The Strand of Prayer Beads is one of the best magic items out there. Why? Because it provides a +4 caster level bonus for 10 minutes. Very few items provide this kind of bonus. Another aspect of this item is that is does not take a magic item slot so you can have and use multiple strands. Combine this item with one of the best offensive divine spells, Holy Word and what do you get?
Any opponent with fewer hit dice than your level is instantly defeated with no saving throw (aka paralyzed at least a minute). Any opponent that isn't at least 4 levels higher then you is blinded and this typically means they are severely limited. Sure, they get spell resistence, but you have that extra +4 to overcome it.
It seems the primary reason people don't use Holy Word is that it will hit their own party members that aren't good aligned. Simple solution: screw em. Eventually they will convert.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Designing a Campaign World
One aspect of the gaming hobby is world creation. This actually stems from a literary tradition started by authors like Tolkien. Tolkien created a rich fantasy world in which to set his story. Other authors have followed suit and you will now rarely find a fantasy story that isn't set in an alternate fantasy world.
The reason for this is because the world can be a story element in itself. In fact the setting can provide a great deal of the story as well as background color.
Dave Arneson was one of the gaming pioneers who took this world building element and moved it into gaming with the development of Blackmoor. Greyhawk and Mystara followed and it became commonplace for game masters to have a fantasy setting to set their games in.
Now a setting could be something as simple as some names for coins, months, towns, kingdoms, and gods or it could be as complex as a long history. One very rich game setting is Battletech. They published several books that were essentially just histories of the various empires. I remember reading these and being incredibly impressed by the depth of the history.
But is it useful to have this depth? Is it really that useful to use a different set of names for coins and gods? I think the question becomes, do these changes in setting actually impact your game? Some obviously do. They are important plot elements in the game. For example, one game might have no elves and forbidden magic that has dire consequences when used. This kind of thing can have a big impact on the story. So big that when you consider a campaign or adventure, you should work those changes in. Gaming is, in part, tellling a story, and the setting can have a major impact, but the setting exists for this impact. That is a key point, the setting exists to serve the story. In many ways games have lost this and game companies have encouraged this separation by pushing defined campaign worlds. Now I am not against the published settings that often have a depth and breadth that a setting made by a single hobbyist can't really compare to. These settings often offer a lot of story ideas, but it helps to hide that fact the the usefulness of a setting is primarily in helping to tell a story.
One thing I want to say about campaign worlds is that little details can also be fun in a game. I remeber during a trip to China I learned about a practice of having a stew that was constantly going with water and new ingredients added, but the pot was never emptied and cleaned out. I adapted this to a game where dwarves did this (instead of Chinese muslims) and it became a whole thing in the game. The dwarf character's family offered them the ancient soup. Later on, when their house was burning they all wanted to save their ancestral soup. Anyway, little campaign world details can be very fun even though they have fairly minor story impact.
Now that I have had a little rant about how the campaign world has to fulfill it's function of adding to the story, I want to take it all back. I think world design can be fun and interesting in and of itself. For example, all those battletech books detailing history would have very little impact on any game, but I thought they were cool. I have also had fun building and detailing campaign worlds. So world design can almost be a separate hobby, but if a world is made to support a game you should remember that the world was made to support the game and details about the world the don't impact the game aren't particularly useful.
The reason for this is because the world can be a story element in itself. In fact the setting can provide a great deal of the story as well as background color.
Dave Arneson was one of the gaming pioneers who took this world building element and moved it into gaming with the development of Blackmoor. Greyhawk and Mystara followed and it became commonplace for game masters to have a fantasy setting to set their games in.
Now a setting could be something as simple as some names for coins, months, towns, kingdoms, and gods or it could be as complex as a long history. One very rich game setting is Battletech. They published several books that were essentially just histories of the various empires. I remember reading these and being incredibly impressed by the depth of the history.
But is it useful to have this depth? Is it really that useful to use a different set of names for coins and gods? I think the question becomes, do these changes in setting actually impact your game? Some obviously do. They are important plot elements in the game. For example, one game might have no elves and forbidden magic that has dire consequences when used. This kind of thing can have a big impact on the story. So big that when you consider a campaign or adventure, you should work those changes in. Gaming is, in part, tellling a story, and the setting can have a major impact, but the setting exists for this impact. That is a key point, the setting exists to serve the story. In many ways games have lost this and game companies have encouraged this separation by pushing defined campaign worlds. Now I am not against the published settings that often have a depth and breadth that a setting made by a single hobbyist can't really compare to. These settings often offer a lot of story ideas, but it helps to hide that fact the the usefulness of a setting is primarily in helping to tell a story.
