Monte Cook: Guidance for Monsters and Treasure

[FireLance]

A baseline is important, because you can then consciously choose to ignore it and know the effects of that decision.

I may be in a cynical mood today, but judging from the popularity of the "remove wealth by level assumptions" and "no magic item treadmill" proposals, there are people who would rather complain that the baseline uses assumptions they don't want than adjust the baseline to match their different assumptions.

If the designers assume that the PCs never gain any magic items and provide guidelines for picking the right challenges for those who do, I expect that someone down the line will complain about the extra math that he needs to do whenever he gives magic items to his PCs.

It may be that the designers will have to come up with two or more "wealth tracks" so that regardless of playstyle, extra math is not needed (just read the result off a table).

 

[Connorsrpg]

[MENTION=336]D'karr[/MENTION]

For 4E treasure parcels I simply rolled one - I did not take the approach each parcel comes up once per level or whatever.

I eventually made the roll into a d20 adding things like ritual scrolls, equlibrium (or whatever its called), boons, and an entry for the simple increase in power of one of the PC's weapons (and then wound that into the story of course). Possibly trade goods?

I have a few tables for mundane stuff if interested. The treasure hoards and treasure tables in Draconomicon 1 were handy too.

 

[Connorsrpg]

RE Monsters

We played for years without a lot of guidelines on this and I liked that best. Monster numbers were determined by the monsters and their way of living, NOT the number of PCs.

I wish we would go back to that division of Tribe, Warband, Hunting party type stuff where numbers were determined randomly. Creatures were Pair, Solitary, Family, etc. I found those the best.

Players NEVER expected to meet numbers of critters based upon fair challenge ratings or level equalities. Tougher monsters were just that and you knew/leart when to run and when to fight. (Usually by DM description or story development...or admittedly past experience). This became harder with 3E/4E b/c now those critters you knew weren't that tough could be any level (or tough at first with 27 hp kobolds).

We never even considered this until a new player (obvious power gamer) played with us and then the next session would comment on how tough the previous encounters were according to the CR charts. We were stumped. As a DM I certainly was, b/c I never put a lot of thought into 'balanced' encounters. I go by habitat, rumours, and the society/life of the creatures.

We always liked the Green Dragon anology. If there is a green dragon in the forest, and the PCs go in the forest, well they may encounter it, no matter their level..

WE just don't like that PC level determines what each encounter should look like. Adventures often started with a bucnh of hooks and rumours and the PCs would go, "Well we aint ready to be taking on trolls, they are big, and we don't want to go to the haunted ruins yet, or the forest with the green dragon. How about we check out the bandits on the South Road or those crazy kobold rolling stones out at the vineyard?"

Hard to explain this style of play after all these years, given the 'structure' of 3E and then 4E. But it was harder to do with those editions.

I am all for having something to judge the relative toughness of a critter, just don't define exactly how many should be met every encounter by an average party. And certainly don't write modules that way! Have some easy combats and a really hard one (or even worse).

Players have just come to expect to win (or at the very least have a 'fair' fighting chance) for everything they encounter. That doesn't make for a dangerous world. The options "run away", "parley", "bribe", "sacrifice" etc become used so much less in our later games, as the PCs just assumed (and were supported by the math) that every fight was winnable without too much loss.

As I adapted to 4E I changed most encounters (rolling randomly most times and this was made easier with more stat blocks later one) so 4 starndard trolls might become a lot worse or a lot easier, as I just used random troll stat blocks.

Anyway, 'nuff said. (I realise this isn't for everyone, but it is a style I would like to see supported).

 

[KidSnide]

A baseline is important, because you can then consciously choose to ignore it and know the effects of that decision.

I agree that you need something to work off of, but I think creating a single baseline can cause the "player expectations" problem that Monte aludes to. A better approach is to create a set of baselines (e.g. high, medium and low/no magic items) and let DMs know what those choices look like and how to customize further from there.

(For example, a DM could choose a random distribution and/or a have rewards track risk to a greater to lesser degree. Any of these options will be the right choice for someone...)

-KS

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I used to think that. After having spent the last several years assembling treasure parcels by hand, I would love a nice, well thought out, random treasure table.

And that's not a flip remark. There are times when I'm going to intervene in treasure allocation and decide that this cool item goes here, or this character needs something appropriate, etc. But, at the same time, I'd like the ability to have an organic system so I can leave things to chance when I don't want to make those calls.

-KS

No, I don´t mean they are stupid per se, but the values for gold treasures were strange. (like i said in the rest of the post)
I like to have random treasure tables, but with some more resonable values for single monsters!

