[4E] Last minute DM advice?

[Finarvyn]

Well, tomorrow I launch my first ever 4E game. I've played a few short ones, but never DMed 4E.

I'm kind of nervous, since it seems like there are so many rules to keep track of. I haven't been this nervous as a DM in a long time, so the feeling is sort of strange. I keep telling myself that it's a lot like the older editions, but myself doesn't seem to believe me.

Anyone have any last-minute 4E DM advice for me?

[tombowings]

We I played 4E, combat always took a very long time. So I decided to make some morale rules based on Basic D&D. Essentially, it was average party level + d20 compared to the monster's Will defense. It made things go a lot faster and felt more adventurous when monsters would retreat.

Also, the combat seems to work best in approximately 7 X 7 square rooms. Substantially more or less than that and combats take much longer.

[vito]

Just have fun.

I have to respectfully disagree with tombowings.
The ideal space for fighting is really going to depend on the adventuring party.
If your party has a wizard or a sorcerer with a lot of large area bursts and blasts, then you are going to need some larger areas. Otherwise you increase the risk of party members getting caught in the blasts. You can use this strategically every once and a while, but don't get predictable.
If your party has a ranger or some other character with a lot of ranged attacks, then you are going to want to engage your players by placing some artillery monsters off in the distance.
If your party has a rogue or a ranger or any other character that can move very quickly, then you need to present frequent opportunities to do so. Give mobile characters a lot of space to move around in, but fill that space with traps, hazards, and patches of difficult terrain to make things interesting.

Above all, make sure to engage your adventuring party by having a lot of variety in combat. If you are going to have archers firing from towers to engage the party from long range, make sure to also put a couple of big brutes on the ground to engage the party in melee as well.

Inject role playing into combat.
If your evil necromancer is going to gloat about his diabolical plan, don't do this before or after combat, but during combat.
If the heroes have to rescue the princess, try to get them to release her in the middle of combat, and have her reveal the secret escape route as the bloodied monsters regroup.

[tombowings]

I guess I should explain myself.

My 7x7 estimate is ideal for making a party including a warlord, 3 fighters, a ranger, and a wizard go as fast as possible. Any smaller and not everyone can reach the enemies. Any larger and moving around the grid makes combat much longer.

It's a general rule of thumb I used with data collected from a year of play. It isn't how best to challenge the party or specific character or to make it easy to use their powers. It is to make combat as faster.

Slow combat is inevitably why I gave up with 4E. no matter what I did, I couldn't make a fight to the death take less than half an hour to complete.

I'm not saying vito doesn't have good points; he does and they are good suggestions.

[vito]

Eh. Different strokes for different folks I say.
I've had different experiences myself.
The thing about 4E is that combat really is central to the experience. This version of the game is all about big epic battles against dragons and orcs and zombies and killer robots and whatnot. If you are willing to sacrifice all the neat goodies just for the sake of hurrying things up, then you are playing the wrong edition.

[tavis]

I agree with Vito that you should make sure to have lots of cool combat set-pieces. (A morale check - or a planned retreat when a condition is met - is a good way to make the things that aren't exciting combat set pieces not consume the whole session.) Use the fact that you're going to be counting squares to your advantage by having the terrain provide challenges and obstacles. It's boring to count squares just to cross a dungeon room; it's exciting when each one brings you closer to a pit full of green slime. Playing 4E taught me lots about cinematic combat scenes that I can bring to OD&D.

Don't forget the things that playing OD&D teaches you. The biggest problem with 4E in my experience is not the confines of the rules per se, it's the confines that the players internalize through their expectations. (This happens to me as well; even playing with a DM I knew was a big AD&D fan, I got captured by were-tigers because I forgot to do my equipment list - in OD&D I'd never be without multiple silver weapons! - and because I thought I knew that 4E had nerfed weapon immunity and ensured that there'd be a way to solve every encounter through combat.) Mess with their heads - create magic items and puzzles that don't have rules written on cards; throw in encounters that are outside the level band; make up rules on the fly, like the divine intervention chance I talk about here.

[bluskreem]

If your players are like mine get to know page 42. I'd also look into some of the errata and house rules for skill challenges. There are a lot of option out there, and some good thought behind it. I personally use RAW for skill challenges, but I've seen some great arguments for the errata and other systems.

