Key Our Cars

Ran this encounter a second time.  Same creature mix and numbers, 5 new characters. This time we had a Warden, Shaman, Seeker, Monk and Sorcerer going up against the masses of creatures.  Even without all that much radiant damage what was on the middle of the Hard scale went better, primarily because Action Points were used during the fight as well as some Dailies being tossed out rather than hoarded.

I would like to admire my wife who picked up 5 brand new, no experience at all with them, classes and played them very well.  We did the entire fight in about an hour and a half playtime which given the options/powers she had to learn for each character for the first time and the numbers of monsters in the encounter (25) does her credit.

The map is flipped 180 degrees for anyone a bit lost from the last time.   Same opening sequence as the first play through, party moves up to investigate possible survivor and gets surprised and blasted with scream attack which hits 3 out of 3 this time and knocks them all backwards and prone.   The poor sorcerer gets pushed away from the rest of the group and spends a considerable amount of the fight locked in the embrace of the Steel Thewed Zombie (STZ) she was blown near who’s trying to drop her in the well but between being blinded and all that doesn’t get to.  The sorcerer was dropped to 2 hit points but managed to recover with both a second wind and the use of her Dilettante Inspiring Word daily healing in one round as well as the Shaman moving his Spirit over next to her and providing healing.

The monk’s close burst attack was a good minion clearer and the Warden’s daily Winter’s Grasp did away with 7 or 8 minions by itself.  The zone caused some issues with his own group though as they had to detour around it to avoid taking the damage.

The PC’s focused on the minions primarily at first overall then concentrated on the standards before going after the Elite.   The screamer made a couple of ‘mistakes’ using her Despairing Gaze on the warden even though he was already suffering from being Immobile and Weakened and not mixing her abilities up more like using them against the sorcerer while she was in the STZ’s grab power which granted CA.  But she was pissed at the Warden and focusing on him.   The focus of the STZ with the sorcerer to  drop them in the well also cost them a bit in total damage.

The minions did little damage, I would guess they got into position to hit and actually hit maybe 6-8 times.  Out of 20 minions that’s not great.  Ranged and AOE attacks destroy the poor minions.

Speaking of Range and AOE attacks.  There’s a Hurl Breath feat from Dragon that I had to scale back that the CB picked for the character for me.  It allows Dragonborne to use their breath attack as a Burst 2 within 10.   This COMPLETELY negates the Expanded Breath feat which turns the normal Blast 3 into a Blast 5.   A burst 2 IS a blast 5.  And has the option of centering it up to 10 squares away rather than adjacent to the character.  Why would a player EVER take the expanded breath feat over the toss it 10 squares away?  So I changed it to a Burst 1 within 10.  That seems like a pretty obvious change to me.  And leaves room for the character to take the expanded breath feat in addition and then get a blast 5 usable at range.

As this was another test of my current House Rules, I’m happy to say they’re working well.  Fewer misses (on both sides because missing a lot sucks) make for more exciting faster combats, the average damage for everything reduces dice rolling which speeds combat and eliminates the “Crap, I rolled a 1 on my damage dice” although it also removes the “I rolled max damage on my damage dice.” but I think disappointment trumps triumph in terms of emotional weight.  And you can still roll a critical and really boost the damage to get that emotional high.

Another thing that came out of this is I want to make another style of Initiative Board with perhaps the init cards held between two sheets of plexiglass and some kind of sliding flag in a slot to indicate the current player.

Okay I ran this playtest this afternoon with my wife running the characters.  The party was 6th level and comprised of a Assassin, Fighter, Warlock, Invoker and Bard.  None of the characters were ‘character op’ped’.  I quick built them in the Character Builder then went in and tweaked them where they needed it to make them realistically built.  Things like invalid weapon focuses or powers that didn’t work well with the stat builds and that kind of thing.   I also gave each one a ‘reasonable’ weapon and armour or implement and each one got some minor item that added to their combat effectiveness or recovery.

The set up was the party had been hired by a lord to track down and destroy a band of raiders that were destroying small villages with the usual results.  The lord had lost members of his family to this band and the PC’s were the fastest way to get after them while he raised a real fighting force to deal with them.

The party was closing in but at each village they trailed the raiders to they lost time searching for survivors and when they found them they had to deal with them.  This was the third such village they’d come to and they entered it to check for if there was anyone hurt but still alive.  Several huts were still burning or had collapsed into a pile of glowing embers.  Bodies were scattered everywhere, a large pile of them in the center of town where wagons and small stands cluttered up the area.  The town well’s walls had been collapsed into it and bodies thrown in.  It was not a pretty sight.  The smell of burning flesh filled the area as did a pall of choking smoke from the fires.

