Here are some more notes from Sunday's game session, DF Session 138, Felltower 106.
Looting the pools. Wyatt asked Gerry to analyze the acid, to see if it was alkahest. It was very similar, and did the same damage. I noted though, for loot purposes, alkahest isn't really that valuable. Grenades of it are $1,650, but much of that is from containers that will shatter on impact but which won't dissolve when containing a universal solvent. That acid resistance is what is the real expense, there. It's still valuable if found. This is similar but not actually alkahest.
He also asked Gerry to figure out if the pool of cold water with chunks of ice in it either is, or can be used as, the filling of a Liquid Ice grenade. Gerry didn't have any tools to analyze it other than observation and tasting it, so he couldn't figure out much. Aldwyn drank it, though, so it probably isn't.
I expect at some point there will be another attempt to loot the pools.
And more frequent use of the purple dream pool.
WHY? I forgot to mention that they used Silence to force the doors on the so-called "noisy room" that echoes any sounds within it through much of level 1. Ulf said, "Be quiet in here." Crogar immediately shouted, "WHY?" and then started giggling. Crogar's player does enjoy his opportunities for humor.
Orc Walls. The orcs have clearly put in some hard work making it hard to get to them. Solid stone plugs are costly even for an Earth College mage with time and FP, and the orcs have at least one reasonably powerful Earth mage. But the PCs have killed a lot of orcs. The orcs tried patrols - they got killed. They tried barricades and ambushes - they got broken down and the orcs killed. They tried rubble walls - they got dug through and orcs killed. They tried all of them in combination, plus ambushes, traps, caltrops, oil (flaming and otherwise), and expendable monster shock troops both strong and weak - and got killed. Even a high willingness to take casualties to inflict casualties hasn't helped - they usually just take, but don't inflict, any casualties. It's one thing to accept losing 10 to kill one, but losing 10 to kill 0 isn't a useful tradeoff. Orcs are culturally callous and care little about the cost to other orcs for their gains, but they're not especially bright (IQ 9) but they're not especially stupid or stubborn, either. They'll learn, and the PCs have noticed they learn combat-related lessons relatively quickly.
So clearly they've invested in a much more secure form of passive security. The PCs did take a serious run at the orcs a while back and did a lot of damage, but eventually gave up in the face of heavily orc'ed fortifications. I'm curious what they'll do next. Some players have discussed making up Earth-focused wizards they could play to get past the barriers and kill orcs. We'll see if they do so. It's oddly gamey but, hey, they can make up whatever characters they want, and only access their skills while they're in actual game sessions.
Icy Slipup Looking into the ice rules, I was way, way, way too nice. I really should have re-read them before the previous session. This is a failure of GM preperation.
I remembered to apply:
-2 for bad footing
-1 to active defenses
DX roll to not fall.
+1 movement cost.
I forgot to apply the following:
-2 to all DX rolls, so it's DX-2 to not fall and DX-2 to Change Position to kneeling, standing, etc.'
-2 to combat skills also applies to bows (we didn't apply that, that I noticed.)
DX-2 roll after every attack roll or defense roll.
DX-2 roll to not fall if you move, two rolls if you move more than one hex (possibly every hex, depending on how you read the 4e rules vs. the 3e rules)
On a related note, I need to figure out if "falling" and "knocked down" should have similar effects. I've fallen a few times on ice. Something I hold onto what's in my hands, but not always. Maybe a flat DX roll or Retain Weapon roll to not drop what you're holding?
There should have been, potentially, a lot more falling. DX-2 rolls all over the place, attack and defense, less deceptive attack, and slower movement since people wouldn't do "in for a penny, in for a pound" and run instead of using Step.
So again, we had my least favorite combination:
- very high powered PCs with very high base rolls
- forgotten penalties (by me, this time, not the players)
- easier circumstances than should actually apply.
