Delays can sometimes be worthwhile

Sorry for the delays, oh ye few who read this regularly. Sometimes, delays can be worthwhile though:

I have successfully moved across the country, (with more help from my girlfriend than I care to admit to!) starting in Springfield, Massachusetts and ending in sunny North Hollywood, California. That's been a long process, to say the least.

Better yet, I have become the LA Zombie Examiner, and you can catch me here at Examiner.com. I'll be posting about all sorts of zombie-goodness in the Los Angeles area, and maybe -- just maybe -- I'll be able to throw in some gaming goodies every now and again as well. I'll still be maintaining this blog as well, but it'll be slow for a bit as I juggle the two sites and do some more job hunting.

(Shockingly, one cannot make a living simply updating Examiner.com with news about zombies. What a terrible world we live in, indeed!)

So thanks, don't completely write this site off, and hopefully I'll have some new gaming stuff up in a matter of days!

Methods of Tracking Initative

Inspired by this thread at ENWorld, I decided to write down some of the different ways I've heard to track initiative (and potentially status effects or other highly mutable things that often go along with initiative). There are so many, and I've never tried half of them, so it's always interesting to me to hear of new methods and how they work, both their advantages and disadvantages. If you have other ideas, feel free to comment below!

And without further ado...

The Ol' Pen & Paper Trick
This is pretty simple: you take a piece of paper, and write down the initiative score and name of the character. Any status effects either get marked on this paper next to the name, or you use tokens to mark the character's mini or other representation. There's actually a couple variants to this:

• Normal sheet of paper: just write things on the lines, or in the blank space.
• Graph paper: allows you to align things using columns and rows so it's easier to reference. Might be easier to change only the initiative numbers or something like that so you don't have to keep erasing and re-writing anything other than the numbers.
• Index card: allows you to keep initiative and conditions on a smaller surface that won't crowd your other DM notes, open adventure books (of which so few lay totally flat! Aaaargh!), dice, and whatnot.

The White Board
White boards are great because they have the advantages of The Ol' Pen & Paper Trick but are often faster and slightly less messy when it comes to erasing and re-ordering combatants, or adding and subtracting status conditions. The best thing is that they come in multiple sizes and shapes, as well as added features:

• Dry/wet erase: If you're OCD and prefer dry- or wet-erase, just go out and find the one for you and get to using it. They sell erasers and markers and all sorts of cleaning supplies, but generally you don't need much to keep these things in good condition for a while.
• Magnetic: These guys are cool because you can just buy a few magnets, write names of characters and creatures or even conditions (especially if you get different types of magnets, like long, thin ones for names and smaller, circular ones for conditions) on them, and then move them around. No erasing or writing (except for the occasional name-change or whatever) and thus much less fuss with cleaning the surface.

The Folded Index Card on the DM Screen Method
Fold an index card in half, and write the character/monster name on the outward-facing sides. Arrange these along the top of your DM screen in initiative order so everyone -- Players and DM alike -- can see the order. You can even rearrange as combat progresses, taking the character's card who just finished and placing him at the opposite end, and then sliding the cards all forward, so that initative truly looks like the cycle that it is, and you always know who's "active" because they are the person at the front of the line (probably being the left-hand side from the DM's point of view, because us Americans read left-to-right, but it doesn't really matter).

You may be covering up some useful DM screen info this way, however. So, you might want to consider "thinning" the cards (cutting them down, at least on the DM-facing side) so that they fit within the DM Screen margins, or possibly altering your DM Screen by adding some heavy cardstock along the top (using clear tape, double-sided tape, or some simple glue sticks) to raise the initiative cards off of your all-important charts and tables.

• Track conditions on the cards: This could be a pain in the butt because you have to write on the card (and do you write on both the DM's side and the player-facing one?) and erase as needed...and writing on a vertical card hanging off a flimsy DM Screen might be a hassle. But you could always use sticky notes with conditions (but be aware that low-hanging paper may cover parts of your DM Screen) or even smaller strips of folded index cards with conditions pre-written on them, so you just "hang" the condition over the character's card. Just be sure to leave margins on the character cards so you don't cover character info up.
• Track conditions using other means: This is useful info in general, but there's tons of methods of tracking conditions off of the initiative sheet/card/whatever. You can use colored beads (like those rounded glass things you can find at Michael's or at the bottom of some fish bowls), colored chits or tokens (tons of ideas in this thread), specially-shaped tokens (like the Heart Counters from Descent: Journeys in the Dark), Alea Tools magnets (found here), condition cards (here, here, and here) that you hand to players (either playing card-style, or as sticky notes for their character sheet), or whatever. Some are good if you pile them on or under the mini for that character, others are great to rack up on the player's character sheet. Just make sure they are visible and remembered...otherwise players may conveniently forget they are Slowed, or you may accidentally forget that Random Skeleton #7 is suffering ongoing Acid damage while Random Skeleton #10 is Prone.

