Pre-gen'd 4th Ed. campaign: H1 impressions (Try to avoid spoilers)

[Vazzaroth]

Ok, this is less of a "What do you think of Keep on the Shadowfell" and more about gathering other player's experiences.

After holding off on a 4th campaign for a little while due to busy-ness, we've finally got our pre-gen campaign off and rolling for a few meetings now. We all died in the second meeting... This 4th meeting last night... we all almost died again. A bit of gratuitous DM fudging was all that saved us in a ridiculously close battle.

It all happened when:

we were ambushed by the Kobolds on the way to the town the first time. Well, it was on the way back out of town. It was the second fight of the game, and we got PWNED. We had a Warlord, Wizard, Warlock (Woo alliteration), Fighter, and Rogue. We came back with a Ranger, Cleric, Rogue, Fighter, and Spellsword and mopped up. Two fights later with the big bad irontooth the goblin and a bunch of other Kobolds and we were the one's getting Owned.

Was it our party composition? Maybe Keep on the shadowfell was really, really intended for the characters that it came with? I've come to the conclusion it's not 4th I'm pissed at, it's the pre-gen with it's masses and masses of, like, 50 HP Kobolds... KOBOLDS! :smallyuk:

And I'm tired of them shifting as a Minor Action.

[erikun]

I've seen that Keep on the Shadowfelt has some truely tough encounters, but that most fights became managable once you eliminated several opponents. 4e seems to really reward getting situational bonuses (flanking, powers) to eliminate one or two targets early.

Also, no wizards the second time around? How are you planning on taking out a dozen minions without one, especially at level 1-2?

<edit>
Okay, let me expand on that.

4e cares very little about a character's individual strengths, and far more about what a character can bring to the party. While in 3.5e, wringing out every last +1 to damage made your character better, 4e rewards disabling the enemy over damaging them. If you have to do 10 damage rather than 15 in order to grant combat advantage to the rogue, do so; it makes the party far more effective overall.

Secondly, how are you playing? Are you using a "charge the enemy, ranger helps rogue flank" strategy? If so, I can see what the problem is. As I said, 4e rewards teamwork and moving around; standing in a line and trying to beat down the enemy simply isn't going to work. Whoever has the high AC should be shifting to allow the other party members - especially the rogue - set up flanking opportunities. It doesn't matter if the damage is "wasted" on weaker targets, the +2 to hit is what ensures that said targets fall down.

Forget everything you've seen on any forum about 4e. 90% of it is more concerned about dealing per-character damage and not even looking at working together with other characters.

From your party, it looks like you have just one leader (probably focused on healing) and no controllers. It's little wonder you're having trouble with larger battles; you have nobody to stop enemies from swarming you! The fighter and 2-weapon ranger, while they can hit multiple targets, need to be in range to do so. This means you're either needing to run up to attack (thus seperating from the group) or sitting back and waiting for them to come to you (thus allowing yourself to be overwhelmed).

If you give us a better idea of your party's characters (ie. weapons/fighting style), I might be able to give you a better idea on how to proceed.

Or are you looking at a new party?

[Colmarr]

In my experience, you should not have struggled with either of the encounters on the road. We made it up to and through the Irontooth encounter with 4 PCs (the DM did not adjust encounters, but we had one +1 weapon (cleric) and one +1 suit of armour (fighter) by the time of the Irontooth encounter).

Having said that, pre-generated characters are rarely terribly-well optimised. Specifically, we found that if you only have one defender, that defender had damn well better be defense-focused or they are going to eat dirt. IIRC the pre-gen fighter is wielding a maul, which leaves him with a mediocre AC of 17.

Our dwarf fighter (and only defender) went into the second ambush with AC 17 and was unconscious by the end of the fight. As it was only our second session, the DM let him re-build his character after that encounter and he went for plate and heavy shield (AC 20). Now the fighter hangs around near my melee cleric for Priest's Shield (+1 AC) and can usually go almost until the end of the combat before being bloodied.

