If This Doesn't Offend You, Someone Will Try Again

Consonant Dude · December 06, 2007, 06:56:04 PM

Quote from: WarthurI suspect that once 4E is released half of the controversies we've been discussing so far will seem like utter irrelevancies, with no basis in reality, while half the stuff which will be controversial after 4E comes out will be things we currently have no idea about.

That's most probably true. As Seanchai said in this thread, wild optimism or pessimism at this point in time would not be cautious.

And yeah, I bet some issues will be popularly controversial that we can't even suspect at this point in time.

On a tangent here: looking at WotC's upcoming summer schedule, it's more setting/adventure agressive than the one we got when 3e was released. I think they've figured out Dancey was out to lunch with his "adventures/settings are sinkholes" philosophy.

Which most probably means they will correct the OGL mistake by 5th edition.

ColonelHardisson · December 06, 2007, 08:21:17 PM

Quote from: SettembriniI take this as a snipe from Mearls @ the PR strategy.

You're on the right track, but I see it more as damage control.

Mearls is one of the primary reasons that my hopes for 4e being a game I will like haven't faded away completely yet. These statements by him confirm my faith in him a bit more.

Consonant Dude · December 06, 2007, 08:59:23 PM

Quote from: ColonelHardissonYou're on the right track, but I see it more as damage control.

Mearls is one of the primary reasons that my hopes for 4e being a game I will like haven't faded away completely yet. These statements by him confirm my faith in him a bit more.

To each his own. I wasn't thrilled to learn he was working on the 4th edition. But I'm taking news on 4th edition one at a time and putting my feelings aside.

I'm glad he's not (from what I can gather) messing around with the core engine behind d20 too much and instead concentrating on practical issues as well as the fluff. Mearls is at his best (IMO) when doing fluff.

Pierce Inverarity · December 06, 2007, 09:39:37 PM

Quote from: ColonelHardissonYou're on the right track, but I see it more as damage control.

Spot on, Col.

sithson · December 06, 2007, 09:55:38 PM

Quote from: Old Geezer"An elephant is warm and squishy".

So is it's poo.

LeSquide · December 06, 2007, 10:14:05 PM

Quote from: Consonant DudeThat's most probably true. As Seanchai said in this thread, wild optimism or pessimism at this point in time would not be cautious.

And yeah, I bet some issues will be popularly controversial that we can't even suspect at this point in time.

On a tangent here: looking at WotC's upcoming summer schedule, it's more setting/adventure agressive than the one we got when 3e was released. I think they've figured out Dancey was out to lunch with his "adventures/settings are sinkholes" philosophy.

Which most probably means they will correct the OGL mistake by 5th edition.

My guess is that Dancey looked at some of the infamous TSR boxed sets that were serious money losers, and threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Consonant Dude · December 06, 2007, 10:18:19 PM

Quote from: LeSquideMy guess is that Dancey looked at some of the infamous TSR boxed sets that were serious money losers, and threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Exactly. Didn't try to figure out what happened. It was rather surprising of him.

Drew · December 06, 2007, 11:35:52 PM

Quote from: LeSquideMy guess is that Dancey looked at some of the infamous TSR boxed sets that were serious money losers, and threw the baby out with the bathwater.

It also raises the question of how much received wisdom in the industry is acyually worth a damn. I've seen people cite the failure of TSR as a good enough reason to launch and/or scrap entire product lines, and am left wondering exactly how much of this approach is based on empirical data.

Sean · December 07, 2007, 01:27:07 AM

Last night we had another session of Chris Perkins' newest campaign, called Iomandra and the Dragon Sea. It was a pretty wild session. We had our second death in as many sessions, amid a knock-down, drag-out fight.

Yesterday before the game I grabbed the latest 4th Edition documents off our shared server and updated my eladrin wizard (Vargas) to the newest rules. Took about 5 minutes (one of my feats had been renamed, and another feat that had higher prereqs before but got lowered replaced one of the feats I didn't really want). The new revision of the wizard gave me an additional power (I picked ray of frost so I could slow enemies down), and several of my spells got tweaked a bit (like magic missile). Not much else changed for my character, though, except a few things like ranges on spells or the frequency with which I could use my wand power. So Vargas remains much the same, but with a new trick up his sleeve.

Anyways, we trudged back through the jungle to the village of Terak'n with the body of Garrot (Mat Smith's human fighter, who had died in an orc ambush at the end of the last session). We got back to town, rested, recuperated, and then discovered that Garrot had been mysteriously resurrected thanks to a ring stolen from one of the Sea Kings. After a little bit of investigation of some previous plots (my character's mentor, Aiven, gave me some clues to the origins of a killer who attacked Chris Thomasson's tiefling warlock, Deimos, last session), Mayor van Zarkyn summoned us to his manor to tell us that the green dragon that rules over the island, Keth, wanted someone from the village to investigate a burning ship that was lodged on a sandbar a few miles offshore.

