The One-Stop DM/Player Advice Shop

[Aspenor]

I was inspired to make another PnP thread after a fellow forumite asked me for some help regarding a campaign he's running. This thread is for DM's, players, or anybody interested. Unlike the previous thread I had open, this thread is not about competition or "winning." This thread is about helping others.

Feel free to ask any question you might have regarding a PnP campaign, whether you're a player, DM, or just curious. I have access to nearly every 3.5 book ever published, and several 3.0 books as well. I'm not particularly familiar with previous editions, and definitely not incredibly familiar with 4.0e. I hope others more knowledgeable about those editions will be happy to participate and help with questions about those editions.

So, whether you're having a problem with a PC, need some good plot hooks, or you just have a simple question, ask away. I think a thread like this is long overdue on the DDO forums, since all of us are at least in some respect interested in PnP.

Let's keep the thread helpful and clear of debate, unless it's on-topic and aimed toward helping somebody. Even then, let's keep it congenial.

Since I'm the OP, I'll start off. This is a copied post of mine from another forum.

First of all, the rundown:
My group is primarily ROLLplayers, but they aren't the best optimizers you've ever seen (aren't really all that good at all, actually).
The campaign will have an evil alignment undertone to it, but intra-party violence will not be kosher, I plan to give them reasons not to gank each other.
All 3.5 material is available for their use, with certain exceptions like Candle of Invocation abuse and other crazy shenanigans.

I would like to make some changes to help promote roleplay, as I think they would enjoy the game a little more and have a new kind of fun. In order to promote this, I want to make some changes like:
All characters get double skill points. Alternatively, combine certain skills a la 4e (Hide/MS become stealth, Spot/Search/Listen become perception, etc.)
Fighters get a bonus feat every level. Barbarians get one at every level a wizard would.
Encourage players to look at Tome of Battle rather than standard PHB melee classes, except maybe barbarian.
Skill bonuses will be given ad hoc for creativeness, like saying something very convincing on a diplomacy check.
Give skills additional uses, such as Intimidate being useful to Taunt, increasing an enemy's aggressiveness toward you and forgetting about others.

What other ideas can you guys give me? I've considering altering some feats to be more powerful, like Weapon Focus and Specialization (maybe Weapon focus gives +2 to hit and +1 to damage, and specialization gives +2 to hit and +4 to damage).

Any input or feedback on these ideas will be appreciated, so don't be afraid to tell me if I'm being an idiot.

Oh, and encounter CR's will be tailored accordingly on the fly. I shouldn't have any problem with it.

Other examples of good questions:
- can you help me with a savage progression of X monster race/template?
- how do I calculate experience in situation Y?
- HELP!!! Character Z is overpowering my campaign! What do I do?

Give as much detail as possible. Thanks in advance to everybody that participates.

[Ethiel]

First of all, the rundown:
My group is primarily ROLLplayers, but they aren't the best optimizers you've ever seen (aren't really all that good at all, actually).
The campaign will have an evil alignment undertone to it, but intra-party violence will not be kosher, I plan to give them reasons not to gank each other.
All 3.5 material is available for their use, with certain exceptions like Candle of Invocation abuse and other crazy shenanigans.

I would like to make some changes to help promote roleplay, as I think they would enjoy the game a little more and have a new kind of fun. In order to promote this, I want to make some changes like:
All characters get double skill points. Alternatively, combine certain skills a la 4e (Hide/MS become stealth, Spot/Search/Listen become perception, etc.)
Fighters get a bonus feat every level. Barbarians get one at every level a wizard would.
Encourage players to look at Tome of Battle rather than standard PHB melee classes, except maybe barbarian.
Skill bonuses will be given ad hoc for creativeness, like saying something very convincing on a diplomacy check.
Give skills additional uses, such as Intimidate being useful to Taunt, increasing an enemy's aggressiveness toward you and forgetting about others.

What other ideas can you guys give me? I've considering altering some feats to be more powerful, like Weapon Focus and Specialization (maybe Weapon focus gives +2 to hit and +1 to damage, and specialization gives +2 to hit and +4 to damage).

Any input or feedback on these ideas will be appreciated, so don't be afraid to tell me if I'm being an idiot.

Oh, and encounter CR's will be tailored accordingly on the fly. I shouldn't have any problem with it.

I know what I do to promote Roleplay over Rollplay is if the Player makes an exceptional statement or really does well on a bluff/fasttalk, I don't require a roll, Unless the NPC has already been being played as a similar smarta$$ or just generally Paranoid.

