Blessedly, the Monster Manual 2 comes out this month with write-ups for Stone Giants, just in time for me to use them in the conversion! Hooray! The MM2 also contains barghests, so I'll be going back to Burnt Offerings and revisiting my version of Malfeshnekor. Depending on what level and role of monster barghests are statted up as in 4th Edition, I'll make some changes to his stat block.
You're right, she should be roled as a controller. Her brute role was a by-product of her being an ogrekin, but even with its application she remains a much more obvious controller than brute.
Thank you for being so open-minded on this, I was afraid you'd take it as an insult.
I find it odd that this fight became so grindy for your group. This fight went very smoothly for my own group. Were the undead listed in the encounter used in the fight? Mammy isn't designed to be her own threat. She's supposed to keep the party in disarray while her undead tear them apart. Those undead are quite strong on their own and Mammy herself should be reasonably assured of having at least one PC dominated per round, unless she's being controlled to a standstill. How did her dominate ability work for your group? My group had a rogue and barbarian, and the strength of their at-will attacks led me to keep them dominated as much as I could. I also dominated the party paladin at one point and had her use lay on hands on Mammy to give her a little extra staying power.
The undead were quite interesting and the fight worked very well as long as they were around. My party is a Swordmage, Sorcerer, Rogue (sneaky dagger-thrower), Warlock, and Bard (melee build). As you can see, the only characters who want to be close are the Swordmage and Bard, both with good Will defense. Also, my players have learned to take down the chattel first and then concentrate on the boss monsters. Mommy didn't actually dominate anyone until the undead were all down. And even when she did, all except the Sorcerer (who was smart enough to stay the hell away from Mommy) need some gimmick to really do damage; the others do pitful damage when dominated.
In the end, we did a storytelling finish, with the players moving outside, opening the windows, and killing mommy with ranged attacks - it was getting very late in the evening at this point. I docked them 3 healing surges for the group and said she went down after a long fight.
Thank you for being so open-minded on this, I was afraid you'd take it as an insult.
Heck no, that was a pretty clear error on my part. Technically, you are supposed to change the monster's role to the role specified in the template when you apply it (and the ogrekin template is supposed to apply the Brute role), but the main boost to the monster's power through the template is its two attacks, and Mammy's melee basic attack isn't powerful enough to justify her in the Brute role.
The undead were quite interesting and the fight worked very well as long as they were around. My party is a Swordmage, Sorcerer, Rogue (sneaky dagger-thrower), Warlock, and Bard (melee build). As you can see, the only characters who want to be close are the Swordmage and Bard, both with good Will defense. Also, my players have learned to take down the chattel first and then concentrate on the boss monsters. Mommy didn't actually dominate anyone until the undead were all down. And even when she did, all except the Sorcerer (who was smart enough to stay the hell away from Mommy) need some gimmick to really do damage; the others do pitful damage when dominated.
In the end, we did a storytelling finish, with the players moving outside, opening the windows, and killing mommy with ranged attacks - it was getting very late in the evening at this point. I docked them 3 healing surges for the group and said she went down after a long fight.
Ah, that may be why. Your party is set up in such a way that the only melee characters (and thus the ones who can get dominated most easily) are not strikers, and you have three ranged strikers. I have to imagine the undead went down pretty quickly, then. Your players should be congratulated for so thoroughly destroying this encounter. ;P They did exactly what they should have done and as a result the end of the fight dragged on.
I think I'm going to modify that encounter a little bit based on your input. What I'm considering is dropping Mammy's hit points by 30 or 40, and giving her an extra ability:
Mammy's Loyal Sons (free, when bloodied; encounter)
All destroyed undead allies within 10 squares of Mammy gain hit points equal to half their bloodied value, stand as a free action, and make a melee basic attack as a free action. When Mammy is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer, all undead affected by this power are destroyed.
That ought to scare the crap out of the party, and it gives the synergy created by Mammy and her undead a little more staying power. What do you think?
I've added the final encounter of Fort Rannick (save the crypt, but my party probably won't encounter it until the side trek, so it stays out for now). Down Comes the Rain should come up this week, and then it's off to Skull's Crossing.
