ToEE 4E Session 2 - Bandits!

After the vicious battle with the deathrattle vipers our heroes staggered out of the ruins and returned to Hommlet to rest and regroup. Over the next few days the makeup of the party changed. Headed for the Moathouse we now have a Dwarf Druid (the Essentials one with a Bear for an animal companion), an Elf Bladesinger, an Eladrin Swordmage, and a Dragonborn Paladin. In-game the dwarf and the dragonborn are the same characters, we just had a profession tweak for each.  The bladesinger and the swordmage are completely new to the party.

Arriving at the ruins the group crosses the rotting drawbridge once again and heads straight for the great hall only to discover the bandits waiting in ambush there! The ambush fails to a degree as everyone notices it (all made DC13 Perception checks) and a big fight breaks out. The bandits are in several clusters and some cover with crossbow fire while others move in. The initial move-in is met with a blast of dragon breath that fries several of them, and a solid line forms as Po the Panda moves up to fight next to the Paladin and the Swordmage while the Druid and Bladesinger fight from behind them as needed. In one exchange of blows the Swordmage launches a vicious attack that is completely countered by a bandit lieutenant but the bear next to him delivers a crushing blow. 

The lesser bandits, a poorly trained rabble of thugs, prove to be no match for the deadly heroes and they are all down in less than a minute. Even the leaders, possibly former soldiers of some type, are quickly overcome by the skills of the party. The last leader and the bandit captain break and run and the leader makes it outside through a collapsed wall but the captain is caught and hauled down by the bear. As the last bandit flees across the moat he too falls to a magic missile from the Bladesinger, the final shot in this brief skirmish, and the bandit menace is wiped out.

Excited about their victory, the team decides to spend some time searching the rooms occupied by the band. After uncovering some coinage and some mundane equipment they decide to stay the night in the main room. Watches are posted and then they settle down for the night.

The interlude does not pass uneventfully however as the watcher eventually notices movement in the ruined upper works and sounds the alarm as five giant rats emerge from the shadows and charge in amongst the bedrolls and packs. A short and vicious fight erupts in the camp as the rats attack, converging on the Druid's bear companion and wounding him with several nasty bites. The bear gives as good as he gets though, and with the rest of the party in the fight it's only a matter of time. A lone rat survives to flee into the upper ruins, pursued by a magic missile and some thrown rocks unti lhe vanishes into the darkness. The heroes finally lower their guard and resolve to finish their interrupted rest, planning to explore the rest of the Moathouse in the morning.

DM Notes: This was our first session following the revamp of the characters. It's going to be interesting having a party with two defenders, a controller, a leader (the new Druid is a leader not a controller) and an animal companion. The lack of a striker doesn't mean much right now but I think as they level up that it will probably become an issue. At the very least some of the fights are going to last longer. The upside is that they should be tougher, something that has been a problem with some of their party mixes in the past. Hopefully it all works out. 


I do like this Druid better - leave the melee to the animal companion, let the druid focus on healing, buffing, and ranged attacks -that's a better approach than trying to multitask a melee and ranged capability into one character. The bear's +2 to defenses to adjacent characters in a party with two defenders is just nuts. They're both around an AC20 to start with and pumping that to 22 means Tough with a capital T. The natural reaction would be to concentrate on the bear and its lesser AC but when he's sitting next to two characters that mark then it becomes difficult to do that without taking all kinds of damage, which somewhat mitigates the lack of a striker in the party. They may have hit on a really strong combination of effects here - time will tell.



They are having fun with the Temple. They know it's a "legendary" adventure so they are pumped about going through it and I'm pumped to have that aspect plus having a set campaign plan all the way through level 10 is a nice feeling as well. Schedules have been interfering again as school activities have ramped up, but we should be able to work in another session soon and perhaps even finish up the upper level of the Moathouse.

Inspirations for ICONS

Icons: Now here we already have the Determination mechanic so it's debatable whether we need another hero-point type of system but let's experiment. Some thoughts...

