Yesterday I talked about the ability to control the pace of encounters in D&D, and how that control can tip the balance of power between the fighters and the wizards. A lot of people believe that you need to completely rip apart the system in order to correct this imbalance, but in my experience — once you understand the true source of the problem — you can actually get a lot of mileage out of a handful of meaningful tweaks.

For example, one of the most powerful pace-control combinations at higher levels of play is the scrying-and-teleport combo (also known as a “scry and die”): You use scrying to find your target, teleport to reach them, blast the crap out of them before they have a chance to prepare or defend themselves, and then teleport away again.

I’ve seen DMs simply remove teleport and scrying from the game entirely, but I’ve found that a gentler approach works just as well (without removing some nifty abilities entirely from the game).

TELEPORT HOUSE RULES

These rules apply to any spells of the Conjuration (Teleportation) type and similar effects.

• You can only teleport a number of miles equal to your caster level. (When teleporting through the use of a racial ability, the distance is limited to a number of miles equal to your total HD.)
• Teleporting characters or objects disappear instantly, but teleportation takes a number of rounds equal to the number of miles traveled (minimum of 1 round). During this time, characters at the destination of the teleport can make a Spot check (DC 20). If the check succeeds, they are aware of the incoming teleport. If the distance of the teleport is a mile or less, characters at the receiving end of the teleport will only have a surprise round in which to take actions before the teleport is completed.
• Teleport Trace: Outgoing teleport spells leave a teleport trace during the duration of the teleport. Characters at the source of a teleport can make a Spot check (DC 20) to spot the teleport trace. Teleport spells and similar effects can be used to automatically follow the original teleport, although the caster will not know where the teleport spell goes until they arrive. Scrying sensors can be sent through a teleport trace.
• Dispelling Teleports: Spellcasters who are aware of the incoming teleport can attempt to counterspell the teleport (even though they are unable to see the caster).
• Blocked Teleports: If a teleport is counterspelled, blocked, or otherwise disrupted the character or object being teleported returns to its original location.
• Gate: The gate spell can be used to circumvent the distance limitation on teleportation. The casting time for the spell is equal to 1 round per mile traveled or 1d10 minutes for interplanar travel. During the casting time, the gate is clearly visible from both ends and events at the other end of the gate can be seen murkily through it (Spot checks suffer a -10 penalty). Once the gate is established, travel through the gate is instantaneous.

DESIGN NOTES

The distance limitation was actually added to my house rules for flavor reasons and can be ignored if you’re just interested in tweaking the rules for balance purposes. (The original group of PCs in my current campaign world wanted a campaign featuring a Lord of the Rings-style cross-country epic. Long-range teleportation would have undermined that goal: Lord of the Rings is a very different story when Gandalf just teleports the Fellowship from Rivendell to Mt. Doom. Long-range teleportation is also one of those abilities which, if you considered its practical impact on the world, would completely transform society.)

The meaningful tweaks here is adding a duration to the teleport itself and allowing characters at the destination or source of the teleport to spot the teleport and interact with it in meaningful ways. The ability to use a teleport spell to facilitate hit-and-run tactics isn’t removed from the game, but it is given its own unique effects and consequences. The target of the technique, for example, can simply choose to run away. Or prep their defenses. Or call for help. The PCs could actually end jumping into the middle of a massive ambush of their own making.

Similarly, PCs can’t count on teleport necessarily being an automatic escape plan after the hit-and-run has been completed: Enemy spellcasters can follow them through their teleports.

It’s a small adjustment, but it means that “scry and die” is no longer clearly superior option to a traditional assault: It has its own strengths and weaknesses, which will sometimes make it better than a traditional assault and sometimes worse.

Wherein we discuss the fallacy of the 15-minute adventuring day, and explicate the reasons why this supposedly systemic flaw is, in fact, an error in the technique of the Dungeon Master. (Mostly.)

In classic D&D there were four primary roles in combat: The fighter was the guy who could reliably contribute every single round by dishing out damage. The arcanist was the guy who could deal “spike damage” and turn the tide against tough opponents. The cleric was the guy buffing and healing, assisting the others in various ways. The rogue also got in on the action, but was generally an opportunist.

The guys providing “spike damage” also generally got to be more productive in the non-combat sections of the game — either because of the arcanist’s utilitarian spells or because of the rogue’s skills and searching ability.

This balance of spotlight time always worked for me. People gravitated towards the type of game they wanted to play by selecting the class that best-suited their preferences. And because there were a variety of game styles supported, different people could enjoy playing the game for different reasons. (Or, when they got bored of playing the game in one way, could switch to playing it in a different way.) The one problem was the generally unappealing nature of the cleric — but 3rd Edition’s spontaneous casting largely fixed this problem.

