A Journey of Sorts

A Model Way to Play, Part III

Christopher — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:28:49 +0000

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.

As I mentioned in Part II, I use Adobe Acrobat to extract graphics from PDFs and Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3 to modify those graphics—but there are many other options available, such as Adobe Photoshop and GIMP. Though the following instructions will assume the reader is using Acrobat and PaintShop Photo Pro, those familiar with other applications will be able to duplicate my steps with little effort.

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.

As a reminder, Adobe Reader will not extract PDFs. I use Adobe Acrobat; if you do not have Adobe Acrobat available, use GIMP.

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.

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.
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.
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.

To perform steps from the next section, you will need more than a passing familiarity with your graphics editing software of choice. I won’t be breaking down each step into its base components; it’s assumed that, by this point, you have a basic to moderate understanding of layers and tools such as Fill and the Pen.

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.

Redesigning Encounters: Street Assault

Christopher — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 02:02:52 +0000

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 planned 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

Much like the previous encounter, Spy Headquarters, I complete redesigned this encounter from the ground up. The reason for this is two-fold: One, I wanted Kathor Davana 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, on the other hand, got fluffed from a Young Green Dragon, a Level 5 Solo Skirmisher from page 69 in the Monster Vault. After all was said and done, the encounter level ended up being 10 XP less than an Encounter Level 6 combat, which puts it in line with the original encounter from the adventure—with less work!

The Black Horse Lieutenant—now Kathor Davana—was my third fluff from a dragon. The first was Flagnus from a Young Black Dragon and the second was Shealis from a Young Blue Dragon; it was just as easy to fluff this time as it was the first two times.

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.

Musings on Our Seventh Session

Christopher — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:45:25 +0000

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 that will focus more on the group as a whole.

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 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 new 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 in the first season finale. Though we’re loath to see him go, his character arc was complete.

Last, but not least, we’ll be taking a new player on in Session 8—Seth’s good 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 the Two Winds.

Session Summary

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

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

Inside the Temple to the God of Protection, Kara provided the group with directions to Councilman Erdan Menash’s home and wished them good luck. She then took Buron Watcher by the arm and drew 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 marched back out into the storm and headed east down the main thoroughfare towards the Nobels’ District. It wasn’t difficult to find the Councilman’s home, for it was decorated quite ostentatiously; vivid hues of purple, yellow, orange, and green covered the walls, and standards of every shape and size hung from various parapets.

While deciding what to do next, the group was approached by an elf named Tomeriel, a young man dispatched by his people to join the party. Tomeriel explained that the elves in the ghetto were 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 were skeptical, remembering their recent experiences 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 was reluctant to turn it away, and so accepted Tomeriel into their ranks. Only time would tell whether he would become a truly valuable member of their team.

After requesting an audience with Erdan Menash through his guards, who were all dressed equally outrageously, the companions were ushered into the Councilman’s mansion. There, they were greeted by Erdan, who proceeded 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 was eventually able to focus Erdan’s attention on the task at hand: they were on a mission for the rebellion, hoping to receive aid in escaping Gate Pass. The Councilman was reluctant and so the companions impressed upon him that if they didn’t succeed, Gate Pass would be reduced to rubble. Still, he wasn’t swayed. Finally, the party revealed that he was a marked man and that they had already foiled one assassination attempt by the White Wyrms and their mysterious benefactor, M.

Finally understanding the gravity of the situation, Menash provided the group with fake papers ordering them to join a detachment set to leave in the morning for the southern border. He also included 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 departed the Councilman’s home, orders in hand; they were finally ready to leave Gate Pass behind, but with hope that they would return with an army. Their thoughts were cut short, however, when a gruff voice called 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 had returned for Asher, intent on completing what they had started only two days ago. The party moved to protect Asher, but saw it wasn’t necessary as chaotic energies swirled around him in a maelstrom of magic. Ykoren, once under the sway of the manipulative Black Horses, was also eager to even the score. Kathor Danava was there to oversee the capture of Asher and 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, eventually Kathor was able to get the best of the party, mortally wounding Maril and Tomeriel. Seeing his comrades fallen, broken and bleeding, Asher hung his head in defeat. He let his magic dagger hang limply from one hand and stood silently, seemingly in surrender. Kathor advanced on Asher, laughing at his victory, the sound arrogant and scornful. Then, at the last second, Asher reversed the dagger, made eye contact with Kathor, and plunged it deep into his would-be captor.

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

Buckidu and Ykoren quickly healed 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 departed the grisly scene, hoping to make it to Captain Harriman’s barracks before anyone could connect them with the encounter. On the way, Buckidu asked Ykoren who Rernard was. Ykoren explained that Renard Kol was the mysterious leader of the Black Horses, always passing his orders down to Kathor Danava. To his knowledge, only the top ranked Black Horses had 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 found Captain Harriman, showed him the orders written by Erdan Menash, and were whisked away to be dressed and armed with militia uniforms and weapons. Within hours, the group was marching towards the city’s east gate with Captain Harriman and eight of his soldiers. The companions looked at each other, their faces echoing each other’s grim resolve.

