Gussying up monsters (the Ogre!) and crits

The Antagonizer lamented that running 5e monsters was a bit lackluster compared to 13th Age or Dungeon World. Like: he wanted an ogre to grab two PCs and smash them together, giving me a vague impression of that scene from the Avengers where Hulk whips Loki around like a rag doll. So obviously I challenged him to a contest of gussying up some of the basic monsters in D&D. I sorta said I'd work on the Ogre. This has definitely sprawled beyond the Ogre, but I think in a good way. Ultimately my thoughts have moved a lot more to critical hits and fumbles over fixing the Ogre, it seems.

But I said I'd do the Ogre, so here's some thoughts. Also we've now agreed that we should both write up our thoughts separately on this topic, so I'll come back to this after I read what the Antagonizer has written. tl;dr: There's stuff for ctitical hits and additions to the Ogre at the bottom.

First up, 5e Ogres are boring, but 13th Age ones aren't all the inspiring to me. Though I do like a few of the story implications of 13th Age ogres, the stats are still a bit lackluster even with the rock-solid—if not completely incredible—13th Age Bestiary.

Second up, I want to respect the rules lawyers out there. Being a bit of one myself, I totally understand wanting to know how I escape the ogre's grapple. So the restriction I've got here is one that keeps the basic combat rules intact, but adds a few options. So this can't be full-on Dungeon World style narration where anything goes.

Third up, gussying up combat might have some interactions with critical hits and weapon properties that I've toyed with before.

Fourth up, there is no fourth. All hail discordia. Or some nonsense like that.

Mechanical and Narrative Options
So gussying up the Ogre. What you really want is something that makes combat more interesting by adding complications in:

• Dungeon World does this by giving mechanical and/or narrative penalties for failed rolls (you attack the Ogre but roll low, so it damages you or knocks you prone) and bonuses for high rolls (sweeping attack, you damage the ogre and knock it perilously close to the cliff's edge).
• 13th Age (often, but somewhat irregularly) does this by using the technology of the d20. Low rolls against certain creatures open you up for attacks or effects, natural odd/even results can trigger secondary attacks or less common effects (essentially replacing generic: it hits you, save vs whatever to avoid some condition), and sometimes specific numbers (a generic high roll of 18+, natural 2, natural 5, 10, and 15) can also trigger effects. This makes 13th Age a bit more exciting for the GM because you don't know when a creature will unleash its bigger power, and makes combat a bit more random. Its a little unevenly applied in some monsters get this treatment and some don't, and some get a lot more of it than others.
• 4th Edition did it by adding rider effects to just about all your powers. Damage wasn't the only thing you did, but you also moved creatures about and inflicted conditions. Now 13th Age does that a little bit as well, but 4e really made tactical combat shine. And, I suspect for some, changed the game a lot beyond just "I hit it with my axe." Before 4th edition (and the 3rd edition Book of Nine Swords, I'll wager) this sort of awesome combat was largely found in indie games. Now it's becoming necessary in the mainstream stuff.

So what we want is a way to add in some of these mechanical and flavorful benefits into 5e or even OSR combats. I think we see the lack of this in the 5e Critical Hit rules.

Critical Hits
In 5e, these simply do double damage dice on a nat 20. How unexciting is that? I think the 4e method was slightly better: max damage plus maybe an extra die. Thing is, people like rolling dice but double dice is statistically equivalent to max damage in terms of averages, but has lackluster low possibilities (2 damage on a crit?!?) and unbalancing highs (one attack is effectively two really powerful blows). I've mused before (though apparently not written about?) altering critical hits to include some of these tactical options. Like: a crit can either do max damage or you get to shove the enemy and do normal damage. I included this as an option in some weapon properties (disarming, sundering, tripping) to make combat more interesting.

One could make a table of these sorts of effects:

1. Knock the opponent back
2. Knock the opponent prone
3. Disarm the opponent
4. Sunder the opponents weapon
5. Sunder the opponents shield
6. Sunder the opponents helmet or +1d6 damage
7. Grapple the opponent
8. Inflict a level of exhaustion

Ultimately it might be satisfying if the ogre could grab or knock back an opponent (or some other weapon-appropriate option), but crits are pretty rare. And an extra table roll for a crit isn't a huge game stopper, but if we want this to be flavorful and more common than a natural 20 you don't want to always roll on the table.

Interestingly, you can make this happen twice as often simply by allowing the effects to happen when the opponent rolls a natural 1 as well. So now we're getting into a 10% chance that some of these effects are going off, even if the players are benefiting from them quite a bit as well as the enemies. No longer is that natural 1 just some random "You horribly miss" but "You leave an opening, the ogre uses its reaction to grab you."

Templates for creatures
One idea to apply a 13th age style mechanic to creatures is by adding templates. These were a third edition idea where you simply increase the power of a monster and likewise increase their challenge rating and XP value. So we could give our Grabby Ogre the ability to get a free grapple in on a successful even attack, and when an opponent is grappled the Grabby Ogre gets the ability to fling the opponent 10' feet (preferably into a wall or an ally). Given that this is random though, and that the ogre would need to survive for about 3 rounds to have a good chance of having this go off (and the PC probably gets one chance to escape the grab), I'm not sure it really necessitates modifying the XP values in this case, but if you add in something else it might. Like if this were instead a scourge-wielding priest of Ishishtu who is knocking players prone on a field of caltrops on natural even hits... You can see why this might be something to consider in encounter building if you're the type to actually count XP or even just want to inform PCs that "It is obvious that... you are outmatched in this fight."

But assuming we want to go the template route, I think it follows on those weapon properties to some extent. We can build a few templates that can be applied to give 13th Age style mechanics to these creatures. Like:

Grabby X.
Natural Even Hit - Target is grappled. (Limit the number of grapples by the creature's number of appendages probably).

If you have a grappled target, you can make the Dirty Hands attack.
Natural Even Hit - Squeeze the target for extra damage and inflict a level of exhaustion.
Natural Odd Hit - Fling the target at a nearby ally. If you hit, both take X damage.
Miss - Fling the target 10' away, can make a dex save to avoid X damage.

Scourge-weilding X
Natural even hit - Free grapple
Advantage when knocking grappled targets prone. Target takes normal damage from attempt.

