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Keld Denar
2008-03-03, 03:58 PM
So, I went to DDXP (the big RPGA convention outside of Washington DC) this past weekend, and I must say, I had a blast playing 4th Ed. I played in both of the preview game, as well as running the Delve event 5 times. I spent most of the time playing the Halfling Paladin(defender) which was a really dynamic character to play. The other characters available were the Eladrin Ranger, the Dwarven Fighter, the Tiefling Wizard, the Human(?) Warlock, and the Human Cleric. They were all played at 1st level. The paladin abilities I had were:

At Will:
Bolstering Strike: Standard action, attack that adds a small +hit bonus, does weapon damage and grants 3 temp hp on successful hit

??Challenge: Mark. Minor Action range 5, Marked target must include Paladin in attacks or suffer -2 hit and take 8 radiant damage

Holy Smite: Standard Action, small bonus to hit and does weapon damage + small bonus radiant damage, more bonus damage if target is marked by paladin.

Encounter Powers:
Shielding Smite: Standard Action, attack does double weapon damage and grants a nearby ally a +3 bonus to their AC.

1 of either
Divine Might: Minor Action, +2 damage for 1 round
Divine Mettle: Minor Action, Grant nearby ally a save at +3

Daily Powers:
3x/day Lay on Hands: Minor Action, spend healing surge to grant ally hp equal to their healing surge value.

1x/day
?? (forgot name) range 5, will attack, does 3d8+4(stats??) damage to target, every time target attacks, the take 1d8 damage (save ends)
Special: If attack misses, target takes 1d8 damage and every time they attack, they take 1d4 (save ends)

ArenaManager
2008-03-03, 04:04 PM
Very interesting.

What I am more interested in was what was the most awkward rules from 4th Ed. I like what I've heard about it, but I want to hear what possible flaws it has if possible before I actualy shell out the money for it in June.

TheThan
2008-03-03, 04:08 PM
Care to give us a little more information on how the gameplay went?

Since everyone is starving for solid information.

Keld Denar
2008-03-03, 04:12 PM
We faught a lot of monsters, each with interesting and mostly unique powers. The crazyest thing we faught was a black dragon. I don't know most of the stats of it, but we (as 1st level characters) manage to eventually kill it. It had about 280 hp, all defenses over 20 (except will defence, which was about 16) a breath weapon that was a line of acid that did 1d6+6 damage and caused a debuff that did 5 damage per round until you saved and lowered your AC by 4. The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed. At 50% hp, the dragon became "bloodied" which automatically recharged its breath weapon.It also had 2 claw attacks it could do as a standard action with about +10 to hit dealing around 1d10+5 damage each. Whenever a character attempted to melee the dragon and missed, the dragon could make a free tail slap attack against its attacker at about +6-8 for 1d6+4ish damage.

Did I mention that we were all 1st level characters? I as the paladin had 27 hp at level 1, and the dwarf warrior had 32. The rest of the characters had around 20-25 hp. It was such a long hard fight, but eventually we killed it with only the warlock standing (at 2 hp). The only character that truely died was me, the paladin. All the others were able to stabilize on their own or with checks from the other players.

Oh, and the dragon pretty much started with an auto surprise due to the darkness and our party's crappy passive perception checks.

Indon
2008-03-03, 04:20 PM
I'm curious about what kind of combat-related questions came up at the tables you were playing, personally.

Was the focus generally, "Should we burn all our resources on this guy?" or was it all about the minor bonuses from at-will powers? Did people remember or just forget to use action points? Did anyone make a normal attack during the combats? Were there any innovative (i.e. not a standard disarm) solutions to traps?

How did you fight the Dragon - did you just all kind of bunch up around it and beat it up? Did it fly any?

Keld Denar
2008-03-03, 04:24 PM
The most awkward thing I thought was how ongoing effects were resolved. If you got a status affliction (such as the above dragon's acid breath or the kobalds fire sling rocks) you took the damage at the beginning of your turn, and then you make a save at the end of your turn. Your allies could make heal checks to let you make a save early, but if your turn followed the foe that caused the status effect, then you just took the damage, but if your allies went before you, they could help put you out or whatever. This just felt like the timing was off. I'm used to 3.0 and 3.5 where ongoing damage effects happen on their origionators turn (like Acid Arrow, etc) and that all characters would have a chance to react to the condition before it recurred.

Other than that, I really liked the system. I'll post more when I get home from work and have access to my character sheets and have a bit more time for more structured posts. Thanks for listening!

Annarrkkii
2008-03-03, 04:53 PM
The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed.


...how is this more simple than "every 1d4+1 rounds?"

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-03, 04:57 PM
The breath weapon had a 1 in (6-n) chance of recharging each round, where n is the number of rounds since it last breathed.

Are you sure you don't mean n in 6 chance?

That is to say:

1/6 in the first round
2/6 in the second round
3/6 in the third round
ect.?

Artanis
2008-03-03, 04:58 PM
I greatly appreciate you taking the time and effort to type this out, lussmanj :smallbiggrin:


...how is this more simple than "every 1d4+1 rounds?"
Interesting observation.

I'm hoping it's just lussmanj misstating something simpler, but I guess we'll find out.

Edit: Like what Titanium Dragon said

Nebo_
2008-03-03, 05:58 PM
The other day my group downloaded all the character sheets and monster stats that have found their way onto the internet and played ourselves. It wasn't perfect and we had to ad hoc some of the rules, but all in all, it was very good. As I understand it, with the dragon's breath weapon, you roll a d6 and if the result is 5 or 6, it recharges.

Keld Denar
2008-03-03, 06:52 PM
With the dragon's breath weapon, the way the DM made it sound, the first round after breathing, it recharged on a 6 (on a d6). The 2nd round, it recharged on a 5 or 6. The 3rd round, the DM rolled a 6 and it recharged, so I don't know if it was on a 4-6 or not.

The way the mechanics of a turn go, is you get 3 actions, a standard, a move, and a minor. You can always trade down, so you could take 3 minors, or 2 moves and a minor, or 2 minors and a standard, etc. Charging is a standard action, so you can actually move into a charge lane, then charge. This was pretty cool the way it works.

The fighter was a defensive character as well. His moves involed a lot of battlefield control type maneuvers. You aren't allowed to take an shift (what was a 5' step) around a fighter, or he whacks you. If you provoke an AoO from the fighter, he whacks you and you have to stop moving. The fighter has a standard action attack called Tide of Iron, an attack that does weapon damage + small bonus and also moves the target back 1 square (or any adjacent diagonal, so long as it is away), he also had the option of moving with the creature, or staying put. This was kind of cool, since it was an at will ability, so he was constantly pushing people around, including off cliffs and into lava. The fighter also has another move called passing attack, an encounter power that allows him to make a single attack against an adacent creature, shift for free, then make another single attack.

We faught some kobalds, which was fun. Kobalds are "shifty" which means that if you shift while adjacent to a kobald, the kobald can make an immediate shift as well. Therefore, you wanted to make sure if you did shift, you were adjacent to the fighter, so if the shifty kobald moved, the fighter would whack him.

In some encounters, you have standard foes with statted hp. In others, you have a "boss" and "minions". The minions die if they are targeted by a single successful attack, regardless of damage. The boss usually has 4-5 times the hp of the PCs. General stratagy included a lot of utilizing bottlenecks to keep the minions off your squishies while the tank types held off the bosses and soaked attacks and the strikers did damage and the controllers disabled, feared, or damaged.

One room we encountered had a few kobald minions up on a small tower inside of a large room sniping us with slings. A group of them were also on the ground to keep you from getting up the tower. A few others pushed a large rock into motion that circled in a trench around the base of the tower. This made it interesting to fight, because we couldn't reach the sniper kobalds with melee attacks (although our ranger and warlock were having a field day with the target practice) and we were trying to fight the kobalds on the ground without getting run over by the boulder. I actually got run over by it, and it basically made an attack vs my reflex defense. It missed, so I managed to squeeze against the wall as it rolled by. The dwarf wasn't so lucky and got knocked prone by the rock and took some damage. Oh, one other thing, the kobald snipers above were using sling bullets that stuck you to the ground. You had to make a save at the end of your turn to unstuck yourself from the ground. This led to some really tense saves as the rock was coming around the corner again. All in all, a very exciting encounter!

If you guys have any questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. I had a blast playing 4th ed, even if it was only a couple of level 1 characters. You never didn't have anything to do on your turn unlike often playing a level 1 cleric or wizard and being out of spells and having to shoot your crossbow or whatever. It really was very exciting.

Naihal
2008-03-03, 09:12 PM
I'm curious, how did your party use your 1/day abilities? Did you blow them at the beginning of combat, did you save them, etc. How effective were they when you used them, if a party were to save up their daily abilities and blow them all on an elite enemy like the dragon, would they just decimate it or would they not be effective? If you had no daily abilities, could you still fight the dragon effectively or would you stand no chance?

The daily abilities have me worried. The at-will and encounter powers look balanced, but the daily powers look subject to potential abuse. If you could shed some light on how they worked, that would be helpful :smallsmile:

Rachel Lorelei
2008-03-03, 09:45 PM
I'm not sure how per-day abilities would be abuseable. Keep in mind that whenever you use a per-day ability you're not using a per-encounter ability--a 3dX + Stat per-day only does 1dX more than a 2dX+Stat per-encounter.

Indon
2008-03-03, 10:04 PM
I'm not sure how per-day abilities would be abuseable. Keep in mind that whenever you use a per-day ability you're not using a per-encounter ability--a 3dX + Stat per-day only does 1dX more than a 2dX+Stat per-encounter.

But it looks like they generally have associated secondary damage until save as well, so it's probably an average of a few extra damage.

Rachel Lorelei
2008-03-03, 10:08 PM
Sure, yeah. There's still the opportunity cost of not having used an Encounter power, making the per-days less relatively powerful than otherwise.

And if you use up all your Daily and Encounter powers during an encounter, clearly the Daily powers weren't abuseable, or they'd have won the fight for you. :)

Keld Denar
2008-03-03, 10:48 PM
Well, we were typically fighting 3-4 encounters in a day, so it wasn't too hard to wait. Yea, a lot of the abilities were pretty song (the mages sleep spell was so imba, but required a successful attack roll and a failed save to work. The paladin's ability I felt was grossly under powered. I'm not sure if I interpretted it wrong, but it required you to hold your holy symbol. If you had that in your hand, you couldn't wield your weapon and your shield. Its a minor action to draw a weapon, so that was an action you couldn't use to mark a target or heal an ally. The warriors ability was just a couple extra dice of damage, but pretty nice, especially if it crit or roll max damage (same thing, about something like 40-50 damage).

The Warlocks daily was pretty nice too. If it hit, it allowed the warlock to move the target 3 squares (including off a cliff). Even if it missed, it made the target move 1 square. If it hit, every round after until the creature saved, the warlock could move the target a single square as a minor action.

The Ranger's daily was ok, but was typically more useful before the final encounter. It allowed the ranger to make 2 attack rolls against 2 different foes. If 1 hit, both hit and did some extra damage. However, against a single target, such as the dragon, you couldn't use it because you didn't have 2 targets.

EvilElitest
2008-03-03, 11:39 PM
So what are the pros cons compared to 3E
from
EE

Indon
2008-03-04, 12:00 AM
Yea, a lot of the abilities were pretty song (the mages sleep spell was so imba, but required a successful attack roll and a failed save to work.
Wait, they actually had Sleep? And it actually put an enemy to sleep, not just made them kinda drowsy for a bit? Well, they have at least one vaguely old-school, decent potential spell at least.

Also, it had to hit _and_ they got to make their save before it even affected them?


I'm not sure if I interpretted it wrong, but it required you to hold your holy symbol. If you had that in your hand, you couldn't wield your weapon and your shield.

Aren't shields generally strapped to the arm? I mean, if the holy symbol's on a chain or something, you could just wrap it around your wrist or something.

