Sometimes You Get the Bear - GM Log
Hey everyone, welcome back to the GM Log. It’s nice to have you back! After a brutal fight, we finally have a description of our protagonists! What did you think? Are they close to what you pictured? Any big surprises? I am super excited to reveal the official portraits of our quartet. They look positively badass.
From left to right, Aesafina, Ciofra, Lucian, and Zana
Just as there wasn’t any dilly-dallying at the start of the second episode of Uncreated, let’s dive right into the mechanics that were at play during the combat against the polar bears.
MECHANICS
CRITICAL HIT TABLE
Ciofra starts the combat with a “Natural 20” (that’s when you roll a 20 on a 20-faced die), which is what we call a “Critical Hit” in Dungeons & Dragons. A critical hit assumes the character just landed a particularly hard blow against an enemy. The official rule states that “you get to roll extra dice for the attack’s damage against the target. Roll all the attack’s damage twice and add them together.” Simple enough but I’ve always felt it lackluster. It’s lacking the buzz of awesomeness I want to give my players.
I don’t exactly remember when or how I came across Benjamin Huffman’s Critical Hits Revisited, but I can tell you that it’s been years. I’ve used it in all my games, and it’s been adopted by all of my players. The principle’s simple: when you score a critical hit, you immediately reroll a d20 to see how devastating of a blow your hit was. The higher your second roll is, the more impressive your hit and side effects will be. Depending on the type of damage you deal, you check the corresponding chart and follow the instructions. Some effects of the Revisited table are particularly nasty, like the thunder effects of 14 or higher that deafened permanently. Some are more low-key like the bleeding inflicted by slashing weapons; losing a d8 of your health at the start of your turn until you use an action to staunch the wound can seriously impede you when each of your actions count.
What I especially like in the chart are the secondary effects that accompany the blows. It transforms a hit into an opportunity to make the combat more dynamic and less of a “I hit the monster until it dies” tune.
I’d say that while the chart is easy to use, it needs to be used carefully, especially against your players. Some hits should be pulled when necessary. Permanently have different meanings against protagonists and brigand B from random encounter No. 2.
Get your own copy of the table here
DARK KNIGHT
You might have quickly noticed that Zana’s abilities are unusual. That’s because her class is a home-brewed one called the Dark Knight. The inspiration behind the class is the dark knight in Final Fantasy XIV and is a collaboration between me and Hunter, who plays Zana. As we are playing, we are playtesting the class, making sure it is balanced and fun to play. It still needs some fine-tuning so keep an eye out for when we’ll release the class for everyone to play.
BLOODIED
Hit Points are a strange thing. They represent a creature’s vitality and when they run out, they either die or fall unconscious.
The Player’s Handbook has this interesting insert on p. 197: “Dungeons Masters describe hit point loss in different ways. When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no sign of injury. When you drop below half of your hit points maximum, you show signs of wear, such as cuts and bruises. An attack that reduces you to 0 hit points strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma, or it simply knocks you unconscious.”
The wording is really weird to me. I follow everything except the part that says, “strikes you directly, leaving a bleeding injury or other trauma.” It seems to imply it is only the hit that reduces you to 0 hit points that leaves a noticeable mark that is more than a bruise.
I understand why it’s worded this way. It’s to avoid calling shots and players who do not grasp how it’s possible for a creature to still be alive when they’ve just described how they’ve cut the goblin’s guts, removed part of an ilithid’s brain, and whatnot. But instead of opting for cuts and bruises (come on, there is nothing epic about scrapes and glanced blows until death), I prefer to go the Boromir way. It’s so much more interesting to describe a fight with cracked bones, blood spatter, knocked teeth, burnt skin and necrotized veins (if everyone’s on board with that of course). I mention Boromir because I think Boromir’s death in The Fellowship of the Ring is a good example of how a fighter can take more than glancing blows before running out of Hit Points. It’s all in the description. Don’t let your players overdo it. Let them be creative but be sure they understand how Hit Points work and that called shots are not possible in D&D.
Now, about the Bloodied marker. This little tidbit isn’t really a mechanic, but more of a marker I notify the players with during combat. It’s not really a condition, more like a state. It’s a leftover from previous editions that I was personally attached to and that players appreciate. When an enemy reaches that threshold of halfway below their hit points maximum, it will add a red dot on the token and let them know the enemy is bloodied. It gives them a sense of how much vitality this type of creature has. It also helps translate something that would be noticeable if the players were actually there in their character’s skin, looking around. A “vibe” if you will. That’s why they also use the bloodied marker among themselves to let each other know they are injured without referencing meta knowledge like Hit Points.
FLANKING ADVANTAGE
Flanking, which simply put in D&D lingo, means attacking an enemy from opposing directions at the same time, is an optional rule in D&D 5e. It’s interesting to use since it represents the tactical advantage of good positioning and it promotes teamwork. In previous editions of the game, flanking gave you bonuses like a +2 to your attack rolls. The 5th edition avoids adding circumstantial bonuses of the kind and instead gives advantage to a flanking character. The optional rule can be found in its entirety in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG), p. 251.
Mechanically, my way of applying flanking on the battle map is the same as the one offered in the DMG. There is, however, a small change on who can benefit from the tactical advantage. At my table, only martially trained characters can flank in combat. My basis for this ruling is that flanking is intrinsically a military maneuver. To know how to take advantage of such positioning takes years of training. To determine if a character is “martially trained,” I have kept it pretty simple: if they can use martial weapons, then they are martially trained. Some character builds are pretty special with subclasses, backgrounds, etc. it’s up to the GM to determine with the player what makes sense in those situations.
While it is only the martially trained characters who receive the advantage on the attack rolls, the other characters can still help and position themselves to give the advantage to their ally. As long as it is an ally opposite them in the flanking position, the martially trained character gets the advantage.
POTION BREWING
After the combat, Lucian tries to gather fat as a component for one of his potions. Unfortunately, the bears have been corrupted by the necrotic energy unleashed upon them and the corpses are spoiled. But in other circumstances, a few things could have been collected from the bears and among them ingredients for potion brewing. There aren’t many rules or mechanics about potion brewing and how the herbalism and alchemist kit proficiencies work. The Player’s Handbook simply states that proficiency in the herbalism kit lets you create potions of healing but not much more and proficiency with the poisoner’s kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to craft or use poisons.
I came up with my own set of rules for poisons, alchemist, and herbalism kits. At the time I had a player that was really interested in crafting potions, so I sat down and devised a whole system around that interest. I won’t share it just yet, I’ll keep it for a rainy day.
Thiefff!! by Steven Chan : Arannis, a Shadar-kai ranger, is just about to unload an arrow into a jewel thief. When you imagine dusk elves in Uncreated, they look strikingly similar to Arannis, just with slightly darker skin color.
SETTING
DUSK ELVES
The dusk elf race is a very rare subrace that counts only a few enclaves in the multiverse. Their description in Curse of Strahd mentions they are similar to the wood elves with dark hair and dark skin. For a couple of reasons that the players might explore in-game, I decided to make them closer in appearance to the Shadar-kai, the elves of the Shadowfell. As such Dusk elves have dark grey skin and jet black hair. Their eyes are generally light blue or purple like their original appearance in the 4th edition.
The clan that lives in Barovia has a very tragic story. Only a handful of older males are still alive. All the women and children were put to death about 400 years ago upon Strahd’s order. Terrible punishment for having angered the Lord of Barovia. They are fated to die out and see their culture die with them. To make sure they never dare to move against him again, Strahd has the Vistani watch over the Dusk elves.
MYRIAM