Avoiding the Rules Lawyers (a.k.a. Nastier Specials)

I would apply these templates post hoc and liberally. First off, many humanoids will be equipped with weapons and should benefit from the same types of weapon properties the PCs get. So you can easily apply a Pokey X template to the three orcs with spears (meaning maybe they get to be 3 abreast in the 10' corridor because they're using spears rather than big axes). You might not describe the weapons of each combatant at first, so just deciding to give someone a Sundering Axe midway through combat isn't the worst. You can also just apply a template when a creature is enraged (or bloodied?), so the ogre could be grabby once it gets disarmed or gets hit by that annoying ranger. I'd just be careful to remember that I decided that this combat I've got a Grabby Ogre that uses odd numbers because that's when I decided to apply the template.

Its also important, I think, that these templates only change the rules for monsters. That is, they do get a chance to escape the grapple or maybe a dex save to avoid being tossed off the edge of a tower. Because you want to know what your character can be expected to do and you want to be able to possibly minimize some effects that you hate.

Some effects may be better off as the PC makes a save after each attack, such as poison. Dwarves get a bonus against poison, and if I played a dwarf I'd like to make use of that. So that's not as good of an option as knocking someone back, disarming them, or sundering gear. Extra rolls can slow things down, but in the case of poison and dwarves, its worth it to show off how awesome dwarves are. This might also apply in other cases, such as frosty enemies slowing you down or whatnot.

Types of effects to apply

So what types of effects can be readily used and reused?

Forced movement & prone. A staple of 4e, but I'd restrict it to shorter (5'-10'?) increments in theatre of the mind in general: some of those 4e effects could be ridiculous (beguiling strands pushing opponents 25-feet!?!). Falling rules can be applied in terms of giving additional damage as needed.

Grapple. There are already monsters in the book who auto-grapple on a hit. Gives PCs a chance to waste some actions to attempt an escape as well, and those with athletics or acrobatics type proficiency get a chance to show off. Obviously restrained is harsher, so I'd reserve that for actual criticals maybe?

Sundering and disarming. I like these, just because it teaches players to carry a back-up and also changes the nature of the combat a bit. Obviously sundering is a bit toucher compared to disarming, and would be possibly quite harsh with magic items. It might be worth saving sundering for real bad-asses and critical hits, or both of these for just natural 20 options. Then again that mending cantrip would easily fix a sundered weapon or shield, and who ever thinks mending would be a useful cantrip to have in combat? Given that this is a special action for PCs though, it seems a little less appropriate for villains unless they're wielding crazy special weapons (flindbars!!!) or are weapon masters. 

Exhaustion or wounds. I've considered using something like this with criticals in the past. Its a good way to remind PCs that combat is dangerous. These should be reserved for major bad asses though. Or possibly exhaustion for level-draining types of undead. Cause level drains are fucking nasty, but exhaustion at least is kinda similar. Aside: Obviously I think the exhaustion rules might be a good way to simulate some lingering injuries, but it may require a bit more thought.

Blinded, charmed, deafened, frightened, stunned. Sure, but it probably needs a end of the round or save ends thing. Also not at all sure what creatures would apply these effects, they're probably already built into the creatures.

Paralyzed, petrified. I feel like these effects are probably already integrated into the creatures in question by and large, more so than the others.

Poisoned. Again I really feel that, since dwarves get advantage on saves against poison it should require a save.

Difficult terrain. Don't overlook changing the battlefield. But I wouldn't let the monsters do this in ways that PCs can't (i.e. no free overturning bookcases generally) but maybe some that leave huge footprints or trails of slime...

Reduced movement. That ray of frost spell does it, so I don't see why some monsters couldn't reduce your movement. Though again... harder to imagine when to use this.

Looking at all these effects we can kinda categorize them into a two groups: normal and unusual. Forced movement, Prone, Grapple, Sunder/Disarm, and maybe exhaustion are pretty normal. You can imagine these happening a lot. They're good candidates for templates. But Heck, even a slime trail template could involve leaving oozy puddles for difficult terrain. The others though: particularly petrified and paralyzed, are poor choices for these templates. They require really specialized monsters (medusa, basilisk, etc.) and are already built into the design for those creatures.

So a lot of this kinda comes down to a few normal-ish monsters doing many of the same normal-ish things.

The end game
I'm looking at a two-way solution here which involves critical hits and fumbles, but also possibly 13th Age style templates. I'm eager to see if the Antagonizer came up with some similar thoughts as I did, but I expect to revise some ideas after we bounce things around more.

First: On a critical hit or fumble, mirroring the weapon properties I advocated for earlier (whether they're whole-heartedly adopted or just ad-hoc adapted) I like the option of doing max damage or normal damage with the appropriate condition. These would be a free grapple, shove, disarm, shove aside, mark, tumble, or whatever attacks. Your weapon should take that into account, and canny players should ask things like "Can I do normal damage and also topple the bookcase over onto them?" I think you'd also make a ruling about whether things auto succeed or not based on how likely they are or if they do lots of effects. Like: knocking someone down with a whip or large staff seems like it'd happen no problem. Knocking someone down with a longsword or axe might require the roll. Knocking the bookcase over to block an escape or create rough terrain seems fine, knocking it onto the guy to possibly trap him or do extra damage might allow a save. The reverse should be allowed on a fumble: the knight fumbles his attack against the scourge-wielding priest and the priest gets to trip the knight. This may warrant a little revision of my weapon properties, like the sundering property activates on a 19 or 20, rather than just a 20. I can live with that probably.

In terms of fumbles, I like these less. So I'd generally advocate for something where the fumble involves a die roll (i.e. shooting into melee might force you to attack an ally) rather than simple bad things happening (your bow breaks). Also you may give the player an element of choice to avoid the fumble (you rolled a 1. Your shot is awful, you can either lose your successful attack against the ogre or you have to roll against the fighter). Still thinking about this a bit.

As an aside on probabilities, the third edition critical confirmation is actually genius, though it does slow things down. It takes actual critical hits from a flat 5% to 5% of hits, meaning they're much more common for fighters than wizards. In the flatter math world of 5e I'm not so sure it matters. Combat & Tactics gave crits on any natural 18+ that also beat the AC by 5 or more points which at least doesn't require another roll and eliminates the thing where you can only inflict critical hits against the dragon because you can't hit any other way.

