D&D 4E New Campaign, New DM, New to 4E

[the-golem]

Alright, I've completed my preliminary Village encounter. It feels a bit rough, so I'm leaving it to you lot to assist with the refinement. I appreciate all the hard work.

Looking forward to your comments,
The Golem
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Encounter #1: Village attacked!


This is a encounter The following first-level encounter is intended to test the characters' skills – and how the players use them. The encounter takes place whenever the DM feels it is appropriate. To start the encounter, read the following text. (If you choose, have one character perform a Perception Check.:

You see a dark plume of smoke rising (seemingly) out of the hillside; it's thicker and darker than the lazy tentrils of smoke you'd seen along the way earlier. Alarmed, you alert your comrades, and quicken your pace, hoping for the best. As you round the bend, you notice several more. With your keen eyes, you recognize the war-banner of Turrosh Mak. It dawns on you this village is under seige his nefarious underlings. Furious at his audacity to issue an attack in broad daylight, you race towards the village in defence.
​

Phase I: Defeating the Goblin marauders.
The initial encounter deals with the goblinoid forces wreaking havoc on the poor farming town. Members of the monstrous troupe include:

2 Goblin Warriors – 200 XP
2 Goblin Backblades – 200 XP
5 Goblin Cutters – 125 XP
​

This is a Level 2 Encounter intended for 5 Player Characters. However, feel free to rearrange the monsters as you see fit. Use the XP Budgeting rules found in the DMG.

At the end of Phase 1, a town official comes rushing up to the adventurers, screaming wildly about some of the towns citizens trapped in one of the blazing houses:

Phase II: Rescuing the Loved Ones. (Skill Challenge)

“Praise be to <deity>, you saved us from those hideous creatures!” the official exclaims. He then motions wildly towards a burning house. “But, my wife, my children,” he cries, “They're trapped inside the house. I tried to get them myself, but the smoke was too much for me. Please! You must help them!”
​

In this skill challenge, the PCs try to extract civilians from a burning building. Taking too long causes the building to collapse, killing the people trapped inside.

Level: Equal to the level of the party.

Complexity: 2 ( Requires 6 successes before 3 failures )

Skills: Acrobatics, Heal, Diplomacy, Knowledge (or Dungeoneering), Nature.

Endurance: All participants may have to make an Endurance check each cycle (after the first one) or lose a Healing Surge (Normal for the firefighter, Hard for the searchers).

Acrobatics (Moderate DC): You try to twist and tumble your way through the haze, looking for the survivors. A failure means some timbers loosen and fall, blocking your path back.

Diplomacy (Moderate DC): You are able to convince citizens to make a water chain, helping to fight the fire. Failure means you incorrectly dampen the fire, creating more smoke fumes, increasing the difficulty of further Endurance checks.

Heal (Moderate DC): You quickly lead one of the victims away from the burning building, and successfully treat them for smoke inhalation. A failure means that victim falls unconscious (but not dead), and increases the DC of each consecutive heal check.

Knowledge or Dungeoneering (Moderate DC): Using what you know about structures, you are able to support the structure, preventing a near cave-in. A failure in this area closes off this approach, apparently you don't know as much as you thought.

Nature (Moderate DC): You notice a breeze picking up, and quickly set-up a fire-break or a wind-funnel to direct the flames away from the rest of the city. A failure closes off this area.

Success: The PCs earn the gratitude of the village official, and are presented with 100GP each.

Failure: Disaster was inevitable, but the official doesn't begrudge the PCs for this. Downtrodden, they continue on their way.

 

[the Jester]

Regarding the issue of resting, I just don't worry about it too much. If the pcs have all their dailies for each random encounter, so what? On the other hand, I do actually roll for random encounters when they are traveling several times per day (depending on the area- I use a guesstimation verision of the system in the 1e DMG where the terrain type dictates what times of day you roll for encounters each day, so forest might be dawn, noon, dusk and minight). So sometimes they'll have multiple random encounters in a single day.

Edit: On converting old school modules, it is often wise to consolidate several rooms into one encounter. Also, make sure not to just straight-across convert the 10' x 10' room with four orcs in it- there isn't enough room. I'm generally against renovating maps by simply enlarging them, but I have nothing against putting holes in walls to allow more moving around and stuff.

