Yearly Archives: 2012

Selectivity

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My regular game group agreed to play a one shot game with a traditional rule set. We normally play a 4E hack. My favorite version of D&D is B/X as edited by Moldvay, Cook, and Marsh. So, to give them a taste of the old ways, I wanted to find something close to that. Most of my current players are not aware of any differentiation between anything prior to and including First Edition.

Why not just use B/X directly? Well, that is actually what I ended up doing. Since I only have one copy of Moldvay Basic though, I had hoped to find a free legal PDF of a clone that was “close enough” so the players could check it out before play. As it turned out, that was not necessary. I just chaperoned character creation along with a few copies of key pages. It turns out that pages B5 through B13 are all you need for a B/X Player’s Handbook (with pages B16 and B17 for magic-user and elf spells). Cleric spells would also need to be added for a game that proceeded past first level, obviously.

Making all the characters from scratch was relatively painless and took less than 20 minutes. In total, there were seven players in addition to me. The group included an experienced 4E player, two players who had only ever played D&D in my normal 4E game, several who had played a few different editions, and one who had never played a tabletop RPG ever. They rolled 3d6 in order, picked a class, rolled for money, and bought equipment.

I was going to run either Keep on the Borderlands or Stonehell, but Aplus helpfully suggested Tower of the Stargazer in response to a G+ query. This is one of my favorite modules, new or old, and I have never had a chance to run it. It is also relatively small and self contained, and I felt confident that they would get to some of the interesting areas within a three hour session. It went well; I’ll write more about the session in another post.

Though I decided to use Moldvay, this is what I was looking for in a ruleset, with reasons in parentheses:

  1. Highest level spells as 0E: magic-user max 6, cleric max 5 (power level)
  2. Race as class (quicker chargen, distinctive demi-humans)
  3. No cleric spells at first level (against the perception of cleric as medic)
  4. Five saving throw categories (atmosphere)
  5. Variable hit dice (I think OD&D’s all d6s would be confusing)
  6. No class ability score requirements (quicker chargen)
  7. No ability score modification (quicker chargen, no optimization)
  8. Freely downloadable (convenience)
Perhaps surprisingly, I don’t care one way or the other about ascending versus descending armor class.

Here is the disposition of various games regarding my criteria:

  • B/X D&D is perfect but not freely downloadable
  • Labyrinth Lord gives first level clerics a spell
  • Labyrinth Lord also has spells higher that the 0E levels
  • Equipment and armor are more complicated in Labyrinth Lord
  • Swords & Wizardry uses a single saving throw
  • S&W Core has a rule for the 5 saves, but separates race and class
  • S&W Core also has spells higher that the 0E levels
  • Lamentations of the Flame Princess has strange attack bonuses
  • It also has spells higher than the 0E levels
  • All the 0E clones (e.g., S&W:WB) are out because of the hit dice
  • Labyrinth Lord Original Edition Characters is not freely downloadable (yes it is, see here)
  • Original Edition Characters is also out because of the hit dice
  • The Microlite games seem to be very much their own thing
  • Basic Fantasy has separate race and class (and odd cleric spells)
  • Dark Dungeons goes much too high in level (Rules Cyclopedia clone)
  • Dark Dungeons also has skills
The highest level of spell available is probably the least important of the criteria, as they are not likely to even notice. The rules directly exposed to first level characters are clearly the most important.

I know I could house rule anything, but I wanted their first traditional D&D experience to be absent provisos and exceptions as much as possible (though I believe I am constitutionally incapable of avoiding house rules entirely; more on that later in the actual play report). I just wanted the rules to fade into the background.

Practically speaking, these seemed to have been my options within the clones (had I not gone with Moldvay):

  1. Swords & Wizardry Core and live with the single save and separate races 
  2. Labyrinth Lord and live with the 1st level cleric spell and SRDisms
  3. Basic Fantasy and live with separate race and class
It seems like Basic Fantasy comes closest to traditional B/X, the only major deviation being the separation of race and class (sixth level cleric spells are odd, but not a big problem; at least magic-user spells only go up to level 6). This is surprising, because Basic Fantasy is a clone that I have almost no experience with (I think I only glanced at the website briefly a few months ago and downloaded the PDFs).

I’m sure any of the clones or neoclassical games would have worked, and this is not to be taken as a dig against them. But it is interesting too see how the various options compare to my idiosyncratic preferences, and how many of the clones diverge in various ways.