Critical Hits. If you roll a natural 20 in combat, your attack deals either: a) maximum damage or b) normal damage and allows you to do something interesting. The DM may suggest some standard interesting things based on your weapons or spells (i.e. staves and flails tripping an opponent) or you can suggest something interesting yourself (i.e. disarming an opponent or knocking over a bookcase). The DM will tell you if your interesting thing will automatically succeed or if it may require a roll before hand so you may still opt for maximum damage instead.

Critical Fumbles. If you roll a natural 1 in combat, you've made a mistake. This may open you up for reactionary attacks from nearby enemies, force you to attack a different target, or make a save against some effect.

Second: Templates for more common effects. If you want a grabby ogre, or a slime that trails difficult terrain, or a frosty sword that slows enemies down... just let that happen on a natural even or odd. Well, ok, you might need to work out a slightly more complex template if you want to let the dice tell you what happens after he grabs you (rip off your helmet and try to eat your face!). But half a dozen templates or maybe even a dozen will probably go a long way and see lots of reusability. Even Grabby could be applied to the Orc when he's fighting the gnome and halfling!

So without further ado, additions to the Ogre's normal stat block based on the Grabby Hands template. I'm not 100% sure I like it all yet, but its a start and could be re-used for other creatures.

Actions:
Slam. Melee attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Natural Even Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage and the target is grabbed. Natural Odd Hit: 13 (2d8+4) bludgeoning damage.

Dirty Hands. Melee attack: +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one grappled target. Natural even hit: 13 (2d8+4 bludgeoning damage and inflict a level of exhaustion. Natural odd hit: Throw the target 10 ft, 15 (2d10+4) damage if the target hits a solid obstacle. If you fling the target into another creature the target takes half damage and that creature must make a dexterity save (DC 14) or take half damage. Miss: Fling the target up to 10 ft. Target must make a dexterity save (DC 14) or take 13 (2d8+4) damage.

Reactions:
Quick Grab. The ogre can make one grapple attack against one target within 5 ft. that rolls a natural 1.

Reflections on Running 13th Age Online

I've learned a bit from running 13th Age. This is a bit of a grab-bag summary, but I wanted to write up some thoughts while they're fresh(er) in my brainpan.

You can do a lot with minimal prep. I ran a couple 13th Age modules/adventures, the first from the basic book and I steamrolled my players through good portions of Crown of the Lich King (a 13th Age organized play adventure). Now, the Crown stuff was a bit odd in that the thing was organized into 2 hour play chunks, and I totally skipped one completely, but it all worked out fairly well. A few skeletons of encounters, with notes on how many creatures and which creatures to shove at the players worked wonders, and the simple stat-block format of the monsters really helped that. When I was running 4e, I could actually construct or modify the next encounter from the printouts I had during the downtime in players' turns, but this was a bit nicer.

I could have prepped a bit more. There were some things I should have expected to happen, and prepped those. Magic items are one example. When the modules recommended magic items, they also recommended rolling relationship dice and whoever gets the highest roll gets an item, or whichever icon comes up highest per player gets an appropriate item. With only 6 icons in play between the 2 players, it would have been easy to decide in advance 1-2 items for each icon, and to have the text ready to give to the players.

Montage scenes can be good ways to speed a few things up. I recall doing this explicitly with some Fading Suns games long ago (even describing the star-wipes), but a montage scene can be a good way to help keep the players involved and also move past some parts that could be a bit cumbersome. Obviously more important in story-based games. When I plowed through the last 3-4 portions of Crown on Sunday, we hit the montage button a couple times though, and it definitely got to be a bit much. So a montage once in a while seems reasonable to me, but not every game. Despite the fact that the collaborative montages came out of the Crown adventure, they seemed like they could have been in the 13th Age main book. Ultimately I did end up doing a bit of montaging (there were some odd trap sections of Crown that I'm not sure I understood) with dice rolls, and that worked out fine. It made the montage a bit less focused on heroic awesomeness, but I got the sense the the PCs were spending resources based on how they handled obstacles.

Tell your players the numbers they need. If players are rolling dice, why hide the difficulty? I think this goes hand-in-hand with not require superfluous rolls. But towards the end of my 13th Age time, I realized it was just easier to tell people what they need to hit. I think this notion mostly came out of my last session where I found myself spilling the beans on the DCs more. Even if its general "Nothing under a 18 will hit these guys" or whatnot. And for skill checks too. I tried to follow some of the difficulties recommended in the books/adventures, but if they need a 20 or even 25 to succeed, why not tell them? I think it gives a bit more suspense to the roll. Fail forward can really help here. Telling the player the difficulty of an action also lets them judge for their character how difficult an action is going to be. That said, if you don't want players to know how well they did, make the roll for them or just use an average roll (like the "passive" perception of later edition D&D).

For the love of all that's holy, make rolls important (or at least not trivial). If the players are willing to spend a resource on overcoming an obstacle, they probably don't need to make rolls. I let the PCs scale a cliff and bypass some crazy undead magic obelisks because the sorcerer said he'd just use a flight spell to get himself plus a rope up. No need to make the pretty athletic thief roll a DC 5 or even 15 check to climb that rope. No dramatic tension, resource already expended, no real need for a roll. I'da probably asked for a roll if they were tossing the rope up just to see if they ended up taking a little damage (or, more likely, losing a recovery) if their gamble didn't work out. But all sorts of knowledge rolls or perception checks... generally unneeded. Also, don't let the PCs re-try things too many times. You failed the check to figure out how to open the secret door, you're going to need things to dramatically change (or maybe come at it with another skill) before you get another roll. But I also know that because there were multiple routes: the PCs didn't need to get that secret door open in order to make progress.

13th Age style backgrounds rock. I really like the notion that you should put a few skills into sentence form. One idea I'm floating for a 5e game is that simply for each skill you have, you need to put it into a sentence form to solidify how your character acquired the skill and what it really means. That's a bit of a different middle-ground, but I think I might really like that. A couple times it wasn't always clear why a players' background should have benefited a roll, but I think I only disallowed a couple. I could have put some more pressure on the players to be creative though: "What crimes did you commit as Heir to the Prince of Shadows that were similar to sneaking into a Lich Baron's house?" Or: "How did your blue dragon tutor teach you about necromantic magic?"