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

Quizzically, Asher asked, “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 the 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 rode on.

And then a single bell tolled out across the city. Kara rode in close and whispered, “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 were quickly pushed to the side as they approached the great gates of eastern Gate Pass. Within moments, they were open; the column rode outside the confines of the city and the gates closed behind them, giving off a sound finality.

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

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

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

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

“No!” Asher cried, leaping off his horse and running towards his friend. Tears streamed down his face in despair and fire flew from his fingertips in anger. “Who did this?” he screamed. “Show yourself!”

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

Erdan backed 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?!” exclaimed 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: Written into The Scouring of Gate Pass, the Dianoem is a strange marvel of dwarven technology—and 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, 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. They only attack the PC’s because they were 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.

Cut Encounters: 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 out about one session a month. At that 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, the Rantal, Magic Mayhem, Gauntlet Run, Chasm Gate, and Gnoll Hunt encounters didn’t make it to the final cut.

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 sought 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 would rather 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 was 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, there’s nothing wrong with this turn of events; in fact, it’s a pretty 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—would make 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 Horses 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 save time.

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.

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, that would convert its audio files to MP3.

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 be reset by extended rests—but that shouldn’t be too hard to adjudicate.

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 the 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 knew; to make it Erdan Menash seemed too obvious, since his last name started with an M. However, 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 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.

Redesigning Encounters: Spy Headquarters

Christopher — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:25:51 +0000

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 the 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 that 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 asked 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 had an interesting effect.

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 on this encounter: Since I’d 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:

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

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—and 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 decision: I needed to figure out why these simple eladrin warriors had 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 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 Brute. For him, I used Scargash the Tigerclaw Chief on page 100 of Threats to the Nentir Vale. 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…

Musings on Our Sixth Session

Christopher — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:12:52 +0000

Session 6 was a spectacular session! My closest friend and the best man at my wedding, Jeff Farnsworth, sat in as a guest player; he portrayed the role of Artimus, Rivereye’s old friend. This was lucky, as Brian was unable to make it out. 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 called upon Diogenes to disable the ritual of sealing surrounding her chambers. They were quick to explain that the encounter was over—but had gone badly; in the end, they had killed the eladrin wizardess in self-defense. Despite their justifications, Diogenes was aghast that it had come to this and he was ashamed at his involvement. In Diogenes’ eyes, magic was life and the death of Shealis suffered a blow to the continuance of that life.

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

Second, Shealis’ devious plot was unearthed through documents she had planned to burn before being interrupted. The papers detailed 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 the this new world, a doorway that would be open within days.

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

Suddenly, the group remembered what Shealis had said about Arender; they turned towards him and slowly backed away, their hands near their weapons. After a few minutes of interrogation, the truth came out—Arender was a spy, sent by the Shahalesti government to secure the military intelligence stolen from Rageisa. His mission was to deliver it to an eladrin contact in Lyceum.

Though a trator to the group, Arender passionately explained that the more he saw of the world’s plight, the less he believed in what he was doing. Unfortunately, he wasn’t simply a spy—he was an indentured servant, carrying out the penance for crimes he had committed in Calanis. He couldn’t just disregard his orders without serious repercussions, up to and including exile.

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

The group then followed their only lead: the map into the elven ghetto. As outsiders, the elven population looked at them with stony eyes and angry glares. When the party realized that they couldn’t pinpoint the map’s final destination, they decided to ask for help—only to be turned on by the elves as soon as it was determined that there were eladrin in the party.

The group then learned firsthand that the eladrin people hadn’t simply taken over their neighboring brother’s lands a thousand years ago; the Shahalesti had utterly destroyed their way of life and the elves were still picking the pieces of their lives up from that encounter. With no home to return to, many cities had ghettos such as this.

Before the situation could come to blows, an elven woman came out, spoke sharp words to both sides, and pointed to a doormaker’s shop—that is where the party would 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 faced the street. A chimney belched black smoke into the wintery air. However, after a quick search of the perimeter, a secret door was discovered in the back. Carved into the door was a scene of elves and eladrin fighting against demons. Remembering the clue written on the torn map—Fey before World before Chaos—Maril reached out and pressed the carvings in the order of eladrin, elves, and demons. Silently, a handle formed in the stone.

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

Releaved, though a little confused that Shealis would involve outsiders, the Lieutenant revealed that they had not been able to open the case and that Artimus, whom they had recently captured, had not given up the password. The group offered their services, thinly veiling their intent to torture this Artimus fellow. The Lieutenant allowed them to go upstairs where the prisoner was being held—but not before Asher offhandedly explained that they would need the case; intelligence suggested that it wasn’t just a password that was needed for it to open, but a magical ritual. If they got Artimus to talk, it would need to be in the same room.

