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D&D 4E Raiders of Oakhurst: A 4E Fan Playtest Adventure
- Thread starter Olgar Shiverstone
- Start date
Xorn said:
Hey Xorn,
I have to say that all of us at the table went into it wanting to have the time of our lives. We've been skeptical of the hype around 4e, but wanted to try it for ourselves. We'll definitely be picking up the books when they come out though, and hopefully we can finagle a playtest with real rules sometime in the future.
I really want to like it, but it has to sell me on the new version. Especially since I have an almost perfectly good game right now.
Hyrum.
Xorn
First Post
HyrumOWC said:
I want you to know I completely read you, and I'm not invalidating anything said--you say you wanted to have a great time, I believe ya!
I'm only commenting on the impression created by that blog, if I was reading it without having seen this post first. From that viewpoint, it really doesn't seem like the author was looking for any merit in the game. I emphasize the word "seem" because I can only comment on the impression I got.
I could break it down, but the comments already do that--but most of the complaints have little to do with 4E, and even those that are about 4E don't seem to have had much consideration like Sacred Flame? My cleric, by the way, prevented 8 damage to the paladin during the dragon fight because of sacred flame. That's another surge!
Anyway, I'm glad you guys were trying to have fun, the blog didn't reflect that is all I'm saying, and only that it didn't reflect that to ME.
And I'm not kidding, the "red-box player" thing kinda set me off the most--I'd bet most people here are red-boxers or at least 1Ers.
Darkthorne
First Post
Ok, I ran this as a quickie dungeon crawl hack and slash just to test things out. 1st couple of disclaimers to mention. 1) Just ran with 4 PC’s (in marching order Fighter, Warlock, Cleric, and Wizard) and did not tweak any numbers for total encounters just changed when some of them happened. 2) My brother seriously dislikes 3.5 (Too many damn rules, too long to create something on the fly beyond 1st level to his liking) to the point he can’t be bothered to game (a very sad thing indeed). He did however run both the cleric and the fighter. 3) Did have a streak of PC’s not rolling well enough (did have a few moments where thinking some time in the microwave would work as an attitude adjustment for them) 4) I usually work from my laptop where I can flip through things and research extremely quickly and did not have this at my disposal (used my desktop). 5) Cool always will be part of my vocab so deal Other side notes I DO like 3.5, I love crunchy and have a thing for numbers and Excel. Also I want to thank Olgar for creating this (very very cool). Now onto the mayhem.
Going into the cave trying to be stealthy our cleric rolled a 1 (let the suck begin), nothing happened for a moment and they thought they were fine only be corrected by the sound of the warning gong. The bad guys got the initiative (minions followed by Ichi Ichi). The minions swarmed up to the narrow opening of the cave stopping the dwarf from going any further. Ichi came through and missed (there goes the extra damage). The PC’s either couldn’t connect enough though until the 2 group of minions started to come in. Also due to the other group of minions coming in as soon as they did some of the mobility was lost as the warlock could not move backward 3+ to get the concealment (That was my understanding of how that worked but I could be wrong). This battle was pretty balanced, some healing was used but while the outcome was not a given (warlock got hit by the slinger’s fire attack and could NOT save) the group did pretty good.
Now the group took a left and off to Meepo’s throne room (All HAIL MEEPO!) both Meepo was hiding and Ix was up on the ceiling (party missed their perception checks) even though the Wizard had initiative he was all the way in the back and couldn’t see a damn thing (we were pretty sure a damn thing was crawling by his leg). Next was Ix who did his DEATH FROM ABOVE attack (no recharge) doing a scary amount of damage (close to 20), followed up by his Prodigious Leap (move w/o OA) to go back to his starting location. Followed by Meepo the King his doing a Snap Shot (rechargeable ranged attack which did recharge a lot) then moving up to stick the fighter. The dwarf who started at 33 hp was almost down to 0 on the first round. After a few rounds both the Dwarf and the wizard was dropped, Meepo was down to 8hp surrendered telling the party that it was really the hobgoblins that made his people attack the villagers.
