guardian damage when they were near allies was also nasty.
In post game conversation, we realized that since "minion" is a narrative term of art, "killing" one can be as well. When you "kill" a minion, you render him a non-threat. This can mean he's dead, or unconscious, or just saw you will kick his ass and he ran away as fast as feet could carry him. The important thing is, he's out of the fight and not a threat, now or in the future -- a minion whose "death" is narrated as "He runs away" will NOT summon guards, alert authorities, or otherwise act against the PCs; for story purposes, his threat has been eliminated just as if he had died.
The classes DID feel different to me as a DM. The Warlord and the Cleric, both leaders, played differently, and I think it was more than just the different stlyes of the people playing them, though that was a part of it. (Warlord -- played by our master tactician, who named his character "Fisher" -- as in, Bobby. The Cleric, payed by my wife, who loves killing things and roleplaying but who basically prefers to just say what she wants to do and have someone else work out the rules.) The "stickiness" of the fighter and the stabbiness of the rogue were also clear. The wizard was, again due solely to my ineptness, sadly under utilized.
Overall, I'm pleased. Unlike some reviewers/supporters, I'm not considering it the bestest most amzingest game EVAR, at least not on the basis of KOTS -- I will reserve judgement until I see the full rules. But it's nowhere near as bad as early previews made it sound, and if that's damning with faint praise, well, so be it. The general consensus among the mostly-positives was "It's not D&D, but it's a fun fantasy game", which mirrors comments I've made several times based on the pre-release information. The final test will be the full ruleset, and especially the support for out-of-the-dungeon action.
EDIT: How does the rogue get TWO dice of sneak attack at first level? That +2d8 was VICIOUS!
EDIT TWO:Because, duh, 4e rogues start with two dice of SA, not one like in 3e. Rogues is NASTY. Would any rogue NOT take Bakcstabber? It's effectively a +2 to damage with sneak attack, on average, and +4 on a crit!
General consensus was moderately positive. One extreme negative, one fairly negative, and four mixed positives. (Including me in the latter group) No one was agitating to immediately drop 3.5 and switch. The consensus from the two DMs (me and the guy who runs the game I'm in, and who is a player in my campaign), was "We won't drop our current game, but we'll seriously consider 4e for ur next one." I'd say only one person would be in the "If you switch, I won't play" category.
The biggest negative was the nerfing of casters. The person playing the wizard felt seriously weak, and was really annoyed by the lack of non-combat/utility spells, general spell selection, and so on. A part of this was due to me SERIOUSLY screwing up how burst-1 spells worked and not realizing it until late in the third encounter, so there was a lot of bias there. This same player also felt the game was too combat focused and that to level, "you'll need to spend all your time looking at the grid". (I explained about skill challenges, etc, but she seemed skeptical.) Another person, playing the fighter, said magic was seriously bland and "Pbbbbt". Let's face it, casters are much less flexible and customizable than they were in 3e, even at level 1. The fact the module didn't include rituals, or cantrips for the wizard, helped create this perception. No matter how much I emphasized the limited scope of the module, it doesn't counter the actual experience, at least not until the full rules come out.
There was a feeling as well that fights went on too long. Partially, this was because we were new to the rules, of course. Partially it was due to SERIOUSLY bad rolls. Partially it was due to my screwing up the wizard's burst spell and depriving the party of minion-sweeping firepower. The fact the targets of the sleep spell all made their saves (and didn't give a damn about being slowed) also helped make the wizard feel useless, or at least, use-impaired.
Despite claims of "Easier! Faster! Simpler!" combat had just as many niggling things to track as in 3e, and they start at first level -- they aren't slowly eased into, part of "extending the sweet spot". Keeping track of marks (and making sure they went away), weakened creatures, slowed creatures, creatures who needed to make their second save to sleep or not sleep, etc, was just as much of a pain as buffs, debuffs, and so on in 3e. Not necessarily WORSE, not at all, but also not the miracle of simplicity some of 4e's supporters have been promising. Anyone still expecting 4e to play like a Forge game...give it up. It ain't.
Marks were hard to narrate, and I eventually gave up and treated them as a pure game construct.
The cleric's low attack bonus -- +3 -- kept her from being able to use a lot of her abilities to heal.
There were other, subtler, factors. No one had any emotional investment in their characters or the story. The things that give a game meaning, that elevate play above the mechanics, were absent. There was no desire, really, to finish the module and find out what happens; it was a bog-standard plot.
