ghettowedge |
I'll be running a 4E adventure as part of D&D Game Day on June 7th at Rising Phoenix Games in Cherry Valley, MA.
Whether you are excited about 4E or think it's the worst thing since halflings with shoes, it's free so come down and check it out.
Grimcleaver |
Well I live totally elsewhere from you, but I'll thank you for the invite just the same. Me and as many of my friends as I can wrustle up are going to invade A Street Games in Idaho Falls. Never done D&D Day there before, but me and one of my friends from our game group are both looking to run the adventure. Despite all the secrecy that always surrounds the Game Day adventure I've been trying to get ready as best I can. Exciting and scary. Not only is it a brand new venue with an adventure that I will have only held for a week or so beforehand, but on top of that it's the new edition and I feel a resposibility to do it justice. We're looking to have about 40 folks total. Wow! Should be a blast.
Haldir |
just looked into this year's stuff & came across the adv & pregens on wizo's site. Kinda thought it was funny that the adv is 3.5. I thought with 4.0 out that they would want to advertise that instead.
Eh, doesn't matter I'm 30 miles from the nearest store, so I won't be making it, would have bee nice thou just to attend.
RM
Golbez57 |
I had the chance to play 4E D&D today at Worldwide D&D Day, organized through the local D&D Meetup group.
My character was a dwarf fighter. He had a few nifty abilities due to his race, but the one time he could've stayed prone rather than getting knocked down, he failed the check. That was done as a "save" with a 50/50 chance for success. I rolled an 8.
Another character was playing a human fighter. Our at-will, per encounter, and daily class abilities (from least to most powerful) were mostly different, with the exception of Cleave, which now allows one to "strike through" a target to foes that are adjacent to the target, not the attacker. The DM balked at that, and it admittedly seemed weird.
We seemed to be dishing out pretty paltry damage, while the fire traps were exceedingly deadly; 3d6 in one case, with the fire "making an attack" against our Reflex Defense (figured from Dexterity and/or Intelligence), which was a flat number and for which we didn't roll.
The game-breaker, I think, was the lack of clarity in the materials provided to the DM for the event on how the "prone" condition now affects combat. The animated statues we fought had abilities that were able to a) knock us prone, b) get bonus attacks on us while we were prone, and c) attack again if we tried to stand from prone, supposedly also knocking us down again. So, we all stayed down after getting thumped a couple times, accepting a -4 to our attacks (20% less chance to hit). My understanding from reading various forums is that there are no longer negative modifiers in 4E, but that wasn't made clear in the DM's materials, so he went with what he knew. About 1/3 of our short TPK session, then, consisted of us laying on the ground feebly swinging at statues while they stepped on and punched us. Not especially fun.
Characters can catch a second wind of sorts with once-per-encounter "healing surges." My dwarf had 30 hit points and could heal 7 with a healing surge, of which he had 11 per day. As a dwarf (I assume), he could also do this as a minor (new name for "swift", I think) action. Theoretically, this cleared up the cleric for other things, but the only time he did something non-cleric-y was when he tossed out a searing beam of energy to slay a hobgoblin that'd already been injured by an arrow and by a fire trap dumped the other fighter and my dwarf.
The diversity of abilities even at 1st level was nice.
All in all, not nearly enough to sell me on a new edition and the heavy investment of money and time it'd take to "switch over."
Tarren Dei RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 |
I went there with my 8 year old son today. I had a good time playing with him instead of DMing him. It was a nice change. It was also a surprise to me when, 30 seconds after encountering the fire trap, my son said "I run to the trap and knock it over". This succeeded in killing the already wounded bad guy behind it. I was still figuring out what exactly the trap consisted of and he was already turning them against the bad guys. ;-)
As far as the game goes, it felt kind of odd. The whole flavour of healing surges didn't appeal to me. I felt like I was playing StarCraft and getting a stim pack. What precisely was I doing to get hit points back?
I enjoyed the game and will play again but I think I'll stick with Pathfinder.
Duncan & Dragons |
I also ran a D&D Game Day event today for 4.0. I will post here since we don't need multiple threads.
First of all, D&D Game Day is not the best event to get to know the game. The game stores are frequently noisy and I had 6 players.
Second, WotC should have given us better resources. No quick start rules for playing the game and no player primer like they had at D&D Experience. I was winging it more than I liked.
Third, It went pretty well and I think the game will be well received. I think the scenario was well made for a demo. My 4.0 comments are below.
Fourth, I am jealous about the Swag. I got my usual dice but the players got repainted figures. Now I need to go to eBay to get 'my' rightly deserved repaints.
I ran the event as follows. We had a fight with a Large White Dragon to start getting to know the rules and the character powers. Then we had a little adventure to explore an old tomb. The tomb had four encounter areas.
White Dragon-
We did not finish the fight due to time constraints. During the fight the following thing came up. Can a Close Burst effect overlap your character? The rules seem to imply 'No' but I might house rule that a Dragon could do so. The reason for this is the when the dragon is surrounded it can greatly effect the number of attackers hit. I would just have the Dragon affected but his resistance would take care of this damage.