[Finarvyn]

Well, session #1 went pretty well.

The party survived an ambush of kobolds, then spent some time talking to villagers and trying to gain some clues about the next phase of the adventure.

We goofed a little but everyone had a good time anyway. We had a couple of times when players forgot they could do certain things and I got a couple of the monsters confused. Part of the problem was using old HeroQuest minis (the Milton Bradley game, not the RPG) for different monsters than the ones in the module.

I survived.

[Mike]

Fin were you playing an adventure of your own devising or a published 4E scenario.

Well done by the way, you're a braver man than I. I would play 4E (I'll play anything) but I'd never take on the DM role in that game.

[Finarvyn]

Sept 7, 2010 4:08:34 GMT -6 Mike said:

Fin were you playing an adventure of your own devising or a published 4E scenario.

Well done by the way, you're a braver man than I. I would play 4E (I'll play anything) but I'd never take on the DM role in that game.

Published scenario. Keep on the Shadowfell, I think. H1.

It hasn't been as bad as I had feared.

1. I found a PDF version of the module, so I could copy-paste certain parts into a Word doc to hand out to players. (History, background, etc.) Also, since the first adventure is over I could take the information gained in chatting with NPCs and copy-past so they would have some notes to look at later. WotC does fill up space with "flavor text" and I'm trying to share it with the players, even if it is slightly different from the actual conversations we had in-game.

2. The Character Generation software handled most of the chargen stuff. This is huge, since I know we'd mess up on some bonuses or forget them. The computer (hopefully) won't make mistakes.

3. I typed up a couple of pages of key rules on combat, healing, movement, and so on. This helped me remember, and provided some aid to the players as well. I ignored some things like "attacks of opportunity" although one of my players is now asking about it because it comes up on his Power Card.

4. I put the burden of character prep on the shoulders of my players. I sent them PDF copies of their character sheets (with Power Cards) in advance and told them that they had to know what they could do. I would look up the answers to questions they had before the session began, but wouldn't look it up during the game.

5. We moved from the living room to the room with the pingpong table and sat in folding chairs instead of the usual couches. This put everyone around the "battle board" so they could strategize and see the action.

This process gave me the freedom to run the monsters, ponder the general path of the adventure, and do general "DM stuff" instead of getting mired in the rules. I decided that I don't have to know all of the rules, since 4E is a "game of exceptions" and simply made each player know what they needed.

Basically, I threw them the keys to the car and we drove around the block.

[vladtolenkov]

Encounters take a looong time. We play for about three hours and we often only finish one or two encounters in an evening. Just keep this in mind as you progress.

Sounds like you got things pretty well covered!

Having your players take some of the burden off is a great idea.

For example:

Several of my players know the combat rules at least as well as I do. I let them deal with the blast and burst stuff.

I have one of the players track initiative order (and this really helps).

[Finarvyn]

Sept 7, 2010 10:48:40 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

Several of my players know the combat rules at least as well as I do. I let them deal with the blast and burst stuff.

It took some of the surprise out of it, but right away I told everyone the AC of the critters we encountered. (Kobolds, in this case.) Then I could essentially forget that detail because someone else would remember it for me. As I get better jugglling, I might keep those details a secret, but for now it sped things up a lot.

Sept 7, 2010 10:48:40 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

I have one of the players track initiative order (and this really helps).

I'm thinking of getting rid of the initiative roll alltogether and simply putting together a list of who goes in which order based on their initiative number. This also takes some of the surprise out of it, but would also allow for the players to put more strategy into the encounters.

I did this for the old MB HeroQuest boardgame, where the players got to pick the turn order for the four characters in the game. This way they could decide "okay, dwarf goes in first, followed by the fighter, then the mage, and the elf protects the rear". Sure, it's the same order each time, but that might make things go faster and more efficiently as well.

[18 Spears]

I'm not sure about the rules of this forum so sorry if this is a bad question but is it okay to discuss the latest D&D game here?

[tombowings]

Sept 7, 2010 11:22:04 GMT -6 18 Spears said:

I'm not sure about the rules of this forum so sorry if this is a bad question but is it okay to discuss the latest D&D game here?

This is the "Other Editions" thread and Fin is doing it; should be fine from where I'm standing.