However, with that being said, this balance did begin to break down at higher levels of play. As you got close to 20th level, the spellcasters — particularly the arcanists — became so powerful that they completely dominated the other classes. This was an acknowledged problem and one of the biggest flaws in the design of the Epic Level Handbook was that it not only failed to address these problems but actually made them worse.

Over the past couple of years, however, this meme suddenly turned virulent: Wizards were referred to as the “win button”. People were reporting that this domination — which previously hadn’t become a problem until the highest levels of play — were cropping up in the mid-level of play around 8th level. I’ve even seen people insisting that, by 5th level, the game is over and the wizards have won.

But this wasn’t what I was seeing at my gaming table. It wasn’t until you got to around 12th level that I was beginning to see the wizards outpacing the fighters, and it wasn’t until after 15th level that I was seeing the wizards beginning to completely dominate the table. Were the guys playing fighters in my game just preternaturally talented? Were the guys playing wizards particularly incompetent?

It took me awhile to figure it out, but I eventually summed it up with a catch-phrase:

The death of the wandering monster tables.

In other words, the DMs experiencing problems were allowing their players to control the pace of encounters. As a result, the casters were able to go into a single encounter, blow through all of their “spike damage” spells for the day, and then say, “Well, I’m out of spells, let’s rest up.”

And, of course, once you had redefined “spike damage” to mean “normal damage”, the fighters were completely outclassed. And, indeed, by 5th level the wizard could completely dominate the game.

But the game doesn’t have to be like this. It used to be that the threat of wandering monsters would keep the PCs in check: They wouldn’t blow through all of their abilities because there was always the chance that something unexpected might happen. In my games I don’t use a lot of wandering monster tables, but I do run the NPC opponents proactively: The PCs can’t rely on being able to control the pace of encounters. They don’t get ambushed every single night, but the possibility is there — so they have to keep a little bit in reserve. They’ve also learned that, if they try to face one encounter and retreat for the day, then the next day they’ll find that their opponents have reinforced and entrenched their positions and it’s going to be that much harder for them.

So, really, we can see how two oft-cited complaints about 3rd Edition — the “15 minute adventuring day” and the “all-powerful wizard” — both stem from the same source: Poor DMing.

Given that, why do the casters really start to own the game above 15th level? Well, for a few reasons:

(1) The lack of powerful options for high-level fighters.

(2) The sheer power of the spells available at those levels (the spike damage gets a lot spikier).

(3) But, most importantly in my experience, the power provided by those spells (and the other resources available at those levels) to make it possible for the PCs to control the pace of encounters: At those levels it’s not that the DM is simply letting them control the pace, it’s that the PCs can proactively take that control in very reliable and predictable ways.

Once that third step happens, you’re back to a situation where spellcasters can blow massive amounts of spell power in a relatively narrow window of time and the spotlight balance between fighters and wizards becomes completely skewed.

Go to Part 1

SPOILER WARNING!

The following thoughts contain minor spoilers for Keep on the Shadowfell. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read it. And if you’re in my gaming group then you definitely shouldn’t be reading it.

THE CHERUB STATUES

When I remixed the first part of the Chamber of Statues, I didn’t think I’d be discussing the second part of that encounter. Why? Because there was nothing seriously wrong with that section of the encounter.

… or so I thought.

I’ve been cross-posting these mini-essays on Keep of the Shadowfell to WotC’s forums, and the discussion there revealed there was actually a rather serious problem with that section of the encounter.

In this section of the encounter, there are four cherub statues. When triggered, the cherubs create an arcane cage to trap a victim. The cherubs then pour water into the arcane cage, which triggers a whirlpool effect that smashes the victim into the cherub statues and cause them to take damage.

The key element to this encounter is the arcane cage that the statues create:

ARCANE CAGE (immediate interrupt, when a creature walks past the northern two statues; encounter)
The statues create a wall of arcane magic to enclose the area between the four statues. The wall lasts as long as at least three statues remain intact. The wall cannot be damaged and is affected only through the destruction or disabling of the cherub statues.

The key problem here is the phrase “create a wall of arcane magic to enclose the area between the four statues”. When I first read that phrase, I interpreted it as meaning that the arcane cage enclosed the entire 4×6 hallway, including the cherub statues. But then I realized that the other half of the encounter talks about the dragon statues reacting to characters outside the arcane cage attacking the cherub statues, so I concluded that the arcane cage must only enclose the 2×4 area between the cherubs.

I thought the phrasing was a little unclear, but no big deal.

