drsparnum's page

In my group, where the DMing duties rotate in an informal way, I'm known as the toughest DM in our group, because I kill the most players. However, (perhaps by necessity) I also have the most lienient penalties for death. In my latest game I took a tip from MMORPG and gave a temporary XP penalty. The formula is probably more complex than it needs to be, but basically the PC will be a level behind for a couple of levels, but eventually their XP will be right as rain - if they keep playing without dying their XP total will return to exactly where it was had they never died.

The other DMs believe that death needs to be serious, that players need to fear it and respect it and do all they can to prevent it. I don't think D&D is built for this. At L1-2, you save or you get charmed. At L5-7, you save or you go blind. At L9+, very often, you save or you die. Does that mean that the player at L9 who died was "stupid" or "foolish?" Possibly, but probably not. Certainly the player didn't do anything different then when he was L3, and he failed a save and got held for a battle, or whatever. Moreover, with the rock/paper/scissors nature of saves, it is usually easy for the spellcaster to guess if the target is going to be better at fortitude or will saves, and then pick a spell that forces the appropriately difficult save. I almost think a L9 wizard has more chance of succumbing to a disintegrate than a L7 wizard has of succumbing to a posion spell, with or without the Great Fortitude feat. And what did the player do that was so stupid?

At higher levels I think it is easier to die, at least to spells, so it should be easier to negate death. In the RAW, it is easier and easier to undue death as you go up in level. In games where DMs change that and make death an extra serious penalty, I wonder how they deal with save or die spells, that come up all the time once people can cast L5+ spells.

Mine have been taking longer, but I think I have two reasons for that.
1. My players are fond of temporary immobilization spells, like entangle.
2. We're playing Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and alot of the encounters are crammed full of numerous mooks, who pose little threat to the party other than slowing down their advance on the real foes in a given area. It does lengthen combat in real time and in rounds.

I'd say the average combat in my game is 8 rounds, and most of my combats are 4-10 rounds, but they can go in the 15-20 round neighborhood. THe bigger your battlemat the longer your combats will be. If you use fast flying creatures with less than perfect manuverability against your party, you can also get a long combat.

Just do be difficult. Couldn't a large creature get a bonus with stringed instruments. It would help it span more frets for very large bass guitars. I could easily see a bonus to spot for large creatures. Being tall makes it easier to see things. Plus, the difficulty the large creature will have in seeing the cat is already partially captured by the cat's size modifier bonus to hide. I would sooner give the small creatures a bonus to search.

Anyway, I don't think it would break the game. Personally I wouldn't do it, but that is mostly because I'm lazy. Now, as DM, you will need to remember to modify the monster manual entry for move silently anytime you run a goblin. You'll also have to penalize every large creature. It wouldn't be worth it to me, although it sounds like it would be worth it to you so go for it.

I'd love encounter tables. I'd like to see them include monsters from sources outside of MM1 because I have trouble getting these monsters in my game and the DMG already gives me tables using only monsters from MM1. I'd like to see any groups fully fleshed out on the table (if you can meet a bunch of goblins led by a L3 fighter and a L5 adept - stat 'em out). I'd like to see tables for every biome (forest, plains, hills, mountain, coast, desert, underdark) at every temperature (arctic/tundara, cold, temperate, hot) at every level (low, medium, high, very high). I know that's alot of tables, but I'd still like it and I wouldn't mind if it dribbled in over time even at the expense of pages devoted to adventures, dungeoncraft, letters, ads etc.

If a sorceror enters a PrC that grants +1 caster level, can they still unlearn spells at every even caster level, or is this a feature only of the base class?

I read the books a long time ago, and I don't know enough about draconian lore to tell you how accurate your descriptions are or how powerful draconians are relative to one another.

Still, all of them look like they should have a higher CR to me. For example, your gold draconian compares closely to a hill giant. Yet the Hill Giant's CR is two points higher. My hunch is you built them off of dragons instead of off normal monsters* - and dragons have a notoriously low CR relative to their power. It is okay, because you want your PCs to really remember dragon fights and they always get lots of loot for beating one, so dragons pound for CR can be a little off. However, you are probably going to swarm your players with draconians. Furthermore, if anything the gold draconian is tougher then the hill giant. I'd up the CR of every one of your draconians 1-3 points, personally.

*I also find an imbalance between the monster manuals. A CRx monster in MM2 and MM3 is much tougher then a CRx monster in MM1.

Large Giant, Hill
Hit Dice: 12d8+48 (102 hp)
Initiative: –1
Speed: 30 ft. in hide armor (6 squares); base speed 40 ft.
Armor Class: 20 (–1 size, –1 Dex, +9 natural, +3 hide armor), touch 8, flat-footed 20
Base Attack/Grapple: +9/+20
Attack: Greatclub +16 melee (2d8+10) or slam +15 melee (1d4+7) or rock +8 ranged (2d6+7)
Full Attack: Greatclub +16/+11 melee (2d8+10) or 2 slams +15 melee (1d4+7) or rock +8 ranged (2d6+7)
Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Rock throwing
Special Qualities: Low-light vision, rock catching
Saves: Fort +12, Ref +3, Will +4
Abilities: Str 25, Dex 8, Con 19, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 7
Skills: Climb +7, Jump +7, Listen +3, Spot +6
Feats: Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack, Improved Sunder, Weapon Focus (greatclub)
Environment: Temperate hills
Organization: Solitary, gang (2–5), band (6–9 plus 35% noncombatants), hunting/raiding party (6–9 plus 2–4 dire wolves), or tribe (21–30 plus 35% noncombatants plus 12–30 dire wolves, 2–4 ogres, and 12–22 orcs)
Challenge Rating: 7
Treasure: Standard
Alignment: Often chaotic evil
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: +4

You're probably aware of this, but they are detailed in the Dragonlance campaign setting. I'm guessing you just don't want to spring for the book if you're not running the setting and just want to incorporate these monsters. That shouldn't stop you from stealing the art though .... you can get draconian pics for your players right here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20030808a

Wow, that is handy!

I only checked the first one (3d6.org) because it was pretty much everything I could've wanted.

Yesterday I needed to look through all my issues of Dungeon to find adventures designed for parties at L6 and at L10-11. After doing it I thought I should make a database, but I started thinking a sortable index would have been really useful. Ideally, this index would let you select all of the issues you have (and constrain the search to those issues), or at least restrict the search to a certain version of the rules (1E, 2E, 3E, 3.5). The only other search terms I'd like to see would be level, although I could think of a few other people might like (side trek, campaign setting).

I figure that an index like this must be out there somewhere. Can anyone direct me to something like this. Being able to hit a few buttons and having the index spit back all 3.0 and 3.5 adventures in Dungeon for parties L6 would be really nice, for me at least.