Determination is gained through Qualities and Challenges and is pretty flexible. To me the highest and best use of Determination is for Focused Effort, Power Stunts and Retcons - things outside the mechanical framework of the game, or the "do cool stuff" points. To encourage more of this, I'd like to offload many of the straight mechancial effects onto Inspirations, making a clear separation in the minds of the players and the DM.

One of the rationales for Determination is that it represents how Batman can keep up with Superman when the going gets tough. The problem is that "Batmen" can get sidetracked and end up burning their Determination on bonuses to die rolls trying to keep up with Supes' damage output instead of retconing some holy water, sleeping gas, or shark-repellent out of the lab next door or happening to personally know the world's foremost expert on Black Holes  or power-stunting into Intellect 7 to convince the lethal computer it is flawed and imperfect and should therefore self-destruct (instead of trying to punch  its armored CPU with Strength 4). I see Determination as a sort of wild card option that in some ways works outside the mechanical framework of the game, but mechanics can be fun too so we need an option for that too - hence, Inspirations!

Inspirations are gained during encounters regardless of the character's abilities and grants a specific, limited bonus. Also, I'd like to get away from the strictly mathmatical concept and and the three levels and go instead with a result shifting approach. I'm fine with defining them by mechanical effect, I just don't want a bunch of +1 to this or +2 to this.

 Insight (Accuracy) - This would shift the result of any one attack up by one level - turn a miss into a hit, turn a normal hit into a possible slam or a possible slam into a possible stun

 Enrage (Damage) - For one attack the power or attribute counts as having a rating of 10

 Luck (Defense) - +2 to any one attribute check

 Back in the Fight (Endurance) Endurance is not used in ICONS so we could leave this one out but why not make it a free Stun avoider? Play it when hit with an attack that requires a Slam/Stun/Kill check and the character automatically passes the check

 Resurgence (Healing) - Regain the higher of Strength or Willpower

 Sturdy (Resist Damage) - Ignore all but one point of damage from one attack

 Break Free (Resist Effects) - Remove any one condition such as restrained or immobilized or blinded or deafened

 Awaken (Resurrection) - Remove the Unconscious/Stunned/Dead condition. After use the hero is fully conscious and at 1/2 Stamina

I would begin by limiting each character to 3 Inspirations at a time - it allows us to give them some impact, as outlined above, and it forces players to make interesting choices as to which ones to keep ready. Do you go all-offensive and keep an Accuracy, a Damage, and a Luck? Or do you go defensive, and keep a Heal, A Break Free, and a Resist Damage? Maybe a mix? As a reward for some particularly inspiring mission one could up the capacity to 4 or 5 at once, but I would definitely limit it to 5 or you may end up playing a completely different game where the dice have much less impact. Plus, not being able to keep one of everything reigns in the hoarders. I would not tie it into each character's starting determination because that means a lot of them are going to be running around with only 1 or 2 inspirations and these are supposed to be the same for every character regardless of powers, attributes, or levels.

Awarding Inspirations: In general, I would make sure each character had a chance for at least one new inspiration per "Encounter" by which I mean a fight or some kind of threateneing challenge. Inspiration effects are mostly combat oriented so that's mostly where they should be earned. Note that one Chapter might contain several fights or challenges, so one per Chapter means the heroes run out quickly or hoard them for the Big Fight. Don't do that - hand 'em out for each fight and watch them get used. How should you decide which ones to award? Random rolls!

1- (1-3 Awaken, 4-6 Break Free)
2 - Insight
3 - Luck
4 - Resurgence
5 - Sturdy
6 - (1-3  Enrage, 4-6 Back in the Fight)

...or you could just draw them out of a cup, but that's tomorrow's post.

I considered revising the system to tie one type of inspiration to each of the Attributes in ICONS but it devolves into a boring "+2 to any Prowess check" and "+2 to any Intellect" check kind of thing and that's not what I want to do in an ICONS game. We can cover the generic bonus in one type of Inspiration and have some fun with the rest. It's not hard to figure out if that floats your boat.

