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On August 05 2013 18:05 Noocta wrote:
I seriously wonder how the party could even die at this point. They can roll really badly, but a TPK is like impossible with how powerful Bregor is.
His character is so overpowered it's amazing.
If neal had the guts to actually kill them they would die instantly to something like a lich (not even counting demi liches) or just a powerful mage. Chance is that dalamar for example would instantly kill the whole group.
You can create some impossible encounters if you want to, even with only a single enemy (i dont think they would be able to handle a single iron golem, or any golem for that matter).
Even if the party´s levels get out of hand (20+, which is just absurd, thats like demi human strength) you can still kill them rather easily if you really want to.
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On August 05 2013 19:43 gh0un wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 18:05 Noocta wrote:
I seriously wonder how the party could even die at this point. They can roll really badly, but a TPK is like impossible with how powerful Bregor is.
His character is so overpowered it's amazing.
If neal had the guts to actually kill them they would die instantly to something like a lich (not even counting demi liches) or just a powerful mage. Chance is that dalamar for example would instantly kill the whole group. You can create some impossible encounters if you want to, even with only a single enemy (i dont think they would be able to handle a single iron golem, or any golem for that matter). Even if the parties levels get out of hand (20+, which is just absurd, thats like demi human strength) you can still kill them rather easily if you really want to.
It just feel like, everytime Neal try to set up a good challenge, the party get lucky / the monsters get very unlucky.
The bad situations come from very standard encounters that goes wrong because of bad series of rolls ( like against the guards ) and less because of the strength of their foes.
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On August 05 2013 20:18 Noocta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 19:43 gh0un wrote:On August 05 2013 18:05 Noocta wrote:
I seriously wonder how the party could even die at this point. They can roll really badly, but a TPK is like impossible with how powerful Bregor is.
His character is so overpowered it's amazing.
If neal had the guts to actually kill them they would die instantly to something like a lich (not even counting demi liches) or just a powerful mage. Chance is that dalamar for example would instantly kill the whole group. You can create some impossible encounters if you want to, even with only a single enemy (i dont think they would be able to handle a single iron golem, or any golem for that matter). Even if the parties levels get out of hand (20+, which is just absurd, thats like demi human strength) you can still kill them rather easily if you really want to. It just feel like, everytime Neal try to set up a good challenge, the party get lucky / the monsters get very unlucky. The bad situations come from very standard encounters that goes wrong because of bad series of rolls ( like against the guards ) and less because of the strength of their foes.
Believe me, you can setup a lot more challenging stuff than what the party has faced so far, they aren´t lucky, the encounters are just easy to be honest.
A party that lives this long without having serious casualities is unheard of, and its just a testament to neal going easy on them.
A regular wizard (lets say level 5-6, thats not even remotely high level) could easily kill the whole party with one or two fireball spells.
Such a wizard could also be completely immune to any ranged attacks through protection to arrows (rendering abigael and bregor pretty much useless), combined with mirror images (which would render vincent useless for a few rounds).
During that time he can easily fire off his fireballs to wipe the party out (while wearing a cloak of fire immunity to be safe himself). Keep in mind all of these spells are low level (fireball is level 3).
Add to this that an entire party against a single mid level sorcerer isnt actually fair, and you realize how easy you could kill of the party if you remotely tried.
Neal is mostly creating encounters that have no crowd control, no area damage, and all enemies are of the same type (in one encounter they only face shadowknights, in the next they only encounter the slug, in the next they only encounter giants/ogres and so on).
If they were to face a group of mages + anything that hits hard up close (which is why you cant just ignore them), they would die instantly without being able to do anything whatsoever.
You can beat such encounters with enough preparation, but the rollplay party isnt prepared for such encounters AT ALL.
I dont know on what level dalamar is, but i assume neal made him pretty strong.
If neal so wants to, he could make dalamar just point his finger at the party and wipe them all at once (up to 80 health per party member). Mages are broken in dnd. You can die so quickly its not even funny.
As an example, if i were the dm of their party, i wouldn´t have used ONLY regular knights as guards at the king´s catacombs, that makes no sense whatsoever.
In the world of dnd, it is obvious to everyone that there are mages around that can go invis and whatnot (basically they are more concious about it), so only having regular knights to defend a catacomb that is filled with the corpses of kings and all of their valuable possessions, makes no sense.
