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Squark
2010-03-27, 06:03 PM
Well, I've decided to get a 4e game going at my school gaming group. However, I'm the only one with any experience with 4e (and not much of it), and only the teacher and I who runs the club has any experience with previous editions (I ran a 3.5 campaign for a while, and he's active in a 3rd edition (don't know if its 3.0 or 3.5) campaign as a player)

So here's the (small) party so far

Dragonborn Paladin
Deva Ranger

I'm going to be using Keep on the Shadowfell as an introductory module. So, How should I handle this? I was thinking of running it as an Ebberon campaign, and perhaps giving them a warforged controller of some kind, since I don't know how well they'd do playing one themself.

On the topic of splat books- I was a big 3.5 psionics fan, so I'm curious- what is the PHB 3 like? Also, what exactly is in the ECS, mechanics wise (Can I get by just using the player's guide and the 3.5 ECS for flavor?)

randomhero00
2010-03-27, 06:42 PM
My only tip is to make sure you slow down occasionally and allow time for roleplay. 4e has a tendency to play like an action video game. It requires a little more effort for roleplay situations than 3.x for some reason.

Thajocoth
2010-03-27, 07:16 PM
Keep on the Shadowfell was my first D&D experience.

#1 - Remember that everything is assuming 5 PCs. Adjust the encounters for how many PCs there are. If there are only 3, the encounters should, after adjustment, be worth 3/5 of what they are now.

#2 - There's a page in the DMG with a chart on it for doing things not covered by other rules. You probably won't need the chart, but bookmark it just in case, and if it's use comes up, I recommend encouraging cleverness.

#3 - If all of these people are new, chances are that at least one person will make a lot of character choices they're not happy with. By the time I reached level 2, I wanted to retrain half of my character. By the time I reached level 7 I had completely given up on the character and retired them, because what I wished I did differently kept going up faster than I could retrain it and I wanted to retrain everything from base stats and class feature, to all my "skill focus" feats I took and every power I had picked. I recommend allowing more retrains than usual for new players to buffer this effect.

#4 - If you're going to toss in a DMPC into a party with no Leader, I recommend making the DMPC a Leader. You can play without one, but it's a lot harder. A Controller is a lot easier to do without. (I've played in a party with no Leader and another with no Controller. We barely noticed the lack of a Controller. Having no Leader kept us stuck with 1-2 encounter days.)

Tequila Sunrise
2010-03-27, 07:57 PM
First, point everyone in the direction of the Expertise feats; the game more or less expects you to take one at some point. A good portion of D&D is about hitting things, and Expertise is the best feat for hitting things. D&D fights can take a long time, especially for new players, and these feats help speed things up to an exciting level.


My only tip is to make sure you slow down occasionally and allow time for roleplay. 4e has a tendency to play like an action video game. It requires a little more effort for roleplay situations than 3.x for some reason.
While I don't think it's harder to rp in 4e, I do find it harder to rp while running published modules. This might be just my personality, but my group never got through Keep on the Shadowfell because we couldn't get into it.



#1 - Remember that everything is assuming 5 PCs. Adjust the encounters for how many PCs there are. If there are only 3, the encounters should, after adjustment, be worth 3/5 of what they are now.
More specifically, Squark should cut out two out of every five monsters in the module. (Each encounter should have roughly half the monsters that the module lists.)



#4 - If you're going to toss in a DMPC into a party with no Leader, I recommend making the DMPC a Leader. You can play without one, but it's a lot harder. A Controller is a lot easier to do without. (I've played in a party with no Leader and another with no Controller. We barely noticed the lack of a Controller. Having no Leader kept us stuck with 1-2 encounter days.)
Yes, this. Leaders are much more important than controllers.

DragonBaneDM
2010-03-27, 08:02 PM
If you've already spent money on Keep on the Shadowfell disregard what I'm about to say.

Run Kobold Hall from the back of the DMG instead.

