Being a DM is often a difficult job. One of the difficulties, but not the only one, is tracking a large amount of information. I think one of the best tools to handle this is a laptop. I think most people have access to a laptop and anyone who invests most likely hundreds of dollars into D&D books can probably drop a couple hundred on a low performance laptop.
So what should you have open on laptop. Well Wizards would probably want you to have some D&D insider tool open, but I don't see the big value in that for a tabletop game. A vritual tabletop really only helps if you have some kind of projector or if everyone has a laptop. What I usually have open is a browser and an editor to take notes or read notes from. But what I would probably want to use is a browser and Microsoft OneNote.
Microsoft OneNote is a note taking application made by Microsoft. It is designed to be a common note taking area that can be used by multiple people concurrently and at my job we occasionally use it to share information. But it is also just very well built for taking and organizing notes. One of my co-workers has done a survey of all kinds of note taking software and says that Microsoft OneNote is a level above the rest in terms of handling note organization. Alhough I have not done a similar survey, I do attest to the fact the OneNote is a very good application for organizing information. Unfortunately it costs money. Fortunately I get it free with my MSDN (MicroSoft Developers Network) account.
So OneNote for taking down information and storing information. I would also have a browser for several reasons. One is to access Javascript applications. I use one to track initiative and one to handle hidden group roles like Search, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive and so on. I usually have a pane open to the SRD and one open to the game wiki. I use a free wiki hosting site to hold information for my game and put up optional rules, experience, game info and so on there. Players also theretically keep there characters there as well. Although I have been lax on updating the wiki for anything but XP lately.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Durations, part 2
In my recent game my players are exploring a dungeon. They have a large number of magical effects that they use. These effects are either 1 round, 1 minute, 10 minutes, or 1 hour per level. Fourth edition, like I mentioned before just has 1 round, until you save, while concentrating, or entire encounter durations.
So here are questions answered by durations. My players put on several magical effects that lasted 10 minutes per level, such as Resist Fire and Freedom of Movement. For a 15th level caster this is 2.5 hours. So you could assume that the entire adventure lasts under 2.5 hours, but when numerous battles are fought and many large rooms are searched it questions this assumption. The same question applies to spells that last 15 minutes. Is it on in the encounter after it is cast? What about the encounter after that? Another timing question is how long does it take to scan every room we have been in with some detect spell. At this can get very granular, for example my players have a Wand of Detect Secret Doors. Each charge lasts a minute so many charges are used to scan an entire complex...
I said before that in combat durations are easy to track. They also become meaningless to track after a certain level. Most combats go anywhere from 3 to 10 rounds. Most round per level spells will simply be on for the entire combat and not on for the next.
So how do we handle those questions I mentioned earlier. Well, what I am doing is just making guesses and imposing those on the players. After 8 or 9 encounters I said that there 10 minute per level spells were gone. But could you track time? Tracking time tends to be something very easy to do in computer games, but a pain in the butt for pen and paper games. So if you tracked time how would you do it?
Each battle and the after combat activities of picking up weapons, letting effects wear off, some healing spells can be roughly estimated to be 2 minutes. In some cases letting effects wear off will take longer such as a 10 minute paralysis. Searching a 50'x50' room takes 10 minutes. Travelling super cautiously (searching while moving) means 50' per minute. Just walking means about 200' per minute assuming a 20' movement rate. Stealthy travelling would be half normal speed. So you could track rough estimates in time by marking minutes. But that is one more thing to track for a likely already overtaxed DM.
Another solution is to turn those durations into 'number of encounter' durations. For instance a round per level spell turns into a 1 encounter spell. A minute per level spells would last 2 encounters. Ten minute per level spells would last 10 encounters. Hour per levels spells would just last the entire day. This is an easy way to handle things, but it reeks of inaccuracy. It completely ignores time in between which could be spent carefully exploring a dungeon or even travelling since the encounters might be during a wilderness trek. So I really don't like handling things this way.
I think, in general, if you track time using rough values using some easy to use method it is probably the the way to go. It may have benefits beyond spell durations such as tracking time related to some plot event. For example, the kidnapped king will be executed at high noon, the players have 2 hours to recuse him.
