Maybe I can clear up the confusion about actions.

Posted By: Eero TuovinenI have been told that the Combat Challenge is written wrong in those premade characters; that's what my brother Markku told me when we played Shadowfell a couple of weeks ago, anyway. That effect is only supposed to affect enemies marked by the fighter, not any enemy that shifts near him. Of course there's no way to know that without the rulebooks, which have started to trickle this week around the world, I understand.

That's correct. PHB p. 76.
Of course, that important restriction is missing in KotS.

Furthermore, you can only take one "immediate" action per round. I learned this by meditating upon the Dragonshields in Shadowfell - if you could take however many immediate actions you wanted, then nobody could ever close upon a Dragonshield, who would just keep shifting away. (Markku also confirmed this for me, and I might have seen it in the lite rules that came with Shadowfell as well.)

That's correct. KotS p. 9.

Thus the fighter can take one opportunity attack and one immediate interrupt attack during a round (between two of his own turns, that is), with the latter only upon an enemy that he's marked.

That's not correct. Characters get one OA per turn, not per round. A turn is, when a specific character acts. A round is over, when all characters had their turn. So you can hit each opponent once.

Again KotS p. 9.

Say, Tony, I've got a question. Over in the [4E] Out of Step thread, someone mentioned that the game plays really, meticulously slow. But your account makes it sound to me like it's in fact really fast, like Shift! Strike! Charge! Zam! Boom! Bop! I'm interested in that because fun, miniatures-based play that's also fast and furious would really scratch an itch. So did it play fast, and if so how did you accomplish that? Or am I just projecting my desires onto your narrative?

Peace,
-Joel

It plays fast if all the people at the table have internalized the same rules-set (even if it's not right ... just so long as it's the same!)

D can say, for instance, "Okay, I shift Mizard back, then magic missile ... 13 + 4 is ... uh ... let's see, that's like three plus four, but it's thirteen, so ... uh ... seventeen, versus Reflex!" I go "ARRRGH! He dies horribly!" and another minion lego gets ripped to pieces. That's a character's turn, in thirty seconds or less.

If, on the other hand, you're doing more like "Okay, I move back, then magic missile," "Take an attack of opportunity," "What? No, no, I'm shifting." "Oh, right, shifting. So you can shift one, right?" "Yes, that's why I only went back one." "Okay, gotcha ... carry on ..." then things are going to take much longer.

There's much to be said for both (a) everyone knowing the same rules and (b) people being confident that the other people know the rules, so as not to feel obliged to double check.

@Ryan: And, I would add, that's a good thing. Also, it should not be expected to happen in DnD.

They (fortunately) serve very different purposes, and that's part of the strength of both, I think. If both did the same thing they'd share the market and would have to struggle with one another. As it stands, instead, each one will cater to a different play need. :)

I've asked him that question before: He says that you shouldn't try to change a country until you understand what the people there really want, even if they don't know how to tell you. You have to be able to offer them something that they'll really like, or else they'll fight you for giving them something they don't like. It's like giving somebody socks for their birthday. They can be really nice socks, but socks aren't a Nintendo DS.

Posted By: James_NostackTony - some of us got together on Saturday to play through a few scenes fromKeep on the Shadowfell. There were three of us, all somewhere between 30-35, with several decades of playing one version of D&D or another; we're all smart, smart guys.TOTAL PARTY KILL.We were incredibly stupid and made a zillion idiotic mistakes, in large part because we didn't approach the situation creatively.

D is a genius. When he's done withShadowfell, can he figure out what we should do in Iraq?

Same here! I saw two parties (granted, with three adventurers each, but I scaled down the encounter) fight Irontooth and his gang this weekend, and both got pasted horribly.

Posted By: ClintonSame here! I saw two parties (granted, with three adventurers each, but I scaled down the encounter) fight Irontooth and his gang this weekend, and both got pasted horribly.

Now, to be fair, I've had it pointed out to me on other boards that I must have let Pieter use his Second Wind power more than the legally mandated once-per-combat. Just want full disclosure on that, because it clearly did make at least some impact on how easy or hard of a time D had on the encounter. So some of this may very well be due to my (unintentionally! I don't have all the rules memorized yet :-) ) giving him too much healing.

Tony, thank you so much for posting this. It's inspirational for me. Like Hennebeck, I've been reading your adventures to my girlfriend. There were so many times when it made us weepy - in a good way. It sounds like you're a fantastic father, and I would totally vote for D for president.

For others' sakes, my friends and I've been playing 4e w/ whatever scraps of information and imagination we have (we now have the books!) and it's been a blast. As far as combat speed goes... it takes about as much physical time as 3.x (and sometimes longer), but it feels all action and fun like D's games.

Once again, thanks for the awesome thread!

(Side note... Avatar's really pretty sweet, do you watch it w/ him?)

Posted By: ThatOneGuy(Side note... Avatar's really pretty sweet, do you watch it w/ him?)

Oh heck yeah! We delegate responsibilities. He cheers loudly at the scenes with Aang, and I cry quietly at the scenes with Zuko.

