Convention Time Again!

[Raganui Minamoto]

Ah, was it?

anyways, Rain, you should poke the next guy who does something stupid in the eye with a sharp stick.  

[Plainsfox]

I don't wanna go blind! ><  

[SporkMaster5000]

Dion Necurat

Rain Yupa

We learned how utterly stupid the Character Builder can be when done randomly. There were a bunch of powers that didn't make much sense. He was being clever and used his Master of Flame PP utility power which turned him into living flame, rending most of the Gold Dragon Construct's attacks useless against it. However, he can only make fire attacks against it in that form, and he had no fire powers beyond what he got from that PP. He was apparently a lightning/storm sorcerer, but his only lightning/storm powers were his at-wills. What?

Wait a minute; he built a storm sorcerer and used FIRE? The hell?

no, he didn't. the character builder randomly generated it and I'm guessing the DM who brought it as a pregen didn't bother double checking.

Note my fellow players: just because a program can make perfectly legal characters does not mean it will make perfectly competent ones.  

[Rain Yupa]

Exactly what Spork just said.

Though those who used the Character Generator for their own characters they brought in didn't do a good job either. Nothing BROKEN, but they didn't know what their own characters did, for the most part. There were a few who did know what they were doing, but not all.

And yes, they're all experienced in 4e. The Wizard Summoner liked to use all his summons in the first battle, then kept wanting an extended rest after each one, for instance.  

[SporkMaster5000]

Rain Yupa

Exactly what Spork just said.

Though those who used the Character Generator for their own characters they brought in didn't do a good job either. Nothing BROKEN, but they didn't know what their own characters did, for the most part. There were a few who did know what they were doing, but not all.

I'm not a fan of the character builder's character sheet, when you actually print it out. especially since you can't rearrange where everything is on it since they made it online only. I can understand being a little confused looking at it, especially if they just made the characters for the convention

Quote:

And yes, they're all experienced in 4e. The Wizard Summoner liked to use all his summons in the first battle, then kept wanting an extended rest after each one, for instance.

that's just being a dipshit and an annoying player. i guess you roll the dice (no pun intended) with random groups like that.  

[Rain Yupa]

Plainsfox

Well, at least you know now he's a literal GM. Do you have any other games with this GM, Rain?

All 6 games I played in were part of a six-part chronicle. It wasn't mandatory to play all, you could play one or two, no matter the order. But there were 4 'sets' of games being run; one, with the DM that I played under the last two years; one, using the Essentials line, which I wouldn't mind playing in once to see what its like but I'm not a very big fan of; one, an ongoing Living Forgotten Realms campaign as part of some group I'm not part of; and some run by the people who organized the convention, but I've played their games before and they do a REALLY bad job (they railroad the plot, and basically run your character for you if you don't do actions that further the plot).

So Essentials would have been my second choice, but I stuck with my first, with my IRL group half-deciding that they want nothing to do with 4e.

Dion Necurat

Wait a minute; he built a storm sorcerer and used FIRE? The hell?

I guess it was something the Character Builder cooked up? I'm not entirely sure. I had offered my Invoker to be used, but the player didn't want to take a minute to learn my system (which was everything was on index cards, including a power's attack bonus, damage bonus, and effects with modifiers already calculated; red for encounter, blue for daily, purple for feats, green for at-wills, yellow for class/path/destiny features). When you use it, put it aside if its not an at-will or feat or anything. After combat, take back all the cards that weren't blue. Sounds simple to me stare  

[Rain Yupa]

Game #5: This time, we traveled up the mountain to the ruins of an old institution for education. This former college studied everything: Magic, science, philosophy, mathematics, astrology, etc etc etc. Supposedly, there were tablets that were formally kept there and lost to time, and these tablets were needed for a ritual that would sever the forces of Zehir from this world, banishing his servants to whence they came.

However, as we arrived, our first encounter was a Hydra from the Essentials Monster Vault (one that does 3d12 damage per hit, and adds another head to attack with every 25% HP it looses). It kicked our butts (often bringing one player to 25% HP or below in a single round). Took our the Cleric in round 2, and the Warlock/Battlemind Hybrid and my Invoker were stalling it as long as we could. The summoner blew his wad like previous games, though this time I think we needed it.

Eventually, SOMEHOW, we managed to best it. The forces of Zehir moved to capture us, and we were swept away by the winds of time. We got to visit (randomly) the college through different points in time, eventually recovering the tablets we needed to resolve the overlaying problem. There was only time for one more encounter, but it went a LOT better than the previous one (we had to recover a painting with a Tiefling's soul in it to empower the tablets or something to that effect).

All in all, a decent game in terms of how well we worked together though. I think that Hydra was a bit too powerful though, making me concerned about what else Essentials might have in it. Definitely a strike against allowing anything from Essentials in any of my games.  

