Winter Fantasy 2016 and D&D AL

[RulesJD]

As far as Epic lethality goes, its going to vary based on dice and table composition. For example, I killed one PC at my T3 table and he got to find out what happens you die... You don't just get a free raise, but rather there some really cool story stuff going on that I won't spoil since the EPIC is replaying many places soon.

Lethality is always going to depend on player and DM preparation. But when you know you're going up a against a green dragon, a few things become kind of obvious that players will do...

But really, why were the rewards for T3 tracks so small compared to the T2 and T3? I mean our table had enough collective gold to just buy the city, paying for living expenses seemed like an afterthought and we all figured we would be getting something more the next morning.

 

[Eltab]

Question (friendly in intent if not delivery) to BMG:

One guy yelling at the top of his lungs (and doing so valiantly) is never going to overtop 30 tables of background conversations.

You were testing a portable PA system just before mustering the Sat eve Epic - what happened to it? If nothing else, give your poor announcer a fighting chance, with a bullhorn or a cheerleader's megaphone !

 

[skerritthegreen]

You were testing a portable PA system just before mustering the Sat eve Epic - what happened to it?

It had no way to decrease out the bass, so it was much harder to hear than just shouting.

 

[Inconnunom]

It had no way to decrease out the bass, so it was much harder to hear than just shouting.

From what I hear on the radio, it's all about that bass.

 

[Motorskills]

From what I hear on the radio, it's all about that bass.

 

[Eltab]

It had no way to decrease out the bass, so it was much harder to hear than just shouting.

I've never noticed anybody having a hard time hearing what Darth Vader has to say...

 

[Alphastream]

I had a similar experience in T2. We played it on lethal, but we still stomped over every encounter with barely any resources used.

Usually when a table does that, it is enjoying doing so. There are some abilities (and especially spells) that absolutely neuter an encounter. If your encounter routine is:
1) Roll initiative
2) Banish the biggest monster or cast Hypnotic Pattern

Then, yeah, sure, every encounter is easy. There is no practical way for an author to write an encounter within XP budgets but then have it still be difficult when the characters remove the biggest threat or cause every foe to do nothing for several rounds. I played several tables at Winter Fantasy that did that, though they were clearly enjoying the experience. I personally had the greatest fun at tables that didn't do that. We could see what the author really intended and have some thrilling combats with some very cool monsters. No right or wrong way to play, but the use of such abilities does have a huge impact that an author can't easily overcome.

Now, you can have it both ways if your DM is comfortable and you want to use all your powers and also still have it be hard. The DM has to just free-form run the combat and add stuff as they see fit. Encounter construction where you add 2 of the biggest threat isn't possible normally - it's way beyond approved XP values - but is absolutely a blast if the entire table and the DM want it. I've had some super-fun BIs where I was the DM and the table allowed me to add stuff. We sometimes had three times the approved number of monsters and all sorts of improvised stuff and they could use all of their cheese and still have a threat. This is always dangerous, because it can go from awesome to TPK and only the right players can be okay with that.

 

[RulesJD]

Usually when a table does that, it is enjoying doing so. There are some abilities (and especially spells) that absolutely neuter an encounter. If your encounter routine is:
1) Roll initiative
2) Banish the biggest monster or cast Hypnotic Pattern

Then, yeah, sure, every encounter is easy. There is no practical way for an author to write an encounter within XP budgets but then have it still be difficult when the characters remove the biggest threat or cause every foe to do nothing for several rounds. I played several tables at Winter Fantasy that did that, though they were clearly enjoying the experience. I personally had the greatest fun at tables that didn't do that. We could see what the author really intended and have some thrilling combats with some very cool monsters. No right or wrong way to play, but the use of such abilities does have a huge impact that an author can't easily overcome.

Now, you can have it both ways if your DM is comfortable and you want to use all your powers and also still have it be hard. The DM has to just free-form run the combat and add stuff as they see fit. Encounter construction where you add 2 of the biggest threat isn't possible normally - it's way beyond approved XP values - but is absolutely a blast if the entire table and the DM want it. I've had some super-fun BIs where I was the DM and the table allowed me to add stuff. We sometimes had three times the approved number of monsters and all sorts of improvised stuff and they could use all of their cheese and still have a threat. This is always dangerous, because it can go from awesome to TPK and only the right players can be okay with that.

Well, having the main bad guys not to a type of damage that you can easily be resistant/immune to would be a good step up the difficulty curve.

Next, have spell casters that have had greater invisibility cast on them. They can then Counterspell those powerful opening gambits without being counterspelled themselves.

Lastly, let the lethal and up tables actually fight the damn boss. Give some kind of incentive for players to go all in on difficultly level for the Epic.

Oh, and having a completely meaningless reward for T3 didn't help matters any.

 

[Will Doyle]

Well, having the main bad guys not to a type of damage that you can easily be resistant/immune to would be a good step up the difficulty curve.

Next, have spell casters that have had greater invisibility cast on them. They can then Counterspell those powerful opening gambits without being counterspelled themselves.

Lastly, let the lethal and up tables actually fight the damn boss. Give some kind of incentive for players to go all in on difficultly level for the Epic.

Oh, and having a completely meaningless reward for T3 didn't help matters any.

Hey, I'm sorry you found it too easy! I guess the problem is, encounters 100% geared towards optimized groups run the risk of hosing other groups. In this adventure, I did include guides for modifying difficulty up and down on the fly. Each map has reinforcement zones, so the DM can just heap enemies into play if it gets too easy. Those guidelines could have been snipped from the final doc though, I've not read it yet. Anecdotally, plenty of characters perished in the upper tiers - they certainly did in playtesting! But some groups are just nails-hard

As for the rewards: really, some magic items have to be class specific. If all of the items chosen were vanilla, I think that would be just as bad. And as for the T3 story award, remember that story awards are designed to affect events later down the road. Who's to say a later module won't pick up on this award later to your character's benefit?

 

[RulesJD]

Hey, I'm sorry you found it too easy! I guess the problem is, encounters 100% geared towards optimized groups run the risk of hosing other groups. In this adventure, I did include guides for modifying difficulty up and down on the fly. Each map has reinforcement zones, so the DM can just heap enemies into play if it gets too easy. Those guidelines could have been snipped from the final doc though, I've not read it yet. Anecdotally, plenty of characters perished in the upper tiers - they certainly did in playtesting! But some groups are just nails-hard

As for the rewards: really, some magic items have to be class specific. If all of the items chosen were vanilla, I think that would be just as bad. And as for the T3 story award, remember that story awards are designed to affect events later down the road. Who's to say a later module won't pick up on this award later to your character's benefit?

In terms of upping lethality I wouldn't go just the "more enemies, more hp" route. Put in a blurb that the enemy has seen the players coming and thus had time to buff up, all spell casters start greater invis, illusions everywhere to waste melee time running around, etc. It shouldn't be a problem for Lethal to be optimized against opitimzed players, because it will only apply to tables running on Lethal difficulty.

As for story rewards applying later on, that's okay but we know for certain there is at least 1 full season of doing nothing for those character because next season has no T3 content. Possibly the epic I suppose, but that's just another super niche reward like one of the other rewards given out to T3 Epic players.

I highly recommend that rewards for Epics not be tied to specific races and then against to specific classes of those races. Otherwise you're just encouraging those players that get to pre-test it and bring specific characters to get specific rewards (heard of at least 2 tables with characters like that). Personally, I would remove the magic items from the play tests as they have no impact on the outcome.