As mentioned this morning, I was able to read a copy of D&D’s 1st 4e adventure, Keep on the Shadowfell, thanks to ZeStuff.
Now it’s time for the review! Hurrah!
I’ll take the spoiler-free approach (though I may slip a bit in places) as I guess that a lot of readers will want to play it in the upcomming weeks.
Let’s dive in shall we?
Physical Characteristics
The product is made of 2 non-glossy magazine-paper booklets: A 16 page 4th Edition quick-start rules booklet with pre-generated characters and an 80-page one containing DM-rules and the adventure itself.
The adventure also comes with 3 large size, double-sided full-color battlemaps.
Except for two of them, the Battlemaps are actual reprints of some of D&D Fantastic Adventure Locations:
- The King’s Road
- The Dragon Graveyard
- The Dungeon of Blood
- The Forest Cliff Lair
All without the D&D miniature-specific info like Start and Victory Areas. The remaining two are a Graveyard and another Dungeon/Temple map.
I don’t really mind getting duplicate maps, but it would have been nice to have all different ones portraying the encounter areas so that a DM could increase his collection.
The booklets have nice covers and the interior is black type on white paper, separated by decorated section titles.
One word of warning, and my main beef with the product, the booklets are very fragile (paper is easily damaged) and the ink smudges very very easily. I’ve been handling this one for a few hours and pages are already covered with enough fingerprints to incriminate me without actually having to call the local CSI.
Since the booklets do not have a back cover, the smudges on the white background are becoming bad enough to make it harder to read. I heartily suggest that find a way to protect this product.
All of this is packaged in a sleek, light cardboard portfolio. The booklets and maps slip neatly in each side of the folded package.
Quick Start rules booklet
The booklet starts with a 1/2 page intro to D&D and roleplaying in general, marking this product as an entry level product. However, I don’t actually think a complete neophyte DM could run this without the 4e core books.
Then there are 4 1/2 pages of the basic rules of the game.
This covers:
- The d20 roll mechanic
- Skill checks
- Attack rolls
- Encounters (Combat vs Non-combat)
- Combat
- Actions (Standard, Move, Minor, Opportunity, Immediate)
- Turn sequence (Very much like Magic the Gathering, I’ll post on this soon)
- Attacks and Damage
- Critical Hits (Full damage)
- Flanking
- Other Actions: Charge, Second Wind (i.e. use healing Surges to regain 1/4 HP), Powers
- Movement
- Move actions & Forced Movements (Pull, Push, Slide)
- Occupied Squares
- Difficult Terrain &Obstacles
- Action Points
- Hit Points, Healing and Dying
Right up front, the authors tell us that D&D 4e rules are exception-based. This means we have a few Core rules and a ton of exceptions built into powers, options, magic and so on (very much like the game rules of Magic the Gathering).
From these very summarized rules, the biggest changes that jump out at me from 3.x are Healing and Dying.
Healing:
All characters have a certain number of healing surges that they can spend in a day. The most basic way of spending a surge is by spending a standard action, that gives you 1/4 of your max HP back (once per encounter I believe).
Some examples of exceptions to this basic rule:
- The cleric’s Healing Word ability allows an ally (or the cleric) to spend a surge without using an action.
- The Paladin’s Lay on Hands ability allows a character to be healed while using one of the Pally’s Surges.
Bloodied and Death:
At 1/2 HP, a character becomes bloodied. This has no effect in itself but a lot of powers are triggered when a character or a target is bloodied.
At 0 or less (up to -1/2 HP) a character is dying and falls unconscious. The player must make a saving throw (i.e. roll 10 or more) every turn. Success has no effect. However, should a third save fail before the character is stabilized, he/she dies.
At -1/2 HP you’re dead, regardless of saves.
I really like this because death is somewhat predictable, takes long enough to give the party tactical flexibility while still creating a dramatic ‘3 strikes you’re out’ tension.
The rest of the booklet presents five characters sheets that you can photocopy and play with. Just add a name and a gender and you’re good to go. The characters even have leveling up instructions until level 3.
The characters are:
- Dwarf Fighter
- Halfing Rogue
- Human Wizard
- 1/2 Elf Cleric of Bahamut
- Dragonborn Paladin of Bahamut
All are loaded with a lot of powers, most of them cool for level 1 characters. Each have numerous options for combat and a list of skills that are explained very succinctly in this booklet (and in more details in the other booklet).
