Kingdom Building Part 6: Prince Oargev and the Duke of Hazards

This is the write-up I gave my PCs for the mission detailed in the last Kingdom Building post.  By "gave them" I mean they watched me write, real-time, in Google docs, waiting to see what happened next:

How it happened:
Knowing that no one on the council would be particularly excited about the prospect of the Crown Prince leading just over a hundred troops into Karrnath to find and rescue Duke Korlan, Oargev tries to mask his leaving.  He has the members of the Prince’s shield spread word around Metrol and all the way to the northern border that the Prince is embarking on yet another mercy mission to war-torn villages.  Intrigue Roll=18! Anyone who is paying attention to the Prince and his movements assume his northern trip is another mercy mission.
As the the Prince and his retinue camp in the north, they join up with one of the northern army encampments.  The plan is to sneak across the river under the cover of darkness and be deep into Karrnathi territory before anyone notices they’d gone.  Roll=13!  The crew sneaks across the river and moves deep into Karrnath.  They find a copse of trees to set up camp for the evening.
The plan is for the Order of the Prince’s Shield to travel into nearby villages and try to find out where the Duke might be held while the Warforged and Oargev hide in the woods, keeping a perimeter to make sure no one who sees them makes it out alive.  Intrigue=30 and Combat=20.  The order is barely gone one day before they return with very solid information that the Duke is being kept in the dungeons beneath the Fortress of Atur.  The one patrol that comes across your hidden camp doesn’t make it out alive.
The rescue mission moves quietly across Karrnath, through the Karrnwood to get to Atur.  Roll=19.  They make it through silently and make camp again just southeast of Atur under the cover of the mountains and trees.
The Order of the Prince’s shield sneaks into the town surrounding Atur and hits the bars, drinking with the soldiers from the castle, learning what they can about it’s design and defenses.   Roll=13!  They find the soldiers tight lipped, and return to camp, determined to take another approach.  Blade sends some of his best scouts to observe the castle over the next 24 hours, hoping they can find some weakness in their defenses that can be exploited.  Roll=11!  As far as they can tell, the fortress is impregnable.  Amidst all of the waiting, Prince Oargev and Blade discuss amongst themselves old war accounts of Atur, and try to decide on an appropriate plan of action.   Roll=17  Blade recalls a story he once heard about an Aundarian master spy who broke OUT of Atur.  Oargev and blade piece together that story with the small pieces of information the Order and the Warforged are able to deliver and come up with a plan.
The plan is a concerted assault on a hidden sally-gate they remembered from the story that will take them into the dungeon.  There they will kill the guards, grab the duke, and make their way quickly back south to Cyre.  They make the attack!  Roll=15  The fighting is brutal, and in the first assault, many members of the Order of the Prince’s shield are badly wounded, but the warforged press on, making their way into the dungeons.  The dungeon guards, totally surprised, still manage to put up a fight.  Roll=19!  They find the Duke, break him out of prison, and flee the castle back through the way they came, disappearing into the dark woods, taking their fallen companions with them.
They move quickly, hoping to beat any border reinforcements that might be summoned, staying ahead of any pursuit.  As they leave the Karrnwood, they are faced with a patrol that heard them coming.  Roll=19.  The fighting is close, and the patrol manages to contain them, but the Warforged keep fighting! Roll=17, Roll=23, Roll=12.  It looks like the patrol is just biding their time.  It seems that they might be waiting for a larger force to come up and finish the group off.  Roll=8  A much larger patrol arrives, and surrounds the warforged, the Prince, the weak duke, and what is left of the knights.  Roll=9  Things start looking very grim as the army closes around the squad. Roll=9.  The fighting becomes more and more desperate.  Roll=13  The assault from the Karrnath army breaks the circle of warforged.  Prince Oargev is knocked unconscious.

The next the Prince knows, he wakes up in a tent, with Tact and Blade standing over him.  When he asks what happened, he is told by Blade, “In the confusion, Tact and I were able to grab you and slip away from the fighting.  Only a handful of your warforged made it away with us.  We were unable to rescue any of your knights or the Duke.  I apologize for our failure.  We are back in Cyre.”

Your Mechanical Options:

• You can redo Order of the Prince’s shield to recruit a new crew of Prince’s Shield.
• You can also do a Policy of “Purchase and Train Warforged Unit from Cannith” to put together a new warforged unit.  
• The warforged unit you had has now turned into a Hero Unit (level 4) called “Prince Oargev’s Warforged Bodyguards.”  This is Blade, Tact, and 8 other warforged.

