TOPIC: Showing Teeth in Dungeon.

Steve wrote:

Beertram wrote: Probably because there is already a column on the party card for "psychic", but the coaches guide indicates to just put a check mark there if psychic, and it would be just as easy to write a number instead of the check mark.

Exactly this. Teeth don't 'change rules' like Shadowskin or Divine Lenses. They are just counters that could be recorded during coaching. Three years from now, a party full of psychics would be expected to carry an additional *60* tokens into the dungeon just to verify psychic level.

Some room coaches found an elegant solution to this last year .. just felt like it got lost in the chaos that is GenCon.

Doesn't amorgens spreadsheet already do this?

Aothos wrote: We should make it a class card extension. Like a Psychic attachment that has a list of numbers (1-9) and stickers could be placed over the coordinating teeth the player posses. Then a simple black mark over the sticker means that the ability has been used, like DM's do with spells already.

Hell, Jeff could get creative with it and have it shaped like a brain that comes out of the top of the class card with numbers along the edge.

Just making sure - you know you get to use only one phsychic power per dungeon, regardless of how many psychic tiers you have, right?

Your proposed solution implies to me that you think you can use each ability once.


Also - different teeth don't grant different powers - all teeth grant +1 psychic tier, and your total psychic tier defines a list of things you can do.

Steve wrote: Three years from now, a party full of psychics would be expected to carry an additional *60* tokens into the dungeon just to verify psychic level.

This was the exact same situation after the release of Seg 6, before you could make the complete RoSP.

The Coaching Guide (p9) says some tokens may be "stowed," which I take to mean "buried in the bottom of your backpack." NOWHERE in the rules does it say you that you're allowed to leave ANY of your equipped tokens behind.

I realize that a lot of people put a lot of their tokens in bagcheck, but I always thought that was against the rule that all equipped tokens had to go through the dungeon with you.

The intent of the rule, I'm sure, is to prevent cheating by having the same token go through the dungeon simultaneously with different parties. Not that any of us would do that. But the same constraint that TEs can only be equipped by one person at a time applies to every token. It's just that it's not worth the effort to verify everything the way we verify treasure.

Bag-Checking your "all on the party card" tokens isn't cheating, because you're not trying to gain an unfair advantage. Just the same, I always thought it WAS against the rule that is at least partially implemented to prevent cheating. The part about "allow the DM to verify your claimed superpower," or"give the DM a chance to review the text on an unfamiliar token" are only two of the three reasons you are supposed to have your tokens with you. But I could be wrong.

And don't bother telling us all the reasons you don't want to schlep your collection with you. We get it. (I'll be carrying 12 complete builds during a newbie run. I too would like to be exempt.) That's not the point.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

Steve wrote: Three years from now, a party full of psychics would be expected to carry an additional *60* tokens into the dungeon just to verify psychic level.

This was the exact same situation after the release of Seg 6, before you could make the complete RoSP.

The Coaching Guide (p9) says some tokens may be "stowed," which I take to mean "buried in the bottom of your backpack." NOWHERE in the rules does it say you that you're allowed to leave ANY of your equipped tokens behind.

I realize that a lot of people put a lot of their tokens in bagcheck, but I always thought that was against the rule that all equipped tokens had to go through the dungeon with you.

The intent of the rule, I'm sure, is to prevent cheating by having the same token go through the dungeon simultaneously with different parties. Not that any of us would do that. But the same constraint that TEs can only be equipped by one person at a time applies to every token. It's just that it's not worth the effort to verify everything the way we verify treasure.

Bag-Checking your "all on the party card" tokens isn't cheating, because you're not trying to gain an unfair advantage. Just the same, I always thought it WAS against the rule that is at least partially implemented to prevent cheating. The part about "allow the DM to verify your claimed superpower," or"give the DM a chance to review the text on an unfamiliar token" are only two of the three reasons you are supposed to have your tokens with you. But I could be wrong.

And don't bother telling us all the reasons you don't want to schlep your collection with you. We get it. (I'll be carrying 12 complete builds during a newbie run. I too would like to be exempt.) That's not the point.

As a fellow carrier of 12 complete builds (and sometimes 22). My advice is to split the builds ups. Straight stat tokens put into something longer term storage for the run. Now whether you bag check that or not is your call. I have definitely checked my Belts and Gauntlets of Ogre Power a time or two. After the coach checks them I would find it difficult to believe a DM would need to see why a character +2/+4 strength. I have also carried all my tokens through the dungeon. It just depends on timing and such for me (back to back runs means the tokens stay with me). The group keeps anything else that a DM could possibly want to see on them through the dungeon, in your case on you. It will cut what you have to lug through the dungeon down by 25% to 75% depending on how you built your newb builds I imagine. The last version of the 10 new builds I built eliminated everything but weapons needed to carry into the dungeon. It just wasn't worth it for them or me to remember they had damage reduction or situational tokens.