The Push-Pin Corkboard Method
Just put the character/monster's initials on a push-pin (or use color coding, perhaps drawing a circle on the character sheet in the appropriate color as a reminder) and insert into corkboard in an organized manner (such as shuffling them around via the Folded Index Card method, or perhaps by having an oddly colored or arrow-painted push-pin as a marker as to who is currently active. Some corkboard comes as thin strips, or come as strips along the side of a White Board, so you can get a little customization.

You have to figure out how to track your conditions and such separately, either through tokens on the minis, status condition cards handed to the player, or notes behind the screen.


The Clothes-Pin Method
Write the name of the character/monster on the side of a clothespin (or both sides, so it's Player-facing as well) and clip them atop the DM screen so you can all see the order; reshuffle as necessary like in The Folded Index Card on the DM Screen Method in order to show who's active. You may want to use some tricks to have the names be removable or erasable because PCs sometimes die and monsters always die. Or you could go by player name, but I feel that can ruin the suspension of disbelief sometimes.

You have to figure out how to track your conditions and such separately, either through tokens on the minis, status condition cards handed to the player, or notes behind the screen.


Initiative Cards
Every character and every monster (or monster group) has their own little "playing card" (probably an index card or a specifically-sized table entry from a Word document), and you arrange them in initiative order. Simply shuffle the top card to the bottom once that character's turn is done and you're good to go. Re-order the deck as necessary if initiative changes.

I find this method is a little slow at the beginning of combat as you have to call out initiative order and play around with the cards, but it's usually pretty fast going once it's under way, and you can have all the info on the card for the active character or creature, which is pretty handy. You can even use tricks like "tapping" some cards (turning them 90 degrees to the side) or flipping them face-down to signify status conditions, held actions, delays, or other effects.


...Any others? Post some comments!

Angels & Demons, Part IV

An Analysis of Options, Variants and Encounters Based on Knowledge Skills

In which we look at how to really get some more mileage out of your characters' Knowledge skills, as well as turning places of lore & research into exciting encounters.

Part IV takes a looksy at the History skill.

History
The History skill helps you recall the stuff you learned in history class, or the historical subject matter of your local Bard's song about the love of an elf and a halfling, or the one about splitting the party up.

And that's about it.

?!

History might possibly be the single most lackluster-looking skill of the 4e lineup. I mean, we can all think up uses for it within the context of a D&D session, but all those other skills have so many cool things: Monster Knowledge, Detect Magic, finding a lead on paying jobs and all that other stuff, too. But History's just kind of hanging out in the book without too many friends.

Like Charisma in the earliest editions of D&D, that just means "it's a roleplaying skill." Or, in other words, it's the skill that requires extra effort just to figure out how to use it (either the player comes up with some idiotic "high concept" for playing their character, or the DM has to include special challenges just to cater to that ability). You don't want to have the player who does choose to take training in History feel like they wasted points.

The "Robert Langdon" Approach
In Angels & Demons, Ron Howard was able to keep the pace up at the same time as having Tom Hanks (as Robert Langdon) spew forth several pretty interesting "info dumps" necessary to understand just what it was that was going on. This could also be known as the "Tom Clancy" approach because of his tendency to info-dump. But it's one thing to write this into a movie or novel, and wholly another to get it across in the midst of a game. In order to do that, you need to either feed that info to the players yourself, or find a way to make one of the players (probably the dude who just passed his History check) your proxy.

