The Campaign Builder's Guild

Yeah, I saw that in the Tavern. :(
If you don't mind me asking, how old are your players?

Quote from: NeubertYeah, I saw that in the Tavern. :(
If you don't mind me asking, how old are your players?

M is around 30, A and H are around 26, and N is around 27.

Anyway, if someone else ran the adventure I'd be glad to get some feedback. :)

I am considering running this as an introduction to 4e for my players. I'll gladly provide feedback, though I don't think I will include the warforged. Or rather, I might change him to another race and make him mortally wounded or die in an ambush (I plan on having 5 players, so the encounters will be beefed up a bit).

Quote from: NeubertI am considering running this as an introduction to 4e for my players. I'll gladly provide feedback, though I don't think I will include the warforged. Or rather, I might change him to another race and make him mortally wounded or die in an ambush (I plan on having 5 players, so the encounters will be beefed up a bit).

Cool! :D

As said, the warforged was only there as the emergency backup for a 2 player party. I'd rather have an accompanying NPC and a little too easy encounters, than a TPK in the second battle.

Hey Ra-Tiel (and other 4e people).
I figured you might like to read the following:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=229919

Quote from: NeubertHey Ra-Tiel (and other 4e people).
I figured you might like to read the following:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=229919

Interesting. We didn't made it yet to the skill challenge, so I can't comment on how it worked for me and my players. But thanks for the link, I'm sure keeping an eye on that. :)




Ahhhh, I'm getting old, already forgetting stuff I wanted to post... :-| :P

So, tuesday we finally got around playing AGoH. We didn't get very far, which was most likely due to my extensive descriptions and "easy going" regarding roleplaying and exploration.

[spoiler=The first session...]
The party make up was simple (and it was a good thing I still had my notes for a 2 player party):
(1) human wizard (control wizard):
- Magic Missile
- Ray of Frost
- Thunderwave
- Icy Terrain
- Flaming Sphere
(2) eladrin fighter (great weapon fighter):
- Cleave
- Reaping Strike
- Passing Attack
- Villain's Menace

The introduction of each PC worked quite well. The hooks mentioned in the adventure worked quite well, and the PCs' backgrounds fit perfectly.

The first days of travel went by without incident. The mean a**hole I am, I decided to mess with the players a bit, and described that once they were about one day's travel away from the last settlement, at night no sound of animals was heard, no mice or foxes or other things running around, and their horses went lethargic. At day everything was fine. This was giving them the "wtf?" for the whole evening, and already sparked an idea in my head for a future high level adventure.

Then came the goblin ambush (2 blackblades, 2 cutters). The party was just about to make a rest at a small shallow river, when the wizard noticed movement in a nearby group of bushes and trees. He shouted a warning, and placed an Icy Terrain adminst the goblins, killing one cutter, injuring one blackblade and slowing down the rest. The fighter was without his weapons (he went for longspear and shortbow, which were just lying on the dwarf's wagon) leading the horses to the water together with the dwarf as the goblins attacked.

The blackblades got out of the difficult terrain and charged the fighter and the dwarf, while the last cutter went for the wizard. Both blackblades missed, and the cutter didn't quite reach the wizard. The horses went mad and stormed away, as did the dwarf, leaving the fighter facing the blackblades alone in difficult terrain (the shallow river).

While the fighter was constantly missing with his attacks, loosing his encounter power to a rolled 8, the wizard made short work of the cutter with a Thunderwave. He then joined the frustrated fighter who just couldn't manage to roll higher than a 10 in the fray against the blackblades, using the Thunderwave's push to devestating effect (the wizard had Wis 14).

After one blackblade went down, the other tried to flee. The fighter hit with his OA, but inflicted not enough damage to take it down, and decided to run for the wagon to get his bow the next round. The wizard kept chasing the blackblade and fired his Magic Missiles at him, rolling very low damage. The next round the fighter got to his bow, the wizard took down the fleeing blackblade, and the fighter shot an arrow into the falling corpse with a rolled 19.

After recollecting the horses and calming down the dwarf, the party went on with their rest and then continued to Nenlast. Once they reached the village, the dwarf went about his old-friends business, and the PCs did some great roleplaying with the inhabitants. The fighter was swarmed with the children, who had never before seen an eladrin, and handled the situation very well (showing off his Fey Step ability several times to entertain the youngsters :D ), and the wizard did some good talking with his old mentor (a level 4 wizard who went to Nenlast for retirement).

