Close Encounters of the 3d6th Kind

I’m here to wave a flag. The flag of randomization.

Sustainable randomization at the table is a glorious standard to fly in the fight against narrativism and the rule of arbitrariness. Randomization needs to be deft and flexible, and necessitates a sharp GMing mind to process the results into something that makes sense and can be slotted seamlessly into the game world.

There’s a quintessential example that has sadly fallen into disuse: the classic “3d6*10 feet encounter distance".

5th edition criminally makes absolutely no mention of it, choosing instead to pore over mind-numbing “challenge rates” accounting, oblivious to the fact that a fatefully placed encounter can punch a lot harder than what its CR might announce… or be calculated for.

This is one of the prime examples of fiat by default, and one that seriously weighs on character survivability at a table where most of the rolls are made in the open and the holds are definitely not barred: at what distance is the opposition spotted or spawned into existence? At a convenient distance for some? At an inconvenient distance for others? Who’s to decide?

While reading LotFP’s Encounters chapter I followed that dotted line of reasoning into realizing the gaping maw of implications created just by skipping over this simple dice roll…

Seriously, chuck those three suckers a couple of times and tell me you’re not faced with this string of intriguing possibilities, albeit all of them being, of course, simple variations of the duality “rolling high or low” since the only variable here is distance but wherein, with just this humble deference to fate, the encounter may unexpectedly:

- Clearly be placed out of range of the party’s sight, either in an entirely different room or, also interestingly, outside the party’s light-source radius.

- Be spotted right in the party’s direct vicinity, meaning it’s either an ambush or something else quite atypical (an Ogre spotted thirty feet from the party in the middle of a featureless room is clearly dead or asleep, not attempting an ambush, unless he’s just playing dead).

- Be spotted at such distance as puts the opposition on the other side (or inside) of a chasm or some other challenging terrain feature. The situation then being free to evolve into a firefight or whatever else.

- Be placed at a standardly accessible point but already within charging distance, prohibiting the use of ranged weapon options. You may skip to Initiative and pray.

- Appear at such a distance as to allow the party to make a clean getaway if they so wish it or to prepare more elaborate measures.

Note that I don’t wish for things to get too algorithmic and videogamey here, if the returned result does not serve, discard it and exercise discretion. But not rolling these and skipping straight to the arbitrariness feels like missing out. You can have an encounter with the same old patrolling Orcs play out in completely novel and unexpected ways.

All you need is some contextualizing topography, meaning encounters in the dungeon are easiest to make work, whereas the more abstract wilderness will necessitate some fleshing out or additional randomization procedures to gain significance, but otherwise note how, after the single toss, the encounter already breathes some life of its own as you’ve yet barely lifted a finger.

I’m considering the addition of some things besides, as an attempt at enriching the information returned by this single roll for pretty much the same overhead:

- Making one of the d6s a Jeff Rients’ activity die (high result meaning “activity/awareness”, low result meaning “idleness/unawareness”).  If the party’s been noisy, one can count the highest roll, if the party’s been cautious, the lowest roll can be it.

- Assigning another one of the d6’s for the encounter’s bearing relative to the party (1-4 for the cardinal directions, 5 for “below or ambush”, 6 for “above or lurking”. Another option worth exploring might be to employ some kind of secondary visual interpretation of the die roll: drawing an imaginary line from highest rolling die to the lowest or vice versa, to act as a scatter die.

- Making the final d6 a rough marker, in 5’ increments, of how scattered the elements of the other group are.

And, of course, I release this post into the wild without even having broached the expansive vistas of tampering with the distance multiplier or the dice tipology itself, for 3d6 * 10’ is but the gateway to this particular drug.

Here too I find myself pondering if urban and wilderness encounters might not be better abstracted with much bigger distance multipliers, also inviting the opposite idea of shrinking the distances for a more claustrophobic underworld experience as being a definite possibility, one that might even turn into a distinct motif for certain dungeons or monster behaviour: “these things always appear breathing down your neck in the ancient tunnels!”.

The illustrated Art of being Unpleasant

Combat Maneuvers & Rule Miscelanea

Mostly minor adaptations from the core book this time around, for the most part I did little more than dismember some feats or mine the monster manual and incorporate what I found back into the general maneuver list. Fifth edition feats seem to have been made in loose accordance with Cortney Campbell’s definition of the useful feat – already some signs pointing to OSR influence upon the mainstream – it is a design philosophy that I too believe in,  which maintains, among other things, that feats should not be things that allow characters to do basic maneuvers (like charging or parrying), but rather that improve upon the general capabilities already at any character’s disposal.

I ransacked Lamentations of the Flame Princess’s weird pages for inspiration, integrated a few maneuvers from the DMG, tweaked some targetting restrictions, nothing fancy. It should be noted that the PHB does the right thing by keeping maneuvers simple, general and few in number, with a couple of cases from which a referee can extrapolate whatever is needed.

