I wanted to buy Shadowfell. I wanted to give my wife a bit of a break in her day. So I took my seven-year-old son with me to buy Shadowfell.

"Can I play this game, daddy?" he asks.

It don't get much better than this.

He peered at the outside of the packaging all the way home, then gleefully opened the package once we were at a table. We flipped past the rules summary, and he fixated on the character sheets. "Are these all mine?" "Yep, they're all yours." "There's nothing written where it says Name. Do I get to name them myself?" "You get to name them yourself." "AWESOME!"

He named the Fighter Pieter (pronounced "Pighter"), the Cleric Eric, the Rogue Mogue, the Wizard Mizard and the Paladin Morn. Because, really, the Paladin is DragonBORN, and my son (no dummy) immediately shyed away from trying to find something to rhyme with "Paladin."

We don't have any authorized D&D miniatures, but we have boxes full of Lego mini-figs. I color-copied the sheets from the quickstart book and handed them over to my son (hereinafter, "D") who pored through all of the legos on-hand in order to mimic the character portraits as closely as possible. He's got a little human wizard with an occult-book-tile in one hand, and a burst of flame in the other. He's got a rogue halfling with stylish hair and a jauntily held crossbow. He spent, maybe, an hour all told getting these guys right. I have pictures, and once I figure out the best way to post them, I'll link to them.

Then we went through the first encounter. D immediately grasped the use of the abilities, got the distinction between At-Will, Encounter and Daily, and was fairly careful about hoarding his resources. As he started running low on enemies, he started looking around for places to usefully apply his Encounter powers, if only to get some bang for the buck. For those who worry that there's too many powers, and that it will flood people and take them out of their enjoyment: A seven year old can run five characters simultaneously, without breaking even a light sweat of exertion.

After one Attack of Opportunity upon him, he grasped the consequences of AoO. He got Mizard the heck back from the combat, and put Eric in a choke-point between oncoming forces and any access to Mizard. He started moving his characters around the edges of any enemy contact-zone, then came in from a diagonal, often to the back corner, in order to leave more room to give other guys access to move straight up if the occasion warranted. I mention these things because I was quite surprised to see them cropping up with no explicit instruction. But, then, he's played Memoir '44, so he may well be importing knowledge. There's also the kobold shifting ability, which makes it all but impossible for the PCs to take advantage of AoOs ... dunno whether I'd consider that a bug or a feature, in an introductory adventure.

D was very pleased with Minions. I am very pleased with Minions. The first minion to come in contact with the group got smacked with a magic missile in no time flat. I tipped the little mini-fig over, then for good measure I pulled off the legs and head, leaving the dismembered little legos in the middle of the road. "YAY!" D cried.

D didn't really seem to think that the kobold shifting ability was all that deadly ... which may very well be because I didn't know how to use it to best advantage. In retrospect, I look at it and say to myself "Ah! I see what I needed to do there ... I needed Minions combining their movement-shift and their ability-driven free shift in order to flank right the heck around someone without suffering AoO, in a way that would force PCs to shift back from the Dragon-shield warriors ... that would let them use their Dragonshield training to shift in response, and I could either (a) maintain the flank or (b) get huge mob bonusses on an unexpected target nearby in the battle." So ... fodder for the poor, foolish adults who dare try to take me on :-)

But in this run-through, the shifting was mostly "Oh man, give me a chance to get the heck away from these guys," only there was no central group of kobolds left for anyone to run to. The delight D expressed as each minion was summarily dispatched made it really hard for me to conserve them. And that's without D ever getting a good to-hit roll when he tried to use Cleave, which (with its potential to take out two minions in a single shot) I'm convinced would have become his favorite attack if it had ever happened to land. The lack of minions meant that even once the dragonshield warriors got some open field to maneuver in, there was no way for them to make anything happen. Don't even talk to me about the poor kobold slinger. It's not happy to be outranged (by, specifically, magic missile) and driven out of cover.

Man. Not only do I want to play me some D&D, I want to play me some D&D with you and your son!

There are some color scans on the web for those people who can't make color copies.

It's very promising that a 7 year-old can handle all five characters at once. Fantastic.

And I would have gone with Aladdin the Paladin. The stress is on the wrong syllable, but...

A seven year old can run five characters simultaneously, without breaking even a light sweat of exertion.

Yeah, but its a lot easier for a 7 yr old than a table full of hippie story-gamers ;-P

Posted By: ValamirYeah, but its a lot easier for a 7 yr old than a table full of hippie story-gamers ;-P

Heh. Hippie story gamers will think it's immensely important which ability they choose, to absolutely maximize their chances of victory. D wants to win, but also when he wants to toss off a freakin' Scorching Burst, even though it's an area effect ability that's less effective against a single opponent ... so what? He wants to SET A BAD GUY ON FIRE. He does it.

