VTD 20

MLK Weekend meant VTD 20.  Yet again, not a Patron at beginning of the year.  But, then, 30 or so less people were this year as evidence of what we expected would happen.

Anyway, had four runs.

Saturday 11:36AM

Team run.  Epic.  We won fairly easily.  First combat was two rounds.  We won initiative like first three fights without having an elf in the party.  Final combat was three rounds.  Other two combats were three rounds.

The damage tracking was kind of interesting.  I made both the monk and ranger builds and the ranger build dealt more damage!  Barbarian dealt most, again, but was only hitting in the 80s with non-crits.  Here are the contribution to total damage percentages for the party of nine:

Barbarian — 18%
Bard — 6%
Cleric — 2%
Druid — 10%
Dwarf — 12%
Fighter — 12%
Monk — 15%
Ranger — 17%
Rogue — 8%

The puzzles didn’t do much for me, especially when the third was solved effortlessly (for the wrong reasons).  But, the dungeon overall didn’t do much for me.  It was extremely derivative of previous dungeons.  I was looking for Chaldea (Peter Adkison’s fantasy Egypt) stuff, and we were yet again on a ship and yet again had tentacles to hack.

Sunday 10:36AM

Anti-Cabal run, Nightmare.  I dwarfed as usual.

This run reinforced my ennui with these rooms.  Normally, this is my best run as it’s the metagame and chill run.  Even though we were actually in danger in room 7, could have possibly even failed, where I was one round from death, I found the dungeon just extremely boring.  So much felt like going through the motions with no meaningful theme to distract from banal mechanics.

Barbarian contributed 28% of damage, monk 25%, dwarf 19%, fighter 14%, rogue 15%.  Combat rounds were only 3, 4, 2, 4.

Monday 1:48PM

Epic Double Down forum run.  I barded.  Played with some big names in the TD community, including first time I think I’ve ever done a normal run with Trent.

I was AC 45 because I’m used to metaing for DDs.  I didn’t get the sense the other players were.  I took no damage in half the rooms due to high AC.  Druid and elf got chewed up even beyond elf cutting himself.  OTOH, elf would do 154 or 200+ damage on first round of combat.

Combat rounds were 2, 4, 3, 5.  I didn’t get individual contributions for two rounds, both first rounds of combats so elf contribution would have been higher.  But, barbarian was 20%, bard 8%, druid 12%, elf 25%, monk 35%!  Elf would have averaged around 110 dmg/rd, where monk averaged 141 dmg/rd!  When are we getting Mythic difficulty level?

The run was not as boring simply because the difficulty was higher, the group was different, and the threat to the party was real due to embracing offense over defense.

Monday 4:36PM

Epic Weird.  10 party members.  I polydruided and got to be each elemental form once as is required under the polydruid society bylaws.

It helped immensely that this was Weird so that the content was different.  The puzzles weren’t that different.  I don’t need Baby Shark playing repeatedly, but I’m also not triggered by such like others are as it means next to nothing to me as someone who doesn’t interact with kids that often.  Room 7, we faced Slimer instead of the librarian spirit.

It was good.  I think the team would be more into things if did Weird runs, though there was a strong player generated theme in my first two runs to add something.

To me, just a pointless dungeon when we should be doing faux-Egypt stuff with Poisoned and Diseased mattering, with Undead Touch Attack Effects.  I won’t be able to go through treasure for a longer than usual time, not that going through treasure gives me much joy.

Rounds were 2, 3, 3, 4.  Monk contributed whopping 22% of damage, elf 17%.  Elf averaged over 240 dmg/rd in room 7, taking off half the rounds.  I contributed 11% where 10% would have been average.  Only run with a paladin and paladin contributed 4%.  Put a different way, monk did 1570 damage on the run, paladin did 289, and I did 775.

I’m increasingly frustrated with paladin builds, though I should just stop trying to make ones for Epic play, as it’s just not an Epic class.  Rogue are still the most frustrating builds for me to make as they have no defenses and the offense is just all about getting 17+ on attack roll/slide.  So much more I can do with wizards, who don’t need to be able to hit anything.

Well, VTD 21 is supposed to actually be in Chaldea, so maybe it won’t be so boring.

I appreciate the work of everyone involved, in particular the extra work that Weird runs require.  But, this doesn’t seem this hard.  We’ve had interesting rooms and dungeons in the past.  Maybe different puzzles is hard, but the combats could just use mechanics used in the past or try something different like The Cube.  Room 7 monsters really need to have physical attacks so that AC matters.