This is Part III of a 4-part series that reviews a bit of the history behind papercraft, provides direction on where to begin, and then delves into some expert tips and tricks.

Part II discussed the tools, materials, and software a papercrafter would need to start building highly detailed cardstock models for their own games. Part III is still one step away from breaking out the scissors and glue; before printing, I always take a quick glance at the files to see if there’s anything I want to add or change graphically.

As a quick reminder, I’d like to repeat something important that was said in Part I:

From this point forward, I’m going to go full bore and show you everything you need to know to make amazing looking models, but at any point you can skip to the next step, the next section, or just walk away entirely. Don’t feel like my level of commitment must be your level of commitment; you’re free to disembark at any stop along the way.

Extraction

Before being able to load up the graphics, we must extract them from the PDFs that hold them. Now, explaining the difference between PDFs and TIFFs is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, think of the PDF as a frame and the graphics as the painting inside that frame. We want to remove the frame in order to make modifications to the painting. To illustrate this process, we’ll be using the very simple, very free Hovel model, available from Dave’s Games. Download and open the PDF in Acrobat.

In order to extract the graphics into TIFF files—which is the format we will be working with—you must select Export from the File menu; choose Image and then TIFF.

Save “Hovel-Free-Sample.tiff” somewhere where you can easily access it. That’s it—it’s extracted and ready to be modified.

Modification

I typically take a close look at anything I’m about to print. Sometimes the model will have graphics that I want to tweak or erase and now is the time to do it—before printing. Go ahead and open “Hovel-Free-Sample.tiff” in PaintShop Photo Pro.

Now that you have everything ready, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with three tools that you will use the most.

1. Selection Tool: The selection tool is designed to select regions from the active layer so you can work on them without affecting the unselected areas. This is one of the tools I use the most and is indispensable for nudging elements around and shifting graphics from layer to layer.

2. Clone Brush: The clone brush is used to replace information from one part of an image with information from another part. In other words, object removal—or more colloquially known as “airbrushing” or “photoshopping” out an unwanted part of the image.

3. Layers: Layers are a way of keeping different elements in an image separate. Any part of a layer which contains no image information is transparent, so layers below are visible in these areas. The main thing to note about layers is that each layer can be edited without affecting any other layer.

A perfect way to showcase all three tools, while providing a perfect example of something you may find yourself doing often, is to remove something from our Hovel—like a window. Then we’re going to put it elsewhere on the image. The first thing you’ll want to do is click on the down arrow next to the Selection Tool and choose the Freehand Selection Tool; it looks like a lasso.

Zoom in to the large window on the right side of the model and trace completely around the outside edge.

Press Control-C to copy what we have selected and then create a new layer.

Make sure the new layer is selected and press Control-E to paste a copy of the window as a new selection. Move the window copy until it’s centered over the blank wall to the right. Now there’s a window where once there was none!

It might be nice to add a drop shadow, which will make the window copy blend in a bit more. Do this by choosing Effects on the menubar; select 3D Effects, and then Drop Shadow.

For our drop shadow, use the following settings:

• Vertical: 0
• Horizontal: 0
• Opacity: 100
• Blue: 15
• Color: Black

That gives our window copy a nice shadow, making it look much more natural. Press Control-D to deselect the window copy and press the little eye icon next to our new layer in order to hide that layer. This way the window copy won’t be in the way of our next step.

Click on our original layer to select it.

Choose the Clone Brush tool and zoom in so that you can see both the original window and the blank wall to the right of it.

As you can see, the blank wall looks just like the wall that would be behind the window… if that window weren’t there. We’re going to use the clone brush to “copy” the blank wall over the window so that it is “erased.” This step will take some practice, so take your time and don’t be afraid to undo what you’ve done to try again.

First, choose a reference point; something that exists in both the part you’re copying and the part you’re copying from—like where the wood beam meets the wood trim.

Next, Right-Click on the place you’re copying from and then left-click on the place you’re copying to. Now “draw” over the window and you’ll see it disappear before your very eyes!

When you’re done, unhide the new layer by clicking on the eye icon again. That’s it—we’re done!

You might be wondering why we kept the window copy on its own layer. For the simple reason of, now this little hovel can have no windows (by hiding the layer) or several windows by copying the window and pasting it anywhere we want. We can even take a copy of the window into other images, using it to add windows to other buildings.

In retrospect, moving the window from one wall to another didn’t accomplish a whole lot visually, but it did illustrate excellent uses of our three tools. And between those three, you’re going to be able to accomplish about 99% of anything you can imagine doing.

Advanced Modification

Using the above techniques, you can carry out some pretty interesting modifications to your purchased models. One adjustment that I have done on several occasions is to take a model and change all the textures on it to something completely different. Imagine the Hovel from my previous example, but with brick and cement instead of yellow stucco and wood trim. Sure, you could probably find a model that already has all those elements, but what if one isn’t available?

A more specific example I run into often surrounds WorldWorksGames’ TerrainLinX line of products. TerrainLinX is a modular terrain system—every piece has the same basic geometry and only the textures are different, allowing you to mix and match pieces from different sets. WorldWorksGames has been wonderful about providing TerrainLinX products in a variety of textures, from dungeon to city; streets to sewers. However, each set isn’t static—new sets introduce new pieces, such as double-high walls or roof tiles. Since these new options are not available in earlier sets, there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. But what if you really want the new piece with an earlier texture?

The double-high wall is an excellent example: It was introduced as a new piece in the Lost Halls of the Dwarven Kings: Vault of the Ancients set, which means earlier sets, such as Himmelveil Streets, won’t have double-high walls. Since all pieces of the TerrainLinX system are modular, I can just create my own double-high wall with textures from Himmelveil Streets, using the double-high wall from Vault of the Ancients as a base.

First, I load up the double-high wall from Vault of the Ancients in PaintShop Photo Pro, create a new layer, and then on the new layer draw over the outline of the wall with the Pen tool to create a wire frame.

Once the wire frame has been created on its own layer, I can slip in any texture on the bottom layer that I want. Since all the wall textures in Himmelveil Streets are of single-high walls, I will need to make heavy use of the Clone Brush tool—but that’s just part of the process.

When I’m done, I fill in the spots I don’t want to be seen on the wire layer with white using the Fill tool.

That’s it!

A Word About DPI

Dots per inch (DPI), or “pixels per inch,” is a measure of video dot density—in particular, the number of individual dots that can be placed in a line within the span of 1 inch.

When beginning a new project, it’s important to know what DPI you’re working in. If you’re working with graphical elements that all extracted at 300 DPI and then suddenly include an element that’s 200 DPI, the scale will be off and your image will look odd at the least; at the worst, your 1″ grid for D&D will not print out at 1 inch!

A real-world example I run into often comes from WorldWorksGames. In the old days, their projects were created at 200 DPI. At some point they upgraded their graphics quality to 300 DPI. Occasionally, I will combine elements from their old graphics with their new graphics. When doing this, I always need to remember to upsample the 200 DPI graphics to 300 DPI first.

To see what DPI your image is in, click on Image Information in the Image dropdown menu. The DPI will be listed as Pixels Per Inch. To increase or decrease the DPI of an image, choose Resize, also from the Image dropdown menu. There will be an option to adjust the pixels per inch—just make sure and keep the original width and height of the image! For example, if you have an 8.5″ × 11″ image at 200 DPI and want to increase it to 300 DPI, the width and height must remain 8.5″ × 11″ and 300 would be typed into the pixels per inch field.

Time to Build

We’ve finally come to a place where we can sit down and put everything together. Simply take your files (modified or otherwise), print them, gather all the materials I mentioned in Part II, and meet me back here for Part IV.

On page 87, the Rules Compendium defines retraining as:

Sometimes a player makes decisions when creating or advancing a character that he or she later regrets. Perhaps a chosen power isn’t working with the character concept, or a feat never comes into play as anticipated. Fortunately, no one is stuck with bad character decisions. There’s an opportunity to change a decision whenever the character levels up.

I agree with the entire sentiment, except when it comes to the last line—and I think players should be able to retrain what they want, when they want. My only request is that I’m notified any time a feat, power, or skill is retrained.

Traditionally, I’ve been a lenient DM, playing fast and loose with rules to focus on fun—and this rule is no exception. After all, why hold a player back from retraining before the level is gained? Some campaigns level at an abysmally slow rate and a player could potentially be stuck with a bad decision for weeks on end. In addition, the retraining rules only allow you to to make one change per level, be it feat, power, or skill.

These seem like needless restrictions.

I realize this rule wouldn’t work for every group, but it works well for mine because I trust the people I game with and they know I’d beat them with a rubber hose if it were taken advantage of.

