TOPIC: Token Clarifications

For something like Purify Food and Drink, which appears to be useless, it would be nice to have an optional 'bonus' use for it. I would hate to be starving in the dungeon and actually need a spell like that to make it through. But having it's use provide a bonus would be great.

One classic example I can think of would be like a Heroes' Feast. You find a table set with lots of different food items, but they're all spoiled. If you eat the food as is, you could be poisoned, but if you cast Purify Food and Drink, then it becomes a Heroes' Feast. Anyone who eats after that, gets healed or gets a +1 bonus in the next combat (or some other bonus). You could just ignore the table, and/or be perplexed by it if you couldn't figure out what to do with it or didn't have the right spell. Then it becomes a bonus for some parties, but it's not a critical part of the plot, so it's just a little perplexing for the other parties.

Mage Armor is a Very Rare Red-ink Scroll. As items go that puts it on par with the Cloak of Elvenkind and many other multi-use items like wands. But the Scroll of Mage Armor is only a one-use, single-room effect. Making it last through the entire dungeon, even if it were still a single-use item, would help to justify its rarity.

Thoughts on stuff,
Mind you, these are just thoughts. I have yet to go through TD, and have no tokens, just playing off a little bit of what I heard here. I also don't know what the character classes can do there. I do not expect to be answered.

Some one mentioned Flask.
Could you fill it with water, and have the cleric bless it so you have Holy Water for against the Undead?

Flask,
Could you fill it with water, and try tossing the water at invisible enemies to see where they are since they would have water droplets on them. (We've all seen the invisible man movie)

Smoke stick. (admitedly unsure what this does)
Perhaps use the smoke stick in the hallway with the spider so it can't see your approach so you can sneak by with out getting attacked, Or atleast reduce its chance of hitting you to get lower damage?

Smoke stick.
Use smoke stick to look for moving air currents that could possibly reveal a hidden door?

Smoke stick.
Use smoke stick in battle to increase Rogues chance of using backstab?
I dunno, just thought I'd toss those out. Like I said though, I know nothing. Was just a thought or two.

As mentioned in another post I put together the DM Crib Notes which included some rulings on how to use specific tokens. This was an attempt to create a unified use and adjutication regarding the tokens. It is apparent that not all DMs we informed that they had this as a reference. (my fault and a learning point) But I will try and answer with the information I received from Jeff and Lee.

Elven cloak and boots, both of these were supposed to give the user +4 to sneak attacks, I also suggested the prevention from 1st round attack for the cloak and received the "thumbs up" from the "big guy" so it was listed as well. Remembering only sneak attacks was hard as a DM and since the others can not do them, many DMs let the wearer get +4 to 1st attack and sometimes all attacks. This is one of the things I expect to be standarized at SoCal and in the future. And yes, combining the two was addative.

Last year when there was no paladin, the bard could use both Divine and Arcane magics. This never made sense to me, as even the scroll is augmented by divine favor and the Bard typically does not focus on that, it made perfect sense however that the Paladin would have divine favor so this year I proposed to Jeff that the Bard and MU get the Arcane and the Cleric and Paladin get the divine tokens, agian he gave me the go ahead and it was listed in the DM notes.

Smokestick could have been used as a last resort save. By filling the room with smoke it would have made everyone in the room harder to hit +4. This would make the monster harder to hit, but if it was kicking player tail, it might save the group.

Bless was like the cleric spell +1 to attack -1 to monsters attack for the room only.

Protection from evil -1 to monsters attack, if evil.

Sanctuary, This gives the cleric protection from attack. Now this is usually associated with a high level of focus and prayer so the Cleric can not do anything else but is spared from combat. If the player breaks sanctuary to make an action, the spell is broken, otherwise it lasts for the room. The token indicates that the monster should roll a will save to beat a 12. Many times that was just to difficult do deal with in with mass combat so I just left the Cleric alone, it probably would have been different if the Cleric was the only one left and the focus of the monsters attention.

