Tag: world-building

BoT Post 16: The Misunderstood World of 5E Game Balance, Part 2

Posted on by Anthony Pacheco

Burials of Teganshire Post 16 of 30

Yesterday we provided context for this post in picking apart D&D 5E’s balance problems—there are problems, and some of those problems are systemic. The fundamental issue on the table (literally haha) is that D&D is a game, and games require challenges. However, Fifth Edition of D&D contains mechanics that beneath the surface cause the game to stagnate, and also lacks practical guidance outside of combat concerning player dynamics.

We won’t be the first person to write about this and offer solutions, and we won’t be the last—but here is our take. This essay provides two solutions: game table changes, and encounter and monster changes.

Practical Solutions: Game Table Changes

Since the dawn of the game table, player dynamics, the interaction between players (and the DM), is the primary attribute in making the game challenging, or not.

That’s what makes the game so fun! It’s a social game. So let’s make some social solutions before we dive into mechanics.

Increase Player Agency

Increasing player agency, and thereby “Table Agency” removes the work burden from the DM of making sure each and every interaction with the game world has a homogenized difficulty. In the campaign, via the game world, there needs to be encounters and situations the players can “break into jail” and fail at.

We could go on-and-on about this topic (see: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=D%26D+player+agency) but suffice it to say “Dungeon Master as a Referee” (vs. “DM as a Story-Teller”) is going to go a long way in having players decreasing DM workload as they are the ones driving the story.

We’re not here to beat the Player Agency Dead Horse™. Just realize it’s the real game balance mechanic of D&D, the players’ ability to:

  • Have their PCs fail (deadly encounters the DM places)
  • Wander into a wrong place (static places in the world above their ability to emerge victoriously)
  • Fall to the whims of the dice not working in their favor (random encounter at the wrong place/wrong time)

If the players can’t fail, they don’t have agency.

Set Expectations Ahead of Time

Session 0 (https://duckduckgo.com/?q=D%26D+Session+0) is the opportune place to declare:

  • The game world has deadly static, random and status quo encounters
  • The players have the latitude to make choices that can get their PCs killed
  • Players are expected to use combined arms to overcome challenges
  • The campaign about to begin is more challenging than the last one
  • What PC classes will not be of much use in the campaign, so players will know which PC choices will be only role-playing centric
  • The campaign has mechanics to deal with PC death (see below)

Alleviate PC Death by Planning on It

  • Start using hirelings and henchmen—if a PC dies, the player can switch to playing one of those characters for the evening
  • Have backup character sheets ready to go, both premade by the DM and premade by the players. One possibility is the players make the hirelings and henchmen character sheets
  • Don’t sacrifice gameplay for the story, even if the PCs are driving the story. That is, if the current situation would make a new PC come into play seem silly, then it’s best to be silly rather than excluding a player. Then after a session, the player and DM can work on bringing a new PC online
  • Have a plan for what happens if everyone dies—the TPK. The idea is to have, as the DM, some predetermined direction, even if it turns out to be wrong, rather than be caught going—uh, what now for the game?
    This includes what happens in the campaign world and what happens at the table. Shoot for that player commandery that D&D builds so well—the game table heading to the pub to salute the fallen PCs and toast a game well played, even in defeat
  • Recognize that some players don’t care about their PCs living and dying; they care about playing well with what they have. Other players care about playing a specific PC, rather than about playing the game with expertise.
    Work with the players that invest time into their PC to also spend time in that PC’s legacy. In other words, have character-story driven players also contribute to their immediate world (friends, relatives, in-game spouses, etc.) beyond their PC, with the expectation that if the PC dies, the new PC comes from this work

Periodically Use Grim Story Mechanics

There’s nothing like showing, rather than telling game difficulty:

  • Secretly work with a player before the campaign starts to have that player die a messy death in Session One (ala MCDM’s The Chain)
  • Privately work with a player who decides they don’t like their PC to die a messy death in the game in a believable way
  • Use a “life is unfair card” (sparingly) that when the players send their henchmen to go do something (let’s run a henchmen adventure!), all the henchmen die in an encounter so dark and grim, your players vow revenge (really, only do this once) on the spot

Embrace Failure Conditions

Often people play D&D where failure in the module equates to a game that halts because there is no other condition than victory. When a DM designs a static encounter or even uses a commercial product, not having failure conditions predisposes against challenges. This is another instance of “Balance the Game Outside Combat.” Find more about that, and practical advice with failure conditions, here: BoT Post 10: When the PCs Lose the Players Will Win—the Hero’s Journey.

Practical Solutions: Encounter and Monster Changes

The previous blog post described the various issues around D&D 5E’s Challenge Rating system. Let’s put what we know to good use. D&D 5E supports a lot of flexibility, even when using online tools such as D&D Beyond, or various encounter generators.

Avoid Attrition Encounters

D20 is famous for its formulaic adventure design in Living worlds. Which is fine, because players know what is in store for them (far from me to declare Wrong Fun). They went something like this: 2 small encounters, a skill challenge, a short rest, BBEG showdown.

All possible encounters should have some semblance of verisimilitude—they are in the game because the game world, not adventure design, arranges their placement. Example:

Wanted Ward and June, two serial killers working as a team, are hiding at the bottom of an abandoned castle dungeon as they know the PCs are on their tail. More sinister murderers than kobold trap experts, they manipulate beasts and an aberration to populate the complex and set some traps to the best of their ability, trying to buy some time.

Are those beasts and traps attrition? They could be. But then again, the PCs could by-pass them. Or they could use the monsters to their advantage and send them against the evil duo. Or they could get creative and draw the pair out into the open.

