TPK

That was quick. My first full party wipe in 4th Edition, only 24 hours after the material was available. I’m going to consider that a win.

After inspected the adventure further (let’s just say the plot is as thick as Tampico sauce), I called up a friend I wanted to see; let’s call him Bill, because that’s his name. I mentioned in conversation that the new D&D was “out,” in the imperative sense, and he suggested that we play. With no disrespect to “the group,” I was eager to give it a try, and knowing the adventure wouldn’t mean much, I agreed.

We managed to wrangle Bill, a veteran that’s played under me for years, a WoW player with some experience but more spunk than anything, and a newbie who was expectantly hesitant. After a pathetic half-hour trying to get a fourth player, unsuccessfully, I finally caved and agreed to play the fourth man so the challenge wouldn’t be impossible.

They took the first encounter in stride, knocking down minions like matchsticks and the veteran marveling at how...robust...the kobolds seemed to be. For the game’s resident pushovers, they managed to prove fairly resilient when beefed up with classes and skills. As luck would have it, the newbie, playing the wizard, landed the killing blow on almost every opponent, which really helped dispel his hesitance. Kicking ass will do that.

The new combat, by the way, is fast. Damn fast. Having your options laid out in front of you helps, but the new class structure also does a lot more damage, nearly evenly distributed among each player, which is refreshing, which is good, because even some level 2 opponents have over 100 hit points. I feel safe saying that a competent and dedicated group can plow through a full-fleshed encounter in under 15 minutes, which was, well, unheard of in 3.5, because there was just too much to look up and process. More observation need be done, of course.

The party, now a bit loopy from a successful combat, made a fatal mistake by rushing through the non-combat session, forgetting to rest and collecting not nearly enough information. They walked straight into an ambush, this time featuring five beefy kobolds, who used their surprise round to take out the fighter, and it fell apart shortly after. My attempts to draw the flack with the NPC rogue failed when the rogue, well, fell, and the ranged attack of the shaman combined with overbearing warriors spelled certain doom.

Disappointing, sure, but a lesson for me. Being able to heal in combat isn’t a free pass to charge forward; the healing surges, while awesome, only provide a fourth of the hit points, meaning it provides at best mild support. Also, making sure the players know all the options is important. I realize, just now, the prodigious use of action points could have saved the day, allowing another much needed attack. (Players can spend an action point to gain an additional action in a given round.) But the players weren’t aware of them (and I spaced it), so they instead died on the road to a bunch of filthy kobolds. Not the noblest of deaths, but they weren’t invested anyway, so it was fun, and gave me another notch on the rifle.