NEW POLL: Auto-SCALER?

[malakai6276]

My fiancee and I had the idea to create a sliding CR adjuster for people who use pre-fab adventures (i.e. modules for the ol'timers] or published adventures from Wizards, Dungeon, etc.

Basically it would be a HUGE project for me to undertake, in my estimation, but a valuable one for alot of people. Here's how our idea would work-->

Suppose you just read the description of an adventure, say "The Dread Tower of Galiath" which is designed for a party of four level 4 characters. But... Crap! Your current gaming group has a party of level 8 characters! Oh.. wait... in the "Scaling the Adventure" section there are guidelines for adjusting the adventure for 8th level parties. Oh! "The Dread Tower of Galiath" is such a cool adventure... ok... now you've only got to scale every encounter in adventure to suite your party...

Have you ever actually done this? It's takes soooo long! Even with the help of PCGEN, NPC gen, [my] NPCEQ gen and other software...

But what if all you had to do was download the module "scaling template" and load it into a software package that automatically generated NPCs, traps, treasure, etc, etc. up and down EL according to your party. Then you could save the results and tweak them where you saw fit?

So.. i think this is a cool idea, but I want to get an idea of what the community thinks before I start working on it. Please respond to the POLL and tell me what you think. [and reply to this post with ideas/criticisms/comments/etc]

chow for now, Jonathan.
http://prfdb.umd.edu/games/npceq/index.htm

 

[CRGreathouse]

I have only two concerns, one of which (the size of the undertaking) you addressed. The other is that it would have to input data very quickly to be useful - if you have to spend 10 minutes entering something into the program that would only take 12 minutes to do by hand, there won't be much demand. If, by contrast, it would take 4 minutes to enter...

 

[smetzger]

Yes, that would be a great idea.

If you could actually do it.
If it worked properly.
If I could just download the module and chug away.

And if your software becomes too popular then WOTC will come up with a Scaling ESD Policy and you will have to redo the whole thing.

However...I don't think all three of those could be reasonably accomplished. Especially by one person doing this on the side.

 

[Luke]

So.. i think this is a cool idea, but I want to get an idea of what the community thinks before I start working on it.

I think it's a great idea, and have thought through it before, with respect to RPM, where I already have an infrastructure for this.

The starting point I have is:
- An adventure compromised of maps, locations and groups of creatures.
- The key is the groups of creatures, which have a CR derived from their race and classes characteristics.
- Since the creatures belong to a group, I have an easily derivable EL.

The plan
- Simply scale each EL by a multiplying factor, so that each group becomes harder or easier to be appropriate for a particular party.

The issues without easy answers (for automation)
- You can scale either individual creatures, or numbers of creatures to raise or lower a group's EL. They're 2 very different approaches, leading to very different flavours of encounter.
- Sometimes scaling types are "forced". Certain races don't really have classes, and you can only change numbers, or add racial HD. Others (like Dragons with age categories) actually change their "SubType".
- You can't automatically go anywhere when you need to scale down a single high CR creature. Extreme example: How do you scale down a tarrasque for a 3rd level party (remembering that a "story crippling" of the creature isn't really for a computer program).
- The whole concept of working directly off CRs and ELs as a good measure of toughness doesn't necessarily apply. For me, the situations encompassed within an adventure mostly make or break an EL. Scaling CR doesn't necessarily give the result you need. Example: An adventure situation where you get to creep up on a tribe of sleeping Hobgoblins has a wildly different EL to being encountered by the same tribe as you attempt to cross open fields whilst pursued.
- Smallish point. Not everyone in an adventure is a baddie that needs to be scaled. You need to know which is which. Extreme example: The blacksmith of strange town may turn out to be friend or foe. What would a program do to scale a blacksmith?
- Part of what makes higher CR creatures tougher, is their extraordinary equipment. Extreme example: If you scale up a 2nd level paladin to 15th, you want your program to possibly swap that masterwork longsword for a Holy Vorpal longsword.
- Changing the items owned by the creatures could wildly change, or even void the story behind the adventure. Extreme example: The story behind the original adventure was to retrieve the "Blessed Mace of St Cluthbert". It actually turned out that, in the scaled up adventure, the weapons held by most of the guards were better!
- The magical equipment owned by creatures can have a far more significant effect on EL than the racial HD and class levels that are used as a guideline. Extreme example: A 3rd level fighter with wings of flying and a +4 longbow faces off against a 7th level fighter with a +2 longsword in an open field. Who would you rather be? As a DM, I like to build adventures with "tough looking" encounters that are fatally flawed if the characters can spot a way to secure a strategic adventage. In extreme cases the EL can be irrelevant (eg. if an extremely tough beast can be caught in a pit trap without chance to escape, and perhaps burning oil can be poured in until the job is done. It might not make a difference what EL the beast was.

Personal Conclusions
- I personally prefer to hand-craft a story in an adventure with a style that wouldn't scale via an automated algorithm very well.
- In the case of RPM, I'm currently putting the finishing touches into displaying the ELs for created groups. Amongst my current priorities, I'll leave it this way for a long time. It'll be up to the DM to examine group ELs him/herself, and bump up, or lower, the right classes, or even change the races, along with the equipment.
- On the other hand - if you build it, they will come!!

