TOPIC: Reviews and feedback

Adam Pillari wrote: 1. There needs to be some kind of warning when dealing with a "make one roll or die" effect, as was in the 6th room medusa, especially for normal mode runs with complete newbies.

Oh yeah - they tried to "hint" at the medusa in that you first have the chance to see her silhouette (with snakes in the hair) through a white sheet with light.

They did do it better a few years ago, when there were statues and advertisements that warned you about her in the room before.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: The High Priest was a spellcaster who was apparently immune to the Mute spell *personal note. Don't give me a spell to use against a spellcaster then make the spellcaster immune to the spell, that's not clever, it's just shitty* and seems to have had his attacks changed over the weekend. We ran Saturday and Sunday, neither days did the Priest use a poison cloud attack.

Well, I have complained about the Mute spell (and campaigned to get it dropped) every time they redesign the cards. Unfortunately, they never heed that suggestion.

Mute is just a case of bad spell design b/c it has the potential to entirely shortcut a monster. It's like if there was a spell that prevented a monster from physically attacking (but he could still cast spells). Would be too overpowered.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Having the petrification take party members out of the fight sucks but it's part of the fight.

Having the petrification permanently remove party members from your run is dirty pool.

If you have a room with an effect like Petrification there should be some way in the room to free those players once the puzzle or combat is resolved. Penalize players for a mistake in combat, don't penalize a group for lack of specific tokens

Another option would be to have the petrification wear off once the medusa is dead.

Adam Pillari wrote: The rule in True grind regarding at least two dice fails before death (or equiv, petrification included), that would have been a lot less frustrating. Possibly a reflex save to avoid looking at the medusa, since what's the point of a costumed actor if you're not allowed to look at her?

I think a good example is the Phantasmal Killer spell. First you get a Will save. If you succeed, you are immune to the effect. If you fail then you get a Fortitude save. If you fail that you die, and if you succeed you take some moderate damage (cause you still failed that Will save).

Some other ways I have dealt with "death" effects in the past (in True Grind):

- Instead of killing you outright (reducing you to 0 HP), the effect reduces you to 1 HP.

- Instead of just one saving throw (which kills you or not), you get two saving throws. If you make both, then you stay at your current HP. If you fail both, then you die. If you make exactly one, then you lose half your HP.

Christian Kleman wrote: *I was a little dismayed by the lack of physical representations of the first two fights (wind elemental & drone)

There was a remote controlled drone for this. But not every run got to see it (presumably due to technical difficulties or DM ineptitude).

Thursday Morning Grind- This was my first Grind and I had a great time. I brought a newbie with me and thanks to everyone willing to share tokens he was able to experience Grind on Hardcore, though sadly died in the last fight. The only complaint in this room was going from 3 DMs down to 1 really made it more difficult for the last battle. My biggest disappointment was the one use completion token :/.

Thursday Afternoon Zephyr Combat run (Normal) I had a great time running with 2 second timers and a big party of new people. My nightmare level fighter did horrible in slides while the rest of the part had great luck taking things down. They finished the circuit puzzle with a few minutes to spare. The Air Elemental was a tricky foe but was eventually killed, while the orb with the shield we could not beat. We were told that because we did not have a bard we were at a huge disadvantage, that eventually made us run out of time. The two pipe puzzles were not fun at all, we got the first part of the fuel pellet puzzle but ran out time for the rest. The air bladder room was even more frustrating as we had no clue what to even do. Checking the pipes with it running we only felt the air moving through one. all the other pipes were checked and found nothing else so.... yeah. We failed the last combat as many of our ranged group were stuck at the controls and told that we could not switch them out. So to sum that up the group was great, the rooms not so much.

