Goodman Games

So...how was it? Let's get those DCC tournament stories rolling!

It was... HARD! Not to whine... OK, I'll totally whine. It was HARD!

We had a quiet DM and a really loud room, a table change and then another (non DCC) GM scream at us for being in her spot (GenCon moved our table and failed to update her to her liking.) So it's a little irritating that we made several tactical mistakes because we couldn't hear each other. But other than that, this was a tough one but lots of fun.

We really enjoyed test playing the 14th level characters. They have some pretty wicked powers and abilities. Of course, when you're getting pummeled by a gorgon and a manticore at the same time, it doesn't mean much. My impression was that we had to roll approx 15's to hit anything, so it was frustrating that we were missing 75% of the time.

Frustrating... but too short. I wanted to play all night. I'm looking forward to buying the module next year at GenCon.

And I'll be first to ask... when will the results be posted? (actually, I'm pretty sure they will be posted here in the forums within about a week or so... I just wanted to be the first person to ask. Are we there yet?)

Yeah...that sucks. Loud rooms always make things a bit more difficult. Was the DCC in the same place as last year (Union Station)?



Ah, yes. I was wondering how the 1st room would go...

Did you try to gang up on one of them?

How far did your group get?

The Blood Kings washed out in the first round.

We actually handled the first fight pretty well, it took us a few rounds but they really did not do a great deal of damange to us overall.

The telescope room ate up most of our time, but we were winning the fight when the time ran out. 2 spectral warriors down and one to go. That annoying tar monster was going to fall shortly.

We would of easily finished the room, but I think someone from Clan Yeoman cursed our dice after the Con last year. They were so unhelpful that I went out and bought new dice after the event. Just in case other teams did worse than we did.

After our round, we figured out that we had two characters that only hit THREE time between the two of them in the telescope room. The problem was that one of those two was the Cleric and he was the key player (along with the Warlock) for radient damage. Yes we missed the easy way to kill the spectral warriors in the room. [No spoilers here for those that want to buy and play the module]

Overall we were happy with our tactics, but fell victim to the dice gods.

So I think I am going to have a bonfire to sacrifice the old dice to appease the dice spirits before the next GenCon!

Hi All

The tournament was fun this year, and all my tables did very well. However
it is my understanding that there were a large number of teams that did super good. I say this because none of the teams I ran in round one or two advanced (and I think they all played fantastic), and they all seemed to have pretty good final scores (in my opinion).

I hope everyone had fun. The characters were very different from the bunch of nuetered cripples you had to play last year. Infact the characters were so good, I had a very hard time doing any appreciable damage (other than eating up the clock). This might very well be the year without a kill.

My condolences to the ''Blood of King". Ouch.

Looking forward to next years Tournamant

Erica

I feel for ya. Speaking from experience, it's always rough when you wash out of the event that you've been looking forward to all year.



I'd like to comment and ask questions here (regarding how you approached the room and the combat), but I'm a little limited on what questions I can ask, since I'm under NDA...



Ha ha. Actually, we cursed them the year before last...I guess it just didn't take effect until now.



I wouldn't worry about spoilers...just put *SPOILER ALERT* at the top of your post. Keep the tournament discussions going.

I'm definitely getting the impression that the competition was fierce this year.



Yeah...I noticed that the pregens were more powerful and capable than in past years.

So...

Who were the teams that played the final? Who won the tourney?

I was suffering from a severe fever during the final round and awards, so I don't quite remember, but I think first was "The Bastard Sons of Lee Van Cleef", followed by my team, "Warm Wet Rain" in 2nd. Third went to . . . uh, forget their name, sorry.

Overall, we had a fantastic time with this module and competition. I do know that my team really appreciated our fantastic DM's - Stephen, Don and Erica! (I don't know their board names) Thanks for a great run!

Ugh.

*** [be warned... there be spoilers aplenty ahead] ***

We chose cleric, paladin, warlock, wizard and druid/ranger, so we knew we were good on healing but a little weak on firepower. So we promised ourselves we would be sure to use airtight tactics and always... ALWAYS... concentrate fire on one target at a time to take them down as fast as possible. We hoped that would counterbalance our reduced firepower.

