Source
r/AdventurersLeague•
Adaptation01

Branching off of another post, do you feel the "pressure" of making the right item choice with your TCP, or do you just buy whatever you have unlocked as soon as you have the points?

Like the title says, this season players in my circles are feeling pressured to make the "right" choices when they buy their items because TCP is limited and you can't go back on your choice outside of trades which not everyone in the community participates in.

Is anyone else experiencing this "pressure" or do you find the freedom of choice relieving? There are a couple of players in my group who have 40+ combined TCP of T1 and T2 because they can't decide on which items they should get and I'm wondering if that is the case out in the wilds.

Posted Jan 30, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

953
Rangrok•

Sorta

My problem is that, especially with some of the T2 Season 8 mods, I feel like I kinda have to go into T2 with a +1 Magic Weapon when playing a martial class. As a result, it's almost irrelevant what sort of magic items I unlock in T1, because I'm just never going to bother with them until late T2 at best.

13
Adaptation01OP•

I found that to be quite laughable to be honest, they keep harping how you don't need magic items in 5e, yet they cram in as many of them as they can into their hardcovers and now dangle them over your head as unlocks in AL.

As for the S8 mods, right after taking away magic items they jammed t1 and t2 with S8 mods so far with mundane damage immunity.

5
wintermute93•

I've only been playing for a few months so my only AL experience is with season 8. I have 14 TCP and really don't want to waste them on things that won't be that useful. Even consumables seem like a bad idea; if I'm only getting 1-3 magic items from my entire time in tier 1 they'd better stick around. Someone should probably grab a bag of holding and some potions, but at the moment the only things I'm really looking at are Shield+1, Cloak of Elvenkind, or Slippers of Spider Climbing for 16...

7
neuromorph•

I have lost interest in magic items in S8. I loved getting some random item, and figuring out how to use it. Mow it's too much like any other RPG video game with unlimited choice rather than random drops.

Doesnt feel right.

7
MCXL•

They turned magic items into class progression. You are level 5, you get your +1 sword.

6
guyblade•

Except they completely broke it at the same time. Oh, I can have a guaranteed Staff of the Magi at 12th level? Yeah, my monk just happens to be exactly charismatic enough to take a one level dip into warlock. What a strange coincidence!

Under the pre-S8 rules, that would have been a dubious life choice given the contention that a high-end staff would garner. Now, it is just part of the build plan.

6
Adaptation01OP•

Almost every character started in season 8 should be planning for the staff at lvl 12, its too good not to want.

1
Lucosis•

It's essentially DKP (Dragon Kill Points) from old school MMOs, which you'd be hard pressed to find someone who liked.

  1. Proceed through module.

  2. Collect participation points.

  3. Spend them on an item but don't screw up because it'll take weeks to fix.

  4. Repeat.

2
Quantext609•

I feel confused about the system all the time so I might as well not get any magic items

6
Adaptation01OP•

I hear you, we are several months in... and I still answer questions weekly about the new system, even from veteran players.

3
FullTorsoApparition•

You are like a lot of my players. Out of 6 players, only 2 of them used their TCP to get a magic item when we reached Tier 2.

3
Omnia0001•

Depends on the person. I've seen people brew a character with a "Need Item X" - aka: 8 Str Martial character who banks on trading/getting a Str-fixing magic item. I've see people have characters who would hold TCP until they find a 'helpful item' - aka: Kensai Monk looking for Flame Blade / Oathbow. There are some that kinda go with the flow, but it's more like they decide what to buy when they have the points available and end up buying evergreens in the worst case.

I would say the big pressure is getting in on White Plume Mountain (+24 TCP!) during their T2 phase as players notice their general effectiveness gets improved when they can pick up a niche item to augment their build - or just a second staple magic item... depending on their role.

4
fishnugget•

other big thing is that WPM allows for a generic table G unlock - Basically a "Oh wait I really needed that item and should've gotten it at some point guess I'll just get it now kthxbai....." at the end of Tier 2. That's how a significant portion of giant belts have been showing up at my shop (and prayer beads and sunswords and more).