The companions swiftly made their way upstairs to see Rivereye’s friend Artimus—also an eladrin—beaten, but not broken. The group quickly explained that they were friends, there to help. The wizard smiled and introduced himself, after which the party sprang into action. Immediately, they opened the case—curious to find out just exactly what was inside. Within the worn leather satchel was a thick steel box etched with swirling patterns and warded with a powerful Arcane Lock ritual.

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

The party rushed to the first floor and managed to convince the Shahalesti that, not only had they opened the case, but an invisible creature had stolen its contents. The Mystic called for silence, cocked his head to one side, and yelled out, “There!” In the direction he pointed, arrows, spears, and magic blasts were directed. The creature, revealed to be an imp, fell to the ground dead; the metal box slipped out of its lifeless hands.

As the Lieutenant went to retrieve the box, Asher also moved to intercept. Though the Lieutenant was able to grab it first, this odd change in behavior gave the Shahalesti pause—who were these outsiders? A long drawn out game of cat and mouse followed as the Mystic and Lieutenant asked the companions probing questions. Skillfully, the party was able to scramble together plausible excuses explaining their presence, including a lie that they were supposed to rescue Shealis after opening the case—and for that, they would need the metal box.

Though the Mystic and Lieutenant were ready to believe this group had, in fact, been hired by Shealis, at no point was the group able to convince the Shahalesti to let them take ownership of the metal box. Finally, the party switched tactics and began to ask of the eladrin’s intentions. That was when the Lieutenant confirmed the Exodus Alliance’s plans to forcibly move the eladrin people into the Feywild. When it was asked why the eladrin left the Feywild to begin with, the Lieutenant was only to happy to explain: Scriptures detailed 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 seemed to coincide with feelings of doubt and guilt already brewing within the Lieutenant, for he turned to the Mystic questioningly. The Mystic refused to answer such a foolish question and demanded unquestioning loyalty. It was too late, however—the seeds of suspicion had been sewn.

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

While the Shahalesti prisoners were dealt with, Ykoren bent over his dead cousin’s body. At this, his mother’s amulet gave off an urgent warmth and began to tug against the inside of his tunic. Ykoren removed the amulet and it popped open; the voice of his dead mother could be heard.

“Nephew, your time here is not finished. Join me; you have much left to do.” With that, Arender’s soul rose up and sank into the amulet.

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

The party returned to the safe house, heavy in emotion over Arender’s death. There, with the help of Kara, Rivereye, and Buron, the decision was made to seek Erdan Menash’s help in leaving Gate Pass. During this conversation, a messanger from the front gate arrived: the invading Ragesian force had left an ultimatum. Allow a group of Inquisitors entrance to the city, or Gate Pass would 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 was 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 I still try to build on existing backstory whenever I can. 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 reveal the details of this plot. I really liked how this 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,” only 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.

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’ve allowed 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 missiles are a force effect and not fire. So when the player comes up with the brilliant idea of setting some papers on fire with a 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.

In the case of Kurycheck, he’s an imp; more specifically, a demon—the first demon the group has met. When Kurycheck began the encounter invisible (as imps sometimes do), the group was confused as to what exactly they were dealing with. That’s when Jeff, playing Artimus—an enterprising young mage—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! So of course Artimus continued to use Arcana checks to keep a bead on the imp, pointing his location out to Maril, who in turn proceeded to plug away with round after round of magic missiles.

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. See, 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. That being said, at no point was this situation meant to be played or viewed in that way. Nonetheless, the feeling of helplessness was there.

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 of 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. In fact, the group’s roleplaying in one encounter was so good, they made it through the entire situation without having to draw a single weapon.

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 tipped table, rolled barrel, or smashed chair would have sufficed. 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, chair, 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 moment presents itself.

Download my sample terrain powers here.

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.

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 to let it be an outright kill, and then left it at that.

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 to a group of officers of the law on their doorstep. Though they got out of the trouble in the end, it showed the players that this campaign is different than others and that there truly are consequences to their actions.

Photographs

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

Redesigning Encounters: Dual at Gabal’s School

Christopher — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 03:53:21 +0000

The group’s encounter with Shealis was different than those that had come before. First of all, 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 end 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

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 the 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 Shealis’ 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 three powers from this gem of an article I came across recently. I highly recommend them; I used all three of the powers in Shealis’ statblock and they worked quite effectively!

Musings on Our Fifth Session

Christopher — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 19:45:49 +0000

Session 5 of our War of the Burning Sky campaign was the best session yet! Not only did we get six hours of gaming in, five of those hours were solid roleplay; the session’s combat only lasted one hour. We finally hit the sweet spot of how long combat should last! Between Condition Cards, the initiative board, and a familiarity with their character’s powers, the players zipped from turn to turn with barely a moment in-between.