I won’t go into the details as I leave this to your discovery… but a lot of the 4e promises are there. Wizards and Cleric have a lot more to do than the per-day allotment of spells. The paladin reeks of helping others and the Rogue will give control freak DMs a heart attack as they slide monsters all over the place (confirming once and for all that miniatures and maps are essential).
No background or stories are presented or suggested. Each character comes with a short descriptive text that can act as a primer to a personality. This is mostly a ‘learn the game’ set of characters as such a product is won’t to be.
Adventure Booklet
This 80 page booklet starts with the introduction to the adventure.
The adventure centers around a walled-village surrounded by farms (an archetypal point of light) sitting 5 days away from the nearest city.
As the title suggests, there’s a ruined keep nearby and all kinds of stuff happens around the village and the keep. It’s a totally classic adventure plot with limited (but not absent) backstory and roleplaying-driven storylines.
It’s well suited for an introductory adventure (it reminds me of the Village of Hommlett) and I found the story to be more interesting than 3E’s The Sunless Citadel.
The booklet then presents three optional adventure hooks (including quests with gold and XP rewards) that the DM can choose to start the adventure.
Then there is a 2 page explanation of the adventure’s structure like how the tactical encounters are to be read and how to read Monster stat blocks (each taking about 1/8 of a 2 columns page, weeee no 1 pager stats!).
The Quick-Start rules are re-printed as is, with a few more DM-focused rules such as leveling up, Conditions (Blinded, Dazed, etc.) and Skill descriptions.
Then the adventure starts on page 16 with the 1st combat encounter (a roadside ambush).
WotC kept their Encounter Format developed in later 3.5 adventures. These remain very useful as you have all the necessary information to conduct the in a two page spread (3 pages for the Grand Finale). Each encounter features different monsters, each presented in an all-inclusive stat block that covers all special powers with full descriptions.
Let me tell you that many of these monster powers are cool. Players will absolutely HATE some of the iconics low-level humanoids featured in this adventure. The term “slinger” may very-well end up instilling fear and respect in low-level characters.
The 1st ‘Boss’ level fight features an Elite Brute boss that has more than 100 HP (while players are still 1st level).
This confirms that there’s some more HP inflation from the last version of the game. While minion monsters have only 1 hp, various level 1 soldier-type monsters have HPs in the 30’s (and PCs have between 25-31 HPs).
The adventure assumes that 5 players would be around the DM and has no instructions/tips for lowering the number of monsters if the party is made of less than 5 characters. I would suggest to reduce the number of minions and soldier monsters in each encounter.
It’s not necessarily a big deal but it will make the adventure particularly lethal in the hands of an inexperienced DM with less than a full set of players.
(On a side note, I really liked having 4 players, things went fast and everybody had adequate time in the spotlight)
Also, a new feature I had never seen in D&D adventures are ‘DM’s Advice’ and ‘Interludes’ pages between chapters. In these, roleplaying and descriptive tips are suggested to give life to the adventure. Instead of telling you that X NPC is surly or Y location is gloomy, the DM is encouraged to make them up as they see fit and to pick up on mundane interaction to build up a side-story.
For example, you are told you can build on the discussions between a PC and a Store owner if and when they try to pawn a piece of jewelry looted from the monsters.
That’s a promising change.
Investigative parts of the adventure are presented in FAQ form. Questions PCs would ask are printed out, followed by in-character responses that this or that NPC would answer (you can read, paraphrase or adapt as you see fit). I really like this approach as it gives material to build upon for creative DMs while still lending sufficient fluff for less experienced/confortable DMs.
Some combat encounters are set up on the included battlemaps. The others can all be created easily with the D&D tiles or drawn on graph paper in a few minutes. I really like that (I’m a big D&D tiles fan!)
In the dungeon encounters, there is a break in tradition with previous adventure. Encounter area now encompass between 3 and 4 dungeon rooms, allowing larger space to move around (no more fights in 5′ wide corridors and 10X10 rooms! Hurrah!)
