The Oblivion Effect - read within (practical application of Elder Scrolls metamechanics in d20)

[Moniker]

For those who've played Oblivion, you'll notice that the monsters in the world always are at the same level as you. Meaning, those folks you fight initially outside of the first prison and the wolves in the world will always be a challenge, no matter what level you are.

I sort of like this, especially in consideration for a 'danger always emminent' sort of campaign.

What are your thoughts on using these rules for a game that is more realistic and gritty? How would this work in a gaming system like DnD? Although it would take a lot of balancing on the DM's part to make certain those wolves at first level are just as dangerous at 7th level, do you think this would be a noteworthy application of gritty combat for a non-standard D20 game?

[Ra-Tiel]

First of all, the Elder Scrolls games are a series of computer rpgs focused on a single main character. This setup differs vastly from the typical PnP rpg, as in TES the "DM" (read: the developers) have little influence on how the game actually resolves when it hits with the player. They can't adhoc monsters, or give more treasure, or tweak XP, or something similar.

Under this premise, I can understand Bethesda's idea of making all monsters scale with the abilities of the protagonist to always provide him with a suitable challenge - well, at least in theory. ;) Actually, the autoscaling made the game generally speaking far too easy, and in some rare occurances (as the monsters scale with level and not equipment) almost impossible to beat. When I played TES4 first, I stayed in the Imperial City quite a long time, and did quite a load of quests. When I finally made my way to Kvatch, I was level 17 but only had "noob" equipment, as I didn't get anything good from the quests I did. When I arrived in Kvatch, I was facing storm atronarchs, daedroths, and spider daedra, which easily killed my character again and again. I had to cheat to get through Kvatch at all.

Also, something similar already exists in DnD. It's called "monster advancement". ;) The main problem, however, is that it provides the DM with an extra crapload of work to do in addition to preparing the session. However, if you always kept all monsters at the same HD as the player, you're imho pretty much set already.

[Lmns Crn]

The problem with Oblivion's system is twofold.

1.) Leveling up "badly." You can increase your level by a variety of means, but the increased difficulty is always showing up in the form of more difficult combat. God help you if you've gained a few levels by boosting things like Acrobatics and Speechcraft, without improving skills that will keep your newly-leveled-up opponents from mashing you into a lumpy paste.

2.) Illusions of progress. If you're going to use a system where everything is the same level as the player, why use level systems at all? Traditionally, "gaining a level" has represented some kind of epiphany that involves progress, but in Oblivion, this so-called "progress" doesn't actually make anything easier for the player. (In fact, it can make things much, much harder-- see point 1.)

I think Oblivion's game designers' intentions-- to ensure that the challenge doesn't go away-- are valuable, but the implementation is pretty terrible.

How could this possibly be implemented in the context of D&D? Let's say, for example, that we managed to come up with a method of scaling the power of a wolf, so that it presents more or less the same challenge to a level 1 fighter as it presents to a level 20 fighter. If a player can "progress" twenty levels as a dedicated combatant without getting any better at defending himself from wolves, something is wrong. Why would being a level 20 fighter be desirable or respectable if it doesn't actually make anybody any better at fighting?

(Not to mention the compounding problems that happen if you replace "fighter" with "wizard" in that example. Massive scaling issues aside, imagining a wolf (or pack of wolves) that presents a respectable challenge to a high-level spellcaster's nuclear payload of hurting gets us into ridiculous, absurd situations very quickly.

I think there are workable solutions, but I don't think scalable enemies is one of them.

For example, try using a level-less system. D&D is a terrible system for consistency of challenges, but level-less mechanics generally work better (because it's harder for players to totally outdistance enemies.) And in contrast to an Oblivion-like system, it avoids the frustrating, paradoxical "you're leveling up but not actually making any progress" trap.

A change to the way damage works is also a possibility. High-level D&D characters have so many HP (and so many ways of restoring depleted HP) that a player can almost ignore HP damage entirely. When a warrior can function just as well with 1/1,000 HP as he can with 1,000/1,000 HP, an individual wound is as inconsequential as it is uninteresting. Introducing ways to make wounds matter, either by reducing total HP for characters or by applying penalties to wounded characters (or perhaps by some other means) will make combat more challenging, and will make players work harder to avoid getting wounded in the first place.

Of course, a good GM will always keep things challenging even in unadulterated D&D, by appropriately tuning encounters to match the players' steadily-increasing capabilities. With all the extra monster manuals and epic encounters available for GMs that walk the ultra-high-powered trail with their games, we're never going to have a shortage of tough challenges.

But if the object is to ensure that the players never get to say, "pfft, don't worry about that, it's only a wolf," I don't think it's easy to get D&D to that point without very extensive modifications. This is a game where sufficiently advanced characters can stop time, slay ancient dragons, survive a trip to a stylized fire-and-brimstone hell (complete with demon armies), and so on.

Against that context, surely there will eventually come a point where even the meanest, toughest wolf ever born poses no challenge anymore.

[Moniker]

One of the issues I had with the Oblivion games is that normal enemies would soon be replaced with better-equipped, more powerful wandering monsters as you leveled.

Similar to a number of standard DnD games, the encounter tables scale upward the higher the PCs are (which makes a very unrealistic game - standard creatures don't suddenly flood an area because the PCs are more powerful unless for some extenuating circumstance).

In my game, I've always used "standard" encounter tables. Meaning, go to Guarhoth, prepare to fight a crapload of extremely hungry and powerful wolves. Run around the forests of the Myrkwood, you better be prepared for a number of indigenous, apelings and spiders. I am fond of the idea of encounters based not on character level, but on the relative danger of the area.

My question is how can I apply this universally throughout the gaming world, without severely imbalance? Can I make those standard jackals they fought in the scrublands as dangerous at level 3 as level 9?

Monster advancement is a similar application of these same principles, but something I do a lot ad hoc during the game. Once 4th edition DnD is out, I am going to try to adopt the "Oblivion Effect", or develop some basic principles for monster advancement (and de-advancement) to see how it would work. The problems I forsee are making rules that can be used on the fly, quickly and used without too much oversight and redrafting by the DM.

One idea I had given thought to is would be reducing dice by level. For instance, if a CR3 jackal does a 2d4 bite, that means a CR1 jackal would have a 1d4 bite. A CR6 jackal has a 3d4 bite, and so on. HP would increase by 1HD by CR incriment.

[Raelifin]

Dag-nabit! LC, you beat me to the punch AND said it beautifully. >_>

[Lmns Crn]

Dag-nabit! LC, you beat me to the punch AND said it beautifully. >_>

[ooc]LC has gained 250 XP for elocution.
LC has leveled up![/ooc]

Yay! Who da man? Who da man?! LC da man! :yumm:

[ooc]N.B.: Everybody else has leveled up, also![/ooc]

Oh. Okay. *sigh* :(

[Raelifin]

I think what you want, Monkier, is a system where getting stabbed is dangerous regardless of how skilled you are with a blade. That way you can have scaling danger and still keep wolves as threats.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

And now Raelifin has beat me to my punch!

[LordVreeg]

The problem with Oblivion's system is twofold.

1.) Leveling up "badly." You can increase your level by a variety of means, but the increased difficulty is always showing up in the form of more difficult combat. God help you if you've gained a few levels by boosting things like Acrobatics and Speechcraft, without improving skills that will keep your newly-leveled-up opponents from mashing you into a lumpy paste.

2.) Illusions of progress. If you're going to use a system where everything is the same level as the player, why use level systems at all? Traditionally, "gaining a level" has represented some kind of epiphany that involves progress, but in Oblivion, this so-called "progress" doesn't actually make anything easier for the player. (In fact, it can make things much, much harder-- see point 1.)

I think Oblivion's game designers' intentions-- to ensure that the challenge doesn't go away-- are valuable, but the implementation is pretty terrible.

How could this possibly be implemented in the context of D&D? Let's say, for example, that we managed to come up with a method of scaling the power of a wolf, so that it presents more or less the same challenge to a level 1 fighter as it presents to a level 20 fighter. If a player can "progress" twenty levels as a dedicated combatant without getting any better at defending himself from wolves, something is wrong. Why would being a level 20 fighter be desirable or respectable if it doesn't actually make anybody any better at fighting?

(Not to mention the compounding problems that happen if you replace "fighter" with "wizard" in that example. Massive scaling issues aside, imagining a wolf (or pack of wolves) that presents a respectable challenge to a high-level spellcaster's nuclear payload of hurting gets us into ridiculous, absurd situations very quickly.

I think there are workable solutions, but I don't think scalable enemies is one of them.

For example, try using a level-less system. D&D is a terrible system for consistency of challenges, but level-less mechanics generally work better (because it's harder for players to totally outdistance enemies.) And in contrast to an Oblivion-like system, it avoids the frustrating, paradoxical "you're leveling up but not actually making any progress" trap.

A change to the way damage works is also a possibility. High-level D&D characters have so many HP (and so many ways of restoring depleted HP) that a player can almost ignore HP damage entirely. When a warrior can function just as well with 1/1,000 HP as he can with 1,000/1,000 HP, an individual wound is as inconsequential as it is uninteresting. Introducing ways to make wounds matter, either by reducing total HP for characters or by applying penalties to wounded characters (or perhaps by some other means) will make combat more challenging, and will make players work harder to avoid getting wounded in the first place.

Of course, a good GM will always keep things challenging even in unadulterated D&D, by appropriately tuning encounters to match the players' steadily-increasing capabilities. With all the extra monster manuals and epic encounters available for GMs that walk the ultra-high-powered trail with their games, we're never going to have a shortage of tough challenges.

