TOPIC: POd about no saves/no dodges

The boots of water walking in the stream room brings up an interesting point. We solved the puzzle and had enough time to chit chat a bit afterwards. Although no one in the party equipped the boots, I asked if boots of water walking would work. I was told that no they would not because the water spirits would pull the character under.

Thats fine, but how about partial credit?
"The Boots allow you to reach the middle rock, before the Water Spirits notice what you are doing and impede you". So they help, but not solve. Or, like previously mentioned, that one character might be able to cross, but is now out of the ability to help the others.

Regarding the party melee tactics, such as the Monsters attacking wizards and bards staying far away with spells and songs, it has always been the rule for the sake of simplicity in TD that a monster can attack anyone within the room. It is related to the idea that in TD you can shoot a missile or spell into combat and only hit the monster, not all the melee types fighting right by it.

Regarding creative use of tokens to solve puzzles, the idea for some of the puzzles is to get the party to work together as a team. If the solution with the ropes and bedrolls had worked, how long would it have been for the word to spread and for parties for the rest of the con to come in, show a rope and bedroll token, solve the puzzle, then sit around for 11:45?

Regarding the river crossing and the boots, that wasn't my dungeon, so I can't comment on the planning or thinking of tokens regarding the room. As a DM, I would think I would allow characters with the boots to cross, but say something like, "You can walk on the water, but you can't touch the boards or moonstones because the moving water makes you too unstable."

I also like the idea of the water weirds stopping the boots-wearing character halfway across.

Did anyone try the Scroll Magic Hand to lift the egg out of the tree? Or the Wand of Snowballs on the 'lava guy' in Golembane?

bpsymington wrote: Regarding the party melee tactics, such as the Monsters attacking wizards and bards staying far away with spells and songs, it has always been the rule for the sake of simplicity in TD that a monster can attack anyone within the room. It is related to the idea that in TD you can shoot a missile or spell into combat and only hit the monster, not all the melee types fighting right by it.

Regarding creative use of tokens to solve puzzles, the idea for some of the puzzles is to get the party to work together as a team. If the solution with the ropes and bedrolls had worked, how long would it have been for the word to spread and for parties for the rest of the con to come in, show a rope and bedroll token, solve the puzzle, then sit around for 11:45?

IMO the yes you can solve it that way but why not spend the next 10 minutes trying it as intended thing solves it well enough, besides not everyone is going to have the time,desire,or ability to track down the blankets, ropes, and bed roll. When I ran that room I asked independently about ropes and hooks and was told the opening of the tree was to small to accommodate them. I also heard another group managed to get the egg with a potion of polymorphed gremlin and that another just opted to take the damage and focus on getting the little box that was in there. Anyone know what was in the little box/if anything happened when you got it?

I am pretty sure a DM allowed Adeya to cross the river with the boots of water walking. At least I think she said she was able to, it was really late and we both were pretty loopy when we were talking about it. However she was the only one in her party with them so the rest had to solve the puzzle.

Picc wrote: Anyone know what was in the little box/if anything happened when you got it?

our group never managed to get it out but i was told by someone in another group that it gave an extra treasure pull. i'm assuming that meant just one extra pull overall and not one per person.

Getting the treasure chest out gave you an extra treasure stamp, so an extra pull for everyone, and three extra pulls if you had HoP or AoW. We were allowed to use Mage hand on the chest but were told the egg was too large and heavy.

Here's another way to look at it: any puzzle or combat can be defeated with a fistful of Frostberries. Just sit there, take push damage, hand over the healing and go on to the next room. But is that fun?

It only "matters" in the three treasure stamp rooms. So maybe DMs can have much more latitude in the other four rooms and allow almost any crazy scheme to "work." But is that fun?

Note I'm not saying that any of the alternate solutions provided in this thread was crazy. But the egg hammock idea wasn't anymore of a given than the sticks. It would require knot tying, manipulation and synchronized rope pulling to get the egg. So does the DM just assume it works or should you have to do something. We had an idea that we'd lift the lightest person up and danhle her down to reach it. Something any band of foolhardy adventurers would try, and it would work - in fantasyland. But the dryad said no, and rightly so - in real life we'd have hurt or killed someone.

So if a solution hasn't been anticipated and the props aren't available to prove it works then the DM has to find an excuse to say no. It's not fair otherwise to rule that some elaborate Goldberg solution would work just because we don't have the props, when the party isn't even trying to use the simpler solution provided.

I heard the rumor about the extra stamp for getting the chest out. The one time (Thursday noonish) that we managed to get it out we did not get an extra stamp. So I believe the extra stamp was being awarded later.

When we failed to get it out Thursday morning (9:01 Puzzle) we were originally denied 1 stamp in the next room told we need to get the chest in the previous to get the stamp. I believe the Dungeon Coordinator caught up with us later and gave us the missing stamp. So I believe the original idea was just three stamps one for getting box out and not for the following room (where the treasure mark was in the room).

In the end Puzzles are for you as a physical hands on group to solve. Keep it that way.

bpsymington wrote: Regarding creative use of tokens to solve puzzles, the idea for some of the puzzles is to get the party to work together as a team. If the solution with the ropes and bedrolls had worked, how long would it have been for the word to spread and for parties for the rest of the con to come in, show a rope and bedroll token, solve the puzzle, then sit around for 11:45?