So, we fumbled around a little getting into the building in the sand. We tried to prep to make sure we were tied together in case it collapsed. We weren't surprised when the statues attacked and actually started taking them out fairly quickly. Our plan of concentrating fire went well. After the two gorgon statues were destroyed and the real gorgon appeared, two of us quickly deduced that we would be better off fighting the real gorgon and a manticore statue than fighting the real gorgon and the real manticore. Unfortunately, our other players didn't hear those instructions and the the next player immediately killed the manticore statue the very next turn. Enter one angry Manticore. Noise = 1, Us = 0. Arrgh.

At this point, the groups next to us were SO LOUD (the loudest jerks I've ever heard) and were so completely unwilling to quiet down after being asked politely, the DM asked the DCC folks to help. They worked with the GenCon people and got us a new table in a room across the hall. We settled in and the room was loud but not nearly so. Then the game coordinator for the group who was supposed to be using that table, who GenCon had bumped but not notified, started screaming at us that it was her table. Our DM asked her to take it up with the GenCon folks who had moved us there. She started yelling and swearing loudly. The DM asked her what game was supposed to meet there so we could maybe help by steering them to their new location. She said "Muppet Heroes LARP." And god help us, we couldn't help it, we all laughed in her face. Sorry. Well, that didn't improve her mood much but soon enough the Muppet LARP was moved and we could finally get back to playing.

So we tried to concentrate fire on the gorgon, who had already taken damage. Four of us surrounded it and started wailing (of course, "wailing" is a strong word... we were missing 3/4 of the time.) It breathed and trampled us but we were still in good shape. Our fifth, the warlock, was targeted by the manticore who flew and clobbered him each round. The cleric could barely keep him alive. Our only hope was that he was at least distracting the manticore until we could deal with it.

Finally, the gorgon fell. We turned our attention to the manticore, who glibly flew away. Only the wizard seemed to have ANY ranged attacks that were effective over 5 squares away, and since the manticore was consistently flying 5 squares away... we were all stuck. Our best strategy was to hide in the "room" and ready actions with what ranged attacks we had. When the manticore appeared, we fired away... usually missing. He kept dropping tail spike bombs into the room then flitting away, mostly unharmed. We sat, round after round... stewing with no clue how to remedy this... and we were 2 hours into a 4 hour game. Arrrgh.

Then we started burning dailies and they mostly missed (arrgh.) Finally, and I mean finally, the wizard caught the manticore with a sleep spell. Manticore missed his saves and fell asleep and stayed asleep for 4 rounds. That was enough for us to kill it (but barely... he was almost untouched at the point he fell asleep.)

Frustrated and horribly rattled, we plunged into the 2nd room, more than 2.5 hours into it and only through the first encounter. Arrgh.

We didn't spend much time on the astrolabe. We did history/religion checks and got solid info on the constellations, then turned the dial to point to the Heavenly Arch. It seemed to be the only one that didn't spell out some negative result. Unfulfilled but scrambling to get deeper, we pointed it to the Heavenly Arch, crossed our fingers and started for the next room down. The Druid/Ranger, with his 22 perception, looked down into the room to scout out our path (with a light spell from the wizard.) Apparently, the DM told him there were dark shapes flitting about the telescopes. None of the rest of us heard this little piece of info... Noise = 2, Us = 0.

So, we drop down into this un-guarded telescope room (so we thought.) We were immediately attacked by everything, all at once as hell broke loose. The Druid/Ranger was first to step down on the floor and the spectral things surrounded him and literally took him from full hit points to 12 hp in one round. We charged into the room, battling for our lives. All thoughts of concentrating fire just flew out the window as we all attacked willy-nilly. It was a mess. The cleric immediately attempted to turn undead, which missed (of course... arrgh) so did no damage but did scatter the things to the corners of the room (miss = push 4 and immobilized.) So we had a free round with the tar monster. We did a little damage to it but we only had 20 minutes left and thought we might push on to the next room (smells of desperation, and it was.) We got the door open and all of us into the hall but the specters followed and started attacking us from within the walls. And then time was up.