2012 04 24 edit: note about free text-only version of Original Edition Characters.

Two Vancian Magic Variants

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Prompted by this discussion over at Jeff’s place, I had some ideas for Vancian magic house rules. Here they are again, cleaned up somewhat.

Variant 1: Spell Retention

Prepare spells as normal, standard charts. However, when a spell is cast it is not automatically wiped from the magic-user’s mind. The magic-user gets a save vs. spells (penalized by spell level) to retain it. At low levels this means that about 30% of the time spells will not be expended the first time they are cast. For powerful magic-users, it makes low level spells closer to at-will powers (but not actually unlimited). Thus, the resource management aspect of the class is not destroyed.

What’s the downside? If the magic-user rolls a 1 on the saving throw, that is considered a spell fumble and they lose the spell and must roll on a magical mishaps table (or suffer some other campaign-specific penalty). Fumbles can only occur when casting spells of the highest two or three levels that can be prepared. That is, by the time a magic-user can cast fourth level spells they have completely mastered first level spells and can no longer fumble their spell retention save. The highest level spells, however, always carry some level of risk.

Variant 2: Improv Casting

Prepare spells reliably as per the traditional rules. Any unprepared spell that the magic-user is familiar with (i.e., has in their spell book) may be cast but requires an action and a successful save vs. spells (penalty equal to spell level as above). Failure and the action is wasted, fumble and bad stuff happens. Further, a fumble occurs on any die roll equal to or less than the spell level. Thus, casting an unprepared third level spell would fumble on a roll of 1, 2, or 3. Improv fumbles should always at least prevent the magic-user from trying the same spell again until they can return to their spell books and puzzle out what went wrong.

“I saw this one thing this one time and it kinda went like this…”

Any spell that the magic-user has witnessed may also be attempted (for example, if the magic-user has seen another magic-user cast fireball). This uses the same rules as casting unprepared spells, but the save penalty and fumble threat range are doubled.

Both of these variants increase the magic-user’s power or versatility, but also expose them to fumbles. Many people prefer magic to include an element of danger, so that may be a feature rather than a bug. I like this mechanic because it is thematically coherent, is simple (no bookkeeping), and uses saving throws (which are like my favorite thing ever).

This does probably make magic-users more powerful, so if that is a problem you should control spell acquisition carefully (for example, no free new spells on level up). If one was so inclined, one could use both variants together, as they cover different aspects of casting, but that would result in a larger divergence from the traditional game.

I gather that there is a mechanic in the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG which has a separate fumble table for each spell, so that might provide some inspiration, though a fumble table per spell seems like overkill to me.

Loviatar 7 & Petrification

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Christian returns in Loviatar No. 7 with an entire issue dedicated to my game of choice, B/X D&D. It features Hex 003, the home of the halfling village of Combe, some goblin caves, and lots of basilisks. Let’s talk about the basilisks first. Basilisks continue a theme from earlier hexes (which used the catoblepas): deadly petrifying monsters. It’s an interesting choice, especially for a hexcrawl aimed at low level characters. Monte Cook even recently used fighting basilisks as an example of mid-level play. Clearly, these monsters are not meant to be slain, at least not directly.

I am often wary about making fantastic monsters mundane inhabitants of the environment. I know that Gygaxian Naturalism and monster ecology have a long history in the game, and are often considered the hallmark of a well-designed setting (i.e., a setting that “makes sense”), but I think this logic often comes at the cost of a sense of wonder. I have come to appreciate mythic underworlds and mythic geographies, though clearly there is a place for all kinds of campaigns (contrary examples include the subdued science fantasy of Dwimmermount and the many excellent gonzo settings). The Haldane Hexcrawl fits neither of those exceptions though, so why does it work? I do think it works, and it works because the naturalized monsters seem to exist outside of PC adventures. They give a strong sense of place to the world.

The small gods theme from issue 6 also continues with the Stone Man, an elemental spirit and protector of the village of Combe. As I said before, I’m digging the kami vibe and definitely plan to work with some similar ideas in my own setting. That being said, we are treated to some organized religion in this issue with the introduction of the deity Elyswen the Merciful and a sisterhood of clerics that serve her, though there is not much detail yet.

As before, there continue to be connections to events, locations, and people in previous hexes. There’s probably still not enough content here to run a moderately restless group on, as a party that does not take a deep interest in various elements could blow past them into uncharted hexes pretty quickly (an unencumbered human in B/X can chew through four hexes in a single day of dedicated travel). But this is a minor point, and I’m sure Christian will continue to add content in future issues of Loviatar.

