OK - I don't have access to my DDI today - what does a pixie music box do?
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Lair Assault: Kill the Wizard
- Thread starter Taed
- Start date
OK - I don't have access to my DDI today - what does a pixie music box do?
Saracenus - that's pretty lame to pull in a tourney type game, I think. I've been gaming since the late 70s and If I "won" an encounter that way, I think I'd hang my head in shame, or else wear a bag over my head or something like that.
I think the owl bear would be the only one affected in the Kill the Wizard scenario, though. I don't think the barl-gura, black pudding or flesh golem would would be affected.
My only regret was that I picked the wrong kind of armor - I had armor that changed ongoing damage to regeneration, and never got hit with any ongoing damage.
I think the owl bear would be the only one affected in the Kill the Wizard scenario, though. I don't think the barl-gura, black pudding or flesh golem would would be affected.
My only regret was that I picked the wrong kind of armor - I had armor that changed ongoing damage to regeneration, and never got hit with any ongoing damage.
This can be useful if any of your allies deal ongoing damage, but the results tend to be unsatisfying. An executioner assassin can reliably deal ongoing 2 poison damage and you probably want at least regeneration 5. One of the druid implements does generous ongoing fire damage on a critical hit, but the odds of that are slight compared to the amount of damage you'll take from... friendly fire. There's a fortune card (Aw, Too Bad) that helps with this, but the person playing the card still needs to hit and someone else still needs to score a crit first.
Another card (Maybe It's Contagious) can also help you here, but only by allowing the target of ongoing damage a saving throw to transfer it to every adjacent creature if it succeeds. That's still pretty high risk, but a party with two or more characters wearing that armor might find it worth a shot.
I only mention these options if you'd still like to find ways to make that armor work here. I completely understand why you might prefer other options. Elven Battle Armor has been pretty popular around here, and it goes well with the Disciple of Freedom feat in the first encounter. (Martial characters with a high enough Wisdom score can combine these with Martial Freedom to ignore one peril of the first map. It shouldn't be necessary if you move quickly enough, but if you have the sort of starting luck my Saturday group experienced, you might want to have something reliable in your corner.)
Thanks - the armor I had allowed me to change ongoing damage my character is suffering to regeneration. I think it was Armor of Sudden Recovery. It also gave me a save bonus against ongoing damage. When I was DMing my 4E game before I moved, ongoing damage was big both ways - the PCs on the bad guys, and vice versa.
Saracenus
Always In School Gamer
Um, this whole point of Lair Assault is bring your most broken builds possible. We all held our heads high. We came we saw, we conquered. On Nightmare Mode.
BTW, we didn't win because of the musicbox (it helped). We won because we played as a team, we brought our most broken builds possible, and we made sure that we locked down any chance that our DM had of picking us off.
On a since we are talking about our gaming resumes I have been playing since the 70s as well. Personally, I think you should hang your own head in shame for not thinking of it first.
Its kill or be killed. I can't help that you have some misguided sense of "fair play" in a program that revels in being completely unfair, period.
And you would be wrong. Owlbears are fey creatures.
There is a place to get your precious regen (which is just as broken as my musicbox), you just have to get to where it is...
Saracenus
Always In School Gamer
Taed,
I would walk away from your table. The rules are clear on how a pixie musicbox works and DM "improvisation" like you suggest is not in the spirit of Lair Assault. The social contract is, I bring the most broken stuff I can find and you try and kill my PC with everything at your disposal.
This is not D&D Encounters, Living Forgotten Realms, or some other organized play campaign where DMs are expected to "balance" things out so players have a good time.
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
well, if you're saying that the DM and the PCs use everything at their disposal, there is nothing to prevent the DM from saying "some mysterious force seems to prevent your pixie music box from working" and you'd be none the wiser. Maybe they're special non-natural versions of the dinosaur or owlbear? Maybe the wizard used a ritual to do something dark & mysterious?
I start by saying I have never done Lair Assaults, but the following is based on what I have read of the manner of play and the objective of them:
I think the point Saracenus is making is that Lair Assaults are written to be hard, to the point of broken in favour of the DM, so for a DM to add complications that the LA doesn't include to combat an idea the players came up with is against the spirit of the entire exercise.
I believe LA's are a challenge saying "This module is too hard, AS WRITTEN, to be beat with 99% of groups. So see if you can put together a squad that can beat it using any cheesy combo, gimmicky trick or sneaky strategy you can think up - as long as it uses the rules as written for D&D4!"