And, y'know what? It all works out. That may be because we were dealing with the first (and, I strongly suspect, easiest) encounter ... but also, it looks like the game as a whole has a huge tolerance zone for suboptimal behavior. It's easy to do something massively right, very hard to do something massively wrong.

That makes it very attractive to wade in, play the game a little, then go back and ponder the rules. For instance, rereading the characters more closely tonight I discovered the Combat Challenge on the Fighter, and the Divine Challenge on the Paladin. These abilities are composed of 50% Rock, 50% Win and 50% Awesome: They let you defend your comrade by giving opponents penalties for attacking anybody but you. "Don't you go lookin' funny at my wizard, sunshine, your fight is with ME." And y'know what that incentivizes? That gives your fighters an incentive to go after the biggest, baddest thing they can get their hands on, in order to keep it from the rest of the party.

I'm not sure I agree with Simon that this is the same game with slightly nicer packaging. It feels ... different. It doesn't really feel like a descendant of 2e or 3e at all. It feels like playing Basic D&D, as rewritten by Days of Wonder.

Basic D&D, as rewritten by Days of Wonder.

sold!

Awesome AP, btw.

We played yesterday, and I did this a lot with the kobold minions:

- Shift away as a minor action.
- Move further away as a move action.
- Then charge someone (often the same PC they just shifted away from) as a combat action, making sure to flank them if possible. Instant +3 attack bonus.

I think it's a legal move, though I may be wrong.

Posted By: MatthijsWe played yesterday, and I did this a lot with the kobold minions:

- Shift away as a minor action.
- Move further away as a move action.
- Then charge someone (often the same PC they just shifted away from) as a combat action, making sure to flank them if possible. Instant +3 attack bonus.

I think it's a legal move, though I may be wrong.

Y'know, I'd been looking at a tactic roughly like that, and wondering whether it would be by-the-rules. Even without the shift-as-minor-action, you can use your movement action to take a one-space shift back out of AoO range, then your standard action to charge across the field in order to engage someone else.

Originally, I was thinking "Man, that'd be imbalanced, because everyone would flee the fighters and munch on the mage." You could still manage it by setting up overlapping tackle-zones (sorry, every time I think about AoO, I think about BloodBowl, the fantasy football game in which I first saw this mechanic), but it would be onerous, especially on an open field, and with so very much movement available. BUT, all that worry was before I noticed the Challenge abilities, which in turn balance that tactic. Paladins can't pin down everyone (though they can definitely make one guy stay with them), but fighters can keep up to eight enemies pinned, at least to the extent of smacking them on the ass on the way out if they try this tactic. Combat Challenge is a heckuva thing.

EDIT: And, BTW, I notice that charge is specifically worded so as to make flanking operations harder ... you can't corner-dance around someone to their rear, if you're charging: You are required to come in on as direct a route as possible. Flanking is still possible, but it's going to make tactics like shield walls (tight or loose) much more practicable.

Pictures are up.

Oh, and I figured out a new Kobold-only tactic: Jumping a shield-line. Take your full move, ending just as you move into the diagonal back corner of a front-line fighter. Take your minor shift, moving past that fighter without provoking AoO. CHARGE. You get 13 spaces, past front-line fighters, and climb right up the wizards face. Just one minion pulling that makes spellcasting a nightmare.

Mind you, people can counter by making sure that there are no one-space skips through their line. Blood Bowl players know this drill: It's the same thing you gotta do against Elf teams, with their Dodge-heavy tactics. Nice to see I've got some tactics to import, though :-)

D wants another combat before getting to Winterhaven, so I think I'm going to have Delphina Moongem be returning from the foothills, and beset by kobolds. That'll elevate her from "flower-elf who shows up at the Market Square" to "That woman we rescued!" and simultaneously give me a good opportunity to feed D into more productive encounters in town ("Oh, you want to hear about Douven? I think he was working with Eilian the Old ... Eilian will be at Wrafton's Inn right about now, would you like me to introduce you?") You can bet that the new tactics are going to make an appearance. Divine Challenge, for instance, is a great move for putting the rescue on people at a distance: Choose whoever's most dangerous to the hostage, and put the challenge-smackdown on them ... that holds them off from profitably attacking (they can do it, but they take damage as an interrupt before launching their attack, which for a minion is all she wrote) and gives you another round to hopefully close the gap.