Also: My marriage to Janelle Kann is less than a month away! Unfortunately, this means scheduling future sessions will be difficult as the excitement, stress, and anxiety of becoming man and wife gets closer.

Session Summary

Session 5 took place on Sunday, June 12, 2011.

The group’s prisoner—a wizard calling himself the Thundermage—lay sprawled out on the surface of the warehouse, unconscious and barely breathing. The companions spent some time discussing what to do next, and eventually decided to bind, blind, and gag their captive.

After a thorough search of the warehouse, a cache of letters was found that detailed the terrorist group’s activities over the last few months. Each letter provided the White Wyrms with a list of instructions, including a target, special precautions, and payment details. The letters were signed with a mysterious, ornate “M.”

The most recent missive directed the White Wyrms to create a diversion near Councilman Erdan Menash’s home; thought not specific, the instructions strongly suggested that he was to be either kidnapped or murdered.

The companions had read enough—they needed answers. A sharp slap on the cheek and the captured White Wyrm woke with a start. They removed the gag and blindfold, and thoroughly question him, asking about past, present, and future terrorist activities against Gate Pass. Eventually, they were able to determine that the White Wyrms weren’t alone; in conjunction with the Black Horses, the White Wyrms had assisted the Ragesians in getting a jump on Gate Pass and its militia. The group also learned of a dark undercurrent that was beginning to make its way across the land out of Ragesia—a cult dedicating itself to the worship of a being calling herself the One God.

Through diplomacy and a little intimidation, the group was able to appeal to the Thundermage, even convincing him to rethink some of his recent actions and this One God cult he had recently adopted himself into. In the end, he was calmed down and ready to deal—even going as far as to admit that he had done wrong and needed to atone for his actions.

After dropping off the White Wyrm at the nearest guard station, the companions headed back to the safe house. On the way there, word was quickly spreading of the powerful snowstorm that was brewing and how the dragons were unable to take flight in such conditions.

Finally, there was hope.

At the safe house, Kara shared what she had discovered about Shealis; apparently, the eladrin wizardess lived and operated out of Gabal’s School. In fact, she was not well-liked by any of the students or faculty; a wizard named Diogenes had an especially strong enmity towards Shealis. Kara also explained that they would need help against her, for her power far outstripped those of the party. Fortunately, Rivereye had an old friend in town—a wizard named Artimus—that had agreed to help. Kara and Rivereye left the safety of the temple to meet this friend and asked the group to remain and wait for their return.

Unfortunately, the time that Kara and Rivereye were supposed to be back with their friend came and went. And then Buron Watcher arrived with news that Shealis could be on the move soon, according to one of his contacts. The group had no choice but to head to Gabal’s School and stall the eladrin—no matter the cost.

At the school, the companions encountered Diogenes leaning up against the front gate, calmly smoking a cigarette. They spoke with him, explained their plight, and intimated that Shealis was a danger to the school, and more importantly, the community at large. Diogenes pledged his support and added that he had a ritual that would keep Shealis in her apartment for around 15 minutes—long enough for either the group to convince Shealis to turn over the case, or for Kara, Rivereye, and their sorcerer friend to arrive and provide backup.

And so they headed to Shealis’ apartment, silent and fearful of what was to come.

Fortunately, Shealis was willing to talk—but only for so long. After a few minutes of conversation, the wizardess began to tire of the group; her speech suddenly took a sharp, dark tone. She even intimated that Arender was not who he said he was and was, in fact, operating as a spy for the Shahalesti government. Finally, after one too many lies and intimidating remarks from the group, Shealis had had enough.

The encounter was quick, but bloody. Near the end, only a few of the group remained standing, while the rest lay dying on the ground. As Shealis moved toward the fallen, Maril grimly blocked her path. He only had enough strength for one last spell; after letting loose a missile of freezing energy, he raised his quarterstaff and steeled himself for her counterattack.

Lighting shot out from Sheals’ fingertips and struck Maril’s quarterstaff. Instead of searing pain, he was instead shocked at what happened next: energy, intense and blinding, ran up and down the length of the wood. Suddenly, there was an explosion of many-colored light. When Maril next looked down, his quarterstaff had taken on the hue of ice. Even in his hands, the weapon was almost too cold to grasp. Shealis gasped in surprise and Maril took the opportunity to lunge at his opponent, striking at her with the powerful fury of winter.

In the end, Shealis fell to a chaotic blast of swirling energy summoned by Asher. Her body, unable to handle the magic contained within the effect, exploded into light and dust.

Changes to the Adventure

The One God: For the most part, everything was run as written—from the end of the White Wyrms encounter to waiting at the safe house; from Gabal’s School, to Diogenes, to Shealis. My only addition was weaving more of the background dragon plot into War of the Burning Sky’s… well… war plot. In Session 5, this took the guise of the mysterious One God and her cult of true believers.

