The Countdown: Any Adjustments Needed?

[HelloYesThisIsDM]

Greetings,

My group is about to start Book 6 this week, and I'm making a lot of adjustments to it.

One of the things I'm looking at is the Apocalypse Clock. It seems way too generous for what the PCs actually have to accomplish. I was initially thinking about reducing the time down to 3 days, but now I'm also thinking about removing some of the Turning Back The Clock options as well.

Has anyone had experience with this? Both using the countdown as-is and making adjustments to it?

Thanks!

[magnuskn]

I removed all the turning back the clock options. They aced it in three days, and two of those were spent selling loot and buying a few more pieces of equipment in Alushynirra. Your impresssion is correct, the timer is way too generous.

[HelloYesThisIsDM]

magnuskn wrote:

I removed all the turning back the clock options. They aced it in three days, and two of those were spent selling loot and buying a few more pieces of equipment in Alushynirra. Your impresssion is correct, the timer is way too generous.

Thanks for the response! Yeah, I was looking at it like "Uh... my party could clear the entire book in 24 hours at this point..."

I think giving them five days would simply tell them "Oh hey, you've got a few days free to just hang out and sell loot and stuff."

Maybe I'll go down to 2 days, and eliminate the Turning Back The Clock options. That sounds closer to a fair timeline knowing my party.

[magnuskn]

That would be my recommendation, yes. :)

[Bellona]

Out of curiosity, would the same advice apply to a non-Mythic group?

[magnuskn]

Difficult to say, since the difference in power potential will be significant. It will depend on how difficult the actual battles are, i.e. how much resources the party needs to expend. In mythic gameplay, recovering resources at that point is trivial, aside from mythic power (and even there you get a variety of extra options). If you have to deal with the normal recovery cycle, things could be more protracted.

[grandpoobah]

I'm running non-mythic and about to start book 5. I hadn't thought about the clock yet.

I've found my party can do pretty well on tight resource.

They can use Nap Stack once (1/week), that buys you a free "rest"

Plus I modified the Ambrosia item for non-mythic as being able to recharge any single class feature, spell slot, or non-consumable magic item. They've used it twice to recharge the Clerics Channel Vs. Evil Outsiders, and plan on building a utility staff they can recharge. I've controlled access to Ambrosia (they only get it when I hand it out, they've only found 8 doses ever).

I've also "punished" my players for resting in the abyss (taking away uses of class features and spell slots), by limiting their connection to their deity. That won't be a factor in Chapter 6 though.

I'm thinking of eliminating the turn back the clock options as recommended, but keeping the original timeline. If I see my players struggle in book 5, I might relax that.