I was thinking about something: Our campaign has done away with the 15-minute work-day, mostly because we rarely get more than one combat encounter in per game day. The big reason for this is because the campaign is focused more on roleplaying and plot than combat and action. With that in mind, my players rarely have to hold back their character’s dailies. In fact, it’s almost a waste to not use a daily… unless, for some reason, they’re holding out on the thought that I might sneak in a second combat encounter in a single day.

In order to “fix” this issue, I was thinking about letting players know when a combat will be the only combat in a day so they don’t waste their dailies by not using them. I feel a major pro and major con come into play with this idea:

• Pro: You don’t waste a daily by not using it on a day that will only have one combat encounter.
• Con: It lessons the surprise of what’s just around the corner, possible taking some of the “danger” away from adventuring.

I opened up the option to my group and they were definitely against it. The biggest reason is that they want to keep dailies memorable—and by knowing if a combat is the only combat in a day, using the daily won’t be much more exciting then using an encounter power. Dailies are special and should be used accordingly; not knowing brings more of a surprise element to the game that would quickly go missing. Lastly, telling the group that a particular encounter will be the last one before an extended rest would disrupt immersion.

As a DM and not a player, it’s hard to imagine what I would want were a DM to present this idea to me. I just thought that, since dailies are resources that are meant to be used, people would like to know if not using them would be a waste. Luckily, my group knew exactly what they wanted—and that’s for things to stay the same.

For more discussion on this topic, visit the thread I made on EN World.

I don’t know why this bothers me as much as it does, but when a DM asks a player to roll a Perception check, I can’t help but feel they’re doing it wrong.

In 4th Edition, you have two ways of viewing the world around you: Active Perception and Passive Perception. When you’re just walking around, not paying attention to any one specific thing, that’s when Passive Perception comes in to play; the DM checks the DC to notice the thing-to-be-noticed against your Passive Perception score. If your score meets or exceeds the DC, then you notice the thing-to-be-noticed, whether you were looking for it or not.

On the other hand, if you walk into a room and want to know as much as you can by actively turning the place upside down (so to speak), then you roll an Active Perception check against the DC to find whatever may or may not be in the room. This represents you taking an active role in the discovery of your surroundings.

Here’s what the Compendium has to say about the issue:

The Perception skill encompasses perceiving things, most often by sight or sound. Make a Perception check to notice a clue, detect a secret door, find a trap, follow tracks, listen for sounds behind a closed door, or locate a hidden object.

In most situations, the DM uses passive Perception to determine if a creature notices things.

I realize the Compendium says “In most situations…” but that’s just to cover those times when the player is describing what they want to do without actually coming out and saying, “I would like to roll a Perception check.”

For example, if the character walks into a room and says, “I’m going to check the bed, dresser, wardrobe, and nightstand, taking care to look for secret compartments”—but he never says the words, “I want to roll a Perception check,” well then of course the DM’s going to ask for it. In all other instances, the DM should be checking against the character’s passive score.

Of course, DM’s can help prompt for the roll by giving the player a description and then adding, “but that’s all you can see without taking a closer look.”

For more discussion on this topic, visit the thread I made on EN World.

PAX Prime took place on August 26-28 in downtown Seattle, Washington. I’d never gone before, but when my good friend and heterosexual confidant Shaun Brennan offered a weekend pass promising fun-filled nerd-joyment, I said “Sure, why not.” What transpired was not only three days of gaming and after-hours overindulging, but also a wonderful weekend spent with new and old friends alike.

Though the weekend consisted mostly of walking, waiting, and watching, I also took part in an hour-long dungeon delve down in the D&D room. Not only was it an excellent chance to practice being a player (which I rarely get to do), but it also gave me the opportunity to game with random people, whether I liked them or not—something that hasn’t happened since I started my “D&D Survivor” player searches back in 2006. What was even more exciting was getting to see how an “official DM” runs his game. You see, every table was run by a Wizards of the Coast-sanctioned Dungeon Master, someone who probably had to go to DM War College, where you learn to fight on horseback and cast magic missile into the darkness. Just kidding; I have no idea how these DM’s were chosen, but I assume there’s some kind of application process.

In any event, the session was pretty standard fair: three encounters split up by minimal exploring and roleplaying. The first two combats were pretty meat and potatoes as far as combats go, but the third was supposed to be the “boss” of the session—the Big Bad Evil Guy. Well, after approximately two and half minutes of combat, the evil mastermind of today’s session went down—because he was an undead and someone rolled a critical hit.

After some excited high fives, cheers, and tearful hugs, I walked away from the table with a few of my other friends who had also taken part. And then my brain though back to what had just transpired. Was that a fun, satisfying end to the session? Or were we robbed by how quickly the final, “epic” fight went? Were we due a climactic ending, or was it even more memorable because of how it ended?

4th Edition’s Greatest Strength

4th Edition doesn’t work like 3rd Edition—and don’t mean in the conventional sense, like 4th Edition has powers and a unifying class structure, unlike 3rd Edition. Or that 3rd Edition has an expanded skill list versus 4th Edition’s narrow list. I mean it’s different where it counts—4th Edition is a protagonist-centric game while 3rd Edition is numbers-centric. 4th Edition revolves around the player characters and the numbers don’t reflect objective reality; rather, they represent a subjective reality that defines how the world interacts with the characters in that specific moment of time.

In 3rd Edition, if a goblin is supposed to have X number of feats, it will always have X number of feats. If a dagger does d4 damage, it will always do d4 damage. If a skeleton is immune to cold attacks, no skeletons will ever be hurt by cold powers. However, in 4th Edition, a dagger can do d10 damage or d8 damage or even a flat 4 damage depending on what monster is wielding it and when—because a monster’s powers and abilities are based on when the PC’s are meeting the monster during their career.

Monsters break the rules; they don’t follow the same path or guidelines set out for players—and they don’t always follow the same rules amongst themselves, either. They don’t have do! As long as a monster does a certain amount of damage and follows a certain set of guidelines for defenses based on its level, the sky’s the limit. Not so during 3rd Edition’s numbers-centric design where character and monster rules were unified, and monster roles placed creatures into straitjackets.

Take a look at 4th Edition’s definition of an undead:

Undead are not living creatures, so effects that specifically target living creatures don’t work against them. They don’t need to breathe or sleep.

That’s all you need to know about an undead. Even though most undead include in their stat blacks a vulnerability to radiant damage or a mention that they die when someone rolls a crit, not all undead have to—and point of fact, not every undead in the game does.

In the case of this particular undead during the PAX game, it was supposed to die on a crit. But was that stat black written knowing that this monster was going to be used as the Big Bad Evil Guy at the end of an adventure? What would it have taken for the DM to remove that short line “A critical hit automatically reduces the creature to 0 hit points”? And how much would it have affected the balance of the encounter?

In addition to all of those considerations, what would have been more fun in the end? A protracted battle across several hours where the characters use up every daily and every action point, and where several may even fall unconscious or die due to the ferocity of the attack? Or one where the characters enter the den of their nemesis after many trials and tribulations and kill him with a single blow? The answer to that depends on the kind of people you game with and the type of campaign it’s meant to be.

What Would DM Magic Do?

Even after everything I’ve written, as a DM I would have let the undead die with the crit—because the clock was running long, the session wasn’t meant to be serious, and because it was a one-shot where we weren’t exactly invested in our characters or the story. The DM made the right call, whether he was even conscious of it or not. Still, it got my head thinking and reminded me that despite 4th Edition’s complexity, its rules are flexible to the utmost extreme.

Take advantage of that, especially when running combats.

I decided to play Street Assault differently than it was written; instead of an ambush as depicted in The Scouring of Gate Pass, the Black Horses instead institute an all-out attack in order to capture Asher (whom they failed to attain in the first session). Also, looking forward, I saw that Kathor and Renard were in the same combat near the end of the adventure; I wanted to seperate the two in order to highlight each individually.

Street Assault, known as Street Ambush in the adventure, is located on page 51 and consists of the following:

• Black Horse Lieutenant, Level 3 Soldier
• 4 Black Horse Bandits, Level 2 Skirmishers
• 4 Black Horse Veterans, Level 3 Soldiers

The Good, the Bad, and the Fluffed

Much like the previous encounter, Spy Headquarters, I completely redesigned this encounter from the ground up. The reason for this is two-fold: One, I wanted Kathor Danava in this encounter, and two, I already had updated Black Horse stats from the first encounter—why not use them?

Instead of the 4 Black Horse Bandits, I used 2 of the Black Horse Thugs from the Ambush! encounter. Instead of the 4 Black Horse Veterans, I used 4 Black Horse Recruits, also from Ambush! The Black Horse Lieutenant—now Kathor Danava—got fluffed from a Young Green Dragon, a Level 5 Solo Skirmisher from page 69 in the Monster Vault.