I'd like to share a bit of my own group's experience with the Jaagrath encounter. They knew that their quarry was somewhere upstairs, but had convinced themselves that it was at the top of the keep's tower. As a result, they thought they should look for a set of stairs going up. They decided to try something I'd never considered before - the preemptive Arcane Lock. I allowed them to quietly conduct the 10 minute ritual on the first door they chose, which happened to be Jaagrath's chapel room. As soon as the ritual was completed, they flung the door open. Jaagrath eagerly drew his weapons and rose to charge them, only to have the door closed in his face by the Paladin, magically locked at a Thievery or Strength DC of 40, thanks to a monstrously good Arcana check. There's no way he could bust that down. Screaming for Dorella and Gragavan, he began to struggle with the door in vain.
Meanwhile, the other ogres have come out to check on the racket, and stumble upon the PCs. While the fight proceeded in the hallway, Jaagrath decided to simply destroy the door - Arcane Lock does nothing to prevent hacking the door to smithereens. Comically, he rolled natural 1s on two of his first three attacks on the door. A couple rounds later, though, the door was in pretty terrible shape. Another solid swing and the party would have yet another ogre on their hands (and they'd only managed to bloody one of the ogres they were already going toe-to-toe with). They had one more trick up their sleeve, though. The party Artificer was positioned right outside the door, poised for action. When it was clear the door couldn't take another hit, he unloaded his secret weapon: the Artificer encounter rote (the equivalent of a Wizard's cantrip) Repair Object. With a minor action, the door was restored to nearly full strength. This upset Jaagrath a great deal.
By the time he managed to break through the door and actually participate in the fight, Gragavan was already dead and one of the ogre savages (they fought two because they had 6 PCs in the fight) had already been cowed into surrendering. Now, I did give them a hint that the Artificer might be able to help them through this situation in a very unique way, but I was surprised with how well it worked as a delaying tactic. It took the better part of the evening to finish the combat encounter, but it was totally worth it.
That's a lovely story. Shows rituals can actually be used in action. One of my players really loves the kind of magic rituals bring, but not how they work - this is an example that they can work despite the casting times.
Om Mommy; I would make her a Controller with Controller hp. The three sons in the barns are still Skirmishers. The idea to resurrect her sons is great, tough at 10 hp each they might not stay around for long.
That's a lovely story. Shows rituals can actually be used in action. One of my players really loves the kind of magic rituals bring, but not how they work - this is an example that they can work despite the casting times.
Yep. I was really impressed by the whole situation. A non-combat rote combined with a ritual made that encounter a lot more manageable.
Om Mommy; I would make her a Controller with Controller hp. The three sons in the barns are still Skirmishers. The idea to resurrect her sons is great, tough at 10 hp each they might not stay around for long.
I'll absolutely be making her a controller, but with hit points slightly lower than a controller ought to have (the elite version of her base monster would have 256 hit points, and I'm aiming to give her around 244 hit points or so).
Her new power would allow her to raise her undead with 21, 29 and 18 hit points, respectively. They ought to stick around for a couple rounds, and giving them the ability to make an attack for free when they are raised ensures that they'll get a chance to dish out some damage even if the party wastes one before it would get to act.
Version 0.4 of the Burnt Offerings conversion is now up for download. I completely missed the Meditation Chamber skill challenge when I went through and re-worked them all last time, so the primary change in this update was to bring that skill challenge up to the rest.
My goal for this weekend is to have The Skinsaw Murders compiled and available for download. Fingers crossed.
Well, I missed the goal by a day or so, but no biggie.
The Skinsaw Murders compiled conversion PDF is now available for download!
I'll be posting the most recent conversion material for The Hook Mountain Massacre as soon as I can. Hopefully that will be tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises. On the bright side, everything up until just before Wet Papa Grazuul is ready to go.
Scott thanks for the work. It's a great help as I'm running the campaign in 4th edition at the moment.
Well, I missed the goal by a day or so, but no biggie.
The Skinsaw Murders compiled conversion PDF is now available for download!
I'll be posting the most recent conversion material for The Hook Mountain Massacre as soon as I can. Hopefully that will be tomorrow, but I'm not making any promises. On the bright side, everything up until just before Wet Papa Grazuul is ready to go.
I too would like to say thanks scott for all your hard work and to please continue with your excelent conversion.
