TOPIC: I'm really surprised how many groups run on Normal

Kirk Bauer wrote:

Toran wrote: Into the Underdark is a great example of exactly why even our 'veteran' team won't up to Hardcore - the last two rooms in it were ridiculously difficult and the mind flayer in particular seemed impossible to beat without sheer luck on the to-hit rolls. I can't even imagine how bad that room would have been for first-timers with two or three rolls of tokens each.

I'm not sure it was all that hard. On our Green with Envy run, we did Underdark Combat with only common and uncommon tokens. And we did it on Hardcore. Up until the final room nobody had died and we defeated 3 out of the 4 monsters. Now in the final room many people died and we ran out of time, but that's the final room so no biggie, right? In fact I think it was intentionally hard as part of the story between the two dungeons.

Oh, the rest of combats weren't a big deal (we ran with only 8 in the party, too) - but the fact that the last room felt like it was designed for auto-failure AND was a treasure room kind of sucked. The second-to-last room with the mushrooms caused us a whack of damage because we couldn't hear/understand the damn things.

Kirk Bauer wrote:

Toran wrote: Into the Underdark is a great example of exactly why even our 'veteran' team won't up to Hardcore - the last two rooms in it were ridiculously difficult and the mind flayer in particular seemed impossible to beat without sheer luck on the to-hit rolls. I can't even imagine how bad that room would have been for first-timers with two or three rolls of tokens each.

I'm not sure it was all that hard. On our Green with Envy run, we did Underdark Combat with only common and uncommon tokens. And we did it on Hardcore. Up until the final room nobody had died and we defeated 3 out of the 4 monsters. Now in the final room many people died and we ran out of time, but that's the final room so no biggie, right? In fact I think it was intentionally hard as part of the story between the two dungeons.

The important thing is that the Bard lived to tell the tale!

though too be fair, on Green with Envy we all knew the puzzles so that definitely saved us damage.

I went with a group on Sable Gauntlet Puzzle on Hardcore using my tokens. It was a mix of brand new players (4), a few (3) that played twice before and a few (3) of us hardened veterans. I had not yet played puzzle but I had combat multiple times. Someone else had bought all the tickets, soI let them play whatever they wanted because I was not worried about it since it was puzzle. We entered the dungeon with 2 wizards and just a Druid for healing. I still wasn't worried because it is puzzle. The monk was being played by a newer player that had the worst time sliding two pucks at once. Still I was not worried because it is puzzle.

We lost the first wizard in the bug room (4?), when the rogue attempted to kill the bug on her and slid poorly. I thought I had a Death's Door or two in the bag, but apparently left them in the room. By the end of room 6 there were only 4 left alive. We figured out the key too the puzzle after we lost 2 to random attempts. But we still didn't solve it in time. That dog didn't look like a dog to us.

We break for lunch and pretty much the exact same group comes back. There were 2 personnel changes but that was it. We are going to tackle Underdark Combat. I convince them that we can handle it on Nightmare. And by handle it I mean make it to the last room, which was all my goal was. I ensure them that I have the tokens to bring anyone back to life multiple times. Biggest difference I tell them we are going to have 2 healers and not more than 1 wizard (we took one). I also made sure a new person didn't play monk.

We had little difficulty killing anything till room 7, though sometimes we were close on time. Everyone made it too room 7 at full health. We ALMOST kill the Mind Flayer too with a Bracer of Quivering Palm slide that was just short of the twenty with the hand facing the dot in the second round. And the last slide (after the horn sounded) landing on the twenty with the hand no where near the dot.

So I think difficultly can have less affect on your success that being prepared for the run. The first run was someone else's so I left everyone pretty much do what they wanted. I didn't check my supplies before we started to make sure I had everything. The second run at a harder difficulty I recommended we have 2 healers and only one super-squishy wizard. I made sure I had plenty of things to keep us alive or bring us back to life. We had a blast on the second run even though we still wiped. Everyone felt a little bad after the first run since so many were standing around in the last room.

