So a few nights ago I played a playtest game of 4E with my regular D&D group, and now I shall describe to you how it went.
The Players
At the beginning of the playtest there was me and three others, all who have played 3.5 and Iron Heroes. The fourth member of our group would arrive much later in a bad mood from work, and he kinda spoilt the whole experience as I hadn't counted on him coming and so he had no idea we were playing 4th edition, and he didn't really warm well to it as we were also in the end stages of the adventure.
Regardless, the three initial players chose to be the Wizard, Warlock and Paladin. I took control of the Cleric, so that there was a four-person party. This was probably not the best idea, as I'll explain later. The fourth player chose the Ranger when he arrived, as that was the male option.
The Adventure
The adventure was made by myself, and was basically a 'go in, kill the monsters, come out' ordeal. I was mostly using monsters from the .pdf file I got off EnWorld. I'll spare you of a blow-by-blow account
Thoughts of Playing
First off, the DMing was FUN. Having monsters that actually did interesting things and lasted longer than a round in combat was great! I initially had problems remembering who had been affected by the Kobold Slinger's special shots, but this was easily fixed by some note-taking. I also learned the very important lesson of not starting encounters with the players in the corridor - if they got trapped in there the fight quickly devolved into a tank'n'spank affair (to use a WoW term) and became boring. Thankfully, this only happened twice.
Aswell as DMing I was playing the Cleric. It was probably not a good idea, as I kept forgetting whether or not someone needed healing, which was more often than not me. It was perhaps my imagination, but the Cleric seemed a bit fragile. Then again, I often had to deal with monsters that got past the Paladin, who started every battle by charging straight into the thick of it, where he quickly got surrounded and took a regular beating.
The Paladin player got frustrated because he kept getting bad rolls whenever he used his encounter and daily powers, and I think they, combined, hit once during the whole experience. He loved his Second Chance power, however, and soon took to shouting 'Second Chance!' whenever he used it. He mentioned how it felt alot like WoW, where he had to gain aggro and tank, but then I pointed out the main reason there were lots of monsters surrounding him was because he kept running into the middle of the fight where they could swarm him. His use of Divine Challenge was rather questionable, as he often used it on a monster he was not engaging, such as the Slingers, which I don't think was quite the intended use.
The Warlock player again suffered from rarely getting a hit with her encounter and daily powers, and wondered where her blast shape invocations had gone to. I pointed out it was a first level character and complaining ceased. She quickly got the hang of her curses and movement abilities, though I think she forgot about being able to teleport if she killed a cursed foe. She was certainly thinking hard about her movement so she always had the right foe cursed.
The Wizard player unfortunately seemed to suffer from turret syndrome - the only time he ever moved was either when the enemy was actually beside him or when he wasn't in a position to see the enemy. He certainly liked being able to unleash firery death at will. His racial power didn't see much use as he was rarely in a position to actually get hit.
The Ranger player's character was more controlled by the Paladin player, as the Ranger player wouldn't stop talking long enough to pay any attention to the game. He did, however, seem to grasp the rules quickly, like the others.
Good Points
Everyone seemed to like Healing Surges and Second Wind, aswell as the new Defences. The simplified movement system was also good, aswell as the grappling rules.
Also, I LOVE Chokers. They are so EVIL!![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
One of my encounters involved two of them, and they definently left their mark on the player's psyche. I can imagine the players now turning tail and running at the sight of the things.
Bad Points
The bad rolls for Encounter and Daily powers made them seem rather useless to the players, though I imagine this would not be such a great problem at higher levels. Fights in cramped spaces became boring, especially when there was absolutely no room for movement.
The Warlock player also complained that the characters got old after a while. This was probably more a problem of not being able to level the characters.
Closing Comments
4th Edition certainly seems like it's going to be a blast. There's still some apprehension from players about the levelling system, but as that's a relative unknown I wasn't able to ease their concern. I'm now definently going to preorder the books.
The Players
At the beginning of the playtest there was me and three others, all who have played 3.5 and Iron Heroes. The fourth member of our group would arrive much later in a bad mood from work, and he kinda spoilt the whole experience as I hadn't counted on him coming and so he had no idea we were playing 4th edition, and he didn't really warm well to it as we were also in the end stages of the adventure.
Regardless, the three initial players chose to be the Wizard, Warlock and Paladin. I took control of the Cleric, so that there was a four-person party. This was probably not the best idea, as I'll explain later. The fourth player chose the Ranger when he arrived, as that was the male option.
The Adventure
The adventure was made by myself, and was basically a 'go in, kill the monsters, come out' ordeal. I was mostly using monsters from the .pdf file I got off EnWorld. I'll spare you of a blow-by-blow account
Thoughts of Playing
First off, the DMing was FUN. Having monsters that actually did interesting things and lasted longer than a round in combat was great! I initially had problems remembering who had been affected by the Kobold Slinger's special shots, but this was easily fixed by some note-taking. I also learned the very important lesson of not starting encounters with the players in the corridor - if they got trapped in there the fight quickly devolved into a tank'n'spank affair (to use a WoW term) and became boring. Thankfully, this only happened twice.
Aswell as DMing I was playing the Cleric. It was probably not a good idea, as I kept forgetting whether or not someone needed healing, which was more often than not me. It was perhaps my imagination, but the Cleric seemed a bit fragile. Then again, I often had to deal with monsters that got past the Paladin, who started every battle by charging straight into the thick of it, where he quickly got surrounded and took a regular beating.
The Paladin player got frustrated because he kept getting bad rolls whenever he used his encounter and daily powers, and I think they, combined, hit once during the whole experience. He loved his Second Chance power, however, and soon took to shouting 'Second Chance!' whenever he used it. He mentioned how it felt alot like WoW, where he had to gain aggro and tank, but then I pointed out the main reason there were lots of monsters surrounding him was because he kept running into the middle of the fight where they could swarm him. His use of Divine Challenge was rather questionable, as he often used it on a monster he was not engaging, such as the Slingers, which I don't think was quite the intended use.
The Warlock player again suffered from rarely getting a hit with her encounter and daily powers, and wondered where her blast shape invocations had gone to. I pointed out it was a first level character and complaining ceased. She quickly got the hang of her curses and movement abilities, though I think she forgot about being able to teleport if she killed a cursed foe. She was certainly thinking hard about her movement so she always had the right foe cursed.
The Wizard player unfortunately seemed to suffer from turret syndrome - the only time he ever moved was either when the enemy was actually beside him or when he wasn't in a position to see the enemy. He certainly liked being able to unleash firery death at will. His racial power didn't see much use as he was rarely in a position to actually get hit.
The Ranger player's character was more controlled by the Paladin player, as the Ranger player wouldn't stop talking long enough to pay any attention to the game. He did, however, seem to grasp the rules quickly, like the others.
Good Points
Everyone seemed to like Healing Surges and Second Wind, aswell as the new Defences. The simplified movement system was also good, aswell as the grappling rules.
Also, I LOVE Chokers. They are so EVIL!
One of my encounters involved two of them, and they definently left their mark on the player's psyche. I can imagine the players now turning tail and running at the sight of the things.Bad Points
The bad rolls for Encounter and Daily powers made them seem rather useless to the players, though I imagine this would not be such a great problem at higher levels. Fights in cramped spaces became boring, especially when there was absolutely no room for movement.
The Warlock player also complained that the characters got old after a while. This was probably more a problem of not being able to level the characters.
Closing Comments
4th Edition certainly seems like it's going to be a blast. There's still some apprehension from players about the levelling system, but as that's a relative unknown I wasn't able to ease their concern. I'm now definently going to preorder the books.
