4e game for new players. Suggestions?

[WinterSolstice]

I'll be introducing some of my friends who have expressed interest in learning DnD to the hobby soon. I'd like some suggestions for the content of their first adventure.

Ideally, I would like the adventure to showcase the archetypical aspects of DnD sessions. i.e

-A social encounter

-An exciting combat encounter or 3:smallbiggrin:

-and any others you can suggest.

They all know the basic premise of DnD, as I've passed around the 4e PHB and assigned the opening chapters to them as reading. (4e by the way, is a GODSEND when it comes to explaining how DnD works: Read Chapter 1)

The characters will be starting at level 1. Any suggestions would be welcomed and appreciated. Thank you!

[FoE]

So you're looking for suggestions as to an adventure?

[UserClone]

What's wrong with Keep on the Shadowfell? I've never played it, but from what I gather, it's for just this purpose: introducing people to 4E.

[Hal]

If they're new, you will probably have to give them the reason their characters are together.

So, start it out with the social aspect/investigation. Give each player a chance to participate, and if anyone isn't jumping in, have an NPC address them. This initial stage is where someone either gets drawn in or turned off.

Next, send them to their "dungeon." Simple puzzles and skill challenges interspersed with combat. Give them reasons to throw dice, but try to prompt it from them rather than asking for rolls all the time.

Top it off with a villain. Voila! Baby's first D&D adventure :smalltongue:

[Thane of Fife]

5 Room Dungeons (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/articles/5_room_dungeons.html) are a wonderful, quick way to get people interested. I recommend them.

[FoE]

How about your party infiltrate the tower of a wizard who recently died? Without him around, there's no one to keep his experiments in check, and the grounds could be rife with dire rats, scorpions and spiretop drakes, plus a few clay scouts and maybe an ooze or two when you get inside.

The party could be hired by a daughter or sister of the wizard who's come to visit him, but can't get in the tower. She fears for his safety and asks the PCs to fight their way past the various beasties.

A skill challenge could involve gathering rumours from the townsfolk about the wizard that help guard them against the monsters they will face.

[Oracle_Hunter]

What's wrong with Keep on the Shadowfell? I've never played it, but from what I gather, it's for just this purpose: introducing people to 4E.

It's terrible. Aside from being just a dungeoncrawl, it also has really weird encounters.

Now, to the OP:

How about "find the thief?" The PCs see that an heirloom has been stolen, and there's a reward for its return. They can find a contact who knows where the thief is hiding out (social encounter), track him to his hideout (an abandoned fort, for some interesting terrain for fighting), and then recover the heirloom from his gang.

The PCs can stealth into the fort, or kick down the door. Fights can happen on crumbling walkways (with gaps for 10' falls, and rubble for difficult terrain), and you can have the treasure guarded by a trap and the Bandit King. For fun, put the final battle in a room fitted with a Pendulum Trap, and let the Bandit King know where the next slicer is going to come from.

[RTGoodman]

I don't know if I'd call it "terrible," but KotS does suffer from a LOT of editing problems and some bad encounter design.

I'd suggest running the short adventure in the back of the DMG (something about a Kobold Hall) and then either run your own adventure or maybe see if you can get the first module from the "Scales of War" adventure path (from Dungeon Magazine).

[FoE]

I'd suggest running the short adventure in the back of the DMG (something about a Kobold Hall) and then either run your own adventure or maybe see if you can get the first module from the "Scales of War" adventure path (from Dungeon Magazine).

I didn't like that first adventure. It had sort of a neat concept — save the various villagers as you find them from the evil hobgoblins — but the encounters were all over the place. Here's some goblins! Here's a wight! Here's some gnomes! Here's some oozes! Here's a demon! IT'S A ZOO OF MONSTERS!

The later adventures are OK, though.

Anyway, as RTG pointed out, what's wrong with Kobold Hall? I had a look at it and it seems all right.

[quillbreaker]

I'll just toss in that, for fourth edition, party composition is important. They'll want at least one of each of the roles described in a book. Having a leader to heal in mid-combat is very important, to the point that I've tossed an NPC priest in the game I'm running so the party isn't on the edge of a wipe when someone gets a burst of damage.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'll just toss in that, for fourth edition, party composition is important. They'll want at least one of each of the roles described in a book. Having a leader to heal in mid-combat is very important, to the point that I've tossed an NPC priest in the game I'm running so the party isn't on the edge of a wipe when someone gets a burst of damage.

Actually, I've found that only the Leader and the Defender are really essential... and if you double up on strikers, you can get away without a Defender.

Considering that Leaders include Warlords, I doubt you'll have trouble getting someone to play one :smalltongue:

[Kurald Galain]

Actually, I've found that only the Leader and the Defender are really essential... and if you double up on strikers, you can get away without a Defender.