I can see some utility here in con games or any run with pregenerated characters. If you know the scenario and you know the capabilities of the characters in advance, then you could "pre-load" them with certain inspirations to try and help them through some of the tough spots. You could also go the opposite route and let the players pick three themselves based on their own take on the character. To complete the triangle of versatility, you could also have the players roll randomly at the beginning which would especially fit if you're making them roll up random PC's in the first place.

One interesting question - should players be able to trade inspirations? They aren't technically gear, in fact they aren't really physical at all, but it could make things interesting and it certainly would promote some player interation. I would say "try it" and see how it works in your game.

Finally, should NPC's have Inspirations? No. If you start awarding bonuses to your bad guys, all you're doing is negating the player bonuses and you end up back in the same place you were without Inspirations but with this little subsystem added to your game and that seems pointless. Leave it as a heroes-only kind of thing and assume that they're probably going to win most of the time. If you want to let your villains get away with something then award determination instead.

I'm going to try these out in my next ICONS adventure and I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Cool Things from Other Games: Inspirations Part 1

Adapting Inspirations from City of Heroes for tabletop play
 

Inspirations are a type of free random bonus mechanic used in City of Heroes, the superhero MMORPG. It's an interesting little system, and I think it's worth considering how it could be used in a tabletop game.

Inspiration Types:
 
Defense Bonus
Resistance Bonus
Accuracy Bonus
Damage Bonus
Endurance Bonus
Health Bonus
Revive
Break Free
 
The Basics
Inspirations are something that a character collects in almost every encounter, even a fight on the street against random gangers/robots/aliens - they are not some special kind of loot. They are intended to be acquired and used regularly and in a running fight through a city street or a warehouse or an alien mothership one can burn through quite a few of them. Defense, Resistance, Accuracy, and Damage boosters have a limited duration - 60 seconds - which is plenty of time for most fights. The Endurance, Health, Revive, and Break Free inspirations have a one-time effect instead. Low level characters can hold 3 at a time, while high levels can have 20 of them ready to go. There are also three levels of inspiration, bringing a +12.5%, +25%, and a +33% bonus to the relevant activities.
 
Adapting the Concept
Inspirations would be a secondary, smaller hero-point type mechanic useable in-game.  
Inspirations are mainly a combat booster in COH but they don't have to be in your tabletop game.
 
Adaptating the Mechanics - Part 1: MSH
 
Using a percentage based system makes the effects of each type of Inspiration pretty easy:
Defense Bonus -10/-20/-30 to a foe's attempt to hit on one attack
Resistance Bonus -10/-20/-30 to the damage from one attack
Accuracy Bonus +10/+20/+30 on one to-hit roll
Damage Bonus +10/+20/+30 to damage on one attack
Endurance Bonus - there's really no Endurance mechanic in MSH so this one probably goes away
Health Bonus +25% to Health/+33% to Health/+50% to Health up to maximum Health
Revive - Recover from a Knockout or any type of unconscious status
Break Free - Removes any kind of immobilization condition from webbed to grabbed to girdered
 
I've presented these as one-time bonuses or effects because I think that would work the best in play. I would propose a system where beating up thugs would grant the lowest level of inspiration, beating up enemies with powers would grant the secondary types, and beating up master villains or major threats (Octodroid!) would grant the highest level of boosts. I think a cap of 10 would be a reasonable start, letting a character build up a nice little stock of one-shot bonuses

Motivational Monday

Ultima 4E - Magic Items

I didn't talk much about magic items in the earlier Ultima Campaign posts. They aren't really the focus of the games, especially the Avatar series, but they are a part of D&D so I think they should have a place in the campaign.

