Death House and Milestone Rules

[Z. H. Darkstar]

As Robert said.. you can use the milestone rules for this adventure only. BUT if you do use the milestone rules.. then you will actually be shorting your player's characters of some XP then.

Just like how the old Encounters PDFs shorted PCs of XP with unjustifiable XP caps?

I probably won't use the Milestone Rule for Death House (always used the hardcover in the past to get around the pointless XP cap rule), but won't be adjusting encounters to make up xp gaps either. Ravenloft is supposed to be a difficult place to deal with, so I have no intentions of making things easier for the party by giving them more XP. Plus, none of us have seen the finished CoS book yet, so it's unknown how much of an advantage there is to be gained by running Death House first instead of just starting from Chapter 1. Once I get CoS in my hands and give it a good read, I'll make my final decision regarding the use of Milestone vs standard XP.

Truthfully, the only reason I took the pro-Milestone position is because Kalani's original post tried to disseminate information (quoting the RoT ruling) that was contradictory to an AL-specific document created just for this adventure. I had to make sure that the correct information was being sent to the masses. Any time information is broadcast in an official capacity, it should be properly vetted to make sure that it is accurate and doesn't run contradictory to the official documents regarding that information.

 

[kalani]

Prior to Robert's comment (which had not yet been made at the time I created this thread) - my information was correct (based on existing information/rulings).

My reasons for creating this thread was due to the fact that this question was being asked repeatedly on FB, and the answer given was always "We don't use milestones in AL, please see RoT FAQ". Since it was such a popular question on FB, I assumed the ENworld folks would be asking similar questions and created the thread to pre-empt this.

 

[RCanine]

This is a ton of bikeshedding for 91 XP.

The real question is: if someone misses a session or skips an encounter, should they be stuck at level 2 and not allowed into Curse of Strahd? If they somehow end up at 299 XP when they reach the stairs, are you going to make them do the entire adventure at first level?

The answer is, of course, no. Don't be that guy.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

This is a ton of bikeshedding for 91 XP.

The real question is: if someone misses a session or skips an encounter, should they be stuck at level 2 and not allowed into Curse of Strahd? If they somehow end up at 299 XP when they reach the stairs, are you going to make them do the entire adventure at first level?

The answer is, of course, no. Don't be that guy.

This is why I'm still considering using the Milestone Rule for Death House. However, I want to wait until I have CoS before even starting Death House. Since Death House is an optional sidequest that takes you to 3rd level in a 1-10 adventure, I want to see how the authors suggest handling difficulty levels in games that start with Death House vs those that start at Chapter 1.

Will Death House be a purely optional sidequest in the hardcover, or is it just like PotA, where the 1st level sidequests were pretty much "optdatory" (a word that describes your participation when you're "voluntold" to do something) because Chapter 1 was actually balanced for APL 3?

 

[skerritthegreen]

Then why were the instructions, which were written with AL as the target audience, written to the contrary?

Until I see a response from the admins clarifying it one way or another, I will have to agree to disagree.

The only solace we can take is that this all has happened before S4 officially starts. Therefore, this adventure isn't even legal for AL play yet.

That document was not written by the AL admins or anyone at WOTC who directs the AL. We do not use the Milestone rules in AL. Since that document went out (catching us a bit by surprise), as quoted above, we've decided to allow milestones for Death House only.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Sounds like a hiccup has been found with the Launch Event system. Hopefully, this will be brought to WotC's attention, so it doesn't happen again in June.

In hindsight, I should've probably noticed that this release didn't get inspected by the AL team. The missing monster info and lack of a printer-friendly version were dead giveaways that something was up with this. AL stuff is always printer-friendly. Here's to hoping that a printer-friendly version gets released when they put out the fixed version next week.

 

[kalani]

We found out about it as soon as the stores started reporting to the LCs/RCs that they had received the Launch Event (and/or when RCs/LCs who are organizers on WER started receiving them themselves). I personally wasn't expecting it to be sent out until about a week before the start of March.

 

[Tyranthraxus]

To be honest, I cant say Im a fan of ever allowing milestones.. even IF its just for Death House.

mostly because down the line someone will say 'You let us use it back then for Death House... why cant we use it for Calimshans Disco Express' in season 6.

I certainly wont be using Milestones in any games I run

 

[Byakugan]

The truth is there is no reason to disallow milestone xp XP at all. The main benefit of it is that DMs with full tables can shorten battles and do a bit of hand-waiving and the party gets to see more of the adventure.

4-5 player groups can usually go through several combats a night if they stay on task and fairly quickly get through content. 7-9(yeah, I know) players and you are looking at 1 fight a night, and there is no way to cram the right amount of xp into a single fight without annihilating everyone. My GM for season 3 addressed this problem in his own way. We got more xp than we technically should have, and were still 2 levels below where we were supposed to be.

In my games I have to get creative too. I adjust the individual encounters to the desired difficulty for the party, and I give them XP for traps, and for negotiating their way past enemies, and even for behind the scenes enemies that that ran away when their bosses got killed. Usually I throw quest bonuses in too, although it seems the published material is getting better at this. They act less like murder-hobos this way.

 

[kalani]

There is a very good reason not to use Milestone rules in AL - players can drop in/out subject to their availability.

It is one thing to miss out on Downtime and Renown, but it would be exceedingly unfair for players to miss out on leveling simply because they miss the final session of an Episode. Likewise, it is equally unfair if a player shows up for those particular sessions but misses out on the majority of the episode previously.

Then there is the fact that the DDAL modules usually require players to complete 2-4 modules before leveling (on average). If only some of these modules award levels, you can be certain a portion of the player base would play those adventures preferentially, and if played back-to-back, could result in a character gaining several levels in quick succession (simply by bypassing the adventures that don't award a character level). This can be mitigated somewhat, if characters only earn a level after completing X expeditions, but still - that isn't an elegant solution either (as it should scale comparatively with normal leveling).

XP is awarded specifically to avoid these kinds of issues.

As far as dissuading players from the murder-hobo approach, I like to have enemies surrender, and route frequently so as to teach players that killing every last creature isn't always necessary. Likewise, I generally allow non-combat encounters involving the same NPCs to award partial (or full) XP depending on whether they successfully overcome the encounter.