My fireball problem

My fireball problem (in B/X) is the fact that, in wilderness adventuring, the magic-user (MU) can destroy most encounters with a single fireball.

Facing another MU is deadly: he can cause a TPK with a single fireball. 

The fighter will probably survive, but so wounded that the magic-user now has a decent chance of finishing him with a dagger (if the fighter can close in right after the fireball; otherwise, a magic missile could finish the job). 

MUs are also very susceptible to fireballs, so if two MUs are fighting, it boils down to "whoever wins initiative wins the duel".

In addition, fireballs are recovered every day - while the HP lost takes days or weeks. 

So the magic-user is likely to have his fireball prepared at any time (if you roll for encounters once a day - more than that feels strange to me), but the fighter may be wounded from previous encounters.

I do not think I'm the only one to have this problem - the Rules Cyclopedia limits fireball damage at high levels, and AD&D has complex mechanics to allow for spell interrupting, and monsters with magic resistance.

There are no easy solutions here.

I think old school spells are just not balanced. And the MU is a glass cannon - does lots of damage but is incredibly fragile.

I suggested a system in Alternate Magic which limits fireball damage to 2d6 per spell level. The fireball is just as deadly, but a 10d6 fireball requires the same resources as a fifth level spell (e.g., you must spend your 5th level spell slot).

Come to think of it, maybe spell recovery should take a bit longer (if you're using 1d3 HP recovered per day). 

Maybe recover half level per day in spell slots?

So, a 6th-level could always recover at least one fireball per day, but not two, and definitely not all spells at once.

I don't know. Maybe I should just accept that I need to stick to an entire new magic system instead of trying to adapt old school Vancian spells.

P.S.: I have a similar problem with old school dragons and their breath weapons. 1d4 dragons causing 40 damage each... if the PCs lose initiative, they are (literally) toast before they can run. Dragon battles end in the first round unless one of the dragons save successfully. I might change dragon breath to 1d6 per HD to give their victims a better chance.

The BECMI reaction table

To be honest, I never paid much attention to the BECMI reaction table. 

I'm usually more interested in B/X and I thought that the BECMI table was just a needlessly convoluted version of the B/X table I liked, requiring multiple rolls to achieve the same result.

I was completely wrong, of course.

The part I overlooked is the asterisk. It explains in a succinct manner a  number of questions I had with B/X reactions:

- When do you use Charisma for reaction rolls?

- What happens in an "uncertain" result?

- What happens if the NPC is still uncertain after several rolls/actions?

It doesn't answer all questions of course, nor does it address all the issues I have with encounters, but it is a great starting point - probably much better than B/X.

It could probably be simplified to two rolls instead of three. Or to a single table with pone roll affecting the next, such as the Rules Cyclopedia (which also has a tendency towards hostility that I find appropriate for most monsters):

And as much as I dislike the number of rolls you need to create an encounter, I have to admit this "roll again" part has an interesting risk reward dynamic: 

"The NPC is obviously hostile, so what do we do?"

If we have something to offer, or a charismatic PC who can talk to him (in the same language), maybe negotiating is our best bet. Even if we do, however, there is a chance the NPC will suddenly use this opportunity to attack us!

And, of course, you only need one roll to start the encounter - further rolls depend entirely of the PCs actions. 

So you have cool "social mechanics" or even "roleplaying minigame", which is as interesting as combat - since it can also involve initiative, intimidation, role-playing AND "roll-playing" (or player skill AND character skill), languages, alignment, spells, etc.

And you can use this table regardless of your preferred D&D edition or OSR game.

These "social mechanics" are often and unjustly maligned in OSR circles - "just role-play it!" - but IMO these are great rules from a game that definitely has old school cred (Mentzer red box).

And, of course, this is just a refinement of a rule that was contained in the original D&D. 

Social mechanics are here from the start.

Additional reading:

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/11/confused-wolves.html

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-painful-procedure-of-random.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2017/09/social-skills-role-playing-versus-roll.html

https://www.leonatkinson.com/dd-monster-reaction-charts-compared/

How D&D 5e (XGtE) encounters succeed and fail at the same time

A small addendum to yesterday's post.

