Post your Lair Assault Results Here (Spoilers)

[Knowledge Checks]

It sounds like your DM might have taken some liberties here.

The warlocks from the mud room are not supposed to come after the PCs unless the door to the mud room had been opened previously. And with their two area effect attacks, that's a lot of extra damage that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Course, if you had opened the door to the mud room, then you were fair game.

We did open the mud room door, so it was a legit move on his part. We took one look inside and decided that the hallway was our better option.

 

[Erudite Frog]

Optimized play. We enjoyed the Organized Play. I was a player in the non-optimized group.

There are several of them. LA is one and lfr is another. Encounters is one too. You read the description and thought it was something else?????

 

[jelmore]

I'm getting ready to run Forge of the Dawn Titan for my FLGS in the next two weeks; I was supposed to run it last night but Labor Day Weekend killed any interest.

Anyway, I'm rolling up some different groups of beasties, in case we want to try it more than once in a given session. I was looking at the Nightmare mode, which says to add one creature of each level group; so here's a silly question — does that include the Fire Elemental? It's called "Nightmare mode", so I assume so...

 

[jester_gl]

The reason the monster don't open door before they see the PC is because they are not aware that something is happening. But after round 4 all door are open and they are all very aware of something happening, with the dungeon exploding and all.

Technically speaking, shouldn't all the monster in the dungeon be able to converge on the PC now that they don't need to open any doors to do so?

 

[Zuche]

The reason the monster don't open door before they see the PC is because they are not aware that something is happening. But after round 4 all door are open and they are all very aware of something happening, with the dungeon exploding and all.

Technically speaking, shouldn't all the monster in the dungeon be able to converge on the PC now that they don't need to open any doors to do so?

I hadn't interpreted it that way, but I wouldn't object to that interpretation. One thing to keep in mind is that there are few safe paths for many of the monsters in the lair to reach one another after that event occurs. That said, I'm surprised KarinsDad didn't have one of the two temple champions open the back door to their room when everyone bunched up at the portcullis. Losing one round to bring in two more fresh allies seemed like a given.

Likewise, I'm surprised that neither of the warlocks in the mudroom managed to open the door behind them to shout an alarm to their master. That would have let his team complicate things nicely.

As for the complaint about the box telegraphing the importance of fire resistance, that strikes me as entirely appropriate. I mean, wasn't "Forge of the Dawn Titan" a dead giveaway what to expect? If parties prepared in advance for fire damage, good! The metagame is justified quite well within game: wouldn't Lord Neverember have hired people well equipped to tackle fire-based opposition here?

I was surprised that only two of the eight players I ran in simultaneous sessions on Saturday opted for fire resistance--but not as surprised as they were with how that option turned out. (Useful, but not anywhere as useful as they'd thought it would be.) One group got bogged down at the front entrance and refused to move until they'd killed off everything in the room...and while one had exceptional counterattacking ability (doing at least 17 hp of damage to anything that made a melee attack against him), that turned out quite poorly for them. They eventually made it through the sealed door (on their first attempt, as a 20 was rolled on top of an attempt to aid another), and the last man standing managed to survive for another six rounds by virtue of an amusing string of bad rolls (nothing over 3) on my part.

The other group, however, managed to get through those doors and swarm all over the boss by round three. It was looking good for them, with action points sprayed everywhere and a prone and dazed target before them. And then their luck ran dry, leaving them unable to tag him at all as the other monsters came in behind them...the cleric got knocked unconscious and was dumped into the lava with fatal results, the rest of the team found itself immobilized long enough for the enemy to regroup, and they were completely slaughtered within the next two rounds.

I'm already working on alternate trap and monster placement, with a few nasty ideas for the alternate monsters in place. (The Elect can do a surprising amount of harm if they get a chance and you think beyond what they can do with an attack roll.) I would certainly like to see alternate trap and terrain options in further assaults. Easier means of revealing the map a room at a time would also be nice (laminated pages I could fit together instead of a poster of the full map, for example). As an introduction, however, I am quite happy with it, as were at least six of my eight players.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

Three lazy Warlords, Two Essentials rogues.

