dougnoel's page

IT's funny. I've seen this conversation hundreds of times in relation to MMORPGs. How do you make death hurt without destroying the fun factor? In NWN PWs the same question took a different turn - how do we reconcile PnP rules with the fact that the Internet is wonky? In NWN, world creators spent a lot of time wrestling with the idea of fun vs. penalty. The main argument for penalty was: "That's how it is in PnP." So I find this discussion to be quite interesting.

I never really thought much about death and level loss in PnP. I throw lots of nasty surprises at my players, and I admit I cackle at their chaarcter's misfortune. However I rarely kill characters off. I don't use the massive damage rules, and I fudge damage rolls to put characters on death's doorstep instead of outright killing them. I keep this from my players with something like the following:

Me: I roll a critical hit for 22 points of damage. With a smile I ask, "How many hit do you have left?"
Player: "7, why?"
Me: Giving him a 'glad I'm not you grin', "Ooh! That's gonna hurt! You take 14 points of damage. Your at -7."
Player: "That sucks."
Me: "Yeah, he confirmed his crit, sorry."

Next round someone pours a potion down his throat and he's up and running again.

I don't do permanent ability/level drain. It's challenging to play with a -1 or -2 to all your rolls for a session. It's no fun to lose a bunch of your abilities and spend the next couple months getting them back.

Now that's not to say that I don't kill PCs. When players do stupid things, or refuse to retreat against impossible odds, they die. However the inconvenience (and it's always very inconvenient) of getting raised is usually enough to deter that behavior in the future. I have also had players refuse to raise fellow party members. This happens when the character took a turn to the annoying or stupid. The player generally recognizes this and rolls up someone new. On occasion the player promises to play differently and the party relents.

If someone rolls up a new character (regardless of reason), I start them with the exact same amount of xp as their previous character. They get gear appropriate for their level, and their old magic items go away (with the exception of any important plot items.)

I also allow character refactoring. If my players says, "Samurai/Kensai/Shaman was a dumb idea, I want to put the shaman levels back into samurai." I say, "Ok."

When planning encounters with save-or-die abilities (like stoning) I give the players a solution to a problem. Once I put a party against a medusa and cronies. Ultimately the players won the encounter, but not before all but one party member was turned to stone. The remaining member was a wizard, but he couldn't cast stone to flesh. I put a scroll of stone to flesh in the treasure. He wasn't high enough level to scribe teh spell, but there were a number of other statues in the cave, along with one that had a golem standing next to it. The player decided to use the scroll on the statue, hoping it was a wizard. It was a wizard, and one that could cast stone to flesh. The player put the clues together and saved the party. Everyone had fun, and the party learned to be a little more careful.

In the end it's about fun. Death and dismemberment is only fun when it's plot related. Otherwise it's a game mechanic that should be balanced against everyone's enjoyment.

Doug

With regards to azhrei_fje's program. You should deffinately have Fog of War removeable by squares. I use FG and sometimes is sucks using the draw selection tool to clear the fog. And it would be great to be able to re-fog an area once the players leave it. This would be perfect for mazes and such.

Tam

What you really want is defined light sources. This is basically how many 3d games work. You declare a light source, and the rendering determines how much light to apply to textures. In something like this, you could do something much simpler. Here's an idea for a complicated version:

Make two layer types, a line of site layer and a light source layer. You can attach properties to objects (be they characters, monsters or static objects for lighting) for the type of vision and the light source they have available. These layers can then automatically compute what the players can see, based on their location, the light available and their type of vision. Overlaying these layers onto the map allows you to filter out the visible map based on player location and any variables.

So if the elf rogue is scouting ahead of the fighter, who is carrying a torch, he can see farther than the torchlight would normally allow. Based on parameters stored in the map and actors though, you wouldn't have to figure it out.

You could create some optional toggles as well, such as whether revealed map area remains visible and whether or not monsters move under fog of war (even if the map is revealed, the players cannot see monsters moving behind them). You could also apply a light level layer, where areas just have a certain light level regardless of light provided by the players. So if you're outdoors, or in a building with windows on a bright day, or don't want to place torches in the barbarian's festhall, you can just declare an area to be lit.

