More Thoughts on 5E Adventures

I was watching a video by RPGrandPa Tabletop comparing TSR and WotC adventures and it got me thinking about 5E adventure design. He mentions the big issues that bugged me, overly long, 1-10th level, something of a railroad that requires nudging and pushing to keep the story on track. I understand why the Wizards did all this (simplified product line is likely the big one) but if you keep tot that model you could still sharpen it a bit.

Using Storm King's Thunder as an example. The module starts with a disposable section you toss if your characters enter at 6th level. Then some good stuff of Giants attacking a city (repeated three times but you pick only one so you can repeat the module later and have it be different). Then a series of fetch-quests designed to help the players get high enough level to actually fight the giants. 

I think a better module layout would follow the way player characters level-up using a sub-class for features at certain levels except in this case it would an Adventure Module provide semi-linked adventures at certain levels and ignoring the levels between. Then Support Modules fill in the levels in between. Adventure Modules would have to be roughly stabilize on which levels they cover but that shouldn't be so hard. This allows campaigns to have variety (not Giants again?), ensures every campaign is different (especially if Support Modules only covered a Tier of play so you had to get a couple to match the length of the main module), and makes it so the DM doesn't have to read the entire Adventure Module before starting play.

 
These Support Modules would be something like Tales from the Yawning Portal but with adventures specifically selected/designed to fill in levels left blank by the Adventure Module. 

Some current adventures clearly wouldn't work with this system like the one I propose such as out of the Abyss in which you start you off as prisoners in the underdark in the first part and then return to attack the underdark in the second part when you are higher level. In that case, well I'm not gonna miss that one.

Anyway that was the idea, not fully developed but I think it would work better than what they are doing.

The Borderlands

I've long thought that TSR should have expanded B2 into more of a sandbox. I think WotC also should have done this as well. Redo the maps to the 5E standard, add local maps for the keeps buildings, clean things up, but generally make a 5E sandbox of the area. Anyway that was what I was thinking when I got distracted with AI and created the image below. 

  

Most groups would level out of the area before completing all of the adventures but then it has repeatability. For those wondering that B1, B2, B4 and B5 in the same wilderness. B4 moves from sand to swamp but really the bulk of the adventures don't need to change very much. The 6-mile hexes might be too large but I like 6-mile hexes.

Morale plus Bloodied and 3 Round Combat

Still Wanna Fight?

I've been working on a setting. It's for 5E but I wanted encounters to have morale rolls like Old School Games. That was easy enough but I decided to have morale rolled the first time a side took damage. Not half HP the GM has to track, not the third round because of.... I figured the first time you took a hit you are gonna seriously reconsider if you fight or run. That's easy for the GM to remember. And I thought it was good. But not good enough.

I always liked the idea of Bloodied status from 4E. That some monsters suddenly get two attacks, or that keys the usage of a breath weapon again or something like that. So I started coming up with fun things that might happen when the encounter failed morale. Wealthy humans will barter (pay ransom), cowardly folks run, but some like Ogres are gonna get a second attack when they fail morale, or suddenly do damage rolled at advantage. 

I'll have to make sure it's relayed to the players that things are a bit different now that the thing got injured, it's pissed and swinging its weapon like a drunken berserker. I think it might work pretty well but then again they may not really notice and the whole thing could be a lot of work for nothing.

Saw a Reel about Attacking the Character sheet

The reel is here. The Witches Hex removing a Death Save really resonated with me. I mean you talk to an old crone in town and she gives you the Evil Eye and you're down a Death Save until the next full moon. Thats interesting, a bit chilling, and not something the players can do much about beyond being nicer to old crones. If feels fairy tale ish. Some other ideas that might be fun for short duration annoyance:

• Dropping a PCs Initiative bonus
• Dropping a PCs passive perception
• Reduce or remove a spellslot
• Eliminate one usage from some ability or magic item that only has a certain number of uses a day.

The other ideas don't work as well for me. Having negative inspiration only works if you use inspiration for example, and I don't like Inspiration just as I don't like Luck die. Feels overly gamey to me.

Anyway the idea is fun and has my head thinking about all the possibilities.

Three Round Combat

Questing Beast mentioned 3-round combat in his latest Can this DnD hack actually work? The idea is interesting, short brutal combats. Part of me likes the idea as my group has been fighting Giants lately and the bag of hit points that are giants results in a bit of tedious combat (at least from my point of view, my players seem to love it). So I went to the webpage that came up with the Pretendo the website that came up with the idea to see if they had anything that that filled it out better. Alas I was still unsatisfied. The jist:

Combat lasts 3 rounds at most. It may be initiated, decided, and concluded in a single round, or it may be initiated in round 1, decided by round 2, and concluded by round 3—but however it plays out, the victorious side is known by the end of the second round.