But then, that's a simulationist take. It'd probably have to be a houserule.

Nebo_
2008-03-04, 12:29 AM
Wait, they actually had Sleep? And it actually put an enemy to sleep, not just made them kinda drowsy for a bit? Well, they have at least one vaguely old-school, decent potential spell at least.

Also, it had to hit _and_ they got to make their save before it even affected them?



You have to hit their will defense and then there is a save for partial effect; in this case, slow.


So what are the pros cons compared to 3E
from
EE

Try generalising more.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 08:26 AM
One of the major pros in my opinion is that a character never has to make mundane attacks. You always have at least 2 (if not 3-4) at will powers to choose from, even if you've already spent your encounter and daily powers. In 3.5, as a 1st or 2nd level wizard, once you've dropped your sleep or color spray or whatever spell for the round, you pretty much have to fall back and shoot your crossbow or whatever piddly attack until the badguys are dead or you run away. Not so in 4.0 (hehehe, that's kind of catchy). A wizard never runs out of magic missiles, which, while they don't auto-hit anymore, now do 2d4+4ish with about a +5 to hit vs reflex defense at level 1. I don't know how this scales because I wasn't in the playtest, so I only have experience with level 1 characters.

Another cool thing is that every character has the ability to heal themselves to a certain degree. All characters have a number of healing surges, and a healing surge amount (the halfling paladin had 11 surges with a surge amount of 6, the dwarf warrior had 8 surges with a surge amount of 8). You can take a 2nd wind (standard action for most races, minor for dwarves because they are hardy) to heal yourself for your surge amount. If an ally makes a heal check on you, or uses an ability like the clerics healing spell, it can also trigger a healing surge which consumes a daily healing surge and heals you for your surge amount (plus a little extra with some abilities). Using a 2nd wind action also increase all your defenses by a small amount for a round, giving you a chance to get back on your feet fully.

I already mentioned what I thought was a major con, with the timing of ongoing effects. One other thing that's kind of wonky is the saving throw mechanic. You have a flat 55% chance to save, a 45% chance to fail. This means on a 10+ on a d20 roll, you save. So far, I haven't found much to adjust this (the paladin's Divine Mettle ability grants an ally a save with a +3, but that's about it). Thus it seems, no matter how powerful you are, the threat of that save hangs pretty heavy over everyone, PC or enemy. For example, once the wizard casts sleep and hits, the foe becomes drousy (slowed) and then at the end of that creatures turn, it has to roll a save. On a 1-9, it falls asleep and is helpless, but on a 10+ it just remains slowed for a bit longer. The following round, the creature spends its turn asleep and then gets to make a save at the end of its turn to wake up. This continues every round till the creature dies, is woken up (via attack) or rolls a 10+ for its save. This means that statistically, sleep only lasts for 2-3 rounds, although it can break early or last a long time if the dice fall right (or wrong!).

Indon
2008-03-04, 08:36 AM
One of the major pros in my opinion is that a character never has to make mundane attacks. You always have at least 2 (if not 3-4) at will powers to choose from, even if you've already spent your encounter and daily powers. In 3.5, as a 1st or 2nd level wizard, once you've dropped your sleep or color spray or whatever spell for the round, you pretty much have to fall back and shoot your crossbow or whatever piddly attack until the badguys are dead or you run away. Not so in 4.0 (hehehe, that's kind of catchy). A wizard never runs out of magic missiles, which, while they don't auto-hit anymore, now do 2d4+4ish with about a +5 to hit vs reflex defense at level 1. I don't know how this scales because I wasn't in the playtest, so I only have experience with level 1 characters.

So did anyone do anything in combat not with a power in your games, to test the improvisational power system?

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 08:54 AM
So did anyone do anything in combat not with a power in your games, to test the improvisational power system?

Not quite sure if I follow you. If you mean something like attempt to pull an immobilized (stuck to the floor) character out of harms way, then yes, there were several things. Most were resolved by skill or ability checks with either the DCs set by the condition (such as unstucking a character or jumping onto a rock, or climbing a wall) or made up on the spot by the DM. As far as attacking stuff goes, no, characters pretty much stuck to the abilities they were given. Some creative use of the abilities was used, such as the cleric turning undead and forcing them off cliffs or into lava, or the fighter using his Tide of Iron ability to push enemies away from squishies or into corners or off cliffs, etc.

Indon
2008-03-04, 08:56 AM
Not quite sure if I follow you. If you mean something like attempt to pull an immobilized (stuck to the floor) character out of harms way, then yes, there were several things.

Well, kind of, but more in combat. Like trying to disarm a kobold by smashing the weapon out of their hands or something.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-04, 08:59 AM
You mean, something like wanting to attempt a jump attack to land on the head of a Kobold to gain combat advantage against another foe?

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 09:10 AM
Well, kind of, but more in combat. Like trying to disarm a kobold by smashing the weapon out of their hands or something.

Well, we didn't see any rules for disarming or sundering like there are in 3.5. I'm guessing that its a tactic that a fighter or someone can learn after a level or 2. Like I said, we didn't make the characters, or have access to the PHB or any of the rules other than a basic sheet they gave us and what was written on the character sheet. Sundering and disarming and tripping were all such major parts of 3.5 that I'm sure they'll make it into 4.0 in some way that'll be more streamlined. Tide of Iron (fighter ability) is already like a mini bullrush, and I'm sure that at higher levels they'll get more powerful versions of these abilities and other new abilities.

That said, there were some enemies with some neat attacks. One set of guys, I forget what they were, but they had a ranged attack that targeted reflex. If they hit you, you were dazed (only allowed 1 standard action, instead of standard/move/minor, that standard could be traded down for either a move or a minor though). Those guys were tough, because they were ranged and kept moving out of range while the melees tried to chase them down. Luckily we had our own ranged support who managed to take them out.

Other enemies had attacks that knocked a person down, similar in result to a trip. Standing up from prone is a move action, but doesn't provoke AoOs. This was a pretty strong tactic since they could either get up and move away, or get up and attack, but not both. This allowed that set of enemies to "tank" us, to keep us away from their squishies like their healer and archers. It was a very interesting fight, lots of tactical movement and strategy.

fendrin
2008-03-04, 10:41 AM
Wow. Just wow. I am really looking forward to 4e now (whilst before I was just strongly hopeful).

Ranged combat is useful again.
1st level is dramatic.
Players always have options (without relying on DM fudging rules).
Much more emphasis on tactics instead of 'stand in a circle and full attack'.
Combat is much more dynamic (eg more movement, especially off-turn).
'Save or Suck' toned down.
Tough but not invincible characters.

Perfect? No.
Looking good? Heck Yeah!

Tehnar
2008-03-04, 10:44 AM
I am wondering about the skill system; can you describe it; ie what are class skills, what are cross class, how many skillpoints, etc?

Theodoxus
2008-03-04, 10:44 AM
You probably don't have the answer to this, but what happens when two fighters face off against each other? You use tide of iron and shift after your foe who was pushed, which allows him to make an attack on you (since you shifted, and he's also a fighter) - then he pushes you back, etc. Seems like fighters would destroy each other quickly.

Also, is there any defense against being moved by tide of iron? I could imagine the outcry when the orc chieftain uses it against the party, casually tossing each member over the lip of the live volcano... tpk through cheese.

Just seems to me that these abilities (at 1st level!) are way over the top if used against the PCs... is that why monsters aren't built along PC lines? But come on, like the orc example I cited, not all monsters are mindless undead, animal intelligence dinosaurs or handless winter wolves. Surely the monstrous humanoids will have access to the same or very similar abilities.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 11:13 AM
You probably don't have the answer to this, but what happens when two fighters face off against each other? You use tide of iron and shift after your foe who was pushed, which allows him to make an attack on you (since you shifted, and he's also a fighter) - then he pushes you back, etc. Seems like fighters would destroy each other quickly.

Also, is there any defense against being moved by tide of iron? I could imagine the outcry when the orc chieftain uses it against the party, casually tossing each member over the lip of the live volcano... tpk through cheese.

Just seems to me that these abilities (at 1st level!) are way over the top if used against the PCs... is that why monsters aren't built along PC lines? But come on, like the orc example I cited, not all monsters are mindless undead, animal intelligence dinosaurs or handless winter wolves. Surely the monstrous humanoids will have access to the same or very similar abilities.

Well, I know that things about to be pushed off of a cliff are granted a save. If they fail the save, over they go. If they make the save, I believe they fall prone in the square that they would have moved out of. Thats how the DM described it when our fighter tried to Tide a ghoul off a cliff. Also, the movement from Tide technically isn't a "shift" so it wouldn't provoke, and even if it did, AoOs are normal melee attacks, not special attack actions (you don't make AoOs with Diamond Nightmare Blade of whatever from ToB, do you? Same thing in 4th ed).

Plus, the threat of being pushed off a cliff is something that PCs have to consider. Its part of the whole tactical positioning part of combat. If you stand with your back to the wall, its harder to get knocked off a cliff, and if you stand at the edge of a cliff, you should expect an intelligent foe to try to knock you off. It wouldn't be very realistic if they didn't.

Nakun
2008-03-04, 11:22 AM
In response to Tehnar, from the information posted about the rogue class on wizard's website it looks like skills are no longer based on intelligence, but purely on what class you are when it comes to how many you get. It also said some things that made me question the existence of cross-class skills in 4.0.

But, I really want to know if you all got racial feats at first level that distinguished would your characters, if say you had been a halfling fighter instead of a halfling paladin?

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 11:33 AM
But, I really want to know if you all got racial feats at first level that distinguished would your characters, if say you had been a halfling fighter instead of a halfling paladin?

Well, I'm not 100% sure on Dwarves (I know they can use their Second Wind for a healing surge as a minor action instead of a standard) but a halflings racials are pretty awesome. They get Bold, which grants a +5 on save vs fear (meaning you only need to roll a 5+ to save vs fear) and another ability that I forget the name, but basically forces an enemy to reroll an attack roll once per encounter. One time when I used it, I forced the dragon to reroll his breath attack at me in the first round of combat, and I ended up being the only one not affected by it, so my AC wasn't lowered and I could actually tank the dragon while everyone else tried to get the acid off.

I also had a feat that you can only take if you are small. It was called "Lost in the Crowd" which gives you a +2 bonus to AC when adjacent to 2 creatures larger than you. Since as a halfling you are small, and most of the foes we faught (except the kobalds) were medium, any time I had 2 foes attack me I was AC 23, not too shabby for a 1st level character. I don't know how the feat scales past level 1, but I can say I got missed a lot on attacks that would have hit me without it.

As far as skills go, since we didn't make the characters, I have no idea how the points were assigned. I did have 4-5 skills as a paladin that were much higher than the rest, so I'm guessing they were the ones that points were spent on.

Any other questions?

Asaris
2008-03-04, 11:59 AM
There were a couple of other racial abilities floating around. The eladrin could teleport 25' as a per-encounter ability, and the human took a feat that gave him +1 to saves or AC (I forge which).

Duke of URL
2008-03-04, 12:02 PM
This probably can't be answered particularly well without knowing how the classes scale, but flavor-wise, what are your opinions of the Wizard and Warlock -- it seems to me from what I've read that the 4e Wizard is very much like the 3.5e "controller" Warlock, and that the 4e Warlock is a cross between the 3.5 "archer/blaster" Warlock and maybe Hexblade... does it "feel" that way in actual play?

Indon
2008-03-04, 12:09 PM
As far as skills go, since we didn't make the characters, I have no idea how the points were assigned. I did have 4-5 skills as a paladin that were much higher than the rest, so I'm guessing they were the ones that points were spent on.

Would you say they were 5 points higher?

Because Star Wars Saga edition has trained skills at a flat +5 over untrained skills, and doesn't use points at all.

Corsec1337
2008-03-04, 12:12 PM
They have the 4.0 character sheets up on the main wizards website.