Poisonous wounds became storm of swords; I dropped the poison descriptor and kept it as untyped ongoing damage. Instinctive flyby was fluffed into instinctive charge. Bite turned into a greatsword to match the miniature and claw was renamed double strike—described as two swipes of the greatsword for the price of one.

The dragon’s breath weapon was fluffed into whirlwind strike; again, the poison descriptor was dropped. Flyby attack was renamed overwhelming charge and the flying portion of the power used Kathor’s normal move speed. Luring glare became warrior’s challange and lastly, I changed bloodied breath to bloodied whirlwind.

Finally, I enjoyed using the three powers from Sly Flourish on the Shealis combat so much that I decided to add all three to Kathor’s stat block as well.

Keeping Things Balanced

The encounter level for Street Ambush is listed as 6 (1,350 XP). After my adjustments, the encounter level remained the same.

A Final Note

After seven sessions, the Redesigning Encounters series has made its point. No matter what the mechanics say, you can take any creature, feat, power, hazard, trap, item, class, or race, and turn it into whatever you need. Zombies can become goblins, swords can become hammers, fighters can become samurai, and dragons make awesome monsters no matter how you fluff them.

Lastly, as the campaign progresses, each encounter becomes increasingly different from its original, which could cause confusion for folks who are simply looking for stat updates and not entire rebuilds from the ground up. Nevertheless, I still intend to discuss encounter modifications; look for these tidbits in my session musings.

The last month has seen a lot of changes to our roster.

First, Brian went and got himself married, and then let his wife convince him to move to the other side of the country. This put a damper on the campaign, not only because we will genuinely miss Brian’s presence at the table, but also because his character was a linchpin the campaign was eventually going to revolve around; being a dragonborn, he was going to play a major role when the Bahamut and Tiamat plot waltzed into the forefront. Fortunately, we’ve built a solid campaign foundation and so that focus can easily be shifted.

Second, we lost Paul, player of Maril Snowblood—wizard extraordinaire. As a recent transplant to our country, he had yet to find a way back into the career he had left back in Wales. Then, without warning, a job opportunity presented itself and Paul was right to take it. Session 6 was Paul’s last session with the group.

Third, Cody’s character—Arender Alridion—died during the last session, taking us all completely by surprise. Rather than lament the loss, Cody looked at it as an opportunity to try something different and introduced his new character Tomeriel during this session. And Arender? Though he had recently been outed as a spy for the Shahalesti government, he was able to redeem himself to the companions, dying to save his people from a forced mass exodus into the Feywild. Though the group will miss him, we look at it like this—Arender was an awesome character who died near the end of the first season. Though we’re loath to see him go, his character arc was complete.

Last, but not least, we’ll be taking on a new player in Session 8—Seth’s friend Stewart will be joining the party as Tharin’Di, a dragonborn monk. His story will most definitely take a different approach than Buckidu, as Stewart’s character is from the mysterious Monastery of Two Winds.

(Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that I, too, got married this summer. I will not be moving to the other side of the country, however.)

Session Summary

Session 7 took place on Sunday, August 21, 2011.

The group stands silent, their eyes mirroring each other’s fear over the news that Gate Pass has 24 hours to admit a group of Inquisitors or it will be razed to the ground. One thing is clear: they have to get out of Gate Pass with the intelligence before then, no matter the cost.

Inside the Temple to the God of Protection, Kara provides the group with directions to Councilman Erdan Menash’s home and wishes them good luck. She then takes Buron Watcher by the arm and draws him in close, whispering recent developments softly to him—such as the revelation that Arender had compromised the rebellion and this very safe house.

Resolved, the companions march back out into the storm and head east down the main thoroughfare toward the Nobels’ District. It isn’t difficult to find the Councilman’s home, for it is decorated quite ostentatiously; vivid hues of purple, yellow, orange, and green cover the walls, and standards of every shape and size hang from various parapets.

While deciding what to do next, the group is approached by an elf named Tomeriel—a young man dispatched by his people to join the party. Tomeriel explains that the elves in the ghetto are aware of what had transpired within the doormaker’s shop; they’d overheard the party speak of their mission and of its grave importance. It was decided by the elders that if the elven people were ever to rise above their current situation, they would have to stand with the people of the lands and not apart from them.

The companions are skeptical, remembering their recent experience with Arender. Though he had redeemed himself in the end, it was hard to ignore his betrayal. Did this new ally have similar goals? Realizing the importance of the elves extending this olive branch, the group is reluctant to turn it away, and so accept Tomeriel into their ranks. Only time will tell whether he will become a truly valuable member of their team.

After requesting an audience with Erdan Menash through his guards—who are all dressed equally outrageously—the companions are ushered into the Councilman’s mansion. There, they are greeted by Erdan, who proceeds to give the group a tour of his home, pointing out various weapons and trophies of the most exotic nature.

Despite more than a few stories of his valor and heroism, the party is finally able to focus Erdan’s attention on the task at hand: they are on a mission for the rebellion, hoping to receive aid in escaping Gate Pass. The Councilman is reluctant and so the companions impress upon him that if they don’t succeed, Gate Pass will be reduced to rubble. Still, he isn’t swayed. Finally, the party reveals that he is a marked man and that they have already foiled one assassination attempt by the White Wyrms and their mysterious benefactor, M.

Finally understanding the gravity of the situation, Menash provides the group with fake papers ordering them to join a detachment set to leave that night for the southern border. He also includes instructions for Captain Harriman, an old friend of his, to see to the party, ensuring their escape from Gate Pass goes unnoticed and without incident.

The group departs the Councilman’s home, orders in hand; they are finally ready to leave Gate Pass behind, but with hope that they will return with an army. Their thoughts are cut short, however, when a gruff voice calls out across the chill air: “Drop your weapons and come quietly, Asher. Your friends are free to go, but you will come with us.”

It was the Black Horses—and they have returned for Asher, intent on completing what they had started only two days ago. The party moves to protect Asher, but see it isn’t necessary as chaotic energies swirl around him in a maelstrom of magic. Ykoren, once under the sway of the manipulative Black Horses, is also eager to even the score. Kathor Danava, who accompanied the thugs in order to oversee the capture of Asher, was only too happy to dispatch Ykoren—who was seen among the Black Horses as a traitor.

The combat was tense and evenly matched—for a time. However, Kathor was eventually able to get the best of the party, mortally wounding Maril and Tomeriel. Seeing his comrades fall, broken and bleeding, Asher hangs his head in defeat. He lets his magic dagger hang limply from one hand and stands silently, seemingly in surrender. Kathor advances on Asher, laughing at his victory, the sound arrogant and scornful. Then, at the last second, Asher reverses the dagger, makes eye contact with Kathor, and plunges it deep into his would-be captor.

Kathor falls to his knees, blood pouring from his lips. In one last defiant act, he laughs again and whispers, “Ykoren, you could have been so much… you have no idea… who Renard is…” And then he is dead.

Buckidu and Ykoren quickly heal the party, one with words of prayer to his secret god and the other with encouraging words of defiance against death. With the party roused, they quickly depart the grisly scene, hoping to make it to Captain Harriman’s barracks before anyone can connect them with the encounter. On the way, Buckidu asks Ykoren who Rernard is. Ykoren explains that Renard Kol is the enigmatic leader of the Black Horses, always passing his orders down through Kathor Danava. To his knowledge, only the top ranked Black Horses had ever met Renard; Ykoren never had.

The party didn’t have time to ponder this mystery, as they had arrived at their destination: the barracks that housed many of Gate Pass’ militia. They quickly find Captain Harriman, show him the orders written by the Councilman, and are whisked away to be dressed and armed with militia uniforms and weapons. Within hours, the group is marching towards the city’s east gate with Captain Harriman and eight of his own men. The companions look at each other, their faces echoing each other’s grim resolve.

As they journey to the gate, a cloaked rider moves alongside the party. A soft chuckle is heard; then: “It’s me! Menash! This is exciting, right?”

Quizzically, Asher asks, “Don’t you have work to do here in Gate Pass?”

“Oh, I’ve got work to do alright, but it’s not going to be here! Look, I listened to what you said. White Wyrms? Mysterious M? I’m not dealing with that. I’m a marked man here. But at Lyceum? I’m a banner the people can rally to. I’m a standard under which they can fight. I’m someone that can gather the Resistance together; you need me and together we’re going to bring them back to Gate Pass.” Dubious over this new development, but without the power to do anything, the companions ride on.

And then a single bell tolls out across the city. Kara rides in close and whispers, “That sound can only mean one thing: the fools have let the Inquisitors in.”

