My N1 Campaign Prep

[Beoric]

At the top of the window in the last post, you can see the name of this map it "Ghoul Maker". I call it that because I use it to make ghouls, and to keep track of what types of ghouls I have made.

When you first open MapTools, it doesn't come with any predefined macros. Fortunately, you can go on the forums and look for predefined campaign files called "Frameworks", which users have created and shared, and which have most of the tools you need to run a campaign for a number of systems and editions. The framework I use is Rumble's "Fat" Framework, which is designed for 4e. I have tweaked it a bit and added in a few other tools shared by various users. For instance, I have added a calendar token that tracks in-game time; an inventory token that can be used to track a character's treasure and equipment, calculate encumbrance and advise of any adverse effects from carrying too much; and a window to assist with secret chat conversations and providing images and other information to selected players.

So, I am going to create a ghoul token. This campaign already has the framework installed. The first thing I do is set the layer to "Token", find an appropriate token in File Manager, and drag it onto the map. At this point, MapTools (not the framework) opens this window:



I'm cropping the files slightly to keep file sizes down. This window only shows up if you are dropping tokens on the Token layer, otherwise the token is added without generating any popup.

You can see here, MT has generated a default public name for the thing by naming it "Creature" and adding a random number; this is an option you can select. I can also change the token name in this window if I choose. GM name is only shown to me. The Label is visible to players, and I usually add a bit of information about weapons and armor, or a couple of descriptive words to give players clues about what they are facing; is the monster quick, or sleek, or heavy, or burly, or whatever. I've never used the speech bubble name, but I think it is an identifier that shows up in the chat. The Token Property lets you choose the default properties associated with the token - more or less the token's statistics. The properties I want are "Token4e", but I don't bother changing that because the framework is going to do it for me. Finally, you can select whether it is a PC or an NPC, and whether players are going to be able to see the token when you first put it on the map.

So here is the ghoul token, sitting on the map:



You can see on the right, I have selected the "Campaign Macros", most of which are part of the framework. Right now the token has no macros, so I select the token and press the "Add Default Macros" button (which is part of the framework), which runs the Add Default Macros macro, which changes the token property to "Token4e" and adds a number of basic macros to the ghoul token. I select the "Selected" tab and it shows these macros that have been created by the framework:



Most of these aren't important for this discussion, except for the "Management" macro, which opens a dialog box that assists you in modifying the token's data. Again, this is part of the user created framework, not something provided by MT.

I could use the Management macro to build the token from scratch, but I don't actually have to do that, because I can import the monster's statblock from any OCR'd monster statblock in the game, or even one I make myself. I select the "Campaign Macros" tab and run the "Import Monster Statblock" macro, and a menu pops up. I then paste the monster statblock into the window and click "Save".



A window pops up and asks if I want to import only the stats, or have the framework try to parse the powers and create macros based on them. Otherwise I have to program the power macros manually.



The power parser is very hit and miss, but it usually at least saves me from some data entry, so I usually select that option. In 2012, this could take a while to grind, but on a newer machine it works almost instantly, and I get this:



The framework has generated macros for the ghoul's bite, and the Rapid Claws, Devouring Bite and Death Burst powers.

The process has taken maybe a minute or two by this point. I still need to review the powers to see if they are working properly, and correct any errors; this particular token had a lot of errors, and I needed to make tweaks to pretty much every macro. Even so, I timed how long it took me to do it, and from dropping the token to finishing tweaks to the powers, including staging and taking screenshots, took exactly 10 minutes. And once the token is built and saved, I can use it over and over again, by dropping the token onto a map, and copy/pasting the token however many times it takes to create the number of monsters I need.

I'll come back and show how the framework helps me modify the macros in a later post.

 

[Beoric]

Ok, so here is the process by which macros in the framework help me change other macros. I select the ghoul's token and click the "Management" macro, and a menu pops up (left pic). Click "Edit Character" and another menu pops up (right pic).



You can see this menu has a bunch of tabs. First is the "Basic" tab, where you can edit raw ability scores, level, the amount of experience the creature is worth, etc. The use of the "Defenses" and "Skills" tabs is pretty self-explanatory, and "Resist/Vulnerable" deals with resistance and vulnerability to various damage or attack types. The "Powers" tab is the one we want to tidy up some of the powers. You can see in the image on the left a list of power macros for this token. I want to review the "Bite" macro, so I click that, and another window pops up showing the available options.



