Level Appropriate Challenges, Adventures, world

[Janx]

Agreed. I'm earning XP to make myself stronger, not to level up every foe i fight. It's fine and dandy to have leveled humanoids as officers, elites and commanders, but the bulk of their forces should be in low level grunts. Great Cleave should NEVER be allowed to seem weak, which is exactly what tends to happen as the tribe of 1st level orcs fuse together and becomes a squad of barbarian6/warrior2 orcs.

You bring up an interesting point.

How many people really spend time leveling up monsters from the MM in 3e?

I don't.

I choose to use Orcs against the PCs because their CRs add up to the difficulty I want for the encounter (and presumably befits the campaign). Not because I modified them so their CR adds up to the CR I want for the encounter.

When folks complain about all the time it takes for encounter prep, perhaps they're adding class levels and the like to modify the orcs.

While now and then I might make a leveled NPC out of a monster, that's rare. If I want a CR5, I go to the listing of monsters in the CR5 range and pick something (or roll it).

To me, this is kind of how pre-3e was, except it was Hit Die not CR that was the yard stick.


As to the other point about PC leveling is really leveling up the monsters. Uh yeah. What game isn't? What player REALLY wants to level up so he can go beat up all the monsters he beat up in the beginning of the game, except this time he's higher level. While an easy encounter is a good change of pace, the people I play with wouldn't be happy if everything got easier.

So sandbox where the PCs choose to go to a harder area or whatever, the players I know are going to hit the level appropriate stuff and run away from the too high level stuff.

In which case, its the same effect. Players tend to do stuff around their level.

 

[the Jester]

....So sandbox where the PCs choose to go to a harder area or whatever, the players I know are going to hit the level appropriate stuff and run away from the too high level stuff.

In which case, its the same effect. Players tend to do stuff around their level.

I think the problem with your analysis comes down to, "The people I know play this way, ergo everyone else does too."

This is absolutely, blatantly, explicitly not true.

Your assumptions about sandboxing are waaaay off from the experiences I have had for, oh, 30+ years of sandboxing. That doesn't mean that you're always wrong; it just means that you're not always right.

I can recall, at 1st level in 1e, having to take on a frickin' iron golem. I can recall a ton of times, at 1st level in EVERY edition, where the pcs had to deal with an ogre. I can recall SURPRISE!! encounters with monsters that vastly outpower the pcs in every edition I have run, from BECMI on to 4e. Clearly, you haven't had the same experiences as I, but surely you can see that you haven't had the only experience with gaming and that, if someone has a decades-long campaign with eager players and a constant waiting list of people that want in, they must be doing something right... even if different from what you're used to or expect.

 

[amerigoV]

I've found that system of choice has some bearing on this. We're currently playing Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds has no particular "CR system" or anything similar. Instead it says that you should just put in whatever you feel is appropriate as the GM and the players can either handle it or not (which sounds pretty sandboxy to me!). It suggests that the players ought to have in mind that there will be challenges they cannot defeat (yet) and be considering in each battle whether they should retreat to fight another day.

One reason why I think that SW gets away with this concept is that there is less differentiation between a low and a high level character under that system than many others (including all versions of D&D). Also the rules for combat make it possible for the PC's to pretty much "nova" and use all their resources at once to survive a battle that is over their heads. At least they can if they haven't spent those resources already on earlier combats.

Ditto.

Plus SW has awesome Chase Rules (4e folks can think of them as a skill challenge). I did the opening scene of Return to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk with one player and gave him 5 extras. He got all his extra's heads handed to him and decided to flee. The Chase Rules worked wonderfully and helped set the tone for the overall campaign (ie - bring your A game, cuz I am not fudging dice or creatures).

 

[Janx]

I can recall, at 1st level in 1e, having to take on a frickin' iron golem. I can recall a ton of times, at 1st level in EVERY edition, where the pcs had to deal with an ogre. I can recall SURPRISE!! encounters with monsters that vastly outpower the pcs in every edition I have run, from BECMI on to 4e. Clearly, you haven't had the same experiences as I, but surely you can see that you haven't had the only experience with gaming and that, if someone has a decades-long campaign with eager players and a constant waiting list of people that want in, they must be doing something right... even if different from what you're used to or expect.

Actually, there's an anomoly right there.

Why ISN'T an ogre level appropriate for a 1st level party to encounter?

Just as I used the dungeon as an assumption of a stereotypical sandbox, you may be assuming that when I say level appropriate that everything is beatable by the PCs.

