Am I Too Accustomed to Optimization? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Am I Too Accustomed to Optimization? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
GenerallyUnique
11-04-06, 08:40 PM I just got back from DMing the Worldwide Game Day game for a bunch of noobs.

Oh, my, god.

This game was absolutely horrible. I mean, they're trying to recruit people into playing the game, and they leave absolutely no opportunity to roleplay. I had to drastically alter the game just to give the PCs some roleplaying fun and give them a reason to even do the adventure. Another DM at the gameday just completely rewrote the whole adventure, made his own from scratch.

Anyway, back to it, I looked at the maid bad guys in this game, and then at the PCs they're going up against, and began to think certain writers may or may not have been a bit inebriated at the time of writing. The characters were horribly, horribly unoptimized, where as the main baddies in the game nearly all had damage reduction, multiple attacks, or as one did, an attack that did a maximum of 44 points of damage pre-crit again a group where the main fighter only has 39 hit points. With only two characters have magic weapons, both of those being slashing or piercing, it's nice that they would put in monsters with DR10/magic and DR5/bludening and DR5/good.

Anyone that actually -knows- the rules to this game could've read this adventure and the accompanying characters and spotted flaw after flaw after flaw, or just stupid crap that shouldn't've been there. For example, the guy with the greataxe has a shield bonus to AC, the Paladin has a 10 charisma, but his fighter stats are good, the Elven wizard wasted a spell on Detect Secret Doors, they pre-picked the cleric's spells, and then gave him useless crap like Soften Earth and Stone, the eleven ranger (archery) decided to take Iron Will and Dodge instead of Point Blank and Precise shot.

As they were, these characters, in my mind, were so stupidly made they were damn near unplayable (I altered them all slightly to make them useful). Is this bad on me, or the game designers? Is optimizing like this in front of newbies a bad idea?
X-Codes
11-04-06, 08:50 PM Wow... no... ok... Theres a line between unoptimized characters and "characters so damn bad that theres no point in hell to even consider playing them for half a RP situation."

Seriously, I want to play with an adventuring party at the top of their trade, not Captian Medocrity and the Peter Principle Gang.
Repeekluos
11-04-06, 08:52 PM A little from column A, a little from column B.

I dont think that the characters you mentioned are good at all, but could they win the fight with them? If the players actually thought a little, was it possible?
I dont know what they had to fight, so I cant answer those questions. I can say, however, that the designers tend to stay on the lower end of the power scale.
It makes the game a lot more challenging, and sometimes more fun.
Is it really fun to sit down at the table, knowing there is nothing in the MM that can hit your character on anything but a nat 20?

Edit: Although, that Paladin with the 10 cha is downright retarded.
megageek
11-04-06, 09:01 PM Probaly, you have no idea what 12 year-olds think of optimizatilon
ressurrector
11-04-06, 09:19 PM Was this an RPGA tourney module?
I've played in one of those, and Oh My God, the charcters sucked.
The Monk had improved disarm, one of those +2 to 2 skills feats and the spring attack line and deflect arrows.
And nothing in the entire dungeon used weapons or ranged attacks.
There was even one room where the use of Spring Attack added about 1-2 hours to how long it took to clear the room.

And the Monk was one of the better characters, the rest were just junk.
X-Codes
11-04-06, 09:37 PM Was this an RPGA tourney module?
I've played in one of those, and Oh My God, the charcters sucked.
The Monk had improved disarm, one of those +2 to 2 skills feats and the spring attack line and deflect arrows.
And nothing in the entire dungeon used weapons or ranged attacks.
There was even one room where the use of Spring Attack added about 1-2 hours to how long it took to clear the room.

And the Monk was one of the better characters, the rest were just junk.
It seems like pre-packaged characters are made to deliberately suck at what the module is going to be doing.

A monk with Stunning Fist, Deflect Arrows, Improved Disarm, and the Spring Attack line in a module full of various undead that use natural weapons. Maybe a Chaos Beast or Gelatinous Cube for variation. Does anyone seriously think that that would be a fun character to play?
LogicNinja
11-04-06, 09:40 PM Basically, yes. If you play in games with regularly even semi-optimized characters, the kind who are pretty streamlined towards fulfilling their main party role... you're too used to it.