That small grey square is an indicator of the "immobilized" condition, and will appear on the token of any creature that this ghoul attacks successfully. If I want to edit it, I click the icon, and a window appears (below left) where I can edit conditions. Here I notice that the duration has been set to "special", which means it is a nonstandard duration which I will have to manage manually. However, it should have been set to "End of your [i.e. the ghoul's] turn, so I select that and close the window. Now, when the ghouls ends the next turn (after the current one), the condition will automatically be removed by the framework.



I go through the rest of the powers and made corrections where necessary, and close the editor. Next, because this ghoul was actually based on a ghast, I want to show the area where the creature's stinkiness is so bad it imposes an attack penalty. I right click on the token (above center image), and maneuver through the menus to put an aura around the ghoul. This is a type of "light" which is defined by the framework (and can be edited), that is visible to the DM (and players where the DM allows it) but gives off no illumination. It is used to mark the boundaries of effects like a ghast's or troglodyte's stink. It has no mechanical use, but it is a visual reminder to me to remind players to apply the penalty, and (in this case) it lets the players know how close they can get before being overwhelmed. The ghoul will now appear as it does in the below image.



Next I'm going to show an attack sequence, and then I will get back to detailing the Abbey Dungeon.

 

[Beoric]

So the whole process of readying the token took about 10 minutes. Now I'm going to show how it works in combat. Since I built that token I have changed the image to the one below. In 4e parlance this monster is a "brute"; high damage, high hit points, low AC. I try to pick token images that hint at how the monster works. I also sometimes add a caption or change the token name to give hints if I can't find a suitable image.

Looking at the screenshot on the left, our ghoul is on the right and its enemy is on the left. The window on the left is the initiative order, which is currently blank. The chat is in that window at the bottom of the screen. To the right I have the "Campaign" tab selected, with DM macros. With both of the tokens selected, I click "Add all".



The framework rolls initiative for both monsters, adds any modifiers, and sorts them into initiative order, and displays the initiative order. Then I click the "Next initiative" macro and it grants initiative to the creature at the top of the order, which is a token named "Test Subject" on account of the fact I use it to test combat macros.

The screenshot below shows what it looks like after pressing "Add all" and "Next initiative." The initiative order is displayed in the window on the left. You can see the initiative rolls in the chat. If I remember correctly, it does not display for the players initiative of any monster tokens that are "hidden", not does it show those monsters in the initiative window. That helps ensure that players don't know about monsters they can't yet see.



I now pick the "Selected" tab to display the token macros on the left. I don't actually want to go through a full combat here, so I click "End Turn" for that token. Initiative is then passed to our ghoul. The screenshot below shows what that looks like after initiative has passed. I still have Test Subject selected, so the macros on the right are the macros that belong to the Test Subject. The "End Turn" is the big yellow one.



For the ghoul to attack, I first select it by either clicking the token, or double-clicking its image in the initiative window. That causes it's macros to be displayed. I click the "Bite" macro, and a window pops up.

In the screenshots below, you can see that the ghoul's macros are now displayed on the right, and you can also see the popup window. The left image shows the popup before you have selected targets, and the right image shows it with a target selected. You can select multiple targets if you want to.



If you look closely at the popup, there are a lot of options that can be selected. I don't care about any of those, so I just click "Attack". The framework rolls the attack(s), compares them to the enemy token's defences, and if it is a hit, it calculates damage and applies any conditions.

The below screenshot is what that looks like. A hit point bar is visible on the Test Subject (it has 1000 hp so the bar didn't move much). It is possible to make these visible to the players or not, depending on your preference. The result is displayed in the chat window, and you can see that I have added some flavour text. If I mouseover the "GM: Attack/Damage", it displays a breakdown of the roll, modifiers and result. Players can also do this, but only for their own characters.

If you look closely at the chat, you can see that the condition "immobilized" is highlighted; if you mouseover that, you get a tooltip showing the effects associated with the immobilized condition. You can also see that the token has a little padlock symbol on it, both on the battlemap and in the initiative window.



The immobilized condition is set to expire at the end of the ghoul's next turn (as opposed to its current turn). If you cycle through the initiative, this will happen automatically. To keep players from accidentally advancing the initiative, you can only use the "End Turn" macro to end the turn of the token that has been selected. Otherwise it refuses to pass the initiative and gives you a warning like that shown in the chat below.



The last thing I want to show is the monster "speech" function. You can add a number of text scripts to the token, in case you want your barbarian to yell battlecries, but you don't want to type out "Booyah!" every time. I use it to add monster descriptions so I don't have to come up with them on the fly. The two screenshots below show how you can select the "speech" through a window that pops up when you right-click the token (left image), and how that displays in the chat (right image).



