(Psi)SeveredHead
Adventurer
Running 4e adventures is all the rage, so I've tried one. Raid on Oakhurst.
The group was small. At first it was just a fighter, cleric and ranger. Later an elf rogue joined the party.
They slaughtered the kobold minions, but found the skirmishers to be a handful. One of the skirmishers pulled the alarm bell.
The heroes refused to leave the first room. When Varkaze and two skirmishers came to the room to investigate, three characters (including the fighter!) ambushed them, and using action points obliterated Varkaze without even letting him get an action. The fighter used Passing Attack plus opportunity attacks spectacularly, killing both skirmishers. (The second was pushed into the stream.) Capturing Varkaze, they questioned him about his minions, and got him and the other three hobgoblins to leave, permanently.
However, Meepo and Ix really kicked their butts. Ix was absolutely vicious, getting to use jumping attack twice (the second time literally for max damage, despite not getting a crit). That second one landed on the cleric, killing him. Due to poor die rolling on the players' part (and great rolling on my part) the battle was probably more vicious than it should have been. Meepo was capture, and the PCs demanded he tell them where Nightscale's treasure was. Meepo lied. The PCs didn't realize this, but killed him.
The heroes hid in town, refusing to fight Nightscale until the next day. In the meantime the cleric player switched to a warlock.
The heroes tried to ambush Nightscale, but only the rogue actually pulled it off. The PCs simply ran from the darkness and "waited it out"; since it only lasted one round, it wasn't that bad. They were 2 hit points from blooding Nightscale when they gave up, as both the rogue and fighter had been dropped. The ranger (an eladrin) rescued the fighter and he and the warlock ran away (in different directions).
Notes:
I read this was supposed to take six hours somewhere. It took us only three. The heroes didn't fight Varkaze's hobgoblin allies, but that's not three hours
The players thought the fights were fast and fun... except the dragon, which did lame damage but was a bag of hit points. The dragon's tail slam attack was quite powerful, and the fighter player thought it was irritating.
I think the PCs the cleric gave minor combat bonuses to kept forgetting them. Eventually he just kept telling them to take the temporary 2 hit points, as the other bonuses were tedious.
Meepo scared them, although it was Ix that really did the butt-kicking. For one whole round they couldn't hit Ix, who was down to 2 hit points. It was during this round Ix killed the cleric. Both had +11, but they didn't seem to realize that Ix was this uber since all my rolls with Ix were quite high.
During that same battle the rogue was brought from -12 hit points (-13 = death for him) to 15 hit points due to a single healing spell!
The rogue's special attacks that let him target Ref saves was deemed awesome.
The players didn't really like action points, thinking they were too powerful and "metagamey" (since you get them every second encounter). They preferred something more like Eberron action points, but with a straight up +4 bonus (so they'd be more reliable).
The fighter's at will abilities seemed quite weak compared to that of a ranger. The other ones were pretty good. The players think the marking penalty should go down to -4.
The game was considered high flying but with less insanity than games like Exalted.
They said the archetypes might be too strong. One of the players was familiar with MMOs and kept saying the game was similar to them. (I've never played.)
My group hasn't played DnD for a while, and quite a few members have left, and we have many new ones. Many didn't like DnD at all, saying various bad things about it (they want death spirals?).
The group was small. At first it was just a fighter, cleric and ranger. Later an elf rogue joined the party.
They slaughtered the kobold minions, but found the skirmishers to be a handful. One of the skirmishers pulled the alarm bell.
The heroes refused to leave the first room. When Varkaze and two skirmishers came to the room to investigate, three characters (including the fighter!) ambushed them, and using action points obliterated Varkaze without even letting him get an action. The fighter used Passing Attack plus opportunity attacks spectacularly, killing both skirmishers. (The second was pushed into the stream.) Capturing Varkaze, they questioned him about his minions, and got him and the other three hobgoblins to leave, permanently.
However, Meepo and Ix really kicked their butts. Ix was absolutely vicious, getting to use jumping attack twice (the second time literally for max damage, despite not getting a crit). That second one landed on the cleric, killing him. Due to poor die rolling on the players' part (and great rolling on my part) the battle was probably more vicious than it should have been. Meepo was capture, and the PCs demanded he tell them where Nightscale's treasure was. Meepo lied. The PCs didn't realize this, but killed him.
The heroes hid in town, refusing to fight Nightscale until the next day. In the meantime the cleric player switched to a warlock.
The heroes tried to ambush Nightscale, but only the rogue actually pulled it off. The PCs simply ran from the darkness and "waited it out"; since it only lasted one round, it wasn't that bad. They were 2 hit points from blooding Nightscale when they gave up, as both the rogue and fighter had been dropped. The ranger (an eladrin) rescued the fighter and he and the warlock ran away (in different directions).
Notes:
I read this was supposed to take six hours somewhere. It took us only three. The heroes didn't fight Varkaze's hobgoblin allies, but that's not three hours
The players thought the fights were fast and fun... except the dragon, which did lame damage but was a bag of hit points. The dragon's tail slam attack was quite powerful, and the fighter player thought it was irritating.
I think the PCs the cleric gave minor combat bonuses to kept forgetting them. Eventually he just kept telling them to take the temporary 2 hit points, as the other bonuses were tedious.
Meepo scared them, although it was Ix that really did the butt-kicking. For one whole round they couldn't hit Ix, who was down to 2 hit points. It was during this round Ix killed the cleric. Both had +11, but they didn't seem to realize that Ix was this uber since all my rolls with Ix were quite high.
During that same battle the rogue was brought from -12 hit points (-13 = death for him) to 15 hit points due to a single healing spell!
The rogue's special attacks that let him target Ref saves was deemed awesome.
The players didn't really like action points, thinking they were too powerful and "metagamey" (since you get them every second encounter). They preferred something more like Eberron action points, but with a straight up +4 bonus (so they'd be more reliable).
The fighter's at will abilities seemed quite weak compared to that of a ranger. The other ones were pretty good. The players think the marking penalty should go down to -4.
The game was considered high flying but with less insanity than games like Exalted.
They said the archetypes might be too strong. One of the players was familiar with MMOs and kept saying the game was similar to them. (I've never played.)
My group hasn't played DnD for a while, and quite a few members have left, and we have many new ones. Many didn't like DnD at all, saying various bad things about it (they want death spirals?).
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