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Don't know what you're complaining about man, I hopped in that game with my 4th level ranger with a pickup group who were still totally new to the game and had a blast. We literally watched as that final monster almost tore our sorcerer apart as she worked the ballista and I had to contend with not having favored enemy demons. Luckily there was plenty of ammo, favored terrain Urban is great here, and everyone listened. What I've usually found in these situations is exactly what people have said before, the flaw is quite often first in the character design and second in the player (often being either too used to an easy gm or getting too egotistical to realize when it's time to pull back). This is from a guy who spent most of that special cruising the red zone.
Associate Publisher
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Honest question for the masses...
Since there seems to be a lot of dislike for 'endless waves/encounters' for the ending act, what sort of mechanics would you like to see replace them in future events? For this Special, I thought they were most appropriate, and tried to adjust these encounters so each tier was affected by the actions of other tiers in the room.
I truly understand the dislike of such encounters and wanted to avoid using them, but could not come up with a suitable alternative.
With this question, there's some criteria that need to be met:
1 - Keep in mind that you're dealing with levels 1-15 and need to accommodate all that range and all potential eventualities (from one-hit kills to teleporting badasses twinked out characters).
2 - Understand that players can come up with unorthodox means of defeating a single encounter or could conceivably 'beat' the encounter (and thus event) due to a lucky spell/action. Basically, we don't want to have tables waiting around for 45+ minutes because they 'won' while other tables continue the event.
3 - Know that this is just a single part of the Special, and whatever is written here would need to fit in a fairly small word count. Yes - that includes the words used in statblocks.
I'm not saying this to be rude, I am HONESTLY interested in what people think. I have some ideas on how this could be done for future events, but I'm very much wondering what people would like to see from the finale encounters in Specials that meet the above criteria!
-Thursty
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I did not like the endless waves. It got monotonous in a bit. The players at my table even started sow playing because we were running out of resources. Plus there appeared no reason to continue after like wave 9.
Not being able to notice if saving another person really mattered much was why no one cared.
There is nothing wrong with the endless encounters if the parties can see that fighting through them is visibly helping. I would love a meter to say something like. Hey table rd 7 saved 15 people. Then we could compete to help more. That could be done on the screens.
What is wrong with finishing early? So one table finishes early and can watch how others do?
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I've had a player once tell me as a GM that their character would have no frame of reference for moving in an area of both darkness and silence, so he asked to have his character go a random direction. The next round, he did the same, and I told him "you would at least be able to keep going the same way you went last time, trying to find a wall." He agreed to this.
While clearly NOT by the rules, it s actually the case that being in total darkness is VERY disorienting. The best example is probably people who die in snowstorms when only feet away from the shelter they just left.
I saw a video once of people training for that kind of thing by putting on a no see helmet. They were completely unable to walk in a straight line.
If you don't believe me, try the experiment yourself. Shut your eyes and try and walk 30 feet.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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For those complaining about there being a lot of combat, by my count, half of the encounters in Nerosyan were combat and half were roleplaying. If your GM was choosing, then the encounters you came across were their selection. If the GM was rolling randomly, then the combat ones must have come up an awful lot more. For my table, I tried to alternate where possible, since high-tier combat can take some time.
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Honest question for the masses...
Since there seems to be a lot of dislike for 'endless waves/encounters' for the ending act, what sort of mechanics would you like to see replace them in future events? For this Special, I thought they were most appropriate, and tried to adjust these encounters so each tier was affected by the actions of other tiers in the room.
I truly understand the dislike of such encounters and wanted to avoid using them, but could not come up with a suitable alternative.
With this question, there's some criteria that need to be met:
1 - Keep in mind that you're dealing with levels 1-15 and need to accommodate all that range and all potential eventualities (from one-hit kills to teleporting badasses twinked out characters).
2 - Understand that players can come up with unorthodox means of defeating a single encounter or could conceivably 'beat' the encounter (and thus event) due to a lucky spell/action. Basically, we don't want to have tables waiting around for 45+ minutes because they 'won' while other tables continue the event.
