I've been running games for about 16 years now. I've had campaigns get to the upper teens, and one campaign went all the way to level 20. The problem isn't the players getting op, the problem is DMs continuing to design adventures the same way as they did at level 1. There comes a point when a dungeon crawl is no longer appropriate for your characters. Higher level characters should be teleporting across kingdoms, fighting or stopping wars, plane shifting to alternate realms of existence, and fighting threats that can demolish entire armies on a whim. If you insist on putting a high-level party in a dungeon, consider the abilities of your party, and instead of limiting abilities you don't want them to use, design your dungeon in such a way that they are required to use those abilities to advance.
Exactly. I let the players advance without having to lower all the values. The challenges increase because more and more of the setting begins to work against them. The king doesn't want people who challenge his authority. The gods don't want those who ignore their proscriptions and go against their powers, etc. A truly powerful character is one who has had to either adapt to fit the setting around them and use their power less obviously or have to really defeat those who already hold power and then find that they are entangled themselves in the power structure now and they have to manage their holdings, assets and power structure.
I agree but can also appreciate the desire to keep things on the lower fantasy side of things. There is something immensely satisfying about a group of adventurers sharing a drink in the local tavern after defeating that minotaur that was causing trouble for a local farmer. Or finding out a trio of bug bears has been raiding carriages on the road and being legitimately concerned you might get jumped on the way to your next quest. In higher level play you have to worry about an illithid scrying you from two planes away and whether it not the astral dreadnought he claims to control has fully been awakened or not. It is basically the same thing, just a difference in scope and feel. Dont get me wrong, that can still be a lot of fun, but sometimes you miss those backwater dungeon adventures. Honestly D&D can suffer from the same problems as Dragon Ball Z where escalation is the only story you can have because everyone is getting ever more insanely powerful. On the other hand JoJo is less about becoming more powerful and about figuring out your opponent's abilities and how best to counter them. (Not that there isn't power escalation mind you. There most certainly is.) I guess my point is that you can have a fulfilling experience with horizontal growth as much as you can with vertical growth. If that makes sense.
I agree. High-level characters can't go in dungeons. I personally find characters who can teleport and create alternate realities to be boring. Ever read Dune? Paul BECOMING a Messiah was way more interesting than him BEING one in the subsequent books.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'm not so sure, though you certainly have to change the style of the dungeon. I was playing Destiny 2 last night and enjoying some strikes. Now most strikes are pretty straight forward affairs: run and shoot the bad guys for the loot, but then I did my first one in the Dreaming City which takes you through two separate plains and does some screwy stuff that makes you stop and consider where you want to go. Now it's more likely I was just having a hard time wrapping my head around things or just was thinking to hard about it, but seeing these comments got me to thinking. I don't think it is a matter of not sending them into dungeons but rather creating dungeons that aren't nessecarily dungeons of a traditional sense. For instance a wizard's massive demi-plane or pocket reality could be considered a dungeon, one in which the party might have to navigate over several sessions. Or perhaps a dungeon that shifts between different realities and requires more thought as to how one should prepare themselves or makes preparations moot since you could end up with various different outcomes. Now I'm not saying the players might not find a loophole, but then that could be said even for lower level games. In the end it is a matter of scope and perspective with some people preferring more traditional adventures while others want cosmic magical adventures through time and space. I like both personally so I'm happy at most levels of play. Or so I tell myself.
Back in the days of 3rd edition, there was a guy named Ryan Stoughton who capped the character level at 6. After that you could only gain feats. He created feat trees that gave a character the abilities of higher levels i. Their class, such as 4th and 5th level spell feats (the spell was a feat and it was only one spell per feat for 4th and 5th level spells). Later the E6 (stands for “epic six”) rules were modified for Pathfinder (called “P6”). It kept the “sweet spot” of D&D levels 3-8. You levelled until 6th and at 6th you gained a feat for every 5000 xp. So there was still advancement, just mot the insane power creep you saw in the 3.x/Pathfinder system.
I thought that was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen. Capping progression at tenth level would have avoided the vast majority of the issues while preserving the ideal level range of the game and introducing powerful magics at the end of the game where they can't do very much harm. Plenty of people have played low level characters, been in multiple campaigns that barely got off the ground, and probably have rarely played higher level characters...why would I want to play a game where I'm not going to get to use the high level feats, spells, etc.? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
@@Lanessar8008 Never heard of E8 and that's never the way E6 was ever explained to me. E6 AFAIK, was a solid block on getting anything above 3rd level spells, except through items. Skills work fine in many games. Feats, feats do block characters without the feat from doing things, true, and that's why some feats are bad ideas--keeping basic combat options behind feats for example, bad idea.
5e uses rapid advancement until level 3, then becomes comparable with 1st edition for the middle levels (the sweet spot), but by 8th, they accelerate again to be able to push the levels all the way to 20th (1st edition level charts ended around 12th). The main difference is that they had to adjust for not getting XP from treasure anymore (which can be approximated by cutting XP requirements in half). Interesting side note, data gathered by WOTC shows that D&D games are played almost exclusively from levels 1-7 (Mike Mearls shared that tidbit on a panel discussion). I am experimenting now with 5e but using a slower level advancement (1,000 XP to reach 2nd instead of 300). I found that when playing 5e we would level up every few sessions (1st - 3rd level) and that amped up the power level of the characters so fast they were not proficient in running their characters (new players). Strategy and tactics used by old timers have been pushed aside by the implementation of new class powers and a radically accelerated HP recovery system. Characters are better, but Players are worse. The old game taught you important lessons on how to win a war. The new game makes you a medieval super hero. Superman is strong, bullet proof, and can fly. He didn't have much use for strategy and tactics, he'd just swoop in and punch his way to victory.
@@florentdemeyere4779 that's why I like AD&D so much your just a guy with a sword maybe leather armor. That's it you know how to use it bit not well. You don't start off as a hero. You have to earn it. Then buy levels 5-8 hit points are crazy. And combat does take forever. So I agree with that part of it.
@@blg020 Try another option. Just give the character their CON in HP and NEVER let them get more as they level up. You can then add the ability for armor to absorb damage from 1point (padded armor) to 6 points (plate) which I do in addition to the AC add as a method to improve survival at higher levels. You may have to reduce the damage for higher level spells but I just divided the damage rolled by the number of 1-meter squares affected (I went metric).
I advance my characters slowly, because I like the "sweet spot" so much: PCs are tough, capable, but mortal. Sometimes they may have to retreat or negotiate. I also don't give a lot of gold out, because for them it's just more accounting. If they want something nice, I'll create an adventure around obtaining it. My players like to level up, but they never bug me about it. They know there's fun to be had at their present advancement.
If players don't think so much I think it's due to the DM which doesn't throw hard/deadly encounters or hard situations. If the DM shows to the players that there are things which can kill them, I'm sure they will be cautious and crafty to avoid them or to kill them swiftly.
The way I see it, this can be broken down into three *problems:* 1. PCs gain too much HP per level, making them way too hard to kill later on = the game becomes boring. 2. The game becomes too slow at higher levels. 3. PCs get too many too strong utility spells in higher levels, = they can simply circumvent most problems. As for *solutions:* 1. Capping/reducing hit points obviously works, straight forward. But you can also make monsters with damage scaled proportionally to PC HP. This gives the players the nice feeling of bigger numbers; (downside: harder math because bigger numbers). Perhaps, a bit of both would be best. 2. A large part of this problem is only a side effect of problem 1. So solve problem 1 and this should be much less of an issue. More spells and options will make players take longer to think. I think that is fine to a degree. If it becomes too big of a problem, limit the amount of abilities/spells players can have, or simply put a timer on think-time. 3. This is a bit more tricky, I can see multiple things can work together: Design adventures with this in mind; more numerous, greater and more complicated problems where circumventing some of them with these strong spells/abilities becomes a necessity. Give these spells/abilities a higher cost, so they can only be used sparingly, and players will have to think strategically about what problem they want to circumvent, by using up one of these "get out of jail for free" -cards. Give these spells/abilities weaknesses and downsides. You can walk through a wall? Great, but if you roll low, and the wall is too thick, you will be stuck inside it. You can go invisible? Great, but since light then also passes straight through your retina, you will also be blind while invisible. You can read minds? Great, but if that person has some form of deep fear, ptsd, or other mental issue, you have a chance "inherit" it and become afflicted yourself. And if the above still is not enough, maybe you will have to put a stricter limit on the number of these OP spells they can learn. Making their OP-ness not as universal and more limited to specific situations.
Me too. The funny thing is my game is dangerous--but doesn't have a high mortality rate. Because my players KNOW their characters can die, they are more cautious and think more before rushing into combat. When they do enter combat, they think about using the terrain to their advantage. Although some characters do die, it's rare.
Started playing Traveller which is skill based. Your character hit points are finite and aren't magically healed so a problem when you get injured. Hand Grenade is likely to cause problems for any character. You don't have levels you have a career. Your character has opportunities to grow but you will never double your hit points ever. Players think a lot harder about engaging in combat. The idea that things have gone terribly sideways when they end up in violent confrontations is prevalent. Players are thoughtful and careful. When they manage to pull off a mission there tends to be a real feeling of accomplishment.
Here's my silver piece: 1) If you use HP caps, I would recommend you also use shieldbreaker rules; basically you can sacrifice a source of AC to get out of hit free. For example, Hicks gets hit with acid and fails his saving throw so instead of dying he invokes shieldbreaker and instead of dying by acid spray he looses his armor. Quicksilver rolls INIT and gets like 8 attacks on Apocalypse, Apocaypse ges to go and in one hit would kill Quicksilver, so instead Quicksilver invokes shieldbreaker rule, and he gets his AC bonus from his speed so the DM interprets it that Apocalypse breaks Quicksilver's leg. You can also allow players to sacrifice weapons, ie their bow is cut, their sword is cut in half. YOu can also let players shieldbreak other things of value like maybe they shieldbreak the 10,000gp diamond. 2) As players get higher in level as the D yo uhave to think more strategically for your NPCs. Technically speaking high level NPCs would also have all the same high level tricks, and years to prepare to defend against them. So IMO you the DM cannot just make things to foil players that is bad DMing,...however all of the NPCs themselves are literally sitting around all the time trying to figure out how to foil adventurers who would steal their stuff. In addition; a DM should never try to foil their players...however, as characters gained reputations across the lands the NPCs would start to hear about them, and could therefore the NPC (not the DM, i fyou see what I mean) would begin to use their abilities to create defenses against those specific adventurers. Pro ti[p: As a DM to sell this to your players, make sure to drop little hints that people are beginning to talk abotu them and their tactics, and give them little hints that they're being watched.
Great points! I've found, too, that leveling up is an arms race between the players and the DM. As the players get more powerful, the DM must throw more and more powerful monsters at them. As a consequence, battles can take longer. However, instead of completely reworking D&D -- lowering PC and monster hit points, reducing the damage monsters do, etc. -- wouldn't it just be easier to play a game designed out of the gate to mitigate the leveling "problem"? (You mentioned Dungeon World as an example of this.)
Kryptonite was added in the radio show as a mcguffin to give the voice actor a break. It was added to the comics afterwards to solve the problem of invincibility. As to DM’ing higher level games, I prefer running higher end games over lower end games because the players are empowered to pursue goals and go toe to toe with actual problems, shaping the environment by their actions and decisions. It lets the players add to the game rather than just participate in the game. For me, leveling as a system is garbage and adds nothing other than gating access to the “real” story. I’d dump leveling in a heart beat if players didn’t cling to it like it’s the only thing keeping them from drowning (which it probably is). But that’s all my preference. I loved 4e DnD because lvl1 characters were no different from lvl20 characters in play, they just had less flexibility and options to pull from. Guess no one else did, since 4e seems to be the black sheep of the DnD family.
One flaw in this reasoning is that as players advance in levels their impact on the world changes and as such so does the fundamental nature of the story. At first level your just trying to get noticed by the king. At tenth level your the king's rival. That's a very different story. 10th level characters are serious power brokers in the world and they have alot to protect. They don't have time for dungeon crawling. They have to deal with the fact that their actions are being watched and many parties are seeking to take their stuff. Sure you can wipe out 100 goblins with ease. But what is the reaction to wiping out those 100 goblins? At low levels you might just go home after and forget about your encounter but at high levels your application of so much naked force has made you enemies. Don't be surprised if the master of those 100 goblins invades your lands soon after.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Doug. You are not incorrect. My high level characters are frequently embroiled in politics and court intrigue. However, they still only have 15hp and the king has 6. Cheers!
Dr Evil, "I am the Master of 100 Goblins!" [Laughter from offstage] Dr Evil, "I am the Master of 1,000,000 Goblins!" [Gasps from offstage] Master of 100 Goblins sounds like a great character name; or maybe a Power Metal Band name.
I’ve been contemplating on creating a system very much like “fallout” or “let it die” where there is a health cap but the equipment that they get can boost that health cap. The balance to the boost is that there’s durability to that equipment: once the extended health is gone, so is the equipment and all the bonuses that it gives you. This gives the players tension in every situation that they encounter: after fighting a dragon, goblins might seem like a walk in the park, but what if their equipment breaks? A sword swing from a goblin becomes a threat. That way monsters are disposed of when characters level up and they’re still tense situations with low-level monsters. What are you guys think?
In 20+ years of playing, I've only had one character go up to 18th level and it was only because it was a published adventure designed to go that high. My friends and I agree that 3-5 level (and equivalent) is the sweet spot for most RPGs. A high level game can be very gonzo and full of meta-gaming. Players spend too much time thinking about mathematics instead of acting in character.
So true. I don't think we ever played much beyond 6th level unless it was characters rolled up for a specific high level module like the tomb of horrors or something.
It is a mixed bag, but that comes with the territory I suppose. The two faces of d&d, the narrative aspect and mechanic aspect, can butt heads on occasion but also appeal to a wider audience as such. It can be a juggling act until you find a balance that works best for you and your group. Sometimes that balance doesn't exist, unfortunately, but that's why different types of groups exist.
Another trick to speeding up combat with big monsters and PCs with tons of hit pts is to use a hit pt track with a counter token. When receiving x hps damage, the DM or player moves the token up x spaces on his hp track until he hits the monster or PC's hp score and is dead or knocked out. This works because counting up is a little easier than doing mental subtraction.
