D&D 4th edition - Addicts' thoughts and opinions

From play to design

2010-03-06T19:41:00.001-07:00

While we take our hiatus from 4e, I find myself with more time to think about role-playing, not because we haven't filled the gap with a different game -- we've yet to start in Pathfinder, but have taken a side-step into the World of Darkness -- but because I'm not currently the Dungeon Master/Gamemaster/Storyteller. Griff has taken over that role for now.

The reason that I'm the DM so often, though, is because I like creating stories, like telling stories, and like causing pain and suffering in others (characters and players alike). Since I cannot fulfill these desires at present, I have to be content with just thinking about how I'll do so the next time I get the chance. And, on that note, I've been working on my latest campaign idea.

Since our 4e experience has so far been solely with the WOTC modules, I've never made any content in the current edition, not campaigns, modules, encounters or monsters. And, even though I've claimed to have forsaken 4e for now, I find that, because of the more recent exposure to 4e and the dwindling (though fond) memories of 3.5, that design thoughts keep steering to 4e concepts of encounters, roles and powers. Thus, I'm taking the challenge to write this campaign in both 3.5/Pathfinder and 4e versions at the same time.

This could be a disaster, of course. Refreshing my 3.5 knowledge is just going to cloud the 4e that I've only just gotten comfortable with, so it will be interesting to see if they can both co-exist at suitable levels in my head as I design this campaign. I haven't decided if it's going to be possible to design encounters in a way that, no matter what the edition you play, advancement is consistent -- that is, if the party survives encounters A1 through A7, they'll make it from 1st- to 2nd-level, in both 3.5 and 4e. On the one hand, it makes planning a lot easier if that was possible, but on the other hand, 3.5 goes to 20th level (before epic rules kick in), whereas 4e goes to 30th level "normally". So should that be the meter for advancement? Or does it really matter at all? One thing I haven't done is try to gauge what the comparable strength of nth-level characters are between the two versions, and perhaps that's what's necessary to determine the progression of each edition's implementation. So, by the time the party encounters Bossman Z, they should be of similar mightiness, not because I can't adjust the 3.5 and 4e versions of Bossman Z appropriately, but because the tone and spirit of the campaign at Bossman Z's point is such that the party should be suitably ... heroic. Mighty. Epic.

Anyhow, as I work on this, I'll occasionally post on how it's going, whether to complain about or praise 4e for how it is to work with from a designer's point-of-view, or to drop a few "well THREE POINT FIVE does this better than FOUR EEE does..."-type of posts. Or, admittedly, how 4e may very well be easier to design with than 3.5. But shh, don't tell anyone I said that.

Respec

2010-01-07T11:09:00.004-07:00

It has been a month since any of us have played D&D. Thus is the nature of the holiday season. But also, it has been a month since I've read any 4e material (to be honest, ANY D&D material), and I have to say... I didn't miss it.

Now that this new year is starting up, so too is our many attempts to get together to play. But this time, it looks like it might be without 4e.

We're giving Pathfinder a go. We miss 3.5, and it looks like 4e has failed to fill that void. As Griff commented to the group, it might just be nostalgia, and not any superiority or preference for 3.5 that's moving us back. We shall see.

As for this blog... well, it is a 4e blog, so it wouldn't make sense to talk about our 3.5/Pathfinder adventures and experiences here, unless perhaps as comparisons to 4e. I still have my subscription to Wizards.com, and time (or interest) permitting, Griff and I might still blog on that 4e content. And, if it turns out that Pathfinder doesn't fill that void for us, then we might very well return to 4e and have more "active" posts here.

The importance of setting

2009-11-25T10:31:00.003-07:00

As it becomes more and more obvious that our group isn't going to stick with 4E I've started to look back at why it failed.

Maybe "failed" is the wrong word. I don't want to imply that it's some sort of sweeping failure like the Zune. There are certainly fans of the game out there, people who love it and have a lot of fun playing it. To each their own. I've never bought into the whole "edition war". Everyone should play whatever game they find to be fun. Whether that game is 4E, 3.5, AD&D, Gurps, WoD or whatever else. It makes no difference to me what you enjoy playing. I certainly don't expect you to switch after reading my half-assed opinions. The bottom line is that games should be fun and DnD 3.5 was fun for me.

But why isn't 4E fun for me?

At its very core it's not really different from any other version of DnD. You create a character with some stats and a class, and you battle monsters in a world of swords and magic.

The really fun stuff is in the roleplaying. In becoming that burly warrior or busty sorceress (whaddya mean they aren't all burly or busty?) and overcoming all obstacles on the way to a goal. Really, roleplaying is completely independent of any gaming system. You could roleplay in a game of Monopoly if you really wanted to.

So my problem must lie with the mechanics of the 4E system. After all, roleplaying in a good and engaging story is not the only aspect of DnD. A big chunk of every game night is spent in combat, and combat relies almost solely on the character sheet and the game mechanincs. So, where did 4E go wrong for me?

Rather than re-hash the gripes from my various posts here, I'll put them at the very bottom of the post. Those who care to, can read them there. Those who don't care, I'll spare you the agony of scrolling past them. You're welcome.

There is one thing that's not really part of the game mechanics. In fact it's something that was almost totally within my own control. The game setting.

Granted, when 4E came out there was no official setting beyond a generic "points of light in the midst of darkness". Eberron was still there and unchanged. I guess. I never really got into Eberron as a setting. We knew that the Forgotten Realms were getting re-worked to better fit the new system. In hindsight, we could have simply continued to use the 3rd edition version of FR, if only for the names and dates. Instead we just gave a nod to the gray generic world and went with the standard storyhook in the first published module.

That was all well and good at the time, but here's that hindsight again, it really didn't do my character any favors. I never bothered to put any thought into his background. I just rolled him up and got swept away by the game mechanics. I was so blinded by making my storm themed warrior/mage work within the confines of the ruleset that I ignored the really important thing. His place within the world. His motivations. His hopes and hates. His family roots. In short, in my effort to create a unique character I ignored everything that makes a character truly unique.

So really, 4E was hamstrung from the start because I forgot about the most important part of the game. The roleplaying. I didn't invest in his background and so I never invested in him. At least, not in any meaningful way beyond making a set of stats and powers that worked for my concept.

Sorry about that 4E. Your failure is also my failure.

********

Here's that summation of my previous gripes as promised earlier.

Certainly in the very beginning I was turned off by the restrictive feeling of 4E. I always felt like the character I really wanted was either impossible or only vaguely realized after a series of roadblocks and compromises. That was somewhat fixed by the Hybrid rules, and the ongoing laxity in Implements seems to be improving. Give it a few more years and this might not be an issue at all.

Another peeve was with the powers. Not that it wasn't a novel idea or well done. It just wasn't executed quite right. I'm not even sure what that means but there's just... something... about the powers that bugs me. Maybe it's how they make all the classes feel like every other class, with only the overarching roles to really seperate one character from another. Or maybe it's just in the numbers of them you get. For the first 5 levels I definitely felt like I had a few interesting whammies but used my lame At-wills ninety percent of the time. That's not so bad at the Paragon level where the number of Encounter powers means that At-wills only become repetitious in the longest battles. Still, it made the first half of the Heroic level so boring that it was all but unplayable for me.

The neutering of Feats and Magic Items has also bothered me. Maybe I'm just too stubborn to let go of them, but I miss the days when feats and magic items meant something. Something more than a piddly bonus to a power or an extra healing surge. I want magic items that can be pulled out at the last moment and turn disaster into triumph. Feats that give a character a distinct flavor and make him something more than just-another-fighter.

There are a lot of good things about the 4E system too. I'm a big fan of how traps, disease, and poison are handled. I also like that monsters aren't handcuffed to the same rules as player characters. That makes encounter design easy and gives the DM more room to tailor battles however he/she sees fit.

The 4E experience begins to wind down

2009-11-25T09:20:00.005-07:00

It probably goes without saying after such a prolonged silence (is it really almost December already?) but the end is almost in sight. The light at the end of the tunnel, and the first death knell for this blog, is in the Pathfinder RPG (aka DnD 3.75), which I think we'll be playing next summer. We've all agreed to give the Paragon level a fair shake first, and there's some hope that the PHB3 could be an edition saver. Otherwise, it's been nice 4E but while 3.# has numerous flaws, those flaws are better than yours.

Frankly, I was ready to turf 4E months ago. In fact my interest in all things DnD has been at an all time low for the last several months. I've been much more interested in White Wolf's latest edition of World of Darkness game even though I only get to play it via IRC which is not nearly as much fun as tabletop. While two in our group have shown some interest/willingness in trying an NWoD game, Crwth has made it pretty clear that he's not interested in learning a new gaming system. At least not one that falls outside the d20 family. I can respect that, especially given the strains on free time imposed by work, wives, and kids that we all have. We're lucky to play more than three times a month, so reading pdfs and learning a different RPG system is asking a lot. Not that it'll stop me from needling and pushing for it. (btw, if anyone knows of a good Play-By-Post site for nWoD, lemme know).

As mentioned, our group has had a lot going on in real life, so we haven't gotten together nearly as much as I'd like. Since our 5th levels were TPK'd we've only had one real session where all but one were present. That was a re-play of the troll encounter on the road, and it was great fun.

As a brief aside, I really like the Paragon level (at least my very early impression of combat at that tier/level). The number of Encounter powers available kept us from having to fall back on our piddly At-Wills which kept the fight interesting. My only big complaint, and one that mightily pissed me off, was that my monk couldn't use a spiked chain because none of his powers could be channeled through it. That's now been fixed (thankfully!) by the release of the finalized version of the Monk in Dragon #381.

Still, I don't see that one concession to flexibility and player choice being enough to save this edition of DnD for me.

As for the blog, I've probably got a few more posts to put up. One on setting is already in mind, and I expect to have a few as we get a little deeper in to the Paragon level/tier. I can feel the excitement.

Paragons

2009-10-18T12:17:00.003-06:00

As I mentioned before, we had a party wipe, and the decision was made that we would start our new campaign at 11th level, to see what more-advanced 4e characters were like in this edition; note that we have been playing 4e since it was released, and we died at fifth level. That should give you a sense of our pace, and of the likelihood of us having ever seen paragon tier "naturally". In fact, for the last three or four sessions, we had moved to half-the-encounters, twice-the-XP, just to try to ramp up our advancement. So much for that.

So what have we learned about the paragon tier so far?

Well, making a character is easy, which we knew: levelling up in 4e is almost trivial, since you make very few choices as you go, and the range of choice, while growing with the splat books that are coming out, is still small. However: choosing is one thing, knowing what you've chosen, during play, is another. Starting at 11th level is far different than advancing to 11th level -- as you advance, you get to know your powers at each level, only introducing one, at most, as you go. Maybe a new feat. Maybe a new magic item with a daily power. But you still have a whole level of adventure to get used to this newly available power. When you start at 11th level, especially with a class you've never looked at before (and remember, we've all only played on other 4e character), you've got a dozen or more powers available to you. Additionally, starting at a higher level means you start with magic items, again, likely ones you've never seen before, so have new abilities and modifiers there.

I do wonder how much of our tardiness was due to the new class, and how much to the large clump of new powers. While powers do define what you can do, in the end, the class does define the role, and thus gives you an overall sense of how your character is likely best played. Switching that up -- I went from a Leader to a Striker -- is quite the change (until, I'm sure, you've played them all, perhaps a few times), so we might have seen the same lack of coordination if we were to have started at 1st level with these characters. But I think we'd all agree that we would have caught on a lot faster, with just a couple of at-wills to get to know.

Two of our group was missing last night, but we decided that the party, sans deux, would tackle the first encounter without them, to take our new characters for a spin; if they won the battle, well hurray for them -- the other two would join the party later; if they died (because they were only four in an encounter designed for a party of five), then we'd press Undo, say, "that was fun", and wait until the rest of the group was available to really start the campaign, and re-do that encounter (without any metaknowledge of course!)

The reasons I wanted to do this were to let us get to know our new characters (which, as I mentioned above, is a real necessity), as well as to see if, as I believe the intent is, a paragon encounter takes no longer than a heroic one -- it's just more interesting, more involved.

Because of our struggles with our new powers and items, it's hard to say whether that test passed or failed; as the DM, I can attest that these paragon-level NPCs were no more difficult or time-consuming to run, but that's only half of the equation. And, our heroic battles could take many hours anyway (I've yet to decide if that's just us, or the game).

In the end, we halted the battle because it was after 2am, and we weren't going to finish it soon. We weren't losing, we were gaining ground, and I think we certainly would have won -- but not before a few of us would be waking to our children. And if we thought we were fighting trolls last night, we could easily imagine the trolls our wives would have been had we been up 'til 5am fighting them.

Hand me my crossbow.

2009-10-13T09:14:00.004-06:00

As Crwth mentioned earlier I equated being down to nothing but At-will powers and a handful of healing surges to "grabbing the crossbow". It was an off the cuff remark and I'll readily concede that it's not very accurate.

For starters, the At-wills are better than the old 3.5 crossbow-shot-and-a-prayer fallback. If not "better" at least they're arguably more interesting/engaging.

Our rogue trotted out two of his at-wills before finally falling. The paladin likewise. The warlord made good use of his Wolfpack Tactics and the ranger steadily used Twin Fanged Strike (or whatever it's called). Of course that was pretty much the only power the ranger ever used. Still, it's effective.

My fighter/wizard should have been even more versatile with the at-wills, and to be honest I felt like I had more options. I got off a couple of Thunderwaves to try to get some breathing room (one time it actually hit!) and otherwise relied on Reaping Strikes (damage on a miss! Love it!). So, all in all, no real feeling of "let down" when left with nothing else in the tank, so to speak.

Instead, the downside comes in the lack of options beyond powers.

At several points in the battle I wished that I could counter-spell those damn controllers. Or use a resist fire potion. Or a neutralize poison. Something to alleviate the feeling of being powerless under those enemy's whims. It was incredibly frustrating being completely helpless to resist being blinded or knocked down.

Simply spread out so that the controller's area of effect powers can't hit everyone at once? Good idea. In theory.

In reality, we were hemmed into a dead end room (admittedly a bad tactical blunder and probably the biggest reason for our TPK) with at least one enlarged Duegar taking up even more room. Frankly, once we allowed ourselves to become trapped in that room we were at the mercy of the controllers. As they thoroughly kicked our asses all player ingenuity was effectively nullified. We needed to get incredibly lucky just to push our way back out into the hallway. As impressed as I was by the enemy controllers, I was ultimately just frustrated by them, and that took away from an otherwise fine fight.

Sure the at-wills kept the fight interesting, but no more so than 3.5's relatively banal "pot shots with the crossbow". Boiled down, the at-wills are still strike me as basic attacks with some flavor text attached.

So, does this mean that 4E sucks compared to 3.5?

I love 3.5 for a variety of reasons, but I can't say that it's hands down better; regardless of how one defines "better". It's all so subjective.

I will say that 4E has alleviated many of my earlier knocks. The variety of classes has opened up numerous options, so multi-classing isn't missed as much. The upcoming Skill Powers looks like it's gonna be all kinds of awesome. The encounters are a lot of fun, and even dying is exciting.

On the downside, I'm still not liking the concept of Reflex, Fortitude, and Will as defensive scores versus saving throws. I know the math and all works out more or less the same. I just miss the empowerment of making a saving throw versus simply being blinded or knocked down.

I'm also hating the dearth of magic items. There's a decent variety of them, but their usefulness is minimal at best. I miss the days of having that one trinket/potion/scroll that can be pulled out to use in some inventive way, or simply to save one's ass. I also miss the facet of planning that magic items used to bring. Knowing that we were facing fiery and poisoning Duergar we would have stocked up on fire resists and anti-poison potions/scrolls/spells in 3.5. In 4E we had nothing but our powers and luck to rely upon. When the former dwindled and the latter ran out, the results were fairly predictable.

The Super Happy Fun Slide... of Death!

2009-10-13T08:48:00.003-06:00

Dead at last. For the longest time I honestly thought that 4E was designed around the idea that a player should never have a character die. Ever.

Yes Virginia. There is a grim reaper. And he's surprisingly a lot of fun. In fact it was probably the most excitement I've felt while playing 4E.

Seriously. I'm not trying to be snide about it, but it was honestly a lot of fun. The death mechanic is really a good and fun way to go about it. I love the idea of a saving throw to stay stable or slip one strike closer to the death. Then there's the optimistic hope of rolling that 20 and coming back to the fray. It's awesome fun and better by leaps and bounds than the slow (read: banal) countdown to -10 HP.

I also enjoyed the fact that my dieing character continued to take damage, pushing him towards the -23 HP that would also kill him once and for all. If nothing else it kept me engaged in the battle. It also heightened the tension for that last round of saves. I had to make one versus poison, or take 5 damage that would put me at -23, and then still faced a possible 3rd strike on the death save. (Yet another 3 on the d20 made that moot. Just for shits'n'giggles I rolled the death save too, and failed. It was that kinda night.)

After that I had a great time watching the hopes for the other players rise and fall. It was a real rollercoaster ride. They were doomed. They were gonna make it. They were doomed. It was over. I loved it. By far the best fight of either module.

I'll leave it to the reader to decide whether the fact that dying is the funnest part of 4E is a good thing or a bad thing.

Teepee, 'kay?

2009-10-11T10:18:00.003-06:00

4e adventure: 1, adventuring party: 0.

We had our first Total Party Kill last night, in the second adventure in the official series (Thunderspire Labyrinth). This was our first 4e campaign.

The party had been infiltrating an enemy fortress (I'll leave details vague, in case anyone reading is, or will be, going through this module), and were already a bit tapped for resources, having used a few Daily powers and a bunch of the healing surges, before deciding to press even further forward to accomplish their mission.

Unbeknownst to them, their next encounter was to be with the "boss" of the fortress, whose cadre included a controller-type that they had encountered a few times before, and which had, in the past, lived up to its role very well.

The dice were running cold for the players, and the party of six struggled under the onslaught from the four enemies. It didn't help that the rechargeable powers that the NPCs had were recharging much more than probability says they should: the DM's d6s were hot, the players' d20s were not.

Things were looking grim for a while, and I was sure the party was doomed, but the tide turned, the boss took some heavy hits, and the controller fell. All but one Daily power was used, every Encounter power was used, and half the party had no healing surges left, but they had the boss worried enough that he fled via an escape route through which the rest of the party wisely declined to follow. Emboldened, the party worked to finish off the remaining foes. Until they heard the door in the hall slam open. Reinforcements had arrived, including another of the hated controllers that they had just dispatched.

At this point, I knew it was over. the party had only At-Will powers remaining, against a fresh group of enemies of the party's level. It would be slaughter. Or would it? The dice didn't really improve for the players, nor did they wane for me, the DM, yet... the party still stood. Damage was dealt out in both directions, saving throws were missed even more, yet the party still stood. The rest of the original NPCs were slain, then one of the new set -- and then the party finally had their first fatality (it would be impolite for me to point out that it was Griff's dragonborn hybrid, so I won't). Hitpoints kept falling, the few healing surges were dwindling, yet the party fought on, against all odds, using every idea and strategy that came to them, until it looked like there was a way to escape their doom, and the adventurers started to withdraw from the encounter. Then the boss returned.

It was over at this point. The party continued to withdraw, but one, two, then three more of the party were picked off while retreating. It looked like the remaining two would escape -- the rogue wisely split from the rest of the group to split the enemy's attention -- but he and the paladin were still under their cloud of bad luck, and fate (and their flying enemy) completed the slaughter. Some other party of adventurers would have to save the day.

But ... this blog is about 4e, not about adventure recaps. So why do you care? It's the second-last paragraph that matters: "the party had only At-Will powers remaining". At-will powers have always felt like the "I'll attack" from 3.5 combat, or as Griff puts it, "I've used up my spells; I'll pull out my crossbow" which was the 3.5 way that a sorcerer admitted he or she was now useless.

But when left with only at-will powers, the party showed that they were not useless, not automatically doomed. Whether it was the warlord's Wolf Pack Tactics, moving the party around strategically, or the cleric's Sacred Flame, trying to get extra saving throws rolled, these "useless" powers ... weren't that useless after all.

Of course, it wasn't enough. There was a point that I thought the party would defy all odds and finish this back-to-back pair of encounters on at-wills and no healing surges, with only one or two casualties. But as I mentioned, the dice were completely against the players, and it wasn't to be. But it was only because of (bad) luck, not the design of the characters, or 4e, that led to their end.

I have new respect for at-will powers, and will, on future characters, put a little more thought into their selection, thinking, "if I was in a party of characters whose players could only roll 3s and 4s on d20, with no healing surges and just my at-wills , what would I like to be stuck with?"

Githzerai

2009-10-10T09:28:00.003-06:00

I never did comment on Griff's previous post on the Githzerai, which is a bit odd, since they've been one of my favorite races/monsters for many years, ever since the Gith races appeared on the cover of the Fiend Folio. With the second Player's Handbook 3 debut article, the githzerai are reintroduced, and they're still as interesting as ever.

Quiet, terse and brooding? Check. Excessively austere? Check. A no-brainer as a monk (the one class that I always want to play, but never seem to)? Check. Racial history of oppression and rebellion? Check. What's not to love? Even the racial power, Iron Mind, is terrific, both representing the build of the race as well as providing a very useable, useful ability in combat.

The psychic/psionic links harken back to the original creature, as well as helping to fit even better with the 4e monk. I have to say, though, that while psionics have somewhat redeemed itself in Griff's eyes, to me, it's Just Another Power Source, becoming, in a sense, less unique than in previous editions of D&D.

The racial feats, as they do for many races, either modify or enhance the use of the racial power, which is something that I've really only noticed in passing, since I tend either play a race like human, which is lacking a racial power, or have so many plans for the feats in the character's build that I ignore/overlook what goodies might be available through my racial power. The githzerai's racial feats provide many interesting possibilities, which might actually be a problem, since the racial power itself is very nice as it is!

And after all that, I don't think I'd play a githzerai, nor allow one in a campaign I was running. The reason? Their alienness to the "regular" world. Sure, you can forgive one "odd" race once in a while, provided the rest of the party was "normal", and the githzerai took pains to hide his or her origin. Playing in a solo campaign would also work, with a background of outcast githzerai, travelling on the material plane looking for yadda yadda. And higher-level campaigns would also work, if they started in foreign planes, where the githzerai's appearance wouldn't be so odd. Okay, so I've provided a bunch of exceptions to my "no githzerai" rule, and they're all possibilities with my group, but I would be interested to see a 1st-level, non-planes-originating campaign containing a githzerai -- oh, unless the whole concept is "a party of misfit races in the regular world, trying to make a life, fulfilling their dreams, and avoiding further subjugation by mind flayers."

Skill Powers

2009-10-10T08:20:00.004-06:00

Okay, let's see if I can remember how to do this blogging thing again. Having only played two D&D sessions in the last two months really has an effect on my D&D attention; I've not read an article for over a month, and feel so out of touch. I'm now making a concerted effort to keep active, even if our group doesn't, although now that snow has fallen, I think our usual summer distractions will soon be out of the way.

Last month's Dragon magazine had the third sneak peak into the Player's Handbook 3, regarding Skill Powers. In a nutshell, I think these are terrific. These provide powers whose prerequisites are based on your skill training, not on race or class. Long have I complained that every power in the game is chooseable by a single make of character, that there was no reuse of powers. If you wanted a fighter power, you had to be a fighter -- it wasn't going to appear in any other list.

But now, there CAN be some shared ability between otherwise very different characters. And since skills are an area where there can be some common ground between two different characters -- an acrobatic wizard or a diplomatic barbarian are both possible -- it perhaps makes a little more sense that it is in this area where commonality can occur. The stereotypically diplomatic classes (those with it available as a class skill) will seem appropriate if sharing the Cry For Mercy power, but if the party's fighter invests the time, he too should be able to exhibit some diplomatic prowess when needed.

But the ability to share powers across varied characters isn't the only attractive point about skill powers; the other is to make otherwise "worthless" skills useful. Now I'm sure I could start a debate with many people about whether this skill or that skill is "useless", and I assure you I could argue both sides. But these are some skills that, most will admit, are taken more for roleplay purposes -- "because she would have this skill" -- than for any utilitarian reason. D&D3.5 did the right thing by adding a lot of synergy bonuses to the worthless skills, and 4e did a better job by merging some and improving the others. And now that 4e has taken away the decision-making involved in ascribing ranks to skills, it was even easier to choose a few at character creation, and hope that those were the ones that needed Training in future skill challenges.

Now, with a new purpose to skills (if only to unlock access to these new skill powers), players might again put some thought into their skill choices beyond "I'm a paladin, I should probably take Diplomacy" or "the DM always drops us off of cliffs -- I'll take Acrobatics to be safe"; now the availability of skill powers might sway them to choices they'd otherwise avoid ("Religion? I'm no roleplaying paladin! Let the cleric worry about that."), or even better, might urge players to take the Skill Training feat, which I'm sure only sees use by roleplayers or heavily-themed builds.

Perhaps my favorite skill powers, I'll admit, are the at-will ones, which aren't many. Any time I look at "alternate" powers (racial or paragon/epic) to a class's regular set of powers, I always feel like I'm giving something up, losing something, instead of just swapping it. A bit irrational, I know, provided I'm happy with my choice. But this feeling doesn't occur if I'm gaining an at-will - and since skill powers are Utility powers, which generally aren't at-will, it feels like a gain if you can swap an at-will in. Two of my favorites are Agile Recovery (Acrobatics, Minor, "You stand up") and Fast Hands (Thievery, Free Action, "You draw or sheathe a weapon, pick up an item in your space or adjacent to it, or retrieve or stow an item"), both which can improve the effectiveness of your character in a very character-suitable way.

Keep out! Really.

2009-09-28T13:11:00.003-06:00

Not sure why, but I got to thinking about a brief episode in the first official module, "Keep on the Shadowfell".

Our party had just come to a large door covered with slime and mold. Colorful.

The really important detail was that carved into the slime were the words "Keep out. Really."

This caused a memorable stir amongst our gaming group (and one that surely amused our dastardly DM Crwth). The gist of the debate was whether or not to go through aforementioned door. I was the lone dissenter.

My argument was the emphasis created by the word "Really". To me, that meant there was something not to be trifled with beyond that doorway. To everyone else, it just piqued their curiousity.

Naturally, in the end I was shouted down and in they went. Naturally, there was a nasty monster in there. Naturally, there was an important clue to the mystery hidden amongst the loot.

Good, memorable encounter but at it's most basic this was a poorly written section of the adventure.

At first blush, that seems counter-intuitive. I just said that it was a memorable encounter that sparked furious debate and ended with a fun battle and interesting loot. What's not to love?

The fact that we were baited into it by the writer.

Now, most adventures are basically dungeon crawls at some point where the party is obliged to kick open every door it sees. As players we're almost conditioned to do exactly that. A door causes us to practically salivate. Add the cryptic warning to "Keep out. Really." only throws more gas on the fire. It's like telling a five year old to stay out of your closet. The results are utterly predictable.

Yet that thinking goes against role-playing.

Adventurers live on the edge and explore incredibly dangerous places in the hopes of finding gold and treasure. They go where others fear to tread. They risk life and limb on a daily basis. Opening doors and fighting monsters is their gig. I get that.

However, the adventurers who want to retire someday should also be expected to show some prudence now and again.

Rock climbers risk their lives for the sheer thrill of it but they still listen to warnings. If a cliff face is icey after some freezing rain they don't climb. At least the ones who aren't mentioned on the local news don't climb.

That slime covered doorway was the same thing. From my point of view, or more accurately from the point of view of my character, someone took the time to carve a warning into that doorway. That sorta shit ain't to be taken lightly.

As a dnd player however, I'm expected to go through the door. It's a must. Hell, there's no question about it really. There's a door. We open it. Worst case scenario we roll new characters and know what to expect when our new party reaches that door.

To me that's a failure for the writer. He knew that we'd ignore the dire warning and go in regardless. He even placed a quest advancing token inside. A token/clue we wouldn't have found if not for our Pavlovian need to go through every door. A fact that as a player sitting at a table I was well aware of. Even as I argued against it, I knew that meta-game-wise there was something to fight and some loot to find.

Therein lay the problem. The entire encounter forced me to divorce myself from my character and do something he wouldn't want to do. All for the sake of using our miniatures and rolling some dice. So much for escapism.

More on Tools

2009-08-26T07:43:00.004-06:00

It has been a slow month for blog posts, but speaking for myself, it hasn't been because of a lack of D&Ding... when not trying to keep up with the articles from Wizards of the Coast, I've been playing some more with the tools, mainly the Character Builder and the Compendium.

In the past, usually while discussing multiclassing, I've complained that making a "themed" character is much more difficult in 4e, because you don't have the flexibility that the plethora of prestige classes gave in 3.5. With the poor-man's multiclassing that came with 4e, you couldn't accomplish much, but the hybrid rules are another matter...

