The Art of the 4e Sandbox

Hello all. I thought I would post some thoughts and ideas about running sandbox campaigns with 4e D&D. This is not a comprehensive guide by any stretch, although I do hope it gets some of your wheels turning.

Classic editions of the game have an embarrassment of riches to aid sandbox play. Armed with my Greyhawk box, the 1e DMG, and some old Judges Guild stuff, I am basically impervious to my players' wildest choices, able to react and flow with virtually anything that can be imagined. It is possible to reach this state of samadhi with 4e, but there are a few tips that might help you get there a little more quickly.

First off, if you don't want to run a sandbox style game, I am not judging you. If you have the next 10 levels planned out, more power to you. It isn't for everyone. I personally love it, as it helps me hone my improvisational skills, gives players the feeling that they are in control, and makes for completely unexpected awesomeness. But is it a contradiction in some ways? Can 4e, with its carefully planned and balanced set-piece encounters thrive in an inherently unpredictable environment? Yes, yes it can.

So the first thing to ponder is the environment, the world, the sandbox. Despite some poor adventures, 4e did manage to release some great products over its run, and the best of these are actually suited to sandbox play. Vor Rukoth, Hammerfast, Gloomwrought...these are all very strong products that are not adventures; instead they lay out large areas, delineating the factions that inhabit them, providing seeds for DMs to make their own adventures. They also include unique monster stats and some flavorful items. So how do you take these products and make a sandbox out of them? There are three basic steps that I would suggest. Think up some different mini-adventures or encounters that can take place at various locations. Don't overdo it, as many may never be used. Utilize the provided hooks and histories (or make up your own) to make the area live and breathe. Finally, design some random encounter tables that fit the area.

In my Gloomwrought game, I used the text to influence my encounter tables. You have a religious district, so I had some encounter tables that reflected this; different groups of monks and clerics might be encountered. In the seedy district, they might encounter more Humanoids and bandits. Skim the lists of monsters in the back of the various monster books and put together some ideas. It doesn't matter what level the monsters are, what matters is the flavor. Do they back up the "feel" of the area? Your PCs need not FIGHT everything they encounter; in a lot of ways, random tables just help reinforce their surroundings. Experiment with widely varying group sizes of creatures encountered. No party is scared of two or three bandits, 30 however, and you might give them pause. You might find this article helpful in the process of setting up varying totals of wandering monsters in 4e.

I also looked at different areas throughout Gloomwrought and prepared loose little "mini adventures" in different locales. The cemetery is rumored to be haunted. Nobles need bodyguards for sketchy areas. Lizardfolk have infested a sewer. Populate your map with little hooks, and let players be drawn where they may. 

Finally, I slowly disseminated lore. The more the PCs explored, the more they became privy to the various power struggles and histories of the city. While they might have never even acted on any of the information, it served the purpose of bringing the area to life. That feeling that things are happening outside of the PCs; the city is alive.

If you want something less scripted and sculpted, try the Chaos Scar. Get yourself a list of the Chaos Scar adventures from the most recent Dungeon index, make up a few landmarks and random tables, and let the players go where they may. For the especially adventurous, simply offer your players a hex map of the Nentir Vale and just let them roam. Use published modules and products like Threats to the Nentir Vale to populate random tables and come up with adventure hooks. Again, the Dungeon index is your friend. Of course, you can always make up your own world; many DMs do. My overall advice for approaching it would still be the same.

Fly in the face of 4e conventions. Find ways to emphasize the passage of time. Don't hand-wave travel. In sandbox play, the travel often IS the adventure. Challenge yourself with random weather tables, scarce food or water, odd geological formulations, and bizarre encounters. If you need to make up a monster on the fly, consider these tips for quick 4e monster creation. 

To experienced DMs, a lot of this probably sounds old hat, while to others, you may have never thought of running a 4e game this way. I personally think running 4e in a sandbox style can be one of the most rewarding experiences you can have with the game system; unfortunately, you just don't have as much of the work done for you like you did in previous editions. By utilizing suitable 4e products and settings, populating some areas with adventure hooks and mini-scenarios, and designing flavorful random encounter tables, you can quickly set the stage for hours and hours of sandbox play.

I know a lot of you 4ers out there have done some of this before, so leave a post and let me know how sandbox play has worked for your 4e game!

