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D&D 4E Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
- Thread starter Sagiro
- Start date
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Played again last night – run #18, I think. We're all 4th level. I'll leave the plot stuff to Piratecat and make some brief comments on the tactical stuff:
The game's action consisted of a large skill challenge, followed by a small one, followed by a combat vs. the Big Boss of the current plot arc.
The first Skill Challenge was a dash through the city streets, since we had discovered that our Arch Enemy was headed for our HQ, disguised as one of us. It was of middling difficulty – 10 successes before 3 failures, and checks that weren't that difficult with others aiding. I thought it was Piratecat's best yet in terms of its mechanics, particularly in that the DC went up as we used specific skills more than once, and that there were certain skills that could only be used once as a group. Also, PC's had two options for aiding – a generic DC 12 check, but using the same skill as the primary PC, or a DC 17 Perception check, no matter what skill the primary PC was using. The catch? A failed aid roll for the DC 12 version resulted in a -2 penalty to the check, while failing the DC 17 roll had no negative consequences besides the wasted action.
The chase was also fantastic from a cinematics point of view!
We won the challenge, getting 10 successes with only 1 failure. That got us to the tower, where we guessed (correctly) that our enemy, Aline, had gone to the basement to free her consort from the cells. She had barred the door into the cell area, so that was our second skill challenge – to bust the door down. It was a barred door – DC 20, and 2 PC's could assist the primary. Our Goliath Barbarian (guest player) had a 20 STR, so he was primary. The two 16 STR brawny rogues assisted, as we all slammed ourselves repeatedly into the door. It was 4 successes before 3 failures.
Some quick-and-dirty math: A PC with 16 STR can hit the DC 10 assist mark 70% of the time. So, the primary PC is getting a +2.8 bonus to each roll. Call it +3. A 20 STR PC will hit DC 20, with a +3 on his roll, 45% of the time.
In other words, we needed more successes than failures, on a roll we rated to make less than half the time. So the odds were against us, but it wasn't absurdly difficult.
We failed. What was galling was that we succeeded in our first three rolls, and then failed the next four! That had particularly dire consequences, as our delay gave Aline time to finish killing all of her hostages in some horrid necromantic ritual. The dead included not only our Commander Pikeline, but our kindly halfling cook and two of her kids! We were, as you can imagine, incensed!
So, the fight:
- Aline was a MM1 Rakshasa, scaled down to an appropriate level, made into a Solo, and with some tweaked abilities.
- Said abilities included powers that blinded, powers that dazed, powers that pushed – and all of these seemed to come with large damage rolls. Worst of all was the power that caused hits done by the party to instead target and damage other party members. Ouch!
- Piratecat borrowed a technique I had used recently in my 3.5 game, giving his solo villain multiple turns per round. Basically she got two initiative cards. That (rat) bastard!
- Our rolling was utterly, utterly atrocious in this fight. Strontium's was especially bad – she may have hit with 2 of her attack rolls (which included bursts, so we're talking lots of rolls) for the entirety of the combat. Also, as a group, we rolled 20 to hit AC (we needed a 21) at least a half-dozen times. Argh!
- Another strike against us: this was our second big fight of the day, and we had used up almost all of our dailies in the first fight. Argh!
- Aline was tough, but made the tactical blunder of forcing Toiva into a small dead-end feature of the tactical space. That meant she was essentially pinned between Logan (rogue) and Toiva (paladin) for much of the fight. Toiva had effectively goaded her into it by drawing the Big Magic Sword that we had recently acquired, and which she considered rightfully hers.
- Bramble (shaman) provided essential healing, and at least two of us benefited from the augmented Second Winds from being near her Spirit Companion.
- Of the six* of us, everyone but Strontium was bloodied at some point, and both the rogues were down to single digits at various points. By the end of the fight, both rogues were out of Surges for the day.
- The guest PC (played by Alomir's son) was a Goliath Barbarian with some funky weapon/feat combo that had him doing 6d6 damage on a couple of his powers. (Piratecat, can you elaborate?) We were in awe, and he ended up doing about 100 points of damage to Aline by himself over the course of the combat.
- We may have had to whittle a single enemy down from 200+ hit points, but it didn't feel grind-y at all. Rather, despite the fact that no one even went unconscious in the fight, it felt like we were on the verge of massive defeat until nearly the very end. She was one tough adversary -- one who, I'm happy to say, ended her day with a crushed windpipe and severed head.
Between the skill challenges and the boss fight, this was the most exciting and emotional run of the game so far.
* Doc Caldwell's player couldn't make the game. Piratecat cleverly removed him from the action during the first skill challenge.