I skipped wholly over prize gems such as “attack”, “ranged attack”, “use object”, “hide” and “search”, as they’re either obvious or I don’t consider them to be combat maneuvers at all.

For the places that I deemed needed more than just some touching-up:

Opportunity Attacks

Basically, it is to be assumed that if you’re focusing on anything other than holding a melee weapon in close quarters, the other guy will try to run you through.

This includes Ranged Attacks and Spellcasting within the enemy’s reach, since both of these are instances in which the caster/shooter is in combat while positively not focusing on wielding a melee weapon. If this won’t prompt an opportunity attack, I don’t know what will.

Threat reach

Characters moving freely within an enemy’s reach is something that rankled right from the first take when seen at the table. I changed this so that characters within enemy reach must tread as though in difficult terrain or trigger an attack. It’s a compromise between 4E’s “single side-step” and 5E’s near-total lack of restrictions. 

Dash

Tightened up the wording and restricted its use to characters who have already spent their entire movement breaking into a run while also requiring that the extra move be made in the same direction as the movement before.

Charge

This was for me the maneuver that launched a thounsand hacks. 

I understand that its relegation to feat status was probably due to it demanding that the character obey a few situational requirements, meaning it wasn’t “new user friendly”. At any rate I reintroduce it, though the requirements are stringent (since dashing becomes harder to trigger), meaning its use is to be but occasional, probably limited to a skirmish’s first contact.

Disengage

Minor but significant change. It just felt too artificial for me to have creatures neatly walk away from near-engulfment by large groups of enemies. I appreciate that this maneuver is better off as staying dicelesss but it’s too irrestricted and means that mobs have little chance of, well, mobbing an opponent.

Parry

Adapted from the (rather irrealistic) feat. This is one I’m not very sure about, but wanted characters to have defensive options while not rejiggering the balance, so the bonus is small and intended mostly for PC use.

Feint

Pretty much all of the book’s mundane at-will sources of Advantage, with “Help” standing out in particular, grate on me profoundly. Since I plan to fiddle with the general rules for teamwork, there was no way I was letting this stay as is. Added some versatility to compensate for the fact that it now requires a roll, meaning no more “Advantage on demand”.

Grapple (and Pinning)

Cleaned up the wording and opened an option for clinching that was locked behind a feat. Also inserted the LotFP clause for restricting attacks to sidearms while in a tussle. Dagger groundfighting here we go.

Shields & Blades shall be sundered

A different take on an old classic. Basically a way to keep equipment attrition happening instead of fading into obscure irrelevance. Although there is no specific “Sunder” maneuver, as I consider that such a thing occurs in combat not so much deliberately as more a result of ill fortune, there are plenty of ways (Fumbles, parrying heavy weaponry, thrown weapons missing their target) to call for breakage checks.

Dual Wielding

Here I took the opposite direction of the PHB and reintroduced the classic DEX minimum to employ this fighting style. I don’t care about democratization in this one instance. Reconfigured the penalty too, taking away the bonus to hitting instead of to damage, improving the stance’s logic and to reward the fact that you have your damage output dependent on two discrete rolls. Switching the restriction around means it’s still flawed but seems better to my eyes than the PHB version.

Spellcasting in Combat

Thanks to LotFP, a clean and neat dampener to casting while in combat: if you took damage earlier in the round, you must succeed in a Concentration save or forfeit casting for that round.

Maneuver Improvisation and Stunts

Cemented a few more guidelines for improvisation at the table. It could be argued that this is strictly Referee-ruling procedure, but I kind of want players to keep the possibilities in mind and make use of them, which is why I’ve placed this on the maneuver list, so that it’ll burrow into their subconscious.

Lastly, a couple of not-so-minor changes, with which I open the door to experimenting with player narrative control:

Critical Hits

Influenced by Zak Smith, I propose two options for critical hits:

1) The doubling of damage (a total also made to interact with equipment breakage), upgraded in lethality with explodable dice, put into place so that low damage weapon users don’t default to the narrative control.

2) Rolling normal damage, the player is then granted narrative control to make what he will of the hit, being free to maim, gouge, cripple or just add a stylish touch.

Here’s where the lid comes off. Other than straight up killing your opponent (which nets him a save), the sky’s the limit. I’m very curious to see what players come up with, given the opportunity.

I also worried for the characters’ integrity at the claws of critting monsters, since statistics are not exactly on the players’ side, thus deciding to place some restrictions on the DM side of things, while still retaining a feeling of tension.

Fumbles

Brought in line with the critical hits, this becomes a provider for a watered down level of narrative control. For the DM, this changes little, since he already was doing the fumbles for everyone including the PCs, so its the players’ input that remains to be seen.

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I hope you like

Dumping Practices

The problem of the dump stat

I call this a problem like it is a bad thing. It’s not.

