D&D 4e Solo Skirmish [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

According to the critics 4th Edition D&D was not Dungeons and Dragons: it was a skirmish board game. To pass time our group sometimes plays this variant which is just fights, no story whatsoever. No roleplaying, just roleplaying. You will probably not find a board game with more variety in enemies and deeper character classes then those that were developed for the 4th Edition of the worlds oldest RPG. Enjoy and let me know what you think. Expand if you want! Basic Fantasy Skirmish Battles based on 4th Edition D&D Rules Fully cooperative / DMless D&D fights

What do I need? You can start of with a single player handbook, I would recommend one of the two essential books if you can find it. You also need a single monster book. The loot table is in the dungeon master guide, but can probably be found somewhere or an alternative table can be used.

The two most basic books that will allow you to play this variant are: - Heroes of the Fallen Lands - Monster Vault (if you can find the box set, you will also have tokens to represent all the monsters in the book and you will only have to proxy your heroes). If you already have dungeon crawl board games you will have the tiles and miniatures that can be used to proxy the different combatants.

Character generation First generate 4th edition characters the usual way, consider that most skills will not actually be used for the skirmish fights. Skills that are important are: Perception & Stealth Some other skills have relative minor effect in skirmish mode: Acrobatics (To espace a grab / reduce falling damage) Arcana (Use to check stats on Elemental/Fey/Shadow creatures – maybe identify Magic) Athletics (Climb/Jump/Swim/Escape Grab) Bluff (Feint - Gain combat advantage) Dungeoneering (Check stats on Aberrant enemies)

Heal Intimidate (Force bloodied target to surrender) Nature (Use to check stats on Natural enemies) Perception (Discover Stealthed enemies) Religion (Check stats on Immortal and Undead enemies) Stealth Thievery (Steal some items from enemies)

Encounters This system is based on 8 encounters per character level, and these encounters can be themed however you want. The basic idea is that players will have 3 days to conquer the 8 encounters and arrive victorious to level up and then continue the process all the way until they are lvl 30 – at which point the encounters will keep growing harder and the players will no longer level up.

The 8 encounters: Encounter 1 Party level –1 Encounters 2-4 Party level Encounters 5-7 Party level +1 Encounter 8 (Boss encounter) Party level +3

These encounters will have an experience budget based on the number of player hero’s and the party level:

1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 75 150 225 300 375 450 525 600 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 125 250 375 500 625 750 875 1000 150 300 450 600 750 900 1050 1200 175 350 525 700 875 1050 1225 1400 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 250 500 750 1000 1250 1500 1750 2000

7 300 600 900 1200 1500 1800 2100 2400 8 350 700 1050 1400 1750 2100 2450 2800 9 400 800 1200 1600 2000 2400 2800 3200 10 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500 4000 11 600 1200 1800 2400 3000 3600 4200 4800 12 700 1400 2100 2800 3500 4200 4900 5600 13 800 1600 2400 3200 4000 4800 5600 6400 14 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 15 1200 2400 3600 4800 6000 7200 8400 9600 16 1400 2800 4200 5600 7000 8400 9800 11200 17 1600 3200 4800 6400 8000 9600 11200 12800 18 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 19 2400 4800 7200 9600 12000 14400 16800 19200 20 2800 5600 8400 11200 14000 16800 19600 22400 21 3200 6400 9600 12800 16000 19200 22400 25600 22 4150 8300 12450 16600 20750 24900 29050 33200 23 5100 10200 15300 20400 25500 30600 35700 40800 24 6050 12100 18150 24200 30250 36300 42350 48400 25 7000 14000 21000 28000 35000 42000 49000 56000 26 9000 18000 27000 36000 45000 54000 63000 72000 27 11000 22000 33000 44000 55000 66000 77000 88000 28 13000 26000 39000 52000 65000 78000 91000 104000 29 15000 30000 45000 60000 75000 90000 105000 120000 30 19000 38000 57000 76000 95000 114000 133000 152000 31 23000 46000 69000 92000 115000 138000 161000 184000 32 27000 54000 81000 108000 135000 162000 189000 216000 33 31000 62000 93000 124000 155000 186000 217000 248000 34 39000 78000 117000 156000 195000 234000 273000 312000 35 47000 94000 141000 188000 235000 282000 329000 376000 36 55000 110000 165000 220000 275000 330000 385000 440000 37 63000 126000 189000 252000 315000 378000 441000 504000 38 79000 158000 237000 316000 395000 474000 553000 632000 39 95000 190000 285000 380000 475000 570000 665000 760000 40 111000 222000 333000 444000 555000 666000 777000 888000

Choose a book to generate an encounter from or if you have all the books you can use this table: 1d6 1 Monster Manual 2 Monster Manual 2 3 Monster Manual 3 4 Monster Vault 5 Other Monster Tome (Nentir Vale, Demonomicum, Open Grave, Draconomicum, Dark Sun Creatures) 6 Any level appropriate module or source book

Lets say you are generating the 5th encounter for a lvl 1 party of 3 heroes (a level 2 encounter). The experience budget is: 375.