I just joined a Red Hand of Doom game. I'm a diviner who banned evocation, Whisper Gnome, very nice Hide and Move Silently, and focusing on battlefield control and buffs/debuffs. My Haste, Greases, See Invisibility + Bonefiddle on the enemy cleric, and six-hobgoblin-blinding Glitterdust were pretty much all that carried us through that first EL 8 encounter (we're all ECL 5, but it's the only encounter the party has that day in RHoD); if I'd done anything a little less efficiently, that would've been it for us, really really quickly.

Meanwhile, the other three people are an Aasimar monk with Flying Kick, a Tiefling rogue with 12 STR, 18 DEX... and a greatsword (and no Weapon Finesse), and a melee cleric with DMM(Quicken)... who put a 14 in STR (and that was one of his lower rolls) and, aside from Spikes, has an abysmal spell selection.

Still, I've gotta say--the monk ran around the battlefield and helped take out the opposing cleric, plus wreaked havoc in the blinded enemies while they were blinded, the rogue compensated for his AB by rolling well and did a crapload of damage to lots of things, and the cleric did his job healing-wise and attracted the attention of most of the enemy archers, who couldn't hit him, generally serving as a tank with his nice AC.

Sure, it would've gone a lot better if they'd all been optimized, but optimal characters aren't necessary for typical games. And, hell, fireball (a very suboptimal spell) would've done better in this situation (perfect for it--lots of weaker enemies) than the Ray of Exhaustion I packed (didn't come in useful until the end, to stop one of them from running away).

Published adventures, at least, aren't necessarily meant for optimized characters.

Still, totally crappy characters do irritate me.
megageek
11-04-06, 10:38 PM In one of my groups arcane archers are considered overpowered and everyone wants to play a warmage.
ChristopherGroves
11-04-06, 10:39 PM I had the pleasure of putting a few characters in for the next Xendrik Expeditions fast-plays. At least one of them patently doesn't suck, which is a good thing. It's low-level

I had a nice little rant about some of the fast-plays once I saw them (I'm in one of the XE playtest factions) and my rant earned me ... well, more work. Still, I'd rather people show up with something optimized than not.

Now, the most fun optimization-wise was the Delve. Not sure who got to do that at GenCon. Given the XE creation rules, make a party of 1st level characters and do the best you can in the one-hour slot. There were lots of things you don't normally see that shone in that format.

But the fastplays ... were horrible. One of the 1st level fast plays had a feat they couldn't really use until later - some metamagic feat I think or maybe it was Spell Focus (conjuration) but lacked Augment Summoning ... something. Ick.
ChristopherGroves
11-04-06, 10:39 PM In one of my groups arcane archers are considered overpowered and everyone wants to play a warmage.
And in some environments (ie, like the XenEx Delve at Gencon) Warmages REALLY did well.
megageek
11-04-06, 11:09 PM Yahthis wasn't that kind of envirement
TheOne
11-04-06, 11:22 PM Well...I just finished playing the Gameday game...and well it sucked. The characters were totally unoptimized and the adventure was hard as hell. There was three groups that played through it my FLGS. Two of them were TPK's. From what I got from it, most were not newbies. Why have a rogue?...there were no locks, one trap (extremely hard to disarm), and six of the eight monsters(or 7 of 9 if had no way to counter the hellcat invisibility) that were immune to SA. Oh, and the halfling rogue's highest stat was a 14! I don't see how you can expect players to have fun were all the characters die.
LogicNinja
11-04-06, 11:25 PM 2nd ed. mentality. Your character should suck, and if you're not very likely to die, it's too easy!
GenerallyUnique
11-05-06, 12:04 AM It was my girlfriend's first game, and she wanted to play the halfling rogue. I taught her all about rogues and how to sneak attack. It was nice that nearly every monster was immune.

