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3 years ago ::
Apr 14, 2010 - 9:21AM
#41
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2009
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One thing I seriously consider when DMing is giving free rituals at times. For example, if the benefit is largely RP or the benefit is minor, I tend to have the NPCs/employer/etc. make the casting free. It encourages casting rituals without the player worrying that they might waste the gold.
One thing I do with players when I DM and my group in general does as well, is that there is a gold cap in every mod. However, there is many times and most times ways for the PCs to put their hands on more gold than the cap. I let PC's fund their rituals out of the excess gold they find. I also let them negotiate with NPCs for an up front payment to cover expenses for the quest or to sell things to earn money in the mod, if it comes down to it, with the understanding that they can't take more that the gold cap out of the mod.
The byproduct of staving off some of the ritual expenses has also been that the Players are now spending a lot more gold on rituals, taking rituals as treasure bundles, and taking player reward card for rituals in other books.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 15, 2010 - 6:48AM
#42
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2004
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Spoiler:
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I believe there have been several such flooded passages in previous adventures -- in skill challenges. I've never seen a party burn 135 gold just to bypass an endurance check or two in a skill challenge.
If the adventure is going into the Sea of Fallen Stars or Waterdeep Harbor, that's one thing. But do adventuring parties normally cast water breathing / waterborn every time they come to a flooded passage that they have to travel through?
Unless there's some expectation that the party is going to need to remain underwater for longer than they can hold their breath, I wouldn't expect anyone to start trotting out their ritual components.
In SPEC 2-1 P1 in particular, the party is (A) under time pressure and (B) I believe they know or can infer that the creatures they are tracking aren't aquatic and probably aren't staying underwater very long. This situation doesn't particularly suggest that one ought to spend 10 minutes to cast water breathing. Did the parties who cast these waterbreathing rituals had some sort of hint from the DM that combat was imminent? (Either explicitly or implicitly, i.e asking the characters to place themselves on the battlemap....)
I'm not necessarily suggesting that it's wrong of the DM to hint at this, given that the combat has the potential to be very grindy if a party doesn't prepare for it. Grindy combats tend not to maximize fun. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that if a DM simply puts the party in the situation as given in the adventure, the party may just dive into the water expecting a skill challenge.
Spoiler:
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We had a watersoul genasi scout ahead. He reported the tunnel was more than a couple hundred feet long, and my 9 Strength gnome was not confident he could swim that.
John du Bois
Living Forgotten Realms Writing Director, Netheril story area
Follow me on The Twitter: @JohnduBois
Follow my presence on The Intertubes: johncdubois.wordpress.com
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 3:58AM
#43
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Date Joined:
Aug 21, 2007
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My philosophy as an author, editor and DM is to provide some opportunity for PCs who ask questions and do a little research before an adventure to gain some advantage, i.e. reward smart play. Spoiler:
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The Dungeon of the Inquisitor is right next to a major river so a small amount of thought might suggest there will be a fair chance of some flooded tunnels. The appendix was included in SPEC2-1 to help DM answer questions from the PCs. If intended as an outright handout, it would have been labeled a handout. Results from the playtesting suggested the waterbreathing was not necessary to win that encounter, but it obviously provided some relief. Keith
Keith Hoffman
LFR Writing Director for Waterdeep
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 4:22AM
#44
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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Spoiler:
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Keith, waterbreathing may not be required but without it that fight can turn into a TPK if the party's endurance isn't up to making a DC 20 check every time they are hit. Losing a surge when you fail that endurance check from being hit can wipe out nearly every surge a party has before they even finish the fight if everyone remembers to do the check every time they are hit. Required no, but a good chance of TPK without it if you have a party with moderately low endurance skills.
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 5:30AM
#45
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Spoiler:
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Keith, waterbreathing may not be required but without it that fight can turn into a TPK if the party's endurance isn't up to making a DC 20 check every time they are hit. Losing a surge when you fail that endurance check from being hit can wipe out nearly every surge a party has before they even finish the fight if everyone remembers to do the check every time they are hit. Required no, but a good chance of TPK without it if you have a party with moderately low endurance skills.