The game's action consisted of a large skill challenge, followed by a small one, followed by a combat vs. the Big Boss of the current plot arc.
The first Skill Challenge was a dash through the city streets, since we had discovered that our Arch Enemy was headed for our HQ, disguised as one of us. It was of middling difficulty – 10 successes before 3 failures, and checks that weren't that difficult with others aiding. I thought it was Piratecat's best yet in terms of its mechanics, particularly in that the DC went up as we used specific skills more than once, and that there were certain skills that could only be used once as a group. Also, PC's had two options for aiding – a generic DC 12 check, but using the same skill as the primary PC, or a DC 17 Perception check, no matter what skill the primary PC was using. The catch? A failed aid roll for the DC 12 version resulted in a -2 penalty to the check, while failing the DC 17 roll had no negative consequences besides the wasted action.
The chase was also fantastic from a cinematics point of view!
We won the challenge, getting 10 successes with only 1 failure. That got us to the tower, where we guessed (correctly) that our enemy, Aline, had gone to the basement to free her consort from the cells. She had barred the door into the cell area, so that was our second skill challenge – to bust the door down. It was a barred door – DC 20, and 2 PC's could assist the primary. Our Goliath Barbarian (guest player) had a 20 STR, so he was primary. The two 16 STR brawny rogues assisted, as we all slammed ourselves repeatedly into the door. It was 4 successes before 3 failures.
Some quick-and-dirty math: A PC with 16 STR can hit the DC 10 assist mark 70% of the time. So, the primary PC is getting a +2.8 bonus to each roll. Call it +3. A 20 STR PC will hit DC 20, with a +3 on his roll, 45% of the time.
In other words, we needed more successes than failures, on a roll we rated to make less than half the time. So the odds were against us, but it wasn't absurdly difficult.
We failed. What was galling was that we succeeded in our first three rolls, and then failed the next four! That had particularly dire consequences, as our delay gave Aline time to finish killing all of her hostages in some horrid necromantic ritual. The dead included not only our Commander Pikeline, but our kindly halfling cook and two of her kids! We were, as you can imagine, incensed!
So, the fight:
- Aline was a MM1 Rakshasa, scaled down to an appropriate level, made into a Solo, and with some tweaked abilities.
- Said abilities included powers that blinded, powers that dazed, powers that pushed – and all of these seemed to come with large damage rolls. Worst of all was the power that caused hits done by the party to instead target and damage other party members. Ouch!
- Piratecat borrowed a technique I had used recently in my 3.5 game, giving his solo villain multiple turns per round. Basically she got two initiative cards. That (rat) bastard!
- Our rolling was utterly, utterly atrocious in this fight. Strontium's was especially bad – she may have hit with 2 of her attack rolls (which included bursts, so we're talking lots of rolls) for the entirety of the combat. Also, as a group, we rolled 20 to hit AC (we needed a 21) at least a half-dozen times. Argh!
- Another strike against us: this was our second big fight of the day, and we had used up almost all of our dailies in the first fight. Argh!
- Aline was tough, but made the tactical blunder of forcing Toiva into a small dead-end feature of the tactical space. That meant she was essentially pinned between Logan (rogue) and Toiva (paladin) for much of the fight. Toiva had effectively goaded her into it by drawing the Big Magic Sword that we had recently acquired, and which she considered rightfully hers.
- Bramble (shaman) provided essential healing, and at least two of us benefited from the augmented Second Winds from being near her Spirit Companion.
- Of the six* of us, everyone but Strontium was bloodied at some point, and both the rogues were down to single digits at various points. By the end of the fight, both rogues were out of Surges for the day.
- The guest PC (played by Alomir's son) was a Goliath Barbarian with some funky weapon/feat combo that had him doing 6d6 damage on a couple of his powers. (Piratecat, can you elaborate?) We were in awe, and he ended up doing about 100 points of damage to Aline by himself over the course of the combat.
- We may have had to whittle a single enemy down from 200+ hit points, but it didn't feel grind-y at all. Rather, despite the fact that no one even went unconscious in the fight, it felt like we were on the verge of massive defeat until nearly the very end. She was one tough adversary -- one who, I'm happy to say, ended her day with a crushed windpipe and severed head.
Between the skill challenges and the boss fight, this was the most exciting and emotional run of the game so far.
* Doc Caldwell's player couldn't make the game. Piratecat cleverly removed him from the action during the first skill challenge.
Just a short note to say I love reading about this game because of the detailed plot, the way the mechanics is handled, and the insight into some of the more complex areas of the game.