It seems more and more like if you don't run WPM (4-12 hour hardcover) before level 11 you're unintentionally "gimping" yourself under this system (even though that shouldn't be a thing).

5
Yahello•

Take it a step further. Take a long rest or split WPM into two sessions, level to 11 while in WPM and the 24 TCP should be T3 ACP as they are like the WDH TCP at the end, which are the same tier as your character.

3
fishnugget•

That's true. That's also a way to get a "free" staff of the magi currently.

4
Omnia0001•

Heck, if you really want to split hairs. WDH prior to level 6... ToA HC (or ToA module) once you have 450~500 gold to buy a +1 Shield, +1 Dagger, or a +1 Ylkwa [Non-Tradable]...

For additional magic items / TCP , i don't think there's anything else. For unlocks you can also look to doing Orcsplitter (PotA Ch6?) or wrapping up ToA.

2
fishnugget•

S8 changes - they wanted: To reduce people aiming for a curriculum of modules!

what they got: Run these modules in this order or else your magic item options are non-optimal for literally any build.

Its ridiculous.

7
Omnia0001•

They did get rid of magic item sniping and small-group hoarding. It simplified and flattened progression. It went a bit overboard in making every piece of gold you earn now matter and created spending decisions.

There are things I felt got improved, but I feel the issue is the lack of due diligence in doing proper conversions for older hardcovers to make them relevant in the S8 AL landscape as semi-valid progression methods.

Honestly I wish there was 'Player Quests' in the AL landscape - that award players with extra TCP for doing particular 'storylines'. Something that can easily give many roads into earning a bit more TCP/Gold to alleviate the compelling nature to play through the same modules over and over with different characters.

3
Adaptation01OP•

Yup. One of my groups has run WPM 6 times so far. If you don't odds are you're going to get wrecked in T3

1
cop_pls•

This is still worse than DMing t3/t4 content and applying the rewards to t1/t2 characters. Applying t3/t4 rewards to t1/t2 characters gives them the double TCP.

1
Omnia0001•

Not everyone is a DM - so those avenues aren't available for everyone. All the options provided are avenues any player. Even then, these options don't prohibit doubling with DM TCP/ACP in the gaps.

2
fishnugget•

Why not both honestly. If our only goal is to break a character then yeah, that'll do it.

1
BokuMS•

Items have become part of the build now, so of course there is a bit of pressure. It is no longer just random. People can criticise your item choices now because they know a large part of the options you've had. And whilst not all players are like that, you know you'll run into them eventually.

4
Adaptation01OP•

I have a slew of toxic things I thought of that the new system caused, but this is a new one that I hadn't thought of. Interesting.

3
BokuMS•

I'm pretty sure the new rules can be summed up as anti-casual.

8
Adaptation01OP•

which in itself is hilarious because they were pitched to be a much more new-player friendly system.

7
BokuMS•

I think the AL admins have a very warped perception of what it means to be casual.

5
Yahello•

I think the idea was that it would let me the more casual players remain competitive with min/maxers in addition to stopping item sniping, but they didn't realize how much easier this made it for the min/maxer, and how much said min/maxer can push the system.

3
neuromorph•

Anti immersive. That gold you see duat... that weapon drop... dust..

7
bravo2056•

The new system made it easier for min/maxer to plan out builds. And your build and the cleric's build etc etc.

7
Adaptation01OP•

Which as a min/maxer was fun at first, but now it just feels handed to me in a lot of cases the flavor of AL is just simply gone.

10
neuromorph•

You could always trade before. So the criticism was always there.

-2
BokuMS•

Trading did not create that expectation. Everyone knows you cannot get everything through trading and that it would be shady if you could. We are talking about what can be expected from a regular player, someone who is just there to play the game.

2
nin10donerd•

So my T2 death cleric started season 8 with 1 magic item, a st markovias Thighbone. I feel super punished as ALL of the mods I've played had a vampire or vampire spawn in it. I did manage to play white plume but I chose to grab a thematic item for the character instead of a weapon. Finally after almost leveling out of t2 I had enough to get a mace of smiting.