What would that mean to the city? Was the Council surrendering Gate Pass? Was it a trap? Did they really think they could double-cross the Inquisitors, Ragesia’s cabal of mage-hunting clerics? Would Gate Pass still be standing when the party returned? Such thoughts are quickly pushed aside as they approached the great gates of eastern Gate Pass. Within moments, they are open; the column rides outside the confines of the city and the gates close behind them, giving off a sound finality.

South the column rides, until several hours later they are stopped; up ahead, twelve armored figures stand in the snow. The fading sunlight glints off of copper, gold, iron, and silver scales. It was a group of dragonborn! As the soldiers look at each other questioningly, wondering what this occurrence of ominous portent meant, Buckidu kicks his horse’s flanks hard and rides to the front of the column. He meets with his kinsmen, speaking in the language of their kind. After a moment, Buckidu returns with dire news; his father is dying and he is to return to his tribe to take over leadership. In order to ensure the success of the mission to Lyceum, he will leave behind one of his most trusted men, Tharin’Di, to travel with the party.

And as quickly as they arrived, they were gone; and then an hour later, Captain Harriman explains that he has traveled as far south as he dare go—and so the soldiers turn and head back to Gate Pass.

Asher, Maril, and Ykoren look at each other in silence, wondering whether their new comrades will prove to be a nuisance or an asset.

“Ahead,” explains Kara, “lies the Fire Forest, our first destination. We better make it there before nightfall.” Her words trail off as a soft “thunghk” can be heard—a sound much like a cantaloupe would make if run over by a carriage. As the party circles in, searching for the origin of the sound, they discover Maril slumped over his horse, an arrow sticking out between his eyes.

“No!” Asher cries as he leaps off his horse and runs towards his friend. Tears stream down his face in despair and fire flies from his fingertips in anger. “Who did this?” he screamed. “Show yourself!”

Evil laughter echoes from the depths of Councilman Erdan Menash’s hood. At that, rows upon rows of archers, hidden in the snow, rise up and train their weapons on the party; the symbol of the Black Horses is displayed prominently on the armbands they wear. One of the archers is in the process of reloading, his bow still empty from the killing shot he’d dealt to Maril. Asher gives off an inhuman growl as he faces the ambush.

Erdan backs his horse away from the group as he addressed them. “So now we are alone, truly. As we were meant to be. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for releasing me from Gate Pass. I had hoped I would have been gone yesterday, but you foiled my extraction by interfering with the White Wyrms. No matter; like chess pieces, I moved the rebellion into a position where they would be of some use—and you were, my friends. Oh, you were. I didn’t think it was going to happen in a way that would retain my reputation, but you made it happen. To the city, I will have been abducted by terrorists; by vigilantes. And when I return after my mission has been completed three months hence, I will relay a harrowing tale of torture, and of escape. I will be heralded as a hero.”

“Who are you?!” exclaims Ykoren.

“You might know me as the Mysterious M… but I prefer you call me by my given name: Renard Kol.”

Changes to the Adventure

The Dianoem

The Dianoem is a strange marvel of dwarven technology, given to the PC’s by Councilman Erdan Menash with a request that it be delivered to Dougan Rambausen, a dwarf instructor at Lyceum. Since Erdan Menash ended up betraying the party as the Mysterious M/Renard Kol, it didn’t make sense that he would relinquish control of this item to the party for further examination—or that he would be in possession of the device at all. My plan is to move it to the next adventure, The Indomitable Fire Forest of Innenotdar.

Black Horses, Revisited

In The Scouring of Gate Pass, the Black Horses return after the PCs’ encounter with Erdan Menash, but in an uninteresting way; their goal was simply to watch the Councilman, who was reportedly a magic-user sympathizer. In the adventure, they only attack the PC’s because they are seen visiting with Erdan. I had grander plans for Councilman Erdan Menash and since I had already given the Black Horses a bit more to do in the first session than just attack the Poison Apple Pub, I decided that it would make sense that they continue their goal of capturing Asher.

Additionally, since Brent’s character started off the campaign as a Black Horse, I thought this would be a great way to tie up that storyline by having him confront the man who recruited him in the first place: Kathor Danava. This made the encounter much more personal, for both Asher and Ykoren.

Encounter Modifications

If there’s one thing that can’t be said about this campaign, it’s that it doesn’t have a lot going on—because it really does. Every page turn there’s a new NPC or plot thread that winds off from the main story. Under normal circumstances, this would provide the group with a rich, vibrant world. Unfortunately, my group averages about one session a month. At this rate, 5th Edition will have been released before we finish! Though I’m doing my best to keep some of the more interesting and exotic trappings of the campaign, I’m also trimming off the chuffa—as Bruce Willis would say—when possible. With that said, several encounters didn’t make it to the final cut.

Street Ambush: The Street Ambush encounter changed quite a bit. As written, the conflict begins when a group of Black Horses—dressed as city guards—approach the party under the guise of “taking them in for questioning.” Along the way, the Black Horses make a turn down some dark ally and jump the heroes. Instead, I decided to turn the ambush into an all out assault; as noted above, I also added Kathor Danava in order to make things personal for Asher and Ykoren.

For a more detailed account on how Street Ambush was reconstructed for my group, please see Redesigning Encounters: Street Assault.

Rantal: Including Rantal—bounty hunter extraordinaire—would have taken steam out of the session. In the adventure, he shows up either just in time to save the PC’s from the Black Horses or just after the PC’s give the Black Horses a good throttling, depending on how well the combat was going. He specifically seeks out the PC’s to request they deliver a message to his sister Katrina down in Lyceum. If his plight—and that of his sister—becomes more important as the campaign winds on, I’ll introduce the plot in a more personal way—tied to one of the PC’s, if possible. (Also, how does he know the PC’s are travelling to Lyceum? So much for the PC’s being on a secret mission of grave importance!)

Magic Mayhem: Magic Mayhem is an interesting encounter. As written, Kara and Riverye head off to find Riverye’s friend, Feris, who is a magic-user of some power. This is all to help the group deal with Shealis, who is also a magic-user of some power. I kept all of this, except I replaced Feris with Artimus, a character my friend Jeff played during his visit to Oregon for my wedding. If I had kept the original plot going, Feris would have showed up later in the adventure as a racketeer, ruffing up locals in return for protection money to fund his small school of sorcery. On its face, a pretty sweet turn of events and an interesting diversion from the story. However, since I’d recast Feris as Artimus, the Magic Mayhem encounter—where Feris decides that a robbery in the middle of a seige would be a good idea—made no sense.

Gauntlet Run: The Guantlet Run is The Scouring of Gate Pass’ attempt at a skill challenge inside a combat, meant to take place in the mountains just outside Gate Pass. Though the encounter is presented in an interesting way, I decided I wanted an all out, final Black Horse assault on the PC’s; instead of a hit and run chase through the mountains, I plan to add the Black Horses into the Inquisitor encounter; this will kick off Session 8.

Chasm Gate: By itself, the Chasm Gate encounter is an interesting roleplaying situation and the party’s first major encounter with dwarves. Unfortunately, when taken into the context of what the party has been through over the last two days, it’s a speed bump that keeps the group from advancing the plot. The Chasm Gate is a barrier that prevents the party from reaching the Fire Forest. Only after solving a few of the dwarves’ problems do they allow the PC’s to use the gate. Again, a fascinating encounter and rife with good roleplay, but one that needed to be cut to advance the story faster.

Gnoll Hunt: The Gnoll Hunt was pure XP fluff; an encounter designed to make sure the PC’s are of the appropriate level before wrapping up the adventure. It didn’t seem wise to interrupt the flow of the story with a combat between the group and a gnoll and his hyenas. (I’ve also decided to remove any and all “monstrous humanoids” from the campaign. Other than the main PC races, you won’t find kobolds, goblins, gnolls, lizardfolk, ogres, minotaurs, or any of their ilk.)

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Rule Questions

As the group gets more comfortable with the 4th Edition rules, questions about their application crop up less often—which is great! However, I’ve noticed over the last few sessions a few queries have popped up that we’ve already looked into; the answers of which have been posted to the Rules page. An easy way to avoid this situation would be to review that page every month or so. I’ve even decided to keep the page open on my iPad as I DM so that I can quickly scan it the next time a rules question comes up, just in case it’s already been answered.

Session Recording

I record every session and transcribe those recordings in order to keep track of important details that would otherwise be lost. While the iPhone serves as an adequate recording device, sometimes player voices are too soft and aren’t picked up easily. It would be great to find a high-quality microphone that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg; something that could be hung from the ceiling, above the table, would be perfect.