The hobgoblin battle was just brutal and long, both archers and the staff weilder was nasty. More per encounters powers missed than any that hit (I think ONE encounter power hit). The dwarf fighter dropped (did drop one hobgoblin) followed a bit later by the cleric. The wizard and warlock both had been dropped but brought back up with temp hp FINALLY started to connect and dropped the last 2 bad guys. Now here’s the kicker the healer and the only other guy with the heal skill is in negs, so w/o any real rules I let the 2 spellchuckers try to stabilize the other 2 party members on a natural 20. So with them trying to stop the bleed they finally stabilized the fighter followed by the cleric rolling his natural 20 to come back with his healing surge. Had to stop at that point due to limited time, will try this again with more people and running more PC’s and it’ll be cool to run the dragon next time around.
Review of things:
Target # of players IS 5, with only having 4 pc’s this made a considerable difference. I have one group that is totals 4 people most of the time so seeing how things can be pared down will be interesting, otherwise 4E will very deadly most of the time. This was deliberately done as I wanted to see how much the effect would be. My brother who enjoys 2nd ed. said that he had fun playing both the cleric and the fighter. He normally doesn’t like to play fighters but this was also deliberately done. He enjoyed everything and said that it was very fast to learn (also while running two characters) and that it was a nice blend between 3.5 (Descriptive things to do) and 2nd ed (ease of play). He did think that the cleric was limited in his "in combat" healing. Out of combat this is a non-issue, was just sorely needed in combat however. Cleave is way too much fun with minions. Having the wizard get off a scorching burst (I rolled to hit for each bad guy) and actually connect is glorious to see a bunch of kobolds incinerate immediately. I think adding either the ranger or the paladin instead of the wizard (if I was shorthanded again) would do better. Rechargeable attacks really do make bad guys greatly unpredictable and can keep the PC’s from getting cocky (Meepo kicks arse!!). Combat is a lot more fun, you are getting more chances to do things more often than you did in 3.5. Yes I understand this is first level however in 3.5 going up against 1 or 2 bad guys with a large enough party there has been times the battle was over before it had gotten to be my turn to do something (due to surprise round). Used skills the least but with that being said I do see the limited number of skills being MUCH better than 3.5. More die rolling to succeed in something only leads to more chances of failure than anything else (one of my turn offs from White wolf prior to their changes). I can see designing dungeon environments to work with the bad guys strengths will be very cool. Oh yeah movement was cool, no pausing to stop and count also reminds you the bad guys can move like that too so you may not be as safe as you think you are.
Also I would seriously like to see the reloaded version
Thanks
Going into the cave trying to be stealthy our cleric rolled a 1 (let the suck begin), nothing happened for a moment and they thought they were fine only be corrected by the sound of the warning gong. The bad guys got the initiative (minions followed by Ichi Ichi). The minions swarmed up to the narrow opening of the cave stopping the dwarf from going any further. Ichi came through and missed (there goes the extra damage). The PC’s either couldn’t connect enough though until the 2 group of minions started to come in. Also due to the other group of minions coming in as soon as they did some of the mobility was lost as the warlock could not move backward 3+ to get the concealment (That was my understanding of how that worked but I could be wrong). This battle was pretty balanced, some healing was used but while the outcome was not a given (warlock got hit by the slinger’s fire attack and could NOT save) the group did pretty good.
Now the group took a left and off to Meepo’s throne room (All HAIL MEEPO!) both Meepo was hiding and Ix was up on the ceiling (party missed their perception checks) even though the Wizard had initiative he was all the way in the back and couldn’t see a damn thing (we were pretty sure a damn thing was crawling by his leg). Next was Ix who did his DEATH FROM ABOVE attack (no recharge) doing a scary amount of damage (close to 20), followed up by his Prodigious Leap (move w/o OA) to go back to his starting location. Followed by Meepo the King his doing a Snap Shot (rechargeable ranged attack which did recharge a lot) then moving up to stick the fighter. The dwarf who started at 33 hp was almost down to 0 on the first round. After a few rounds both the Dwarf and the wizard was dropped, Meepo was down to 8hp surrendered telling the party that it was really the hobgoblins that made his people attack the villagers.