"Someone just left an info-dump in my bathroom!" Or, The DM as Info-Dumper
This method is the easiest to control, and the hardest to make interesting. Easy to control because you, the DM, are dispensing the info, and hard to make interesting because you, the DM, are trying to convey a likely complicated piece of background information which you probably know intimately (it's your game/campaign/story) but that probably won't have the impact of a "big reveal" because the Players are just passively absorbing the information, rather than experiencing it in the moment like a boss fight or a trap. So here are some options to spice up how you deliver that info to them:

• Use a flashback scene to establish the player character's connection to the information. Narrate what they need to know, and then play out a conflict or encounter (social, combat, skill challenge, whatever) that connects it to them.
• Use a cutaway scene to give the players first-hand insight into something they couldn't otherwise experience. In this case, the PCs aren't involved, but you've got some pre-generated characters the Players will use to experience the event. As with the first option, you have to keep things scripted, so you want to clearly (and simply!) get across the role of the pre-generated characters so that the Players drop right into what you need them to do. For example, don't just give Joe a pregenerated orc named Krug who's traveling with the other pregenerated orcs the other Players are playing. Instead, give him Krug, who's jealous of Drugg (one of the other pregenerated orcs) because Drugg took a magical ring of a knight that Krug had slain. Joe now immediately knows that his character is jealous (rightfully so? doesn't matter!), and may have enough insight to realize that the DM wants him to act on this jealousy during the cutaway scene.
• Use a narrative, but spice it up with SOMETHING. One of the biggest mistakes is the DM getting up and reading some text aloud. BORING! Even a DM who's great at characterization and keeps the info short can totally lose the Players this way, even temporarily. This is a great time to break out a fitting soundtrack, and crank the music a hair higher, or a smidge lower than usual to cue the Players in that "this is different from the rest of the session." Any experience with media production or PowerPoint could help here...a few fun slides with dissolve effects ("...aaaaannd, STAR FADE!" as Homer Simpson once said) could do the trick.
• Use a special map and/or minis. This might border on comical a little too easy for some people, but maybe that's okay. What you do is setup a battlemat like you normally wood, or better yet, set it up well ahead of time so you don't interrupt the game for something that's essentially just some throwaway info ('coz no matter how cool your info-dump is, the fact is that the Players will probably forget it after a week or two of real-life in-between sessions). Have minis out that are particularly fitting and then, as you go through the info-dump, play the minis like toys and act out what's going on. Really ham it up: "And that's when the dragon clawed the wizard in the face...ROOOOAR!!!" (Has the dragon mini smack into the wizard mini violently several times). "It was a bloodbath, and the wizard was like 'Holy smokes! I just got pw1ned!' And then he died." Better yet, tell one of the more silly players to act out what you tell him to, and as you narrate the historical Battle of Emridy Meadows, have that player fling orc minis at human minis and make sounds like clashing steel and bloodcurdling death screams and soldiers crying out "Nooooooo!" as they perish.
• Work it into a Skill Challenge or combat encounter. Give the information in snippets that are quick and easily digestible, and hopefully very pertinent to the events of the encounter at hand. For instance, if the History check shows that the players recall the events of the Battle of Emridy Meadows, have the combat encounter they get into at that moment be against orcs and gnolls. As the PCs are about to die, elven archers show up, just like the Gnarley Forest elves did in that famous battle, and help trap the humanoids in a bend in the dungeon corridor, just like the bend in the Velverdyva where the armies of light routed the horde from the Temple of Elemental Evil. Give out bits and pieces like this, and then whatever you didn't get to in the encounter, just sum up quickly at the end of it as the PCs go about their 5-minute rest and take stock of their healing surges, action points, etc.

Info-Dump by Proxy
This method is probably a bit more interactive and interesting, but the problem of control comes up here. That means you have to provide clear, concise information to a single player in a manner which they can then convey to the other players, and you have to do it quickly, and be prepared to feed him extra info if the other players ask questions about stuff you didn't cover in that info-dump to the conveying player. That can be tough...if you're just saying stuff and the player turns to the other players and says the same words, then it's mainly just an annoying time-waster.

To deal with that, first think of this method as a process:
1. What is the information that you need to convey?
2. What are the biases of the information source?
3. What is the goal of the character that will be conveying this information?
4. What are the biases of the character conveying this info?

