D&D With Kids Part 2: The Gates of Karak Norn

When we left our intrepid band of kid D&D players in the first episode of D&D With Kids, the party, Kriv the dragonborn fighter, Foxy the human druid and Adrak the elf rogue, along with their animal friend, Scruffy the wolf, were just entering the lower entrance complex of the dwarven city of Karak Norn.

They encountered a handful of goblin sentries (more on that later) and defeated them handily, so the second session started in one of the main halls.

Right away I ran into a bit of an issue.  Iris' friend Julius, who is 6, wanted to play too.  I didn't want to spend a bunch of time making a character, so I was initially stumped, but then I ran upstairs, printed a Beast Card for Scruffy.  I forget where I got those, but whoever made them did a great job!

So Julius had a fairly simple character, and played Scruffy to great effect.

Dyson's Darking Depths

I used one of +Dyson Logos excellent maps for the entrance complex.  They had reached the diamond-shaped chamber in the center.

I decided that I didn't want this to turn into a combat-heavy dungeon crawl, so I was thinking about ways I could make sure that didn't happen.  I decided (nebulously) was to have factions - the goblins, a dwarven guardian of some sort, and some kind of animals.  Also I figured on incorporating some way the kids could scare off the goblins.  Little did I know they already had me covered!

When they explored the diamond-shaped chamber, they found that the two attached rooms on the north walls contained working dwarven ballista, used for room defense.  They investigated them but didn't do much else, then moved on to the large chamber to the north.

The Dwarf Guardian
I decided that this room would have the dwarven guardian.  The central area looked like a statue, so I put a huge dwarven golem on the plinth.  When they entered and I described it, the thief, Adrak, immediately headed over to touch it, despite Kriv's warning that it looked dangerous.

The golem awoke, and after a short conversation, offered them a deal.  Get rid of the goblins - don't care how, and the golem will open the gates to the city.  They agreed, then headed off to find the goblins.

I made it clear at this point that there might be a lot of goblins, and if they attacked mindlessly, I would kill their characters.  It sobered them, so they came up with a plan.  Kriv and Foxy manned the two ballista in the entry hall, and Adrak volunteered (with Scruffy's help) to lure out the goblins so they could shoot them with the ballista.  Not a bad plan...

The Goblin Chief
Adrak entered the room to the right of the diamond-shaped chamber, which proved to be a dwarf boot-room, and encountered 3 goblins, one of whom had an alarm gong and mallet.  Adrak doesn't speak Orcish or Goblin, so he didn't understand when the goblins asked him who he was and why he was there and where the sentries (amember them?) were.  He didn't make any hostile moves, so they went and got Grung, their chief - you could tell he was chief because he wears the BIG HAT.

Grung!

Grung spoke enough common to negotiate, and the kids got a real kick out of my goblin voice.  After
much laughter, Adrak negotiated with Grung that the goblins would leave and meet the party on the other side of the mountains, whereupon the party would give the goblins 25% of the treasure they found inside the dwarf city.  Grung didn't understand %, but agreed when Adrak explained that meant "most of it".

Adrak told Grung that the sentries were "asleep" and "wouldn't wake up", but panicked a bit when Grung headed off to yell at the sentries for sleeping on the job.  Grung yelled at them for a bit, but they didn't wake up, since they were dead, and Grung started to get mad, but turned and realized that two huge crossbows were pointed at him.  He immediately surrendered unconditionally.

Kriv speaks Orcish, so it was lots of fun to have Grung switch from broken Common to fluent Orcish.  The kids all laughed when he went from "No KILL GRUNG!" to "Ah, you speak a civilized language.  There is no need for bloodshed, I surrender unconditionally."

Faced with the threat of the crossbows, the Goblin chief agreed to leave, especially once Adrak confirmed that the "most of it" deal was still in effect.  About 50! goblins filed out, driving home the point that fighting would have been a baaaaad idea.

Couple of notes on running games with kids here.  First, they can come up with some pretty great plans.  Second, funny voices and accents go over really well.

The party then returned to the golem, who confirmed that the goblins were gone and opened the gate to the dwarf city.  It warned them that the city was long abandoned, and that it had no idea what they would find.

God of Fish
Beyond the gate they found a large cavern full of water, with a number of large square stone columns emerging from the water.  It appeared to be an ancient bridge that had been taken down by the dwarves.

The water was deep and dark, and the columns were too far away to jump to.  They discussed several different ways of bypassing the water, but having Scruffy with them made everything harder.  I reminded them that Foxy can change into animals, including possibly a fish.  Foxy immediately jumped into the water.  She wanted to change into a goldfish, but I reminded her that if there was anything dangerous in the water, it might be nice to have teeth, so she changed into a giant pike instead.

