escape the city within an hour

November 18th, 2011

“You might call it a game,” said the youth. “When the bell completes its song, several strokes hence, the maze will be laid. You will then have an hour until it strikes again. If you have not found your way out of town and away from here by that time, you will be crushed by the buildings’ rearranging themselves once more.” “And why the game?” Dilvish asked, waiting out another tolling before he heard the reply. “That you will never know, Elfboot, whether you win or lose, for you are only an element of the game. I am also charged to warn you, however, that you may find yourself under attack at various points along whatever route you may choose.”
–Dilvish the Damned, Roger Zelazny

Wow, this sounds more like the setup of a D&D set-piece adventure than it does a piece of fiction! You don’t have to go very far to turn it into quite a usable episode.

This would work quite well in older versions of D&D, with their emphases on mapping and time management, but this adventure would also be a good excuse to bring such elements into a 4e game, as a sort of minigame.

The maze in the story features two guys who keep on popping up, and Dilvish isn’t sure which to trust. This is sort of a disguised liar-and-truthteller problem, with the addition of a time limit, which makes things less cut-and-dried.

There are also fun events like this one:

Immediately the flagstones about him were raised like trapdoors and figures rose up from out of the ground beneath them. There were perhaps two-score men there. Each bore a pikestaff.

Nothing like bad guys popping simultaneously out of 40 trapdoors to tell the PCs “Don’t go this way”.

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how to sail

November 16th, 2011

The 4e removal of the 3e “Craft” and “Profession” skills didn’t really make much of a difference to me, for the most part. As the 4e people say, “If you want to be a baker, just write ‘baker’ on your character sheet.” Baking doesn’t come up much in my campaign, more’s the pity. Sailing, might, and I kind of miss having a skill for it.

How do you handle sailing checks? Do you use balance checks for running the rigging? Nature checks for spotting storms? I couldn’t even decide what attribute is the key one for sailing a ship. You could make an argument for several: Dexterity for climbing the rigging, Intelligence for doing navigational calculations, etc.

Thinking about that, it seems logical to make sailing be a whole-party skill challenge. However, since there aren’t really enough appropriate skills, maybe they should just be ability checks.

Here’s how you might handle a storm at sea:

“A sail breaks loose. Someone strong needs to haul on the rope before a mast breaks.” The fighter makes a Strength check to haul on the rope.

“A wave hits the ship’s quarter, sending the wheel spinning and breaking the helmsman’s arm. Someone with a high Constitution needs to grab the wheel and hold it straight, no matter how much abuse they take from the wind, rain, and bucking of the wheel. Not the fighter, he is still hauling on the rope.” The sorcerer, who has a decent constitution, grabs the wheel.

“Someone with a good Wisdom should climb up in the crow’s nest and watch the wind direction.” Cleric climbs into the crow’s nest. Etc.

If the party succeeds on half or more of their checks, they succeed at the challenge.

What should be the DC of these checks? Straight ability checks have much less variation than skill checks; and the few abilities and items that boost ability checks are often suboptimal choices and might as well be rewarded anyway. You can expect that if all the players are heroic level, using their best or second-best ability, they will have +3, +4, or +5 bonuses, plus half level. If the DC is 15 plus half level, allowing players to succeed on a d20 roll of 11 or better, a party of 3 or 5 characters would have about a 50% chance of success, and a party of 4 characters a 70% chance of success. If the DC is 10, an odd number of PCs have a 90% chance of success, and an even number has 95%. We’ll say, therefore, that DC 10+1/2 level is easy and DC 15+1/2 level is hard.

At epic levels, player abilities are higher: top ability bonuses average +7 instead of +4. Therefore, you can safely pitch more DC 15+1/2 level challenges at players, or, on the other hand, just let the PCs succeed more. One of the benefits of being high level is that you are good at everything, and that might translate into more sailing successes.

How is the re-usability of this skill challenge? If the PCs have a ship, they may face sailing challenges often. When a sailing check is needed, each PC can have an accustomed role. Everyone makes their check and the successes are tallied. There’s one or two roles per ability:

STR oarsman (or rope hauler, if needed)
CON helmsman (or pumper, if the skip is sinking)
DEX topman (rigging) (or weaponmaster, in ship-to-ship combat)
INT navigator (or sailmaster, to get maximum speed)
WIS lookout (or pilot, in dangerous waters)
CHA captain or mate (or leader of the boarding party, in shipboard combat)

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crit cards and threat cards

November 14th, 2011

I dreamed I was playing a duel-flavored card game where you could play two types of cards on your opponent: “crit” and “threat”. Threat cards had point values, so as you played them, the Threat on your opponent mounted. Crit cards represented actual wounds, and each Crit card required you to discard a certain number of Threat points from your opponent.

