TOPIC: Puzzle rooms with treasure....or not

Of course, in that particular case, it could throw off people who think "if the drow dropped the treasure on G, then the drow stepped on G, and therefore..."

I thought of that after posting myself. I guess the room description should be more vague about who might have dropped something on a previous trip across if you were to take this approach to puzzle design.

Incognito wrote:

Bradley Wayne wrote: Slightly off topic, but my big beef is why are treasure stamps in puzzle rooms on COMBAT runs?

Probably because that is where the Rogue boxes are located as well.

In pure combat rooms, a clue from a Rogue box isn't really that helpful.

What does the rogue box have to do with a treasure stamp? The rogue gets their own treasure from the box. Your answer implies the two are somehow linked yet I do not see how that is not the case.

Herid Fel wrote:

Eric Martin wrote:

Personally, for the lava room, I think it would be better to not only say something like "the chest may fall if the lava splashes too much"

Another thing that would work for the lava room would be: "It looks like the Drow you are chasing dropped something valuable on the G tile." It's only used in EIGHTH, so that would give you time to figure out the puzzle through trial and error, but you would have to understand the puzzle to actually secure the treasure. If someone jumped the gun and tried to grab the treasure early, both they and the treasure are going swimming in the lava.

Of course, in that particular case, it could throw off people who think "if the drow dropped the treasure on G, then the drow stepped on G, and therefore..."

I already said my piece on how this puzzle needed some luck/retries because there was no way to gain all the necessary information. I preferred the talking mushrooms to the lava tiles for that reason, hard as they were to hear at times.

Or not functional at all in one run. The judge read the lines but failed to realize that tone and gender played a big role in the clues. Technical difficulties almost assuredly screwed somebody out of a stamp.

Davoruk wrote:

Incognito wrote:

Bradley Wayne wrote: Slightly off topic, but my big beef is why are treasure stamps in puzzle rooms on COMBAT runs?

Probably because that is where the Rogue boxes are located as well.

In pure combat rooms, a clue from a Rogue box isn't really that helpful.

What does the rogue box have to do with a treasure stamp? The rogue gets their own treasure from the box. Your answer implies the two are somehow linked yet I do not see how that is not the case.

That way, the clue can be more important since the Rogue clue may be key to acquiring treasure (rather than just avoiding push damage).

Alternatively, maybe the logic is that they can have more elaborate and complicated puzzles in the treasure rooms because the Rogue clue is there as a supplemental tip.

I'm not Jeff so I can't say for sure but those are some potential theories I can think of.

Its a Jeff call youre right. Its just extremely frustrating to have a stamp hang in the balance of faulty equipment. Or the majority of stamps in a combat run be puzzle rooms.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Those of us who can pull 160 treasure in a run already break the system to the point of needing massive treasure piles...

As a new player: O.O

16 per person (averaged, presumably)?

Wow. Kinda puts the 1 token I got after my first run into perspective.

Normal Puzzle Underdark, we had some trial and error and a spelling failure lead to the lava one being lost (long before either of the two of us with lava walking boots put them to use), our group found the Mushroom puzzle difficult (trouble hearing/understanding the statements), and got eaten by spiders in the end (ran out of time).

As always, I certainly want to note that we all had fun, it was a bit frustrating to miss out on so many choices (we'd started narrowing things down and totally could've taken a last moment stab at the mushrooms, but the final room we were good and cooked on), but a fun time all the same.

I'm certainly not expecting something for nothing, but I do concur, especially with (mostly) newer groups and Normal, is being on the stingy end really a good call?

Shouldn't we want to get people addicted to those treasure pulls, after all? :-P

I mean, if a single player can snag equal treasure on a run to my entire group of 11 (one per person and I think we had a vet with +5 or 6 to her treasure), adding another token or two per person for us noob groups is kind of a rounding error in comparison.

Bradley Wayne wrote: Its a Jeff call youre right. Its just extremely frustrating to have a stamp hang in the balance of faulty equipment. Or the majority of stamps in a combat run be puzzle rooms.

+7000

Seriously. If there are 3 stamps and it's a combat run they should be 2 combat stamps 1 puzzle stamp

Forar wrote:

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Those of us who can pull 160 treasure in a run already break the system to the point of needing massive treasure piles...

As a new player: O.O

16 per person (averaged, presumably)?

Wow. Kinda puts the 1 token I got after my first run into perspective.

Normal Puzzle Underdark, we had some trial and error and a spelling failure lead to the lava one being lost (long before either of the two of us with lava walking boots put them to use), our group found the Mushroom puzzle difficult (trouble hearing/understanding the statements), and got eaten by spiders in the end (ran out of time).

