Need for AL-specific rulings of CoS

[Ainulindalion]

There is sufficient monster/combat XP to take a party of 5 PCs to level 10 just short of fighting Strahd (assuming that fight is your conclusion). I did the math.

In addition to the previously mentioned concerns, there are two 'magic' items in the adventure which are unique and not listed in the magic item appendix. One of them even has a GP price listed in the adventure. These items are located on pg 152 and 188.

Additionally, the area X30 (pg 189) probably needs some sort of guidance for DMs on how to handle it.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

There is sufficient monster/combat XP to take a party of 5 PCs to level 10 just short of fighting Strahd (assuming that fight is your conclusion). I did the math.

That's all well and good, but let's be honest here. How many of us are actually running tables of only 5 players? 5 players is a bad attendance night at my store, with our tables almost always running at capacity and having to turn away players. While I understand that the party of 5 is the standard that all of the writers design with, I would like to see some more effort added to the adventures to give DMs of smaller/larger tables advice beyond the simple "add or remove creatures of the same type" that we see lazily added in a single sentence to every book. A lot of the times, that method doesn't do nearly enough to shore up the differences in XP earned when you've got 6-7 players. I really wish that the adventure writers would adopt the AL difficulty scale.

Countless hours are wasted each season having to calculate the per-character XP of an encounter in a hardcover and then adding creatures until the per-character XP is close enough to have a negligible effect on level progression. The only time that adding an extra 1-2 creatures per player over 5 is the simple solution is when the encounter features enemy groups that are already multiples of 5. Even more hours are then wasted with these combats going on for longer periods of time, because I had to add a handful more of the CR 1/4-1 creatures to make up the XP difference of this battle. If I could replace X amount of creature Y with an upgraded version of that creature (ex. remove Bugbears to add a Bugbear Chief) that would provide the necessary missing XP without bogging down combat with extra rolls, then my life as a DM would far simpler.

Let's be real. The CR system is still just as vague and pointless now as it was in previous editions. The only thing that players give a kobold's arse about is XP. We should make the per-character XP the focus of modifying encounters. Instead of simply limiting the DM empowerment to adding more of the exact same creatures, we should be allowed to substitute with the upgraded versions of creatures as well, again using Bugbears and Chiefs as my example.

Don't get me started on using the max HP for a creature or changing spells/weapons as a means of adjusting encounters for larger parties. It might balance out the difficulty, but it doesn't balance out the level progression. If anything, it stunts the progression.

 

[Pauper]

Countless hours are wasted each season having to calculate the per-character XP of an encounter in a hardcover and then adding creatures until the per-character XP is close enough to have a negligible effect on level progression. The only time that adding an extra 1-2 creatures per player over 5 is the simple solution is when the encounter features enemy groups that are already multiples of 5.

I'll agree that tweaking the encounters for difficulty does not always result in a well-tweaked encounter for XP, but if it's taking you "hours" to make the appropriate adjustments, might I recommend that you do a bit of homework to learn the system?

For example, you might notice that every monster of the same CR is worth the same number of XP (see the chart on p.261 of the SRD 5.0); this means it should be pretty easy to figure out what the 'target' CR is you need to increase the XP for your encounter. If your encounter contains a CR 4, CR 2, and three CR 1s, that's 2150 XP for the base encounter, of which you'll need 430 XP per additional character over 5 to balance XP. That's almost exactly another CR 2 monster.

So what do you do if it doesn't balance out? Say you've got an encounter against a single large CR monster? Borrow from other encounters! The party is about to fight a CR 9 dragon and you need an extra 1000 XP to balance the sixth and seventh PC at your table? Find a different encounter that contains a CR 4 or CR 2 monster and borrow one or two of those! (They happened to have been sent out on patrol duty, or are coming back from the restroom, or whatever other justification you need as DM to include them in the current encounter.)

Here's the sneaky part -- nothing in the rules says that you can't adjust an encounter retroactively after the party has already completed it! So that group of bugbears the party mowed through on the way into the dragon lair? There just happen to have been enough extra bugbears that weren't in that encounter, but show up now to help out the dragon (and coincidentally balance out your encounter)!

If large tables happen as routinely as you say, it shouldn't be wasted effort to pre-calculate the 'target CR' for adjusting the encounters in the module according to AL rules, then making use of that 'target CR' as needed to keep encounters humming and the players satisfied both with the difficulty of the combats and the amount of XP they earn from playing the adventure.