Either way, the totality of the two villains here should stand on their own. Everything else is window dressing for the campaign world. In other words, the two villains give it their all in the final encounter. The PCs arriving there fresh is part of the game. If they stumble into every trap, do battle with every monster, make mistakes, that’s their issue to deal with.

Not the DM’s.

Use Non-Lethal Encounters to Enrich the Game, not just the (PCs) Story

Sometimes, dealing damage isn’t about anything other than:

  • Humor
  • Adding detail to the campaign setting
  • Letting players blow off steam
  • Experimentation

In one campaign, I have “island foxes,” a trio of foxes with unique capabilities. They can talk, but they’re foxes. They are brats. They can teleport from one island to the next. They will steal the PCs’ food. Laugh at them for no reason. They can do damage by shooting a firebolt out of their eyes.

Fox: “Hey, hey, PC. Want to see something funny?

PC: “Sure?”

Fox: (shots the PC with a firebolt)

Fox: Yeeeeeeahhh BOOOOOiiiiii!

PC: (rolls initiative)

Foxes: “Hahahahahaha!”

Foxes: (teleports away)

They are there only for comedic value and to reinforce that the world of the fey can be dangerous. The island foxes don’t have a challenge rating at all.

Man, I love those foxes. But I digress.

Avoid Artificial Restrictions on the Number of Deadly Encounters Per Short/Long Rest

Sometimes:

  • The dice go bad
  • The PCs make a mistake
  • A singular PC makes a mistake
  • The party doesn’t make any mistakes, but the circumstances conspire against them
  • A player complained the last encounter was too easy

Et cetera. At some point, the DM needs to cross a Rubicon: is this a story-telling narrative with rails laid by the DM? Or are the players reacting organically and making choices, good or bad, and it’s their world?

If the players have agency, balance by encounter restriction in such a flexible system such as 5E is not possible. Embrace the difficulty.

Make Meaningful Encounters Deadly: The Math

Some attributes need tweaking to making a tailored encountered deadly in a balanced way—we’re not talking about populating the game world, but putting together an encounter for an adventure.

APL + 3 to +5

Take the average party level and add 4, and then add monsters until the CR becomes Deadly, plus or minus one CR.

This is your baseline. Either one monster with Legendary or Villain actions (see below) or several monsters in the CR equals APL +3 to +5.

Adjusting for More than Four PCs

For every PC or henchmen or player run combatant in the party, add an additional monster at the parties APL, plus or minus one CR.

 So if you have six players at APL 6, adding two monsters, both at CR 5 (not combined!) to the mix.

Why? The CR system breaks down with the action economy. Within the scope of a Hard to Deadly encounter (using the math in the Monster Manual), players have a distinctive advantage over monsters of the same level. The game doesn’t account for this (it tries and fails), and that’s okay because most tables do not have more than four players.

But if they do, well, playtesting reveals that as long as the monsters you add are above the party’s average level (APL), adding a monster on par with their APL compensates for the dramatic change in the action economy. More on the action economy below.

Final Adjustment

When all is said and done, here’s the time to make sure that 1) the encounter is at APL +4 or more and 2) adding monster numbers because the monster design itself is weak, especially if the DM does not want to change the monsters’ design.

Make Meaningful Encounters Deadly: The Design

Putting together an encounter balanced for that right amount of difficulty also relies on design.

Adjust the Encounter for Crowd Control

Some parties’ class combinations have crowd control built-in, such as a warlock, wizard, or stun-moving monk. Some parties do not.

However, any party class combination can do crowd control, it’s just that some will be better at it than others.

Assume the party is doing crowd control, the hard way or the easy way: either place monsters at different ends of the map or add lower-level monsters to harass the party, regardless of what it does to the Challenge Rating.

The party doesn’t do crowd control? Well, that’s their problem, not yours. Surviving to run away and having a learning opportunity is an excellent motivator for combined arms paly.

Adjust the Encounter for Ranged Attack Opportunities

If the encounter has a mixed set of monsters, then some of those monsters need ranged options, especially if they are intelligent. If they are just a bunch of dumb animals, it makes sense to compensate for their lack of ranginess by having them move faster than usual (“These two tigers are ravenous!”) or some other adjustment such as invisibility, flying, incorporeal, or other nasty conditions.

Adjust the Encounter Terrain and Setting

If it’s difficult terrain, not a terrain built into the monsters’ CR already, then either leave the encounter difficulty as is or adjust one CR downward. But only one.

Traps make an excellent terrain adjuster, especially if a PC manages to push a bad guy into one.

Players should be able to compensate for difficult terrain outside of battle–that’s the instance where you want to leave the CR as it. “Surprise difficult terrain!” is when the CR adjusts downward.

Adjust the Encounter for Party Magic Items or Other Effects

This happens more frequently in other versions of D&D as 5E does an excellent job of providing magical items that are cool but still within the bounded accuracy design.

However, there could be instances where the party obtains an overpowering item, effect, or the game world or adventure has arranged for things to go the PCs way.

Here’s where the DM needs to do more design than math. Adding a monster to the encounter with the ability to negate that effect or item is cheezy. However, adding some dangerous monsters, beyond the CR, for the player with the magic item in question to use? That is cool. And the player will love it.

Players can forget to use an item (just tell them), the PC with the thing can be incapacitated or drop from an unlucky roll, etc. That be the breaks. And before anybody throws a yellow flag on this play, the same thing happens to bad guys—all the time.

