Malik Lucius's page

But why and from where are we suddenly amassing additional people?

To my mind I would have thought the people that are there would be there whether the party starts at this location or not. In fact I would almost expect the starting order to have more people as I would have assumed some people might die in the initial attack without the party there, like in the Riverwood Shrine, where we are told a dozen bodies lie there when the PC's visit.

As I said im sure this has a simple answer that I've either missed or over thought :)
So could someone please enlighten me

Half right, yeah- the rationale seems to be that while the party is relaxed at their starting location, the Ironfangs are just arriving. Most people in Phaendar are still out enjoying the festivities. Once the army marches into town, people start to run for cover wherever they think is safe, which brings the numbers of townsfolk up. After that, they start dying off, and the numbers dwindle.

Similar with Provisions, I think the party's own food and drink are being left uncounted among provisions at the starting area, and folks ducking for cover are bringing what they have at hand, as well.

I want to recreate the map of Phaedra with the intention of making it appear to have more buildings and slightly less like a cul-de-sac.

It doesn't make sense for any group in a town that is under siege by hundreds of troops to say "well let's do the loop around the only road in town". It makes sense for them to say "holy crap, lets skulk out the back through these alleyways and try to help any people we can on the way.

Am I railroading them by putting all 4 of the target buildings along the sensible path towards the bridge? Do you think the AP was designed for them to never really hit all 4 buildings in the first place?

I am preparing to start running this AP for next week, Friday November 2nd. It occurred to me that the biggest factor in making this seem like a denser town is the fact that the Market festival is current going on- to my thinking, the market green should be full to overflowing with tents, wagons and hardwall stalls that have been set up for the market, completely removing that big clear view across town.

This means that when the Onyx Tower appears, it's in the middle of crowds of people meandering and eating festival food, totally unprepared for a bunch of soldiers to start pouring out. It also answers the question of "Wait, the PCs seriously didn't notice an invasion going on outside the thin walls of Phaendar's cheap buildings?" The Tower is under a hundred feet from the edge of the market green in any direction. Hobgoblins could be pounding down the door within three rounds of their arrival.

I don't think it seem as if the AP was designed for them not to hit all four locations, but definitely to force the party to prioritise what and who they care most about saving. As written, it is at least suggested that the party might spend a pleasant market day before the action begins, and that thay probably settle on a starting location together, whether in or out of character.

I've got a player curveball as well, that I thought would be useful to people getting ready to run. Similar to Borensoren's Ratfolk, one of my players is from a caravan of Catfolk merchants who have brought their wagons for the market. As a result, I have created a fifth location with its own Primary NPC- the Catfolk encampment, on the southern edge of the Market Green, between Oreld's and the Trading Post. This is where the party will almost definitely elect to start, over the Inn.

As far as I'm concerned, this does nothing to change the 4-location track. I've given it a resource track similar to the other locations, and added a fifth slot to all locations- visited fifth, any given location has no refugees, only a small provision count and a hobgoblin encounter, and signs of a struggle. It does, however, mean I'll be preparing some alternative dialogue- assuming the party starts there, they'll be witness to the thunderous tearing of earth and rending of booths and tents as the Spire arises, and will have the first encounter as a crit from a heavy crossbow bolt takes Aubrin from between two wagons, instead of having a door kicked in.

I definitely plan to run a session zero to get some inter-party interaction beforehand, but had prepared a secondary handout for my players alongside the Players' Guide, giving a brief rundown on the key NPCs from areas A-D, so the three PCs I have backstory from have actually already accounted for prior relationships with those NPCs. Depending on what my fourth and fifth players bring to the table, it might be a short day at the market, or as long as a half-day escort for a wagonload of goods that Oreld was expecting a day prior, which has broken a wheel down the road.

I still don't get why people make MMO comparisons in a negative fashion towards 4e, considering the actual D&D MMO was made with the previous edition's ruleset. MMO comparisons are what helped make 4e make more sense to me, I don't see why it's always used in such a negative fashion.