The ravens had already arrived and were pecking at some of the corpses, watching the party as they entered the town.   Some of the villagers had been strung up from the rafters gutted and left to die slowly.

As the fighter and bard led the group into the village they spotted movement among the pile of dead in the center and approached it, prepared to help or put out misery whoever was still alive.

Drawing closer they stopped as one of the prone figures stood and then turned to face them,  a woman, eyes put out and a jagged gash across her throat, her front covered with her blood.  She stared at the approaching party with sightless eyes and a savage rage filled expression contorted her face and she screamed, the sound a punishing blast of force that blasted the party backwards, hammering them with sound and knocking them down.

At the horrible cry bodies all around the village rose to their feet, hungry dead eyes lusting for revenge, fueled by rage and as one their heads swiveled toward the party.

The backstory is that the girl’s death, a warlock in life, turned her into a demi-lich of some kind and now she’s driven to protect the village against intruders, any intruders and has brought the other bodies back to un-life to help protect it.

Surprise round over we roll initiative and the combat is on.

The combatants included the five pc’s and one Tortured Remains, 2 x Steel Thewed Zombies, 2 x Hanged Ones and 20 x Pyre Dead.   This is obviously a seriously harsh encounter.  As a result I kept a fairly careful eye on things and the undead didn’t always use their most efficient abilities.  That’s part of my job as the DM, to keep things in check that way.  I would rather dump in an extra 10 minions at the start and finesse their combat output of the encounter as a whole and have them if I need them rather than run ‘light’ and have a boring fight.  Under normal circumstances this would have been a day ender anyway without a couple or three minor skirmishes leading up to with raider stragglers or wild life or some other natural hazard of the area.

The house rules that were in force consisted of these -

• -1/2 level to attack rolls and defenses and skills on both sides.
• +1/2 level in damage to one target of an attack and normal damage for the rest in the case of multiple targets
• +1/2 level to healing abilities like healing words, second winds and healing potions.
• +2 flat bonus to attack rolls
• And to try and reduce the impact of randomness, all attacks did average damage.
• PC’s at dying used the Mostly Dying rule (which came into effect once)

To cut to the chase, the end results were within acceptable ranges and added to the game IMO.  Yours might be different of course.

The fight went well, various AOE’s dealt well with the minions over the course of the adventure which I fully expected which is why I was about to dump 20 minions into this fight.  The Assassin’s Heart of Dust worked VERY well when used against the Tortured Remains which was surrounded by minions.  When the dot procc’ed it killed 5 minions.  Add in the Invoker’s Rebuke Undead and other multiple target attacks from the various characters and the poor minions died in droves the way they’re supposed to.   I did get more than a few hits on the player using the minions which worked well.  The 7 damage a pop slowly ate away at their resources.

All the characters bloodied and most were brought to single digits at least once, all of them used their Second Winds and 2 used Healing Potions, each character was assumed to have one.  The Bard used both his Majestic Words which since he had the Improved feat also granted 5 Temp HP’s.

The Tortured Remains was able to keep various characters controlled, either dazed, weakened or immobilized, but the players never really lost their full turn.  Even when the Invoker went down to 0 health she was able to use the Mostly Dying rule on her next turn to trigger her Second Wind and the turn after that was able to get back into the fight.   Without that rule in effect that character would most likely be dead.   The bard was trapped on the other side of the battlefield and would have most likely died from OA’s trying to get to her and since both his Majestic Word’s had been used the best he could have done was a Healing check to stabilize.

The Steel Thewed Zombies grab attack was successful a few times where they held a PC and granted CA for some of the other monsters and the Bard was tossed down the well once as a result.  The assassin was also thrown into the well from the Tortured Remains burst with push attack which was funny, at least to me.

The assassin knocked the last of the minions down into the well as well with a pushing power which was only fair I suppose. The Assassin as a whole wasn’t too impacting with the battle, he missed a lot but the one time he did manage a hit was with the daily and that cleared a big chunk of minions that would almost certainly have pulped the bard or the fighter on their next turn.

