Notes about the game from the GM.

This is about Game 4 of our D&D game.

The players left Winterhaven to go to the waterfall. They got directions from Eilian. They met up with Kobolds near the base of the falls and took care of them pretty well but one escaped and ran through the waterfall to a cave inside yelling, "Irontooth must be warned!" The players were concerned that whoever was inside the cave behind the waterfall could come out and attack so they chose not to take their short rest. They went through the waterfall and encountered another group which they were doing pretty well against but then a third group from deeper inside the cave were warned and they came out and attacked. In a short time it became clear that the players were out-matched. They were able to maneuver in such a way to safely make their escape and go back to Winterhaven.

Assuming that the players choose to go back to the cave, I have told them that they will encounter the same NPC's that they left there. There won't be any added. With fresh powers and fully healed the players shouldn't be overwhelmed again.


New things we learned.
- The players attempted to use stealth to surprise the Kobolds outside of the cave. It nearly succeeded. One player moved that didn't have a high enough stealth roll and that alerted the Kobolds.

- There was some discussion about what constituted an encounter. The players had no more Kobolds to fight outside the waterfall and so Heath wanted to take his Second Wind heal "out of combat" and have it available to use again after going into the cave. Technically, the second wind isn't an encounter power but it can only be done once per encounter. I didn't allow it. After talking with a friend of mine that has GM'd a D&D 4E game for a while now I have a better understanding of the situation. The general rule is that until you take a short rest, the encounter isn't over. In the case of the game last Friday, the players continued to follow their turns which also indicated the encounter wasn't over. So last Friday, all of the action that took place outside and then inside the cave was a single encounter.

- We had a discussion at the end of the evening about what the players could have done about needing a short rest. I was torn about what to do during the game because I knew the Kobolds inside weren't going to come out but I didn't want to give any obvious hints to that effect. I ended up saying nothing during the game and, in hindsight, I'm pretty sure that was the right thing to do. I hope to get better about giving you a chance to discover helpful things without giving away the farm. One thing I mentioned in our after game talk was that you could have started your short rest and just waited to see if the enemy came out. You probably would have been no worse off than you were going in without the rest. You still should consider though that there will be times you really want to chase down an NPC to stop it from warning others and that you will need to weigh the risk of chasing it without taking a short rest.

- Finally, I learned that you provoke an opportunity attack any time you leave a square adjacent to an enemy. I was under the impression that you only provoked the attack if you moved in such a way that you were no longer adjacent to that enemy but that was wrong. A move to any other square will provoke the attack. Of course, shifts don't provoke an attack.