4-29-08

d20 Advaced Preview #6

I've talked quite a bit about what's in d20 Advanced for the players, but not so much about how it reaches out to the GM. And d20 Advanced does have quite a few nice tools for helping a GM to run the game. The one I'll focus on today is the system used to create encounters of a specific, desired difficulty for the players.

You start by deciding how difficult of an encounter you want it to be. Is it going to be a complete pushover, where the characters are in no danger to speak of, or is this going to be a difficult encounter which the players are going to need to struggle to succeed? A Danger Rank of  is an encounter with such a small threat that the characters are very unlikely to lose, and you know that it will not be difficult for them to succeed (or very long, for that matter). An encounter challenging enough to be considered "average" would have a Danger Rank of . Truly difficult encounters, which require tremendous luck or fantastic play and strategy on the part of the players would be Danger Rank .

From the Danger Rank and the size of the party, you can determine from there how many enemies you can to throw at them, and just how powerful you can make those different enemies. For example, if your players have characters at Power Level 8, you might have four PL 8 enemies for them to face, or two at PL 10, or one at PL 12. The system allows you to customize an encounter very easily to your party's power level and the exact level of challenge you want from that particular encounter.  What's nice about this is that it allows you to scale encounters to your party with ease, and create them from scratch just as easily while knowing that the encounter will generally be appropriate for the level of danger you want to expose your group to.

The reason d20 Advanced went in this direction is that with a character creation system as flexible as d20 Advanced's, it's incredibly difficult to predict what sorts of challenges would be appropriate for characters of all levels. The game enables players to create wildly different types of characters, and it should enable the GM to come up with adequate challenges for them. The power level concept is helpful for quickly approximating the capability of characters and NPCs. Coupled with the concept of Danger Rank and this system, power level lets you quickly determine how a challnege will stack up against your players.

Next time, I'm going to talk about the other half of this system: the NPC Archetypes and Templates, which allow you to take those raw power levels for NPC enemies and turn them into fleshed-out enemies with different roles in an encounter in less than five minutes.

-JK

4-26-08

d20 Advanced Preview #5

My friend once played a ranger who must've dropped out of ranger school in his sophomore year. Seriously. He didn't know anything about nature (other than an intuitive understanding from Survival), he couldn't hear an elephant coming from a mile away (even though he could probably see it with his ranks in Spot), and for some odd reason, a forest-dwelling elven ranger didn't even know how to climb trees. Naturally, this had us all convinced that he was a slacker-ranger, joking and snickering at his expense.

But, while funny, this wasn't helping the game move along very much. We had a ranger who was being played like a real gung-ho, crafty forest warrior who couldn't climb a freaking tree. It was like our GM's serious campaign about rebelling against an evil overlord had fallen flat on its face and became a comedy about Bumbles the Ranger and his Band of Snickering Friends.

This ranger was one of the characters who I had in mind while I was writing the non-proficiency rules for d20 Advanced. Here's how they work (in a nutshell): a character who doesn't have any ranks in an appropriate skill for a particular challenge (such as our ranger who wants to climb a tree not having any ranks in Athletics against all possible logic) may instead substitute half of his or her ranks in another skill (rounded down) to attempt the check non-proficiently. So while our ranger might not have any ranks in Athletics, he does have 6 ranks in Survival (Forest). And as a ranger, the GM agrees that it makes sense that he would have learned at least the basics for scaling trees while he was learning how to get by in the forest. However, the non-proficient skill-check is still modified by his normal ability for climbing (Strength for Athletics), which in this case is only +1. So instead of having a measly +1 bonus to Athletics checks for climbing, the ranger did learn a few things about climbing trees, so he has a more-respectable +4 bonus to his check to climb the tree.

This sort of rule helps players who are new to a game and who might not be fully aware of what a particular skill means, and players who might otherwise feel overwhelmed by the breadth of options available during character creation. It's harder to make a crippled character in this way, as a player is unlikely to come across a situation which his or her character should be able to handle thematically, but isn't able to because of poor skill choices. It still doesn't allow these characters to steal the thunder of other characters who are specialized in the area, but it does allow them to get by when appropriate. (Emphasis should be placed on “appropriate”, however, as the GM likely isn't going to allow a desert nomad who's never seen water deep enough to reach his ankles to use a skill non-proficiently to swim.)