This process can be done mostly in your head, and should take whatever information you have and break it down into smaller, more manageable chunks to disperse to your proxy. For example, if you need to tell the PCs the course of the Battle of Emridy Meadows, you first consider the information in its entirety (either the events outlined in the wikipedia article or in the sourcebook you're using), figure out what might be left out or colored differently by the history book the PCs are investigating (remember that history goes to the victor!), figure out what points are salient to the PCs (so you can leave out the names of every general if that info is just wasted fluff the players won't need to advance the story), and then think about how the player portrays his PC. Is this the fighter interested in war? Concentrate on the tactics used in the battle, and less on the economic consequences of the battle. Is this the rogue? Stress the stealth used by elves when they showed up late in the battle, rather than why the elves were late.

Next, consider ways to pass this info to the proxy that isn't verbal. Written notes are great, and if you know the PCs will investigate this lead, make sure that you have the note written ahead of time. Doing it in a way that can easily be pared down or added to (based on the checks the PCs made, the circumstances of their investigation, or the time-limits set by the adventure) such as through index cards or smaller sticky notes is the way to go.

You could also pull the player aside and tell him the information, but make sure the other players don't just sit there for 10 minutes twiddling their thumbs. Use this as an opportunity to force the player to take notes or remember things, making additional Intelligence checks at the table if the player screws up the telling of the story. This simulates the character having to absorb gads of info under a time limit, and thus potentially messing up some details (but be kind about those Intellgience checks, especially if the character is far smarter -- and thus more likely to remember -- than the typical, forgetful player). You could get high-tech as well, and go with text messages, IMs, a wiki page, or shared documents like those you can get through Google Documents.

Options & Variants for the History Skill
The History skill can really represent any (or all) of the following three general "fields" of knowledge that have some precedent in D&D campaigns: science, local lore, and nobility & royalty. The latter two have descriptions found in 3.5 Edition D&D (found here), while the former is really just knowing the many random "sciences" of the D&D world, which are often pseudo-sciences anyway.

Things like astrology, chi, feng shui, Prime Material plane physics, herbalism (perhaps not to be confused with full-on alchemy), and the like might all fall under History, just as surely as legends, laws, customs, traditions, lineages, heraldry, family tree, and various traditional mottoes. These things don't come up often in the "typical" (i.e. published) 4e D&D campaign, but in a home-brew or otherwise more tightly linked campaign, these things are the very breath of life that make your world come alive. More importantly, they are the kind of thing that bring your world to life AND allow your players to get mileage out of the History skill:

• When making a riddle, concentrate on adding in names to family lines, royalty, or whatever that relates to your game world. It may make the riddle "unsolvable" to the players, but not so to their characters. This is kind of a "gamey" way to do things (relying on a roll instead of the player's ingenuity), but for many people, that's preferable, and for those that it isn't, it's still okay to do on occasion in order to get that moment where you can say, "The answer is 'The Welkner Family,' because the image displayed in the illusion spell shows their family crest: a kite shield held up by twin lions." In that one line, you've put a name into the game (Welkner) that the PCs may have heard or will hear in the future (and thus have significance to the story), and you've also alluded to their position (lions suggest royalty, the shield signals defense or fortification, perhaps).
• If the PCs are attempting to identify the origins of their mysterious attackers, perhaps the construction of their crossbows tells them they are Easterners. What skill would this be? Perception, perhaps, but you could also make the case for History: the party's wizard remembers reading about the unique greenwood that the Eastern nation of Kharad-Mor used, and thus these bandits are likely from that place. Now you have an interesting character trait (greenwood) and a lead for the players to investigate (the far-off lands of Kharad-Mor, and why these assassins are leagues from their home!).
• Identifying things with the most "sensible" skill is sometimes the most "boring" way to run the game. If the players go into a situation where they are identifying a poison from its herbal origins, you might rule that Nature is the skill of choice. But you could keep the players on their toes (and possibly get a neat little Skill Challenge) by saying a History check helps one character recall that the same poison was first used on Mithradantalas, the Great Huzzah of Madskillzton, which is in the north. Now the players know that the herb is found in the northern woods, and they can dig into the library to find out if Mithradantalas could have been saved by an antidote. This method shows that a variety of skills can be of use, they may interact (having one as the "Aid Another" skill), and that the players choices (taking History over Nature as their trained skill) has a real impact.
  

Several of the following variants were found in discussion threads at ENWorld and RPGNet. They focus on adding other "abilities" to History's repertoire, or having it overlap with certain skills or skill uses.

