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[4E] DM's Corner
Nunchucker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
With the onset of 4th edition, I decided to try my hand at DM'ing for the first time. I'm relatively new to D&D, only picking it up within the past year or so, so I was pretty intimidated. However, after running a couple of test games, I was overwhelmed with how much freedom I had to create interesting encounters that were both challenging and interesting to my players.
With this knowledge, I'm going to be more ambitious. My players and I have created a homebrew campaign setting and have started a campaign for savage races (orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, shifters, yadda yadda) wherein they go through a rite of passage, then return only to find that a massive crusade has been organized against civilization. Ulterior motives are afoot, dear readers. Ulterior darkness, a must.
I created an online wiki resource for our setting that will be filled in as-needed based on what's invented as we proceed, and I created a blog which I'll update weekly at http://worldofyorg.blogspot.com with detailed updates on the campaign, but told in a story format. My group is fairly keen on in-game characterization, so I'm going to have them comment on my posts as their characters as a sort of internal monologue as they feel comfortable. Feel free to follow along if this kind of thing is interesting to you.
I'm trying to create a sense of foreboding and intrigue for my players, but I keep finding myself filling in the blanks with combat and such. I've very little experience with skill checks, and I always feel arbitrary trying to construct some for things that don't seem important to the story like climbing, swimming, lockpicking, mapmaking, yadda yadda. I'm curious to see how others use these to their advantage.
Also, I'd just love to hear from other DM's about their campaigns and experiments with their players. Knowledge is power. Don't be shy, now.
With this knowledge, I'm going to be more ambitious. My players and I have created a homebrew campaign setting and have started a campaign for savage races (orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls, shifters, yadda yadda) wherein they go through a rite of passage, then return only to find that a massive crusade has been organized against civilization. Ulterior motives are afoot, dear readers. Ulterior darkness, a must.
I created an online wiki resource for our setting that will be filled in as-needed based on what's invented as we proceed, and I created a blog which I'll update weekly at http://worldofyorg.blogspot.com with detailed updates on the campaign, but told in a story format. My group is fairly keen on in-game characterization, so I'm going to have them comment on my posts as their characters as a sort of internal monologue as they feel comfortable. Feel free to follow along if this kind of thing is interesting to you.
I'm trying to create a sense of foreboding and intrigue for my players, but I keep finding myself filling in the blanks with combat and such. I've very little experience with skill checks, and I always feel arbitrary trying to construct some for things that don't seem important to the story like climbing, swimming, lockpicking, mapmaking, yadda yadda. I'm curious to see how others use these to their advantage.
Also, I'd just love to hear from other DM's about their campaigns and experiments with their players. Knowledge is power. Don't be shy, now.
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I'm thinking about DMing a campaign, and I've got some bits and pieces of the story figured out already. I want it to be story and character driven, so I was wondering what the best way to make your PCs central to (or important in) the story is. I wish to avoid the PCs just being a group of adventurers who take on quests from someone.
But then you have a problem because by building the story around the PCs, you're making assumptions about their past. So it seems to me that you can either make the PCs just some random adventurers, or you have to force your characters to have certain backgrounds and pasts.
For instance, Planescape:Torment has a very PC driven story, but at the beginning of the game you can't make up your own character; you have to be The Nameless One. In NWN1 however, your PC can be anything you imagine, but the story kind of lacks because of it, as the PC doesn't really have any motivation and isn't involved so much in the plot.
So, how do you get the best of both worlds?
Again, I'm new at this, but I think the way to avoid marshaling characters into specific choices is to make the choices ambiguous, and simply -not- plan the results, but work afterwards on tying their decisions into the story, so they're surprised at consequences and rewards.
1. Family/Friends/Relatives? Putting a close person into trouble is a great way to get the PCs motivated. Don't follow the old saw of 'your parents were killed by the villain go get revenge' because that just discourages family backgrounds in the future. Have a friend show up and help them out, then ask for help with one of his own problems.