Once again, you've hit the nail on the head for me professor. I'm @ level 7 getting excited for new options & higher HP but I need to adjust my 2 page spread character sheet to maybe 3 pages so I can make use of a quick glance. Also as part of a team afraid of dying with like 60 HP & avoiding risks, a years gone by & we've changed absolutely nothing to the locations across the landscape. Eventually I got sick & had to take a break from the table & missed key moment after investing over a year to see! While recovering from my condition I ran a zero level DCC funnel for my kids and had an absolutely unforgettable time in just 3 sessions! Thanks Professor for not holding back and making this video! Cheers!
Back-of-the-hand with two fingers up is the English/French "Up yours". It originated from the time the French cut off the first 2 fingers of English longbow archers. History is amazing :)
I love these videos. I had a lot of ideas myself like “everybody rolls at once” instead of 5e initiative, and a wild magic system I’ve been working on, and I love how you also concur on many of those points, giving me the courage to just go for it and try it out! Thanks professor DM!
"It's going to become _too difficult_ to come up with scenarios to challenge your players." I object to that statement. I'm pretty sure I can take a single 5e Rakshasa, and kill an entire party of 15th level characters. It'll just take a week or two, and the collateral damage will probably wipe out a local town. It's a really simple plan too. Use invisibility to sneak in and just prick some commoner's arm with a claw in the middle of the night. Use invisibility again to escape undetected. Bam, cursed, no resting. Do this again and again until adventurers are called in to investigate the cause of the "Nightmare Plague". When the party shows up, the cleric will probably use up any Remove Curse spells they had prepared on curing some of the afflicted. Now the trap is set, one _scratch_ on that cleric and they *don't get* any more remove curse spells until someone else casts one on them. They're also going to die of exhaustion in a week without one. From here it's all hit and run. The Rakshasa has invis 3/day and plane shift 1/day. Pinning that bastard down is going to be a nightmare, especially when your cleric can't benefit from short or long rests. Also, I ran a single campaign of 2e exalted for a _decade_ playing every other week. By the end the PCs were Solars with well over two thousand XP, but even the last session came very close to the party failing in their goals. The trick to challenging a high level party is a combination of a few things. 1) Use monsters _intelligently._ Nothing with an int score over 8 should fight to the death if it has a choice. (obvious exception for protecting offspring and the like) It should _try_ to escape and come back with a plan. Players _HATE_ monsters who make hit-and-run attacks. I call your attention to Tucker's Kobolds(media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf). Kobolds, _fucking Kobolds_ Shredding a tenth level party through clever play. 2) realizing that _combat isn't always the answer._ It's not "can you kill the monster?" It's "At what cost?" You don't just throw one adventure at a time at the party, you throw four, but they only have the _time_ to handle one of them, _maybe_ two if they really really push themselves. You don't deny them chances to rest, you apply enough time pressure that _they decide_ they can't afford to rest.
Thanks for your thoughtful post. I agree with everything you said and yes, I'm familiar with Tucker's kobolds. A good DM can still challenge a 10th-15th level party--but it takes a LOT of time to plan. XDM, ICRPG and Dungeonworld have streamlined rules so a battle with a Rakshasas takes 60 seconds to design and sessions take 2-3 hours to play.
The problem here is that it's not very fun, and that's the GM's first job. It's not a matter of proving how smart you are and how much cheese you can use, because honestly if you keep using teleport cheese against the players, they'll just use it right back at you. Anything bad happens they can just teleport away, and it just leads to a standoff. Things go bad for the monster, it teleports, things go bad for the PCs, they teleport. Nobody has fun and you're constantly fighting the same battle over and over again.
@@taragnor Ah, but if they don't have teleport prepared, the rakshasa can _keep them from preparing it._ That's why the CR13 monster is capable of TPKing a 15-20th level party. You're right, it is horrible cheese, but it also makes for a villain that the players will go to any lengths to bring down. A rakshasa is the sort of monster that makes a good final boss for a 1-20 campaign, because they tend to plot and scheme and recruit spies everywhere. At first level the characters are only encountering catspaws of catspaws, but as they work their way up through the levels, they pluck apart more and more of this villain's plots and he sends more resources against them. Until finally he makes a hit-and-run personally, and maybe kills the party cleric and wizard, while letting the rest live because they're not worth the effort... or so he thinks. So now they want vengance, and they recruit new members, and now they're coming after him out for blood. And when they finally manage to pin him in place long enough to kill him, _that_ is satisfying.
@@JC34258 : In my experience, groups lose interest if a villain keeps teleporting away. It's a gimmick that should be used very sparingly, because in my group, the game just became teleport wars. The villain teleports away if the battle is going against them, and the PCs do the same, so the game ends up being fighting the same battle over and over again, with neither side able to really get a true win and no actual progress being made. Because battles in 5E were very slow, it was near to impossible to really down either side before they could just teleport away. We ended up making a gentleman's agreement not to abuse teleport hit-and-run because otherwise it gets tedious real fast and no one is having fun, PC or DM. Teleport is one of those high-level abilities I feel probably shouldn't be in the game, because it's way too abuseable by default. It's essentially the reset button to get you out of any situation you're losing.
@@JC34258 @Dungeon Craft There's also the other issue that was brought up; that being the creativity of making new situations. Sure, you did that once. Now how about the next party? Or the one after that? And the following band? And the fourth high level encounter? Etc. Etc. You likely will run out of new and interesting ways to deal with the 15-20 party much quicker than things for the 5-10 party.
Fascinating idea. I may have to do some playtesting. Against the Giants was one of my favorites and I remember my groups being a bit anxious but still more reckless than any sane person in real life would be. The restriction on HP would certainly make even the most foolhardy warrior think twice before barging into the Hill Giant Chieftan's throne room.
It's probably a good idea to throw in a lot of crappy minions just to give the illusion that they're rolling over stuff like a power house, a few higher level enemies as a hurdle and then at the end of the dungeon is where you put your brick wall.
Counterargument to the HP solution: go the other way. As the characters gain HP, increase the damage of the monsters AND the players accordingly! Now the goblins (or other generic enemies) are dealing 3d6 per attack, instead of one. Instead of more attacks or more enemies, just make the numbers bigger! This still keeps the scaling closer, but the bigger numbers make the players FEEL powerful, and like the monsters are actually challenging.
Thanks! I've worked hard to add visual elements. Sadly, it hasn't increased viewership, but I'll keep doing it. Check out the campaign updates. They have lots of visual shots.
This is why I run OSR (B/X with the d20 mechanic stuck on) with a level cap of 6. At level 6, Fighters can withstand immense punishment. Wizards throw fireballs and lightning bolts. Rogues backstab foes and slay them in a single hit. Clerics can reduce undead enemies to ash, heal grievous wounds, and beseech their deity for answers. Giants, dragons, vampires, etc should *always* be terrifying foes.
I'm running a game right now and they wanted to begin as high leveled characters. I cannot agree more with you. Having to think of all the possible ways they can just ignore your traps, blow entire hordes of enemies without even bothering or just teleport away from the things you created for them may make the game more fun to them because they feel powerful, but gives the DM some serious headaches. And that's not the point of rol games, the DM should have fun too. He's not working for them, they're all playing this together. I will definitely try that no more hit points solution and see how it goes.
I make one shots for certain holidays or because I feel like it that are part of the same world and time as the campaign I run and the results of those one shots effect the normal campaign. For most of them, I have found my self either picking level ranges that avoid the creeping power affect, crating scenarios where combat and player power are not the focus, or designing the characters to be played in the one shot myself, ignoring and adapting any rule as needed and make those characters right around 25hp. Its was nice hearing someone else taking that idea and making it part of a more formal system for regular player characters.
I’m interested to try this low HP concept. One fix I can think of for game breaking magic is to just have player roll a very high DC to use things like stone shape and dimension door. That way you aren’t ripping away their powerful spells, but instead the magical nature of dungeon or another enemy magic user makes their lives more difficult. As for high HP players, you can always make monster hit like a truck. I do understand that a player having 7 hit points and the monster rolling 2d6, is functionally the same as a player having 50 hit points and the monster damage being 8d6. But, rolling lots of dice can be really fun for the players, and on the flip side, rolling something crazy like 8d12 for a monster’s damage really freaks the players out.
I got into TTRPGs with Steve Jackson's first RPG The Fantasy Trip. In that game your hp was between about 8-16 and weapons usually dished out 1-3 d6 points of damage. It didn't matter how high of a level you were, if you got jumped by bandits there was always that sinking feeling you might not make it out alive.
I really like these ideas, as well as your "no more initiative" approach. In your "initiative" video, you said spells and ranged attacks go first, because being a spellcaster is pointless if they go last. But if you use that in combination with the HP cap, then spells can become more powerful, thus worth the delay of gesturing and speaking incantations. I think I would like to try a HP cap of "Double Constitution". In 5E, the max Con score for a PC is 20, meaning the most HPs a PC could possibly have is 40. I'll use your "no initiative" rules, but have spells go last. Instead of half damage for spells, I'll reduce it by 1/3. So a Fireball spell would round down to 5d6. Even though spells go off after ranged and melee attacks, their lethality should compensate. Thanks for the great ideas!
I have still to watch all your videos, though I am trying. I have been searching for a way to reduce the high drag of power leveling. The reduced hp option is a good idea, but I think it requires a lot of trust between players and the DM. What I mean, is in a VTT, I often run into players I have never played with before, especially in one shots. I have been a DM for decades and it is wonderful to still be able to learn from other DM's how to manage their games. I really enjoy your content and ideas. Admittedly I don't agree with all, but they still provide ideas and insights that I would not otherwise have. Thanks Professor.
Thank YOU for watching. You are not to first person to say my methods require trust. My question is, why DON'T people trust the GM? They trust people they don't even know to handle their CREDIT CARDS, but not a guy running a make believe scenario with imaginary orcs? Players are weird. Thanks for responding and may all your rolls be 20s!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks, about trust, this is what I experience whenever I run a VTT. I think they forgot that its a game and should be fun, not legitimized with rules and such. I always thought that as long as your consistant and upfront that should be enough. Anyways keep it up your doing a great job.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Im a 1e D&D player/DM. What I find one of the biggest problems with High level Characters is when the AC gets to high, ie to hard to hit for lower level monsters. The High AC means that characters cant be hit by lower level monsters, thus eliminating them as threats. However, it the AC is reasonable then that group of 10 goblins against the Lets stay 10 level character lets the lower level monsters still hit the character, and thus bring their hp down. Now the next thing is to limit healing, there are many ways to limit spamming healing, choose your methods. The next is slowing down the level rise, IE use page 86 in the DMG and page 25 in the DMG ( 1e) . using this, then the characters will NOT be going up levels fast, ie they will not have enought gold to level when they have enough XP to level, MUST USE CHARACTERS MUST TRAIN TO LEVEL!!!! You will not have to worry about having overly high level characters, and if they do get to high level, with a character, they fully deserve to have that high level character. The problem is DM's are way to generous in not making them pay to level using what the DMG says, and in a short time, the characters are too powerful for the DM to reasonably challenge. Limit AC, use the Pay to train to level! and Pay for expenses, Most all the problems will go away. Oh.... and there are monsters that Drain level!!!!! Ive never seen to many hp of characters as being a problem, but the above is your solution! Dont GIVE OUT ALL OF THOSE MAGIC ARMORS AND SHEILDS!!! LET THEM GET BROKEN IF THEY GET THEM. MAGIC DOESNT MEAN IMPERVIOUS TO DAMAGE! Magic swords are ok, magic shields are not!
Just finding your channel...great stuff. In my experience(35+yrs) rarely do groups/campaigns/players reach high level play. Someone moves away, wants to switch characters, the DM wants to play vs run the game, etc. So what I started doing as far back as 3rd edition is to make the lower levels last longer. I triple the XP progression for levels 1-3 and double the xp for levels 4-6, then XP as normal. The first few levels are so much fun, but they fly by. This way the "new car smell" lasts longer and the players love it. This has an added benefit in that there is much less meta gaming/optimizing going on, as class builds matter less than player choice.
Lolz "players love it". If I heard you were not only slow leveling but artificially expanding the shitty low levels, I'd never play in your game again. I've played so much of shitty lower level 5e that if a game doesnt start at level 11, I dont want anything to do with it.
This is a fantastic idea, and I think many commenters here are missing an important point. By limiting HP totals but not special abilities and magic spells and stuff, you still get to have the amazing 20th level plane hopping adventure and become gods. You just only have 20 hp while doing so and could actually die, or finish a combat in less than one session.
I use really really slow advancement. That way leveling up is a huge deal. Also, I still use goblins and orcs at high levels but I use the rule s for fighting them as troops. So they become very dangerous as a troop and the fights are quick.
In my current campaign Pathfinder 2e I'm experimenting with hit points for Ancestry 0 level (P2e rules), Class level 1, then rolling for hit points every second level and maxing at level 9 [0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9]. Instead of using the Pathfinder Bestiary I use the D&D monster manual as the same monster is slightly weaker then tweak as needed. We'll see how it goes. If the party is too weak they are encouraged to hire a meat shield to fill out the group a bit. Funny how the hirelings always die during play :).
I came back to the hobby in 2020 after 20 years away, got hyped about 5e, and I still like it, got back into DMing, reached for all my previous players, and we were all in again. After 4 years playing 5e, I can say I'm a little burned out. Then I tried shadowdark and I LOVED IT. My players wasn't as enthusiastic as I was at first, but then they felt the benefits of making a lot more game happen in the same amount of time. I'm currently wrapping up a 5e Tomb of Annihilation campaing, we are about to complete, then it will be dolmenwood sandbox using shadowdark rules.
Love the idea of capping hit points! For higher level characters, I always resorted to situations they couldn't solve with violence. Problem solving, convincing NPCs to take action, or huge battles where they aren't in any danger (ie Aragon at Pelennor Fields) but their allies can still get wiped out.