I also have to ask precisely whom the module was aimed at. 3.5 players thinking of converting? Then why the very simplistic advice to DMs which an experienced one would not need? But if it was aimed at newbies, it was sadly incomplete -- no one with no RPG experience could pick up KOTS and start playing. I suspect that KOTS went through many "repurposing" over the design period, and ended up neither fish nor fowl. I am not a "module person" -- as I said somewhere else, this is the first module I've run since Queen of the Demonweb Pits for AD&D 1e -- so I don't know if this is a typical module or not.
I found the lack of ANY stats for townsfolk to be an extreme disappointment. The PCs got to town and immediately wanted to DO things -- pick pockets, seduce the grumpy elf ranger, get into a barfight...and basically either I fudged everything or just coralled them to the story. Some mechanics for basic interaction would be great. Look, I get the "NPCs aren't PCs" philosophy. I could live with truncated, "monster style" stats for the major NPCs. But none at all? Not even "Generic Townsman", "Village Guard", etc? Ninaren has stats, but there's no reference to them in the text where she first appears (and what's a spy doing without Bluff trained, anyway? Or Streetwise, since her job is to watch the town?) If the answer is "They're in the MM", then why was this released two weeks ahead of the PHB?
OK, so much for the negatives. Now the positives.
First, I found it a lot better than I expected. Many things which looked broken or dubious in isolation turned out to work very well in actual play. The interplay of the different systems was quite elegant. The way in which monster and player abilities synergized was fun. As DM, I was able to take better advantage of the monster's synergies than the players were of theirs, because the PCs were often running all over the place while the monsters, especially the dragonshields, swarmed and shifted to great advantage. Even with a number of tactical blunders on my part, the monsters were effective as all hell. Fears I had about fighting being a cakewalk for PCs were misplaced; unconsciousness was quite common and healing surges were burned through.
The minor/move/standard pattern was easy to grasp after the first few rounds, especially once players clued in on which of their powers were minor -- like the cleric's healing word or the dwarf's second wind. The ability to 'roll up' and use a move as a minor action allowed for some serious annoying flexibility on the part of the kobolds. Some monsters were unexpectedly effective -- good luck and high damage rolls made the halfling slinger one of the deadliest monsters in the game.
The strong emphasis on teamwork and tactics is interesting. In the space of three encounters, the players didn't really manage to come together like a well oiled machine, but it's obvious that with time and experience, that will come.
Attack vs. Defense was quick and easy to grasp. So was how saves worked, though sometimes it was easy to forget to make saves for creatures under ongoing effects.
The fact creatures could make OAs once per round -- not once per their turn -- changed tactics a LOT. No longer could you 'disarm' creatures by sending the fighter through to suck down some AOOs. The need to be in close for many of the characters caused them to have to risk getting the smack down. The 'kicker' to drake guardian damage when they were near allies was also nasty.
In post game conversation, we realized that since "minion" is a narrative term of art, "killing" one can be as well. When you "kill" a minion, you render him a non-threat. This can mean he's dead, or unconscious, or just saw you will kick his ass and he ran away as fast as feet could carry him. The important thing is, he's out of the fight and not a threat, now or in the future -- a minion whose "death" is narrated as "He runs away" will NOT summon guards, alert authorities, or otherwise act against the PCs; for story purposes, his threat has been eliminated just as if he had died.
The classes DID feel different to me as a DM. The Warlord and the Cleric, both leaders, played differently, and I think it was more than just the different stlyes of the people playing them, though that was a part of it. (Warlord -- played by our master tactician, who named his character "Fisher" -- as in, Bobby. The Cleric, payed by my wife, who loves killing things and roleplaying but who basically prefers to just say what she wants to do and have someone else work out the rules.) The "stickiness" of the fighter and the stabbiness of the rogue were also clear. The wizard was, again due solely to my ineptness, sadly under utilized.
Overall, I'm pleased. Unlike some reviewers/supporters, I'm not considering it the bestest most amzingest game EVAR, at least not on the basis of KOTS -- I will reserve judgement until I see the full rules. But it's nowhere near as bad as early previews made it sound, and if that's damning with faint praise, well, so be it. The general consensus among the mostly-positives was "It's not D&D, but it's a fun fantasy game", which mirrors comments I've made several times based on the pre-release information. The final test will be the full ruleset, and especially the support for out-of-the-dungeon action.
EDIT: How does the rogue get TWO dice of sneak attack at first level? That +2d8 was VICIOUS!
EDIT TWO:Because, duh, 4e rogues start with two dice of SA, not one like in 3e. Rogues is NASTY. Would any rogue NOT take Bakcstabber? It's effectively a +2 to damage with sneak attack, on average, and +4 on a crit!
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, balanced and honest report. Of course, I also happen to think that Massawyrm's and Orcus's reviews are also unbiased, balanced and honest, but I'm just funny that way. 