Adjust the Encounter for Player Expertise

Some players are just good at what they do. If that’s the case, the DM should:

  • Consider giving the monsters a temporary effect that makes sense in the context of the game world-such as the cults sipping on what is effectively a potion of haste, giving them all haste during the battle. After six rounds of this monkey business, they all die
  • Add a Hard encounter right after the Deadly one concludes
  • Add a CC expert to the monster roll
  • Add an evil object to the encounter that radiates a curse for the PCs, or a bless to the monsters
  • Or both (warning: that’s difficult!)

Make Meaningful Encounters: Balance the Action Economy

And here we come to the balance issue of all balance issues, the action economy.

The Action Economy is a game term to describe how characters are allocated a certain mummer of actions per turn (used by the game’s overall mechanics). This is where things are indeed mathematically tricky for the players or the monsters. If monsters act 40 times a round and the PCs 15 (including bonus and reactions), well, that’s gonna be a problem. The reverse is also accurate, and if anything makes a DM wonder why things were so easy for the players despite the CR, there you go.

The D&D action economy is a popular topic: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=D%26D+Action+Economy

Heat up the Action Economy with Design

Give your bad guys reactions and bonus actions. To compensate for the added complexity of the monster, make sure what they can do as an action is limited to four or fewer things, and that includes casting a singular spell. Make the 5E “cut to the chase” design work for you.

This is not to say having a monster with a lot of actions to choose from is wrong. But it’s challenging to do that all the time. The more actions a monster has, the more experience and prep time a DM needs to run that monster.

Heat Up the Action Economy by Favoring Mixed Monsters

I wanted to make an encounter that was “semi-deadly” in that I wanted it to go south if the PCs made mistakes, but I also wanted the PCs to win the battle without running away (this was a journey of discovery to advance one of the player’s PC plots). They were five Level 6 PCs. I added:

  • A CR 8 Monster: a custom aberration
  • Two CR 5 red slaads

This is a deadly encounter. However, if I wanted it to be an iffy encounter, I would have added three CR 5 red slaads, as the paladin did precisely what she was supposed to do—she burst damaged the aberration. Again, the goal here was to not have the PCs get into a position where they run away. I wanted the encounter to be severe but survivable, but notice I didn’t do that by making it a Hard encounter. I just made it less Deadly with the maths. They still could have suffered a PC death—and almost did.

Why was I assured of victory for the party? Because they were way ahead of the Deadly encounter’s action economy. Adjusting the action economy one way or the other is a way to achieve balance or other goals.

Heat up the Action Economy with Villain Actions

What’s a villain action, you might ask? Watch this video, and it explains all. I’ve seen Matt use it and I’ve also used it, and it rules. Literally!

Ahem, sorry. Rule of thumb: pretend the monster is only going to last three rounds. Design accordingly.

Heat up the Action Economy with Legendary and Lair Actions

If your monster seems legendary, make it one. That’s 5Es approach to heating up the action economy and making legendary monsters a rip-roaring epic battle.

Overused, however, it deadens the impact.

And for that truly epic encounter, give your Legendary monsters Villain actions. In their lair. So the PCs have to contend with:

  • Action-Reaction-Bonus Action
  • Villain Action
  • Legendary Action
  • Lair Actions
  • Bonus: added minion actions

A Balanced Conclusion

This essay proposed two approaches to making your game balanced: changes to the game table and a host of functional changes to apply CR math, monster/encounter design, and the action economy.

If the players feel the game is teetering on a knife’s edge, and only a combination of skill and teamwork can save them from the villains’ villainy and the capricious whims of the dice—the game has achieved balance.

I leave you with the cover of our next module, which you should back on Indiegogo if you have not already. Crossbow Man and his companions hiding behind him are going to face a challenge. In playtesting, the monster usually brought down half the party before succumbing. In one instance, it brought down all the PCs except one, and that PC was the benefit of an NPC heal built into the encounter. The players were surprised, and when they won, they felt like they had achieved something meaningful and good.

One group high-fived. At that moment, the game was theirs, not ours.

Crossbow Man at the Bridge

Crossbow Man, I salute you. You are braver than I.

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BoT Post 15: The Misunderstood World of 5E Game Balance, Part 1

Posted on by Anthony Pacheco

Burials of Teganshire Post 15 of 30. Halfway there!

This is a two-part blog post. Today we’ll talk about the illusion of game balance, and tomorrow we go over what to do about it.

Here at Griffon Lore Games, we have a specific design philosophy built around game attributes:

  • People play games to have fun
  • Challenges provide more entertainment than “non-challenges”
  • D&D is a game
  • D&D is a freeform game
  • And 5E is a flexible freeform game

It’s that last bullet point where things go south, and when I was learning 5E, it’s the area that had the most struggle. I would make a “deadly encounter,” and the PCs would waffle-stomp the BBEG even though he had Legendary Actions. Why was that?

It’s because no book, formula or design can compensate for player makeup, player skill, amount and type of magical items, what spells the casters prepared that day, the synergic effects of class-combinations shared between your players’ PCs, and various other things up to and including caffeine level and if any player ordered a 12-pack of chili-cheese burritos from the Taco Bell secret menu.

Let’s do a deconstruction of the CR system (everyone else has done it, so let’s do it too!), and then talk about real game challenges for your table.

The CR: Recognize what the CR system is

The Challenge Rating system in 5E is:

“A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one.”

This is a minimum standard

This is a minimum standard that does not account for all the variables at your table. We can talk about the maths, but let’s talk about design flaws:

A system built around no deaths is inherently easy. In D&D, a worthy challenge by its definition is a deadly one.

