Monte Cooks First Legends and Lore

This is just a rerun of the skill system discussed a couple of weeks ago, with particular emphasis on Perception (passive and otherwise). I wasn't a fan of that system then, and I'm not now.

Interesting fact: in 1st Edition, elves had a chance to automatically detect secret doors, but only if the player specifically asked for a roll. That little rule is tucked away in the DMG, in one of the sections on running the game. It was something of a surprise when I came across it recently! (It was also dropped for 2nd Edition, and IIRC is doesn't feature in the BECMI version of the game.)

Monte Cook said:

. . . [ I]f we look to the rank idea, the DM can just make a note that the elf has an Expert rank, and thus he knows that if, in the course of exploration, she walks by any secret doors of Expert rank or lower, she spots them.

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This is pretty close to how Flashing Blades handles it.

Ever since 1984, in fact.



Remind me again why these guys get paid to re-invent the wheel?

Here's an odd thing:

Assume that you make your character good at finding stuff because you want, as a player, to interact with the environment. Poke and prod at stuff, that sort of thing.

In order to do that, you want to make sure your "finding stuff" skill is in the sweet spot - not too high that you can't find stuff, but not too low that you find nothing. edit: that's confusing; "not too high that you, as a player, have no need to interact with the environment" may clear it up.

It seems as though the skill system is saying that players who want to spend time in play going through finding stuff shouldn't max out their find stuff skill. They should choose a class like fighter or wizard instead. Players who don't want to spend time searching for stuff should choose a rogue.

Which strikes me as backwards.

LostSoul said:

In order to do that, you want to make sure your "finding stuff" skill is in the sweet spot - not too high that you can't find stuff, but not too low that you find nothing.

It seems as though the skill system is saying that players who want to spend time in play going through finding stuff shouldn't max out their find stuff skill. They should choose a class like fighter or wizard instead. Players who don't want to spend time searching for stuff should choose a rogue.

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[My highlighting above]

If your finding stuff skill is very high then you find it automatically. That's not "Not Finding" - it's finding w/o a roll -or fishing for the right thing to poke.

I find with my players that if I say, "There doesn't seem to be anything of interest here - except that Phred notices a small crack in the desktop. Exploring it you find a hidden drawer with this letter. ..." I give letter to Phred's player.

Then Phred's player gets a kick out of having the perceptive character and has the benefit of being the first to try to interpret this clue.

Comments on this:

A. I want the players to have this clue/information to forward the plot. I don't want it missed by poor dice rolls.

B. If another less perceptive character (Johnjo) had been actively exploring the desk as soon as it was mentioned then I'd give them a roll before going to Phred's passive perception.

C. You can also combine the abilities. [Johnjo fails the roll] "Johnjo, doesn't find anything - but his activity at the desk means that Phred notices a crack in the desktop". So Phred's player still gets to feel good because of his skill level - but Johnjo knows he was on the right track.

D. I'd try and give extra information for careful prodding and poking. Phred's thorough examination of the hidden drawer reveals the mechanism, carefully opening the drawer you find this letter and a few farthings from the regin of King Norbert that have been lost inside the desk.

I'd have been more interested to see it applied to things other than Perception (and Insight) for which these things already exist. E.g. why not talk about automating more die rolls in combat? Players love to roll dice, so let's talk about the DM's end of things.

4E introduced auto-damage for minions. It could have also introduced automating the to-hit roll for them. Take base to-hit bonus, DM always takes 10 = end result in your stat block, compare to static defense score of PC, and there's one big amount of time saved in combat (a major issue with 4E). Reserve rolling (and intricate stat blocks) for attacks and damage to big 'lead' monsters. Basically make team monster into 1 major guy who buffs 4 lesser monsters which mostly run on an auto-script, again to save time.

Less die rolling, and puts the DM's decision making process all into the stat block of the lead monster. E.g. lead monster could buff the to-hit numbers of the monsters on auto script; PCs could try to disable him from doing it, and so on. Speeds up play, as it folds the DM's decision making during the encounter into one monster.