This would mean that to then go "But that item can take the sting out of the encounter, I'm going to fudge it" is cheating the players. LA specifically challenges them to take the sting out of the encounters, or they get stung TO DEATH every time.
As far as I can tell LA's are about seeing if the players can use sneaky combos to unbreak the pre-broken. So if a trick works, it was to the players credit to have found it.
LA's don't sound my sort of thing, but even I see the fun in an open and honest challenge of "Munchkin your worst - this dungeon can take it" and seeing who comes out on top. When the objective is "Live and die by the rules as written", as LA's appear to be, then it is perfectly appropriate to be looking to use the cheese and the DM should be complimenting you on finding the right flavour of cheese to keep his killer rodents at bay.
I think the point Saracenus is making is that Lair Assaults are written to be hard, to the point of broken in favour of the DM, so for a DM to add complications that the LA doesn't include to combat an idea the players came up with is against the spirit of the entire exercise.
I believe LA's are a challenge saying "This module is too hard, AS WRITTEN, to be beat with 99% of groups. So see if you can put together a squad that can beat it using any cheesy combo, gimmicky trick or sneaky strategy you can think up - as long as it uses the rules as written for D&D4!"
This would mean that to then go "But that item can take the sting out of the encounter, I'm going to fudge it" is cheating the players. LA specifically challenges them to take the sting out of the encounters, or they get stung TO DEATH every time.
As far as I can tell LA's are about seeing if the players can use sneaky combos to unbreak the pre-broken. So if a trick works, it was to the players credit to have found it.
LA's don't sound my sort of thing, but even I see the fun in an open and honest challenge of "Munchkin your worst - this dungeon can take it" and seeing who comes out on top. When the objective is "Live and die by the rules as written", as LA's appear to be, then it is perfectly appropriate to be looking to use the cheese and the DM should be complimenting you on finding the right flavour of cheese to keep his killer rodents at bay.
No, that's one of the most important aspects of Lair Assault. You can tell me why you think the pixie music box would work. I'll tell you when and how it won't. It's not like I'd miss anyone that would walk over something like that. "I'm taking my ball and going home," doesn't impress anyone even when you're the only one with a ball.
Good players force a DM to improvise. They also improvise in kind, rather than limiting themselves to a list of powers. Neither puts the success of the forces they command above the entertainment value they offer to all participants in the game.
No, the contract is, "We are here to have fun." I had the wizard make knowledge checks to inform his students where and how it was not in their best interest to attack, and I had more than a few of them ignore the advice when things looked hopeless. I made it clear that the wizard had no interest in surrendering, but also made it clear that this did not make him immune to Intimidate checks. (Unlike a previous DM, I did not interpret this to mean that the enemy only took a -2 penalty on its next attack against the one making the successful check.)
I've let players attempt to meet a charge with a readied action to misdirect the charging creature over a ledge. I've entertained all sorts of acrobatic stunts performed by people trying to shoot out a trapped window from a safe distance, and when one player asked if this might damage the rope, I looked first to see whether the players would enjoy that possibility before I made it unlikely break check. (That still happened, and it made the victim look spectacular in the process.)
Lair Assault calls for balance more than a few times. Most seasons recommend that you avoid focusing all attacks on one player, even when that would make sense mechanically. Taking a PC out of play in the first round tends to interfere with the player's ability to have fun. As such, monsters will avoid focused fire until they see good reason to do so, and I only attempt coup de grace either when the monster lacks a ready alternative target or once it's become apparent that foes need to be taken out as well as down. (Knowledgeable monsters might realize this before anyone is revived, but it usually takes seeing it happen.) I've had both owlbear and pudding spend action points on their respective "finishing moves" because that's part of the hazard they present. (Thus far, it's only been fatal once.)
The Lair Assault package also reminds DMs to generally rule in favour of the players where there's uncertainty. It's why a table had mercenary back-up in one session of Attack of the Tyrantclaw, making the ballista a much more viable option. (In turn, they only brought mercenaries once. Repeating that approach would have quickly made things dull.)
I could have stretched the fight longer, maybe even ended the lives of a PC or two, if the construct ignored all potential targets until it had taken the paladin (and divine challenge) out of play. In future runs, it may be more discerning about such things, especially if it determines that many of its attacks are having diminished effect. Last night, things had run long enough. It was in everyone's best interest to finish things quickly once the big picture was no longer in doubt.
Because, you know, fun. Seriously, who plays with people who want you to hate the game?