In 3.5, I was never a multiclasser, just a prestige classer -- some might quibble about the difference, but I think it's significant, especially for the spellcasting classes whose pretige classes often had that familiar line: "+1 level of arcane spellcasting" or what have you. Otherwise, I was a one-class kinda guy, always seeing multiclassing as weakening the original class, because you were sacrificing something for every level you didn't take in your original class. The gestalt rules were a nice solution to this, because they meant you didn't sacrifice anything, and they allowed for a high-powered campaign -- as long as that was something you wanted.

The hybrid rules for 4e, though, do a pretty good job about giving you your two classes without making you any more powerful that a single-class character. Granted, our actual playtest experience with hybrids has been limited to Griff's wizard/fighter dragonborn, but I have now had quite a bit of experience making hybrid characters using the Character Builder, and none seem over-powered.

This is, of course, if you ignore the fact that I am a serious min-maxer when I put my mind to it, thus making a character "over-powered" in certain areas, almost certainly at the expense of something else. Crwth the cleric has, whether in pen-and-paper, Neverwinter Nights or Dungeons & Dragons Online, been a healer before an undead fighter, boosting Wisdom as high as it will go and ignoring Charisma completely. And a DDO Bard that completely maxes out the Haggle skill, just to game the auction house, is sure to sacrifice in other areas -- like melee fighting of any kind.

But to me, that's what a themed character is -- something that focuses on a particular idea (or two), at the expense of everything else. If I'm making a "healer", they're not as good at any of the other roles that this class is known for. If I'm making a "divine warrior" (always choosing powers that deal Radiant damage before any other power), I'm making a character that will be at a large disadvantage to anything that can resist Radiant damage. I go into this willingly, ready to take on that challenge if it arises, for the focused direction of the character's build.

And this brings me to the real point: the Character Builder and the Compendium make this a HELL of a lot easier to do that it was in 3.5. Granted, the idea of a themed character is a bit different now; you would browse a bunch of splat books in 3.5, find an interesting prestige class or two, and build around that as your goal. In 4e, I find myself seeing the occasional power description, class variant or paragon path, and get an idea to focus upon.

The Character Builder ensures that I have, at my fingertips, every power or feat that is available at any given level, instead of having to have a stack of books to check, and the Compendium lets me filter out certain keywords ("radiant", "prone", "necrotic", "heal") to help choose from my selections. This let me quickly try my "healing monk" (really a cleric/avenger hybrid) focusing on healing while at the front line; my "protector" (cleric/shaman hybrid) my attempt at a completely maxed-out healer; my "divine warrior" (revenant cleric) based solely around the Revered One epic destiny's Manifest the Divine feature of using each Channel Divinity power per encounter, instead of just one; and my "beastflanker" (beastmaster ranger) that could solo (with companion) quite effectively.

Unfortunately, my forays into rapidly building character concepts could have gone smoother. Sure, figuring 30 levels of a character in about 20 minutes is pretty good, but there are ways that it could still be improved. The search functionality in the Character Builder is only for actual names of powers, feats, etc., which doesn't seem that useful - no one knows the name of what they're looking for, they just know some of the terms that it contains. I had hoped that I could type in "heal" or "undead" into the power list, or feat list, or even equipment list, and get the Builder to filter things out. I suppose it DOES say "search" and not "filter"...

The Compendium does help here, as it has a single word filter (could use a second, in some cases), and lets you further filter by other criteria, depending on the item. Going back and forth between the Compendium and the Builder is a bit incovenient, though (I say while on my four-monitor setup); I think having the compendium embedded in the builder window would be very handy indeed. Also, being able to leave multiple search results open would be handy -- I'd like the list of powers with "resist" in them as well as the list of feats, available at the same time, if I'm making a this-guy-gives-crazy-resists character. And, I really don't like the obscuring window that the Compendium uses when you look at a specific entry -- are frames so uncool now in web development?

These are minor gripes, though, when I have to admit that these computer-based resources are making 4e a lot more interesting to use. When I got the Player's Handbook, my eyes glazed over seeing the same block format for power after power -- and I LIKE that there's a template for them! It just isn't a good browseable format for getting a feel for a class. I still have no clue what kinds of powers warlords, paladins, fighters, rangers, etc. have, because I just can't imagine reading the powers list right through. Having a means to search through them saves me from that, provided I know what to search for.

And, I hate to admit it, but access to all of the content online might be a bad thing for book sales... while I like having a physical book over an digital one in general, for my purposes the online version is more worth it right now, and a few books have now gone unpurchased because of this. Does this mean that Wizards should require "activation" of online content, using a key that comes with the hardcover book, to unlock the data? I thought they were going to do that, and am obviously glad they haven't. Perhaps the marketing people decided that seeing the content online would drive people to buy books they wouldn't otherwise consider?

Dragonborn suck

2009-08-20T14:55:00.005-06:00

Actually, they're pretty awesome.

For starters, they look really cool and inspired some of the best artwork in the 4E books.

Mechanically, they're not all bad. The bonus to healing surges is a real boon. I also like their rage mechanic if only because it gives me a tactical decision to make. Do I hold off on taking a healing word for a little while longer so that I can have that +1 to hit? How long do I risk running on fewer than half my hit points?

Yet, for all that, they truly suck in two crucial ways.

First of all is the breath weapon. For a racial ability that seems so iconic, so central to the race, it is by far the most pathetic piece of crap any race gets. It's just flat out weak. Almost to the point of being utterly useless.

My dragonborn fighter/wizard hybrid has used his breath weapon exactly once, and that was just for shits'n'giggles. Granted the rarity in it's use is due entirely to his having the wizard At-will "Thunderwave". Same burst and damage but with an added push factor. Compared to the breath weapon that's a no-brainer.

However, even if I was to take away "Thunderwave" I still fail to see any appeal in this racial power. It's just so bland and uninteresting. I look at the elf with his re-roll a missed attack, and the eladrin with his teleport, and I'm jealous. Even the halfling has a better racial power. Halflings! WTF!

The sad thing is that all WotC had to do was give the breath weapon some small additional effect dependant on the energy type chosen. Something like 1 point of ongoing fire or acid or poison damage, or slow in the case of a cold based breath weapon, or 1 point of damage to adjacent enemies for electricity. That's all it would take to make the breath weapon not only stand out but shine with distinction. Simple right? So why hasn't WotC done this yet?

The obvious answer is that they're planning a Dragonborn book which will be chock full of feats and powers that'll give the breath weapon some appeal. That's fine by me, but the PHB could've had a little something on the original.

My other beef is with their history. It just feels so tacked on and hackneyed. Was it written by an intern?

The whole 'they had a great and glorious empire that for some reason no one in whatever world you're in has ever heard of' is awkward to say the least. Then, in piling on the suckiness, they forge an even lamer story of a great war between their empire and a similar empire of teiflings. Oh my... the teiflings had an empire too? Was their a sale on empires? Buy one get one free? And is this supposed to stoke up the fires of intra-party tension should there be a dragonborn and a teifling together? Only it's not because that war was a long, long time ago and there are no hard feelings between the races any more. Got it?

The only part of that mash-up story is the possible tension it might have created between dragonborn and tiefling characters. The part they trivialized under the crushing sands of time. Even though plenty of settings have histories of warfare between races and nations. Eberron's entire story is centered around a huge war. Yet generic dnd world has one big conflict but because it happened so long ago it's irrelevant. Nice.

My point is that there are plenty of other tropes that would have made for a seamless fit into whatever world. A pocket plane comes to mind. Or a distant land way off across the big water. Heck, give them a feudal Japan flavor and you've got your ready made intro for the inevitable samurai, ninja, and shugenja classes.

For the centerpiece new race in 4E's flagship book, it has the look of a slapped together hash job that fell far short of it's promise.

Betrayed by their own OGL?

2009-08-12T08:57:00.006-06:00

As I flip through my pdf of the Beta version of Paizo's "Pathfinder" rpg (it's awesome, btw) something occured to me.

Did WotC shoot 4E in the foot by yanking the Open Gaming License?

Maybe "yanking" is too strong a word for whatever they did. Nerfed it? Tightened it? Whatever. I'm not a copyright lawyer or a developer/designer so it's not something I know much about or care about. With that in mind, everything that follows is based purely on common sense and my admittedly vague grasp of these sorts of things.

All I know is that under the old OGL, small publishers could put out whatever they wanted with the d20/3rd edition DnD ruleset as a foundation. Sure they were taking a small piece of WotC's pie, but they were also supporting interest in the game. Strikes me as a win-win.

Under the new scheme, as I understand it, other companies can still create material for 4E but they have a lot of hoops to jump through first. Now, if 4E was to become an economic juggernaught that wouldn't be an issue. The small fish will still push upstream, but if 4E sales are no better than 3.5's then there's really no incentive for small publishers to jump. Not when they can freely produce stuff for 3.5 and get the same sales.

I can see Paizo (especially since "Pathfinder" has apparently sold out at GenCon on the first day) being the first of many who chose to market products that support or mesh with 3.5 instead of 4E. As a result, those gamers who feel jilted by 4E but don't want to cling to an unsupported 3.5 edition have a reason to stay. This group, is to me, the vital swing market for WotC. Give them a reason to stick with 3.5 and 4E is bound to suffer. Not to the point of utter failure (not with the strong brand name and investment already made) but it could be enough to push 4E to become even more of a tabletop skirmish game. I say that because if you can't beat your previous edition you made, then make the newest one into something new and different.

At least, that's one scenario I could see shaking out. All because WotC didn't want to share their sandbox with the other kids.

Am I way off base here?

Should we rest?

2009-08-10T13:09:00.003-06:00

Griff and I were talking (alas, not over a D&D table) about the whole Shaman thing, where I feel that healing is the realm of clerics, but most everyone else disagrees. I mentioned that I was considering trying out a cleric/shaman hybrid build, just to see how much healing goodness could be squeezed out - Griff pointed out that there likely isn't that much demand in a party for that much healing, given that people have their Second Wind and their own store of healing surges.

While that's true, that everyone has a little innate healing, it still takes something to stimulate the use of a healing surge after the Second Wind has been used in battle, and in a tough fight, the defenders tend to absorb a lot of healing on behalf of the party, and thus need their extra healing surges (of which they tend to have many) activated quite often. My defense in going ahead with a cleric/shaman build is that this 'activation' is still very much a necessary function, and that anything that can alleviate damage without using a healing surge is also welcome -- temporary hitpoints, damage redirection, or "as if they used a healing surge" powers.

And from that, we realize that this is how 4e and 3.5 differ yet again. That in 3.5, the healing came solely from your divine spellcasters and the healing potions which everyone would try to stock up on. When the cleric ran out of spells, or everyone ran out of potions, it was time to head back to town and rest (okay, the arcane spellcaster might also have run out of spells).

This daily limitation in 4e, though, only exists in two places: Daily powers (including Utility powers that have Daily use, and magic items with Daily abilities) and each character's healing surge total. That's it -- everything else comes back when you're done the battle. And, as Griff recently commented, gaining another Daily or two as you advance means that you last even longer per-day, provided the healing surges last.

So, how often has your party had to stop for the day because everyone's exhausted their daily resources? We've done it a few times already, I'd say at least once per party level. Is it because we're all feeling weak because our squishy Daily power is no longer available? Perhaps once, but I'd say it's almost always when the party as a whole, or our target-practice paladin are out of healing surges.

And this is why I think there's still a place for the "party healer", provided that there are ways to help apart from allowing the others to use their healing surges. In fact, as the party cleric, I've never used all of my surges (using more than half only once), so a way to share my inner strength by allowing others to take my surge is, to me, a nice parallel for the divine energy that 3.5 clerics brought to their wounded comrades. Instead of asking my deity to heal my companion, I'm begging my god to take my sacrifice of my own reserves to further her divine plans through my fellow adventurer.

Amen.

Gith-sera-sera

2009-08-05T14:34:00.008-06:00

Just finished reading over the preview of the next "new" race to be a part of the PHB3. The Githzerai.

Due to my hatred of the sci-fi peg of psionics in the round hole of fantasy dnd, I never was much of a fan of the Gith. They were like Drow. Fun to fight as antagonists but I had zero interest in every making one into a hero.

They do have an interesting backstory though. Enslaved until they fought their way to freedom. It's a story that's pretty cliche but it still holds power and speaks to me in a way. Probably because I, like most everyone, love a good underdog. On the downside the whole githzerai/githyanki split is too close the whole elves/drow split. You can use the cliche WotC, but please, give it a new twist.

As for their powers, well, I like them. In general they reflect the new slant on psionics quite nicely and are definitely very useful (unlike the Dragonborn's lame breath "weapon"). If anything they might be a little too good. Getting a free shift of up to 3 squares is a super boon when using a second wind. Not only do you get HP back, but you also get to put some space between yourself and who or whatever was whaling on you. Iron Mind is also a tad strong, giving a short lived +2 bonus to all defenses. Compare that to the wizard's Shield utility spell. Both are Encounter powers and Shield gives a +4 bonus to defenses but the Iron Mind doesn't take up a power slot. Also, Iron Mind can be boosted to +4 and give damage resist with a couple of Epic Tier feats.

The Paragon path isn't bad but not especially gripping either. Much like any Paragon path I suppose. A couple of bonuses and a fancy title. Meh.

Their racial feats are nice. Again much like any feat they give some bonuses but their nothing to get excited about. My favorite is probably Iron Resolve of Zerthadlun because it gives the player a potentially difficult choice. Do you hold on to that last psionic power point for a +2 to saving throws, or spend it and hope you don't roll an 8 or 9 on your next save? I love that kind of decision and find that it's sorely missing in 4E.

A comment by Robert J. Schwalb, in regards to the racial feats got me to thinking. He said that, "Githzerai feats reinforce and expand the race's existing themes and mechanics." I can't argue with that, although I might quibble over the "expand" portion. The thing that occurred to me is that this is the big difference in feats in 4E as compared to 3.5.

In 3.5 feats were arguably the thing that defined one's character. Four fighters could be wildly different from one another based solely on the feats selected. In 4E feats have been relegated to small boosts to existing powers. One method was wildly liberating while the other almost forces feat selection to min/max. A number of 4E feats might sound good, or make for interesting character development, but if they don't synergize with your powers they're kinda wasted.

Anyways, back on track, I liked the Githzerai overll. I probably won't ever play a Gith character, but they're at least somewhat interesting now. Some nice powers. A few interesting feats. Good backstory. Really, what more could I ask for from any race?

Monster Builder

2009-07-31T08:20:00.002-06:00

Wizards released the Monster Builder beta yesterday through the Insider website. I've downloaded it and played with it a little, so I thought I'd give my first impressions.

The interface is pretty slick - the heavy use of drag-and-drop for monsters and powers is definitely intuitive when you're building up a variant monster. The browsing of both monsters and powers, and the filters available, make finding a theme very easy. Adding optional features is very easy and intuitive, popping up new blocks for you to fill in

The builder automatically figures out abilities, hp, to-hit and damage for you, based on the role(s) you give it, which for most people will make this tool the most valuable -- the numbers are the real "rules", and the system knows them and calculates with them so you don't have to.

It's still beta, and so there are a few niggly bits that need to be fixed; when adding a power, you have a Description line, but then an Attacks block inside the power also has a Description line, and an Attack Info. It takes typing something into each of these to get a sense of where each will appear in the final block and eventually determine what info goes where. This revealed a minor bug that I've reported, where if you fill in one of these fields and then decide afterwards you don't want anything there, the parentheses it had put around your initial text stay in the power block, but empty: "Range 10; +41 vs. Will; ();" Nothing horrible, but something to be cleaned up (and, as the Wizards team responded to me, you can just delete the power and re-make it -- it's not like it takes any time to do.)

Other fields, such as Range or Damage, are hit-and-miss on how free-form they are; Range lets you type in anything you like, where perhaps it should adhere to the handful of "valid" ranges that 4e supports (so you know whether you should type "10" or "Ranged 10" to make it look like a Monster Manual entry). And Damage, which kindly fills in a "typical" value based on the frequency of the power's use, also lets you customize it - to a point. When making a joke monster as my first test, I wanted to put in a different type of damage, but any thing that wasn't a number or of the for XdY+Z popped back to the recommended value.

My biggest complaint, given my limited experience with it, is that while the abilities and hp and defense scores are all nicely calculated for you, you don't get any indication on how many powers are appropriate for your new monster. Even if the number of at-will powers isn't that important, the number of encounter and recharge powers probably are - you don't want them to have so many of these that they never have to rely on their at-wills, do you?

Or maybe you do -- in our last gaming session, the group fought a spellcaster that had three recharge-56 powers to choose from, and not once did she have to rely on a basic attack - perhaps my dice were hot that night, but for a level four or five encounter, that seemed pretty impressive (and considering the spellcaster by-far dominated the combat, perhaps it *was* too much?) The back of the DM's Guide suggests "...[t]hen add one encounter power or rechargeable power per tier (one at heroic, two at paragon, three at epic)." If the second module in the series violates this rule, are my hand-made monsters going to be challenging enough if I was to abide by it?

The final output is the other issue that I and others seem to have; you can print them out, but there's no export to an image or to some other format. I haven't found where my custom monsters are stored yet, so I'm not sure if it's in some nice readable format, but even if they don't want us pilfering monster data for our own uses, but an export for posting to the web would be very useful for those who like to blog about their new creations.

I'll have to play with it a little more to really see how flexible it is -- I haven't tried making a base monster and then using the tools to add the "warlord"/"sneak"/"minion"/"captain" versions of it, but the tools definitely look set up for making that easy. Oh, and the monster button uses the portrait of the gnome from the cartoon.

Making a Class

2009-07-29T07:51:00.004-06:00

Griff's earlier post about the Arcane Powers got a bunch of comments from readers, including one from Francis Bousho who was talking about designing a martial controller class. This got me thinking about how his idea would fit well with one of my 3.5 characters, but then got me thinking about how tough class design is in 4e.

Back in the days of 3.5, you could think up your class's theme (or more likely, prestige class), pick an appropriate hit die and save(s), think up a couple of class abilities that likely progressed every few levels, and otherwise fill in the "balance" blanks with concepts from other classes. Just look at the 3.5 fighter: pick d10, pick Fortitude, give him a bunch of proficiencies, and then add "extra feat" every even level. Done! Even spellcasting classes or prestige classes were easy -- the spell choices were from the "arcane" or "divine" list, and you either gave a select list from which to choose (e.g. the assassin) or just say "+1 to arcane spellcaster level" and be done with it. Easy!

But now look at the 4e class. Any class. There's no shared list of powers. Anywhere. Not a single one. This means that you've got to come up with new powers for THIRTY levels. The cleric has 79 powers to choose from, not counting the actual class feature ones (like Channel Divinity) or Paragon/Epic prayers. Assuming the cleric is typical in count, that's a LOT of work. And don't forget about class-specific feats...

This got me wondering, then, about how many powers you could possibly have. Even considering the at-will powers of every class, you've only got so many variables, which I've talked about before, and this means a finite amount of different powers. We may not have hit that amount yet, but how many can there be? Push/pull/slide, knock prone, daze/stun/immobilize, ongoing effects of various kinds... you can only combine so many of these together before you run out of new ways to do so -- and then you have to start sharing powers. Myself, I don't see that as bad, but it seems that this is verboten in 4e design.

So what challenges does Bousho face? Not only NOT coming up with an attack that exists already, but also being able to balance the strength of 1[W] vs. stun vs. slide-#squares-equal-to-Ability-modifier vs. ongoing Somekindof damage, at each level, compared to the other classes. All of them. Utility powers? Easy in comparison! But it's all of the combat ones that, frankly, seem unbearably numerous to be able to tackle such a task.

Trying to imagine how I, or the Wizards developers, would go about this, I picture multiple spreadsheets, or a versatile database (the Compendium just wouldn't cut it) for finding all (level X to Y) powers (at-will or encounter) (vs. Reflex, say) that deal (X)[W] and also (stun/daze/etc.) until (end of your next turn / save ends). So if you think you want a stunning attack, you can see all of the powers that have it, what range their levels are at, how many [W] they deal -- all to figure out whereabouts your power should be (and if it's at-will, encounter or daily) and, more importantly, if it already exists.

Or maybe you *could* use the Compendium... maybe I'm thinking too much like a DM. A search for "stun" in the powers brings up a single one. "Daze" brings up two. more appropriate to the monster I'm used to running, perhaps? Okay, but what about "prone"? 191. "slide"? 178. 156 if I filter by "attack", and only 10 if I filter "at-will" out. Now we're getting somewhere. Eight of the ten are level 1 (which makes sense, since that's where most at-wills appear).

Those eight are all different, but some not by much... the Footwork Lure of the fighter and the Luring Strike of the swordmage are very close -- but different enough to be different powers. So maybe I was wrong, maybe there ARE enough variables to keep making variants of the same idea for years to come - but I wouldn't want to have to go through every existing power to make sure I haven't overlapped. Eight at-wills are one thing to look through, 76 sliding encounter powers is another. Computer please!

Of course, there's nothing saying that home-made classes can't steal existing powers, intentionally or not. It might hinder their adoption outside of your group, if posted to a forum as a proffered donation to the community (and really, I should have checked out the Wizards forums before writing this -- I'm sure there's a forum dedicated to hand-made classes), because there will always be people who are sticklers about such things like overlap. Also, not allowing overlap means that future official classes might invalidate your handmade class, if Wizards, too, realizes that an at-will power that slides the target 1 square, and deals 1[W]+Intelligence modifier damage hadn't been used yet.

I don't see myself trying to create a class any time in the future, because of all of this. A paragon path or an epic destiny, maybe, and monsters for sure, but I definitely have respect for the Wizards developers (or their software which helps them manage these things), and for any players willing to take a stab at it. Francis, if you do follow up with making your martial controller class, do send it to us!

Try this at home kids

2009-07-28T08:48:00.002-06:00

Here's a quick little exercise that came to mind yesterday.

Look around at the other characters in your party. Now ask yourself, "how is he/she/it different now than at 1st level?"

Here are my answers after just finishing fourth level.

Our ranger uses Twin Strike by default and has had that since 1st level. Nothing I'd call new there. Unless his Bear Trap is new. Could be but I'm pretty sure he's had that for quite a while.

Our rogue has used Bait & Switch twice recently, both to cool effect. Is that a recent addition? I don't remember seeing it a month ago so I'm guessing yes.

Our paladin used a smite of some kind that I thought was new.

Our cleric is pretty much a Lance of Faith guy. Recently he used another burst effect which was pretty cool and I don't remember seeing before.

Our warlord uses Wolfpack Tactics to good effect, but I'm pretty sure he's had that from the get go.

Now, having just leveled up to 5th and gaining a second Daily Power, I'm predicting that a month from now the answer to the above question will be different. Sure, it's only a Daily so it won't ever become a signature move like my Thunderwave. But with two Daily powers at our disposal we might not be so stingy with them either. Ergo we should finally begin to see some noticable advancement in our characters.

As a second exercise I'd like to ask my group to name even one of my character's Encounter powers. Or a Daily. I'm pretty sure I'd get blank stares. Maybe some drooling.

To be honest, the only ones I can think of are the ranger's Bear Trap and the rogue's Bait and Switch.

I guess the bottom line is that the first four levels are pretty much defined by one or two At-Will powers. There are some Encounter powers and some feats in there, but they never seem to truly stand out. That seems... odd, somehow.

Revenants

2009-07-25T15:35:00.002-06:00

Last month's Dragon had a Features article on an Insider-only race, the Revenant. I've always liked the idea of a revenant, a figure brought back from the dead for a sole purpose, driven to accomplish it. The novels that introduce the well-known drow Drizzt Do'urden have him chased by a revenant (his father? It has been years since I've read them), and the MMO Ultima Online had the revenant as a summonable creature that doggedly followed its target, outsmarting invisibility and teleportation.

Allowing players to play this race is definitely an interesting idea, though not likely a choice that is going to work for a casual campaign. While I'm sure DMs would be accommodating to a player that wanted to try it out for a lark, I think the whole concept of the revenant -- the back-from-the-dead, single-minded driven creature -- requires a campaign that has this idea interwoven into the plot, instead of just something that might come up once in a while.

I think the revenant would work well for a single-player campaign, providing a great hook into why the character adventures alone, and also providing the motivation to advance through the adventure (if you have problem players that like to (jokingly?) NOT follow the hints that the module provides.) The revenant can provide a basis for a single-session game, being brought back to take down this cult stronghold or that evil warren, and upon success or failure, returning to the afterlife from whence he or she came.

Of course, it works well for a whole party, too: a whole campaign could be based around some of the ideas hinted at in the article, with the party being pawns in the games of gods, or representing a party that, in service of one deity or another, was wiped out, and brought back as a favour to the deity for another try. In fact, the idea of bringing a group's party back from the dead after a Total Party Kill works well if you really wanted to see a campaign to the end. In fact, the 3.5 Ghostwalk sourcebook was useful for this, and was a backup plan that I had had for a few adventures in the past.

One of the interesting ideas of the revenant is that you choose a race that you were before, and gain benefits based on that race, most importantly, satisfying prerequisites that require the race. This applies most directly to most of the revenant feats, which specify both "revenant" and an additional race as the prereqs, such as the "Soul" feats which let you dabble back into lost racial powers, such as the Human Soul to get a +1 bonus to your defenses, or the Halfling Soul, to use your second chance power in an encounter instead of the dark reaping one that you get as a revenant. This can be especially useful if you are playing a previous character, returning for a second time around, and got used to certain racial abilities.

The racial Paragon and Epic Destiny paths are interesting, though I'm not sure the latter compares in "strength" to other epic destinies. The Paragon path touches on your pseudo-undead nature, and the Epic Destiny sure plays on the idea of "destiny", and "fate" and how your life, such as it is, has been reclaimed for yourself, allowing some interesting bonuses to saving throws.

I'd be curious to try this race out. As it stands, I don't see race mattering too much in the grand scheme of things - the initial racial traits, the occasional use of a racial ability, and the role-playing aspect of NPCs dealing with your character's race don't amount to that much compared to class selection and power choices. This is too bad, because one of the ideas in 4e was that race was going to matter a little more. In fact, if our current party was to switch to all revenants instead of two humans, a halfling, an elf, an eladrin and a dragonborn, I wonder how much we'd notice. I think the storyline reason for playing a revenant would be the most noticeable change.

Insider Knowledge

2009-07-22T13:42:00.002-06:00

I've talked before about how I don't really care for the fact that Dragon and Dungeon magazines are now all electronic, and that I no longer get a paper copy. This means that all of the articles go unread in a pile of bits instead of a pile of pulp.

But the news post from last Friday (see how far behind I am?) talks about how one of the articles in the lastest issue of Dragon has been re-issued. Of course, not having gotten to the previous article, I hadn't formed an opinion on it before, so was curious as to what the masses had found so wrong about it, as I certainly don't follow any of the forums where this might be discussed.

The article in question is on the Class Act: Ranger, which provides a variant path of powers for your ranger if they become a part of the Verdant Silence. The introduction text was changed a surprising amount, considering it's all flavour for this class path. Whether this was done because the Cordell had an opportunity to change things, or whether this was one of the focuses of complaint, I'm not sure; it still feels like it has the same idea; things like

"...is a furtive martial order that appears to safeguard natural forests and Feywild
crossings from corrupting influences."

to

"...is a furtive martial order that safeguards forests and Feywild crossings from corruption."

could have all sorts of things read into it, such as the "appears to" being omitted, the "natural" forests, and no longer "corrupting influences" but "corruption." Just a writer's fancy? Or were these all bones of contention with readers?

Even the flavour text in the Powers got modified, though the more interesting things are the Powers' effects themselves that changed. The Bending Branch exploit once gave a free basic attack, now just gives a bonus to the next attack. The Death Threat exploit got totally revamped, from dealing ongoing psychic damage to gaining combat advantage for a turn. Blood of the Fallen used to give you a +2 attack bonus by spending a healing surge; now it lets you regain hit points without spending a surge at all. And then others just had their wording changed to get rid of ambiguity, such as the confusion surrounding Confusion of Blades, which could be interpreted as 1[W]+Strength+1 for every adjacent enemy, instead of just the +1 for every adjacent enemy.

This kind of change would likely never have happened with a print version of Dragon - the only avenue for such a change would be through the magazine itself, in either an editor's note or a completely new article, wasting value space... and for that, the electronic version is definitely a boon. I do wonder, however, if the article might have been vetted better had it been going to print. I understand that the Sneak Peak articles are provided with every intention of the userbase to comment and help change the race, class or whatever, but this article is not presented as such, but as a published extension to a class. Are the writers and editors getting lazy with their new medium? Or is this just how the internet is changing publishing? We have the Compendium as a "live" source of the rules, in theory, so are the PDF articles now just introductions to new rules, with the final, current word always found online?