I understand the frustrations. We tried hard to make sure the mushroom choir was loud enough to understand (thank you, props and electronic crews!).

The mind flayer was designed to be difficult to defeat, but was certainly not meant to be auto-failure.

If it's true that a spindown/countdown d20 is being used, rather than a proper randomized d20, that could be part of it.

Not to insinuate anything malicious, but a non-random die can be trouble entirely unintentionally.

I have a ton of spindown d20's from my Magic Fat Pack buying days, but wouldn't dream of using them as a randomizer, at least without hefty rattling around or a dice tower.

jedibcg wrote: I went with a group on Sable Gauntlet Puzzle on Hardcore using my tokens. It was a mix of brand new players (4), a few (3) that played twice before and a few (3) of us hardened veterans. I had not yet played puzzle but I had combat multiple times. Someone else had bought all the tickets, soI let them play whatever they wanted because I was not worried about it since it was puzzle. We entered the dungeon with 2 wizards and just a Druid for healing. I still wasn't worried because it is puzzle. The monk was being played by a newer player that had the worst time sliding two pucks at once. Still I was not worried because it is puzzle.

We lost the first wizard in the bug room (4?), when the rogue attempted to kill the bug on her and slid poorly. I thought I had a Death's Door or two in the bag, but apparently left them in the room. By the end of room 6 there were only 4 left alive. We figured out the key too the puzzle after we lost 2 to random attempts. But we still didn't solve it in time. That dog didn't look like a dog to us.

We break for lunch and pretty much the exact same group comes back. There were 2 personnel changes but that was it. We are going to tackle Underdark Combat. I convince them that we can handle it on Nightmare. And by handle it I mean make it to the last room, which was all my goal was. I ensure them that I have the tokens to bring anyone back to life multiple times. Biggest difference I tell them we are going to have 2 healers and not more than 1 wizard (we took one). I also made sure a new person didn't play monk.

We had little difficulty killing anything till room 7, though sometimes we were close on time. Everyone made it too room 7 at full health. We ALMOST kill the Mind Flayer too with a Bracer of Quivering Palm slide that was just short of the twenty with the hand facing the dot in the second round. And the last slide (after the horn sounded) landing on the twenty with the hand no where near the dot.

So I think difficultly can have less affect on your success that being prepared for the run. The first run was someone else's so I left everyone pretty much do what they wanted. I didn't check my supplies before we started to make sure I had everything. The second run at a harder difficulty I recommended we have 2 healers and only one super-squishy wizard. I made sure I had plenty of things to keep us alive or bring us back to life. We had a blast on the second run even though we still wiped. Everyone felt a little bad after the first run since so many were standing around in the last room.

Monks stunning fist helped a lot. If it landed.

A lot of it comes down to ticket cost as well. There is a desire by some (in my group as well) that part of their allure is to ROFLstomp every monster we come across, particularly for the cost per ticket. (Typically in HC, we destroy every monster in one round, Making my group on the cusp of HC and nightmare every year). Some in my group just hate to lose.

Typically we get some nightmare in, but over the years, nightmare has been pretty across the board - and it really matters in some cases. (I still recall a room one where we were punished at 8 damage a player per wrong move we made in a shifting key puzzle in room 1 that we were stuck on - after 6-7 guesses and chewing through consumables curing that 480-560 damage, we resolved ourselves to just eating the push damage... It took forever to convince my group that puzzle was okay to try again - thankfully they changed the damage shortly after our run)

I like being punished, but it is hard to play the difficulty you probably should be playing if you feel like you can't do anything in room 1.

I assume it's the same being on the cusp of normal and HC.

I always ask how NM is in setup, and get across the board answers, but they are my canary as to how it has been on any given year - even if if is 'on NM, expect AC in the 25-30 range and push to hit pretty hard'

jedibcg wrote:

Kirk Bauer wrote: OK, this is probably old news, but remember this is my first year volunteering.

