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So now that we have played it and had some time to go into the rules in depth, I have to say kudos to 4th edition. Although it has a MMO feel with the powers and cooldowns, that did not pose any problems to the players! In fact it was a blast. I started out using the hooks as a skill challenge for all players. If they win the skills challenge then the "master" gives them a magic item level 5 and the quest and if fail they just get the quest and a reduction in the pay. The combat encounters were fun, fast paced, and very tactical. The rules were beyond easy and simple. Just look at what promotes opportunity attacks (old A.O.O.) No more figuring out a buff spells duration, although keeping track of spells in effect until save can add up quickly. Players thought that combat was simplified but character creation was very involved, in fact, much better. Players had a choice and now for the first time ranged combatants can "fire into melee" which was always a no no in the old system. Much of the problems 3.x had was too many rules, too many exceptions. My rules lawyer had nothing to say for three entire sessions so far. Players leveled and found it very rewarding. It actually makes more sense to make a human rather than another class which is a first. DMing monsters was easy, fast, and found more time to construct tactics rather than worry about huge stat blocks that 3.x gave with most monsters. Would love to hear others feedback. Please do not make this a 4th edition sucks vs 4th edition is great. Just want to hear about other dm's opinion on
1: how they run the game
2: players feedback
3: Houserules if any (we kept critical and fumble decks, ad hoc for old school rules, )
4: Props they use (we use colored poker chips for ad hoc, action points, and winners of session)
Most importantly would love to hear what other dm's use to keep track of conditions and marks while playing. Do not like the bad cards dm's guide gives.
I'm planning to run CotCT in 4E, and am playing Keep of the Shadowfell with another DM right now. So far we have had zero issues with 4E, and think it is a breath of fresh air for our gaming group. We have had 2 other 3.5 campaigns end prematurely due to power creep and high level problems, and I am looking forward to seeing 4E in action and how it handles this.
I also have the critical hit and fumble decks, and have some ideas for converting them over into 4E, which I will get around to eventually, hopefully.
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I just started playing my 4E conversion of CoCT last night. It was a blast. I'll try to encapsulate the experience without throwing in spoilers.
I've had to not only convert the adventure from 3.5 rules to 4E, but also bump the encounter challenge for a group of six (strangely, the new edition has pulled together more consistent players than I've ever had before). In the past, even converting an encounter from 3.0 to 3.5 gave me a three-day migraine (for instance, when I was re-statting the main villain from the old Dungeon adventure, "Headless", it took my slow ass 4 hours--damn ranks in Scry). With 4E, statting out the denizens of the Old Fishery in its entirety took about an afternoon--and that was with me putting all the encounters into fancy 4E stat blocks with colored boxes and everything. The hardest part was converting treasure (the first segment of the adventure hands out tons of coinage, but almost nothing in the way of convertable PC equipment) and making sure there's plenty of XP without unduly mutating the encounters, but even that wasn't so bad. It's wierd to say, but I actually like putting together encounters now.
Now, we haven't gotten that far in the adventure, so time will tell. But so far, it seems like everyone's having fun with the game and they like what they're seeing. The rules are really easy to grasp. I think we had to flip through the PHB once. Even combat on a battle mat with 6 PCs, 8 orphans, 3 villains, a dog, and a lot of varied terrain has run smoothly.
As long as conversion keeps going smooth, I think this may very well be one of my favorite campaigns ever.
Just my two copper-coated zinc monetary units.
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Heh, forgot to actually talk about what you wanted to hear. Sorry. :P
1: Not much to add here--pretty much like I always did. It's smooth enough that I'm not always burying my nose in a book or the adventure, but rather answering PC questions or clarifying a rule instead, which I like. Confusion and lookup time are greatly reduced.
2: I'll see if my roommate wants to post his thoughts on the game--he's playing in it, so he'd know best.
3: Well, I decided to keep the Harrow Points and Background Traits from the CoCT Player's Guide. Harrow points work more or less as before--in the first adventure, for example, PCs can spend a Harrow Point for an initiative reroll, an Acrobatics, Stealth, or Thievery reroll, a +1 to AC for one encounter, or a +2 bonus to speed for one encounter. So far a few PCs have used their Harrow Points (some only got one and have blown it already), and it hasn't felt overly powerful.
Background Traits give you the background flavor, and either a +1 to a save or +2 to a skill related to that background. For example, one of my PCs, playing a warforged fighter (one of the famous Numerian "metal men") has the "Widowed" Trait (the only person who treated him like a living thing was killed), granting him a +2 to his already impressive Intimidate. Again, it hasn't been too unbalancing--his in-fight Intimidate attempt would have required I think a natural roll of 13 or so to work, which is still higher than average.
4: We haven't hit a point where people really forgot all the conditions/effects on them, and I usually make a note of it on the Gamemastery combat pad or put a token or die or something on the character/enemy's mini. Action Points and Harrow Points we keep track of on the character sheet. PCs have printed cards of all their powers (my roommate spent a lot of time making a template in Publisher so we can whip up cards now pretty fast).
