A Night at the Four Seasons (DM: renau1g, Judge:Ozymandias79)
- Thread starter renau1g
- Start date
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
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And yet, look at FourMonos in Into the Wild. Those assassins weren't high on defenses (at least compared to angels) and yet I don't think he hit three times in three encounters. Bad luck happens.
In that line, this was a tad bit too hard since it could have easily resulted in TPK (baring Deus Ex Machina) - without that confusion spell which was wild card, I think it would go much better
But I have no XP at DMing so...my 2 cents
In that line, this was a tad bit too hard since it could have easily resulted in TPK (baring Deus Ex Machina) - without that confusion spell which was wild card, I think it would go much better
But I have no XP at DMing so...my 2 cents[sblock=OOC]So right now Cyr, Damen, Kaeysari, and Phoenix all have neck item slots. Leaving Papo, Tarkus and Kauldron. I'm not really going to use this item much, that and I'm on my way towards level 6 currently so +2s are on there way for me. If either of you can use it then by all means take it.
Thanks for answering the questions r1. Just good to know all round.
Thanks for the heals Tarkus, much appreciated.
As for the fight. I can honestly say that this is by FAR the toughest fight that I've ever played through and I play a lot. 3 to 4 times a week. Play LFR at the highest level barrack whenever possible. I am also a world champion DDM player, so I know tough when it comes a knocking and that was friggin tough. Though I enjoy tough fights like I said before so long there's appropriate breaks in it. That fight there was either a TPK (on the edge of it at least) or a complete and utter power draining fight. Everyone gave it their all there. Every daily and item power. Almost all the consumables were used as well. No one has anything else to this day in adventuring. So long as you take that into consideration I think you'll be fine.
As for optimized characters, I believe as a whole you are correct in most people are optimized here. More so then not. Though that's strictly a case by case basis. Before I start this part off, I'd like to say I'm not wishing to offend anyone here as I talk about the party and optimization. I'm just stating facts that all. Please don't be peeved. Your all awesome people and your PCs are super fun.
As THIS group stands for optimization I believe both Phoenix and Damen are tier 1 optimized, it's pretty hard to get much more optimized. They are super kick butt characters. Though one is a striker and the other is a pseudo-striker which happens to just have the controller tag stapled to it. Heh. But that's good to have some damage output coming out. I believe these two are our top tier for group optimization.
At the other end of the table we have Tarkus and Papo. Well they may be good but there far from optimized. In Tarkus's case it's really not his fault he's level 2 running around with a handful of higher level characters. He's doing an awesome job for his level but he's always going to behind the rest of us. As for Papo again he is a lower level but not by much. The problem is Battlemind is a TERRIBLE class is the beginning. Most of the powers are just not useful. At the end of heroic tier and the beginning of Paragon tier is were the class really starts to take off. Papo looks like a great concept character, and looks to be building towards something with his feat structure but what I don't know. He's good but when it comes to optimized I don't think so.
That is the high and low end of the party composition. Now Kaeysari is a great all around fighter with a splash of controller aspect. She could mark at a distant, she can hit multiple people when needed and she's got a good damage base. Her only draw back is her lower defenses do to having a two-handed weapon vs. sword and board. This is what I would classify in the "normal" range. Good all round. Balanced, spread out stats. Not optimized heavily in anyone area. More great for any situation that may occur at any point in time. As for Cyr, I'm not 100% sure on this. As I've never played an invoker before and only ever seen one played during my time with 4th (since it came out). From a stat and powers sort of look he seems more optimized then not two high stats, good attack bonus. From an in play sort of view his certainly been an awesome controller blasting multiple people. Buffing and debuffing, status effects. Everything a controller should be. Though for super optimized that's a hard one for me to even judge as I have extremely little experience with invokers.
Now for my own character and optimization. I made Kauldron as a concept character an rp character. He was originally a 3.5 character I decided to remake and bring back. Stat and race wise he's not optimized in the least. Goblin in general is not a good race. There racial power isn't really useful. Sure on occasions though as a whole it rarely gets used. That and no racial feat support and being small (Small is terrible in 4e btw. No bonuses only limited weapon choices. Ugh) makes goblin a non-optimized racial choice. For stats all his stats are rather spread out covering a great deal of them all. Damage wise, his damage out put is really low, and his accuracy is low as well. He'd be lucky to kill anything other then a minion. His only optimized thing he has going is his defenses, that and being able to mark and tank multiple targets. Though even with his much high defenses it was nothing to the creatures at hand this fight. Most only needed an 11 to hit some even lower. Especially with combat advantage and prone on there side. Even I was rather easy for them to hit. So whether you would call my upped defenses optimized I don't know. Didn't seem to do much of anything the last two fights.