I just wanted to say that I don't think I could have done such a good job picking out Lego figurines. :) Awesome all around. Can't wait to get my own copy of this module.

-Will

Posted By: TonyLB"It could be a monster village, daddy. You. Never. Know."

Sage friggin' advice.

With the rep that KotS has, I wonder if in a few sessions this'll become "how a 7-year-old reacted to the Irontooth TPK"...

I agree. There are racial powers, there are class powers, there are character powers...Having Charge, Second Wind, and AoO simply be "Universal Powers" would be an effective organization strategy...at least for beginners. I can see how at higher levels moving some of the more "duh, everybody knows that" (by then) stuff off the sheet might also be a good idea.

Hey, John. I'll give you ten bucks to make me some blank power cards that I can type stuff into. Or, you know, you can just point me to where they are on the web.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonHey, John. I'll give you ten bucks to make me some blank power cards that I can type stuff into. Or, you know, you can just point me to where they are on the web.

IIRC on that site (or on the enworld thread that originated it) you can find the CorelDraw templates for one of the styles. And they can be opened fine and dandy from The Gimp, which is a plus :)

You also need the font with the attack type icons, also from the site John linked.

So, D took his mini-figs in for show-and-tell today.

As soon as he was back from school, what he wanted to do was to play. I set up the road map, and he gleefully set out his minis. Then I pulled out the little red-headed girl mini, and trotted her out of the forest. "HELP!" she cried, "Somebody help me!"

Then I started setting up kobolds. Lots. Of. Kobolds. Albeit, due to a lack of lego shields, most of them were minions, but it was still a nice sight. D swung into action, laying down challenges (which we'd discussed earlier) to keep the front-runners away from the damsel in distress, and weaving Mogue through multiple attacks of opportunity to drop him dead center in the middle of the oncoming horde. Not a smart move for Mogue personally, but his ability to force the kobolds to waste their free shift in getting around him meant that Morn (coming to Delphina's rescue) was able to act effectively to pin incoming units down with his own AoO field, following which he dropped the Divine Challenge constraints on them. That kept Delphina upright, despite multiple kobolds going after her.

I'd also discovered that Morn and Mizard spoke Draconic, the same language as the kobolds, so this time through D got to hear some of their chatter: "They are too strong! Still, we must kill the girl ... she knows too much!"

Shortly after starting the whole rescue operation, D turned to me and said "Hey, Dad, if I rescue her will she come with us? Maybe she's from Winterhaven. She can help us find Douven Staul." I allowed as how all of those things were possible.

After another couple of rounds of action, D turned to me. "She's an elf girl, right? Eric is going to fall in love with her."

Minions fell in droves. My new understanding of their maneuverability made for some tight moments for Mizard (he got jumped not once but twice by vaulting minions), but D was cool under pressure. "Okay, I take a shift back. Now I'm one square away from him, right? Magic Missile."

Eric went to the rescue of Mogue: Killed off the one minion who was holding down a flanking position on the rogue, then stepped into the gap. Now they were a line ... much harder to flank. Plus, of course, he used his Healing Strike, so Mogue was feeling better already. But Mogue is definitely running the lowest on Surges of the party. He seems a bit reckless.

At this point, it was Morn's turn. The sling-kobold he was fighting didn't relish the thought of hand-to-hand, so backed off. D asked me "Hey, if I move Morn will the girl-elf stay with him?" I said "Well, what do you say to her?" D brightened up. "He says 'If you come with me, I'll take you to safety!' ", " ' OKAY! ' says the girl-elf, with obvious relief." Morn made his way carefully across the battle-field, keeping between Delphina and any threats.

One of the dragon-shield guys I had got in contact with Pieter. Oh, going into combat with Pieter is a mistake. When he started out, it was a kobold dragon-shield warrior, plus four minions. Two rounds later, it was just a dragon-shield warrior. Shift away? Take a hit. He took the hit, to run back to the other dragon-shield warrior. So now, suddenly, we've got two shield walls (Eric, Pieter and Mogue in a line parallel to the two dragon-shield warriors). D grins, and moves Mogue back, then diagonally across a corner (using his bonusses to dodging AoO to dance through people's grasp like the acrobat he is) and around to the back of the shield line. Suddenly both of the kobolds are flanked. Plus, they're both in contact with Pieter. Did I mention that kobolds don't like to be in contact with Pieter? The one who'd already been mangled went down almost instantly, and the other one bought a Spinning Sweep that knocked him off his feet. Getting up while surrounded by three adventurers proved not to be so possible.

