New Starmada Edition Announced for Release Jan 2012

Wandered by the MJ12 forums today (hadn't been there in a while) and was very surprised to see a topic announcing a new edition of Starmada.  Data's pretty vague so far, but selling points include:

• Simpler vector movement system.  Sounds nice, given that we never did manage to grok the vector movement in the Admiralty Edition...
• Less dice rolling per turn of combat.  Halle-freaking-lujah.
• Three layers of defenses - ECM, Shields, Armor.  This is the change I'm most conflicted about, but very little detail on how these work yet.  It seems a sad departure from effects-based gaming ("I don't care whether it's fancy hyperdense neoadamantium armor, bolted on scrap armor, void shields, or close defense weapons - just give it a shield rating and be done"), but it does provide some excellent possibilities for modeling different fleets and sources.  Eldar (oh, my precious Eldar...), for example, might have very good ECM, but no shields and weak armor, while Chaos and Imperial have decent shields and good / excellent armor respectively.  This differentiation of defenses also provides a counterbalance in terms of options to the huge array of offensive traits - every weapon in S:AE has four stats (range, accuracy, impact, damage), plus usually some traits, while each ship has, defensively, only two relevant stats (hull and shields) and maybe a trait or two.  Providing more defensive stats may make things significantly more interesting.

Anyway, I'm going to see if I can score a review copy.  Anybody up for a second season of Starmada if it ends up looking good?

Miscellanea 2: VBAM Race Updates, a Return to Traveller, and Space Hulk Meets Alien Swarm

It's another light, mixed post like the first miscellanea post back in September.

Got some good feedback on the proposed trope-based VBAM races from the VBAM yahoo group, so here are the updates on those:

Bugs: Swapping out Stalwart Defenders for Aggressive (all owned ground units gain +1 attack) and Hungry Hungry Hydralisks (when genociding enemy census, you gain 20% more EPs than normal).  This generates a much more offensively-scary, all-devouring species of bug, rather than the turtling-type bugs in the older version.

Bots: General consensus on the yahoo group is that Robotic is overpowered as a result of being able to build lots of census wherever they want.  Thus, probably swapping in Cybernetic (like robotic, but can't build census, lower population maintenance, and not collective-only government) and some other small bonus...  not sure what to do for that yet.  Possibly Efficient Industry (+10% construction capacity on all owned planets), something military, or a social trait like Closed Society.

Savages: Only suggestion on this one was to allow varying of the military traits to differentiate different savage empires.  Easily done on the fly.

Puppeteers: Agreed that these are probably nerfed, and suggested adding a small bonus to Sneaky like ability to modify scenario length up or down by 1.

Merchants: Not much here...  suggestion to add non-player empires for the Puppeteers and Merchants to spend their free diplomatic intel on, and for the Merchants to trade with, but that's not really a species trait change.

So that about covers the VBAM stuff...  unfortunately, the more I think about VBAM-Traveller integration, the more issues I run into, particularly with economic and planetary scales.  Traveller population, for example, grows exponentially, while VBAM population grows linearly, and then there's the ugly question of "How many megacredits is an EP worth?".  These issues, combined with trepidation on Matt's part with regards to reading all of VBAM's rules, suggest that maybe a straight Traveller game would be a better plan.  I've had a premise for such a campaign on the back burner for a while, so maybe that'll see play next semester (with prep and handout construction over winterbreak).

Finally, I was thinking about Space Hulk and Alien Swarm in the shower today.  Space Hulk is a classic Games Workshop game which pits a squad or two of marines with guns against terrifyingly fast aliens who are deadly in melee.  The game is heavily skewed in favor of the aliens, but this means that when the humans do win, there's usually a hell of a story to go along with it.  Alien Swarm, on the other hand, was a short-lived freebie game from Valve which pitted four human players of marines with guns against a swarm of mostly-weak melee aliens, with a few special / scarier genotypes around to mix things up (parasites.... urrrrgh...).  It was a significantly less lethal games than Space Hulk for the humans, but was a lot of fun.  The multiplayer community has mostly died off, though, which is sad, so I'm kind of curious if I can tweak Space Hulk / 40k to run something similar to Alien Swarm without getting bogged down in massive complexity like Deathwatch did.