That's the breakdown of the group as I see it. Again this was not meant to upset anyone. Everyones characters are awesome as is nothing needs to be chaged in the least. I could be wrong with some of this. I could be wrong with all of this. Everyone views things differently. I just wanted to help the DM with some of my insight. So that perhaps he can use it (or not) to help him make a better and more enjoyable game (not that I'm complaining, I've loved the game so far) for us all.
Hopefully this helps a bit r1. Sorry for the long rant everyone.[/sblock]
Thanks for answering the questions r1. Just good to know all round.
Thanks for the heals Tarkus, much appreciated.
As for the fight. I can honestly say that this is by FAR the toughest fight that I've ever played through and I play a lot. 3 to 4 times a week. Play LFR at the highest level barrack whenever possible. I am also a world champion DDM player, so I know tough when it comes a knocking and that was friggin tough. Though I enjoy tough fights like I said before so long there's appropriate breaks in it. That fight there was either a TPK (on the edge of it at least) or a complete and utter power draining fight. Everyone gave it their all there. Every daily and item power. Almost all the consumables were used as well. No one has anything else to this day in adventuring. So long as you take that into consideration I think you'll be fine.
As for optimized characters, I believe as a whole you are correct in most people are optimized here. More so then not. Though that's strictly a case by case basis. Before I start this part off, I'd like to say I'm not wishing to offend anyone here as I talk about the party and optimization. I'm just stating facts that all. Please don't be peeved. Your all awesome people and your PCs are super fun.
As THIS group stands for optimization I believe both Phoenix and Damen are tier 1 optimized, it's pretty hard to get much more optimized. They are super kick butt characters. Though one is a striker and the other is a pseudo-striker which happens to just have the controller tag stapled to it. Heh. But that's good to have some damage output coming out. I believe these two are our top tier for group optimization.
At the other end of the table we have Tarkus and Papo. Well they may be good but there far from optimized. In Tarkus's case it's really not his fault he's level 2 running around with a handful of higher level characters. He's doing an awesome job for his level but he's always going to behind the rest of us. As for Papo again he is a lower level but not by much. The problem is Battlemind is a TERRIBLE class is the beginning. Most of the powers are just not useful. At the end of heroic tier and the beginning of Paragon tier is were the class really starts to take off. Papo looks like a great concept character, and looks to be building towards something with his feat structure but what I don't know. He's good but when it comes to optimized I don't think so.
That is the high and low end of the party composition. Now Kaeysari is a great all around fighter with a splash of controller aspect. She could mark at a distant, she can hit multiple people when needed and she's got a good damage base. Her only draw back is her lower defenses do to having a two-handed weapon vs. sword and board. This is what I would classify in the "normal" range. Good all round. Balanced, spread out stats. Not optimized heavily in anyone area. More great for any situation that may occur at any point in time. As for Cyr, I'm not 100% sure on this. As I've never played an invoker before and only ever seen one played during my time with 4th (since it came out). From a stat and powers sort of look he seems more optimized then not two high stats, good attack bonus. From an in play sort of view his certainly been an awesome controller blasting multiple people. Buffing and debuffing, status effects. Everything a controller should be. Though for super optimized that's a hard one for me to even judge as I have extremely little experience with invokers.
Now for my own character and optimization. I made Kauldron as a concept character an rp character. He was originally a 3.5 character I decided to remake and bring back. Stat and race wise he's not optimized in the least. Goblin in general is not a good race. There racial power isn't really useful. Sure on occasions though as a whole it rarely gets used. That and no racial feat support and being small (Small is terrible in 4e btw. No bonuses only limited weapon choices. Ugh) makes goblin a non-optimized racial choice. For stats all his stats are rather spread out covering a great deal of them all. Damage wise, his damage out put is really low, and his accuracy is low as well. He'd be lucky to kill anything other then a minion. His only optimized thing he has going is his defenses, that and being able to mark and tank multiple targets. Though even with his much high defenses it was nothing to the creatures at hand this fight. Most only needed an 11 to hit some even lower. Especially with combat advantage and prone on there side. Even I was rather easy for them to hit. So whether you would call my upped defenses optimized I don't know. Didn't seem to do much of anything the last two fights.
