DnD system grit

[Argyle King]

Double the XP budget of all encounters. DMs can, and should, scale encounters for their own campaigns.

Depending on the group, I've seen that method still get squashed by the players. ...especially at higher levels. That's what one of the DMs I game with did for a few campaigns. Obviously, it made things harder, but the group was experienced enough (and PCs are powerful enough compared to everything else in 4E) that there will still battles in which monsters would get killed before having a chance to do anything.

In particular, I remember the party bard using Mantle of Unity a lot; for at least (he had a few item tricks which helped get it back) a round each encounter, the monsters had very low chances of hitting. On the other hand, some of the PCs were capable of rolling single digits and still hitting. The newer monster stats helped a little, but part of the new stats also was the lowering of defenses for some creatures, so their higher damage values never came into play because they were killed before being able to do anything.

 

[Hussar]

Reading this, something strikes me. The OP's description of Grim and Gritty only really applies to low level games. Even AD&D, once you hit into the 7+ level isn't really grim and gritty anymore. Combat and traps are rarely going to kill you, unless it's save or die. The characters don't really have to bother tracking anything anymore because they've got more money than the average nation state.

Even the example given from Dragonlance of fleeing the Inn, is from one of the very first scenes in the series and before they get a cleric who can pretty much heal at will with her staff. And, of course, it ignores the fact that a good GOD wanders around with them for most of the stories. Hardly grim or gritty.

The problem with grim and gritty in games is that grim and gritty should be pretty high up on the lethality scale. If it's not, it's neither grim nor gritty. But, in a game where chargen can take upwards of an hour (or more) having a character die every three sessions is going to seriously whittle down on a player's fun.

If you want a G&G game, find one where you can build your avatar in under ten minutes and you're good to go. Otherwise, it's going to be a very, very poor fit.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Depending on the group, I've seen that method still get squashed by the players. ...especially at higher levels. That's what one of the DMs I game with did for a few campaigns. Obviously, it made things harder, but the group was experienced enough (and PCs are powerful enough compared to everything else in 4E) that there will still battles in which monsters would get killed before having a chance to do anything.

In particular, I remember the party bard using Mantle of Unity a lot; for at least (he had a few item tricks which helped get it back) a round each encounter, the monsters had very low chances of hitting. On the other hand, some of the PCs were capable of rolling single digits and still hitting. The newer monster stats helped a little, but part of the new stats also was the lowering of defenses for some creatures, so their higher damage values never came into play because they were killed before being able to do anything.

While 4e is more balanced at higher levels than 3.x, it's still not that well balanced. (Also, at paragon levels, you might need to more than double the XP budget!)

You could have several powerful items giving you daily abilities on top of the 3 or so regular dailies plus utilities plus paragon path powers plus... geez, do you even get to use at-wills after a while? (I've never seen a 4e game past 6th yet.) And then there's stories of constant stun-locking.

It seems to me, in the above examples, the only problems were:
1) Not enough monsters. (If you can kill an enemy in one round, that means less if there's twice as many bad guys as you, not counting the minions.)
2) No interesting terrain.

I visit the Sly Flourish website, a guide to high level 4e gaming, to prep myself before I reach that stage. It counsels using special site-based "items" to "guard" the named villain, for instance, making insta-killing kinda hard.

I don't understand the "trap adventure" is too easy complaint. The original adventure wasn't intended to be balanced, and used a system that wasn't concerned about it. If you want to run an unbalanced adventure, the rules are not going to stop you.

 

[Argyle King]

While 4e is more balanced at higher levels than 3.x, it's still not that well balanced. (Also, at paragon levels, you might need to more than double the XP budget!)

You could have several powerful items giving you daily abilities on top of the 3 or so regular dailies plus utilities plus paragon path powers plus... geez, do you even get to use at-wills after a while? (I've never seen a 4e game past 6th yet.) And then there's stories of constant stun-locking.

It seems to me, in the above examples, the only problems were:
1) Not enough monsters. (If you can kill an enemy in one round, that means less if there's twice as many bad guys as you, not counting the minions.)
2) No interesting terrain.