There should have been knights, mages and even clerics to defend that place, not just regular knights that can be killed for free. Knights on their own are freekills.
As we saw, the party even had issues with ONLY knights. Imagine there being knights + mages + clerics.
To be honest, neal went easy on them even in that encounter. There is no way they would only have a single guard circling around the camp, in the FIRST NIGHT after they have been attacked, in which they saw a thief ESCAPE the fight.
It should be fairly obvious to them that they might get attacked by that thief (since they came into the camp together).
The party killed noble knights protecting a sacred place, and then made the mistake to visit their camp.
There should be consequences to that... like the entire party being captured and hanged.
Having a single guy circling around the camp standing guard, cause "they didn´t think that the thief would come back" is a bad excuse to let them get off easy to be honest.
Neal had two of the guards run off into the camp to warn them. At this point i would create an impossible encounter at the camp, because they fucked up (they alerted the guards by being suspicious). That doesnt necessarily mean that they will go there and die, they could still try to enter the catacombs and run away before the guards arrive, but if they really decided to go to the camp after 2 guards ran off to warn them, i would create an impossible encounter there, no questions asked.
If they then make the mistake to go there, i would kill them off with 90% certainty (ill still give them a slight chance).
The party really does stupid shit at times, and they always get away with it because neal is reluctant to try to kill them off for their mistakes.
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On August 05 2013 19:01 Brian333 wrote:
And how is Bregor overpowered? He has a lot of HP but his damage and +to hit sucks hard. 1d8+1 long bow shots? +5 to hit and straight 1d8 long sword damage? His AC is also nothing particularly impressive at 17. The spells are really not very useful as they're only first and second level spells and at level 9, he no longer has them.
He's not talking about the spells that Azril gave him, rangers get their own spells at a certain level.
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Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p
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On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p
He definitely is, and there is no denying it at this point. The show is still enjoyable though, so whatever.
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On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p
The show would get dull and not that enjoyable if one character dies each week. So at times, i'm glad Neal is going easy on them.
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On August 05 2013 22:39 Grettin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p The show would get dull and not that enjoyable if one character dies each week. So at times, i'm glad Neal is going easy on them.
That's also true.
But when fights are too easy it cuts a bit of the enjoyment too.
I guess finding the true balance is difficult, specially since it can be really random depending on rolls.
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ALLEYCAT BLUES50611 Posts
at the same time, I feel like Neal is getting ready to go a little harder now.
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On August 05 2013 22:43 Noocta wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 22:39 Grettin wrote:On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p The show would get dull and not that enjoyable if one character dies each week. So at times, i'm glad Neal is going easy on them. That's also true. But when fights are too easy it cuts a bit of the enjoyment too. I guess finding the true balance is difficult, specially since it can be really random depending on rolls.
About the fights, they might be easy at times, but it only requires a bad roll and shit might hit the fan. But yeah.
Example
+ Show Spoiler +men scorpion stinging you, if you stayed till the end of the last episode, you know what could happen.
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On August 05 2013 22:39 Grettin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p The show would get dull and not that enjoyable if one character dies each week. So at times, i'm glad Neal is going easy on them.
It would only become dull if they try to reasonably insert the new character for about an hour everytime.
I mean, there really is no logical explanation why they would take a a black wizard as a new companion, or a dwarf that dislikes elves (2/3 of the remaining party consists of elves), therefore it will always come down to the party just playing dumb and letting that character join them, so you might aswell speed up that awkward process.
You just have to go deus ex machina about it. The dm just incorporates the new character at the next inn they visit and thats it.
When a character in our own campaign dies (which happens pretty regularly, pretty much every session or two), we introduce the new character at the next inn.
It takes us about 5 minutes total, and after that everyone assumes that the new party member was part of the group from the beginning.
Why do we enforce this "assume that he was part of your group from the beginning" stuff? Because otherwise we get into awkward situations where the old party doesnt really trust the new member (they didnt really trust banon, and abigael even makes it clear after he dies), and they never really let the new character make any important decisions (because that wouldnt make sense rollplay wise, why would you let the new member make important decisions?), and the human behind that character kinda feels left out of the loop due to this.
They would have never let banon decide what they would use the wish for, for example.