VBAM Aliens Follow-Up

So instead of doing homework for the last couple days, I've been working on some balanced, trope-based races for Victory By Any Means.  Here's what I've got so far:

Bugs:

• Adaptable - Raises carrying capacity of all owned planets by 20%
• Fast Gestation - Check for population growth every 6 turns rather than 12
• Hive Mind - +20% construction capacity, but limited to Collective governments
• Incomprehensible Language - All treaties have a 50% chance of failure
• Subterranean - Increases dug-in bonus when defending, halves enemy bombardment points when bombarding owned planets
• Stalwart Defenders - Each owned planet generates militia units to defend it when invaded.

These guys are very good at filling planets with population and at holding on to worlds, but quite bad at diplomacy.  Tactically, they have no particular strengths or weaknesses.  Collective government is pretty strong (+intel defense, +construction capacity, immune to morale, -science, no elite officers), but in a game with elite officers, that penalty is actually a penalty.  Basically, they're all about the macro advantage afforded by high population.  I'm sad that I didn't find a way to work in the "nomnomnom" aspect of the trope - perhaps a special trait that increases EP yields from eating civilians and/or liquidating infrastructure is in order.  I'm also kind of considering building a trait that gives all this race's ships the Biological special ability from the CMC; not sure whether this should also increase maintenance costs of their units, but I don't know by how much.

Bots:

• Advanced Weaponry - +1 Anti-Ship and Anti-Fighter on naval vessels, +1 attack and defense on ground units, +5% military maintenance
• Environmental Tolerance - +2 carrying capacity on all owned worlds, 10% discount on infrastructure purchases
• Predictable - -1 penalty to surprise rolls in space combat
• Robotic - No natural population growth, can artificially build census, 1/3 maintenance on census, +20% construction capacity, Collective governments only, lower difficulty for stealing tech
• Superiority Complex - Until roll a 10 on 1d10, cannot conduct diplomacy with newly-met empire.  Roll each month; declarations of war and hostility unaffected.

Very similar on a holistic level to the bugs - definitely have a macro advantage for booming econ between being able to control population growth and the discount on infrastructure, but bad at diplomacy.  While the bugs have strong defense, the bots have strong offense, but suffer from high maintenance costs (both on military units and on their own populace), and since robotic census is pretty expensive, you're paying economically for your versatility.  I'm most worried about balance on these guys, but I think I hit the main themes of the trope well.

Savages:

• Combat Respect - Treaties with any given power have a 25% chance of failure until you've met their forces in battle
• Honorable - All bonuses and penalties to breaking treaties are doubled
• Maneuverable Ships - Increased control over scenario length
• Martial Prowess - All owned ground units gain +1 to attack, attrition, and d-factor
• Poor Spies - One point of intel per intel mission is 'lost' and generates no benefit 
• Professional Armies - Ground unit maintenance costs are reduced, and military elite officer XP costs receive a 10% discount
• Skilled Commanders - All owned naval units gain +10% command rating
• Warmonger - +20% bonus to declaring war, 15% chance to refuse any off of armistice

In stark contrast to the bugs and the bots, the noble savages have basically no macro advantages, but are very strong in combat, both in space and on the ground.  They're bad at spying, but OK for defense against spies, and suffer from some diplomatic restrictions.  They're mighty good at declaring war, though...  Also, while the bugs and the bots are restricted to Collective governments, the Savages can choose any flavor of government they like (Military Meritocracy, for example).  As far as the tropes go, I probably could cut out some of the naval bonuses, but they're rather nice.

Puppeteers:

• Corrupt - -5% GDP, easier for underworld empires to gain power in owned systems
• Cunning - +1 bonus to surprise rolls in space combat
• Elite Diplomats - 10 free intel points per turn which can only be used for diplomatic purposes, and elite diplomat XP costs gain a 30% discount
• Sabotage Experts - All sabotage missions gain 1 point of free intel
• Shapeshifters - -25% to failure rate of intel missions, but enemies gain a +15% bonus to break treaties
• Slow Gestation - Check for population growth every 18 months rather than every 12
• Sneaky - Reduce the length of pursuit scenarios by 1 turn, pursuer must use one fewer squadron, -10% to chance of being discovered if using stealthy movement

The puppeteers have some serious macro penalties, but gain excellent spies, excellent diplomacy (not only no restrictions like the previous three races suffer from, but bonus intel for diplomacy), and a few tricky tactical bonuses to space combat.  Not a race for a stand-up slugging match, but in a 5-person game, a little plausible deniability could go a long way.  I'm a bit concerned that they might be underpowered, but that's something only playtesting will tell.  I considered the Telepathic and Espionage Expert traits, but I'm not sure hidden forces will be a thing, since we're going to be playing face-to-face / board game style.  If playing by PBeM, substitute Espionage Experts for Sabotage Experts to taste.  There's also no 'dark X' side of the coin here, but I'm pretty OK with that.  Elsewise, hits the tropes fairly well.

