First swing at D&D 4E

So, three of our Wednesday night game group (forvrin, nemloen and coffeebadass) and I got together to try some 4th Edition D&D using the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure and quick-start rules.

The player side quick-start rules pretty much focus exclusively on the new tactical combat system and the quick-start characters are devoid of roleplaying suggestions, backgrounds and barely have a physical description. The adventure itself has some nice subplot ideas and characters to interact with but no real bridge between the player characters and the setting.

Our adventure was a bit unbalanced in that we only had 3 PCs in an adventure balanced for 5 (and that the Paladin could not hit anything in the first battle and only had slightly better luck in the later two). Tactical options for the characters are much expanded, especially for wizards who get a bunch of reusable magical attacks. It plays fairly well, with some quirks that will seem less with play but only some much can be told from fixed pre-gen characters and a few basic combats.

But it seems to have potential. Even more curious about what the actual rules will look like, especially character generation.