I don't think we did much damage to the tar monster and almost NO damage to any of the spectral horrors and I don't think we did anything that would even look like "concentrating fire." We totally fell apart.

So, short version... we got spanked. Each year I've been frustrated but this year I was really, really frustrated. We did a lot of things right so I'm not frustrated with my team at all. I am frustrated by the things we couldn't control, like the volume of the room and the distraction of having other gamers screaming at us. It didn't help that the first room was so difficult, but we're there to overcome challenges. Anyway, I had a lot of fun and I'll definitely be in the tournament again next year.

Congrats on the 2nd place win, and welcome to the Goodman forums.



Erica is probably Erica King ("Mouse" on the boards).

Bifster,

I can always count on you for a fantastic write-up. Thanks man!

Thanks!

In case people are curious, we took the Bard, Cleric, Fighter, Warlock, Wizard.

Glad to pitch in. I love recounting all our mistakes so others can laugh at us.

So, can anyone fill me in on what we missed? It was pretty clear there was more to do with the constellations but we just didn't feel we could take the time. Anyone find any cool effects?

What strategies worked against the gorgon and manticore?

What worked for others against the tar monster and specters?

The biggest frustration of all is getting just a little taste of the adventure and then waiting a YEAR to get any info.

Ha. Bifster, lots of teams go through the meat-grinder that is the DCC tourney. Trust me...we're more likely to commiserate with you than laugh at you.

I was a member of this year's winning team, "Don't Make This Wierd."

We selected the Fighter, Bard, Wizard, Druid, and Warlock.

The three teams who made the finals all made it to the final room and all (I believe) completed the ritual. Our team also managed to destroy the scroll and defeat the tentacles (which I'll refrain from spoiling here), but our DM (Adrian) told us there was more to come, if only we had more time. It was the first of the 3 adventure segments we were unable to complete.

So the competition was fierce. All 3 teams clearly had amazing final rounds. We were feeling pretty good about our session, but when we probably shouldn't have been. The Goodman tournament clearly attracts some very strong players, and I'm guessing that the number of points between 1rst and 3rd will be surprisingly small.

This was my first year in the tourney, and I had an absolute blast. Great people, a great adventure, and great, great gaming.

Incidentally, since it was being discussed, our warlock managed to land a sustainable power on the manticore that let him teleport it next to the fighter each round. He was tough to hit, but the fighter bonus to OAs helped keep him from flying away...and if he did manage to spend 2 actions and get away, the warlock just teleported him back on his turn. Of course, had the original warlock power not hit...things might have been a lot uglier.

Congrats to all the other finalists. I'm already looking forward to next year.

****SPOILERS BELOW****

I'm also from "Don't Make This Weird" -- I played the bard.

I'll echo Chzbro -- we had fantastic time playing this year's tournament, our first DCC tournament (although most of us have played in the D&D Championship the past several years). We were REALLY impressed with the quality of the adventure and the DMing we had. Hats off to everyone involved.

In that first round, as Chzbro said, we were lucky enough to get Summons of Khirad onto the Manticore so it couldn't stay away from us. We also managed (after several tries) to force the Gorgon down the hole to the telescope room -- that saved us from having to spend too much time dealing with both at the same time.

In the next room . . . we were very edgy about the Astrolab thingy. After a few minutes of debate, we decided to bypass it and come back to it, so we headed on down to the room with the tar beast and the telescopes and the wraiths. With practically no radiant firehoses in the party, we were really looking for a way to mitigate that encounter, so we were very open to the idea of attacking the telescopes. But, because we've learned through careful study that the Goodman adventures are an exercise in rat bastardy, I decided to use Song of Discord to dominate the tar beast and use it to attack the first telescope. Once we saw that the telescopes were the way to go -- and that the tar beast wasn't hurt by attacking it, we destroyed the other two quickly and then dealt with the tar thing.

