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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8675319" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/57jEGOV.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/308227/King-of-the-Road" target="_blank">DM's Guild page</a>Achievements have been a long-held tradition in video games, where performing certain tasks in game displays a notification that the player completed such a feat. Oftentimes these achievements had no direct in-game benefit, being more of a status symbol or to provide a sense of accomplishment.The format doesn’t translate as well to tabletop gaming. Given the personal nature of many gaming groups, the closest we got to achievements were via tournament play and player reward cards obtained via RPGA events. In the latter case, such cards often granted some benefit that players could use in RPGA campaigns, such as access to races or classes otherwise barred from conventional play.<a href="https://aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?Category=Achievement" target="_blank">Pathfinder experimented with achievement feats early on in its lifespan,</a> although these were of mixed benefit. First was the fact that they had to be taken via feat slots rather than being granted automatically, which made them functionally identical to virtually every other feat. But as many of these achievement feats required a massive amount of book-keeping, this made them rather unappealing choices.But what of 5th Edition? King of the Road seeks to apply the achievement concept to the RPG via an in-game folkloric challenge: long ago, the prince of a tyrannical king saw how his father lost touch with his subjects and embarked on the road so as to better understand the people. He learned much on his travels and made many friends, earning him the title King of the Road. The prince’s private journal of his travels is said to appear once per century, and that travelers who complete the tasks within will become the new King of the Road and be granted the prince’s magical crown.This rulebook, and the in-game journal, contains checklists for various challenges and point totals, and advice is given for how the DM should implement its use in the campaign. Generally speaking, the King of the Road is meant to be a friendly competition and that it’s against the spirit of the game for PCs to self-sabotage each other. It’s also suggested that the DM should sprinkle 1 to 3 chances to complete challenges per session, although players finding ways to accomplish them without prompts should also be encouraged. It’s also heavily suggested that the “end” of the mini-game should come at a predetermined time, such as when the PCs reach a certain level of experience or after the conclusion of a major story arc. At that point, the point totals of each PC are tallied to determine the winner.When PCs find the journal and decide to compete for King of the Road, a magic item known as the Bracelet of the Front Runner will appear on the PC with the most points at the beginning of each session or after a certain challenge is completed. The DM determines which is best for their own campaign, although the former requires less work to handle albeit at the expense of the item being on one PC for a longer period of time. Once per day the Bracelet can grant advantage to all ability checks of a single chosen ability score for 1 hour, at which point it needs 24 hours to recharge before using this ability again.There are 29 different checklists in King of the Road, with 12 corresponding to a particular character class, 9 to a particular PHB race, 2 “Author’s Choice” lists that are unrelated tasks that the individual authors find entertaining, 2 pertaining to magic item uses and monster trophies, 1 being where characters are rewarded for accumulating the most of something, and the remaining 3 being different related to generic events and settings. Each player is given copies of checklists that are relevant to their PC. Achievements can only provide point rewards once after they’re checked off, although some achievements can be accomplished by multiple party members. The “Most Of” achievements give points to 3 different PCs, being akin to a race where the winners are ranked 1st to 3rd place, while the class/race ones can only be done by PCs who match the list’s title (multi-classing grants more options). The event and setting achievements may grant points to multiple PCs who work together to accomplish the goal depending on DM discretion.Point values range from 5 to 25, although I have noticed that some options don’t necessarily correspond with the difficulty of achievement or can be more subjective. While many of the 5 point achievements are rather trivial, there are some 15 to 20 point ones which aren’t that difficult to get:<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Na7J0wb.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Take this Cleric checklist. The “heal 3 or more allies” option can be easily accomplished with Mass Healing Word, which is a level 3 spell. Given the preparation-based nature of that class’ spell list, this is a very easy 20 points.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/lGIKvSK.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Now contrast this with the Monk. “Walk barefooted over hot coals” is 15 points, and is subject more to DM Fiat. I’m going to presume that most DMs would have this trial deal fire damage, so outright immunity to damage types is much harder to come across in RAW. Fire immunity specifically <a href="https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/160074/barring-epic-boons-is-there-a-way-to-gain-immunity-to-fire-damage" target="_blank">comes not from the Monk itself but rather spells from other classes.</a><img src="https://i.imgur.com/VmncQhc.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Now check out the Dwarf’s 25 point rewards. “Become poisoned on purpose and survive” is perhaps the most egregious example of easy points. As Save or Die isn’t really a thing in 5th Edition anymore, the vast majority of poison instead either deals damage and/or inflicts the Poisoned condition. A party who can <a href="https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Poisonous%20Snake#content" target="_blank">summon a poisonous snake</a> or <a href="https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Poisons#content" target="_blank">get their hands on some weak poison</a> can get 25 points without much challenge.Additionally, some classes have rather specific achievements in spite of said classes having rather broad concepts. 4 out of 10 of the Sorcerer’s achievements require either specific spells or spell themes, while half of the Paladin’s achievements hew closer to the classic Lawful Good interpretation of the class despite that Paladins in this Edition can be of any alignment.I will note that these options jumped out the most in terms of being explicitly easier or harder for their supposed point values. The bulk of the achievements are more subjective, yet still have some degree of challenge or finesse to encourage some clever planning by individual PCs or the party. Taverns and Inns in particular is almost all subjective role-play.The “Most Of” list is a bit heavy in regards to book-keeping. While it isn’t doing anything as extreme as Pathfinder's achievement feat of tracking individual points of damage, certain things such as death saving throws, critical hits, and amount of healing potions drank are the kind of things that may slip by a player in the heat of battle unless the party’s particularly meticulous.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/XFWzWFO.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />So how good is the reward for King of the Road? Well, the Crown of the King of the Road appears on the head of the winner and the Bracelet of the Forerunner disappears. It has the ability score advantage ability of the Bracelet, save that its duration is 24 hours. Its other benefit is that the wearer is always welcome at any inn, tavern, or local residence. The host is magically granted gold equal to five times the sum of the party’s expenses when the party leaves the establishment, which goes a long way to explaining the extensive hospitality.Thoughts: King of the Road takes the concept of gaming achievements and distills them into an in-universe concept with distinct rewards and incentives for PCs to act in certain fashions. Keeping achievements as a purely metagame concept may clash a bit with role-playing (like a bard breaking their own musical instrument when fighting), but when the PCs themselves know that such actions have a powerful payoff this is a good rationale. The Bracelet and Crown magic items have broad enough benefits that they can be a welcome addition to any PC’s arsenal regardless of class. There’s more than enough achievements of various types that the sourcebook doesn’t feel pigeonholed towards a certain setting or playstyle.Barring some edge cases, the checklists are open-ended enough to not weigh any particular PC towards accumulation of points. But my major concern is that PCs may have too many checklists to consult and juggle: they have 2 from their race and class and 1 for The Most Of which they’ll likely consult often. Then when combat begins they’ll need to keep Combat Events on hand, and possibly Monster Souvenirs for when those specific monsters show up. Social Encounters, Taverns & Inns, and Magic Items will likely be shelved away until appropriate times, but even without those I am concerned about King of the Road slowing down gameplay in this regard.</blockquote>

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