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Learning from LFR: Encounter and Monster Examples to Steal for Your Game
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<blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 9583548" data-attributes="member: 7737"><p>I do have some issues with this map. Let's look at it again:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]396081[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>One of the biggest complaints about LFR is that it far too frequently starts the PCs in "the penalty box" where they are tightly bunched. Not only crushed into fireball formation, but also stuck in an unfavorable position that no rational PCs would willingly put themselves into. </p><p></p><p>CORE1-1 doesn’t literally show dashed lines outlining its penalty box (that "innovation" would come a bit later in LFR’s development), but the encounter tells us that the PCs enter from the stairs near the broken door (on the far left).</p><p></p><p>And… they’re behind a pit. It’s an open pit, so it's not going to take anyone by surprise, but it’s still something that immediately slows down the game because the players and DM need to operate the rules for jumping over pits and/or the rules for falling into pits.</p><p></p><p>Once past the pit, the PCs will immediately gain LOS (line of sight) to one of the Clay Scouts, which according to the encounter intro for the DM, is Hiding.</p><p></p><p>Hidden is one of the worst RAW (rules as written) elements of 4e, a morass so sticky that we needed <a href="https://www.dyasdesigns.com/dragon_phoenix/The%20Rules%20Of%20Hidden%20Club%20%20Targeting%20things%20you%20can%27t%20see%20in%20D&D.%20_%20The%20Wizards%20Community.htm" target="_blank">a lengthy thread on the Wizards forums (archived here) to sort it out</a>.</p><p></p><p>Back in 2008, we didn't have Rules of Hidden Club sorted out, so you'd see LFR encounters with a phrase like this one:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Thus there is immediately a branch in the flowchart for what happens in this encounter: do the PCs detect the Clay Scout in the pit? By RAW, as soon as each PC moves into LOS (line of sight) to a Hidden monster, that monster loses Hidden; and the PCs basically start with LOS to the pit! The monster would need Cover or Concealment to retain Hidden, which the Clay Scout doesn't have in this situation.</p><p></p><p>But it was 2008 and nobody knew better, so what happened was that each PC made a separate, individual Perception check to detect the Clay Scout. It's hypothetically possible that all PCs failed to detect the monster! In which case, the Clay Scout stays "Hidden" until the PCs "trigger the trap" some distance down the corridor.</p><p></p><p>So before anything happens in this combat encounter that involves combat, the players have already needed to consult the rules twice (jumping / falling and Rules of Hidden Club) and needed to roll dice a bunch: Athletics to jump over the pit, falling damage if falling into the pit, PCs’ Perceptions vs. Clay Scout’s Hide (arguably not needed, but probably was rolled in practice). </p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>At some point someone will detect the Clay Scout and it will enter the initiative. It has an initiative modifier of +7, which is higher than most 1st-level 4e PCs: from around +4 to +5 at best (the DEX 18 or 20 rogue or ranger) to as low as +0 or -1 for anyone who tanked their DEX (“cleric speed!” is the operative cliché).</p><p></p><p>Given the wide variance of the d20, we can’t <em>really</em> determine where that +7 Initiative will land the Clay Scout that is hiding in the pit, but mathematically it does have an edge.</p><p></p><p>Initiative is another set of dice rolls that have to be processed <em>and their results tracked</em> for the remainder of the encounter. I have a deep and abiding hatred towards rolled initiative in any game system, and I have utterly excised rolled initiative from all my games since about 2010… but I will save that rant-slash-house-rule for another day and assume we’re running LFR by the book here.</p><p></p><p>This encounter immediately confronts the fledgling DM with the question: when should I call for initiative? On the one hand, as soon as the DM lays out the dungeon tiles, everyone knows this is a combat encounter, so we may as well roll initiative and acknowledge that reality. On the other hand, until one of two triggers happens in the encounter (PCs spot Clay Scout <em>or</em> PCs pass a certain point on the map), there is no opposition in place that would make turn order matter. On the gripping hand, if the DM gets the PCs’ initiatives then he can impose some order on the chaos of exploration of this complex space. On the… four-armed white Barsoomian ape’s hand… a call for initiative disrupts the pure exploration old-school vibe we have going on here.