That really annoys me because, to me, part of the challenge of DF is the environment and the circumstances. You should still feel challenged. Giving the PCs enough points that skill-20 in a combat skill is moderate and ST 15 is low for a front-line fighter and DX 14+ is average should open up the game to dealing with horrible penalties. It should give you dominance of ideal conditions, strength over bad conditions, and a fighting chance in terrible ones.
Instead, with forgotten and misapplied penalties, you get dominance in terrible conditions. The PCs fought in -100 degree F weather on ice against a powerful ice-adapted monster with limited maneuver room to avoid its attacks, and all it did was 1-2 HP of injury to one character and damage a wooden shield. It was really only a threat if I managed to roll really, really well, and even then the best it could have done was wallop one PC. It depended on environmental penalties that I mis-applied.
It's on me, but honestly, generally people don't remember penalties but can tell you any bonuses they have - the guys with hobnailed boots remembered that, but I can't recall anyone ever mentioning the =1 to Stealth for wearing them. A game with lots of fiddly details can be fun. It's not as fun when this happens. I really need to bear down on this. Otherwise it's really just a high-powered game with high-powered bonuses, which wears thin quickly for me.
I think we have an issue of my players thinking, Peter will remember the penalties, we need to track our bonuses. But that's not really true. I need people to remember all of their modifiers, positive and negative, because I'm not always going to remember them all. In fact, I'm demonstrably going to forget some every single session.
I need a method for dealing with this. Perhaps I'll have to identify someone who can keep tabs on this kind of stuff for me, and reward them with XP if they do so correctly (I'll check after, so "Oh yeah, we should have all had a -4 on that roll an hour ago" isn't netting you 1 xp.)
I have used something similar for disads in the past - roughly "1 point per session where your disads are well played[1] in an entertaining way[2]."
ReplyDeleteDespite it being an explicit bonus, many folks were angry if I didn't work a chance for them to play their disads.
[1] "Well played" means the player regularly brought them up if they applied and played them accurately.
[2] This is to prevent annoying niggling use of disads to grub points, and includes not using your disads to ruin the other players' game - that is to say you can screw over the *other* PCs with your disads only if it is fun.
"Despite it being an explicit bonus, many folks were angry if I didn't work a chance for them to play their disads."
DeleteGot to love that.
You'd think it would spur people to take disadvantages they find it easy to play and embody on a regular basis, but instead it engenders complaints about the GM falling down on the job.
I should consider a "every penalty was properly applied" group-wide bonus, perhaps. But it's hard to want to give people a oookie for something that should just be considered basic-level good play - applying the rules fairly to your own character.
Self-enforcement of penalties in games is hard.
DeleteIf the players self-enforce, the careless and weaselly have an advantage.
If the players enforce the penalties on each other, that tends to feel hostile and is open to quid pro quo by the weaselly. (And if you get a cookie if you bust another player the hostile feelings are even worse.)
This is why traditionally the GM enforces penalties. However, that's overhead, and in a complex game it can be too much overhead.
Enforcing your own disads for a cookie avoids the above problems in exchange for cookie-hunting, which is just a different kind of problem. Pick your poison.
That paints a very bleak picture. I don't think I accept the idea, though, that have to either you reward bonus-hunters or get inter-player hostility, though. You can offload jobs from a GM to the players without either giving a reward beyond a smoother game experience or a punishment for not doing it.
DeleteI am entertaining the idea of a reward for someone doing that (positive reward), or a penalty if people don't do it themselves (negative punishment). It's not unthinkable for a player to do it without expecting a reward. Our combat coordinator doesn't get one. Neither does the player who tracks all of the treasure and divvies it up at the end. They're just helping out to make the game run more smoothly.
I'll need to ask my players directly and see if we can't come up with a solution - or just a volunteer. One of the people who GMs DF themselves might be a good candidate - I'll ask them.
It helps that we're all friends out of game, and our most recent additions to the group have played with us for multiple years now.
