I mention this to you because I want you to understand and appreciate how much I think about D&D and game design.  My newborn son is almost 3 months old, I have more work at my day job and in freelancing than I could shake several sticks at…and here I am, unable to sleep because I have to say something to you.

For the underwhelming love of fantasy deities, STOP spending time making hard encounters.  I listen to many frustrated GMs who spin me this tale (tell me if it sounds familiar):

“I spent five hours building this encounter and the players tore through it in 2 rounds. The players weren’t challenged at all, and I feel like a failure for not being able to challenge them! It was supposed to be a tough fight!”

I’ve heard this, and I’ve been there.   What I’m up early this morning to say though is that when we’re feeling like this, we as GMs are looking at our jobs from the wrong viewpoint.  We are also misunderstanding combat to a degree.

Running a game is a perverse business.  On one hand, it’s a candy store; look, sunshine and saccharine! The other hand is a punch in the mouth; why were you taking my candy?  If you give players too much candy, the whole enterprise goes rotten as you turn each PC into a candyman Fonzerelli, riding through your dungeon on a Gingerbread bike going “Aaaaaaaay!”  If PCs get everything they want whenever they want, the game no longer compels anyone to play it.

But how much face-punching can you get away with?  You can string face-punching out a little longer than you can candy-giving, but in the end, no one really wants to be on the receiving end of Manny Pacquio each session without a chance to even hit back.  Too much face-punching also makes the game less compelling.

I think all decent GMs for any game system knows the formula RPGs;  put out some candy (or the opportunity to grab it), punch some faces along the way.  If players don’t get candy, there are no incentives to get punched in the face.  If PCs don’t get punched in the face, they don’t appreciate the candy.

Combat isn’t a punch in the face in D&D. It’s candy. Fighting is a reward, because that’s how the game is designed.  Part of what D&D has always been about is the thrill of overcoming monsters and getting stuff.  It is open in other areas so is open to creative hacking to do other stuff, but every edition of D&D includes copious rules for killing stuff. It is the reward even though monsters are trying to take you out, because the monsters trying to take you out is part of the thrill of the fight.  The more the monsters come at me, the more exciting it is, and the more awesome I feel for overcoming it.

If combat isn’t a punch in the face, what is?  When the bad guy gets away…that’s a punch in face.  When he steals a sacred artifact, when we fail to protect the townspeople, when the tyrant’s army wins a key battle, when an adventurer sacrifices himself to protect the world — these are punches in the face.  When we finally get a chance to put our hands on the villain or his minions, we can best describe that as a catharsis.

Imagine you could punch out someone critical in the country’s financial woes.  There are a lot of bad consequences flowing from that, but can’t you imagine that it might feel good right before they put the cuffs on?  The central conceit of fantasy adventure is that violence works. Violence rarely fixes anything in real life, but works about a dozen times every level in D&D.  At the end of the day, we get to hit something and good comes of it.

So, back to the hard encounter.  Do you ever notice that 9 times out of 10  in your hard encounter, the players are having a good time?  That the only person feeling like crap about the whole thing is you?  You tried to build a fight that would make the characters feel fear or intimidate them, and they ran you over. That in turn left you feeling a bit abused.  You spent so much time on it!  It wa supposed to be hard!

Listen, if you want a hard encounter, do this:  Let every monster stun as a minor action, no hit roll required. Or hey, triple the damage each monster deals.  Infinite hit points? I guarantee that using one of those ideas will push your PCs right to the brink….oh, but you are trying to make it “hard but fun”, right?  Or “hard but balanced”? You want an encounter that drops characters but won’t necessarily cause a TPK?

I’m not saying that it’s not possible to do that; I’m saying it’s not really worth your time.  In games as we talk about them, there is a perfect balance to strike every time between monster threat and player satisfaction.  In games as they are played, people go on hot streaks with dice. People go on cold streaks.  People discover crazy power synergies. DMs forget auras and players abuse solos.  A few good dice rolls turn a mildly challenging encounter into a very challenging encounter or a very challenging encounter into a TPK.

Players are going to whale on encounters, and that’s ok!  The game is actually designed in just that way. As a DM, you can make the combat interesting for yourself by upselling the player and monster actions through narration.  You can make the combat awesome by adding different twists that aren’t combatants. Interesting terrain and unusual parameters for the fight are  great. You can work towards unconventional consequences to your fights.  Spend your time making your fights compelling.  I’ve run a lot of fights where players have mostly had their way, but because of cool environment or cool parameters (or both), still ended up being memorable.

“But Gamefiend, the BBEG is supposed to be super tough!”

No, the BBEG is supposed to be super INTERESTING. He threatens and cajoles; he schemes and plots against the PCs; the PC foil the BBEG sometimes, but sometimes he foils them. When they face off for the final time, all sorts of crazy stuff should be going on.  Maybe after they navigate the chaos, they take the BBEG down in a round or two, but they will remember all that chaos.

Work to make your fights interesting instead of challenging, and your sanity will increase.  Maybe not much, but hey you’re a DM, so you were a little crazy already.

In honor of the release, I wanted to revisit Worldbreakers as a mechanic, and talk about what I’ve learned about monster design.

More Powers does not Equal More Expressive. It’s a common trick to give a monster powers to express every ability, but in 4e that kitchen-sink design actually detracts from a monster’s uniqueness. A few powers with more dramatic abilities mean more than many powers with subtle and  nuanced effects. Less powers alo is easier to run.

For Heaven’s Sake, Use the Monster Manual 3 Math. It makes such a huge difference in the ability of a monster (especially a solo) to use the damage boost proscribed in MM3. If you need the info, you can get it here and here.

While We’re At It, Action Recovery is a Must. Action Recovery — the generic name for removing dazed, stunned, and immobilized conditions on a solo — is essential. You’ll see it with a lot of cute names on Worldbreakers, but you’ll see it. Even though Worldbreakers get a clearing effect, many parties can lock down for almost the entirety of the battle. Use this on your solos to give them a fighting chance.

Counting Rounds is Just Wrong. Yes I learned my lesson. I spent a lot of energy in playtesting trying to get the right amount of rounds for the Worldbreaker effect. I realized in one play-test that the counting of rounds is just not something you do in 4e. That’s when we went to the temporary hit point model, and that’s when it finally clicked. One thing I was trying to do with the Worldbreakers initially was to have  a flow of valley (low threat) – peak (high threat) – valley - peak – valley . Combats in 4e don’t last enough rounds for that. A better “flow” is valley – peak – valley. This gives players time to get their licks in, get their tushes kicked, and get their last licks in. It fits more naturally within the structure of the 4e combat system.

