Save My Game - Wilderlands & Dragons

[S'mon]

EL +2 as the only encounter in a day should not be grindy at all. You can make the encounter harder by adding enemies instead of increasing their level.

The grind comes when you get the EL+2-+4 encounter day after day after day... which is how the article says to do it.

IMO most days there should not be a combat encounter, unless you're in the middle of some hostile Orc tribe's territory or somesuch. But there also needs to be the possibility of several encounters in a day, so the PCs never feel entirely safe.

 

[Adso]

The grind comes when you get the EL+2-+4 encounter day after day after day... which is how the article says to do it.

IMO most days there should not be a combat encounter, unless you're in the middle of some hostile Orc tribe's territory or somesuch. But there also needs to be the possibility of several encounters in a day, so the PCs never feel entirely safe.

No it does not. You get two failures in the skill challenge, you get an encounter and a hazard. You are not having encounters all that often (unless you have a bunch of frail, bumbling, characters with low attention span), and I also suggest that you shuffle in some triggered encounters.

This way you are not guaranteed to have an encounter each day, but it is possible. On days you want to introduce story elements or a series of encounters, you can. Those encounter will happen, and there could be another encounter as well is the skill challenge racks up two failures.

(I’ll also note, that in my original draft, you only had encounters on diversions. Days you were lost always gave you two hazards. I’m sure it got developed out because someone thought it was strange not to have an encounter when you are lost. I didn’t do it that way because if you have an encounter while you are lost, there is a chance through Diplomacy or whatever you could become get out of that predicament. Either way is fine really, as long as you don’t make characters stay lost beyond the point of reason and common sense.)

Not all encounters are combat encounters, either. Both the encounter with local inhabitants and the potential allies don’t usually end in hostilities. Hell, good role players will make friends in combat encounters some times.

 

[jbear]

I hate to drag in an argument from the various Vampire threads - but I am going to love pointing out the general advice officially from wizards about wilderness journey's being something that drains surges. In particular, a complete failure on the hazard advice given in the article is brutal. Losing surges on individual failed rolls (and taking damage equal to surges) and losing a whopping 2d6 surges on a failed hazard challenge across the entire group. All taking damage = surge value (which I actually fundamentally disagree with - but anyway) for each surge lost.

In any event I really disagree with taking damage equal to your surge value on hazards. I much prefer taking damage equal to your level. It's far less punishing on lower level characters - let's face it being on 0 surges in the first place is a massive punishment to begin with - and it is kind of absurd to me. The reason why is because characters with bonuses to their surge value are suddenly penalized - big time. The big tough con primary cavalier or the dragonborn in the party will actually die *faster* than the weedy Vryloka wizard. The irony in that should be well appreciated.

Other than that I highly agree with the article and I quite liked it. Travel shouldn't just be ignored because it's not as easy to emphasize as linear strings of encounters in a dungeon.

Well, you wouldn't like my wilderness skill challenges.

I like to make them, oh ... you know ... challenging. Dangerous. Potentionally lethal, fatal even. I make a series of spiderweb-like routes through the relevant area of terrain to be crossed. I even have degrees of success influence the outcome.

Lets say either player choice or a nature check will send the players along one or another route. Beat the check by 5 or more the take a short cut (perhaps achieving 2 successes) and avoid any hazard. Success goes down a main route but a hazard or an obstacle has to be overcome. A fail ... well they walk straight into a hazard and have to immeadiately deal with it. Fail by more than 5 and they have to face the hazard in severly adverse circumstances.

Hazards and obstacles require a group check to be overcome, but any individual failure has a consequence that must be resolved immeadiately by the group before than can proceed. These circumstances are usually damaging and often cause the loss of healing surges. Group failure as a whole means they have gone from the frying pan into the fire.
I allow a player to "Lead" a group check, taking a hard DC to reduce the DC of all his team mates to surpass the hazard. Failing to lead makes things tougher for the group.

If players run out of HSurges, then the damage comes from real HPs.