I believe in total the fight took 7-8 rounds and took an hour and 45 minutes.  That might seem long (or maybe it doesn’t) but this was an encounter with 30 total combatants and the characters were complete unknowns to my wife, she’d never played any of these classes before so she spent time looking them over each round to see what might be the best power.  Something that one would hope wouldn’t be the case with players who’d started with these characters and had played them up to this level.

Things that helped contribute to the pacing, hitting more often (10% more often due to the +2 static bonus), doing more damage per hit (an average of +3 damage per hit) and in all honesty not having to roll damage and using average damage for everything except critical hits (we only had one over the course of the fight) sped things up as well.

Although one test does not a conjecture prove, I would at this point be perfectly willing to continue with these changes in a real campaign, assuming I could find enough players to have a real ongoing campaign.

D

Our party of five, Elrach, Gulank, Savron, Bree and Orryn (druid, barbarian, shaman, ranger, bard) were returning with a caravan to their home town, a large fishing village.  They’d gotten a good value for their goods, a plague has decimated the herds further inland and their cargo of fish (dried, salted, oil packed and fresh by ritual) garnered very good prices.

But wait, what’s this?  Pillars of smoke highlight a sullen red glow on the horizon.  Fearing the worst five of the caravan took the 5 horses (our PC’s of course) and rode hard ahead of the caravan to see what was going on.  They found their town in the aftermath of an attack by Zizzors from the swamps to the east.  A large number of zizzors lay dead but tragically just as many of the town’s fighting age/experience villagers lay dead and many more wounded.  Several buildings were burned down but the fires were now under control.  With the fishing fleet out to sea for another week at least most of the hale and hearty are children and women.

Even worse they learn that the zizzors captured many children and young women and fled with them.

Our party immediately goes in pursuit.  Even drastically thinned out from the fight there is still a sizeable force of zizzors that got away.

They proceed on the trail and find the body of a zizzor guardian (large brute) and Gulank (barbarian) moves up to investigate.  Zizzor forces come up out of concealed pits, Gatherer’s (minions), Spinethrowers (artillery), and Redfin Drakes (raptor like pets – skirmishers) and the party is surrounded.  They defeat the combat not easily but without anyone dying, this encounter was at the low end of Hard.

Next up is a three part skill challenge, “Find the Trail through the Swamps”, “Avoid the dangers of the Swamps” and “Reach the Lair Undetected”.  This required 8+ successes to reach the lair and be in an good spot and be undetected.  They made 11 rolls out of their 15 (DC 19) and made it.  If they’ d of failed the consequences would have ranged from the loss of a some Healing Surges by the time they reached the lair to additional encounters against various swamp beasts or zizzor patrols.   Since I’m awarding experience by quest, the additional encounters would have simply been another chance to get someone killed so this is a good thing.

They reached the lair in good shape and without being detected.  They moved to investigate and encounters 2 Guardians (brutes), 2 Spinethrowers (artillery), 1 Clutch Master (elite soldier).  The guardian and clutch master’s free OA when an adjacent enemy is bloodied as a Immediate Reaction proved very hazardous for people but they were able to take care of things although Gulnak went down more than once and only the ability of the party to spend tokens to recharge one attack power kept them alive.  Which is what those things are for and what the system is designed to do so it all worked out very well.

With one of the Spinethrower’s escaping the fight to flee into the gaping mouth of the lair leading down to darkness they  were forced to retreat.  Two very good Nature and Stealth rolls had them making a secure camp that should see them through the night.  Both of them 29’s versus DC 23’s.  It was a spur of the moment thing to do the secure hidden camp but given the area with Zizzor’s roaming around I just decided to have them roll a Nature check to find a good place and a Stealth check to secure it and the Druid and Ranger both nailed their rolls.

We’ll get back to in in a little while (this was on Wednesday) and see if they can find the children and rescue them.  Or die in the attempt.  Or just say to hell with it and go on.

Image Credits

Ran a playtest tonight using the Skeletal Archer’s I made.  I had some concerns about Ripple Fire’s output and I think it needs to be modified/worded to avoid some issues like so:

Ripple Fire (immediate reaction)
Trigger: Dealing damage from ranged attack to target on archer’s turn.
Effect: Allow one adjacent skeletal archer to make an ranged attack against the same target.

The original post has already been updated with these changes and it’s noted there.

