Is this shit new? (ultimate dungeon delve)

[shau]

RPGA has got a new challenge thing this summer called the Ultimate Dungeon Delve. It basically asks you to pit a party of level 6 characters against 6 encounters with no extended rest break. See here
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=rpga/news/20090612


The weird thing, and the thing that pisses me off, is that the main point of the challenge is time based. See, you have to do each encounter in 45 minutes of real time. Which due to the slowness of 4e combat seems to be the thing that kills most people.

Am I the only one who finds this weird? I mean, having a challenge be winnable or losable based on how fast everyone talks or whether or not you get the guy who has to reread the charge rules every five minutes seems asinine. I don't know RPGA, are time trials normal for these things?

[Prak]

don't know about time trials, but asinine, nonsensical rules and an unrealistic adhesion to a sense of time are not new to the RPGA.

[hogarth]

There's the practical consideration that convention events generally have to fit into a 4-hour time slot.

[Prak]

In which case they should probably lower the group member count, and just say "Four hour total time limit"

[Lago PARANOIA]

In my experience mid-heroic level 4E combat goes by pretty fast. A typical encounter takes about an 45 minutes to run if everyone's on the same page.

The problem is... few of my DMs have any pretensions of a workday. I have yet to have a workday with more than three encounters in it even though by the rules you're supposed to do 4-5.

This is especially a problem at low levels because people only have two encounter attack powers. I'd imagine spamming 'I Illusory Ambush the orc!' for three-four rounds in a row is going to get old really damn fast.

I think doing a real honest-to-god 6-encounter workday is impossible to do in 4 hours, since forcing low-level people to spam encounter powers is obviously going to take longer.

[Josh_Kablack]

Seems easy enough to me:


Astral Seal Cleric - for infinite surgeless healing
Cloud of Daggers Orbizard x3
Twinstriking Greatbow Ranger - just in case something is outside the wizards' range.

Or if you want to make it look like a real party:

Astral Seal Cleric - as above
Rigtheous Brand Cleric - with skill domain. Provides both healing and melee redundancy.
Twin Strike Melee Ranger - damage engine
Sly Flourish Rogue - damage engine
Tactical Warlord - for tactical presence and commander' strike

the key is that each member has exactly one strong at will that they are expected to spam all the time to lead to quick real-time resolution.

[souran]

Honestly,

RPGA and "impersonal" roleplaying events seem to me to be a big part of the reason for the numerous "don't be a dick" rules 4e instigated.

Even going all the way back to AD&D 2e when I started seening rpga type events they usually included some things that were awkward.

Usually those things were designed to make it so that people were able to sit with a group they didn't know and not be a jerk just to see what happend. The other rules were usually there so that they could "score" or in some other way move people through progressive events. These sucked as well.

Have you ever really wanted to run an RPGA scenario AFTER you read it? Honestly, most people could do better in 45 minutes of writting. However, writting an adventure that can reach complete conclusion in 2-4 hours sucks. Try it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If you're a level 6 character doing a 6 encounter workday, there's absolutely no reason why you shouldn't grab a (orb)wizard with a +1 mnemonic staff and a +2 gossamer tome in your corner pocket.

Said wizard can with those items recycle their utility 2 and 6s into sleep and web respectively.

There's also absolutely no reason to grab a Sly Flourish rogue over a Brutal Scoundrel rogue; Brutal Scoundrel rogues do that amount of damage with all of their attacks, not just an At-Will (which means that they can spam Piercing Strike). That said, a rogue of any stripe probably won't do too well with just two other melee people backing them up since flanking is the only way low-level rogues can get sneak attack.