This means that dungeons don’t have boxed text for each room, only encounter (combat or otherwise) get them. If PCs decide to take a room by room search approach, you’ll have to make it up as you go, fortunately, the dungeon maps feature furniture and such, making description easier.
Finally, the one +1 magic Item I saw so far combines the classic bonus with an additional static power (bonuses to saves) as well as a daily power. That’s nice and makes a mundane item more interesting.
The adventure does have a few editing issues which seems to indicate that it was somewhat rushed out. It’s small things like saying that a monster throws a spear when it’s equipped with javelins, I’ve seen a few other ones.
Bottom line
This is a well made adventure that showcases what low-level heroic-tiered characters and foes can do. It’s a simple, straightforward story that puts into play some of the core 4e fluff (The Shadowfell, Orcus, points of lights and so on).
The preview of the combat ruleset really reminds me of Magic the Gathering where you have well defined turn sequences and where each players use powers they chose (during Char Gen) and see how they interact on the battlefield. Combo fans like my friend Yan will fall for this system really fast.
Corollary to that, such exception-based rules design will lead to the creation of broken (post publication edit: not broken maybe but really effective) combos with the creation of additional powers and options in future sourcebook. DM discretion, as always, will rule.
In fact, I predict that a group of well designed characters handled by a group of players used to teamwork and cooperation will be extremely efficient during combat encounters…
Luckily (or unluckily) DMs with good deck encounter building skills will be able to create fiendish encounters whose synergistic powers will be quite a match to brilliant players.
So does reading this pull me in or out of 4e?
In definitively… I need to try it now and see how my gut reacts while players slay baddies and interact with the adventure’s NPCs.
However, I remain somewhat concerned with the ‘gimmicky’ set of PC and monster powers that abound in there (and the game in general), but I’ll reserve judgement on this when I actually play it out… chances are the gimmicks are going to make for some awesome action gaming.
We’ll play this in early June, I’m looking forward to it.
If you have more questions about the adventure, feel free to ask them, I’ll try my best to answer them.
You want to pre-order this adventure? You can here.
Sounds interesting, I might have to check this out. It sounds like it’s a bit of a mix between an intro to D&D for new players and an intro to 4E for old players. But I would imagine that a product for new players might want to include dice and some tokens or minis, since they are pretty much required now. Do I smell a new box set coming soon?
I’m surprised they went with a half-elf instead of the ever popular and iconic full elf for pre-gens.
Thanks for the review!
Glad to see that improvement to the dying/death mechanics…didn’t really like the feel of dreading -10 at all levels of play…it’ll definitely make for some better last words speeches, so long as Diehard or something like it sticks around…
@Noctambulist: My pleasure. I think it’s an Hybrid product that tries to do everything… reminds me of the Diablo II Demo D&D 3.0 game… only better.
I can definitively see a basic game box set with this adventure in it…
@ Reverend Mike: I like this too, although you’ll need to goad your DM for the Death speech as you are technically KO from 0 downwards.
As I mentioned to you earlier, this is much less likely that in M:tG. While M:tG allows for free mixing of cards, the multiclassing system limits the interaction between powers, and the number of powers that will interact with each other without being designed specifically to do so.
For instance, any new Rogue powers from the upcoming Martial Power sourcebook will be designed to play nicely with other Rogue powers. As such, we should have little to worry about when the powers all belong to the same class, at least with 1st party (WotC) books.
If said Rogue manages to grab one or two Wizard powers through multiclassing, and gets a nice boost because of it, he did spend a number of feats to do so, so while it might be powerful, broken would be debatable.
(I foresee a number of Rogues dipping into Wizard for Invisibility, for instance. But to do that, you need to spend two feats and give up a Rogue utility power. I’d call that a more than fair trade for the extra power.)
I more concerned about party-wide combos. A rogue taking power from WotC Splatbook A and a Warlord taking another from book B. type of thing.
The Magic player in me sees the possibility, I’m convinced it will happen…
Although I confess that this would imply a group designing characters together… which I doubt will happen unless said group is facing an adverserial DM.
It’s no major concern, just a nagging gut feeling.
Graham said, “As I mentioned to you earlier, this is much less likely that in M:tG. The multiclassing system limits the interaction between powers, and the number of powers that will interact with each other without being designed specifically to do so.”