I'm an amateur cartoonist, so I make all the PC minis and villains, as well as "NPC portrait cards" (working title)--half-size index cards with a lil' picture of the NPC on the front and lines on the back for the PCs to write notes. I've never really done the winner of session thing, save at a tournament once, so I got nothin' on that part, sorry.
Hope that's more in the vein of what you're looking for.
Having just finishing our Ptolus campaign a few weeks ago, last week we started our first 4e campaign with a new DM.
Im currently playing a Dragonborn Paladin of Kord, and our party consists of an Eladrin Warlord, a Half-Elf Warlock, a Tiefling Rogue, a Teifling Wizard and an Elf Fighter.
The world is a homebrew but keeps the 4e cosmology intact (planes and gods etc).
In our first (5hour) session, as normal we met the other party members and had two lvl 1 encounters to test our worthiness to enter "Star Clan" (a kind of equivalent of the special forces). These encounters where both built using the guidlines for building encounters out of the DMG. One used monsters from the MM and one used monsters created using the rules, again, laid out in the DMG.
Our group has been pretty much split between 4e and 3.5 but a few test games, and the brilliant World Wide Games day run in the London Dungeons convinced a fwe sceptics to give a full campiagn a go.
During the run up to 4e, whilst excited about the release i was beginning to have reservations about the power of the PC's and the lack of danger that monsters seemed to offer. Having played (and DM'ed) a few encounters now, I can firmly say that this is not the case.
Encounters now are fast, brutal and, in the main, heroic to the core. Which for me fulfils a need I never really knew I had. I have always been a fan of dark and gritty games, and in the main our previous campaigns have played on this. This campaign is being run however in a bold "four colour" fantasy style and its so damn refreshing. As a friend of mine said "why is everyone obsessed with making things darker? Why cant we have a bit of camp heroism now and again?".
After our first two encounters, the whole pary was battered, bruised and in all but one case, out of daily powers, and everyone always expended there encounters powers. Some of this may be in an effort to "play with new toys", but in the main, these powers were neccesary for the parties survival.
As always I've written this post while im supposed to be working, rambled and completely forgotten the point I was trying to make when I first clicked "ADD REPLY". So...erm...yeah 4e is damn good system, different from 3.5, this is true, but its still bloody enjoyable!
1: how they run the game
2: players feedback
3: Houserules if any (we kept critical and fumble decks, ad hoc for old school rules, )
4: Props they use (we use colored poker chips for ad hoc, action points, and winners of session)Most importantly would love to hear what other dm's use to keep track of conditions and marks while playing. Do not like the bad cards dm's guide gives.
We just had our first KotS session, and everyone had a great time. Here are my thoughts:
1. Running the game - The 4E rules were easy and streamlined, and actually helped my players initiate roleplaying. In our 4 hour game session, we only tackled the first ambush encounter which lasted about 30 minutes real time. The rest of the session was pure roleplaying, interracting with NPCs, and a few minor skill challenges.
2. Players' feedback - Of my 5 players, 3 are D&D veterans and 2 are brand new to the hobby. All five of them have read the PHB, so they were reasonably well-versed with the rules. After the session, two of the vets applauded the new rules. They had been skeptical of switching from 3.5, but after playing 4E they're converts now.
3. Houserules - We did add two. #1: I gave out bonus languages based on the PC's Intelligence bonus. #2: We also came up with a way for ritual casters to forage for spell components while in the wild. With a successful DC 15 Arcana or Nature check I allowed the caster to find 1d10 + their level in gp value of spell companents. This took 1 hour to perform and could only be done once per day.
4. Props - We used 7/8 inch multi-colored poker chips to keep track of conditions. We also used D&D minis, a battlemat, and the awesome Paizo initiative board. As DM, I printed out images for each NPC the PCs met. I hunted down images on the internet for each one. A picture is definitely worth more than 1000 words.
We're loving this game so far! All the players are excited about the next game session.
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I'm using coins to track conditions (gold for Mark, silver for Ongoing Dmg, copper (I've saved since the 80s in my dice bag which is lucky as Australia doesn't use them anymore) for Buffs). They are more reminders than anything specific as the details are written on my magnetic initiative board.
The Critical Hit deck stayed but we still use the max rule too - just instead of Double Damage on the card we use Max Dmg and whatever flavour modifyer there is.
I'm thinking of stealing your pokerchip idea for between game buffs like ACTION POINTS, and maybe HEAING SURGES and DAILYS - that sounds great.
