You Don't Always Have To Kick Down The Door

We've finally had a few chances to sit down and play D&D lately - life has been getting in the way for both of us playing. Ravi's classes are working towards graduation (You can do it, sis!!) and DM and my weekends have been mostly preoccupied. However, two of our friends have been able to make trips down to visit us on Sundays, and we've happily pulled out the dice for a new game the past two times they've made it here.

The game, run by our friend Matt, is more focused on large-scale battles than D&D usually is, usually us versus three to ten enemies harder than us and a dozen to twenty smaller, easier enemies. We've had to focus much more on strategy and conservation than with a normal dungeon crawl. After two sets of long combat sequences (3 to 6 fights each) and one gained level, we were given the option to pick a goal: kill the hobgoblin king, take out a well of demons, go kick someone out of our territory, or stay there in case of attacks on the city. We chose to go after the hobgoblin king; we had already seen him at least once, but he ran away. So, off we went. We arrive relatively unscathed and find ourselves facing a dozen or so hobgoblins and ogres, with an ettin (a two-headed ogre) behind us. Roll for initiative, right?

Have you ever heard the concept "Walk like you know exactly what you're doing"? Meaning, look like you belong and you can go anywhere. Rather than draw our weapons and fight, we rolled Bluff checks. And rolled Bluff checks. And rolled more Bluff checks. We bluffed and argued our way right through the gates. Do you remember how Han and Luke found Leia without being caught in Star Wars IV: A New Hope? They marched Chewbacca down the halls like stormtroopers escorting a prisoner and killed the guards in the prison itself? Yeah, we did that with DM's Warforged. We avoided probably an hour or two realtime of large combat, broke two other humans out of the prison to help us, and got the jump on about 7 hobgoblins before they knew what hit them. In the end, we got our man with relative ease thanks to a very high summoning scroll Bryan, our other player, had just bought.

It's odd to think about strategy in D&D. It's usually so easy to just kick down the door and barge in. You don't NEED to consider alternatives. But there really are plenty of other ways to use your skills: bluff, intimidate, and diplomacy combined with known languages all allow different forms of negotiation with an enemy (provided they're not mindless. Don't try to negotiate with a zombie. It won't end well for you.) Hide and move silently can help you skirt around a group of enemies, as can climb and some cheap climbing tools. These are all good tactics to consider using when there's the possibility of avoiding a fight. Will you get the experience you would have from straight-up fighting? Not always. That depends on the DM. But if you're low on HP, badly outmatched, or just don't feel like fighting, try a different tactic. You don't always have to kick down the door.

Couples in Gaming

You never know who you're going to meet when you sit at a table to roll with a new group. And you can meet ANYONE in a new group. If it works out, you'll have a group of friends. If you're lucky, you end up with a new best friend you can go to and lean on when you need. Like my sis <3 If you're really insanely lucky, you may even meet someone more special than the others. The person who makes you laugh and smile more than anyone else, makes you feel like you're special. You may find someone to love. If someone had told me when I went to sit down with the DM and work on my first character that, six years later, we'd be married (and it's about time you two got married!), I wouldn't have believed them. We were really lucky.

There's a lot of varying opinion on two people around the table being a couple. Most people won't care (Example: our group). If this is your group, congratulations. You've got a good team at your back for when trouble rears its ugly head. Or heads, in most cases. With others, though, it may cause some concern, and it's within reason (I have several good stories for this). If the couple is two players, there's concern of them doing special things for or favoring each other over the other teammates. If there's a break-up, what happens to the characters in question? Some DMs might not even play with couples to avoid potential drama. There's also the risk of distracting each other while playing, or having a lovers quarrel over the table (With every group I've been in but ours: EVERY FLIPPING TIME). If it's the DM and a player, other players may be concerned about favoritism, and what's going to happen if the player's character accidentally ends up the victim of a failed save? For people not in a relationship with another player, there's a lot that feels like it could go wrong. Heck, for those IN a relationship, there's a lot that feels like it could go wrong, especially when the relationship is newer.

I didn't know how dating my DM was going to work out. I wondered about most of the above when our relationship was new (although I didn't have to worry about how our other players felt; they're the ones who got us into it in the first place!) It worked, though, and I believe most of it was because of one simple idea: When we sat around the table, we left everything behind. We still loved each other, and still do, but when we sit at the table to play, it doesn't matter. Bring dice to the table. Bring papers, pens, computers, books. Don't bring your relationship, and DEFINITELY don't bring your drama. The in-character drama is so much juicier anyway.

Happy rolling!