I disagree. This will limit the interaction between powers in a single PC. The dangerous, unforeseen synergies will be when two or more PCs combine their powers to support one another. For instance, I suspect warlords will be able to boost the combat and movement of dual-wielding rangers to create potent alpha-strike teams capable of wreaking havoc on a foe’s “backfield”, where all the big, juicy, fragile artillery units are, bypassing the protective screen of mooks.
Thanks for the review, Chatty. I can’t wait to hear how it plays.
– Brian
Brians last blog post..Campaign Add-Ins at Advanced Gaming & Theory
True enough, Brian.
In these cases, however, the question becomes delineating between “powerful” or “effective” and “broken”.
Encounter “areas” aren’t new to 4E, we saw a lot of them in 1E modules. 3.5 moved away from that design aspect and now we’re headed back to it. Let me roll for surprise,… wait, no, not surprised. 😉
the similarity to M:tG is a little disturbing… that’s a system where various builds can shut down a game way fast. If we go down that path… do not take up partisan lightsaber and strike down yet-identified-foe…Must reserve judgment, must reserve…judgment. Must…wait…until…June! (somewhere an Emperor cackles maniacally.)
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..Design Log: The Black Art of High APL Encounters
Although I confess that this would imply a group designing characters together… which I doubt will happen unless said group is facing an adverserial DM.
– Chatty DM
Whereas I fully expect to see the D&D community settle on an optimal party build before Halloween. Saying “we need a mover-warlord and a pair of dual-rangers,” isn’t that far from the old “we need at least one healer-cleric and a frontline-fighter.”
– Brian
Brians last blog post..Campaign Add-Ins at Advanced Gaming & Theory
Nice! Looking forward to your review of 4th edition when it hits.
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@Ben: 1e had encounter areas? My memory must have been faulty. Having chatted with you on that I’ll take your word for it least you start describing the full dungeon key of Barrier peaks in a comment box… 🙂
@Brian: Gaming Forum will have optimal builts and ‘Net-parties’ for sure but I doubt it will become prevalent in actual games.
D&D remains a somewhat selfish activity who’s story driven motivations should transcend this. Truly my concerns are more of getting my mind wrapped around this exception-based design (which I like incidentally… having played Magic and learned the rules enough to be qualify as a judge).
@Jonathan Drain: Thanks!.. Count on me to try to tackle reviewing the Core Books!
Good to see I’m not the only one who sees shadows of MtG in this. While I like Magic, it’s not what I want to do when playing a role-playing game. Ah well.
The other kicker for me are the abilities, especially the Rogue’s. They pretty much make miniatures play a 100% requirement for the game. I’m going to bite the bullet and finally accept miniatures on my game table, but it would have been nice to have the choice.
Right now, I’m 40% for 4e, 60% against. And that’s STILL without having seen the rulebooks 🙂
D&D 4e truly will be a success for people who embraced Miniature play during 3e (like we have) and like combat rules similar to CCG/Collectible Minatures Games.
What remains to be seen for me are social interaction rules.
(I think D&D = Mage Knight is a more appropriate simile than = MtG come to think of it)
Actually Greywulf, 4e will be unplayable without minis… 3.0 had a way of going around this but all these push, pull, slide, burst and aura powers require a battle map or a very dedicated Dm with a ton of graph paper…
@Chatty: You let me know; which floor would you like? There were four, iirc. Maybe five. 😉 Besides, the monkeys with the stink fruit and the froghemoth are a kick in the pants (that floor, in particular, was an excellent example of an encounter area)…unless you like malfunctioning athletic-trainer-droids. 🙂
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..Design Log: The Black Art of High APL Encounters
I was hoping fo a little more quality in the opening product (ink issues, flimsy paper, old battlemaps, etc), especially what is supposed to be the first part of the new adventure path, but it’s a forgivable sin.
Thank you for the review, I’m still on the shelf whether or not to pick it up, it may come down to price and my mood when I’m at my FLGS.
BTW, the Death and Dying Mechanic is really cool, I’ve implemented it in 3.5 and really like it. There was something about gaining a bunch of HP back when you roll a 20 on your death save (maybe you use a healing surge in 4E?). Regardless, it removes the predictability of the death countdown, and makes it a lot more exciting.
