Space: Telperion's Shade

Looking at the way non-combat encounters are currently running has left me looking at them a little askance. I mean, there are supposed to be x amount of skills that the so-called primary skills for any particular skill challenge. Those are the skills that you are going to be rolling over and over again, until the party has enough successes to get the job done...whatever it is.

The second set of skills are the secondary skills that you can only roll once during a single non-combat encounter, and some of them will either automatically fail, while others will provide a static bonus to the primary skills and yet others give a single success.

However, as I'm writing out these non-combat challenges it seems to me that the majority of them read like a flowchart. You got your starting point, and from there a party has multiple avenues of approach, but none of them are something that I would label of secondary or tertiary. Thus, the question of the necessity of secondary (and tertiary?) skills is called into question. To me the majority of non-combat challenges hinge around the success and failure of individual skill rolls that either open or close avenues of approach to any particular problem, whether that is the search of a secret cult in a city, running away from a swarm of flesh eating locusts or doing a B&E job.

Looking at the way I'm currently writing non-combat encounters doesn't seem very efficient, because I'm grouping them into primary and secondary skills alphabetically. This leaves me jumping up and down the list to find the lines of logic. So, instead I should probably reorganize the lists into three groups: start, intermediary and finish. This allows for a quick check on where any particular skill check is going to take the party, and it also allows me to control the flow of the encounter more efficiently as I can cut corners or add complications on the fly without having to do a lot of reading in-between. Ideally I should just create flowcharts, because that's basically what I'm doing here...anyway, I'll think about it.

The important thing is simply to accept that all skills are equally rewarding and/or penalizing to the party, and can be retried depending on in-game circumstances.

So, the predictable problem of not rewarding players for good, even exceptionally heroic and resourceful, roleplaying reared its ugly head. The party ran into their first-ever solo encounter, and as I suspected they had to retreat before lives were lost. Not a huge problem, but by the rules I couldn't give the players' any XP for the encounter either. After all: the party failed to overcome the challenge, and therefore was sent packing with only a single parcel of treasure that one of them managed to steal from the dragon they were fighting.

Earlier I was contemplating the problem of leveling that party fast enough, so that they would be able to fight the battles that I have setup for the party. Then I was convinced that I would simply be able to manage the amount of XP through the use of Non-Combat Encounters, which would simply vary in length, but still provide the party with the necessary XP to level "fast" enough, so they can meet the challenges that are coming.

Now, though, I have noticed that simply giving out XP is not enough, if it doesn't happen in a consistent and steady pace. The problem of dumping loads of easy non-combat encounters at the party feels like cheating them out of the fun of overcoming dangerous challenges that would take them longer. Why work so hard at something difficult, if you can gain the same amount of XP simply by running through a sequence of non-combat encounters? So, that idea flies out of the window.

My current solution is then this: giving XP for exceptional roleplaying and encouraging roleplaying as a general rule through a House Rule.

First of all, I'm going to be implementing by "rule of three fingered fist", which basically means that whenever a player is trying to do something that involves a dice roll, but not a Saving Throw, I will make a fist at him. When the player expresses his character's actions through good roleplaying I then signal the player with my fingers the amount of ad-hoc bonus he is going to be receiving into the dice roll. For combat encounters one finger equals a +1 bonus - attack and damage rolls get separate fists - and for skill challenges one finger equals a +2 bonus. As might be guessed from the name of this House Rule a player can gain up to three fingers to any one dice roll. Naturally all the regular aid another rolls still apply.

The other part is giving out XP to the players based on their roleplaying. There are five criteria, which will be used to assign extra XP at the end of each session, and each of these criteria is with XP equal to that what the party would get from an encounter of their level - so, for example, 100 XP per' character for 1st level.

- Exceptional heroism in the face of deadly danger or personal loss

- Exceptional brilliance in the face of deadly danger or personal loss

- Exceptional character personality portrayal

- Progressing the overarching storyline

- Taking the hard road instead of the easy one

Now, obviously, all of these items are extremely subjective, and therefore giving out XP on individual character basis is not going to promote co-operation between players and characters. Instead, we will see the splintering of the party into spotlight hogging XP hounds and the silent wallflowers. Therefore, regardless of individual performance, I'm always going to give everyone the same amount of XP based on how the party has done as a whole.

Furthermore, it is my opinion that should the party at some point start breezing through the encounters I throw at them; it is far less likely that the players are going to be concentrating so much on deep character portrayal and flavory roleplaying than simply rolling the dice and pressing forward. Therefore, this extra XP should not be a problem, because either the party will gain XP through roleplaying well or going through lots of encounters, but I doubt both will happen at the same time.

Yesterday's game went well, all-in-all, except for the fact that the group only got through two encounters. Not totally unexpected, but still something to keep in mind for the future: the party may get stuck in an encounter, which means they fall behind on the schedule I have set for the game. Now, this is in itself isn't a huge problem as long as everyone is having fun, but does raise the obvious issue of getting the party leveled up fast enough, so that they can handle the challenged I have setup for them later on.