And will such a change to an article prompt the fanbois to be even more vocal about future articles, including all of the ones that aren't soliciting input? And will Wizards capitulate more readily? I hope not, and the wording of the news article definitely has the tone of apology, embarassment, and resolve to not have to make such changes in the future.

Adventuring at our own pace

2009-07-22T08:10:00.003-06:00

Our group has been playing 4e since it was released, which has been for, what, fourteen months? Our party is level four.

At this rate, if I don't kill the party outright, we'll have explored the field to thirtieth level by 2018. We'll have missed Fifth edition by then, but might be willing to try 5.5.

Instead, I've proposed to our group that I start doubling the XP per encounter; this means reducing the number of encounters by half, of course, so the party doesn't advance beyond the challenges. This is actually quite tricky when it comes to the Wizards pre-made modules, because the "dungeons" are laid out in a way that all of the encounters matter -- they aren't there just to give the party something to do from point A to point B. And it's not as simple as just cutting each encounter in half, because the challenge is no longer there.

But why are we doing it? Again, to see the higher levels of 4e in our lifetime; whether that's to determine whether we'll stick with 4e at all (after having given it a fair shake) or just to finish a campaign and start up a new, homemade one, depends on who you ask in our group.

Not that I'm in a hurry to abandon the Wizards pre-made modules. As Griff just mentioned, the treasure is much more balanced -- according to their own rules! -- than the 3.5 modules. I started to feel really bad for sticking to the 3.5 modules as written. I will be adding an item or two, and a little treasure, to this current adventure, just to pad it up to the "parcel" level described in the DM's Guide, but it's not a huge addition -- if we had a party of five characters, I might very well not do it, but since we're six, it's a little more noticeable.

One of the things I'm enjoying, as we advance through these modules, is getting to play new monsters. Griff and I have both mentioned how we like the new monster design, where many of them have that signature power or ability, like the kobold's shiftiness, or the hobgoblin's phalanx. It's one thing to read it in a book, but it's another to put it to practice (if you remember, that is).

In fact, I was actually disappointed last session when one of the new monsters, a dire wolf (oops -- forgot to mention it was dire, did I, guys?) never got to use its signature ability. Griff even posited that the creature should have been able to knock the characters prone, and to watch for it, but the triggering environment for that ability, which the dire wolf does indeed have, never occurred. Good for you, young party of adventurers!

Also from our last session, there was one of those moments that sticks in the minds of the players for years to come (such as my cleric getting attacked by every animated object we encountered, a party member using a rod of lightning through the whole party "for the greater good", the aforementioned cleric, heavily clad in armor, crossing a rickety bridge safely, while his lightly-armoured companions behind collapse into the fast-flowing waters, one losing their prized magical rapier...)

A hobgoblin ran up a flight of stairs and leaped upon the back of said dire wolf in a flourish, landing and firing an arrow in one fluid motion -- only to be hit by Griff's wizard/fighter hybrid with a thunderwave spell, unceremoniously dumping the hobgoblin from the back of the wolf, tumbling down the stairs, landing flat on his ass. Perhaps the rest of the group won't remember it as I do, but the visualization of that sure stuck in my mind. And this is why I play this game.

An almost wrap-up of the hybrid

2009-07-22T07:39:00.003-06:00

A few almost possibly sorta final impressions of the hybrid rules I've been "playtesting".

All in all, I'm really enjoying the hybrid rule. It's not quite up to snuff with the old 3.5 multi-classing in terms of flexibility, but it has some definite strengths.

For starters, it's greatly simplified everything. One of the things with 3.5 multi-classing that always gave me a headache was keeping track of the various level dependant things, such as caster level. My character might be 18th level overall, but her caster level might have been only 15. Throw in some ECL from being an oddball race and those waters became even muddier.

In 4E there's none of that. Yet.

I also have to admit that there's some value in restricting players to combining only two classes (with a third possible via those terribly weak "multi-class" feats). It was pretty easy to get carried away with the multi-classing in 3.5. Just a quick skimming of the posts in the WotC forums is proof of that. There are classes in there that I've never even heard of, strung together in a chain that resembles alphabet soup.

The 4E hybrid helps the player police himself. While I'm generally against anything that restricts creativity and imagination, trying on some handcuffs can be fun once in a while. (IMJH)

At the very least the hybrid rules have allowed me to play the character that I originally envisioned. A wizard who enjoys wading into the front line.

Without the hybrid rule, my Dragonborn was capable but he really felt like a fish out of water. He wasn't fulfilling his role and it showed in every way. So he ended up standing back with bastard sword in hand, ready to defend himself if someone came after him, but otherwise dropping Scorching Bursts and trying to look interested.

Now, with the hybrid fighter/wizard combo he's up front blasting hobgoblins off the backs of their wolf mounts with his Thunderwave, and then dealing out triple damage with a Brute Strike. Without the stifling presence of filling a certain role combat is fun again.

As far as balance goes I still haven't seen anything to suggest that he's out of whack compared to the rest of the party. He gets roughly the same bonuses to hit in melee as our comically inept paladin and our kill thief ranger, and is about as effective with his "spells" as the cleric.

That said, I still get the feeling that "spells" aren't as effective as melee attacks (either up close or ranged). They simply seem to miss more often than they should. It's like everything's Fort/Will/Reflex defense is one or two points too high. Hopefully, they're churning out some feats that can give casters a bonus to hit with certain types of powers.

I need to note that we recently caught a little bit of cheating that I'd been doing. Namely in my feats, as I clearly skipped the small print and assumed that my hybrid wizard would retain his ritual casting and spellbook. In my defense, those are pretty core to the class. I guess they had to cut something to make the hybrid a sacrifice, so I had to re-tool my feats to regain the Ritual Casting ability, among other things. Oddly enough, I haven't missed not having a spellbook and hadn't really given it any thought at all since initially generating the character. I'm sure there's some reason or benefit for having a spellbook, but it hasn't affected my playstyle.

Yet.

Treasure Island

2009-07-22T07:12:00.002-06:00

At our last gaming session the topic of treasure came up as we picked up a few trinkets our fallen enemies had left behind.

Of particular interest was a rather spiffy scimitar and some swanky armor, both with interesting powers. While the rest of the magic items in 4E are pretty weak, I have to say that the armor and weapons are generally very well done.

Besides the expected "+whatever#" they all seem to have a fairly cool little power attached. Nothing really jaw dropping. Five temporary hit points or a free healing surge or things of that ilk. Yet they're still quite useful (even if only a Daily use) and more importantly, they're easy to remember. Mainly because your character's armor and weapons are going to be the center of attention. Weapons moreso, but even armor isn't as likely to be forgotten as some necklace or ring. For me at least, those trinkets tend to get buried and forgotten on my character sheet.

I would be curious to see if changing the magic item powers from Daily to Encounter would make a noticable difference. Maybe I can talk Crwth into trying that out for a couple of sessions. Or maybe someone out there on the interweb has tried this. If so, please let us know how it worked out for you.

The other thing that this brief topic brought to mind was the sheer amount of loot we've gained. It's no secret that the official line of modules released with 3rd edition was incredibly skimpy on the loot. The writers must have had access to the various tables and guidelines for giving out treasure, yet they either ignored them for some reason. Probably because they're jerks. I mean, a Roper against a party of 4th levels? Only a real asshole would write up something like that.

Anyways, the 4E modules have actually been right in line with the suggested treasure guidelines. Far from Mony Haul-ish but we certainly can't complain. We're just a smidge shy of 5th level and everyone in the party now has magic armor or a magic weapon, and in some cases, both.

Even better, for those of us who don't have a magic weapon (myself and our ranger Hune) have enough coin to enchant our weapons to our preference, thanks to the ritual.

Enchant Magic Item (PHB, p 304). This ritual is the cat's ass. Okay, it's a little too MMO-like for my tastes. The jaded skeptic/curmudgeon in me sees this as an obvious way to sell the edition to computer game producers who will then tout that all the kids can easily have flaming swords and armor that spits out lightning. But, putting that aside it really is a nice and useful little effect. Find some generic components and voila, you have a sword or armor that suits you to a tee.

There's some inherent suspension of belief there, but no less than in the 3.5 days when our DM had to conveniently stock the local merchant with whatever magic item we'd been pining/whining for.

While there aren't a lot of magic items worth questing for, at least we have an easy way of turning gold and gems into the item we really want.

This is treasure?

2009-07-10T11:34:00.008-06:00

With a mighty slash of the warrior's heavy blade the great wyrm finally falls. There, before the surviving members of the party lay a veritable mountain of treasure. Gems and gold coins as far as the eye can see, but the choicest plums are the trove wonderous magic items scattered within.

Such as the fabled Gauntlets of Destruction. Sounds awesome. Level 18 and worth 85,000gp so they must be good. Oh wait. They only allow you to re-roll any 1s you get on damage dice. Ummm... okay. That's not too bad. You can still roll a 2 but at least it works all the time.

Not like the Boots of Infinite Stride. Those are only once a day. But, they do let you teleport up to a mile. Provided you have clear line of sight and effect. Okay. Still handy, and the +1 to movement is always in effect so that's good. Level 28 and 2,125,000gp worth of good? Well... maybe.

The magic items section in the PHB is full of entries like those. Stuff that sounds super awesome but ends up being a bit of a let down.

Here's another convenient example. The "Stowaway Stone". A "level 12" magic item with a market value of 13,000 gp. That's a little more than walking around money and something that shouldn't show up in one's backpack until he/she is nearing (or in) the Paragon Tier. So, one would expect that it does some pretty kick ass shit.

You'd be disappointed.

Unless you consider +1d6 damage to one arcane power once per encounter to be "kick ass". Factor in the effect of being knocked prone if you miss (and considering that most attacks miss more often than they hit, unless your DM habitually faces you off against naked kobolds tied to chairs) and this item loses what little luster it might have had. Even the Daily force a re-roll give a re-roll power is underwhelming.

Yet it's this kind of trinket that our characters risk their lives for. I wouldn't even get out of bed for some of that crap.

Not to say that every magic item in 4E is useless junk. Every player knows that even a modest +1 can be the difference between victory and a TPK.

I'm also aware that there were plenty of lame or useless magic items in 3.5. I give you Sustaining Spoon as Exhibit A.

However, the difference is that the spoon only cost 5,400gp. Not exactly a pitance but less than half the cost of a certain stone that'll knock you on your ass more than half the time.

My ultimate point is that there is nothing in the list of magic items in the 4E PHB that my character would actively quest for. If he should find some Fireburst Armor or a Thundwave Staff he'll be suitably pleased. There are also a number of other items like Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Amulets of Protection that are always nice to have, but by and large it's an uninspiring list.

I understand that WotC wanted to move away from what they saw as 3.5's reliance on magical gear. It pushes the focus on characters getting by on their own inate heroics (read: powers). It also cuts down on the time players have to spend pouring over their inventories to see if they have something that gives a bonus to a saving throw or what have you. Both are admirable goals but I think they went too far.

Items that were once "must haves", like the Ring of True Seeing, have now been nerfed to mere paperweights. A +2 to Perception checks and a Daily use of True Seeing that lasts until the end of your next turn doesn't strike me as worth 105,000gp or something a nearly epic 19th level character would swoon over. They wouldn't likely use it to tip the next barmaid or hawk it at Ye Olde Pawnshop, but it's not something worth risking life and limb for either.

Besides the perceived imbalance of suggested level and price of these items, too many give a bonus to saves against specific and rarely seen effects. Others give larger bonuses to skills like Athletics and Str Ability checks but not to plain old Str checks. I'd rather see more of the class or build specific items give significant boosts to powers. Add a prone effect whenever my thunderwave pushes an enemy. Let me follow a successful Daily power with an At-Will as a minor action. Things like that would give me something to aim for, save for, fight for.

As it is, there's very little to motivate the average adventurer. In taking away the reliance on magic gear they've also taken away one of the central motivators for adventuring in the first place. Sure, there's always for the righteous cause or for the service of one's god. There's even doing it for the pure glory or honor. But what about simple, unabashed greed?

Can you read my mind?

2009-07-09T11:52:00.007-06:00

The Psion.

I wasn't expecting much when I got a look at the preview article for this "new" PHB3 class. I've never liked psionics as they always felt like a tacked on re-branded magic. Points instead of spell slots? That's creative. /sarcasm

However, after the preview of the monk class I was actually pretty excited about seeing what they'd do with the psion.

Right off the bat, I really like the new format with the designer's comments. So I'm going to focus on that rather than the nitty gritty of the psion class.

One thing that struck me is how the text refers to "psionic magic" but much of the commentary suggests that the psionic power source is more of a mental discipline. Which is it WotC? Because if it's the former...

I do like the class features of the Psion. Discipline Focus provides a couple of cool little powers, at least I'm guessing they're "little". I just wish they had given us another example to look at next to Telepathy. Andy Collins does give a hint on what the powers gained through Telepathy Focus do, so that's a bonus.

On the surface of it, Psionic Augmentation is a grand idea. Take an At-will power and with a little extra effort you can boost or change the effects. Excellent. Should be just the thing to spice up the otherwise bland spamming of the At-Wills.

On the downside, much like Crwth I thought that the swapping of Encounter Powers for augmentation points was pretty lame. While I like the idea of Augmentation the way they're doing it seems like a needlessly complicated system, and one that directly opposes the whole 4E simplicity. Crwth offers a good suggestion here but I'd go one further and eliminate the unnecessary bookkeeping of a points system. Make the Psionic Augmentation feature into the classes Encounter Power, with the appropriate levels (Augmentation I, Aug II, Aug III etc...) When the character uses a psion At-Will power the player can then augment it as his/her encounter power. The effect would be up to the level of the highest augmentation the character has attained.

The table on how many points one gets at what level is just... well, it's bad. I had to read it a couple of times before figuring out what the hell they were trying to say. While I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree, I'm not exactly retarded either. Surely there was a plainer/clearer way for WotC to get that info across. It was actually the commentary from Stephen Schubert that finally cleared it up.

The rest of the commentary is irksome. They took the old spellcasting and made it total vanilla but they brought across the 3.5 psionic point system? Because, according to Mike Mearls they "wanted to hit on the same compelling features that made psionics popular before"? Seriously? Psionics was compelling and popular? Am I that out of touch?

It also felt like time to "push the game in a new direction". Okay, I like that idea. The aim is noble but isn't this "new direction" the same old direction of 3.5? Sure, the "new" system, as Andy points out, still gives the player At-Wills to use after the points are all spent but that's just going to feel like a let-down. After firing off augmented versions for first half of an encounter who's going to enjoy going back to the plain Jane vanilla version?

Although Crwth concluded his Psion post with a tongue in cheek barb at your's truly, I am seriously thinking of giving the Psion a playtest just to see if my fears are baseless.

Critical thoughts on critical hits

2009-07-09T09:05:00.003-06:00

Not sure what sparked it, but I got to thinking on the critical hits last night. So I figured I'd post a short comparison of the 3.5 version versus the 4E rule.

There's no arguing that the 4E version of critical hits are easier and quicker to resolve. Roll a natural 20 and you automatically hit and do maximum damage. I mean, they just couldn't be more straight forward. The only ambiguity is whether bonus dice from powers like "Hunter's Quarry" or feats are also maxed out. That's probably in the rules somewhere but since I don't know it without looking I call that an ambiguity.

That one little question aside (and it's something that can easily be looked up) the 4E critical rule works just fine. The math is simple enough and can be jotted down somewhere on the character sheet. The elimination of a confirmation roll keeps combat moving at a nice pace. There's also no need to keep track of the threat range each and every weapon provides. All good things.

On the downside, it feels almost anti-climatic now. In 3.5 a natural 20 (or a 19 in some cases) always sparked a round of excited hoots from everyone in the party. We'd all sit forward and watch the confirmation roll with great anticipation, followed by more whoops or dejected groans. It was great fun.

Now a natural 20 is still good but the best response it gets from fellow players is a "way to go" or "nice". That's it. No huzzahs or woots. Just a golf clap and a nod to the dice gods for favoring us with a nat 20.

So, the criticals in 3.5 have the edge in generating excitement. However, there's no denying that they slowed down play. Especially when that 18th level fighter with the falchion and all the crit expanding feats started rolling. It could take five minutes or more to resolve one round of attacks.

I'm mixed on the threat ranges for weapons. On the one hand, I miss it because that was one thing that really seperated one weapon from another. That and the critical damage multiplier. Crossbows did more damage but a longbow did triple damage on a critical. The kukri rolled the same damage dice as a dagger but had a better threat range. At the same time, I don't miss having to look up the range for a weapon that I only used once in a while (like a throwing axe). That was another of those time wasters that 3.5 combat was full of.

The one thing I certainly don't miss from the 3.5 critical rules is the whole this-thing-is-immune-to-critical-hits bullshit.

With hit points being an abstraction it never made sense to me that undead/constructs/plants/oozes were immune to critical hits. I've always believed that if something has hit points it can be hit especially hard, which is basically all that a critical hit is. It's just an especially nasty or effective attack. Sure stabbing that vampire in the guts isn't going to be anything but an inconvenience to him, but there's no reason a natural 20 can't spill more of it's blood, or temporarily snap a bone (ie. do more damage). An ooze can be splattered a little farther, a plant can be hewn a little deeper, a construct can have some extra bolts loosened. With DR and Resists on top, monsters of the undead and construct variety were far scarier than they really should have been.

In my opinion, the 4E critical system has some really great points. It's fast and simple and works against anything. It should honestly be a hands down favorite but somehow it still falls a little flat in play.

The Psion

2009-07-08T11:17:00.003-06:00

D&D Insiders just got a sneak peak at the Psion class that will be coming out next year in the Player's Handbook 3. As soon as I saw it, I giggled inside, because I know how much Griff loves psionics... I was a bit excited to see what they had done with it, since the Psion is the only psionic character I've played in the last 20 years.

Right off the bat, I was wrong about where the Psion was going to place in the scheme of things. And, right off the bat, I got my back up when I read that the Psion has no encounter attack powers.

Until now, all classes have followed a very regular formula of what they get at each level - at-will here, daily there, new one here, new one there. So when I read that the Psion wasn't taking part in this, I immediately saw 4e going the way of 3.5, with level advancement charts for every class looking wildly different. Instead of the encounter power, the Psion gets power points, reminiscent of the points used in 3.5. These points are used to augment the at-will powers that the Psion has, basically letting him or her turn the at-wills into a pseudo-encounter power, in terms of strength and effect.

This is actually quite interesting, giving the Psion quite a bit of flexibility. The article says that, overall, the resulting effect is that the Psion is going to do as much damage as any other Controller class would do with their encounter power(s). But in this manner, the Psion is allowed to make one of the at-wills their "encounter-like" power in this battle, and another one in the next.

The fact that they don't gain an encounter power still bugs me, though, so I propose that the Psion gets this Power available at the appropriate levels:

Psionic Augmentation I
You augment your psionic powers from a well of extra will.
Encounter Psionic
Free Action Personal
Effect: Until the end of the encounter, you can spend power points on any Power with the Augmentable keyword.

This encounter Power could also be the source of the power points themselves, instead of the separate table in the article.

The Psion of 3rd edition had six Disciplines, each associated with one of the six ability scores. The article has developer commentary throughout it, and they mention that to start they focussed on the two "iconic" builds, telepathy (based on Intelligence in 3.5) and psychokinesis (base on Constitution). Since my dwarf Psion was a Savant (the psychokinesis discipline), I was excited to see that that was going to be available -- but then disappointed when this article stopped after introducing the telepath. HOW long do I have to wait?

The article also, unfortunately, saves space by listing many of the Powers, but not their descriptions, instead providing links to the Compendium. This technically isn't a problem for anyone who's reading it, since they have access to the Compendium as well, but it's awkward to have to go to each power separately to read about them, instead of just reading a handful of pages that lay them all out. Additionally (and this might just be a setting in my Reader), clicking on the links uses the same tab in which I'm reading the PDF, instead of popping up a new one. A bit of a pain, that.

The powers that I did read, though, seem not to have much focus. They mainly deal damage, but some affect in other ways (daze, stun), some do ongoing damage, some weaken defenses... on the one hand, having such a wide range of effects can be handy, true, but it doesn't allow for making a character with a theme.

In fact, the whole feel of the Psion, as I can see with this partial view, is that it's meant to be used for a hybrid character. It feels like it would go well with a Fighter, Rogue or Warlord, adding some Controller to those other roles. Perhaps once the full class is finally released that view might change, but for now, there's just ... something ... that seems to be missing to make it a complete class on its own.

Maybe I can convince Griff to playtest it...

Bookkeeping

2009-07-08T07:41:00.003-06:00

One of the new features of 4e that I like, as I mentioned almost a year ago is the recharge on powers, meant to cut down on the bookkeeping required by the DM on whether the breath weapon was recharged yet, or if short-term effects were still going on.

This "no bookkeeping" idea has fallen short of its mark, from my point of view. Instead of having to look somewhere to see if this is the round in which the dragon's breath has recharged, I now have to look to remember that it CAN recharge, and roll. This came up in our last session, where some of the targets had recharging powers; when it was their turn to act, I would have to check their stat block each time to see if any recharging powers existed, and what the die roll was. I had to do this every time the initiative came around to these monsters.

Now, perhaps this is something that will come naturally as we play more (and play more often)... I did find that I was remembering to check faster as the night went on. But it still feels no different than looking on my old 3.5 combat charts to see if we've gone through three checkmarks to decide whether the breath weapon is back. I've considered making power cards, similar to the ones that many of us now use during our games (thanks to the D&D Insider Character Builder), to have in my hand a set of possible powers available to my NPCs, perhaps with the card turned sideways to remind me that this is one that should be checked for a recharge. This would require a lot more planning on my part...

Another feature of 4e that seems to be contrary to this no-bookkeeping rule is the Immediate Action. Players that might have a Power that acts as an immediate action can manage to remember it, sometimes -- our party has a spectrum of them, from "I-get-to-reroll" to "they-have-to-reroll". But as the DM with multiple "characters", and my own character to boot, remembering that a monster has one of these Powers can be challenging. It actually brought to mind Interrupts from Magic: The Gathering (which is exactly what they are -- I'm not sure why they didn't just go with the same name); remembering to counter someone else's spell required diligence (or a deck dedicated to countering), and if the counterspell was on a creature instead of your hand, good luck remembering that one! I know I missed one or two "shift when missed by a melee attack" uses in our last session (though it helped that one of the targets with that ability was being subject to ranged attacks, for the most part).

But again, perhaps having a "deck" for each monster is the way to go, for both the recharge Powers and the "triggered" Powers - as a player is attacking a monster, I pick up its current "hand" and see if there's anything I can do about it. Right now, I keep the book open for the monster stats, and tally the HP and damage on a separate scratch sheet. Should I print out a stat card for every goblin, writing its damage on it? I can see having these little stacks of cards being awkward as encounters get larger (I think five or six targets has been our limit), but perhaps this is in part due to my small DMing space behind my shield.

What do other DMs do? Are they just better prepared? Better in touch with all of their minions that it's instinctive to have their goblins shift away, or to automatically check for that powerful attack's recharge? It feels like a lot of tracking that is best-suited to a computer, which perhaps explains why I end each session thinking that I should just code up an online version of the rules. Or perhaps I should eagerly await the Game Table from the D&D Insider...

Role play or Role-play

2009-07-06T08:56:00.007-06:00

I'm beginning to come around on 4E. That is to say that I'm starting to see the forest for the trees. While it still feels very generic and has some annoying restrictiveness there are some elements that are welcome and enjoyable. With enough time and a few more books like "Arcane Powers" etc... it could turn into a thoroughly enjoyable game. For sure it'll have some flaws but 3.5 was flawed in numerous ways but it was still fun to play. It's not hard to imagine that 4E will be the same.

However, I'm beginning to feel like we're running out of time. We've been playing 4E for over a year now and we're only just barely 4th level. In other words, we've only just begun to scratch the surface of what 4E can really be. To really plumb the depths of the game will take us several years, at which point WotC will be releasing 5th edition. We're toying with a couple of solutions. Either double xp from now on, or sampling one-night adventures of various levels.

In the meantime, I thought I'd do a series of posts about each of the major issues I have with 4E. I do this because it helps me to reason these things out in written form. Plus, I can often go back and re-read what I wrote and see where my logic left the rails. Finally, any feedback I get from different viewpoints can be very enlightening.

The first of my grips with 4E is the whole irrelevance of character class.

I have written on my character sheet that Tycho is a fighter/wizard, but in play neither of those words ever really matter. The wizard part is especially meaningless to me. I mean, other than having a spellbook and an orb, he never does anything "wizardy".

Oh, he "casts" (to use the term very loosely) Chill Strike and Thunderwave, buys up rituals and components whenever he gets the chance, and identifies magic items thanks to his training in the Arcana skill, but so what? Every class has powers that can do essentially the same things as Chill Strike and Thunderwave. That is daze or push opponents while dealing some modest damage. With feats or skills chosen at 1st level anyone can use the Arcana skill and cast the same rituals.

Therein lies the problem. Nothing really feels exclusively "wizardy" or "spellcasty".

To be fair, there are a couple of real differences between his wizard powers and his fighter powers. The former are opposed by the target's Reflex, Will, or Fortitude while the latter are versus AC. The wizard powers have longer range (10 squares or burst 3) while the fighter powers are all pretty much adjacent targets only. Another difference is that the wizard powers can provoke attacks of opportunity.

Yes, I'm aware that there are lots of differences between the fighter and wizard classes. The Hit Points, healing surges, defense bonuses, etc... are not universal and do have an impact on the game. However, in my opinion the real heart of the 4E class lies in the powers and those don't seem to have any concrete ties to the actual class. In fact, I think that the powers are more strongly related to the role than the class.

So much so that I would argue that instead of picking a character class, one could pick a Role and perhaps a power source. Powers would then be selected from whatever classes fell under that role and power source. An arcane striker would pick from the lists of both the sorcerer and warlock. A martial defender would have the fighter and paladin (I think?) lists to chose from. The end result would be a much more satisfying and customized character.

As it stands now, I find that when creating my character I undergo a series of trade-offs just to fit my concept. A swordmage might be more accurate but the powers don't quite fit the image I have in my head. A wizard doesn't fit either but the powers do. In the end I'm left with a character that's still fun to play but less than satisfying in a number of ways.

Then again, I might be placing too much emphasis on the powers.

At any rate, while I can understand the reasoning behind the whole any-character-can-do-anything philosophy of 4E. No one likes sitting there doing nothing while the player of the rogue searches the hallway for traps and disarms them all. Or while the wizard casts a bunch of Dispel Magic spells. Or while the fighter rolls five attacks and checks for criticals. It can be tedious and boring.

However, there's something to be said for having specialists with an expertise that only they can have. It makes a choice of class meaningful. It gives one a feeling of real contribution. It gives one a moment to shine. Shine on you crazy diamonds. Shine on.

Hybrid Experience, a little more

2009-07-06T08:35:00.006-06:00

Had a good gaming session on Saturday night so I can add a few thoughts on the Hybrid rules.

For starters I can honestly say that my hybrid fighter/wizard is very close to the actual concept I had for my character. That is, a proud Dragonborn warrior with a talent for magic. The bookish aspect of the wizard class is the only thing that still doesn't fit, and it irks me because the class otherwise fits nicely. At least in terms of the powers it gives me access to.

Speaking of which, I've abandoned the Controller role that the wizard is supposed to fill. I suppose my Thunderwave power can still be used to push enemies around but otherwise I don't have anything that affects a mob. This could come back to haunt the party. Or it might be something I can correct as I get to pick new powers at future levels. Assuming that the new controlling power still fits with my storm concept.

The figher's combat challenge, when I remembered to use it, was nice in that I managed to keep a hobgoblin from attacking our rogue who was in a tough spot. Being able to "mark" an enemy wasn't the reason behind creating a fighter hybrid but it did come in handy.

I got a kick out of the Brute Strike daily that the fighter side gave me. The fact that it's "reliable" means that at some point in the day, I am going to hit someone for triple damage. I missed twice on Saturday night, but because it was never expended I'll get to keep trying until I roll something higher than a 5.

I am wondering if the wizard powers (and I suppose any others that target anything other than AC) are going to fall behind the curve, so to speak. In 3.5 I always hated how at the upper levels (15 plus) my spells were always saved against simply because the monster's save bonuses were way higher than my DC could ever be. It seems like 4E hasn't fixed that as my hybrid enjoys a +10 with his bastard sword but a mere +6 with his spells. Throw in some flanking or combat advantage and the discrepency widens.

While I understand that most enemies will have higher AC than the other defences, I'm worried that Reflex/Will/Fortitude defenses will outpace my Int+1/2 char level bonus.

