In which we discover we're all SUPERHEROES!

     Two weeks ago we completed the "Omelas" quest.  Ending was a little mushy but it hit the players in

Why yes we ARE 1st Level.  Why do you ask?

that sweet spot of not liking, not disliking, discomfort.  An hour of discussion and table talk after the conclusion, which I think is a GOOD thing.  And it'll definitely impact their procedures in the future.  

    Next up was a two location adventure.  The henchlings party has been tasked with liberating a remote keep and then holding it for seven days until a relief column can arrive.  The A team will be leading the column.  This fulfills several goals.  The new kids get to learn to function as a team and earn some XP in a balanced setting.  The A team gets to earn some points for exploring, the players get to keep them involved, and they'll earn a few things to boost their inventory.  

    Sadly our post-Christmas session was cancelled.  As always the GOOD news is that I'm already prepped for NEXT week.  So here's what I'm doing:  I've put together a short (four page) Player's Handbook for my game setting out the (player facing) home brews we use.   Also made a spreadsheet workbook for tracking some stuff that I just am not happy with on almost every character sheet I've ever seen.  Our magic and encumbrance system are the main two.  We'll see how it works at the table soon enough.  Still wanna change up my music usage but I just can't get there.  Next step is to do a DM's Guide for a lot of my mechanics so rather than scurrying around for half a dozen different things as I need them at the table I can have them in one spot.  

    Now, let's talk about the title of this post.  Last session we introduced three new PC's: a half-orc wizard, a human Circle of Spores Druid and a halfling Twilight Cleric.  First level characters.  Had trouble climbing trees and jumping.  And then combat was joined.  The TC started slinging Toll the Dead from range, killing one opponent every round.  The wizards did the same with Fire Bolt.  Druid used healing word but was otherwise a staff swinging whirlwind.  Roughly 1/3 of the bandits holding the keep were slaughtered almost silently at night.  Once they figured out what was going on they stopped charging to their deaths so prying the remainder out of the shell will be tougher.  But the ability of two first level non-martial characters to dispatch over half a dozen bandits with relative ease?  They're all super heroes now.

    Recently blogger Taskerland, in the midst of an exploration of the use of random tables and philosophy did a nice little historical backtrack.  "...D&D had abandoned many of the practices that had emerged in the early years of the hobby and replaced them with a tendency towards writing that was horrible proscriptive in an effort to be a) idiot-proof and b) more epic in scope."

To make matters worse, support for the game aimed at players encouraged the creation of ever-more powerful PCs with ever-more elaborate powers. Meanwhile, support for the game aimed at GMs described these densely-layered and intensely rule-bound social worlds where the PCs spent their entire time being ordered about and manipulated.

    Character creation became a major part of the game.  When I was trying to put my table together I had several people tell me they'd played D&D and it consisted of two hour sitting around a table creating a character.  Not fun.  A Distant Chime touched on this recently as well.  

        Partly as an edition thing (with the increased focus on character-building as an aspect of gameplay), partly as a community thing (with the rise of character-optimization communities, especially on online forums), partly as a business thing (make sure everyone is playing with the published rules, in the published settings, using published adventures, so that they buy our books) the experience of the game for many players has shifted away from the experience of playing at a given table, characterized by a particular DM and players with their own faults and foibles and opinions and houserules, and towards the partly-imagined experience of playing a sort of platonic ideal D&D, where the rules always work as intended and the setting is exactly as published and the game is a regular progression of CR-appropriate combats atop masterful battlemaps. 

    Our friends over at Tao of D&D have written about this as well.  It saddens me.  The progressions seems to be pig farmer -> mage capable of killing people with the wiggle of a finger -> Master of the Universe.  The middle ground doesn't seem to have much to differentiate it.  The gravy might be a bit thicker, the meat a bit better seasoned, but it's still all a fine feast.  No scrambling after scraps, wondering where the next potato might be coming from or whether you might be able to snatch that rutabaga to make it to tomorrow.  

    Not sure where this is/was going but I felt the need to splooge it out.
 

 

 

 

In which we return and ask a big question.

 No show.  At least for me anyway.  Auditions left us half a dozen actors short.  Board beat the bushes and found me a few more but not enough.  I'm not willing to just take whatever wanders in and try to make it work.  So I resigned.  So be it.  Moving on.

When I have game time off I use what WAS prep time to update me trade tables and explore new mechanics.  I I find something I bounce it off the table and then we either adopt it immediately, reject it immediately or play test it for a month.  It was doing some of this exploration that the question popped into my head: at what point does D&D stop being D&D? I've tinkered with home brew and added mechanics for things the game rules (RAW) seem to hand-wave away. Am I still playing D&D?

I reached out to my DM Brain Trust and they offered “when you can no longer drop a character sheet/monster stat block/item from the system without a great deal of rework.” Which isn't bad.  But I'm not sure that's the line.  So I asked ChatGPT.  The crux of its response was "As long as the core elements of storytelling, role-playing, and the collaborative nature of the game are present, you can consider it a form of Dungeons & Dragons." Definitely don't agree with that, but perhaps it could be combined with the brain trust answer to move us closer.  I've floated this question to at least one other prominent DM and await their input.

I've done away with spell slots and components to "clean up" magic use while still imposing costs and decisions.  Use a modified initiative system which the table really likes.  And I'm giving serious consideration to tinkering with the action economy as suggested by The Dungeon Coach and others.   But with every step I wonder if I've take a bridge to far (from the RAW?)

If you're one of the few, the proud, the ones who actually wander by here and read this stuff I'd appreciate your input!

In which we take a break

 Holidays?  Sure.  But I'm also auditioning a show tomorrow and Monday.  TRIED this back in the summertime and failed miserably.  Theater company wants to give it another shot.  Unfortunately that means the holiday spot.  Rehearsals will be interrupted with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years Eve/Day before we get around to opening.  

To be honest I'm less than enthusiastic.  But I committed.  And I'll give it my best shot.  And we'll see what we can come up with.  But it also means a two month break from my table.  The party knew this was coming and I think they're kinda happy they'll have a few "extra" evenings this winter.  When we pick back up we'll have our henchlings joining the party.  Sort of.  I have a plan but I need to bounce it off my DM Support Group to smooth it out.

I'n the meantime, if you ARE a "regular" visitor, go enjoy your next two months and I'll see you in 2024!

In which cults take shape

A few months ago I grabbed a product called Game of Shields from drag-n-drop games which was a "system" to run factions.  Great idea.  Easy to implement.  But had a couple "rules" that made it virtually unimplementable in real life.

So I was a little reluctant to take on another similar product but then I stumbled across Gods, Cults and religions made by Stefano Scordo contact: worldofhyr@gmail.com.  My table is currently in a struggle between two cults whose "ideals" aren't well defined, nor did they NEED to be.  

The stated purpose of this product is to simulate the story of a cult starting from its origins.  With a series of simple ideas, you will be able to decide its evolution over time, to create a cult and see if it survives the course of history or if it is destined to disappear.  It uses a simple deck of 52 cards to provide the randomness and leaves a lot of basic decisions up to you, like dogmas, organization and structure, symbols, art, architecture, rites and practices.

Took me about 20 minutes to design the two cults in question and move them through a few developments which can then be used to motivate and direct them through the flow of this adventure - and beyond if needed.

This small pdf isn't for everyone but I really like the crunch.  It adds some nice flavor easily and helps maintain that verisimilitude that my table appreciates.  No more bland people in gray/black/red robes burning candles around a pentagram for no other apparent reason than that they they're evil.  GOOD cults exist too, y'know.

In which we Enjoy the Funnel cakes!

 It went well.  Settled on the Crypt of Endless Agony (#681 from Elven Tower.)  Did a quick introduction of the characters.  Players started getting vested.  Then they entered the dungeon, encountered a ghoul and the slaughter began.  Shoulda been a two-round win but John kept rolling single digit attacks so it was an early bloodbath.  Set the tone.  