Let's Clear Up A Few 4e Myths

Howdy. I had a few disparate blog ideas running thru the head, and I realized they all could be used to dispel a few 4e myths, so I have combined them together. First off, don't get me wrong, 4e isn't perfect and I don't claim it to be. Readers of this blog know that I constantly tinker with 4e to make it something I like more. That's sort of the essence of D&D after all: making the game your own. But I am undoubtedly a huge fan of 4e. Anyway, here are some common 4e myths and my response:





"It is difficult to convert old modules to 4e"

I don't now who started this one, but it simply isn't true. I've mentioned before that I drop Skill Challenges from my games. One of the reasons for this is that, on its own, the 4e skill system is very smooth, intuitive, and covers pretty much anything that comes up (and if something else comes up, you can roll with Ability Checks). Anyway, in my experience the 4e skill system works like a charm in updated adventures. I updated Ravenloft (I6) for 4e. There are all kinds of roleplay moments, exploration, etc where skills came up. I just rolled with it if the players wanted to use one, or called for a check if it was really needed. So there is really no conversion necessary for an old modules' out-of-combat material. It can be handled on the fly quite easily.

The monster conversion is where the real challenges would appear to begin. Now, I am not going to say converting monsters from 1e to 4e is as easy as 1e to B/X or 2e, because it isn't. But 4e does have a strength that those games lack: 4e monsters have specific formulas to work from. This can help DMs determine difficulty fairly accurately, but more importantly, it is very easy to make 4e monsters.

Confronted with the need to convert a monster in an old module, the first step I would encourage is to see if there is a 4e version within your party's level range. If so, check the source and see if it is post MM3. If it isn't, try these tips to upgrade old crappy monsters on the fly. If the monster isn't in your party's range, it is fairly straightforward to adjust. The design remains the same, you just plug in different numbers. Make sure you are using the DMG errata though.

If you can't find the monster in a 4e source, or if you don't like what 4e did the monster, build your own. This doesn't have to be laborious. Use this guide to make quick 4e monsters. Try to distill the essence of the original monster and keep it simple.



The last step is to make sure the adventure doesn't run like a sloggy mess. There are several ways to do this. You could drop the wandering monsters from an adventure and just run the prepared encounters, or you could drop a lot of planned encounters and instead just use the wandering monster tables. Or you could drop a little of both. This isn't just in response to 4e combat length (more on that below); the fact is, some old modules feel like a grind to begin with. You should also use Morale and Reaction Tables. If you are using an old module that has Morale scores, just port them over. Otherwise you can check my 4e Morale rules. Ok, so that leads us to the next myth.

"Combat was fast in old editions, never approaching 4e length"

This is simply not true. It is true that classic edition combat COULD be quicker, but it wasn't always. I know this because I DM and play old editions. At even moderate levels, old edition spellcasters could have a ton of choices, and adjudicating their effects was often not a cut and dried proposition. A typical PC's percentage chance to hit was often lower, so there are more misses. There were also huge throngs of monsters in old adventures, like all the time. I am reminded of one of my faves, Descent Into the Depth of the Earth, which was a combo module of D1-D2. There are like 20 Drow here, 40 Kuo-Toa there, 30 Troglodytes here. Heck, even in the Village of Hommlet, you will have 16 or more enemy combatants!

Now I KNOW combat can drag in 4e. I have tried to provide some tips and ideas to help with that. Simplifying monsters, using groups of the same monsters, using Morale, lowering hit points-all of this helps. But it is simply disingenuous to act like old combat couldn't take a while, especially when casters had some actual spells to cast. This has also been true of my experience with 5e so far. We had a two hour combat last week and we just hit level 2. Combat often takes an hour or more at level 1. I am not saying it isn't fun, or that this is too long, I am just saying that combat length can drag in multiple editions; it isn't only a 4e phenomenon.

"It is harder to houserule 4e than other editions"

I am tempted just to say "read my blog" as a response to this one, because there are dozens of houserule examples on here, but just to expound on it a bit, 4e is no different from any other edition of D&D. You can houserule it and make it your own with ease. The difference between 4e and classic editions is that the mechanics in 4e are "on display". The math is predictable and easy to grasp. This is already sort of covered above with monsters. This makes houseruling and homebrewing very easy. Since you have clear expectations for damage, defenses, DCs, etc at all levels, it becomes very easy to slide the scale towards "easy" or "hard". See Fourthcore. I have tweaked monster design, traps, disease, combat, and on and on, and I have only scratched the surface of the possibilities. 4e does not deviate from D&D's proud history of homebrewing and houseruling, it embraces it as much as any other edition.

That's all I have for you today. As always, I welcome comments! Take it easy!