The encounter was intended as a ’standard’ difficulty, one of those resource sappers and went like so:

DM: “The wide corridor of the ancient temple still shows its finery in places.  Gold leaf murals line the walls depicting life in the temple and the surrounding lands.  Moldy heaps of rotting fabric lay in clumps at regular intervals where wall hangings have fallen down over the years. Every ten or so feet niches in the walls hold the shallow copper basins that you’ve seen through the temple that still emit a faint reddish glow, enough to light the way but not enough to chase the shadows off.
You’ve come to the far end of the corridor and a set of massive gilded doors, one ajar opened into the room beyond sit in heavy stone frames.   Through the opening you can see what you think is the antechamber of the main hall.  Heavy stone pillars run from floor to ceiling in a wide spread row on each side of a layer of black rotten cloth that was once royal purple.  Four squat stone pedestals hold more copper braziers that light a circle in the room with the dim light.  Each side and the far end are cloaked in heavy shadows but you get a feeling the walls are no more than 5 or 10′ outside the edge of the light.”

Ruwadah (Human rogue, known as Rue): “I’ll slink inside and around the left using the pillars, pedastels as best I can to block myself from sight from the right and other end. I’m going to move to that first pillar on the left.”

Hidden in the shadows at the far end of the room are 8 skeletal archers and 2 skeletons.  They stand motionless waiting for anything to enter the room at which point they will attack.   If the room is empty as far as they can tell, they will return to their guard posts and wait again.
The archers get surprise by default as Rue or the others have no way to detect them and shoot at Rue although for most of them its merely reactionary fire as they can’t see her but for the 3 ahead of her they have a clear line of fire.  Unfortunately for the skeletons, they miss.

DM: “Arrows, many arrows come sleeting out of the dark to the south and pepper the walls and pillar, two or three come from straight ahead, barely missing.”

Rue: “Time to backpeddle!  I run back to the entrance.”

Rue ends up running straight back to the entrance unlike her entry which has her passing over a trigger stone in the floor which sinks slightly under her foot.

The archers stand down as Rue leaves the room and the two skeletons which would have started forward step back into place.

DM: “Behind you about 30′ down the corridor with a rusty grating noise iron bars drop from the ceiling and crash against the floor scattering sparks that leave an afterimage on your eyes.”

Group: A universal “Well [bleep]” goes up.

The party which consists of Rue,  Layus our ranger from the goblin fights, Erica a cleric, and Ull, a warlord listen intently using the closed side of the double doors as cover from the contents of the room.  As seconds tick away they hear nothing.  Layus pulls out a clay jar of lamp oil, ties a strip of oil soak cloth to it, lights the cloth and steps inside to pitch it toward the dark shadows of the far side.  The clay shatters and flames spread out over the floor lighting up a goodly portion of the end and left of the room revealing the skeletons.

Triggered by Layus’s entry into the room the skeletons nock arrows and draw swords.   The initiative order after rolling is:

1. Archer group A, aka AA
2. Ull
3. Erica
4. Layus
5. Archer group B, aka AB
6. Rue
7. Skeletons, aka SA and SB where appropriate.

Round 1:

AA: Loose arrows at Layus still inside the room.  All four miss. “Arrows thud into the door and wall around you striking sparks even as the rusted barbed heads shatter.  You feel a tug and a small wisp of hair floats down to the ground from an arrow slicing through the space above your right ear.”

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This is a round by round description of the 4th encounter done using 4th Edition.  If you spot any obvious mistakes here please let me know.  It was a known given that there would be an extended rest after this encounter so burning Dailies wasn’t out of the question.

The party consisted of a Eladrin Wizard, Elvish Ranger (talk about the stereotypes), a Half-Elf Rogue and a Dwarven (Dwarvish?) Fighter.   The encounter was as standard goblin (for me) ambush, artillery to prevent running by shooting the dray animals and generate harassing fire while foot troops go into keep things occupied and in general smash things up.

Players failed passive perception checks to note the 2 Goblin Sharpshooters.  The 6 Goblin MInions and 2 Goblin Warriors were for all intents and purposes undetectable they were so far back in the woods along the road. That’s why they didn’t do anything but double move the surprise round and the only attack was the Sharpshooters.

Surprise Round:

Sharphooter A: Shoots, rolls 20, (things are starting off well for the bad guys!) for max damage. 
Sharpshooter B: Shoots, rolls hit, rolls only 1 point short of max damage on damage dice.

(DM: I essentially dropped the mule at this point.  I know that the riding horse had more points than the bad guys dealt (total of 31) but this mule was old and feeble so I essentially keyed their car so to speak and had it drop in its tracks squealing on the ground tangled up in the traces)

Initiative Round:

Goblins rolled really well on initiative.  One 20 and two high teens.  But Lacee has Improved Initiative and Mog and Ironfist rolled excellent as well. So the order ended up:

• Lacee
• Goblin Minions
• Mog
• Ironfist
• Sharpshooters
• Warriors
• Darta.