Maybe, but not when I run that fight during the playtest and except for the wizard no PC was trained in Endurance. It is not as if HS are that much of a limited resource. My players liked the fact that it finally really mattered whether or not they were trained at Athletics and/or Endurance. They certainly were not at a TPK risk during that fight.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 6:22AM
#46
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Date Joined:
Oct 19, 2008
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Healing surges are a limited resource, especially so for those who start with only 7 or 8 for the day, those are the same people who are likely going to suck at endurance checks. And any defender doing his job in that fight is going to be getting hit several times per round making a DC20 endurance check every time even they stand a chance to lose a lot of surges, or all if they don't have a huge con.
Either way, it stands to be a really bad situation for some parties.
Blah blah blah
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 6:45AM
#47
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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Spoiler:
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My fighter was hit at least 10 times that fight, between the monsters and trap. Even trained, he's +10 to Endurance, so without the Water Breathing ritual we had he'd have averaged 5 more surges lost. On top of the 3-4 I spent from getting damaged, I'd have had next to nothing left in the tank.
And especially with stuff like rechargable area burst 2 attacks, a ranged 5 that can pull you through 3 trap squares, the total number of attack rolls vs the PCs can add up quickly.
Our DM missed that the monsters were all immune to forced movement, which really cut down on the hits we were taking. (Come and Get It and a Hungry Blade Standard racked up a considerable amount of damage and dazing by forcing the monsters through the traps.) Without that error in our favor, I'd have probably been hit another 10 times before all was said and done.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 16, 2010 - 9:27AM
#48
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2009
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@Keith53 - Everyone has a different philosophy, but why wouldn't the philosophy be to reward the players that took Ritual X, but making sure there was a more direct way for that character to know to apply Ritual X in the module? This way we reward a player for buying Ritual X directly instead of rewarding directly the player knowledgeable in geology and indirectly the player with Ritual X.
Satirically, if the current philosophy is going to be that if a location is close to a geographical boundry of a naturally occuring phenomenon, then as a DM it would be helpful if we had geological maps of the area to better determine the stratification of rock and/or soil composition so that I can bring to bear my 15 unit hours of geology training from college better.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 17, 2010 - 4:29AM
#49
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Date Joined:
Jul 29, 2003
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On the water breathing ritual: Spoiler:
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I've run this mod seven times now, and I think I've seen all levels of ritual use, from no rituals at all and track every hit with endurance checks, to Water Breathing, to Waterborn, to a magic item that allowed its wearer to swim and ignore all the water effects. I had no TPKs, and I believe only one PC death. The biggest difference in the combat was the amount of time it took. The rituals sped the combat up as we didn't have to track the negative effects that were happening.
The parties without the rituals cast were worried about surges and had a real fear of death. In my opinion they were the most fun tables to run, as the players remember it as having overcome a great challenge and living to tell the tale.
I know I'll take flack for this: The parties with the rituals, well, let's just say that at all of those tables two or more players had already played and/or run the adventure. They knew about the time issue and that they could get away with casting one ritual without any effects, but then made sure everyone else kept to a strict time regimen. (I distinctly remember smelling chedder at the table.)
Herrbard
a.k.a. Dan Erbacher
Old, bald and tired.
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3 years ago ::
Apr 17, 2010 - 6:42AM
#50
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The biggest impediment, however, is the casting cost. That's what just kills ritual use. The average PC doesn't like the cost of magical ammo... they are beyond not liking what a ritual costs... especially when you know there is an alternative way to achieve victory. The periodic threat of a mod where it would have really been useful is an insufficient incentive.
Especially is you can be all but sure that there always will be a helpfull NPC to case the really important rituals for you if no one else can.
E.g. lately I was playing MOON 1-7. Upon reading the short blurb I was expecting underwater action and since I didn't yet know any water-breathing rituals I bought Water's Gift and cast it in the cause of the adventure. So that's 1,100 gp (1,000 for the ritual and 400gp divided through for PCs sharing the cost). While it was indeed helpful during the adventure I just needed to satisfy my curiosity and after the adventure asked the DM how a party without such a ritual would have proceeded in the adventure. He just told me that the NPC we rescued just before the point where the ritual was needed would have cast it on the party for free to thank for the recuse.
That would have been +1,100 gp more for me and +100 gp for anyone else. I don't mind it, since I am a sucker for learning new rituals, but I can easily see how such an experience might discourage other from ever going out of their way to learn a new rituals in preparation for future adventures
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