Mission debriefing: Talking to the warforged, they tell you that, once it was clear they had lost the battle, Blade commanded most of the surviving warforged to hold the line while they got the Prince to safety.  They also tried to bring out the Duke, but the warforged carrying him was struck down.  You get the sense that Blade is deeply saddened by the loss of the warforged, but not saying anything.  He does ask you if you plan on rebuilding the unit, commissioning more warforged from the Cannith forges.  He mentions he would be more than happy to train new recruits.

A New Look at Rituals

Sorry this post is late.  End of semester stuff got crazy!

Rituals were a great concept in solving the God-mode wizard and cleric problems of previous editions.  That said, I don't love how it was executed.  Making them take some time and costing a little something is a pretty good idea, but overall, I've only ever found a few that were useful.

My idea is to make rituals involve more of the party, working like many ritual-casting systems I've seen in LARPs, take up some time, but more time as detailed in rounds rather than in minutes or hours, and maybe be more affordable--but less automatic.  I'd also like to see the spells a little bit specific to certain power sources, as, right now, Wizards are as likely to raise the dead as Clerics.  This bothers me.

When looking for 4ed solutions, of course, I went to the Skill challenge.  By making each ritual a self-contained skill challenge, you make the casting of these complex spells happen in stages, be difficult, but possible to complete in combat, and allow the whole party to get involved, if they so choose.

First change: the entry feat to a set of feats:
Arcane Ritualist 
Tier: Heroic
Prerequisites: Trained in Arcana; Arcane power source.
Benefit: You can master, lead, and perform rituals of your level or lower whose prerequisites you meet.  You are treated as trained in any skill check you roll during a ritual challenge (granting you a +5 bonus to the check if you are not already trained in it.)  At levels 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 you learn one ritual with the Arcane prerequisite for free.  At heroic tier, you may cast 1 arcane ritual per day without paying the initial component cost.  At paragon tier this increases to two arcane rituals and at epic tier, 3.


Divine Ritualist 
Tier: Heroic
Prerequisites: Trained in Religion; Divine power source.
Benefit: You can master, lead, and perform rituals of your level or lower whose prerequisites you meet.  You are treated as trained in any skill check you roll during a ritual challenge (granting you a +5 bonus to the check if you are not already trained in it.)  At levels 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 you learn one ritual with the Divine prerequisite for free.  At heroic tier, you may cast 1 divine ritual per day without paying the initial component cost.  At paragon tier this increases to two divine rituals and at epic tier, 3.


Primal Ritualist 
Tier: Heroic
Prerequisites: Trained in Nature; Primal power source.
Benefit: You can master, lead, and perform rituals of your level or lower whose prerequisites you meet.  You are treated as trained in any skill check you roll during a ritual challenge (granting you a +5 bonus to the check if you are not already trained in it.)  At levels 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 you learn one ritual with the Primal prerequisite for free.  At heroic tier, you may cast 1 primal ritual per day without paying the initial component cost.  At paragon tier this increases to two primal rituals and at epic tier, 3.

     These feats help preserve the classic spell lists without making a character who wants a wide variety of rituals available to him have to spend a ton of feats to cast rituals of multiple types.  All half-elves could easily gain access to two ritual types through their dilettante power.  Most classes have an initial multi-class feat that offers an at-will power as an encounter power, which would also satisfy this requirement.  I am okay with a wizard having to at least dabble in divine magic in order to cast divine rituals.  These feats also alleviate a little bit of the never using rituals because initially getting them and then casting them is so expensive problems.  A few free-bees should make them a regular part of adventuring life.
     I included the bonus to untrained skills because I wanted trained ritualists to be at least decent at all parts of rituals, even those that require non-traditional skill checks (like Endurance to control the arcane energies present, or Diplomacy to bargain with the outsider you are seeking answers from).  That said, a wizard will likely still welcome a mighty warrior to channel the arcane energies through, as his 20 Con+training will likely be superior to the wizard's.  Also, with more checks made towards the casting of the ritual per round, the faster the ritual can be completed (when the caster doesn't have to do it all himself.)  The caster Leading the ritual can take no actions other than maintaining the ritual.  Helpers can contribute to a ritual whenever appropriate, and they don't need to have a ritual casting feat in order to help.  The Leader spending all of his round "working" on the ritual represents him talking the others through their roll in the ritual.

