KOTS: The After Action Report

[Rechan]

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. ... Fears I had about fighting being a cakewalk for PCs were misplaced; unconsciousness was quite common and healing surges were burned through.

This reminds me of how at the beginning of 3e, people thought monks were broken. Looking at something on paper...

My paladin took a serious beating from the dragonshields in the first encounter. I was at 2 hp, then at 5, then 5 again, and had only 6 healing surges left. Those guys had more HP then anyone in the party!

 

[Vaeron]

EDIT: How does the rogue get TWO dice of sneak attack at first level? That +2d8 was VICIOUS!

From PHB-lite:

Level Sneak Attack Damage
1st–10th +2d6
11th–20th +3d6
21st–30th +5d6

Dunno if that progression holds up in the PHB, but it definitely matches the rogue's ability in KotS (bumped up to 2d8 by his feat). All melee dice are maximized as an auto-crit on an unconscious opponent (though I don't remember exactly where I read that), and the rogue just had to drop in to say hello to a Dragonshield victim of the wizard's sleep spell. 4+1+8+8 = Automatic 21 dmg. While my knowledge of the rules is limited, I didn't see anything about taking damage waking a magically unconscious foe up, so after a failed save the rogue smacked sleeping beauty for another 21 damage.

 

[Lizard]

From the Rogue Excerpt:

Sneak Attack
Once per round, when you have combat advantage against an enemy and are using a light blade, a crossbow, or a sling, your attacks against that enemy deal extra damage. As you advance in level, your extra damage increases.

Level 	Sneak Attack Damage
1st–10th 	+2d6
11th–20th 	+3d6
21st–30th 	+5d6

Ah. So I'm glad we ran it as written then. Daaaayumn....

"So, guys, it's about time we played 4e. What characters do you want?"
"Rogue."
"I'm a rogue."
"I think I'll go for rogue."
"Hmmm...rogue."

(Worth noting, BTW, that while the rogue kicked all kinds of ass in the first two encounters, he ended up alone in the pit getting plinked to near-death by the slinger and the skulker with no one to flank with...it's all about the teamwork in 4e, people!)

(Had some fun RPing with the halfling slinger and the halfling rogue. They had this sort of "Hey, hope you don't mind, just business. You know." thing going on. I turned the gnome into an insane ranting mad villain, every time he missed declaring that he was, in fect, triggering his fiendish traps and if the rogue knew what was good for him, he'd flee now...)

 

[Lizard]

While my knowledge of the rules is limited, I didn't see anything about taking damage waking a magically unconscious foe up, so after a failed save the rogue smacked sleeping beauty for another 21 damage.

That's how we played it, too -- unfortunately, the only time the wizard's sleep spell worked was in the opening dogpile melee of PC-on-PC.

 

[Spatula]

KotS isnt meant to replace the MM or DMG.

Then, really, it shouldn't have been released beforehand. It's not even self-sufficient for "basic" gameplay - the town tells you who sells what kinds of gear, but there's no equipment listings at all. You can buy stuff... I'm not sure what, or for how much, but you can! You're handed treasure and not told what it does - how much AC does one get from +1 hide armor? who can use hide armor? is it better or worse than the scale armor or whatever the fighter's using? There's no way to tell from what the adventure gives you.

I think they should have just done KoS as an actual first module, assuming you had the rules, and done up an actual 'quick play rules' (like gurps lite) - official download available, given out at free RPG day, a stack mailed to every bookstore with their PHBs, etc.

100% agreed. If you're going to make it a pre-release, do it right. If not, release it with the rule books that you need to play it.

 

[Rechan]

That's how we played it, too -- unfortunately, the only time the wizard's sleep spell worked was in the opening dogpile melee of PC-on-PC.

I'd have pointed the wizard at his wand Encounter ability (+2 to hit), from his Action Boost feat he gets a +3 on attacks when he uses an action point (and +2 from the Warlord's Tactical Inspiration ability). That's a whopping +11 vs. will.

When it's a Daily power that puts all enemies to sleep, I'm using all the resources I can on that bad boy.

 

[Vaeron]

My paladin took a serious beating from the dragonshields in the first encounter. I was at 2 hp, then at 5, then 5 again, and had only 6 healing surges left. Those guys had more HP then anyone in the party!

Some of the monsters have a few too many hitpoints. Further experimentation might lead me to chop out the (level+1)*role and leave it at (level+0)*role hitpoints. I probably won't, since that formula is what has playtested, but all it takes is a couple misses for the combat to start to feel lonnnngggg. With that AC of 18, Dragonshields having that many hitpoints is a recipe for frustration! Especially with their ability to shift out before an approaching enemy can land a blow! Even unconscious dragonshields can take a beating (the paladins auto-crit versus unconscious is only 12 dmg, the fighter's 15).

 

[MerricB]

Then, really, it shouldn't have been released beforehand. It's not even self-sufficient for "basic" gameplay -

Actually, it's quite sufficient for basic gameplay. You can kill monsters and take their stuff. Of course, you can't do anything with their stuff afterwards, but that's not the point. You own their stuff!

Honestly, I'm really expecting to find a basic dungeoncrawl with a lot of areas I'll fill out myself - especially as regards to NPCs in town.

Cheers!

 

[Vaeron]

Then, really, it shouldn't have been released beforehand. It's not even self-sufficient for "basic" gameplay - the town tells you who sells what kinds of gear, but there's no equipment listings at all. You can buy stuff... I'm not sure what, or for how much, but you can! You're handed treasure and not told what it does - how much AC does one get from +1 hide armor? who can use hide armor?

You don't think they might have done that on purpose? They knew a lot of people would buy this module to get a taste of the rules. Offering a bit, but then making means of the PCs upgrading their equipment dependent on other materials is, I'm sure, specifically designed to make people want to buy those books even more. PHB-lite has a lot of info - but not prices. So there might have been some deals galore going on in my game. I'm ok with winging those prices for now; no one is going to be using these pregens in an actual campaign. The half-elf especially seems frightfully unoptimized, and I'm hardly a min/maxer.

So, maybe the merchants accidentally bought and sold at a deep, deep discount. Not having certain answers is intended to make us crazy with curiousity.

 

[AZRogue]

It was a good review, Lizard. Hopefully the books themselves will give you enough room to work with them so that you can run the game you want to run and your players want to play in. Thanks for the very balanced review, though.