 

[Ainamacar]

As I see it some way to approximate the challenge to the party is necessary, not for every DM or campaign, but for the overall health of the game. A seasoned DM can and will ignore as desired, as will many games that run in an "environment-first" mode, but a new DM has no idea where to start, and everyone else can at least occasionally use a tool to "get in the ballpark" for whatever difficulty they have in mind. Both modes of play need to be supported, and no one should run into a wandering Vecna at Starbucks unless it's corporate HQ.

If character level and wealth are completely decoupled (i.e. no relationship between the two is assumed) then the only way to do the above is to make sure the wealth they actually have is accounted for after the fact. There are a thousand ways to do it wrong, but the right starting points, in my opinion, are this:
1) Start from (essentially) naked characters. By "essentially" I mean any equipment that is required to function as intended is not included, like a basic sword and armor for the fighter. It is the only baseline that is objectively independent of magic items. Anything else introduces additional assumptions, most critically that the power of the "assumed items" has been assigned correctly. That's always been a dubious proposition, but "naked" is the same forever. Plus, it means one always adds power for magic items (barring cursed ones, I suppose), which is exactly what magic items should do from the perspective of the player and the character.
2) Don't measure wealth, measure what the characters actually bring to the fight. If a character own 1000 potions, the potions they actually use are the ones which makes the fight easier or harder. Many items come into play every fight, but the ones that don't, particularly the quirky ones that help make D&D D&D, only count when they matter. Treat rituals, especially buffing ones, the same way.
3) Keep it simple. Treat most magic items as something like +0, +1/2, or +1 to the effective party level and so on. The DM should know what the "standard load-out" of the party is, and worry about everything else later or not at all.

If wealth and character level are decoupled for determining "CR" or equivalent, then monster power and treasure level can be freely decoupled as well without side effects. The DM can put down random treasure like mad. The DM can have destitute dragons and kobolds with rings of power. The DM can enable PCs to select risk/reward by in-game research. The DM can put players on a magic item treadmill. The DM can do all those things, at different times. In short, the DM can use the math to support the campaign, and not the other way around. That's better for everyone at the table, and for the entire D&D community.

---

On a much less opinionated note, I wonder whether we could consider changing what an "acceptable challenge" means in either the CR or 4e XP budget sense. I'm toying around with the idea of treating a challenge as "poison" which kills the party, in which case a natural measure is LD-50, i.e. a challenge which can be expected to destroy the party with a 50/50 chance. That removes another "should" from the game, gives the DM good info on what the party could handle all other things being equal, and generally means character level and CR are the same basic thing (campaign-wrecking monster powers notwithstanding.) The DMG can still give guidelines for lethality of combat, but without the tacit conceit of an "average" encounter. I think [MENTION=19265]Connorsrpg[/MENTION] would find this more palatable in principle.

Still, it might be a terrible idea. For starters, even if it works for single characters it might not work nicely for a party. For example, is the typical DM most concerned about the probability that a TPK occurs, or the probability that at least one PC dies? If the party is a single creature there is no distinction, but obviously it is quite different for a party of 4. And although the risk of a TPK grows dramatically after even a single death (at least early in a fight) there is huge narrative distance between losing 1 PC and losing all but 1. Even so, I can't help but find it a little compelling. The classic mirror of opposition fight is a coin flip, and I wish CR or equivalent could capture that simple notion.

 

[billd91]

I may be in a cynical mood today, but judging from the popularity of the "remove wealth by level assumptions" and "no magic item treadmill" proposals, there are people who would rather complain that the baseline uses assumptions they don't want than adjust the baseline to match their different assumptions.

If the designers assume that the PCs never gain any magic items and provide guidelines for picking the right challenges for those who do, I expect that someone down the line will complain about the extra math that he needs to do whenever he gives magic items to his PCs.

I'd rather have that latter suggestion than a wealth system that assumes a particular GP value for the magical gear received. For one thing, there can be a lot of variance in the real value of items that have the same price. The ring of shooting stars is a prime example. Compare it to a ring of protection in 3.5. Which will be more useful? Assuming the ring or protection is priced right, the ring of shooting stars is way overpriced.

Tracking by GP value just doesn't work, in my opinion. There are too many ways that the same wealth spent leads to very different results in character power effects. Instead, better to focus on specific properties and how they affect how the character stacks up against challenges.

