Re: session re****t

In article <1169084267.166563.265750@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
Will in New Haven <bill.reich@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>I was commenting on the module, not on your running it. I assumed that
>you knew that I read the earlier post. I realized you had modified
>nothing. It still seems that the designers had some of the solutions
>your player found in mind and that is why it wasn't as hard, although
>still very hard, as you expected.

Okay, that's clearer, thanks.

I am sure they anticipated grimlocks+Silence.  I would be shocked
if they anticipated warlock+Darkness; warlock is a splatbook (supplement)
class, and that is not generally one of its more popular powers, so
it's very, very unlikely that a party could do it.  Seeing in magical
darkness is otherwise excruciatingly rare in the system, limited to
devils and a few monsters with sonar.  And a warlock of Athas' level
can't actually have both Darkness and See in Magical Darkness; it
just happened that an NPC provided the missing link for her.

The author didn't say how he expected the grimlocks to go, but he did
say how he expected easy wins over the Hextorites to go:  PCs get
ahead of the Hextorite response and defeat them in detail.  I was
surprised that it was still easy even after the player allowed the
Hextorites to mostly get together (though he did *not* let them loose
the giant boar, and a good thing, too).

I didn't mind the surprise solutions, though the Darkness thing needs to
be fixed (a bad rules call on our part).  I minded the player's griping
a lot more.  He has clarified that the real stickler for him was the
mis-rating of the grimlocks.  They break many system design rules about
what a monster of their type should be like, but offer no EXP bonus for
their nonconformity, and this made him feel cheated.  "If the system
wants me to treat this like a video game, at least it should be a 
*fair* video game."

I think I personally was the most offended by descriptions which
repeatedly
described how the PCs would see a grimlock and notice the tattoos and
ritual scars on its chest.  Then you'd look down at the equipment list
and notice that the grimlock is in full plate armor.  Unless you check
every single description before reading it, this produces a strong
impression in the player's mind that the GM is lying deliberately about
the monster's armor; and if the player assumes from the description
that it's unarmored, he can get screwed for no reason.  Plate armor is
not exactly a subtle visual detail!

This probably means that the person writing description and the
person writing stat blocks weren't talking to each other.  I wish Paizo
had
put this out as a hardback, as they seem to do more copy-editing on the
hardback versions than the magazine versions.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@[EMAIL PROTECTED]