Lair Assault

[Matt James]

Who has played the first D&D Lair Assault? I'm interested in seeing how things went down and what things you liked or disliked.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/event.asp...dndlairassault

[Adam Page]

I've only played it against myself while I was building the 3d version, but i've DM'ed it 23 times...

I have loved running it, there are some bits that I know the players didn't enjoy, mainly the rune corridor. I'd have liked a bit more choice, such as being able to select which platforms were effected by the changes, more creatures with ranged or burst/blast powers. Mordai Vell was fun to play, and even in the competition environment we ran it in, I managed to add some RP flavour to the critters.

It did however highlight some problems I have with the 4e rules: jumping, standing up from prone not provoking OA's and immobilized allowing you to stand up.

[Darth Jerod]

I was supposed to run it yesterday at the store but a lot of people bailed because of the holiday weekend. So on the 17th I will be running it.

I am excited.

[Rev. Lazaro]

I had the option to run it but as it is I'm already the lone D&D Encounters DM, wasn't sure if I'd be able to handle running two event nights a week (especially since the other nights at our FLGS are heavily Magic based nights, and they get massive turnouts.)

Still I'm very curious about the event. Is it a set night like Encounters being on Wednesday? Or is it just play it over and over through November?

[Matt James]

From what I understand, you can play it anytime and as much as you want.

[Darth Jerod]

From what I understand, you can play it anytime and as much as you want.

Yeah that is the idea behind it. With the "achievements" that is the whole goal of it. Score the 200pts plus the bonus points.

Though I would have left those spoilers out of the article since they are secret, save something fun for the actual play.

[Matt James]

Yeah that is the idea behind it. With the "achievements" that is the whole goal of it. Score the 200pts plus the bonus points.

Though I would have left those spoilers out of the article since they are secret, save something fun for the actual play.

Hense the spoiler alert icon that is big and noticeable

[Dyser]

When we played through Lair Assault, we were the first group going through it officially. The DM had his own gaming group do a test run through it with him, but they hadn't designed characters specifically for it and they decided to split up to give the DM as much of a run-through as possible. Half their party died in the first room from fire, the rest died when they were all standing on the same platform when it disappeared. They were extremely arrogant and annoying, deciding to hang around and watch as we all died (they presumed) well before they would, because they're the stores old guard grognards and think they're better than everyone else.

They left once we survived the second room, after jumping up several times and leaning over our character sheets to see how we most assuredly must have cheated to do X or Y. I was about to complain to the store owner before they dispersed. I still might.

We survived all the way through to round 20. The entire group. The only group so far to live all 20 rounds. We just couldn't do enough damage to kill Vell.

The reason I post and mention all this is that it really annoys me that their TPK would have technically earned them 5 glory points for playing and dying horribly, while I survived through the entire thing and likewise only get 5 glory for rolling a few critical hits.

In addition to that, our store owner has told us he'll only have time in the store's gaming room schedules to have each group run through three times, so it's not being run as something where you can make unlimited attempts everywhere.

I just find the glory awards to be particularly frustrating. Half of them are predicated not just on doing a thing, but doing a thing and winning the entire challenge. Others are individual, and only one can achieve them per challenge attempt (like retrieving the gem out of the eye of the statue.) And then others are exclusive from the first set, and predicated on you dying. I could very easily see myself investing 5-6 hours on each three attempts (our healer is amazing) and only walking out of this with 10-30 points out of 200 depending on how the other sessions go.

I hope they improve the structure of the glory points for future lair assaults. It's just not satisfying at all to make it to the last room and round 20, and have the same glory as someone who was face down in the pools of oil twenty feet from the entrance.

Also, I hope Wizards puts up a place where I can leave this feedback with them. I couldn't find anything. I'll be sure to poke around this site, though.

[Dyser]

When we played through Lair Assault, we were the first group going through it officially. The DM had his own gaming group do a test run through it with him, but they hadn't designed characters specifically for it and they decided to split up to give the DM as much of a run-through as possible. Half their party died in the first room from fire, the rest died when they were all standing on the same platform when it disappeared. They were extremely arrogant and annoying, deciding to hang around and watch as we all died (they presumed) well before they would, because they're the stores old guard grognards and think they're better than everyone else.

They left once we survived the second room, after jumping up several times and leaning over our character sheets to see how we most assuredly must have cheated to do X or Y. I was about to complain to the store owner before they dispersed. I still might.

We survived all the way through to round 20. The entire group. The only group so far to live all 20 rounds. We just couldn't do enough damage to kill Vell.

The reason I post and mention all this is that it really annoys me that their TPK would have technically earned them 5 glory points for playing and dying horribly, while I survived through the entire thing and likewise only get 5 glory for rolling a few critical hits.

In addition to that, our store owner has told us he'll only have time in the store's gaming room schedules to have each group run through three times, so it's not being run as something where you can make unlimited attempts everywhere.

I just find the glory awards to be particularly frustrating. Half of them are predicated not just on doing a thing, but doing a thing and winning the entire challenge. Others are individual, and only one can achieve them per challenge attempt (like retrieving the gem out of the eye of the statue.) And then others are exclusive from the first set, and predicated on you dying. I could very easily see myself investing 5-6 hours on each three attempts (our healer is amazing) and only walking out of this with 10-30 points out of 200 depending on how the other sessions go.

I hope they improve the structure of the glory points for future lair assaults. It's just not satisfying at all to make it to the last room and round 20, and have the same glory as someone who was face down in the pools of oil twenty feet from the entrance.

Also, I hope Wizards puts up a place where I can leave this feedback with them. I couldn't find anything. I'll be sure to poke around this site, though.

[gaming tonic]

I will keep playing until I am successful. I like the replay aspect. I will let you know when the day comes that I actually survive the assault. Perhaps I should brush up on my PC optimization skills.