As for the rest of the hybrid mechanics, I haven't seen any flaw in terms of HP etc... I can take a fair bit of abuse but no more than anyone else in the party. Seems like WotC hit a nice balance with their numbers.

Over all, I'm pretty happy with the hybrid character I have. Happy enough to keep him until 8th level, assuming I can keep him alive that long. At that point I'll probably switch back to a pure class like a swordmage and do another comparison.

Arcane Power: A welcome boost or necessary evil?

2009-07-02T09:19:00.008-06:00

By now it should come as no surprise that I'm not exactly a fan of 4E. I'm sure I've beaten the no-multiclassing-spellcasters-suck-now horse well past the point of death. However, there are some signs that 4E might someday mature into a good all around game.

The hybrid rules are a step in the right direction. The whole emphasis on a character's "Role" in the party is still overly invasive, restrictive, and utterly annoying but at least there's some room for creative class mixing.

The new monk not only solidifies a class that always felt "tacked on" but also validates psionics, which were just shit from the get go. While the final product of the monk and psionics is yet to be seen, it sure looks promising.

Really, the only remaining disappointment I have is with the spellcasters. Namely the Arcane ones. The ones that were my favorites in 3rd edition but now feel and play exactly like any other class.

I'm sure that the Wizards, Sorcerers, Warlocks et al get access to some pretty sweet powers eventually. I've seen a few that I'm actually looking forward to having but it all rings hollow when I look at the powers the fighter side of my hybrid will get. They have the same level of niftiness with the added bonus of being right up in the thick of the action. Martial characters get to have their cake and eat it too.

Which brings me to the new "Arcane Powers" supplement. It's name alone gives me hope. After all, I really liked the majority of the content in the "Martial Powers" book, so I'm hoping the Arcane version will be filled with similar yumminess.

I read somewhere (sorry for the lack of linkage, I wanna say that it was somewhere on dungeonmastering.com but I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to go searching) that the Familiar is finally joining the party, and that they have a passive and active mode. That's all well and good. I've never been a big fan of the familiar, simply because I don't like the extra bookkeeping and logistics of having one. If they've dumbed the familiar down to the point of being a magic item that perches on one's shoulder, that's fine by me.

I also saw something on a storm theme which is enticing. Not only is the sorcerer my favorite 3rd edition class, the addition of the storm theme would make it a good fit for my current hybrid fighter/wizard. I might need to do yet another character re-build. Or, perhaps not, since class is almost meaningless in 4E (but that's another post entirely).

I'm sure the wizard, warlock, and bard all gain some new tricks as well. The wizard section(s) will be of particular interest to me, and the warlock might be a good or interesting read, but I still say that the warlock and sorcerer are redundant. While one uses pacts and the other has a chaotic slant, in the end both are arcane strikers. Do we really need two of those? As for the bard, well, who really cares about bards?

While I'm loathe to drop any more cash on an edition that I'm not entirely sold on (yet) when we have a very fun edition to fall back upon, I'll probably break down and buy Arcane Power when I get the chance. I just hope that it finally gives the spellcasters a reason to be.

Recently resurrected

2009-06-05T08:24:00.003-06:00

I feel really bad for not having posted anything for over a month. Insert blah-blah-life-gets-in-the-way-blah-blah excuse here.

As Griff mentioned previously, we've finally be able to start up the second module, Thunderspire Labyrinth. We've only had two sessions so far, which speaks to the available time for the whole group. We're playing again tonight, and I hope this starts a trend of semi-regular play again, hopefully going hand-in-hand with some semi-regular article reading and blog posting.

My backlog of unread articles is huge. Some are months old. Do I start with the oldest, and see if I catch up? Or do I start with the newest, read backwards, and see if I ever finish the backlog? I think for the sake of this blog, I'll start with the newest articles, because it's the content that people might still care about.

I'm off to update wizardslinks with over 30 articles. Then I'll be reading some of them, and hoping that there's something to come back and talk about!

The Hybrid Experience, part 2

2009-05-25T09:47:00.006-06:00

Finally got our group together for some D&D on the weekend so my hybrid Fighter/Wizard got to see some action. One fight with some hobgoblins but... so far so good.

Can't really comment on any balance issues yet. Nothing that seemed overpowered or felt wrong popped up during that one combat. He certainly didn't feel like an unstoppable killing machine but he did finish off one hobbie, finishing tied for second place in kills. (The ranger notched two, but only because he cowers in the back and picks off the ones everyone else has already softened up. That's right Hune. You're a kill thief. We all know it.)

Anyways, as far as playability goes, he was certainly more fun than my vanilla wizard ever was. It could be just the novelty but the fighter powers are quite fun. In fact it was thanks to the Reaping Strike that gives STR damage even on a miss that finished off the last hobgoblin. Pretty cool doing damage even when I roll a 2.

At the same time, the wizard powers still came in handy. I used a pair of Thunderwaves, one of which successfully moved a pair of enemies out of the way. I also used Shield to negate a hit.

So I can safely say that the Hybrid rules are definitely a step in the right direction. They've given me some of the versatility and freedom that I love but sorely miss in 4E.

This might be a little premature, but I've yet to notice anything in terms of a trade off for being a Hybrid. In 3.5 multiclassing was all about weighing the gains against the losses. One had to plan far ahead and decide whether losing access to those upper level spell slots was worth a few levels of fighter and all those "free" feats. It was a dangerous balancing act of compromise but oh so satisfying when it worked. Of course the whole min/max issue is highly subjective. While I loved it, I'm sure others are glad to see it gone from 4E.

I will say that the sheer simplicity of the Hybrid is nice. Not having to total up levels from each class, apply a possible ECL penalty, and whatnot is a welcome relief for the math challenged. Even with a multiclass feat my character is level 4. Couldn't be simpler.

Now for the downside.

I was really struck by how the "combat classes" are much more fun to play than the "caster classes".

My Wizard would just stand a safe distance and blast away ad nauseum. The closest I came to having to think was counting "squares" to make sure he was within range. Otherwise it was a simple matter of "one target = Shock Sphere", "two or more up close = Thunderwave", "two or more far away = Scorching blast". Fairly blase and a far cry from the 3.5 spellcasting experience.

While the Fighter powers made combat a lot more satisfying I think that's more of a testament to just how badly WotC brutalized the spellcasting system.

Granted, I only played a pure Wizard through 3 levels. If I had stayed with it, it might have turned out to have a very interesting mix of powers at it's disposal. It's not like 3.5 edition Wizards and Sorcerers were a ton of fun before 4th level.

Still, it's somewhat damning that adding two fighter powers is enough to make the game (or, more accurately, the combat aspect) fun again.

As long as I don't end up using "Reaping Strike" round after round.

The Monk who finally found true love

2009-05-21T08:01:00.004-06:00

For a variety of reasons we haven't played our beloved game for several weeks now, so I've yet to try out my hybrid character.

However, I did get a look at the playtest for the Monk class (thanks to Crwth, as usual). Here are my usual half-assed opinions.

First off, the Monk is now Psionic. My initial reaction to that was... well, I was disgusted. I've always hated psionics going all the way back to AD&D. No good reason for that. I think that my problem with psionics started with it not feeling "in place" with the whole swords and magic theme. Anyways, I was young and it's a bias that has irrationally stayed with me ever since.

However, I quickly reminded myself of that and of the fact that it's just a word. With that in mind I was able to get past my hang up and approached it with an open mind (as open as my mind ever gets anyways).

Then, a funny thing happened. I realized that the Psionic power source is a perfect fit for the Monk. In fact, it totally changed a class that never seemed to find the right niche.

With Psionics however, the monk is suddenly associated with it's famous mental fortitude and discipline in a concrete way. What was once just a bit of flavor for RP purposes is now a central theme of the class. It simply works.

Emboldened by that shattered paradigm I continued reading. Much like every class in 4E the monk has some interesting powers, some that are only so-so and formulaic. The new twist of a "Full Discipline" is interesting. Sorta reminiscent of the old "full round action". I like it in that it really makes it easy to visualize the fluidity of the Monk in battle.

My only real complaint is in the weapon proficiencies. I'd like to see more for the monk, just because the real world inspiration (or the one that I visualize when I think "monk") could pick up anything nearby and turn it into a weapon. While I don't think farm implements need to be listed in a PHB, I'm hopeful that the traditional kama, sai, and whatnot find their way into the game as Monk implements. Frankly I'd be surprised if they didn't but for now it is an issue.

All in all, they've done a great job with the 4E monk. Should my current character die, or choose to "retire", I'm thinking my next character will be a monk. Perhaps if the playtesting is done and the PHB3 is out, I might get to try the hybrid monk/sorcerer I've been dreaming of since FR loosened the monk multi-classing restrictions. Now that's something to look forward to.

The Hybrid Experience, pt 1

2009-05-01T08:25:00.005-06:00

This week I finally got around to re-creating my Dragonborn wizard as a Hybrid wizard/fighter.

Cliche, I know. I was tempted to go wizard/swordmage or even sorcerer/swordmage but I went the way I did for a couple of reasons.

First off, the wizard is still the only class that has powers that fit my storm theme. The sorcerer will have to wait for another day.

Secondly, as interesting as the swordmage is, I want to see if the Hybrid rules are capable of handling a less than optimal combination. I could have gone wizard/swordmage which is one of the combos suggested in the article, but power-gaming it won't prove anything.

Finally, the fighter and wizard are as vanilla as DnD classes get. They've been around since the beginning (more or less) and are icons for a reason. If they don't mix well, then there's something seriously wrong with the Hybrid rules.

Anyways, the character generation was pretty straight forward. The rules for creation are well written and clear. There was one spot where I was a little confused (sorry, can't recall the exact details) but after some flipping back and forth I eventually figured it out. Minor quibble there so overall the structure of the article/ruleset is good.

One thing that bugs me is in the proficiencies. The Hybrid character gets all the weapon proficiencies of each class. Fair enough. Simple, straight forward, makes sense. But, armor proficiency is the opposite. The Hybrid gets only those armor proficiencies that are common to both classes.

I've tried to think of the rationale for that, but so far I've drawn a blank. The best guess I have is that they wanted to give one or the other (armor or weapons) but not both, to avoid the Hybrid from being "overpowered". Considering characters are almost totally defined by their powers, the limit on armor proficiency is puzzling.

I ended up spending feats to get my character into his chainmail, so it wasn't a big deal. Like I said, it was just a little puzzling.

The selection of powers was a little more interesting with the Hybrid than my pure Wizard was. Having those few extra options was a noticable improvement. That said, there was only one instance where I waffled back and forth between a pair of fighter powers. Still, I'm all about options options options, so this facet of the Hybrid was nice.

In summary, I'm actually excited to see how he plays.

So you wanna play an Arcane Archer

2009-04-13T07:43:00.007-06:00

Normally I don't pay a lot of attention to the "Character Concept" articles in Dragon, but the one from Issue #374 provides a perfect example of the one thing that robs the enjoyment from 4E.

The Arcane Archer.

Anyone who played 3rd edition is probably familiar with the Arcane Archer. It was a nice little prestige class from the DMG that was most likely overshadowed and forgotten under the deluge of later releases. Of all the prestige classes the Arcane Archer and Shadow Adept are the two that I'd most like to see as classes in 4E. Since we're going to get so many classes anyways, why not port some of the better Prestige Classes?

In the meantime this Character Concepts article offers up a way to build a makeshift version. All well and good so far.

If you are thinking at all like I was, you naturally assumed that they'd start with a Ranger. The author, Matthew Sernett, does indeed address that assumption. "When it comes to archery, no class holds a candle to the ranger, but the ranger doesn't have much that seems like magic in terms of ranged attacks."

Okay. Agreed. So what do you suggest Matthew?

"Fortunately, Arcane Power provides the bard with a number of ranged weapon powers that hit the target."

What? The bard? Are you fucking kidding me?

This is precisely why the prospect of my gaming group sticking with 4E fills me with such loathing and dread. The whole I have character concept "x" but the only way I can come close to doing it is through some half-ass compromise. I might not want to play a bard but if I want my Arcane Archer, well... I've gotta suck it up because there's no other way to do it.

And it's not a question of whether the bard class is "better" than the ranger class. It's about options and choice and imagination. You know. The parts of DnD that are far more important than streamlined combat rules. The parts that make the game fun.

Say I want to play a rogue or stealthy type who likes to coerce enemies into following him around the battlefield. A taunting type with a splash of swashbuckling. In 3.5 I'd probably start with a rogue or bard and then work in some fighter levels for the feats. Easy peasy and fun.

In 4E this character probably needs to be able to "mark" so... what? A paladin multiclassed with bard? I honestly don't know. So I guess I'll shelve that concept and just cookie cutter myself a generic rogue or fighter or whatever. What difference does it make? Really?

Honestly, I could probably roll a die to generate a class, slap on a name, and start playing. If I want to put some thought into it I need to forget about the class name and focus on the powers it offers. It's the menu of powers that are important. So what if being a paladin makes absolutely no sense for my character concept. I mean, it's not like there's room for any sort of character development. God forbid that I should try to develop a backstory and personality for my character. Picking a name is about the limit of creativity allowed in 4E.

But I suppose that if we jump straight into combat it'll be fun. Right?

Is the world leaving without me?

2009-04-07T14:18:00.003-06:00

It came to my attention today, thanks as usual to Crwth, that WotC is pulling the rights for third parties to sell pdfs. The WotC party line is that it's a move to curb piracy. The conspiracy theorists see it as an evil plot to force 4E on the non-adapters.

Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle. Mainly because I can't quite believe that they'd cut off even a small trickle of income. Not in this current economic climate when any income is good income.

Mostly I find it hard to believe that my fellow "hangers on" would spend their money on 4E products simply because we can't buy 3.5 (or older version) pdfs. The way I see it, if I can't get 3.5 material I'll be happy with what I have and keep my money, thanks.

So, ideally WotC's little game of "I'm-taking-my-ball-and-going-home" will backfire.

Yet, realistically I have little doubt that without 3.5 pdfs to buy more than a few gamers will shrug and buy a 4E book or two. A few of them might even like it enough to stick with it. A few others will continue to shrug and just buy the game that's currently supported.

The rest might buy 4E soley because of some odd fear of "falling behind". Like there's some sort of natural selection taking place among gamers, where the early adapters thrive and multiply with their roles and powers.

Meanwhile the players like me cling to our anachronistic multi-classing and Vancian spellcasting systems.

In ten years time when my son is playing (5th edition?) will I be unable to relate to his Spellscorched Paragon Striker? Will DnD themed web-comics cease to make sense to me?

Will I find myself extinct from the gamer gene pool?

Hybrids

2009-04-06T10:46:00.002-06:00

Today's Dragon articles included a Playtest article on Hybrid Characters. In a nutshell, this is multiclassing for 4e.

But wait, doesn't 4e have the multiclass feat? Sure, but did anyone really think of that as multiclassing? Not around here, surely. It let you dabble in a second class, getting a little taste of it, just enough to wish for the old days.

Hybrids, though, let you do more than that. As you advance, you advance in your two chosen classes equally; in fact, you get the hit points for both, the bonuses for both, the weapon proficiencies, the surges... sounds too powerful, right?

Well not quite. There are "hybrid" versions of the classes, which lessen the impact of these combining rules: clerics get 7 surges a day, hybrid clerics get 3 (plus their other hybrid class's); clerics get healing word, hybrid clerics get a hybrid version that's once-per-encounter.

The powers are as usual, though, which means that you have the same number of powers at each level, but can now choose from both of your hybrid classes. There's a small restriction - that if you have more than one type of power (daily, encounter, etc.) you must have at least one from each of the classes, much the same as the druid class requires you to take at least one beast-form and one non-beast-form power.

The article starts off pointing out that if you choose two classes that fill different roles, then your character is not going to adequately fill either. This means that if you're in a larger party, you might want someone else to also be a leader, or controller, along side you; but is also means that in a smaller party, you can help fill in roles that might have gone absent.

An interesting side note also mentions that "[t]he system of classes and roles in D&D is designed to ensure that every character has a clear purpose at the table and that no character can easily become marginalized by poor choices made in character creation," and goes on to warn that "[t]he hybrid character system discards many of the safeguards built into the normal class system."

Unfortunately, until this playtest turns into official rules (having ironed out what we Insiders might send them in commentary), we won't have access to the hybrids in the Compendium or the Character Builder. Being my preferred method for trying out 4e builds, I don't know that I'll be trying out this hybrid very soon, even though I could just do it by hand. I think that hybrids between similar roles will turn out to be better characters in general, because they're not splitting their attention, so much as their methods. A ranger/rogue is still a striker through-and-through, even if only half of the abilities are rangery and half roguey.

However, having read Griff's opinion on the wizard, and how you just end up using the same at-will power over and over, perhaps having a second, completely-different type of at-will at your disposal might be the key to livening up a character. In fact, Griff's wizard fancies the bastard sword, so having a controller attack of a wizard as well as a defender/striker attack when up-close might be the key to turning Griff to the dark side of 4e. Perhaps he'll let us know.

One last thing I should point out is that you can still take the multiclass feat when a hybrid, letting you dabble in a third class. I think that this, if balanced properly, might just allow those of us addicted to countless classes and prestige classes from 3.5 to get closer to the customization we miss.

Playing your own character

2009-03-30T08:56:00.004-06:00

Hot on the heels of Griff's last two posts, I'll mention that I've been playing with the Character Builder a lot lately, getting to know the different classes out there. I find that this is a lot easier than trying to read through thirty levels of powers for a class, where they all blur together...

To test out the Builder, I took all of my various 3.5 characters over the years, and attempted to recreate them in 4e. It should be noted that, while I might complain about the lack of choice in 4e, I very rarely multiclassed in 3.5, not counting prestige classes. I thought that this might have made these recreations a little easier.

I started this experiment after reading the article on the Shadar Kai in Dragon #372, where they also provided some feats specific to the spiked chain. This brought to mind my 3.5 character Placide DeMorgan, and I thought I'd give a spin recreating him.

This was actually a lot of fun, and quite the challenge. The idea of Placide was that he had reach, and that he could Trip and Disarm well. Trip and Disarm are no longer general attack types in 4e, so my goal was to take any power that came along that provided "...and target falls prone" or any mention of disarming. Then I decided that anything that might grab a target would fit in with the concept (wrapping them around with the chain), and, if none of these choices was available, I'd go for the idea of a sweeping attack, such as a close burst smack-everyone-around-you attack. And if all else failed, I'd take a power that provided a slide or pull effect, as Placide tugs his opponents around the battlefield.

But it was tough! There were many choices of powers that fit with this idea. It also "helped" that, with the right choice of feats, the spiked chain was considered a flail, a two-handed weapon, two weapons, an off-hand weapon, a light blade, a double weapon, and reach weapon, which meant that any powers that offered up bonuses to use of such a weapon became appealing.

To level Placide through level 30 probably took two hours, on and off, of flipping back and forth between power descriptions and even feat descriptions. It was probably the most engaging character I've made in 4e.

On the heels of such a success, I tried to make Raven, my Druid/Shifter (and by far my favorite 3.5 character to play). Not having the Shifter prestige class was going to be a blow, but because the beast form was such a large part of the 4e druid, my idea was to focus on powers and feats that would allow 4e Raven to remain in beast form and be at her most powerful, with little regard to her human form. Also, going with the more feral build, I was going to avoid taking any powers that did energy damage, staying instead with claws, teeth and primal savagery.

Well I was successful, I suppose, in that I made a 30th level druid. But it wasn't nearly as fun, or interesting, or engaging, as making the fighter. I kept thinking that I wished I could have a little bit of a Rage effect, to really let the primal nature take over, or some stealthy creeping beast form to then sneak attack with -- but of course, I can't multiclass barbarian or rogue here. While I was able to apply my build "rules" and choose from my options easily, I ended up whipping through the 30 levels without really noticing it, without much thought.

You might be thinking, then, that it's my fault for coming up with this restrictive build, that made this character easy and uninteresting to make. But this is my point. I summarized this feeling to one of our group on Saturday night: that 3.5 allowed you to come up with some completely-custom idea for a character -- a stabby, lightning-casting, gnome who's good at tripping and throwing hammers -- and you could find a combination of classes, feats, spells and equipment to realize you very specific character concept. In 4e, you can try to do this, but in the end, are given only a handful of choices, and you have to try and be creative based on those (or perhaps in spite of those).

I got lucky with building 4e Placide, because there were lots of feats and powers that accentuated the idea behind him. But not so much with Raven. And perhaps the next book or Dragon article will give me the flexibility I need -- even 3.5 didn't have every bit of content available in the beginning -- but generally new content in 4e is for the new race or new class, not something that gets added to an existing class. Feats, sure, are available to most characters, but powers are always tied to a specific class. And if I can't take that power, then let me take that class *at any level I decide to*.

As Griff just mentioned, the Paragon Paths are helping to provide a few extra branches to the thin evergreens of the class progressions, but even those are limited, and the Epic Destinies are, as Griff believes, a bit limited.

Today I just tried another remake, this time recreating the ever-doomed Ish'us'q. Had Ish'us'q seen more years in 3.5, he would have focused on DR, SR and regeneration, likely going down the path of the forsaker. In 4e, I decided to build him similarly to the Dungeons & Dragons Online version of him, with heavy concentration on raging, a falchion, and taking out multiple foes at once. There are various powers that focus on raging, and when there wasn't one available, a close burst power was usually available. The choices were there, and I got my character, but, as with Raven, it just wasn't very satisfying. There's my barbarian, all made up and ready for 30 levels... but apart from the initial "choice" of my theme, it was a no-brainer at all 29 level-ups. The glimmer of hope I had for 4e character creation that I had when making Placide still wasn't recreated.

I'm not done yet -- I've got more classes to try out in the builder, both old and new. But instead of coming up with a theme and then sitting down to realize it on a character sheet, I will be browsing through the powers of my chosen class, and trying to come up something interesting, to stand out from the others.

What colour do you want your Ford Model T in?

This is Epic?

2009-03-30T08:33:00.006-06:00

A bit more on the PHB2.

For starters, I can see now why they include classes like the Shaman, Warden, and Warlord. For sure those "classes" are pale variants on stronger classes, but I can't say that they're not necessary. We need as many of these banal tweaks as we can get so that we can find something that closely fits most any character concept.

A ranger might not be quite right so there's the Warden. A druid kinda makes sense but the Shaman has powers that are better suited. Etc...

I still hate the idea of that, but I understand the design now.

I love the Paragon Paths. The more of these that come out in each book the better. They are really the one and only thing to look forward to. The one meaningful decision in your character's career.

So much for Rob Heinsoo's goal of widening the sweet spot. What they really did was set the Paragon Tier as the de facto sweet spot.

That's most obvious when you look at the Epic Paths. My god they suck! I mean, seriously suck. There is absolutely nothing there to look forward to. For any class.

Epic levels should bring epic choices. This is the time when we should be weighing every decision in light of our character's goals. We're talking heroic destiny here.

Yet we get repetitive drop-this-power-and-select-from-three-of-these-to-replace-it decisions. If you want to call that a decision.

Maybe they'll address that in PHB3. Or in some Epic Powers add-on. Or both. What better way to ensure that we drop another $50 into WotC's coffers?

Oh wait. They have already found a better way to snag our money. By putting core rules in "optional" source books.

How else does one explain the fact that they still didn't address double weapons in the PHB2? If double weapons had been overlooked or cut from the original PHB, well, so be it. Adding them in to the PHB2 would have been a reasonable remedy.

Instead they put the rules for double weapons in the Adventurer's Vault and nowhere else. If you want those rules, dig out your wallet chump.

On the bright side, I'm sure the "Adventurer's Vault" and similar books will have plenty of other good stuff. Enough at least to justify the extra money spent.

Maybe even something epic.

With this class, I thee wed...

2009-03-30T08:00:00.003-06:00

Our group finally got the chance to play after a two month hiatus.

It was good to get back as it reminded me that the ruleset (ie. 4e or 3.5) isn't the most important thing. It's an important foundation for the fun, but the rules are not the be all, end all of the fun.

During play I also got to read through my brother's copy of the PHB2. As I did I even had an epiphany of sorts.

The classes in 4E feel so restrictive because they're meant to be. You're supposed to pick a single class and go with it for all 30 levels!

I know. That sounds like a total "well duh dipshit wake the fuck up" thing to write, but like I said... epiphany.

In my mind, the class has always been just a tool to help with the realization of my character concept. If I want a melee fighter who uses touch spells I start with a monk and then add in either sorceror or cleric levels. If I want a stealthy warrior who uses twin short swords I go ranger and rogue. And so on.

I can't do that in 4E because once you pick a class, that's it. You're locked in for better or for worse. Til death or TPK do you part. You might look wistfully at that other class and wonder what it would be like to be that for just a weekend, but at best you can flirt by using a multi-class feat.

Upon realizing that it became clear that to fully enjoy 4E I need to change the way I make my characters. I can still start with a concept (ie. storm themed caster) but I have to pour over the potential class and find the one that'll be the best fit.

I did exactly that with the PHB2 as I considered switching my current character from a wizard to a sorcerer.

On the one hand, the sorcerer dragon magic path is a nice fit for my Dragonborn. On the other, the sorcerer powers (for the heroic tier anyways) don't really fit the storm theme I want. There are some lightning and cold powers but nothing that really screamed "this is the character I want".

So, although the wizard class isn't perfect it is comfortable. So I settled.

Of course, when one settles for less than perfect it's only a matter of time before you start thinking of divorce.

Getting Primal

2009-03-27T10:59:00.002-06:00

Just read the Dev & Des article on the Primal power source in the PHB2.

A few quick comments.

I like Rob's descriptions of the Barbarian and Druid classes. I haven't seen the PHB2 yet, so I have to take his word for it, but it sounds like they're finally noticably different from the Fighter and Cleric. I've always felt that either or both classes could have been rolled into the latter classes (with feats and optional spell lists opened up by a Prestige Class or something). Whether that changes with 4E's PHB2, well... we'll see.

The Warden, I only vaguely remember from some sneak peek article. It sounds to me at first pass as another Warlord type. A class that exists solely to fill pages in a product. Could the Warden's powers be rolled into the Ranger or Barbarian? Maybe open up some options for those classes versus creating a new cookie cutter?

I'm a proponent of fewer classes and more options. 4E seems to be about more classes with two options (ie. builds) for each.

Then there's the Shaman. I don't even need to read this class. It's clearly a slice of Druid/Sorcerer/Wizard given unnecessary ink. It'll take more than a fancy familiar (aka "spirit companion") to justify this class.

Mike then gives us a look at the Primal classes and how they fit the revamped cosmology. With this, I'm fully on board.

Make the druid into the anti-cleric. Let them butt heads over Gods vs Primordials. Create intra-party tension and conflict. That's good shit.

The rest... well... sounds like the PHB2 could have been about 50 pages.

Stabbed in the back by a double weapon

2009-03-25T11:45:00.004-06:00

It came to my attention via Crwth that double weapons were not included in the core PHB.

I found that really hard to believe. But sure enough the first place they show up is in the Adventurer's Vault supplement.

Nice WotC. Fuck you too.

I mean, it's not like the double weapon is a new idea. They had 'em in 3.5 so it only made sense that they'd appear in 4E.

Yet instead of putting the double weapon, even just one piddly example, in the PHB and thereby including the rules for them in the CORE SET OF RULES, they wait and put them into a supplement.

Along with the rules on how to play them.

Worm meet hook meet victimized consumer.

Promises. Promises.

2009-03-23T11:00:00.005-06:00

I got a look at the Crwth's Insider copy of the Martial Powers Book playtest article.

For starters, I've gotta say that I love WotC's use of these playtest articles to get feedback from the players (ie. customers) before putting it all in ink. Assuming its not just a phony PR stunt.

As for the actual material, well... it's heartening. I mean, at long last they seem to be following up on the pre-release promises of having a warrior's choice in weapon mean something. (But why only for martial characters? Can't an arcane or divine or primal character specialize in a weapon too? Wouldn't that be more in line with the 'every class is equal and indistinguishable' thing 4E has going on?)

The feat bonuses and effects are all pretty much more of the same old formula. Add a bonus to this, do that in such and such a situation. Still, it's something that will differentiate a fighter who uses an axe from a fighter who prefers a spear and shield.

Most importantly, to me anyways, is that it offers up a lot of promise. I mean, all of my unfounded and harsh criticism aside (3.5 forever!) it's looking like 4E will be a really fun game.

In about three years.

In the meantime...

An interview with the devil (just kidding Heinsoo)

2009-03-16T07:09:00.012-06:00

My interest in all things DnD has been pretty low lately (for a number of reasons) so I haven't had much to write about.

Until Crwth pointed out this interview with Rob Heinsoo.

