Over the weekend, I started a 4E campaign for my son Nolan and his friends. The plan is to take them through the entire Keep on the Shadowfell module, and then probably into Thunderspire Labyrinth, with possible detours into various level-appropriate Delves, or something from Monte Cook's awesome new project, Dungeon-a-Day, if it makes sense to incorporate it into the campaign. This is continued from Part I.
If you've read the Delve I'm talking about, you can probably see the
first change I made: rather than make this a mine, I made it a tower,
primarily because I had dungeon tiles that supported that (as you can
see in the photo), but also because I wanted to challenge myself to
make small modifications right away – we're only going to have 3 PCs
for most of this, I think, and I'll be required to make a lot of
adjustments as the campaign unfolds.
The Delve I took them
through has three encounters that are supposed to get increasingly
difficult. The first one takes place on the surface, and the last two
are in different areas beneath the tower (or the mine, if you run it
verbatim from the book.) I scaled the difficulty back a little bit,
because it was just the three of them. I was genuinely worried that the
last encounter may kill them, but I was surprised when the second encounter nearly killed them all.
It's not a particularly difficult encounter. The PCs come down some stairs, where they find some rubble (difficult terrain) in a small chamber. Beyond the chamber, there's a hallway with a large statue in the middle of it. Tapestries line the wall, and a few Kobolds lurk in the darkness. In our session, one of the minions from the first encounter had fled down the stairs, so the bad guys knew the PCs were coming.
Nolan's friend who played the rogue wanted to sneak down to the bottom of the stairs and see if he could pick anything up about the room. I had him make stealth and perceptions checks while I rolled perception checks for the Kobolds. He rolled very well, and they did not, so I told him, "You creep down the stairs as silently as you can. When you get to the bottom, you see that there's some dried blood on the rubble. You also see a hallway, with a statue of a dwarf in it," I grabbed some dungeon tiles from behind my screen and set them out. I didn't have a statue tile, so I used a little Chessex dice box for it. "You can hear some creatures in the hallway. What was your perception roll, again?"
"28," he said.
"Wow, nice." I said. "You can see that the statue looks unstable, and it's been seriously defaced. There are two Kobolds lurking behind it."
"I'm going to sneak back up the stairs and tell them all this," he said.
"Okay, go ahead."
I was pleased that they were making an effort to be quiet. In the first encounter, they'd all sort of run around the ground outside the tower, making no effort to be stealthy at all, even after they'd spotted little Kobold clawprints in the muck around the place. This gave the Kobolds a surprise round as soon as one of the PCs moved into their line of sight, and that PC (the wizard) ended up immobilized for several rounds by a gluepot.
They decided that the wizard would attack the statue with a magic missile, because it does force damage.
I thought this was a very clever idea, but I was completely unprepared for it, and didn't even think to suggest he use Mage Hand instead until just now, as I was writing this post. (Looking at the pre-gen character he's using, though, I see that it doesn't list Mage Hand, even though it's in the PHB as a wizard class feature, which is kind of lame. I'll have to correct that before our next session.) Anyway, I knew that the statue would topple with a DC 10 strength check, but I didn't see anywhere in the rules that said magic missile actually pushed anything. I wanted to reward clever thinking, though, and I always want my players to feel like anything is possible, so I decided that any roll better than 10 would score a hit, and if he rolled a critical or max damage, it would topple the statue. Imperfect, but it was the best I could come up with in the 5 seconds I had to make the decision. (Looking through the DMG last night, I see that what I came up with on the fly is close to what I'd have found in the book: statues are hit on a 5 or better, and this one would have had 10HP, so … go me.)
The wizard hit, but only rolled 5 points of damage.
"Magical energy crackles out of your hands and streaks across the chamber, trailing little sparkles behind it."
They all looked at me.
"What?" I said, knowing exactly why.
"It hits the statue square in the beard, but only leaves a scorched mark."
"I don't like that this eladrin is damaging a stature of a dwarf," Nolan said.
"I'm just trying to crush the monsters," his friend said.
