SamTheCleric
2008-05-23, 11:16 PM
Good day.
This evening I played a session of keep on shadowfell. I was playing the Halfling Rogue who I named Estoban, the Thief of Love. I came into this game one session in, so I missed out on the intro. I will not spoiler any of the encounters, but I will give my impression of the mechanics that I've seen.
#1 - Minions are amazing. Having 12 kobold minions swarming out of a cave mouth at me was just an impressive sight to behold. Not only that, but the majority of the damage in the game did NOT come from the tougher foes... but the repeating attacks from minions. Sure, they die in 1 hit and only deal 1/4 damage... but every round we're attacking minions, we're not attacking the big guy who can drop us to bloodied in one hit.
#2 - Bad guys have powers and those powers are on par, if not more powerful, than the PCs. One "boss" had a power to hit two PCs adjacent to him. No one else had multiple attacks, but he did... and he hit -hard-. One spellcaster was using buff/debuffs as much as our cleric. They may not have specific PC classes, but they have plenty of powers and options.
#3 - I love the rogue. The quickstart rogue is built very well and has a lot of options both in and out of combat. My skills were impressive (+13 to thievery if using thieves tools to open a lock!)... In combat, I opened the fight using my encounter power (2d4+4) on a foe who hadn't acted this encounter, so I dealt an additional 2d8 against him. He was a "tough guy" and I dropped him to bloodied in one shot. The people at the table stared at me in awe, like I was some sort of damage dealing god-send. And I was. My favorite power was the deft strike, where you can move 2 squares before attacking. i would dip up 2 squares, and then move back either around a corner or into cover for a little boost to AC. The mobility advantage I had over the bad guys made our DM quite perplexed... so he threw a glue pot at me... and missed because of cover! yay!
#4 - The cleric is fine as is. His ability to use healing word as a minor action and to add 1d6+3 to your healing surge... REALLY helps. The temp hit points offered by his searing blast kept some of us up long enough to use our second wind.
#5 - This game is hard. During the second encounter of the night 3 people were rolling saves to stop from dying.. the fighter was around 4 or 5 hit points... I was just dipping into the bloodied section. The DM scaled back slightly and went easy on us because not everyone knew the rules 100% (me, being the autocrat that I am, was helping the DM with the rules since I read them back and forth about 9 times). We were down 3 people, almost dead, and still had 3 non minions on us and 3 minions. The "big boss" with over 100 hit points was dead, though... so that was something. So what if you're "overpowered" at first level... the bad guys scaled up with you... you are now doing epic battles at first level, right out the door... and its awesome.
#6 - The last, and most important point, I have to make. The game was Fun. 6 guys sitting around a kitchen table with mt dew, gummi worms, doritos, some minis, some dice... It was a good time. The combats all ran smoothly (even though we didnt know ALL the rules... one guy was completely knew to tabletop RPGs).. and out of combat there was still the dwarf with his bad scottish accent wanting to hit people with their axe, the cleric and paladin offering blessings to the townsfolk, the wizard being cryptic and soft spoken... and the rogue lying about almost everything... and loving it.
Just so you know, we played for 4 hours, made it through 3 combats and 3 half hour to hour role play sessions... and only made it 4 or 5 pages through the 79 page module or so. This isn't a "over in one or two sessions" module.
My only complaint with the keep on shadowfell module is that the rules aren't clearly defined for some things. I don't know exactly what I can and can't do with my skills, but the DM calls for skill checks as needed or to go with the actions we describe. Maybe its just that I have a need to control everything and want to know the rules back and forth... and its just my head wanting to comprehend what's going on...
So... there it is. Take that!
This evening I played a session of keep on shadowfell. I was playing the Halfling Rogue who I named Estoban, the Thief of Love. I came into this game one session in, so I missed out on the intro. I will not spoiler any of the encounters, but I will give my impression of the mechanics that I've seen.
#1 - Minions are amazing. Having 12 kobold minions swarming out of a cave mouth at me was just an impressive sight to behold. Not only that, but the majority of the damage in the game did NOT come from the tougher foes... but the repeating attacks from minions. Sure, they die in 1 hit and only deal 1/4 damage... but every round we're attacking minions, we're not attacking the big guy who can drop us to bloodied in one hit.
#2 - Bad guys have powers and those powers are on par, if not more powerful, than the PCs. One "boss" had a power to hit two PCs adjacent to him. No one else had multiple attacks, but he did... and he hit -hard-. One spellcaster was using buff/debuffs as much as our cleric. They may not have specific PC classes, but they have plenty of powers and options.
#3 - I love the rogue. The quickstart rogue is built very well and has a lot of options both in and out of combat. My skills were impressive (+13 to thievery if using thieves tools to open a lock!)... In combat, I opened the fight using my encounter power (2d4+4) on a foe who hadn't acted this encounter, so I dealt an additional 2d8 against him. He was a "tough guy" and I dropped him to bloodied in one shot. The people at the table stared at me in awe, like I was some sort of damage dealing god-send. And I was. My favorite power was the deft strike, where you can move 2 squares before attacking. i would dip up 2 squares, and then move back either around a corner or into cover for a little boost to AC. The mobility advantage I had over the bad guys made our DM quite perplexed... so he threw a glue pot at me... and missed because of cover! yay!
#4 - The cleric is fine as is. His ability to use healing word as a minor action and to add 1d6+3 to your healing surge... REALLY helps. The temp hit points offered by his searing blast kept some of us up long enough to use our second wind.
#5 - This game is hard. During the second encounter of the night 3 people were rolling saves to stop from dying.. the fighter was around 4 or 5 hit points... I was just dipping into the bloodied section. The DM scaled back slightly and went easy on us because not everyone knew the rules 100% (me, being the autocrat that I am, was helping the DM with the rules since I read them back and forth about 9 times). We were down 3 people, almost dead, and still had 3 non minions on us and 3 minions. The "big boss" with over 100 hit points was dead, though... so that was something. So what if you're "overpowered" at first level... the bad guys scaled up with you... you are now doing epic battles at first level, right out the door... and its awesome.
#6 - The last, and most important point, I have to make. The game was Fun. 6 guys sitting around a kitchen table with mt dew, gummi worms, doritos, some minis, some dice... It was a good time. The combats all ran smoothly (even though we didnt know ALL the rules... one guy was completely knew to tabletop RPGs).. and out of combat there was still the dwarf with his bad scottish accent wanting to hit people with their axe, the cleric and paladin offering blessings to the townsfolk, the wizard being cryptic and soft spoken... and the rogue lying about almost everything... and loving it.
Just so you know, we played for 4 hours, made it through 3 combats and 3 half hour to hour role play sessions... and only made it 4 or 5 pages through the 79 page module or so. This isn't a "over in one or two sessions" module.
My only complaint with the keep on shadowfell module is that the rules aren't clearly defined for some things. I don't know exactly what I can and can't do with my skills, but the DM calls for skill checks as needed or to go with the actions we describe. Maybe its just that I have a need to control everything and want to know the rules back and forth... and its just my head wanting to comprehend what's going on...
So... there it is. Take that!