Silverblade The Ench
First Post
Putting it in a spoiler for those who sitll haven't got it 
[sblock="KOTS thoughts"]
1) I'm finally happy to be playing D&D again!
3.5 was great simulation, but vastly over complex. Much rather play it as Computer game, as a DM it literally made me sick
=I've got a rather unpleasant illness (M.E.) and stress is bad for me, and going from being a Advanced DM Evil Genius (tm) to having problems working out D&D arithmetic...meh! not nice.
-So, 3.5 got too much for me and stopped playing it for several months and didn't play it a great deal in total compared ot how much me and my mates love D&D and want to play.
For the record I'm a HUGE D&D fan, and well, it was like doing without food or nooky...*sniff*
-I tested it by playing the game myself, before hitting my pals with it.
--------------------------------------------------------
2) KOTS, The material paper is too thin, ink smears as folk noted here, IMHO the paper needs to be twice as thick to protect the product better. The outer cover should be MUCH stiffer on the booklets.
The outer cover of the module itself is fine. I love the 2 folder pockets, one for maps, one for adventures, reminds me of the old Dark SUn adventure modules.
Please continue with that, it's attractive and practical.
--------------------------------------------------------
3) The artwork is really nice.
I adored the old first boxed set for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and was disgusted by the shoddy last campaign setting boxed set for the Realms in 2nd ed, which was asstastically cheap and shoddy, IMHO
-First one showed how it should be done: lovely parchment style, rune borders etc. Very evocative. Really got you INTO D&D.
-Last one had horrible cheap looking printings of artwork (not the artwork at fault so much as bad printing, ugh, remember the picture of Drizzt, omg looked liek a kids cartoon), paper felt bad etc. messily laid out etc, ick!
So, design is important. KOTS does great in that department.
The game comes with 2 books: adventure and basic 4th ed rules.
Each is nice layout with artwork headers etc all in colour, with corners, headers in colour and good designs.
------------------------------------------------------
4) Layout of scenarios is VERY good. Later 3.5 ED adventures brought vastly improved way of presenting encounters to DMs, with full 2 page spread on each encounter, 4th ed continues this but improves it.
Each encounter in the KOTS adventure book has a decent sized coloured map, which are larger than most of those supplied in 3,.5 ed adventures I think, making them easier for the DM to read and understand.
Each encounter also has a large, to scale, fold-up, colour map for your game table, WOOT! very nice indeed.
----------------------------------------------------
5) 4th ed is just so much nicer to the DM.
I'm a "by the seat of your pants DM", when well, I run NPCs and scenarios often on the spur of the moment, letting players do outlandish, unexpected things, and still letting them have fun with it.
I'd write up the outline of the adventure, main NPCs, and possible flow chart, then let players go to town!
I used ot be a whizz at keeping stats of monsters/NPCs etc in me head, and story telling, but the old noggin hurts and is easily confused nowadays. THus 3.5 was a literal pain.
However, 4th ed is indeed so much flipping simpler!
I love the "simulationist" way of 3.5, if I am playing a computer game where the CPU does all the damned calculations/rules (like the "Temple of Elemental Evil" PC game, which I adore).
3.5 is great simulation D&D, IMHO, but grossly over-complex. It gets totally in the way of fun game play.
4th ed is pure gameplay, not simulation.
"Minions" in 4th ed, for example, are NPCs who have only 1 hp and do a set amount of damage per hit...reason for this is is simplicity.
DM can throw ton of them in, without worrying about hitpoint tracking, and you don't need ot roll damage, or worry about spikes from critical hits killing players, ie, rolling 4 crits at same time would be a possible FUBAR for the PCs!
But with minions, you don't have that problem. And one hit kills them, they are meant to be simple "mooks",so there's no damned need for too much detail.
I'll need ot see how it actually PLAYS of course with my pals, of course, hope they enjoy it too, so we plan to play on Saturday, I'll try and let you know how it goes.
