Granting yourself situational bonuses

We players invest a lot of time during character generation trying to set up the right combination of abilities, feats, weapons, and powers to make sure we have a high chance of success in whatever situation our characters find themselves in. But once the character generation is done, I don’t think too much about getting new bonuses, especially on a situational basis.  The one major exception is combat advantage, which I pay attention to all the time because our Rogue player is obsessed with sneak attacking. And by “obsessed” I mean that he seeks out that extra damage (as he is supposed to), not because he’s a douche who likes stabbing people when they least expect it. 3e used to be filled with tons of situational modifiers: size, height, wind speed, etc. In 4e there’s basically combat advantage and cover/concealment. This is a good thing, it makes it easier to apply the rules.

What this means is that it is left up to the DM to give situational modifiers as he or she sees fit. For example, the Gabe from Penny Arcade handed out bonus cards depending on  the crowd’s reaction during a tournament. This mechanic was also used in the PAX Dark Sun adventure.  I think these types of situational are pretty awesome: it’s an easy mechanic that doesn’t unbalance things but encourages roleplay and strategic thinking. The only problem is that these are not part of the rules and thus the DM has to come up with them and then tell you about it so you can make use of it.

But who wants to wait for the GM to come up with a mechanic for you to exploit? I think we should be proactive about requesting bonuses (do so before taking a particular action instead of being told “no” after performing that action). Things that might warrant a bonus: having a background or character experience with a particular ritual, having something special in common with an NPC (race, language, religion, etc) especially when that trait is rare (both being from Sharn isn’t that impressive in Sharn), or doing something cool on the battlefield or being in an unusual situation.

There are two levels of bonuses generally available in the game. There’s the small +/- 2 that is a useful but not-unbalancing boon, which is given for difficult or exceptional situations. For example you can expect a +2 for  cover, combat advantage, or from a racial bonus or background. A +2 is probably going to be what we’d normally expect to get from doing a cool stunt, knowing the NPC’s mother, or belonging to a certain group. There’s also a +/- 5 that one gets for truly difficult, rare, or super-human events. A character can will get a + 5 for total concealment or training. +5’s are generally not something that can happen with a little situational context. For a +5 to a diplomacy, I’d expect to have saved the NPC’s life. I’m not sure what would merit a +5 in combat without applying a status that already grants that +5. Maybe some sort of magical effect or unique terrain?

I think for any group there will have a be a learning period to discuss what sorts of things your GM thinks is worthy of a +2 or a +5, but hopefully you have room for negotiation. These should be situational and you shouldn’t build a character around using them or abuse any bonus, because that would be unfair. Besides, it’s easy enough to get combat advantage and the like already. Do you play with an established house rule for situational bonuses?

Oh, to take a +1 or +2?

Reading a recent post on the Level 30 Yinzer blog about using social media (thanks for the shout-out) solidified some thoughts I’ve been unable to crystallize regarding feats. In the post, Yinzer describes an encounter where the PCs have an exciting encounter on a waterfall. I don’t know the specifics, but a waterfall sounds like an awesome setting. I’m imaging a scenario where the PCs have to make their way down to the bottom, having to deal with sharp cliffs, slippery rocks, and monsters that jump out that them from time to time. A waterfall is a great tool for concealing oneself or enemies. If there is a navigable path, maybe it’s not safe for the PCs to all clump together, so they are forced to spread out with monsters that attack them from time to time. This encounter can be combined with some in-battle or ongoing skill challenges that rely on climbing and balancing (athletics, acrobatics, endurance, nature, perception, etc) and maybe successes allow them to find hidden tunnels that let them skip parts of the cliff…

Anyway, getting to my point. As I started building the waterfall scenario in my head I was simultaneously figuring out how I would play my character in it. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a feat that made it easier to fight while hanging on to a cliff (or rope) or to ride your shield down the waterfall like a crazy elf? But even there were such feats, I still wouldn’t take them.

Why not? To answer that, I am reminded that this week my character leveled up and it was time to choose a new feat. As I was scanning the list I saw a cool feat (I forget the name) that added the cold keyword to a certain classes’ attacks. At first I thought this was pretty nifty, but I passed over it the same way I would if there was a feat that let you attack with a reduced penalty while hanging on to a cliff… it’s too special purpose to come up often enough.