I'm not a fan of expecting players to remember what the book says about penalties. If I tell you you're at -2 or -4 for something, you need to work with me to remember it but, knowing what the book aimed toward GMs says about walking on ice? Honestly, I've had very few players over the years who have enough rules expertise to remember something like the penalty for standing on ice without looking it up. If I expect that level of rules knowledge, I'll never fill my table. I think it rules out a whole subset of casual players and I want those players to feel like they can join in without spending hours studying rule books for edge cases.
DeleteI'm actually not asking for that level of player knowledge.
DeleteWhat would be handy is a one-page cheat sheet for situations like ice. Say, "We're on ice, let's break out the sheet with all the stuff!" If space allows, it would also be handy to add information that usually accompanies ice, like cold or precipitation. (Indeed, cold and ice might be one sheet together.)
ReplyDeleteI may have to make some, so I have them to pull out.
DeleteAlso, I could use those to make it clear what equipment nullifies the effects. You know, because hobnails says they negate bad footing, but they don't negate all bad footing (they're not much help on sand or knee-deep in water, say, even if they help on ice.)
I'd just post them, but it seems like they'd be very big excerpts of the rulebooks.
It is definitely tough to remember everything, and we should think about some solutions. I *definitely* did not know the rules for ice (-2 for ALL DX rolls). I do think people made the DX rolls to change posture, but not at -2. We did also forget -2 to attacks (probably would not have been a huge difference there, but it could have). We *may* have forgotten -1 to defenses, but the two that I can recall specifically were made by Bruce, who had hobnailed boots.
ReplyDeleteTo me the weird situation that came up with the Ice Wyrm fight is Large-Area Injury. I think strictly reading it, eyes count (which is what I assumed). But I also do not disagree with the point raised during game, namely the concept that the eyes are so relatively small compared to the rest of the body, it seems really weird that you have DR 8 on 95% of the front of your body and DR 0 on 5%, and that means your DR drops to 4. It's the easiest mathematically, but still weird. Maybe people with Combat Reflexes get to put their head down slightly so they aren't hit with the full blast, and if they don't do that, then the eyes get averaged in? I don't know, it's an interesting rule. I can envision that someone gets breathed on, averts their eyes, and as soon as they can feel the blast gone, they look back. That seems possible in one second...maybe not before the creature gets other attacks. So if it breathed and someone averts his or her eyes, can it also attack while the delver isn't strictly looking? Maybe a -2 to defend or something?
I'll certainly volunteer to help keep track and brush up on a lot of the skills, which I *should* know from GM'ing, although I can tell you from GM'ing, there's just so much to know, I do have to look up things from time to time.
I got the GURPS Combat Cards with the T-Shirts and after examining them, they're pretty good. Yes, I know a lot of them for the most part, but some I forget (Move and Attack!) because my character hasn't used them in some time, and others it's good just to have a really quick reference instead of searching through books or PDFs. I think the cheat-sheets for various terrain would also be good.
I also now realize that in the game I GM, I've been neglecting to disallow parries on Move and Attack for probably the last six or seven sessions. Sigh. When you've got a Weapon Master Knight with a Large Shield and good parries, that's a real goof on my part. But they were fighting relatively weak stuff, so it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. Still...
Finally, we didn't really do any stealth these past few adventures, but I do recall the hobnail boot penalties (not that Ulf is wearing them) and would certainly point those out to the players who had hobnailed boots if they were trying to be stealthy.
The really annoying thing is, I mentioned the -2 for bad footing repeatedly, so if people forgot it despite me mentioning it at the start of their turn, what else can I do, really? I don't want to be in the position of doing people's math for them.
DeleteI think for Large Area Injury and eyes, it's a tough call. It really should be included. Blinking and ducking and looking away isn't really going to help against, say, a Fire Cloud or when you fall into acid or get blasted with magical steam. For most people, it'll be zero. I'll ask Kromm his thoughts when he's back from vacation. I don't want to be mean, but it is an issue that people with great face armor but no eye armor get the same benefits as the guys with full-face protection or invisible buckets on their heads.