Did you have any of the "social encounters"? I know you wouldn't do that in the delve but i'm really hopeful you experinced this to give us an idea of how thats going to work...

fendrin
2008-03-04, 12:21 PM
They have the 4.0 character sheets up on the main wizards website.

Could you post a link? I have looked, but apparently have become incompetent at finding stuff on that site. :smallmad:

Corsec1337
2008-03-04, 12:28 PM
Fear not friend. Here is a direct link to the zip file.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/ExperienceCharacters.zip

And if that doesn't work... When you load the www.wizards.com website wait for the dungeons and dragons icon to appear around roughly the middle of the screen (long row for their big games at the moment). Click on the dnd one and when it loads it should have a big banner going on about DNDXP 4th ed Preview.

Edit: I checked the direct link and it worked. I'll leave the directions up in case it doesn't.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 12:29 PM
We had one event in the module "Escape From Sembia" in which the players had to make a number of skill checks in order to get out of the city unseen. Each player made a wager on what skill check they could hit hit (easy was 11, moderate 14, and difficult 18) and then rolled the check. If they beat their wager on moderate, the team got a success, and if they missed it, they got a loss. If they made it on easy, they got a success but if they missed it, they got 2 losses. If they succeeded at hard, they got a chance to make a 2nd skill check in another skill for a bonus point. The goal was to get to a certain amount of successes before getting a number of defeats. Our team failed because we got 4 defeats before we got to 6 successes (had 5!) and because of that, we got out, but our faces were seen. Later, we had an encounter with some people who started out as hostile to us because they knew who we were and were waiting for us. Since they had us pinned at a bridge and we had a letter they wanted, we had to fight them. If we had been successful earlier, we could have bluffed them with a "these are not the droids you are looking for" ruse. It was kind of fun, and involved the whole group in skill checks instead of just 1 face character.

Examples of checks made
The Eladrin Ranger hid, and because his hide was so high chose difficult, and when he made the check got a free preception check to notice a short cut out for a bonus success.
The dwarf just booked it, making endurance checks to outrun the guards. He chose moderate and succeeded and got the hell out of Dodge.
I as the paladin tried to use diplomacy to find someone to help us, but failed my moderate check and the person I asked tipped off the guards.
etc...

Its was good fun though.

Maxymiuk
2008-03-04, 12:38 PM
Hmm... so the skill checks look like a cross between the Raising the Stakes variant from E6 and Sustained Actions from Fading Suns. That's... well, that's actually pretty neat. Especially the part where everyone got to participate.

Corsec1337
2008-03-04, 12:40 PM
Hmm. Sounds interesting then. The "social encounters" were what made me cringe the most as the 4 ed leaks began to come out. Seemed like they were taking alot out of general wit and putting it into set stages.

It is nice to hear that everyone had a unique way of doing things in an urban setting. Just... There is something about rolling to hit with a magic missile that makes me... Words just don't describe it. You know I keep having random questions popping into my head now to ask... and since I won't see my buddy who ran DDM2 there yet (and won't until the weekly game), you are my new best friend on these boards!

How did you feel about the new cleave? How often was clerical healing and the surges actully done? Did the monsters have the same type of attacks the PC's had (like the fighter's beast of once a day attack)? How did the new stabalization system work?

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 12:52 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Boy things are geting too easy.

Indon
2008-03-04, 12:56 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Boy things are geting too easy.

At the end of the day. But it was a hard encounter, at least (by 'hard' I mean 'almost killed them').

I'd be interested to know if any of the delve parties at the event had either a significant victory or defeat over the dragon. Considering how predictable the combat system is now, I doubt either occured with any significant frequency.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 12:57 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Boy things are geting too easy.

Well, it's certainly more "heroic" than a group ganging up on an orc or two, and clubbing them to death when their guard is down. I think a level 1 character in 4E is supposed to be miles ahead of the "average person".

This only makes me wonder what kind of enemies you fight at level 10, 20 and 30.

I'm saddened that characters are so much more durable than in 3E - if I ever play 4E, I'll feel like I'm really freakin' dumb or I got totally freakin' jipped if I happen to get killed.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 12:57 PM
Monsters don't have attacks that are of the power of character's daily powers. That would be too powerful, since you'b be getting hit with daily powers all day long from every foe you fight, and only have 1 youself to give back.

The new cleave was not to practical in most combats, since we were doing really well at focus firing different opponents down. The extra 3 damage on a 2ndary target was pretty minimal, and it was generally better to use Tide of Iron to push a foe than Cleave get the splash damage. The wizard was better at doing AoE damage with his Fire Blast and Orb of Force spells than the Warrior by cleaving.

The cleric that we had with us only had 1 heal, and it was only usable twice per encounter. It was a minor action though, so he could still use either of his at will attacks, one of which granted a nearby ally a +2 to hit his target, and the other that granted a nearby ally 2 temp hp. My guess is that those bonuses grow over time with higher levels of the spells, or that they get different abilities as well. Like I stated earlier, we were only level 1 and the characters were premade. Between the cleric, the paladin, and everyone having a Second Wind, we generally had enough healing that we didn't run out easily unless we got really unlucky on die rolls and combat lasted too long.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-04, 01:02 PM
At the end of the day. But it was a hard encounter, at least (by 'hard' I mean 'almost killed them').

I'd be interested to know if any of the delve parties at the event had either a significant victory or defeat over the dragon. Considering how predictable the combat system is now, I doubt either occured with any significant frequency.

Two parties were a TPK. Several others had one or two deaths. That's what I gather from the various other forums that I lurk.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 01:06 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Boy things are geting too easy.

Eh? They weren't getting too easy before, with things like Shivering Touch 2 shotting a dragon, but they are now that a party has to fight hard to kill one?

Also, reading the description on its attacks made me a happy panda; Wizards finally recognized the Action Penalty, and seemed to give the dragon multiple actions per turn as a standard thing to make up for it!

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 01:10 PM
Eh? They weren't getting too easy before, with things like Shivering Touch 2 shotting a dragon, but they are now that a party has to fight hard to kill one?

I think the point was that now you don't even have to do that. You don't even have to be Batman. You just kind of have to exist and possess a basic grasp of teamwork.



Also, reading the description on its attacks made me a happy panda; Wizards finally recognized the Action Penalty, and seemed to give the dragon multiple actions per turn as a standard thing to make up for it!

I agree, it's nice to have enemies that can still take a fair amount actions, ever after going against numerous PCs.

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 01:13 PM
Well, it's certainly more "heroic" than a group ganging up on an orc or two, and clubbing them to death when their guard is down. I think a level 1 character in 4E is supposed to be miles ahead of the "average person".


It is heroic to fight orcs. Specially when 2 orcs can easily kill a lv1 character with some luck on their side.


Now where is the heroism in ganking in a bunch of enemies wich can't even make you bleed(aka monsters of your level)?

And we were talking about a monster 3 levels about the party, and solo, wich means it is 5 times as strong as regular monsters of the same level(so it is a challenge by himself).

This means that if a party finds a dragon of his level, they'll probaboly just run over him like it was a speedbump.

The party is suposed to fight monsters of its level, but where is the heroism in that when the monsters of your level aparently are nothing more than XP fodder?

I want ecounters of my level to be a challenge to the my character, and by challenge, I mean fight well or you'll be in the ground with your guts in yoru hands.

Corsec1337
2008-03-04, 01:14 PM
Well, it's certainly more "heroic" than a group ganging up on an orc or two, and clubbing them to death when their guard is down. I think a level 1 character in 4E is supposed to be miles ahead of the "average person".

This only makes me wonder what kind of enemies you fight at level 10, 20 and 30.

I'm saddened that characters are so much more durable than in 3E - if I ever play 4E, I'll feel like I'm really freakin' dumb or I got totally freakin' jipped if I happen to get killed.

What isn't heroic with a bunch of level 1's ganging up on an orc or two and clubbing them to death when their guard is down? That's what level one is, you are a regular person that isn't that special. I do agree with you that in 4E the PC's are supposed to be above the common peasant... I had read somewhere that monsters will react differently to different occasions. Like a crit will make a monster stronger and other goodies.

I'm sure the first one who dies in my gaming group in 4E will be laughed at and will be a joke for a long time.

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 01:17 PM
Eh? They weren't getting too easy before, with things like Shivering Touch 2 shotting a dragon, but they are now that a party has to fight hard to kill one?

Also, reading the description on its attacks made me a happy panda; Wizards finally recognized the Action Penalty, and seemed to give the dragon multiple actions per turn as a standard thing to make up for it!

Shivering touch isn't core. So when dragons first came out in 3e, you had to sweat to beat one.

Just wait for 4e splatbooks, and we'll surelly find some other low level spell wich kills dragons even easier than shivering touch, so the rest of the party doesn't even need to stop walking.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 01:18 PM
This means that if a party finds a dragon of his level, they'll probaboly just run over him like it was a speedbump.

I'd like to know where you're getting this from. This guy was 2 hit points away from a TPK. I doubt a level 1 would have gotten them that close, but you seem to be acting like it was the difference between a cakewalk and near death.


Shivering touch isn't core. So when dragons first came out in 3e, you had to sweat to beat one.
And the Action Penalty still crippled them enough that they weren't nearly as dangerous as an even level party of NPCs.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 01:19 PM
Um, as of Sunday around 1 pm, my group was the only group to kill the dragon. The record for damage before our table sat down was about 160 damage, our group did around 280 to get the kill. We had some pretty sound tactics, and a fair bit of luck. The dragon TPKed EVERY other table that played before us, and every other table that played after us that I'm aware of. 1 dragon kill out of ~70 attempts of the mod means that it was really really hard. Also, seeing as most delve groups didn't even get to the 3rd encounter, and even if they did, there was only about a 1-5 chance of fighting the dragon (since there were 4 other final encounters). The dragon we got during the delve we technically didn't kill. We had it to about 1/2 hp, and it failed its save vs sleep and we were out of time. The next round, the fighter would have Brute Striked (daily power) it for ~45 damage and most of our group was at full hp. The dragon we faught as part of the mod got a free suprise breath weapon on everyone at the very start of combat, so that made it much more difficult. Our wizard failed to hit the dragon with sleep in the module, and the fighter kept missing with Brute Strike.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 01:20 PM
It is heroic to fight orcs. Specially when 2 orcs can easily kill a lv1 character with some luck on their side.



I'm not debating that.

I believe it's the imagery that WotC wants to change - where 2 orcs against 4 "heroes" isn't as cool as "a DRAGON" against 4 "heroes", and they want everyone to have as much fun as possible, all the time.

D&D 4E is about being "cool". It doesn't matter if you have opinions of your own, regarding what defines a "Hero" - because apparently any run of the mill "Hero" can fight a Dragon with three-or-four buddies, and all but one of them walk away with a few minor scrapes and bruises.

And if you can't do that, you're obviously not a REAL hero...

Edit: In light of just about every other group dying, perhaps it's not so easy as I had presumed.

Still, though, I'm wondering how well those people understood their abilities - and if any were just plain "unlucky".

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 01:23 PM
I'd like to know where you're getting this from. This guy was 2 hit points away from a TPK. I doubt a level 1 would have gotten them that close, but you seem to be acting like it was the difference between a cakewalk and near death.

Yet, how many people survived? Even if it was close, it seems like after the Dragon was killed, everyone just kinda woke up, dusted themselves off, and went home. I mean, aren't healing surges kind of operating that way?

Rutee
2008-03-04, 01:25 PM
Yet, how many people survived? Even if it was close, it seems like after the Dragon was killed, everyone just kinda woke up, dusted themselves off, and went home. I mean, aren't healing surges kind of operating that way?

"Oh no, Most of the first levels didn't die before they could tell their stories! The horror!"

SamTheCleric
2008-03-04, 01:25 PM
It's not 3rd edition. It's a different game system. You don't like it, we get it.

