D&D 4E New Campaign, New DM, New to 4E

[Rothe_]

You need to rest 6 hours for an extended rest. That is mostly just a night's sleep (4 sleep, one keeps guard = 8 hours total camping overnight).

The rules also state that you can only benefit from an extended rest again when 12 hours have passed from the previous extended rest.

So, anything that happens within the same traveling day is going to be fought with the same resource pool (daily powers, action points).

If you have a week of overland travel, then a single encounter in the middle might need special attention to make it a challenging one.

One thing you can also use is to have some skill challenges for travel, which consume healing surges (exhaustion) and possibly even require everyone to expend a daily power or something if the party fails the challenge.

 

[Camelot]

Overland travel with sparse combat is tricky, because the players (if they are more powergamerish) will try to exploit the extended rests. You're right, it's unlikely for them to run into that many encounters in a day. If you did have 8 encounters a day, for 7 days, that would get old fast. But having 1 encounter every day means that the players will be completely refreshed for each encounter, because of the extended rest rule.

So just ignore the rule.

Blame it on exhaustion and the unfriendly climate, but don't let the players get away with that. Just run an appropriate number of encounters before they reach their destination without letting them benefit from an extended rest. It'll make it more challenging, and more fun.

Also, since your players know the game somewhat well, feel free to push them a bit. We had assumed you meant that your entire group was new, but now things are becoming clearer! =) Hope this helped. Have fun!

 

[Blackbrrd]

The last time I did overland travel I just told the players they wouldn't get an extended rest before they had 3-5 encounters. If it had been a less hack'n'slash campaign I might have explained it ingame by the harsh outdoor climate.

Anyway you do it, go over it with the players out-of-game before it happens and explain your reason for the houserule. If your players trust your judgement they won't have any trouble with it.

It's a bit like in LoTR, the hobbits get a long rest at Tom Bombadil, the Inn at Bree and when they get to Elrond in Rivendell. Sure they are sleeping as they travel, but they don't have time for an extended rest.

Alternatively have the encounters be of difficulty n+5, but coming in 2-3 waves. Should work out quite well, and since all the characters will be blowing dailies right and left, it should be moderatly fast too. The problem with this is the story, since these encounters probably will be harder than the climax of the adventure...

 

[Camelot]

Well, to throw in another Lord of the Rings reference, the encounters Frodo and Sam faced on their way to Mt. Doom were much harder than their final encounter, which consisted of a single saving throw, which Frodo failed, and then DM intervention with Gollum biting off the ring and jumping into the lava. Not that complex, nor difficult (to the would-be players, at least. I'm sure Frodo would disagree). So, judging on the success of Lord of the Rings, maybe an quick and easy climax isn't so bad.

 

[MrMyth]

Well, to throw in another Lord of the Rings reference, the encounters Frodo and Sam faced on their way to Mt. Doom were much harder than their final encounter, which consisted of a single saving throw, which Frodo failed, and then DM intervention with Gollum biting off the ring and jumping into the lava. Not that complex, nor difficult (to the would-be players, at least. I'm sure Frodo would disagree). So, judging on the success of Lord of the Rings, maybe an quick and easy climax isn't so bad.

Yeah, but there is significant difference between a story in which you are the audience, and a game in which you are an active participant.

"You get to the final part of your quest... and you fail! And my DMNPC steps in and saves the day!"

Even when presented with all the flavor and emotion of the LotR finale, that might not be the best experience for the players. It could work, certainly - but my point is that a story and a game are different things, and being aware of those differences is really, really important.

 

[Camelot]

Heheh, it was a joke. I was joking. =) That would make a terrible game.

But on the story/game thing, I think D&D is an attempt to make a game that is both a great game and a great storytelling device. It should be fun while it's happening, and then later the players should be talking about how they couldn't believe that plot twist or "I really scared you guys when I said I was betraying you, but it turned out me and the DM had been collaborating on a story device!" or something like that.

Point: At least for me, playing a pure hack-n-slash game of D&D is dull. The story has an important role in the game. They are by no means two seperate things, and by no means should be.

 

[the-golem]

Point: At least for me, playing a pure hack-n-slash game of D&D is dull. The story has an important role in the game. They are by no means two seperate things, and by no means should be.

Funny you should mention that. When I was last there -- at my friends' house, aka the game site -- one asked me if I would be interested in doing "The Worlds Largest Dungeon," which I considered odd, since the question had originated from the one thespian and drama geek of the house. I know he had experience going through it before, so I guess it's got its positives.

