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2 years ago ::
May 30, 2011 - 5:41AM
#1
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Subject line says it all. Thanks!
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 6:01AM
#2
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Also, if you've DMed the adventure, please go to www.livingforgottenrealms.com and complete the survey to report your results (that is, unless you don't care whether your table results have an impact on the epic campaign - in which case, please do me a favor and do it anyway).
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 12:49PM
#3
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2005
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(no spoilers)
I ran this last weekend. Thanks to Dan, Dave, and Keith for writing something that is actually manageable to run. I short-cut two fights and it took about 13 hours.
The players probably had an easier time than intended, but I know they were entertained. They said EPIC3-2 is more interesting than EPIC3-1. (I can't say; I haven't seen The Great Hunt.)
Every one of the six players had Superior Will. Sigh. I would like to smack the designers with one of their own rulebooks.
I'll work out a post with spoilers also.
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 1:10PM
#4
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(no spoilers)
I ran this last weekend. Thanks to Dan, Dave, and Keith for writing something that is actually manageable to run. I short-cut two fights and it took about 13 hours.
The players probably had an easier time than intended, but I know they were entertained. They said EPIC3-2 is more interesting than EPIC3-1. (I can't say; I haven't seen The Great Hunt.)
Every one of the six players had Superior Will. Sigh. I would like to smack the designers with one of their own rulebooks.
I'll work out a post with spoilers also.
Thanks Nut. I still remember when you judged for me at Gen Con 2008 - I'm sure you did the adventure justice.
Looking forward to hearing the details!
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 5:55PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Nov 21, 2005
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(spoilers here) I ran this in Los Angeles last weekend. All 6 characters had done EPIC3-1, either the previous day or the previous convention. 2 defenders, 2 leaders, 2 strikers. One of the leaders came late and missed 2 fights, but I assume everyone gets the same reward. One striker (storm sorcerer) put out lots of area damage including some ridiculous criticals (150 points). Everyone else was a bit light on damage, in my opinion, and strong on defenses. Combats dragged a bit. The players all knew their characters well and didn't dither over what to do. 3 characters had various means of flying, which is always helpful at this level of play. Encounter 1A
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Pretty much an OTA. I locked down the fighter, who became a non-participant, but the rest finished things in the 3rd round. Encounter 1B
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The overall skill challenge was no problem for this party. I only ever gave out 1 fatigue point, and it was bought off immediately with a surge. Encounter 2
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Three infections (one a pact dragon), giving me bargaining leverage. We could afford to spend a lot of time negotiating with Sinmaker. In the end, I got 3 signatures. Encounter 3B
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It took about 6 rounds for everyone to get to the top of the zig. Nef was not yet bloody, but everything else was dead. I assigned healing surge penalties and moved on. I handed out a miniature tree, and the player with the Willow attached it to his mini for the rest of the game. Encounter 4B
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Characters had no interest in meeting the Court of Blood, just asked about the most dangerous spot on the island. So, here they are. Characters took a decent amount of damage but finished this pretty quickly, about 4 rounds. Minions in some of the encounters were effective, but died quickly here. Encounter 5
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Of course, the one fight they skipped was the one I least expected them to. No interest in Gero, no arcane casters in the party. (Also, Arcana was their one weak skill.) Moving on... Encounter 7
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I think the players liked the structure of this fight a lot. A bit of role-playing, a sudden change in the situation, and some healing before the maruts teleport away. Only 2 maruts left conscious at the end of round 2, so the healing was minimal. The swarm auras were the most dangerous feature of this fight. Adequate burst damage available - the sorcerer did it at will, and two other characters had encounter powers. Encounter 8
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Players paid a lot of attention here to how they were spending their actions, though they killed everything and (barely) made the group check each round. Encounter 9
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Party included 2 drow, so the insults went back and forth. Stopping the ritual took over 4 rounds - I remember regeneration amounts of 80, 60, 20, and 10. That big impassible area in the center is hard to work around. Someone teleported across it at least once, which works, and I decided that a foe stone doesn't need line of effect. Good, interesting terrain, though it looked pretty simple on paper. This was taking too long, so I stopped it a round after the big boom. I don't think the ongoing danger of the Vortex lives up to the drama of the initial boom. This was the only combat in which a character almost fell unconscious. Make that two characters - Sinmaker supplied an emergency heal here. Encounter 11
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This went three rounds. One character and one devil were almost eaten by the Dark. They opened doors 1, 6, 9, and the gnoll in the group really wanted door 4, but ran out of time. (Don't tally this now, you'll get a survey.) The impersonation drew a big laugh; they knew they should have seen it coming. Characters took little actual damage here, but of course, that wasn't the point. Encounter 12
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Whew. Three successes from NPCs, and characters were not very beaten up, so the outcome wasn't in doubt. Also, almost out of time, so we did this abstractly. Lacking Sinmaker's wildcard skill, and if I ran this as a sincere battle, they would have been in some trouble.
Thinking back, I wish I had had more time for this. I handed out props for the 3 keystones, and despite my careful description, one player kept all 3. Could have been some hilarity. One More Observation
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Characters had high defenses, high attack modifiers, and little need of emergency healing. But, the one tool that was consistently useful and needed was mobility. Among them were three flyers, limited or unlimited, and some teleportation (feystep lacings at a minimum), mostly used every encounter. The fighter had none, and was often stuck far from the enemies with nothing to do except deal with the hazard of the moment.