Happy Birthday to Me: Celebrating One Year of Frothsof 4E

This month marks the one year anniversary of this blog. I just want to drop a quick post and say thank you to all of the readers that have stopped by. When I started this blog, I just wanted to add my voice to thousands of other gamers who shared their ideas and thoughts about this wonderful hobby. The funny thing about a blog is, it forces you to write. So I am personally glad I started it, otherwise I do not think I would have ever shared my ideas, and I certainly wouldn't have started work on a fanzine.

4e Forever, the fanzine I have been working on, is a labor of love. At first, I wanted to do pretty much the whole first issue myself, in order to set the tone. I have been lucky to have some contributors helping make it better, with cartography, images, and even a guest article being added to the mix. The first issue features a lot of optional rules, fluff, and two full length high-level 4e adventures, both in sandbox style. I am very proud of how it is shaping up, but there is still work left to be done. I refuse to pressure any of my contributors, because they are providing stuff for free. I also expanded one of the adventures; it added a ton of work, but it will be worth it. So, I will just have it done when it is done. In the meantime, I have tried to give a lot of previews on the blog and will continue to do so.

I have slowly but steadily built some decent traffic. For this I want to thank Sersa V at 4thcore for letting me be a part of the 4thcore hub for a while. I am also thankful to 4eblogs.com for including me in their excellent list. I also am a member of the RPG Blog Alliance. I recommend checking all of them out.

I thought I would share what were my most popular posts this year. #1 without question was the 4e Forever playtest. This was really just an opportunity for me to offer some simple rules modifications and monsters. The idea was to test my Henchman and Hireling system, as well as the new monster stat block I worked on. I also wanted to get a feel for the difficulty level. I would say it was a success; I was able to make some tweaks based on feedback, and I feel good about where things are at now. I look forward to you seeing the finished product soon.

#2 was my Henchman and Hireling article. This made me very happy, because I love my rules for this. I hope you have given them a try, if only for a one-shot. In my current 4e campaign, the players have gotten really creative with using them not only in combat, but also outside combat. It has been a ton of fun.

#3 was one of my design articles on the "Hybrid Stat Block", my concept of making the 4e monster stats more reflective of classic editions. Interestingly, it was the No. Appearing article. This dealt with my ideas on using variable totals of monsters encountered, much like the old days. You end up generating a possible range of difficulty levels, and it makes for more unpredictability in combat encounters. This crosses over with a lot of other concepts, such as eliminating specialized monster roles, standardizing hit points, and so forth.

Finally, coming in at #4 was one of my first articles, a very short little piece about a new monster type, the Savage. The basic idea is that these are Elites that are powerful enough to be run as Solos; the lower hit points balances out their increased offensive capabilities. This makes for quicker, swingier combat, something a lot of readers responded positively to.

I want to say again how thankful I am for every reader that has ever popped by, even if you hated my ideas. I love being able to have an avenue to share my thoughts on D&D. So thanks again, and I look forward to another fun year!

4e Forever Playtest!!! Check it out!

***NOTE: THE FIRST ISSUE OF 4E FOREVER IS NOW UP FOR FREE DOWNLOAD**

I am very happy to be able to share with you a short playtest of some material from my upcoming FREE zine, 4e Forever. It includes the new stat block! Please check it out and follow the instructions if you can! You should be able to finish it in one session. Even if you cannot playtest the material, I would still like to hear your thoughts. Oh, and there's a new Savage in there too!

4e Forever Playtest 1





*EDIT 8/9- I made some small edits and have re-upped it. I clarified some rules questions I had received regarding henchman initiative, savages, skills, etc, as well as made a few edits to the stat block to help its readability, something else I had some comments on. Please keep the comments coming! Thanks! 

The Hybrid Stat Block: Special Attacks

Welcome to the final installment of my series on my new hybrid stat block for 4e monsters. This is basically an alternate stat block for 4e that incorporates classic edition statistics, and it will be used in my upcoming zine, 4e Forever. Today we look at the way the stat block presents powers.

I love the clarity of the 4e stat block. I love the way powers are basically coded so that anyone can understand them. On the flip side, I also love the more conversational, narrative tone that classic edition monsters were presented with. It might seem that these two approaches are too incongruous to work together. However, I think they can, given a few considerations.