If you absolutely need a frontline melee combatant then grab a Spear and Board Fighter with this array:

Goliath One-handed Weapon Fighter
STR: 19
DEX: 15
WIS: 15
CON: 13
INT: 10
CHA: 8
Attack Bonus: + 2(weapon prof.) + 1(WE) + 1(weapon talent) + 4(strength) + 2(enhancement bonus) + 3 (level)= +13. Average AC of an enemy of this level is 20, so this character hits on a 7 or higher with their At-Wills except for Brash Strike, which hits on a 5 or higher.
Damage: 1d8+6
AC: 10 (base) + 3 (level) + 2 (heavy shield) + 7 (armor) + 1 (enhancement) + 1 (agile) = 24. Enemies of this level have an attack bonus of +11, so they need a 13 or higher to hit you.

Feats: Weapon Proficiency: Tratnyr (+2, 1d8, heavy thrown 10/20), Shield Push, Polearm Momentum, Weapon Expertise: Spears
Magic Items: Rushing Cleats (L7), +2 Tratnyr, +1 Agile Scalemail (gives a +1 item bonus to AC as long as you're not bloodied), +1 Cloak of Distortion (ranged attacks more than 5 squares away take a -5 penalty to the attack roll)
Powers:
At-Wills: Tide of Iron, Brash Strike
Encounter Powers: Covering Attack, Parry and Riposte
Utility Powers: Pass Forward, Covering Stance
Daily Powers: Lasting Threat (like Brute Strike, but marks for the rest of the encounter) and Rain of Steel (duh)


The problem with the defender class is that there often isn't an incentive for enemies to attack the defender class, even with a marking penalty. This is pretty much the best you can do, honestly; you spam the At-Will Tide of Iron which with the Polearm Momentum feat knocks the enemy two squares away and prone. Then you shift one square in their direction so they can't charge you after standing up, making them lose a turn. That's very good. You also have the Shield Push feat where if you hit someone with Combat Challenge while you're holding a shield you push them one square as an immediate interrupt; which means every time you hit with your CC attack you push them away, ruining their attack, and knock them prone, too. This gives enemies a rather large incentive to attack you. Which means that you can distribute the healing and help the party last through a grueling 6-encounter workday.

You have encounter powers. You never use Covering Attack since Tide of Iron is better. You do use Parry and Riposte, though since it doesn't get in the way of you using Tide of Iron.

Pass Forward is very important since it helps you get into a position to best push someone with Tide of Iron. Needless to say, you WILL be using it a hell of a lot.

You don't have much of a constitution bonus, but Unbreakable reduces the damage you take by 6 hit points every fight. And in a 6-encounter workday you WILL need it. It'll be like giving you two extra healing surges. Goliath was picked mainly for the encounter power Stone's Endurance. This racial encounter power, as a minor action, gives you resist 5 until the end of your next turn. Namely, even more of the sweet, sweet damage reduction you need.

Because you have a cloak of distortion and a thrown weapon with a pretty large range, you probably don't want to be the asshole who just charges in. Wait for the enemies to come to you and keep throwing your tratnyr.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Don't you just want to spam full-on max damage offense? I mean, using tactics will just make things take longer.

[Josh_Kablack]

There's also absolutely no reason to grab a Sly Flourish rogue over a Brutal Scoundrel rogue; Brutal Scoundrel rogues do that amount of damage with all of their attacks, not just an At-Will (which means that they can spam Piercing Strike). That said, a rogue of any stripe probably won't do too well with just two other melee people backing them up since flanking is the only way low-level rogues can get sneak attack.

Sly Flourish adds your secondary stat to damage with your at will in melee or ranged.

Brutal Scoundrel adds your secondary stat to sneak attack damage with any attack.

If you want to optimize the group for sneak attack, use the Drow Racials and can count on the laser cleric for setup then Brutal Scoundrel is better

But if you just want an at will that's +12/+13 vs ac for 1d4/1d8 +10 damage without needing to set anything up, then Sly Flourish is the way to go.

Seeing as the realtime limits are a notable constraint I would totally take the one that requires zero setup.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Are you trying to build a ranged sneak attack rogue so you can justify the existence of Sly Flourish?

Don't bother in this edition unless you're using a frost weapon. You need superior cover or total concealment from an enemy just to make a stealth check. If you ever lose either you become hidden. An enemy can spot you even when you have superior cover or total concealment.