And in turn, his longevity means the rest of us have better longevity.

A rogue is a damage-dealing machine IME, but you need to be clever in how you use them. Getting the rogue CA every turn can mean the difference between an easy and a hard combat. I'll spoiler the "rogue's guide to combat advantage" our rogue player gave us recently:

I really just make heavy use of few tricks.

CA at range:

Easiest way to do this is to be hidden. To become hidden, you need to end a move action such that you have superior cover, total concealment, or better and succeed on a Stealth check (don't forget that [Fleeting Ghost] takes no penalty for stealth for a regular move action).

Once hidden, you can maintain it as long as you have some form of cover or concealment. If you move more than 2 squares during an action you need a Stealth check or you lose hidden status at end of action. If you attack you automatically lose hidden status at end of action.

Best setup is:
* start turn hidden.
* use Deft strike (move 2 and attack) to move to where you can see enemy but still have cover (or concealment); attack with CA
* use move action to slip one or two squares back into superior cover / total concealment / no LoS and make Stealth check.

If you're visible at start of turn, it's fine to do it backwards.

Move into cover and become hidden, then Deft Strike out.

Theoretically, you can do the same thing in melee, but it's harder to pull off and if you're using cover the bad guy will almost certainly have cover from you.

CA and melee:

Obvious technique is flanking. Make extensive use of the fighter; against a marked target [rogue] can basically provoke OAs with impunity (-2 attack from mark, +2 AC from Artful Dodger, plus combat challenge) and the target isn't likely to retaliate in normal melee for the same reasons.

Warlord can help out if he has Wolf Pack Tactics.

I'll also second the call for a Wizard in the party. Even with just Scorching Burst, they are minion-killing machines. If you don't have a wizard, you definitely need a dragonborn.

[skywalker]

My impression of the entire package is "meh." The entire thing isn't that interesting(keep in mind, DMs have been trying for years to make interesting low-level campaigns. It's just hard.). Lots of cliches, and most interesting stuff comes around level 5-6, even in 4th edition.

The pre-gen characters SUCK. Like was said, the fighter was poorly built for being the first defender people were likely to choose, the half-elf was completely wrongly written, from the FAQ: "Q: Why doesn't the half-elf have a dilettante power?A:We left it off to save space. We also left out his skill bonuses for being a half-elf." Da hell? Even the warlord they gave out later, he was missing "healing word." Just a poor effort on those characters.

But as for your party, I think it looks ok, obviously different builds can change viability completely, but besides the lack of wizard(and for some fights in this module, you need a wizard, but I think you've already cleared most of them), it looks ok, follow erikun's advice, both paragraphs, even tho he seems to have multiple personalities :smallbiggrin:

Last advice, which my players could stand to hear: If you know something is in the next room(DM implies, whatever) then don't send in a "scout." Your striker might get taken down in the first round and then you've got no glass cannon to point at people. I know D&D has always been based on the concept of "rogue goes ahead of everyone and spots and disables traps." Keep on the Shadowfell should be played with "Fighter goes in front, blunders into enemies and traps, takes (a couple)hits with high AC and HP, everyone lives to kill the encounter rapidly," as the mindset.

[Colmarr]

I know D&D has always been based on the concept of "rogue goes ahead of everyone and spots and disables traps." Keep on the Shadowfell should be played with "Fighter goes in front, blunders into enemies and traps, takes (a couple)hits with high AC and HP, everyone lives to kill the encounter rapidly," as the mindset.

I'm not sure I agree with this. It's still entirely viable to send a stealthy character ahead as a scout. In fact, our party rogue does so with great effectiveness, usually gets a ranged sneak attack in a surprise round as a result, and has so far (5 encounters) not been caught.