Tomb -
The first room was a puzzle and an intro to an NPC. The puzzle was a brave way for WotC to start a dungeon. But it worked for us. Hopefully a DM is smart enough not to get bogged down. One guy actually knew that 'Sinister' is a term for the left side in Heraldry so they got through it pretty fast. I liked the riddle and will use it again. No benefit from being 4.0. Maybe I could have made it a Skill challenge but they did not write it as such. If you had time, I would suggest doing it as a Skill Challenge. I think the NPC was a great idea. It was a Shadow Spirit that was haunting the tomb. You basically determine whether he is friend or foe by how you respect the tomb.
The second room was an entry with Hobgoblins serving as guards. The Hobgoblins never got to use their schtick monster power (Phalanx Soldier) but the traps went well. They were fun traps but 4th edition did not add much to them. I am warming up to At-Will powers. I think that players selecting each round what power to use was good. The rules for adding and replacing powers seems about right for giving choices but not confusing you with too many choices. We started getting confused by the powers vs Basic Attacks since we did not have a primer. I think when you charge you can only use you basic attack and not your At-Will powers.
The third room was a cave that later became a trap. After a side encounter, the cave starts collapsing. This was nice but lead me to believe it would have been better suited for the Eberron (Indiana Jones) type of game. It was a good trap but I am trying to figure out whether this was better because of 4.0 rules or just a well written trap. It had different zones that were affected in different rounds. The trap was triggered by a side room that had prisoners in it. If the prisoners left a 'magic circle' it would start the cave-in. The Ritual rules seemed nice for this since it 'explained' how a spell could do that. I like rutuals but as I have written elsewhere, I think you should have house rules for using Rituals in combat.
The fourth room was supposed to the BBG. It looked like a good scenario but I would think it could have included Minions according to Grim Cleavers idea. We never got to the room since we were running out of time and the cave-in made the team think it was time to flee.
General Comments - It did have a different feel. This is potentially good to keep everyone involved in other players turns. I would actually encourage people to give each other suggestions. You want the players hanging over the combat zone watching what is happening. I think combat will be only slightly faster once you get to know you powers. I recommend you run it like a card game with powers on cards. Additionally, I think someone needs to figure out the how to show saving throw effects. We had no way to remember who was under the effect of slow (cold) or the acid arrow. Secondly, how do you remember that the cleric gave you a +3 bonus for a round? And we did not even get into radius effect powers. I think the combat interaction is both a Weal and Woe of 4.0.
crosswiredmind |
Our game day at the Compleat Strategist in KoP went very well. We had three table running simultaneously and we ran two full rounds with the inclusion of some of the LFR preview mods. I guess we had close to 25 different players throughout the day and several that could not play because we ran out of space - and chairs. In addition we had an event the night before with a dozen or so players. So over two days we ran 9 tables worth of 4e. Oh, and the shop sold a ton of books, mods, and minis.
This was the biggest event the shop has had in quite some time.
Tangent - I wanted to address some of Duncan's concerns ...
Additionally, I think someone needs to figure out the how to show saving throw effects. We had no way to remember who was under the effect of slow (cold) or the acid arrow. Secondly, how do you remember that the cleric gave you a +3 bonus for a round? And we did not even get into radius effect powers. I think the combat interaction is both a Weal and Woe of 4.0.
The ongoing effect thing does need some form of marker - or just an index card to put in front of the player with the effect. On save the card gets returned.
For the second one - I had my players write the granted bonus on a stickie and hand it to the player who then put it on their sheet. Once they spent it the simply gave it back to the other player.
Timitius Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder |
I attended the WW D&D Game Day at Neumos in Seattle, and got to play the 2 hr demo where the party goes searching for 2 kidnapped acolytes of Pelor.
Bottom line: I had fun! Yes, the game system is very different. Yes, it is a departure from the 3.5 ruleset. But, you know what? I STILL enjoyed playing it, and learning how it works!
Honestly, I pretty much sequestered myself from the pro vs anti-4e debates, as it got increasingly nasty over mere rumours and speculation. I was so happy today to be able to look at the rules, give them a go, and PLAY. No preconceived notions. No bias. Just the judgement of whether I had a good time playing or not. And I did have a good time.
For the record, I'll not be giving up playing 3.5. I will be playing Pathfinder as much as possible, too, as I am constantly impressed by the good folks at Paizo. AND, I will be enjoying me some 4e flavor as well.
You know, it's a good time to be a gamer...
Duncan & Dragons |
The ongoing effect thing does need some form of marker - or just an index card to put in front of the player with the effect. On save the card gets returned.
For the second one - I had my players write the granted bonus on a stickie and hand it to the player who then put it on their sheet. Once they spent it the simply gave it back to the other player.
I agree but I am talking about a more 'elegant' solution. (I was planning on doing what you suggest but showed up late.) In terms of an elegant solution, I am thinking some type of Combat Pad that tracks effects and such. Something that reminds you during the proper time of the round to do something. I am going off of memory here but something like this:
DUNCAN'S NOT SO ELEGANT COMBAT PAD-
Damage Effects (sticky with acid damage)
Healing Effects (HP, tick off your healing surges etc.)
Main Round
--Standard Action (Power Cards, sticky with bonus from buddy)
--Move Action (examples of AO, sticky with slowed effect)
--Minor Action (example minor actions)
Savings Throws (how long have I been unconscious?, non-damaging effects)
(Where would interrupts go?)
