The Ferrett (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} theferrett) wrote,@ 2003-05-23 08:24:00 |
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The Problem With Dungeons - A Request For Help
I was playing Champions with my friends last night when I realized one of the big problems with my campaign: At higher levels, the classic D20 system breaks down entirely. And we're pushing 20th level.
At higher levels of D&D, the game gets reduced to a big talentless slugfest where the only challenge is to reduce the dragon's hit points to zero before it clobbers you. And as a DM, thanks to the way the game is designed, I can't play to win. Why?
Well, there are two conceits of the D&D system that break down:
1) All attack rolls that are over someone's AC hit them.
2) Hit points, like life in Magic, are essentially meaningless; you fight equally as well at one hit point as you do at two thousand.
At low levels, the "attack rolls that are over someone's AC hit them" actually work to some extent; a fighter can wear a tough suit of armor that brings him to 21, and the average is attack roll is +3 or so, meaning that essentially, someone has to roll a 17 or better to hit. But at high levels, the armor class doesn't scale without ridiculous magical items that I refuse to use - and so my highest-level PC is AC 27.
That's good, but the average attack roll at this point is something like +30. Which means that for most of the challenges the PCs will be facing at their level, the monster is guaranteed to automatically hit.
Furthermore, since the monster's got not just the skills but the damage to shred someone effectively, most of the combats lately have looked like this recently:
Me: "The monster hits you, of course." (Rolls dice) "You were at 102 hit points? Well, you're at 27 now. If he gets initiative the next round, you're dead."
This has reduced every combat we've had lately into "one PC takes a boatload of damage, and spends his next action looking desperately for a way to survive." There's no skill in it. If I go all-out and play fair, the monsters kill someone every round and I spend a lot of time resurrecting PCs - which, to be fair, even the Epic Handbook warns us about. (And I hate revolving-door death.) If I cheat and spread the damage about, then I never wind up doing anything dangerous to the group as a whole.
Furthermore, the meaningless hit points means that taking 73 damage doesn't mean anything beyond a CON save. You're not winded from it; you can just pop out your own boatload of damage the next round.
In short, individuals get hosed each session, but there's never some knock-down battle where everyone's bruised and beaten, exhausted but determined to take out the beast before they go down. Furthermore, there aren't really any ways to avoid it - my wife has been frustrated in the past when she's come up with Buffy moves like tossing someone to the ground and stomping on them to discover that essentially, it doesn't do more damage than an attack with the Daggers of Kithrak, so why bother?
There are three ways of dealing with this to make monsters challenging:
1) I RAISE THEIR AC THROUGH THE ROOF. Fine, but giving a monster an AC of 40 means that precisely two members of the party have a chance of hitting them. The rest of the party hangs around with their thumb up their ass.
2) I RAISE THE HIT POINTS TO RIDICULOUS LEVELS. Which allows the monster to last longer, thus almost guaranteeing an accidental kill somewhere when a PC stands in front of it for two rounds in a row.
3) I CHEAT. Um, no.
It occurred to me was what I wanted were the feel of some of the best Champions and Deadlands sessions - combat that was a war of attrition, where the PCs were battered and bruised and worried about something other than just dying. Where that last "from Hell's heart, I stab at thee" moment actually took an effort, since they were fighting past bleeding wounds and eyes. Something where the only damage measured wasn't just pure life force, so a stray hit didn't mean instant obliteration.
Like Champions.
Now, champions tracks two types of damage (well, technically four) - which is confusing to the beginner but actually works out well, because a lot of the attacks are stun-only, meaning that they CAN kill you if they're completely ridiculous, but will just knock you unconscious. And even the killing attacks are better handled.
Furthermore, the Champions system has endurance, which means that quite frequently you'll be burning up your own resources to throw power around, adding another strategic resource to be used - yes, you CAN recover part of the stun and endurance that you've taken this combat, but can you afford to blow an action to do it?