However, the party scout should make sure that they:


Have a high stealth value. If the value isn't at least +8 or +9 at level 1, there's no point in being a scout. Might as well "SWAT" most rooms and deal with them through overwhelming force.
Have a high (and I mean astronomical if possible) initiative to preserve their ability to get out alive if things spot them.
Don't go more than 1 round ahead of the rest of the party (usually 10 squares if the party has heavy armour wearers). If they go further than that and get spotted, the chances are that the monsters will be able to bring them down before they can get back behind the tank(s).

[Vortling]

In short, it is your party composition. The first group didn't have enough defenders for all the people who needed defenders. Wizards, warlocks, and sometimes clerics need defenders to keep monsters from getting in their face and preventing them from using their useful powers. Rogues need defenders to flank targets. That's 3 characters that need the defender and only one defender.

The second group is much better off, though I'm not familiar with the Spellsword in 4e. Keep in mind that everyone needs to have a fairly high to hit score. Anything less than a 18 in your primary to hit stat will probably lead to lots of misses against any challenge above your level (ie the irontooth encounter). Also on the irontooth encounter there are two big factors that determine the outcome: How smart the DM plays, and the dice rolls (this is true of almost any challenge above your level in 4e). If the DM plays smart, you're in trouble. If the dice don't roll you're way you're in trouble as well.

The premade characters from KotS are mostly not worth using. All the monsters you face in 4e have ridiculous amounts of hp, not just the kobolds. A given monster of your level has about 2-3 times the hp of a PC. Elites and Solos have even more.

[Kerouac]

Was it our party composition? Maybe Keep on the shadowfell was really, really intended for the characters that it came with? I've come to the conclusion it's not 4th I'm pissed at, it's the pre-gen with it's masses and masses of, like, 50 HP Kobolds... KOBOLDS! :smallyuk:

And I'm tired of them shifting as a Minor Action.

Last night my party's Wizard was getting quite pissed that he wasn't able to hit a Goblin Warrior with a Magic Missile and that Goblisn had such high AC, HP, and Initiative. We're still used to 2nd Ed. since we've played that for the past 7 years. :smallwink:

[Vazzaroth]

We have
-Me, Cleric emphasizing ranged damage and buffs ( Basically the buff-build, but I hate following builds exactly so...)
- Dragonborn Fighter with a MordenKrad and Fullplate
- Eledrin Swordmage...
- Human Brutal Rogue (With 6 Int, lol)
- Ranger going archery style.

We are going to replace the Fighter (Player can't make it to meetings) with a Barbarian soon. I'm hoping the Swordmage can pull off being main tank, and we can just have overwhelming damage output.

We have cleave and the Dragonbreath for minions. But yes, I have two problems with 4th and Keep on the Shadow right now: There is a single class for controller. This is really, really stupid. They really needed to launch with at least two per archetype. But this will be fixed with supplements. The other one is that there many,many ways to increase your damage (Feats and such) But almost no way at all to increase your To-hit, and that pisses me off greatly. I have always been of the school of thought that would rather hit consistently than do more damage. Besides weapon prof. bonus, I don't think there is a single feat that allows you to hit better in the PHB. I miss 3.5 Weapon Focus :smallfrown:

Anyway, I looked over the stats for the Kobolds we'd been fighting after my DM went to sleep (I only looked at the stuff we already killed, it's ok) and found out my suspicions were correct, these Kobolds for some reason have way more HP than other enemies I've seen in first level adventures.

I hope the rest of the published campaign arc isn't this unbalanced.

Basically, you guys have confirmed what I've thought, that if you don't have the class layout of the ones that come with the campaign (I didn't mean the exact premades, lol, I know those suck.) you have a really hard time. I can't wait to get my Eberron game started and I don't have to base my opinions of 4th off of a pre-made...

[Diego]

We have
Anyway, I looked over the stats for the Kobolds we'd been fighting after my DM went to sleep (I only looked at the stuff we already killed, it's ok) and found out my suspicions were correct, these Kobolds for some reason have way more HP than other enemies I've seen in first level adventures.


You'll notice that you also have way more HP than other characters you've seen in first level adventures. Funny how that works out.