The players then settled in, absorbed the stats, possessions and prior occupation.  Range weapons were used as were makeshift range weapons (apples?!)  Some traps detected, some not.  Turning undead attempted - and failed spectacularly.  Slowly but surely the players did what they do best - gelled as a team.  And the BBG was vanquished and the dungeon was escaped and much coin and treasure was carted out.

Many (several?) fun stories were recounted and then the serious work of character creation began.  Roll 6d6 in order.  1-3 give +1 to the ability, 4-6 gives +2.  I also allowed players to swap one high for a low.  Also kept the requirement that an exceptional total must exist for at least two stats, with one being at least 15 and the other being at least 16. It’s enough if a player has one gifted stat, a minimum of 17, instead. Kris's charlatan had some crappy numbers but we bumped the two highest to meet the standard and she was good to go.  

John is already well on his way with Jutorious Bottomflagon his half orc wizard.  Kris's former charlatan is leaning toward rogue and I'm thinking would make a good Mastermind.  Charles?  Leaning toward druid or may take cleric.  Either way he'll be an asset to the party.  Not much muscle here but a lot of everything else.  I've run John through the background generator and it's provided several interesting backstory questions.  He had a fraternal twin die at 6.  How?  He has advantage vs poison.  Why?  He was given two potions.  One healing.  The other is his choice, as is who gave it to him and why.  He was "assigned" his three cantrips but selected one in the funnel.  His spellbook also has Magic Missile and he'll select the other one.  Will be interesting to see how he interacts with Dakora.  

Equipment?  Basic needs, PLUS the stuff picked up in the funnel, PLUS a 3d6 die roll here.

A nice inscription in the spell book - a gift from his mentor (provided by ChatGPS).  And John's well on his way.  I use my mechanics to make a good fit.  John gets a crap-ton of choices and meaningful questions to direct his backstory.  One down.  Two to go!

In which we partake of Funnel Cakes!

 

Party is about to be all 5th level at which point they have some options.  They may retire the character completely (making them a major NPC in the area, settling down and still giving the character some limited involvement,) kill them off completely, or roll another character to be a follower (and a fallback if the more advanced character dies.)  Been running a version of this the last few years and the party seems to enjoy it.  They even started talking about it when they hit 4th, knowing it was around the corner.

In the past we simply rolled the character up as usual and introduced them via story lines and plot hooks.  Gonna try something different this time, with full buy-in from the party.  A funnel, as popularized (?) by the good folks at Goodman Games who gave us Dungeon Crawl Classics, with some additional bells and whistles.  I've spent the last few days reading available professional products and trying my hand at developing one or two.  Still not sure which I'll use but it's gotta be GOOD because I want it to be a hit.  

Going to use HanClinto's generator to crank out 25 or so PCs.  I'll have 3-4 players and am thinking 4-5 PC's per.  Should have a few left over to fill in as needed.  Looking fwd to my players getting creative with the limited inventory provided.  Also using an optional rule from Ten Red Crows to allow PC's with INT or WIS of 15 or greater to gain the ability to cast the Uninitiated Magic cantrip.  Because the characters are at level 0, the spell attack modifier will be only the ability score modifier to which the
magic is tied: no proficiency bonus is allowed.  They can create a small glowing bolt of energy and hurl it at their enemies. Make a ranged spell attack. On a hit they'll do 1d4 force damage.

AFTER the funnel the player will take one of their survivors and promote them to a Level 1 character.  They'll roll 1d6 for each ability and increase that ability by either 1 (1-3) or 2 (4-6.)  Skills, proficiencies, languages and equipment will be determined similar to our initial character build.  Giving serious consideration to using these tables to see what happens.  Since I'll be doing this away from table I can probably experiment to see which give us what I think is the best build.  Hopefully the players will rely on the funnel to lean into their backstories.

As an aside I have an interesting plan for introducing the noobs to the party.  I'll post if it works.

In which we get dressed

 OK, y'all know I like some picky grit (grit pickin'?) in my game.  And weather.  And economics.  And that my econ system is being reworked.  So I finally got around to updating my textiles, cloth and clothing production.  Alexis has over a dozen posts on clothing (sadly no longer with comments, some of which were quite helpful.)  And I had begun the task of meshing the clothes and weather systems but several steps remained undone.

No longer.

Weather.  Every population area has a weather system based on latitude, altitude and biome.  This spits out a daily temp range, precipitation, condition and wind speed.  The temp ranges are broken into 10 degree steps and each "step" has a clothing "requirement."

Clothing.  The two prime concerns are thickness and weight.  It takes about 4.5 pounds of material to provide basic coverage.  Every 1.5 pounds provides an additional 10 degrees of "warmth."  When it's pleasant the 4.5 mark is sufficient.  As it gets warmer or colder the party needs to increase/decrease what they're wearing.

An outfit of common clothes (homespun hemp) weighs in at 4.6 pounds and covers the basics.  Traveling clothes are made of linen which is not as heavy material but is made thicker, so 10 pounds which means it's good down another 35 degrees!  Wool socks.  Great hooded cloak.  Mittens.  Now you're getting down below freezing.   It's late spring though and heat is getting to be a factor.  Common clothes.  But even then a failed CON save can result in exhaustion, and that adds up.  And wearing ARMOR while traipsing around the countryside just adds to the problem!  Leather armor adds 8# right off the bat!  

So now part of my session prep will include evaluation clothing/armor worn as it relates to upcoming weather so I can advise the party of the choices they'll need to make.   And choices make the game!

In Which We Cobble Together a Frankenventure

 Here then, with links to almost all the tools used, I how I assembled the parties current little decampment.  A few months back they observed that there wasn't enough going on during overland travel.  "Aside from the two caravans a day you met and allowed to roll placidly on by?  How many plot hooks you think each of 'em was carryin'?"

But they did have a bit of a point.  My random encounter tables weren't enough to support the massive undertaking.  So let's go the hexcrawl route.  Fill those random hexes with temples and caves and mysteries.  So I turned to the good folks at Infinium Game Studio and their Hexcrawl Toolkit.  Allowed me to quickly populate the area surrounding the journey.  Done with step 1.

So I ended up with, among other things, a small settlement thorp north of the next settlement.  The BASE of the current campaign is 700 Lordly Houses from Worldspinner.   Every populated area is under the control of SOME lordly house and I'd already plopped House Willow into the thorp.  It has a couple built in story lines but nothing I wanted to activate just yet. The larger area is run by House Ferrante who control most of the iron production in the region.  Seems like they'd be in conflict.  So much for Step 2.

Next we dial up ChatGPT. A handful of prompts later and we had a mystical hill topped by a temple over which the two families fight.  These then are the ChatGPT results I capitalized on:  "Atop the hill, a shrine dedicated to a deity associated with craftsmanship and cosmic balance stands as a testament to the hill's significance. Both families lay claim to the shrine, each interpreting its significance differently. The Ironhearts see the deity as a protector of their craft, while the Stellarglades believe the deity's presence embodies the cosmic harmony they venerate.  Artifacts of Unity: The shrine holds a set of artifacts that, when reunited, have the power to mend the rift between the families and restore the hill's harmony.  My imagination then created the Anvil of Unity, the Heart of Iron (exactly what it sounds like) and the Willow Nexus (a marble representation of a willow tree.)  Step 3 completed.

Didn't wanna make this TOO hard.  The Lady of House Willow entreated the party to locate and return the two missing artifacts.  A visit to the temple revealed clues.  The phrase "as below, so above" was linked to the Heart of Iron, and the willow was linked to The Eternal Garden", about whom the party had heard rumors (quite simply as filler conversation at a tavern.)  Elven Tower had recently released Corvinus Family Crypt.  Change the name, shove that puppy under the temple, give the Heart of Iron to the BBG.  Voila.  Half done!  And this is as far as has been played.  I DID use the Underclock to decent effect.  The Shadowing Event hit a VERY good time for the narrative but the actual encounter turned out to be a tad ... anticlimactic.  Not every one can be a home run.

