Zero Level, Revisited

A little over a month ago, I proposed a “Zero Level” for 4e for those who would enjoy using the fourth-edition rules yet starting the game at a lower power level.  4e is a minor paradigm shift in that even first-level characters are heroes — it’s the name of the tier.  If a character wasn’t to be a hero, then, he must be somewhere prior to the heroic tier.  Borrowing the zero-level idea from a few editions back and tweaking it to 4e seemed to make sense.

I’m pretty happy with the general idea, but the zero-level I came up with wasn’t quite what I’d wanted.  There was still a pretty stark jump in power level, as several people noted, particularly in the “half hp” to full-first-level-hp switch.  I tried to smooth the progression out a bit, while keeping in mind what the system was representing:  growth of a character from a relatively-normal person (though one with great potential) to a full-fledged hero.  I came to the conclusion that several different points in that continuum needed to be represented in order to fully achieve what I’d pictured.  A pre-heroic tier, if you will, though a very short one.

Initiate

The initiate character is a trained member of his class, but he isn’t yet a hero.  This might be the fighter during his mercenary days, or the wizard after completing his apprenticeship but before embarking on studies of his own, or the paladin newly knighted and not yet tested.  He’s still quite competent in his field, but he lacks the lessons of personal experience that make a first-level fighter, wizard, or paladin what they are.  This level is very similar to my earlier proposal; generation follows the same basic pattern:

1. Choose Race. No changes.
2. Choose Class. Choose a class as usual; however, you lack one of the class features of the class you choose.  See below.  Additionally, you have 2 fewer healing surges.
3. Determine Ability Scores. No changes.
4. Choose Skills. You know one fewer skill.  For example, a cleric knows Religion plus two (rather than three) skills from the list of available class skills.
5. Select Feats. You do not select a feat.
6. Choose Powers. You select at-will powers normally.  You may select an encounter power, but you may only use that power once per day until you reach level 1.  You do not select a daily power.
7. Choose Equipment. The GM may choose to restrict beginning equipment options.
8. Fill in the Numbers. As below.

Your hit points are equal to those of a first-level character minus the amount you would normally gain each level.  For instance, a paladin with 10 Constitution would normally have 25 hit points at first level, and gain 6 for each level thereafter.  Therefore, an Initiate Paladin with 10 Constitution has 25 – 6 = 19 hp.  At first level, he gains 6 hp, bringing him to the normal total of 25.

Your bonuses are affected by your status.  Treat “half your level” as “-1.”

You are “missing” one class feature.  It is up to the player and GM to agree on which one, but it’s best to try to ensure that the character will be able to perform the basic functions of his role.  For instance, a cleric should probably not “lose” Healing Word.  The GM may wish to restrict Ritual Casting at this level, since you’re technically not level 1 yet.  If he does, this does not count as the class feature you “lose” — you must still choose a different class feature to “give up.”

You must gain 500 xp to become a first-level character.  At that time, you gain your “missing” class feature and all of the other benefits of being a first-level hero (extra hp and healing surges, a feat, the “missing” skill, etc.)  You may also retrain when gaining first level, as you normally would when gaining a level.

Novice

The novice is the fledgling adventurer, possessed of the rudiments of training in his class but lacking the sheer skill or power that even a first-level hero wields casually.  There is still some quality that sets him apart — he learns quickly, perhaps, or has a great degree of natural talent — but he has yet to refine his abilities.  This is the wizard as an apprentice or the knight as a squire.

A novice character is created in a similar manner, but the restrictions are even harsher.  A novice has only one class feature — a defining one, as agreed upon by the player and the GM.  (Classes with particularly weak features that are nevertheless central to their concept may have two, if the GM permits.  For instance, the Bard should probably have Skill Versatility in addition to another feature.)

A novice also has two fewer healing surges than an initiate (four fewer than a first-level character), and “loses” another level’s worth of hit points.  The 10-Con Paladin above would possess 25 – 6 – 6 = 13 hp as a Novice Paladin.  A Novice Wizard with 8 Constitution would possess 10 hit points (18 – 4 – 4 ).  Clearly, novice characters are extremely fragile and will have to be very careful about adventuring.  If you use a character-creation method that would allow a lower Constitution score, then 1 hit point is a minimum.

