KOTS: The After Action Report

[Plane Sailing]

I am not sure about the context, but it could be the Dragon Shield was just sleeping? (Sleep spell)

er, yes, that as well!

 

[Lizard]

In the thread about marking, Diirk gave a really good narration:


In other words, when a Fighter marks an enemy, he's giving Aid Another to any other target's AC.

Everything describing marks makes sense, UNTIL you get to the "one makr supersedes another" balance rule. Why can't TWO fighter both decide to focus all their attention on the same Big Bad? Because in playtest, this proved too powerful and nerfing marks was not the preferred solution.

In discussion with the other potential 4e DM, it was proposed that we just accept that 4e "martial" powers have a tinge of supernatural energy, and maybe each character with mark ought to come up with some cool flavor text for how their mark looks/acts. (In our games, PCs are expected to describe spells, powers, etc, in ways that are unique to them; everyone has their own little shtick.)

 

[hong]

It's a ki thing.

 

[Lizard]

Lizard - well written review.

On the "couldn't care about the characters thing". Well, they were pregens, so, really, how much can you care about them? They're not "your" character. They're throwaways and everyone at the table knows this. No one is invested in the characters or the adventure in any way beforehand, so, expecting deep experiences is a bit unrealistic IMO.

Just to be clear, that wasn't inteded to be a criticism of the module, but, rather, a reason for why feelings were more negative than the rules themselves might justify. With any emotional investment or the process of rolling up characters and seeing all the options, it's hard to "Get into" the game, and no matter what, mentally/emotionally, you're going to be comparing "The game I'm in every week, with the characters and world I care about, to this new thing". It might not be fair or rational, but it's how humans are. I have to notice that a lot of the posters saying "Our group can't wait for 4e!" also tend to be people not currently in active, ongoing, campaigns. Not all, but a lot have said "We gave up on 3e when the splatbook creep happened", or "I stopped running 3e when the villain I took three hours to stat was killed in the first round".

 

[pogminky]

It was good to read your review, thanks.

I'm mostly pro-4e - very excited about a lot of stuff, but one of my big worries is marks. I haven't really liked the way they've worked out in my own little test games (just combat) - they're record intensive, slow play and can't be easily narrated all the time. Your review echoed my concerns. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do if marking does turn out to be a real pain.

I have avoided KotS because of the things reviewers have been saying. It seems that KotS isn't ideal as a pre-rules adventure (it also seems to be on shoddy materials, have typos, have ambiguities, have a repetitious first couple of combat encounters, be overpriced etc). I think putting it out prior to the release of the core was a mistake. It would have been better to have it released with the core and have a couple of teaser style pre-release adventures distributed via the internet. These teaser adventures could have been short, fun, highlighted key mechanics and have been designed to win over new players or converts. Oh, well.

Still - I'm really looking forward to my 4e gift set and am optimistic about the whole thing.

 

[tafkamhokie]

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."

My group played KotS over Memorial Day too, but only for about 2 hours. Only got through the first two encounters.

I was playing the rogue. My reaction thus far is not so much "Daaaayumn," but "yup, that's a striker."

Did tons of damage. More than anyone else in the party...well, maybe not the Paladin, but that would only be because the Pal rolled about five 20's in two fights and I had a hard time rolling above a 4 on any of my sneak attack dice.

But the rogue was also a bit of a glass cannon. In the first encounter, he went unconscious once, burned through both of the Warlord's Inspiring Word powers during the fight, and used 2 more healing surges after the fight. In the second encounter, he spent about 3 rounds at 1 hp, burned a Second Wind, one of the Warlord's Inspiring Words, and needed 2 more healing surges after the combat.

At least based on how the encounters unfolded in our test, I was going to have a tough time getting the rogue through more than 2 fights. Each fight was burning through 4 of his 7 healing surges.

 

[Hussar]

Just to be clear, that wasn't inteded to be a criticism of the module, but, rather, a reason for why feelings were more negative than the rules themselves might justify. With any emotional investment or the process of rolling up characters and seeing all the options, it's hard to "Get into" the game, and no matter what, mentally/emotionally, you're going to be comparing "The game I'm in every week, with the characters and world I care about, to this new thing". It might not be fair or rational, but it's how humans are. I have to notice that a lot of the posters saying "Our group can't wait for 4e!" also tend to be people not currently in active, ongoing, campaigns. Not all, but a lot have said "We gave up on 3e when the splatbook creep happened", or "I stopped running 3e when the villain I took three hours to stat was killed in the first round".