Sample Ritual

Raise Dead
Level: 8
Type: Divine (Restoration)
Initial Component Cost: Special
Aid Another DC: 14
Failure Cost: Special
Market Price: 680 gp
Duration: Instantaneous
     To perform the Raise Dead ritual, you must have a part of the corpse of a creature that died no more than 30 days ago.  You must prepare the body with enough mystic salves equal to the dead creatures level x 25 gp at heroic tier.  At paragon tier it requires mystic salves equal to the creature's level x 250 gp.  At epic tier, it requires mystic salves equal to the creature's level x 2,500 gp.  
Check 1: Petition Divine Intervention (Religion DC 24)
Check 2, 4, 6, 8: Rebuild the Broken Body (Heal DC 24)
Check 3, 5, 7, 9: Survive the Shock of the Body Rebuilt (Endurance DC 12; May only be made by the target of the ritual.  This is the only skill check the dead character can make.  The character may not be aided on these checks).
Check 10: Find the missing soul (Insight DC 12)
Check 11: Bring the missing soul back into the body (Diplomacy DC 12)
Check 12: Reunite Body and Soul (Religion DC 24)
     The subject returns to life as if he or she had taken an extended rest.  The subject is freed of any temporary conditions suffered at death, but permanent conditions remain.  The subject immediately loses 1 healing surge per failure suffered during the ritual attempt.  The number of healing surges lost increases to 2 per failure at paragon tier, and 3 per failure at epic tier.  If the subject does not have enough healing surges to sustain this loss, he loses HP equal to his Surge Value for each healing surge he lacks.
     The subject returns with a death penalty: -1 to all attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws, and ability checks.  This death penalty fades after the subject reaches 3 milestones.
     You can't restore life to a creature that has been petrified or a creature that died of old age.
     The subject's soul must be free and willing to return to life.  Some magical effects trap the soul and thus prevent raise dead from working.
     A failed ritual can be tried again.

This ritual still shouldn't be done in combat, as each skill check should probably take a standard action, and 1 cleric, acting alone, couldn't get it done faster than 7 rounds, spending an action point, assuming no failures.  This ritual will be very hard to successfully perform on low-level PCs, as they may have a hard time hitting the high Religion and Heal DCs.  Aiding another makes this ritual more sure, but still difficult.  That's why I made it so inexpensive for heroic tier characters to be raised: failure will probably happen and have to be factored into that cost.  On the flip side, Epic tier characters pay much more in this system, but should have no problems hitting the DCs regularly.  Plus, Epic tier characters have so many ways to cheat death, it's silly, so it will likely come up only rarely.

My idea for the complexity of each ritual (# of checks required, how many hard DCs, how many built-in advantages) charts directly with how much time the original ritual required:

1 or 5 minutes: Complexity 1 (4 successes, all moderate)
10 minutes: Complexity 2 (6 successes, 1 difficult)
30 minutes: Complexity 3 (8 successes, 2 difficult, 2 advantages)
1 hour: Complexity 4 (10 successes, 3 difficult, 4 advantages)
8 hours: Complexity 5 (12 successes, 4 difficult, 6 advantages)

I decided to ignore the rule that each PC can only get 1 success for a use of any given skill.  To counter that advantage to the PCs, I am also ignoring the rule that PCs get to pretty much pick whichever skills they want to use, giving them a prescriptive order and difficulty of skills.

A failed check would cause whatever complications are involved in the ritual, and would need to be rerolled. 3 failures in a ritual would require the ritual be aborted, the initial components lost, and the ritual begun again.
In the coming weeks, I will rewrite some other rituals using this system.

Kingdom Building Part 5: Missions

Here's the not so well kept secret: in Kingdom Building, Missions, like Policies, are just slightly modified Skill Challenges.

A sample mission:

The Duke of Hazards: Rescue Duke Korlan ir'Varak from Karrnathi imprisonment.
Level 8 Complexity 3 DC 12/16/24
Required Successes (6 moderate, 2 hard)

Intrigue: 1

Espionage: 2

Espionage or Combat: 3

Research, Observation, or Intrigue: 2

Special Rules:

• Two espionage checks vs. Easy DC count as a moderate success.

