"You've won this time..."

TC took the "D&D - Forgotten Realms" module "Scepter Tower Of Spellgard", pulled out a four-encounter sequence and turned it into a one-day (~7.5-hour) adventure for PB, LPO and me. Our fourth-level characters - Malphus the halfling rogue, Dagon the tiefling warlord and Tyrone the half-elf cleric - bashed, blasted and backstabbed their way through the heaps tougher and more versatile 4th-Edition versions of kobolds, wererats, undead and friends, while stumbling into the odd trap, until we reached the "boss": a vampire spawn on his crypt throne. We had the bugger 75% slain when the red tide turned against us. Our strongest powers were exhausted (2/3 dailies failed), our 20-sided dice had lost the ability to roll high and our enemy was rapidly regaining HP through a combination of standing on desecrated ground and clobbering the heroes with a Mace Of Life-Drinking. Worse - he'd bent the rogue to his will. Already past the agreed finishing time, we flew the white flag. It was fun, though, and as usual TC had put maximum effort into the preparation - dungeon tiles (and furniture); miniatures; character sheets with the powers on separate cards so they could be flipped over once used for ease of bookkeeping; additional cards explaining the rules for temporary effects suffered in combat, eg. blindness; and, of course, a fridge stocked with Potions Of Inebriation. I thought the booklet of scene-setting illos that came with "S/T/O/S" was neat and I continue to be impressed with the strategy and tactics demanded by 4E.