Here’s the deal. In the right situation a specific feat like the cold one is pretty awesome. However in my experience a party can expect to come across a linear distribution of monster type. A good variety of enemies keeps things new and interesting for the party. But that means that most of the time, the encountered monsters will have no vulnerabilities, and when they do, they’re just as likely to be vulnerable to fire as to cold. Am I right in thinking that it’s better to take a feat that gives me +1 all the time (like Implement Expertise) instead of one that gives +2 less than half the time (like Distant Advantage) ?

If I had some guarantee from the GM that we’d be in a situation where the feat would be useful for a level’s worth adventures I suppose I could choose it for now and retrain later, but that seems like cheating. These specialty feats are great for fleshing out a character and building him into a unique persona, but at the same time it’s war between the PCs and their adversaries and why not take every advantage they can get? I know that it’s very rare that 1 point makes the difference between a hit and miss, but it feels like penalization for choosing a feat or power that isn’t versatile, unless a particular campaign is built to make use of it.

I guess what I mean is that it feels that all feats aren’t created equally. Is thinking wrong? And if not, have people found situations where they’ve been glad they’ve taken a narrower-purpose feat (that doesn’t combine in a “broken” way with other powers/feats) even if it meant using it less often than an alternative?

I finally figured out how to play my character

I won’t bore you with the details of my Teifling Psion character, but I did want to mention an issue I’m having role playing to his ability scores. In attempt to min/max the character, he wound up with a really high Intelligence and Charisma, average Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution, and pretty low Wisdom. Sine super-human intelligence and charisma generally don’t go with substandard wisdom, and I have been struggling with what this means to role play. When I created the character I imagined a too-cool Psi-Cop like Bester from Babylon 5…a character that comes in to a scene make everybody nervous with his creepy and unflappable demeanor. However Bester was quite perceptive and empathic (but not very sympathetic), which means that kind of character needs a good wisdom to go along with the brains and personality.

If you were a fan of Bablyon 5 I hope you’ll follow me to my point, and that is, I think I should play my character more like Emperor Cartagia. The Emperor was cunning (high Int) and a natural leader (high Cha), but a touch mad, refused to listen to reason, and didn’t have of a lot of “street smarts.” I don’t want to play my character exactly like the evil emperor, because he’s not chaotic, but there are definitely some lessons I’ve learned. To play to my character’s low Wis, I am going to make him more trusting and naive (grew up sheltered by a magical organization). On the battlefield, I will have him make less optimal choices…. but more importantly, he’ll be less flexible. Since he’s smart and lawful, it’s in his nature to plan a few rounds ahead, but with a low wisdom and high charisma, he’ll be too self-sure and self-absorbed to doubt his plans, even in the face of contrary evidence…. But not too much, since he is a Hero.

In my experience low scores in the “soft” abilities are much harder to role-play than high ones. When I play a character with a much higher Charisma than me, I can still try to make an impassioned speech and let the ability bonus make up for my own shortcoming. With Intelligence, I can just assume that the character can figure out a puzzle or translate some old runes. And with Wisdom, a good Sense Motive check can see through a NPC plot better than I could on my own. But when the scores are low, that means I have to limit what I do and the types of conclusions my character arrives at. It’s hard enough keeping meta-game knowledge out, but pretending not to know something is tough.

What strategies have you guys found useful for playing slow-witted characters? Are there any fast rules? With strength it’s easy… there’s only a certain amount the character can lift.

Snow and Ice

My morning commute provided me time to think of all the awful situations that can occur weather-wise in a d&d setting. Be it driving a lightning rail through a thunderstorm or fighting a white dragon in a icy mountain pass, bad weather can really ruin one’s day.

In my experience weather rarely comes up in an adventure. A long time ago I tried using the random weather tables in the 2E DMG to track weather on a daily basis;  since we never used it in-game, it was a piece of color that faded into the background to be forgotten. When weather does factor into combat, it usually provides some attack adjustment (like concealment or distraction). Personally, I find it annoying to have to keep track of yet another effect in combat. Especially in 4e, the number I announce as my result is so far removed from the roll of the die with all sorts of situational modifiers, that the extra flavor doesn’t seem worth it

This is too bad because when used appropriately weather can really mix things up and give a sense of reality to a fantasy world.  Since one of the reasons why I don’t like weather is keeping track of modifiers, I’ll try to explore non-modifier options.

The first thing that comes to mind is weather as terrain. For example, let’s say there’s a type of terrain called “slippery driveway” that counts as difficult terrain and any character moving more than 1/2 speed through it has to make an Athletics check or fall prone. Or there can be a constant sleet over a set of squares that does a set damage per round or slows characters caught out in it. How about a fog that emulates low light conditions? The DMG talks about extreme weather taking away daily healing surges, which is a good non-terrain option. In those cases, the DM should really try to press the party to make lost surges count.