I have been lurking on your site since you started Skinsaw and although I am not currently running RotRL in either version. Your 4e effort has certainly opened up the possiblities for me
Regards from Australia
Mark
Scott, thanks for all your hard work on this conversion so far. As a first time 4E DM, I've found your explanations really useful for understanding how encounters play out in 4E.
My party is about to enter the Catacombs of Wrath and looking at the latest version of the compiled Burnt Offering pdf (v0.4) I noticed that the skill challenge for deactivating the lesser runewell doesn't appear to have been updated.
I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on how it could be improved or whether I should just run it pretty much as-is.
Scott, thanks for all your hard work on this conversion so far. As a first time 4E DM, I've found your explanations really useful for understanding how encounters play out in 4E.
My party is about to enter the Catacombs of Wrath and looking at the latest version of the compiled Burnt Offering pdf (v0.4) I noticed that the skill challenge for deactivating the lesser runewell doesn't appear to have been updated.
I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on how it could be improved or whether I should just run it pretty much as-is.
Yeah, I missed that one on my way through last time. It'll be updated soon. Maybe today. I'll probably be changing a couple of things (including more primary skills, perhaps), but on the whole it should remain pretty similar.
I'm glad you're getting use out of it, though!
A few updates to the blog today.
First, Down Comes the Rain is fully converted, up through the end of Skull's Crossing and the encounter with Avaxial.
Second, I've updated the Burnt Offerings conversion again to include a revised skill challenge stat block I missed, and to alter Malfeshnekor to be more congruent with how Barghests appear in the Monster Manual 2 that just came out.
Enjoy!
Summer's just started, and we're skipping our game this week. To keep myself on top of things, I've put together some advice on playing the new D&D Insider exclusive revenant race in the Pathfinder universe (with a few pointers on how you might integrate a revenant PC into your Rise of the Runelords 4th Edition campaign). You can find it here.
Scott, there used to be hand drawn maps in your blog. I can't seem to find them now. Are they gone for a reason? If not, can you link one for me or tell me where the hyperlink is located?
Scott, there used to be hand drawn maps in your blog. I can't seem to find them now. Are they gone for a reason? If not, can you link one for me or tell me where the hyperlink is located?
I removed the maps. I was unhappy with their quality and ultimately decided that the issue of adjusting map size was very minor. I give some guidelines throughout the project on how to make the maps function better in 4th Edition, but there are a number of reasons why my own maps are no longer making an appearance in the conversion.
Is there a particular encounter you're looking for advice on map layout for? I'd be happy to help if I can.
Is there a particular encounter you're looking for advice on map layout for? I'd be happy to help if I can.
Nope, I just couldn't find them again after seeing them previously. Thanks.
I've added Part Four: The Haunted Heart to the blog. Myriana, the swamp environs, and a couple of encounters designed to take place within Whitewillow are included.
I've also updated the Burnt Offerings compiled conversion document. It was missing the bunyip encounter, which is now in there, and some of the Divinity feats needed a little reworking.
All that's left for The Hook Mountain Massacre is...Hook Mountain. Finishing this adventure up will mark the official halfway point in this conversion process. Enjoy!
Another update. The first half of the Kreeg clanhold has been posted, along with a skill challenge for the mountain ascent. I've also posted an updated list of 4th Edition divine domains for the most prominent Golarion deities, now that Divine Power is out. And in case you missed it, I added a piece a couple days ago on ways to integrate dragonborn into the setting.
All but one encounter from The Hook Mountain Massacre is up. Next week will mark the end of the actual adventure, though I will include a short side-trek afterward involving Fort Rannick, the Keeping the Keep article, and some of the monsters from the Bestiary. Fortress of the Stone Giants is only a couple weeks off.
Also, today's previews over at the official D&D website mentioned that the DMG 2 will include rules for "companion characters", which sounds very similar to the role envisioned for Shalelu in The Hook Mountain Massacre. Expect a few revisions next month when I get my hands on those rules.
I've updated the website and both compiled conversions to reflect WotC's new fan site policy. This project now operates under fan policies from both WotC and Paizo, which I've been looking forward to for some time now. It's nice to be able to have the Dungeons & Dragons logo up there alongside the Pathfinder one.
But now that you've agreed to their fan "policy" are you still actually aloud to post stat blocks and the like?