Merchants

• Efficient Operatives - Maintenance on Intel points if 1/12 rather than 1/10
• Expert Scientists - -5% to tech investment threshold
• Friendly - Other powers take -15% to break treaties with this power, -10% to declare war against
• Gifted Negotiators - 3 free intel points per turn for diplomacy only
• Logistics Experts - Supply range of 3 starlanes instead of 2
• Mercantile - +20% commerce income
• Open Society - All intel missions against this power are at -1 difficulty
• Unprofessional Armies - Ground unit maintenance increased by 1 per denominator

The merchants are kind of a happy middle ground.  They've got some economic stuff going for them in terms of EP generation, which serves similarly to the macro advantage of the bugs and the bots, but they also have small diplomatic bonuses and a choice of governments.  They have the strategic advantage of long supply lines, but suffer from weak defense against spies and from expensive ground units (justified as having to pay mercenaries).  Think the Italian states of the Renaissance period.  I'm concerned that, as with generalists in many games, the merchants will get stomped by specialists (namely everybody else).  It would be possible to specialize them further, but I'm not sure trade / civilian fleets / supply are a particularly strong thing to specialize in.  Also weird is that they kind of have two cross-purpose traits - Efficient Operatives makes it cheaper to hold on to lots of defensive intel, which is then rendered less effective by Open Society.  Not entirely happy with that; could swap Efficient Operatives for another 'spy' trait of the same price to put a particular spin on them.  Mission Specialist: Assassinate Officer significantly changes the way the race feels, for example, from a bunch of merchants to a race of mercenaries, while Insurgency Specialist puts a more social / cultural powerhouse spin on things (a bit more like modern Japan, perhaps).

So, that's what I've got.  In a five-player match, one of each species, I'm really not sure how things would roll out.  I think the puppeteers and bugs would get along great, as the 10 points of free diplomatic intel can be used to counter the language barrier, allowing treaties with no chance of failure.  This leaves the savages, the bots, and the merchants to kind of hack things out amongst themselves...  That could go quite poorly for the merchants, leading to possibly a "Poland between Germany and Russia in World War 2" situation, or to a small, staged engagement between the merchants and the savages in order to satisfy the savages' combat respect and allow an alliance with the machines...  Really depends on the players, there, and possibly on the order of contact between species.

VBAM, Aliens, and Traveller

So I've been reading lots of VBAM source, and came across some interesting options between the Campaign Moderator's Guide and the Menagerie.  First, from the Menagerie, custom alien races built on a point-buy system.  I really like the idea of differing alien races, but the issue is that as we saw in Starmada, when you let players customize all of their stuff, you end up with some players having very broken things and some with relatively weak things.  This is pretty OK in RPGs where all the players are working together, but much more problematic in more competitive / PvP games like VBAM.  Thus, I would like to design a set of kind of 'canonical' races which are 1) fairly balanced against each other and 2) ideally representative of standard tropes in science fiction, in the same way that humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, and half-orcs more-or-less represent standard tropes for fantasy demi-humans.  To this end, I've been trying to figure out what those standard tropes are.  Here's what I've got so far, along with examples (I have more examples on a whiteboard at home, but I'm out of town currently, so these lists are not complete):

