One of the fun parts of D&D is playing a unique character - or DMing a game with unique characters. Backstory and personality and great but stylish PCs are even better. (Yes, this comes from the same guy who rants about blinged up characters).
Unique combat scenes
One fun and easy way to increase the style level of your game is to encourage original and daring combat. I like players who describe their attack action instead of just saying “I attack”. These original or bold attack actions have consequences - PCs will fall down or their armor will get banged up - but I don’t assign negative roll modifiers or lost actions to encourage creative combat.
Mending frenzy
The byproduct of this is a lot of aesthetic damage to the PCs equipment but the cleric in the party keeps mending everything. I like the mending spell, but I’d also like my party to look like rugged adventurers.
It’s all about looks
So instead of “repairing small breaks or tears in objects” the mending spell will now repair small breaks and tears and leave marks - like scars - in the repaired equipment. That way, as the characters grow and become unique, so will their equipment, their weapons and armors. A character’s equipment is its own visual branding and PCs will look even more badass.
7 Comments
1:45 am on January 9th, 2008
I’m currently DMing a solo campaign, and the PC chose a sorcerer for his first ever D&D character. He’s not too slow on the rules pick up, so that isn’t a problem. The problem is, whenever he casts a spell, he basically says “I cast Magic Missle. Ok, now you describe it” (though in a much more polite way). I don’t have a problem with this, but I’m thinking I might one day spring on him “ok, you describe this one” and see what happens. Kinda random I know, but it just popped into my head when you mentioned PCs describing their own actions (which occurs about 50/50 with me in normal games.)
3:12 am on January 9th, 2008
I think this is kind of a silly change. Ultimately, the player’s going to imagine their character looking like whatever they want to imagine. I once played a Dragonborn Paladin and made a point to mention that any time we went into town I would have my armor fixed up so that it was immaculate, and while resting he would polish his armor.
If a player wants their character to look sparkling clean or gritty, I say let them.
7:15 am on January 9th, 2008
Scars…
I have some gods in my campaigns that even leave marks on the healed wounds.
A cut healed by a god of fire will look like a piece of burned skin.
a skin healed by Erragathul the Rune god will sorround the healed cut with small runes.
9:16 am on January 9th, 2008
Right. Than, on 15th level or so the character would be looking like the hero from Planescape Torment.
if you ask me, this is not the best idea. It is players bussines how they want their characters to look like.
9:52 am on January 9th, 2008
@Maikl: you are right :) I use the idea only with png clerics, so they don’t look like memory-less zombies (Torment: great game!)
I probably have an old post written in Italian about leaving “marks” on characters… Yox, are you interested in a translation? :)
11:18 am on January 9th, 2008
In my game, we use Raise Dead, Resurrection, and more often: Reincarnate (the poor man’s Raise Dead).
I make sure that every time they come back, they retain a scar from when they died. Normal combat damage (and scarring) is healed with Cure XXX Wounds, but death scars are badge of honor and leave an imprint on the soul.
Current Scars:
* A line of matching teeth marks on both sides of the halfling’s head where the Dire Wolf popped his head like a cherry.
* A line of matching teeth marks on chest and back where a Dire Wolf bit through and snapped the backbone. (BTW: Dire Wolves are waaay too tough for their CR)
* A black handprint (sort of like charred skin) on the chest where one guy got Slay Living cast on him.
* Bruises that never heal on the ribcage where the same character was bludgeoned to death by some giants.
* A thin line around the neck where one player was decapitated.
* Permanently blackened toes from death by lightning bolt.
I told them that they can get these scars healed if they want, but most players appreciate having them. They even appear on the new body when someone is reincarnated. The flesh just starts to pucker and blacken. It’s a neat effect to describe.
11:52 am on January 9th, 2008
I think the idea of letting the players leave scars on their character’s armors is a fine thematic element, so long as it is left in the players hands. The thing is, it is a small factor, and might get forgotten in the next session, but if a player gets to describe exactly what his armor looks like after repair (be it immaculate or with scars), he or she then got to verbalize something about the character to everyone. That act of player narrative, verbalizing something about their view of the game world into the shared game world, is going to be incredibly important to them, and is going to be something they remember.
I think encouraging anything *like* this is only going to add to the flavour and fun of the game, so long as it isn’t forced.
One thing I like to do with making unique combat is to allow players to describe their attacks without limits. They can swing from chandeliers, run up the dragons back with their halberd scraping, fly through the air and slice off a chunk of ogre, etc. So long as they don’t expect to get more damage or bonus from the system, they get to cinematically do something incredible.