The only thing that concerned me (for combining 4e with any other products) was the part that said, "You may not use Wizards trademarks on or in connection with products other than genuine Wizards products, unless such use is specifically granted to you under the terms of the Game System License ("GSL") http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/welcome or another separate written contract with Wizards." But, overall, I think it is good that the got a policy out.
But now that you've agreed to their fan "policy" are you still actually aloud to post stat blocks and the like?
Yup. The license specifically calls out games, modules and applications. My conversions fall under none of those. They're nothing more than fleshed-out sets of encounters. If WotC does decide to restrict its use beyond that, I'll happily opt out of the license. Using their trademarked material is a privilege and ultimately isn't necessary to running the website. It operated for over a year under fair use, and it'll continue to do so if it turns out that the fan license isn't appropriate.
A quick update before I head to bed.
The Hook Mountain Massacre is finished, though not yet updated on the blog. The finale went marvelously and I'm very excited to release the finished conversion, which will go up sometime this week.
I decided to expand the "Keeping the Keep" section to a complete conversion rather than a couple encounters tied to a single event. Most of the events that might take place during the course of the PCs' management of the fort between adventures requires little to nothing in the way of conversion, but a few events do. I'll be providing notes on how to handle those, so the PCs can enjoy the winter there before they are called back to Sandpoint if you want to incorporate that into your game.
I'm going to be changing the format of how I present published conversions slightly, as well. The conversion document and the quest cards will now be in separate PDF files, zipped together.
And here it is. The blog has been updated with the rest of the adventure, plus the Keeping the Keep article and the remainder of the bestiary.
I've also uploaded a compiled conversion PDF along with quest cards in zip archive format, which you can find here.
Cheers!
So here's a question to the community:
I'm designing the encounter structure for the beginning of Fortress of the Stone Giants. That section of the adventure involves a string of encounters in very short succession (in the original adventure, they even potentially overlapped). The entire set of encounters was originally designed to last two and a half minutes total, which comes nowhere near allowing for even one short rest.
I'd like to include multiple encounters during this section, but the PCs will definitely need the ability to regain encounter powers and heal up between fights.
So I have a dilemma. Do I extend the string of encounters so that they take place over a much lengthier period (20 minutes or so)? Do I ignore the 5-minute requirement for short rests in this case and just give the PCs the benefit of a rest after each fight? Or do I choose a different option that I haven't already foreseen.
Advice?
So here's a question to the community:
I'm designing the encounter structure for the beginning of Fortress of the Stone Giants. That section of the adventure involves a string of encounters in very short succession (in the original adventure, they even potentially overlapped). The entire set of encounters was originally designed to last two and a half minutes total, which comes nowhere near allowing for even one short rest.
I'd like to include multiple encounters during this section, but the PCs will definitely need the ability to regain encounter powers and heal up between fights.
So I have a dilemma. Do I extend the string of encounters so that they take place over a much lengthier period (20 minutes or so)? Do I ignore the 5-minute requirement for short rests in this case and just give the PCs the benefit of a rest after each fight? Or do I choose a different option that I haven't already foreseen.
Advice?
I would ignore the 5 minute requirement for a short rest if that suits the pacing of narrative better. I did this with the goblin raid on Sandpoint during the Swallowtail Festival between the first and second encounters, describing it as the party taking a few moments to catch their breath and take stock of the situation before the next wave of goblins appeared.
I concur. If the encounters are difficult enough to be considered a party level encounter or higher than ignore the 5 minute thing. However the other alternative would be to make several lower level encounters that overlap each other enough be considered 1 challenging encounter. If you did it that way than I wouldn't allow for powers to recharge. For example if they start fighting a couple of opponents and then a few more join the fray a couple rounds in, and then maybe some others a little after that etc...
I concur. If the encounters are difficult enough to be considered a party level encounter or higher than ignore the 5 minute thing. However the other alternative would be to make several lower level encounters that overlap each other enough be considered 1 challenging encounter. If you did it that way than I wouldn't allow for powers to recharge. For example if they start fighting a couple of opponents and then a few more join the fray a couple rounds in, and then maybe some others a little after that etc...
Given that one of the fights involves a red dragon, I'm not sure the latter is feasible. Automatic short rests sounds like the way to do it. I'll see how it turns out tomorrow.
