Long long break
by Denise Sawicki on July 14, 2008
Well I think I have to devote all my game energy to D&D for a long time because it's terribly complicated and not think about Rock Block at all for a while... Sorry I felt the need to check the card exchange anyhow... I hope when I traded a couple cards lately that people were satisfied with the outcome... I just figured if they were putting the cards up for trade it means they don't want that card anyhow...
I dunno... D&D is like work... the rules seem so vague and convoluted, there's different ways to interpret things and it seems like most things you do at level 1 are bound to fail. As a test, I picked a level 1 monster at random to have Darrell fight by himself. It was a dire rat, and as it turns out it gives you a terrible disease which would be utterly impossible for Darrell to recover from based on saving throws because he didn't have any bonus to endurance and they want you to throw a 21 in order to get better. Sorry but the dice has only 20 sides, so if we were considering this as a real part of the game he would be afflicted for life and utterly worthless for combat unless he somehow came up with the 500 gold or so required for the cure disease ritual (which, by the way, can kill you if you roll the wrong number. :P ) Quite a few of the other level 1 monsters also have terrible special attacks. Why can't they have any actual easy monsters? They do have "minions", which have only 1 hit point each, so I might have to throw a bunch of those at him until we figure out something better to do, but that's kind of stupid. Darrin made a character now also who has a decent healing skill so with Darrin's character as a buddy it wouldn't be *impossible* for Darrell to recover from the disease, just not all that likely... It's all a big game of statistics and the odds just are not very favorable...
Three Replies to Long long break
Denise Sawicki | July 14, 2008
Thanks for all your help by the way... I hope I have not made you feel obligated to keep giving advice :). The DM guide said that having the same number and level of monsters as the number of PCs is a good idea for a moderate challenge. (The same number of monsters at one level *greater* than your party's level is also supposed to be a moderate challenge, and not a hard one. You are supposed to go 2 to 4 levels higher to get a hard challenge)...
I'm going to be sticking to those humanoid type enemies for a while since they don't seem to have as many crazy powers. I will also have no more than 1 level 1 monster per battle, against 2 PCs. If that fails miserably, I am going to attempt to hand off DM duty to someone else.
There's 4 different battle roles that are supposed to be covered in your party, so perhaps 2 players fighting 2 monsters is going to be (a lot?) harder than 4 players fighting 4 monsters. We followed the very limited advice that was given for a smaller party. (If using 2 characters, use a leader and a striker) We followed the advice on what skills and stats to give them, which is how Darrell wound up without anything spectacular in terms of constitution or endurance. The books are almost entirely written with a party of 5 players in mind, though. Another future option is for both guys to take on multiple personalities and start controlling 2 characters a piece... as though things need to be even slower and more confusing :)
I think we are just supposed to have more friends if we want to play this game. I can't understand how there's a stereotype of "losers" playing D&D. Clearly these are people with at least 4 friends, so they can't be losers :P
Scott Hardie | July 15, 2008
Depending on the character and the situation, there are often bonuses to certain rolls. You could roll a 21 on a single D20 if you had, say, +5 to save vs. disease, or something to that effect. Sorry, I coudn't begin to tell you where to look it up. :-)
Rock Block will be waiting for you whenever you feel like playing. Keep checking the Exchange, and don't be afraid to play every three weeks just to stay eligible for a free card. That definitively means you've earned one.
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Aaron Shurtleff | July 14, 2008
Well, now, (keeping in mind I haven't seen version 4.0 yet) I think that (if things haven't changed since 3.5) a monster with a challenge rating of 1 should be a good challenge for a party of four characters of level 1, so just one character alone would have a hard time. Of course, that could all be out the window now, and what do I know. Usually goblins and kobolds are good monsters for early characters. Or, heck, just have evil humans! You make them like characters, so you know they have to be about the same as the characters.
Yeah, odds are against you early on, but at later levels, things can start to get really easy for characters, depending on situations.
Sorry to hear you might be taking time off from RB. We'll all still be here when you come back! :)