Another thing that I really like about the Haldane Hexcrawl is that though it has a clear identity, it is also recognizably D&D, especially if you zoom in and look closely at any given element. Many settings develop their uniqueness by taking the common atoms of D&D and tweaking them. Some examples: Dragonlance replaces halflings with kender. Dark Sun wizards drain energy from the natural environment to power their spells (and this is why the world is mostly desert). Christian doesn’t take this approach. The goblins in the caves are rather generic. So are the halflings (though Sheriff Kemper bucks this stereotype to some degree). Most elements are like this.

I think that there is a strong argument to be made that this approach is often superior for tabletop gaming, because players do not need to absorb a tome of setting info (or the canon of a series of novels) before playing, they just need to be relatively familiar with the common D&D tropes. And this doesn’t mean that the setting is bland. The uniqueness of the setting becomes clear through play and arises from the interaction of the elements, not their individual nature.

Magic Item Experimentation

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One of my recent rules clarification questions was:

17. How do I identify magic items?

This is one of the questions that in hindsight I wish I had asked in a more detailed way. Specifically, how do the PCs know something is magical at all? Never mind what it does or how it is used. Mass-market fantasy now often portrays magic items as glowing or otherwise visually marked. Games like Diablo color items based on their rarity and power. This is not totally without precedent in the foundational literature (Bilbo’s Sting did glow blue in the presence of orcs, though this is less like an identifying mark and more like a power). Did Excalibur glow? I don’t think so. What about the hide of the Nemean Lion? Characters knew that these items were powerful because they were singular and legendary within the story as well as outside of it.

Is every richly embroidered robe and jeweled sword possibly a magic item? Because of practical game considerations, probably not. The most common solution to this problem is to allow PCs to just sense magic in some way or another. That is fine and workmanlike, but robs magic items of a sense of mystery and a need for background. This is one of the many reasons that D&D magic can often feel mundane and commonplace.

Assume for the moment that the first hurdle has been cleared. The item is known to be enchanted. How do the PCs discover what it does and how to use it? The most common answer I have seen to this question is to experiment. What does experimentation mean? For a potion, the convention is to take a small taste (enough, perhaps, to trigger a poison potion). But what about other kinds of items? Is it enough to pick up a wand and wiggle it? Is it enough to say “I experiment” in much the same way that, in some games, it is enough to say “I search for traps” without further detail? And, if so, how is the result determined? Must there be a diegetic aspect to the activation such as a control word that the players must discover by interacting with the campaign world? A diegetic method would be very engaging if you have such details prepared (or a method for generating them on the fly).
In my current game, I use a simplified version of the arcana skill (4E PHB page 181) for detection of non-obvious enchantment. Generally, I just make this a DC 15 arcana check available to characters that are trained in the skill. Sometimes I adjust the DC if there is some reason that someone might have been trying to conceal the magic (such as a trap), and sometimes I just assume that arcane classes can “pick up the vibes” (or whatever).

If I were starting a new B/X game, I would be sorely tempted to not give away which items are enchanted. It would make detect magic a more valuable spell. And it would give sages more play, as adventurers would need to get their loot examined to make sure that they were not accidentally selling some ancient artifact as a simple piece of jewelry. Even if you generate treasure by the book, I think this would result in fewer magic items in the campaign, which would make the items that were discovered that much more special.

Tracking Resources

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According to Gary Gygax (Dungeon Masters Guide page 37, caps in the original):

One of the things stressed in the original game of D&D was the importance of recording game time with respect to each and every player character in a campaign. In AD&D it is emphasized even more: YOU CAN NOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT.

Tracking resources is hard, at least for me. Once events start getting complicated, resource tracking is generally the first thing to be jettisoned. It seems that other people have similar problems.

When it comes down to it, there are only a few core resources:

  • Time
  • Food
  • Water
  • Ammunition (arrows, quarrels, daggers)
  • Light (torches, lantern oil)
So here’s an idea. Use a stack of poker chips for each resource (regarding poker chips, see also: Lord Kilgore, Telecanter, Lord Kilgore again). That way, there is a visual cue for the decreasing resource (as the stack gets shorter). Optimally, each character would have a stack for each resource, with the “time resource” belonging to the referee. One could also use other kinds of tokens or counters, but I like the visual representation of a stack (height is a very powerful metaphor that affects our thinking in many ways).