3 - Know that this is just a single part of the Special, and whatever is written here would need to fit in a fairly small word count. Yes - that includes the words used in statblocks.
I'm not saying this to be rude, I am HONESTLY interested in what people think. I have some ideas on how this could be done for future events, but I'm very much wondering what people would like to see from the finale encounters in Specials that meet the above criteria!
-Thursty
Thursty,
Here are my thoughts:
First, let me preface by saying, I was thoroughly impressed by the special. I thought it was fantastic. So please take my below notes with that in mind. That when I talk about something that doesn’t work, it is more a nitpick than a true dislike of anything. If you can improve on this for next year, we are all going to have a gamergasm at the special.
Low Tier: Great idea. I loved the idea of using the Ballistae. I explained how the huge one was shooting the siege swarm towers and the large ones were shooting the demons as they appeared on the wall. But after about the 4th time, this got old and monotonous. While it definitely replicated a real-life war situation, in that war is often monotonous, it isn’t necessarily what you want in a roleplaying session.
So what if we had options after fighting a handful of waves?
Especially between waves, when we have 1d4+1 rounds before the next shows up. The characters manning the large ballistae just readied them for the next wave to show up. But what if they had another choice?
- They could choose to shoot at other demons. This would require 1d3 rounds of aiming (so if a wave hits their wall while they are aiming they would maybe have to wait to aim or have less of them dealing with the wave). They would have “aid” tokens of their own. When this choice is made, each low tier player goes to a mid-tier or high-tier or seeker table and hands them a ballistae bolt. “Here guys, here’s 4d6 damage to the demon of your choice that you are fighting right now.”
- If they complete 3 waves once they start getting choices, they could send a “saving bolt” to the mid-tier table that does the killing blow once the demon is bloodied (half or lower hit points), at the discretion of the mid-tier table.
- Similarly to the “saving bolt” they could send a “disruptive bolt” to a high tier table that could be used at the discretion of the high tier players. It would disrupt a demon lord’s attack that would otherwise incapacitate or kill a high tier character. The demon lord would make a reflex save DC 20 +5 per additional disruptive bolt applied. If he fails, the attack does no damage. If he saves, the attack still does half damage.
Mid-Tier: Again, great idea. But still has the problem of feeling too real with the monotony that real war offers. We need this to be cinematic, not realistic.
So what if instead of doing the same thing, over and over again, once they have successfully succeeded at treating 2 sets of crusaders (6 total), they have another choice.
They can rally these crusaders behind their own banner and head off to fight a more powerful demon. So 5-6 could try the [redacted] from 7-8 and 7-8 could try the [redacted] from 10-11. The crusaders that are helping them would either give them an aid to AC, to Hit, or distract the Demon and subtract from their AC or to Hit. This bonus would be equal to half the crusaders they banded together. So if they manage to band together 10 crusaders, they would get to add or subtract 5. A character could spend a move action to give them orders to change where this aid would get added or subtracted.
High Tier: I don’t think there was a problem with monotony on this one.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Ah, gotcha. I didn't prep the mid-tier, so I can't comment there.
Thursty: Here's an idea - what if the low tier is giving support to the high tier, keeping them from facing multiple threats at once, while the high tier buys time for the mid-tier to explore a dungeon, and the number of cleared dungeons determines success? For the highest tiers, give the GMs the opportunity to select from a list of monsters, some of which may only be ran after some of the easier ones have been defeated.
