Post Con Update

Saturday I DMed a scenario at a local con - "Revenge of the Rat God." Unfortunately, we started about an hour late and weren't able to complete the scenario and the Rat God didn't make an appearance. My plan was to have him inhabit the body of the overlord of the city after the PCs killed him in the final battle, kinda like the concluding battle of King of the Trollhaunt Warrens.

I wanted skill challenges to play a significant role in the adventure, so before the con I spent quite a bit of time adapting a couple of them to my scenario. I really liked "Moving Through Suderham" as presented in DMG2, so I used that as the basis for "Moving Through Tarkash," Tarkash being the hobgoblin city. I spend a lot of time drawing out a map which PCs could use as a basis for this skill challenge. In addition, in Dungeon 174's adventure Test of Fire there is a skill challenge where PCs participate in ritual combat to gain the favor of a leading efreet noble. I thought this would be cool to use as the basis for PCs attempting to sway a militaristic hobgoblin commander to their side.

But for all my prep, I found that the players didn't really care for the skill challenges. When they got to Tarkash, the players of the barbarian and cleric wanted to hole up in the slums while the more stealthy illusionist and assassin went around the city looking for their contact. Indeed, when I suggested they all travel together I encountered a great deal of resistance from those players. Of course, this makes perfect sense - traditionally, keeping a low profile as they move about the city is the purview of the roguish types. However, a Suderham-style skill challenge requires that all PCs have travel together, and I couldn't think of a convincing explanation for all the PCs to travel through town together. I eventually went with saying the hobgoblin commander they were trying to convince wanted to see all of the PCs or the deal would be off. Because of time constraints, I opted to forgo the ritual combat skill challenge and just sent them off to the next combat encounter.

Finally, I learned that paragon level PCs are just too much a one-off con game. I was hoping to have experienced 4e players, as they would have a better handle on how the game works. But even experienced players have a hard time keeping track of all their powers, feats, and so on. When I next run a scenario at a con, it'll definitely be in low or mid heroic tier.

But there were some positives I can take away from the experience. First, the assassin was played by the most savvy 4e player of my group, so I got to see an experienced player try out the class and it was really cool. Several times during fights I noticed that assassin darting next to targets, attacking, then darting away, which is how I think an assassin should operate.

Second, I got to make a cool map of Tarkash and I thought more about my house setting. I also got some more experience adapting published skill challenges to my own needs. I probably would never have written up what I did were it not for the con.

Third, I finally realized - after almost two years! - that wizards are basically as versatile as they always have been. In the back of my mind, ever since PH1 I've felt wizards have lost some of their trademark versatility. But as I was making the gnome wizard pregen, I recalled that when I created wizards in earlier editions, I would tend to pick one or two "trademark" attack spells and then have a bunch of utility spells. It occurred to me that this was exactly how I was making the gnome - my at-wills, encounters, and dailies were my trademark attacks, and the crap ton of rituals I had were my utility abilities.

I guess in summary, while I didn't have a particularly good time running my scenario, I do feel I learned a lot that I can apply to future games I run, at conventions or otherwise.