The sling-kobold decided to hide in the woods for cover. D laughed. "Okay, it's Mizard's turn. I move him around these rocks so that he can see the forest, and ... Scorching Burst." "Oh NO!" I cried, "You set the kobold and the bushes he's hiding in on fire! He runs out in terror! His turn: He's going to attack Mizard for setting him on fire." D: "Divine Challenge." Me: "Oh, right, so that's six more points and ... ouch. He's dead. Never even gets his shot off." D: "HeeeeheeeheeeEE!"

This is the best AP report I have ever read in my life.

What did the kids at school think of his minis? Do any of them want to play D&D with him? Will D become the DM someday for his friends?

Posted By: TonyLBI'm not quite sure what to say about the way that the lego props are supporting player-driven world-building. It was unexpected. However, any earlier concerns that D's enjoyment of the game was going to be restricted solely to the battlemat seem to have proven unfounded.

World buildings a fairly secondary concern though, perhaps? Like adding fluffy dice and a go fast stripe to a car - the car still comes first.

My daughter is only five, but she's a born gamer. Only a couple more years ...

Great AP, Tony.

You have also suggested a solution to a problem I have had for decades: role-playing interludes purely between NPCs makes me feel like an idiot because I just change voices and turn my head back and forth. The solution isn't yours, really; it's been known by puppeteers for years.

I imagine you holding both the Valthrun minifig and the Rond minifig and wiggling them when they talk. Then it's clear who is talking. Duh. So simple.

By trying to be all "immersive," I'd made my life more difficult than it had to be when playing multiple PCs. Just pick up the minis and puppet them when they talk. Easy-peasy.

I also think it's pure awesomeness that you built Winterhaven

Dungeon and Dragons 4th Edition, core rulebook set: $60
Lego building blocks and mini-figures: $100
More Lego mini-figures and weapons: $20

Spending time with your 7 year-old making him feel awesome? Priceless.

So ... third installment.

D is getting very addicted to Winterhaven. I'm thinking that we may need to box up his lego space-ships in order to make room on his craft-table for the town. Luckily, the craft-table has an elevated area for Varthun's tower. But, really, I'm sick of stepping around the town commons every time I go in to put away laundry.

If you take, by this, that the town is expanding, you would be correct. He made a library, and then he started wondering "Hey, where do all these people sleep?" There are more buildings now. I think that he's about hit the limits of town expansion, however: He's running out of legos. Once that happened, he took his adventuring group around to tell all of the mini-fig villagers that he was heading out to deal with the kobold menace at the waterfall. The villagers were all grateful, and wished the adventurers the best of luck.

There's a bit in the Shadowfell module where, when you've dealt with the kobolds, the villagers start calling your group "The Heroes of Winterhaven." I'm pretty sure that this intangible reward will be worth more to D than all the +5 Holy Avengers and Staves of the Magi in the world.

They headed out and we went into our now third road encounter, since I'd added a second encounter on the way to Winterhaven. It's the first with ambush rules as an important element ... and an ambush that people have been justly complaining is just about impossible to avoid, seeing as it's a DC 25 perception check, and only one member in the party has even a +5 bonus to ... well dayumn. Mogue the Rogue just pulled a natural 20 on his perception check, which (with his +5) matches the DC.

So ... uh ... no ambush. Kid has got the damnedest luck some times. Mogue shouts a warning, everyone slides into place, and the kobolds realize their ambush is blown. "GLLGGHSGHSSSSS!" they shout, and I start rolling for initiative.

"What did they just say?" D asks.

Oh. Right. Two of his guys speak Draconic. " 'Brothers, we are discovered! But it matters not, for the humans will die beneath our swords! ' "

"Okay. How do I say, 'No, it is YOU who will die, and you will dig the grave that you are buried in!' in Draconic?"

>Blink, blink<

"Uh, that's 'SSSHSSL-Glibble-HURGH-HSsssssss.' "

"Okay ... 'SSssHssH-Bibble-ugh-fibble!' "

"Sweetheart, you just asked them whether they had any blue mushrooms."

"Wait, wait! I'll try again! 'SSShsssl-bibble-urgh- uh ... what's next?"

"HSssssss"

"... HSssssss"

"Perfect!"

And so it went. When D was moving for a character who spoke Draconic, he made sure to trash-talk and mock them, always asking me how to actually say it in Draconic, and then doing so. Since I was doing the lego-puppet thing, we had some fun little exchanges with mini-figs shaking around (in anger, or fright, or whatever) while we hissed incomprehensibly. When he was moving for a character who didn't speak Draconic, he'd still ask me what things meant, but would not respond. It was wierd and wonderful.