We slaughtered ALL THE THINGS. Everything the Warlords did gave the Rogues an extra basic attack...which because we were essentials rogues did ginormous amounts of damage. We just slashed our way across the battlefield. Nothing could stay in melee range of us without dying almost instantly. There was blood. Lots of it and it was epic and we had a blast.

 

[KarinsDad]

I hadn't interpreted it that way, but I wouldn't object to that interpretation. One thing to keep in mind is that there are few safe paths for many of the monsters in the lair to reach one another after that event occurs. That said, I'm surprised KarinsDad didn't have one of the two temple champions open the back door to their room when everyone bunched up at the portcullis. Losing one round to bring in two more fresh allies seemed like a given.

As far as I remember, the module didn't say that the doors opened, it just stated that they didn't auto-close.

And yeah, bringing in the last two foes didn't occur to me because of that whole "monsters won't open the doors thing". Something to remember if we ever run it again. The champions moved up right away to protect the BBEG.

I had put in two blazing skeletons in the last room, but they were just there to supply more firepower and they went down pretty quickly when the PCs finally got around to focusing fire on them.

Likewise, I'm surprised that neither of the warlocks in the mudroom managed to open the door behind them to shout an alarm to their master. That would have let his team complicate things nicely.

I didn't bother with that. The entire adventure pre-supposed that he knew that they were there, so I just ran it that way. It ended up with the PCs strung along in the back hallway anyway because of the cloaks, so although the one Champion did not get up into the fight right away, neither did half of the PCs.

 

[Zuche]

Yeah, when I read that bit about monsters not opening doors, I decided that while it was okay that the defenders would wait for intruders to come to them, failing to make use of the door across from the player's point of entry to their room would not be a smart tactical decision.

As for shouting out a warning to Vell, I took the view that it let him know what path the adventurers were taking toward him and what resources they might find before they got to him. Besides, I figured, what else were they going to do with a minor action?

I agree with you on the doors staying closed until opened, even after round four. I'm less clear on the portcullis, though: once raised, shouldn't it stay raised? After round five, shouldn't the damage it's taken make it harder to lower it again? Okay, someone could teleport across the bars and leave them closed, but someone could get hurt doing that, and you have to keep Vell from taking cover from people hiding in the hallway behind the portcullis. With time on his side, it may be necessary to stick out a few more necks to get him.

I've got a few nasty plans involving resource "theft" and the corridor of runes, but I'm going to wait until the players need the extra bit of challenge. Vell knows the resources available to him, and he should be fully prepared to exploit that at any time.

 

[Saracenus]

Played Lair Assault today, it was a DM slot-0 run by the coordinator of the program at our store (yay Guardian Games in PDX!).

Davena was our DM, and she has a rep being tough and she pulled out all the stops. Unfortunately for her, we brought the cheese with an extra helping of cheese.

Party:

Teos - Elf Hunter Ranger
Me - Revenant Storm Sorcerer
Melissa (my lovely wife) - Eladrin Thief
Alex - Water Genesi Taclord
John - Half-Orc Slayer (DEX based charger)
David - Dwarf Fighter (Axe and Board)

We rocked the adventure completely mid 14th round. We killed the boss in round 12.

No fatalities, though our dwarven fighter was unconscious during the boss fight for a round.

Things that were just bad, wrong fun:

Teos and I both had Armor of Sudden Recovery +1:
Level 3 Uncommon
Price: 680 gp
Armor: Cloth, Leather
Enhancement: +1 AC
Property: You gain a +1 item bonus to saving throws against ongoing damage.

Power (Daily * Healing): Minor Action. You can use this power when you’re taking ongoing damage. The ongoing damage ends, and you gain regeneration equal to the amount of the ongoing damage until the end of the encounter.

I didn't use a single healing surge for healing. I did burn one to power up a potion of clarity. Yeah, a Revenant with regen is just wrong.

TacLord was in melee basic heaven with the Slayer and Thief. My Sorcerer had a strong melee basic (but it wasn't needed).

The DEX based Slayer could swap between Maul and Bow and was nasty with both.

The rogue has +1 Distance dagger for ranged.

It was glorious.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Anyone else getting the feeling that for power, it is best to just ignore controllers and defenders?