Probably RAW (Rules as Written) this wasn't something she was allowed to do, but when you play D&D with kids Rule of Cool ALWAYS wins.

I stole this next part from Matt Colville's excellent Youtube series on D&D.  Stealing cool ideas for your game is good.  You should do it more.

Swimming through the water, Foxy soon encountered a small, shiny fish with lots of pointy teeth - a subterranean quipper (basically a piranha).

Foxy decided she wanted to talk to it, so she cast Speak with Animals.  Again, not rules as written, but a great idea, so she was able to talk to it.

It seemed surprised...  "Are you good to eat?"  it asked immediately.  "No," replied Foxy, "I taste terrible and am poisonous."  The fish then yelled into the darkness "NO GOOD TO EAT."

"Awwwww..." chorused hundreds of other quippers from the darkness all around...

Foxy was roundly congratulated for a good answer by the rest of the group.

The fish then asked "Are you God of Fish?"  They had never seen a fish so huge before, nor a fish that could speak quipper.

"Yes." answered Foxy promptly.

Foxy got another round of congratulations for that answer.

The quipper swarm assembled and then intoned in unison "What would you have of us, Oh God of Fish?  Do you desire offerings?"

Foxy then instructed the fish that, yes, she would desire offerings and that they should not eat anyone on or in the water for the next day.  The fish agreed, and began bringing coins and treasure up from the depths of the pool.

I described this like a scene from a disney movie.  Fish darting about, banging into each other, carrying treasure, one fish inside a helmet swimming into the wall, 10 fish dragging a sword back and forth because they were all swimming in different directions.  Disney scenes and physical comedy are all good when playing D&D with kids.

I also had the fish ask if the should "bring up the chain" since I wanted to give them a way to bypass the water.  Turns out I shouldn't have bothered, but Foxy said yes, so the fish brought up a chain that, when pulled from above, ratcheted up a set of climbing chains that would allow people (short people) to climb between the stone pillars.

LOOT!
Then I did some random treasure rolling, and they found:  110 gp, a +1 Longsword of elvish made, a Helm of Elvenkind (as boots, but a helmet - cause I described a helmet in the fish scene), a Brooch of Shielding and a Ring of Water Walking.  After some discussion, they decided Kriv should take the longsword, Adrak the helmet, Foxy the brooch and they tied the ring to Scruffy's collar.

Kriv's new sword

Doing a quick image search on your phone and showing the kids pictures of what their new items look like is a great way to build enthusiasm.  But if they want to describe it themselves, keep that description!

Into the Deeps
Using the chains and the now water-walking wolf, they crossed the water and explored a bit, finding a small dwarven temple, then a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.  The tunnel led several hundred yards, then ended at a square vertical shaft, with metal cables hanging from the middle.  The kids immediately recognized it as an elevator shaft.

Kriv had the great idea of dropping a rock to listen for the distance to the bottom, and the brief length of the fall convinced them they could climb down.  Adrak and Foxy are both quite agile, so they had no problem climbing down, but Kriv volunteered to carry Scruffy down, and managed to roll well too.

Julius asked if he could roll, too, so of course, he could, since everybody else was rolling dex checks.  He had a little trouble, but made it.  Good general rule - try to make sure everybody has a chance to roll dice.

At the bottom of the shaft they found an elevator platform, a large tunnel with a stone pipe along the side, and a complex-seeming piece of machinery with a lever that did not seem to do anything other than produce a gurgling noise. Deciding to check on the destination of the pipe, they followed the tunnel as it slowly sloped upwards.

They noticed as they went that the large stone pipe did not angle upwards, and so it slowly receded into the floor as they continued.  Finally, at the point where the pipe was level with the tunnel, the tunnel opened out into a huge cavern containing an underground lake.  The pipe stuck out into the lake water some distance.

We hadn't actually had any combat in the session so far, so I decided to put a fight down here.  A fight and a puzzle, actually, but definitely a fight, since Kriv's player is very combat-oriented and it gives everybody a chance to roll some dice.

The first thing they noticed was a number of tall, pale-skinned creatures standing on top of the pipe, apparently fishing with long bone spears.  Kriv immediately threw a javelin at them.  Since this was designed as a combat encounter, I ruled that was fine, and gave the party surprise.  Kriv threw the javelin, Adrak and Scruffy charged forward and Foxy used her Thorn Whip spell to grab one of the creatures (Grimlocks) and haul it off the pipe into the water.

Next round, Kriv charged with his battle axe, Scruffy pulled one of the Grimlocks to the ground, and Adrak stabbed another.  Foxy, though, couldn't really decide what to do.  Knowing that she had one use of her animal shape left, I suggested, "You could change into a bear and attack them."

