SESSION 29B: A KNIGHT IN MOURNING

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“Who are you and why have you come to this evil place?”

Tee met the gaze of the angry, armored man. “You’re the one standing over a dead body. You first. What are you doing here?”

“Do not mock me, woman. Those I have cared for have died. Name yourselves and your purpose.”

The tension was palpable. Everyone’s nerves were raw. It wouldn’t have taken much for blood to be shed. The man raised his hand to the hilt of his sword.

Fortunately, this movement allowed Tee and Tor to spot the ring he was wearing on his finger – the signet of the Order of the Dawn. Tor moved into the room, carefully slipping on his own signet ring and positioning his hands so that the man could see it. “We’ve been sent to investigate what’s happening here.”

“What is happening here?” Tee asked.

The armored man dropped his hand from the hilt of his blade. As he relaxed, his entire body sagged with exhaustion and sorrow. “My name is Kalerecent. This was my friend and comrade, Rasnir. Two days ago we came to investigate reports I had heard of strange activity and the sound of digging coming from a mansion in Oldtown.”

They had followed the tunnel and entered the complex. When they arrived, there had been a half dozen strange and monstrous creatures gathered in the room with the “tower of brass and iron”. Kalerecent and Rasnir were badly outnumbered, and so they chose to wait and watch.

One of the creatures – a warped and twisted crone with skin the sickly green of swamp moss and hair like twisted vines – had taken a ring out of a velvet pouch and held it against the door. There had been a bright flash of light and the door had opened.

Kalerecent had not been able to hear what they were saying before, but now one of them spoke loudly: “Hurry, it won’t stay open long!”

And then he knew what he had to do. This entire place reeked of evil and these creatures clearly had foul intentions. He and Rasnir had charged into battle. During the melee, the crone who had opened the door managed to duck through it. But moments later Kalerecent had fought his way to it and wrenched it shut.

“There was another flash of light and the door sealed shut behind me. But even in that moment, one of the creatures – a half-leonid fiend – slew Rasnir. I killed several of the goblins, but the other creatures escaped.”

Dominic offered to heal Rasnir’s wounds, but Kalerecent shook his head. “It has been more than a day. His soul has left this world forever. I tried healing them myself before it was too late, but his wounds were too severe. And when I tried to carry him out of here, I was attacked by the half-leonid.”

Tor knelt beside him. “It may be too late to heal him, but he should still be borne back into the city with honor. May I help you carry him?”

Kalerecent gave a grateful yet mournful smile. “I thank you. But the half-leonid creature is still loose in the complex and the others might return, if they are not here already. The door must not be left unguarded.”

It became clear that Kalerecent felt that Rasnir had died to ensure that the door would not be breached. He wouldn’t allow that sacrifice to have been made in vain.

“And it makes sense,” Tor said. “Whatever they came to the Banewarrens to find, it can’t be good.”

“Aren’t we here to find something, too?” Dominic pointed out.

After discussing their options, they decided to track down the half-leonid creature while Kalerecent continued to keep watch over his friend and the door. Once that was done, Tor and Kalerecent could carry Rasnir’s body back to the surface while the others remained behind to keep a watch on the door.

THE LAMIA ROUTED

Kalerecent accompanied them back into the room with the warding generator. He was able to indicate which of the southern corridors the creature had fled through after their last confrontation. Then he returned to his vigil over Rasnir.

From Kalerecent’s description, Ranthir was able to identify the creature as a type of lamia – a rare and unnatural hybrid of human and lion. “It will be very fast and more than capable of using the claws on its lower limbs.”

The southern corridor led to a wide hall which widened before being abruptly interrupted by a 20-foot square pit. Four thick, rust-covered iron chains were hanging down into the pit, fastened to the wall with heavy bolts.

“It must have gotten to the other side somehow,” Tee said. “I’ll try climbing—“

A giant hand – at least five feet across at the palm — reached up out of the pit and grabbed the side.

“By the gods!” Tee drew her dragon pistol and fired, striking the hand. It reared back and then crashed down again. A moment later the giant levered its way out of the pit with a roar.

Ranthir released a bolt of arcane energy which caught the giant squarely in the chest. The blast seemed to leave a scorch mark, but from the interaction between bolt and body Ranthir’s trained eyes were able to catch the tell-tale marks of an illusion. He shouted out a warning to the others.

Once they had been warned, most of the others could see the illusion for what it was. But not Tee – her mind was still being fooled by it. “Are you sure?” she shouted, diving out of the way of a back-handed blow from the giant.

“I’m sure!” Ranthir shouted.

Agnarr moved up to the edge of the pit and looked down, but the dim light cast by his sword left the lower portions of the pit in deep shadow. A moment later, however, a bottle of fine crystal flew out of the pit and shattered on Agnarr’s chest.

As the bottle shattered, a magical whirlwind burst out of it – snatching Agnarr into the air and hurling him into the nearest wall.

Tee, seeing Agnarr walk through the illusionary giant, finally shook her belief in it. She moved up to the edge of the pit with her sunrod and looked down. At the bottom of the pit she spotted five different lamias. “Oh shit!”

She fired at one of them. The force blast struck… and the lamia disappeared. It was another illusion! With a snarling growl, the remaining lamias started climbing one of the chains out of the pit.

Ranthir tried to throw a flask of oil onto the chain, but his throw went wild and smashed uselessly into the wall. Tee tried to line up another shot, but the whirlwind came sweeping back the other direction and hurled Agnarr into her and her into the wall.

Seeing Tee caught up in the whirlwind, Tor quickly pulled out a length of rope, formed a lasso, and threw it around her. With a sharp tug, Tee came free.

