E6 Idea

[Mirakk]

Hey guys, I thought I'd bounce this off some of you that are familiar with E6 just to see what you guys think. Due to RL issues (expecting a baby!), I don't have the time to devote to D&D that I used to. So, I'm going to be playing some short campaigns with my buddies. Usually I like running longer campaigns with lots of detail, but I'm not sure I'll have that kind of time anymore once the baby comes. So, I thought I'd try mixing some variant rules, and see if I can come up with something neat.

I've always been a fan of lower level games, 1-10 is my sweetspot really. I just like the grittiness, and the balance issues are less of a concern at this point in the game. Naturally, I've come across E6 as a vehicle for this. I've never run that game type before, and am looking forward to it.

But, I want to spice it up more! I want to make it grittier still. Swords are dangerous damnit, and if there's a harpy in town it's kind of a big deal. So, with this in mind, I want to use the Wounds/Vitality System from Unearthed Arcana, and the Armor as DR variant as well. This will make hits more common and crits become lethal.

1. What are your thoughts on this? Sounding good so far? Has anyone tried these rules variants before? I've done playtesting on my own, and it seems to hold up just fine, but I could be missing things.


Now, in keeping with the grittiness that comes from a lower power game like this, I also wanted to take it a step further. No magic. I mean, there's rare potions and alchemical salves around, but these items are a pretty big deal. Without being able to fall back on using healing wands left and right, the party will have to be careful and plan much more. This will naturally create some downtime, but I wonder if it'd be too much. Removing magic from the setting like this will also have a side effect of making mundane equipment much more used and exciting. I want players to actually use the parchment and ink in their pack. I want them to use that rope and their knife.


My overall goal here is to make combat positively deadly so it can be more memorable for the players, and get them to focus more on non-combat aspects of the game like character development (jobs, aspirations, interactions), and day-to-day adventuring duties that get hand waved and taken for granted so easily.


2. Do you think this is too much?


Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

[Madcrafter]

Looks good to me. I'd make sure your players are ok with it though, since the increased lethality means there might be a few more PC deaths, so you should make sure they are ok with rerolling every once in a while. Also for the no magic bit, since some might not like the idea of a more low fantasy game. You know your players better than I do though.

I personally like the idea of the grittier combat. I had plans to run a GURPS Fallout game with the same sort of plan, making gear and foreknowledge important aspects of the game. Shame I never have time to get around to making the setting.

[Yora]

Maybe it would be a good idea to consider other games?

I think unless you're very careful with encounters, PCs will be dying a lot and almost permanently be injured. A CR 3 ogre with a greatclub deals an average of 16 damage. On a critical hit, this instantly kills every character who does not have Constitution 17. A level 1 NPC with a greataxe can deal 15 damage with a single hit.
If you don't want D&D mid- and high-level, don't want D&D hit points, and don't want D&D magic, I think there are games that would make things easier to run and more enjoyable to play.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Armor as DR (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/armorAsDamageReduction.htm) by itself will indeed lead to more hits on characters who would typically be wearing heavy armor, but for classes that wear light or no armor and still maintain a high AC (Swordsage, buffed caster) it's not going to have much impact at all. What it really does is just makes the classes that should be tanks get hit more often while the less tanky classes end up with the higher AC.

For this reason, you'll often see it going hand-in-hand with Defense Bonus (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/defenseBonus.htm). That makes armor proficiency more important than what armor is actually worn, so class bonuses, spell buffs, and gear become less important than a character's own defensive capabilities. Some characters will forgo armor proficiencies for additional class features (Cloistered Cleric) for little to no drawback, while others will wear armor for which they're not even proficient (Psion, Dragonfire Adept) because the penalty to attack rolls never even comes into play. Both of these metagame choices will be at a disadvantage if using both variants, because neither will benefit from the heavy armor proficiency that grants the higher defense bonus.