As readers of my blog have noticed in previews of my monster design, I am all about an "attack routine". I like multi-attacks as a fix to 4e's lack of high-level encounter balance, and I LOVE me some old-school Claw/Claw/Bite action, so it should come as no surprise that my 4e Forever monsters typically have a go-to attack routine consisting of multiple attacks. Simultaneously, I have also previewed and shown how I am working with variable encounter levels, and groups of the same monster. Both of these things make my new monsters very, very, easy for DMs to run, something that I am hoping will help speed up combat (along with Morale). You do not have to worry about multiple sets of statistics and a bunch of little powers here and there, hiding, spread out amongst 3 to 4 different monster types.

Since the monsters are easier to run, and since the DM is only having to look at one, perhaps two, different stat blocks for the entire encounter, I can afford to be slightly more conversational in tone with the powers. In other words, the simplicity of running the monster encounter groups allows for a more relaxed power presentation, without adding any extra prep time or difficulty to the DMs job. Now, I don't mean to make it sound too "loose", because it isn't. When I reveal the stat block later this week, you will see what I mean.

Now let's take a quick trip down memory lane. In 1e monster statistics, you have a couple of listings that I really wanted to include in my new block: Special Attacks, and Special Defenses. I decided to put a monster's primary attack routine under the listing "Attack". This listing also includes a creatures "basic attack", as its basic attack tends to be included in its primary attack routine. I also kept the "Traits" listing, used exactly the same way as it is in late 4e. Then, if needed, there are three other possible listings underneath "Attack". "Special Attacks" is used if a creature has any other attacks besides its primary attack routine and basic attacks; it also can include situational bonuses or tweaks to the primary attack routine. "Special Defenses" is used if a creature has a purely defensive power, i.e. one that does not include an attack. Finally, "Special Movement" is listed if a creature has a special power that is purely movement related.



This ends up looking and feeling very intuitive. I must say, I am quite happy with it. I still am a step or two away from revealing the complete block, however. This is because I am putting together a free playtest of some new material! This PDF will include a copy of the new 4e Forever stat block, along with three new monsters! Some basic rules (Morale, Henchmen), will be provided as well. I am trying to get it done as quickly as possible, and hopefully some of you gamers out there can run the monsters, using the variable encounter ranges, and let me know how it goes. More on this to follow! In the meantime, leave a post and let me know what you think!

The Hybrid Stat Block: No. Appearing

As I continue experimenting with ideas for a 0e/1e/4e "hybrid" stat block for my upcoming zine, 4e Forever, I thought I would share some of my thought process on its design in a series of blog posts. Today I want to give you a look at how I am bringing the classic statistic "No. Appearing" to 4e.

Before I get too in-depth, I will just say I have no real qualms with the post-MM3 stat block. It works great. It is brilliant design. This isn't a condemnation of it by any stretch, I'm just trying to provide an alternate version that is more in line with the early editions. The overall goals of the new stat block are to inject old-school feel into the presentation, streamline the information for DMs, and to help reinforce "fixes" to some 4e issues, such as encounter speed, level of difficulty, creature action recovery, etc.

Many aspects of 4e design are things of beauty. I love the logic of encounter balance and difficulty. 5 Standard monsters of the same level as a 5 PC party is an encounter of the PCs level. You can, to a closer degree than any other edition I have played, judge encounter difficulty in 4e. Even in the Epic Tier, with all its imbalances, the 4e method is still "closer" than using Hit Dice or Monstermarks (from old White Dwarf mags) ever were. But what if you crave greater randomness in the number of creatures encountered? You can always use Minions for very large monster groups, but Minions are not always the best solution. The problem is compounded by other factors. Many 4e PCs are not "trained" to flee; it just isn't in their vocabulary. Fights turn into slogs. Who even wants to use a random encounter when it is going to take up most of the session? And how can you use a variable amount of monsters and maintain a semblance of balance in the first place?

Well, the most important thing to do is to use Morale. I will not go back over the details here, but I will note that it is a crucial and effective tool to use to control encounter length. By having this variable built in to the game, you can afford to be looser with the number of creatures encountered, as encounters are typically shorter.

The second thing to do is determine monster levels and "No. Appearing". This sort of ties into another point about the monster design in 4e Forever: I am not using roles. Well, I am using Minions, Standards, Elites, Savages, and Solos, but not "Skirmishers", etc. I am trying to simplify encounter groups. Most encounters will be with creatures of the same exact type, i.e. 1d6+1 Giant Vultures. Though there will be some occasional variations, such as more than one type of Giant Ant, by and large you will be looking at the same creature. I hope you give it a chance when you see it. It allows you to really emphasize the flavor of monsters, and it is a lot easier for DMs to run; there aren't a lot of minor, irritating-to-track differences between say, a bunch of Orcs. Since the magazine deals with high Paragon and Epic, which is already taxing due to so many player options, it is a practical fix with old-school flavor, which is exactly what I am going for.