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So after reading through a lot of responses and talking to a number of both GM's and players, the following points seem to be the majority opinion:
* the mid-tier final encounter was not satisfying. Players want to be heroic and being reduced to essentially stretcher-bearers did not do that. The low-tier got to protect a static asset while fighting off waves of demon attackers. The high-tier got to take the fight directly to the demonic leadership. The mid-tier could have maybe taken the fight to the soldier demons
* the issue isn't that there are waves of baddies, but that the challenge is not increasing. We should have a mechanic so that the GM can respond to the optimization of the party. If the PCs are being challenged then follow the standard tables. If they are one-shoting the demons, there should be a "hard" mode option to either escalate up to the next higher tier of demons, increase the number appearing, or perhaps adding a template. Since mythic was being used, perhaps the agile/savage template could have been added to provide a greater challenge
* players liked the reduced interruptions by the overseer. Act two gave them the ability to do whatever they wanted. From a meta-game perspective, the GM/players could work together to approach the encounters that matched their play style. There were plenty of role-play vs. combat encounters so all PC types should have found something that allowed them to contribute
* there seems to have been a lot of GMs that did not explain the various mechanics involved with the danger colors or how each tier's actions in act three were impacting other tables. We should have a summary sheet for the GM's containing a list of the topics they need to explain to the players, sort of a highlight list similar to the summary section, but focused on GM key points
* using a limited number of maps and to substitute any city/town/streets map you have for those depicted in the scenario was awesome. GMs did not have to go out and drop $20, $30, $40 on new maps they might not use again. And the two maps that were somewhat specific (Thurl's lodge & act 3) could be easily printed or hand-drawn
* the big screens were awesome, but a more clear difference between yellow and orange would have been appreciated. Perhaps even have pop-up text along with the color that clearly displayed the bonus/penalties associated with that color
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Honest question for the masses...
Since there seems to be a lot of dislike for 'endless waves/encounters' for the ending act, what sort of mechanics would you like to see replace them in future events?
-Thursty
From my standpoint down at first level, it wasn't the endless waves that was the issue. It was:
1) the lack of a climax battle and
2) the lack of feedback regarding the direct effect of our actions
My suggestions:
1) have a short (1/2 hour?) "final chapter" where a boss appears and enters the fray. (Even if the players are in the middle of a wave).
2) Figure out a way to link tables of different tiers (for example, all yellow tables are linked) so that something like the siege weapons directly influence the partner table(s). The waves would be more enjoyable if after each successful siege weapon shot we heard a cheer go up around us.
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Thurston, thank you for the special. It was overall very enjoyable, even with our particular table problems. We had a great time!
We never actually experienced the "endless waves" of the end. Once we had hit the maximum thing on the table and it only had one turn, the GM just sort of stopped running. (He had some special circumstances that made this not as unreasonable as it sounds.) So we ended up waiting about 30-40 minutes for the end of the special. It honestly wasn't as dull as you'd think - I mean, we were a table full of gamers, we had plenty to make small talk about! We also used the time to make elaborate theories about a certain venture captain and what was really going on with him. Our biggest worry was that we were failing the group as a whole by not being able to contribute more points to whatever our points were supposed to be doing. If that was not present, and we were assured we had done our bit, waiting for the more complicated high tiers to finish would not have been objectionable at all.
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* the issue isn't that there are waves of baddies, but that the challenge is not increasing. We should have a mechanic so that the GM can respond to the optimization of the party. If the PCs are being challenged then follow the standard tables. If they are one-shoting the demons, there should be a "hard" mode option to either escalate up to the next higher tier of demons, increase the number appearing, or perhaps adding a template. Since mythic was being used, perhaps the agile/savage template could have been added to provide a greater challenge
Not just that it was unincreasing, but also that it was neverending. After Paizocon, our group mentioned the absolutely cheesy metagaminess of the fact that infinite waves anti-incentivizes out of game efficiency, allowing a group to just purposefully make their turns slow out of game to face fewer opponents, not that we would have ever taken advantage of that. It looks like one group in this thread actually gamed it like that. But to be fair, the infinite waves can potentially punish an out-of-game efficient group pretty badly, making them fight far more demons than other groups and potentially run out of resources entirely.
So escalating difficulty needs to be matched with a clear end (but it can be an extremely-difficult-to-reach-with-enough-time end with a majorly tough fight from the tier above, like in Runecarved Key). I see no problem at all with some groups being finished early. It happened in Runecarved Key, after all.