Absolutely right professor. I ran into the same exact problem back in the 90’s when I had a level 16 cleric who had a ridiculous amount of HP. The game lost a lot of flavor because I could just run into any kind of danger with no worry of being seriously injured or killed. I Recently decided to cap HP at level 4 with my current party based on this most brilliant suggestion by you, at first they weren’t very happy about the thought of it but after I explained the thought process both from my own & your experience they acquiesced. I also pointed out that this logic was also successfully applied to the TV series Game of Thrones. I think one of the reasons why it was so popular was it’s ability to raise the anxiety level of the viewer given the fact that any one major character that they had become attached to may get killed off at any moment. This same logic needs to apply to the game as well otherwise we have nothing invested in it & it becomes bland & pointless.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 It sure as heck was, in fact, I’ve gotten useful items & advice from every one of your videos, between these & your patreon you have helped to elevate the games I DM immeasurably & can’t thank you enough!
I would suggest looking up E6 which was come up for 3.5/pathfinder era DnD to solve the scaling issue (also helps with power level scaling in general). Throw in incantations (Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana) or something like that, and then you can still have your world changing magics, but they can be quests in and of themselves to do, instead of a x times a day ability. Was something I was looking at doing for a campaign some years back and wish I had done that instead of normal progression.
There’s a sweet spot around level 3-6 where everything makes sense and the game plays the best. I’m 100% OSR but I have great respect for the E6 concept.
I'll reply metoo here instead of posting my own E6 thoughts. I've ran E6 for over a year in a 5e darksun campaign which is FANTASTIC to play such a harsh setting with such disposable characters.... basically build out anything a 7th+ level character can do and assign a DC to do it, and allow players creative ways to find more bonuses to get the d20+x needed to hit the numbers. Hilarity ensues when you pitch a team against a CR16 Sand Kraken, for example, and they gotta keep it from destroying a merchant caravan.
I've been a GM for 40 years. 3rd ed was a mixed blessing. everything was given exponentially more health. my method for char has- 1st lvl, max hp with con bonus. each additional lvl, add con bonus + 1. characters will have a limited improvement, but not become a tank or meat shield. this method means a con of 8 or more will maintain hp or improve, but even a con of 20 will only have a character gain a max of 6hp per lvl. ie; fighter with con 14 makes 2nd lvl. base hp 12 (base 10+2 con) will add 3 (1+2 con) or 15hp at 2nd lvl. the char has improved, but 5 goblins will still be a challenge.
THANK YOU! I think this idea is long overdue in level based rpgs. The earliest I can recall this idea was in the Arduin Grimoire system. The system based hit points on racial stock plus constitution score, plus constitution bonus, plus a set bonus per level that ranged from 1-5 depending on class.
I saw a system where every time the character's leveled up they would roll a new hit die and IF that die was HIGHER than their current HP, they could "swap up" to the larger die. They also didn't use CON for hp but did use a CON bonus. It was weird seeing a 5th level fighter with 12 hp but it worked. They did, however, have a "defense" system where both combatants rolled a D20 against a given target number (AC for the attacker and 10 + HD/LVL for the defender with all 5e bonuses applying) and the defender's roll over the target number (if any) was subtracted from the attacker's roll to see if the attacker could penetrate the target's "defense" and score damage. It was an interesting system for "dueling."
I largely agree. Something else I'll do as DM is have a monster deal a fraction of HP on hits with an according saving throw, instead of a straight dice number. (E.g. a Giant hit knocks ½ HP down, or ¼ on CON save). This keeps saving throws relevant in direct combat, but avoids bookkeeping while also maintaining (or improving) the threat level.
Pretty much everything you said is why I love Dungeon World. It has a leveling system that allows characters to improve, but HP doesn't change. This really takes the cuffs off of DMs since level 1 characters could conceivably beat a dragon and level 10 characters could conceivably be killed by goblins. But it also maintains that aspect of leveling up that RPG players love because as you level you get new moves and your skills improve.
Professor, I hear you loud and clear. I’m currently running an ADnD 1e campaign for mid-high Lvl PCs - 7-10th. It is very challenging to create scenarios that truly test them. I have thrown around the concept of capping hp and such but feel that punishes the players. I find I am best served by giving opponents exceptional, spell(like), and supernatural abilities that the PCs either have no access to in order to create the desired sense of danger. For instance, the Evil Temple causes good aligned clerics and paladins to operate as though they are X levels lower or certain spells such as curing are impossible. Magical wild or dead zones that nullify or dampen spell abilities and magic items. The environment can be a nearly undefeatable foe if the party finds itself stranded or separated.
Level 5 is the sweet spot. For my one shots I tell players to roll average HP, they get one +1 weapon. They're somewhat heroic but a dragon is still a threat. Theres enough class abilities and spells but not too many to bog the game down. I've been using the low HP high Damage monster model to speed up encounters while making them more dangerous creating more tension and less boredom. The Professor is spot on on all his advice. I'm going to try more of these pacing tricks my next session.
Good discussion Professor. I think the addition hp gain by level are just luck and skill additions, but the characters initial hp is their to hit to kill. In fighting and damage from adventuring they can use all their full hp, but if they do something outside of skill and luck, then only their initial hp stands. For example if the player says his character jumps off a 300 foot cliff, their is no luck to save them because they chose to jump and no fighting/adventuring skill can save them. So for a fighter they only have 1 d8 hp in this case. The same is if they were asleep or paralyzed. This would prevent a character from saying I will let the Orc slash at me without defending because I have 80 hp. In this case no skill or luck is used, so it would only be 1d8 hp and if the damage is greater than that the character would be dead.
Watching these early videos of yours is like listening to my own issues with the game, only better expressed and with video skills. I may just find the beginning and binge watch.
In my opinion DM's don't like high level play because of the amount of work you have to put into creating high level encounters. I have a few games I'm running at different levels. My lower level games take an hour or 2 to prepare per session and my high level game can take me multiple days to write just a portion of the encounter.
Man, your channel is pure gold!!!! You are simply addressing all the problems that made me run away from D&D. I'm loving your ideas. That said, I think you should really check out these other games that have already solved this issue: Savage Worlds, Cypher System and Fate. If you already know these games, I'd love to know if and why you have disliked them. Cheers!
I own Fate & Savage Worlds. The lead designer of SW is a big fan of the channel, actually. My players still love the feel of d20s, but those games are great and I may do a review. Thanks for commenting!
I watched a video with B Dave Walter a while back in which he defends high level D&D. He made some very interesting points. The one that stuck out to me was that high level play is all about morality. At 20th level your character has the power to solve ANY problem but not EVERY problem. To GM a high level game you have to give the players several problems at the same time and force them to choose which one they want to fix. Does superman choose to save Lois Lane or the train car full of strangers. This isn't the way I would want to play D&D all the time but it is something that is fun to occasionally explore (assuming all the players are experienced and know their characters well so that they can take a turn in a reasonable amount of time).
I was thinking of ways to do this in my first campaign (stagnate leveling) because I truly hate higher level "other-wordly" monsters. I want a survival-based mind game as opposed to a high magic epic fantasy which seems to me less immersive because they're SOOO absurd!
Could always just reflavor the creatures to make them a natural, but terrifying, part if your world. The Balrog in LotR for instance. He is a basically a fiend but one that wasnt from some other dimension. He was a being that was created or brought over from another, distant land long ago. A lot of what goes into a monster is how they are presented and in what light. That said I can also see the appeal of a more low fantasy setting.
Have your players play a Commoner campaign, were the only class available to the players is Commoner. The players will use lots of planning to make sure they don't die. Eventually they may get access to a Wish spell that replaces one of their Commoner levels with an Expert level (4 more skill points, 1 more hit point, any 10 skills are class skills, better Will Save, and much better combat skills)
One of my House rules is to divide all new HP gained past the 2nd level by 2, created out of the same concerns explained in the video. Its not as hard a solution as a fixed cap, but it helps. In 5th edition many monsters have already been toned down, except for Dragon's breath which is still ridiculously high imo. And monsters are not a concern, because you can always have another join the fray if its too easy or have a 2nd wave/encounter moments later, or the opposite, if its too hard have them roll a perception to notice that the monster is already wounded with wounds they didn't cause, the creature was wounded from a previous encounter(with someone other than PCs) or runs away for an unknown reason (warn the master, get rid of evidence, etc).
I've always been good at leveling up an adventure to deal with stronger parties.... And the problem with long combat rounds is easy to deal with. I worked out a system where a 9 player + DM game with 15th level average characters took less then 20 min per combat round. You just have t get it thrugh to the players... Say this slowly: "A COMBAT ROUND IS 6 SECONDS" That statement took 6 seconds... I will not give you 5 minutes each to decide what to do in 6 seconds.
What about capping hit points as you suggested, but allowing players to increase their baseline AC by the to-hit bonus when they level up, similar to the defense bonus rule in 3.5. This prevents hit pt inflation and fixes the oversight in D&D rules where players get better at hitting opponents when they level up but not better at defending themselves with parries, blocks, dodging, etc.
Hey PDM! May I please point out, you are THE BEST for advice on DMing I have come across. You take the time to explain things in such detail, a NOOB DM like my self can follow along(for the most part) I have played just 2 sessions of DND in my 40 years of existence. The DM at that table was a new DM (those two sessions were his first two as DM and only two sessions we got to play before the game fell apart) I loved the experience so much, I decided to play DM for another table of NOOBS. I am pumped up and terrified to play. I have a pretty good idea what NOT to do. I am watching all your videos and stealing SO MUCH! Thank you for putting such effort into your content. I appreciate you.
So funny. You really should take a look at Midgard the Fantasy Roleplay (actually in its 5th edition, first release in 1981. It's the first german RPG. And of course written in german.). The concept of Hitpoints are split in Lifepoints (which will almost never change, no matter if you're level 1 or level 20) and Endurancepoints (which will level up.) There is no armor-class. When been attacked a character rolls a parry roll against the attack roll. If he succeeds, the damage is only subtracted from the endurancepoints. If he looses, the damage ist also subtracted from the lifepoints. With zero endurancepoints you're exhausted and everything gets more difficult. Endurancepoints are also needed for using magic. A character can loose endurancepoints by exhaustion through harsh cold, hunger, long marshes etc.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 you are avoiding all of the resources wotc is giving you. That's fine, but that's a D.M choice NOT a break in the mechanics. This would be similar to wanting to run a low level magic game and removing all dedicated spellcaster. Not a game mechanics issue, just a game play choice. If you are doing these changes make sure the group knows before hand what they are getting into, since you are taking away so much from them
+100xp for catching that joke, Alex! I put a lot of visual humor in my videos. I'm hoping it will make people watch them instead of just listening to them. It takes a LOT of work and I could make videos a lot faster if I were just a talking head.
Yes I do appreciate it, I love having content on as I work on my campaigns and dungeons. Its great to have this up and have it continually spark my creativity.
Never had this problem with my high level games, I just finished a campaign that made it to level 17 and far from being indestructible they were still struggling to survive, at least one of the players would make a death save in any serious combat, and sure they were fighting high level monsters, sure, but they were also fighting people, in one battle they were up against 10 high level wizards who were trying to destroy Earth Heart using earthquake spells and other uber magic, the wizards were relatively squishy but the trouble was that the city could only stand so long, in order to save it they had to figure out a way of efficiently chaining their attacks so as to take them out before the city fell, and they only just managed it (half the city was gone but it was better than losing the entire thing). I love running high level games because I can use the entire monster manual, I also invent a lot of insane creatures that would just beast a low level party in the first rounds. You can really let loose with Epic Fantasy at high level.
5:00 There's a parallel here between Superman and beloved Swedish children's comic book character Bamse, the World's Strongest Bear. His precursor was Teddy, the World's Strongest Bear, but the author noticed that he had to resort to sleep anesthetics a lot to make the story interesting, and it became repetitive after a while. So he created Bamse, who only became the world's strongest bear when he ate of a special honey made by his grandmother. This weakness made storytelling a lot more fun.
Interesting. GURPS characters usually have what amounts to around 9 to 15 h.p., which rarely change even as they gain experience. Skills and advantages are what keep them from getting hit. Death is usually a distinct possibility (although not nearly as likely as people think). The whole “leveling up” trap is mostly a non-issue.
Something I've considered, which is influenced by Runequest, is to give everyone their CON as HP. That's it. For monsters you could modify that by their size - small creatures have half, large have half again, with various multiples for the different sizes.
Interesting. I'm a pretty new DM, with an only hours newer group. Once we get a bit more comfortable with the system as a whole, I think I'll start adopting this system.
Another way to fix the power creep is to make the monsters similar in strength, but more powerful monsters have cooler/more dangerous special abilities, like how as a player's wizard character gets more levels they would get more spells, but to avoid fourth edition slogging each creature has one easy to explain abilities
Who's discovering Professor DM 5-6 years later? I am! Right up my alley: grimdark; seems to have a similar disposition towards nonsense; and a great mix of crafts; tools; and ideas! Thank you, Professor DM! PS: I've taken some liberties with your Bone Road encounters (mine is called Road of Sorrows (after all the deaths that took place on or close to it- in a world where spirits linger)). It's highly evolutionary by design, and I've run sandbox game sessions with it alone. My current game answers the question: what if Greek Mythology was real - real, and the world it took place in was as gnarly and unforgiving as Warhammer 40K. Magic is tied strictly to religion, so the "cleric/paladin" class doesn't exist - you just choose to carry a sword and worship one of the pantheon (you might correctly surmise I do classes differently). Thanks to the table of Sorrows, I basically have 100+ plot points ready to go and they're vague enough that the same plot could roll and it's entirely different, thanks in part, to certain plots pointing to a d8 table for example. I've also color-coded it by season so that I have a ready-made season roll tied into the plot roll if needed/relevant. Any plot can roll at any time, but some plots are more likely only during certain seasons, so an out of season plot becomes even more curious. If it's winter, you should expect fewer typical travelers - but when does that specific monster hibernate again? Before or AFTER winter? Hope you're right! Traveling in the middle of summer? Visibility is great for you AND the bandits looking for an easy score. It's almost too easy! One time I rolled for the players to see a giant statue head - in a world where gods and famous warriors were often memorialized by stone. So, why was there a giant stone head so close to the road without a statue body? It was supposed to be inocuous and "neutral," but the players spent probably 40 minutes trying to figure out why a statue head was visible from the road with no body nearby. Since I'm playing in Greek Mythology, I have a random table of statues (famous, religious, fictional, local, etc) and the prompt gives me ideas. This head must have fallen off a cart and the owners couldn't lift it. They could be back soon. Oh, wait, a shattered cart, and the driver is stone as well... (the head is the remains of a giant after encountering a medusa). This is DMing on easy mode. I did zero prep for this session other than complete the table and said we're going to try something a little different today - no books. In one of your videos, you answered the question: How does a DM improvise? You said just have a few random tables ready to go. Well, I do now. d87 (Winter): You meet a stranger on the road - d8: a deity disguised as a beggar - or just a beggar? A mercenary? A Bounty Hunter that mistakes the party for his target? A child... alone?! Etc...) I'm having so much fun with this, and my players asked me how I remember what the plots imply. But, it's like a PowerPoint presentation, and my notes are just bullet points. Thanks for helping me find a better way to prep/ run my games. I've drastically reduced prep time with this table - which I use almost every time the players surprise me with an off-the-wall decision, or I want to surprise THEM with an off-the-wall transition. Awesome stuff, Professor DM! Thank you!