So that is enough philosophy, let's look at some examples of how to integrate variable encounter groups into your 4e game. Start by determining what you would like the average difficulty level of the possible encounters to be. For these examples, I am aiming for an average encounter level of the party's level +1. That is, if I roll and get the average number of possible creatures, it will result in an encounter of the party's level +1. You can easily adjust up or down to different encounter levels. Anyways, in these examples, I will assume a party of level 20 PCs, and I will be looking for an average encounter level of 21. There are two angles I can take to get there. I can start with a possible numerical range of creatures encountered, i.e. "No. Appearing", or I can start with creature level and go from there. Let's look at both ways.

For the first example, we will start from a numerical range of creatures, i.e. "No. Appearing". I decide I want a fairly large number of Standard creatures, 7-12 (1d6+6). The average there is 9.5 creatures, but always round the fractions of the "No. Appearing" average down; so, in this case I round down to 9. Assuming 5 PCs, I am looking at an XP target of 16,000 for a Level 21 encounter. So, I divide the XP amount by the average number of possible creatures (9). I get 1777 XP per monster, or Level 17 monsters. So the average encounter is about "9.5" Level 17 monsters. The potential encounter levels vary from Level 18 (with 7 Level 17 creatures) to close to Level 22 (with 12 Level 17 creatures). It should be clear by looking at this that the larger the static modifier in the "No. Appearing" roll, the more "stable" the range of possible encounter levels. If we instead take 2d8 creatures (9 creatures average), we still end up working with the same level of creature (17), but the encounter level range is from 11 (if they encounter only 2 Level 17 creatures) to 23 (if they encounter all 16 creatures).

Now let's look at starting with the monster level as opposed to "No. Appearing". I still want to hit my Level 21 target, but this time I decide on using Level 20 monsters. I take 16,000 (XP budget for a level 21) and divide it by the XP for a single Standard of 20th Level (2800). I get something like 5.7 creatures as our target number for the average number of creatures encountered. Unlike above, where we used the average of the possible "No. Appearing", the number of creatures here is rounded up to the nearest whole number, i.e. 6. So now, knowing what we want the average number of creatures encountered to be (6), we can decide on a "No. Appearing" expression. Let's try a "No. Appearing" of 1d10+1. Yes, this is actually a 6.5 creature average, but just as we did in the first example, we again round fractions of the "No. Appearing" average down; so, this expression gives us our target of 6 creatures. So, putting it all together, the mean (average) encounter is around Level 21 (6 Level 20 creatures, times 2800 XP apiece, divided by 5 PCs=3360, or a Level 21 encounter), while the low end (2 Level 20 creatures) is a Level 14 encounter, and the high end (11 Level 20 creatures) is a tough Level 24 encounter. That is a pretty big swing. I like it!

So that is my system, at least up to this point. I can anticipate providing another statistic that notes the possible encounter level range of a "No. Appearing" roll for monsters for a group of 5 PCs. Something like "Enc Lvl: 9-12; 11 avg". We'll see; I am open to ideas!

If you end up rolling a low number of creatures, hey it was a quick combat. If you roll up a lot, there is still a good chance the encounter will end quickly thanks to Morale (although the PCs may get severely roughed up). Now, if you are wanting to deal with a huge amount of monsters, say 20+, you will likely want to look at using Minions, or combinations of Minions and other monsters. There is a level-imposed limit to the accuracy of PCs and monsters, and if you go too far in either direction then it will become too easy or too hard to hit each other. Anyway, if it all works as planned (and playtesting has been positive), encounter length won't be a waking nightmare anymore. You can also help PCs mitigate some of the swingier difficulty with henchmen, which the magazine assumes are being used.

And that's how I am using "No. Appearing" on the stat block. This is made possible by Morale, adjusting monster levels, and using henchmen. When you put it all together, it is an attempt to use "No. Appearing" to bring old-school flavor to 4e stat block, loosen the balance a bit, and shorten encounter time. I hope I did a good job explaining it! I have tried to rephrase it several times for clarity.

I am interested in thoughts and opinions so please leave a post! I will be back soon with Part 2. I also want to say thanks to Dndblogs for including my site! It is a very cool group of 4e blogs to follow. I check it out daily, so take a look if you have never seen it before.