Just a few thoughts.

Doug

dougnoel wrote:

Speaking of silly words... I always attach command words to magic items. For the rod of wonder, it's "Bam!" You can tell when a combat is not going well, because every round you hear, "Bam!" soemtimes they'll take a move action to hand the wand to someone else so they can yell out, "Bam!" as well.

'Zoink' - my PCs just found a Wand of Wonder this session.

Excellent! :-D

Speaking of silly words... I always attach command words to magic items. For the rod of wonder, it's "Bam!" You can tell when a combat is not going well, because every round you hear, "Bam!" soemtimes they'll take a move action to hand the wand to someone else so they can yell out, "Bam!" as well. I allow this as long as they're already standing next to one another, as I love the rod of wonder. I have a special chart and everything. :-D

For my online game, these are the current house rules. I use most of them in my PnP game, but they have never been formalized.

CHARACTER CREATION
------------------
Level
All characters will start at level 1.

Race
As usual, you are limited only by your imagination as far as character concepts go. Keep in mind that the campaign starts in the human lands and we will need to come up for a reason for your character to be there. If you wish to play a monstrous race with an ECL, then we will make a level progression chart for you.

Class
Any base class can be chosen. If you are interested in developing towards a specific prestige class, let me know and I will help you with that.

Ability Scores
28 point buy.

Hit Points
You get max hit points for your first level, plus constitution modifier. Minimum starting hit points is 1.

After first level, you roll for hit points. You get what you rolled or half your possible maximum - whiever is higher. You then modify this number by your Constitution modifier.

For example, Morrick the rogue has a Constitution score of 12. At level 1, he gets 6 +1 hp for a total of 7. At level 2, he rolls 1d6 and gets a 2. He instead gets 3 + 1 hp, and his new total is 11.
Hit Die Minimum hp
1d4 2
1d6 3
1d8 4
1d10 5
1d12 6

Equipment
Starting gold is per the PHB (p. 111.) Use the average amount.
Class Starting Gold
Barbarian 100
Bard 100
Cleric 125
Druid 50
Fighter 150
Monk 12.5
Paladin 150
Ranger 150
Rogue 125
Sorcerer 75
Wizard 75

Everyone also starts with a set of clothes appropriate to his class and rank.

HOUSE RULES
-----------
Automatic Successes and Failures
A one is not an automatic failure and a 20 is not an automatic success.

Skills
If you roll a 1 in a combat situation, the DM may make you roll again. A second 1 indicates a critical failure as determined by the DM. Likewise, a natural 20 on a result that succeeds may have an extrodinary effect as determined by the DM.

Combat - Critical Hits
A 20 is not an automatic hit. However, when confirming criticals, you may continue confirmation indefinitely, and increase the damage multiplier by +1 for each confirmation. For example, with a longsword (crit x2/19-20) if you roll a 19 and its a hit, you would roll to confirm a critical. If you rolled a 19 or 20 on the confirmation roll, it would be confirmed at least double damage. You would then confirm again. If your second roll was another 19 or 20, you would now deal triple damage, and could roll again to confirm a critical. In this way it is possible to kill a creature with one massive blow.

Combat - Critical Misses
A 1 is not an automatic miss. However, regardless of the result, you must roll d20 again. A second 1 indicates a critical failure, the results of which are determined by the DM.

Action Points
Per UA/Eberron.

Favored Classes
There is no multiclass XP penalty for multi-classing. I feel that multiclassing balances out without the need to reduce XP.

XP Awards
XP is awarded for any foe defeated or circumvented. XP will be awarded for good roleplaying as well, at the rate of 50 XP/level. We will also probably replace the pre-game XP remembering sessions with weekly xp based on participation.

Just wondering, how long your average combat lasts?

Half a gaming sesion. Never fails.