The lamia, meanwhile, had nearly reached the other side of the pit. Tee, while struggling to untangle herself with one hand, snapped a shot off with the other – trying to break the chain the lamia was climbing. The shot hit the heavy iron chain, but didn’t break it.

The lamia reached the other side of the pit and ran for the door. Elestra and Tee fired with their dragon guns, but only succeeded in striking (and banishing) more of the illusionary lamias.

Agnarr turned and raced back out the door they’d come through. Dominic, who hadn’t even managed to get into the room yet, yelled to him as he passed by: “Have we killed it yet?”

Agnarr circled around and managed to intercept the lamia in the outer hall. The lamia spotted him and the two of them cautiously approached each other. Agnarr took a couple of jabs at the snarling creature, while narrowly avoiding its heavy paws.

Ranthir – who had followed Agnarr at a slightly slower pace – came around the corner and sent out a barrage of arcane blasts – leaving multiple scorch marks on the chest of the true lamia and eradicating the last of the illusory doubles. With the illusions gone, Agnarr was able to get his first clear look at the creature, noting the serious wounds already marking its flanks.

At that moment, Tee and Tor caught up. Seeing itself badly outnumbered and already seriously injured, the lamia turn and ran towards a staircase at the far end of the hall. It howled plaintively…

… and was answered by a second howl!

Running the Campaign: Abandoned Dungeons – Campaign Journal: Session 29C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

If you’re familiar with the Alexandrian Remixes – e.g., of Eternal Lies, Dragon Heist, Descent Into Avernus, etc. – that’s not what we’re doing here. For better or worse, I’m not currently planning to do a full remix of Call of the Netherdeep.

This article is more of a How To guide: If I were to do a remix of Call of the Netherdeep, this is how I would do it, with tips and tricks for your own campaign along the way.

You may want to check out How to Remix an Adventure. I’ll also be largely assuming that you’re familiar with Call of the Netherdeep, so if that’s not the case you may want to start by checking out my review of Call of the Netherdeep, which includes a summary. I’ve also written a few other articles about Call of the Netherdeep and will be referencing those where appropriate.

In terms of a broad overview, we’re going to start by looking at campaign-wide elements:

• Running the Rivals
• Revelation List: Campaign Agendas
• Revelation List: Lore of Alyxian
• Ruidium

Call of the Netherdeep is a linear campaign (Jigow → Emerald Grotto → Bazzoxan → Ank’Harel → Cael Morrow → Netherdeep), so once we’ve looked at the campaign-wide structures, we’ll largely just be walking through the campaign from beginning to end.

Of course, no battleplan survives contact with reality. So if you start digging in here and discover cool tips, tricks, and/or alternatives, make sure to come back and let the rest of us know!

RUNNING THE RIVALS

A primary feature of Call of the Netherdeep is the rival adventuring group: Ayo Jabe, Dermot Wulder, Galsariad Ardyth, Irvan Wastewalker, and Maggie Keeneyes.

I’ve previously written Running the Rivals, which provides a detailed breakdown and analysis of how the Rivals can be tweaked and used to best effect in Call of the Netherdeep. I’m not going to repeat all of that material here, but the core concept is that the Rivals should be debating the agenda with the PCs:

• Where should we be going?
• What should we be doing?
• Why are we doing it?
• How should we do it?
• Who is Alyxian and what should be his fate?

And the key to running them effectively is the Principle of Opposition: Whatever the PCs think the right course of action is, the Rivals take the opposite opinion.

The Rivals thus help to define the shape of the campaign, and push the players to (a) think deeply about what they’re doing and (b) make meaningful choices that reflect the values and experience of the PCs.

But in order to make meaningful choices — and certainly if you’re going to actively debate those choices! — you first have to understand those choices. Which brings us to…

REVELATION LIST: CAMPAIGN AGENDAS

Because Call of the Netherdeep is a linear campaign, its structure can be understood as a series of agendas — i.e., the sequence of goals that move the PCs through the campaign.

In the campaign as written, unfortunately, these goals are generally underdeveloped, vague, and merely procedural. For example, when the PCs are sent to Bazzoxan they aren’t given a true, actionable reason for going; instead an NPC just tells them to go.

This is a missed opportunity. We’ll be looking at some of the specific agendas in more detail below, but in order to build any of them you need to start with the foundation. In order for the players to understand the agendas and make meaningful choices, they’ll need the context provided by answering three campaign-wide questions:

What is the Jewel of Three Prayers? Specifically, the PCs should be able to figure out that it was empowered by the gods to aid Alyxian three times; that shrines were erected in those places; and that they need to find the shrines in order to fully reactivate the Jewel.

What is ruidium and what should be done with it? This obviously includes the properties of ruidium itself, but it should also become clear that ruidium is appearing at sites associated with the Apotheon.

Who is Alyxian the Apotheon? Answering this means piecing together the details of his story and framing the ultimate question of the campaign, which is whether he should be helped, freed, or destroyed. (You may also discover that understanding what’s at stake if the Apotheon is freed is an important and distinct revelation.)

In practice you can break the answers to these questions down into a revelation list:

• Properties of the Jewel of Three Prayers.
• The Jewel of Three Prayers was empowered by the gods three times.
• Shrines were erected near each location where the Jewel was empowered.
• The Jewel can be fully reactivated by visiting the shrines.
• Properties of ruidium.
• Ruidium is appearing in sites associated with the Apotheon.
• The Lore of the Alyxian (which we’ll look at in more detail below.)

Each revelation should, of course, be supported by the Three Clue Rule — e.g., for each conclusion you need the PCs to make, you should include three clues pointing at it. Here’s some general advice you might find useful as you place these clues throughout the campaign:

First, the PCs should ideally have been able to piece together at least a general understanding of what’s happening before they get to Bazzoxan. If not, you’ll likely get stuck in a situation where the scholars from Ank’Harel are just dumping tons of exposition on the players.