100%. I played in the 1980s & 90s & never understood some people's interest in high-level play, slaughtering armies of summoned demons & whatnot. Every time I got close to it, the game started to just feel silly.
This is sorta why I like the looks of WFRP 4e. I haven't actually gotten to try it out yet with a group, but the character advancement is a lot simpler and gradual, and characters don't really turn into omnipowerful demigods with hundreds of hitpoints and reality breaking spells. Rather than "leveling up" and gaining a bunch of stuff at once, players simply upgrade specific skills or characteristics one at a time with their exp. Plus it feels more natural than just suddenly gaining a whole bunch of stuff all at once, feels more like a proper progression of becoming better at what you do, one skill at a time.
I give out very few experience points. It slows players down. As a DM since 1980 or so I can think of only 2 times that we went past 10th level. My kids 1st campaign just ended a few weeks ago. It lasted 4 years and they maxed out at level 20. That is the only time I have ever DM that high. Wow crazy stuff. I figured hey why not. I let them do pretty much anything. I had this cool magic shop run by a bald guy named Mordenkainen, you might have heard of him. And he would buy and sell anything...Anything(no artifacts). So my kids had really cool stuff. the last battle killed 3 of the 5. But 3 were brought back to life. Now we are playing a gritter campaign very much like Prof DM here. Super slow progression is the key I think. I have also only played in 2 campaigns above 10th level. I tend to believe that 3-7 levels are the sweet spot. Tough enough to do some stuff but still vulnerable.
In my pathfinder campaign I run hp as this. Their hp (wound points) are equal to their constitution. Every level they get vitality points that is determined by their class. In combat weapon damage goes against their vitality points once those are depleted the damage goes to their wound points. The major difference is that critical hits don’t do extra damage that damage goes directly to there wound points at 0 wound points they become unconscious. I actually got this from an old d20 Star Wars rpg.
This is why I like a lot of dice pool systems, or systems like Savage Worlds that just use dice instead of numbers. When you level up, you increase your Strength from a d6 to a d8. It give you a little more wiggle room, but you can still roll a 1. And capping damage for any monster at a d20 is a great way to have players shaking in their boots, are they going to. In fact, instead of doing an attack and damage roll, you could just have them roll damage dice, if they roll a 1, it's just a scratch, if they roll an 8... You get it. Don't give players modifiers, just give them a better dice, that sets a cap and it always give room for great success or failure. This makes me with there was a d16, the middle ground between a 12 and a 20. If you want, you can have Attributes and Skills, and you roll 2 dice. You can add them together, or just take the highest.
Since first playing with 5e, I've always applied the optional rules that makes for a more lethal game and give a chance also to low level monsters. I'm talking about rules like Slow Natural Healing (which I've further reduced, a short rest is now 1/4 HD and a long rest is 1/2 HD), Healer's Kit Dependency, Massive Damage and expecially Lingering Injuries (I've found some charts made by a guy with Lingering Injuries for all types of damage). Though I still think that the game could benefit from more lethalness, these rules have pretty much made a group of goblins or kobolds as something to be worried about also at high levels, without making them the true danger they are at low levels. Still, the problem of high level fights taking hours of real time remains, so I'll think about your secret and see if it may help me somehow. From what I know about my players, I don't think it would help much, because they would spend more time thinking about their next move: basically, I would be trading the time spent rolling dices with time spent on planning a move. But I'll think about it anyhow, I sense some good in your secret.
I can see both sides of the argument. It's a problem if you want/let your players go "nova" every fight - they'll heal/rest after every encounter and you'll have a hard job finding enough goblins to challenge that fighter. Or, like me, you can challenge them over many encounters; each one not too much of a threat, gnawing at their heels - but after six or so rooms of that in a dungeon they're all limping and begging for a rest after a couple of sessions. I don't try and challenge them with every encounter. I just strain their resources and keep them wondering if they should "go nova" in this room or keep something back in case there's a boss in the next room. They just fought off a siege in Phandalin by the nearby town of Leilon. They came upon the siege from behind, sabotaged the catapults, took out the elite guard, routed Lord Pelindar Falmarya (cutting the head off the snake), before the town's folk sallied forth and they all fought and defeated the large force at the gate... Then the forces surrounding other parts of the town broke through to the town and they had to charge in and save those within. Their resources were already severely depleted: little/no spell slots left; no potions; some were on death saves; and nearly all had less than half health. And they were now suffering a level of exhaustion, to represent the epic battle fought outside the walls (they'd recently erected a wooden palisade after being sacked by the Cragmaws). So the Glabrezu that Harbin Wester summoned within the walls (and then turned on him and killed him, "I'm finally free on the material plane!") wouldn't have normally been an issue for the party of 6 x 7th level players, plus minor followers... ... but they nearly TPK'd all the same, because they weren't expecting a demon to be summoned within the town after they went nova outside and broke the main siege. They seem quite pleased with this, so long as it's not overdone and becomes "vanilla predictable". Same as anything in the game really. Sorry for the long post, but felt it was a story and a point you'd like to hear about. Glad I stumbled upon your videos. Keep them coming!
I just found this video, and I love it. I usually cap my campaigns to level 10th... cuz I hate Higher level tiers due to players making more the Maths than truly playing the game as mentioned in one of the comments posted here. I believe capping the HP to a maximum like 20 HP probably help to keep the game interesting, but may be a bit overwhelming for the players. I haven't read XDM, ICRPG and Dungeonworld (but definetely need to get them.), so I don't know if this variant rule for HP have been mentioned there or in comments posted, but here it goes: What about..giving the players hit points 1st level as stated in the PHB D&D5E...say full HP+Con modifier, but at the following levels...they only get 1 HP + Con Modifier. Monsters apply the same rule to balance the scale. Say..an Orc with 2 HD get full HP+Con modifier on his first HD, and second HD he only gets 1 HP+Con modifier. This rule may speed up combat and also add some lethal-ity to the game. Guess I'll give it a try with a testing mini-campaign
I've tried a lot of variants, such as those you suggested. My latest one: you get 10hp + Con bonus and then....that's it. 1st level, 5th level, 10th level. Thanks for watching and we have a LOT more videos. Binge away!
This is one of the great things about games like Traveller. The PCs start competent And only slowly improve and generally in areas where they weren’t already good rather than becoming the best in the galaxy at something.
What's your opinion on published "adventure paths", popularized by Paizo, that provide the necessary math already done for higher level encounters? I understand that it doesn't solve the issue with combats taking too long, but at least they save the DM the long(er) preparation times?
Gloomhaven has an interesting solution to this problem. The game forces you to retire your character and start a new one once they have achieved their objective in life. That way, the party stays at a low level throughout the campaign. On the other hand, they offset this by having a higher starting level for new characters depending on how 'prosperous' the world is at large...
I really can't recommend Tiny Dungeon to you enough. I agree with you on a fundamental level - that high level combat slows down play. That's why my games cap at 10th level. There is no 11-20 levels in my campaign world. I think I'd rather have it at 6th level if I were honest, but my players like the flashy stuff, so 10th it is. As for how to challenge such characters, let me share an example. Recently a powerful assassin's guild sent assassins after the characters. The characters fought them off and survived but one assassin escaped. The bard said, "I'm going to cast scry and see where his hideout is so we can attack it!" I responded, "You scry, but all you see is smoke." He looked at me incredulously and I said, "Look, these were obviously not some scrubs from the local thieves guild. These were top tier assassins, every bit your equals. You think they don't have access to magic? He's got a non-detection spell on him. You are not tracking this guy. This is part of being high level - you can own the lower levels now, but the high level baddies got just as nice toys as you do." Part of me hopes they will one day say they'd just prefer going to lower level, but for now I'm content. :)
At or around 4:30 Professor Dungeonmaster says that Superman was created in 1933. While it is true that "Reign of the Superman" was published in January 1933, the character bears no resemblance to Superman, who was first published in June 1938. Both versions were created or co-created by Jerry Siegel. The next statement at about 5:00 was that Kryptonite was first seen in 1949 as a way to make Superman weaker is not correct, or at least Kryptonite was first introduced years beforehand. "K-metal" was suggested in 1940 but the comic that would have introduced it was rejected and unpublished. Kryptonite, as we know it, made its first appearance in the radio drama serial of Superman in June 1943 as a way to give the voice actor a way to take some time off from the show. Kryptonite was not seen in the comic books until Novemember 1949.
Mathematical "HP control" is important but that's just one of the solutions. There's other schools of thought, like : Limit rest/healing unless you're out of the "dungeon". This solution is better for games that are more geared toward exploration like a multi-party Megadungeon or living world, where your levelling up HP means you can go "deeper" before needing to head back to fully heal up. Fundamentally it's the same algebra.
I am currently running a game using the AGE system. It also has a pretty bad health bloat but the character progression in my opinion is pretty good because they don't become super over powered they just get better at what they do as you might expect from killing tons of monsters. Instead of health every level I said you only get a D6 of health if you put a point into CON and this kept the health relatively low and made the characters focus on armor and stuff which is what it's there for after all.
I have not played DnD in a very very very long time, being on Dark Heresy (wh40k rpg) for around 12-14 years. But the idea I had to simply modify the rules was, a 20 didn't make much difference on your dice damages. Instead, these were constitution damage, representing avery bad or critical hit, and a character reaching 0 constitution would die. So it made every combat with a chance that a 20 would roll very violent damages on the opponent, big monsters often one-shotting players in such a situation, while lesser creatures would still inflicts a lot of damage (A D12 +2 orc would still wreck the day of most characters). Anyway, it was an idea, but I've been too far from DnD for too long to analyse if there are other problems with such a system.
I love the this concept of lowering the HP generally to speed up combat and to be reminded of the mortality of their characters. I could see this really spicing up combat. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on how this would effect the role of healers? What kind of adjustments would we need make to their abilities so they're still rewarded for leveling up and taking on the important role? If you cap hp at 20, obviously many of their healing abilities would be overkill at high levels.
Why would anyone bother to play at higher levels with these restrictions? Seems by gimping the players you won't have to worry about them getting too high where it's too much work for the GM as seems to be the idea in all these house rules.
This is one cool thing about the Hero System. No levels. I started running a super hero campaign a few weeks ago (Champions) I still award experience but is very little and it would take them a long time to use it to up any power or characteristics.
I can see the hit point cap, there is the White Wolf/Onxy Path Storyteller system where characters only have seven health boxes that get ticked off based on type of damage and rules for how quickly you can heal that damage. I also see the limits on health with the BESM games. Both of those game systems, you earn experience points that can be spent on increasing attributes, skills and powers.
I level up the monsters to keep combat moving. The PCs can't just assume that the Goblin has 3HP. He could be a level 8 Rogue. A pair of flanking Goblin Rogues can do a lot of damage very quickly. Give a War Troll the Awesome Blow feat. Not only does it do massive damage, now the PC is flat on their back. Leaving them open to more damage. Spellcasting is where it gets tricky, but there are only three of us, so I can tailor an opposing caster for the party spell slinger.
My biggest problem with leveling up is the fact that HP scales way out of proportion with ability score increases and damage output. The result just seems to be longer combat, and players no longer feeling threatened by immediate danger because they can always take several rounds worth of hits before escaping or finding healing.
Yes! I recognized this as a player about a decade and a half ago, seeing that as levels went up, it was less about creative problem solving, and more about resource and inventory management. Then a friend of mine got a 3rd ed splat book for running horror style games. I can't remember the name (Darkness and Dread, maybe? I remember it was green; is that helpful?) The book recommended making hit points equal to constitution score plus level, multiplied by size, with medium size being a multiplier of 1. I saw this and thought "Oh wow; this sounds awesome! We should play like this all the time!" But my friends thought I was a glutton for punishment, or something, and we never played using those rules.
I really like a lot of what you have to say. Have you considered publishing a compilation of your rules? If you did, I know I'd be willing to put down some money to acquire it.
I've been running games for about 16 years now. I've had campaigns get to the upper teens, and one campaign went all the way to level 20. The problem isn't the players getting op, the problem is DMs continuing to design adventures the same way as they did at level 1. There comes a point when a dungeon crawl is no longer appropriate for your characters. Higher level characters should be teleporting across kingdoms, fighting or stopping wars, plane shifting to alternate realms of existence, and fighting threats that can demolish entire armies on a whim. If you insist on putting a high-level party in a dungeon, consider the abilities of your party, and instead of limiting abilities you don't want them to use, design your dungeon in such a way that they are required to use those abilities to advance.
Exactly. I let the players advance without having to lower all the values. The challenges increase because more and more of the setting begins to work against them. The king doesn't want people who challenge his authority. The gods don't want those who ignore their proscriptions and go against their powers, etc. A truly powerful character is one who has had to either adapt to fit the setting around them and use their power less obviously or have to really defeat those who already hold power and then find that they are entangled themselves in the power structure now and they have to manage their holdings, assets and power structure.
I agree but can also appreciate the desire to keep things on the lower fantasy side of things. There is something immensely satisfying about a group of adventurers sharing a drink in the local tavern after defeating that minotaur that was causing trouble for a local farmer. Or finding out a trio of bug bears has been raiding carriages on the road and being legitimately concerned you might get jumped on the way to your next quest.
In higher level play you have to worry about an illithid scrying you from two planes away and whether it not the astral dreadnought he claims to control has fully been awakened or not. It is basically the same thing, just a difference in scope and feel. Dont get me wrong, that can still be a lot of fun, but sometimes you miss those backwater dungeon adventures.