Oh man, derailing thread, but do you watch the third season episodes on DVD?

Momo and Appa are... amazing way? ^_~

On topic, will the heroes of Winterhaven have more adventures? Or will you be waiting until more modules are released?

Groovy. I've always avoided modules, so I only know of the adventure from hearsay (a terrible source, indeed). Anyway, thanks again and I look forward to reading the further adventures when they happen!

I intend to use a battlemat for the dungeon. Picked one up at my FLGS ... now I just need to get some water-soluble markers in a rainbow of colors.

Skeletons are available as bulk-piece purchases at Lego.com, but other than that you're straight out of luck on getting minifigs at a decent price. I recommend the Dwarven Catapult set, if you can find somewhere selling it ... two orcs (oh, I mean trolls), a dwarf and armor and weaponry for all three ... oh, and a catapult, if you're into that kind of thing.

Recently, D has been improvising stories in and around Winterhaven, pretty much to the exclusion of battles, or exploring the Keep. Occasionally he tosses questions to me ("We go back to the dragon's tomb, and there's a village of magicans (sic) there, so we can make a light-saber ... now what kind of magicans are they, daddy?") and I keep my role as supporting-actor-in-chief ... but I definitely get the impression that D does not see the ghostly outlines of my GM viking hat.

I've been informed that this afternoon a big goblin with 200 hit points is going to fight a ninja out front of the Winterhaven gate, and that the ninja will have little lego nunchaku. Gotta look forward to a show like that!

Posted By: TristanYou know? I can't stop wondering how would my childhood action figures games would have been if I had a combat system to back my roleplaying... I remember how those games were always full with conflicts.

Or just a system to decide who gets their way when there's a disagreement, combat simulation rules be damned.

I think kids have a major advantage over adults in that they can throw talking in funny voices, playing with lego (including building stairs to the tower) and, y’know, AoO zones all together without ever even worrying about how it might not fit. Plus, they can give the treasure to the good people of Winterhaven and never regret it.

Tony, thanks for this thread, it reminds me of the childhood games I played with my sister. Also, why did I never have such cool lego minis? Ah well, I guess they didn’t sell them at the time.

Posted By: MeerI signed up for this board just so I could post and let you know that in my 30+ years of playing D&D and other roleplaying games, I've seldom met others remember that having fun is more important than winning. I hope that D can hang on to that imagination and determination. The world needs people that that are dreamers and doers. Most today have gotten into the mindset of making their characters powerful at the expense of having fun playing a game. I hope to read more of your experience.

Hey, welcome to SG, Mark.

Pah! Little hippies: take out your copy of Phoenix Command and be sure to get all the modifiers right!

Heh. Okay. After they made a light-saber, and brought back some people from the fallen Nerath Empire, through a time-warp caused by the increasing spiritual instability in the area, D decided that his group needed a Ninja, and so he made a ninja mini-fig and had him show up. At first, the ninja fought with the group (because, as D says, "That's what happens, daddy") but once the confusion ("We're not bad guys, we're good guys ... oh, I thought you were bad guys! I was wrong") got cleared up, the ninja joined their group.

What I found intriguing (and, I'll admit, a little frustrating) about this was that D required my presence as audience to validate the results of all this, but since he was playing both the ninja and his own group, there was no role for me to play. I couldn't even, really, adjudicate ... because he knew the rules well enough to run his little mini-fight (and, really, it was mostly just the fun of using lego mini-figs to beat on other mini-figs ... he rolled a few dice, then said "And now he makes an attack that doesn't even need dice! HAIYAH!") So I was watching, which was tremendously fun for the first half hour or so, but ... oy. If even my son's infectious joy can't keep this stuff interesting over the long haul, I'm pretty convinced that roleplaying is not a spectator sport. And it couldn't, and it isn't.

I did, however, get to name the ninja (because I know all the best japanese sounding names). I named him Ichigo. Yes, I know what it means :-)

Sooooo ... now that the group has headed off to attack the Keep, I could use a little help: Anyone who has the PHB want to stat me out a second level ninja?

A second-level ninja = a second level rogue? (Said the man with no 4e experience).

Normally, with a little recoloring, that might work fine, but I get the feeling D will pick up on that and be 'hey, no, he's not a rogue, he's a NINJA, daddy'.

As a (former) practitioner of real-life ninjutsu, I can offer you some help, but it's not like in the movies...

Done and done: PDF and doc.

Mechanically it's a 2nd level rogue, but with a "Ninja" options rather than Artful Dodger or brutal Scoundrel, allowing unarmed attacks to get +1 to hit and 1d6 damage. The ninja sword is mechanically just a rapier, and the abilities have been renamed, but are just the rogue abilities (though except the at wills and utility, are all different than the pregen halfling). I admit I totally went for the movie/anime ninja tropes at every turn, but I don't expect we're looking for a lot of nuance. :)

-Rob D.

Posted By: Rob DonoghueDone and done:PDFanddoc.

Mechanically it's a 2nd level rogue, but with a "Ninja" options...

Dang, that's sweet.