On the other hand, you don’t want to dump so many clues into Jigow that the players have everything figured out before they hit the road. Call of the Netherdeep should be driven, in part, by the desire to unravel these enigmas. If the PCs get all the answers right up front, it will have a negative effect on the campaign.

You may, therefore, want to carefully consider further splitting and layering the revelations. For example, maybe the PCs can figure out very early on that the shrines are associated with the Jewel of Three Prayers, but they won’t be able to find any clues revealing that it’s because the gods empowered the Jewel at these locations until later.

As you’re thinking about sequencing the revelations, it may be useful to think of it in overlapping phases. You don’t need to, for example, put all the clues regarding the three shrines in Jigow and then all the clues revealing that the gods empowered the Jewel in Bazzoxan. Instead you might put a couple of shrine-clues in Jigow and another in Bazzoxan; then put a couple of gods-empowered-clues in Bazzoxan and another in Betrayers’ Rise. The sequencing remains likely, but isn’t rigidly locked in. More importantly, this gives you a lot more flexibility in designing and incorporating clues in a way that feels natural and organic.

Finally, if the players are engaged with the campaign, it’s quite likely they might try to figure out how to do some direct research to answer these questions. You may have an impulse to stymy them. Don’t.

But, by the same token, you also don’t want to just dump all the answers on them. (Because (a) you are still trying to pace the campaign appropriately and (b) the whole point is that the answers here are obscure and difficult to obtain.)

A good technique for this is to have their research reveal where they can go to get more information, rather than just dumping the information. In other words, the research provides an action instead of an answer.

For example, consider the transition from the Emerald Grotto to Bazzoxan. If the PCs choose to research the strange Jewel they’ve obtained — no matter how they might go about doing that — you just need to explain why the answer they’re looking for is in Bazzoxan:

• You discover that there’s a painting on the wall of Betrayers’ Rise which depicts the Jewel.
• Here’s a journal of one of the explorers who delved too deep and awakened the abyssal gate in Bazzoxan. The end of the journal trails off into mad gibberings, but it includes a vivid description of a figure that resembles the one you saw in your vision.
• It seems that the leading expert on this is [insert one of the three scholars]. Ank’harel would be a very long journey, but you’re in luck: Recent reports suggest that they’re on a field assignment in Bazzoxan.

You can repeat this same logic at any other point — and for any other structural link — in the campaign. (You learn that the answers you seek are in Betrayer’s Rise / in Ank’harel / in Cael Morrow, etc.)

LORE OF THE ALYXIAN

In talking about campaign-wide revelations, I want to take a closer look at the lore surrounding Alyxian the Apotheon, in large part because it’s absolutely vital for the campaign’s conclusion.

When the PCs reach the Netherdeep, they are confronted by an extraplanar extrusion of a demigod’s traumatized mind. As they explore the physical space of the Netherdeep, they are simultaneously delving into the mystery of Alyxian’s past (and the trauma he has suffered).

This is a really cool dungeon, but in its current form the Netherdeep is doing most of the heavy lifting for both establishing a mystery (What is Alyxian’s story?) and then also solving that mystery. If you want to elevate this material, then you need to pull some of this amassed lore backwards so that it appears meaningfully earlier in the campaign. (All the way back, in fact. From the Emerald Grotto if not earlier.) What you want is for this enigma (Who is the Apotheon?) to be much more front-and-center throughout the campaign, so that by the time the PCs get to Netherdeep the players are fully engaged with the mystery and trying to figure it out. The Netherdeep should just be the focused resolution, as they fill in the gaps and realize some deep and terrible emotional truths.

The result will be much more satisfying, and feel more like the culmination of an entire campaign, instead of just another procedural step.

To understand what I mean here, let’s consider one small, concrete example: In Area 24 of the Netherdeep, the PCs encounter Perigee the Deva. This celestial actually fought with Alyxian during the Calamity centuries ago and remains, ruidium-corrupted, by his side even now.

This could be a really incredible moment: The PCs get to meet this legendary figure out of myth!

… but it really only works if you know who Perigee is before you walk into that room. And in Call of the Netherdeep, you don’t.

Imagine that you went on an adventure in the dungeon beneath the hill where King Arthur is buried, fated to rise in Britain’s hour of greatest need. As you journey through the dungeon you encounter some of his knights: Galahad, perhaps. Percival. Guinevere.

Those are cool moments because you recognize those names: “Holy crap! It’s Guinevere!”

But you don’t get that moment with Perigee because… well, who the heck is Perigee? No one at the table cares.

But if you establish Perigee earlier in the campaign — she appears in a mural in Betrayers’ Rise; she’s mentioned in a scrap of poetry; she has a statue in Cael Morrow or the Emerald Grotto — then you CAN have the moment of, “Holy crap! It’s Perigee!”

You just have to put the work in.

Check out Getting the Players to Care for various techniques you can use for doing this. There are already numerous opportunities throughout the campaign for including this lore, you just have to take advantage of them:

• Establishing the Calamity during the Festival of Merit.
• Murals in the Emerald Grotto prayer site.
• The first vision.
• What the Elders of Jigow know.
• What basic research in Jigow can uncover.
• Lore in Betrayers’ Rise.
• Lore held by the Bazzoxan researchers.
• What advanced research in the libraries and lore-stocks of Ank’Harel can uncover.
• More material seeded in Cael Morrow.

What you want to do is flip to Chapter 6 in Call of the Netherdeep and make a list of Apotheon-related lore that should get pre-established for maximum effect. That’s your revelation list. Now you can just apply the Three Clue Rule by seeding lore into the opportunities listed above (plus any other clever ideas you come up with).

