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View Full Version : Keep on Shadowfell - Battle Report #2



SamTheCleric
2008-06-09, 07:41 AM
This is a follow up to the battle report written by Scinttalatus (im sure I spelled that wrong)

Original Report: here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82134&highlight=shadowfell)

...

Cast of Characters:

Oliver, the shifty rogue with a sharp tongue and sharper daggers.
Win, the inspiring leader, also known as The Captain
Raelen, our plucky pretty boy who has a fetish for infernal magic and stable boys.
Angela, a mysterious wizard who fears fire and is the most secretive of the group.
Calista, the honest-to-a-fault Paladin of Pelor.

..

We find our adventurers at the small village of winterhaven in dire need of a soft bed, a cold drink and a warm meal. After speaking with the guards briefly on the local goings-on, they made their way to the large Inn just inside the city walls. Angela, in a strange move, rushed to the innkeeper, paid for a room and immediately ran upstairs without dinner. Everyone else stayed in the bar and had a nice evening. Raelen learned a little bit about the local ruins from a wizened sage telling stories to younger patrons, Oliver made the rounds spotting a stand offish elf, Raelen went around looking for 'marks' and Win made his way to the local nobility's table and inquired about local work.

The Lord, who has affectionately been named Lord Vex by my players, was quick to jump on the chance to hire some adventurers to rid the local populace of the kobold menace. Over the past few months the kobolds have been whipped into a sort of a frenzy and they are attacking more frequently and harder. He offered the adventurers a hefty sum of 100 gold and let them keep anything that wasn't nailed down inside the Kobold lair. Our heroes, being the stoic guardians of justice and honor accepted the offer...

Raelen covered their tracks about the Priestess of Pelor that sent them here with a substantial bluff... but Calista nearly ruined it all when she began questioning the details of the bluff... in front of the whole bar. The lord left none the wiser as Oliver began to make his move of the elf. (Or, as Edea put it... "tried to get him some smooth elf lovin' ") She immediately tells him to leave her alone... but he tries to smooth talk her. It doesnt work and she just turns away from him. Feeling worn out from the days events and full of stew and ale... our heroes depart to their rooms for a nice rest.

They wake to the smell of pork sausage and the cries of a rooster from the outlying farmlands. All but Angela make their way downstairs to enjoy their breakfast. Speaking on the days plans, they decide to immediately head out for the kobold stronghold, perhaps to curry favor with the locals. Raelen heads upstairs to retrieve Angela. He knocks on her door and gets no response. When he leans his ear against the door he hears soft singing in Elven... and joins in. Singing contetedly, he continues to bang on the door with no response. It's not till he bangs his head against his door that a surly Angela opens the door and pushes her way downstairs, asking for breakfast. The barmaid looks at Angela knowingly and mentions that the last time she saw a woman act so strange... she was pregnant.

Which caused Calista to immediately ask if Raelen was the father. And caused Win to take ownership of the offspring... which Calista believed... until he told her otherwise. The barmaids began gossiping about Angela and the party... until Calista opened her mouth and flat out said that the lie they told the previous night in the bar wasn't true... and the Bar maid starting getting suspicious of our weary travelers.

This caused Win to ask for a "family meeting" outside. He started explaining that anytime he taps his right foot when talking to someone important, he's going to be lying and they need to pay attention. This made Calista believe that -everyone- who is tapping their foot is lying... and this would be a great way to detect those lies. A passing farmgirl gaver her congratulations to Angela... which caused her to scream in frustration that she ISNT pregnant.

Her other party members decided to continue the rumor and began teasing their wizardly ally...

They finally set out through the city gates down King's Road. After merely an hour of travel, small voices called out in Draconic "Those are the ones who killed the others... get them!" as several well armed kobolds burst from the bushes. Oliver was able to act first, but his sling stone bounced harmlessly off of one the bigger kobold's shield. The three biggest kobolds charged Calista, only one landing a solid blow. A sneakier kobold skirted the treeline and came at the party from the back, swiping at Angela. Calista managed to strike back at one of her attackers as Win nearly dropped his scimitar. Angela conjured a cloud of knives onto the sneaky kobold. Their leader, a kobold in a bone dragon mask, shouted encouraging words at his allies before sending a ball of acid into a tree next to Oliver, only inches from his head. Lastly, Raelen cursed the leader and caused horrible things to happen to him, weakening him.