That way the players are encouraged to speak out the role instead of rolling it all the time.

[Aspenor]

I know what I do to promote Roleplay over Rollplay is if the Player makes an exceptional statement or really does well on a bluff/fasttalk, I don't require a roll, Unless the NPC has already been being played as a similar smarta$$ or just generally Paranoid.

That way the players are encouraged to speak out the role instead of rolling it all the time.

That's a good idea. I like it. Done.

[Ethiel]

How do you balance different skill levels in game?


For instance I have a player who is really good at the roleplay aspect of the game, and another who is continually the patsy because of it.

I try to mitigate it by questioning him a lot "are you sure that is what you are going to say/do?" but it seems that the player is still the butt of the jokes/cannon fodder.

I just do not know how to get a balance where the other better player doesn't feel like I am dumbing down the game, while still keeping it enjoyable for the person who is still working their way to that level of gameplay.


Second problem I have is actions in combat......I have the initiative thing down, first person to make an action usually no problem, second person....."what its my turn?" "oh, what spell am I going to use?" "I need a drink"
Now I have in the past become rude about it when it takes wayyyyyyyyyy to long so many times that other players take smoke breaks when that person(s) turn is up..to the point where with a high level wiz I was like make an action in 10 seconds or you are swinging your staff 4 times and we are moving on.

I know that wasn't the best option but it was all I could do to stop the problem.

Example: Player 1 (rogue) makes a move action and readies an action, player 2 (fighter) moves to melee and swings sword, Player 3 (Ranger) .....oh my turn? I think I might use a spell, no I may move/attack, or should I use my bow?

group (break time)


DM (make an action or you die horribly in dragon poo)

[Lorien_the_First_One]

How do you balance different skill levels in game?


For instance I have a player who is really good at the roleplay aspect of the game, and another who is continually the patsy because of it.

I try to mitigate it by questioning him a lot "are you sure that is what you are going to say/do?" but it seems that the player is still the butt of the jokes/cannon fodder.

I just do not know how to get a balance where the other better player doesn't feel like I am dumbing down the game, while still keeping it enjoyable for the person who is still working their way to that level of gameplay.


Second problem I have is actions in combat......I have the initiative thing down, first person to make an action usually no problem, second person....."what its my turn?" "oh, what spell am I going to use?" "I need a drink"
Now I have in the past become rude about it when it takes wayyyyyyyyyy to long so many times that other players take smoke breaks when that person(s) turn is up..to the point where with a high level wiz I was like make an action in 10 seconds or you are swinging your staff 4 times and we are moving on.

I know that wasn't the best option but it was all I could do to stop the problem.

Example: Player 1 (rogue) makes a move action and readies an action, player 2 (fighter) moves to melee and swings sword, Player 3 (Ranger) .....oh my turn? I think I might use a spell, no I may move/attack, or should I use my bow?

group (break time)


DM (make an action or you die horribly in dragon poo)

A round is 6 seconds, most DMs (usually backed by the players who hate delays) go with "if you can't tell me what you want to do in 6 seconds your action is "I delay until after <whoever is last for initiative this round>". If you are in that last initiative spot (either by roll or by forced delay) and can not decide in 6 seconds your action is "goes full defensive for the round (no attack, AC bonus)".

You don't do it to someone the first time they get stuck, but if they are slowing the game they need prodding. I also try to steer those players away from complex builds in the future.

[Ethiel]

Never tried the 6 second rule for the player making the action Will have to give it a shot.

[Aspenor]

I run into that problem ALL THE TIME in my group. One player is the most egregious offender, but most of us do it occasionally (though never as bad as the aforementioned one). I swear to god we spent 15 minutes telling him to "just do SOMETHING" while he deliberated between charging into melee or delaying an action...on a monk no less.

[Ethiel]

I run into that problem ALL THE TIME in my group. One player is the most egregious offender, but most of us do it occasionally (though never as bad as the aforementioned one). I swear to god we spent 15 minutes telling him to "just do SOMETHING" while he deliberated between charging into melee or delaying an action...on a monk no less.

[channeling Squelch/] That is because he was trying to decide how to fail less at life, then realized he was a monk and it was impossible [/channeling Squelch]

I know the feeling. I have one really bad player about it..... seriously as a high level ranger was more worried about what spell to cast than using the Perfect 2 weapon fighting option with devastating critical? I mean with 10 attacks one is going to crit. then save or die. It really wasn't a hard decision.