It's easy to get into and easy to fight through. I've heard the opposite about KotSFell, so just a heads up.

tcrudisi
2010-03-27, 08:30 PM
If you've already spent money on Keep on the Shadowfell disregard what I'm about to say.

Run Kobold Hall from the back of the DMG instead.

It's easy to get into and easy to fight through. I've heard the opposite about KotSFell, so just a heads up.

I was actually visiting this thread to warn you about this. Please, oh please, don't let Keep on the Shadowfell be the first experience that new players have. It's.... bad.

Kobold Hall would definitely be better. I'm not saying it's good, but it's a huge improvement.

Otogi
2010-03-27, 08:40 PM
If nothing, be simple in combat. I pretty much screwed up my game by fussing over the amount of actions the monsters can have and stuff like that. Just do what you can to keep the flow going and you'll please new comers and veterans alike. Also, if you don't work to well with improving, plan ahead; if you do, still plan, because it's always good to have a safety net. Good luck, and have a great game :smallwink:

Kurald Galain
2010-03-27, 09:24 PM
Kurald's Golden Rule of 4E: doing 20 damage now is better than thinking for a minute and then doing 23 damage.

Make sure your players are aware of this. The one thing that ruins a 4E game most is the kind of player who spends an excessive amount of game time thinking about minor bonuses.

Katana_Geldar
2010-03-27, 10:05 PM
Keep in mind that the first encounter is going to be the slowest and the most awkward. The players are still going to be blundering about and not know how to work together.

If you can, just quickly do an encounter so they can get their heads around what to add and what to roll.

Thajocoth
2010-03-27, 10:10 PM
Oh, an awesome way to speed up keeping track of initiative...

Initiative cards are obvious, but this is a way that makes initiative cards even better.

Fold index cards in half. [___] -> [_|_] That little ridge in the middle... Use that to hang the cards on the DM screen, with the names written so both the DM & players can see them. You only need to move them when somebody readies or delays. (For enemies, simply use Enemy A, Enemy B, ect..., and group like enemies together. If you have 5 Kobold Trapmasters, make them all Enemy A, rolling initiative for the group only once.)

Sir_Elderberry
2010-03-28, 09:59 AM
Keep in mind that the first encounter is going to be the slowest and the most awkward. The players are still going to be blundering about and not know how to work together.

If you can, just quickly do an encounter so they can get their heads around what to add and what to roll.
Yeah, first time I played 4e, one LFR module took like eight hours. Now I could probably do that same module in three. I would really hammer in certain rules--most specifically the move/minor/standard system--that I feel gave 4e a leg up on 3.5 as far as rule simplicity. Emphasize the systematic part of the system.

hewhosaysfish
2010-03-28, 10:40 AM
I would like to echo everyone who's saying "Not KotSF".

Squark
2010-03-28, 11:38 AM
So, I shouldn't run Keep on the Shadowfell? Hmm... Well, that backs up what my previous attempt at running the module showed (Of course, that was with 2 second level characters, but I digress)

Well, at least the quickstart booklet will help them. (Yes, I bought it. A long time ago, actually)

Thajocoth
2010-03-28, 11:57 AM
KotS was the only module I've seen. It wasn't horrible, but I did come to the conclusion that DM-generated stories were just better, as they can be more personal and stuff.

FoE
2010-03-28, 11:59 AM
It isn't so much that KotS is bad as it's not the best adventure to introduce new players to the game.

Tiki Snakes
2010-03-28, 12:17 PM
My opinion, as someone who bought it and ran er, kind of the whole thing, Is as follows;
The original version was pretty damn boring. What storyline and concept it had was basically for the DM only, because there was very little way to impart most of it to the players. It was basically a list of vaguely themed combat encounters of dubiously judged difficulty (especially the early kobold encounters, which are arguably some of the hardest in the whole thing.)

