Boon\Bane Number (Brianstorm)

[Sigurd]

I am struck by the number of improvements that creep into the rules as players advance. An extra feat here, an efficiency there, it all adds up.

This is the way of all things. People are trying to find ways to enjoy the game and if that means a special cookie now and then, so be it.

But the opponents have no such concern.

What do people think of the DM keeping track of the bonuses given the party in an organized fashion - and can we come up with a mechanic for this. The mechanic could resolve into a Boon # for the party to be used in conjunction with their ECL.


If a party has so many benefits (a high Boon #) perhaps the monsters get a cookie. Because the party has already had this benefit the cookie is designed to not increase the exp or magic reward for beating the monsters.

Advantages

- Gives DM more to work with in setting the challenge level
- If it was exposed to the players it might make them think twice about an improvent they know they will pay for somehow.


What do people think?

 

[Nifft]

Preach it!

C is the first half of CR, and C is for Cookie, and that's good enough for me.

(Maybe an example? )

Cheers, -- N

 

[Land Outcast]

seems like an awful load of work... (calculating Boon #)

 

[CRGreathouse]

I don't think I properly understand. Could you give an example?

 

[Sigurd]

I haven't got an equation and maybe we dont need one, but I'd love to hear people's views.


The premise is this.

Everything for the players is vanilla. No LA. No off core classes. etc....
There would be two ways players could be recorded. Level of character and Boon, Bane #.
The level would be used with existing mechanics for experience, challenge etc but it would be modified by a second factor.

Boon\Bane

Is the player twinking the rules - have they departed from the game mechanics. Everything would be subjective but it would give the DM another rule of thumb to describe the party.


In an extreme case Joe is a redeemed Troll character who is playing a Radiant Servant of Pelor. He is well ahead of the expected character stength of the game.

I guess he would have his ECL determined by his extra HD and Level and other things. Maybe there needs to be an understood Twink factor where the DM says you are way powerful for your level.

The Troll would have a boon #, something that might equate to say 4 levels of power. The four levels would be added to the party summary to determine challenge. They might be subtracted from the experience total to not reward players that twink the system.

I realize this is a mine field and this isn't well thought out. Thats why I wanted to bounce it off some people.

Thank you for reading.


S

 

[CRGreathouse]

So the boon/bane could be represented as fractional LA added/subtracted from the character's effective level?

 

[Notmousse]

That sounds like things that are already handled by ECL.

 

[Machiavelli]

I play things off the cuff, usually. The monsters tend to be MUCH nastier than the party can handle, then I just ignore certain abilities. If I don't use the dragon's full repertoire of spells, so what? Maybe he already cast them that day, that sort of thing.

Just adjust tactics and play around with monsters' stats and rolls on the fly, according to how close to TPK you're dancing. TPK is bad, but hanging on by the barest of HP pools is fun, and after not too many sessions you get a good handle on how powerful your players' characters are, so you won't need to do too much "jiggering".

Of course, some players would call this "railroading", but screw them. I'm too busy to be constantly spending my non-gaming time carefully calculating and tailoring CR's. That's boring busy-work, in my humble opinion, although many people with the personality types of accountants find it rather entertaining.

 

[magic_gathering2001]

I saw boon as enhancement bonuses to the monsters to keep them more closely matched to the PCs. Like if a character has boon 1 any monster targeting him gets +1 on attack rolls and save DCs and any monster he targets gets +1 on AC and saves or something like it.