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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 8:48AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2008
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It is my observation and experience that if I announce that I will give access to magic items like Dice of Auspicious Fortune and LFR Reward Cards to my monsters when I DM if the players use such items, I find that the players refrain from using those items.
I also find it interesting that combat is much more challenging even with encounters I thought were underpowered.
Just interested what the community thought of this practice.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 8:57AM
#2
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I don't really want to tell you what you can and can't do when you play D&D, but if the players aren't okay with you giving the monsters Dice of Auspicious Fortune and Reward Cards to the monsters, there's really nothing that suggests that you can do so. I personally avoid both out of principle, but I can see players getting annoyed with that notion.
Having said that, I do agree that certain features make the game less fun and it's great when players agree not to exploit them. I've found that when players avoid the following, the game becomes much more fun (let's face it, LFR isn't challenging as it is):
- Rewards Cards
- Dice of Auspicious Fortune
- The "Frostcheese" combo
- Maintaining "even" ability scores at all times
- Extreme initiative bonuses/alpha strike combinations (this is a more complex issue that some don't see as a problem)
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 9:30AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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Just interested what the community thought of this practice.
Absent buy-in from your players that this is the way they want to play the game, this would be a "walk away from the table" point for me.
There are limits to how much you can change an adventure, and while I don't really have a problem with anything that makes an adventure more difficult with player consent, going outside of those limits without player consent is a sign that maybe a living campaign isn't really for you.
Strategic deterrence has its place in a home campaign. It even has some value in LFR, in the context of tactics (e.g., warning players that if they try the 'use readied actions on a creature's turn to avoid its immediate actions' trick, you'll do the same). Using it to limit powers, items and metagame objects like Rewards Cards? Not even close to being something allowed by the rules.
If you're the only DM in town, you can certainly do something similar by simply refusing to DM for players who use such items, but modifying adventures to retaliate against players for using legal items you dislike is not the kind of behavior most would find acceptable.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 10:04AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2004
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I'm all for giving access to this stuff to monsters to 'appropriately challenge' characters who abuse this stuff.
I don't like the idea of just giving it to all monsters and sort of forcing players to partake.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 10:26AM
#5
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From a DMing perspective, I don't care. It's RPGA.
From another perspective, you're punishing the players for using something (Cards) that's allowed by the CCG and RPGA. They are not PC reward cards, they are player reward cards. If you want to make it more difficult you should request the cards (or print out) must be physically present for it to be used in play. I'm planning to start implementing that rule myself.
Dice are a whole different matter. The DM/Players who implement this rule of giving monsters Dice in response to player Dice are opening a whole can of worms which in the spirit of the rules is not beneficial to anyone. If a player brings the Dice to the table and a DM states that if the player uses the Dice the Monsters have a set also, you're now blocking a player who spent GP on a 11th level magic item and punishing them for using it. What is to stop a DM/Player from using "DME" and saying that monsters have the Dice even when players do not? I can see this happening.
Let the PCs have their cheese and kill them the old fashion way.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 2:58PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Nov 22, 2006
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Im generally against this idea as it sets a bad precedent. I mean, where does it stop? Will monsters get to Certain Justice PCs because theres a champion of order PC at the table? Will All the monsters be able to fly because the PCs have hippogriffs/wyverns? It just exacerbates the DM v Player scenario which should not exist. Sure I find some things a PC does a little much when I DM, but I accept it and move on and try to make it challenging anyways. I mean, when a PC is stunned forever/unconcious forever, the dice are useless.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 8:49PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Mar 28, 2009
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The problem that the OP is trying to address, is really the elephant in the room.
Q. Why does the OP want to equip BBEG's with more gear than they have?
A. (My answer, possibly not the OP's) The combats are not a challenge to the party. Similar thread addressing Alpha Strikes hits to the same theme. Given the XP budget for the encounter (and the adventure as a whole), the writers seem unable to put together 3-4 combats that provide any meaningful challenge to the party. The higher the party level, the more pronounced this problem becomes.
Q. Why don't correctly budgeted encounters challenge a party?
A. Well, the most obvious answer is "power creep". As more and more options have been given to players, it has become possible to build stronger and stronger characters at every level. Every new book moves the power of characters upwards. Power cards, free retraining, and liberal errata rules only make it easier and easier for players to optimax characters. (And yes, I pushed hard for liberal errata rules, but for differently vectored reasons - different discussion).
Q. Can we quantify this problem?
A. Okay. Maybe. The problem is that a Level X party now has the power that a Level Y party might have had 1 year ago, and a Level Z party might have had 2 years ago. Let's just throw a few numbers out there, as an example. It might be fairly accurate to say that a Level 8 character today, given the plethora of options avaiable really has the power that a Level 9 character had 1 year ago, and a Level 10 character had two years ago. In practical terms, what was released as a 7-10 module two years ago, might really be more suited to a 4-7 party being played today. The net result is that the well-balanced 7-10 party simply walks through 7-10 modules.