Online tabletops are odd. Roll20 worked fairly well, we didn't have too many audio problems after the second and third sessions. If I'm going to keep doing that I'd like to figure out some of the bells and whistles to get creatures into the system easier, and organize my play spaces. But overall it worked better than I had expected. I can imagine doing some other games with it, though because all you have to work with are the little map and tiny head-shots of the players, I think it might be a bit more suited to actually using gridded combat. The abstract distances were occasionally a bit hard to judge when we do have all the little tokens on the board. But, it wasn't a real problem.

Story games can be fun despite the railroad. I didn't feel like I necessarily left my players a lot of choices, but because I was adapting some of what I did to what they were doing, I think they got the impression that their choices mattered. Obviously I was going to use the Crown adventure regardless of which deceased icon they were trying to steal/resurrect, so it wasn't hard to reskin it for the Leviathon instead of the White [dragon]. I even reskinned the Lich King's vaults as Baron Voth's mansion because I didn't take enough notes and that's where the players thought they were going. No problem though. I think this is a real difference between story games and old-school sandbox games: in one the players choices are a bit illusory and the journey is more important. In the other, the players choices matter, but there's so much to explore its often quite moot.

Take notes. I liked starting each session off with a recap, rolling relationship dice, and having a few notes on things to try to add in (even if I didn't really get around to adding in graffiti much or describing lots of non-visual sensory info). But, damn, having a couple weeks (or months!) between sessions means I should have kept better notes. Notes of all the items I gave out, where players were going and why... All would have been useful. Reminds me a bit, however, of the journals I tried to have players do for an old Fading Suns game. We didn't keep those reliably, but its cool to go back and look through what we did do. And I think they did help keep people more aware of what had happened before and what their plans were for their characters.

Non-tactical combats are fairly fast. While I actually did enjoy the tactical combats of 4e (best part of the system, right?) they did start to grind on. Most 13th Age combats were pretty quick (though it was only 2-3 players). 5e combats can be similarly quick. I wonder about higher-level 13th age combats though. The virual dice took us a while to get used to, but they mathed everything out for us and it didn't take a minute for someone to collect enough dice, shake them an unreasonably long time, then roll and count. And you still got to see the dice explode on the virtual tabletop (like 15d6 on an empowered critical hit). Add to that the 13th Age "articifial intelligence" of monsters (their tactics are largely based on dice rolls, so the DM choices are easy to make. So a smaller number of players, the electronic dice, and 13th Age monster tactics might have really helped speed up combat, but I don't think it was just that. Tracking conditions definitely slowed me down as I was using the table top too. But its a refreshing change of pace from some previous editions still. And even small/quick combats have a chance to go awry or eat up the players' resources.

I'm not sure if we'll get a chance to return to the 13th Age in the near future or not. Even if the guys and I can find a time for another game here and there, we might switch to something else. But its been a good experience, that's for sure. 

Cleric, but not a priest

In the D&D 5e game I'm currently playing in (that may or may not be winding down as the DM may be leaving the country in the near future), I'm playing a gnome trickster cleric, but I'm not a priest. This has caused mostly consternation for the other players and DM.

The other folks in the group don't seem to understand the concept. Which I get, but it's not how 5e classes are set up anymore. I don't have the religion skill. I don't lead mass. I don't administrate for a temple. I don't read the oracles and omens. I don't even wander and spread the good news of Garl Glittergold. I just happen to have access to his powers.

So the DM thinks I'm just dicking around a bit, I think, and causing a bit of trouble. But really he didn't ask for much background info and I thought I had explained myself: I was a troubled youth who found solace in Garl and then was chosen by him to wield his powers for some inscrutable reason. Yeah, its a 4e Invoker or Pathfinder Oracle. I'd run him as a prophet if the DM had let me. Alas.

So, woe is me and all. But this is an issue. 5e has tried to divorce classes from background and skill and not entirely succeeded. How can you be a wizard (intelligence-based caster) and not have any Arcane knowledge? I'm not sure about that one. You can do a cleric as a prophet or oracle, chosen by the got but not part of the hierarchy of worship and avoid taking religion knowledge. You can't quite do a bard without music, as the bard is trained in 3 instruments. I see a lot of wandering monks who seem to know nothing about their temples/history/religion. A fighter really should have some background knowledge about fighting and military orders, but that leaves out the hometown hero who should mostly have local knowledge.

Regardless, this is why I really am liking the 13th Age style backgrounds-as-skills a bit more. I think they're a bit story-focused and gonzo for some games. Or can be, maybe giving people examples or example sentences to fill in would be good: "I was trained as a pewterer by my father, but abandoned the trade because of my wanderlust."

The old AD&D secondary skills are somewhat similar. Granted, the DM decides when they apply and there's probably little principled rolling, but you just assume people can do the relevant things and they run into problems the few times they wouldn't know something. I was looking at the old Proficiencies of AD&D 2nd as well, and I think one of the flaws with them (and 3.5/Pathfinder) is you're not required to take a proficiency/skill that would actually reflect your background. It might lead to a lot of wandering healers (trained by their parents), mapmakers, blacksmiths/armorers or the like, but a lot of the crazy system abuse comes when people ignore character backstory and pick all the good options. Its a simple thing to switch things so the backstory (or some element of it) is real and meaningful.

Which brings us back to the cleric who isn't a priest. Its an odd thing back in the era of AD&D. Becomes more plausible in 3.5 or 4e, where specific classes (favored soul, invoker, oracle) exist to handle the cleric-but-not-priest type of prophet or divine champion. Even roles like inquisitor-priests and the like end up being folded into their own classes (and increasingly the Paladin, it seems). But the plain old cleric is still shoehorned into the priest role. Which is a shame, then, in 5e because the only reasonable backgrounds are mostly Acolyte. Sure, you could be a convict or a sailor or a noble who joined the church, but then you're still a priest, no?

In my dreams of a AD&D 2nd game, I'm contemplating using the Spells and Magic rules to bust cleric into two sub-classes: hierarchy priests who use ritual prayer, and free priests who use conditional magic. Which would give the actual priests distinct magic from the prophets and mystics. But would anyone care about the distinction besides me?

Its hard to get through stereotypes, I suppose.