House Rules

Sorry for the lack of updates last week, both of us had things come up at all the wrong times!! Unfortunately, most of them involving the porcelain god in one way or another.

You may have noticed that we added a new page in the tabs for House Rules after the Gestalt post last week. If you've checked it out, there's a few other rules in there on top of gestalt. House rules are basically ways to expand upon the game or change the standard rules around to make the game slightly different. Read: ways to make the game more fun. As is standard, it's up to the DM what house rules are used. Players can ask about certain house rules, but the final decision is the DM's, whether it's for better or worse (worse for example would be Ravi's other DM who tried to scam his players out of well more than their fair share of starting gold.) (better for example would be our DM letting Ravi have a modified winged template. Please? Pretty please?)

All of the existing house rules on the page are in some form created and approved by WotC. One our DM frequently imposes is "It's You, Not Your Equipment." It was posted originally on the Wizards forum along with a list of other house rules they had developed. The basic idea is that the characters are what's important, and not the equipment they purchase or find. As such, players take a 10-15% hit on their starting gold, and they cannot purchase equipment that provide an enhancement bonus to ability scores. This applies to the Belt of Giant Strength, Gloves of Dexterity, Amulet of Health, Headband of Intellect, Periapt of Wisdom, and Cloak of Charisma. It doesn't apply to the stat-boosting books or wands that use temporary boosting spells. However, because of these limitations, the player receives an extra ability point every even level and an extra feat every odd level. This is supposed to give the player the feeling that their character is improving rather than depending on their gear to survive encounters. Play this with Epic characters. The results are AMAZING.

The other house rule posted is the "Expanded Threshhold" rule. I believe it was originally posted in the Epic Level Handbook. Usually, the rule is that once a character reaches 0 hit points (HP), they're unconcious. They then have 10 HP past 0 (-1 to -10) before they are dead. For low-level characters, this can be a saving grace, because 10 HP is a considerable amount. For some level 1 casters, it may be more than double their own HP. Once the characters reach higher levels, though, some encounters may just blow through those 10 extra HP with one good spell or full attack. The expanded threshhold house rule works to help the players as they gain levels. From level 1 to 10, the HP limit is -10 before death. From then on, with levels 11 and up, the HP limit is equal to the level of the character. For example, if you play a level 14 character, and you're knocked unconcious, you have until you reach -14 HP before your character is dead. YAAAAY longevity!

Do you play with another house rule you want to share? Let us know, and we'll share it on the House Rules page!

Happy rolling!

Once You Go Gestalt...

Since Ravi and I have explained a bit about our characters, you'll have noticed that we keep bringing up that we're Ranger/Fighter/BHA or Factotum/Rogue. Usually, the only way to have multiple classes is to multiclass. You take the aspects of whichever class you're taking and add it onto the levels of your previous class. This leaves your character with slightly more skills, but not able to be as powerful as you would be by just doing a single class. It works, but it's not ideal. So, if... I WANT IT AAAAAAAAALL... I WANT IT AAAAAAAAAALL... I WANT IT AAAAAAAALL... AND I WANT IT NOOOOOOOOW...

The alternative to multiclassing is a gameplay style called Gestalt. Hallelujah, the choirs are singing, I can kick tush! Originally from the WotC supplement Unearthed Arcana, gestalt is a format that HAS to be applied to the whole game to work. In a gestalt game, the characters don't just settle for one class. There's no more choosing between two classes or levelling a class or a prestige class. Gestalt lets you do both! At level 1, pick two classes you want, any two classes. From there on out, you take the best of the two for saves and stat increases (ex: if one class uses a d6 for hit dice and the other uses a d8, you'll use the d8), all of the class skills available to each, and all of the unique abilities for each (Rogue/Wizard gets sneak attack AND spellcasting.) The same applies to prestige classes, but you can only take one prestige class at a time. You have to level either C/C or C/PC, no PC/PC. Overall, your character ends up more powerful, more capable, and less constricting than a single-class character. This should go without saying, but you can't just double up on levels from one class for a level. For example, you would have to take a level of Ranger and a level of Fighter, you can't take two levels of Ranger or two levels of Fighter. That's just silly.

The downside of this is that if one character takes levels as a gestalt, it's much more difficult to detemine the difficulty of enemies. Something that would have been a threat to a single rogue can be wrecked by a wizard/rogue, to use that example again. It's up to the DM to balance the encounters once your team goes gestalt, either by adding more combatants, upping the difficulty level of individual encounters, or gestalting the enemies as well. The other downside? Once you go gestalt, you can't go back. Just try playing a normal character again. It's REALLY hard ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE to do!

Happy rolling!