This system is combat-centric, ignoring for the most part, and even discouraging, PC damage outside of combat. “Well-rested” becomes an artificial box. Not a nice box, either, but that box at the beginning of Jurassic Park with a velociraptor in it.

The DM is an arbiter of the rule system used in the campaign world, but the system doesn’t quickly identify which areas to modify, other than increasing the CR. All it puts forth is a minimum standard. Which isn’t a bad way to go about it, as long as everyone knows what they are getting. It’s not a box of chocolates. It’s the velociraptor.

Any classification system is simply a means to an end

Personally, I like the CR system because it’s a taxonomy based on mathematical methods. Now, I would have done it differently, but a CR system, flaws and all, is better than no system! The intent of this essay is to not replace the system but instead to use it for our own ends.

I really super mega wish Wizards would have called it the Monster Challenge System. Because although there are skill encounters and trap encounters and environmental encounters, the CR system is all about monsters.

And monsters are only part of the difficulty. An important role, but there is more to the game that gets left behind for both page count and DM interest. Monsters are super-interesting, but it’s a chicken and egg thing here. We can make the other portions super exciting, too.

Game Difficulty is Philosophical Not CR Based

Understanding the mechanics behind the CR system isn’t necessary to make the game challenging and fun. The understanding of your players and where they fit in this role-playing game can give DM insights in using a CR system to their advantage. Here’s what you need to determine:

Single Player vs. Combined Arms

It is unfortunate but a cause of MMO popularity that some D&D players play the game in which they are a single player, and the other players, and the DM, are NPCs in their game.

That’s a poor way of playing D&D—the game is supposed to be a combined arms effect where each player contributes, via their PC, something the other players do not. This team play, when combined, overcomes difficulties and challenges.

You can’t make team challenges for a table full of single-players. Well, you can, but that’s going to be a short campaign when everyone TPKs.

D&D is a social game.

Game vs. Narrative

It is also unfortunate that some players in D&D love role-playing and could care less about “winning” the encounter, while others view D&D a game that you “win” by overcoming battles and care less about the role-playing.

A challenging game has both! And it relates to difficulty because some players will see the challenging combats as superfluous, and the other players will see challenging non-combat encounters as boring.

Now that, my friends, is Game Difficulty. For the DM. For decades now. Give me a CR system that fixes THAT, and now we’re talking!

Little is said that role-playing should be interconnected to the CR system.

But it should be.

The DM’s Mantra: “It is what it is.”

There’s an old publishing refrain (that comes from other places, too) that says, “It is what it is,” whereby there is a system so complex (the book industry) that when problems come up with a book, well, yeah, a problem was always going to come up.

And a game world is a complex system. It is what it is. There are too many pieces, too many player variables, too many situations where a DM doesn’t have enough time to figure something out. Or the opposite: has too much time and is now staring at a blank cursor in OneNote wondering where to start organizing what needs organizing.

It is what it is. Balance is an illusion because the game difficulty is a sliding ramp of DM arbitration used to make the game fun. As soon as the PCs master one portion of it, the DM needs to change it to become more challenging.

D&D 5E is freeform and flexible—so let’s use it to create an unbalanced system where the players are high-fiving each other after a difficult encounter. Nobody is going to high-five a balanced encounter. They’ll high-five after crawling out of a spike-filled pit with a bunch of poisonous snakes. And they have to crawl through a gelatinous cube. And the trap door over the pit is a mimic. And the snakes are on fire. Poisonous fire snakes. That can go ethereal.

Does that sound fair to you? Or balanced? Nah, bro, that’s about as unbalanced as it gets. But it sure does sound fun.

Tune in tomorrow, where we use the tools of the trade to game the system. No need to replace it—5E has everything you need.

Back Burials of Teganshire on Indiegogo today to get in on some challenging challenges!
Burials of Teganshire

Crossbow Man has issued a challenge: a BOLT TO THE FACE!

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BoT Post 13: 2d10 Encounter Tables for Traveling on a Road in a Fantasy RPG

Posted on by Anthony Pacheco

Here at Griffon Lore Games, we love us some random encounters. Set up ahead of time, the dice adds that element of “game world interjection” that can (and often is) better than a planned encounter or static location. In this post, you’ll find two helpful tables of random road encounter goodness.

DMs can use the random encounter ability to interject lore into their campaign without the Terrible Lore Infodump™. A handy framework would look like this:

  • Geographical regions have their own table segmented out by locations. For example, Overland in the Viscounty of Kandra, On the Imperial Road, The Road Between Terganshire and Tegan’s Bridge,
  • Random encounter tables should have a day and night version
  • Random encounter tables should have a normal version and a hard version

Triggering the Random Encounter

Use one of the unsung dice heroes from RPG land, the d12. Roll a d12 when:

  • The players are moving overland, or in a large city, from point A to point B
  • Players arrive at point B
  • Every four hours
  • Players do something that generates attention

Resist the temptation to fudge the roll. The entire worth of the random encounter is the D&D game’s ability to mix things up in exciting and unexpected ways.

An 11 triggers an encounter. A 12 triggers an encounter from a table modified for difficulty. Roll 2d10 to select the encounter.

Many of your random encounter tables should have simple entires. When the area is short on monsters (in a civilized land), a more robust table provides flair.

Random Encounter: On a Semi-Patrolled Road

The Empire paved the Old Imperial Road in the Viscounty of Kandra—and now the horse-lords maintain it least their commerce traffic drops, and they lose tax income. However, in the land of the horse-lords, merchants are responsible for their own safety. While men-at-arms formally patrol the road, they are there to deal with issues after-the-fact, not to intercept trouble for weak and lazy travelers.