I might leave this to the players. If the ywant those short rests they'll have to pull back from the combat for a few minutes. Otherwise they can keep pushing forward into the fray. Since this is the first (and probably only encounter) of the day they will have healing surges so there is some room here to design a unique challenge without outright slaughtering the PCs.
I'd slow the main encounter down a bit though as well 2 1/2 minutes is kind of quick for a major battle.
I might leave this to the players. If the ywant those short rests they'll have to pull back from the combat for a few minutes. Otherwise they can keep pushing forward into the fray. Since this is the first (and probably only encounter) of the day they will have healing surges so there is some room here to design a unique challenge without outright slaughtering the PCs.
I'd slow the main encounter down a bit though as well 2 1/2 minutes is kind of quick for a major battle.
Given that the original adventure has the PCs dealing with 12 stone giants, 3 dire bears and a red dragon, I don't think that pushing onward without a short rest is really an option. Unless you dramatically scale back the assault on Sandpoint and the PCs' involvement in it (which is something I won't be doing in the conversion), they will run out of healing abilities very quickly.
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Given that the original adventure has the PCs dealing with 12 stone giants, 3 dire bears and a red dragon, I don't think that pushing onward without a short rest is really an option. Unless you dramatically scale back the assault on Sandpoint and the PCs' involvement in it (which is something I won't be doing in the conversion), they will run out of healing abilities very quickly.
As an aside, it's odd to me that this is an issue with 4e. My group did this encounter as written without any rest using 3.5, which is supposedly impossible with the 15 minute adventuring day. I thought 4e was supposed to "fix" this "issue."
Let the players play without any rest. They're supposed to feel like this is a dramatic raid, a breathless assault by a dangerous enemy who poses a real and present danger against their adopted hometowns. Not having complete access or being forced to choose between being at their top strength or saving Sandpoint's citizens should be a great roleplaying moment.
Alternatively, if that's too harsh for your group, have them gain back a second wind or an encounter power when they pass a plot based milestone, like saving townsfolk or stopping the red dragon.
Given that the original adventure has the PCs dealing with 12 stone giants, 3 dire bears and a red dragon, I don't think that pushing onward without a short rest is really an option. Unless you dramatically scale back the assault on Sandpoint and the PCs' involvement in it (which is something I won't be doing in the conversion), they will run out of healing abilities very quickly.As an aside, it's odd to me that this is an issue with 4e. My group did this encounter as written without any rest using 3.5, which is supposedly impossible with the 15 minute adventuring day. I thought 4e was supposed to "fix" this "issue."
Let the players play without any rest. They're supposed to feel like this is a dramatic raid, a breathless assault by a dangerous enemy who poses a real and present danger against their adopted hometowns. Not having complete access or being forced to choose between being at their top strength or saving Sandpoint's citizens should be a great roleplaying moment.
Alternatively, if that's too harsh for your group, have them gain back a second wind or an encounter power when they pass a plot based milestone, like saving townsfolk or stopping the red dragon.
Are you confusing the difference between a short rest and an extended rest?
I'm explaining that the set of encounters, as written in the original module, does not allow for the five minutes normally required to rest up between encounters.
This has nothing to do with the 15-minute adventuring day, since we're not talking about extended rests. A 4th Edition party can definitely take on this many encounters in the space of a day without much difficulty, but they do need to be able to regain encounter powers and heal up between those encounters.
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See the problem is apples and oranges. 4e fixed a "problem" by introducing a new problem: how do you add 5 minute rest periods into a dramatic, dynamic encounter without making said encounter less dramatic by adding in rest breaks?
I'm merely pointing out that in solving one supposed issue they create a different supposed issue. We merely trade one absurdity for another, neither of which is inherently troublesome enough to warrant changing editions. Plus ca change, la meme chose.
I still maintain that in this battle, drama dictates that you avoid this mechanic because hesitation should cost lives in this battle. Give them back encounter powers based on dramatic victories or heroic acts, such as saving townsfolk or killing the dragon.
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While I might not agree with some of your other comments, I think this suggestion is an excellent one. One might even ignore the idea of having any pause at all, but instead have 'checkpoints' - moments like mentioned here, when certain enemies are defeated or some accomplishment is achieved, that let PCs spend healing surges or regain powers or similar.
