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

[Orichalcum]

This actually models the standard current scholarly view of history fairly well - that there's the lowest, generational or centuries-long level of change - things like Ice Ages, or the Roman Empire. Then there's the middle-level of change, over decades or a single generation - something like the Industrial Revolution, or the change in computer processing since 1975. And then there's the top-level, where individuals actually make a difference in history - where folks like Caesar and Napoleon and Einstein matter. Or, in this case, your PCs.

 

[Piratecat]

This actually models the standard current scholarly view of history fairly well - that there's the lowest, generational or centuries-long level of change... the middle-level of change, over decades or a single generation... and then there's the top-level, where individuals actually make a difference in history.

That's something I was shooting for, although I'm not sure I could have phrased it as well as you did.

We played last night. My players are getting thoroughly sick of swamps and bad guys who restrict movement. Details forthcoming.

 

[Sagiro]

Run #14 was this past Thursday. First, the plot summary:

Having escaped from the Tide of Sklar, and anxious to return to Floodford, we started the boat journey back. There was some discussion about what to do with our prisoner Xiras, rescued from Aline’s weird spirit-siphoning ritual. He was banished from Floodford on pain of death should he return, so we were disinclined to march him in. Toiva raised the prospect of his joining the Grey Guard, but he scoffed at the idea. (And a good thing too – at best he’s insane, and at worse he’s an insane murderer.) We decided to keep him in the boat until we were at the outskirts of town, and then send someone to ask Commander Pikeline what she’d like us to do with him.

About an hour out from Floodford, our boat ground to a sudden and unwelcome halt. In a large area (about 100’ across) a dense mat of weeds had risen up to the swamp’s surface, effectively making the area into solid ground. At the same time, Logan spotted a winged creature descending at us from a great height. It was the summoned gargoyle from the hut in the Bubbling Fens – the monster we thought had returned to its native Lower Plane when we destroyed the scrolls in Aline’s ritual room.

Not so much, it turns out. It spoke to us telepathically as it flew, that it didn’t want any witnesses to our imminent demises. Things started out promising as we delivered some highly effective ranged attacks before it landed, but our optimism was short-lived. It landed in front of the boat and breathed out a lingering cloud of poisonous and dazing gas. Then the swamp zombies started to rise up from the mat – 10 of them in immediate proximity. By their rotting raiment, Strontium identified them as old soldiers of the Empire. They were minions, but still dangerous in numbers. And the worst was yet to come – three bubbling sections of the swamp around the boat presaged the arrival of a trio of tougher zombies. These newcomers (one was even a Warforged, albeit corrupted and clogged with weeds) radiated auras of poison, and their strikes had a chance to immobilize us. Things were touch and go for a round or two, but Logan dealt a massive blow to the gargoyle, and the zombies were eventually destroyed.

Xiras helped in the combat, but as we entered the mopping up phase he made a break for it, diving under the mat of weeds. We managed to track him down and knock him out before he could give us the slip, and returned him to the boat.

When we reached the outskirts of Floodford, Logan went on ahead to report to Commander Pikeline. He discovered some interesting things:

- With the assistance of soldiers from nearby towns, the lizardman army had been defeated.
- Three Grey Guardsman were killed in the assault, including Caducity Skirr and Sergeant Tenblood, Pikeline’s second-in-command. The Dragonborn sage Brogh had been promoted to take his place.
- The person who killed the fake-Xiras (who was leading the lizard army) turned out to be the obnoxious Runcible Parsons, who was now full of himself. Oy.

At Pikeline’s request we brought Xiras to the Grey Guard tower for questioning, and are now once again awaiting further orders.


Tactical Notes:

- 14 runs in, and not the slightest whiff of combat grind.

- The enemies in the battle were:

o 3 Chillborn Zombies (Level 4 soldiers) repurposed with a swampy poison theme as “Poisonweed Zombies.”
o 10 Zombie Rotters (bumped up to Level 5 minions)
o 1 Venomous Abishai (from the Draconomicon – a Level 6 Controller)

- Overlapping auras that stack? Yikes! We collectively took a ton of damage from those.

- We pulled out all the stops in this one. I think just about everyone used their Daily and their Action Point.

- I thought our group tactics were kind of mediocre, in that we spread out and attacked the three Poisonweed Zombies individually, rather than focusing fire. This was somewhat forced upon us by the facts that:

o The minions came out of the swamp in a perimeter around the boat, that would have meant many OA’s against anyone who didn’t just fight whomever was close at hand.
o Our two NPC’s, Yiddin and Xiras, both fled from the boat in opposite directions at the very start of the battle.

