TOPIC: True Grind Post-Mortem (2014 GenCon)

Eh. The whole point of a hit/dam focused build is to take whatever it is down fast. If it's taking you 10 rounds to kill something on a hit/dam build, you might as well give it up right from the start. The whole idea is nothing should live more than 2 rounds. 3 at the most.

David Harris wrote: I also felt bad for Kirk and Tim's friends for letting them down. Wish I could have done better for everyone.

No worries at all, it was my favorite event of GenCon, despite the TPK! And I would have had been able to try TrueGrind without your help!

jedibcg wrote: I know when the doppelganger showed we left the duplicated character to fight him. I don't know if that was the correct strategy but it worked well for us.

This was a very common strategy, and in my experience it was consistently an effective one.

On paper, the Doppleganger was stronger than most players, and had double the HP even on Normal mode. But this is one of the interesting mechanics, where Players using (skill-based) shuffleboard tactics have a distinct advantage over the DMs using Dice (random chance.)

I remember one situation where I, as the Doppleganger, carefully selected a target which I could hit with a roll of 15 or more (factoring in my to-hit bonus). I hit him 2 or 3 times in roughly 8 rounds (all very quick rounds, because fighting 1-on-1 is surprisingly fast, and I didn't mind getting out of Sync with Eric from time to time. In fact, it made the Doppleganger fight feel justifiably frenetic!) which is well within the odds.

He could hit me on a slide of 17+ on his own, and did so twice in 4 rounds. Then the Bard (rescued from the Purple Worm) started singing, and my opponent could suddenly hit me on a 15+. He slid well, and hit me 4(?) times consecutively, for more damage than I could pump out (the +4 from BardSong adds up fast over multiple hits!) and despite my desperate cries for healing from "my" party, I was reduced to a corpse in very short order.

So, although I was more "powerful", the skill-based slider m=combat gave a definite advantage to the more experienced players, and the BardSong was the kicker which did me in.

Other strategies included:

Using the Paladin to "Detect Evil." --> A couple parties did this. One used the power only once, and in that round the party dropped me half my hit points. Then the Paladin went back to the Purple Worm combat, and left 3 players to finish me off (although they also did some damage to their own party member once the Paladin wasn't there to point out the Doppleganger.) Another party - Hardcore, I am pretty sure - had the Paladin use his power twice, and then discussed using the Druid to Restore Power in order to do it again (though I can't remember for sure if they went that route.) Either way, I was dead very fast under the focussed fire.

Orb of Pelor --> One party brought 3(?) Orbs of Pelor into the fray. They would only do damage to the Evil Doppleganger, not to the party member, and when you add in the "thrown" (str-based) damage bonus, that added up to ~40+ pts of damage. One Orb hit their own party member, but did no damage. He was relieved.

One party's Cleric finished off their DoppleGanger with a Searing Light spell (20 pts of damage to Evil creatures) modified by Ring of Focus. The Doppleganger was already on its last legs at that point, but I thought it was an excellent Coup-de-Grace!

A couple of parties took the "Kill them Both!" route. They didn't care if they hit their own party member, they just went whole-hog against the Doppleganger. Both of these groups suffered some player death as well. One party Death's Door'ed their fallen member while the players finished me off next round (I was badly hurt already) and the other party.. well... the chain of deaths which resulted will go down in True Dungeon history.

Incognito wrote: Raven and Brad did most of the player coaching so they could say better what the Red/Purple ratio was like for Hardcore.

Based on the party cards and equipment lists I saw, it seemed like there were plenty of Hardcore groups that were not significantly Purped out.

In as much as I can recall, that is true.

A couple of HardCore parties which I wrote up had 2 or 3 well purpled players, and the others were busy sharing Charms or Rings of Heroism to bring their members up to 5th, and lending equipment to make sure everyone had an UR weapon... with the rest of their equipment being mostly Red- level and a couple other URs or Relics.

It made a HUGE difference if the URs players had were "Lenses of the Divine" or "Cloak of Shadowskin" or "Mad Evoker's Charm" or even "Widseth's Lute." It made relatively little difference if the URs were "Girdle of Hill Giant Strength" or "Plate +1" or a +2 Weapon.

When my Melee weapons were gone and I was using my bow but ran out of arrows of true flight, could I have used some thrown weapons if I had some, or would they be impacted by the wind too?

As I recall, the parties who did the best left their copied comrade to solo the doppelgänger, with everyone else taking out the worm. Most players were able to do ok one-on-one. I remember one group that tried to help, and got lucky and killed me in a round so they could all join in on the worm. One party tried the same and ended up killing their friend twice instead, and half their group ended up in the worm. Not sure how they ended up, I was off to set up the next group.