 

[offpath]

Having said that, I intend for the first part of the encounter to entail combat--defeating or scaring off those previously mentioned goblins in my last post. Afterwords, they'll be approached by an NPC, with something like, "Help, my horses are trapped in the barn and i'm afraid it'll collapse." or "help my children ... in the house ..." This leads me to the second aspect of the encounter, the non-combat, skill-check kind.

Having said that, I'm not sure how to proceed. I've been reading the non-combat section, but the examples in the DMG seem a tad lackluster. Can anyone toss me some scraps?

Take a look at the skill challenges and write-up on At-Will for some cool ideas. I found them to be much more interesting than most of the WotC published skill challenges I've seen. In particular, City Ablaze sounds like it might be close to what you want to do.

 

[the-golem]

Take a look at the skill challenges and write-up on At-Will for some cool ideas. I found them to be much more interesting than most of the WotC published skill challenges I've seen. In particular, City Ablaze sounds like it might be close to what you want to do.

You Sir -- or Maddam -- are a god-send. That actually helps me out tons. Why, I do believe I will borrow this fine encounter, and replace my own half-brewed idea.

 

[Chainsaw]

This thread may be helpful:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/268475-classic-1e-mods-d-d-4th-edition.html

Mearls gives a few general considerations in here somewhere.

 

[Camelot]

The Player's Handbook actually supports your ideas about short rests, I believe. If not, then I made this all up.

A short rest doesn't have to be literal rest, but the PCs can't be doing anything that taxes them physically or mentally. Sitting in a dungeon room chatting with each other = rest. Sitting in the duke's palace trying to convince him to help them while worrying about the consequences = not rest. Walking around the room searching, then proceeding down the hallway = rest. Walking through dense jungle looking for a lost temple while ignoring the terrain, biting insects, and foul smells = not rest. Eh, that's enough examples. I think you get it.

However, the "rest" still has to last at least 5 minutes. If it were real, it would probably take longer than that for any serious adventurer's to search bodies and the room, and walk down a long scary dungeon hallway, so it can usually be ignored. If the PCs have a deadline until the BBEG completes a ritual, and they say "Once we kill the last goblin, we immediately run down the hallway to find the lich's throne room," then they do not rest, even though they are in between encounters. However, I say do whatever your common sense tells you to do, since you are a very seasoned player!

 

[the-golem]

This one is a multi-faceted post.

Firstly, if this adventure goes particularly well, I was considering publishing an updated 4E version. Obviously, it wouldn't be sanctioned, but would I be in a legal sinkhole if I did so?

Secondly--and this has been bugging me for like two weeks-- the flyby ability has gotten me particularly perturbed. I know it doesn't grant opportunity attacks towards its target, but what about others it (the monster) might pass on the way?

As an example, last session, I was playing a fighter. First round, I took a double-move action to run up right-next-to some flying creature. When it's turn came up, the DM wanted to use it's flyby maneuver, by attacking me, then flying away. Normally, I wouldn't have much of a problem, but the bat-thing was flying (hovering really) adjacent to my PC when it started out.

I kinda fought the DM on it, because locially (to me) the creature wouldn't have picked up enough speed to attack me, then run the hell away, being adjacent to me. Of course, he got around my complaint by shifting .. I would have thought it would function similar to a horses trample, sans AoO.

Was I off-base?

 

[Nathal]

PC nova effect

This humorous phrase stuck in my head.

 

[Jack99]

That said I've pretty much tossed out the idea of a 'short rest' in my campaign. Basically anything that isn't a combat or heavy skill use encounter counts as a short rest... I just find the idea that everyone needs to sit down for 5 min between fights a little silly.

You do realize it's a concept in D&D since at least 1e? It's hardly new.

 

[the-golem]

I don't know how I missed it, but the Patriots of Ulek adventure was actually planned for 6-8 characters. Silly me, I'd made the assumption that the module was geared for a minimum of four people. This explains why the encounter numbers were all so large, and why my conversions were all adding up to encounters a few higher than I thought they should be.

Time to rework things.