Thanks! I'm honestly not trying to troll, I just think it odd that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I'm sure in seven years when whatever company has the D&D license, this will become suddenly a terrible point about 4e and why 5e will be ever so much better. At least for the marketing department...
I dig the rationale behind the 5 minute break, but I really think a better dynamic is needed for dramatic encounters.
I think that in lengthy dramatic encounters such as this, it's easy to just handwave things a little and say that encounter powers have recharged. It gives them the boost they need to press forward, but it's still not as good as short rest because they don't have time to spend healing surges at their leisure, but at least they'll regain their second winds and leaders will regain their holy words and the like.
Given that the original adventure has the PCs dealing with 12 stone giants, 3 dire bears and a red dragon, I don't think that pushing onward without a short rest is really an option. Unless you dramatically scale back the assault on Sandpoint and the PCs' involvement in it (which is something I won't be doing in the conversion), they will run out of healing abilities very quickly.I might leave this to the players. If the ywant those short rests they'll have to pull back from the combat for a few minutes. Otherwise they can keep pushing forward into the fray. Since this is the first (and probably only encounter) of the day they will have healing surges so there is some room here to design a unique challenge without outright slaughtering the PCs.
I'd slow the main encounter down a bit though as well 2 1/2 minutes is kind of quick for a major battle.
Thing is this encounter is actually a really good way of posing your players with an interesting resource management problem.
Almost all the things that are trashing the town are very big. That means players can almost always break contact by diving through windows and doorways of nearby buildings. This is very important because it allows you to really challenge your players in this encounter but your not likely to kill them (but they probably won't realize this and thats good too). Its clear that they can't handle the whole thing in one go but they might be able to handle some extra encounters in one go depending on what their emergency healing and such are like (i.e. how many potions of healing does the party have for example) and where and when they choose to use their dailys. Furthermore the situation is such that the players can leave combat for some minutes, sure there are consequences, but its possible - if you try this in a combat were the monsters are just focused on the PCs obvously you kill them - hence waves of baddies is usually a bad thing that needs to be designed around - but not here, this encounter has special circumstances that allow the DM to provide the tension of 'waves of bad guys' without the downside of a TPK.
What I might do with this encounter is make it full of loads of potential XP - essentially fill it with XP that the players get if they stop each of the groups before said group manages to demolish X or kill Y number of people. Its impossible for the players to manage to do all of this because they can't handle every encounter without stopping but they could manage to do better or worse depending on how far they can push their characters.
Hence I might work out what each monster group will have done if not stopped after 5 minutes, after 10 minutes and after 15 minutes. Stop a group from accomplishing X goals and you get some XP for each act of destruction it was not able to accomplish. This incentives the players to try and push things (and that should provide lots of drama and excitement at the table) but they'll also have to recognize when they can't take it any more and will either have to stop after a combat for a short rest or may even need to retreat from a combat to regroup and catch their breath.
I would hope this type of layout will both provide tension and drama in terms of the resource management and provide drama in the fact that this whole scene is in some sense a major battle and the players can save many people but even they can't be everywhere all the time. As a DM I might really play up the scenes where the players are gulping down air hidden behind a building while I describe Stone Giants pounding the town church to rubble or the Dragon knocking roofs off building to snatch the tasty morsels hiding inside. All in all this should turn out to be a very different kind of encounter then what they are used to and I think thats a major upside as well.
Essentially turn this into a full on battle instead of an event that takes 120 seconds to play out. True that means that there is going to be loss - the players can't be everywhere and simply don't have what it takes to beat a detachment of stone giants and a dragon in 120 seconds but I see that as something of a feature as opposed to a bug.
The main thing the DM has to modify in the encounter to make it play out more as a battle instead of a fight is extend the time length - as written the monsters activities are described in terms of what they could accomplish in the next three minutes because, in 3.5, there is no way the battle is going to last much beyond 3 minutes. For 4E you want to think of it more in terms of what will happen over the next 15 or so minutes because that is much closer to the time frame that it will take the party to win this battle in.
