BlackOnyx
2020-09-09, 12:22 AM
(Something of a conclusion to these (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?594176-E6-in-Practice-Table-Rulings-amp-Alternate-Systems-You-ve-Adopted-in-Your-Campaign(s)) two (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?579113-The-Benefits-of-DM-ing-E6-My-Experience-So-Far) posts from a while back.)
***
A bit of a late review, but a few months ago my players and I wrapped up our first E6 campaign.
We managed to come in at just under 60 sessions in a year and a half, and despite the transition to virtual gatherings for the last 10 sessions (pandemic & such), managed to bring things to a close.
Having had some time to reflect on the campaign since then, I've come to recognize a few things I'd probably do differently were I to do it all again.
On the off chance the lessons from our group's experience might be of use to some of you in the future, I figured that I'd share my thoughts.
***
E6: The Things I'd Do Differently
Rework the Feat Schedule (Considerably)
One sticking point I noticed to different degrees throughout the campaign was the sometimes awkward pacing of character advancement.
In the early game (the first 30 sessions or so), leveling was the primary form of advancement. I offered a few narrative-based feats to my players on occasion, but overall, levels and class features took center stage as the primary means of "rewarding" them.
The problem with this was twofold:
- The rate at which my players' characters went from "average" to "extraordinary" sometimes felt artificially heightened. There were times where it would have been nice to reward them for their experiences without going so far as to promote them to the next level.
- Within a given character's class, there was less room for "organic" growth and differentiation than I would have liked. Though it wasn't to the same degree as planning a 1-to-20 build, there were still times when my players had to delay their feat choices in order to prepare for the features they hoped to unlock further down the road.
In the late game (the last 30 sessions or so), simply gaining feats felt somewhat stagnant by comparison.
Although character development during this stage was much more organic (players didn't feel as pressured to take certain feats), it felt like a step back compared to what the players had come to expect in the first half of the campaign.
To sum up the issue as a whole, players peaked too early and focused on breadth too late.
Were I to do it again, I would make earning bonus feats a much more regular aspect of the early game, using them as stepping stones between levels and allowing players to select more of them during character creation. For example, something to the tune of:
- Level 1 (+4 additional feats)
(1 feat)
- Level 2
(2 feats)
- Level 3
(3 feats)
- Level 4
(4 feats)
- Level 5
(5 feats)
- Level 6
(Bonus feats)
An advancement schedule along these lines would likely allow for more organic growth and character breadth in the early game and make the journey to becoming "extraordinary" feel that much more impactful.
Players' expectations for reward would be tempered, low CR encounters would stay relevant longer, and player growth would likely feel less lopsided overall.
Strictly Enforce Death Rules as Written OR (Alternatively) Use the Vitality Variant
This one is entirely on me.
Taking a page from some of the other games I've played in, we began the campaign with a certain house rule concerning player death. Namely:
Instead of dying at -10hp, a player would only pass on at -[half their total hp].
Don't do this.
In the early game, this wasn't much of an issue. Players approached battles with caution and avoiding death was a always at the forefront of their thoughts. There isn't a marked difference between dying at -10hp and dying at -13hp, after all.
By level 6, however, with a couple of our players passing the 60/70hp threshold...death became a considerably lesser concern.
When players realized they could get away with being downed and wait 20 rounds to be revived, brute force slowly began to replace careful planning & positioning as the preferred means of attack.
Now, I'll admit, I like to coddle my players. I love watching them play their carefully crafted builds and helping them develop their characters' legacies from the ground up. I grow as attached to their PCs as I would the cast of my favorite shows or books.
...but, in the end, lessening the ever-present threat of death is not the right way to preserve those feelings. The whole point of E6 is to portray the gritty, down to earth struggles of "real" people. Extraordinary people, but people just the same.
For future campaigns, I might play with the idea of increasing the death threshold to the greater of -10 or a player's CON score to add some variation to the mix, but even then, I find myself a bit wary.
Alternatively, I've heard good things about the Vitality & Wound Points variant, but I haven't played with it enough to speak much on the topic.
Do Away With Permanent Magic Items (At Least as Written)
This was another one of the dynamics that shifted somewhat between the early game and late game.
In the early game, magic items felt the way I had hoped E6 would make them feel. Rare. Special. Unique. Something worth bragging about.
However, by the end of the campaign, the early signs of the "magic mart" and "magic item arms race" issues typically present in higher level campaigns started to rear their ugly heads.
Intentionally or not, my player's familiarity & side discussions of "the classics" (i.e. belts of healing, vests of resistance) eventually convinced me to incorporate those items into the campaign.
Although magic items were still fairly rare, when coupled with the "early character peak issue" (see above), once players hit "extraordinary" status, there was little reason they couldn't simply barge in and gather up those uncommon items from the few people/beings/treasuries known to have them.
Coupled with the fact that I allowed one of my players to take Craft Wondrous Item (albeit with a monthly xp limitation), once the campaign hit a certain point, magic items started to lose their luster.