I should have known that all this talking would lead to complications. But first, the fight! Oh how those kobolds could have benefitted from ambush. That said, I do think we're both getting the hang of AoO zones, flanking and marking. Our front lines crashed together pretty hard, with one dragon-shield guy in particular having rotten luck and being battered down and separated from his unit. Sucks to be him. Mogue the Rogue got around kobold lines and bore down on the spell-casting Wyrmpriest (a new unit for me to play with!) Just when I thought I was going to get some good spellcasting out of this guy, D had Mogue use Positioning Strike, and slide the kobold directly into the front lines of the battle, placing him squarely in the strike-zones of multiple heavy-hitters (including, worst of all, the Fighter ... no free Shift away for you, little Wyrmy).

The damaged dragon-shield guy managed to get a flanking position that gave all of his front-line guys an advantage ... and D's front-line guys were both pinned in the flank and marked by other kobolds ... so not the ideal guys to turn around and slaughter this putz. But divinity (by way of Eric the cleric) intervened, lancing down from above to surgically remove the one imperfection behind their lines.

But at least I managed to squirrel the skirmisher (another new unit!) behind PC lines and make Mizard the Wizard's role that of constantly fleeing, rather than offering combat support.

OR SO I THOUGHT.

Posted By: TonyLBToday I went out to the Lego outlet store that happens to be near me.

I did not go crazy-crazy, but I did spend close to $20. I now have orcs, skeletons, and an assortment of really cool looking mini-fig-scale weaponry.

This is the beginning of the slide into madness. I can feel it ... but I'm pretty sure Iwantit.

Tony,

Awesome thread. I love hearing about this kind of thing. I'm a massive Lego fan and use Lego minifigs for all my gaming needs. I shudder to think how much I've spent at Brick Link, Brick Arms, Brick Forge and Toys r Us over the last couple of years. I don't even have the excuse of having children to justify having so much Lego...

The new Castle set (with the orcs and the skeletons) has been a real godsend. Before that the best was the Harry Potter stuff.

We're using minifigs for the characters in Claire's Solomon Kane game and it's working out wonderfully.

Posted By: TonyLBFrom the kobold refugees, D learned about how the goblins and the crazy human ("He's the guy on the cover," D said with certainty) had moved in and pushed the kobolds out of their previous homes near the haunted keep, and he learned about Irontooth. He immediately started spinning future scenarios around Irontooth: "When Irontooth finds out that you guys are here in the village, he's going to come here because he'll think you're on his side and that you'll help him kill these people and eat them, but when he tells you to do that, you tell him 'NO!' and you hit him right on the head!"

I am no how, no way going to do anything to get in the way of a story that well set up. Oh heck no. He's got a formula in mind, and I have zip-point-zero problem with running it through to its completion. When Irontooth is on his last legs, I'll do my level best to shift him free of the cave combat and have him make an escape. Then I can use him (rather than the elf-spy who has never garnered any interest from D in Winterhaven) to do the whole "raising the dead of the graveyard" scene. Slllkot and Blag, having volunteered to join the Winterhaven Regulars, will be front and center, defending their newfound home. I'm thinking that Irontooth may have a philosophy about how monsters are monsters, and nothing can change that ... something to prompt him to mock and deride D's efforts to turn these kobolds into anything other than evil. With a lot of help from D and his adventurers, I have great hopes that these kobolds will be able to strike the decisive blow that finally destroys the goblin who terrorized them for so long, and proves that they can become more than mere monsters.

Awe

some!

Kids, minis, and stories go together like, erm, kids, minis, and gaming.

Which is even better than chocolate and peanut-butter.

Tony, have you tracked down a copy of HG Wells Floor Games yet?

I wanna see pics of Lego Winterhaven.

I demand visual stimulation!

Andrew

Ask and thou shalt receive: The Photos page has been updated.

Posted By: James_NostackPS. I've been meaning to play D&D 3.5 with Lego mini's for soooooooooo long. What scale do you use? 1 bump = 1 foot?

They work pretty well at standard scale, actually. One of them (and a 2x2 bump base) fit tidily inside of a square from the Shadowfell maps.

I did have to remove pole-arm weapons once we started maneuvering (putting them back only for photo ops), because they reached so far that moving your figure would knock over five others. Short swords, scimitars, flails ... that sorta stuff is all fine, but the polearms aren't workable.

Posted By: TonyLBAsk and thou shalt receive: ThePhotos pagehas been updated.

Tony,

Not to give in to hyperbole or anything but this might be the best AP post ever.... anywhere. Tell your son he's welcome to play in my group anytime he wants to make a trip to Tennessee. And if he makes it to GenCon at some point I will be highly disappointed if I can't get at least 1 session with him.