Challenge is OK, Interesting is What Matters. I think most groups will find Etherkai challenging. I expect that some groups will find him completely deadly, while others while find him to be completely soft. Here’s the thing: I built Etherkai (and the rest of the Worldbreakers) to be interesting first and foremost. A lot of powers force unconventional interactions with the players, and he does some pretty crazy stuff. I can’t as a designer control challenge at the table. Dice are fickle. Some groups are very optimized, others are just average. I can’t fully control challenge unless I can fully control all these factors. I have a lot more say in how the monster is presented. When you read a Worldbreaker monster, you’ll get a rich back story and understanding of its motivations and personality. You’ll know how to present this monster to your players in the story. No matter what happens after that, the memory of that presentation will stay.
If there is a tip I’d like to give to GMs everywhere, it’s to let go of the notion of challenge a bit. Go for interest first , and see how it liberates your gaming. Many GMs confuse difficulty or danger with excitement.  I say…look at roller coasters.  I am not saying make artificial challenges, I am saying look at how danger and excitement occupy two separate spaces. Roller coasters are prety  An encounter doesn’t have to be a killer to excite players. Make exciting encounters first.

I’ll have more lessons when the next Worldbreaker comes around. Please pick up Etherkai  (it’s $2 with great art and great layout) and let us know what you think! I hope you enjoy it.

A very good question that people sometimes ask:

When do you use a skill challenge?

My answer:

You use skill challenges when it isn’t necessary for the players to succeed in order for the story to continue, and when the prospect of failing or succeeding is interesting.

Article done, right? OK, I’ll elaborate.

Implicit to a challenge of any sort is the notion of failure.   It seems completely negative and something you want to avoid at all costs, but failure is actually a powerful tool that enriches good stories.  Sometimes you have to break up that straightforward progression of the story and force the heroes to do something else.  Corner the players, force them to display character and perseverance. Judiciously used, failure becomes a positive and powerful feature for your D&D games. If you want your PCs to roleplay and deepen their experience, they have to be at risk of failing something that they really want to succeed at.  It takes only the briefest look at storytelling in any medium to see that this is true.

In D&D, the traditional place for risking failure has been combat, which is problematic.  Failure in combat has deep ties to the ending of a campaign.  Failure usually means death, and it’s hard for players to perceive when the reaper is coming for the party. The anatomy of a total party kill is such that it’s difficult for your players to analyze or assess that it’s happening until they are firmly in death’s clutches.  The healer goes down, then the defender…and soon those initial minor failures (minor for everyone but the players of the downed characters!) slide down the slope into complete failure.  Combat failure is typically what we as DMs pull punches to try and avoid. Combat can be an interesting source of failure, but it is often fatal.

Skill challenges to the rescue!  Skill challenges give us ways to offer failure, sans fatality.  Your party can completely botch a skill challenge and still be up and around.

So when should your characters be at risk of failing? It clearly can’t be every action they take. Being at risk of failing for everything that you do makes your characters feel like everyday schlubs or worse, when they should feel like heroes. You don’t want your characters rolling to tie their shoes, or to walk in a straight line. This would get tedious so quickly that you as a DM would be at risk of failing to organize another session.

Failure for complex actions needs to be interesting in its process and interesting in its end-result.  Players need to be engaged in the actions they are taking that lead to the eventual failure, and the meaning of them falling short needs to be clear and, well, sort of painful. To generate interest in the process, what you need is tension and a proper setting.  It could be relatively mundane (a town on fire, with people that need saving) or wander into more exotic locales (playing a game of fantasy poker with souls as the wager). The end-result of a skill challenge becomes interesting when it has weight or consequence (“People might die if I fail, or a person loses his soul if I can’t win the game”).  Those consequences are a real as anything in your fantasy world.  When debating whether to make a situation a skill challenge or not, ask yourself if there is sufficient tension and consequence in the scene to warrant making your players work for it.  If it lacks tension or consequence, you either let the scene be a straight role play or you tweak it until it gains the attributes it lacks.

Players haggling with a merchant to lower the price on a sword is not, on its own, worthy of a skill challenge.  They can easily negotiate with roleplay and a few choice dice rolls. Or…we could increase the stakes by saying that the merchant doesn’t just take gold, and the sword is not just a sword.  The merchant is actually (unknown to the PCs of course) a cultist of Vecna.  He’ll take some material wealth but is mostly concerned with arcane power and secrets.  The sword is an ancient sword of prophecy that the PCs have searched for in multiple locales and risked their lives to find numerous times.  The merchant doesn’t know the true value or properties of the blade (yet), and the players must carefully negotiate with the merchant and not reveal the sword’s true nature, lest he refuse them and keep it for himself.

That…is skill challenge material.  The merchant doesn’t just want money — he demands something of the players, something that they may not be willing to give.  The sword is something they want to have, and failure means they are going to have to do something else to get it.  Will they steal it?  Will they fight him? The easiest way for the players to get that sword is to bargain with him, successfully, right now.  I’ll repeat: tension and consequence make a scene appropriate for a skill challenge.

The only thing that you have to watch for is that skill challenges are not bottlenecks.  Every skill challenge you place needs to have an alternate path.  If the characters fail the skill challenge, they can decide to do something else, or are forced into another action.  Be careful about having failure of a skill challenge fall into a combat.  The only time that’s really appropriate is if avoiding the fight in the first place is the main goal of the skill challenge.  Also, make sure that the rewards of the skill challenge are such that winning the skill challenge is more profitable than the combat encounter.  If you have a skill challenge that gives you 400 XP, and not succeeding gives you 600 XP and a bunch of loot…what do you think PCs want to do, really?  You get what you reward, so ensure that skill challenges, when you use them, give bigger rewards than swinging swords.  You’ll drive the PCs to go all out to win every challenge.

Skill challenges are best used when you want the PCs to possibly fail at a complex action of sufficient tension and consequence.  Don’t use them just to complicate simple actions, and don’t use them as bottleneck encounters.  Ensure that your rewards are sufficient to motivate your players.  When you meet these conditions, the skill challenge will reward you and your players with a rich gameplay experience.