As always, I certainly want to note that we all had fun, it was a bit frustrating to miss out on so many choices (we'd started narrowing things down and totally could've taken a last moment stab at the mushrooms, but the final room we were good and cooked on), but a fun time all the same.

I'm certainly not expecting something for nothing, but I do concur, especially with (mostly) newer groups and Normal, is being on the stingy end really a good call?

Shouldn't we want to get people addicted to those treasure pulls, after all? :-P

I mean, if a single player can snag equal treasure on a run to my entire group of 11 (one per person and I think we had a vet with +5 or 6 to her treasure), adding another token or two per person for us noob groups is kind of a rounding error in comparison.

Yeah.

Those of us who exist on the forums and have crazy builds (see my build thread) tend to get stupid amounts of tokens.

Personally I get
Charm of Avarice (HoP6RoR3CoGF4) 13
Level bonus 1

14 before calculating my stamps for the run.

I also host for a team of 10 and have

2 Charm of Avarice
7 Ring of Riches
8 Charm of Good Fortune
8 Amulet of Treasure Finding

It's a TON of cash into treasure boosts.
Losing 1 stamp and missing a treasure doesn't bum me out much. Paying for the whole run and missing 10? a little more.

On a completely unrelated note I might suggest you look for runs with vets next year. If you are running with any of us it's 90% guaranteed you will be loaned a charm of good fortune netting you 4 bonus pulls and a moderate chance you might end up loaned a few other tokens. Get 13 bonus pulls if you toss me 3 of em (etc etc)

I appreciate the offer. Not sure we'll be able to make Gencon next year, but we're definitely planning on hitting the 2017 con, and TD is absolutely on the menu.

My run was lucky enough to have 2 veterans (who were very generous with giving some rares out, especially weapons, but overall gear improvements left and right) and a few with a collection between them that balanced us out. I'd love to get some runs with a group of experienced badasses, but also would hate to drag their gear/experience level down (literally and figuratively). Now that I'm starting to read on the forums, it's opened my eyes to a lot of options out there, so whenever we head back to Indianapolis, I know I'll be checking in here to see if any crews need a warm body that takes direction well to round out their numbers!

Forar wrote: I appreciate the offer. Not sure we'll be able to make Gencon next year, but we're definitely planning on hitting the 2017 con, and TD is absolutely on the menu.

My run was lucky enough to have 2 veterans (who were very generous with giving some rares out, especially weapons, but overall gear improvements left and right) and a few with a collection between them that balanced us out. I'd love to get some runs with a group of experienced badasses, but also would hate to drag their gear/experience level down (literally and figuratively). Now that I'm starting to read on the forums, it's opened my eyes to a lot of options out there, so whenever we head back to Indianapolis, I know I'll be checking in here to see if any crews need a warm body that takes direction well to round out their numbers!

Check in early.

Like the week tickets go on sale early.

Also if you know what classes you want to play it's easier to get rare tokens for your class during the post gencon down time.

The stamps in the puzzle side were 2 puzzles, 1 combat (lava, mushroom choir, final spider puzzle). The stamps in the combat side were 2 combats, 1 puzzle (mushroom man, mushroom choir, mind flayer).

Yeah, I don't believe the ratio of combat to puzzle is really an issue. I think the 2/1 split is absolutely fair, since dungeons are a mix of both.

The issue I think everyone agrees on is that the measures taken this year, especially when not made clear beforehand, is the practice of denying treasure without a perfect solution or with a few errors made (Not even brute forcing).

1. It has a greater effect on people who don't have +10 etc. treasure finding than it does the veterans who honestly, can get more than newbie or casual who completes everything perfectly.

2. It inherently has a lot of confusion built in when room GMs don't know what counts as a treasure DQ and what does.


Honestly, you know what I think would be the best practice?

Okay, fine. Make it so that if the solution IS brute forced, then no treasure. But if people make mistakes, and solve it in the end, allow the mechanics of the puzzle punish them for doing so, instead of taking away a token.

The people who caused this chance, those who built gear to beat the room/push, are those who also have a ton of free treasure grabs, and as someone in that category said before, when they're getting 10+ treasure grabs in one run, losing out on just one isn't that big of a deal for them.

All you have to do is make it so that failure CAN'T be mitigated by gear. Instead of raw damage of a certain type, make it an effect that isn't covered by a token. Eldrich damage. A flat "Set your hp to half/quarter/down to 1 hp". Or "When you fell into the lava, one of your pieces of gear was irrepably burned! Select one piece of equipment you are wearing. You cannot use it the rest of the run!."


I understand that it's kinda tricky. But numbers and practice regardless, a puzzle should allow enough trial and error to assist in solving, and only have severe consequences in cases of constant repeated failure, or in the case of brute forcing.