As a frame of reference: I am the senior GM & storeowner for a gaming store on the east coast. We run about 10-15 tables a week at my store, and have an active playerbase of about 40-70 folks (not all at the same time, mind you!).
Challenge:
Some (most) modules are complete cakewalks; other modules are very difficult. The primary reasons for this as discussed with my player/judge base is outlined below.
1) Items
Fourth Edition is a carefully balanced game; the XP budgets are balanced for the game run as a home game. In a home game, an average character will have one item of level x+1, one item of level x, and one item of level x-1 (on average) plus a bunch of items that are lower than that. Some characters may have an x+4 item, but that'll be maybe one or two in the group.
At an RPGA table, however, *most* of the characters at a table will often have a suite of items that are x+4 or x+3. As it's possible to get +2 vicious items and +3 bloodclaw items and all sorts of other nice items at relatively low levels merely by playing on high, if you've a group of players who've done this and know the "tricks" (and that's a lot of players) they'll blast through a module pretty easily on that basis alone.
2) Cards
The presence of the RPGA cards cannot and should not be discounted. These cards often amount to the equivalent of an extra race or class feature or encounter/daily power; and each player has usually got at least two of them. The abilities of some of them are pretty awesome:
* At-Will rerolls are the equivalent of a daily Elven Accuracy though somewhat limited;
* Snap Out Of It renders one of the monsters' primary status effects--usually reserved for monster encounter abilities or recharge abilities in the 1st-10th level range--pretty much useless;
* That'll Do screws up skill challenges even more than they already are (see below)...
...and of course, the adding a bonus to any roll thing makes them doubly useful.
I am not arguing that these cards be done away with--merely that the challenge rating of modules take these things into account.
3) Skill Challenges
With the That'll Do card (considered a must-take by most folks) and a set of skill challenge DCs that are often ridiculously low, skill challenges are often viewed by PCs as merely a welcome means of getting an extra action point, often without a threat.
Most modules should likely have guidelines for the DM as to how many assists he or she should allow.
In all, I think these elements should be taken into consideration when you look at the XP budget allowed to the GMs--which should be increased above the standards in the DMG. The RPGA is by its nature "house ruling" the PCs to be more powerful than they would be in a standardly-run home game, and as such, the challenges should be more difficult.
The problem is the way that those mods which are "hard" are being made hard (as my players and judges see it):
1) Terrain That's Not Worth XP
The primary way we've seen modules written to be "challenging" as opposed to the alternative is terrain and environmental effects which are not worth XP and which, as such, are harder for editors to gauge and GMs to run. I've seen modules where a party could easily be decimated by relatively easy monsters to kill due to the terrain; while wholly staying within the XP budget, the DM is making an encounter that, unless there's a really top-flight group, the PCs will be pretty much destroyed.
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Other Issues:
1) Module Flow
Too many modules are: Combat-Skill Challenge-Combat-Skill Challenge-Really Hard Combat. There are a very few modules where the "Really Hard" combat happens first. Thus, PCs rarely (if ever) use dailies early on, are rarely surprised, and can very easily gauge what to do in various situations. Some surprises would be in order, I think, and there are some very excellent variable-flow modules out there (mods that have different sequences of encounters depending on player choices). More please!
2) Too Much/Too Little Data Dump!!!
I've seen modules that have no data that make them LFR-worthy: modules that could be run in any game setting, because they have so little "flavor" as to not be worth mentioning.
But those are rare. The biggest problems are modules with non-skill-challenge, large-data-dump, here-is-the-entire-history-of-every-NPC-and-location encounters. Try to keep in mind that the PCs have four hours to play, and they don't really want to spend a whole lot of it getting every nuance and detail of every historical and thematic aspect of your favorite part of the Realms, please--parcel it out, give them some highlights that are punched up for them. Include more stuff on the faiths and organizations that PCs might be interested in.
And for God's sake, find some more overarching villains than Sharrans, Zhents, and Szass Tam.
3) The Dingus Effect
There is a player who's started a bit of a trend in the community here: every module turns out to be the search for a Dingus, whatever the thing (or person) is that the NPC wants to pay the PCs to retrieve. Too many modules (not all of them!) wind up being like World of Warcraft fetch-quests, and there are lots of things that could be done that aren't "bring me back the Dingus" quests. Let's have more of those, please.
We could rewrite/DME all the mods that we have, but that'd be a major project.1) Items
I'd cheerfully see gold awards increased and the average level of items in LFR decreased... in particular I think that weapons should never jump a +1 too early. So, no +2 vicious in 1-4 at all, no +3 bloodclaw in 7-10 at all. I'd cheerfully apply that theory to armor, and am indifferent but fine with applying it to neck items.
I do think that items from other more random slots would be much more tenable choices if they were allowed to continue to be available early.
2) Cards
The cards I think most directly impact skill challenges, but I do agree that they make lots of things easier.
* At-Will rerolls are the equivalent of a daily Elven Accuracy though somewhat limited;
Eh, Elven Accuracy is almost always used with encounter or daily powers first, so I think the analogy falls pretty short. At-Will rerolls generally aren't all that big a deal - the +1 often ends up at least as important as the reroll.
* Snap Out Of It renders one of the monsters' primary status effects--usually reserved for monster encounter abilities or recharge abilities in the 1st-10th level range--pretty much useless;
I wouldn't say useless, but it definitely nerfs daze. Given how much it annoys players and the use of some really stupid critters (yeah, Mad Wraiths, I'm talking about you) I'm not that worried about it I'll admit.
3) Skill Challenges
Generally I prefer skill challenges which engage the whole group, be it through many disparate scenes, wide variety of options, group checks, whatever, and despise mass assisting hijinks.
I'd suggest a maximum of one assist unless a particular check calls out that it allows otherwise.
1) Terrain That's Not Worth XP
Sometimes this actually turns into ways to hurt the monsters, too, I'll say. I recently played two modules that both contained terrain designed to screw with the PCs that led roughly to the death of a couple of enemies due to falling damage and/or inability to avoid melee, etc.