[Vazzaroth]

You'll notice that you also have way more HP than other characters you've seen in first level adventures. Funny how that works out.

... we have as much HP as any 1st level character in 4th ed? When I said other first level adventures, I mean other 4th ed one. Like the one from the back of the DMG.

[Colmarr]

The other one is that there many,many ways to increase your damage (Feats and such) But almost no way at all to increase your To-hit, and that pisses me off greatly. I have always been of the school of thought that would rather hit consistently than do more damage. Besides weapon prof. bonus, I don't think there is a single feat that allows you to hit better in the PHB. I miss 3.5 Weapon Focus :smallfrown:

This appears to be intentional. WotC learned from 3.5e that the easiest way to break the math was to increase your attack bonus. It in turn allowed you to do all sorts of wacky things. So they (largely) took away that option in 4e.

I initially had some issues with that decision, but I'm fine with it now.


I hope the rest of the published campaign arc isn't this unbalanced.

I don't mean to put you down, but I don't think KotS is unbalanced based on what I have seen of it so far (2 kobold ambushes, the burial site, Irontooth and the entrance hall and excavation site in the keep). There are errors in it (my DM mentioned the other day that many of the monster stats are different to the MM), but that doesn't necessarily make it unbalanced.


Basically, you guys have confirmed what I've thought, that if you don't have the class layout of the ones that come with the campaign (I didn't mean the exact premades, lol, I know those suck.) you have a really hard time.

4e makes it pretty clear that there are 4 roles, and further pretty clearly spells out what those roles entail. D&D has always worked that way. There's some flexibility built into the system, but it appears that two things are essential to ease of play - a resilient defender (which usually means shield-wielder) and a leader of some sort.

[Vazzaroth]

I'm not saying they should put in a bunch more To-hit bonuses, but that doesn't stop me from wishing they were there. At least a few? A +1? :smallfrown: Weapon Focus in particular, I think they could have kept that as a +1 to attack and it would improve the game, especially if they didn't add the rest of the 3.5 feat tree like they have. I understand their motives I guess, but I think they took it too far to the extreme, at least with Core.

Now, the balance part I can't adjust to so easily. Like I said, I looked at the stats on all the Kobolds + Irontooth and I still think that was ridiculously unbalanced. I absolutely hate that Wizards keeps saying It's fine to send PCs against fights 6 levels above them. HATE that idea. At least at low levels. Plus, at least our DM, ran the fight with the Kobolds on the other side of the Waterfall and the fight with Irontooth and his crazy strong allies as one really long encounter. That seems Anathema to what DND seems to emphasize now, that taking a 5 Min. rest is basically required or you suck HARD. So we had to fight an Elite Monster and 3 of his level 6 friends without almost any Encounter Powers, only a few Dailies, and only one of our team had an Action Point left. I fail to see how that's not a horrible recipe for disaster. It might be that our DM ran it wrong, I don't know, and I admit the TPK on the road was partly our fault for it being our first game of 4th Edition ever, not knowing how to Tactically play our classes in 4th, and fudging some rules accidentally to our disadvantage (We only remembered 1/2 way through the Irontooth fight that Charging only Gives a +1 to attack now, and that was enough to save my poor cleric from a hit or not, when he was at 1 HP!), but the Cave fight was truly absurd. Seemed like an encounter for a 3rd level party, not 1st.

Finally, to address your last point Colmarr... I don't disagree with you. I just am quite dissapointed that Wizards of the Coast only offered a single class for Controller, but yet decided to give us 3 Strikers? And then they claim that they emphasize every class equally? But once again, this shall be fixed as they add more classes.

Being Veteren 3.5 players, and used to having at least 10 books to build our concept from at any one time, I think we are kind of getting ahead of ourselves and the party composition is suffering. Luckily, Dungeon and Dragon magazine are slowly publishing some nice supplements that are helping this, but I still cannot wait for more Source Books.