But if the object is to ensure that the players never get to say, "pfft, don't worry about that, it's only a wolf," I don't think it's easy to get D&D to that point without very extensive modifications. This is a game where sufficiently advanced characters can stop time, slay ancient dragons, survive a trip to a stylized fire-and-brimstone hell (complete with demon armies), and so on.

Against that context, surely there will eventually come a point where even the meanest, toughest wolf ever born poses no challenge anymore.

Totally agree with the comments made here. However, the holes that LC so elequently punched in using this system for gaming did also allow for him to point us in the right direction. Many of these issues are what made me leave classbased systems altogether.  The challenge in question is also, in my opinion, what continues to make a campaign meaningful as players mature.  Progress and evolution are part of what makes the game worthwhile for most players, but the wild power disparities that can show up in many games can ruin a lot of the fun.  

So I think the real goal, for many maturing groups, is not to make the wolf a threat to all powers of characters, but to keep the wolf a threat longer in the PC's career.  What normally suffers on the other end is the Epic level play.  If you change the system to slow down growth, or change growth, you can keep the threat level up much longer.  But no one ever beats up a dragon (or fights one without expecting casualties).

as to the HP issues, I run a very low HP game with high damage potential.  Armor protects  (DR) more than anything.  
My highest HP PC right now has 34 HP (after playing that character 12 years), so while a wolf (bite damage 6+2d6/d8 divider+1) may not pose much of a threat, it can max out at 19 hits with a 1 divider.  Something I like very much in this system is that if that wolf attacks that character and he does not have his armor, he could actually take some serious damage, at least if 2 or 3 wolves attacked him.

Note...I like gritty.

[Hibou]

You could always try and make at least some common enemies more difficult to battle because of circumstance. It doesn't work en masse, but maybe a certain band of orcs has been blessed with some particularly shiny magic weapons, had some nifty spells cast on them before battle, or are encountered in a place or situation where the player(s) is/are at a disadvantage. This certainly can't happen all the time and it just won't work with some enemies. Maybe they've been battling sahuagin on ships at sea, but at some point they're thrown overboard or the ship sinks enough that the characters are caught in water, and have to fight the sahuagin now in an environment where they have an upper hand (in more than just a penalty to attack/damage/etc.).

Pretty much everything else I can think of has already been said.

[Matt Larkin (author)]

So I think the real goal, for many maturing groups, is not to make the wolf a threat to all powers of characters, but to keep the wolf a threat longer in the PC's career. What normally suffers on the other end is the Epic level play. If you change the system to slow down growth, or change growth, you can keep the threat level up much longer. But no one ever beats up a dragon (or fights one without expecting casualties).

Yeah, it's very difficult to balance a game for both low-end play and high-end play, especially if you want to keep it realistic for both. You always face the situation, where, characters either become so powerful they can ignore lower threats, you are forced to physically cap their growth so this doesn't happen.

[the_taken]

Funny, I thought the whole purpose of the CR tables was to have the PCs encounter level apropriate challenges. How is that any different from the so called Oblivion Effect?
I've noticed this in the games I play in, when a party reaches level 10, the monsters change to average at CR10 encounters. I've also actively set-up the games that I run that way.

It's a pretty good concept. It avoids the problem of having Victory Road filled with Lvl40 to 50 challenges while the Elite Five are Lvl80 challenges.

Yes, in the Elder Scrolls series, if you level up the wrong way, you'll be a weak character, and die often.
The trick with Elder Scrolls is to set non-combat skills as your skills that level you up the fastest, and then upgrade the combat ones first. That way, all of your abilities will be go up, but you'll get the most out of your combat ones.

[Moniker]

Funny, I thought the whole purpose of the CR tables was to have the PCs encounter level apropriate challenges. How is that any different from the so called Oblivion Effect?
I've noticed this in the games I play in, when a party reaches level 10, the monsters change to average at CR10 encounters. I've also actively set-up the games that I run that way.

That's the issue - in my game, areas are either dangerous or they aren't. I don't set up or scale encounters upwards based on character level. Word-of-mouth and personal intiution becomes what tells players not to enter so-and-so forest, because it's brimming with sentient trees and malicious fey. On the same token, they would be equally as foolish to enter a city that forbids those of their country to enter, upon pain of death.

This has always lended well to some interesting ways of avoiding potentially deadly encounters, but certainly there have been times where they've either unwittingly or unknowingly blundered into the wrong place (equating to a higher CR place)

[Matt Larkin (author)]

Of course, that being the case, you don't necessarily need to change anything.

If an area is too dangerous, they should avoid it, flee, or get creative.

If it's really easy, then everyone deserves a romp once in a while. It makes players feel good for having accomplished so much that they can handle a wolf pack without real fear (good for a D&D game, not so much for a realistic game). Also, nothing says you have to play out every encounter--it's possible the PCs encounter and defeat weak foes, but if it won't tax their resources, you can simply say, "some goblins bother you then learn the error of their ways."