And then I thought about it, and the PCs are high enough that I use the Champions system to switch them into, essentially, superheroes. (Don't talk to me about Fantasy Hero; I hate it.) Giving them 15 points per level means that Ardenal, the highest PC, would be 285 points - which is goddamn strong, but not insane.
Now, here's the question: Does anyone have any solutions for this problem in D&D - some house rule that adds strategy to the combat and prevents both the "monster always hits" syndrome and the "all damage is killing damage" problem?
PROS FOR CHAMPIONS:
1) It's a more flexible system
2) It brings back a lot of strategy in combat
3) It allows me to throw overwhelming situations at the characters that they have a chance of pulling it out
4) It makes illithids, the main villains of the campaign, really scary - even if they're low-level. (Any experienced Champs PC will know the danger of mentalists.)
5) It allows me to give the PCs a little bit of experience each session, as opposed to the "Wait fifteen sessions and BOOM! You're levelled!" syndrome
6) I finally get to know, once and for all, whether my prized Champions PC Thermal could take my gaming group. (Answer: Yes.)
CONS FOR CHAMPIONS:
1) I have to convert all existing monsters and NPCs into a new system (but at least it's one that I know well). THIS IS A LOT OF WORK.
2) The players - specifically my wife, who never reads a gaming manual, and George, who would be starting from scratch - would have to be retrained in one of the most complex systems out there.
3) Adjusting the power level for the ridiculous mages and clerics will be really really tough, making them less flexible - and ultimately, less powerful. (Alternatively, they could use a power pool, but unless you REALLY know the system well - and I don't think even Jeff knows it THAT well - it's impossible to do on the fly.)
4) Magic items are, as usual, fucking stupid in Hero rules.
So I ask you: What works? Does anyone have any house rules for high-level campaigns that add some strategy to combat aside from "Oops, you die or I lie"? Or do you have any other advice? (Feel free to suggest Your Favorite System, but be warned that I am not likely to buy $200 worth of books to become an expert on a new system from scratch.)
Thanks in advance.
I was playing Champions with my friends last night when I realized one of the big problems with my campaign: At higher levels, the classic D20 system breaks down entirely. And we're pushing 20th level.
At higher levels of D&D, the game gets reduced to a big talentless slugfest where the only challenge is to reduce the dragon's hit points to zero before it clobbers you. And as a DM, thanks to the way the game is designed, I can't play to win. Why?
Well, there are two conceits of the D&D system that break down:
1) All attack rolls that are over someone's AC hit them.
2) Hit points, like life in Magic, are essentially meaningless; you fight equally as well at one hit point as you do at two thousand.
At low levels, the "attack rolls that are over someone's AC hit them" actually work to some extent; a fighter can wear a tough suit of armor that brings him to 21, and the average is attack roll is +3 or so, meaning that essentially, someone has to roll a 17 or better to hit. But at high levels, the armor class doesn't scale without ridiculous magical items that I refuse to use - and so my highest-level PC is AC 27.
That's good, but the average attack roll at this point is something like +30. Which means that for most of the challenges the PCs will be facing at their level, the monster is guaranteed to automatically hit.
Furthermore, since the monster's got not just the skills but the damage to shred someone effectively, most of the combats lately have looked like this recently:
Me: "The monster hits you, of course." (Rolls dice) "You were at 102 hit points? Well, you're at 27 now. If he gets initiative the next round, you're dead."
This has reduced every combat we've had lately into "one PC takes a boatload of damage, and spends his next action looking desperately for a way to survive." There's no skill in it. If I go all-out and play fair, the monsters kill someone every round and I spend a lot of time resurrecting PCs - which, to be fair, even the Epic Handbook warns us about. (And I hate revolving-door death.) If I cheat and spread the damage about, then I never wind up doing anything dangerous to the group as a whole.
Furthermore, the meaningless hit points means that taking 73 damage doesn't mean anything beyond a CON save. You're not winded from it; you can just pop out your own boatload of damage the next round.