• History covers any Monster Knowledge checks for a humanoid creature.
• Allow it to be used for ANY Monster Knowledge check, but increase the DCs by +2.
• Have it act as the default "craft" or "profession" skill; a character can select some random subject that isn't ridiculous ("Secret GM knowledge, plz!") and uses their History skill to cover it. Things like craft (blacksmithing) or profession (merchant) could be taken over by this. If you don't like that logic, then how's this: "This option shows that you know the history of blacksmithing, and studied historically prominent blacksmiths to gain your mad skillz." Neener-neener-poo-poo.
• Alternately, have a feat that gives you a specialty which adds to History (or really, any other likely skill) for the purposes of that specialized area. Blacksmith might add +3 to a History check to recall or perform anything smithing-related (or you could conceivably use Endurance for that specialization).
• Have History sub for Religion and Arcana freely, but only for the mundane aspects thereof: Monster Knowledge, arcane/religious lore. Obviously, that means no Detect Magic with History.
• Have History be the default "Aid Another" check for any other knowledge skill check, especially aspects of Streetwise, Religion and Nature. Popular variations on this include making Aid Another rolls as a Moderate difficulty skill check as defined by the infamous DMG p. 42 table.

Finally, heres some good modifiers for a History-based check or Skill Challenge:

• Books, tomes, and old scrolls
• A library
• Ancient runes that have been copied into a libram, or that appear scrawled on the surface of a trap
• Speaking with older folks, especially those of longer-lived races (an ancient elf, a dwarven king)
• Strong oral tradition among a particular race
• Academy-trained magician or schooled character
• Secret lore (obviously, this would be a penalty in most cases)
• Architectural clues (perhaps Aid Another could come from Dungeoneering)
• Religious history or custom (perhaps Aid Another could come from Religion)

Random Encounters, Hazardous Environments & Encounter Conditions

In which you'll find Random Encounter tables, Hazardous Environments for a dungeon, and Encounter Conditions that can spice up the terrain and environment in which the characters fight against their monstrous foes!

So now you have a sweet Dungeoneering skill challenge...but the price of failure often includes random encounters or environmental conditions that influence the characters' journey through the caves. Where can you go to get ideas for that stuff? Right here, of course!

Random Encounters
Random encounters are a difficult thing for some people to "mold" into the 4e paradigm. With the game's focus on tactics-heavy combat, dynamic set-piece battles, and the ability to heal nearly completely in-between each encounter, a lot of the design intent behind random encounters from earlier editions is lost. So, perhaps a better term would be "randomly planned encounters," but that doesn't have a nice ring to it.

Anyway, what I mean by that is you'll take a few quickly cobbled together encounters, slap some extra sauce (neat encounter areas) on 'em, and then relegate them to "secondary status." I.e., they don't advance the story, but they do threaten the players and perhaps reveal some "backdrop" information, like "this dungeon is full of fey creatures, as opposed to that other one that had goblinoids." It's best to have a quick sketch of the potential battlemap, something customized at least slightly to the creature mix (windy passages for lurkers, bigger, open spaces for controllers, etc.) and then be ready to wing the rest. Hell, this is a great time to bust out encounter maps from other sources you have available but won't be using as-is: other adventures, Dungeon Magazine by Wizards of the Coast or Paizo, some randomly assembled dungeon-tiles by WoTC or other folks, etc.

Most importantly (to me), I've always found random encounter tables to be useless as-is. Why then do I present them and love them? Because it's the "as-is" part that gets me. I LOVE them as fuel for ideas. They are great for picking up on themes. Are most of the monsters on the table reptilian? Maybe that means lots of reptiles live in these caverns, so I can describe all the little harmless newts and iguanas running about when the PCs traipse through the dungeon. Stuff like that.

So keep in mind that my encounter table is pretty conceptual, meant to kick-start some ideas, and requires a little bit of your own elbow-grease to be spiced with your own thoughts on the encounter area, as well as what Hazardous Environments the PCs have come across (due to failed rolls) or what Encounter Conditions might exist in the immediate environment of the encounter. I use the Encounter Templates from p. 58-59 of the DMG.

