TOPIC: True Grind?

I hear this mentioned on the forums ... but have not come across any description of it. Can anyone point me to the right place? TIA!

At GenCon 2018 the event is called Pandemonium and Back.

It's 30min in the coaching room and 1 hour of only combat. One physical room, little or no decoration or props, but usually about 15 monsters across three simultaneous combat boards.

Compared to a dungeon run, it's obviously all about combat and is tougher. It also relies heavily on strategy, teamwork, and even some role playing.

Lorigorgon was an extreme, epic-level version of Grind. It wasn’t intended to be beaten, as far as I can tell. Grind is, so that air of futility is usually lacking.

Loot is capped at 1 chip, but there is an often-awesome completion token (previous stars include Horn of Blasting and Flask of Sharing) and a survivor button if you don’t die. There are some parties who survive 100%, but there are TPKs as well. There’s no XP.

You can play it in four modes: Normal, Hardcore, Nightmare, and Epic. Each is about one notch higher than the dungeons. If you’re challenged by Hardcore in the dungeon, you might stick to Normal Grind unless your party can twink you.

Pickup groups in Grind are extremely rare. Almost all parties meet here and coordinate ahead of time.

One hour, two DMs (I’m sometimes one of them), one party. Three combat tables, four or five monsters (or groups of monsters) per table. So there are four virtual “rooms” for once-per-room effect purposes, but we never leave that one physical room.

Strange things happen. It starts out slow but gets progressively frantic and deadly.

Remember LoriGorgon in the first ten minutes? That was kind of like Grind, room 4, on Nightmare mode. Epic Grind isn’t usually as tough as LG was.

So you can’t totally go by your LG experience; you might enjoy Grind. You can probably find a Normal group here, or maybe one running HC if the others will lend you some gear.

Grind is really good or really frustrating and often times both!. If you've ever wondered what and how a token can be used Grind is a great place to find out. If you've got it and figure a way it'd be useful you'll likely get away with it.

I admit i detested the Maze effects of last year's grind. If you had IS lodestone sphere it made you pretty much immune or at least able to roll a save on. One year we were traveling through a desert and had to pack water and light sources or suffer environment.

Environmental effects tend to matter far more in grind. Same with odd saves. In my memory we've had desert, night time, cold, water and psychic/mental effects in recent years.

Also i would tend to avoid being a bard, a un-named grind DM likes to use bards as chew toys.

Pro-tip. Don't cast fireball while playing caster for the 1st time and not notice that rest of the party is in water. Steam-cooked to order dungeon delvers didn't taste right.

Selfish self promotion, i've got a grind that I need bodies for, we'll likely do normal or at most hardcore depending on builds and what people are up for on Sat 7pm.

Matt wrote:
Pro-tip. Don't cast fireball while playing caster for the 1st time and not notice that rest of the party is in water. Steam-cooked to order dungeon delvers didn't taste right.

Nor lightning/shock... right?

Everything said so far is true. But here's some additional bits that haven't been mentioned:

* It was mentioned that in Grind you are often fighting more than one monster at a time. This has some side effects: Spells that target multiple monsters can be extremely useful (unlike in the Dungeon where you almost always have only one target). This also means that things like the Gloves of the Cabal bonus (extra monster target for scrolls) can come in handy.

* Also, having multiple different monsters to face at the same time can mean they will sometimes have different weaknesses that a smart party will exploit. Like: "oh that monster is immune to magic, have the fighters beat on it while the mages take out a different monster"

* Generally, you're facing multiple monsters on multiple combat boards, with multiple DMs. So even though you're fighting more monsters, and tougher monsters, the combats can go more quickly (or at least feel like they do). You also have more physical space to move around so you aren't all crowded around a single board for an hour.

* Skill checks are automatic successes. This means your spells are always doing the best damage they can, and combat doesn't have to slow down for the memorization checks. This also means that your Bard will automatically succeed on any monster lore checks, which they should always do to see what they know about the creatures you face! (It may just save you).

* I think it was mentioned that creativity gets rewarded. Some examples: using a turkey leg to distract a blink dog, cutting the head off a medusa and tossing it at another monster to turn it to stone, making some torches out of club + rope + oil + flint & steel (or something like that).

* Corner-case tokens see a lot more use. For several years, I've tended to wear Lenses of Clear Sight in Grind (when not playing a healer). Those have saved me multiple times from the tricks the head Grind DM likes to throw at us. If there is a corner-case common or uncommon, there is a good chance it will have a chance to be useful during Grind.

Like Matt, I too have a Grind that I could use some more players for at 3pm on Friday . We're probably doing Normal at this point.

Fiddy wrote: Like Matt, I too have a Grind that I could use some more players for at 3pm on Friday . We're probably doing Normal at this point.

Cabal grind...