If the coach only uses check mark for psychic and no number, in 2 years:
1. A 10 year veteran comes through, fails a will save vs dominate, says 'wait, i use my mind shield psychic ability.' Do you ask to see all 5 teeth?
2. A group of players come through equipped mostly in rares and uncommons. One fails the will save vs dominate, says he will use the mind shield psychic ability (he has the check mark for psychic, but that could be that years rare psychic item). Do you ask to see the 5 teeth?

kurtreznor wrote: If the coach only uses check mark for psychic and no number, in 2 years:
1. A 10 year veteran comes through, fails a will save vs dominate, says 'wait, i use my mind shield psychic ability.' Do you ask to see all 5 teeth?
2. A group of players come through equipped mostly in rares and uncommons. One fails the will save vs dominate, says he will use the mind shield psychic ability (he has the check mark for psychic, but that could be that years rare psychic item). Do you ask to see the 5 teeth?

I would hope the answer is the same for both. 10 years veterans does not equal having lots of tokens higher end tokens.

How about a normal sized cell on the party card, with a grid that has the numbers 1-6. The coach puts an X through the number of teeth the player doesn't have? If I have 1 tooth, all but the 1 are marked out. When I use the ability, the DM crosses out the remaining numbers or the whole cell.

jedibcg wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: If the coach only uses check mark for psychic and no number, in 2 years:
1. A 10 year veteran comes through, fails a will save vs dominate, says 'wait, i use my mind shield psychic ability.' Do you ask to see all 5 teeth?
2. A group of players come through equipped mostly in rares and uncommons. One fails the will save vs dominate, says he will use the mind shield psychic ability (he has the check mark for psychic, but that could be that years rare psychic item). Do you ask to see the 5 teeth?

I would hope the answer is the same for both. 10 years veterans does not equal having lots of tokens higher end tokens.

Or do you just look at the party card, see a '5' and NOT have to manually count out five teeth?

A more approiate scenario to fit what I see as a waste of room time :

A party of ten psychic characters enters the 2nd to last combat room with is filled with water. They have to make a save every turn for everyone in the water, otherwise those characters slide at a -4.

The entire party decided to psychically invoke 'walk on water' to avoid the -4.

Does the DM of a combat room take 2 minutes to manually check and count teeth for 10 players 'doing something clever'? Or do the players, knowing that sometimes combat rooms can run long due to math, just say 'never mind' and NOT use the power to keep things moving along?

THIS happens all the time. How many mages, clerics, or druids don't even bother doing skill checks, but just take the lower damage/healing to keep combat moving?

This is also different from the RoSP components. Those were stat building, and today would be recorded on the party card. Yes, a DM might choose to verify one of those tokens, but there wouldn't be a reason to do so as part of normal play.

Again. I'm less worried about carrying anything My intent wasn't to avoid bringing anything through the dungeon. My question was asked because I like to make things as easy for DMs as possible. If teeth need to be shown, I'll make sure they fit into bandoliers and that is that. but if there is no 'game play' reason for them to be shown to a DM, they can go back in the book with the others that don't need to be shown.

The whole point is to avoid digging out tokens that one assumed didn't need to be out. That just wastes everyone's time, and breaks up the DM's flow in the room.

Steve wrote: The whole point is to avoid digging out tokens that one assumed didn't need to be out. That just wastes everyone's time, and breaks up the DM's flow in the room.

That's a goal I think a lot of us can agree with.

Steve wrote:

jedibcg wrote:

kurtreznor wrote: If the coach only uses check mark for psychic and no number, in 2 years:
1. A 10 year veteran comes through, fails a will save vs dominate, says 'wait, i use my mind shield psychic ability.' Do you ask to see all 5 teeth?
2. A group of players come through equipped mostly in rares and uncommons. One fails the will save vs dominate, says he will use the mind shield psychic ability (he has the check mark for psychic, but that could be that years rare psychic item). Do you ask to see the 5 teeth?

I would hope the answer is the same for both. 10 years veterans does not equal having lots of tokens higher end tokens.

Or do you just look at the party card, see a '5' and NOT have to manually count out five teeth?

That was exactly my point...or, at least, the conclusion that i was hoping others would come to when they realized the awkwardness of having to either ALWAYS ask to see teeth or NEVER asking.

balthasar wrote: How about a normal sized cell on the party card, with a grid that has the numbers 1-6. The coach puts an X through the number of teeth the player doesn't have? If I have 1 tooth, all but the 1 are marked out. When I use the ability, the DM crosses out the remaining numbers or the whole cell.

Why make it that complicated in stead of just writing the number of teeth?

During the last year, I have had to show a number of tokens to room DMs.

I have not run into a single case of a psychic ability being used by a player on any of my runs.

I have close to 2 dozens tokens that might get asked to be seen by the room DM.

Anything to minize the close to 2 dozen would help to speed it up.