In doing this, remember that your goal is to maximize the payoff in the Netherdeep. Don’t reveal enough? The players won’t be engaged in trying to figure it out. Reveal too much? You’ll undermine the revelations of the final act.

You’ll know you have the balance right if:

• The players already have strong opinions about Alyxian before ever reaching Ank’Harel (and, ideally, those opinions are varied and shifting); and
• The players have big questions about the Apotheon that they talk about and clearly want answers to.

This will allow the Rivals to challenge those opinions and to join in the discussion hypothesizing what the answers might be. But, even more importantly, the desire to answer those questions will motivate the agenda of the campaign.

RUIDIUM

RUIDIUM METAMAGIC: Ruidium — the crystalline residue of an ancient power that corrupts its users — is a really cool riff on a primal fantasy trope.

The mechanics for ruidium corruption (CotN, p. 10) seem really cool. There’s a nice pacing to them and a very flavorful progression of symptoms erupting across the victim’s body.

Because it’s so cool, I’d really like to see a greater temptation for the PCs to meddle with it. The existing mechanic is:

RUIDIUM SPELL COMPONENTS

One ounce of ruidium can be substituted for 500 gp worth of any material component needed to cast a spell. A creature that casts a spell using ruidium as a replacement component must succeed on a DC 20 Charisma saving throw or gain 1 level of exhaustion after the spell is cast. If the creature isn’t already suffering from ruidium corruption, it becomes corrupted if it fails the saving throw.

To this, I recommend adding:

RUIDIUM METAMAGIC

Ruidium can also be used to increase the effectiveness of a spell. Any spellcaster can use ruidium while casting a spell to duplicate the effects of a metamagic option (as per the sorcerer’s class ability), expending a number of ounces of ruidium equal to the number of sorcery points that would normally be required to use the metamagic option.

When using ruidium metamagic, the caster must make a DC 20 Charisma saving throw for each ounce of ruidium used, or suffer the consequences listed above.

Ruidium can only be used to add one metamagic option to a spell, although a sorcerer can still apply one of their metamagic options to the spell normally (as long as it is a different metamagic option).

RUIDIUM LORE: A fairly large logic hole in Call of the Netherdeep is the motivation for the Ank’harel scholars to come to Bazzoxan. According to the book, they’ve come to study a site associated with an “unknown hero who wore the Jewel of Three Prayers.”

But… why?

They’re all interested in ruidium and its sources, but there’s nothing in Cael Morrow to point the researchers at either the Jewel or the Betrayer’s Rise as being related to ruidium.

You could solve this by adding Jewel-lore to Cael Morrow. That way, the researchers could connect the Jewel-references to Bazzoxan (just like the PCs do coming from a different direction). But given the importance of ruidium in the campaign, I think it’s actually more effective to introduce it earlier. So what I suggest is adding ruidium to the Emerald Grotto and Betrayer’s Rise. In other words, ruidium is manifesting at all of the sites associated with the Apotheon.

The scholars can now follow leads to this other source of ruidium, and will have come to Bazzoxan in an effort to figure out the connection. This also means that the PCs have potentially valuable information to trade with the scholars if they’ve previously identified ruidium in the Emerald Grotto.

This fixes both the logic of the campaign and foreshadows the importance of ruidium.

If you want to go even further with this, I recommend extending the history of ruidium: Trace amounts of it have been found in the area around Ank’harel for generations, requiring painstaking efforts to gather enough of it serve as a reagent. Alchemical studies have revealed a connection to the light of Ruidus, with various theories postulating that some specific condition results in the moon’s red light “precipitating” the substance. When recent explorations of Cael Morrow revealed huge outcroppings of the stuff, it precipitated the current arms race.

This background provides a context in which the PCs can research the strange red crystals and learn more about them.

It also means that you can use an interest in ruidium to motivate the PCs’ trip to Bazzoxan, Ank’harel, or both as the opportunity presents itself.

REMIXING CALL OF THE NETHERDEEP
Part 2: Jigow
Part 3: Emerald Grotto
Part 4: Road to Bazzoxan
Part 5: Scholars of Ank’Harel
Part 6: Betrayers’ Rise
Part 7: Cael Morrow
Part 8: Faction Missions in Ank’Harel
Part 9: Netherdeep Wrap

COMPLETE PDF COLLECTION

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 29A: Wraiths and Wards

The pedestal was made of stone and carved with a variety of tiny symbols. Atop the crystal, clutched in a claw-like sculpture of brass, was a purple-red crystal, glistening ever so slightly with its own inner light.

Tee crossed the chamber. She quickly estimated the value of the jewel-like crystal to be several thousand gold pieces at the very least. She set to work meticulously inspecting the claw-like sculpture and quickly discovered a pressure-operated trigger, designed to activate some device within the pedestal if the weight of the crystal was removed.

She had only barely started to disable the pressure trigger when a second wraith came screaming out of the crystal. As it passed over the top of Tee’s head it struck her twice – once on each shoulder – chilling her entire body and leaving flaming lacerations in its wake.

In this session, the PCs have an encounter with a malignant crystal which sustains purple wraiths: Whenever a wraith is slain, it is regenerated by the crystal. The only way for the PCs to “defeat” the encounter is to figure out where the wraiths are coming from and then destroy the crystal. If they don’t destroy the crystal, the wraiths will just keep coming.

Let’s call this clever combat. It refers to any combat encounter that the PCs can’t win (or can’t easily win) unless they do something clever. For example:

• There are stormtroopers firing through a one way forcefield. The PCs will need to figure out how to shut off the forcefield before they can defeat the stormtroopers.
• The goblins have a large crystal that can project a death ray guarding the entrance of their fortress. A frontal assault is technically possible, but it’ll probably be easier to figure out another way in, use an invisibility spell, or find some other clever bypass.
• It’ll be a tough fight against these cerberus spawn… unless the PCs realize they can break the dam and wash the hounds into the river.