Q. Yeah. Okay. I'll sort of agree that this problem exists. What can be done about it?
A. Here's the hard part. And it requires work and/or decisions by Organized Play, which means that it probably won't happen. (I'm not being pessimistic, just realistic, as the signs are pretty clear that D&D 4.0 is nearing End-of-Life). Monster XP needs to be scaled down. It needs to be recognized that a 200xp monster in MM1 really only provides about 125-150xp to current characters. If you need to spend 500xp in monsters to give a 300xp challenge to a current level party, accept that fact and scale the monster xp down. This would give the writers the flexibility to design encounters that accurately reflect the current power level of parties playing LFR today.
Q. But this means issuing huge amounts of "updates". It won't work.
A. Correct. But there is an easier way. If the goal is for a character to level every 3-4 adventures, and current monsters are overrated given the power of the party that is playing today, then there is one simple change that can be made. Change the Character Advancement chart on PH pg29. Make 2nd level come at 1500xp. Make 7th level come at 15000xp. This would allow writers to have a bigger xp budget for each encounter, and they can suddenly start making encounters that are a challenge again.
Q. But what about existing adventures. They'd all have to be rewritten.
A. Yes. Some are long overdue for retirement. But it would be a fairly simple quick fix to simply have the writing directors issue a small update for existing modules. (ie. Scale each encounter by advancing each monster by X levels. (DMG p174) ). Not an optimal fix, but it would work better than random DM's issuing random equipment to monsters, creating a huge house-ruled campaign.
This is a problem that is not going to go away, and will only get worse (well, not so much from this point on, given the rather light release schedule for the rest of the year) until 4e is replaced by the "next big thing" from WOTC. If we want to keep LFR play challenging, something needs to happen. DM's are complaining, players are complaining. It would be nice if someone in authority might start addressing this.
"At Gencon 2010, WOTC will announce a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons." - crm(1/2010)
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 9:07PM
#8
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Q. But this means issuing huge amounts of "updates". It won't work.
A. Correct. But there is an easier way. If the goal is for a character to level every 3-4 adventures, and current monsters are overrated given the power of the party that is playing today, then there is one simple change that can be made. Change the Character Advancement chart on PH pg29. Make 2nd level come at 1500xp. Make 7th level come at 15000xp. This would allow writers to have a bigger xp budget for each encounter, and they can suddenly start making encounters that are a challenge again.
That might work...but it's a fundamental change to the 4E rules set, and I pretty seriously doubt that it's something that the Globals would do (even if the new "freedom" which they have allows them to do, which I'm not at all certain it would, anyway).
"Of course [Richard] has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183, and we're barbarians!" - Eleanor of Aquitaine, "The Lion in Winter"
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3 years ago ::
Jun 14, 2010 - 10:11PM
#9
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It is my observation and experience that if I announce that I will give access to magic items like Dice of Auspicious Fortune and LFR Reward Cards to my monsters when I DM if the players use such items, I find that the players refrain from using those items.
I also find it interesting that combat is much more challenging even with encounters I thought were underpowered.
Just interested what the community thought of this practice.
These are bad practices to be using in LFR. They are not legal by the LFR rules.
Reward cards are for use by characters only. Monsters do not have access to them.
The CCG says "The DM cannot specify what rules elements are or are not allowed for characters". You are breaking this rule by punishing the use of legal items and cards.
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3 years ago ::
Jun 15, 2010 - 1:05AM
#10
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Q. But this means issuing huge amounts of "updates". It won't work.
A. Correct. But there is an easier way. If the goal is for a character to level every 3-4 adventures, and current monsters are overrated given the power of the party that is playing today, then there is one simple change that can be made. Change the Character Advancement chart on PH pg29. Make 2nd level come at 1500xp. Make 7th level come at 15000xp. This would allow writers to have a bigger xp budget for each encounter, and they can suddenly start making encounters that are a challenge again.
That might work...but it's a fundamental change to the 4E rules set, and I pretty seriously doubt that it's something that the Globals would do (even if the new "freedom" which they have allows them to do, which I'm not at all certain it would, anyway).
Not to mention that for each person crying something is easy, there is another person grumbling about adventures being too difficult and that is within the xp budget (looking at some recent complaints, but also about CORE1-1). If your group is having an easy time, feel free to do whatever you can within DME to make things more challenging.
Furthermore, the alphastrike problem actually arises because of two things that are only indirectly related to the XP budget:
- Adventures need to be finished with 4.5 hours. Adding more xp to an adventure, whether by increasing the difficulty of a single encounter or complete encounters, makes it much more difficult to reach this time limit. Furthermore, players know about the limit, and hence can meta-game their way out of it (sometimes they are wrong though, I still get a laugh when I think of the player asking whether it was a good idea to use a particular good daily and an action point in the first fight while they were being slaughtered and it would likely save them from a TPK).
- The fact that players insist on getting an action point after EVERY xp granting encounter, even if it is just a single Complexity 1 skill challange which they make without ever rolling a dice or spending any resource at all. This despite the fact that the DMG clearly mentions that a DM should not grant a milestone for encounters that are not a challenge at all.
When I run a game with my regular group, we agreed not to use a daily just because we can, but only because it is actually a good thing to use (or it is really needed) and we certainly do not reach milestones for anything but the biggest skill challenges. The last one is also something I discuss in advance when running games at a convention, 9 out of 10 players don't complain about it.
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