The incontrovertible fact is that the game invariably tests the physical attributes in a much more prominent fashion, leaving plenty of leeway for the other three statistics to go from being treated as middling number dumping grounds to being gulag of the single digit. I don’t see this as a failing but as a feature. Trying to over-systemize the use of Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom at the table to a degree that’s anywhere near to the consistent focus granted to the physical stats would result in clunky awkwardness.

The game’s nature by itself ensures that the mental attributes are to act more as holdbacks than enablers, to be superseded by player input at each and every given opportunity, of which a good game ought to have plenty. For the application of the players’ Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence is where the game at its most pure really is played, the hampering stats only serving for cutting the corners of impractical instances – This is only right to my mind and not a trend I wish to see in any way diminished.

What do I want, then? Simply: for the player to pine for high stats across the board. To raise the bar for the perfect character and for less monochrome characters to be viable.

Charisma is for Bards, Constitution is for everyone

Since time immemorial, the trend went thus: if you had the good fortune to get three or more good stats, it served to be a martial archetype, where all three physical stats would tend to be engaged often and plentifully. If you got two middling-to-good stats, you aimed for a mixed caster, like a Cleric or Druid, that you’d be able to swing your higher numbers in melee and disguise your mediocrity with some casting. And, if you got one or no high numbers to speak of, you went with a pure caster, the spellcasting itself only necessitating a middling attribute and magic either covering or, in certain cases, completely obviating the other shortcomings. I want to make the stat attribution facet of the game a conclusion less foregone.

I appreciate that, in a skill system like 5th Edition’s, the mental attributes associate their modifier with a much greater number of skills, but these are either of marginal use to the average dungeon delver, not directly associated with life-or-death situations or – and this right here was the tipping point – their benefits usually extend to the collective party, not the individual character.

We all know DnD is a cooperative team game, but lets ponder incentives: once the party has the smooth talker to CHA-forceps the local becrowned quest dispenser or the high WIS native is there to spot all the maiming-but-never-quite-death-dealing contraptions littering the dungeon, where does that leave the characters with the _second_ highest totals in Charisma, Intelligence or Wisdom? If a player picks a fighter, having him be as mentally thick as a cinder block is usually not an issue, due to the nature of the collective benefits afforded by the mental attributes, you just double down on clinging to “the path of what I was going to do anyway”, letting the WIS-primary class shoulder the burden of trap detection, the CHA-primary do the hireling recruitment and the INT-primary decipher riddles. Since the niche is neatly filled and you never were going to compare with the specialists anyway, you’re left with very little to show for your invesment, why do it at all? 

Please note that even the relative traction of the above scenarios all hinges on the rather generous assumption that your table uses the mental stats in the above mentioned-but-not-prescribed way. They may be worth even less in a more old-school running. This is where granting more individualized incentives comes in.

I want to break these molds of “any investment in a mental attribute beside it being the party's highest brings only marginal reward” and “having two characters in a party with the same high mental attribute results in diminished returns”, which certainly does not affect any of the physical attributes, since they all give some individualized benefit or penalty even if they’re not what a given character’s class is primarily about and they all contribute directly to the character’s survival.

As design constraints go, this’ll mean affording a little extra value to the mental stats without upsetting the class balance. It’ll need to be simple. It’ll also be important for the changes to have no impact on monster capabilities (who, in 5th edition, have actual stat blocks).

Wisdom & Intelligence

Where does one’s Wisdom end and one’s Intelligence begin? I’ll leave that for the academics; for the matter at hand I’ll say that both are required to learn, either from processing events as-lived or for extrapolating from the experiences of third parties through direct observation or otherwise.

I intend for both of these stats to contribute to a single percentage, not unlike the “prime” stats of urDnD, with each modifier point corresponding to a percentage point of greater or, if negative, lessened experience gain.

Here I snagged on the impracticality of having a player constantly adding 3% or subtracting 2% from all their gains. Very inelegant and user-unfriendly. The solution? Apply the final percentual tally once to the Xp total required to attain the next level, then accumulate Xp as normal.

Charisma

I haven’t at this point made up my mind on the use of Reaction Rolls, but if I do end up using them, they’ll be made on the traditional 2d6 and affected by half this stat’s modifier, rounded down, to account for 5E’s largesse with modifiers.

Beyond this, I’m a bit loathe to load down the talky part of the game with rolls where it should all be as squicky and direct as possible.

I’ve also gotten aboard with the somewhat romantic notion of Charisma as luck or divine favour. Now, crunchwise, this might be difficult to translate.

Tentatively, I’m going to use it as a randomization device or tie-breaker, by which if a trap, hazard or unintelligent creature requires a roll from the referee to specify targetting for a special attack or to determine which of roughly equidistant victims it strikes, the referee can ask for the afflicted parties to roll their contested Charisma; this is not to usurp the dictates of logic (such as ambushers or a trap targetting the pointsman) rather applying only to instances requiring a tie-break, in lieu of the more traditional randomization.