That's the breakdown of the group as I see it. Again this was not meant to upset anyone. Everyones characters are awesome as is nothing needs to be chaged in the least. I could be wrong with some of this. I could be wrong with all of this. Everyone views things differently. I just wanted to help the DM with some of my insight. So that perhaps he can use it (or not) to help him make a better and more enjoyable game (not that I'm complaining, I've loved the game so far) for us all.
Hopefully this helps a bit r1. Sorry for the long rant everyone.[/sblock]
renau1g
First Post
[sblock=ooc]
Yeah I realized part-way through that the over-leveled monsters were not the right choice, and in the future will work with lower level ones and more of them.
Note when I say optimized, I guess I mean we get 25 points and a free expertise feat here (although only Damen has that now). Also, my home game is with my wife who plays a tiefling ranger who didn't take Twin Strike because it was too boring, and a friend who's playing a halfling warden (because he loves halflings and shapechanging as a warden is cool). Tactics are not their thing either. Level n challenge them...even before MM3.
Funny thing about the fight is that it was an n+2 encounter. 7 PC's @ an average level of 4. Level 6 encounter starts at 1750 xp, that was 2000. n+4 would be 2800. That said it was much harder in practice than on paper with the higher defenses and attacks of the level 6-8 foes. You can try to rest here, or try the portal and cross your fingers it's more hospitable than the desert...
It seems with the new MM3 damage expressions n+4 would be almost guarenteed TPK. [/sblock]
Yeah I realized part-way through that the over-leveled monsters were not the right choice, and in the future will work with lower level ones and more of them.
Note when I say optimized, I guess I mean we get 25 points and a free expertise feat here (although only Damen has that now). Also, my home game is with my wife who plays a tiefling ranger who didn't take Twin Strike because it was too boring, and a friend who's playing a halfling warden (because he loves halflings and shapechanging as a warden is cool). Tactics are not their thing either. Level n challenge them...even before MM3.
Funny thing about the fight is that it was an n+2 encounter. 7 PC's @ an average level of 4. Level 6 encounter starts at 1750 xp, that was 2000. n+4 would be 2800. That said it was much harder in practice than on paper with the higher defenses and attacks of the level 6-8 foes. You can try to rest here, or try the portal and cross your fingers it's more hospitable than the desert...
It seems with the new MM3 damage expressions n+4 would be almost guarenteed TPK. [/sblock]
Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
[sblock=OOC]That Stalker0 "Anti-Grind" thread I linked in the General Discussion thread was my bible for a while - it makes a huge difference, though MM3 has helped somewhat. In the adventures I run, it's mostly at the party's level or lower enemies, 70% skirmishers and brutes with a few lurkers, artillery, and controllers thrown in. Almost no soldiers. If monsters are higher level, I don't usually go more than 1 level over the party.
If I use solos, also add minions at the very least and try to have an interesting environment and highly mobile monsters to keep the fight from devolving into "ground and pound".
I mostly use custom monsters, and I leave their defenses at or near the default values. If I do tinker with them, if I raise one, I lower another. My policy is: my job as DM is to provide a challenge and fun. Hitting is generally more fun than missing, so I'll leave monster's defenses low. Carefully designed monsters that do plenty of damage and each have at least one "trick" makes them interesting and challenging in spite of their low defenses.
I also try to add other objectives aside from "kill them all" whenever I can come up with them. In my first Rerisen Tower adventure, I think there was only one encounter without some additional objective or interesting environment or both to keep it interesting. It takes more work to come up with it and you can't do it every time, but I think it makes combat far more interesting.
My 2cp.[/sblock]
If I use solos, also add minions at the very least and try to have an interesting environment and highly mobile monsters to keep the fight from devolving into "ground and pound".
I mostly use custom monsters, and I leave their defenses at or near the default values. If I do tinker with them, if I raise one, I lower another. My policy is: my job as DM is to provide a challenge and fun. Hitting is generally more fun than missing, so I'll leave monster's defenses low. Carefully designed monsters that do plenty of damage and each have at least one "trick" makes them interesting and challenging in spite of their low defenses.
