great year for TD. lots to love. here are just a few items of note:
-too many monsters immune to crit/sneak attack. I felt really bad for our rogue. however, she didn't get too upset and just took the opportunity to focus on bumping others into better spots. but it felt like almost every monster was immune to crit this year.
-the draccus looked AMAZING! we wanted to see it for longer.
-the NPCs all did an amazing job, some playing the same character in very different ways that all worked well.
-Bast (short haired with eyeliner...with the boots of swashing and buckling) is speechifying. Rogue to druid: he's cute.
Bast: Why, thank you!
Rogue, now hiding behind druid: oh my god, he wasn't supposed to hear that.
-workshop; early on before pages got underlined and circled was overload. even after I just focused on a few pages, I couldn't find anything relevant. our group made progress, but I left that room having no idea what I should have been looking for. after the next time in the room, I saw how blatant some clues were and subtle others were. it seemed about right once certain pages were marked.
-only had one shot at the forge as it was a puzzle only room (we usually run all 4 once each, and sometimes I get an extra combat in), which was annoying because it took us 10 minutes to decide that it really was supposed to be trial-and-error after being able to only solve it part-way.
-I loved the map puzzle, that is my kind of puzzle.
-pillar lights instructions didn't explain the rules very well. I got very frustrated with my party at first because the clue led me to incorrect ideas about how the stones worked and I thought they were screwing it up/making it more difficult.
-rogue asks for rogue box pedestals to not be so tall. she is a Halfling, after all.
-druid just mentioned that she was annoyed that the 2nd scrael room with 5 in it only had a single scrael on a single combat board.
-sound was great for many rooms, but there were a couple rooms that had a spoken part that we could barely hear anything. I know we don't want it blaring into other rooms, but important story or clues need to be heard.
-50 bags. next year, make the number you think you need, then QUADRUPLE it. it has to be easier to prepare them ahead of time and dump any extra into the treasure box if it runs short than to make more 50 packs on site.
-bag check; maybe everything with bag check is fine, but I have a concern that it will get overcrowded...when I went with bag and showed my 9th level badge token, the person made a comment about seeing my purple badge holder. not the token, not the adventurers guild button, but the 'elite level' purple badge holder. that is going to be a LOT of people. I mentioned this to someone on Thursday (I think Stu) and was surprised that I had the same experience either late Friday or Saturday (forget which). while accepting the 7th level badge holder diminishes the bonus of the 9th level token, the bigger concern is that bag check will be overwhelmed...or, if this is going to be a new bonus for 7th level purple badge holders, please announce it as such.
-Grind was lots of fun, wish we had more time as we got fast forwarded through a section. also, hearing others post about the grind makes me want to run it multiple times again. we used the tactic of not initiating any combats, despite being offered initiative EVERY ROOM. once, our wizard jumped the gun and fireballed the monsters first. we all just stood there aghast as the monsters destroyed him in one round. we gave him a potion of deaths door and started to heal him, so they angrily asked why we were healing him. he attacked them, we should heal them. so, my 2 target heal went to the wizard and one of them. they wanted fully healed, we hesitated, they negotiated for one fully healed, the other 2 half-way. I start to cast another 0-level heal and Jen has an idea. She presents the monsters with a small stash of
Potion Nymphs Tears
. We all laughed, the monsters walked away upset.