Friday Afternoon Nightmare puzzle I always try to get at least one Nightmare run in and this was the one this year. There were only two of us that had not done the puzzles so the group did their best to let us figure it out while making sure that we got it completed. The Rope and path room was just annoying, we ran out of time to get it finished, but figured out what we needed to do at the end. The right constraints and people with packs made it a frustrating experience. The worst room of the event was room 6 with the Medusa, the GM was not adding damage up correctly each round, one of the players took 60 points of damage on one round. I am not sure what all happened, but when Nightmare level people get upset pretty much write off the rest of the experience. People just get bitter and angry and it sucks all the fun out of it. When we got to room 7 it was brought up to the DM in that room and we were told we were the 7th group to complain about that DM.

Saturday Morning Viper Combat run (Normal) I was late to this run and did not get to play any of my purple builds, but honestly it was one of the best experiences. It was a mix of high level players and new players. The experienced players (RougeCleric) and his wife let me use a Druid build that they had. It was great playing another character, which as of now I want to get a druid build together. The items of note were: the narrow all combat room was really annoying as people kept running into each other, the new players getting petrified which made me feel bad they couldn't really experience the last room, and that room 7 was actually pretty tough on normal level with a party of 5 5th levels. The party worked so well together with all levels of experience, truly a great run. Though I was surprised they ran out of treasure tokens at the end.

There are plenty of effective comments on the dungeons already here so I am not going to address that very much.

A good DM can made a bad room good and vice versa.

Viper combat final room was my favorite.

There were a few puzzle rooms that were at best so-so...

The only main point I want to make about the dungeon rooms, including Grind, is that every departure from the standard D&D rules should have a clear and justifiable rationale. Arbitrarily changing the rules, for whatever reason, especially if it seems spontaneous, leads to conflict and frustration.

Can someone please tell me why a token was made of the small steel mirror or the small silver mirror for that matter. If you can't use them on the medusa, why have them exist at all? Turning them in to make dark wood planks is not a justifiable reason. One of the most fun and creative aspects of the game is using standard nonmagical equipment to make a difference. This was a lost opportunity to do that. I understand that everyone pulls out their mirror token when their friends who already went tell them that there is a medusa in the dungeon. I think rather than automatically rejecting the use of the mirror, an innovation like having multiple weaker medusas than can be affected, or having a medusa with a special weapon that breaks mirrors, would have been a lot more rational than simply saying that the mirror doesn't work.

TD, as well as D&D, should always be played with the DM being the moderator of the game, not the adversary of the players. When the motivation of the DM is unclear, the game loses something.

Bigger picture suggestions:

The area around the entrance to TD should be lit and there should be a central contact area as there has been in the past. I know there was a greeter but that was a tough sell.

There should be more tables and more lighting in the entry area so people can relax, socialize, find their friends, trade, hang out, etc. That was a major shortcoming this year.

Disbeeleaf wrote:
Can someone please tell me why a token was made of the small steel mirror or the small silver mirror for that matter. If you can't use them on the medusa, why have them exist at all? Turning them in to make dark wood planks is not a justifiable reason. One of the most fun and creative aspects of the game is using standard nonmagical equipment to make a difference. This was a lost opportunity to do that. I understand that everyone pulls out their mirror token when their friends who already went tell them that there is a medusa in the dungeon. I think rather than automatically rejecting the use of the mirror, an innovation like having multiple weaker medusas than can be affected, or having a medusa with a special weapon that breaks mirrors, would have been a lot more rational than simply saying that the mirror doesn't work.

Our Mirrors worked in both Normal and Nightmare

Both times I went into the Medusa room the DM asked about mirrors. If you had a mirror you were immune to the save needed when attacking and couldn't be turned to stone by the actual NPC in the room.

John Monsour wrote: The trainer mentioned that if you were allergic to latex to NOT touch the pipes because they were made of latex. I unfortunately am one of those people who are allergic and I was happy for the warning.

On the one hand, if you have certain physical limitations unfortunately there is only so much that can be done. Since there are so many possible limitations a person might have, TD cannot avoid every single one.