One thing I want to say about campaign worlds is that little details can also be fun in a game. I remeber during a trip to China I learned about a practice of having a stew that was constantly going with water and new ingredients added, but the pot was never emptied and cleaned out. I adapted this to a game where dwarves did this (instead of Chinese muslims) and it became a whole thing in the game. The dwarf character's family offered them the ancient soup. Later on, when their house was burning they all wanted to save their ancestral soup. Anyway, little campaign world details can be very fun even though they have fairly minor story impact.
Now that I have had a little rant about how the campaign world has to fulfill it's function of adding to the story, I want to take it all back. I think world design can be fun and interesting in and of itself. For example, all those battletech books detailing history would have very little impact on any game, but I thought they were cool. I have also had fun building and detailing campaign worlds. So world design can almost be a separate hobby, but if a world is made to support a game you should remember that the world was made to support the game and details about the world the don't impact the game aren't particularly useful.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Four Aspects to the Game
There are essentially four aspects to role-playing games. I will go over them briefly.
1) Wargaming. This is the act of creating a stimulated combat that obeys a specific set of rules. It is a tactical exercise and also involves mastering the rule set. In games it can range from rock-paper-scissors to chess to 3.5 edition D&D. For this purpose the ruleset is very important because you want this tactial game to be relatively fast paced, balanced, but at the same time to have a rich tactical depth. One thing I have noted about this aspect of the game is that it is important for the players to understand and be interested in the rules, otherwise this aspect of the game fails.
2) Interactive Storytelling. Most games have a central story behind them. While some are very free form with no structure, most center around a plot with the players playing the role of the main characters. Most players will try to fill the role of the main characters, but there are some who prefer to go their own way instead of the expected path and there are a few who delight in trying to disrupt any planned story. Games can range in terms of story structure. Some have a specific plot and the players have a fairly narrow course. Other games have less of a main plot and are more focussed on a series of character with their own motivations. It is important for the game master and the players to be on the same track when it comes to how free form their story will be.
3) Role Playing. By this I mean actual role playing, the act of pretending to be someone else. This can be as simple of having an idea of who your character is and having them act and see the world as you would think they would or it can be more intense with acting, speaking in character, and so on. This process is often fairly subtle and is largely controlled by the player. You can play most role-playing games without this element at all, but you can also play any with it.
4) Character Building. It may seem weird, but a major part of many games is making your character more powerful. Acquiring new powers and items in order to meet previously unbeatable challenges and to laugh in the face of old challenges is a part of the game. There are some games that don't do this very well. One of the successes of D&D has been that despite a poor rule set that it allowed for this character building quite well. This is also one of the key principles behind the compelling nature of many massively multiplayer games.
1) Wargaming. This is the act of creating a stimulated combat that obeys a specific set of rules. It is a tactical exercise and also involves mastering the rule set. In games it can range from rock-paper-scissors to chess to 3.5 edition D&D. For this purpose the ruleset is very important because you want this tactial game to be relatively fast paced, balanced, but at the same time to have a rich tactical depth. One thing I have noted about this aspect of the game is that it is important for the players to understand and be interested in the rules, otherwise this aspect of the game fails.
2) Interactive Storytelling. Most games have a central story behind them. While some are very free form with no structure, most center around a plot with the players playing the role of the main characters. Most players will try to fill the role of the main characters, but there are some who prefer to go their own way instead of the expected path and there are a few who delight in trying to disrupt any planned story. Games can range in terms of story structure. Some have a specific plot and the players have a fairly narrow course. Other games have less of a main plot and are more focussed on a series of character with their own motivations. It is important for the game master and the players to be on the same track when it comes to how free form their story will be.
3) Role Playing. By this I mean actual role playing, the act of pretending to be someone else. This can be as simple of having an idea of who your character is and having them act and see the world as you would think they would or it can be more intense with acting, speaking in character, and so on. This process is often fairly subtle and is largely controlled by the player. You can play most role-playing games without this element at all, but you can also play any with it.