Sept 7, 2010 11:13:14 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I'm thinking of getting rid of the initiative roll alltogether and simply putting together a list of who goes in which order based on their initiative number. This also takes some of the surprise out of it, but would also allow for the players to put more strategy into the encounters.

I did this for the old MB HeroQuest boardgame, where the players got to pick the turn order for the four characters in the game. This way they could decide "okay, dwarf goes in first, followed by the fighter, then the mage, and the elf protects the rear". Sure, it's the same order each time, but that might make things go faster and more efficiently as well.

What we did when running 4E, if you don't want get to rid of rolling initiative completely, is to have everyone roll for initiative. The highest roll goes first and from them on circulates clockwise around the table.

[verhaden]

Sept 7, 2010 12:13:12 GMT -6 tombowings said:

What we did when running 4E, if you don't want get to rid of rolling initiative completely, is to have everyone roll for initiative. The highest roll goes first and from them on circulates clockwise around the table.

I do that with my S&W:WB game.

[Finarvyn]

I thought about that, but it's kind of neat for the high INIT folks to get to go first. I was thinking that since each character sheet gives a +/- to INIT, why not just organize the list from the best plus to the worst. Monsters go whenever it fits into the chart. (In other words, simply assume that everyone rolled the same number. )

That way they can plan ahead better and it won't switch from battle to battle.

[Finarvyn]

Sept 7, 2010 11:22:04 GMT -6 18 Spears said:

I'm not sure about the rules of this forum so sorry if this is a bad question but is it okay to discuss the latest D&D game here?

In general we try not to get too hot and bothered on the whole "edition wars" thing. Just keep posts in the right sections and you should be fine -- in other words, going to the Men and Magic section and saying "but 4E does it this way..." would probably be a bad thing, but discussing 4E here is fine. Just put a [4E] in the subject and go at it, and if folks aren't interested hopefully they won't open those threads and look at them.

In general, I like to discuss some non-OD&D games and so I create sections that pertain to my own interests. That's one advantage of being the big honcho here.

If you like the same games, jump in and offer your two cents worth.

[vito]

Sept 7, 2010 14:46:59 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I thought about that, but it's kind of neat for the high INIT folks to get to go first. I was thinking that since each character sheet gives a +/- to INIT, why not just organize the list from the best plus to the worst. Monsters go whenever it fits into the chart. (In other words, simply assume that everyone rolled the same number. )

That way they can plan ahead better and it won't switch from battle to battle.

That sounds like a good approach.
There's a few monsters that already go on fixed initiative counts anyway, like Tiamat's heads for example.

[murquhart72]

First off, I'd like to say that I LOVE that in a forum designed for OD&D, there's room for discussion on 4E D&D. It shows a very mature community and makes me feel less 'dirty' for wanting to try something different (looking at YOU, Dragonsfoot).
Second, from WotC, you can download the Quick Start and a pair of first adventures, along with several ready-made 4E characters. That could help, but what I'm holding out for is the new Starter Set (modeled after Mentzer's Basic Rules of '83). That, followed by WotC's Essentials line of products, will probably be the best introduction to the latest edition of the best fantasy role playing game ever produced.
I'm afraid that's all the "advice" (such as it is) that I can give at this time, as I'm still fully engaged in OD&D and have yet to try out the 4th edition myself.

[18 Spears]

Okay! Well I don't know alot about 4th Edition but I'm interested in the new boxed set coming out. Nice to know that if I buy it and wnat to talk about it I can do that here.

[Finarvyn]

Sept 7, 2010 16:41:06 GMT -6 murquhart72 said:

what I'm holding out for is the new Starter Set (modeled after Mentzer's Basic Rules of '83). That, followed by WotC's Essentials line of products, will probably be the best introduction to the latest edition of the best fantasy role playing game ever produced.

I'm torn on this. I saw a pre-sale copy at a local game shoppe and the owner let me look through it. Details are a bit fuzzy and I just don't remember much about it other than a vague impression that it didn't seem quite as "old school" as advertised. Reminded me a lot of the earlier starter set that WotC marketed for 4E.

I think it you're expecting Mentzer II you'll be disappointed.

[vladtolenkov]

The new Red Box's old schoolness exists primarily in its box design and cover art. Other than that it is 4E newness through and through. I've followed the info about the Red Box pretty closely, and I looked at a copy yesterday at Barnes & Noble.