Back to the 13th Age

Back to running 13th Age online for a few of my oldest Bros. This time I opted to try one of the modules for organized play that seemed like it would fit where we are in the story. Without too much fiddling, it seemed to work. But there's an odd aspect to it that I didn't realize at first: the 13th Age adventure suggested making it very indie by having the players constantly suggest what they expected.

Now, I decided to go along with this, even though its not quite what I think of as my 'style'. Though I didn't really let go and run with it right away. Also the players maybe weren't aware of what I was vaguely hinting at in the beginning, but I tried to run with their choices. Then we got into the dungeon. The adventure suggests just doing a montage over most of the exploration to get right to the encounters. I kinda see the point there. It feels very 4th edition to me though. But I can also attest to how trying to visualize a poorly defined map and many branching passageways can lead to a whole lot of no fun. So, whatever, I figured I might give this hokey technique a shot.

I kinda liked it. Playing online, the players can't see me smiling as they suggest what sort of troubles they had on in the dungeon and then suggest how they overcame them. And after re-reading some of the examples in the module I had to throw one of my own in to raise the gonzo stakes a bit. But I kinda enjoyed it.

I'm not sure I'd like to do that all the time, or as much as they kinda suggest in this adventure. Maybe the others don't involve quite as much: I'll have to skim another one or two in a bit. I did like it as a quick way to get back to the action. Though the combats didn't challenge the PCs much, in part because the second one was just a big ambush and the PCs can both deal some pretty serious damage.

Another issue with this collaborative montage is in TSR D&D, part of the point of travel was to wear down the party's resources a bit. The montage didn't really do that. Maybe I could have asked for a skill check or something to see how well they fared. Swinging across a pit, or topping a column into a stream were fairly easy ways across the obstacles, but a failed check could have still cost a recovery or dealt a little damage. Or even expended a spell or power. Fail forward and all. Though that wouldn't showcase the party's awesomeness, which is what the adventure suggested the montage would/should do...

As I keep thinking about an Al-Qadim game I'd like to run, I'm wondering how I could incorporate some more collaborative world- and story-building into it. I want to run it a bit as an old-school style: here's the world, you explore it and carve out your new kingdom. But maybe I could (in the hypothetical world where I run it) let the players help define their backstories more. Their families, their home villages, their temples, or their sorcerous masters. That's not too hard. Maybe they can also suggest some ideas for the types of adventures they might go on. And maybe I could get the action moving now and then with a good collaborative montage scene.

Virtual Tabletop

I ran a 13th Age game online yesterday. It was pretty slick.

First off, playin' with the guys from long ago was nice. Only two of them, but I think the small group was just fine. There's something about the small group that makes it a bit more personal than a 5+ player group, and I don't think its just the speed at which you get to take each turn.

It is more exhausting as a GM though. You're almost always on, though not quite as bad as the 1-on-1 type game, as the players can chat a bit about things, but it wasn't enough time to let folk chat while you sneak away for a drink or bathroom break.

The virtual tabletop was a slight adventure in and of itself. I think it worked relatively well, though we did need to refresh the browser a few times to keep our audio connected, and that was after ditching the video feeds. I'm thinking I should try connecting with a cable next time to see if that helps a bit or not. But the software worked pretty well for a first try. I can see how if you keep playing it could be decent, though their 13th Age sheet is a little lacking, and it looks like you'd need to pay to adapt it. With only two characters, we might be able to calculate some things by hand (charisma modifiers) and write appropriate macros, or just type /r d20+3 instead of #melee...

Prep wise, doing a 13th Age module requires a bit more flexibility than I was ready for, which basically means I needed to write down a bit more of the info from the book into an easily accessible format. Of course, I didn't know which NPCs I'd want to use or Icons that would be involved until the game started, so when we finish this up next week that'll be much easier. For the tabletop, I need to pick out a few more maps and tokens beforehand to speed things up. I think 15-30 minutes putzing with tokens would have gotten me hitpoint bars and the like set up right away, plus possibly finding come decorations for the map layer, like the corpses. I'm not yet sure how much the actual map pictures helped versus just having tokens and the white background: we've done wonders with that wet-erase battle mat.

Rules-wise, I think it went pretty well. Despite my love of rules and love of enforcing them, I'm of the opinion that you use what you have at the table, make a ruling, and can go back and look up the specifics later unless they seem pretty important. So I think I made that work, though I still want to re-read the icons and combat sections. I even didn't really need to loosen the definition of Sneak Attack as I thought initially, as the rogue gets some powers that let them break their own rules for when they can apply sneak attack. But, eff it. I don't play a game where common sense won't let someone do something, I'd rather err on someone doing something nonsensical (garrote or prone an ooze) than not be able to use the powers their character is built around.

Character creation took longer than expected, if we had only spend 1 hour on it we'da probably finished the module. But I think a good chunk of our character creation was also spent on chit-chat and the players reading their 10 pages of character info. I didn't want to insist on everyone coming with a character already made as I've talked a lot about group dynamics and making a party while you create a character, so it meant the players had each skimmed about 4 classes and then choose from them then and there. The nice thing about 13th Age is most classes are contained within about 10 pages (that's levels 1-10) and for any future game I'd definitely print those 10 pages from the PDF (or SRD if I don't have my fantabulous free color printing) for each player to keep along with their character sheet. I should make a similar rules summary to this 5e one. I also really loved when Z asked if it was ok to take Swashbuckling for his rogue, and I had to respond that I'd be disappointed if he didn't. Some of those class talents just add a lot of flavorful awesomness that is missing in the new sanitized D&D.

All in all, a few things that we could have done differently. There was only one point where we probably had to refresh for a second or third time where I was feeling like the virtual tabletop wasn't going to work out, but now I'd definitely like to try it again and finish the adventure next week. And, foolishly, I've been tricked into figuring out why the various icons in play thus far (and one or two that aren't) are all making the moves they have, such that I could easily run this from level 1 to 10 if schedules and interests aligned. Because I'm a fool, a foolish fool.

At least this time I was tricked by hicks into cleaning out a barn.

13th Age Bestiary: Ettercaps (and more)

I don't know where ettercaps came from in D&D, but the 13th Age Bestiary finally makes me want to use them. Like, so much that they might rival Yuan-Ti and all the undead as one of my go-to enemy/rival groups.