I think we need a way of making penalties a little more front and center. The new macros help you guys but I can't always parse them, and we've had a lot of "I put the wrong numbers in, so it should be 11 not 13, and I made it by 2 not 4." Okay, great, so I need to read everything and then double-check it anyway.
And for your group, try the combat cards. I find it maddeningly on some level how often I hear, "I run up and Wild Swing." No, no you don't. A Wild Swing and a Move and Attack aren't the same thing. Nevermind when people say, "I'll run up and Wild Swing because if I use Committed Attack I won't be able to parry with that weapon or Retreat!" You'd think, with the fact that "Move and Attack" is a standard maneuver in our games, people would remember to use it.
It's really one of the big issues I have with bonus-grubbing and hex-bitching in tactical combat - people agonize over a step here or there, a +1 here or there, but don't actually remember the core, basic rules.
People remember some penalties with no problem, but I'll be damned if I can remember anyone rolling Stealth or Climbing with Encumbrance penalties without me saying so, even if everyone can tell you their exact cascade of multiple defense penalties. I think it is a reason why no one puts serious points in non-combat skills. Stealth-14 is plenty if you roll at -0 all of the time despite heavy encumbrance and hobnailed boots.
It's a problem we need to solve, because it's a core element of the game - high-powered delvers succeeding despite high-difficulty challenges - and we're potentially reducing it to high-powered delvers succeeding over nerfed challenges.
I don't think the Large Area Injury thing is mean; if people are not facing the injury area, they basically get full DR. If their face is towards it, even if they have face protection, there's still something unprotected that affects the DR calculation. It *kind of* seems harsh to the high DR delvers who only have their eyes unprotected, but then again, as you point out, it's going to affect them in some fashion, so halving DR seems pretty fair unless people want to wear alchemist's goggles or whatever.
DeleteDepending upon the player, Climbing and Stealth should have encumbrance penalties factored into their sheets on GCS (which some of us use). Same for Swimming, etc. I think the biggest thing that we have to remember (which is much better now) is the penalties for using ropes climbing up. The rope ladders help. Other than Heyden, the hobnails are all recent (Bruce and Sir Bunny) because of the concerns re: ice. But your broader point is 100% correct: we need to (collectively) remember the various penalties. As a GM, especially with lots of combatants, it's extremely difficult to remember it all.
I don't think GCA does. More importantly, we're using Roll20 at the moment, and I bet that the character sheets there don't do so by default.
DeletePlus, usually I call for a roll, and I'm thinking roll+modifiers, and people just think I mean a straight roll. Or don't know their gear gives them penalties.
I really like the idea of environment cards like Pokemon Gym Cards you can set out so everyone knows about Ice
ReplyDeleteIn Roll20 in particular you can do groovy handouts
I admit I do not personally trust GCS any more than I can throw it, GCS can say whatever it wants but I mostly will rely on asking the player directly how they calculate whatever or ask the elemental pieces and calculate themselves
I mostly rely on players to remember penalties though I do sometimes catch things that are missed. As long as they confidently announce something in actionable terms they can halfway get away with anything 'it has 1x3 bullets coming at its skull to defend' I'll happilly take as stated 95% of the time 'I fire a burst at its head I roll a 7!' Oh I hate that so much. Really I think I have 10 times more problems with people not doing the calculations at all 'I roll a 12' and making me figure out if they succeed than I have with people figuring out incorrectly
I require people to have the page number ready to hand if they try something non basic like Committed Attack
A handout makes me think of just something I could pop up on the screen - maybe in Zoom or Roll20 - displaying all environmental conditions. Not a map overlay (although that would be nice) but just a sheet showing the relevant modifiers.
DeleteYou can stick the handouts under a tab in the stuff goes here section in Roll20 and say 'Look everyone refer to fun with ice' handout
ReplyDeleteI'll take a look at that, too. My concern would be if we're using a map, most people won't want to overlay the map . . . but if I replace my image on Zoom with a still of the table, it's just up on another screen. For those using two monitors, of course.
DeleteWe'll try them both out.