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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Things that make you go Hmmm, Starter Set **spoilers**
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<blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6339628" data-attributes="member: 2011"><p>I just got the starter set yesterday and was looking through it, preparing for next weekend's session.</p><p></p><p>There were a few things that made me go "WT?".</p><p></p><p>Please list things that you noticed, so that I can review those specific sections and make an adjustment. I'll list more when I find them as I go through it in more detail today.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'll try to make these a little vague, just in case there are players who read this. I don't want to ruin anyone's game too much.</p><p></p><p>1) After the first encounter, the PCs will probably head down a trail where there are two opportunities to make passive perception checks. The DC is 12 which every PC can make except the Rogue. For the first opportunity, it only occurs if the PCs are actively searching. Err, what? The entire purpose of passive perception is that the PCs are NOT actively searching.</p><p></p><p>2) The second opportunity is only for the person leading the group. This check is DC 15. Nobody in the pregenerated party has more than a 13. In order to create your own PC out of the Basic Rules who could make a DC 15 passive perception, you would need to make a Cleric with a 16 Wis and that Cleric would need to be in the front of the party. Either that or you would need to make a non-Cleric, but a 16 for a non-Cleric would be extremely rare (and that PC would still need to be in the front of the group).</p><p></p><p>3) Every pregenerated PC has a 13 passive perception except the Rogue. I guess that Perception is a pretty important skill such that even the Wizard takes it. But, the Rogue does not. With backgrounds, there is no way I would play a Rogue without taking Perception.</p><p></p><p>4) There are a lot of potions of healing. I assume that the answer to the lack of healing in 4E is that we will be handing out potions of healing. Just going to each treasure section, I counted 12 potions of healing in 8 out of 28 treasure caches (or 28% of caches had an average of 1.5 per cache). So, the designers sometimes hand out more than one. No other potion or scroll shows up more than once that I saw. That's a design fix if DMs are expected to hand out that many healing potions that frequently.</p><p></p><p>5) Speaking of magic items, the starter set has 7 of them which are not potions or scrolls. 0 are found in part 1 of the adventures, 1 is found in part 2 (the evil guy at the very end), 1 is found in part 3 (at the very beginning) and the other 5 are found in part 4 (out of 7 treasure caches in part 4). So, it's really magic item heavy at the end. This also exceeds the 23 magic items handed out in 20 levels aspect of normal magic that was mentioned, unless Mearls actually was not including replacement items (i.e. the +1 sword replaced with the +2 sword is still considered one item). Granted, I get it that PCs should find few magic items at real low level, but finding 5 in the last dozen rooms or so???</p><p></p><p>6) One of the items is a magic breastplate. One of the most coveted items in the game for some classes because of the disadvantage for most armor for stealth (granted, this rule is only in the Basic Rules and not the Starter Set rules). But if players continue with these PCs, then one of the most coveted armors in the game is already handed out as opposed to being quested for. Meh.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KarinsDad, post: 6339628, member: 2011"] I just got the starter set yesterday and was looking through it, preparing for next weekend's session. There were a few things that made me go "WT?". Please list things that you noticed, so that I can review those specific sections and make an adjustment. I'll list more when I find them as I go through it in more detail today. I'll try to make these a little vague, just in case there are players who read this. I don't want to ruin anyone's game too much. 1) After the first encounter, the PCs will probably head down a trail where there are two opportunities to make passive perception checks. The DC is 12 which every PC can make except the Rogue. For the first opportunity, it only occurs if the PCs are actively searching. Err, what? The entire purpose of passive perception is that the PCs are NOT actively searching. 2) The second opportunity is only for the person leading the group. This check is DC 15. Nobody in the pregenerated party has more than a 13. In order to create your own PC out of the Basic Rules who could make a DC 15 passive perception, you would need to make a Cleric with a 16 Wis and that Cleric would need to be in the front of the party. Either that or you would need to make a non-Cleric, but a 16 for a non-Cleric would be extremely rare (and that PC would still need to be in the front of the group). 3) Every pregenerated PC has a 13 passive perception except the Rogue. I guess that Perception is a pretty important skill such that even the Wizard takes it. But, the Rogue does not. With backgrounds, there is no way I would play a Rogue without taking Perception. 4) There are a lot of potions of healing. I assume that the answer to the lack of healing in 4E is that we will be handing out potions of healing. Just going to each treasure section, I counted 12 potions of healing in 8 out of 28 treasure caches (or 28% of caches had an average of 1.5 per cache). So, the designers sometimes hand out more than one. No other potion or scroll shows up more than once that I saw. That's a design fix if DMs are expected to hand out that many healing potions that frequently. 5) Speaking of magic items, the starter set has 7 of them which are not potions or scrolls. 0 are found in part 1 of the adventures, 1 is found in part 2 (the evil guy at the very end), 1 is found in part 3 (at the very beginning) and the other 5 are found in part 4 (out of 7 treasure caches in part 4). So, it's really magic item heavy at the end. This also exceeds the 23 magic items handed out in 20 levels aspect of normal magic that was mentioned, unless Mearls actually was not including replacement items (i.e. the +1 sword replaced with the +2 sword is still considered one item). Granted, I get it that PCs should find few magic items at real low level, but finding 5 in the last dozen rooms or so??? 6) One of the items is a magic breastplate. One of the most coveted items in the game for some classes because of the disadvantage for most armor for stealth (granted, this rule is only in the Basic Rules and not the Starter Set rules). But if players continue with these PCs, then one of the most coveted armors in the game is already handed out as opposed to being quested for. Meh. [/QUOTE]
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