Yeah, I'll buy that.

To be 100% honest, it'll likely be a year or so before I jump on the 4e wagon. I got a juicy campaign (STAP) all ready to go, so, that will be our big send off to 3e likely.

 

[Goobermunch]

Just to be clear, that wasn't inteded to be a criticism of the module, but, rather, a reason for why feelings were more negative than the rules themselves might justify. With any emotional investment or the process of rolling up characters and seeing all the options, it's hard to "Get into" the game, and no matter what, mentally/emotionally, you're going to be comparing "The game I'm in every week, with the characters and world I care about, to this new thing". It might not be fair or rational, but it's how humans are. I have to notice that a lot of the posters saying "Our group can't wait for 4e!" also tend to be people not currently in active, ongoing, campaigns. Not all, but a lot have said "We gave up on 3e when the splatbook creep happened", or "I stopped running 3e when the villain I took three hours to stat was killed in the first round".

I'd just like to say that I really appreciate your responses to 4e, Lizard. I have been playtesting for quite a while, and really like the system. But I've also been playing in a group of dedicated roleplayers with a phenomenal DM (Keith Baker).

It's been very nice to get an unbiased outside view. You're fast becoming a touchstone for me to determine whether my enjoyment of the game is a result of the people I'm with or the system. So far, I think it is a combination of the two. But it is worth mentioning that I think a number of your group's criticisms will be addressed once the full ruleset becomes available. I don't know whether the way in which they are addressed will fit with your group's playstyle, but there is still substantial material to look forward to.

Hope you guys give it another try with the full rules.

Oh, and as far as sleep is concerned, there are some awsome synergies with a warlock power that will help that one be more useful. We've had at least one game where the slow effect was more important than the possible unconsciousness.

--G

 

[malraux]

Our group had issues with this power too. Normally, if one hits with their "save ends" type power, the "hit" effect takes affect immediately, and there is no save made right away. Foes are not granted a save to negate it until the end of THEIR next turn. Thus, the power that hits is guaranteed to have an ongoing effect that lasts at least 1 round.

Sleep wording seems to indicate the wizard casts, hits, enemies are immediately slowed. Then on foes' turns (end of their turns, after they've acted), they make a save vs. the slow. If they fail that, they immediately fall asleep. If they make their save, however, they are not asleep, and the slow ends. Net result is they only were slowed for 1 turn.

This seems different from the rest of the known powers (at least, off the top of my head). Most powers' primary function happens immediately if the attacker hits the defense. So if you toss a sleep spell, and your attack check hits the Will defense, they *should* fall asleep (grin). It's almost like the sleep is currently written to ramp up from slowed to asleep (sounds cool in theory, but is lame in practice as a daily power, IMHO).

We've slightly reworded the HIT effect to be this...
"Hit: The target immediately falls asleep (save ends). If target makes its save, it wakes up but is slowed (save ends)."

This way they are sleep'ed for at least one round (on a hit) and slowed for a least one round (on a miss). Only time will tell if this is too powerful, but we're guessing it isn't too power for a daily power.

Note: if you do this, then sleep comes much closer to a save or sit out the fight effect, which is ostensibly against the 4e philosophy.

 

[Stormtalon]

Everything describing marks makes sense, UNTIL you get to the "one makr supersedes another" balance rule. Why can't TWO fighter both decide to focus all their attention on the same Big Bad? Because in playtest, this proved too powerful and nerfing marks was not the preferred solution.

Actually, the pregens for this module have (what I presume to be) the powers that led to marks superceding each other:

1) Paladin Challenge
2) this fighter's variant of combat challenge.

This fighter (as opposed to the DDXP one) has a Mark that allows him to get an immediate attack on a marked target that attacks someone else. For fun and profit, try the following scenario (gonna spoiler-block it due to using a baddie from KotS):

[sblock]Allow marks to stack. Put the paladin and fighter standing side-by-side facing Irontooth from the kobold lair. Now, he has that nifty thing where he can attack two targets as long as he doesn't move. Sounds good? Watch:

Swing 1: goes at Fighter -- ow, I'm burning with goodness! 6 damage from paladin.
Swing 2: goes at Paladin -- ow! That fighter just took a shot at me!

Now, one might rule that they're both included in the same attack action, but since they're resolve as separate attacks, I think this is a fair enough example of how stacking marks might get silly.[/sblock]