DDXP 2010 LFR Battle Interactive (ADCP 2-1) (massive spoilers)

[Joshua Randall]

I was the only PC to offer tribute to Yeenoghu at our table. [...] The game mechanic - I didn't have to draw from the change deck, but could if I wanted.

That's it? Kind of underwhelming. I figured you Yeenoghu worshippers should've gotten some defense bonuses (against plaguechanged creatures), or resistances, or something actually useful.

But this just goes to show you: making deals with a demon lord isn't a good idea.

Skill Challenge

We had two options for how to spend our move action each round - a, help the ritual or b, use a skill that allowed you to intercede between the motes and the caster. Then we could use a standard action to attack as many motes as possible (one or two, generally).

Yes, that's what happened at my table also. I didn't explain it very well.

There were rules around how many motes you could hit with various types of powers. For example, a burst could hit a number of motes equal to the size of the burst plus two. I thought this was a good balance between allowing PCs with area powers to kill multiple motes at once, and not wasting time drawing a map and figuring out exactly where everybody was.

I didn't mind the whole thing, except for the part where we had to roll to hit, but they did not. So having a good defense (or defensive encounter powers) was no help whatsoever.

Yes, that was a bit unfair. You could've encased the NPC ritual caster in adamantine and it wouldn't have mattered, at least as the encounter was written.

for those who have seen the text, does it say anything about needing to be a ritual caster in order to Aid?

It's implied but not explicit. Requiring PCs to be ritual casters to aid would make that skill challenge much more difficult if not impossible. It would be quite likely to find a table with no PC ritual casters at it!

Encounter 5 - The visual we got was a little different on friday (than what is presented above).

Looking over the adventure, our DM took some liberties with the monster visuals. The creature in the middle was indeed a heart (not a head).

However, the chasm was definitely there.

will gladly play one again. Especially if it's completely written a full week or more before the con (as opposed to completed on Thursday, sheesh).

I'm sure the LFR powers that be would like that as well.

Disruptive Strike, which got me free in-between-rounds damage in every encounter, plus had a decent chance of creating a miss.

Yes, that power is amazing.

My paladin got some good use out of Ray of Reprisal -- it's a Daily immediate interrupt that halves the damage an ally takes and hits the attacker with 3d6+Cha in return. I'm a big fan of immediate action powers, especially if your character wouldn't otherwise be doing anything in between rounds.

My second DM specifically told me that they changed the skill challenge between sessions. Apparently, it was way too easy the first time around.

Ah. It is hard to find the fine line between too easy and too difficult.

The way it was ruled for that party(it was irrelevant for the H3 table) was that DC10 was a 1/4 move speed cautious climb DC and it was closer to 15-17 to even get 1/2 speed.

Well, that's just not right. Climbing is hard enough without making it tougher on the PCs by raising the DC and making them move at 1/4 speed.

Maybe its just me, but when its described as "sharn floating on the other side of 6 portals throwing spells at you" I dont consider throwing Arcana at it as an option.

Hmm, so what happened when you tried to attack the sharns? If I were DMing, at that point at the latest I would have revealed the fact that you could close the portals. (Per the adventure, you can't affect the sharns directly.)

Its just a game, have fun.

Yep!

 

[Seule]

I ran the BI both nights, and both tables succeeded at most of the encounters.
There was some confusion regarding details of some of the encounters, which would account for some of the table variation seen in this thread. The skill challenge the second day was set up so that if you blocked all the motes two more would be added the next round (cumulative), but if any got through they wouldn't increase. This added a lot to the difficulty, although apparently there was one table that was blocking 30+ per round by the end. I have no idea how.
I found the encounters to be interesting, imaginative, and well balanced (to be tough). None were overwhelming for my tables, other than in terms of time to complete. I did have well-organized and effective tables, though.
On the whole I would say it was a very successful experiment, I only heard good things from players at the con, including a couple who said that it was a highlight of their RPG playing careers.