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3 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2010 - 5:27AM
#51
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2005
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Healing surges are a limited resource, especially so for those who start with only 7 or 8 for the day, those are the same people who are likely going to suck at endurance checks. And any defender doing his job in that fight is going to be getting hit several times per round making a DC20 endurance check every time even they stand a chance to lose a lot of surges, or all if they don't have a huge con.
Either way, it stands to be a really bad situation for some parties.
As the defender in the Playtest Madfox mentioned I also thought it was quite deadly especially with the lose a surge when getting hit save for a DC20 endurance. Deciding that was too much I broke open my DMG and looked at the rules, we quickly found: link
In strenuous situations, such as combat, going without air is much harder. A character holding his breath during underwater combat, for example, must make a DC 20 Endurance check at the end of his turn in a round where he takes damage.
So you can lose max 1 HS per turn which could rack up but wouldn't leave you drained in a round. It was a though fight but we pulled through. Dealing with the trap before anything else saved us quite a lot of trouble. A well placed ritual would have made it way easier but without it can be done.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2010 - 8:48AM
#52
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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As the defender in the Playtest Madfox mentioned I also thought it was quite deadly especially with the lose a surge when getting hit save for a DC20 endurance. Deciding that was too much I broke open my DMG and looked at the rules, we quickly found: link
In strenuous situations, such as combat, going without air is much harder. A character holding his breath during underwater combat, for example, must make a DC 20 Endurance check at the end of his turn in a round where he takes damage.
So you can lose max 1 HS per turn which could rack up but wouldn't leave you drained in a round. It was a though fight but we pulled through. Dealing with the trap before anything else saved us quite a lot of trouble. A well placed ritual would have made it way easier but without it can be done.
That's a great find and I appreciate you letting us know that (not being sarcastic, that's a good thing to know an I'm glad I learned it today). The problem is the underwater combat rules compiled and added in the back of the mod in the appendix do not tell you that, they state this rule and never once mention it only happens at the end of your turn, allowing for unlimited loss of surges per round
If you are holding your breath and take damage, you must make a DC 20 Endurance check to maintain holding your breath. If you fail, you lose a healing surge.
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2010 - 2:06PM
#53
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2007
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I am sorry if the wording caused confusion. I was the editor who streamlined the quick reference appendix and referenced the rules (to include the PHB errata). No where does it say for "each hit" you have to roll an Endurance check. However, what I wrote for the draft was a bit longer, and apparently it was edited shorter by the Global Admin or was lost somewhere. According to my last edited version, what I wrote was: · A character holding its breath underwater must make a DC 20 Endurance check at the end of his turn in a round where he takes damage. If the check is failed, the character loses a healing surge. A character without healing surges that fails a check takes damage equal to its level. I recommend that the DMs always look up the rules if they are uncertain as to what was meant. Keith
Keith Hoffman
LFR Writing Director for Waterdeep
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3 years ago ::
Apr 18, 2010 - 3:09PM
#54
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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No problem Keith, it happens, a DM should probably look it up in the book to begin with I agree, and I was guilty of not doing that myself when I ran the mod. Would be nice if we could get the mod updated to what you wrote the first time, that would have been much clearer.
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2010 - 4:07AM
#55
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Date Joined:
Dec 15, 2005
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I'm all in favour of adding a page ref to these rulings when applicable. It makes it easier for the DM to look up and check and avoids confusion.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2010 - 8:46AM
#56
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- Dragon Slayer
- If only he would apply himself
- Dammit Jim, this is Star Trek, not D&D!