6) the adventure is basic D&D fair, though well fleshed out. It's just meant to be an "introduction" to D&D, not "Ravenloft" hehe. It looks good basic fun.
My own personal games tend to go from Lovecraftian horror, Ravenloft terror, Dark Sun brutality and dirty deeds with dope dealing murderers, slavers and political Byzantine nastiness of the templars, to heroic high fantasy of noble heroes, last stands against hordes of darkness and devious city campaigns with PCs as detectives and complex "what dunnits", also, lot of dark humour!
Think, oh "Maltese Falcon", meets "The Thing", meets David Gemmell's "Legend", meets old school "Conan", meets "Evil Dead 2" and "Big Trouble in Little CHina" as my style
So...usually I don't ever play modules as I find them too simplistic and not enough fun. I do get them to get ideas, creatures, maps etc.
Thus, "Keep on the Shadowfell" will be one of the few actual modules I've run (my player pals are also very fussy, they're too used too me, hehe)
7) I bought some cheap "food boxes", you know, tupperware type thingies, from Tesco. So I could arrange my D&D plastic humanoids minis into nice little tubs, of "orcs", "humans in heavy armour", "kobolds", "hobgoblins" and the like, mmmmm...perfect for this adventure.
Less heavy stuff the DM has to carry to games, the better!
I've got all the larger ones in a cheap, very light plastic chest of drawers.
So I can throw kobolds and goblisn etc at me players
Much as I love my metal minis, they are simply to heavy to carry now along with other game stuff, and I hate seem them dropped...*Cry*
8) From testing, I'd suggest the "Kobold Skirmisher" should be given a ranged attack! he has none, kind of makes it hard ot play them at times, I'd suggest:
Dagger (standard, at will), weapon, damage 1d4+3
Plus it lets 'em use their skirmish damage form hidding in trees etc
Over all, I'm really looking forward to 4th ed!
"I love the smell of Fireballs in the morning! It smells like...XP!"
Muahha!
[/sblock]
I posted version of this on a computer gaming/chat forum elsewhere. Nice to see lot of folks out there love D&D
[sblock="KOTS thoughts"]
1) I'm finally happy to be playing D&D again!
3.5 was great simulation, but vastly over complex. Much rather play it as Computer game, as a DM it literally made me sick
=I've got a rather unpleasant illness (M.E.) and stress is bad for me, and going from being a Advanced DM Evil Genius (tm) to having problems working out D&D arithmetic...meh! not nice.
-So, 3.5 got too much for me and stopped playing it for several months and didn't play it a great deal in total compared ot how much me and my mates love D&D and want to play.
For the record I'm a HUGE D&D fan, and well, it was like doing without food or nooky...*sniff*
-I tested it by playing the game myself, before hitting my pals with it.
--------------------------------------------------------
2) KOTS, The material paper is too thin, ink smears as folk noted here, IMHO the paper needs to be twice as thick to protect the product better. The outer cover should be MUCH stiffer on the booklets.
The outer cover of the module itself is fine. I love the 2 folder pockets, one for maps, one for adventures, reminds me of the old Dark SUn adventure modules.
Please continue with that, it's attractive and practical.
--------------------------------------------------------
3) The artwork is really nice.
I adored the old first boxed set for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and was disgusted by the shoddy last campaign setting boxed set for the Realms in 2nd ed, which was asstastically cheap and shoddy, IMHO
-First one showed how it should be done: lovely parchment style, rune borders etc. Very evocative. Really got you INTO D&D.
-Last one had horrible cheap looking printings of artwork (not the artwork at fault so much as bad printing, ugh, remember the picture of Drizzt, omg looked liek a kids cartoon), paper felt bad etc. messily laid out etc, ick!
So, design is important. KOTS does great in that department.
The game comes with 2 books: adventure and basic 4th ed rules.
Each is nice layout with artwork headers etc all in colour, with corners, headers in colour and good designs.
------------------------------------------------------
4) Layout of scenarios is VERY good. Later 3.5 ED adventures brought vastly improved way of presenting encounters to DMs, with full 2 page spread on each encounter, 4th ed continues this but improves it.