--
Pauper

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

I'll agree that tweaking the encounters for difficulty does not always result in a well-tweaked encounter for XP, but if it's taking you "hours" to make the appropriate adjustments, might I recommend that you do a bit of homework to learn the system?

For example, you might notice that every monster of the same CR is worth the same number of XP (see the chart on p.261 of the SRD 5.0); this means it should be pretty easy to figure out what the 'target' CR is you need to increase the XP for your encounter. If your encounter contains a CR 4, CR 2, and three CR 1s, that's 2150 XP for the base encounter, of which you'll need 430 XP per additional character over 5 to balance XP. That's almost exactly another CR 2 monster.

So what do you do if it doesn't balance out? Say you've got an encounter against a single large CR monster? Borrow from other encounters! The party is about to fight a CR 9 dragon and you need an extra 1000 XP to balance the sixth and seventh PC at your table? Find a different encounter that contains a CR 4 or CR 2 monster and borrow one or two of those! (They happened to have been sent out on patrol duty, or are coming back from the restroom, or whatever other justification you need as DM to include them in the current encounter.)

Here's the sneaky part -- nothing in the rules says that you can't adjust an encounter retroactively after the party has already completed it! So that group of bugbears the party mowed through on the way into the dragon lair? There just happen to have been enough extra bugbears that weren't in that encounter, but show up now to help out the dragon (and coincidentally balance out your encounter)!

I'm probably going to have to start doing this with regards to the set encounters. This seems like the perfect loophole for shoring up those XP gaps. Those were the ones that were really causing the issues. It's easy to handle the gaps when it comes to random encounters, as I can simply combine those into a bigger encounter.

If large tables happen as routinely as you say, it shouldn't be wasted effort to pre-calculate the 'target CR' for adjusting the encounters in the module according to AL rules, then making use of that 'target CR' as needed to keep encounters humming and the players satisfied both with the difficulty of the combats and the amount of XP they earn from playing the adventure.

--
Pauper

That's why I was so happy to see the chart in CoS that listed what the APL for each chapter should be. To make my life easier this season, I included that APL on each of the tabs I put in my book.

 

[cr1ms0n]

There is sufficient monster/combat XP to take a party of 5 PCs to level 10 just short of fighting Strahd (assuming that fight is your conclusion). I did the math.

That's fine if the party seeks out and kills everything it possibly can, but the way I'm reading the adventure it is entirely likely there may be entire areas they don't visit. I think story driven adventures like CoS are much more enjoyable for everyone you get XP for driving the story forward. It doesn't have to be strictly milestone, but awarding XP for accomplishing tasks is pretty standard. Removing that possibility from AL play limits role playing incentive and pushes players to just think like murder hobos.

 

[kalani]

Its not that AL doesn't allow roleplaying XP - its that AL does not allow the DM to make these judiciary calls. If an adventure says "if the party does X, they each earn 100 XP" then at the end of the session, combat XP is totalled and divided by the number of PCs, after which each PC gains a bonus 100 XP. If no such text is stated in the adventure text however, the DM cannot add XP in this manner, as this is a shared story and there has to be a measure of fairness and equality between tables. Letting DMs determine bonus XP would result in tables with widely different XP totals for completing the same exact tasks.

 

[Ainulindalion]

Another thing that I think needs a potential ruling:

[sblock]There is a Manual of <REDACTED> and a Tome of <REDACTED> located in the adventure. Given that these are functionally single use magic items, they should probably be treated as consumables or story awards, rather than magic items.

An alternative ruling where they could be traded and used by 3 people seems possible (they are magic items), but seems to break the intent of the items with their 100 year recharge period (moving them outside the scope of AL adventures).

So I hope this is addressed as well.[/sblock]

 

[Tyranthraxus]

Im glad I will never see a Cert for either of those items!

 

[Pauper]

Im glad I will never see a Cert for either of those items!

I'm glad I have a cert that lets me trade one non-certed item to Fai Chen each year at GenCon!

--
Pauper

 

[kalani]

If you exhaust the item, Fai Chen would have no interest in it. He would say to come back in 100 years once it recharges. Fai Chen does not like to be cheated by people who think they can swindle him by using an item and then offloading exhausted items to him in exchange for perfectly good items.

Take for example wingwear. Even if you discount the fact Fai Chen had no interest in messing with the Elemental Cults, he would never accept a used-up wingwear. He would have asked the person to go recharge it before he would trade for it.

"What, you wanted me to put the effort into recharging the item / waiting for it to recharge? Don't be daft. I don't have that kind of time or energy to waste. If it can't be used now, it is worthless to me".