The hobgoblin battle was just brutal and long, both archers and the staff weilder was nasty. More per encounters powers missed than any that hit (I think ONE encounter power hit). The dwarf fighter dropped (did drop one hobgoblin) followed a bit later by the cleric. The wizard and warlock both had been dropped but brought back up with temp hp FINALLY started to connect and dropped the last 2 bad guys. Now here’s the kicker the healer and the only other guy with the heal skill is in negs, so w/o any real rules I let the 2 spellchuckers try to stabilize the other 2 party members on a natural 20. So with them trying to stop the bleed they finally stabilized the fighter followed by the cleric rolling his natural 20 to come back with his healing surge. Had to stop at that point due to limited time, will try this again with more people and running more PC’s and it’ll be cool to run the dragon next time around.
Review of things:
Target # of players IS 5, with only having 4 pc’s this made a considerable difference. I have one group that is totals 4 people most of the time so seeing how things can be pared down will be interesting, otherwise 4E will very deadly most of the time. This was deliberately done as I wanted to see how much the effect would be. My brother who enjoys 2nd ed. said that he had fun playing both the cleric and the fighter. He normally doesn’t like to play fighters but this was also deliberately done. He enjoyed everything and said that it was very fast to learn (also while running two characters) and that it was a nice blend between 3.5 (Descriptive things to do) and 2nd ed (ease of play). He did think that the cleric was limited in his "in combat" healing. Out of combat this is a non-issue, was just sorely needed in combat however. Cleave is way too much fun with minions. Having the wizard get off a scorching burst (I rolled to hit for each bad guy) and actually connect is glorious to see a bunch of kobolds incinerate immediately. I think adding either the ranger or the paladin instead of the wizard (if I was shorthanded again) would do better. Rechargeable attacks really do make bad guys greatly unpredictable and can keep the PC’s from getting cocky (Meepo kicks arse!!). Combat is a lot more fun, you are getting more chances to do things more often than you did in 3.5. Yes I understand this is first level however in 3.5 going up against 1 or 2 bad guys with a large enough party there has been times the battle was over before it had gotten to be my turn to do something (due to surprise round). Used skills the least but with that being said I do see the limited number of skills being MUCH better than 3.5. More die rolling to succeed in something only leads to more chances of failure than anything else (one of my turn offs from White wolf prior to their changes). I can see designing dungeon environments to work with the bad guys strengths will be very cool. Oh yeah movement was cool, no pausing to stop and count also reminds you the bad guys can move like that too so you may not be as safe as you think you are.
Also I would seriously like to see the reloaded version
Thanks
Xorn
First Post
Nice writeup! Sounds like the dice were definitely not helping!
On the dying bit--it's a DC 15 Heal check to stabilize a downed player, and with a DC20 success they can trigger that person's Second Wind if it hasn't been used. As far as beyond that, once an encounter is over I'd let them get a player awake as long as they were stabilized.
And the warlock just needs to get 3+ squares away from where they started--doesn't matter what direction. (That means you can't double back though--when you count from starting square to end square, it must be 3+.) That +2 defense from concealment really helps, too.
On the dying bit--it's a DC 15 Heal check to stabilize a downed player, and with a DC20 success they can trigger that person's Second Wind if it hasn't been used. As far as beyond that, once an encounter is over I'd let them get a player awake as long as they were stabilized.
And the warlock just needs to get 3+ squares away from where they started--doesn't matter what direction. (That means you can't double back though--when you count from starting square to end square, it must be 3+.) That +2 defense from concealment really helps, too.
