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Message: <blockquote data-quote="david_annable" data-source="post: 4250713" data-attributes="member: 67487">So I ran my second session of KotS last night.  Having dealt with the first two Kobold ambush encounters, the PCs had decided to raid the Kobold lair. Now I haven't exactly read every single person's account of KotS, but I know I haven't read any reports of a total-party-kill.  We had one last night.Irontooth, the goblin commander of the Kobold lair, was simply too much for the characters to handle after having waded through 20 minions, and a bunch of non-minion foes.  So I started thinking about how differently I DM 4th edition vs other RPGs and specifically 3rd edition DnD.  I realized that by having read many of the preview material, I have been given the strong impression that a lot of effort has gone into providing a consistent game experience through balance.  As such, without really thinking too much about it, I just sort of went to town on my players.  I followed the "Tactics" section of each encounter as closely as I could and attempted to make "smart" decisions from the perspective of the monsters (almost all Kobolds so far), keeping in mind what I thought they'd do and how they'd think based on what was written in the module.By the time the last PC dropped, Irontooth wasn't even bloodied (I think he had 71 hit points left), and there was a single dragonshiled still standing by his side (who, I believe, was 1 or 2 hits away from dropping).  So, I guess my question is: has anyone else noticed a difference in how they run 4E?  Are you more brutal or more forgiving with your players than before?  Do you find that you, as the DM, are using tactics in ways that you might not have before because you want to take advantage of your monster's powers?  And how are your players responding to that?  Players: do you think the game is more challenging?  And finally, has anyone else had their entire party die while playing KotS?</blockquote>

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