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I played at tier 10-11. We did have boss fight.
We fought a demon dragon that if it hit you, it delt over 100 points of damage. We were told that the lower tiers were keeping the hord from outright killing us.
The demon dragon didn't kill us, except one of the animal companions, but the rest of us were either unconscious or almost there.
That being said, I have played all of the other specials with the same character and think this was the best one yet.
The one thing I didn't like was that after we killed the boss, we didn't get a very impressive boon.
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Honest question for the masses...
Since there seems to be a lot of dislike for 'endless waves/encounters' for the ending act, what sort of mechanics would you like to see replace them in future events? For this Special, I thought they were most appropriate, and tried to adjust these encounters so each tier was affected by the actions of other tiers in the room.
I truly understand the dislike of such encounters and wanted to avoid using them, but could not come up with a suitable alternative.
With this question, there's some criteria that need to be met:
1 - Keep in mind that you're dealing with levels 1-15 and need to accommodate all that range and all potential eventualities (from one-hit kills to teleporting badasses twinked out characters).
2 - Understand that players can come up with unorthodox means of defeating a single encounter or could conceivably 'beat' the encounter (and thus event) due to a lucky spell/action. Basically, we don't want to have tables waiting around for 45+ minutes because they 'won' while other tables continue the event.
3 - Know that this is just a single part of the Special, and whatever is written here would need to fit in a fairly small word count. Yes - that includes the words used in statblocks.
I'm not saying this to be rude, I am HONESTLY interested in what people think. I have some ideas on how this could be done for future events, but I'm very much wondering what people would like to see from the finale encounters in Specials that meet the above criteria!
-Thursty
I think the wave's thematically fit. We're at the World Wound, it open's up, and starts spewing out Demons. Okay, I can see Waves happening every round. I'd honestly expect waves every round, because that's just what happens due to overwheming numbers.
In a movie sense it works really well, in DnD not so much. It's a hard road to walk to have things just popping in, but again. It fits whats going on.
At the end of the day, you just cant please everyone mate.
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Not being able to notice if saving another person really mattered much was why no one cared.There is nothing wrong with the endless encounters if the parties can see that fighting through them is visibly helping. I would love a meter to say something like. Hey table rd 7 saved 15 people. Then we could compete to help more. That could be done on the screens.
I'd say my thoughts fall in line with Finlander's. If there had been gauge-able metrics up on the board it might have been easier to identify with what we were doing. But simply using the colors didn't pull us into what was happening.
I never really understood if what we were doing was having a palpable effect.
I think a more specific tracking process or more detailed information from the GM's about what was happening with our participation would of gone a long way toward drawing us into the conflict.
Playing in the low Tier I was kinda bored by the end of the night. I think the only people that really felt an epic conclusion to the event were the upper tier players.
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Having played the last 3 specials (not at Gencon - this was my first time making it to Indy), and now GMing this at GenCon, I have to say this is definitely my favorite of the specials so far.
I think most people agree that Act 2 was great. 14 possible encounters, around half of which are non-combat, allows this to play out in different and interesting ways for each group.
As a GM, I decided beforehand that I'd use the encounter at the base of the Starrise Spire first, since it just made sense to start with the encounter that takes place at the same location as Act 1. That ended up taking longer than expected at tier 5-6, since it was a tough fight for them, so we already had an update on the status of each district before my group finished their first encounter.
After that, my group decided to stay in that district the whole time, rather than switching. We had just enough time to finish all the encounters that must take place there, plus the three that can happen in any district. If we'd had time for one more encounter, I'd have probably used the search for the city's second VC as an excuse to send them to his lodge in a different district, just to force them to move around.
I can see why some people thought the last act was anti-climactic, especially at mid-tier. My group enjoyed it, but they weren't uber-optimized, so it was tough for them, but not too tough. They didn't face endless waves, because they just didn't move that fast. They got into a fight against their toughest possible enemy and were just starting to turn the tide in their favor against him when time was called. So it was climactic enough to be exciting, though we probably would have preferred 5-10 more minutes for them to actually win that tough final fight.