4) Character Building. It may seem weird, but a major part of many games is making your character more powerful. Acquiring new powers and items in order to meet previously unbeatable challenges and to laugh in the face of old challenges is a part of the game. There are some games that don't do this very well. One of the successes of D&D has been that despite a poor rule set that it allowed for this character building quite well. This is also one of the key principles behind the compelling nature of many massively multiplayer games.
Following up a little bit on my last post. One of my players also pointed out a major imbalances in third edition. He found that any battle that focussed around fighting a single entity almost always was easy. This seemed especially true at later levels. Imagine a high level battle. Healing is so powerful that a major bad guy has to dish out enough damage to kill a player every round. If his damage is below that a healer character can easily negate his damage potential because healing is so strong.
One of the tactics is the final battle was for the cleirc to wait invisibily after having used a feat that would allow him to heal from a distance instead of touch. He simply readied his heal action to go off when anyone was badly injured. The big bad guy could have gone after him, but any round lost was a major loss because the players would get an action each while the bad guy got a single precious action.
This is one aspect they tried to fix in 4th by introducing 'elites' and 'solos' as well as focussing encounters as several units against several units.
One of the tactics is the final battle was for the cleirc to wait invisibily after having used a feat that would allow him to heal from a distance instead of touch. He simply readied his heal action to go off when anyone was badly injured. The big bad guy could have gone after him, but any round lost was a major loss because the players would get an action each while the bad guy got a single precious action.
This is one aspect they tried to fix in 4th by introducing 'elites' and 'solos' as well as focussing encounters as several units against several units.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Swing
So I have closed the final chapter on my Shackled City campaign. It was fun at times, but I often became very frustrated with the game system. The biggest thing is the swinginess of combat. One thing I noticed in 4th was that there were no make or break spells. There weren't any pre combat buffs to stack. And there wasn't a ton of resource management like a huge number of spells.
Well all that makes a lot more sense after running a 3.5 game to 20th level (technically 18th level).
It is very hard to balance an encounter when there are so many game-changing spells. For example, in my campaign the final battle involved a demon prince. His first action was to use a spell, Blasphemy, that instantly killed all the players except one. The players had been given plenty of time to buff so they actually had a spell on that basically soaked up one death (Fortunate Fate froma splatbook). So they lived. His second casting of the spell was neutralized by silence on a friendly melee fighter and a caster readied to silence whenever he went outside the silence. Then melee went to town on him with Haste and Brilliant Aura and copious amounts of two-handed power attack.
It points out several things. Individual spells can swing combat a lot. Wihout the specific preparation they had Blasphemy would have caused a total party wipe. As it stood they survived it without any issues. Save or die spells in many cases can massively swing the game. One of the jokes of the campaign was that Glitterdust was the ultimate spell. It ignores spell resistence and you always fail one a 1. Many a 1 was rolled against Glitterdust and it turned dangerous foes into essentially helpless targets.
Another major swing factor is the remaining resources of the characters. Characters tend to not know how dangerous their next battle will be so they can decide to push on or not. A high level party with full resources is MUCH more powerful than one at 25% or 50% resources. Also, if you give a party several rounds to prepare, stacked buffs make a huge difference.
All these factors tend to collide at high levels. It makes it very difficult to make balanced encounters. I found encounters were often too diffcult or too easy. And this is using published materials. Mostly they were too easy.
So I feel like I have a lot more insight in to why they made the decisions they made with 4th edition, and although it looks like a stripped down game I realize that the things they stripped out made it un-balanced and difficult to play.
Well all that makes a lot more sense after running a 3.5 game to 20th level (technically 18th level).
It is very hard to balance an encounter when there are so many game-changing spells. For example, in my campaign the final battle involved a demon prince. His first action was to use a spell, Blasphemy, that instantly killed all the players except one. The players had been given plenty of time to buff so they actually had a spell on that basically soaked up one death (Fortunate Fate froma splatbook). So they lived. His second casting of the spell was neutralized by silence on a friendly melee fighter and a caster readied to silence whenever he went outside the silence. Then melee went to town on him with Haste and Brilliant Aura and copious amounts of two-handed power attack.
It points out several things. Individual spells can swing combat a lot. Wihout the specific preparation they had Blasphemy would have caused a total party wipe. As it stood they survived it without any issues. Save or die spells in many cases can massively swing the game. One of the jokes of the campaign was that Glitterdust was the ultimate spell. It ignores spell resistence and you always fail one a 1. Many a 1 was rolled against Glitterdust and it turned dangerous foes into essentially helpless targets.
