Rule of Three 2/28

[I'm A Banana]

Linkey-poo.

I really, really like this blurb:

In an environment where the adventure is balanced between exploration, combat, and interaction (some folks took umbrage with it the last time I used “roleplaying” here instead of “interaction,” which is a fair complaint), the 15-minute day simply makes less sense. Even in a dungeon crawl environment, if there’s more to do than just fight things, there is a reason to keep pushing on even when one’s resources are relatively depleted, because you might find something around the next corner other than a fight. Furthermore, adventuring is about facing danger to reap rewards, and if the adventure makes it easy for the players to rest after each fight, that may mean that the danger isn’t sufficient, or that the rewards are not great enough.

"there's more to do than just fight things."

aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

I also like this:

In Dungeons & Dragons, managing one’s resources should not be a purely tactical concern (that is, managing spells and hit points over the course of a single encounter), but a strategic one (managing expendable resources over the course of an entire adventuring day). Furthermore, if your players are keen on resting after only a single fight, even if their resources are only slightly depleted, then your players may be sending you a message about the play style that they prefer, and we should be putting the tools in the hands of the DM to create adventures that contain only a single, huge combat encounter to cover the entire day’s worth of adventuring and still provide a satisfying adventure experience.

"Entire day" encounters? Strategic resource management (he says over the course of a day, which still seems short to me, but eh, it's a step in the right direction!.

It really sounds like they're grokking at least the basics of adventure-level design instead of encounter-level design, and for that I am very, very excited!

There's a lot of other supportive things in the second question, too!

The first question is about the shugenja, and it's a good explanation, and I'm generally a bigger fan of making something new that is kind of cool than in making something new that is kind of cool and slapping an old name on it for the hell of it ("archons"?!)

 

[JamesonCourage]

Ah, Rule of Three. Between this and the "Putting the Vance in Vancian" (instead of Advanced) thread, I thought I was losing it.

Also, I'm very glad they're going to attempt to accommodate the "single big fight" as a style of play. Very glad. As always, play what you like

 

[Minigiant]

So it sounds like a low level caster will have more than 2 "strong" spells and a low level warrior will have double digit HP by the sound of the second answer.

 

[Transformer]

I have to say, I've always been a bit puzzled by 15-minute workday complaints, on the very same grounds outlined in the quotes the OP pulled. I suppose it's ideal if a system gives metagame (character resource-based) incentives not to rest after every encounter. But I've always thought that in-game story reasons should (just naturally) prevent the 15-minute workday 90% of the time.

If you're in the middle of the kobold lair trying to recover the Holy Flask of Gromanio, and you stop and all go to sleep for 6 hours, even if the kobolds don't gather their strength and attack you, guess where the Flask is gonna be when you wake up? Far the hell away from that lair. So even when time pressure is not an explicit part of the scenario, the world around the characters should change when they go to sleep for 6 hours in the middle of the action.

Am I missing something huge here? If your players insist on taking a 6 hour rest after every single fight even though they've got a goal to accomplish, shouldn't the kobolds take the artifact somewhere else, or the bad guy do something bad, while the players are doing nothing? Shouldn't the players very quickly learn that taking 15-minute workdays is a terrible idea for very logical, in-game, common-sense reasons? Does a system really need to prevent the 15-minute workday when the basic logic of adventures and scenarios just naturally makes them a terrible idea the vast majority of the time? And even if a scenario doesn't prevent the 15-minute workday--even if the party is exploring a dungeon that's only guarded by long-abandoned undead and golems that only activate when someone enters the room--well then, in those cases, what's wrong with the 15-minute workday? It makes sense. The characters would, reasonably, rest up after conquering each room.

I don't mean these questions just rhetorically. Maybe I really am missing something. I guess I can see how, if a GM is running a published adventure that's largely a series (or cluster) of encounters, it's hard to modify it heavily and move the goalposts on the fly if the players decide to rest for 6 hours in the middle of the action. I can also see how it could be a conflict with player expectations: if you have a few players who are fun, but a bit metagamey, and who've been repeatedly allowed to get away with 15-minute workdays before, they might quickly become frustrated when you start punishing them for it. They might even get mad at you as the GM for taking away the whole point of the adventure just because they did what they're used to doing and what seems to them like the best way to stay prepared and win fights.