And that's it. Needless to say, it takes a lot less resolve an attack than to describe it, maybe 10 or 20 seconds if you know what you want to do in advance. And there is a lot less bookkeeping regarding tracking initiative and conditions. The framework also lets you add a variety of buffs and debuffs, and calculates and tracks those for you. For purists, who prefer to use their dice, you can also set up a token so instead of making rolls for you, you can roll a die and input the results.

Next time I will get back to the south side of the Abbey Dungeon, which is nearly complete.

 

[Beoric]

Back to the Abbey Dungeon. Unfortunately, the numbering of the south section is not in any kind of coherent order. I thought about describing them in the order in which the party would likely encounter them, but I don't want to have to keep track of those which I have detailed. I'm finding this process of explaining my choices is good for spotting gaps and inconsistencies, so I want to make sure I get through all of them.

So on to area 24. The sample dungeon mentions this area as being the lair for ghouls, but I forgot that and rolled zombies. I still have ghouls, but in a different area.

Here are the player's and DM's view of area 24:



The lighter, puffy patch of floor is an area of festering corruption, as the influence of Mabar seeps in. It looks like a slightly raised inlay of pumice, although there is no seam between it and the rest of the stone floor. When stepped on, "the pockmarked floor gives slightly underfoot, as though it was a dense, grey sea-sponge. Nausea threatens to overcome you, you feel a chill in your bones and your limbs grow stiff." If the succeed on a save, the effect passed, but if not they take necrotic damage and are slowed.

The zombies attack if any of their sarcophagi are disturbed. They fight to the death, natch, and don't have to check morale. I also give all undead training in the "intimidate" skill, which has an impact on morale checks for party retainers.

When I was checking treasure, I accidentally rolled on the wrong table and got a book with a 26th level ritual that involves human sacrifice, body and soul, and the utter enslavement of an individual. I decided to go with it. I will likely try to incorporate it in some way if the campaign gets that far.

 

[Beoric]

Next is area 25. I've really struggled with this area, I'm not sure why. I originally rolled manes here, but didn't like the change in theme for the south part of the dungeon.

Below is the player view (sort of) and the DM view. The whole area is engulfed in magical darkness, so what the players will actually see depends on the type of light they are carrying, but at best vision will be a severely curtailed.



The ghouls' nest is in that side passage to the northwest. The ghouls roam the dungeon looking for prey, and can only be found here 1/6 of the time. The ghouls are one of the few undead in here that the priests haven't figured out how to control; as a result, people tend to move about in here with large parties, and they use ghoul candles so the light doesn't give them away.

The shaded grey area shows me where the area of unnatural darkness will appear in player view. Looking at it, I see that some tweaks I have made to the darkness definitions is covering too large an area; a new feature came out in the latest update that allows areas of light or darkness to penetrate the VBL. I don't want that happening here, so I will have to correct the definitions.

The pit is a place where the hunger of Mabar has eaten away the very stone. It is probably a gateway to Mabar, and will be instant death for any living creatures that fall in. I think that is going to look quite creepy to the players, with the darkness reducing the effectiveness of torches and lanterns.

The "C" is a concealed door. I decided to conceal it with a wall hanging, then decided that an appropriate wall hanging would be stitched-together skins. I was looking around for something interesting to do with them, and ran across an undead wall hanging monster called a "Flesh Tapestry", so that's what they are.

I'm also going to need to add some feature down there to explain why there are only tapestries in that area. The whole of area 25 is actually kind of barren. These are crypts, so I should probably add coffins or something.

Ok, I've made a few adjustments. The DM's view now looks like this:



I wish I could post these with better resolution, but the pics get too big for the forum to handle. I added a stone altar and partially walled off the northern section, so the hangings wouldn't look out of place. In looking for interesting sarcophagi I stumbled across this cool mausoleum. If I remove the roof, you can see inside the mausoleum. I gave it adamantine doors because I haven't figured out what to do with it yet, so it has locks that are essentially unpickable at this level.

You can't see it with the resolution of the above images, but those shelves south of the mausoleum look like this:



Again, I really wish I had kept a record of where all of these images came from so I could give credit.

Since there was a mummy there, I decided to make them mummy guardians of the mausoleum. They are inert until somebody tries to enter the mausoleum or mess with any of the fetishes on the shelving. If that happens, they will rise, force players away from the mausoleum doors, and take back any fetishes, by force if necessary. They will not use lethal force unless the players actually figure out a way to be a threat, at which point they will very likely annihilate the party, since these are the highest level human sized mummies I could find.