One thing that I think should be mentioned is that for this preview adventure the pregens have rules to go to second and third level right there on their character sheets. (At least based on the Char Sheet scan I saw online).
I love the addition of a DM advice sections. I hope that will be included in more than just the preview adventiure.
I really dislike the Expedition encounter format. I guess if done well it works great, but in Expedition to Undermountain I wound up flipping back and forth because all the information I needed wasn’t in one place or the other, and worse, sometimes the info between sections conflicted. Also, I believe WOTC had a rule where the encounter section had to be 2 pages, which forced creative editing. I hope they get away from that. Even if they don’t give encounters dedicated pages, but instead list them in order and span multiple pages I think I would like it more.
shadow145s last blog post..4E Mechanic of the Moment: Paladin Analysis by merricb
Chatty: I’m not sure if you’ve been keeping up on the 4e Excerpts, but one of the things I’m really curious about is the skill challenge system. Were there any skill based encounters in the adventure? If so, how did it seem they would play out?
And, a side note about minis: I don’t use minis in my games, but I do have tokens. I have a folding battle map, and I use some cheap game pawns (purchased from Paizo) that I use for the players, and I picked up some small “poker chips” for medium/small creatures, and I use regular plastic poker chips for large creatures. I still haven’t found a good solution for Huge+ creatures (or for smaller than small). The players seem to like it just fine, it doesn’t require a huge investment, and different colored chips can represent either different creature types, or specific creatures from a group. I actually ordered a few more small chips and game pawns from another company in an attempt to get a little more variety.
@Felonious: I haven’t been keeping up to date with the excerpt… time issues and whatnot. I also haven’t to read the whole dungeon part of the adventure.
I did see a few very basic Skill challenges like Stealth vs Perception (or vs set numbers) to sneak up on players/monsters but you couldn’t easily work out the metrics of it…
There is one surprise round based on what PC flubs a perception roll vs a set number (which may be a take 10 equivalent) and a later one where PCs play vs monster perception.
Although Perception now only get a flat -2 for spotting/hearing things more than a few squares away, no more -1 per squares.
Next time I look at the adventure I’ll dig deeper.
As for using chits, pennies and whatnot, that’s a perfectly nice way of playing without selling your soul to the D&D minis Devils.
“This will limit the interaction between powers in a single PC. The dangerous, unforeseen synergies will be when two or more PCs combine their powers to support one another.”
Graham: “In these cases, however, the question becomes delineating between “powerful” or “effective” and “broken”.”
I agree with Graham, there really shouldn’t be such a negative raction to a group of PC’s developing very effective synergies between one another, actually it’s much more realistic as a group develops strategies to fight more effectively together. It won’t be broken as long as the groups of monsters do the same thing in return, which so far it really looks like they will.
I’m not even going to get into the idea of comparing Magic with D&D here, these comments couldn’t handle it. Let’s just say that until you are buying small packages of powers and HOPING to get that rare Fighter Daily power, I don’t consider them very similar.
Bartoneuss last blog post..Win a 4e book just by domain name
I think you guys miss my point….
Rules wise (as in exception based rules) D&D 4e and Magic (and all collectible games) have a lot in common to my eye, except the tradable and random pack part. I’m not arguing that.
I know the Magic the Gathering Rules by heart… all 100 or so pages of the comprehensive rules and I can tell you that the similarities in terms of object interaction is high.
Where I wasn’t clear is that I think this is a GOOD decision. It makes everything modular, it makes creating new powers easier it makes comparaison easier and allows easier hacking and tweaking.
After 13 years of MTG evolution, this type of writing rules is great…. beause you are free to strip all theses exceptions and focus on the core if you chose so or go the opposite way and embrace it all.
What I will concede though is that now is probably to early too discuss this in an objective manner since a lot of D&D players don’t know the MTG rules philosophy all that well and react instinctively with it’s buisness model.
Sorry Phil, wasn’t directing that towards you so much as attempting to prevent people from going too far into the “OMG 4th ed. is just Magic” direction. Sometimes I attempt to use my jerk powers for good!
I agree wholeheartedly that I think the MTG design direction is a good one.
Bartoneus’ last blog post..Win a 4e book just by domain name
And I’m siding with you in doing this.