This is the fourth in a series of blogs, designed to help you add a little moistness to your 4e D&D game. The first half of this blog provides a few examples of layers, with rules for those provided in the previous entry of this series.

Sample Layers

Below are a few samples of how a layered encounter map might be designed.

Shoreline

This is a simple three-layer encounter location.

The top layer of these maps includes a large beach along the side of the map and increasingly deep water along the other half. The 3 squares closest to the beach are difficult terrain and do not require Athletics checks, but creatures cannot move between layers in those squares. Additionally, creatures on other layers have total cover from creatures on the shore.

As characters move farther away from the shore they begin to swim, and start making Athletics checks when they are 4 squares from the beach. Once they are swimming they can move between layers and can target creatures on other layers normally.

The second layer is smaller than the first, with a steep slope on the far right squares. Creatures in a sloped square do not sink when they fail Athletics checks. This layer is close to the sandy beach, and the movement of combat is disturbing the sediment. All squares in this layer are considered to be lightly obscured.

The third layer is only slightly smaller than the second. The water on this clear and offers no concealment. Along the side runs the rocky shore, now a vertical drop.

This third layer can be modified with such features as small underwater cave. Other layers could include terrain such as coral or seaweed.

Iceberg

This is a very simple four layer encounter

The top layer is the surface of the water, with a small iceberg exposed on the surface, along with other floating chunks of ice.

The iceberg is solid but only partially above the water, so it provides cover (but not superior cover). Moving from the water onto the surface of the iceberg costs an extra square of movement. The iceberg itself has slippery icy patches. Creatures that move more than 3 squares must make a Moderate DC Acrobatics check or fall prone.

The lower three levels are similar, all underwater with the iceberg in the middle of the battlemap. The iceberg itself blocks movement and line of sight. The only variation between layers is the size of the iceberg.

The water around the iceberg is dangerously cold. Creatures that start their turn adjacent to the iceberg take 3 cold damage per tier.

At the DM’s discretion, the iceberg could be clear in places, and thus would not block line of sight.

The iceberg could also move as the fight progresses, acting and shifting cover. If a moving iceberg strikes a stationary character they must make an immediate saving throw. If they succeed they remain on their current layer but are pushed along by the iceberg. If they fail, they are pushed down a layer.

Whirlpool

This is a more complicated four-layer encounter location.

The top layer of this map is the surface of the sea. Dominating the middle of the layer is the opening of a vortex, sucking creatures underwater.

On this layer the whirlpool is burst 5 zone, 11 squares across. Creatures that end their turn on the outer 3 squares are pulled 1 square closer to the center of the zone and slide 2 squares clockwise. Creatures that end their turn on the inner squares are pulled down a layer.

On the second layer, the whirlpool is a burst 3 zone, 7 squares across.  Creatures that end their turn on the outer 2 squares are pulled 1 square closer to the center of the zone and slide 2 squares clockwise. Creatures that end their turn on the inner squares are pulled down a layer.

On the third layer, the whirlpool is a burst 1 zone, 3 squares across. Creatures that end their turn on the outer squares are pulled 1 square closer to the center of the zone and slide 1 square clockwise. Creatures that end their turn on the inner square are pulled down a layer.

On the fourth and lowest layer, the whirlpool occupies a single square; the whirlpool does not move creatures but counts as difficult terrain.

Sample Encounter

This uses the shoreline maps. That map can easily be cropped to three wide but short battlemaps, each covering a narrow section of the shoreline.

(This encounter does use monsters from the MM1, so remember to increase their damage before use.)

Encounter Level 9 (2002 XP)

Setup

4 sahuagin guards

1 sahuagin raider

2 sahuagin priests

1 sahuagin baron

The fight starts with the sahuagin baron on the first layer, swimming but visible. The remaining sahuagin begin the fight underwater: the guards and raider on the second layer, and the two priests are on the third layer.

Tactics

The baron swims out to open water where it can use its swim speed to greater advantage, goading the PCs to come and attack. Meanwhile, the raider and guards will await below, possibly throwing their tridents to strike the PCs, and acting as living cover for the priests.

The sahuagin, knowing they will be fighting at a distance, should have brought a spare trident. The tridents also likely sink, allowing missed projectiles to be recovered as the slowly descend.

Once the PCs are in the deep water, the baron will swim down, and join its allies on the second layer.

Features of the Area

Sediment: The sand stirred-up on the second layer, and grants concealment to targets on different layers.

Terrain

Under the waves there are dangers unknown on the surface, areas of unique wildlife and locations of power.

Under the waves there are dangers unknown on the surface, areas of unique wildlife and locations of power.

Dark Water

This is an area where the foulness of the shadow realm has tainted the waters, turning them black and foul. The water is sticky and thick, making swimming a challenge.

Effect: Squares of dark water are lightly obscured and creatures with a swim speed treat the area as difficult terrain. Creatures without a swim speed take a -5 penalty of Athletics checks.

Fey Algae

Infused by the living force of the arcane world of the Fey, this resembles pond scum only much more virulent and found in any aquatic environment. It forms thick clouds that blocks vision and clings to anything that enters.

Effect: Squares of fey algae are heavily obscured. Creatures that enter or start their turn in a square of fey algae take a -5 penalty to Perception and Stealth checks and a -2 penalty to attack rolls (save ends).

Geyser Jet

Similar to a thermal vent, these periodically erupt in a torrent of scalding water.

Effect: The DM rolls a d20 at the start of each round. If the result is 9 or less the geyser erupts; creatures in burst 1 around the geyser take 5 fire and acid damage per tier.

Jelly Bloom

These are massive schools of jellyfish, sometimes thousands of the creatures, which float through the water and act as a hazard to swimmers.

Effect: Creatures that enter or start their turn in a square of a jelly bloom takes 10 lightning and poison damage per tier.

Razor Coral

This sharp-edged coral seems harmless but is sharper than polished steel.

Effect: Creatures that enter or start their turn in a square of razor coral take ongoing 3 damage per tier (save ends).

Tangle Weeds

Patches of this seaweed have been known to drown divers and snare the unwary.

Effect: Creatures that enter a square of tangle weed must make a Moderate DC Athletics or Acrobatics check or be grabbed (until escape). The escape check uses the same DC, but with a -2 penalty on the check.