This follows many of the basic skill challenge guidelines. The DCs and required successes are set exactly as the Skill Challenge rules are laid out. "Special Rules" take the place of "Advantages" but are the exact same thing with a different name. Since Units only have 6 "skills" with which to make checks, I eliminated the rule that allows for limited successes with any given skill; in fact, I codified that rule by outlining exactly which competencies were required, and in what amounts, to win the mission.

I build a challenge by outlining exactly what the mission is supposed to be. If it should be simple for the PCs to send minions to accomplish this, I make it PC level -2. If it should be a moderate challenge, I set it to PC level+1, and if it should be practically impossible, but within reach, I set it to PC level +4. Then, to set complexity, I make a list of things they will have to accomplish to win, i.e how many checks they will need to make. This helps me gain an understanding of how complex the mission needs to be.

In the above sample, I knew that, per The Forge of War, Cyre's elite adventuring/espionage group, the Champions of the Bell, gain fame for saving Duke Korlan, so I didn't want it to be easy for the Prince and his Order to Change history; it could be possible, but not easy, so the difficulty was set at level 8 (Level 4 PC + 4). Then I set the challenges. To win, the adventurers would need to:

1. Make an excuse to be at the northern border or get permission from the Queen to invade Karrnath. (Intrigue)
2. Get out of Cyre without the rest of the military noticing (Espionage)
3. Move past the Karrnathi border patrol without engaging the army (Espionage)
4. Find out where the Duke is being held Prisoner (Research, Observation, or Intrigue)
5. Get to the prison (Espionage or Combat)
6. Figure out a way inside the prison (Research, Observation, or Intrigue)
7. Break into the Prison (Espionage or Combat)
8. Get back out of Karrnath with the Duke (Espionage or Combat)

With 8 distinct tasks, it seemed complexity 3 was perfect. I selected 2 cases of moderate success with hitting easy DC for Espionage checks because the essence of this mission was espionage: I wanted whomever attempted this mission to feel like they could at least compete, even if Espionage wasn't their main deal.

Things I still need to consider about missions:

1. How should I handle missions when a PC wants to send multiple units on a mission together? My initial reaction was to use whichever unit had the best competency for each roll, but to assign failures to both sets of stamina, no matter who made the check. I would consider opening it up, allowing the PC to pick which of the multiple units would make each check, only penalizing the unit who attempting the task, and even allowing aid-another checks, with the drawback that a failure would penalize both units. I'd love to debate the virtues of both systems with anyone who has ideas, and would also appreciate any alternate ideas anyone might have.

2. Can a PC do a mission without being attached to another unit? I have a PC whose unit ALWAYS failed missions, because dice rolls were bad and their math was never quite good enough. The PC wanted to just do the missions solo, but if just the PC were doing the mission, why not just run it? Time constraints and the desire to entertain everyone nixed that idea, but after looking at what some LARPs are experimenting with, concerning how much can be done with in-between game actions, I decided to consider ways to let individual PCs (or small groups of them) attempt missions. Should I just let them make appropriate skill challenges instead of competencies? Should I convert them into "Heroic Unit" stats somehow and let them try the mission the same way an NPC would? Would that allow me to eliminate the attachment rules I am not happy with and just let the PC's "Mission Stats" also go on the mission?

Next time in Kingdom Building: a sample mission, fully executed.

Party Favors!

Two of the biggest policies completed in Kingdom Building were Prince Oargev's planning of his own wedding and Istav's secret planning of Prince Oargev's bachelor's party.  Other than researching rituals to summon Succubus Dancers, inviting all of the young and powerful of Cyre and Breland, hiring the finest caterers, and buying the biggest stash of alcohol Metrol had ever seen, Istav bartered with House Cannith to provide party favors.  These are what Cannith donated as advertisements: 


Level 2 Magic Items: Cannith Fortune Stones

• Stone of Cannith: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Fire keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed. 
• Stone of Deneith: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by a melee attack with the Weapon keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Ghallanda: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack that includes Forced Movement.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Jorasco: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Poison keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Kundarak: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack that targets Fortitude Defense. Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Lyrandar: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Lightning keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Medani: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by a a ranged attack with the Weapon keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Orien: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack that targets Reflex Defense.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed. 
• Stone of Phiarlan: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Charm keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Sivis: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack that targets Will Defense.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Tharashk: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an area attack.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed. 
• Stone of Thuranni: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Necrotic keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.
• Stone of Vadalis: (Daily): Free Action: Trigger: You are hit by an attack with the Cold keyword.  Effect: The opponent who hit you rerolls the attack roll.  If the reroll is a 20, this magic item is destroyed.