D&D trolls are actually the OG clever encounter: Until you figure out that they need to be damaged with fire, they are absolutely terrifying. (This has been largely blunted in these latter days, where it seems this lore has seeped pretty thoroughly into the popular consciousness.)

Not every encounter needs to be a clever combat. In fact, they almost certainly SHOULDN’T be. It’s far better to deploy this sort of thing as a way of spicing things up from time to time.

The greatest thing about using a clever combat from time-to-time, though, is that it will condition your players to get clever in every encounter, even — perhaps especially! — the ones where you didn’t prep anything clever.

The only thing you need to do to encourage this is to not get in their way: If they come up with some clever way to upset the odds or peremptorily sweep an entire combat encounter off the board without breaking a sweat… For the love of the gods, LET THEM. The result will be far more memorable than slogging through another vanilla fight, and it will encourage them to keep coming up with more clever ideas in the future.

On the other hand, you can also flip this around: A typical group of PCs is a formidable foe. What clever ways can their enemies find to make handling them easier?

(The really great thing is that this tends to reflect into an infinite loop: A clever foe creates a threat that the PCs will, in turn, have to be clever to overcome.)

Campaign Journal: Session 29B – Running the Campaign: Abandoned Dungeons
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 29A: WRAITHS AND WARDS

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“Should we go upstairs or finish clearing this level?”

“Finish clearing the level,” Ranthir said. “You should always finish clearing the level.”

They returned to the rune-encrusted door in the entry chamber. As they passed through the door, however, Seeaeti balked, whining slightly. Agnarr decided to stay back with his hound. From there he could also serve as the rear guard.

Ranthir heard a small, sweetly feminine voice. “I don’t like this place.”

“… I think I’m hearing voices.”

Ranthir looked around with a rather worried expression on his face. But after a moment he realized it was Erinaceidae – his familiar. The bond between them had apparently grown strong enough for her to speak with him.

And the chamber beyond the door was making her very nervous. She scampered off Ranthir’s shoulder and clung close to Elestra’s light.

The only other exit from the chamber was an arch on the far side of the room. Tee approached it carefully, checking the floor for any traps or other protective devices that might be triggered by their presence.

She didn’t detect anything. But it didn’t matter: As she reached the arch, a purplish-red wraith swept out of the next room. Tee barely managed to roll out of the way. Elestra shouted for help. Agnarr came running.

The silence with which the wraith attacked was eery. But it proved to be easily dispatched. Once Tor and Agnarr had engaged it, it only took a few sweeps of their magical blades to destroy its ethereal substance.

They passed through the arch. The next chamber was nearly identical and equally empty, with another arch on the far side. They passed through this second arch and entered a third chamber.

This chamber was nearly as stark as the first two, but there was a pedestal standing on the far side of it. The pedestal was made of stone and carved with a variety of tiny symbols. Atop the pedestal, clutched in a claw-like sculpture of brass, was a purple-red crystal, glistening ever so slightly with its own inner light.

Tee crossed the chamber. She quickly estimated the value of the jewel-like crystal to be several thousand gold pieces at the very least. She set to work meticulously inspecting the claw-like sculpture and quickly discovered a pressure-operated trigger, designed to activate some device within the pedestal if the weight of the crystal was removed.

She had only barely started to disable the pressure trigger when a second wraith came screaming out of the crystal. As it passed over the top of Tee’s head it struck her twice – once on each shoulder – chilling her entire body and leaving flaming lacerations in its wake.

After that first soul-searing scream, the wraith became as eerily silent as its predecessor. But it was just as easily dispatched, this time with a single swing of Tor’s sword. A moment later, Agnarr came running in.

“It’s okay,” Tor said. “It’s already dead.”

“If everything in the Banewarrens is this easy, we won’t have any problems down here,” Elestra said.

“Not if they keep coming,” Tee said.

“You think the crystal is creating them?” Tor asked.

“Or regenerating it.”

As they talked, Tee finished disabling the pressure device. But what should they do with it? Try to sell it?

“We can’t sell it if it keeps creating wraiths,” Tor said.

“True,” Tee said. “Ranthir, can you analyze its magical aura? Figure out if there’s some way—“

Another wraith tore its way out of the gem. It thrust its hand through Tee’s face – leaving five claw marks and a deep chill that left her soul-shaken in its wake (and suffering from a rather vicious migraine).

Agnarr, who had returned to the rear guard at the rune-etched door, came running. While the others dealt with the third wraith, he ran past them and swung at the crystal. The fragile gem shattered in a cascading wave of glass that swept down the entire length of the chamber. At the gem’s destruction, the wraith screamed in rage and whirled towards Agnar… who ripped it apart.

For her part, Tee was incensed at the loss of the valuable gem. (“And then… he broke it… He broke it! I couldn’t believe it… I just… Ah!”)

THE WARDING GENERATOR

They headed west through the entry chamber, passing through the door and entering a large chamber. In the center of the chamber a huge metal device like an iron tower topped with a brass sphere rose at least 30 feet into the air. A spiral staircase of wrought iron on the far side of the room led up to a catwalk of crosshatched grating encircling the device.

The central tower was a cylinder with a 10-foot diameter. A number of jointed metallic extensions, like the legs of an insect, extended out from the tower and connected to the ground or simply jutted out into the air at all angles. The sphere on top of the tower was approximately fifteen feet across. A series of curved, brass plates formed the skin of the sphere, with each plate bearing a single arcane rune etched into its surface. Here and there a few of these brass plates were missing, exposing an inner grid-like support network of metal bars. The missing plates gave the entire structure the appearance of something unfinished or perhaps damaged.