So for tracking I think a little javascript application with buttons like "Fight", "Search Small (20'x20') room", "Search Large (50'x50') room", "Travel 100'", and so on with a counter at the top. You would have a control to enter a spell and it's duration. You could then have then duration display whether it was still active. Also maybe a hidable log of all the events.
So here are questions answered by durations. My players put on several magical effects that lasted 10 minutes per level, such as Resist Fire and Freedom of Movement. For a 15th level caster this is 2.5 hours. So you could assume that the entire adventure lasts under 2.5 hours, but when numerous battles are fought and many large rooms are searched it questions this assumption. The same question applies to spells that last 15 minutes. Is it on in the encounter after it is cast? What about the encounter after that? Another timing question is how long does it take to scan every room we have been in with some detect spell. At this can get very granular, for example my players have a Wand of Detect Secret Doors. Each charge lasts a minute so many charges are used to scan an entire complex...
I said before that in combat durations are easy to track. They also become meaningless to track after a certain level. Most combats go anywhere from 3 to 10 rounds. Most round per level spells will simply be on for the entire combat and not on for the next.
So how do we handle those questions I mentioned earlier. Well, what I am doing is just making guesses and imposing those on the players. After 8 or 9 encounters I said that there 10 minute per level spells were gone. But could you track time? Tracking time tends to be something very easy to do in computer games, but a pain in the butt for pen and paper games. So if you tracked time how would you do it?
Each battle and the after combat activities of picking up weapons, letting effects wear off, some healing spells can be roughly estimated to be 2 minutes. In some cases letting effects wear off will take longer such as a 10 minute paralysis. Searching a 50'x50' room takes 10 minutes. Travelling super cautiously (searching while moving) means 50' per minute. Just walking means about 200' per minute assuming a 20' movement rate. Stealthy travelling would be half normal speed. So you could track rough estimates in time by marking minutes. But that is one more thing to track for a likely already overtaxed DM.
Another solution is to turn those durations into 'number of encounter' durations. For instance a round per level spell turns into a 1 encounter spell. A minute per level spells would last 2 encounters. Ten minute per level spells would last 10 encounters. Hour per levels spells would just last the entire day. This is an easy way to handle things, but it reeks of inaccuracy. It completely ignores time in between which could be spent carefully exploring a dungeon or even travelling since the encounters might be during a wilderness trek. So I really don't like handling things this way.
I think, in general, if you track time using rough values using some easy to use method it is probably the the way to go. It may have benefits beyond spell durations such as tracking time related to some plot event. For example, the kidnapped king will be executed at high noon, the players have 2 hours to recuse him.
So for tracking I think a little javascript application with buttons like "Fight", "Search Small (20'x20') room", "Search Large (50'x50') room", "Travel 100'", and so on with a counter at the top. You would have a control to enter a spell and it's duration. You could then have then duration display whether it was still active. Also maybe a hidable log of all the events.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Crafting, some clarifications
This post is meant as a follow up to http://will-gamedesign.blogspot.com/2008/11/crafting-alternative-system.html and is basically in reponse to some comments.
First, you talk of gaining Materia in terms of points, but in using it you talk in terms of Gold Piece Equivalent (GPE). In addition to this inconsistency, you do not provide a conversion factor or guidelines for creating a campaign specific conversion factor. I think converting adds an unnecessary complication to this system and would advise sticking to one or the other, preferably GPE.
Yeah, I wasn't clear on this. The idea is that Materia would always be measured in terms of gold piece equivalents, but I used the term "Materia point" that was confusing. It was my thought that Materia would always be measured in terms of gold value, although it is possible that Materia might be very marked up in some cases. So you could spend 2 gp for 1 gp worth of Materia.
You may also want to limit which enemies provide Materia, or you will likely get a ghoulish campaign where the party spends every after-battle stringing their opponents up to harvest their body parts.
