Battle of the Hidden Glade Report

General Summary

Hello boys and girls!

I hope all of you enjoyed that fight, even though a couple of you got smacked around pretty good.
I wanted to touch on a few observations I had, not to tell you what to do, but to give you some things to consider.

Plot and Rail-Roading

I had a good conversation with a couple of you a while back about the perception you had concerning the plot-lines available to you. I want to reiterate that this is an OPEN WORLD. Some of you felt that the mission with the shaman and the totem felt like your only option. I apologize if I gave that impression, it was simply the FIRST option of many that he was going to give to you. You guys always have the ability to say 'no' and pursue other options/interests/missions/objectives. Remember, your interaction with the Iron is not compulsory. You all have the agency to pursue your own interests, and I want to ENCOURAGE you all to really think as if these characters are real people in a real world. What would you/they actual do, and where ?
I have the content prepared to fill the gaps in major plot shifts, I just ask that if you guys suddenly decide to shift continents and go looking for burried treasure in the jungle, that you accept that the bespoke content crafted with care will likely be in the following session.

Healing

I don't think it's "necessary" to have a healer and I know some of you have/are adapting your builds to bring a little bit more heal support, I just want to encourage you to think about your sources of healing. This is a wide open world and there are many ways to solve the "problem."

Power Levels

To not beat around the bush, Goldareas has a wildly effective power build, and his raw damage and damage-mitigation has been the fundamental reason for much of your ease of success. I think all of you have good builds but some "come on-line" sooner than others. I have said, and will say again that I do not find that to be a problem for me for balancing encounters, however last night was a good demonstration of the strengths and weakness of the party. As a party, it might be a good idea to think about ways to double-down on your strengths, or shore-up your weaknesses from a strategy and resource perspective...
Also, I am sowly but surely increasing the difficulty of the campaign. I do not mean that I will just throw harder hitting bags of HP at you guys every encounter, but that the complexity and multi-variable problems you will encounter will benefit from you all taking the time to think... Last night I failed to give you a surprise round, even though technically only trevor and maybe gold would have benefitted from that... but setting up your fights to create things like surprise rounds and other advantageous conditions will really effect the difficulty. You will begin to encounter magic, smarter opponents, more challenging conditions etc. You will begin to encounter seasoned warriors and tacticians who KNOW that an enemy going down doesn't mean they are out of the fight, and will try to keep you down, PERMANENTLY. The enemy wants to win!
All of this to say that strategy and tactics are important. Choosing NOT to fight can be just as important as choosing how to fight. Not fighting can often solve your problems, but if you guys prefer to fight, just know that not all encounters are designed to be fair, especially if you force it.

Conclusion

Anyway. Just some thoughts I had. I'm always open for clarifying things and discussion and changes.
You guys rock. I love your characters and interactions, and I'm excited to see all of the cool creative shit you come up with
See you guys next game!

Campaign

Mortal Empires

Protagonists

Trevor Blackburn

Freya Olatur

Gold Areas

Sornafein Gladebrook

Chaotic Neutral Half Elf (drow variant) (Criminal / Spy )
Sorcerer 2

19 / 19 HP

STR
10

DEX
16

CON
18

INT
14

WIS
14

CHA
20

Rory Emberscale

Report Date

16 Oct 2022