D&D 4E 4E Hack: "Fiction First" Playtest
hendrake69
Explorer
This has been a facinating read. Thank you.
I had a few thoughts on the XP reward...
Since, "Monsters or traps more than four levels below the party's level or seven levels above the party's level don't make good challenges" I would reduce the XP reward by half for every level below four and above seven.
So if your party of four 8th level PCs dispose of a 500 XP encounter (a 2nd encounter level encounter for 4 PCs), instead of 500 XP they would get 500 / 2 = 250 / 2 = 125 XP.
To clarify, I divided by two twice since the 2nd level encounter was two levels beyond the "cut-off" for full XP for an 8th level group (cut off @ 4th level).
If that's still too much XP, you could always start halving the reward at three levels below the party's "standard" encounter level.
Too, I would also start halving the XP for extremely HIGH level encounters that the party manages to defeat somehow (or perhaps achieve something truly unusual, like completing a particularly easy quest, finding a high-powered artifact or exploring the moon). My reasoning is that the PC (not the player) may not be able to process exactly what happened to 'pull him through' the nightmare. Alternatively, one could look at it as there's just so much one can learn from being incredibly lucky.
I'd do the "half XP for every level above seven (or maybe five)" with a minimum of 10% or something, just to throw 'em a bone.
So I guess once an encounter goes beyond 10 levels higher than what's "standard" for that group, they only get 10% of the potential XP, which would, with a 8th level party defeating a 19th level encounter, be 960 XP.
"We're so lucky to be alive!"
Alternatively, I suppose that rather than 10%, you could just say that if the party defeats an encounter more than 9 levels higher than them, they only get the "standard" XP reward for their level.
I don't see many 8th level parties defeating 8,000 XP worth of bad guys in one go anyway. I certainly could be wrong, of course. Maybe you could playtest a fight against an Elder White Dragon and see how it goes?
Now, I have questions, I hope that's alright.
Your hexes are 5 miles across, right?
Do the players see their characters as "good?" Are you bothering with alignments at all or is it a purely "character motivation" game? From my perspective, what with the deals with Asmodeus, the sentient being-sacrifices and the executions without trial ("Well, the paladin said he was evil, so we cut his head off in the street") and so on, I've come to view your PCs as, at best, "opportunistic pragmatists" and at worst, "Damn, that's one evil SOB!").
Not that there's anything wrong with that, I was just curious if your players see themselves as, "The Good Guys."
I assume you're operating under the premise that the farmers of this world are remarkably competent (having sussed out the potential of fertilizer, iron plows, irrigation systems and crop rotation) since the "three farmers support one non-farmer" is a very efficient ratio. My question is, how much have you fleshed out your communities? Most of them seem pretty tiny and the moment the PCs arrive they fairly quickly meet whoever's in charge and start interacting with him so I'm curious if that's what you're going for.
Your play style reminds me of my youth when the best DM I ever had created nearly everything on the fly and had us regularly running for our lives, getting our hapless followers killed more often than not and generally having a great time.
I'm starting a new (1st level 4e) group next month and I'd love to see my players want to interact with the environment more. You've given me some ideas and so for that, and the dedication you've shown posting these write ups, again, I thank you.
I had a few thoughts on the XP reward...
Since, "Monsters or traps more than four levels below the party's level or seven levels above the party's level don't make good challenges" I would reduce the XP reward by half for every level below four and above seven.
So if your party of four 8th level PCs dispose of a 500 XP encounter (a 2nd encounter level encounter for 4 PCs), instead of 500 XP they would get 500 / 2 = 250 / 2 = 125 XP.
To clarify, I divided by two twice since the 2nd level encounter was two levels beyond the "cut-off" for full XP for an 8th level group (cut off @ 4th level).
If that's still too much XP, you could always start halving the reward at three levels below the party's "standard" encounter level.
Too, I would also start halving the XP for extremely HIGH level encounters that the party manages to defeat somehow (or perhaps achieve something truly unusual, like completing a particularly easy quest, finding a high-powered artifact or exploring the moon). My reasoning is that the PC (not the player) may not be able to process exactly what happened to 'pull him through' the nightmare. Alternatively, one could look at it as there's just so much one can learn from being incredibly lucky.
I'd do the "half XP for every level above seven (or maybe five)" with a minimum of 10% or something, just to throw 'em a bone.
So I guess once an encounter goes beyond 10 levels higher than what's "standard" for that group, they only get 10% of the potential XP, which would, with a 8th level party defeating a 19th level encounter, be 960 XP.
"We're so lucky to be alive!"
Alternatively, I suppose that rather than 10%, you could just say that if the party defeats an encounter more than 9 levels higher than them, they only get the "standard" XP reward for their level.
I don't see many 8th level parties defeating 8,000 XP worth of bad guys in one go anyway. I certainly could be wrong, of course. Maybe you could playtest a fight against an Elder White Dragon and see how it goes?
Now, I have questions, I hope that's alright.
Your hexes are 5 miles across, right?
Do the players see their characters as "good?" Are you bothering with alignments at all or is it a purely "character motivation" game? From my perspective, what with the deals with Asmodeus, the sentient being-sacrifices and the executions without trial ("Well, the paladin said he was evil, so we cut his head off in the street") and so on, I've come to view your PCs as, at best, "opportunistic pragmatists" and at worst, "Damn, that's one evil SOB!").
Not that there's anything wrong with that, I was just curious if your players see themselves as, "The Good Guys."