Does anyone else feel the frustration with skill checks when the assist roll(s) is/are a natural 19 and the primary rolls a natural 3 (or substitute some other miserably low number than guarantees a failure).
Does anyone else feel the frustration with skill checks when the assist roll(s) is/are a natural 19 and the primary rolls a natural 3 (or substitute some other miserably low number than guarantees a failure).
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Heh. I think almost everybody feels that frustration. I can say for sure that my players do.
The Ranger in our group went so far as to pick up the Crucial Advice power that allows another PC to reroll a check on a skill the Ranger is trained at.
Shouldn't ability chekcs include the half-level bonus (+2 in your case) as well? In that case, the aiding Rogues would succeed on Aid 80% of the time each, and the Barb's base check would be +7. This would have increased your chance of succeeding on the skill challenge from about 25% to about 45%.
Sagiro
Rodent of Uncertain Parentage
Huh. Yeah, looks like you're right. Though since Piratecat also was making the wrong assumption, he probably would have bumped the DC's up by 2 had we been using the rules as written.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Well, crap. That would have changed things a bit. That being said, the special nature of the Grey Guard tower is such that I feel no guilt assigning the internal doors +2 on their break DC.
I have some interesting observations on this game, and I'll post the skill challenge, but a bit later.
I have some interesting observations on this game, and I'll post the skill challenge, but a bit later.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Okay, a little musing.
A couple of folks at GenCon swung by the ENnies booth while I was there, and I got in some interesting conversations about what people liked and didn't like about 4e. The biggest complaint I heard was that all of your "cool stuff" was dictated for you. It won't come as any surprise to someone reading this thread, but I'd definitely recommend reading page 54-55 of the PH (under "Flavor Text") and page 42 of the DMG (the stunt system, under "actions the rules don't cover.") Along with making it explicit that powers are effects-based and can have any description the player wants at the time, for me these opened up the game greatly.
Skill challenges are the same way. This last game had the skill challenge "get from the smokehouse back to the guard tower as fast as possible." That could have been absurdly boring: either just narrate it with no rolls, which removes control and most drama from the players, or do a skill challenge that was a series of flavorless checks. Instead I tried another explicit (printed out) skill challenge, and I really liked how it worked.
[sblock=Skill challenge: wolf in the fold]
Skill Challenge: Wolf in the Fold – 10 successes before 3 failures
Runcible mentioned that he had seen Caldwell entering the Grey Guard tower a ten minute walk away. Is it Alene? Race across Floodford to try and arrive before something truly awful occurs.
If you win the skill challenge, you arrive quickly enough that you can affect what’s happening.
If you fail the skill challenge, bad things happen.
Your ratio of failures to successes affects how quickly you arrive.
All skill checks are standard actions.
• Every time you use the same skill more than once, the DC rises by 1.
• For every round you choose to make no skill checks (either primary or secondary), you fall behind and arrive at the tower one round after the main group.
• After the first round, anyone not on a mount or vehicle must make a mandatory Endurance check at DC (10 + # of rounds); failing this check doesn’t give you a Failure, but does penalize your rolls for the round by -2.
Primary skills:
Acrobatics (maneuver through crowd) – DC 17
Athletics (run) – DC 17
Endurance (keep running) – DC 12
History (remember the wider, most direct bridges and streets, usable once) – DC 15
Intimidate (get the crowd out of the way) – DC 17
Streetwise (know the shortest routes, usable once) – DC 15
Thievery (steal transportation, usable once) – DC 21
Acrobatics (steer cart or carriage, requires vehicle) – DC 15
Athletics (ride or spur on horses, requires mount) – DC 15
Secondary skills:
Perception – DC 17 (give an ally +2 on any Primary skill check. Max of two people can aid an ally on any one check.)
Aid another – DC 12 (give an ally +2 on the same skill’s check; failure gives a -2 penalty)
[/sblock]
A few things about this mechanically. I don't require that the group move on foot, but I give a bonus for stealing horses or a cart, along with requiring an endurance check if you don't -- and I allow a skill check specifically to do so. This helps ensure that we can have a race through Floodford at high speed while I throw obstacles in the way, but allows hearty characters to avoid it and still reach the tower in time if they prefer.
In fact, the group stole (and destroyed) a noble's carriage, and "borrowed" a horse. I got to describe the successes and failures as they moved through town, trying to get through the crowded market place and trying to cross bridges that were too narrow for the carriage. It ended up feeling like a good chase scene should.
