How Did Your Lair Assault 2 Go? (spoilers)

[Zuche]

See, fighting against the opposition arrayed on deck against you is a different matter altogether than what you'd described earlier, Karin's Dad. As for not seeing what else you could have done, every impression I have of Lair Assault is to encourage you to try different things. Is it really that difficult for an 8th level party to deny their opponents the opportunity to focus fire in this encounter?

Claiming that staying above decks results in automatic TPK within two or three rounds tells me you've overlooked more resources than I can count on one hand. Maybe you didn't have all of the ones I can count, but it shouldn't have been hard to acquire most of them with very little effort.

I'm a bit confused by your reaction to the cleric's death. How would her sudden death at the start of the second encounter be made worse by having the rest of the group die soon after? Doesn't the game speed up as more and more players are eliminated? Despite errors on the printed material, I know the play test determined that this whole adventure should take no more than three to four hours. (That said, it took my group three hours on the first encounter before failing to meet its objective. Then again, my sessions nearly always run long.)

...

Nullzone, I don't see this adventure crippling the skald as badly as you think it does. Aren't there a few resources that let you retain an encounter power (unless you're an executioner)? Even if there aren't, a player can make this work; timing just gains a few more priority levels than usual.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The ship was 5 squares wide, and the tentacles 4 high (whatever that's supposed to mean, exactly), with close blast 3 attacks. It'd be /possible/ to array a party lengthwise down the middel of the ship, so that none are in a 3x3 AE with another, but it'd seriously hinder their ability to support eachother or for the melee types to concentrate damage. The obvious tactic is for the tentacles to gang up on any bunched PCs, killing them pretty quickly. They do brute damage with an AE in a confined space. That's pretty vicious, I'm sure you could opitimize around it in a variety of ways, but on a first run through going below decks seems like a really good idea. I'm surprised that there was no provision in the module for the tentacles damaging the ship, tough... it could have been as simple as a time limit. The 3rd round below deck, you hear the timbers creaking and see tentacles stretched over the grating, 4th round the hull starts cracking and taking on water. 5th or 6th the Kraken crushes the ship and drags it under, something like that. :shrug:


Two things really struck me about this adventure.

1) It was a great premise that might have been really exciting and fun in a campaign, or if executed differently. But, on a second play through, it was dull. 'Avoid a fight' is cool and all, but avoiding the same fight repeatedly gets a little too paint-by-numbers. Part way through the 1st encounter in week 2, we felt like hand-waving it. If we had decided to play a 3rd time, we probably would've just done the second encounter. 2nd encounter, similar problem. In a campaign, with the idea of needing to keep the ship afloat and get where you're going, and maybe some NPC crewmen you know and care about, it could be quite exciting, but once you figure it out, it's cake. You only get the fun of figuring something out the once. It just doesn't hold up to re-playing.
I'm looking forward to using the poster map of the ship - well, sloop - though.

2) It had a very paleo-D&D feel. 4e gets some flack for not 'feeling like D&D.' Well, this adventure sure felt like D&D. The unlimitted ritual funding, for instance, got a lot of vaguely worded rituals into play. Powers are written tightly and clearly, rituals not so much. Having players wrangling with the DM over Silence and whether Hand of Fate could be cast behind Silence just off the map and so forth, that really felt like aspects of the prior eds of D&D - the boring, frustrating aspects.... "can I use Enchant Item?" (Hey, unlimitted components, make all the same-level items you want!) "uh... let me think about that, /NO/." The puzzle aspect was also kinda old-school. You had a series of move silently and find/remove trap rolls to make, success gets you out with no losses, failure brings down an extra-tough encounter on your head. Beat the right monster the right way, and it's cake. That kinda thing. Oh, and of course, Save-or-Die.

 

[Nullzone]

Nullzone, I don't see this adventure crippling the skald as badly as you think it does. Aren't there a few resources that let you retain an encounter power (unless you're an executioner)? Even if there aren't, a player can make this work; timing just gains a few more priority levels than usual.

At Paragon, sure. I've never seen power recovery in Heroic.

Do you have anything better to do than pick apart everyone else's experiences with these things? You're free to share your own, but is it necessary to dismantle the others?

 

[Zuche]

At Paragon, sure. I've never seen power recovery in Heroic.

I could be wrong, but aren't there a few cards in the Neverwinter set

Do you have anything better to do than pick apart everyone else's experiences with these things? You're free to share your own, but is it necessary to dismantle the others?

Either we're kibbitzing about the game, or we aren't. If you wish to pick apart game design, you should expect other people to pick apart your complaints.

I realize tastes differ, but you see a flaw where I see a feature. I'm not going to argue with Mr. Vargas' observation about the ease with which the first encounter can be bested on repeated runs. You'll miss out on a lot if you do it that way, but not everyone is going to care about that.

 

[KarinsDad]

See, fighting against the opposition arrayed on deck against you is a different matter altogether than what you'd described earlier, Karin's Dad. As for not seeing what else you could have done, every impression I have of Lair Assault is to encourage you to try different things. Is it really that difficult for an 8th level party to deny their opponents the opportunity to focus fire in this encounter?

Suggest a way.

You seem to be good at telling everyone else that they are wrong, but I haven't heard one tactical suggestion from you that allows for every PC to not be attacked 2 to 4 times per round each without going below decks.

Your suggestion once they go below decks is to then ignore the PCs and destroy the ship.

That's total fail.

 

[Zuche]

Suggest a way.

Once the season ends, sure. Until then, it's not proper to share privileged information with you.

Your suggestion once they go below decks is to then ignore the PCs and destroy the ship.

That's total fail.

Not at all. As you've noted, it's possible to utilize the hold without abandoning the deck. Now if you can force some of your enemies below the deck, sure, you might have a chance.

Expecting your DM to hold your hand by having the tentacles limit themselves to readied actions is a fail. If you cannot keep your opponents engaged, your team deserves to die.

My last group managed to win with only 50% casualties. I made one mistake that made things easier in the end, but they would have made it to the end. There was never a point at which I could target more than three of them at a time with a tentacle, and their controller did a decent job of herding the rest of their opponents. It wasn't until they all started moving to port that I had all of the tentacles focus fire on that side of the ship, since I don't picture a kraken thinking in those terms against a deck full of snacks.

If the snacks make that difficult by playing turtle, a creature that's perfectly capable of cracking the shell is going to do it -- and anyone that brought such a creature to the fight is almost certainly going to cooperate with that. Keep them busy or die; that's more than fair, considering that they could have made destroying the ship Plan A.

 

[OhGodtheRats]

Disclaimer: I'm still riding high on the wave that was acing Lair Assault 2. By "acing" I mean barely surviving but somehow doing it in a way that makes Logan Bonner cry. Forgive me if I go into "OMG I can't believe this worked" territory. In retrospect, the tone of this thread has a "If I were a DM I'd have changed things and killed you vibe" that may very well apply. Enjoy.


Oh man. I need to transpose my Google Plus reports. I ran through it blind last Saturday and our table was the only one to not only succeed but to have absolutely no player deaths. Which is weird. We had a warpriest, a Hexblade (a new player who ate dungeon tile most of the game but didn't die), a Berserker, and a Vampire. I'll link but in a nutshell:

Encounter 1: I made a character based on the cover art for Talon of Umberlee and....it worked out stupid well. My aquatic Revenant Vampire (with Gloaming Armor) turned into an invisible (until attack is made) bat and with my +18 stealth (I built him as a scout to get the the macguffin fast though I didn't know what the macguffin was exactly when I made him) was darting around. The Talon was in the last chest but the hilarious thing?

I stole the horn. Before the countdown of doom could even start, my character stole the Horn that'd signal the death of us all. The DM decided the pirates would go to the rowboat to get help...we ended up sinking their boats so they couldn't escape and get reinforcements. I....suspect from the DM conference that the module didn't account for this but it was a golden moment at the table.

Encounter 2? Didn't go so well.
I placed my character below deck, in the bed next to the Talon kind of as a gag. When I got above deck, due to rolling poor initiative, the entire party save 1 berserker was already making death saves. Hentai Doom for everyone, apparently.

And my Vampire solo'd the Baron. And the tentacles. Kinda.
I'm not proud...but they DID say to minmax.
The clue was the Glory Points awarded for "bloodying the Baron & letting him go" that made me focus ONLY on that. The trick here?
Revenants can stay standing if they're below 0 hit points. I had a belt of sonnlinor righteousness that gives resist 10 all when you're below 0 hp. Vampires, when bloodied have regeneration equal to their charisma.
[Edit: If you don't have at least 1 hit point, regeneration doesn't work. Me & none of the DMs knew this. Oops. Text removed because I REALLY wish other people wouldn't leave bad rulings lying around for folks to trip on in the future.]]

It was dumb luck but the Vampire package worked. Having a utility that boosts diplomacy for the final thing...having the aquatic keyword thanks to a half-elf (as per Past Soul feature) feat...I will never do this lair again because there's no way the stars will shine in that exact way ever again.
Fun times.
-Jared

PS: G+ Posts on the matter. Play report: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110367953918386470600/posts/JMjEFwvRMtB

And my "This is my character" post made BEFORE I played the game. Jon's +1 struck me as ominous.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110367953918386470600/posts/P72biJFjSUR

 

[keterys]

Bad news:
Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the start of your turn. If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Bad news:
Heal Each Turn: If you have regeneration and at least 1 hit point, you regain a specified number of hit points at the start of your turn. If your current hit point total is 0 or lower, you do not regain hit points through regeneration.

Yes, conscious or unconscious has nothing to do with it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

we went in with 4 (almost 6) characters, a bow ranger with the owl bear theme, an eladrin taclord with the fey wild lord theme, a rouge (theif) and a guardian fighter.

we lucked out with stealth rolls (one of us had a +4 STEALTH) and we split up, killing 4 minons at the same time, and got out with the item.


we threw the item down the hold, and our ranger spent the first 3 rounds darting down there to not get hit. The bear and the eladrin soldier made it 1 round each. My warlord was the only one with any intimadate (I had a 8, we then had a 6, a3 and a 2)and I decided not to intimadate the four armed guy, instead I sroped both dailys on him, killing him. I droped this next turn. the theif got droped and killed by 3 tendrils.

the fighter and ranger tried there best to keep it going, but it came down to just the ranger and 3 tendrails, one bloodied, the ranger our of surges...Dailys....Encounters, and just had twin strikes... he just gave up