Now, I've been unfairly critical of Mr. Heinsoo in the past. In my defense I was in a foul mood that day and his Dev Post about his desk (when I was expecting something relevant) just pushed me over the edge. While it's true that I'm extremely jealous of the fact that he holds my dream job (and embittered by the knowledge that he's certainly more qualified and better at it than I'd ever be) I have a lot of respect for Heinsoo.

That said...

For starters Heinsoo says (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he designed 4E so that it would play like he expected the game to play when he was ten years old. Not to be smarmy, but if there's one overwhelming impression I get from 4E, it's that it was designed for ten year olds.

By that I mean that it's very much a game where you can whip up a character in a few minutes and dive right in. Over all that's not a bad thing, but I feel like they simplified by taking away choices from the players. At the same time there seem to be even more keywords and effects and conditions that need to be repeatedly looked up (although that might just be due to mixing them up with the more familiar 3.5 terms).

Otherwise, for the most part I agree with some of the things Heinsoo has to say.

First off I agree that a 1st level 4E character definitely has the feel of a 4th level 3.5 character. Not a bad thing, to be honest. My only counter is that I never had a 1st level character die. Oddly enough all of my dead PCs were in the 4th to 15th range of levels. In other words, right in Heinsoo's "sweet spot".

Is that from DM Crwth pulling punches at the early levels? Dumb luck? More care with delicate low levels PCs? All of the above?

While I'm at it, I'll also agree with his point on the "sweet spot". I definitely looked forward to hitting 3rd level as the feat gained felt like the point where my character concept finally began to be realized. Above and beyond that I can't say that I enjoyed the 4th thru 10th levels any more than the levels 11 and up.

However, and this is admittedly damning, my upper level characters were a rogue/sorcerer and a sorceress, so I can't really say that fighter-types were outshone at those levels. I do find it hard to believe that an 18th level Fighter with the plethora of feats and the ability to deal out 100+ damage in a round wouldn't be as much fun as my 18th level sorceress. But it's possible.

Still, I've gotta disagree with Heinsoo's assertion that in 3.5 not all of the classes "rocked". In my opinion every class from the Barbarian to the Wizard (and I'm sticking to the PHB core classes here) most definitely rocked. Most importantly, they all rocked in decidedly different ways. Whether it was the ability to Rage or sing or change shape; or a plethora of feats, or sneak attack, or smite, every class had an identity.

While I applaud the intent of 4E to give every 1st level character a fighting chance via a ton of hit points (and healing surges) I think they just went too far with the various powers.

By giving Powers to all they've stripped away the relevance of those powers. Once every one has them, they cease to be anything special. Where's the noticable difference? Where's the defining characteristic of the character?

The answer is that it depends on the character's role. The Controller directs traffic. The Striker deals out damage. The Defender holds the line. The Leader gives out the buffs. Every class has a set of powers that support the given role. That's what defines the 4E character. The role within the party has become king.

I'm not arguing that having roles is a bad thing. It's called a Role Playing Game for a reason. Plus, semantics aside, it just makes sense for a party to have as many bases covered as possible. From experience every time we created a new party it always began with a question of who was going to play what. We didn't necessarily handcuff ourselves to having someone to take care of healing or deal with traps but it was in our heads at the very least.

Putting my quibbles aside, I did enjoy getting a little insight into the aims and thought processes of the 4E designers. I'll also say that they seem to have hit the mark on everything that they wanted to do. 4E does play easily, it flows nicely, the encounters are fun, and there are never any moments where a player has nothing to do.

It should be a really great game.

So why don't I enjoy it nearly as much as 3.5?

Move over sorcery. Hand me a sword.

2009-03-05T10:22:00.009-07:00

So long magic. I'm now looking to the sword to make D&D fun again.

In the ultimate in respec (and despite it being something I've railed against in the past) I'm switching my current character from a wizard to a fighter.

Why?

For starters I want to give 4E a fair shake and kick all the tires. Ideally I'd remake him as a different class at every level up, but that would be a little ridiculous. So, having completed the first module and then going through a lengthy hiatus until H2, it's the perfect chance to try out the melee side of things.

The biggest reason however is that the Wizard class is just incredibly boring to me. Now that every class as spells (or powers as WotC calls 'em now) the Wizard has been robbed of the one thing that made the class (or any spellcasting class) fun and unique. The Wizard is just another face in the crowd. A one trick pony that stands at the back and drops the same at-will power repeatedly. Blah.

The clincher has been some of the content I've seen in Crwth's Dragon pdfs. Articles such as the Gladiator one and the "Art of the Kill" are not only interesting reads, but also provide several Multi-class feats for martial types to use. While a far cry from the diversity I've come to expect in my DnD game, the Multiclass and the Technique feats can at least spice up a character and provide an in-game difference maker.

At first glance "my fighter is a Bravo Novice with the Cruel Cut Technique" is potentially better than "my fighter uses an axe". Only time will tell if these feats provide a noticable difference at the table.

I suspect that I'm merely swapping out repetitive Scorching Blasts for repetitive Thundering Blows (or whatever the fighter at-will is). At the very least the switch has rekindled my passion for the game.

Monster Conversions

2009-03-02T12:44:00.002-07:00

On the heels of previous monster creation post, we get the March Dragon Editorial, where they talk about the progression of monsters from the very beginning.

Specifically, they talk about the roper, which, ever since the 3.5 module Forge of Fury, have been a favorite of mine. Our party's encounter with that creature still sits in our minds, all these years later.

The roper, through the various versions, has certainly changed to match the "style" of the monster design, even if it tried to maintain its signature mark: strength-sapping, adventurer-dragging tentacles. It's is interesting to see how that is handled by the rules, especially back in 1st edition, where it was a very "loose" set of rules, to 3.5 with a large set of terms, to 4e with a very miniature-like set of operations. Especially, I like the question in the article, "but mechanically … what exactly is happening here, and when?"

The article claims that the 4e roper is well-designed, and I have to agree. It adheres to the "style" of 4e powers, and it does so, in the same manner as other more "complex" creatures, by having attacks that require the target to be in some other state. So the roper has a Reel ability that can only be used on a target that it has grabbed, which is the result of a successful tentacle attack, much as other creatures can immobilize with one attack, then can use a special attack against immobilized targets.

This is good design. It stands by the rule of "reduced paperwork", where 4e tries to prevent all of the bookkeeping involved with effects wearing off, or recharging (like the old dragon breath). I think it will be interesting to see if the 4e design has anticipated all of the 4e interpretations of older monsters and older abilities: we have immobilized, dazed, stunned, grabbed, prone, etc., and push, pull and slide; and I suppose there's no reason you can't add a new "condition" later on, if one's needed. And then as long as a conversion can turn an old-school ability to a "first attack and cause condition X, then use a different attack (on a target under condition X), to have this other effect", we can pretty much convert anything, from older editions or from our minds.

New powers

2009-02-28T19:07:00.002-07:00

It looks like February has been a slow month, and I wonder where I've been slacking, but then realize that, except for a handful of PDF Dragon articles that I have yet to read, there's not much else to talk about this month.

One of those PDF articles is on playing the Shadar-Kai, a shadowy race of creatures. The race is spelled out as a player race in the back of the Monster Manual, but the Dragon article goes further about the background of the shadar-kai as a race, and also provides a few extra powers, based on the shadar-kai's expertise with the spiked chain.

This is actually a pseudo-multiclass feat that you take (the training), which then lets you take other feats (at 4th-, 8th- and 10th-level) to swap out some of your powers for spiked chain specialty powers.

This got me thinking about the human fighter I was making in the Character Builder a few weeks ago, based on my 3.5 spiked chain/repeating crossbow fighter. As I made Placide as a 4e character in the Character Builder, I took advantage of the Compendium's search capabilities to search for any powers that gave mention or a bonus to "flail" weapons, which is where the spiked chain falls, to try and create the same focus on a specific weapon.

And this got me thinking about how it was fortuitous that spiked chain-specific powers appeared, which then got me thinking, "why couldn't I have come up with this?"

And that's what got me writing this post. I've bored you to tears about my comments on the math behind making monsters, or lack thereof, but what about powers? What is it that makes this given power a 9th-level Daily? How do you know if the amount of damage makes a power 5th, 15th or 25th level? Is it simply the 1[W], which magically goes up to 2[W] at level X, 3[W] at level Y, etc.? Sort of (see below). What if the power adds prone? What if it dazes until end of my next turn (or save ends?)

These are the same questions I asked about monster design, about taking an existing one and swapping out an attack for another similar (whatever that means) attack. And again, I wonder if there's some magic formula of "1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage, slide the target 2 squares and the target is knocked prone" is equal to "6th-level utility power". There are a bunch of powers throughout the Player's Handbook which have 1[W] at some level, then 2[W] ten levels higher, then 3[W] ten levels after that.

But does that mean that 1[W] is worth ten levels? Probably not - I think that this is just a way to make lower-level powers appealing, to give the player the option to keep the ability (prone, daze, slide, etc.) and not feel forced to give it up for a higher-level power when it comes available. But it's a start -- if I want to take a power with 1[W] damage (and some other features) and make it start as a 2[W] power, I'd probably add 5 or 7 levels to make it comparable.

But could I really go through the powers in the Player's Handbook and reverse-engineer what a "slide 2" adds to the level of a power? The fact that you don't get a daily power or encounter power at every level means that if you're modding a daily power to a higher-level one, you can't just add X levels and say that it's a new daily power -- you'd have to find the nearest level at which dailies appear, and decide if, by lowering or raising your new power to that level, you now have an over- or under-powered power.

The fact is that this is an easier thing to test -- the build of a power is nowhere near as complex as that of a monster, and it would be easy enough to find similar powers across different classes (or perhaps the same one) and either prove that there is a formula (even if not strictly adhered to, for level-restriction reasons), or prove that it's all just made up, that Wizards just "feels" that THIS power is an nth-level Daily, THIS power is a nth-level Encounter...

If I find something out, I'll let you know. Until then, I'm not sure of the best strategy for devising your own new powers, for the character you have that needs some specialty powers with some other specific weapon.

Skill Challenges

2009-02-23T15:44:00.002-07:00

One of the new features of Dungeon is the Ruling Skill Challenges column, of which this latest article is a part.

I've given my views of skill challenges before. I think they're a great idea, and I'm disappointed that the first Wizards module didn't have more challenges (yes yes, I'm the DM -- I can add them wherever I like).

The Dungeon Master's Guide does have some good examples, of course, on what skill challenges can be used for. And I've thought of some of the more obvious cases where you might use them -- events and actions that are directly (and obviously) based on one or more skills just jump out at you; Diplomacy, Acrobatics, History.

But I've always thought of these things as smaller, "immediate" skill challenges, even though we've been told that that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. So a challenge might be convincing an NPC to do something, convincing an NPC that you know something (which you may or may not), or some physical, immediate challenge, such as skirting a hazardous area or scaling a tricky slope.

But a skill challenge could go on for hours, for days, for weeks. And it can be lots of these smaller things tied together as one big challenge. And this is what I never really grasped. That's why the "travel through an enemy city" example in this post was such a good one; it took a large-scale task -- "travel within a warzone", in a sense, and turned it into a variety of abstract skill checks, allowing for a stealthy approach, a physical approach or a brains approach (and of course, a mixture of them all), to succeed.

What I also liked about this article was the list of Effects of Failures, boosting the DCs here and there as you fail. Not only does it provide the numbers, but also the flavour for why the DCs have increased.

And, the Random Events table also provides that extra bit to the whole encounter, ways to spice up the encounter, even if the party is completely ready for such a skill challenge, having the appropriate skills maxed out.

I look forward to finishing reading module H2, to see if-and-how-many skill encounters there are, hoping there are a few more than H1, and I definitely look forward to more examples from these articles.

Monster Design

2009-02-20T18:53:00.002-07:00

Reading the Design & Development article on Monster Design, I'm reminded of my previous comments about the math and whatnot, and how I've avoided thinking about crafting my own 4e monsters, whether conversions of 3rd edition creatures or my own creations.

Having gotten a taste of the monsters of 4e, I'm not surprised that one of the recommendations of a starting point is with a new power or effect; especially with the monster races that have their "signature move", they really have the feel of a developer saying, "we have this new idea of a shift, so who should have that as a signature move -- oh, the kobold". I think that's an interesting way to have approached it, especially with using iconic D&D creatures and fitting them into these ideas.

And as I read the Monster Manual more, and read module H2, I'm getting more of a feel for the monster design, definitely helped out by the Tactics blocks provided -- you can definitely tell that the powers were designed for a specific method of combat, and that the creature might have been designed around that very idea.

In fact, when I flip through the Monster Manual, I wonder about the "holes" in different creatures; kobolds have their low-level minion, skirmisher, artillery and soldier covered, and have a higher-level artillery and lurker. Where are the low-level brute and lurker? Do they not exist for kobolds because it just doesn't fit the image of starter kobolds (those things being something you see in a more advanced kobold), or did the designers just not "complete" the set, for lack of space (or lack of ideas)?

I'm not complaining, though; in fact, I think that these "holes" are a really good place for monster designers to start -- if you want to get a feel for the 4e system of monster design, then sit down and come up with what a low-level brute kobold would be: what features would it share with its kin (would it even get the Shifty power, or is he too brutish for that?) and what would make it stand out as its own monster.

This experience would also give you a feel for how many powers they should have, at-will or encounter, compared to similar creatures of their level or role. And this is the experience that you can carry to a unique creature of your own.

The mathematician in me, of course, wants to dissect powers and say "an at-will is worth X points", "a power that pushes is worth Y points", "a power that dazes is worth Z points" and then want to find some magical formula that lets you approximate how much an nth-level skirmisher has to "spend" during design.

For instance, if my 10th-level skirmisher huzzlewhatsit has resist 10 fire, cold, then does that mean that the at-will power should only slide the target 1 square instead of 2? Or it means that it's pull or push instead of slide?

I don't think this will ever happen, of course, so I can see myself (and other monster developers) taking existing monsters of the desired level and role, and basically swapping out features to get the ones that you want -- get rid of the "2d10+4 fire damage plus prone" power and swap it for a "2d6+6 damage plus stun", or something to that effect.

Overall, the article was interesting in that it gave hints on how to make a monster, but what I'd like to see is an actual step-by-step example -- have one of the devs actually write an article, starting with "5th-level fey" with "some sort of make allies fight each other" effect, and go through the steps of creating the rest of the monster, so as to be balanced in the 4e system. That would give us would-be designers a better feel for how the actual balance (which I seem to be obsessed with) works.

New races

2009-02-20T18:03:00.003-07:00

Just finished the Design & Development from earlier this month, regarding the Gnome and Half-Orc. I was one of the many who whined loudly when they didn't appear in the first Player's Handbook, because I've played them both and feel that they're core to D&D.

I've never been into the tinker gnomes, crafting mechanical contraptions that don't fit into a fantasy realm, nor have I cared much for the trickster gnomes, having to be the comic relief in the party. My last gnome was a druid, a strong and silent type, fighting to keep the balance of nature and civilization in check.

I liked seeing the thought process behind the upcoming incarnation of the gnome, seeing that the devs, too, felt similarly. Yes, the fey category implies that impishness a bit, but it doesn't shoehorn them into a jester role. Twigbeard will again be born, once the Character Builder gets the appropriate data.

And the half-orc. Given that my favorite half-orc really didn't last that long, I'm quite attached to him. Even though he was a stereotypical barbarian half-orc, he was *my* barbarian half-orc, and he has appeared in Neverwinter Nights and Dungeons and Dragons Online after meeting an untimely demise in his first incarnation.

As mentioned in the article, the role of "somewhat civilized, but potentially savage" is currently covered by the tieflings and the dragonborn. And while I have nothing against these as player races, except for the fact that they seem to have ousted the half-orc, I still think that the "tamed savage" title belongs first and foremost to the half-orc.

As a player, I don't suppose I've ever considered the process that goes into coming up with a race's history; I have just taken what they've told me, and gone with it. So while it was interesting to see the process through which the half-orc race came into being in 4e (which, in the end, it did mysteriously), it doesn't really placate me as a reason for them to have been excluded in the first Handbook. But, they're coming soon enough, which means that Ish'us'q, too, will be born into 4e. And who knows, I might even try my hand at a half-orc warlord...

...just don't tell Griff.

Old news is still good news

2009-02-17T15:37:00.002-07:00

I'm behind in my reading -- there's a new family member who takes up a bit of my time -- so I only just now read last Wednesday's News post, which mentions that the Compendium's timeout is now set to two hours.

Wizards, I might complain about you a lot, but at least you listen.

(Okay, maybe not to me, but to people in general)

Summoners' Tales

2009-02-12T14:03:00.002-07:00

I just read this month's Ampersand article, which contains a sneak peak into the Arcane Power book. This featured something that I noticed a month or two ago, and had asked Griff about -- where's the summoning in 4e?

Well it's coming, apparently. It's interesting timing, too, coming shortly after the sneak peek at the Shaman, who has his companion, a summon of sorts. The rules for a summoned creature, however, are a little more involved, and they seem to be well thought out.

They smartly covered the terminology of 4e, including explicitly pointing out that summoned creatures are Allies. The summoned creatures are much more tied to the caster than in previous versions, where you were basically bringing on a creature from the Monster Manual; now a creature might look like a serpent or an abyssal maw, but it has the defenses of the caster, half the hit points, and shares the caster's healing surges.

And I think that that's what makes the summons interesting. A wizard, typically, isn't up front fighting, yet he can send this representative into battle to help out the other party members; you may lose a healing surge or two, keeping it alive, but when that happens, you're hopefully still in the background, out of reach of more damage.

But not only are they useful for dabbling in combat, adding that extra pseudo-partymember when needed; they can, if properly equipped with the right limbs, open doors and pick up items, which makes them good fodder for checking for traps down halls or behind innocent-looking doors -- if they get the chop, the wizard loses a single healing surge, which might very well be a better result than having the wizard go down the hall on his own.

What makes each of the summons unique, of course, are the attacks, the movement rates, and any other abilities they receive. Some are for spying, some for combat, and each of the combat summons has their own little twist -- opportunity attacks, marking, etc.

Overall, I think the summoner wizard is going to be welcome in a party, especially a smaller one, given that extra contribution, that extra presence, to the combat, on top of the at-wills that have become so familiar from them.

Shaman

2009-02-10T16:00:00.002-07:00

Next up in the Preview series is the Shaman, a Primal Leader.

Right off the bat, I love the Companion Spirit. What has always attracted me to the Druid, even though I seldom took advantage of it, is the idea of animal companions, and the companion spirit fits with the whole idea of a totem for the shaman.

Only a few of the powers, the at-wills, focus on the companion, but all in all, it has a really nice feel to it; ever since we saw a bard (of all things) use a summoned animal to good effect, I've liked the idea of using them for combat, and not just spies or scouts.

What bothers me about the other powers, though, is the focus on healing. Not just healing, per se, but also temporary hit points and regeneration -- over all, the shaman has more healing and its ilk than the cleric, even down to the Healing Spirit power, similar to what the cleric, paladin and warlord have, to allow an ally to use a healing surge.

Perhaps this is my own issue, seeing healing as the realm of the cleric, with bit parts by other players. Yes, the 4e cleric is better balanced, no matter how you build him: healer, warrior and bane of the undead. And perhaps the vision of shaman brings to mind someone who heals the mind and soul, and thus it fits that they provide in this role, but I think you'd be hardpressed to find someone who didn't answer "cleric" to "who is the party's healer?" If that has officially changed, I want an announcement of some sort.

Insider treats you like an outsider

2009-01-30T09:55:00.003-07:00

I recently hinted towards my dislike for the way that the D&D Insider handles their authentication. The problem is that logging in only seems to last a short time, perhaps 15 minutes? 30 minutes?

I'm not sure, because I tend to browse Insider throughout the course of a day (yes, I'm bad, I read it while I'm at work). Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, when there is new Insider content, I pop up every new article in a new tab in my browser, so they are then available for reading and for adding to wizardslinks. If these articles require Insider access to read, as most do, then each of these popped-up tabs only gives a preview; I then have to log in in one tab, and refresh the other.

Okay, that's fine, but I don't read these pages right away... they can stay in their tabs for hours, days, weeks (I currently have 13 of them open as "to-do" tabs). If I've already loaded the article, then it doesn't matter if Insider has logged me out, of course -- it's now in the tab, and I can read it fine. But if the article was a link to a PDF, and I haven't opened the PDF soon enough after popping up the article, then my attempt to open the PDF fails because I've since been logged out.

This happens all the time. ALL the time, because, as I said, I don't read these articles immediately. The webpage that comes up, instead of the PDF, helpfully tells me that I have to log in. But, even if I do so on that page, the URL is for the "hey, you need to log in" message, so now I'm logged in, but getting that message. Back button, etc., etc. and I can finally get my PDF. This is the headache I've lived with for months -- ever since Insider subscriptions were required for most of the articles.

And now, the Compendium gives me the same problem. I can go to the Insider Compendium page, log in, and pop up the Compendium window. What I cannot do, however, is hope to come back in 30 minutes and use that window, because my session will have logged out. Worse, as I mentioned in the last post, the authentication screen that is offered in that Compendium window doesn't successfully log me in -- it just keeps helpfully telling me that I need to log in, probably in a similar manner to the PDF problem mentioned above.

So now I have to close the Compendium window, go back to the Insider Compendium page (which I've wisely left open in another tab), hit refresh to get a login area (because that page unhelpfully claims that I'm logged in.) I then have to log in again (oh, and if you mistype your password, it just quietly redisplays the login section again, with no little "sorry, that username/password don't match" message or anything), and once I've logged in, I can re-launch the Compendium window. All this, because I wanted to look up the wording on some feat that I'm discussing with Griff. And I'm going to go through it all again in a few minutes, when he asks about a certain power or class.

The reason behind this short login session is clear; they want to ensure that the reader is really the paying customer, that I cannot go to Griff's place, log into Insider, and leave him with access until he reboots. Fine, I can accept that. But if you have to have a timed logout, make it longer. Make it 24 hours. Better yet, don't have a timed logout, but instead let me keep my session open on this browser for as long as I like. If I go home, fine, make me log in there, and log out my other session. I'll understand. But if I logged into this machine, and I access it again, you're being overzealous in assuming that I might no longer be the subscriber. If I choose to go to Griff's and log in as me, and let him play with Insider, then I've screwed myself from using it when I get home. THIS IS NO DIFFERENT FROM BUYING A BOOK. Granted, books have an inherent permissibility to be shared, and my Insider account does not. But those hours that my account is logged in at Griff's could very well be me using them, too, and assuming it isn't is offensive.

Perhaps your (and Wizards') response will be "then use your book". And I used to, bringing my PHB to work (don't worry, they already know I'm a geek) when I think I'll need it. But that's not a viable defense for Dragon and Dungeon magazine, not anymore. My only access to those is through my subscription, and I'm being prevented from reading these by these authentication issues.

This may be Dungeons & Dragons, but that doesn't mean that your authentication system needs to be draconian.

Character Builder redux

2009-01-29T09:10:00.004-07:00

I recently commented on the Character Builder demo. They just released the full version this week.

I still really like this program. I can bitch and complain about WotC's methods about many things, predominantly their website, but this standalone tool is very well done.

It has a few little niggly things, of course; if you're rapidly levelling up a character (say, to make a 30th level character), then after each level up, the save step always prompts for overwriting the old file. It's something you should want it to do, of course, so as not to overwrite the wrong thing, but perhaps this should be a Save versus a Save As... feature, so by default you do reuse the same file.

This is emphasized by the fact that the save file keeps track of all of your decisions at each level-up, which I think it great. It lets you go back and see what you did, and when; it lets you go back and retroactively change something if you so choose; and it lets you make a 30th level character and still get access to what he or she looks like at the lower levels - something that can be handy for a recurring NPC.

There are a few Feats, specifically from Dragon #368, with a bunch of "styles" that affect some of the powers (exploits) you might have; these feats just display as "Augment at-will exploits" on the character sheet, but these augmentations don't appear on the power cards that are generated, which means you need to keep that issue of Dragon handy -- oh wait! It's digital, so I can't have that issue just sitting on the game table.

When you get to the point where you don't get MORE powers, but just the opportunity to swap out old ones, the interface requires that you lose a power before even getting to see what your list of choices is. This is a problem if you're hoping to swap out a low-level power for a higher-level equivalent. It slows down what is otherwise a very efficient, fluid action.

The Builder also has a link to the Compendium for everything, but the horrid authentication system makes this ineffective; unless you've just authenticated to your Insider account in the last few minutes, the window that the Builder pops up will not be logged in. It kindly offers to let you log in, but doesn't honour the attempt, and in the end you're forced to just pop up your browser and view the Compendium the old-fashioned way, breaking the usefulness of the link in the Builder. This isn't a fault with the Builder, it's the fault of the Insider site which keeps your login for, what, two minutes before expiring it?

But except for these little things, it works very well. I meant to time how long it took to create a character from 1st level to 30th, but I ended up doing it over a long span of a day, so I really couldn't say how long it took. Because the decisions at each level are so few, however, I'm sure it doesn't amount to much - reading the power descriptions is the most lengthy part. I don't mean this as a criticism of how simplistic the levelling-up is (that was in previous posts), but on how the Builder takes care of the "uhh, what else increases at this level?" stuff that you find yourself doing by-hand. Many of the incorrect totals we had before we tried the demo were because we forgot to add 1/2-level here and there, or recalculate this here... the software does all that for you, which is nice.

Doing this levelling-up exercise also gave me a pass through the paragon and epic feats, which I only glossed over when I first read the Player's Handbook, and it let me see the high-end powers for the Ranger class, which I hadn't read at all. In fact, I can see myself making a 30th-level character of each class as a way of learning the powers for them, because as odd as it seems, I'm finding it easier to read them in the software than browsing through the book -- reading page after page is what gave the glassy-eyed "these all look the same to me" feeling about the powers. As I build this Ranger, and formulate a "style" to her, I'm starting to realize that you CAN customize your class to be different from every other member of the class. Or perhaps that's just the ranger, because it has it's two very separate paths built-in -- the melee and ranged versions.

One thing that seems almost backwards, though, is that I have access to all of the material out there. Our group has a copy of Martial Power, but I've not looked at it yet; however, I've just read through most of the powers from that book that are available to a Ranger. Is this going to affect sales of books for Wizards? The old E-Tools required that you bought each of the books' data separately (or in packs), where the single Insider fee for access to the Builder gives me access to books I might never buy. I'm not complaining, mind you! I just hope it works out for Wizards. It's a great gesture, and anyone who has played 3.5, and had access to all of the extra source material (I think our group is missing half-a-dozen, tops?) will know how time-consuming it can be to go through them all, making sure that you've got in mind all of the options available to you (I'm not saying options are BAD!). Having all of the feats and powers available in one place, and also filtered for what you are able to take, is definitely a boon for any player.

I haven't been paying attention to how much the various parts of the Insider subscription cost, or the bundles, or whatever, but I definitely recommend this tool if you've got room in your budget, or if not, the group should pitch in and buy a subscription for the DM, and get him to punch in the character data for the party.

What manner of sorcery is this?

2009-01-26T13:47:00.006-07:00

Thanks to Crwth I got a look at the Sorcerer class coming in the PHB2. It’s a class that’s been near and dear to me since the early days of 3rd Edition for a variety of reasons.

For starters I’ve always liked the Charismatic hero. More importantly I love the open ended spell selection that allowed (encouraged) a customized theme and spared me the tedious book keeping of the Wizard. Plus there was the challenge of picking those spells knowing that they’d be locked in (at least until WotC introduced the swap rule). Whether it was my Graz’zt worshipping thrall or my greatsword wielding dwarf I loved mixing the sorcerer class in new and weird ways.

So it was that when the 4E PHB was released my biggest initial disappointment was in the omission of the sorcerer class. The fact that the Warlock was there taking up the pages that rightfully belonged to my Sorcerer was just a kick in the junk. But I more or less shrugged it off and settled for a Wizard.

In the early days I was pleasantly surprised by the Wizard. The powers reduced the book keeping so it wasn’t all that bad. In fact I was starting to think that the 4E Wizard was just a Sorcerer by another name. Of course it didn’t take me long to realize that thanks to the powers every class is another class by another name.

Anyways, the preview of the 4E Sorcerer looks promising. But, that said, I'm not sure why they plugged the Sorcerer into the Arcane Striker role. First the Warlock steals the Sorcerer's pages in the PHB, and now the Sorcerer has to share a role with the upstart? Especially when the Elemental source seemed like such a natural fit. So, WTF?

As an aside, am I the only one feeling like WotC has us on a cycle of “hey, this is new and cool” to “blah blah blah” to “yay another power source book” to “blah”?

The “Spell Source” is interesting. The Dragon Magic source is reminiscent of the 3.5 version of the Sorcerer, with it’s Draconic blood in the veins thing. The details are more of the usual bonus to this, gain this when bloodied, schlock that I’ve seen everywhere before.