Its supposedly got everything you need to start playing in one box: dice, character creation rules via a tutorial, cardboard counters for PCs and monsters, a dungeon adventure, a postermap of the dungeon, advice for the DM, and rules for leveling up to second level. The nice thing is it's only twenty bucks.

It also peels things back to the four iconic classes who are new "builds" tweaked from those in the Player's Handbook.

According to Wizard's Red Box store locator its going to be available at every Target in my area. When was the last time you saw D&D available at Target?

[Finarvyn]

Sept 8, 2010 10:07:34 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

It also peels things back to the four iconic classes who are new "builds" tweaked from those in the Player's Handbook.

I used to think that this was critically important to an intro game, but since I found the character generator program I'm not so sure anymore.

Basically I gave my players choice of 12 races, 12 classes, and two "builds" for each class and let the software autogenerate the charcter, complete with all of the bonuses and Power Cards and the like. That's 288 options and very little prep on my part.

I'm trying hard not to sound like a fanboy, but so far I'm pretty happy with my 4E experience. The problem* is that the software is free only for character levels 1-3, but maybe when we advance beyond 3rd I just have them pick another combo and start over.

Hmmm. Beginning to sound like Geoffrey's "Holmes only" campaign suggestion over on DF.



* I haven't gotten frustrated with the extended time in combat yet. That may come in time...

[eris]

Sept 7, 2010 17:33:59 GMT -6 18 Spears said:

Okay! Well I don't know alot about 4th Edition but I'm interested in the new boxed set coming out. Nice to know that if I buy it and wnat to talk about it I can do that here.

I expect to pick up the Red Box Essentials tomorrow or Friday and look it over. I don't know that it'll be different from the regular 4E books, but it's worth a look.

[Finarvyn]

Give us a review when you get a chance, eris. I don't think I thumbed through it long enough to give a complete analysis of the product.

[murquhart72]

Sept 8, 2010 16:48:51 GMT -6 eris said:

I expect to pick up the Red Box Essentials tomorrow or Friday and look it over. I don't know that it'll be different from the regular 4E books, but it's worth a look.

I may do the same thing, paycheck permitting.

[vito]

I just picked up the red box tonight.

The booklet about character creation reads like one of those 'choose your own adventure' books. You are presented with a series of decisions framed within a narrative context. It's kinda cool.

The little sample adventure looks fun. It takes place in an old minotaur temple of the horned god Baphomet. There's a room in there where you fight against giant chess pieces.

[vladtolenkov]

And don't we all just want to fight giant chess pieces?

[Falconer]

Sept 9, 2010 10:09:35 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

Sept 8, 2010 23:57:43 GMT -6 @vito said:

The little sample adventure looks fun. It takes place in an old minotaur temple of the horned god Baphomet. There's a room in there where you fight against giant chess pieces.

And don't we all just want to fight giant chess pieces?

To be fair, I think that sounds cool. Not saying I will pick up the product, but the concept as Vito presented it seems like just the sort of adventure I would like.

[vito]

Sept 9, 2010 22:37:19 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Sept 9, 2010 10:09:35 GMT -6 vladtolenkov said:

And don't we all just want to fight giant chess pieces?

To be fair, I think that sounds cool. Not saying I will pick up the product, but the concept as Vito presented it seems like just the sort of adventure I would like.

If nothing else, it would probably convert fairly well to OD&D.


**SPOILER ALERT**

I like that there are two entrances into the temple, each one leading to a different encounter, each one used by one of the two groups of monsters that reluctantly shares the dungeon. One encounter takes place in the temple's 'purification area' with the room of fire and the room of water. The other encounter has a dragon, which is interesting because most dungeons I've seen place the dragon at the 'end' of the dungeon rather than at the entrance.

This dungeon isn't as linear as most of the dungeons published for 4E. From the two entrance areas, you enter a grand hall that leads to four different areas. In addition to linking the two entrance areas together, the hall also leads to 'The Trial' (the chess room I mentioned earlier) and to a storage area (the adventure even includes a table for random crate contents.)

There is also a hidden shrine protected by three guards and a duplicitous doppelganger disguised as a guard.

The last room of the dungeon doesn't knock me off my feet, but I think that with some DM fiat there is some potential to make it really cool. It seems like a good place to put a stairwell leading down to some hellish lower level.