Proposed poker chip equivalences:

  • Yellow = oil (1 hour of light, 4 chips per flask)
  • Red = torch (1 hour of light, 1 chip per torch)
  • Blue = drinking water for 1 day
  • Green = rations for 1 day
  • White = ammunition (1 per arrow)
This could be modified in various ways depending on the precision desired. For example, for exact tracking, light units could be measured in turns. Thus, each torch carried would be represented by six red chips. A lit torch would result every turn in a red chip being transferred from the player’s torch stack to the referee’s time stack. To see how much time has passed, one need only look at the time stack. I’m not sure how this would work in play. It might be annoying to move a chip for every turn (on the other hand, it might make time more salient).
Exact tracking would require 24 chips per flask of oil though, which is probably too many (though one could have a stack representing flasks and another stack representing the active lantern). It might be more reasonable to store light in hour units (1 per torch, 4 per flask of oil). The referee would need a separate way of ticking off turns that pass behind the screen, but my guess is that such a method would work better. One could model time using two stacks: one for days and one for hours. Once the appropriate number of hour chips have accumulated, the players know it is time for the PCs to rest (or push on with exhaustion penalties). Alternatively, one could have a pile for the active torches or lanterns with one chip per turn of light and a separate pile for spare torches or flasks of oil. This also has the advantage of the players being able to watch their torches burn down turn by turn.

I really need to try this to see how convenient it is. My players are still down in The Pod-Caverns of the Sinister Shroom, and I don’t want to introduce such a mechanic in the middle of a delve (I’m pretty sure none of them have rations written on their character sheets, for example, which I am magnanimously overlooking).
Tracking ammunition with this system seems straightforward. Secondary ammunition (like a PC that carries a crossbow and multiple throwing knives) could be represented by other chip colors. If a PC carries more than 20 shots of a particular kind of ammunition, just track the active quiver (like the active lantern example above). And really, unless you have a wagon or a retainer, I think it’s highly unlikely that one would carry more than 40 (or even 20) arrows, especially when carrying other gear. Arrows are bulky.
It seems like this system would work just as well for wilderness journeys, as the primary resources required for overland travel are food and water, which are usually measured in days. Passing days are then represented by every player decrementing their water and food piles by one, and the referee incrementing the days pile.

What I think is interesting about this approach is how it illustrates the action of a ledger: spent resources (light, food) are transformed into passing time. Various abilities can also more easily “cost time” using this approach. Traditionally, actions like searching for secret doors are supposed to cost time. For more on time as a resource, see JB’s post on the “automatic” thief.

Am I missing any resources that are important to track?

Generative tables

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Taichara recently posted a collection of tables for random potion characteristics. I really enjoyed them, so I created a modified set for my campaign and added an extra table for potential side effects. You can find the results as a one page PDF that can be printed out conveniently for a gaming binder.

These tables are valuable because they allow me to add a lot of detail to a campaign world with minimal effort. I don’t have to go through the rules and annotate the magic item entries potion by potion. With a set of tables like this, the first time PCs find, for example, a potion of heroism, you can roll up a description and from then on that’s what a potion of heroism looks like. You can describe it in the future and perceptive players will know what it is. Rolling on eight tables in the middle of play can be cumbersome, so I would recommend rolling up some sample potions beforehand and adding them to another single table, which would be the one you actually roll on during play.

This kind of procedure could be used generally for any domain which might need to be detailed on the fly. Some examples: spell components, NPC personalities, shops present in a village. Such tables are like unbound precompiled details. Nobody, not even the referee, knows what a potion of levitation looks like before one is discovered. I think that’s a good thing. It helps keep the setting fresh, and can lead to (but does not require) interesting referee improvisation. A while back, I discussed the difference between random tables used for preparation and random table used on the fly. The nature of this set of potion tables seems to lie somewhere between prep tables and play tables. It’s the unbound nature of the descriptions that are important, because beforehand you know you might need to describe a potion, but you don’t necessarily know which potions might need descriptions.

This is another method to allow players to engage with and learn about your campaign setting (and to make your setting richer in the process). Further, all this detail can be campaign-specific, so that every game is a unique process of discovery.

