|
13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:58AM
#1
|
Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
|
This thread is for discussion of SPEC4-4 Mischief in Memnon.
Preparing to run this adventure and have questions? Want to share your feedback?
This is the place!
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
|
|
|
|
12 months ago ::
Jun 05, 2012 - 3:45PM
#2
|
Date Joined:
May 18, 2004
|
I DMed this adventure twice. It was a fun adventure. Spoiler:
Show
I appreciated that the combats were structured in waves, so that they could be harder without overwhelming the PCs.
One of the tables complained about the fact that the other team was already there doing stuff, but the PCs are still responsible for finding useful targets. "So, we're going to go there, and do their job for them?" It could have used a bit more justification for why the other team, which is already there, isn't able to find out about the two big targets.
I've written some things - check'em out!Spoiler:
Show
|
|
|
|
12 months ago ::
Jun 05, 2012 - 5:04PM
#3
|
Date Joined:
Nov 16, 2007
|
Played this twice at AL 12 and AL 18. Spoiler:
Show
At AL12, we did the encounter in the desert. It would have been TPK, if the DM hadn't started pulling punches in a major (and sadly obvious) way. Even with 2 leaders, we could not keep up with the damage that was being delt out. Trying to keep the camels in line, and spending actions to appease the elemental spirit just made things worse. I'm thinking the difficulty didn't scale down very well to AL 12 and 5 players. The second wave just would have obliterated us, if it was run as is (our DM started provoking opportunity attacks right and left to let us kill stuff faster, and had the camels stay on the map).
At AL18 we had 6 players, we played the arena. Fighting wave after wave of enemies was loads of fun. There were a few moments where we got beat up a bit, but we recovered. Playing to the crowd was very enjoyable. I felt the difficulty of this encounter was just right.
The difficulty of the last encounter was moderate to easy at both AL's. But that was welcome for most of us, since the previous encounter was pretty grueling.
I liked the skill challenges in this mod, they were meaningful, and didn't feel like a challenge for the sake of a challenge. Particularly enjoyed describing my actions, and listening to others' descriptions in the arena skill challenge. The DM was fairly liberal at letting us use whatever skills we wanted to use as long as we came up with viable descriptions.
|
|
|
|
12 months ago ::
Jun 07, 2012 - 1:57PM
#4
|
Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
|
I liked the skill challenges in this mod, they were meaningful, and didn't feel like a challenge for the sake of a challenge. Particularly enjoyed describing my actions, and listening to others' descriptions in the arena skill challenge. The DM was fairly liberal at letting us use whatever skills we wanted to use as long as we came up with viable descriptions.
It's just my opinion, but this is how I would love to see every "skill challenge" presented by DMs! 
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 08, 2012 - 9:37AM
#5
|
|
|
We ran this two days ago, and I just wanted to say that it was by far one of the most enjoyable LFR non-epic adventures I've ever played. Spoiler:
Show
We played at AL 14 with a balanced group of a shielding swordmage, an action denial wizard, a warlord/runepriest hybrid, a pixie fey warlock and a chaos sorceror (me). The warlock was a last-minute new addition, while the other members had played together numerous times. The group was fairly optimized, but not excessively.
We liked the inclusion of all the NPC's you can meet directly upon arriving in Memnon, and I believe everyone had some fun with the ones we visited. We probably could have RP'd for 90 minutes loonger than we did there, but since we had been busy for quite a while, we had to jump to the major decision. We chose the arena.
The skill challenge with the Arena was really well done; everyone had some really funny ways to appear as though they were losing. The first part of it, however, in which you have to persuade Marinius to assist you, felt off. Why does he heavily wear you down if you pass standard DC checks, even if you don't have any failures? I mean, why would he actively work against you if he is supposedly increasingly warming up to you?
Anyway, the fight in the Arena itself was probably the coolest fight I've ever seen in D&D, only rivalled by some homebrew ones and Epic-level ones. You are told from the very beginning that it will be a really tough and long fight and to expect waves of enemy reinforcements. Combined with the atmosphere and the map layout, you are almost emphatically made clear to waste no time in activating your awesome dailies right away.
And we needed them. The enemies were no jokes with overlapping unresistable damage aura's, 5d10 attacks with possibly expanded crit ranges, blaster artillery with huge bursts of fire and a massive wurm at the end to top it off. Luckily, our wizard managed to trap 2 out of 4 monsters with the damage aura between two of his forced movement dailies and the wall of fire for the entire fight, and we managed to accumulate JUST enough successes to allow me to use my AP to nova away the entire round 2 of enemies in one turn. The leader then put down a zone of resistance against ranged attacks while we finished the wurm.