I'm not really one for super gonzo or whimsical things in my D&D, but somehow the 13th Age material just seems to hit me at about the right level. Its imaginative and sometimes fanciful, but not so over-the-top with cyborg-apes riding robot dinosaurs.

Art-wise though, I might have liked the much longer fingers of the 2nd edition ettercap.

Other favorites in the bestiary: Couatl, Hag, Lammasu, Lich, Manticore, Naga, Ogre Mage, Red & White Dragons. But I might find another one or two after another read-through.

D&D legacies that just won't stop

I've been thinking lately as I read 13th Age and DungeonWorld and the new D&D that we still have a number of rather odd legacies in D&D based on the original edition.

Obviously one of the big ones is spell slots. While they made sense in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, they have stopped making sense in 5th edition. I mention this because during/after my first official 5th edition game, I had to argue that a first level cleric can only cast 2 spells. The guys had somehow confused spells prepared with spell slots, which might be a legacy of the playtests, but I couldn't fathom how they did that and why it took an hour afterwards to convince the DM how the rules read. Eventually I did citing the multiclass rules as my evidence (you combine slots, not spells prepared/known). Anyway, there's no real reason not to just say those are magic points and your magic points have levels. Slots are the currency of the game and they really function just like the slots did for 3rd edition sorcerers. Buy why call them slots? Tradition.

The paladin and ranger come to mind as another odd tradition. Both have survived since shortly after the dawn of time, but they've drifted quite a bit from their original incarnations. Rangers were originally more like fighters in 1st edition, gaining giant-slaying powers but weren't tied to bows or two-weapon fighting. Second edition expanded rangers by letting them choose favored enemies and rolling a few thief skills into them. But rangers Rangers lost their magic in 4th edition, only to gain a little back in the essentials classes (when they realized two power sources weren't terrible for a class, also power source was largely meaningless). Paladins likewise changed from the cavalier-like devotion to right and good (alignment-based powers) to serving a deity (4th edition and 5th edition). I think they're reasonable as classes, though the fighter steps on their toes (and vice versa) to an extent. But now we're stuck with warrior druids and warrior clerics which, imho, aren't as distinct as the older versions of the classes.

Elves and gnomes are another case of odd tradition. Third edition brought us the Sorcerer class, but Elves who are said to have innate magic got wizard as their favored class. Even long ago the Druid came to the party late: it's not hard to envision elves as being primarily associated with druidic magic. Gnomes had illusionist in 3.0, but it changed to bard in 3.5 rather than sorcerer, and their innate magic was something that ought to have distinguished them from dwarves and halflings a little more. Sorcerer could have been a better fit here than wizard, especially if sorcerer were given a way to focus on enchantments or illusions.

Bringing us to Sorcerer. Its kinda cool that the third edition sorcerer has this vague story of dragonblood to give magic power, but they ran with it in 4th edition and 5th edition (13th Age does likewise). This means now that sorcerer is a traditional class, its also stuck with draconic and wild magic as its essence. A beguiler or trickster option would really speak to the idea of the elf or gnome with innate fey powers.

Tradition. Rangers and paladins have been popular classes (I think because they not only have some distinct powers that other warriors don't have, but also because they fill a warrior role), so we're stuck with them. Elves originally cast wizardly magic, so they need to be good with that but we can't switch them to sorcery. Or god forbid giving them druidic powers that actually might mesh more with ideas of what Elven culture might be.

We have done away with some aspects of tradition, such as the Paladin's alignment restriction, or now the bard's limited spellcasting. And that's not a bad thing. But 3rd and 4th edition have been really conservative with setting material, so we didn't really get any broad new archetypes entering into the distinct forms of that d20-rolling fantasy roleplaying game or its followers and acolytes. 

The Gaming Technology of 13th Age

I've played one session of 5th Edition, but when I sat down to create the character, I found all of my options a little lackluster. 5th Edition starts you off with almost no special powers so you can grow into your character. Now, that's great for newer players. But I wouldn't be surprised if many 5th edition games pull an old school Darksun and start off at 3rd level where you've already picked the path your character will follow.

But what it really meant was I've been looking a lot harder at 13th Age. And man, is there some great stuff in there.

First, the three most widely known aspects of 13th Age are probably the Icons and icon relationships, the escalation die, and One Unique Thing. The icons provide a neat way to bring big NPCs or their factions into play, even if they themselves aren't necessarily seen. The escalation die alters combat so you've got some advantages towards the end. This has two effects. First, combats shouldn't last forever (the 4e grind). Second, defense is a reasonable strategy (wait till your attacks are more potent towards the end of combat). Obviously you can use your big guns right away (a dead enemy can deal no damage) but in some most other games playing defensively is mostly just going to make combats last a lot longer. Since its a mechanic, you can then hang other mechanics off it so an attack might be better or worse if you use it early or late in the battle.

But there's a lot more than that. These aren't all unique to 13th Age (which explicitly calls out the origins of some of these features) but really all add up to make the game more than a simple d20 variant. The best thing is, some of them are more philosophical and easy to port into D&D or another game. Others you could do with minor mechanical tweaks. In general, its easier to export these ideas from 13th Age to your own game than remove the rulesy bits from 13th Age. Removing the Icons would have minimal effects on most classes, but removing the escalation die might be quite a bit broader, for example. Removing One Unique Thing just makes 13th Age less custom, while the backgrounds could be replaced with Gumshoe style skills (perhaps based on Lorefinder?).

Middle of or lower of 2-3 stats. In 13th Age, you use the middle or lower of ability scores to determine your defenses (or attacks for multiclass characters, it seems). This means taking one 18 and dumping the other stats isn't such a great plan. A simple and elegant solution which min-maxers can still try to make use of, but not to the extent as most versions of D&D or Pathfinder. 4th Edition did the reverse of this: higher of dex or int for reflex. This meant you could dump one easily. Median of three or lowest of two means you've got a couple scores that still matter. This might mean, however, that having one or two really low scores (if you apply it even more broadly) might make a character significantly less playable.

Fail Forward. This isn't unique to 13th Age, its more of a philosophy. Missed attacks might still deal some damage (hit points are not equal to meat or specific wounds anyway). A failed climbing check might simply result in damage instead of an insurmountable obstacle (though maybe the cliff does prove insurmountable and you have to go the long or dangerous way around). Ever since one game where I played where my character had virtually no chance of making the required check and the DM wouldn't let us advance without it... This has been my philosophy.