I am currently co-writing "Ecology of the Rust Monster" for an upcoming issue and I wanted to include some of the most harrowing tales of encounters with these metal munching menaces straight from the mouths (keyboards?) of us players.

Awesome.

Ok, so I wanted to use a rust monster but hadn't found a chance to fit into my campaign. I had just run the group through a modified "Scarlett Lord" in which the bad guys are rust-like zombies. Now it wasn't really supposed to be rust, but I thought, "What if it is?" So I decided to add into the cave complex a big momma rust monster and all her babies.

The players were looking for an artifact, and they were following a magical device that pointed them in the right direction. They enter caves covered in rust with tons of tiny little bugs scuttling around. They make a knowledge (arcana) check and realize that they are teeny-tiny rust monsters. The warforged paladin freaks out. Suddenly the tank no longer wants to go first. So one of the mages steps up and starts clearing the path with magic.

As the party goes deeper into the cave, they start seeing cat-sized rust monsters, and then a few slightly larger rust monsters. Luckily for the players, this magical rust is tastier to them than the players' gear.

The players finally enter a gigantic cave so large they cannot see the opposite wall. The cave is crawling with thousands of rust monsters from the size of cockaroaches to the size of small ponies. The party comes to an ice wall with two creatures trapped in it. They need to get through the wall.

One shatter spell and two sessions of intense combat with a white dragon and various frostburn creatures later (a good story for another time), the party is in a cave so cold that everything is frozen. Their directional device is pointing them towards a giant boulder. The boulder is as big as a house. They try to go ethereal and realize that they're going to have to deal with the boulder in the material plane.

So the spellsword (for those who don't know, 3.0 spellswords imbue their weapons with spells they can cast at a moments notice, which costs xp) decides to poke the boulder with his rapier. I had him make a save and he failed. The sword turned to rust.

The party immediately backs up and hauls out ranged weapons and magic. They begin blasting the poor hibernating rust monster. After a round of damage (this thing was colossal or gargantuan and had a couple hundred hp) the rust monster wakes up and gets to its feet, shaking its blanket of ice loose.

The party freaks out even more and they let loose an even greater barrage of damage, throwing their most powerful spells and abilities at the creature. The rust monster dies in the second round without even getting to move. Right in front of the door that they have to get through.

So they killed the rust monster, but now had to somehow get through 50 tons of dead rust monster. So they took turns using a sword made of magical ice to slowly carve their way through the monster. since it was so imhuamnly cold, they created a Leomund's secure shelter to stay in. A week of digging later, they had a passage wide enough for the warforged to walk through.

I laughed a lot. It was a good game. :)

My first appearance in Dungeon was back in issue #12, a solo adventure called "The Scepter of the Underworld." Next up was issue #24, with "Thunder Under Needlespire" (which introduced the ulitharid). "Twilight's Last Gleaming" was the last of my adventures for a long time; the next one to appear in Dungeon was in issue #86: "Lord of the Scarlet Tide."

I remember reading "Lord of the Scarlet Tide" and thinking, "I will never use that. What a waste." I ended up working it intomy homebrew campaign last year. I was trying to think of a water-based adventure I could place in a specific location. I remembered some sort of down the well adventure and re-read "Scarlet Tide". I reworked it a little, added on to the "history" and it worked perfectly.

I remember there was a Wis damage trap that the paladin set off. His thought was that he would save against anything, so why worry about traps. What he didn't think about was others in the blast radius. The wizard went down to a Wisdom of 3 and ran into another room, initiating a combat with a ghost while most of the party was a few rounds away. The wizard pulled out the rod of wonder and fired it off random while the rest of the party tried to keep him from dying. Good stuff. :)

Afterwards, I used one of the large caves as a jumping-off point for another dungeon and filled it with baby rust monsters. Thousands of bug-sized rust monsters eating the leftover "rust". Scared the warforged paladin to death. Of course then they ran into momma rust monster, who was so big they thought she was a boulder. But that's another story. :-D

Anyway, saw this thread and just had to say thanks for such a great adventure! :)

Doug

When I first saw these in the Paizo email, I said , "Cool!" Then I went to the site and saw the words, "Random Booster Packs." This immediately turned me off. I then decided to read the end of this thread two weeks later. I saw the comment about all the helpful Paizo staff comments. So I skimmed the thread and read the staff comments. I now like the idea even more.