I visit the Sly Flourish website, a guide to high level 4e gaming, to prep myself before I reach that stage. It counsels using special site-based "items" to "guard" the named villain, for instance, making insta-killing kinda hard.

I don't understand the "trap adventure" is too easy complaint. The original adventure wasn't intended to be balanced, and used a system that wasn't concerned about it. If you want to run an unbalanced adventure, the rules are not going to stop you.

Stun-locking can be bad at higher levels, but there are actually worse things. In particular, there's what I suppose you could call 'Dom-locking.' The party wizard which was part of the party I was talking about had a lot of dominated (save ends) powers; he also had a lot of things (such as Phrenic Crown) which gave penalties to saves. If I remember correctly, he even had some good synergy with the Bard; the Bard had a power which was called Ballad of Misfortune or something like that which gave creatures a -5 to saves... the point being that -if the party couldn't kill it- there were encounters in which some of the enemy spent a lot of their time fighting for us.

The party composition was a Goliath Fighter who multiclassed into Barbarian a little bit; a Goliath Barbarian who multiclassed into Fighter a little bit, an Eladrin Wizard who had some kind of Paragon Path that could make him invisible a lot & he eventually went Arch-Lich; a Dragonborn Warlord, and a Half-Elf Bard who multiclassed enough that I think he counted as at least 5 or 6 different classes & also took an epic destiny which allowed him to start counting as different races. I'm unsure of the paragon paths and epic destinies for the Goliath characters and the Dragonborn.

The most devastating combo involved the Warlord and the Bard. The Warlord had some sort of daily power which granted the rest of the party basic attacks whenever someone in the party would score a critical hit. I don't remember the name of the power offhand and the specifics of how exactly it worked; I just remember the general idea behind the power. The Bard had a power which I think was called Climactic Chord which allowed all allies in a burst 10 to either make an at-will attack or a basic attack; the same Bard also had Haste and various other powers which would grant attacks to the party. With the amount of rolling that was involved when both characters would combine their efforts, the odds of at least 1 critical being rolled were pretty high; it would set off a chain of attacks.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem with grim and gritty in games is that grim and gritty should be pretty high up on the lethality scale. If it's not, it's neither grim nor gritty. But, in a game where chargen can take upwards of an hour (or more) having a character die every three sessions is going to seriously whittle down on a player's fun.

If you want a G&G game, find one where you can build your avatar in under ten minutes and you're good to go. Otherwise, it's going to be a very, very poor fit.

This actually doesn't bother me. I don't mind my character dying and taking an hour to write up a new one on the spot (though I will usually have a bacl-up character on-hand). For a lot of players making a character is half the fun.

 

[masshysteria]

So, what's the real problem we are trying to solve here? Do you really want to play 4th edition but make it more gritty? Or do you want a game that supports gritty play out of the gate?

Assuming it is the former 4E transitioned to gritty, I think it is very doable by stealing a few ideas from other games, a few house rules, and some common sense.

Paragon and Epic tiers? Not any more, this is gritty and level 10 is the new cap. If you make it there, retire and live a life of luxury.

Healing Surges? Drop them, they don't exist anymore.

Magic items? Make them extra rare. Perhaps steal the Gamma World Omega Tech idea where if you use the item's power that encounter you roll a die to see if it has any charges left or it is just becomes a normal item again.

Extended rests? Roll to see if you get attacked while camping out. If you do, you can't rest there and need to find a new spot because everyone knows where you are.

Combat isn't brutal enough? Add a damage threshold (see Star Wars Saga or D20 Modern.)

Traps? Make them part of an encounter, along with difficult terrain.

Survival? Check out Dark Sun and actually have people track weight.

Action points? No more.

End result, it is your game play it as you want to. Be creative, have fun, and good luck.