Incremental Advance. Levels are big deals. But you can give out a portion of a level early as a bonus for good RP or just regular attendance. This means you might your next feat or class feature early, which are nice and concrete benefits, and playing 4 sessions between levels should still be rewarding.

Weapon Damage and AC by Class. This seems very DungeonWorld to me, but I kinda like it. A barbarian might always do more damage with a longsword than a bard. Ain't nothing wrong with that. Likewise a paladin wearing full plate might have a better AC than the barbarian. Because that's how the class works.

Class complexity ranking. I'm not necessarily of the opinion that each class needs its own set of special powers to make it play different than another, and I certainly think that (by and large) a set of spells does enough for the wizard without needing fiddly once-per-day non-spell powers or whatnot. But in a game where each class does play quite differently and (in general) has its own unique schtick, the ranking of which classes are great for beginners is precious. Barbarians, paladins, and rangers are easier because most of their stuff is basic attacks. Fighters and clerics are more complex because they have more options in play. Sorcerers and rogues are even more complex, because they've got a lot of different options. Wizards can be the most (or closer to sorcerers and rogues) depending on their choices. The additional classes in 13 True Ways (Chaos mage, Commander, Druid, Monk, Necromancer, Occultist) aren't ranked because they're all at least at the Sorcerer/Rogue level of complexity. They call out that the Chaos Mage and Necromancer might be easy enough for beginning players, but its nice to be able to show a list to people too. 13th Age is a little more "do as thou will" though for that.

Backgrounds as Skills. This is one of the the skill systems I actually like. I think I like the Gumshoe system too, but this one I do like. In 13th Age, you use nifty backgrounds as your skills. So if I'm a 'Shaman for a tribe of ancestor worshippers who were wiped out in gnoll attack', I might use that background for tribal etiquette, knowledge of rival tribes, shamanic practices, or gnoll tactics. Min-maxers might be stumped with these and try for a "jack of all trades +5" background, but a crafty GM will just hook them into the plot more. Plus, your class stuff doesn't really interfere or modify backgrounds much, so there's nothing for min-maxers to do but create an intricate background for their character.

Fight in Spirit. This apparently comes from Fate, or so the interwebs claimed. When you're out of a fight, you pull a Final Fantasy where your character might be praying for their allies, or otherwise inspire people and grant a minor bonus. Helps keep people involved even if they've just been irrevocable slain.

Technology of the d20. Critical hits and fumbles have been around for a long time on 20s and 1s, and at least by late second edition we started seeing what resembles today's expanded crit range (On a hit of 18-20...). But 13th Age really brings this all out by having some powers (flexible attacks, lots with the bard, fighter, and sorcerer but also some on the druid and monk iirc plus monsters galore!) activate on a natural even or odd, on a natural high-ish number (16+), on a lower number (two-weapon fighting lets you reroll on a 2), a bad miss (1-5), etc.

Player Pics. An easy to miss section, but it just says let your players (or one of them each session or after a big milestone) pick one element that's been in the game to highlight. A villain, a cult which was sorta forgotten about 2 sessions ago, etc. Then you try to work it in.

Mooks. Obviously we saw these in 4e, but these rules are nice.

Nastier specials. Many monsters have additional optional attacks which can be used to spice things up or if the encounter is significantly weaker than you expected. It also easily lets you make a stronger leader figure for the group of enemies.

Death Attacks and the last gasp save. Death attacks done pretty well. The medusa in the basic rule book is a really nice example of how these save-or-die mechanics can be threatening but not overwhelming (and based one one or two bad rolls).

Conditional spell lists. This is a strange one from 13 True Ways, but the Chaos Mage and the Druids with the terrain magic talent have a set of spells which changed from encounter to encounter. The Chaos Mage (predictably) randomly has a small set of options on any given turn in combat, while the terrain magic talent of the druid gives you different spells depending on what type of terrain you're in (broadly construed). I love this idea so much that the druid can have a nice geomancer feel. (Druids are a super versatile class and can really take a major and minor talent --like terrain magic, an animal companion, healing, or shapeshifting--or go for breadth with three different minor talents for versatility.)

I might have missed one or two, by the way.

Its not really fair to compare this directly to D&D. Obviously 5th edition has some of its own new tech (the double roll for advantage all over the place, one proficiency bonus for lots of things) and other implementations of similar tech (bounded accuracy or a lower range of bonuses over the game). Some of these are also in 13th Age: bounded accuracy because the game only goes up to level 10 (so a +1 per level has a hard cap), some classes like the Barbarian's rage gets the double rolls (and crits if you hit and both dice are 11+), etc. Also, 13th Age had all of previous D&D to draw from, in addition to more indie and opinionated games. I'm not sure how the timeline of 13th Age and DungeonWorld match up, one or both of them could have drawn from the other if they were in progress around summer 2012, but I think its fair to say that 13th Age makes D&D much more like an indie game in the vein of DungeonWorld but quite a bit crunchier in terms of mechanics and rolling.

Now I just gotta herd some nerds into my living room to give this baby the testing it deserves.

Al-Qadim 5e Patch (with an eye towards a 13th Age patch too)

I'd like to run an Al-Qadim game in the fall, and I have two options: 1) run it with the old 2nd Edition rules, or 2) convert another system. So what would it take to do Al-Qadim well in 5th Edition or 13th Age? Looking at what minimal changes are required, it seems that 13th Age might be an easier conversion than 5th Edition, largely because of reflavoring the magic to elemental specialties, though the Icons will require more thought. The hardest bit is getting two of the most iconic elements of Al-Qadim into any patch: the Hakima and Sha'ir.

(Why no Pathfinder? I think the company is awesome, but the design philosophy doesn't float my boat. DungeonWorld might be equally awesome or Savage Worlds or whatnot, but they're also not what I'm interested in just now.)

1) Races. The basic races are probably fine. If I had the gumption I'd add in Goblins and Orcs just to remind people that Al-Qadim is a cosmopolitan setting and racial prejudices don't exist. I think this is one of the things Al-Qadim got right over Kara-Tur: its normal D&D fantasy in an Arabian setting, not what the Arabian version of D&D look like. It gives some normalcy amidst the exotic which might help people otherwise disinclined to try.