Another major swing factor is the remaining resources of the characters. Characters tend to not know how dangerous their next battle will be so they can decide to push on or not. A high level party with full resources is MUCH more powerful than one at 25% or 50% resources. Also, if you give a party several rounds to prepare, stacked buffs make a huge difference.
All these factors tend to collide at high levels. It makes it very difficult to make balanced encounters. I found encounters were often too diffcult or too easy. And this is using published materials. Mostly they were too easy.
So I feel like I have a lot more insight in to why they made the decisions they made with 4th edition, and although it looks like a stripped down game I realize that the things they stripped out made it un-balanced and difficult to play.
Monday, March 2, 2009
3rd edition tricks: Memorizing spells
So one aspect of spell memorization that is rarely used is the fact that you don't actually need to fill all your slots at the beginning of the day. After a rest (or after a specific prayer time) you generally memorize your spells and pick a specific spell for each spell slot. But you don't have to. At any time, you can spend 15 minutes and memorize a spell for an unused slot. This applies to both Arcane and Divine spell casters.
So how is this useful? An empty slot is useless in battle. But many spells you might cast are non-combat spells. For example, you might leave a slot open for a knock or comprehend languages spell out of combat. If you did not need to use these spells and were running low, you might instead put a combat spell in the slot. Rope trick is a great spell for camping, but you never need to memorize that spell until you start camping, so it is always better to leave that slot open just in case you need another spell.
Changing your spells mid adventure can also be used to respond to things. Maybe you discover that you are going to be fighting undead in some crypt. Death ward can make a huge difference.
So how is this useful? An empty slot is useless in battle. But many spells you might cast are non-combat spells. For example, you might leave a slot open for a knock or comprehend languages spell out of combat. If you did not need to use these spells and were running low, you might instead put a combat spell in the slot. Rope trick is a great spell for camping, but you never need to memorize that spell until you start camping, so it is always better to leave that slot open just in case you need another spell.
Changing your spells mid adventure can also be used to respond to things. Maybe you discover that you are going to be fighting undead in some crypt. Death ward can make a huge difference.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Economics: Fabricate
One of the more interesting spells in terms of economics is Fabricate.
| Level: | Sor/Wiz 5 |
|---|---|
| Components: | V, S, M |
| Casting Time: | See text |
| Range: | Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) |
| Target: | Up to 10 cu. ft./level; see text |
| Duration: | Instantaneous |
| Saving Throw: | None |
| Spell Resistance: | No |
You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material. Creatures or magic items cannot be created or transmuted by the fabricate spell. The quality of items made by this spell is commensurate with the quality of material used as the basis for the new fabrication. If you work with a mineral, the target is reduced to 1 cubic foot per level instead of 10 cubic feet.
You must make an appropriate Craft check to fabricate articles requiring a high degree of craftsmanship.
Casting requires 1 round per 10 cubic feet (or 1 cubic foot) of material to be affected by the spell.
So say your PCs are travelling along and come to an ocean. The 9th level wizard rests for the day, memorizes Fabricate and then turns 90 cubic feet of wood into a boat. Your PCs can then keep going.
But what about the theoretical 9th wizard who stays home. He can use this spell to construct large ships in a couple days. Maybe he stops by the shepherds every year to cast this spell to generate 90 cubic feet of clothing for the village. Maybe he is actually 11th level and can cast Wall of Iron. This gives him enough raw materials to quickly zap up arms and armor. Or maybe the local castle needs siege engines zapped up immediately.
So if you have a 9th level wizard they can do the work of hundreds of skilled craftsmen and be one person factories. So if you had a society with a handful of these wizards the nature of society would be greatly changed. Typically cities are places of manufacturing and trade, but manufacturing does not require large numbers of people anymore so wouldn't this affect cities. People would shift from being tradesmen to being responsible for producing raw materials...
Economics: Justice
There are many spells that you might imagine using in a court of law: Zone of Truth (cleric 2), Discern Lies (cleric 4), Divination (cleric 4), Charm Person (wizard 1), Detect Thoughts (wizard 2), and Lesser Geas (wizard 4).