1) Module Flow
I'd really like to see more modules have two difficult combats instead of three or four. Note that difficult does not mean 'lacking challenge but requiring many rounds of using at-wills to burn through enough hp'
Best would be if there was a decent incentive to use your dailies in both combats, because hoarding dailies tends to make a lot of fights go slower than they need.
2) Too Much/Too Little Data Dump!!!
I'd love to see almost all regional mods have something in them for people from that region, for starters.
I would agree with you that you have to be very careful about how much time is available for the run - I'm not sure I'd single out NPC/history dumping encounters as something to cut, but I'd agree that if a mod looks like it takes more than 3.5 hours to run, it should probably tighten down or make some things optional - optional combats are actually a nice way to compromise for those who are really kicking butt through the mods and have some time left.
3) The Dingus Effect
Eh, that's the nature of fantasy - of the 'seven stories' that can be told (http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/seven-stories-rule-world-matt-haig for a quickly googled explanation), Quest really is the primary adventure motivation.
In a home game, an average character will have one item of level x+1, one item of level x, and one item of level x-1 (on average) plus a bunch of items that are lower than that.
[...]
At an RPGA table, however, *most* of the characters at a table will often have a suite of items that are x+4 or x+3.
I'm not sure that either of these statements are fully correct.
The "create new PCs above 1st level" rules deliberately under-equip PCs. By the end of 10th level, the average PC in a home game will have something like items of levels 1, 1, 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 14 or levels 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9, 10, 11 and 12. It's rare for a PC using standard treasure rules to not have a Level+2 item.
At an RPGA table, PCs who have common item choices (such as a longsword) and aren't too picky about their item selection will be well-equipped, but not necessarily with items that fit their PC that well; PCs with uncommon item choices (like every implement user) will often be under-equipped.
The RPGA is by its nature "house ruling" the PCs to be more powerful than they would be in a standardly-run home game, and as such, the challenges should be more difficult.
The flip side, however, is that RPGA games are often played with a random group of players whose classes don't necessarily mesh that well together and may be completely in the dark as to the other PCs' abilities and tactics. Leaders are particularly prone to having abilities which are dependent on the particular party makeup--a warlord built around giving extra basic melee attacks, for example, could easily end up with an entire party who aren't good with basic melee attacks.
The first time you end up at a thrown-together convention table of a warlock, an archer ranger and two wizards, it becomes tough to argue that the party is more powerful than core assumes, even if each individual PC might be. (And, the first time you end up at a table with a high-Wis cleric who took Str-based powers, the gnoll wizard who is an interesting roleplaying character but ineffective in combat, and the 3rd level PC who's spent all of his found item slots on increasingly more attractive +1 weapon picks, "more powerful PCs" will become "possibly more powerful PCs".)
Too many modules are: Combat-Skill Challenge-Combat-Skill Challenge-Really Hard Combat. There are a very few modules where the "Really Hard" combat happens first.
Yes, this is a basic problem with modules being four-hour one-shot adventures.
An ongoing home campaign has an arc progression with ups and downs, usually culminating in a big climax. In a four-hour adventure, however, having the climactic battle not be the hard combat is, well, anti-climactic and narratively unsatisfying.
The alternative is to have the combats be three unconnected one-shots (
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BALD1-1
the That'll Do card (considered a must-take by most folks)
It's funny how things vary by region. I've played quite a bit of LFR (PCs of level 9,9,8,5,5,4,3,3,3), and I have NEVER seen a That'll Do card used (and I've been paying fairly close attention for it for months now, ever since I first started hearing that it was becoming mandatory).
The nearly universal standard array of cards is one Snap Out Of It and the rest as whatever At-Will reroll fits your power source. Occasionally someone will pop out Undead Slayer if there have been spoilers, or One Shot, One Kill if playing a striker at L1-4, and veeery occasionally someone will use one of the unusual "if your power normally does X, it does Y instead" cards, or the new one that turns a 19 into a crit (Lucky Shot is it?).
We've just never had enough trouble succeeding at skill challenges that someone would say "I'd rather have a That'll Do than an At-Will reroll".
* In general I found your whole post to be fillled with astute observations and reasonable suggestions, many of which would be echoed by my own local group. Very well done sir.
1) That'll Do - it lets you just RP however you want in skill challenges with a pretty good buffer against 'oh, crap, I got us a failure' and a couple in the party gives you plenty of leeway
2) An at-will reroll - cause they're fun, and all
3) Snap Out Of It - cause daze isn't all that ubiquitous until level 6 or so. Certain character types, or if you know what's in a mod, you may want to adjust its importance.
In that order. I'm actually finding that I rarely enough need _any_ of them that it's become annoying to give out the +1s. Especially at higher levels I just don't use at-wills enough and people are a lot less likely to blaze off half-cocked into a skill challenge racking up failures.
I do like having it available for Athletics and Acrobatics for stunts in combat, though.
There are a very few modules where the "Really Hard" combat happens first.
Well, yeah. Then there's no climax to the adventure. I played a few mods like what you're lamenting and I have to say... they were very disappointing mods. havign the climax at the beginning just makes the rest of the mod a let down.
or the new one that turns a 19 into a crit (Lucky Shot is it?).
Yup, Lucky Shot. That's a nice one, *especially* for Rangers, who are usually making two attack rolls per round. For those characters, it seems to get triggered nearly every game, since they're making enough rolls over the course of the adventure to pretty much insure that a 19 will come up sooner or later.
Haven't run into that one yet... I imagine it will become pretty ubiquitous for many characters once it does show up.
It should be in the next PDF of rewards cards, though I don't know exactly when that'll be released -- my guess would be July or August, since it'd be the convention-support cards from the first half of '09, but I have no inside info on the topic.
Haven't run into that one yet... I imagine it will become pretty ubiquitous for many characters once it does show up.
It hasn't seen that much use around here. I've tried it once or twice but the usual effect is that I don't roll any 19s or 20s during the mod.