Alright, everyone picture really, really unoptimized characters. Only two have magic weapons, there is no time to rest to regain spells, and the module only gives 'random' magic items enough to beat the last boss. That's it.

Spoilers:

Now, take these horrible characters and fight: 1) a 4th level cleric and two dread warriors, 2) an earth elemental gargoyle (dr10/magic), 3) a terror wight (level drain!) and a flame skull (ac 18, mirror image, blur, two touch attacks for 1d8 damage a round, flying, oh, and it heals every round), 4) a 4th level conjurer and a magma spitter/hurler (ranged attack does 3d10+8+1d6fire, melee does 1d6+12) 5) a hellcat (invisibility, SR 19, DR5/good, pounce, rake).

So, we should look at the fact that the DMG says common adventurers should expend a day's resources in 4 encounters, yet we have five. We should also look at the fact that there's a level draining monster in the same room as a flying untouchable beast with two ranged touch attacks and a fireball. We should look at the fact that the group has only one healer, and one mage (pre-made, both) who don't get their spells back, meaning they have to run through all of this without dying.

This is adventure is absolutely horrendous. Even altering the characters slightly and tossing in a few healing scrolls, my group barely survived it.
Bawitda
11-05-06, 04:19 AM My group had some luck. The DM let the cleric and I redo our spells (I still had to pick from the spellbook provided, but at least I could pick the more useful spells), and let us rest when we were done with the first four encounters. Of course, if the cleric hadn't rebuked the magma hurler, it would have gone much worse for us.
Endarire
11-12-06, 05:25 PM Perhaps I expect too much from my players as I tend to send them against (nearly) even-level opponents and survive.

-EE
Fieari
11-12-06, 05:48 PM Iiiinteresting. On ENworld, there's a thread on this exact same topic from the opposite point of view: http://enworld.org/showthread.php?t=179855

Point/Counterpoint
Am I Too Accustomed to Optimization/Players are spoiled brats these days

And both threads have a fair selection of both viewpoints. Neat!
SageBahamut
11-12-06, 05:52 PM Oh my holy gods. I played that adventure, too.

We managed to beat the Hellcat by opening the door, shoving the Wizard through, pelting the hellcat with Arrows, then closing the door behind the wizard. While the hellcat was busy eating the sacrifice - I mean, the elf... - we kept opening the door and shooting it with arrows till it exploded. Eventually (after using his Second Wind), the player of the Wizard went to go to the bathroom, and we all declared at once "he casts Glitterdust". I'm not sure if it was the crappy character design or just poor RP, but that was the most useful that Wizard ever got...

It was my g/f's first game, too, and like the other poster said, I taught her to play the Rogue, figuring they were both easy and fun. Nice how she was the most useless character in the whole module. At least my Ranger managed (through sheer luck of the dice) to PIN (yes /pin/) that Earth Element Gargoyle. We couldn't coup-de-grace it (immune to crits and sneak attack in a game with a Greataxe and a Rogue - very nice) but the Fighter did eventually managed to beat it to death.
The flaming skull thing was very nearly a TPK by itself.
Thankfully we managed to dodge the room with the dread warriors.
Endarire
11-12-06, 06:44 PM Optimization is a core part of me. I believe players should optimize their characters, and I as a DM should optimize the opposition. It usually means the party needs teamwork, decisive strategy, and luck.

-EE
Shorty101
11-13-06, 04:59 AM I played in that adventure too, i couldn't believe the horrid unbalancing of the party. Each of the characters is meant to be 25 point buy right, however the ranger had only 23 points the paladin had 28 and even with that amount he only had 10 cha, he couldn't heal himself without spells.
WHAT THE CRAP! I mean really a fighter with Iron will as opposed to cleave... or improved init, the ranger without precise shot What the crap!
We took heavy damage at the first encounter and the second one wasn't a piece of cake either. He had to give us a wand of cure light wounds to keep us alive.
I was playing the fighter and during the magma hurler fight i got hit with a critical hit from a ray of enfeeblement and was out for the encounter. We lost three characters at the end due to the hellcats pounce, the only way that we won was because i (the fighter) rolled critical on a charge for 55 damage, down to 50 with DR, i died so the paladin picked up my axe and slapped the cat with it it died.
The campaign was too hard for the seriously underoptimized characters playing.
the_LICH
11-13-06, 07:02 AM It doesnt have to do anywhing with optimization really.