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 6:21PM
#6
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Thanks Nut! It really sounds like the adventure ran very par for the course (I'm glad we playtested this thing 10 times and worked out all the kinks). The encounters that you didn't quite finish or ran abstractly are probably my favorite encounters in the adventure, which is a shame, as I'd have loved to hear how they went. I'm particularly amused by what they did in Encounter 12. I would imagine that if you played it out, they'd have been in big trouble. I agree with your observation - I'm finding the same thing from my experiences. The bottom line is that the average epic PC is much more powerful than what 4e design seems to expect, and it takes a lot of work to challenge a party of even slightly optimized characters. We actually scaled the challenge down after a few playtest results to avoid unexpected frustration and instead, gave the DM the leverage to scale the challenge up if needed. I would love to see some player reactions! Those are what keep us writing 
Dave Kay
LFR Writing Director Retiree
dkay807 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 8:53PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Jan 26, 2005
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Every one of the six players had Superior Will. Sigh. I would like to smack the designers with one of their own rulebooks.
I am not surprised. Likely they all had Expertise as well.
Both the feats are essentially feat taxes at the Epic Tier.
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2 years ago ::
May 31, 2011 - 10:19PM
#8
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I was one of the players (Storm Sorceress).
I had a great experience with EPIC 3-2. Nutation is an excellent DM and has always been well prepared in previous adventures that he has ran for me here in Los Angeles.
Our party was a complete oddity of misfits:
Female Drow Storm Sorceress/Lightning Fury/Archspell (Storm from X-men theme)**
Male Drow Nerfed Cleric/Curseborn/Exalted Angel (of Corellon)**
Male Dwarven Cleric/Warpriest/Avatar of War (of Tempus)**
Gnoll Fighter/Swordmaster/Ceaseless Guardian
Dragonborn Barbarian/Scion of Arkhosa/Avatar of Io (in Plate and Shield riding a Pact Dragon)
Orc Paladin/Horned Champion/Chosen of Tempus
** denotes played previous EPIC 3-1 together
So we have a Female Drow who was born and raised in Calimshan to be a thief, a male Drow trying to redeem himself and get away from Drow society, a Dwarven Warpriest with nothing better to do, a Yenoghu-ite, a flying lizard in plate armor riding a bigger flying lizard in plate armor and an Orc of all things with the favor of Corellon and not dead on site after stepping into Arvandor.
Only in LFR.
In most cases, all players did have Expertise of some kind. It is a feat tax to deal with the math problems. Superior Will is in the same boat. I agree that the designers have absolutely no idea what the hell they are doing (Cleric nerf for example). However, it's so good that players are inclined to take it.
I enjoyed this Epic. The overall theme is was kept throughout the adventure and railroading was kept to a minimum. Players had options and some of the skill challenges were interesting and fun. I only wish I could have played this adventure with the folks in my adventuring company, but they have not even played the first Epic, yet.
The overall challenge level was moderate. Half of our group was highly mobile, which made some encounters easier or more entertaining, or proved to be useless due to terrain features or creature sizes. Our group was also capable of putting out high amounts of damage (or at least I was able to) which can at times make or break encounters.
Hopefully in the following EPIC, you would include more usage of previous story awards from other adventures to help or hinder the PCs.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 01, 2011 - 2:44AM
#9
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Every one of the six players had Superior Will. Sigh. I would like to smack the designers with one of their own rulebooks.
I am not surprised. Likely they all had Expertise as well. Both the feats are essentially feat taxes at the Epic Tier.
No, they are not. By epic, they are at best feats that help remove a bit of frustration from players with an unreasonable fear of daze/stun or who gets seriously frustrated if they miss on attack rolls even if they roll a 7. Dave actively avoids too much daze/stun, so I rarely saw Superior Will come into play. There is also something odd about comming across PCs with better Will defenses than AC even though monsters always have a crappier attack roll against NADs. Expertise is just overkill by these levels. When the PCs hit on a 5+ (I kid you not, during the playtest op EPIC3-2 the wizard and ranger rarely missed because of this) than I really wonder why the hack a character needs that +3. Characters who start with an 18, and who pick an epic damage that boost their stat really do not need the feat. They are nice feats for players that do not optimize, but for characters that already optimized in abilities, weapons, power selection and the tactical skill to always have combat advantage (not too hard) it is just overkill.
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2 years ago ::
Jun 01, 2011 - 7:09AM
#10
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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In theory, a level 22 character with a +8 stat and +5 implement needs a 10 to hit the average defense of 34... accurate implement makes that a 9, expertise makes that a 6. Combat Advantage drops it to a 4. Leader buffs, like a battle captain in the party gives you a +2 in the first round. A +3 proficiency weapon needs 1 less... and if they're going against a NAD, they need 3 less, which is more of the problem (Thieves and Spear-chargers who can target Ref, looking at you)
I've seen plenty of people without Superior Will (among other things, there are stat requirements), but everyone should have Expertise. It's silly not to spend the feat at epic.
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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