Another example, abigael, bregor and vincent will always trust each other more than they trust the new dwarf, and this innately makes it hard for JP to do anything that DOESNT correlate with what the group wants, because he will be kicked out immediately, while he was doing that all the time as Tudagub, but since they were friends with tudagub they would let it slip.
Banon never really felt as if he was a true member of the party due to this (atleast thats my opinion).
If you just introduce the new member and assume that everyone knew each other from the beginning, you circumvent all of that bullshit and everyone can play the way they want to play.
We mostly just assume that the new character is an old friend of one of the party members and that the other party members had met that person in the past. Boom, problem solved. 5 minute character integration.
The alternative to this solution, is to allow resurrections at temples (resurrections are possible in the dnd world), as long as one member of the party survives who can carry the corpses of the others to the temple.
This alternative completely gets rid of the character introduction BS because either the whole party dies or the whole party lives.
If the whole party dies we introduce a new party that obviously knows each other.
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Sure, i agree with some of the points you brought up. My main point is that if the characters would've died long ago because of Neal making the world tough, there wouldn't be any attachment to the characters, making it just a regular DnD game and thus making it boring and not that enjoyable to me. Sure, i'm not a DnD guy, never played it etc, but i like the show because i know the characters from the start. If we would've lost all the characters we have right now (especially after 10-15 weeks), i don't think i would've been as interested to watch the new characters journey together. I hope you get the point i'm trying to explain here.
I do think that introducing a new character to a party like this is always going to be hard and kinda strange, but i personally have no idea how it would be a smooth process. So i guess we just have to live with it. But then again, i also think that its the newcomer's job to gain that trust. Banon could've done it i think, but when he starts the process by killing Sheila(?) like that, it was hard to gain that trust easily. This new dwarf seems to be kind and trustworthy and might just as well earn the trust of some of the members in the group, if not all.
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On August 05 2013 23:13 Grettin wrote:
Sure, i do agree with you with some of your points. My main point is that if the characters would've died long ago because of Neal making the world tough, there wouldn't be any attachment to the characters, making it just a regular DnD game and thus making it boring and not that enjoyable to me. Sure, i'm not a DnD guy, never played it etc, but i like the show because i know the characters from the start. If we would've lost all the characters we have right now (especially after 10-15 weeks), i don't think i would've been as interested to watch the new characters journey together. I hope you get the point i'm trying to explain here.
I do think that introducing a new character to a party like this is always going to be hard, but i personally have no idea how it would be a smooth process. So i guess we just have to live with it.
Sure, we get attached to characters, but if you think about it, when you first started watching week 1, you didnt really know any of the characters and you still got hooked right?
A fresh party gives a lot of options to introduce new interesting character history.
When we first found out that vincent was a prince and of noble blood, wasnt that exciting? Hell yeah it was.
Same thing with the dwarf, you naturally get curious about the new character and how JP is gonna play him, which makes it exciting.
Thats why i wouldnt necessarily agree with you that i would be less interested in a new party.
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I don't think i would enjoy the show as much as i do if we have more deaths. I don't think you can build up attachment and story for a character if they are replaced every 4 weeks.Because otherwise we get into awkward situations where the old party doesnt really trust the new member
Well that's because JP tends to create characters to troll the party a bit. A black wizard wouldn't been a problem (Tudagub was an evil cleric too) but he had a hidden agenda. And now he creates a character that doesn't like elfes and is wants to create "balance"(good luck with that group). But if it doesn't get out of hand if think it is quite funny.
On another note: I really hope they stop roleplaying the whole shopping part. Easily the most boring part of the show. Just give them a list of all the items they can buy like in previous episodes.
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On August 05 2013 23:24 gh0un wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 23:13 Grettin wrote:
Sure, i do agree with you with some of your points. My main point is that if the characters would've died long ago because of Neal making the world tough, there wouldn't be any attachment to the characters, making it just a regular DnD game and thus making it boring and not that enjoyable to me. Sure, i'm not a DnD guy, never played it etc, but i like the show because i know the characters from the start. If we would've lost all the characters we have right now (especially after 10-15 weeks), i don't think i would've been as interested to watch the new characters journey together. I hope you get the point i'm trying to explain here.
