@Ben encounters in 5e don't always tip in favour of the PCs. My players had to struggle to survive in one of my campaigns, let alone win a fight. It depends on how you are designing encounters. Normal difficulty would be a normal challenge which is typically ones the PCs can handle easily. Build a campaign with Hard or Deadly encounters as the base and you'll get a very different experience. Also, many tables dont put nearly enough encounters in an adventuring day which skews the difficulty too.
Sort of. Like I said before, bennies are used to nullify damage/re roll to attack, etc. For the bad guys it is usually just used to nullify damage. On top of this, depending on how the fight is matched up, one player might only be able to bypass the armour, but not do enough damage to be considered significant. Whereas on another target, they'd do exceptionally well.
That being said, the combat system in PF is very different to Savage Worlds
@DavidCoffron Yes, you can tip a fight one way or another. But for example, an "even" fight would technically be reliant entirely on the dice. E.g. a PC versing an exact copy of itself. That relies entirely on the dice, and is usually considered "unfair"
I did have one game where the rule was that you had to make 2 characters at the beginning of the game - because you will die. Personally, I didn't enjoy it.
I do enjoy the Savage Worlds approach though. The fight is a challenge, and without careful tactics, the fight can easily tip in the wrong direction, but that doesn't mean perma-death for your PC
@Ben Okay, I see where you're going. And I agree. If the NPCs have no reason to kill the heroes, then they don't need to. They can try to incapacitate or slow down the heroes, and then flee.
Yeah. That is my personal preference - a challenge doesn't need to end in death; and vice-versa, the NPCs can always escape, since in reality (as an exception to the rule) people usually do value their lives.
Outside the fridge, obviously. The giraffe is still there.
:P
You have a river - crocodile infested river. You NEED to get across. But there's no way that you can see. no crossings, no trees, no vines or shallow points... the only way is to swim across... how do you do it without being eaten?
I have a very simple, tedious, manual task that's going to take me the better part of the next couple hours to complete. So deciding on what to listen to first.
I've laser-engraved then painted a plaque, but there was a bit of bleed outside the painting. So I'm scraping away at it with an X-acto to get the paint off the not-supposed-to-be-painted areas. It's like I'm a dental hygenist working on someone whose tooth area is 192 in^2.
(cc: @BESW I should probably have a photo of it for you tomorrow--finally!)
New RPG concept: three users choose three words, randomly, from a dictionary. Within ten seconds @BESW links a relevant reference that clearly wasn't just Googled, but was in one of their minds, screaming to get out into the world. Onlookers stand by, amazed.
@BESW I'm enjoying the mental image of someone who doesn't know you live in Guam parsing that sentence. In my mind it never occurs to this person that you might, so there're ever-higher fairy-tale castles spun of glass explaining why Guam-blockage matters.
The one I mean, you are the guy's character concepts and you don't want to be too specific or too cool or vise versa because then you either get picked and stop existing or get dropped or stop existing
Hmm. Abort Retry Fail: "A 1-page RPG about collectively trying to steer a killer robot towards its objectives and failing miserably. Each player takes control of a rogue subroutine, attempting to complete the mission to the best of their limited abilities while also accomplishing a nonsensical goal foisted on them by their malfunctioning programming."
Related (but only in my head), I was just thinking that several recurring problems with D&D-style adventure design probably stem from using novels as a primary inspiration source.
I've already noticed that adventures tend to work better when inspired by TV episodes rather than by films, and I think the same holds true for books: novellas and short stories are, I think, better matched to the strengths and constraints of an RPG adventure than full-length novels are.
Similar concept, just applied differently. Everyone is given a card - a role in a particular place, like a restaurant or a pirate ship. One player is the "spy". You have to ask questions to try and figure out who the spy is, without giving away the location you are in to the spy - as all they know is that they are the spy.
I've seen a lot of adventures that try to be paced like a traditional novel or film structure, and it just doesn't work very well. The tightly controlled narrative flow with a slow burn toward rising action and a payoff that ties everything together neatly is very hard to orchestrate in an RPG. The early parts tend to be boring from a first-person perspective, and the denoument is almost impossible to stick the landing on without leading players by the nose.
