The Warlock has status effects and line-of-sight blockers to foil enemy artillery's status effect deployment. Your party was built to be able to do enough damage on paper if people play reasonably quickly and tactically sound. Clerics, fighters and Paladins all do respected damage if built even half-way well. The wide level disparity was likely more of an issue. I would prefer a true controller to the warlock myself but the Warlock's damage isn't bad when one considers what else they do.
DDXP 2010 LFR Battle Interactive (ADCP 2-1) (massive spoilers)
Marshall
First Post
Thats just it. Since the mechanics of the skill challenge were so poorly described, no one at either of my tables found it fun. My 7-10 table had 4 strikers and a cleric with enough area(or at least multi-target) attacks to blow through the, at most, 14 motes a round we faced. It was a boring, repetitive 10 rounds of dice rolls that actually got EASIER when the narrarator came over and corrected the DM. Blah.
The 4-7 table was worse, the whole party realized after the first round of motes that it was absolutely impossible for us to keep the NPC alive for ten rounds when over 1/2 of the TWELVE motes got thru in round one and FOURTEEN showed up in round two. We looked at each other, shrugged, threw what encounter healing would work on the guy and everyone who was trained in Arcana or Religion made the ridiculously easy skill check to complete the ritual. Then we watched the guy die and get pelted for 7 more rounds. Bad Ju-ju.
The worst part was the mods then asked for every table who lost their NPC to stand so we could get booed by the entire Con. Normally, I would take that with a grin and go on, but when I saw exactly THREE of the 40+ tables running the mod had lost him, I knew we weren't playing the same game.
So, Marshall, tell us what happened at your table(s).
Quick synopsis since the OP hit the RP points.
Encounter 1
Table 1 (Me, Two Warlocks, Melee Rogue and the Grim Reaper(Cleric))
Me. Storm Sorcerer/Bard goes first, seeing all the townsfolk threatened by various nastys and knowing we aint got nobody to go toe-to-toe in the party...I move up to the big honkin brute in the middle of the board, stop just short of him and blast him with my best encounter power(which bestows on me a glorious 1d6-1 temp Hp). AP and then use the best minion sweeping at-will in the game Lightning Strike. POP. POP. The rest of the party fans out and we end up bottle necking the baddies around me and the Grim Reaper. Believe it or not, this turned out well and the damage we threw out quickly wiped all the monsters with no civilian casualties.
The best moment of this fight for me was a clever use of Majestic Word to heal a bloodied civi and slide him out of the line-of-fire.
Table 2 (Me(Bard), Two Paladins, Fighter, Avenger and Sorcerer)
Roughly the same tactics as the first table, except this time I let the Defenders clog up the middle and I skirted the edges picking off minions and herding townsfolk to safety.
Encounter 2
Table 1
We wiped this up. The only difficulty was figuring out how to cross the enery stream in the middle of the map(again this is poorly described in the mod) since we were alternately told you could and could not jump over it, go around it, yada...The map had a lot of cool terrain..that everyone avoided. Best moment, Thunder Leap to the top of the wall and shove an archer to the ground.
Table 2
Very hard fight, no one in the group had the skills to climb the wall except the Avenger(Skill DC way too high for knotted rope) so we all just stood around and hoped he didn't die. I actually found this one boring.
Ritual Decision?
Both tables voted for it. Both times I voted against it(Neither of my characters will go near messing with an Artifact at this level), neither time did I contribute to it. The bennies were sweet for doing so tho.
Encounter 3
Table 1
We spent wayyy too much time clearing the mooks and nearly lost because of it. 'Course we managed to get in three rounds of concentrated fire in 10 minutes and blasted the monolith with literally seconds to spare. The fight was never in doubt, it was the time crunch that nearly got us.