(DM: I’ve put the PC’s current health in parens next to their names at the start of their turn)

Round 1:

Lacee(26): Uses Hunter’s Quarry + Twin Strike on Sniper, miss, miss, uses Eleven Accuracy, hits sniper.
Goblin Minions: Reserve their action still out of sight of the road.
Mog(24) – Uses Sly Flourish with her hand crossbow. Miss.  Attaches crossbow to belt as she runs after Sharpshooter on the right.
(DM: The amount of incoming is still unknown, only the two sharpshooters are visible)
Ironfist(33): Shoots his heavy crossbow at sharpshooter on the left. Miss.  Move action to reload. He doesn’t want to get too far from the wagon just yet.
Sharpshooter A: Shoots Lacee for 7, moves behind cover, reloads.
Sharpshooter B: Shoots at oncoming Mog, misses, drops crossbow and draws sword.
Warrior A: Moves up into sight.  Uses Great Position power and hurls javelin at Darta and misses.
Warrior B: Moves up into sight. Uses Great Position power and hurls javelin at Lacee and misses.
Goblin Minions (DM: reserved to go after warriors): Double moves up into sight passing Warriors and heading toward wagon and assorted PC’s.
Darta(25): Uses Scorching Burst to catch Warrior and two Minions in blast.  Misses both minions, hits Warrior B for 7 damage.
(DM: I don’t always record the damage done but if I did I’ll reiterate it here.)

Round 2:
Lacee(19): Shifts one to get out of melee range and avoid OA’s.  Uses Twin Strike and gets one crit and one miss on Minions running at her.  Same ones that were missed by Darta’s Scorching BLast.
(DM: Characters don’t know who minons are until they hit them.)
Goblin Minion A: Hits Ironfist for 4 damage
Goblin Minion B: Hits Ironfist for 4 damage.
Goblin Minion C: Moves, hits Lacee reducing her to 14 damage.
Goblin Minion D: Tries to move past Lacee to get Combat Advantage.  Ends up getting dead from Opportunity Attack from Lacee.
Mog(24): Moves after Sharpshooter again, draws Shortsword, uses Sly Flourish and hits for 11 damage.
(DM: Mog gets +7 damage on Sly Flourish, nothing to sneeze at all.  And entirely non-powergamed)
Ironfist(25): Drops his bow, minor to draw Maul and uses Cleave on minions.  Hits one, killing it and Cleave damage kills second one.
Sharpshooter A: Failed stealth check, shoots and misses Ironfist.
Sharpshooter B: Swings at Mog, hits taking her down to 19.
Warrior A: Moves at a slant and uses Great Position to hurl Javelin at Ironfist and hits leaving IF with 17 hit points. 
(DM: Great Position by the way adds 1d6 damage to the goblins ranged attack if they move 4+ squares from where they started).
Warrior B: Climbs up onto wagon after Darta, wagon ruled Difficult Terrain so he’s unable to do more than move this turn.
Darta(25): Uses Fey Step to move 5 squares in front of wagon away from slavering goblin warrior and uses Force Orb on Warrior A and a minion.  Kills Minion but misses Warrior.

Round 3:
Lacee(14): Shifts to get out of melee range, uses Twin Strike on Sharpshooter A with one hit and one miss.  Uses minor to Hunter Quarry nearest goblin.
Minion A (last one): Shifts and hits Lacee reducing her to 10 hit points.
Mog(19): Uses Diletannte power, Nimble Strike to shift 1, misses attack, then shift 1 to put Sharpshooter B between it and the wagon so she can see how her friends were doing.
(DM: That had no real tactical value but was a roleplaying thing)
Ironfist(17): Moves up to Warrior A and misses.  (Probably Sure Strike but didn’t note it)
Sharpshooter A: Shoots at Darta and hits reducing her to 19 health and moves to gain concealment.
Sharpshooter B: Misses Mog
Warrior B: Moves off wagon using Great Position to hurl javelin and hits Darta reducing her to 11 hit points.
Warrior A: Stand its ground against the dwarf and jabs him with a spear hitting Ironfist and reducing the warrior to 12 hit points.
Darta(11): More than a little concerned, getting shot from two locations, uses Acid Arrow against Warrior B and hits.
(DM: Actually splashing acid on the mule and finishing it off at this point)

