Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zuche" data-source="post: 5760454" data-attributes="member: 6682151">What problem? The mechanics only serve to simulate a plausible adventure scenario, nothing more. The kraken is played here as an environmental hazard, very much on par with the Scylla and Charybdis. The party is not equal to that creature. Its tentacles, however, can be used as (much?) lower level creatures, where blindsight simulates the discrepancy between the monster's expected accuracy and that demonstrated by the tentacles in combat.The mechanics serve the simulation; they don't dictate to it. A brief consideration of powers used by your characters over the course of this challenge would also demonstrate that point.Not at all. It's nice to be able to play cases in which powers aren't all or nothing against an opponent. We see that simulated in a different way in the mechanics of a hydra, where the stunned creature can still get in a large number of attacks against a group. What you've got with the kraken is a case in which you're only effective way to fight it is with called shots to extremities. That mechanic is considered too unwieldy to use more widely, but here it works just fine. There are times it's not enough to have powers strong enough to take down an elephant.I can represent the same mercenary units with 3rd level soldiers in a low heroic tier adventure and 13th level minion soldiers in low paragon tier. Again, the mechanics only serve the simulation. That's consistent with the system's general tendency toward simplification. How would the scenario benefit from the complications you propose? "It would make more sense," is a non-starter here, as the mechanics only need to produce the mechanical effect. It doesn't matter whether the tentacles determine who's who by echolocation, through divine guidance, or with the assistance of the baron's Aquaman-like powers. It doesn't matter that the results we see are the product of an epic level creature performing with substantial penalties to attack rolls. What matters is that there are tentacles lashing about on deck and that is bad.You get out what you put into it. The advantages to playing for all of the points are the same we get from any sort of review. It gives us the opportunity to explore new options and notice things we overlooked the last time. In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray moved from one day to the next without learning anything until he got caught in that loop. Before that point, he was just repeating mistakes that were sufficient to get him through each previous day, oblivious to the possibilities of the day.  To adopt the revelation line from Die Hard III, "Don't you get it? It's Groundhog Day!"Some of my players want to know how Captain Bloodbath was able to move so fast through water, charging a wizard they'd presumed to be safely out of range. Others didn't care. I don't foresee the latter group getting as much out of their next adventure as the former will get from replaying this one, even if they don't learn Captain Bloodbath's secret their next time out. The curious ones will keep looking for new options and revelations.I've run too many encounters over the years in which players completely ignored the resources provided by the encounter. Some of them even complained about their lack of options afterward. I'd mention options they didn't use, such as weak floors or narrow passages, and they'd go on to ignore them again in future encounters, and then complain again about the lack of options. By replaying a scenario without the post mortem discussion, they're not waiting on me to provide them with variety. It's a valuable creative exercise.Karin'sDad, you say this isn't challenging. Well, the challenging options do exist, and if you opt to play the third season of this, I strongly recommend you go straight to nightmare mode without access to items or rituals. Some may despise such "self-imposed" challenges, but every game is a self-imposed challenge in the end. No one makes you play. After that, it's all a matter of showing just how good you are... even when you're up against a whiny, entitled DM.</blockquote>

Verification