Loot!

Allright, I know I just did a whole spiel about alternative rewards, but I thought I'd take the time now to discuss some aspects of traditional rewards that aren't always considered.

I went over magic items and cash in the previous post, but there's a dynamic here that is sometimes overlooked (and I must admit, I was overlooking it until just recently). Specifically, there are items (magic and mundane) that most players will want for their characters. Things like rings of regeneration, stat boosting items (gloves of dexterity, etc.), flaming or frost weapons (or whatever), immovable rods (they're just fun), and magic armors or clothing fall into this category. These are items that you can expect the characters to shop for themselves with the cash loot. Other magic items are often very useful, but they don't support the characters' natural abilities in as obvious ways. These items are good for placing as treasure because the characters will want to hold onto them, but wouldn't necessarily think of buying them (particularly if they have limited gold, those magic weapons take priority). I came to this realization while playing a favorite rogue character of mine. I was making a shopping list for our next stop in the capitol city and stopped to think of the magic items I had picked up from treasure piles. I had a couple magic short swords, some kinda ring, +2 shadow leather armor, and a minor circlet of blasting.

Wait, where'd that circlet come from?

Now, I had been spending just about all the money I found in building up my equipment, and I never considered an item quite like the circlet. Don't get me wrong, I love it, especially against undead when my sneak attacks are useless, but even against the living I can cause massive damage by using the circlet AND adding sneak attack damage (it's a ray, I can do that). So now, I'm considering saving up for the major circlet of blasting (maximized damage = good).

The point here is, folks, that you can make traditional loot much more interesting or exciting by throwing in items that players probably wouldn't go out and buy for themselves, but they certainly would not let go of if it got plopped in their lap. Here are a few examples (note: these are not in any particular order and some are much more powerful than others): Items of elemental command (bowl for water, brazier for fire, censer for air, stone for earth), any of Quaal's feather tokens, figurines of wondrous power, sovereign glue (hehehe, universal solvent is not here because if they need it, they'll buy it), horn of fog, Nolzur's marvelous pigments, and Murlynd's spoon. Now, this list is by no means exhaustive, and your players may be a little more open to unusual purchases than most, so just take a look through the DMG and see if you can pick out some that you've never seen in a game before, give them a shot. Also, some items are only really useful in certain situations or when dealing with specific creatures. In this case, be aware of your campaign's environment and how that could effect character purchases and also how your loot could foreshadow the rest of your adventures (this may or may not be a good thing).

Ok, that's all for today. I'm gonna go sneak attack my way to a mithral (mythril/mithril? whatever) chain shirt.

Tags: magic items, loot, shopping, reward, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D20

Player Rewards

I haven't died! Yay!

Sorry for the delay in posts, it has been a busy couple of weeks.

Let's get down to business. The topic for today is the various rewards DMs give to the characters (or players depending on how you look at it). This is kind of a post for newbies, but I think veteran DMs could benefit from a reminder. There are a few basic, classic, and plentiful rewards:

• Gold- Money makes the world go 'round, and it makes adventuring a lot easier when you can afford that +5 vorpal greatsword or that staff of fire (I sure do loves me my fireballs). Money is a necessary staple in a campaign for a number of reasons. First, it's versatile, it can be used for all sorts of things that you couldn't (or shouldn't) normally put in a treasure hoard (horses, rooms at the inn, favors from local wizards, etc.). Also, it allows players to customize their equipment easier rather than relying on whatever they may find randomly. There are a few problems with money. The biggest of these is that it's rather boring. "You step past the dead husk of a dragon and into his treasure room. There you find 32,150,983,406,436,436π gold pieces." Whoopee.... Ok, granted, I love to find a mountain of coins every once in a while, but you can't do that every time. This leads to the next problem however, how the hell do you carry all that cash? Especially in high-level campaigns, it can take a lot of dough to purchase those spiffy items you really want, and it'll take all your strength just to lug the stuff around until you find somewhere to shop. Thus, the final problem: what if you can't find anyone selling something you want or need? At higher levels, not many people can make equipment that will actually help you. Let's move on.


• Loot- This is where you can cut out the middle-man. If you know your rogue would really want some boots of elvenkind, you can just slip it into the random treasure for them. This is also where you can introduce your own magic items and other trinkets that the players may really like but have not thought about. There are also a few problems here. First, the players may not want what you give them. If this happens they have a couple choices: leave it and then it is as if it didn't exist and they wind up with less reward or sell it for a fraction of what it's worth and they are still left with less reward (from a numbers stand-point). Also, if you provide them with everything they want, then they're not going to need money as much and it becomes less of a reward to get that mountain of coins. So it requires some balance here.


• Experience- This is a tricky one, especially because XP is used for more than leveling. On the plus side, XP is a good reward because it can be given spontaneously. If a player is roleplaying particularly well then give them some XP, right then and there (a good rule of thumb I've come across is to give 10XP per character level for an instance good roleplaying). The downside is that this can unbalance a party if it's not watched closely. It can be a way to help characters who make magic items or cast spells with XP components, but at the same time it makes those abilities a lot more powerful when they know they can make up their XP loss with a little acting. On top of all that, it's a very subjective call. Be prepared for your players to complain of favortism and the like.

