Comments on: I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With 4E: Adventure-Length Effects

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:37:53 +0000

I wrote about this some time ago. Except instead of the disease track, I used Adventure-Long Skill Challenges. Each day would be a "turn" in the skill challenge. The roll for things like adventure-long disease, curse or injury is done during extended rests. Others would done before or after taking extended rests each day. However, the disease track still works well. I prefer the looser feel of skill challenges. .-= Wyatt´s last blog ..Might of Eden: Scholar General =-.

By: Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-07-31

Ravenous Role Playing » Blog Archive » Friday Five: 2009-07-31 — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:34:19 +0000

[...] I Didn’t Know You Could Do That With 4E: Adventure-Length Effects While most, if not all, games I run last over a long period of time, so the advice here doesn’t hit too close to home for me. However, I do like the idea of negative effects that last over a long period of time, but not ones that require an extended rest to recover from. I can totally see using this in future games of mine to add some more flavor and uniqueness to the game. [...]

By: Yan

Yan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:59:21 +0000

@BradG: So it would affect me the same way. I’ll keep your solution in mind or create “disease” that are not curable by the ritual if ever I need this kind of effect.

As for your question on how I handle my fight with group mostly at max… Well the fight are truly hard most of the time and I use profusely what I call the wave encounter. This basically two encounter that are stringed together.

Example of wave encounters:
-An enemy flees and comeback with re-enforcement as you finish the fight (or as you just recuperate from the last fight).
-An enemy patrol stumble on the party after they took care of the guards/or some group saw the pyrotechnics of your fight and came to investigate.
-An occult ritual just succeed as you finish the last cultist a demon appears.
-As you bloody the skeleton guardian a trap opens and swarms of death scarabs crawls in the room.
-etc…

Sometime I put time constraint like:
-The army will reach the village in two days. Thats the time you have to get to their chain of command and get rid of them.

If it takes a days to reach their camp you know that it’s your one and only chance to infiltrate the camp and reach your target. This in itself can easily be the equivalent of a 5 room dungeon without having a dungeon.

By: The Last Rogue

The Last Rogue — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:44:04 +0000

Solid! And stolen! .-= The Last Rogue´s last blog ..Continued Rambling =-.

By: Wax Banks

Wax Banks — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 16:13:05 +0000

Well-played, Brad. The 4e 'disease track' mechanism seems like a workable baseline for a variety of effects -including Sanity simulation, which plenty of gamers seem to enjoy. (I like the Trail of Cthulhu Sanity/Stability combination - the former a one-way decay, the latter a replaceable buffer.) You could also do Lasting Injury this way, though I wonder whether 4e players have strong expectations about the ready availability of (abstract) healing. The fun collaborative board game Shadows Over Camelot uses a version of this tracking mechanism to simulate the declining/improving fortunes of questing knights, as do plenty of other games I assume. Coupled with a strong visual indicator (a literal track, or cards) it could be a nice anxiety-inducing tool at the game table... .-= Wax Banks´s last blog ..Worldbuilding is storytelling: complication, complexity, and micronarratives. =-.

By: BradG

BradG — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:56:10 +0000

@satyre: I’m glad you liked it!

@yan: If your PCs travel around for multiple days between encounters, there’s nothing wrong with having an effect increment after each extended rest. The problem with dieases is that by the time the PC is 6th level they have access to Cure Disease which wipes away the disease. There is an infitessimally small chance of death, otherwise the PC is damaged which gets healed up during there extended rest anyway. So as long as the PCs wait until they’re camped for the night before casting Cure Disease they can remove the diease with no penalty. Unless the DM springs a nighttime combat, which is almost never happens. Also there are no diseases that that less then 9th level so PCs should have easy access to a cure.

If your PCs go several days between combats that means they always have an action point and always get to use their daily powers during every combat, right? How do you compensate for this?

By: Yan

Yan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:00:19 +0000

Interesting idea. I did not play with the disease yet so I’m not familiar if what you say would give the same feeling in the style of campaign I do.

I have close to no dungeon, the little I have are at the most a few rooms. So usually a game requires a lot of walking around taking several day going from one place to the other. In this kind of setting the disease would probably work as is. Unless there is an easy cure disease ritual.

By: satyre

satyre — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:07:09 +0000

I've been pondering how you'd simulate this kind of thing (debilitating effects of wielding a magic weapon that's a little too toxic for the living) and this is wonderful synchronicity. Yoinked for great justice! .-= satyre´s last blog ..on the trail of tears: the cruelest work =-.