A few thoughts for Paizo.

1.) In reference to these comments:

We will sell these item cards as singles in some fashion on paizo.com here ... and the price will be the same for each card whether it is a potion or a trident or whatever. No high priced rare cards here. There aren't any rare cards...each card is exactly as common as each other card.

Make that information known in the advertisement. As was pointed out by one of your staffers, most of your customers are not reading this thread. I have never subscribed to the random booster pack idea. I've been a gamer since I was 10, and it's never made sense to me. So when I see those words I opt out. It's a neat idea, so I would suggest taking this predjudice into account when marketing these items. I fall into your major marketing bracket for a while yet, and while I have disposable income, I'm not a colelctor. I always want to feel I'm getting value for my money.

2.) I would love to see a run of these in Dungeon in relation to an adventure. Similar to the monster tokens a while back. I think you would hook a lot of people on them that way.

3.) The ratios of items is a bit wonky IMO. In my experience (see below) the items I use cards for the most are:
1.> Potions
2.> Weapons
3.> Amulets/Rings/Gems (mundane and magical)/Wondrous Items
4.> Armor/Shields/Bracers
5.> Wands
6.> Rods/Scrolls
7.> Staves/Ammunition

The most glaring excess (in Pack 2) for me is staves. I think I've given away one magical staff in the last two years. I would prefer to see more exotic weapons. It would be nice to see a larger sword choice, such as scimitar, bastard sword, greatsword, greataxe, rapier, katana, wakizashi, urgosh, etc.

Perhaps booster packs such as oriental weapons, monk weapons, barbarian weapons, etcetera would work well.

5.) I give out mundane item cards as well. Perhaps this is in your dragon hoard pack. If not, I use things like bags of gems, piles of coins, etc. I find pictures of real coins and then use them to represent ancient coinage. I also use just random things like bags, boxes, statuettes etc for random treasure and/or as semi-magical items. It'd be nice to see some of this show up (and I see a little bit in pack 2.)

6.) Someone else mentioned blank cards. I would like these for the sole purpose of being able to hand out cards for everything. They're a bit sturdier, and I'd love to just paste existing pictures on blank cards and put the info on the back. I could use at least a half hundred of these just to get going.

7.) Bags of holding. You should think about marketing bags of holding for cards. Actual bags that can be used to represent magical (and mundane) containers. Keeps your cards and dice all in one place. If they're simple cloth bags, they could be written upon. Of course we could just put them in those binder sleeves as well, but my experience is that they always seem to fall out regardless of the method you use to store them. Since these are actual cards, they would hold up inside actual bags better and be more likely to stay together.

A few thoughts for DMs.

1.) I have been creating my own item cards for over two years now. I find just the right image on the net. I then print out two copies of the item. One pre-identified and one after identification. On the second card I include every game stat, including the price. In the case of sepcial items, I usually leave blanks or somehow indicate that there are more powers to discover. In these cases I print a full version to keep in my notes. You could do something similar, except all you would need to do is print out a little piece of paper with the ID'd info to attach to the back when the party identifies the item. If you tape them on, this makes the items cards more reusable. Resuability definitely goes up for these things as your party level increases.

2.) In my high-level campaign, these cards makes cashing in items easy for the players. If they need 20,000 gp to create a guardian golem to protect a city, they all look at their accumulated cards and decide what they can throw in the pot. It's kinda like playing Monopoly. It also makes trading the items between players easy.

3.) For containers (like bags of holding) I tape an item description to the front of an envelope. The chaarcter's name goes on the envelope. This helps when tryign to figure out how to haul out a dragon hoard. The size/weight limit is on the outside of the envelope. Players just fill the envelope to capacity and we spend less time worrying about carrying capacity.

