TOPIC: It's time to eliminate the 3rd level player bonus

MasterED wrote:

Milambus (Jake) wrote:

MasterED wrote: I know this has been discussed numerous times. Not sure if this idea has been thrown out before or not. Just putting it down and seeing the reaction.

Players can enter the coaching area prior to the start time by whatever admin allows (10m/30m/etc). At the start time of the ticketed event the coach arrives and any players in the room now get to pick their classes. It goes like this.

The coach goes down the party card in order asking if anyone wants to play that class. If only one person wants that class then they get it. If more than 1 then roll off (high roll wins - continue until there is no tie). After this initial round the remaining classes are chosen as the players arrive late and there is no roll off needed (order of arrival). They are not allowed to "challenge" a previously chosen class. If they want the opportunity to pick/roll for their class they will arrive early.

If a player arrives during the coach/class selection they must wait until the process is finished and if they were the first late arrival they will pick first from the remaining classes.

Thoughts?

Ed

Possible problem:
I want to play Monk, and so does someone else so we roll off. I lose, so now I want to play my secondary choice of Fighter but because it comes first alphabetically someone else chose it.

So that is the breaks by the alphabet. You need to decide that before - no going back. At least you know the rules going in and no surprises.

Ed

This sounds good in theory but it'll simply take too long. The faster players pick their class the smoother coaching goes. 95% of the time it is already first-come-first-served and people respect that, even though it's not a rule and technically they could request a roll. In my 3 years coaching I have never had someone request a roll. I know it does happen but it's rare. If we had a 5 minute class selection process every run there wouldn't be enough time for people to build their characters, trade tokens, and record stats.

Much faster to just make it first-come-first-served officially, which as Kirk pointed out would also encourage early arrival.

Do away with the 3rd level benefit.

When the official start time is hit, officially class selection should begin. That doesn't mean it can't be worked out prior to the start time, but I would consider nothing binding until then (for groups where this is even an issue).

While I have a general inclination towards least experienced players choosing first, the particulars are going to be so varied that I could see situations where that also doesn't make sense.

Buying out runs is not the end all and be all solution to problems - some people don't get that option, some people can't afford that option, many many people don't organize here or elsewhere and no nothing but the PUG model of play.

MasterED wrote: I know this has been discussed numerous times. Not sure if this idea has been thrown out before or not. Just putting it down and seeing the reaction.

Players can enter the coaching area prior to the start time by whatever admin allows (10m/30m/etc). At the start time of the ticketed event the coach arrives and any players in the room now get to pick their classes. It goes like this.

The coach goes down the party card in order asking if anyone wants to play that class. If only one person wants that class then they get it. If more than 1 then roll off (high roll wins - continue until there is no tie). After this initial round the remaining classes are chosen as the players arrive late and there is no roll off needed (order of arrival). They are not allowed to "challenge" a previously chosen class. If they want the opportunity to pick/roll for their class they will arrive early.

If a player arrives during the coach/class selection they must wait until the process is finished and if they were the first late arrival they will pick first from the remaining classes.

Thoughts?

Ed

I think this procedure would work- but it seems to legalistic to me.

Actually - I do see a problem: what happens when all 10 players want to play first choice ranger, second choice monk?

Seems like this procedure could need to take several passes down the list.

Also opens weird stuff like I say I want ranger cause my buddy does too and then we trade.

I think it’s better to have it be: figure it out among yourselves, if you can’t, the coach will roll you off. Rather than a top down procedure that must be administered by the coach.

If we’re going too down, I might suggest this instead:

Coach comes in, each player gets a playing card randomly numbered 1 to 10.

Then you pick classes in the order on the card.

This eliminates the weirdness of alphabetical choice order.

In over 10 years of playing TD, I can count the number of times I've seen a class choice conflict on one hand... and I'll still have two fingers left over. Is this even an issue?

Conversely, there another issue seems to impact many more new players; bag check. As someone who regularly uses the bag check, I saw dozens of new players feeling bad because they didn't want to carry their purchase-loaded bags through the dungeon and were turned away.

SnakeEyes (Eric) wrote: Conversely, there another issue seems to impact many more new players; bag check. As someone who regularly uses the bag check, I saw dozens of new players feeling bad because they didn't want to carry their purchase-loaded bags through the dungeon and were turned away.