I noted this on the obligatory DM's scratch pad. "From inside the hallway, you hear grunting and snarling. Roll initiative," I said. Dice clattered across the table, and I arranged their character's initiative cards accordingly.
In the first
encounter, they didn't work together as a team, mostly because they were getting used to the idea of playing this game together. I tried to nudge them,
but I didn't want to interfere too much – hey, if they're going to get
themselves killed, they're going to get themselves killed – and it was
just the encounter itself being pretty easy that saved them from any
real threat of TPK. They didn't start working together as a team in this encounter, either. That,
combined with the monsters rolling well and the PCs rolling poorly,
nearly killed them. But when they started getting clobbered, I saw a shift in the party dynamic: Nolan, who has a great deal of RPG
(tabletop and computer) experience, started suggesting tactics for them
all, and that's the only reason they survived.
The statue ended up falling down when the Kobolds behind it pushed it over toward the rogue and the fighter, but it missed them. One of the creatures, though, a Kobold Wyrmpriest, really put the hurt on them. The rogue was eventually knocked unconscious, and though he made his death save on the next turn, I could tell that it shook them all up.
"That's good," I thought, "they need to feel like something real is at stake here, and they're not just going to respawn if they die."
When the encounter was over, I reminded them that they could climb back up the stairs if they wanted to, and take an extended rest in the camp, where they thought they'd be safe. Instead, they decided to rest for 6 hours in the dungeon. I thought that there was a chance they'd be interrupted by some kind of wandering monster (like a small level 1 encounter of Kobolds or something) so I made six rolls – one for each hour – but I guess the Kobolds were all out watching the Kobold World Series or something, because nobody showed up to harrass them.
"Okay, you're all rested up, and nobody harrassed you. What would you like to do?"
"I want to do something about the statue," Nolan said. "I don't like that it's just all crumbled down there like that."
"Sure," I said. "You spend some time gathering up the pieces as best as you can, and you say a prayer to Moradin. You feel a little better."
I didn't tell him, but I gave him 25XP for good roleplaying, and they all walked down the hallway to the closed doors that separated them from the final encounter.
The kids are playing
a Halfling Rogue, an Eladrin Wizard, and a Dwarf Fighter. The kid who
is playing the Rogue is really into being a thief, and from the moment
he sat down, he wanted to pick locks and detect traps. In the description of the area, the
doors that separate the second and third encounters aren't anything
special, but I wanted to give him something fun to
do, so when he asked me if he could check for traps, I let him. There
weren't any, but I decided to lock the doors so he could try to pick
them. He made a bunch of really good stealth, perception, and thievery
rolls all in succession, so I decided that everything went perfectly
for him. He wanted to peek through the door, so I let him do that, too.
All four Kobolds on the other side of the door rolled single-digit
perception checks, and he rolled over 20 on his stealth, so I decided
that meant they didn't see him peeking through a small crack between
the doors.
Nolan looked at the situation and said, "Okay, here's
what we do: I'm going to kick in this door. Koka [the halfling] is
going to charge into the room and sneak attack that guy there. Immeral [the wizard],
you hang back and cast magic missile on him."
I was so proud of
their teamwork and ingenuity, I decided that if the dwarf was able to
kick in the door (DC 15 – it's wooden and very old) they would get a
surprise round. Nolan rolled 19, and the final encounter began with a
bang.
They made quick work of some minions and bloodied one of
the two Kobold Slyblades (who I'd expected would be very serious
threats) in the first two rounds. That's when they saw the dragon.
Continued in Part 3…
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If they’d stop wasting their money on the god-awful “Sci-Fi Original Movie” it would probably help matters.
I have a post coming up on Friday that’s all about what I learned from this experience, mostly as a DM but also as a dad.
I’m glad we’re having this conversation today, because it’s super useful for that post, as well as my own efforts to learn from my mistakes so I grow as a player and DM.