For me, I had two major problems with this scenario, one of which was as much organizational as anything else.
The lack of stats in the scenario means that each GM has to print their own from other sources in advance. I can't imagine trying to search through the NPC Codex and Bestiaries on the fly, especially with templates being added on so many of these. I ended up with a table of players for a tier I hadn't prepped, which sent me into a panic trying to run around to find the proper people to talk to at HQ staff. Luckily, I found someone with the tier 5-6 stats printed who wasn't using them, so I was able to run it ok. Thank you to whoever that guy was who gave me that! (Sorry I can't remember his name)
My second problem was more me than anything. There were just a lot more extra bonuses and penalties getting applied on the fly than in most scenarios, and I kept forgetting them. I actually had a PC survive because I forgot a +1 when knocking her down to -14 HP. This is something I've noticed myself having a hard time with in general, but it was much worse in this one, just because there were so many things to track. So I think I just need to find a new way to keep track of things when there are a lot of sources of bonuses/penalties going on at the same time. As a player, I'm fine, because I'm good at tracking things on my own PC as they're applied. As a GM, there's just a lot more NPCs and monsters to keep track of at once, and I frequently forget things. But this should probably be a subject for a new thread.
Overall, I really enjoyed this special, and I look forward to running it again at my local game store, where we have done some of the other specials in the past.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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I agree that the GMs probably could have done a better job telling their tables what effects the PCs' actions were having on the other tiers. My table had a pretty good GM who explained that our ballistae were hurting the demons that the high-tier tables were fighting, and we had some crusaders show up explaining that they had been healed by the mid-tier tables.
Also, regarding the "endless waves" problem: I don't know how this worked behind the scenes, but I was under the impression that the number of waves we finished would influence the outcome of the battle as a whole (and therefore which type of victory/defeat we got on the chronicle). Is that correct? If so, then it does help give more incentive for players not to drag their feet on the last act, so that they can get through more waves and therefore increase the scale of the victory.
I like Andrew's idea of having the tables interact more directly with each other -- let a player walk over to a particular table and say, "Your demon just got hit for X points of damage by one of our siege engines!" That would help players see the direct impact of their actions.
All in all, I loved the adventure and thought it was one of the best games I've played! I hope I get to run it at one of the cons this year :-) Congratulations!
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Not just that it was unincreasing, but also that it was neverending...
And at least at our tier, the fact the demons were all roughly the same made it fairly boring to fight one after another, after another, after another... I suppose it's not unrealistic (for a magical setting) that there would be an infinite number of monsters pouring out of the Worldwound to drive off, but a boss monster to finish out the night would have been splendid. I like the idea about handing off tokens to another table if one finishes early.
I still had a blast, and kudos to Jon for running practically every single printed statblock for us to keep us entertained.
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People complaining about the special at least had the opportunity to play it, which many others did not.Explain? Are you suggesting that players were turned away? Or just a general comment because many players could not attend GenCon?
1. Some people just cannot afford to attend Gen Con, and thus could not play the special.
2. Some people did come to Gen Con, but could not get tickets because the event was sold out (some people decide to come to Gen Con, but don't know what their gaming availability would be.)
3. Some people only had generics, but couldn't get in.
My entire point here is not that people haven't a right to complain; rather, at least they were fortunate enough to be able to have the special to complain about because they got in and could play. It's about perspective, really, I suppose.
Mark
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Associate Publisher
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My entire point here is not that people haven't a right to complain; rather, at least they were fortunate enough to be able to have the special to complain about because they got in and could play. It's about perspective, really, I suppose.Mark
They certainly were lucky to get seated, based on the CRAZY demand for this event.
That being said, I am really interested in hearing feedback on what worked/didn't work, so next year's can be even more awesome than the madness that was this year.
Along with feedback, it's important to have have suggestions. Saying something sucked is OK, but I'd like to see more suggestions on what players would like to see.