That's a pretty simplified run down of how I do it. I have run challenges like this on several occaisions and they have been tense and exciting for everyone involved. When the players got through 'the Bog', a reputedly impassable swamp, they celebrated it like a real achievement. And it felt like the deadly swamp it had been cracked up to be.

If they had of failed the challenge they would have wandered into a very nasty encounter.

So whats the beef? Why the complaint? Don't get it, sorry? My players like things to be tough and difficult and over come that adversity. I reply in kind responding to their improvisation. Is it seriously because of Vampires ... or Vrylokas? Hell ... they aren't even in my game, and I couldn't care less about them to be frank.

I liked the article. I'm still going to keep doing it my way but I'm sure I can take ideas from here to improve my way even further.

Anyway, each to their own.

(P.S. in your further posts, Yes you do come across as snarky)

 

[Aspeon]

Agreed. Although I suspect that may cause problems with PCs who desperately need to rest while in the dungeon...

My version of this would be "You can get an extended rest if there's a roof over your head." So yeah, you can rest in the dungeon as long as you can find a place to rest safely in the dungeon. But that shouldn't be trivial.

 

[Aegeri]

Well, you wouldn't like my wilderness skill challenges.

I like to make them, oh ... you know ... challenging. Dangerous. Potentionally lethal, fatal even. I make a series of spiderweb-like routes through the relevant area of terrain to be crossed. I even have degrees of success influence the outcome.

Actually I quite approve of this The main problem I have with surge value = damage is that it punishes those with higher surge values (or bonuses to it). This is why I prefer damage equal to level. If you face an encounter on 0 surges due to consistently failing even above that, then that is more than punishing enough for any class in the game.

The point is exactly what you say later in your post: If the players feel like the bog of doom really was the bog of doom then you have accomplished the goal of the challenge.

(P.S. in your further posts, Yes you do come across as snarky)

I do apologise as that was not my intent at all!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No it does not. You get two failures in the skill challenge, you get an encounter and a hazard. You are not having encounters all that often (unless you have a bunch of frail, bumbling, characters with low attention span), and I also suggest that you shuffle in some triggered encounters.

This way you are not guaranteed to have an encounter each day, but it is possible. On days you want to introduce story elements or a series of encounters, you can. Those encounter will happen, and there could be another encounter as well is the skill challenge racks up two failures.

(I’ll also note, that in my original draft, you only had encounters on diversions. Days you were lost always gave you two hazards. I’m sure it got developed out because someone thought it was strange not to have an encounter when you are lost. I didn’t do it that way because if you have an encounter while you are lost, there is a chance through Diplomacy or whatever you could become get out of that predicament. Either way is fine really, as long as you don’t make characters stay lost beyond the point of reason and common sense.)

Not all encounters are combat encounters, either. Both the encounter with local inhabitants and the potential allies don’t usually end in hostilities. Hell, good role players will make friends in combat encounters some times.

I think there are a few possible ways to do it. I can understand the desire to make the encounters non-trivial. OTOH a level+4 encounter is going to expend a good bit of time, so I would only do over-leveled encounters when you really want to emphasize the nastiness of the local inhabitants. It may also be a table thing. The players I have are decidedly non-tactical for the most part and will spend most of the evening chewing through a tough encounter. So I will always reserve those for really distinctive situations.

On the subject of encumbrance, I think you're entirely right. There really is no satisfactory way to model encumbrance in anything like a realistic fashion anyway. Weight doesn't work well, nor does some kind of 'bulk' value. Think about it this way, carrying even one awkward bulky object is going to encumber ANYONE, regardless of how strong etc they are. The object could weigh nothing and by the same token 'bulk' really isn't additive in any linear sense. IIRC AD&D basically said something like "well, these are the weights, somewhat tweaked based on how hard the thing is to carry, but it is really up to the DM to decide what makes sense." Abstracting it to provisions is a pretty good compromise that should work well for most overland adventures.