Ok, time for the 3^rd post in my series of posts where I get The Wyzard to do all the work and just add commentary. This is the start of his final post in the original thread, however due to the length of it with my comments (Over 6 pages) I have split it into several parts. If you think this is too long (or that I should have left it as one post) let me know.

Re: It’s time for the big XCrawl/4E conversion thread

Okay, I’m going to vastly expand on my ideas in the above post, because it doesn’t really seem to follow from anything, and I need to fix that. XCrawl is a funny beast. It’s both a cultural phenomenon and also a massively useful political tool, and also a source of people who are extremely dangerous on a personal level. There are guys in XCrawl who can through personal force of arms take down dozens of normal soldiers. A party of them could spearhead a small military coup.

So, a lot of people are interested in it, and a lot of people want to have influence over it. For that reason, I’m going to go into a typology of the players in the XCrawl world, which hopefully will be inspirational to you.

XCrawl: The Players

1. Adventuring Teams: Also known as parties, or athletes. These are the PCs. Each team has a name, must be registered, may have an agent or a publicist, etc. They may have endorsement deals or sponsors, they may parley their success into non-XCrawl jobs such as shilling cream cheese and canned soup, or more…exciting work. Low-level XCrawlers will probably have to have real jobs, and for them XCrawl is mostly just a ridiculously dangerous hobby. High-level teams May well make enough money from their winnings and endorsements that they can just train or do whatever in the off-season. XCrawl adventuring teams can often end up with personal animosity (rather than merely professional opposition) toward the DJs.

I’d also be interested in seeing adventurers getting involved with politics like Ken Dryden that ran for the liberal party leadership. Xcrawlers are also probably like movie starts are look at all the stuff they get mixed up in. Tom Cruise? Arnold Schwarzenegger aka The Govonator? That NRA guy? Charlton Heston? Chuck Norris using Chuck Norris Facts to help a friend’s political campaign?

2. The DJs: These are the opposite sides of the coin from the Adventurers. To become a DJ requires a lot of things. You have to have both a carefully crafted public persona to display to the fans and media types. You have to be quick-witted and able to improvise on the fly. You have to have an artistic directorial sense, to make sure your crawls are something people want to see. You have to be a broadly capable administrator, able to handle everything from monsters going rogue and eating the audience, to making sure monsters don’t go rogue, to dealing with unions and teamsters and logistics and the financial end of running a crawl.

DJs have to be able to design a satisfyingly watchable and appropriately dangerous dungeon that will pass Referee inspection, get prize support and sponsorships, get a “slot” for it to fit into, cut deals with broadcasters and/or pay-per-view, stock the dungeon with monsters and traps (which is infinitely more complex than it sounds, with ritualists, wranglers, and others required), and…the list just keeps on going. Oh yeah, and you have to build a personal rapport with a fanbase, so that the networks and sponsors consider you to be a draw.

And then the Adventurers come in and wreck your shit, and you have to pay them for the privilege of killing off your expensive monsters and blowing your traps to smithereens (There was a way to disarm that! All they had to do was go up and solve the little puzzle and it would have stopped shooting at them! Now you have to buy another one, and it was expensive!) Fortunately, you are allowed to (try to) kill them. To some extent, it’s even good for your rep.

Man, I would have rather had more pages of stuff like this then all that background on the world before the historical collapse of everything. Again DJs are one of the best ideas in XCrawl and they are rather original and distinctive, so I didn’t feel comfortable stealing them for my setting. Make sure to play these guys up. Each one should have a distinctive style and personality. I don’t mean dramatic themes all undead, all the time for DJ Necropolis (though that is an option) but things like one DJ doing historical themes (The tower of London, The pyramids, the French Resistance during WWII), another likeing placing his crawls on converted ships. You can vary things up stylistically: One DJ might like a crude feel for his crawls, all cinderblock, sheet metal and plywood. Like a paintball arena but more solidly built. Another would make his dungeons with as little modern technology as possible so that it exactly resembles something out of D&D. This is one of the aspects I’d like about XCrawl is you can have each dungeon totally different without any justification needed. No I don’t like that just because I can steal maps & dungeons from lots of different games…though it is an upside. I should write up my Televised Dungeon Crawling setting for SF so I can have space stations, underwater complexes, Warhammer 40K style hulks on which the XCrawlers are dropped on one part and must simply survive and get to the ship waiting to pick them up. The sky is the limit: Push it.

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The Wyzard
Re: Do you mind if I mirror your posts?

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Sorry it took so long to get this up, I was bogged down in exams. The next part shouldn’t take QUITE so long.

Anyway until next time: Stay Geeky!

