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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ralts Bloodthorne" data-source="post: 2928236" data-attributes="member: 6390">Threat Levels...Every GM sooner or later makes this mistake: They make the encounter too tough, or too easy.Too easy is simple to handle, either reduce the XP, or reduce the reward, or don't alter it, rewarding the PC's for excellent tactics, luck, and accomplishment.However, somehow, your "minor threat" has blasted all the PC's to oblivion, and everyone is dead.Oops...Now what?Well, there's two schools of thought.Kill them.DM fiat it.Ask for a 5 minute break "to cool off" everyone.Come up, real quick, with someone who could have armed those opponents with mercy weapons. Maybe it's time to pull the Might Static Man out of beat-down land, or bring out Lord Wimblekrust III.Have them captured.Have their souls separated from their bodies, and they have to jump from body to body, having only 24 hours per body, and locate their body before the ritual takes place.SOMETHING! ANYTHING! Just keep the ball rolling and act like it was your plan all along if you want. A better idea, is at the end of the 5 minute break, say: "Well, that didn't go as planned. BUT I HAVE AN IDEA!" and hit the ground running.Of course, this ties in with:Character Death...Everyone hates it. It happens. You blow a roll. You deliberately hold the tide against the enemy while the rest of the group run for it.How you handle character death is up to you, but sometimes, it's good to hear some ideas...Personally, I hate it. A lot of times it screws up my current, hidden, or future story arcs. The bard is supposed to be captured and used to summon a greater demon lord, ala Rock n Rule, but now she's dead, a pile of dust after being disintegrated. Great. There goes 6 months of work.But wait! It can be fixed.To many of you, especially the old 1E/2E GM's, you can probably remember every single option I'm about to toss out.The party's patron has them resurrected, for a price.The God allows the PC to return, but altered or with a major debt owed.A priest/church agrees to raise the character, for a price.They aren't actually dead, it was their twin/clone/an illusion, etc. (Soap Opera/Comic Book time)BUT, if overused, this can take the fear out of the game. A sparing hand works best, otherwise a PC who feels that it's their turn to be the focus of the campaign gets an invincible attitude.A way to handle these jackasses is for the party to discover a commoner that was the REAL focus, and now they get to protect the NPC, while the PC who was supposed to be the focus lost their PC for being a jackass.You can reward a player of a deceased character if the death was heroic by allowing them to come in at higher level than normally allowed, permitting an equipment/skill/feat bonus, or maybe a template/PrC that was normally outside of the player's purview.A fun one that should be held for once is the "Dead" PrC. Over the course of 5 levels, they slowly lose the appearance of the walking dead and immunities of the undead, but they are forever marked by their journey back to the land of the living.I do believe that the Dead PrC appeared in a XXXX of Portable Hole Full of Beer, but I can't be sure. I'll check my hard drives and CD's for a copy of it.Once, it works, especially for low magic settings, and is fairly creepy.NEVER arbitrarily kill a PC, either through concentrated effort for no reason, or just "BANG! YOU'RE DEAD!" but keep the fear of death there.Has a single PC offended a power lord? Wait a few weeks, and have assassin's target JUST him.Oh, wait, the PC's go to the jakes and baths together.You gotta separate them. I know that split-party GMing sucks, but you need to get good at it. You need to learn how to use this valuable tool. All it takes is practice. Separate the party at times, by magic, tactics, traps, or circumstances.But do it!Learn to be able to be flexible about altering the power of an encounter if the group divides, learn to quickly handle the PC's going to different parts of town.The party has separated to do some shopping, and one PC is slated as the target of an assassination. Give another PC who has just mundane shopping that NPCs stat-block, and tell him: "KILL!"Take care of other players while the battle rages. Make sure to give a non-XP award to the player of the assassin, succeed or fail.But learn to handle split party, and get the party used to splitting up without getting attacked by everything in the MM every time they separate. Don't punish them for separating, or they won't.Depending on how the players wanted the campaign, things will fall into the following category:CommonUncommonRareVery RareExoticI sit down, and decide what category feats, spells, psionics, items, and equipment all fall into.For Spellcraft, Uncommon adds a +2 to the DC, Rare adds +4, and Very Rare adds a +8, and Exotic adds a +16.That's for everything from learning the spell, to IDing it during combat, to their chances of finding it.I do the same for psionics. Even learning that psionic at the next level and alter the DC according to the above.Equipment, the price alters depending on it's availability. Try finding a 11th Century Katana in 12 Century Central America.Feats are a bit different, and only rarely do I apply this. Mostly to stuff that can unbalance, or doesn't seem to fit the campaign setting. But I do it occasionally.BUT, make sure you present the list of common and uncommon to the PC's. With feats, do it all.PrC's, my advice, decide which ones you have to be part of a group or guild, or you need a mentor for, and which ones the PC can develop on their own.You can debate with yourself over using the "contest" or "proving" form of PrC entry. There was an article or something on it. Require a PC to make skill checks, demonstrate profiency with weaponry or magic, in order to join the PrC order. (Maybe it was in Unearthed Arcana, I disremember)Now, why do the "Common/Uncommon/Rare" stuff with spells, feats, etc?It helps you, the GM, somewhat control the balance of power within the campaign setting, and can also provide an identifying "mark" on NPCs.If two weapon fighting AND two weapon defense is only available to the Dervishes of the Blazing Sun, and a man attacks them in a dark alley with it, the group knows a lot more.It adds a sense of... I don't know... realism and strangeness to a campaign setting. Like you're exploring a new world, not altering your PC according to the PHB for the optimum build.Yes, players are going to discover the best/optimum build according to the feats/abilities you have as common, BUT, you can make that a "common build" for professional warriors/mages/etc, making them region specific.Of course, when the PC's journey to a distance land, giving them a +2 Circumstance bonus to attack or defense or spell penetration, and a -2 Circumstance penalty on other parts wouldn't be completely outrageous..."The orc whips out a strangely curved sword and begins whirling it in a strange attack pattern, the weaving of the steel strange and unfamiliar!" would put them on guard.But remember, the PC's attack patterns are strange and exotic to the NPCs also.Doing this can create a sense of wonder. BUT, strangeness and exotic becomes familiar. A quick and dirty rule of thumb? The penalty is reduced by 1 after 20-PC level-Int Bonus fights against foes from that region.Again, your notebooks and GM backwork come into play.Yes, it adds additional paperwork for the GM, BUT it can pay off.There's probably the best advice I've seen for keeping a campaign under control. If players want X and you aren't really keen on adding it to your campaign, make it rare. If they REALLY want it, they can convince the rest of the players to come along and help them get it. Built in campaign hooks that allow you to balance off your campaign without forcing you to say no. Now that's nice.</blockquote>

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