…you know, gaining experience and leveling. 😀
I too had your reservations with healing surges, but after playing 4e for a little bit I really like the concept. I thought they might make combat too easy, but I find 4e combat to be more deadly and much more team focused than 3.5. Also, while the use of healing surges reduces the need for a cleric, having played a cleric in my last game of 4e, I can attest that they rock in the healing department, but at the same time they can do much more than just act as heal batteries.
PCs also don’t get to just use healing surges whenever they feel like it. During combat they only get to use the Second Wind once per encounter, and sometimes even that isn’t enough to save themselves.
I like the mechanic, because it means PCs don’t have to constantly go back to town between each encounter, and it keeps the game moving.
Totally agree with you about clerics, and I suspect that Tycho would, as well.
me.yahoo.com/a/xRfQm2EIqu605xMCIKa_GioKPPnqiT0pR_o- said… Please, please, keep up the posts, and for everybody reading: get inspired and start blogging your own games. Enable my D&D voyeurism.
Ask and you shall receive.
My last campaign in story form –
http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-hour/215736-barrow-forgotten-story-hour-complete-8-13-08-a.html
And my current campaign in recap form –
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/aciximabs-shackled-city/adventure-log
There are plenty of others on those sites as well.
Some (bad) DMs see their goal as achieving TPK in the fanciest, most obscure ways possible. Other (worse) DMs just delight in TPK full stop.
Good DMs manage to balance the game on the fly to provide a sufficient challenge with a very real possibility of TPK, but without getting stupid.
Like filling a room with the ceiling, wall and floor imitating monsters.
It’s amazing how so many of us can be so engrossed in a description of someone else’s game session, but then, there’s a lot to be said for your storytelling style. Really, enjoying hearing about it.
My favorite “outside-the-box” moment from a game:
Back, around ’90, joined in a group that a friend’s brother played in. My friend and I created characters using some add-on race that were shape shifters. We needed to defend this tower from a massive army, like 8 armies of orcs and kobolds and such, and 6 earth elementals mixed in. My friend and I each still had an unused slot to pick for creatures we could shift into, and I came up with the idea for us to each turn into Rocs and swoop down to lift up a earth elemental and toss it back at its own army. The DM was impressed enough with my idea that he ruled it was within the shape shifting abilities of the race, and that if we paired up on the same elemental, we would able to lift it off the ground and drop it back onto it’s own army, much carnage ensued :). I think we still lost the tower but my idea let us hold it much longer than the DM expected us to. plus, I think we were just meant to delay the army while the ‘king’ or whoever got away, So I think it still counted as a success for the group.
When I saw the battle of Gondor in Lord of the Rings, and they tossed the massive rubble that the orc armies made back at them, I immediately thought of that session and how that must have been what it looked like.
Huge dose of WTF?
Does Games Workshop’s example not show them there is money to be made through minis? And through not pissing off potential customers too.
Heck GW has created quite a modeling community, encouraging great creativity with models and not just taking them as they come. When I bought and painted a skeleton army I meticulously positioned each of the skulls and weapons, even buying additional packs just to get the right weapons for the look I was trying to achieve.
Also keep in mind anyone trained in heal can also help bring the unconscious charactter back to consciousness. have to be touching, then make a heal check as their standard action.
Wil,
I’m glad you joined the PA/PVP podcasts (the first recording is directly responsible for me running out and getting the 4e core set), and now I’m glad I found your blog!
I recently started my own campaign with 3 players (all RPG newbs) – my wife (Wizard) and a couple we’re close to (Paladin & Cleric). To help give the party some ‘oomph,’ I made a DMPC – a mute Tiefling Rogue. Mute, so he doesn’t give out any hints or secrets; Rogue, because they needed a striker and someone who would do the ‘dirty work’ if it became necessary; and a Tiefling, because horns and a tail is pretty damn cool in my book.
It’s worked pretty well so far. Tales of our exploits have entranced another friend (again, an RPG newb) who is now joining us as a Ranger. So, I can now write my character out of the group (but not permanently) and still keep the party balanced.