In the last room we were able to take advantage of the close quarters to layer a collection of area effect powers and just play goalie, forcing opponents who managed to get out of the areas of effect back into the areas.

After we handled that room and discovered that it was the end of the line, we went back up to the astrolab (Occulus? I forget what we were calling it) and worked on trying to figure it out. We tried a few of the less dangerous-sounding facings for the device, but in the end left several of them untested -- much to the chagrin of our druid, who believes in pushing everything to the absolute limit. But we figured we had more to lose than we did to gain, so we stopped. I can't WAIT to see the finished module so we can really examine what we missed in there.

That, anyway, was our first round. The second and third rounds were also great fun and great challenges. I was glad that our testing and practice sessions had convinced us that we would be able to get by with just the bard for healing. That allowed us to take a whole lot of firepower, make sure we had the best collection of skills we could get (I'm pretty sure any group without the druid's perception check was doomed), and actually gave us an edge in the scoring -- with the bard's focus on helping party members avoid getting hit rather than healing them after they do, we spent fewer healing surges over the course of the adventure. (I mention that ONLY because I understand that they're going to change the scoring for next year -- and healing surges won't be tiebreakers anymore).

The thing that impressed me most was how close the three finalist teams were in the final adventure -- After four hours of adventuring, we all stopped within whiskers of each other -- it was close enough that I don't think any factor, no matter how small, can be said to have not mattered.

So, anyway, congrats to all the finalists. There are some great teams out there.

-rg

****SPOILERS BELOW*****

Hi everyone. I am also from Don't Make This Wierd. I played Ta'ud Az'ra the Warlock.

This was our first year in the DCC. We were very fortunate to take first place. The competition was tough and I think very few points differentiated the top three teams.

We knew very little about the DCC tournement when we purchased our tickets, but as we found out more, we started to get excited. It reminded us of old school AD&D (adventures like Slave Lords, Against the Giants, etc.). Our expectations were mostly surpased by our experiences at the actual convention. We had a GREAT time. THANK YOU to the writers, organizers, and judges.

CHARACTERS
Some thoughts on why we took the Bard, Druid, Wizard, Fighter, and Warlock?

Defender - We chose the fighter over the paladin because in our experience, the fighter is “stickier.” Also, the paladin had the misfortune of not having any skill that was the best in the party.

Leader - We chose the bard over the cleric for a number of reasons. 1) the bard was the scroll bearer who dedicated his life to destroy it. We wanted to accommodate him. 2) the cleric, like the paladin, brough few skills to the table. 3) the bard leads by focusing on preventing damage, the cleric by healing it. We though we would save some healing surges by taking the bard.

TOWER OF THE HEAVENS
We entered the sand filled center of the tower of the heavens carefully and quickly found a door beneath the sands. Opening it sprung a trap. We were attacked by magical constructs formed of sand. They droped fast but were replaced by far deadlier creatures. First a gorgon then a manticore.

We should have seen that coming and only released them one at a time.

We fought the overpowering gorgon with his petrifying breath back and forth across the sand. All the while, the manticore slug vicious barbs at us. Finally we tricked the gorgon into the open door in the floor. He fell to his death. I turned to the manticore and summoned it to my side by the word of Khirad. Ravak locked it down, knocking its legs out or tearing at a wing each time it tried to get away. When it did manage to evade Ravak, I summoned it back. It fell quick.

We used a slide effect to drop the gorgon into the pit. I was surprised to read afterward that gorgons are immune to push/slide/pull effects. Not sure if the DM forgetting that helped us or hurt us. We spent 4 rounds using our less effective attacks and had it well bloodied before it finally failed a save (we could have probably killed it outright with better attacks in the same time). The fighter’s combat superiority was key to defeating the manticore (along with several lucky rounds of the warlock sustaining Summons of Khirad). We finished this encounter fast.

I will try to add more later.

LOL, we're all lurking here. THAT makes it kinda weird, doesn't it?

Ha, guess I was more feverish than I remembered - I got the first place team wrong. Was the third place the Lee Van Cleef guys?

