D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)

[Aravis]

Worse, it sounded like the gobbler was striking the baby in an attempt to quiet it down. Infuriated, we kicked in the door.

Ahem. You forgot the most important part. Logan and Cobalt tried to break down the door. Then Toiva and Dr. Caldwell stepped forward and showed them how it's done...

 

[Plane Sailing]

Something I'm finding, as well, is that Mobile Monsters encourage Mobile Characters.

Something that I'm finding is that games when the Fighter isn't there, the monsters end up being very mobile. In games when the Fighter is there, he is so sticky that lots of monsters end up pretty much unable to move (or get whacked).

When the party was fighting lots of hobgoblins (who get bonuses for sticking together in ranks), they tend to clump together lots and don't move much. The kobolds were much more mobile, in comparison.

The goblin battles were somewhat in between the two (although restricted dungeon terrain tended to make any movement more difficult).

I think I'm going to want to make more public the kind of things that can be done with terrain/encounter areas and skills - it is entirely possible that my group isn't particularly aware of the kind of options that are there (of course once I've done that, they can expect to see the Duergar and others start trying stunting at various times!)

Cheers

 

[Agamon]

Something that I'm finding is that games when the Fighter isn't there, the monsters end up being very mobile. In games when the Fighter is there, he is so sticky that lots of monsters end up pretty much unable to move (or get whacked).

My monsters get whacked more often than not. I'm not going to have them sit and try to hack the dumb fighter just cause he gets a free swipe, and they get a -2 against anyone else. But then, not only does that encourage more movement, but it also helps my combats speed up a tad.

 

[Hypersmurf]

My monsters get whacked more often than not. I'm not going to have them sit and try to hack the dumb fighter just cause he gets a free swipe, and they get a -2 against anyone else. But then, not only does that encourage more movement, but it also helps my combats speed up a tad.

Yeah - my theory is that often, powers of the form "If opponent does X, you get to do Y!" are more fun for the players if X (and therefore Y) actually happens, rather than just making the power into a "Opponent can't do X".

Now, that doesn't mean that every opponent is always going to shift when adjacent to the fighter. But if there's something more useful they could be doing over there, then I'm happy for the fighter to actually get to make his free attack.

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Yeah - my theory is that often, powers of the form "If opponent does X, you get to do Y!" are more fun for the players if X (and therefore Y) actually happens, rather than just making the power into a "Opponent can't do X".

Now, that doesn't mean that every opponent is always going to shift when adjacent to the fighter. But if there's something more useful they could be doing over there, then I'm happy for the fighter to actually get to make his free attack.

-Hyp.

I did actually do this in the final fight of Keep on the Shadowfell - the BBEG would have wiped out the party if he had been played optimally, but I considered him to be overconfident and careless about provoking the maul-armed fighter (at least until he got down to bloodied...)

Cheers

 

[Agamon]

Now, that doesn't mean that every opponent is always going to shift when adjacent to the fighter. But if there's something more useful they could be doing over there, then I'm happy for the fighter to actually get to make his free attack.

Well, yeah, I don't do it mindlessly either. Depends a lot on the foe. But I played a bit with a DM that was upset that he couldn't do anything with the monsters because of the fighter. But then he always yelled, "YES!" when he scored a crit, too.

 

[Prism]

Seriously, I can think of one or two possibilities (kicking over the stewpot onto the gobbler beside the baby, for instance), but it hadn't quite occurred to me that no one has any powers that slide enemies around. That will gradually change as you level, depending on what people want to pick.

You are absolutely right that this could well change during the first few level ups. We found that we were having plenty of fun at first level simply using the great new powers we had. Nobody was quite ready to revert to bullrush or similar. Then towards the end of first level the wizard started to realise the greatness of thunderwave to push monsters of ledges and back into his spells. Now all of our characters have something to slide or push an enemy. The rangers comes at level 2, the fighters is an at will. Retraining is wonderful and we have been using it a lot to try out different stuff

Also, when you first meet a monster that does something cool, it often makes the players want to try that too. So after meeting kobolds and realising how damn evasive and shifty they are, I wanted to do something similar with my ranger

 

[Blood Jester]

A few notes from my perspective:

- Anyone know how exactly a portcullis is supposed to work? If I were going to do it again, I might make it a skill challenge to lift. Instead I ruled on the fly, making it a difficult athletics check to bend bar / lift gate. Dr. Caldwell got a 27 on his aided athletics check, jamming the damn thing up into the ceiling with no problem whatsoever.

Since I did not see an answer...

I think you made the right call, but maybe wrong DC?

A portcullis is pretty much lifted straight up by simple pulleys; it is counter weighted somewhat, or else it would be nearly unliftable. But for a person to lift by brute force from the portcullis itself? Yikes.

So baring using levers or a clever rope set-up, I would say lifting the thing is an Athletics (or pure Strength) check. To get it jammed up in the ceiling would mean it was slammed so hard the stonework of the wall itself was broken and got wedged (or you could be nice and say the pulley either jammed, or had a self locking mechanism, but the latter seems anti-security).

I am sure there are many who will point out flaws in my above statements, but that is the beauty of open discourse.

Besides, I am running late, so no time to pretty this post up.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

I think it was the right call. The DC could've been harder but then you run the risk of losing that cool moment of triumph by the PCs lifting the portcullis while their teammate was in dire straits. Gosh, I think that is the whole soul of D&D cool moments like that (well next to rolling that critical to kill the BBEG anyway!). I'm enjoying reading this account. It's fun and opens my eyes as to how to be a better DM/player. Well done! (Now if I could only find a regular group - lol )

 

[Piratecat]

I think it was the right call. The DC could've been harder but then you run the risk of losing that cool moment of triumph by the PCs lifting the portcullis while their teammate was in dire straits.

I'm not sure if I could have made the DC higher. With the party at 1st level and the newly revised DCs setting a hard skill task at DC 20, I thought topping DC 25 would be enough to keep the trap open.

Yay, DMing on the fly!