Items were a DMs call. If my groups came up with creative ways to use them, great. Using the map case to block the door would have been fine (maybe, depends on the door) but I would have taken the token as a used item. Dirtdazzy had some creative ideas I would have probably allowed.

Endure elements would have allowed the user to survive elemental damage at half the assigned value.

The masterwork bard's instrument is supposed to allow a +2 instead of +1 when the bard is singing.

The thieve's tool is essentially a mulligan to be used once and collected by the DM currently, sorry.

Gauntlets of Ogre's power gives +2 to strength (i.e. +1 to hit and +1 to damage.)

Wonderus cloak was just +1 to saving throws.

Tim's post regarding uses, yes my groups filled their flasks at the fountain, yes they tried to use them sometimes it worked sometimes not. Yes one group in particular used their mirror and I did reward them for that game play, it was great! I think I would be enclined to allow the group to fill the flask and have the Cleric bless it, don't know how I would make that happen as I write this, though. We struggled with the whole gem/no gem thing initially, but the rulling came down that the special gems were indeed "special" and did not equal a gem token, sorry.


Lastly, I am reporting what was dictated to me by Jeff and Lee, if I have gotten anything out of sorts (probably). You have to allow the real TD staff to have final say.

Dave

Elven cloak and boots, both of these were supposed to give the user +4 to sneak attacks, I also suggested the prevention from 1st round attack for the cloak and received the "thumbs up" from the "big guy" so it was listed as well. Remembering only sneak attacks was hard as a DM and since the others can not do them, many DMs let the wearer get +4 to 1st attack and sometimes all attacks. This is one of the things I expect to be standarized at SoCal and in the future. And yes, combining the two was addative.

I would really like to see this reworked in the future. +4 only on sneak attacks really makes it only useful to the thief, since he was the only one who really did sneak attack... and I had one DM rule that the thief could only do 1 sneak attack all game. +4 to first attack is better. Preventing the wearer from being hit first round actually sucked, because it meant the rest of the party took the brunt of the damage (being in a party with 3 elvenkind items showed us this: the cleric and wizard took a beating). This is only really useful if the DM first rolls to see who gets hit, and negates the entire attack if it lands on the wearer of an elvenkind item. Personally, to simplify an already complex item, I'd say drop that effect.

The masterwork bard's instrument is supposed to allow a +2 instead of +1 when the bard is singing.

The thieve's tool is essentially a mulligan to be used once and collected by the DM currently, sorry.

PLEASE check this! The thieves' tool says retry once per game on it. That means it's meant to be used in several games. If it was to be collected after that one rery, it would say one use like the Thunderstone does. It would sure make the thieves tools pale beside the bard instrument (both Rare items) if it was a single use. And I don't think that "using" the Masterwork Thieves tools would cause them to be "used up" like a scroll.

Gauntlets of Ogre's power gives +2 to strength or +1 to hit and +1 to damage.

Not sure what you meant by that last thing...Does the "or" mean: it gives either +2 str OR it lets you have +1 hit and +1 dam? Or does it mean: having +2 str causes you to have +1 to hit and +1 dam?

And THANKS for the many clarifications thus far.[/i]

I would really like to see this reworked in the future. +4 only on sneak attacks really makes it only useful to the thief, since he was the only one who really did sneak attack... and I had one DM rule that the thief could only do 1 sneak attack all game. +4 to first attack is better. Preventing the wearer from being hit first round actually sucked, because it meant the rest of the party took the brunt of the damage (being in a party with 3 elvenkind items showed us this: the cleric and wizard took a beating). This is only really useful if the DM first rolls to see who gets hit, and negates the entire attack if it lands on the wearer of an elvenkind item. Personally, to simplify an already complex item, I'd say drop that effect.