Round 4:
Lacee(10): After calculating the moves, tosses her bow down, pulls scimitar with minor, pulls dagger using move action and uses Twin Strike on minion.  She hits with scimitar and dagger both, dead minion.
Mog(19): Shifts 1, uses Sly Flourish, misses.
Ironfist(12): Uses Sure Strike and misses. 
Sharpshooter B: Uses shortsword against Mog and hits reducing her to 14 health.
(DM: Kinda humorous, two stealth classes ending up in a shortsword duel where neither can use their best powers against the other)
Sharpshooter A: Gains stealth and shoots Ironfist in the back for 15 damage taking our doughty warrior down to negative three.
(DM: Man down!  Man down!)
Warrior B: Takes 5 damage from Darta, moves and uses Great Position and hits Darta reducing her to 1 health.
(DM: Ouch.)
Darta(1): Uses standard action to use Second Wind.  Spends Action Point to use Magic Missile and rolls exactly what she needed to hit and drops Warrior B one square away.

Round 5:
Lacee(10): Minor action to Hunter’s Quarry Warrior B, moves to melee and Twin Strike for a miss and a miss.
Mog(14): Sly flourishes Sharpshooter B and htis for 13 damage. With the dwarf down and Darta reeling, uses Action Point to use Sly Flourish again and hits one more time for 12 points of damage.  Go go rogue!  Sharpshooter B is down.
Ironfist(-3): Death save, no change.
Sharpshooter A: Moves out of sight behind bushes and trees with two move and run actions to pop up near Warrior A.
Warrior A: Move, uses Great Position, misses Lacee.
Darta(7): Moves up to Ironfist and performs Heal Check against DC 15 with 0 skill.  But manages somehow to stop the bleeding and Ironfist is stabilized.

Round 6:
Lacee(10):  Picks up bow and Splits the Tree, shooting at Sharpshooter and Warrior, first roll a miss, second roll a hit!  15 damage to both.
Mog(14): Sheathes sword, unsheath crossbow, moves up.
Ironfist (-3): Lays unconcous
Sharshooter A: Shoots Darta and hits for 10 damage. Reducing her to -3 and down goes the wizard.
Warrior A: Moves at an angle to get clear of sharpshooter so Lacee can’t keep hitting them both and uses Great Position and hits Lacee reducing her to 3 health.
Darta(-3): Death save but no change.

Round 7:
Lacee(3): Two Fang Strike on Sharpshooter.  One miss and one hit for 14 damage and down goes Sharpshooter A.
Mog(14): Reloads crossbow, moves (gaining flanking), shoots and hits Warrior A for 13 damage
(DM: Leaving it with 1)
Ironfist(-3): Contemplates things in his stabalized unconcious state.
Warrior A: Charges at Lacee with spear and rolls…. a one.
Darta(-3): Death save but no change.

Round 8:
Lacee(3): Hunter Quarries, has Combat Advantage from flanking, Twin Strikes Warrior hitting once and killing it.
Mog(14): Moves to Darta and tries to Heal.  Fails.
Ironfist(-3): Dances a jig, okay actually he’s still unconcious.
Darta(-3): Rolls a 20 and self stablizes and spends healing sure.

Wrapup:
We get Ironfist properly stablized to the point where he can spend a surge and everyone surges up to full health and they take a break to get their encounter powers back.  Darta and Lacee both used their Dailies, Acid Arrow and Splitting the Tree to good effect and Darta would almost definitely have dropped before stabalizing Ironfist if she hadn’t. Warrior B was one square away from ripping her a new one.

So now we have four characters stuck on the road several miles from camp with a heavy wagon load of supplies and four characters back at the tower working on it and it’ll be a day or two before they start to wonder what’s wrong.

Things that could have gone better were a few.  The use of Second WInd earlier before things got critical.  Ironfist could have used his Comeback Strike but Cleave was a better option at the time and he wanted to use it on that javelin flingin’ son of a bitch but delayed one round too long.

Mistakes, I was handing out bonus damage in a couple of places where I was adding in +STR or +DEX when it should have been weapon only.

But there you have it a round by round byplay of an encounter in 4th Edition.