Thermal Vent

These chasms send out waves of heat, and legends say they are clefts into fiery regions of the elemental realm.

Effect: When a creature enters a square with a thermal vent they take 5 fire damage per tier and the creature is pushed up 5 squares.

If the encounter takes place on a layered battlefield the creature is instead pushed up a layer.

Undertow

A side effects of powerful waves, this is an underwater current that pulls people down into deeper and deeper water.

Effect: When a creature enters an undertow they must make a moderate DC Athletics check or be pushed down 5 squares.

If the encounter takes place on a layered battlefield the creature is instead pushed down a layer.

Epic Characters should routinely be forced to do the impossible.  But let’s break down what it is I mean when I say impossible.  Obviously when I say impossible, I mean impossible for normal inhabitants of the world.  If it was truly impossible, then no one could do it. Impossible tasks only seem that way at first.  They threaten to overwhelm the characters initially, but then the characters start to use their powers creatively and break down the seemingly impossible task bit by bit.

When I think of  designing impossibility in games, I’m thinking about a few things: Bigness, Complication, and Walls.

A Foe No Sword Could Kill.

Dragons are really cool. They do classify as ‘big’ enemies, huge even, but when I speak of  ’Bigness’ I’m thinking even bigger than that. When I want to amplify the scope of an epic-level task or encounter,  what I’m looking for is to make something so large that the thought of putting a sword to it seems ridiculous and absurd.  Maybe that dragon is the size of a small planet (hello Unicron).  Maybe the solitary dragon is an armada of dragons.  You can amplify size, but an even better way to make something big at epic is to conceptualize it.

What if our epic-level dragon was the spirit of dragonkind, the very essence of draconic might?  That is so “big” you can barely even touch it.

What does Bigness get us as DMs?  Why ‘super-size’ creatures in this way?  My two reasons are:

– separates epic tier as a unique play style.  At heroic, you hit things.  At paragon, you hit things with more finesse.  But just hitting things at epic with all that power just seems…wrong somehow.  When we can’t just hit something and make it go away, then we…

– encourage lateral thinking and creative power/skill usage. Last time I said that we need to embrace the characters’ power.  We short-circuit combat effectiveness in the short-term by making enemies to large to go down in regular fights but let the players make it up by doing even crazier things with their powers.

Bigness is great, but sometimes, things just get complicated.

I Need you to do 100 things, ten seconds ago.

I think truly memorable encounters are made memorable for clever use of complication.  When I say complication, I don’t mean having multiple status effects for your players, or even stacking up multiple hazards for the players.  When you need to complicate things, the first place to start is with goals.  Once you have a goal (or multiple goals) in mind, you then start chaining additional parameters and sub-goals to it.  An example:

First we start simple — just our goal: Defend the Heart of Light from the undead army. Simple, but boring.

Now, we complicate: Defend the  Heart of Light from the undead army while protecting the citizens of the town in pitch blackness as they fend off the corrupting effects of shadow. Now we’ve got something to work with.

I’d suggest out of the three methods I describe for building impossible tasks  that complication make its way into your game most commonly.  You can complicate in so many ways that it never gets predictable. You can only fight world-sized creatures and conceptual creatures so long before you strain credulity with your players.

You definitely don’t want to set up a bunch of Walls for them, though Walls might be the most interesting of the concepts I’ll discuss.

The Whole Entire Universe is Behind this Wall.

I think you know that I don’t mean a literal wall.  Here’s what I’m thinking.  A Wall is something that is on one or more dimensions, impenetrable.  It is the foe you can’t kill or reason with, the item you can’t destroy.  It doesn’t matter how big it is.  You just can’t touch it. There’s no way in. There’s pretty much nothing you can do but try to find the door.

The doors are actually what makes the wall interesting.  A crucial factor for me is that finding the door into and through a Wall should be part of the fight/encounter itself.  If it’s merely a case of  ”I am invulnerable unless you retrieve this item” then what you’ve got is a quest. Nothing wrong with that, but different from what I’m thinking about (though I’ll talk about quests later if you like). The Wall’s weakness is there in front of you to be discovered.  Interesting doors include:

–Sacrifice . The Wall opens up and becomes vulnerable when something is sacrificed to it.

–Chain of Events.  Players must discover a sequence of effects that makes the Wall vulnerable.

–Weak Point.  The PCs must access some difficult to reach spot to open this wall’s door. Combine with Bigness for Shadow of the Colossus style fun.

I also suggest that you use these as spice and not your main encounter design. Players could lose that sense of surprise and wonder if they see too much of it.

That’s all for this week.  What other epic matters should At-Will theorize about?  Let me know.

To break it down further, a situation puts together many elements and lets the players create a scene from the elements in play. The difficulty is in creating quality situations — not every situation is not created equal, after all.

So what makes for a good situation?

Suggestive. Remember how I said that a situation has no predetermined ending? That doesn’t apply to the beginning at all. To get characters into the situation, we funnel them into a scenario that suggest a certain flow of events. Leading in this way hooks PCs immediately. It increases immersion by offering something immediately provocative to work with. More importantly, it gets them wondering “Where is this going to go?” which is what you want.

Picture: An orc walks into the tavern. He grabs a patron and drops him to the floor with a headbutt. He stomps, punches, and kicks his way through the tavern until he arrives at the party’s rogue. Coming face to face with her, he grunts “You’re the one I’ve been looking for!”

Ok, we’ve got a violent orc who needs something from the rogue. Is he looking for blood, maybe a stolen item? Right now, the rogue probably has a million questions, and we know that the situation is going to start with figuring out what the heck the orc does want. Hopefully, the rogue can do it fast.

Twisting. Quality situations start one way and then after the first “beat” become something else. It doesn’t have to be a 180 degree switch — our orc doesn’t have to become an orc of peace after the rogue asks, “What do you want?” — but you should be looking to take the situation somewhere the players didn’t anticipate it would go. The orc in our previous example could travel in multiple directions from his first assertion. Maybe the orc was looking for the rogue because he heard she was great at disarming traps and…don’t tell anyone…the orc’s brother got his foot caught in one (embarrassing!). Or maybe this orc seeks revenge for an orc that was killed as a minion several levels ago in the adventurer’s career.

Whatever the twist is, let it come out shortly after the situation starts, getting adventurers more and more interested in creating the scene.