Table 2
Oh crap, this was FUN. By round 2, I was down and both Paladins and the Avenger were bloodied. Fortunately, the reason I was down was the backlash from hitting the Monolith with Vigorous Cadence, a nearby Paladin dumped a Potion of Healing down my throat for which I rewarded him with an Improved Majestic Word and the rest of the party basked in the glow of the new healing battery. I'm pretty sure by the end of the fight I was still at 10HP and the rest of the party was at full...
Day 2
Neither slaad fight was worth mentioning. T1 crushed them, T2 took a lot of damage from exploding heads(silly way to skip and encounter)
Spellscars were somewhat annoying(-1 to speed, resist acid and encounter power) to forgettable(whistling wounds?) which I did.
Service to a Demon?
T1 NO WAY!
T2 Bard w/warlock MC? Whats the big deal?
Skill challenge? See above. Hated it.
Tentacle Battle
T1 just tore 'em to pieces, even when each tentacle died it left 4 minions behind and we didn't get the power-up motes OR the enhancement terrain.
T2 A little tougher and the Sorcerer falling into the rift not once, but TWICE was hilarious. Vigorous Cadence is realllyyyyy good.
Final Confrontation
T1 had the fight well in hand when the Convention Center kicked us out.
T2 I'm still confused how you're supposed to know that the portals are traps instead of just a power of the Sharn on the other side? We won anyway, just barely, with the Avenger, Fighter and a Paladin taking out 2(TWO) dragons(the DM went wayyy soft on us, restrained characters cant shift) after my Bard jumped up on the table and force the idiot NPC to get his stupid arse under the table and take cover from the archers. Sorry, my SOD fails at an NPC that needs to be told to take cover from arrow fire.
Conclusion
One character participated in the desecration of a Holy Artifact of Amawhatsis and the other is touched by the Demon God of Gnolls. I think my changeling will grow hair for his next adventure...
jdcash
First Post
I played on Saturday and found the event to be quite enjoyable. Some of the mechanics in the skill challenges were not as thought out as they could have been (as previously discussed), but I found the overall variety and the concept of one table being able to assist another to be really cool. I think that the organizers/writer learned a lot from this and DnD BI will just continue to be more and more THE event to play.
So what is Battle Interactive exactly -- what was the format? Or more specifically, what makes it different from just any convention game, or game day adventure, or LFR adventure, etc....
Wow, really?
I no longer wonder why I never play at Cons.
*If* I ever go to a con, and *if* i ever get to play in a similar type game, I think I'd be upset if I had to "stand in front of the class and be boo-ed." I avoided social boo-ing as a child, I sure as heck don't want it now as an adult playing a -game-
It would have been much more meaningful (and non-upsetting) if they said "the tables that saved the guy, please stand for applause" but maybe that's just me.... anyway, sorry for the small tangent. carry on.
Joshua Randall
Legend
A friend of mine showed me a copy of the adventure.
The skill challenge specifically states that it ends after 10 rounds or when the PCs have helped to complete the ritual or when the NPC dies, whichever comes first. But individual DMs may have minsunderstood that, or perhaps the organizers were changing it on the fly.
No, it's described just fine. You CAN jump over it, although there is a (low) chance it will erupt and hit you dealing some damage plus daze.Marshall said:
Yeah, that was a bummer. It would've been nicer if there were some hard cover to hide behind (so those @$#%^! archers couldn't shoot you willy nilly), or if some of the terrain had been beneficial and identifiable with appropriate skills.Marshall said:
Um, DC 10 is too hard?Marshall said:
Judging by what you wrote about the skill challenge and the terrain in Encounter 2, it sounds like your DM may not have been as prepared for the adventure as ours was. That can definitely have a negative impact. Sorry, man.
Really no worse than saying, "You defeat the slaads after a tough fight. Everyone lose a healing surge." Actually, probably BETTER than that because some groups had ways to heal the exploding head damage without using surges.Marshall said:
I thought it was a fine balance between saving time (by not playing out the fight) and still costing the PCs some resources.