The fight against Alene, on the other hand, should have been a lot more deadly than it was. She made a bad tactical move when infuriated and didn't flee quickly enough. As an 8th lvl solo controller, I thought she would be able to kill a chunk of the group, but I haven't started compensating for the new shaman as leader; healing kept everyone on their feet, and her major damage spell was an encounter instead of a recharge. She was animating undead, but I gave them a 5-round time to come to unlife, and they slew her right at the limit.
So now my long-term villain has been smote nearly before she became a medium-length villain! That's excellent. Good for the party; they've done something impressive, and if Stron lives through his current visit to the sage, I'll probably level them next game.
A couple of folks at GenCon swung by the ENnies booth while I was there, and I got in some interesting conversations about what people liked and didn't like about 4e. The biggest complaint I heard was that all of your "cool stuff" was dictated for you. It won't come as any surprise to someone reading this thread, but I'd definitely recommend reading page 54-55 of the PH (under "Flavor Text") and page 42 of the DMG (the stunt system, under "actions the rules don't cover.") Along with making it explicit that powers are effects-based and can have any description the player wants at the time, for me these opened up the game greatly.
Skill challenges are the same way. This last game had the skill challenge "get from the smokehouse back to the guard tower as fast as possible." That could have been absurdly boring: either just narrate it with no rolls, which removes control and most drama from the players, or do a skill challenge that was a series of flavorless checks. Instead I tried another explicit (printed out) skill challenge, and I really liked how it worked.
[sblock=Skill challenge: wolf in the fold]
Skill Challenge: Wolf in the Fold – 10 successes before 3 failures
Runcible mentioned that he had seen Caldwell entering the Grey Guard tower a ten minute walk away. Is it Alene? Race across Floodford to try and arrive before something truly awful occurs.
If you win the skill challenge, you arrive quickly enough that you can affect what’s happening.
If you fail the skill challenge, bad things happen.
Your ratio of failures to successes affects how quickly you arrive.
All skill checks are standard actions.
• Every time you use the same skill more than once, the DC rises by 1.
• For every round you choose to make no skill checks (either primary or secondary), you fall behind and arrive at the tower one round after the main group.
• After the first round, anyone not on a mount or vehicle must make a mandatory Endurance check at DC (10 + # of rounds); failing this check doesn’t give you a Failure, but does penalize your rolls for the round by -2.
Primary skills:
Acrobatics (maneuver through crowd) – DC 17
Athletics (run) – DC 17
Endurance (keep running) – DC 12
History (remember the wider, most direct bridges and streets, usable once) – DC 15
Intimidate (get the crowd out of the way) – DC 17
Streetwise (know the shortest routes, usable once) – DC 15
Thievery (steal transportation, usable once) – DC 21
Acrobatics (steer cart or carriage, requires vehicle) – DC 15
Athletics (ride or spur on horses, requires mount) – DC 15
Secondary skills:
Perception – DC 17 (give an ally +2 on any Primary skill check. Max of two people can aid an ally on any one check.)
Aid another – DC 12 (give an ally +2 on the same skill’s check; failure gives a -2 penalty)
[/sblock]
A few things about this mechanically. I don't require that the group move on foot, but I give a bonus for stealing horses or a cart, along with requiring an endurance check if you don't -- and I allow a skill check specifically to do so. This helps ensure that we can have a race through Floodford at high speed while I throw obstacles in the way, but allows hearty characters to avoid it and still reach the tower in time if they prefer.
In fact, the group stole (and destroyed) a noble's carriage, and "borrowed" a horse. I got to describe the successes and failures as they moved through town, trying to get through the crowded market place and trying to cross bridges that were too narrow for the carriage. It ended up feeling like a good chase scene should.
The fight against Alene, on the other hand, should have been a lot more deadly than it was. She made a bad tactical move when infuriated and didn't flee quickly enough. As an 8th lvl solo controller, I thought she would be able to kill a chunk of the group, but I haven't started compensating for the new shaman as leader; healing kept everyone on their feet, and her major damage spell was an encounter instead of a recharge. She was animating undead, but I gave them a 5-round time to come to unlife, and they slew her right at the limit.
So now my long-term villain has been smote nearly before she became a medium-length villain! That's excellent. Good for the party; they've done something impressive, and if Stron lives through his current visit to the sage, I'll probably level them next game.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
One other note about campaign design and plot arcs. If you think about a 30-lvl campaign consisting of six 5-level plot arcs, this one is nearing its end. Not the way I had expected, of course. We've seen the following adventures so far:
Various sub-plots circulate around this as well:
And a few themes:
You'll see what I'm doing: stacking up plot hooks that the players can follow or ignore, then fleshing out the ones that appeal to them.