I was surprised how many groups who had decent tokens and experience ran on Normal difficulty. In Underdark Room 5 I had several Normal-difficulty groups kill my monster in one round, or nearly do so. I think these groups are missing out on more fun and a larger challenge just out of fear of dying. The group that killed him in one round I talked to and they said they usually just do one run per year so somebody doesn't want to end up dead in room #1. I suggested they pick up 5-10 Mystic Mushrooms while they are cheap and then they could run Hardcore and in the unlikely event somebody dies they could rev them.

I'm not trying to force people to go Hardcore, but I do think it would be more fun, and here is why. When the party is over-equipped for normal, as the DM, I'd have to resolve tons of hits each round, and then the monster dies in one or two rounds. So they don't get to slide much and each individual hit doesn't really matter that much since the monster dies so easily.

But if the same group ran at Hardcore fewer of the slides would hit, making the ones that do hit more exciting. The rounds would go quicker because there are so few hits to work through, which means they could get 3-4 rounds of combat rather than 1-2. Everybody gets to do more and possibly have more fun.

Admittedly in some cases the groups had one or two newbies with them, but even so in Hardcore mode a single hit is unlikely to kill a newbie as long as you work together to keep them healed.

Kirk remember you were DMing the puzzle side. There are people that play TD just for the puzzles and don't care about the combat so want it done as easily as possible. I don't know this to be true but I bet there are more normal runs on puzzle than combat.


That said, I did take my group on a number run for our sealed run. I am glad it was only normal because they hated it and we didn't have the easiest time staying alive (though we did make it to room 7 and defeat the boss it was not easily done). Room 6 was a bitch.

I enjoyed that run a lot. Definitely would be up for trying it again. Room 6 was a pain though.

Templar wrote: A lot of it comes down to ticket cost as well. There is a desire by some (in my group as well) that part of their allure is to ROFLstomp every monster we come across, particularly for the cost per ticket. (Typically in HC, we destroy every monster in one round, Making my group on the cusp of HC and nightmare every year). Some in my group just hate to lose.

I know plenty of people like that - they hate to lose and expect to stomp all the monsters.

But I also know plenty of people who are more interested in the challenge (I am one of them). That playing without a possibility of losing makes an inevitable victory hollow and empty.

Unfortunately, these two groups of people want very different things when it comes to difficulty so there must be some compromise.

I like to play on nightmare with Team Synergy.

But I tend to play a pickup group or two as well. They tend to run normal. I could tune down my build, but not knowing what level of skill or cohesion will be coming my way, I choose to go full stomp mode. I will hold back on puzzles if I've done them already, but not so much on combat.

This year, my son brought 5 friends who had never played before. I had good builds for 3 of them. I recruited 3 experienced players to join us. We could have pulled off nightmare most likely. But 3 of the new players would have been not much more than spectators. So we played on hardcore. Fun was had.

One of the nice things about TD is that you can choose the kind of experience you like. Puzzle vs Combat. Easy vs. hard.

Challenge and loss go hand in hand. My GT group (Underdark -combat) lost to the flayer. But, that's what makes True Dungeon so much fun. I don't mind losing, if I learned something along the way. Besides, it makes the victory worthwhile. I love the team approach, it's so different than Magic: the Gathering (my love for the other 51 weeks!)

Interesting discussion. Salient points I got from this are:

* First/second year players may not know what challenges an increase in difficult will cause. Knowing that there's a 10% increase in HP for the monster doesn't really tell you much if you're not certain what kind of damage your group can do, for example.

* Some players don't want to die. Fine. That's their choice. It's the group's run, it's their money, their experience, and their choice. The only one who should weigh in with an opinion are coaches and their assistants. I can't count the number of DMs who were incredulous when they saw we were running normal, even though it was a sealed run and we had 10 tokens each.

* Other factors: On a late night run with half the party yawning, I'm less inclined to push for NM. Since we'd just come from a particularly grueling and unsatisfactory experience, we dialed the challenge back.

Again, that's our choice.