In which we begin to encounter THE ONE

If you're reading this you're probably aware that WotC and all the other corporate kraken that IS D&D these days is coming out with something new.  Not 6e.  Not 5.5.  ONE.  There's some play testing out there.  We know a little about what's coming.  Some of it's good.  Some of it isn't.

Here's my take.  D&D is now poker.  There's a world of difference between five-card draw and Spit in the ocean.  Play of Texas Hold Em is different than Big O high/low split.  But it's all poker.  And then layer in House Rules and it becomes unplayable.  Except it doesn't.  You learn the basics.   You ask the game.  You touch on house rules and you play.  Every table is different but but every table has the same elements.  

So I'm thinking when ONE (I forget: is this Coke or Pepsi?) hits tables will adopt some and reject some and we'll move on.  This is my initial impression of what we know. 

1.  Critical hits.  No crits for monsters.  No crits for magic.  Change of the damage calculation.  Pretty much what we've BEEN playing so not really a change for us.  Just kinda incorporates our house rule into canon.  There's a bit more there but that's the meat of it.

2.  Rolling a 20.  20 always succeeds.  1 always fails.  Not a fan.  By this rule a 90-year-old commoner has  5% chance to throw an aircraft carrier to the moon.  Additionally the ONE calls for a character gaining inspiration if they roll a 20.  No.  Just no.  IF we incorporate it it will be for rolling a 1.  "You failed miserable but realized you could succeed by ..."   

3.  Ability score bonuses.  Since first edition AD&D, each race has gained ability score modifiers that match the fantasy archetypes of robust dwarves, agile elves, and so on. This started back when everyone rolled characters at random and when good play meant making the most of whatever the dice gave you.  I HATE this equity crap.  I'll probably skip this modification completely and stick with old school/home brew character generation so the stereotypes will endure.  

4.  Feats.  I've been trending away from feat for some time.  MUCH better to get a 5-10% bonus in a skill.  But players don't see it that way.  They wanna be able to do cool stuff.  And eventually they will.  But at the start you get six ability scores, a race and a class.  GO!  But now we take AWAY the distinguishing features of race and instead add options via background" and feats.  Don't like it.  I'll probably continue to improve and implement Alexis' sage knowledge system.  The one GOOD thing it appears the ONE does is to break feats down by level.  Kinda like Alexis has been doing for years.

5.  Grapple.  Doesn't happen often enough to matter.

6.  Spells.  Three types.  Arcane, Divine, and Primal.  COULD really clean up quite a few things.  I like the IDEA.  We'll see how the implementation goes.

So there you have it.  I'm thinking my table will stick with what we like from 5e, incorporate the "good" from ONE and continue to implement our house rules as needed.

In which we harvest

 

A few months ago I stumbled across this website and began incorporating it in my sessions. Was kinda neat but needed soe work to be fully actualized and then I found out the guy had a book. Actually THREE books.

So I read the books and I did some tinkering and here's how I'm going to complete the integration …. and how you can too!

Step 1. Appraising. What can the party do with that carcass before it? Somebody makes a a check against 8 + the critters CR. The skill used is determined by the type of creature. Success means the character has knowledge of what they can get and how hard it will be, along with risks and how long it will maintain efficacy.

Step 2. Harvest. Make a DEX check with the same skill used above. The higher the roll the more items may be harvested. It will take the DC/5 minutes to harvest.

Step 3: Buying and selling. And out comes the spreadsheet. Long version. Using my economics spreadsheet I give every city, based on its infrastructure, its appropriate terrain. This provides supply/demand prices for critters. Spreadsheet has a drop down for terrains and pulls cities valuation based on that. Also a field for DC of production. Dropdown based on occurrence, based on this site. Then a bunch of math based on that and I get how much an apothecary would would charge for the item and how much the party can get for selling it.

If an item isn't listed and the party wants to harvest it anyway, use the following table:

Material	DC
Blood and fluids	5
Soft Tissue (tongues, ears, genitals, etc.)	5
Hard Tissue (claws, teeth, spikes, horns)	5
Bones	10
Eyes	10
Internal Organs (heart, stomach)	10
Limb (leg, arm, tail)	15
Hide (fur, plating, scales)	15
Complicated lim (wing, tentacle)	20
Brain	20

In which we try to figure out what a hit point is

 Had a situation last session.  Character fell 60' and took enough damage for death.  Prior to "expiration" cleric wanted to know why he couldn't just "Cure Light Wounds" until he was back above 0 HP.  I had no answer, but it didn't FEEL right.  Didn't even feel right to the party.  But in the intervening time I've done some thinking.

The DM’s Guide defines hit points as “The number of points of damage a creature can sustain before death (or optionally, coma), reflecting the character’s physical endurance, fighting experience, skill or luck.”  But that causes all KINDS of problems. My conclusion? Hit points are an indication of how near a being is to death. Magical/spiritual …. even sexual …. healing only increases the distance between life and death. Once a character has gone below 0 HP only  application of medical skill or a successful Spare the Dying can help. Revivify can return a “dead” character to 1 HP whereupon healing can then be used to “increase the distance between the character and death.” Damage, injury, effects resulting from the damage taking the character below 0 still exists, but life has been restored.