Very happy with this thread and the topics so far! :)
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My (I think) one point of feedback:
I felt that the different encounters being divided up by city sector in Part 2 was largely unnecessary.
There were missions for each section of the city, and another group for 'any' section of the city. However, the scenario itself tells you that if your group has done all the missions for the area they are in and all the missions for the 'any area', and the group STILL wants to stay in the same area, then the GM should pull a mission from another district and have it be in the district the players want.
If that is an option, then why bother dividing them up in the first place? Why not just have Missions A-Q or whatever, and allow the players to pick in which district their mission takes place?
It wouldnt change much mechanically, but should cut down a bit on word count.
I could be reading it wrong, though, so if thats the case, then forget I said anything. :)
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I agree. This Special was terrible! It only caused Caubo's character to die once. Granted it was 3 rounds into the first encounter (28 minutes from the start of the event), but still, that's not good enough! MOAR DEATH! MOAR TEARS!
Thursty and I provided you the tools, Kyle. At a certain point, a death-dealing GM can't complain for lack of results. I gave you a <redacted> and a <spoilered> that could <oh my> a <heavens forbid>!
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My entire point here is not that people haven't a right to complain; rather, at least they were fortunate enough to be able to have the special to complain about because they got in and could play. It's about perspective, really, I suppose.Mark
They certainly were lucky to get seated, based on the CRAZY demand for this event.
That being said, I am really interested in hearing feedback on what worked/didn't work, so next year's can be even more awesome than the madness that was this year.
Along with feedback, it's important to have have suggestions. Saying something sucked is OK, but I'd like to see more suggestions on what players would like to see.
Very happy with this thread and the topics so far! :)
I think only the OP thought the special sucked. The Special was the best we've ever had by far, except the final part at some of the tiers.
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I think only the OP thought the special sucked. The Special was the best we've ever had by far, except the final part at some of the tiers.
To be honest, I didn't like the Special very much either. I'd love to see the Grand Convocation make a return. Runecarved Key, though it has its own issues, has better pacing, encounter design, and sense of meaningfulness. Oh, and Runecarved Key has a plot.
This partially comes from my having played Geoff Battle Interactives back in Living Greyhawk. Siege might be a good baby step, but it certainly doesn't "set a new standard of interactivity."
-Matt
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That being said, I am really interested in hearing feedback on what worked/didn't work, so next year's can be even more awesome than the madness that was this year.Along with feedback, it's important to have have suggestions. Saying something sucked is OK, but I'd like to see more suggestions on what players would like to see.
I agree with many of the comments expressed – while most of the interactive was fun, the final act became repetitive and boring. Some thoughts off the top of my head (some stolen from earlier comments, some from my experience with LG interactives [some of which worked, some of which didn’t due to implementation]). Take the suggestions you like, throw out whatever you think won’t work:
1. Change things up – Encounter after encounter of the same thing is just boring. Whether there is an in-game reason for it is irrelevant. Switch things up – make it interesting. Change out monsters, from hordes of smaller foes to one or two ‘mega-foes’. Introduce different tactics (these monsters are trying to cut a hole in the wall, vs those monsters are trying to pick off individual defenders on the wall). Throw in different environments (suddenly an ‘assault tower’ is butted up against the wall – hey, new tactical ‘angle’ introduced!). Even with static ‘defend the site’ encounters, you can still switch things up to make it more interesting.
2. Give choices – Even if it’s either/or choices between encounters, that can make the difference from a generic ‘battle upon battle upon battle’ vs ‘organic battle where your choices make a difference’. Think of an inverted pyramid choice. Defend the upper ramparts vs the lower gate area. Focus on shooting targets at great range (perhaps a horde of demons attacking the wall to the right) vs focusing on supporting a closer battle that is not as lop-sided. Try to keep the choices fairly even in terms of ‘better’ or ‘worse’. When confronted with a choice of doing A. vs B., it shouldn’t always be an obvious right or wrong answer. Perhaps the group is better optimized for one type of problem-solving. With this being said, keep the major changes and choices to a minimum. If you make a totally different encounter option for each choice, you’ll quickly develop more encounters than a DM can realistically prep. Mix minor choices with major ones (on minor choices, one choice might just make a tactical change in what targets you focus on, or give benefits or penalties to only certain types of actions).