2. Why did the PC become an adventurer? You don't just pick up a sword and go down into the sewers and start killing rats. It's dangerous, and normal life earn you enough money to live. What events drove them into the adventuring life and gave them their Level 1 skills?
3. What is the ultimate goal of the character? Do they want wealth? Maybe find true love somewhere out in the wide world? Perhaps just see strange places and new interesting people. I find that asking for a short(a few words, maybe a sentence) motivation really helps get a sense of the character.
Next, mine those backgrounds for plot hooks. Maybe they had a rival who pushed them to be the best they can be. Well, what if that rival is trying to upstage one of the PCs? What if that rival eventually turned evil?
Maybe someone's family is in trouble, and you have to go help them out. Maybe their old mentor hides a mysterious and powerful artifact in his basement dungeon, and it's the only way to kill the guy that's threatening the entire world.
Just ask your players to deliver you a little bit of backstory, and hopefully you'll get what you need to start drawing them in.
Once you've accomplished that, then start drawing the characters themselves into the main plot you want them to follow. Give them villains who escape and leave them in painful death traps(I find drowning people in sewage is a sure way to get them to swear revenge. Nobody likes it.) Try and create characters that the PCs will actually enjoy interacting with, rather than just being obstacles to everything. Maybe a gnomish merchant offers them good deals on magic items, but in exchange he asks for help now and then.
If you ask the players to put a bit of life into their PCs, and then respond by putting a bit of life into the world, they'll get drawn in naturally.
I pretty much recommend against PCs having BIG DARK SECRETS in their past, or surprising people with their character's own knowledge. That's a bit silly. Just make the PCs feel like they're part of a world, where not everything is an obstacle to overcome. Give them real friends and allies, and they'll get invested in those people, and their PCs will really care about what they're doing rather than just accepting quest after quest.
Since you mentioned Planescape Torment, I'm going to mention Baldur's Gate 2. Pretty much everything you do in that game is to rescue Imoen, because she's your closest friend that you've had for ages and ages, and took through all of BG1. The fact that you're a Bhaalspawn isn't what drives your PC to do things, it's the fact that you've put time and effort into Imoen, she's a nice character, and she's taken away.
So start with a tiny seed of plot from each PC, and build your world from there. Give them friends and allies instead of just enemies and quest-givers who don't care about them. It makes the difference.
"I'm thinking about DMing a campaign, and I've got some bits and pieces of the story figured out already."
Just be careful with this. Planning too much of a campaign out can lead to you playing bus driver and the characters just being along for the ride. Instead focus on creating multiple paths through the forest you want the players to travel, while also being prepared for the players to take the bus four-wheeling and blazing their own path. The main advantage PnP RPGs have over their computer counterparts is that there is no set path for the PCs to travel, there are no rails forcing the players to do certain things at certain times, so as a DM, don't create those rails!
I especially like the idea of giving the PCs allies instead of just opposition all the time, come to think of it that does give you way more motivation than just getting some reward for doing something for someone you don't really care about. As for the story, yeah, I guess you have to have some sort of general framework of a story that features events that are independent of the story and then you just go along with the players.
Maybe the party befriends the barkeep in their favorite tavern, thanks to stopping a brawl, good tipping, return business, etc. It could be very useful to have an extra set of eyes and ears, especially in a well traveled area. Then later, the barkeep provides them with a very valuable tip about something the characters are working on, maybe he learned about a location of an item or person. There's a hook to the next part of your adventure and the characters could be gone for weeks. But whoops, when the characters return after checking out that tip it turns out the barkeep has been kidnapped. Maybe an effected party overheard and decided to make the barkeep pay.
Will the PC's rescue the barkeep before its too late? Find out next week! Same Bat time, same Bat channel!
Bam, little things like that can go a long ways. You can sprinkle things like this into a series of published adventures or your span of adventure ideas.