We choose to use the original Monster Manual to generate the encounter and flip to the back of the book where it lists monsters per level. There are 18 enemies listed of the encounter level: 1 Elf Archer 2 Goblin Sharpshooter 3 Guard Drake 4 Kurthik Young 5 Zombie 6 Clay Scout 7 Gnome Skulk 8 Halfling Stout 9 Human Rabble 10 Kruthik Hatchling 11 Elf Scout 12 Gray Wolf 13 Halfling Thief 14 Human Bandit 15 Hyena 16 Rat Swarm 17 Kobold Dragonshield

18 Needlefang Drake Swarm We roll a d20 until we get a result, lets say we rolled a 2 for Goblin Sharpshooter, the table in the book lists page 137. We turn to this page knowing we will have a goblin encounter.

Under the goblin header in the book it lists the following Goblins of lvl 1-2 (never throw enemies at the party higher then the encounter level is at). Goblin Cutter 25 Goblin Blackblade 100 Goblin Warrior 100 Goblin Sharpshooter 125

All other Goblin enemies are at least lvl 3 or above the experience budget.

Now we keep rolling this table, adding the monster to the encounter and subtracting the experience cost from the budget. The Goblin Cutter is a special case as it is a minion monster, minion monsters cost only 1/4th of a normal monster of its level. In this case if you roll the Goblin Cutter, add them in packs of 4. First roll is a 4 – add 1 Goblin Sharpshooter to the encounter and reduce the budget by 125 to 250. Second roll is 2 – add 1 Goblin Blackblade to the encounter and reduce the budget by 100 to 150. Third roll is a 3 – add 1 Goblin Warrior to the encounter and reduce the budget by 100 to 50. For the last roll we remove all monsters above the budget from the table, leaving us with only option 1: The Goblin Cutter at 25 XP. We add 2 Goblin Cutters to the encounter to spend the last bit of the budget. Don’t worry if you cannot spend all of the budget on the encounter, your heroes caught a well deserved breather and have a slightly easier encounter for once!

The final encounter generated in this case is:

2x Goblin Cutter 1x Goblin Blackblade 1x Goblin Warrior 1x Goblin Sharpshooter

Encounter setup After you have determined which monsters are encountered, check their monster types. For example, Goblin Cutters are ordinary minions, where the Blackblade is a Lurker and the Warrior is a Skirmisher. The Sharpshooter is typed as an Artillery monster.

Lay out tiles for the encounter from whatever has your preverence (Dungeon Command, D&D Board Games, Descent, Shadows of Brimstone or other dungeon crawl titles), keep in mind you want some space for the biggest monster to move around so if possible include passages about twice as wide as the biggest monster (so a 2x2 monster needs passages 4 spaces wide).

Place the heroes in their ordinary marching order anywhere on the board, but leave some space behind them.

Set up the monsters depending on their types from nearest to furthest: Lurkers (Behind the party) Melee Minions Brutes Soldiers Skirmishers Controllers / leaders Ranged Minions

Artillery

To indicate the monsters you can use anything that resembles them such as monsters from the D&D boardgames, WHQ, Heroscape, Mage Knight or the monster tokes from Monster Vault.

Stealth & Perception Unless a character (hero or monster) has attacked (dropped out of stealth), it cannot be attacked unless the attacking character has at least a perception equal to the stealth of the monster. Do not roll for perception and stealth unless you really want to.

Surprise Round Unless at least one opposing character can see the stealthed character(s) by having a perception equal to the stealth score, all stealthed characters get to act in the surprise round. In other words, if anyone can see the enemy stealthed characters they will warn about their presence and there will be no surprise round. Still anyone without the required perception cannot attack enemy stealthed characters until they attack and drop out of stealth. Initiative Characters will act in initiative order without rolling for initiative. In case of a tie, heroes go first. Normally initiative order does not change, unless any combatants initiative score changes during the fight.

General Monster Behaviour: A monster will always try to use its bottommost skill in the stat block and try to attack the hero that it can hit the easiest. If after moving towards its target, the monster still cannot attack its intented target, it will attack the easiest to hit hero in range. Monsters will never provoke attacks of opportunity willingly, they will try to shift out of range or towards their intended target if they start next to a hero. They will not use ranged weapons or spells that provoke when there is a hero next to them that they cannot move away from. Ranged monsters will always try to stay at maximum range.

As always roll for skills that recharge at the start of the monster’s activation. Elite monsters and Solo monsters will use an activation point every round to gain an additional action. When using an AoE attack, try to hit as many heroes as possible.

Golden rule: monsters will never use abilities that do nothing (such as healing when at full health, or debuffing already debuffed targets) - use common sense when playing the monsters and be fair to them as well!

