TOPIC: Rates of Combat Hosing!

There is sort of TD tribal knowledge that the frequency of "hosing" of various attach modes is, in order of descending frequency:

1. Melee
2. Ranged
3. Magic

It appears that in the 2015 Dungeons, there was an effort to bring balance to the rates of hosing across attack modes.

Here is a scorecard, and some notes based on this year's riddle reveal video. To me a "major" hoser is one that introduces an unavoidable, and essentially random chance of failure in the 50% or greater range. A "minor" hoser has a lesser failure chance, and/or is potentially avoidable by player choice/action, rather than random chance, or has some lesser impact (e.g. retribution damage).

In 10 combats across both dungeons:

• Melee completely disallowed: 0
• Melee major hoser: 3
• Melee minor hoser: 2
• Ranged completely disallowed: 1
• Ranged major hoser: 2
• Ranged minor hoser: 0
• Magic completely disallowed: 1
• Magic major hoser: 2
• Magic minor hoser: 2

All attack modes were hosed, with roughly the same prevalence. It looks to me like Magic was the most hosed, followed most likely by Melee and then Ranged (although I can see an argument that being completely disallowed is worse than one major and 2 minor hosers).

One could make the argument that the "Grub / Spider" room, which was the one where Magic was completely disabled shouldn't count, since it was really more of a manual dexterity puzzle and not a combat - however I'm leaving it in as: they were monsters, with monster cards, who were completely immune to magic.

Into the Underdark:

Carrion Crawler Hosers: None

Fungoid Hosers:

• Melee: 50% hit party member (major)
• Ranged: 50% hit party member (major)
• Magic - Slides: 50% hit party member (minor)

Salamander Hosers:

• Melee: Fire "aura" (not retribution) damage (minor)
• Magic: Completely immune to fire (minor)

Dread spider: None

Mindflayer Hosers:

• Melee: 50% miss (major)
• Ranged: Completely disabled
• Magic - Slides: Completely disabled
• Magic - Single Target: 50% miss (minor)

The Sable Gauntlet:

Water Weird Hosers:
All: DC-15 save to act (major)

Rot Grub/Tranceweaver Spider Hosers:
Magic: Completely disabled

Ethereal Hunter Hosers: None

Drow Hosers None:
Melee: Puck that lands in web is stuck (minor)

Soul Wraith Hosers: None

My only comments are if you have to use a different spell (cold vs. fire) for a caster can you really call that being hosed?

And Drow Melee: Puck that lands in web is stuck (minor) isn't minor. If that was you were out of combat until someone freed you. Major at minimum.

Ed

Matthew Hayward wrote: Into the Underdark:

...

Mindflayer Hosers:

• Melee: 50% miss (major)
• Ranged: Completely disabled
• Magic - Slides: Completely disabled
• Magic - Single Target: 50% miss (minor)

Area attacks by-passed the 50% miss chance though.

Matthew Hayward wrote: The Sable Gauntlet:

...

Rot Grub/Tranceweaver Spider Hosers:
Magic: Completely disabled

On at least one of my runs magic was allowed to harm them, but this room was a bit of a disaster regarding consistency over the weekend.

Matthew Hayward wrote: Ethereal Hunter Hosers: None

Drow Hosers None:
Melee: Puck that lands in web is stuck (minor)

As a monk, it felt like more than a minor hoser, especially when I was told that Universal Solvent wouldn't free my weapon. (Another consistency issue it seems.)

It might also be good to note that Area attacks could have saved the party lots of damage in this room by hitting the egg sacks.

Milambus (Jake) wrote:
As a monk, it felt like more than a minor hoser, especially when I was told that Universal Solvent wouldn't free my weapon. (Another consistency issue it seems.)

It might also be good to note that Area attacks could have saved the party lots of damage in this room by hitting the egg sacks.

Definitely felt the same. I had no luck trying to argue I could punch with my other hand. DM Eventually granted me that my Marauder's Boots would let me escape under the "Other Hindrances" clause, but took me forever to dig out the token

MetaphoricDragon wrote:

Milambus (Jake) wrote:
As a monk, it felt like more than a minor hoser, especially when I was told that Universal Solvent wouldn't free my weapon. (Another consistency issue it seems.)

It might also be good to note that Area attacks could have saved the party lots of damage in this room by hitting the egg sacks.

Definitely felt the same. I had no luck trying to argue I could punch with my other hand. DM Eventually granted me that my Marauder's Boots would let me escape under the "Other Hindrances" clause, but took me forever to dig out the token

Hmmm, free action should have been noted on the party card for you

Harlax wrote:

MetaphoricDragon wrote:

Milambus (Jake) wrote:
As a monk, it felt like more than a minor hoser, especially when I was told that Universal Solvent wouldn't free my weapon. (Another consistency issue it seems.)

It might also be good to note that Area attacks could have saved the party lots of damage in this room by hitting the egg sacks.

Definitely felt the same. I had no luck trying to argue I could punch with my other hand. DM Eventually granted me that my Marauder's Boots would let me escape under the "Other Hindrances" clause, but took me forever to dig out the token

Hmmm, free action should have been noted on the party card for you

I would have thought so too

MasterED wrote: My only comments are if you have to use a different spell (cold vs. fire) for a caster can you really call that being hosed?

If you can attack with a Mighty Sling instead of your Melee weapons, are you really hosed?

Yes.

Especially if you have to make your attack, mark off a limited resource from your character card, and then get told that the attack did nothing.

Milambus (Jake) wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote: Into the Underdark:

...

Mindflayer Hosers:

• Melee: 50% miss (major)
• Ranged: Completely disabled
• Magic - Slides: Completely disabled
• Magic - Single Target: 50% miss (minor)

Area attacks by-passed the 50% miss chance though.

Which is why area attacks aren't listed as being hosed...

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Drow Hosers None:
Melee: Puck that lands in web is stuck (minor)

As a monk, it felt like more than a minor hoser, especially when I was told that Universal Solvent wouldn't free my weapon. (Another consistency issue it seems.)

I can see that for sure! My (arbitrary, personal) criteria for Major versus Minor was whether it was an automatic, always on effect that the player couldn't reasonably avoid.

Probably I should have called it "pervasive" and "situational" hosers.

MasterED wrote: And Drow Melee: Puck that lands in web is stuck (minor) isn't minor. If that was you were out of combat until someone freed you. Major at minimum.

It's minor under my (personal, arbitrary) classification because it was situational (you had to miss with a slide and have it end up on a certain region), and somewhat under player control.

I agree the impact of being caught in the web isn't minor - I should have named my categories pervasive and situational.

This reminds me - there was another minor hoser in the Carrion Crawler room in the form of falling rock damage on pucks that hit the rock. Does anyone recall if that was all slides, or just melee slides?

Matthew Hayward wrote:

MasterED wrote: My only comments are if you have to use a different spell (cold vs. fire) for a caster can you really call that being hosed?

If you can attack with a Mighty Sling instead of your Melee weapons, are you really hosed?

Yes.

Especially if you have to make your attack, mark off a limited resource from your character card, and then get told that the attack did nothing.

It depends. If you throw fire at a salamander who lives in a bed of lava, you shouldn't be surprised it was hosed. Those maggots that that were mysteriously worse than immune magic were another story

I had two different reasons given for issues with the bugs. They weren't natural, as living in the Underdark had imbued them with the pervasive magic aura that exists and that they had burrowed into your skin, so damage was not resistable when pushing hot coals into your body. Both made sense to me. I don't know if these were part of the module, though.