• The Bugs - Just what it says on the tin.  They will eat you in the most painful way possible, often with lots of body horror.  Typically can't be communicated with, often have a hive mind.  Examples include the critters from Alien (and their descendants, the Tyranids and the Zerg), things from the Cthulhu mythos, the Vong from Star Wars, the Ithkul / Harvesters from Master of Orion, and the Shadows from B5.  The bugs from Starship Troopers and Ender's Game fall here to some degree, but not perfectly - they're not using people as a growth medium.  Infiltrators, along the lines of 40k's Genestealer cults or Duran from Starcraft, are not unheard of for the bugs, so their Intel probably shouldn't be terrible.  Oh, and they breed like maggots.  They often waste lots of bugpower just to run their enemies out of ammunition, though, so that might need to be modeled...
• The Scary Robots - Again, a straightforward name.  The Borg, the Drakk from Unreal, the machines from the Matrix, the Cybrids from Starsiege, and the Necrons of 40k all clearly land here.  Additionally, when we look at the psychological workings of these species, we tend to see relentless efficiency combined with a superiority complex.  When we look at it this way, we can also add a number of humanoid societies here, such as the Peacekeepers of Farscape and the Imperium in Star Wars.  Unlike the Bugs, in general people aren't useful to the 'bots in a biological sense - "Exterminate, annihilate, destroy" is the motto, or at best "Domesticate the inferior fleshy creatures", rather than "We will lay our eggs in your spleeeens".  The Scary Robots can often be communicated with, but most of the time they don't care what you have to say (meatbag).  Spying is something they often neglect, due both to their overconfidence and their issues communicating with lesser species.  Some 'religious zealot' cultures may also fall here.
• The Noble Savages - Warrior cultures, typically with some sense of honor.  Canonical examples include the Niven's Kzin (and their Aslan successors from Traveller), the TNG Klingons, the Luxans of Farscape, the Wookies from Star Wars, possibly the Skaarj of Unreal, and, to take things perhaps a little far, maybe even the Orks of 40k.  The distinguishing rule here is "If you challenge one of these guys to single combat, will they play fair?"  These aliens often lack respect for non-warrior cultures, which they see as soft and decadent, but can come to respect other powers who have proven themselves on the field of battle.  They tend to disdain spies and diplomats, but often breed quickly and are excellent individual combatants, though sometimes poor tacticians.
• The Puppeteers - Taking their name from Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers, these aliens manipulate other species, time, and space in order to get what they want.  They tend to be introspective, and may also be psychic.  In addition to Niven, the Eldar of 40k provide a good example.  Star Trek's Vulcans also fall here, as well as the Protoss, and the Delvians of Farscape.  One interesting note is that most puppeteer species seem to have a dark side; the Eldar have the Dark Eldar, the Vulcans have the Romulans, and the Protoss have the Dark Templar.  This suggests that the Jedi / Sith duality might also fit in here.  Puppeteers are generally fully open to communication from other species...  but they're likely to get the better end of the deal.  These guys probably also have excellent spies / good intel - it models the "Farseer" aspect nicely.  However, these species also tend to breed slowly, and may be susceptible to corrupting influences, as with the Eldar and the grasp of Slaanesh.
• The Unscrupulous Merchants - It's said that money makes the galaxy go 'round, and the Merchants are out to make sure it turns their way.  Example species include the Hutts, the Bothans, the Ferengi, the Hynerians from Farscape, and the Bentusi of Homeworld.  While these may seem initially similar to the Puppeteer species, the difference lies partially in the means by which they operate - no supernatural powers here, and while the Puppeteers are likely to have massive, century-long and galaxy-spanning plots backed by prophecies, the Merchants tend to think on much shorter scales and have more modest aims.  They're also very open to negotiation, and are probably decent at Intel; sometimes corporate sabotage is the right tool for the job.  Not particularly warlike or adept at the art of conquest, though very likely to cohabit space with other species.  'Pirate' species might fit here too, just by the cohabitation condition; I feel like Traveller's Vargr are likely here, though Homeworld's similarly-named Vaygr are probably  Savages.

So those are the five archetypes I've identified so far, in addition to vanilla Humans; I've got a couple square feet of mappings of species to categories back home, but this is all I have for now.  So the next step is to develop a mapping from these classifications to VBAM Menagerie traits, and to balance them (update here).


