TOPIC: Any opportunity to use situational gear?

I remember fellow adventurers in the ready room for both dungeons making sure everyone knew that this year's dungeons take place in some sort of desert, so taking that combined with the names of the two scenarios we were all making sure to equip gear such as a hat that protects you from sun exposure, a charm that gives resistance to poison, glasses that let you see through sandstorms, etc.
There seemed to be no opportunity to use any of this stuff? There was no area with sunlight, nobody ever got poisoned, no clouds of sand or smoke blocking our view. Same for last year's tokens -- had Tinkerer's Gloves, but never had to touch something that was hot or cold. Had some boots that prevent slipping but that was never an issue.
A lot of tokens seem to hint at a larger game that isn't there. And this is just talking about equippable gear with specific effects, nevermind the more esoteric stuff like mortar and pestle which I know is supposed to be up to imagination.
Maybe it is just because I played Normal? Do Hard runs have more possibilities?

From reports they did come into play for True Grind. I think some of the poison immunity ones could have been implied on the combat runs?

I agree that I was also disappointed at the lack of usefulness of many of this year's tokens in this year's runs (excepting True Grind of course).

I think I could have used Arrows of True Flight on the Wind elemental but didn't because my melee is stronger. We used a mirror on Medusa but that wasn't even a token this year.

True Grind specifically set to make use of those tokens this year.

Both the Wind Elemental and the Sand God were ranged immune without trueflight arrows or something similar.

There was a TON of poison gas and general poison this year but sadly nothing requiring a save

There was a poison cloud in the skeleton room Viper combat side that the ioun stone let you dodge, and yes a lot more of them came up in grind. But there is definitely room for improvement in terms of integrating the tokens creatively into the runs.

That said I suspect some of them were meant for flight of the zephyr but that the details of that run may have changed a bit behind the scenes fairly late in the process. Remember the amulet of wonder was suppose to give you wings this year but that changed to the random roll at the last moment.

Poison resistance was very helpful in the Viper's Pit. I played the 5th level monk who is immune to Poison in there and it saved me from taking lots of damage.

Sometimes you need to ask the DM about the damage types that are being dealt. I would try to wait until other people were sliding again, so I wasn't holding up the combat, then I would ask about the damage types and remove any damage if I had resisted it.

Kirk Bauer wrote: I agree that I was also disappointed at the lack of usefulness of many of this year's tokens in this year's runs (excepting True Grind of course).

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: True Grind specifically set to make use of those tokens this year.

Every year, I go through the Token Guide and TokenDB multiple times to come up with creative uses for tokens ("easter eggs").

This year, since Jeff wasn't planning to do anything with the desert or sandstorm rules, I went out of my way to incorporate those into the Grind module just so that the 2014 tokens would provide some utility.

Last year Golembane combat had a monster that would super heat melee weapons when you landed a hit causing you to drop the weapon. I'm guessing the glove you mentioned would have worked there. Though our DM described it as the weapons melting so we didn't even think to ask about the gloves.

Cormroc wrote: Last year Golembane combat had a monster that would super heat melee weapons when you landed a hit causing you to drop the weapon. I'm guessing the glove you mentioned would have worked there. Though our DM described it as the weapons melting so we didn't even think to ask about the gloves.

I think that was the Magma Man.

I think Jeff just enjoys throwing red herrings at us. This definitely isn't the first time that we may have been misled by tokens.

Incognito wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: I agree that I was also disappointed at the lack of usefulness of many of this year's tokens in this year's runs (excepting True Grind of course).

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: True Grind specifically set to make use of those tokens this year.

Every year, I go through the Token Guide and TokenDB multiple times to come up with creative uses for tokens ("easter eggs").

This year, since Jeff wasn't planning to do anything with the desert or sandstorm rules, I went out of my way to incorporate those into the Grind module just so that the 2014 tokens would provide some utility.

And I, for one, thank you for doing that. It's awesome

Fiddy wrote: I think Jeff just enjoys throwing red herrings at us. This definitely isn't the first time that we may have been misled by tokens.

Yeah, but to not use anything from the entire set? That's kind of bad form right there..