Remove Expected Wealth Levels

[Hassassin]

I had a situation where some NPCs that were PC allies were fighting a monster. The monster would kill one now and then, and part of the PCs goals was to get to where they could intervene ASAP. I didn't play out this fight with the rules. An NPC just died every round and whenever the PCs fought the monster whatever its hit points were was whatever they had to deal with. Whatever damage the NPCs did before that was show.

That's exactly the kind of situation where I would want to use actual rules to see when NPCs die and if they deal damage.

I suspect my players would be annoyed at a regular pace of 1/round and the NPCs doing no damage. That would mean they couldn't try to protect the NPCs with a spell like circle of protection or boost their fighting ability with bless. There's also the question of whether the NPCs that go down would be dead or could still be healed, but for that I already use house rules.

 

[Mattachine]

That's exactly the kind of situation where I would want to use actual rules to see when NPCs die and if they deal damage.

I suspect my players would be annoyed at a regular pace of 1/round and the NPCs doing no damage. That would mean they couldn't try to protect the NPCs with a spell like circle of protection or boost their fighting ability with bless. There's also the question of whether the NPCs that go down would be dead or could still be healed, but for that I already use house rules.

Gah! If I ran rounds of combat "against myself" as the DM, my players would ask, "Why don't you decide who wins?" or "Isn't there a faster way to determine a result based on the overall effectiveness of the NPCs?" or "The two of us are going to be MtG while you roll dice with yourself."

 

[Hassassin]

Gah! If I ran rounds of combat "against myself" as the DM, my players would ask, "Why don't you decide who wins?" or "Isn't there a faster way to determine a result based on the overall effectiveness of the NPCs?" or "The two of us are going to be MtG while you roll dice with yourself."

I don't think there's really a difference in whether I roll if a monster hits an NPC or a monster hits a PC. If the players care at all what happens to the NPC they will be invested in the result. If they don't... Then I probably wouldn't be rolling, but something else would already have gone wrong.

 

[Mattachine]

It isn't about whether the players or characters care, it's about the time it takes, whereas I could just improv a result without dice rolling and combat rounds, or just roll a couple dice to determine a final result if I want randomness.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It isn't about whether the players or characters care, it's about the time it takes, whereas I could just improv a result without dice rolling and combat rounds, or just roll a couple dice to determine a final result if I want randomness.

Exactly. There's no reason at all to go through the long and tedious process of rolling it all out using the combat rules. Not only that, but you end up with a random element that is totally out of the PCs control. Bad luck and they get screwed.

As for Hassassin's comment about "not doing damage", that's irrelevant. The hit points of the monster at the point the PCs DO interact with it is all that matters. I can as easily decide that ahead of time as not. It COULD be a function of the amount of rounds that goes by before they get involved, but the difference in my case was pretty trivial. If it matters much then just apply an adjustment for however much damage the NPCs would have done.

If the PCs start casting buffs or whatnot on the NPCs then simply make a small adjustment and describe how they saved an extra guy. Let the PC make a check to use the power in the most effective way and if they succeed then one NPC lives, etc. If you want to save some afterwards that went down, well, allow a heal check or whatnot for that. It is all pretty simple. Several of these things happened in my example encounter as I recall. There was nothing too hard about it and most of it was just done by eyeball. The players see fun results, the battle goes faster, nobody on the other side of the screen is any the wiser about how it was done.

 

[Mattachine]

With the limited time me and my players have, one of the top concerns about any iteration of D&D (or other rpg) is speed of task resolution in comparison to story and roleplay. I have modified monsters in 4e to speed combats (half hit points, but +2 damage per tier, +4 on encounter only attacks), but it is still too slow.

I yearn for simple, yet fun combat mechanics--enough choice to be interesting, but not so many effects as to drag. The last games I played like that were AD&D and Marvel Super Heroes. Unfortunately, the former had too many rules/tables/subsystems/limitations and the latter doesn't work well for a D&D style game.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Here's my suggested solution:

Magic items raise a PC's effective level for the purposes of determining a level appropriate challenge. The system is otherwise similar to that found in 4e. The default is no magic items at all.

For example a reasonable challenge for a level 5 party of 4 PCs, with no magic items, would be 4 level 5 monsters. Now if all party members have, say, +1 to hit/damage weapons, and +1 saving throw and AC boosters, then they could be considered level 6 for balance purposes, so 4 level 6 monsters would be an appropriate challenge. (This is just a suggestion, it might take more items than this to raise the effective level by 1.)

This is not a precise system, as the amount of items required to raise effective level by 1 will fall within quite a wide range, but it will give a rough guide to balance.

