Tim Williamson's page

Just started reading this and I'm hooked. It is a great mix of old and new. Once my current game if finished I think this will be my next campaign.

Thanks again

Tim

I try and make the last encounter dynamic.

If the party make a big fuss getting to the last encounter then the evil boss will have time to call in help. May be a lot of help...

If the party is super stealthy and get to the end without setting off the alarms then their reward for good play is an easier encounter.

The party needs to feel their actions make a difference and good planning makes a difference.

A game shouldn't be a set of isolated encounters. The results of the earlier encounters should impact on the final encounter in some way.

My mistake – we certainly played it after the announcement, because the first half hour of the game was always taken up with discussing 4th rumours instead of playing the game!

I agree with Steve, that when you play an adventure has a lot to do with how you remember it.

The D series are classics to me because they introduced the under-dark to me. H-1, Keep on the Shadowfell, isn’t on my classic list because it’s another introductory adventure (a good one may be, but not a classic to me). Other people will see H-1 as a classic in twenty years time because it was the first adventure they played.

Obviously, everyone’s classic list is different, but the true classics will be those few modules that are repeatedly included.

May be there isn’t any true classics for 4th Ed. May be that was part of its problem? Or may be Gardmore Abbey (I’ve not played it yet) will be one. Some of the last 3.5 modules released were the best – I think Red Hand of Doom was released after the 4th announcement was made (I’d have to check that).

In 30 years time, when I'm in the retirement home looking back at all the different DnD games I’ve played, I probably won’t remember the all the different rule changes and editions. What I will remember will be the classic adventures and settings.

Each edition throws up some classics. For Basic/Expert there was B2 -The Keep on the Borderlands and X1 - Isle of Dread.

For first edition we have: D2 – Descent into the Depths of the Earch, G3 – Hall of the Fire Giant King, S1 – Tome of Horrors to name a few

Second edition was more about settings – Planescape, Birthright

Third edition gave us the – Eberron, Red Hand of Doom and Adventure paths (Shackled City, Age of Worms).

What will 4th edition be remembered for? Certain adventure will be converted and re-played in every edition. Has 4th edition been around long enough to produce any original classics?

We enjoyed H2 – Thunderspire Labyrinth, and P2 – Demon Queen’s Enclave looks good (not played it yet), but I’m not sure they are classics.

In my current game, which I'm DM'ing, there has been 3 deaths. And the party is currently 9th level.

1st death at 4th level was the result of bad planning followed by a noble sacrifice. Basically the party made a hash of breaking in to the bad guy’s hid out and got hammered. When the bad guy makes a break for it only one PC is still standing and bravely gives chase. The PC is killed but does manage to delay the bad guy long enough for some of the party to re-group and capture him. The PC was not raised and the player was pleased with the PC’s noble sacrifice.

2nd death at 6th level was the result of a lucky hit in a desperate battle. The party attack a band of ogres knowing that they are probably out gunned. However, they use fantastic tactics and against all the odd win the day. But in the last round of combat the ogre chief gets a lucky critical and drops the fighter. The fighter is raised. The death shows to the players I’m not fudging the dice and they happy that they played and won fairly.

3rd death at 8th level was the result of three bad dice rolls. The scout rolls a 1 sneaking past a stone giant. The giant scores two critical hits and kills him stone dead. The PC was eventually raised. The player was angry with his dice, but not me.

My players know that:

If you play badly (make bad choices, ignore the warnings) you may die
Even if you play well you may die
A run of bad luck can kill you

1 death per three levels seams about right to me. The risk of death is real and makes the game both exciting and rewarding.

50 +1 bane shurikens! A bit excessive me thinks.

I think the current CR and EL system is OK, for new DMs and Low levels, but as the player's levels go up it becomes more of a guild. The results of which need tweaking to match the power/abilities of the players.

Taking a party for 1st to 15th+ level takes a long time and many encounters. Hopefully as the time goes on the DM will know how to tweak the result and will probably not need to calculate ELs. I don't. I've got a good idea what monsters and monster combinations will challange my current group.

Experience will quickly make any system redundant....

I've DM'd three, third edition, high-level games (1st to 18+). And these games did not break down and we had a lot of fun.

Yes, the prep time did increase as the levels got higher. Yes, it was hard work. No, the game does not have to break-down.

I didn't use full Adventure Paths, but I did pull together alot of stuff from published adventures and dungeon magazine.

Published adventure do assume a certain average level of play. A DM must adjust these as the game moves into higher levels. My first group of players were very effective and could handle higher challanges than the DMG recommended. My current party are less effective and tend to struggle (mainly due to bad planning and communication). As the levels get higher the difference between two parties became wider.

As games develop it is important for the DM to tailor encounters to the party, or the party dies in a TPK or everyone gets board. Using published adventure at high levels certainly saves time, but they still need to be tailored - the higher the level the more tweaking required.

Golarion fiction aimed at an adult market would certainly get my vote. Though, personally I think we'd need some new authors.

And hopefully, any books won't be based on an adventure path, but be more character based. Good fiction makes you care about the characters and shouldn't be there just to show case the setting. This is where alot of the FR fiction falls down. The reader just doesn't care enough about the characters.

One of the problems with DnD fiction, is selecting a target market. I'm 37 years old now and have been playing/reading for 26 years. What I considered to be great fiction 26 years ago (Dragonlance) and what I like now are miles apart.

If a Pathfinder novel is going to be successful then it needs to have a clear target market.

And, if it is aimed at 12-14 year olds, I'll probably still read it.... bit knowing its aimed at a younger market I'll not be too critical.

Some of the FR fiction of 10 years ago was very poor whatever the reader's age, but hopefully we've moved on from assuming game designers automatically make good writers.

Wow.

Given that this is only a beta version AND the pdf version is free then this really is a huge success.