Motivated Participants. We will take for granted that your PCs are motivated to take action on their own, and they have goals they pursue. But what about the characters you bring in? Do you understand what motivates your NPC and what he will do to get what he wants? This is vital to keeping your situation open and flexible to player input. When you understand what your NPC wants and needs, you can react to what your players do based on the guidance that motivation provides you.

Going back to our orc and his poor brother, we know that the orc wants to help his brother, and he is going to the rogue because of her skills but also because if goes to anyone else in the village, it will be a source of major humiliation. Also, the orc is cheap and sort of violent. He’ll low-ball the players at first, then maybe threaten, but any character who guesses at his need to keep this incident on the downlow gains the upper hand in negotiations.

There are a lot of places to go with this situation, but I would feel prepared to improvise as long as I knew what the orc wanted in the situation.

These are the major elements of a good situation. But now you may be wondering…how do I run my sessions like you propose? And what about my set pieces? Combats?  More on that later, promise.

Time for my next creation, this time her name is Tarashon, Scion of Shar. My campaign has gone totally epic since the last of these articles. Szass Tam, the ultimate villain of the story, has begun a ritual that is changing the fundamental nature of the world that will turn him into an overgod. The gods have sent agents from around the planes to the world in order to either try and do their part to stop this from happening or take advantage of the situation. Tarashon is one of those agents working for Shar, goddess of Shadows and Secrets.

Meanwhile, I’m also moving into the last chapter of the Tomb of Horrors, where Acererak is trying to become a god (in my campaign the famous demilich is actually a former apprentice of Szass Tam from centuries ago and they’re both using similar methods to achieve similar goals). I’m reskinning a lot of the last chapter of this super-adventure from WotC in order to fit my campaign, but the basics are the same. Regardless, the PCs need to figure out how to get to the domain of a dead god (in my game Mystra’s Dweomerheart). Who knows such secrets? The scion of the god of secrets, of course.

So the party will have to find Tarashon, Scion of Shar, who not only knows how to get to Dweomerheart but has sent a team of her own agents (instead of Asmodeus as the adventure states as listed) to the former domain of magic to learn the secret of Acererak’s ritual.

But if they party is going to hunt down Tarashon they’re going to have to find her and get the information out of her one way or another. I figure this encounter could be purely role-playing and a few skill checks…but I suspect that the agent of a god of secrets isn’t going to give up this information easily…but perhaps she keeps an encoded book of secrets. So the party can kill her, take the book, decode it, and head off to face off against their demilich campaign mini-boss. So I better have her stats ready regardless of how this goes down.

The Design

How to design the scion of one of the original two gods of the Realms, the god of shadows and secrets? Well I want these agents of the gods to feel powerful. This event is my excuse as a DM to make my entire epic tier feel epic. No longer are we dealing with the organizations of kingdoms of the world…that’s so last tier, everything has to be bigger (as explained to me by the highly esteemed Mike Shea on a recent episode of The Tome Show and in his own book about running epic tier games).

So I’m making Tarashon a 25th level solo, but I don’t expect her to fight alone, I’m thinking maybe I’ll throw together some shadow minions to go with her. Being the scion of a god of shadows and secrets I find it only natural that she be a lurker. This makes life harder for me since I feel that making lurkers is probably the hardest type of monster to design (and run) well, but it makes too much sense so I’ll stretch myself. I want to accomplish the lurker role in relatively simple ways. A trait or a power or a combination of them that hides her quickly and easily and allows her to move so you’re never sure where she is. Make her hard to find and give her a chance to pop out of no where later, that’s what will make her a lurker.

First, let’s start with her traits (after giving her a full complement of skills and the like, since this could end up being a role-playing encounter I want to be ready for that). I’m starting with Mantle of Shade to simulate constantly being enshrouded in writhing shadows that makes it hard for people to see her. Sure, in a meta-game sense everyone knows she’s in the center of the aura, but the simulation still works because the aura will block line of sight beyond 2 squares and make everyone else hit her when she has cover. This raises the question of why not just give her bonus to all her defenses and block line of sight otherwise…I should probably have a way to negate the aura. So if she’s hit with radiant it will temporarily cut through the shadows.

I also really liked the way I designed Kezef with the many auras. It worked well because even if he was locked down he was causing some problems. I’m already making it hard to lock Tarashon down, she gets a +5 to saves as a solo and I’m giving her saves at the start of her turn…but PCs are crafty and they’ll use powers that stun for one turn and the like instead, so I’m going to give her a Shadow Bleed power as well that activates when she’s bloodied at which point the shadow essence within her starts to seep out and threaten all those around her.

Next I need to figure out how I’m going to make her move around and surprise people. I’m going to have her teleport up to 10 squares as a move action at-will and doing so grants her invisibility until she makes an attack (which will give her combat advantage regularly, which will work well since I’m giving her a sneak attack). Now she’s starting to feel like a lurker to me, I feel comfortable with her being in that role.

Now it’s time to fill her out. I want powers to capture her theme, shadow and secrets, as well as crank up her challenge and give her plenty of options while not making her overly complicated, because if there’s anything I hate as a DM it’s forgetting to use monster powers and never getting another chance later.

So I’m going to give her the power to blind people as a minor action and a basic melee attack with her weapon. The sword attack can be a little more fun than meets the eye as well, because it’s what she’ll be doing in conjunction with her Shadow Step and Sneak Attack which could make it all the more devastating. Adding up to a potential 9d8+10 damage and to make it be an even bigger threat I’ll have her get a free use of her Shadow Step when she spends an action point, allowing her to pop in, stab, pop to the other side, and stab again all in one round. That’s a proper epic threat even with a minor looking sword attack.

Lastly, I’m going to give her a power to capture the idea of devastating people with her secrets, it’ll do psychic damage and it will be a recharge power. I think I’d like it to effect pretty much the whole battlefield, my wizard and ranger have it too easy staying out of the fight, I want this to threaten them too. I’ll have it daze as well as it’s not nearly as much of a fun killer as stun is but still makes sense. She’s just said a secret so devastating to the mortal mind that they’re all confused for a moment. It’s a Cthulu-mythos-style secret, they may not even comprehend it but it’s shaken them to a core.