Save or Die Legitimacy

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The most recent Legends & Lore column (this one is by Mike Mearls), is about save or die, one of those perennial fault lines within the D&D community. A few notable blogs have already commented on it (Discourse & Dragons, Tenkar’s Tavern, The Nine and Thirty Kingdoms). The presence of save or die traps is also one of my 20 rules clarification questions because it is an important aspect of how a particular game plays (as I expected, based on my readership, most of the people that posted their answers to those questions responded that save or die was an active threat in their game).

Why is this such a divisive issue? One, players don’t like their characters to die. That is clearly not the entirety of the problem though. A dragon’s claws, or a enemy’s sword, can also end the life of a PC (instantly, in most versions of D&D, if enough damage is done). Two, the save or die mechanic emphasizes the fact that only one line separates the PC from death. HP, in many cases, might be the same thing in practice (though not in all editions), but it doesn’t feel the same, because there are more rolls involved (at least the attack roll and damage roll) and the defense (AC) is somewhat under the control of the player, whereas saves are either entirely based on level (traditionally) or mostly based on level. Back in my Second Edition days, we didn’t use save or die (or level drain). As Robert Fisher notes, this was probably due to my lack of a Gygax Number (that is, the lack of a mentor connected to the original play style). Instant kill effects felt silly and unfair to us, but that was because we didn’t understand how they were supposed to be used.

My position now is that rolling a saving throw means you have already done something wrong. The save is a second chance, and the alternative is to just die. (I have been most heavily influenced here by -C from Hack & Slash.) However, this has an important corollary that is usually not discussed: there is such a thing as an unfair save or die effect. Just because the player has a stat on a character sheet and is rolling a die based on some rules does not mean that the situation is fair. There are certain (mostly unwritten) covenants that guide the usage of this most potent of mechanics.

Every fair save or die effect should be avoidable by smart play. If it is not, the effect is unfair. For example, PCs should know (or be able to learn) that a particular monster has a gaze attack. This could be just assumed (“you have heard of the fearsome basilisk gaze”) or it could be something that the party can ask the one-armed man in the tavern about. Traps leave marks on their environment. Scorched sections of wall. The heaped bones of past victims. Abnormally clean sections of flooring. Given information and planning, PCs can also prepare by preparing countermeasures, such as buying antidotes (something I would not make too difficult, as it reflects players engaging with the threats in the campaign world).

Sometimes context is enough of a clue. Extreme example: exploring a dwarven machinist’s trap factory. Why would a sane person touch anything without precautions in such an environment? Most games should not consist entirely of such environments though, for the same reason that most settings should not feature only one kind of monster. It’s boring. And that, of course, is the worst sin that any game designer can commit.

This sounds good in theory, but there are a number of practical objections, best illustrated by unearthing some comments from a very interesting three part discussion of save or die effects over at Grognardia from back in 2009 (part 1, part 2, part 3). First, what about wandering monsters? Vedron writes:

However, I find that all too often in actual play save or die gets perverted. For example, the PCs might enter a combat with a randomly encountered medusa that can turn them to stone if they fail a save.

Ideally, there would be some warning of such an encounter; either there would be a rumor in the tavern, or there’d be some odd statuary, or some sort of reasonable recon could have ascertained the nature of the possible threat. If the players choose to proceed without protection or intelligence collection, so be it.

But, all too often, the GM just throws one in randomly as a surprise with no forewarning and rubs his hands in glee as PCs get stoned (or level drained with a wight; or slimed by green slime falling from nowhere; or crushed by instant death cave ins from nowhere, etc).

In this case, I would say that the PCs are adventuring an a locale that is too dangerous for them. Thus, they have already made a mistake. Why might this be unfair? If the referee has not provided other locations that can be explored, or has not provided any way that the players can learn about the threat level, or does not make it possible to flee from the encounter before engaging, then this is an unfair situation.

What about monsters that present a disproportionate threat? There is some idea floating around that only “big” (boss?) monsters should be able to use such devastating attacks. This can be shown in Mike Mearls’ Tiamat example in the Legends & Lore column linked above. For another example, Brunomac writes:

Not speaking of other affects, but I always thought of dying if missing a poison save was always a bit of a rip-off. So I usually base damage on the hit dice of the creature involved (although giving small very poisonous bugs bonus’), and let the damage pan out over several rounds. 

I agree with Mearls and Brunomac in the following way: the reason Tiamat having a save or die effect seems “more fair” comes back to the idea that players should be able to learn about the threats they face. However, the play requirement of engagement with the setting to acquire that information has been circumvented in the case of threats like Tiamat, because, you know, TIAMAT. Players are already scared and on guard. However, I think the fix here is to make giant spiders more terrifying, not less dangerous. Think about Shelob from The Lord of the Rings. Think about how you might react to a sofa-sized arachnid with pincers dripping poison.