Specific Monster Behaviour per type: Minions: Minions sometimes have subtypes, but if they do not, they will act as brutes. Brute: Run towards the easiest hero to hit and attack them, if this would provoke attacks of opportunity, stop and attack the hero next to the monster that is the easiest to hit instead. Soldier: Engage the hero that is closest to a controller or artillery monster and attack them. Try to block passage to the controllers, artillery and skirmisher monsters in the back for heroes. Soldiers often have attacks of opportunities that help with this control. Their basic task is to defend the back row, but they will not just stand and be target practice for a ranged hero either. Artillery: Stand at maximum range of the target that is easiest to hit and attack them with ranged weapons. Skirmisher: Attack the target that is easiest to hit in range (range being movement + attack or just a plain old ranged attack). Also skirmishers will always try to move in their turn so they will try not to end in the same spot they started their turn in. Often the individual stat block of the monster will inform their behaviour, try to make optimal use of their traits. Lurker: Attack the hero that is the furthest from any other non-lurker monster. Lurkers are the hardest monster to

describe a standard behaviour for, check their stat block to see the most logical way of acting. Controller/Leader: Use its abilities on as many monsters (buffs) or heroes (debuffs) as possible, stay at max range and act as artillery if no buffs or debuffs are available anymore.

Example of activation: Goblin Sharpshooter when reading the stat block from bottom down lists: Goblin Tactics (When Missed by Melee as reaction shift 1. - this is self explanatory Combat Advantage (+1d6 damage against targets it has combat advantage against) This one overwrites the normal behavior of attacking enemies that are easiest to hit, it will attack the easiest to hit enemy that it has combat advantage to. Since its stealth is 12, this will probably be heroes with lower perception. Sniper (When missing with a ranged attack – stay hidden), also self explanatory Hand Crossbow – Ranged 10/20, +9 vs AC; 1d6+4 damage. The Goblin will target the lowest AC hero that cannot see it due to stealth and tries to move within 10 squares to attack it with the Hand Crossbow. Note that if the intented target is between 10 and 20 squares it will calculate with the ranged penalty if any character within 10 squares is actually easier to hit. Short Sword - +6 vs AC; 1d6+2 damage – This is a last resort attack that the Goblin Sharpshooter will use if a ranged attack from its crossbow would provoke an attack of opportunity.

After encounters After defeating an encounter roll on the tables in the 4th edition DMG page 126, roll on 1d10 on the party level table equal to the encounter level the heroes just beat. After beating the nasty goblins to a pulp, the heroes roll 1d10 on the “Party Level 2" table in the DMG and they roll a 3. As always 1-4 list Magical items of various levels, and other results list potions and gold rewards. Total any gold found and generate any magical items found as follows: Choose a book that the item is from and determine the type of item with a 1d6: 1-2: Weapon, 3-4: Armor,

5-6: Other. If the result is a Weapon or Armor, then roll of or determine randomly who the item is for, exclude people who already have loot of this type until everyone already has loot of the type. For example taking the 3 rolled earlier resulting in a level 4 magical item, we choose to use the player handbook to generate the item in question and roll a 2 on a D6: a Weapon! Nobody has found a weapon yet so it is randomly determined that this weapon will be for the Ranger. Looking at the level 4 weapons of the type the ranger uses (ranged bow) we see that the only option is the Thunderburst +1, which lists “Any Ranged” for its type. It seems the lucky heroes have found a Thunderburst Long Bow +1 from the Goblins!

If the item type is Other, roll a die for the available types, for example in the PH: 1 Arms Slot 2 Feet Slot 3 Hands Slot 4 Head Slot 5 Neck Slot 6 Rings 7 Waist Slot 8 Wondrous Items 9 Potions 0 Reroll Find an item of the level indicated and if there are multiple, roll randomly to determine was has been found.

Between Encounters After winning an encounter the heroes can take a short rest according to 4th edition rules (regain

encounter powers, spend healing surges etc.). Also if this was the 2nd encounter in a row the players won, they have achieved a milestone and they get an additional action point to spend today. As indicated in the introduction, the heroes have to defeat the 8th encounter within 3 days, this means they have the opportunity of 2 long extended rests in town. When returning to town, players can buy any basic Magical items (ordinary +1 weapons or armors), and potions. Besides that they can sell any items they have found for their full gold value, and also buy any items of the types which they have found before (such as the Thunderburst weapon found in the earlier example), including higher level versions of these weapons. In town, players can also buy rituals for their component costs (raise dead for 500/5000/50000 gp depending on tier) Defeat If the party of heroes is completely defeated (TPK), they will have to reset to the progress in encounters defeated to their last extended long rest. If only certain heroes are defeated, these heroes can be ressed in town for 500gp at heroic tier, 5000gp at paragon tier and 50000gp at epic tier, if there is no money available any players without a hero can create a new/temporary character at the current party level but with only starting gear.