Once an encounter triggers, replace it with a new one for the next session, with “nothing happens,” until you replace it.

The below tables, while set in the Kingdom of Lothmar, are mostly generic with lore that a DM can easily change to suit their setting. And note these are encounters on a road, not camping in the woods at night! Unless the PCs are camping right next to the road itself.

Semi-Patrolled Road: 1d12 with an 11 Result

2d10

Day

Night
2 A passing merchant from the opposite direction with a horse and two mules, flanked by a gnome guard riding a war dog A camp-fire can be seen from a popular campsite, off the road, and on a bluff.

Camped there are a well-armed merchant and a competent guard—a gnome with a massive war dog. They’ll share a meal with friendly folk, but not their site
3 A letter courier, riding a swift horse, overtaking the party. He does not stop, but does wave. A letter courier, riding a swift horse, from the opposite direction. He stops and trades road conditions and regional gossip before moving on

 
4 A cloud of mosquitos hovering over the road A cloud of annoying mosquitos attracted to any light source

 
5 Four men and a watchful guard making a road repair The road here was obviously recently repaired

 
6 Circling vultures off the road. Upon investigation, a grizzly bear is munching on the corpse of a deer

 

 A grizzly bear wanders into camp but will leave if shooed away.
7 An odd and unexpected change in the weather No change

 
8 An extensive merchant wagon train traveling in the same direction, complete with six guards Off the road, a wagon train with six guards camps for the night

 
9 A patrol of six lancers and their sergeant. They ask if the PCs have seen any trouble on the road. If the PCs look like they are the trouble, they attempt to arrest the PCs and take them back to their lord for questioning A patrol of six lancers and their sergeant. They ask if the PCs have seen any trouble on the road. If the PCs look like they are the trouble, they attempt to arrest the PCs and take them back to their lord for questioning.

If the PCs are friendly or indifferent, the patrol offers to camp with them, and share the elk they shot earlier
10 A local lord with his twenty men-at-arms, armored and armed to the teeth and all on horseback. If the PCs are wanted criminals, they give chase Several men, looking hungry and grim, armed with inferior quality weapons, ask the PCs if they can spare any food. The men are from a city, wanting to go somewhere else due to reduced employment opportunities. They have been contemplating banditry, but are not that desperate—yet

 
11 A merchant with a broken wagon, berating a lone guard trying to fix it A dead merchant and a broken wagon, filled with supplies for the general store in the next village. The merchant died of sword wounds

 
12 A trio of foxes chasing a hare run across the road A trio of domesticated foxes are on the side of the road, waiting for some food scraps

 
13 An old elf walking down the road. If questioned, the elf claims he is going to die soon, and always wondered where this road went. He asks PCs not to spoil it

 

 A dead elf leaning against a tree by the road, a smile on his face. He died of old age
14 Over 200 King’s Soldiers marching down the road from the opposite direction. A scout on horseback asks the PCs if there is anything unusual from the direction they came from

 

 Camped alongside the road is a small army of professional soldiers wearing the King’s livery. They do not approach the PCs. If approached, they state they are on King’s business, and the PCs need to move along
15 An apple tree in the middle of the road, out of place, and undoubtedly odd. When the PCs investigate the tree, it disappears, and faint giggling can be heard
off in the distance		 A group of pixies with a well-lit fruit stand. Payment must be made in silver only.

The fruit is fresh, even if out of season. If questioned on where they got the fruit, the pixies say, “the archmage gave us a few boxes in return for some dust.”
16 A ranger on a mighty warhorse with a rather large sword, a dual-bolt crossbow, and a hunting falcon, coming from the opposite direction, with a younger man. The ranger looks grim and capable, and the young man needs better shoes.

If questioned, the ranger indicates he and his nephew are going to visit a friend in a nearby city to talk about some religious matters

 A beautiful woman and a young man, from the opposite direction, walking a rather large warhorse. They ask the PCs if they’ve seen their pet dire wolf.

If questioned, the woman indicates she and her nephew are going to visit a friend in a nearby city to talk about some religious matters
17 Six bandits chased by 20 men-at-arms. If the soldiers catch them, they hang them on the nearest tree

 

 No change
18 Traveling in the same direction, a farmer, his son, and his comely daughter with a wagon of vegetables and fruit bound for the next town.

If questioned the farmer is friendly, and claims crops were so good this year he has more than he can sell locally

 Two dead farmers and an overturned wagon of fruit and vegetables. If the PCs search, they find a torn dress
19 An old, ugly woman traveling in the same direction. If the PCs stop and question her, she claims to be an “old witch with tired feet and needing to save her spells.” She requests a ride if the PCs have horses or a wagon, as far up the road as the next town.

As a reward, the Old Witch gives either the prettiest woman a philter of love, with a wink, or the most handsome man a bag of 100 gold pieces, coin of the realm from one hundred years ago.

If attacked, she teleports away with a rude gesture

 No change
20 A pack of dire wolves decides the PCs look like lunch A fog rolls in and deposits an encounter:

(Party Average Level) +4 Challenge Rating undead

Time to roll for initiative

Semi-Patrolled Road: 1d12 with a 12 Result

2d10

Day

Night
2 A group of merchants and their guards in a heated argument about business practices, ready to come to blows Off in the distance, PCs can easily hear an argument about business practices. If they investigate they find a group of merchants and their guards, ready to come to blows

 
3 A letter courier, riding a swift horse, overtaking the party. He is wounded and asks for healing, warning that behind him are a “group of nasty stirges” A letter courier, riding a swift horse, overtaking the party. He is wounded and asks for healing, warning that behind him are a “group of nasty stirges.”