I do think that introducing a new character to a party like this is always going to be hard, but i personally have no idea how it would be a smooth process. So i guess we just have to live with it. Sure, we get attached to characters, but if you think about it, when you first started watching week 1, you didnt really know any of the characters and you still got hooked right? A fresh party gives a lot of options to introduce new interesting character history. When we first found out that vincent was a prince and of noble blood, wasnt that exciting? Hell yeah it was. Same thing with the dwarf, you naturally get curious about the new character and how JP is gonna play him, which makes it exciting. Thats why i wouldnt necessarily agree with you that i would be less interested in a new party.
To be frank, i went in with a skeptic mindset towards the show. So it took few weeks/episodes to get really hooked to it. About the Dwarf part, i still think that since we have three of the original characters alive, i don't mind seeing a new character. But if there wouldn't be Abigael, Vincent and Bregor left, things would be different for me.
But yeah, i guess i would still give the new party a try, as you said, i'd be naturally curious how it would go. But since we've come so far, Neal has done so much work for the story as it is (I assume he has lots of stuff planned) etc, it would be hard to let go. :p
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I have to say, reading this thread has gotten me kind of excited for a party wipe. Would really love to see what happens, and what new characters we're introduced to. If they carry on as is I won't be sad, but I do think it'd be fun.
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Yeah, while I think you bring up some fair points (ghoun), I think you can understand how people who watch this show, but not necessarily play a lot of DnD themselves, might want to have a few characters to hang on to.
Having some recurring characters also makes it that people can reuse things such as fanart, for example in the little 'stats-boxes'. If you'd have a new character each week, there might be times where there is no fanart for a character, which, mind you, is completely voluntary, so we should be happy we can have something like that.
This is just a small thing, but I am using this to illustrate that there is indeed a difference between a show and a group of people that don't stream their sessions, and thus some rules might not apply, or it's reasonable for the DM to leave it out.
I believe this is what Grettin is trying to get at, so I am sure other people share this sentiment aswell.
With that being said, I still think some of your suggestions, for example on character implementation, could make this show
more enjoyable, even if it's just to mix things up a little.
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On August 05 2013 23:03 gh0un wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2013 22:39 Grettin wrote:On August 05 2013 22:34 Noocta wrote:
Well, that's a lot of words to say what I meant in the beginning, Neal is going easy on them. :p The show would get dull and not that enjoyable if one character dies each week. So at times, i'm glad Neal is going easy on them. Another example, abigael, bregor and vincent will always trust each other more than they trust the new dwarf, and this innately makes it hard for JP to do anything that DOESNT correlate with what the group wants, because he will be kicked out immediately, while he was doing that all the time as Tudagub, but since they were friends with tudagub they would let it slip. Banon never really felt as if he was a true member of the party due to this (atleast thats my opinion). .
Well, it doesn't help that it's the same player who died twice in this matter. :/
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You can beat such encounters with enough preparation, but the rollplay party isnt prepared for such encounters AT ALL.
rollplay is not about ransacking 2nd edition for the most ridiculous encounters possible, if you want that there are other campaigns and premade games that would cater to your hardcore needs. I don't blame you for them, but I'm not sure what you expect out of a campaign that's been advertised as introductory from the very beginning. it's not babying, it just isn't paced to wring every bit of strategy out of relatively green players.
that said, the one fight last session ended up being a joke and I have a strong suspicion that neal prepped it during one of the breaks on the fly to ensure that the players and the audience saw some action before the very last part of the session. all well and good, and as the party gets better at leveraging all their options (how long did it take for abigael to become notable in combat?) I'm sure neal will start stepping up the difficulty in the latter parts of the campaign with dalamar and his schemes.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
really funny reading some comments here.. giving neal crap for not "having the guts to kill the team"
On what level does that even remotely read as an intelligent comment?
We are all DnD beginners (save for neal) and this is a show we put on that is story driven and character driven.. you literally destroy both those things when you prioritize "killing the party." I've been around for a long time and it continues to baffle me when people look at a good thing and go "well that is STUPID I'd do it much better with my 0 experience and lack of knowledge!" when it comes to content.
Our party is mortal.. people DO and have died. Neal makes some things "hard" relative to our skill and easy / normal for the sake of the story etc. If you don't enjoy it then please stop torturing yourself and annoying us.. move along and go watch something you like.
PS: Or at the very least learn to word things without odd judgement like "if he has the guts" wtf
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