D&D 4E Running and 4E Demo this weekend, anyone have suggestions?

[Oldtimer]

4) If you are using Status Effects (Ongoing damage, stunned, dazed, etc), write a note card with the condition written on it. Tell them that every time they hold a card, they have to make a saving throw (1-9 ongoing, 10-20 it's gone) at the beginning fo their turn for every card they hold. It's a good memory tool.

It should be at the end of their turn, but otherwise it's good advice.

 

[beniek]

I run my first Kots adventure 2 days ago with group of 4 players (3 of those players had experience with 4e already). They managed to clear both burial site and kobold lair (total 5 encounters). Session lasted for few hours, but rp was reduced to minimum - Most of my players are either power accumulators or they just want to kick butt. From my perspective everyone had very good time. Suggestions:

1. Know your players - put emphasis on the part of the adventure they will like. If your group likes storetelling a lot you need to really add more story to Kots. If they preffer combat your are good.

2. I created 2 quests for the advture to give my players an illusion of choice - One was missing husband (From hooks), other was Kobold Lair. Both had 750 XP reward, kobold lair also had 100gp reward as noted in the adventure. I wrote down those info on cards and gave those to my players - including XP rewards.

3. Items - My players wanted to buy/sell some stuff from the smithy - for the sake of saving time I told them that it's not possible in this session because we don't have the list of prices etc. It wasn't good solution, so for the next session I have a list of magic items they can buy (from various sources, including the stuff they can find later in the adventure). You also might want to allow players to buy/find some healing potions before kobold lair.

4. Kobold Lair This encounter is deadly. If your players try to chase the running away kobold into the watefall, it's pretty much TPK (They do need a short rest between those encounters). I adjusted the encounters of course for 4 players - by discarding some kobolds and/or minions. You might want to drop some monsters there as well - if your group contains new players and so. Second encounter was going pretty well untill irontooth became bloodied. He pretty much dropped a Warlord and Rogue to negative hp in one round, using action point. Long story short - Warlock (I allowed player to use DDXP one) killed both iroontooth and wyrmpriest while rest of the party was unconscious. Warrior failed 3 saving throws and died.

5. Leader - I stronglly suggest that your group contains either Cleric or Warlord. Their healing is really useful.

6. Warrior - If your group contains a warrior make sure he understand how his opportunity attacks work - it's mega useful against shifty kobolds. I'm a bit mean GM and i try to keep my mouth shut when people forget about their abilities.

7. Ambush encounter - It can be dangerous as well, you might want to discard a dragonshield and add some minions instead. My players had some pretty bad rolls (warlord got dropped to 0 hp before he could act - crit + high damage rolls, making this encounter pretty hard).