Post your Lair Assault Results Here (Spoilers)

[jodyjohnson]

First off, I think KDs issue highlight one of the problems I have with optimized play. If the goal is to win, then the obvious solution is to stack things in your favor: more healing, prevent damage, make sure you hit, make sure the enemy doesn't hit, control the enemy playbook, while running your own plays.

And the end result is a 40-7 blowout. Fun to play a few times, rarely fun to watch. If the goal is to make sure nothing bad happens, then it's not surprising to find that nothing interesting happens.

I'm more of a "let's see what happens", and "let the dice decide what happens" player/DM. I think Lair Assault was great for that. Disjointed party of strangers, random characters, only moderately experienced DM, low level where dice make more impact. And we TPK'd. I could play it 4-6 more times and it would play out differently each time (I mean we'd TPK in a different order).


When I first heard about Lair Assault I assumed it would be more of a build a team and then play a new scenario every week and see how you did through the season (ala "we went 5/12 for success with this group of characters").

Instead it's more of a play as many times as you can stomach and see what happens - the characters then get more finely tuned each week and the DM shifts things around.

I see it as turning Encounters noobs and role-players into KD-grade tacticians. It's also fuel for developing more tactical DMs.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think that group would be challenged to complete the Speed Demon glory award.

Or maybe they should keep trying with less optimised characters or less players each time.

If it was just about winning the encounter there's little reason to have it last 13 weeks.

In the end though it was a challenge - but the challenge all happened during character building so that the actual play itself was a challengeless grind.

I agree with what you say, but I think playing the same encounter over and over again is pointless. Just because WotC wants us to do that does not mean that my group wants us to do that.

The encounter doesn't have enough ways to change it so that there are totally new surprises for the players. Just switching around the monsters isn't good enough. Room features have to change. Terrain has to change. Tons of different types of traps should be added. Swallowing a fish has to poison a PC sometimes. In order to keep the players coming back and being interested, glory awards are not enough.

My players play to win, not to win glory awards.

With a good DM, I don't think any group can get the Speed Demon glory award. Even invisible PCs would take too many rounds to run to the room and take out the BBEG. Is there a low level scrying power that would allow the group to teleport into that room on round two??? I don't know of any low level group teleports or powers that give x-ray vision for a round.

With the shortest possible route (and using an action point to keep the door open in round one) and a super lucky strength check to break down the fake door (possibly with a strength boosting power and Aid Another), the PCs could get to the BBEG sometime in early third round (possibly late second round for a speedster, but someone strong needs to get to the fake door early on). Course, they would have 1 to 3 rooms worth of bad guys attacking them in the process more or less unopposed (PCs cannot both run and do attacks and make up that amount of distance).

If the goal of my players was just to get that award and they set up their PCs to do that, I wouldn't just let them get it automatically. I'd set up the dungeon to make it tough for them to accomplish that. It's hard to break down the second door if there are two NPCs preventing the PCs from getting next to it.

 

[jester_gl]

I DM lair assault twice yesterday for a group of, let's say, less optimized character.

First try, only one character got to actually enter the mud room, everyone else died in the first room. TPK round 7. They were only 4 but the pair of monster I was to remove were not even in the first few room, so they lacked fire power and healing.

Second try they did a little better. This time there was a party of 5 and they had a plan going on, but they split the party...bad idea. By the end of round 4, 2 were on the ledge on the other side of the mud room, 1 was at the bottom of that room (pushed), the paladin seeing he couldn't get there in time managed to get to the sealed door (and learned that it was at that moment) and a slayer was left with all the monster in the first room.

Turn 5, concentrated fire on the cleric took him out, and he couldn't sustain moment of glory. The paladin rolled 19 and opened the door to the boss, while alone. The lone slayer in the first room got destroyed by all the combined attack and the guys on the ledge were pushed back by a warlock. Turn 7 everyone was dead except for the warden who survived 5 more round by rolling 20 on his death save and font of life completely negating the fire elemental on every single round. He eventually got stabbed to death by a blazing skeleton.

-Never split the party: this hold true everytime.
-Know your character: the paladin never did anything other than MBA and a lone lay on hand.
-Try some less obvious thing: Let's just say that glory were not that high.
-Have fun: had one player who was getting frustated near the end of his second tpk, had to remind him that it is a game.
-Happy birthday to me: got to do 2 tpk on my birthday, something I never get to do with regular game because I want them to continue.

 

[Matt James]

First off, I think KDs issue highlight one of the problems I have with Optimized play. If the goal is to win, then the obvious solution is to stack things in your favor: more healing, prevent damage, make sure you hit, make sure the enemy doesn't hit, control the enemy playbook, while running your own plays.

You're confusing the two. Organized Play represents several different types of events that people can participate in at their FLGS. Lair Assault is one designed for exactly the reasons you gave. The goal is to win.

