Here, Let Me Fix "Powers Per Day" For You

[CleverNickName]

That said, I might run situations where a "random encounter" was a consequence within a skill challenge or similar bigger envelope of action resolution - eg the PCs see some shadowy undead in the distance, try to sneak past, but fail their check(s), so the undead sense their lovely warmth and come over to try to take advantage of it . . .

But in this sort of case, I would still have thought about how the extra encounter, as a consequence of failing a check, would fit into the overall situation. And I would be factoring its outcome into decisions about subsequent developments, complications, confrontations etc. Overall, I keep my planning reasonably fluid, because I prefer to respond to what the PCs do, and what happens as a result - and find that this provides enough "randomness" or "unexpectedness" in outcomes.

The difference between "fixed" and "random" encounters wasn't always so black and white, though. Random encounters weren't something that might happen; they were expected to happen...and the more dangerous the location, the more frequently they became. Back in the BECM days, it was not uncommon to have both: "fixed" encounters that were also randoms. Take one of my favorites, The Isle of Dread, for example:

4. RANDOM ENCOUNTER (use Map 1.)
For every day the charactters are within 2 hexes of this location, they encounter one wandering monster from General Island Wandering Monster Table 2. If possible, this encounter should occur in or near the monster's lair.

and

23. RANDOM ENCOUNTER (Use Map 1.)
For every day the characters spend within 2 hexes of this location, they encounter one wandering monster from General Island Wandering Monster Table 3.

Also, it was not uncommon for traps to spawn random encounters from a table unless a password was spoken, or a riddle was answered correctly, or the characters weren't wearing certain robes, etc. The Rules Cyclopedia has rules for monster-spawning traps.

-----

I guess a lot of us grew up playing the game with random encounters, so we probably don't mind the loose, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants feel that they give the game. But adding them back into the game wasn't a simple matter of creating a chart and throwing some percentile dice.

When I started playing 3rd Edition, random encounters were one of the first things I noticed that was missing (and one of the first things I house-ruled back in.) It was a pain in the neck, and it really played havoc with the EL and CR system...to say nothing of the agonizingly slow pace of combat. So while they *technically* were optional, they really didn't work because the system was designed against them. When a typical combat session lasts 30 to 45 minutes, with most of that time spent with the players staring blankly at character sheets/minis and trying to decide which action to take, random encounters only make the grind problem worse.

I want them to include random encounters in 5th Edition as an option...but more than that, I want them to have an efficient and clean combat system that can handle them if I decide to use them. I worry that giving each class an ever-growing list of special superpowers to choose from will make that problem worse.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't think that's what he wants at all. If, anything, perhaps he wants a system that allows periods between rests with other than 4 equivalent combats without grossly disrupting class balance.

Really, I don't think the question of “What if my game doesn't adjust well to the standard of 4 encounters per day?” is such a preposterous question. I found after years of reading Story Hours, many of them from excellent, very talented DMs, that not that many people actually adjust to that standard, specially in more story driven games where paradoxically the penalties for delaying and such would be more severe.

Yes. I want to have full flexibility, and still maintain balance.

4E did achieve that. If you were paranoid or the DM loved giant set piece encounters where you needed every power to survive, you can run a 15 minute adventuring day and everyone is balanced.
If you want to run 10 encounters in a row, you can do that too, and everyone is balanced.

I want to mix and match, and make no assumption what it will be for the next session, and I also don't want to work around any assumptions the system makes either. Maybe there will be a module for this, but so far, it only sounded "we only balance by an average work day, everything else is up to you". That may sound empowering for some, for me it mostly sounds like work.

 

[pemerton]

4E did achieve that. If you were paranoid or the DM loved giant set piece encounters where you needed every power to survive, you can run a 15 minute adventuring day and everyone is balanced.
If you want to run 10 encounters in a row, you can do that too, and everyone is balanced.

Exactly this. And like you say, having this work isn't just theorycraft at present. I'm playing a game (4e) that actually delivers on it.
[MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION] and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about achieving this sort of flexibility, while maintaining balance, in a system in which some PCs have mostly Vancian resources, and others have mostly at-will resources. I'm sceptical, KM thinks it can be done, but I don't really understand the explanation offered.

 

[pemerton]

I want them to include random encounters in 5th Edition as an option...but more than that, I want them to have an efficient and clean combat system that can handle them if I decide to use them.

A lot of systems have multiple resolution methods - "quick/simple contests" compared to "extended contests". I know that some 4e players have used skill challenge variants to resolve quick combats. (I use a slightly different approach - in some context, a skill check can be used to "minionise" an NPC.)

It would be interesting to see something like this for D&Dnext, although if the rationale for wandering mosnters is to soak up resources then maybe the idea won't work (simple contests tend not to be resource soakers).