Except it turned out I wasn’t the only one who had interpreted that phrase differently. In no time at all, in fact, the conversation included four mutually incompatible interpretations of what the arcane cage did and they were all legitimate interpretations of the phrase “create a wall of arcane magic to enclose the area between the four statues”:

To this muddle we can also add some confusion from the phrase “when a creature walks past the northern two statues”. There seem to be two meaningful possibilities for this:

(Of course, if you go with the second possibility for the arcane cage, the answer to this question is pretty obvious — it’ll be the one that actually traps the triggering character inside the cage.)

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS

In trying to work out how this encounter is supposed to work, we can try to narrow the possibilities down by taking two facts into consideration:

(1) Barrier effects “run along the edge of a specified number of squares”. Since each statue is entirely within one square, the statues either have to be inside the barrier or they have to be outside the barrier — they can’t be both.

(2) The dragon statues are supposed to be able to use their force shot ability against characters outside the barrier making attacks against the statues. Therefore, the statues have to be outside the barrier. (And even if this wasn’t true, you wouldn’t want a scenario where the only character who can lower the cage is the character trapped inside the cage: If they get killed by the whirlpool effect, not only are the irretrievable, but the location of the cage effectively prevents the rest of the group from reaching the end of the adventure.)

Thus we can conclude that it must be one of these two scenarios:

… except these doesn’t actually work.

First, because the cherubs have to be inside the cage (they’re pouring water into the cage and the trapped character is slammed against them for damage).

Second, because under this interpretation the guy inside the cage is effectively taken out of the game: There’s nothing they can do to escape. All they can do is hang tight, soak up the damage each round, and hope somebody gets them out. (This second problem isn’t necessarily unworkable, it’s just a questionable design choice.)

In short, the encounter doesn’t work. The cherubs have to both inside and outside the cage and, according to the rules of the game, that can’t happen.

As I see it, there are two options:

(1) Use the 2×4 option and then break the rules, basically creating an ad hoc ruling that the character inside the force cage can attack and destroy the cherubs even though they shouldn’t be able to.

(2) Redesign the encounter so that each cherub statue takes up 2 squares (and, thus, you can have them half-in and half-out of the arcane cage without breaking the rules).

FUEL ON THE FIRE

After writing up this whole analysis, I was looking through my friend’s copy of the Player’s Handbook and discovered something that only serves to deepen the confusion over what the arcane cage is supposed to be doing.

In the Quick Start Rules that came with Keep on the Shadowfell, there were three areas of effect defined: Barriers, Blasts, and Bursts. In the PHB, on the other hand, barriers no longer exist. They’ve been replaced by walls.

Here are the rules from Keep on the Shadowfell:

Barrier: A barrier runs along the edge of a specified number of squares. A barrier must cross at least one edge of the origin square.

And here are the rules from the PHB:

Wall: A wall fills a specified number of contiguous squares within range, starting from an origin square. Each square of the wall must share a side—not just a corner—with at least one other square of the wall, but a square can share no more than two sides with other squares in the wall (this limitation does not apply when stacking squares on top of each other). You can shape the wall however you like within those limitations. A solid wall, such as a wall of ice, cannot be created in occupied squares.

I have two reactions to this:

(1) Why wasn’t this fixed in the Quick Start Rules? Yet another example of sloppy editing.

(2) The encounter still doesn’t work.

It can’t be option #1 because the arcane cage is a solid wall (otherwise you could walk through it and the trap would be pointless), and therefore it can’t be formed in the squares occupied by the cherub statues.

It can’t be option #2 because walls must fill contiguous squares and each square must share a side — not just a corner — with at least one other square of the wall.

It can’t be option #3, obviously, because then there’s no interior of the cage for someone to be trapped in.

It can’t be option #4 because the trigger for the arcane cage would either result in no one being trapped inside or would make it impossible for the wall to form (since the triggering character would be occupying one of the squares the wall has to fill).

There are two possible ways of handling this:

(1) You can use option #4, change the trigger for the trap (so that it goes off when a character enters one of the squares inside the arcane cage), and then ignore the rules so that the cherubs are somehow inside the cage (despite the fact that they’re nowhere near the inside of the cage).

(2) You can use option #2 and rewrite the effect so that it creates multiple walls. Unfortunately, it’s not clear whether or not a character inside the arcane cage can attack the cherubs. (There’s a clear rule that says you can’t move across a diagonal if one of the squares bordering the diagonal has a solid barrier in it, but I can’t find any rule that tells you whether or not you can attack through a diagonal where two solid barriers meet.)

THIS IS RIDICULOUS

Needless to say, I consider this to be ridiculous. I consider the complete inability for this encounter to work as written just further evidence that Keep on the Shadowfell was never playtested. Such a shoddily designed encounter would, frankly, be inexcusable in any professional product. But it completely baffles me that WotC evidently spent so little effort and care on the product they chose to serve as the flagship for 4th Edition.