Bite the bullet and get into melee. The game wants you to.

Don't you just want to spam full-on max damage offense? I mean, using tactics will just make things take longer.

It's a six-encounter workday and you're level 6. There's not actually a way to spam full on max damage offense at this level without exposing yourself to unnecessary danger--reckless and bloodclaw weapons are right out unless you are a Warden and are very careful. You're level 6, which means that you have 7 more hit points to play with than your 6 hp/level defender buddies. Which means you can spam Bloodclaw every fight and still have as many hit points as a fighter.

A ranger for example can treat himself to two +2 bastard swords and a +1 set of armor and cloak. Their damage with Twin Strike + Weapon Focus is 2d10+6+1d6 (average 20.5). By contrast, a +2 Bloodclaw Bastard Sword + Iron Armbands of Power using Goliath Warden with Goliath Greatweapon Focus is dishing out 1d12+3 (bloodclaw for 1)+ 2(enh) + 2 (GGF) + 2 (item) + 5 (strength) (average 19.5) with any At-Will they have. The level 6 Earthstrength Warden also has two attack powers that double up on an enemy to boot--Wildblood Frenzy and Earthgrasp Strike. In return the warden has a lot more hit points and healing surges.

The ranger can spike up to 24.5 damage if they burn through their bloodclaw like crazy, but that's an expenditure of about 14-16 hit points a fight, which is just way too much for a 6-encounter workday and their pitiful 6 surges. A warden can spike for about that much, too, but an Earthblood Goliath Warden would have 12 healing surges to play with.

[shau]

Under these circumstances, I can't imagine taking a defender that isn't a swordmage. Their Unicorn's Touch is a level 6 encounter based utility power that heals people. They can spend the rest of the game with their head up their ass and as long as they wake up long enough to say "I heal everyone to full with Unicorn's Touch." they will be worth it.

I heard a party of 5 archer rangers with a motto of everybody novas, everything dies made it. Over here http://www.critical-hits.com/2009/06/30 ... eon-delve/ A team that ran it once, got killed, then returned with a better team and exactly the right expendables made it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Holy shit, Unicorn's Touch.

Now I can't imagine doing a 6-encounter workday that doesn't have a swordmage in it. And shielding swordmages actually do a really good job of redistributing hit points.

I dunno. It would depend on how much time you had between encounters. If you had 15 in-game minutes to burn between them a shielding swordmage could get your ass about 24 extra hit points between encounters.

Hmm. Actually, I'm starting to think that the 'best' team would be four shielding swordmages with Channeling Shield and Unicorn's Touch backed up by a healing-focused Laser Cleric.

Actually, yeah, I think that this setup would work real nice. There's even an encounter power, Dimensional Vortex, which as an immediate interrupt does a vs. will attack that teleports an enemy that hits an ally. That would save a lot of hit points.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, so you have your four shielding swordmages. Here's what they look like.

Eladrin Shielding Swordmage 6
59 hit points, Speed 6, Init +4
STR: 13
CON: 14
DEX: 13
INT: 20
WIS: 13
CHA: 8
Level ups went into Intelligence and Constitution.

AC: 25 Fort: 16 Ref: 19 Will: 18
Skills: Ah, who gives a shit, really? Coordinate with your party to cover trouble spots. You're all fucking Eladrin, there's no excuse. The Battle Awareness list will further allow you to plunder skills from a Fighter's List, though honestly they don't have anything you need aside from Endurance and maybe Heal.
Feats: Eladrin Soldier, Eladrin Swordmage Advance, Battle Awareness, Intelligent Blademaster
Equipment: Heroic Tier Siberys Shard of the Mage (680 gp), +2 Leather Gambler's Suit (L6 item), +2 Farbond Spellblade Longsword (L7 item), +1 Cloak of Distortion (L4 item)

At Wills: Sword Burst, Booming Blade
Encounter 1: Foesnare
Encounter 3: Dimensional Vortex
Daily 1: Warding Flourish
Daily 5: Energy Theft
Utility 2: Channeling Shield
Utility 6: Unicorn's Touch

