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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Hot to handle level progression in Princes of the Apocalypse (or sandbox adventures in general)
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 6590321" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>Yes, I think a defining feature of a sandbox is the idea that the challenges don't adapt to a PC group's level.</p><p></p><p>Thus it must be possible for the party to stumble upon encounters or locales with different challenge levels.</p><p></p><p>I see 2 general approaches of handling varying difficulty: to give a clue, or to let the encounter/locale speaks for itself.</p><p></p><p>If you go clue-based, you can either do that narratively or metagame. The idea is anyway to let the players know when they can still choose to avoid the encounter, or (in case of surprise) latest at the beginning of the encounter. This way it is most of the times up to them, except in those cases when the encounter would be inevitable.</p><p></p><p>If you go clueless, the players are supposed to notice as the encounter progresses. It is obviously more risky, because it will be too late much more frequently than in the previous case.</p><p></p><p>So to summarize, you might see three options for the DM:</p><p></p><p>- clue-based, narrative: "You are suddenly attacked by a <em>gazebo</em>! It looks ravenous and powerful, as it effortlessly rips through a couple of trees to reach you."</p><p>- clue-based, metagaming: "You are suddenly attacked by a <em>gazebo</em>! It's a "hard" encounter for your current level".</p><p>- clueless: "You are suddenly attacked by a <em>gazebo</em>!" then a couple of rounds later everyone is down to 30% their HP.</p><p></p><p>Independently on that, you can condition the clues to PC's skills checks, e.g. let the Wizard roll an Int(Arcana) check on gazebos knowledge to decide if the party gets the clue or not.</p><p></p><p>And this can be applied to individual encounters or entire locales, such as a dungeon, a forest, a swamp, etc... Personally I like sandboxes where locales have roughly homogeneous encounters (think for example World of Warcraft); I think it makes good sense narratively and it helps the flow of adventures.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree, because in the sandbox the party is able to choose where to go next, so if they can choose between an easy challenge or a hard challenge, then the rewards should be somewhat proportionate with the risks.</p><p></p><p>Although, I do not recommend to base all XPs on combat encounters. In fact I usually look forward roughly 50%-50% gained XP between combat and non-combat. Thus I would definitely also grant XPs for completing quests, and in my opinion one of the best feature of typical sandboxes is to have multiple major/minor quests active at the same time.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 6590321, member: 1465"] Yes, I think a defining feature of a sandbox is the idea that the challenges don't adapt to a PC group's level. Thus it must be possible for the party to stumble upon encounters or locales with different challenge levels. I see 2 general approaches of handling varying difficulty: to give a clue, or to let the encounter/locale speaks for itself. If you go clue-based, you can either do that narratively or metagame. The idea is anyway to let the players know when they can still choose to avoid the encounter, or (in case of surprise) latest at the beginning of the encounter. This way it is most of the times up to them, except in those cases when the encounter would be inevitable. If you go clueless, the players are supposed to notice as the encounter progresses. It is obviously more risky, because it will be too late much more frequently than in the previous case. So to summarize, you might see three options for the DM: - clue-based, narrative: "You are suddenly attacked by a [I]gazebo[/I]! It looks ravenous and powerful, as it effortlessly rips through a couple of trees to reach you." - clue-based, metagaming: "You are suddenly attacked by a [I]gazebo[/I]! It's a "hard" encounter for your current level". - clueless: "You are suddenly attacked by a [I]gazebo[/I]!" then a couple of rounds later everyone is down to 30% their HP. Independently on that, you can condition the clues to PC's skills checks, e.g. let the Wizard roll an Int(Arcana) check on gazebos knowledge to decide if the party gets the clue or not. And this can be applied to individual encounters or entire locales, such as a dungeon, a forest, a swamp, etc... Personally I like sandboxes where locales have roughly homogeneous encounters (think for example World of Warcraft); I think it makes good sense narratively and it helps the flow of adventures. I agree, because in the sandbox the party is able to choose where to go next, so if they can choose between an easy challenge or a hard challenge, then the rewards should be somewhat proportionate with the risks. Although, I do not recommend to base all XPs on combat encounters. In fact I usually look forward roughly 50%-50% gained XP between combat and non-combat. Thus I would definitely also grant XPs for completing quests, and in my opinion one of the best feature of typical sandboxes is to have multiple major/minor quests active at the same time. [/QUOTE]
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Hot to handle level progression in Princes of the Apocalypse (or sandbox adventures in general)
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