Or, am I thinking things the wrong way? Should I simply downgrade the stuff that's built for the party and allow them to level up more slowly? That way the game doesn't reach quite such epic proportions before the end, but the party does manage to reach Paragon levels...well, barely...The thing about that is the Heroic Tier is by no means a bad experience, but I would like to allow the players to experience at least half of the Paragon Tier as well. Is a year too little time for that? The answer seems to be: yes, it is. From what I remember reading on the subject it would take something along the lines of three years to take a 1st level party to level 30, and that's assuming there won't be any breaks in the game along the way, which is never going to happen.

Okay, I guess downgrading pre-built encounters is one of those things I'll have to look into once the party hits Mullis Town and thereafter. However, there's another option, which is looking a little better: running a lot of short non-combat encounters. Okay, this is a little cheating, but since a basic non-combat encounter is going to net the party an equal amount of xp to that of a standard encounter of their level. This allows me to insert multiple non-combat encounters along the way to the combat encounters that will consume more time. Looking at things from this perspective I have to say that I have written some monstrously long non-combat encounters into the storyline without taking into consideration xp output. So, instead of throwing something like half a dozen non-combat encounters at the party I have like one or two, because I'm thinking on a scale that is way too large. So, I'm thinking that the solution to the leveling "problem" is breaking down the large sections of non-combat gaming into small pieces that become scenes that last from a few minutes to a maximum of an hour. Yeah, that's actually pretty good. No encounter should run longer than an hour, because after that I'm doing something wrong. Combat encounters may run longer than an hour, but that's not really preferable either. Samples: breaking into a building, chasing down an informant, interrogating a titan worshipper, fast-talking a guard into granting the party access into closed areas and so on. Instead of saying: rescuing so-and-so from trouble, I simply need to break the game down into smaller steps, each of which is going to give out xp and loot, in whatever form, when suitable.

Concerning parcels: I got the new treasure book, which has already proven to be a major boon in giving the party all sorts of interesting and exciting magic items. Also, I was very happy to note that it provides at least one of my players with a way to expand the character considerably, and stuff like that is always worth its weight in gold. Actually, I think the popularity of alchemical items may increase considerably within the party once they are demonstrated to the players in-game. Non-combat encounters are going to be a bit of a challenge when it comes to parcels though: regular people just don't stroll around with hundreds of gold pieces, jewelry and fine pieces of art in their pockets, nor do they have trees that grow progressively higher level magical items. So, instead of just handing out loot like I can in a dungeon, I'm going to have to be a little more discreet in the way I do things during non-combat encounters. The way to do things would probably include such samples as gaining the appreciation of a powerful patron, who is willing to give some gifts to the party in exchange for a job well-done, getting a genuine treasure map (complete with combat encounters), stumbling into a villain's hidden treasury during an encounter or something like that. I'm sure I'll be able to figure out the specifics as we go along.

Future considerations:

Healing Surges in Non-combat Encounters

Building even better terrains for encounters

Filling player needs with new contacts both in Mithril and abroad

Whee!

Link to the Product on WotC home page

I'm going to get this tomorrow (Thursday)!

More cool tools and cool stuff for everyone to play around!

So, I got this minor issue with one of my players, who is buggered about playing a healer, yet not really doing a lot of healing. Or, that's not exactly right, because he does do plenty of healing during combat, but not outside it. So, it's like what is he there for, if healing is based (primarily) on Healing Surges and everyone can spend as many Healing Surges as they like outside of combat? Well, that's an excellent question, one which warrants some consideration.

The first, and most obvious, choice would be to limit the way Healing Surges can be used. Let’s say that the party needs the services of a healer, before they can use Healing Surges. Not very cool, if all of the party's healer types go down in a big fight, but it would certainly add a few twists to the game. I won't say "realism", because I gave up on realism a long time ago and these days I'm simply going through history books for cool ideas and chronologically accurate description that I can use to describe a fantasy setting I'm very fond of. So, this approach wouldn't necessarily break the game, but it would make the whole party a whole lot more dependent on its healers. Not really to my liking, but it's an option.

The second option would be to add some more role playing elements into the game, which explain away what is going on during the downtime between Encounters. Here we could envision how our knowledgeable healer character takes care of the worst wounds, while the rest of the party members help patch each other up well enough to account for the use of Healing Surges.

The third option would be to abandon the regular healing methology that has been in use in various fantasy RPGs for a long time: instead of healing being an external process the whole healing process is simply an internal one that can be kick-jumped by the proper application of external forces. Okay, there's still a need for external forces, but once they have been used the internal energies are what do the real job.

The way I see these things working out is that the adventuring party as a whole takes care of each other. It's not really what any single character does, but what they do as a whole. The character with the most Heal skill takes care of the really bad stuff while the others do their best to aid each other and help out the main healer. Ergo, everyone can use Healing Surges as many times as they can, because they are being given the opportunity to rest and the benefit of healing. And, even though game mechanics might suggest otherwise, the healing energies used to power the Healing Surges can be completely internal, external or something in-between. All we need to do is figure out a way to explain things, so that the party's healer is happy!

Beyond this problem, I'm probably going to have to deal with the "issue" of everyone gaining all of their Healing Surges, 1 Action Point, Daily / Encounter / At-Will Powers and all of their hit points during an Extended Rest. To me it makes perfect sense that an Extended Rest is going to provide the time needed to fix everyone up, discounting diseases and some other very serious debilitating effects individual party members may be suffering from. However, having the entire hit point pool refreshed during an Extended Rest every time? Yeah, I can just see the problems of trying to explain that away...* sigh *