Thrair
2013-08-29, 07:14 PM
Heya. An RL friend of my from out of state asked me what I thought about possibly running a campaign, possibly over google+ or roll20.
So far, my DMing experience is fairly limited. Mostly it's just been one-offs for when enough people couldn't make it to a session. With one relatively brief stint of essentially co-DMing with a guy who likes the story-telling aspect of things but hates number-crunching and balancing encounters.
As such, I'd like to run the rules I'm currently thinking of using for a campaign by you all, should it end up happening. I'm also interested in general advice from people with more experience DMing.
From my prior delving into it, I think I've got a good grasp of the rules, and am capable of improv when needed.
One weakness I have is a tendency to run sessions as if I were a player, and limiting myself to strictly to the rules. In that, once I designed an area and encounter, I stuck to it and didn't tweak it readily. I've gotten a bit better about that. Partly because whenever the party made me have to improv on the spot, things ran more quickly and smoothly because I was forced to make up minor details on the fly rather than falling into my OCD by-the-book tendencies. I learned that DMs need to use a little bit of common sense in when to fudge things. (Sure, you might not have planned a patrol there, but the party bypassed the encounter you expected, and nobody has made any checks to see if a patrol is in the area, so go ahead and put one down here).
My other weakness is asking for too many perception checks instead of just describing obvious details from the outset. But I quickly corrected that.
Anyways, opinions and suggestions are welcomed. Having some experience DMing is better than none, but I'd be a fool to think that made me prepared to run a full campaign without asking for advice.
*EDIT* Here's my currently planned rules for a high-fantasy play, probably starting around level 7-8, and working it's way up:
Races & Stats
1) 25-Point buy for stats.
2) Non-core races are fine, but any RP cost in excess of 10 is taken from the point buy.
This is to keep high RP Race PCs in line with core-race PCs.
Traits & Drawbacks
1) 2 traits each, as standard. Only one of these can be a flat stat-boost (Such as +2 Initiative or +1 X Save traits) or Dangerously Curious.
I prefer at least one of the traits a player has be for characterization, and it keeps everyone from having the same traits every game and helps people flesh out character personality a bit.
2) Players can buy an additional trait (even a stat-boost one) if they take a drawback, but I do except them to use it in characterization and roleplay.
I know this is a bit harsh and restrictive. It can just get a little old when someone selects a trait from a powergaming standpoint, then ignores it outside of it’s pure in-game mechanics. Especially since a lot of drawbacks are highly situational and can be traded for potent overall boosts.
Character Creation & Mulligan
1) After a couple sessions with their character, everyone gets a free use-it-or-lose-it mulligan to tweak their character a bit if they’re not quite happy with it. This also applies for replacement characters if there was a cause to reroll.
This isn’t really intended to completely change a character. It’s just to allow a player a chance to test-drive the character a bit before finalizing everything and having it set in stone.
2) If you decide to reroll after dying (which hopefully won’t happen too often), the character has to be significantly different from the prior character. If you want to keep a dead character, rez em. Don’t pull out an identical twin.
Houserules
1) Everyone gets a minor bonus feat. Examples of minor feats are things like Improved Unarmed Strike, Endurance, Eschew Materials, Breadth of Experience, Cypher Script, Master Craftsman, etc. In general, eligible feats are either out-of-combat/skill-monkey type feats, highly situational, or just a blatant feat tax.
This allows for a little extra customization in grabbing some minor feat without worrying about blowing one of your actual feat slots on it, or to lessen the feat tax penalty on a cool feat-chain.
2) Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting all get rolled into Improved Two-Weapon fighting. You get the extra attacks at the appropriate BAB (+6 for Imp, +11 for Greater).
This makes TWF more useful in general, as it does not eat up 3 feats just to be viable. As a fringe benefit, it reduces the Dex requirement making such builds less MAD, as well as making Shields more viable.
3) Monks get full BAB.
They don’t cast spells and they don’t get sneak attack damage. That screams “Martial class” to me. On a note related to TWF, it means their Flurry progresses faster. They get the extra attacks at 6 and 11, rather than 8 and 15.
4) Practiced Spellcaster (+4 to Caster Level, up to your current HD) feat from 3.5 is houseruled in.
Multiclasses have it bad enough without losing this feat. And Magical Knack exists with a +2 to CL, which fits in with Paizo’s “trait is half a feat” rule-of-thumb. And, frankly, a multiclass caster is WAY less of a danger than a single-classed primary spellcaster in just about every case.
5) Obvious Drizz’t clones are summarily captured by a coalition of the Gods and fed to Rovagug.
Now. As for my DMing style:
1) I do reserve the right to invoke Rule Zero. I try to avoid doing so, though.
2) While I am not trying to “win” against the players, I make encounters challenging. The character creation under this setup is quite generous for making powerful characters. If the bad guys aren’t up to par, things get boring.
3) Not every fight the party gets into will be “winnable”. Some encounters will be “talk this out or get the hell out of dodge”. If every encounter can be solved by sticking the pointy end into them, things get very predictable. I like to keep players guessing and have a reason to not just say “screw diplomacy, charge”. However, if the party bites off more than they can chew, I try to give them a way out, rather than TPK. If nothing else, not every enemy will try to kill them. They might take them prisoner instead.
4) While optimizing is fine, if some of the party is getting outshined, I might ask a player to tone it down a bit. Failing that, I will try and tailor some encounters/situations to the strengths of the outshined player/s. Last resort if someone’s breaking the game at the other players’ expense will be generous applications of save-or-suck directed at the offending player. I avoid save-or-die, though.
Any suggestions? Too heavy on the houseruling, perhaps? I'm debating cutting out some of the houseruling, since I might be over-reaching for my first actual campaign.