It’s actually not a bad mechanic, I think, for a dream. As you apply more Threat to your opponent, you think: should I apply a minor Crit now? or should I wait till I can stack up more Threat and play a devastating Crit? If I wait, my opponent might find a way to lower his Threat.

I also posit that there are probably Action cards that have effects like lowering Threat and other special effects.

Here’s a sample of a dozen cards I just pretended to draw randomly from the nonexistent deck:

-Threat: Place this card next to your opponent. It represents a Threat of 5 points.
-Threat: ” 10 points.
-Threat: ” 10 points.
-Threat: ” 15 points.
-Threat: ” 20 points.
-Crit: Hampering injury. Discard Threat cards totaling at least 30 Threat to play this on your opponent. While this Crit is active, your opponent may not discard Threat cards.
-Crit: Beheaded. Discard Threat cards totaling at least 100 Threat to play this on your opponent. Your opponent is killed, and you win!
-Action: Breathing room. Discard one Threat card on your character.
-Action: Timely interruption. Discard all Threat cards on your character.
-Action: Riposte. Take one Threat card on your character and put it on your opponent.
-Action: Healing potion. Discard one Crit card on your character.
-Action: Haste potion. You may draw two extra cards.

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When to use Sunder in 4e

November 11th, 2011

Cal-den struck him then backward against the dais, catching his blade in a black claw, shattering it, and he raised his other arm to smite him. Dilvish did then stab upward with what remained of the sword, nine inches of jagged length.
…
Dilvish came scrambling backward, until his hand came upon a thing in the rubble that drew the blood from it. A blade. He snatched at the hilt and brought it up off the floor with a side-armed cut that struck Cal-den…
Roger Zelazny, Dilvish the Damned

Illustration from Paizo's Mother of Flies.

D&D 4e doesn’t have abilities like Sunder that break weapons, because a) they asymetrically punish melee weapon users and b) they destroy potential treasure. Also, players generally get a magic weapon by around level 2, and in 4e, breaking a player’s magic weapon is pretty much against the rules.

But rules, like swords, are made to be broken.

Here’s one dramatic occasion for the villain to sunder your paladin’s +4 sword: when there happens to be a +5 Holy Avenger lying on the floor. It’d be pretty dramatic to have the paladin cast away his broken weapon and seize some ancient two-handed sword from among the treasure strewn on the floor, only to have it flare in his hands with radiant power. Probably more exciting than giving him the Holy Avenger after the battle and letting him peddle his old blade for 1/5 of its sale price.

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4e: spell scrolls for non-wizards

November 9th, 2011

Monday I talked about re-introducing copyable spell scrolls into 4e D&D, so that PC wizards can drool over the possibility of raiding a rival wizard’s library and finally learning Acid Arrow. This is fine, but it’s sad for non-arcane classes, who don’t learn their attacks from scrolls. It would be cool if the other power sources had ways to learn improved versions of their attacks, in ways that supported their flavor. Here are my ideas.

Expanded spellbook and rare spells for divine classes

Wizards and their friends aren’t the only seekers after lost knowledge. Divine classes, like clerics and paladins, should be able to earn alternate prayers, but it doesn’t make as much sense for them to find them in the library.

I see divine classes gaining powerful versions of at-will prayers by completing holy pilgrimages: visiting the cathedrals of the campaign world and praying at the relics of saints. Each large city might contain a cathedral to each of the major gods, each of which contains its own relic. Each relic might grant a boosted form of a specific at-will spell: for instance, in Greyhawk’s Cathedral of Kord, the hammer of St. Nimbus might grant a +1-per-tier damage bonus to the Storm Hammer power.

While the pilgrimages required to boost at-wills are well known, those required for encounter and daily powers are secreted in hidden shrines in dungeons and in the wilderness. These shrines can be discovered randomly, as a form of treasure analagous to the scrolls of the arcane classes.

Martial classes

Fighters, rogues, rangers, warlords, and other martial classes usually learn new and improved powers from trainers. A great duelist might teach an improved version of Sly Flourish : it does +1 damage if the attacker has high ground.

Some ancient martial moves can be learned from manuals. Each manual teaches one move, and is no longer than 80 pages, because martial types can’t usually finish a book that’s longer than that.

Finally, if your fighter doesn’t want to constantly consult gurus and books, improved powers can be taught by opponents. Elite monsters who use the same power as a fighter might be using an improved version. By seeing it in action, the fighter might learn the improved technique. (This makes martial classes into a sort of Final Fantasy blue-magic specialist.)

Other power sources

Primal classes probably gain new abilities through rites of passage. The barbarian, for instance, has a laundry list of tasks he needs to accomplish in order to unlock new daily powers: killing a dragon, for instance, or winning a wrestling match against a tree spirit. After the task is accomplished, the character needs to have a druidic rite performed (typically involving tattooing or branding) to unlock the new ability.

I don’t really understand the shadow source very well, but it seems to involve death. Shadow characters might have to find the lingering spirits of ancient emperors and cursed wizards and convince them to give up their secrets. This might involve pilgrimages to ancient ruined palaces, haunted houses, or cities in the shadowfell. Or, hey, just go to Hogwarts! There’s like 50 ghosts in there.

Psionic training probably involves traveling to Dagobah and finding a Jedi master.

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4e spells as treasure

November 7th, 2011

In old D&D, spells were like Pokémon; if you encountered one you’d never seen, you could put it into your collection. This is a time-tested, addictive form of gameplay that I miss in 4e. Luckily, it’s easy to add back in.

4e wizards still have a spellbook, in which they can transcribe more daily, utility and encounter spells than they can cast. If there’s a spellbook, we can re-introduce spell scrolls.

spell scrolls for arcane classes

To return wizards to their place as library-ransacking completists, just add a few scrolls containing daily spells into the next treasure haul. As in earlier editions, these scrolls can be used to cast a spell a single time, or be transcribed into a wizard’s spellbook, permanently expanding the wizard’s reportoire.

I’d allow other arcane classes to transcribe scrolls into spellbooks too: they’d gain the wizards’ ability to swap daily powers, but only with spells they found as treasure.

Rare spells

Since 4e wizards already choose their two favorite spells for every spell slot, it’s hard to get excited about expending your spell repertoire: at best, you’re getting your third-favorite spell. Let’s say that some spell scrolls (20%?) might contain improved versions of spells. For instance, a wizard might find a scroll called “Flame Jester’s Improved Fireball”, which teaches a version of the Fireball spell that does +1 damage per tier. The benefit of such an improved spell is limited to that spell, and might be equivalent in power to that of a feat. Possibilities include:

  • +1 to hit or damage

  • adds a new damage type
  • conditionally adds a condition (for instance, dazes targets if you have combat advantage)

There’s a lot of daily spells, so this opens up a lot of design space for treasure. It also allows DMs to boost iconic but mechanically weak spells like Fireball without having to resort to house rules. I’d even think that a character could find an improved version of an at-will power. Gaining +1 damage to an often-used at-will power would be almost as good as finding a new magic weapon.

Research

With improved spells, we can bring back another staple of early D&D: spell research. If a PC can’t find a specific spell, they can research it. DMs and players can go crazy with rules for spending money on research, libraries, and labs.

To keep non-arcane classes from egtting jealous, they might need ways to upgrade their powers too. I’ll have to think about that.

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magic items Gygax forgot to steal from Zelazny

November 4th, 2011

But the wearer of the green boots of Elfland may not fall or be thrown to land other than on his feet.
Roger Zelazny – Dilvish the Damned

D&D’s Boots of Elvenkind are supposed to be drawn from Roger Zelazny’s Dilvish the Damned stories. If so, Gygax missed pillaging a few other magic items from the same stories:

Mildin shuddered and fetched her shimmering were-cloak–for she was Mistress of the Coven–and throwing it about her shoulders and clasping it at her neck with the smoky Stone of the Moon, she became as a silver-gray bird and passed out through the window and high about the Denesh.

Obviously a were-cloak lets you change form. I’m not exactly sure what the Stone of the Moon does. Something fey, I bet.

The guards had cornered the slayer. He fought them, apparently empty-handed, but parrying and thrusting as though he gripped a blade. Wherever his hand moved, there were wounds. He wielded the only weapon that might have slain the King of the World, who permitted none to go armed in his presence save his own guard. He bore the Invisible Blade.

It’s hard to know how to stat the Invisible Blade. Does it get a bonus to hit because it’s so hard to parry? If so, how is it different from other magical swords which also get bonuses to hit? Does it allow a thief-like backstab on the first strike?

To be fair to Gygax, he didn’t entirely miss the Invisible Blade. He statted it up, but buried it in near obscurity: in the character sheet of Gellor in the afterward to “Saga of Old City”. In the enworld Q&A he says:

As for the invisible sword that Gellor had, it was not in play in my campaign–not to say I hadn’t maybe placed one somewhere 😉 Aside from its plusses to hit and damage, the weapon allowed its wielder to see any otherwise invisible foe and to attack first in any normal exchange. Of course there was a command word for it to come to hand–pretty hard to locate your invisible sword without that… If it was within range of the possessor’s voice it woulc fly instantly to that own’s hand.

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the ships that sail the desert

November 2nd, 2011

The desert is nearly impassable. Obviously it’s plagued by some giant sandworm-like creatures, as well as its environmental hazards. Surely someone crosses it, though! You have desert caravans in your D&D world, right?

Whoever the caravan masters are – humans? halflings? dragonborn in 4e? – they need some way to fight off the sandworms, blue dragons, and other high-level desert creatures. With food and water so scarce, there’s no way that hundreds of defenseless creatures – walking meals – are going to make it alive across the wastes, even if they do make a practice of hiring PCs as guards.

Since D&D is a post-apocalyptic game, the caravanners may well have cobbled together a Jawa sandcrawler-type vehicle from the magical vehicles of previous ages. It’s all Mad Max scrap metal, giant tank treads and armor, but seamed with golden light and bolted with runes. The desert crawler must be armed with a weapon powerful enough to keep the giant monsters at bay. Solar power is the traditional technology of all-knowing progenitor cultures, so let’s give it a mirror cannon that focuses beams of radiant energy.

No magic engine has survived from the ancient empires, so the desert crawler is powered by slaves in treadmills. The slaves are mostly the orcs and elves who live on the desert’s border. The caravan is always looking to buy strong slaves, so if the PCs are defeated in the desert by any intelligent opponent, they may wake up in a treadmill themselves.

How do the PCs escape from the caravan? Straying from the caravan’s oasis-dotted route invites death from thirst and sandstorm. Falling behind will put the escapees in the midst of the swarm of landsharks who pick off stragglers. Traveling ahead? Possible, but only the caravan leader has a map of the route.

The best option is the classic swashbuckling approach: free the galley slaves, throw the slavers to the sharks, and become a privateer on the desert sea.

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how to make a werewolf creepy

October 31st, 2011


“The meat!” came a panted whisper. … He picked up the piece of meat and tossed it outside. It vanished immediately, and he heard the sounds of chewing. “That is all?” came the voice, after a time. “Half of my own ration, as I promised,” he whispered.

“I am very hungry. I fear I must eat you also. I am sorry.”

“I know that. And I, too, am sorry, but what I have left must feed me until I reach the Tower of Ice. Also, I must destroy you if you attempt to take me.”

“The Tower of Ice? You will die there and the food be wasted, your own body-meat be wasted.” …

The white beast panted for a time. Then: “I am so hungry,” it said again. “Soon I must try to take you. Some things are worse than death.”

–Roger Zelazny, Dilvish the Damned

I think that similar creatures in other books – often wolves, perhaps – apologize for their desire to eat the protagonist. Am I thinking of the Neverending Story? Something in Narnia?

Anyway, it’s not a bad trick for making a random encounter feel very creepy and personal, and a little sad as well. Play up the creature’s struggle as much as you want – maybe make it indebted to the PCs, to increase its guilt and anguish.

Ultimately, as much as a PC may feel sorry for such a creature, they’ll have to kill it, now or later; and it will be a mercy killing.

Like so many things in fantasy (and horror), including vampires, this creature’s relationship to the PCs seems like a symbol for some other, more disturbing human relationship. Fantasy handles these layers well. This is one of the reasons I’m not particularly interested in dealing with real-life disturbing issues in-game. Fantasy seems to me like a genre where these monsters are best transformed before they are fought.

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there is no night without day! for serious

October 28th, 2011

Billboards depicting smart, well-dressed Indians enjoying soft drinks or cigarettes, or wearing the latest fashion creations, sheltered masses of naked homeless who lay wrapped in rags beneath their cheerful slogans. Roving throngs of orphaned children ran after the buses and wagons and rickshaws, chanting for coins or food or castoff objects. The stench of all this–the cooking, rotting, festering, putrefying–hung over the city like a malodorous cloud, reeking in the hot sun. To Spence it smelled like death. “The City of Dreadful Night,” said Adjani. “Look around you, my friend. You will never forget it.”
—Dream Thief by Stephen Lawhead

Your wretched D&D slum isn’t complete without a conspicuous-consumption foil to set it off. It might be a foppish noble and his retinue, scented handkerchiefs held to their nose, as they pick their way over the starving beggars; immense gates festooned with bronze cornucopias and grain sheafs; or cheerful torchlight and the sounds of music and laughter from the palace over the river as the poor townspeople die of plague or frostbite.

Also “The City of Dreadful Night” is not a bad name for your horrific D&D city. It’s the title of a pretty depressing poem about London as well as a pretty depressing Kipling story about an Indian city.

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