Andrew

If I had to guess? Probably because you'd never stomp on the creativity and enthusiasm of your 7 year-old son, but you'd trod carelessly over the same creativity and enthusiasm of your 30-something gaming friends, all in the name of "that's what the rules say" or "the world isn't like that."

The lesson I am learning here, as I read between the lines, is that if you want to have the most fun, stop telling your players no. Figure out what grooves them and turn up the volume to MAX POWER on those things.

I think about old D&D campaigns I ran. I had a tendency to show up to the first session with a list of restrictions: You can't play this alignment, or these races, or this class. You should roll up your stats using this method that prevents you from having too many high stats. You can't have cool armor at this level. No, you can't have a wardog. You can't fight with two daggers unless you want a -7/-4 penalty or spend a bunch of feat slots to avoid it. This NPC is cooler than you are. And arrogant and snotty.

I'm starting a new campaign in a week. I'm super jazzed about it. I'm showing up with nothing but enthusiasm and creativity, my rule books and dice. I'm curbing my burning desire to start building a world. I'll let the players tell me what they want to do first. If they all want to play half-angel heroes who walk the earth telling the mortals what they should do, we'll do that. If they want to play miniature dragonfly fairies who cause trouble in villages, we'll do that. I will ask them how they want to create their characters, not tell them. I will ask them how they want to run the game, not tell them. I will take their ideas -- even their questionable suggestions -- and use them to make the game unforgettable. Like Tony's.

Posted By: Adam DrayIf I had to guess? Probably because you'd never stomp on the creativity and enthusiasm of your 7 year-old son, but you'd trod carelessly over the same creativity and enthusiasm of your 30-something gaming friends, all in the name of "that's what the rules say" or "the world isn't like that."

Not to mention players who may be more concerned with being badass and powerful than with contributing to fun for the greater group. Maybe younger kids can enjoy because they're not in the full-on ego assertion stage of their teen years, and real grown-ups can communicate and compromise in order to maximize everyone's fun (like I think komradebob is talking about).

Paul: Very few parents would ever say that their children are representative of the average. There's a parenting-goggles effect. My viewpoint, apart from the bare facts (and even that, many times) will be worth less than nothing :-)

Having established my bias: He's way too smart to be a seven year old.

I don't think there would be any point to me inviting them.

D got a chance to play with my grown-up gamer-buddies when we tried out Shadowfell on wednesday. He seems to consider adults (at least adults that play games) as peers, so I'm wondering if this will spark him with the idea of inviting his friends over to play. I have an intuition that I shouldn't seed that thought, though. If it happens, it happens.

D sent Mogue to swim stealthily under the water, poke just the bare top of his head up, and survey the situation. Lots of kobolds, spread loosely and effectively through a large cavern complex. That second layer doesn't have a huge amount of raw power, but there are a lot of minions, and they do a very good job of both being speed bumps, and providing flanking support.

D started thinking hard.

"Irontooth is way back there, right?" he said. "Yep." "And he'll come out to see what's happening if somebody gives a warning, right?" "Yep. You don't want that," I said, with great seriousness. "Oh yes I do, daddy."

D then proceeded to use Ghost sound to raise several false alerts. The kobolds, of course, said "No, no, it wasn't us, it was mysterious voices from the air!" Irontooth was not convinced and not pleased. Eventually he said "You guys are lucky I don't kill every last one of you!" (though he had, in deference to evil overlords everywhere, killed one minion who brought him bad news) "The next time you shout for help, you can just shout until your lungs fall out!"

This actually didn't change the scenario that's published, but it did make it make sense. The third wave is supposed to dilly-dally for three combat rounds before joining the second wave. I'd been sort of wondering why, when they hear a great big sound of battle from out front, they don't come running on round one. I understood how it made for a good tactical encounter, but it seemed a bit out of character. Now, however, it made perfect sense.

Meanwhile, the kobolds out front are freaked the heck out. Every time something new happened, a few more of the outlying minions came 'round to try to find out what the heck was going on. Now, instead of being scattered throughout the cavern complex, they were all huddled in the main room, trying to figure out what to do next.

They "elected" one of their number to go through the waterfall and see what was going on. Naturally, he didn't come back. Finally, one of the skirmishers thought to go out one of the little side doors, spotted the adventurers and came running back in. "We're under attack!" he yelled.

This was the point when Mizard stepped through the water and cut loose with Burning Hands. With the minions clustered in fearful little knots, it had the potential to be an utterly devestating blow. Sadly, D had absolutely rotten dice luck, and so only took out five at a single blow.

