After spending the past 4 months intimately involved with this seminal Dungeons and Dragons 4E Introductory adventure, I have learned many things about 4e, and it has helped me to grow and become a better DM. With the exception of a handful “playtest” 4e sessions around X-mas time 2009, my group began our 4e campaign with Keep on the Shadowfell.
The adventure had been out for 18 months by this time, and I had heard many stories about the adventure, some good, some bad. It was invariably compared to the original dungeons and dragons basic set adventure Keep on the Borderlands. Some reviews skewered it for inconsistencies with the rules of 4e (it came out a few weeks before the core rulebooks) and for requiring to much “prep work” to fit it into workable shape. Indeed, a year after its release, Wizards of the Coast re-released it as a freely downloadable adventure, and updated much of it based on user feedback. I used an original store-bought version of the adventure, but I did print out specific encounters as they were updated in the online version.
We suffered few problems while playing through this adventure, and thoroughly enjoyed it.The adventure showcased much of what was new and exciting to the 4th Edition. We learned much in those first few weeks of play, and by the mid-point of the adventure I was champing at the bit to design my own encounters, as we’ll also see.
Sadly, this retrospective is especially necessary due to the fact that those first few weeks were not recounted in prose. Therefore this shall serve a dual purpose as a rettelling of those first few weeks of our adventures in 4e.
What came before
The campaign officially began on the second Friday in January. Prior to that, we had a few playtest sessions. Halloween themed 4E playtest of 1st Edition classic adventure The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, converted in a semi-improvisational manner. In November we played Dungeon Delve’s initial offering, but only made it through the first two encounters. twice I played a delve I had written High Noon on Ant Hill in December. The first time was for my son’s Star Wars RPG group of junior-high kids. We only experienced the first encounter, but it was great fun. The second Ant Hill was stretched over two nights and the final encounter resulted in the death of the party.
Between these Friday game night playtests, we were wrapping up our 3rd edition game. Or I should say I was becoming increasingly frustrated with our 18 month long campaign as the characters advanced to tenth level and beyond. A fresh break was needed, and while the Ant Hill fiasco soured many of the group on 4e, I was both confident, and just as important, invested in 4e. So after X-mas break, we started up the game. The players had been testing different character concepts over the past few months, and now they settled on a race and class and built characters over the break. The entire group used the Character Builder to create their characters, for which I have a subscription.
Aside: The Character Builder by WotC is an incredible resource, and almost reason in and of itself to switch over to 4th Edition. it is a breeze to use and practically eliminates much of the time consuming, confusing paper-work of character creation (at least until you get to the feat section, but thats another story.) This program also allows for easy updating of characters. Often, my players will arrive 10-15 minutes early to update their characters and reprint them before the game starts. The fact that all the math is done really helps speed up some of the slowness of combat at the table. Great program, and special thanks to Tim, one of the players in my game who offered to pay half the cost of a yearly subscription.
It started with a kiss (Kobolds In Some Shrubs)
It started with a kobold ambush, an iconic low level trashy little mob of beasties attacking from hidden positions, the main twist being that it is an outdoor map, much to the delight of the elves and primal characters in the party. The battle was difficult for the party as they learned their skills, powers, and other abilities. The dragonshield Kobolds especially, with their high armor class and hit points were especially challenging, while the minions were an instant hit and were also pretty much instantly hit and killed. After months of practice games, this was the first real test for the party with characters who “mattered” so to speak, and I would categorize it as a success. The party was caught off guard by the toughness of their kobold opponents, but succeeded in killing hem without any serious injury.
The awesomeness of 4e monster design was really showcased here. Multiple kobolds of varying abilities – some incredibly hard to drop with their shields fabricated from a dragon scale, to the one-hit wonder minions. Multiple types of individual monsters in each broad category is a great way to design monsters, and I think, to keep selling future monster manuals. I hope to have 100 unique types of kobolds eventually.
After the fight, the party arrived at Winterhaven and sought out Douven, an elder of their guild. The party members were each new members of the Vanguard Society which was a loose affiliation of groups and establishments banded together in a guild for the purpose of carving civilization out of the dark age that the world of D’ Erte has fallen into. Reaping the treasures of a lost age was a major draw for the employment of adventurers.
These new members were sent far north from our previous stomping ground of Greater Shalazar, into the northernlands to meet with an elder member of the Society named Douven who happened upon a worrisome but mysterious discovery. Meeting his wife in the tenements that lined the heavy stout walls of Winterhaven, they learned he had been missing a week while scouting a supposed dragon’s burial mound he had discovered. Meeting the town’s Lord Padrag, they spoke of the kobold infestation and he offered them gold to rid Winterhaven of the pests.
The party spent the night in the inn and the next session saw them in town preparing to leave. They decided they would investigate the burial ground first, then head over to the kobold lair, which they were told lies somewhere to the south-east. They meet two elves who live in the town, Delphina the moon-eyed elf who spends her days picking flowers and forest herbs in the surrounding woods, and Ninaren the mysterious scowling elf, who speaks little.
Following the king’s road out of town, they soon tun onto a side trail to the south and are once again ambushed by kobolds. One of them shouting “You killed my brother!” before attacking. More dragonshields and a wyrmpriest. A legendary joke came out of the beginning of this battle. We had a guest player who was playing a human wizard named Mad Martigan. This person was new to the game, and was worried, but another player assured him that he would protect him. So as they were talking Tim said “I will protect the wizard,” and placed his miniature at the rear of the party, just behind the wizard. Just then I announced their surprise by the kobolds. After the wyrmpriest attacked, it was Tim’s turn to go first, who promptly announced “I am going to stop protecting the wizard now” in order to run after the wyrmpriest.
The kobolds were dispatched with alacrity.
I thought it was a good idea at the time….
If only more than 95 people could read this!
[…] Game Night May 7 – Interlude at the Welcome Wench Game Night May 14 – Trolls under the bridge Keep on the Shadowfell, a retrospective part 1 Game Night June 19th – Dark Star and the 7 Daughters of the Eldritch Giant Game Night June 26th […]