Random Encounter Charts

Table 1-1: Encounter Template
Roll 1d12
1-4. Battlefield Control (controller + skirmishers)
5-8. Commander and Troops (roles vary)
9-10. Double Line (front line brutes or soldiers and rear line controllers and/or artillery)
11. Wolf Pack (similar skirmishers)
12. Dragon's Den (solo monster, or solo + elite)


Table 1-2: Encounter Difficulty
Roll 1d12
1-2. Easy
3-4. Easy w/ Substitutions
5-7. Standard
8-10. Standard w/ Substitutions
11. Hard
12. Hard w/ Substitutions


Table 1-3: Substitutions
1d12
1. Minions (replace 1 standard monster with 4 minions of the same level)
2. Minions (replace 2 standard monsters with 8 minions of the same level)
3. Minions (replace 3 standard monsters with 12 minions of the same level)
4. Minions (replace 4 standard monsters with 16 minions of the same level)
5. Elite (replace 2 standard monsters with 1 elite of the same role/level)
6. Elite (replace 1 standard monster with 1 elite of the same role/level and increase Encounter Level by 1)
7. Solo (replace 5 standard monsters with 1 solo of the same level)
8. Trap (replace 1 standard monster with a trap of the same level)
9, Trap (replace 2 standard monsters with 2 traps of the same level)
10. Hazard (replace 1 standard monster with a hazard of the same level)
11. Hazard (replace 2 standard monsters with 2 hazards of the same level)
12. Trap & Hazard combo (replace 2 standard monsters with 1 trap and 1 hazard, each of the same level)

Hazardous Environments & Encounter Conditions
Note - I stole a whole lot of the following ideas from the Encounter Conditions in AEG's World's Largest Dungeon (WLD)...but not all of them! Hopefully they won't sue me for that! You might see some repeat on both tables, but note that they often have pretty fundamental mechanical changes, so keep that in mind.

Hazardous Environment: these are damaging or debilitating environments that are dangers onto themselves, and don't even require an "encounter" to liven them up. The effects are often simple but they are lasting; each entry tells how to shake off the effects. The primary role of a hazardous environment are as a "hanger": a condition that weakens the PCs during the time in the dungeon. It's important to remember that long-term effects like these change the balance of encounters (social, traps, and combat), so you may want to err on the side of medium or easy difficulty when it comes to planning your encounters, and keep the hard ones at the minimum levels of hardness (i.e. a solo of level n+1 rather than the higher end of n+3 or more).

Roll 1d20
1. Cursed Area X: the area saps away a person's resolve, making it harder to push on; X is the penalty to rolls in the area
2-3. Filth: lingering in this filth or caustic slime could bring on a disease
4. Distracting Noises X: noises in the darkness that play on a character's mind; X is the penalty to rolls in the area
5. Distracting Visuals X: as above
6. Wind Tunnel: could blow out lanterns and torches (uses up equipment)
7. Extreme Temperature: suffer environmental effects (may use up equipment)
8. Fear-Inducing X: attack against the PCs' Will defense of +X; HIT = shaken while in this area
9. Flooded Area: room is partially flooded, limiting movement severely (may use up equipment)
10. Hallowed Area: divine abilities are bolstered here; characters are cured of diseases, poisons and other conditions
11-12. Haunted Area: rest is impossiblein this area
13. Magical Radiation: magical radiation causes arcane powers to go haywire (roll 1d20; effects could be = acts normally, rebounds on caster, targets random enemy, targets random ally, targets random object, negated, creates a harmless effect, creates opposite effect [heals rather than harms])
14-15. Safe Area: area is safe and great for resting
16. Shifting Maze X: the layout of the dungeon changes periodically; there may be a pattern, or it may be random. Penalties to navigate through this area (Primary skill rolls) are X
17. Stagnant Air: rot, decay or stench makes the air nearly unbreathable, sapping healing surges
18. Submerged: the room is completely submerged, requiring characters to swim (triggers Skill Challenge to swim through; Primary = Endurance, Athletics, Perception; Secondary = Nature, Dungeoneering; Primary successes = advance to new area, failures = sap healing surges from character who fails; Secondary successes = cancel one sapped healing surge, +2 to next Primary roll)
19-20. Earthquake X: tremors shake the dungeon, causing a random number of attacks against all characters at a bonus equal to X vs. their Reflex; successful hits sap healing surges


Encounter Conditions: these are conditions or environments that make a random encounter more dangerous, whether that encounter be with a trap, a puzzle, a skill challenge, or a monster (or several monsters!). These are essentially environmental dangers that influence a single encounter, but rarely have any lasting effect beyond that.