Things That Went Great

New House Rule

This week we tested out a new house rule: an action point after every combat instead of after every other combat. I’ve been having trouble remembering milestones and since a single extra action doesn’t throw the balance off too much, I thought we’d try it out. For Session 7, I think it worked just fine, though we need to make a few decisions, such as whether action points will still reset after extended rests.

Combat Roleplaying

In Session 4, I’d noted that there was a definite lack of roleplaying during combat. Since then, I’ve done my best to include quips and jabs by enemy NPC’s whenever possible. This session, that materialized perfectly during the combat between Kathor, Asher, and Ykoren. Every time Kathor spoke, Asher and Ykoren had plenty to say in response.

Anti-Combat Grind

One of the best ways of avoiding combat grind is to simply end the combat when it’s obvious the PC’s are going to win; whether the opponents surrender or the last hit does enough to kill, as long as it makes sense to the story. For Session 7, I applied that logic to the Street Assault encounter. Though Kathor had dropped a few PC’s to below 0, he was hurting—badly. Asher was next in the initiative order and we were already 45 minutes past our end time for the day. We could have played it out, but I decided that it made sense to the story—and would be more exciting—if the next hit killed Kathor.

Kathor called out for the group’s surrender, citing the broken and bleeding bodies of Maril and Tomeriel as examples of his combat prowess. Seth, falling into my plan perfectly, had Asher pretend to surrender. I asked for a Bluff check, and when it passed spectacularly, I allowed Seth a free reuse of his daily power. Kathor died in an amazing way and Asher got a sweet, thematic death blow in.

The Mysterious M

The leader of the White Wyrms, known only to the party as M, is a mystery that never gets answered according to the campaign’s authors. Much like I did with the Singing Chasm in Session 6, I got to work thinking about how best to make the answer to this mystery personal. The obvious choice to me would be to make M someone the PC’s know; to make it Erdan Menash seemed too obvious, since his last name started with an M. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was no way the players would suspect a trick so pedestrian. So I went for it—and then I added another layer; he wouldn’t simply be M, the man behind the White Wyrms—he would also be the faceless Renard Kol, leader of the Black Horses, whom no one had ever met but everyone feared.

Roleplaying Goodness

Session 7 had several excellent chunks of roleplaying. Here are two that especially caught my eye:

Erdan: So you are saying that you stopped the threat but it could be… it’s possible that I’m still in danger?
Asher: We stopped the hand, but the head still lives.
Erdan: Where’s the hand at? What did you do with the hand?
Bukidu: The hand is lying on the ground of a warehouse.
Erdan (Shrewdly cocks his head to the side): What do you know about a dragonrider that crashed into a woman’s home, killed the mother and her son, but was then found the next day, himself slaughtered?
Bukidu: We…
Erdan: You’re the vigilantes!
Asher: Well…
Erdan: You are! You are the vigilantes! You’re the… you’ve been leaving a trail of bodies around the city! Bodies that need to be bodies, but… (His eyes light up) You’re like an alchemy machine! You put a live person in and a dead person comes out!

…and then later:

Erdan: I am ready to listen. Tell me more of this mission.
Asher: I thought you knew?
Erdan: Well, I know you are traveling with vital military intelligence, but I don’t know to where. I just know you are leaving Gate Pass, which is quite impossible with two locked gates I might add.
Bukidu (Looking from side to side): Do you know for a fact that this room is secure right now? I don’t want anyone listening in on this conversation except us.
Erdan: I’ve know you for 15 minutes, but I feel I can trust you. I have four on these premises that are not me and they are all guards; two at the front gate, two on the grounds. No one is within the mansion but myself and so we are alone. You can trust me.
Bukidu: I worry about prying ears. Is there any chance of someone other than us hearing what is said here?
Erdan: Impossible.
Bukidu: We are taking this case of intelligence to Lyceum.
Erdan: Of course, it makes sense! That is where the Resistance is forming; they’re building an army down there! (Thinks for a moment) So you’re telling me that Kara and her band of rebels… her rebel alliance, if you will… they’ve stolen this intelligence from Ragesia and their plan is to take to Lyceum?
Asher: Many Bothans died to bring us this information.

Photographs

Last, but not least, here are the pictures from our session.

The Spy Headquarters encounter was my favorite so far and not because it was a rewarding combat, but because it was almost completely bypassed by excellent roleplaying and more than a few lucky bluff checks.

The encounter started off with the group convincing the Shahalesti that they were sent by Shealis to open the case of vital military intelligence. I decided that I couldn’t let just one die roll decide the fate of what was supposed to be a difficult encounter, and so I whipped up a skill challenge. We were about halfway through it when I realized there was a good chance I wasn’t going to need any of the stats I had prepared. In the end, not only had the PC’s talked their way out of combat, they had managed to split the bad guys right down the middle: one half dead set on staying the course of their plan and the other half rethinking their recent terrorist acts.

Moments before these two camps resorted to bloodshed, Cody’s character Arender addressed the leader of the faction that most aligned with the group’s goals and said simply, “If you want our help, you have it.” The NPC accepted, allowing us the best of both worlds—an amazing roleplaying encounter and a kick-ass combat encounter. Of course, since the party had effectively cut the playing field down by half (half the bad guys had sort of moved to the good guy side), the combat was less difficult… which worked out perfectly.

You see, I’d planned on having six players for this encounter—my normal five plus a visiting player, my best friend Jeff Farnsworth, in town from Los Angeles for my wedding. However, the day before the game, Brian—who plays Buckidu, the dragonborn paladin—canceled suddenly. This brought the group back down to five players. Since I’d upped the difficulty of the Spy Headquarters encounter to accommodate six, this was going to cause some problems. But when the group was able to effectively nullify half of their enemies, everything evened out.

One last interesting note: Since I recently purchased Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale, I decided I was going to only use creatures from it, just to spice things up.

Spy Headquarters, known as Spies’ Headquarters in the adventure, is located on page 50 and consists of the following:

• 1 Shahalesti Lieutenant, Level 5 Soldier
• 2 Shahalesti Warriors, Level 3 Soldiers
• 3 Feywild Badgers, Level 2 Brutes

The Good, the Bad, and the Fluffed

Because I originally planned on having six players, I pretty much redesigned this encounter from the ground up.

First of all, I removed the Feywild badgers—who were dangerously close to turning the encounter into a Disney movie—and replaced them with four Shahalesti Scouts. I figured that, if this was the Shahalesti hideout, Shealis was going to have some muscle standing by in case some dirty elves came sneaking about. I kicked their level up to 3 and made them minion skirmishers.

Looking through Threats to the Nentir Vale’s index, I found three minion skirmishers; the Lizardfolk Mire Scout on page 118 was exactly was I was looking for. I simply changed the scout’s claw attack to a longsword and renamed fastlight shot to feybolt. This caused an interesting design question: why do these simple eladrin warriors have magical abilities? That’s when I realized the answer was all too simple—all eladrin have access to fey step, an inherently magical power. Since eladrin are originally from the Feywild, perhaps they all have some kind of tie, however small, to that bastion of magic.

I reduced the number of Shahalesti Warriors down to one, renamed him Shahalesti Mystic, and kicked his difficulty level up to a Level 7 Elite Controller. For this, I used Erzoun on page 91. Quickshadow aura became quickening aura, blackfire touch was renamed to greenfire touch (losing the necrotic descriptor and adding radiant), beshadowed mind stayed the same, witch’s prophecy changed into mystic’s domination, and deep shadow became rapid growth (loosing the necrotic descriptor). With the final two powers—shadow jaunt and shadow augury—I simply replaced “shadow” with “fey.” In the end, I had an awesome eladrin spellcaster who lit up with a radiant green fire as he summoned hostile plants to do his bidding.

Lastly, the Shahalesti Lieutenant was beefed up to become to a Level 6 Elite Brute. For him, I used Scargash the Tigerclaw Chief on page 100. For the most part, he stayed exactly the same with some minimal fluffing: razorclaw resilience became simply resilience and his war pick was fluffed into a longsword to match the miniature.

Since I didn’t stick to the adventure and upped the difficulty level based on my group’s dynamic, this Redesigning Encounters entry will probably be less useful to those who wish to update their War of the Burning Sky encounters. On the other hand, it should prove just how easy it is to fluff one monster into another, no matter how different they are visually from each other.

I’m looking forward to fluffing a beholder and a hydra into a couple of Ragesian generals…

Keeping Things Balanced

The encounter level for Spy Headquarters is listed as 4 (875 XP). After my adjustments, the encounter level rose to 6. In order to return the encounter level to 4, reduce both the Lieutenant and the Mystic to Level 4 Elites.