Honestly D&D can suffer from the same problems as Dragon Ball Z where escalation is the only story you can have because everyone is getting ever more insanely powerful. On the other hand JoJo is less about becoming more powerful and about figuring out your opponent's abilities and how best to counter them. (Not that there isn't power escalation mind you. There most certainly is.) I guess my point is that you can have a fulfilling experience with horizontal growth as much as you can with vertical growth. If that makes sense.
I agree. High-level characters can't go in dungeons. I personally find characters who can teleport and create alternate realities to be boring. Ever read Dune? Paul BECOMING a Messiah was way more interesting than him BEING one in the subsequent books.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'm not so sure, though you certainly have to change the style of the dungeon. I was playing Destiny 2 last night and enjoying some strikes. Now most strikes are pretty straight forward affairs: run and shoot the bad guys for the loot, but then I did my first one in the Dreaming City which takes you through two separate plains and does some screwy stuff that makes you stop and consider where you want to go.
Now it's more likely I was just having a hard time wrapping my head around things or just was thinking to hard about it, but seeing these comments got me to thinking. I don't think it is a matter of not sending them into dungeons but rather creating dungeons that aren't nessecarily dungeons of a traditional sense. For instance a wizard's massive demi-plane or pocket reality could be considered a dungeon, one in which the party might have to navigate over several sessions. Or perhaps a dungeon that shifts between different realities and requires more thought as to how one should prepare themselves or makes preparations moot since you could end up with various different outcomes.
Now I'm not saying the players might not find a loophole, but then that could be said even for lower level games. In the end it is a matter of scope and perspective with some people preferring more traditional adventures while others want cosmic magical adventures through time and space. I like both personally so I'm happy at most levels of play. Or so I tell myself.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 THIS. This is why I stopped after Dune Messiah.
Back in the days of 3rd edition, there was a guy named Ryan Stoughton who capped the character level at 6. After that you could only gain feats. He created feat trees that gave a character the abilities of higher levels i. Their class, such as 4th and 5th level spell feats (the spell was a feat and it was only one spell per feat for 4th and 5th level spells). Later the E6 (stands for “epic six”) rules were modified for Pathfinder (called “P6”). It kept the “sweet spot” of D&D levels 3-8. You levelled until 6th and at 6th you gained a feat for every 5000 xp. So there was still advancement, just mot the insane power creep you saw in the 3.x/Pathfinder system.
I am running dnd with such a system. Cool idea with 5th lvl spell feat, implementing it right away.
I thought that was one of the dumbest things I had ever seen. Capping progression at tenth level would have avoided the vast majority of the issues while preserving the ideal level range of the game and introducing powerful magics at the end of the game where they can't do very much harm. Plenty of people have played low level characters, been in multiple campaigns that barely got off the ground, and probably have rarely played higher level characters...why would I want to play a game where I'm not going to get to use the high level feats, spells, etc.? Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
@@Lanessar8008 Never heard of E8 and that's never the way E6 was ever explained to me. E6 AFAIK, was a solid block on getting anything above 3rd level spells, except through items.
Skills work fine in many games. Feats, feats do block characters without the feat from doing things, true, and that's why some feats are bad ideas--keeping basic combat options behind feats for example, bad idea.
Cool idea!
Brancalonia used a similar system.
5e uses rapid advancement until level 3, then becomes comparable with 1st edition for the middle levels (the sweet spot), but by 8th, they accelerate again to be able to push the levels all the way to 20th (1st edition level charts ended around 12th). The main difference is that they had to adjust for not getting XP from treasure anymore (which can be approximated by cutting XP requirements in half). Interesting side note, data gathered by WOTC shows that D&D games are played almost exclusively from levels 1-7 (Mike Mearls shared that tidbit on a panel discussion).
I am experimenting now with 5e but using a slower level advancement (1,000 XP to reach 2nd instead of 300). I found that when playing 5e we would level up every few sessions (1st - 3rd level) and that amped up the power level of the characters so fast they were not proficient in running their characters (new players).
Strategy and tactics used by old timers have been pushed aside by the implementation of new class powers and a radically accelerated HP recovery system. Characters are better, but Players are worse. The old game taught you important lessons on how to win a war. The new game makes you a medieval super hero. Superman is strong, bullet proof, and can fly. He didn't have much use for strategy and tactics, he'd just swoop in and punch his way to victory.
That is why I don't like 5e very much. It feels like you are a super munchkin from the very first level
@@florentdemeyere4779 that's why I like AD&D so much your just a guy with a sword maybe leather armor. That's it you know how to use it bit not well. You don't start off as a hero. You have to earn it. Then buy levels 5-8 hit points are crazy. And combat does take forever. So I agree with that part of it.
@@blg020 Try another option. Just give the character their CON in HP and NEVER let them get more as they level up. You can then add the ability for armor to absorb damage from 1point (padded armor) to 6 points (plate) which I do in addition to the AC add as a method to improve survival at higher levels. You may have to reduce the damage for higher level spells but I just divided the damage rolled by the number of 1-meter squares affected (I went metric).
I advance my characters slowly, because I like the "sweet spot" so much: PCs are tough, capable, but mortal. Sometimes they may have to retreat or negotiate. I also don't give a lot of gold out, because for them it's just more accounting. If they want something nice, I'll create an adventure around obtaining it. My players like to level up, but they never bug me about it. They know there's fun to be had at their present advancement.
If players don't think so much I think it's due to the DM which doesn't throw hard/deadly encounters or hard situations.
If the DM shows to the players that there are things which can kill them, I'm sure they will be cautious and crafty to avoid them or to kill them swiftly.
The way I see it, this can be broken down into three *problems:*
1. PCs gain too much HP per level, making them way too hard to kill later on = the game becomes boring.
2. The game becomes too slow at higher levels.
3. PCs get too many too strong utility spells in higher levels, = they can simply circumvent most problems.
As for *solutions:*
1. Capping/reducing hit points obviously works, straight forward.
But you can also make monsters with damage scaled proportionally to PC HP. This gives the players the nice feeling of bigger numbers; (downside: harder math because bigger numbers). Perhaps, a bit of both would be best.
2. A large part of this problem is only a side effect of problem 1. So solve problem 1 and this should be much less of an issue. More spells and options will make players take longer to think. I think that is fine to a degree. If it becomes too big of a problem, limit the amount of abilities/spells players can have, or simply put a timer on think-time.
3. This is a bit more tricky, I can see multiple things can work together:
Design adventures with this in mind; more numerous, greater and more complicated problems where circumventing some of them with these strong spells/abilities becomes a necessity.
Give these spells/abilities a higher cost, so they can only be used sparingly, and players will have to think strategically about what problem they want to circumvent, by using up one of these "get out of jail for free" -cards.
Give these spells/abilities weaknesses and downsides. You can walk through a wall? Great, but if you roll low, and the wall is too thick, you will be stuck inside it. You can go invisible? Great, but since light then also passes straight through your retina, you will also be blind while invisible. You can read minds? Great, but if that person has some form of deep fear, ptsd, or other mental issue, you have a chance "inherit" it and become afflicted yourself.
And if the above still is not enough, maybe you will have to put a stricter limit on the number of these OP spells they can learn. Making their OP-ness not as universal and more limited to specific situations.
I like these low-hitpoints high-mortality systems.
Me too. The funny thing is my game is dangerous--but doesn't have a high mortality rate. Because my players KNOW their characters can die, they are more cautious and think more before rushing into combat. When they do enter combat, they think about using the terrain to their advantage. Although some characters do die, it's rare.
Call of Cthulhu
@@ncrtrooper1782 Legend of the Five Rings is also deadly in combat even for "high level" characters
DCC RPG
Started playing Traveller which is skill based. Your character hit points are finite and aren't magically healed so a problem when you get injured. Hand Grenade is likely to cause problems for any character. You don't have levels you have a career. Your character has opportunities to grow but you will never double your hit points ever. Players think a lot harder about engaging in combat. The idea that things have gone terribly sideways when they end up in violent confrontations is prevalent. Players are thoughtful and careful. When they manage to pull off a mission there tends to be a real feeling of accomplishment.
Here's my silver piece: 1) If you use HP caps, I would recommend you also use shieldbreaker rules; basically you can sacrifice a source of AC to get out of hit free. For example, Hicks gets hit with acid and fails his saving throw so instead of dying he invokes shieldbreaker and instead of dying by acid spray he looses his armor. Quicksilver rolls INIT and gets like 8 attacks on Apocalypse, Apocaypse ges to go and in one hit would kill Quicksilver, so instead Quicksilver invokes shieldbreaker rule, and he gets his AC bonus from his speed so the DM interprets it that Apocalypse breaks Quicksilver's leg. You can also allow players to sacrifice weapons, ie their bow is cut, their sword is cut in half. YOu can also let players shieldbreak other things of value like maybe they shieldbreak the 10,000gp diamond. 2) As players get higher in level as the D yo uhave to think more strategically for your NPCs. Technically speaking high level NPCs would also have all the same high level tricks, and years to prepare to defend against them. So IMO you the DM cannot just make things to foil players that is bad DMing,...however all of the NPCs themselves are literally sitting around all the time trying to figure out how to foil adventurers who would steal their stuff. In addition; a DM should never try to foil their players...however, as characters gained reputations across the lands the NPCs would start to hear about them, and could therefore the NPC (not the DM, i fyou see what I mean) would begin to use their abilities to create defenses against those specific adventurers. Pro ti[p: As a DM to sell this to your players, make sure to drop little hints that people are beginning to talk abotu them and their tactics, and give them little hints that they're being watched.
Great points! I've found, too, that leveling up is an arms race between the players and the DM. As the players get more powerful, the DM must throw more and more powerful monsters at them. As a consequence, battles can take longer.
However, instead of completely reworking D&D -- lowering PC and monster hit points, reducing the damage monsters do, etc. -- wouldn't it just be easier to play a game designed out of the gate to mitigate the leveling "problem"? (You mentioned Dungeon World as an example of this.)
Arms race is a great way to describe it.
Savage worlds has a wound system that's 3 wounds till you drop
Kryptonite was added in the radio show as a mcguffin to give the voice actor a break. It was added to the comics afterwards to solve the problem of invincibility.
As to DM’ing higher level games, I prefer running higher end games over lower end games because the players are empowered to pursue goals and go toe to toe with actual problems, shaping the environment by their actions and decisions. It lets the players add to the game rather than just participate in the game. For me, leveling as a system is garbage and adds nothing other than gating access to the “real” story. I’d dump leveling in a heart beat if players didn’t cling to it like it’s the only thing keeping them from drowning (which it probably is). But that’s all my preference.
I loved 4e DnD because lvl1 characters were no different from lvl20 characters in play, they just had less flexibility and options to pull from. Guess no one else did, since 4e seems to be the black sheep of the DnD family.
One flaw in this reasoning is that as players advance in levels their impact on the world changes and as such so does the fundamental nature of the story.
At first level your just trying to get noticed by the king.
At tenth level your the king's rival.
That's a very different story.
10th level characters are serious power brokers in the world and they have alot to protect. They don't have time for dungeon crawling. They have to deal with the fact that their actions are being watched and many parties are seeking to take their stuff.
Sure you can wipe out 100 goblins with ease. But what is the reaction to wiping out those 100 goblins? At low levels you might just go home after and forget about your encounter but at high levels your application of so much naked force has made you enemies. Don't be surprised if the master of those 100 goblins invades your lands soon after.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Doug. You are not incorrect. My high level characters are frequently embroiled in politics and court intrigue. However, they still only have 15hp and the king has 6. Cheers!
Dr Evil, "I am the Master of 100 Goblins!"
[Laughter from offstage]
Dr Evil, "I am the Master of 1,000,000 Goblins!"
[Gasps from offstage]
Master of 100 Goblins sounds like a great character name; or maybe a Power Metal Band name.
Problem:
Goblins died too easily.
Solution:
Made tougher Goblins.
I’ve been contemplating on creating a system very much like “fallout” or “let it die” where there is a health cap but the equipment that they get can boost that health cap. The balance to the boost is that there’s durability to that equipment: once the extended health is gone, so is the equipment and all the bonuses that it gives you.
This gives the players tension in every situation that they encounter: after fighting a dragon, goblins might seem like a walk in the park, but what if their equipment breaks? A sword swing from a goblin becomes a threat. That way monsters are disposed of when characters level up and they’re still tense situations with low-level monsters. What are you guys think?
In 20+ years of playing, I've only had one character go up to 18th level and it was only because it was a published adventure designed to go that high. My friends and I agree that 3-5 level (and equivalent) is the sweet spot for most RPGs. A high level game can be very gonzo and full of meta-gaming. Players spend too much time thinking about mathematics instead of acting in character.
Exactly.
So true. I don't think we ever played much beyond 6th level unless it was characters rolled up for a specific high level module like the tomb of horrors or something.
It is a mixed bag, but that comes with the territory I suppose. The two faces of d&d, the narrative aspect and mechanic aspect, can butt heads on occasion but also appeal to a wider audience as such. It can be a juggling act until you find a balance that works best for you and your group. Sometimes that balance doesn't exist, unfortunately, but that's why different types of groups exist.
@@zeterzero4356 Your point is valid. It might come down to the type of players a GM has for a group.
Another trick to speeding up combat with big monsters and PCs with tons of hit pts is to use a hit pt track with a counter token. When receiving x hps damage, the DM or player moves the token up x spaces on his hp track until he hits the monster or PC's hp score and is dead or knocked out. This works because counting up is a little easier than doing mental subtraction.
Once again, you've hit the nail on the head for me professor. I'm @ level 7 getting excited for new options & higher HP but I need to adjust my 2 page spread character sheet to maybe 3 pages so I can make use of a quick glance. Also as part of a team afraid of dying with like 60 HP & avoiding risks, a years gone by & we've changed absolutely nothing to the locations across the landscape. Eventually I got sick & had to take a break from the table & missed key moment after investing over a year to see! While recovering from my condition I ran a zero level DCC funnel for my kids and had an absolutely unforgettable time in just 3 sessions! Thanks Professor for not holding back and making this video! Cheers!
Back-of-the-hand with two fingers up is the English/French "Up yours". It originated from the time the French cut off the first 2 fingers of English longbow archers. History is amazing :)
I was randomly selected for a prize, but when I clicked on the message, I could not find the rest of the message. How do I claim the prize?