2) Classes. God, I wish I could just use the classes as written. But 5th Edition has started baking a few too many assumptions into some classes and options. Too many classes look like they're getting magic. I'm afraid to see the Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster, but those can be listed as non-options.

Clerics, however, might need a slight change of domains to work well. Ideally, domains would be something like: Bravery, Truth, Freedom, Wealth, Fruitfulness/Hard Work, Wisdom, Adventure, Beauty, Intelligence/Learning, Unity, Acceptance/Tolerance, Duty... Then there's the Hakima...

Wizards (and sorcerers and warlocks) might be redeemable by cutting their spell list down a bit and creating elemental provinces out of those, as Al-Qadim originally did. The elemental magic doesn't do all that much for me, but the Brotherhood of True Flame is a pretty neat and ubiquitous setting element. While the Brotherhood doesn't quite need rival elemental opponents, it would be kinda hard to let 5th edition wizards be the school-based mages they're presented as. So wizards might need 2-5 replacement specialties in lieu of the traditional 8 schools of magic (4 elements plus the "generalist" with 2 elements). 13th Age wizards might be a little easier, as you just force a reflavoring of spells to one element.

5th Edition Warlocks and Sorcerers might be a bit harder too. Both classes could use Genie-inspired builds: a genie heritage to replace draconic, and a some elemental genie pacts for warlocks. One might reflavor the Archfey and Fiend pacts with Jann and Efreet respectively. Maybe.

Bardic colleges might need to be reflavored or a new one added (barbering?). Barbering might also make a good thief scheme.

Then there's the iconic Sha'ir class. I think the genie lore and knowledge is more important than the gen per se, but I can see a warlock, wizard, or sorcerer (or bard!) getting a gen familiar and genie powers, so each class could have a build that fulfills that role. The crazy spellcasting mechanic would be cool to re-implement, but i'd have to see how the system works a lot more before considering how to implement it. Same sort of issue if one were to use 13th Age. The cheap way to do the Sha'ir then would be a feat that grants a special version of ritual caster: get a familiar who searches for ritual spells and cast them. Harder to find non-ritual spells or spells on another caster list. Doesn't muck with combat options as much. I'll have to rethink this once the PhB is released. Not sure how 13th Age would deal with this, though it could easily be a wizard talent perhaps.

3) Kits as Backgrounds.
By and large, the kits of 2nd edition can be backgrounds in 5th edition. In 13th Age, they are probably just sample character ideas. This is probably the easiest part, except for the Hakima and Sha'ir which are more like unique classes than sub-classes.

4) Spells.
As I mentioned earlier, this is just pairing down the spell list from the PhB for arcane classes and giving elemental province options. Also, because there's bound to be some gaps, update a few of the old Al-Qadim spells so each elemental province has a couple spells at each level. 13th Age might require less work on this end as reflavoring could do a lot of work here.

5) Cuts.
A few things might get cut as non-thematic. Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster come to mind, but those could just get an elemental spell focus somehow. The Great Old One warlock pact isn't too thematic, but maybe it's just a dispreferred element. Paladins are kinda odd in Al-Qadim. Monks can be the new Mystics of Nog, Barbarians can be from any number of unenlightened desert or island or ruined kingdoms tribes. So it might not be too bad.

13th Age might similarly need a cut, but maybe not too much from the main book. Occultist, Chaos Mage, Druid, and Paladin seem less fitting, and possible some aspects of the Bard (though poets were huge in pre-Islamic Arabia).

6) Icons.
13th Age has icons. I'm not sure what the Al-Qadim Icons might be. Probably major political forces: The Grand Caliph, The Pantheon, The Temple of Ten Thousand Gods, Brotherhood of True Flame, The Cold Gods of the Elements, The Yikaria, the Genie Lords... There's a lot of options. Each Holy Slayer group, Each Mystic group, each desert tribe... I guess there might be something to be said for keeping the number to an iconic 13 in 13th Age. Heck, any given city could be an icon, or the regions as a whole. Al-Qadim has so much described, but few (memorable?) major NPCs with world-changing agendas.


So, what's the total work-load?
2nd Edition: Nothing.

5th Edition (Basics): Convert old kits to backgrounds, possibly a new Cleric domain or two (Hakima!), 2-5 wizard specialties, spell-list triage. Something with the Sha'ir. Ban a few non-thematic options as native characters (Eldritch knight, Arcane trickster, Draconic Sorcerer, etc.)

5th Edition (Complete): Maybe add a Goblin/Orc race. Also check for new bardic colleges (Barbering) and thief specialties (Barber, Merchant) as well as other kits that might become class elements.

13th Age: Kits as inspirational list, guidelines for elementalizing arcane spells. Something for the Hakima and Sha'ir (maybe just a new talent for wizards and clerics?).

While I'm totally intrigued with testing out some new rules, I do wonder if its worth it to just use 2nd edition. Planescape or Spelljammer might be much easier conversion since they used more of the mainstream options, and races are much easier to cobble together than classes or class variants.

13 True Ways (13th Age)

When I got 13th Age last year, I thought it was pretty slick: a combo of 3rd and 4th edition which seems quite playable, easier than either of its parent editions, and has some neat notions (gimmicks?) to help things along (Icons and PC relationships with them, the escalation die, simplified and story-based backgrounds).

But I just preordered 13 True Ways and got the PDF. Now there's more than one class that appeals to me. For the record, its: Wizard from the first book, Battle Captain, Monk, Necromancer, Druid, and Occultist from 13 True Ways). By the by, I still think "Occultist" is kind of a stupid name and wasn't expecting much from the class, but its a class designed for one character which I totally like. As in: there's one crazy chosen-by-fate psychic/karma weaver out there, and you're it.

Some of the story-elements of 13 True Ways didn't look compelling for my first read-through, but I could be more easily convinced to play this baby: either as a player or behind the screen.

Interestingly, I think the set of classes also has now reached my "sweet spot" of 12-20 (15 to be exact). There's something about this level of granularity that speaks to me: certainly more complex than it needs to be, but enough distinct options that I feel I have a crucial choice to make in terms of class. With just the base game... maybe I could consider a Bard or Barbarian? Or Sorcerer? Maybe... But a few more options and I'm considering things that aren't casters (Battle Captain and Monk). This is good.