 

[Elf Witch]

Possible explanations:

1. What wound? There was no wound, yo uwere just really tired but your comrade inspired you.
2. Oh, that wound. Yeah, it hurts a lot, but Bob the Warlord is right, we have to fight on! I can lie down when I am dead.

4E almost requires you to give up the idea that hit points = meat. If you can do that, you're fine, if you can't, I cannot really help you.

And no, being "hit" by a weapon may cause "damage", but that term is just a shorthand for exhaustion, bruises, injuries and all other stuff that takes the fight out of you.

If it was really physical damage in any edition of D&D, you would have to deal with stuff like gangrene or tetanus infections, and being slowed down by injures.

Hit Points either are videogamey on their own, or they are abstractions.


That just suggests that you need to rest earlier so you still have spells to deal with those wandering monsters. Also, if I am not resting, what am I doing instead? Fighting the non-wandering monsters in the dungeon? Am I expected to expend spells doing that or not? So if I fight monsters and NPCs for 12 hours and decide now it's time for a rest, does that mean I am still full of spells somehow so I can deal with those wanderings monsters? Or do they they not bother me since afte rall I did my mandatory 12 hour shift of adventuring and deserve a rest and every decent evil wandering monster respects that?


How does this work in a more open-ended game, a sand bax or hex crawl or whatever, where the players set their goals? How many of those are time-boxed?


How fast do you think new traps can be made? Undead creation usually costs resources, how much has the enemy? Do you just handwave it? Ambushes just tend to mean that you create another 15 minute workday, if they actually work. And you can make ambushes even on a 12 hour workday - just get your damn dungeon organized, evil mastermind, and don't just let the party stroll through room by room!


That's what I mean - don'T cast spells at forces you can't handle. You'll usually get away with that, but you don't get Meteor Swarms for it either.


The trick is to not get hurt. That means rapidly defeat your enemies thanks to your high initiative, and to be armored heavily and generally use all the tricks at your disposal. Fact is, if you amount something like a moderate wound (in 3E at least), you cannot fight effectively anymore.

Like I said this is where it is a huge disconnect for me if represents exhaustion then why are the PCs who are fighting just as hard as you are but have not been hit not losing any hit points to exhaustion? And when does this bruising and exhaustion become actually damage that can kill you?

Like I said I would have an easier time accepting it if it was temp hit points which represents getting back on your feet to keep trying.

I know I am not alone in not liking healing surges and as long as I DM they will never be allowed in my game as a way to get back permanent hit points. But if other people like them they should use them in their games.

I have used disease in my games when magical healing was not done and if they were not looked after by someone with ranks in healing. Personally I would like to see more of this because it makes the heal skill as well as herb lore interesting. I had them role a con check to see if they got a disease.

One of the players got gangrene and they went on a quest to find a cleric who could cast remove disease and then to pay him they had to recover a lot relic from his church.

Resting means sitting on your arse there is plenty you could be doing how about continuing on the journey either towards a goal or getting out of the orcs territory before the regather an attack again.

If it takes 5 days to get the the dungeon at a normal walk it is going to take a lot longer if you only walk a few hours every day.

I just don't understand why a group would choose to sit on their arse for hours at a time when they could be moving forward on the journey.

That is not what it means at all it means trying to judge how many spells you need depending on where you are. If you are in a dungeon full of hostiles good tactics means holding back and if you can't find a secure place to rest then I would also hold a few back just in case.

The same if you are moving through orc infested wilderness.

It is a different thing if you are on well traveled road heading towards an inn in the evening. maybe then if a rare bandit attack happens you open up a case of whoop ass on them and even if you do why would you stop right there and rest instead of going on to the inn.

I just don't understand how any player with the least amount of tactics thinks that it is okay to go nova in enemy filled territory and then expect that he will be able to safely rest.

Again this works the same in a hex crawl if you are in enemy territory there is always the chance of the enemy finding you when you rest.

If a party goes nova on the guards then retreats to rest the survivors if there are any now have the time to make plans and be more alert to move resources to deal with intruders. If every level is on high alert that makes it just that much harder for the PCs to do get in and win.

And again it depends on what is going on how long will it take a messenger to get to the bone nose tribe to being reinforcements. How long will it take the kobolds to retriggger the traps or make some more? These are the questions I ask myself when I DM.

If I have a big evil BBEG I figure out his plans and how long it will take him to do each part. If the party takes their sweet time then he get much further along in them and better prepared to kick their butts when they finally mosey on in.

I have seen parties triumph where they were all down to almost nothing in hit points so it can happen.

As I said there are times to go nova and times when it is not needed. This idea that you need to go nova in every encounter is bad resource management the same as oww I am down three hit points hit me with cure light wand.