For the initial trilogy I think you could use standard 4E gear - see what the players are interested in and let that be your guide at low levels into the teens. For the final fight in U3 the party could discover an entirely new class of weapon called "Exotics" and so at Epic levles I'd say turn it loose -give them the most ridiculous overpowered gear you can find and then make them use it! Perhaps a custom set of artifacts - the Exotic Armor, the Exotic Shield, the Exotic Blade, and the Exotic Bow. They could even be variable form weapons, allowing the players to declare them to be whatever base type of weapon they prefer. It would be an interesting way to go. I might just keep it to the weapon aspect and drop the armor but give every character one. They would also be a good subject for a quest somewhere in the mid 20's as the party realizes they really need harder-hitting gear to fight through the incredibly powerful opponents they're facing now.

What would I make them? Probably a level-whatever +X weapon that deals Radiant and Either Fire, Cold, Lightning, or Acid damage, chosen as a free action by the wielder. Keep it to the classic elemental damage types and you should be good. Leave the Necrotic and Poison stuff to the bad guys.

For the Avatar campaign I would consider placing armor in the shrines, 1 set each, to be discovered as the party locates each one. This means someone ends up wearing the Armor of Valor, someone has the Armor of Honor, someone has the Armor of Spirituality, etc. It might being a player into feeling a little more tied in to a particular Virtue. They could be themed for each class associated with it but I don't think that's essential - why not mix it up a little?

Similarly I might add in a weapon for each Virtue, probably buried at the bottom of the dungeon associated with each. If Dungeon Malice is known to hold the Sword of Compassion then it makes it that much more atractive for the players as a quest - there is a known, tangible reward within, beyond the usual XP's, magic and gold. In a bit of cross-inspiration I would give them names and unusual powers like an artifact and one possible source of inspiration is the Swords series by Fred Saberhagen, recently discussed by James M over at Grognardia. The Sword of Valor might be something like Shieldbreaker, the Sword of Compassion might be something like Townsaver, etc. There's plenty of room for debate on what characteristics would be appropriate for a weapon associated with each Virtue and frankly I probably wouldn't go much further unless I was planning out the campaign in anticipation of actually running it. There are other magic items in the later Ultimas that would be perfectly useable too. A little online research will turn up numerous interesting possibiliiies.

A Real Star Wars Quest

I saw this over the weekend and thought it was pretty cool. I have to wonder where it ended up or if it was even awarded back then. Pretty cool, although if it was driven much it probably looks a lot more like the Millennium Falcon now.

ZZZZZZZZZ

(hits snooze button, rolls over)

Running the game - Camps, Extended Rests, and Rude Awakenings

The way I run rest stops in 4E is pretty similar to the way I ran them in older editions. I used to run my campaign days in six four hour segments. I assume that two of those are spent traveling, one is spent finding and setting up camp, and three of them are spent resting in-camp. A group can spend four segments double-timing but that started getting into the fatigue rules in older editions and most parties avoided that. It hasn't come up in 4th but I would probably go with giving up a healing surge after one day, maybe allowing that to be avoided with an Endurance check, then making it progressively more dangerous if they kept it up. I'm sure there are rules for it under Atheltics or Endurance in the Rules Compendium and that's where I will look if it ever comes up.

An extended rest in 4E is 8 hours. Since a prudent party will put somone on watch overnight spending 12 hours stopped allows everyone to get some rest. This also means there are three watches. I have the players declare whether they are building a fire and who is on watch for each shift. If an encounter occurs I roll to see which shift gets lucky:1d6, 1-2 = 1st, 3-4 = 2nd, 5-6 = 3rd. In most adventures there are "safe places" to camp and "unsafe places" to camp. In my games safe places mean no encounters will happen, while in unsafe places it's about a 50-50 chance. Spiking a door doesn't affect the odds, it affects what happens if something does show up. Running a cold camp doesn't neccessarily change the odds, but it will affect what shows up.