[Armouredpriest]

Our group generally doesn't have to do the 6 second rule. We do often try to keep it under 1 minute, though. (we've been playing long enough that even if we're playing a character we haven't looked at in a while or a new one that's higher then say level 10, we're pretty good about figuring out what we want to do in the 1 minute time period). In general we've found that the 1 minute time period works for both combat and non-combat situations dealing with NPCs.

[Cam_Neely]

Second problem I have is actions in combat......I have the initiative thing down, first person to make an action usually no problem, second person....."what its my turn?" "oh, what spell am I going to use?" "I need a drink"
Now I have in the past become rude about it when it takes wayyyyyyyyyy to long so many times that other players take smoke breaks when that person(s) turn is up..to the point where with a high level wiz I was like make an action in 10 seconds or you are swinging your staff 4 times and we are moving on.

The way I have dealt with this is I push them down in the initiative. If they only rarely take a while, I dont do it, but if its the same person, over and over, that is really slowing the game down, I just go to the next person in the initiative, then go back to the offender. Typically after doing this once or twice they start paying more attention because its a drag on the abilities of the party to have one player go less.

If it continues then its something that needs to be taken care of out of game. 1v1 so as not to accuse them in front of the group and put them on the defensive.

Another way to fix this might to be to let people know when they are 'on deck' so that the can start narrowing down their choices while someone else is figuring out what to do

[Ethiel]

I have thought about buying a white board for the gaming area.

Listing Inits and other junk on it.

any one ever see a use for something like that?

[der_kluge]

Not sure how giving your players 2x skill points is going to encourage role-playing. You could, however, give them n number of additional skill points, which you can require to be put into various craft() and profession() skills to give them a sense of who they were before they became adventurers.

Require them to write up a history.

That would be a start towards role-playing.

I'm also a big fan of Action Points, where they can spend them to overcome certain obstacles, or in-game benefits. Award them for role-playing their characters. That will give them an incentive to get more into their characters.

[Aspenor]

Not sure how giving your players 2x skill points is going to encourage role-playing. You could, however, give them n number of additional skill points, which you can require to be put into various craft() and profession() skills to give them a sense of who they were before they became adventurers.

To understand my line of reasoning, you'll need a little background for this group.

Most of their experience revolves around dungeon crawling explicitly, utilizing the kick-in-the-door style where combat solves all problems. There has never been such a thing as the "party face," except when I was playing a cleric that had a cranked up diplomacy skill. I think I got to use it like twice, though.

By doubling skill points, it will hopefully encourage them to invest points into non-combat, non-dungeon oriented skills. The party rogue only ever invests into spot, search, disable, locks, stealth, etc. Diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, all these things are omitted. By giving them more points per level, it will encourage the use of the other skills available to their classes. It also will allow them to twist a little flavor into their characters beyond backstory (which nobody has ever written, by the way).

When I explain that I am giving them these skill points, I will also explain that they need to put them to use in a way that will support actions outside of dungeons. I don't plan to give them room after room of random enemies, instead they will find themselves in situations. If they build their characters in their typical fashion, they will find it nearly impossible to handle certain situations.

[sainy_matthew]

To understand my line of reasoning, you'll need a little background for this group.

Most of their experience revolves around dungeon crawling explicitly, utilizing the kick-in-the-door style where combat solves all problems. There has never been such a thing as the "party face," except when I was playing a cleric that had a cranked up diplomacy skill. I think I got to use it like twice, though.

By doubling skill points, it will hopefully encourage them to invest points into non-combat, non-dungeon oriented skills. The party rogue only ever invests into spot, search, disable, locks, stealth, etc. Diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, all these things are omitted. By giving them more points per level, it will encourage the use of the other skills available to their classes. It also will allow them to twist a little flavor into their characters beyond backstory (which nobody has ever written, by the way).

When I explain that I am giving them these skill points, I will also explain that they need to put them to use in a way that will support actions outside of dungeons. I don't plan to give them room after room of random enemies, instead they will find themselves in situations. If they build their characters in their typical fashion, they will find it nearly impossible to handle certain situations.

In that case you don't need to change the rules, you need to change your players expectations. I start every new campaign with a manifesto. Its a simple 1 to 2 page document fleshing out what sort of game it is, what resources are available, what the focus is going to be on & what sort of monster theme will be used if one is to be used at all. My general layout looks like this

STARTING LEVEL: state starting level here & probably end level if specified
CAMPAIGN SETTING: which universe are you gaming in
GENRE: Put in the base concept here. For instance it could be "Hometown Heroes"
ENVIRONMENT/AREA: The environment type could be urban, or dungeon or high seas & area refers to the actual in game area.
DISPOSITION: heroic adventure, exalted, valorous, vile, standard, mercanery, pirate etc etc.