Though Bahamut has only been named once—in reference to the dragonborn race’s ancient name of Bahamut’s Children—he’s never been directly called out as a divine being. Nevertheless, the players know that the ancient conflict between him and his mortal enemy plays a role in the campaign’s final moments. Because of this, one enterprising player—Brian—was quick to surmise the One God’s real name very quickly. When her true identity will be revealed is still a mystery, but suffice it to say, the seeds for this important plot have finally been sewn.

Terrorist or Patriot? Okay I lied, there was one other modification I made to the adventure—Shealis’ true goal. In The Scouring of Gate Pass, Shealis’ motivation is quite clear: she intends to take the case of military intelligence back to the Shahalesti in order to provide Lord Shaaladel with the information necessary to secure control over Ragesia. In my version, her reasoning is much more sinister.

It has been discovered that she represents a group of eladrin who are tired of Lord Shaaladel’s ancient leadership; these “patriots” intend to use the stolen military intelligence to secure control over Shahalesti, including the installation of a new ruler and a completely new way of life. The details of this plot are still under wraps, but the characters are close to unraveling Shealis’ startling endgame…

Things That Could Have Gone Better

Cardstock Conundrum: One of my goals for this campaign has been to build every combat encounter entirely out of cardstock. Thus far, this has meant constructing streets, homes (both whole and destroyed), a bank, a warehouse, the cross section of wizard’s school, and even a dragon—all out of cardstock. I feel this this creates an awesome atmosphere and there’s no doubt that miniature play is enhanced by the terrain.

Unfortunately, there is one unfavorable side effect.

For every encounter, there is the possibility that the characters will find a way to overcome the obstacle without resorting to violence. Thus far, every encounter has invariably lead to combat. Session 5, however, brought with it the first good chance of diplomacy making an impact.

During the Shealis encounter, it’s written that the characters have two main ways of approaching her: with hostile intent or with calm discourse. If the group is able to pass a skill challenge, she would be convinced to give up her current goal and join the rebellion. Because I want the players to have as much free will as is possible in a linear plot such as an adventure path, I was fully prepared to honor whatever the outcome—which meant that it was possible that I wouldn’t need to use anything that I’d built.

In the end, the group failed the skill challenge and Shealis attacked—but up until then, they were seeing some good luck with dice rolls and there was a strong possibility that they were going to walk away with an ally. In either case, I would have been happy. It’s important to remember that anything I build now can still be used down the road. All the props, such as desks, chairs, bookcases, and fireplaces, are still usable. Her apartment was simply a collection of walls and floors that fit together like LEGO’s; nothing that can’t be taken apart and put back together for another indoor combat down the line.

Encounter Level: The Shealis combat was damn swingy; she was regularly doing at least 16-20 damage per hit, which means PC’s were dropping after two rounds. It also didn’t help that I rolled three natural 20′s during the entirety of the combat.

Let’s break down the math and see where we were as far as the rules are concerned:

All five characters are 2nd level. Shealis was a Level 6 Solo. There were no other combatants; this made the encounter 4 levels above the group. Page 56 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide states:

Choose an Encounter Level: Encounter level is relative to the number of characters in the party. An easy encounter is one or two levels lower than the party’s level. A standard encounter is of the party’s level, or one level higher. A hard encounter is two to four levels higher than the party’s level.

…and:

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.

I seem to be okay on both counts, as Shealis was only four levels above the party in both monster level and encounter level. Technically, she was near the upper-most suggested limit a party could fight. So then what went wrong?

In addition to a swingy combat, I was a little bored with playing her. She did a ton of damage, but didn’t have very many powers that applied conditions or changed the battlefield. There didn’t seem to be any strategy to playing her other than staying away from the party and dropping massive amounts of damage on them. This problem was created from the monster I chose to fluff into Shealis: the young blue dragon from the Monster Vault. There’s not a whole lot to dragons except doing massive amounts of damage; I suppose if I had wanted something more varied, I should have gone with one of the Level 6 Controllers.

Spending Money: This isn’t really a “bad” thing per se, but more of an interesting development. It recently came to my attention that the group is amassing gold, but has nothing to spend it on. Since I level-up magic items, the characters won’t be spending any treasure on those sorts of things. And I usually hand wave day-to-day expenses, such as the few silver pieces they may spend at a tavern. So then what will they do with all this gold?

During Session 5, the group discovered that they had interrupted the White Wyrms just as they were waiting for a signal to begin their next terrorist plot. The party wanted to wait for that signal, hoping to get more of an idea as to who the movers and shakers of this terrorist cell were. Since the party needed someone to come and take custody of the Thundermage, they came up with a plan: write a quick note to Buron Watcher asking for backup, find a man on the street, and bribe him into taking the missive straight to the rebellion leader.

