Session 3b: Running the Kobold Hall (Part Deux)

With a few cancellations (and people being out of town or unavailable), our regularly scheduled Star Wars game needed to be postponed, so Terran was gracious enough to run a (new) version of the Kobold Hall adventure found in the DM's Guide -- where I actually got to play this time, with varying levels of frustration.

The team for this adventure:
Vexille, Elf Ranger (Dave)
Saren, Human Cleric (Ernie)
Vutha, Dragonborn Rogue (Scoot)
Kalen, Human Fighter (Me)
Talindor, Eladrin Wizard (Trevor)

Starting right in front of the Hall's entrance, we had already geared up so down into the depths we went. Today was a "Bonk" session, so no real time was wasted on story -- "let's just go pillage" was the order of the day. A little time was spent figured out the lighting situation, and once that was settled, we started down.

The team battled through the first three rooms today (see previous posts for maps), and this time, nobody fell in (or was pushed in) to the sludge pits, much to my disappointment. Carving through the kobolds pretty quickly, with very little trouble in the first room, the team made their way through to (and through) the trap room. We've had varying levels of success with traps so far in 4e. I'm not sure if it was this particular adventure or traps as a whole, but these arrow-traps seemed way out of our rogue's league. Not only could he not find them, but once the ranger found one, he certainly wasn't able to disable them. Either their needs to be a vast reallocation of skill points, or the DCs were way too high, or our rogue just sucked. Or all three.

Taking only a short rest in between rooms, the whole team managed to earn themselves a milestone and gain an extra hero point. Which brings me to my next gripe: action points. Are they just useless or what? 4e completely nerfs Action Points. In Eberron (where they originated in the D&D world), they were used to improve the result of an attack roll, skill check, ability check or saving throw (there were feats and other classes that let you spend them in additional ways) and in 4e you can spend one (per encounter) to gain an extra action. Period. Boring.

And then there's the kobold gluepots. Fucking glue? Seriously? My character has a Strength of 16, and he has the same chance as a character with a Str 8 to free himself from the sticky glue. That means that a bugbear has the same chance as a gnome to get unstuck or stay immobilized. Really, there's something broken there. Dave proposed an Athletics check to escape (as per a grappling check) but the text was specific in its direction that a save ends, meaning "flip a coin". Granted, Kalen has the Human Perseverance feat, letting him add +1 to that chance, but that still means he has to roll a 9 or higher or be stuck. It's just really frustrating for the biggest, strongest character to have the same chance as the weakest.

After a few more kobolds (and their damn gluepots!), we ended just after finishing the third room, the kobold's "skull-skull" game area. We decapitated every kobold we've killed so far (about 20 in total), collecting skulls for the bounty offered by Fallcrest's Lord Warden, Faren Markelhay.

The kobolds gave us little actual trouble, but Kalen bit off a bit more than he could chew when the team busted down the wooden door and our poor doomed fighter was promptly attacked by both the guard drakes. Their combo-attack abilities instantly reduced him to -9 hit points, and I discovered that the rules for death & dying are a little frustrating. Granted, the fighter's job is to soak up damage. He's the defender. That's his job, and he did it well today.

As a 1st-level fighter (who claims to be a paladin), Kalen has 30 hit points. Not the best ever, but pretty healthy. He had taken a couple scratches earlier in the combat, knocking him down to about 20. Nothing he couldn't handle. Then the guard drakes attacked. Both of them. At the same time. With their combo-Bite attack that gives them a 1d10+9 (each) to damage and (with Terran's penchant for rolling high on damage) reduced Kalen to -9 hit points in one small reptilian blur.

This is not the part I'm bitching about, since they're Level 2 Brutes and a pretty hefty enemy to take on solo -- you stand in front of a door as it goes down, you take what comes out, that's the deal. The part I'm actually concerned about is that any magical healing automatically brings him up to 0. Since a character doesn't "die" until they reach a negative number equal to their Bloodied value, Kalen could be at -14 and still be alive (unconscious and dying, but still alive), then receive 1 point of magical healing and be back to 0. That seems a little... well, for lack of a better word, nerfed.

I know it may sound a little weird that I'm complaining about it being too easy to stay alive, but hear me out.

My point is that it's very easy for PCs to avoid death. Without a healthy fear of permanent death, PCs (and players, which is the real problem) start to do stupid stuff and don't bother to think (or act) tactically. Why should they? They're not going to die. The DM's not going to kill them off, so why prepare? "Just go in and do whatever, you'll be okay."

The team needs a healthy respect for the Total Party Kill.


S.