Saturday Morning Gaming: A Steeplechase in D&D

Our Saturday night D&D DM is thinking about transitioning to The Big Leagues (DMing at, like, Cons and on cruises and stuff) and he had us playtest one of the ideas that struck him.

Here’s the idea: It’s a steeplechase. A horse race where it’s The Party against The Bad Guys.

Rule 1: YOU CANNOT TARGET HORSES. YOU CANNOT *HARM* HORSES. DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT CASTING FIREBALL.
Rule 2: First place gets, like, 30 points, second place gets, like 25… and then, the last 5, get 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Your team doesn’t necessarily lose if one of your riders isn’t in first place, but they’d better be in 2nd *AND* 3rd if they’re not.
Rule 3: Attacking someone in front of you is normal, attacking someone behind you is at disadvantage.
Rule 4: Duration spells lasted for ONE area. So if you cast “blindness” on a rider, the rider wouldn’t be blind in the next area. Just this one.

I think that those were the big ones.

The map had seven events/obstacle courses on it. You had to make different save rolls on each obstacle course and, for each obstacle, you had a couple of ways to deal with it. Head on (and potentially move up in the places) or go the long way around (much less difficult save rolls but you’d probably move back in the places). So, like, in this area you had to roll Animal Handing *OR* Acrobatics, in that one you had to roll Athletics *OR* Nature. This made it so that you probably had one area of expertise for the obstacle (or, at least, one you didn’t suck at) but the downside was that the opponents had the same thing going on.

For example, in the woods part of the race, you could stick to the windy path and not have to worry about dodging trees/tree branches *OR* you could run through the trees and have to dodge.

In the hill climb part of the race, you could go full speed ahead and try to roll a 16 or better *OR* you could lose a position and only have to roll a 14. Or lose two and roll a 12. Or lose 3 and roll a 10. That’s a coin flip!

Meanwhile, you and your opponents were fighting each other or healing yourselves after they somehow hit an 18 armor class at disadvantage and did, holy crap, 22 points of damage? With one hit?

Our party consisted of a Rogue, a Barbarian, a Sorcerer, a Ranger, and a Cleric. Their party consisted of a Paladin (Revenge variant), Fighter, Wizard, Bard, and… something else. I don’t recall. But I *DO* recall that the Bard kept throwing additional d4s at his teammates for each obstacle and that was a pain in the butt.

At the end of the race, our team won but not because we had made any particularly good saving throws but because we managed to take out two of the other team’s riders (after they came *THIS* close to killing our Rogue and our Ranger). We ended up with, like, 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th (8th was me).

AND IT WAS AWESOME!

One of the obstacles was “invisible bushes”. You got only a glance at the region before having to ride through it and then the bushes winked out. The five riders in front had to remember where the bushes were or lose a place as they got tangled up (but the riders in the back knew where to *NOT* go and it made it easier for them to advance). Our rogue hit *SIX* of the ten bushes and went from, like, 2nd place to 7th as he hit the ones in the front and then got dropped to the back and then, in the back, hit a couple of the leftover bushes.

When it came to combat, you could only melee attack the riders in front or behind and ranged could only hit two or three in front or behind. And remember Rule 3: If you were trying to hit behind you, you were at disadvantage. The opposing Fighter and Paladin *WRECKED* our Ranger and Rogue. They both had impossible to hit armor classes (I remembered being pleased that, after my bonuses, I rolled a 20 and the DM smiled and said “miss”) and the Bard just kept throwing bonus dice at his peeps.

I was consistently in last place and my teammates pointed out “Jaybird, you’re in last place” and my lines were “I’m a Dwarf. On a horse.” and “I will get in 9th place the old-fashioned way: Killing the guy in front of me.”

Thanks to the rules on disadvantage, the race to 10th place was almost as furious as the race to 1st. It was me against the Bard and one of the spell-throwers and, lemme tell ya, they did a good job of hitting the people in front of them. On top of that, our Ranger spent 4 of the five obstacles casting various healing spells on herself instead of attacking because, dang, that Paladin and Fighter were undeterred by disadvantage.

And, after the Steeplechase, the DM asked us “How was it?” and we were all enthusiastic about it and not just because we won.

And I spent the next week thinking about it and, come Monday Night Raw, I had a handful of recommendations for playing it at a con:

1. Three teams (of 3 or 4) and not two. We always knew who the opponents were and had zero compunction against trying to hit them. If there were three teams, you could not only have temporary alliances, but you could *BETRAY* temporary alliances. You needed to be able to stab someone in the back!

2. If everybody goes down two places in the rankings, then everybody is still in the same place. There needed to be a mechanic where you could advance (or force an opponent to lose a spot) that didn’t rely on damage to their HP.

3. Bards are way, way, waaaaaay powerful. Throwing around bonus dice? Dang. That was perfect for PvE, but it might be overpowered for team vs. team vs. team. Then again… it’s not like Bards are difficult to hit.

4. Every rider should get a healing potion. Just one, though.

All in all, a great D&D session. If I paid money to go on a D&D Cruise and I played this? I would leave that session happy.

So… what are you playing?