The result of that suggestion

Grizzly bears are... really tough.  3 attacks, lots of HP, high damage.  Also Foxy had new dice and was rolling pretty well.  So yeah, Grimlock butt got kicked.  She was so effective that I'm actually a little worried that Kriv is going to be unhappy about no longer being the party asskicker.  I'll have to look at that.

Letting each kid have a real chance to shine, and making sure that those opportunities really come up are critical when you are playing D&D with kids.  Adrak's player likes sneaking around and being athletic.  Foxy's player likes animals and interacting with them, Kriv's player likes BATTLE.  Knowing this and factoring it into adventure design is really important, and I foresee a potential problem considering how effective a Circle of the Moon druid can be at handing out the the hurt.

Within a few seconds the few remaining Grimlocks (these are aquatic Grimlocks) were swimming away under the water.  The party realized the pipe was blocked with rubbish, and decided to clear it to see if that would cause the lift to start working.  As they worked, Scruffy started growling and Adrak noticed white shapes moving in the water.

Suddenly, a huge, albino crocodile with several Grimlocks clinging to it lunged out of the water, and another battle began.  Foxy was still in bear form, and grabbed the albino gator by the head, shaking it lifeless and tossing it into the wall.  General mayhem (atten-hut!) followed, and the defeated Grimlocks fled.

With the pipe unblocked, the party returned to the strange machine.  They couldn't really figure out what to do at this point, so I had them make Int checks to see if they could figure out the machine.  They succeeded, opened the valve, threw the lever and the platform began to rise, taking them up into the darkness of the abandoned dwarf city of Karak-Norn.

I set up the machine to be a fairly simple puzzle, but I think it was made more difficult because I just described things. If they had a model, I'm sure they would have figured it out easily.  The machine is basically 4 parts:  A tube to bring water, a valve to shut off the water, gears to turn the crank, and the crank that raised the platform.  They had to clear the tube and open the valve, then throw the lever that activated everything.

At the end of the session Kriv and Foxy went up to level 3, Adrak is a little ahead in XP, so he stayed level 3, and now I have to figure out a way for a wolf to go up levels, because Julius would like Scruffy to go up levels too!

It will be a while before our next session, but hopefully we'll get more gaming in the new year!

DM Lessons: Mea Culpa

I play a fairly house-ruled version of D&D 5e with lots of more old-school elements to it. One of the most noticeable elements is my Modified XP and Levelling Rules. Different classes have different ways of turning treasure into XP, and carousing is a pretty common one for all the martial-style classes. When you carouse, you spend money, it turns directly in XP, you lose time and you roll on the d100 carousing table which I grabbed from... Reddit.

As somebody who is very interested in keeping RPG gaming a safe space for everybody involved, let this be a cautionary tale.  I screwed up, and hopefully, this will help somebody not screw up.

First off, my group is a bunch of white males. I'm a white male, and these are primarily my friends from university or high school. Most of us have been playing rpg's together for a looong time. We have broadly the same sense of humor and (I think) similar expectations for our games.

We did have a new player in the group last night, though, and that's where the my mistakes started. Actually, my mistakes started earlier when I didn't REALLY read the carousing table I grabbed. I mean, I read it, but I didn't pay a ton of attention to it. That table contains some pretty rape-y elements. It's all implied - nothing like "you were sexually assaulted", but a lot of "you wake up in bed with" and "you wake up naked with" entries.

It's at this point that I keep wanting to say things like "taken the right way, it's mostly funny", but that's a cop-out. It's trying to avoid responsibility for paying attention to the elements and material that I'm bringing into my game. Material that, frankly, doesn't really make my game a safe place or a fun place.

So that was my first mistake - I didn't review and think about my material. My second mistake was that I didn't make the context of the material clear and I didn't talk about it with the new player. We've used the carousing table before, had a fun time with the results and treated it mostly like the throw-away stuff it's intended to be. But I didn't make that clear or understood. I also didn't clarify that the results of the carousing table are in no way binding.

If a player wants to run with them, that's fine. If they want to use them as an opportunity to role-play or start a character arc, that's fine. If they want to treat them like a Simpson's throw-away gag, that's fine too. Although truth be told, that table has more Family Guy style material than Simpsons.

But I didn't make that clear. I just told him to roll on the carousing table. He ended up rolling a 67 on that table, which is "You wake up in a nobleman’s barn. You are wearing a saddle and there are whip marks on your buttocks. You are 1d10 sp richer."  Which could be a funny situation to be in, but could also be a very traumatic and horrible situation to be in.

The player interpreted this as me telling him that his (female) character had been drugged and sexually assaulted.  Which is not a thing I'm interested in having happen in my games.  Plus, the rest of us, who had used that table before as a light-hearted interlude, were laughing.  So at that point, my game is not a safe place AT ALL.