The second topic of interest is the Elite Officer rules in the Moderator's Companion.  These feel like something which could be integrated with an RPG (say...  Traveller) to great effect, which led me to the idea of running a combined VBAM and Traveller game in the same universe at the same game-time.  Probably the best way to run this would be to have one set of players, each of which runs both an empire on a galactic scale and a single character in the crew of a small, Travelling ship.  This creates some really interesting metagame issues, but frees the CM (moi) from having to come up with an over-arching plot, since galactic events will likely be decided by the agendas of the various player-run empires.  Further, since a turn of VBAM is nominally a month of game-time, and the standard unit of time in Traveller is a week, this gives about four Traveller operations per VBAM operation, which would keep the game Traveller-centric, but allow things to unfold on a galactic scale.  Having the second, longer-term game in place also frees up the Traveller characters to do long-term things that they normally wouldn't consider, like spending lots of time training, doing research, or in jail.  On the flip side, given rules for translating Traveller and VBAM Elite Officer statistics, it would become possible for Traveller characters to influence events on a galactic scale as well.  So it'd be a very, very interesting way to run a game, and quite possibly worth the little bit of extra paperwork that it would generate.

Belated OSRIC Playtest Report

So, I ran OSRIC about a week and a half ago now.  It went...  interestingly.  We had 6 players, all from a mostly 3.x background as far as D&D goes, with one having played AD&D at some point, one with Baldur's Gate experience, and one with Nethack experience.  Character generation took a looong time - about two hours.  The issue there was primarily a focus on all the effects of every choice made; "what makes a fighter different from a ranger?", "Can I assign my scores in a way that will let me play a gnome illusionist?", and "What do all of these table entries for ability scores mean?"  We ended up with a half-orc cleric, a human ranger, a half-orc assassin / fighter multiclass, an elf assassin, an elf fighter, and a half-elf MU, I believe.  In retrospect, I really see where the "roll-in-order" rules would've been really practical - such a rule would have greatly narrowed the decision space for the players (by a factor of at least 6 factorial, plus limitations due to racial and class ability score requirements).  Gear went pretty swiftly, thanks in large part to BtBG's adventuring kits, which left the PCs to choose weapons, armor, and hirelings (and chalk.  Lots of chalk).

Having gathered their many porters, the PCs set out for the Deephalls north of Ironbridge.  They arrived, and tracked a party of berserkers who had been out hunting into the dungeon.  The berserkers engaged them, but were slain to a man.  The two assassins scouted ahead, finding first bats, then a pair of rust monsters.  Having never deployed rust monsters before (but having rolled them on the inhabitants table), the looks of sheer horror on the faces of the players were...  pretty priceless, actually.  They managed to block off that part of the dungeon, and turned their exploration in other directions, where they found giant spiders and beetles.  Highlights of this part: the half-orc assassin was poisoned, then told that poison was save-or-die.  He made his save, and his response was "Oh!  That was exciting!"  There's just something about mortal peril that makes life a little sweeter when it continues...  They found their first real treasure webbed up by the spiders, in a trapped stone chest containing a mix of gold and copper pieces.  The assassins went scouting again, with the (still-injured) half-orc failing at his Hide in Shadows and being gored by a pair of giant fire beetles, putting him at -7, but not before he assassinated one of them.  The rest of the party came to his aid, however, and he survived, but had to be carried out of the dungeon.  They found their second treasure in a pile of beetle dung, consisting of a mixture of electrum and silver pieces, but that was where we ended the session - the half-orc's going to be out of action for a week or so, and the rest of the party considered pushing forward without him, but decided against it.  This decision was complicated by the elf fighter, who had rolled lower ability scores than the rest of the party and is out to get them due to envy.

So, mechanically, the game went pretty OK, mostly...  it was very assassin-and-fighter focused, with the cleric and the MU doing very little.  That this changes at higher levels was no consolation to the caster players, who were greatly disappointed with the system.  The assassin players both seemed up to play again, as did the ranger.  The elf fighter was initially offput by his low scores and remained as a 'rearguard' for most of the combats, but later mentioned that he was interested in playing again, if only for the party conflict RP angle.  He also mentioned hirelings as greatly appealing.  So, I'm calling it a reasonable success; 66% of participants responded positively.  As a result, I'm keeping the dungeon around and will restock the parts they cleared out.  I should probably also design level 2 at some point, but they seem unlikely to find a way down any time soon.

Unfortunately, I've become distracted by Victory by Any Means.  It looks like to scratch my Master of Orion and Fields of Blood itches, if I can find time and players...  Maybe I'll get to test it out over winterbreak.

That is not dead, which can eternal lie...