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 01:26 PM
I'd like to know where you're getting this from. This guy was 2 hit points away from a TPK. I doubt a level 1 would have gotten them that close, but you seem to be acting like it was the difference between a cakewalk and near death.

3e.

Brown bear, enemey level 4.

Will regurally put lv 1 character uncoscious with a single hit, and it will hit a lot.

If not uncoscious he grapples them and finishes them off.

51 HP means the party will have trouble bringing him down quiclly, and AC 15 will mean lv 1 characters will be hiting less than he is hiting.

If you want to be evil swap his feats for something actually usefull and tear the party apart unless you only roll 1's.

A fight 3 levels above the party should be something the party can only win with uber optimization or dumb dumb luck.

However, like Samcleric said, most of the parties managed to kill the dragon, altough with some dead players.

Indon
2008-03-04, 01:26 PM
Two parties were a TPK. Several others had one or two deaths. That's what I gather from the various other forums that I lurk.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the scenario was meant to stretch the party to their limit - One party also ran from the dragon, to my knowledge. I'm not surprised few of them killed it.

As it is, I'm surprised there were groups that didn't make it to the dragon (did they all just run out of time?) I mean, that's the benefit the DM gets from the game's predictability - they can throw just as much as the party can take at the party, every time, knowing the chances of any of them dying until you decide to kill them are minimal.



Just wait for 4e splatbooks, and we'll surelly find some other low level spell wich kills dragons even easier than shivering touch, so the rest of the party doesn't even need to stop walking.

Powers aren't designed to have diverse enough effects for that to ever have a chance of happening again.

But a 3'rd party book might introduce some, perhaps with some system tweaking. Their doing so will undoubtedly break the finely-tuned new CR system, but, well.


I'm sure the first one who dies in my gaming group in 4E will be laughed at and will be a joke for a long time.

Nah, just throw a massively higher-level encounter at the party and it wouldn't be too hard. They might have a chance of dying, and the person'll only be laughed at if the party has a tendency to run (and you managed to fail to do that, even).

SamTheCleric
2008-03-04, 01:27 PM
3e.
However, like Samcleric said, most of the parties managed to kill the dragon, altough with some dead players.


I'm only providing second hand information... Lussman was actually there and says that the majority of tables did not kill the dragon.

Tyger
2008-03-04, 01:29 PM
Considering how predictable the combat system is now, I doubt either occured with any significant frequency.

Predictable? Based on one module, ran in a very restrained environment, with players who have no real knowledge of the actual skills / abilities / builds possible, playing characters built for them?

Quite simply, you have no way of knowing if this is accurate. Come on folks - its only 4 more months and you can judge the system with the actual facts, rather than base supposition and speculation.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 01:29 PM
"Oh no, Most of the first levels didn't die before they could tell their stories! The horror!"

No, my attitude was more like "Wow, almost nobody dies when up against what would seem like insurmountable odds? That seems...unlikely. If it happens too often, I'll feel like I'm not playing an actual game, so much as a round of "I Win"." That is moot, however, as I just read a great deal of other tables got pwned.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 01:34 PM
3e.

Brown bear, enemey level 4.

Will regurally put lv 1 character uncoscious with a single hit, and it will hit a lot.

If not uncoscious he grapples them and finishes them off.

51 HP means the party will have trouble bringing him down quiclly, and AC 15 will mean lv 1 characters will be hiting less than he is hiting.

If you want to be evil swap his feats for something actually usefull and tear the party apart unless you only roll 1's.

A fight 3 levels above the party should be something the party can only win with uber optimization or dumb dumb luck.

However, like Samcleric said, most of the parties managed to kill the dragon, altough with some dead players.
First level 3rd ed characters are weak as hell schmucks. A pack of angry housecats is a legit, and more notably, lethal, threat. If the thrust of your argument is "It's bad for us to start above this", rather then "The system is too 'easy' when we stand it up by itself", then quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.


No, my attitude was more like "Wow, almost nobody dies when up against what would seem like insurmountable odds? That seems...unlikely. If it happens too often, I'll feel like I'm not playing an actual game, so much as a round of "I Win"." That is moot, however, as I just read a great deal of other tables got pwned.
One would suspect that there would be some TPKs some of the time, yes. Again, regardless of actual death, /one person with 2 hit points remaining/

Indon
2008-03-04, 01:36 PM
Predictable? Based on one module, ran in a very restrained environment, with players who have no real knowledge of the actual skills / abilities / builds possible, playing characters built for them?

Quite simply, you have no way of knowing if this is accurate. Come on folks - its only 4 more months and you can judge the system with the actual facts, rather than base supposition and speculation.

Have you seen the other articles Wizards has released about 4'th edition mechanics, like how critical hits are run, and how they've removed non-damaging ways to win encounters? Wizards has literally said they want a more predictable system (because randomness favors monsters, is their reasoning). I'm surprised that fact didn't manifest more strongly in the groups, but it might indeed have been because they didn't understand the system very well.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-04, 01:37 PM
Have you seen the statblock for the dragon, deepblue?

It's nuts.

Every time you miss it in melee... it gets an immediate action to tail slap you. It's breath weapon refreshes on 5 or 6 on a d6 roll (so 33% chance)... When you drop him to half hit points, he immediately refreshes his breath weapon AND uses it.

It doesnt sound like a cake walk to me... more like a bit of luck, a few tactics... and a whole lot of "C'mon natural 20, daddy needs a new sword of wounding."

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 01:41 PM
And the Action Penalty still crippled them enough that they weren't nearly as dangerous as an even level party of NPCs.


Just if you don't know how to use the dragon.

The breath weapon hits hard, and the dragon is highly mobile, so the dragon can keep flying out of the reach of the players while wearing them down.

Quicken spell like ability can add some nasy tricks by allowing the dragon to shoot its spell like abilities.

Oh, sorceror casting. With splatbooks this can get sick by quicken spell and pratical metamagic. Whitout splatbooks it still is quite good. Ever faced a dragon protected by an anti magic field of his own? Summoning reinforcments? Turning a party member on an ally? Lots of choices.

Also you can add class levels. One level of complete champion barbarian and the dragon is jumping over the party using all his attacks at once. Now that is a nasty dragon. However they already stated that in 4e you can't add class levels to monsters anymore.

Give him some ToB maneuvers for the final touch and you have an epic ecounter wich the party will remember for quite some time.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 01:45 PM
Have you seen the statblock for the dragon, deepblue?

It's nuts.

Every time you miss it in melee... it gets an immediate action to tail slap you. It's breath weapon refreshes on 5 or 6 on a d6 roll (so 33% chance)... When you drop him to half hit points, he immediately refreshes his breath weapon AND uses it.

It doesnt sound like a cake walk to me... more like a bit of luck, a few tactics... and a whole lot of "C'mon natural 20, daddy needs a new sword of wounding."

With the number of healing surges people get, with all the added abilities and synergies, I simply wasn't convinced things would be as threatening. Because, I'd imagine against this kind of threat, that if you only send one or two guys who can reliably hit it in melee strike in melee, have everyone else use a ranged weapon (while spread out, so his breath weapon doesn't toast everyone simultaneously), with the cleric stand at the center-most point, or behind the melee guy, supporting him with heals...that the group would probably make short work of it.

If you really have to pray for amazing die rolls all the time, then that doesn't really help change my stance to positive, because I don't find that very fun, either.

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 01:46 PM
First level 3rd ed characters are weak as hell schmucks. A pack of angry housecats is a legit, and more notably, lethal, threat. If the thrust of your argument is "It's bad for us to start above this", rather then "The system is too 'easy' when we stand it up by itself", then quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

/

I meant the "The system is too 'easy' when we stand it up by itself" argument. Yeah, lv 1 characters are weak, but 3 levels above the average level of the party is very tough nut most of the times in 3e.

By all means, please state another 3e party level, and I shall show you an elite core monster 3 levels above wich will make them cry.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 01:48 PM
One cool mechanic is the "bloodied" system. At 50% hp (rounded down) you (or enemies) became bloodied. Different monsters and classes have different abilities that have more effect once creatures become bloodied. For example, the dragon I mentioned autorecovers its breath weapon when it becomes bloodied. We took on some Saughin that frenzy when bloodied, gaining 10 temp hp and +4 hit/dmg. Some demons we faught frenzy when their target becomes bloodied, gaining a free bite attack when ever they claw that does a bit of extra damage.

From a players PoV, I know that a wizard gets an extra point of damage on magic missile when a target is bloodied, so its a good one to use late in an encounter when things are hurt.

And in defense of the dragon, we had 1 character die (mine) and only 1 character was standing when the dragon died. We got some lucky die rolls (we rolled well, the DM rolled about a dozen 1s). We had to use some crazy spread tactics once we figured out what the range of the breath weapon was, we made sure it could never hit more than 1 of us at a time anymore. That helped a lot. Still, if you look at the amount of damage the dragon was capable of, it had the ability to KO any 1st level character if the breath weapon and 2 claws hit, meaning it could take out a PC every other round, or more often if it hit well with its breath weapon.

Morty
2008-03-04, 01:52 PM
So, Bloodied status haves an effect on various abilites. But are there any actual penalties for being severely beaten?

Rutee
2008-03-04, 01:57 PM
I meant the "The system is too 'easy' when we stand it up by itself" argument. Yeah, lv 1 characters are weak, but 3 levels above the average level of the party is very tough nut most of the times in 3e.
THEY were 2 HP away from a TPK. In what universe does this constitute something besides "Tough nut to crack"?


By all means, please state another 3e party level, and I shall show you an elite core monster 3 levels above wich will make them cry.

No. You will not. You will show me a monster 3 HD, or 3 CR, above the party level. Monsters aren't defined by level, or built by it, in 3e. And I will probably have a core method that can batman it away, and I'm not even terribly familiar with DnD's specific mechanical things like that..


So, Bloodied status haves an effect on various abilites. But are there any actual penalties for being severely beaten?
I doubt it. It's still DnD.

Indon
2008-03-04, 02:06 PM
THEY were 2 HP away from a TPK. In what universe does this constitute something besides "Tough nut to crack"?

Didn't they fight multiple encounters before facing that dragon?

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-04, 02:08 PM
Didn't they heal back to full health once they were done with said encounters?

Hey, the Jewish method works!

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-04, 02:13 PM
THEY were 2 HP away from a TPK. In what universe does this constitute something besides "Tough nut to crack"?

Didn't you get the memo? In 3.X, combat HAS to be over in 1 or 2 rounds, and either end in a TPK, or stunning victory with little to no loss of anything on the PC side. If combat lasts 3+ rounds, it's the system's fault because the PCs are too hard to kill superheroes. Also because of this, 4ed combat HAS to follow the same not at all flawed dynamic.




No. You will not. You will show me a monster 3 HD, or 3 CR, above the party level. Monsters aren't defined by level, or built by it, in 3e. And I will probably have a core method that can batman it away, and I'm not even terribly familiar with DnD's specific mechanical things like that..

Quite. In 3rd ed., monsters of even or lesser CR fell flat as challenges go. It's kind of sad when a CR 20 Balor has at best a +33 attack bonus, when a simple fighter with a 20 str and +4 weapon (not counting feats or anything else, that will add up to a lot more) has a +29 to hit.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-04, 02:16 PM
Didn't they fight multiple encounters before facing that dragon?

For all we know, if this scenario was done in 3.5, the party would have fared the exact same way, except they would have taken an extra week due to resting to recover spent spells/HPs.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 02:21 PM
With the number of healing surges people get, with all the added abilities and synergies, I simply wasn't convinced things would be as threatening. Because, I'd imagine against this kind of threat, that if you only send one or two guys who can reliably hit it in melee strike in melee, have everyone else use a ranged weapon (while spread out, so his breath weapon doesn't toast everyone simultaneously), with the cleric stand at the center-most point, or behind the melee guy, supporting him with heals...that the group would probably make short work of it.

