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Author Topic: Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures  (Read 1288 times)

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Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« on: May 13, 2012, 06:22:19 AM »
I'm designing some adventures and one of the issues I'm thinking about is how to come up with a reasonable range of difficulty ratings to challenge adventurers. 

Knowing the party is key, but if i'm designing something where I don't know the characters, then I'd need some baseline to work from. After thinking a bit about this, I figured in most groups there would be someone qualified (many ranks in a skill) to make a decent attempt at most tasks. However, the question is what is considered decent? 50% , 60% or 80% chance of success? Yeah, it probably depends on what the challenge is, but coming up with a reasonable range of possibilities would help. 

I worked out a chart which shows a moderate advancement over levels of one skill for a character - probably his key skill. I assumed the character wouldn't spend more than 50% of his CPs per level on the skill, but still spend a decent amount to progress; also assume a stat of 20.  Then i worked out the TNs he would have a 100%, 55% and 1% chance of success against. This then gives me a decent range of base DRs. Of course this doesn't factor in stat bonuses, imploding/exploding rolls, fate points and so on, but gives me an overall starting point.

How do you all come up with DRs? Is this this type of chart useful?


imported_Rasyr

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #1 on: May 13, 2012, 03:03:04 PM »
This is actually more difficult to answer than I had originally thought it might be.

Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #2 on: May 14, 2012, 02:58:54 PM »

I hope that all of my ramblings here are helpful...



Absolutely. I've spent quite a bit more time refining a model that I believe will enable me to say:

"This adventure is suitable for x characters of level y-z."

Offline Fidoric

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #3 on: May 14, 2012, 05:38:42 PM »
I think it could be the basis for a skill rating system like the one you were writing about Tim. If you consider an average roll of 11 (more than 50%), you can giving someone a rating in a skill according to which TN he is likely to pass:
- an apprentice / amateur = +4 total skill bonus : likely to pass a medium TN (15);
- a journeyman /professional = +9 total skill bonus : hard TN (20) ;
- a master / expert = + 14 total skill bonus : challenging TN (25) ;
- a grand master / virtuoso = +24 total skill bonus (!): heroic TN (35) ;
- a legend / prodigy = + 34 total skill bonus (!!!) : legendary TN (45).

Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2012, 04:29:51 AM »
Spent some more time thinking about this but don't have the time right now to upload tables as images, so here's more ideas as a pdf.

[attachment[/attachment]

imported_Rasyr

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2012, 11:27:38 AM »
Some interesting stuff there......

I know that I for one, would love to see all of the monsters broken down in that manner. Perhaps adding in multiple TTG columns (one set each for 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th & 20th level), or perhaps that does TTD for PC(s) of the same level, and for the closest of the breakpoint levels (1/5/10/15/20) to the creature's level. I think that that would be very interesting....


Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2012, 04:34:11 PM »

I know that I for one, would love to see all of the monsters broken down in that manner. Perhaps adding in multiple TTG columns (one set each for 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th & 20th level), or perhaps that does TTD for PC(s) of the same level, and for the closest of the breakpoint levels (1/5/10/15/20) to the creature's level. I think that that would be very interesting....




I have to refine the combat/spellcasting progression model a bit more, but after that is done it should be possible to generate a table breaking down on average the Time to Die for monsters against characters at different level breakpoints based on the combat/spellcasting progession model.

Going the other way (how long a pc will live or Time To Death for PC) will take a bit more work as I've not yet looked at avg PC AR, Hits and DEF progression.

It would help if i could get sample characters at different levels from peoples home campaigns; to get a better picture of how CPs are being spent and other things. 

Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #7 on: May 17, 2012, 04:12:51 AM »


I know that I for one, would love to see all of the monsters broken down in that manner. Perhaps adding in multiple TTG columns (one set each for 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th & 20th level), ....




Here's a first pass.

Given a model like this:


Offline whystle

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Determining difficulty ranges when writing adventures
« Reply #8 on: June 01, 2012, 03:25:12 AM »
Still playing around when time permits; this table looks at how long PCs would last against monsters.

« Last Edit: December 21, 2021, 09:53:19 AM by Rasyr »