Even so, Logan made great use of Blade Vault to get a devastating flanking attack on the gargoyle.

- Doc Caldwell is having trouble finding good openings to use his melee weapons, and in this combat he again resorted to firing his bow for most attacks. Through a combination of “character built for melee” and “crap die rolling,” he missed on a vast majority of his attacks.

- The combination of the gargoyle’s Zone of Daze ‘n Damage, and the Zombies’ immobilization power, was not a good one from the PC’s point of view.

- Piratecat has encouraged us to “do random cool things” in battle, to free us from our Stock Powers™. He’s even asked us to add a “Do something cool” card to our stacks of power cards. Toiva did this during the battle; having shapeshifted into a crocodile while fighting underwater, he wanted to grab a zombie in his jaws and flip it back above the weeds. PCat ruled it a Dex vs. Reflex roll, with a low limited damage expression. Toiva made the roll and hurled the zombie, to great effect.

- Piratecat did us a kindness by letting us fight on relatively solid ground, which didn’t count as Difficult Terrain. Yay! (Instead, our mobility was limited by immobilization and slow effects. Booo!) The ground wasn't entirely solid, though – anyone who didn’t move at least a square during their turn had a chance to sink into the swamp. There were holes left in the weed mat where the zombies had emerged, further hindering our movement. Between those factors, the zone of awfulness from the gargoyle’s breath, and the $#@! auras of the zombies, it was a dynamic and hazardous encounter.

- Piratecat also bent the rules a little for Doc Caldwell – an example of giving a frustrated player a bit of a break. After missing with almost every attack he’d made so far, Doc was struck and immobilized by one of the zombies. Even though the Ranger Utility “Yield Ground” is an Immediate Reaction (not an Interrupt), PCat ruled that the Doc could still use the power to Shift, and end up immobilized in his new location.

- Speaking of bad luck: after last game’s amazing “1 in 8000” string of missed attack rolls, I managed a not-quite-as-awful string of missed saving throws, after getting slowed by a zombie’s death blast. I failed 5 saves in a row, one of which was assisted by Toiva’s Divine Mettle (+5). Odds of missing those five saves in a row: about 1 in 120.

- Skills used this game: Athletics, Heal, History, Nature, Perception, Religion, Streetwise

 

[theskyfullofdust]

Question: how does PCat judge the 'do something cool' action. Just as an action, or using up a power too?

Good write-up, as usual. Inspires & motivates me for my upcoming game

 

[Piratecat]

Sagiro, good writeup! I changed "poisonwood zombies" to "poisonweed zombies." I might have written it down wrong when I mentioned it to you. I'll also note that the demon (or devil, whatever that gargoyle thing was) didn't say "that it didn’t want any witnesses to our imminent demises." It said that with what it had planned, it didn't want anyone to know that it existed. Which makes you wonder what it had planned, although that's probably academic at this point. Poor 'lil fella.

I thought it was a fun fight, although frustrating for several players who are tired of wading through immobilizing weeds. The group should have taken slightly more damage from the zombie auras; I goofed two or three times and didn't apply damage from just passing through their auras. As it was, the group ended up bloodied several times but didn't use any healing potions. It turned out to be just about as challenging as I hoped it would be. That'll teach the demon to underestimate the Grey Guard.

I agree with Sagiro's observation that slightly disorganized player tactics made the fight more challenging, but that I planned an encounter setup (with a surrounding ring of zombies) that was largely responsible for this. The foes weren't ideally clustered for area attacks. If I had wanted to make the fight easier, I could have started the zombies farther away from the boat, giving the group effectively an extra round to organize and regroup.

Both Xiras and the paladin Toiva ended up dragging one of the poisonweed zombies underwater to reduce the effect of their auras. We observed that it's really hard to drown in D&D. Toiva is a doppelganger, but she was able to shapeshift into a crocodile because she multiclassed into druid this level. Talk about flexibility! (Mind you, she had to shapeshift out of sight so that the NPC Yiddin didn't see her.) We're playing this as a divine power granted to her from her Goddess, and the word druid will never even get mentioned; before our next game, I'll use email with Toiva's player to handle the roleplaying aspects of this game-mechanical choice.