It is called tactics and you never know a 100% if they are the right ones maybe not getting healed for those three points kills you later or maybe you used so many charges for minor healing you die because there is no healing when a troll rends you.

 

[Elf Witch]

As I posted upthread, not everyone who finds that certain mechanics lead to an undesirable 15 minute day is in need of player education.

I, personally, have zero interest in playing a game in which wandering monsters figure prominently. They're a distraction from the real point of play.

Why not? Or to turn this from question to assertion: there are multiple ways to handle ingame causation and the passage of time, and "the world not stopping just because the PCs do" is just one of them.

Suppose that I want a "Balrog on the bridge of Moria" moment in my game. One way is to wait for the dice to line up so that the appearance of the Balrog, the readiness of the goblins etc all correlates perfectly with the time that the PCs happen to be crossing the bridge, despite all their prior resting, arguing etc. Another way is to stage the scene when they get to the bridge. I personally tend to prefer the latter approach.

Ron Edwards has some things to say about how to handle the passage of time and scene framing:

I'll discuss two elements of Resolution which are rarely recognized: the treatment of in-game time and space. These are a big deal in Simulationist play as universal and consistent constraints, which must apply equally to any part of the imagined universe, at any point during play.

To talk about this, let's break the issue down a little:

*In-game time occurs regarding the actually-played imaginary moments and events. It's best expressed by combat mechanics, which in Simulationist play are often extremely well-defined in terms of seconds and actions, but also by movement rates at various scales, starship travel times, and similar things.

*Metagame time is rarely discussed openly, but it's the crucial one. It refers to time-lapse among really-played scenes: can someone get to the castle before someone else kills the king; can someone fly across Detroit before someone else detonates the Mind Bomb. Metagame time isn't "played," but its management is a central issue for scene-framing and the outcome of the session as a whole. . .​

Gygax's text [the AD&D DMG] perfectly states the Simulationist view of in-game time. It is a causal constraint on the other sorts. . . It works in-to-out. In-game time at the fine-grained level (rounds, seconds, actions, movement rates) sets incontrovertible, foundation material for making judgments about hours, days, cross-town movment, and who gets where in what order. I recommend anyone who's interested to the text of DC Heroes for some of the most explicit text available on this issue throughout the book.

. . .

Concrete example[ of] Simulationism over-riding Narrativism . . .

*The time to traverse town with super-running is deemed insufficient to arrive at the scene, with reference to distance and actions at the scene, such that the villain's bomb does blow up the city. (The rules for DC Heroes specifically dictate that this be the appropriate way to GM such a scene).​

I'm personally not interested in the DC Heroes approach. I'm happy for the princess to die, or the building to be blown up, but it's not going to happen offscreen, as a result of (what Edwards is calling) metagame time. It will happen onscreen, as an element of and immediate consequence of actual play.

So in your world there are only planned encounters and once that planned encounter has happened then no matter how may orcs are wandering around the party will never bump into them? Your PCs are never in the situation where they are moving trough enemy territory?

What are the odds if the party has a fight makes noise and kills a bunch of orcs and then instead of getting out of dodge deiced to hang around and rest in or around the same area that they had the fight for other orcs to stumble on what they have done and start looking for the people who did it?

In this style of play the PCs are given plot immunity and are only in danger in planned encounters no matter what choices they make.

 

[Campbell]

So in your world there are only planned encounters and once that planned encounter has happened then no matter how may orcs are wandering around the party will never bump into them? Your PCs are never in the situation where they are moving trough enemy territory?

What are the odds if the party has a fight makes noise and kills a bunch of orcs and then instead of getting out of dodge deiced to hang around and rest in or around the same area that they had the fight for other orcs to stumble on what they have done and start looking for the people who did it?

In this style of play the PCs are given plot immunity and are only in danger in planned encounters no matter what choices they make.

In the play style I espouse pre-planned encounters are not a major component of play, but neither are random encounters rolled off a table. Encounters are the result of player decisions or scene framing meant to introduce complications into play for players to resolve. There's a direct feedback loop between what is currently happening in the fiction and what is about to happen. Every encounter of any type is a direct result of my role as an introducer of complications, but not necessarily preparation. The point is unexpected but meaningful results.

I often take PC actions and whats been established in the fiction and create encounters on the fly. This is one area where the strengths of 4e's monster and encounter design really shine. If the PCs provoke action from the local orcs I can easily turn to the entry for orcs in the Monster Manual and my notes on prepared orcish personalities and construct a relatively interesting encounter in the matter of seconds.

I understand that my approach is not for everyone. It's pretty much the opposite of sandbox play, but railroading of the type you describe is pretty antithetical to my desires. I want unexpected results - I just want them to be meaningful and arrive out of play rather than pure random selection.

