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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 3, 2012 6:38:34 GMT -8
Sorry for the double-post, but I've been chewing over Willh's comment some more, and I'm figuring out more of where my problem lies.
The first thing is that any obstacle which asks for either of these abilities (the flight or the wall-walking) really doesn't feel like an obstacle, because the players use those abilities a lot. If they see a chasm, they'll instantly say "The half-dragon flies us all over it one by one" without having to think about their strategy. So if I want interesting obstacles for the party, they can't be solved through either of these methods ... but since those two methods get past essentially anything bad on the ground (interior or exterior), that means a lot of potential ideas become uninteresting.
The second thing, which is related to this, is that the two other members of the party (the paladin and the plague cleric) almost never get to contribute skills to getting past obstacles.
So I suppose what I need to do is come up with some obstacles which 1, can't be solved by wall-walking or flight and 2, can be solved by something the paladin or cleric can do.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2012 18:31:48 GMT -8
Well what can the Paladin and Cleric do. I mean you can limit the wall walking and flight easily by making the walls un walkable and putting dangers in the air. Swift up or down drafts that would slam the flyer around, slick walls that would cause the climber to tumble off.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 4, 2012 2:44:56 GMT -8
I realize I'm late to the party here, but I still wanted to contribute my thoughts on the matter. I get the feeling that the issue isn't with your obstacle building skills kaitoujuliet, but with the players and their characters. A thief with a cloak of invisibility, wall-walking slippers, infravision, and a telepathically-linked mini-dragon who can carry everyone and broadcast what it sees back to the party sounds like an absolutely bah-roken character to me. It sounds like the player chose all of those elements for the mechanical bonus they'll grant rather than because of story reasons. Of course I don't know the player in question, but just from that one sentence it seems as if they want to play a Mary-Sue; someone who wants to "win" all the encounters and never fail at anything. This image is supported somewhat by the fact you mentioned she tends to "check out mentally" when she doesn't have thief-y stuff to do. Now it may just be that the player wants their character to be really good at something. We all do. It sucks to fail all the time (just ask Stork ). But it's just as boring to succeed all the time. Drama and excitement come from the possibility of failure; not knowing you'll get past everything without breaking a sweat. I think what you need to do is talk to the player in question and ask her directly (but nicely) if she is enjoying the sessions. You can do it via e-mail if a face-to-face talk would be too confrontational for your tastes. Find out if the player is having fun on her little scouting missions or if she's doing it simply because "that's what thieves are supposed to do". You should also talk to the other players to see how they feel about the situation. Maybe they like the mini-dragon flying them over every obstacle rather than dealing with it another way, though I would kind of doubt it. Tell your players that you feel things aren't really challenging for them because of their abilities, but that you're worried about cheating them if you take those abilities away or counteract them. Now that the session in question is over, you could even use it as an example. Explain how you were going to make the mine tunnels too narrow for the min-dragon to fly through to give them a challenge and see how the players react. If they complain and say you would have been "cheating" then you've learned something; you've learned that your players want to "win". On the other hand, your players might tell you that not being able to use the min-dragon would have been refreshing. Either way you'll learn something and can use that information in future sessions. I'll echo what JiB said (I tend to do that a lot); establish how common the character's abilities and equipment (or their equivalents) are in the game world, and then have your NPCs act and plan accordingly. I've been reading the Eclipse Phase books and absolutely everyone in that setting has access to super-fast internet access anywhere, everywhere, and at any time. Couple this with the fact that everyone has opted into a transparent society with cameras, location monitors, and IP address tracking in every public area, and that means that practically anyone can find just about anyone else at any time with very little effort. Not just the PCs. But everyone knows that, and plans accordingly; they use hacking programs to jam public camera feeds, spoof their IP address, or find other ways to drop off the grid if they're doing something questionable. You could apply the same kind of thinking to your own game. If these kinds of abilities are common, then NPCs will take precautions against them. I seem to remember a lot of D&D races (I assume you're playing some sort of D&D variant) have infravision or can see in the dark. So it stands to reason that some of the NPCs will be able to see in the dark and also assume that their opponents can see in the dark. So long as invisible cloaks aren't one-of-a-kind items, then other people will have them too. Or have something that allows them to see invisible creatures. And if that cloak of invisibility is one-of-a-kind, then your player a) needs a damn good reason why she has the only one in existence and b) has to be really careful to not draw attention to it, or everyone will be after her because of it. That's kind of a variation of counteracting or taking away their stuff; have their super unique items cause more problems than they're worth.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 4, 2012 9:11:19 GMT -8
I think what you need to do is talk to the player in question and ask her directly (but nicely) if she is enjoying the sessions. I have talked to the player recently about why she has been so unengaged with the games lately. Without going into too much detail, the short version is that she's been quietly losing confidence, partly because over the last few months we've had three different rotating GMs running seven or eight different systems, counting one-shots. So rather than say anything about it, she's responded by withdrawing mentally from the games, which causes her to make rules mistakes/lose track of storylines, which causes her to lose even more confidence, which causes her to withdraw further... I'm hoping that having a more stable environment may help draw her back in. We're planning to run just my game for the next several weeks, until the current story arc is finished. And before anyone suggests it, we don't want her to leave the group. Actually, it's the half-dragon mage PC (different player) who flies them over things, not the thief's mini-dragon. And I don't know for sure that they don't like it; the party are not huge risk-takers as a whole, which is part of what leads to the scouting missions as well. In this part of the game-world, they're not tremendously common. Part of it is that the area they're in is overwhelmingly populated by humans, while there are two demi-humans in the party (half-Drow and half-dragon). And these bandits have been terrorizing simple farmers for weeks if not months; nobody in the area would be likely to have things like cloaks of invisibility, so I felt like it would be really metagame-y for the bandits to be prepared for them. However, the next enemies they fight are likely to be Drow, so I think they would be likely to think of something like that, being paranoid and all.
