Skills: Easy/Hard
Selm the Shady squinted, his sharp eyes taking in all the tiny details. The green door seemed to jump back and forth in the light of the sputtering torch. Selm wet his lips, sliding the first tool deep into the cylinder. Careful not to jerk the tool, thereby setting loose the poisoned dart nestled within, Selm carefully depressed the pins, his sensitive fingers ensuring just the right tension. He slid the second tool into the cylinder, deftly avoiding the menacing dart. He closed his eyes ignoring the sweat beading on his forehead, he breathed in deeply, then slowly exhaled. His lungs empty, he opened his eyes prepared to apply the perfect torque.
From the darkness, near the corner, Dremnar the Dwarf blurted out, “Hey Selm, it’s cold down here.. don’t forget the metal is a little different in the cold!”
Pericles the Paladin nodded suddenly, his dim thoughts clearing momentarily, “Oh, and.. uh.. remember that they kind of make a sound when you turn the key.. usually.”
Desna the Druid snorted, somewhat dreamily calling out, “Selm, this too.. the lock is fastened to wood.. so if you press the jamb real hard the dart might miss you even if it shoots!”
Not one to be outdone, Cleis the Cleric spoke up as well, “Selm, the map has an ‘X’ on the other side of this door.. so check to make sure it’s not barred on the other side too!”
Selm sighed, and quickly turned the cylinder so as to avoid further interruption.
Such is life when a 10 DC is all that is required to aid someone in a skill. It can be annoying to the player that invested so much into the skill, and it can be annoying to the GM, who planned the dungeon out with certain realisms in mind. So, How does one keep tension in the game with so many people having so many chances to succeed?
I have a few rules of thumb as to how to resolve different kinds of skill rolls and how to adjudicate them keeping the story in mind.
First, for keeping game balance in mind, there’s a difference between a ‘high’ DC on a skill check when one party member is rolling and a ‘high’ DC when an entire party is rolling.
So, when the rogue is stumbling from the bar, and spots scuff marks in the mud by the patio that’s a tough roll. If the rogue is rolling a spot skill by adding, say, 5 to a d20, then it’s reasonable to think that a 15 is a ‘hard’ DC, as it’s roughly 50/50. For a real tough roll, you might put down a DC of 20, for a success of about 75%. That’s totally different, however, if all 5 party members are rolling. If there are 5 peasants walking past with a 75% chance each to spot then as a group they have a 76.27% chance of success. Add one more peasant and they go up to a whopping 82.2%. The conclusion here is that the more people trying to hit a probably, the easier it becomes. So, my rule of thumb for rolling wherein a single character should succeed.. set the difficulty so that only about a quarter of the group *can* make the roll. If they entire group is great at the skill, just give it to them and keep the narrative rolling. On the other hand, if the group is entirely awful with the skill, give them a different way to get the evidence.
On the other hand, we have rolls wherein, say, a rogue makes a lockpicking skill and everyone else in the group starts making aid rolls. For my part, I simply allow only a single aid roll from the group. Otherwise it gets silly. In rare cases, when there may be a roll that most of the party can aid on, either make it hard, or distract with other rolls at the same time. So, it may be that the rogue is lockpicking, and our dwarven fighter friend reaches for his aid dice, call for a different, concurrent skill roll. If the character succeeds, give them some extra bit of information about the dungeon or it’s inhabitants. Likewise for each other character.
Adding dimensions to nonEncounters
Not every night on the trail is fraught with danger. Most are just quiet nights under the stars, huddled around a fire, often in new and unfamiliar terrain. Whereas nights of ambush feature heavily by the DM, most other nights ‘pass uneventfully’. Nights like that shouldn’t take up too much table time, but it can help immersion if ‘the night passes uneventfully’ actually includes some content. Here are a few things that I do (occasionally) in order to make the world more ‘real’.