However the Wild Magic is refreshingly novel. The Chaos Burst is fun in that it gives you a round to round benefit depending on what you roll to attack. Then again, I thought we weren’t going to have to keep track of that sort of thing anymore. And what happens in a round where I don’t roll an attack?

The Unfettered Power is another perk to Wild Magic and this one is without flaw. The natural 20 result is all well and good, but I’m practically giddy with the result of a natural 1. Pushing every creature (enemy or ally) within twenty five feet is hilarious. I can foresee times where I’ll actually want to roll a 1.

The rest of the article is the usual drivel of powers ad nauseum. Some interesting stuff but nothing that stands out as truly unique or class defining.

All in all, I’ve actually got a little something to look forward to.

Onward ho!

2009-01-23T07:59:00.002-07:00

Our group recently came to the nearly unanimous decision to continue on with 4th Edition, at least through the next module in the WotC series. Guess who the lone dissenter was.

Anyways, I’ll carry on, even though I feel like the kid being forced to eat his vegetables before he can leave the table. The thing is, I’ve tried cauliflower before and I don’t like it. Trying it again isn’t going to change my opinion. Its not going to suddenly become good. Even putting melted cheese on it won’t hide the underlying yuckiness.

Same thing with 4E. I’ve tried it for several months and it simply isn’t as much fun as 3.5. Another several months isn’t likely to change anything. The addition of the PHB2 and the Powers books might help, or they might be the melted cheese.

At any rate, I’m going to “retrain” my Dragonborn wizard into a fighter. My thinking is that part of the problem might be the expectations I’ve carried over from 3.5. Namely in that when I play a spellcaster, I want some actual choices in what spells he knows. By switching to a fighter, a class I never got around to playing in 3.5, I’ll drop that expectation. Then we’ll see if it’s just the spellcasting classes that are boring or if it’s all of them.

So I’ll have another bite. Pass the melted cheese please.

Powers, feats, and innate abilities

2009-01-22T09:43:00.003-07:00

I read the latest Design & Development article a few days ago. It was interesting to hear about the design decisions that went into the feats of 4e, and how they compare to those that appeared in 3rd edition. But for fear of beating a dead centaur, I'm going to open up old wounds and mix metaphors.

In recent posts, we've talked about how the powers have made the various classes feel the same, since everyone has them. In 3rd edition, you had your spellcasters (and as mentioned before, they were varied enough to easily feel different); you had your Fighter, who dominated the feat selection throughout their progression, giving them a definite martial feel; and the remaining classes had their numerous class skills -- Barbarian with rage and DR, Rogue with a dozen skills and sneak attack, Monk with all sorts of goodness, Ranger with different paths, and the Bard... yeah.

And everyone felt unique. Every character played differently. And, it has to be said, multiclassing let you stir that up even more. The new feats, though, have pretty much taken the place of class-specific abilities. Sure, you don't get them automatically, but you get to choose them often enough, and they're very narrowly focused that you can label most of them as class- or race-specific. This came up when I last levelled up my Cleric - I think there were four feats that I could choose from, for which I qualified.

And speaking of multiclassing, as I have before, I've gone all hypocritical and multiclassed my Cleric, going with a bit of warlord just to powergame the healing aspect a bit. But is this going to make me feel any different from any other Cleric? Make me feel anything like a Warlord?

The Des&Dev article breaks down most of the 4e feats into four categories: static improvements to stats, situational improvements to stats, racial power mods, or class feature mods.

The first two are generally available to everyone, and thus don't help to differentiate anyone; the racial power modifications are minor, as all racial powers are; the last group, which focuses on each class's meager differences, is the only group that really makes an effort to "customize" the characters, to decorate them once they leave the cookie cutter. But does this little bit of icing help, or are they, in the end, equally indigestable, all tasting the same and making a mess on the table?

Some things never change

2009-01-21T09:51:00.002-07:00

We've focused a lot on the class changes, the combat changes, and the general change in style of 4e compared to 3.5. We even mentioned how the new treasure parcel system might make loot a bit easier to handle, and that it might make payout in adventures, especially in Wizards of the Coast ones, properly balanced.

We were wrong.

Our group just finished The Keep on the Shadowfell, the first 4e adventure. The parcels for their progression can be found on p126 of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Rounding down to just the first three levels (the party hit fourth level a few encounters before the end), the characters sure ended up short.

By my calculations, they were short over 400gp during level 1. Level 2 was missing a level 6 magic item, but had some extra gold and a level 1 magic item, to account for about half of that. Level 3 was missing a level 4 and level 7 item, had an extra level 2 and level 3 item, and had a bunch of extra gold to only partially compensate.

All told, converting to gold, the module is short almost 3000gp worth of treasure. Add in the various optional rewards reduces that by 750gp, and adding in the Side Treks could boost that by another 350gp (the party did all but one of these). That's still almost 2000gp short in treasure.

Why is this so important? Well, for one thing, our party's cleric died once early on, and party gold had to be pooled to pay for a ritual to bring him back. Rituals in general appear to be a good gold sink in the game, once they become a little more available and familiar to the party. And, having played through all 8 of the original 3rd edition adventures and belly-aching about the paucity of treasure there, I think we'd like to see our adventurers rewarded with a little more than gratitude from the local villagers for a change.

I guess I'm so surprised because the 4e rules and the new Dungeon Master's Guide go to all the effort of making loot doling so easy -- here are ten packages of loot, spread them out accordingly. Why can they not follow their own instructions?

We're starting the second adventure soon, the Thunderspire Labyrinth, and I think the module is going to need a once-over for the loot before we start, so the DM (which might not be me this time around) can pad a few things, including making up for the poor showing in the first module.

Epic destinies

2009-01-16T10:26:00.002-07:00

Going back through all of the older articles, I found the December Ampersand article in Dragon magazine which ends with a peek at a new Epic Destiny, the Primal Avatar from the Player's Handbook 2.

Browsing through it, I remembered the section on epic destinies in the Player's Handbook, and what I thought about them. This was furthered by listening to the backlog of podcasts that I've been ignoring, where some of the team talk about their epic-level characters.

A few things struck my about the epic levels. First, there aren't many bonuses to being there. Sure, you get the usual progression at each level, as detailed in the front of the book, and your powers lists continue to advance in power. But considering this Epic Destiny is portrayed as some sort of, life-defining choice that you're making, it's seems surprisingly lacking in actually defining you.

Second, there's this sense of finality to an Epic Destiny. The "immortality" that each Destiny has basically shelves your character from that point on, which might be okay for some, but might feel like a huge loss to others. Yes, this Epic Destiny is meant to be the culmination of everything this character has lived for, but... but... I wanna keep playing!

Of course, the Player's Handbook has a paragraph discussing exactly this, and mention that the "notes that appear in each of the epic destinies below are entirely optional." But even so, without something *else* beyond 30th level, what do characters do? Take on a second Epic Destiny - the D&D equivalent of a midlife crisis?

"Bob, what have you done??"

"Honey, I killed Tiamat and got the heads stuffed for over the fireplace. Oh, and I bought a Porsche."

With all of the grumbling from Griff and me lately about the sameness of the powers and classes in 4e, there has been talk of going back to 3rd edition. But I'm still hoping to hang on and try out the Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, to see if the powers start to stir things up or the Paths and Destinies can lend a uniqueness to the individual characters in the party.

Character Builder

2009-01-15T14:54:00.003-07:00

I downloaded the Character Builder Beta program when it was first released. I was excited to see how well it managed things, because I've taken a stab at the problem before.

The easy part of a character program is representation -- storing the numbers and the text and laying it out in a manner that's esthetically pleasing and well-organized for play. This is why there are myriad spreadsheets and programs that exist that let you keep track of your character, many of them decent.

It's another thing entirely to get a system that knows the rules, so it can ensure that your character is legal (read: that you're not cheating) by ensuring that you've got the right number of feats, right number of powers, and that your numbers add up.

For 3.5, the best commercial program was probably E-Tools, which did a reasonably good job at calculating your character sheet for you, but of course required you to purchase all of the source material in add-on modules, to get the classes and races and magic items that your hardcover books gave you. E-Tools could possibly be considered the grandfather of the Character Builder.

On the free front, Heroforge was amazing for what it was. Probably the most complicated Excel spreadsheet in existence, it had quite the following and was a remarkable accomplishment for what it was. Last I looked, the Heroforge team were doing a complete rewrite and were going to support 4e.

But what about this Character Builder? Could it really be useful, and free (with subscription)? So far: yes.

The beta only lets you play with the first three levels of character development, which works out great for our group, because they only JUST hit fourth level last play session. A few sessions before that, however, I had grabbed everyone's character sheets and punched them into the Builder, to see how well it handled a real-world sample of characters.

I'd say that every character had something wrong. Wrong on OUR end, that is, whether it was a missed bonus here or a forgotten feat there. Right away, the benefit of getting a computer to do your math for you, especially when it has access to every formula in the game, is evident.

If we were sticklers for this sort of thing, the Builder also keeps track of whether the character is "house-ruled" or not, marking it so based on whether you've got extra feats, too much loot, or ability scores out of whack. In our campaigns, we tend to allow point-buy or 4d6 rolling, and thus the two 4d6ers ended up as "house-ruled", since that's not a verifiable way of getting your abilities (for purposes of the RPGA, for instance).

Your powers (see below) are all presented with the math all done for them, adding in proficiency bonuses, ability bonuses, feats and implements. Very handy, especially as you level up and increase the chance of forgetting to advance some number or another.

It's unfortunate that you cannot set up different equipment configurations, to get stats for shield-and-sword, as well as two-handed-spear, etc. I believe E-Tools supported this.

The level-up feature in the software is nice, because if you enter each level separately, then you can, at any time, go back through and see the character in previous levels. Once you level up, it gives you a checklist of things that you need to decide -- new power, new feat, ability scores, etc. Very easy to use. Granted, levelling up in 4e is so easy that even *I* can do it.

The best part of the Builder, though, might very well be the cards at the end of the sheet. These 2.5"x3.5" sheets give you your powers and other effects in a nice succinct layout, providing the math for the power and giving you the to-hit and damage numbers you need. They have the rules for the power summarized right on the card. And they even provide a cheatsheet to give the DM so he or she has all of that character's useful information printed out instead of on a ratty piece of paper. Assuming the players play along, these sheets allow you to keep track of your dailies and encounter powers that are used (flip them upside down or "tap" them), and I use the cheatsheets as the characters' initiative order during combat.

The programmer in me wonders how they encode all of the rules, of course, and wish that that data was available for use, but I guess we have the Compendium for that. All told, though, I've quite impressed with this tool (more than I thought I'd be), and am looking forward to the full version to be released, not only so we can update our party to fourth level, but to also play with it a bit to make some 20th and 30th level characters, just to see how well it does (and to see what a 20th/30th level 4e character looks like!)

Invoker

2009-01-15T14:02:00.004-07:00

Yet another old article, one that I hadn't even perused when it first came out. That's surprising, since I'm playing a Cleric right now, and in hindsight I should have been more curious as to where the line was between Leader and Controller for the Divine power.

Right off the bat, I like the look of the Covenants. They let you customize what the Channel Divinity does for you (something that I'm very bad at remembering to use), and give you the extra Manifestation, which is a nice boost to your significant powers (if you remember to use them).

The Invoker spell Summon Angel of Fire confused me; it wasn't clear how long the summoned angel stayed around. One round? The end of combat? Until it gets bored? Forever? There are no rules that I recall for summoning in the 4e Player's Handbook, and the Compendium doesn't return anything that might help.

I liked the Shroud of Warning prayer. It basically gives your party an initiative bonus once per day. It may not sound like a lot, but at least it's different from most of the powers we see. Granted, that's because it's a Utility power, and not an Attack power.

The rest of the powers, though... pull, push, slow, daze. Weren't these the same thing we saw in the Warden? Are these Controller things or Defender things? Oh, right, the Controller does it with bursts, while the Defender tends to stick to individuals.

It started off a bit interesting, but in the end, this class didn't impress me. This *is* just a sneak peak at the first three levels, but I don't really see where it's going to get its own personality to keep it separate from the Cleric and Warden in theme and role.

Powers for everyone

2009-01-15T12:59:00.002-07:00

Having read the Warden and Druid classes, I get the feeling of a bit of similarity. True, the Warden doesn't have the burst powers the Druid has, and the Warden has its Marking. Perhaps it's just the effect that Griff and I have mentioned in the past, how all of the powers seem to be the same thing, for every class, with just a little change here and there -- it's like there's a formula for making powers:

Pick an attack ability (Wisdom)
Pick a defense (Reflex)
Pick a range (10 squares)
Pick damage (1d6 fire)
Pick one of the following extra effects: push, pull, slide, stun, daze, combat advantage, zone of effect (zone of effect: fire)

Based on the above, determine whether this is at-will, encounter or daily, based on some formula (at-will)
If Daily, determine the Miss effect, if any (none)
Based on the above, determine appropriate class for this power (Druid)
Based on that, determine the power's name (Flame Seed)

I wonder if every combination of every variable has been crunched into a database, and the last few steps just need to be done for the lifetime of 4e. New classes could be determined that way:

"I was browsing through the database, and found a Dex vs. Fortitude Range 5 2d6 + stun encounter power - what should we do with it?"

"Sounds like some sort of deftly-thrown implement that knocks someone out -- sounds like a Martial Controller to me. Let's call it the 'Flying Dagger' class. Next!"

Now I understand that, given the mechanics of the game, there are only so many combinations of things: we have six abilities to "attack" with, four defenses, four attack types (melee, ranged, burst, close burst), and then some creative damage and effects. So you might say of *course* they're going to start feeling similar.

And that's the point: in previous editions of D&D, those with "spellcasting" differed in large ways: arcane vs. divine, holy vs. nature, innate vs. learned. That let you easily tell the difference between them, and playing each of these classes was quite different. But now every class has spells (...by any other name...) and that's what's making these classes blur together.

Even just having the 3rd edition fighters and rogues using Feats instead of Powers was enough. Even having one defense score and three saving throws was enough for the classes' abilities to feel different. And this is the feeling that we seem unable to shake - that I'm casting Divine Leader attack at the goblin, that Griff is casting Arcane Controller attack, then a Martial Leader attack, a Martial Striker attack, etc. And while my numbers might be slightly different than Griffs, probably not much so, because my Cleric has his best score in Wisdom, and his in Intelligence, and so our rolls are coming out the same.

I've mentioned in the past that I've not read all of the powers for every class, and that certainly goes for those in the 10+ level range. So perhaps I'm speaking too soon, and perhaps this similarity between the classes will disappear as we progress. The danger, of course, is that we don't choose to progress, but instead return to 3rd edition, because 4e can't keep our interest.

Druids

2009-01-15T12:33:00.002-07:00

Okay, the Sneak Peak article came out over a month ago, and I'm only commenting on it now. But as mentioned before, Druids have been one of my favorite classes for a while, and I thought I should take a look at what 4e has done to/for it.

The odd armor availabilities are something that any Druid player has come to expect, but it's nice to see that the weapons are no longer limited. The Primal power source, as with the Warden and Barbarian, nicely extends the 4e concept, and lets the Druids step away from their association with the Cleric and their divine magic.

I'm a bit disappointed that the Wild Shape ability doesn't confer any bonuses from the form you take, especially speed. Perhaps there will be Feats that allow this?

The Druid has a special condition on their At-Will attack powers -- that at least one but not all of them must have the Beast keyword. I can see the reasoning behind it, but I think this is a rule that will be forgotten by players and DMs alike. 4e has been trying to get rid of the exceptions, and this is a step backwards, especially for those who have gotten fully into that mindset of 4e -- the "regularity" of the rules.

I like the Wild Shape power, though. Being an At-Will Minor action that has a built-in shift from beast- to humanoid-form, a character could essentially get three shifts in a round if needed -- minor, move and standard actions -- perhaps to get out of a sticky situation, or to help sneak behind a foe to give a party member some flanking.

The Beast keyword powers and the non-Beast ones make a nice balance for feral, animal-form combat and the raw, natural, elemental powers. At first I wasn't really sure about the Controller role that these powers were supposed to provide, but as a whole, I suppose they do the job; the Burst powers are what come to mind for Controllers, for me: someone who is affecting large numbers at once. Each of the single-target powers instead "control" their target by forcing them to move, either willingly (to avoid ongoing damage) or not, which I suppose, too, is a form of control.

It's not a bad class, so far, but I have to admit, it doesn't pique my interest as much as the Druid has in the past. I think part of it is, again, the fact that everyone has powers now, so the wizard/cleric/druid don't feel as special. The Druid, like the Cleric, was always the hybrid spellcaster, designed with a little bit of melee combat in mind. But I'm not feeling the uniqueness of this class over any other. The Primal power source gives it the bestial flavor, but my beast form isn't anything other than the key to unlocking half of my powers and a source of lice.

Save vs Negativity Failed

2009-01-09T09:47:00.004-07:00

Long time, no blog.

My lack of posting isn’t from a dearth of material to look at. There’s plenty for me to go over (at least when I get the chance to read through Crwth’s digital Dragon magazines) so I’m sure I could pick up a topic or two if I took the time to read it all. The holidays make for a handy scapegoat in the gap in writing but in all honesty I had plenty of time to make up a post.

Case in point. I’ve had the following saved on my computer since late November or early December. I could have posted it at just about any time but hesitated for one big reason. I’m tired of being so negative all the time.

Honestly. I want to like 4e because at it’s core it’s still DnD, it’s still the game that I’ve loved since I rolled up my first dwarven ranger in 1984.

I want to find and focus on the gems of the game. Things like the monsters and encounters. The design of those two areas is greatly improved. I like the rules on disease, poison, and traps. Those rules have been improved over 3.5 by leaps and bounds. I like the emphasis on terrain. The skill system is another tweak that I really approve of. I’ve even grown to like the roles. There are lots of other things that I like that I aren’t coming to mind at the moment, so suffice to say that overall 4E is a good game.

Actually, more accurately, I still have a lot of fun when playing DnD. Is that fun a result of the rule set? No. Absolutely not. Definitely and emphatically no.

The fun comes from our DM ‘s ability to spin a tale and run the game with a nice pace. It’s fun because of my friends. It’s fun because of the off track tangents that inevitably veer us away from the game. It’s fun because of the mom jokes and the pop culture references and Simpsons quotes.

If anything, there’s just one small trifling detail that holds my weekly gaming back in terms of pure enjoyment.

The classes.

I hate them.

Seriously. They bore me. To tears.

I’ve been trying to leave this poor dead horse alone but the classes are all just so cookie cutter. The names of the powers and abilities are all different but the core of their effects are all the same. Some classes lean more heavily on one type of power but everyone seems to have a the same generic options. The extra feats don’t add any spice to the mix. It’s just more salt in an already salty soup. Spellcasters are so dumbed down they are beyond the point of banality.

Even the release of some new classes has done nothing for me. The Swordmage in the FRPG is interesting but barely different from the sword wielding wizard I’m currently playing. The sneak peek at the upcoming Barbarian was ho hum. Do I dare hold out hope for the PHB2?

Sure, there’s no more mindlessly hacking away with sword or axe. Instead we mindlessly flail away with “Holy Smites”, “Twin Strikes”, and “Scorching Blasts”. Whee.

Sure, there’s no more accidentally nerfing your character by multiclassing or missing out on a pre-requisite for a feat. Instead there is no multiclassing, and if you miss a feat, take it next level. Or “retrain”.

Leveling up used to be the penultimate in excitement as all new paths and options opened up. Now it’s just a matter of changing some numbers on the character sheet. The only reason I even bother with bugging our DM about leveling up is for the running joke.

The bottom line is it’s still nice to get out of the house and do some gaming with my friends. It’s just that I’d be just as happy if we were to play d20 Modern or VtM or just about any other RPG out there. The only thing that currently keeps me with DnD is the familiarity factor. That and the high fantasy setting of battling monsters with sword and spell. Other than that avenue of escapism, 4th edition has nothing to hold my interest.

Future classes

2009-01-06T13:17:00.004-07:00

I just started reading the article on the Warden class, which, as when new classes are introduced, had me thinking about my post here on the role/power-source pairings.

Since that post, Griff and I mulled around the ideas of classes that would pair up the future power sources, the ones that didn't make it into the Player's Handbook but had been mentioned there or elsewhere, such as Primal, Psychic, Ki and Shadow. We took our inspiration from the splat books of 3rd edition, trying to decide what existing classes would fit which roles.

The resulting table is too big for the blog's format, but you can see a live version (which might not match what I'm saying here, if you are looking at it in the future), here. The bold class names are ones that have been defined in rulebooks or other articles; the italicized entries are ones that were our guesses. For the Arcane Defender we had the Spellsword from Tome and Battle; and the Barbarian we had put into Primal Defender, not because we thought it fit perfectly, but because we wanted to place Barbarian somewhere, and had already put a Striker in (forgetting, of course, that we have two Martial Strikers from the get-go.)

Got any guesses for this chart?

Back to the Warden class. Right off the bat, I like the class features; they're nicely in line with the Defender concept and the title of "Warden", finding resistances and defenses where others do not.

The "marking" idea of 4e is one that I haven't fully evaluated. It gets used during our campaigns, but I think we've still got some time before we really see it shine. I like the concept, but it's contrary to the "not having to keep track of things" mentality of 4e -- luckily my players are good at reminding me when they've marked something (just as I'm saying that the target is attacking someone else). The Warden, rightly, gets powers based on marking, which helps cement that Defender role by drawing the enemy to her (or at least penalizing them if they don't).

Lots of the Warden powers deal with movement: pushing/pulling, slowing, sliding, shifting. Again, that works well with the Defender idea -- if the enemy can't move, they can't get to the rest of your party.

And of course, they have the requisite bit of polymorphing in there. In 3.5, I was strongly drawn to the Druid, and the Shifter, and the Verdant Lord... everything that the Primal power source is going to encompass (not counting the Barbarian). Right now, I think that the Warden would have my vote if I was to play a Defender role.

Until we get psionics, right Griff?

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T15:15:00.003-07:00

We're still alive here at the blog, but have been frightfully absent.

I won't bore you with tales of family, work and holiday obligations. We've both been negligent towards posting here, and it's my resolution, at least, to change that.

We do still play D&D, although the fact that we're still on the first 4e module should hint towards how often we get to play. We're a group of six thirty-somethings, and with family, work and other extracurricular activities, trying to coordinate 4 out of 6 -- my minimum for a session -- is a bit of a challenge.

There is plenty of 4e content to talk about, as Wizards is doing a really good job of keeping pace with Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles. Even if I don't have gameplay experiences to talk about, I'll talk about these more often (which I've said before, but resolve to do again).

Not that Griff and I are yet sold on 4e. We talk about whether we'll return to 3.5 or not, because there are some things that we still miss. We've often talked about a hybrid set of rules, the best of both, but haven't dug into how well that would actually work.
I've been working on a single-player 4e campaign idea that I'm going to take Griff through, so we have another view at the rules; I think 4e is well-designed to handle a single-player campaign, moreso than 3.5 at least.

Show me something Warlord. Anything.

2008-10-20T08:28:00.003-06:00

I've had the chance to see our party's Warlord in action over a handful of sessions now, and so far nothing has changed my original opinion of this new class.

In fact, it seems to have the same "flaws" that the 3.5 version of the Cleric had. In that the majority of the Warlord's rounds are spent bestowing things upon his fellow adventurers. The Cleric used to "waste" actions on healing (a "problem" fixed by healing surges) and now the Warlord "wastes" actions either moving other players, or giving them an extra attack.

Granted, an extra attack or move is always appreciated. But, do we really need a new class for this purpose? Just give powers to the individual classes to do it themselves, just like with Healing Surges.

Personally, I've never cared for playing a Cleric because of the burden of healing party members. I'll certainly never play a Warlord.

The thing that probably miffs me about this "class" is that I can't shake the feeling that they bumped the Sorcerer to make room for it in the PHB.

Bastards.

Powerless against all these Powers

2008-10-20T08:06:00.005-06:00

The more I play 4E, the more I miss saving throws.

I know, the saving throw system in 3rd edition was far from perfect. In the higher levels the monster's saving throw bonuses made their saves against even the most boosted of spells almost trivial.

But still, saving throws added something to the game. They added a feeling of empowerment (admittedly illusionary since dice are either random or malicious) and some tension (the dreaded natural 1 lurked everywhere).

With 4E's powers, there are no saves. Beating the defense score is enough. After that you simply apply the effect. It's quick. It's simple. It's elegant in it's way. It's also boring and rather anti-climactic.

I get hit and... I fall down. I get hit... and I'm dazed.

It's not all bad however. I like that players can pick and choose their powers to attack a variety of defenses (ie. some vs AC, some vs Reflex etc...). I also like that there's no more frustration caused by a Daily Power (used a crucial moment) getting shrugged off because the DM rolled a high save.

Still, the more I play the more I miss those Saving Throws. Hell, I even miss the natural 1.

Playing Gnolls - Playtested?

2008-10-01T11:15:00.002-06:00

Just finished the article on “Playing Gnolls” from Dragon #367, and it was a great read. (I'd provide a link and/or page numbers, but with WotC, it's almost pointless.)

The gnoll has always been one of my favorite monsters so I was glad to see it getting some special treatment. The article also reinforced a lot of what I love about 4e. Namely the way that monsters are given a flavor that becomes the basis of and is emphasized in their powers and tactics. It’s a wonderful touch and severely lacking in 3.5.

On the other hand, the feats at the end of the article are... disappointing.

Does anyone at WotC read these before they’re printed? Do they have any real editors? Are they playtested in any shape or form?

Case in point.

Swift Bite
Prerequisite: 11th level, gnoll
Benefit: When you bloody a foe, you can choose to deal an extra 1d6 + Strength modifier damage with a bite against the target.

Seems straight forward enough at first glance. But the benefit raised questions within seconds of reading it.

Does this extra bite automatically hit, doing the extra damage? Or is it a free attack, like a sudden interupt, that you have to roll to hit? I’m guessing it’s the former because there’s no mention of a Str vs AC or whatever.

My point is, I shouldn’t have to guess.

Shouldn't combat be fun?

2008-09-29T10:57:00.002-06:00

Crwth’s last post got me to thinking. Namely his allusion to the onset of tedium in the official WotC module we’re going through.

I’m not privy to the details of the module, and as much as I’d love to, I can’t go and read through to see if we’re just in a combat heavy section, or if it opens up into more roleplay heavy section soon. I dunno.

I would like to give the benefit of the doubt to the module though. The storyline so far has been intriguing (although I’ve had to suspend reality a lot when it comes to the design of the keep. Just the physical layout as we’ve seen it strikes me as really stoopid for a defensive fort.) The recent plot twist of another group in the nearby mountains definitely grabbed my attention. The encounters have also been very interesting with terrain and monster powers being put to great use.

That aside, I’ve been feeling the slogging tedium of late. It's so bad that I almost dread combat now and find myself pushing for the group to ignore obvious XP and loot farming for avenues that I hope will lead to furthering the story.

I love XP and loot!

So what the hell is going on here!?

My current theory lays the blame on the powers. Especially the “At Will” ones. For me, they have just about sucked every ounce of fun from the game. There’s no more resource management or planning involved. It’s just a matter of looking at the grid, picking out a cluster of bad guys, and dropping a Scorching Burst. Next round? Same thing. Or maybe I’ll toss out an Encounter Power just for shits’n’giggles.

As much as I love the glut of feats our characters get, and the ritual system, I’m really missing the old 3.5 feats and spellcasting system. It was just, more fun. Fourth edition, for all it’s simplicity, and for all the huge improvements, isn’t as much fun for me.

I want to hold out and give 4e longer than the three months it’s had. I want to see the next round of books (and my glimpse at the Player’s Guide to FR was encouraging) but I don’t know if I’m gonna make it. Right now I’m almost to the point where I’m ready to push for a d20 Modern campaign. Or a return to 3.5.

Or, I guess I could blame the DM. ;-)

Is this all there is?

2008-09-29T10:05:00.002-06:00

We had another gaming session on Friday night, and it went well enough; no one died, new creatures were encountered and their "special traits" were seen. The players (and characters) used some good tactics, but weren't taxed - it was a good night for experience gains.

But it was also a night of combat. And combat. Oh, and a little clue found there in that pile. But that's it, and that's what this module has started to feel like - just a dungeon crawl.

Not that there's anything wrong with a dungeon crawl; fighting monsters, especially ones that are new, or that challenge you to fight with some strategy, is definitely something core to 4e D&D. And, yes, the characters assume that there's a reason they're muscling through the area, seeking the right wrongs and such, as heroes often do.

And I know that previously, I've commented that these combats have been welcome, because we needed to learn the new combat system of 4e, to get a feel for moving from saving throws to defense attacks and for the plethora of powers we now have to manage.