Session 6 was a spectacular session! My closest friend and the best man at my wedding—Jeff Farnsworth—sat in as a guest player and portrayed the role of Artimus, an acquaintance of Rivereye’s. This was lucky, as Brian was unable to make it to today’s game. Additionally, our session took place on my birthday—I am now the ripe old age of 32. Lastly, we lost Arender—finally outed as a spy for the Shahalesti government. He fell in combat against eladrin terrorists who were trying to undermine the King of Shahalesti, Lord Shaaladel.

Best of all: though the session was eight hours, only one of those hours consisted of combat.

Session Summary

Session 6 took place on Sunday, July 10, 2011.

After Shealis’ death, the group calls upon Diogenes to disable the ritual of sealing surrounding her chambers. They quickly explain that the encounter was over—but went badly. In the end, they killed the eladrin wizardess in self-defense. Despite their justifications, Diogenes is aghast that it came to this and is ashamed at his involvement. In Diogenes’ eyes, magic is life and the death of Shealis was a blow to the continuance of that life.

He immediately orders the group to leave Gabal’s School and rushes away to deal with his guilt. The party immediately searches Shealis’ chambers but doesn’t find the case of military intelligence. Instead, they discover several important pieces of evidence. First, there is a torn map leading to the elven ghetto. Could this be the final location of the case? On it, in elven script, “Fey before World before Chaos” is written.

Second, Shealis’ devious plot is unearthed through documents she planned to burn before being interrupted. The papers detail her organization—the Exodus Alliance—and their plans to forcibly relocate the entire eladrin nation into the Feywild, thought to be their ancient home. A portal called the Singing Chasm was to be their route into this new world, a doorway that will be open within days.

As the group searches, Kara arrives with sad news—Rivereye’s wizard friend, Artimus, has been abducted and the halfling took it upon himself to track his old comrade down.

Suddenly, the group remembers what Shealis had said about Arender; they turn toward him and slowly back away, their hands near their weapons. After a few minutes of questioning, the truth comes out—Arender is a spy, sent by the Shahalesti government to secure the military intelligence stolen from Rageisa. His mission is to deliver it to an eladrin contact in Lyceum.

Though a trator to the group, Arender passionately explains that the more he sees of the world’s plight, the less he believes in what he is doing. Unfortunately, he isn’t simply a spy—he is an indentured servant, carrying out the penance for crimes he committed in Calanis. He can’t just disregard his orders without serious repercussions, up to and including exile.

Thoughtfully, Ykoren is the first to speak of his cousin’s courage and honor. Kara, though moved by Ykoren’s speech, asks the most important question: Would Arender betray the group if asked to? Would he betray the Resistance? When Arender firmly answers in the negative, the group visibly relaxes and allows him to see their mission to its conclusion.

The group then follows their only lead: the map into the elven ghetto. As outsiders, the elven population look at them with stony eyes and angry glares. When the party realizes that they can’t pinpoint the map’s final destination, they decide to ask for help—only to be turned on by the elves as soon as it is discovered that there are eladrin in the party.

The group then learns firsthand that the eladrin people hadn’t simply taken over their neighboring brother’s lands a thousand years ago—the Shahalesti utterly destroyed the elven way of life and the elves are still picking the pieces of their culture up from that encounter. With no home to return to, several cities have ghettos such as this.

Before the situation can come to blows, an elven woman appears, speaks sharp words to both sides, and points to a doormaker’s shop—that is where the party will find two of their eladrin “friends.” So it was true—eladrin were hiding out here and it’s possible these were the eladrin who had helped Larion capture the intelligence from Rivereye at the Depository!

The doormaker’s shop seemed normal enough; a door and a few windows face the street, and a chimney belches black smoke into the wintery air. After a quick search of the perimeter, a secret door is discovered in the back. Carved into the door is a scene of elves and eladrin fighting against demons. Remembering the clue written on the torn map—Fey before World before Chaos—Maril reaches out and presses the carvings in the order of eladrin, elves, and demons. Silently, a handle forms in the stone.

Without warning, Asher opens the door, revealing a group of Shahalesti: a Mystic, a Lieutenant, and four scouts. The Mystic and Lieutenant are embroiled in conversation, wondering what to do in light of Shealis’ tardiness. At the group’s sudden appearance, the eladrin draw their weapons, but Asher is able to deftly convince them that the party was sent by Shealis.

Relieved, though a little confused that Shealis has involved outsiders, the Lieutenant reveals that they had not been able to open the case and that Artimus, whom they had recently captured, has not given up the password. The group offers their services, thinly veiling their intent to torture this Artimus fellow. The Lieutenant allows them to go upstairs where the prisoner is being held—but not before Asher offhandedly explains that they will need the case; intelligence suggests that it isn’t just a password that is needed for it to open, but a magical ritual. If they got Artimus to talk, the case will need to be in the same room.

The companions swiftly make their way upstairs to see Rivereye’s friend Artimus—also an eladrin—beaten, but not broken. The group quickly explains that they are friends, there to help. The wizard smiles wanly and introduces himself, after which the party springs into action. Immediately, they open the case—curious to find out just exactly what is inside. Within the worn leather satchel is a thick steel box etched with swirling patterns and warded with a powerful Arcane Lock ritual.

Hastily, they decide on a plan: replace the steel box with papers detailing fake intelligence. Before they can act, however, they notice the steel box floating towards the exit! An invisible creature, calling itself Kurychek, explains that it is a messenger from Grand Inquisitor Leska. Having also been tricked to believe the case was locked, the creature was waiting for the right time to steal the intelligence inside. It thanks the group and silently slips out the door and down the stairs.

The party rushes to the first floor and manages to convince the Shahalesti that, not only had they opened the case, but an invisible creature had stolen its contents. The Mystic calls for silence, cocks his head to one side, and yells out, “There!” In the direction he points, arrows, spears, and magic blasts are directed. The creature, revealed to be a demon, falls to the ground— visibly dead. The metal box slips out of its lifeless hands.

As the Lieutenant moves to retrieve the box, Asher slips in to intercept. Though the Lieutenant grabs it first, this odd change in behavior gives the Shahalesti pause—who are these outsiders? A long drawn out game of cat and mouse follows as the Mystic and Lieutenant ask the companions probing questions. Skillfully, the party is able to scramble together plausible excuses explaining their presence, including a lie that they are supposed to rescue Shealis after opening the case—and for that, they will need the metal box.

Though the Mystic and Lieutenant are ready to believe this group has, in fact, been hired by Shealis, at no point is the group able to convince the Shahalesti to let them take ownership of the metal box. Finally, the party switches tactics and begin to ask of the eladrin’s intentions. That is when the Lieutenant confirms the Exodus Alliance’s plans to forcibly relocate the eladrin people into the Feywild. When it is asked why the eladrin left the Feywild to begin with, the Lieutenant is only to happy to explain: Scriptures detail that before man walked the earth, the eladrin of the Feywild were at war with the demons of the Elemental Chaos. At the end of this war, as punishment for defeat, the demons transplanted the eladrin to the Natural World so that they could never know the true beauty of their homeland.

Finally, the party had found the chink in the Alliance’s armor: “How do you know the demons didn’t kick you out of the Feywild so they could use it for themselves? Perhaps when you get back, the demons will be waiting…” This seems to coincide with feelings of doubt and guilt already brewing within the Lieutenant, for he turns to the Mystic questioningly. The Mystic refuses to answer such a foolish question and demands absolute loyalty. It was too late, however—the seeds of suspicion were sewn.

For a moment, a tense chord plays out across the room as the eladrin scouts divide up to take sides. In the impending conflict, Arender makes a simple statement to the Lieutenant: “If you want our help, you have it.” And so, with the party’s assistance, the Lieutenant is able to take control of the situation, finally ordering the Mystic and his men to surrender. Unfortunately, during the melee, Arender falls to one of the Mystic’s men—the first eladrin on eladrin killing in a thousand years.

While the Shahalesti prisoners are dealt with, Ykoren bends over his dead cousin’s body. At this, his mother’s amulet gives off an urgent warmth and begins to tug against the inside of his tunic. Ykoren removes the amulet and it pops open; the voice of his dead mother can be heard.

“Nephew, your time here is not finished. Join me; you have much left to do.” In answer, Arender’s soul rises up and sinks into the amulet.

Artimus and the Lieutenant decide to use the Alliance’s secret escape tunnels under the doormaker’s shop to travel back to Shahalesti. It is their intention to reveal the Alliance’s insidious plot; but will they arrive in time?

The party returns to the safe house, heavy in emotion over Arender’s death. There, with the help of Kara, Rivereye, and Buron, the decision is made to seek Councilman Erdan Menash’s help in leaving Gate Pass. During this conversation, a messanger from the front gate arrives: the invading Ragesian force has left an ultimatum. Allow a group of Inquisitors entrance to the city, or Gate Pass will be razed to the ground.