I am also going to use Alea Tools Markers for Bloodied and Marked.
Power Word Unzip |
My fiancee and I attended Worldwide D&D Day today. The GM ran three separate sessions, and we were in the second group of the day. We played with our usual group of regulars who meet up for Star Wars minis; most of them had participated in the Forgotten Realms D&D Day last year, and based on that experience they wanted to do it again. I ran the eladrin wizard, since I got stuck with the paladin in the last worldwide event and wanted a more versatile spellcasting character.
The first encounter went poorly. The riddle's meaning seemed pretty clear, but we weren't aware that the spirit was referring to the statues as the key to the vault, mainly because they weren't notated on the map. We thought the key to opening the way forward was opening the sarcophagi in the correct order; that mistake caused the spirit to attack us right off the bat. The hobgobs finally popped out of the obelisk, and we followed them into the tunnels. A good Perception roll alerted us to the presence of the oil traps, which I attempted to disarm by using mage hand to dump the oil braziers onto the hobgoblin's head. The GM ruled that I needed to make a ranged attack against the hobgob's Reflex defense, which I botched, and on his next turn he ignited the trap. I then suggested the idea of using my icy terrain ability to put out the flames, but the GM ruled that it was impossible to do so because it would have been like pouring water on a grease fire. This was rather frustrating.
We did eventually hack our way past them, and into the glyph/statue room where the prisoners were held. A series of Arcana and History checks revealed that it would be possible to disarm the traps but would require two separate checks at DC 25 to do so. We were also led to believe (or at least the majority of the players interpreted it this way) that the collapsing ceiling trap was tied to the ceiling in the prisoners' chamber - not the first half of the map as was actually the case. Our final decision was to tell the boys to wait until we had cleared out the rest of the enemies, and we would then return to rescue them.
The final chamber proved extremely lethal, between the wizard and his skeleton henchmen, the statues who came to his aid, and the hostile spirit. We ran that encounter for about two hours before it became abundantly clear that we were in for a TPK and we were eating into the time alloted for the next round of players, so we decided to chalk it up as a loss and adjourn early. All of us left the table feeling cheated and it was unanimously agreed that the last worldwide D&D day was much more fun.
In retrospect, I have to wonder if the lethal and ultimately unenjoyable result of the game was due to sub-par GM decisions and explanations or to actual design. In his defense, though, I have played in several of this GM's games before and always enjoyed myself. From a design standpoint, though, I have to object to several components of the adventure:
Primary among my objections is that the final result of the game was heavily dependent upon correctly navigating the first puzzle challenge; if you goofed on the sarcophagus room, you were pretty boned. The combination of the wizard, the skeletons, and the spirit would have been bad enough. The statues made it far, far worse, but I'm willing to admit that was due to our own stupidity. Again, though, we didn't want to tamper with them for fear that it would kill the prisoners (and, by extension, us as well). Such a harsh penalty for messing up a puzzle room early on might be completely appropriate for a group of seasoned RPGers, but we had one or two people playing who could be described as novices at best. That struck me as a poor tactic to captivate new gamers - especially the ones who know less about D&D cosmology than a veteran like myself (I was the only one to pick up on the "sun and sire" clue as a reference to Bahamut and Pelor).
Also, please tell me at what point it was deemed balanced to pit two 85 hit point constructs against a party of five first level characters. I don't care how beefed up the new character generation is for 1st level PCs; that's murderous, especially with the massive slam attacks and the ability to knock us prone continuously.
All in all, I decided to use WD&D Day as my personal litmus test for whether I could get onboard with 4E as a player (I had already made the decision as a GM to stick with Pathfinder, which I find far more user friendly and an improvement of the wheel rather than a reinvention thereof). In that, I find that 4E has failed miserably. The various defenses and powers were needlessly complicated; combat rounds were agonizingly slow to reconcile, especially when I used my acid arrow. The power's description says a successful save negates the continuous damage, but how are those saves calculated? The GM couldn't figure it out based on the materials we had available and ended up either handling saves as 50/50 shots or ruling that the statue's save had to exceed its Fortitude defense (which felt very 2nd edition-y in a "high numbers are bad" sort of way, though again that onus is upon him). My one real regret is that I didn't have time to stay and read through the adventure materials on my own to see if these issues were resolved in any substantial fashion; in other words, was the material incomplete or just misconstrued by the guy running the event?
Ultimately, D&D 4E just feels, to me, like a lumbering monster of a system. The number of items that are streamlined and simplified is dwarfed by those which are now more complex and alien. We can talk about sacred hamburgers all we want, but change for its own sake isn't necessarily a good thing. I really tried to keep a positive mindset about the system as the transition came closer, hoping that I'd at least want to play in a 4E game even if I didn't want to run one.
I feel that D&D 4E is a prime example of a product that is sorely lacking in quality and substance but has been framed by a clever and effective marketing strategy. That may generate revenue for Hasbro and its subsidiaries, but it doesn't make a good game system. I tried to believe that the seeming ineptitude and deer-in-headlights look of company figureheads in promotional videos (Sara Girard springs to mind) was attributable to some sort of camera shyness, but now I feel as though it's because the designers and corporate mouthpieces either had no clue what they were selling or knew that what they were selling was sub-par.
