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D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
Xorn
First Post
Ran this again, with a new group of players. I've made one major change, I don't have Meepo flee if he's warned (Meepo + Nightscale is just crazy), and I'm going to switch to 2 soldiers & 1 archer like you mentioned. If you do a "reloaded" I'd be interested as hell.
Quick playtest report:
Kobold Warren:
They dismantled this one. Neither side was surprised, but Ichi-ichi went first and rang the gong/sprang the trap, then whiffed away at the paladin. The group started filing in, but the damned wizard obliterated the first wave of minions, taking down three of them off the bat. By turn two the paladin was surrounded by minions but Ichi-ichi still missed, and the party quickly took down most of those kobolds (fighter loved cleaving through them) while Ichi-ichi was getting mauled. Otto-wombo and Pik arrive just in time to get pulverized by the group (they were dealing with each challenge in one round) and the cleric was boosting AC and attack rolls like crazy. Pik dropped first (the ranger and warlock tore into him) while the fighter and paladin laid into Otto-wombo before the wizard dropped him flat. Quick stealth check from Varkaze at "round 4" said he decided to run back for help. (I really don't think he would have escaped the chamber if he'd engaged.)
Party searches the room and rests, then the wizard makes a 20 Perception check on the north end of the room--he sees tracks from Varkaze and the group heads north. Lucky Meepo!
The party makes fantastic stealth checks on the way up the tunnel, and they knew someone was recently through here, while the hobgoblins are waiting for them. Decided there would be no surprise round, but they sucked it up on Initiative, so the hobgoblins all went first. Varkaze readied to blast the first person to come into range, the archers both fired at the fighter (missing) and Vrak charged into the fight, missing his attack. Then all hell broke loose. The fighter and cleric locked up with the soldier, the cleric boosting the fighter's defense while they tore him down, and the ranger, warlock and wizard bounced around in the backfield, lobbing attacks from the cheap seats up to the archers. The paladin risks the OA and runs past Vrak (who missed), jumps the stream with an 15 Athletics check, and charges Varkaze. His Force Lance misses and Corrin lays into him. He never did much damage, but Varkaze had a heck of a time hitting the little runt, and the archers were now splitting fire, either missing Corrin badly, or missing Kathra badly. Basically it was bad for them all around.
Varkaze landed a huge Force Pulse on the paladin, but meanwhile the other strikers slipped past the soldier's blockade, as between the fighter's mark and the cleric boosting their defenses, he couldn't stop them with the flail attack. Next thing you know Varkaze goes down in a heap (I think the paladin threw a damned hammer at his face to finish him), and then the archers fell in short order.
They rest up and march down the tunnel to Nightscale next, and she wins initiative. She crashes down in front of them and lets that acid go, nailing every one of them. All of them blew daily powers and action points on the first round, all but two made their acid save, and the cleric managed to get another saved before their next turn. The dragon took a boatload of damage from daily powers, and dropped a globe and retreated to her isle. The group spread out, trying to flank her, but she headed off the melees (paladin had her marked, throwing his first hammer at her), swooping in and letting more acid go (I had great recharge rolls), only catching one person this time (the warlock's eyebite gave her such a defense boost the breath missed!)
The fight was heated, but between the paladin and cleric there was just enough healing to keep anyone from dropping, and in the end they were beat up, but the dragon was at 139 damage with no one down yet. I also changed her fight to flee at bloodied, as I think a reoccuring villain (which is how I envision her) should be interested in saving her own neck--get her to 50? You can probably finish her at that point.)
Towards the end, the fighter ran up the ledge and dove off, trying to crash her hammer into Nightscale on the way down to the water (giving her a flank, too). I wanted to let it auto-hit for the awesomeness. Still she made the Athletics check, but missed, even with the Charge. However the next round she nailed Nightscale with her daily, who was having a hell of a time hitting the paladin (good thing too, because her last bite was still tearing him up with the acid).
She spun around and bloodied breathed her (doing crap damage, and she saved the next turn), and on her next turn took flight (OAs missed) then flew out the tunnel, blowing an action point to Bull Rush the ranger (up there for High Ground) out of her way and escape! It was a great fight, and while they had some nice rolls, so did I. There tactics and synergy (and SPREADING OUT) really made the difference.
Most fun I've had with this one yet!