SYNOPSIS
A general overview of the module goes here... Nothing in depth, just the stuff you're already going to tell players in the first opening session, plus any background info about where you want the heroes to have come from.

CHARACTER GENERATION RULES
DERIVED ATTRIBUTES: What roll system are you using & who do you trust to over see the rolls.
HIT POINTS: How are HP derived
RACES: What races you will and will not allow
CLASSESS: What classess you will and will not allow
VARIANTS: Do you allow racial or class variants & if so which ones
ALIGNMENTS: What part of the alignment spectrum are you allowing players to play.
ALLOWED BOOKS: What books are allowed
FAITHS & PANTHEONS: What gods you are allowing & any requirements you have for religious characters
BACKGROUND: General background, where you expect PC's to hail from, the amount of background one is expected to provide & general indication of intent by the DM for the type of game its going to be plot derived or character derived.
GENERAL DESIGN NOTES: A heads up about the type of game its going to be, including common themes or monster types. This stops someone from making a pirate in a desert game & stops someone building a dragon slayer in a game where the DM does not intend to use dragons.

That way when your players ignore it & the rogue finds he's not of much use in your urban hometown heroes game you can point to the manifesto & say "I told you what sort of game this was going to be." So i saty challenge the players with no monster encounters, challenge them with actual roleplaying & story challenges.

-M

[Aspenor]

In that case you don't need to change the rules, you need to change your players expectations. I start every new campaign with a manifesto. Its a simple 1 to 2 page document fleshing out what sort of game it is, what resources are available, what the focus is going to be on & what sort of monster theme will be used if one is to be used at all. My general layout looks like this



That way when your players ignore it & the rogue finds he's not of much use in your urban hometown heroes game you can point to the manifesto & say "I told you what sort of game this was going to be." So i saty challenge the players with no monster encounters, challenge them with actual roleplaying & story challenges.

-M

That's one way to do it, but I'm not particularly scared of fudging with the rules when I DM, particularly when it comes to character building. Combat mechanics and whatnot tend to remain as written, with the notable exception of grappling which I will rework (the way grappling works seems a little counterintuitive and messy).

I want to avoid the situation where a player finds their character useless due to my campaign design. I want to let them have the freedom to create a character that they will want to play, while simultaneously bringing in new types of challenges that they will be able to handle.

I've always felt that that many classes receive less skill points than they should. This is my way of fixing a problem that I see in the system itself. The same goes for feats. The vast majority of feats are simply underpowered, especially the ones in the Player's Handbook.

One way I've thought to handle feats would be to make them scale with level, particularly the fighter feats. This gives fighters a virtual "class feature" since they really have no class features in the first place. Characters like wizards, rogues, clerics, etc. have abilities that scale by level. Fighters really do not. A few quick examples:

Weapon Focus:
1-5: +1 to attack, +1 to dmg
6-10: +2 to attack, +1 to dmg
11-15: +3 to attack, +2 to dmg
16-20: +4 to attack, +2 to dmg

Dodge:
1-4: +1 dodge to AC against 1 opponent
5-8: +2 dodge to AC against 1 opponent
9-12: +3 dodge to AC against 1 opponent, Uncanny Dodge
13-16: +4 dodge to AC against 1 opponent, Uncanny Dodge, +1 dodge AC against all other opponents
17-20: +5 dodge to AC against 1 opponent, Uncanny Dodge, +2 dodge AC against all other opponents

Lightning Reflexes:
1-6: +2 to Reflex
7-13: +4 to Reflex
16-20: +6 to Reflex

Weapon Specialization:
4-8: +2 to damage with chosen weapon
9-14: +4 to damage with chosen weapon
15-20: +6 to damage with chosen weapon

However, I plan to encourage any player that wishes to play a fighter to use the Tome of Battle rather than the typical Player's Handbook classes. I may or may not need to add scaling to feats if they choose to do this.

I always do a little writeup of my campaigns like the one you posted, I might use that as a template as mine seem to be a little more simple.