Keep in mind that finding and removing traps are separate skills. I also normally roll the perception check, whether or not it is passive or active. If the person is actively searching and fails the check I make sure and let them know "you don't see any traps, bwa ha ha" or something similar to play it up and keep players on their toes. Also, if a player without the thievery skill somehow finds a trap, unless its a very simple or painfully obvious one, all they find is a switch/pressure plate/tripline but they don't know exactly what the outcome will be if the trap is triggered. I may give a perception bonus to the player if they have an associated skill/class/racial ability that seems pertinent, ie a ranger noticing a pit trap in the forest or a dwarf noticing an earthen works trap in a cavern.
Removing the trap I also make the roll for the player and roleplay the result. I follow what the PHB says, with the exception of I add the following: if the roll is a 1 or they miss by more than 20, the player thinks they disabled the trap, but in reality it is still armed. "Hey guys, its safe, lets go! *boom*" Also, if they fail by 5-20, and want to try again, the DC stays the same, but they trigger the trap if they fail by 4 or more, because the more you fiddle with it the more likely you are to set it off. Each attempt lowers it by one, essentially ensuring that if they keep trying they will succeed or set it off. Non-thievery skilled players attempting to disable a trap have double the trap's DC as their target.
As for skill checks, I really dislike how skills are handled in 4E and either increase the number of skills that require training or increase the DC for those without training. It seems ludicrous to me that untrained, with no stat bonus and no special equipment, a first level character actually has a chance at climbing a brick wall or swimming in stormy seas or other highly challenging events. I realize these are heroic characters, but heroism only carries so far in my book. On the flip side, a lot of times I don't even require a skill check if the player is trained and the task seems reasonable, consequences or not. As far as creative uses for skills, that is up to the player. If the player is presented with an opportunity and reasonably convinces me that a skill check will let them do something cool, heck, roll the dice and lets see what happens. As the DM I wouldn't say to the player "hey, if you roll X you can do cool action Y." It is up to the player to be creative with their skills, feats, racial abilities and magic items.
Basic skill checks are designed to be pretty mundane, for doing basic things. Need to lift something heavy? Athletics. Need to convince an enemy you've got an army at your back? Bluff.
Of course, you can make things much more complicated if you'd like. For example, crossing a desert would be an excellent Skill Challenge.
Every day of travel, each player needs to make an Endurance check. If they fail, they lose 1 from their maximum healing surges until they take an extended rest outside of the desert. If they beat the check by 5 or more, they can recover a healing surge lost in this way for themselves or an ally. If it's a shorter trip, make the check every hour and make it a penalty of a healing surge.
Then of course there's the things that happen in the desert. The Wizards site recommends creating a random encounters table, something like:
Roll 1d6 for each day of travel:
1. The party meets up with a travelling merchant. They find all mundane objects and magic items of level -2 available there.
2. The party comes upon wide cliffs. They must succeed in several Athletics/Acrobatics checks to get over the cliff or lose a day of travel walking around.
3. The party are attacked by desert marauders. They can either pay the enemies (appropriate amount of gold) to pass by, succeed in a hard DC Diplomacy or Bluff check, or enter combat.
4. The party finds an oasis. All healing surge penalties are removed.
5. The party is attacked by wild desert coyotes.
6. The party happens upon a camp of desert thieves. If they spot the guards with a Perception check, they can Stealth around the camp or lose a day and circle around the camp without a check. If they fail to spot the guards before they are seen, they must lose either two days of travel evading the thieves or enter a combat encounter.
I hope this gives you some ideas.
Traps are almost exclusively designed for use with groups of monsters. They are usually especially powerful with controller-type monsters that push, pull, and slide the players around to maximize the trap's effectiveness.
I just finished my second campaign night. I hope to novelize it soon if anybody's still reading up on it.
I have some interesting ways to incorporate traps and skill checks for next week.
I got to use a couple of skill challenges. No traps yet, but I had a lot of dynamic combat at the end there that I'd love to repeat. I've got a big fight planned for a couple of levels from now where there's a four-faction war. 4th edition is so easy to manage things like that, as compared to 3.5.