I used this table as an example:

This is only one the "swamp" tables in XGtE.  

There are always three: for low, mid and high-level encounters. Overall, I find them easy and decent enough if combined, and that is how they "succeed" - encounters are varied and appropriate for each terrain.

The first one contains, for example, "2d4 lizardfolk".

The table above is for high-level encounters, containing black dragons and yuan-ti instead.

But I noticed there is something missing in that high-level table...

A lizardfolk army!

Or a large group of orcs, a horde of zombies, etc.

Because this was the promise of 5e and bounded accuracy: "Low-level monsters would continue to be usable at higher level, as their attack bonus and AC would allow them to remain meaningful threats to player characters".

But these tables tell a different story: low level PCs fight goblins, high-level PCs fight adult dragons, and that is it.

This is a bad choice for a number of reasons:

- Makes the world feel fake as it revolves around the PCs.

- Robs the PCs of the opportunity to realize how stronger they got (remember when we had a hard time fighting goblins? Now we are fighting armies of them!).

- Feels unnatural and forced for the GM to have to introduce stronger and stronger monsters.

- Makes the PCs think that violence is always an option, as they'll seldom find monsters that are too tough for their current level.

- Robs the players of the opportunity of feeling overwhelmed and yearning for something they cannot get without effort - "we cannot face them now, but one day we'll get revenge against the goblin horde!".

I think it is conceivable to run a battle against an army in 5e, even if it would be much harder than OSR games, because the monsters are much more complex. The DMG even has a few suggestions to do that, which XGtE improves... but apparently doesn't fully use.

Now, I have never played 5e at such high levels - only three campaigns that ended on levels 5 to 10 and a few shorter ones. So please correct me if I'm wrong here.

My PCs did fight about a hundred skeletons once, but only about six at once (they were in a narrow spot). It went reasonably well.

I don't know why 5e gave up on this promise, betting instead in the repetitive process of fighting a dozen zombies at level 5 and a dozen revenants by level 15.

I think a world in which there are ALWAYS black dragons and zombies to be found in the swamps, and the PCs have to deal with them differently as they gain levels, is much more coherent, organic and fun.

Good generic wilderness encounter tables? (B/X vs. AD&D vs. 5e)

I've been analyzing the B/X wilderness encounter tables lately, and while I'll probably stick to that for now, I think since this blog talks about Basic, AD&D and (sometimes) 5e, one small observation is in order:

As often happens, the encounter tables in in B/X are oversimplified and the ones in AD&D are overcomplicated. 

And 5e got us beat again - but it took them a while!

Let me explain. 

The B/X wilderness encounter tables fit a couple of pages. While I love the fact that they are so slim, they produce strange results: dragons do not follow their natural habitats, there are too many dragon and basilisks, every result requires a sub-table, etc. 

There are (about) 96 possible results for each terrain, but many are repeated; dragons about happen 6% to 12% of the time.

AD&D, on the other hand, contains about a dozen pages of tables and sub-tables, using d100. 

You'd think they'd take the opportunity to organize all entries in single d100 table, but no, we have tables and sub-tables with incredible levels of detail; some monster will appear only 0.1% of the time.

It also has famous a sub-table to describe which type of prostitute appears if you ever find one...

[I'll ignore 2e, 3e and 4e for now because I haven't played them as much. From a  brief glance, 2e hasn't included such tables in the three core rulebooks, and 3e is even worse than 5e in forcing that encounters are adapted to the PC's needs. I'm guessing 4e is the same.].

5e did not even HAVE many random encounter tables at first - each table was part of a setting, which is fair enough if you're using a published setting - it only suggested you created your own and provided a small example, with about 20 entries and using 1d12+1d8 for some reason.

The tables included in the settings are often very good, but that's not what I am looking for. [BTW, this is why I haven't been analyzing random encounters in dungeons - I think these MUST be connected to each particular dungeon, and I simply cannot stomach a hill giant randomly appearing in a deep dungeon fro no reason].

Fortunately, Xanathar's Guide to Everything partially fixed that.