What type of character were you playing? I couldn't see taking it with my first couple cards, but if I were playing a Ranger or controller I'd definitely think about it by card 3, and I'm pretty sure all of my characters will take it by card 5.
With a barbarian, every card until I hit epic and get 19 crits anyway...
With a barbarian, every card until I hit epic and get 19 crits anyway...
Unless something else is, somehow, better, look for a 13th level weapon enhancement, Jagged, which crits on a 19 or 20...
So, MYRE1-4, for PCs of 11-14th level, at the latest. ;)
What type of character were you playing? I couldn't see taking it with my first couple cards, but if I were playing a Ranger or controller I'd definitely think about it by card 3, and I'm pretty sure all of my characters will take it by card 5.
I've got a number of characters. Battle cleric with a fullblade (no righteous wrath of tempus though--I think I'm one of three clerics in all LFR to turn down the free crit because I decided on another deity before PGTF came out). Inspiring Warlord. Tactical Warlord. Warlock. Ranger (melee). Avenger.
But it really doesn't matter what kind of character I have. I have taken it for a few mods and never rolled a 19 or a 20 in any of them. While that may be dice superstition, as a tactical choice it makes sense. A crit is generally worth 1.8-2.5 hits worth of damage. (depending upon the die size of your magic weapon and whether the weapon is high crit or brutal). So, you're getting about one extra hit out of that card when you use it, if it comes up at all. The most directly comparable cards are the at-will re-roll cards. Using one of those cards nets you a little more than (your chance to hit)x(1 hit's worth of damage). So, in terms of damage, Lucky Shot contributes 1.5 to 2 times as much damage as the at-will re-roll, but it is not guaranteed to come up. (If your standard scenario has three five round combats, you will probably roll 17 or 18 attack rolls which means that there is only somewhere around a 60% chance that you will be able to use the card at all and there is no guarantee that it will actually be useful (crit against a minion, crit against someone who is going to die anyway--all wasted). So when you get right down to it, the probable damage contribued in the context of any particular module is similar unless you make multiple attack rolls per round. The big differences are as follows:
Lucky shot comes in one big shot that has a lower probability of being usable at all and is useful at a random point in the game (if it is useful at all).
At-will re-rolls are smaller hunks of damage, but they are likely to be usable in every game and they will be usable enough times in a game that you will probably be able to use them at a tactically opportune moment. Even if not, you can still plan for and around the use of at-will re-rolls while you cannot plan around the use of a lucky shot.
Thus, I prefer taking a second at-will re-roll card to lucky shot.
That's fair. I miss on at-wills so rarely (due in some part to combats ending in few enough rounds that I barely use more than 1 or 2 per combat) that I've cut back to a single at-will reroll on each character and it often goes wasted.
Mine sometimes goes wasted as well, but they still have tactical impact when they are not used because if I've got an at-will reroll or two, I can count on an at-will attack hitting which changes the tradeoffs. With my warlord, it means that I can count on the rousing assault bonus healing if I decide I want to use it. With my cleric, it means that I don't have to hope that I hit with righteous brand and it makes the otherwise dubious sacred flame (I started with a 14 Wisdom so it's not very reliable) a much better choice.
That's really the deciding factor for me. Having those cards enables me to plan differently. You can't plan for when you will roll a 19. You have to plan as though you were never going to roll a 19 or 20 unless the plan that demands the 19 or 20 is the only way to succeed.
Take that Lucky Shot!
I've got a number of characters. Battle cleric with a fullblade (no righteous wrath of tempus though--I think I'm one of three clerics in all LFR to turn down the free crit because I decided on another deity before PGTF came out).
I play the other one ;)
It's gotta be worth the card for a barbarian. You're normally wielding a high-crit weapon, given that it's LFR it's probably a +2 vicious weapon, and you get a free melee basic, and bonuses when you bloody and kill enemies (which with an additional 3d12 and a second attack, you should do).
I wouldn't take it for all my characters.
In my region, card choice basically comes down to: if you're a melee character, take a snap out of it. Then fill all remaining slots with 'that'll do' cards. It's so much easier to fail skill challenges than anything else, especially if they need 12 success vs. 3 failures (at which point you need to be succeeding on every roll on about a 4 to have an even chance of success in the challenge), and if you don't fail any skill rolls, you can always activate them in the final combat by using the to take 10 on a minor action perception check or something (gamesmanship, but there you go.)
I(no righteous wrath of tempus though--I think I'm one of three clerics in all LFR to turn down the free crit because I decided on another deity before PGTF came out).
Lets not overreact ;) In my knack of the woods I don't know a single cleric of Tempus. Even the melee cleric worships Ilmater. We also have Sune, Selune, Amaunator and Kelemvor. Bahamut and Torm are favorite among the paladins. Tempus is a common build, but not nearly as common as some people seem to make it out.
Lets not overreact ;) In my knack of the woods I don't know a single cleric of Tempus. Even the melee cleric worships Ilmater. We also have Sune, Selune, Amaunator and Kelemvor. Bahamut and Torm are favorite among the paladins. Tempus is a common build, but not nearly as common as some people seem to make it out.
There's only one cleric of Tempus in my area of 60+ players. I do play a paladin of Tempus that I chose before the FRPG came out but as the character is evolving (into more than the dragon-hating concept), I realise I should've gone with Torm anyway.
My cleric gets much more mileage out of her Eyes of Selune save reroll than my paladin does out of RRoT.
There's only one cleric of Tempus in my area of 60+ players.
Sorry Joe there are at least three Clerics of Tempus that I'm aware of in Brisbane, I play the only one that doesn't have Righteous Rage that I'm aware of... and that will only last until she is 12th level. (12-14 adventures away.)
Some (most) modules are complete cakewalks;
Correct, and I've seen this comment many times on these forums. The exception seems to be that the SPEC modules are rather difficult, and there are a handful of really difficult combats like a level-7 one involving a beholder.