Round 3 is for transition and conclusion. At the start of round 3, the enemy side takes stock. The GM signals to players who’s about to win and what their options are.

• If enemies trail, they forfeit. The details depend on the nature of the enemy. Frightened animals may simply whine and run away when they’ve sustained too many wounds. A gang that’s lost their leader and half their fighters may thumb their noses and throw a dagger on their way out—but they still know when they’re beaten. Soldiers may surrender, repeating name, rank, and service number.  
• If enemies lead, they press their advantage. The GM should be transparent about the circumstances—it’s clear they’re winning, and they’re about to get a huge bonus against you if you stick around. The situation changes while preserving players’ agency about how to proceed. The specifics will di!er against di!erent enemies: surrender may be possible with soldiers; fleeing may be the only option against hungry predators; going down swinging may be more palatable than running away in some cases. 

• If unclear, use best judgment—but something changes. In a relatively even match-up, it’s up to the GM to make a ruling based on the nature of the enemy—or just going with “fleeing,” if that’s easier or more satisfying. For instance: a frenzied beast might attack recklessly for a huge bonus to attacks and damage, guaranteeing its own demise in the process; humans might take a breath and o!er to parley; robots might have repeated a routine multiple times, revealing a predictable behavior players can exploit. Again, though, no matter what, something changes.

Pivotal battles might go longer—but in round 3, there’s a twist.

So after reading that I kind of think it makes a good case for ignoring the normal reasons one might roll morale and instead rolling Morale after 3 rounds of combat. If the PCs are winning have the Foes roll at Disadvantage. If the Foes are winning have them roll at Advantage. If the Foe makes their morale roll perhaps they get an extra desperate attack the 4th round. Not sure about the last part but I like the "bloodied" idea from 4E and think something similar could be implemented here make round 4 more interesting.

Here are some Bloodied Effect ideas from 4E filtered through ChatGPT.

d12 Bloodied Effect

1. Makes an immediate melee attack against the nearest foe.
2. Immediately shifts (moves without provoking opportunity attacks) several squares.
3. Gains a bonus to attack rolls until the end of the encounter.
4. Gains resistance to one or more damage types.
5. Recharges one or more expended powers.
6. Summons reinforcements or calls nearby allies.
7. Enters a berserk rage, dealing extra damage but suffering lower defenses.
8. Begins regenerating hit points each round.
9. Gains an additional action each round (or an immediate bonus action in systems that use them).
10. Drops its shield or armor, sacrificing defense for increased offense.
11. Emits poisonous blood, acid, fire, or necrotic energy whenever struck in melee.
12. Reveals a hidden weapon, mutation, or magical ability unavailable before being bloodied.

Roll20 Tricks: Campaign Backup

So I GM's a campaign for a year in Roll20 and things started to bog down. The system got slower with the accumulation of maps and tokens. So I created a new campaign and brought the players over to that. That was a bit of a hassle. Roll20 lets Pro Users transfer elements from one campaign to another so it wasn't too bad, but still I had to send out new links and more than one player logged onto the old link out of habit. So its not really ideal. Then that campaign started slowing down, NPC character sheets weren't opening and it was just a headache and I considered starting the new campaign migration again. Then I had that moment of clarity where I decided why move the players when I can move the maps and shit. That is the idea of a Campaign Backup.

So you have the campaign you run, and a second campaign where you transfer maps and tokens and things you aren't using very often. So they are backed up so to speak and you can delete them from your main campaign lightening the load. Since you aren't playing in the Campaign Backup it doesn't matter how slow it gets and you can transfer maps or tokens or whatever back to the original campaign with ease. Players don't even need to be aware of that sort of thing. You could even use a single backup for multiple campaigns assuming they used the same RPG. 

Nothing world breaking but it solves some problems nicely.

More Healing Potions

 A continuation from my previous post on Healing Potions.

I like the idea that if you heal HP that would take you beyond your Max HP you might suffer a mutation that lasts as long as it would take to heal that much HP. That would need a table but I'm sure there is one floating around the web. HP beyond the Max HP could be treated as Temp HP the way a Warlock gets Temp HP with Dark Ones Blessing. Going into battle you can really tank up, but it'll cost you in gold, addiction, and possibly mutation.

I like the idea that the cheaper Healing Potions might cause more problems and if you want the good stuff it's gonna cost you. This becomes a nice way to soak up PC cash. 

 So anyway the more I think about the mutation aspect the more it reminds me of the Slaine comics where mutation was part of his berserker fury.