Very important with this system is that the default is NO magic items at all. This means that, if airwalkrr is correct about the influence of such things on player expectations, then the expectation will be to have no magic gear. I'm personally not sure if I like this idea however, as I find it to be not very 'D&D-y'. As I've already noted upthread, my belief is that magic items were expected in every prior edition of the game.

 

[nightwyrm]

Here's my suggested solution:

Magic items raise a PC's effective level for the purposes of determining a level appropriate challenge. The system is otherwise similar to that found in 4e. The default is no magic items at all.

For example a reasonable challenge for a level 5 party of 4 PCs, with no magic items, would be 4 level 5 monsters. Now if all party members have, say, +1 to hit/damage weapons, and +1 saving throw and AC boosters, then they could be considered level 6 for balance purposes, so 4 level 6 monsters would be an appropriate challenge. (This is just a suggestion, it might take more items than this to raise the effective level by 1.)

This is not a precise system, as the amount of items required to raise effective level by 1 will fall within quite a wide range, but it will give a rough guide to balance.

Very important with this system is that the default is NO magic items at all. This means that, if airwalkrr is correct about the influence of such things on player expectations, then the expectation will be to have no magic gear. I'm personally not sure if I like this idea however, as I find it to be not very 'D&D-y'. As I've already noted upthread, my belief is that magic items were expected in every prior edition of the game.

This system works but I guess it would be a little funky at the top end of the scale.

For example, let's say the PCs cap at lv 30 and magic bonuses caps at +5. Somebody somewhere is gonna run a game with a bunch of twinked out lv 30 PCs with +5 gear, so to accommodate those guys WotC is gotta print some lv 35 monsters for a fair fight and some lv 37-40 monsters to really challenge them but those lv 40 monsters will walk all over lv 30s with no magic. So...they'll still be printing monsters whom you cannot fight unless you got magic gear.

It's not quite that simple, but you get the gist....

And then of course some people will complain why monsters gets to be lv 40 but PCs only go up to 30...

 

[Crazy Jerome]

An alternate route to the same kind of solution as a level adjustment for monsters is to put in some extra magic that isn't item based, but that just happens to adjust for items. The rationale would be that in a campaign world with enough magic floating around that every 10th level character has a few pieces of +2 equipment, there is also enough ambient magic that monsters have one or more coping mechanisms. Detail a few of these as general purpose, and go:

• Dragons and other such magically-aware creatures eat or otherwise absorb/drain magic items. This tends to sharpen their claws and harden their scales--conveniently by about the amount of magic you would find in their hoards. A dragon that you might find lying on a few +2 items has those in there for a later snack.
• Monsters that are outright spell casters have rituals and other powers that they routinely cast that give them the appropriate bonuses--either boosting stats, shielding them, etc.
• Some monsters just have to suffer--so you'll add a few extras or give them their own equipment--e.g. orcs. A 10th level orc without a magic club or axe is like a 10th level human without such equipment--in trouble.
• The more powerful a bizarre creature is (e.g. owlbear), the more likely they are to develop magical mutations--that conveniently give them more offense and defense.

If you are playing in a game where a +1 sword is a rare treasure, then even a really powerful dragon is unlikely to have access to many. He gets no boost, and neither do the characters.

The advantage of this is that the party isn't pulling off a ton of equipment from every defeated foe, but there are still ways that such creatures can be affected. Instead of being disarmed, they can be dispelled, tricked, or any number of things to nullify these corresponding advantages.

 

[FireLance]

This system works but I guess it would be a little funky at the top end of the scale.

For example, let's say the PCs cap at lv 30 and magic bonuses caps at +5. Somebody somewhere is gonna run a game with a bunch of twinked out lv 30 PCs with +5 gear, so to accommodate those guys WotC is gotta print some lv 35 monsters for a fair fight and some lv 37-40 monsters to really challenge them but those lv 40 monsters will walk all over lv 30s with no magic. So...they'll still be printing monsters whom you cannot fight unless you got magic gear.

It's not quite that simple, but you get the gist....

And then of course some people will complain why monsters gets to be lv 40 but PCs only go up to 30...

Yeah, this is pretty much how I would remove magic items from the math. You just change the monster numbers around so that a previously CR/level 9 monster is now CR/level 12 (and is now a standard encounter for a level 12 party with no magic items) and a previously CR/level 12 monster is now CR/level 15 (and is now a standard encounter for a level 12 party with +3 magic items).

I think the way to get around the "level" problem is to just not use the term "level" when talking about monsters - maybe go back to the CR of 3e. So, you can have a monster with 40 hit dice, or a CR 40 monster, but there is no such thing as a "level" 40 monster. NPCs who might have "levels" are capped to the same limits as the PCs.

As for the problem of monsters you cannot fight without magic gear, at least there will only be a handful, and only at the highest levels of the game: the demon lords and archdevils and demigods for which it would make sense to most people that you need powerful magic items to take on.