leifthelucky
First Post
I ran a playtest with the pregens last night with my group, using Chris Field's version of Return of the Burning Plague. We had four players, who chose the fighter, the cleric, the warlock, and the wizard - so all the 'roles' were covered.
The group battled thru the kobold encounters while they learned how to use their powers and take advantage of the changes to movement rules. In the narrow confines of the mine, the fighter's ability to shut down shifting was very powerful - she hit often enough and hard enough to make shifting or moving by her a bad risk for anyone but another heavily armoured, high hp warrior. Since you get one opportunity attack per opponent, she effectively locked down a 3x3 cube on the battlemat (sure, kobolds can shift twice to mob people (one move, one minor) but you'll lose every other minion doing this and risk respectable damage on a skirmisher). She didn't even have to fight that well (much of her rolling was subpar) as her presence locked down movement and forced opponents to stop and fight her. As other people reported, the -2 to hit for marked opponents was not a deterrent to attacking more vulnerable allies, but it did provide them with an effective bonus to AC which often saved them until they could move away, safe from being followed because of the fighter.
The warlock and the wizard played cautiously, and the cleric preferred his ranged attack, so the fighter was often the only PC in melee. This works, even in a hallway only one square wide, because (as I understand it), allies between you and the target do not provide cover. This allows PCs to be strung out in a line and (in this case) all attack every round. Some of you may not like this, but it prevents players in the back rows from getting bored, and thus meets the 4E=fun theme. But when shooting at distant targets, screened by allies, enemies, and a rock, you have a total of -2, since allies don't count and cover doesn't stack. Not sure about this, might increase it by, say, 1 pt per additional source since an arrow slit I think provides -5.
The saving throw mechanic is simple and quick; the players quickly realized that the cleric could grant a save to an ailing comrade before his turn came up, meaning the lucky sod might escape the effect altogether (since he normally activates, takes the effect, and then saves at the end of the round). I have no problem with this, it adds strategy and value to the cleric. It did mean that most status effects were very short term, but since there are a lot flying around, that's a good thing.
Despite the kobold encounters slowly ramping up, and taking many rounds to finish, the group didn't have too much trouble with them. They quickly got used to burning encounter abilities and action points, and everyone hoarded their daily powers. The skeleton encounter (two L3 soldiers and a L5 artillery) was not as bad as you might think from the level difference, but then they were outnumbered and started in a pit. Plus, in the second round the cleric critted them with his turn undead for huge damage (vulnerable radiant), pushed them back, and immobilized them for a round. He was quite happy. But about the push: all in the same direction (my inclination) or individually, wherever he wanted them to go? Full five squares, if possible, or up to 5 (his choice? - not my interpretation). Would the push stop at the wall of the pit (as an impelling force would), or would they climb out to continue cowering away to 5 squares of distance?
Anyway, they arrived at the final room, or the boss fight, with the hobgoblins. The group stopped at the end of the tunnel, as they always do (old 3E habit), despite never even attempting stealth (so the hobgoblins around the corner had gathered and were waiting for them). The mage then used mage hand to drop rocks in the pool (hoping to provoke anything within) at the same time as he used ghost sound to 'walk' an armoured 'person' around the pool to the far side (he could maintain both as minors by sacrificing his move). I thought this was a clever use of cantrips (he would also throw light cantrips ahead when the fight carried into new, dark rooms, to illuminate artillery critters). And before anyone jumps on the 'gamist' terminology, we never once said artillery in the game session, I'm just finding it very useful as a descriptive term for this report and I would assume, for adventure design. One of players mentioned 'minions' a couple of times, but that was both my fault for accidentally mentioning the term first, and a more natural term anyway. I would say would only take a small effort to keep this kind of jargon out of the game session.
Back to the ghost sound: I had a hobgoblin fighter charge the sound (since it was coming from a narrow ledge by the pool, thinking it was an invisible character). This started the fight, which was challenging (L3 Hobs). PCs chewed off daily powers and action points, the cleric used up his healing words on the dwarf fighter, and they took down the two soldiers eventually, before advancing on the archer and the warcaster, who promptly blasted them all with his big area spell. Rolled a 9, got a 16 which hit everyone (including his archer), dropping the dwarf and the wizard and bloodying the cleric and the warlock. Two rounds later, the warlock dropped the warcaster, and then the PCs both retreated behind full cover to use their Second Wind (no one but the dwarf used this ability, since they were rarely attacked at range and unwilling to give up an attack). The archer advanced, shot the cleric and dropped him anyway. The warlock hit the archer with Eyebite (becoming invisible to his target - he loved to do this to whoever was attacking him, rather than opt for pooling damage on a target). With no other targets, alone and bloodied, the last hobgoblin fled. The warlock then took several tense rounds before succeeding on a heal check on the cleric - the dwarf had crapped out on her rolls and died in 4 rounds, and the wizard, who rolled more reasonably, was near the archer and was left to bleed as the PCs struggled to survive, eventually dying too. So I almost had a TPK!
