E6 Campaign Questions

[Soren Hero]

hello playgrounders,

ive been looking over the rules for the E6 campaign variant, and I am thinking of dm-ing a campaign using the rules. i have was wondering if anyone had any general tips for world-building an E6, any help would be much appreciated. additionally, i was wondering what the wealth progression would be for characters above 6th level. the rules at the enworld E6 page are unclear as to the WBL guidelines...if anyone can help, that would be awesome

[Goonthegoof]

Congratulations on your leap from lurker to poster!

I was under the impression that wealth per level didn't really increase much after you hit 6 as the items you are buying don't get any more expensive.

As to building the world, just take a normal world and think what it would be like under E6 rules. The two main differences are the lack of any powerful magic and the lack of legendary warriors- Which means if you still include higher CR monsters, they're a lot more feared than in regular d&d.

[Xefas]

In my experience, an E6 world will have a higher ratio of humanoids + class levels to big scary monsters of legend than the traditional D&D world.

For example, a lone Giant is going to be a significant threat to any band of adventurers, not even considering a whole tribe of them. For this reason, it's more reasonable to have perhaps only 1 tribe of each kind in the *world*, because a single ragtag group of violent hobos who've just been wandering around killing things in the forest for a few weeks won't be able to genocide them in an afternoon like standard D&D.

Dragons, too, return to a position of wonder and power. By adulthood, they possess more wealth and destructive power than nations. A Great Wyrm is something that every humanoid champion in the world banded together would fail against. They're more God than beast at that point.

Hell, a minotaur or ogre is something you need to worry about being one-shot by for most of your career. For this reason, they can be used more sparingly.

[Fiat Lux]

I've been running an E6 campaign for a couple of months now...the most significant difference I've noticed is that everyone is a lot squishier.

I mean, a lot.

Spellcasters, for example: even the most powerful mage still only has 6d4+CON (plus spells, if applicable) hit points, so a couple of lucky shots are enough to nuke him or her. It calls for a great deal more in the way of careful, clever planning and foresight on the part of your NPCs, since they don't have a ton of high-level spells or powerful items to save their bacon all the time (outside of plot items, custom items and DM fiat, of course).

Your PCs aren't invincible anymore; a 200ft. drop will kill just about anyone outright, and they can't just breeze through twenty town guards if they feel like it.

And by the same merits, monsters are significantly more frightening. As I believe they say in the E6 source material, the chimera (for example) starts out frightening and remains frightening even as you max out your levels, as Goon mentioned.


Another serious change to the worldscape is the lack of easy teleportation spells, as they can't be used, begged, borrowed or stolen...the campaign we'd just finished playing prior to giving E6 a go capped out at maybe 15th or 16th level, and from the moment we hit 9th we'd been using teleport with easy impunity, leaping all willy-nilly all over the campaign world.

I had to seriously adjust my style as a DM with the realization that such transportation simply couldn't be had in an E6 campaign, using the default rules -- your mode of transport becomes all-important. Horses (or the lack thereof) become essential to whether the village is warned of the impending onslaught of orcs in time or not. And simply traveling by road takes a great deal of time, and while one could simply gloss over the trip and say "you arrive safely at the Emerald City", that really doesn't suit our play style. YMMV.


So as far as world-building goes -- it depends on what manner of world you're intending to build. If you intend to include a lot of monsters and a number of towns and cities that are a good space apart, without some magical means of crossing the intervening distance travel is going to be dangerous (and therefore expensive, unless you're traveling by your own means, in which case it's just exponentially dangerous). The monsters, as Goon noted, get to be incredibly dangerous when everyone in the entire world caps out at 6th -- taking on a CR 10 black dragon is not something anybody goes rushing lightly into (or should, rather).

In summation: the world is a far more dangerous place, and the PCs need to be careful if they want to survive it. I'd say build it accordingly.

[Soren Hero]

thank you for all the tips

@goonthegoof...im more confused about what happens after you reach 6th level...do all the treasures from encounters continue to be rolled/balanced for 6th level characters?

[Tyndmyr]

Actually answered in the E6 thread.

Add 1 CR for every five feats until about 20 feats are reached. Then, add one CR for every 20 feats therafter.

[Glimbur]

@goonthegoof...im more confused about what happens after you reach 6th level...do all the treasures from encounters continue to be rolled/balanced for 6th level characters?

That's actually not as dangerous as it sounds. Since magic items with a CL over 6 are hard/impossible to get (unless the PC's start hacking their CL up and make them themselves) then there is a limit on how much power the players can get via wealth. After you have every slot filled, after you buy a bunch of consumables, the difference between 30 and 35 healing potions is mostly academic.

Alternately, give them reasons to spend cash, such as funding orphanages, rebuilding towns, and other heroic stuff.

Or send only oozes, plants, unintelligent undead, and other treasureless foes against them.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Also, for organizations, just build the leader of the group and make a copy of the sheet at each level.

For instance.