If you really have to pray for amazing die rolls all the time, then that doesn't really help change my stance to positive, because I don't find that very fun, either.

Not everyone can easily use all of their abilities at range. A few classes will be required to get close to damage a foe. Also, while each character has lots of healing surges per day, they can only gain a Second Wind once per encounter, and abilities that heal generally aren't infinite, the cleric could heal 2 big heals per encounter, and the paladin could heal 3 little ones per DAY. This hardly puts it into the realm of MMO style tank n spanks where the healers poor healing into the tank and everyone around DPSes. There is a lot of risk assessment, resourse alocation, and cost vs benefit strategies to consider for every character, most of all ones with healing abilities. Resources do run out, and when that starts happening, people die. My paladin died because the cleric was out of ranged heals, and was on the other side of the dragon from me. I had ~ 3-6 rounds to stabilize on my own, and I didn't so I bled out. It happens. I watched a lot of tables where because of certain monster tactics and abilities, no one was able to help heal a downed character, and they died. Sure, its a lot different from 3rd ed when a simple housecat could spell death for a 1st level character, but its by no means EZMODE4.0...

We faught 3 encounters prior to the dragon. We didn't use hardly any of our daily abilities though, other than a few healing surges, because we had heard that the final encounter was really really hard. When it wound up being the dragon, we were absolutely terrified. After it got the autosuprise on us and hit almost all of use with the acid, I thought we were goners like every other table that played before us. Luck and skill prevailed though!

ShadowSiege
2008-03-04, 02:22 PM
So, Bloodied status haves an effect on various abilites. But are there any actual penalties for being severely beaten?

I don't think so, I think it's more along the lines of the enraging face cut. The monster actually gets wounded and realizes "it's time to get serious." Or something like that. This is one of those times where you can curse hit points for being so blasted abstract.


By all means, please state another 3e party level, and I shall show you an elite core monster 3 levels above wich will make them cry.

It depends on the monster. A PL+3 CR monster poses a challenge, but can be overcome. PL+4, likewise. Once you get to CR > PL+5, there's a much greater risk of TPK. The numbers move around a bit based upon optimization, party makeup, resources, starting conditions, and just plain ol' luck. Sounds like that black dragon did a pretty good number on the party Lussmanj was a part of, and they were the lucky ones. It seems like it just tore apart other parties. The difference between 3e and 4e is that the TPK will take longer in 4e if the party insists on fighting.


With the number of healing surges people get, with all the added abilities and synergies, I simply wasn't convinced things would be as threatening.

Except you only get one healing surge in combat (the second wind ability), plus what the cleric can tick off (level 1 cleric can add 1d6+4 hp to someone's second wind, twice per encounter). You'll come into the battle fully healed probably, but the characters only get a single heal at level one.

Edit: Whoops, forgot about lay on hands. Add in another 3 healing surges assuming the paladin didn't use the ability or all his healing surges.

ColdBrew
2008-03-04, 02:24 PM
Hi! I've never played 4E, but I'm going to speculate wildly on how I would have showed those chumps what's what. Naturally, I'll blissfully ignore the input of an actual player so I can whine about perceived flaws in the system. That I've never played. 'Cause I'm that good.

Fixed a typo for ya.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-04, 02:29 PM
The ice hamburger madcap says: Touché!

Rachel Lorelei
2008-03-04, 02:31 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Boy things are geting too easy.

3E parties fight things CR level+3 all the bloody time. Even at level 1--the one day I was in an Expedition to Undermountain module, we fought a CR 5 Metal Master, and only one of us died. And that's level 1; 4E is more evenly spread out (you're not as drastically vulnerable at level 1, which is a *good thing*). Level 5, 10, etc. parties really do drop CR level+3 things without a worry if they have competent players.

The brown bear is an exception due to level 1 (at which 3E PCs are pathetially weak due to Level 1 HP) and Improved Grab. Level 1, in 3.5, is barely playable (which is why I try not to play at it). And the bear is still beatable, with luck--if the party has a Druid (or other access to the Entangle spell) it's even easy.

Starsinger
2008-03-04, 02:40 PM
3E parties fight things CR level+3 all the bloody time. Even at level 1--the one day I was in an Expedition to Undermountain module, we fought a CR 5 Metal Master, and only one of us died. And that's level 1; 4E is more evenly spread out (you're not as vulnerable at level 1, which is a *good thing*). Level 5, 10, etc. parties really do drop CR level+3 things without a worry if they have competent players.

Except things that are too weak for their CR. Or things that are much tougher than their CR, such as y'know, That Damn Crab.

SpikeFightwicky
2008-03-04, 02:41 PM
3E parties fight things CR level+3 all the bloody time. Even at level 1--the one day I was in an Expedition to Undermountain module, we fought a CR 5 Metal Master, and only one of us died. And that's level 1; 4E is more evenly spread out (you're not as vulnerable at level 1, which is a *good thing*). Level 5, 10, etc. parties really do drop CR level+3 things without a worry if they have competent players.

Not at all. From the vibe I'm getting, 1st level characters should always be one hit away from dropping and have TPKs and party deaths all the time, because that's what's fun. Shame on 4th ed. for trying to change that!

On topic, I had a level 3 party that killed an ettin without suffering any losses. A couple of bad rolls on my part and it was game over in a couple of rounds.

Indon
2008-03-04, 02:41 PM
Resources do run out, and when that starts happening, people die...

We faught 3 encounters prior to the dragon. We didn't use hardly any of our daily abilities though, other than a few healing surges, because we had heard that the final encounter was really really hard.

Did you at any point feel like anyone in the party was in danger _before_ you ran out of resources?

fendrin
2008-03-04, 02:51 PM
Except things that are too weak for their CR. Or things that are much tougher than their CR, such as y'know, That Damn Crab.

TDC is only super-deadly if the DM neglects the -20 penalty to grapple it gets if it is only using 1 claw to grapple... Sure, you might lose one party member to it if it wins init and uses intelligent tactics (which it shouldn't, given it's int), but it shouldn't be able to TPK a reasonable party, unless either they get very unlucky or the Crab is being utilized incorrectly. Given the -20, it is a actually a fairly weak grappler (of course, a wizard would still be in trouble).

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 02:59 PM
Did you at any point feel like anyone in the party was in danger _before_ you ran out of resources?

Well, the kobalds we faced weren't super strong, most died in 1 hit if we could ACTUALLY hit them, as they were using a lot of sniper, hit n run, and trap techniques. We lost a fair number of hp over those encounters, but we never ran real low on healing surges, although the cleric did burn all of his heals in most encounters simply because they were pretty plentiful and it was only a minor action so he could keep blasting while doing it.

On a few of the delves, we burned our daily powers on the 2nd encounter before even seeing the 3rd encounter. Ghouls are really strong, have about 70ish hp, and their bite can immobilize you (setting your speed to 0). Oh, and they have over a 20 AC and do about 10 dmg per hit. That's pretty tough.

Indon
2008-03-04, 03:03 PM
On a few of the delves, we burned our daily powers on the 2nd encounter before even seeing the 3rd encounter. Ghouls are really strong, have about 70ish hp, and their bite can immobilize you (setting your speed to 0). Oh, and they have over a 20 AC and do about 10 dmg per hit. That's pretty tough.

All right, not bad. If you're burning higher-damage skills and such because you need to end the fight right now before someone dies, then that's the kind of thing I'm looking for. If only I knew what CR-equivalent those ghouls were...

It would kind of suck to basically ramp up the difficulty of every fight my party should enter just so that there's an element of risk in combat.

Asaris
2008-03-04, 03:16 PM
I believe the delve started with an easy encounter, went to a medium encounter, and ended on a hard encounter. We faced a swarm, a wraith (with something else) and then the dragon. We barely managed to bloody the dragon.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 03:24 PM
In all honesty, there were a few fights where I didn't feel like we were hugely threatened with out lives. A couple were threatening on resources though. 4.0 runs a lot like a Kill Bill type movie. Some mooks that you can 1 shot, but hurt you a little over time, low chance to die. Some minibosses that hurt you a bit more and drain some more resources, usually has minions with, good chance someone drops and low-moderate chance to die. Then a boss encounter that is harder, CAN kill you, often has minions, but not always, and takes advantage of being a late-day encounter and the fact that you are not at 100% when you reach him.

A few of the mook encounters ended up being pretty dangerous. One that I particularly remember had a combination of 2 halflings with ranged sling attacks that could trip you, and 2 other guys that had a short range attack that dazes. If dazed AND tripped, a character can only take one action, which is usually to stand back up, since you are prone out of melee range. The mooks wind up and repeat this again, knocking you down and dazing you, all the while you are taking damage. If they focus fire a bit, they can drop a single character each round unless you get some clutch healing off.

Oslecamo
2008-03-04, 03:40 PM
THEY were 2 HP away from a TPK. In what universe does this constitute something besides "Tough nut to crack"?



No. You will not. You will show me a monster 3 HD, or 3 CR, above the party level. Monsters aren't defined by level, or built by it, in 3e. And I will probably have a core method that can batman it away, and I'm not even terribly familiar with DnD's specific mechanical things like that..



You probably didn't read the article, but wizards has stated that if a character goes below 0 hit points, and then starts to roll if it gets worse or better, if it rolls a 20, it comes back to life with 1/4 of his total hit points.

So, each turn, each fallen PC has 5% chance of geting back on his foots all by himself and start whacking the dragon again.

As for the monsters, they also can batman. Give any evil guy a candle of invocation, get them a solar, profit. But that is going into the campaign smasher ground, aka, if the DM does something like this, the players will probably leave. But if a player started to batman so he was super man on steroyds, I would surely throw him something equally strong.

Anyway, the CR system is indeed a little wonky. Some stuff is too weak, and some stuff is too strong. But if I have a strong party, I have the duty to throw them strong challenges. Throwing them mooks that die easily whitout being a viable threat isn't fun.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 03:47 PM
You probably didn't read the article, but wizards has stated that if a character goes below 0 hit points, and then starts to roll if it gets worse or better, if it rolls a 20, it comes back to life with 1/4 of his total hit points.
I posted that article on these boards, so I find it unlikely that I did not read it. Do you have a point with this? The fight was won at 2 HP. The disabled people /might/ have rolled to get back up.. but then, the dragon /might/ have rolled 2 more points of damage on the Warlock.[/QUOTE]

Rachel Lorelei
2008-03-04, 03:51 PM
Throwing them mooks that die easily whitout being a viable threat isn't fun.

A whole lot of games (and genres) say you're wrong. Blowing through groups of mooks every now and again can be fun. The "one-hit KO" rule for Minions is there to approximate that; other games take it a step further--for example, in Weapons of the Gods, when you make your attack against a Mob and hit, you don't roll to see whether you kill one--you roll to see how many you kill.

Arbitrarity
2008-03-04, 04:07 PM
Hm. Paladins have 4 skills trained, unless I'm misreading this. Character sheet shows Diplomacy, Heal, Insight, and Religion being 5 higher than stat modifiers indicate, though without knowledge of how the Armor Check Penalties work, I can't tell you how much stealth/Athletics/Acrobatics he really has. Looks like -3 ACP, oddly enogh, for plate (+6? AC) and heavy shield (+2?). Maybe not. Cross referencing is tricky.
I think the rogue is a "skill monkey" then, based on selection of trained skills, as that's the only way I can see it having an advantage in such skills. This isn't great, but it might work.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 04:30 PM
A whole lot of games (and genres) say you're wrong. Blowing through groups of mooks every now and again can be fun. The "one-hit KO" rule for Minions is there to approximate that; other games take it a step further--for example, in Weapons of the Gods, when you make your attack against a Mob and hit, you don't roll to see whether you kill one--you roll to see how many you kill.

And it's not like Wuxia is alone in saying that these faceless schmucks don't deserve the benefit of rolling damage.