It contains simple d100 tables (simpler than AD&D but more complete than B/X) that list not only monsters but also number appearing - plus a few "cosmetic" encounters that don't really belong here (rain, "the sounds of drums", etc.).

Unfortunately, these tables are separated by CR, and are too slim unless combined.

This is a bad thing on principle - the world shouldn't conform to PC's level - and, combined with the existing tables, it is even worse - that means that past level 11 there is no more "rain" encounter but now there are "drums" for some reason (looking at the table above, I assume the yuan-ti like to play drums, but only when the PC's reach level 11).

Fortunately, you can integrate all these tables by adding another roll [e.g., "roll an extra d10, with 1-4: tier 1, 5-7: tier 2, 8-9: tier 3, 0: tier 4" - thank you Evan for commenting here!]

Maybe there is a game out there that uses the best of AD&D, BX and 5e. The tables in BFRPG look decent, but a bit slim. Dragons and rarer and appear in appropriate biomes! Yay!

I guess I could adapt my favorite bits from all these sources, but it is unlikely that no one else has compiled a better table... let me know in the comments!

Confused wolves

I've been obsessing over random encounters for the past few days and, after much tweaking and rewriting, I am having trouble getting past confused wolves.

When you roll in the reaction table, "uncertain, confused" is the most common result.  

It is also a kind of non-result, since it doesn't tell you anything about the creature's reaction - except, maybe that is has NO immediate reaction.

This is easy to interpret for humans and humanoids - they'd rather talk and evaluate before they do anything - but what does it mean for wild animals? Or even monsters?

An "uncertain, confused" results indicates your answer is not  in the reaction roll, but maybe somewhere else. 

Let's try some options.

Surprise - surprising and surprised beasts are more likely to attack, but only if they think they can win the fight. Invertebrates can attack anyway - if you step on an ant hill or disturb wasps, they will not be afraid of your size.

Morale - testing morale to see if the creatures have the courage to approach or attack is interesting, but doesn't tell you if they are hostile and lead to unlikely results because the morale check usually doesn't take into account if the creatures are powerful or outnumbered.

Alignment - This is something I've seen in Dragon Quest but in no other D&D games. Most animals are neutral; chaotic and lawful ones have the label for a reason.

This is an aspect that deserves more attention; some creatures should just be more aggressive than others.

Monster description - sometimes the book will tell you how the creatures act. But this is rare.

Some descriptions are vague. "Have been know to attack humans". So what? Does it give it a penalty to reaction? Does it attack differently from other creatures if you roll "immediate attack"? You have to decide for yourself, but it is something.

Other descriptions are useless for this purpose. Displacer beasts hate blink dogs and vice-versa, but since PCs are unlikely to be accompanied by either, this is useless 99% of the time. How do they feel about humans?

Roll for goals - you can easily find random tables that will they you if the wolves are starved, semi-domesticated, migrating, mating, hunting, protecting cubs, etc. (my own Teratogenicon has some suggestions).

This is useful if you're creating an encounter beforehand, but for immediate use at the table, it requires more rolling for no obvious benefit. How do the PCs know if the wolves are hungry? Also, doesn't tell us how do hungry wolves act.

We shouldn't default to "they attack" - in fact, hungry wolves might be desperate enough to befriend the PCs, especially if they offer food.

"Do nothing" - Maybe "they do nothing" is the most obvious answer. So, it is up to the PC's to choose how to act. This would be a good idea, giving players more choice. However...

For NPCs, there is room for talk (and, unfortunately, REPEATING the reaction roll, maybe with Charisma and other modifiers). Even if they threaten, ignore, or lie to NPCs, there could be consequences.

But what about animals? It is likely that PCs do nothing in return. The wolves are confused, why would we attack them, or feed them?

If we can kill or ignore them with no consequences, why do we care?

The fact that wild animals hardly attack humans (let alone groups of humans) does not help much.

In short, an "uncertain" reaction roll turned your encounter into scenery. "In the second day, there is some light rain and you spot some wolves at a distance...".

By itself, this is no problem - except for the number of rolls (encounter, distance, surprise, reaction, etc.) and decisions the GM has to make to get there (and "there" is basically "nowhere").