It also helps to keep the entire party involved in non-combat encounters. For instance, even if only one member of the group has ranks in skills like Persuasion, the rest of the party can still help negotiate with a crime-lord by making checks non-proficiently. Maybe the detective in the group uses some of his Expertise (Crime) to hint at how fast he could have a warrant for the crime-lord's arrest, and the tough guy could put his fist through a wall with Might to intimidate the crime-lord, or the hacker could speculate on how easy it'd be to empty the crime-lord's bank account with his ranks in Technology. All of those checks would be modified by Charisma, and all of them would be made at half-ranks, but it does allow those characters to contribute to the encounter beyond simply standing around. The face-man in the party with Persuasion is still far-and-away the specialist, and he's treated as such thanks to his high ranks in Persuasion, and he'll still make or break the encounter, but the rest of the party gets to contribute too. Nobody has to sit this one out.

-JK

d20 Advanced Preview #4

A roleplaying game should help you make the character you want. It shouldn't make it harder. One of the areas where d20 Advanced takes this to heart is with the revised skill system. The thing I most wanted to accomplish with the skill system was to help make task resolution a little more unified. To perform any particular task (whether it's swinging a sword, building a computer, or lifting a crate), you make a skill check.

Most of this is old hat for many gamers out there. It's one of the benefits of a skill system: providing a unified way for players to decide how good at different tasks their characters are as well as providing a way to resolve different challenges in-game. However, there's a two-fold danger inherent in skill systems such as this as well.

First, skill systems serve to remove a player an extra step from the game. Rather than describing a character's attempt to disarm a bomb, for example, a skill check can replace it. So instead of, "Okay, so I'll unscrew the panel under the controls, trace the wires from the timer to the detonator, and then cut the red wire," you're more likely to get, "I got a 24 on my check. Does that disarm the bomb?" Whether this is good or bad depends heavily on how much focus you want to give such things in your game. Obviously a character with many ranks in a skill has a better understanding of how to perform that skill than the average player, but isn't it good to involve the player's reasoning and problem-solving into the game too?

The other problem that these sorts of skill systems often cause stems from having skills which are too narrow, leading to problems with characters who seem to be missing critical skills which, realistically, they should have, such as an auto mechanic who can rebuild an engine in a day, but can't tell you which piece is the piston pin.

d20 Advanced's approach to skills attempts to resolve this by making skills broad in general. Rather than there being a skill for building electronic devices and a skill for using computers and a skill for answering questions about technology in general. Instead, there's a “Technology” skill which covers all of these things. Since d20 Advanced attempts to recreate more heroic characters from popular media, who tend to be well-versed in an entire skill-set rather than just individual aspects of it, this works well. It also encourages players to use their heads and think about how to apply their skills. If the character needs to get past a guard dog with a keen sense of smell, a character might use Survival (Forest) to know what plants or mud he can use to mask his scent, or he might use Acrobatics to scurry by overhead in the branches, or maybe just Infiltration to keep his distance and stay upwind from the animal. Since all skills have a Knowledge component (rather than knowledge being a separate skill), these are all valid approaches.

There's another aspect of skills that I'll talk about next time that helps make the even broader, and helps to include all characters in skill-related challenges: non-proficient skill checks.

-JK

4-20-08

d20 Advanced Preview #3

What's the easiest way to encourage people to do cool stuff? Reward them for it, for one. And be sure that it's actually relatively easy to do cool stuff.

This is where maneuvers enter the picture. Other games out there allow for special combat maneuvers like tripping, grappling, or making wild swings with a sword. However, many games also use different methods to resolve each maneuver. On one hand, using different resolutions for each maneuver allows one to very easily establish a different feel for different maneuvers. A more intense maneuver, such as grappling, can feel that way to the player if it involves multiple steps, where something could go wrong at any time.

However, d20 Advanced takes a different approach. All maneuvers use a similar method of making an opposed skill check to determine whether or not the maneuver succeeds. In this way, the system allows for many more maneuvers than most systems with hard-wired in do. For example, if you want to use a maneuver to take a temporary trade-off by dropping your Attack bonus to improve your Defense, you could use Acrobatics as the opposed check to represent incredible agility to dodge attacks, or Perception to predict an enemy's attacks and react accordingly, or even use something like Persuasion to fake out an opponent out and throw her attack off.

This system of maneuvers is more option-driven, allowing a player to pick and choose what to inflict on an enemy. There are a few basic options, like Gaining Combat Advantage (see my entry from yesterday), taking a temporary Trade-Off (for yourself or to help an ally), or taking a weapon away from your foe with a Disarm. You can also use these maneuvers to affect multiple people at once (like gaining combat advantage by tripping a group of foes you rip the rug out from under).

