Mary K. Kuhner wrote:
> At a minimum, guarding the single point of access to the complex
> would seem like a good idea! Anyone coming down in that elevator
> should be very vulnerable. If guard duty is too boring for live
> people, undead could be tried, with a ready response force nearby.
> And a Glyph or so wouldn't go amiss, or a booby trap. A 200'
> elevator sounds like an awfully appealing spot for a booby trap.
Can't set a 200' trap for that low level PCs, as it's 20d6. They
could've done it on a 40' elevator, but then they could've had a proper
warning system, interconnects for escape, better hardpoints, and so on.
A typical party here would collapse the entry, or pour a ton of
lantern oil down it and set fire (either way they're dead). Not finding
the back way in is a licence to avoid the likely linear adventure module
with a little creative destruction.
At least, that's what I like to see. 8]
> I'm also bothered by the fact that nobody apparently ever sleeps, or
> changes guard, or anything like that--the descriptions are 100%
> static. *Were* they expecting the PCs to hit it repeatedly? If
> so, it should really have a non-static description. At a minimum,
> when are the food deliveries, and who receives them? Is the night
> guard different from the day guard?
I'd have to assume they're all tucked away in secrecy, not
venturing out, and the guards off in side rooms are actually sleeping in
armour ready for the big day. Not that it makes any sense like that
either, it's really just a dungeon crawl with random monsters. 8]
The new path, Savage Tide, seems to deal with all that sort of
thing quite neatly, from what I've read thusfar. Especially love stuff
like "if the PCs switched sides in adventure #2 ...", and it's always
said how to handle things if plot points go astray where I noticed they
might easily do so.
> The player insisted, saying flatly, "I can't maintain suspension of
> disbelief doing this one room at a time."
OK, group contract thing. Personally I love one room at a time. As
in first run hits room 12; second run hits room 23, gets the goal, and
gets out with some clever avoidance tactics.
> It's hard to vet abilities the PCs don't have. There are so many of
> them!
True that.
> tussock wrote:
>> Mary Kuhner wrote:
>>> The grimlocks would have been, because Silence is a perfect
>>> defense against them but only lasts long enough for 1-2 encounters.
>
>> What works so well for one party can cripple another; it's not so
>> good when it takes out your own spellcasters in the cramped conditions
>> the Grimlocks live in, and you can't communicate at all.
>
> I think this comes partly from the expectation that of course all of
> the PCs have to have something useful to do in each encounter.
DnD has signifigant synergies between the cl***** in combat, half
of the party in a fight is typically well less that half as capable, no
matter who gets left out.
Like using summons to get the Rogue an easy flank, and the baddie a
new target to save him some HPs.
> A mindset of "No one go into the room until the one PC whom we've poured
> backing magic into has searched it; and then we'll go home and rest up"
> is rather...it's hard to combine it with thinking of the PCs as real
> adventurers with real goals, at least for me.
There's spells and such to do it quicker if you have them, and I
encourage Gather Information or spot interrogation type prep with ample
hints. Personally I'm not a fan of the lone scout; while it /might/ be
an optimal tactic that I don't happen to like, it does have some serious
failings.
Rat familiars do it very well, BTW, everywhere has rats already.
But that's just an aside: I find studious prep and deep concern for
their immediate survival is a fine meta-goal for any adventuring sort.
One can't acheive anything great while currently dead.
>> You know, I get the impression your games are a self-fulfilling
>> prophecy. Can't rest or the bad guys will do something horrible, so you
>> have to crush the baddies in one go, so they have to make an OTT
>> response because they only get one chance. Using higher level PCs would
>> be a great idea if that's what you like, they're likely already
adjusted
>> for long runs about as well as can be.
>
> I put this to the player, who sighed and said, "They're describing
Neverwinter
> Nights. I just finished playing that, and it was okay, but I hoped for
> more from D&D. Of course you can have no enemy responses and no
connection
> to any of the NPCs, but my suspension of disbelief goes right out the
> window."
Heh. In NWN you can't climb in the 2nd floor window, in this module
there is no 2nd floor window to climb in. In NWN the NPCs can't help, in
this module the NPCs won't help. In NWN the only right answer must be
scripted in, in this module all the other answers have been made
unavailable.
I'm not surprised that NWN tactics would work well. It's not
nessicarily true of DnD, though it's still a bit common in the modules.
> My player is bummed. He was interested in trying to play _Worms_
"straight",
> at its stated levels and without GM fudging, as a challenge. But he's
not
> so interested if doing so requires abandoning PC or NPC complexities
that
> he enjoys, and I'm afraid that's the choice we face.
I haven't read every step of the path in detail, but it's fairly
likely to hold true to the 'physically close sets of hard encounters'
style. That's why they keep running short of treasure in the designs
too, a lot of moderate and hard encounters with nothing easy to chew
through messes with the default treasure assumptions.
> I know that I would not have enjoyed taking 2 weeks to kill the monsters
> in the Night of Terror one at a time; my own suspension of disbelief
would
> not have survived it. (There's still a town there, with 32 hellhounds
> roaming the streets burning things down deliberately? There are still
> people, with bone devils hunting them for s****t? And the enemy neither
> accomplishes anything serious on their own plans, nor locates and kills
> the PCs?)
Answers ... No, the town and surrounding farms are burned to the
ground. No, the people that couldn't be evacuated are long dead. The
enemies plans are well advanced and making things interesting, when
their scouts find us we kill them, and when they try and hit us in force
we avoid and go make them remember why they were staying at the town.
And if they manage to open the hell mouth and all, tell Elminster
and co. about it, because they'll happily come in and gib it in two
rounds.
> It's unfair of me, of course, to expect the modules to sup****t my play
> style. But it does seem strange that they waste paper on things like
> NPC personality sketches, if the best thing to do is ignore them.
Heh. My own preferences are also unsup****ted. Endangered towns that
can't handle evacuation schemes. Powerful NPCs won't get off their ass.
No 2nd floor windows. Bad guys that are always in armour but never have
scrolls to hand. Hell, modules often can't handle the PCs bringing along
a company or two of archers and pikemen, or a few adepts.
--
tussock
Aspie at work, sorry in advance.
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