Gen Con Special - Siege of the Diamond City, WOW! That was FanDanTastically AWE-So-o-oM! (spoilers)

[Bbauzh ap Aghauzh]

This^^^

Bigger post on Monday.

The projectors and music were over the top insanely awesome.

[trollbill]

Andrew Christian wrote:

This^^^

Bigger post on Monday.

The projectors and music were over the top insanely awesome.

I must say is was one of the best done and organized B.I.s I have ever participated in. It was fast paced and a lot of fun.

[Pygon]

I played Tier 12-13 at PaizoCon. I was told that the final encounters were toughened up for tier 14-15. How did THAT go? :D

[DrSwordopolis]

14-15 Tier:

I had the pleasure of taking down the Balor demon at the end. As it turns out, a heightened persistent Chains of Light combined with a Magus's coup de grace generates a DC184 fort save. (Props to my comrade, Zelthier, as well as the rest of the party) Unfortunately, the resulting explosion killed most of the party. Oops.

We were still finishing up the Vrolikai it summoned (limited wish->death ward means it wasn't a threat) when time was called, unfortunately.

All in all, a great time. Many thanks to Eric Brittain (VC, San Diego) for running an epic game.

[Eric Brittain]

Glad to have you at the table!

You have done what few can claim and survived your efforts.... well mostly survived.

;-)

[FanaticRat]

I had a blast playing 7-8. The support from the "paladins" sure did help a lot (kept me from getting killed by the insane Fighter, as well as keeping our party from being completely hosed by a mass hold person (x2), deeper darkness, and silence combo.

Spoiler:

Honestly, the whole Gencon experience was way, way better than I had imagined it would be. I had recently had a ton of crappy experiences with PFS and was going to quit if Gencon wasn't good, but each game I played has been a blast with great GMs, fun scenarios, and party members that are fun to be around. It's convinced me to give this thing another shot, for now.

[Cascade]

I agree with FanaticRat, I thoughts Origins was weak (events and GMs) but the Gencon special and the season 5 mods were excellent. The judges were also courteous, involved and genuinely fun to game with !

Great job !

Cas

[Red-Assassin]

If you played the special please review it.

[rangerjeff]

An effective sense of urgency was built in the room from the start, and my table (7-8) was frantic to burn through as many challenges as possible. The challenges weren't hard, but the urgency brought a lot of excitement into the process. Great table, including Toronto VC Adam, great humor.

But towards the end, fighting endless demons outside the walls, it become tedious, and we all agreed to abandon the table 10-15 minutes before the end (well, except Adam, who's barbarian was having great fun smashing demons!)

I didn't know what to expect going in, and was curious if this was somehow also a race for points between tables. When it became clear it wasn't about two-three hours in, which also reduced our sense of urgency.

Then we got our chronicles, and while great to get an Impressive Victory, we all felt it would have been nice if our group's efforts had been recognized with the Outstanding Victory marked on our sheets.

After mulling it over, I understand why points aren't kept and why it's not a race. Players angry at GM's, etc. A solution to this problem might be in the next special to have it end differently. Instead of doing a big push for the last hour+, what if we'd had the push for 45 minutes, then had a final "boss" combat or task in the last half hour. Conclude the special with a bang. And use the results of the final fight to adjust the boon awarded on the chronicle sheet. Beat the final boss, and shift your boon up one level from the overall result of the Special.

Another thing I'd discovered after the event, is the rule about 1 point every 15 minutes per 10 tables in each of the 5 zones to keep them from turning red. This works out to 1 point every half hour per table, in whatever district. So if your table earned more than 1 point every half hour, you were more than pulling your weight. Just having a way to judge our efforts actually pretty well satisfied me at this point, and I I don't really care about our group's efforts being reflected in the chronicle sheet. Knowing this goal from the beginning of the scenario would have kept up better motivated through the whole Special, I think. As it was, I bet our table pulled in 2-3 points every half hour average, so I can feel proud of us as Heroes of Nerosyan!

Overall I'd give the experience a 3.5/5 rating, mostly enjoyable, I'd regret it if I hadn't played it at GenCon when I had the chance, great seeing so many of us PFSers tied together as a group. But also a little disappointing the way it wrapped up. For 7-8 at least.

[Kiinyan]

rangerjeff wrote:

Stuff

Your groups contributions most certainly had a factor on te outcome of te scenario. As it is designed as an interactive scenario; however, the success is based off the entire event, not one individual success. If you save three crusaders, but no one else saved anybody, and the walls fall, pure nt going to get an overwhelming victory.