03/17/2008 log for full chatlog
Quick playtest report:
Kobold Warren:
They dismantled this one. Neither side was surprised, but Ichi-ichi went first and rang the gong/sprang the trap, then whiffed away at the paladin. The group started filing in, but the damned wizard obliterated the first wave of minions, taking down three of them off the bat. By turn two the paladin was surrounded by minions but Ichi-ichi still missed, and the party quickly took down most of those kobolds (fighter loved cleaving through them) while Ichi-ichi was getting mauled. Otto-wombo and Pik arrive just in time to get pulverized by the group (they were dealing with each challenge in one round) and the cleric was boosting AC and attack rolls like crazy. Pik dropped first (the ranger and warlock tore into him) while the fighter and paladin laid into Otto-wombo before the wizard dropped him flat. Quick stealth check from Varkaze at "round 4" said he decided to run back for help. (I really don't think he would have escaped the chamber if he'd engaged.)
Party searches the room and rests, then the wizard makes a 20 Perception check on the north end of the room--he sees tracks from Varkaze and the group heads north. Lucky Meepo!
The party makes fantastic stealth checks on the way up the tunnel, and they knew someone was recently through here, while the hobgoblins are waiting for them. Decided there would be no surprise round, but they sucked it up on Initiative, so the hobgoblins all went first. Varkaze readied to blast the first person to come into range, the archers both fired at the fighter (missing) and Vrak charged into the fight, missing his attack. Then all hell broke loose. The fighter and cleric locked up with the soldier, the cleric boosting the fighter's defense while they tore him down, and the ranger, warlock and wizard bounced around in the backfield, lobbing attacks from the cheap seats up to the archers. The paladin risks the OA and runs past Vrak (who missed), jumps the stream with an 15 Athletics check, and charges Varkaze. His Force Lance misses and Corrin lays into him. He never did much damage, but Varkaze had a heck of a time hitting the little runt, and the archers were now splitting fire, either missing Corrin badly, or missing Kathra badly. Basically it was bad for them all around.
Varkaze landed a huge Force Pulse on the paladin, but meanwhile the other strikers slipped past the soldier's blockade, as between the fighter's mark and the cleric boosting their defenses, he couldn't stop them with the flail attack. Next thing you know Varkaze goes down in a heap (I think the paladin threw a damned hammer at his face to finish him), and then the archers fell in short order.
They rest up and march down the tunnel to Nightscale next, and she wins initiative. She crashes down in front of them and lets that acid go, nailing every one of them. All of them blew daily powers and action points on the first round, all but two made their acid save, and the cleric managed to get another saved before their next turn. The dragon took a boatload of damage from daily powers, and dropped a globe and retreated to her isle. The group spread out, trying to flank her, but she headed off the melees (paladin had her marked, throwing his first hammer at her), swooping in and letting more acid go (I had great recharge rolls), only catching one person this time (the warlock's eyebite gave her such a defense boost the breath missed!)
The fight was heated, but between the paladin and cleric there was just enough healing to keep anyone from dropping, and in the end they were beat up, but the dragon was at 139 damage with no one down yet. I also changed her fight to flee at bloodied, as I think a reoccuring villain (which is how I envision her) should be interested in saving her own neck--get her to 50? You can probably finish her at that point.)
Towards the end, the fighter ran up the ledge and dove off, trying to crash her hammer into Nightscale on the way down to the water (giving her a flank, too). I wanted to let it auto-hit for the awesomeness. Still she made the Athletics check, but missed, even with the Charge. However the next round she nailed Nightscale with her daily, who was having a hell of a time hitting the paladin (good thing too, because her last bite was still tearing him up with the acid).
She spun around and bloodied breathed her (doing crap damage, and she saved the next turn), and on her next turn took flight (OAs missed) then flew out the tunnel, blowing an action point to Bull Rush the ranger (up there for High Ground) out of her way and escape! It was a great fight, and while they had some nice rolls, so did I. There tactics and synergy (and SPREADING OUT) really made the difference.
Most fun I've had with this one yet!
03/17/2008 log for full chatlog
Last edited:
Saishu_Heiki
First Post
Just a quick note to say that I am quite interested in a Reloaded version.
So.... Last night I ran this for my gaming group. At the table were:
Stan! Brown playing the dwarf fighter
JD Wiker playing the cleric
Sean Reynolds playing the paladin
Keri Reynolds (almost Wiker) playing the warlock
We started around 6:30 and really only got through the kobold encounter, including Ix. (Meepo had been warned and he bailed). After fighting the kobolds and looking at the time, we jumped straight to the encounter with Nightscale to get a feel for a solo fight.