Ask your players to give you a specific Person, a specific Place, and a specific Thing that aren't related to each other and that affected their character in some way. That'll either inspire them to come up with at least three threads of backstory or inform you that they don't care about plot. Either way, it's easy enough to insert a person place or thing into any adventure. The rest of the character's background can grow organically in-game as the player declares it for humorous or dramatic effect. If it makes a degree of sense, go with it. If it doesn't make sense, but doesn't screw with the game, go with it. It doesn't matter as long as it's fun.
Swordmage/Wizard Hybrid
Warlord/Cleric Hybrid
Two-weapon Ranger <- enters intentionally bloodied to do more damage or some shit without my knowing
Barbarian
Vs.
Level 6 Genasi Hydromancer (levelled down from 8)
Level 4 Genasi Thundermage
2x Level 4 Genasi Miller
2x Level 2 Genasi Skirmisher
Total: +3 encounter, no surprise, long range setup.
Result: 4 PCs cluster around a Skirmisher to take him out. Skirmishers use Earthshock, knock them all prone. Thundermage blows all encounters over two turns, dazes 3/4 PCs despite prone defense bonus. Hydromancer runs in and starts drowning the Ranger. Party struggles to recover and stand up... Miller crits and permakills the Cleric, Ranger permakilled by drowning (failed multiple saving throws), Flaming Sphere follows Hydromancer around to finally kill her, Barbarian goes down to a Magic Missile, Swordmage crumpled overwhelmed.
Final tally: DM 4, PCs 2. TPK VICTORY!
(... we spent like... 2 hours establishing story and RPing and such... I'm not sure I want to DM any more
We were wondering in the dissection if it was maybe the controllery-nature of the monsters versus their total lack of a controller. 4 of my 6 monsters had controllery effects, and they just disabled the party long enough to turn the tide basically. If I'm going to DM this group again, can I throw a level +3 encounter just without controllers or do you think I actually need to step this down a bit?
I guess it's a bit hard to dissect from here. At the end, both brutes were barely bloodied, which enabled both to use their MBA when bloodied reactions, and the final artillery + skirmisher were untouched. They did pretty bad ass damage when they were able to attack and hit, but the Controller had some 1/2 damage interrupt before and after bloody and the highest defense so....
Basically, and by then, I'd done enough damage chipping away that they were too far behind the momentum of the combat. They'd have to spend time keeping themselves up, and I could immediately knock that back off again, recurse until they ran out of staying power.
I'm just concerned about whether, even if they hadn't made that tactical mistake (which they fully admit they did, noting that one said, "Hey guys let's not group up together," and then they promptly did), if the mass controller-ism would have taken them out anyways. It would seem to me that an ECL+3 encounter with just a lot of controllers would almost be an auto-win, and that'd be something I'd have to take note of avoiding in future designs. With the XP budget there, that's almost 7 even-level controllers. Is that just going to devastate a party like this no matter what they do?
If this was a meta-gaming kind of fight, I could see punishing them for their mistake if they'd known what they were up against. However, you shouldn't feel bad for designing very challenging encounters. If you're tossing monsters that are 3 levels higher than the party, check the base damage of the monsters' attacks. If two (repeatable) hits from any of them equals 150% of any of the party's HP, lower the damage of their attacks before the fight. You're not trying to kill the party.
I am still fairly new to the game and trying to grasp all of the rules myself so each game I'm still learning and trying to understand more about the game.
Our party consists of 3 PC and a recently added NPC friendly character played by the DM since we're short another PC.
Our first encounter, I learned that monsters of the same type all attack at the same initiative. Tonight when we played, the DM elected to roll each monster's initiative separately. I inquired as to why this was done because last week the monsters all went at the same initiative. The DM is of the opinion that that's a form of scaling the encounter for us since we're short a PC and two of us have never played the game before. The two monster types each rolled higher initiatives than the rest of the party and it was a possibility that if they all acted at once, one of the PC's could have died with no one able to make an action to prevent it or fight back. I feel that if the encounter was appropriately scaled, that wouldn't be a possibility.