[Kerouac]

That seems Anathema to what DND seems to emphasize now, that taking a 5 Min. rest is basically required or you suck HARD. So we had to fight an Elite Monster and 3 of his level 6 friends without almost any Encounter Powers, only a few Dailies, and only one of our team had an Action Point left. I fail to see how that's not a horrible recipe for disaster. It might be that our DM ran it wrong, I don't know, and I admit the TPK on the road was partly our fault for it being our first game of 4th Edition ever, not knowing how to Tactically play our classes in 4th, and fudging some rules accidentally to our disadvantage (We only remembered 1/2 way through the Irontooth fight that Charging only Gives a +1 to attack now, and that was enough to save my poor cleric from a hit or not, when he was at 1 HP!), but the Cave fight was truly absurd. Seemed like an encounter for a 3rd level party, not 1st.

We ran the whole session with two extended rests and one short rest, but with a Warlord and a Paladin they were able to keep the healing coming. We only had one death the whole game and he rolled a natural 20 on the save.... it was the only 20 he rolled all night! :smallamused:

[THAC0]

I'm not saying they should put in a bunch more To-hit bonuses, but that doesn't stop me from wishing they were there. At least a few? A +1? :smallfrown: Weapon Focus in particular, I think they could have kept that as a +1 to attack and it would improve the game, especially if they didn't add the rest of the 3.5 feat tree like they have. I understand their motives I guess, but I think they took it too far to the extreme, at least with Core.


The other thing to remember is that a +1 in 4e is much more powerful than a +1 in 3.5. The math is more tightly balanced.

[Colmarr]

Now, the balance part I can't adjust to so easily. Like I said, I looked at the stats on all the Kobolds + Irontooth and I still think that was ridiculously unbalanced.

IIRC, Irontooth is a Level 6 encounter, which is 5 levels above the party level at that stage. However, the encounter is split into two phases so that you can kill some of the enemies before the others arrive.

4e set the "this'll be tough" limit at level + 4. Strictly speaking, the Irontooth encounter breaks that limit, but as a "two wave" fight it's probably legit. It's tough, but not unbalanced. With good tactics, and reasonable luck, you can win it (and indeed many groups have, including mine).

However, I do agree with you that it was odd to put such a hard encounter so early into an introductory module.


I absolutely hate that Wizards keeps saying It's fine to send PCs against fights 6 levels above them. HATE that idea. At least at low levels.

I don't recall ever hearing them say this. As I mentioned, the Irontooth encounter is 5 levels above the party, but is split into two waves.

Every other encounter we've come across in KotS so far has been within 1 of our party level (which is probably why Irontooth comes as such a surprise; there's a massive lethality spike without any real warning).


Plus, at least our DM, ran the fight with the Kobolds on the other side of the Waterfall and the fight with Irontooth and his crazy strong allies as one really long encounter. That seems Anathema to what DND seems to emphasize now, that taking a 5 Min. rest is basically required or you suck HARD. So we had to fight an Elite Monster and 3 of his level 6 friends without almost any Encounter Powers, only a few Dailies, and only one of our team had an Action Point left. I fail to see how that's not a horrible recipe for disaster. It might be that our DM ran it wrong

With all due respect to your DM, if he forced you into the cave to take on Irontooth without giving you the chance to retreat and/or rest, then yes he did run it wrong. He was setting you up for a TPK.

The game does assume that you'll be able to take short rests after most encounters. It's not automatic, but your DM shouldn't deny them unless there is a good reason (such as one of the kobolds escaping into the cave to warn Irontooth and your party refusing to retreat to recover their energy).

I've noticed that some members of my group are also having trouble shifting from the 3e mindset to 4e. Each in different ways, but in each case you can almost see the 3e thinking going on in their brains.

It'll take a while to get used to the new system, and until you do I think your group motto should be "Safely, Safely". It's much better to run away and live to fight another day. At least 4e gives you the hit points to do so with a reasonable chance of success*.