Said stirges show up and attack
4 A cloud of mosquitos hovering over the road A cloud of annoying mosquitos attracted to any light source. If they come into contact with a PC, they turn into a giant mosquito swarm and attack

 
5 Four men and a watchful guard making a road repair. They flag the PCs down and ask for help, which will take the rest of the day.

The guard is really a local knight. He won’t bother the PCs if they refuse, but he sure will remember their faces

 The road here was obviously recently repaired, and five tired men, one of them a guard, are resting near the repair.

If the PCs offer them beer or wine, the “guard” tells the PCs to stop by his manor home for a dinner served by his wife and with their “three marriage age” offspring.

The knight has significant funds
6 Circling vultures off the road. Upon investigation, a dire grizzly bear is munching on the corpse of a deer A dire grizzly bear wanders into camp and will eat all the PCs food. If attacked, he becomes enraged and attacks first every round

 
7 An odd and unexpected change in the weather for the worse:

Spring: Downpour

Summer: Summer storm with lightning

Fall: Hail and sleet

Winter: Blizzard

 The same except with 90+ MPH winds doing 1d4 damage per round to any unsheltered PC, animal companion, or mount.

The effect lasts for 1d4 hours
8 An extensive merchant wagon train traveling in the same direction, complete with six guards.

One of the wagons is on fire. In 1d4 rounds, it blows up, doing fireball damage to anything nearby

 An extensive merchant wagon train camped on the side of the road, complete with six guards.

One of the wagons is on fire. In 1d4 rounds, it blows up, doing fireball damage to anything nearby
9 A patrol of twelve lancers and their sergeant. They ask if the PCs have seen any trouble on the road. If the PCs look like they are the trouble, they attempt to arrest the PCs and take them back to their lord for questioning A patrol of twelve lancers and their sergeant. They ask if the PCs have seen any trouble on the road. If the PCs look like they are the trouble, they attempt to arrest the PCs and take them back to their lord for questioning.

The patrol warns friendly PCs that traveling at night without a light source is an arrestable offense. Any PCs guilty of this are simply given a warning.

If the PCs are friendly or indifferent, the patrol offers to camp with them, and share the elk they shot earlier
10 A local lord with his twenty men-at-arms, armored and armed to the teeth and all on horseback. If the PCs are wanted criminals, they give chase.

Accompanying the party is a squad of rangers, one with tracking hounds, and a mid-level druid

 Six paladins and their men-at-arms stop the PCs. They seem cautious and wary, and claim they are “looking for an aberration.”

They ask each PC to take a test—a pinprick on the finger to see if their blood is red, and they will also do the same in return.

f the PCs ask about the Paladin’s quarry, their leader says, “You don’t want to know.” If the PCs persist, the paladins will claim they are chasing some type of “uber slaad.”

If the PCs insist on helping the paladins, sometime in the night, the party is attacked by 2d4 Death Slaad.

If the PCs refuse the blood test the paladins and their men-at-arms attack—they try to subdue the PCs until one of their own dies in combat, and then, as they say, it’s on.

During a lethal battle, the 2d4 Death Slaads show up and attack both groups.
11 A merchant with a broken wagon, berating a lone guard trying to fix it. The guard suddenly stands up and attacks the merchant A dead merchant and a broken wagon, filled with supplies for the general store in the next village. The merchant was staked naked over a fire-ant hill

 
12 A trio of foxes chasing a pixie with a broken wing across the road A trio of domesticated giant foxes with halfling riders stop the PCs and ask them if they have seen “an old elf walking down the road.”

Thus far, the PCs have not
13 An old elf walking down the road. If questioned, the elf claims he is going to die soon, and always wondered where this road went. He asks PCs not to spoil it.

If the PCs spoil it, he says “ah, man,” and dies of old age right there

 A dead elf leaning against a tree by the road, a smile on his face. He died of old age.

If the PCs deal with the body in the local elf tradition, a courier delivers a package from an anonymous shipper, addressed to the PC that first suggested to take care of the body. Inside is a suit of elven chainmail +2
14 Over 200 King’s Soldiers marching down the road from the opposite direction. A scout on horseback asks the PCs if there is anything unusual from the direction they came from Camped alongside the way is a small army of professional soldiers wearing the King’s livery, secured by a lot of guards.

They ask the PCs pointed questions about the region, seeing if the PCs are local or not. If the PCs refuse to answer, the guards tell them to bugger off down the road or be set upon.

If the PCs do not bugger off, the entire camp will attack them. ¼ are awake right now
15 An apple tree in the middle of the road, out of place, and undoubtedly odd. When the PCs investigate the tree, it falls over, making a mess in the middle of the road An apple tree in the middle of the road, out of place, and undoubtedly odd. When the PCs investigate the tree, it turns into a confused treant.

If the PCs attack the confused treant, 2d4 other treants animate from a nearby copse of trees and attack.

If the PCs help the treant, it gives them all apples that when eaten, cures any diseases or poisons
16 A ranger on a mighty warhorse with a rather large sword and a hunting falcon, coming from the opposite direction, with a younger man. The ranger looks grim and capable, and the young man needs better shoes.

If questioned, the ranger indicates he and his nephew are going to visit a friend in a nearby city to talk about some religious matters.

Insightful PCs will realize this party is composed of ghosts, acting out something that happened to them hundreds of years ago. If confronted as such, they fade away

 A beautiful woman and a young man, from the opposite direction, walking a rather large warhorse. They ask the PCs if they’ve seen their pet dire wolf.

If questioned, the woman indicates she and her nephew are going to visit a friend in a nearby city to talk about some religious matters.

Insightful PCs will realize this party is composed of ghosts, acting out something that happened to them hundreds of years ago. If confronted as such, they both fade away, and a pack of dire wolves follow the party for a few miles, sadly howling if approached—before they too, disappear
17 Six bandits chased by 20 men-at-arms. If the soldiers catch them, they hang them on the nearest tree.

One of the bandits is armed with a wand of fireballs

 Six bandits chased by 20 men-at-arms. If the soldiers catch them, they hang them on the nearest tree.

One of the bandits is armed with a wand of fireballs, and one of the men-at-arms is a high-level ranger
18 Traveling in the same direction a farmer, his son, and his comely daughter in a wagon of vegetables and fruit, bound for the next town.

If questioned the farmer is friendly, and claims crops were so good this year he has more than he can sell locally.

Insightful PCs will note that the daughter seems distressed. The farmer says pay that no mind, she is always skittish around strangers.

The young woman suffers from a brain injury and doesn’t like to travel. Everything the farmer and his son says is true. What also is true is that the farmer can’t find a husband for the girl, so he is going to sell her to a brothel

 Two dead farmers and an overturned wagon of fruit and vegetables. If the PCs search, they find a torn dress.

PCs will have a hard time tracking what happened, as the farmers were set upon by a vampire. He plans to make the young woman he took his vampiric paramour
but wants to cure her first.

If the PCs manage to confront the vampire, he first offers the PCs a bribe to leave him be. Failing that, he will offer to cure the young lady and give her back to the PCs if the PCs in turn pledge to not tell the local authorities of his existence.

And failing that, he’ll tell the PCs what he found out—the farmer and his son were going to sell her to a brothel (true), and that the vampire knew he shouldn’t have killed the farmer and his son, but the injustice of it all “just turned my crank, if you know what I mean.”

And if that doesn’t go anywhere, he simply teleports away, leaving the farmer’s daughter behind
19 An old, ugly woman traveling in the same direction. If the PCs stop and question her, she claims to be an “old witch with tired feet and needing to save her spells.”

She requests a ride if the PCs have horses or wagons, as far up the road as the next town. She will also tell curious PCs that “You don’t want to know what my business is, so I’m not gonna tell you.”

As a reward for a ride, the Old Witch gives either the prettiest woman a philter of love, with a wink, or the most handsome man a bag of 100 gold pieces, coin of the realm from one hundred years ago. If attacked, she reveals her form as the Goddess of Love. She curses the party and departs in a clap of thunder.

Curse:

PCs that were married find themselves still married, but their spouses hate them. Unmarried PCs with lovers have them turn bitter at a perceived, terrible insult and will hire an assassin to have the PC killed.

One (and only one) PC without a paramour eventually finds out they are married to three argumentative, but attractive young women. Once a month, each will demand the PC divorce the other two, becoming more belligerent with each refusal. The PC is unable to convince any of the wives that he or she has chosen a favorite.

If the PC survives this for a year, the wives stop collectively trying to browbeat the PC, tell the PC that next time be nice to old ladies, and reveal themselves as witch-priestesses. The PC then has the option of ridding himself of the trio or staying married

 No change
20 A giant green dragon flies over the PCs and sits on a road, and demands the PCs cook her bacon. If the PCs don’t have bacon, she will tell them there are plenty of wild boars in the nearby woods.

Refusal of bacon results in one angry dragon

 A giant green dragon flies over the PCs and sits on a road, and demands the PCs camp and share their dinner with her after polymorphing into a beautiful human maiden. She just wants a good meal, but will respond to flirting with “Seriously? Just stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

The dragon knows a surprising amount of local gossip, along with regional history.

If the PCs refuse or attack the dragon, she disappears, leaving behind a 60ft x 60ft death cloud

 

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Crossbow Man, this is not a random encounter.

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BoT Post 11: Enrich Your 5E Campaign World with a Permanent Magic System

Posted on by Anthony Pacheco

Burials of Teganshire post 11 of 30

Where did the spell permanency go, I wondered when I read the 5E PHB and DMG for the first time. How and the heck do I explain this permanent magical effect? Do I just handwave it? What if the PC wants to do the same thing? Wrut-wro, I found a significant flaw for my own campaign world—or did I?

After a while, I begin to love 5E’s permanent magic philosophy, even if its design was a simplification rather than a campaign enhancement feature.

The (conjectured) Intent Behind 5E Permanent Magic System Changes

We can speculate the changes in 5E came about for these reasons:

  • Desire to further streamline the rules leaving the DM with more creativity
  • Change the way magical items are made
  • Create an environment to encourage PCs to make magical items.

I don’t believe the designers sat back and went, “what’s a cool thing we can do to make the DM’s game world better?” My belief stems from a lack of communication in the DMG concerning permanent magical states and world-building (along with ignoring world-building in general).

Regardless of how we got here, I can appreciate the lack of discussion about the mechanics behind permanent magic in world-building due to page count. On the other hand, D&D might as well be named “Magic and Monsters,” and everything to do with those two words is the backbone of any campaign setting.

So, let’s stick with 5E (Pathfinder is a separate discussion) and talk about how to use its magical rules (or lack thereof) to spice up the campaign world. Griffon Lore Games is all about hard fantasy—the magical systems we use must maintain internal consistency.

Before We Begin

Remember, the rule here is to add verisimilitude to the campaign setting. The “truth” of the setting that makes it believable by using plausibility and credibility. This is a game. A game has rules. Like in Hard Science Fiction, the usage of physics and mathematics adds belief. The world becomes alive when a DM sticks to standards. The DM is the arbiter of the actions, not a narrator, and action generated in a believable system makes for believable conflict. That’s the game.