In short, I'm still of the belief that the newly anointed emperor has no clothes. Which still leaves the scoreboard at Pathfinder 1, D&D 4E 0. Any thoughts?
Russ Taylor Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6 |
I participated in 3 runnings of the the World Wide Gameday module. One tough going (all lived), one cakewalk, one TPK. Pretty swingy little adventure :)
In general, I had fun playing 4E, though I still don't find it fun to DM this edition (I got early exposure as a playtester). I don't see myself running a campaign with these rules, but I imagine I'll play it again. I do have to say it feels a lot like a boardgame to me, albiet a complicated one.
Lazaro |
Well what can I say. It was an alright time. Even though only four people, DM included showed up.
We agreed on one thing the advertising could have been better. Hastings didn't know until last week it was running Game Day. My friend and I arrived to find the store managers bro would be running. Well after waiting 20 minutes to see if anyone else was coming. One more guy joined.
At this point the managers brother decided the game wasn't worth the time or trouble. So after taking some dice and a few minis left. The three of us just looked at each other, the manager finally asked if one of us would like to run it. Both guys turned and looked at me, at this point I knew I was elected to run it.
Well after getting situated, opening up some minis, and finding a place of the map, we started.
No one really felt like running double characters, except me of course. So the party looked like this:
Joe-Half-Elf Rogue
Brian-Human Fighter
Me-Eladrin Wizard/Longtooth Shifter Cleric*
*Ya not one of the pregens, but it looked like fun.
Anyways, the combat against the hobgoblins was amusing. It broke down into a fumble fest. Finally after 10 rounds of fumbles, the wizard landed a Thunderwave sending one of the hobo's into the sarcophagi(Deep-fried hobgobin yum, yum). After that the other hobo was a piece of cake.
Brian the fighter loved the Cleave. Being all he had to do was hit and an adjacent enemy took damage. Unfortunatly he had to leave after that combat. So now it's just Joe and myself. No one felt like running the running the fighter.
When it came to the prisoners. Joe decided to leave them there, for the tiome being. His reasoning was there was no way him, or his fellows would be able to disable the trap. The best course of action being finding Helvec, and have him disable it. As for the skill checks they all failed, not bad enough to where the trap triggered. I have no clue if it was the new dice, or if it was just one of those days.
Well the final battle came next. Once again it was Fumble City, for everyone except Helvec(he also won initiative). He of course called his statues to join the fun. Let it be known fumbles suck! Another 6 rounds of fumbles for the PC's. On the baddies side of the board though it was another story.
The party found itself split up, one statue on both the wizard and cleric. The cleric put up a fight, but after being knocked around he was at -6. Too top it off he failed, fumbled, all three death checks.
The wizard got a chance to use her fey step ability, and found herself a few steps away from Helvec. The wizard used sleep; Helvec went to slumber land. The end of course soon followed. Joe "convinced" Helvec into stopping the statues and freeing the boys.
Gotta say I wish more people showed would have been more fun. I liked the wizard. The Fey Step, Magic Missle and Sleep powers where fun to play with. Joe didn't like it all. His biggest complaint were the healing surges and sneak attack. Didn't give a reason for sneak attack, but said healing surges suck do to the fact that no class, other than cleric, should have the ability to heal. Other than that he said the class was useless in combat.
As I said was a fun experience, just needed more people.
Timitius Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder |
The first encounter went poorly. The riddle's meaning seemed pretty clear, but we weren't aware that the spirit was referring to the statues as the key to the vault, mainly because they weren't notated on the map. We thought the key to opening the way forward was opening the sarcophagi in the correct order; that mistake caused the spirit to attack us right off the bat.
Wow. I played this same adventure, and it could not have been more different. First, our GM (which happened to be Mike Mearls) pointed out the statues' positions above the coffins. He even read the spirit's message THREE times for us, and the cleric got a Knowledge: Divination check to know that Son and Sire could mean "Sun and Sire(Dragon term)".
The icy terrain ability was never used to put out the fires for us, but the thunderclap ability/spell was used to push a hobgoblin into the fire HE started...which pleased us all. ;-)
Upon reaching the lower level, our dwarf noticed the instability of the cavern, so we skirted the edges. We left the room the boys were in alone, choosing to follow the chanting sounds, and we took on the wizard and his skeletons instead. A round into that, ONE statue came out after us. Don't know about this 2nd one you had to deal with. The statue proved dangerous, but fairly slow. The wizard never really got a chance to really wind up...we took him down pretty fast with our rogue and a wizard. The statue pretty much required everyone to gang up on him to take the ONE down.
To me, it sounds like your GM made some decisions and descriptions (or lack of some) that pretty much led you down the path towards the TPK. One thing that was revealed to us (not on the char sheets we were given, though)was the use of an action point to gain an extra standard action. I did that twice in the demo, following eyebite with a sneak attack and my rogue's at-will.
JSL |
In retrospect, I have to wonder if the lethal and ultimately unenjoyable result of the game was due to sub-par GM decisions and explanations or to actual design. In his defense, though, I have played in several of this GM's games before and always enjoyed myself.
I think so, but I wasn't there and I don't know your GM. However, it is a new system and, it's quite possible that he wasn't up to his usual level of preparation on this one.