My side of this is that I completely agree with scaling an encounter to suit the needs of the party. I think this particular instance is a complete change of what the specific rules say. We've gone back and forth for quite a while debating about it. My DM thinks that the DND rules system states that it's based on a loose rule system and he is free to make adjustments as needed. I think that the rules state that specific always trumps general and that monster initiative is a specific rule.
To put this into further context, my DM says that rolling different initiatives for each monster will make it more challenging for us and that we won't be able to meta-game based on the fact that we all know which monsters are the same. It seems to me that in the eyes of my character, when I am faced with three monsters that look exactly the same to me, my character is going to draw a logical conclusion that they will all do the same things to me and have the same abilities. My DM thinks that having them roll initiative separately speaks to the fact that they are different beings making different decisions such as who to attack and where to stand. I do agree with this but I think that the monsters have the ability to make that decision on their turn. They are still the same monsters of the same creation and should therefore, operate under the same initiative. To me, changing a specific rule because he thinks we'll meta-game based on that rule isn't right. I honestly believe the rule is what it is because it's taking into account that the same decision we will make as players based on initiative rules, our characters would make based on logical observations.
What do the other DM's out there think?
This is not WoW, you are not tied to the rules, the rules in the book are not the end all be all of the situation, the creators of 4E are not infallible. What is written in the book isn't the 'right' way to do something, it is the currently documented way, nothing more. If the DM disagrees with something than it is their prerogative if they want to change or ignore that something. Specific rule or not. Frankly I think the shared initiative in 4E was done simply to make things easier on the DM to keep track of things, and your explanation that all monsters are simply cookie cuttings is totally illogical. The way I have always played it is that for smaller combats each individual in the combat rolls their own initiative. In some sort of mass/large combat, then I switch to leader's rolling for their group.
For encounters with fewer enemies (several Elites or a Solo and some regular guys) I would probably roll them all separately, because it won't speed combat up all that much and it is a little more realistic. It's also a way to get a better representation of the enemy's actual initiative. If I happen to roll really poorly on one, maybe I'll roll really well on another (or vice versa) and make it less likely to screw over either the party or the monsters through dumb luck alone.
Edit: In fact when I DM I don't even have monsters roll for initiative during combat. When I prepare a session's encounters I make twenty rolls on a d20 to generate a series of random numbers and just cycle through that same string for every encounter's monster initiative. It saves a lot of time and gives fair results.
"Okay. Bad guys go, now good guys. Repeat." It's boring.
Combat in life and in D&D is dynamic, it changes after each character's and monster's action. Plans are easily deconstructed by the flow of combat if your enemy realizes what's happening and takes steps to prevent their completion.
A lot of my enemies look similar to their allies, due to the locations that the players visit. Their only distinctions are minor things which I create. e.g. hair style, helmet, cape, whatever, just so it's easy for us to communicate across the table on who's attacking and being attacked. If a player at my table assumed that all creatures which resembled one another were tactically identical, he would probably die very quickly.
And yeah, the player's handbook just assumes that the DM will make the distinction on whichever is more appropriate, depending on the encounter.
The Ghoul has AC 23, to hit bonus 13, and 142 hp.
Strikers will hit on a 14, be hit on a 5.
Leader will hit on a 13, be hit on a 7.
D/C will hit on a 11 if he stays at range, 15 if melee, and be hit on a 9.
I dunno. I'm looking at the Stench Ghoul and comparing it to, say, the Minotaur Skeleton - +3 AC, plus the aura adds another 2... is my party just going to stand there whiffing away until they die? If so, I think I'm just going to take 2 dread zombies, level them each up, and apply the bodyguard template. Or maybe another template. (The idea is that they're sorta door guards before the final room.)
Keep in mind, this will only be my 2nd last encounter of this little dungeon. The last one I plan to have a level 6 elite necromancer constantly summoning ghost-y minions to attack the party. Basically if the necromancer doesn't get hit in a round, I summon, say, 1d6 even-level minions to charge the party. Anybody done something similar to that have suggestions on how that will work?