Using the wealth by level charts also leaves a lot of interesting items off the table until much later in the game, at high character levels. And compared to 1e and 2e styles of play, I find that a shame. It's kind of cool to be an 8th level wizard with a staff of power (possible if you played A3 and did really well).

I'm also not fond of the expectation that a certain + weapon is in the PC's hand and the monster defenses rise to compensate like in 4e. That's the dreaded treadmill - I'm running along but I'm not getting anywhere. I want to fing get somewhere if I'm going to be running. Don't give me a bonus or benefit and then effectively take it away by raising the monster's power to compensate.

I recognize, that can be seen as a semantic issue. But I think it's an important one. Don't let me look at my character level, see the same number on the monster, and see that I'm falling behind my curve because I didn't equip properly. No. Let me see that I can go after stuff above me because I am well-equipped.

 

[FireLance]

I recognize, that can be seen as a semantic issue. But I think it's an important one. Don't let me look at my character level, see the same number on the monster, and see that I'm falling behind my curve because I didn't equip properly. No. Let me see that I can go after stuff above me because I am well-equipped.

Yeah, I've said as much before, and in my less cynical moments, I actually do think that it would work.

 

[Mark CMG]

It's not that GMs were given little info and thus "New DMs are left out in the cold without it. They can make grievous mistakes that end up wiping out entire parties, and campaigns can become unbalanced by a powerful magic item." It's that player character survivlbility wasn't thought to be as much of an issue. The game wasn't thought to be a forum for PCs to be groomed from 1st though higher levels as a given or even the norm. It was more of a "game" where players did what they could to make their characters survive and less of a pastime where players created characters that were expected to survive unless the player made bad decisions.

And this was no matter whether it was story driven play as outlined in "modules" or sandbox play as created by GMs who simply populated worlds and allowed players, through their characters, to explore them for what they were. In either, very little was done to tailor obstacles, monsters, opponents, or treasure to players or PCs. Perhaps more was done in modules where the cover would give some vague outline as to level of PCs and numbers of them to increase survivability. Players made choices, went where they went, found what they found, and made the most of what their explorations and discoveries gleaned. Players didn't have expectations that if they created a fighter who focused on swords their GM would be sure to purposefully place a plus-whatever sword that would suit the PC leveling structure in the path of the PCs, no matter choices the players made.

That Monte writes of it as if this was done as a series of mistakes completely misses the point of how gameplay progressed in those games prior to "the last fifteen years." And, again, this wasn't dictated because of some design flaw of sandbox play or because "modules" (adventures) were poorly designed, it was simply an expectation of the game that players, through their PCs, would make the most of what they explored and discovered rather than have particularly advantageous "finds" placed in their paths (no matter the chosen path) out of consideration of a system meant to ensure certain milestone expectations of players for their PCs. If a player decided his PC was pursuing a fighting style that required a certain type of weapon, research was done by the PC or his compatriots in-game to discover that type of weapon and the group agreed that it benefitted the group as whole to seek such a item, then they went out to find it.

Honestly, the expected levels of rewards that is the hallmark of more modern systems is one of the things that lessens the sense of wonder and accomplishment in games that then requires dice tricks and level rewards in the form of class features every level, as well as tailoered magic items, to distract players from the real sense of accomplichment that could be had otherwise. Modern systems tend to emulate Skinner boxes where players are rewarded for simple repetition of mundane tasks rather than being let out of the box and finding their own rewards through setting personal goals and striving for personal PC achievement. Let's get off the treadmill and run our own miles with 5E, and thus find much more satisfaction even if it isn't chucked in front of us no matter which direction or how hard we run.

 

[FireLance]

Honestly, the expected levels of rewards that is the hallmark of more modern systems is one of the things that lessens the sense of wonder and accomplishment in games that then requires dice tricks and level rewards in the form of class features every level, as well as tailoered magic items, to distract players from the real sense of accomplichment that could be had otherwise. Modern systems tend to emulate Skinner boxes where players are rewarded for simple repetition of mundane tasks rather than being let out of the box and finding their own rewards through setting personal goals and striving for personal PC achievement. Let's get off the treadmill and run our own miles with 5E, and thus find much more satisfaction even if it isn't chucked in front of us no matter which direction or how hard we run.

I'd be with you, if I ever managed to play through a campaign long enough to get sick of the magic item treadmill. As it is, the campaigns that I play in usually end before I manage to get that ultra-powerful character decked out with every top-tier magic item he could want that seems to have killed everyone else's fun.

At least give me the chance to get sick of the fun I'm currently having before you force me to move on to some other kind of fun. Please?