The 4E World of Errin #2

Where to start? Where to start?

First off, we’ve confirmed that 4E combat is not quicker. They just made all of the combats take longer.

I know I’ve said it before, but that was with us only having played a few sessions. Now that we’ve played for 7 months, we’ve confirmed it.

In 3E, non-special level 1 combats took 10-20 minutes and similar level 7 combats took 1-2 hours.
In 4E, the same types of combats take 30-60 minutes and 1-2 hours respectively.
The last time I checked, 30 minutes was more than 10.

But maybe I’m wrong. I did go to public school after all.

Second, on more than one occasion the players in my group have stepped on each other’s toes when using their powers.
Player A wants to use cool power X on his turn, but that is ruined when player B uses power Y.

The only solution to this problem is full communication of everyone’s abilities before combat and stating what you intend to do, or reading everything everyone can do and still communicating what you intend to do during combat.

So now, to keep the combat flowing, each player has to be tactically aware and be able to decide quickly what he’s doing.

Now you’re probably thinking “Well most of those issues will go away when you learn the classes better.”
Maybe, but I’m not betting on it. They’re adding several new classes and races each year.

Now I’m not saying everything about 4E is bad, but the above 2 issues are pretty big and they can’t be ignored (like social skill challenges).

So far I like that everyone has cool abilities, casters never run out of spells, healers are not absolutely required (arguable), action points, combat situations are simplified, and yes – the easier job a DM has (double-edged sword huh?).

Plus we can’t go back to 3.5 D&D. Aaron sold all of his books.

Though I do have several copies (10+) of the Basic D&D books (the RBGBG books and the Rules Cyclopedia) we could use if we just up and abandoned this edition D&D.

Why do I have so many copies of the old game? Because I can.

Comment: Dale read on the WotC forums that it’s “bad form” for a DM to ignore the marks the PC’s put on monsters during combat. My response to that is “Shut the hell up! Play monsters how they would act in the situation; knowing the consequences of their actions.”

Monsters aren’t playing footsy; they’re fighting for food, treasure, etc.
Monsters should not simply be mobile chunks of XP.

Now for the game.

Our cast of characters:
Brian’s human swordmage Kal (job = defender)
Scott’s dragonborn cleric Sephira (job = melee striker/healer)
Mike’s human bard Renald (job = miscellaneous)
Aaron’s dragonborn fighter/cleric Shamash (job = defender)
My halfling ranger/rogue Wildeyes (job = striker)

Looking at the math a little closer, I think I might have been wrong on my character doing more damage in the long run than a pure rogue or rogue/ranger multiclass. I have changed my mind to that they are about the same overall in damage output. Roughly, rogues hit half as often, for twice as much.

My hope is that having 2 magic weapons gives the ranger a bit of a boost because in 4E, critical hits are king. Having double chances at a crit gives the ranger a slight edge. The problem is getting two magical weapons.

We last stopped after losing a lot of body hair to some fire beetles, all for 15gp a piece.

Dale either ret-conned us or failed to let us know that we had made it to the fire beetle lair by riding a barge downstream for a day. So we had to walk back to Hillside over 3 days.

(We didn’t mind. Random encounters = XP.)

First we came across a halfling named Stoat. He proclaimed that he was the fellow in charge of this toll road and we had to pay up.

And wouldn’t you know it; he had misplaced the appropriate signed and notarized documents.

Wildeyes keen ears confirmed what we suspected; there were others hiding behind some trees.

Things did not go as well as Stoat had hoped. Not only did we not pay his toll, we killed him, his 3 sneak attacking flunkies, and his pet wolf. And then we skinned his wolf, and got a nice price for it later.

We found a note on Stoat stating his purpose from “the big man” was to harass people on the road and to leave the kobolds alone. Ooh, foreshadowing.

We saw no evidence of kobolds anywhere along the way, but made note of it for possible checking later.

Next we were surrounded and ambushed by some wolves. They put up more of a fight, but we killed and skinned them too.

Mike kept rolling crit after crit with his ranged attacks. I, on the other hand, hit consistently but with no crits, and rolled pathetic damage. Where last week I was doing kick ass damage. Some striker I am.

We were on a streak of random encounters, but Dale decided the third one would be a force of Michaeline knights on patrol (think of them as a very zealous anti-evil highway patrol).

The eight knights investigate our camp, and ended up sharing it with us.

Although Wildeyes isn’t a big fan of cops, they won him over when they gave us 85gp as a reward for taking out Stoat and his bandits and we rode with them back to Hillside.

We did tell them about the kobolds, though we realized later that they would probably wipe out the kobolds, thus removing any chance for us to make any money off of it.

Once we were back to town, Captain Dathry extended an invitation to have dinner with him sometime soon.

Back in town we first turned in the fire beetles to the halfling Mitt Woodweller, owner and proprietor of the Singing Trout Inn, and mater culinary chef.

Think of him as a talkative 4’ tall used car salesman.

Although he was a bit disappointed that we brought none back alive, he was still quite pleased and invited us to stay and try out the first beetle he cooked. We left the place fat, happy, a small bit richer, and Kal was working on a scheme for us.

One of the things we had at the Singing Trout was some Mithril River Dolphin. This really disturbed Kal and he was able to convince Mitt to give us 1000gp in starting money to create a Mithril River Marine Animal Conservation Group (the name is still being worked on).

Later Kal was able to get us a boat from Bob’s Boats to travel the river on our mission.

Now Wildeyes has no care about the mithril river dolphins. They’re tasty and delicious. But he wants his 200gp cut of that 1000gp.

We told Mitt and Bob that we were going to help the dolphins by taking out their predators. We didn’t mention who or what we might consider to be predators.

We checked with Burgoyne about new jobs. He had none for us and he was ticked at us for tipping off the Knights of Saint Michael about the kobolds.

Wildeyes heard of a ranger’s guild/school called Rinita’s School of Blades and Bows. He paid 10gp to join with the hopes that he could use the place as a contact point or to find potential adventuring jobs.

The barkeep at the Magic Mushroom mentioned that there was a warlock name Trulor who might be a step up from Burgoyne in finding us jobs, but he doesn’t work with new groups.

The next evening we took up Captain Dathry’s offer to eat with the Michaelines, and it was nothing short of a feast fit for royalty.

Dathry also told us that the local temple of Moradin had need of some guards who would be willing to escort a funeral procession into the Underdark to a place known as the Hall of Ages.

The next morning we met with the dwarven priest Kosar Soulhammer and agreed to the escort job.

He mentioned something about a necromancer being active in that area.

That’s ok. We’re surprised Dale was able to contain himself to throwing undead at us until week 3.

It was a little early, but the fight would have taken more than an hour, so we stopped for the week.