Other notes: the dead zombie dragon fell onto the church of Demis, goddess of agriculture (and the deity whom Sklar is a corrupted cult of.) Caducity Skirr may not be dead, and may have fled the Guard instead -- Unclear. The Grey Guard's deceased sergeant, Obrin Tenblood, was replaced by the dragonborn sage (and former gladiator) Brogh of the Heavy Hammer, resulting in some internal strife. And the group found two magic items on the zombies: a beer mug that detects the distance to alcohol, and a warforged gizmo (shaped like a clockwork beetle) that can be used to relay messages.

Kodiak played Mara the paladin in my last campaign. I set up the introduction of her new character, a wilden shaman, by having Commander Pikeline warn the PCs that a soldier from the fabled Thirteenth Legion was apparently being assigned to them. The Thirteenth has a reputations as terrifying and cruel badasses, a legion made up entirely of fey who are usually used to pacify insurgent or rebellious countries. No one is sure what to expect when Kodiak brings in her new character next game.

Question: how does PCat judge the 'do something cool' action. Just as an action, or using up a power too?

It's a standard action that does not use up a power. Toiva (shaped like a crocodile) wanted to bite the zombie and fling it back up onto the weeds. DMG p42 to the rescue! I figured the push meant it should do less damage, and I want to encourage this sort of thing, so I made it a limited (instead of normal) damage expression for low damage: 3d6+4 dmg and the zombie was flung back up onto the weeds. In-game, the characters saw the water roil and the zombie fly upwards as if flung by something large. If they're not a little creeped out by Toiva, there's something wrong.

Page 42 of the DMG is probably the most important page in that book. This is where you adjudicate every cool stunt the players want to try. Heck, you could eliminate powers entirely and handle every single attack through what's on this page; most importantly, by using this you help ensure that your players don't feel straitjacketed by only what's on their character sheet.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Other notes: the group found two magic items on the zombies: a beer mug that detects the distance to alcohol, and a warforged gizmo (shaped like a clockwork beetle) that can be used to relay messages.

Hah, I'm just about to hand out that particular mug-o-beer in my own game, this coming Monday!

 

[Rel]

It's a standard action that does not use up a power. Toiva (shaped like a crocodile) wanted to bite the zombie and fling it back up onto the weeds. DMG p42 to the rescue! I figured the push meant it should do less damage, and I want to encourage this sort of thing, so I made it a limited (instead of normal) damage expression for low damage: 3d6+4 dmg and the zombie was flung back up onto the weeds. In-game, the characters saw the water roil and the zombie fly upwards as if flung by something large. If they're not a little creeped out by Toiva, there's something wrong.

Page 42 of the DMG is probably the most important page in that book. This is where you adjudicate every cool stunt the players want to try. Heck, you could eliminate powers entirely and handle every single attack through what's on this page; most importantly, by using this you help ensure that your players don't feel straitjacketed by only what's on their character sheet.

Just to give my take on the "power stunts" used in game, mine require the expenditure of an Action Point (which we represent by these plastic gold coins). So, rather than them have a "do something cool" card, they regard every Actoin Point as a potential power stunt.

My baseline for what these power stunts can do is "something roughly equivalent to an Encounter Power". That's not a hard and fast rule but it gives them a general idea of what is possible without them having to examine page 42 in detail all the time. I try to encourage them to just tell me what they want to do and I will translate it into game rules and, so far, this adjudication has been fairly easy and quick.

 

[Piratecat]

Just to give my take on the "power stunts" used in game, mine require the expenditure of an Action Point (which we represent by these plastic gold coins). So, rather than them have a "do something cool" card, they regard every Actoin Point as a potential power stunt.

Interesting. You dropped your former house rule (daily + action point = super-stunt), right?

I'll consider treating action points as stunt points if I feel stunts are being overused. Until that point -- and they're really underused so far -- I'm happy with them being ad hoc.

On a separate note, anyone interested in a brief discussion about how we adapted racial fluff? Kodiak and I have been working together to figure out how the recently-published wilden race fit into my campaign, and I think the results are sort of interesting. Of course, I also think Gilligan's Island is interesting, so best to ask.

 

[shilsen]

On a separate note, anyone interested in a brief discussion about how we adapted racial fluff? Kodiak and I have been working together to figure out how the recently-published wilden race fit into my campaign, and I think the results are sort of interesting. Of course, I also think Gilligan's Island is interesting, so best to ask.

I'm certainly interested. This thread has been very interesting for me, not just because I might be inspired by (or steal from) it but because I enjoy seeing how you're tweaking things as far as both flavor and mechanics are concerned.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I would also be interested in hearing about your fluff development conversations. If you're concerned that it will not interest some people who read this thread, you could always fork it into a new thread and drop a link. But my guess is that most people would be interested in it.