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

Hey everybody!  My name is Brad Gardner.  I’m a long time D&D player.  Currently I’m DMing a game for some friends (The “Savage Tide” adventure path, converted to 4E) as well as writing for the RPGA’s Living Forgotten Realms campaign.  As of GenCon 2009, I’ll have the privilege of having five adventures published for the LFR campaign.

Writing for RPGA has gotten me to think quite a bit about creating self contained adventures.  I want to be able to craft a fantastic story and have it supported but solid rules elements.  Most of the rules work well for self contained adventures except for one: diseases.  Diseases through all the versions of D&D have been a great concept but a poor implementation.  First, the idea that an effect (such as a disease) can be inflicted during the fight makes the fight feel more dangerous – not only do the PCs want to defeat the monster but the want to do so without getting infected.  If a PC does get infected, they have to fight off the disease.  If they are unsuccessful, they face a slow slide into a seriously debilitating condition (possibly death).

The problem in 4E D&D is that diseases only advance (or get cured) during the PCs extended rest.  That’s fantastic in a campaign setting where the PCs is going to be played for months of game time.  Most self contained adventures however only take one day of game time, so by the time the PC has to face the results of the disease they caught the adventure is over.  Perhaps the DM might roll out the results of the disease as sort of a interesting dénouement but that’s probably it.

(As an aside, the other problem with diseases is they are incredibly ease to cure.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a PC being seriously affected by a disease in any edition in the game.  Cure disease is way too easy to get and use.  I’ve only seen one PC die of a disease in a 2E adventure, and that was due to a lack of a cure disease spell and incredibly bad luck.)

As an author I’d like to see such slowly developing effects play out during the course of a single adventure.  Since having effects advance at every extended rest is too long and having them advance every round is too fast (poisons, combat conditions), how about having them advance on every short rest?  As a DM you can expect that the PCs will want to take 2-4 short rests during the course of one 4-6 hour adventure.  The number of short rests is just enough to see the results play out over the course of one evening.  I call this option an Adventure Length Effect.

Adventure Length Effects

I haven’t really defined “effect” have I?  By “effect” I mean any kind of condition that happens to a PC.  Adventure length effects slowly develop over the course of the adventure.  Some specific examples include:

• Slow Acting Poison: The PCs nemesis slipped a slow acting poison into their drinks which will kill them by the end of the day unless they find a cure (or meet their enemies demands).
• The Interloper’s Curse: As PCs break into the tomb of El-Khut to retrieve his golden scepter, a curse set but the builder of the tomb is placed on the PCs.  The PCs are slowly being transformed into rats (polymorphic effects will be covered in a future post).
• The Life Leech:  While wading through the putrid waters of the Vile Morass, one or more PCs are infected by a parasitic life leech, which has nestled inside the PCs and is slowing draining their vitality (healing surges).

To create an adventure length effect I suggest you use the format for Diseases found in the DMG (pg. 49).  Each effect has a Effect Track, which describes the initial effect on the PC.  There are also steps along the Effect Track to describe how the effect worsens, or gets better.

During each short rest, the PC should roll a skill check to determine if they get better, stay at the same state, or worsen.  If the effect is integral to the pacing of your adventure, consider other criteria for when the effect worsens.  For example, the Slow Acting Poison might kill the person in 8 hours unless an antidote is found, and its effects worsen every two hours.

When designing these effects consider both possible ends of the Effect Track.  Do you want the option for the PC to become completely cured?  In most cases yes, but using the Slow Acting Poison as an example you might want the only cure to be the antidote.  On the opposite end of the Effect Track is the final state.  Death, of course, is the worse case example.  Most of the time you want some sort of significantly debilitating condition.

You should place these effects early on so they can mature over the course of the adventure.

Countering Adventure Length Effects

Players never want to feel like their characters are helpless victims, so consider adding options into the adventure for PCs to either delay or obtain a bonus to resisting the effect.  For example, as the PCs search for a cure to the slow acting poison they stumble across the alchemical lab that made an early version of the poison.  PCs succeeding in a Complexity 1 skill challenge can craft an antidote based on a notes left by the alchemist to delay the poison a bit, giving the PC two extra short rests before another check needs to be made.

You could also go the opposite direction with this by adding things that worsen condition.  The PCs affected by the Interloper’s Curse may, during the course of their adventure, stumble across a small shrine to Set.  If a PC defiles the idol or steals the Golden Crook from the idols hand find the power of the curse strengthening – the PC must make an immediate check to see if the curse worsens.

Example: Spellfeeder’s Corrosive

This is a variation on the Rust Monster’s ability to damage, or destroy, the PCs items during the course of an adventure.  This implementation has a its advantages.  First, the item slowly degrades until it becomes a nonmagical, but still functional, object.  So instead the avenger who just loves swinging his greatsword having to switch to a different weapon (because the standard rust monster destroys the item) she can still swing away with her greatsword.  Also, this corrosion is equal opportunity – it can be applied to any magical item.

Spellfeeder’s Corrosive Level 8 Corrosion
The spellfeeder’s corrosive slobber adheres to your magic item, slowly sapping it of its power Attack: +12 vs. Reflex Arcana: improve DC 26, maintain DC 21, worsen DC 20 or lower. Perform this check once after each short rest or five times after each extended rest.

Effect: Magic items under the influence of this corrosion are immune to any Creation rituals such as Enchant Magic Item. This effect persists for 24 hours after the corrosion is cured or reaches its final state.

Cure:	The magic item is cured.
Initial Effect:	PCs trying to use the magic item roll a saving throw. On a success, the item works normally. On a failure – Weapon or Implement: Properties and Criticals enhancements do not work (save ends). Other: Properties do not work (save ends).
Worse:	If the magic item has multiple levels and it is currently not at its lowest level, reduce the item by 1 level. Calculate the difference between the levels; residuum of that amount flakes off and can be collected by the PC. If the magic item has only one level or is at its lowest level, go to the Final State.
Final State	The magic item loses it’s remaining resiidum and becomes nonmagical.

I would recommend adding Spellfeeder’s Corrosive to a monster other than the rust monster since retrofitting the rust monster would involve removing a good chunck of its powers. I’d look at using an elite or solo brute of an appropriate level. I did a quick look a the Compedium and I think a black pudding would work great. You could use the monster stats as is and just retitle it as a Spellfeeder.

A final word of caution about desigining new effects: Don’t make the worse case scenario too overwhelming. Overly debilititing effects that are permanent aren’t any fun for the players and will lead to frustration. Sure, making the final state of your Head of Vecna artifact curse be that the PC is permanently blinded, deafened, and mute might make that small, evil voice in the back of your head giggle with glee. It’s going to really, really suck for you player who might decide to not play their character instead of facing such an debilitating effect.

Random D&D 4E fact: As of Monster Manual 2, creatures with the resist: insubstantial quality have only 70% to 75% of the hit points of a non-insubstantial creature of the same role and level. Monster Manual 1 monsters were calculated at -2 hit points per level and monsters generated by the RPGA or Dungeon magazine varied greatly on what rules they followed.