 

Small 5e note

In a surprising turn of events, one of the latest WotC D&D books (BPGG) might have better reaction rules than (my beloved) B/X... 

After years without a proper reaction system, WotC added a simple and neat one in the Giant's book. It is similar to B/X, but instead of rolling 2d6, you roll 1d8, 1d4+1, 1d12, etc., depending on the creature encountered.

It is such an obvious solution. We could just add a hostile/friendly bonus to each encounter, or to each monster. 

Maybe with alignment: "Chaotic (-2)" means -2 to the reaction roll, but adding it to encounters would be even better - some creatures are more hostile in some environments, situations, etc. 

It would require some work, but would be immensely useful in play. For now, I can just use -1 for chaotic encounters and +1 for SOME lawful ones (maybe Rocs NEVER attack humans immediately? I don't know).

 

Solutions?

Let's use the fact that "uncertain" is the most common result to solve that.

Maybe each monster has a few instincts. For most beasts, the instinct is to ignore the PCs unless they look like invaders or prey. Some monsters instinctively attack (e.g., bees) while other might not attack but will instinctively chase, and most should have clear rules (e.g., attack if PCs are outnumbered or surprised).

An uncommon result (say, "immediate attack" or "friendly") can override these instincts. It is odd, but in a world with dwarves and dragons, sometimes hawks attack or befriend you for no apparent reason. Let's also assume humans (and their cities) are fewer in such worlds, and animals are less afraid of them.

In normal circumstances, however, animals fall back to their instincts.

Of course, we could assign instincts to humans, too (call them "inclinations", if you will). But it is probably not worth it. We can intuitively explain human actions - and human inclinations are too diverse and individual anyway.

The callous bandits are friendly? Well, of course, they rather attack someone less armed! The lawful pilgrims attack you on sight? Well, they thought you were bandits !

But alignment, here, also works as an inclination. The bandits might try to befriend you, but better not trust them too soon...

Additional reading:

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-painful-procedure-of-random.html

http://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/11/bx-wilderness-encounters-are-bonkers.html

B/X wilderness encounters are bonkers

Last post was about the effort required to roll a single random encounter in B/X.

This post is about how this effort often leads to results that must be immediately discarded or changed.

This impression started when my players actually rolled two dragons in a row last week (in a three day trip). 

The first one (hydra) attacked on sight, but the second (three blue dragons) were indifferent so I decided they'd ignore the party.

If it had been the opposite, I'd have to fudge the dice or get a TPK.

And I do not think you could say I'd be "interpreting" the rolls. 

If you roll an "immediate attack" reaction, not attacking the PCs is simply changing the dice to save them, and even a "hostile" dragon could attack surprised PCs immediately - unless the GM wants to save them.

It is not unlikely that the players would be killed immediately by dragon breath (40 points of damage for each dragon, save for half) - before they could ever think about talking or evading (for example, if the are surprised or lose initiative).

Would it be fair game if that happened?

I am not sure it would.

First, the chances of finding 1d4 dragons in the wilderness are enormous - about 6% for every encounter, much greater if you're in the mountains or if you include hydras and wyverns (they are also under the "dragon" sub-table).

If you make one check per day, you might encounter 1d4 dragons per month in the forest, but the book suggests you could roll three or four times. You'd find 1d4 dragons every couple of days in the mountains!

I have never seen so many random dragons in any story, not even in Dragonlance novel (one random dragon was too much for me in the last one I've read, TBH). Maybe in Fire & Blood.

Also, every dragon has an identical chance of appearing - despite the fact that the book says blue dragons live in deserts and plains (mine appeared in a forest).

The basilisk is both under "dragon" and "unusual" - which means it is three times more "usual" than hawks in the mountains!

Dragons are more common than wolves and hawks!

OTOH, there are no gorillas anywhere, just albino gorillas for some reason.

But should the players know that wilderness adventuring is very dangerous in B/X? 

Again, not sure; we played multiple games (including a recent 5e campaign) and there was nothing like that in any other campaign.