My experience was quite different. We solved the riddle (because the DM made a point of describing the room in detail - including the statues) and allowed a History check to determine the meaning of "Sinister". It took a couple of tries to get everything in the right order, but we managed.
A fighter took a flaming oil bath, but the cleric was right there to keep him alive. I was playing the rogue and got off a good sneak attack with a thrown dagger at one of the hobgoblins and we were able to overwhelm them with little difficulty.
We bypassed the prisoner room (and animated statues) after deciding that we should deal with more obvious badguys first. I snuck into the BBEG room putting a surprise round sneak attack and then a first strike sneak attack on the BBEG for 28 damage before his first action. After we were fully engaged by skeletons, the cleric bravely ate an AoO to run into the middle of the room, blast one with his Lance ability, spend an action point for Turn Undead, and use Healing Word on an injured character - all in all a very profitable round for him.
At that point, some of the players had to leave early so we skipped to the dragon encounter because everyone wants to fight dragons. The wizard's player had left, so it was four of us vs. the dragon. The DM kept rolling 5s and 6s for the breath recharge, but the fighters and the cleric were able to hang in there for quite awhile. I had low init and was hidden until we engaged the dragon in the cave part of the tower. My best move was a charge-into-flank followed by an action point for Easy Target. The dragon subsequentially dropped the human fighter and the cleric. But the dwarf fighter drove it back into the magic circle and I ran around the tower to charge-flank it again. It turned on me doing 22 points of damage, but I followed up with a 23 point sneak attack (not a crit, actually rolled max damage on 1d8+2d6+3) FTW.
Everyone had fun. I don't know that there was much "role" playing, but sometimes there isn't - especially in a convention or organized play setting where everyone is under a time constraint. But that is no fault of the game. Also, I think we benefitted from a DM who wanted the players to have fun and who wanted them to "win" the game (or at least have a good time and lots of laughs trying), which is the proper attitude for a DM in this kind of setting.
PWU,
Your experience would have put many people off the game, not just those who are basing the decision of whether to convert to the new rules on it. Ultimately, it sounds like a pre-written adventure, a new rules system, and a DM conspired against you. The first two are understandable in a "release day" event. The third, though, is unfortunate and hopefully you will have another opportunity to play the game under better circumstances.
Russ Taylor Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6 |
A round into that, ONE statue came out after us. Don't know about this 2nd one you had to deal with. The statue proved dangerous, but fairly slow. The wizard never really got a chance to really wind up...we took him down pretty fast with our rogue and a wizard. The statue pretty much required everyone to gang up on him to take the ONE down.
Definitely two statues in the text of the adventure (I have a copy).
Russ Taylor Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6 |
A little silliness to share (some RP I threw into my playing of it): I played the fighter, and to reflect my Streetwise skill (and good roll) I spun a little tale about having grown up in the gutter. Then we ran into the old beggar with some information to share, and I promptly exclaimed "DAD!" :) Of course I promised to come back later and buy him a hot meal...in my best faux-sincere voice.
RPing is what you make of it, even in a noisy, crowded room.
Timitius Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder |
Timitius wrote:Definitely two statues in the text of the adventure (I have a copy).A round into that, ONE statue came out after us. Don't know about this 2nd one you had to deal with. The statue proved dangerous, but fairly slow. The wizard never really got a chance to really wind up...we took him down pretty fast with our rogue and a wizard. The statue pretty much required everyone to gang up on him to take the ONE down.
Huh. Guess he went easy on us, then. The statue never bodyslammed either. Or maybe he tried and rolled too low. Two would have been a bit different, I'd say. Dumb thing kept making the cavern collapse, too!
Big Jake |
Our Game Day event here in Seoul, South Korea, went really well. We had five tables going at one time, with a six group that started after one the first one finished. I ran two groups through the encounters, and both groups had fun.
I took a lot of opportunities to highlight the differences of 4e. I started by going over the character sheets and explaining how everything worked, then ran the white dragon encounter.
I said, “To highlight a significant difference, five 1st –level PCs comprise a level-appropriate group to face a large white dragon.” I held up the dragon. “This dragon has 200 hit points.”
The reactions were the same across the board: “Are you sure this is level-appropriate?” “Really?” “Really, really?”
By the time each group finished the first encounter, everyone had a good idea of what this new level-appropriate encounter style was like. (For the record, no PCs died, but several came close. PC death is definitely NOT gone in 4e.)
Both groups completed the adventure in full. The first group disabled the traps, but the second group set them off (after dealing with the cleric and all the baddies) and had to hot-foot it out.
Everyone felt that 4e does indeed “feel” like D&D (several of us have been playing for over 25 years), but we also agreed that certain parts of 4e would have to “get used to,” which isn’t a bad thing to say, considering that 3.0 was so different from what we grew up with, we had to get used to the changes if we were to play the new edition.
None of us have actually seen the books yet, and we realize that Game Day was really a short adventure to mostly show off the new combat rules and all, so we’re still reserving our final judgment on 4e as a whole.
More than likely, my group will end up playing 3.5 and 4e. We really like 3.5, and there’s still so much to explore and do. We’re also interested in 4e, and we’re sure to make some characters soon and go through Keep on the Shadowfell, to really get a good look at the game.