Warrior1=Town Guard, Militia
Warrior2=Sergeant
Warrior2/Fighter1=Lieutenant
Warrior2/Fighter2=Commander
Warrior2/Fighter2/Marshall1=Captain
Warrior2/Fighter2/Marshall2=General

Gear them up as needed, set a few extras aside as NPC's, and you have a town guard/standing army. World-building in E6 is pretty easy, and pretty fun.

[Soren Hero]

Spoiler

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Also, for organizations, just build the leader of the group and make a copy of the sheet at each level.

For instance.

Warrior1=Town Guard, Militia
Warrior2=Sergeant
Warrior2/Fighter1=Lieutenant
Warrior2/Fighter2=Commander
Warrior2/Fighter2/Marshall1=Captain
Warrior2/Fighter2/Marshall2=General

Gear them up as needed, set a few extras aside as NPC's, and you have a town guard/standing army. World-building in E6 is pretty easy, and pretty fun.

This seems to be a much easier way to build an organization than i was planning...i wanted to use the character background rules in unearthed arcana to create organizations..i guess i could use your method plus the character background method to create many different tiers of organizations around my world...thnx

[Gan The Grey]

This seems to be a much easier way to build an organization than i was planning...i wanted to use the character background rules in unearthed arcana to create organizations..i guess i could use your method plus the character background method to create many different tiers of organizations around my world...thnx

Keep in mind, with the retraining rules presented in the PHBII, NPCs higher up in the hierarchy of an organization don't have to keep their initial class levels. It would make sense that they would receive better training, training that they could use to replace warrior levels with fighter levels, for instance.

Transportation is a big deal in my world too. Roads become that much more important, especially when you adhere to the movement rules in the PHB and you realize that roads are much safer than the raw wilderness they pass through. Sometimes my players have to decide whether it makes sense to take the road and go around the spooky forest, or save time and pass through it at the cost of safety. Makes for some interesting decisions that may not have otherwise been possible.

Overall, an E6 world tends to magnify the mundane, bringing elements of your world to the forefront of the experience. I suggest you take this into account during the building phase.

[Calimehter]

One other thing to keep in mind is that the power cap affects high level NPCs just as much as it affects your PCs. At higher levels, they are still vulnerable on thier own, so they will rely heavily on their allies. The classic "wizard living by himself in a tower" can't just be made more and more of a bad*ss by just adding levels. He will need some allies (or at least some nice templates or other LA sorts of boosts) to survive in a world filled with monsters and rampaging PCs.

"Who you know" can be come just as or more relevant than "what you know" in a bigger hurry in an E6 setting than in a standard d20 setting, and that is something to keep in mind when designing organizations and relationships in your E6 world.

[Morph Bark]

Actually answered in the E6 thread.

Add 1 CR for every five feats until about 20 feats are reached. Then, add one CR for every 20 feats therafter.

I thought the idea was not to go further once you've reached effective CR 10 through Level 6 + 20 feats?

[Hurlbut]

actually in truth there's no hard cap on how many feat you can take. All it depend is how long you can live and how much XP you can accumulate.

[Rixx]

I think what he's implying is that once you hit 6 + 20, no amount of feats is going to make you significantly tougher as to warrant a CR increase.

[Morph Bark]

I think what he's implying is that once you hit 6 + 20, no amount of feats is going to make you significantly tougher as to warrant a CR increase.

Both, prettymuch, actually. I figured the idea with E6 was to get to that 6+20 edge and no further, since it wouldn't really make you stronger anyway. Plus that massive amount of feats will turn hard to keep track of at some point. But of course the initial idea can be tweaked into new forms so that you have no limit, or could make stuff like E8.

Makes me curious how one would go about an E1 game...

[Yora]

That's actually not as dangerous as it sounds. Since magic items with a CL over 6 are hard/impossible to get (unless the PC's start hacking their CL up and make them themselves) then there is a limit on how much power the players can get via wealth.

Remember: Many items that are listed with a CL greater than 6th can be created with a lower CL. The creator only needs to have the feat and know the required spells, the listed CL is not a requirement and can be as low as the minimum level required to cast the involved spells.

[Glimbur]

Makes me curious how one would go about an E1 game...

I wouldn't. At first level, your hit points can be removed by one CR 1 monster with one attack. If you wanted to run a game where the PC's never want to get in a fair fight I suppose it would be interesting, but it's too swingy for my tastes.

[Yora]

It would be much like a slasher movie. Once you see the monster everyone runns away and most of you die anyway, offering no meaningfull resistance to being stabbed to death.

[Coplantor]

It would be much like a slasher movie. Once you see the monster everyone runns away and most of you die anyway, offering no meaningfull resistance to being stabbed to death.

Wich might be quite intresting every now and then

[Soren Hero]

It would be much like a slasher movie. Once you see the monster everyone runns away and most of you die anyway, offering no meaningfull resistance to being stabbed to death.

although i've never played the game, this sounds like Call of Cthulhu...no leveling, monsters trying to destroy everything that crosses their paths...until the players find a macguffin that saves the world (or in the hands of some insidious dms, dooms it)


@everyone else: thanks for all the tips on an E6 world, its helping me to flesh out a lot of the terrain and interconnectedness of the world