Ah well, it was great!

Congrats to all of the teams that made it to the finals....and congrats to Don't Make This Weird - for a new team (well, new to the DCC tourney, anyway) to push their way to the top is no small feat.

Don't Make This Weird - thanks for the recaps. I'd love to hear more (about later rounds) as well...just make sure to put the ***SPOILERS ALERT*** tag at the top.

You've pretty much hit on everything that makes this a "must do" event for us at GenCon every year. They've never disappointed.



Nice. Good tactic.

Just based on your descriptions of the first two encounters, I can see that your team did a great job of using the powers to gain some advantage.

For other teams - anyone else care to comment about the astrolabe and settings?

Radiating Gnome - any feedback from round 2?

Hi all

I glanced at some of the final scores. They were quite close. I don't recall exact numbers but the first place team beat the second place team by killing off the extra tentacle(s). Overall team "Wierd" and team "Rain" played the levels quite simalarly.

There were a few other lesser variables. But those (kill) points seemed to be the ones that seperated the two teams. Great job to both teams.

I'm not sure if "Bastard Sons" actually finished the ritual. But I do know that they made it to the final room.

*****Spoiler Alert******

All right, Second round Recap/reaction . . . . a command performance . . .

The second round was no slouch -- just as tough as the other two, and we ran into some huge challenges there. There were some really crazy tough fights, a puzzle, and some other cool stuff. It's GREAT to see a tournament style module that wasn't just a bunch of combats that you have to survive, so one more tip of the hat to Goodman, the DMs, and the designers.

So . . . the second round started off with a sort of running battle in a series of rooms populated by more of the mummies and guardians and some other stuff. We managed to control the battlefield with maintained area effect spells again -- that made it possible to deal with one side of the room at a time, cutting down on the risk to our characters. That was a pretty hairy fight, though -- not the most terrifying of the day, but it was no slouch.

After clearing that area, doing a bunch of investigating and exploring, we passed through an illusionary wall into a room with a bunch of clay warriors, bells, and a big boss statue thing. We had a clue from earlier in the session that helped us figure out which bell we ought to ring (not telling you, don't ask) but, as often happens, things in that room quickly went to hell.

That room was REALLY not nice. Lots of enemies, new surprises every round (including some sort of bulette that popped in from below). I mean, it was BAD.

The smart thing to do, in that room, would be to pull back, use the illusionary wall entrance as a choke point and try to deal with the monsters in a piecemeal way. Unfortunately, when things went to sh*t, we were far too committed to the room. So, we did the other thing. There was a secret door we saw on the other side of the room -- one that several of the clay statues were rushing towards. So, we put all of the party's considerable movement-y powers across the room -- through the numerous enemies. We used thunderwaves and other control powers to clear the enemies away from the door, passed through, and closed it behind us. It was a cluster, but we managed to get through without serious losses. I'm sure several of us needed a change of underwear after that one.

I think, in that room, if you managed to trigger the monsters without being too far into the room so you could pull back to a reasonable defensive position, it was possible to deal with the monsters in that room -- I know a lot of teams did just fine in there. But, we were all over the place, very exposed, and cut off from being able to pull back -- and pulling back was important to be able to avoid some area effect stuff the big statues was laying down. I'm sure a lot of semifinal teams got shreaded in that room.

From there . . . my memory is failing me . . . I think there might have been a fairly minor encounter as we moved on, and then we found ourselves in a room with two lion statues, a big sorting bin of gems, and a puzzle to solve.

I'm not going to tell you how to solve the puzzle. I will tell you that failing to solve the puzzle was bad news, apparently -- sand filling the room, monsters eating the sack lunch your mom made for you and pulling your underwear over your head -- basically everything we hated about high school in a few short rounds. I will say that the sorta algebraic, high school math solution we found for the puzzle -- which got us to a totally valid, correct answer -- was a lot harder than the elementary school level solution that the designers intended for us to use.

Still, Don't Make This Weird is not above doing things the hard way.

And, having solved the puzzle, the doors opened and we finished the second round.