As to your bosses: for the most part it was the high tier tables, 10+, especially seeker, that had the massive bosses. Each time the scenario called for a wave, your GM rolled a D6. For each success you had with a crusader, the D6 roll got a +1. At your tier, if I remember correctly if the GM rolled high enough all other creatures fled and you fought a mythic vrock.

I most certainly agree with the tedious was of the middle tiers mission. On low tier there's the ballista launching to keep you focused, and the high tiers had their bosses. I played mid-tier and PaizoCon, and the fight took so log my sorceror spent most of his time running away trying to UMD his wand on himself. When I brought it up that my sorceror felt useless that last half with the author, I'm afraid I didn't get my message across. The response I got was that was the exact result they wanted (much like your barbarian, my table had a mounted cavalier who had a total blast).

If I misinterpreted anything in your post I apologize.

[rangerjeff]

No, that sounds good. Oh well about tier 7-8 then.

[NOG the Demoralizer]

Did anyone play this and also play the Paizocon version? I am curious what changes they made for the final release. I was in the 5-6 range iirc.

[Zahir ibn Mahmoud ibn Jothan]

I did a review against the module entry. I wasn't overly impressed. The first half was far better than the second. Like the second reviewer, ending up as stretcher bearer under for for encounter after encounter was tedious to say the least.

Congrats to the guy getting married.

Next year's interactive, needs more, umm, interaction, at least without blades, arrows, and spells. Last year was superior as a more balanced event.

[Zauron13]

I liked this year's special. The way the defense worked was neat. The final encounter at 7-8 was almost lethal (we survived because of the time limit, we were about to book it).

I second the congrats to the guy getting married.

[Kiinyan]

Yes congrats to him. He saved me. I was scheduled to run 5-9, but got a 1-2 table and I didn't have the stat blocks, so I made extensive use of his NPC Codex.

[thistledown]

I liked the general feel of the scenario, and thought the vid screen and the music set a great atmosphere. I didn't like act 3 much (see other thread) but overall it was a good game.

I went in knowing I was not using my best character, but thematically it was the one I wanted to use. (Over the last several missions, she's been veering from CN to CG, and I wanted this to be the capstone for her to actually change. The judge agreed and gave me the last chronicle comment I wanted). We still managed to do a good job, and nobody died. I feel a bit guilty though, as I know we could have accomplished more if I used one of my better characters (of the same level)

[shadowhntr7]

The screen and music were definately nice, you could hear the groaning as everything went red at one point. :)

It was also nice to get those Seeker Tokens, though I'm a little confused as to how we got the two we had. Helped us hit the mythic cleric we fought while helping guards.

[Mike Bohlmann]

shadowhntr7 wrote:

It was also nice to get those Seeker Tokens, though I'm a little confused as to how we got the two we had. Helped us hit the mythic cleric we fought while helping guards.

I wish the receiving table GMs had explained that. Those Seeker tokens were given to those at 12-13 and 14-15 tables to pass to other tables. In effect, it was a mechanic to indicate the help that the high level characters were providing to the lower level characters. Our GM also explained that when lower level tables met criteria to launch a ballista or catapult shot, it stunned the creature(s) we were currently fighting for one round. I thought that interactivity was rather ingenious without making either group feel like the other's superior.

[TriOmegaZero]

Just tell me...

Did they have actual warning horns? Or did Thursty make his horrible impression again?

[Jack-of-Blades]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Just tell me...

Did they have actual warning horns? Or did Thursty make his horrible impression again?

They had actual horns, I think, but they were hilariously out of sync with the monologue.

[TriOmegaZero]

HA! PaizoCon wins that one!

[Thurston Hillman]

*horn*

>.>

Ok, that can be improved a little bit! :P

[WalterGM]

NOG the Demoralizer wrote:

Did anyone play this and also play the Paizocon version? I am curious what changes they made for the final release. I was in the 5-6 range iirc.

I GM'd at both events. Thurston can of course expand on this.

Changes I noticed were: Addition of mythic creatures in the higher tiers, general increase of combat difficulty across the board. Reduction of "seeker tokens" that could be handed out during the event. Actual maps for each location, instead of the "just wing it" instruction given during Paizocon.

[TriOmegaZero]

I'm looking forward to running the final version next month and seeing the differences from the playtest.