Final Adventurers League Season 8 Tier 1 Take-Aways of 2018

My favorite local comics and games stores hosted the final module Season 8 Tier One (levels 1 - 4) module tonight. While there will be a Tier One table available during the remaining D&D Adventurers League events at the store, most likely they'll be replays or CCC's as Tier Two modules of Season 8 will be focus. Tonight also marked my first time playing a Battle Master fighter archetype in D&D 5E. So here's my final tier 1 take-aways of 2018.


You can play a Loki-type PC in 5E!
By Loki, I mean the Loki as portrayed by Tom Hiddleston in the MCU. Trickery domain? Check. A splash of Rogue for Sneak Attack and Cunning Action? Check. The PC had them both. However, the crème de le crème was the use of Channel Divinity to create a duplicate. While MCU Loki rarely uses a duplicate to force his opponent to 'fight double' in the movies, I have a feeling 'fighting doubles' would be more frequent if the special effects budget allows. D&D on the other hand isn't hobbled by a budget. Ergo, the tactic of 'fight me and my duplicate' was employed. Also, the PC possessed a hat of disguise and would try would be opponents. Antics all befitting of Loki.


I am the City Watch!
What's better than pretending you're a member of the City Watch? Being a member of the City Watch 'performing City Watch' functions. My city watchmen diffused a situation by 'arresting another PC'; but also could have swayed another situation because of his role. Alas, I rolled a one...


Season 8 modules possess a more open-world feel
Just enough information seemed to be given to the DM that we could have approached the modules in a number of different ways and via different play-styles and accomplished our goals. Which was good, because the Tabaxi Rogue really loved sneaking around and inadvertently causing mischief such as the incident that led to my PC 'arresting' him.


Treasure Checkpoints and Advancement Checkpoints Both Allow for Murder Hobo style of play yet renders that style moot.
We, ahem, triggered much more combat than we should have. The module seemed set up for 'what happens if the PCs fight so-and-so. Which is good. However, D&D experience points have long been based on what you killed, how many did you kill, and was it a challenge. Advancement Checkpoints renders any combat not related to accomplishing your goals superfluous. Sorry, murder hobos. No extra XP for you. On a similar note, the aforementioned rogue loved looting stuff. DM loved exaggerating the rewards only to end by stating 'and you keep none of it'. Sure, PCs can loot as a character trait; but there'll be no game mechanical benefit for doing so. So there's less reason for a 'kill and take their stuff' mentality. I can't think of a better way of discouraging murder hobo behavior than rendering it meaningless other than increasing the chances of PC failure, ie death or failure of objectives.


My first taste of Battle Master Combat Maneuvers was limited but satisfying.
Never played a battle master before. Therefore, I've never used combat maneuvers in 5E prior to this evening. Believe I only used them about three times and it was the same maneuver every time. There was an attempted fourth; but I missed the attack role only to discover the maneuvers are worded along the line '... the hit...' implying they're like Divine Smite and don't need to be called beforehand. Absolutely loved the discovery because I felt dejected upon the miss. Didn't get to experience the effect too much because the damage dealt dropped the opponent to the kill/unconscious condition on two of the occasions. The one successful use occurred during movement phase so tripping the opponent didn't have quite the impact. Other than that I loved the flair of tripping opponents. Still, I enjoyed the extra combat option enough that I feel pursuing Slow Progression with my fighter to experience combat maneuvers more will be more than worth it.


Happy Gaming!


Next time.