So those are the basics. "What else could there be?" You may ask. You may not. That's not the issue. The point is there are alternatives! Don't get me wrong, the basics are essential and can make for a very enjoyable game on their own. But, if you are able to keep track of your party's balance pretty well, and want to give your players unique and special rewards there are some things you could throw out there.

• Skill ranks- This is a pretty light reward if you don't go overboard with it. Every once in a while this makes for a nice little surprise reward. Usually, there needs to be a direct roleplay component to this. Say, for instance, your ranger character spends a week chatting with a local huntsman. You could decide to grant the ranger a rank in survival or knowledge (nature), depending on the specific topics of discussion, for good roleplaying and staying in character (this is assuming the ranger did an exemplary job in this fashion). You can also get very specific with this reward to make it less able to unbalance the characters. Maybe the bonus rank only applies to the terrain type the huntsman is familiar with or even only to the surrounding area (this makes the reward more and more like a simple circumstance bonus as it's restricted).


• Feats- Yes, you can give feats as rewards. This can be like the skill rank reward if the feat you give is one of those that gives bonuses to skills (e.g. Stealthy or Athletic) but it is quite a bit more powerful. These are, of course, to be given less often than even skill ranks and usually for a significant accomplishment (you may also want to give them less in the way of other rewards to compensate). Feats and skills are good alternatives to the traditional rewards because they're permanent and can't be taken away. The first time you're arrested and stripped of your equipment, you may lose your precious dragon scale armor forever (after all, the captain of the guards could really use that armor), but no one can take away your animal affinity. So let's say you just put your party up against an entire army of displacer beasts, invisible stalkers, or drow (who made good use of their darkness ability). Would it be out of the question to award the blind-fight feat to a couple of the characters that have plenty of experience fighting unseen opponents by now (sure they could've used it earlier, but no one said you're done throwing invisible creatures at them hehehe). This adds a bit of realism and makes the characters seem more like growing people. The problem with these is that they're hard to balance. Some feats are more useful than others, and the same feat isn't as useful to one character as it is to another. So it's a little hard to balance feat rewards.


• Spell-like abilities and other stuff- This is the catch-all category. You can pretty much put anything you want in here. Fireballs at will, wings, resistances, immunities, special abilities (like evasion) whatever. The problems with these I think are fairly obvious. They can be extremely powerful or unbalancing and it can sometimes blur the lines between classes. Now, being able to cast prestidigitation at will isn't quite the same as being able to cast flame strike at will so there is a range to the power presented here. These rewards I think should be given maybe once or twice to a character in a campaign. Any more and it becomes less special (or the players start expecting it). But if you do hand out one out of the blue, the player is probably going to be especially pleased and surprised, and the character will take on a whole new level of uniqueness (c'mon, casting prestidigitation at will, how cool is that? little magical effects going off all around you, all the time).

Ok, I hope that gives someone an idea for some unexpected and unique rewards for their players. Remember, changing things up and keeping your players on their toes helps to add to the experience. New is good. Try it out. And with that out of the way I leave you with this thought:

It's hot in Topeka.

Tags: reward, feat, skill, rank, spell-like ability, gold, loot, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D20

Fractastic!

What?

Ok, if you've been paying attention to the WotC articles on their site, this post isn't going to be anything new for you, but I like it anyway. Why? Because it uses math to solve problems! Weeee!

The problem: Multiclassing and what it does (or can do) to save bonuses and base attack bonuses (BAB). For instance, let's say you start off as a first level rogue. Your BAB is +0, your fortitude save is +0, your reflex save is +2, and your will save is +0. As a second level rogue you would have BAB +1, fort +0, ref +3, will +0; but instead, let's assume you picked up a level of wizard for those cool sneak attacking spells. In this case, using the rules as written (RAW), you would have BAB +0, fort +0, ref +2, will +2. What just happened? You end up with 1 less BAB and 1 more save bonus than usual. This example also works when compared to 2 levels in wizard (BAB +1, fort +0, ref +0, will +3).

Now, you might not see this as such a big deal, and really it isn't. After all, it's a 1 point penalty and a 1 point bonus either way. Personally, I find BAB to be more valuable than any one save, but I'm willing to consider otherwise. This situation also occurs when taking prestige classes (PrCs).

The solution: So how do we fix this? With math! Ok I'll stop, but this does require some ability to work fractions. In the PHB pg. 22, it lists the two progressions of saves and three progressions of BAB. "Good" saves increase at a rate of 1 point/2 levels (with a bonus of 2 at 1st level) and "Poor" saves increase at 1 point/3 levels. So you can conceptualize this as gaining 1/2 a save bonus every level (round down) for good saves and 1/3 a save bonus every level (round down) for poor saves. Then you just add the inherent +2 bonus to good saves for the first level. Try it, it works! The same can be applied to BAB with good BAB increasing at 1 point/level (not complicated), average BAB increases at 2/3 points every level (round down), and poor BAB increases at 1/3 points every level (round down).