In short, individuals get hosed each session, but there's never some knock-down battle where everyone's bruised and beaten, exhausted but determined to take out the beast before they go down. Furthermore, there aren't really any ways to avoid it - my wife has been frustrated in the past when she's come up with Buffy moves like tossing someone to the ground and stomping on them to discover that essentially, it doesn't do more damage than an attack with the Daggers of Kithrak, so why bother?
There are three ways of dealing with this to make monsters challenging:
1) I RAISE THEIR AC THROUGH THE ROOF. Fine, but giving a monster an AC of 40 means that precisely two members of the party have a chance of hitting them. The rest of the party hangs around with their thumb up their ass.
2) I RAISE THE HIT POINTS TO RIDICULOUS LEVELS. Which allows the monster to last longer, thus almost guaranteeing an accidental kill somewhere when a PC stands in front of it for two rounds in a row.
3) I CHEAT. Um, no.
It occurred to me was what I wanted were the feel of some of the best Champions and Deadlands sessions - combat that was a war of attrition, where the PCs were battered and bruised and worried about something other than just dying. Where that last "from Hell's heart, I stab at thee" moment actually took an effort, since they were fighting past bleeding wounds and eyes. Something where the only damage measured wasn't just pure life force, so a stray hit didn't mean instant obliteration.
Like Champions.
Now, champions tracks two types of damage (well, technically four) - which is confusing to the beginner but actually works out well, because a lot of the attacks are stun-only, meaning that they CAN kill you if they're completely ridiculous, but will just knock you unconscious. And even the killing attacks are better handled.
Furthermore, the Champions system has endurance, which means that quite frequently you'll be burning up your own resources to throw power around, adding another strategic resource to be used - yes, you CAN recover part of the stun and endurance that you've taken this combat, but can you afford to blow an action to do it?
And then I thought about it, and the PCs are high enough that I use the Champions system to switch them into, essentially, superheroes. (Don't talk to me about Fantasy Hero; I hate it.) Giving them 15 points per level means that Ardenal, the highest PC, would be 285 points - which is goddamn strong, but not insane.
Now, here's the question: Does anyone have any solutions for this problem in D&D - some house rule that adds strategy to the combat and prevents both the "monster always hits" syndrome and the "all damage is killing damage" problem?
PROS FOR CHAMPIONS:
1) It's a more flexible system
2) It brings back a lot of strategy in combat
3) It allows me to throw overwhelming situations at the characters that they have a chance of pulling it out
4) It makes illithids, the main villains of the campaign, really scary - even if they're low-level. (Any experienced Champs PC will know the danger of mentalists.)
5) It allows me to give the PCs a little bit of experience each session, as opposed to the "Wait fifteen sessions and BOOM! You're levelled!" syndrome
6) I finally get to know, once and for all, whether my prized Champions PC Thermal could take my gaming group. (Answer: Yes.)
CONS FOR CHAMPIONS:
1) I have to convert all existing monsters and NPCs into a new system (but at least it's one that I know well). THIS IS A LOT OF WORK.
2) The players - specifically my wife, who never reads a gaming manual, and George, who would be starting from scratch - would have to be retrained in one of the most complex systems out there.
3) Adjusting the power level for the ridiculous mages and clerics will be really really tough, making them less flexible - and ultimately, less powerful. (Alternatively, they could use a power pool, but unless you REALLY know the system well - and I don't think even Jeff knows it THAT well - it's impossible to do on the fly.)
4) Magic items are, as usual, fucking stupid in Hero rules.
So I ask you: What works? Does anyone have any house rules for high-level campaigns that add some strategy to combat aside from "Oops, you die or I lie"? Or do you have any other advice? (Feel free to suggest Your Favorite System, but be warned that I am not likely to buy $200 worth of books to become an expert on a new system from scratch.)
Thanks in advance.