In which we get swarmed by bees

 Yup.  Bees.  Party of 6.  Average of 5th level.  And a dozen swarms of bees.  Two each in fact.  Theater of

the mind.  Lot's of dropping below 0 and MED checks and heal spells and bad rulings and stuff.  But as is the case with many sessions we did a lot that we'd never done before so the virgin territory provided most of the problems.

First the new "hits not HP" system.  Most users recommend rounding down.  But nooooo.  I couldn't do THAT.  I rounded up.  "It's only 1 more hit" I thought.  Yes.  But one extra hit over a dozen beasties with an AC of 14 has quite an impact.  So rounding DOWN from now on.  Otherwise the system worked quite well.  Next - the tactical adjustments.  Party had been complaining that since everything was attacking from a distance they could usually pick it apart with the expert marksman ranger and a smattering of spells.  So this time they stumbled on a honey thief being absolutely DESTROYED by angry bees.  And the clouds of apian hell descended upon them with great fury.  Those little buggers went earlier in the initiative order than the plodding ogre's and giant spiders had been.  Throw in the fact that they have damage resistance to most weapons and this thing became a SLOG.  Glass cannon forgot he had a magic wand.  That didn't help.  When he DID go down (quite early) I noted that the bees were no longer attacking him.  But nobody in the party acknowledge this.  And nobody tried to run!  'Cause they're heroes, dontcha know.  This was attributed to the fact that they couldn't really SEE what was going on.  So retreating wasn't an option?  Well, OK.  No more TotM.  Haven't run one of those in months anyway.  

A few other mistakes. Too many swarms.  Nine or ten woulda been better than 12.  One to the "low" characters, two to the high ones.  Mike Mearls recently recommended managing the action economy by avoiding using monsters that have move total actions per round greater than three times the number of players.  That number would by 18 for this encounter.  The bees can move and attack.  So nine swarms woulda worked better.  Lesson learned.

The LAST mistake (?) I made was in my treatment of Temporary HP.  I was treating it as healing.  It isn't.  So we'll avoid the yo-yo effect that we saw last night.  

So I gave the party what they wanted.  And then they didn't want it any more.  The fighter was barely touched but had trouble dealing damage.  The cleric did some healing and utility work and had a BALL trying to figure out what the optimum action was every round.  Druid took a beating and did OK but her spores were less than effective.  Two wizards took too much damage early to be as effective as they'd like.  And the ranger?  Without his +11 archery ability he was more or less worthless and NOT happy about it.  Party worked well as a unit, found a few holes in their procedures, and now know what they need to add/improve.  Which will lead to meaningful decisions.  

Not bad for a two-hour slugfest that didn't HAVE to happen.

In which we end one test and begin another

 Hit points.  Been here a little bit before.  The XDM experiment was .... fun .... but kinda became wet

tissue paper at higher levels (5th and 6th.)  No problem with BBG's hanging around but the mooks became worthless and they were needed for BBG support.  Stuff was too easy.

So here's what we're (meaning "I'm") swinging to.  Kinda using Lazy DM's Forge of Foes to assemble combat encounters.  Some more development of the math.  Good starting points.  And I'm following Professor Dungeon Craft's suggestion of using Hits instead of Hit Points.  

In a nutshell: take creatures (average) HP, divide by 10 and round up.  A character hit is 1 hit.  A crit or sneak attack is 2 hits.  A spell attack is 1 hit per spell level, +1 if the caster is over 6th level.  MIGHT try rounding down instead of up if it gets too tough.  Will switch to MAX HP rounded down if it gets too easy.  This is only DM facing.  PCs still get the detailed treatment.  

Also.  A few weeks ago my table kinda swung into a thing of a meta-discussion after the session.  Been productive.  And I know exactly what they want - or at least what they think they want.  So they've been getting some "odd environmental" challenges in combat - mainly line of site stuff.  Which has de-buffed the ranger a tad.  They're outside most of the time so encounters are usually in the woods so 40-160 feet range.  And the party's picking them apart as they "close."  It's the edge of the razor.  Wanna scare them and push them but not kill them.  How does a hydra sneak up on a 6th level party in the woods?  Gotta get em back underground too. 

In which we revisit the Quantum Ogre.

 My attempted wanderings into the "open game" world has been, to say the least, wonderful and

productive.  I currently have a big story arc (which was NOT there at the outset) that the players asked for.  I have a secondary arc that loosely ties into the big arc to provide an occasional diversion.  And EVERY session provides the opportunity to drop plot hooks which may or may not tie in to either of those arcs.  

Short digression.  About a year ago the party had completed a long commute.  Two sessions of travel along a major trade route.  Four random encounter checks every day.  Natural disasters.  Medical emergencies.  Goblins.  And dozens of caravan wagons.  At the conclusion of the trip one of the PC's observed "it was kinda fun I guess but there were no plot hooks."  Another member of the party pointed out "we walked by dozens of people every day.  Every ONE of them likely had a plot hook of some type.  I didn't pursue them because I wanted to get here but there was no reason for you NOT to."  And that was the end of the discussion.  

 Justin Alexander has popularized the concept of the Three Clue Rule.  Essentially you make a rule available three different ways (or places) to ensure that it's found.  No one refers to them as Quantum Clues.  But aren't they?  Then there's Schrodinger's Troglodyte.  Before the players interact with the adventure everything planned by the DM is not fixed. It is only after the players interact with the adventure does anything become real and so fixed.

So, if the players explored 15 rooms of a 20-room dungeon, skipped the boss troglodyte room, leave and never return, then for now, only those 15 rooms are real. Dare I suggest that only the things the PCs interacted in those 15 rooms are the Chekhov’s Guns (from the story POV) and everything else including the boss troglodyte might as well not exits (from the story POV). At best those things the PCs missed exist in a Schrödinger’s Cat-like state of not quite existing.

And so it is with plot hooks.  If one applies the TCR only to those clues needed to advance the story then all other facets of DM prep are Schrodinger's Troglodyte.  Let's say I prep three potential encounters for my party:  placating a green dragon, fetching some phase spider spindles and guarding a grove from a cyclops and his buddies.  In keeping with the TCR I have multiple ways to set the hook.  Weavers.  Crazy old hermits.  Local lords.  Caravans.    If I plant one and they take it so be it.  They need to be couched as maybes and possibilities.  If they ignore it I can pocket it, file it away and throw it in front of them again in a month.  Because they're in Schrodinger's box with his cat and his troglodyte, both real and unreal.

So while the general view of the Quantum Ogre is that it's a bad thing, robbing players of their agency, I'm thinking Schrodinger's Troglodyte is a GOOD thing because it renders the players agency irrelevant while maintaining it?  That's CAN'T be right, but it SEEMS right.  Ideas?

 

 

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