This is also the point where I keep wanting to say something like "it was made worse by the fact that he was playing a female character" but that's also a cop-out.  It wouldn't have been better for that to happen to a male character.  It's poor taste material that I presented badly either way.

It took some work to sort the situation out.  Work I should have done beforehand, but didn't because I made assumptions about everybody being on the same page with the material and the tone of the game.  I fucked up.  It's the kind of session that could easily cause somebody to quit a campaign, and the kind of miscommunication and assumption that would definitely make a table at a Con or game shop an unsafe place for players.

This is also the kind of mistake of communication and tone that I see lots of gamers pooh-pooh as "overreacting" if somebody points out that gaming isn't a safe place.  It isn't overreacting, it's the kind of feedback and critical thought that we as a community of gamers have got to listen to, to think about, and to do better on.  I hope to do better in the future.

The Lost Library of Calacorius 1: How it Happened.

Mages.  They're always messing around with things.  Stuff that you aren't supposed to mess with.

Like gravity, or dimensions.  Fuckssakes, people, things are put in different dimensions for a REASON.

This is, of course, the reason that Mages tend to have a fairly short life expectancy, at least compared to most things that can alter fundamental laws.  The ones that don't blow themselves up or get eaten by something from 6 dimensions over, though, they often accomplish some really amazing things.

The other factor to consider is that the sort of person who is willing to tinker with forces that might best be described as "indescribable" is probably somewhat... eccentric.  Also driven, and focussed...

Fine. Nuts.  Mages are usually nuts.  And the ones that aren't nuts to start are generally nuts by the time they come in contact with a few non-euclidian beings or non-pythagorean angles.  Human brains just don't process that shit well.

Along the way, though, these driven, focussed folks often create pretty amazing things.  And one such person was the Archmage Calacorius.

Like most obsessed people, Calacorius had a single diamond-hard thought.  He wanted a Library.  Not just a petty collection of scrolls and recopied books, not him.  He wanted a Capital L Library filled with all the books ever written in all of history.  Yes, I know that's impossible.  Nuts, remember?

Calacorius started his library by building an extra-dimensional space.  That allowed him to expand as
much as necessary.  Soon, the work of expansion bored him - he was more interested in acquiring books than building bookshelves, so he created a series of librarian enchantments and golem servitors and empowered them to file and expand the Library.

Like most hoarders, he didn't give a ton of thought to organization.  His magics allowed him to find nearly anything within the space, so he just gave them the keys (so to speak) and had them get on with it.

In the early days, he had a grand old time of it.  He scryed, travelled, acquired.  He deposited dozens, hundreds, thousands of books in his Library.  Sometimes he even read them.  Usually when he was studying ways to get more books.  Nuts, after all.

As time went on, he ran up against some limitations.  Time being a big one.  Also entropy, which is pretty much the same thing.  Also the fact that lots of books simply didn't exist anymore, or were too well protected from his scrying, or hadn't been written yet.  That one was a real stumper, but nothing a really, er, driven Archmage couldn't sort out.

Sure he couldn't get his hands on books that didn't exist, but in all those lovely dimensions, there was probably a similar book that DID exist.  Monkeys and typewriters.  All that.

So Calacorius started adding to the enchantments of the Library.  He set up the ability for it to create portals.  He built complex enchantments that identified and located really rare books.  Unique ones, lost ones, hidden ones.  The spells found all sorts of amazing stuff in adjacent dimensions, similar timelines and hidden sub-basements of reality.  Enthralled, he began to follow the portals to retrieve these treasures.

He didn't come back.  Which is a thing that happens when you dick around with dimensions.  Duh.

By that point, though, it wasn't that big a deal, at least not from the perspective of The Library.  The Library had things to do.  Vast aetherical engines powered it, magical constructs maintained it, it expanded itself, and it had a goal.  That diamond-hard idea was baked into every spell that made it.

Must. Get. Books.

So it did. It searched across the planes and dimensions.  Finding, retrieving, archiving.  It began to grow.  And it began to change, as things do, when left unattended.  Many of the books it contained were magical, and as anybody with half a brain knows, magical things don't tend to just sit around doing nothing.  Especially if you put them next to thousands of other magical things.  Stuff happened.

Coming Next:  Using the Library in your game.

DM Lessons: Improvisation Building Blocks

Sometimes, you can really force yourself to think on your feet if your players decide to do some investigating and look deeper than the surface of things.

In our last Over the Seas and Far Away session, one of the players went off to his temple to inquire if they have any work. As the DM, I want to remind players of the horrible system of oppressive slavery and corruption that the party is working around the edges of. So he does have a job, alright.

Job is: escort these clearly innocent virtual slaves to their new life of hard labor in a logging camp. Temple is getting paid to transport them.