Big Jake |
A round into that, ONE statue came out after us. Don't know about this 2nd one you had to deal with.
Funny thing, that. The adventure called for two statues, and even indciated which two of th eight statues on the map were the animated ones.
But the DM pack came with only one statue. I brought an extra one from my home stash, knowing in advance there was only one in the pack.
There was a similar thing in November's Game Day: the adventure called for two ice mephits, but only came with one. For that game, we only had two tables going at a time, so we opened the extra packs and fished out an extra mephit.
Big Jake |
As I said was a fun experience, just needed more people.
Yeah, that's a total bummer. The adventure worked great with five players. It's sad to see you missed out on the "real" experience. If you were able to keep the stuff, try getting some people together and running it for a whole group.
Andrew Betts |
When we got to the mausoleum the human fighter said I open the door, the spirit appeared and he attacked. We killed it. Figured out the puzzle, kept going through and in the end didn't die after getting through. But the guy playing the fighter was really annoying. His idea for dealing with traps was to set them off. Made my life as a rogue pretty boring. The rogue having "eyebite" didn't seem to ve a very good fit, it wore off before you got to attack again.
Overall I was pretty much unimpressed, which I will admit could have been the group I was with. But for all the talk of being more exciting, etc I was bored out of my mind.
Kradlo |
I ran the game twice at GranLan in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we had fun, but I have to agree that WotC should have provided quick start rules. Like a lot of people, I'd had my books on preorder from Amazon, so many of the situations had to be adjudicated on 3.x rules (like being prone).
The adventure was pretty brutal - the animated statues were the real killers. The nasty combination is Knock Down Fist (+3 vs. Fort for 2d6+3 and knocked prone), Kick When Down (free Smashing Fist attack at +5 for 2d6+3 against a prone opponent at the end of the turn) and Keep Them Down (immediate reaction to a prone opponent standing up - Smashing Fist attack, which keeps them prone and ends their turn).
I had prone players everywhere getting pulped by the statues. My first run was a TPK. The second resulted in 3 dead PCs and 2 running for their lives out of the dungeon.
Still, there's a lot that we enjoyed, and I'm looking forward to getting my books.
Timitius Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder |
Just wanted to post some pics I took at D&D Game Day HQ in Seattle.
Note: these are in my public photo set...the volcano pic was NOT at Neumos. ;-)
Pete Apple |
Just wanted to post some pics I took at D&D Game Day HQ in Seattle.
Note: these are in my public photo set...the volcano pic was NOT at Neumos. ;-)
16 hour days working on PFRPG and what else would Jason be doing on his day off, right? Sleep? Bah! :-)
Great pictures!
Saurstalk |
Thank you for all your posts. I spent my day drinking beer and hanging with friends after a river expedition. So, no game day for me. So, I appreciate all your insight into the game.
That said, I did have a nice two hours at the local Barnes & Nobles to review the PHB (MM and DMG).
Admittedly, I wasn't a fan of WotC's 4e at the outset of the company's descriptions of the "cool" new system. Admittedly, I've been more enthused with the possibilities of PFRPG, though I am admittedly becoming more tentative there. (What's hard is that I have seen how some house rules were enough to clean up 3.5 for my games. So, with Pathfinder, it's still going to require house rules, as well as learning new rules.) *sigh*
But back on topic. I was hoping to feel excitement begin to course through me while reading the PHB. Instead, it only offered more conviction that 4e is really not for me.
A few dislikes I like . . . but would be curious to hear how these played out on game day.
1. There shall be only one. One class? Dabble in only one other class? I had hoped 4e would open the channels. Instead, it seems to have stopped up the dike to a trickle. (This is one thing I'm glad Paizo is embracing - no more multiclass restrictions or penalties! Yea Rah! . . . Of course, that is also something I've already house ruled for my campaigns.)
2. You heal. I heal. We all heal. I really seems to me that WotC has trivialized the drawn-out notion of adventuring by trivializing the dynamic of healing. It's not just battle by battle (Final Fantasy anyone?) . . . but rather, a strategy that requires planning. One of the things I've enjoyed is having a character at half-health, stumbling through the depths of the dungeon, aches and pains, and praying that he'll survive the next encounter.
3. Screw encumbrance! Yech. This is a critical component of all my games. You carry lots of gear, you get penalized. Plain and simple. But WotC seems to think that's too demanding. Don't know why.
Admittedly, I've yet to wrap my head around the powers system and the abandonment of magic casting (for powers) . . . and rituals for everyone. None of this seems appealing . . . but agains, I'd love more feedback.
So, thank you all you playtesters for your feedback . . . and I want more! ;p
David Marks |
1. There shall be only one. One class? Dabble in only one other class? I had hoped 4e would open the channels. Instead, it seems to have stopped up the dike to a trickle. (This is one thing I'm glad Paizo is embracing - no more multiclass restrictions or penalties! Yea Rah! . . . Of course, that is also something I've already house ruled for my campaigns.)
Yes, it would be better if we could multi into more than one class. Technically, rules withstanding, you COULD let someone do so, either by taking a second set of feats, or by using the replace PP with multiclass option for the third class. I think the second option would be a better way to go, but it would certainly be a house rule ...
