So gameday how did it go??

[GMforPowergamers]

We got our buttss handed to us, but we won in the end.

the first encounter was a cake walk.
the second encounter our paladen didn't know hw bad 4e rust monsters were. He was soo pissed when he lost his armor.
the skill challenge we sailed through (pun)
then came the real fight. with the paladen having an AC of (Yes you hit me) this fight went bad. I tried to argue for an enchant item rit or something, but no dice.

Our DM also ruled (i dont have mm2 yet so please tell me if he was a jerk) that tthe rust of the rust monster was magic and effected all weapons and armor metal or not...

 

[Festivus]

Our DM also ruled (i dont have mm2 yet so please tell me if he was a jerk) that tthe rust of the rust monster was magic and effected all weapons and armor metal or not...

4E doesn't differentiate what a weapon is made of, so even a wooden sword would rust. Or get this... even a bow...

The keyword is "weapon", not "melee weapon". Of course, some DMs would interpret this as meaning only metallic weapons, but RAW it's all weapons.

My rust monsters ate a total of one heavy armor, and one greatsword (two different games), and both groups got the items back in the skill challenge.

The final fight was the close one, in both games. The first game was more experienced players, they handled things much easier than the other game where I had a number of new players.

I LOVE the map. I like the minis. I like that Wizards does these sorts of events, I probably got 5 people who had never played 4E before to go to the Wizards site, download the free adventure and give it a try... plus a few more to come to Delve night.

 

[Glyfair]

I decided I had to make it this game day and play, since I have DMed for quite a while with no chance to play (I can't do weekends, and I have been unable to get player to DM a weekday game).

There were 4 games going on in the 3pm sessions at my game store (I wasn't there for the 10 am and was leaving at the beginning of the 8 pm sessions). There were 2 tables running the official adventure, on table running a 3.5/Pathfinder adventure (he's a friend, but I didn't get a chance to discuss with the DM since he was deep in design work). Also, his father, was running what we call an "A D & Lee adventure" which is his own style of AD&D adventures. Most of the veteran players were in the Lee's game.

I had a lot of fun with players I hadn't met. No player was excessively annoying. The DM of the morning session and one or two of his players were playing in the session. It didn't noticeably affect the adventure, but we might have missed some of the things as they were avoiding OOC knowledge.

We never saw the skill challenge, and had lost at least one weapon to the rust monster (indeed, the DM of the morning session - thus one thing we might have missed). We did drop in a TPK, with my wizard being the last to fall. I might have even managed to survive, but the dragon was hovering over my wizard, guaranteeing two attacks to my one at the end from his AOO and my lack of anything but at wills.

I did use stinking cloud to great effect during the first encounter. I also felt the DM did use a bit of a cheat by having the kobold stay behind the wall and was able to stick his head out and attack with ranged attacks without exposing himself to my attack (until I finally had a chance to send the cloud back to that area).

The final encounter was my shining moment. The goliath ran in and charged the Eye after using an action point. I followed with an Acid Arrow hitting both the Eye and his bodyguard with near max damage. Unfortunately, I also crit the barbarian. I then used an action point to magic missile the Eye (again, near max damage) and then got an extra magic missile from the Warlords ability and also hit near max damage.

We had the Eye bloodied after 2 of us had gone! Unfortunately, the tight entrance caused us major issues, and we ended up not dropping him until much later. Also, we had 6 players, so there was another orc, and their huge damage against bloodied characters would pretty much cause the loss of our party.

 

[NoFurry]

I had a blast playing this mod. I created a level 5 Goliath Warden the night before. My buddy brought his Dragonborn wizard from our weekly game. The rest of the party was filled out by pregens, a second wizard, the warlord and the barbarian.

We lost a couple items to the rust monster, but ended up getting through the encounter without too much damage. Then, we aced the skill challenge and got the items back. The skill challenge was defiinetly one of the best I have played.

The final encounter went pretty well. Almost everyone had their daily powers. There were stinking clouds and flaming spheres whizzing all over the battle field. I had a blast with my warden. I took panther form (and swapped my mini for a Guenhyvar mini I have), charged off the cliff and marked all of the orc terrorblades, then burned an action point to Thunderstep over to the Eye. Since all the terrorblades were marked they ended up chasing me down the cliff to were the Eye was. I took a bit of a beating but was doing well. The super kobold wyrmpriest came flying into the room floating 20 feet above the ground and breathing fire down on everyone on the lowest level of the cavern. Thanks to the warlord, I shifted out of the way of our dragonborn wizard's incoming fireball.