 

[pemerton]

So in your world there are only planned encounters and once that planned encounter has happened then no matter how may orcs are wandering around the party will never bump into them? Your PCs are never in the situation where they are moving trough enemy territory?

<snip>

In this style of play the PCs are given plot immunity and are only in danger in planned encounters no matter what choices they make.

Why would the encounters that the PCs have be independent of the choices made by their players? I said I don't like random encounters or "wandering monsters". You are the one who has introduced the notion of "planned encounters" - all I've said about planning is in post #86 upthread, where I said

Overall, I keep my planning reasonably fluid, because I prefer to respond to what the PCs do, and what happens as a result - and find that this provides enough "randomness" or "unexpectedness" in outcomes.​

What are the odds if the party has a fight makes noise and kills a bunch of orcs and then instead of getting out of dodge deiced to hang around and rest in or around the same area that they had the fight for other orcs to stumble on what they have done and start looking for the people who did it?

Maybe 0%, if the discovery would add nothing to the game. Maybe 100%, if it obviously would. Maybe something in between that, if the "hanging around" is being resolved as a skill challenge, with being discovered one possible consequence of failing a skill check (the example I have in mind is Frodo and Sam "hanging around" in Mordor after inadverently engineering the deaths of all those orcs in Cirith Ungol).

I said a bit about how I would handle this sort of thing in post #86 also.

EDIT: Ninja-ed by [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], although I think I might plan a little bit more than that. I often have ideas for thematically appropriate adversaries that also fit into the current general direction of ingame events, and will have them statted up, but will make decisions about where or exactly how to introduce them based on the dynamics of play. But Campbell is right that 4e's statblocks make it easy to introduce new or different adversaries easily. And it is also easy to level creatures up - if I statted up the hobgoblin captain 3 months ago, expecting that the PCs would confront him then, and then for various reasons that confrontation has been delayed for multiple sessions, I might still want the captain to be a worthy opponent even though the PCs have gained a level or two. 4e makes it very easy to do this.

 

[FireLance]

Like I said this is where it is a huge disconnect for me if represents exhaustion then why are the PCs who are fighting just as hard as you are but have not been hit not losing any hit points to exhaustion? And when does this bruising and exhaustion become actually damage that can kill you?

The way I see it, when you lose hit points, you're spending extra effort to turn a fatal strike into a mere scratch or bruise. Your allies who haven't been hit are less exhaused because they haven't had to expend this extra effort. And it isn't the bruising and exhaustion that kills you. What kills you is the final fatal strike that you aren't able to avoid any more because you're bruised and exhausted.

EDIT: To use an analogy, normal fighting is like long-distance running, and avoiding a fatal strike is like sprinting. A well-trained athlete can keep doing the former for quite some time, possibly for hours on end, such as during a marathon. However, even a well-trained athlete can only sprint for so long and for so many times before he has to rest.

 

[Elf Witch]

In the play style I espouse pre-planned encounters are not a major component of play, but neither are random encounters rolled off a table. Encounters are the result of player decisions or scene framing meant to introduce complications into play for players to resolve. There's a direct feedback loop between what is currently happening in the fiction and what is about to happen. Every encounter of any type is a direct result of my role as an introducer of complications, but not necessarily preparation. The point is unexpected but meaningful results.

I often take PC actions and whats been established in the fiction and create encounters on the fly. This is one area where the strengths of 4e's monster and encounter design really shine. If the PCs provoke action from the local orcs I can easily turn to the entry for orcs in the Monster Manual and my notes on prepared orcish personalities and construct a relatively interesting encounter in the matter of seconds.

I understand that my approach is not for everyone. It's pretty much the opposite of sandbox play, but railroading of the type you describe is pretty antithetical to my desires. I want unexpected results - I just want them to be meaningful and arrive out of play rather than pure random selection.

I always have a few planned encounters drawn up because it makes my job easier at the table. For example I knew in the last session the party was going to head towards Barrow's Edge because they knew a former member of the party and his child was in danger.

So I planned several encounters that might happen on their way there. They were designed to give hints to what is going on. For example the world has never seen undead ever. They encountered undead.

As for random encounters I don't use a table I roll to see if while they are camping any of the enemy who are in these woods comes across them. I play it by ear. The more they go out of their way to conceal the camp the less likely it will get spotted. I take things into consideration that they have horses with them. Which can attract predators. It is harder to conceal scent.

I don't railroad my players I throw out plot hooks and see which ones they bite at. Sometimes they come up with good ideas that I take and run with.

I find it interesting that you consider a DM who has planned encounters as railroading as opposed to being prepared to run the game.

In this last session they had three ways to go I planned encounters based on what was going on in those areas.

I have a notebook of each area and its denizens so I just open that to find what I need to run an encounter on the fly.