I DMed the same short-adventure you did, but since I didnt have time to prepare anything ahead of time, I just played the adventure as it was.

And the whole party was oh god horribly slain by the Hellcat at the end. And my players had good, somewhat optimized characters made with 38 point buy. (no cleric though. druid and bard only healers).

Now seriously, the average level 4 party, unless specially prepared, is no match for a hellcat.

The designers of that adventure really did not think too much of that encounter.
Eyeohn
11-13-06, 07:29 AM I didn't play the module this year, but I do remember last years.. and the swarm in that one managed to TPK my party.. Mostly because the DM ruled my cleric couldnt run and had told me that I had no way of hurting it. also the DM informed the party that its the DM's JOB to KILL the players and when they survive its a failure on the DM's part...
Gelth
11-13-06, 01:27 PM I was playing the fighter and during the magma hurler fight i got hit with a critical hit from a ray of enfeeblement and was out for the encounter.

Just a rules note, ray of enfeeblement doesn't do anything extra on a crit, because it doesn't do damage. It applies a penalty instead, so crits do nothing extra.

--Penn
Seizure Robocop
11-14-06, 01:57 AM I too played in the Games Day module, first time through as we are getting creamed by the Earth Element Gargoyle the wizard took some advice from a friend of his (who wasn't playing at the time) - HE CAST KNOCK ON THE DOOR WITH THE TERROR WEIGHT AND THE FLAMESKULL THEN OPENED IT!!!~!

