"a plague on both your houses" to you as well, friends.
Yesterday was the official worldwide D&D game day. From noon until just after midnight I've been playing 4th edition at my FLGS, having just arrived home. My first inclination is to tell you all, I had a great time! Admittedly, I was never much for the nuances of 3.5, but Fourth has withstood 12 hours of play with no condemnation from me. So, without further ado, I offer a summary of the day's, and night's, events. Other, more qualified folks have given reviews of the books, so the best I can do is talk about my adventures.
[spoiler="Into the Shadowhaunt"]Everyone at the shop put together a character except myself, opting to tweak a cleric of Pelor into an angsty but devout follower of the Raven Queen (goddess of natural death). Our group had two fighters(a dwarf and a dragonborn), two rogues(Eladrin and Halfling), a human wizard, a tiefling warlock, and a human ranger. Oh, and I was a human cleric, as mentioned earlier.
The group was united by the lure of wealth when a local man from a village requested adventurers to journey to an old mausoleum outside of town to find two missing children. And so, the expedition into the unknown began. The mausoleum held the remains of a family of warlords who served Bahamut and Pelor, and an ancient spirit in the first room informed us, while also imparting a riddle that enabled us to access the crypt's secret entrance. The riddle took us all a bit to crack, but several high Religion and History Knowledge checks later, the answer was found.
Inside, we were assaulted by a pair of hobgoblins hiding behind sarcophagi for cover, using the darkness to snipe us at the foot of the stairwell while remaining hidden. Lamps were lit on top of these sarcophagi, or were, until our ranger shot them and inflicted lamp-oil burns on the hobgoblin ambushers. Throughout this encounter, my cleric's at-will power of a ranged heat-vision (er, Lance of Faith), never struck home, despite at least 5 attacks. Eventually though, our party overwhelmed the two defenders, only to fall victim to the oil-filled sarcophagi which were overturned by our foes.
After this initial combat experience, we set out into the natural caves ahead, only to encounter difficult terrain and the difficulties that inflicted upon combat. The stealthy characters stumbled upon an elven necromancer who summoned skeletons, while the rest of the part struggled to overcome the hindering terrain and reach the fight. The wizard was ruthless in his attacks and actually dropped the ranger and one rogue unconscious while destroying skeletons, building inner-party tension for the night. Meanwhile, the necromancer animated two statues in an adjacent room, which the fighters, warlock, and cleric were left to face. Due to some superior tactical advice on my part, the statues were vanquished quickly by a flurry of opportunity attacks and some patient positioning. It was at this point I realized I had to ply a Warlord after this into adventure. After the players realized that the statues and the necromancer were the final encounter, daily powers came into play, and the results were spectacular. My cleric inflicted 3d8's of holy fire upon the crypt guardians, while the ranger came back just in time to two-weapon demolish the statue into rubble. The two fighters pinned the other statue into a corner and subjected it too endless Opportunity Attacks so that it too, was beaten to dust.
We then hatched a brilliant plan to escape a collapsing cave triggered by the force-field around the captive children. The wizard used Tenser's Floating Disk to overcome the difficult terrain and escape through a hidden shaft before even a pebble fell from the ceiling. Of course, after he reached the surface, his "allies" took some revenge upon him for his less than kind use of burst spells.
The reward was collected, experience awarded, and rejoicing was had. This took 8 hours by the way, every 3 rounds were declared a cigarette break. Gamers they might be, but my comrades-in-arms certainly had a short attention span.[/spoiler]
[spoiler="The Dragon"]When you saw the title of this spoiler, your eyebrow probably rose in suspicion. "A dragon? At first level? No way! Preposterous!" is what you may be thinking. Of course, you'd be right. A simple request from a local lord, "Slay the Dragon" became a three-hour long battle. The DM changed, and so did the party. We were left with the following, now slightly experienced players.
Justin - Eladrin Rogue, using Fey Step (kinda like dimension door, but racial) and sneak attack for devastating effect.
"Kender" - a mysterious player playing a simple rogue who later demonstrated a tendency to let others do the heavy lifting.
Adam - The previous DM, now running a Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut.
Jimmy - Human Wizard, the same one who shot his party in the back before. Retribution was still forthcoming.
Phil - Human Ranger, a two-weapon fighter who always got stuck with his bow. Cursed with perpetually high initiative and low attack rolls.