Weather can have roleplay effects too. Some NPCs and mounts might not want to go outside on a rainy day, or frost can threaten to ruin the season’s crops, or a heat wave might kill off weaker villagers. Weather gives a character a chance to brag about how great it was back home or that he’s spent winters in Icewind Dale. Weather gives him something to talk to strangers about at the Inn.  Nature-y characters should be able to show off in bad weather with tracking monsters, finding food or shelter, or detecting unusual patterns of storms.

When going to to an ice planet, hopefully the characters know to buy coats and bring along some Tauntauns. But what if it’s an average spring and but the party gets caught up in a freak blizzard? Unexpected weather provides a great way for the DM to apply those effects because it catches the PCs unaware. Weather also gives the PCs an excuse to use rituals like Endure Elements and Control Weather, which hopefully don’t break the game.

D&D is a fantasy game, so I expect to see some magical weather. Make it rain donuts, have the snow fall upwards, and of course, the ocassional bout of Purple Rain.

While I’m talking about the weather, does anyone else think the monsters that live in extreme climates don’t make sense? If a Frost Giant [DDI] has resist cold, it’s reasonable to expect that the Ice Lions they eat also have resist cold. Therefore shouldn’t it make sense for the Frost Giant to use fire attacks instead of cold ones?

The New Mounted Combat

In a fantasy role-playing games sometimes a character finds himself on top of another creature in battle. In my Second Edition days, I had characters that jousted from horses and dragons, and even once fought some sea monsters whilst atop a dolphin. Each 2e sourcebook had some complicated set of rules for the mounts of its worlds. Things got better in 3E with a standardized set of rules for movement, but there was still built-in support for mounted combat and specialized encounters like jousting.

In 4th Edition, I wouldn’t know where to tell where you where are the mounted combat rules in 4e, if they exist at all. Of course, it matters less now that size and height differences aren’t factors in combat.

In my game, we had a situation a few weeks ago where there were some enemies wanting to escape on griffon-back. In course of the session it mattered what kind of an action getting on or off a mount is; is it a standard, minor, or move? Can it be done as part of a move action? Can a dazed, stunned, or slowed character effectively mount? Then there was the situation of trying to get a mount to throw its rider…

I think the 4e designers purposely hid these rules. Mounts in d&d are complicated affairs, and are only effective out of doors (horses are ridiculous in a dungeon) and when everyone in the party has one. I think they would be fun occasionally for an encounter, but as much as some unique terrain piece.

I guess my questions to the group are: (a) are there official mounted combat rules, and if so (b) where are they? And (c) have you effectively used mounts in or out of combat in a 4e game? Do people still have “horseman” as a character identity/trait or do we assume they are all proficient riders that only get on a horse between adventures, if at all?

Jousting image provided by :http://www.flickr.com/photos/leejordan/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Metagaming at the table

I just read and responded to a post by Martin Ralya (follow him on twitter @martinralya). This post entitled How Much Metagaming Is Too Much? asks pretty much what you think it does, how much meta gaming should there be at the table and when is it too much.

If I can take an attempt at distilling Martin’s definition of metagaming to two points, it’d be:

1. Players are talking and not the characters. This I guess could either be out of game-chatter, or injecting knowledge the players have that is hidden from the character. I think he meant the latter. I’d also include in this broad category using knowledge the player has about mythology, fantasy tropes, science, adventure movies, etc.
2. The discussion is phrased in terms of the rules/mechanics. This could be talking about hit points, movement squares, THAC0, or even my gripe in my last post about damage types.

One of the things I really enjoy about 4e is the tactical aspects.  Rules/mechanics metagaming doesn’t bother me, beyond than the sheer amount that has to be done. I am a fan of tactical board games, and nobody ever called me out in a game of Memoir ’44 or Stratego for not being in character enough. That aside, I do loose immersion when talking strictly in mechanical terms. That’s why I like using the power names, cheesy as they are, and describing how a particular attack goes down. I also feel like skill challenges have introduced more opportunities for mechanics-talks. In previous editions, we didn’t have to talk as much about skill checks, or say “well… that was the second failure, the next  check better have the best chance of succeeding.” My DM so far has done a good job of keeping us out of that trap by making skill challenges flow naturally into the story. I bet the mechanical-talk issues are proportional to the pervasiveness of rules in a system.