Lesser Stone Benefits

Wielders          Benefit

2                    Each ally who bears a stone gains an item bonus to the defense targeted by the rerolled attack granted by their stone equal to the number of allies with stones they can see.

     These were inspired by the Luck Stone magic items from Adventurer's Vault, but at a much lower level, no way to specifically plan to take advantage of them, and with a significant drawback. Still, they seemed useful to keep around.  The copies the PCs got were "experimental" products deemed safe, but unstable.  I had the PCs roll to get a random stone.

Kingdom Building Part 4: Units

Early on in my development of Kingdom Building, I realized that, of my 3 PCs, 2 were very much skill-focused and likely to be very successful in Kingdom building.  However, Prince Oargev was a Paladin with few trained skills and one skill related utility power, and I figured he could use something else to do during Kingdom Building.  It seemed, from that point, that the obvious answer was to give Oargev (and the other PCs, should they wish it) the opportunity to raise armies, units, or other groups and send them to do stuff in their place.


This is what I came up with:

Rule for Units:
Units represent groups of soldiers, adventurers, or other groups that can be commanded to complete tasks on the behalf of the PCs.  They don’t have combat statistics like regular monsters, NPCs or PCs.  They are designed to interact with Policies or Missions.

Competencies:
There are six core Competencies that all units have.  These Competencies are abstractions that represent how good a unit might be in certain types of situations.  Each Competency has a number of related skills.  If a unit is called on the make a skill check (such as when it is Supporting a Policy, it can use this competency modifier in place of a skill modifier.)
Combat: The unit’s ability to fight.  This includes all forms of combat, physical and magical.

Related Skills: Arcana, Athletics, Endurance, Intimidate, Religion

Survival: The unit’s ability to live off the land and endure extraordinary hardships

Related Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Endurance, Heal, Nature, Perception

Espionage: The unit’s ability to sneak, set traps, and engage in other clandestine activities.

Related Skills: Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Stealth, Streetwise, Thievery

Research: What the unit knows and what they can find out.

Related Skills: Arcana, Dungeoneering, Heal, History, Nature, Religion, Streetwise

Observation: How well the unit can perceive and understand the world around it.

Related Skills: Insight, Perception, Stealth, Thievery

Intrigue: The unit ability to negotiate, lie, or engage in other social situations.

Related Skills: Bluff, Diplomacy, History, Insight, Intimidate

The Competency modifier of a Unit is determined by how good a unit is at the particular Competencies.

Specialty: Competency modifier equals ½ level+10 (round down).  At Paragon Tier, and again at Epic Tier, it gains a +3 bonus to this skill check.  

Trained: Competency modifier equals ½ level+2 (round down).  At Paragon Tier, and again at Epic Tier, it gains a +2 bonus to this skill check.  

Untrained: Competency modifier equals ½ level-3 (round down).  At Paragon Tier, and again at Epic Tier, it gains a +1 bonus to this skill check.

I wanted to give Units stats that paralleled the core 6 abilities, but with lots of simplicity. Strength is a PCs ability to exert force on the world, so that became the unit's "Combat" stat. Constitution is a PC's ability to survive, so I converted it to a unit's ability to live off the land and survive in dangerous environments: "Survival." Dexterity is all about a PC's ability to physically manipulate the world, and "Espionage" seemed to be a good equivalent to a unit's ability to break, enter, lie, and steal. Intelligence represents what a PC knows, similarly, "Research" is what a Unit can find out. Wisdom represents a PC's understanding of the world around him, whereas "Observation" represents a Unit's ability to see what is going on. Finally, "Intrigue" represent's a group's social skills the same way Charisma reflect's a PC's force of personality.

Since I wanted these six Competencies to represent what a unit can do, I didn't want a Unit to be very good at all of them, in order to make for differentiation. I also couldn't always decide where to place each skill. The combination of those two factors led me to include every skill in two different lists.