So what does this mean for a player who wants to try cool things? It's actually pretty easy to do, especially when tied to the Combat Advantage system I talked about last time. Maybe you want to try sliding down the banister of a long staircase to hit the enemy harder with the flying kick you want to launch at the end. If your Acrobatics check to stay balanced overcomes the enemy's Reflex check to react in time to your daring maneuver, you can take that +2 Damage / -2 Defense trade-off this round. Or maybe you want to pick up a chair and use it to parry your enemy's attacks, using a Might check opposed by your opponent's Might check to heft the piece of furniture and gain a +2 bonus to Defense but a -2 penalty to attack. Or what if you want to throw sand in your enemy's eyes and Gain Combat Advantage by nearly blinding him? If you succeed at your Persuasion check to play possum until the last possible second, and your opponent fails his Perception check to see through your ruse, you manage to catch him by surprise and throw sand in his eyes, and now you've got combat advantage.

-JK

4-19-08

d20 Advanced Preview #2

Okay, quick: What was the bonus for being on high ground again? The penalty for fighting while prone? How hard am I to hit while I'm grappling with an enemy?

As I discussed last time, one of the things that d20 Advanced tries to accomplish is to establish clear, unified guidelines for how to handle different situations and conditions in one go. One such condition, and the fourth condition track in the game, is referred to as the combat advantage track. "Combat advantage" is sort of a catch-all term for you being able to put your foe in an unfavorable position during a fight. Did you knock somebody off-balance? You've got combat advantage. Put your enemy in a headlock? Combat advantage. Got the high ground? Combat advantage. And even for strange questions like getting a handful of sand thrown in your eye, the answer can still be “combat advantage”. While it might be more realistic to assign different modifiers for each and every individual tactical situation that a player might encounter, it's also much more difficult to track and remember all those different modifiers (as I suggested above). For players sitting around the table, the concept of combat advantage allows a GM to very quickly resolve what happens with even the strangest of situations without slowing the game down.

And what's more, combat advantage is tiered similar to the conditions I described last time. The bigger your advantage, the more penalties your foe suffers. At its lowest level, your opponent gets a -2 penalty to Defense. At its highest, your foe is denied his Defense modifier against all enemies.

In addition to just imposing penalties, combat advantage is the condition which many different abilities require to function. Sneak attack, for example, can only be used against targets you have combat advantage over. Similarly, d20 Advanced has a Flaw which only allows an FX to work against foes you have combat advantage over. This is used to represent an ability or attack which requires an opening to use successfully. This mechanic can just as easily represent a specific attack which a swordsman can only use against a foe who is off-balance as it can a vampire's ability to bite a foe unable to adequately defend him or herself as it can a superhero's ability to drain energy from enemies who the hero grabs hold of.

It's this versatility of application that makes combat advantage a favorite of mine. A simple, easy-to-remember and easy-to-use mechanic can easily and comfortably be applied to dozens of different scenarios. Next time, I'll tell you about the Maneuvers system, and how you actually gain combat advantage.

-JK

4-18-08

d20 Advanced Preview #1

What's in a penalty? What's in a bonus? They're a cornerstone of RPGs in general, a way for the GM to enforce a little bit of realism by making certain things harder for the characters to do, or granting them a bonus for the players making smart decisions. But there are two problems with the way these modifiers are historically presented in RPGs.

First, modifiers need to find the middle ground between being sigificant enough that they impact the game and being so massive that they overwhelm everything else. A -1 penalty to defense doesn't mean much if you've got a +19 bonus already. Similarly, if the bonus from having the high ground means that you double your attack bonus, the game is going to devolve into a rush to jump on the table before everyone else.

Second, modifiers for conditions are usually diverse, with each condition affecting completely different things for completely different values. On one hand, this can be helpful to make all the conditions meaningful and unique. On the other, it's a pain in the butt to try to remember what the penalties for being sickened are versus what the penalties for being frightened. This tends to result in much page-flipping while the players stop play to figure out just what their penalty means.

But this method does have the advantage of being self-balanced, that the different conditions, while affecting different abilities, are all generally similar in the overall affect average characters will suffer. d20 Advanced takes this advantage and makes it easier to determine exactly what sort of modifiers should be associated with a condition on the fly with a series of simple condition tracks (which are based on an FX in the book). Three of these tracks (Action, Check, and Movement) allow someone constructing a new condition to decide exactly what sorts of penalties a condition should inflict (for example, a time stop effect penalizing a character's actions and movement as the character moves more slowly). Further, since the tracks always progress in the same way, book-flipping is greatly reduced. The unified progression also means that a GM can come up with penalties for various environmental conditions or diseases or poisons incredibly easily. Need a cloud of deadly poison gas? Let's have it apply a penalty to all non-combat skills and Fortitude resistance.

Next time, I'll describe a fourth condition track which rewards smart tactical play and unifies conditions like Flanking, High Ground, and even maneuvers like Grappling and Tripping: Combat Advantage.

-JK