This Sunday, I had another 3-player session of Keep on the Shadowfell; this campaign began with 5 players, but there have been things interrupting people making it of late. With any luck, in another month we'll be back to 5 or 6 players.
We raced through 6 encounters this session, the most so far for a single session (each has been 3-4 hours, this was about 4 hours). It was fairly roleplaying light, and we didn't spend much time in town.
I've been using the supplemental encounters from Dungeon magazine, but I omitted the one that could have taken place today - it would have slaughtered the group. The three PCs for this session were a Dwarf Fighter, a Eladrin Wizard, and an Elf Warlock. They were aided by a minor NPC (really counting as half a character, although he was key in seeing the Fighter survive the final combat).
Let me just say this: A lone melee guy with no healer is in for a world of hurt. The key measure of how long a group can keep going is now measured by Healing Surges, and for many of the combats (which I scaled down to the party size), the fighter was unconscious at at least one point. He managed to get one natural 20 to recover once, and also had a healing potion thrust down his throat! Daily powers? They don't signify - it's all about the surges!
I expect this group will take about two more sessions to complete the adventure; possibly three. At 7 or 8 sessions of play from the adventure, I think it's been very good value indeed.
For those interested in how many encounters we've had in each session, here's a brief list:
Session 1: 2 (5 PCs, also character generation and a lot of role-playing in town)
Session 2: 3 (5 PCs, plus role-playing in town)
Session 3: 4 (4 PCs)
Session 4: 3 (3 PCs, a 3-hour session)
Session 5: 6 (3 PCs, a 4-hour session)
I received H2 this week, and the paper is definitely better quality than H1. (The ink on the cover remains a problem, IMO).
My impressions of both H1 and H2 is that they don't include a lot of scripted role-playing, but they both have a great deal of role-playing potential: if your DM and players want to interact with NPCs, you can really go with it and have a great time.
Needless to say, both include a lot of combat. Some of the floorplans don't work so well - when you've got a lot of zombies coming for you in melee, you don't really need to manuever; let the defenders stay out in front and ping them from behind, and it's not like the zombies have any option. I've found the most entertaining combats have been when you have monsters with ranged attacks or hit and run tactics, and thus there's a lot of moving around the map. In the aforementioned zombie battle, I spent a lot of time drawing the corridors on the map, and they weren't used.
Still, we're enjoying H1, and I dare say we'll enjoy H2.
Cheers!
We raced through 6 encounters this session, the most so far for a single session (each has been 3-4 hours, this was about 4 hours). It was fairly roleplaying light, and we didn't spend much time in town.
I've been using the supplemental encounters from Dungeon magazine, but I omitted the one that could have taken place today - it would have slaughtered the group. The three PCs for this session were a Dwarf Fighter, a Eladrin Wizard, and an Elf Warlock. They were aided by a minor NPC (really counting as half a character, although he was key in seeing the Fighter survive the final combat).
Let me just say this: A lone melee guy with no healer is in for a world of hurt. The key measure of how long a group can keep going is now measured by Healing Surges, and for many of the combats (which I scaled down to the party size), the fighter was unconscious at at least one point. He managed to get one natural 20 to recover once, and also had a healing potion thrust down his throat! Daily powers? They don't signify - it's all about the surges!
I expect this group will take about two more sessions to complete the adventure; possibly three. At 7 or 8 sessions of play from the adventure, I think it's been very good value indeed.
For those interested in how many encounters we've had in each session, here's a brief list:
Session 1: 2 (5 PCs, also character generation and a lot of role-playing in town)
Session 2: 3 (5 PCs, plus role-playing in town)
Session 3: 4 (4 PCs)
Session 4: 3 (3 PCs, a 3-hour session)
Session 5: 6 (3 PCs, a 4-hour session)
I received H2 this week, and the paper is definitely better quality than H1. (The ink on the cover remains a problem, IMO).
My impressions of both H1 and H2 is that they don't include a lot of scripted role-playing, but they both have a great deal of role-playing potential: if your DM and players want to interact with NPCs, you can really go with it and have a great time.
Needless to say, both include a lot of combat. Some of the floorplans don't work so well - when you've got a lot of zombies coming for you in melee, you don't really need to manuever; let the defenders stay out in front and ping them from behind, and it's not like the zombies have any option. I've found the most entertaining combats have been when you have monsters with ranged attacks or hit and run tactics, and thus there's a lot of moving around the map. In the aforementioned zombie battle, I spent a lot of time drawing the corridors on the map, and they weren't used.
Still, we're enjoying H1, and I dare say we'll enjoy H2.
Cheers!