By about half way through, maybe a lot less, I started cutting huge chunks out and ramming in my own plot, themes, ideas and so on. I crammed together a Lovecraftian imprisoned entity, a planar confluence with Ravenloft and some good old fashioned mad rural cultists. By the end of the campaign, the Pc's had found a hideous, demonic and impossibly old temple through a twist in space-time, half sunken in a black and bitter sea, thwarted the dastardly plot to free Ogg'Ullothon the Sun Eater and met an avatar of Death itself (On it's way to claim the soul of the Imprisoned Elder-God), and ended up running across the entire KOTS rural district as the whole valley was consumed by the mists of Ravenloft. When they cleared, they left a gaping wound in the matirial plane, the entire valley was altogether gone and a massive portal to the shadowfell was open in it's place.

You could look down into the valley and see, far below you, a second horizon and that same bitter, black sea, (Now minus the temple).

Oh, and in what was possibly a coincidence, the Sun didn't rise that morning.

The Web version is not only 100% cheaper, being free, it's also fixed, tidied up, and generally spiced up a bit. I understand the various downloads that are designed to tailor it to different settings (Well, I know theres one for forgotten realms) also add quite a bit of story and flavour. They add even more combat encounters and so on though, too.

Really, it's just incredibly dense and full to the brim of combat. It can get quite stodgy, frankly.

Fuzzie Fuzz
2010-03-28, 02:20 PM
As a fairly new DM myself, I also implore you not to run KotSF. My group gave up halfway through and switched to a purely DM-created campaign. We're much happier.

The encounters are huge, slow, and highly deadly (they avoided a TPK on one by DM fiat), the NPCs are uninteresting, the plot is not terribly exciting, etc. Do yourself and your group a favor and run a different module.

And as for the DMPC, make him a healbot. Much harder to do without, and one of the advantages of 4e is that every class is more-or-less equally easy to play. In 3.5, the experienced player got the wizard, because he had the huge list of spells to memorize/choose from, and the n00b got the fighter because he just needed to hit stuff, but in 4e every class has the same number of powers they can use, so a controller is no harder to play than anyone else.

tcrudisi
2010-03-28, 04:19 PM
... but in 4e every class has the same number of powers they can use, so a controller is no harder to play than anyone else.

Half-true. Every class does get the same number of powers (mostly), but the Controller is much harder to play than a Striker.

Here's the difference.

Striker: picks a target, kills it.
Controller: Looks at all the other targets and figures out how to take them out of the combat. If he can't take them all out, he must figure out which ones to take out and how to best do it.

Striker: gets combat advantage and hits it until it dies.
Controller: figures out which status effects to apply to the enemy and when to properly do it.

Striker: does lots of damage, kills enemies very quickly.
Controller: single-handedly wins combats for his team.

Of course, if your Controller is a new player, they will feel it is their job to just blast as many monsters as possible. In a way, it is... but that's their secondary job. Their primary job is to control the battlefield and that's the most strategic and hardest job to do. The only non-controller class which compares to the difficulty of a controller? A swordmage. Woo boy is that a tough class to do properly.

Many people say that a Controller is the one role you can do without. That's definitely true. But if you have a great Controller? Combats become so incredibly easy compared to anything a great Defender, a great Leader, and a great Striker can do. It's heaven. And... the hardest thing to do.

Squark
2010-03-28, 04:44 PM
...Many people say that a Controller is the one role you can do without. That's definitely true. But if you have a great Controller? Combats become so incredibly easy compared to anything a great Defender, a great Leader, and a great Striker can do. It's heaven. And... the hardest thing to do.

A lot of people like a challenge, you know. :smallwink:

That aside, I get your point. The reasons I didn't want to do the leader job is I have a tendency, to, when I'm not Dming, assume a dominant role, simply because I tend to have the most forceful personality. I was planning to give them a warforged character who was mute do to faulty production leaving him without a mouth, thereby keeping him from saying anything to influence the situation (I had been hoping to do a psion (If I got PH3), which would have given him the ability to communicate when absolutely necessary as an added bonus)

Also, does anyone have any answer for my questions on sourcebooks at the top of the page?