3
wombat7477•

One common practice has become to save T1 treasure points as your 'get a raise dead/resurrection' fund, and not bother spending anything before T2. I do find myself passing on fun but frivolous items in lieu of more powerful/essential items.

​

I did splurge on Eyes of Minute Seeing for my thief, and might also get Glove of Thievery even though I'd be spending some T2 points to get them. Oh well.

2
Yahello•

It honestly doesn't feel more pressuring or relieving to me; however, that may be because I had a private AL group of friends rather than random people, and our DM asked us for a wishlist of items and all of us understood that magic items were pretty important and thus we shared them appropriately. We actually rarely rolled for the item but based it on who would make the most use out of it or needed it the most and used the table agreement rule to give it to them. In the rare cases where we did roll, we ignored magic item count, rolled, then used the table agreement rule to give it to the roll winner, bypassing the magic item count rule; the only stipulation being it had to be an item that you could use for you to roll. That was how my old pre-S8 group did things.

2
cop_pls•

I grabbed a +1 weapon for my Barbarian from his T1 points, and since then I haven't found anything I particularly need, so I'm saving for something I could really want.

My Wizard has been much more fortunate, unlocking a Broom of Flying and a Helm of Teleportation from WPM, a Tome of the Stilled Tongue, snagging the Staff of the Magi off the S8 list, and a Tome of Clear Thoughts last week. Our DM isn't planning this out for me, he's just running through TftYP in order, I swear...

2
guyblade•

How did you get the Broom and the Helm from WPM? Neither of them drops there and you only get one table F/G unlock.

1
cop_pls•

You're right, I misremembered; the Broom came from Against the Giants.

1
FullTorsoApparition•

I was only able to DM until just recently, so I just bought whatever looked useful off of the Evergreen list when my character made it to Tier 2.

2
Chuck-the-painter•

So full disclosure I hate the new season 8 rules and as a result I have only played a hand full of mods with different characters so I don't even have enough to get a tier one item. That being said I tend to create characters who are not dependent on items so I am sure I would use the unlocks on cool items, but mostly I am glad I have access to items that make mt characters numerically better such as +1 shields, and weapons.

1
Elder_Platypus•

Prior to season 8, martial characters didn't have easy access to magic weapons, so I guess people are prioritizing them now.

But to answer the OP's question, no. I don't feel pressured to make the "right" choice. I just pick what seems thematically appropriate for the character.

1
guyblade•

This is mostly untrue--at least as far as getting a magic weapon (maybe not the perfect flametongue rapier your rogue wants). You could use faction rewards to buy a +1 weapon in any shape. The cost was 500 gp and 50 downtime. It was available if you were at least level 5, had 10 renown, and had 1 secret mission completed (probably the hardest requirement).

4
MikeArrow•

I have an excel spreadsheet that I update as I unlock items.

It's generally pretty obvious which ones would be useful to my character and which aren't.

If it's a martial character, I'll usually get a +1 weapon once I get 16 Tier 1 TP.

For my Warlock, I got a Rod of the Pact Keeper.

For my Wizard I got Cloak of Protection from doing DDAL08-06 and converted the rest to GP for spell scribing.

For my Dragonborn and my Human characters I picked Goggles of Night from doing DDAL08-02.

And so on.

Judging by your comments on the other thread I can see where you're leaning with your criticisms of the new rules, but for me personally I prefer the new system (and I enjoy the "meta" as it were) of finding out which item I unlock at the end and building up a list of unlocks to choose from once that character gets enough TP.

1
navd11•

TCP is simple enough to understand, and items up for grabs really depend on what you have unlocked. And if they still can't decide what is best for their characters they can reach out to folks on sites like this. But seriously 'can't decide' is a bad excuse to be sitting ontop of so many TCP...unless they have done poor job of keeping records of items (and what said items do)

-2