I have several generic campsite maps for outdoor use and cave maps for random underground camping. I have the players position themselves on the map. Based on the shift some characters will be awake and some will not. Being awake means that character gets a perception roll to notice intruders - some are easier than others - and if they make it will be able to raise an aalrm and act in the first round. If they blow it, then they are surprised and will not be acting in the first round. Shouting is a free action once they do get to act, and combat allows a free perception roll to wake up anyway unless there is something like a silence spell on the camp. Waking up is automatic if a character is damaged and they get to roll initiative and join the fight next round. Theoretically a sleeping character could be coup-de-grace'd, but I've never done this to a character as there is rarely an opportunity to even try.

Third edition worked pretty much the same way.

In second edition I had the same schedule and used relevant NWP's.

In AD&D and B/X D&D things were a little simpler. I use the same schedule and the same determination of timing. Surprise is a special case rolled on 1d6 with a 4-6 indicating the character is not surprised. Elves and Halflings get a +1, Thieves, Rangers and Barbarians get a +1, Familiars grant a +1, and certain spells and items may influence this role as well. I handle the wake-up roll with a 2+ on 1d6 indicating wakefulness.

Common sense does play a role here, regardless of edition. A silenced, invisible infiltrator moving into a campsite on a windy night is probably going to start the battle with a crippling strike on whoever they want to hit first. Drunken hill giants approaching through a forest may start the festivities at 100 yards. Beyond whatever number systems are in play I do have a category for "Zero Stealth" but I do try to give PC's a chance to notice something so I stay away from an absolute "Undetectable" category.

Anyway, there's my system for running overnight stops.

Motivational Monday

The Possibility:

The More Common Reality:

Refitting Star Wars d6 - One Final Take

So I spent a fair amunt of time and words trying to pick my way through the D6 Star Wars skill list but I'm still not totally happy with it. Savage Worlds seems like it might be a better bet if I'm going to go for a lighter system and there are fan conversions out there for it that I like. I do have one more idea though:

The Minimized D6 Star Wars Skill List


Dex

Blaster - this covers all guns
Dodge - defense vs. ranged attacks
Fighting - HTH combat
Thievery - all manual pickpockety type skills


Knowledgde

Cultures - races and clans and nations - the people
Planets - the geography/astrography parts - the places
Streetwise - knowledge of the underworld
Survival - knowledge of the wilderness
Bureaucracy - knowledge of governments
Business - knowledge of corporations


Mechancial

Ship Pilot - all ships
Ship Systems - shields, sensors, communications, whatever
Ship Gunnery - all ship guns
Repulsorlift Ops - driving for anti-grav vehicles
Beast Riding - driving for animals
Ground Vehicle Ops - driving for wheeled/tracked/hover/walker vehicles
Vehicle Systems - sensors, shields, communications, etc.

Perception

Persuasion - convincing people to do things
Willpower - keeping people from convincing you to do things
Stealth - sneaking past people
Search - keeping people from sneaking past you


Strength

Athletics - climbing/swimming/running/jumping
Stamina - how long you can do things like the above


Technical

Ship Tech - fix ships
Vehicle Tech - fix vehicles
Personal Tech - fix personal equipment
Droid Tech - program and fix droids and computers
Demolition  - blowing stuff up
Medicine - people tech, for fixing people
Security Systems - the electronic version of Thievery

Bonus:

Control
Sense
Alter
Yeah, they stay separate - it might help keep some balance in there.

...and there you go. A vastly whittled down skill list that will make characters much more broadly capable. Most of the more active skills can be used as opposed rolls - Stealth vs. Search, Persuasion vs. Willpower, Blaster vs. Dodge. It means a lot less aggravation when no one has the particular skill needed but it allows you to keep using the existing system framework. I'd consider cutting the initial skill allocation down to say, 5D instead of 7, but even keeping 7D could work if you look at it as making more experienced characters than before.

This caters to a more loose style of game and is probably very dependent on the DM's attitude towards the mechanics. At this point, I think this is the version I am most likely to use. I'll try to work in a game this weekend and see how it goes.