4.) When using disposable items like potions, I put checkboxes representing the number of like items a character has. each time they drink one, they check off a box. I use a similar system for charged items, and each time they use one, I check against my notes to see if they're near the limit for the item. If not I don't worry about it for the adventure, if so I watch the number of uses that session.

5.) When handing out generic treasure, you can always give out blank cards. If the players aren't going to keep any +1 swords, then don't write anything on the cards. When they're sold, throw them back in the DM pile. Even if you do write on them, I often reuse cards, especially generic ones when giving out NPC treasure. Once you get used to using cards, both you and the players prefer to have a card, even if it's just a post-it note.

*clink, clink*
Doug

I'm going to give out rewards for writing a backstory, supplying a painted miniature, finding a picture, writing a personality profile etc.

I generally don't reward for backstory, other than incorporating that backstory into the game - which is usually enough. However, if I were going to try enticing a new group, I would give them starting xp. I feel the 50 xp per level guideline from the DMG is a good balanced reward for roleplaying. For each thing they accomplish, give them 50 xp. That will get them part of the way to level one, and will have no effects on game balance.

If I were going to give tangible rewards, I would do something like the following:

Miniature
You may have a free masterwork item if it is displayed on your miniature. This can be a family longsword, a set of masterwork thieves' tools, an elven crafted bow, a masterwork armor, or anything else on your miniature. To qualify, your miniature must be painted and the masterwork item must be described in your backstory.

Portrait
You get 50 xp for providing a portrait. This xp (and only this xp) may be used to "create" magic items as if you had the appropriate item creation feat(s). You must pay the gold cost for these items from your starting gold. To qualify, you must explain how you got the items in your backstory. If you do not have the appropriate item creation feat(s) for the items you make, the items must be explained as a gift to your character.

Personality Profile
You may select up to two traits (Unearthed Arcana p. 86) that are described in your personality profile.

Backstory
In addition to providing backstory to explain other benefits, you may pick up to three of the following events to add to your backstory for additional rewards:

Heroic Deed - You start with 1 extra action point at the beginning of the game. To qualify, you must explain some heroic deed (large or small) that your character performed in the past.

Contact - You start the game with a contact. This contact is a level 2 commoner or expert or a level 1 adept, aristocrat or warrior. To qualify, you must describe how you met your contact and your relatinship with them.

Diverse Background - Training you received as a youth allows you to treat one additinoal class as a favored class. To qualify, you must describe the training you underwent for the class you select to treat as a favored class.

Apprentice - An apprenticeship or other training gives you a +1 miscellaneous bonus to one skill (or +2 to a craft or profession skill). To qualify, you must describe the apprenticeship or training you received.

Odd Item - You have acquired one of the following odd items. To qualify, you must describe your acquisition of the item. (A couple came from Lilith's list.)
- Hunk o' Troll - A sealed jar of troll meat. Open and let it regen for instant troll patties! Don't leave the cap off!
- Cool Mug - A mug that keeps whatever is in it magically cold.
- Flint of Fire - Creates a small flame when struck with steel.
- Bowl of Ice - A bowl that's always full of ice. If you take some out, it replenishes itself in an hour.
- Cockatrice Feather - Turns hair to stone. Used for a pleasant shaving experience, as well as for hair-related pranks.
- Extendable Tin Cup - An odd tin cup a foot long and 3 inches in diameter. Extends out to ten feet, remaining hollow on one end.
- Dragon Turtle Soap - Self-lathering soap made from the fat of a dragon turtle.
- Minotaur Yarn - A bright red ball of yarn that never runs out. It cannot support more than a pound of weight without breaking. If cut, the cut end turns to dust a round later.
- Death's Mark - A simple copper coin that turns black when you die.
- Memory Yarn - A piece of yellow yarn you can tie around your finger to remind yout of something. When you untie it, it verbally reminds you.

Doug

Another quick thought is to make the trap require multiple checks to disarm. For example, disarming the door only keeps the trap from going off normally. Another disable device check is necessary to safely release the pressure in the tanks before they blow up anyway in the character's faces, 30 seconds (5 rounds) after they enter the room.