There were no other exits on the lower level. However, four halls – two to the north and two to the south – led away from the chamber on the catwalk level. Directly opposite the passage through which they had entered was another door, also on the catwalk level, which was similar to the rune-etched door leading to the wraith chambers – but larger and more finely detailed. Laying on the catwalk before the door were the dead bodies of several goblins.

While the other hung back, Tee did a sweep through the chamber to make sure it was safe. The goblins appeared to have been killed in combat, their wounds having been inflicted by the blows of a sword. But there were no visible threats in the room now.

Once Tee was satisfied that the room was safe, Ranthir moved in and began investigating the machinery. While she worked, the others moved into defensive positions around the room – watching the various entrances and exits with wary eyes.

Ranthir spent the better part of half an hour examining the device. Then he moved to the rune-etched door and spent nearly as much time there, before spending another few minutes cycling back and forth between the two. Once he was satisfied he called the others over to the door.

He started by pointing at several large runes arranged in geometric patterns across the surface of the door. “These runes, like the runes we saw before, are warding runes. But these runes—“ Ranthir pointed to smaller, more detailed runes that were worked into the larger pattern. “—are arcane resonance points. Like the ones we saw on the exposed walls, except these are actively resonating. But they’re more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen, and they’re interwoven with the warding runes in ways I don’t fully understand.”

He moved to the railing of the catwalk and indicated the device in the center of the room. “The entire tower is a technomantic device. More complicated than anything I’ve ever seen. I’m not entirely sure how it works or what it’s supposed to do, but it’s not working. As far as I can tell, it was never completed. If it was working, however, I believe it would function as a kind of warding generator – activating the arcane resonance points.”

“But I thought you said the resonance points in the door were already active?”

“In the door, yes. I suspect that there’s another warding generator on the other side of the door. The warding runes on the door are attuned to that device. And the effect is to make the walls and the door of the next section of the complex virtually impervious. I think this warding generator is attuned to the walls in this section of the complex.”

“What would happen if we activated this warding generator?”

“The arcane resonance points built into the walls would activate.”

“We’d be trapped?”

“Not as long as the hole we came through is still open.”

“What would happen if we activated the generator and then repaired the wall?” Tor asked.

“Then the complex would be sealed.”

“Couldn’t they just break in again?” Elestra asked.

“I don’t think so. I think the only reason they could break through the walls in this section of the complex is because the warding generator isn’t working.”

“So we need to fix the generator and repair the wall.”

Ranthir shook his head. “It’s not that easy. You have to understand, I can barely comprehend even the most basic functionality of this device. And it’s not just broken. There are pieces missing.”

“Wait a minute,” Elestra said. “Come look at this.”

Elestra had been watching the northeastern hallway leading out of the chamber. Down this short hall she had seen a room. A number of curved brass plates, similar to those forming the brass sphere at the top of the warding generator, lay on the floor. There were other oddly-shaped devices formed from strange metals laying on various work tables or hanging on the walls.

Ranthir spent several minutes studying the contents of this room. “I think it’s likely that these are the missing parts. And possibly various tool that would be required for installation. But there’s no way to know if all the parts are here. And it would probably take me weeks of study before it could be repaired.”

They opened the door leading to the next room. It was filled with broken and rotting crates. Between the stacks of crates a heavily armored man with long silver hair knelt beside the dead body of another man. As the door swung open the armored man looked up at them with eyes filled with rage.

“Who are you and why have you come to this evil place?”

Running the Campaign: Clever Combat  – Campaign Journal: Session 29B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

One of the most talked about changes in the One D&D playtest is the decision to make all natural 1’s auto-failures and all natural 20’s auto-successes.

My first gut reaction to this was: That’s a terrible idea!

Upon further reflection, however, I’ve realized that this reaction is primarily built on my experience with pre-5^th Edition versions of D&D, and that under the design principles of 5^th Edition it’s probably irrelevant. (We’ll come back to that.)

But here’s what I don’t get:

You’re making all natural 1’s and natural 20’s work the same for simplicity and clarity? Sure. That makes sense.

But, simultaneously, you’re adding a whole bunch of weird, nit-picky rules about which specific types of attacks and which specific types of character can get critical hits in combat?

That doesn’t make sense to me.

In any case, I was going to move on to explaining why the new auto-fail/auto-success rules for ability and skill checks isn’t as big a deal as you might think, but it quickly morphed into a wide-ranging discussion of why the 5^th Edition skill system is broken garbage built on top of questionable design principles.

So… buckle in.

It’s been awhile since I did a good ol’ fashioned D&D rant.

WHY BOUNDED ACCURACY?

Let’s start by talking about bounded accuracy. Endless ink has been spilt on this topic, but I think one of the clearest way to understand bounded accuracy — what it is, why it works the way it does, how it’s supposed to be used — is to look at the design lineage which created it.

To do that, we need to go back about twenty years to the development of the Epic Level Handbook for 3^rd Edition. The concept was to extend play past 20^th level, allowing players to continue leveling up their characters forever.

The big problem the designers faced was that different classes gained bonuses to core abilities — attacks, saving throws, etc. — at different rates, which meant that their values diverged over time. By 20^th level, the highest and lowest bonuses had already diverged so much that the difference exceeded the range of the d20 roll. This meant that any AC or DC you set would either be an automatic success for some PCs or impossible for others.

The designers of the Epic Level Handbook tried jumping through a whole bunch of hoops to solve or ameliorate this problem, but largely failed. As a result, the Epic Level Handbook was a pretty flawed experience at a fundamental level (and its failure may have actually played a major role in Wizards of the Coast abandoning the OGL and the doom of 4^th Edition, but that’s a tale for another time).