Date Joined:
Jan 31, 2006
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Just because we are talking about a particular adventure, I wanted to mention that many things changed between the author's original vision and the final version. I really liked this combat before the changes, but I think the new version is good as well. In both cases you have a good underwater combat that has some real underwater feel and real teeth to the fight. Stepping aside from this combat, I think rituals are just difficult at the core level. But, because they are part of the game, both authors and DMs should look for ways to include them. At the table, players that have a ritual-heavy PC should let the DM know that. If a player says to me "Hey, I really like casting rituals - I am glad to do so if a situation would merit using one." or something similar, that would really help me as a judge. When I first wrote CORE1-14, What Storms Will Come spoiler:
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I was not going to allow for rituals at all. I was really burned on them and saw them as a terrible game mechanic. But, I met a player or two that used them, so I spent a half-hour or so thinking about them and made a few edits to the adventure to provide some guidance.
I then heard enough feedback on that to take them into account further, plus John DuBois was a playtester and big help, and he has a PC that really likes them. spoilers for SPEC2-1 P2, Scout's Honor:
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So, for Scout's Honor, I took them into account for the final battle (working with John on possibilities) and awarded some as well.
In retrospect, in the free-form RP part that resembles a skill challenge, I probably should have encouraged ritual use and then had all costs reimbursed by the paladins. The current wording encourages DMs not to have PCs waste any resources, which can lead to a DM saying "don't bother" if a PC wants to use a ritual. Instead, I find this encounter is a lot of fun for ritual casters, and then you just give them the resource back. Live and learn.
In terms of the original thread of the proper role/responsibility for the DM, I think my current thinking is to consider rituals if a player mentions them. I really look to respond, rather than to create situations the adventure doesn't have. If a player mentions it, then I try to think whether there is any problem with the balance of the adventure. If the adventure didn't mention a ritual, then I look for the ritual to provide a meaningful benefit but without destroying the balance of the adventure. So long as that is the case, I am all for it. If what will result is unbalanced, then I look to either find a way to balance it (such as the ritual taking you to point A and granting +x on init, but not bypassing an encounter) or I don't allow the ritual (which is the strict interpretation for some situations). Given time, you could compare the ritual cost to a consumable of the same price. Is the benefit equitable in terms of cost? Is the encounter balance preserved?
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3 years ago ::
Apr 19, 2010 - 9:23AM
#57
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I think that an adventure needs to make clear when it's just citing the standard rules (and should always give a reference when doing so) and when it's adding new rules specific to that adventure. Given any ambiguity, a substantial number of DMs are going to decide it's the latter. That's not too far-fetched an assumption, as there are a handful of adventures that do change the rules--for example, at least two modules specify that a creature can pull PCs vertically and then drop them, one with a sentence that in and of itself put the author on my "think twice before playing anything else by him" list: "As a monster it breaks rules". I had one particularly bad experience with WATE1-5, for example: Spoiler:
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In Encounter 2, the module specifies that because of the fog, no one can see more than 5 squares away. To be fair, this statement is made with a specific reference to the page number with the pre-errata rules, so it appears clear to me that the author thought he was just citing the rules, rather than changing them. However, when it was pointed out to the DM that the obscurement rules had been changed by errata, his response was that since the module was written long after the errata, this must be a special feature of the fog in the module.
The combat starts off with an overturned cart 7 squares away from the PCs (the PCs being in their handy box, the DM also having ruled that the PCs must start in those two specific rows) and a carter 6 squares away. The PCs were unable to see any of this because of the fog, and are in fact, unable to see anything save for two halfling youths who take no aggressive action toward the PCs.
Because of some pretty bad rolls, the halfling minions won initiative. The four that were adjacent to packages each picked up two and then ran off into the fog. The other seven combatants moved over to the cart and picked up two packages. On the next round, some of the PCs moved into range to see what was going on (the others being unwilling to lose sight of the person they were supposed to be guarding) and dropped one of the minions, whereupon all of the other combatants double-ran off into the fog.
The gnome that showed up while the group was standing around trying to figure out what just happened was naturally unloaded upon and swiftly defeated.
Needless to say, the encounter turned into more of a brief "Er, WTF?" moment in the middle of the group's journey than an actual combat, save for the group missing out on XP, gold, items and a story award.
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