- Rescuing a baby from the dog-gobblers, sealing them back up in their unnatural lair
- Finding and defending a flooded tower of weapons from a lizardman army
- Revealing the mayor's assistant to be a lizardman spy
- Trying (and failing) to stop those weapons from falling back into the lizardmen's hands
- Reaching the Bubbling Fens, a profane place in the swamps sacred to evil swamp god Sklar
- Clearing out the hut and extradimensional sanctum of an evil spirit named Alene (and in doing so, thwarting the lizardman attack on Floodford)
- Returning an insane dragonborn named Xiras to Floodford
- Learning that Alene was trying to find the secret sanctum of a historically angelic protector of Floodford named Aleph
- Finding the undiscovered second lair of that sanctum, a place holy to the nature Goddess Demis.
- Fighting Alene herself, after she invaded their tower and killed people close to them
- Realizing that Alene the rakshasha was the deva Aleph, who has apparently fallen from grace.
- Finding and defending a flooded tower of weapons from a lizardman army
- Revealing the mayor's assistant to be a lizardman spy
- Trying (and failing) to stop those weapons from falling back into the lizardmen's hands
- Reaching the Bubbling Fens, a profane place in the swamps sacred to evil swamp god Sklar
- Clearing out the hut and extradimensional sanctum of an evil spirit named Alene (and in doing so, thwarting the lizardman attack on Floodford)
- Returning an insane dragonborn named Xiras to Floodford
- Learning that Alene was trying to find the secret sanctum of a historically angelic protector of Floodford named Aleph
- Finding the undiscovered second lair of that sanctum, a place holy to the nature Goddess Demis.
- Fighting Alene herself, after she invaded their tower and killed people close to them
- Realizing that Alene the rakshasha was the deva Aleph, who has apparently fallen from grace.
Various sub-plots circulate around this as well:
- The country of Iskaine may have seceded from the Caprian empire. This would probably be a Bad Thing (tm). Certainly the Emperor's Peace seems to have failed.
- A continued rivalry with Runcible Parsons and the now-deceased Caducity Skirr. Is Caducity a deserter from the Grey Guard or really dead?
- Someone ordered all those lizardman weapons from a weaponsmith in Iskaine.. someone working for Alene. Someone rich.
- Dr. Caldwell is under some suspicion that he cheerfully brushes aside.
- Cobalt doesn't actually believe that he killed Sir Anders Riverlimb, half-elven diplomat from Croghan, in a barfight. He certainly doesn't remember it. This annoys him.
- Strontium the warforged is old, and has a history he no longer remembers.
- Toiva the paladin has been told that a wave of change is approaching, and it is up to her whether to embrace and guide it or be swept away under its power.
- There is something odd about the Grey Guard's witchwater towers. Why is no one allowed to take a mirror inside of them? Is it a symbolic restriction, as they have been told?
- A continued rivalry with Runcible Parsons and the now-deceased Caducity Skirr. Is Caducity a deserter from the Grey Guard or really dead?
- Someone ordered all those lizardman weapons from a weaponsmith in Iskaine.. someone working for Alene. Someone rich.
- Dr. Caldwell is under some suspicion that he cheerfully brushes aside.
- Cobalt doesn't actually believe that he killed Sir Anders Riverlimb, half-elven diplomat from Croghan, in a barfight. He certainly doesn't remember it. This annoys him.
- Strontium the warforged is old, and has a history he no longer remembers.
- Toiva the paladin has been told that a wave of change is approaching, and it is up to her whether to embrace and guide it or be swept away under its power.
- There is something odd about the Grey Guard's witchwater towers. Why is no one allowed to take a mirror inside of them? Is it a symbolic restriction, as they have been told?
And a few themes:
- People die. People you care about. It's the cost of protecting those who can't defend themselves.
- Some really nasty people have entered the guard. It's the nature of the beast. Likewise, good people can fall -- and even evil people have the possibility of redemption. People, monsters and Gods are often complex.
- There are political struggles going on with Capria, Iskaine, and the neighboring countries of Skadderlin and Croghan that the PCs don't really understand.
- Some really nasty people have entered the guard. It's the nature of the beast. Likewise, good people can fall -- and even evil people have the possibility of redemption. People, monsters and Gods are often complex.
- There are political struggles going on with Capria, Iskaine, and the neighboring countries of Skadderlin and Croghan that the PCs don't really understand.
You'll see what I'm doing: stacking up plot hooks that the players can follow or ignore, then fleshing out the ones that appeal to them.
WizarDru
Adventurer
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