My D&D group got together last night and we played our first session of D&D 4th edition. All in all, people seemed to enjoy themselves fairly well.
Most of us showed up with our characters at least 75% done. Only one of the players hadn't started at all, but he knew he wanted to play an Eladrin battle wizard, so putting his character together only took about an hour, and most of that was just writing down all his powers. Our DM used the time to put the finishing touches on the encounters he had planned for the first adventure.
Our party consisted of:
Defenders: Two-Hander-Smash Human Fighter; and Dwarf Cha/Wis Protectadin.
Leaders: Inspiring Goblin Warlord
Strikers: Ranged Elf Ranger; Infernal Pact Human Warlock (me!)
Controllers: Wand-wielding "High Dex" Eladrin Wizard
Summary of Play:
We started out answering a call to help from the Mortician. The body of someone of local importance had been stolen, and from the clues we discovered from searching, it appeared kobolds were responsible (Major Quest). However, the tracks were nearly impossible to follow, so we hit the streets to find out any rumors of other kobold activity. Uncomfortable with the Skill Challenge system, our DM decided to just do this as a single roll challenge. A bunch of "aid other" rolls to help our best Streetwise person (me!) resulted in a good total -- we found a local farmer who had been plagued by kobolds who had been stealing his chickens, and also absconded with a family heirloom (Minor Quest). He knew they always ran off "to them there hills" so we headed that way to see if we could find their lair.
Sure enough, we found an old abandoned copper mine that had been taken over by kobolds. We were surprised to find that the kobolds were working side by side with Skeletons! Our first combat went very smoothly. There was a mob of kobold and skeleton minions, with a couple of kobold slingers. The fighter, paladin, and wizard handled the minions as easy as pie, and the slingers were more annoying than dangerous. I was happy with how much damage my warlock was doing. I found that using Hellish Rebuke and baiting opportunity attacks to get myself hit was a good way to really pump out some serious hurt -- especially if I focused that tactic on a marked opponent (Who either took damage from the Paladin Challenge or got whacked upside the head by the Fighter). The DM got wise to this tactic pretty quickly however. Boo! The Fighter and the Warlord made a pretty handy team, with the Warlord's commanding strike at-will giving the Fighter a bonus attack every round more or less, enabling the fighter's Combat Challenge to keep two marks going much of the time.
Our next combat was a bit more challenging. A stirge, some kobold skirmishers and fire beetles. Those fire beetles blasted us pretty badly -- the closed quarters of the mine definitely worked to their advantage in that combat. The warlord made the tactical mistake of moving up ahead of the defenders and got himself ambushed by the sneaky enemies (the skirmishers and stirge were pretty stealthy) and the warlord took a severe beat down, but the paladin was able to get in there, defend him from the stirge, and heal him up while the rest of us focused on killing the beetles and skirmishers. We weren't too happy about the warlord at that point, but mistakes happen!
Our next encounter started off with a rockslide trap which we detected thanks to the Elf Ranger and his ludicrous spotting skills. We set it off from a distance and then moved on in to easily dispatch the kobolds and their dire rat pets who were waiting for us beyond the rockslide. Funny moment from that encounter. "The rats emit Dire Squeaks as they attempt to bite you with their filthy teeth!" Haha! Dire squeaks, elicited a round of guffaws.
Our final combat encounter for the evening was against the Wyrmpriest, his kobold minions, more rats, and a terrible zombie (the body we were looking for!). There was some interesting terrain in the combat -- pools of "Zombie Juice" that dished out some necrotic damage for those foolish enough to enter them, but against which the zombie was immune (he was not, however, immune to the Elf Ranger's critical hit with his double-arrow at-will power). After a quick (and one-sided) combat, the wyrmpriest surrendered. After leading us to where they were keeping their pilfered loot (including the family heirloom), the wyrmpriest tried making a run -- he failed to escape and was slain in the attempt.
We located an evil shadow portal that had been supplying the kobolds with the "power" to create their undead, and after some arcana rolls and the expeditious application of some radiant damage, we destroyed the portal and made good our escape. We ended their for the evening, but we've been assured that the DM has more in plan and that our quest isn't over just yet, so I assume we'll be attacked on our way back to the Mortuary with the zombie body.
We talked a bit about the session afterwards. The DM admitted that he found my character "the most annoying" because of my massive HP total (20 con!) and my ability to cushion myself with a buffer of constantly refreshing temporary HPs (it's a good thing temp HP don't stack!), along with the ability to deal out a fistful of extra damage due to Dire Radiance (if the enemy gets closer) or Hellish Rebuke (if I take damage). I found the Warrior and the Paladin to be pretty well balanced with one another. The wizard was pretty disappointing. He probably would have been more effective if he went the "Control" route instead of the "AoE damage" route. Still, he was able to keep up the damage in a couple of the combats, and the Eladrin Fey Step power was handy in keeping him out of trouble.
The Ranger didn't dish out as much damage or harry the enemy as well as I did but his high Perception and Nature skills were very useful in the mine -- we spotted several things we wouldn't have without him, and were able to identify most of the enemies.
The Warlord worked very well alongside the Fighter, and his healing power was very useful. Still, as tough as he was, he wasn't built for running into the middle of things, and should have made sure to go in after the paladin.
Having your main defender "move in" first seems to be a good general strategy. Having improved initiative would be very useful for someone in that role.