* If you're DM isn't a tool, he'll have the monsters give up the chase and let you escape.

[Galdor Miriel]

I hesitate to say it, but I do not agree with most of the comments so far in this debate. I have been dming the KOTSF and thinking and seeing the game in action. 4E seems mostly to me to be the game where if you play smart you stay alive. This seems to work for any party composition. If you use good tactics, for what your team is you will do fine.

The party I have been dming for consists of a cleric, a paladin, a warlord, a warlock and a rogue, no controller. They have done fine with no controller. IN fact I added slightly modded ogre minions (All defenses down 3) to the irontooth encounter to scare the pants off them(it worked) and they completely owned the encounter with good tactics and good teamwork.

The rogue got lots of combat advantage, the leaders healed. Tha paladin and the warlord soaked up damage from irontooth while the rogue and warlock stayed out of it more and did damage.

They are now in the keep and look set to bypass most of the action going straight for the jugular of Kalarel. It will be interesting to see how they do.

I think though in 4E an encounter can really turn on the dice. As good as this party has been they struggled in the ambush when the kobolds got a surprise round and beat the pants of them on initiative, which they followed up with a slew of criticals. 4 of them were down at the end of the fight but they won through.

So far I think I really like 4E, and this module is one of those where it is what you make it.. Loads of room o add stuff, roleplay challenges etc. Every time something a bit funny happens the skill challenge rules make it easy and fun to role play stuff without being arbitrary. My guys knocked Irontooth unconscious and managed to get a bit of info out of him from a bluff. They know that Ninaran is a spy.

Overall I think it is a lot of fun, and the shifty high hp kobolds are just plain cool.

Galdor

[Vazzaroth]

I appreciate the feedback/discussion. It looks like it's basically just this one encounter that's insane, and I'm glad that it sounds like that.

What happened was we fought the Kobolds outside and took a rest, went into the cave under the waterfall, fought a bunch more Kobolds, then immediately fought Irontooth and his 3 Cohorts. I guess we could have run away, but... TBH it just felt wrong to do that. Yes, we're still adjusting to 4th.

Also, the DMG explicitly says (I don't have the book so I dont have a page) that "PCs should fight encounters 3 levels below them or up to 6 levels above them". THAT'S what I was outraged about, and my outrage was put to the test with the Irontooth encounter as it was that exact scenario.

Anyway, we're going to do some Class ret'conning and changing our classes around, then re-do the fight since almost half of the party wasn't there and was being other-person-controlled. Maybe we'll do better (If those of us that were there can avoid metagaming.:smallbiggrin:)

[Colmarr]

So we had to fight an Elite Monster and 3 of his level 6 friends

I wanted to double check this before replying to it, but your summary of the encounter is not correct. The Irontooth encounter consists of:

iron tooth (lvl 3 elite brute)
Kobold wyrmpriest (lvl 3)
2 dragon shields (lvl 2)
3 skirmishers (lvl 1)
10 minions (level 1)

Your later description is more accurate, so maybe this initial desciption was just hyperbole.

[Vazzaroth]

If that is indeed true then I am mis-informed. When I looked at it, I thought at least Irontooth was a level 6 elite. I wasn't sure on his friends, I was mostly concerned with the Goblin that took down 4 of our party members.

But I do know the DMG does say that a +6 level encounter is possible. Maybe in Paragon Tier or late Heroic, but not level 1's and 2's.

[Vazzaroth]

Ok, against the wishes of our DM trying to maintain our group's dignity, and for some random people who may be keeping tabs here for some reason: We found out why we were struggling so much.

Turns out, Con Mod, and Con Score make for very different HP values.

I'm sure we're not the first people to overlook the fact that 1st level characters get their Con Score in bonus HP instead of Mod, but we've been playing awhile...

Everyone had at LEAST 12 more HP.

Anyway, we replayed the Irontooth fight, it was fun, we still had a death, but it was the rogue. That's to be expected.
(But srsly, it was because I was busy tanking his three friends and Irontooth came into our flank and killed her.)