Player winces, but hey, might be something interesting here, so he does some investigating as to why these prisoners haven't been moved already. "Let me see their paperwork".

Instantly, he's getting paid a bunch more because this shit is shady. Also there are about 50 of the prisoners.

So now as the DM, I have to think up several things.

1. Why haven't the prisoners been moved?
2. What makes this shadier than usual?
3. How can I make this scenario more interesting?

One of the keys to running an effective campaign (sandbox or otherwise) is to have done enough worldbuilding that you have components to put together to flesh out a scenario like this. I improvised thusly:

The prisoners haven't been moved because there are a lot of them, they are dangerous, and the company that contracted for them hasn't sent anyone to get them.

This is shadier than usual because the prisoners aren't from the usual prisoner's channel, and everyone knows it, but are being paid to ignore that.

How can I make this more interesting?  The prisoners are of the same persecuted minority as one of the characters.

I need to put this all into context now, so I start pulling worldbuilding from my back pocket. In the Empire, the half-orcs are a persecuted minority, and lots of them live on the fringes of the Empire.

Transported are only supposed to be convicted criminals, but the amount of labor needed in the Colony has created a thriving secondary market for "off-brand" Transported.

Half-orcs are strong and tough, making them more dangerous than standard prisoners.

So now the party has to transport 50 or so angry half-orcs a hundred miles through fairly dangerous forests and deposit them in the same sort of logging camp they LITERALLY just rescued 50 people from. Irony is fun.

Now, this is a really important DM tip: if you set up a scenario, don't get at all tied to YOUR solutions. Just sit back and see what your players come up with.

In this case, one of the players is a half-orc, so make friends is the answer. They spent hundreds of sp getting them blankets, food and clothes, and promised to free them from the logging camp after delivery. The prisoners were suspicious, so Wrenaldo, the half-orc in question, accepted their offer to temporarily join the coffle and get rescued with the rest of them.

Happy day! At least for me. Not sure they're going to enjoy this.

5e Dwarves Session Summary: September First

After taking the summer off, the old Playtest Group reconvened to kick the Dwarves! campaign off in full 5E style.  There have been a number of character changes, of course, but they have managed to maintain a dwarf-majority party.  However... one of the member of the party is now an elf...  An elf spellcaster, to boot!  Horrors.  How will the intrepid dwarves deal with this arcane point-ear in their midst?

Pretty well, as it turns out.  Of course, +Torben Schau, who plays the point-ear, couldn't make the session, but other events make me optimistic that he will eventually be accepted by the xenophobic, er, intrepid

Hilbo says "Hi"

dwarves.

The current adventurers are:

Hilbo Huggins, the dwarf soldier Battlemaster, played by +J Malfair

Korrum Kargonil, the dwarf guide turned Cleric of Moradin Foehammer (Martial aspect of Moradin), played by +Greg Pierce

Wanderer, ostensibly a dwarf Arcane Trickster (secretly a changeling) played by G+'s very own +Kasper Blomdell.

Slieyronourmous Troves, a dwarf (well, duergar, really) wizard (well, warlock, really), played by +Perry Jones

Sinder, an elf guild merchant Arcane Knight, played by the aforementioned +Torben Schau.


We did quite a bit of stuff via email before the first session started, so when we did get going, the immediate problems were well-established:  lack of food, a damaged hold and freed slaves from hostile races.

The slaves were the first issue addressed.  Specifically, the hobgoblins, orcs and goblins.  Knowing that
hobgoblins are almost pathological about honoring bargains, Hilbo negotiated a mercenary contract with Fear, the leader of the group.  They agreed to work for the party patrolling near Gnollshead Hall in exchanged for regular gold, any loot they take, and the rights to camp in the old fort that the cult of Doresain abandoned.  The hobgoblins will also be paid a bounty for gnoll tails (lots of gnolls in those hills) and are allowed to trade for supplies at Gnollshead Hall.

Next, the duergar.  These slaves were in a near-catatonic state due, it was revealed, to the worms that were eating their brains.  Apparently duergar all have brain-worms that they take drugs to prevent from lobotomizing them.  Slie was able to give them a concoction that killed the brain-worms, but they didn't come all the way back from that, and now the dwarves have them doing simple labor - probably for the rest of their lives.  But it beats the alternative.

Then, the drow.  The two slaves, Verraki and Verrakath, were discovered to be members of House Inncon'eal, a minor, male-run house which provides mercenaries and guards for more powerful houses.  They agreed to bring a message to the head of their house in exchange for freedom, which the dwarves granted.  Surprising leniency for the party, which bodes well for Sinder!

On to the food and repairs.  Despite the dwindling food supplies, the dwarves got right to work, cause, hey, dwarves!  Wanderer and Korrum took a bag of money north to Gnollshead Hall to purchase supplies, and Hilbo, Slie and Sinder stayed behind to supervise rebuilding.