Turn the tanks that hold the acid into a containment field for a living spell that Victor had someone capture for him. I would combine a mid-level <i>fireball</i> (for burning down the place) with some sort of high-level disease or poison, and a low-level <i>cure</i> spell. Then top it off with <i>confusion</i> or a <i>suggestion</i> spell cast by a high-level caster to do something like "Sit".

The living spell will easily destroy the lab (which is the main purpose anyway). Anyone engulfed is going to be in dire straits as they are slowly burned alive but have the compulsion to sit there and take it. The curing is an odd added effect that prolongs the pain (and probably shouldn't be added to the CR of the creature.)

If you want something more damaging, you could combine a fireball/cloudkill. Also, I would take the party's resistances into effect. If I'd given them magic items to resist a certain type of elemental damage, I'd substitute that damage for the <i>fireball</i>. Same if they've spent feats or taken PrCs that give them the ability to resist certain types of damage. The water tower can fall apart as everything is frozen and cracks apart under the weight. The entire place can crackle as it conducts electricity until it starts a fire at the base bringing the whole thing crashing down.

My favorite would probably be for the entire place to resonate for a couple rounds until it suddenly cracks apart with half the tower breaking apart and falling to the ground. The party is left standing at the crack, looking down as the living spell they just unleashed begins moving into populated areas. Because let's face it, it's a much bigger challenge for the players to protect commoners from the trap they tripped than to just protect themselves.

When doppelgangers change shape, can they imitate equipment, clothing, etc.?

The MM doesn't say they do, so I would assume not. It says, "They are cunning and patient, willing to wait until an opportunity presents itself instead of attacking rashly." This gives the impression that they would take the clothing of their victims. Think polyjuice potion from Harry Potter.

Of course, if you're the DM, you can make the power include clothing if you want.

@Tzor
You just reminded me of something else we do. We have a concept of Cool Points. The idea is taken from the game Dread by Malignant Games. Every time you describe an action in a cool way, you get a bonus to a die roll. You get it when your fellow players say, "Hey, that was cool!"

If you are familiar with action points, it's the same idea. I have made the bonus for cool points +2, but +1d6 would work as well. Like action points, cool points only work on 1d20 rolls. The nice thing is cool points are self-balancing. Players don't try and use cool points for everything becuase it gets old, but when they want that extra "oomph!" they'll make the effort to describe what they want to accomplish.

@Tarlane
Something you might consider is an idea I got out of a Dragon article. You have a remembering session before each game. You ask the players what they remember and for each thing they rattle off you put a tick next to their name. You then give them 5-25 xp per tick. (I give 25 in my high-level campaign.) This is especially helpful after an RP intensive session, and can result in a nice amount of xp for the players. It helps keep everything fresh and it encourages everyone to keep notes.

I always reward my PCs with XP for roleplaying "in the moment" as opposed to at the end of a session. It lets them know exactly what kind of roleplaying I'm looking for and it sets an immediate example for everyone at the table.

I like that idea. I don't give xp at the table for one reason. One of my players is abysmal at math - to the point where it embarrasses him. He's an excellent roleplayer. I actually have a group of very good roleplayers. I just give them a lot of incentive to continue RPing. :)

I give out xp at the beginning of the game session. When I do this, I tell everyone who got what and why. This keep sit fresh in their minds for that session. As a side effect of me keeping track of it, most players only want to know when they've leveled. (And even then they sometimes don't want to take time away from the game to level.) I generally try to take care of leveling outside of the session via email.

One thing I like about rewarding for RPing is it gives me a way to award xp when we don't have any combat in a session. Our sessions are 3-4 hours, and we generally have a non-combat session once every three games. Those are generally some of the most enjoyable and memorable sessions for the players. Getting xp for them just reinforces the idea that they don't have to kill stuff to level.

Doug

The idea of providing questions is a good one. I would expand upon that and say give the PCs questions they need answer to, and then let them find the solution. "Chimes at Midnight" in Dungeon #133 had some great examples of this idea. especially the sections detailing what to do if the PCs destroy the evidence they need to proceed.