I've never been a fan of any no-magic 'fix' because it doesn't fix anything at all, it just takes the fantasy out of a fantasy RPG. PCs are supposed to be extraordinary individuals, and even if magic is extremely rare in the world, maybe one particular PC became an adventurer because he's able to wield magic. Maybe all of them did. At that point, the rarity of magic is irrelevant compared to what the players want.

I'll recommend the following alternatives to the no-magic game you've proposed:
1. Wound damage and ability damage can only be fixed by mundane healing. Effects like Wild Shape that heal as though the character rested for a night don't have any effect on wound or ability damage.

2. Magic is physically taxing, and so casting spells, activating magic wands, scrolls, and other items that duplicate spells (but never potions), possibly even using spell-like abilities, etc. costs vitality points in addition to whatever normal costs such activities would entail. The cost of a given spell is equal to the base spell point cost (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/spellPoints.htm) for that spell. Spellcasters gain a number of bonus vitality points equal to twice the bonus spell points they would have gained for their casting stat if that system were in use. Spells with metamagic feats for which alternate costs are paid (Divine Metamagic) will still cost vitality points as though that metamagic feat was applied normally. Vitality points spent on non-instantaneous spells cannot be recovered until the spell's duration has ended.

3. Use of extraplanar travel/spaces (magical containers, Rope Trick, Blink, etc.) attracts the attention of certain planar predators, which can sniff out such activities and will ambush characters who recklessly take such abilities for granted. Use Ethereal Filchers but give them the ability to access and steal from extraplanar storage compartments from the ethereal plane. Use (advanced) Ethereal Marauders which hunt in packs and are drawn to spell effects like Rope Trick which shine like a beacon that's visible for miles from the ethereal plane. You can even throw in (a weaker version of) the occasional Ethereal Slayer (MM2) which seeks out foolish primes who use the Blink spell or other ethereal travel too often, and uses its Dimensional Anchor ability to trap them on the ethereal plane where they'll get no help from their allies. Be sure your PCs are made aware of these hazards ahead of time, any character capable of casting such spells would be warned of the severe dangers involved in their use.

[GenghisDon]

Maybe it would be a good idea to consider other games?

I think unless you're very careful with encounters, PCs will be dying a lot and almost permanently be injured. A CR 3 ogre with a greatclub deals an average of 16 damage. On a critical hit, this instantly kills every character who does not have Constitution 17. A level 1 NPC with a greataxe can deal 15 damage with a single hit.
If you don't want D&D mid- and high-level, don't want D&D hit points, and don't want D&D magic, I think there are games that would make things easier to run and more enjoyable to play.

An Ogre can "gasp" simply be armed with a large club (d8 damage) instead of a greatclub sometimes too! (or even a huge club d12 or 2d6 dam)

I'd agree that most grittier games would work somewhat better on a 3e chasis than 3.5, as the monster score inflation in 3.5 is massive.

The other alternative is going back to the sources & re-advancing the monsters into a 3.5e design. This is awesome, but sadly, extremely time intensive. Ogres as 4 HD giants with Str 18 Dex 8 (or even 6) Con 14 Int 6 Wis 6 Chr 6 & +2 natural armor aren't quite so impressive/dangerous.

[Mirakk]

Thanks for some great suggestions guys. Yes, the mortality rate in this is going to be potentially high. I feel this is okay, since I'm going to be running games that encompass 1-4 sessions.

Frankly my players have character ADD and like to re-roll often. None of them are very particular about optimization either, they just want to play different characters. On a long campaign I have to try to reason out why we're going to suddenly pick up a barbarian or whatnot, on a short campaign of this style, it'd be much easier for them to accept they died, and see how the story plays out the rest of the session with their friends at the helm. They'll jump back in next week with a fresh start.