For me “the line” of too much metagaming isn’t so much about context, but “how long.” I like game design and appreciate many aspects of a dungeon or encounter and want to discuss it a little bit. So far my fellow players haven’t expressed annoyance. I also metagame because I’m excited about the plot and want things to turn out well for the party. What I do try to do is keep it to a minute or two before getting “back into character.” The best way to do that is just keep track of what’s going and try to pull yourself back in. If a fellow player is extending the discussion you can either be passive-agressive about it and just talk in character and ignore any out-of-game comments he makes, or just give a friendly reminder to get back to the situation at hand for the characters.

The hardest  part for me after an in-depth metagame discussion about the plot getting back to being in-character. I want to make sure my character’s actions are based upon his personality and his knowledge and not my own. I feel like I’m about 75% successful at this. It’s easier the more I really enjoy a character and have a good sense of his history and motivation and harder when I’m not really feeling like I’m part of the game. When I slip and make a non-character-y choice I try to recognize it and use that as a learning experience. Sometimes its easier to define a character by what he wouldn’t do (next time) than necessarily by what he would do.

Once again, this behavior is the kind of thing that’s easier if all your fellow players are doing it too. The best way to encourage them is by doing it yourself, and maybe with a little help from the GM. Of course if everyone else is against it… well that’s a discussion for another time.

Can a player cheat when the GM rolls on the table?

I’m going to pre-empt my already written post for today to respond to a thread that came up on twitter with @newbiedm (blog), @chattydm (blog), and my intrepid DM, @sarahdarkmagic (blog).  They all seem to be in favor of the GM rolling combat dice in front of the screen, which is not my style.  When I was a very young GM I liked rolling behind the screen to allow for fudging rolls, usually to keep my players alive but also sometimes to punish them when I felt my monsters weren’t doing enough damage.  As a more experienced GM, I remained in favor of behind the screen rolls in order to guard against the whim of the die unfairly killing a player. It’s tough when a player rolls low five turns in a row and the monster rolls high every time.  Fudging rolls is a tool in the GM toolbox to control the pace of a combat.  Despite not yet GMing 4e, I can see from the other side of the table that fudging is not as necessary.  There is less chance of unintentional out-of-balance encounters; players have a lot more powers and more ways around different types of defenses, and more hit points.

newbiedm tweeted this great rebuttal:

I’d rather “guide” the story through narration than by fudging. If I smell a TPK, I’ll narrate them out of it, rather than lie about a roll.

He backed it up by suggesting removing monsters or adding allies; and I’m sure we can think of lots of ways to do this that aren’t obnoxious or deus ex machina.  As a nominally story-driven player, this is exactly how I’d want the GM to think.  But that’s why I still think rolling behind the screen allows for story to have more weight than random chance.  I do want to state without any confusion: I don’t mind when the DM does roll in front the screen.  It’s just not my personal style.

However, as player I also don’t like when the DM rolls in front of the screen.

1. I’d like for him/her to have the option of fudging the rolls to keep things exciting and well paced.
2. I’m too tempted to “cheat.”  As professional somewhat-math-guy I can can figure out that if the DM rolls a 12 and asks if a 20 hits my AC, the monster has a +8 to hit. Furthermore, I can guess that since the monster attacked me with a long sword (+3 proficiency bonus), that his “strength + 1/2 level” is 5, which means he has at least a 15 Fort defense. 

   With this knowledge I can choose powers and position my character on the battlefield accordingly to where I think he’ll be most effective, which is not necessarily in character.When the wargamer part of my brain takes over the roleplayer part of my brain, my character that should be afraid of a big-ogre looking thing with a rusty, bloody sword instead stomps right up to ogre.  All because I’ve inferred the odds.  This is no fault of the GM, I should be well-trained enough at this point to ignore that kind of stuff.  My character should act in accordance with the information presented to him instead of the information available to me, the player.  It’s difficult to do late at night with the gamedrenaline pumping.

   [as an aside, Fear the Boot episode 167 deal with RPing in combat, and I’ll get around to posting about that]

3. If I see the GM rolling really well and yet the combat is going suspiciously in our favor, even if the monster starts making some real bone-headed mistakes or a robot centaur swoops in and save us, it feels like a failure. It feels as if we just weren’t good enough, even if it was because the dice were not in our favor. I am in the camp of “failed combats shouldn’t necessarily means everyone dies” and that failure leads to interesting and fun RPing: i.e. getting out of a sticky situation. But when that failure was just because of unlucky rolls instead of bad decisions, it somehow feels shallow.

What do you think? Especially you other players out there? Should the DM be rolling in front of or behind the screen?