NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6172468" data-attributes="member: 7006">I think it *was* factored in.  That's why the very first encounter was 5 minions and 3 kobolds... they couldn't get any simpler of a first encounter.  But the game itself is a tactically complex game when it comes to combat and is in many ways is very different from any of the previous editions.  So those first several encounters are set up directly to help bring players up to speed on what combat is, and what their PCs can do.  The improv is the improv-- that part of the roleplaying game is no different than any previous RPG, so there's no need to get most of the players "up to speed" on that, as it were.  Most of the people playing the module know what roleplaying is, so the module is more focused on teaching the new and different style of tactical combat, rather than putting the focus on the improv.Now, did that not really help those players who were *completely* new to the RPG genre of games?  I agree, not much at all.  But then again, I'd submit that very few introductory modules have ever really taught new players how to do the improv part of roleplaying games either.  So its not like KotS was an outlier on that in any way.  They ALL just say "Interact with these NPCs!" but don't exactly go out of their way to show or tell you what they mean by that.Now if you want to argue that 4E tactical combat is too complex in itself... then that's a different story.  But that has nothing to do with the module... that's entirely based on the game rules.  Which KotS had no impact on.Simple disagreement here.  Each PC has two at-wills, an encounter and a daily.  Four things to look at (5 if they were human).  You give an experienced group of players a Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, and Wizard with the basic powers from the first PHB for those classes that they have seen played for five years now... there's barely ANY time needed to "think about things".  Wizard drops a Scorching Burst on as many minions as he can his first turn.  Cleric fires Lance of Faith at a Kobold Dragonshield.  Fighter runs up to that Dragonshield in melee... Cleaves if he's now adjacent to two enemies, Reaping Strike if he's adjacent to one.  Ranger Twin Strikes two more minions that the Wizard missed with the Burst.  Rogue flanks the Fighter and Sneak Attacks the Kobold Dragonshield between them.  By the end of that first round, probably all the minions are dead, along with one real kobold (with a second one hurt).  Rinse and repeat over the next round (or two, if the kobolds are lucky) and combat is over.If it really takes you 45 minutes to run that first KotS combat now... I'd really question things.</blockquote>

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