In the past, some rooms have had flashing lights (which could cause seizures in some people) or rooms full of darkness or that required crawling around (where people in wheelchairs just had to skip the room).

On the other hand, in this particular case, I do think they could have addressed the latex allergy problem better. I don't know if it would be sufficient, but maybe they could have had heavy gloves that people could wear that would let them still handle latex.

And since it wouldn't have "spoiled" the adventure (since it is vague enough), this particular adventure should have had some sort of LATEX ALLERGY warning either in the description, at the beginning of the adventure, or on a sign outside the dungeon. That way people would be aware of this issue will ahead of time and could choose to do something else (or refund/sell their ticket).

Harlax wrote: My understanding is that a batch of the survivor buttons was crushed in shipment. Unfortunate, but the staff compensated for it by giving an extra treasure pull. More than fair.

Based on my experience with the first pipe puzzle in Zephyr, there was not enough room for everyone to hold a pipe and a real need for someone to keep count of the elements.

The second pipe puzzle was more of a problem for you, I will concede. You could have monitored some of the ports for air flow, but the way we had to move the pipe quickly would have created a hazard for you. But someone did have to push the button. Or was it a switch?

I'm not a big puzzle person. I enjoy combat the most. I just prepare myself with potions of healing for the push damage I have come to expect. I was part of several awesome puzzle solving teams this year, so I enjoyed assisting with their brilliant direction.

In the epilogue room it didn't get much better because they had somehow run out of "I survived" pins. I was very confused by this because they should never ever run out of them. There should always be enough made to cover the theoretical max amount of possible tickets available

Unfortunately it is not that simple. Since there are three different difficulty levels (with different pins) and you don't know for sure what difficulty level a given party will be doing, you cannot guarantee there will be enough pins unless you order at least three times the number of pins that could be used (which means you end up with lots of extras).

There is less of an excuse for the participation tokens though. The number of uncommon tokens should be at least # of runs * 10. It is a bit harder to anticipate the rare tokens though.

Harlax wrote: My understanding is that a batch of the survivor buttons was crushed in shipment. Unfortunate, but the staff compensated for it by giving an extra treasure pull. More than fair.

Snuble wrote: They did not offer extra treasure pulls for running out of survivor pins to everyone. Our group Sat late night got a "here you go" without mention of the pins.

Harlax: As Snuble pointed out, not every group got compensated for the missing pins. I did a Sunday 12:36 PM run and they were out of pins. They did NOT give us any extra treasure chips to compensate for it.

Incognito wrote:

Christian Kleman wrote: *I was a little dismayed by the lack of physical representations of the first two fights (wind elemental & drone)

There was a remote controlled drone for this. But not every run got to see it (presumably due to technical difficulties or DM ineptitude).

Ah, that makes so much more sense. I saw the DM briefly wave around a drone-like object while he described the setup, but then he just put it away to never be seen again. I was baffled on why TD didn't get an actual RC helicopter thing or just hang a "drone" from a string. Now I know I just missed out. That actually makes me feel a little better, but reinforces my stance on not relying too heavily on tech.

It was an iPad controlled small orb with pulsating lights that rolled around the room trying to run into players feet. It was awesome but batteries quickly died.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I'm not saying don't kill players in combat rooms. I'm saying don't insult players that do die and don't talk about killing other groups.

We had several reports this year of Combat judges incorrectly recording spell damage and not properly calculating spell slide hits. *Was told I missed on a spell slide on an 8. It's completely impossible for that to happen with my stats + hat + sniper spectacles + bardsong*

Bardsong does not apply to sliding spells.

Incognito wrote:

John Monsour wrote: The trainer mentioned that if you were allergic to latex to NOT touch the pipes because they were made of latex. I unfortunately am one of those people who are allergic and I was happy for the warning.

On the one hand, if you have certain physical limitations unfortunately there is only so much that can be done. Since there are so many possible limitations a person might have, TD cannot avoid every single one.