We made it out to the ship, climbed aboard, and started searching for anything valuable. While most of us were on the deck of the ship, Deimos went belowdecks to look in the captain's stateroom. Within seconds Deimos was surrounded by goblins, who rushed out from under debris and other goblins' bodies to ambush him. At one point there were 8 goblin minions, 4 normal goblins, 2 goblin spellcasters, and a crazy uber-goblin spellcaster all surrounding us. Fortunately, Garrot rushed downstairs to help protect Deimos, and Andrew Finch's warlord (Abraxus) followed close behind, with Greg Bilsland's tiefling rogue (Amnon) in tow. Our low-Initiative cleric went down last, while I moved across the top deck to peer down through a grate at the scene below. While they held off the waves of minions, I shot magic missiles and used my fireblast powers to pick off those few that I could see. Once they got out of Vargas' line of sight, I used my fey step power to teleport down below (rather than wasting a full round running to the stairs and then down), behind the goblins, and started flinging my AoE effects. To powers later I'd cleared out most of the minions, and had taken out a chunk of the goblins as well. However, the tide had turned, and we were mopping them up.

That's when a copper dragon landed on the deck of the ship. Amnon, who was notorious for having a grudge against all dragons, attacked it...and then ran down below. Within a few rounds, the copper dragon was now chowing down on our party, much to our chagrin. Half the party was taking acid damage every round at one point, and the dragon's frightful presence froze three characters in their tracks, leaving it up to Vargas, Amnon, and Divin (Curt Gould's half-elf cleric) to try and deal with this. No defender, which made things interesting. I tried to negotiate with the dragon, but even with a solid Diplomacy roll and the half-elf's bonus to my check I couldn't talk it down. Funny how a dragon might stay mad at someone that attacked it, especially since I'm pretty sure it was there to talk to us (it had looked at me curiously but didn't attack, until Amnon shot first and asked questions later). The dragon was tough, and was probably a solo monster (though I didn't have its stats available to me), intended for the whole party to take it on. Since this was part of the same encounter with the goblins, we were running low on resources. The copper dragon zoomed in on Amnon, and a combination of an instant breath weapon attack when the dragon was bloodied and then its bite plus ongoing acid damage killed poor Amnon, making him our second casualty in as many sections.

That's when the goblins who had fled from us decided they were going to "kill the dragon," and in true goblin fashion they set fire to their powder reserves in the cargo hold...which proceeded to blow up the middle section of the ship. The ship falls into two pieces, Deimos is blown clear (and into the water, thankfully), and the copper dragon is unharmed. Sigh. Luckily, Deimos had managed to place an ongoing fire effect on the copper dragon, and as that whittled it down we managed to score a few hits, including an instantaneous magic missile attack from me thanks to one of Abraxus' powers, and Garrot making a monster, max-damage critical hit on the dragon. The dragon vanquished, we picked up our asses (which the dragon had been kind enough to hand to us) and dragged ourselves and our dead back to Terak'n.

It was a hell of a session, and while we spent about the first two hours doing investigation stuff the last two hours were taken up by the monster fight, and then a little bit of conclusion stuff. I used every trick at my disposal, and I'd say the combat probably went on for, oh, 20 rounds or so. It was trouble, and we had some luck. I'm pretty happy with my wizard right now, though I'm looking forward to hunting down some more rituals so I can do some more versatile things. I've discovered the warlord is my friend, letting me use magic missile at some unexpected times, and the minion rules seem to be working very well. The exploding boat in the middle of the fight certainly changed things unexpectedly, but Chris has always been good at using dynamic terrain.

I think at the end of the night we all could safely say that it was our best 4E game yet. Not every one of us had access to the newest version of their classes (the guys from outside R&D have to use our copies, of course, as we can't let them out of our sight) but by next week everyone should be up to date. Good times! Rodney Thompson, WOTC

Now read this

Is Rodney stirring it up or was the party really 2nd level ?

cool session, though !

Settembrini · December 07, 2007, 01:59:02 AM

Cool session?

I´d rather call it void of any soul or enthusiasm.

Sean · December 07, 2007, 02:05:34 AM

Sett just won me £5, cheers

Drew · December 07, 2007, 02:25:17 AM

Twenty rounds of combat in two hours of play seems pretty reasonable by current D&D standards.

I seem to recall reading that 4E combat is designed to have the same running speed regardless of level. I'm guessing that an Epic version of the above would look quite similar, with the principle difference being the amounts of damage being dished out.

I also recall reading that iconic monsters would be scalable, so a 2nd level party wouldn't have to miss out on them when playing through a short or gritty campaign.

Drew · December 07, 2007, 02:27:01 AM

And yes, I read plenty of enthusiasm in the playtest report.

Soul, on the other hand... WTF?

Consonant Dude · December 07, 2007, 03:00:48 AM

Quote from: SeanIs Rodney stirring it up or was the party really 2nd level ?

cool session, though !

Hmmm... I read the thread, he doesn't seem to be kidding.

I am lost as to how they were able to fight so many creatures including a dragon (doing continuous damage) at this level.

A supposition is that some things (such as HP) are now front-loaded at first level instead of linear by level. That might be cool if it is done well and allow smoother play between characters and monsters of different power levels.

It could be a lot of things.

Over at ENWorld, they seem amazed this only took two hours but I am not that impressed. If what looks like an episodic fight (not a story arc clincher or a bigass campaign conclusion) can last two hours, it better be much more exciting for my group than 3e. Otherwise, I doubt I'll buy.

Settembrini · December 07, 2007, 04:15:46 AM

Quote The dragon was tough, and was probably a solo monster (though I didn't have its stats available to me), intended for the whole party to take it on. Since this was part of the same encounter with the goblins, we were running low on resources.

no comment.