PS: I have no idea why my name an info are showing up like that. Here’s my schtuff: Name – Kingworks; Blog – kingworkscreative.blogspot.com; Website – kingworkscreative.com; Email – [email protected]
So — I don’t play this lovely game — BUT, I am highly entertained by the posts – It most certainly must be Wil’s writing that keeps me interested. Kudos for that!
There . . . now I’m signed up. 🙂
Okay, so now I have to read up on it more. I can see how it might enhance the game and keep things still somewhat realistic. I’ve been sitting on the fence for some time now with regards to 4E, but the more I read about experiences with it, the more intrigued I get. I won’t say I’m completely ready to plunge in (particularly because of the cost of rebuying all the damn books – thanks WoTC), but I am definitely leaning more towards it than I was, thanks to this nice expedition by Wil. Thanks for explaining things Shane, Matt, and Wil.
Ah, another 2E fan. 😀
Wow. So exciting and fun, just to read about. I can’t wait until I get to play again, some day.
Out of curiosity, kinda sparked by Wil’s description of reading through the manual the other day, are there many Solo adventures out there? I know it seems sad but my other half isn’t interested in the slightest and there don’t appear to be any local groups accepting n00bs, so I’m kinda curious about roleplaying solo for a bit, and building up some experience.
Hey Wil, love the blog.
A couple of tiny tips, if I might be so bold:
1. When doing stealth or perception, you might consider asking for their modifier and rolling behind the screen. This way, on detect traps say, they don’t really know if they rolled high or low. If they see that they rolled high and you say “there doesn’t appear to be any traps” they are sure there aren’t any. If you roll and say “there doesn’t appear to be any traps” they don’t know if the roll was high or not. Just a nice bit of mystery for the game.
2. My other new tip I just learned myself is to use 3×5 cards cut in half lengthwise and then folded over as initiative cards draped over your DM screen. Put the character names on both sides so you and the party can both see it. Drop in generic “monster” cards for the monster initiative rolls when they come up. I’ve tried a lot of initiative systems and this worked the best and cost the least.
Anyway, keep it up. I love hearing about other people’s games!
Good notes, Mike … I use them both already!
I guess I didn’t make it clear in the post that I do all the perception rolls and things like that behind the screen. I always use some variation of “you can’t find anything,” or “nothing appears out of the ordinary to you” whether they miss or there really isn’t anything there.
Cards are great, aren’t they? I can’t believe I ever played without them. I haven’t thought about draping them over the screen, but I keep them in my hand. I also write the player, character, race, class, and name on the PC cards so I can use their character names or other in-game info when I’m talking to them.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for the input. Come back on Friday when I talk about my lessons learned; I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Thanks for the reply!
The advantage of having them over the screen is that both you and the party can see the order. It isn’t as important with only four of you, though. My game has six players and me so its a three-ring circus during combat. I always try to have one player rolling dice while the next one up is planning their move. With six players it really helps when the party knows the initiative and knows they’re coming up before they run off to the bathroom.
Thanks again! I’ll be back Friday.
It’s so fun to experience this with you! Thanks, Wil!
Great writing, Wil. Looking forward to the future installments. You’ve simultaneously brought me back 20+ years while also stoking a fire to bring this part of my life to my kids. Past, future, present in one story. Excellent.
Wil,
I have a 16 year old nephew who is constantly playing video games. I have never had a conversation with him because he is always playing video games. Teenagers should be able to converse with adults. They cannot play video games for the rest of their lives. Or can they?
Freeman 🙁
While I do use 3×5 cards to track initiative, I don’t like the idea of showing the initiative to players directly. Not because I’m a control freak, but I don’t like the players knowing exactly what monsters are involved in the fight. “The zombie horde around the corner hear the cries of combat and are moving in to investigate.” See? This allows me to slide them into the initiative and track it. Instead what we do is say, “Lara, you are up… Leah, you are on deck.” This way Lara does her move, and Leah is preparing for hers.
