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View Full Version : 4e: Scales of War Simulation/Campaign Journal (Spoilers)



Pentagon
2013-10-17, 01:44 PM
Hi guys,

Introduction:

I was bored one day and I found I had the H1: Keep of Shadowfell lying about and I didn't have players to do it with, so I thought I wonder what the fights are like. I rolled up a team and sat down and did the encounters playing both GM and Players as a tactical exercise following the 'tactic's' instructions when possible otherwise playing the monsters sensibly while trying to avoid metagaming, again when possible. I had a good time and wondered how many players I actually needed to do it.

The answer was 3, (it's designed for 5) I got past the first encounter with 2 players but it didn't crank out the damage and enemy artillery was a nightmare. So, having played about with H1 I wondered what other campaigns I could play. The Scales of War series seemed to have good reviews and was a long campaign so I thought hey lets go for it.

Now, I appreciate that this is 'playing game' out of 'roleplaying game' I am not suggesting otherwise. I do play normal games with you know other people, consider this a combat simulation, if that interests you then me writing this is worth while, if it's not don't read it.

My rules

I am going to play the encounters exactly as they come, with no adjustments for party size etc.

I will use 3 characters.

I will randomise all loot in the campaign, with a random generator. I have decided to keep 90% of the stuff random. Ergo, if a exotic weapon drops wasting my lvl 5 slot, so be it. However, I am turning off some of the excessively campaign specific stuff.

I will allow myself to buy some stuff between chapters when at a suitable town, with a % chance to get the stuff I want (see if it's in stock.)

XP/divides 3 ways, if the level difference becomes too much of a problem I'll level cap myself.

Team Layout

I didn't go overboard in the min maxing, but tried to build a team that could cope despite being 3 of them. As I'd just bought a D&D Insider I used char generator and thought I'd try out some of the new races. All characters starting at lvl 1.

Team Member 1.

Celeste Hamadryad/Paladin of Silvanus

Str 10
Con 12
Dex 12
Int 8
Wis 18
Cha 18

Feat: Domain of Life

I wanted a character that could give out lots of Temporary HP to provide a decent buffer. Domain gives me bolstering strike at will that gives 4THP to me, and 3 to an ally. Other than that, Defender/Paladin. I really like the Hamadryad encounter powers too, a free cloak of resistance every encounter yes please!

At the moment I'm using a longsword, but I am aware that anything could drop so I didn't want to limit myself too much...

Abigail: Longtooth Shifter/Fighter of Selune

Str 19
Con 10
Dex 15
Int 8
Wis 15
Cha 10

Feat: Battering Shield

I wanted decent control options and a spear/shield fighter with polearm momentum seemed to fit the bill quite well. I'll be playing about with Tide of Iron with battering shield to knock them over 2 squares away then follow up to stand a square away, meaning they can't get up and charge me. While I liked human I found with previous play tests 16 in strength meant I wasn't hitting as much as i'd like.

Abazigal / Dragonborn Sorcerer of the Red Knight

Str 18
Con 12
Dex 10
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 18

Feat: Leather armour proficiency

I went with Cosmic Sorcery as Str to AC seemed really helpful and I liked the amount of burst powers he gets. Being one of the few strikers to add damage to AoE attacks I thought he'd come into his own especially as the team falls back on his ability to gratuitously kill things. Dragonbreath obviously rocks as I'm standard action starved as it is with only 3 men.

Oh I have to admit I am taking backgrounds... something I feel mixed about, but as it had them listed under 'scales of war' in the Character Generator I figured it would be rude not to.. I went with I use my best stat for starting HP on all 3 as it's effectively a free Toughness..

Equipment wise: I picked up a few consumable including 1 healing potion and 3 flasks of acid... I'll have to save them carefully as god knows when I will get more!

Rescue at Rivenroar



Encounter 1:

Well... I'm starting in a pub, okay. My first impression was this pub is maassive!! Not to worry, as I jump into my dungeon tiles (okay one of the reasons I'm doing this is I want to use them!!)

The room is 14-16 big which is kinda big. I admit I wasn't particularly excited about this fight as it seemed like a bunch of hobgoblin minions, and the book even say's it's a warm up to get the players to work together.

I was pleasantly surprised, the encounters signature guys throw molotovs, these catch fire and you roll a D8 to see where each square spreads to a turn. I now know why the room was so big as very quickly half of the tavern is on fire. I started in Cosmos: Moon on the Sorcerer and he did a great job of killing minions like nobody's business. While the Paladin/Warrior sort of wandered about and rolled lots of misses. The Hobgoblin Phalanx on minions makes them pretty resilient with 19AC while I have two chars that pretty much hit AC.

Total Results:
Abigail (Fighter) : -14 hp, no healing surges used in fight (2 used after)
Celeste (Paladin) : -25 hp no healing surges used in fight (3 used after)
Abazigal (Sorcerer): -13 no healing surges used in fight (2 used after)

Pretty happy with how the team worked, lots of minion killers, but the damage was nearly all the minions with their soldier like attack bonus/flanking etc and lots of misses, stupid warriors!