This fight went on for several rounds, Calista nearly going unconscious from her wounds and Raelen falling near the end of the fight after a lucky shot from one of the shielded kobolds. After a long, arduous battle, the heroes came out victorious... and very, very bloody.

That was the end of the session for the night as the DM (me) needed to go to bed, since he had to get up a mere 5 hours later to go to work.

Looking forward to next time.

Edea
2008-06-09, 01:19 PM
Just one word of warning about Kobolds: their being able to use that shifting ability on your turn makes things really difficult o_O. Landing a Sneak Attack, or getting off a control effect without provoking an OA, was next to impossible. Battle was fun, though ^_^.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-09, 01:25 PM
Only the shielded guys could do that... was a "class" ability, you could say.

I think your biggest tactical move was having Oliver come back into the melee instead of going after the Bone-Mask... cause... he was the artillery, what with his Acid Orbs and breath weapon... :smallcool:

Azerian Kelimon
2008-06-09, 01:37 PM
Pshaw, it's really easy. Very useful trick: prepare an action to use a power as soon as a dragonshield shifts. Bam, end of your troubles, because your actions goes off before the shift is completed.

Edea
2008-06-09, 01:57 PM
Huh? I thought the enemy got to move one square before your immediate reaction resolved (moves bigger than that, yeah, they're interrupted)? They'll still shift if that's the case (and unless the power readied, in my case, is Thunderwave, they'll get an OA in the process because the power will go off after they've moved in with the shift).

SamTheCleric
2008-06-09, 01:59 PM
Its an immediate reaction with a trigger "When an enemy moves adjacent or shifts away"

After the move, before the ready.

holywhippet
2008-06-09, 04:52 PM
My GM was trying to get a Keep of the Shadowfell game running on Sunday. Unfortunately our regular players weren't able to attend, and even the substitutes he tried to get cancelled. So it was just him and me, thankfully he decided to run me through the first battle as both of us were curious about how battle works in 4th ed.

I'm not sure how I feel about the difference between the fighter and the rogue in terms of combat mechanics. Against the Dragonscale kobolds the fighter was somewhat less effective than the rogue since the fighter was trying to hit against AC which they had plenty of. The rogue, with a higher attack bonus, was going after either reflex or will so more of his attacks got through. That being said, the kobolds weren't targetting the rogue so his lower HP and AC never became a problem.

The paladin found himself trying to deal with a pair of kobold minions which were slightly harder than expected. He tried his breath attack, and botched both attack rolls. Using his second wind brought a brief respite, but they were still able to get past his AC with some attacks.

I like the idea of minor actions. Often they cover the incidents in 3E where you'd be forced to waste an entire round just to get something done like downing a healing potion or casting a healing spell.

Vortling
2008-06-09, 07:05 PM
Only the shielded guys could do that... was a "class" ability, you could say.

I think your biggest tactical move was having Oliver come back into the melee instead of going after the Bone-Mask... cause... he was the artillery, what with his Acid Orbs and breath weapon... :smallcool:

Good or Bad tactical move?

Okay, my thoughts.

On RP: I believe that the DM and the players make the RP. The system has little or nothing to do with it. So thank you Sam and everyone else for making the RP good. I wouldn't say there's any significant difference between 3e and 4e for RPing. A minor part that's probably only going to annoy me is how much of a disconnect there is between my character's backstory and his mechanical capabilities.

On the combat system: The rogue hasn't changed much since last edition. Unfortunately the monsters have. The rogue still does his usual shtick of moving to flank for sneak attack damage. Except this time around it's required for every attack. The monsters have enough hit points that if you aren't sneak attacking you're really not doing much. I noticed that when the paladin hit, she did comparable damage to the rogue with sneak attack. My rogue did hit more but I suspect that was because I was flanking nearly all the time.