Wanderer and Korrum had a small run-in with Ogres, but were able to secure a good-sized herd of Ahten cattle, getting them back to Greatview before starvation really began to bite.  Fortunately, the fortifications, forges and fungus farms were all repaired as well.  The only wrinkle as found during the clean-up of the upper mines.

A 10-foot wide hole, coated with purplish slime.  Looks like one of the duergar Purple Worms is still hanging around the area.  Following the worm tunnel deeper into the mountain, the party comes upon a large cavern filled with pools of greenish, steaming water and a strong caustic stench...

Further Thoughts on the 5E Economy

Should I just call it 5Economy?

In any event, after being called out on my math, I settled down to think about the world-building ramifications of the crafting rules a bit more.

The basic math leads me to some conclusions which - fortunately I think - replicate (in a rule-of-thumb, simplified for gaming way) the sort of conditions you'd expect in a faux-medieval economy.

1) Limited Supply

This is the really big takeaway.  If, as a craftsman, you have to pay 50% of the cost of an item upfront in materials (or even 25%, really) the item represents a loss to you personally until it sells.  The bigger the ticket item, the more you'd have to plowed into it.  A suit of plate mail represents 2 YEARS of living expenses for a tradesperson in materials...

Plate mail is a bad example here, because it is, by it's nature, a very limited-demand item, but even something like a longsword (15 gp) represents a lost week's wages (at 1 gp/day) until it sells.  So only a well-established blacksmith can keep much inventory - it costs too much.

It also means that local blacksmiths, who presumably make their money just "practicing the craft" and maintaining a modest income, don't get many opportunities to sell big-ticket items like this, so they are unlikely to have much stock.  Sure, they'll make it - but only if somebody wants it.

The upshot here is that it doesn't make much sense to be able to get expensive equipment in small towns or villages unless there is some other reason for it to be available.  Sure, you can get it made, but there won't be much/any lying around.

2) Pay up front and expect to wait.

If it costs a smith 50% of the finished good (or even 25%) to make something, they are gonna want a deposit.  Probably for the entire materials cost.  Unless you're a local and he knows where you live and whatnot.  Transient murderhobos get no credit.

If the smith is solo, divide the cost by 10 to figure out how many days it will take.  If he is part of a team, multiply the team by 10, then divide by that.  Minimum 1 day.

Example:  Longsword - 15 gp.  Cost you 7 gp up front (15/10) - wait a day and a half.

3-man team for Plate Mail - 1500 gp - cost you 750 gp up front (1500/30) - wait about 2 months (50 days)

This math would break down differently if things are less than a gold piece, I think.  But unless the total cost of all the items exceeds 10 gp - the answer is "one day".

3) Some parts need houseruling/handwaving.

Darts.  They cost 5 cp, or 1/20th of a gp.  If you can make 5 gp worth of materials/day, then you can make 100 darts a day.  Again, if you are paying 50% of the cost as materials, maybe you are just gluing the fins on and screwing on the pointy bit?  Still seems fast.

There is some weirdness in the sense that a gold dart would presumably take much longer to make than a normal one, that sort of thing can mostly be handwaved (or not really worried about)

4) Any smith can forge anything.

There is only one "smith tools" set/skill, so technically speaking any smith can forge any item.  The materials cost is clearly a limitation, but presumably not if you are putting down a deposit.  Realistically (or as much realism as possible in elfgames) you might want to require larger cities for smiths with the skills to make highly specialized/expensive items, like spyglasses or plate armor. Even swords (heck, especially swords) had very specialized skills associated with making them.

5) Scale up for Art Objects.

Time/cost is determined by end value. If you want to make a really beautiful, valuable item, just pick how much you want it to be worth (or ask the DM), pay the materials cost (meteoric steel is pricey) and get to forging.

Hopefully the DMG will have some magic-item creation rules, but until then, requiring that you start with a very valuable item is pretty common.

Obviously, PC's won't be looking at using crafting to make money, but a PC (or ex-PC) with some capital, contacts in the sword-swinging community and knowledge of blacksmithing has a pretty good retirement plan available.

So the house rules I'm going to start with on crafting are "Pay anywhere from 10% to 50% for materials" and "You can make an item a work of art by paying more in materials/crafting time".

That's all for smithing, although it looks like performance might need a look, too.

5E Dwarves "Downtime" Summary

Our 5E Dwarves campaign is set to restart shortly. When we left off, the party had reached the dwarven city of Greatview Hall, returned the undead dwarves of the High Guard to the Temple of Moradin Dawnbringer, and met with the Elder Council.

(I set up and played out a wargame scenario for the Siege of Greatview Hall with my friend Craig - he beat me like a rug, so that's the result we'll use. Craig is a wargame designer. Lucky, lucky you.)