</p><p></p><p>I suspect in historical practice most DMs called for initiative as soon as this encounter started; i.e., as soon as the map tiles got set out.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>We can thus add another set of rolls to the beginning of this encounter. Roughly in the order that I suspect they would have happened historically:</p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Initiative</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Perception vs. Stealth (arguably not needed, but likely rolled anyway)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Athletics checks vs. pit</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">falling damage (possibly mitigated by Acrobatics, a 5th roll!)</li> </ol><p>Nobody has made an attack roll yet and that is already a ton of dice clattering across the table.</p><p></p><p>Here is where <em>Learning from LFR</em> depends upon what game you want to play at your table. </p><p></p><p>It's a completely legitimate mode of play to say all of those rolls are great: they force us to slow the game down, to consider the details of what is happening, and to take pleasure in that moment-to-moment detail.</p><p></p><p>At my table, all those rolls force us to slow the game down and argh it hurts we just want an exciting combat when can we roll attacks/damage go go go! I'm exaggerating my own position. But this is my thread, so I get to make these my next lessons:</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Do not front load your encounters with multiple dice rolls</em></strong> (other than initiative, if you use it).</p><p></p><p><strong><em>Do not front load your encounters with multiple complex rules cases</em></strong>.</p><p></p><p>I worded these specifically: the terms "front" and "multiple" are doing some work here. We will eventually see examples where extra dice rolls and complex rules get added to an encounter <em>later in the encounter (not at the front)</em> and <em>in small doses (not multiples)</em>. Which turns them into ingredients that can make a normal, OK encounter into a special, exciting encounter.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>So far, this thread proceeds down a painful path, wherein I must force myself to dissect examples that contain "don't do this" rather than "here's an awesome example to steal!" I will continue despite the pain, because this groundwork will make later examples that much stronger. We'll be able to compare later examples to CORE1-1 Encounter 6, and we will see how those later examples improved upon the baseline.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Joshua Randall, post: 9583548, member: 7737"] I do have some issues with this map. Let's look at it again: [ATTACH type="full" size="768x257"]396081[/ATTACH] One of the biggest complaints about LFR is that it far too frequently starts the PCs in "the penalty box" where they are tightly bunched. Not only crushed into fireball formation, but also stuck in an unfavorable position that no rational PCs would willingly put themselves into. CORE1-1 doesn’t literally show dashed lines outlining its penalty box (that "innovation" would come a bit later in LFR’s development), but the encounter tells us that the PCs enter from the stairs near the broken door (on the far left). And… they’re behind a pit. It’s an open pit, so it's not going to take anyone by surprise, but it’s still something that immediately slows down the game because the players and DM need to operate the rules for jumping over pits and/or the rules for falling into pits. Once past the pit, the PCs will immediately gain LOS (line of sight) to one of the Clay Scouts, which according to the encounter intro for the DM, is Hiding. Hidden is one of the worst RAW (rules as written) elements of 4e, a morass so sticky that we needed [URL='https://www.dyasdesigns.com/dragon_phoenix/The%20Rules%20Of%20Hidden%20Club%20%20Targeting%20things%20you%20can%27t%20see%20in%20D&D.