Okay, here we go: the bete noire of those who say 4e can't be used in any way other than the intended. Combat encounters. The basic argument goes like this: combat in 4e takes forever, making it the focus of the game; accordingly, a DM's main job is to create interesting combat encounters, so that the thing we spend most of our time doing at the table isn't too boring.
Well.
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I want the various aspects of tabletop roleplaying to balance in Kings of the Endless Sea. (I consider the main aspects to be combat, roleplaying, and exploration.) I knew I wanted more roleplaying and exploration and less combat-- specifically, a lot more exploration. This would mostly be covered by the whole sandbox thing; I hope there will be a lot of time spent mapping the Ruby Sea, and my dungeons are real dungeons, not huge exciting rooms linked by short corridors, as we see in most 4e "dungeon" design (as wonderfully illustrated at http://greywulf.net/2009/03/dungeon-evolution/).
The problem is that real dungeons have small rooms, weird corridors, odd shapes, and so on. These are not conducive to big, fancy combat encounters. So you know what? I'm (mostly) scrapping big, fancy combat encounters. Lots of dungeon rooms will just have some monsters in them. Fancy encounters will usually be saved for boss battles and the like.
Here's what I'm hoping: these combats will be faster and easier for the players. I want them to be faster to remove some of the focus on combat, and I think they will be because most rooms won't have slippery ice, fonts of endless lava, obscuring steam clouds, and poison-arrow-spitting traps slowing things down. I want them to be easier because I want the players to focus equally on the other things my campaign has to offer. At the start, I toyed with the idea of coming up with a framework for roleplaying-based XP awards, but quickly tossed that idea out as too subjective. Instead, I like the idea that my players will get the same amount of XP for the simple job of killing five orcs in a room as they would for killing those same orcs in a room with all the hazards described above. Easier work, same reward. My hope is that this will balance itself out to a game with faster PC advancement, leaving room to focus on the non-XP-granting aspects of the game.
However, I fully realize that this may not work at all. The minute I see my players' eyes glaze over because it's "just another room of orcs," I'll know I've gone too far. Nobody wants a dungeon to be an endless series of rooms of orcs. I'll also have failed if combat still takes up the vast percentage of play time, of which we won't have much (probably three hours per session). I do intend to use combat "outs" such as surrender and alternate win conditions as much as possible.
We'll see! This will be one of the most interesting tests of Endless Sea: can a 4e game with mostly non-fancy combats be fun? I certainly think so; I just have to make sure it doesn't get boring.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Design Decisions: Giving Out Treasure
Last night was Halloween, and I spent it giving out treats to greedy little children. What better inspiration to describe my method for giving treasure to my players?
As described previously, I want the campaign to have a low-magic feel as much as possible, so I'm using the Inherent Bonus rules from Dark Sun. These still require me to give out treasure and magic items, though; they suggest removing the highest- and lowest-level magic item parcels from each level's treasure allotments in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Well, this didn't fit at all with how I want to handle treasure.
For starters, the whole DMG treasure parcel system is again predicated on a consistent group of players in a campaign with logical start and end points. DMs are encouraged to ask their players for item wishlists, which the DM will then use to populate his encounters with treasure. A five-person party should receive four magic items per party level of play, so that each player gets four items per five levels of play. Finally, DMs are told to give out treasure parcels based on the party's level, not the level of the encounter, so that a tenth-level party will get tenth-level treasure whether they kill three orcs or an elder red dragon.
All in the name of balance, right? Bah! Part of the sandbox ethos is that players should be rewarded for playing smart or being lucky; that is, tougher encounters should have better treasure. Furthermore, with what I expect will be a rotating table of players of various levels, the idea of party level becomes less meaningful. Wishlists become difficult to manage, and the concept of a set number of treasure parcels per level becomes impossible when PC levels range wildly and increase at different rates.
Fortunately, the Essentials line has the answer. Essentials does away with set treasure parcels, replacing them with random treasure tables. On average, these tables are meant to roll up something basically identical to the set treasure parcels, and are meant to be used in the same way-- roll on the third-level table if your party is third level. This better fits my target aesthetic of an old-school play experience with new-school rules. I'm returning to random encounter tables, so why not random treasure tables?
From here, the changes I had to make were obvious. First, I'll roll on the treasure table for the level of the encounter, not the party. So if a third-level party boldly takes on a sixth-level encounter, they'll get better loot. Makes sense to me, and it eliminates any guesswork about what level the party is. This also lets me have as many encounters of any level I want, which is a boon when using random encounter tables.
