Yet another look at KotSF/4th Ed.
The Sunless Citadel is what I'm talking about yes, and yes, it had Meepo.
But the threat was an evil druid with his evil twig-men, and frankly it was a little on the silly side. KotS contains a far more credible and significant threat and it showcases 4e's far superior ability to have challenging and interesting encounters straight off. I mean, how many fights against four kobolds do you need to have in 3e before the PCs are strong enough for an interesting encounter?
4e started off with some design assumptions. If you don't agree with the design assumptions you're not going to like the game - fair enough. But I think you should judge the success of the game against how well it meets its objectives, not whether or not you disagree with those objectives.
But the threat was an evil druid with his evil twig-men, and frankly it was a little on the silly side. KotS contains a far more credible and significant threat and it showcases 4e's far superior ability to have challenging and interesting encounters straight off. I mean, how many fights against four kobolds do you need to have in 3e before the PCs are strong enough for an interesting encounter?
4e started off with some design assumptions. If you don't agree with the design assumptions you're not going to like the game - fair enough. But I think you should judge the success of the game against how well it meets its objectives, not whether or not you disagree with those objectives.
Boarstorm
First Post
Heselbine said:
You won't find a bigger supporter of the new edition than me, friend. I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek above. Someone recently mentioned how sad it was that that little kobold ended up being among the most "iconic" things in 3E, and I tend to agree.
Though, if I can be indulged in a bit of prophecy, I imagine our little gnome friend isn't going to be stepping out of Meepo's shoes for awhile.
Nightchill
Explorer
Hm, on the Minions, I'm not having too much trouble imagining them..
The Minions approach, wearing a tattered vest and wielding some minor weapon - possibly holding the sharp hand. From their stance and bearing (not to mention their equipment) they're inexperienced and look largely untrained. A dodge followed by a slash. A parry followed by a stab. Minions die fast. Within a few moments two are dead on the floor without the hero breaking a sweat.
Then the music stops and some obviously (at least slightly) trained enemy fighters come forth. These guys are holding their weapons the right way (phew), their armor is at least mostly whole, and they're aware of their comrades as they move forwards.
The Minions approach, wearing a tattered vest and wielding some minor weapon - possibly holding the sharp hand. From their stance and bearing (not to mention their equipment) they're inexperienced and look largely untrained. A dodge followed by a slash. A parry followed by a stab. Minions die fast. Within a few moments two are dead on the floor without the hero breaking a sweat.
Then the music stops and some obviously (at least slightly) trained enemy fighters come forth. These guys are holding their weapons the right way (phew), their armor is at least mostly whole, and they're aware of their comrades as they move forwards.
The Eternal GM
First Post
Wow, thanks all for not pulling me to bits when I think I really deserved it looking at my post (typical for me, my points work but my tone is always too harsh).
Covering a lot of questions/responses fast here.
Yes, we did only rest once every 24 hours. Yes, there still seems no reason not to do that unless every adventure is going to be time limited.
As for 4th Ed. denying role-playing. Essentially all combat encounters are set to be a skirmish of around the parties level, with some variance up and down. This doesn't work for me. I don't want skirmishes all the time. I want to be able to run combat my own way, with stealthy foes or with hordes or whatever else. But as soon as 4th Ed. combat starts, the PCs are brimming with death-deal and it is harder than ever before to catch them unaware, or even to give them preparation advantage. Ultimately, I'm not going to find it easy to use my preferred narrative approach to action scenes. This, I feel, limits the role-playing by making every single fight a prolonged tactical encounter.
With dumping p/d spells as standard, the wizard doesn't have enough good spells, merely infinite poor ones.
As for us larking about in the game, that has no bearing on the rp... We weren't trying to do much but test the system when we played. And I am not the kinda guy to invest in a character that isn't mine and I wn't be keeping.
As for the fighter. The pre-gen does suck. He marks, which means that a monster is meant to turn on him. But the penalty is no big deal (unlike the Paladins very random mark for divine damage... Thing... Er) and nigh every monster is free to just wander off and hit the squishy people. So for all I hate 'combat control' as a concept in a tabletop game, I am even more unimpressed when it doesn't work.