Each encounter in the KOTS adventure book has a decent sized coloured map, which are larger than most of those supplied in 3,.5 ed adventures I think, making them easier for the DM to read and understand.
Each encounter also has a large, to scale, fold-up, colour map for your game table, WOOT! very nice indeed.
----------------------------------------------------
5) 4th ed is just so much nicer to the DM.
I'm a "by the seat of your pants DM", when well, I run NPCs and scenarios often on the spur of the moment, letting players do outlandish, unexpected things, and still letting them have fun with it.
I'd write up the outline of the adventure, main NPCs, and possible flow chart, then let players go to town!
I used ot be a whizz at keeping stats of monsters/NPCs etc in me head, and story telling, but the old noggin hurts and is easily confused nowadays. THus 3.5 was a literal pain.
However, 4th ed is indeed so much flipping simpler!
I love the "simulationist" way of 3.5, if I am playing a computer game where the CPU does all the damned calculations/rules (like the "Temple of Elemental Evil" PC game, which I adore).
3.5 is great simulation D&D, IMHO, but grossly over-complex. It gets totally in the way of fun game play.
4th ed is pure gameplay, not simulation.
"Minions" in 4th ed, for example, are NPCs who have only 1 hp and do a set amount of damage per hit...reason for this is is simplicity.
DM can throw ton of them in, without worrying about hitpoint tracking, and you don't need ot roll damage, or worry about spikes from critical hits killing players, ie, rolling 4 crits at same time would be a possible FUBAR for the PCs!
But with minions, you don't have that problem. And one hit kills them, they are meant to be simple "mooks",so there's no damned need for too much detail.
I'll need ot see how it actually PLAYS of course with my pals, of course, hope they enjoy it too, so we plan to play on Saturday, I'll try and let you know how it goes.
6) the adventure is basic D&D fair, though well fleshed out. It's just meant to be an "introduction" to D&D, not "Ravenloft" hehe. It looks good basic fun.
My own personal games tend to go from Lovecraftian horror, Ravenloft terror, Dark Sun brutality and dirty deeds with dope dealing murderers, slavers and political Byzantine nastiness of the templars, to heroic high fantasy of noble heroes, last stands against hordes of darkness and devious city campaigns with PCs as detectives and complex "what dunnits", also, lot of dark humour!
Think, oh "Maltese Falcon", meets "The Thing", meets David Gemmell's "Legend", meets old school "Conan", meets "Evil Dead 2" and "Big Trouble in Little CHina" as my style
So...usually I don't ever play modules as I find them too simplistic and not enough fun. I do get them to get ideas, creatures, maps etc.
Thus, "Keep on the Shadowfell" will be one of the few actual modules I've run (my player pals are also very fussy, they're too used too me, hehe)
7) I bought some cheap "food boxes", you know, tupperware type thingies, from Tesco. So I could arrange my D&D plastic humanoids minis into nice little tubs, of "orcs", "humans in heavy armour", "kobolds", "hobgoblins" and the like, mmmmm...perfect for this adventure.
Less heavy stuff the DM has to carry to games, the better!
I've got all the larger ones in a cheap, very light plastic chest of drawers.
So I can throw kobolds and goblisn etc at me players
Much as I love my metal minis, they are simply to heavy to carry now along with other game stuff, and I hate seem them dropped...*Cry*
8) From testing, I'd suggest the "Kobold Skirmisher" should be given a ranged attack! he has none, kind of makes it hard ot play them at times, I'd suggest:
Dagger (standard, at will), weapon, damage 1d4+3 Plus it lets 'em use their skirmish damage form hidding in trees etc
Over all, I'm really looking forward to 4th ed!
"I love the smell of Fireballs in the morning! It smells like...XP!"
Muahha!
[/sblock]
I posted version of this on a computer gaming/chat forum elsewhere. Nice to see lot of folks out there love D&D