A few savvy item combinations by a couple of my players also ended up creating a noticeable damage disparity in the group by the endgame. Not enough to make any one character a non-contributor, but enough so that I felt the need to build encounters so that certain characters wouldn't be overshadowed.
Were I to do it again, I would consider making the following changes:
- Nix all permanent/multi-use item crafting feats
(Possibly limiting the list to Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, and their close relatives)
- Treat all permanent magic items as artifacts
(Drive home their ancient or otherworldly origin)
- Toss out 3.5e's standard magic item list
(Remove all boring passive +X effects and create custom items via something similar to 5e's "magic item properties" table)
- Limit magic item use
(24 hour attunement for all items, a maximum of 1-2 attuned items at a time, giving most items limited daily/situational uses, etc.)
Rein in the Scope of the Narrative
To make a long story short:
Session 1: Players clear out den of feral dogs for a local festival.
Session 60: Players slay a thousand-year-old half-Ilithid Elan attempting to bait the heavens into "cleansing" the kingdom of demonic corruption in an effort to attract the attention of his mind flayer progenitors.
Was it fun getting from point A to point B? Undoubtedly.
Did we manage to avoid an "end of the multiverse" or "end of the world" scenario? Technically.
Did angels, demons, outsiders, and planar cosmology remain distant concepts shrouded in mystery? Mostly, yes.
Yet..somehow...somewhere along the line...I feel that I may have lost sight of that gritty E6 feel I had been enjoying so much at the campaign's outset.
In part, this outcome may have come about as a result of my earlier concerns: an early player peak, lenient death rules, and the beginning stages of magic item abuse.
Escalation led to escalation, and to keep the stakes relevant, I found myself increasing the scale of the narrative to compensate.
In hindsight, introducing a pending calamity on a smaller scale—perhaps a threat to a certain city or a certain faction in a region—could have achieved the same sense of urgency while keeping the stakes more down-to-earth.
There are more ways to incite your players into action than threatening widespread destruction, even if it's "only" on a nationwide scale.
In my effort to keep things challenging, I lost sight of that somewhere along the way.
While I enjoyed the story we ended up making together, I can't help but feel it would have had more of a lasting impact had I tightened the scope and really focused on a particular place or group of people.
At the end of the day, "saving the kingdom" is more of a distant, nebulous goal than E6 is really intended for. Epic 6 is best suited for nuanced campaigns, ones where the world remains mysterious, intrigue is favored over action, and careful planning wins out over raw displays of power.
***
Thank y'all for reading. Hope it might offer a little insight to those looking at starting up (or currently running) an E6 campaign of their own.
***
A bit of a late review, but a few months ago my players and I wrapped up our first E6 campaign.
We managed to come in at just under 60 sessions in a year and a half, and despite the transition to virtual gatherings for the last 10 sessions (pandemic & such), managed to bring things to a close.
Having had some time to reflect on the campaign since then, I've come to recognize a few things I'd probably do differently were I to do it all again.
On the off chance the lessons from our group's experience might be of use to some of you in the future, I figured that I'd share my thoughts.
***
E6: The Things I'd Do Differently
Rework the Feat Schedule (Considerably)
One sticking point I noticed to different degrees throughout the campaign was the sometimes awkward pacing of character advancement.
In the early game (the first 30 sessions or so), leveling was the primary form of advancement. I offered a few narrative-based feats to my players on occasion, but overall, levels and class features took center stage as the primary means of "rewarding" them.
The problem with this was twofold:
- The rate at which my players' characters went from "average" to "extraordinary" sometimes felt artificially heightened. There were times where it would have been nice to reward them for their experiences without going so far as to promote them to the next level.
- Within a given character's class, there was less room for "organic" growth and differentiation than I would have liked. Though it wasn't to the same degree as planning a 1-to-20 build, there were still times when my players had to delay their feat choices in order to prepare for the features they hoped to unlock further down the road.
In the late game (the last 30 sessions or so), simply gaining feats felt somewhat stagnant by comparison.
Although character development during this stage was much more organic (players didn't feel as pressured to take certain feats), it felt like a step back compared to what the players had come to expect in the first half of the campaign.
To sum up the issue as a whole, players peaked too early and focused on breadth too late.
Were I to do it again, I would make earning bonus feats a much more regular aspect of the early game, using them as stepping stones between levels and allowing players to select more of them during character creation. For example, something to the tune of:
- Level 1 (+4 additional feats)
(1 feat)
- Level 2
(2 feats)
- Level 3
(3 feats)
- Level 4
(4 feats)
- Level 5
(5 feats)
- Level 6
(Bonus feats)
An advancement schedule along these lines would likely allow for more organic growth and character breadth in the early game and make the journey to becoming "extraordinary" feel that much more impactful.
Players' expectations for reward would be tempered, low CR encounters would stay relevant longer, and player growth would likely feel less lopsided overall.