One thing I had though of in the past was that certain foes would provide more Materia such as Dragons or Demons while Humanoids would provide less. I thought that was a complication I wouldn't want to introduce until it was more playtested. I do see the potential for weirdness when the characters are collecting Materia from everything, but unless the players get gruesome, which would be a role-playing choice they made, it can be as simple as collecting a few drops of blood.
Indeed, your idea of Materia appearing in places might actually work better for this than harvesting body parts. Places with great elemental affinity (ex. a red dragon's den, a beach by a great ocean, the middle of an untamed wilderness, the site of a great tragedy, etc.) could develop small amounts of very valuable Materia over time. It would explain why, for instance, a tribe of Kobolds living on the edges of a great forest might have a small supply of wood-aligned Materia in their village, having found it or traded for it with those deeper into the woods.
This idea was actually stolen from Ars Magica. In Ars Magica it is assumed the wizards can easily turn lead into gold so they replace money treasure with magical essence treasure. But Materia can show up as naturally generated by a magical place or as just included in normal treasure. I wanted to include harvesting Materia from monsters because this gives players treasure from monsters that they might not normally be able to get treasures from. It also gives the Materia more flavor since the encounters tend to be vivid in characters minds. For example, your +2 sword is much more exciting when you know the blade was quenched in the blood of a giant you once slew.
On the topic of harvesting Materia, I think that if you are going to let it be used as an alternative to spell components, limiting who can harvest it is a bad idea. It forces people who have no intention of crafting to take crafting feats just to make sure they can get access to these materials. You can see some of this dynamic in our current game where nobody has identify on their spell lists and the amount of annoyance this has caused us at times. I would say make a slightly higher level difficulty search check.
I guess I am assuming that most parties will probably have an item crafter. One affect of this is making item crafting much better so it is very advantageous to have such a feat. Remeber that wizards start with Scribe Scroll, or in this case Craft Minor Magic Item. I imagine the process as a mystical one so I wouldn't want just anyone to be able to do it. I would say that Materia would not be easily sold so you wouldn't get that much value from it.
I see your point about Identify, that a party can be severely hampered by lack of certain abilities, but this ability can be obtained by any caster easily, unlike a spell like Identify that is only on certain spell lists. Also, the players made specific choices about their characters to abandon utility classes to order to have more focussed characters. So in part dealing with the consequences isn't necessarily horrible. But it does point to a shift from 3rd to 4th edition where any kind of required class or power is no longer actually required in 4th.
Also, I think that limiting 'reclaiming' Materia from an item to a GPE of 25% of the item's cost will not create as much value as you seem to think from your post. Let's say you have a 1000 GP item. Assuming general market availability of Materia, which makes more sense: getting 250 GP of Materia by reclaiming it and destroying the item, or selling the item for 500 GP and buying 500 GP of Materia?
Okay, here is the bad news. As part of this gaining all sorts of new Materia treasure, I would enforce more limits of what Materia could be bought and what magic items could be sold. So I would probably say the magic items could only be sold for 20% of their value. You could also limit the amount of Materia available for purchase. This would encouage players to disenchant items in order to not consume all the Materia that is for sale.One thing this system allows is easier creation and if you allowed magic items to be sold at 50% their value that 50% would also be the cost to create the item. That would allow players to very easily turn one item into another of equal value. I think that when items are destroyed and remade something should be lost so that you can't easily reconfigure your items on a day by day basis.
Thanks for the input Wayne.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Full Attacks
In 1st and 2nd edition fighter types, fighters, rangers, and paladins acquired extra attacks as they went up in level. At 7th level they gained an extra attack every other round. At higher levels (I don't remember which level) they gained a full 2nd attack every round. If I remember correctly these extra attacks happened after everyone had their normal attacks. Monsters, however, often had a large series of attacks they used all at once. In edition, fighters got one attack per level to use against creatures under 1 HD.