Of course we all died, my friend and I decided to split that joint and go play the event again at another game store, where we had a pretty good time even with the sucky characters.
Momar
11-14-06, 02:11 AM Did Bruce Cordell have anything to do with this? From the mods of his I've played he seems to be a very spiteful man. I could see him doing this. An example would a wail of the banshee trap for a 5th level team (I think).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
GenerallyUnique 11-04-06, 08:40 PM	I just got back from DMing the Worldwide Game Day game for a bunch of noobs. Oh, my, god. This game was absolutely horrible. I mean, they're trying to recruit people into playing the game, and they leave absolutely no opportunity to roleplay. I had to drastically alter the game just to give the PCs some roleplaying fun and give them a reason to even do the adventure. Another DM at the gameday just completely rewrote the whole adventure, made his own from scratch. Anyway, back to it, I looked at the maid bad guys in this game, and then at the PCs they're going up against, and began to think certain writers may or may not have been a bit inebriated at the time of writing. The characters were horribly, horribly unoptimized, where as the main baddies in the game nearly all had damage reduction, multiple attacks, or as one did, an attack that did a maximum of 44 points of damage pre-crit again a group where the main fighter only has 39 hit points. With only two characters have magic weapons, both of those being slashing or piercing, it's nice that they would put in monsters with DR10/magic and DR5/bludening and DR5/good. Anyone that actually -knows- the rules to this game could've read this adventure and the accompanying characters and spotted flaw after flaw after flaw, or just stupid crap that shouldn't've been there. For example, the guy with the greataxe has a shield bonus to AC, the Paladin has a 10 charisma, but his fighter stats are good, the Elven wizard wasted a spell on Detect Secret Doors, they pre-picked the cleric's spells, and then gave him useless crap like Soften Earth and Stone, the eleven ranger (archery) decided to take Iron Will and Dodge instead of Point Blank and Precise shot. As they were, these characters, in my mind, were so stupidly made they were damn near unplayable (I altered them all slightly to make them useful). Is this bad on me, or the game designers? Is optimizing like this in front of newbies a bad idea?
X-Codes 11-04-06, 08:50 PM	Wow... no... ok... Theres a line between unoptimized characters and "characters so damn bad that theres no point in hell to even consider playing them for half a RP situation." Seriously, I want to play with an adventuring party at the top of their trade, not Captian Medocrity and the Peter Principle Gang.
Repeekluos 11-04-06, 08:52 PM	A little from column A, a little from column B. I dont think that the characters you mentioned are good at all, but could they win the fight with them? If the players actually thought a little, was it possible? I dont know what they had to fight, so I cant answer those questions. I can say, however, that the designers tend to stay on the lower end of the power scale. It makes the game a lot more challenging, and sometimes more fun. Is it really fun to sit down at the table, knowing there is nothing in the MM that can hit your character on anything but a nat 20? Edit: Although, that Paladin with the 10 cha is downright retarded.
megageek 11-04-06, 09:01 PM	Probaly, you have no idea what 12 year-olds think of optimizatilon
ressurrector 11-04-06, 09:19 PM	Was this an RPGA tourney module? I've played in one of those, and Oh My God, the charcters sucked. The Monk had improved disarm, one of those +2 to 2 skills feats and the spring attack line and deflect arrows. And nothing in the entire dungeon used weapons or ranged attacks. There was even one room where the use of Spring Attack added about 1-2 hours to how long it took to clear the room. And the Monk was one of the better characters, the rest were just junk.
X-Codes 11-04-06, 09:37 PM	Was this an RPGA tourney module? I've played in one of those, and Oh My God, the charcters sucked. The Monk had improved disarm, one of those +2 to 2 skills feats and the spring attack line and deflect arrows. And nothing in the entire dungeon used weapons or ranged attacks. There was even one room where the use of Spring Attack added about 1-2 hours to how long it took to clear the room. And the Monk was one of the better characters, the rest were just junk. It seems like pre-packaged characters are made to deliberately suck at what the module is going to be doing. A monk with Stunning Fist, Deflect Arrows, Improved Disarm, and the Spring Attack line in a module full of various undead that use natural weapons. Maybe a Chaos Beast or Gelatinous Cube for variation. Does anyone seriously think that that would be a fun character to play?