The people have 24 hours to decide.

Changes to the Adventure

The Elves and the Eladrin

None of the material I’ve read for War of the Burning Sky has been specific about how elves and eladrin fit together in the world. Since the campaign was written during 3rd Edition’s reign, I don’t know that the matter was given a lot of thought when it was translated to 4th Edition. What I’ve done over the past few sessions is hint that the eladrin did something bad to the elves. Finally, it was revealing during this session that the Shahalesti annexed the neighboring elven lands and subjugated the entire race around a thousand years ago.

The Doormaker’s Secret Door

I modified the entry into the doormaker’s shop to include some of the elven versus eladrin flavor I’d been working into the campaign. As written, the door was described as carvings of demons fighting from the walls of a citadel, with three figures standing side-by-side: a winged woman with a trumpet (a solon), a noble and muscular man with a lion’s head (a leonal), and an armored eladrin woman with a gleaming greatsword.

First, I’ve taken solons out of the campaign. Second, the players haven’t had any experience with leonals—a 3rd edition monster—so the meaning of including such a creature is lost on me. I realize it was probably just a throwaway description and wasn’t going to have any greater effect on the campaign, but why not make use of this opportunity to work in some backstory?

The new description was this:

The carving depicts an army of demons scaling the walls of a crystal citadel. Two figures hold them off: a winged eladrin female with a trumpet and an elf male wielding a longsword. The eladrin, elf, and demon figures are raised from the rest of the work.

Since elves are looked down on by eladrin, this carving depicts a time when elves and eladrin stood together against their common foe—the demons from the Elemental Chaos. This was learned during a History check, laying future groundwork for something I have up my sleeve…

Lastly, the clue to enter the secret door went from the adventure’s “Arborenea before Elysiun before Kelesta” to “Fey before World before Chaos,” which of course refers to the Feywild, the Natural World, and the Elemental Chaos. Simply pressing the raised figures of the eladrin, elf, and demons in that order opened the door.

The Exodus Alliance

Shealis’ true plan was finally revealed: her group—called the Exodus Alliance—is intending to forcefully relocate the entire eladrin nation back into the Feywild. They feel that living in the Natural World among elves, humans, dwarves, orcs, and the other races has tainted their species; only the one true home of eladrin will return their culture to a place of enlightenment. I decided to open up the naming of this dastardly organization to EN World. A member there, catastrophic, came up with the awesome-sounding “Exodus Alliance.”

Because the players can’t be everywhere at once, they decided to let Artimus and the Shahalesti Lieutenant return to Calanis to expose the details of this dastardly plot. I really liked how it turned out; it showed that while what the characters are doing is important, it’s not the only important thing going on right now. I will definitely revisit the Exodus Alliance in the future. Whether Artimus and the Lieutenant were successful or not will play a major role in how Shahalesti’s involvement in the war factors out down the road.

Unabashedly, this eladrin sub-plot is my favorite addition to the campaign so far.

The Singing Chasm

I was surprised to learn that this “escape tunnel”—mentioned once in passing during the Depository encounter—was never visited again throughout the entirety of the campaign (I only discovered this after asking the authors). Nevertheless, I knew exactly what my plan for it was. For the past several sessions, I’d hinted that the Singing Chasm was most likely an escape route out of Gate Pass for Shealis and her eladrin cohorts. In actuality, its true purpose as a portal to the Feywild was revealed.

Encounter Modifications

Spy Headquarters: Though I kept the setting of Spy Headquarters (a doormaker’s shop), I removed the free-standing door mechanics. Other than that, the size and shape of the shop remained much the same. Oh, and I removed the Feywild badgers; their inclusion seemed… silly.

For a more detailed account on how Spy Headquarters was reconstructed for my group, please see Redesigning Encounters: Spy Headquarters.

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Time Out

Much like in Session 1, a player had to sit out for most of the game—this time, it was our visiting player, Jeff Farnsworth. What happened was, in Session 5 I had established that Rivereye Badgerface had a good friend living in Gate Pass—a wizard named Artimus. I decided that since the Shahalesti thought there was a spell on the case of intelligence requiring a password, that they would kidnap Artimus if they couldn’t get at Rivereye a second time. And where better to keep their prisoner than their hideout?

Problem is, they group spent a lot of time doing other things and didn’t get to Jeff until 3 hours and 26 minutes into the session. I thought for a long time whether or not this was a pacing problem on the part of the group, but decided in the end that it wasn’t; the group smoothly slid from encounter to encounter, only stopping long enough to enjoy detailed roleplaying where it mattered. No, I think the problem was where I placed Artimus. Instead of having him already captured, I could have had the group stumble upon the kidnapping in-progress. Or, I could have even gone less involved and just had Artimus join the party without any plot complications at all.

New Difficulty Class Rules

Recently, I introduced a new house rule detailing how I will handle future skill checks and DC’s. In a nutshell, I will completely ignore any DC’s listed in the skill chapter of the Rules Compendium and just decide on the spot whether the DC is easy, moderate, hard, or impossible. So far, it’s worked great! We haven’t had to crack open the skills chapter at all, which has really sped up the game—at least, until this session. You see, there are a few other rules hidden in the skills chapter that aren’t DC related, such as whether a skill allows a retry, or whether there are penalties for rolling a failure.

The fix to this is kind of easy and will be implemented immediately. First, any time the DC on a skill check is missed by 5 or more, there will be a negative consequence. If you’re balancing, you fall. If you’re swimming, you begin to drown. If you’re attempting to recall some piece of history, you remember it wrong. The severity of the consequence will depend on how bad the roll was and, I admit, will rely largely on DM fiat and “the moment.”

As for whether retries are allowed, that will tie largely into how badly the roll failed. If it failed by 5 or more, then a retry will almost never be allowed without some change to the situation. If the failure was by 4 or less, then a retry will almost always be allowed. Again, this will rely largely on DM fiat and what makes the most sense to the story and the situation.

The Indomitable Kurycheck

Kurycheck, an imp sent by Leska to retrieve the military intelligence, created several problems during the game.

First of all, Kurycheck caused the first instance of “fluffing myself into a corner.” You see, I love to fluff—and throughout my blog you can find examples of my efforts, from fluffing class powers to monsters; movement to entire encounters. Well, as awesome as all that fluffing can be, it’s bound to be taken advantage of sooner or later.

Let me explain.

If I allow a player to fluff the description of his wizard’s magic missile into bolts of fiery energy, eventually that player is going to forget that magic missile is a force effect and not fire. So when the player comes up with the brilliant idea of setting some papers on fire with magic missile, it’s going to suck to have to remind him that that’s not really possible. It’s not the player’s fault; hell, after all that time of describing it as fire, even I would forget. It’s just natural to think that something that looks like fire should burn like fire.

When Kurycheck, the first demon the character’s have met, began the encounter invisible, they were confused as to what exactly they were dealing with. That’s when Jeff—playing the enterprising mage Artimus—did what all good mages do and rolled an Arcana check. Thinking that this would be a great opportunity to show the party that they were dealing with something new and exciting, I described the effect as a floating black hole; as if all the evil of the world were centered on one point in space.

The problem with doing that is, invisible creatures should never be located by an Arcana check. It defeats the purpose of being invisible. Of course Artimus continued to use Arcana checks to keep a bead on the demon, pointing his location out to Maril, who in turn proceeded to plug away with round after round of magic missile.

I had inadvertently fluffed myself into a corner.

I was finally able to extricate Kurycheck from his precarious situation, only for the party to run after him, still rolling Arcana checks to pinpoint the invisible creature’s new location each round. Eventually, I had to pause the game and explain that I had made a mistake. Fortunately, I have a group of level-headed players who all quickly understood the ramifications of being able to Arcana check invisible creatures. In the end, we explained it away by the fact that Artimus had initially rolled a 32 on his Arcana check—the impossible DC for level 2 (see my house rule on impossible DC’s here). I explained that it was an impressive flash of insight that slowly faded away after a time. The group accepted the ruling and we moved on

The second bit of trouble ol’ Kurycheck gave me was that he completely caught the group with their pants down. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, per se. What was bad was that the group was so flabbergasted as to how to stop something they couldn’t see from making off with their quest goal, that they rushed into a roleplaying situation that they weren’t ready to deal with. They were behind enemy lines, having bluffed their way into a position where the bad guys believed that the group were also bad guys. However, without thinking, Asher ran into the next room, rolled some poor bluff checks, stammered out a jumble of crazy speak, and almost blew everything. Worst of all, none of the rest of the group backed Asher up; they stayed behind, unsure of what to do—which made the halfling look all the more nutty.