Image Credits

Well I had another playtest.  This time with the two new characters, a eladrin wizard and an elvish ranger.  The wizard is a bubble head by the name of Darta, she’s a little timid and scares easily.  When chased down by one goblin warrior she panicked and hit him with an Acid Arrow.  As it turns out that probably saved her life but at the time she didn’t know that.  Lacee the elvish ranger is calm on the battlefield, moving and shifting to gain best advantage for his bow or scimitar+dagger combo as the case may be.  Yes yes, I know, elf, ranger, scimitar but while my group fairly dislikes the big Drizzle they still don’t let it screw with their own concepts.

The battle in this case is set up like so.  Ironfist (remember him?) and Mog the Rogue (and here she is) have made another trip to town leaving the other four members (and here’s something on them) back at the tower working after the goblin attack left them bereft of a palisade around their supply hut and in general they’re trying to make the place more defensible.  These play tests are kinda sorta turning into a bit of a themed series.

Anyway, Ironfist and Mog over a game of Trollops and Trolls strike up a conversation with Darta how has a partner, Lacee who’s been supplying the three local taverns with meat while she’s researching some rituals.  Because of a slight… display when ritual went wrong they’ve been given orders to leave the town, well Darta has but Lacee is willing to go with her, knowing that she couldn’t make it on her own very long between cities.

So Ironfist, Mog, Darta and Lacee head back to the tower with a newly purchased wagon stuffed with supplies pulled by a bony swaybacked almost dead mule.  Hey draft animals cost money.  And besides with the Rules As Written, Ironfist could do a better job than a horse at pulling things.

They’re a few miles from the tower, up ahead and to the right they can see the last hill that leads them through Udai pass up to their watchtower.

And then Sssssssssstttt!  Thunk! A crossbow bolt thuds into the mule’s throat from the right.  A split second later another sinks deep into its eye socket from the left.  (Party failed its passive perception check against the goblins and one sharpshooter got a critical and the other rolled only 1 short of critical damage total so I just ganked the mule dropping it in its tracks).

And we have our 4th encounter.  Our four heroes, well technically 3 heroines and 1 hero (a lot higher rate of females in this character build), face down two goblin sharpshooters, two goblin warriors and six goblin cutters.   During the process Ironfist and Darta both go down but Mog and Lacee manage to pull the irons out of the fire before it becomes a total wipe.

The encounter was rated as Hard, 600 exp against 4 characters and it did turn out that way.  Two characters down, and two pretty badly beaten up before they downed all of them.  One thing did come to light, don’t wait till single digits to use Second Chances.  Ironfist didn’t get to use his thanks to a big critical with extra damage from one of the goblin warriors.  Frankly their Great Position power rocks.  Move 4 or more spaces and gain 1d6 on ranged attacks.  I had the two of them zig zagging across the trail just to get that extra d6 damage and it worked out well.  Or not well depending on your point of view.

I’ve actually got a character by character round by round (7 rounds to resolve the combat) description that I may write up tomorrow at some point as an example of game play which I personally love to read. Plus people can read it and go “OMG that’s not how that works you ‘tard!” and I can then figure out how to do it the right way or at least the way according to the rules.

Another thing that came out of it is that Rogues all by their self have a tough row to hoe, Mog went after one of the sharpshooters and as a result pretty much was reduced to Sly Flourish although for her that’s a 1d6+7 damage so it’s nothing to sneeze at.  But she only managed to get combat advantage in the very last round and Lacee ganked the last warrior before she was able to take advantage of it.

Here’s a snapshot of the end of the Round 1 which was preceded by the Suprise round of course.  Here you can see how our heroes have manuvered themselves as well as the two sided charge of the minions and the Warriors.  The warriors didn’t get as far since they hurled javelins on their way in, the minons being armed with short swords rushed straight in using two moves.   The red X’s are where Darta used her Scorching Burst.

Image Credits Darta Lacee

Had another playtest in our ongoing series of events. Temple crafted a human cleric and a half elf rogue, next time we’ll do a ranger and a wizard. And then we’ll have covered the basic classes. Anyway we start off with our crew, such that it is, in their new (to them) tower home. The, warlord, paladin, warlock and fighter have gone off to town to arrange for a construction crew to come out and get the serious repairs started. The six of them have though started the rebuilding and have had some supplies delivered out. To protect their supplies they’ve constructed a rough outbuilding, really not much from than several posts sunk into the ground and crude planks nailed to the sides and top to keep the worst of the weather off their materials. Inside they have better crafted wood, spikes, rope, tools and the like that will go into the rebuilding process. Around that they’ve thrown up a palisade of cut down saplings and trees to form a wall.