3. Give a better view of the big picture – While I like the simplicity of the color system used during the battle interactive, a LITTLE more information could have been given to switch things up a bit. Perhaps information the DMs provided, such as the southwestern portion of the city having more temples vs the northeastern portion having a stronger military presence. Perhaps population numbers could have been projected on the city sections – as time passes, the numbers get reduced based on their color (2000 people in this portion of the city, being reduced by 1 person per minute while yellow, 5 people per minute while orange, etc.). That is more of a system/hardware configuration to work up, though (the system automatically ticks down, like a timer, the lives being lost during the interactive) – you don’t have to worry about it on the small level, but by the end of the interactive, if one side of the city has obviously been reduced to half its numbers, you have a clearer picture of the devastation unleashed there.
4. Help adjoining tables – I liked the one suggestion about nearby tables interacting to a limited degree. With an event so big, having people swap tables is impractical, but having one person lean over and saying ‘a ballista bolt comes flying over into the demon hordes on your side’ is pretty cool. Perhaps you could even set up a system of flags, where if a table is having problems, they could raise the flags (other tables take note, and send more ‘help’ their way). Nothing huge – something small that just nearby tables could see (and you don’t want to obscure the vision of the overseers that are sending scores to the main organizers). For assistance from other tables, perhaps a travelling NPC cleric is sent over to the other table for one-time healing to one PC. Perhaps a player suggests some other aid (“I want to throw a fireball over there/do a mass cure light wounds/etc”), and the DM is told by the other table DM, “They’re sending you level 3 offensive aid/5 healing aid/etc your way.” Of course, the DM will need to explain the assistance in-game, but keep it to a uniform mechanic, so that each table is not having to vary the help wildy based on what is being done. Don’t sweat if the help is a fireball vs lightning bolt (unless, of course, the creatures are totally immune to that type of attack – but the DM can make that call when the players bring it up).
5. Special Missions – Since you had each person every few tables giving hand signals to the people up front, perhaps the hand people could have a few ‘special mission’ options to hand out to tables, either randomly, or at certain timed periods – if those events don’t get completed, that impacts the final results of the event. Not so much that they can’t do their original jobs – the DMs run the special events, but these ‘runners’ perhaps have cards with letters on them (mission A ‘rescue’, mission B ‘containment’, etc.). That might be leaving them juggling too many duties...Just a thought.
evilaustintom
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To be honest, I didn't like the Special very much either. I'd love to see the Grand Convocation make a return.And then all the people complaining about endless waves in the mid-tier would have the exact same problem with the low-tier. :) I ran the GC last year, and it was pure chaos.
I think the difference is that in the low-tier the players have to manage the siege weapons and protect the crew. Siege weapons are new-ish enough that it can keep the interest of the table.
My table really didn't like the whole help the wounded thing. If I didn't have a paladin at the table they all would have just let them die. As it was the paladin healed up everyone with the help of a familiar with a wand and the rest of the party sat in the center and waited for a demon to arrive.
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I think the difference is that in the low-tier the players have to manage the siege weapons and protect the crew. Siege weapons are new-ish enough that it can keep the interest of the table.
Not in the Grand Convocation. Then it was 'protect these NPCs from the enemy until the high-tier guys finish their mission'. So they had to deal with endless waves of the same old enemies for the entire final battle.
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Not in the Grand Convocation. Then it was 'protect these NPCs from the enemy until the high-tier guys finish their mission'. So they had to deal with endless waves of the same old enemies for the entire final battle.
Ohhhhh, that. I had totally forgotten about that silly and unnecessary fight scene at the end there. I didn't even count it as a part of the Convocation. Oops.
-Matt