A few things went wrong here and it all stemmed from the players feeling out of control of the situation. Again, this isn’t necessarily bad—sometimes the players need to understand that, no matter what they do, some things are out of their character’s control. Of course, this is not something to be dealt with lightly, as deus ex machina can be a stale literary technique not well received by gamers.

Next time, when I see that the the train is about the derail, I’ll pause the action and let the group hammer out just exactly what their plan is next. After all, even if the players don’t have Intelligence and Wisdom scores of 17 or 18, the characters do—and they should be given every chance to take advantage of those high scores, up to and including pausing play to allow some extra planning, even when in-game there are only seconds to act.

Things That Went Great

Amazing Roleplaying

Session 6 had no shortage of amazing roleplaying. From the first encounter between the elves in the ghetto and the group’s two eladrin characters, to the interchange between the party and the Shahalesti terrorists. Each time, there was the perfect mixture of Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate rolls, and honest to goodness roleplaying. While normally one or two players will dominate a scene, this session saw all five players taking the lead in exciting and innovative ways.

Terrain Powers

For months I’ve been trying to get the group to use the terrain more than how often they had been using it—in other words, more than none. I don’t expect anything spectacular; the occasional flipped table, rolled barrel, or smashed chair would suffice.

That’s when I stumbled across terrain powers.

Terrain powers are nothing new. Page 62 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 detailed these little gems when the book was released in September of 2009. In fact, they were even showcased online at the Wizards of the Coast website earlier this year. Somehow, I missed them both times. Now that I know of them, they’ve become an official part of my table and we were richly rewarded by their inclusion.

For those who aren’t familiar with terrain powers, they work like this: you use one of your normal actions (minor, move, or standard) to cause the terrain to do something awesome, like damaging a foe or giving you a small bonus. As someone who consistently uses cardstock terrain, I frequently include little bits like tables, chairs, barrels, crates, curtains, and bookshelves—all of which are just waiting to cause some hurt. The problem is, players never really understood what was possible. Terrain powers do just that—they codify what you can and cannot do with a piece of terrain and explain it in the same format as one of your character’s powers.

Typically, the use of a terrain feature is finite (chairs can only be smashed over someone’s head once, a rug can only be pulled out from under an enemy once, bookcases can only be tipped over once), but occasionally, terrain can be used over and over—such as kicking up the ash in a fireplace to create a zone of concealment or sliding down a stair railing for an extra boost in speed.

One more note on terrain powers: the rules listed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 attempt to balance them out with normal character powers. I actually up the ante a bit by letting them do more damage or allowing them to be used as minor or move actions. For example, if a terrain power is supposed to do 1d4 damage, I’ll let it do 1d6 damage. Or, if a terrain power is supposed to be used as a move action, I’ll allow it to be squeezed into a minor action. I do this to further encourage use of the terrain; by making the terrain slightly sweeter, the players will be more likely to use terrain powers when the moment presents itself.

Arender’s Death

Though a character’s death could hardly be called something that went great, in the end, it was. You see, Arender didn’t just die due to some freak twist of fate or poor die roll; he didn’t trip off a cliff or drown after one too many failed swim checks. He died in combat, fighting terrorists intent on forcibly relocating his entire race to another dimension. You really don’t get more of a hero’s death than that.

The Impossible DC

Though I already mentioned the impossible DC house rule earlier in this entry, I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight its use in this session: After the group retrieved the case of military intelligence, they found it wizard locked. In the adventure, it’s not really supposed to be opened. Though it can be opened, it is better for the plot if it isn’t. For most DM’s, the decision would be easy: “Can it be opened?” would be met by a resounding no.

That’s what the impossible DC is for. I gave the group the possibility—however small—of opening it. Sure, there was only a 5% chance of making the DC, but if they had been successful, it would have taken the story in a new, unforseen direction—which can be exciting in its own right.

(They weren’t able to open it.)

Consequences

When the campaign began, I made it clear to the players that this isn’t your typical romp through the dungeon. There probably won’t be many monstrous opponents; most bad guys will be people, just like the PC’s. And since the first adventure takes place in a civilized society, going around and sticking the pointy ends of weapons into things isn’t a good idea. I reminded them that they could always choose to knock an opponent unconscious on the last hit rather than let it be an outright kill.

Well, let’s just say the group’s left a small trail of bodies—and it finally caught up with them. During this session, the party woke up to a group of officers of the law on their doorstep. Though they got out of the trouble with a stern warning, it showed the players that this campaign is different than others and that there will be consequences to their actions.

Photographs

Last, but not least, here are the pictures from our session.

The group’s encounter with Shealis was different than those that had come before: it was completely possible for the group to talk their way past her. A detailed skill challenge was put together so the party could choose whether they wanted to open with diplomacy or hostility. Though the players chose diplomacy, in the end it failed and Shealis attacked.

Overall, the encounter was enjoyable for the group, mostly because the players were able to work together and focus on one powerful enemy. On my side of the screen, however, Shealis was boring. She was little more than a shotgun, firing powerful blasts in whatever direction I chose, with no finesse or variety. Additionally, the combat was very swingy; after two rounds, characters were already slipping into unconsciousness. This was, of course, due to the high amounts of damage she was putting out as a 6th-level creature (more on that later).

According to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Shealis was near the upper-most suggested limit a party could fight. My guess as to where things went wrong would be either my dice were too hot (I rolled three natural 20′s during the entirety of the combat), the players’ dice were too cold (a few natural 1′s skittered across the table), or perhaps four levels above the party level is just a tad-bit too high in practice, no matter what the DMG says.

The Dual at Gabal’s School encounter, known as Shealis’s Apartment in the adventure, is located on page 49 and consists of the following:

• Shealis, Level 10 Elite Controller
• Wisp Solon, Level 4 Controller

The Good, the Bad, and the Fluffed

First of all, I ditched the solon. I talked a little bit about this in my Musings on Our Second Session article, but in a nutshell, I’m just not sold on solon’s. Don’t get me wrong—I love including new and exciting creatures where thematically appropriate. I just don’t know that the solon, a creation of the adventure path’s writers, is filling a place in the world that can’t be filled by an established creature that the players are already familiar with. For the foreseeable future, I’ll probably fluff solon’s into other monsters, or remove them altogether.

Without the wisp solon, Shealis is a 5th-level encounter. But as a 10th-level creature, she’s eight levels above the party level! Page 56 of the DMG states:

Levels of Individual Threats: Choose threats within two or three levels of the characters’ level. Threats in an easy encounter can be as many as four levels below the party’s level. Threats in a hard encounter can be as many as three to five levels above the party’s level.

And then, on the very next page, the DMG goes on to say:

Level: As you select individual threats to make up your encounter, keep the level of those threats in mind. Monsters or traps more than four levels below the party’s level or seven levels above the party’s level don’t make good challenges. They’re either too easy or too hard, even if the encounter’s level seems right.

As a 10th-level creature, Shealis does not fit the criteria of a good encounter; she would be way too powerful for the PC’s. I decided that I wanted the combat to be four levels above the party level, which naturally set Shealis as a Level 6 Solo Controller. Flipping through the Monster Vault, I saw several good controllers at that level, but no solo controllers—and then I saw the Young Blue Dragon. Sure, it was an artillery, but who cares? When I fluffed Flaganus from the Fallen Devil encounter into a Young Black Dragon, we had a blast!

Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that creatures from the artillery role don’t do much more than hang back and do lots of damage. Things got pretty stale for me by the end of the combat, something that could have been avoided if I had picked one of the controllers and added a few templates from the DMG to make it a solo. It was definitely a learning experience.

The Young Blue Dragon’s powers were very easy to fluff: uncontained lightning was renamed to unfettered power, instinctive lightning became crushing burst, gore turned into wand of power, claw fluffed easily into arc lightning, lightning burst became energy burst, the dragon’s breath weapon was renamed shocking blast, wing backblast was fluffed into readied sweep, and finally, bloodied breath was renamed bloodied blast.

Only one of the powers’ mechanics were changed: the dragon’s breath weapon, now called shocking blast. Instead of a close bast 10 effect that hits up to three creatures in the blast, I changed it to close blast 3 that hits up to two creatures and added a one square slide effect.

I also added to Shealis triplicate image, lifted straight from her original stats in The Scouring of Gate Pass. Lastly, I added the three powers from this gem of an article I came across recently. I highly recommend them; they were quite effective!

Keeping Things Balanced

The encounter level for Shealis’s Apartment is listed as 5 (1,000 XP to 1,175 XP, depending on if the solon is included). After my adjustments, the encounter level rose to 6. In order to return the encounter level to 5, simply choose a Level 5 Solo creature.