TOPIC: my experience... not good

balthasar wrote: I would say that if ten people walked across the lava using the boots, the group didn't solve a puzzle.

If the puzzle was "get to the other side," then yes, they did.
If the puzzle was "decode the stones," then no, they didn't.

But wearing boots that help in one (maybe two) rooms out of seven puts the party at a disadvantage in the rest of the rooms, considering there are much better choices.

Incognito wrote:

Milambus (Jake) wrote: At WYC there was a fight with a Lava Elemental (or something similar) who was out in the middle of a lava pool. From what I have heard, if you were wearing the Boots of Lava Walking, you could walk out to the Elemental and melee attack him without taking any damage from the lava pool. Otherwise, you had to swim out to the elemental, taking fire damage from the pool (and also only able to attack every other round due to swimming?).

At WYC Grind, there were two sides separated by a river of lava.

In order to cross to the other side, you needed to cross the lava, which resulted in hefty fire damage. Boots of Lava Walking would have helped (no damage) but no one actually wore them (which makes sense given he demographics of WYC).

There were some creative solutions. Some groups used Rope and Grappling Hooks to develop a pulley system. One Druid used Protection from Energy.

There was a Magma Elemental in the final room and it did radiate heat and had some retribution damage. But the mechanic for attacking him was not about walking through lava.

I was talking about room 3 or 4 in the regular dungeon, not Grind. The creature had a key around its neck that you had to retrieve after it died, and it was a red lava/magma looking status in the corner of the room.

Brad Mortensen wrote:

balthasar wrote: I would say that if ten people walked across the lava using the boots, the group didn't solve a puzzle.

If the puzzle was "get to the other side," then yes, they did.
If the puzzle was "decode the stones," then no, they didn't.

But wearing boots that help in one (maybe two) rooms out of seven puts the party at a disadvantage in the rest of the rooms, considering there are much better choices.

Agreed. I feel the 'spirit' of a puzzle room is to solve the presented puzzle vs circumnavigating said puzzle. If there was a token that rendered the entire party invisible/not-attackable, could you get the Treasure Stamp merely by avoiding combat in a combat room? I assume the Cloak of Elvenkind could not be used as the monster 'discovers' an equipped character if they are the last party member alive. If all were cloaked, would the monster 'discover' someone at random?

The Cloak says you can take no other action, so that was include looting the room. And a critter will notice if its goodies are floating away, so, no soup for you.

In Sea Lich, you could avoid combat with the giant squid by returning its baby, and in Giants Travail you could avoid fighting the giant by just not attacking it. But The former wasn't a stamp room, and I dot remember if the latter was or not. So maybe those aren't good examples.

But as for puzzles - if you don't want people walking across the lava, maybe put the stamp somewhere else?

Brad Mortensen wrote:
If the puzzle was "get to the other side," then yes, they did.
If the puzzle was "decode the stones," then no, they didn't.

That was/is my entire problem with the lava room. It was presented poorly. The room intro stated that we were chasing a Drow assassin and needed to cross the lava to continue to follow him. So to punish a party for trying to find ways to cross the lava is just bad design. If there is going to be a treasure stamp in a puzzle room it needs to be clear what has to be done to get the stamp.

The lava room should have been presented differently!

“As you pursue the Drow assassin through the dungeon you come across a river of lava created long ago by a powerful magician. He left a way across for his servants to pass. If you can figure out the correct way across, the magic used to create the passage will grant you a boon. Be careful however, you only have three tries before the magical passage will consider you an intruder and hide the path from you entirely”

It was stated throughout the module that the party was following a crow assassin, and in the lava room that meant crossing it. Perhaps in the future a puzzle room with a treasure stamp could have the DM include something like what Brad said in her/his spiel.

The Boots of Lava Walking allowed a player to walk on the lava, but did not prevent heat damage, so a wearer would take 3 HP damage (which was 1/2 damage).

The puzzle allowed one "failure" before the loss of the treasure stamp, regardless of the difficulty level. Perhaps in the future there could be more leniency with that rule, at least for normal level, which is more likely to have the newer players. A team of purped out vets with Charms of Avarice won't miss one stamp very much, but if all you could possibly get is three, missing one is a big deal.

Boots of Lava Walking? Heck, I used 10 Scrolls of Endure Elements to protect the entire party at which point everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the pressure to solve the puzzle fast was off.

