Reincarnation and a Fun Way to Die

Update: I'm not as clever as I thought! Rob Schwalb did something similar awhile ago here.

In addition to my own Dungeon Mastering, I also am able to step around to the other side of the screen (metaphorically, since we don’t use screens anymore) and play the other half of the game. Not only is it a ton of fun, but it also gives me some insight onto what it’s like to be on the receiving end of some deadly dungeons. This post talks about some interesting and fun mechanics we created to handle the issues we were  having with death and resurrection in D&D.

Damage Adjustment Follow-up & Nightmare Mode

Last week, I posted a short exercise in seeing how expected creature damage expressions stacked up against expected dungeoneer hit points through the entirety of their careers (Levels 1 through 30). What was found, very convincingly, was that as Level increased, creature damage expressions became less and less potent compared to the ever-expanding dungeoneer hit point totals. Looking at this, I asked the question, "If the math involved in Level 1 creatures vs. Level 1 dungeoneers is taken as an ideal, how would that translate to all of the other Levels? The answer came out that, to keep pace with the amount of threat from Level 1, damage expressions need a significant boost even as low as the mid-Heroic Tier.

A very interesting counter-exercise was then posted by The Hydra DM looking to see the inverse: if Level 30 is taken as an ideal, what does that make Level 1 damage expressions look like? the answer, of course, being that Level 1 damage expression become laughably low, which then suggests that published Level 30 damage expressions have been laughably low. Compound this with the ever-increasing means that high level dungeoneers have of negating or avoiding damage, and you can clearly see a complete lack of any real threat at high level play.

This post expands upon my first, by providing a few more Levels of examination to give guidelines for Deity-Level opponents, providing PDFs of the assembled charts, as well as the original calculations in MS Excel format.

Up On A Soapbox - Apathy

Apathy runs rampant in my generation, and especially among gamers. It sickens me.
How often do you talk with someone and they describe their feelings as "meh"? A lot, right? Meh is worse than a negative feeling. Meh is boring, and boring is the absolute last thing I want creeping into my game. I'm going to guess that I'm not alone in this regard. This  kind of non-comittal attitude permeates far too much in our dealings, and intrudes far too rudely into the RPG world.

Rule #7: The skill challenge goes on as long as it has to.

Fight Club (1999)

The 7th Rule of Skill Challenges is the same as that of Fight Club: it goes on as long as it has to. I'm talking specifically about the Complexity of a skill challenge, the number of successes that it takes to win.

Many of you are doing your skill challenges wrong. Bad fun wrong. This can be easily felt at the game table as a wooden, forced experience during skill challenges. Internet trolls and the haters on forums love to bash 4E's skill challenge system because of this feeling of artificial construction that so often rears its ugly head.

The subject of improving skill challenges has been gone over extensively the last few years. There's a lot of great information and advice out there, and that should certainly be taken in. The Trump/Fold mechanic of Fourthcore (as shown in adventures S1: RotIL and C1: CotG) springs to mind as a great addition to any skill challenge. This post, however, aims to change a more fundamental aspect of how skill challenges should be presented and run at the table.

Proudnail: Insubstantial

Insubstantial sucks! It's the worst crime that you can perpetrate on your players: tedium. As written, the insubstantial property on monsters halves all damage, except for very odd corner cases. What it is supposed to do it represent the ethereal qualities of ghosts and the like; in fact, making them harder to hit. What has ended up happening is that monsters with the insubstantial quality have gotten about half their normal hit points. Which is good on one hand, I'd hate to have to fight encounters with standard HP insubstantial monsters, it'd take forever! On the other hand, it's pretty bad. Insubstantial + Half HP = just one more layer of math for someone to have to deal with. Here's what I propose you replace the description of insubstantial with, and also bump up the creature's hit points to be in line with its typical role and level counterparts:

Insubstantial
All attackers must reroll every attack roll made against this creature and take the lower of the two values, except if the attack has the fire, force, psychic, or radiant keyword.

Bam, there you go. The martial characters and anyone without access to these keywords are going to have a more difficult time actually hitting the creature, but certainly will still be able to defeat them. Arcane and Divine characters will be able to fight insubstantial creatures with no problem. It's entirely possible that this house rule would totally screw up your game. You may have a party full of fighters, warlords and rogues. They may get obliterated by a few paltry wraiths. This is the risk that D&D heroes must take.

Proudnail: Quest XP

Quest XP is a great idea. Now, it's time to take it further. I know everyone is scared of change, just look at all the grognards out there, so we'll take this nice and slow. Baby steps.

The experience point is the lab rat food pellet of the D&D world. It's not so much a special treat, that's more in the realm that magic items have occupied (or should occupy), but it does reinforce player behavior. Very strongly.

What I've seen often in newly formed groups, especially those with many players not familiar with the milieu of D&D, will be a point very early on in the campaign, almost always in the first adventure, where they collectively decide on how the adventuring group is going to behave. There is a pull towards hack'n'slash, kill'em all combat. There is a pull towards using creative skills to accomplish goals, with force being used as a method of last resort. There are other decisions being made here, for example what kind of morality the group will have, but that's beyond this particular lecture. These decisions will very rarely be spoken upon. Often, the players are only dimly aware of what they're doing, how they're setting up the path for the rest of the campaign. Or, sometimes they will know very well what they're doing, but have trouble expressing it to the other players at the table, or worry that talking about it in the open would be some sort of faux pas.

So anyway, new groups go on their first adventure together, and they try out different things in the game and see how things work. It's not unlike the process an infant goes through with just about everything, espacially on a social level. They experiment, see the results, see how others react to what they do or say. New players to RPGs will often not really know what they are supposed to do. No one teaches this crap in school. So they look around for clues and social signals from others. They look for positive feedback on what they are having their character do.

Let's just say that on the first chance they get, a new adventuring group tries a creative, thoughtful way to solve the plot of an adventure; for example, they talk their way past guards, or they come up with a solution to the plot that hadn't been accounted for. Rules-As-Written, they are looking at getting 1.2 Encounters worth of XP: a Major and a Minor Quest reward. Do the math, you'll see that I'm right. But everyone feels ok that they solved the plot, and saw a small reward. I think it's really cool to see creative ways to solve the plot. I, as well as many others, are always looking for something to surpirse us in this game. We're a bit jaded.

The next go-around, the group is a little antsy and just decides to have their characters kick in the door and chop orcs heads. There's nothing wrong with this, of course. I love this style, it's very visceral, and it's a necessary part of the whole RPG experience. The group quickly finds that slaying a few meaningless Goblins in a dirty hole in the hillside grants them WAY more XP than the entire plot. Two full combat encounters, that's all you need to trump what is really the entire reason the PCs are adventuring in the first place. They group gets a gush of experience, and instantly it dawns on them that the way to pimp out your chracter, leveling up, finding treasure, getting that reward of XP, that fix of praise from the DM and the game system.

Kill monsters, take their stuff.

It's a numbers game, and the numbers add up very stongly in the favor of murder. If you want more creativity, roleplaying, bribing guards, scaling castle walls, and in general less combat, the solution becomes simple. Increase all Quest XP, major and minor. Make combat merely a means to an end. The real goalis to solve the adventure. That's where the reward is. Combats are dangerous, or tedious, or whatever you make them; but, they do not get the player what she wants. My suggestion would be to quadruple the XP for Quest rewards and half the rewards for combat. I think you'll find that your players, whether they are consciously thinking about it or not, will start seeing the adventure in more interesting terms. They will come to the realization that combat has a high real time to XP reward factor, and solving plots can get you levelled up for less risk and less time at the table.