I'm Back and Playing (and Ranting About) 5e

For those of you who don’t know, I have not been playing anything for a number of years now. My youngest was in and out of the hospital for about three years battling for her little life and we have been struggling to find what can only be called a new normal.

When things began to settle down, I found that the group that I had played with had moved on in life, as so often happens. Some began families and have to deal with the time realities that such an endeavor requires, some left town to go to school or back to school and one even went off to the military. Thus, I really haven’t done anything with this hobby let alone something worth blogging about.

Recently, however, my oldest got together with a bunch of her friends and asked me to be a GM for their group. The system of choice was D&D 5e. As a consequence, I got my hands on the core books for the first time. The Basic 5e .pdf release from a few years back did nothing to convince me that I should fork over $40 for a Players Handbook let alone $120 for all three core books.

As I wrote back then, when I took a hard look at the free .pdf release, there are things to like about the new system; however, all of them are things that can easily be grafted onto my (still) favorite version of the game: B/X and its clone Labyrinth Lord.

Now that I have had the core books in my hands and have had to use them at the table, I can with certainty proclaim that they most definitely are not worth $40 for a PH let alone $120 for all three core books. What surprises me, however, is that this declaration has less to do with the system itself, and more to do with the way the game is written, laid out and typeset.

These books are really hard to use. The visual style is chaotic, confusing and hard to read. The best of the bunch is the PH and its a nightmare. The page numbers are not only too small, but are a light color on top of another color. The index requires a magnifying glass. I have yet to really understand the logic of why the book is laid out and ordered the way that it is. For example: races aren’t alphabetical, but the classes are?

While I will admit that the DM Guide does have a bunch of useful information for a beginner, a good chunk of that advice runs counter to my own predilections. The only reason for me to own that book is the magic section and (especially since I own several versions of the game with their own better organized version of magic items) $40 is way too much.

Lastly, I despise the monster stat block. It is visually cluttered and overly complicated. For someone who has written and typeset modules, my least favorite part of the process is monster stat blocks. Swords & Wizardry has the best, and even then it is still a task. 5e requires all six characteristic scores and their bonuses!? Put that mess on top of all the ridiculous artsy crap that fills every single page of the MM and you have something that I would prefer to use as a fuel for a fire rather then something I have at the table. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

So, yeah, the only book I’d be tempted to buy is the PH and only if I could find a deal that would put it in the $20 range. Even then, it would only be used as a reference so that I could typeset my own more table friendly version. Fortunately, I can do that legally now (and I may not even ever have to purchase a core book to do it!).

Systemically, I am going to do my best to play this particular campaign according to the book so that I can see how it plays, with one major exception: the XP rules. Just no. I can appreciate the faster progression at lower levels (especially given the fact that I am working with a group of young teenagers used to the instant gratification of cell phones, the internet and video games). What I can’t abide is that it is has everything to do with killing stuff (or accomplishing missions if you use the alternative options in the DMG) and nothing to do with gold for xp.

I cannot say enough about Dave Arneson’s 1 gp of treasure spent = 1 xp. It does such an incredible job of emulating a character investing in himself or herself. It also places almost all of the agency of how a character progresses through the game into the hands of the players.

For example: Lets pretend that there is a dragon with a requisite hoard living in close proximity to the PCs.

In 5e the only way to get experience points out of this reality is to kill the dragon unless the GM is kind enough to give you a mission associated with the dragon hoard. In other words, the only agency the players have is whether or not to risk going up against a dragon.

If one uses the Dave Arneson formula, the players are in almost complete control of how the existence of this dragon and its hoard will affect their advance in levels. They can kill the dragon, they can steal from the dragon, they can go on other adventures get enough treasure to do research about how to hide from or defeat or capture a dragon (which would mean getting experience points by spending that treasure), etc. Once they get whatever amount of treasure they want from that hoard, the players get to decide how that treasure is used to express how their character gets to the next level. They can go on a massive bar crawl, they can invest in cargo that will be traded for by merchants hired by the characters, they can begin building a house/temple/castle/bridge/bar/whatever, they can buy a fancy outfit to go visit the king, etc. How the character spends that treasure says a lot about who they are and that choice and agency is almost entirely in the hands of the player — not the game, not the system and not the GM.