Not sure what you meant by that last thing...Does the "or" mean: it gives either +2 str OR it lets you have +1 hit and +1 dam? Or does it mean: having +2 str causes you to have +1 to hit and +1 dam?

And THANKS for the many clarifications thus far.[/i]

Raven,
I have edited my post the "or" was better listed as an i.e.

The concept behind the avioding first strike thing was related to the fact the player was harder to see. If the monster doesn't see a party member to attack them then they are going to attack what they do see.

Unless the party states they want to use the room layout to their advantage, then the attacking monsters move to their best advantage. This did not become an issue until the last room when your party with three memebers with elven gear, and if I remember right, a cleric in sanctuary (it doesn't matter, the fact was there were only three eligible to attack) left me with only three members to attack, based on the way you arranged yourselves, that left one poor party member with two monsters attacking. It was a bad situation, I admit.

I'll let Jeff make the call on keeping the trait or not.

Dave

PLEASE check this! The thieves' tool says retry once per game on it. That means it's meant to be used in several games. If it was to be collected after that one rery, it would say one use like the Thunderstone does. It would sure make the thieves tools pale beside the bard instrument (both Rare items) if it was a single use. And I don't think that "using" the Masterwork Thieves tools would cause them to be "used up" like a scroll.

I agree with this one. The difference in wording is quite clear.

As mentioned in another post I put together the DM Crib Notes which included some rulings on how to use specific tokens. This was an attempt to create a unified use and adjutication regarding the tokens.

Maybe we can work together to get a patchwork "Player's Handbook" online before SoCal so that the players have some idea what the tokens they have will do when they get there.

I think a player's handbook would be a great idea - not just for token explanations, but overall: what kind of things to expect in the dungeon, teamwork, how to make the most of your time, when to use tokens and when not to, that sort of stuff. Since this is a Tokens forum, I won't elaborate too much here. Good food for thought, though.

Maybe we can work together to get a patchwork "Player's Handbook" online before SoCal so that the players have some idea what the tokens they have will do when they get there.

Might need to put together a Dungen Master's Guide to go with it. It doesn't matter if the players know what the tokens do, if the DM has a different idea.

And the Masterwork Thieves' tools definitely should be a permanent item that you can use from game to game. If that's not the way it is, then someone in power should change it.

And I still think a Scroll of Mage Armor, as a Very Rare item, should last for the whole game, even though it is a one-use item. That's really not that complicated or overpowered. The DM can just write the wizard's new AC on the neck-tag char sheet, and it stays like that til the end of the game.

Yeah, if a player can keep a +1 dagger from session to session, what's the rationale for losing the masterwork tools? Flimsy and they break on the last attempt? Seems pretty thin to me.

And I also agree on the mage armor. I think it's OK for some items to be relatively powerful and have that balanced by rarity. Unlike games where players compete directly, there's really no problem with some items being more powerful than others. Thank goodness, or those rings of regeneration would be very broken.

Mike

Might need to put together a Dungen Master's Guide to go with it. It doesn't matter if the players know what the tokens do, if the DM has a different idea.

And the Masterwork Thieves' tools definitely should be a permanent item that you can use from game to game. If that's not the way it is, then someone in power should change it.

The DMs did have a sheet sent to them prior to the con that had all of this year's token definitions on it. Masterwork items weren't in this year's notes, so unless the DM was a veteran, they had to wing it. I do think that every token should be in the notes, though it may bog down DMs as the number of different tokens increases each year. I personally treated masterwork items as permanent, since that's how they're treating in a normal game of D&D.

And I still think a Scroll of Mage Armor, as a Very Rare item, should last for the whole game, even though it is a one-use item. That's really not that complicated or overpowered. The DM can just write the wizard's new AC on the neck-tag char sheet, and it stays like that til the end of the game.

The notes that came out this year for the DM stated that Mage Armor was to last the whole dungeon (it's red, for Pete's sake!). Unfortunately, the only time I encountered it, the poor mage cast it in the second-to-last room. :?