Hope that's decent food for thought. Perhaps you can get inventive where I got a bit stuck. Perhaps you were thinking of something quite different altogether...

Regards (and good luck!),

 

[MythosaAkira]

But what if all you had to do was download the module "scaling template" and load it into a software package that automatically generated NPCs, traps, treasure, etc, etc. up and down EL according to your party. Then you could save the results and tweak them where you saw fit?

It's a great idea, but I don't know how well it would work in execution, mainly because scaling just the statistical information (i.e.; the NPCs, monsters, treasure, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean that the adventure will be suited for a particular level of power and the resources available to characters at that level. Spells like teleport or passwall, and powerful divination spells could allow a high-level party to bypass all the scaled-up monsters and traps in a module originally designed for low-level PCs, who wouldn't have had such things at their disposal. Or say, again, in a low-level module, you have a room with a very minor demon in it that is trapped because it can't bypass the locked metal door of the room. Scale the module upwards to challenge a high-powered party, and suddenly the minor demon becomes a Balor - which raises the question of why he's sitting around in a little room instead of melting the door, escaping, and either wrecking havoc on the countryside or ruling the entire dungeon complex. A chasm with a dangerous bridge guarded by orcs may be a challenge for a low-level party, but up the level just enough for the PCs to have access to flying magic (spells or items), and now it's not a challenge. The orcs may have been upgraded to classed-ogres, but unless the strategy of flying is taken into account by the program, will it know to give them missile weapons or spell capacity? Would it know to change the orcs to giants instead, so they can hurl rocks at would-be flyers?

I'm not trying to be negative - I think it's a great idea and one I've considered myself. But on a practical level, I don't think it would work very well - even if the monster/treasure/trap scaling could be done easily.

 

[malakai6276]

thanks for the comments...

Thanks everyone for the input. Here are some of my responses/thoughts on the "Auto-Scaler" idea:

You can scale either individual creatures, or numbers of creatures to raise or lower a group's EL. They're 2 very different approaches, leading to very different flavours of encounter.

1) Excellent point. I thought I would include a slider that would vary that "vector". For example, the slider could range from "Favor More Creatures" to "Favor Fewer Creatures" while the "Auto-Scaler" maintains the same EL for the encounter being created... as directed by the module template. [if possible]

You can't automatically go anywhere when you need to scale down a single high CR creature. Extreme example: How do you scale down a tarrasque for a 3rd level party (remembering that a "story crippling" of the creature isn't really for a computer program).

2) Also a good point. Usually the adventure designers/authors have suggestions in the "Scaling the Adventure" section that would deal spcifically with issues of that nature. The "Auto-Scaler" would use those guidelines from each adventure's "scaling template" to direct the results.

The magical equipment owned by creatures can have a far more significant effect on EL than the racial HD and class levels that are used as a guideline.

3) Well, #2 above might address this issue, but also the "Auto-Scaler" would use the same algorithms from my NPCEQ software to gen. equipment for NPC's when it needed to. Similarily, NPC's would be scaled as needed (ala NPC gen or some variant)

I personally prefer to hand-craft a story in an adventure with a style that wouldn't scale via an automated algorithm very well.

4) True, I prefer this as well. But not everyone has the time... and the same rule of thumb would apply here that applies with ALL generators... use with caution, handcraft/tweek the results as you [the DM] see fit.

...it would have to input data very quickly...

5) True, but hopefully I could maintain a webpage of adventure templates that the authors or members of the ENWORLD community would contribute so that no one would have to re-invent the wheel every time they wanted to scale the adventure. Just download the template for your adventure and load it in.

Yes, that would be a great idea. If you could actually do it. If it worked properly. If I could just download the module and chug away. ... However...I don't think all three of those could be reasonably accomplished. Especially by one person doing this on the side....

6) Lone programmers in the community have done more... just look at Jamis' work. And the NPCEQ does a lot more work under the hood that many people might realize [from an alogrithm standpoint], so I think a project like this is about the EL level for me in terms of doing something that is both fun, useful and challenging. [maybe this project needs to be scaled though...]

...scaling just the statistical information (i.e.; the NPCs, monsters, treasure, etc.) doesn't necessarily mean that the adventure will be suited for a particular level of power and the resources available to characters at that level...

7) True... but #2 above addresses this issue. Hopefully the "Auto-scaler" won't be a "Scaling Generator". My idea was that there would be a utility that people could use to automatically scale adventures as desired by the adventure authors, not just automaticall scale up/down encounters/traps/treasure irrespective of the context of those encounters, etc. I would hope that a database of "scaling templates" could be maintained that would serve the program. And the program could be used to create/edit these templates, as well as actually do the work the templates suggest. I hope that is clearer.

Thanks for comments everyone. Keep them coming. I'm still not sure if this is something I want to start working on right now... but I am curious about what the other community members think about the idea.

Chow for now, --Jonathan.
http://prfdb.umd.edu/games/npceq

 

[smetzger]

Aahhh.... Your the guy who wrote NPCEQ. Sorry I didn't recognize you. Well then I think you might have a chance of pulling this off.

 

[malakai6276]

thanks for the encouragement.
--Jonathan