My impression is that the modules are easy to any group with halfway experienced players who are average or better at tactics. It would seem that WOTC wants RPGA to also be enjoyable by complete novice players who don't understand tactics at all; this is a laudable goal, but the issue is that in achieving this goal, they make the game too easy (and potentially boring) to the more tactically minded players. WOTC does not seem to compensate for the obvious fact that (most) players learn while leveling up, thus higher level adventures can be assumed to have more experienced players as well.
Of course, good DMs will compensate. Nevertheless, the obvious solution (that isn't being used for some reason) is to use the "low tier" version for the casual player and the "high tier" version of the same adventure for the more strategic groups.
At an RPGA table, however, *most* of the characters at a table will often have a suite of items that are x+4 or x+3. As it's possible to get +2 vicious items and +3 bloodclaw items and all sorts of other nice items at relatively low levels merely by playing on high,
Yes. Certain highly desirable items (in particular vicious and bloodclaw) are easily accessible, which means that (1) many players have them thus upping the power level, and (2) many other items don't see use. The problem as I see it is not so much the level of the items (which, after all, is rather arbitrary) but that there are just a handful of items that nearly everyone wants. If players line up for a module they dislike just because "it's the one with the bloodclaw wpn", you know there's something odd here.
The presence of the RPGA cards cannot and should not be discounted.
I feel these make a big difference at the table, and it'll get weird as soon as we hit paragon because by then the average table will have thirty of those cards per game. You'd be surprised at how often people miss by one; in effect, the cards amount to giving everyone a +1 to hit. Personally I do like That'll Do because skill challenges would be highly random otherwise.
The cards that everybody uses, at least around here, are indeed the reroll, Snap Out Of It, and That'll Do (of course, several of the other cards are rather crappy). I've seen a DM throw an area effect daze, only to have every single player hit respond by Snapping; that was weird. Wizards could freely throw Color Spray anywhere because any allies they hit will Snap anyway.
Oh yeah, I've also seen a few players use a +2 card just for the +2 (triggering the primary effect of the card for no reason and no effect). This does not seem to be the intent of the rules, but it's technically legal.
skill challenges are often viewed by PCs as merely a welcome means of getting an extra action point, often without a threat.
Most DMs in my area rule that skill challenges that are not a meaningful threat do not count towards milestones (I'm aware that that's an Oberoni). However, I do not generally see SCs as too easy, but as problematic for other reasons. That's a whole different topic though; many (but by no means all) DMs feel that the SC rules as written are useless and should be ignored.
I've seen modules where a party could easily be decimated by relatively easy monsters to kill due to the terrain; while wholly staying within the XP budget,
Please tell me which adventure(s) this applies to; I haven't noticed this myself.
Thus, PCs rarely (if ever) use dailies early on, are rarely surprised, and can very easily gauge what to do in various situations.
Yes. The point is that often the first battles are so easy that PCs save most or all of their dailies for the last, thus making that one too easy because everyone goes Nova. Two characters winning initiative then opening with Daily, Minor Action Item Daily, Action Point, Another Daily will quickly decimate just about anything.
And for God's sake, find some more overarching villains than Sharrans, Zhents, and Szass Tam.
Excellent point. Every module I've played so far seems to have Zhentarim as the bad guys. It gets cliche.
Too many modules (not all of them!) wind up being like World of Warcraft fetch-quests,
I have not seen this as a problem, so far.
Excellent point. Every module I've played so far seems to have Zhentarim as the bad guys. It gets cliche.
Huh? We recently compiled a list of adventures that would fullfill the third task, and I could count them on 1 hand out of about 80 adventures and in most of them they are not even the true bad guys, just the hired hands.
Thay is present in only 3 adventures, all 3 cores (although I have not seen many Aglarond adventures so they might appear there).
Shar is indeed a bit more common, which is not that odd considering Netheril is one of the biggest foes in the FR threatening 3 regions directly. Still, not too many adventures except for one core series and Cormyr, with as far as I know a few cameo appearances in WATE and DALE.
Huh? We recently compiled a list of adventures that would fullfill the third task
Poetic exaggeration on my part; the point is not how often exactly the Shar people, Netherese, or Zhent show up exactly; the point is that people get the feeling that whenever something bad happens, oh guess what, it's the Netheril again. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find out that the three are in league.
I should call this "ElfQuest syndrome". While most of that strip is in fact very good, it becomes apparent after a few years (especially when they had multiple writers) that every single bad thing that happens is the result of the machinations of Winnowill (the first actually evil antagonist they meet early in the series). Because Shards? Yup, that's her. Wavedancers? Her again. Hidden Years? That's some guy who was mindcontrolled by her. New Blood? Yup, evil mutated creatures she made. Rogue's Curse? Take a wild guess. And so on and so forth, and after awhile it either gets tedious or silly, depending on your taste.
Leaving aside the content of the modules for a moment, I will say that the editing/proof-reading on modules has been pretty much universally utterly atrocious.
Poetic exaggeration on my part; the point is not how often exactly the Shar people, Netherese, or Zhent show up exactly; the point is that people get the feeling that whenever something bad happens, oh guess what, it's the Netheril again. I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually find out that the three are in league.
And the Abolethic Sovereignty?
So yeah, maybe the Zhents have been the focus of Specials, and the Sharrans keep showing up in the Core mods, and the Netherese are the big bad that a lot of the regions are dealing with (Cormyr, Dragon Coast, COREs), but I'll take a page from replies to my own criticisms of LFR and say ...
... it's only the first year. Time enough to add enemies to the repertoire. As we move into Paragon, I expect to see some githyanki show up, some demons, and maybe more High Fey. Maybe we'll find out that the Zhent's are someone else's pawn, the Netherese Shades are actually trying to draw down the Shadowfell in force, and as we move into Epic, we'll get to throw down against the Winter Queen and the Queen of the Drow, maybe a really big Dragon and of course, Bane.
At the start of a mod:
"Where's the nearest temple of Shar? We find it and kill everyone inside. Mod over"
Let's lay off temples for a bit, yea?