I am not very happy with the bonus levels as I have them now. I want to keep 3 levels of competency, and I want it to level up fairly linearly. Right now, units pretty much always fail Untrained checks and pretty much always succeed at Specialty checks. This makes finishing a complete mission involving a variety of checks next to impossible. I developed these numbers by looking at the standard Easy, Moderate, and Difficult DCs for each level and subtracting 10 from each DC. Then I tried to make a line-of-best fit equation that fit each progression. I had to use a per-tier boost to make the line fit well. I'd love to get suggestions on how to have 3 levels of skill that will be pretty effective in completing challenges of their level.

Level: All units have a level.  Hero units level up after a number of successful missions equal to their level.  Military Units have a starting level related to their size and can only level up once they become veterans.
Starting Military Level
Level 1: 25-79 troops
Level 2: 80-299 troops
Level 3: 300-2,999 troops
Level 4: 3,000-5,000 troops

     I figured military units probably don't gain a lot of benefit from being very experienced, they get better the BIGGER they are.  Heroes, on the other hand, keep getting better and more deadly.

Special Orders: Most units have special abilities or effects that they can be commanded to utilize.

Stamina: How many failures in missions a unit can sustain before it is broken.
Broken: A unit that has failed a number of Competency checks on missions equal to their Stamina rating is Broken.  The exact definition of “Broken” depends on the mission the unit is attempting when it reaches its final failure.  Removing the Broken condition usually involves completing a Policy or Mission.

Training: Each unit has a certain level of training.  Most units have Standard training.  Some, primarily conscripts and peasants, have Minion training.  The best units have Elite training.

Minion Unit: Stamina is reduced to 1.  

Standard Unit: No modifications to stats.

Elite Unit: +1 to Stamina (after multiplier, if any), +1 to any one Competency.  Elite Military Units may level up as heroes.

Type: There are two types of units, Hero Units and Military Units.

Hero Unit: A small groups of heroes (less than 25 members).  These units have 1 Specialty Competency, 2 Trained Competencies, and 3 Untrained Competencies. They have Stamina equal to their level+2.  They may be issued commands to work on both Policies and Missions.  They level up after completing a number of missions equal to their level.

Military Units: Large army units (25-5,000 troops).  These units have 3 Trained Competencies and 3 Untrained Competencies.  They have Stamina equal to twice their base level.  You must have Military Credentials to send them on missions.  They gain one level when they become “veterans,” completing a number of missions equal to their base level.  This only increases their Stamina by 1.  They may not work on Policies.  

This differentiation show the difference between conscripts (military minions), regular soldiers (military standard), and  the units that DO get better the more they accomplish (military elites).  It also shows the difference between what diverse, small bands of adventurers can do vs. what homogeneous military forces can do.

Unit Actions:
Issue Orders (Standard Action):  You command one non-Broken unit you control and can communicate with to work towards a certain goal until they fail, are successful, or until a period of time you have specified has expired.  Orders you can issue include:

1. Complete a Policy:  Only Hero units can be ordered to Complete a Policy.  Each round, they will attempt either the “Support a Policy” or “Aid Another” action once.  They may only work on policies that have already been started by a PC.  They will always make their check using whichever of the policy’s key skills they have the highest modifier in.  If another PC is attempting this policy with the skill they are using (either Pursue or Support) they will aid another.  Otherwise, they will Support the policy.

2. Attempt a Mission:  The unit will make a number of Competency checks to complete their mission.  They make all of their Competency checks at once, not one per round like Policy skill checks.  Missions are developed in a joint effort of the PC and DM, designing mission parameters and objectives.  If more than one unit has been assigned to a mission, they aid another every Competency check.  The Unit with the highest modifier takes the lead, and all Units with a lower modifier aid them.

Split a Unit (Minor):  You may split a Military Unit into two Military Units of one level lower.  The Unit’s Stamina is reduced by two.  The unit’s Competency modifiers are adjusted accordingly.
Resting (Free):  A unit commanded to not given any commands for a round reduces the number of failures they have suffered by 1 at the end of the round.
Attach to a Unit (Free Action):  As the very first action of a Kingdom Building phase, a PC may decide to attach to a Unit.  This offers some significant benefits to the unit.  Compare the number of the PC’s related skill modifiers that are greater than one of the Unit’s Competency modifier.  The unit gains a bonus to that Competency modifier equal to the number of PC skill modifiers greater that the Unit’s Competency modifier.  Do this for each competency.  The final Competency modifier may not exceed the PC’s highest related skill modifier in that competency.  An attached PC cannot do anything but Issue Orders or Split a Unit.  They may detach as the first action of the following round.

