AL queries

[Motorskills]

Never played AL, intending to get into it in the New Year.


I travel different places in the USA every week, so regular games are pretty much a no-go for me, although I have recently started hosting an infrequent OotA campaign for a few friends. So I'll mostly be targeting conventions, and have found the calendar and map which will be a great help in planning my itineraries.


I'm hoping y'all can help with the following:

i) If I am in a town with a gameshop, can I sit in on one of their sessions, space allowing? Is that allowed, and even if so, would it be too disruptive in-character?


ii) If I do a series of adventures at a convention, can I level up between adventures? If yes, what is the typical number of adventures required per level-up?


iii) Can I have more than one active AL character at a time? (I might need a spare PC in case someone levels into the next grade, or gets killed)


iv) How does Downtime work in practise? AFAICT, I only need money and time to craft things, learn languages, and develop tool proficiences?

a) Does the required game time (days) equate to real time, or is just handwaved?
b) If the latter, if I stumble on a dragonhoard, does that mean I can learn every language and become proficient with all tools overnight?
c) Can other non-tool proficiences be learned?


v) What will it take to make my home-based OotA campaign AL-eligible for myself and/or my players?
a) Can those characters be used at other AL events, doesn't that risk messing up either or both events?
b) How does xp / magic / Renown etc work, what do I need to do for my players?
c) As the DM, how would this work for me?


Thanks in advance!

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

1. If there is space and you have a level-appropriate character, yes.

2. Yes. The amount of time required varies based on your level and the xp in the adventures. Jumping from 1->3 is usually the quickest boost and happens within 1-3 adventures. Generally speaking, the lower end of each tier levels up faster than the upper end.

3. Certainly. I have almost 10 characters in Tiers 1&2. I usually have my players start thinking of a new character when they reach the end of a tier or near the end of the season.

4. DTD are used for crafting, training, catching up (jumping from 4->5 & 10->11 without adventuring), faction abilities, and any other season-specific rule or activity found in an adventure.
A. Time is relative in the AL. Two PCs can run the same two adventures in a row and nothing will change if one of them spends DTD in between them.
B. No. It still takes 250 DTD per proficiency trained.
C. Only languages and tools can be learned via DTD.

5. I'm pretty sure that if you weren't playing by AL standards from the start, you can't just convert your game to an AL one.
A. Characters from an AL home game are legal for use in other AL games. The easiest explanation for in-game use is that high-level Wizards within your faction teleported the players through time and space to handle an assignment before returning them to their previous location. However, AL DMs are permitted to bar reentry into a campaign until the next episode starts if a PC leaves the story early. ETV (Expect Table Variance)
B&C. Read the ALPG.

 

[kalani]

5) I will confirm that AL is an all/nothing quantity. Either your characters/home game are AL from day one, or it never will be. In addition, should an AL character play in one (or more) non-AL games, that character will never again be able to participate in AL, as they will no longer be a valid AL character.

Even in the event that your home game was played with AL-legal characters, played an AL-legal adventure (eg. hoard of the dragon queen), and never introduced a single house rule, creature, or item not found in the adventure - unless you have logsheets dating back to the very first session, those characters will never be able to participate in AL.

When it comes to AL games, DCI numbers are only required if the character is played in a public location. If the character is exclusively played in home-based AL games, neither the player nor the DM requires a DCI number, but the characters still require logsheets tracking each and every session. If you play in a public location as part of the Encounters or Expeditions program however, you must have a DCI number for your character, and your public-play log entries must also include the DMs DCI number.

Characters that are played in both private (home-based) adventures and public adventures do not require DM DCI numbers for their home-play sessions however.

Z.H. Darkstar answered the rest of the questions quite well (and deserves the XP)

 

[Pauper]

I'm hoping y'all can help with the following:

I'm not an admin, but I'll give it a shot.

i) If I am in a town with a gameshop, can I sit in on one of their sessions, space allowing? Is that allowed, and even if so, would it be too disruptive in-character?

Ultimately it's up to the folks at the store, but yeah, the idea of Adventurers League is exactly this -- you can walk into any store offering AL play and play your AL-legal character.

ii) If I do a series of adventures at a convention, can I level up between adventures? If yes, what is the typical number of adventures required per level-up?