But step back and realize that LFR is based off of 3.5 hour adventures, and D&D is partly about dungeons. Temples really really fit the bill for potential short dungeons. Flipside: I doubt you'll see much Undermountain in LFR, as doing anything there is going to be very tricky to limit to 3.5 hours.
I do agree that the cards feel like overkill. I don't mind the idea of them so much, but yes, I've seen a great many encounters where a monster's tactics are based off of dazing people, and everyone just chucks a card at it. I would be much happier if they kept the cards but reduced the # people could have in their stack (say 1 per tier?) Of course, the cards are basically out of the box, and like many other things that are overpowered in the campaign, I don't seem them disappearing any time soon.
Regarding Shar and other religious enemies: they cut down the number of gods in 4e, so you're going to see certain ones pop up more often. I don't mind Shar too much, but I'd like to see more (*raising clenched fist*) BAAAAAANNNNNEEEE.
First: I know it's the first year. The point of this post is the hope that the criticisms I and others have made & spotted might be observed by the fine writers and editing staff, with a view towards altering future mods. I am well aware of how hard it is to write these things; I don't want people to take this as an overall slam, merely useful constructive criticism. The fact is that people LIKE the RPGA a lot, and the mods, too. That doesn't mean they cannot be improved!
Re: Keithric:
A) Items
Barring a rewrite of a lot of old mods, we are sort of stuck with the items that are easily available--+2 vicious, +3 bloodclaw, etcetera, etcetera. I don't expect the powers that be to edit these out (taking away is always more difficult than adding) so much as I am hoping that the Global Admins will take into account the fact that parties at higher levels will be armed with items given out in earlier mods.
B) Cards
Likewise, getting rid of cards isn't going to happen. Thing is, taking into account *both* the cards *and* the item values/levels present in characters past 4th and 10th levels should be considered in the challenge ratings and builds of future modules. I'm willing to accept mods being easy up to 10th level, but I don't really think anyone's served by 11+ level mods being as easy for players as the 1-10 ones are. If, after 10th level, you're still a novice and you can't deal with a higher level of challenge...well.
C) Flow
I tend to agree with earlier posters about fewer, more difficult combats and skill challenges that are actually challenging. More extensive playtesting with a specific eye towards how long the mod actually takes to play would be helpful as well. There are many mods which can't be done in 4 hours if run properly as written; these need to be fixed for future mods. I expect that problem to get worse the higher level characters there are.
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Re: bgibbons
While it's certainly true that a thrown-together random table of characters with no synergy can be problematic, I have found that to be very much the exception than the rule. Most players who have built characters with a specific requirement in terms of teammates (such as the warlord with the melee-attack-granting-abilities) often have people that they plan to play that particular character with. Additionally, in 4E LFR, the ability to replay a module with a different character often allows players who've sat down at a table intending to play character "A" be able to switch to character "B" if the party needs it. Except at the very lowest levels for the newest players, where they have but one character and are new to the game, most players I've run into have a stable of characters that they'll switch to at a table as the table forms.
While I don't discount this possibility, see the section at the end of this post regarding DM empowerment.
re: Kurald Galain
The solution (of low-level for casual, high-level for experienced) is often used at tables I've seen. Aside from situations where new or casual players are peer pressured into "playing up" (a situation which I have instructed my DMs to discourage), this tends to work all right.
Players I've seen often insist or work towards playing modules with specific items in them, such as the +2 vicious weapon and the +3 bloodclaw weapon. If we view this as a problem, there's little to be done about it aside from making higher-level mods more in line with the ability players will undoubtedly have to meet the challenges with, as I've been advocating throughout.
The using a +2 card early to get the +2 isn't uncommon where we play--the Quick Getaway tends to be ideal for characters who are in the back lines of a fight and who are not often targetted (shoot/cast, take run action but don't move and use card; you may grant combat advantage for a round but you usually don't care).
Modules where characters can be decimated by the terrain include, but are not limited to:
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DALE 1-1 The Prospect. The spirit can hover over the hole in the church, making it impossible for melee characters to harm her unless they are standing in the brazier of fire. Admittedly, I used this to great (and fun!) effect against a group of players who were very amused by it, and it requires a group to have no ranged combatants worth mentioning, but still.
WATE1-2 Dark Secrets of Downshadow, encounter 4, places the PCs in the unenviable position of being in an area where not only are they in total darkness (due to the creatures) but they take penalties to attack, have difficult terrain just about everywhere unless they make skill check sin the darkness, and are otherwise very discombobulated.
I cannot recall the module off the top of my head, but there's one involving a combat with flying creatures who spend their time atop rafters in a building concealed by smoke.
WATE1-2 Dark Secrets of Downshadow, encounter 4, places the PCs in the unenviable position of being in an area where not only are they in total darkness (due to the creatures) but they take penalties to attack, have difficult terrain just about everywhere unless they make skill check sin the darkness, and are otherwise very discombobulated.
I cannot recall the module off the top of my head, but there's one involving a combat with flying creatures who spend their time atop rafters in a building concealed by smoke.
One of the *best* uses for DM empowerment is (and should be suggested) modifying the difficulty *downwards* as necessary. It's a LOT easier to make a combat easier than it is to make it harder without the PCs noticing, in my view, as a DM. Put another way: the odds of a PC complaining that they killed a monster quicker than they thought are a lot lower than the odds of them complaining that the monster (which you've DMEd) takes a lot longer to kill, especially for people who're replaying a mod.
Thus, making the modules a bit more difficult as a basic state, and then suggesting DME to make it easier if necessary, is a lot easier than presenting us with easy mods which have to be DMEd to be harder.
Also, there's a consistency problem which is (mildly) annoying and it's centered in two mods that I will talk about below (BIG spoilers).
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Two modules in specific strike me as QUITE out of whack with the general trend of "mods too easy" and "mods just right": IMPI1-3 Lost Souls, and AGLA1-2 At The Foot Of The Lighthouse.
