D&D 4E My first 4e experience: Escape from Sembia demo in Austin, TX

[smathis]

I'm really glad that the Dragon's Lair demo went well. They'd asked me (through a mutual friend) if I could run one of them, but I had family plans for the day already.

It did go well but that is a bummer. I would've given you the rockstar treatment if you were there.

Ari 'freakin' Marmell. w00t!

Sorry, it's just my at-will "Fanboi Radiant Close 1" ability. I swear I have few other abilities so creepy or offputting.

Urf. I'm sorry to hear the demo rules were that incomplete. I can assure you, the situations you're describing should not have been handled via 3E's rules.

It was pretty much what the RPGA guys had at D&DXP. Like a basic rundown of combat and such. We were winging conditions like Dazed and I'm not sure we were doing the saves right. But it was close enough to get a feel for it.

I was totally going for your "I kick the table out from under them" thing. Didn't happen though. But I can't fault the DM. We were all kind of flying blind when I tried stuff like that.

 

[FabioMilitoPagliara]

thank you for the indepth analysis

 

[mach1.9pants]

Yeah another great report. And, to a pro-4E like me, most of your doubts seem to be from areas that were lacking in knowledge/rules etc. A pity for the demo but not such a problem for the game...yet
Your tumble example is a Rogue power in the rogue write up IRC

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Those cards sound like a great idea. Anything to help with that bookkeeping is a win in my eyes. That said, I think it's better than the fixed durations in 3e.

They're really useful. I'm not 100% sure that every word is perfectly accurate to the 4E rule, but I did my best...

I agree that it works better than fixed durations. Once you get the hang of it it's not hard to keep track of at all. (Especially with the right tools)

And Narr is an abbreviation of Narrativism. That whole GNS thing. Pretty much just a style of play that allows players to shape the plot, setting, scene, surroundings, etc. by having the DM share Narrative control with them.

Ah. I've done that for years.

It's like when we first tried getting my daughter to feed herself. At first, it was so alien she just didn't get it.

My daughter right from birth has acted like we're trying to poison her. I was NEVER able to get her to eat anything I offered her. Our only way to get her to eat was to put it in front of her and look away. If it looked like we WANTED her to eat it she got all suspicious. She's still a bit like that. (She's 3)

So when my son started eating real food we just started putting food in front of him in the same way. (He's 15 months)

So I've got two kids and I've never put a spoon in their mouths. Never.

Fitz

 

[Xorn]

I can't help but recall a comedian that commented on that commercial, "My cat is sooo finicky, he won't eat anything but 9 Lives catfood!"

"Buuuullsh*t!" said the comedian, "Don't feed that little bastard for 3 weeks! He'll eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!"

Fitz just took that to the next level.

 

[Cirex]

Very nice analysis, thanks for the effort

You talked about the city guard and how strong they seemed to be. I want to see if NPC classes will be in the PHB/DMG and how powerful they will be compared to PCs. We have seen that monsters, even being 3-4 higher level than the PCs, are not that strong...but we will see what happens with NPCs with NPC classes.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Fitz just took that to the next level.

Haha. That's great.

You know how I get them to eat quickly (if they're taking a long time)?

I pretend like I'm goining to steal their food if I finish mine before them, so it's "Eat it before Daddy's finished or he'll steal it!"

Of course that backfires sometimes: When they don't want something they try to feed it to me...


Fitz

 

[smathis]

Very nice analysis, thanks for the effort

You talked about the city guard and how strong they seemed to be. I want to see if NPC classes will be in the PHB/DMG and how powerful they will be compared to PCs. We have seen that monsters, even being 3-4 higher level than the PCs, are not that strong...but we will see what happens with NPCs with NPC classes.

I'm not sure if NPC classes will be in 4e or not. As far as monsters 3-4 levels higher not being that strong... I think it's better to clarify that monsters 3-4 levels higher don't necessarily equate to a TPK. They're still very tough by comparison -- just not game ending like that might be in 3e.

 

[AZRogue]

Very nice analysis, thanks for the effort

You talked about the city guard and how strong they seemed to be. I want to see if NPC classes will be in the PHB/DMG and how powerful they will be compared to PCs. We have seen that monsters, even being 3-4 higher level than the PCs, are not that strong...but we will see what happens with NPCs with NPC classes.

I think with the power curve being somewhat flattened that higher level monsters are going to be more powerful without being an order of magnitude more powerful. Does that make sense? Lower level monsters are fairly powerful and with each level their power increases, but NOT as much as in 3E.

Because of that, a DM can feel more comfortable throwing monsters of higher level without being assured of a TPK and, even more importantly, you can throw a horde of lower level monsters and they'll STILL be a good challenge. The power curve between 1st level and 30th level has been flattened to a point with the real jumps in gameplay happening at level 11 and 21.

 

[AllisterH]

Keep in mind, the XP budget as well.

For example, the recently revealed succubus is a level 9 creature. However, it should still be an easy challenge for the level 1 pre-gen team given that they have an XP budget of 600.