Note that this kind of thinking is true of any kind of battle sequence in 4E. If the armies of the Dark Lord clash with the Five Nations of good then the DM should be thinking of encounters for the players not in terms of what happens over the course of the next 4 minutes (after which the players will have spent their resources and will need to retire from the battle) but in terms of 5 minute chunks where the players will run out of healing surges and such in something more like 30 or 40 minutes (still pretty fast but not quite the extreme of 4 minutes).
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I've recently ran an encounter (The horned Hold Assualt in Thunderspire mountain) where the party "triggered" other encounters (a duergar escaped to warn others, who sent another duergar to warn even more).
The party was doing pretty good, and had actually taken steps initially to prevent anyone from running to get others. But they let their guard down and the duergar took it. Suddenly, they had 2.5 encounters worth of combatants to deal with.
Rather than immediately retreat, the party took a more defensive position and tried to fight it out. They were quickly out of dailies and encounter powers, as well as 2nd winds. At some point, there was a pause in combat (a door was slammed shut and held so a fallen comrade could be stabilized) I immediately granted them the limited benefit of a short rest: They regained their encounter powers, they were allowed to spend 1 surge each to heal (but nose any Healers Lore or powers) and since they had indeed finished 2 encounters that day (actually 2.5) They regained an Action point.
It wasn't enough, they fell and are now captured by slavers, but it was certainly dramatic and nobody
I say that if the attacks are in waves, then between each wave is a short rest, not 5 minutes. The story drives the game, the game shouldn't drive the story. If we adhere to the 5 minute rest to preserve the game, at the expense of the story, that is obviously bad. But the if also adhere to the story such that game is no fun, that is also bad.
Facing three encounters should allow for a short rest between, alter the short rest accordingly.
However, you can design the three waves as one encounter (Perhaps one 4 levels above the party level), not allow a short rest, and simply have more creatures of lower level to make up the xp budget.
The choice comes down to this: Three increasingly difficult fights or one long fight that seems to never end. Both are valid.
I prefer the 3 fight approach and the hand-waved short rest.
Let's face it, in-game time only matters when it matters. Few, if any of us, play such that we know exactly what time it is in-game, or how long it takes us to eat a meal at the inn, or how long it took the characters to traverse the Street of Heroes during the festival. The precise measurement of time didn't matter, so we ignored it.
The precise measurement of a short rest doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not the encounter(s) are structured such that one is needed. If so, allow it. If not, don't allow it. If the story demands that the PCs arrive in time, then let the number of rounds in the encounter make the difference, not the rest between.
One other suggestion, Make it two encounters: One encounter with a second wave, and a final encounter. Then let the players determine when/if they want to rest. Tell them explicitly: You only have time for one short rest, any more and you will not arrive in time. They can determine if they want it between waves of the 1st encounter, or before the final encounter.
Thank you for all the suggestions.
I ran the first few encounters (up to the fight with Longtooth) on Monday, and made use of the heroic victory short rest, handwaving the normal 5 minute requirement. No one had issue with this, and it allowed me to sustain the pace of the attack on the town. This solution is what I'll be recommending in my conversion.
How long did that fight end up taking to run?
I've recently ran an encounter (The horned Hold Assualt in Thunderspire mountain) where the party "triggered" other encounters (a duergar escaped to warn others, who sent another duergar to warn even more)...
Not to derail the topic, but I have had the dubious honor of playing in two different D&D 4E games where we went through Thunderspire Labyrinth. In both games, we often had encounters spill over into each other due to "runners" or mobs sounding alarms. In the first campaign, we had three encounters spill into each other, and at one point the melee ranger was actually "tanking" the duegar leader in the Horned Hold while the rest of the party was overwhelmed by duergar and demons. We were looking forward to rolling up new characters when, quite surprisingly, folks kept rolling 20s on their death saves. It is for that reason alone the party survived.
I think this is a common issue in the new 4E delve format. Every encounter seems to assume that the party has had a short rest since the last encounter. However, the dungeons are so densly packed at times that it is almost assured the party will incidentally trigger a second or third encounter. This has happened in other adventures, whether published, converted or home-made.
I like the idea of a moral victory or the tides of battle turning and the characters get most of the benefits of a short rest without having to take a full five minutes. I may have to use that when I know battles will spill over.
Again, sorry to derail for a moment. Just commenting on the encounter spill-over and giving kudos for a good solution.
