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Just got back from Game Day ’09, where a rocking good time was had by all. I liked the people, the adventure, and my class ( I played Ilivarra, the drow avenger).
I didn’t get the name of the adventure, but the basic plot was we came into a town where the demons broke free from ancient wardings underneath (it seems they used a little girl as a gateway) and ransacked the town. The townspeople have been taken underground where they await their fates as sacrifices in a summoning ritual for a powerful evil.
Our group consisted of four people. There was me, playing the avenger, and Steve and Heather playing the paladin and the bard respectively. Steve and Heather were brought into RPGs via the the world-famous Penny Arcade/PVP podcasts. They got hardcore into 4th edition and burnt out a little bit, but the release of PHB2 brought them back into D&D’s loving embrace.
Last in our group was Scott, a teenager who was looking to upgrade his Tunnels and Trolls experiences. I was so psyched when he brought up Tunnels and Trolls! It fills me with hope for the younger generation that some are experiencing the classics. He hadn’t played a full RPG before, and had not touched 4e not at all, but everyone was more than happy to introduce him to the game and help him out. He played the warforged barbarian.
First thing I need to say: the avenger kicks ass. The class requires you to be mindful of positioning in ways similar to the rogue. To trigger your Oath of Enmity power, which lets you roll two attack rolls versus a target; you need to not be adjacent to enemies. I wondered how this was going work in practice, and I got my answer: beautifully. Especially with a bard in the party (more on this in a second) Getting your oath target –otherwise known as your next victim — into proper position is easy. Powers like angelic alacrity (shift 5 then attack) or sequestering strike (teleport yourself and target 5) let the avenger zoom around the battlefield, making the avenger a devastating harrier.
I’ll go on record and say that I think the bard, despite their players today rolling poorly, are going to be a force on the table. Their abilities to redirect marks and shift everyone around on the battlefield gives them extreme map control. The bard is musical, and is really 4e’s DJ. He scratches a few records, gets everybody moving, and keeps the party going all session long. A little extra play of bards will show that not only are they not useless like in previous editions of D&D, they are a strong class, even before taking their diverse multiclassing options into account.
The dragonborn paladin at first was a WTF? moment, until I perused the sheet and saw that the paragon paths and the some of the powers were previews for Divine Power. If you’re a regular follower you know that I have a passion for paladins. 4e paladins are cool, and I love the glimpse of what’s to come. Paladin’s Call is a nice “get your butt over here…NOW” power, and paladins seem to be getting some of the charge replacement powers which will work for the defenders when they decide to go a bit aggro.
Scott’s barbarian casually punched holes in everything he touched. His first roll in a D&D game, ever, was a 20. He maintained that high level of rolling throughout, and even with only a minimal, beginner’s grasp of the rules, racked up huge damage. 4e was easy to explain to him, and by the third encounter Scott seemed to be picking up the flow of the game readily enough. His patient father (waited around the store the whole time!) picked him up a starter set. Hopefully we’ll see more of Scott at Myriad Games soon!
Our group had just too much fun. I might have another group to play with out of the event! I’ve heard mixed reviews of the experience from my Twitter peeps, but for me, it was a definite success.
A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
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Ilivarra FTW! I player her to.
Good time, although I think with a few more runs with the class I could make better use of the powers.
Jumping right into 11th level was a bit rough. I had it under control by encounter 2, but i think wotc should consider lower level games for these events.
Hey, the event DM chiming in. I didn’t actually say the name of the module in the course of play, but it’s One Dark Night in Weeping Briar.
Two things occured to me over the course of the day: First, I’m really impressed by the bard, barbarian, and a well-played Avenger (My first Avenger player thought he was a defender and spent half of the first encounter complaining about not having a mark, and trying to lure an elite brute into single combat). Those three classes seem to contribute a lot to a group when they’re played well, and might be my current favorite strikers and leader. I especially want to see the other avenger build that gets enemies alone by punishing other enemies for getting near him when he’s fixated on one.
The other thing that came to mind is that the invoker build, as presented, was really a little bit lame. I can understand not using the summoning rules for the Invoker, since those are a little complex for a pick up and play event, but in that case, I’d have preferred to see a druid built around beast-form control or something instead.
And I was absolutely stunned by Scott playing Tunnels and Trolls. How does a kid find that sort of thing nowadays? That’s seriously cool.
I was just wondering if you had a seen this blog with the concept of creating a Worldwide OGL Game Day? See the blog here: http://lpjd.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldwide-ogl-game-day.html.
Welcome all!
@Tom –welcome! yeah, the 11th level is OK if you spend as much time flipping through the books as…err…I do? But especially with newer players it was hard to absorb I think paragon level at game day could work, but they need more description on what everything is. WotC also needs to give a few sample “gameplans” for the characters to avoid analysis paralysis. I saw a lot of first time players jumping right in where the game ramps in complexity without sufficient guidelines. It didn’t effect our group as much because A) Charles our DM was smart about cutting down monster HP so we could progress and B) we had enough knowledge at the table to help the one really new guy. Other tables seemed to have altering levels of “vets” to “noobs” and that could slow things down a lot.
@Charles –welcome! I want to say as a player that you made a lot of great decisions on the fly to keep the game moving and entertaining. Thanks! I’m always a touch apprehensive playing a pickup game with a new GM –quality can vary so widely! — but you did an awesome job and thus fun was had by all.
And yeah, Tunnels and Trolls? I almost fell off my chair, which would have resulted in me knocking down even more product from that bookcase
@ Louis Porter Jr –welcome! OGL Game Day is something I could stand behind for certain. Have you spoken with any companies on this yet? Would be interested to know who is participating.
I too played the Drow Avenger. However, the DM’s dice hated me and after getting hit with 3 20s in a row I died before the end of the last battle.
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the Bard. I don’t think they’ll be the overlooked class for very long.
@Charles – Funny you should have that impression of the invoker. That’s the PC I played and I had the complete opposite reaction – it seemed specifically built for those battles. In the first combat, I kept the quickly pretty well locked down with the massive amount of slow/immobilized/restrained effects I had available. In the 2nd combat, I was sliding and pushing bad guys into the millstone left and right. It seemed perfectly suited for those battles (had to leave before the 3rd one because our “2-3 hour game” was well past 4 1/2 hours and my wife was wondering if I was ever coming home.
But we all had a lot of fun. It was a great success for us as well. (Even if the maps were really bad and a bit confusing.)
At the games day out here I missed eight times in a row as the barbarian (needed a 10 or better), the first combat went to long we didn’t do anything else.
@Ken Marble-
Oh, I don’t mean that the invoker was lame in the sense that it wasn’t bad. It definitely seems like a more than capable controller. I just didn’t feel like there was too much differentiating it, in the build presented, from a better version of the Player’s Handbook 1 wizard.
Lame isn’t the right work, I guess, just not as exciting as some of the other PHB2 classes on the table.