Also, numbers would be easier to generate. Non-elite monsters have to-hit and damage numbers calculated on the basis of their level. As a DM I have a master table on my screen with non-elite monsters from level 1 to 30, and that's all I ever need for non-elites. All I ever need to create are mastermind or lead monsters. Designing encounters would be super easy - it'd have a core design element (the lead monster) and the rest of the encounter would write itself (by complementing the lead monster). Would also work greatly with the MM - it's a book full of lead monsters, each of which is basically its own encounter template. Would preserve the 4E idea of 'no longer fighting solo monsters but teams of monsters' but preserve the design focus on individual monsters which previous editions had (bonus points for nostalgia). Familiarity regained, 4e lesson learned, but greater and faster implementation overall - that's how I'd peg 5E design goals.

Edit. Actually, the thing I propose already exists in 4E. Just take the stat block of any 4e solo monster, and instead of allocating its actions to a single monster generate 4 spawns who can take any of the solo's lesser actions at certain initiative counts. Voia la, you got 1 encounter in 1 stat block. Non-elite monsters are simply opportunities for taking combat actions; you want these to be able to move around the battle field to inflict the actions away from the elite.

I like the idea of returning more exploration into D&D. Poking and prodding can be a lot of fun....with a good DM.

I don't envy Monte Cook. 5e fails regardless of its design if its just another pen and paper tabletop RPG. The market is too segmented and the only way forward is a heavily marketed online game that hybrids the best of RPG play with the graphics goodies of a video game you can play 24/7 naked with a bag of cheetos.

The thing that worries me about Monte's post is the bit about Expert ranking.

Will our skill be simplified into: Novice, Intermediate, Expert, and Master or something very un DnD in my mind?

Although, in the same vein as 4E, maybe we'd have name level skills, like:
Novice climber
Intermediate scaler
Expert wall crawler
Mountaineer. That'd be old school.

The column seems like a rehash of some of the stuff Mearls and his good self talked about, and Mearls wrote about.

I dislike passive perception mainly because I, or an adventure writer, is setting a DC for a trap or secret door and I know what the passive perception of the PCs are and whether the characters will pass or fail before the game even starts. Where the fun in that. Boring....

The only way I could see it working is if there was a dice roll against passive perception. So there is some random element like (Pit Trap Hide +5).

If they were to go with this method and static DC or levels (like Expert Traps, etc) then they had better balance it out with something interesting to do with the skills once the trap has been perceived.

Anselyn said:

[My highlighting above]

If your finding stuff skill is very high then you find it automatically. That's not "Not Finding" - it's finding w/o a roll -or fishing for the right thing to poke.

I find with my players that if I say, "There doesn't seem to be anything of interest here - except that Phred notices a small crack in the desktop. Exploring it you find a hidden drawer with this letter. ..." I give letter to Phred's player.

Then Phred's player gets a kick out of having the perceptive character and has the benefit of being the first to try to interpret this clue.

Click to expand...

My post was unclear. What I meant was a player who likes to spend real time describing the specific actions his PC is taking in order to discover hidden features of the environment doesn't get to do that if he finds things automatically.

To use your example above, let's say Phred's player wanted to describe how Phred was going to examine the desktop; maybe he'd pry open the crack with a dagger or crowbar. He (Phred's player) didn't get to do that; Phred finds the hidden drawer without any input from the player (aside from character build choices).

The fact that players have fewer choices to make in a certain arena if they spend more resources there isn't necessarily a design flaw, but it strikes me as strange.

LostSoul said:

My post was unclear. What I meant was a player who likes to spend real time describing the specific actions his PC is taking in order to discover hidden features of the environment doesn't get to do that if he finds things automatically.

To use your example above, let's say Phred's player wanted to describe how Phred was going to examine the desktop; maybe he'd pry open the crack with a dagger or crowbar. He (Phred's player) didn't get to do that; Phred finds the hidden drawer without any input from the player (aside from character build choices).

The fact that players have fewer choices to make in a certain arena if they spend more resources there isn't necessarily a design flaw, but it strikes me as strange.

Click to expand...

This is one of my problems with the system. We have two players here; one likes to poke and prod the environment and gets enjoyment from that, and the other optimises his character to have a high (passive) perception to gain an in game advantage. I'd prefer if the first player could also optimise his character AND still gain an advantage from his poking and prodding.