Not saying this is or is not a valid concern but can it be discussed in different thread, please?

Thought I’d share our story since this happened to my group this year.

Finally got two of our other friends to join us for TD this year at gen con and spent some time figuring out what class he’d want to try to go for if he could get it cause I explained to him how it is kind of first come first serve. He wanted wizard. First run we got there late so he understood he wouldn’t be able to get wizard. But the second run we got there 30 minutes early. He was able to get wizard. 9 out of 10 were in the room and had our builds already out when the last guy came in and pulled rank. It was done in a really rude way and left a really bad taste in our mouth as he was already on the fence about TD with how bad our luck was during the first run. That almost sealed the deal if it wasn’t for him picking up ranger instead and having picked up a blunder cannon the day before when we hit the token shops.

The situation ended well in the end though. Same party by luck during the third run and they squashed it and became buddies.

But I’m in the boat that the 3rd level bonus does need to be changed.

Whatever happens please don’t create/lobby for a time consuming roll off process that we have to adjudicate at the start of coaching. To be frank, we just won’t have time to pull it off. Sure it only takes a moment but it’s a death of a thousand cuts type scenario and we are just about there.
Tokens have gotten a lot more complicated over the last few years with all the +/- stuff being used to balance power at rare/uncommon/common rarities. Most of the players using tokens of those rarities do not use the app. And thanks to player merchants most of them have kits now. Add to that the fact that this year alone we were asked to track who was level 5 (circle it), who was new (put a star on them), and to total and record starting HPs (something players largely used to do themselves), and get coach coordinator sign off on last second treasure changes and there is literally no more time left in coaching. I can’t speak for others but I’ve been doing this for years now with no problem and I was hitting time on every other room this year.

That said I would be 100% ok with just losing the 3rd level benefit and going 100% to the roll off method if people can’t agree on what to play. I just want to try and avoid potentially adjudicating 10 players all the time in the rare cases where 2 players have an unresolvable issue.

If it were me I would re-vamp the player level system as follows.
Lv 1 nothing since that’s where you start.
Lv 2 Ability play in grind events
Lv 3 Access to a coaching clue/rumor (something small and quick we could pass on like, yes fire resist will be relevant in this run. Or don’t trust Maggie…)
Lv 4 A onetime voucher (business card) to play a Ro7p alt class once
Lv 5 L&L form access.
Lv 6 Medallion of nobility token with +1 treasure/requires 6th level/(slotless) printed on it.
Lv 7+ same as today’s world

Picc wrote: That said I would be 100% ok with just losing the 3rd level benefit and going 100% to the roll off method if people can’t agree on what to play. I just want to try and avoid potentially adjudicating 10 players all the time in the rare cases where 2 players have an unresolvable issue.

I think the first time you change the rules coaches would have to "steer" the players but after the rule is changed I am sure they can run with the process. It doesn't need a coach to do it just a coach to come in and say start the selection process.

Ed

PS - The fifth level and hp was a 1 time request. It will not be needed for future conventions.

MasterED wrote: PS - The fifth level and hp was a 1 time request. It will not be needed for future conventions.

You say that now, and I hope you're right but we shall see.

Picc wrote:

MasterED wrote: PS - The fifth level and hp was a 1 time request. It will not be needed for future conventions.

You say that now, and I hope you're right but we shall see.

Well the cards will be redesigned. I can't say what will happen but those two stats aren't really needed for the cards (just for the data to help balance the modules).

Ed

MasterED wrote: Well the cards will be redesigned. I can't say what will happen but those two stats aren't really needed for the cards (just for the data to help balance the modules).

Ed

Since you and I discussed this I think you actually cannot limit it to a one time thing. You will have 1 data point really. I think you need a couple years worth of data so you can also see if there is a trend vs just a snapshot of 2019. Just saying more data is good....lol.

I think most of us agree on the setiment here - let's try to prevent hard feelings when someone dosen't get the class that they wanted.

Will a formalized system prevent hard feelings? I don't know. Jerks will still be jerks. People will still choose to get offended, wether or not it was "fair".

Being a Coach this year, I did see class contention a couple of times, but rank was never pulled, nor was the dice used. But just having that 3rd level rule in place "smells of" elitism.

Weird thought -- why not have 2 of the same class? Would it really break things that badly? Maybe dis-incentivize it so both players take a penalty, like -5hp?