The rogue lacks any real way outside of flanking to get sneak attack (yes, I have the daily power that lets me gain combat advantage. It's daily!). This would normally be fine but the monsters have more ways of avoiding sneak attack than before. They also have more ways of laying down the hurt. The rogue also lacks good ways to deal out damage besides sneak attack. The end result is the rogue isn't so hot at the striker role. He's got the 'move around lots' part down, but the 'do lots of damage' part is lacking. None of the at will powers seem to change this. This especially came up with the artillery guy that I didn't attack. I considered running out after him, but without sneak attack I have serious doubts that I would have been anything but a minor annoyance to the artillery kobold.

Tactically speaking there's a rather large issue with the best tactics being considered 'metagaming' by 4e design, but that's another thread that is neither here nor there.

Speaking of the at-will powers, I found them getting boring by the middle-end part of the fight. I didn't see any useful places to use my encounter power and didn't see any good uses for my daily that wouldn't have been a waste. I didn't use Deft strike, the one that grants 2 extra squares of movement before the attack. Once the enemies closed with us there was no huge need for 8 squares of movement. I used Piercing strike, which targets ref instead of ac, a few times but couldn't really tell if it helped at all. I used Sly Flourish, adds Cha to damage, a lot and it nearly got to the point of saying "I move and attack, I move and attack". Towards the end it was really feeling like a slugfest due to the high hit points of the monsters.

The kobolds' shift powers and the acid artillery from the leader cut down the heroic feel of combat for me. The monsters having lots of useful powers just made my useful powers feel that much less useful and heroic. The monsters also all seemed to have more AC than I did along with attack bonuses equal to ours.

I did have fun playing, despite my wall of semi complaints. 4e has a good system that is fun. However I don't think it's nearly the amazing improvement that the 4e fans are making it out to be.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-10, 08:25 AM
Speaking of the at-will powers, I found them getting boring by the middle-end part of the fight. I didn't see any useful places to use my encounter power and didn't see any good uses for my daily that wouldn't have been a waste. I didn't use Deft strike, the one that grants 2 extra squares of movement before the attack. Once the enemies closed with us there was no huge need for 8 squares of movement. I used Piercing strike, which targets ref instead of ac, a few times but couldn't really tell if it helped at all. I used Sly Flourish, adds Cha to damage, a lot and it nearly got to the point of saying "I move and attack, I move and attack". Towards the end it was really feeling like a slugfest due to the high hit points of the monsters.

That was my fault. I was really tired and stopped the dramatics of combat and we basically boiled it down to move, roll dice. I apologize for that, and hopefully I'll be more rested for our next session.


The kobolds' shift powers and the acid artillery from the leader cut down the heroic feel of combat for me. The monsters having lots of useful powers just made my useful powers feel that much less useful and heroic. The monsters also all seemed to have more AC than I did along with attack bonuses equal to ours.

Yeah, the bad guys get "leet powahz" too. Just because everyone claims that the game is "pc-centric" or uses "heroic" characters... doesn't mean the monsters don't scale to match. The fight was one level above you, which makes it a moderately difficult fight.



I did have fun playing, despite my wall of semi complaints. 4e has a good system that is fun. However I don't think it's nearly the amazing improvement that the 4e fans are making it out to be.

I'm glad you had fun and hope you at least stick around to play in my game. If its not your thing and you don't want to keep playing, I understand that as well and do not begrudge you for having your own opinion. :smallsmile:

Vortling
2008-06-10, 12:00 PM
I'll certainly keep playing. Two sessions really isn't enough for me to know if I never want to play a game again. I also want to see how the game develops as we level up and obtain more powers.

Lycan 01
2008-06-10, 02:39 PM
Wow. That was a very interesting read. Thanks for posting it!

Very good roleplaying, btw... I was entertained by that was much as the combat and such. :smallamused:

Dan_Hemmens
2008-06-10, 05:32 PM
Once the enemies closed with us there was no huge need for 8 squares of movement.

I figured that the point of Deft Strike was that you could move two squares, attack, and still have a Move Action left.

Still quite situational, mind.

Sir_Dr_D
2008-06-10, 07:49 PM
With the Deft strike you should be able to move towards the enenemy, attack it, and then since you still have a move action, you can then shift away from the enemy. This will allow you to do hit and runs.

It could work well if you have a defender covering you.