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Running player commentary on PCat's 4E Campaign - Heroic tier (finished)
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<blockquote data-quote="Piratecat" data-source="post: 4855743" data-attributes="member: 2"><p>A fine game last night, most of which was taken up by a great big battle, the heroes against 27 myconids: one myconid sovereign, three myconid guards, three myconid rot-priests, and twenty myconid minions (effectively a 3rd lvl twig-blight with a slower movement and the <em>roots of the colony</em> power.) What I learned was that giving minions access to <em>roots of the colony</em> is potentially a bad design choice because it creates weirdness that screws the PCs. For reference, copied from the rotpriest stat block:</p><p></p><p><strong>Roots of the Colony</strong> (free, when the myconid rotpriest is hit by an attack while a myconid ally is within 5 squares of it, at-will)</p><p>The rotpriest takes half damage from the attack, and the myconid ally takes the same amount of damage.</p><p></p><p>Include myconid minions, and what do you get? A PC smites the rotpriest for 20 points of damage... and the rotpriest takes 10, while a nearby myconid minion also takes 10 and dies. 9 points of damage is effectively wasted. It's as if all the myconids are incorporeal (taking half damage) as long as there's a minion within 5 spaces. That made for a challenging fight, which is what I wanted, but I became concerned about grind for the first time since starting the campaign. </p><p></p><p>To be fair, I had the minions using the power as well - they aren't very smart - usually popping two minions instead of one.</p><p></p><p>The fight (with six PCs and 27 foes) took 2 hours (7:30 - 9:30), with lots of PCs bloodied but no one dropping. I need to try harder. The minions barely hit except for one really successful round; the guards and (particularly) the rotpriests were highly effective. Three clustered rotpriests, all using decomposing spray all at once, is a thing of beauty. I liked that I got to target Fortitude for a change.</p><p></p><p>For the battlefield I assembled a large cavern out of foam-backed dungeon tiles that Wulf Ratbane has given me. They worked really well in my opinion; I liked the feel and the look of the battleground. Note that I specifically didn't make the cave floor difficult terrain in order to give the players a change of pace from fighting in swamps, and I stressed damaging attacks over disabling attacks on the part of the monsters.</p><p></p><p>One of the things I like about 4e is that I can have a battle that's 6 vs 27. I think I have an illicit love affair with minions. </p><p></p><p>Interesting note about the treasure: because this is/was the secret refuge of some sort of angel made flesh, the PCs were very reluctant to claim any treasure. I hadn't quite anticipated that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Piratecat, post: 4855743, member: 2"] A fine game last night, most of which was taken up by a great big battle, the heroes against 27 myconids: one myconid sovereign, three myconid guards, three myconid rot-priests, and twenty myconid minions (effectively a 3rd lvl twig-blight with a slower movement and the [i]roots of the colony[/i] power.) What I learned was that giving minions access to [i]roots of the colony[/i] is potentially a bad design choice because it creates weirdness that screws the PCs. For reference, copied from the rotpriest stat block: [b]Roots of the Colony[/b] (free, when the myconid rotpriest is hit by an attack while a myconid ally is within 5 squares of it, at-will) The rotpriest takes half damage from the attack, and the myconid ally takes the same amount of damage. Include myconid minions, and what do you get? A PC smites the rotpriest for 20 points of damage... and the rotpriest takes 10, while a nearby myconid minion also takes 10 and dies. 9 points of damage is effectively wasted. It's as if all the myconids are incorporeal (taking half damage) as long as there's a minion within 5 spaces. That made for a challenging fight, which is what I wanted, but I became concerned about grind for the first time since starting the campaign. To be fair, I had the minions using the power as well - they aren't very smart - usually popping two minions instead of one. The fight (with six PCs and 27 foes) took 2 hours (7:30 - 9:30), with lots of PCs bloodied but no one dropping. I need to try harder. The minions barely hit except for one really successful round; the guards and (particularly) the rotpriests were highly effective. Three clustered rotpriests, all using decomposing spray all at once, is a thing of beauty. I liked that I got to target Fortitude for a change. For the battlefield I assembled a large cavern out of foam-backed dungeon tiles that Wulf Ratbane has given me. They worked really well in my opinion; I liked the feel and the look of the battleground. Note that I specifically didn't make the cave floor difficult terrain in order to give the players a change of pace from fighting in swamps, and I stressed damaging attacks over disabling attacks on the part of the monsters. One of the things I like about 4e is that I can have a battle that's 6 vs 27. I think I have an illicit love affair with minions. Interesting note about the treasure: because this is/was the secret refuge of some sort of angel made flesh, the PCs were very reluctant to claim any treasure. I hadn't quite anticipated that. [/QUOTE]
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