The group battled thru the kobold encounters while they learned how to use their powers and take advantage of the changes to movement rules. In the narrow confines of the mine, the fighter's ability to shut down shifting was very powerful - she hit often enough and hard enough to make shifting or moving by her a bad risk for anyone but another heavily armoured, high hp warrior. Since you get one opportunity attack per opponent, she effectively locked down a 3x3 cube on the battlemat (sure, kobolds can shift twice to mob people (one move, one minor) but you'll lose every other minion doing this and risk respectable damage on a skirmisher). She didn't even have to fight that well (much of her rolling was subpar) as her presence locked down movement and forced opponents to stop and fight her. As other people reported, the -2 to hit for marked opponents was not a deterrent to attacking more vulnerable allies, but it did provide them with an effective bonus to AC which often saved them until they could move away, safe from being followed because of the fighter.
The warlock and the wizard played cautiously, and the cleric preferred his ranged attack, so the fighter was often the only PC in melee. This works, even in a hallway only one square wide, because (as I understand it), allies between you and the target do not provide cover. This allows PCs to be strung out in a line and (in this case) all attack every round. Some of you may not like this, but it prevents players in the back rows from getting bored, and thus meets the 4E=fun theme. But when shooting at distant targets, screened by allies, enemies, and a rock, you have a total of -2, since allies don't count and cover doesn't stack. Not sure about this, might increase it by, say, 1 pt per additional source since an arrow slit I think provides -5.
The saving throw mechanic is simple and quick; the players quickly realized that the cleric could grant a save to an ailing comrade before his turn came up, meaning the lucky sod might escape the effect altogether (since he normally activates, takes the effect, and then saves at the end of the round). I have no problem with this, it adds strategy and value to the cleric. It did mean that most status effects were very short term, but since there are a lot flying around, that's a good thing.
Despite the kobold encounters slowly ramping up, and taking many rounds to finish, the group didn't have too much trouble with them. They quickly got used to burning encounter abilities and action points, and everyone hoarded their daily powers. The skeleton encounter (two L3 soldiers and a L5 artillery) was not as bad as you might think from the level difference, but then they were outnumbered and started in a pit. Plus, in the second round the cleric critted them with his turn undead for huge damage (vulnerable radiant), pushed them back, and immobilized them for a round. He was quite happy. But about the push: all in the same direction (my inclination) or individually, wherever he wanted them to go? Full five squares, if possible, or up to 5 (his choice? - not my interpretation). Would the push stop at the wall of the pit (as an impelling force would), or would they climb out to continue cowering away to 5 squares of distance?
Anyway, they arrived at the final room, or the boss fight, with the hobgoblins. The group stopped at the end of the tunnel, as they always do (old 3E habit), despite never even attempting stealth (so the hobgoblins around the corner had gathered and were waiting for them). The mage then used mage hand to drop rocks in the pool (hoping to provoke anything within) at the same time as he used ghost sound to 'walk' an armoured 'person' around the pool to the far side (he could maintain both as minors by sacrificing his move). I thought this was a clever use of cantrips (he would also throw light cantrips ahead when the fight carried into new, dark rooms, to illuminate artillery critters). And before anyone jumps on the 'gamist' terminology, we never once said artillery in the game session, I'm just finding it very useful as a descriptive term for this report and I would assume, for adventure design. One of players mentioned 'minions' a couple of times, but that was both my fault for accidentally mentioning the term first, and a more natural term anyway. I would say would only take a small effort to keep this kind of jargon out of the game session.
Back to the ghost sound: I had a hobgoblin fighter charge the sound (since it was coming from a narrow ledge by the pool, thinking it was an invisible character). This started the fight, which was challenging (L3 Hobs). PCs chewed off daily powers and action points, the cleric used up his healing words on the dwarf fighter, and they took down the two soldiers eventually, before advancing on the archer and the warcaster, who promptly blasted them all with his big area spell. Rolled a 9, got a 16 which hit everyone (including his archer), dropping the dwarf and the wizard and bloodying the cleric and the warlock. Two rounds later, the warlock dropped the warcaster, and then the PCs both retreated behind full cover to use their Second Wind (no one but the dwarf used this ability, since they were rarely attacked at range and unwilling to give up an attack). The archer advanced, shot the cleric and dropped him anyway. The warlock hit the archer with Eyebite (becoming invisible to his target - he loved to do this to whoever was attacking him, rather than opt for pooling damage on a target). With no other targets, alone and bloodied, the last hobgoblin fled. The warlock then took several tense rounds before succeeding on a heal check on the cleric - the dwarf had crapped out on her rolls and died in 4 rounds, and the wizard, who rolled more reasonably, was near the archer and was left to bleed as the PCs struggled to survive, eventually dying too. So I almost had a TPK!
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