So far, my DMing experience is fairly limited. Mostly it's just been one-offs for when enough people couldn't make it to a session. With one relatively brief stint of essentially co-DMing with a guy who likes the story-telling aspect of things but hates number-crunching and balancing encounters.
As such, I'd like to run the rules I'm currently thinking of using for a campaign by you all, should it end up happening. I'm also interested in general advice from people with more experience DMing.
From my prior delving into it, I think I've got a good grasp of the rules, and am capable of improv when needed.
One weakness I have is a tendency to run sessions as if I were a player, and limiting myself to strictly to the rules. In that, once I designed an area and encounter, I stuck to it and didn't tweak it readily. I've gotten a bit better about that. Partly because whenever the party made me have to improv on the spot, things ran more quickly and smoothly because I was forced to make up minor details on the fly rather than falling into my OCD by-the-book tendencies. I learned that DMs need to use a little bit of common sense in when to fudge things. (Sure, you might not have planned a patrol there, but the party bypassed the encounter you expected, and nobody has made any checks to see if a patrol is in the area, so go ahead and put one down here).
My other weakness is asking for too many perception checks instead of just describing obvious details from the outset. But I quickly corrected that.
Anyways, opinions and suggestions are welcomed. Having some experience DMing is better than none, but I'd be a fool to think that made me prepared to run a full campaign without asking for advice.
*EDIT* Here's my currently planned rules for a high-fantasy play, probably starting around level 7-8, and working it's way up:
Races & Stats
1) 25-Point buy for stats.
2) Non-core races are fine, but any RP cost in excess of 10 is taken from the point buy.
This is to keep high RP Race PCs in line with core-race PCs.
Traits & Drawbacks
1) 2 traits each, as standard. Only one of these can be a flat stat-boost (Such as +2 Initiative or +1 X Save traits) or Dangerously Curious.
I prefer at least one of the traits a player has be for characterization, and it keeps everyone from having the same traits every game and helps people flesh out character personality a bit.
2) Players can buy an additional trait (even a stat-boost one) if they take a drawback, but I do except them to use it in characterization and roleplay.
I know this is a bit harsh and restrictive. It can just get a little old when someone selects a trait from a powergaming standpoint, then ignores it outside of it’s pure in-game mechanics. Especially since a lot of drawbacks are highly situational and can be traded for potent overall boosts.
Character Creation & Mulligan
1) After a couple sessions with their character, everyone gets a free use-it-or-lose-it mulligan to tweak their character a bit if they’re not quite happy with it. This also applies for replacement characters if there was a cause to reroll.
This isn’t really intended to completely change a character. It’s just to allow a player a chance to test-drive the character a bit before finalizing everything and having it set in stone.
2) If you decide to reroll after dying (which hopefully won’t happen too often), the character has to be significantly different from the prior character. If you want to keep a dead character, rez em. Don’t pull out an identical twin.
Houserules
1) Everyone gets a minor bonus feat. Examples of minor feats are things like Improved Unarmed Strike, Endurance, Eschew Materials, Breadth of Experience, Cypher Script, Master Craftsman, etc. In general, eligible feats are either out-of-combat/skill-monkey type feats, highly situational, or just a blatant feat tax.
This allows for a little extra customization in grabbing some minor feat without worrying about blowing one of your actual feat slots on it, or to lessen the feat tax penalty on a cool feat-chain.
2) Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Greater Two-Weapon Fighting all get rolled into Improved Two-Weapon fighting. You get the extra attacks at the appropriate BAB (+6 for Imp, +11 for Greater).
This makes TWF more useful in general, as it does not eat up 3 feats just to be viable. As a fringe benefit, it reduces the Dex requirement making such builds less MAD, as well as making Shields more viable.
3) Monks get full BAB.
They don’t cast spells and they don’t get sneak attack damage. That screams “Martial class” to me. On a note related to TWF, it means their Flurry progresses faster. They get the extra attacks at 6 and 11, rather than 8 and 15.
4) Practiced Spellcaster (+4 to Caster Level, up to your current HD) feat from 3.5 is houseruled in.
Multiclasses have it bad enough without losing this feat. And Magical Knack exists with a +2 to CL, which fits in with Paizo’s “trait is half a feat” rule-of-thumb. And, frankly, a multiclass caster is WAY less of a danger than a single-classed primary spellcaster in just about every case.
5) Obvious Drizz’t clones are summarily captured by a coalition of the Gods and fed to Rovagug.
Now. As for my DMing style:
1) I do reserve the right to invoke Rule Zero. I try to avoid doing so, though.
2) While I am not trying to “win” against the players, I make encounters challenging. The character creation under this setup is quite generous for making powerful characters. If the bad guys aren’t up to par, things get boring.
3) Not every fight the party gets into will be “winnable”. Some encounters will be “talk this out or get the hell out of dodge”. If every encounter can be solved by sticking the pointy end into them, things get very predictable. I like to keep players guessing and have a reason to not just say “screw diplomacy, charge”. However, if the party bites off more than they can chew, I try to give them a way out, rather than TPK. If nothing else, not every enemy will try to kill them. They might take them prisoner instead.
4) While optimizing is fine, if some of the party is getting outshined, I might ask a player to tone it down a bit. Failing that, I will try and tailor some encounters/situations to the strengths of the outshined player/s. Last resort if someone’s breaking the game at the other players’ expense will be generous applications of save-or-suck directed at the offending player. I avoid save-or-die, though.
Any suggestions? Too heavy on the houseruling, perhaps? I'm debating cutting out some of the houseruling, since I might be over-reaching for my first actual campaign.