Was pretty fun dodging firebombs and having to avoid the flaming squares and hoping that the fire doesn't spread to your square!. A nice touch to a possibly stuffy encounter, if the rest goes on like this then I'll be very happy with the campaign path.


Encounter 2:

Well it was different!!! This encounter has the players face off against a lvl 8 brute. The Ogre in question pulls a cart with hobgoblin archers on it. The lvl 8 status is made up for by the idea of it being super vulnerable to fire, if you can do x fire damage to it he blows up and burns taking off half his health. The bad news was I realised my only source of fire damage was the moon power that triggers if the sorcerer goes and stands next to it!

As it was, I had to kill the thing the hard way and I think I got quite lucky as the paladin managed to avoid quite a few of the ogres blows. The worst bit of it was the archers who put on the pain on my fighter. As it was the Fighter went down just before the ogre did and the paladin went down a few turns later against the archers. Fortunately the Sorcerer managed to finish the job.

Hmm.. why don't I have any fire powers!!!

Final results:

Abigail (fighter) - 51 (3 off dead dead, 4 surges used for 6 total)
Celeste (Paladin) - 36 (5 surges used, for 8 used total)
Sorcerer untouched. (0 surges used for 2 used total.)

Lost: Daily/Villains menace, Action point off both fighter and paladin. Lost 2 uses of lay on hands.

I've lost a lot of surges but still got the sorcerers action point and a few dailies left.. Admittedly that was a little too close for comfort.

Well somehow I managed to pass the interrogation skill challenge to get a map out of a hobgoblin prisoner, I however annoyed the Mayor so I'm treated with suspicion and get half a reward for completing the quest :(. Incidentally, even with a map I walked into a nest of Kruthix's, 2 adults, 2 children and 4 minions.

Was again close, the ongoing damage was really painful, should really get poison resistance some time. I had to burn 3/4 lay on hands and all 3 action points, kinda miffed about that but hey ho all my dailies left.

The one good thing was because the Kruthix got the initiative I was constantly pushed back instead of pushing forwards, what this meant was that I actually missed all the pits in the path between us, which is nice.

Final results:

Paladin: 7 surges used in total, 4 afterwards, 3 lay on hands. :(
Fighter: 4 surges used
Sorcerer: 2 surges used :)

Hmm, well I hope there's nothing especially nasty left today after that 'random encounter'...

Encounter 4:

This was quite an intense encounter with 2 hobgoblins with 2 handed weapons and 2 goblins with ranged crossbows. Again losing the initiative I was stuck in a 2 wide corridor against hobgoblin phalanx. I burst one down, using push attacks to gruellingly push the baddies backwards so I was closer to the archers when I downed the hobgoblins, there was a moving flame wall but it was very easy to avoid and didn't come into play much.

Total Results:

Paladin 3 more surges
Fighter 2 more surges

For a total of: Paladin 1 left, Fighter 3 left, Sorcerer 5 left.

On the bright side, whoo a milestone :), and i'm on a total of 2580XP total, divided 3 ways for 860 each.

Encounter 5:

Right there's a 4 by 4 square of don't step in me. Great I thought I can use all my push moves to push baddy in. Or not, the baddies are 2 swarms. I got bottlenecked by 2 of these chaps. They seemed mean, minor action: knock you over, standard eat you, if your on the floor it does 2d10+4 damage. Fine, oh and if you start your turn next to one it gets a free attack on you, but as it's the start of your turn aura trigger you can't avoid it..

Suffice to say, these two mauled the bejesus of my 2 defender savagely, including critting me for 24 at the start of MY TURN... I am thanking god I went for a AoE sorcerer right now! as between dragon breath, whirlwind and blazing star fall (at will burst) he downed them and then 1 on 1'd the Gnome who up until now couldn't get into the fight. I knew when my team was down and out, so I blew the cosmos daily for 24 damage and ongoing 5, the fight ended shortly after.

Results:

Paladin: 0 surges left, on 7
Warrior 0 surges left on 22
Sorcerer 3 surges left on full.

Sorcerer: used his AP and daily.

Now I wonder, do I complete this wing and see if my poorly battered party can do the next encounter or do I leave the dungeon and lick my wounds with an extended rest and level up! Damn it, I like to live life dangerously, lets see what the final encounter is in this wing, 3 encounters before a rest is a bit wimpy anyway.

Turns out the last room in that enclave just had the NPC you need to rescue... how anti climatic, so I rescued him and then traipsed outside to rest up and level up! Woo

Encounter 6:

A load of hobgoblin minions, 2 archers and a soldier. There are pits in the floor and one goblin fell down there.. failed his check, the other goblin came over and didn't do very much never hitting in the short fight against high AC defenders, between dragonbreath and cleave there were no minions left so I ignored the archer and just kept knocking over the soldier with polearm momentum while ganking him, he got prone-locked and missed the few times he got a hit in..

Results: -7 hp on the paladin or 1 surge.

WHOO MY TEAM DID WHAT IT'S DESIGNED FOR WHOO :) :) :)