Darkthorne
First Post
Xorn,
The remaining conscious people did not have the heal skill so that is why I fudged it just to stabilize the guys in negs. On the Warlock bit it says "away" so I took that as further than your original distance. It wasn't making a whole lot of sense to me for "I'm getting closer and harder to see" but hey I could be wrong. Also because of my working under less than optimal conditions we did do a major tactical screw up which i will fix the next time I run this again with more people is all the encounter powers we were doing once per battle the clerics healing word can be done twice per encounter. Yup I can see that as a massive difference
The remaining conscious people did not have the heal skill so that is why I fudged it just to stabilize the guys in negs. On the Warlock bit it says "away" so I took that as further than your original distance. It wasn't making a whole lot of sense to me for "I'm getting closer and harder to see" but hey I could be wrong. Also because of my working under less than optimal conditions we did do a major tactical screw up which i will fix the next time I run this again with more people is all the encounter powers we were doing once per battle the clerics healing word can be done twice per encounter. Yup I can see that as a massive difference
pukunui
Legend
I ran this adventure for my group tonight. We had a lot of fun. There were four players. They chose the wizard, paladin, cleric and ranger.
I wanted to try out the chillborn zombies, so I threw two at them in an isolated encounter at the very beginning. A bit tough. The players were rolling abysmally again (I ran the first two encounters of the Second Son adventure last week and the players just kept rolling really really badly ... the guy playing the ranger missed with his Careful Attack power so many times that he started calling it his Careless Attack instead ...). Near TPK. So we reset and went straight for the kobolds.
That bit was fun. I could see how the kobolds work well together, although the slinger missed horribly both times he tried to use special shot ... Also, the PCs concentrated their fire on Varkaze when he appeared and killed him really quickly.
They managed to talk to Meepo and ended up deciding that they would send him and his people back to the town to do community service ... LOL.
Then they went and took on Varkaze's hobgoblin minions.
I realized that there's really no incentive or hook for them to go further up the stream to encounter the dragon. It was late and the guys were starting to want to go home but I begged them to just go explore the final room ... so they decided to rest for a day to get all their stuff back and then I read out the description, complete with the pictures on the wall, and one player immediately said, "OK so where's the dragon?"
Now, because it had been a day, I probably should have had the dragon sleeping on the island or something but I decided to have it in the water. She missed with both breath weapon attacks but cast her zone of darkness and then burst out of it the next round and managed to frighten all four PCs. She then disappeared back into the water and they pretty much all made their saves so they turned and ran and that was the end of it.
The only real issue I had was whether or not the wizard's light spell or any of the cleric's radiant prayers would have any effect on the dragon's cloud of darkness. The guy playing the wizard hoped it might still be like 3.5, so he cast the spell on a caltrop and tossed it into the darkness. I figured it was too low-level and the dragon too powerful so I had there be no effect.
Another issue was that my players are still very much in a 3.5 mindset where they pretty much all hang around near the entrance to the room and stand and fight there. Not a lot of movement going on from them. The fact that allies never seem to get in the way and there's no penalties for firing into melee and that sort of thing means they can just hang around the entrance and attack stuff at range and if one of their buddies happens to be in front of them or, shock horror, actually goes into the room to attack an enemy, it's not an issue. So that was a bit disappointing.
Another thing was saving throws. They seem too easy. I can see the point of it but it just seems like unless the player (or the DM in the case of affected monsters) has really bad luck with his d20, no effects are going to stick around for more than a round or two. I'm not sure I like this.
I've also noticed quite a few monster abilities (and I think some of the warlord's powers are like this too) that involve being adjacent to an ally. So despite all the talk about 4e being all about movement, it seems like 4e is also encouraging people to group together in little clumps that are perfect fireball targets ... The kobold skirmisher's "mob attack" ability and the hobgoblin soldier's "phalanx fighting" ability are two examples of this.
