OK, session 7 had a number of excellent points I wanted to touch on briefly.
First, we had the tracker of doom. The group knew that they only had 10 minutes to rescue the dwarves before Paldemar arrived. Before the game I set up 100 poker chips, one for each round in three colours, 50 green, 30 blue and 20 red. If they rescued the dwarves in the green section they could get away scot free. If they dipped into the blue then they must face Paldemar but at a place of their choosing. If they ended up in the red then they faced him somewhere of my choosing. At any point when they still had chips left if they weren't in combat they could run away leaving the dwarves behind.
The idea was to use it as a tension setter, to see time trickling away and also a way to push people to make decisions quickly. Any hesitation or time wasting would result in lost chips. I also used them for the short rest effect. In general I ignore the 5 minute short rest requirement as being pointless, if its a new scene they get their encounter powers back. In this scenario I charged them 10 chips.
Fortunately for them the group blasted their way through like nothing I have seen before. The first room was cleared quickly and they pushed on into the boss. He didnt prove too tough but the battle against the Sorceress was tense as the group were trying to conserve time and not renewing powers. Morn had his best tanking run yet, surrounded by three enemies and Artemis went all Crouching Tiger dancing on the heads of dwarves.
In the end they cleared the place fairly quickly, still just in the green zone. They could have left easily but Assamber was all for killing Paldemar and grabbing a chance at his legacy item. They decided to ambush him in the room he arrives in, a fairly small and cramped area. The trick with the Hat was inspired and I reduced the number of allies he brought with him as a result.
The battle with Paldemar was about as one sided as I have ever seen. The players are down on a lot of healing surges but he cannot get away from Morn and Azhanti. The Void Spectres reduce the players to at wills but all of Paldemar's powers are Ranged and so provoke an AoO. Assamber also gets him trapped in a Bigby's Icy Hand so he cant even relocate somewhere. One level 9 elite and two level 6 normal mobs go down very fast and Assamber claims his legacy item.
I have given it a potentially broken property so its set as a playtest version at the moment. He can chose an encounter power of his level -10 (minimum 1) and make it an at will. Very strong, possibly too strong, time will tell.
The flight through the caves follows our normal pattern of skill challenge for exploration and the players introduce all sorts of interesting elements. Mushrooom forests, underground rivers, ancient lurking evils and the Bridge of Kazad Dum! Morn has been desperate for his Gandalf moment to break a giant stone bridge with the Hammer and now he finally gets his chance.
I give the system yet another twist. Previosuly I have had one sort of penalty for any failed check on the challenge, I now start introducing different penatlies for different skills. Failed athletics result in tumblin cave ins while failed nature checks has swarms of venemous spiders. It works well and is something I will be using in the future.
I also throw out all of my hang ups about appropriate primary skills. Assamber wants to use history to get the dwarves to remember any hidden or secret ways to home. I say yes but the route passes through an area they once imprisoned some lurking undead monster. We agree, the dice hit the table, he fails and the group are now running for their lives from some undead horror.
The session with the dwarves is primarily just played out with the odd diplomacy check to guage some reactions. I drop various hints about events for the Paragon and Epic tier although it isn't anything I havent mentioned previously on our game message boards.
Overall I would rate this session as one of our best. Next week will I think be better, more game reveals and Artemis and his mother finally have a talk thats been coming for many years!
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Whilst I am not going to outright condemn it before I see it in play, first glance at the staff power does look a little on the bah-roken side. The power I spotted was Chill Strike (2d8+Int, Int vs Fort, +Dazed, as an At Will). Compare that to Ray of Frost (1d6+Int, Int vs Fort, +slowed, as an At Will) and the difference is palpable.
You infered that the Cabal staff would also be able to be incorporated into it as well.
Compare that to the power to maybe make someone prone, once per encounter - a power which actually only is of use if the initiatives all fall correctly (ie. The rest of the group happen to have their go before the target gets to stand as a Move/Minor, whichever it is)... its simply not comparable.
Thats not me saying that my weapon should be upgraded, rather making a comparison between the two legacy items and their abiities.
Neil
You missed immunity to being knocked prone and reducing all forced movement by 1 on your Hammer ability.
The other staff isn't incorportaed as such but the Create Magic Item ritual will let him change its shape so Matt doesnt have to look like he is on crutches wandering around with two staves.
I suggested turning it into an Orb and sticking it on the end as I quite like the image.
Also, I get to sing "a wizards staff has a knob on the end."
The difference, again without any whinging and simply debating the point, is palpable.
My legacy item is passive and avoidable. If you don't want it to make a difference you can simply make pushes 2 squares (when all you need is 1) and not create prone effects. It still comes down to the fact that my weapon (and Ian's I believe) has a chance to generate a status effect once per encounter whereas Matts has the same chance once per round and increases his base damage substantially.
Unless you start to introduce Cold Resistant mobs in a desert or Dazed Immune mobs, there's nothing you can do to make that passive. Its very active.
The 'problem' actually only really exists at these low levels. 3rd level encounter powers (at level 13) don't deliver anything that isn't that much better than At-Will Chill Strike if they were subbed in.
It wouldn't be too bad if it was Daily >>> Encounter. The way it stands it fundamentally changes Assamber from a Controller into a Striker (doing 2d8+9 each round) with Controller effects (say compared to a Warlock's 1d10+cha At-Will)
One suggestion on the rpg.net thread was to give the power a recharge. So, at Heroic tier it would reacharge on 5-6, at paragon on 4-6 and at epic it would become at will or something similar.
I do take your point about passive versus active but I would say that push and prone effects are fairly common. Forced movement is one of the things the combat system is based on.
I should also add that I did think about the whole Daily > Encounter thing but dailies tend to be very strong and, ironically, I thought that would be too much.
Matt, any thoughts?
Well, my personal view is the powers are where they are for a reason, moving them down seems very powerful as each bracket has certain assumptions about damage output and associated effects.
Chill strike isn't that far away from a striker faily by the time you put in its not against AC and has an effect. He can daze at will, as Neil points out he can prone daily!
I'm a go with the flow sort of person, so it'll be interesting to see how it works out - but it would seem to be quite a significant ability.
Neil,
I believe your weapon has a daily and an encounter power.
My weapon only has a daily power, which I'm assuming is balanced through the fact I ignore cover to ever increasing degrees (a circumstantial massive +to hit, which can't be sneezed at). I'm fine with this breakdown as it removes covering enemies as a major annoyance for me.
Just to get the details straight.
Yes, thats right. Neil got some weaker properties and an encounter power. You got a stronger property. Each of you got a daily power.
But to balance that out, the transformation of the current stave (which is quite saucy, iirc) into a staff-attached orb means that the new staff has two powers as well. I'm unsure of the frequence of the current staffs power but I think its more than daily as it stands?
From a 'party' p.o.v. bring it on. Its more resources that we can bring to the fight and PWN the NPCS in the face. From a balance p.o.v. it could prove a little off.
I'm with Ian however, lets see how it plays out.
The changed staff is just another magic item. You have obviouisy been stiffed on gear by the other players...:)
...in the same slot as the staff.
As for my gear - or the lack thereof - I blame Erik Von GMerson for that one.
Yes, I sense slot dubbling. The cad!
Maybe we should introduce DKP...:)
I'd rather have a chance to use it before we disassemble it for Residium! but if it just makes me cast a single encounter power all day long, it's not game mechanics that are the problem, it's that that would be dull.
Matt
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