tsadkiel
Legend
My gaming group was never very large, and we have dwindled considerably over the years, thanks to new jobs and divorces and other intrusions from the real world, so most of my gaming these days is one on one and conducted via email, so while much of what I've heard about 4E sounds interesting, I wanted to try it out and see if it could work in my peculiar format of choice before spending more than a hundred dollars on new books.
So I downloaded what I could from ENWorld, grabbed my Time of the Dragon boxed set to use as a setting, had my player pick a character (he chose Skamos, the Tiefling Wizard,) and brainstormed a quick adventure outline. (How do tieflings fit on Taladas? Skamos may be the only one; he's a definite curiosity, employed by the minotaur emperor to investigate strange happenings. Ye olde Hellboy, essentially. What is Skamos investigating? An Imperial tax collector has disappeared near a village in the Conquered Lands. What happened? Kobolds, obviously. But these are cultist kobolds! Years ago, a dragon was slain on the outskirts of the village, and the local wyrm priest believes he can bring the dragon back to life if they just feed it enough blood.)
Surprisingly, it seems a first level 4E wizard can adventure by himself in 4E without dying in the first encounter. Some of the fights were very close; twice Skamos ended a fight with only one hit point, but I didn't have to fudge to keep him alive, apart from two saving throws in the final battle, and that's because I misjudged the encounter difficulty; it turns out one kobold slinger and two minions is tough but fair, but one wyrm priest and four minions is pushing it.
Initially, combat boiled down to "shift and magic missile", but as the player got more comfortable with the system, he started trying new things. Soon there were firebursts and action points and infernal wrath (a whole lot of infernal wrath!) and yes, shifting and casting magic missile. I didn't use any miniatures, obviously, and didn't miss them. It was easy to keep the action straight, in part because the fights were either one on one or with identical minions. Still, combat felt dynamic and fun, and I liked having all the information I needed to run a monster in the stat block itself.
At this point I'm cautiously sold; I'm not ready to declare 4E the best game ever yet, but it looks like it will serve my purposes.
So I downloaded what I could from ENWorld, grabbed my Time of the Dragon boxed set to use as a setting, had my player pick a character (he chose Skamos, the Tiefling Wizard,) and brainstormed a quick adventure outline. (How do tieflings fit on Taladas? Skamos may be the only one; he's a definite curiosity, employed by the minotaur emperor to investigate strange happenings. Ye olde Hellboy, essentially. What is Skamos investigating? An Imperial tax collector has disappeared near a village in the Conquered Lands. What happened? Kobolds, obviously. But these are cultist kobolds! Years ago, a dragon was slain on the outskirts of the village, and the local wyrm priest believes he can bring the dragon back to life if they just feed it enough blood.)
Surprisingly, it seems a first level 4E wizard can adventure by himself in 4E without dying in the first encounter. Some of the fights were very close; twice Skamos ended a fight with only one hit point, but I didn't have to fudge to keep him alive, apart from two saving throws in the final battle, and that's because I misjudged the encounter difficulty; it turns out one kobold slinger and two minions is tough but fair, but one wyrm priest and four minions is pushing it.
Initially, combat boiled down to "shift and magic missile", but as the player got more comfortable with the system, he started trying new things. Soon there were firebursts and action points and infernal wrath (a whole lot of infernal wrath!) and yes, shifting and casting magic missile. I didn't use any miniatures, obviously, and didn't miss them. It was easy to keep the action straight, in part because the fights were either one on one or with identical minions. Still, combat felt dynamic and fun, and I liked having all the information I needed to run a monster in the stat block itself.
At this point I'm cautiously sold; I'm not ready to declare 4E the best game ever yet, but it looks like it will serve my purposes.