2. You heal. I heal. We all heal. I really seems to me that WotC has trivialized the drawn-out notion of adventuring by trivializing the dynamic of healing. It's not just battle by battle (Final Fantasy anyone?) . . . but rather, a strategy that requires planning. One of the things I've enjoyed is having a character at half-health, stumbling through the depths of the dungeon, aches and pains, and praying that he'll survive the next encounter.
You can still have situations like this, but it is more likely that they'll be stumbling through the dungeon with only one or two healing surges left each. They can't take much more punishment (and in 4E, once you're out of healing surges, there are VERY few effects that can still heal you) and so they have to make those last few surges count. If you're the kind of DM that isn't going to let them curl up and camp somewhere in the dungeon, things are going to be even nastier as daily abilities begin running low for everyone ...
3. Screw encumbrance! Yech. This is a critical component of all my games. You carry lots of gear, you get penalized. Plain and simple. But WotC seems to think that's too demanding. Don't know why.
I'm not sure what you mean. Encumbrance is certainly still around, although simplified (thankfully!). It's true a heavy load doesn't give you the same penalties as it did in 3E, but the penalty is still pretty stiff. Constantly being slowed is going to kill you vs ranged attackers, not to mention any kind of overland speed is going to be impossible.
Cheers! :)
Jason Bulmahn Director of Game Design |
Timitius wrote:Just wanted to post some pics I took at D&D Game Day HQ in Seattle.
Note: these are in my public photo set...the volcano pic was NOT at Neumos. ;-)
16 hour days working on PFRPG and what else would Jason be doing on his day off, right? Sleep? Bah! :-)
Great pictures!
I knew that picture would pop up here sooner or later. After having picked up the books on Friday, yesterday was my first chance to play the game (since DDXP) so I thought I would check it out.
It played smooth enough, but I got kinda bored fighting the white dragon. That might have been the judge, but I am not sure.
Jason
Timitius Wayfinder, PaizoCon Founder |
I knew that picture would pop up here sooner or later. After having picked up the books on Friday, yesterday was my first chance to play the game (since DDXP) so I thought I would check it out.
It played smooth enough, but I got kinda bored fighting the white dragon. That might have been the judge, but I am not sure.
Jason
Whoops! Must've forgotten to set the permissions on that one!
Tries to look somewhat apologetic.....and fails
I'd like to note, however, that I did not post the direct link to that picture. People had to make an effort to "notice" it....
From indications above on how different the same scenarios played out, I think play experience varied widely, dependent on how familiar the GM was with the new rules, and how forthcoming said GM was in pointing out the new options and abilities available under the new rules.
crosswiredmind |
From indications above on how different the same scenarios played out, I think play experience varied widely, dependent on how familiar the GM was with the new rules, and how forthcoming said GM was in pointing out the new options and abilities available under the new rules.
Yep, looks like WotC should have held the game day after most folks had the chance to learn the game.
Lazaro |
Lazaro wrote:As I said was a fun experience, just needed more people.Yeah, that's a total bummer. The adventure worked great with five players. It's sad to see you missed out on the "real" experience. If you were able to keep the stuff, try getting some people together and running it for a whole group.
Ya, Hastings let me keep the box of stuff they got. So I plan to use it up at my buddies store. A lot of people seem interested.
MisterSlanky |
I know it's psuedo-gameday oriented, but I found this very interesting.
I just got back from a visit to my not-so-FLGS (they're a bit further than my FLGS but are MUCH bigger). Their entire inventory was picked clean and their book stacks were decimated. Nearly every rack was empty. We stopped in to pick up a Spell Compendium for my girlfriend and a bunch of minis for our new campaign and the mini wall was picked clean and there was barely a single 3.x D&D book in the entire store (there were tons about two weeks ago).
There were craploads of 4E books though, easily 150+ copies (they were split between five locations in the store, each stack was at least 30 books). I asked, apparently it didn't sell as well as expected.
Infamous Jum |
Dragon?! Man, now I'm kinda mad. I ran a session at the FLGS on Saturday, and the shop only got the one adventure, the one with the statues of death. I noticed right away the dragon mini, and even the adventure mentions the dragon at the end, but no copies made it to the store for some reason.
The statues, those were brutal. Knock you down, get a free attack. Try to get up, they get a free attack. What does it matter that standing no longer provokes an attack when the one time it comes up is against an enemy that gets the attack anyway?! It took the players a little while to figure out that they were better off using their At-Will powers rather than simply attacking, despite my numerous encouragements. The wizard player was pretty bored with Magic Missile, and at one point got up and left, telling another player "just keep Magic Missiling". All in all, people seemed pretty "meh" about the rules, but I made sure we all had a good time anyway (well... except for the wizard, and another guy who just shows up for these events for free minis and has ZERO interest in 4th Edition, and is quite glad to tell you this while playing the demo). I let the players keep the figures for whatever they killed, and I gave the unused White Dragon to the sole survivor, who ran for his life after seeing two of his pals get crushed to death by the statues.
I was a bit put-off by the lack of any sort of starter rules in the provided adventure. I didn't get a lot of time to learn the rules beforehand, having just purchased the books on Friday, and I'm sure there were plenty of mistakes on my part. I was also surprised at the lackluster materials provided; you'd think they'd want to send roman candles and cake for this event, not a sack of ho-hum d20s and character sheets that looked like they I typed them up in Word and printed at home.
