Chaos Triads with 40-point PCs?

[zot]

Has anyone tried this? The blurb on the front says 4 40-point PCs might survive. I have 3 players (with no TFT experience) and wanted to run this adventure, so I made 3 high-XP PCs for them. Here are more details on the PCs.

My main quandry was in outfitting the PCs. The adventure itself pays out $2K to each starting PC if there are 5 PCs. I gave each PC a budget of $20K, which seemed like a very low amount, given that payout for a first adventure for starting PCs. I haven't played TFT very much at all since the 80s, other than for some play testing of my Theurgy system.

The first thing I noticed in the new ITL (probably very similar to the old version) was that Stone Flesh rings cost $4K. After outfitting the PCs, we have a gargoyle whose armor, talents, and items stop 15 hits (when he's not using a shield). The other PCs' armor, talents, and items stop 9 and 11 hits.

Note that this does seem reasonable for characters with that much XP -- these are top-tier PCs.

What I'm wondering is whether the adventure will actually scale to that level without serious mods. As I said in the other post, the adventure seems to be a good framework and I'm happy to modify it.

So, does anyone have experience running high-XP characters through this adventure?

[Skarg]

I haven't tried that adventure yet, but it was not very after a long-surviving PC hit 9 total armor (again, a Stone Flesh item) that we started losing interest in TFT about 35 years ago, because when you stop that many hits and can do good damage yourself, most normal fighter opponents have very little chance of hurting you at all, because the few who you don't kill before they can hit you, rarely can do any damage.

[zot]

Originally Posted by Skarg

I haven't tried that adventure yet, but it was not very after a long-surviving PC hit 9 total armor (again, a Stone Flesh item) that we started losing interest in TFT about 35 years ago, because when you stop that many hits and can do good damage yourself, most normal fighter opponents have very little chance of hurting you at all, because the few who you don't kill before they can hit you, rarely can do any damage.

You can get a +3 armor enchantment for another $4K so one adventure and you're halfway to +3 or +4 if $2K is the norm for a starting adventure ($2K doesn't seem unreasonable to me but maybe it's too much?).

So a ST 14 character with toughness 2 shouldn't take too long to get plus 9 armor (+12 for a ST 14 gargoyle)...

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by zot

You can get a +3 armor enchantment for another $4K so one adventure and you're halfway to +3 or +4 if $2K is the norm for a starting adventure ($2K doesn't seem unreasonable to me but maybe it's too much?).

So a ST 14 character with toughness 2 shouldn't take too long to get plus 9 armor (+12 for a ST 14 gargoyle)...

Sort of true, and very much an issue, I would say.

I don't think there is such a thing as a standard loot share expectation for a "starting adventure".

Stone Flesh is just a very good item, can be a game-breaker when stacked with other armor effects, and a real bargain at $4K.

In my opinion,

* All magic item costs should be starting points - they tend to be the cost it would take to make an item, without much profit margin for the maker, who is a powerful wizard who would probably rather be doing other things than powering up a munchkin. So there are probably not many magic items being made for simple sale, and those (especially the good combat-oriented ones) that do get put up for sale probably see a lot of demand from rich and powerful and competitive/dangerous people. So in my campaign, good luck finding a Stone Flesh item for sale, and not much chance it'll go for only $4000.

Enchanting armor - a starting character still faces the DX problem with armor, so maybe they're enchanting cloth or leather, but those will lose their enchantment much more quickly through damage than chain or plate, so the investment is temporary and starts to look expensive, especially since its availability and market value are also probably higher than listed.

Stone Flesh on a Gargoyle might reasonably be deemed to have no added effect due to redundancy?

[TippetsTX]

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great getting these adventures right out of the gate, but why aren't more of them geared towards beginning characters?

Releasing content for 40-point characters this early seems premature.

[Chris Rice]

Personally, I wouldn't allow PCs to buy stone flesh rings and the like. I feel the proliferation of items like these spoiled D&D for me and I was happy when I moved over to a lower magic game like TFT. After several years of play, the highest armour rating any of our players achieved was 8, and I felt that was too much, so a 15 is crazy! A rating like that renders the character invulnerable to most normal combat threats and so should be reserved for high level adventures (if you play them. I don't.)

The rules may have prices for these things, but that doesn't mean you have to make them available to the players.

[hcobb]

Remove innate self-powered from stone flesh and it becomes a 6/IQ roll to find each self-powered one as per page 166.

[zot]

Originally Posted by TippetsTX

Don't get me wrong, I think it is great getting these adventures right out of the gate, but why aren't more of them geared towards beginning characters?

Releasing content for 40-point characters this early seems premature.

Chaos Triads is geared towards 5-7 starting PCs. It also says that 4 40-point PCs might survive.

[zot]

Hmm, after reading through the Mystic Monk writeup more carefully I think giving some bad guy leaders some +N flaming weapons should pose a handy threat to that heavy armor.

The problem is that scaled up double and triple damage is way worse against those fixed armor values than scaled regular damage is against regular armor (4d averages 28 damage against 15 armor and 2d averages 14 damage against 5 armor). I have urged the players to trade in some of their talents for lesser wishes, so... hope that helps...

[TippetsTX]

Originally Posted by zot

Hmm, after reading through the Mystic Monk writeup more carefully I think giving some bad guy leaders some +N flaming weapons should pose a handy threat to that heavy armor.

Oooo... cross-thread marketing. Thanks!
;)