Exercising Authority
Welcome to Foursaken Feature. This week is Go Outside Week, so I have a few ways for GMs and their players to get active while playing 4th edition, by incorporating exercise and other activity into the actual gameplay itself. Obviously there’s a real possibility that injecting so much activity is going to cause the game to slow down a bit, but limiting the amount of time that can be allowed on each of these activities should, I hope, mitigate that.
After considering for some time, I decided that the best way to implement the use of exercise in 4th edition is to allow players and monsters (the DM) both to perform some kind of physical activity in exchange for a mechanical benefit. To maintain game balance, and keep from bogging down the game, each player should be limited to one such activity per encounter, and the DM limited to a number of them equal to the number of players.
Recharging Powers
Instead of rolling a die to recharge a monster’s ability, the DM can do a number of jumping jacks within one minute in order to attempt to recharge it. This attempt is in addition to the normal roll on the monster’s turn. The number of jumping jacks required to recharge the ability is determined by the difficulty of recharging the power, namely 10 times the minimum die result required to recharge the power. For example, a power that recharged on a roll of 3, 4, 5, or 6 would require 30 jumping jacks in the space of one minute, while one that only recharged on a 5 or 6 would require 50 jumping jacks in the space of one minute.
Alternatively, on a monster’s turn, before it rolls to recharge its powers, a player may challenge the DM to a competition in order to make the monster forfeit its chance to recharge. This requires both the player and the DM to perform a number of jumping jacks, with the winner being the one who finishes first. The number of jumping jacks is equal to 10 times the minimum die result required to recharge the power. If the monster has more than one power, use the power with the higher minimum die result.
Skill Check Bonuses
At the DM’s discretion, you can perform some kind of exercise to gain a bonus on a single skill check. Because skills are so varied, there’s no particular exercise I have in mind for this: you and the DM should agree on something that you feel is appropriate for the skill, such as jumping jacks for Acrobatics or push-ups for Endurance, etc. The fact that this could involve a wide range of different exercises makes it difficult to state an exact bonus: in general, the bonuses should range from +0 to +5, so, for many exercises, it could be “the number of repetitions you can do in 10 seconds,” but for things like sprinting or weight lifting, you may need to find another measure.
Attack Rolls
Once per encounter, instead of making an attack roll and comparing it to the appropriate defense, a player or the DM can choose to try to resolve whether or not the attack is successful through a physical activity. The type of physical activity depends on the defense that would normally be used (AC, Fortitude, Reflex, or Will), but the general principle is the same: if the attacker wins the contest, or it is a tie, the attack hits. If the attacker loses the contest, the attack misses.
At the DM’s discretion, this option might also be used by the target of an attack, rather than the attacker. In this case, though, care should be given to prevent this ability from being used to neutralize powers which grant an above-average bonus to the attack roll.
AC: The player and the DM each perform as many push-ups as they can in 30 seconds. Whoever performs the most, wins.
Fortitude: The player and the DM each perform as many sit-ups as they can in 30 seconds. Whoever performs the most, wins.
Reflex: The player and the DM run a 30-second race. Whoever makes it the farthest, wins. If you don’t have the open space for this, you can substitute 30 seconds of jumping jacks instead, with the winner being the one who performs the most jumping jacks.
Will: The player and the DM arm-wrestle for 30 seconds. Unlike the other cases, in the event of a draw, the attack misses, rather than hits.