In camp:
The dire squirrelThe characters have chosen a place to camp for the night. With a Spot {easy}, a character turns up a single, recent paw print that looks like it was left by a very large creature. An old bear, or maybe even a dire bear.
A nature DC {easy} the character misidentifies it as a fearsome creature. One that may be watching them from the shadows, even now.
A nature DC {moderate} the character recognizes the track as an unusual series of holes dug by squirrels (or woodchucks, or the like) looking for something to eat.
The Smoke Monster
The characters set up for the night. In the time after they settle down, but before heading to sleep, the characters sit around the fire telling jokes, reviewing their adventure so far or the like. Have the characters all roll a Charisma check (or some other ‘luck’ metric), the one rolling the worst is sitting such that the smoke from the fire is always blowing in their face. The smoke shifts only a few seconds after the character relocates. Any investigation of magical cause is inconclusive.
The scariest night encounter everThe characters have gone to sleep, whichever characters are left on watch roll a listen check. The highest roll can hear something suspicious in rustling in the bushes. Investigating the noise, one unlucky character comes upon an angry skunk. Do cone attacks follow? only the GM knows…
Crackling TreesThe sun rises, warming the forest after a cold night, as wood of the trees expands the trees produce a cacophony of strange popping and crackling noises from every direction.
Raccoon SwarmAt night whoever is on watch hears something moving about in the underbrush not far from camp. While investigating the sound, they hear something moving about the camp itself. Rushing back they see nothing immediately, but soon hear a noise in the brush again. Eventually the characters discover a pack slowly moving it’s way toward the woods, upon further inspection there is a raccoon dragging it away. Turns out there’s 12 or 13 of them in the woods, without fear trying to steal food from the group. Not dangerous, but they are certainly annoying. The characters may suffer some ill effects the following day. Being fatigued, or fatiguing more easily. They may also have issues if they were unable to protect their food from the raccoons.
Back in the saddle
So, after realizing I had little to say that wasn’t already being said, ad infinitum, I took a break, wondering if I had anything to contribute. I think I do, and what I’ll try to keep the focus of the blog on is as an aid for GMs, provide encounters. home rules, descriptions, and immersive tools that I use at that table. And for players, I’ll keep posts limited to the best part of the game, fluff. Hey, it’s why I play at the table instead of the screen.
GM vacation, Cool Combat: Looters on the Loose
How can I break out of my roll-for-initiative-charge-trade-blows swingfest?
One of the hardest parts of GMing is making combat interesting. The easiest way to do that is to have an objective other than killing the enemy. This is one way to do that.
The characters have all awoken, and are eating breakfast. Someone notices a goblin in the woods skulking about, but not being immediately threatening. If interacted with, the goblin will approach and through conversation try to lead the characters away from their camp. If attacked, the goblin runs. The camp has been surrounded by goblins, about one goblin for each party member. They remain hidden, and will reveal themselves one by one, running away from the campsite in different directions. While the characters are off chasing decoy goblins, the next to reveal themselves gets into the camp and begins stealing whatever they can. Once they’re noticed they take off running, hopefully giving the next goblin in line a chance at pilfering.
What makes the encounter memorable is the goblins can’t be standard goblins, since if they are they would just get cut down, it also allows for a combat encounter with a big share of RP potential. These goblins have very high armor class, moderately high hit points, and a hide skill to beat the band. Their AC should be in the range where the average roll in the party is hitting 25% of the time, and their HP should require two hits on average to kill. At second level they look roughly like this:
Normal Goblin, 22/23 AC, 25 HP, Hide (total score) + 15 , move the same as human
When I ran this encounter recently, I also granted these nasty little buggers regen: 1.
It’s important to remember not to beat the players with cleverness. This encounter should be frustrating for the characters, not the players. At the end of the encounter, some goblins should have survived and escaped, some of the players equipment is missing, but not too much. The other caveat is that this can’t happen too often or you’ll end up with characters huddled under ponchos never taking off their backpacks.