The kobold commander (clearly a clever one) tried to rally the troops. "It's ten of us against one of him!" he cried. "No matter how tough he is, we can take him!"

Cue Mogue coming in through an unguarded entrance, to cut them off from retreat, as well as take a devestating sneak attack. "Okay, it's nine of us, against two of them!"

"Eight of us against three of them."

"Well, there's six of us, and only four of them!"

"Okay, there's four of us, and ... uh ... five of them."
"Boss, I don't know my numbers so good, but ... are we winning?"

Where was I? Ah yes! At last, Irontooth! As the monster comes tearing down the corridor, I warned D "I gotta tell you, people on the internet have been saying that a lot of the time Irontooth kills their whole party, no matter what they try to do to stop him."

D levelled a grave look at me. "Well, daddy," he said, "We'll just see what the case is with ME."

Okay then. Time for me to stop worrying, and bring the thunder. Or ... something.

I liked Pieter's idea. I had a nice little doorway of my own, and Morn and Mogue were standing close to it. I set Irontooth up right in that enclosed passage, and roared defiance. "Come and get me!"

D had Morn engage the front, then had Mogue scurry his way under an attack of opportunity, to take Irontooth's flank: Then he cut loose with Positioning strike. Got a hit, and slid Irontooth three squares right out of the doorway and into the waiting center of the big open room, with adventurers already arranged in a loose circle around the walls, facing inwards.

That was not where I would have preferred to have my giant bad guy. I knew immediately that it was time to move him.

"If I draw water from the waterfall, like waterbending, will that make ray of frost more powerful?" D wondered. "Uh ... sure!" I said, figuring that I didn't need to layer any new mechanical effects on, we could just say "It's more powerful!" as color. But I will say that Ray of Frost was exactly the spell I needed to not have cast right then. I needed Irontooth to MOVE! Boom, he's iced to the ground, slowed to a crawl. Oy.

At this point, Eric and Mizard left Pieter to his own devices (still facing three major-league kobolds) and joined the "Squash Irontooth" party.

This was when fortune reared its ugly head. Suddenly, D was rolling all single digit numbers ... low single digit numbers, like 3 and 4. Mogue's once-a-day Trick Strike (which would have been beyond awesome if it had landed, letting him shove Irontooth around the board for the rest of the encounter) whiffed, as did several flanking attacks. PCs started taking really serious damage from Irontooth's axe. Pieter got hit three for three one round, and came within three points of dropping in his tracks.

D looked carefully at the twenty-sided die. "Okay," he said, "This die hates me."

(Note: He's watching me write this right now ... his commentary: "It does hate me! It does, it does it does!")

Says I "Well, honey, sometimes you have a run of bad luck. There's really not much you can do about it."

"Sure there is," he said, "You roll for me."

"Uh ... it doesn't actually ..."

"Pleeeeeeeaassse???"

So I rolled Morn's Divine Judgment, hitting solidly with an 18 (which gave them the ability to heal Pieter back up to fighting trim. And I rolled Eric's Beacon of Hope, getting a 16 ... and halving Irontooth's damage just as he entered the deadly "Berserker" zone.

Yeah, okay ... the die hated him. It happens.

Right about this point, I asked D "Hey ... if you get close to defeating Irontooth, do you want to defeat him here, or do you want him to escape, so that you can fight him near Winterhaven, where Sllllkot and Blag could confront him?"

D looked at me like I'd said ... well, something singularly stupid. "I want to kill him here, dad. That's what we came to do."

Well, that's cool! So we proceed with the killing: Once Irontooth was berserk, I played it up, with the incohate growling and the veins standing out, and the slobbering and stuff. "He's not even thinking," I said, "All he wants to do is KILL KILL KILL!"

"Oh yeah?" D replied, "Well all he's going to do is DIE DIE DIE!"

But, of course, that was not the end! We had to have Sllllkot and Blag bring the treasure chest back to the people of Winterhaven. D insisted on outfitting a new mini-figure to portray the (up-till-now absent) Lord Padraig. Every citizen of Winterhaven piled out in front of the gates to welcome back the conquering heroes. They were awed at the generosity of the adventurers, and at the heroism of the kobolds. I figured out how to attach lego mini-figs to the hands of other ones, and we had a little lego parade, with the townsfolk holding the kobolds aloft in positions of honor. \"You, valiant Sllllkot, honorable Blag, shall always have a place of honor here in our village, as two of the Heroes of Winterhaven!\"

Posted By: buzzAside: The really makes me think about how much baggage experienced gamers often bring to the table.