Don't worry about these little changes making the party overpowered. That simply won't happen. I know more than they do by a long shot, even combining the game knowledge of every player at the table, I still know more. I can tweak encounters easily, and I don't have a whole lot of faith in the CR system. They fight what I know they should be able to handle, and if they can't, too **** bad....they should have picked better spells.

[Armouredpriest]

I've felt the same way as you, Asp, concerning number of skill points gained by most classes. My group likes to both "role-play", and "roll-play." MY players like to have the skills to back up their "roleplaying" abilities. In otherwords playing the urbane fighter with the high CHR score...its kind of hard, even with a good INT, to get the skills needed to pull off the character, at least not without kit-bashing, at which point why even play a fighter. (As an aside, lets face it, sometimes its fun to just kick in the door ...and sometimes the party wastes too much time argueing the semantics of how to go about a problem when the direct route works as well as any...I've occassionaly been very thankful for the Barbarian who's decided there's been "enough talk"... not that I didn't love it when someone in my group stole one of the evil organization's communication crystals, and while impersonating one of the evil guild's leaders sent the bad guys on a wild goose chase allowing the party to face some of their tasks unhindered by a third party trying to get there first. There are consequences for actions in my campaigns...and it works both ways for the party and my NPCs ). I digress...

Anyway. The system I came up with was keeping the same class skill points, but instead of just INT going towards bonus skill points, every other stat takes 1/2 of a given stat modifier (keep halves) and gets those as bonus skill points as well. The catch is that bonus skill points from a given stat can only be used towards skills that key off of those stats. For example:

Wizbo the magus (32pt)
STR 8
CON 14
DEX 14
WIS 10
INT 17
CHR 13

This character would get his base 2 skill points per level as general points to be used anywhere. He wouldn't gain any for his -1 STR modifier. He'd gain 1 bonus skill point for CON, 1 for DEX, none for WIS, 3 bonus SP for INT, and 0.5 for CHR. For negative modifiers, I ruled that the penalty makes it harder to purchase a given skill (again by 1/2 the modifier) So to purchase 1 rank of Jump, Wizbo would need to spend 3 skill points total to get a full rank (1 point for each .5 of the cross class, and .5 for each .5 of the cross class to cover the modifier penalty) If Jump were a class skill, it would only cost 1.5 SP to gain 1 rank.

In my campaign I had expanded the key stats so that different stats could be used mostly in defferance to CON only affecting Concentration (for example either STR or CON for Swim). However, an easier solution would probably be to allow the Bonus poins gained by CON to be spent for STR (and maybe DEX) as well. I do allow for quarter ranks on cross class skills.

It is a bit more paperwork at level ups, but I discovered my players were happier with their out of combat capabilities.

[flynnjsw]

I have thought about buying a white board for the gaming area.

Listing Inits and other junk on it.

any one ever see a use for something like that?

Give me a few, they actually have a combat pad that lets you list all the intiatives and stuff like that. Let me find it and I will edit my post.


**Edit

Yop, here it is. I have personally used this and love it.

http://paizo.com/store/gameAids/game.../v5748btpy8bkr

[Xyfiel]

My last game the DM made up 5 good and bad traits for 4 of us, and we picked them from a hat. It worked pretty well for additional background, and was hilarious how it worked out.

I was a CN female Necro Specced Sorc, I pulled exceptionally beautiful and already had max bluff in my build. I also pulled materialistic. I ended up spending my entire time in towns trying to persuade merchants and NPCs to give me stuff or at a discount. In battle, my objective was always to go after any shiny, or the person with the most shiny.

The Barb pulled great pilfering ability, and then pulled having a gambling problem. So he was all the time taking stuff, but never ended owning them past the next town.

The Cleric pulled he was followed around by a ghost ancestor which gave him insight in situations, but he also got alcoholic. Of course we couldn't see the ghost, and he was drunk most of the time, so while he had great wisdom to offer, no one ever listened to him.

I can't recall what the Druid got, but the point is a DM can add roleplay into a game.

[Armouredpriest]

Give me a few, they actually have a combat pad that lets you list all the intiatives and stuff like that. Let me find it and I will edit my post.


**Edit

Yop, here it is. I have personally used this and love it.

http://paizo.com/store/gameAids/game.../v5748btpy8bkr

In my group there are several of us who DM. One of the other guys has this thing as well. Its pretty nice. I'd like to pick one up for myself, I just haven't got around to doing it yet.

[Ethiel]

Yeah the board looks pretty spiffy. Might have to ask the bank, aka wife, for one.




I also like the random traits/flaws sounds like it would be fun at least once.