I am not happy with the attachment rules right now. They work, but they take too long to calculate.

Example:
Order of the Prince’s Shield (Standard Level 1 hero unit)
Combat: +2
Survival: -3
Espionage: -3
Research: -3
Observation: +2
Intrigue: +10
STAMINA: 0/3
Special Orders: Social Creatures: You may spend a standard action to throw a banquet for the Order of the Prince’s Shield.  If you do so, reduce the number of Failures they have suffered by two.
Replaceable:  If the Order of the Prince’s Shield is broken, you may reform them by completing the Manage Order of the Prince’s Shield Policy at the level of the broken unit.  They return at the same level as they were before being broken.

Order of the Prince’s Shield (Prince Oargev attached) (Standard Level 1 hero unit)
Combat: +5
Survival: +2
Espionage: +1
Research: +3
Observation: +4
Intrigue: +10
STAMINA: 0/3
Special Orders: Social Creatures: You may spend a standard action to throw a banquet for the Order of the Prince’s Shield.  If you do so, reduce the number of Failures they have suffered by two.
Replaceable:  If the Order of the Prince’s Shield is broken, you may reform them by completing the Manage Order of the Prince’s Shield Policy at the level of the broken unit.  They return at the same level as they were before being broken.

Next time, in Kingdom Building, we'll look at how missions are put together, and later, how I'd use Units and Missions to resolve mass-combat in 4ed.

The Order of the Prince's Shield

As far as I can tell, for me, playing Dungeons and Dragons has the following rewards (in no particular order):

1. Spending time with people you like.
2. Story rewards, allowing me, the player, to tell about the cool things my characters have done
3. Gaining XP, allowing your character to get new cool abilities
4. Getting magic items, allowing your character to have new cool stuff

I have a hard time maintaining interest in a game if all four of these are not being met.  I suck and maintaining commitment to Play-by-Post games because of a lack of #1.  I have never had a game where I felt like #2 wasn't trying to be met by the DM, though I have had other players make telling the kind of story I wanted told difficult by going in a very different direction or bringing a very different tone to the table.  Generally, I like #3 to move along quickly, but being able to build out my characters to future levels easily with the character builder satisfies much of that craving.  That said, even in earlier editions, I had notebooks full of potential builds, feat selections, and skill allocations.  That brings me to my love/hate experience with #4.  

Magic items are neat, and some of the neatest magic items are too neat to put in the hands of players at a low level.  Ancestral weapons or other career-defining items are cool for heroes to have, but characters can very easily outgrow them, leaving them in the awkward position of saying, "Yes, this is my ancestral blade, but that is a +3 flaming greatsword...I'll put my blade away somewhere safe now so it can be handed down to my son when he's a level 1 adventurer."  Beyond that, the math that new magic items give a PC is important, and having bigger numbers is just plain FUN.  Story purists might argue, but for me, as much as I like story, I want to play a bad-ass as well.  Gear is a part of that.

My friend and first DM, Harbinger of Doom, tried to solve this problem in the first long term D&D campaign I ever played in.  One of the characters was a blacksmith-turned-cleric who had crafted his very own greatsword.  As he leveled up, HoD gave him some opportunities to test himself and strengthen the ties he had with his sword, causing his sword to gain magical properties.  Eventually, the Cleric took "Craft Magic Arms and Armor."  That helped.  Later down the road, my PC, a Fighter/Wizard focused in counter-magic, found an intelligent magic falchion and I had some say in giving it magic capabilities when I performed a ceremony of naming, giving it a name.  

In 4th edition, the Transfer Enchantment ritual from Adventurer's Vault solves some of this problem, letting you transfer away old enchantments from your blade, and transferring in new enchantments from other items. And while I love the original DMG principal that all magic items should be cool items that your party will want to use and approach my DMing with both wish lists and the parcel system in its entirety, I find giving the PC who is going to want the flaming greataxe +1-+6 a new slightly stronger flaming weapon, much less flaming greataxe, a little strange.  The following is my partial solution to the matter of D&D and Magic Items:

At the end of my PC's first adventure, I gifted each of them with a medal called the "Order of the Prince's Shield."  It takes up no item slot and can't reasonably be sold.  In-game, the PCs were told that this medal collected ambient residuum given off from the magical nature of the cosmos, strongest where spell effects take place, and uses it to spontaneously strengthen existing magic item enchantments.  AKA: it lets me increase the +2 greataxe into a +3 greataxe instead of giving out the upgrade as treasure.  This means a PC who really likes the magic sword they found at level 3 can keep that sword his entire adventuring career.  It will keep growing stronger.  I account for these increases in power as a treasure parcel, and it encourages me to describe each and every magic item I hand out with interesting details, making magic items magical again and a true part of the characters,

Encounters: Bar Fight!