Don’t Forget Some Spells Have Permanent Effects

Some spells like hallow, exist until dispelled. Others, like guards and wards, and forbiddance, can be made permanent or semi-permanent with repeated casting.

Create Magical Effects in 5E via Magic Items

This is highly plausible and a good rule-of-thumb. If the PCs want their door to have permanent protection from evil and good on it, then the PCs can create a magic item to make that work.

Two books describe how to create magical items: The Dungeon Master’s Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Both are excellent books for 5E, and XGtE is a gold standard of sorts. Both come highly recommended.

We suggest using XGtE’s additions and changes to crafting magical items. We believe those rules were the rules that were extensively playtested for item creation. This excellent article on Flutes Loot describes the difference between the two.

Door Example

Back to our door example, the closest thing in the DMG is a ring of protection (rare) and a scroll of protection (rare). However, the effect of those does not approach the impact of the protection from evil and good spell. Thus, the magical door is a very rare magic item, and in XGtE, that takes some serious components, 20,000 GP, and 25 workweeks.

Ouch!

But do the players want this door or not?

If you saw this on a door, you might want to leave the door alone.

Create Magical Effects via One-Shot Custom Spells

Another way to add some exciting effects is unique custom spells. For example–the dungeon that was picked clean doesn’t have any magical problems for the PCs, but the rooms and corridors behind that secret door contain a multitude of nasty surprises. The traps have sat there, all this time, undiscovered.

The DMG contains rules for creating spells, but the DM needs to keep in mind that under a system of hard fantasy that puts magical effects in an explainable box, custom spells should:

  • Be balanced
  • Have clear effects
  • Cost a bunch of coin
  • Be something the players could duplicate if they so desired

These custom effects need not be powerful. For example, there are traps in our unexplored corridor, traps that reset themselves. They reset themselves via a clockwork mechanism. Steam is what powers this clockwork. And it’s the custom magic spell “generate steam,” that exists until dispelled (and it sits behind tons of rock) that powers it all.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You think, why bother, just say “steam-powered trap.”

But where does the water come from?

How is it heated?

How did that mechanism last for so long?

It matters because those are the rules, and that’s the environment the PCs are in. It’s those details, and the ability for the PCs to do the same thing, that makes the game world seem real. In this example, we went from a “corridor is trapped” to “this corridor was constructed by an advanced people who had a fundamental understanding of clockwork, stonework, and thermal dynamics.”

We’ve gone from a trapped corridor to steampunk dwarves.

Dudes. Steampunk dwarves. HOW AWESOME IS THAT.

Ahem.

The bottom line for custom spells: anything the DM can do the players can do.

Creating Magical Effects By Compounding Methods

And now we come to some DM tomfoolery—the gift of time.

Thus far, we haven’t talked about “the ancients created this effect, so here it is” because that’s a copout. But people of yore did have one thing going for them—they had plenty of time to think about things. If not, they would be barbarians, and then this would be all moot.

The DM can borrow from that concept—the DM knows this magical effect will take a while to design.

But most of that “figuring it out” doesn’t need to occur right when the idea goes from DM brain to PC discovery.

Let’s give an example:

The Knight’s Graveyard

The Knights of the Wailmoor bury their dead in the Knight’s Graveyard. There is a stone fence surrounding the park-like grounds, 800-ft. in diameter.

Evil creatures cannot enter the graveyard. Nor elementals, fey, undead, demons, devils, aberrations, lousy weather, and anyone who isn’t a Knight of Wailmoor or a direct relative. Flying, teleporting, tunneling, or any other means does not work, nor can they damage the wall that provides this effect. This effect exists 800-ft. above and below the graveyard.

When I came up with this description, I conjectured:

  • The knights created several magical items—to accomplish this—for example, the iron gate that does not rust is magical.
  • The knights used several custom spells
  • The knights used the hallow and forbiddance spells
  • The knights used a ritual to link the spells with a nearby artifact, a hydro dam

Dartmoor dam photo from Wikipedia Commons

Yup, instead of using the spell permanency (which no longer exists), they realized they could use the permanent flowing water of the dam several miles away as magical energy. This dam empowers their spells and makes them nigh dispellable. You can’t dispel any of the wards in the graveyard, you have to destroy the damn—the graveyard’s singular flaw.

As a DM, I don’t know how the dam works in a fantasy game, other than it uses water-based elemental energy (of course). But it sounds cool, and if the players really get into it, I can design the dam, using standard 5E rules and the methods above, to make it a Legendary Artifact. I just don’t have to do that right now.

Permanency Doesn’t Mean Forever

I’ve been waiting all day to type that, ha, ha, ha.

D&D 5E has a lot going for it. Even if, as a DM, you decide magic varies too much with squishy rules to bother sticking to a framework, there’s still an out that makes sense and adds to your world-building lore. Perhaps there was a permanency spell used by those ancient civilizations so long ago.

The current civilization just hasn’t discovered it yet, because it was a closely guarded secret, and when the old one’s empire fell, the knowledge was lost. So the PCs either need to reinvent the wheel (and people have been trying to do so in the campaign world for hundreds of years)—or they need to go dungeon diving to get it.

Magic is all over D&D. Make it work in the game world—by making it work.

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Crossbow Man doesn’t have much need for magic but sure would like a magic crossbow.
And some armor. And perhaps a magical tankard that always has beer in it.
And are those magical runes on the bridge simple warding glyphs—or do they have some other construction?

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