First off, I really, really, wanted to love 4e. I've been following things closely, and while I'll admit some hesitation to what I've been seeing, I was excited to run the demo and see what 4e had going for it.
With that out of the way, I don't know if 4e is the game for us. It's a pretty good rule set, but boy it just didn't feel like D&D. I think it may be the most radical shift in engine design from one game version to another of any RPG I've seen, and I've been playing since the red box.
I just got to work so I've actually got to, you know, work, but I'll post more about my/our thoughts later today. To tide you over JD has posted some initial thoughts here:
http://jediwiker.livejournal.com/41107.html
And yeah, we got some rules wrong, and I probably played Nightscale wrong, but I'm still trying to figure out how/if that impacted our thoughts.
Hyrum.
Stan! Brown playing the dwarf fighter
JD Wiker playing the cleric
Sean Reynolds playing the paladin
Keri Reynolds (almost Wiker) playing the warlock
We started around 6:30 and really only got through the kobold encounter, including Ix. (Meepo had been warned and he bailed). After fighting the kobolds and looking at the time, we jumped straight to the encounter with Nightscale to get a feel for a solo fight.
First off, I really, really, wanted to love 4e. I've been following things closely, and while I'll admit some hesitation to what I've been seeing, I was excited to run the demo and see what 4e had going for it.
With that out of the way, I don't know if 4e is the game for us. It's a pretty good rule set, but boy it just didn't feel like D&D. I think it may be the most radical shift in engine design from one game version to another of any RPG I've seen, and I've been playing since the red box.
I just got to work so I've actually got to, you know, work, but I'll post more about my/our thoughts later today. To tide you over JD has posted some initial thoughts here:
http://jediwiker.livejournal.com/41107.html
And yeah, we got some rules wrong, and I probably played Nightscale wrong, but I'm still trying to figure out how/if that impacted our thoughts.
Hyrum.
Tehnai
First Post
Alright, so I ran the adventure yesterday with four players.
So we have those guys (no, not those, those, over there!)
Player 1 -The guy who played a bit of star wars Saga and half an improvised DnD game. He played Corrin.
Player 2 -A player I've been playing with since high school, who enjoys trying every game he gets his hands on. He has some DM experience. He was playin' the Cleric.
Player 3 -Another guy from back in high school, without any DMing experience, but, you know, he knows is stuff. He's using Riardon.
Player 4 -And finally, my best friend (and grognard), playing Skamos.
4 players, so Varkaze didn't interfere, but I kept 4 hobgoblins at the hobbo encounter (I can't remember the room number, I'm not on my own computer). Nightscale had 200 HP, but I decided she went bloodied at 100, because I felt sadistic.
It all begins at the entrance, where the party decides to not do any stealth of any kind. So Ichi-Ichi hits the alarm. The team get the rules disturbingly fast, even player one, with his limited experience (I was suprised, to be honest). The proceed to paint the cave with the blood of kobolds, except for Otto-Wombo, who goes to reach Meepo (The team killed all of the minions in 3 rounds).
They proceed to Meepo's place, and Corrin gets a spider to the face. Otto-Wombo stayed around for the fight, but eventually gave up. After some funny threatning from Skamos as he tried to learn who was the boss, Otto took a dagger and a chicken to draw a dragon on a wall. The party is a bit freaked out, but they go on after releasing the kobold (much to Skamos' dismay).
The Hobbo encounter was rough, I had more character dropped in that one then in the boss fight, funny story. The 2 archers were nasty, but that's my fault for being sadistic. The got scared by Varkaze pretty fast, and he didn't last long (died just before using his staff of doom because of an action point, true story). The finally killed 'em all, thanks to some nice shifting from the ranger and some nice wizardly bombs!
Everyone has about 4-5 healing surge left for the last fight. Of course, they all fail on that perception check and get some acide to the face. The fight was ultimately won because of too many failed saves by the dragon (the paladin's daily can be nasty).
Except the grognard, who, well, was a grognard (All the classes use the same systems! That's BAD! and balance is bad nonesense), everyone enjoyed the experience. I heard the fact that 3.5 and 4e can't really be compared, because it's not the same game anymore (while staying DnD).