Itomon
2010-03-28, 05:24 PM
On the topic of splat books- I was a big 3.5 psionics fan, so I'm curious- what is the PHB 3 like? Also, what exactly is in the ECS, mechanics wise (Can I get by just using the player's guide and the 3.5 ECS for flavor?)I never liked psionics, but 4e ones are just... complicated.

__________________________

About your game: two PCs can be a problem. That's because of tactical maneuver - positioning and the like become a lot harder.

A good idea is to use NPC sheet - they are easier to handle, but still count as numbers in battlegrid.

Once, I was DMing to only 2 players (lvl 3 Deva Wizard and lvl 3 Halfling Rogue). I stated off game that they could have one henchman each to help them, and we RPed the hiring. I let they talk with the avaliable people in tavern, they were:
- Dwarven Hammerer (Lvl 5 Soldier, MM1 p.97)
- Elf Scout (lvl 2 Skirmisher, MM1 p.106)
- Human Beserker (lvl 4 Brute, MM1 p.163)
I also described a bard playing, a couple of woodcutters and a bunch of thieves - they were not intended to be hired, so I didn't really thought about their sheets.(you can read a little more about the RP here, or just skip the spoiler part)

First, the players considered the Dwarf, as a good defender - that was also an RP issue where the halfling rogue just like dwarven people (and because the Human I RPed was just lol-Charisma... lol). But the Dwarf ask them a great deal in gold... what made them consider another option.

Then, they got in mind the bard as an option. I really had no idea what to do, but I didn't want to say no... They were considering that bards are leaders with healing powers. I off-stated that it might not be true, but because the bard was reasonably fair (high charisma), and because the halfling was muticlass bard, they just decided to take the bard anyway.

They decided to take no more henchman, so they haven't to share the loot. I then made them stumble on the elf scout, who followed them to their inn room - the elf needed help, so he offered himself to help them for free. It was fun, because the halfling do not like elves much, but since it was a free hand helping, they took it.
With the elf scout picked, I gave them a copy of the Monster sheet to control, but I had no idea what to do with the bard. Then, I picked the Gnome Arcanist sheet (MM p.134) and stated a few changes:
- The Aura of Illusion (Illusion) became Song of Distraction (Charm), with the same rules
- The Startling Glamor power was made "Standard" action
- He had no access to the powers Illusory Terrain, Fade Away, Fey Step or Reactive Stealth.

Both NPC also had 5 surges per day and one use of "second wind".

__________________________

It may sound a little confusing, but it's easier to control an NPC sheet than having a PC-like NPC joinable in the game. The different powers from monsters can also give new combat options, and the story grows as you deal with other characters coming and going from the party.

In the game above, the Deva wizard, the Halfling Rogue, the bard(gnome arcanist) and the elf scout went to the vales to face some kobolds and, later, a white dragon (which was very surprising). The NPC bard had a chance to flee in fear (I rolled agains his will) but he was braver than we thought (heh heh). They manage to defeat the white dragon with some tactics and luck... a rough but fun battle!

They earned the dragon's hoard and payed the bard what they had promised, plus a litttle extra - the human bard (gnome arcanist) returned home with a good retirement and a new tale of heroes! The elf helped them for no treasure, but he asked a favor instead - which was a great plot for the next adventure.


Well, I hope that gives you some ideas. I have to say that Keep on the Shadowfell is a great adventure, I'm sure your players will enjoy it!


Best Regards,
Itomon

Kurald Galain
2010-03-28, 06:47 PM
but in 4e every class has the same number of powers they can use, so a controller is no harder to play than anyone else.
I don't think that's really true. While 4E really isn't a deep strategical game (nor is it intended to be), it shuold be obvious that certain classes are easier to play than certain others. Within the PHB, the archer ranger is extremely easy: just point at something each turn, and it'll take damage more often than not, and that's all. On the other hand, the wizard is probably the hardest PHB class to play effectively: many people see one played ineffectively, and come to the (incorrect) conclusion that wizards are worthless.

Yes, player skill matters more than which build you use. But also, certain builds leave much more room for player skill than others.