[Colmarr]

Turns out, Con Mod, and Con Score make for very different HP values.

You'd be surprised how many people have made this mistake since 4e was released. I think they should have put an example in the PHB to make sure people got it right. :smallsmile:

But I'm glad you got it figured out and are enjoying your D&D4e more!

[Vazzaroth]

Yes, I guess my DM actually was tipped off by the pre-gen character's having more HP, kind of coming back to my original problem, heh.

Yea, it's not just the HP either. Since Healing surges and Bloodied level are based off of total HP it's all better. I'm definitely appreciating it more.

We had this exact same problem with Con mod and score in D20 modern's massive damage threshold...

[skywalker]

We had this exact same problem with Con mod and score in D20 modern's massive damage threshold...

That sounds...

Unnecessarily gory.

Strictly speaking, your DM ran the Waterfall encounter correctly. You are supposed to fight everything in that cave as one encounter, only 3 rds later on "wave 2."

Unless someone has a page-#, I'm pretty sure the DMG says you can go up to 4 levels above the players to really challenge them, not 6. Never 6. 4 levels above is supposed to be really challenging, something you use dailies, APs, lots of surges on. But that is kinda the mini-boss...

Side note, my group got further into the Keep and the encounters get noticeably more fun. Just to let you guys who are bored outside know there's something worth it in there.

[Vazzaroth]

Not sure, but my DM told us the Irontooth fight was a 6th level encounter. If I find a page number in the DMG that says what level of fights they should have I'll post it. I know it said 4 levels under and either 4 or 6 levels higher are possible.

[Colmarr]

Not sure, but my DM told us the Irontooth fight was a 6th level encounter.

Purely by the numbers (ie. level X + 2 level Ys + etc), it is a level 6 encounter, which would ordinarily put it into the "almost guaranteed TPK" range. However, as mentioned above, the first three rounds of the combat only involve half the opposition, which reduces the effective level of the encounter.

Given the lethality of the encounter for some/most groups, I'd peg it as either high-end level 4 or level 5.

[Colmarr]

Side note, my group got further into the Keep and the encounters get noticeably more fun. Just to let you guys who are bored outside know there's something worth it in there.

My group is in the corridor NW of the entrance with the blood smears on the floor, about to bust open the northern door. I must admit there's a certain level of tension (http://unswgameplayers.awardspace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14&st=0&sk=t&sd=a) amongst the party.

[skywalker]

My group is in the corridor NW of the entrance with the blood smears on the floor, about to bust open the northern door. I must admit there's a certain level of tension (http://unswgameplayers.awardspace.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=14&st=0&sk=t&sd=a) amongst the party.

Looks fun.

Wish I got to play at all these days(I was supposed to alternate DM'ing with another guy, but at the moment all that's happening is I'm running KotS :smallannoyed:).

[clericwithnogod]

CA at range:

Easiest way to do this is to be hidden. To become hidden, you need to end a move action such that you have superior cover, total concealment, or better and succeed on a Stealth check (don't forget that [Fleeting Ghost] takes no penalty for stealth for a regular move action).

Once hidden, you can maintain it as long as you have some form of cover or concealment. If you move more than 2 squares during an action you need a Stealth check or you lose hidden status at end of action. If you attack you automatically lose hidden status at end of action.



The RAW reading of Fleeting Ghost allows you to make a stealth check as part of the power, meaning you can make the check without Superior Cover or Total Concealment when you use Fleeting Ghost. The nature of remaining hidden in the context of the revised Stealth rules means that in effect you can hide in normal cover or concealment. Customer Service has said both it does and doesn't work as written, and also said they don't know and they'll kick it up for an FAQ or update. The RAW reading also leads you to being able to avoid taking a penalty only when you use Fleeeting Ghost to hide (which would exclude making a check to remain hidden while moving from place to place, something that is covered with an added benefit by Shadow Stride).