In third edition this evolved. Every character got multiple attacks but fighter types got them faster. At 20th level it was possible to have 4 attacks. The limitation was that if you moved you only got one of your attacks. Monsters still had a series of attacks, but they also had the limitation that they could attack once and move or attack with all their attacks. But gone was the notion of a round of second attacks after all the normal attacks. Also gone was the special attack per level for under 1 HD creatures. Instead they added Cleave and Great Cleave that allowed you to take extra attacks after dropping a target. So what you ended up with was a big distinction between a full attack and a standard attack especially since some effects gave you an extra attack during a full attack like haste. Certain monsters, also had numerous attacks. So the difference between a standard attack and a full attack gets so big that it defines strategies. For example, let's say you are a 9th level fighter battling a large white dragon. We are going to ignore the effects of reach for now in order to demonstrate a point. You have 2 attacks while the dragon has 6. Instead of fighting toe to toe, the better strategy is to attack and then run away. You suffer an attack of opportunity, but if the dragon wants to attack you again it must move to you in order to attack so it will only get a single attack. So instead of you getting 2 attacks for every 6 the dragon gets you get 1 attack for every 2 the dragon gets. So if you are fighting a foe that has a full attack much more potent than your own full attack it is better to attack him once, then run away taking an attack of opportunity. Various strategies become focussed around trying to deny your opponent a devastating full attack since the full attack is so powerful.
One option is to get rid of full attacks, but that poses a rather significant balance issue. Multiple attacks are one of the major tools for balancing melee types and casters. Some people tend to think that melee types are already to weak compared to casters, although that is a discussion for another post.
So what did 4th edition do. They essentially got rid of the full attack. You have a standard action that can be used as an attack. Dedicating your movement to attacking does not give you any advantage. But you are largely stuck with a single attack. This single attack can be turned into multiple attacks or attacks that do large amounts of damage by encounter and daily powers. Monsters often have a power they can use at will that allow them to use multiple attacks, but they tend to get much fewer attacks than they did in 3rd edition. For example, the king of multiple attacks, the dragon goes from around 6 attacks to 2 or 3. In general, the whole system of actions in 4th edition tends to be more solid and make more sense.
I would have to say that, in general, 4th edition wins, but in 4th edition you don't need fighters to have multiple attacks because fighter powers are equivalent to every other classes powers. The idea that rarely used magic spells are superior to what the fighter can dish out every round without fail is gone. This, I think, isn't so great of a thing.
So how would I change 3rd edition. Well, it would be nice to have the full attack be less dominant and have the general structure of an turn make more sense. You could have people with multiple attacks take half their attacks as part of a standard action and half as part of their move action. This way the difference between a standard and full attack wouldn't be so huge as 1 versus 6 attacks like in the example of the dragon.
In third edition this evolved. Every character got multiple attacks but fighter types got them faster. At 20th level it was possible to have 4 attacks. The limitation was that if you moved you only got one of your attacks. Monsters still had a series of attacks, but they also had the limitation that they could attack once and move or attack with all their attacks. But gone was the notion of a round of second attacks after all the normal attacks. Also gone was the special attack per level for under 1 HD creatures. Instead they added Cleave and Great Cleave that allowed you to take extra attacks after dropping a target. So what you ended up with was a big distinction between a full attack and a standard attack especially since some effects gave you an extra attack during a full attack like haste. Certain monsters, also had numerous attacks. So the difference between a standard attack and a full attack gets so big that it defines strategies. For example, let's say you are a 9th level fighter battling a large white dragon. We are going to ignore the effects of reach for now in order to demonstrate a point. You have 2 attacks while the dragon has 6. Instead of fighting toe to toe, the better strategy is to attack and then run away. You suffer an attack of opportunity, but if the dragon wants to attack you again it must move to you in order to attack so it will only get a single attack. So instead of you getting 2 attacks for every 6 the dragon gets you get 1 attack for every 2 the dragon gets. So if you are fighting a foe that has a full attack much more potent than your own full attack it is better to attack him once, then run away taking an attack of opportunity. Various strategies become focussed around trying to deny your opponent a devastating full attack since the full attack is so powerful.
One option is to get rid of full attacks, but that poses a rather significant balance issue. Multiple attacks are one of the major tools for balancing melee types and casters. Some people tend to think that melee types are already to weak compared to casters, although that is a discussion for another post.