Again, that is directly from the adventure. Dude, your DM screwed you.Marshall said:
Skill checks? (Arcana, Religion, Insight, maybe Nature or Perception) Trial and error? ("I focus my Arcana skill to try to close the portal. Does anything happen?")Marshall said:
Wow, the more I read, the more I think your DMs stank. The adventure says the enemies only will attack the NPC if there is "no immediate threat" -- which does leave it somewhat open to DM interpretation -- but I would definitely consider six PC adventurers a very immediate threat.Marshall said:
Having the enemy archers focus fire on the NPC is not very fair DMing, in my opinion.
Umm... described at length in the first two posts of this thread.
25-30 tables playing at the same time. Collectively what happened at the tables impacted the flow of the story, immediately. Double length adventure. Much more difficult combats (250% XP budget according to what the writer told us afterwards).fba827 said:
Jeez, it was no big deal.
Heck, my table had to request help to defeat a minion in the first encounter. We certainly got ribbed for that. But it was all in good fun, and later on we redeemed ourselves by helping another table with their dragon.
But seriously, if you don't like public recognition of your successes and failures, then don't play a BI. That's part of the point of it.
Iceman
First Post
I played the BI on Friday, wasn't even thinking about replaying on Saturday, so have no clue about fixes and/or changes.
Interestingly, Marshall - I was almost at your first table (I think).
I had sat down for the H3 version with five others. Then an HQ-type person came by and asked us to yield one player for a new table being put together. I was the odd man out, so I went. But by the time I got to the table, I had discovered there were nothing but 5 strikers, and all but one ranged. On one hand, that sounds deadly, but no healing and no tank spelled trouble to me.
So I went over to the muster area and recruited JD, a released judge I knew - thankfully, he had an H3 cleric. Coming back to the table, it dawned on me that there were now 6 players here. I figured, better off without me (since the scaling rules would drop more baddies on us), so I went back to my original group.
I didn't feel too bad about it, but did kinda feel like the obstinate shmuck for not following HQ's lead. Hope I didn't come across too badly.
Anyway, my group consisted of an inspiring warlord (10th), a fey warlock (10th), a beastmaster ranger (7th), an ardent paladin (8th), an assassin (8th), and my archer ranger (10th). They called themselves The Fallen, since everyone in the group was either dhampyr or revenant. Interesting bunch. We played 'down'.
So, how things went for us, from a tactical viewpoint (I love the story/flavor in the OP, but have no voice for that right now):
Encounter 1 - We came close to losing several civilians, but managed to save each in the nick of time. The melee guys drew a lot of aggro and I illustrated to them how maneuverable Sam is (shifting and interrupting and so forth). Nothing jumps out at me from this encounter as noteworthy, but it was kind of fun.
Encounter 2 - We specifically wasted three or four minutes at the start of the encounter getting explicit descriptions of all of the terrain. Which mattered later as myself and the warlock went zipping through it trying to get to the archers (I could've stayed back, but figured why Not close - I could take my chances with the river). We did well enough here that when an adjacent table called for help, we stepped in and took over all three of their archers plus one soldier. Since we started the new battle where we had left off (everyone most of the way to the wall, two people on it), they were kinda pwned right from the start.
Oh, and my character and the cleric made all of the 'redeemable/not redeemable' checks for our original baddies - so we killed only the right ones and didn't have anyone erupt on us. The reinforcements/help fight was all 'need to be killed' baddies.
We voted heavily in favor of the ritual to change the Companion. Esp since we have undead in the group - they went from suffering penalties to having bonuses.
Encounter 3 - We didn't concentrate much fire on the monolith to start. I was tempted to do so, but the archers were really rolling well. So we nuked (two crits took out the zombies) three of the henchmen before most of us had turned on the biggie. Thankfully, the warlock had put up some effect that allowed him to roll off against the DM for every attack it made - and he canceled at least half of them that way. Figuring correctly that this was it for the day, numerous dailies popped out and down the monolith went. We considered taking a second one, but our DM hinted it would be a P1 challenge, so we settled for the one.