On the non MMO side of 4th Ed ... I love (as does my PCs) the new rules on NonCombat encounters. PHEW! Now noncombat encounters are brought into the game like traps were in 3rd Ed. Personally I love benchmark rules and set XP for things like that. It AIDS roleplaying in my book as you just need to add roleplay flavour from check to check and we don't get bogged down in haggling with the NPCs. Diplomacy/Intimidate etc actually have meaningful results, and we find it exciting as opposed to the actors in my group stealing the show to make just one roll.
Also with the way 4th Character Gen is built my chatty Bard loving PCs now have a character that can do something in combat. Gone are the useless characters and me having to split my DM time between the 3 PC areas stealth/combat/diplomacy. It used to be that only one character could shine at a time but at least in combat EVERYONE can do something.
We've only played one real game so far, so we haven't had to find anything to track APs (although I can definitely see the need to do so)
For effects in battle, we've been using colored plastic rings from on top drink bottles. It's not perfect, but it does fairly well so far. We've discussed getting some Alea Tools (and if I end up DMing at some point, I might see if any players are willing to go in with me to buy a few sets worth)
Cheers! :)
- 2: players feedback
Great, so far. Even the more skeptical players have largely enjoyed the game. Everyone liked the diversity of options, inside and outside combat, and the fact that every character is equally useful.
Nobody cared about the reduction on verossimiltude given by the 1-1-1-1 diagonal movement and the cubic spell areas - the comfort of never having to count squares, and never having to botter with creatures "partially" in the area of effect, more than compensates it.
- 3: Houserules if any (we kept critical and fumble decks, ad hoc for old school rules, )
Changed the Skill Challenge system. Reduced all DCs by -5. I hope to decrease the reduction to -4 on level 6, -3 on level 11, and so on. Also, I kept the number of failures constant at 4, regardless of the complexity.
- Most importantly would love to hear what other dm's use to keep track of conditions and marks while playing. Do not like the bad cards dm's guide gives.
I use paper marks for marked condition, and counters painted with red for bloodied ("marked" also include the ranger's Hunter Quarry and the warlock's Curse).
For other conditions, following a suggestion from the DMG, I let the player on my left keep track of all of them. And the player on my right keeps track of the initiative order. Heck, this made things faaaaaar easier!
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I've played in two sessions so far.
I really like the game. I runs like others have said, 'fast and furious'...except when a player disengages until his turn and then takes 5-10 minutes to figure out what is going on and what to do.
{Caveat: This (these) same player(s) do this in our 3.5 game, so it is not game specific.}
This is a shame, since the board is very dynamic, which I really like. That being said, I played RotKK and had several players moving around a lot on the board (and these w/out spring attack, etc feats), so maybe we've just gotten a bit stale in 3.5...
Fights at this level DO take longer in my opinion though. However, I've run a PFRPG test for 1st level and the fight took longer than 3.5 RAW. (extra hit points, more options, etc)
Anyway, the MAIN thing I like about the combat (have played up to the Ironfoot(tooth?) encounter in Keep) is that a victory (that's right! Victory..no TPK :P...Meatgrinder on the Shadowfell...whatever...) feels like a team effort.
However, I really dislike the fluff that WotC has given us (sooooo happy that Eberron won't change so much) and wonder why it is so necessary.
For sure, I will be importing healing surges to 3.5 (at least the second wind mechanic), and dropping the 1-2-1 (which is dumb anyway).
Anyway, that's my report. The guy who GM'ed the game keeps asking me when I'm going to run 4e so he can play..hehe...
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Thanks for the feedback, we finished our third session of it. It picked the adventure in the back of the DM's guide and now into the keep. To add flavor I started with a skill challenge as written and all succeeded in their own 1 on 1 skill challenge of complexity 1 level 1. Set the Dc's to 10, 15 and 20. the DC 20 counted as two successes and the DC 15 one success and DC 10 added a +2 to the next skill check but not as a success. natural 20's doubled whatever rule, and it worked great. I gave all characters a level 5 random item to start off with and a hook each. This time around all players remembered their quest and role played each skill check making it more epic. I can tell you that I use the WOW baord game. The pieces it gives work great. Marks, warlock curses, bloodied effects can all be marked on the board with these pieces. I know it costs$60+ and might seem steep but is well worth it. I also use custom dice I bought here that track effects. These work well. Thank you to all for the feedback. I especially like the keep the crit deck use max damage and keep secondary effects rule. I will use that. Fast furious and amazing thing was it took about 1 hour for 3 encounters. I can tell that some players feel that the warlock is overpowered but that mostly stems from the dragonborn pally thinking he is a damage guy and is getting mad that the warlock steals the kills, gets off more damage than he does. I tried to tell them the aspect of roles again. Might have been my fault teaming up on the guy with the kobalds immobilizing him, slinging stomes, and flanking. Almost had a two player kill with the first battle due to great die rolling, but in the end the rest of the battles were quick bloody and rewarding for the characters. We also have the battle of going for 2 weeks ago level 18+ party to 1st level again. always a tough transition. Anyone else believe a race or class is overpowered?