Both of these mods have killed PCs (or caused outright retreats) in most cases I've seen them run for the first time for players. Replaying, with the inevitable metagaming, produces a slightly better outcome, but there are still significant numbers of deaths occurring as a result of these mods.
I won't say that I think this is too horrid; I like challenge mods. The problem is consistancy: these two mods in particular are very much more difficult for more groups over time, than I've seen other mods (outside of SPECS and ADAP1-5 which is in a class by itself).
Both of these mods have killed PCs (or caused outright retreats) in most cases I've seen them run for the first time for players. Replaying, with the inevitable metagaming, produces a slightly better outcome, but there are still significant numbers of deaths occurring as a result of these mods.
I won't say that I think this is too horrid; I like challenge mods. The problem is consistancy: these two mods in particular are very much more difficult for more groups over time, than I've seen other mods (outside of SPECS and ADAP1-5 which is in a class by itself).
Oh, something I left out.
One of the *best* uses for DM empowerment is (and should be suggested) modifying the difficulty *downwards* as necessary. It's a LOT easier to make a combat easier than it is to make it harder without the PCs noticing, in my view, as a DM. Put another way: the odds of a PC complaining that they killed a monster quicker than they thought are a lot lower than the odds of them complaining that the monster (which you've DMEd) takes a lot longer to kill, especially for people who're replaying a mod.
I think there are two challenges with this kind of DME.
1. Mods already have an easy button: low tier. If you use DME to make the mod easier for a group that asked to play high tier, that feels an awful lot like cheating to me. Presumably, they will expect high tier rewards when it is over.
Easing up on low-tier players is a bit different.
2. In the long run, players can be ill-served by this kind of DME. Sure, no one will complain that they dropped the goblin hexer in two hits instead of four. But next time they play a mod with a goblin hexer, they may well make decisions that are based on how tough it was to fight the last time. If you nerfed the hexer and their next DM doesn't, your kindness is likely to lure them into poor tactical decision making.
If you want to make combats easier (and I don't really see why you would in general--they are plenty easy enough, even on high tier when playing up), I would suggest playing in a less tactically sound manner. Make some attacks without the flank. Move and make a basic attack rather than charging. Don't focus your fire.
Both of these mods have killed PCs (or caused outright retreats) in most cases I've seen them run for the first time for players. Replaying, with the inevitable metagaming, produces a slightly better outcome, but there are still significant numbers of deaths occurring as a result of these mods.
AGLA1-2 spoilers -
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Huh - I remember playing AGLA1-2 up tier with my level 4 fighter. I certainly got hurt, being bloodied in two combats, but I don't remember it being difficult. I assume we're not talking the first combat which was a cake walk, but the later two - the combat on the path with the chillborn or the tower with the skull lord, tomb guardian, and blazing skeletons. Were both a problem, mostly the path combat (if you can't deal with the chillborn in some way a few rounds of aura damage could pretty much screw a lot of people), or mostly the latter fight (which I'll admit I almost dropped on, but don't believe anyone else was even bloodied)?
Haven't played IMPI1-3 yet... scheduled to play it sometime before Gen Con, at least, and I'm looking forward to it. The 7-10s have been very cakewalky, but I hear Kayserman's evil ;)
Haven't played IMPI1-3 yet... scheduled to play it sometime before Gen Con, at least, and I'm looking forward to it. The 7-10s have been very cakewalky, but I hear Kayserman's evil ;)
IMPI 1-3 spoilers
I loved IMPI 1-3, but yes it is a highly challenging adventure. Fiends are not pushovers. I had more fun with this adventure than any other because of the tension due to the difficulty, though it probably helps that the author was running for us.
I loved IMPI 1-3, but yes it is a highly challenging adventure. Fiends are not pushovers. I had more fun with this adventure than any other because of the tension due to the difficulty, though it probably helps that the author was running for us.
AGLA1-2 spoilers -ShowHuh - I remember playing AGLA1-2 up tier with my level 4 fighter. I certainly got hurt, being bloodied in two combats, but I don't remember it being difficult. I assume we're not talking the first combat which was a cake walk, but the later two - the combat on the path with the chillborn or the tower with the skull lord, tomb guardian, and blazing skeletons. Were both a problem, mostly the path combat (if you can't deal with the chillborn in some way a few rounds of aura damage could pretty much screw a lot of people), or mostly the latter fight (which I'll admit I almost dropped on, but don't believe anyone else was even bloodied)?
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I cannot recall the module off the top of my head, but there's one involving a combat with flying creatures who spend their time atop rafters in a building concealed by smoke.
ShowThe Skull Lord fight can be very difficult with the right tactics from the DM. The Skull Lord has an at-will that pushes 5 squares. If you are anywhere outside the building, that is enough to push you off a cliff, no matter where you are. IIRC, the cliffs are 30ft high, so that's another 3d10 damage if you fail the save to avoid falling. A 30ft drop also puts you outside the range of a healing/inspiring word, so any characters rendered unconscious by the damage are more difficult to save.
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That particular combat can also be made more difficult if the judge does not read certain limitations carefully.
The skull lord has three abilities which are each usable at-will as a minor action 1/round. If a DM decides to just use all three in the same round (his push 5, for example), that can easily end badly, as the odds increase that PCs are going to start going over the cliffs.
One of those abilities allows the skull lord to restore a destroyed undead minion at full points. If the DM decides that the term 'minion' isn't referring to a role but refers to any follower (such as the undead brute in the encounter), that can also increase the difficulty level.
(I'm acquainted with a judge who made both such decisions when he ran it, and when questioned afterward, indicated that this was exactly how the author of the module ran it for him, so I have no idea what was actually intended.)
The DM who ran the module when I played it also made things slightly more difficult by interpreting the brute, who deals damage of "1d8+3 damage (crit 1d8+11)" as dealing a total of 2d8+14 damage on a crit, which, for a creature who makes 4 attacks a round and with a DM who's rolling well, can be problematic.
The skull lord has three abilities which are each usable at-will as a minor action 1/round. If a DM decides to just use all three in the same round (his push 5, for example), that can easily end badly, as the odds increase that PCs are going to start going over the cliffs.