I also try to add other objectives aside from "kill them all" whenever I can come up with them. In my first Rerisen Tower adventure, I think there was only one encounter without some additional objective or interesting environment or both to keep it interesting. It takes more work to come up with it and you can't do it every time, but I think it makes combat far more interesting.
My 2cp.[/sblock]
stonegod
Spawn of Khyber/LEB Judge
[sblock=OOC]For the fight, Damen is not exactly a fair comparison as he's higher level than y'all. It was about what I expected from r1, if a little more on the harsh size.
And, yes, M3 damage is brutal.[/sblock]Damen finishes with the eladrin and attempts to find the other, but remembers she vanished in a puff of leaves. He shakes his head an sits on a rock. As he sizes up the sandals, he tosses a potion at Cyr and holds up another for anyone who wants one.[sblock=Items]Damen will pocket a potion (spent 1 on Phoenix). Sandals seem to be a good fit and he's set for the big three right now (though a +2 neck item is always welcome
). If no one else wants them, he'll take them.[/sblock]
And, yes, M3 damage is brutal.[/sblock]Damen finishes with the eladrin and attempts to find the other, but remembers she vanished in a puff of leaves. He shakes his head an sits on a rock. As he sizes up the sandals, he tosses a potion at Cyr and holds up another for anyone who wants one.[sblock=Items]Damen will pocket a potion (spent 1 on Phoenix). Sandals seem to be a good fit and he's set for the big three right now (though a +2 neck item is always welcome
). If no one else wants them, he'll take them.[/sblock]*Kauldron looks to Damen raising his hand as if to catch one.*
I'll take one lad. Used my last one this battle. You know for emergencies. Better to have one and not need it. Then need it and not have one.
*He nods to Damen.*
[sblock=ooc]I agree with you Stonegod. I also find the essentials class much more "upgraded" per say then the normal classes. Though that has a lot to do with there lack of "tricks" and dailies. Losing "tricks" for raw power.[/sblock]
I'll take one lad. Used my last one this battle. You know for emergencies. Better to have one and not need it. Then need it and not have one.
*He nods to Damen.*
[sblock=ooc]I agree with you Stonegod. I also find the essentials class much more "upgraded" per say then the normal classes. Though that has a lot to do with there lack of "tricks" and dailies. Losing "tricks" for raw power.[/sblock]
JoeNotCharles
First Post
Tarkus's easy smile becomes strained as he sees how much his words have disturbed Papolstaanas. "Don't worry about it," he says. "We can analyze the battle later. Right now we need to make sure we're secure in case anyone else is watching." He steps back and raises his voice. "Everyone gather round, please!" he barks. "Everyone is wounded, and I need you all within my reach to treat you!"
Once everyone is gathered around, he bows his head and prays. His holy symbol begins to glow softly. Before the glow fades, he quickly touches the symbol to the forehead of each wounded comrade, and mutters, "Open yourself to Juna's mercy. Her blessing be upon you." Although nobody notices precisely when their wounds close, after the glow has faded everyone is less injured, as if the injuries had never occurred.
"That helped," says Tarkus, "But nothing compares to natural sleep. We need a full night's rest. Should we sleep here, where we can keep a watch on the portal, or risk crossing it and hope to find a less harsh environment?"
[sblock=Items]
I'll take the amulet - being a level behind I could use the extra defenses. And my Perception is pretty good but not astounding, so the extra little kick is nice.
[/sblock]
Once everyone is gathered around, he bows his head and prays. His holy symbol begins to glow softly. Before the glow fades, he quickly touches the symbol to the forehead of each wounded comrade, and mutters, "Open yourself to Juna's mercy. Her blessing be upon you." Although nobody notices precisely when their wounds close, after the glow has faded everyone is less injured, as if the injuries had never occurred.
"That helped," says Tarkus, "But nothing compares to natural sleep. We need a full night's rest. Should we sleep here, where we can keep a watch on the portal, or risk crossing it and hope to find a less harsh environment?"
[sblock=Items]
I'll take the amulet - being a level behind I could use the extra defenses. And my Perception is pretty good but not astounding, so the extra little kick is nice.
[/sblock]
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