So you could imagine that spell casters could be pretty good judges. But you could even just use a Hallow spell with Zone of Truth. This creates a fixed Zone of Truth that lasts a year for 3,000 gold. This makes a pretty good court room, but it seems like having a low or mid level cleric or wizard on retainer as an interrogator makes more sense.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Economics: Animated Objects
Permanent animated objects can essentially be living machines. Imagine an animated carriage that does not need horses to operate. Or just machines that can replace workers like a mining machine.
Animated Objects require a 11th level cleric and a 14th level wizard. The cost is 3,000 xp, 660 casting cost for the cleric, and 700 casting cost for the wizard. Let's assume 15,000gp for the experience point cost. This means a permanent animated object costs 16,330gp. This seems like it is very expensive. For worker replacement you can assume an animated object works roughly three times as much. A trained laborer makes 3sp. Let's say the animated object would be worth 1gp per day. It would take about 44 years for this to pay off. So it is hard to see this being done. But if the object can perform the work of 10 men it might be worth it.
Possible uses, a living cargo hauler. A gargantuan animated object with wheels is not unreasonable to assume. It moves as fast as a heavy horse, but can carry 15 times as much, and it never tires. So if you had need to buy 15 heavy horses (3,000gp) you might consider the gargantuan cargo carrier.
Animated Objects require a 11th level cleric and a 14th level wizard. The cost is 3,000 xp, 660 casting cost for the cleric, and 700 casting cost for the wizard. Let's assume 15,000gp for the experience point cost. This means a permanent animated object costs 16,330gp. This seems like it is very expensive. For worker replacement you can assume an animated object works roughly three times as much. A trained laborer makes 3sp. Let's say the animated object would be worth 1gp per day. It would take about 44 years for this to pay off. So it is hard to see this being done. But if the object can perform the work of 10 men it might be worth it.
Possible uses, a living cargo hauler. A gargantuan animated object with wheels is not unreasonable to assume. It moves as fast as a heavy horse, but can carry 15 times as much, and it never tires. So if you had need to buy 15 heavy horses (3,000gp) you might consider the gargantuan cargo carrier.
Economics: Teleportation Circle
So if there are 17th level wizards around would they create teleportation circle between major cities and eliminate trade routes? A two way portal would cost 2,000 gold, 9,000 xp, and the casting fee would be 1,530. Let's say the XP cost equates to 45,000 gold meaning 48,530 gold.
Seems like a lot, but this is less than 2 galleys. If major trade was going to occur then this would seem like a good investment. Of course, you would need to also build a large support infrastructure and you would really only go between major cities. And you would of course, need 17th level wizards running around.
Seems like a lot, but this is less than 2 galleys. If major trade was going to occur then this would seem like a good investment. Of course, you would need to also build a large support infrastructure and you would really only go between major cities. And you would of course, need 17th level wizards running around.
Economics: Continual Flame
One super geeky thing I like to do is consider the implications of spells on economics in D&D. A simple example is continual flame. This spell creates a torch that never goes out and will not actually burn anything. Is such a spell is available, would people use it?
Cost: 50gp in components + 60gp to pay the caster.
A torch costs 1 cp and lasts an hour. Let's say you want light 8 hours a day and you have 10 spots where you want light. You have to hire a guy to keep the torches lit. This costs 9 silver pieces a day (1 for guy, 8 for 80 torches). Magic light would cost 11,000 silver. So it would take a little over three years for the magical torches to become cost effective. But say that you are underground and want light 16 hours a day. This halves that time. Also, maybe you don't want to have some untrained hireling running around. Also, if you have a mage who will cast if without charging (on retainer) the cost is halved. So the question becomes, if someone wanted to sell you a lightbulb that would never go out and would pay for itself in three years would you do it?
I think the answer is yes, given you have the money. 110 gold (more than a light horse and less than a heavy horse) is a significant investment for lighting and would probably only be used by people who had cash and who really needed the light to be on for awhile.
Cost: 50gp in components + 60gp to pay the caster.
A torch costs 1 cp and lasts an hour. Let's say you want light 8 hours a day and you have 10 spots where you want light. You have to hire a guy to keep the torches lit. This costs 9 silver pieces a day (1 for guy, 8 for 80 torches). Magic light would cost 11,000 silver. So it would take a little over three years for the magical torches to become cost effective. But say that you are underground and want light 16 hours a day. This halves that time. Also, maybe you don't want to have some untrained hireling running around. Also, if you have a mage who will cast if without charging (on retainer) the cost is halved. So the question becomes, if someone wanted to sell you a lightbulb that would never go out and would pay for itself in three years would you do it?