To any GMs who've had a problem preventing the 15-minute workday in the past: how did the characters get away with it? Why wasn't the artifact long gone by the time they woke up?

 

[Hussar]

The simple answer is, the kobolds go where? They pick up and leave their nice secure lair. Ok, fair enough. Now, you can simply track that group of kobolds that is now fleeing overland, burdened by their treasure, and pick them off at your leisure. They've got less than a 6 hour head start on you. The bonuses to tracking a group that large are huge (after all, if it was just a small group, then there would be no point in resting) and with such a short head start, it's not like the kobolds can mount any serious defenses.

Plus, now the kobolds are all in one nice neat package with all their most valuable treasures in one place. Perfect for the nova-group that loves the 10 minute adventuring day - they get to bring all their firepower for maximum effect.

So, no, your solution doesn't actually work. Not if the DM is being fair. Wandering monsters don't really work here either. Why is the heavily armed party with no treasure being attacked by that wandering group of ogres, but the fleeing group of kobolds laden with treasure get a free pass? The "believability" factor falls flat on its face.

Look at it this way. Say a given dungeon crawl has 15 encounters - mostly combat with a sprinkling of traps. The maximum amount of time the 10 MAD group can take to clean that out is 15 days. But, the speedy group is going to take 4 days (4 encounters/day). That's only a difference of eleven days, maximum. Realistically, the difference is probably closer to 3-5 days. Not enough to make any significant difference. I mean, over the course of a 20 level campaign, you're talking a difference of a handful of months. Again, not enough to be significant.

There's a reason groups adopt 10 MAD. It's a very, very strong tactic. You bring maximum firepower to every single encounter, which, let's be honest, is a good tactic. The cost in time typically isn't enough to make any real difference. Unless your campaign is the D&D version of 24, adding 3 to 5 days to an adventure isn't going to have any impact at all. And most of the "solutions" actually play directly into making 10 MAD groups even stronger.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It sounds like they're still thinking in terms of abilities used on a per unit time basis. That's a problem.

 

[Kingreaper]

If the cave is full of Kobolds, then on day 3*, when you return, your face is full of Kobolds

*not necessarily on day 2, because they may figure that they drove you off on day 1, but when you return day 2 then leave again, they're going to know what's going on.

They have two options. Run away, or fight.
Staying split up into groups when they can be reasonably sure you're coming back again is unbelievable. When you come back the second time, they won't be all split up, they'll be sitting in one place, all together, waiting for you.
You won't just be dealing with the regular traps and encounters. Hell, the entrance you're using may have been closed up.

Or they'll have run away.


I'll admit there are some dungeon crawls where the 15MAD works, but a dungeon full of Kobolds isn't one of them, because Kobolds are smart.

 

[Transformer]

Hussar--I suppose I see the point. Being delayed hours or days doesn't bother players because it just means 5 or 10 more minutes of filler activity at the table. An adventure would have to have some more explicit kind of time pressure--"the villain will capture the city in 2 days if you don't get there"--to actually disincentivize the 15-minute workday with story reasons.

Still, over the course of a significant dungeon, with the players trying to accomplish something with larger repercussions for the campaign world, I would hope getting to the end of the dungeon in 15 days instead of 4 would make a big difference. If you just want the kobold's artifact so you can sell it or kill stuff better with it, then I suppose you're right and having to run down the kobolds wouldn't bother the players much (though even then, the kobolds might be on friendly terms with some more powerful humanoids and take refuge with them, and they're too powerful to attack; all depending, of course, on whether that would make sense or be a GM cheap shot in context).

But if you need the kobold artifact to stop the big bad from doing something big and bad, shouldn't the big bad be accomplishing something in the time it takes you to sleep 6 hours and then take an extra day or two catching up to the kobolds? I suppose it's the same old problem: almost no one really has time to keep strict time records for the whole campaign world and the villain's plans, so everything kinda moves at the speed of the players' actions; the big bad's plans are exactly as far along as they need to be for things to keep working smoothly the next time the PCs encounter him , and there isn't much wiggle room to adjust based on whether the players did or did not sleep in the middle of the adventure.