The BI as a whole defeated enough monoliths to be successful, so our characters slept well that night.
Encounter 4 - The Slaad fight was kind of interesting, since the energy motes/rifts on the ground kept erupting and spitting out fire or thunder or what-have-you. By now, the warlock and I were a fairly in-sync duo, picking a target and burning it down each round or two while the meleers ran in and engaged. The start and end time of this encounter were less than clear, so we almost didn't finish - but there was only one beast left and it had just taken its turn, so the DM called for one attack from everyone and it fell hard to the concentrated fire.
One note about this encounter - it was the only one that really didn't impact or connect to the story much. With all of the other fights, there was a connection to the main plot. This one was the only one that felt "speedbump"ish, even if we had fun with it.
I was the only PC to offer tribute to Yeenoghu at our table. As a rough and tumble, live by your means kind of guy, it made sense for me.
The game mechanic - I didn't have to draw from the change deck, but could if I wanted. Eh.
Skill Challenge - yet another interpretation.
We faced 11 motes. 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). If any motes were left, they hit the interceding PCs first (one each) and then piled onto the caster.
A couple players were rather annoyed by the whole thing, seeing it as more of a healing surge sink rather than an unwinnable encounter. Of course, we kept the caster alive (by regularly putting five PCs in front of her) and got the ritual done in four or so rounds, so their opinion might be colored by that.
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. It was only after the event that we learned the motes could be slowed or similar and that would have worked too (since they blow up no matter what, it's just a matter of whether they blow up next to someone).
I don't recall booing anyone. *shrug*
btw - for those who have seen the text, does it say anything about needing to be a ritual caster in order to Aid? I heard that PCs like mine (merely trained in Nature and Religion) should not have been able to help.
Encounter 5 - The visual we got was a little different on friday (than what is presented above). Chiefly, I don't recall any chasm, earth motes or head. Some terrain, yes, but nothing that exciting. Instead, there was a well-protected heart and multiple tentacles (eventually) and lots of minions. Luckily, the assassin had pulled an aura from the change deck, so the minions were much less effective against the meleers.
This was Sam's fight. First round, I hit the heart with Splintering Shot, to give it an attack penalty for the whole fight. Some dmg even got through its resistance. Second round, I used Attack on the Run to kill one of the tentacles (from full to gone) and an AP to bloody another (crit'ing with Biting Volley). It wasn't terribly spectacular from there on out, but the victory was never in doubt.
We finished early, offered help, considered reinforcements and ended up doing neither.
Final Encounter - Well, first, the Companion went dark. That was a baaad sign. Guess we shouldn't have voted in favor of the ritual, eh?
Then things started popping in, including the dragon. The warlock and I looked at each other, then the layout, then rest of the group. "He's ours. Save the priest." And it worked! We both got a crit in, and proved obnoxiously hard to reach and keep within reach that it went for the paladin after two or three rounds - and then He got a crit on it. Boom, no more dragon.
The rest of the fight, however, had not gone swimmingly for the rest of the group, as they had some cold dice. But things came around and just in time - we killed the final archer with two minutes to spare.
I had a lot of fun with this, very much enjoyed the flavor, and 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).
btw - Two mvp's for Sam...
Lightning Arrow, which is a surprisingly cheap ammunition item that dazes on a hit (plus 1d6 dmg). Just awesome against things like the dragon and the archers in encounter 2.
Disruptive Strike, which got me free in-between-rounds damage in every encounter, plus had a decent chance of creating a miss. Our DM was very flexible about when I declared I was using it since he was moving through the bad guys turns as quickly as possible - so it was never a wasted effort (that is, RAW, you use it before they roll, not after, and if they skunk the roll anyway, oh well). I even recharged it once or twice using the energy nodes in two of the encounters.
-VIC
Interestingly, Marshall - I was almost at your first table (I think).