🙂
Thanks for the preview. This is my next campaign, as Haaldaar is going to run it for my group after Origins.
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
Trasks last blog post..Reviews, Blogs and Ethics
Thanks for the link Trask.
We’re starting it this summer as a 4e intro and players will trade PCs from one game to the next or even one encounter to the next…. so thet everyone gets a feel of the options before we start anew in August.
@Felonius: As I am currently reading Mike Mearl’s Elemental Evil game I can now tell you that there are no skill challenges per see in this adventure… but if you play it with the DMG, I’m sure you’ll be able to create a few.
As long as there’s no draw / land / tap / Black Lotus / Fireball combos, I think that 4E should be great.
Hey, five steps for the M:tG gamebreaker, five recommended party members. Coincidence?
I think that D&D has always been an exception based system. It’s just taken the designers a few editions to admit it. Every single feat from 3.X and every single class ability / level-gained power / spell from every edition changed the basic rules in some way, from a fighter gaining followers in 1E (rather than hiring them) to a druid’s wildshape abilities (heal and change basic racial attacks to creature attacks) in 2E to Magic Missile in 3E (automatic damage instead of having to roll d20 to hit). The actual admission that it’s an exception-based system is more of a “cow flop of wisdom” (something so completely obvious that everyone knows what it is but no one has bothered to name it) than a “pearl of wisdom”.
Fair enough longcoat, though the Quick Start rule make a point of mentionning it once or twice.
I meant to ask, was there a non-combat conflict encounter– something intentionally designed to be resolved without smashing it in the face? (not to say that battle wouldn’t also be acceptable, just that it was not the expected solution or it was considered the suboptimal one.)
As far as the investigative section is concerned… that’s been the standard format for RPGA Living Greyhawk modules for the last few years, so it’s fairly unsurprising to see it migrate to the full product. That’s been a solid test bed for material for 8 years… and that many amateurs hammering away at the format are going to produce some decent innovations.
what more can you tell us about the design of the town, the setting, the …(dreaded? 😉 ) fluff?
-Ben.
Bens last blog post..Design Log: The Black Art of High APL Encounters
@Chatty –
4e will NOT be unplayable without minis. In fact, there have been a number of playtesters reporting that they have run games without minis. The general consensus is that, while minis will be helpful as always, if you were able to run without minis in 3e, you’ll be able to in 4e.
“I think that D&D has always been an exception based system. It’s just taken the designers a few editions to admit it.”
I agree with this, though they’ve gone out of their way to move many of the exceptions from the core rules to the exceptional powers, which is the way to do it. In fact, they probably won’t go far enough for me.
Dave T. Games last blog post..Win a 4e book just by domain name
@Graham: I’m just curious as to how tactical characters like the the rogue be played in such cases… all these slide powers and combat advantage?
Unfortunately, they weren’t able to give specific details, I don’t believe.
But they said they were about as problematic as AoOs and flanking are in 3e.
Aka, if you can handle AoOs and flanking without minis in 3e, you can handle the extra movement options in 4e. If you ignore AoOs and flanking when you don’t have minis in 3e, you’ll probably do the same with these in 4e.
Chatty: Any online resources included/mentioned in the product? I remembering hearing a while ago that all 4E product would include a “key” to unlock the content online.
@Griffinland: Nope none whatsoever.
Well that’s disheartening. Maybe the thought the risk of piracy was too high? Still, it would have been nice for those of us who play online to have to retype a lot of description.
I just think that this product, being pre-launch, wasn’t part of the Digital initiative…
Let’s see with the Core books…
@Griffinland –
The word is, there are two parts to digital content.
1) Books might/should be available in digital format. PDF or whatever. These are purchased separately from the physical books. The “code in the book” method was determined to be ineffective, or unwieldy, or something. But not to worry, see point 2.
2) D&D Insider. Aside from the online versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, DDI will also have the Rules Database, an online searchable rules index. If you aren’t subscribed to DDI, this will contain references to books and page numbers so you can look things up quickly. If, however, you are subscribed to DDI…
*ahem*
the Rules Database will contain every rule published for 4e by WotC, regardless of whether or not you own the book.
Searchable, of course.
I tell ya, the Rules Database is almost worth the price of DDI on its own for me. Dragon and Dungeon are just icing.