I love these videos. I had a lot of ideas myself like “everybody rolls at once” instead of 5e initiative, and a wild magic system I’ve been working on, and I love how you also concur on many of those points, giving me the courage to just go for it and try it out! Thanks professor DM!
Cool!
"It's going to become _too difficult_ to come up with scenarios to challenge your players." I object to that statement. I'm pretty sure I can take a single 5e Rakshasa, and kill an entire party of 15th level characters. It'll just take a week or two, and the collateral damage will probably wipe out a local town. It's a really simple plan too. Use invisibility to sneak in and just prick some commoner's arm with a claw in the middle of the night. Use invisibility again to escape undetected. Bam, cursed, no resting. Do this again and again until adventurers are called in to investigate the cause of the "Nightmare Plague". When the party shows up, the cleric will probably use up any Remove Curse spells they had prepared on curing some of the afflicted. Now the trap is set, one _scratch_ on that cleric and they *don't get* any more remove curse spells until someone else casts one on them. They're also going to die of exhaustion in a week without one. From here it's all hit and run. The Rakshasa has invis 3/day and plane shift 1/day. Pinning that bastard down is going to be a nightmare, especially when your cleric can't benefit from short or long rests.
Also, I ran a single campaign of 2e exalted for a _decade_ playing every other week. By the end the PCs were Solars with well over two thousand XP, but even the last session came very close to the party failing in their goals.
The trick to challenging a high level party is a combination of a few things.
1) Use monsters _intelligently._ Nothing with an int score over 8 should fight to the death if it has a choice. (obvious exception for protecting offspring and the like) It should _try_ to escape and come back with a plan. Players _HATE_ monsters who make hit-and-run attacks. I call your attention to Tucker's Kobolds(media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf). Kobolds, _fucking Kobolds_ Shredding a tenth level party through clever play.
2) realizing that _combat isn't always the answer._ It's not "can you kill the monster?" It's "At what cost?" You don't just throw one adventure at a time at the party, you throw four, but they only have the _time_ to handle one of them, _maybe_ two if they really really push themselves. You don't deny them chances to rest, you apply enough time pressure that _they decide_ they can't afford to rest.
Thanks for your thoughtful post. I agree with everything you said and yes, I'm familiar with Tucker's kobolds. A good DM can still challenge a 10th-15th level party--but it takes a LOT of time to plan. XDM, ICRPG and Dungeonworld have streamlined rules so a battle with a Rakshasas takes 60 seconds to design and sessions take 2-3 hours to play.
The problem here is that it's not very fun, and that's the GM's first job. It's not a matter of proving how smart you are and how much cheese you can use, because honestly if you keep using teleport cheese against the players, they'll just use it right back at you. Anything bad happens they can just teleport away, and it just leads to a standoff. Things go bad for the monster, it teleports, things go bad for the PCs, they teleport. Nobody has fun and you're constantly fighting the same battle over and over again.
@@taragnor Ah, but if they don't have teleport prepared, the rakshasa can _keep them from preparing it._ That's why the CR13 monster is capable of TPKing a 15-20th level party. You're right, it is horrible cheese, but it also makes for a villain that the players will go to any lengths to bring down. A rakshasa is the sort of monster that makes a good final boss for a 1-20 campaign, because they tend to plot and scheme and recruit spies everywhere. At first level the characters are only encountering catspaws of catspaws, but as they work their way up through the levels, they pluck apart more and more of this villain's plots and he sends more resources against them. Until finally he makes a hit-and-run personally, and maybe kills the party cleric and wizard, while letting the rest live because they're not worth the effort... or so he thinks. So now they want vengance, and they recruit new members, and now they're coming after him out for blood. And when they finally manage to pin him in place long enough to kill him, _that_ is satisfying.
@@JC34258 : In my experience, groups lose interest if a villain keeps teleporting away. It's a gimmick that should be used very sparingly, because in my group, the game just became teleport wars. The villain teleports away if the battle is going against them, and the PCs do the same, so the game ends up being fighting the same battle over and over again, with neither side able to really get a true win and no actual progress being made. Because battles in 5E were very slow, it was near to impossible to really down either side before they could just teleport away. We ended up making a gentleman's agreement not to abuse teleport hit-and-run because otherwise it gets tedious real fast and no one is having fun, PC or DM.
Teleport is one of those high-level abilities I feel probably shouldn't be in the game, because it's way too abuseable by default. It's essentially the reset button to get you out of any situation you're losing.
@@JC34258 @Dungeon Craft There's also the other issue that was brought up; that being the creativity of making new situations. Sure, you did that once. Now how about the next party? Or the one after that? And the following band? And the fourth high level encounter? Etc. Etc. You likely will run out of new and interesting ways to deal with the 15-20 party much quicker than things for the 5-10 party.
Fascinating idea. I may have to do some playtesting. Against the Giants was one of my favorites and I remember my groups being a bit anxious but still more reckless than any sane person in real life would be. The restriction on HP would certainly make even the most foolhardy warrior think twice before barging into the Hill Giant Chieftan's throne room.
It's probably a good idea to throw in a lot of crappy minions just to give the illusion that they're rolling over stuff like a power house, a few higher level enemies as a hurdle and then at the end of the dungeon is where you put your brick wall.
True that.
Counterargument to the HP solution: go the other way. As the characters gain HP, increase the damage of the monsters AND the players accordingly! Now the goblins (or other generic enemies) are dealing 3d6 per attack, instead of one. Instead of more attacks or more enemies, just make the numbers bigger! This still keeps the scaling closer, but the bigger numbers make the players FEEL powerful, and like the monsters are actually challenging.
This is a good solution.
It dawns on me. The "film noir" voice you do; reminds me of the stealth master voice in Neverwinter Nights.
I really enjoyed the warning to the players! in fact, for a moment I felt immersed. Thanks for the great visuals ; )
Thanks! I've worked hard to add visual elements. Sadly, it hasn't increased viewership, but I'll keep doing it. Check out the campaign updates. They have lots of visual shots.
This is why I run OSR (B/X with the d20 mechanic stuck on) with a level cap of 6. At level 6, Fighters can withstand immense punishment. Wizards throw fireballs and lightning bolts. Rogues backstab foes and slay them in a single hit. Clerics can reduce undead enemies to ash, heal grievous wounds, and beseech their deity for answers.
Giants, dragons, vampires, etc should *always* be terrifying foes.
I'm running a game right now and they wanted to begin as high leveled characters. I cannot agree more with you. Having to think of all the possible ways they can just ignore your traps, blow entire hordes of enemies without even bothering or just teleport away from the things you created for them may make the game more fun to them because they feel powerful, but gives the DM some serious headaches. And that's not the point of rol games, the DM should have fun too. He's not working for them, they're all playing this together. I will definitely try that no more hit points solution and see how it goes.
I make one shots for certain holidays or because I feel like it that are part of the same world and time as the campaign I run and the results of those one shots effect the normal campaign. For most of them, I have found my self either picking level ranges that avoid the creeping power affect, crating scenarios where combat and player power are not the focus, or designing the characters to be played in the one shot myself, ignoring and adapting any rule as needed and make those characters right around 25hp. Its was nice hearing someone else taking that idea and making it part of a more formal system for regular player characters.
I’m interested to try this low HP concept. One fix I can think of for game breaking magic is to just have player roll a very high DC to use things like stone shape and dimension door. That way you aren’t ripping away their powerful spells, but instead the magical nature of dungeon or another enemy magic user makes their lives more difficult. As for high HP players, you can always make monster hit like a truck. I do understand that a player having 7 hit points and the monster rolling 2d6, is functionally the same as a player having 50 hit points and the monster damage being 8d6. But, rolling lots of dice can be really fun for the players, and on the flip side, rolling something crazy like 8d12 for a monster’s damage really freaks the players out.
True, true. Thanks for your post! FYI: the THIRD secret comes out Wednesday of this week. Stay tuned.
I got into TTRPGs with Steve Jackson's first RPG The Fantasy Trip. In that game your hp was between about 8-16 and weapons usually dished out 1-3 d6 points of damage. It didn't matter how high of a level you were, if you got jumped by bandits there was always that sinking feeling you might not make it out alive.
I really like these ideas, as well as your "no more initiative" approach. In your "initiative" video, you said spells and ranged attacks go first, because being a spellcaster is pointless if they go last. But if you use that in combination with the HP cap, then spells can become more powerful, thus worth the delay of gesturing and speaking incantations.
I think I would like to try a HP cap of "Double Constitution". In 5E, the max Con score for a PC is 20, meaning the most HPs a PC could possibly have is 40. I'll use your "no initiative" rules, but have spells go last. Instead of half damage for spells, I'll reduce it by 1/3. So a Fireball spell would round down to 5d6. Even though spells go off after ranged and melee attacks, their lethality should compensate.
Thanks for the great ideas!
You're welcome. I'd prefer to just lower FB damage. Check out my latest video on Hit Points for ideas!
I have still to watch all your videos, though I am trying. I have been searching for a way to reduce the high drag of power leveling. The reduced hp option is a good idea, but I think it requires a lot of trust between players and the DM. What I mean, is in a VTT, I often run into players I have never played with before, especially in one shots. I have been a DM for decades and it is wonderful to still be able to learn from other DM's how to manage their games. I really enjoy your content and ideas. Admittedly I don't agree with all, but they still provide ideas and insights that I would not otherwise have. Thanks Professor.
Thank YOU for watching. You are not to first person to say my methods require trust. My question is, why DON'T people trust the GM? They trust people they don't even know to handle their CREDIT CARDS, but not a guy running a make believe scenario with imaginary orcs? Players are weird. Thanks for responding and may all your rolls be 20s!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thanks, about trust, this is what I experience whenever I run a VTT. I think they forgot that its a game and should be fun, not legitimized with rules and such. I always thought that as long as your consistant and upfront that should be enough. Anyways keep it up your doing a great job.
@@jamesrizza2640 Thank you! I'l do my best!
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Im a 1e D&D player/DM. What I find one of the biggest problems with High level Characters is when the AC gets to high, ie to hard to hit for lower level monsters. The High AC means that characters cant be hit by lower level monsters, thus eliminating them as threats. However, it the AC is reasonable then that group of 10 goblins against the Lets stay 10 level character lets the lower level monsters still hit the character, and thus bring their hp down. Now the next thing is to limit healing, there are many ways to limit spamming healing, choose your methods. The next is slowing down the level rise, IE use page 86 in the DMG and page 25 in the DMG ( 1e) . using this, then the characters will NOT be going up levels fast, ie they will not have enought gold to level when they have enough XP to level, MUST USE CHARACTERS MUST TRAIN TO LEVEL!!!! You will not have to worry about having overly high level characters, and if they do get to high level, with a character, they fully deserve to have that high level character. The problem is DM's are way to generous in not making them pay to level using what the DMG says, and in a short time, the characters are too powerful for the DM to reasonably challenge.
Limit AC, use the Pay to train to level! and Pay for expenses, Most all the problems will go away. Oh.... and there are monsters that Drain level!!!!!
Ive never seen to many hp of characters as being a problem, but the above is your solution!
Dont GIVE OUT ALL OF THOSE MAGIC ARMORS AND SHEILDS!!! LET THEM GET BROKEN IF THEY GET THEM. MAGIC DOESNT MEAN IMPERVIOUS TO DAMAGE! Magic swords are ok, magic shields are not!
Just finding your channel...great stuff. In my experience(35+yrs) rarely do groups/campaigns/players reach high level play. Someone moves away, wants to switch characters, the DM wants to play vs run the game, etc. So what I started doing as far back as 3rd edition is to make the lower levels last longer. I triple the XP progression for levels 1-3 and double the xp for levels 4-6, then XP as normal. The first few levels are so much fun, but they fly by. This way the "new car smell" lasts longer and the players love it. This has an added benefit in that there is much less meta gaming/optimizing going on, as class builds matter less than player choice.
Lolz "players love it". If I heard you were not only slow leveling but artificially expanding the shitty low levels, I'd never play in your game again. I've played so much of shitty lower level 5e that if a game doesnt start at level 11, I dont want anything to do with it.
This is a fantastic idea, and I think many commenters here are missing an important point. By limiting HP totals but not special abilities and magic spells and stuff, you still get to have the amazing 20th level plane hopping adventure and become gods. You just only have 20 hp while doing so and could actually die, or finish a combat in less than one session.
Exactly. Kind of. They can't become gods. They can do all the other stuff though. Thanks for commenting!
I use really really slow advancement. That way leveling up is a huge deal. Also, I still use goblins and orcs at high levels but I use the rule s for fighting them as troops. So they become very dangerous as a troop and the fights are quick.
In my current campaign Pathfinder 2e I'm experimenting with hit points for Ancestry 0 level (P2e rules), Class level 1, then rolling for hit points every second level and maxing at level 9 [0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9]. Instead of using the Pathfinder Bestiary I use the D&D monster manual as the same monster is slightly weaker then tweak as needed. We'll see how it goes. If the party is too weak they are encouraged to hire a meat shield to fill out the group a bit. Funny how the hirelings always die during play :).
I came back to the hobby in 2020 after 20 years away, got hyped about 5e, and I still like it, got back into DMing, reached for all my previous players, and we were all in again. After 4 years playing 5e, I can say I'm a little burned out. Then I tried shadowdark and I LOVED IT. My players wasn't as enthusiastic as I was at first, but then they felt the benefits of making a lot more game happen in the same amount of time. I'm currently wrapping up a 5e Tomb of Annihilation campaing, we are about to complete, then it will be dolmenwood sandbox using shadowdark rules.
Love the idea of capping hit points! For higher level characters, I always resorted to situations they couldn't solve with violence. Problem solving, convincing NPCs to take action, or huge battles where they aren't in any danger (ie Aragon at Pelennor Fields) but their allies can still get wiped out.
Absolutely right professor. I ran into the same exact problem back in the 90’s when I had a level 16 cleric who had a ridiculous amount of HP. The game lost a lot of flavor because I could just run into any kind of danger with no worry of being seriously injured or killed. I Recently decided to cap HP at level 4 with my current party based on this most brilliant suggestion by you, at first they weren’t very happy about the thought of it but after I explained the thought process both from my own & your experience they acquiesced. I also pointed out that this logic was also successfully applied to the TV series Game of Thrones. I think one of the reasons why it was so popular was it’s ability to raise the anxiety level of the viewer given the fact that any one major character that they had become attached to may get killed off at any moment. This same logic needs to apply to the game as well otherwise we have nothing invested in it & it becomes bland & pointless.