Novels also have space for spreading exposition over more time, but in RPGs the players need to know stuff that the reader doesn't need to know up front.
@Ben oh wow, you are quite a ways off my local time then. BTW I was talking from our favorite Eagle cam (for context on why the time in Estonia matters) right now.
@MikeQ Very much so, but there's more to it than that because usually that advice just leads to people trying to compress the novel or film structure rather than recognizing that it needs to be replaced entirely.
And I'd venture to take it even further: I postulate that the long-form continuity campaign, even one with an episodic structure like a TV show, should not be the "default normal" assumption for the RPG form.
@MikeQ Yup. I mean, both forms have many many different implementations depending on author, culture, period, etc. But yeah, short stories are best when they're treated as a different beast altogether.
Okay, without getting political I just realized something. You know that ridiculous picture of Paul Ryan posing while lifting weights? He's curling the same weight I do in my twice-weekly workouts. And I work out, but there's no way I'm doing photo shoots trying to show off my biceps.
This gives me an idea. One of my adages to live by is "you'll never regret a sunrise." But I generally neither want to get up for sunrise nor want to stay up for it. Enter a network of 48 HD webcams, strategically located around the world....
The idea is that each level, as the players delve deeper into the Cathedral, will be levelled, per level. So, level 1 - PCs are level 1, monsters are level 1.
I mean, it depends what's on the floor. If each floor has some story/RP/lore value, then let them revisit, just "clear out" the monsters or whatnot. Or, retroactively level up the challenges.
Actually the megadungeon is a very solid campaign structure concept. Start out as a town next to a random ruin/dungeon, with a call for adventurers. With each level they explore, and as they go further down, they learn more and more...
@DavidCoffron My initial structure is very simple. The idea of levelling this way, keeping it all very structured, is primarily to use it as a "beginner adventure". Pre-made characters, etc.
Do you have a plan for a level cap. Past a certain point, your structure may become limited to certain classes (teleportation, planar magic, etherealness).
I do intend to flesh it out, so that it can become more diverse, but I want to create the foundation of it in a very systematic manner, in order to keep it simple
Or 2... the use of a "Corruption" mechanic, and upon finding the Soulstone, the most corrupt PC is forced into possessing themselves with the stone, and that PC becomes Diablo
You can start at the "sweet spot" and just stay there, using milestones to change characters in line with the story rather than just constantly dumping more complexity into them.
Maybe the soul stone is implanted like that and Diablo assumes the form of the PC with some extra class levels in a custom "Diablo" class (treated like a multiclass version of the PC)
Diablo's avatar/voice/whatever is like "Hey, you're very corrupt. Why not join forces with me and kill all these weaklings? Otherwise I'll attack all of you."
That would be a good idea for like post-Cathedral after defeating Diablo (or realizing that defeating him entirely is not possible), one of the PCs implants the stone and is slowly corrupted (with time to fight it off)
There is a dog-like demon creature that crawls on the walls, and attacks with it's tongue, as a pack monster, and a swarm creature, effectively teleporting bats that randomly "blink" to another location (short distance)
Is there a way for the player's to find out why their are skeletons on the first floor (maybe the fallen adventurers of the past are sent to guard the gate). Try to make your themese for each level have some lore behind it to make the world feel alive
Fun tip for dungeon design: To make your dungeons unique, choose a combination of three "keywords". Everything in the dungeon is tangentially related to (at least) one of those keywords. This way, your dungeons will be diverse, but not "monochromatic".
But if level 1 is "Fancy entrance with skeletons" and level 2 is "Damp cave with skeletons" and level 3 is "Creepy catacomb with skeletons", it's gonna be samey to the players. Color-palette swapping doesn't constitute as thematic diversity when designing your tabletop misadventures.