[Rain Yupa]

Game #6: This one was the one that would connect all the previous games together; though afterwards, I say that it only connected 3 of them. The Golden Skull game really never got touched upon (in a previous one, we had seen the future and saw that it got captured; that fight was pretty much a waste of time as the Fang Titan Drake stunned us all in round 1, monsters pinned us in the corner, and one ran up to the other side of the room, grabbed the skull, and ran out the door with it, ending the encounter). It was suggested that it MIGHT have been touched upon if we had not failed, but I don't see how we could have NOT failed.

Demon Graveyard also only got a brief mention, because as the game started off, the different planes/times intersected our present and we were whisked away to a bunch of different situations and times. The first one was into a barren wasteland to confront Orcus (level 33 solo brute vs three level 25 PCs). Basically, each round we had a chance to be whisked away to a different time, or perhaps be forced to delay until another round.

Orcus had just enough time to bring me (the warlord) to 0 hp, and partially wound the Fighter, blaming us for the Demon Graveyard gate destruction (the one with the kamikaze ranger). Then we began to jump between times, visiting (randomly) scenes from our previous games. There was also a battle in prehistoric times against 3 T-Rexes that had absolutely nothing to do with the plot. There was one battle against Battlesworn of Gruumsh trying to kill the Mithral Dragon. The whole game was so quick-paced, there was no time for a short rest, since we were only in each time for 10-60 seconds.

We were supposed to piece together clues from the different times, and in one time period, we had the ability to choose where when we went next. When visiting the Mithral Dragon when it was aged from our first meeting and had our family, we found out that its family line was tasked with carrying on a ritual that was needed to avert such a disaster like we were experiencing, but it needed the aid of two Tieflings. I directed our mission to go to the temple of zehir from Game #1 and to the ruins of the college in Game #5 to bring both Tieflings together, and they were able to join forces and create a new ritual tablet along with the dragon that would stop the different timelines from tearing the world apart.

We ended up bumping into Orcus 2 other times. The first one, I double-ran in my first turn as far away from him as possible. The fighter still pressed on, and I was forced to heal the heck out of him upon our next time shift.

The final time, the goblin sorcerer (same player as the summoner) hit Orcus with a Prismatic Bolt, getting Violet as the result (PHB2, p151). Though he missed, he still dominated Orcus for a round. The command he gave? Drop the Wand of Orcus. The goblin sorcerer then double moved forward, grabbed the wand, and survived the melee attack from Orcus (natural 1 for one of the attacks helped). By the time we time shifted again, he had the Wand of Orcus still in his possession >_>'

That was toward the very end of the session, so he got to hold on to it, thought he Fighter and I distanced ourselves from him in case Orcus came looking for his wand. But I think Sporkmaster will enjoy that ending.

All in all, my suspicions that the DM had thought out the storyline well but didn't take into account the effects of having each mission (done NOT in chronological order) changing the timestream. When he asked us our thoughts on it, I had advised him to perhaps do them in Chronological order, but then have the final mission be the one that jumps around and have the possibility of altering things.

All in all, a nice break from my lack of IRL 4e. Combats would have run smoother if the Summoner/Sorcerer player actually didn't stop to piece together what his character did every time his initiative came around. And even with the sorcerer, this is a character he uses in his weekly game, so its not like its a stranger to him or anything. In IRL games, it definitely makes me value picking my actions for my next turn while I wait for my initiative to come around again, rather than hold everyone else up.  

[SporkMaster5000]

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I think that Hydra was a bit too powerful though, making me concerned about what else Essentials might have in it. Definitely a strike against allowing anything from Essentials in any of my games.

essentials monsters are following the design philosophy of MM3, where monsters generally do more damage, but take less to kill. particularly solos/elites. it sounds like the hydra was a solo, which is supposed to be very deadly, in order to take on five guys at a time. i don't know if your DM was maybe ripping into one person when an ability was more appropriate to fend off several, or if it was just a bit too high level for you guys, but I think the "oh god we're gonna die" feel of it was intentional, especially since you beat it.  

[Rain Yupa]

All Hydras are solos.

It was four level 11 PCs, vs whatever level solo the Hydra was (knowing Brad like I do, it was higher than 11). Yes, it ripped into characters/summoned creatures something fierce. A lot of criticals got thrown around, which did 36 damage a pop (in addition to the damage from further attacks), and all of us had less than 80 hp, I think.

I didn't think we WOULDN'T beat it, but I wouldn't have been surprised if we didn't either. I think if I had played my Warlord instead, we WOULD have lost, cause the melee characters went down like punks. We stalled it with every stalling power/item we had. I think we could have gone another round or two, but no more than that.

The only two battles I knew we had no chance was the Orcus battle, and the Golden Skull abduction battle.