Final thoughts after marathon 4e release day events
In no particular order:
TPK in a casual release game with casual players unattached to the characters, which wins us prizes and status as the (likely) first post-release 4e tpk in Winnipeg = awesome!!!
People have dissed Splug the goblin for trying to be Meepo (Sunless Citadel) for 4e. Well, for the short time we were with him, he was better! Not only did the PCs take to him as a slave quickly, he soon assisted in combat (hitting the enemy none of them were hitting, by swinging a bag of rocks), and then saved our Warlord’s life with a heal check to stabilise her. After this encounter, someone else took over DMing the game, and I joined in as Splug the goblin cleric, inspired to do more healing! So much fun!
We played 4e with a random pickup group for 18 hours, as level 1 characters. Never in that time period did the game stop being fun. That says something.
We played Keep on the Shadowfell for 18 hours, with 2 DMs, without either of us ever having read the adventure. The town RP was tricky, but not bad. But the game never slowed down because of this, especially in battles. The 4e game is just that easy to pick up and DM. I predict that 4e will see the return of the true D&D pickup game.
Level 1 has never been so interesting.
People have been complaining about things conceptually online a lot, but these complaints disappear once you’re in the game. Minions fucking rock, and make the battle that much more fun! The at-will/encounter/daily power split works perfectly. Clerics and Fighters are cool again! I would play either again by choice. Dragons! Oh, dragons are so much fun!
The complaints:
Not everything is explained perfectly in the books, causing a bit of confusion. These are minor, however, and just call for a quick ruling most of the time.
Paladins are… well, unimpressive. I mean, they’re alright and they do what they’re meant to, but I much prefer the battlefield control powers of the Fighter. This is a personal thing, though. I probably won’t play a Paladin any time soon, but someone in my group (or yours) might love it.
That about covers it for now. Caffieeeeeeennnne!!!!!!!!!!
32 Hours of 4e D&D!!!
Well, here we go. Today is the release date for 4e D&D, and we’re having our giant gaming event at Gameknight.
Today is opening up the books and playing for 24 hours. Tomorrow, I’m DMing for D&D Game Day. And the whole time, I’ll be posting occasional updates here with impressions, rants, and notifications of TPKs. Oh, and despite Dave’s assertion, we’ll see just how high level we can get in 24 hours of straight gaming.
You can read the updates here. If you use Twitter, you can also get them at http://twitter.com/ve4grm
(If the widget below doesn’t show up, just refresh the page, or use the link above. Twitter seems to be sketchy sometimes, but it’s the best way I know of to do this from a cell phone.)
24/32 hour 4e Release Event
- Holy shit animated statues can be evil!
- 5:30 break for nap
- 2:45 and still going! 14 hours and still having fun!
- Splug the goblin cleric has joined the party!
- 8:30 - finally finished the tpk encounter! Fucking 106 hp bosses.
- Probably the first tpk in winnipeg, actually! Yay being an evil 4e dm.
- First tpk of the day, too. We won prizes!
- Keep on the shadowfell. Tpk in the kobold lair. Fun!
- Yay! New pretty books!
- Cold rainy miserable day. Perfect to spend inside gaming!
- Testing twitter