I used this opportunity to inject some off-beat humor into the campaign; I created Jeremy Tressel—a down-on-his-luck bard whose theater was burned down by the dragons. Jeremy flamboyantly requested a 100 gold piece donation be made to the restoration of his theater, and for that, he would be happy to play the part of the courier. Unfortunately, the group double-crossed Jeremy: They promised they would make the donation, but when he returned, they said it would take a month to get him the money; they knew full well that they would not be in Gate Pass when the time came.

I had Jeremy try to negotiate an earlier meeting time, such as the very next day, but the group flat out refused. As a DM, I was perplexed; what were they intending on spending the money on anyway? I can understand at least one or two of the players playing penny-pinching characters, but all five? And what of Buckidu, the paladin? He was the one who held out the most! In the end, it was only when Jeremy gave a thinly-veiled threat to pass on word of the grisly scene of the warehouse (they had, after all, slaughtered several terrorists and not bothered to clean up the blood before inviting Jeremy in to deal) that they relented and offered 60 gold.

I had not anticipated the group being so stingy. It seems getting them to part with their gold will be more difficult than I thought; and since they have nothing really to buy with it, I suppose it will just weight them down as it accumulates. One bit of disappointment was that I was planning on having Jeremy be a great source of information and help, lending aid in future adventures. Though I wouldn’t say the PC’s made an enemy, they certainly didn’t garner a friend.

Music: I’ve noticed that the music is starting to get a little stale; hopefully no one else has observed the same. Part of the reason for this is caused when I find myself strapped for time as far as adventure prep is concerned. When it comes down to the wire, music is the first thing to get shafted; in this case, I’ll typically just reuse music from an earlier encounter rather than pick new songs. The easiest way to avoid this would be to stop procrastinating, thus giving me more time to hand pick new music for new encounters.

Also, I decided early on to stick with the LOST soundtracks for music. Michael Giacchino’s style evoked the exact feel I wanted for this campaign. In the future, I plan on adding in more than just the LOST albums; Michael Giacchino has a range of great soundtracks, from Star Trek to Mission: Impossible III. Since they all have Michael’s signature style, I think they’ll do a great job of keeping that same feeling, while simultaneously inviting a little variety.

Session Recording: Early on, it was suggested that I use my iPhone to record sessions, and so far that’s worked great. A few problems have started to crop up, however. For example, if I receive a call in the middle of a game, the recorder shuts off, and I’ve forgotten more than a few times to turn the recorder back on. Although I could put the phone in airplane mode, that brings up another problem: I use the iPhone as a mini remote control for playing music. Since I need Wi-Fi for that to work, I can’t place the phone into airplane mode. The reason I don’t use the iPad is because I hate switching back and forth between my encounter notes and the Apple Remote app. Lastly, the iPhone barely makes it through a session before running out of batteries.

Things That Went Great

Model Keep-Away: As I noted above, a campaign goal for myself is to fully construct each encounter out of cardstock for miniature play. Nevertheless, I don’t want the focal point of the game to be on the miniatures. For this session, in order to keep attention on the game and not the cardstock, I kept the terrain in another room, away from the table. Thanks to this small, yet subtle change, I think there was definitely a positive shift in focus.

New Difficulty Class Rules: Although I already explained my new Difficulty Class house rules elsewhere (The Difficulty Class by Level Chart and The Impossible DC), here they are in a nutshell:

No Static DC’s: My group and I are tried of flipping back and forth between the different skills in order to figure out what the DC for a given task is supposed to be. I now solely use the Difficulty Class by Level chart on page 126 in the Rules Compendium. If I decide that detecting a magic spell should be easy, it will be an easy DC. If I decide that jumping across a pit should be moderate, it will be a moderate DC. If I decide that deciphering a puzzle should be hard, it will be a hard DC. I realize that many of the skills in the skill chapter already use this chart; our house rule just makes its use consistent across all skills. Although some oddities popped up here and there, we were much more happy to deal with them as they came than to constantly have to flip through the skills chapter to track down a DC.

The Impossible DC: I hate saying no to players; I also hate giving away information I know the characters won’t be aware of, or allowing a task that I know will be impossible; thus the impossible DC. Rather than give a flat out no, I’ll let them roll against the impossible DC. Keep in mind that even if the player has totally pimped out his character to the point where the skill is making use of various feats and magic items to boost its modifier, he will still only have a 10%-15% chance of succeeding. This way, there’s always the possibility a player will be able to succeed unexpectedly.

Both new house rules were well received and did exactly what they were supposed to. We didn’t once have to open the skills chapter of the Rules Compendium, which sped the game up dramatically. I even got a chance to use the impossible DC a few times (no one succeeded). We’ll keep an eye on these house rules and amend them if necessary.