%20_%20The%20Wizards%20Community.htm']a lengthy thread on the Wizards forums (archived here) to sort it out[/URL]. Back in 2008, we didn't have Rules of Hidden Club sorted out, so you'd see LFR encounters with a phrase like this one: Thus there is immediately a branch in the flowchart for what happens in this encounter: do the PCs detect the Clay Scout in the pit? By RAW, as soon as each PC moves into LOS (line of sight) to a Hidden monster, that monster loses Hidden; and the PCs basically start with LOS to the pit! The monster would need Cover or Concealment to retain Hidden, which the Clay Scout doesn't have in this situation. But it was 2008 and nobody knew better, so what happened was that each PC made a separate, individual Perception check to detect the Clay Scout. It's hypothetically possible that all PCs failed to detect the monster! In which case, the Clay Scout stays "Hidden" until the PCs "trigger the trap" some distance down the corridor. So before anything happens in this combat encounter that involves combat, the players have already needed to consult the rules twice (jumping / falling and Rules of Hidden Club) and needed to roll dice a bunch: Athletics to jump over the pit, falling damage if falling into the pit, PCs’ Perceptions vs. Clay Scout’s Hide (arguably not needed, but probably was rolled in practice). --- At some point someone will detect the Clay Scout and it will enter the initiative. It has an initiative modifier of +7, which is higher than most 1st-level 4e PCs: from around +4 to +5 at best (the DEX 18 or 20 rogue or ranger) to as low as +0 or -1 for anyone who tanked their DEX (“cleric speed!” is the operative cliché). Given the wide variance of the d20, we can’t [I]really[/I] determine where that +7 Initiative will land the Clay Scout that is hiding in the pit, but mathematically it does have an edge. Initiative is another set of dice rolls that have to be processed [I]and their results tracked[/I] for the remainder of the encounter. I have a deep and abiding hatred towards rolled initiative in any game system, and I have utterly excised rolled initiative from all my games since about 2010… but I will save that rant-slash-house-rule for another day and assume we’re running LFR by the book here. This encounter immediately confronts the fledgling DM with the question: when should I call for initiative? On the one hand, as soon as the DM lays out the dungeon tiles, everyone knows this is a combat encounter, so we may as well roll initiative and acknowledge that reality. On the other hand, until one of two triggers happens in the encounter (PCs spot Clay Scout [I]or[/I] PCs pass a certain point on the map), there is no opposition in place that would make turn order matter. On the gripping hand, if the DM gets the PCs’ initiatives then he can impose some order on the chaos of exploration of this complex space. On the… four-armed white Barsoomian ape’s hand… a call for initiative disrupts the pure exploration old-school vibe we have going on here. I suspect in historical practice most DMs called for initiative as soon as this encounter started; i.e., as soon as the map tiles got set out. --- We can thus add another set of rolls to the beginning of this encounter. Roughly in the order that I suspect they would have happened historically: [LIST=1] [*]Initiative [*]Perception vs. Stealth (arguably not needed, but likely rolled anyway) [*]Athletics checks vs. pit [*]falling damage (possibly mitigated by Acrobatics, a 5th roll!) [/LIST] Nobody has made an attack roll yet and that is already a ton of dice clattering across the table. Here is where [I]Learning from LFR[/I] depends upon what game you want to play at your table. It's a completely legitimate mode of play to say all of those rolls are great: they force us to slow the game down, to consider the details of what is happening, and to take pleasure in that moment-to-moment detail. At my table, all those rolls force us to slow the game down and argh it hurts we just want an exciting combat when can we roll attacks/damage go go go! I'm exaggerating my own position. But this is my thread, so I get to make these my next lessons: [B][I]Do not front load your encounters with multiple dice rolls[/I][/B] (other than initiative, if you use it). [B][I]Do not front load your encounters with multiple complex rules cases[/I][/B]. I worded these specifically: the terms "front" and "multiple" are doing some work here. We will eventually see examples where extra dice rolls and complex rules get added to an encounter [I]later in the encounter (not at the front)[/I] and [I]in small doses (not multiples)[/I]. Which turns them into ingredients that can make a normal, OK encounter into a special, exciting encounter. --- So far, this thread proceeds down a painful path, wherein I must force myself to dissect examples that contain "don't do this" rather than "here's an awesome example to steal!" I will continue despite the pain, because this groundwork will make later examples that much stronger. We'll be able to compare later examples to CORE1-1 Encounter 6, and we will see how those later examples improved upon the baseline. [/QUOTE]
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