Now I'm  wondering if other groups that play B/X use the tables as written or just change the results to save their PCs from three blue dragons attacking at once.

But fudging and "interpreting" the results in such a manner feels like more work to the GM. I'd prefer having a random table that gave me results that I can actually use. 

The OSRIC tables looks much better at a first glance (I'd have to try them in practice), but they require more complex/expansive sub-tables (including "harlot" tables that I'm unlikely to use).

I'd probably be better off creating my own tables so I can adapt it to my tastes. My ideal would be something like:

- One single table per terrain, no sub-tables.

- Fewer chances of multiple dragons.

- Encounters adequate to the terrain are more likely (e.g., dragons of the appropriate type, but also no salamanders except in extreme heat/cold, etc.).

- Probably adding number of creatures to the encounter table (e.g., "2d4 salamanders" instead of "salamander").

- Probably using a d100 or a bell curve.

- Add undead to forests because I like the idea!

And, of course, no tables "by CR" or "by PC level" - the world does not revolve around PCs' needs. I have a different solution for that, which deserves a post of its own.

The painful procedure of random encounters

Let's look at the painful procedure of random encounters. 

This is not simply theorizing; it is something that has been bothering me in my current campaign - to the point of aggravation in some sessions.

I'll use B/X here, as it is an universal language.

Let's say the PCs are traveling the wilderness for one week.

First you have to check for encounters, once or more times per day. More often than not, the result will be that "nothing happens". So we are rolling over and over, with little input from the PCs actions (or even stats) to get nothing.

Second, if you get an encounter, you have to find the appropriate table (and sub-table) for the creature encountered, which requires two more rolls.

[And you have to decide - or roll - to see if the encounter happens during day or night, etc.]

Third, roll for surprise - for both the PCs and the creature encountered.

Fourth, you have to roll to find how many creatures appear (if you're playing AD&D, also roll to see if they are in their lair).

Fifth, roll for encounter distance.

Sixth, you roll reaction (let's assume you don't have to roll HP for each creature or I'll go crazy) - which is a bit of a challenge by itself.

That is half a dozen rolls for every single encounter.

Even if you memorize all of these, you still have to flip back and forth to find the monsters.

The worst part, however, is that at this point you have no guarantees that the encounter will be interesting or coherent. It falls on the shoulders off there GM to make it so.

The reaction part, for example, will often tell you the creature is confused - and it is up to the GM to interpret that. 

There is no easy way to skip that - deciding every beast attacks, for example, is both implausible and repetitive.

[Dragon Quest suggests chaotic creatures are more likely to attack, which is a nice touch, but might not be the case if the PCs are chaotic themselves].

In addition, if you get an unlikely result (lawful NPCs attack on sight? why???) you have to either come up with an explanation or roll again.

Some creatures have predetermined reactions (e.g., goblins attacking dwarves on sight), but these are rare - more often than not, you're on your own.

Everything works well in theory but lately I'm finding it too burdensome for the GM.

That would be very easy to solve with automation. Unfortunately,  my programming skills are slim to inexistent.

Fortunately, however, there are people out there who created awesome stuff such as this. Perfect!

Now we need an old school version. This one is incredibly helpful, as it replaces many rolls (rolling a random NPC party would be a nightmare without it!).

A perfect tool would not only replace ALL rolls but also add suggestions for the "creative" bits: why is the wolf so friendly? How does the indifferent dragon behaves if it sees the PCs before they can act? 

These are things that a computer would have a harder time writing, unlike dice rolls.

All these things could be decided in advance (with a few "ifs" and "buts"), leaving the GM free to add details as necessary. 

And, while we are at it, add some brief descriptions from days without encounters (or simple non-NPC encounters: items, droppings, tracks, corpses, etc.).

Put the whole thing together, fix some results so that wolf tracks are near wolves and brunt corpses near red dragons, and you'd have an awesome resource.

I have to say I'm very tempted to create such a tool - it would both solve my problems and possibly help other GMs. 

Let me know if this would be useful to you - and SPECIALLY if you can provide me some feedback on a few related ideas. Leave a comment or, even better, join my Discord channel. I promise it is EXTREMELY low maintenance.