Yeah. D finds joy in things that, were I a younger, more self-important gamer, I might think weren't worth enjoying: Making really creepy ghost voices in order to torment and confuse the kobolds. Dismembering every single lego figure his party kills. Getting pancakes from Wrafton's Inn, in order to introduce kobolds to the wonders of civilized cooking. Running back to Wraftons in order to get syrup.

I shudder to think what my teenage self would think of me now :-)

"The people of Winterhaven sure will be glad to get that all back!" D continued.

This made me weepy. Thank you, Tony, for this thread. Thank you, D, for being an awesome D&D player. You teach us much.

Wow, Tony. Just freakin'. . .WOW.

Things I love about this: First, the unbridled fun of everything. The kid's freakin' into it. Everything from straight-up kickin' ass, to world tinkering/setting contribution, to creative roleplaying decisions like offering Kobolds surrender and taking them to rehabilitate and live in town(!) He dives into everything full-force, and frequently shows up his dad (no offense!). Awesome.

Second, The pure play aspect of using Legos. It seems to inform everything about the game, from gesticulating with the figures and tearing them apart when they're killed, to defining the environment and encouraging contributions to it. The kid's freaking building the village that his heroes visit. He seems to insist on fleshing it out and representing all the physical aspects of it, just for the sheer joy of it.

Third, the tactical goodness of the game, offering plenty of nuance yet easily exploitable by a 7 year old. One thing to note is that this particular adventure product is geared for introduction (the full game ain't even out just yet), so it goes a little easy at first, then ramps up. But anyway, in contrast to most blow-by-blow RPG battle descriptions, this account grabs and excites me (just like the man in the park. . .) with its rollicking fun action and cinematic flair. The give and take of the melee as a true ring to it, even reminding me of some SCA battles I've observed, with all its shield walls and flanking maneuvers and such--without falling into a trap of "realism" or whatever at the expense of fun. Seems like a great game for swashbuckling, or swords and sorcery, or Indy Jones-ish brawling, type set-piece battles, with all it's shuffling around and jockeying for advantage. And it seems like all that square-counting and power-selecting doesn't bog down game flow much at all. Very cool. Also worth noting (which you did!) is that monsters seem to come in a ton of varieties now, so you can pile on Kobold Minions and Kobold Skirmishers and Kobold Dragonshields, and so forth without having to add in Orcs and Owlbears and Gnolls 'cause the Kobolds are getting old. And the Kobolds specifically seem well engineered to be slippery little bastards that swarm all over you and squeeze by your defenses. Nice.

I've been pretty ambivalent about D&D 4th so far, but now I'm itching to at least try it. Looks like a lot of goodness packed in there if you approach it right ("right" meaning "in a way I enjoy"). Rock on!

Peace,
-Joel

PS: My friends, we live in a world where a man can purchase a Lego Colonial Marine's Pulse Rifle. Rejoice!

He parks Pieter the fighter in that little entry-way. Just Pieter. But Pieter is the brick wall. Nothing gets past him, and in this entry-way the kobolds would have to take three successive attacks from him in order to squirrel their way past to the rest of the party.

Actually, as I understand the rules, you only get one opportunity attack per round. (And I've been told that there is no feat to increase the number, as 3rd edition had.) As I've seen the new rules played, it's really not that big a deal to just walk past anybody if you absolutely need to - it's just one attack, and a basic one at that. And when one character takes the hit, the rest can just traipse past.

Other than that, great thread. Resembles my own play of D&D-type games a lot - I'm just now playing through the Shadowfell for the second time, and I have to say that group ethos counts for a lot; the first time was all about the GM punishing innovative and/or immersive play, while the second time priorizes Exploration (in the theoretical sense). The feel is quite different. We'll see what happens with the Irontooth encounter, which indeed killed the party on our first run-through.

(Not trying to imply that you're playing wrong, by the way; I'm just discussing what the rules as written say. It's insane how long we've spent already finangling the stealth rules here, for instance.)

I 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.

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.)

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. So I fear that while it'd certainly be cool if a character could effectively block a route, it's not actually possible unless the route is specifically one square wide. (Or the enemies so few and weak that they are deterred by two extra attacks.)

My younger brother Jari has been leafing through the rulebook, and at least he's complaining that the rules are dull and castrated, with little opportunity for game-breaking combos or other tomfoolery. Jari is an old MtG player and only occasional roleplayer, so his viewpoint might be a bit skewed - I understand that many people would be delighted to hear that the new D&D rules actually do not allot significant extra efficiency to well-built characters as compared to thematically built ones. But that's a topic for another thread.

Hey Eero, how about you start another thread about the cracks in the game...I'm sure in a game of this heft there are going to be several. But lets keep this thread about the awesome play of D.