TOPIC: Terrain hindrances?

I've looked over the forum, maybe I'm missing it. But will there be any terrain hindrances as the last few years. Or are we moving away from such effects to streamline dungeon play.

Looking through the tokens I see tokens to protect from Volcanic effects, protection from lava and protection from sunlight.

Last year there were a bunch of sand and desert protection items that I believe only came into effect during True Grind, but then older tokens like small silver mirror and the anti-poison gas ioun stone had impacts. I doubt we will see anything be absolutely critical, but you never know what might grant you a small bonus.

I suspect environment effects will continue to be present in moderation (and probably a lot more in Grind). But they should never be a major thing at least on Normal difficulty, because many players won't be equipped for them.

I seriously doubt severe dungeon-wide environmental effects like Underwater (2011) or Cold (2012) will make a return. But I would not be at all surprised if minor environmental/terrain effects continue to be created.

I think if anything we could use more minor effects in the main dungeon. Lots of new players only use their starter packs / packs they've built up over the last few years. So they tend to have a lot of minor effect tokens and they are frequently bummed out if they are not recorded. Giving them a use however minor would likely be a good thing.

Picc wrote: I think if anything we could use more minor effects in the main dungeon. Lots of new players only use their starter packs / packs they've built up over the last few years. So they tend to have a lot of minor effect tokens and they are frequently bummed out if they are not recorded. Giving them a use however minor would likely be a good thing.

I agree with that, I had desert gear filling in slots last year and was sad when they didn't get put to use at all. maybe even if it would have turned out that instead of arcane push damage: "You are buffeted by desert winds, take 2 damage, unless desert equipped then take only 1" something like that would benefit new people who are struggling with puzzles, but if you are fully equipped the push damage won't bug you much anyway.

Druegar wrote: I seriously doubt severe dungeon-wide environmental effects like Underwater (2011) or Cold (2012) will make a return. But I would not be at all surprised if minor environmental/terrain effects continue to be created.

Why do you doubt they will return? Just curious.

Because they're more grief-inducing than fun for players, coaches, and DMs.

Druegar wrote: Because they're a pain in the ass for players, coaches, and DMs.

Ahh I didn't know it was for coaches and DM's. That makes sense. I thought the underwater was fun then again we didn't have a lot of tokens then so huddle in a bubble to talk was interesting.

Trying to record that stuff on the party card and remember it all in the combat room, is challenging at best. Then there is the issue of the players that just randomly didn't get any of that stuff.

Its a neat idea but encounters issues when it gets scaled up to Gencon size.

A small alteration/impact to 1 room is manageable. A huge impact across all 7 rooms is unwieldy.

jedibcg wrote:

Druegar wrote: I seriously doubt severe dungeon-wide environmental effects like Underwater (2011) or Cold (2012) will make a return. But I would not be at all surprised if minor environmental/terrain effects continue to be created.

Why do you doubt they will return? Just curious.

Just by memory of reading past through many of these posting as how creative the well experience player are like for instancing if I remember correctly I think it was either Ayeda or Stormie had the uncommon Boots of Water Walking. Were use in the non-theme for that year because the Boots were printed in 2010 and the situation came after that as physical puzzle theme as getting by using about three or four wood planks both end of it to be placed on stone that were above the water and if physical touch the water in any way will result in damage to the point in nightmare as where the damage were as much of about +16. But she is using the Boots to walking on top and not only that, but to walk across with no damage at all as she wrote it in her posting it. That to me is efficiency utilizing the token/s as creative possible as to thinking outside the box and guessing that year wasn't a water-theme year for this particular printed token. Just only one room that Jeff tend to bring back reoccupying at least one or two other year theme into the current like a couple of times like the pool water were use in his design to off set as well as familiar monsters like the giant were use three times I think as well his normal weakness that has yet to determine.

I think a one-room effect is likely: a portal to the negative plane creates cold effects, a room has a floor covered with sand, you have to swim underwater to access a puzzle, etc.