If you're playing AoW, "The Library of Last Resort" in Dungeon #132 also does a good job of this. The party gets four quests with very little information on how to handle them. Hacking and slashing through all the problems is a sure way of getting dead.

The easiest way to start is to ask the players when they reach a new town, "What do you want to do?" If you can get the wizard researching a spell or magic item, the other players are free to explore. If they want to go to a tavern, make a tavern for them to visit. If they want to find a gambling hall, roleplay that out.

If you want to cause the PCs to think more, give them less information. Drop a piece of information in their laps that tells them that so-and-so in town/city/dungeon/castle/temple such-and-such can give them the information they need for the next leg of their quest. Leave it up to the players to find out where that location is, how to get there, and how to find the person. Whatever choice they make (as long as it's not completely inane) reward them with a little more information or by letting them know they're a bit closer to their goal.

Finally, you can use rewards and punishment to reinforce roleplaying behavior. I do this by rewarding at least as much xp for roleplaying as fighting. I give large story awards of 100-200 xp per level. Every time the PCs accomplish a goal, I give them such an award. I also give 50 xp per level for every good idea or good roleplaying session. I usually limit these to one award per session per person. One player may get one for solving a puzzle in a way I didn't expect, while another gets a reward for entertaining the group with the way he played his halfling bard while the party was in the tavern.

To discrourage blanket hack-n-slashing, I make some encounters tougher than usual. The PCs generally hurt after these encounters and remember them for a long time. I also throw in unwinnable encounters. After half the party dies quickly, they usually retreat to lick their wounds. the key there is to allow the surviors to escape and take their dead comrades with them.

There's nothing wrong with killing monsters. D&D's about killing monsters and taking their loot. However, not every monster has to be dealt with face-to-face. remember to give the party experience for bypassing enounters as well as defeating (or foiling) enemies in unusual ways. If teh party keeps the ogres from chasing them by creating a rockslide, give them XP for the encounter.

Finally, if you're going to reward people for roleplaying (however you do it), let them know before, during and after play. tell them you want to encourage roleplaying and you're offering rewards. Encourage them during play by giving them informatio that needs to be followed up on. When they do roleplay, congratulate people on it. Then make a note, and at the end of the session (or the beginning of the next one) give them xp for the roleplaying they did.

And of course, you're the DM so lead by example. :)

Doug

It seems at this point that I have seen three different systems.

The first method is as follows:
From my understanding the core rules are such that if you take a Lizard Folk PC you would would be 1st level (in whatever class) and would have a ECL of +3 (+1 level adjustment, +2 from Lizard Folk initial HD).

That means that the character will become 2nd level when he earns 10,000 XP - he'll be third when he gets another 5,000 XP for a total of 15,000 XP.

The second method is oulined in Savage Species - which I don't own but my understanding of the gist would be to divide the Lizard Folks abilities among 3 levels and have the player earn 3 levels of Lizard Folk before finally moving on whatever class he wanted to go into.

The third method is apparently from Eberron and I have really not seen much on it - if my understanding is correct (and my source is an biased Player) essentially what would happen would be that the Lizard folk would start with 6,000 Xp as a first level Lizard Folk and have earn 4,000 XP to make 2nd and another 5,000 to make third.

I believe that options 1 & 3 are actually the same. I have used that option in one campaign where the players started out at level 10. They were allowed to pick a race/class combination that did not exceed that.

So one player ended up with an astral panther that was a wizard. I gave him an ECL of 3, and he took 7 levels of wizard. His Rake ability made him a much better combatant than the fighters, and the fact that he wasn't humanoid wasn't a problem due to his ability to polymorph. That character was eventually retired, and if I had it to do again, I probably would have made him ECL 5 (he also had cold resistance). The system worked ratehr well though, because he definitely wasn't a level 10 wizard, and his tactics were very different from your typical mage.

