Keeping up the challenge and interest

I said something like this in the other thread, but will repeat here.

I feel that to make encounters challenging without making them a grind (i.e. adding more creatures, increasing stamina, increasing defenses, etc.) is to add other things to do in combat. This has several key effects:

1) It gives characters without high combat abilities something to do to contribute
2) It takes characters away from the ‘fighting’ part of the encounter (Which has a net effect of lowering damage to the creatures)
3) It adds a sense of urgency to an encounter

For instance, in an encounter where you need to kill the demons who are about to sacrifice the girl…
1) Current Way (This is just for illustrative purposes): Characters arrive on the seen, the demons and cultists stop what they are doing and combat ensues. Everyone focuses on killing the bad guys.

2) Proposed Way: Characters arrive on the seen. The cultists send the demons after the characters. The cultists proceed with the sacrifice by surrounding themselves with wards and chanting while the girl is shackled to the table. Now, the ‘fighters’ can deal with the demons, the ‘rogue types’ can unlock the girl’s manacles, and the ‘casters’ can unravel the thread on the cultists castings. Perhaps at least 3 of the cultists need to be unraveled and the girl needs 2 of her bindings unlocked in order for her not to die in say 12 ticks….now you have a very dynamic combat that’s challenging but hasn’t added to the ‘grind’ feel of just hacking through a group of demons and cultists.

John

This is a topic of interest to me since, in a world largely without limited resources, there is no impact from one encounter to the next. You never worry about spells/healing running low. Worse its actually really hard to “grind” since each combat is binary. You either are victorious and emerge at full health or you are defeated. It is hard to safely escalate from any given encounter that is already challenging.

In this game, now, the limited resources you have are Fate and Wounds. There is a huge thread on Fate. No one is suggesting more wounds need to be dealt. What does that leave?

We are still trying to figure that out. John’s summation that adding noncombat “problems” is pretty much the best idea we’ve had.

We are still trying to figure that out. John’s summation that adding noncombat “problems” is pretty much the best idea we’ve had.

I agree wholeheartedly as long as the party is required to be built a certain way to have a successful encounter.

There are always “Fate Points for Do the Impossible” if you are lacking something. And the Module writers can have ‘alterantive’ ways (Maybe a series of Knowledge (Arcanum) checks instead).

John

people like you?

I think that from previous posts there was a general consensus that the current format of encounters does have that binary outcome an that it was unlikely to change without changing the format of encounters which is fine in a home game but less so in one in which the encounter has been scripted by a module writer (and sometimes even included scripted actions). So how have GMs been providing that challenge within the constraints of running within the campaign? Do they just run it as it is out the box or do they change it at all?

Could we have a competition for short module writing? Must include a non combat challenge, a combat challenge and an environmental encounter? Prizes (well….kudos from us) for the most varied an interesting one that actually has a coherrent plot and draws in player drawbacks and backgrounds?

I had had seen it but had thought it just an example template so hadn’t looked beyond that.

people like you?

well I felt it unfair to call out certain groups of people, so I made myself a target. Its probably a egocentric thing, but I would feel disingenuous if I didn’t.

Take the group of people some of their characters are combat monsters, some of their characters are virtuosos of diplomacy, but their characters excel at something vital to the game, something cohesive that’s not just a skill, but a set of skills talents items and ideology. (before anyone starts yelling at me, I think most of the players I’ve met, fall into this category)

That group of people are not usually that challenged by the baseline provided in the mod, something different needs to be done to challenge those folks. Raising all their defenses by 2, is a good start (man I feel stupid for arguing with Pedro about this along time ago) Making them hit harder is important also.

The problem is these things you call “cheating”, I don’t. Cheating is what players do, and when they do it, they mostly harm themselves. What a Chronicler does is provide you with a challenge. (mind you this is a different mindset than an environment with limited resources)

Fun fact: Mob tactics sometimes works a bit differently at my tables, instead of +2 to hit and damage, I add +1 to hit and damage for each enemy in the mob. Mind you you have to use it with a light touch.

I feel that its the “sacred” duty of a chronicler to use the right tools for the right job, sometimes that job is to use an encounter to advance a story element, sometimes an encounter is supposed to distract, sometimes an encounter is supposed to beat the daylight of the heroes.

I remember fondly, an instance where I had a party of top notch players, that were cake walking through a trapped maze portion, and I made up a trap just to scare the daylights out of a player (it was either that or just sit there for 10-15 minutes) I used a false floor to dump him into a dark pit trap that was magically silenced and the pit door reset and wouldn’t activate again.

Sorry that might be a bit of a ramble but i want to leave on a note of apology:

Ironically, the fact that I do this means that I notice it a lot easier, particularly when the mod is using some sort of weird modified rules, and I tend to get grumpy about it. I like to think when i meander off to deal with it, people don’t notice but they probably do and I’m sorry.