I'll be frank, Diablo I was not very diverse with its enemies (system limitations likely the reason). You want to avoid that with your dungeon which means you might have to diverge somewhat from Diablo lore
If level 2 of the Cathedral is based on the Butcher, try to work with that. Why does the Butcher live there? Is he here for the meat he found there? Or are the enemies there so Diablo can keep an eye on him? etc.
Not too worried about the story of each level just yet. Following the lore of Diablo 1 as a basis, which in itself is rather thin anyway. Effectively the players are coming in from the top down, and the demons are vice versa, being pushed out by the "evil"
Here's how I would start Floor 2 (take everything with salt, do your game). Allow long rest after every floor: Begin immediately with an encounter against a zombie hoard (Deadly encounter). Then the player's watch from a distance as the Butcher completely destroys the same type of encounter with ease establishing how much of a threat he is (so they should try to avoid him). Then they continue through the dungeon (whatever theme fits)...
... towards the end when they have knowledge of the floor, the Butcher finds them and chases them; put a few rooms or other things that would give the plauer's an advantage and they have to try to lure the Butcher to those rooms to beat him
[I remember only being able to beat the Butcher at that early level by trapping him on stairs, so... it makes sense from that perspective; He should feel powerful]
Fair. I had a more thematic entrance in mind haha. But I'm not focussed on that just yet. I'm worried about the rest of the dungeon floor. I don't want it to be entirely traps and monsters, I want there to be puzzles and environmental events as well.
Cathedral allows your clerics/acolytes to shine. Put in Religious puzzles, things like that. Maybe an ancient text needs deciphering that could be assisted by creature's they leave alive or useful skill checks and exploration
If you want to involve some RP / challenges that the players can't simply punch, you could put some sort of challenge that involves some unknown knowledge, but consulting The Expert In Town will help them decipher what the puzzle means
Information or other aid could also be an option. There are also the charms in the DMG (for a side quest with a mystic character of some sort). Always magic items.
@DavidCoffron Yeah. My only deterrent from rewarding with more gear is that some encounters can become unbalanced if they get buffed with too many magical items
@Ben but your player's don't have to know what was in the original encounters. You can always make the encounters more challenging once you know how many side quest rewards they've got (just a bit of scaling). Lets them feel like the quests had an impact due to the rewards, but keeps your encounters challenging
@Rubiksmoose He has enough rep for chat, it might be best to pull him into a chat room to suss out exactly what is causing the intra-party dynamic, etc.
If it still is an issue and stuff I think chat might not be the worst way to try to work them through stuff tomorrow, but not at this time for me at least.
@Ben with the archetypes you chose, the first 2 floors might be a little bland mechanically before the Battlemaster, Arcane Archer, and Monk get their archetypes. As such, you should really try to spice up those floors with as much non-combat or variant combat encounters as possible
Would it not be fantastic to have weather-proof coating
@DavidCoffron Yeah. The first level especially (maybe the second, if I throw some zombies in there) is where the Necromancer has some fun, as they have a "Command Undead" spel' (which works similar to "friends" but only works on Undead)
That is the idea... The first and last encounters I have planned for the undead involve 10 skellies (re-skinned as weak zombies) and 1 actual Zombie, and a boss-skelly with regenerating skellies (only have 1 hp each though)
The mechanics are another thing, but I won't get into it.
The Command Undead spell is a useful tool, rather than an overpowered one in this case
Fair enough. Just being wary. Giving the necromancer a chance to shine in level 1 is fine (and some chances in other levels 2), but if that's the case, I would try to let the other levels give opportunities for the other characters. At level 2, the monk will come into his Ki. Giving opportunities for Step of the Wind or Patient Defense to be used would really improve the appeal of the feature (as more than just a lots of attack feature).
I'm assuming short rests will be available at some points.
Bleak Falls Barrow is a good model for the Catacombs imo (obviously scaled up). Diverse enemies with a common theme. Traps. Exploration. And hard to get to places. The monk can deal with those hard to get too places (maybe for some extra loot) with that extra jump height of his / just a thought.