Three Monster Powers to Speed Up Combat: I came across this gem of an article a few weeks ago and I was dying to make use of its advice. Basically, if I want to speed up combat, the article provides three powers that can be added to any creature. The powers allow the creature to trade hit points for minor boons: anything from shrugging off conditions to doing more damage. I used all three of the powers in the Shealis combat and they worked quite effectively!

Impromptu Skill Challenge: Skill challenges have gotten quite a beating over the last few years from players and forums posters alike. Personally, I love them; I think skill challenges are a great way to help guide non-combat encounters, especially when something’s at risk. Sure, groups could wing it, relying mostly on the player’s ability to roleplay and the occasional die roll, but then that lessons the impact of having skills in the first place. Skill challenges put the chance of failure or success squarely on the player’s clever use of skills and the whims of their dice, just like a combat encounter does.

In this case, our impromptu skill challenge was with the White Wyrm Thundermage. The characters needed to gain information on his terrorist cell and learn what their plans were for Councilman Erdan Menash. Interestingly, as the skill challenge played out, questioning the terrorist became only a minor part of the challenge; getting the Thundermage to see that his fundamentalist ways were a destructive force became the group’s focus at the end. The party succeeded at the skill challenge, attaining not only the information they sought, but also getting the Thundermage to rethink his stance on what he had done. In the end, he was willing to speak with a member of the clergy to set about reforming his heinous crimes.

Amazing Roleplaying: This session had the most roleplaying of any session yet—and I didn’t realize just how good that roleplaying was until I listened to the session recording. Transcripts coming soon!

The Easel: This is really a minor thing, but made a huge difference: Up until Session 5, we had the initiative board a few feet from the DM’s chair, sitting on a stool and leaning against a bookshelf. A real amateur hour setup. Then Seth brought over an easel for us to use. Now the initiative board sits right next to me; any time someone delays or dies or whatever, I don’t have to get up. Lazy? Yes.

Photographs

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

Using Fortune Cards

Christopher — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 03:40:08 +0000

At first, I wasn’t completely sold on Fortune Cards. How would they work? Would I use them? Sure, I had a few ideas—but until I was able to get them into my hot little hands, I just didn’t know what my feelings towards them would be. Now that they’ve been out for a little over four months, I have to say—I love them—but not for the reason they’re meant for.

To be honest, I’m not even sure how to use them properly because as soon as I saw them, I knew exactly what I was going to do with them: I was going to replace my Bonus Action Points house rule with them.

Here’s how I worked them into the game:

I keep a large deck of them on my side of the table and hand them out whenever I feel that a player has roleplayed his character exceptionally well, exhibited impressive leadership or problem-solving abilities, entertained the group, or otherwise improved the gaming experience in some way. I then let the players use them whenever and however they want.

Also, should one player feel that another player deserves a Fortune Card for something that I do not award, he may feel free to nominate that player and explain the reasoning. Players should recognize that I am the final arbiter of who gains Fortune Cards and why.

So far, I don’t have a ton of rules on how players can redeem Fortune Cards, but so far the following have been allowed:

Players may use them for the boon written on the card.
Players may trade cards amongst themselves.
A player may turn in two cards to gain another minor action.
A player may turn in three cards to gain another move action.
A player may turn in four cards to gain another standard action.
A player may turn in two cards to recharge an encounter power.
A player may turn in three cards to recharge a daily power.
A player may turn in five cards to gain an action point.
Players may slightly tweak the wording on a card if it’s to be used in an amazing and cinematic way.

As time passes, I’m sure other uses will crop up; as they do, I’ll revisit this entry and update the list.

Can I Get a Fluffer? …Part III

Christopher — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:29:32 +0000

If it wasn’t obvious by now, I love fluffing.

I’ve altered the descriptions of powers, feats, classes, races, movement, items, and templates. Throughout my blog you can find examples of my efforts, from fluffing class powers to monsters; movement to entire encounters. If it has rules and some blob of descriptive text associated with it, chances are I’ve fluffed it.

For those of you who need a quick recap on what fluffing is, page 55 of the Player’s Handbook discusses this concept as Flavor Text:

A power’s flavor text helps you understand what happens when you use a power and how you might describe it when you use it. You can alter this description as you like, to fit your own idea of what your power looks like. Your wizard’s magic missile spell, for example, might create phantasmal skulls that howl through the air to strike your opponent, rather than simple bolts of magical energy.

When it’s possible to take an entire book of rules and alter the descriptions to represent anything you want, what’s left to fluff? How about conditions applied to creatures when the condition doesn’t seem to make sense?

I’ve read many, many discussion across various D&D messageboards about DM’s that prevent powers from taking effect on certain creatures simply because the effects don’t make sense. For example, how does a halfling use a power to knock a giant prone? Or how would a wizard deafen an ooze? Some DM’s even consider the possibility of house ruling such powers so that the players can’t cause certain conditions against specific monsters. In my opinion, those sorts of revisions to the rules would be ill advised.