LogicNinja 11-04-06, 09:40 PM	Basically, yes. If you play in games with regularly even semi-optimized characters, the kind who are pretty streamlined towards fulfilling their main party role... you're too used to it. I just joined a Red Hand of Doom game. I'm a diviner who banned evocation, Whisper Gnome, very nice Hide and Move Silently, and focusing on battlefield control and buffs/debuffs. My Haste, Greases, See Invisibility + Bonefiddle on the enemy cleric, and six-hobgoblin-blinding Glitterdust were pretty much all that carried us through that first EL 8 encounter (we're all ECL 5, but it's the only encounter the party has that day in RHoD); if I'd done anything a little less efficiently, that would've been it for us, really really quickly. Meanwhile, the other three people are an Aasimar monk with Flying Kick, a Tiefling rogue with 12 STR, 18 DEX... and a greatsword (and no Weapon Finesse), and a melee cleric with DMM(Quicken)... who put a 14 in STR (and that was one of his lower rolls) and, aside from Spikes, has an abysmal spell selection. Still, I've gotta say--the monk ran around the battlefield and helped take out the opposing cleric, plus wreaked havoc in the blinded enemies while they were blinded, the rogue compensated for his AB by rolling well and did a crapload of damage to lots of things, and the cleric did his job healing-wise and attracted the attention of most of the enemy archers, who couldn't hit him, generally serving as a tank with his nice AC. Sure, it would've gone a lot better if they'd all been optimized, but optimal characters aren't necessary for typical games. And, hell, fireball (a very suboptimal spell) would've done better in this situation (perfect for it--lots of weaker enemies) than the Ray of Exhaustion I packed (didn't come in useful until the end, to stop one of them from running away). Published adventures, at least, aren't necessarily meant for optimized characters. Still, totally crappy characters do irritate me.
megageek 11-04-06, 10:38 PM	In one of my groups arcane archers are considered overpowered and everyone wants to play a warmage.
ChristopherGroves 11-04-06, 10:39 PM	I had the pleasure of putting a few characters in for the next Xendrik Expeditions fast-plays. At least one of them patently doesn't suck, which is a good thing. It's low-level I had a nice little rant about some of the fast-plays once I saw them (I'm in one of the XE playtest factions) and my rant earned me ... well, more work. Still, I'd rather people show up with something optimized than not. Now, the most fun optimization-wise was the Delve. Not sure who got to do that at GenCon. Given the XE creation rules, make a party of 1st level characters and do the best you can in the one-hour slot. There were lots of things you don't normally see that shone in that format. But the fastplays ... were horrible. One of the 1st level fast plays had a feat they couldn't really use until later - some metamagic feat I think or maybe it was Spell Focus (conjuration) but lacked Augment Summoning ... something. Ick.
ChristopherGroves 11-04-06, 10:39 PM	In one of my groups arcane archers are considered overpowered and everyone wants to play a warmage. And in some environments (ie, like the XenEx Delve at Gencon) Warmages REALLY did well.
megageek 11-04-06, 11:09 PM	Yahthis wasn't that kind of envirement
TheOne 11-04-06, 11:22 PM	Well...I just finished playing the Gameday game...and well it sucked. The characters were totally unoptimized and the adventure was hard as hell. There was three groups that played through it my FLGS. Two of them were TPK's. From what I got from it, most were not newbies. Why have a rogue?...there were no locks, one trap (extremely hard to disarm), and six of the eight monsters(or 7 of 9 if had no way to counter the hellcat invisibility) that were immune to SA. Oh, and the halfling rogue's highest stat was a 14! I don't see how you can expect players to have fun were all the characters die.
LogicNinja 11-04-06, 11:25 PM	2nd ed. mentality. Your character should suck, and if you're not very likely to die, it's too easy!
GenerallyUnique 11-05-06, 12:04 AM	It was my girlfriend's first game, and she wanted to play the halfling rogue. I taught her all about rogues and how to sneak attack. It was nice that nearly every monster was immune. Alright, everyone picture really, really unoptimized characters. Only two have magic weapons, there is no time to rest to regain spells, and the module only gives 'random' magic items enough to beat the last boss. That's it. Spoilers: Now, take these horrible characters and fight: 1) a 4th level cleric and two dread warriors, 2) an earth elemental gargoyle (dr10/magic), 3) a terror wight (level drain!) and a flame skull (ac 18, mirror image, blur, two touch attacks for 1d8 damage a round, flying, oh, and it heals every round), 4) a 4th level conjurer and a magma spitter/hurler (ranged attack does 3d10+8+1d6fire, melee does 1d6+12) 5) a hellcat (invisibility, SR 19, DR5/good, pounce, rake). So, we should look at the fact that the DMG says common adventurers should expend a day's resources in 4 encounters, yet we have five. We should also look at the fact that there's a level draining monster in the same room as a flying untouchable beast with two ranged touch attacks and a fireball. We should look at the fact that the group has only one healer, and one mage (pre-made, both) who don't get their spells back, meaning they have to run through all of this without dying. This is adventure is absolutely horrendous. Even altering the characters slightly and tossing in a few healing scrolls, my group barely survived it.