So what did 4th edition do. They essentially got rid of the full attack. You have a standard action that can be used as an attack. Dedicating your movement to attacking does not give you any advantage. But you are largely stuck with a single attack. This single attack can be turned into multiple attacks or attacks that do large amounts of damage by encounter and daily powers. Monsters often have a power they can use at will that allow them to use multiple attacks, but they tend to get much fewer attacks than they did in 3rd edition. For example, the king of multiple attacks, the dragon goes from around 6 attacks to 2 or 3. In general, the whole system of actions in 4th edition tends to be more solid and make more sense.
I would have to say that, in general, 4th edition wins, but in 4th edition you don't need fighters to have multiple attacks because fighter powers are equivalent to every other classes powers. The idea that rarely used magic spells are superior to what the fighter can dish out every round without fail is gone. This, I think, isn't so great of a thing.
So how would I change 3rd edition. Well, it would be nice to have the full attack be less dominant and have the general structure of an turn make more sense. You could have people with multiple attacks take half their attacks as part of a standard action and half as part of their move action. This way the difference between a standard and full attack wouldn't be so huge as 1 versus 6 attacks like in the example of the dragon.
Crafting, an alternative system
Remove the eight magic item feats and replace them with three feats. These feats are Craft Minor Magic Item (this allows you to craft any item requiring 6th level or less as a caster level requirement), Craft Medium Magic Item (requires Craft Minor Magic Item; this allows you to craft any item requiring 12th level of less as a caster level), and Craft Major Magic Item (requires Craft Medium Magic Item, this allows you to craft any item).
Magic Item creation no longer requires experience points to be spent.
Magic Items with a caster level up to 6th take 1 day to create, caster level 7th to 12th take 2 days, and caster level 13th or higher take 3 days. Creating a Staff of Power no longer takes 7 months.
Magic Items require Materia. Materia consists of alchemical reagents, mystic salves, rare herbs, sanctified incense, and so on. Materia has a gold piece value and to create an item you must spend half it's gold piece value in Materia.
Materia can have a type. This type can be anything. As a rule of thumb Materia that is brought or obtained from deconstructing magic items has no type, but Materia acquired from monsters or the environment does. The type of Materia causes it's value to double or even triple for the purpose of creating magic items. For example, Materia (Blood of a Red Dragon) would have triple value for creating a flaming sword.
Magic Items can be deconstructed and give 25% of their gold value in Materia. Deconstruction takes an hour to perform.
Slain enemies can have Materia harvested from them by characters with a magic item creation feat. This Materia has a type. This process takes a minute and must be performed within an hour of death or the Materia dissipates. It usually involves collecting some piece of the creature. For every 50 experience points the creature is worth you get 1 point of Materia. For this reason you should use Level-Independent Experience Point Rewards as noted in the Unearthed Arcana. If you are not using this there is a simple conversion at the end of this post.
Materia can be found as treasure in various places. It should be placed in special places. For example, in an ancient torture chamber you mind find stones infused with suffering as a form of Materia.
Table 5-2 on page 137 of the DMG should be used to limit how much Materia is available for purchase.
Optional: Spells that require a costly component such as pearls or diamond dust, can instead require Materia. Spells that cost experience can instead cost Materia with 1 point of experience turning into 25 points of Materia cost.
Balance Effects: This gives players much more access to magic items. It also gives them a much wider array of items to choose from. It also increases the value of any found magic item as found items will often be turned into other items.
CR / Materia
1 / 6
2 / 12
3 / 18
4 / 24
5 / 36
6 / 48
7 / 72
8 / 96
9 / 144
10 / 192
11 / 280
12 / 380
13 / 580
14 / 760
15 / 1,160
16 / 1,540
17 / 2,400
18 / 3,000
19 / 4,600
20/ 6,200
Magic Item creation no longer requires experience points to be spent.
Magic Items with a caster level up to 6th take 1 day to create, caster level 7th to 12th take 2 days, and caster level 13th or higher take 3 days. Creating a Staff of Power no longer takes 7 months.
Magic Items require Materia. Materia consists of alchemical reagents, mystic salves, rare herbs, sanctified incense, and so on. Materia has a gold piece value and to create an item you must spend half it's gold piece value in Materia.