All a DM has to do is figure out a way to narrate the effect in a believable way.

There are many ways to justify characters placing conditions on creatures that don’t “make sense.” Maybe the halfling doesn’t knock the giant over—maybe he instead manages to cause the giant to trip over its own feet; it isn’t “prone” in the common use of the term, but still suffers the mechanical effects of the condition, including needing to spend a move action to “correct its balance.”

The moment a DM starts to question an action based on physics or believability, they’ve forgetten the entire point behind playing a fantasy roleplaying game. Instead of asking if Joesph the Blacksmith or Susan the Seamstress can knock over the giant, ask if Batman can do it. How about Heracles? Or Samson? Can Doctor Doom or Captain America knock a giant prone?

Of course they can; they’re not supposed to be realistic, they’re supposed to be awesome.

Here’s a story told to me by another player:

We had this problem early on in our campaign. I’m a hammer warrior—its what I do. My twin hammer wielding avenger has invested in feats and powers that take advantage of my weapons.

So we’re facing this 20-foot-tall whatever; it was so early in the campaign that I don’t even remember what it was. I do an attack, hit, and announce that I knock it prone. The DM says that’s not possible—its 20 feet tall, like a two-story building. I asked if the stat block said it couldn’t be knocked prone and he said no. I then said, yes, I could. The DM replied, “Think about it—your character is 5′ 8″ and you’re bowling over a 20-foot-tall behemoth!”

Point taken.

Then I asked him to think about it this way: I’m not running up, using my human strength, lifting a 20-foot-tall monster off of the ground, and throwing it onto its back. Rather, imagine my warrior slamming his hammer into the side of the monster’s leg, and it dropping to one knee in response—with all the benefits from “prone” applying. Or maybe even the magical energy from the power I’m using is what knocks the creature prone. Either works just fine.

Remember, to a hammer warrior, everything is a nail.

When you apply a little imagination, it’s easy to see how even an ooze can be knocked prone. As long as the creature suffers the mechanical penalties, how they came to that point is up the the DM and player to decide.

Massaging Treasure Parcels

Christopher — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 05:55:59 +0000

At the end of 2010, I detailed how I deal with magic items in 4th Edition games. In a nutshell, rather than routinely hand out brand new items, forcing characters to ditch arms and armaments that they may have grown attached to, I add the powers of what would have been new magic items to the magic items that the characters already have.

Confused? Read the process in more detail here.

Recently, my group fought a pretty major NPC named Shealis. During the battle, Shealis wielded what was apparently a magic wand.

Also of note: During the battle, one of the character’s weapons—Maril’s seemingly normal quarterstaff—”leveled-up” into a staff of winter.

After the battle, Shealis’ “loot” didn’t include a magic wand. Where was the epic drop befitting an NPC of her stature? After all, big bad guys should give off awesome rewards! What happened?

For those who need a quick reminder on how the Treasure Parcel System works, it’s like this: 4th Edition runs on the assumption that characters acquire a certain amount of treasure per level in order to maintain effectiveness in encounters as they advance; this is called the Treasure Parcel System.

Every level, from 1st to 30th, there are 10 parcels to hand out; each parcel is a magic item or monetary treasure. Since it takes around 10 encounters to level, it is assumed that characters will receive something every time they fight a monster. However, DM’s will often combine parcels into hordes. In one combat, a group might get three or four parcels—which means for some combats, there will be no parcels at all.

Nevertheless, by the time character’s reach their next level, they can be sure that they will have received every parcel they were supposed to get.

How does this interact with NPC’s who seem to wield magic items? Why aren’t these instruments part of their treasure? Well, the intent is, if the group searches and finds no magic items, then in-character they’re supposed to think any of the following:

“I guess the magic in her wand died with her.”
“I guess the wand wasn’t special; it was her all along!”
“That wand was wielded by evil—I won’t touch it.”

Out-of-character, the reason there’s no magic item is because a treasure parcel wasn’t placed there. Of course, it’s very possible that Shealis’ wand is magical, but the party can’t unlock its secrets just yet. Maybe after they’ve attained more experience? In other words, it could be a parcel for later levels. This all depends on what the party does and what fits the story at the moment.

Continuing the above example of Shealis and the magic wand, don’t forget that epic loot was dropped—we can’t ignore the staff of winter! Though Shealis didn’t technically have a magic staff in her horde, the staff of winter was the placed parcel; the characters just “found it” in a non-traditional way. In this case, Shealis’ magical attack connected with Maril’s and the energy flowed into the quarterstaff, causing it to shed its normal appearance and reveal its magical origins.

Much cooler than just finding a magic item in the middle of a treasure pile if you ask me.