The next day, the party took to the road again, making the way southwards to Fiveleague House without incident. In the middle of the night, the violet lightning event really messed them up, and the dwarf hinted that the location may be on the far west end of the Vale, which led the wizard to the conclusion it had something to do with the ancient Rakshasa shrine, the Temple of Yellow Skulls.

After a good breakfast, the party continued with their journey, making their way to the west. In the late afternoon, the shadows already getting longer again, the party come to a wooden bridge over a stream whose edge is too steep to cross it without the bridge. On the bridge, they see a single guy in chainarmor and a helbard to his feet. The wizard makes a crazily good Perception check (yet not good enough to see everything) and notices 2 figures hiding under the bridge. The party already expects an ambush.

The fighter walks up to the man, stopping 20 ft before him, talking with him. The bandit demands 10 gold from each for a "save passage", which the fighter declines. In return, the fighter tries to Intimidate the bandit, which fails (again to a very poor roll). The bandit lets his helbard jump into his hands, the fighter Fey Steps behind him and initiative is rolled.

The bandit goes first, trying to knock the fighter prone with his Power Strike, but misses. The four thugs climb out from under the bridge, two at each end. Two thugs gang up with the bandit on the fighter, the two others try to get at the wagon and the rest. The dwarf quickly flees into the wagon, and the wizard makes one thug crispy with his Flaming Sphere. The fighter lands a critical hit with his Villain's Menace, dealing a whopping 24 points of damage to the bandit, but is beaten up by 15 points in return from the thugs and the bandit the next round.

The wizard moves the Flaming Sphere up to the thug attacking him on the wagon and basically incinerates him - completely forgetting that the horses were not trained for combat, and the glowing ball of fire that just rolled by makes them go wild again. The fighter meanwhile finishes off the bandit and Cleaves the thug behind him.

While the wizard is making Acrobatics checks to not fall off the wagon and be run over, the fighter puts the last thug out of commission. After three rounds of the horses running across the plains uncontrolled, the wizard finally manages to get a hold of the reins with Mage Hand (had him roll an attack Int vs AC to simulate the chaotic circumstances and the stress, but he rolled a 18, which was enough even without his Int bonus). He also succeeded at his Nature check to get the horses slow down and calm down a bit.

The dwarf was seriously worked up right now, and had to take a deep gulp from a bottle as soon as he got off the wagon. The party looked through what was left of the bandits, and decided to loot the helbard and the ruined chainarmor (hey, that bandit was basically run through by the fighter with his finishing blow :P ), and are going to sell it in Fallcrest.
[/spoiler]

That's where we had to stop. So far I'm quite pleased with the system. The monster writeup includes everything you need to run the monster right out of the book, no more paging through the PH to get a description of the feat one mob is using or something like that. The combat system runs quite smoothly, I especially like the simplified OA rules (AoOs always ground combat to a hold in 3.5, at least from my experience).

As for selling mundane equipment, I'm going with a 25% selling rate, similar to magic items' 20% selling rate. It seems a bit wrong that you won't ever get anything sold that's not shiny or magical.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to the next session (which may be only in three weeks due to one buddy's honeymoon) and how the party will handle the kobolds and the giant spiders. :D

However, one thing I've noticed: if you create encounters with ~100 - 150 XPs per player it's quite easy for them. I guess if the party didn't have a wizard the minions would have a greater impact, but for now I'm considering bumping the combats by another 100 or even 150 XPs in non-minions to give the PCs a little run for their money. ;)

Thanks for the recap :)

In regards to your comment: "and already sparked an idea in my head for a future high level adventure."
- What kind of adventure did you think of?

Quote from: NeubertThanks for the recap :)

No problemo. :D

Quote from: NeubertIn regards to your comment: "and already sparked an idea in my head for a future high level adventure."
- What kind of adventure did you think of?

The fighter, while describing the situation to the wizard's mentor, used the words "as if the life was sucked out of them at night". Well, should be pretty obvious where this train's heading, eh? ;) The nearby Thunderspire, with the rumors of the remains of an ancient minotaur kingdom beneath did the rest.

In short, the minotaur kingdom is gone, but not so its spellcasters who remain as lichs and ghosts. They perform some necromantic ritual mojo to bring themselves back to life, using the night as a casting focus to draw on the life force of the weaker and dumber animals, and only in low slices as to not alert the surface dwellers to their machinations. The ritual they are using is weakened or blocked by the signs of modern civilization ("too much intellect there") and therefore doesn't affect animals in or close to settlements.

Something along these lines. As said, it's just a rough idea right now and needs some refinement until it's ready to play. I imagine it being a mid-paragon tier adventure.