Andrew Betts |
Dragon?! Man, now I'm kinda mad. I ran a session at the FLGS on Saturday, and the shop only got the one adventure, the one with the statues of death. I noticed right away the dragon mini, and even the adventure mentions the dragon at the end, but no copies made it to the store for some reason.
I believe the dragon is in an adventure in the DMG.
Runfer |
I joined up with a group in Tampa, and played the game also. I found the game enjoyable. I liked some of the new things they brought in.
Now on to the adventure itself:
Our group was the two fighters, cleric, wizard and rogue (me). We got into the crypt and the shadow gave his speech. After some trying of moving torches and statues behind each other, we finally figured it out. The Hobgoblins got moving and our dwarf went to leap over the coffin only to set off the trap. The human fighters knocked over the other torch and we dispatched the Hobgoblins. Finding the next room with the locked door, I tried to use thievery to unlock it and failed, so we continued to the next area were we battled the BBEG and his skeletons.
The fight went pretty well, our wizard cast thunderwave and knocked him off the area and the cleric managed to blast all the skeletons with turn undead. From there I used my per day attack, with sneak attack, and we quickly got rid of the elf. By then the two statues came at us. Lucky for us we did everything to get the shadow on our hide and the statues and skeletons were easy.
We managed to find a hidden entrance and when the cave in started quickly got out through the secret entrance.
The DM Never saw stats or a run up for the WHite Dragon. And neither then the owners. So we never used it.
THe other groups had a total TPK by setting all three encounters at once and dealing with the shadow.
THe last group lost only two of their players.
Overall, I enjoyed 4th edition and look foward to running it one day. But for now we will stay with 3.5 until such time as we are ready to move on.
Infamous Jum |
I believe the dragon is in an adventure in the DMG.
Well, there IS an adventure in the DMG that features a white dragon, but the provided adventure specifically calls it "the other Worldwide D&D Game Day Adventure, Against the White Dragon". But after posting just now, I got to thinking, so I called up the shop. Apparently the "adventure" was part of a stapled set of trivia games or some such, which they only got one copy of and I never saw. The "adventure" is just a single page encounter with a white dragon. For anyone that DID run that fight, how deadly was the dragon?
Big Jake |
Dragon?! Man, now I'm kinda mad. I ran a session at the FLGS on Saturday, and the shop only got the one adventure, the one with the statues of death. I noticed right away the dragon mini, and even the adventure mentions the dragon at the end, but no copies made it to the store for some reason.
The white dragon wasn't part of an adventure, per se. The Game Day box came with a two-page white dragon encounter, but there were only two copies in the box.
I made copies to give to each DM, and I encouraged each DM to run the white dragon encounter before the Game Day adventure, to let eveyone get familiar with the basics of combat.
It's too bad you didn't get the encounter. It might have helped the player with the wizard try out the PC's other abilities, but it probably wouldn't have made a difference on your other guy.
BTW, neither of the players that had the wizard stuck to the magic missile the way your guy. Or if they did, they didn't complain about it.
Golbez57 |
Ya, Hastings let me keep the box of stuff they got. So I plan to use it up at my buddies store. A lot of people seem interested.
Speaking of swag....
Forgot to mention this earlier, but GrandLAN in G.R. ordered a goodly amount of 4E materials, enough to get a cardboard display for it, and from their distributor, the Coolest Freakin' DM Screen EVAR (tm).
It was molded gray plastic, weathered with black to look like a three-paneled castle wall, with towers in each "joint" like so:
\o____o/
The DM side of each panel had two-tiered racks for miniatures, for a total of 6 surface-saving storage areas. The crenellated towers themselves were hollow with chute-like holes in them. One chute led to the area behind the screen for private rolls made by a player and visible only to the DM, while the other led to the tabletop.
It's emblazoned with the new Dungeons & Dragons logo.
If WotC doesn't eventually offer that one for sale, they're missing out on my cash.
David Marks |
Lazaro wrote:Ya, Hastings let me keep the box of stuff they got. So I plan to use it up at my buddies store. A lot of people seem interested.Speaking of swag....
Forgot to mention this earlier, but GrandLAN in G.R. ordered a goodly amount of 4E materials, enough to get a cardboard display for it, and from their distributor, the Coolest Freakin' DM Screen EVAR (tm).
It was molded gray plastic, weathered with black to look like a three-paneled castle wall, with towers in each "joint" like so:
\o____o/
The DM side of each panel had two-tiered racks for miniatures, for a total of 6 surface-saving storage areas. The crenellated towers themselves were hollow with chute-like holes in them. One chute led to the area behind the screen for private rolls made by a player and visible only to the DM, while the other led to the tabletop.
It's emblazoned with the new Dungeons & Dragons logo.
If WotC doesn't eventually offer that one for sale, they're missing out on my cash.
No pictures? That makes me sad. :(
Edit: But that screen sounds awesome!
Golbez57 |
I really should've Googled before posting. It seems I had the name wrong. It's actually the Ultimate DM Screen of DOOOOOM. If it's indeed limited to 220, sad panda.