Anyway, in my opinion, something such as the aforementioned dungeon would just gnaw at my soul until I took the book and tossed it out a window -- from a very high altitude. (I'm not much for mindless dungeon-after-dungeon-after-dungeon.) I'm beginning to suspect this might have some influence as to why I was asked to DM. While they might have had more recent experience playing the game, I don't think any of them have played it while under a real cohesive campaign--one with story, intrigue, plot. While I'm not trying to claim I've got loads of experience under my belt in that sense, I did enjoy a lovely campaign while I was in San Diego, which was rich with story and intrigue and plot. And fun. The point is, I'm trying my best to bring in my personal gaming experience as a player(Im using that word alot today), and use it to flavor my, erm, DM exp, and theirs as well.
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On a slightly seperate note, I was playing Prince of Persia: Two Thrones earlier today, and at one point I had to rescue all these folks from a burning building, which involved, of course, some semi-intricate puzzle. So I got to thinking--coupled with my comment earlier regarding the encounters--this would make a great encounter to use as a fill in. I'm working on the right up now actually. It's inspired by the aforementioned Two Thrones event, and a similar barn-on-fire zero-level adventure in Grehawk Adventures (TSR 2023).

Having said that, I intend for the first part of the encounter to entail combat--defeating or scaring off those previously mentioned goblins in my last post. Afterwords, they'll be approached by an NPC, with something like, "Help, my horses are trapped in the barn and i'm afraid it'll collapse." or "help my children ... in the house ..." This leads me to the second aspect of the encounter, the non-combat, skill-check kind.

Having said that, I'm not sure how to proceed. I've been reading the non-combat section, but the examples in the DMG seem a tad lackluster. Can anyone toss me some scraps?

P.S. After I complete the encounter script, would it be acceptable to post it here for critique and review?

 

[ValhallaGH]

Skill Challenges sound like the second half of the encounter. To use a skill challenge:
Figure out the sorts of things they can do (search the house, fight the fire, calm the family, paint a picture, whatever will be useful), assign appropriate skills (perception, nature or dungeoneering, diplomacy, Charisma) and a relative difficulty for the tasks (easy, normal, hard). Attach an overall complexity for how difficult it is to totally succeed versus totally fail (X successes before 3 failures) and you've got the basics ready.
Then think about some of the interactions, like successful fire fighting can make it easier to find the children, or a Heal check can be used to save the children if they had begun to succumb to smoke inhalation. All participants may have to make an Endurance check each cycle or lose a Healing Surge (Easy for the painter and talker, Normal for the firefighter, Hard for the searchers).
Finally, decide on the complexity of the challenge(s) to determine how many successes are required before 3 failures to actually beat it.

If you want them to succeed at part of it with ease but have the rest of the challenge be very difficult then you can split it up into multiple challenges. For example, fighting the fire to save the house may be extremely complicated (12 successes before 3 failures) but rescuing the trapped children is merely difficult (5 before 3) and painting a moving picture of the blaze is fairly trivial (4 before 3).

The goal is to make it interesting and dramatic while still leaving it up to a combination of dice and skill to solve.
Speaking of, the DCs can be gotten from page 42 of DMG 1. Feel free to ignore the footnote about skills, since it takes the DCs from reasonable to absurdly challenging. Also, feel free to adjust the DCs to better fit your idea of relative difficulty; note that the Normal column means that a character with Training in the skill and a 10 ability score will suceed on a 10+ (55% of the time).

Good Luck


P.S. Yes, it would be acceptable. This is your thread, you can add to the level of detail you're wanting help with as you desire.

 

[Destil]

I'm of the oldschool 'punish the players for being stupid' crowd. I'd say if they burn every daily resource every time they encounter a fight on the road, let them get away with it once or twice, then go ahead and attack their camp 3 times in one night. In the wilderness during a war like this I don't think the players should ever count on finding a safe resting spot, which should be a big incentive to save resources. I wouldn't screw with the extended rest rules.

That said I've pretty much tossed out the idea of a 'short rest' in my campaign. Basically anything that isn't a combat or heavy skill use encounter counts as a short rest... I just find the idea that everyone needs to sit down for 5 min between fights a little silly.

 

[the-golem]

That said I've pretty much tossed out the idea of a 'short rest' in my campaign. Basically anything that isn't a combat or heavy skill use encounter counts as a short rest... I just find the idea that everyone needs to sit down for 5 min between fights a little silly.

I tend to agree with you. I think the mandated five minutes leans toward the silly, and instead of a literal interpretation, I go for more the feeling of it. In the instance of a dungeon, the party finishes off a host of baddies, and then goes around searching for treasure, looting bodies, commiting necrophilic acts, or whathave you ... its pretty much taking a break. So would exiting that room, and walking down a corridor or somesuch. I interpret the short rest pretty loosely.

However, let's suppose the group finished off those baddies, and then got to work on a puzzle, like rearranging mirrors so that the ray of light bounces around like a laser and gets pointed at a pelor statue, opening a secret door, and out come another group of goons. In this instance, I would rule that it's the same encounter, and they weren't resting, even though they may have not been throwing dice around, using skills--instead it was a puzzle that the players had to solve.

That's just my take on things.

By-the-by, I'm having a blast up-converting this adventure, and adding extra flavor to it.