On that note, fast forward to 4^th Edition: The designers knew this was a problem. (Several of the designers had actually worked on the Epic Level Handbook.) They wanted to avoid this problem with the new edition.

Their solution was to level up everyone’s bonuses across the board: Classes would be strong at some things and weak at others, but the values wouldn’t diverge. This methodology was, furthermore, wedded to 4^th Edition’s design ethos of “level up the whole world with the PCs” and more or less fundamental to its My Precious Encounter school of encounter design.

Fast forward again, this time to 5^th Edition: The 4^th Edition of the game had burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp, and 5^th Edition’s mission was to win back the D&D players they had lost. The whole “level up the world” ethos was widely identified as one of the things people who hated 4^th Edition hated about 4^th Edition, so it had go.

Bounded accuracy was the solution. Importantly, bounded accuracy was about two things:

1. Controlling AC & DC so that the target numbers never become impossible for some of the PCs.
2. Controlling bonuses so that the results don’t become automatic successes for some of the PCs.

In other words, all of the results exist within that boundary. Hence, “bounded accuracy.”

If you go back to the original problem experienced in 3^rd Edition (and which metastasized in the Epic Level Handbook), you can see how this solves the problem. It also avoids the 4^th Edition problem where your numbers get bigger, but your results never actually improve because the numbers increase in lockstep: As long as the DCs remain consistently in bounds, the moderate increases to the PCs’ bonuses will see them succeed more often as they increase in level, resulting in high-level characters who feel (and are!) more effective than 1^st level characters.

BOUNDED ACCURACY & AUTO-RESULTS

This is also why my initial gut reaction to the new auto-fail/auto-success rules was wrong.

You don’t want a nat-1/nat-20 = auto-fail/auto-success rule in 3^rd Edition or 4^th Edition because the range of results shifts over levels and between characters: There are DC 35 tasks that you just can’t do unless you have a +15 bonus and that’s by design.

For years, in fact, I and many other people have preached the gospel here: Skill checks should not auto-fail on 1 or auto-succeeds on 20!

But bounded accuracy in 5^th Edition means that you should basically never be setting a DC that is impossible for one of the PCs to achieve. So having a natural 20 automatically succeed is irrelevant because it should already always be succeeding.

And if, in your opinion, a character should be succeeding on a roll of 1, then you shouldn’t be rolling those dice in the first place. You don’t make a Strength (Athletics) check to see if someone can walk across an empty street. Default to yes.

BUT BOUNDED ACCURACY IS BROKEN

What complicates this, however, is that bounded accuracy for ability checks/skill checks in 5E is broken.

The first problem is one of implementation: The instructions for setting check DCs are incorrect, which results in DMs setting DCs that break bounded accuracy.

The short version is that, for legacy reasons very similar to why I had my gut reaction to the playtest mechanics, the DC range in 5^th Edition is treated as if it were the same as low-level 3^rd Edition, including by the designers and the advice in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. But this isn’t the case. A skilled 3^rd-level character in 3^rd Edition likely has a +8 or +9 in the skill; the same character in 5^th Edition has +4 or +5.

Note: The elimination of the Take 10 mechanic in 5^th Edition for all practical purposes except passive Perception also has an effect here, but we won’t dive down that rabbit hole today.

This includes several key pieces of advice, which are given in various places throughout the 5^th Edition product line and reflected in the design of official scenarios and the like. (From here, this advice also percolates into designer diaries and third-party books, videos, tweets, blogs, etc.)

• DC 10 is the baseline “easy” check, relevant to unskilled characters.
• You should rarely or never call for PCs to roll for DCs under 10.
• You should step up your DCs by 5 points (going from DC 10 to DC 15 to DC 20).

The specific expression of this advice varies, but is fairly consistent. In the DMG, for example: “If the only DCs you ever use are 10, 15, and 20, your game will run just fine.”

But if you run the math, what you actually want is:

• DC 8 is the baseline “easy” check, relevant to unskilled characters.
• DC 12 should probably be your default difficulty.
• Thinking in steps of two is probably more useful: DC 8, DC 10, DC 12, DC 14, etc.

As I said, though, this is primarily a problem of praxis. In isolation, it could be trivially solved with better advice.

The more fundamental problem is mechanical: There are a handful of class abilities which trivially — but hilariously! — break bounded accuracy.

The rogue, of course, makes an easy example here. Expertise doubles proficiency bonuses, changing a range of +2 to +6 into a range of +4 to +12. Combined with ability score modifiers, this almost immediately turns most reasonable DCs within the system’s bounded accuracy into an automatic success for the rogue, and it gets worse from there.

Reliable Talent then comes in for mop-up, making the rogue’s minimum die roll 10. The rogue is now auto-succeeding on every proficient check, and in their chosen Expertise any DC that could challenge them is probably impossible for every other PC.

Of course, those are exactly the DCs these hilariously broken abilities pressure the DM to assign. Partly because they want to challenge the PCs. Partly because it just makes sense that these PCs should be able to achieve things the PCs without the hilariously broken abilities can’t do.

The end result, of course, is exactly the problem bounded accuracy was introduced to eliminate.

The new auto-fail/auto-success rules technically patch this up a bit:

• You’ve set a DC too high in order to challenge the hilarious broken character? At least the other PCs won’t auto-fail.
• You’ve set the DC “correctly” for bounded accuracy? The hilariously broken character can at least theoretically still fail.

But only in the crudest sense.

OPINION: THE TONE OF BOUNDED ACCURACY

So all of that is basically just math.

Now I’m going to digress into a purely personal opinion about why bounded accuracy makes the 5^th Edition skill system suck.

Let’s start by talking about why bounded accuracy works in combat: Hit points.

