The Birth of a World - part 6

Oh the humanity!

(I don’t know. I just felt like saying it.)

I’m running dry on topics for the Birth of a World series, so if you have a question or if there is a topic you’d like me to cover, feel free to ask. I always try to respond within a day (real world willing).

Our usual game this past Friday was cancelled on Thursday. Dale had forgotten about a family obligation and I had a last minute family emergency that would have prevented me from showing anyway.

But I still got my D&D fix in. I went to Yottaquest to run a one-shot game to get my DM’ing fix, to see how the gamers there played, and to play test some basic concepts. It also gave me a chance to test out some podcast related equipment and programs.

End results:
- People are addicted to the store owner Matt taking control of the game as the lead player. When he chose to make a character that wasn’t a leader, there wasn’t anyone who could take up the role. I’ve seen this before and there’s no good solution beyond letting the players fend for themselves. But a one-shot isn’t the best time to do that, so he still took over.
- My system for having magic items ready for random encounters might need tweaking. There are too many potions. A powered up barbed devil had a disappointing 3 potions and nothing else.
- CR10 traps might be too rough for a 10th level rogue.
- One-shot groups have no teamwork because they have never actually teamed up before. I’ll have to figure a way to account for this in the future.
- I have a lot to learn about how to use this Podcasting equipment. Lucky for me I have plenty of time.
- Throwing different and modified monsters at a group who doesn’t expect it works wonderfully. When the hill giant made a 3rd attack roll against the party’s fighter, when the player is used to them only getting two attacks, I knew I had struck them off guard. All I did was add 5 barbarian levels to the leader.
- The new shield feats from the PHBII worked perfectly. The same fighter from above was saved from about 25% of his hits because of the shield feats. He used a longsword and shield, so he did less damage, but he was also hit less often. I don’t have the math to look at, but it seemed to be a pretty close trade.
- My base adventure went quite well. I actually had two adventure routes and supplied the group with clues and plots leading both ways. This gave them options to head either way without forcibly pushing along a plot train.
- When running a one-shot in the future, I will start the adventure already in progress. When there is a limited amount of time, some role-playing will get lost. I believe this is called “in media res”, but could easily be wrong.

The game could have gone a little better, but was by no means a bad game. I wasn’t used to their playing style and they weren’t used to my running style. I still had fun but the evening made me appreciate the people I usually game with more

Now on to the continuation of fleshing out this world I’m working on.

Gestalt Characters

On this I will give the group two options; they can all play a regular non-gestalt D&D game or they can all play gestalt characters that gain XP at half the usual rate.

I know previously I said that I’m all for a gestalt campaign, but more information to think on has come to prominence as I’ve played in a gestalt campaign.

At lower levels, first through fourth, gestalt does nothing more than allow you to pull off a combo that you couldn’t previously until double your level, but at higher levels things start to change a lot.

At level 5 through 9 you can consistently take on creatures of +1 CR as if they were your current CR. This value changes from +1 to +2 or +3 if you have the opportunity to buff up prior to a combat.

At even higher levels this CR disparity gap gets even bigger where a group of four 15th level gestalt PCs can take on a balor/pit fiend and not even wince at his assaults. And this is without the round per level buffs.

But there is a nasty little trick in there, if the level 15 party is taken off-guard by a CR20 critter, and it gets a free round of actions, then there may be a TPK.

The power level of a CR20 is about equal to a 15th level group only when they are prepared appropriately. Otherwise they still have about the same hit points and armor class as normal characters of their level.

Any CR20 monster that gets surprise on unprepared level 15 group has a good chance of taking one of the party members down in the surprise round and first combat round.

(Note: The level and CR numbers above are somewhat arbitrary and my opinion only.)

So gestalt gives the players a huge amount of power, but it might also give them some false bravado that could bring them low one bad night of gaming.

Also, the power and versatility of gestalt PCs is almost not needed with the sheer number of classes, prestige classes, feats, spells, and teamwork abilities that are out there.

You can probably make an excellent fighter/wizard now that is nearly as powerful, as either class alone.

From everything I’ve heard a well done Mystic Theurge could be just as scary as a gestalt cleric/wizard.

So I’ll let the players decide as a group if they want double the classes or full XP.

Character Death

I said before I want a PC death to be a hiccup to the game not a brick wall to it.

The availability of material components for the Raise Dead and Resurrection line will be relatively simple. And most towns will have someone who can perform a simple Raise Dead spell.

And PCs level loss due to death and energy drain will result in no actual level loss, they will instead drop to the appropriate XP amount and gain it back at normally. They will not be able to increase a level until all of it is gained back.

This saves time by reducing any need to de-level someone and later re-level, but XP gained will be at the original level’s rate.

These measures should hopefully prevent a PC’s death from slowing the game down and prevent a potential collapse of the game if too many people die at the wrong time.

And if you think that this is a bit unrealistic for a D&D game, you’re probably right. But it certainly is close in spirit to most Japanese RPGs I’ve played. There’s a healer in every city in those games that can bring “the wandering spirit” back to the body.

Teleportation

Nothing frustrates a DM more than the players bypassing half of his module with a single teleport spell.

It’s happened to me and I was not happy, but really because of the wasted work I had done.

After that I found reasons and ways to prevent or limit it from happening.

And this time isn’t any different.

Teleportation in this campaign will only be a tool to travel to a city, and only one way.

There is no chance of failure, no range limit other than “this plane”, nor is there any choice for where you go beyond the city name, and you must have been there before.

In every city there will be a town well that you must have drunk from while casting the spell. From that point on you can cast the spell to return to that well and bring a reasonable number of allies and treasure with you.

Alignment

Back in Basic D&D there were only three alignments; Lawful, Neutral, & Chaotic. I think they should have been Good, Neutral, & Evil but that didn’t matter.

Since this is supposed to be a heroic campaign, the Lawful/Chaos alignment axis just got smaller.

Oh it will still be unchanged for role-playing purposes, and paladins will still have to tow the lawful line, but beyond that there are no bonuses or penalties for it.

Magic items like Axiomatic weapons, Anarchic weapons, and Chaos Diamonds don’t exist.

Protection from Law and Chaos spell don’t exist.

Creatures with damage resistance to law or chaos will have it replaced with an appropriate equivalent, probably good or evil.

Also, The Blood War doesn’t matter into this world. Demons, devils, daemons, and demodands are just as indifferent to one another as a chaotic good ranger is to a lawful good fighter (well not including their usual evil natures).

Another twist, a holy weapon in the hands of an evil NPC becomes an unholy weapon. A potion of Protection from Evil is a potion of Protection from Good in the hands of a blackguard. This makes it easier for me to supply weapons in the hands of the bad guys that can later be used by the good guys.

Well that’s enough for now.

I just noticed that this is the 6th entry for this series, all released on 6/6/06.

If only I could get my wife to go see that movie with me.