We had the latest session of my 4e Castle Zagyg campaign last night. For this session, the mentor of a couple of the PCs, Doctor Southey, sent them off to the Dark Chateau, a rather odd little adventure by Rob Kuntz.
I wanted to bring up a few points of interest that occurred during the adventure, as they have relevance to a few of the discussions I've been having recently.
The group is a mix of 1st and 2nd level PCs.
Encounter 1: The Brigands
This was a random encounter that the party encountered on their way down the road. 10 "soldiers", ostensibly a patrol, but actually a band of dangerous brigands (1st-3rd level monsters). If this had gone into a combat, the PCs would almost certainly have been slain. However, the group heard the Brigands before they saw each other, and decided to hide and let them go past. One potentially deadly encounter avoided. Well done, guys!
Encounter 2: Orcs and Goblins
6 Goblin Minions, 2 Orc Raiders and 1 Orc leader (3rd level elite) ambushed the party from the cover of an outbuilding as they reached the mansion. This was quite hard for the party as though the goblins ran out at the party, the orcs had superior cover and concealment (in shadow) for a +7 AC(!) as long as the group remained outside. It was also a tough combat to begin with. The minions were quickly disposed of, but orc bows from within the barn were very troublesome indeed.
Indeed, the party lost the cleric in this fight. A crit from an orc, a wayward crit from the wizard's fireburst, and another hit and he was down... in only the third round of the combat! Although it's not "1 hit and you're down" as in 1e-3e, you can still go down very quickly. He failed 3 death saves, and that was that. The rogue broke through the side of the barn to surprise the orcs a little, but the combat ended with the cleric dead, the ranger unconscious, and the orcish leader being the only enemy survivor and parleying for survival. ("Let me go or I kill your friends!") That was accepted, so he'll be back another day. The cleric actually died after the combat, after the wizard failed to make her Heal check to stabilize him.
Back to town, pick up a new PC. (A paladin, which Bradford had prepared earlier).
Encounter 3 & 4: Centipedes and Rats
My initial notes for the rat encounter was against a lot of minions, and that remained the case. My initial notes for the centipedes had them as 10 1st level skirmishers. When it came to the actual battle... nope, not doing it that way. They're minions as well!
There are monsters that you want to go down in one hit. Squishy bugs primarily. Unfortunately, 4e doesn't yet to seem to have minion design guidelines. Are they up anywhere yet?
What was particularly interesting about both these encounters is that I wasn't using a battlegrid. Partly, this was due to the map of the mansion; the scale doesn't quite seem right. (all those humanoids before were in a 10'x15' structure...) And partly because it'd just be a lot of setting up for not much reward. They're crawling all over you, you can attack them if you want to. Let's just go for it! Both combats took no more than about 5 minutes.
Encounter 5: The Owlbear
The trigger for this encounter is one of the worst excesses of oldschool "guess what I'm thinking" design I've seen: the trap doesn't detect as magical, but if you don't do exactly the right set of steps (which there's no clues to let you know what they are), you get attacked by this magical owlbear (which then detects as magical).
I'd be very, very surprised if there is any group that actually didn't trigger this trap.
Because I'm a kind DM, I reduced the level 8 elite owlbear to a level 6 elite owlbear for this encounter. (In the original design, it's a 6 HD monster, so I take that as a level 6 monster in 4e; the number of attacks make it elite). There actually is a way to disable it in the adventure, but my players were, not surprisingly, not looking for something like that when there was this flesh-and-blood monster attacking them.
Incredibly, they actually killed it without losing anyone, although it was a desperately close thing. Following the battle (which required all their dailies, action points, and suchlike) they settled down to rest and the session ended.
Once again, no miniatures were used. Five PCs vs an Owlbear in a very cramped room? No point really, which makes this the first 4e session I've run mostly miniature free.
Cheers!
I wanted to bring up a few points of interest that occurred during the adventure, as they have relevance to a few of the discussions I've been having recently.
The group is a mix of 1st and 2nd level PCs.
Encounter 1: The Brigands
This was a random encounter that the party encountered on their way down the road. 10 "soldiers", ostensibly a patrol, but actually a band of dangerous brigands (1st-3rd level monsters). If this had gone into a combat, the PCs would almost certainly have been slain. However, the group heard the Brigands before they saw each other, and decided to hide and let them go past. One potentially deadly encounter avoided. Well done, guys!
Encounter 2: Orcs and Goblins
6 Goblin Minions, 2 Orc Raiders and 1 Orc leader (3rd level elite) ambushed the party from the cover of an outbuilding as they reached the mansion. This was quite hard for the party as though the goblins ran out at the party, the orcs had superior cover and concealment (in shadow) for a +7 AC(!) as long as the group remained outside. It was also a tough combat to begin with. The minions were quickly disposed of, but orc bows from within the barn were very troublesome indeed.
Indeed, the party lost the cleric in this fight. A crit from an orc, a wayward crit from the wizard's fireburst, and another hit and he was down... in only the third round of the combat! Although it's not "1 hit and you're down" as in 1e-3e, you can still go down very quickly. He failed 3 death saves, and that was that. The rogue broke through the side of the barn to surprise the orcs a little, but the combat ended with the cleric dead, the ranger unconscious, and the orcish leader being the only enemy survivor and parleying for survival. ("Let me go or I kill your friends!") That was accepted, so he'll be back another day. The cleric actually died after the combat, after the wizard failed to make her Heal check to stabilize him.
Back to town, pick up a new PC. (A paladin, which Bradford had prepared earlier).
Encounter 3 & 4: Centipedes and Rats
My initial notes for the rat encounter was against a lot of minions, and that remained the case. My initial notes for the centipedes had them as 10 1st level skirmishers. When it came to the actual battle... nope, not doing it that way. They're minions as well!
There are monsters that you want to go down in one hit. Squishy bugs primarily. Unfortunately, 4e doesn't yet to seem to have minion design guidelines. Are they up anywhere yet?
What was particularly interesting about both these encounters is that I wasn't using a battlegrid. Partly, this was due to the map of the mansion; the scale doesn't quite seem right. (all those humanoids before were in a 10'x15' structure...) And partly because it'd just be a lot of setting up for not much reward. They're crawling all over you, you can attack them if you want to. Let's just go for it! Both combats took no more than about 5 minutes.
Encounter 5: The Owlbear
The trigger for this encounter is one of the worst excesses of oldschool "guess what I'm thinking" design I've seen: the trap doesn't detect as magical, but if you don't do exactly the right set of steps (which there's no clues to let you know what they are), you get attacked by this magical owlbear (which then detects as magical).
I'd be very, very surprised if there is any group that actually didn't trigger this trap.
Because I'm a kind DM, I reduced the level 8 elite owlbear to a level 6 elite owlbear for this encounter. (In the original design, it's a 6 HD monster, so I take that as a level 6 monster in 4e; the number of attacks make it elite). There actually is a way to disable it in the adventure, but my players were, not surprisingly, not looking for something like that when there was this flesh-and-blood monster attacking them.
Incredibly, they actually killed it without losing anyone, although it was a desperately close thing. Following the battle (which required all their dailies, action points, and suchlike) they settled down to rest and the session ended.
Once again, no miniatures were used. Five PCs vs an Owlbear in a very cramped room? No point really, which makes this the first 4e session I've run mostly miniature free.
Cheers!