Azerian Kelimon
2008-03-04, 04:41 PM
FPS'es for the win, there.

kamikasei
2008-03-04, 06:01 PM
And it's not like Wuxia is alone in saying that these faceless schmucks don't deserve the benefit of rolling damage.

I feel this is obligatory (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1098).

These firsthand accounts are quite intriguing. I am a little leery of the fact that first level characters are anywhere near a dragon, but on the other hand, if the level/CR curve has been evened out it's not so crazy. And the kobolds sound just like kobolds should: you can kill them easily, if you can get near them without being smooshed. All together this has increased my interest in trying out 4e.

NEO|Phyte
2008-03-04, 06:13 PM
I am a little leery of the fact that first level characters are anywhere near a dragon

Looking at 3e, 1st level characters are also reasonably close to dragons. After all, baby dragons are still dragons. Some are tougher than others, though, I'd rather face a white wyrmling (3 HD) than a red one (7 HD) at first level.

This leads to the question of how old/big this dragon was, unless its been stated somewhere and I've missed it.

Vortling
2008-03-04, 06:21 PM
Have there been any first hand experiences of cleric players? I've been looking for them but haven't found any.

ColdBrew
2008-03-04, 06:23 PM
This leads to the question of how old/big this dragon was, unless its been stated somewhere and I've missed it.
It was only Large, which is the minimum for a dragon. More importantly, it was practically a TPK, and I'd bet good money it was the lowest level dragon you'll find. It's a one-shot adventure; why not throw in an overpowered fight at the end so they can go out with a bang?

kamikasei
2008-03-04, 06:23 PM
Looking at 3e, 1st level characters are also reasonably close to dragons. After all, baby dragons are still dragons. Some are tougher than others, though, I'd rather face a white wyrmling (3 HD) than a red one (7 HD) at first level.

This leads to the question of how old/big this dragon was, unless its been stated somewhere and I've missed it.

Well, honestly, I'd look askance at a party going up against wyrmlings, whatever their level. It's just... it's not classy. Better to wait until you're able to take on a juvenile or young adult of a weak variety rather than a wyrmling at a lower level (or a wyrmling of a stronger variety at the same level).

But that really is the question. Was this most-often-a-TPK encounter with the black dragon equivalent of a bratty pre-teen?

Kurald Galain
2008-03-04, 06:37 PM
But that really is the question. Was this most-often-a-TPK encounter with the black dragon equivalent of a bratty pre-teen?

I'd like to know that too, but I suspect that it wasn't; after all, it's not particularly good marketing to have the first session for most players end up in a wipe.

For a one-off it's okay, but I would absolutely never run a campaign in this fashion. I wouldn't break out the dragons (or methuselah, spiral dancers, beholders, and whatnot) in the first session* because they're supposed to be the climax after awhile. And if you kill a dragon in your first session, how do you keep topping that?

* except in Call of Ctulhu or Paranoia, of course.

Rutee
2008-03-04, 06:38 PM
But that really is the question. Was this most-often-a-TPK encounter with the black dragon equivalent of a bratty pre-teen?

If I ever run DnD again, the players are going to get the chance to beat the hell out of an angsty goth dragon.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 06:48 PM
In all honesty, I have no idea what the age catagory of the dragon was. It was indeed large sized, but I'm guessing from the fact that the breath weapon only did about 1d6+4ish, it couldn't have been very old. Remember, you can't compare ANYTHING about 3.X dragons with 4.0 dragons, especially since the HP scale changed significantly. Most boss type mobs had around 100ish hp, with larger mook mobs (like ghouls) having 60ish. That black dragon we killed had 280ish. Thats about as many hp as a 3.5 cloud giant has and more hp than most demons under CR17 have to put things into perspective.

Townopolis
2008-03-04, 06:52 PM
Another question you probably don't have enough information to answer fully, but does it look like there's the potential for straight forward melee striker style characters? I'm talking about a character who charges in barbarian style and starts lopping off heads.

Melee Rangers? Or are they restricted to being ranged?
Non-Sneaky Rogues? Or do they derive their effectiveness from stealth?
Attack-Build Fighters? Or are they firmly set as guardians?

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 07:03 PM
Another question you probably don't have enough information to answer fully, but does it look like there's the potential for straight forward melee striker style characters? I'm talking about a character who charges in barbarian style and starts lopping off heads.

Melee Rangers? Or are they restricted to being ranged?
Non-Sneaky Rogues? Or do they derive their effectiveness from stealth?
Attack-Build Fighters? Or are they firmly set as guardians?

I honestly have no idea. We didn't have a melee dps character in our party. Our ranger was ranged, our warlock was ranged, our mage was ranged, our cleric was ranged, and our warrior and paladin were both melee tanks. We could do a little bit of damage as tanks, but our primary role is to soak damage and keep the mooks off the squishies. There was no rogue, there was no barbarian or any other melee class that wasn't dedicated to defense at the preview. So I can honestly say sorry, I don't know.

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-04, 07:38 PM
So your lv 1 party, whitout geting to pick his feats, killed a lv4 solo dragon?

Um, no? See: dragons in 3.5e. There are CR 1 dragons which are supposedly appropriate encounters for a level 1 party.


This only makes me wonder what kind of enemies you fight at level 10, 20 and 30.

Bigger (and redder) dragons, clearly.


No, my attitude was more like "Wow, almost nobody dies when up against what would seem like insurmountable odds? That seems...unlikely. If it happens too often, I'll feel like I'm not playing an actual game, so much as a round of "I Win"." That is moot, however, as I just read a great deal of other tables got pwned.

No, your attitude is "I'm going to whine about this, despite all evidence to the contrary."

The guy who was actually there said that he didn't see/hear of anyone else killing the dragon; I'm sure there were others, but if the guy who was actually there didn't see much of it, that speaks for the difficulty of the encounter.

Also worth noting is, by the looks of things, progression is more linear than exponential - a level 4 party, by my calculations, has roughly twice as many hit points and such. Thus the dragon is meant to be a challenging encounter for a level 4 party - basically the level of their other encounters.

This means, all things being equal, this is the equivalent of a level 1 party fighting a CR 2 monster (say, a black dragon hatchling) - or, probably more accurately, a level 2 party fighting a CR 4 monster. That's not all that unreasonable; a CR 4 monster is going to be a beating, but it is survivable, depending.


Have you seen the other articles Wizards has released about 4'th edition mechanics, like how critical hits are run, and how they've removed non-damaging ways to win encounters? Wizards has literally said they want a more predictable system (because randomness favors monsters, is their reasoning). I'm surprised that fact didn't manifest more strongly in the groups, but it might indeed have been because they didn't understand the system very well.

Actually, this is because YOU don't WANT to understand the system. Indeed, as pointed out they could push people off of cliffs and such, and did so - that's "non-damaging" in a sense, as even if they survive, if they're at the bottom of a 50 foot chasm they're effectively dead anyway. Not to mention, as SPECIFICALLY POINTED OUT, in one of the other modules they played they actually COULD have talked their way past a set of guards assuming they had escaped from the city without their faces being seen successfully.

Seriously, have you actually, I dunno, read any of this? Or are you just ranting about what you want to be true?


With the number of healing surges people get, with all the added abilities and synergies, I simply wasn't convinced things would be as threatening. Because, I'd imagine against this kind of threat, that if you only send one or two guys who can reliably hit it in melee strike in melee, have everyone else use a ranged weapon (while spread out, so his breath weapon doesn't toast everyone simultaneously), with the cleric stand at the center-most point, or behind the melee guy, supporting him with heals...that the group would probably make short work of it.

If you really have to pray for amazing die rolls all the time, then that doesn't really help change my stance to positive, because I don't find that very fun, either.

You do realize that you're saying "I am going to complain about this no matter what", right? Because that's exactly what you just said.


I meant the "The system is too 'easy' when we stand it up by itself" argument. Yeah, lv 1 characters are weak, but 3 levels above the average level of the party is very tough nut most of the times in 3e.

By all means, please state another 3e party level, and I shall show you an elite core monster 3 levels above wich will make them cry.

The problem is this is a FALSE COMPARISON. Power level growth is much steeper in 3.5 - a party of level 5 PCs has 2.5x as many HP and probably 5x (if not more!) as much DPS as a level 2 party. From level 1 to level 4, assuming my calculations are not off, you're probably going to look at an approximate doubling of power in 4e, whereas in 3.5e you'd have 4x as many HP and probably do 4x the damage.

Basically, you're looking at a doubling of power from level 1 to 4 rather than a quadrupling (or more); that's a HUGE difference. As I pointed out before, the argument is completely farcical because you're making a bad assumption - that a 4th level character in 3.5e is equivalent to a 4th level character in 4e. This is not the case, and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe it WOULD be the case - you just made that up.

What kind of person assumes that in different systems characters of the same level are going to have the same power level?

Fundamentally, 3 levels above the party level in 4th edition means a VERY different thing than it does in third edition; this is not a bad thing.


3E parties fight things CR level+3 all the bloody time. Even at level 1--the one day I was in an Expedition to Undermountain module, we fought a CR 5 Metal Master, and only one of us died. And that's level 1; 4E is more evenly spread out (you're not as drastically vulnerable at level 1, which is a *good thing*). Level 5, 10, etc. parties really do drop CR level+3 things without a worry if they have competent players.

To be fair, at level 1 CR+3 monsters are really dangerous and can absolutely destroy an entire party. Thing is, at 10th level, a CR 13 monster is quite beatable. This system seems to be aiming more towards a constant level of relative challenge via more linear growth; when your DPS and HP don't double on a regular basis, monsters can be a lot more linear in nature. An ogre is an absolute terror to a level 1 character, capable of killing in a single hit, but a party of level 6 characters can take on 4 with little trouble.


Except things that are too weak for their CR. Or things that are much tougher than their CR, such as y'know, That Damn Crab.

Don't you know? You have to hit his weak point for massive damage!

(More seriously: What is "That damn crab"? I'm in the dark)


You probably didn't read the article, but wizards has stated that if a character goes below 0 hit points, and then starts to roll if it gets worse or better, if it rolls a 20, it comes back to life with 1/4 of his total hit points.

That's largely irrelevant; I mean, its nice, but you can't rely on it and you're more than likely to bleed to death (your odds of dying are higher than of recovering). Arguing "they could have gotten really lucky" is silly; it is quite apparent they were pretty lucky to win at all.


It was only Large, which is the minimum for a dragon. More importantly, it was practically a TPK, and I'd bet good money it was the lowest level dragon you'll find. It's a one-shot adventure; why not throw in an overpowered fight at the end so they can go out with a bang?

Second weakest, likely; weakest is almost certainly white, as usual, which is probably a solo level 3.


Well, honestly, I'd look askance at a party going up against wyrmlings, whatever their level. It's just... it's not classy. Better to wait until you're able to take on a juvenile or young adult of a weak variety rather than a wyrmling at a lower level (or a wyrmling of a stronger variety at the same level).

Its quite common; I've seen a number of level 1 adventure modules which end this way and white dragon wyrmlings are intentionally CR 1 for this exact reason. They always wanted you to be able to fight dragons in 3.5, even at level 1.

And yes, it wasn't very classy. :P


Melee Rangers? Or are they restricted to being ranged?
Non-Sneaky Rogues? Or do they derive their effectiveness from stealth?
Attack-Build Fighters? Or are they firmly set as guardians?

I hope that Rangers aren't like they were in 3.5e; its fine to make them soley archers. A pure-archer class is a fine thing to have, and it makes sense anyway; yeah, I know, it isn't very LotRish but oh well.

Kyeudo
2008-03-04, 07:52 PM
That Damn Crab is a Monstrous Crab, which has AC, HP, and attack bonuses above the average for its CR and enough special abilities to keep half the party out of the fight while it deals with the remaining half.

