What a Carrion

Last night, we wrapped up the Pathfinder one-off we started last week, with the player-characters successful in rooting out the cult activities in Carrion Hill and defeating the eldritch abomination the cult had summoned.

As I mentioned before, I found the Pathfinder ruleset to be far less intimidating to run than I had anticipated, but even so I think it's too bitty -- in the sense that it has a lot of working parts -- for my liking, and if I were to run a D&D variant again in the future, I think it is likely to be something a bit more loose and interpretative like Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord. The move in D&D3 -- and thus Pathfinder -- to codify everything has I think led to a situation where exploitation of the rules has become more possible, rather than less; a good example of this is the idea of an optimum character build, something which is almost unknown in earlier editions. I don't begrudge the playing of the system in this way -- indeed my monk in Ben's game is an example, with his five attacks a round and his inability to be hit -- but I do wonder if the game as a whole is unbalanced in loading all this on the players' side. Much as I hate to admit it, but the Unmentionable Edition is perhaps more robust in this regard.

I'm sure it is possible to head off the exploits and level the playing field, but I suspect it takes a familiarity with the game that I am never likely to have, and that it would be easier to achieve in a simpler system. We shall see, as I have already been asked to run something under Swords & Wizardry.

I also wonder if these issues would have been as prevalent if the adventure had been better. I was quite impressed by Carrion Hill as I read through it, as it has a clever time-sensitive element as well as a neat modular structure reminiscent -- perhaps deliberately -- of the classic Masks of Nyarlathotep. The players are thrown into a situation, but can tackle the next sections in any order they please, which in turn can affect the climax of the scenario. The problems arose in the details, and these only became apparent in play.

The adventure suffers from a lot of glaring bottlenecks in the plotting. For example, the vital clue which lets the players know what to do next and unlocks that modular structure is written in Aklo, a language most characters are unlikely to have, and which is not even represented among the included pre-generated characters; the party got around this by having the cleric spam Comprehend Languages for a whole day, but that led to them falling afoul -- if only a little -- of the time limit. On a similar note, there are far too many sections where high skill values in Knowledge (Arcana) and Disable Device are required to progress, which can end the scenario right there and then unless the GM fudges things. The scenario more or less demands that a wizard and a rogue are in the party, but nowhere is this mentioned, and again the pre-generated characters don't measure up and are unlikely to hit the numbers required.

Furthermore, nonsensical situations abound and only exacerbate the bottlenecks. A building with an epic-level lock on the front door is bad enough, but for the same building to be made of thick stone, to have no windows and for the doors to be made of the same thick stone stretches credibility. Is this a fortress, perhaps? Or a gold depository? No, it's a brick factory. The whole adventure seems to be designed in this negative, passive-aggressive fashion, where everything is there to hinder the players, as if this were not a game, as the whole point of it was not for people to have fun. That said, some faults lean in the players' favour, such as the villain who occupies a room too small for the whole party to enter, which would be fine if he were a close-quarters fighter rather than a magician. Or the big final monster of the scenario, which is so big that by the rules as written it should not be able to get out of the first location, let alone get close enough to the player-characters to menace them at the climax.

I have bought two of Paizo's adventures. One was so awful that I knew it from a read through, but Carrion Hill surprised me. If I am to use their scenario materials again, it will be as a source of ideas rather than something to be run as is, as the convenience of a pre-written adventure is outweighed by the poor writing.

My D&D

I have no plans to run any D&D any time soon, but if I did, there are some tweaks I think I'd include, most of which would alleviate the problems I have with the original game.

One of the things which struck me most about Dragonlance: Fifth Age was the abstract experience system. Instead of totting up points, a player would get a single "Quests" statistic, which would increase by one with every adventure completed; Quests also determined a player's hand size, and since the game had a card-based resolution mechanic, the more experienced a character, the more options they'd have when attempting tasks. The grey area, of course, is in defining an adventure, but that's easy enough to figure out. I'd use something similar in my D&D, which would alleviate a lot of my pedantic gripes with the old system.

I'd use JB's alternate combat system, not because I have any real problems with the existing mechanic, but simply because I like the ideas behind JB's streamlined approach. I'd tweak it to use ascending armour class, because I've never understood the descending type.

I would also borrow the thief skill mechanic from James Raggi's Lamentations of the Flame Princess rpg because it's neat and clever, and not a million miles away from my own thoughts on the matter. I'd probably also use his "only fighters get better at fighting" rule, although I haven't given much thought to how that would gibe with the above combat system.

I quite like the way that Pathinder clerics heal and turn undead using the same power, so I'd use something similar, although I'd consider simplifying it a little. I might also borrow an idea from the Final Fantasy games and have any healing magic cause damage to undead creatures.

There are probably some other minor bits I'd fiddle with (I like the elegance of Swords and Wizardry's single saving throw), but those would be the major rules changes I'd make for my D&D. Would it still be D&D? Well, that's a question for another day.

Fight On! #4

Fight On! is a magazine for fans of "old school" Dungeons and Dragons, presenting articles, house rules and full scenarios; there's even some campaign setting stuff in there, including a mega-dungeon presented one level per issue. There's a particular focus on Original D&D, but there are enough similarities between the various versions of the game that the contents of the magazine are useful for any edition up to 3rd, and even that's probably workable. And of course, the contents are fully compatible with newer retro-cones such as Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry.

Anyway, it's a solid magazine that's improved with every issue, and to me it feels a little bit like White Dwarf before that publication turned into a miniatures catalogue; Fight On! has that same sense of enthusiasm and creativity that made WD such fun. Like the older magazine, not every article is a winner, but there's so much content that the individual GM is bound to find something of use in its expansive 100 pages.

In the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I have some art printed in this issue, but I'd recommend it even if I were not involved, and I've got no input into the first three issues, which are also well worth a look. You can buy it (and previous issues) in print form here, and a pdf edition will be released soon.