The fact that these are non-malicious mummies suggests that this may have a connection to one of the elven cultures, which preserve their greatest heroes and thinkers as "deathless", a kind of undead powered by drawing on the plane of Irian, the Eternal Dawn, instead of Mabar, the Eternal Night. That suggests the skulls are "spirit idols", a way of preserving lesser (but still worthy) individuals. Speak with Dead allows full conversation with the idols (in elven), assuming the caster and the spirit of a long dead elf have anything to talk about. This puts a new complexion on who the original monks might have been. It also means the mummies might interact with elves differently than other party members.

 

[Beoric]

Area 26 is south of area 25. The DM view is below:



I case you can't tell from this image, there are a number of bandits, a woman, and a zombie, looking at a skeleton in a cage. The priests use this area to condition the undead to not attack anyone wearing the angel amulet who says the word "love." If the PCs observe the scene without being detected, they see a man approach the cage and appear to be saying something the players can't hear. The skeleton lunges at him, and the woman makes an angry gesture at the skeleton with her hand, at which point the skeleton quickly moves back. The woman is a cleric with a container of holy water, which she flicks at the skeleton every time it does something wrong.

If you look closely inside the grey area with the white outline, there are bars that go from floor to ceiling, with a (locked) gate inset. The grey area outlined in white is the area of effect of a silence spell the cleric has cast. The area is lit with ghoul candles, which the undead cannot see, and the cleric and her men are far enough away not to be detected with darkvision. This is to prevent undead wandering the halls from either seeing or hearing them. The PCs, on the other hand, can see the light once they get to the bars, although they won't be able to hear anything while they are on the wrong side of the area of silence.

The player view won't show any of the creatures unless I put a PC token in the room, so I figured this would be a good place to demonstrate another lighting feature, if I haven't before. The view on the left shows how the area looks to a PC with normal vision, while on the right is the view of a PC with low-light vision.

 

[Beoric]

I've been mostly inventing a swamp-living orc tribe for the last little bit, but area 27 has been done for a while.



The sample in the DMG has skeletons here, so that's what I used. I also have one of the effects of the dungeon's connection to Mabar, a bonepowder haze. It obscures the area, giving everyone penalties to hit. It also siphons healing magic, so if healing magic is used, the recipient regains only half the normal amount of hit points, and nearby undead creatures can see though the haze to attack without penalty.

Incidentally, at the north end of that dogleg to the right, you can see Tommy Carter holed up. That spike jutting up is another breach between Mabar and the material plane, so a good part of the corridor south of Tommy is filled in unnatural darkness. Of course, that doesn't matter to Tommy, because the candles he stole from the shrine near area 25 have burned out, so everywhere is dark for him.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Are you doing each section in advance of play (you've got players going through it already?), or was this all being done beforehand and you're showing us the results?

 

[Beoric]

I'm getting the dungeon finished before play begins, because there are so many different directions it can go. I'll start on Orlane after play starts.

I'm a lot further along than what I've posted here, but not quite done. I'm mostly doing cleanup, and I have some treasure stocking to do, and a couple of rooms need a bit more, but I could run it as it if I had to. I've statted out a new orc tribe, with orcs as tough as troglodytes to replace them in N1 part of the module. I have a single group of them in one corner of the dungeon, for foreshadowing. I'm only using the lower level orcs from the tribe, so I don't need all of the tokens built yet. In a pinch I could swap something else, or advance some generic orcs, but if I do that it will lack the flavour of the blowgun-using subtropical swamp orcs I have in mind.

I have a bit of time, though, because several of my players aren't available for a bit.

 

[Beoric]

I went through tonight and pre-rolled all the reaction rolls, and assigned morale and cohesion scores for all the monsters. I'm almost finished this dungeon, I just have one more treasure parcel to prep.

I made some tweaks to my morale/cohesion system by adding a "Command Score" based on the commander's Diplomacy or Intimidate bonus, which as a rule should be higher than anyone's morale score if the commander has an ounce of charisma and training in either of those skills.

So the commander has a Morale Score that is generally equal to his Will defence. I think the equivalent in 3e would be a Will save, and in 5e either a charisma or a wisdom save? I don't remember how saves work in 5e and I don't want to look it up. The troops will also have a Group Morale Score equal to the average of their Will scores. As a rule, the commander's Morale Score is going to be higher than the troop's, because commanders generally have decent charisma. And usually the Command Score is going to be higher than both of those.