In the past, some rooms have had flashing lights (which could cause seizures in some people) or rooms full of darkness or that required crawling around (where people in wheelchairs just had to skip the room).

On the other hand, in this particular case, I do think they could have addressed the latex allergy problem better. I don't know if it would be sufficient, but maybe they could have had heavy gloves that people could wear that would let them still handle latex.

And since it wouldn't have "spoiled" the adventure (since it is vague enough), this particular adventure should have had some sort of LATEX ALLERGY warning either in the description, at the beginning of the adventure, or on a sign outside the dungeon. That way people would be aware of this issue will ahead of time and could choose to do something else (or refund/sell their ticket).

Harlax wrote: My understanding is that a batch of the survivor buttons was crushed in shipment. Unfortunate, but the staff compensated for it by giving an extra treasure pull. More than fair.

Based on my experience with the first pipe puzzle in Zephyr, there was not enough room for everyone to hold a pipe and a real need for someone to keep count of the elements.

The second pipe puzzle was more of a problem for you, I will concede. You could have monitored some of the ports for air flow, but the way we had to move the pipe quickly would have created a hazard for you. But someone did have to push the button. Or was it a switch?

I'm not a big puzzle person. I enjoy combat the most. I just prepare myself with potions of healing for the push damage I have come to expect. I was part of several awesome puzzle solving teams this year, so I enjoyed assisting with their brilliant direction.

In the epilogue room it didn't get much better because they had somehow run out of "I survived" pins. I was very confused by this because they should never ever run out of them. There should always be enough made to cover the theoretical max amount of possible tickets available

Unfortunately it is not that simple. Since there are three different difficulty levels (with different pins) and you don't know for sure what difficulty level a given party will be doing, you cannot guarantee there will be enough pins unless you order at least three times the number of pins that could be used (which means you end up with lots of extras).

There is less of an excuse for the participation tokens though. The number of uncommon tokens should be at least # of runs * 10. It is a bit harder to anticipate the rare tokens though.

Harlax wrote: My understanding is that a batch of the survivor buttons was crushed in shipment. Unfortunate, but the staff compensated for it by giving an extra treasure pull. More than fair.

Snuble wrote: They did not offer extra treasure pulls for running out of survivor pins to everyone. Our group Sat late night got a "here you go" without mention of the pins.

Harlax: As Snuble pointed out, not every group got compensated for the missing pins. I did a Sunday 12:36 PM run and they were out of pins. They did NOT give us any extra treasure chips to compensate for it.

OK. I ran Viper Combat 9:14 and the party was given an extra draw with the explanation that some of the pins were crushed in shipment. Sounds like this was not consistent. I understand that someone who was only doing one run would be unhappy about the lack of pins. I already had one, so was very happy with an extra treasure.

bpsymington wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I'm not saying don't kill players in combat rooms. I'm saying don't insult players that do die and don't talk about killing other groups.

We had several reports this year of Combat judges incorrectly recording spell damage and not properly calculating spell slide hits. *Was told I missed on a spell slide on an 8. It's completely impossible for that to happen with my stats + hat + sniper spectacles + bardsong*

Bardsong does not apply to sliding spells.

See now I asked Widseth that was was told differently. I assumed the titular bard would know

bpsymington wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: I'm not saying don't kill players in combat rooms. I'm saying don't insult players that do die and don't talk about killing other groups.

We had several reports this year of Combat judges incorrectly recording spell damage and not properly calculating spell slide hits. *Was told I missed on a spell slide on an 8. It's completely impossible for that to happen with my stats + hat + sniper spectacles + bardsong*

Bardsong does not apply to sliding spells.

From the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide, in the character abilities in depth section.

Bardsong affects both melee and ranged attack slides (including spells requiring a slide) as well as physical (but not spell) damage.

It certainly looks like bardsong should affect spell slides. I was allowing it in the rooms I ran.