Cool!
Glad this video was useful .
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 It sure as heck was, in fact, I’ve gotten useful items & advice from every one of your videos, between these & your patreon you have helped to elevate the games I DM immeasurably & can’t thank you enough!
I would suggest looking up E6 which was come up for 3.5/pathfinder era DnD to solve the scaling issue (also helps with power level scaling in general). Throw in incantations (Variant rule from Unearthed Arcana) or something like that, and then you can still have your world changing magics, but they can be quests in and of themselves to do, instead of a x times a day ability.
Was something I was looking at doing for a campaign some years back and wish I had done that instead of normal progression.
There’s a sweet spot around level 3-6 where everything makes sense and the game plays the best. I’m 100% OSR but I have great respect for the E6 concept.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I'll reply metoo here instead of posting my own E6 thoughts.
I've ran E6 for over a year in a 5e darksun campaign which is FANTASTIC to play such a harsh setting with such disposable characters.... basically build out anything a 7th+ level character can do and assign a DC to do it, and allow players creative ways to find more bonuses to get the d20+x needed to hit the numbers. Hilarity ensues when you pitch a team against a CR16 Sand Kraken, for example, and they gotta keep it from destroying a merchant caravan.
I've been a GM for 40 years. 3rd ed was a mixed blessing. everything was given exponentially more health. my method for char has- 1st lvl, max hp with con bonus. each additional lvl, add con bonus + 1. characters will have a limited improvement, but not become a tank or meat shield. this method means a con of 8 or more will maintain hp or improve, but even a con of 20 will only have a character gain a max of 6hp per lvl. ie; fighter with con 14 makes 2nd lvl. base hp 12 (base 10+2 con) will add 3 (1+2 con) or 15hp at 2nd lvl. the char has improved, but 5 goblins will still be a challenge.
THANK YOU! I think this idea is long overdue in level based rpgs. The earliest I can recall this idea was in the Arduin Grimoire system. The system based hit points on racial stock plus constitution score, plus constitution bonus, plus a set bonus per level that ranged from 1-5 depending on class.
Very cool idea.
I saw a system where every time the character's leveled up they would roll a new hit die and IF that die was HIGHER than their current HP, they could "swap up" to the larger die. They also didn't use CON for hp but did use a CON bonus. It was weird seeing a 5th level fighter with 12 hp but it worked.
They did, however, have a "defense" system where both combatants rolled a D20 against a given target number (AC for the attacker and 10 + HD/LVL for the defender with all 5e bonuses applying) and the defender's roll over the target number (if any) was subtracted from the attacker's roll to see if the attacker could penetrate the target's "defense" and score damage.
It was an interesting system for "dueling."
I largely agree. Something else I'll do as DM is have a monster deal a fraction of HP on hits with an according saving throw, instead of a straight dice number. (E.g. a Giant hit knocks ½ HP down, or ¼ on CON save). This keeps saving throws relevant in direct combat, but avoids bookkeeping while also maintaining (or improving) the threat level.
Pretty much everything you said is why I love Dungeon World. It has a leveling system that allows characters to improve, but HP doesn't change. This really takes the cuffs off of DMs since level 1 characters could conceivably beat a dragon and level 10 characters could conceivably be killed by goblins. But it also maintains that aspect of leveling up that RPG players love because as you level you get new moves and your skills improve.
Professor, I hear you loud and clear. I’m currently running an ADnD 1e campaign for mid-high Lvl PCs - 7-10th. It is very challenging to create scenarios that truly test them. I have thrown around the concept of capping hp and such but feel that punishes the players. I find I am best served by giving opponents exceptional, spell(like), and supernatural abilities that the PCs either have no access to in order to create the desired sense of danger. For instance, the Evil Temple causes good aligned clerics and paladins to operate as though they are X levels lower or certain spells such as curing are impossible. Magical wild or dead zones that nullify or dampen spell abilities and magic items. The environment can be a nearly undefeatable foe if the party finds itself stranded or separated.
Level 5 is the sweet spot. For my one shots I tell players to roll average HP, they get one +1 weapon. They're somewhat heroic but a dragon is still a threat. Theres enough class abilities and spells but not too many to bog the game down. I've been using the low HP high Damage monster model to speed up encounters while making them more dangerous creating more tension and less boredom. The Professor is spot on on all his advice. I'm going to try more of these pacing tricks my next session.
Good discussion Professor. I think the addition hp gain by level are just luck and skill additions, but the characters initial hp is their to hit to kill. In fighting and damage from adventuring they can use all their full hp, but if they do something outside of skill and luck, then only their initial hp stands. For example if the player says his character jumps off a 300 foot cliff, their is no luck to save them because they chose to jump and no fighting/adventuring skill can save them. So for a fighter they only have 1 d8 hp in this case. The same is if they were asleep or paralyzed. This would prevent a character from saying I will let the Orc slash at me without defending because I have 80 hp. In this case no skill or luck is used, so it would only be 1d8 hp and if the damage is greater than that the character would be dead.
Watching these early videos of yours is like listening to my own issues with the game, only better expressed and with video skills. I may just find the beginning and binge watch.
Glad you enjoy it!
I watch this, along with a couple of your other GM videos, about twice a year, just as a reminder. Cheers!
Cool! The Shoe Leather one is good too.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Which one is that?
In my opinion DM's don't like high level play because of the amount of work you have to put into creating high level encounters. I have a few games I'm running at different levels. My lower level games take an hour or 2 to prepare per session and my high level game can take me multiple days to write just a portion of the encounter.
Yep.
Man, your channel is pure gold!!!! You are simply addressing all the problems that made me run away from D&D. I'm loving your ideas. That said, I think you should really check out these other games that have already solved this issue: Savage Worlds, Cypher System and Fate. If you already know these games, I'd love to know if and why you have disliked them. Cheers!
I own Fate & Savage Worlds. The lead designer of SW is a big fan of the channel, actually. My players still love the feel of d20s, but those games are great and I may do a review. Thanks for commenting!
I watched a video with B Dave Walter a while back in which he defends high level D&D. He made some very interesting points. The one that stuck out to me was that high level play is all about morality. At 20th level your character has the power to solve ANY problem but not EVERY problem. To GM a high level game you have to give the players several problems at the same time and force them to choose which one they want to fix. Does superman choose to save Lois Lane or the train car full of strangers. This isn't the way I would want to play D&D all the time but it is something that is fun to occasionally explore (assuming all the players are experienced and know their characters well so that they can take a turn in a reasonable amount of time).
I concur with Walters.
This is... GLORIOUS!!! Praises to the sun! Just what I needed to do my next Sword and Sorcery campaign feel deadly and fast paced with combats.
Thanks for watching and taking the time comment!
I was thinking of ways to do this in my first campaign (stagnate leveling) because I truly hate higher level "other-wordly" monsters. I want a survival-based mind game as opposed to a high magic epic fantasy which seems to me less immersive because they're SOOO absurd!
Could always just reflavor the creatures to make them a natural, but terrifying, part if your world. The Balrog in LotR for instance. He is a basically a fiend but one that wasnt from some other dimension. He was a being that was created or brought over from another, distant land long ago. A lot of what goes into a monster is how they are presented and in what light. That said I can also see the appeal of a more low fantasy setting.
Have your players play a Commoner campaign, were the only class available to the players is Commoner. The players will use lots of planning to make sure they don't die. Eventually they may get access to a Wish spell that replaces one of their Commoner levels with an Expert level (4 more skill points, 1 more hit point, any 10 skills are class skills, better Will Save, and much better combat skills)
One of my House rules is to divide all new HP gained past the 2nd level by 2, created out of the same concerns explained in the video. Its not as hard a solution as a fixed cap, but it helps. In 5th edition many monsters have already been toned down, except for Dragon's breath which is still ridiculously high imo. And monsters are not a concern, because you can always have another join the fray if its too easy or have a 2nd wave/encounter moments later, or the opposite, if its too hard have them roll a perception to notice that the monster is already wounded with wounds they didn't cause, the creature was wounded from a previous encounter(with someone other than PCs) or runs away for an unknown reason (warn the master, get rid of evidence, etc).
I've always been good at leveling up an adventure to deal with stronger parties....
And the problem with long combat rounds is easy to deal with.
I worked out a system where a 9 player + DM game with 15th level average characters took less then 20 min per combat round.
You just have t get it thrugh to the players...
Say this slowly:
"A COMBAT ROUND IS 6 SECONDS"
That statement took 6 seconds...
I will not give you 5 minutes each to decide what to do in 6 seconds.
What about capping hit points as you suggested, but allowing players to increase their baseline AC by the to-hit bonus when they level up, similar to the defense bonus rule in 3.5. This prevents hit pt inflation and fixes the oversight in D&D rules where players get better at hitting opponents when they level up but not better at defending themselves with parries, blocks, dodging, etc.
Hey PDM! May I please point out, you are THE BEST for advice on DMing I have come across. You take the time to explain things in such detail, a NOOB DM like my self can follow along(for the most part) I have played just 2 sessions of DND in my 40 years of existence. The DM at that table was a new DM (those two sessions were his first two as DM and only two sessions we got to play before the game fell apart) I loved the experience so much, I decided to play DM for another table of NOOBS. I am pumped up and terrified to play. I have a pretty good idea what NOT to do. I am watching all your videos and stealing SO MUCH! Thank you for putting such effort into your content. I appreciate you.
So funny. You really should take a look at Midgard the Fantasy Roleplay (actually in its 5th edition, first release in 1981. It's the first german RPG. And of course written in german.). The concept of Hitpoints are split in Lifepoints (which will almost never change, no matter if you're level 1 or level 20) and Endurancepoints (which will level up.)
There is no armor-class. When been attacked a character rolls a parry roll against the attack roll. If he succeeds, the damage is only subtracted from the endurancepoints. If he looses, the damage ist also subtracted from the lifepoints. With zero endurancepoints you're exhausted and everything gets more difficult.
Endurancepoints are also needed for using magic. A character can loose endurancepoints by exhaustion through harsh cold, hunger, long marshes etc.
Interesting concept. Thank you for sharing, Jürgen! I may have to look into adapting this in some way.
I can’t believe a can’t find a single comment about the d20 covering the demons junk at 10:00… also, love your videos.
Leveling up still allows for a greater variety of monsters that you are able to fight.
A DM can create a variety of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level monsters. I avoid almost everything in the Monster Manual.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 you are avoiding all of the resources wotc is giving you. That's fine, but that's a D.M choice NOT a break in the mechanics.
This would be similar to wanting to run a low level magic game and removing all dedicated spellcaster. Not a game mechanics issue, just a game play choice.
If you are doing these changes make sure the group knows before hand what they are getting into, since you are taking away so much from them
10:15 thanks for that die sir. You are a gentleman
+100xp for catching that joke, Alex! I put a lot of visual humor in my videos. I'm hoping it will make people watch them instead of just listening to them. It takes a LOT of work and I could make videos a lot faster if I were just a talking head.
Yes I do appreciate it, I love having content on as I work on my campaigns and dungeons. Its great to have this up and have it continually spark my creativity.
Never had this problem with my high level games, I just finished a campaign that made it to level 17 and far from being indestructible they were still struggling to survive, at least one of the players would make a death save in any serious combat, and sure they were fighting high level monsters, sure, but they were also fighting people, in one battle they were up against 10 high level wizards who were trying to destroy Earth Heart using earthquake spells and other uber magic, the wizards were relatively squishy but the trouble was that the city could only stand so long, in order to save it they had to figure out a way of efficiently chaining their attacks so as to take them out before the city fell, and they only just managed it (half the city was gone but it was better than losing the entire thing).
I love running high level games because I can use the entire monster manual, I also invent a lot of insane creatures that would just beast a low level party in the first rounds. You can really let loose with Epic Fantasy at high level.
5:00 There's a parallel here between Superman and beloved Swedish children's comic book character Bamse, the World's Strongest Bear. His precursor was Teddy, the World's Strongest Bear, but the author noticed that he had to resort to sleep anesthetics a lot to make the story interesting, and it became repetitive after a while. So he created Bamse, who only became the world's strongest bear when he ate of a special honey made by his grandmother. This weakness made storytelling a lot more fun.
Interesting. GURPS characters usually have what amounts to around 9 to 15 h.p., which rarely change even as they gain experience. Skills and advantages are what keep them from getting hit. Death is usually a distinct possibility (although not nearly as likely as people think). The whole “leveling up” trap is mostly a non-issue.
Something I've considered, which is influenced by Runequest, is to give everyone their CON as HP. That's it. For monsters you could modify that by their size - small creatures have half, large have half again, with various multiples for the different sizes.
3:09 What an epic arrangement. You're the man. Please keep showering us fledgling DM's with your glorious knowledge.
Interesting. I'm a pretty new DM, with an only hours newer group. Once we get a bit more comfortable with the system as a whole, I think I'll start adopting this system.
The Talislanta fantasy rpg has a set number of hit points that never changes. Characters or mosters, and it's been around since 1987
I'm reading Index Card RPG right now. 10 hit point maximum. I don't know when D&D will catch up to what ever OTHER game designer already knows.
Another way to fix the power creep is to make the monsters similar in strength, but more powerful monsters have cooler/more dangerous special abilities, like how as a player's wizard character gets more levels they would get more spells, but to avoid fourth edition slogging each creature has one easy to explain abilities
Who's discovering Professor DM 5-6 years later? I am! Right up my alley: grimdark; seems to have a similar disposition towards nonsense; and a great mix of crafts; tools; and ideas! Thank you, Professor DM!
PS: I've taken some liberties with your Bone Road encounters (mine is called Road of Sorrows (after all the deaths that took place on or close to it- in a world where spirits linger)). It's highly evolutionary by design, and I've run sandbox game sessions with it alone.
My current game answers the question: what if Greek Mythology was real - real, and the world it took place in was as gnarly and unforgiving as Warhammer 40K. Magic is tied strictly to religion, so the "cleric/paladin" class doesn't exist - you just choose to carry a sword and worship one of the pantheon (you might correctly surmise I do classes differently).
