Running "Keep on the Shadowfell" Session 1

As 5e approaches, I want to stay more active in the 4e community as I believe 4e is the simplest and most easily customizable edition made so far and is the easiest "gateway drug" into the world of tabletop RPGs. 

I therefore gathered a group of 5 people, 2 newbies, a Pathfinder player who was willing to learn 4e, and 2 4e player who never ran any pre-published modules, and decided to run "Keep on the Shadowfell". 

I knew I should have run "Slaying Stone"...

We tried to do make a semi-balanced party of 2 strikers, 1 defender, 1 leader as 1 controller. 

The cast of characters are:

Puck, the neurotic gnome control frost Mage. 

Lucius, the undead hunting, human Paladin of Pelor. 

Van Axehand, the former captain of the guard Dwarven warlord. 

Kalixtra, the Tiefling, demon hunting, warlock. 

Ip Yen, the Wing Chun monk (Ip Man played by Donnie Yen), and best friends with Van. 

The players came up with really cool back stories for everyone, and I was really impressed with their creativity and desire to tie their PC's into the Nentir Vale. 

I start the game, there is some banter, the quests are to find the missing Douven Staul and to investigate the Keep, and I run the first encounter, deciding to do it vanilla, as written. 

That was a mistake. 

The first encounter is an ambush on the way to the small outpost town of Winterhaven, and involves Kobold slingers, minions and a kobold dragonshield. 

First of all, the encounter took about an hour and not just because of players unsure of what to do. Secondly, Puck decided to miss every single attack he made, so we had no one to wipe up the minions which led to the party taking increased damage. Lastly, the slingers always hit because the party has high AC but the slingers were +6 vs reflex, which for everyone is garbage. 

Not to mention the fact that it took entirely too long to bring down the non minions. 

However, everyone seemed to have a good time and no one dropped to 0 hp (though there were some scares) and the group made it to Winterhaven where they rented 3 rooms in the tenements and had their first rp experience. 

Puck awkwardly tried to hit on two young girls which, being a 60 year old gnome, didn't work out too well but Lucius valiantly tried to wingman for him which ended poorly after learning that the girls were already betrothed and Lucius refused to pursue further. Then Ip Yen tried to teach Van and another patron drunken monkey style, but they were so drunk that they screwed up. The patron they were drinking with let slip that he remembered Douven Staul and had warned him of strange sightings of dark beasts at night in the surrounding farmland. 

Lucius and Kalixtra meet the the leader of Winterhaven, whose name I apparently decided not to write down in my notes, who heard of a group of tough looking adventurers arriving in town. Lucius' high charisma and his rank as a paladin impresses the Winterhaven regent and he divulges some info:

1. He met with Douven Staul and has a map of his planned excursion. He agrees to hand it over. 

2. He fears increased activity around the old keep and the recent kobold attacks leads him to believe something is going on. "Something is spooking them." He said. He thinks he knows where their main lair is and offers a quest to clear them out. 

3. Trade merchants from Fallcrest were bring rumors of death cults in Winterhaven. The garrison guard fully investigated claims but found no evidence whatsoever of cults in the area. 

They all go to sleep, ready to strike out the next day, and there we end session 1. 

Dark Sun: Dwarves and Muls

The Dwarves are always a cool race to play in standard 4e. Strong and hardy, few parties don't include a dwarf anchoring the group. When it comes to Dark Sun though, I generally see dwarves fall by the wayside and be replaced by Muls.

Muls in Dark Sun are a dwarf/human hybrid who are bred mainly for slave labor. This means not only are they as hardy as dwarves, but they also have the versatility of humans.

In Dark Sun, Dwarves get essentially deflavored while Muls get all the cool, "never say die" type skills. Dwarves get their beards taken away, and since they are in a metal-scarce world, they get their black smithing taken too. Dwarves are relegated to being engineers, which is cool for an npc, but not really useful for a player. Oh, and there aren't any Dwarven cities or fortresses. So no "Ironforge".

Dwarves do have a lame addition that is a holdover from the AD&D days of Dark Sun. Dwarves have a "obsession" of sorts that represents their tenacity. This is borderline useless and more of an individual role playing thing.  

Muls on the other hand are an oppressed race who are literally bred for slavery. They have the same racial modifiers as dwarves and get to choose whether they select from human or Dwarven feats. I've never seen a player pick a Dwarf in Dark Sun, rather, they'll choose a Mul and pick from the Dwarf feats. 

In the end, I kind of feel bad for Dwarves in Dark Sun, but at the same time, I don't because WOTC just made Muls much more attractive. 

Dark Sun: Dragonbron AKA The Dray

The Dragonborn (not to be confused with the one from Skyrim...) are one of the cooler and strongest races in 4e. Not only is their Dragon's Breath encounter power really cool, but they tend to make the best martial class characters and even make for great paladins. My favorite 4e PC was a Dragonborn Blackguard who hated Bahamut for abandoning him and became a dragonslayer.

In Dark Sun, the Dragonborn are referred to as Dray. They are clan-based and were created by a sorcerer king in order to be sorcerer warriors. Already, you see a marked difference. The Dray on Athas are the primary sorcerers, being born out of magic and being principally skilled in it. Because they live on the fringes of society and are very powerful arcane users, they are usually sought after by nobles to serve as mercenary magicians.

In a party, a Dray brings a host of possibilities, including being on of the races where being an arcane user slips right into the story. The Dray could be an exalted dignitary, an ambassador between nobles and sorcerer kings, he could be an outcasted clan member who now sells his skills to the highest bidder, or he could be a mafioso in a corner of Balic focusing in the slave trade and money-lending. 

It's really interesting how the changes in Dark Sun force you to take a different look at these races. I normally would never play an arcane Dragonborn, but now it makes so much sense that I can't imagine playing a non-arcane Dray.

Dark Sun: Elves

I really dislike elves.

I always have. I think because most people see elves as being a "perfected" or ideal version of humanity where everyone is tall, slender, beautiful and communes with nature or whatever it is that elves do while they're busy being almost immortal. So when I was reading the Dark Sun Campaign Setting for 4e and read about how they changed the different races, I was surprised to see what they had done with the elves.

They turned elves into gypsies.

And not the Hunchback of Notre Dame, golden hearted gypsies. Nope, they took every single stereotype of gypsies, minus their penchant for extremely gaudy clothing (which I guess on Athas would be impractical) and reskinned the formerly elegant elves as nomadic gypsies.

I love it.

It gives the elves not only more of an edge, but completely takes everything I hate about them and removes it, leaving behind a clever race of people who are desperately trying to survive.

This flavor change also forces the player to reconsider what classes they would normally choose and often can make for some interesting combinations that people normally would never have considered.

Obviously, an elven rouge and ranger are still viable options, but given the new nomadic and materialistic nature of elves, you may want to reconsider primal classes such as druids and shamans based on the fact that elves seem to not be connected with nature in Athas. Obviously, Psionic powers could translate well and I actually had a player make a ranged Ranger/Psion hybrid that worked fairly well. Basically, primal power contradicts the new view of elves on Athas and I try and keep my campaigns low arcane due to the Sorcerer King's ban on magic.

Obviously, in your game, you can do whatever you want, but I think that these limitations actually opens up new opportunities for role-playing. Elves on Athas are accustomed to a brutal life-style. They band together in caraveans and make their living peddling wares, conning and basically doing whatever they have to survive. They are insular, usually trusting only those in their "tribe" and are the subject of vast prejudices from other races, resulting in MUCH less half-elves.

All in all, I think it makes elves a lot more interesting to play as and completely subverts what most people think of when they envision elves.