As a DM, I loved it. It was a total geekgasm to run. So smooth, so easy... I just needed my little grid (a grid I made on my map to keep track of initiative, ongoing damage, number of failed death save, number of time each character fell(just to piss them off
), the remaining action points and the remaining healing surges for everyone) and the rest was just... fluid.
We went through the whole adventure in around 4 hours, and, I just had fun DMing that, more then I had in a long time DMing. I mean, everything is so... so obvious. The tactics are fun to use, and I got to run a dragon without wanting to either kill myself or my players. The kobolds felt nasty, the hobgoblins felt military-like. And I just loved that spider too!
I am looking foward to playing the fighter myself at some point!
So we have those guys (no, not those, those, over there!)
Player 1 -The guy who played a bit of star wars Saga and half an improvised DnD game. He played Corrin.
Player 2 -A player I've been playing with since high school, who enjoys trying every game he gets his hands on. He has some DM experience. He was playin' the Cleric.
Player 3 -Another guy from back in high school, without any DMing experience, but, you know, he knows is stuff. He's using Riardon.
Player 4 -And finally, my best friend (and grognard), playing Skamos.
4 players, so Varkaze didn't interfere, but I kept 4 hobgoblins at the hobbo encounter (I can't remember the room number, I'm not on my own computer). Nightscale had 200 HP, but I decided she went bloodied at 100, because I felt sadistic.
It all begins at the entrance, where the party decides to not do any stealth of any kind. So Ichi-Ichi hits the alarm. The team get the rules disturbingly fast, even player one, with his limited experience (I was suprised, to be honest). The proceed to paint the cave with the blood of kobolds, except for Otto-Wombo, who goes to reach Meepo (The team killed all of the minions in 3 rounds).
They proceed to Meepo's place, and Corrin gets a spider to the face. Otto-Wombo stayed around for the fight, but eventually gave up. After some funny threatning from Skamos as he tried to learn who was the boss, Otto took a dagger and a chicken to draw a dragon on a wall. The party is a bit freaked out, but they go on after releasing the kobold (much to Skamos' dismay).
The Hobbo encounter was rough, I had more character dropped in that one then in the boss fight, funny story. The 2 archers were nasty, but that's my fault for being sadistic. The got scared by Varkaze pretty fast, and he didn't last long (died just before using his staff of doom because of an action point, true story). The finally killed 'em all, thanks to some nice shifting from the ranger and some nice wizardly bombs!
Everyone has about 4-5 healing surge left for the last fight. Of course, they all fail on that perception check and get some acide to the face. The fight was ultimately won because of too many failed saves by the dragon (the paladin's daily can be nasty).
Except the grognard, who, well, was a grognard (All the classes use the same systems! That's BAD! and balance is bad nonesense), everyone enjoyed the experience. I heard the fact that 3.5 and 4e can't really be compared, because it's not the same game anymore (while staying DnD).
As a DM, I loved it. It was a total geekgasm to run. So smooth, so easy... I just needed my little grid (a grid I made on my map to keep track of initiative, ongoing damage, number of failed death save, number of time each character fell(just to piss them off
), the remaining action points and the remaining healing surges for everyone) and the rest was just... fluid.We went through the whole adventure in around 4 hours, and, I just had fun DMing that, more then I had in a long time DMing. I mean, everything is so... so obvious. The tactics are fun to use, and I got to run a dragon without wanting to either kill myself or my players. The kobolds felt nasty, the hobgoblins felt military-like. And I just loved that spider too!
I am looking foward to playing the fighter myself at some point!
Xorn
First Post
Wormwood said:
I agree that there are some great comments in there, but for the blog post itself--I read the whole thing, but I have to admit I had the feeling nagging at me the that person writing the post was trying to not like it. Totally an opinion, but as the comments below did, most of the nitpicks mentioned had nothing to do with the rules/mechanics, and more to do with crappy rolls, the encounter design (felt like an MMO because of reinforcements? The Sunless Citadel, anyone?), or quite frankly, being too busy griping to read your character sheet or consider the tactical possibilities.
Anyway, I thought the comments were extremely valuable, but I kept hearing Grumpy Old Men soundclips in my head when I read the blog itself. I got the impression that this person hated the game, as if the session was without merit.
But to be fair, maybe I'm just turned off my the "I'm a red-box guy, bullywullybully!" comment. I've been playing for 24 years too... what does that have to do with anything?
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