So, using the training rules from 1e, I determined that the average price of advancing to the next level from 1st-9th level (when training is necessary) is approximately 36% of the total needed for that level. Thus, the one house rule I am using in this campaign is that players must spend a minimum amount of treasure equal to a third of the required xp to gain a level. In other words, if a 1st level character stole 300 gp from the aforementioned dragon hoard and spent it, they would gain a level. If that same 1st level character defeated a group of goblins worth 300xp, they would be stuck at 1st level until such time that they found 100gp and spent it.

I will grant that this has less player agency than I would like, but it is the only way I am going to be able to experience the 5e level progression while teaching these kids about player agency.

Now, despite all my curmudgeonly griping, I do think that 5e has a lot to offer the game and I look forward to seeing what works, what doesn’t and what modular bits and pieces I steal for my default Labyrinth Lord game.

Saintly Saturday: St. Apollonia the Virginmartyr

Today is the Feast of the Virginmartyr Apollonia. She was an elderly deaconess of Alexandria whose martyrdom is described in an extant letter of St. Dionysius of Alexandria. According to the letter, the persecution of Emperor Decius (A.D. 249-251) began a full year earlier in Alexandria than the rest of the empire and St. Apollonia was one of its victims.

The letter describes a “prophet of evil” who stirs up the masses against the Christians. Mobs backed by the government started to assault the homes of known Christians. St. Apollonia was pulled from her home, beaten about the face until her teeth were knocked out and drug outside the city to a fire the mob had built. They threatened to throw her in should she not worship the idols. She asked for a moment to pray. Understanding that she would be raped before she was killed, she took her chance to preserve her virginity and lept into the flames where she was consumed.

Due to the nature of her torture, she is sometimes depicted with a golden tooth around her neck or holding a pincer with a tooth.

There are several accounts of virginmartyrs who throw themselves to their own death rather than risk being raped. One might legitimately ask why these women aren’t damned for committing suicide instead of being celebrated as saints.

Suicide is the deliberate destruction of God’s gift of life as an act of spite. It is the ultimate act of turning away from God and a denial of God and His Kingdom. In contrast, these women are already dead — their fate is sealed. Rather than taking their life in spite of God, they not only offer themselves up as sacrifice, but also their virginity. Only in these extreme circumstances is such an act deemed acceptable.

Due to the fact that this whole episode sounds strange to the modern ear, I suppose this invites a discussion about what is valuable. Traditional D&D places value upon treasure and the death of monsters by equating both with experience points, with treasure being more valuable than the death of a monster.

This, of course, rewards certain kinds of behavior. Others have spoken about how this dynamic changes in other iterations of the game where treasure is less valuable than killing monsters or even setting off traps. Thus, I am not as interested in going over the same ground, but rather interested in how things besides the traditional D&D values might shape the assumed culture of a game. For example:

• Artifacts from an ancient civilization — this cleaves close enough to traditional D&D to co-exist; however, it emphasizes the post-apocalyptic culture of D&D and is likely to place the assumed culture in some distant future rather than a medieval analog.
• Freed Slaves — this, intriguingly, does not limit a culture to any sort of time frame. Rather, it assumes a far more politically developed reality. Traditional D&D takes place on the edge of the Wilderness. A campaign which values the freedom of slaves would take place on the edge of a twisted version of Civilization. This type of campaign would also emphasize the problem of extraction as part of the adventure — how do you get what is valuable out of the adventure area?
• New Species — this assumes a culture that values exploration and a context where it is expected that strange new lands (or planets) are going to have an alien ecosphere. This also emphasizes the problem of extraction — how does one treat/prove the new discovery?

I mention these in context of the discussion about the dungeon-as-adventure. I love the Mythic Underground understanding of the dungeon and (as a player) it is my favorite way to play the game; however, I understand that there are many people who actually find that sort of thing boring. Wilderness and city adventures hold much more allure; however, in my experience what is valuable in the dungeon (treasure) makes for a far more morally ambiguous gaming experience outside the dungeon— especially in context of a city. Placing value on things other than treasure could possibly make for a far more interesting campaign in these cases.