Indon
2008-03-04, 07:55 PM
The guy who was actually there said that he didn't see/hear of anyone else killing the dragon; And the guy you quoted even admitted that in the text you quoted. And later in your post you accuse me of not reading.


Actually, this is because YOU don't WANT to understand the system. Indeed, as pointed out they could push people off of cliffs and such, and did so - that's "non-damaging" in a sense, as even if they survive, if they're at the bottom of a 50 foot chasm they're effectively dead anyway.
Oh, my bad, I should have said combat encounters, though I would have thought my meaning evident. But still, falls deal damage, and I can only imagine how feeble the rules would have to be for there to be no mechanic for pushing people.


You do realize that you're saying "I am going to complain about this no matter what", right? Because that's exactly what you just said.

The guy who was there admitted that not many of the fights were very threatening - the majority of the risk in the system seems to come from strong opponents after resource consumption has taken place.

I don't find the 'righteous vitriol' thing in-character for you, to be honest. Generally I associate you with decent points and interesting discussion.

Edit:


I hope that Rangers aren't like they were in 3.5e; its fine to make them soley archers. A pure-archer class is a fine thing to have, and it makes sense anyway; yeah, I know, it isn't very LotRish but oh well.

His point seems to be about class build diversity - meaning how much choices players have over their classes. Most people view that as a good thing.

tyckspoon
2008-03-04, 07:56 PM
I'd like to know that too, but I suspect that it wasn't; after all, it's not particularly good marketing to have the first session for most players end up in a wipe.


On the other hand, the entire string of combats is designed to try and show off what's new in 4E combat concepts. Part of that includes a retooling of how big singleton boss monsters work, and there isn't any big single boss monster more iconic to the game than the dragon. Within the design goal of 'show people what has changed', sticking a dragon at the end makes perfect sense.

Indon
2008-03-04, 07:59 PM
On the other hand, the entire string of combats is designed to try and show off what's new in 4E combat concepts. Part of that includes a retooling of how big singleton boss monsters work, and there isn't any big single boss monster more iconic to the game than the dragon. Within the design goal of 'show people what has changed', sticking a dragon at the end makes perfect sense.

And if the Dragon wasn't awesome-lethal, it probably would have angered more D&D vets than for it to be awesome-lethal. And I imagine many of the people visiting were said veterans.

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-04, 08:09 PM
His point seems to be about class build diversity - meaning how much choices players have over their classes. Most people view that as a good thing.

Certainly, and there are different ways to make an interesting archer. What I DON'T want to see is a class which is half archer and half melee, as really, that's a class with just two choices, rather than a broad number - if lots of skills are useless to half the people taking the class, its really just two classes in disguise. It should be interesting; yes, there's a difference between different fighter setups, but they should still have plenty of overlap in terms of options; there's a lot less overlap with ranged and melee combat.


The guy who was there admitted that not many of the fights were very threatening - the majority of the risk in the system seems to come from strong opponents after resource consumption has taken place.

That's not true at all, if you actually read his post; he said that the ghouls were dangerous, and they had to use some daily abilities on them. That's not "not very threatening". And as for the kobolds, they saved their use/day abilities for the final fight because they heard that they had to - and it paid off. I also suspect that the kobold encounters were about letting people get a feel for their characters before they turned on the rotary motor next to the toilet; they weren't meant to be hard enoguh to run a chance of killing characters.


I don't find the 'righteous vitriol' thing in-character for you, to be honest. Generally I associate you with decent points and interesting discussion.

What you said was basically "These fights are all too easy, unless they survived purely by luck, in which case they were far too difficult". You didn't -allow- for them to succeed; you just put forth two options where you said "this is bad" and acted as if it was one or the other.

Indon
2008-03-04, 08:16 PM
That's not true at all, if you actually read his post; he said that the ghouls were dangerous, and they had to use some daily abilities on them.


In all honesty, there were a few fights where I didn't feel like we were hugely threatened with out lives. A couple were threatening on resources though. 4.0 runs a lot like a Kill Bill type movie. Some mooks that you can 1 shot, but hurt you a little over time, low chance to die. Some minibosses that hurt you a bit more and drain some more resources, usually has minions with, good chance someone drops and low-moderate chance to die. Then a boss encounter that is harder, CAN kill you, often has minions, but not always, and takes advantage of being a late-day encounter and the fact that you are not at 100% when you reach him.

Risk is back-loaded in the system. It's understandable, considering how things are meant to work.



What you said was basically "These fights are all too easy, unless they survived purely by luck, in which case they were far too difficult". You didn't -allow- for them to succeed; you just put forth two options where you said "this is bad" and acted as if it was one or the other.

Or maybe I was saying that all the fights should have about finished the same right about from the beginning, since the system has pretty predictable combat. Chances are, the series of encounters with the dragon at the end was designed to kill the party, and they did indeed get lucky to kill it. I was, in fact, surprised to hear that not all of the groups made it to the dragon, since this was not in keeping with the system being predictable. Lussmanj had mentioned one of his groups running out of time and being unable to finish a module, so I wondered aloud if that might have been the reason, but nobody responded and I didn't care to have my hope in a combat system that has risk in it crushed, so I didn't press it.

Would you like citations? I can quote myself on this thread saying most all of that except the last part (after "but nobody responded").

Yakk
2008-03-04, 08:20 PM
So they have a level system for creatures in 4e.

For a party of X level Y characters, X level Y normal monsters/challenges at once are balanced.

There are "double count" monsters, "triple count" monsters and "quad count" or solo monsters.

A single level 4 solo monster (be it a bear or a dragon) is balanced to fight, as a standard encounter, against 4 level 4 players. This is supposed to be as hard as 4 level 4 standard monsters (be they orcs, wyverns, wolves or kobolds).

That level+3 encounter is supposed to be hard. It was a dragon, because, well, it was a dragon. :)

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-04, 08:51 PM
Or maybe I was saying that all the fights should have about finished the same right about from the beginning, since the system has pretty predictable combat. Chances are, the series of encounters with the dragon at the end was designed to kill the party, and they did indeed get lucky to kill it. I was, in fact, surprised to hear that not all of the groups made it to the dragon, since this was not in keeping with the system being predictable. Lussmanj had mentioned one of his groups running out of time and being unable to finish a module, so I wondered aloud if that might have been the reason, but nobody responded and I didn't care to have my hope in a combat system that has risk in it crushed, so I didn't press it.

Depends on how bright the players are, and how adapatable they are. Thing is, he may have found it easy because it WAS easy - for good players. But it is worth noting that many D&D players aren't very good at playing the actual game of D&D. I'm not talking about being bad roleplayers or whatever, I'm talking people don't do a good job optimizing their actions in combat. I see it very often. It isn't even character optimization - with a premade character, they'll be better at playing it than other people. I'm one of those people who are better with random character X even if I have never seen any of their abilities before; I've got people in my groups who have trouble using fireball.

If the encounters were designed to be interesting but pretty easy for good players, then it may range anywhere from okay to insanely difficult for a bad player (or a group with many bad players in it).

The combat system is probably less of a variable, here, than the players playing it.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 09:28 PM
Ok, there were 2 different events (3 actually). One was the delve. The delve was 30 min of "here's your characters, a battle mat (those nice dungeon tiles....so pimpin), and 3 encounters. Ready, GO!

That was mostly to make sure that EVERYONE who went to the convention got a taste of what 4.0 is about. You won tokens from this event that could be redeemed for a sheet of magic items to use in 4.0 mods, promo D&D minis, and character creation cards for the new 4.0 RPGA campaign Living Forgotten Realms (gnome, orc, and shadar'kai).

Then their were 2 modules that you could buy tickets to play in in a 4 hour slot (spaced out amongst the other RPGA games like Living Greyhawk). The 2 modules were "Escape from Sembia" and "Scalegloom Hall", the latter of the 2 having the dragon. Those were generally the tables that actually GOT to the dragon, and were promptly TPKed. I heard from a good friend of mine today that apparently 1 other table defeated the dragon, so mine wasn't the only one. Still 2 dragon kills out of ~70 tables ment it was really hard.

My group of friends that I went with are serious wargamers though. We are all avid Living Greyhawk players and enjoy the miniature combat. We regularly have thought experiments in creating classy yet powerful characters who use great teamwork and fearlessly take on the most powerful modules in the campaign. The wargaming aspect of the campaign is just as much fun as the roleplaying aspect, and we take great joy in succeeding in both. We were one of the qualifying teams at the D&D Open event (lol@competative D&D) and will be competing at Gencon for fabulous prizes. It was really a fun challenge to sit down with a completely new game and figure out effective strategies with it. Most tables were probably not as big of wargamers as we were, but were still able to complete a good many of the encounters both in the delve and the mods. They just got stomped by the dragon because that is what it was designed to do.

Also, they just had a major reworking of a lot of the mechanics. From what I gathered talking to people there who playtested, most of the mechanics that we were playing were only about 2 months old. That means they must have had a major rework of a lot of mechanics because 4.0 has been in design for over a year. Things are still evolving, and I'm optimistic that they are evolving for the best.

Indon
2008-03-04, 10:12 PM
Depends on how bright the players are, and how adapatable they are.

And how much the system is capable of rewarding capability and innovation. There's not much information on that, sadly.


Thing is, he may have found it easy because it WAS easy - for good players.

Who found that dragon easy? There was one member standing with 2 hp in lussmanj's group - it was very near to party death.

The accusations of 'easy' came from the fact that supposedly this was an encounter for a fourth-level party, after going through encounters beforehand. Many don't even believe that combat encounter should be designed to be possible to win, not without a miraculous string of critical hits or somesuch.

I can't say I'm surprised, if indeed that's the case - the encounter is probably calibrated such that a fourth-level party would have an easy time with the dragon, killing them all day and whathaveyou. To challenge a party, you probably have to intentionally go above standard CR, which, arguably, is how the system is intended to work.


But it is worth noting that many D&D players aren't very good at playing the actual game of D&D. I'm not talking about being bad roleplayers or whatever, I'm talking people don't do a good job optimizing their actions in combat. I see it very often.

At that convention? A convention without a doubt full of veteran D&D players? I doubt the players were any significant variable in terms of ability to take effective actions in combat - this is not a group that will show the full distribution of levels of mechanical understanding, but one very much weighted towards the higher end.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 11:15 PM
Not everyone can easily use all of their abilities at range. A few classes will be required to get close to damage a foe. Also, while each character has lots of healing surges per day, they can only gain a Second Wind once per encounter, and abilities that heal generally aren't infinite, the cleric could heal 2 big heals per encounter, and the paladin could heal 3 little ones per DAY. This hardly puts it into the realm of MMO style tank n spanks where the healers poor healing into the tank and everyone around DPSes.

Wait, did I actually say I thought this was an MMO? Because, while I'm sure in the past I've drawn similarities between 4E and games like Guild Wars and WoW, I never said that this was a clone. What I'm suggesting is that people don't attack something in melee if they cannot reliably hit it - because, as noted, the Dragon gets free counterattacks. Ranged combat may not be optimal for damage - but a reduced die and staying out of range sounds like it could have merits. I don't really know how it works out, but that's just what's intuitive to me. But, I'll take your word for it.



There is a lot of risk assessment, resourse alocation, and cost vs benefit strategies to consider for every character, most of all ones with healing abilities. Resources do run out, and when that starts happening, people die. My paladin died because the cleric was out of ranged heals, and was on the other side of the dragon from me. I had ~ 3-6 rounds to stabilize on my own, and I didn't so I bled out. It happens. I watched a lot of tables where because of certain monster tactics and abilities, no one was able to help heal a downed character, and they died. Sure, its a lot different from 3rd ed when a simple housecat could spell death for a 1st level character, but its by no means EZMODE4.0...

Well, as you said, a lot of other groups didn't do very well, so I kinda withdrew from the idea that it was looking absurdly easy. But, are you saying most people died because they bled out? Do you know of any one-hit-kills? Just curious.



