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Aug 31, 2012 -- 3:13AM, Pashalik_Mons wrote:

Aug 31, 2012 -- 3:08AM, Valdark wrote:

Well Brightmantle is asking me to DM but I am aching to just play. I am DM 99.9 percent of the time. I got to be a player for two sessions in the last 6 years. But I can take the reigns if nobody else is up for it.

I'll make you a deal, Mike.  You DM the Knights' first playtest, through the whole adventure, and I'll do the second.

Deal, on a couple of conditions. 

1. You confer with the other Knights an get everyone to start on their characters.  

2. Nobody is to tell anyone but me what they made prior to play.  

3. Make sure everyone provides motivations and goals.

Make any backstory you want.  Any cultrue is acceptable.   Any background story can and will be encorporated into my adventure.  I craft around my players so I will need all of the characters before I begin weaving the plot. 

Let everyone know that there are no rails so if you go off the map I will be prepared.   

The basic skill structure looks like a fairly workable list, but I'm really not sure about teh use of "History".  I think it would be better to have a heading of "General Knowledge" or something like that along with an admission that this is an area for the GM to add whatever setting related knowledge skills are needed.  Thecnically this would allow it to step on the toes of arcane lore and religious lore, but history skills will do that to some extent anyway.

Aug 31, 2012 -- 6:43AM, yarnevk wrote:

Aug 31, 2012 -- 12:14AM, Valdark wrote:

Leveling the monsters also changes the adventure. I see no difference here. If you don't feel they are enough why not just tag on level appropriate damage and skills and call them the same creature? If you don't feel that the bounded accuracy creatures work what in the system prevents you from doing this?

The simple fact that leveled rules for monsters do not exist because monsters are not supposed to be leveled?  That it is suspected that the monster devs do not even have internal leveling rules and are making it up as they go along? 

Leveling the creature does not change the experience of the adventure, it preserves the same odds had the PC played it at level as written.  An extra story line that 'your patron asked you to go here five levels ago and you failed too meant the monsters in the meantime killed more adventurers and townfolk and got really good at killing so do not expect it to be easymode', is not really changing the storyline anymore than selecting which hook you use to get them there is part of the storyline.  Saying the goblins hired a horde of orcs or brought in another goblin for every level even if it fills every square in the room is a storyline change, which is OK to do on DM option, but he needs a way to keep it on level with the same number of players on stage with the same odds.

This is an issue for skills since originally 5e skills where not even going to exist, then ended up existing but not going to be leveled, then they ended up being leveled, and now you are making skill and levels more complex to bring back some earlier edition playstyle.  The misconception about 4e is that it leveled skills, instead it was leveling abilities since skills are just bonuses to ability checks.  If you level skills instead of abilities I don't really know what the rule is, since the DM is not going to pretend the monster is a PC.  So if you are coming up with rules for PC leveling skills, then you need to consider rules for the monsters.

In 4e it was easy +/-1 skills every +/-2 lvls, for both PC and monster, there are simple formulas for bringing someone up to lvl on both sides of the screen using published math that contains the variable level for each stat in the block. 

Most published adventures I have played or read include some ultimate goal that you have to prevent from occurring.  If your PCs aren't there to save the day something bad is supposed to happen.  The storyline should change dramatically if they ignore the quest and go another way.

What happens to the town you start in when the goblins continue kidnapping and raiding stores?   Or when the dark priest gets to complete his spell?

Unless you want to keep the adventure in a level appropriate vacuum you absolutely have to change things.  Whether that change is more creatures, leved monsters, destroyed villages, murdered hostages, or an empty dungeon is up to you as a DM.  If you want the exact same thing but at higher level you will still have work to do. 

I prefer the world to evolve around PC decisions rather than sit static awaiting their arrival. 

Aug 31, 2012 -- 4:59AM, PrawnPower wrote:

The basic skill structure looks like a fairly workable list, but I'm really not sure about teh use of "History".  I think it would be better to have a heading of "General Knowledge" or something like that along with an admission that this is an area for the GM to add whatever setting related knowledge skills are needed.  Thecnically this would allow it to step on the toes of arcane lore and religious lore, but history skills will do that to some extent anyway.

That is not a bad suggestion. I think the General Knowledge heading is indeed appropriate. 

Sep 1, 2012 -- 1:08PM, Valdark wrote:

I never said I didn't like leveling monsters.  I said I like that I don't have to.
Just because it isn't provided doesn't make it impossible.  
The skill leveling for PCs is actually a good guideline.  
Add 1pt/2lvs to existing monster skills.  Don't exceed 7 prior to stat mod.  
 

And you dont have to lvl monsters in 4e, the point is that it is one of many options so the DM can change the adventure to fit the story they want to tell, so don't remove the option.  It needs to be part of a proposed skills system revamp, use it or not people need to know how to lvl up monsters consistently, this should not be a house rule.

Even 4e is inconsistent between errata and hardbounds it gets confusing, and it is absent from essentials.  Even DDI does it differently due to lazy coders, you are supposed to level your stat header and ignore abilities per the books since they are not used in contests with PCs (it is only DM RP informative). But lvl it up in DDI it also levels abilities then rederives the stat block combined with the lvlup of the stat block. The ability leveling for monsters is similar to PC occuring at similar levels but not always the same.  Not sure if that is intentional or bugged as I do not see this documented elsewhere, clearly the coder was lazy and instead of picking the top two ability at every fourth lvl he leveled all the abilities. This means your non perceptive monsters might very well get perception bump of +3 on a simple level up, which no longer makes them below average on that stat.

I simply go with DDI's version on the theory it is the most core rule of them all, it is just too easy to lvlup and reprint and not have to go in and edit each stat.   But not everyone will have a 5e DDI if it exists, so it needs to be in the printed rules.