Adventure Structuring

[Trit One-Ear]

After an evening of watching 28 Days Later and working on encounters, my brain feels like mush, easily slopped up by zombies.
Any advice from experienced DM's/Adventure creators on how to structure adventures? More specifically:
- Challenge difficulty (obviously "varied," but anything more than the DMG suggests?)
- Treasure/rewards (again, more than the DMG suggests?)

Or do people find those guidelines to be more or less adequate to vary the rewards and encounter challenges?

Trit

 

[KidSnide]

I believe the cutting edge advice on encounter design is to vary encounters significantly more than is suggested by the DMG. And endless series of evenly matched encounters can feel quite grindy.

You are better off having a greater number of push-over encounters (likely with fewer opponents) and a small number of truly deadly encounters (winnable, but only with a combination of good tactics and a little luck). Of course, a sizable number of level appropriate encounters is OK, but you don't want too many.

That way, players don't spend so much time dealing with encounters that take a lot of effort, but are ultimately almost certainly won by the PCs (i.e. level-appropriate encounters). Instead, the PC play the dungeon. Below-level encounter are about gathering intelligence and not setting off alarms, and they don't distract so much from the exploration. Also, with some truly deadly encounters in the adventure, the players will act as if true danger is a real possibility. If they set off the wrong alarms, the truly deadly encounter may even come looking for them.

-KS

 

[Riastlin]

[MENTION=54710]KidSnide[/MENTION] has pretty good advice there. There was an article in DDi just released about converting Lich Queen's Beloved from 3.x to 4ed. In it, the author basically kept the number of combatants the same for the most part (i.e. if the original only had two monsters, so too did the 4e version). Typically this lead to relatively easy combats, but it created a different sort of challenge too. Part of it was getting through the dungeon undetected, or without setting off alarms. Traps could be deadlier, and more importantly, the party could handle more encounters in a single day.

A lot of it really is going to depend on your group dynamics, but from my experience at early paragon, the group is frequently going to be hard pressed to get through more than about 5 equal-level encounters in a day. Of course, party make up can alter this quite a bit, but the idea is that short, relatively easy encounters still are useful. They may not truly threaten the party per se (i.e. a character death is unlikely) but they will still use up some resources (surges mainly). So in the long run, they actually do provide a sort of tactical challenge.

 

[Pour]

I think what a lot of encounters lack in 4e is personality. Sometimes there should be a gimmick, handicap, time-sensitive aspect, or even some really fascinating scenery, something memorable that sweeps them up in the moment. And it usually should have a dangerous element to it, disease, poison, suffocation, unconsciousness, teleportation, hazards, maybe a tweak on an assumed mechanic (less death saves than normal before death in Pluton, like in 4e ToH).

I'm not saying be unfair, but it's okay for a DM, especially at higher levels, to make things truly difficult. Proportion the stakes to the rewards, and 'boss' fights or finales shouldn't worry so much about the rules as written. PCs have a lot of resources at their disposal, and they should have some concept of tactics or strategy. If not, failure can be a possible outcome.

I think there is a proportional amount of accomplishment and excitement that comes with difficulty, so long as its not in soul-crushing amounts (ala every chamber and hall- though in tournament play, that's fair game).

 

[Ryujin]

For level appropriate encounters I like to increase the number of creatures, by using lower level creatures. This tends to increase player satisfaction, with a good kill count, and amplify the truly difficult encounters, that are dropped in at dramatically appropriate points. The difference in combat difficulty is highlighted, that way, making those dramatic situations stand out even more.

As to treasure the 'wish list' principle certainly works, but it's a cludge in my opinion. Choosing interestingly themed items, that the players might not have thought of themselves, tends to work better for me. I certainly listen to what they're hoping to find, because their character development and concept might be tied to it, but it also gives me ideas for other things at the same time.

