After lazily planning to run a Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition campaign for nearly a year, we finally had our first session yesterday. I’m running our party through the first of the 4E modules, “The Keep on the Shadowfell”. I’m normally a pretty lazy Game Master, playing most of an adventure on the fly, but I really wanted to be prepared for this one and did a lot of reading and researching and memorization in advance. I think it paid off.

This was our first actual experience with the 4E rules, and they were very well received. I used the free (for levels 1-3) D&D Character Builder to create the character sheets for all our players, so we knew the numbers and abilities were all properly set up. In addition, the Character Builder prints out “ability cards” so keeping track of what a player can do each round is quite simple. “At-Will” abilities — usable once per round any number of times a day — are green-bordered, “Encounter” abilities — usable only once per encounter — are red and “Daily” abilities are grey.

Here’s our stalwart band of adventurers. It’s a good sized group as I invited a lot of people and they all accepted!

• Gallindann (Pat Thornley) – Eladrin Warlord (Good). Eladrin are basically “High Elves” and the Warlord is a new character class whose abilities involve buffing and aiding teammates. They’re sort of a “Bard” type character but without the silly singing-during-battle thing.
• Grabthar (Steve Zillwood) – Dragonborn Paladin of Kord (Unaligned). Dragonborn are draconic looking humanoids, large and powerfully built. Grabthar is an “Avenging Paladin”, concentrating mostly doing damage rather than protecting and healing, though he can do those too. He wears plate armor but wields a two-handed greataxe.
• Kava (Jessica Tarzwell) – Dragonborn Paladin of Torog (Evil). Yes, an Evil paladin! Torog is the god of the Underdark, imprisonment and pain, so Kava isn’t a very nice person, but that doesn’t mean she can’t work with the party for their own mutual benefits. Jayne from Firefly would probably be an “Evil” character, and rather than detract from their group he adds tremendously and the interaction between him and those who aren’t so morally flexible is great fun.
• Lindal (David Schneider) – Halfling Rogue (Unaligned). A pretty straightforward character who sneaks around, stabs people in the back, and steals things yet isn’t all-bad.
• Melasra (Melany Fulgham) – Half-Elf Warlock (Good). Another new character class in 4E, Warlocks are casters who have gained power by making a pact with another entity or ideal. Melasra is a “Fey Pact” Warlock, meaning her powers come from the Feywild — a magical nature-based plane. Warlocks have some really fun, interesting abilities including an At-Will power that makes her invisible to the target if she hits, and the ability to teleport 15 feet as a reaction any time anyone she has “cursed” dies.
• Radivis (Jim Allison) – Eladrin Wizard (Unaligned). A hard-hitting battlemage, Radivis sits back and hurls powerful magics at his enemies.

Spoilers for the adventure begin!

Our adventurers receive word that their mentor, Douven Stahl, has been missing for some time and last seen looking for a Dragon burial site near Winterhaven. While preparing for a trip to find him they also find a bulletin ad offering gold to someone who will map out a ruined keep near Winterhaven and decide they can do both in one trip.

On the road near Winterhaven they are attacked by a small band of kobolds. Here we got our first experience with 4E’s combat system. It’s very similar to other D&D versions, but has the aforementioned At-Will, Encounter, and Daily abilities, as well as all classes starting with a reasonable amount of hit points. In earlier versions of D&D, a 1st level Wizard would only be able to cast around three first level spells per day and then have to switch to throwing darts or hitting things with his staff, while trying to survive with only enough hit points to survive a moderate strike from a single dagger. In 4E, our Wizard could cast Magic Missile every round, though it now has to roll to hit (d20 + Int bonus vs target’s “Reflex Defense”) and started with a respectable 21 hit points.

While the majority of the kobolds in this first encounter were “minions” — basic cannon fodder with 1 hit point and minor attacks — a few of them had some fun abilities. Every single one could “shift” one square per turn as a minor action, so they were all quite mobile. One of them had a sling with three “globes” he could hurl that could set his target on fire, or glue them into place, though he missed his attack two times. Two others were “Dragonshield” kobolds and were better armored and tougher than the norm. The party had little trouble with them, though Grabthar required some serious healing because he insisted on rushing in and attracting as much attention as possible. Gallindann spent most of the fight setting himself up to flank a kobold and then using the (really cool) Warlord ability of letting another player make a basic melee attack. Usually it was Grabthar, which just made the kobolds concentrate on him even more!

Their first combat out of the way, they party headed on to Winterhaven, where they started asking around in — where else? — the inn. They were provided with a map to the supposed dragon burial ground (the farmer said it was probably just a garbage dump) were Douven should be and were offered a commission to take out the kobold lair nearby for a healthy reward.

Deciding their friend was the most important action item, they slept at the inn and headed to the burial site. On the way they were ambushed by more kobolds, this time including a “wyrmpriest” who caused serious problems by firing an acid orb at Grabthar over and over again. Radivis sent him running by casting Flaming Orb at him and spent each round forcing it to chase him all over the road. The kobold dragonshields flanked Grabthar and knocked him out, but inspiring words from Gallindann (Warlords can allow players to use a “healing surge” and heal themselves) and a lay-on-hands by Kava had him up and fighting soon enough. Kava bemoaned her bad attack rolls, but eventually downed two dragonshields, and eventually the battle was over. Amongst the loot they find an obsidian necklace engraved with an image of Orcus, god of the Undead. A curious find on a kobold…

A little worse for wear they proceeded to the burial site and are greeted by a friendly gnome archaeologist, his human workers, and their two guard drakes. After he waves them down to get a ‘better look’ at what they’ve found, he orders his drakes to attack them.

During this combat the players really seemed to finally get the system, and worked together well. Grabthar again rushed headlong into trouble, and was quickly torn to pieces by the drakes who worked together very well. A halfling slinger appeared on the cliff above the party and started raining down sling stones and the humans ganged up on people with clubs. Radivis attempted to take them all down with an area effect spell but rolled terrible for his to-hit and the next turn they all clubbed him into submission and he lay dying.

Melasra flanked around to the top of the cliff, while “cursing” one of the humans. The next round it died as Kava struck him a blow and she was able to teleport behind the Halfling slinger and kill him with one mighty (daily) spell, sending his lifeless body down the cliff face.

Radivis was healed by Gallindann’s inspiring word, and immediately used his racial “fey step” ability to teleport out of club-reach to the top of the cliff. There he used “second wind” to heal himself some more. All players can use “second wind” once per encounter, but it requires a standard action so it usually means you’re not attacking. It’s a very good “should I heal myself or keep attacking” decision that makes for a lot of difficult decisions in combat.

Eventually all the bad guys are slain, the human rabble attempted to run away but are all cut down by opportunity attacks as they do so. The party searches the area and finds some nice loot, including , as well as a bound and gagged Douven. He pulls an amulet off of the dead gnome’s body, takes his wife’s portrait from inside it and then offers them their first magical item as thanks for saving him! It’s a +1 Amulet of Health!

While wrapping up for the day, a discussion about who should receive the amulet ensues. Jess stays in character and argues the entire time that it should be her because she’s at the forefront of every battle. Others bring some gaming mechanics into it and argue that the Lindal will probably encounter poison traps and should have it for its poison protecting ability (+5 to poison saves).

Overall the session went well, and everyone seemed to enjoy the new rules, and appreciated the options they had during combat, which was quite a change from “move a few squares, swing weapon at monster” that most older D&D characters were able to do.