Materia can have a type. This type can be anything. As a rule of thumb Materia that is brought or obtained from deconstructing magic items has no type, but Materia acquired from monsters or the environment does. The type of Materia causes it's value to double or even triple for the purpose of creating magic items. For example, Materia (Blood of a Red Dragon) would have triple value for creating a flaming sword.
Magic Items can be deconstructed and give 25% of their gold value in Materia. Deconstruction takes an hour to perform.
Slain enemies can have Materia harvested from them by characters with a magic item creation feat. This Materia has a type. This process takes a minute and must be performed within an hour of death or the Materia dissipates. It usually involves collecting some piece of the creature. For every 50 experience points the creature is worth you get 1 point of Materia. For this reason you should use Level-Independent Experience Point Rewards as noted in the Unearthed Arcana. If you are not using this there is a simple conversion at the end of this post.
Materia can be found as treasure in various places. It should be placed in special places. For example, in an ancient torture chamber you mind find stones infused with suffering as a form of Materia.
Table 5-2 on page 137 of the DMG should be used to limit how much Materia is available for purchase.
Optional: Spells that require a costly component such as pearls or diamond dust, can instead require Materia. Spells that cost experience can instead cost Materia with 1 point of experience turning into 25 points of Materia cost.
Balance Effects: This gives players much more access to magic items. It also gives them a much wider array of items to choose from. It also increases the value of any found magic item as found items will often be turned into other items.
CR / Materia
1 / 6
2 / 12
3 / 18
4 / 24
5 / 36
6 / 48
7 / 72
8 / 96
9 / 144
10 / 192
11 / 280
12 / 380
13 / 580
14 / 760
15 / 1,160
16 / 1,540
17 / 2,400
18 / 3,000
19 / 4,600
20/ 6,200
Freedom of Movement
So one thing I thought about recently was Freedom of Movement. Of the the big benefits of Freedom of Movement is that you are essentially immune to grappling. This is incredibly important because grappling, especially at higher levels, can basically be an insta-kill. People may complain about 'save or die' effects, but grappling is much worse because in many grappling checks you essentially can't win. For example, compare a Remorhaz against a 7th half-orc barbarian. The barbarian has a 22 strength using gauntlets of ogre strength. He can rage to bring his strength to 26. This gives him a total grapple of 15. The Remorhazes grapple is 23 which gives it an 8 point advantage. This gives the barbarian a19.5% chance of not getting grappled and then not getting swallowed. His companion, the halfling thief, who moves to flank has a 14 strength and a total grapply bonus of +3. He can not win. If bitten by the Remorhaz he will be automatically grappled and next round he will be swallowed and will take 8d6 per round. The examples get even more extreme as you go up levels. Big grappling creatures like dragons, purple worms, and remorhazes can grab a character extremely easily and characters have no hope of beating their grapple rolls. They can then do something horrible like fly high up in the air, dive into lava, or simply swallow the player with almost no chance of the player escaping.
So the best defense against this is the spell Freedom of Movement. It becomes available at 7th level. Rings of Free of Movement also become available at 7th level. These make you completely immune to grappling creatures. The spell lasts 10 minutes per level so it can take you through multiple encounters, but casting the spell on your entire party can drain the resources of even a high level caster so the ring is also key. This spell is one of those massive game-changers. If you have it you can survive and if not you are screwed.
What might be nice is spells and powers in the middle. For example how about a 3rd level, hour/level spell that gives you +6 grapple per size category the grapple has on you.
So the best defense against this is the spell Freedom of Movement. It becomes available at 7th level. Rings of Free of Movement also become available at 7th level. These make you completely immune to grappling creatures. The spell lasts 10 minutes per level so it can take you through multiple encounters, but casting the spell on your entire party can drain the resources of even a high level caster so the ring is also key. This spell is one of those massive game-changers. If you have it you can survive and if not you are screwed.
What might be nice is spells and powers in the middle. For example how about a 3rd level, hour/level spell that gives you +6 grapple per size category the grapple has on you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)