It would be interesting to experiment with a campaign structure that placed different values on different things according to the level of a character. We see a nascent version of this with the notion that higher level characters get less experience for killing monsters lower than their own HD. What if there where a three-tier system of values where levels 1-3 get experience for different things than levels 4-6 and yet different things than 7+?

***

The Teeth of the Virginmartyr

These rare items appear as human teeth made out of gold. While valuable for the gold from which they are made, they also radiate of magic. Should one wear a tooth on a necklace, the bearer would feel warm and comfortable regardless of the actual temperature and can get restful sleep regardless of the situation. Should one replace their own tooth with the magical tooth, the bearer would also gain the effects of a permanent Resist Fire spell.

Holmes & Cook: Experience

If I were doing a Holmes and Cook amalgam according to the advice given in Cook, figuring experience would be straight forward and simple — follow Cook. I am not doing that, however. In order to give Holmes precedence over Cook (while heavily relying on Cook for higher levels) some math needs to be done.

Holmes states:

all halflings and dwarves are members of the fighter class, unless they opt to be thieves.

and:

Elves progress in level as both fighting men and magic-users, but since each game nets them experience in both categories equally, they progress more slowly than other characters.

The only one of these that Cook follows is halfling fighters. Cook's dwarves require 10% more experience per level than normal fighters; Cook's elves progress as their own class that requires 500 less experience at 2nd level than if they were combining fighter and magic user requirements; and Cook (of course) has no rules for halfling or dwarven thieves.

I have to admit that I agree with Cook when it comes to dwarves. In a game where 14th level is the highest level covered, being limited to 12th level isn't much of a disadvantage compared with all of the extra abilities that a dwarf has. Therefore, there is little incentive not to be a dwarven fighter or a dwarven thief. An extra 10% experience per level makes some sense.

Halflings, on the other hand, are only limited to 8th level and only get d6 hp per level as fighters. Therefore advancing them as normal fighters makes sense. However, they would have significant advantages over human thieves without the reduction in hit dice. Therefore I would apply Cook's 10% experience increase for halfling thieves.

When it comes to Elves, I understand Cook's reasoning (4500 xp to get to 2nd does seem a bit steep), but I agree with Holmes — they should need an experience requirement of both a fighter and a magic-user. Doing some math, I think I can do this without requiring such an onerous amount.

Cook does not follow any kind of consistent pattern when it comes to assigning experience; however, there is a suggestion of one. Roughly speaking, each class doubles their experience requirement from 2nd to 3rd level and every level beyond until they reach 8th level. At this point the total requirement at 8th represents the amount of experience needed for each subsequent level.

For example: Fighters need 2000 xp to reach 2nd level. This is doubled to 4000 xp for third etc. A fighter needs 120,000 xp to reach 8th level. For each subsequent level of experience, a fighter needs another 120,000 xp — 240,000 for 9th level, 360,000 for 10th, etc. This math isn't exact (64,000 xp at 7th level is not exactly doubled to get to 120,000 xp), but it is close enough.

The magic number at 8th level for clerics is 100,000; for fighters is 120,000 and magic-users is 150,000. The math breaks down a little bit for thieves, because they also have 120,000 like fighters, but their initial experience requirement at 2nd level skews everything. In fact, there is an anomaly in the Thief progression I do not like — more experience is required to get from 9th level to 10th level (140,000) than 10th level to 11th level (120,000).

In order to fix this anomaly, to help make elf progression a little less onerous and to make the math more clean, I am going to start with those magic numbers at 8th level and work backwards. If one divides by two at every level one arrives at these experience requirements for the three core classes at 2nd level:

• Cleric = 1563
• Fighter = 1875
• Magic-user = 2350

Thus, elves would need 4225 xp for 2nd — reasonably close to Cook's 4000 while still adhering to Holmes' description as progressing "in level as both fighting men and magic-users."

In Cook, the thief 2nd level requirement (1200 xp) is roughly half of the magic-user requirement (2500 xp). If this pattern is adhered to more exactly, Thieves would require 1175 xp. Therefore, they would need 150,000 at 9th level at which point they would need 120,000 xp for every subsequent level. This gets rid of that anomaly in Cook where 9th to 10th level requires more experience than 10th to 11th.

At this point, it is simple to add an extra 10% per level for Dwarven fighters and thieves as well as Halfling thieves.