We were allowed by the DM to use any skill if it was applicable instead of only diplomacy and intimidate, which greatly increased the amount of freedom you had to describe how you tried to win the crowd over. I wished the module itself had incorporated this freedom.
After the second group (made up entirely of paragon characters of some of our other friends) blew up the guardhouse, we were off to kill the traitor and the guard captain, along with anyone happening to be nearby. This was... well, a bit of a letdown after the epicness that was the first fight. Since we started right next to them from playing the cards and had regained our action points, it stared with an AOE nova by me with heavy focus fire of everyone else on the traitor. Even though we lost initiative and the archers did manage to deal quite a lot of damage to our defender, the fight was fairly easy to complete.
Based on the arena alone, I'd give the adventure a top rating. However, I think the last encounter was a bit of a wasted opportunity; a fight in the streets with the people you rescued against the crimson guard would have felt a lot more in place and worthyer as a follow-up. Anyway, looking forward to more -kind regards, Dieuwtjin
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 10, 2012 - 7:55AM
#6
|
Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2010
|
Thinking back on the encounter, I agree the arena was very well put together. It reminded me a bit of Ashes of Athas 2-3, which is certainly the most epic fight I've ever had!
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 13, 2012 - 2:43PM
#7
|
Date Joined:
May 28, 2003
|
The arena fight wasn't too bad, but the desert fight is a practically guaranteed TPK unless the players metagame and/or the DM softballs.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 14, 2012 - 2:13PM
#8
|
- Head of Insanity Division
Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2004
|
The arena fight wasn't too bad, but the desert fight is a practically guaranteed TPK unless the players metagame and/or the DM softballs.
Care to elaborate?
We played this at Origins and chose the desert route. It was a tough fight, but our group weathered it well enough. I never felt the DM was holding anything back.
Looking for work in IT or Logistics? Willing to relocate to western Michigan? Send me a PM.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 14, 2012 - 6:26PM
#9
|
Date Joined:
May 28, 2003
|
The arena fight wasn't too bad, but the desert fight is a practically guaranteed TPK unless the players metagame and/or the DM softballs.
Care to elaborate?
We played this at Origins and chose the desert route. It was a tough fight, but our group weathered it well enough. I never felt the DM was holding anything back.
Spoiler:
Show
When I played it, we never had a clue that there was a second wave. So we used up most of our encounter powers (and some of our healing) fighting the first wave (which was a non-trivial encounter's worth of monsters on its own). When the second wave showed up (a full encounter's worth of monsters going on the same initiative), one of our party got killed (knocked down to negative bloodied) and another got dropped to 0 after being caught in three blasts. At that point, the DM held back a bit on the focus fire, which gave us a chance to regroup, and we managed to win...barely. If the DM was more ruthless, we could have easily been TPKed.
So how does a party deal with an encounter like this? If they know the second wave is coming, they can hold back on their encounter novas, get further on the skill challenge while using mostly at-wills on the first wave, and spread out to avoid being in blast formation. This would make the second wave easier to deal with, but it requires either Perception monkeys in the party...or metagaming. If the party gets caught by surprise, they're hosed unless the DM holds back on the focus fire and/or misses a lot on the second wave's nova round.
|
|
|
|
9 months ago ::
Sep 14, 2012 - 8:02PM
#10
|
- Head of Insanity Division
Date Joined:
Jul 23, 2004
|
Spoiler:
Show
We had no idea about the second wave either, but one of our PCs dedicated all of his standard actions to the skill challenge (plus everyone else was doing what they could here and there. I'm pretty sure it was complete (or almost so) when the others showed up.
One main difference I see is that our DM rolled separate inits for the new guys. So they were spread out not only around the battlefield (and no more than 2 of us were in any burst/blast by that point either - our teleporting assassin and swordmage had spread out fast  ) but also amongst a couple other actions.
And not insignificant was the Wall of Fire / Visions of Avarice combo that were running at one of the battle. A couple newcomers had issues with that, I recall.
When I replayed and did the arena, we actually had a lot more trouble with it, funny enough.
Looking for work in IT or Logistics? Willing to relocate to western Michigan? Send me a PM.
|
|
|