I will readily admit to making such comparisons myself, and would like to assure you that, at least in my case, it is not intended to be a negative comparison. I feel that the MMO comparison captures 4e's impression well, because of the mechanics. Everything has an established 'cooldown', which the players are encouraged to keep track of. I feel that it lends a sense of hovering your pointer finger over the 'lightning bolt' hotkey, in a way. Not a bad thing, just an apparently generalised feeling.

I will say, as well, that I am not particularly enamoured of the 4e system. It's not that there's anything wrong with it, My players and I just don't find the game's mechanics or presentation appealing to us or our style of play. We prefer to game in a high-immersion roleplaying style, and 4e simply has nothing to offer us in that department. The edition is more focused on catering to the function of combat, an issue which, again, doesn't have much bearing for us.

While I agree that the game is not combat-exclusive, the majority of the 'edition overhaul' has been an apparent effort to revolutionize the game mechanics in regard to combat. This has been an overall success; the party now finds it quite necessary to behave as a cohesive unit, and it fosters a sense of unity on the battlefield.

Story-wise, the books offer next to nothing, which isn't necessarily a bad thing; as pointed out above, the story has always come from the DM and the players, not from the books. 4th does, however, lack a bit of the class fluff which was present in previous editions. I've known many players over the years who needed a bit of prompting to get into the roleplaying groove. That's not to say that they weren't good roleplayers, but they needed a starting point for their character's story. This could be seen as a bonus in some ways; Wizards is not known for their fantastic storytelling. The concepts presented as a base, however, were interesting enough to spawn characters.

Balance-wise, 4e has done wonders, but I do feel that the balancing has omitted a lot of character. Sure, the powers are different, as mentioned above, but the classes are all mechanically the same. In essence, every character is hovering over the hotkeys. Their powers come at a similar rate, and provide similar enough benefits. I never felt that previous editions' class discrepancies were such an issue, particularly in the case of 'role dependency', as the DMs I played with were conscientious enough to consider the party's limits when building adventures.

Skill-wise, 4e has nothing that I found worth noting it for. The skill list was consolidated some, which was nice. But, I found no use whatsoever for skill challenges. I have seen skill challenges fill one of two functions;
First, Replacing Roleplaying encounters with more die-rolling. Why talk to the guard in character if you can win him over regardless with three successes before four failures? It's not as though we want to explore character depth in person, right? Maybe this has simply been used incorrectly in every campaign I've been in, but this system does not at all appeal to me when implemented thus.
Secondly, To add variety to an adventure by forcing the player characters to use skill checks to accomplish something, as opposed to resorting to combat. This was mentioned above, and I still don't see the attraction. This means the group has a primary interest in combat, meaning the system is being used to force the PCs to act in a way they'd rather not. Sounds Fun.

All in all, I found that while it's insisted by many that the book focus on combat and mechanics was a means of encouraging roleplaying, it simply didn't come across. I have watched 4e groups minimise the story in order to properly appreciate the combat, and I have watched groups minimise the mechanics in favor of creating a fun story. I've also watched the two halves be combined into a very good mix of story and mechanics; usually by people who enjoyed such games in previous editions. But the rules simply don't make this easy.

I can't personally recommend 4e except on principle; I like to maintain a 'Try it and find out' attitude toward gaming systems as a whole. I tried it, and didn't like it. I think OP has long since finished with this thread, but I like participating in places where 'Opinion' is not synonymous with 'Flame'.

pres man wrote:

So does that mean that PFRPG is going back to the 3.5 ruleset, or that this is just meant to be a bit misleading?

Hmmm...

I am going to assume that is a rhetorical question. I'm trying hard to read it in a tone that is not snarky, but I'm struggling.

Don't dance around the issue, if you've got something to say: say it.

I'd assume that is to mean that while Wizards made a very valid bid to exterminate 3.5 by stopping production of 3.5 products in favour of 4th, the game thrives regardless of their efforts.