Roll 1d20
1. Ambush(darkness): enemies/trap attack light sources first from range, then use the darkness to their advantage
2. Bog: slowing mud/liquid that requires Strength, not Dexterity, to move through
3. Crawlspace: the area is too tight to move through normally; Medium creatures must Squeeze, but Small creatures are unnaffected; alternately, everyone has to use the Crawl action to move, and everyone is prone
4. Cursed Area X: the area saps away a person's resolve, making it harder to push on; X is the penalty to rolls in the area
5. Deeper Darkness: magical darkness that cannot be dispelled; all opponents gain concealment unless you have darkvision
6. Silence: verbal communication is negated; arcane and divine powers are limited
7. Desecration X: undead are bolstered here; X is the bonus to their Will defense against Turn attempts
8-9. Distracting Noises X: noises in the darkness that play on a character's mind; X is the penalty to rolls in the area
10. Distracting VisualsX: as above
11. Extreme Temperature: suffer environmental effects
12. Fear-Inducing X: attack against the PCs' Will defense of X; HIT = shaken while in this area
13. Flooded: room is partially flooded, limiting movement severely
14. Foggy: fog limits vision and gives concealment
15-16. Hazardous Footing: terrain is difficult or downright deadly
17. Smoky: smoke fills the room and limits vision and chokes people breathing here (Endurance checks or lose Healing Surges, perhaps, or 1 hp of damage)
18. Stagnant Air: rot, decay or stench makes the air nearly unbreathable, sapping healing surges
19. Submerged: the room is completely submerged, requiring characters to swim during encounter
20. Tremors X: tremors shake the dungeon, causing a random number of attacks against all characters at a bonus equal to X vs. their Reflex or take damage


There it is! Next time: a "Skill Challenge-within-a-Skill Challenge" plus the next part of the "An Analysis of Options, Variants and Encounters Based on Knowledge Skills."

Angels & Demons, Part III

An Analysis of Options, Variants and Encounters Based on Knowledge Skills

In which we look at how to really get some more mileage out of your characters' Knowledge skills, as well as turning places of lore & research into exciting encounters.

Part III gives you an example of a Dungeoneering-based Skill Challenge!

Dungeoneering: the Skill Challenge!

Here's the bare-bones of the Dungeoneering Skill Challenge, in which our heroes attempt to survive for many days in the harsh, unforgiving environment of your latest dungeon. We'll outline the goals (which boil down to "survive til we get out!"), what Primary and Secondary skills will be used, the benefits of success and the price of failure, and some options to turn it all into its own little mini-game, something that I think fits the spirit of 4e well, but for me, the skills often came into play while running Paranoia XP.

In my following posts, you'll get a selection of random encounters to use with this, Hazardous Environments and Encounter Conditions, which add spice to the dungeon environment and the random encounters within, and finally, a little "Skill Challenge-within-a-Skill Challenge" example.

As a quick aside, I highly recommend Mike Mearls' "Ruling Skill Challenges" articles, which you can get through D&D Insider. They have proven endlessly helpful in teaching me how to craft a Skill Challenge and make it more than just a serious of binary rolls.

Goals

• Foraging for food and water. Potentially, this might also mean foraging for other supplies or makeshift items to continue the journey, such as healing poultices, makeshift climbing or digging tools, or whatever else might be needed to advance through the dungeon.
• Direction sense and or tracking in order to reach the goal. The "goal" might be as simple as getting to the exit, or as complex as tracking down a certain item or NPC, or even fighting the big boss monster.
• Getting rest. This Skill Challenge assumes that travel-time is measured in hours or days, and that means that rest is needed to keep moving. Finding a relatively safe, comfortable place to take a breather is not easy in a dungeon environment (unless it was designed for sleep, of course).
• Avoiding encounters and hazards. Somewhat antithetical to the "kill 'em all and take their stuff," this Skill Challenge assumes that time is of the essence, or that other factors prevent the characters from scouring every room and taking on every enemy that rears its ugly head.

Complexity and Level
Some people may not be so free-form as I am, but I tend to leave Level at or right above/below the PCs' level based on the difficulty. So, I'm not going to assign a level to this particular challenge, because it's really something you can do on the fly. Remember the DMG advice: same level is best, but if you use all Hard DCs then add a level, if you use a few Easy DCs, drop the level by one.