As you head into KotS, you should check this out. I ran across it a couple of days ago. Too late to help me run the adventure, but just in time for you. Mr. Alexander not only provides a thoughtful critique of the adventure, but earns his solid citizen credentials by giving detailed strategies for improving the areas that he considers weak. He fixes mechanical issues in the design of some the encounters. Then he writes in some additional plot structure that tightens the whole thing up nicely.
Wil,
Thank you for this, it has brought back a ton of memories of my step-dad DMing for me and my friends way back when I was 10 or 11. He’d been DMing my whole life (I interrupted a good dungeon crawl with my birth from what I hear) and his experience as a player and DM brought so much depth to our games that it’s been difficult to re-create it since.
Thank you.
First, as I huddled in the room behind these adventurers and waited to see who would emerge victorious, a thought occurred to me. “People say THIS is a bad thing?”
I have done a little DMing and the idea of rewarding an out of the box idea snuck up on me my first time. I have fire imps and a low level wizard used “create water” right over one of their heads. At the time, I said it didn’t do any damage, but later, I realized that he had been very creative with the meager skills he had at the time, so I learned my lesson.
I’m looking forward to hearing more.
http://www.goinggreenaccidently.blogspot.com
Felicia Day. That’s who needs to join Acquisitions Incorporated next. Please oh please can you help make this happen?
As a rouge, if she’s into that kinda thing. 🙂
It’s Hasbro. They tend to take whatever they have at hand and grind it for cash. Development there is simply about doing their damnedest to keep their products from becoming irreparably ruined by the vast Hasbro cash machine.
That’s probably one of the reasons for why 3.5 and 4e were so close to each other on the calendar. Like a old cartoon miser, their eyes filled with dollar signs, and they forced the game designers to crank out yet another D&D and this time make it so that players had to keep buying new stuff from them constantly.
Edit: Writing this made me feel sad. Think I have to cry silently for a little while, and reflect on the halcyon days where D&D meant quality, not quantity. (Not to say there’s no quality anymore, but the latter has certainly displaced the former in importance in the boardrooms, at least.)
Rogue, you say? (Using the term “rouge” when referring to a woman can be quite insulting in some places and cultures, as it may be a euphemism for a certain career of ill repute. So you might want to fix that typo.)
Considering you can only edit comments within 5 or 10 minutes of posting them, awesome spell checking skills will only serve to point out my sad error and embarrass me even further. Thank you very much. Lets hope that those reading this blog can guess as to what I was referring to considering the topic of D&D, and don’t think of me as less of a person for not being gifted with red squiggly lines warning me of possible cultural offenses. Thank God for you, Chris.
I love that you’re putting up the progress of your campaign here Wil. Where I live there’s very little opportunity for me to get into D&D (though some progress has been made there) so I tend to seek out what stuff I can i.e. the Penny Arcade podcasts and stories like this to live my dreams through. Next to me now are the red dice from that original red box that you were touting in your blog a while ago, I too just ran through the solo adventure in there, sweet memories.
If it’s any consolation, I didn’t know that TypePad restricts editing to within any kind of time frame; there’s certainly no mention of that when I post comments and I’m not a TypePad user. So at least you get to embarrass me by pointing out my ignorance.
(Snarky addition: The red squiggly lines wouldn’t have helped you anyway as rouge is a perfectly cromulent English word.)
ummmm . . . What’s a PC?
I’d like to apologize for getting snappy with you. As I said, I was incredibly embarrassed when it was pointed out, and that coupled with it being 6 in the morning when I read your comment led to me feeling, as Wil puts it, a little stabby. If I could have edited it at the time you brought it up, I’m sure I would have handled that much better.
Also, you’re right about the red squiggles. They’re too busy telling me I spelled “Wil” and “stabby” wrong to help me with the little things. 🙂
Well, I’d like to apologize to you for being such a rude know-it-all in my original comment. Although I know better than to think something like that would change about me… (If you’ve ever seen Stargate Atlantis, I’ll just let slip that I’ve been compared to the character of Rodney MacKay, and not just because I’m Canadian.)
Player Character. These are the people the players of the game control and act out as.