I assume you're operating under the premise that the farmers of this world are remarkably competent (having sussed out the potential of fertilizer, iron plows, irrigation systems and crop rotation) since the "three farmers support one non-farmer" is a very efficient ratio. My question is, how much have you fleshed out your communities? Most of them seem pretty tiny and the moment the PCs arrive they fairly quickly meet whoever's in charge and start interacting with him so I'm curious if that's what you're going for.
Your play style reminds me of my youth when the best DM I ever had created nearly everything on the fly and had us regularly running for our lives, getting our hapless followers killed more often than not and generally having a great time.
I'm starting a new (1st level 4e) group next month and I'd love to see my players want to interact with the environment more. You've given me some ideas and so for that, and the dedication you've shown posting these write ups, again, I thank you.
hendrake69
Explorer
What I would do, since an 8th level character is more likely to contribute to the dispatching of a 4th level monster than a 1st level character, is share out the XP according to the PC's levels as follows -
Levels 1-3 = 1 share
Levels 4-6 = 2 shares
Levels 7-9 = 3 shares
So if a 1st level character is traveling with a 4th level character, a 6th level character and a 8th level character (basically a 5th level party), and they defeat 1000 XP worth of bad guys in an encounter, rather than getting 250 XP (even split), the 1st level guy would get -
1000 / 8 x 1 = 125 XP.
- while the 4th and 6th level character would earn -
1000 / 8 x 2 = 250 XP (each)
- and the 8th level character would earn -
1000 / 8 x 3 = 375 XP
- which (I feel, anyway) reflects the higher burden load taken on by the higher level characters to put the bad guys down and still allows the 1st level character a level of progress that he wouldn't see without accompanying his more powerful friends (you know, 'cause he'd be dead).
I would say his "share" of whatever encounters he participated in.
The other PCs (the dead ones) also earned their share of the XP, they just didn't 'get it' - 'cause they were, you know, dead.
If there's a quest reward, well, I guess that depends on the quest. If the quest is, "Retrieve the Golden Bauble (for 1000 XP)" and he walks back into town with the Golden Bauble, well more power to him. If he drags his fellows all back to town and gets 'em raised from the dead, they probably won't begrudge him their XP...
...okay they probably WILL, but they SHOULDN'T...
Yeah, and give credit to those who participated in the fight, even if they were killed during it. That's only fair since their participation, even as just a meat-shield, contributed to the group victory.
I understand. I suspect that a 8+ higher-level monster would wipe the floor with most PCs anyway.
<<<Snip - thanks for the insight!>>>
3. I tried to do some research to see how competent medieval farmers were. I didn't get very far! I decided to go with a 3:1 ratio because it seemed nice.
Take a look at this -
FC63: The agricultural revolution in medieval Europe - The Flow of History
- which at ten-to-one, jibes with most of my stuff.
It's an interesting read too (to someone like me, anyway).
Of course, that's during high middle ages (pre-Little Ice Age / Black Death) after all the good stuff (excepting high-yield crops and fertilizer [well, aside from dung, I suppose]) had been brought into play (crop rotation, heavy plows, plow horses). Generally, the high middle ages is the period games like D&D tend to emulate. After all, everything went downhill from there...
I readily admit to sometimes bringing the ratios up a bit from there (8 to 1 and even 5 to 1) to reflect...well, to reflect that D&D tends to have a lot of talented people running around and a lot of time to figure stuff out (most worlds have thousands of years of rising and falling civilizations, and at least a few sentient races that live a long, long time). Besides, there's just no other way that a town of three thousand perched between a wide river and a big dark forest and thirty miles from any other community can FEED itself if you don't cut 'em some breaks!
3-to-1 isn't outlandish of course, it's just...well, it's three times better than historically guessimated so I feel it's fair to say that it's advanced but not outside the realm of possibility. Certainly with high-yield crops, basic fertilizer (fish-based or even alchemy-based) and/or arcane or divine assistance it "feels" doable (from the comfort of our 21st century lifestyle). Figuring out the culture impact would be fun too (certainly it would justify there being plenty of bored locals willing to try to get-rich-quick doing something stupid like being becoming a hireling to a monster-hunter)!
I hear ya. Players never care anyway...
===>>
"Whose in charge of the village?"
- "Whom are you asking?"
"Umm...the bartender."
- "You approach an open-air tavern on the north side of the road. You note a crimson sheet stretching from between four deeply-sunk posts to provide a bit of shade. Unfortunately, most of the the shade is currently claimed by a graybearded tinker whose working on a..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah - you and your tinkers. Bunch of scallawags. I ask the tinker whose in charge."
- "The tinker doesn't look up as he's concentrating on repairing a clasp on a silver-plated (the copper is showing through) necklace. He does, however, respond by saying, "Daen MacKane." Almost immediately after he says this, a large man wearing an apron emerges from the attached single-story building carrying a platter with a tin cup and a bowl of stew. The halfling smells fish."
"Well at least it's not eels. Okay, we go find him."
- "Who?"
"Daen MacKane!"
- "Where?"
"Argh! Fine! We ask big guy with the stew where we can find Daen MacKane."
- The man appears a bit surprised to find four heavily armed Monster Hunters standing on his stoop. He recovers quickly though. Dave, roll a 20 sided. Thank you. He says, "Your pardon, my lord, I am uncertain how I should answer that question. Perhaps if you told me what you wish of him I could..."
"I really hate you, you know."
<<===
Thanks! I do hope you write more "story" even if you've worked out the mechanics. I really enjoyed it.
I like the looks of Legends & Labyrinths. Thanks for the Link!!!
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