I suppose I could not buy as many tokens in the future if I'm going to be penalized for using them.

...

OKAY WHO AM I KIDDING? I still will buy as many tokens, but it is a bit of a turn off for newcomers.

bpsymington wrote: It was stated throughout the module that the party was following a crow assassin, and in the lava room that meant crossing it. Perhaps in the future a puzzle room with a treasure stamp could have the DM include something like what Brad said in her/his spiel.

The Boots of Lava Walking allowed a player to walk on the lava, but did not prevent heat damage, so a wearer would take 3 HP damage (which was 1/2 damage).

The puzzle allowed one "failure" before the loss of the treasure stamp, regardless of the difficulty level. Perhaps in the future there could be more leniency with that rule, at least for normal level, which is more likely to have the newer players. A team of purped out vets with Charms of Avarice won't miss one stamp very much, but if all you could possibly get is three, missing one is a big deal.

I think for me the one strike thing felt to harsh because it was entirely possible to make more then one mistake while working in earnest to solve it. Some folks likely brianed it out entirely before stepping on a single tile,others likely tried one or two ideas to narrow things down/interact with the room a bit to gain more information.

Not saying it wasn't a good puzzle (one of my favorites this year actually) but the method used to prevent bypass seemed like it was more punishing to groups that thought differently rather then groups that tried to cheat.

Joseph Adlesick wrote: Boots of Lava Walking? Heck, I used 10 Scrolls of Endure Elements to protect the entire party at which point everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the pressure to solve the puzzle fast was off.

I suppose I could not buy as many tokens in the future if I'm going to be penalized for using them.

...

OKAY WHO AM I KIDDING? I still will buy as many tokens, but it is a bit of a turn off for newcomers.

That's a point I've been making for years too. If people want to feel clever because they have tokens that bypass a room why not let them. They get to be the hero/feel their tokens are cool and GM can always say "ok you get credit for the room either way, want to try the puzzle for fun to fill the next 10 minutes" if they say no they can catch their breth or have a moment to heal.

Picc wrote:

Joseph Adlesick wrote: Boots of Lava Walking? Heck, I used 10 Scrolls of Endure Elements to protect the entire party at which point everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the pressure to solve the puzzle fast was off.

I suppose I could not buy as many tokens in the future if I'm going to be penalized for using them.

...

OKAY WHO AM I KIDDING? I still will buy as many tokens, but it is a bit of a turn off for newcomers.

That's a point I've been making for years too. If people want to feel clever because they have tokens that bypass a room why not let them. They get to be the hero/feel their tokens are cool and GM can always say "ok you get credit for the room either way, want to try the puzzle for fun to fill the next 10 minutes" if they say no they can catch their breth or have a moment to heal.

I like this idea...

Picc wrote:

Joseph Adlesick wrote: Boots of Lava Walking? Heck, I used 10 Scrolls of Endure Elements to protect the entire party at which point everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the pressure to solve the puzzle fast was off.

I suppose I could not buy as many tokens in the future if I'm going to be penalized for using them.

...

OKAY WHO AM I KIDDING? I still will buy as many tokens, but it is a bit of a turn off for newcomers.

That's a point I've been making for years too. If people want to feel clever because they have tokens that bypass a room why not let them. They get to be the hero/feel their tokens are cool and GM can always say "ok you get credit for the room either way, want to try the puzzle for fun to fill the next 10 minutes" if they say no they can catch their breth or have a moment to heal.

I agree. Over the past few years it just feels like most of the Rooms are being designed to punish those of us that buy lots of Tokens. What's the point of collecting them if I can't use them?

Picc wrote:

Joseph Adlesick wrote: Boots of Lava Walking? Heck, I used 10 Scrolls of Endure Elements to protect the entire party at which point everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the pressure to solve the puzzle fast was off.

I suppose I could not buy as many tokens in the future if I'm going to be penalized for using them.

...

OKAY WHO AM I KIDDING? I still will buy as many tokens, but it is a bit of a turn off for newcomers.

That's a point I've been making for years too. If people want to feel clever because they have tokens that bypass a room why not let them. They get to be the hero/feel their tokens are cool and GM can always say "ok you get credit for the room either way, want to try the puzzle for fun to fill the next 10 minutes" if they say no they can catch their breth or have a moment to heal.

+1