Attack Bonus: +13 with weapon attacks (average AC of an enemy of this level is 20, so hit on a 7 or better), +10 with implement attacks
Damage Bonus:
Sword Burst: 1d6 + 5 (intelligence) + 1 (Siberys Shard) + 2 (Eladrin Soldier) + 2 (Enhancement) = 1d6+10
MBA: 1d8+10

Tactics:

This character is designed to do some rudimentary ranged fighting so that they don't get caught with their pants down, hence the Farbond Spellblade. But where they really make their money is in melee.

These characters are designed to fight as a pack. They surround the enemy, trying to get their targets next to as many of their buddies as they can. They open with Foesnare if they're able to charge into position, which has the desirable quality of immobilizing an enemy on a hit. Then they spam Sword Burst. If an enemy hits a buddy, a swordmage uses Dimensional Vortex to teleport the enemy outside of hitting range so that the attack misses, usually 5 squares directly upwards so that the enemy can take an extra 2d10 falling damage. This falling damage is very important.

If the characters need to reposition or just dish out extra damage, the characters use their Eladrin Swordmage Advance feat to get into position and pop off a melee basic attack. Channeling Shield offers even further damage mitigation, between the four of you shaving off 28 hit points worth of damage every fight. Since Aegis is agnostic of your actual position, you can protect whatever healing buddy you brought along without needing to be too close. This allows you to keep up your wolfpack tactics. Your damage is somewhat low so you NEED to get as many enemies with Swordburst as possible.

Frost Backlash doesn't actually add much to tactics. It's a 3W daily that's an immediate interrupt vs. reflex, which is awesome, but it's only a daily in a 6-encounter adventure. Which is not awesome.

Energy Theft is much more useful, giving you and your buddies resist 5 to any elemental keyword until the end of the encounter. It also gives the enemy a vulnerability to a keyword, but you're not using it for that purpose. Between the 4 of you should be grabbing resistance for every and any encounter.

But the real money-maker of this build is Unicorn's Touch. It's 7 hit points of surge-free healing. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but if you spend 15 minutes resting between each encounter you should be able to heal up a sweet 84 hit points between all of you. Which is 420 extra hit points worth of healing for a 6-encounter workday. That does not burn surges. Frickin' sweet.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

It would be nice if there was an easy way for you to show the populace your example party because 95% of the posters live in ignorance in Wotc land.

[mean_liar]

Teleport dropping them while within the confines of a "dungeon delve" is probably not going to be a reliable tactic.

[shau]

Dunno, I don't see the point of 4 defenders.

One guy with Unicorn's Touch is all the healing you need. Remember, you can have as many short rests as you want. The only time you lose is the time you explain what you do during the rest or planning. You can totally have the party grow large flowing beards like ZZ Top in between encounter 3 and 4.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Well, the characters I designed are supposed to be able to be used for any kind of 6-encounter workday, not just in a dungeon. Then again, since this is DUNGEONS and Dragons perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.

Anyway, tactics. The damage might seem sort of low, but keep these things in mind.

1) Hitting multiple foes ends a fight just as quickly as dogpiling. The difference is how much damage you suffer in return. And with 4 shielding swordmages, the answer is 'not very'.

2) You will have to work together to get your Battle Awareness on, a feat which once an encounter allows you to make a melee basic attack as an immediate interrupt against a foe who shifts or makes an attack that doesn't include you. The beauty of this feat is that you don't need to mark foes.

In a group clustered around enemies, you can get off 2 or 3 Battle Awarenesses pretty easily; the problem is trying to coax a Battle Awareness from a guy who has an enemy marked. The solution to this is pretty simple. Just have someone mark a foe who is fighting the guy who doesn't have Battle Awareness. Either the enemy continues fighting the guy in hopes of not triggering the melee attack (and since they have a -7 penalty to damage rolls they're barely going to hurt you anyway) or they shift/move/attack someone else and trigger your Battle Awareness Attack.