I think the answer is yes, given you have the money. 110 gold (more than a light horse and less than a heavy horse) is a significant investment for lighting and would probably only be used by people who had cash and who really needed the light to be on for awhile.
Scaling of Turning
Turning undead has been a long standing part of D&D, but does it really make sense in 3rd edition D&D? Does it scale well so that it is useful at all levels? How is it actually used?
Let's consider 3 situations: a 1st cleric with a 12 charisma turns a zombie (CR 1/2) and 2 skeletons (1/3); a 10th level cleric with a 14 charisma turns 2 bodaks (CR 8) and a devourer (CR 11); and a 20th level cleric with an 18 charisma turns 4 nightwalkers (CR 16) and 1 nightcrawler (CR 18).
1st level: a roll of 9 is required to affect the skeleton and a roll of 12 is required to affect the zombie. The turn effect roll is 2d6+1 so the cleric is guaranteed to be able to turn all the undead!
10th level: a roll of 5 is required to affect the bodak and a roll of 14 is needed on the devourer. This greater range is because of the hit dice. But if the hit dice of the undead is roughly even with it's challenge rating this seems to scale. So the turn effect is 2d6+12. Worst luck is 1 bodak. Best luck is 2 bodaks and not the devourer. This seems less effective than at first level, but it still seems very good.
20th level: a roll of 9 is required to affect the walkers, the nightcrawler can not be turned. The effect is 2d6+24. Worst luck turns 1 nightwalker, best luck turns 2 nightwalkers.
So turning does seem to get less effective, but it is not useless at high levels. The two primary factors that affect scaling is the 2d6 part of the turning effect that makes turning better at low levels. The other factor is the ratio between hit dice and challenge rating. For high levels the hit dice creep ahead of the CR, but not so much that turning becomes ineffective.
But I rarely see turning during the game. I've mainly seen it used against low level undead the are a nuisance. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that players want to kill things rather than have them flee away. Having undead flee away prolongs combat, and does not necessarily defeat the undead. The other reason is that many splatbooks have introduced feats that allow you to do much better things with your turning attempts.
So after taking a look at this I do think turning is still useful at 20th level although it is definitely not as good as it was at first level. But also at 20th level a cleric has many more options and so using turning goes down on the list of things to do. Also a feat might make them lean towards using turning for other things.
Let's consider 3 situations: a 1st cleric with a 12 charisma turns a zombie (CR 1/2) and 2 skeletons (1/3); a 10th level cleric with a 14 charisma turns 2 bodaks (CR 8) and a devourer (CR 11); and a 20th level cleric with an 18 charisma turns 4 nightwalkers (CR 16) and 1 nightcrawler (CR 18).
1st level: a roll of 9 is required to affect the skeleton and a roll of 12 is required to affect the zombie. The turn effect roll is 2d6+1 so the cleric is guaranteed to be able to turn all the undead!
10th level: a roll of 5 is required to affect the bodak and a roll of 14 is needed on the devourer. This greater range is because of the hit dice. But if the hit dice of the undead is roughly even with it's challenge rating this seems to scale. So the turn effect is 2d6+12. Worst luck is 1 bodak. Best luck is 2 bodaks and not the devourer. This seems less effective than at first level, but it still seems very good.
20th level: a roll of 9 is required to affect the walkers, the nightcrawler can not be turned. The effect is 2d6+24. Worst luck turns 1 nightwalker, best luck turns 2 nightwalkers.
So turning does seem to get less effective, but it is not useless at high levels. The two primary factors that affect scaling is the 2d6 part of the turning effect that makes turning better at low levels. The other factor is the ratio between hit dice and challenge rating. For high levels the hit dice creep ahead of the CR, but not so much that turning becomes ineffective.
But I rarely see turning during the game. I've mainly seen it used against low level undead the are a nuisance. I think there are two reasons for this. One is that players want to kill things rather than have them flee away. Having undead flee away prolongs combat, and does not necessarily defeat the undead. The other reason is that many splatbooks have introduced feats that allow you to do much better things with your turning attempts.