Also, don't be afraid to have the bad guys make use of magic treasure items, if they happen to be appropriate to the creature. It's more memorable to say, "I've got the hammer of Gorond, the Troll King" than it is to say, "I picked up a +4 hammer in that last encounter"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

After an evening of watching 28 Days Later and working on encounters, my brain feels like mush, easily slopped up by zombies.
Any advice from experienced DM's/Adventure creators on how to structure adventures? More specifically:
- Challenge difficulty (obviously "varied," but anything more than the DMG suggests?)
- Treasure/rewards (again, more than the DMG suggests?)

Or do people find those guidelines to be more or less adequate to vary the rewards and encounter challenges?

Trit

Challenge Difficulty: I don't think the mix they give is bad, but my advise is to design your encounters based on what makes narrative sense. You can always modify absolute difficulty in all sorts of ways, but if it makes logical sense for there to be X bad guys in some area, then use X bad guys. Note too that XP budget is a good general measure of difficulty but it certainly isn't the ONLY determinant. You can make a quick but highly dangerous encounter for instance using a few weaker monsters that have some nasty terrain advantage. For example I used 8 orc artillery minions once against an 8th level party. The thing was the minions had good range and the party could only get to them by either spending 3 rounds making some skill checks or plowing through a nasty little terrain obstacle. It was something like a level 5 encounter, and was blown through pretty quick, but it was fun, gave the party several interesting choices, and definitely forced them to use up several surges. I rated it equal level for XP purposes just because it was mean, lol.

You can also use chain encounters as a way to vary things. One or two relatively weak monsters show up at the start, but then more stuff arrives a round or two into the fight.

Treasure: I pretty much try to make the interesting treasure story-related. The guidelines for parcels are fine, but remember you can distribute them in all sorts of ways. Some can be rewards from allies, prizes, payment for services, equipment looted from monsters, ritual ingredients that can be harvested, etc. In any case the game is pretty resilient, you can drop a big extra treasure and if the PCs get ahead of the curve a bit it is no big deal, you can always cheat them out of something else later on and the difference will become insignificant in a level or two anyway.

Mostly though my advice is, make up the adventure you want to, then look at it from the standpoint of guidelines. The guidelines are good, but they shouldn't be seen as a formula for making a good adventure.

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Excellent advice all, as always. I think I more or less have a good grasp on how to mix the numbers with the storytelling, both in encounter structure and rewards. Keep the good advice flowing!

Trit

 

[Calzone]

I don't think the mix they give is bad, but my advise is to design your encounters based on what makes narrative sense.

This, this, this.

Set up situations for the characters to engage with based on the narrative, and then let the encounters grow organically out of it. Encounters, like the rest of the adventure, should respond to the character's decisions.

For instance, recently my players caught a pair of kobolds infiltrating a town (an easy skill challenge), and learned of a sinister ritual that would be taking place in the kobolds' warren. I had already roughed out the total number of kobolds (~40), and was rolling to see what percentage were infiltrating the city, expanding abandoned mine shafts, or guarding the home warren each day.

The players decided to mount a frontal attack on a day when ~1/3 of the kobolds were at the warren, but they made sure to have the chief mine engineer and town guard lock down the city and collapse some of the abandoned tunnels, effectively cutting off any reinforcements. That decision made their foray to the warrens, much easier. Unfortunately, they trigger an alarm trap after breaking into the warren, setting all the kobolds on alert, ready to ambush them (A much harder series of encounters, now). They played smart, though, and discovered a hidden side shaft that led to the kobold common rooms, which allowed them to flank the kobolds and surprise them, again gaining the upper hand.

If I had decided they were going to have n encounters of x difficulty, I would have had to ignore the consequences of the actions, basically railroading them through the encounters. Instead, they gained easier encounters overall by cutting off reinforcements from the warren, and then had a much harder single encounter after they alerted the warren, which the two of them won through luck and quick thinking.

If the characters had decided to hunt down kobolds in the town, or infiltrate through the tunnels instead, they would have had an entirely different set of encounters and difficulties.

 

[Robtheman]

As far as treasure is concerned I generally include treasure that makes sense for the enemy or environment. Every once in a while I will take stock of how the party is doing. If someone is lagging it gives an opportunity to create a scene that rewards them in a special way and catch them up on the power curve at the same time.