As for the shadowy minions…I’m thinking to either just reskin the Death Thrall Attendant or the Dread Wraith Minion (both available in the D&DI Compendium) and call it good enough. The Attendant probably does the job that I want better (since the wraith is a bit harder to hit being 6 levels higher than the PCs and does necrotic damage that most of my party will almost completely ignore). The Attendant does normal damage and explodes when it dies. That’ll work well and I think I’ll have a handful of them appear every round on Tarashon’s turn…melting out of the scenery.

There’s the design, now it’s just a matter of running the encounter and seeing how it goes.

The Experience

Well the fight is over and considering how difficult I think it is to both design and, even more so, to run a lurker in an encounter, I think it went pretty well. I mean, sure a monster designer can call a monster a lurker and make the numbers match up to that, but the real trick to lurkers is running them. Because if the bad guy pops out once and surprises everyone that’s only a little lurker-y to me. I like lurkers to feel like lurkers for the entire fight, and so often that’s hard or even impossible to do.

Tarashon was designed with being a lurker for several rounds of a fight from the get-go. She has powers that allow her to move around, be invisible, and simulate her being hard to see. In terms of story I think she was a huge success. In terms of the metagame of D&D, I’m less confident in that. Sure, she was invisible for a few seconds each turn (giving her sneak attack damage) but the players all knew where she was based on the location of her mini almost all of the time (based on how I ended up running her). She came off quite skirmisher-y to the players, even if she was lurker-y to the PCs.

I suspect the lurker qualities might have been more effective and evident to all around, except that one of my players used his brand new power that allows him to give the entire party darkvision until the end of the encounter…I determined that that would negate her aura’s ability to block line of sight, but not the cover. It was a compromise.

The minions worked well to keep the threat going when the PCs managed to temporarily stun Tarashon. When the fight started I had 6 minions appear out of columns in the room (because, what else am I doing with those columns I drew) for each of the first two rounds. I knew I wanted them to show up again later, but didn’t want to have them appear every round…that’s a trick I’ve gone to a bit too often lately. So I had them stop after two rounds (build up just enough of them to keep the PCs busy after they’d used all their stunning powers) and then when she became bloodied I had 4 minions appear each round until she was dead. That, along with her extra-aura when she becomes bloodied was enough to change the battle just enough to make it interesting mid-way through without making it feel like a completely different fight.

As a DM she was pretty easy to run and remember all her abilities (especially since I just tell my players about auras and trust them to remember). She had several PCs on the ropes a few times and I got to really challenge some characters that are normally off the hook. I beat up the archer for a while (and even when I didn’t the minor action at-will blind ability was great for him) and I had the leader almost down as well as had the wizard on the run.

I’m going to call this a success. The powers emulated the story of a lurker…although as I look at the design more and more I think that it’s really a kick butt skirmisher with some lurker-i-ness mixed in.

What do you think? How do you handle lurkers in your games and do you have a good design for them or advice on how to run them well? What things would you change about my design…or what did you like? Please share in the comments.

What is a skill? What is a power? Are they two different things? Are they the same thing? Yes.. and no.

Let’s start with tumbling. No, not the power Tumble, we’ll get to that in a second. Tumbling is the simple concept of rolling around on the battlefield to avoid being attacked. This is an action, not a skill or a power. It’s something the character does to interact with the game world. Like a chemical element, it’s the basic unit of role-playing, independent of whatever way the action is resolved mechanically.

Skills and powers exist on conceptual levels above actions; they’re the manner in which actions are mechanically resolved. Specifically, powers sit on top of actions, and skills sit on top of powers. When performing an action, you first check for a relevant power specific to the action. If the power is not present, you move up another level to the relevant skill. Skills and powers cover the same ground in different ways. Where a skill represents the character’s ability to attempt a wide variety of related actions effectively at any time, a power represents the character’s ability to execute a specific action perfectly at specific intervals. Nowhere better is this described than in skill powers. You’re trained in Arcana? You should be able to use it to gain the edge from time to time in discussion (Arcane Mutterings). The general competence gives berth for a specific expertise.

Now let’s go back to tumbling to give a more concrete example. You have a 2nd level Rogue with the Tumble power. This means that character can always tumble up to his or her speed once per encounter without a chance of failure. The power defines a narrow portion of the character’s expertise that would normally be otherwise covered by the general skill category. If the rogue wants to try tumbling again after the power is expended, can (s)he do that? Of course – the tumbling action is covered by the Acrobatics skill if a relevant Power (such as Tumble) is not available. The difference is that the skill check comes with a chance of failure and that failure should have consequences. At the end of this post, I have several example actions, including tumbling, and how they can be adjudicated using a skill check.

Before that, let’s cover some hang-ups or questions that immediately arise when thinking about this structure. What about attack rolls? You can miss an attack roll, right? Doesn’t that go against what we’ve just said here? Not at all. Look at Spinning Sweep. The Spinning Sweep power is the ability to knock an enemy prone on a hit once per encounter. It involves certain body positioning, movement, outside circumstance and weapon technique to accomplish in the game world. If you have that power, you can execute all those parts correctly once per encounter. Whether you hit, though, is not a factor. The power is the execution of the action, not the resultant effects. If a player in my game said “hey, I’d like to try Spinning Sweep again – can I make an (Athletics, Acrobatics, Intimidate) check to do it?” my answer is “hells yeah, go for it.” It’s now a stunt and I’m probably going to have you make a Moderate Lv 1 (level of the power) check to pull it off. The DC might be different if that character isn’t actually a Fighter, but the idea is still valid.

That begs the question, “if a player could keep using encounter (or utility or daily?) powers with an appropriate skill check, why not just keep doing it?” First, combat is dynamic. You’re probably not going to stay in that situation over and over again to make repeating the power worth it. Second, you have a chance of failure and consequences besides just missing on the attack. The stakes are higher. Finally, you have other powers. You picked other awesome things for your character to do. You’re going to want to use them. Never underestimate the power of “ooh shiny” on a character sheet.