I agree that the idea of most puzzles is to get the party to work as a team. The issue is, at the point that's no longer working (for any variety of reasons including physical disabilities) and someone has a creative solution to try (especially at/near the end), those solutions shouldn't just be dismissed because they weren't in the "owners/DM's manual".

As for your argument about the solution being spread around - really??? That's a straw man excuse. Solutions for the rooms are ALWAYS able to be found out at the con and spread! Just look at how many of us will go through an event more than once! The key is, MOST of us try to do everything as "intended" and/or let those who haven't been through try to come up with answers first. But when your time is nearly up, everyone is going to try to come up with a solution to help prevent the push damage. If a creative solution is just applying some common sense and not trying to find bizarre loopholes, and the players can show the tokens needed for their solution, why shouldn't it be accepted? If a party wants to sit in a room twiddling their thumbs for 10+ minutes because of an easy creative solution (or because they got "the answer" from some other source), that's their choice, but it doesn't have to be that way either (see two paragraphs down). I've been in parties that have solved rooms "the hard way" in record time before and spent most of the room time standing around and interacting with each other and/or the NPC and having fun. I don't see the difference except in the experience: the "solution way" where you're having fun and feeling "brilliant" because you solved something easily/creatively, or the "you can't do that" way where you're feeling pissed off and frustrated and NOT having fun because the DM seems to have an apparent vendetta of some sort and won't let you try/solve anything in a way they didn't have written down as an explicit solution. True Dungeon is suppose to be a fun experience. Why should it matter how a puzzle is solved ("by the book" or creatively) as long as it makes sense and the party is having an enjoyable experience? And before anyone decides to go on a rant thinking that I'm saying everyone should get a free solution "pass" so that everyone has fun - I'm not. I have had plenty of fun being completely stumped by a couple of rooms, and having push damage nearly kill my character. This post is specifically dealing with the situation(s) of having common sense/logical creative solutions being shot down with no reason except that it wasn't the answer the DM was given on paper for the room - and the suggestion of eliminating wasteful costs for tokens that have no purpose if that's the direction TD is going.

I'm not advocating that every "creative solution" should necessarily work either! I know a lot of parties (including one of mine) tried the angle of wanting to have someone climb inside the tree somehow. That was (creatively/logically) shot down because the dryad said the opening at the top was too small/narrow and/or the inside just wasn't big enough - which MAKES SENSE or the dryad herself could have done something similar. People also suggested hacking open the tree with like an axe - again shot down "logically" because it'd "take to long", not to mention also ticking off the dryad for destroying a tree. Even when the dryad told us that our hammock idea wouldn't work because the top edges of the stump were too sharp, I was ok with that... but when we suggested solving that problem by padding the edge with more bedrolls (which again, we had on hand and dug out to show her), we were still told no it wouldn't work - and with NO REASON - she said we HAD to use the sticks. It's not like we were NOT trying the stick method, we were suggesting this as a Plan B because our party (including our party from a previous run before we had thought of this solution) was not having any luck in getting the egg moved up the tree with the sticks - even when trying different methods. Not every party is going to have the same skill sets or abilities (or even tokens) - which is why I believe [reasonable] creative solutions need to be allowed for in the game.

To archmage78: the reason why many of us would dispute your statement, and the reason for a lot of frustrated feelings having been posted in this thread regarding solutions is because the creator of True Dungeon himself has REPEATEDLY told us to think outside the box and be creative - and yet when we do, we are met with frustrating experiences of non-compromising and/or illogical DM's where we are being railroaded into having to do something a specific way they were told. Creative puzzle solving doesn't have to mean the group isn't involved. The DM can ask the group to act out their solution, show how everyone is involved in making it work. For my hammock solution, have people act out lowering the ropes, others holding onto the spare blankets that are protecting the ropes from the sharp edges of the stump, another couple showing how they'd roll the egg onto the hammock, carefully acting out raising it back out, etc. etc.. If parts aren't being acted out - say someone isn't acting out pulling the rope back up - the DM can see that and say something like "so-n-so seems to be falling asleep, the hammock has tilted, and the egg has rolled off. You're going to have to get it again". Creative solutions can still be INTERACTIVE solutions for the group, using up the room's timer while still being fun, purposeful, interactive - in short, accomplishing the same objectives for the room that were on paper, just in a way not anticipated by the author.

Again, if True Dungeon wants to eliminate the "creative solution" angle to help streamline the game and make it simpler to run, fine, I can live with that. But do us all a favor then and eliminate the cost [and I'm not just talking monetary costs] to True Dungeon AND the players, and quit printing the [pretty much useless] mundane gear tokens and keep the tokens to just equipment, treasure (with GP value), consumables, and the actual crafting materials - stuff that actually has a use in the game (and not just to trade in for crafting materials), and stop telling us to think outside the box. However, if True Dungeon is going to keep with its original spirit of being a fun and interactive life size D&D-ish experience, then we need to focus on getting the DM's weaned off the scripts, and start understanding the concept of the room they're in charge of, and using their heads and common sense to deal with creative parties. True Dungeon is not the party vs. the DM, it's the party interacting with the adventure with the DM as the narrator. I often think the tokens have made us forget that very basic concept.