Myself - Dwarven Warlord, worked heavily in sync with the Paladin to defeat the dragon.
So, the party attacked the dragon from two sides, with the wizard and two meat-shields coming up the front path, while the stealthy crept in the back to try and surprise the beasty. Unfortunately, the mobility of the dragon threw us for a loop, disturbing our tactics for a long while. As the heavy beaters approached, we formed a line for defense, only to realize the dragon could fire it's breath weapon through the tower's arrow-slits and, tank God it missed, freeze half the party in one attack. Needless to say, we never lined up again. Now, with only one enemy, all bets were off and daily powers were flying everywhere.
After many rounds of maneuvering, the Dragon had managed to wipe an abandoned wizard by flying around the tower after the heavy-armored folks had come around to beat him. The wizards, as punishment for his previous transgressions, proceeded to remain unconscious for most of the encounter. After the heavy beaters pinned down the dragon, we laid the smack down with our maul and flail, granting allies bonuses from our party-friendly dailys. Bonuses to hit and free heali ng surges were among the benefits reaped. With this boost, our rogue fey-stepped through the tower wall, onto the dragons back, and sneak-attacked, only to be crushed at the dragon's next opportunity. His excuse, "It was cool", lesson learned: cool doesn't save you from going from full hp to dead in one hit.
In other news, the Paladin challenged the dragon to single combat, giving it penalties on attacks to all other opponents, while I used my at-will power to move the paladin back and make the dragon provoke Opportunity Attacks to reach him. Let me tel you, an opportunity attack by a 2d6+3 weapon isn't the most comfortable experience. Unfortunately for me, neither was a free breath weapon to the face courtesy of finally making the dragon "bloodied". So, now the dragon was on the run, flying to the top of a slope we couldn't climb. It was at this time the group hatched the brilliant pan to lasso the dragon with a grappling hook and pull it back down. Well, we never got a chance, as it came back down to attack the other rogue, who had been busy looting the hoard. Unfortunately, the rogue fought back with his newly-found flaming dagger and cloak of resistance, stabbing the dragon in the face. Immediately after, the ranger finally got close enough to melee and attack twice, also critting. At the beginning of initiative, the rogue tapped it gently before it fell into a bleeding heap.
I must say, my favorite part of the game was the Warlord, probably because that was where I had the most experience. But the bet part was being a bard and helping everyone else with a +2 to initiative and +3 to hit, but still being able to lay down the smack with a 3d8+15 attack due to a crit on my daily power. Support + Competence = W.I.N.[/spoiler]
Well, I don't know how much help that is, but it sure was a great night for my comrades and I. I also know what character I'll be playing if I get half-a-chance in the future.
Awesome! :D Thanks for your report RoM.
I'm personally really digging DMing 4E. There's just so much I want to try out. Especially with the ritual system. I mean, prevent an evil cult summoning a demon, find rare ingredients for a special divination ritual, give the PCs the opportunity to craft their own magical "personalized" weapons and armor (BG2 style ;) ). So many things I never was really interested in 3E as it was either an XP sink, or rather senseless considering how 3E spellcasting worked.
Also, I greatly appreciate the work WotC put into making DMing easier. Not only a larger variety of monsters of the same kind (3E: 1 HD orc; 4E: Drudge, Warrior, Raider, Berserker, Eye of Gruumsh, Bloodrager, Chieftain), but also a much easier system to adapt encounters. Currently I've only got 2 players, and tweaking old CR based encounters was a pain in the ass because the system was not really linear.
I think I'll start my party off in the Nentir Vale, the example region in the back of the DMG. Now I only need an idea of what to do with them... :D
I'm really glad to see that people here are generally actually looking at/playing the game long enough to see just how good it is. There is a lot of complaining and trolling going on around the internet about the game's inability to support anything but combat. But the skills are still there, and much streamlined in the event that you needed to add any, and I have to ask anyone who does say it discourages roleplaying: do you really need rules to act?
It sounds like you had a lot of fun as that Cleric - being able to really be useful and then some as a support character is great. Warlord definitely looks like a good time in 4e.
I also played as a fighter in the first adventure, though we skipped a bit (we started with the encounter against the hobgoblins), and I was quickly named the human torch.