I had sat down for the H3 version with five others. Then an HQ-type person came by and asked us to yield one player for a new table being put together. I was the odd man out, so I went. But by the time I got to the table, I had discovered there were nothing but 5 strikers, and all but one ranged. On one hand, that sounds deadly, but no healing and no tank spelled trouble to me.
So I went over to the muster area and recruited JD, a released judge I knew - thankfully, he had an H3 cleric. Coming back to the table, it dawned on me that there were now 6 players here. I figured, better off without me (since the scaling rules would drop more baddies on us), so I went back to my original group.
I didn't feel too bad about it, but did kinda feel like the obstinate shmuck for not following HQ's lead. Hope I didn't come across too badly.
Anyway, my group consisted of an inspiring warlord (10th), a fey warlock (10th), a beastmaster ranger (7th), an ardent paladin (8th), an assassin (8th), and my archer ranger (10th). They called themselves The Fallen, since everyone in the group was either dhampyr or revenant. Interesting bunch. We played 'down'.
So, how things went for us, from a tactical viewpoint (I love the story/flavor in the OP, but have no voice for that right now):
Encounter 1 - We came close to losing several civilians, but managed to save each in the nick of time. The melee guys drew a lot of aggro and I illustrated to them how maneuverable Sam is (shifting and interrupting and so forth). Nothing jumps out at me from this encounter as noteworthy, but it was kind of fun.
Encounter 2 - We specifically wasted three or four minutes at the start of the encounter getting explicit descriptions of all of the terrain. Which mattered later as myself and the warlock went zipping through it trying to get to the archers (I could've stayed back, but figured why Not close - I could take my chances with the river). We did well enough here that when an adjacent table called for help, we stepped in and took over all three of their archers plus one soldier. Since we started the new battle where we had left off (everyone most of the way to the wall, two people on it), they were kinda pwned right from the start.
Oh, and my character and the cleric made all of the 'redeemable/not redeemable' checks for our original baddies - so we killed only the right ones and didn't have anyone erupt on us. The reinforcements/help fight was all 'need to be killed' baddies.
We voted heavily in favor of the ritual to change the Companion. Esp since we have undead in the group - they went from suffering penalties to having bonuses.
Encounter 3 - We didn't concentrate much fire on the monolith to start. I was tempted to do so, but the archers were really rolling well. So we nuked (two crits took out the zombies) three of the henchmen before most of us had turned on the biggie. Thankfully, the warlock had put up some effect that allowed him to roll off against the DM for every attack it made - and he canceled at least half of them that way. Figuring correctly that this was it for the day, numerous dailies popped out and down the monolith went. We considered taking a second one, but our DM hinted it would be a P1 challenge, so we settled for the one.
The BI as a whole defeated enough monoliths to be successful, so our characters slept well that night.
Encounter 4 - The Slaad fight was kind of interesting, since the energy motes/rifts on the ground kept erupting and spitting out fire or thunder or what-have-you. By now, the warlock and I were a fairly in-sync duo, picking a target and burning it down each round or two while the meleers ran in and engaged. The start and end time of this encounter were less than clear, so we almost didn't finish - but there was only one beast left and it had just taken its turn, so the DM called for one attack from everyone and it fell hard to the concentrated fire.
One note about this encounter - it was the only one that really didn't impact or connect to the story much. With all of the other fights, there was a connection to the main plot. This one was the only one that felt "speedbump"ish, even if we had fun with it.
I was the only PC to offer tribute to Yeenoghu at our table. As a rough and tumble, live by your means kind of guy, it made sense for me.
The game mechanic - I didn't have to draw from the change deck, but could if I wanted. Eh.
Skill Challenge - yet another interpretation.
We faced 11 motes. 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). If any motes were left, they hit the interceding PCs first (one each) and then piled onto the caster.
A couple players were rather annoyed by the whole thing, seeing it as more of a healing surge sink rather than an unwinnable encounter. Of course, we kept the caster alive (by regularly putting five PCs in front of her) and got the ritual done in four or so rounds, so their opinion might be colored by that.