If the Command Score is equal to or higher than the Group Morale Score, than morale checks are made against the commander's Morale Score as long as he is in the fight. If he gets knocked out of the fight, then future morale checks (starting with the one caused by the commander going down) will be against the Group Morale Score.

If the commander's Command Score it lower than the Group Morale Score, then he doesn't have good control of his troops. In that case, whenever there is a morale check you check both the commander's morale and the troop's morale, which can have results like the commander running away and the troops fighting on, or the troop running away leaving their commander behind.

If there is no commander, all checks are made against the Group Morale Score.

Troops also have cohesion, which is a measure of how much they like each other and support each other, and what they do if there is a morale failure. So a group with high cohesion is going to have each other's backs, and if they fail a morale check the will act in a coordinate way and support each other. Whereas a group with low cohesion might abandon each other, or even screw each other over (of the "I don't have to outrun the zombies, I only have to outrun you" order)

If the commander has a morale failure, his reaction is related to his Morale Score and whether his troops obey his order to retreat (or whatever), or ignore him.

All of these numbers can be standardized for particular categories of creatures. Taking 1e orcs as an example, they are lawful but only insofar as there is a tough boss giving orders. So by default, orc commanders will have a Morale Score slightly higher than the troops, and a Command Score equal to or slightly larger than that. I'm assuming that the commander is also an orc, EHPs and the like can have different characteristics. And orcs are going to have a below average morale score (1e orcs are cowardly) and a below average cohesion (they really don't like each other very much).

Which is fine for wandering monsters or a spur of the moment fight, but when you are making a prepared encounter, you can start messing with the numbers. So you can randomly or deliberately determine morale/loyalty to either the commander or the cause, and you can randomly determine cohesion. Modifiers to morale are applied to both the Command Score and the Group Moral Score.

And as I was assigning these scores some really interesting dynamics started to become apparent. An encounter where the troops like the commander but hate each other is going to have a very different vibe from one where they hate the commander but like each other, or where everyone hates everyone else, or where everyone is loyal to each other. And there are degrees of like and dislike, leading to a lot of variations of behavior. And then when you throw randomness into the Command Score, the troops may or may not be inclined to obey orders they don't like. And since the Command Score is based on Diplomacy or Intimidation, you get a glimpse into command style. So the troops might like the commander (decent morale modifier) but not take him seriously (low Command Score), or vice versa.

And to mix things up more, you can modify the commander's Morale Score according to how much loyalty he has to his commander, or the cause.

And all that is going to make a difference as to how an encounter runs whether it ends up being social or combat. Or social, then combat, if the players can figure out the dynamic and assess how team monster is going to behave in a fight.

Individuals can also have morale scores. I reserve individual morale checks for when the individual has been separated from the group, either literally (he is cut off from his allies) or figuratively (e.g. the PCs are making all their attacks on him).

And for DP, who I know would otherwise argue this point, morale is a measure of nerve, it is not a determinant of choices unless you lose it. While morale holds, team monster has the freedom to make decisions according to their nature and the DM's judgment. A commander/group can absolutely still retreat if they are obviously outmatched. A morale failure indicates that some choices are no longer available; their fear, or disgust, or hate or whatever, prevents them from choosing to stand and fight; and low cohesion removes the ability to act as a unit in retreat.

I'm looking forward to playtesting this. I think the numbers work, I based the probabilities on the tables in the 1e DMG. The cohesion check is realy just pre-rolling a somewhat more granualar "Morale Failure" table.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

And for DP, who I know would otherwise argue this point, morale is a measure of nerve, it is not a determinant of choices unless you lose it.

I wasn't going to say anything. I wasn't even really going to read through your post, to be honest (other people's game prep stuff does not really hold my interest - ditto for their session stories).

But I get your point. I just personally don't find codified morale scores necessary for play. There's never been a combat scenario where I've thought to myself "gee, I don't know if these orcs would run away or not - oh how I wish there were some number target listed that I could roll against". I've always just picked a course and had my orcs do it (unless the players actions would have dictated otherwise, like they were trying to break morale of the orcs deliberately or something, which for the record they've never opted to try before and probably never will). I get how other's playstyles might require a bit more codification - and far be it from me to dictate how they must play the game - but I personally do not find it useful to my games.

 

[Beoric]

The randomness prevents me from getting into a rut, and can sometimes inspire me to build encounters and relationship I otherwise would not have thought of.

 

[The1True]

other people's game prep stuff does not really hold my interest - ditto for their session stories

Agreed, but I'm finding a deep personal appreciation for the barocque insanity these reports reveal