We completed the adventure in a little over 4 hours, but that was without any breaks, and most of us knew at least some of the new rules. But all in all, I had a great time as well.
I agree with your statement WickedTroll, I don't see why the roleplaying part is dead in this edition. I would argue that there are better options for roleplaying in regards to skill challenges where it is not just the roll of a single die (diplomacy) that gives you the outcome (if a check is even rolled).
Quote from: Neubert[...] I agree with your statement WickedTroll, I don't see why the roleplaying part is dead in this edition. I would argue that there are better options for roleplaying in regards to skill challenges where it is not just the roll of a single die (diplomacy) that gives you the outcome (if a check is even rolled).
I suppose it's because most (all) of the "flavor skills" (Perform, Craft, Profession) have been cut from the game. Which is imho a good thing.
As a
roleplayer I don't need a number on my sheet telling me that I can play the lute better than Bob the fighter, or that I've been a farmer for 2 years.
Also, most of the skills had mechanical issues as well.
Perform had a problem similar to Diplomacy: the fixed DCs. A reasonably well played bard could break DC 30 with a take 10 from level 9+. Reread the part about attracting the attention of extraplanar patrons and you know what I mean.
Craft alternated between "I walk into a forest, shout 'clubs' and all trees instantly collapse into heaps of clubs" when applied to items with 0gp cost, or "hey, there's a shortage of swords in this region, and because swords are more expensive now, crafting the same freaking sword now not only requires more metal, but also takes three days longer".
Profession was basically useless. Not only took it a whole week to make a check (grounding the rest of the party during that time), it also didn't differentiate if the character was a barmaid or a master gemcutter - (s)he made the same amount of money. Also, it was incomplete and illogical. Profession (sailor) for example, didn't actually allow you to work in a ship's rigging (-> Climb), keep your footing during heavy swell (-> Tumble), recognize a brewing storm (-> Survival) or tie any knots (-> Use Rope).
On the contrary, I think that 4E's way of handling such things is much more elegant.
First, players don't have to waste skill points to represent their characters' backgrounds. At least Craft and Profession were skills you either ignored or maxed out. Having 4 ranks in Craft (weaponsmithing) at level 15 may represent your background, but it'd actually take you months to get anything completed that's remotely useful at your level - and if it only was a MW weapon. Additionally, from a mechanical point of view these 4 ranks would have been better spent in something else, like Jump, or even in a cross-class skill (assuming fighter) like Spot.
Second, players can write creative and interesting backgrounds without being restricted by their characters' skill points. Of course, there's only so much you can do, but I think the gained freedom for the PCs' backgrounds makes the game more interesting for all, players
and DM. Also, the DM can now bring up things related to a character's background more easily and more homogeneously. Instead of having to blast the player with a wall of checks (Search -> Appraise -> Craft) he can only say "Blarn, as you take a look at the sword you immediately recognize the smith's seal on the pommel. It's the same that your old mentor Hardrak always used on commissioned weapons. The date on the seal is only one year old, but your Hardrak disappeared over 10 years ago without a trace".
Third, it's easier for the DM to actually challenge a player (and the whole party!) with his character's background. Imagine a PC having "boat builder" in his background. The DM decides that the party gets stranded on an island several nautical miles from the next mainland, and have to build a raft or boat of some sort. In 3.5, the PC has some pityful 2 or 4 ranks in Craft (ships and boats), and the rest of the party can at most try aid another while this player makes dozens or hundreds of checks to finish the boat. In 4E, the DM decides whether the character is considered "trained" in building boats, lets the player add his Int mod and 1/2 his level, picks a DC from pg.42 DMG and is done with it.
I really want to try it out myself. Unfortunately I don't have money right now so I am stuck with 3.5 books until someone puts out an SRD or one of my friends buys some 4.0 books.
My FLGS owner was kind, and let me take a copy of the map and module for "Into the Shadowhaunt, as well as my character's mini. I'll be running this, and the beginning of Keep on the Shadowfell the Friday after next, so I should be able to provide a new DM's perspective on 4e, since I had very little practical experience from third edition.
Also, I have to say that I have never been more excited about D&D, spinning plots and writing back-stories for my two sample characters. Of course, I'll post these stories if there is interest.
I would like to hear how your DMing experience goes and the stories for your characters. :)