In the online campaign I am running (with some of the same players) everyone starts at level one. However, I like to let players create their own character concepts and then fit those characters into my world.

One player wanted to play a dryad. She is newish to D&D (got her start in NWN.) I said, ok, but we need to find a reason that you aren't connected to your tree. I found an old issue of Dragon (1st Ed) that had the idea of sundered dryads. I scanned and sent her the article to read. She agreed to playing something along those lines, and I came up with a monster class using the rules in Savage Species. We then came up with a background story to explain her sundering.

Another player is one of my veterans. He was a big fan of Planescape: Torment. He wanted to play a githzerai wizard. I agreed and created a monster class for a psionic githzerai wizard. I then had to borrow Torment from another player and play it to get a feel for the kind of githzerai culture the player was expecting. It has turned out to be very cool.

If you're interested in the breakdown, you can check them out on my campaign wiki:
http://draman-ka.elwiki.com/index.php/Sundered_Dryad
http://draman-ka.elwiki.com/index.php/Psionic_Githzerai_Wizard

Divination magic is no different from any other spell, power or ability that requires a little planning or forethought. Even spells like message can ruin an adventure if you don't plan for it. Message could ruin the surprise in a level one adventure (I believe it was an example in the 3.0 DMG) where the halfling rogue goes into a crawlspace and gets paralyzed by the ghoul. If the wizard casts message on the rogue, he can ask, "What do you see?" leaving the "line open" for the rogue to respond as soon as he gets in trouble.

My players use message as a walkie-talkie. My high level players (the party ranges from level 10 to 17) cast message on everyone in the party and use the wizards like switchboards. When the wizard is flying invisibly in front of the party scouting, they are usually warned about most encounters before they happen. That's ok though, because they shouldn't usually be surprised if they take precautions. They still were surprised by the assassins with high hide skills. In fact, they had such a hard time dealing with being sniped by someone they couldn't see, that they popped their eversmoking canopic jar and hid in a Leomund's secure shelter spell for a week.

Most of the spells that have me thinking on my feet are utility spells. It's amazing what a smart caster can come up with. The one high-level divination spell I have dealt with recently though is commune. The party was trying to determine how to steal an artifact on display in the capital city of an Empire. Keep in mind these were mainly good chaarcters, but they were on a divine mission that required this artifact. The dwarven cleric says, "I'll commune with my god and find out how to steal the artifact."

My immediate response was, "Uh oh!" The quest had indirectly come from this same dwarven deity. So of course he would be helpful to the cause. However, the artifcat was in the possession of an allied good-aligned deity. I told the player he could ask his 10 questions, but as soon as he cast the spell, he had to ask each question as soon as I answered the previous. Basically, inflicting the duration of 1 round/level on the player. I also informed the rest of the players, that once the cleric started communing, they could not hear the questions or answers, and could not interject OOCly during the proceedings.

The players spent at least 30 minutes carefully constructing and wording their questions. During this time I practiced my best poker face. When the cleric was finally ready, he started asking his questions. Since the group was discussing them, I pretty much had my answers ready. He would ask, I would spit out an answer. Near the end of the questioning, he changed a couple of questions on the fly based on the answers I had given.

This approach allowed a couple of things to happen. First, the entire party got to participate in the construction of the questions. So instead of a half hour of me RPing with the cleric while everyone watched, the party worked as a group for half an hour. Second, the use of the spell was restricted by real-time playing. The cleric wasn't restricted in any way to asking the questions he had prepared, but if he wanted to change them, he had literally only a few seconds to reword them. Third, the discussion time allowed me the time to consider each question and come up with appropriately misleading answers. :-D

Ultimatley, the players used the information to perform a heist that seriously affected the alignment of their paladin and wizard by getting an innocent urchin vaporized by a disintegration field. They then tried to inquire about the urchin via the authorities and the paladin was arrested, only to be released after the being dertermined insane and innocent via a zone of truth spell. The party ended up having to enter and win a kite fighting contest to get an audience with the emperor in hopes of convincing him to give them the artifact.

Hope that helps,
Doug