One of those abilities allows the skull lord to restore a destroyed undead minion at full points. If the DM decides that the term 'minion' isn't referring to a role but refers to any follower (such as the undead brute in the encounter), that can also increase the difficulty level.
(I'm acquainted with a judge who made both such decisions when he ran it, and when questioned afterward, indicated that this was exactly how the author of the module ran it for him, so I have no idea what was actually intended.)
The DM who ran the module when I played it also made things slightly more difficult by interpreting the brute, who deals damage of "1d8+3 damage (crit 1d8+11)" as dealing a total of 2d8+14 damage on a crit, which, for a creature who makes 4 attacks a round and with a DM who's rolling well, can be problematic.
In any event, terrain is an age old discussion and a difficult one at that. The effects of terrain on a battle are very hard to predict, since it all depends on the players and the DMs. One group's worse nightmare, might actually proof to be highly useful in an other group.
This is also an inevitable challenge which IMO ought to be embraced. The alternative to terrain that can give monsters or PCs advantages is terrain that is of no tactical significance and is therefore uninteresting. There's no two ways about it. Terrain is either tactically significant or it is not. If it is tactically significant, then monsters can and should use or avoid it to make the fight more challenging. (And it is usually better writing to have terrain that the monsters (or players) can use to their advantage--it somewhat defeats the purpose of having interesting terrain if every combatant is going to strive to avoid interacting with it). Likewise, players, depending upon the party composition, may or may not be able to take advantage of it. On the other hand, if the monsters cannot use it to their advantage and don't have to avoid it and the capabilities of the players do not make it more or less helpful, then there's nothing left for it to do except maintain a vague continuity with the story of the module. (This room is a 6x8 square because it is a small tavern).
Every encounter shouldn't feature arcane ballistae raining down shocking death from a 50' ledge accessible only by a rickety ladder. But tactically significant and interesting terrain is what separates one battle against gnolls or zhentarim from the last one and using the different capabilities of different parties in different ways is one of the things that keeps replaying from growing stale too quickly. And every now and then, figuring out how to deal with a highly disadvantageous situation (such as the aforementioned ballistae) is an interesting challenge that makes for a dynamic and interesting adventure. (I have now played that particular mod three times and the party has come up with an entirely different approach every time).
Also, there's a consistency problem which is (mildly) annoying and it's centered in two mods that I will talk about below (BIG spoilers).
In general, it is better to name the mods to which you are going to provide spoilers, then mention why this is a spoiler (these mods are hard, here's why) within the SBLOCK or concealed text. That way, you can avoid the text if you haven't played it. Otherwise, you have to guess whether it would be a spoiler to you.
Regarding the two mods you mentioned, we had good solid runs with them. Some challenge, but nothing major. Good times.
Challenge is a funny thing. We complain when mods are too easy (extensive threads found on this on these boards), then complain when a hard one comes along.
It is really hard to write with a deliberate aim towards challenging. You never know who will show up at the table and one person's "perfect" is another person's "overwhelming" and another's "meh". A good guideline is to aim to avoid for frustrating (weakened plus insubstantial being a good example, damaging terrain that only hurts PCs and is not included in the XP budget is another... combine both for tears... though I love much about the rest of the mod I'm describing).
In writing a mod recently, I fought long and hard about difficulty. Story-wise, a challenging finish was called for. Playtesting revealed a somewhat wide range of results (thought the DM for the table that had the hardest time said he thought the difficulty should remain as is). In the end, I offered a number of bullets for how a DM can reduce difficulty if the adventure has been difficult for the party up until that point. The point of challenging is to still have fun, to worry as a player, to pull out all your best moves and to think hard about how to gain a victory, but to have a decent chance to pull through. And, challenging tends to punish mistakes, whereas other combats can forgive them. It isn't an easy call to make/write.
Easing up on low-tier players is a bit different.
2. In the long run, players can be ill-served by this kind of DME. Sure, no one will complain that they dropped the goblin hexer in two hits instead of four. But next time they play a mod with a goblin hexer, they may well make decisions that are based on how tough it was to fight the last time. If you nerfed the hexer and their next DM doesn't, your kindness is likely to lure them into poor tactical decision making.
While changing tactics is possible, it isn't that different from down-leveling a monster. Either can be interpreted by a player as "how a monster works" and their relative difficulty level. And, 4E makes level changes so easy that players should not be expecting one Goblin Hexer to be the same as the next.
An easy change that can be made is to remove some HPs. It is seldom noticed, especially with big brutes that have lots of HPs. Shave off 20 HPs, help the party get them off the board sooner, now they can focus fire, challenge still there but more manageable, happy players.
With regards to high/low tier, I've recently adopted the following:
When players choose low tier, I will tell them if the +1 or +2 from an RPGA player reward card would give them a hit.
When players choose high tier, they must guess. Card is spent, may or may not help.
So far, players have liked this.
I'm not sure that all mods should have the same difficulty. What folks are seeing as "inconsistency" is possibly a design "feature", a goal, if you will.
Basically, if taken over the whole of the campaign, there should be memorable, difficult fights. I'm sure the admins would like many of these to be in Core mods, but some of them should obviously be in other places (end of story arcs, end of quest chains, etc).
This might result in some mods, or even all the mods a -given- player plays, to be either too hard or too easy. But I don't think you can fix that.
This is also an inevitable challenge which IMO ought to be embraced. The alternative to terrain that can give monsters or PCs advantages is terrain that is of no tactical significance and is therefore uninteresting. There's no two ways about it. Terrain is either tactically significant or it is not.
There is a difference between terrain. Rob Heinsoo and I had a talk about this a few months ago. At some point, terrain has an obvious "gotcha" feel to it. It would be nice to have better guidelines on what terrain deserves an XP cost.