There are other techniques that can be used to communicate threat information to players. For example, you can make liberal use of red shirts. Kill retainers first. Then, if PCs still charge forward, guns blazing, they can’t say they weren’t warned. This might seem like going easy on players, and to some degree it is, but only because you are requiring less engagement and creativity for successful information gathering. The actual threat has not been reduced, and I think that is the most important part.

All that being said, save or die is somewhat incompatible with some new styles of play. To some players, D&D is about finding things to fight. This is not a problem with the mechanic though, it is a problem with player expectation about the nature of the game they are playing. I’m not going to say that people who want only a combat game out of D&D are wrong, but I will say that they are not playing the game to its full potential.

Scout Draft

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The scout is a warrior with wilderness skills. Most commonly, they are outriders and skirmishers for armies, but may also be trappers, hunters, hermits, or barbarians.

  • Hit die: d6
  • XP advancement as fighter
  • Attack bonus as cleric
  • +1 individual initiative
  • +1 missile attack
  • Hide: wilderness 5 in 6, underground or in civilization 2 in 6
  • Bonus to “getting lost” throws (see below)
  • Tracking 5 in 6 (one check required per 6 mile hex)
  • May use any weapons and any armor (though armor penalizes stealth)

Adventurers have a chance to get lost when adventuring in the wilderness. Standard probabilities by terrain type can be found here. A party that contains at least one scout improves those chances by 1 pip in each category, and thus will never get lost in average terrain, will get lost on 1 in 6 in moderate terrain, and on 2 in 6 in difficult terrain.

Edit: changed attack bonus progression from fighter to cleric based on comments.

This is the third of my human replacements for the demi-human classes. The scout is a substitute for the halfling. My first attempt at a halfling replacement was actually a monk, but monks don’t fit all settings (though I am still fond of that saving throw dodge mechanic); I think the scout is more general. The scout is intended to represent the ranger archetype, though without the magical accretions that have built up around that class over the years (animal companions, druid spells). Incidentally, I would probably allow any character class to have an animal companion using standard retainer and morale rules if they role-played it out.

As Charlatan notes on the ACKS forum, this is very similar to the ACKS explorer class. I have been considering this replacement for the halfling class from before I knew about ACKS (credit should probably go to this post over at B/X Blackrazor and this comment by BlUsKrEEm). My scout does not rely on a general skill system (like the explorer relies on ACKS proficiencies), so I still think there is some independent value to an explicitly B/X ranger option.

My other demi-human replacements are the fighting magic-user (for the elf) and the scientor (for the dwarf). I’m very happy with the fighting magic-user and the scout. I like the scientor, but it is only appropriate for a certain kind of science fantasy or gonzo campaign.

Originally, my ideas for dwarf replacements included a morlock racial class (not really appropriate now, as I’m going for all human PC classes) and a dungeoneer class. Perhaps it’s still worth writing up the dungeoneer for use with a more vanilla B/X setting. Or maybe I should just ditch the dwarf archetype (underground mechanically-oriented class) entirely or replace it with something entirely different like a necromancer (but then that deviates even more from the core B/X seven classes).

The problem with the dwarf class is that, absent the culture elements, the dwarf is not a very distinctive class mechanically. And, in a traditional D&D game, pretty much everyone is a de facto dungeoneer. This is an argument that I have seen made about the thief too, but I think it is even more true for a potential dungeoneer class. Any other ideas for a new human class that can take on the dwarf abilities?

Nalfeshnee hack monsters

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The way Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons handles monster design is problematic for a game run in an old school style. There are a number of reasons for this, which I will explain below, and a few tweaks that I have come up with to make the system work better for the kind of game I am running while still working for players who are familiar with 4E rules. Hopefully, people who don’t play 4E directly may still be interested in the game design discussion.

In traditional D&D, armor class (the only defense rating) is not tied directly to level at all. A twentieth level character with no equipment and average dexterity has the same AC as a similar first level character. Characters do get harder to kill as they progress in levels (by accumulating hit points and getting better saving throws), but they don’t get inherently harder to hit.

In Fourth Edition, defenses are tied directly to level, and there are four of them (armor class, fortitude, reflex, and will). This is true for both for characters and monsters. Characters add one half of their level to each defense and monster creation guidelines also derive defenses from level rather than from concept.