3) In the same vein, that's what's Booming Blade is for. If you want to pile on single-target damage, this At-Will is awesome if four swordmages are working together.

For example, imagine a setup of a solo monster and four Swordmages. You have three swordmages on one side and another swordmage on the other side.

The three swordmages spam Booming Blade, which has the very desirable property of automatically doing 1d6+CON mod damage to a foe that starts their turn adjacent to the swordmage and moves away. The swordmage on the other side of the solo/elite marks said baddie with their Aegis of Shielding, takes an attack and shifts/moves away. So the monster is left with two choices:

A) Pursue the creature that marked them, take up to 3*(10.5) damage.

B) Don't trigger Booming Blade, attack the guys next to them. The swordmage who marked the creature uses their Aegis of Shielding and causes their damage to sink like a rock.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Dunno, I don't see the point of 4 defenders.

One guy with Unicorn's Touch is all the healing you need. Remember, you can have as many short rests as you want. The only time you lose is the time you explain what you do during the rest or planning. You can totally have the party grow large flowing beards like ZZ Top in between encounter 3 and 4.

You're not supposed to take an extended rest so I assume that there's some upper limit on how much time you're spent resting.

I don't know what it is, but I'd rather not push it. Taking 15 minutes of time between 5 encounters seems reasonable, taking an hour of time between 5 encounters does not seem like something that would fly even though it's not against the strict rules of the challenge.

[Josh_Kablack]

usually 5 squares directly upwards so that the enemy can take an extra 2d10 falling damage. This falling damage is very important.

I don't have the books in front of me, but recalling a rules argument in the middle of my last game, there's errata somewhere that teleporting opponents only works if the land in a legitimate space - which somehow prevents teleporting them midair or over the sides of cliffs.

That tactic is unlikely to fly in the typical player-hosing, RAW (if the DM even knows them) RPGA event.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, then don't teleport them midair. You can 'just' teleport the enemy next to someone else that you don't like and force them to make the melee attack against them instead. Dimensional Vortex is awesome like that.

It's a good source of damage and kind of hilarious but it isn't essential or anything.

[shau]

I don't know what it is, but I'd rather not push it. Taking 15 minutes of time between 5 encounters seems reasonable, taking an hour of time between 5 encounters does not seem like something that would fly even though it's not against the strict rules of the challenge.

The guys in the example above were going to stop for the enchant item ritual, and would have spent the hour that takes except for the fact that no one thought to bring it.

Don't try to think logically here, just as long as you finish in 45 minutes of real time and don't take an actual extended rest everything is legal.

The worst part of this whole thing is that it encourages the stupidest tactics possible. Your Booming Blade thing is going to make your group lose. Not because its not tactically a good move, it totally is, but because you are forcing your DM to make a choice. Choices are very bad here, because they cause the DM to take time to think about his move. He may have to mull over that choice for a few seconds. Perhaps he will even want to read the power in question or have you explain it to him.

If you are doing anything more complicated than Brash Strike or other simple damage powers you are hurting the team. The only thing you want is a swordmage for out of battle healing, maybe a cleric for in a battle healing, and everyone else is a clone of whatever does the most damage with at wills and encounters at this level.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The worst part of this whole thing is that it encourages the stupidest tactics possible. Your Booming Blade thing is going to make your group lose. Not because its not tactically a good move, it totally is, but because you are forcing your DM to make a choice. Choices are very bad here, because they cause the DM to take time to think about his move. He may have to mull over that choice for a few seconds. Perhaps he will even want to read the power in question or have you explain it to him.

I... I kind of want to die.

[MartinHarper]

So, even totally optimised, even at level 6, even with everyone going for speed, 45 minutes is as quick as it gets?

That's way too slow.

[Roy]

So, even totally optimised, even at level 6, even with everyone going for speed, 45 minutes is as quick as it gets?

That's way too slow.

Welcome to 4.Fail, king of the 4.Fail, can I take your order?

Cookie if anyone gets that reference.