Although the typical Armor Class of a monster shifts upwards slightly as they increase in challenge rating, virtually every monster in the Monster Manual can be hit by a 1^st level character. This works, of course, because the amount of damage the monsters deal and the number of hit points they have do increase: The 1^st level character can’t readily defeat an adult red dragon because (a) the red dragon will smush them with a single attack and (b) the 1^st level character would have to hit them a bajillion time to whittle away their hit points.

The real advantage of this system is that it allows lower CR monsters to remain relevant: An encounter with twenty CR 1 dire wolves probably won’t threaten a 15^th-level party, but if you add them into an encounter with CR 13 storm giants, they won’t be completely irrelevant (since they can still hit the PCs and the PCs won’t necessarily auto-hit them).

But, of course, the skill system doesn’t have hit points or damage rolls. The “dire wolves” of the skill system never get easier to kill and you never become able to take on the “red dragons.”

As Rodney Thompson wrote in the article which introduced bounded accuracy to the world: “An iron-banded door is just as tough to break down at 20^th level as it was at 1^st.”

This creates a really weird dynamic where at 1^st level your characters are struggling with dire wolves, casting dancing lights, and being challenged by the lock on the back door of the tavern. And at 20^th level they’re soloing Smaug, summoning meteor swarms from the heavens, and… still having trouble picking that lock or kicking down that door.

And I don’t like it.

I recognize that there are other valid opinions here, but I would vastly prefer a skill system that unlocked abilities on par with all the other systems in the game (spells, combat, etc.). Having this weird, stagnant cul-de-sac creates some really bizarre effects in the fiction.

So what you’re left with here is a dichotomy. If you like the design principle on which bounded accuracy is built, you’re nevertheless left with the fact that 5^th Edition’s implementation of it in the skill system is hilariously broken.

And if, like me, you DON’T like the tonal implications of bounded accuracy in the skill system, then it’s just fundamentally undesirable AND broken.

THE SKILL LIST

Generally speaking, if you have a skill system in an RPG, then you want that skill system to be comprehensive. In other words, there should be skills covering the full gamut of tasks that PCs are likely to attempt. Or, to flip it around, you never want the GM to reach for a skill check and discover that the skill doesn’t exist.

Comprehensiveness should not be mistaken for minutia or complexity: You can achieve a comprehensive system by having forty different skills covering every sub-field of science, but you can also achieve it by just having a single Science skill. D&D 5^th Edition could hypothetically achieve it by having no skill system at all and just having characters be directly proficient in ability scores.

The 5^th Edition skill system, of course, broadly fails this basic criteria. I am constantly reaching for skill checks and then struggling to identify a skill which covers the task.

You can patch up some of these shortcomings by embracing the Skills With Different Abilities variant rule, in which skills can be paired to different ability scores depending on how they’re being used. For example, let’s say that you wanted to canvass a neighborhood for information. Non-variant 5^th Edition lacks any skill clearly covering that, but if you use the variant rule you can create a Charisma (Investigation) check and get what you need.

When you do this, however, you end up exacerbating another problem that I, personally, have with the system: Overlapping skills.

I vastly prefer a skill system in which I, as the GM, can call for a clear, definitive skill check. You may still end up with situations where players would like a different skill to apply (and you’ll need to make a ruling on that), but it’s a rare thing instead of affecting every single mechanical interaction in the game.

If you have a very large list of skills, the advantages of that expansiveness can, to some extent, justify the cost to precision if the skills end up with overlap. But despite having an incredibly short (and incomplete) list of skills, 5^th Edition still ends up with overlapped skills (e.g., Athletics and Acrobatics).

But okay, let’s lay my personal preferences completely aside: 5^th Edition has a short, concise skill list because it wants to keep the options streamlined. And it’s willing to accept the clunkiness of incompleteness to keep that relatively streamlined list.

Unfortunately, that’s when 5^th Edition slides up next to you and says, “Hey. Did I tell you about my OTHER skill system?”

Because, of course, it has one: Tool proficiencies. Massively overlapped (both with itself and with the skill list), not remotely streamlined, and more often confusing than not.

And also nonsensically crippled, because if you play according to the rules as written you can only make tool proficiency checks if you’re using the tool. So, for example, you can be a skilled carpenter, but that in no way translates to an ability to notice shabby construction, identify building materials, etc.

I’ll fully admit that, as far as I can tell, literally no one actually plays the game this way (including the designers), opting to allow this kind of knowledge-based tool proficiency check. But “a rule that nobody uses as written” is a pretty reliable indication of a rule that’s completely busted.

SKILL LOCK-IN

Finally, it’s fairly difficult to pick up additional skills in 5^th Edition. In fact, it borders on the impossible unless the DM is using other optional rules like feats. (I suspect the move in 1D&D to make feats non-optional and add more of them will help with this somewhat.)

This makes it quite difficult to adjust your character in response to the evolving circumstances of the campaign, something which skill systems are usually ideal for (since you can, in most such systems, make a multitude of adjustments during character advancement).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a fairly minor complaint. But if I’m going to write up a grand rant on all of my problems with the 5^th Edition skill system, I should at least try to be complete about it.

HOW WOULD YOU FIX IT?

For 1D&D? I wouldn’t. Backwards compatibility, in my opinion, is more important than tweaking the skill system.

Look, I told you this was a rant right at the beginning.

But if I had a time machine, could go back to 2014, and get a designer to listen to me:

• Make flexible ability score pairing the standard rule, not a variant.
• Eliminate the redundant skills.
• Add additional skills to provide a comprehensive skill list.
• Get rid of tool proficiencies.

And I’d make a strong case that bounded accuracy is the wrong call for the skill system and allow skill use to level up just like spell selection, combat efficacy, etc.

FURTHER READING

Untested 5E: Streamlined Skills
D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations