Gear, Skills, Rituals, and Alternative Rewards

So, it's been awhile, but life has become rather lifey recently. So let's just jump right in.

Let's talk about Gear...

Gear is interesting, it defines a character and allows for some inventiveness on the part of a player. That's what we want here, that ingenuity which will, hopefully, be reflected in the gear below. Now, we've already discussed how Legend4ry will be low-magic, so it should be important to note here that we will be making use of Inherent Bonuses and that the typical 4e wealth by level tables are not going to appropriate. 

All of that said, in keeping with the low-magic feel, I've slightly edited the list of adventuring gear available initially to the party. Now, at a DM's discretion, more magical gear, such as Sunrods for example, can be granted to the party. Perhaps they find an ancient stash of them or something, I don't know, let your imaginations run wild!

Here are the available sources for adventuring gear:

Weapons:

• Heroes of the Fallen Lands, pgs 331-332
• Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, pgs 333-334
• Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, pg 21 (with subsequent feat support as needed for Superior weapons)
• Superior Implements (with subsequent feat support as needed): MME, pg 40

Armor:

• Heroes of the Fallen Lands, pg 325
• Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, pg 327
• Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, pg 8 (with subsequent feat support as needed for Superior Armor)

Gear:

• Same as HotFL (pg 335) and HotFK (pg 336) except for:
• No Sunrods or Everburning Torches
• MME, pg 124

Most of the gear listed in MME is fairly iconic, such as a mirror, footpads, or even the deified Ten-Foot Pole. As this is what we are going for, it's only fitting that we make use of this wonderful supplement! 

While we are here talking about gear, let's talk about the living kind, Hirelings!

First off, hirelings rock. They are very, very useful in surviving deadly low-level encounters and dungeons and even have use later on. On one hand, we want to encourage the use of this cannon fodder. On the other, we don't want hirelings being abused. To circumvent abuse, any hirelings hired by the party will come out of their total adventurer pool as discussed here. 

The rules in 4e for hirelings can be found in Dragon Magazine 397 as well as in MME pgs 136-139. The rules for hirelings are identical between the two sources. It should be noted that a party cannot purchase a hireling above their level. Pages 137 and 139 of MME lay out some good advice for any DM regarding abuse and traits for a hireling. 

Henchmen, on the other hand are a whole 'nother bag-o-fun, and one that might be too complicated for Legend4ry. If you are deadset as a DM in granting your party a Henchman (say, if your party is short a player or two) the rules can be found in the DMG2, or there are sample Henchmen available starting on page 141 in MME. 

Let's talk about Skills...

I hate de-motivators, but it's all I could find and it's fitting!

Now, I like 4e skills. They've trimmed the fat, so to speak. No longer do we have Climb and Swim as two separate skills, we've got Athletics. Awesome! There is one thing I hate about 4e skills however and it is the laziness of Passive Skills. For Legend4ry, we are eschewing Passive Perception and Passive Insight entirely. Fail a roll and you are well trained? Sorry pal! Another aspect of skills that I've always liked also comes down to critical fumbles and successes. As we will discuss later, we should reward this luck, despite its swingy-ness. For skills this means that if you roll a natural 1 you automatically fail, perhaps at some detriment to you and your party. If you roll a natural 20 you automatically succeed. This is easy to fluff and is fun and rewards luck. Nothing sucks more than getting a natural 20 only for it not to matter and feel like a waste. There is nothing iconic or legendary about that!

One aspect of skills in previous editions were hidden rolls by the DM. "Oh, what's that party Rogue, you want to search for traps? Sure! What's your modifier?" Hidden roll by DM. "Well, you're not quite sure, but as far as you can tell, there's nothing there." That fear of not knowing how well you did is fantastic. If you, as a player, roll a natural 3 before the addition of your skill modifier and it comes up "no traps" you have a pretty good feeling there might still be a trap. However, if you roll an 18 and it comes up, you have a good feeling there probably isn't a trap. Where's the fun in that? So, for Legend4ry, let's return to that mindset and have hidden rolls by the DM for certain skills. Off the top of my head perception, insight, and thievery seem to be the big skills to encourage this on. But as always as a DM, play it by ear!