So, yes, I suppose I admit it can be a practical problem for a number of reasons, from player expectations and desire to not feel cheated, to situations where the players can just keep chasing whatever it is they're chasing and all they have to add is another 8 hours of tracking, which out-of-game is just one die roll. So, certainly, it would indeed be ideal if a system just provided metagame, resource-based incentives not to sleep on the job.

 

[Andor]

To any GMs who've had a problem preventing the 15-minute workday in the past: how did the characters get away with it? Why wasn't the artifact long gone by the time they woke up?

I've run into this as a player. We were running through a 3e module, Nightfang Spire I think, and we were woefully underpowered for it. We had lots of characters and the right levels but we were a poorly meshed team of non-optimized characters with some real weaknesses. We actually should have all died on the way into the spire if the GM had played the mooncalf encounter in keeping with the things INT score. At 7-8th level we had no good way to deal with a flying blaster. *facepalm*

At any rate our only way to get through the tower was to go room by room and rest each time. And I kept saying "What the hell?" It was a tower full of incorporeal undead, run by a highly intelligent foe who had to know we were there. But we somehow camped, safely, undisturbed, day after day as we loudly and destructively rampaged thorugh his house. They wouldn't even follow my suggestion to retreat some reasonable distance after each encounter. I eventually shrugged and went with the flow, but it wasn't fun and did not pass the sniff test.

As for the kobolds, they have human INT. If they know you are after the McGuffin why wouldn't they respond intelligently and creatively? Maybe they send teams off in three directions to lead you astray while they bury it out back in the midden and start calling in favors from the surrounding creatures they have been dealing with for years to ambush the party. Or fortify the living hell out of the last chamber and all hole up there and wait for you. Or offer half the tribe as a snackrifice to summon a demon. Or sell it to your rivals in exchange for protection? Staying in their own keyed encouter locations and ignoring the blood seeping under the door from the last room is not what I would describe as "human int". Well, unless they are teenaged kobolds having an illicit party while the parents are out of town and the PCs are the monsters who kill anyone who sneaks off to get some nookie.

 

[Hussar]

If the cave is full of Kobolds, then on day 3*, when you return, your face is full of Kobolds

*not necessarily on day 2, because they may figure that they drove you off on day 1, but when you return day 2 then leave again, they're going to know what's going on.

They have two options. Run away, or fight.
Staying split up into groups when they can be reasonably sure you're coming back again is unbelievable. When you come back the second time, they won't be all split up, they'll be sitting in one place, all together, waiting for you.
You won't just be dealing with the regular traps and encounters. Hell, the entrance you're using may have been closed up.

Or they'll have run away.


I'll admit there are some dungeon crawls where the 15MAD works, but a dungeon full of Kobolds isn't one of them, because Kobolds are smart.

Problem is, you've just played right into the 15 MAD's group's hands. You've grouped all the kobolds into one, nice, convenient place where the group can now use maximum firepower for maximum effect. So, we just mopped up the entire adventure in 3 days, instead of the 4 it would take the speedy group. Win!

Which, honestly, I think is what happens most of the time at many tables anyway. The players go in, hit the target once and fall back to rest - taking sufficient precautions that it's reasonable that they won't be disturbed. The DM reacts by moving most or all the forces forward to protect the location - again a perfectly reasonable reaction and quite believable. The party comes back, again, totally loaded for bear, smashes the largest group and then mops up the rest of the adventure.

Won't work for very large adventures, but, again, most adventures aren't that big - maybe half a dozen to a dozen linked locations.

I suppose it's the same old problem: almost no one really has time to keep strict time records for the whole campaign world and the villain's plans, so everything kinda moves at the speed of the players' actions;

Bingo. I'd hazard a guess that most DM's advance villainous plans at the The Speed of Plot. And, again, it's not all that unreasonable. You can't put too much pressure on the groups or they won't have any chance to succeed - not when a couple of unlucky die rolls eats up 50% of your resources. OTOH, once you relax the time limit, a couple of lucky die rolls and you're swimming in extra time.

My group did away with 15 MAD by doing away with out of combat clerical healing. Healing wands and those feats from Complete Arcane that let you cast all day long (the name of which escapes me) meant my group went from 2-3 encounters per day to 6-8.