I disagree. If you drop a defender for another striker, combat gets very "swingy", in that it becomes more likely that you'll either devastate your enemies in short order, or wipe yourself out in TPK. Defenders add stability.

Also, for any combat involving lots of mooks, a wizard is really worth it in getting them all off your back with his area blasts.

[Tuataralad]

I would recommend kobold hall also. It was the first 4E thing I ever actually played, an it was good for getting used to 4E, because there are a lot of examples of combat styles and such. The only issue is that if you are only looking for one session, there are some social encounters in the town nearby, but the actual dungeon is pretty much 100% combat.

[hewhosaysfish]

I've only experience 4e from the player's side of the DM screen but I would like to agree with the people who're saying that KotS is not a good one for teaching new players (well, depending on what you want to teach them, I suppose). It starts out well enough but once you get into the Keep itself it really becomes a bit dungeon-crawly.

[WirePaladin]

If it was a hobby and not an addiction I'd spend less money on it...

Back to the issue though, your the one who knows your friends best, if time allows you should create a starter city for them...some encounters...maybe (zomgs) goblins raiding a farm, or the local thieves running afoul of the innkeep and looking for an out...

Patience is key I suppose...remember that no matter how many times or how clearly you explain it to your players...you'll probably always have to explain it three more times.

Don't get to rigid into an adventure...allow them to flex themselves a bit...dont throw them into sand box world the land of write your own stories...but give them some room in whatever you do run to do their own thing...

Also beware of misunderstood unaligned characters...specially ones that play rogues or rangers...nothing says fun like level 1 PvP (Pv[Party]P)

[Oracle_Hunter]

I disagree. If you drop a defender for another striker, combat gets very "swingy", in that it becomes more likely that you'll either devastate your enemies in short order, or wipe yourself out in TPK. Defenders add stability.

Also, for any combat involving lots of mooks, a wizard is really worth it in getting them all off your back with his area blasts.

Yeah... that's almost certainly true. Defender & Leader are key.

Also: Wizards are helpful against mooks, but several classes get access to multiattacks or melee bursts pretty early on. A polearm Fighter, for example, and Cleave his way through minions really easily just by making sure to keep a minion adjacent and some other target within 2.

As for using modules:
I recommend against it. Partly this is because I distrust modules, but mainly it's because 4e is so DM friendly that statting out an adventure is a cinch. You know your players better than a module, so you can better tailor it to what they'd find exciting. Also, writing an adventure is a good way to get familiar with the rules - which is important if you're going to introduce newbies to a system.

Try it out. I'm sure that, if you have trouble coming up with fluff, we'll be able to help you work it out. :smallsmile:

[quillbreaker]

I disagree. If you drop a defender for another striker, combat gets very "swingy", in that it becomes more likely that you'll either devastate your enemies in short order, or wipe yourself out in TPK. Defenders add stability.

Also, for any combat involving lots of mooks, a wizard is really worth it in getting them all off your back with his area blasts.

A single defender is less valuable to an inexperienced party, come to think of it, who can't look at the map and deduce all of the places that the defender can keep the monsters away from.

Also, a defender standing in a bad location is just a weak striker.

Defenders might be the hardest characters to play right in 4th E...

[Yakk]

For background, I'd advise have a pre-picked NPC that you ask everyone to include in their character's backstory as someone they owe (at least) a favor too, maybe more.

[Asbestos]

A single defender is less valuable to an inexperienced party, come to think of it, who can't look at the map and deduce all of the places that the defender can keep the monsters away from.

Also, a defender standing in a bad location is just a weak striker.

Defenders might be the hardest characters to play right in 4th E...

Just be a Swordmage, Aegis of Assault. That should make up for some of the bad placement. I mean, the players might be new, but I doubt they'll be complete idiots. If the Swordmage (or the Paladin) has a choice to mark the dude beating on the wizard or the dude scratching himself in the corner, I think he'll mark the dude on the wizard.

[Oracle_Hunter]

A single defender is less valuable to an inexperienced party, come to think of it, who can't look at the map and deduce all of the places that the defender can keep the monsters away from.

Also, a defender standing in a bad location is just a weak striker.

Defenders might be the hardest characters to play right in 4th E...

Honestly, the hardest part of newbies playing a Defender is keeping track of marks. Proper placement for a Defender is exactly what you'd think - between the squishies and your enemies. It's much harder training someone to, say, keep up perpetual CA for their Rogue.

If you want to make a Defender easy to play, make him a sword & board one with Tide of Iron & Reaping Strike. Reaping Strike is simplicity itself, and Tide of Iron can help correct for bad placement and is fun once you learn how to use it :smallbiggrin: