Lair Assault format

[Rechan]

Does anyone know when the pirate ship one is supposed to take place?

 

[Saracenus]

And this is bad..... how?


In a regular game, sure, character death sucks, but this will be a totally different way to play.

Do you mourn your king when he falls in chess?

I was merciless when I ran Ultimate Dungeon Delve. Of 5 tables I ran at PAX 2009, none made it past Encounter 2 (of 6). It was just that rough. I just wanted to let folks know that CharOps and theorycraft don't amount to much in the face of what's coming. Your uber-PC that has vomitous damage will probably get ganked or shut down quickly because its too specifically built and not part of an integrated party.

The parties that were successful made sure that the entire party complemented each other and filled in weaknesses. They practiced together so that they could react quickly to a very dynamic tactical environment. If you are spamming at-wills for most of the combat, you are dungeon meat...

Personally I am too busy to run or play this right now but I would love to chew on some PC flesh...

 

[Vael]

Does anyone know when the pirate ship one is supposed to take place?

This preview suggests 3 months between each set, so Decemberish. I'm really looking forward to this program, the only challenge being I have no idea whether I'd rather play or DM. Either side looks like a challenge. The DMs do get to keep the material, though, and that's definitely a point in favour of DMing. Especially for the pirate ship encounter. Poster maps are like crack for me. Not to mention the other stuff.

 

[Alphastream]

I would be surprised if every Lair Assault adventure used the same rules. An encounter where stances end, for example, should not be a shock to players, even if the norm might be that they stay active (the default rule when no short rest is granted). Powers like Moment of Glory will be expected by designers.

I also wouldn't take it for granted that team build x will win at any LA session. It could very well be that a team or PC build that does well in one adventure will do very poorly in another. The fun of constructing a PC or team is in part based, I would expect, on what is optimal being different each time (or nearly so). I imagine the program will be tweaked over time based on achieving the right challenge level to make it fun for the audience (itself a subset of all players that play D&D).

 

[Dice4Hire]

Good point about building a team to to the LA.

 

[Scribble]

I like the achievements idea. So now even i you CAN build the ultimate charOp build, it's not always what you're going for.

 

[Matt James]

The same strategies and tactics definitely will not work equally in each of the assaults. The same goes with builds. Twists, turns, and surprises will be in each.

 

[kerbarian]

WotC_M2A0 just posted on the CharOp boards that each Lair Assault consists of multiple encounters.

No explicit word on whether there are short rest(s), but my guess is there will be. Otherwise the value of daily vs. encounter powers is heavily skewed.

 

[MerricB]

Steve Winter just clarified:
"We need to jump in here and clarify -- A lair assault is a single "challenge," which might or might not include multiple encounters. If it includes multiple encounters, there is no short rest between them."

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Dice4Hire]

Wow, encounters working as dailies. That is rough. Really changes the power structure a lot.

So I guess the new encounter will count for...

APs and milestones.

but what else?

But not

Recharging powers
spending surges for hit points (A biggie)

Sounds tough.