Winter Fantasy Roll Call

[rooneg]

One note for AL admins from that recap -- keep an eye on the Simulacrum spell, and have your adventure designers take it into consideration when designing adventures.

Insert obligatory "there's some guidance on high level spells from the admins that's supposed to come out real soon now, wouldn't it be cool if it had some advice on dealing with stuff like this?" comment here.

 

[Cascade]

DM David has a nice Winter Fantasy recap as well on his site.

One note for AL admins from that recap -- keep an eye on the Simulacrum spell, and have your adventure designers take it into consideration when designing adventures.

--
Pauper

We "heard" that there was an un-official rule that each casting of Simulacrum would count as an extra player at the table and the judge would adjust the mod accordingly.

Not agreeing or disagreeing...just pointing it out.

 

[darjr]

I would think a DM has the flexibility to do this now.

 

[Undrhil]

DM David has a nice Winter Fantasy recap as well on his site.

One note for AL admins from that recap -- keep an eye on the Simulacrum spell, and have your adventure designers take it into consideration when designing adventures.

--
Pauper

Recently played through Durlag's Tomb (I forget the mod code for it at the moment) and my character has the Simulacrum and was using it in the final combat and we *still* barely survived. I think the mods are fine as they are.

 

[RulesJD]

Simulacrum is hiiiighly DM knowledge dependent as well.

For example, does the DM know whether the player has given the Simulacrum the appropriate equipment? I once shutdown a Simulacrum because the player forgot to bring an extra Spell Casting Focus. Same goes for armor, weapons, etc.

 

[Undrhil]

Simulacrum is hiiiighly DM knowledge dependent as well.

For example, does the DM know whether the player has given the Simulacrum the appropriate equipment? I once shutdown a Simulacrum because the player forgot to bring an extra Spell Casting Focus. Same goes for armor, weapons, etc.

Yep. I thought about this as well with my Simulacrum and I have written it out on its own character sheet and I detailed on my character sheet the gold that I spent on equipping it. Let's face it: a Wizard doesn't need more than robes and an arcane focus, but I gave it a dungeoneer's pack as well as let it attune to my Staff of Fire, which it uses as a focus. It's all detailed on the sheets.

Also: you "shutdown" a simulacrum? What happened to "this isn't DM vs player?" If the player "forgot" something but the character wouldn't have forgotten, retcon and move along. I don't get the power trip DMs get with shutting down players when they get something new to play with

 

[Pauper]

We "heard" that there was an un-official rule that each casting of Simulacrum would count as an extra player at the table and the judge would adjust the mod accordingly.

Interesting idea -- would suggest that if a wizard brought a Simulacrum to an already-full table, it would not be allowed to play the module, as it would cause the table to go over the AL maximum number of PCs.

Good point by RulesJD -- the spell does explicitly state that the duplicate is created without equipment, and any expenditures made by the PC to equip the Simulacrum should appear in the character's log.

--
Pauper

 

[warfteiner]

For my AO tables, I tried to make some encounter adjustment stuff clear. Especially at high levels, encounters can go sideways for both players and the DM very quickly, and the admins have been taking a lot of feedback and input on this over the last couple months. Personally, I generally keep the following in mind:

* simulacrum = +1 character
* GWF/ Sharpshooter feats = +1 character/ 2 feats
* sentient items (Hazirawn, Dawnbringer, etc) = +1 character/ 2 items (sometimes; depends on party composition and adventure structure)

All that aside, scaling is still a huge point and is not entirely/ flatly dictated by AL guidelines. Make the game fun for the players, but overall everyone - including the DM - is there to have fun. Be ready to adjust up & down as-needed to keep the flow going for your table.

We're not quite ready to launch the high-level spell guidance, but it's coming. Events like WF give us a great opportunity to gather that input - if you would like to share your own, please feel free to hit me with those thoughts here, on Facebook, or via Twitter. Emailing community@ will also get Robert's attention.

 

[Motorskills]

* simulacrum = +1 character

This I get, seems like a sensible OOC rule.

* GWF/ Sharpshooter feats = +1 character/ 2 feats.

This I don't get (as in, I don't understand what "+2 feats" means).

 

[warfteiner]

Largely depends on the adventure. For every 2 characters that have 1 of those feats, add "+1 character" to the encounter math. That said, if the adventure does not really use a lot of melee and 4 characters have GWF feats... I wouldn't be worried about it.