Let's talk about Rituals...

This... but maybe not that creepy...

So Rituals are awesome. They are also one of the most overshadowed design elements of D&D 4e and that sucks. They hardly get used by a typical adventuring party due to feat investment and occasionally cost. The Essentials line, as much as I love it, completely ignores rituals. Rituals, in my mind, are iconic and the fluff is just killer. I love the idea of a Mage standing over an arcane sigil and chanting as the rest of the party protects them from harm so that they can summon a planar gate to escape said threats. Awesome, right? So, for Legend4ry let's embrace that, and we are going to do that by allowing every 1st level character to begin with the Ritual Caster feat for free, even if they don't qualify for the prerequisites. Let's further this by allowing each Level-1 character to start with one free Level-1 ritual.

Rituals themselves come from many sources of the already published 4e works and I see no reason to not make use of all of them, provided that they are level appropriate. As always DMs, use your discretion as there may be a few that are inappropriate, despite level, for play. Despite the kindness we are showing to the players (and this might be the only kindness in Legend4ry, insert evil DM laugh here,) only PCs who are trained in the keyed skill for a ritual, regardless of whether a roll is needed or nor, can use said ritual. For example Bob the Mage is trained in Arcana but wants to use a ritual that has the Nature skill pegged for it despite a lack of a roll being needed. Bob the Mage cannot use this ritual as he is not trained in Nature. Now, if said ritual was keyed to Nature and Arcana, then Bob could use it! Make sense?

Let's talk about Alternative Rewards...

As we've discussed before, leveling up is rare and hard to come by and generally based on merit and having completed some epic task. This makes sense story-wise and also helps us embrace that "old-school" hardcore feel that we are going for. Unfortunately, some players (myself included, sadly) are trained to want and yearn rewards and without them they will become bored. I blame this one video games. Seriously. So, let's mitigate this potential boredom of slowly leveling up or feeling as if you've accomplished something.

That's where Alternative Rewards come into play. First off, we should mention one brief rules change to character creation: players do not start off with an Action Point, nor do they being the day with one after an Extended Rest. A DM may grant one after a Milestone at their discretion. This allows us to segue into directly into Action Points as an Alternative Reward. If the PCs to something epic or awesome or as a DM you think they deserve one; reward them with an Action Point. As a reward goes, this one can be applied more liberally than others. 

The second Alternative Reward deals directly with the adventurer pool linked to earlier in this post. If the PCs do something tremendous then it would be acceptable as a DM to reward the party with more adventurers for their pool. Story-wise this is easy to fluff; let's say the party defeats a dragon and this is such a big deal throughout the lands that it attracts a few more wanna-be's to the adventuring guild that the party belongs to. Likewise, if the party does something tremendously notorious, they could lose guild members. In addition to the above, a free hireling that doesn't detract from the adventurer pool would also be appropriate and thematic. 

The last of the Alternative Rewards would be to unlock further Races and Classes as thematically appropriate. Let's say the party runs into a Drow civilization and they free a Drow slave who happens to be a Ranger (Scout.) If the Drow slave is truly grateful perhaps he joins the party and returns to the aforementioned adventuring guild and teaches the party the tricks of his trade. Not only would this unlock the Drow as a future playable race, but it would unlock the Scout as a playable class. (And perhaps unlock the ability to multi-class into Ranger as well.) This method of Alternative Reward will be discussed in the future Legend4ry Advanced Rules pdf which will discuss the races and classes from Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, Heroes of Shadow, and perhaps even the Neverwinter Campaign Guide. 

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As always, if you have any ideas or suggestions please either email me directly or leave them in the comments below!

Next time we will discuss: Feats and DCs. These two are actually the last of our discussions before the pdf of Legend4ry Basic Rules comes out! Awesome, right?

In addition to the above, I will try to have the cover for Legend4ry Basic Rules posted next time as well for critique and suggestion.

Until next time,

-blob

Oh, and feel free to check out my other site, Sorcerer Blob: Charisma Isn't Everything, and its new, more frequent, posting schedule!