Another retort I can already hear through the time/space continuum between when y’all read this and I write it is “but isn’t this against the rules?” I respond with “why do you think that?” Is it because there’s no rule for tumbling in the combat section? Perhaps you feel that the presence of a power precludes all uses of that action otherwise? I would direct you first to page 42 of the original DMG in which a 8th level rogue named Shiera swings on a chandelier and kicks an ogre into a brazier for 2d8+5 damage.  Now look at the Monk Lv 3 Encounter “Fallen Hammer in Repose” – shift 1 or move 3 (swing on the chandelier) then deal 2d10 + dex mod damage and push the target 3 (into the brazier).  An 8th level Rogue just performed a 3rd level Monk attack with a skill check and it’s in the Dungeon Master’s Guide as an example. Now am I saying you’re playing “wrong” if you don’t pull these sorts of stunts on a regular basis? Of course not. Your playstyle is your playstyle; enjoy the game the way you see fit. I simply wish to point out that not only is the intermingling of effects by powers and skills OK by rule 0 (DM’s discretion), it actually carries precedence in the official game material.

“What about magical or esoteric powers? What if my Wizard wants to make a Religion check to drop a Divine Challenge? What if the Psion wants to cast Sleep? Why bother having classes if you can just steal each other’s powers?” My answer might be surprising: “So?” As we said before, powers individually define narrow areas of expertise. Collectively, they help distinguish classes and roles from one another to provide niche protection. It’s a meta thing. However, if your players aren’t really concerned about spotlight-stealing, why not just run with it, see where it goes? 4E’s math is stable enough that, given the table of regular damage expressions, you could probably run “powerless” and have a workable game. I suspect that once the novelty wore off, the vast majority of players would return to the regular power structure anyway. Drop me a line at ryvencedrylle@gmail.com if you run even so much as a single encounter this way. I’d love to hear about it.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. As stated above, I leave you with some common examples of skill/power crossover to try in your own game. ‘Til next time, peeps.

Tumble

Move Action, Acrobatics, Moderate DC, Level (equal to nearest foe)
Success: As per the Tumble skill, shift your speed.
Failure: Lose move action OR move speed, grant CA on opportunity attacks OR shift speed but fall prone

Move Light Object with Magic

Minor Action, Arcana (trained only), DC 20
Success: As per the Mage Hand power.
Failure: Object rolls into enemy’s square OR object breaks/takes damage OR grab similar nearby object instead

Set Small Trap

Standard Action, Dungeoneering or Nature (trained only), Hard DC, Level (equal to foe intended for trap)
Success: As per the Invoker’s Grasping Shards power, no radiant, trigger when target enters square.
Failure: Trapsetter triggers effect OR trap goes off the second time triggered instead of first OR trap slows but does not deal damage

Healing by Encouragement at a Distance

Standard Action, Insight or Diplomacy, Hard DC + 2, Level (equal to intended ally)
Success: As per the Warlord’s Inspiring Word, according to level.
Failure: Loss of action OR heal, but you grant CA (are distracted) OR heal only allows surge (those extra d6s get more important as you get higher in level)

@john_harper

You know what I’ve stopped doing? Plotting. I’ve been at this place for many years now, but I’ve recently found words to express my thoughts.

When I say plotting, I mean I’ve stopped thinking of the games I DM as somehow being my story. I move away from creating a story that my players interact with.

I do it because it causes problems.  Stop me if you’ve heard this before.  DM creates a huge, epic gllobetrotting epic.  Players look in the other direction, chasing some other detail that the DM thought was  throwaway but the PCs are absorbed by.  DM pulls out hair.

I do it because, even though 4e feels on the surface like a game that depends on massive amounts of prep-work, in the end that’s not true.  4e robustly supports a game with stronger blends of improv and set-piece encounters.

I do it because I hate secrets.  Things that I hide from the players are potential wasted; If I have good ideas, I will use them, and create surprises and interesting situations that spark interesting play.

Lastly, because story really can’t be pre-made in a roleplaying game.  Story is what  happens after we play.  Narrative is generated by our table decisions and by the roll of the dice. Our games are our stories.  The players bring characters with goals and interests and histories, and the DM presents the PCs with situations, obstacles and danger.  The DM weaves together these elements so that we can generate stories through this deft interplay in this wonderful hobby of ours.

Yes, even in 4e (there’s no roleplaying!). Here are some thoughts specific to D&D.

Death by a Million Branches

Let’s look at DM plotting at a basic level:  I am making a story but as it starts it is a railroad.  Event follows event follows event. No choices.  Your players are going to hate you and quit your game.  To prevent this, you incorporate space for the players to make choices in.  But that space you carve out of your story?  That actually adds more areas for you to potentially fill.  What to do if the players go left instead of right?  Or they choose the dark side instead of the light? Under a “must have plot” model, you are making almost endless contingencies.

Where do you stop?  How deep do you go?  There’s always a point where you make the cut, but my personal experience has been that you always make that cut-off a little later than maybe you should.

Even if all you do is generate a high level story arc, you still have all this material that may or may not be used.  You’ve created a bunch of material that may not be touched or even thought of.

All these forks and branches, and for what?  The players are only going on one path — the one they choose. You should react to that, and build along the path they provide.

Here’s the Situation

What you end up designing then are situations.  How is a situation different from a story? The fundamental difference is that a situation imposes no outcomes and presumes no choices  whereas a story must, by definition, presume actions.

Here’s a story:

The adventurers hear rumors of a dragon roaming the countryside, terrorizing the  populace.  The players are asked by the mayor of the nearest village to stop the dragon.  They take up the task and then after much searching, they find the dragon’s lair, defeat the dragons, and steal his treasure.

Here’s the situation:

There is a dragon terrorizing the populace.  The mayor the nearest village has put out fliers with a large rewards for those that seek out the dragon.

In the former, there is a nice, strong flow. This to this to that. The problem here is that the game hasn’t been played yet.  The characters can bust loose from the story in so many ways, going “off the rails” at any point.

The situation on the other hand, eliminates that possibility.  It requires the players to take actions to pursue it, and then relies on the players taking actions to complete it.  The players say “hey, I need that money!” and the adventure begins.

The cool thing about the situation is that you can generate a few for each session, based on things that have happened before and/or tossing in new situations.

But I Need My Set-pieces

“But Gamefiend,” you cry, “I love me some set-pieces. I NEED set-pieces.  I’ve got this awesome dungeon full of traps that I need to build and spring upon players.”

Me too.

But think: what is a dungeon (or any site for that matter) but a bunch of situations?  I can’t talk about dungeon design at this moment, but I think the design of a site that the players choose to go to is a pretty safe bit to work on.

I need to reinforce that I’m not saying “don’t ever prepare a game in advance”. What I’m saying is “prepare less”.  Shrink that time of building endless scenarios and plot into building the framework for you next session.