Colored for wargame use.

 

Based on those results, here is what happened during the downtime:

Upon the return of the High Guard to the Temple of Moradin Dawnbringer, the undead warriors are returned to life by the blessing of Moradin, but cannot leave the temple grounds.

Following the warning from Stalagtite, you scramble into action. After a quick discussion, it is determined that fortifying the Temple of Moradin is the best course of action, as the High Guard can assist with the defense, and it is near the center of the city - making it convenient for getting all the civilians and troops together.

Moving as quickly as you can, you gather the civilians and militia troops in the upper city, leaving a small group of militia and the elders in the upper citadel (mostly on their insistence). Sending messengers to the army commanders, you also start moving the various dwarven units towards the Temple.

By acting quickly and decisively, you manage to gather most of the civilians, militia and military units in the Temple of Moradin and fortify the temple grounds with barricades and rubble walls, just as the Duergar assault troops begin smashing their way up from below.

Massive purple worms mounted by twisted, robes duergar sorcerers lead the assault, followed by squads of armored minotaur and troops of duergar warriors. The first group arrives in the lower city, trapping some of the dwarven militia, along with a number of workers from the Forge Quarter. The militia manage to throw off the first assault, and Hilbo, Hakoah and Wanderer lead a relief force, catching the duergar in a vice and smashing the troop.

A second and third assault group appear in the lower city, but on opposite sides of the Temple of Moradin. Both attach the fortifications, but are thrown back, one group is savaged so badly that the survivors flee back down the holes, and the second is crushed by a counter-attack.

The fourth and final assault group breaks into the upper citadel, slaughtering the defenders and elders. They also destroy a section of the upper city, but retreat back into the tunnels when they realize the other attach groups are defeated.

The final cost of the attack is 75 dead dwarves and much of the lower city and upper city seriously damaged. Over 300 duergar bodies, 50 mintotaur and 2 purple worms are dead in the field, one wounded worm escaped into the tunnels after it's handler was killed, and about 100 duergar in the last assault group escaped.

Wanderer's scouting into the tunnels reveals that in the lower halls the duergar army is preparing to retreat, It seems that about 1000 duergar remain, along with many minotaurs and a menagerie of frightful beasts. They also have many captives, including several hundred dwarves.

Hoping to free the slaves, you launch a raid on the slave camp, freeing most of the slaves and fending off the duergar forces that pursue you.

It is now 2 days after the assault. The rubble of the battle is still smoking, and supplies are low.

One of them had an iron collar on.

You have:

100 dwarven soldiers (The Cliffwatch Guard and the Dawnbreak Guard)
Led by Commander Gorin "Short-Fist" Rungnisson

50 Resurrected High Guard

High Priest Faragrim Silver-vein.

225 civilians - mostly elderly, children and the infirm.

350 militia - pretty much all the men and women who can swing an axe or sword.

200 freed slaves - 150 dwarves and 50 assorted races, including orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, a couple of drow, some duergar and an elf. The slaves are in pretty rough shape.

There are about 10 days worth of supplies (enough to feed 900 people) left in the city granaries and storehouses, you are out of medicines, although there are several priests with healing spells still alive.

How Did I Not Know About This?

I love the Onion.  YDIS written in the style of the Onion makes me happy.

Keep up the good work, even though, as you say:  Blog Target Audience Pathetically Small, Powerless.

The Dongion

You should go read it.

Random Encounters and Reaction Rolls: RERR?

My current D&D Next playtest campaign:  Dwarves, is a semi-sandbox.  By that I mean that the world is generally open for exploration, but I've developed a number of adventure hooks/events in most of the neighboring areas.  This gives the party quite a bit of freedom to explore the map and get into trouble, but also gives me some narrative structures that I can use to build encounters and areas.

Each area adjacent to the PC's starting area (Goldenhills Hall) has site-based, random and "story" based elements.  That means that any random encounters table has to pull double-duty.  It has to contain random encounters, true, but the encounters need to be linked to the story elements and to the site-based elements as well.

As a DM, I tend to work on the "you CAN talk to most things, but sometimes they don't want to talk to you" basis.  Having encounters that end in ways other than combat is an essential step towards creating a world that gives the characters options besides "I hit it with the rock!"  But realistically, not everything wants to talk.  AND you can't really use charisma is all circumstances.  You might be a charming motherfucking pig, but the Cave Lion don't care...

So that means that encounter tables have to carry quite a bit of weight.  I use a standard 2d6 reaction dice, but each encounter has a modification, and also notes whether Charisma can be used.  Temper all this stuff with a generous dose of common sense.  Obviously you need some way to communicate, even if it's lighting torches and throwing them at said Cave Lion (universal human symbol for "Fuck Off").