The party spent the rest of the day at the temple in a driving rain.  A short rest for a reasonable recovery.  The PLAN is to go back to Weshesony, do a little research (which will likely consist of asking some randome passer-by what the know about the Eternal Garden) followed by the trip TO the EG.  

The aforementioned Hexcrawl Toolkit suggests using their random dungeon generator to assemble the garden pathways.  Didn't appeal to me.  So I thought I'd turn to a tool that has stood me in good stead on several occasions and lends itself to the concept of this shifting malevolent garden:  Carapace from The Goblin's Henchman.

So I'll put together a RE table, escalating as the party gets closer to the goal.  Modify the rules just a tad, use the Underclock, rolling at each hex ... incorporating ALL of the stuff.  The Willow is at the "center" of the complex, so it's a "get in and get out" as quickly as possible.  The party can find clues to ease their task either in town or within the Garden.  

Once BOTH items are returned to their rightful place in the temple the families negotiate an accord which improves both.  The party is rewarded  with some interesting stuff via The DM Lair which presents a slew of interesting alternatives to the old "gold and magic items" tropes. In this case they've been wanting a way to ease/speed travel.  A pony, 2-wheeled cart and harness are bestowed.  This stuff is worth about 3-400 gp here.  The Ranger can handle the cart and pony.   Six resources?  Seven?  All knit together to make a VERY nice three session adventure.

In Which We Munch on Crunch

 Recently started reading the posts from A Knight at the Opera.  They've had a couple pretty good posts on crunch lately.  Well, not lately.  This one was back in 2021.  And this one last month.  Both of reasonable length but both good treatments of the topic.  

Y'all know I likes me some crunch.  But I like crunch for a reason.  And I like crunch on MY side of the screen.  Player facing crunch adds to the cognitive load and detracts from overall game play.  So if I add a bit of crunch for the players it's gotta be worth the walk.*  If I can add it to MY work load and it improves the game then I'm usually not even gonna question it.  Players don't usually even hafta know it's there!

And so it is with my newest concoction.  A year or so ago I experimented with The Angry GM's Tension Pool.  It worked OK but we weren't spending enough time crawling for it to matter so it slipped silently into thecloud of good intentions.  Then last month I discovered The Underclock.  And THIS I will implement.  Started last week.  As the party entered the dungeon I meticulously placed a d20 on the map with the "20" facing up.  All action ceased.  Dakora gave me the side-eye and said, quietly, "I hate it when you do stuff like that."  They got it down to 14 before the end of the session.  We'll see how Tuesday night goes.  Don't think I like it for overland travel, nor for urban exploring but it has definitely seemed to sharpen up their attention underground.

Pile this on top of my insanity rules,  spell slot rules and focus vs component rules and the crunch is all easy on the players but adds to the gameplay and decision making.  Do I risk madness to get this spell off?  Do I upcast a spell at the risk of losing it for 24 hours or more?  Do we keep making progress or fall back to that nice spot on the trail that offered the promise of a long rest (which is quite a commodity in our game.)  Cheese that CRunch!

Side story from last session.  Party is trying to elicit help from a local noble.  Their selling point was "we like to travel village to village doing good deeds."  The Lady inquired "what was your last one?"  What followed was about two minutes of backtracking through previous of adventures, NONE of which really involved "good deeds."

*Lengthy aside.  Back when I worked as a summer camp counselor I was usually in charge of our "special programing": opening and closing ceremonies, vespers, flag raising and lowering.  That kind of thing.  I enjoyed finding alternative sights for these.  And our campers usually appreciated the variety IF it made sense.  Had an aide once recommend using a sight that was a 15 minute walk from our home base.  For a five minute ceremony.  I nixed it and said the location had to be "worth the walk."  It had to be worth the half hour of evening rec time the campers would be giving up to get there.  And after that "making it worth the walk" became sort of our mantra.

In which we randomly encounter ... stuff.

 I've never been a fan of so-called "random encounters."  Other people's tables never seemed to fit.  Timing was awkward.  They could be disruptive.  A LOT of that was just my weakness as a DM.  So I limited my usage of them.  I'm finally getting them cleaned up and functional in my wilderness travel to the point where they actually add to the adventure.  But my dungeon crawl "game" isn't there yet.

A few years ago I tried to implement Angry GM's tension pool.  TLDNR:    Take one small
bowl and six d6.  Add a die to the bowl every time the party takes a 'time consuming action.'  When the players do something reckless OR the sixth die goes in, roll the pool. If there's a "1" there's a "complication."  Worked OK.  Players noticed when a d6 got added.  It contributed to the tension.  But I never got the hang of it so it slipped away.

But today I was wowed by a "new" mechanic from Goblin Punch:  The Underclock.  TLDNR:  Set a counter to 20.  Roll a d6 whenever the players "take time."  Reduce the 20 by the amount of the roll.  When it goes below 0: Encounter.  There's more and I think I'm gonna implement it at my table this week to see how it goes.

So here's what provokes a roll:  exploring a new area, passing through 3 explored areas, multiple skill checks in the same area, making noise, and taking a short rest.  If the counter goes BELOW 0: encounter.  If it goes to 0 exactly there's a shadowing event and it resets to 3.  If it lands on 3 exactly there's a shadowing event.  The link about provides a lot of the math.  

Goblin Punch suggests exploding dice on the rolls and increasing the size of the dice after a rest (reflecting increased attention.)  I'm rarely crazy about exploding dice but I like the increasing size thing.  So Imma combine them.  I'll start with a d4.  Roll max amount the there's a step up AND a reroll.  Also an increase after a rest.  

So there it is.  Not sure when this party goes underground again but this gets thrown into the mix at the soonest opportunity.

 

In which we kick back a little

 After a flurry of posts & comments in early August I've quieted down a bit.  Back to school and all that.  But two writers I follow recently posted related thoughts so I thought I'd just kick back and link to them.  Alexis posted Hits & Misses.  He's changing up his writing flow a bit but the product is almost always worth the visit.  Meanwhile over at Merrick's Musings we get Indifferent Scenarios, Good Friends.

Both of these writers address the fact that every session is NOT a Maserati. But learning occurs.  And growth.  And friendship.  

My table didn't  play last week.  J just had surgery (successful - we'll be gaming around his rehab starting next week,) C is on family vacation in the Caribbean, and G just got cast in a show so is in rehearsals.  We should have a quorum again by Tuesday.  I realized that in my advanced aged and in these apocalyptic times my appeal has become more selective.  My group is made up of four people.  All of them are or were in my FFL.  Three of the four I played poker with regularly in the Before Times.  Two of the four have done theater with me.  And the thumb we found online - a post on D&D Beyond looking for another player.  And he's become a friend to us all.  And we've had two other players who shared a subculture with one of our current party and I.  With the exception of the Beyond find we ALL know each other through other strong socializing ties.  Yet we get together once a week (most weeks) and play at pretend elves.  

The session isn't always great.  Sometimes the scenario lags.  Homer nods.  The game isn't worth the candle.  But the friendship?  The growth?  The socializing?  It is ALWAYS worth the trip.

In which we open up the books

It was recently suggested that I write up more details on my trade system. Since I spent a chunk of the last week writing up my procedures for handling travel it seemed like a natural next step. I'm going to skip all of the world building that went into the base of the system although another polite request might get a thousand words on that as well.

So the world exists. Raw materials exist. In places. Limited by biome, rainfall, manpower, altitude and a few other geographical factors. The OTHER thing that exists is my spreadsheet(s.) Before we begin I need to credit my inspiration, Alexis Smolensk. I return to his material daily for guidance and inspiration. A dozen other writers provided insight, ideas and inspiration: for h in hexes , Red Ragged Fiend and others you'll find over there in Appendix N.

Just realized I have NO idea where to start. So I'll send you back to Alexis's. That's a rough starting point for the travel stuff. We then use THAT table to calculate how far each and every shipping point is from “Our Town.” Divide the amount of something that's produced “far away” from the distance and you get a number reflecting how much of any given item is available here. He uses the example of elephants from Burma to Norway. That's 300 units of travel. His math further determines that 144.55 of the beasts are available in Norway. That's the number of elephants moving through this town of 2,500 in a year. Or COULD be, if anybody wanted to ship pachyderms through Norway.

All of that is pretty much a straight adaptation of Alexis' with a few corners cut. I then do the same thing with “Storefronts.” Manufacturers. Trade people. People who convert raw materials into stuff … and the people who convert that stuff into other stuff, etc., until it ends up in the PC's backpack. Short version: Cow to stockyard to butcher to tanner to leather worker to armorer to Ranger as leather armor. Or sheep to shearer to spinner to weaver to tailor to Druid as that sweater to weather this winter's long journey. By using the same formulas for Storefronts as for Raw Materials I can generate another decent number to calculate finished goods reflecting the rarity and difficulty of the labor which goes into it.

The question that was bugging me was what are the caravans hauling into and out of a given place. Here's what I'm testing. Spreadsheet. Column 1: all raw materials. Column 2: Amount of each resource in “Our Town.” This represents what is produced locally AND can be shipped in. Column 3: amount of resource produced locally. Anything with more than .25 units produced is considered for export. (This may change in future iterations as it's a work in progress.) Column 4 is Column 2 less column 3 (total available less locally produced.) Another way to phrase it is amount available for importation. If it qualifies for export I won't import it and if there's less than .25 units for importation it's rare enough that it rarely gets here. I take what's LEFT and look for what's most available, by type. I consider the three most prevalent types of timber. Our current location imports maple (used for handles), chestnut (utensils, tools and furniture), linden (furniture), and yew (sometimes art but in this case, bows.) We export iron ore but have to import clay, salt and construction stone (hence why most homes are wood.) Livestock? We export hogs, ponies (!), freshwater fish, and chickens. We import sheep (for wool) and saltwater fish (salted of course.) Carrots and turnips come in as well. Using the same system I can tell you the woods are full of moose and elk, along with fox for a good trapper.

But it was at this step that I hit a wall. Shelby and I discussed this almost a year ago when considering rarity and availability. I'm omitting a lot of the reasoning that went into the following tweaks. In short, in order for later stage production to occur the inputs must exist. Let's make a pair of cowhide shoes. In our current location there are plenty of cows. A butcher (or tanner) needs to separate the hide. The tanner tans it (turning it into finished leather.) It can then go to a leather worker or a cobbler. Cobbler turns it into shoes and we're done. But without a tanner, there's a problem. Why would a cobbler exist in a village with hides, but no tanner? Potential solutions: a) make existence of a cobbler dependent on existence of a tanner. b) allow for “fractional tanning” via cottage industry in small locales . c) admit this is a bridge to far and hand wave it away. Hate C. Increasing number of tanners lowers cost of their labor. Decreasing number of cobblers increases the cost of shoes. Much of our math so far is based on “support population.” But perhaps rather than just looking at how much population it takes to support one tradesman we should (also) be looking at how many lower level tradesmen it takes to support a later stage. A little back of the envelope math indicates that (roughly) one tanner can support eight cobblers. So I rewrote the formula. Calculate tanners. Calculate cobblers. If “cobblers*7” > tanners, cobblers equal tanners. If C*7<tanners the cobblers equal cobblers. CAN have tanners w/o cobblers. As I find similar occurrences I'll use a similar corrective. Not going to chase them down.

Note:  When calculating the cost of a manufactured item we take the cost of the raw materials divided by a labor factor and add the  cost of raw materials again (A/B)+A.  The labor factor is the cube root of the available references. 

As we approach a thousand words I'll end this lengthy (for me) post. PLEASE ask any questions. I'll gladly fill in any gaps I've left, and I've left quite a few.   

In which we experience FOMO

 For those of you closer to MY age FOMO is "Fear of Missing Out."  It's a thing.  Not going on a rant here (although I could) but rather sharing a bit of a table story.  Party has set off on the road "south" looking for adventure.  A few random encounters.  A few interesting sights/landmarks.  And one of the players sez "I wonder what's happening in Brethamney?"  They left the small town a couple months (IRL) ago (maybe a week in game time) with some unresolved issues, most notably the Wood Elf refugee problem and the growing blighted forest.  The expression of FOMO means I'm doing something right.  They cared about the village and the growing threat/problem.  Which means I can keep escalating the Fronts there and allow the PCs to hear rumors of what's going on as they're on the road.  And THAT makes this "garden game" work.   I feel like I can pull 'em back there any time I want without  railroading.

In other news, here's what I have going on outside of basic sesion prep:

1.  My NTME system crashed a couple weeks back so it's being rebuilt.  Personally I HATE working on just one aspect for a prolonged period of time.  I get cranky.  I start cutting corners, getting sloppy and resort to hand-waving.  So I just do one or two entries on a handful of things so as not to lose the edge.

2.  Do one step on my storefront table (calculating how many of each shop are in each market town (over 150 globally.)  

3.  Rebuild one storefront (which determines what's available from a merchant along with its cost.)  Last night I did fletchers, bowyers and armorers.  One issue here is that many of these are interdependent so I leave notes for things I need to add/re-evaluate.  Really need to hit the textiles chain: from raw material to thread, cloth, yarn, clothing.  Kinda important and far-reaching.

4.  Found a nice article on random generation of caravans.  Have been VERY disappointed with my random encounter tables in this regard.  They don't really reflect road travel well.  Rather than rebuild them for that purpose I've decided that unless my table gives me a GREAT encounter I'll make it a caravan, and use THIS generator to design it.  

5.  All of the above are related to the import/export question and I'm working on "designing" the math to determine what's coming in and going out of a given market.  So far so good but there's a LOT of "formula writing" issues.  

6.  I've had the hex crawl data for MOST of the trip the party is currently on but I need to do three-horizons prep for the new destination.  AND the new destination.  The city, layout, power structure, and the beginnings of Fronts.

7.  Also noticed I need to prep random encounters more.  Was very disappointed with my play of combat encounters on the road.  Solution?  Have one in my pocket!  So part of weekly prep is now spending some time to build a GOOD encounter at the deadly, easy and in-between level.  As an offshoot I need to prep the encounters suggested by the current encounter table so they're ready to go when they come up.  Viva la spreadsheet.

That's pretty much where we are.  PCs will be jumping to 4th level soon with all of the fun THAT entails.  Then at 5th they'll make "The Choice."  They create new characters.  We'll either do the traditional random roll, OR a Lvl 0 funnel OR maybe even a point crawl.  Old characters may be retired ("settle down") or kept active.  New characters may EITHER be tied to the existing party (the B team) OR plugged in to their own campaign somewhere else. 

In which the DM smiles

     Our last session was roughly the 10th in the new campaign.  Party had decided to hit the road.  After exploring a mysterious keep, with the aid of a mysterious stranger, they headed for "the crossroads," a caravanserai.  There they were hired as night watchmen to try to catch/kill an unidentified "monster in the woods."  I thought this was a one-night adventure but it turned into three.  PART of that is because 80% of us play in the same FFL and it's a busy time of year so a LOT of off-topic convos.  But still!  

    The OTHER reason it took so long was because of player agency.  On several occasions throughout the story they reached decision points and took .... creative paths.  They DID uncover the monster, reveal the twist, bring the true miscreants "to justice."  And then left town.  Had they been able to tie the wrong-doers to their higher-up the caravanserai would've rewarded them with a pony and a wagon - something they can definitely use and have been asking about (and can only just barely afford.)  <edit to add> I would note that there was some questionable writing in the otherwise good product I pulled the adventure from.  Too much RR and not enough SB.  Thankfully The Alexandrian has taught me well about the three clue rule, so I was able to "add" undiscovered clues in a couple more areas to smooth the road.  Better writing could have eliminated this necessity.   

    So why the smile?  At the session conclusion there was MUCH discussion over their new-found freedom and agency.  There was SOME last campaign but this time around I've listened, forced myself not to over-plot, and let them go.  They THINK they're being naughty murder hobos.  They DID kill two people on the way into the first village and the rest of the Night Watch given the opportunity.  In reality, ALL of the death sentences were meted out to the local equivalent of the Thieves Guild, unbeknownst to our heroes.  So THEY think they've been given a crap-ton of agency (which they have) and I've been able to to run fronts, short form adventures and random encounters that meet their needs.   There's a blighted forest spreading.  There's a green dragon keeping an eye on them.  They're learning of the Noble Houses which run the realm (and learning that perhaps there ARE no good guys.)  

    Also on the up-side I'm incorporating some of the journey techniques from Adventures in Middle Earth and using the hex crawl techniques from the good folks at Infinium to improve long travel and exploration.  "Lonely fun" as we used to call it.  And we're gonna try to bring back Skill Challenges from 4e!  ChatGPT is your FRIEND!  I'm currently using it to generate NPC's (using the GreatGameMaster's OGAS technique,) fix formula problems in my extensive spreadsheets, design the aforementioned Skill Challenges, select actions and grim portents for Fronts, write short adventures(!), and management of climate and weather. 

    On the DOWN side my hand has been forced on upgrading to NTME23.  I moved all three base files into the same folder and instantly fouled up/destroyed all of the links.  Think I have enough into to run Tuesday's session but there will be some intensive work to get it all reconnected.  ONE document.  Some new raw materials.  Storefront calculator incorporated.  Manufacturing pages cleaned up to be made a bit more uniform.  And an attempt at an "easily" updatable shopping list.

In which we ask "How big is a dragon scale?"

 I've spent the last two days researching limpets, komodo dragons, fish, snakes, pangolins, gators, armadillos, bones, goethite, keratin and a crap ton of physics and geometry.  And dragons.

Weeks ago my party found a "dragon scale" in a plundered abbey.  It was meant to clue them in as to the presence of a dragon in the area.  A plot hook.  They ignored it which was fine of course.  Days later they briefly encountered a wyrmling in a dark forest in the rain.  As the dragon withdrew they noted it was missing a couple scales.  And in our most recent session they considered using the scale to further the ruse of "there's a dragon in the woods" (see prior post.)  I questioned whether they had TAKEN it.  They said they did.  I said I didn't remember, but I'm willing to allow it.

Jump to my post-session review.  I need to update Aerialayna's inventory to reflect that she's carrying the scale.  So how big is it?  How much does it weight?  The interwebs and ChatGPT had no (valid) answers.  "It depends" was a common response which is fine if it's followed up on.  

Most of the attempts at answers failed on SOME level.  Usually too heavy.  Reason?  Virtually every animal we know of is in the 3%-5% range of "hide" to total weight.  Notable exceptions are armadillos (15%) and turtles (50%.)  I'm happy to go with that 15% figure for our dragon.  A wyrmling is a medium creature which means it will max out at 500 pounds.  So the dragon would have 75# of scales.  So the dominant answers found online (usually somewhere between 20 and 50 pounds) means our wyrmling would have FOUR scales.  No.  Just no.  

So if a satisfactory answer doesn't exist I need to create one.  Not gonna bore you with all of my leaps and dead ends but I will include some assumptions.  Rules:  Dragons range from medium to gargantuan.  Assumption: scales are bigger on bigger dragons.  Using some of the critters mentioned above we can assign diameters of 6, 9, 13 and 25 inches.  To simplify the match we're going to use round/cylindrical disc scales.  And we're going to make the scales bone as opposed to keratin or goethite, for size purposes.  Next assumption - the body surface of a dragon covered by scales is similar to the amount of usable  hide from a cow (sq footage equal to .05% of its weight.) Final assumption: scales overlap so they'll only cover "half of their size."

Now lets take a look at our 500 pound wyrmling.  It will have 75 pounds of scales covering 30 square feet.  Scales have a 6" diameter.  Each will cover 14 square inches.  It will take 300+ scales to cover the dragon.  Each scale would weigh about 4 ounces.  Jumping the gun: ancient dragon scales would weigh over 4 pounds!  All of the scales would be .1298 inches thick (1/8.)

Young dragon: Large, 4k#, 240 square feet, 9" diameter, covering 32 sq inches each.  Just under 1,100 scales, weighing 9 ounces each.

Adult dragon:  Huge.  16 tons.  1,920 square feet.  13" diameter, covering 66 sq inches each.  Just over 4,100 scales weighing 18 ounces each. 

Ancient dragon:  Gargantuan.125 tons.  1,667 square YARDS.  25" diameter, covering 1.7 square FEET each.  Almost 9,000 scales weighing 4 1/4 POUNDS each.    

I think I can live with this!!!!

In which we make a dragon

 Haven't done session notes for a while but last night's was ... memorable.

Party was hired to pursue some poachers.  Poachers were going to reach target before the party could intervene.  Quick thinking was needed.  "Let's make a dragon" sez Dakora (the wizard) iirc.  I went for a beverage and by the time I got back the plan had been hatched.  Dakora would cast the minor illusion of a dragon's roar.  Terestan (sorcerer) and Aerialayna (elf) would each cast mage hand and use them to shake the top leaves of the trees.  Kirkus (ranger) would lead the charge, urging the poachers to run for their lives as there's a dragon attacking.  A handful of skill checks later and all were running for the city gate.  

Upon reaching the city gate our brave party reported to the watch captain that nothing happened and the other party (poachers) must have been drinking.  The ruse was successful.  Last night.  But it won't work again and they'll need a new, better plan since the poachers likely know the party is on to them.

Film at 11.

In other news I watched Luke's video on "Ten signs something is wrong with your game."  Over half of them apply to us but it's because we're friends who play D&D, not a D&D group who are friends.  Jus' sayin'.

In which we try to catch some shut-eye.

 Not gonna add this to my current campaign but you can bet it'll be part of the NEXT one!

Per Xanthar's: 

Sleeping in light armor has no adverse effect on the wearer, but sleeping in medium or heavy armor makes it difficult to recover fully during a long rest.

When you finish a long rest during which you slept in medium or heavy armor, you regain only one quarter of your spent Hit Dice (minimum of one die). If you have any levels of exhaustion, the rest doesn’t reduce your exhaustion level.

OK.  So we'll use this.  Gotta skin outta that medium/heavy armor to get the full benefit of a long rest.  FWIW Elves don't sleep.  They trance, so no effect.  Game-wise it makes those late-night surprise attacks a little more troublesome.  As a player just make it the rule that if you're exhausted and/or have lost more than 1 HD of damage, you need to be comfy! 

So what if you DON'T get a long rest?  I'm a bit skint when it comes to allowing them, so this might be hard on my parties.  I'll need to be aware of this.  IF you go 24 hours without a long rest you need to make a CON check at DC 10 or take a level of exhaustion.  The DC increases by 5 every additional 24 hours.  Result:  going 24 hours is doable.  Making that first roll isn't bad.  But when you go 48 the DC is 15.  Fail THAT and you take a lvl of exhaustion so the NEXT roll (72 hours) is at DC 20 and -1.  Now you're in a death spiral.  Four days is at DC 25 and likely -2.

Some nice plot points can come out of this.  The elf in the party scurrying to find a suitable resting place (!?) for the fragile humans, etc.  Perhaps the exhaustion from lack of sleep doesn't lead to death but rather a coma-like state.  Out for 24 hours under any circumstances reduces exhaustion by 1 lvl, alowing the struggle to continue

In which we visit the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker

As usual Alexis started it.  Still noodling the numbers on wages.  Figure something might gel by Labor Day.  In the meantime it provoked me to revisit one factor of the trade system I've never been comfortable with.  for h in hexes and I have been "corresponding" about our approaches to the mechanic.  He's a coder.  I'm a spreadsheet guy.  But we benefit from comparing notes.

To recap:  each settlement in the world produces things, dependent on size and location.  These things are disbursed over the planet based on distance from the source.  These resources can then be acted upon by those with the proper skills to make secondary (or tertiary, etc) products.  At each step the craftsman impacts the cost of the finished product.  This impact is determined by a factor, somewhere between .5 and 2 (?.)  The factor CAN be assigned to achieve whatever price range is desired for the product but that seems arbitrary.  

I had already adopted a system for deciding what businesses existed in a city, based on it's population, using MDME.  Why not plot the businesses for EVERY settlement, then determine how much impact they have on neighboring villages using the trade table.  The numbers the raw system gave me were WAY too large, but using the quad root proved to be ideal (so far.)  More testing to follow.

End result: the cost of anything you wanna buy is determined by the cost of raw materials, cost of the skilled tradesman to convert them, and the distance both of THOSE are from the purchaser.  As a general rule no settlement deals in anything that costs more than 1 gp per 10 pop (so 10%.)  So I can keep the shopping lists limited in small or out of the way locations.  Rarity creates conflict.  Conflict creates plot hooks.

In which we examine "The Promise."

Back in late May the Spriggan's Den wrote a very nice post entitled Making RPGs live up to their promise.  I let it simmer more a month and while I don't have a lot to add to the good parts I thought I'd make a somewhat responsive post to address some of the points raised.

The author begins by observing that 

"When anyone first tells new people about roleplaying games and what makes them such a cool activity, it’s nearly always about how you can play characters who are free to do anything and go anywhere, and how your choices create a unique story as the GM has the NPCs and the world react naturally and logically to whatever you can come up with. This is the promise that RPGs make to players, and I think that we all should expect these from any campaigns we play and don’t accept any campaign that doesn’t. Because what’s the point of all of it then anyway??

 So there's the premise (or rather, promise) of the article.  Why is this so often NOT so.  And can we MAKE it so?

 The author's next point was that there was a lot of "do not do these things" advice and it GREATLY outweighs the "do these things" advice.  Boy howdy.  Because the "dndtt" advice applies to virtually ALL tables while the "dtt" advice can be VERY table specific.  The last few months I've started spending WAY to much time on YouTube WATCHING this advice.  There are content creators I NEVER have to watch again.  There are others that I rewatch on the reg.  And there are some that I wonder "what the hell are they even doing on the inter-webs?"  They seems to be clowns, playing D&D.  And their game is terrible.  But for THEM?  They love it. And I'm sure their viewers do.  But if 95% of the DM's out there are watching it there is a serious Cargo Cult problem.

We then proceed to a series of premises.

#1.  The player  characters are the protagonists.  Well .... yes.  But as the author observes in published adventures the PC's are essentially henchmen, helping the king save his kingdom or the princess or whatever they're supposed to be saving.  And who wants to play a henchman? 

#2.  The players decide what the characters do.  But in most railroad games the players DO decide what to do but it's a decision without a difference.  The decision's players are given aren't driving the story.  They're deciding whether take the high road to the demon's cave or the low road.  Again: a problem with most published adventures.  

#3.  Players decide where the players go.  Short answer: so long as it's in the 24 pages of the published adventure.  And the author recognizes that as well.  Riding off into the night abandoning the demon-plagued village to its own devices MUST be an option.

#4 Players decide who they side with or against.  Don't like the quest giver?  Awesome.  Go join the other side!  As the DM - present the world.  Let it unfold.  And let the players decide which side of the fold they take.

#5.  The players decide which causes to pick up.  I've been through this recently in my game.  The party decided to let the wood elf war refugees fend for themselves and to let the blighted forest spread unabated.  They're headed west to The Crossroads to see what else is "out there."  And "out there" there's a whole social structure with people and groups who have a wide range of goals and drives.  And this was AFTER they took a stab at setting up a protection racket.  

#6.  They player characters are the champions of their cause.  See #1 above.  

#7.  The Antagonists of the Story are within the PC's means to challenge.  As the author observes, think Seven Samurai.  

It’s set in a world of constant civil wars with raiding armies and roaming bandits destroying and plundering all the villages they come across. There is a tale happening somewhere in that world about one warlord rising to the top, defeating and subjugating all the other warlords, and establishing a strong state that cracks down on the bandit problem. But The Seven Samurai is not that story. The heroes of that story do not have fight and defeat all the warlords and their armies to be victorious. They are just seven samurai with no resources and there is no way for them to win the civil war for the control over all of Japan. But that is not their story. Their story is about destroying a gang of some 30 bandits raiding a single unprotected village. This is a threat that the seven samurai are perfectly able to deal with and win against. Great warlords and their armies exist in this world, but they are not the antagonists of the story.  

Not sure I'm as married to this one as the others but it DOES make for a great campaign.  And it doesn't always have to be about saving the world.  Sometimes it's just about beating the Urbania Cowboys.  

#8.  Failure is always an option.  Failure reinforces that each eventual success was NOT a given but rather was the result of their own hard work.  

#9.  False conclusions are the fault of the players.  Or SHOULD be, if the DM is doing their job.  

I also left a comment at Spriggan's.  We'll see what discussion ensues.
 

In which we examine the Ranger

 and the druid and survival.  Kinda links in with my last few posts and recent all-too-brief discussions with The Boy.  Part of the initial observation was that MOST classes are identified by the neat thing they can do.  The Ranger, at many tables, is identified by the "boring" thing you no longer HAVE to do.

I take a "different" view of what a Ranger is/does than many tables, because I can read (!)  From D&D Beyond: 

Warriors of the wilderness, rangers specialize in hunting the monsters that threaten the edges of civilization—humanoid raiders, rampaging beasts and monstrosities, terrible giants, and deadly dragons. They learn to track their quarry as a predator does, moving stealthily through the wilds and hiding themselves in brush and rubble. Rangers focus their combat training on techniques that are particularly useful against their specific favored foes.

Thanks to their familiarity with the wilds, rangers acquire the ability to cast spells that harness nature’s power, much as a druid does. Their spells, like their combat abilities, emphasize speed, stealth, and the hunt. A ranger’s talents and abilities are honed with deadly focus on the grim task of protecting the borderlands.

For most parties the Ranger is wilderness travel plot armor.  It finds water, forages, hunts and builds shelters, protecting the party as it treks over the mountains, through the woods, along the edge of the veldt and across the desert.  But why?  NONE of those capabilities are granted in the preceding paragraph.  You get one type of creature you can "hunt" well.  And you get certain benefits in one type of biome.  Again, relying on Beyond, it may now travel faster, not get lost or surprised, garner double the food when foraging and detect number and time passed when tracking.  When NOT in their chosen biome these benefits do NOT accrue.  Three days w/o water?  Party is dead.  One day?  Levels of exhaustion set in and further searching rolled at disadvantage.  RAW require one pound of food per day.  Balderdash.  A half orc wearing plate and fighting would need over four TIMES that amount to maintain 100% efficacy. 

So what DO we do?  As is often the case I've gone down the Alexis rabbit hole.  We don't use "feats" but we DO rely on "sage abilities."  Under that system a ranger obtains knowledge in Wilderland (which I match with the players chosen biome.)  Within this biome familiarity the Rangers gains expertise in such things as identifying clean water, locating water, foraging, and all that other Rangery stuff.  Mechanics.  Crunch.  Worldbuilding.  None of this one die roll and feed the party regardless of where you are or what time of year it is.  As per usual I've set the whole thing up on a spreadsheet.  An untrained forager MIGHT find 1/2 a pound of food per day.  And it takes time.  We divide the amount of food found by 10 and there's that much found per hour.  If the chart indicates you find 24# of food (my current party, forest, May, temperate) that's 2.4# per hour.  You decide how much travel time you wanna spend foraging!  Need 10#?  You're looking at 5 hours although I might be generous and allow 4.  

Hunting is another sage ability.  No-skilled hunters MIGHT find something.  But it can take TIME.  Resource management.  

Our current problem?  Our ranger opted to focus on animal training rather than wilderlands.  So he COULD (but hasn't yet,) catch and train a falcon!  Bird can hunt three pounds of meat at a time!  But the Ranger is not yet skilled at these things - by choice.  Could be by 4th level.  Perhaps I should've been more pushy at character creation but the whole Beastmaster thing seemed strong.  

Bottom line .... if you WANT your Rangers to be plot armor (cf Druid Goodberry) you do you.  We tend to be a bit more gritty.
 

 

In which we revisit equipment

 I've been spending WAY too much time watching TTRPG Youtube videos and recently stumbled across a spate of them talking about equipment.  What, how much, where, how - all the good stuff, much of which I've touched on before.  There's a lot of handwaving going on at a lot of tables due to cost, encumbrance, etc.  Not at mine.  You either have it or you don't.  But what DO you have?  Or what MUST you have?

A quick perusal of the starting equipment in 5e and PF2 yields some good but not definitive answers.  is Both are crawling with packs and kits.  Excluding specialty stuff it appears the generic adventure starts with a backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, and a waterskin.  Also frequently mentioned is rope, chalk, soap, torches and the dreaded iron rations.  Surprisingly no clothing.  Or footwear!  Inadequate.  

So here's what WE do:  we follow RAW on starting equipment, but after that there's a "required minimum."  Players are responsible for their own equipment list but I tinker with it.  I use a "wear" table.  All items are either new, used, worn or useless.  I check on my "decay table" after a month OR three days in the wilderness OR one day in the dungeon.  Players are notified when an item becomes worn (time to replace.)  Last campaign we had a bard and a druid whose main contributions were just keeping all the equipment in good repair via their Mend spells (house ruled to 1st lvl.)  Run out of torches?  Or tinderbox?  Tough luck Skippy.  

But some things it seems to me MUST be "owned."  Clothing.  Footwear.  Backpack.  Bedroll.  Mess kit.  Waterskin.  So when those become useless (ie, if the players didn't replace when "worn") I'll replace them when they're available.  If they give out in the wild?  Exposure, slowed movement, no rests (long becomes short, short vanishes), dietary distress, dehydration.  A tent might join this list.  Previous party had a couple members skilled at "roughing it" so it wasn't required.  We'll see what happens when they hit inclimate weather.

Side note:  calendar has turned to spring so the party was peeling out of their winter clothes and into something a little lighter for travel.  I was checking prices in the small settlement they were occupying when I saw that WINTER clothes cost over 600 gp!!  Figured there was an error somewhere in the numerous formulas and recipes that go into the calculation so I started tracing it back.  And found the issue.  No sheep!  This community has no shepherds.  So all wool and wool products must be "imported."  I casually mentioned this to the party.  Not directly but I DID mention that the incoming caravans were carrying, among other things, iron (ingots, bars, rods) as there's none mined locally, other metals, and raw wool as well as wool clothing!  They've JUMPED at the chance to clear a mine so they could claim part of the income.  Wonder if they'll try to help out a family in need by setting them up in the sheep biz? 

In which we get circular with the action economy, encounter balance, magic items and the action economy

 The steepest learning curve when I made my foray back into D&D was absorbing all the nuances with the action economy.  And I'm sure I'm still absorbing but the WORST of it has been realized and I'm dealing with it.  Here are the problems I'm cramming into this post - how do magic items impact party level for using CR to achieve encounter balance and what role does the action economy play therein?

As a baseline, I rely on the Sly Flourish encounter benchmark.  This will tell me roughly what CR the "bbg" would be to be deadly, hard, etc.  The PROBLEM was I was taking THAT number and plugging in a relevant creature to be that bbg.  And they were getting thumped in short order, largely because each character could do four things each while the bbg could only do four things.  Period.  Even with a lair action they were slammed.  

So here's my first modifier:  once the formula determines the suggested CR I cut it in half.  THAT'S my bbg.  The OTHER half I divide by the number of party members so that each of them "gets a minion" to oppose. My favorite use of this was a vrock accompanied by a handful of quasits.  Good combat variety and the party had their hands full fighting not just the vrock but the action economy problems presented by a handful of minions.  As deadly as those ancient red dragons are they can be action economied to death quite quickly.  But a young red dragon with four wyrmlings is a MUCH tougher problem.  So suggested CR, divided by 2 to get the bbg, and divided again by party number to get supporting cast.  Hat tip to Ginny Di for her recent vid which kinda got this ball rolling in my head

The OTHER problem that I recently brushed up against is that is SEEMS that everybodys encounter balance guide is based on party/character level per se, but doesn't really incorporate magic items.  Example:  my current party has thee 2nd lvls and a 4th.  That's a total of 10.  A suggested deadly encounter would be a 2.5.  So an ankheg or a basilisk.  But what if your barbarian has a +2 weapon, your rogue's AC is buffed and one of your casters has a staff of X that increases it's DPR.  It's no longer an average of 2.5.  Closer to 3.5 or better.  That ankheg is now quite a bit easier.  The basilisk isn't the bbg it was GOING to be and maybe a banshee or barghest would be more threatening.  Lesson here is that IF the party is perhaps "overmagiced" you'll need to juice that CR suggestion a bit.  IMHO this is where many of the complaints about CR and encounter balance originate.

Edit to add:  OK - HERE'S an interesting solution I'm gonna play around with a bit:  Trekiros recently began popping up in my suggested playlist and here are TOW vids related to this topic - first the intro to a new aid and the second reviews some updates.  Here's a link to the tool.

To recap (TL:DNR): almost ALWAYS use multiple opponents for that deadly encounter and juice the CR to allow for magic items.  And if you use that tool, drop in here and leave a comment!

In which we go INSANE!

 Need a new mechanic to toy with a wizard at my table .... and insanity seems to fill the bill.  RAW sucks so I poked around on the interwebs to find something I liked that would work my table.  Now I LIKE Luke but he CAN  be a bit over the top sometimes.  In this case he "leaks" his system in the video so I went through to scrape what I could and fill in the rest on my own.

So when a character becomes "inflicted" they roll 1d10, take the following affliction and insanity points:

d10	Tier 1 Flaw	Insanity Increase
1	Character is constantly on the lookout for enemies whether they are there or not.  Feels as though something malicious has its eyes staring at the back of their head	1
2	Shadows seem to dance about within the characters mind, as though something is waiting within them looking for its chance to attack	1
3	Always anticipating combat.  Fingers continuously caressing hilt of weapon or spine of spell book, awaiting the fight to come	2
4	Mind frequently wanders to thoughts of the other party members judging abilities to be inadequate.  Enemies do the same.  You are driven to prove them wrong.	2
5	Character has endured threats, betrayal and ambushes throughout their journey.  You hold a deep-seated fear of anyone who is not a close friend, causing you to begin to draw your weapon whenever you meet a new acquaintance	3
6	You question whether you are truly prepared for what the day may hold.  You are compelled to inspect weapons, armor and equipment for minor defects every morning.  You repeat this inspection throughout the day	3
7	Your trust in most of the people you meet during the day is broken.  Other than the party you omit information or outright lie to avoid telling anybody anything that might be used against you.	4
8	The frequency of the attacks you have endured has broken your trust in their surroundings. They do not feel they can get any meaningful rest without thoroughly observing their surroundings and taking action against any perceived threat.	4
9	The characters begin recognizing similarities between current and past events that don	5
10	DM's option	5

d8	Tier 2 Flaw	Insanity Increase
1	The character is having trouble remembering where they put things.  After completing a long rest there's a 25% chance a character will lose one non-magical item from inventory	3
2	The traumatic events the character has experienced have begun replaying in their mind, even when they're awake.  They're finding it increasingly difficult to look at wounds, blood, and other injuries, giving them disadvantage on Medicine checks.	3
3	Fear of the supernatural has begun taking over the characters mind, making them recoil at the sight of magical effects, both divine and arcane.  You have disadvantage on Arcana and Religion checks.	4
4	The screams and pain associated with the traumatic events have taken over your thoughts.  You have difficulty maintaining a ruse or act.  Disadvantage on Deception,  Intimidation and Performance.	4
5	You are struggling with your nerves, making it difficult to stay still for any period of time or remain hidden.  Disadvantage on Stealth or Slight of Hand checks.	5
6	The monsters and people you've faught have created a deep-seated anxiety.  As a result they have disadvantage on Insight and Persuasion checks except with those you know very well.
7	The characters constantly observe the area around them for any sign of danger making it difficult to notice small details.  Because the character struggles to notice small details the have disadvantage on Investigation and Survival checks.	6
8	The characters memory has begun to fade and it has become difficult to hold on to new information.  They now have disadvantage on History and Nature checks	6

d8	Tier 3 Flaw	Insanity Increase
1-2	The trauma is now effecting your ability to concentrate.  Each round while concentrating you must make a CON 17 to maintain it.	6
3-4	Experience intense fear whenever close to an enemy.  If within 10' must make a WIS 17 ST.   Failure means overcome with fear - run away	7
5-6	The distractions in your mind make you lose control of magic items.  After a long rest there is a 25% chance you lose atunement to an item.  If not atuned you lose the ability to use 1 item until you spend 1 hour reviewing.	8
7-8	The trauma iby 1d6-1s taking an effect on your capabilities, making you hesitate in battle.  There's a 15% chance you cannot act on a given round.	9
9-10		10

 Once the character goes over 40 Insanity Points they have a 50% chance of undergoing a complete mental breakdown.  When THAT happens they get NO benefit from ANY rest, can only make an unarmed attack, and wander aimlessly.  

When a character undergoes a triggering event roll on the current Tier level.  Character takes on that flaw and IP increases the indicated number.  One flaw per tier at a time, but up to DM if they change.  

Insanity is treated by downtime.  Every 7 days of downtime reduces the IP by 1d6+1.  During this down time the character living expenses are multiplied by 10 for level 1, 100 for level 2, 1k for level 3.  Level 4 can ONLY be treated with a wish spell.

 

In which we tinker with magic ... again.

 Sitting at the table a couple sessions back.  In the heat of combat Kirkus exclaims ... well, something.  He's hard to understand when the arrows are flying.  Seems he WANTED to cast Hunter's Marck but as he's the closest thing to a healer in the party he knew he HAD to hold on to his goodberries (heh.)  Using that last spell slot is ALWAYS a tough call.  Our game is all about asset management - spells, slots, encumbrance, ammo, hit points, food - so this is the norm.  But what if we could "shift" the problem.

Which is when I fortuitously ran across THIS youtube.  The text version is available here.  We ARE using a similar "rest" rule, so this could easily work.  I sent a rough suggestion to the party and we discussed it at close of play last week.  Heading into 16 days of down time AND taking a week off so next session will be a good time to implement.  Here's the version we're gonna try:

Does NOT apply to cantrips or rituals.

No more slots.  Instead, casting a spell requires a successful spell casting check, one free hand (if needed), and your arcane focus. The level of spells you can cast is as per RAW.

spell casting check DC equals 10 + spell level (including upcast.) Roll 1d20 + proficiency + spell casting ability modifier. (Aerialayna would be +2, Kirkas +3, Dakora +5 and Terestan +6)

 

*additional add: finite number or recasts before the DC check incfreases. May cast up to Arcana check in a magic user, Nature check if Druid or Ranger, Religion if Cleric or Paladin, Performance if Bard ... and I'll make up the rest as needed. 

Failure means spell is lost until next long rest

Nat 20 lets you double EITHER damage dice, number of targets, range, area, or duration. Or recovery of a lost spell.

Nat 1 you either make a sacrifice (Clerics, Druids, Bards, Rangers, Rogues, Paladins) ranging from a 5 gp value at 1st level up to 500 gp at 9th OR suffer an arcane mishap (all other classes.) These result in exhaustion and damage done to all within range.

Sim Sala Bim: a caster who fails a roll MAY supplement their total by sacrificing .... something. Arcane spells cost sanity. No worries until you go over 10. Treatable via lengthy downtime. Primal spells cost exhaustion. Divine spells cost HP. AND the spell is then lost until you get a long rest. Cannot be used on any spell that raises creature above 0 HP.

In which we go up a level

So I bent the rules a tad last session.  Second session with 1st level characters.  Party is coming together.  God role playing going on.  Fun n stuff. But one of the "pre-packaged" adventures I've given the hook for suggests leveling up to 2nd after completing "Chapter 1."  Party was about 80% of the way there so I DID bump them up.  They'll still have to EARN that last 20% so it might take them a tad longer to get to 3rd.  We'll see.

There's a rough rule of thumb that indicates you "should" go up every four sessions or so.  I've been using the Three Pillar XP from the old UA from 2017.  Basically points based on your tier, the CR of your opponents and the tier level of locations, item, social interactions.  100 XP to advance.  So that means 25 xp per session to meet the 4 sessions per level approach.  And then we're talking 8-10 xp in each pillar.  

The Social pillar grants 10 xp for a successful interaction with an NPC in your tier, +10 for every tier above yours, +5 for a tier BELOW yours, and 0 if more than a tier below.  Pretty easy for an involved party to interact positively and sway  SOMEONE in town with some pull.  Local lord.  Captain of the guard.  Guild head.  This one's harder in the wilderness but lieutenants and bandit leaders might present opportunities.  This gets tougher in tier 2 but we're still a month or so away from that.

The Exploration Pillar can present issues as well.  I always give 1 xp when a 20-mile hex is entered for the first time.  Visiting plot hook sites can usually get your 10 points for this one.  Current party got points for the lost abbey and for the demon tree.  Not likely to pick up any next session.  Unless you're always on the move and wrapping up plot hooks rapidly this one will be the "slow" one.  Magic can be used to boost it if need be.  Finding a rare non-consumable magic item can do this at first tier, and I usually only give it to the party member who gets the item but it makes for a timely addition if the rest of the pillar is low.

Finally comes the "Combat" pillar - although "Encounter" pillar is a better label.  Overcoming an obstacle using skills and ingenuity warrants these points as well as besting critters.  For our four-character party as currently constituted that would mean two encounters of CR 2-4 or one of over CR 4.  It could also mean over a dozen encounters under CR 1.  Last week's owlbear was helpful but they needed some nagging blights and wolves to hit the number.  

What I NEED to start doing is paying attention to where the party IS and what they're planning on doing, in order to make sure I have sufficient points on offer.  The coming session should allow for plenty of encounter points.  Unless they surprise me there won't be many opportunities for social points.  And I've already give the 20-mile point and the important point points.  So to hit that sweet spot I'll need to include plenty of CR appropriate encounters and at least one magic item.