@Felonius and @Ben: As I got to read more of it tonight, I finally stumbled upon a non combat challenge that probably is what a Skill challenge is all about.
A NPC must be convinced of the PC’s willingness to help. A PC is chosen as lead negotiator. Each PC must respond and then roll against a given skill (there are several) up until a certain number of successes are scored. .
However, there are no indication to give bonuses to skill rolls for good roleplaying (which I would do generously… but then again, the scope of the product might not have permitted it).
@Chatty: Thanks for the update. I’m glad there’s at least one in there. I’d be really curious about how it plays out when the time comes. I’m probably at least a month from my first 4e session…
Also, you’ve been EN Worlded: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=4224568#post4224568
(Is that like being slash-dotted, but for the RPG community?)
Thanks for that review, Chatty.
Can you guess how many 3-hour game sessions the entire module will take?
Stephens last blog post..Treelore speaks of Hill Baron
@Chatty: Thanks for the update. I’m really curious as to how those will play out. WotC is making the claim that it will bring the whole party into the mix on those social encounters.
Also, EN World caught wind of your review, so you should probably expect some traffic today: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=226286
(It’s like the slashdot of the RPG world…)
@Stephen: Welcome! I would estimate it at between 3 and 4 sessions if you’re playing with 4e newbies. Depending on how long the group spends Roleplaying during the ‘interludes’ (of which there are 3)
The fights will probably be fast (1 hour each, tops) and rest will be limited between encounters.
Griffinland asked, “Chatty: Any online resources included/mentioned in the product?”
Mike Mearls did mention over at ENWorld (I don’t have the exact thread handy) that they would be putting out some online material for this starting, I believe, next week.
Thanks for the review…it gave some helpful info. I’ll be running this for my group starting next week.
Thanks for the heads up FatRat. And thanks for the Kudos.
Hey, great review. Makes me feel better about my preorder. Couple of questions:
You’re saying that, although the mod was written for 5 players, it can be easily run with 4 players as long as the players and DM are reasonably competent?
What do you mean by ‘gimmicky’ powers? Can you expand on that?
@Brandon: I’d say just remove a few minions (or keep all minions and remove 1 or 2 soldiers) here and there and you’ll do fine.
All characters and most monsters have abilities that affect enemies (Slow, move their mini, poison, weaken, burst, etc) or boost themselves (+2 here if buddy is near, +2 there if within X squares of Y) very much like collectible Miniature Games have now…
While I’m now sure at 90% that playing with those will be cool/fun I’m still wrapping my mind with all the different options, attacks, triggers and such… There are a lot of exceptions in those PCs and monsters.
Don’t expect PCs to use their basic attack often… and I hope that it will feel more fun than artificial… hence my gimmicky comment.
Don’t expect PCs to use their basic attack often… and I hope that it will feel more fun than artificial… hence my gimmicky comment.
From my experience, and I think the Critical Hits guys would confirm, it doesn’t end up feeling artificial at all. I never missed using my basic attack while playing my Paladin, since it always seemed more appropriate for a paladin to be bolstering his allies anyways.
And, more to the point, while I was playing it never even crossed my mind as to why I wasn’t using the basic attack. It felt natural, and fun, to use my powers. It made me feel more like a Paladin, and less like a Fighter with some healing. But until you mentioned it, it being gimmicky or somehow unnatural or wrong just never crossed my mind.
ChattyDM:
You know that you broke the embargo that Wizards had on this module … that no reviews could be posted in a public location sooner than 3am ET on Tuesday May 20.
I don’t think Wizards is going to be happy as lots of people had the adventure ahead of time, but nobody was allowed to post their review or thoughts as they had to adhere to the embargo.
Anyhow, expect to hear from WoTC shortly.
I didn’t know that.
I’ll take the review down if asked to. I reviewed a store copy of the adventure and I refrained from spoiling the actual content of the adventure.
However, given that there has been extensive discussion of the module on EnWorld’s forum and that WotC employees chimed in on those discussions, I think that nothing will happen.
Yes, I didn’t mind not using my basic attack ever. The only thing that annoys me, and this is a formatting issue not a game one, is that the basic attack is teeny-tiny on the sheets, and in a totally different place than the powers. So whenever I had to make an Opportunity Attack (which I did quite often as a fighter against Kobolds) I had to hunt for the basic attack.