So after taking a look at this I do think turning is still useful at 20th level although it is definitely not as good as it was at first level. But also at 20th level a cleric has many more options and so using turning goes down on the list of things to do. Also a feat might make them lean towards using turning for other things.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Missing Characters and Messy Character Sheets
One decision I have made in the past that I am reconsidering is what to do when players are absent. In the past my call was that if possible the character belonging to that player does not appear. If in combat or in a situation where they wouldn't normally expect to leave they stick around, but if possible they aren't involved in the adventure.
Their are multiple reasons for this. One is a particularly painful memory where I missed a session and my character died. The other players apparently used my character as bait for a red dragon and when I returned the next session I found that I had been reduced to ashes. Especially painful was that this was a character who only died twice in his career. Another reason is that I just generally don't like it when you come back to a game and people say "Oh, your character did this" or "This happened to you". I also prefer to have players focus on their own characters instead of spreading their attention to multiple characters.
I also find that when other people play your character, they never do a very good job. With complex characters it is often hard to figure out how to utilize them. I have had players basically have other characters they were controlling do very little because they didn't know how to use them. One of the reasons behind this is the character sheet is often hard to understand.
I have seen many different ways to represent character information. I have seen pencil writing on a variety on pritned out sheets. I have seen handwritten pages with various formats. I have seen single page custom printouts that get updated with pencil scribblings, and printed characters sheets spaced out over more than five pages. It turns out that character sheets can be hard to read. Even if they were easy to read it would still be hard to know the spells and tactics of another character well enough to play them effectively, but making character sheets easy to read would be a big step.
Having a single type of character sheet that is easy to understand and complete would probably make a big difference. In my current game the players have copies of their character on the game wiki. I could enforce more standardization in their notation and ask them to make sure things are updated, but I suspect this would require harassing and I am not sure how well it would work.
The reason I am reconsidering my decision is that increasingly at high levels the presence or absence of a single character makes a huge deal. Encounters that would be easy for five become hard for four, or encounters hard for five become impossible for four. It becomes difficult to balance things as a DM since the party strength swings rapidly. For basic survivability the players need every single character.
So fourth edition eases this problem since they have a strong format for character statistics and the game itself is much simpler with fewer interacting abilities. Third edition also has a standard representation, but it is a poor one and it is also one that players don't tend to find appealing.
Number of Characters
So one assumption that has kind of changed over time is the number of characters in play. Originally a much larger number of players was expected. Convention games often had eight or more players assumed. In the rules the notion of hirelings and henchmen was spelled out so that one player might control several characters. Of course, this notion began to fade as the game became more story and less tactically oriented. So each player focused on playing a single character. And the reality was that many gaming groups were around four or five and not seven or eight.
So what assumptions were made using the model of many characters. One is "save or die" mechanics. When you have eight characters on the field and you lose one to a "save or die" then you have lost an eighth or your capability. When you have four characters you lose one fourth of your capability. And in this situation you also have a greater chance of losing some critical ability.
In a recent battle my players fought four medusa. This meant four fortitude saves every round. My players had good saves and every one of them has a +5 Resistence item, but regardless they would have all been turned to stone simply because the odds that they role in the low single digits at least once are pretty high. If there had been eight of them they would have been more insulated against a couple bad rolls, but on the other hand they would have required more medusae (plural of medusa?) to challenge them.
Defeating Rogues
So Third Edition Rogues can do a lot of damage. With an extra +1d6 for every two levels on every attack. If you are attacked by a band of rogues things get bad since they can easily flank you. So how do you fight rogues?
The second level spell Darkness or third level spell Deeper Darkness totally neutralizes sneak attack because it gives everyone in the area concealment and concealment negates sneak attack. One handy attribute of these spells is that if the object the darkness spell is cast on is inside another object the light isn't radiated. So you can carry around a "Darkness Stone" in your pocket and pull it out when confronted by rogues. Another handy fact is that "Deeper Darkness" has a duration of 1 day per level. This means that you only have to cast this spell at most once every 5 days to essentially neutralize rogues.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Ease of Play: Players vs. Game Masters
Ok, in a typical battle scenario you have a band of players. Each player controls a single character. On the other side is the GM. He controls some number of characters. This number could be one or it could be two or three times the number of players. One of the consequences of this is that players often have much better tactics and use their powers much better. The players are very familiar with what they can do and have more time to consider their actions. GMs switch the characters they are controlling every combat and can rarely fully utilize these characters in the same way players can.