Encounter 1: Lolthbound goblin minions and drow ambush party on way to investigate strange-doings
Encounter 2: Drow and spiders attack PC's who stumble upon keep where they and their dragon ally have taken up residence
Encounter 3: Dragon in abandoned temple/keep Rawr!
More or less what I'm thinking is long ago, the humans fought a war against the drow which ended in an earthquake that sealed the drow's entrance to this area from the Underdark. A young dragon, seeking to make his place in the world, has excavated that entrance in exchange for loyalty from his new drow and spider vassals. Livestock have gone missing and merchants haven't made it to the town recently, so the PC's haven't made it
I guess my question is this: does that sound interesting? I don't want to put the new people off of 4E by making the affair boring. I'm using a level 7 adamantine dragon for this group of 6 level 5 PC's; should I add more dudes to that encounter, or is that dragon more than enough.
If I kill them (again), I'm blaming youuuuu! :P
Remember, I don't have to out run it, I just have to out run one of you!
This may seem like a good idea, but it's still kind of a jerk move. You're purposely making an enemy too difficult to fight (in which case you're basically railroading the PCs). Aside from that, PCs have a (not unreasonable) expectation that you're not going to purposely overwhelm them.
Consider, for instance, a similar scenario. You're in college studying for a math test on Chapters 1 through 5 of your textbook. You get to the test, and suddenly there's a question on the test worth 50% of the grade, and it's on a topic you haven't covered yet, from Chapter 7. Would you consider that fair?
There are ways to defeat things aside from an all-out fight. Say a huge monster is attacking the city; the PCs can win the encounter by luring the beast away. Or maybe you need to hold off the advancing group of powerful monsters just long enough for the wizard/rogue to figure out how to activate the dungeon's ancient waystone, allowing the party to teleport away with the item needed to complete the fetch quest. In this way, the purpose of the monsters is more like a variable time limit against solving a puzzle.
If the PC's are never put into situations where they can potentially lose, why bother ever running combat? You come across a pack of kobolds, oh hey look, you won! Next! Might as well not even bother owning dice. Do characters in your world just automatically pass all their skills checks as well? Cause if not, I guess you're a jerk eh? Secondly, have you never read any sort of fiction or watched any movies? They are full of situations where the heroes are defeated or forced to flee only to come back and save the day at some future point. Hell, most Saturday morning cartoons are based on the "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" formula.
Lastly, this analogy is so laughably bad I think I shall save it. You're not even comparing apples to oranges, you're comparing apples to unobtanium plated bowling balls.
Combat is not a binary "defeat the enemy without even trying" or "unwinnable fight, better run" situation. It's not hard to make fights that present a real threat of death and aren't piss easy.
And of course heroes in the media can have moments of weakness where they're defeated or need to retreat. This is nothing like D&D because you're not sitting there controlling the dude in the TV, so there's no true emotional investment. Playing a character and making decisions for hours results in a bit more emotional investment than watching Bruce Willis shoot people for 90 minutes, so losing control of your character by being put in a situation that you cannot win is a bit more jarring.
When you sit down to play D&D you sit down to have fun. To me (and most people), fun is not being forced to run away because your DM decided to put you in an unwinnable situation.
- You are not guaranteed to win every encounter.
- You are not guaranteed to loot every corpse.
- You are not guaranteed to find every bit of treasure.
- You are not guaranteed to always get your way.
The players frequently put themselves into those situations. So don't blame the DM.
My players started sassing The Voice of Kelemvor...
...
I created broadsheets for various cities in a campaign I ran a few years back and included adventure plot hooks on them. The players collected them from various npc's around the cities and towns they traveled through, sometimes they found broadsheets from far away dangerous places. Once such place was an old dwarven citadel, long abandoned. No one ever came back from there unless they didn't set foot into the place.
So the pc's went that way of course. At 2nd level. It was an epic level dungeon. Four of the six party members died to the first trap. The other two were slaughtered by demonic gargoyles that blocked the way out.
They learned to pay attention to the warning signs with their next characters.