The Drive

 In a well-constructed world the stories write themselves.  Party has been traveling up and down the Great Northern Road pursuing leads but a recent vow of vengeance took them off the road and into the woods to the east - toward the mountains.  There's another small village a week away.  No trail connects them bacause south flowing rivers provided better passage.  Snowtall.  It's existence had been plotted and it's economy created but I needed to flesh it out.  Nothing fancy.  Nickel mining with an occasional peridot.  Sable habitat nearby suitable for trapping.  And goats.  As the party approached the village the biome changed.  More pine forest.  And they climbed about 1,000 feet.  Colder.  Just enough different from where they've been to make it interesting.  And goats.  Chevon to the French.  And all the differences it makes.  Goat milk.  Cheese.  

Goat meat replaces pork on the menu.  Cabbage and onions.  Carrots when you can find them.  Beer and vodka.  Kefir for ceremonies.  And then there's the neighboring town of Lireverc.  It's a 9-10 day journey.  But it sits in the lowlands.  And they raise pigs.  So over the years a trade has developed.  In the fall the goat herders and the swineherds cull their animals and begin driving toward each other.  Many a peasant and workman make the trip as well.  For the boys it is a rite of passage, for they carry the heavy packs of salt and provisions.  The drovers meet at a halfway point and the slaughter commences.  Huge bonfires are lit with hogs and goats roasting for three days.  The animals are skinned: the goats more carefully as their hide is more valuable.  Amateur tanners set about their task.  Then the butchers.  Entire carcasses are prepared as are specific cuts.  The salters prepare the meats for shipping.  And after three days of slaughter, hard work, story-telling and passing the news each side packs up and heads home to prepare for the winter.

Our party missed this years slaughter by about three weeks.  But they'll hear about it.  Probably eventually pass the site of this years event.  Might lead to an adventure.  But regardless it makes the world real.  And it wasn't some fanciful die-roll on a pre-generated "festival" table.  It was what the world gave them. 

In which we ask "why?"

“Why?” should be the D&D version of “yes, and ….” It can move the action further and it can gt you to the place where you can say “yes, and.”

A few examples from recent play sessions.

Our half-orc barbarian asks, as they're preparing to leave town for an overland journey, “can I buy a bird?” The easy answer was “yes.” The town is big enough to support a stock yard. Heavily agrarian. At worst inquiries could be made and some opportunistic townie would go TRAP something for him. Why he didn't catch his own, or ask the party ranger to do so was beyond me, but so what? Table discussion then devolved into a discussion of Ogar owning a vulture. Or perhaps a falcon, but no sleeve. At THIS point I began imagining all manner of unintended consequences. So I asked why? He has several control/speak with animal spells and has been unable to use them. This would allow him to do that. So – a birdbrained scout. Not a familiar. Not a beast companion. Just extended scouting ability. So I said yes, but …. no birds of prey. A pidgeon. A dove. Maybe even a crow. I offered a chicken but was soundly rejected. And a duck or goose would be eaten too soon! But I already have PRICES for those three. He's flush with cash so that's not a problem. We agreed in principle to a non-stat-block bird (thus eliminating the temptation to use offensively) of yet-to be-determined provenance. Some quick research yielded the Red-billed Quelea. And everybody's happy.

The party has taken on a “Magnificent Seven” type task to protect a small village. Quite admirable. In prepping the defense the rogue asked to “walk the perimeter. Why? He explained his idea for locating the highest traffic means of ingress in order to narrow down what needed to be defensed AND to set up opportunities for enfilading fire. I could then provide him with the exact info he was looking for instead of waxing poetic about “the beautiful countryside lightly frosted with rime.” He didn't USE the enfilade opportunities, but that's beside the point. The question “why?” saved time and enabled the player to do what he wanted to do succinctly. Several other similar plans were attempted by other party members along the same track. Can I X? Is there any Y laying around? Why? Once I know why I can better answer the question and the players can actualize their plans. Everybody's happy.

Side note: Two new flavor mechanics got expanded this session. It's winter. Temps dropping. Party made sure to purchase winter clothes when the opportunity presented. Weather report is simply three words: one for precipitation, one for wind and one for temp based on the 10 degree range the wind chill presents (pleasant, cool, brisk, chilly, etc.) As conditions worsened the party realized their winter clothes wouldn't protect against ALL cold. A couple frosty nights threw the party into disadvantage. Staying close to the fire and within a windbreak were helpful but they know their movement is now limited by conditions.

In which we design "an encounter"

 

First – What IS an encounter? Encounters aren't just “band of orcs attacks.” I've started using “Environmental Encounters” from the good folks over at Infinium Game Studio. It provides randomized encounter suggestions for two DOZEN kinds of terrain. I've only used a few of them (grassland, marsh, deciduous forest.) The party may soon have me using farmland, hills, mountains or even snow. Encounters include events, combat, quirks and No results" which still impact game play. Each terrain presents four contexts: a) default, b) emphasis on combat, c) emphasis on “event”, and d) emphasis on safe travel. If the party's traveling on a road or path and in a “civilized” area we go with D.  Otherwise I tend to look at all three other options (based on a 1d20) and pick the one that fits the current situation well.  That way if I have a "railroad" encounter I can drop it where it fits best and the players aren't as likely to recognize it as RR since if fits the same play-flow as everything else.