Thanks to the table of Sorrows, I basically have 100+ plot points ready to go and they're vague enough that the same plot could roll and it's entirely different, thanks in part, to certain plots pointing to a d8 table for example. I've also color-coded it by season so that I have a ready-made season roll tied into the plot roll if needed/relevant. Any plot can roll at any time, but some plots are more likely only during certain seasons, so an out of season plot becomes even more curious. If it's winter, you should expect fewer typical travelers - but when does that specific monster hibernate again? Before or AFTER winter? Hope you're right! Traveling in the middle of summer? Visibility is great for you AND the bandits looking for an easy score. It's almost too easy!
One time I rolled for the players to see a giant statue head - in a world where gods and famous warriors were often memorialized by stone. So, why was there a giant stone head so close to the road without a statue body? It was supposed to be inocuous and "neutral," but the players spent probably 40 minutes trying to figure out why a statue head was visible from the road with no body nearby. Since I'm playing in Greek Mythology, I have a random table of statues (famous, religious, fictional, local, etc) and the prompt gives me ideas. This head must have fallen off a cart and the owners couldn't lift it. They could be back soon. Oh, wait, a shattered cart, and the driver is stone as well... (the head is the remains of a giant after encountering a medusa). This is DMing on easy mode. I did zero prep for this session other than complete the table and said we're going to try something a little different today - no books.
In one of your videos, you answered the question: How does a DM improvise? You said just have a few random tables ready to go. Well, I do now. d87 (Winter): You meet a stranger on the road - d8: a deity disguised as a beggar - or just a beggar? A mercenary? A Bounty Hunter that mistakes the party for his target? A child... alone?! Etc...) I'm having so much fun with this, and my players asked me how I remember what the plots imply. But, it's like a PowerPoint presentation, and my notes are just bullet points. Thanks for helping me find a better way to prep/ run my games. I've drastically reduced prep time with this table - which I use almost every time the players surprise me with an off-the-wall decision, or I want to surprise THEM with an off-the-wall transition. Awesome stuff, Professor DM! Thank you!
100%. I played in the 1980s & 90s & never understood some people's interest in high-level play, slaughtering armies of summoned demons & whatnot. Every time I got close to it, the game started to just feel silly.
This is sorta why I like the looks of WFRP 4e. I haven't actually gotten to try it out yet with a group, but the character advancement is a lot simpler and gradual, and characters don't really turn into omnipowerful demigods with hundreds of hitpoints and reality breaking spells. Rather than "leveling up" and gaining a bunch of stuff at once, players simply upgrade specific skills or characteristics one at a time with their exp. Plus it feels more natural than just suddenly gaining a whole bunch of stuff all at once, feels more like a proper progression of becoming better at what you do, one skill at a time.
I give out very few experience points. It slows players down. As a DM since 1980 or so I can think of only 2 times that we went past 10th level. My kids 1st campaign just ended a few weeks ago. It lasted 4 years and they maxed out at level 20. That is the only time I have ever DM that high. Wow crazy stuff. I figured hey why not. I let them do pretty much anything. I had this cool magic shop run by a bald guy named Mordenkainen, you might have heard of him. And he would buy and sell anything...Anything(no artifacts). So my kids had really cool stuff. the last battle killed 3 of the 5. But 3 were brought back to life. Now we are playing a gritter campaign very much like Prof DM here. Super slow progression is the key I think.
I have also only played in 2 campaigns above 10th level. I tend to believe that 3-7 levels are the sweet spot. Tough enough to do some stuff but still vulnerable.
In my pathfinder campaign I run hp as this. Their hp (wound points) are equal to their constitution. Every level they get vitality points that is determined by their class. In combat weapon damage goes against their vitality points once those are depleted the damage goes to their wound points. The major difference is that critical hits don’t do extra damage that damage goes directly to there wound points at 0 wound points they become unconscious. I actually got this from an old d20 Star Wars rpg.
This is why I like a lot of dice pool systems, or systems like Savage Worlds that just use dice instead of numbers. When you level up, you increase your Strength from a d6 to a d8. It give you a little more wiggle room, but you can still roll a 1. And capping damage for any monster at a d20 is a great way to have players shaking in their boots, are they going to. In fact, instead of doing an attack and damage roll, you could just have them roll damage dice, if they roll a 1, it's just a scratch, if they roll an 8... You get it. Don't give players modifiers, just give them a better dice, that sets a cap and it always give room for great success or failure.
This makes me with there was a d16, the middle ground between a 12 and a 20.
If you want, you can have Attributes and Skills, and you roll 2 dice. You can add them together, or just take the highest.
Since first playing with 5e, I've always applied the optional rules that makes for a more lethal game and give a chance also to low level monsters. I'm talking about rules like Slow Natural Healing (which I've further reduced, a short rest is now 1/4 HD and a long rest is 1/2 HD), Healer's Kit Dependency, Massive Damage and expecially Lingering Injuries (I've found some charts made by a guy with Lingering Injuries for all types of damage). Though I still think that the game could benefit from more lethalness, these rules have pretty much made a group of goblins or kobolds as something to be worried about also at high levels, without making them the true danger they are at low levels. Still, the problem of high level fights taking hours of real time remains, so I'll think about your secret and see if it may help me somehow. From what I know about my players, I don't think it would help much, because they would spend more time thinking about their next move: basically, I would be trading the time spent rolling dices with time spent on planning a move. But I'll think about it anyhow, I sense some good in your secret.
I can see both sides of the argument. It's a problem if you want/let your players go "nova" every fight - they'll heal/rest after every encounter and you'll have a hard job finding enough goblins to challenge that fighter.
Or, like me, you can challenge them over many encounters; each one not too much of a threat, gnawing at their heels - but after six or so rooms of that in a dungeon they're all limping and begging for a rest after a couple of sessions.
I don't try and challenge them with every encounter. I just strain their resources and keep them wondering if they should "go nova" in this room or keep something back in case there's a boss in the next room.
They just fought off a siege in Phandalin by the nearby town of Leilon. They came upon the siege from behind, sabotaged the catapults, took out the elite guard, routed Lord Pelindar Falmarya (cutting the head off the snake), before the town's folk sallied forth and they all fought and defeated the large force at the gate...
Then the forces surrounding other parts of the town broke through to the town and they had to charge in and save those within.
Their resources were already severely depleted: little/no spell slots left; no potions; some were on death saves; and nearly all had less than half health.
And they were now suffering a level of exhaustion, to represent the epic battle fought outside the walls (they'd recently erected a wooden palisade after being sacked by the Cragmaws).
So the Glabrezu that Harbin Wester summoned within the walls (and then turned on him and killed him, "I'm finally free on the material plane!") wouldn't have normally been an issue for the party of 6 x 7th level players, plus minor followers...
... but they nearly TPK'd all the same, because they weren't expecting a demon to be summoned within the town after they went nova outside and broke the main siege.
They seem quite pleased with this, so long as it's not overdone and becomes "vanilla predictable".
Same as anything in the game really.
Sorry for the long post, but felt it was a story and a point you'd like to hear about.
Glad I stumbled upon your videos. Keep them coming!
@8:02 when someone shouts “grenade” the green recruit freezes, the grizzled veteran hits the floor
I just found this video, and I love it. I usually cap my campaigns to level 10th... cuz I hate Higher level tiers due to players making more the Maths than truly playing the game as mentioned in one of the comments posted here.
I believe capping the HP to a maximum like 20 HP probably help to keep the game interesting, but may be a bit overwhelming for the players.
I haven't read XDM, ICRPG and Dungeonworld (but definetely need to get them.), so I don't know if this variant rule for HP have been mentioned there or in comments posted, but here it goes:
What about..giving the players hit points 1st level as stated in the PHB D&D5E...say full HP+Con modifier, but at the following levels...they only get 1 HP + Con Modifier.
Monsters apply the same rule to balance the scale.
Say..an Orc with 2 HD get full HP+Con modifier on his first HD, and second HD he only gets 1 HP+Con modifier.
This rule may speed up combat and also add some lethal-ity to the game.
Guess I'll give it a try with a testing mini-campaign
I've tried a lot of variants, such as those you suggested. My latest one: you get 10hp + Con bonus and then....that's it. 1st level, 5th level, 10th level. Thanks for watching and we have a LOT more videos. Binge away!
This is one of the great things about games like Traveller. The PCs start competent And only slowly improve and generally in areas where they weren’t already good rather than becoming the best in the galaxy at something.
What's your opinion on published "adventure paths", popularized by Paizo, that provide the necessary math already done for higher level encounters? I understand that it doesn't solve the issue with combats taking too long, but at least they save the DM the long(er) preparation times?
I've never read them but anything that saves a DM time is great idea.
Gloomhaven has an interesting solution to this problem. The game forces you to retire your character and start a new one once they have achieved their objective in life. That way, the party stays at a low level throughout the campaign.
On the other hand, they offset this by having a higher starting level for new characters depending on how 'prosperous' the world is at large...
I really can't recommend Tiny Dungeon to you enough.
I agree with you on a fundamental level - that high level combat slows down play. That's why my games cap at 10th level. There is no 11-20 levels in my campaign world. I think I'd rather have it at 6th level if I were honest, but my players like the flashy stuff, so 10th it is.
As for how to challenge such characters, let me share an example. Recently a powerful assassin's guild sent assassins after the characters. The characters fought them off and survived but one assassin escaped. The bard said, "I'm going to cast scry and see where his hideout is so we can attack it!" I responded, "You scry, but all you see is smoke." He looked at me incredulously and I said, "Look, these were obviously not some scrubs from the local thieves guild. These were top tier assassins, every bit your equals. You think they don't have access to magic? He's got a non-detection spell on him. You are not tracking this guy. This is part of being high level - you can own the lower levels now, but the high level baddies got just as nice toys as you do."
Part of me hopes they will one day say they'd just prefer going to lower level, but for now I'm content. :)
You are so awesome. I base all my games off your advice and it works.
Thanks, Jose. Watch more DungeonCraft!
With a cap on hp like that it sure makes spells like false life a lot more useful.
Knowledge bomb! Thanks for this. Very helpful.
At or around 4:30 Professor Dungeonmaster says that Superman was created in 1933. While it is true that "Reign of the Superman" was published in January 1933, the character bears no resemblance to Superman, who was first published in June 1938. Both versions were created or co-created by Jerry Siegel. The next statement at about 5:00 was that Kryptonite was first seen in 1949 as a way to make Superman weaker is not correct, or at least Kryptonite was first introduced years beforehand.
"K-metal" was suggested in 1940 but the comic that would have introduced it was rejected and unpublished. Kryptonite, as we know it, made its first appearance in the radio drama serial of Superman in June 1943 as a way to give the voice actor a way to take some time off from the show. Kryptonite was not seen in the comic books until Novemember 1949.
But seeing numbers go up makes my brain release the good chemicals
Mathematical "HP control" is important but that's just one of the solutions. There's other schools of thought, like : Limit rest/healing unless you're out of the "dungeon". This solution is better for games that are more geared toward exploration like a multi-party Megadungeon or living world, where your levelling up HP means you can go "deeper" before needing to head back to fully heal up. Fundamentally it's the same algebra.
I am currently running a game using the AGE system. It also has a pretty bad health bloat but the character progression in my opinion is pretty good because they don't become super over powered they just get better at what they do as you might expect from killing tons of monsters. Instead of health every level I said you only get a D6 of health if you put a point into CON and this kept the health relatively low and made the characters focus on armor and stuff which is what it's there for after all.
I have not played DnD in a very very very long time, being on Dark Heresy (wh40k rpg) for around 12-14 years. But the idea I had to simply modify the rules was, a 20 didn't make much difference on your dice damages. Instead, these were constitution damage, representing avery bad or critical hit, and a character reaching 0 constitution would die.
So it made every combat with a chance that a 20 would roll very violent damages on the opponent, big monsters often one-shotting players in such a situation, while lesser creatures would still inflicts a lot of damage (A D12 +2 orc would still wreck the day of most characters).
Anyway, it was an idea, but I've been too far from DnD for too long to analyse if there are other problems with such a system.
I love the this concept of lowering the HP generally to speed up combat and to be reminded of the mortality of their characters. I could see this really spicing up combat. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on how this would effect the role of healers? What kind of adjustments would we need make to their abilities so they're still rewarded for leveling up and taking on the important role? If you cap hp at 20, obviously many of their healing abilities would be overkill at high levels.
Why would anyone bother to play at higher levels with these restrictions? Seems by gimping the players you won't have to worry about them getting too high where it's too much work for the GM as seems to be the idea in all these house rules.
I have many mixed thoughts after seeing this for the first time, which makes this a good video from Dungeon Craft
This is one cool thing about the Hero System. No levels. I started running a super hero campaign a few weeks ago (Champions) I still award experience but is very little and it would take them a long time to use it to up any power or characteristics.
I remember Champions! Thanks for the post!
I can see the hit point cap, there is the White Wolf/Onxy Path Storyteller system where characters only have seven health boxes that get ticked off based on type of damage and rules for how quickly you can heal that damage. I also see the limits on health with the BESM games. Both of those game systems, you earn experience points that can be spent on increasing attributes, skills and powers.
I level up the monsters to keep combat moving. The PCs can't just assume that the Goblin has 3HP. He could be a level 8 Rogue. A pair of flanking Goblin Rogues can do a lot of damage very quickly. Give a War Troll the Awesome Blow feat. Not only does it do massive damage, now the PC is flat on their back. Leaving them open to more damage. Spellcasting is where it gets tricky, but there are only three of us, so I can tailor an opposing caster for the party spell slinger.
My biggest problem with leveling up is the fact that HP scales way out of proportion with ability score increases and damage output. The result just seems to be longer combat, and players no longer feeling threatened by immediate danger because they can always take several rounds worth of hits before escaping or finding healing.
Yes! I recognized this as a player about a decade and a half ago, seeing that as levels went up, it was less about creative problem solving, and more about resource and inventory management. Then a friend of mine got a 3rd ed splat book for running horror style games. I can't remember the name (Darkness and Dread, maybe? I remember it was green; is that helpful?) The book recommended making hit points equal to constitution score plus level, multiplied by size, with medium size being a multiplier of 1. I saw this and thought "Oh wow; this sounds awesome! We should play like this all the time!" But my friends thought I was a glutton for punishment, or something, and we never played using those rules.
I really like a lot of what you have to say. Have you considered publishing a compilation of your rules?
If you did, I know I'd be willing to put down some money to acquire it.
Why not just double damage?