I never expected it to be all things to all people, but some will love it where others will hate it. Sucks that your players were bored. But now you know Lair Assault may not be for them?

That being said, maybe submit some feedback over on the WotC forums? It will only help to improve future products, yes?

 

[Saracenus]

Some tips I have learned from running Ultimate Dungeon Delve and Battle Interactives for Living Campaigns.

1.) Roll initiatives and then assign the highest number to the monster with highest init mod, next highest to the next monster with the 2nd highest init mod, etc. This won't prevent a series of bad init rolls but it will give faster monsters an opportunity to go before the PCs.

2.) Have one of the players track init. This means you can concentrate on killing the players. I also give another player my condition markers and they get to put them on the PCs and Monsters.

3.) Put pressure on the players to make decisions quickly. I will tell someone if they do not make a choice within 10 sec, they are delaying. Make sure folks know their turns are coming up so they can start thinking. Letting people think too long bogs the game down and you want players to feel pressure to perform.

4.) Know your team (monster) backwards and forwards. Look for synergy and terrain you can take advantage of. Can't damage them enough, can you slow them down instead?

5.) Be evil. Use every trick you have in your book. A fully optimized group that plays well together are going to stomp you most of the time, especially if they win initiative. That doesn't mean you have to take it lying down. If you can't kill them all, kill one or two.

For Lair Assault (LA) Season 1:

PRO TIP: Use the map card to plan out two different setups for each of the maps. That way if a party is going to walk through one map you can choose to use the other one without missing a beat.

PRO TIP 2: Monster Placement is going to be key. Look at the terrain and natural choke points and try to maximize your foes ability to use it against the PCs while protecting themselves.

How tough LA is for a party is heavily dependent on the DM being both ruthless, efficient, and prepared. Your players are going to put a lot of thought into it, so should you.

My two coppers,

 

[Matt James]

snip

Can't give XP. Great tips.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Can't give XP. Great tips.

Covered for you.

 

[jodyjohnson]

You're confusing the two. Organized Play represents several different types of events that people can participate in at their FLGS. Lair Assault is one designed for exactly the reasons you gave. The goal is to win.

I never expected it to be all things to all people, but some will love it where others will hate it. Sucks that your players were bored. But now you know Lair Assault may not be for them?

Optimized play, also known as power-gaming. We enjoyed the Organized Play. I was a player in the non-optimized group.

 

[Knowledge Checks]

Played in Lair Assault at my FLGS today. End result: TPK by Round 14 or so.

Dwarf Fighter (Rageblood Vigor) (me!)
Human Knight
Half-Orc Hunter
Kalashtar Cleric (some kind of uber healer)
Human Warlord
Halfling Rogue

We wasted too much time in the first room, buffing ourselves and taking out the elemental and fire hound instead of just running. We opened all the doors and decided to go down the left hallway, ensuring everyone in the party got the fire vulnerability. The rogue couldn't hit anything, and when he did he never had combat advantage, so no sneak attack. I don't think he did sneak attack damage a single time. I recommended that he play an Essentials Thief next time.

No one died until we got to the boss room, and I was the first casualty. With my temp HP and a sustained resist 5 all from the cleric, I hadn't taken a single point of actual damage in getting to the boss room, but immediately after I stepped inside the boss nova'd me and I dropped to -27. Before the healer could bring me up I took some ongoing fire damage and was Uncle Ben Dead.

After that things just went downhill. The party was stuck in that left entrance for 3 or 4 rounds, as the warlocks from the mud room had come down to the forge to fight. So we had the 2 skeletons, 2 warlocks, 2 dragonborn, and the boss. There just wasn't enough space to get our people out of fireball formation and the rest of the party started dropping like flies. The last one alive was the Knight, but he got dropped in the lava and burned.

Overall, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to next week. About half of our table was heavy optimiziers, while the other players were at least experienced with 4e dnd, including some Epic tier play. We're going to tweak our builds and next week just run straight for the forge

---

Also, having the fight as a single encounter does open up a lot of wonky options, like the Master's weapon enchantment. Both the Knight and I myself had that and we were both running with two stances. Also, certain potions and other magic items that last till the end of the encounter are more powerful, like the Gloves of Piercing (ignore resist of 10 or under) and the potion that lets you ignore difficult terrain while shifting.

 

[KarinsDad]

After that things just went downhill. The party was stuck in that left entrance for 3 or 4 rounds, as the warlocks from the mud room had come down to the forge to fight. So we had the 2 skeletons, 2 warlocks, 2 dragonborn, and the boss. There just wasn't enough space to get our people out of fireball formation and the rest of the party started dropping like flies. The last one alive was the Knight, but he got dropped in the lava and burned.

It sounds like your DM might have taken some liberties here.

The warlocks from the mud room are not supposed to come after the PCs unless the door to the mud room had been opened previously. And with their two area effect attacks, that's a lot of extra damage that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Course, if you had opened the door to the mud room, then you were fair game.