For example, spoiler for SPEC1-2:
In this mod, one of the early encounters has what are basically two level 7 hazards (arguably harder than the level 7 hazards in the DMG, but startlingly similar) that did not impact the XP budget. The foes are completely immune to the hazards. Now, if we were talking terrain, where they use blocking terrain to make smart attacks, that's one thing. But this is like two free traps. The XP for the encounter ends up being 10th level (not the stated level of 8th) if you include them in the budget, which is a very hard encounter for level 7-10s playing low and the high tier ends up being over 11th level.
In this mod, one of the early encounters has what are basically two level 7 hazards (arguably harder than the level 7 hazards in the DMG, but startlingly similar) that did not impact the XP budget. The foes are completely immune to the hazards. Now, if we were talking terrain, where they use blocking terrain to make smart attacks, that's one thing. But this is like two free traps. The XP for the encounter ends up being 10th level (not the stated level of 8th) if you include them in the budget, which is a very hard encounter for level 7-10s playing low and the high tier ends up being over 11th level.
There is a difference between terrain. Rob Heinsoo and I had a talk about this a few months ago. At some point, terrain has an obvious "gotcha" feel to it. It would be nice to have better guidelines on what terrain deserves an XP cost.For example, spoiler for SPEC1-2:
In this mod, one of the early encounters has what are basically two level 7 hazards (arguably harder than the level 7 hazards in the DMG, but startlingly similar) that did not impact the XP budget. The foes are completely immune to the hazards. Now, if we were talking terrain, where they use blocking terrain to make smart attacks, that's one thing. But this is like two free traps. The XP for the encounter ends up being 10th level (not the stated level of 8th) if you include them in the budget, which is a very hard encounter for level 7-10s playing low and the high tier ends up being over 11th level.
While it's certainly true that a thrown-together random table of characters with no synergy can be problematic, I have found that to be very much the exception than the rule. Most players who have built characters with a specific requirement in terms of teammates (such as the warlord with the melee-attack-granting-abilities) often have people that they plan to play that particular character with. Additionally, in 4E LFR, the ability to replay a module with a different character often allows players who've sat down at a table intending to play character "A" be able to switch to character "B" if the party needs it. Except at the very lowest levels for the newest players, where they have but one character and are new to the game, most players I've run into have a stable of characters that they'll switch to at a table as the table forms.
I think that mid levels and high levels are actually the spot that such things are most likely to happen.
At low levels, anyone can just start a new character. It may not be ideal, but there are often people replaying the mods who have that ability. On the other hand, simply starting a new character is not an option in 4-7 or 7-10. And it takes a while to get characters to those spots--and they don't stay there forever. Right now, for instance, I find myself with only one character who is playable in 4-7 mods. The rest of my characters leveled out of them. Thus I have options in 1-4 or 7-10 but no options in 10-? or 4-7.
If the effects of terrain are clearly visible, players don't start out in it, the map is not structured to get the players stuck in it, and the monsters are not immune to it (so that the players can use it to their advantage), there is a lot of room for terrain to be interesting and tactically significant without being unfair.
Isn't this also part of the job of the DM: providing an adequate description of the terrain so that the players realize what it does? In the past I have run and played a couple of Iron Heroes adventures which took the terrain and cool skill-based stunts a step further than 4E and if there is one thing that taught me is that as a DM you need to give meta-gaming clues in regards to terrain at the start. Once players learn to look at the terrain as more than window dressing, you can usually start to being less precise and more often then not they start seeing terrain situations you did not even realize was there.
I agree with wanting cool terrain but not wanting it to be unfair. However, it's important to keep in mind what makes terrain unfair.spec 1-2If you are discussing the buildings in the vampiric troll encounter, I would agree that the terrain is unfair.
Well, it sounds as if we are discussing the same thing, but you may have mislabeled it?Spec1-2 Spoilers:
The first battle is the one with the restraining buildings. Foes know about it, you don't. They push you into it. They are invulnerable to it, and the stats of the terrain are remarkably similar (arguably worse even) than a hazard in the DMG that costs XP. Thus, I see it as unfair for them to have been included without an XP value. Honestly, without them, it would have been a fun fight, or at least it would have been more possible for it to have been fun. Instead, it just locked down our PCs that foolishly tried to use the terrain as a risky/fun way to move around and instead were locked down and beaten up.
Another gotcha are the puddles. Included in one combat with an effect, then visually the same but without the effect in the next. Come on! If it had been the other way around, ok, but this way you are giving a huge advantage to the enemies as players, thinking logically, move awkwardly around to not have this effect. Now, if the mod stated checks in at least the later case, then it is a bit better, but it just isn't a fun mechanic in an already challenging battle. The real key to me was the reaction around the table. The players weren't felling challenged. They were feeling taken advantage of.
Now, importantly, they then had a blast in round two when these effects were absent from the mod. All these players dig 4E for terrain, they just felt abused in these early fights. You go through a series of gotchas: buildings, buildings that grab, puddles, fake puddles, start in the blast zone... it just feels very stacked against you in a gamist vs realist way.
Particularly during a stint of 4-7 mods, we found that pretty much every week we ended up in a temple of Shar. We even got rather fed up with them, and it became a meta-game joke.
At the start of a mod:
"Where's the nearest temple of Shar? We find it and kill everyone inside. Mod over"
It's kind of a running joke where I am as well to me it's tragic that a goddess of her stature has been reduced to a caricature of her former self oh wait that's Cher hahahahahaha.
We're talking about the same terrain. When I played it however, the buildings showed up in the second encounter and the first just had the puddles of "no way to tell how they're going to screw us but we're fairly certain they will" and a pile of corpses that somehow immobilized and did damage if you got pushed into it.
For my part, however, I think that it's better to have the hindering puddles first and the non-hindering puddles second. Otherwise, you come to believe that they have no game effect and then get zapped with the gotcha.
Actually, I think that reveals a general principle about terrain and encounter design. Terrain should usually be clearly visible and its effects apparent. When it is not, you have a strong tendency towards gotcha effects.
My Gnoll Barbarian (Charge Monkey build) laughs at puddles thanks to his Wavestrider boots.