And in stranger weekends, even PCs may die.  I'm planning an OSRIC dungeon exploration game for next weekend; I've been rolling random dungeon bits in my scraps of spare time for the last week or so.  The first level is built, with monsters, treasure, and room contents rolled, so now I just need to assign that content to rooms (stocking, if you will).  Also been working up a pile of rumors in town regarding the dungeon, but I still need a name for the hellhole...

So, content!  I guess I'll go through some interesting rules differences between OSRIC and the 3.x that I and most of the people are know are used to playing.  Not going to hit all the rules differences, obviously, just some of the more curious ones.

Ability score bonuses are must more spread out; it seems to take a score of about 15+ to start getting any real bonuses, and a score of 6-7 or lower to start taking any penalties.  This is kind of interesting, and reminds me of Traveller's wider ability score bonuses brackets (3-point increments, rather than 2-point increments as in 3.x).  This also means that a significant range around 'average' still pretty much functions as average, and that ability scores play a much less important role than they do in 3.x.  I rolled up a couple of sample characters and about the only thing ability scores influences were race and class selection (yeah, classes have minimum ability score requirements to enter.  See here for why).

There's a lot of save-or-die.  All poisons for example.  Fail a save against poison?  Toast.  This actually makes some sense...  if you get bitten by a spider the size of a horse and it injects you with 100ccs of neurotoxin...  you're not just taking 2d4 int damage.  Falling damage is much increased; it still caps at 20d6, but only from a 50-foot fall rather than from a 200-foot fall as in 3.x.  If you're polymorphed, there's a chance based on your Con that you just die of system shock.  If someone tries to resurrect you, there's a chance based on your Con that you don't make it back.  Also, elves have no souls and cannot be resurrected.  I think this is actually a pretty neat rule; they live a long time, but can't come back if they screw up.  It also reinforces the 'fey' / otherworldly nature of the elves (reminds me of the Eldar soulstones, too...  maybe it's not that they don't have souls, but that Slaanesh eats them?)  Death and dying of damage are pretty normal; die at -10, lose 1 HP per round between -1 and -10.  However, a few interesting things:  No chance to stabilize yourself, but any other party member can automatically stabilize you; no skill check required (since the only classes with 'skills' are the Thief and the Assassin, and heal sure isn't one of them).  Also, any additional damage dealt to an unconscious character is lethal; no special coup-de-grace rules.  Finally, there are longer-term consequences for being beaten unconscious; it takes you 10-60 minutes to wake up even after being stabilized, and then a week of rest before you're able to resume 'strenuous physical activity'.

This ties in nicely with the dungeon exploration rules, which are one of the neater things in OSRIC (from a new-schooler's perspective).  The passage of time is much more of a thing here.  A turn is 10 minutes of game time, and can be used to move through the dungeon map, search rooms, try to break down locked doors, and similar.  Wandering monsters are checked for each turn, and one in every six turns must be used as a short rest / breather, or you start to take fatigue penalties.  A round is a minute, and is the unit of combat time, more-or-less equivalent to a round in 3.x in terms of what you can get done.  The round is subdivided into 10 segments of 6 seconds each, with different sides acting on different segments of the round depending on their initiative rolls.  The cool thing here is that spells have casting times measured in segments; you start casting on the segment where your side acts, and then the spells goes off n segments later, giving the opposition a chance to interrupt it while you're casting.  Similarly, if you get iterative attacks, they're spaced out by segments, so you might get to attack, then the enemy attacks, then you again, rather than the "Aha, we won initiative, eat a full attack before you get to act" kind of thing that happens a lot in 3.x.

Some other interesting notes on combat: in melee, your attacks target a random adjacent hostile target.  Firing into melee, your ranged attacks target a random combatant without regard to hostility.  And no, there is no such thing as precise shot (well, except magic missile).

XP: Different classes require different amounts of XP to level.  XP for slain monsters is a function of how many HP that particular monster had, as well as species, with the assumption that you're rolling random monster HP.  You also get 1 XP for every GP that you manage to get out of the dungeon.  Treasure is not important, but so is encumbrance, since there are 10 GP to a pound.  Fortunately, carrying capacity is 150 lbs for all characters, plus or minus a bonus based on strength.