Not only can you, you have to -- if you gain enough XP to level up at the end of an adventure, you level up right then. You can't say 'oh, crud, I'm scheduled to play another 1-4 mod, I can't level up to 5'. (See below.)

iii) Can I have more than one active AL character at a time? (I might need a spare PC in case someone levels into the next grade, or gets killed)

Not only can you have more than one, you should, for a number of reasons:

- A player can play an adventure any number of times, but a character can only participate in a given adventure once. If the store you're visiting is running DDEX 1-6, and you've already played it with your character, you either need a different character to play (if it's a 1-4 mod, you can make a new level 1 character), or you'll have to sit out.

- Characters have to be in the proper level range to play certain adventures. If all you have is a level 3 character, and the store you're visiting is only running a 5-11 adventure, you're out of luck.

- Especially if you're travelling and don't play with a regular group, the role that a given table might need most may differ from store to store. So if you have a wizard, paladin, and ranger, you've got lots of options for what to play to help 'fill out' that night's table. Otherwise you may end up as I did at a table at GameholeCon -- the paladin in a party with 3 wizards.

iv) How does Downtime work in practise? AFAICT, I only need money and time to craft things, learn languages, and develop tool proficiences?

In practice? You likely won't use Downtime much. In a year-and-a-half of running and playing AL, I've used the 'catching up' option once, and occasionally spent a day to justify recovering from things like wight drain and the like.

a) Does the required game time (days) equate to real time, or is just handwaved?

In AL, it's hand-waved.

b) If the latter, if I stumble on a dragonhoard, does that mean I can learn every language and become proficient with all tools overnight?

You need 250 downtime days to learn a language or a tool proficiency, and you gain downtime in increments of 10-20 days (depending on adventure tier) per adventure, so it'll be a long time before you have enough to even learn one language or tool proficiency.

Dragon hoards don't contain downtime as a treasure type, sadly.

c) Can other non-tool proficiences be learned?

No weapon or armor proficiencies, if that's what you're asking. Not sure what other non-tool proficiencies there are.

v) What will it take to make my home-based OotA campaign AL-eligible for myself and/or my players?

As noted, if you didn't start it as an AL-legal game (that is, make sure all characters abide by the AL character creation rules, mainly), then it won't be an AL-legal game. And if even one player refuses to abide by the AL creation rules, then your game won't be AL-legal for anyone.

Unless you were planning to start your game over as an AL-legal game (in which case, there's already advice for you on the Adventurers League Organizers web page -- dndadventurersleague.org), I wouldn't worry about running Out of the Abyss as an AL-legal game. What you might choose to do is run certain Expeditions, released in Dragon+ as AL-legal home adventures, if you want to provide an AL-legal experience for your players without the complexities of juggling two different sets of storylines.

--
Pauper

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Yay! Praise from the High Queen of Completeness! I asked myself "How would Kalani answer this?" when crafting my response...

 

[kalani]

lol. Amusing

 

[Motorskills]

you gain downtime in increments of 10-20 days (depending on adventure tier) per adventure,

Ah that's the bit I missed, thanks.

And thanks everyone for the other responses.


I know the instructions are to equip a starting character with the standard kit, but is there any flexibility in that? I'd much prefer equip my intended cleric with a chain shirt rather than scale mail. Those items cost the same, one trades a point of AC for better Stealth.
If "no", not a problem.

 

[Z. H. Darkstar]

Ah that's the bit I missed, thanks.

And thanks everyone for the other responses.


I know the instructions are to equip a starting character with the standard kit, but is there any flexibility in that? I'd much prefer equip my intended cleric with a chain shirt rather than scale mail. Those items cost the same, one trades a point of AC for better Stealth.
If "no", not a problem.

Kalani made a wonderful guide to customizing starting gear within the AL ruleset. It's stickied to the top of this subforum.

 

[Motorskills]

Aha, RTFM!

 

[Motorskills]

What's the deal with miniatures, are they used routinely, do I need to bring something to represent my PC?

I'm thinking of attending Winter Fantasy, but obviously I can't be sure that I will have a PC that will qualify for T2 after a few sessions.

I'd like to invest in some T2 slots, but if it all goes Pete Tong and my main gets killed, how easy will it be to trade slots if needed?