A novice character has one at-will power — he’s mastered one basic trick of his profession.  He also knows one encounter power, but he may only use it once per day, and only after spending an action point during the encounter; he is pushing himself to his limits in order to pull off an advanced technique that he hasn’t quite mastered yet.  At the GM’s option, the character may use this power without spending an action point, but with the addition of some adverse or unforeseen side effect.

As a novice character, you treat “half your level” as -”2.”

The GM may wish to remove an additional trained skill from a novice character, but I don’t recommend it; they’re pretty limited already.

You must gain 250 xp to become an initiate character.  At that time, you gain all of the benefits of an initiate character, and you may retrain.

A Harvest of Men: In Play

My proof-of-concept session for my war system finally came around.  I’ll let the example take center stage:

The PCs were a second-level party of four, including a fighter, a ranger, a wizard, and a warlord.  While on their way back to the village of Bridenford from a nearby ruin they’d been exploring, they happened across an orcish scouting party.  Defeating the orcs, they found a message speaking of battle plans — Bridenford was in danger!  Swiftly, they returned to warn the villagers.

The villagers were mostly untrained for war, of course, but they were rugged folk, used to wresting a living from the rather poor land and from the forest nearby.  Many weren’t a bad shot with the bow, and some turned the tools of their trades into weapons, using axes or improvised polearms.  (+5 to the DC for sub-par melee weapons and lack of useful armor.) Furthermore, they had leadership in the form of Daros Whitebeard, formerly a marshal of the king’s legions.  Now he was a bent and lame old man, but his mind remained as keen as ever.  (Overall leadership bonus:  +5 — +4 Int, +1 for Daros’ level 6.)

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A Harvest of Men (III)

War Week continues!  Yesterday I talked about some potential modifiers for the mass-battle system I’m working out.  The bare bones of the system are in place, although the numbers might need some adjustment — the modifiers are still pretty tenuous, for instance.  But the basic pieces are mostly there.

The main thing still missing is the effect of the PCs’ choices.  Even if they’re soldiers pressed into service rather than an elite commando squad, they’re still the protagonists of the story.  They should be able to make decisions that influence the outcome of the battle.

PC decisions

PCs have a few options to change their odds.  (Major NPCs can also benefit from similar options, should the GM not choose to grant them plot immunity.)

First, a PC can expend a daily attack power to gain a +5 bonus to one d20 roll.  This represents the PC using that power during one of the day’s battles.  (The PC is assumed to use his at-will and encounter powers freely.)  The PC can also use a daily item power or, with the GM’s permission (and some nice description) a daily utility power to gain this bonus.  The PC can expend multiple powers on one roll if he likes, but the bonus is reduced by 1 each time, to a minimum additional bonus of +2.

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A Harvest of Men (II)

War Week continues!  Yesterday I sketched out the basics of a d20 “war zone” system for determining the course of a large-scale battle, arriving at some tentative base numbers.

Of course, what’s D&D without some modifiers?

A lot of different things can affect the course of a battle.  Trying to be exhaustively list modifiers is almost guaranteed to fail.  Instead, I’ll try to consider the more likely occasions, and come up with guidelines that allow winging the more unlikely ones on the fly.

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War Week: A Harvest of Men

Back to some content.  This month’s blog carnival is all about war.  Appropriate; war or the threat of war makes a great plot element for just about any rpg, from fantasy to science fiction to espionage to superheroes.  It also happens to be something many RPGs don’t have very solid rules for.  They’re designed for conflicts on an individual scale, because the individual character is, from the player’s standpoint, what’s most important in most RPGs.  But how do you handle those scenarios in which your player characters find themselves caught up in actual battle — conscripted into an army, perhaps, or leading the king’s knights against the encroaching goblin hordes?

The combat rules are usually unsuited to handling large-scale conflicts.  The D&D Companion Set (and the Rules Cyclopedia) included the War Machine, a set of rules for mass conflicts, but many RPGs don’t.  One way of handling this is to break a battle into a series of squad-level encounters — maybe the PCs’ squad is sent to disable a ballista, or to sneak into the enemy camp in the night and assassinate an officer.  This does work very well when the characters are able to act as a relatively independent unit, and it works with both combat and noncombat encounters.  (Check out The Core Mechanic’s Skill Challenges of War series for one take on handling some common war events as skill challenges.)

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