What I’m about to say next is for players, so PCs? Line up.

Plotless? Oh, I meant “Player Driven”

You may think that if you play a more traditional plotted game, I am telling you “you are an awful DM” implicitly. Not even remotely true. I am advocating a style that I’ve been using.  If you like what you’re doing, please continue, whatever it is.  If you decide to move towards more “plotless” Gming however, make sure  you know that it means your game is becoming more player-driven.

Sort of obvious, right? It is, but your players need to know what is expected of them.  I’ve had games that died because I forgot to explain to players that they are the ones making things happen and I, as a GM, am simply “master of surprises”. The players pursue goals, they pursue the things that interest them and their characters, and I do my best to make it not easy.  But if players are looking at more traditional ways of playing D&D, they are expecting me to delivering the hook, the interest, the progression, and the obstacles (note to DMs…are you doing all of that?  Are you feeling burned out? This might be why).

You’ve got to be clear that the game is about the characters do, not about what the world builds around them. You can’t have more than one or two PCs “along for the ride”.  People have to make decisions, players have to agree to not just sit in a tavern and wait for adventure to fall in their laps.  The characters need desires, they need goals. The characters need the motivation to go after these goals and see if they can overcome the challenges you put in their way.

Sounds Like Fun/Crap.

At this point I’ve either totally lost you or you are total agreement.  It could be that this style is just not a fit for your play-group, or maybe you already do this (in which case you wonder what took me so long to write this). Anyone who I haven’t alienated,  let’s talk:

How are your games already like this?

How could  you have less plot, and more story?

What tools can you use in 4e to assist you in a more free-form game?

Like always, if there is interest in the comments I will discuss this more.

This is the third in a series of blogs on Aquatic Adventures. This article provides some needed rules for underwater combat.

Layered Combat

One of the solutions for 3D combat proposed last time was layered encounters: multiple battlemaps each focusing on a single slice of the action.

Layers are an abstraction on standard combat, ignoring precise movement and distance in favour of a simple system that is easy to run. Instead of tracking elevation for each creature, there are multiple maps all stacked vertically. This is similar to having a combat take place in several small rooms, all adjacent to each other.

Despite being separate maps, layers are still treated as the same map or location for rituals and powers that target the entire battlefield. Creatures are able to see and hear across all layers unless blocked by additional terrain.

For ease of movement between layers, it’s a good idea to number the grid for identification, like as a chessboard – or the game Battleship.

As a default, layers are treated as being approximately five squares apart.

Moving Between Layers

• Creatures must move to adjacent layers.
• A moving creature appears in a square at the same position as the one they left or a square adjacent to that one.
• Creatures with a swim speed can move between adjacent layers as a move action. They do not need to make an Athletics check to change layers.
• Creatures without a swim speed need two move actions to move between layers. They must make an Athletic check to change layers.
• Creatures cannot end their turn between layers.
• Creatures provoke Opportunity Attacks normally for leaving threatened squares.
• Forced movement that moves a creature more than five squares can instead be used to move a creature between layers. The forced movement must still obey other limits (i.e. you cannot pull a creature on the same layer onto a different layer).
• Creatures that fail three Athletics checks in a row by 5 or more sink to a lower layer.

Attacking Between Layers

• Attacking between layers does not impose a penalty on attack rolls.
• Melee and close attacks cannot target creatures on a different layer.
• Ranged and area attacks with a range of 5 or less cannot target a different layer.
• Ranged and area attacks with a range of 6 to 10 can target an adjacent layer.
• Ranged and area attacks with a range of 11 to 15 can target up to two layers away.
• Each subsequent range increase of 5 can target an additional layer.

Skills

The skills chapter of the PHB and Rules Compendium includes all the DCs for moving in water, including treading water. This section adds a few more options for skill use.

Athletics

Skilled swimmers can attempt more while underwater than the frail or unskilled.

• Immobilized creatures can still make Athletics check to avoid sinking; they cannot move but can still tread water.
• A creature that does not move or make an Athletics check sinks 1 square at the end of its turn.
• If a creature succeeds on an Athletics check to swim by 10 or more, it does not need to spend an extra square of movement for the first square it enters.

Endurance

Only the hardy can withstand the crushing pressure of the deep sea.

Action: A free action made at the start of a creature’s turn

DC: The DC is based on the type or pressure. DC 15 for light pressure and DC 22 for heavy pressure.

Success: A creature can ignore the effects of deep sea pressure for the encounter.

Pressure

Water is heavy, and without magic the pressures of being deep underwater can crush an unprepared diver.

There are two types of pressure: light pressure and heavy pressure. In the open sea, light pressure is between 100 feet and 500 feet underwater (20 squares to 100 squares), while heavy pressure is 500 feet or more underwater (over 100 squares).

• In areas of light pressure, creatures without the aquatic keyword take a -2 penalty to Perception checks and all Dexterity-based skill checks.
• Light pressure can be ignored for an encounter with a DC 15 Endurance check.
• In areas of heavy pressure, creatures without the aquatic keyword take a -5 penalty to Perception checks and all Dexterity-based skill checks.
• Heavy pressure can be ignored for an encounter with a DC 22 Endurance check.
• Effects and abilities that permit breathing underwater do not bestow the ability to ignore pressure.
• Effects and abilities that remove penalties for underwater combat bestow the ability to ignore pressure.
• Creatures without the aquatic keyword that move from a depth with no pressure to heavy pressure (or the reverse)  in less than one minute, take damage equal to their bloodied value and are deafened (save ends).

Falling & Sinking

In many ways, sinking is falling, only slower and with no damage.

• Creatures sink 1 square at the end of their turn.
• If a creature fails an Athletics check to swim by 5 or more they sink.
• Immobilized creatures must still make Athletics checks to swim or they sink. Failure or success does not end the immobilized condition.
• Grabbed creatures do not sink unless the grabbing creature chooses. They can still choose to make Athletics checks to tread water.
• Grabbing creatures can either chose to sink with a grabbed target, make a single Athletics check to tread water for itself and the target, or use the target’s Athletics check.
• Restrained creatures do not sink, unless the DM rules the individual power does not prevent sinking. This does not end the restraining condition.

Next Time

On the next blog in this series I will provide a couple sample layers and additional terrain to use in underwater adventures.