One player has been begging me to do something post-apocalyptic with them, as he likes that kind of gritty scraping out your existence game. Magic just seemed at odds with that. When anyone with a level of a spellcasting class can conjure food and water it kind of takes some of the point away from that.
Another concern is that spells like Critical Strike become absolutely god-like when you're using the wounds/vitality system. Definitely stronger than a level 1 spell should be. Hopefully this gives you an idea where I'm coming from.

Don't let me convince you I hate magic or anything though! I love magic, and practically consider it a pre-requisite for any character I create personally. D&D's magic system is the most fun I've ever encountered. I'm interested in trying out the spellpoints system from Unearthed Arcana in one of these smaller games just to see how that works out too. Probably make some kind of wizard college final exam for them to take or whatnot.


Back on topic though, you do raise very valid points about the lethality. I might want to consider very carefully how I'll handle that. As a DM I can look the other way on a crit if I choose to in order to progress the story, but maybe offering a 10 point boost to wound points across the board would help offset it?

Just looking for suggestions here. So far I'm liking that Defense Bonus variant. When I first saw it I discounted it as possibly too much, but faced with some examples of encounters I see that my playtesting was far too limited. I only pitted humanoids against humanoids (Rogue vs Archer vs Fighter, just to see how much punishment a person could take). Putting in something that hits a little harder than that could obviously cause a lot of trouble.

The suggestion about healing only working on vitality points is interesting too. Maybe increasing the amount of healing available through salves and items like goodberry wine that's generally available would help offset some of the mortality rate. I like goodberry wine mechanically because of its limited use. You can't just drink a bunch of it and have your gaping greataxe wound go away entirely.

[NichG]

My advice: if you're removing magic, its a wonderful opportunity for non-magic things to suddenly become more important and cooler. For instance, right now 90% of the alchemical items in the books are useless after a few levels because they're replaced with Wondrous items that just do it better. But what if some of those Wondrous items were refluffed as nonmagical and could be made with Craft checks. Suddenly the Craft skills are looking a bit less useless.

One variant I like is the Black Company rules for crafting. Basically you can add nonmagical 'masterwork' bonuses to an item beyond +1 to hit, where the better your Craft skill the better you can make the bonuses. It never quite gets up to +5 sword, but it does mean that that legendary blacksmith can actually make a sword that surpasses others without also being a Wizard (and those things can be varied: +1 to hit, +2 to initiative, +2 to Intimidate, automatic quick draw, etc). This can also solve some of the balance problems that could crop up (but honestly, that Ogre is an outlier for its CR and is pretty deadly even in normal games. High strength means better chance to hit and more brutal damage after all).

When you say no magic though, do you also mean no mages/clerics/etc? If so, I'd be a bit worried about your player base's character ADD, since if you take out all classes and PrCs with supernatural abilities, that doesn't leave many different things for them to play.

[Calimehter]

Its worth remembering that the Vitality/Wound point system *does* allow a saving throw with a fixed DC (15 if I recall) to avoid going right to dying status when you take your last wound point. Its also worth noting that it doesn't matter how much damage you take when you lose your last wound point, you still are pushed into "just" dying status, and are not truly dead yet.

In essence, you could take dozens or even hundreds of points of damage from some uber-ed up attack (by E6 standards anyways) and be in *much* better shape than you would be under the standard rules. Under the normal rules, you would be outright dead. With Vitality/Wound rules, you would either be disabled if you passed a makeable (but hardly automatic) save, otherwise you would be dying and would have a chance to stabilize (or be stabilized by a teammate if circumstances permit).

[Fable Wright]

I don't think that banning magic outright is necessary for getting a grittier feel to your game- the fixed-list casters, like Beguilers, Warmages, and Dread Necromancers, all have no access to the kinds of spell that make wounds less dangerous, or take over mundane tasks.

Also, instead of a 10-point boost across the board, you could have it so that you add your Base Attack Bonus to your Wound points. People who are supposed to take huge hits, like Barbarians and Fighters, now can do so significantly better than stealthy types or characters not made for melee combat as a rule.