In both our games, we have 20th level stuff sitting around the campaign world. Or at least the expectation that it exists somewhere IF the players go looking for it.

For puposes of the active play area, I'm wary of dropping in mucho high level stuff. Because ultimately, it actually feels like I'm railroading.

If I put in the big bad Lich in a low level adventure, its pretty much expected that the party can only talk to him or avoid him. They sure as heck can't fight him (well, they could, futilely). Therefore, I'm actively determining his responses in the "what reduces the stance for him to just decide to wipe them out"

If I put in something "level appropriate", the kid gloves can come off. The party acts aggressive, boom let's dance kids.

That's not to say in ANY game that players can't seek out the big bad. Or get in the kind of trouble that attracts the big bad. That's on them, as it should be.

In the dragon bribery example, ultimately, the GM decided to keep it peaceful. He could have also decided the dragon changed his mind and eaten the PCs. That kind of arbitrariness is easier to avoid if you don't put it in the players faces.

I'm a lazy DM. I don't write play areas for stuff that i don't expect to need. A low level party doesn't need to be finding the high level play area. Not unless the situation really calls for it.

 

[kitsune9]

Janx,

You described my attitude about challenges exactly.

 

[Jhaelen]

How many people really spend time leveling up monsters from the MM in 3e?

I don't.

I have no idea how many people do it, but I sure do. Having only level 1 orc warriors in a world doesn't make any sense to me.

As a design exercise I once created an orc tribe built using the numbers from the 3e MM to challenge a level 13 party. It's doable and it's fun. Particularly since it was a level-appropriate encounter that (almost) didn't earn them any xp, since all but the tribe's chief had a CR that was 8+ levels below the party.

I'd also like to note, that using the 3e DMG guidelines, encounters should use a level range from about EPL* - 2 to EPL +4 with one in twenty encounters going off the scale (and not intended to be beatable).

* Effective Party Level


Sandboxes don't appeal to me and also wouldn't work with most of my players. Almost all of them have difficulties to come up with their own goals. They prefer 'soft' railroading.

Also, placing 'encounter areas' with status-quo encounters (i.e. fixed levels) doesn't make sense to me. What's the point of offering a mid-level party the choice between a (level 1) kobold cave, a (level 8) troll haunt and a (level 18) demon pit?

If they decide to visit the former, they'll be bored, if the visit the latter, they'll be dead. A great choice indeed!

Traveling across the world just to explore and gather treasure isn't particularly appealing to me. All of the sandbox campaigns I've ever participated in were short-lived: They either slowly fizzled out because everybody lost interest or they imploded with a bang because the party turned on itself.

But I'm digressing.


What I really wanted to say is this: There is a place for encounters that are not 'level-appropriate', but they should be the exception, not the rule and _some_ adjustment is usually preferable to just using status-quo encounters.

 

[The Shaman]

First off, let's knock out the extreme ends.

A good GM who has "level variety" in his game world probably doesn't plop a 20th level dragon and its Dungeon of High Level Doom right next door to Newbsville and not provide any warning to the NPCs.

Probably not, because most likely the dragon and its henchmonsters would wipe Newbsville off the map . . .

. . . unless Newbsville is a source of tribute such as livestock and virgins that the dragon covets, or the Dungeon of High Level Doom is hidden from the good residents of Newbsville, or . . .

The point being, it is possible to place a dangerous, loaded encounter site right up against the adventurers' safe haven and keep the world plausible.

The raw extreme of this would mean that the NPCs would level up with the party all the time. That just defies common sense.

It also assumes that npcs level up at all. In my 3e game some did but most didn't - a Fighter 8 hobgoblin was simply a really badass goblinoid, not an adventurer, so if the adventurers encountered him around fifth level or around thirteenth level, he would still be a Fighter 8.

In a sandbox, it seems to ultimately come down to the party heading to a dungeon. Where each level is pretty much generated by random tables that correspond to PC level. So while the PCs COULD go too deep, there is an inherent sense of level appropriateness in the design.

That's not even close to accurate.

I think your definition of sandbox is far removed from the one that many of us who call ourselves sandbox dms use. I am not sure if you mean to sound dismissive here, but that's how you come across to me. Just FYI.

Agreed, and if somone else could please zap an XP on the Jester's post for me, it would be most appreciated - there's lots of goodness that I snipped out for brevity's sake.

 

[The Shaman]

I've found that system of choice has some bearing on this. We're currently playing Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds has no particular "CR system" or anything similar. Instead it says that you should just put in whatever you feel is appropriate as the GM and the players can either handle it or not (which sounds pretty sandboxy to me!). It suggests that the players ought to have in mind that there will be challenges they cannot defeat (yet) and be considering in each battle whether they should retreat to fight another day.

One reason why I think that SW gets away with this concept is that there is less differentiation between a low and a high level character under that system than many others (including all versions of D&D). Also the rules for combat make it possible for the PC's to pretty much "nova" and use all their resources at once to survive a battle that is over their heads. At least they can if they haven't spent those resources already on earlier combats.

It's kind of liberating as a GM to be able to throw in whatever seems right without having to give tremendous though about whether the players can handle it. That's not to say that I toss dragons at them willy nilly or anything like that. But another advantage of SW is that there aren't a ton of stats. I can basically look at a monsters Parry, Toughness and Fighting and know right away whether the PC's stand a chance against it. After that it's a pretty easy call one way or the other.

All of these stood out as reasons I liked PotSM when I picked it up.

 

[The Shaman]

I'm not there to tell them no, but when your resources get really low in a game there should be some bells going off.

One would hope . . .

How many people really spend time leveling up monsters from the MM in 3e?

I don't.

I did - I routinely added (or subtracted) hit dice for 1e monsters, and I liked the 3e system of adding character levels to monsters very much.

Why ISN'T an ogre level appropriate for a 1st level party to encounter?

It is appropriate in my book. Next question.

For puposes of the active play area, I'm wary of dropping in mucho high level stuff. Because ultimately, it actually feels like I'm railroading.

If I put in the big bad Lich in a low level adventure, its pretty much expected that the party can only talk to him or avoid him. They sure as heck can't fight him . . .

Not YET.

Therefore, I'm actively determining his responses in the "what reduces the stance for him to just decide to wipe them out"

I'm actively determining his responses as, "What's the appropriate response to what the adventurers are doing, given what I know of the monster and what it knows of the adventurers?"

A trapdoor spider wants to grab something, pull it into its lair, and dine on the juicy bits. Its motivations are pretty simple. A lich is a very powerful, supremely intelligent entity. Its motivations, and its responses, are likely to be much more subtle and complex.

If the adventurers do something aggressive toward a lich, then it will respond in kind. If they don't, unless there's some specific reason why it should immediately kill the adventurers (and no, being evil isn't enough in and of itself), it may look for some way to manipulate them to its advantage.

If I put in something "level appropriate", the kid gloves can come off. The party acts aggressive, boom let's dance kids.

"Boom let's dance" is always a possibility, but I prefer to let the adventurers create that moment by their choices.

That's not to say in ANY game that players can't seek out the big bad. Or get in the kind of trouble that attracts the big bad. That's on them, as it should be.

On this we're in full agreement.

In the dragon bribery example, ultimately, the GM decided to keep it peaceful. He could have also decided the dragon changed his mind and eaten the PCs. That kind of arbitrariness is easier to avoid if you don't put it in the players faces.

I prefer to use random reactions or a resisted skill test, maybe throwing in a modifier for what I know of the situation, and interpret the results.

I'm a lazy DM. I don't write play areas for stuff that i don't expect to need.

I'm a lazy referee, too. I prep to improvise a lot.

 

[Lanefan]

I've found that system of choice has some bearing on this. We're currently playing Savage Worlds and Savage Worlds has no particular "CR system" or anything similar. Instead it says that you should just put in whatever you feel is appropriate as the GM and the players can either handle it or not (which sounds pretty sandboxy to me!). It suggests that the players ought to have in mind that there will be challenges they cannot defeat (yet) and be considering in each battle whether they should retreat to fight another day.

Pretty much how I handle 1e D+D. If it makes sense that a given thing - monster, hazard, whatever - will be somewhere then it's gonna be there; and if the party decide to mess with it then so be it, nice knowing 'em.

About the only exception I'll make is this: if a party has no possible way of knowing or of finding out ahead of time about a hazard they couldn't handle (rare, but it happens) and blunders into it, if they try to run I'll let 'em go even if the foe is one that would usually track them down. But if they don't run, tough.

It's kind of liberating as a GM to be able to throw in whatever seems right without having to give tremendous though about whether the players can handle it. That's not to say that I toss dragons at them willy nilly or anything like that. But another advantage of SW is that there aren't a ton of stats. I can basically look at a monsters Parry, Toughness and Fighting and know right away whether the PC's stand a chance against it. After that it's a pretty easy call one way or the other.

True, though in fairness to the monsters there still need to be some that low-level parties just shouldn't get involved with.

Lanefan