Where do they get the money for this you ask? *DM hand wave* Even as a keying your car on the way out kinda DM I’ll hand wave some things just because I can use them.

Right now as it stands the party is seriously pissing off a local goblin tribe and that my friends is what you call plot thread material. And plot thread material is worth a few hundred gold in materials and labor to spruce up an old watchtower to give the players a base of operations. Plus it gives them some place to store their stuff while they’re out adventuring and then I can take that stuff through burglary or theft.

Okay anyway, the rogue and the cleric are inside the tower and they *sniff sniff* smell smoke. Well that’s unusual. The rogue swiftly climbs up to the top of the tower, still no upper floor and the balcony is fairly dangerous. but he makes it to the top without a problem. From up there he shouts down to the cleric that the wall around the storage shed is on fire in a couple of places and as he watches a torch comes flying over it to land on top to spit and smolder. Luckily because they’re using green wood for the most part for the shed it’s very difficult to set alight.

The rogue spots a goblin in the underbrush gathering more wood for the fire and lets fire with a bolt from his hand crossbow and drops the goblin gurgling to the ground, blood pulsing from a punctured artery. He ducks involuntarily as with a *whiiif crack* a projectile cuts through the air next to his head. Peeking over the top of the low battlement he scans the woods but sees nothing.

Our goblins consist of 2 Minions, 2 Mooks and one Goblin Sharpshooter. The Mooks are simply Minions but with a damage threshold. If you don’t do at least 5 points of damage to them they’re still up and running. Next time I’ll ease that up to 7 or even 8 points I think as with the basic +’s that even 1st level characters get thats close to their minimums. The rogue hits for a minimum of 5 points at range and cleric’s with their Lance of Flame and assuming a 18 in a stat also do a minimum of 5 points. So I think we’ll assume a base of 4 plus half the average die, in this case a d7 or 4 points of damage so a threshold of 8 points for Mook should work out a little better. As it was at 5 points they might as well have been Minions, one point kills.

The cleric heads outside and then climbs down the side of the upper steps to drop off on the side of the

shed. With shrill cries of war, two of the lesser goblins charged the cleric and she drops one with a Lance of Flame. Then another one goes down on the next round when it’s her turn without her taking any damage.

Not so much with our intrepid rogue up above. Our Sharpshooter nails him with a max damage bolt after another miss. The goblin’s stealth and the environment it was in, (medium woods and underbrush) made it very hard to spot but the rogue does see him though eventually and fires. Rolled a 1. D’oh. The goblin doesn’t even notice the shot. He shoots back and *Thwack!* another max damage hit. The rogue has already used his first Second Wind to recover some damage after the first hit. So now he’s down 14 points out of 24. He fires back and creases the goblin but the goblin’s vengeance is swift and it lands a bolt deep in the heroic rogue’s chest and the rogue falls backwards at 0 hit points.

Meanwhile our cleric is advancing to the shed and gets inside the walls when she hears running footsteps and turns to use a readied action to Flame the last Mook.

She goes into the shed and grabs a ladder and uses that to climb up and her quarterstaff to knock the burning torch off the shed. She drops down and realizes that she hasn’t heard anything from the rogue above. She moves back to the edge of the tower as she senses something is wrong after calling up and hearing nothing she uses Healing Word to generate an aura of healing around herself which catches the rogue in its effect and he’s able to recover from his death rolls and use a Healing Surge.

The rogue, shaken, climbs down or tries to, slips and falls and takes 2d10 damage knocking himself to negative 10. The cleric hearing the thud runs back inside and uses her second Healing Word to let him recover, again.

They wait in silence a bit, the battered and blood(ied) rogue and the pristine cleric but the sounds of the woods around them slowly recover as the animals and bugs began going about their business.

I’d decided the Sharpshooter at this point would simply Stealth away to render the latest bad news to the goblin chieften and thus ended the encounter. Next time we’ll playtest with two of the current 6 characters and bring in some travlers, a ranger and a wizard who’ve stopped by the tower out of curiosity as the goblins retaliate at this affront to their territorial rights, at least as they see their territorial rights.

The Sharpshooter with it’s high stealth and not coming unstealthed after a miss is a pretty tough little beast in the right setting and this was certainly a setting it was able to shine in. This also indicated the necessary increase in hitpoints for the mooks to help distinguish them from Minions.

Image Credits – Cleric
Image Credits – Goblin
Image Credits – Rogue