Encounters are rolled daily and nightly with a d6.  1 indicates an encounter.  I tend to add +1 or +2 to the actual encounter roll (d20) at night, since I keep fairly positive encounters at the low end of the list - nighttime encounters tend to be more hostile as a result. 

Encounter reaction table:  Roll 2d6 and modify, encounters with Cha can be modified by characters Cha bonus IF they can communicate.  Characters with Animal Handling can add their modified bonus to reaction rolls involving animals.

1-           Immediate Attack

2-3          Hostile, will attack if opportunity presents

4-5          Suspicious, will attack if threatened or try to flee.

6-8          Neutral, will talk, attack or flee depending on interactions

9-10       Wary, but willing to listen.  Won’t let guard down.

11-12     Curious, interested in talking, will approach.

13+         Friendly, interested, will approach and offer assistance.

This system is structured to work with a possible encounter bonus of around +/- 4 or so at the extreme.  A +/- 8 modifier would mean a purely hostile or peaceful encounter.

Currently, the party is exploring the Saltwind Flats.  The area is prairie and rolling grassy and rocky hills.  The main local inhabitants are the Ahten Nomads, who are currently under attack by the followers of Doresain, King of Ghouls, who have taken up residence in a local ruin/dungeon. 

Saltwind Flats Plains and Foothills encounters

Roll	Encounter	# Appearing	Reaction Modifier (2d6)
1	Ahten Nomads – Herders with stock and families	2d10	+4 (cha)
2	Ahten Nomads – Hunting Party	d6	+3 (cha)
3	Ahten Nomads – War party – well-armed nomads	d12	+2 (cha)
4	Animal Herd (1-2 Buffalo, 3-4 Wild Horses, 5-6 Wild Cattle)	d100	0
5	Plains lion pride – plains lions.	d4	0
6	Wolf pack	D10	0
7	Ghul skulkers, looking to carry off the unwary	D4	-8
8	Gnoll raiders, looking to kill and eat something	2d6	-4 (cha)
9	Air elemental, playful, but rough.	1	0
10	Slavers out of Hellonde	D10	-2 (cha)
11	Lizardman Raiders on raptor mounts.	D6	-4 (cha)
12	Giant snake out hunting.  It ain’t picky.	D2	0
13	Griffons on the wing.	D4	0
14	Ankheg nest.  It’s usually hungry	1	-4
15	Manticore.  It likes to eat people most of all	1	-6
16	Perytons out looking for something to kill	D4	-8
17	Wendigo.  Cannibalistic air spirits only come out at night.	1	-8
18	Roll again, you find that group recently dead.
19	Roll twice, and the two groups have just met.
20	Special

I keep a separate table for Special encounters.  Those are the weird, different stuff.

I find this system gives me a good spread of random encounters with a range of possible outcomes, tied to both the story elements and the regional "feel" that I'm looking for.

13th Age Icons for D&D Next: Dwarves - the Emperor

The second +13th Age icon in the series:

The Emperor

 Ralshaz VII, Dragon Emperor of Ruywick.  Last of the House of Ruy.

Usual Location: Ruywick, in Palace of Jade and Vermillion.

Common Knowledge: Ralshaz recently ascended the throne of the Dragon Emperor and many already consider him to be a throwback to the mighty emperors of old.  Ralshaz is a powerful warrior who often leads his legions in person.  He was raised by The Archmage, far from the intrigues of the Imperial Court, and reportedly has little patience for politics or statecraft.

Adventurers:  Ralshaz prefers to use the Imperial Army and the Greycloaks (Scout Battalion) for his business, but occasionally, a less obvious touch is called for.  For sensitive tasks requiring deniability, adventurers are recruited.  He is particularly interested in the Wild Lands to the west, and is actively recruiting adventurers for operations there.

Allies: The Archmage is his mentor and confidant, the Priestess, and through ancient treaty, the Great Old Wyrm.

Enemies: The Dwarf King, The Diabolist, The Lich King, The Three, The Pirate Queen, The Orc Lord (traditionally).

History: Ralshaz' grandfather, Timmurias IV, died in the field against the Orc Lord and the Horde when the eastern Empire was lost.  The Archmage used the Desolation to destroy the horde, and Ralshaz' father, Ehzaz, killed himself in horror after seeing the creation of the Desolation and the ruination it created.  His death marked the end of the 12th Age.

Ralshaz was very young at this time, and was taken from the Imperial Court and raised by the Archmage.  The is young, idealistic and intends to return the Empire to its days of glory. His plan is to conquer and colonize the Wild Lands to the west, beyond Llandy Vale.

One True Danger:  The Emperor is young and reckless, and turning the dwindling resources of the Empire to conquest might be disastrous, especially if another Orc Lord arises.