[DnD] More Kobold Bashing
By Orklord on Jun 10, 2009 in Play Reports, Rich's Journal
My Monday face-to-face group continued deeper into the Keep on the Shadowfell module for D&D 4th edition.
We agreed that instead of heading straight into the keep that the party would follow a lead on a cave of marauding kobolds; we immediately jumped to map combat with some kobolds on the road to the caves.
This fight had some bizarre moments including:
- One player running from the fight in order to use a healing surge unmolested; it was weird because we had no attacks of opportunity, so he just ran away, healed up, then ran back in, throwing knives
- After my wizard put one kobold to sleep (with hopes to question him later), a player decided to kick the kobold in the head to look cool, but the DM decided the enemy woke up and started attacking immediately, which just prolonged the fight and we ended up having to kill the “prisoner”
- The death of the woken-up kobold didn’t matter because the DM told us we made it straight to another encounter with some more kobolds in front of a waterfall. The funniest part of the fight was “the minion that wouldn’t die” who survived two area effect spells and 10 melee attacks and ended up putting Miri the elven warlord down to bloodied before I had my eladrin wizard, nearly out of powers, whack him on the head with his quarterstaff
- The tiefling rogue found a neat little necklace on the leader kobold with a skull for Orcus on it – yay Orcus
- One kobold retreated into the waterfall and the party followed him in.
- At the end of the game, the DM granted a big XP amount because he wanted us to level, which we did; yay second level, I have feather fall now!
Next week, we enter the waterfall to defeat the kobold threat!
(On a personal note, this module was reviewed by others as one string of fights and a friend told me it was a pretty big module. So far we’ve played twice, had three fights and an hour of chatting with NPCs. We’ve just made it to the kobold caves with hints of a dragon’s graveyard and the Keep itself to go. With the limited amount of time our group has to slog through Keep on the Shadowfell, I am worried this could take months! Playing KotS and 4E has been a bit frustrating. This is mostly because I tend towards more “talky” games, we’re all pretty green on the combat strategies AND we’re low level, so the fights take a looooong time)
Your wizard might went to tell your DM that only a successful save will awaken a creature under the effect of Sleep. It’s a magical sleep, so shouting, jostling, or even attacking the sleeping creature won’t awaken it. Likewise, the Sleep spell can put creatures to sleep that don’t otherwise need to sleep (Warforged, animate objects, undead, etc).
MMM | Jun 10, 2009 | Reply
The real question is “Are you having a good time?” I ran KotS and found it very unsatisfying but that’s because the playstyle encouraged by 4E doesn’t really trip my trigger anymore, neither as a player nor a GM.
(
Regarding the fights taking a long time, the bad news is that they only get longer as you go up in levels. Fights in 4E to me, contrary to most people’s opinions, are long, drawn-out, and often very boring – sure there’s a lot of movement and effects going off but when you get right down to it you’re still just chipping away at a mountain of HPs and that’s not fun for me.
MJ Harnish | Jun 11, 2009 | Reply
@MMM The party wasn’t in any danger from this one kobold, it was just a question of extending the fight and losing a potential informant (I didn’t know we would be able to walk right up to the kobold caves). Since the DM is rusty, I let it go. Next time, I will gently point that out, though. Thanks, MMM.
@ MJ To answer your question about having a good time… the answer is tricky.
I am happy to
* have a face-to-face gaming group of people I like
* be gaming with my wife
* be gaming with a good friend (the guy playing the rogue)
* be gaming with a newbie and watching her experience RPGs for the first time
* sit down with a group of gamer friends and eat a meal and talk about life and games
* be in a group that is switching off different games and GMs and trying new games together
But I’m not loving the complexity of D&D 4E, especially since we just completed a few sessions of Labyrinth Lord that was super fast and didn’t need a hex map and minis or a DM’s screen chock full of minute details. I am not enjoying Keep on the Shadowfell because of the long, drawn out fights that lead one to another, the annoyance of minions and the sheer number of them (even though as a wizard I am the best one to wipe them out), the lack of NPCs to chat with and the linear feel of the game.
After two sessions of this game and module, it feels to me like I’m playing a cross between Diablo and a board game with splashes of RPG color thrown in. I am not having much fun playing this game specifically as a game and especially not as a role-playing experience. My wife is really having a hard time with the play because the last session had 0 role-playing (as my wife and I think of role-playing, mind you, which to us is talking in character to the rest of the player characters and non-player characters mostly). The game session really was just two map combats.
BUT, I like the group and we have an agreement to play Lacuna next with my buddy running and then I get to run something after that, probably Mouse Guard. I’ve come to think of this game as the toll I pay to get to play/run games I really want to play. It makes it easier.
Orklord | Jun 11, 2009 | Reply
I find your experience matches mine almost exactly. I wanted to like 4E so much…in fact I bought all of the core books plus some of the splats in the hopes that it would get me back into D&D. Unfortunately I find play very unsatisfying, especially long-term play:
* to me, advancement is just like leveling up on a video game.
* Fights are not fun or exciting – they’re a drag that are anti-climactic, encourage gimmicks, and are very, very tactical which is cool in a mini game but not so much so in my RPGs. I especially hate the meta-game tactical approach the game leads to (i.e. the “you go there and use that power and I’ll then use this power” playstyle).
* as you level up the game just gets more and more gimmicky (magic items, “whammy” powers that you pull out on the DM, etc) all of which is just not what I want.
No matter what I try with the game we always end up with the same experience because the whole game is built around the combat power schtick.
Your reasons for having a good time obviously are based on the group, not the game and I’m sure you’d agree that all of them would be present if you were playing a “good” game as well. Most of what you list applies to my gaming group too. (except for the wife one, b/c my wife won’t go near RPing… she’s anti-imagination which makes us an odd pair).
Nowadays Burning Wheel and SotC-hacks really trip my trigger for games – they really create situations and experiences that everyone really at the table enjoys. Mouse Guard would be my go to game for new players.
That said, I’m in your boat too in the one game I play in: My friend runs a supers game in which I love my character but utterly hate the system (Mutants & Masterminds, which is just a super-powered combat simulator IMO)…hence I look forward to sessions but cringe everytime I have to interact with the system. Oh, the conflicts…
MJ Harnish | Jun 12, 2009 | Reply