But I want something more. Yes, this adventure has a story in it, and there are hooks that have the characters' motivations fueled, and they have a goal, and a name of some baddie out there, but it just feels very off-balanced towards combat combat combat. We had some roleplaying in earlier sessions, but there's only so much you can do with a mindless opponent, one that doesn't seem ready to parlay.

I know that, as the DM, I can add whatever I like - but I'm trying to follow this adventure as close to written as I can, just to leave it in someone else's hands to invent this time around as we all learn the new rules. I guess I had hoped that a published Wizards of the Coast module would be a little more balanced in such things, since they're the professionals. I like to think that my own adventures mix things up a bit. Perhaps the characters are just going the wrong way, the hack-and-slash way, instead of mixing it up the way the adventure expects.

That's right - always blame the players.

Not-so-Portable Document Format

2008-09-26T10:51:00.007-06:00

It has been a bit quiet around here, because of time crunches (September heralds in a new semester), illness (children are germ factories) and a missed weekend of play. But with all of that, I should be able to comment on all of the good, new material coming out out Dragon magazine, right?

Yes, if I had time to read all of the tantalizing articles, but I find I've barely been able to keep up with the wizardlinks indexes. Still, it got me thinking about the fact that I've read very few of the articles that have appeared in Dragon since the magazine went online.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that I prefer to read away from the computer, in my armchair or in bed. Sure, I read my general RSS feeds online and that keeps me informed, and lead to the occasional full article being read on-screen. I read digital books for work purposes, when a hardcopy isn't at hand. But when I have spare time to read (and I do try to make that time), I realize that I'm reading OTHER content -- Scientific American, Wired, National Geographic, Dr. Dobbs -- instead of any D&D material. Dragon and Dungeon magazines used to be part of that pile of magazines, but no longer.

Do I need to train myself to read at the computer, to decide that "those magazines" are part of my regular circulation? That's difficult, as I usually go to read when I'm tired of sitting in front of the computer. Should I read them as they appear? That's also difficult, as I'm generally at work when the RSS feed informs me of a new article, and I make time to update my index and to pop the PDF up in a new tab -- but I don't have the time at work to sit there and read it, even if that tab sits open for a week or more (until my browser crashes or the machine gets rebooted).

Do I print it out? Possible, I suppose, though I don't know that I'd enjoy the printer-paper version nearly as much as I used to enjoy the glossy magazines. Also, do I just print out individual articles as they appear? Or do I wait until the whole issue is compiled into a single PDF, giving me one complete issue, but making me wait until the end of the month before I get a chance to comment on it?

Of course, at this rate, I'm not commenting on any of it, as I'm never getting to it.

I had mixed feelings about the move to online content before, and I still do. I like that the new content is going to be added to the Compendium, though that's not really something that the online version enables -- it could have been done with a paper issue as well. But I see how the push to a full digital layout drives this setup.

Perhaps the solution is a tablet PC.

Anyhow, I'm going to try to be more diligent in reading this material. If I succeed, don't be surprised if I post about material from a few months ago...

A not-so-brief summary (after 3 levels)

2008-09-18T14:15:00.005-06:00

Having just hit 3rd level I figured it was time to sum up the things that I love and the things that I hate with 4e.

The Good:

Everything to do with Encounter design. I just love this. Everything from the mixing and matching of monsters, to their roles (as an aid for the DM only), to the use of terrain. It’s all just good shit. I mean it. WotC knocked this one out of the park.

The skills system. I was lukewarm on the untrained vs trained thing at first, but I’ve really grown to love it. It’s simple, elegant, and best of all dumping ranks in doesn’t outgrow the curve of the DCs, making what should be an incredibly difficult show of skill (ie, tumbling around a dozen ninja warriors without getting hit) into a can’t be failed exercise in boredom (ie. that DC 15 never goes up).

Racial abilities. They add a nice little kicker to choosing a specific race. Great idea.My only knock against them is that they just don’t go quite far enough. I’m putting this under a good thing, with the presumption that future books will push this great idea to the heights it deserves.

The monsters. Another homerun for WotC. From the foundation of their design being for one encounter (ie. no more abilities/spells that won’t be used during a fight) to the stat block layout, it’s all much improved. A special favorite of mine is the use of signature powers for every monster. The kobold’s free shift and the goblin’s shift after a miss etc... Just awesome.

Races. Love the new races. The Dragonborn are a perfect addition, and the split of the elves into Eladrin and Elf is beautiful. The Tiefling... well, three out of four is pretty damn good. And the re-tooling of the other core races are all very nicely done.

The Bad:

The multiclassing (or lack thereof). Part of the fun in DnD is mixing and matching existing classes to whip up my own perfectly tailored “class”. Was it powergaming and unbalancing? Sure. Was it potentially nerfing yourself if you took the wrong class or feat? You betcha! But it was fun and challenging and I loved it. (The added perception that they nerfed multi-classing solely to justify the creation of future books, as in “don’t make up your own class, buy this book which has a bunch of new classes that almost fit your concept instead”, well, that kinda pisses me off.)

Spellcasting is just boring. It’s all just different powers now and that, in some vague way, robs me a little. Okay, my wizard can drop “Scorching Bursts” every round, but whoop-dee-doo. It’s dulls-ville.

Action points. It took me a while but I’ve decided that I hate the way they implemented these. When they first appeared in the 3.5 Eberron world, I thought they were quite cool. A nice little 1d6 boost to any roll to change defeat into success strikes me as “heroic”, which was the intent. In 4e getting to do an extra action in a round might be heroic, if you fighter uses it to make an extra attack and topples two ogres at the same time. More often than not the result of the Action Point is pretty mundane. A healing surge gets burnt, or a bad guy gets hit for an extra 5 damage. Yawn. Worse yet, I’ve used an Action Point for the extra move to get away from danger. Yeah. That’s “heroic”.

The magic items. I know they felt that players were far too dependant on magic items. But so what if they are? At least it gave us something to aspire and save up for. Something to quest for even. Now they’re just lame.

Retraining. WotC should take this concept and shove it up their ass. I hate it. 'Nuff said.

The “yeah buts”:

The assortment of powers. I like them overall, and the fact that every class gets them is both a good and bad thing. It makes every class unique in way, which is good, but it also (in an admittedly weird way that I have trouble defining) makes every class feel the same. I wish I could elaborate on this but it’s just my subjective feeling.

The feats will surely fill many a book (while emptying many a wallet) and every character gets a shitload of them, which is good. I suppose. But I’ve yet to see anything that I want to aim towards. They’re just so watered down now. A piddly bonus to a pair of skils, or the ability to wear armor and such are just... blah. Where are the Whirlwind Attack type feats that required levels of planning and then provided an exciting in game payoff?

The overall streamlining of the game. This came really close to being up with the good, but for one thing. There are times where I get the feeling that “time wasters” of the past (ie. confirming critical hits etc...) have simply shifted to new time wasters. This could be simply because our play group hasn’t gotten a complete grasp on the rules and powers but everyone’s action starts with opening the PHB to check on the details of our char’s powers. I’d rather be rolling dice thanks.

Solo monsters

2008-09-15T11:16:00.004-06:00

Last night the party faced its first solo monster, and I have to say that it fits the bill nicely.

Without giving anything away, in case readers are adventuring through the same quest as we are, this solo encounter also made good use of terrain, one of the directions that 4e is putting more attention to. I think the creature's early attacks let the party know quite quickly that this wasn't a trivial encounter, and the action points and daily powers got spent a little more freely. Additionally, the "benefit" of fighting a solo monster is that you're pretty sure that ANY time is the right time to use your encounter powers.

The party survived, though we had one member drop unconscious, and even with the complication of the terrain, I think the battle played out well. I also think that this was the most cohesive battle this party has executed, though again that might have been because there was only one target for everyone to concentrate on.

The party has just hit level three with this encounter, so we've certainly not done 4e full justice yet, but I'll admit that with each session, there's that one little thing that 4e does right that gets noticed. That's not to say that there aren't some 4e things that still irritate us, but as we play through, into higher levels, some of the design decisions we may have questioned or failed to comprehend are becoming clearer. Specifically, how to use powers to turn a creature into a Solo foe was revealed -- well, to the DM, anyway.

A little more on the FRCG

2008-09-08T13:37:00.001-06:00

Right to it then.

I’ve gotta say that I like a lot of the remodeled cosmos and pantheon. For starters the exarchs are very cool and give my epic tier character something to shoot for (as 'godhood' has always struck me as a little unreal. I mean, how often does the apprentice blacksmith say to himself that someday he'd like to be a god?).

On the other hand I always liked the Mulhorandi pantheon and I’m saddened to see it go. Sure it was a little out of place, being nothing more than the Egyptian gods and goddesses. But it was one of my faves.

I suppose we have the Norse gods and their fans to thank for this. “If our gods aren’t in the Realms then why did those Egyptians get in?” Answer: because they’re cooler by far. All you Norsemen have are big beards and ravens. (Okay, Sif is kinda hot.)

Back to topic, my biggest peeve by far is the lack of a entire world map. I can’t tell you how much I hate that it’s been excluded from this book. Instead of flipping to a page to see where in Toril that Aglarond is, I’ve not gotta unfold that massive (albeit nice looking) map that was glued to the back of the book. If I don’t have the room or inclination to unfold that fucking thing, I’m left with a disjointed mental map of the Realms until I stumble across it later and have an “oh! So that’s where that place is!” moment.

The entries themselves are great so far (thru the A nations anyways). I’m a big fan of the Knowledge this or that checks sections at the start of each entry. Those are nothing short of awesome. The inclusion of the potential adventure hooks is another thing I really like, and I’m very glad to see it int the 4e FRCG.

Too bad about that map though.

Dying for the first time

2008-09-02T08:33:00.003-06:00

As Griff mentioned, my character was the first character to die in our 4e adventure, not for lack of trying to take that paladin down!

Even though I'm the DM, I'm playing a character for a few reasons: first, so I can get a feel for the player side of things as we all explore fourth edition; but also because the new standard party size is five characters, and when we started, it was me plus three, so I figured a fourth character would be helpful, especially because no one else seems to play a cleric. Now that we've added two other players, we've actually got a party of six.

I think it's a good demonstration of the new balance of 4e, that my character died. He had a little bit of damage, and was taken down with two high-damaging attacks from creatures that have a synergy-like damage bonus when fighting together, and these attacks came with no time between for Crwth to use one an encounter healing power, which he did have available. This goes to show that Leader is Leader, not Defender, and even when clad in armor and shield, you can't necessarily act as a meat shield.

4e definitely makes it easier to bring back lost party members, however; the cost is much lower than in 3rd edition, and the penalties aren't anywhere near as bad as they were. The fact that a second-level party could afford to bring back their party member is definitely good for the party and players, but it does change the idea of a "dangerous encounter" - excluding a Total Party Kill, the only danger is empty pockets. Had another party member died, we would have been strapped for cash; as it is, Crwth just owes some money to everyone.

The illusions begin to crack

2008-09-02T07:33:00.004-06:00

Four encounters. Maybe five.

That seems to be the limit for a second level party. A party of six mind you. At that point we were utterly drained. No more daily or encounter powers and precious few healing surges.

It was the latter, or more precisely the inability of anyone in our party to allow anyone to use a healing surge (outside of a Second Wind), that had us arguing over whether to retreat or press on.

I was the one who most wanted to press on. In part for roleplay reasons. My dragonborn isn't one to back down from a challenge. Plus I didn't want to leave the keep and abandon all the progress we'd made (assuming the bad guys re-group and are ready to meet us at the gates, or worse, set up a bunch of traps).

Mainly however, I wanted to test the theory that 4E is supposed to encourage parties to adventure onwards without "resting" after every other encounter.

Sure, we were down to our At Will powers and one Second Wind per encounter, but in 4E that's supposed to be enough. I mean, isn't that the point behind all the At Will powers and HP we get?

Maybe not, as the death of our Cleric seems to prove.

Not that he wouldn't have fallen regardless. We might have been at full power and it still wouldn't have saved him. He took a lot of damage in just a couple of rounds. Then again, with the ability to use a healing surge or two, he might have stayed on his feet.

The point is, we all felt an urge to retreat and "rest" to regain our powers before moving deeper into the cultist's keep. Yet we'd only been through four or five encounters (with the sixth being decidedly deadly) and being only mid-morning in the game world.

Is this evidence of poor module design? Flawed game design? A bit of both?

More importantly, how was this different from 3rd edition? Instead of falling back on a crossbow or whatever, my wizard had his scorching blasts and thunderclaps. The others all had an array of "cool" things they could still do. But in the end, none of those "cool" things made a difference. We still ended up retreating to town to kill several hours before getting our six hours of sleep and our full array of powers back.

I suppose that's the difference right there. Instead of just the wizard crying over his lost spells, it was the entire party. Welcome to the club warriors and rogues. Welcome.

The politics of Dungeons & Dragons

2008-08-21T10:39:00.004-06:00

It has been reported in various places that John McCain's aide Michael Goldfarb posted the following on his blog:

It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others.

But it was pointed out that he's not completely against us, from an earlier post:

If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American.

Obviously he hasn't played 4e yet, or he'd know that ability scores have nowhere to go but up in this edition.

(Note: I'm Canadian, so don't try to read any political leanings into this post)

A first thoughts on the FRCG

2008-08-21T07:35:00.002-06:00

I got my copy of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide last night. Haven't had a chance to really dive in yet, but I thought I'd throw out some very early impressions.

First off, why the name change from "Setting" to "Guide"? Is this just to differentiate it from the 3rd edition version? To emphasize that DMs are no longer tied to the canon of a setting, but get a generalized guide instead?

Secondly, the map in the back is gorgeous.

Finally, what the fuck is with the first chapter? A fucking intro adventure? Right at the start of the book? Seriously?

When I first flipped to page one of Chapter one I saw "Loudwater" and thought, "awesome. They're gonna give us a microscopic look at a small town. Perfect for those starting a new campaign. Nice."

Then I saw the telltale encounter map and stats. At that point I had to stop reading, just in case Crwth weaves it into one of his campaigns.

So from there I'm flipping pages. And more pages. And finally I get to chapter two.

Thanks WotC. Thanks for an opening chapter that only one in five can (or should) read.

This sample adventure should be at the back of the book where it belongs. Where they've always been.

Math is hard!

2008-08-21T07:16:00.002-06:00

This has absolutely nothing to do with DnD.

At all.

Period.

Feel free to skip this. I won't be hurt. Honest.

For those who are still with me, I saw a blurb on the news last night about the newest edition of Monopoly. If you're not hip on the latest and greatest in Monopoly (and really, who isn't?) then it has an international theme.

All well and good.

The thing that set me off is that they're doing away with the iconic "Monopoly money". Instead, the newest edition will use an electronic debit card for rent paying etc...

Maybe they have a good and valid reason for this. Maybe they felt that the classic Monopoly money looked too much like someones currency (most likely one of those weird European countries) and that would in turn upset someone (I'm looking at you France). Or maybe they're getting a kick back from the battery makers.

Or maybe, and this is my favorite guess, maybe they felt that counting out bills was just too hard. It was alienating players and making those who aren't really good at math feel bad about themselves. Sorry about that. Here's a nice little electronic gizmo that will do all that nasty math for you. Have a cookie.

I say that if being too stupid to count out the rent in a boardgame makes you feel bad, well good! You should feel bad! Because you're a fucking idiot.

I'm sorry that you can't total up $1180 in hundreds, fifties, and twenties. I'm sorry you can't figure out how much change to give on $86 from a $100 bill. I'm sorry you're such a freakin' dumbass. But I'm sick of the trend of bending over backwards to make sure stupid people aren't made to feel stupid. If you're stupid, you should know it, and accept it.

I mean, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree by a long shot. There are plenty of times where math, among other things, makes me feel like an idiot. I'm okay with that. And if it ever really bothers me, I'll take a class or read a book.

Or I'll play International Monopoly because that'll make anyone feel good about themselves.

Speaking of rituals

2008-08-18T10:10:00.004-06:00

The Ritually Speaking article in the current Dragon issue was nicely packed with usable information.

I really like the ideas of rituals, and was happy that they provided a whole bunch of them from the start. Getting another batch of them so soon was a pleasant surprise, as I expected to see only a few here and there until the Player's Handbook II came out.

The time taken to cast certain rituals, however, still seems a bit off. I understand (as mentioned by readers in their comments) that these are meant to be different from spells, that rituals are not encounter-based and not meant to be an off-the-cuff effect. The Battlefield Elocution ritual should be a bit quicker, I think - by the time you finish casting the ritual, you could have walked around the battlefield and talked to everyone personally. By the time you finish Preserve Flame, it might need to be renamed Preserve Embers for what's left of your campfire. And let's hope the enemy is patient while you cast Earthen Ramparts to defend against them.

But these are just nitpicks - it seems like 10 minutes is the minimum time we're going to see on any ritual, and I'll just have to accept that. Anything that really needs to be finished faster will have to be considered for the role of Power. Well, except that Signal of Pursuit breaks that rule, being a 1 minute ritual - it has that sense of immediacy that I'm referring to. Is there a reason why some of these other rituals can't have a shorter casting time? Would it be too powerful if I could preserve MANY flames quickly?

Some of my favorite new rituals include Explorer's Fire, which can confound many a random encounter by hiding the characters' camp; Memory Seal, which has a variety of uses against PCs and NPCs, cast by PCs or NPCs; Tenser's Binding obviates the need for the party to carry rope or shackles to bind foes, and Mordenkainen's Ascent removes the need for rope or a ladder for climbing.

And the silliest one: Fastidiousness. In the next installment: Hair Mussing Immunity!

DMG - The World

2008-08-18T08:34:00.003-06:00

With the release of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, I've had to force myself to read the last two chapters of the Dungeon Master's Guide before moving on.

The World chapter is a big mishmash of stuff, seemingly a dumping ground for all the miscellany that didn't fit anywhere else.

The D&D World

The first section starts off explaining the general mood of the 4e world - fantastic, ancient, mysterious. The "points of light" were mentioned, of course. It is emphasized that the world is the DM's, and that many things aren't going to be spelled out, unlike previous editions. There's no default world, and only the gods and other powerful beings are spelled out. I feel this is good and bad; it means that there's very little canon for a DM to have to argue about with his or her players, but it places a bit more work on the shoulders of new DMs who aren't ready, willing or able to create that much.

Civilization

I've always liked this section of the DM's Guide in past versions, where it mentions the different sizes of towns and cities, what kind of population figures to expect, and the range of economy to be found there, for purposes of buying and selling goods.

This edition is missing the gold figures, but otherwise provides the needed information to help DMs decide how big of a location they need for each purpose, and how to think about establishments they find in published works, if it isn't spelled out within. A bit of detail is given to areas such as government, defense and commerce, but I think all of these areas would be good for Dragon articles, to provide further ideas.

The section on Organizations, too, is one that I'm certain will get expanded upon in Dragon articles, as organizations tend to provide a lot of story ideas, whether they're evil cults or benevolent churches. So, too, do the Fantastic Settlements - who hasn't had to deal with a city being secretly run by a mind flayer?

The Wild

Not much to say about this section, except I found it a weird that here there were game rules, such as Endurance DCs, where the rest of the chapter contained flavor instead. This was the section that made the chapter feel like a bundle of leftover information.

The Planes

I've talked before about the reworking of the planes in D&D, and how I like how they've simplified quite a bit. Here we do have some specifics, some "geography" that's defined for the campaign, and some residents within that geography. It's nice to have this information, so a DM can create a world, a campaign, or a module within some guidelines, even if the planes or their residents are many levels away from where the party might be. Having a destination for future adventures, or a background of which the party's escapades can be a part, is useful.

The Gods

I've always liked the gods in D&D, whether in the standard campaign or in Forgotten Realms. The gods, with their machinations, churches and cults, always provide plot and intrigue for all sorts of adventure. The Time of Troubles in the Forgotten Realms history is one of my favorite storylines, bringing the gods down to Faerun where they had tangible effects on the land and the people, and provided a way for players to interact with the divine without having to be near-divine themselves.

Artifacts

This definitely feels out of place in this chapter. Agreed, they can be considered "part of the world's weave", but they've always been with the magic items in the past, and that's just where I expect them, even if they have a history tied to the specifics of the world.

I like the idea that artifacts are a temporary item in the lives of the characters - that these items have a destiny of their own, and being "owned" by one of the characters is only one part of that destiny. Players that acquired an artifact in earlier editions saw it as theirs, felt that they earned it (and probably did), and that it was theirs until the character died, or retired, or attained godhood. Now they might have to accept the fact that this item will serve their purposes once or twice and then continue its journey to the next adventuring party.

Again, this section has some actual game rules, including a few example artifacts, which makes it stand out in this chapter. It should have been elsewhere.

Languages

This section was more interesting than I expected it to be. It provides a reason why there are only ten languages, and how they came about. Our playing group has always paid attention to languages, with some players always choosing certain ones for their characters, and others trying to spread the knowledge out to make the party as versatile as possible. Already, language has played a role in the current adventure, and it's a great way to provide story events with such a simple mechanic.

A tale of two worlds

2008-08-14T11:25:00.002-06:00

Obviously, with the release of 4e my beloved Forgotten Realms were going to experience some changes. I was ready for that. More importantly, I’m far from a rabid fanboi of the setting. I don’t read the novels (or haven’t since junior high) and I don’t know the ins and outs of the history (although I am really enjoying the 3e “Grand History” book).

Still, the whole “where there was once Abeir-Toril, a single world, there are now suddenly two worlds; the original Toril and it’s sister world, Abeir” thing is kinda sticking to my craw.

It’s not that this sudden split of one world into two is a terrible thing. On the contrary I think I like this method of tying in the new races and “points of light” theme into the Realms.

I just wonder why they didn’t go with something simpler, or at least less eyebrow raising.

For instance, there’s a continent on the world map called “Osse”. No one’s ever been there and nothing is known of it. In other words, it’s a blank canvas. So, why not use it as the place where the Dragonborn and Tiefling empires rose and warred?

Then the Spellplague could have picked up a big chunk of that continent and dropped it into Faerun. New races introduced. No cosmic now you see it now you don’t. No planetary shell game. Just a clean simple explanation.

Unless I’m missing something.

Miscellany

2008-08-12T08:24:00.002-06:00

Wizards of the Coast is going to revise the Game System License (GSL) and System Reference Document (SRD) for d20 and 4e. I didn't look too closely when it was first announced, as any need I had for the license was a ways in the future, but I had read that there was a lot of unhappiness from the community regarding it. The one thing I do remember was that the license prevented a company from selling both 3e and 4e versions of the same product. While I'm no publisher, I do create quite a bit of material, and while it's mostly consumed internally, I do occasionally post snippets and might want to do more than that. With this upcoming change, I suppose I should pay a little more attention when it's released so I know what I have to deal with. "We have listened to the community and our valued colleagues and have taken their concerns and recommendations to heart" sounds promising. I hope they're what the community wanted.

This month's Dungeon editorial touched on one of my favorite changes to the 4e encounter system, which is the effect of terrain and environment. The Keep on the Shadowfell has already had some interesting uses of layout and terrain (no spoilers, sorry), and this trend has got me considering the environment for all of the encounters in the module I'm currently designing. While we've mentioned in these pages that some parts of combat have just shifted the repetition from one form to another, the use of terrain gives that extra dimension to any encounter.

Even more updates have been released for the 4e core books. This is the third set of errata. I haven't looked at them yet (I prefer to do it with books in-hand so I can pencil in the changes), but I wonder if they're as sweeping as the last ones. I like the fact that they're working hard to correct and update often, but it does make you wonder if things were a bit rushed to meet the June 6 deadline they had set for themselves.

Inside the Insider

2008-08-07T12:58:00.003-06:00

The latest news from D&D Insider is about the content planned for it, how it's coming along, and how much it's going to cost us.

The online version of Dragon and Dungeon magazines have been discussed here before, and organization aside, the content is very good. That alone is why I will pay for D&D Insider.

The D&D Compendium is a nice bonus. With more keywords in the game design, being able to search for all of a type of power will be very handy. And not having to bring my books to work will also be convenient. Having a way to bookmark certain searches would be handy ("find all cleric powers"), and for that matter, having it just behave as a regular webpage instead of a little popup window of Javascript obfuscation. I like the fact that the Dragon and Dungeon content will be added to it as well. I would, however, like it to be working right now, instead of the "SERVER ERROR - Datastore unavailable A request to the datastore failed or was denied. We apologize for the inconvenience." I just got.

The little bonus tools are things that you can find a dime-a-dozen around the net, but I suppose it's handy to have them all in one place. The mention of a monster-building tool, however, got my attention. Let's see how they manage that.

The Character Builder, along with the Character Visualizer, are their current focus, and I'm keen to see how they turn out. I've worked on various systems for doing this, and if theirs can do the job, I can scratch one time-consumer from my list. Oh, and I suppose it'll be handy to use, too. The Visualizer sounds like a novelty unless you're using the Game Table, but I guess it might help some to immerse in the game if they have a picture of their character.

They mention that the Dungeon Builder is almost done. They then mention that it's not very useful without the Game Table, even though Buehler starts the article saying that it "allows you to construct maps to play with either on the kitchen table or ... Game Table". Let me construct them for the kitchen table then! Don't make me wait for the Game Table, which I won't use...

...and that's the last item on their list. Don't get me wrong, I'm curious to see how they do it, because I'm planning on creating something similar with the Metaplace platform. But unless we can convince our one ex-pat in Chicago to play online, we won't have any use for the Game Table in our group.

And then there's the price. This is their current pricing list:

Web-Content Only Subscription Package:
12 Months = $59.40 ($4.95 per month)
3 Months = $19.95 ($6.65 per month)
1 Month = $7.95 ($7.95 per month)

Note that this is the Web-Content Only package - it's for access to Dragon, Dungeon, the Compendium and the bonus tools. Since the magazines are my main reason to pay, I think $5 per month is reasonable for two magazines, even if I don't get a glossy copy. As for how much they might charge once the rest is available, we shall see if it's worth it. I do hope that they maintain two sets of subscriptions, though: one for the content as above, and another to get the whole thing. And if they price it right, they might get the suckers who don't really want the rest of it to buy it anyway, just in case. Suckers like me.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

2008-07-31T14:40:00.002-06:00

I’m not totally sure but I think so. This Character Concepts gives me some hope.

For starters there are some very cool powers scattered around the PHB. Some of them enable a player to do things in 4e that 3rd edition or 3.5 couldn’t come close to emulating. There seems to be a nice assortment between damage dealing and attacking different defenses. Plus every class has something at higher levels that I can see producing that “wow” factor that’s been missing so far.

On the downside, it looks like the fun doesn’t really begin until the Paragon Tier. There are some nice things 10th level and lower but not much that I can get excited about. I mean, relative to my character’s level and the enemies we’ll be fighting, Fireball and Lightning Bolt are old standbyes for fun. But they’re a far cry from Elemental Maw or even Lightning Serpent (admittedly a 9th level Daily, so pre-Paragon. Still, 9th level before the first really cool power appears in the Wizard’s repetoire?).

I’m still disappointed in the watered down and restrictive multiclassing rules. As the author, Peter Shaefer writes “Paragon tier is when multiclassing comes into its own.” First off, I don’t want to wait 10 levels before that multiclassing feat I took starts to “come into its own.” Secondly, I really don’t see much of a payoff or a change in the character going all the way to the Epic Tier summary. The example characters still strike me as a basic warlock or fighter, with a smattering of powers pilfered from the second class(es).

I still intend to try out the multiclassing for myself, so my opinion of it might change in a year or two. For now I still feel like there’s no point in multiclassing, and that makes tailoring a character a distant dream.

Returning closer to the point of the article, I am heartened by the fact that thematic characters are easily done. Either of the two Schaefer gives as examples would be fun to play. Better yet, it makes me wonder what themes I’ll be able to come up with and experiment upon. Already I’m looking forward to developing my dragonborn wizard along the storm theme. With more books coming I eagerly await the new feats and powers.

What I’m not looking forward to, but might be forced into by the rules, is the whole swapping of powers thing. Again and again Schaefer has his examples swapping this power for that, and some times he switches back two levels later. Everytime I saw it I cringed. I mean, it makes no sense to me that one day my character can use Dread Star and the next she can’t. That’s like me suddenly forgetting how to drive but suddenly knowing how to fly a helicopter. To me, that stands out as the worst part of 4e. Unfortunately it’s clearly a fundamental basis of the whole set of rules.

Gleemax gone

2008-07-29T14:46:00.004-06:00

We made it no secret here that we thought little of Gleemax. It didn't come as a surprise then, when it was announced that they're closing it down.