Spells: A lot of them are pretty much the same, though I guess 'more random' would probably be a good descriptor.  Some are much stronger than in 3.x, some are much weaker; skimming the spells, there were several times where I went "That's a 4th-level spell?"  Fireballs expand to fill volume, lightning bolts bounce off of non-conductive surfaces, haste ages the users, and bull's strength grants a larger bonus to fighters, paladins, and rangers than to other targets.  Curious indeed.

Magic items: They don't have market prices.  No buy, no sell.  Use what you find.

That's all I've got for now.  Back to work.

N-Shots, With a Side of Minion Design

With my gaming time seriously curtailed, I've been thinking about short campaigns.  I ran a one-shot and found the form rather dissatisfying; it was, essentially, a series of short wargame scenarios plus a few puzzles, with very little character development or exploration.  Granted, part of the problem was that I made a few mistakes in terms of monster design; just because manufactured and natural armor stack does not mean that one should stack them.  Likewise, I dropped a solo hydra on the PCs during the finale, and found two problems.  First, Trailblazer's combat maneuver rules mean that hitting a hydra's neck is much, much harder than hitting its body.  This should not be; in theory I could've altered it on the fly, but I missed my chance.  Secondly, when you upgrade a critter to solo, you quadruple its HP, which in turn quadrupled the neck HP, making sundering the heads extra difficult.  In the end, the PCs just ended up damaging the body to death.

Trailblazer's short rest rules allowed the PCs to absorb absolutely tremendous amounts of damage; I estimated that the party took in total about 300 points of damage during the course of a single adventuring day, with no character falling unconscious at any time, minimal expenditure of permanent healing resources (cure wands, for example), and, the kicker, without a cleric.  These were 7th level PCs we're talking about...  maybe 70 HP tops on any given character.  It was just nuts.  The action points really saved their butts a few times, though, so that was interesting...  likewise, the party sorcerer built for ray usage and didn't cast a restricted spell the entire game.  A change of pace from the usual fireball storm.  We also had a glaive paladin / fighter specializing in sunder, a greatsword critical-hit fighter, and a bard / fighter archer.  The greatsworder had very very swingy damage; when he really hit, he killed opponents outright, but he also missed a lot.  The glaive paladin got pretty reasonable performance across the board, through sundering the hydra turned out to be a bad idea.  The archer was less than perfectly useful...  I attribute this largely to the high-AC monsters.  Ranged combatants need to be using rapid shot and similar to do decent damage, and the high-AC critters really shut that down.  Sorry, Tim.

This has led to some speculation on "mook design", if you will, where by mook I mean what 4e or True20 might classify as a minion.  They're weakish monsters who are fairly easy to kill, but are still a threat to the PCs.  I've employed mooks as such on two occasions; here in the mountain fastness of the lizard men, and in my TB Bloodsworn Vale game two summers ago.  Here, they had high AC but low HP, and were not fun.  In Bloodsworn, the zombie gnoll servants of Golgorroth had low AC, but took about two hits from the party monk or a good hit from a holy greatsword to take down.  Effectively, I conclude that 'fun' mooks should be easy to hit, and should take about two hits to kill.  This gives the satisfaction of hitting reliably and doing damage, and also makes clearing them out so you can get at their leader straightforward, but not trivial.  Missing is frustrating, but hitting and doing damage, even if you don't drop anything, is satisfying.  Ergo, even if the same number of expected hits are required to kill a mook, one with low AC and higher hit points is preferable as far as fun goes.

But back to one-shots.  I had never DMed a one-shot before, and my only experience playing in one had accidentally turned into a medium-length campaign of about 9 sessions in a single world because it ran long and we did a few unexpected things.  I recently, however, stumbled across a blog post by the Angry DM which effectively advocates picking up a new system with a new GM and playing a three-shot.  I find this to be a really good idea...  The human mind loves threes, and this allows a much less rushed storytelling structure along the traditional lines of beginning, middle, and end, with gaps in time and space in between the segments.  It doesn't have to be combat-combat-combat, and player choices other than strict combat-resource allocation start to matter, but can still be kept reasonably simple; putting a decision point at the end of each of the first two sessions creates four possible outcomes, which is relatively easy to manage compared to a full "go anywhere do anything kill anyone"-style campaign.

I don't know that I'll have the time to run a three-shot...  but it's something I'd like to keep in mind for the next time I get the itch, but maybe don't have time to run a full campaign.  Hell, a three-shot would be the perfect length for gaming with my family over the holidays.  Hmmm...