 

[ComradeGnull]

Reading this, something strikes me. The OP's description of Grim and Gritty only really applies to low level games. Even AD&D, once you hit into the 7+ level isn't really grim and gritty anymore. Combat and traps are rarely going to kill you, unless it's save or die. The characters don't really have to bother tracking anything anymore because they've got more money than the average nation state.

Even the example given from Dragonlance of fleeing the Inn, is from one of the very first scenes in the series and before they get a cleric who can pretty much heal at will with her staff. And, of course, it ignores the fact that a good GOD wanders around with them for most of the stories. Hardly grim or gritty.

The problem with grim and gritty in games is that grim and gritty should be pretty high up on the lethality scale. If it's not, it's neither grim nor gritty. But, in a game where chargen can take upwards of an hour (or more) having a character die every three sessions is going to seriously whittle down on a player's fun.

If you want a G&G game, find one where you can build your avatar in under ten minutes and you're good to go. Otherwise, it's going to be a very, very poor fit.

I don't think grim & gritty necessarily needs to equate to lethality. While dangerous combat and rare healing are one way to add that feel to a game, there are certainly others that don't necessarily lead to character death.

Things like tracking ammo, food, water, and travel more closely, keeping cash and magical resources low, having (inconvenient or dangerous but non-lethal) side effects for using magic are all mechanical ways to make the game more realistic and dangerous feeling while not actually killing anyone.

Thematically, just changing the character's objectives and motivations can make a scenario feel grittier and more realistic. If you take the same five or six encounters out of the context of 'you investigate an ancient castle' and put them in the context of 'you try to survive while reaching the next town over with an important message about a famine', and add in more detailed tracking of food, sleep, ammo, and encumbrance, you have a game with a very different feel, without killing any more players.

 

[Tuft]

So, what's the real problem we are trying to solve here? Do you really want to play 4th edition but make it more gritty? Or do you want a game that supports gritty play out of the gate?

Assuming it is the former 4E transitioned to gritty, I think it is very doable by stealing a few ideas from other games, a few house rules, and some common sense.

Paragon and Epic tiers? Not any more, this is gritty and level 10 is the new cap. If you make it there, retire and live a life of luxury.

Healing Surges? Drop them, they don't exist anymore.

Magic items? Make them extra rare. Perhaps steal the Gamma World Omega Tech idea where if you use the item's power that encounter you roll a die to see if it has any charges left or it is just becomes a normal item again.

Extended rests? Roll to see if you get attacked while camping out. If you do, you can't rest there and need to find a new spot because everyone knows where you are.

Combat isn't brutal enough? Add a damage threshold (see Star Wars Saga or D20 Modern.)

Traps? Make them part of an encounter, along with difficult terrain.

Survival? Check out Dark Sun and actually have people track weight.

Action points? No more.

End result, it is your game play it as you want to. Be creative, have fun, and good luck.

It isn't gritty until you suddenly, unexpectedly die from random crossbow fire from the bushes. No declaration of combat start, no hp, no healing, no save.

"Conan" or "Die Hard" are not gritty; they have plot immunity a mile wide - if the hero(s) die it's over for a lucrative line of stories. "On The Western Front Nothing New" - non-heroes dying random deaths - that's *gritty*. Anything less is just walking around in your daddy's shoes pretending to be a Big Man...



(Yes, its a joke.... But sometimes this urge for people to out-grit each other starts to sound like the Monthy Python skit with a shoebox in the middle of a road...)

 

[Argyle King]

I disagree that Conan is not gritty. Conan the character most certainly -as the main character of the novels- does have some amount of plot immunity. However, Howard does a great job in many circumstances of making the reader believe that Conan will lose. In fact, there are times when Conan fails, gets injured, and etc.

Still, for me, what makes the Howard stories gritty is the world around Conan. The way things are described. The picture that Howard paints with his words.

Also, the novel has some amount of plot immunity because that is what's require of a novel if you want to keep the same character and series. RPGs do not have that limitation. As such, I'd like to play in a Conan style game without the plot immunity that is necessary to keep a character around; I would find that to be a gritty experience which I would highly enjoy.