TOPIC: Don't understand how stats work apparently

Did Odin's Haven this year as my second full fledged dungeon. Our group was all RPG players although we were down to 7. I got some extra tokens to power my monk up, so much so the guy doing the character sheets said it was the most he'd seen. Basically I got my AC up +5, a necklace that damages things that hit me, and immunity to cold in addition to +3 dex, and some utility stuff.

I got hit every single time something tried to hit me. I don't understand what AC does... Also, why have immunity to cold if a 'different' kind of cold still does damage? I'm missing the rule book I need to build a useful character. I read the players handbook already too.

Also, the room with the Giants seemed to be just a if you have this high of a DPS you can pass or else its a party wipe kind of room. It would have been better for us to be really slow with our turns so we just failed and took the room damage as opposed to more than half the party dying.

I'm looking for help on what I did wrong so I can do better next time, sorry if it comes off as a little negative.

AC works just like in Dungeons and Dragons. Monsters have to hit bonuses that get added to D20 roll.
Given their limited armor choices, monks are among the easiest class to hit.

Without knowing more I cant say what happened.

As for the giants, the first key is to focus on one of them. If your team didn't do that, it can be quite rough.

I'm sorry you were frustrated. Know that Monk is a great class to play, and they can do a lot of damage. You do need either a cleric, druid or paladin nearby though.

From my notes on monster stats (which I've taken from reading the forums, I have no inside information) , when playing on normal difficulty, the average monster has +6 to hit. So if the DM rolls a 10 on the d20, the average monster will hit AC 16.

Now, some (many) monsters actually cause save checks instead of direct attacks against your AC. In this case, you might need to make a save of a particular type. Lets say its a reflex save - the DM in the room will roll a d20, and add your save to it, and compare against a target. The average normal save, again per my notes, is a 16 - so if you have a reflex save of +6, the DM needs to roll a 10 or better for you to pass the save check.

I hope that helps a little, if not, I can try to explain in another way.

Were you on Normal or a higher difficulty? For your second dungeon, I'm going to assume for the moment that you were on Normal.

Even on Normal though, the Giants really require a combat party that is working together.

As Wade mentioned, you need to focus on taking one down first rather than tackling both at the same time.

Did you have a Bard? Were they constantly singing and providing bonuses to the party?

Did you have a Cleric? Did they cast Prayer/Bless to boost the party?

Were low damage dealers trying to help high damage dealers pucks get nudged onto hits?



Also, there's always the chance that you and your team just did nothing wrong, and the randomness of the dice caused the monster to hit way more often than you'd expect. Sometimes that just happens.

Oh, and weclome to the forum, Ken!

All of us understand the RPG numbers game so we were focused on one first, but the bard couldn't make it this year and the cleric was running out of heals fast as every turn the giants picked up two people and threw them at 2 others for 20 total damage in addition to the cold damage for anyone that succeeded on hitting them. The room with the troll and dragon before the giants made sure we had spent all our healing potions earlier as it was blanket room damage. Just really felt like the adventure was designed specifically like a gear gate or something and had nothing to do with our skills.

Thanks for the welcome.

Maybe I need to dump AC for reflex saves or something. I assumes an increased dex would benefit saves in some way, but without a rule book of some sort there is no way to know.

Ken Milam wrote: All of us understand the RPG numbers game so we were focused on one first, but the bard couldn't make it this year and the cleric was running out of heals fast as every turn the giants picked up two people and threw them at 2 others for 20 total damage in addition to the cold damage for anyone that succeeded on hitting them. The room with the troll and dragon before the giants made sure we had spent all our healing potions earlier as it was blanket room damage. Just really felt like the adventure was designed specifically like a gear gate or something and had nothing to do with our skills.

Thanks for the welcome.

Maybe I need to dump AC for reflex saves or something. I assumes an increased dex would benefit saves in some way, but without a rule book of some sort there is no way to know.

Even dex numbers add +1 reflex save
Even Con numbers add +1 fort save
Even Wisdom numbers add +1 will save.

*Edit*
Saves, and a bunch of other things are covered in the players handbook:
truedungeon.com/resources/item/100-players-handbook

The cold damage... Yeah... About that...

It is possible that ought to have toned that down a bit for this convention. Players at other conventions had a higher likelihood of being prepared for that.

Welcome Ken

Those giants can be rough. Even on nitemare if the slides don't go your way and the dice is hot for the dm that encounter can claim a few lives. It's a real exciting challenge to finish off the combat portion of N2.

it seems as though you were down a few key players. A couple of my runs in odens haven came down to party balance and everyone firing on all cylinders. Some of the fights give a lean to ranged (which I know is hard for a monk) I believe that fight was one of them.

Did anyone try to break out the prisoner?


In a light note 20 dmg and all from a toss is no joke but be glad a giant didn't pick up your retribution paladin and toss him at you. I remember wade trying to encourage the dm to give me another 20+ damage from him being spikey!

my motto is party wipes just lead to good stories

I dont know what you're talking about.

Also, party balance is key. Missing a bard and cleric is a big issue.

I played with one other experienced player and 6 new players on N1 today. I thought with me as bard and her as cleric we could handle hardcore. I was SORELY mistaken, despite me leveling them to 5th and giving 10 extra HP each.

That cold damage.

Pretty annoying for someone packing all the right gear, most of which is the result of years of work and expediture of significant cash to be told “it’s a special kind of cold.”

Maybe the tone down of eldritch healing and the LoDS will lower the need for this sort of thing in the future.

Harlax wrote: That cold damage.

Pretty annoying for someone packing all the right gear, most of which is the result of years of work and expediture of significant cash to be told “it’s a special kind of cold.”

Maybe the tone down of eldritch healing and the LoDS will lower the need for this sort of thing in the future.

I’m with you on that special kind of cold thing. I noticed they stopped saying later in the con. I do understand Icecrag Hero’s Earcuff cause some design issues with cold damage, but to me cap of the north should cover all non magical cold damage, and Icecrag should cover everything else. Basically I think of all the special damage types to be magic effects except poison maybe. And normal cold or normal fire could be avoided with something with a common with a discrimination similar to what cap of the north says