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kevinr
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Post by kevinr on Mar 4, 2012 10:17:06 GMT -8
You may need to just put them up against a lot stronger mobs it is likely with the gear they have they can take on a lot tougher ones then even you think they can, and if not they seem to have enough tricks to be able to survive long enough to realize they need to run away. Have the bandits being led by a Dragon or something or someone equally as deadly and more powerful then the players.
If they are knocking down 25 bandits like bowling pins without breaking a sweat then they are well beyond bandits. Unless that's the game they are looking for. I do know a couple players who would love to just run in a game in god mode killing everything in their path(including any hapless villagers or civilians) it is not the game I want to play but if it works for the people playing it so be it.
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on Mar 4, 2012 17:54:25 GMT -8
So rather than say anything about it, she's responded by withdrawing mentally from the games, which causes her to make rules mistakes/lose track of storylines, which causes her to lose even more confidence, which causes her to withdraw further... Well, that's too bad. I can understand not wanting to be too confrontational with her about it then. I do think that a group talk is still in order though (unless the game is only going to run a few sessions more and then end) because her actions might be affecting other people's fun. If you don't want to talk to her about it, then talk to the other players. Find out if the solo scout missions are bothering them. If not, then you should probably just let it slide rather than do something about it given the situation. If the other players are bothered by it though, then you'll need to do something. As hosierrob suggested, have the rest of the party get ambushed while the thief is on her scouting mission. That will a) give the rest of the party something to do and b) force the thief to come back and help. If you really want to be a bastard, wait until the thief is far enough away so that she doesn't hear the sounds of fighting behind her. If she plays in character, she'll continue on ahead where you have something else waiting for her. Having the PCs separated should be more challenging for them. I also totally agree with kevinr here. If the party is mowing down a group of 25 bandits in the blink of an eye, then they are well beyond bandits. I would suggest tossing something a lot more dangerous at them. Normally I absolutely hate how publish modules assume that every evil race will work together just because they're all evil. "Why is there a Black Dragon and a Yuan-Ti in this room? I thought this was a Drow outpost?" But in this case that's probably what you'll have to do. Make the bandits the human agents of some bigger bad guy, like a dragon. Now that the PCs have gotten through the minions, the heavy hitters start coming out to play.
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kevinr
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Post by kevinr on Mar 5, 2012 9:10:05 GMT -8
I was thinking you may also need to check some of the magic items to make sure they are not being abused. I know the slippers of spider climbing can only be used 10 minutes a day. If the thief is carefully scouting by walking on the ceiling each time something comes up that wont last very long. I have no clue what the stats of a cloak of invisibility. That is in Pathfinder and now I am not sure if you ever said what game you are playing. Anyways something you may want to look at if item limits are being ignored bring them back into play. Thief is hanging upside down from the ceiling shooting exploding arrows? oops times up you drop to the ground with the arrow about to release straight under you and in the middle of your party.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Mar 5, 2012 18:44:54 GMT -8
You may need to just put them up against a lot stronger mobs As I said on the melee vs ranged thread, I'm not actually unhappy with the way that combat went. My concern here is about puzzles, obstacles, and terrain, not fights. I do think that a group talk is still in order though (unless the game is only going to run a few sessions more and then end) because her actions might be affecting other people's fun. The game is going to finish this arc, and then I'm planning to put it on indefinite hiatus. But as for affecting other people's fun, I can tell you that the other players seem all in favor of the scouting missions and have even suggested sending the thief in to scout if the player doesn't volunteer. Surprising as it may sound, my group is actually kind of cautious when it comes to combat despite the fact that their characters are quite powerful, and I think they like the idea of knowing exactly what to expect. I'm thinking that on the next mission, the thief may also run into some Drow-trained spiders crawling on the ceiling. Most likely, the player will just pull the PC back at that point, but I'm sure the character could take out several of them solo. That is in Pathfinder and now I am not sure if you ever said what game you are playing. We're playing BESM, which is a point-buy system. It doesn't actually have classes, but I asked the players to build their characters with a general class flavor in mind. So we think of them as the thief, the mage, the cleric, and the paladin, even though those things don't technically exist in the system. Anyway, that means things probably don't work exactly the way they do in D&D or Pathfinder. Double-checking the character sheets is not a bad idea, but I'm pretty sure the players are using things correctly.
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