I wanted to try out the chillborn zombies, so I threw two at them in an isolated encounter at the very beginning. A bit tough. The players were rolling abysmally again (I ran the first two encounters of the Second Son adventure last week and the players just kept rolling really really badly ... the guy playing the ranger missed with his Careful Attack power so many times that he started calling it his Careless Attack instead ...). Near TPK. So we reset and went straight for the kobolds.
That bit was fun. I could see how the kobolds work well together, although the slinger missed horribly both times he tried to use special shot ... Also, the PCs concentrated their fire on Varkaze when he appeared and killed him really quickly.
They managed to talk to Meepo and ended up deciding that they would send him and his people back to the town to do community service ... LOL.
Then they went and took on Varkaze's hobgoblin minions.
I realized that there's really no incentive or hook for them to go further up the stream to encounter the dragon. It was late and the guys were starting to want to go home but I begged them to just go explore the final room ... so they decided to rest for a day to get all their stuff back and then I read out the description, complete with the pictures on the wall, and one player immediately said, "OK so where's the dragon?"
Now, because it had been a day, I probably should have had the dragon sleeping on the island or something but I decided to have it in the water. She missed with both breath weapon attacks but cast her zone of darkness and then burst out of it the next round and managed to frighten all four PCs. She then disappeared back into the water and they pretty much all made their saves so they turned and ran and that was the end of it.
The only real issue I had was whether or not the wizard's light spell or any of the cleric's radiant prayers would have any effect on the dragon's cloud of darkness. The guy playing the wizard hoped it might still be like 3.5, so he cast the spell on a caltrop and tossed it into the darkness. I figured it was too low-level and the dragon too powerful so I had there be no effect.
Another issue was that my players are still very much in a 3.5 mindset where they pretty much all hang around near the entrance to the room and stand and fight there. Not a lot of movement going on from them. The fact that allies never seem to get in the way and there's no penalties for firing into melee and that sort of thing means they can just hang around the entrance and attack stuff at range and if one of their buddies happens to be in front of them or, shock horror, actually goes into the room to attack an enemy, it's not an issue. So that was a bit disappointing.
Another thing was saving throws. They seem too easy. I can see the point of it but it just seems like unless the player (or the DM in the case of affected monsters) has really bad luck with his d20, no effects are going to stick around for more than a round or two. I'm not sure I like this.
I've also noticed quite a few monster abilities (and I think some of the warlord's powers are like this too) that involve being adjacent to an ally. So despite all the talk about 4e being all about movement, it seems like 4e is also encouraging people to group together in little clumps that are perfect fireball targets ... The kobold skirmisher's "mob attack" ability and the hobgoblin soldier's "phalanx fighting" ability are two examples of this.
Last edited:
pukunui
Legend
I didn't but that reminds me of something else ...hong said:
None of the pregenerated PCs can speak Draconic, and apparently that's all the kobolds can speak, so I don't know how they're supposed to communicate as per the adventure notes (or how the PCs are supposed to read the graffiti or Meepo's note). I just made it so the kobolds could understand and speak Common in a crude fashion.
Xorn
First Post
One DM had a kobold cut off a chickens head and draw a dragon in blood on the wall--very nice.
I actually let my players make intelligence rolls to read some of the grafitti (DC 20) and I let them read the words, "dragon", "king" and "good-looking". Led to some interesting interpretations.
Darkthorne: Oh I should have looked at the sheets again--guess Heal is a trained only skill? Ouch. I'd have let them roll WIS checks, I think. If there's blood spurting out of of a hole in someone , I think it's not a great leap of logic to cover the hole, right?
I actually let my players make intelligence rolls to read some of the grafitti (DC 20) and I let them read the words, "dragon", "king" and "good-looking". Led to some interesting interpretations.
Darkthorne: Oh I should have looked at the sheets again--guess Heal is a trained only skill? Ouch. I'd have let them roll WIS checks, I think. If there's blood spurting out of of a hole in someone , I think it's not a great leap of logic to cover the hole, right?
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