As for magic missile... It should be magic missile. Now it's just 'random ray of nothing' (my name after throwing it to little or no effect the ninth time) and I might as well have a crossbow all over again.
And utterly from a DM point of view, I won't use minions. They suffer from my biggest problem of 3.5/4 which is that whole "make the players feel big, clever, special every second even if they do nothing to warrant it" in this case, by creating a worthless line of foes for them to murder with uberpowers. Not my thing.
Er, time's up, gotta go.
Covering a lot of questions/responses fast here.
Yes, we did only rest once every 24 hours. Yes, there still seems no reason not to do that unless every adventure is going to be time limited.
As for 4th Ed. denying role-playing. Essentially all combat encounters are set to be a skirmish of around the parties level, with some variance up and down. This doesn't work for me. I don't want skirmishes all the time. I want to be able to run combat my own way, with stealthy foes or with hordes or whatever else. But as soon as 4th Ed. combat starts, the PCs are brimming with death-deal and it is harder than ever before to catch them unaware, or even to give them preparation advantage. Ultimately, I'm not going to find it easy to use my preferred narrative approach to action scenes. This, I feel, limits the role-playing by making every single fight a prolonged tactical encounter.
With dumping p/d spells as standard, the wizard doesn't have enough good spells, merely infinite poor ones.
As for us larking about in the game, that has no bearing on the rp... We weren't trying to do much but test the system when we played. And I am not the kinda guy to invest in a character that isn't mine and I wn't be keeping.
As for the fighter. The pre-gen does suck. He marks, which means that a monster is meant to turn on him. But the penalty is no big deal (unlike the Paladins very random mark for divine damage... Thing... Er) and nigh every monster is free to just wander off and hit the squishy people. So for all I hate 'combat control' as a concept in a tabletop game, I am even more unimpressed when it doesn't work.
As for magic missile... It should be magic missile. Now it's just 'random ray of nothing' (my name after throwing it to little or no effect the ninth time) and I might as well have a crossbow all over again.
And utterly from a DM point of view, I won't use minions. They suffer from my biggest problem of 3.5/4 which is that whole "make the players feel big, clever, special every second even if they do nothing to warrant it" in this case, by creating a worthless line of foes for them to murder with uberpowers. Not my thing.
Er, time's up, gotta go.
<quote>You won't find a bigger supporter of the new edition than me, friend</quote>
Sorry, the you wasn't you, it was a generic you.
<quote>KoTS would have to go a long way to overtake the Sunless Citadel in terms of adventure quality</quote>
What did you find particularly good about Sunless Citadel - it wasn't bad, certainly, but I don't think it ranks up there with the greats. Maybe it's all about our particular memories, though. For me the Village of Hommlet has a very high status but when you look at it the actual module's not that interesting. It was the adventures I ran that I fondly remember.
Sorry, the you wasn't you, it was a generic you.
<quote>KoTS would have to go a long way to overtake the Sunless Citadel in terms of adventure quality</quote>
What did you find particularly good about Sunless Citadel - it wasn't bad, certainly, but I don't think it ranks up there with the greats. Maybe it's all about our particular memories, though. For me the Village of Hommlet has a very high status but when you look at it the actual module's not that interesting. It was the adventures I ran that I fondly remember.
The Eternal GM said:
How fighter marks are going to work will depend heavily on how the DM looks at them: Is he looking at "Intention" or "Effect"?
The one brief 4E trial I played at a convention had the kobolds running straight across the battlefield when they were marked, triggering Attacks of Opportunity all over the place. "Oh, the Mark! The Mark! Is unbearable! It burnsss Usss! Must... kill... marker!" That's one approach.
I suspect other DMs are going to look at the pure effect of the mark and say: "Well, even with this Mark, the wizard is still much easier to kill than the fighter, so I'll just let my kobold stay here and keep making Mage Salsa..." That's the other approach.
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