We faught 3 encounters prior to the dragon. We didn't use hardly any of our daily abilities though, other than a few healing surges, because we had heard that the final encounter was really really hard. When it wound up being the dragon, we were absolutely terrified. After it got the autosuprise on us and hit almost all of use with the acid, I thought we were goners like every other table that played before us. Luck and skill prevailed though!

Well, now I'm wondering if you were not really meant to have much a chance to win, to begin with. When somebody warns you about this stuff, it's supposed to leave an impression. Now I'm contemplating if whether or not your group should have been expected to win, were you using standard levels of 4E's "CR", or whatever it's using.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 11:19 PM
Fixed a typo for ya.

Har har!

You sir, are hilarious.

Only, you kinda missed a detail - that part where you "quoted" me links to a part where I was pretty much saying "OH. Whoops, I guess I was wrong. By chance, this is what I was originally thinking, however..."

Absolutely genius.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 11:24 PM
No, your attitude is "I'm going to whine about this, despite all evidence to the contrary."

Wow, you know what my attitude is? Can you read my mind? You're amazing. Only not, because you're incorrect.



The guy who was actually there said that he didn't see/hear of anyone else killing the dragon; I'm sure there were others, but if the guy who was actually there didn't see much of it, that speaks for the difficulty of the encounter.

And, then, I guess you neglected to note the point where I said "oh, my point is moot because apparently everyone else died" because, either you don't like me, or you're too jaded with people who dislike 4E already and chose not to follow my line of posts.

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 11:43 PM
Oh, I found another one.



You do realize that you're saying "I am going to complain about this no matter what", right? Because that's exactly what you just said.



Yeah, that's...yeah...

If you look at my post, I was referring to thoughts in the past tense, and then tried to gauge if whether or not his group tried what I was suggesting. It's okay, though - I forgive you.

Keld Denar
2008-03-04, 11:44 PM
Please stop flaming in my post...both of you. If I have to pull this thread over, both of you are gonna get a stern punishment! And I mean it!

Deepblue706
2008-03-04, 11:48 PM
Please stop flaming in my post...both of you. If I have to pull this thread over, both of you are gonna get a stern punishment! And I mean it!

Sorry pal - I didn't originally mean to try to anger anyone, as I know the destructiveness of this kind of argument can ruin a thread. I just have a tendency to reply to a comment I feel is unwarranted in kind with the original poster. I'll restrain myself.

By any chance, though, can you explain more about how ranged combat works? I didn't see many details on that (maybe I just missed where you might have discussed it).

Corsec1337
2008-03-05, 12:11 AM
By any chance, did you see any magic items?

Fhaolan
2008-03-05, 12:23 AM
And do you have any interesting info on the Living Forgotten Realms stuff?

I've been curious about the new incarnations of the Living Campaigns for awhile, but having suffered vicariously through friends dealing with the Living City debacle, and the Living Greyhawk local chapter's website description of their region turns me off a bit, I've been a bit reluctant. New campaign, new rules, it might be time for me to be interested again. :smallsmile:

Oslecamo
2008-03-05, 06:31 AM
Did you get loot from the fights?

Also, did you get to see any utilitary equipment, like flasks of acid or tanglefoot bags in 3e?

Indon
2008-03-05, 09:30 AM
Forget flasks of acid, was any character carrying a ten-foot pole? (Or rations - does 4'th edition even track the PC's needing to eat anymore?)

Keld Denar
2008-03-05, 11:55 AM
Um, as far as magic items go, we had 2 lists of items that we could use. The lists were given out for completing the modules or purchased with tokens won in the delve. Most of the items were pretty minor, as it should be for 1st level characters. A few were:

+1 Frost Warhammer
+1 hit/damage, +1d6 dmg on a critical, once per encounter as a free action after hitting add +1d10 cold damage and slows the target for 1 round.

+1 Dwarven Plate
+1 AC and once a day as a free action gain hp equal to your healing surge. Does not consume a surge.

+1 Warstaff
+1 hit/dmg with spells, +1d8 dmg on criticals, once per day as a free action increase the area of 1 spell by 1

+1 Shield
+1 AC and reflex defense, once per day as a standard grant youself and ally a +5 bonus on all defenses

+1 Vicious Longbow
+1 hit/dmg on critical deals +1d12 damage

Holy Symbol of some sort
Once per encounter, add +1d6 healing to any healing ability you have.

etc....

No loot from fights, and no mundane items like tanglefoot bags, although I imagine they exist, since the kobalds were using special sling bullets on us that set us on fire or stuck us to the floor.

Keld Denar
2008-03-05, 12:32 PM
And do you have any interesting info on the Living Forgotten Realms stuff?

I've been curious about the new incarnations of the Living Campaigns for awhile, but having suffered vicariously through friends dealing with the Living City debacle, and the Living Greyhawk local chapter's website description of their region turns me off a bit, I've been a bit reluctant. New campaign, new rules, it might be time for me to be interested again. :smallsmile:

Well, this is what I know so far.
A) It will be run similar to LG, except that there will be fewer, but larger regions. The US has 5 regions, I think Canada has 3, and most other parts of the world have 1 per country or so.
B) Play will NOT be restricted to in-region play only. The need to travel great distances has been removed. You can now play any mod written for any region in any place, including probably online via D&D Insider.
C) The regions that I know of include Kansas City, MO and east being Waterdeep, Kansas City, KS and west being the Moonshay Islands and most of New England being Cormyr. That still leaves the Pacific coast region and I think the South east as regions that I don't remember. Its probably posted somewhere around www.rpga.com if you want to take a look.

Anything else?

Trog
2008-03-05, 02:11 PM
Neat magic items! :smallsmile: *happy bounces*

Who tracked the ongoing conditions (roll a successful save to no longer be stuck, on fire, etc.) on each PC? The DM or the player?

Did you get any glimpse of any DM aids? Cheat sheets? DM screens?

How was initiative handled on the DMs side? Group initiative or individual?

Did the DM have to stop the game to look up any rules?

Aside from the rolling boulder and cliffs were there any other interesting terrain features/traps?

Keld Denar
2008-03-05, 06:45 PM
Neat magic items! :smallsmile: *happy bounces*

Who tracked the ongoing conditions (roll a successful save to no longer be stuck, on fire, etc.) on each PC? The DM or the player?

Did you get any glimpse of any DM aids? Cheat sheets? DM screens?

How was initiative handled on the DMs side? Group initiative or individual?

Did the DM have to stop the game to look up any rules?

Aside from the rolling boulder and cliffs were there any other interesting terrain features/traps?

Most of the status effects and initiative was handled by the DM, similar to how it might be handled by a DM in a 3.5 game. One DM did have a noval concept though, he had little pieces of folded index card that he set in front of him. Every time someone was up, he pushed their card forward. When everyones card was forward, he pushed them all back. He also used blue cards for the players and red cards for the monsters, which was cool. He then set a die next to each player with a status effect so that they would remember to take damage and roll a save.

For terrain features, there was one encounter with some hobgobs in Escape from Sembia with underbrush and stuff, and one on a cliff ledge. They were pretty dynamic, since both sides were using ranged, melee, AoE, and movement abilities. There were some real cliffhanger moments (literally!).

Most of the DMs at DDXP knew the new rules pretty well, what rules they were given. They guarded the little rules booklets they had very closely.

Corsec1337
2008-03-05, 10:12 PM
My friend who was one of the judges for DDM2 didn't even know everything about the new system when he left for the event, so I think it'l be the same for the main game itself. I hope he was able to snag one of the rulebooks because I told him to the last time I saw him... One can only hope.

Titanium Dragon
2008-03-05, 10:42 PM
And how much the system is capable of rewarding capability and innovation. There's not much information on that, sadly.

They do claim in the podcast that the system is much more play-based than build-based; that is to say, your build is less important than your table presence and what you do with the powers you have. Which, again, helps explain the variability; it isn't very hard to go "well, I shouldn't do that, because they'll get AoOs", but it seems like it is more important to actively win in 4e.


The accusations of 'easy' came from the fact that supposedly this was an encounter for a fourth-level party, after going through encounters beforehand. Many don't even believe that combat encounter should be designed to be possible to win, not without a miraculous string of critical hits or somesuch.

I was referring to the kobold encounters, not the dragon encounter. Sorry for being unclear.


At that convention? A convention without a doubt full of veteran D&D players? I doubt the players were any significant variable in terms of ability to take effective actions in combat - this is not a group that will show the full distribution of levels of mechanical understanding, but one very much weighted towards the higher end.

I disagree. Being a D&D veteran does NOT make you good at D&D; I've seen people playing D&D for 10 years who really have trouble with it. It isn't that they don't get the rules, its that they don't get that a certain sequences of actions is more optimal than another.

Time =! skill.

Fhaolan
2008-03-06, 02:12 AM
I disagree. Being a D&D veteran does NOT make you good at D&D; I've seen people playing D&D for 10 years who really have trouble with it. It isn't that they don't get the rules, its that they don't get that a certain sequences of actions is more optimal than another.

Time =! skill.

Heck, I've been playing D&D for thirty-some years. I never say I'm particularly good at it. I may have massive amounts of knowledge of each edition, but it does me no good whatsoever as I'm constantly forgetting which edition any particular rule is in. :smallbiggrin:

Sonofaspectre
2008-03-06, 03:14 AM
How dependent is 4e on miniatures and maps?
Is the system accessible for players like myself who do not like using battle-mats and miniatures?
How does the system hold itself up WITHOUT combat, as that is all I am hearing about except for that cool "running-from-the-guards" part mentioned a few pages back.

Keld Denar
2008-03-06, 08:57 AM
D&D 4.0 (like 3.5) seems to rely very much on battle mats and tactical movement. I suppose you could get away without it, but that would really dumb down a lot of the powers that include effects that move allies and opponents.

D&D has always been about combat. Going back to 1st edition and beyond, over 80% of all rules of the game have concerned combat. You don't need any suplimental rules to roleplay, but you do need rules to resolve who shot who first (going with the Cops and Robbers analagy in the 2nd ed rulebooks). You can spend an entire session of 4th ed play roleplaying and never picking up a die, just the same as you can in 3.5, 1st edition, or red box D&D (back in the day!). There will never be concrete rules on how to roleplay in any edition, imagine the outcry if there was. "You are a fighter, so you HAVE to be a big angry guy" or "You are a wizard, so you have to wear a pointy hat and keep a long white beard".

Trog
2008-03-06, 10:43 AM
One DM did have a noval concept though, he had little pieces of folded index card that he set in front of him. Every time someone was up, he pushed their card forward. When everyones card was forward, he pushed them all back. He also used blue cards for the players and red cards for the monsters, which was cool. He then set a die next to each player with a status effect so that they would remember to take damage and roll a save.
That is a good idea. Especially for tracking effects. Though I was kind of hoping that WotC would provide the DM with some sort of encounter tracking sheet or the like for this edition. The cards could work for me but I also worry that I would bump them while shifting books or shuffling papers and mess it all up. *is a bit of a klutz behind the screens*

They guarded the little rules booklets they had very closely.
I bet. :smallamused:

fendrin
2008-03-06, 12:59 PM
I think the new system will be easier, because instead of trying to remember how long a particular effect will last (and the DC if there are continuous saves), you just have to remember to make a check for it each round. Still somewhat annoying, but not as bad.

I already use an encounter tracking spreadsheet of my own design, so I can easily modify it for the new system.

Sonofaspectre
2008-03-06, 05:09 PM
Lemme rephrase. How does the non-combat stuff look? Skills, traps, interaction with NPCs. While D&D has never had rules about how to roleplay, it does have rules to tell you how the world interacts with your character when not in combat. I was wondering if you experienced anything other than "Initiatives, go" style of play.

And to further make clear, I do not play 3.5 edition with battle-mats and miniatures, and I have very little to no problems with combat. Do you think the same would be held true, or is it now a necessity to use these things in 4e?