On my turn, I took opportunity attacks to climb back up the cliff and the DM let me do an athletics check to launch myself at the flying kobold and unleash Earthgrasp Strike, which if it hits causes the target to be knocked prone until the end of my next turn. I critted and slammed that bastard to the ground. I think the DM was pissed at that point. He made me do an acrobatics check against falling damage. My acroboatics was only +2, but I rolled another natural 20. The DM still made me take 9 points of damage, but I got a standing ovation from the table. The wyrm priest was bloodied and started hitting everyone with a cold-based area attack. On the priest's turn, he ended up critting me and the warden went down. The warden ended up as the only casualty in the last round of the encounter. This was by far the most fun RPGA game I have played.

 

[Wrathamon]

How are people losing more than two items during the rust monster encounter?

they can only do the eat once per encounter and there are only two rust monsters and the attack is really low on it.

My rust monsters both missed on that attack.

I had six players with two thunder twin dwarves... basically an extra paladin.

The first encounter was very easy, only the rogue got in trouble when she jumped the cliff to get in behind and got mauled by some terror blades.

the 2nd encounter was tough but they grinded it out. I think it was tough because they werent focusing attacks and were each fighting seperate monsters.

they passed the skill challenge with 2 fails... its a cool skill challenge but once again either i dont know how to run these very well or player's just dont get it. I tend to have to lead them and give them super obvious hints or just flat out tell them make a perception check.

the last encounter was brutal (partially my fault) I added the Harpy... I then actually had to tone it down more than the mod said if they passed the skill challenge. The harpy really didnt do any damage and it went down fast, but it allowed the terror blades to go to town. I also kept criting the warlord and the barbarian with the big breath weapon. All the characters went down at least once (cept the rogue) and the rest went down several times, with the warlord and one of the paladins dying. The encounter ended with the barbarian criting the wyrmpriest and then following up another crit so it was pretty fantastic with the table yelling and even the dead guys highfiving.

I had a group of three experienced players, two novice and one newbie.

 

[Glyfair]

I should mention the giveaways:

We were all given the PC miniature for our character, the DM got to keep the monsters.

There was a trivia sheet. Those of us who got 16 of 18 right (the best score), were given a prize. Mine was the PHB II WWDDGD module. There were also some of the older Dungeon Delves and last years Free RPG Day adventure.

I would have probably hads 100%, but I missed two FR questions (I'm not a big FR fan). If I had known details of the adventure and the current year, I would have had 100%. Also, I guessed on most of the 4E module questions, or used logic. Turns out I hit 100% on the non-FR ones.

Finally, they dumped the contents of one package of monsters on the table, with other monsters, and we got to pick from them. I got a rust monster, that I had been looking for. Later I bought a Dangerous Delves pack and got another rust monster. Two is the perfect number!

 

[Treebore]

Well the GM apparently missed the limitation of one item per day. I am pretty sure he missed it too, since he agreed it seemed to be more of a "fun killer" rather than "challenge creator" type of monster.

How did they hit? I know he rolled an 18 on one of the attacks, which hit the other Paladin, so they apparently have at least a +5 to hit.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

To this point, I've been a 3.5/Pathfinder guy; this was my first experience actually playing 4E.

And I thought it went amazingly well, overall; the group I lucked into gaming with was quite fun; we really FELT like an established party of adventurers, and I'd love to hook up for some more one-off games with them. (FWIW, even minus the wizard [we only had 4 playes] we crushed the adventure! I played the Dwarf Paladin, and it seemed like a pretty solid build, too; I only got bloodied once, in the final encouter.)

That said, while I would certainly play 4E again, it won't replace 3.5 in my heart. The adventure was reasonable, our DM was stellar, and the rules were relatively simple to absorb, the power cards certainly helped, but somehow there just wasn't a "spark" for me with the system. I can't quite finger what the disconnect for me was, but it was in the back of mind the whole time.

 

[thalmin]

How are people losing more than two items during the rust monster encounter?

they can only do the eat once per encounter and there are only two rust monsters and the attack is really low on it.

My rust monsters both missed on that attack.

While no one should lose more than 2 items, the encounter power is Reliable, so the RM can try again if it misses.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

While no one should lose more than 2 items, the encounter power is Reliable, so the RM can try again if it misses.

to be fair it was three tries to destroy the palidens armor in our game...


and we all thought reliable monster attacks were cheese, then the DM asked if we would perfer recharge...we decided reliable was fine after that horror thought...