That's all for now! I hope you'll all have as much fun as I did!
Most of us showed up with our characters at least 75% done. Only one of the players hadn't started at all, but he knew he wanted to play an Eladrin battle wizard, so putting his character together only took about an hour, and most of that was just writing down all his powers. Our DM used the time to put the finishing touches on the encounters he had planned for the first adventure.
Our party consisted of:
Defenders: Two-Hander-Smash Human Fighter; and Dwarf Cha/Wis Protectadin.
Leaders: Inspiring Goblin Warlord
Strikers: Ranged Elf Ranger; Infernal Pact Human Warlock (me!)
Controllers: Wand-wielding "High Dex" Eladrin Wizard
Summary of Play:
We started out answering a call to help from the Mortician. The body of someone of local importance had been stolen, and from the clues we discovered from searching, it appeared kobolds were responsible (Major Quest). However, the tracks were nearly impossible to follow, so we hit the streets to find out any rumors of other kobold activity. Uncomfortable with the Skill Challenge system, our DM decided to just do this as a single roll challenge. A bunch of "aid other" rolls to help our best Streetwise person (me!) resulted in a good total -- we found a local farmer who had been plagued by kobolds who had been stealing his chickens, and also absconded with a family heirloom (Minor Quest). He knew they always ran off "to them there hills" so we headed that way to see if we could find their lair.
Sure enough, we found an old abandoned copper mine that had been taken over by kobolds. We were surprised to find that the kobolds were working side by side with Skeletons! Our first combat went very smoothly. There was a mob of kobold and skeleton minions, with a couple of kobold slingers. The fighter, paladin, and wizard handled the minions as easy as pie, and the slingers were more annoying than dangerous. I was happy with how much damage my warlock was doing. I found that using Hellish Rebuke and baiting opportunity attacks to get myself hit was a good way to really pump out some serious hurt -- especially if I focused that tactic on a marked opponent (Who either took damage from the Paladin Challenge or got whacked upside the head by the Fighter). The DM got wise to this tactic pretty quickly however. Boo! The Fighter and the Warlord made a pretty handy team, with the Warlord's commanding strike at-will giving the Fighter a bonus attack every round more or less, enabling the fighter's Combat Challenge to keep two marks going much of the time.
Our next combat was a bit more challenging. A stirge, some kobold skirmishers and fire beetles. Those fire beetles blasted us pretty badly -- the closed quarters of the mine definitely worked to their advantage in that combat. The warlord made the tactical mistake of moving up ahead of the defenders and got himself ambushed by the sneaky enemies (the skirmishers and stirge were pretty stealthy) and the warlord took a severe beat down, but the paladin was able to get in there, defend him from the stirge, and heal him up while the rest of us focused on killing the beetles and skirmishers. We weren't too happy about the warlord at that point, but mistakes happen!
Our next encounter started off with a rockslide trap which we detected thanks to the Elf Ranger and his ludicrous spotting skills. We set it off from a distance and then moved on in to easily dispatch the kobolds and their dire rat pets who were waiting for us beyond the rockslide. Funny moment from that encounter. "The rats emit Dire Squeaks as they attempt to bite you with their filthy teeth!" Haha! Dire squeaks, elicited a round of guffaws.
Our final combat encounter for the evening was against the Wyrmpriest, his kobold minions, more rats, and a terrible zombie (the body we were looking for!). There was some interesting terrain in the combat -- pools of "Zombie Juice" that dished out some necrotic damage for those foolish enough to enter them, but against which the zombie was immune (he was not, however, immune to the Elf Ranger's critical hit with his double-arrow at-will power). After a quick (and one-sided) combat, the wyrmpriest surrendered. After leading us to where they were keeping their pilfered loot (including the family heirloom), the wyrmpriest tried making a run -- he failed to escape and was slain in the attempt.
We located an evil shadow portal that had been supplying the kobolds with the "power" to create their undead, and after some arcana rolls and the expeditious application of some radiant damage, we destroyed the portal and made good our escape. We ended their for the evening, but we've been assured that the DM has more in plan and that our quest isn't over just yet, so I assume we'll be attacked on our way back to the Mortuary with the zombie body.
We talked a bit about the session afterwards. The DM admitted that he found my character "the most annoying" because of my massive HP total (20 con!) and my ability to cushion myself with a buffer of constantly refreshing temporary HPs (it's a good thing temp HP don't stack!), along with the ability to deal out a fistful of extra damage due to Dire Radiance (if the enemy gets closer) or Hellish Rebuke (if I take damage). I found the Warrior and the Paladin to be pretty well balanced with one another. The wizard was pretty disappointing. He probably would have been more effective if he went the "Control" route instead of the "AoE damage" route. Still, he was able to keep up the damage in a couple of the combats, and the Eladrin Fey Step power was handy in keeping him out of trouble.
The Ranger didn't dish out as much damage or harry the enemy as well as I did but his high Perception and Nature skills were very useful in the mine -- we spotted several things we wouldn't have without him, and were able to identify most of the enemies.
The Warlord worked very well alongside the Fighter, and his healing power was very useful. Still, as tough as he was, he wasn't built for running into the middle of things, and should have made sure to go in after the paladin.
Having your main defender "move in" first seems to be a good general strategy. Having improved initiative would be very useful for someone in that role.
That's all for now! I hope you'll all have as much fun as I did!