Let's apply this to our rogue/wizard example. This would make a first level rogue have BAB +2/3 (rounded down to +0 as normal), fort +1/3 (rounded down to +0 as normal), ref +2 2/3 (rounded down to +2 as normal), and will +1/3 (are you rounding yet? +0 as normal). When you take a level in wizard you are then left with BAB +1 (+2/3 rogue, +1/3 wizard), fort +2/3 (round down to +0 as normal), ref +3 (rogue +2/3, wizard +1/3, +2 for first level), and will +1 (+1/3 rogue, +2/3 wizard, we drop the +2 for first level here because we're making that only applicable to first character level just like starting money and equipment and max hit die). So how does that compare with a level 2 rogue or level 2 wizard? Same BAB for all, same fort for all, same ref as the rogue but 3 points higher than wizard, 1 point higher will than rogue but 2 points lower than wizard. I think this makes for a better and more logical balance between the classes. The rogue is obviously a little more accentuated thanks to the +2 save bonus at first level, but this is reasonable considering it is the way you started your career.

This method is even more helpful with later levels as you continue to pursue two classes or even add a PrC like arcane trickster for example (take the +2 save bonus at first level out of that too). Monks who take PrCs will be especially happy for this as they are combat-oriented but only get the average BAB progression. They're really not going to want to take a monk-based PrC that also has average BAB because, by using the RAW, they'd lose even more BAB. So try it out. I promise it is not as difficult as it may seem, just count up all the fractions and round down to the nearest whole number. You have 10 minutes... begin.

Tags: math, base attack bonus, BAB, multiclassing, save bonus, prestige class, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D20

Robin Hood

This post is spawned from a debate about alignments that I was having with a friend of mine. Specifically, I was trying to differentiate between how a Lawful Good person CAN act, and how paladins usually act. She was under the impression that all LG characters had sticks up their butts. This is not the case, but it is how paladins are played most of the time which reinforces the stereotype.

Therefore, I needed a solid defensible example of a LG character with a fun side. Then it came to me, Robin Hood was Lawful Good! Don't believe me? Let's investigate:

• Robin Hood robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. Even though stealing was illegal, it was a good act since he was helping to ease suffering and overthrow a tyrant (Note: LG people are often extremely opposed to tyranny)
• Robin Hood was devoted to King Richard. Even though he was an "outlaw" during Prince John's rule, he still gave his allegiance to the one he considered the rightful ruler.
• Robin Hood planned his actions. With almost the tenacity of a general at war, he would always enter a situation with a plan in mind and not a kick-in-the-door mentality (no matter what the movies say).
• He was a leader. He had a band of loyal followers with a few being his closest friends. It was a little more informal, but it resembled an army with the general and his lieutenants and their soldiers.
• Robin Hood was a noble and, for a time, part of the military. This likely influenced some of his methods in forming the Merry Men and their subsequent raids on Prince John's forces.

I hope this makes it clear what Lawful Good really means. It involves working for the greater good, and being methodical, orderly, and structured. It has little to do with actually following laws, walking around with a straight back, or lacking a sense of humor. Remember that paladins have a code of conduct that goes above their alignment. That's why their actions are more restricted than normal LG characters. Robin Hood was no paladin (too many disguises), but he was definitely Lawful Good.

Tags: Robin Hood, alignment, Lawful Good, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D20

Question 2!

Our latest question comes from Nachoelanciano, and he asks:

If a wizard takes on the quicken spell feat, this means he can cast a quickened spell on each round, but, can it be a different spell each time? Or he takes the quickened feat and then he chooses a spell and that spell becomes his quickened spell?

Like any metamagic feat, Quicken Spell can be applied to any spell the wizard can cast. When the wizard memorizes spells for the day, he can choose to apply the Quicken Spell feat to a spell if he has an open spell slot 4 levels above that spell. For instance, a 10th level wizard sits to memorize spells, he can memorize a quickened magic missile and a quickened burning hands (thus filling his two 5th level spell slots). Then, he can also memorize regular magic missiles and burning hands spells in his 1st level slots. Wizards just can't add or remove metamagic feats once he is done memorizing spells.

Sorcerers on the other hand can (though they can't use Quicken Spell, sorry). Since sorcerers don't memorize their spells, they choose to apply metamagic feats when they actually cast. This carries with it the downside of turning the casting time into a full-round action (which is why Quicken Spell just doesn't work). The sorcerer would still need to expend a higher level spell slot to cast metamagic spells.

Ok, thanks for your question Nachoelanciano! Keep 'em coming guys! (and gals!)

Tags: metamagic, quicken spell, wizard, sorcerer, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D, D20