Bawitda 11-05-06, 04:19 AM	My group had some luck. The DM let the cleric and I redo our spells (I still had to pick from the spellbook provided, but at least I could pick the more useful spells), and let us rest when we were done with the first four encounters. Of course, if the cleric hadn't rebuked the magma hurler, it would have gone much worse for us.
Endarire 11-12-06, 05:25 PM	Perhaps I expect too much from my players as I tend to send them against (nearly) even-level opponents and survive. -EE
Fieari 11-12-06, 05:48 PM	Iiiinteresting. On ENworld, there's a thread on this exact same topic from the opposite point of view: http://enworld.org/showthread.php?t=179855 Point/Counterpoint Am I Too Accustomed to Optimization/Players are spoiled brats these days And both threads have a fair selection of both viewpoints. Neat!
SageBahamut 11-12-06, 05:52 PM	Oh my holy gods. I played that adventure, too. We managed to beat the Hellcat by opening the door, shoving the Wizard through, pelting the hellcat with Arrows, then closing the door behind the wizard. While the hellcat was busy eating the sacrifice - I mean, the elf... - we kept opening the door and shooting it with arrows till it exploded. Eventually (after using his Second Wind), the player of the Wizard went to go to the bathroom, and we all declared at once "he casts Glitterdust". I'm not sure if it was the crappy character design or just poor RP, but that was the most useful that Wizard ever got... It was my g/f's first game, too, and like the other poster said, I taught her to play the Rogue, figuring they were both easy and fun. Nice how she was the most useless character in the whole module. At least my Ranger managed (through sheer luck of the dice) to PIN (yes /pin/) that Earth Element Gargoyle. We couldn't coup-de-grace it (immune to crits and sneak attack in a game with a Greataxe and a Rogue - very nice) but the Fighter did eventually managed to beat it to death. The flaming skull thing was very nearly a TPK by itself. Thankfully we managed to dodge the room with the dread warriors.
Endarire 11-12-06, 06:44 PM	Optimization is a core part of me. I believe players should optimize their characters, and I as a DM should optimize the opposition. It usually means the party needs teamwork, decisive strategy, and luck. -EE
Shorty101 11-13-06, 04:59 AM	I played in that adventure too, i couldn't believe the horrid unbalancing of the party. Each of the characters is meant to be 25 point buy right, however the ranger had only 23 points the paladin had 28 and even with that amount he only had 10 cha, he couldn't heal himself without spells. WHAT THE CRAP! I mean really a fighter with Iron will as opposed to cleave... or improved init, the ranger without precise shot What the crap! We took heavy damage at the first encounter and the second one wasn't a piece of cake either. He had to give us a wand of cure light wounds to keep us alive. I was playing the fighter and during the magma hurler fight i got hit with a critical hit from a ray of enfeeblement and was out for the encounter. We lost three characters at the end due to the hellcats pounce, the only way that we won was because i (the fighter) rolled critical on a charge for 55 damage, down to 50 with DR, i died so the paladin picked up my axe and slapped the cat with it it died. The campaign was too hard for the seriously underoptimized characters playing.
the_LICH 11-13-06, 07:02 AM	It doesnt have to do anywhing with optimization really. I DMed the same short-adventure you did, but since I didnt have time to prepare anything ahead of time, I just played the adventure as it was. And the whole party was oh god horribly slain by the Hellcat at the end. And my players had good, somewhat optimized characters made with 38 point buy. (no cleric though. druid and bard only healers). Now seriously, the average level 4 party, unless specially prepared, is no match for a hellcat. The designers of that adventure really did not think too much of that encounter.
Eyeohn 11-13-06, 07:29 AM	I didn't play the module this year, but I do remember last years.. and the swarm in that one managed to TPK my party.. Mostly because the DM ruled my cleric couldnt run and had told me that I had no way of hurting it. also the DM informed the party that its the DM's JOB to KILL the players and when they survive its a failure on the DM's part...
Gelth 11-13-06, 01:27 PM	I was playing the fighter and during the magma hurler fight i got hit with a critical hit from a ray of enfeeblement and was out for the encounter. Just a rules note, ray of enfeeblement doesn't do anything extra on a crit, because it doesn't do damage. It applies a penalty instead, so crits do nothing extra. --Penn
Seizure Robocop 11-14-06, 01:57 AM	I too played in the Games Day module, first time through as we are getting creamed by the Earth Element Gargoyle the wizard took some advice from a friend of his (who wasn't playing at the time) - HE CAST KNOCK ON THE DOOR WITH THE TERROR WEIGHT AND THE FLAMESKULL THEN OPENED IT!!!~! Of course we all died, my friend and I decided to split that joint and go play the event again at another game store, where we had a pretty good time even with the sucky characters.
Momar 11-14-06, 02:11 AM	Did Bruce Cordell have anything to do with this? From the mods of his I've played he seems to be a very spiteful man. I could see him doing this. An example would a wail of the banshee trap for a 5th level team (I think).