One of the goals I have in my Eberron campaign is to hit as many of the big pulp tropes as possible: train heist, airship adventure, ancient temple, cultists, secret science installation, you know, the important ones.  And of course, the one trope that transcends all genres: the bar fight.

With my PCs recently heading into Sharn, I decided that a big-city bar brawl would be a great opportunity to let them bar fight while they were still low enough level that a bar-fight could be a reasonable challenge.  Once this was decided, I figured I should do what Harbinger of Doom did and make alternate powers for my PCs to use in the bar fight.  My next thought was that I have three Essentials PCs that don't have the traditional At-Will, Encounter, Daily structure: Art the Changeling Thief and Tact the Warforged Slayer have no attack powers at all; Bosh the Valenar Elf Hunter has a single encounter attack power.  That's not to say these characters don't have combat options--they have combat useful class abilities, triggered powers, and utilities that make them REALLY strong.  Because of this, I decided to go a new direction to make bar-fighting fun.

I handed each of the PCs this list:

Bar Fight Weapons:
Melee Attack Bonus Damage Special Qualities
Fist +1 1d4 Unarmed
Stool +0 1d12 2-handed, Brutal 1
Pool Cue +1 1d10 2-handed, Reach
Bottle (Unbroken) +0 1d6 1-handed, High Crit., off-hand
Bottle (Broken) +0 1d6 Sneak Attack, Off-hand
Pewter Tankard +0 1d6 Defensive, Off-hand
Chair Leg +1 1d8 Versatile
Ranged Attack Bonus Damage Special Qualities Range
Dart +1 1d4 Sneak Attack 5/10
Bottle +0 1d6 High Crit. 3/6
Platter +0 1d10 Brutal 1 5/10
Plate +0 1d8 Brutal 1 5/10

Billiard Ball +1 1d6 Brutal 1 5/10

I told them, for all attacks, to just use their standard math with their standard gear-but to use the item with which they were attacking's dice, special qualities, and a bonus to the attack roll, if applicable. This changed their combat effectiveness very minimally. My one caster is a bard, and I figured if there was any sort of magic that was acceptable in a bar fight, bardic magic would be it.

Other rule modifications: All damage was "nonlethal." For the PCs, what that meant was that if they dropped to 0 HP, they could still make "death saves," but they'd never accrue failures-they could, however, roll a 20 and get back into the fight.

And the main combatant:

This guy managed to do what I wanted: instill fear into the PCs. It helped that I scored a crit on the poor, defenseless elf on the first punch of the fight, but his other abilities were impressive.


Bear Hug+Hurl proved to be a powerful way to control the fight and deal with being outnumbered. I changed Bear Hug to target Reflex, because it made more sense. I recharged it a lot early in the fight, which made Lurg particularly hated. One-Two punch made for some useful bread-and-butter attacks, once again, taking advantage of a little bit of control, keeping the fight, at least a little bit, on his terms.


The rest of the combatants were minions with a twist: each of them had a "defeated state." For some, their defeated state was simply dropped, for others, like the bouncer, the defeated state was to do something else, like barricade themselves in the back with the money.


Because I never want fights that don't, in some way, move the plot forward, I introduced a temptation to this fight that the PCs embraced. They knew that the Order of the Emerald claw had men in the bar, meeting with the same guy they were about to meet with. They took advantage of the bar fight to take out the two guards (whom they would have had to fight later) left in the common room. This meant two of the PCs who would have made the rest of the fight fairly simple instead fought non-minion Emerald Claw warriors, ratcheting the fight's difficulty from "standard" to "hard." However, considering that this was a low-risk situation, with no bleeding to death possible, it was a good choice, as it lowered the eventual Emerald Claw fight from High-Moderate to pretty easy.