Second - WHEN do we need an encounter? I roll 3-5 times a day depending on player choices. Where are they? Where are they headed? How fast are the traveling? I've been using a d6 but have been getting “too many” so may switch this up to a d8, regardless of all the above. Something ALWAYS happens on a “1.”

Third – and the meat of this article – how much is enough? I rely on the work of Sly Flourish and his Lazy Encounter Benchmark. And y'know I love my spreadsheets. So I have a section which lists each character in the party, along with their level. Not everybody plays every session so I can select JUST those characters who are along for the ride on a given evening. Step one: total the levels. Step two: determine tier. Step three:apply Lazy Encounter math. So there's one column. Done. My next party will likely comprise seven characters totaling 33 levels. So a deadly encounter would be 16 1/2 CR's. Hard: 8 1/4, medium 4 1/8 and easy 2 1/16. Done? Hardly!

Y'see I quickly learned that just throwing a nice big juicy 17CR beast at the party wouldn't work. Action economy dontcha know. So the CURRENT experiment adds two more columns. I assign half the CR to the BBG. In the example above it'd be a 8 or 9 CR critter. The rest of the CR are divided by the number of characters -1. In the case above this means that the 8 or 9 CR critter will be accompanied by six or seven CR 1 critters. NOW we have a suitable BBG and enough side-kicks to deal with the action economy.  Done? Not quite.

What if your BBG is a player class? In other words, how does CR relate to class level? After doing a TON or reading, it seems the agreed upon number is 2/3. A 12^th level Barbarian is (roughly) a CR 8. So I've added one more column that does THAT math on the fly as well. In the case above I'd throw a 12^th lvl BBG with 6 2^nd level minions.

So four rows (deadly, hard, medium, easy) and four columns (general CR, BBG, minions, class-level conversion.) Member of the party can't make it one night? Just take their level off the sheet. Example …. Ogar the Barbarian can't make it. Takes 10 seconds to drop his “6” and reduce the party size to 6. The columns automagically change. CR 13.5, BBG of 6 or 7, 5 or 6 sidekicks of CR 2 ….. and if they're facing a character class it should be 10^th level.Keep in mind this takes a LOT longer to explain than to implement.

Now lets go back to our IGS table. There are several types of encounters. Here's how I incorporate them. If a combat encounter is called for they're labeled hard, medium or easy.  I use the tables found at Chaos Generators for additional suggestions based on ALL of the above. And if the encounter is obstacle related? it's back to Sly Flourish and his cheat sheet for guidance. 

Complex? Seems that way. But MOST of the math is done before the session commences. Players know “something always happens on a 1” and they're usually excited to see what it's going to be – cultists? A dragon? A tree trunk in the road? A magic spring? I can usually generate an encounter and thread it into the story line in less than a minute. My players expect it to be coherent and they expect their decisions to impact the outcome.

And the road goes ever onward.

In which we discover a LOT of scarcity

 

Scarcity creates conflict. Conflict creates adventure. And there you have it.

And so we're ready to implement NTME2022. A FEW things still need a tune up. Carpenter, Cartwright, Mason and Alchemist all need work. Kinda saving them until needed. When the party decides they need to buy a wagon, or build a fence, or an eye of newt I'll start fleshing those out, and the tools will be in place for that to happen. Distiller, Brewer, Furrier, Metalsmiths, Outfitter and “Inns and Taverns” all need some touch-up work to be done. Example? Since sugar is rare I haven't set up rums yet.

To catch up, the resources of my world are loosely based on reality. They're placed according to geology, climate, long & lat, altitude, etc. Many are dependent on other resources. About a month ago I placed all of my precious metals and stones. This weekend I set up my lapidary store based on size, rarity, location, etc. Which brings me to aquamarine. Emeralds are currently the most expensive stones. There are seven known sources in the world, based on the presence of tin and granite. Diamonds SHOULD probably be next, found only deep in dwarven mines and occasionally those of Orcs. But the second most valuable stone in MY world happens to be the lowly Aquamarine. Found where the geology has conspired to place but tin and copper. Which just so happens to be ONE place: the neutral berg of Baram, in the rough lands bordering on Dunnir, the land of the hill dwarfs. This town of 4,000 souls is cut off from most of the world. Pirates, sea monsters, brigands and the lawless wilderness make any journey there treacherous.

Stones occasionally make it out via the black market but let me give you some idea of value. An almond sized emerald would cost about 1 million gp here in Crysrift. A plum sized diamond would got for about 1.5 million gp. That same million would get you an almond-sized aquamarine – IF you could find one. There's a campaign story arc all on it's own. As currently constituted it would take over two DECADES to get there from Crysrift. Opening up the trade route ALONE might take years and earn millions.

Think anybody will?  Maybe.  Once they figure it out.