This game design means that all four of the defenses have similar values for any particular monster. It results in absurdities such as high level giants having a reflex of 30 and low level pixies having a reflex of 15. What’s the point of having multiple defenses if they are all within spitting distance of each other? In general, AC will be slightly higher than the other three defenses, but (according to the 4E DMG monster creation guidelines) attacks that target AC also often have a slightly higher attack bonus! So it’s a complete wash. I actually like the concept of being able to learn about monsters and target their weaknesses, but as written 4E defenses don’t really allow that. They just end up being multiple numbers in the stat block or on the character sheet.

Here’s another problem. Hit points (both obvious and hidden in the form of healing surges) have ballooned tremendously in 4E. So players and monsters aren’t doing that much more damage, but they have a lot more hit points. This can make combat take a long time, especially if players don’t invest time in discovering the synergies between build options that allow for damage optimization.

This game design, as eloquently explained by -C over at Hack & Slash, comes from starting with the result required mechanically by the game entity (for example, a monster that is challenge rating N). Then, appropriate cosmetic details are are attached. This is what -C calls a dissociated mechanic:

Dissociated Mechanic: Result => Effect
Associated Mechanic: Effect => Result

This is also why most bestiary entries have several different “levels” of the same monster (often three: one for each tier of game play). These entries are generally not identical other than scaled numbers (the more powerful monsters will often have more abilities too), but they are close. Combined with the fact that monster defenses scale with PC attack bonuses, this means that balanced encounters are mathematically similar in all cases (this is what the 4E designers meant by “expanding the sweet spot” of D&D play). Further, because of the variance of the d20 and the level of bonuses (one-half level is a good default assumption, but in reality there will be more bonuses), we are talking about a 75% change from first to thirtieth level, which means though encounters are balanced, that balance is fragile. A little too low, and foes will be trivial. A little to high, and they will be untouchable.

Here are some of my techniques for tweaking monsters to dampen the above-mentioned dynamics without totally scrapping the system. If I’m using a monster from the monster manual, my default method is to cut the HP in half and double all damage dice (before bonuses). This makes battles of attrition less likely and also produces a credible threat. When PCs are equipped with healing surges and piles of HP, doing 1d6 or 1d8 damage is just not scary. If I use minions, I make their damage variable so that it is not obvious to the players which enemies are minions (though I have been using minions less recently; they end up just feeling like clutter).

This is how I create my own monsters. Required stats for a basic monster are hit dice, AC, primary attack, secondary attack, and movement speed. I ignore the other three defenses most of the time and just use AC. I also don’t bother with ability scores or skills. Hit points are around 10 to 15 HP per hit die, depending on the monster concept (and adjusted to taste). Equipment and treasure depend on the situation. I would like to experiment with treasure tables more, but so far I have mostly just been placing treasure as I see fit (or relying on modules). XP is 100 * HD + bonus for special abilities sometimes.

AC is based on the 4E armor bonus values, which are similar to AC values in earlier editions. The values are: unarmored 10, leather 12, chain 16, plate 18, +1 or +2 for a shield, and +1 to +5 for agility. I also add a one-half hit dice bonus to keep up with the Joneses. I would like to just do away with all one-half level bonuses across the board, in the entire game, but I think that the logistics of that would be inconvenient. I’m trying to affect the player interface to the game as little as possible, as my players use the published books and the character builder program.

Thus, a 15 hit die (level) dragon would have 225 HP and a AC of 25 (18 from plate + 7 from inflation). Primary attack: claw/claw/bite +10 vs AC (2d8/2d8/2d12, each +7 for inflation). Secondary attack: breath weapon (fire): 10×10 area, 15d10 (luck throw for half damage, no hit roll required). Speed 10, fly 20. For a dragon, I might add one more special attack as well (because, you know, dragon). XP 2000 (15 * 10 + 500 for flying and fire breathing). I’m still experimenting with the relationship between hit dice and attack bonus.

Compare to the Adult Blue Dragon from the Monster Manual (page 78), which is a level 13 solo artillery monster. HP 655, AC 30, XP 4000, claw +16 vs. AC 1d6 + 6, lightning breath +18 vs. reflex 2d12 + 10 (miss is half damage). The dragon created using my house rules is easier to hit and has fewer HP, but has much more destructive attacks. This requires more planning and less direct assault, and also cuts down on the time required for combat, which is exactly what I want.