But back on topic, nope, didn’t feel gimmicky in play. Felt surprisingly similar to playing in 3.5.
Dave T. Games last blog post..Warhammer 40k: 5th Edition Preview
I am one of those neophyte DMs referred to in this article. I was looking forward to the new rules mostly for the rumor of simplification (3.5 was a little daunting). After reading your review, I see that the thing I had the greatest problem with in 3.5 (even more than the daunting bit) will still be a problem here – not a full group. I generally play with like…half a group. Any advice for a nooby DM with half a group?
Heathers last blog post..Astroids are not my concern Admiral…
@Heather –
You should actually have a much easier time in 4e with smaller parties.
In 3e, the general rule was a party against one creature.
In 4e, it will be a party against one creature per party member (usually). So if you have 2 players with level 3 characters, use 2 level 3 monsters for an average fight. For a tougher fight, use 3 level 3s, or 2 level 4s, or something in that range.
The issue will only arise with published adventures, which need to make certain assumptions about party size. In this adventure, encounters will be designed for 5-person parties. To make this good for a 2-man party, you would need to basically halve the number of creatures in a battle. (If there are 5 kobolds, remove 3, for instance. If there are two elite creatures, remove one.)
Again, you might have issues running some published adventures, but you should have a much easier time making your own encounters.
(As such, you can run published advantures simply by ignoring their encounters, and rebuilding them with smaller numbers of creatures yourself. If what we’re told is correct, rebuilding an encounter like this should take mere minutes. You will need the core books for this, however. If you have trouble at first, you will likely find a number of GMs online, such as Chatty and I, who would be more than willing to help a newbie GM remake some encounters. Seriously, email me from my website if you want a hand with anything like this. Or at all. I don’t bite, though my characters sometimes do.)
Hi Heather,
I agree with Graham 100%. We’ll help you either through email or on our forum.
I got a chance to play with game as a preview, getting ready to run games for D&D Game day on the 7th. I agree the rogue seems to have a lot of neat abilities. I do think I’ll hold off on getting the adventure, I’m not really feeling the quality was there for the price they want to charge.
I’m still looking forward to the new edition, it’s looking promising so far.
What is with people already being against 4E – Why are you making your mind up now. I really don’t understand this at all. At what point have these people decided that everything kicking around in their head and the world is enough! thanks! no more cool stuff from here on it! Three days after my 23rd b-day, and i’m done.
why aren’t we just hoping it’s cool. This is a game that means alot to all of us (probably) and has laid the foundation for games that have really enriched are lives. what do you mean 60 % against it. against what?
I’m a chef, and it astonishes me when people won’t try what i give them – Invariably it is “i don’t like tomatoes” – this is an amazing tomato i literally just picked, ever have one of those – “no, i don’t like tomatoes” – when is the last time you had one – “when i was 4” – what?? We really okay with this. Nobody alive – ever – liked pizza before they tried it for the first thing. Chill out with this prejudgemental B.S. – your talking about a friend of mine.
It’s the joys of witnessing humanity’s deeply ingrained resistance to change.
Although, I have read enough of 4e so far to know that it won’t be for some types of gamers.
🙂
I agree that it won’t be for everyone. It looks like the combat should be faster. My girlfriend gets really bored when it is turns in to those things where no one hits their attack rolls. You can only come up with so much descriptive stuff when it turns out that cool parry reverse spin thrust is a 4 (i try to make it make descriptive sense when we play, it is just us two).
also, i would bet you money we see WOTC release cards for all of these nifty new powers… and i hope they do, i’ll probably make them myself. any one play that old streetfighter roleplaying game? The combat system was bad ass. I wouldn’t mind seeing the use of cards evolve the whole combat system. Why not welcome a bit of strategy too. like the fun stack resolution stuff that happens in magic.
Actually, dax, WotC is releasing a Character Sheet pack (folder of preprinted sheets), and I believe it has been said that it will include power cards.
But yeah, they’re coming in one way or another.
I hope they release a printable template, so we can fill in our own powers. If they don’t, I’ll whip a custom one up in Illustrator, and post it on my site.