Tequila Sunrise
2010-03-28, 07:05 PM
Can't comment on psionics yet, as I haven't seen them in play. The system looks simple enough; the only noticable difference from other classes is that instead of encounter powers you have a couple power points which you use to jack up your at-wills into encounter-power-like powers. A bit more complex than standard 4e classes, but infinitely simpler than psionics from previous editions.


KotS was the only module I've seen. It wasn't horrible, but I did come to the conclusion that DM-generated stories were just better, as they can be more personal and stuff.
+1

Squark
2010-03-29, 04:18 PM
So how was the PHB III, balance wise?

Tequila Sunrise
2010-03-29, 04:33 PM
I don't think anyone has a good grasp on PHB3 other than the designers; it's been out for what, two weeks? There's a few threads over on the WotC forums about the PHB3 classes, but it's mostly theoretical debate.

I myself am mistrusting of the hybrid rules, but I'm letting one of my players use them in an upcoming one-shot adventure. So what I'm saying is, if anyone wants to use the PHB3 I don't see a good reason why they shouldn't.

Kurald Galain
2010-03-29, 04:45 PM
So how was the PHB III, balance wise?
According to charop, Psions and Runepriests are overpowered, Monks and Ardents are decent, Seekers are underwhelming, and Battleminds suck.

At least that appears to be the conventional wisdom of the moment. Mind you, conventional wisdom is frequently proven wrong after a year or more of gameplay. For instance, when the PHB1 was first printed, all the warlord powers that grant movement were considered amazing; whereas now people realize that most of them don't really do anything except change the feng shui of the gaming table.

LibraryOgre
2010-03-29, 04:47 PM
Kurald's Golden Rule of 4E: doing 20 damage now is better than thinking for a minute and then doing 23 damage.

Make sure your players are aware of this. The one thing that ruins a 4E game most is the kind of player who spends an excessive amount of game time thinking about minor bonuses.

A-freakin'-men

Swordgleam
2010-03-29, 04:56 PM
Kurald's Golden Rule of 4E: doing 20 damage now is better than thinking for a minute and then doing 23 damage.

Make sure your players are aware of this. The one thing that ruins a 4E game most is the kind of player who spends an excessive amount of game time thinking about minor bonuses.

Thisthisthisthisthisthis this.

I just ran a level 2 module (Treasure of Talon Pass, or as my players now know it, "The Asbestos Dungeon") for a group of newbies yesterday. I was very disappointed by the lack of any skill challenges - I'd try to find a module that includes those, and failing that, throw in one of your own. Otherwise, your players might not understand the point of all those skills on their character sheets.

Aside from that, using a module as an introduction to the game was great, since it let me not think at all about the adventure, and instead focus on making sure everyone was understanding the game.

My biggest tip is to seat the most confused players closest to you. And try to steer the least experienced players away from arcane characters - figuring out what blast and burst are is very confusing to people who aren't even used to dealing with battle grids. Weapon-based characters are a lot easier - pick a guy, hit him with your sword/axe/arrows. (I might be biased about this since our party had two wizards in it, compounding the issue. And the fire.)

Just take it easy and don't worry if everyone gets everything perfect the first time. There'll be plenty of time before the next game to say, "Oh by the way, it turns out that the proper rule for situation X is Y. We'll do it that way from now on."

Squark
2010-03-29, 04:56 PM
According to charop, Psions and Runepriests are overpowered, Monks and Ardents are decent, Seekers are underwhelming, and Battleminds suck.

At least that appears to be the conventional wisdom of the moment. Mind you, conventional wisdom is frequently proven wrong after a year or more of gameplay. For instance, when the PHB1 was first printed, all the warlord powers that grant movement were considered amazing; whereas now people realize that most of them don't really do anything except change the feng shui of the gaming table.

So it balances out to 6 decent classes? :smallwink:

I'll have to see for myself, then.

Yakk
2010-03-29, 04:59 PM
So how was the PHB III, balance wise?
That I've noticed?

Low-level (heroic) at-wills are too good at augment 2 in epic in a few cases.

Ardent has a hole in his defender-ness.