This, to me, is a good thing, for exactly the reasons they cited: to focus on other digital initiatives. I complain daily (and spare you from it, at least daily) about the lack of attention that is given to the current Dragon and Dungeon magazines, and hopefully this will now change. And while I mourn the loss of my glossy subscriptions, I've always been supportive of the move to a full digital format, because the perks are there, in theory: instant delivery, automatic updates, indexing, archiving.

And this would include a digital community, which is what Gleemax was going for. But they never made it, and whether it was because of a lack of manpower, lack of focus, of lack of vision, I suppose it's too bad. I was never against the idea of Gleemax, just the version we ever got to see.

And that god-awful green.

Dragonborn Ecology

2008-07-29T11:52:00.002-06:00

From the moment WotC revealed the new race, the Dragonborn, I was in love. It took me back to the old days of AD&D and the Dragonlance modules. Only this time, the Draconians are a playable race (and not a trademark infringement I’m sure).

It gets even better with the release of the Dragon article The Ecology of the Dragonborn from issue #365.

As an aside, I’ve always enjoyed the “Ecology of…” articles and consider them to be one of the few must reads.

Anyways, the Dragonborn ecology hit the bullseye with me. The race’s emphasis on ancestors and honor and action filled what I saw as a missing gap. For sure I could play a character of any race who reveres any or all of those things. It’s just nice that there’s a race to fill the space between the corruptible humans, flighty elves, dour dwarves, impish halflings, and brooding Tieflings. The Dragonborn certainly give me the perfect race for samurai character type I so love to play.

I’m not so sure why WotC felt the need to tie the history of the Dragonborn to the Tiefling. Some sort of validation for the latter? Or maybe it was just a simple “hey, here’s two new races with a connected history.”

More importantly, I’m not sure how they’ll drop this new core race into the Forgotten Realms. For those who don’t know FR is our play group’s defacto setting. While we don’t stick strictly to canon, we do take an interest in the history and grand events as well as the geography. So having an entirely new race suddenly appear in the streets of Waterdeep might be a bit tricky. I’ve guarded optimism that they’ll do it right and not fall back on the planar rift cliché.

History and personality archetypes aside, I’m honestly glad they didn’t overdo the draconic powers. The breath weapon adds some nice flavor (although my character has yet to use his) while staying far from being overpowered. At the same time I think a weak bite attack would have been fitting as well, (I mean, they have a maw full of sharp teeth) but that’s a small quibble..Personally I roleplay it out by thinking of my Dragonborn as having a low view on using such an animal like attack.

There are definitely tons of possibilities for racial feats (besides the lame ones in the PHB) so I’m excited about future releases. In fact, I’d love to see an entire splat book devoted to just the core races and feats and powers. As it stands, that’s probably what it will take to live up to WotC’s design goal of making race matter throughout a character’s adventuring career.

Anyways, the Dragonborn is a hit with me and gets a solid “good job mate”.

My stab at monster design

2008-07-28T14:39:00.004-06:00

The Smothering Coastal Wizard.

I haven’t worked out the stats yet (not that the math is important), but it definitely has a very low Int.

The favored attack is a bludgeoning effect that leaves the target confused into buyng a Miniatures game with rpg elements layered on top.

The Smotherer then stifles as much creativity as it possibly can, starting with multiclassing and Prestige Classes. It then throws a myriad of bland boring feats at it’s hapless victiom. Further attacks leave the target stumbling into a blind alleyway where there’s no escape from vanilla classes with only two set builds that must be followed.

Want to play a gnome? Sorry says the Smotherer, but the Tiefling is core, try that. And next summer in the PHB2 you’ll be able to play our favorite race, the Drow. Fun!

Finally, with the targets lulled into a stupor of At-Will powers and close blasts and bursts the Smotherer brings out it’s finishing attack. A seriers of source books, each one as bland as the ones before. If the victim is lucky he or she can break free and move onto something where imagination and creativity still count.

Paint by numbers perhaps.

Monsters again

2008-07-28T12:22:00.004-06:00

I just finished the Design & Development article from last week, and I'm here to be a broken record...

The article is broken up into different sections on the design and planning of monster creation. It's no secret what I think of it, so it was interesting to see the thoughts that the developers had regarding this.

Starting Points

Heinsoo mentions the "somewhat ad hoc approach to monster design" of 2nd edition, and explains that 3rd edition decided to take the rules and mechanics for player characters and applied them to monsters. So why does it feel that they've gone backwards with 4th edition?

He claims that they felt they went "slightly too far", mentions the formulae that were used (the part that I liked), and how in the end, "the PCs deserve more attention than monsters." I don't disagree with this statement, but it feels that DMs have been put to the very bottom of the heap, if we don't have a mechanism to make monsters. And what of the players that want to play monstrous roles? Savage Species was a terrific book, and now, we're back to "no, you can only play what the Player's Handbook says you can play." Why should we have to wait for Wizards to release another book... oh, now I get it.

Schaefer pipes up and says that dropping the formulae is a "dream come true", because it was "too much work" to "check and double-check" the monster. Exceuse me, but aren't you developing an online presence? Aren't we having character sheets that automatically calculate themselves? Why not monster sheets? If it's because 3.5 had so many exceptions, then change THAT, but don't change the fact that things are actually calculated.

Streamlining While Expanding Favor

I can agree with part of this. Some of the larger, advanced, complex creatures in 3.5 had lists of abilities and spells that never got used. As has been mentioned, the typical lifespan of a monster once a party encounters it is quite short, and you only need to provide the abilities it has a reasonable chance of using in that time. And the Tactics sections in the new monster blocks are really good for helping the DM to know what the monster will do when, in what order, and with what strategy.

But what if this monster, or rather, NPC, becomes part of the party? Yes, we could roll up a character and treat it as an NPC, but what about the Ogre that I've convinced to help fight its brethren? Shouldn't he have a few more interesting things to do, if he's actually a party member for a while and thus might live longer than one encounter? What about the polymorphed silver dragon NPC? How do I roll that up? What if my campaign's nemesis is prone to escaping and fighting another day -- do I want it to just have a small set of abilities so even when the party catches up to him again, they still know what few tricks he has up his sleeve?

The fact that the monsters come from Miniatures is painfully obvious. Even the format of the statblock looks like a miniature card. And while I strongly agree with their comments about each race having their defining trait -- shiftiness for kobolds, bloodied orcs, etc. -- I don't really feel that this gives the individual enemy any sense of worth. Sure, the kobolds as a whole are a shifty race, but these five that just hopped out from behind that boulder might as well don some red shirts and be done with it.

Another comment caught my eye, where Schaefer points out that 'you won't see a stat block that includes "bugbear traits" that forces you to look elsewhere.' This is a good thing, as I found that to cause quite a bit of page-flipping. But I'd still rather have all of a bugbear's traits placed into a stat block, even if it makes it bigger. The later statblock format was a huge improvement over the earlier ones, and made for easy tracking of pertinent data - senses and such were up here, attacks were down here, skills way down here. Sort the attacks in order of likelihood, or use the little circled icons to indicate a favored attack, but to just reduce the number?

Monsters Now Appear In Context

I don't think I have any complaints about this section. The larger enemy groups work out really well, doing exactly what they say -- preventing a single target from getting locked down and the battle just turning into a bunch of die rolls. Instead, characters and enemies alike are shifting about, jockeying for position, and it feels like a much more involved combat.

And yes, I swear part of this article was written to me specifically: "only readers who appreciated strict adherence to known monster-creation formulas got any satisfaction out of a perfectly done stat block." And while I enjoyed be able to KNOW that some of the stat blocks in 3.5 were wrong, I didn't necessarily enjoy finding the problem -- I think I'd rather have correct ones, thank you.

Monster Stories

I like where they're going with the monster groups here -- that some monsters will usually accompany others because of a master/slave relationship, or what have you, but it's the "[w]hen you're making up new monsters" comment that gets me. True, I haven't blogged about the DM's Toolbox chapter in the Dungeon Master's Guide yet, but what tools do we have, really, for making up our own creatures and knowing that they make sense? We're not all professional game creators, and thus don't have an inherent feel for what is balanced and what is not.

Recharge Mechanics

I do like this change, moving a dragon's breath from a record-keeping chore to a every-round check. I had all sorts of little columns and pencil ticks on my combat sheets to keep track of breath recharges, poison effects, acid arrows and the like, and the move to remove those is something I've admitted to liking in 4e before.

I'm amused where Schaefer corrects Heinsoo in this section, regarding the conversion from "useable again in 1d4 rounds" to "Recharge 56", saying "I'm picking nits, but getting the math right is my job." Is that right? Then why won't you get the math right for monster creation BY USING SOME?

The best example of this recharge being a good mechanic took place this last weekend, where a leader type in an ambush surprised the whole party when he barked out a command and suddenly half of the characters were flanked. Not only that, but the commander did it AGAIN, and the players were all trying to figure out how he could have such a powerful power -- it was because he rolled nicely on his recharge. Having that kind of surprise from the players (and the characters, no doubt) is what is shaping up the 4e encounters to be better than 3.5 ones.

I'm still not happy with the monster creation, but their use in encounters so far has been positive. Can we find a happy compromise?

The Warlord Revisited

2008-07-28T08:45:00.001-06:00

I know I had some doubts about the Warlord class and now that I’ve had a look at the class in play (thanks to the newest addition to our group), I should in all fairness provide an update. Here it is.

Right off the bat I’ve gotta say that the class is very good at what it’s designed for. It’s powers are centered around moving allies into the right spots to control a battlefield (or dungeon room or whatever) and the class does that very well. Played properly I think a Warlord could force even the most disfunctional group of players into acting like a well oiled fighting machine.

At the same time, in it’s purest “build” (I hate that term!) the Warlord doesn’t do a lot of damage. It strikes me as a true “leader” (yuck!) in that it’s contribution isn’t in damage dice but in hidden, or subtle adds. Once you factor in all the hits that would have been misses, and the extra sneak attack damage etc… the Warlord does pull it’s weight.

On the other hand, I still don’t see why it’s powers couldn’t have been split into the paladin and cleric classes. Tried and true classes that can easily fit the “leader role” (cringe). If nothing else, rolling the Warlord’s powers into those classes would have given players extra “builds” (fuck, I hate myself right now) for their clerics and paladins.

Plus, there were rounds where our warlord used his power to give our paladin an extra attack on an enemy. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the design goals to give every player something cool to do on every turn? Hence the healing surges and second winds to free up of the cleric from casting cure spells every other round. Yet, the warlord on two separate rounds did, for all intents and purposes, nothing. Weird.

Most damning of all, in my mind at least, is that the Warlord’s roots clearly show. It’s a Mini through and through. If you need any evidence to prove that 4e is nothing but D&D Minis with some roleplaying elements thrown over top, look no further. I present Exhibit A. The Warlord. Case closed.

That aside, the warlord is overall an interesting class with some nice powers. Does it have a place in 4e? Sure. Does it deserve it’s spot in the PHB? Not in my opinion. Will I ever play one? Nope. Not my cup of tea.

DMG - Campaigns

2008-07-22T09:10:00.004-06:00

Oops. Obviously I don't look ahead to see what the chapters are, as I talked about some of the ideas in the Campaigns chapter when I discussed the Adventures chapter.

Of course, a lot of the rules and ideas behind creating and running a module also apply to the campaign as a whole. Again, this chapter is meant, I feel, for newer Dungeon Masters who need some guidance in developing their world and the adventures within. In the same way as the Adventures chapter, it starts off talking about published campaigns, and how you can use or modify them to your needs. I think that using a published campaign setting is more recommended than a published module, because creating a whole campaign setting can be daunting and quite time-consuming. Taking a world created by others and adding your own twist into it is so much easier.
And, as this chapter reminds you, there's no reason that you have to stick with anything in the publish material -- if you don't like the name of this city, or where it is, or who rules it, change away. The only warning that needs to be given is that if your players are familiar with the campaign setting, perhaps too much, then they might argue fine points that you change and/or dislike the changes you make to their beloved world.

The various themes suggested are pretty standard fare, and I think I've used nearly all of them. World-Shaking Events, Divine Strife... these are what tell the characters that their role in the events will put then in the annals of history forever. The subgenres are a little more subtle, and while I've taken snippets of these here and there for a campaign, I myself stick to the Swords & Sorcery style of campaign for the most part. To me, many of these could last for a module or two, but a campaign dedicated to them seems a bit much. Perhaps my players don't agree?

The idea of the Super Adventure is interesting. It's not new, but putting a name to it is, I think. The campaign I'm currently designing could be classified as a super adventure. One thing that I find lacking in campaigns that I've made (and this is wholly my fault) is that the characters don't get much sense of a homebase. The story takes them from village to town to city, from kingdom to kingdom, from crypt to dungeon to demi-plane. There's no familiarity being built-up, apart from the occasional visit from recurring NPCs and the general flow of the plot. The super adventure, being focussed in one setting, helps to both personalize the events that are taking place in the characters' (possibly adopted) home, as well as to provide easier revelations of the effects that the party is having on its environs. If the characters see the city grow from ruins to a thriving metropolis, knowing they're the direct cause, that's as rewarding as the electrum pieces in their purses.

The next few parts are again for the newer Dungeon Master, talking about the story design and flow, and how to introduce the players and their characters to your schemes. The Starting at Higher Level section seems out of place here, being a rule-based section in an otherwise role-playing chapter. Isn't this discussed in the Player's Handbook?

The section on running a campaign gives guidance on tying together separate modules, either ones that are meant to be in a chain of events, or ones that might be completely separate ideas that the Dungeon Master wants to turn into an epic series of conflicts. When using store-bought adventures, such as the initial 8 from 3rd edition, you had a subtle theme in the background (the ancient dragon Ashardalon) that loosely related the modules together. But it was up to the Dungeon Master to give a reason why the party went from the Sunless Citadel to the Forge of Fury and onward to Brindinford. When making your own campaign and modules within, I tend to start with a grand scheme and parcel it out into smaller bits that make sense as self-contained stories, but stories that all tie together, progressing to the ultimate... demise of the party.

My favorite section of this chapter was on the Tiers of Play, where they spell out the kinds of events that characters in each tier might expect to see, the foes they will face, and the range of the characters' adventures and fame. I'm still not sure what I think of the Epic Destinies, however. They have a note of finality to them, that this character has reached the end of their career, even while this chapter assures you that immortality doesn't mean retirement.

Now, if only one of our parties could make it that far.

DMG - Updates

2008-07-17T08:35:00.004-06:00

This isn't a chapter in the Dungeon Master's Guide, but a file that Wizards maintains and should be checked regularly.

Usually these update files correct small overlooked errors, such as the Warlord NPC getting martial ranged proficiency instead of simple ranged proficiency, or the [Healing] keyword being left off of The Invulnerable Coat of Arnd. Okay, no one is perfect, and these little errors being fixed ensure that they don't end up as stupid Ask Wizards questions. But this latest set of changes is more than that. It's much bigger than a missing word, or the wrong bonus type.

The DCs on actions and skill checks got completely changed. Now everything is easier to do, from 3 to 12 points easier. This is not a little change -- a change on one point here and there would represent a slight rebalancing at this level or this difficulty. But this is significant. This is ... I'm speechless.

Well, you wish. But really, this is almost absurd. If you have the Dungeon Master's Guide, follow along with me: turn to page 42. That chart at the bottom there, with all sorts of DCs for various difficulty types and various level ranges. See the DC10 for a level 1-3 Easy check? Change that to a 5. That's right, it's now "five easier" to do. That's not a fine-tuning, that's a complete rebalancing of the check system.

See the bottom of the chart, where it says "For skill checks: Increase DCs by 5"? That has been completely removed. So now that level 1-3 Easy skill check has gone from DC15 to DC5. In fact, if you go to page 61, where the skill check table is, you can see changes throughout that, too. Level 28-30 Easy check goes from DC30 to DC19. An eleven point drop. And diseases, also something that carries a DC, also got affected, usually by 6 or more.

The Player's Handbook also came out with some updates, that I haven't gone through yet (my PHB isn't at-hand), but paging through the update file doesn't spring any changes to the calculation of DC checks, so it's not like they've just lowered all of the values across the board -- you roll the same and add the same bonuses, and things have just become easier.

Now, I'm sure there are players rejoicing about this, and it could very well be that this is a required change -- we haven't done many checks in our campaign as of yet, having only dealt with conversation and combat so far. And if that's the case - if things were too hard - then I'm all for these changes. But how on earth did something like this not get caught in play-testing?

I could see a global lowering by 1 point as something that might slip out of play-testing, revealed once the masses got their hands on the rules. But five points? Ten? Twelve? I really wonder what happened here. They only playtested combat? They have really lucky dice? Perhaps they published some old pre-playtesting numbers?

Or maybe Wizards is really on the DM's side after all, and looking for a Total Party Kill.

DMG - Rewards

2008-07-16T08:10:00.002-06:00

I wasn't originally going to make a post solely for this chapter, since it's so short, but in the end I decided it was something worth commenting on.

Rewards, as the chapter points out, are what drive the characters, and the players, through the adventure. Whether your character loves every shiny coin and eye gem, or the player is the power-gamer who just needs that one extra level to realize her dreams, rewards represent your "score" in this game. Even for the most die-hard roleplayer, saving simple villages and negotiating with kobold chieftains can get a bit boring after a while; they want to advance to saving cities, nations and worlds, and dealing with giants, dragons, demons and deities. These are things that the lowly first-level character can't be expected to do - the only reason a dragon bothers to parley instead of attack is if the party either poses a threat, or can offer something in return. These require advanced levels, treasure, or both.

My favorite part of this chapter happens to be the change for the experience points from a variable scale to a static one. No longer do you compare each monster's Challenge Rating the the party's level to determine the experience earned; that orc is worth 200XP whether you're first level or fifth. How much that 200XP helps in your advancement is what changes. Why is this significant? It makes adventure-building a lot easier. In 3rd edition, the DM would have to look up the CR of each creature in an encounter and figure out the XP once the encounter ended - if the adventurers cleared the crypt before ridding the pass of the troll infestation, they might have gained a level and thus the trolls aren't worth as much. This prevented pre-calculation of experience points for each encounter, unless you knew for sure that the party was going to be 6th level here.

Now, adventure writers can provide the total XP for the encounter with the encounter, regardless of the size or average level of the party. Not only does this make for easier computation for the DM running the adventure, but it also allows single encounters or encounter sets (Side Treks, as Wizards is calling them) to be looked at and considered for inclusion into a module or campaign; if the DM wants to ensure the party is in the paragon tier before they get to the Dark Spire of Death, and knows the party needs another 11,000XP total to reach that level, he can flip through his collection of random encounters and pick out a couple that total to that amount.

Milestones and action points are still new ideas to me, so I'm not sure how much of a "reward" an action point is. Sure, there might be a reason to reward a party that has kept going without rest, and admittedly, an action point isn't too large of a reward, but it seems like there's more attention to this idea that it warrants. It's just an action point, one extra action. I agree it can be handy, perhaps the turning point of a tough combat (especially if you've been going non-stop through encounters), and they provide that extra surge to make the character that more heroic. I just don't know that I see them as the big deal that the rules make them out to be.

Treasure is what drives a lot of characters, whether the accumulation of wealth or the power of magic items. The figuring of loot has been greatly simplified as well. This might have taken a bit of fun out of it, with the new parcel system, but on the other hand, it does allow the adventure creator to better tell if the adventure is doling out a reasonable amount of loot. This is a system that the Wizards people themselves have needed, for they were always notoriously stingy in their published modules.

I was surprised, when I read the section on the treasure parcels, though. In the early days of 4e's announcement, there was talk about magic items being toned down, yet the suggested loot for a party of five, per level, includes five magic items (not including potions). Perhaps this will seem lower at the higher levels, where you'd expect every enemy to be wielding at least +1 weapons, and that's where the new powers system looks like it'll be useful - obviating the need for everything over 5th level to have at least +1 items. Also, with potions being all but gone, especially the ubiquitous Cure Light Wounds of old, I suppose the number of magic items is affected there.

It will be interesting to see how the treasure and loot system works out at higher levels. In 3rd edition, selling items gave you half the market value on average. Now you only get a fifth, so characters are going to be motivated to make do with what they find, or disenchant them for rituals, which I'm looking forward to trying out in the future. I also find it interesting that a first-level party is expected to find an item four levels higher than them during their first level (in fact, every level should expect magic items of +1, +2, +3 and +4 of the party level). Yes, levels are stretched from 20 to 30 now, but still, this feels significant. This means that a second-level party could potentially end up with a +2 enchanted item, or if not, a +1 with some impressive enhancements.

Of course, we're currently playing through the first module, a Wizards of the Coast production, so I'm very curious whether the loot matches the parcels at all, or if the party is going to once again be poor.

DMG - Adventures

2008-07-11T08:28:00.003-06:00

This was a large chapter, full of pretty decent information for the starting Dungeon Master, but of somewhat limited use for those who have been doing this for over 20 years.

The section on using published adventures talks about how to introduce the players to the adventure, which is usually covered in the module itself, and also gives some hints on modifying them to adapt to your own campaign setting, or modifying the level to better fit the party.

The Fixing Problems section is a sampling of the articles found in the old and new Save My Game articles from Wizards, which have always been some of the better articles that they've put out (from a DM's point of view, anyway).

The next few sections cover the meat and bones of making an adventure, and can definitely be helpful to newer DMs. Because running an adventure is similar to telling a story, DMs need to have some storytelling knowledge, such as having a start and end, keeping the pace going (even when the players might drift from the intent), and of course the player characters are the star protagonists of the story, and thus must figure predominantly throughout the story. Different from normal storytelling, however, is that the players are expected to guide the story by their own decisions, yet in the end things are meant to go as the DM planned. Giving the players the freedom to choose, yet still end up where the DM intended requires a fine balance of hints, hooks, and subtle nudging that this chapter can help the DM refine.

More technical than storytelling is the short section on the encounter mix, ensuring that the story feels dynamic and non-formulaic. Because the adventure is a story, the encounters need to feel like events that would happen day-to-day -- that is, day-to-day for heroes of the land, anyway. As discussed in the Noncombat Encounters chapter, the story isn't just a series of fights, but can include encounters of skill, encounters of dialog and encounters of wits. These encounters could be with blatant enemies, obvious friends and neutral bystanders; but also involving villains with which the party might have common goals, or misguided heroes that must be stopped. This idea is continued later in the chapter in the Cast of Characters section.

The setting are an important part of any adventure, and this is given a good amount of attention here. Early Dungeons & Dragons was all about dungeons, its namesake, but now adventures can range far and wide through any number of environments. The dungeon is definitely the easiest setting for a Dungeon Master to help ensure the flow of the adventure -- there are only so many passages that the characters can follow, and they will eventually get to where you need them -- but these can lack the sense of freedom that the story should provide. Wilderness can provide the sense of the unknown from all directions and the feeling of being lost; urban settings can lead to paranoia and distrust, as there are so many NPCs around, and any of them could be friend or foe. Planar settings provide that extra bit of the fantastic to any adventure, when dungeons, wilderness and cities are starting to feel mundane, even when crawling with dragonborn, mind flayers and dragons. This, to me, is the most useful part of the chapter.

New content? Only if you try really hard!

2008-07-03T12:39:00.004-06:00

Okay, I thought I could keep my ranting about Dragon magazine to one post, but it was getting pretty bad with me commenting on my own post.

To recap those comments: yay, a full PDF of issue #364. Boo that the table of contents isn't clickable. And hey, guess what? There's an article in there that I had no idea about!

Now, I suppose I'm the one that could be blamed for this oversight, since there's a page maintained for each issue, such as this one. And I could always go there daily, and scroll through and make sure I haven't missed a new article, or perhaps just read them all again each day, just to be sure.

Why don't I just look at the Dragon features archive list, which my software reads to update wizardslinks? Because the article isn't there!

Why don't I subscribe to the RSS feed? Oh, I do, I do -- that's how I keep abreast of everything. So I thought. Because the article isn't there!

Which article am I talking about? How about Class Acts: Wizard. It's an article I would have loved to know about back on, you know, JUNE SIXTEENTH, when it was apparently posted.

There's the once-in-a-while feeling I get that maybe I'm too hard on Wizards and their online presence, whenever I'm updating wizardslinks, that maybe their stuff isn't that hard to find after all. But then...

Tell me, did any of you also miss this article? Or a better question would be: did anyone actually see it?

A rant on class

2008-07-03T08:38:00.003-06:00

I seem to have touched on something based on the comments on my last post, so I’m gonna use it to pad my post count.

For starters, I’ll be the first to admit that my opinions are colored by the 3.5 past. I will not however apologize for that.

When I got a new car I did the same thing. The new one has more horsepower and a better air conditioner, but the old one had a better dashboard layout and cornered better. Comparing old to new and apples to oranges is just human nature. Still, point taken Adam,.

As for being patient and giving WoTC time to put out more material, well, I’ll concede that one too. I have no doubts that over the next few years we’ll be swamped with numerous offerings (or depending on how you look at it, schemes to pry our cash from our hands and pad their corporate bottom line). I’m also sure that the upcoming FRCS and certainly the PHB2 will be chock full of new powers (whether martial or arcane or divine). That’s all well and good. In the meantime while I wait for the main entrée I’ll make due with the bland soup of the day.

My bottom line point is that 4e classes all “feel” the same to me. No one has anything that really makes them stand out anymore. I’ve yet to see anyone in our party do something that made me do a double take. There has been no “oh wow, that was cool” moment.

The rogue has a ‘piercing strike’ that does some extra damage coupled with a move. The paladin has some kind of ‘smite’ thing. The cleric a ‘radiant strike’. My wizard the ‘scorching blast’. At first they were each on their own an intteresting effect to see in combat. Done every other round they lose their edge and become just another attack.

In 3.5 every class, every character, felt unique. They had their special flavors, their quirks, their strengths and weaknesses. Maybe it’s just me but I thought that was a beautiful thing.

Each class had it’s role in 3.5, only they were subtle and unspoken. They weren’t slapped down in stone and used like chains to lock us into a certain playstyle. It was understood that sorcerers and wizards stayed in the back while the fighters and paladins stood up front. Clerics and bards laid out the buffs and healing. Rangers and rogues crept around the edges and got in their damage when an opportunity opened up.

However, if you wanted to push a class into a different role, it was possible. A few feats or some multiclassing and my sorcerer could wear a chainshirt and step up to melee with the best of them. For sure it cost me a level of spellcasting and that arcane failute check bit me a few times, but that was part of the fun. I could get creative and experiment and revel in the failures.

True. The old multiclassing rules opened up some abuses. But when did “powergaming” become a bad word? If I want to take a level of fighter for the free weapon and armor proficiencies, or start as a rogue at 1st level solely for the skill ranks, well… where’s the harm? Who am I hurting? Some chump who’s playing the game in Yakima? No. I’m just having some fun. Last time I checked that’s the whole point of any game.

As another example the 3.5 ranger fought with two weapons or mastered the bow and could track. That was his thing, his role. For sure any other 3.5 class could do that with the proper feat selections. Same goes in 4e where a feat or two will do it. The difference was that in 3.5 feats were a precious commodity. Did your paladin really want to ‘waste’ a feat to track? Not bloody likely.

In 4e however nothing is off limits. Wanna learn to raise the dead? Spend some of the plethora of feats and learn the ritual. For all intents and purposes class no longer matters. In their mad quest to make every class equal to every other at every level (no more fighters outshining the wizard at low levels, only to have the tables turned in the high levels) they've given us vanilla throughout. Might as well just have "Adventurer type A" and "Adventurer type B" and get it over with.

Strategy seems to be a thing of the past as well. Sure, positioning your mini on the grid is more vital than ever, but past that there’s very little to think about. It’s a simple case of MMO style button mashing. Pick your at-will and your target and role a d20. No longer do you need to worry about meting out those special abilities or spells for a crucial moment. Fire away my friends! Plenty more where that came from!

Personally, I liked the angst over every decision. Especially when it came to spellcasting. I loved the whole “do I cast this or save it?”, or “do I try a spell that has a Will save because that giant seemed to slough off my Fort save based spell last round?” Those were the tactics and strategy that I really enjoyed. And when I ran out of spells, I loved to have my sorcerer grab her sickle and jump into melee. Puny hitpoints be damned! She wore that magic mithral chainshirt for a reason dammit!

That’s a thing of the past it seems. Now my dragonborn wizard is going to take the feats needed to wear chainmail only because there’s nothing else to spend them on. He’ll continue to grab his bastard sword and hack away at the bad guys despite having scorching blasts at his beck and call. He’ll keep on breaking out of his role because that’s the way I play. That’s called fun.

Ps. Despite my tone, I really am having fun with my new character. It is still DnD after all.

Pps. I am going to try out the multiclassing feats, just to try them. I’m also keeping an open mind. I can’t stress this enough. My opinions six months from now might be a total 180 from today.