So it is four to six minds using tools they know well versus a single mind using tools he has never used before. This tends to be one of the key reasons players win, and that isn't a bad thing, but this notion should impact game design. Games should support player characters that have many options and have some level of complexity to play, but at the same time, should have non-player characters who are easy to play and don't have the same array of options, although they should be able to match the PCs in terms of power. In most games there ends up being little difference in difficulty of control between players and non-players. And this is generally a flaw. I will briefly touch on a couple games where this is not the case.
World of Warcraft is admittedly a computer game with human intelligences matched against a simple AI. Because of this design, the human intelligences are given a wide array of options, while the simple AIs have a greatly reduced set of abilities. A human might have twenty powers to pick from while an AI opponent has maybe three.
Fourth edition D&D makes everyone simpler to play, but does it do it evenly? Well non-players tend to have fewer power options. One notable example of this in non-player classes like mages. Instead of having the eight or nine powers that a player might have they have maybe three. The very mechanics used by players and non-players is different. Players have powers that are either always on, usable once per encounter, or usable once per day. Non-players don't really have once per day powers since it is assumed they will only show up for one battle. But hey do have some other powers. They have abilities that kick in or recharge when 'Bloodied'. They have abilities that recharge based on a die roll. This is great because it allows to to create interesting encounters, but it is also strange that non-players have more power mechanics than players.
In short, as a DM I really appreciate the ease of play of the non-players in fourth edition. In general fourth edition makes encounter creation much easier. But as a player the lack of options grates on me. The DM may not have the extra mental cycles to manage complex abilities and resources, but the player surely does. Part of the 'skill' of D&D is figuring out how to get a lot out of your character, but this has been reduced in fourth edition.
The Arms Race
One of the perpetual problems of many role playing games, notably felt in third edition D&D, is the arms race effect. Initially the game comes out and their is a certain level of balance. But to make money and produce content supplements are added. These supplements seem to always end up offering better powers and characters built with these new powers tend to be superior to those without them.
I have a lot of anecdotes about this kind of thing. I will only relate a few. I remember talking to someone about Car Wars and they were telling me how they had these awesome new features on their cars. Then they went on to say how it was a huge advantage because the people he was playing against didn't have these features because they had not bought the supplement that the features were listed in.
Another time, I was a player in a cyberpunk campaign. We ended up battling some enemy mercenaries who had armor that was totally superior to ours. Their skin-tight armor was somehow much more effective than our bulky suits. When I questioned this, the GM simply responded that he had bought that latest supplement Chrome, and outfitted the mercenaries with equipment from it.
In my current game I am pretty lenient in allowing stuff to my players. A lot of them have invested significant amount of monies in supplements and I want to allow them to use the neat stuff they find because that is fun. However, they do realize what this means and I have one player will go through the supplements specifically searching for things he thinks are imbalanced and will state that that is what he is doing.
In Paizo's 3.75 D&D, they acknowledged this trend and specifically set out to power up the base classes that had been left behind in terms of power level. In World of Warcraft the classes have gotten more and more powerful over time since more power makes people happy and less power makes people complain.
So what the hell is going on? Well, it is simple. Companies know this happens. In many cases it is lilke the Warcraft case. Companies want to make it's customers happy and people are happier when they get more powerful and not less. Also if they have to shell out cash for a new supplement to make themselves more powerful then the company gets money and the player gets more powerful. So this really isn't just an accident, but a marketing strategy.
So is this a problem? What are the game effects of the powering up? Well it generates uneven power levels. There are two ways this manifests, player to player, and player to game master. Player to player power imbalances can often shift focus to certain players. This can be countered by DMs who can manipulate things to shift the focus back, but it requires work and in many cases a player who has 'spent more' has a lot more chances to shine. In terms of player versus DM, well the players outpace the challenges and the DM needs to adjust. This can be a lot of work for the DM and also be difficult since some games, notably high-level D&D, get very hard to accurately balance.
So rules that increasingly cause power imbalances force the DM to either modify things to rebalance the game or to let some players steal the focus and for adventures to become easy and head towards being boring.
One solution is to just do the work. You do a little extra to make the characters who didn't go crazy searching for powerful combos shine. You do a little extra to make the encounters more challenging and so on. Another solution is to just allow the vanilla rules. This removes a lot of work, but it can also be limiting and reduces the fun of character building.
Personally I like to allow these options and you just really have to accept that the nature of these games lends itself to this perpetual arms race.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)