Strictly Enforce Death Rules as Written OR (Alternatively) Use the Vitality Variant
This one is entirely on me.
Taking a page from some of the other games I've played in, we began the campaign with a certain house rule concerning player death. Namely:
Instead of dying at -10hp, a player would only pass on at -[half their total hp].
Don't do this.
In the early game, this wasn't much of an issue. Players approached battles with caution and avoiding death was a always at the forefront of their thoughts. There isn't a marked difference between dying at -10hp and dying at -13hp, after all.
By level 6, however, with a couple of our players passing the 60/70hp threshold...death became a considerably lesser concern.
When players realized they could get away with being downed and wait 20 rounds to be revived, brute force slowly began to replace careful planning & positioning as the preferred means of attack.
Now, I'll admit, I like to coddle my players. I love watching them play their carefully crafted builds and helping them develop their characters' legacies from the ground up. I grow as attached to their PCs as I would the cast of my favorite shows or books.
...but, in the end, lessening the ever-present threat of death is not the right way to preserve those feelings. The whole point of E6 is to portray the gritty, down to earth struggles of "real" people. Extraordinary people, but people just the same.
For future campaigns, I might play with the idea of increasing the death threshold to the greater of -10 or a player's CON score to add some variation to the mix, but even then, I find myself a bit wary.
Alternatively, I've heard good things about the Vitality & Wound Points variant, but I haven't played with it enough to speak much on the topic.
Do Away With Permanent Magic Items (At Least as Written)
This was another one of the dynamics that shifted somewhat between the early game and late game.
In the early game, magic items felt the way I had hoped E6 would make them feel. Rare. Special. Unique. Something worth bragging about.
However, by the end of the campaign, the early signs of the "magic mart" and "magic item arms race" issues typically present in higher level campaigns started to rear their ugly heads.
Intentionally or not, my player's familiarity & side discussions of "the classics" (i.e. belts of healing, vests of resistance) eventually convinced me to incorporate those items into the campaign.
Although magic items were still fairly rare, when coupled with the "early character peak issue" (see above), once players hit "extraordinary" status, there was little reason they couldn't simply barge in and gather up those uncommon items from the few people/beings/treasuries known to have them.
Coupled with the fact that I allowed one of my players to take Craft Wondrous Item (albeit with a monthly xp limitation), once the campaign hit a certain point, magic items started to lose their luster.
A few savvy item combinations by a couple of my players also ended up creating a noticeable damage disparity in the group by the endgame. Not enough to make any one character a non-contributor, but enough so that I felt the need to build encounters so that certain characters wouldn't be overshadowed.
Were I to do it again, I would consider making the following changes:
- Nix all permanent/multi-use item crafting feats
(Possibly limiting the list to Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, and their close relatives)
- Treat all permanent magic items as artifacts
(Drive home their ancient or otherworldly origin)
- Toss out 3.5e's standard magic item list
(Remove all boring passive +X effects and create custom items via something similar to 5e's "magic item properties" table)
- Limit magic item use
(24 hour attunement for all items, a maximum of 1-2 attuned items at a time, giving most items limited daily/situational uses, etc.)
Rein in the Scope of the Narrative
To make a long story short:
Session 1: Players clear out den of feral dogs for a local festival.
Session 60: Players slay a thousand-year-old half-Ilithid Elan attempting to bait the heavens into "cleansing" the kingdom of demonic corruption in an effort to attract the attention of his mind flayer progenitors.
Was it fun getting from point A to point B? Undoubtedly.
Did we manage to avoid an "end of the multiverse" or "end of the world" scenario? Technically.
Did angels, demons, outsiders, and planar cosmology remain distant concepts shrouded in mystery? Mostly, yes.
Yet..somehow...somewhere along the line...I feel that I may have lost sight of that gritty E6 feel I had been enjoying so much at the campaign's outset.
In part, this outcome may have come about as a result of my earlier concerns: an early player peak, lenient death rules, and the beginning stages of magic item abuse.
Escalation led to escalation, and to keep the stakes relevant, I found myself increasing the scale of the narrative to compensate.
In hindsight, introducing a pending calamity on a smaller scale—perhaps a threat to a certain city or a certain faction in a region—could have achieved the same sense of urgency while keeping the stakes more down-to-earth.
There are more ways to incite your players into action than threatening widespread destruction, even if it's "only" on a nationwide scale.
In my effort to keep things challenging, I lost sight of that somewhere along the way.
While I enjoyed the story we ended up making together, I can't help but feel it would have had more of a lasting impact had I tightened the scope and really focused on a particular place or group of people.
At the end of the day, "saving the kingdom" is more of a distant, nebulous goal than E6 is really intended for. Epic 6 is best suited for nuanced campaigns, ones where the world remains mysterious, intrigue is favored over action, and careful planning wins out over raw displays of power.
***
Thank y'all for reading. Hope it might offer a little insight to those looking at starting up (or currently running) an E6 campaign of their own.