TOPIC: my experience... not good

Lodestone (KH) wrote: I had a wicked idea on resistances though. Especially in the planes I can see some things getting flipped around. Sort of like how the undead cow would took damage from healing. Especially if it's random a bit, like for one room or a certain monster that takes a (randomly-determined at the beginning of the encounter) resistance and flips it to a bonus damage from that type instead. So a -3 cold resistance could add up to 3 damage if you are attacked with cold. So 1 cold becomes 2, 2 becomes 4, 3 becomes 6, but 4 would be 7. While it could be a trickier than normal thing, it should work fine on a monster that is otherwise a bit easier (AC or HP -wise). I think it would be interesting in that if we knew it might happen, would we wear that same resistance gear?

I'm a fan of playing with mechanics and flipping them on their head, but the only way I'd suggest this kind of thing would be if there was another room that very clearly rewarded players with resistances. Thinking of it in game terms, if I'm going to make someone think "aw man, I paid good money for this and it's actively hurting me", I'd want them to immediately follow with "oh man I'm so glad I had these, even if it was a problem last room, at least here it's great and useful!"

It's said that people won't necessarily remember what you said or did, but they will remember how you made them feel, and we'd want to make player feel like their tokens mattered. I'd be very, very careful with making them feel like they were being actively penalized based on their choices. "You mean I paid $XY for this token and because of that I'm dead?!" is not a conversation any DM or AC wants to have with someone.

Forar wrote: And if we're tuning dungeons based on a few high power players, 1) that's self defeating

Nightmare is tuned to high-power players. Normal difficulty is not.

Druegar wrote:

Forar wrote: And if we're tuning dungeons based on a few high power players, 1) that's self defeating

Nightmare is tuned to high-power players. Normal difficulty is not.

That was my assumption. So it seems like a mechanic that should work fine in Normal and Hardcore.

Nightmare may need additional fiddling, but they're already the extreme example.

Forar wrote:

Druegar wrote:

Forar wrote: And if we're tuning dungeons based on a few high power players, 1) that's self defeating

Nightmare is tuned to high-power players. Normal difficulty is not.

That was my assumption. So it seems like a mechanic that should work fine in Normal and Hardcore.

Nightmare may need additional fiddling, but they're already the extreme example.

For those who want an added challenge, play Nightmare-plus-X

Choose your own X, and then write out your own party card. For whatever your chosen X, for each player:
- subtract X from "to hit"
- subtract X from saves
- subtract 2-times-X from AC

Anytime the DM says to take damage, take X more.
Then when combat starts, ask the DM to give the monster an extra 25-times-X hit points.

Wonder what the largest value of X would be that didn't result in TPK.

I think the challenge mode idea is a real good one. We could even have a hall of heroes leader-board with the current max X posted along with the names of those who managed this great feat, or even the top 3 groups per dungeon.

This will give people a significant reason to play the hardest mode. Should bring the monsters in earlier rooms more into play for fatality.

It puts competition on the high end, where it belongs.

Assuming Nightmare difficulty doesn't change I would want to try -5 To Hit, -5 AC, and monsters (not puzzles) do double damage.

Ed

Changing hit and damage statistics is a lot less interesting than adding challenging surprises and complexities to the rooms.

I would play the absolute highest difficulty every time if it made me think more, but making me slide better is not adequate incentive.

Example: In 2007, the beholder was in the higher difficulty dungeon level. In the easier difficulty level, it was not there. I regretted missing the beholder. If the difference simply had been that the monster has better hit and damage stats in the higher difficulty dungeon, ho hum, not worth the trouble, to me at least.

The problem with current TD is too much emphasis on buying tokens to change player statistics to score higher, and the monsters needing commensurate and often unbalanced compensatory mechanisms to keep up.

Disbeeleaf wrote: Changing hit and damage statistics is a lot less interesting than adding challenging surprises and complexities to the rooms.

I agree with you but I understood the premise is there won't be an Epic level difficulty added to True Dungeon (like True Grind) so we are left to challenge ourselves.

Ed

Disbeeleaf wrote: Changing hit and damage statistics is a lot less interesting than adding challenging surprises and complexities to the rooms.

Agreed, and I think that's exactly why so many of us enjoy Grind.

MasterED wrote:

Disbeeleaf wrote: Changing hit and damage statistics is a lot less interesting than adding challenging surprises and complexities to the rooms.

I agree with you but I understood the premise is there won't be an Epic level difficulty added to True Dungeon (like True Grind) so we are left to challenge ourselves.

Ed

That's where I was coming from, Ed.

Look at the modules from the last few years. In the majority of rooms, the only difference between Normal, Hardcore, and Nightmare was the stats or the damage from a fail.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

MasterED wrote:

Disbeeleaf wrote: Changing hit and damage statistics is a lot less interesting than adding challenging surprises and complexities to the rooms.

I agree with you but I understood the premise is there won't be an Epic level difficulty added to True Dungeon (like True Grind) so we are left to challenge ourselves.

Ed

That's where I was coming from, Ed.

Look at the modules from the last few years. In the majority of rooms, the only difference between Normal, Hardcore, and Nightmare was the stats or the damage from a fail.

That's probably the easiest solution for the DMs, so they don't have to memorize major differences for different difficulty levels.

One of the original complaints given was the loss of a treasure pull.

Has anybody read the planned changes for 2016? On change is that there are no more treasure rooms or stamps. Everybody gets 3 treasures at the end, which can still be modified.

Also, there are hints that it will be easier to contact Adventure Coordinators, so it looks like the complaints are being heard.