I've recently ran an encounter (The horned Hold Assualt in Thunderspire mountain) where the party "triggered" other encounters (a duergar escaped to warn others, who sent another duergar to warn even more)...Not to derail the topic, but I have had the dubious honor of playing in two different D&D 4E games where we went through Thunderspire Labyrinth. In both games, we often had encounters spill over into each other due to "runners" or mobs sounding alarms. In the first campaign, we had three encounters spill into each other, and at one point the melee ranger was actually "tanking" the duegar leader in the Horned Hold while the rest of the party was overwhelmed by duergar and demons. We were looking forward to rolling up new characters when, quite surprisingly, folks kept rolling 20s on their death saves. It is for that reason alone the party survived.
I think this is a common issue in the new 4E delve format. Every encounter seems to assume that the party has had a short rest since the last encounter. However, the dungeons are so densly packed at times that it is almost assured the party will incidentally trigger a second or third encounter. This has happened in other adventures, whether published, converted or home-made.
I like the idea of a moral victory or the tides of battle turning and the characters get most of the benefits of a short rest without having to take a full five minutes. I may have to use that when I know battles will spill over.
Again, sorry to derail for a moment. Just commenting on the encounter spill-over and giving kudos for a good solution.
The DMG and a number of online articles have offered advice on how to deal with this. DMs need to watch out for "chaining" encounters and make sure that the PCs are allowed the resources they need to have a chance at pulling through. If a monster runs to his allies, DMs should consider having that monster join the others as they prepare for the PCs' arrival. If a monster sounds the alarm, other groups of monsters might move to more defensible positions but shouldn't necessarily come running to help out. There are more potential outcomes to these scenarios than the "A second wave of monsters arrives!" solution.
Occasionally it might be worth frightening your PCs a little by throwing two encounters at them in a row without allowing a rest, but even if you do this you should probably count the engagement as two encounters for the purposes of awarding milestones.
How long did that fight end up taking to run?
I ran three encounters over the course of the evening, with the PCs making the trip back to Sandpoint and planning out a potential defense of the town beforehand.
As a side note, when the PCs completed the first of the encounters I explained the sudden recovery of encounter powers as the result of the remaining guards on the wall cheering the PCs' victory over the giants.
I've started in on updating the blog with Fortress of the Stone Giants material. The raid on Sandpoint encounters are posted, and I'll be following those up this week with encounters for the journey to Jorgenfist and some of the first fortress encounters. The latter will be disjointed, and I apologize for that. Jorgenfist has many different points of approach, and the conversion notes will initially follow the path my group took. Eventually everything will be filled in.
I also picked up the DMG2 this past week. It's awesome. I've already started making some changes and including themes based on the book. The raid on Sandpoint, for instance, can now be run as one long string of encounters without short rests being necessary thanks to the long fight PC objectives rules presented in the DMG2.
Enjoy!
Cool stuff. I was looking over Longtooth, and in my games I've also been tinkering with dragon stat blocks when I use them. What really bothers me about dragons in 4E is how gimped their breath weapons are. I like the whole solo villain thing (though quintuple hp is too much), but I think their breath weapons are way too weak. I realize that they've tried to balance them, but I personally feel that this is a situation where you can throw the balance out the window. Dragons are the most iconic monster in the game, and they have always been feared for their breath weapons, as a result I pretty much double to triple the breath weapon damage given in the MM entries. I've found that this has made them somewhat nastier, but not so much so that it's really unbalanced- just enough to put some fear in the PCs.
Another big update today - the rest of Part 1, all of Part 2 and the beginnings of Parts 3 and 4 have been added to the blog (along with a number of new bestiary entries).
I discovered while doing some monster research that 4e includes redcap analogues called spriggan. They're heroic tier, though, so I added a couple new paragon-tier examples of the breed.
I also created a new ogre stat block for use in the cattle rustlers encounter, because the supply of fresh ogre stat blocks was pretty thin after getting through The Hook Mountain Massacre. Lo and behold, the Compendium update last week included monsters from Revenge of the Giants, and among them was the Ogre Warrior!
This update also marks the first time I've used terrain powers (from the DMG2). It was perfect timing, too - the boulder avalanche is practically straight out of the DMG2 examples (the very first example of a terrain power listed in the DMG2 is a boulder you can shove down a slope!).
Enjoy!