As for gear, most of groups had at least a few purpled-out players, but I remember some red players, too. It was my first year and everything was a bit of a blur, so I can't be much more help than that.

just occurred to me; what if the doppleganged player just said 'screw you, doppleganger, I'm attacking the wurm.' and challenged it to do the same to 'prove' it wasn't the fake?
I mean, if you had one of the two attacking an evil monster and the other copy attacking the first INSTEAD of helping kill the evil monster, that's a give-a-way, isn't it? or was there a mechanic that forced the party member to go after his/her copy?

TJRat wrote: Oh, Eric! How could you forge the epic Team Yeti run Thursday night (10pm)? We ran hardcore and fought our way to the oasis with time remaining; no casualties. Was it our double- Mad Evoker maelstrom, or our catchy tune on the Horns of Blasting that made you want to forget us?

Oh I certainly remember Team Yeti! Who, despite the namesake, had no Cloaks of the Yeti and as a result many of you dropped your weapons repeatedly!

However, you guys did end up running the Grind on Normal difficulty (which I thought was surprising since you were definitely statted for at least Hardcore).

For example, your "average AC" was 27.3, compared to the Hardcore TPK run which had an "average AC" of 22.5.

So it was no surprise that Normal was a cakewalk for the Yetis!

Kirk Bauer wrote: When my Melee weapons were gone and I was using my bow but ran out of arrows of true flight, could I have used some thrown weapons if I had some, or would they be impacted by the wind too?

The wind would also have affected thrown weapons as well. It also affected Ray spells. It was a supernaturally strong wind!

Brad Mortensen wrote: As I recall, the parties who did the best left their copied comrade to solo the doppelgänger, with everyone else taking out the worm. Most players were able to do ok one-on-one. I remember one group that tried to help, and got lucky and killed me in a round so they could all join in on the worm. One party tried the same and ended up killing their friend twice instead, and half their group ended up in the worm. Not sure how they ended up, I was off to set up the next group.

I think you meant the Fire Eel, which was in Room 3 with the Purple Worm. The Doppelganger was not supposed to show up until after the Purple Worm was dead, but there might have been a few earlier runs where things got confused.

kurtreznor wrote: just occurred to me; what if the doppleganged player just said 'screw you, doppleganger, I'm attacking the wurm.' and challenged it to do the same to 'prove' it wasn't the fake?
I mean, if you had one of the two attacking an evil monster and the other copy attacking the first INSTEAD of helping kill the evil monster, that's a give-a-way, isn't it? or was there a mechanic that forced the party member to go after his/her copy?

Well, there were times when the Doppelganger would *heal* another player in the party in order to "prove" that he was the good guy. You'll have to ask Raven whether or not that tactic worked.

Of course if they both slid, Raven would probably be sliding to interfere with the slides of the other players (remember the Blink Dog at Who's Yer Con?).

Incognito wrote: Well, there were times when the Doppelganger would *heal* another player in the party in order to "prove" that he was the good guy. You'll have to ask Raven whether or not that tactic worked.

Oddly, I never copied the Cleric or Druid. I may have copied a lvl 5 Ranger once, but didn't try to prove I was the good guy by using my 5-pt heal. Most Rangers forget their heals

Of course if they both slid, Raven would probably be sliding to interfere with the slides of the other players (remember the Blink Dog at Who's Yer Con?).

I would have gladly taken a player up on the offer to prove my worth by attacking other monsters. I'm sure I could have "helped" a number of parties

(Either that, or I would have actively tried to kill the other Monsters. After all, what do I care if they live or die? So long as the party accepts me as one of their own, I'm set.)

Incognito wrote: Of course if they both slid, Raven would probably be sliding to interfere with the slides of the other players (remember the Blink Dog at Who's Yer Con?).

I hated those Blink Dogs so much.

I feel dumb now having played the Paladin and not thinking to use detect evil on the doppelganger.

Athos wrote:

Incognito wrote: Of course if they both slid, Raven would probably be sliding to interfere with the slides of the other players (remember the Blink Dog at Who's Yer Con?).

I hated those Blink Dogs so much.

I feel dumb now having played the Paladin and not thinking to use detect evil on the doppelganger.

Distract the blink doggies with a rubber duck!

Athos wrote:

Incognito wrote: Of course if they both slid, Raven would probably be sliding to interfere with the slides of the other players (remember the Blink Dog at Who's Yer Con?).

I hated those Blink Dogs so much.

Woof?

I feel dumb now having played the Paladin and not thinking to use detect evil on the doppelganger.

The Paladin's Detect Evil was MVP ability this year.

Besides its use against the Doppelganger, it was also very strong against the Rakshasa. One party even had their Cleric use Restore Power on Detect Evil (first time I had ever seen Restore Power used on that ability!).

Ironically, the Prestige class Paladin (Cavalier) was actually weaker in Grind than the normal Paladin, because the Cavalier loses the Detect Evil ability.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your perspective), not a single party brought with them a 2010 Detect Illusion scroll. It pays to be prepared!