Second, I'll use the base numbers for these treasure tables rather than altering them for parties of four or six PCs (getting less or more treasure respectively) although I expect to have tables of six almost all the time. I'm doing all my encounter difficulty calculations based on 4e's baseline of a five-PC party. Mainly this is because I need some consistent baseline to compare encounters and dungeons, but I also like the idea that if the players hit a dungeon with four PCs and get whipped, they can come back later with six and know it'll be much easier. The flipside of that, of course, is that if they beat that dungeon with four PCs, each PC would get more treasure and XP; if they beat it with six, each PC gets less. Seems fair to me.
MATH PARTY
The third and last change has to do with the magic-item rolls. Since I'm using the Inherent Bonus rules, I don't want to have the same number of magic items floating around as in a regular campaign. Luckily, the magic item roll is a set number: a treasure parcel includes a magic item on a roll of 13 or higher, or 40% of the time, regardless of level. It's clear where Wizards got this number: if it takes ten encounters to gain a level, the party should find an average of four magic items across those encounters. Exactly the same as in the DMG treasure parcels, and indeed, the magic items are calculated as level = 1d4 + party level, yielding an average range identical to the recommended range in the DMG (e.g. average roll of 3.5 at level 1 as compared to four items of levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 [average = 3.5] for a level 1 party). So to remove two of those items (as per the suggestion of the Inherent Bonus rules) all I had to do was increase the magic item roll from 13+ (40%) to 17+ (20%). I also wanted to emulate the removal of the highest-level item, so I made the item level roll 1d4 + level - 1, giving an average item one level lower than recommended in the standard treasure parcels (e.g. average roll of 2.5 at level 1 as compared to two items of levels 3 and 4 [average = 3.5] for a level 1 party). Yeah, this brought the average item level down by 1, and I'll have to see if my players feel underpowered over time. But I think it's better to eliminate the chance of a first-level party getting a level 5 item, or even worse, a second-level party getting a level 6 item, which is where weapons, armor, etc. start giving enhancement bonuses of +2.
I rolled up some treasure parcels ahead of time so I wouldn't have to do it during the game, and to see how my system worked. Just looking at the magic items, I randomly ended up with:
Encounter Level 1: Level 1 Common, Level 2 Uncommon, Level 2 Uncommon, Level 4 Uncommon
Encounter Level 2: Level 3 Uncommon, Level 5 Uncommon
Encounter Level 3: Level 4 Common, Level 5 Common, Level 6 Common, Level 5 Rare
Encounter Level 4: No Magic Items
I got some pretty high rolls, so this gives us an average of 2.5 items per level, when we were going for an average of 2. Not too bad. It also included two rare items (gotten with a natural 20 on the magic item roll) but one was level 2, so I replaced with a level 2 uncommon, since the lowest-level rare item is level 3 (and is Forgotten Realms-specific anyway). It gives us an average level of 2.25 at level 1, 4 at level 2, and 5 at level 3. Pretty much just right all around, since we were looking for average item levels of 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5.
This still feels like a lot of magic items to me, though I did tend to roll well (except at level 4, yikes). It's not exactly what I wanted for my campaign, but I can't get any more item-light without really rebuilding some rules, which I don't want to do. I also rolled plenty of 13-16 when making these sample treasures, so I know I have fewer items this way than I would have otherwise. I'll have to see how it plays out in the actual game.
One last note: I've decided to try choosing item identities on the fly, at least for treasures from random encounters. I want to keep some flexibility to give out treasures that fit the encounter: if the party finds a level 5 uncommon on some ixitxachitls, it's not gonna be plate armor, ya know? I did choose that rare item, though: a Shade Weapon. I'll pick the weapon type on the fly, but I think a semi-evil, maybe semi-intelligent shadow sword would fit a pirate campaign quite nicely...
As described previously, I want the campaign to have a low-magic feel as much as possible, so I'm using the Inherent Bonus rules from Dark Sun. These still require me to give out treasure and magic items, though; they suggest removing the highest- and lowest-level magic item parcels from each level's treasure allotments in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Well, this didn't fit at all with how I want to handle treasure.
For starters, the whole DMG treasure parcel system is again predicated on a consistent group of players in a campaign with logical start and end points. DMs are encouraged to ask their players for item wishlists, which the DM will then use to populate his encounters with treasure. A five-person party should receive four magic items per party level of play, so that each player gets four items per five levels of play. Finally, DMs are told to give out treasure parcels based on the party's level, not the level of the encounter, so that a tenth-level party will get tenth-level treasure whether they kill three orcs or an elder red dragon.
All in the name of balance, right? Bah! Part of the sandbox ethos is that players should be rewarded for playing smart or being lucky; that is, tougher encounters should have better treasure. Furthermore, with what I expect will be a rotating table of players of various levels, the idea of party level becomes less meaningful. Wishlists become difficult to manage, and the concept of a set number of treasure parcels per level becomes impossible when PC levels range wildly and increase at different rates.
Fortunately, the Essentials line has the answer. Essentials does away with set treasure parcels, replacing them with random treasure tables. On average, these tables are meant to roll up something basically identical to the set treasure parcels, and are meant to be used in the same way-- roll on the third-level table if your party is third level. This better fits my target aesthetic of an old-school play experience with new-school rules. I'm returning to random encounter tables, so why not random treasure tables?
From here, the changes I had to make were obvious. First, I'll roll on the treasure table for the level of the encounter, not the party. So if a third-level party boldly takes on a sixth-level encounter, they'll get better loot. Makes sense to me, and it eliminates any guesswork about what level the party is. This also lets me have as many encounters of any level I want, which is a boon when using random encounter tables.
Second, I'll use the base numbers for these treasure tables rather than altering them for parties of four or six PCs (getting less or more treasure respectively) although I expect to have tables of six almost all the time. I'm doing all my encounter difficulty calculations based on 4e's baseline of a five-PC party. Mainly this is because I need some consistent baseline to compare encounters and dungeons, but I also like the idea that if the players hit a dungeon with four PCs and get whipped, they can come back later with six and know it'll be much easier. The flipside of that, of course, is that if they beat that dungeon with four PCs, each PC would get more treasure and XP; if they beat it with six, each PC gets less. Seems fair to me.
MATH PARTY
The third and last change has to do with the magic-item rolls. Since I'm using the Inherent Bonus rules, I don't want to have the same number of magic items floating around as in a regular campaign. Luckily, the magic item roll is a set number: a treasure parcel includes a magic item on a roll of 13 or higher, or 40% of the time, regardless of level. It's clear where Wizards got this number: if it takes ten encounters to gain a level, the party should find an average of four magic items across those encounters. Exactly the same as in the DMG treasure parcels, and indeed, the magic items are calculated as level = 1d4 + party level, yielding an average range identical to the recommended range in the DMG (e.g. average roll of 3.5 at level 1 as compared to four items of levels 2, 3, 4, and 5 [average = 3.5] for a level 1 party). So to remove two of those items (as per the suggestion of the Inherent Bonus rules) all I had to do was increase the magic item roll from 13+ (40%) to 17+ (20%). I also wanted to emulate the removal of the highest-level item, so I made the item level roll 1d4 + level - 1, giving an average item one level lower than recommended in the standard treasure parcels (e.g. average roll of 2.5 at level 1 as compared to two items of levels 3 and 4 [average = 3.5] for a level 1 party). Yeah, this brought the average item level down by 1, and I'll have to see if my players feel underpowered over time. But I think it's better to eliminate the chance of a first-level party getting a level 5 item, or even worse, a second-level party getting a level 6 item, which is where weapons, armor, etc. start giving enhancement bonuses of +2.
I rolled up some treasure parcels ahead of time so I wouldn't have to do it during the game, and to see how my system worked. Just looking at the magic items, I randomly ended up with:
Encounter Level 1: Level 1 Common, Level 2 Uncommon, Level 2 Uncommon, Level 4 Uncommon
Encounter Level 2: Level 3 Uncommon, Level 5 Uncommon
Encounter Level 3: Level 4 Common, Level 5 Common, Level 6 Common, Level 5 Rare
Encounter Level 4: No Magic Items
I got some pretty high rolls, so this gives us an average of 2.5 items per level, when we were going for an average of 2. Not too bad. It also included two rare items (gotten with a natural 20 on the magic item roll) but one was level 2, so I replaced with a level 2 uncommon, since the lowest-level rare item is level 3 (and is Forgotten Realms-specific anyway). It gives us an average level of 2.25 at level 1, 4 at level 2, and 5 at level 3. Pretty much just right all around, since we were looking for average item levels of 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5.
This still feels like a lot of magic items to me, though I did tend to roll well (except at level 4, yikes). It's not exactly what I wanted for my campaign, but I can't get any more item-light without really rebuilding some rules, which I don't want to do. I also rolled plenty of 13-16 when making these sample treasures, so I know I have fewer items this way than I would have otherwise. I'll have to see how it plays out in the actual game.
One last note: I've decided to try choosing item identities on the fly, at least for treasures from random encounters. I want to keep some flexibility to give out treasures that fit the encounter: if the party finds a level 5 uncommon on some ixitxachitls, it's not gonna be plate armor, ya know? I did choose that rare item, though: a Shade Weapon. I'll pick the weapon type on the fly, but I think a semi-evil, maybe semi-intelligent shadow sword would fit a pirate campaign quite nicely...
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