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. It was only after the event that we learned the motes could be slowed or similar and that would have worked too (since they blow up no matter what, it's just a matter of whether they blow up next to someone).
I don't recall booing anyone. *shrug*
btw - for those who have seen the text, does it say anything about needing to be a ritual caster in order to Aid? I heard that PCs like mine (merely trained in Nature and Religion) should not have been able to help.
Encounter 5 - The visual we got was a little different on friday (than what is presented above). Chiefly, I don't recall any chasm, earth motes or head. Some terrain, yes, but nothing that exciting. Instead, there was a well-protected heart and multiple tentacles (eventually) and lots of minions. Luckily, the assassin had pulled an aura from the change deck, so the minions were much less effective against the meleers.
This was Sam's fight. First round, I hit the heart with Splintering Shot, to give it an attack penalty for the whole fight. Some dmg even got through its resistance. Second round, I used Attack on the Run to kill one of the tentacles (from full to gone) and an AP to bloody another (crit'ing with Biting Volley). It wasn't terribly spectacular from there on out, but the victory was never in doubt.
We finished early, offered help, considered reinforcements and ended up doing neither.
Final Encounter - Well, first, the Companion went dark. That was a baaad sign. Guess we shouldn't have voted in favor of the ritual, eh?
Then things started popping in, including the dragon. The warlock and I looked at each other, then the layout, then rest of the group. "He's ours. Save the priest." And it worked! We both got a crit in, and proved obnoxiously hard to reach and keep within reach that it went for the paladin after two or three rounds - and then He got a crit on it. Boom, no more dragon.
The rest of the fight, however, had not gone swimmingly for the rest of the group, as they had some cold dice. But things came around and just in time - we killed the final archer with two minutes to spare.
I had a lot of fun with this, very much enjoyed the flavor, and 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).
btw - Two mvp's for Sam...
Lightning Arrow, which is a surprisingly cheap ammunition item that dazes on a hit (plus 1d6 dmg). Just awesome against things like the dragon and the archers in encounter 2.
Disruptive Strike, which got me free in-between-rounds damage in every encounter, plus had a decent chance of creating a miss. Our DM was very flexible about when I declared I was using it since he was moving through the bad guys turns as quickly as possible - so it was never a wasted effort (that is, RAW, you use it before they roll, not after, and if they skunk the roll anyway, oh well). I even recharged it once or twice using the energy nodes in two of the encounters.
-VIC
Marshall
First Post
My second DM specifically told me that they changed the skill challenge between sessions. Apparently, it was way too easy the first time around.
I didnt see it that way. I do know that a few tables got a big kick out of it. My guess would be that with EXACTLY the right mix of PCs if could be fun, thats just near impossible to set up.
I'd have taken soft-cover or concealment, as it was both parties charged for the lone tree and took the hits.
When 5/6 the party is tanked out and/or physically skilled challenged, yes. 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. For 40' wall, thats a lot of skill checks so even moderately skill PCs have a chance of crashing.
I know he was a little overwhelmed, but we had a player who was scheduled to DM and got freed up to play. Even he seemed at a loss for some of this.
Could be. I would have enjoyed some form of "explode a peon" from the flux slaads more.
Again, that is directly from the adventure. Dude, your DM screwed you.
With what that table dished out, it didnt matter. Even with all the extra minions floating around we crushed the arm tentacles in a round each and popped the Heart soon after. If we'd have had the motes we could have gone after another, tho.
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.
The scenario ended before it mattered in the first fight and the DM took pity in the second and let a "passive Insight" reveal that the portal were actually targets.
Oh, no. Nobody actually attacked him in either fight. I just assumed it was because both partied made it their first move to get him out of the line of fire. I was just commenting that I didnt think it was fair to have to use an action to tell the guy to duck.
I took it as good-natured ribbing. My real point was that I knew something was wrong with the way it was run when I saw only three failures.
Its just a game, have fun.