In terms of Complexity, I'm also pretty free-form there as well, but I can offer more advice. The way this Skill Challenge is setup, it's an extended test of the characters' endurance, ability to find and prepare food and water, and their use of navigation to find the end-point without wasting all of their supplies. With this in mind, you're probably spreading the Skill Challenge over several days, otherwise there's really no need for it. If the PCs are fully stocked on food, climbing gear, and whatever, what's the danger unless the time-frame of the challenge really tests their ability to ration out that stuff?

You have a question you must answer, first: "Are the PCs fully stocked and prepared, or not?" If they are, the Skill Challenge needs to last a good 5-10 days in order to wear out those resources. So, consider having one Primary Skill roll each day, along with a couple Secondaries (but no skill's benefits can be gained more than once in a single day). You may even want to have Endurance be a skill check that every character makes at the end of the day after the other Primary and Secondary skills are rolled; success = happiness, failure = lost Healing Surges. If the characters are not fully equipped for an extended dungeon crawl -- such as if they had been captives and are escaping, or they'd already been on an extended journey just to get to the dungeon -- then their resources may already be taxed (or nonexistent). In this case, consider breaking the time down to 8- or 12-hour periods in which they make their Primary skill checks. Endurance then is probably one of the Primaries, and doesn't need to be rolled by everyone.

So, in the end, we've come to this:

• Level: Equal to the PCs (I feel that there's enough Moderate DCs used below that you don't have to give the PCs the extra level).
• Complexity: Probably 3 or 4, in order to actually get some use out of the upcoming tables and the different Secondary Skill benefits (and Primary Skill failures!). You could go as low as 2 or as high as 5, but it's worth noting that you'd really put a lot of work into this and not use any of it if you go with a Complexity 1 Skill Challenge; there's just not enough chance to use the various options presented.
  

Primary Skills

• Dungeoneering (Hard): A successful Dungeoneering roll allows the party to find enough food or water for 1 day (or meal), or navigate closer to their goal (taking 1 day off the total). A failure triggers a random encounter during the search food food/drink, or adds another day to the total spent in the dungeon.
• Endurance (Moderate): A successful Endurance check allows the party to skip a day (or meal) of food/drink, or get an extended rest in an otherwise hostile area. Failure causes the party members to each lose a single healing surge.
• Athletics (Moderate): A successful Athletics check allows the party to avoid a single hazardous environment result on a random encounter. A failure means that the party's next random encounter occurs with an Encounter Condition.
• Perception (Hard): A successful Perception check shaves off one day from the total, or allows the group to avoid a single random encounter. Failure causes the group to stumble into a Hazardous Environment.

Secondary Skill Successes

• Acrobatics (Hard): The party gains surprise in a single random encounter.
• Heal (Hard): You restore a single healing surge to any one character in the party.
• Nature (Moderate): You grant a +2 bonus to any one Primary Skill roll.
• Other Knowledge skill (Moderate): You avoid a single random encounter.

Options

• Visual Aids: use tokens or something to represent food, water and perhaps even specific survival gear. Successes give you more (or at least avoid using up some of them), while failures take these things away from you. Once you have 0 food tokens, for instance, you may find Endurance rolls are at a penalty. If you're tracking healer's kits, maybe Heal checks suffer once you're out.
• The Board-Map: rather than draw out and map the dungeon, provide a flowchart that looks something like a board game (goal at the center, windy passage around the edge of the board leading to it, occasional shortcuts throughout). Track the party's progress as they make successes, with each "space" being a success, while the shortcuts represent special bonuses from Secondary Skill checks. "Problem areas" -- encounters, lava pits, expansive underground lakes -- occupy certain squares, and might trigger new skills to become Primary and others to become Secondary, creating a Skill Challenge within a Skill Challenge (see EXAMPLE: The Lightless Lake, next time!). Probably a good idea to at least make it vaguely "dungeon-looking" in respect to any other maps you use for your game, because it'd just be weird to plop Candyland down and stick some Post-its on there with "Monstarz be heeeear" in a few spaces...though that works, too.

So check back for Random Encounter tables, Hazardous Environments, and Encounter Conditions...coming soon!