Using the DMG2 boon/magic item replacement system. This is for party level 1, and of course should be tailored to the party; I’m just going through the thought exercise.

The guidelines substitute inherent bonuses for magic items; you’re supposed to drop the highest and lowest level magic items for each level. There’s also some discussion of modifying gold income, since players need to make as many magic items, but I’ll revisit that after I figure out training costs. (It’s Greyhawk. You’re going to need to pay for training to go up a level.)

I don’t want to eliminate magic weapons and armor, because again, it’s Greyhawk. So magic weapons and armor will just carry properties and dailies. No plusses. I’ll have them scale automatically with the wielder’s level, which does mean that the longsword someone picks up early on may be with them all the way to level 30.

No Transfer Enchantment rituals. No residuum. The magic item component rules also seem good here, although I won’t use them in the level 1 parcels.

Magic Items

Gauntlets of the Half-Giant

Power (At-Will): Standard Action. Strength + 2 vs. AC; ranged 6/12; you throw an object 30 lb. or less; 2d6 + Strength modifier damage.
Power (Encounter): Free Action. Use this power when you hit with a melee attack. Add a +2 power bonus to the damage roll.

These gauntlets were created by a hedge mage who was not quite powerful enough to make Gauntlets of Ogre Strength.

Chillpoint (Longsword)

Critical: +1d6 cold damage
Power (At-Will • Cold): Free Action. All damage dealt by this weapon is cold damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.
Power (Daily • Cold): Free Action. Use this power when you hit with the weapon. The target takes 1d8 cold damage and is slowed until the end of your next turn.

Chillpoint was carried by Baron Kenle two hundred years ago; it was a mundane longsword until he single-handedly slew a wight who was menacing his tiny village. His prayers to St. Cuthbert lent power to his arm, and to his blade: when he withdrew it from the undead thing, he found that it took on some of the cold of the grave.

Sandals of Celene

Power (Daily • Teleportation): When you fall, instead teleport safely to the nearest horizontal surface within 5 squares that can support your weight, take no falling damage, and land on your feet.

Sandals of Celene are always crafted in the legendary kingdom of the grey elves; from time to time, as a mark of their favor, a pair will be granted to the noblest of youths outside the kingdom.

Other Parcels

Two potions of healing + 100 gp
Two 50 gp tanzanites + 80 gp
One potion of fire resistance + 70 gp
One 100 gp opal + 200 sp
50 gp + 100 sp
400 sp

Picking up from where we left off  . . .

Ches 13^th (About 4 p.m.)

The PCs are enjoying a rest in the Slippery Stone Inn. People are just calling it a day, and the tavern is filling up. Farmers, laborers, and fishermen discuss the strange nova that lit up the sky only two weeks ago. People are still discussing if it is an ill or fortuitous omen. Others focus on the fact that 4 respected fishermen have gone missing . . . a number of rumors swirl about this issue – who killed who and why, for example.  The players enjoyed this a bit, I think. It allowed them a moment to enjoy their roles as the fishermen who died, and it was fun to see that the town had the stories completely wrong.

After soaking up the ambience for a bit, and letting the PCs do their thing the door bursts open and in walks Sherriff Anders trying to calm down the old grizzled halfling, Jorek, and the lean, wiry, gap-toothed farmer, Hal Blue. Apparently, a bunch of Jorek’s employees (he is a junker) have gone missing. He’s demanding that the sheriff send out some guards to find them, or at least their bodies. The loud old halfling is convinced that some witch named Morgana is to blame. Meanwhile, Hal Blue is telling the sheriff about the sheep he keeps losing, and how he needs a few guards to watch his property south of town.

Sheriff Anders hears them out, before opting to help the halfling; he condones his choice because of the recent missing fisherman and the fact halfling lives are more valuable than sheep (not quite according to Hal). The whole discussion about missing halflings gets the inn riled up, but the sheriff tells them to keep calm. He will send some men out and figure out what’s going on soon enough.

The PCs take the initiative to talk to Hal about his missing sheep. Ankhegs.

_________________________________

After some wheedling (Damien had to beg his boss to get leave) the PCs follow old man Blue out to his farm house about 4 hours south of town. They tell some dirty jokes, enjoy a home cooked meal, and Hal shows them the corpse of an Ankheg dead in his barn.

Frost investigates the corpse and notices that some residuum is boiling up off of its carapace.

Eventually the PCs work out the following plan:

- Pip will dress up like a sheep and hang out down below to get the drop on any of the bugs.

- The remaining 3 will watch from the hilltop.

—-

After a bit the Ankhegs (1 Momma and 4 broodlings) popped up. The Ankheg’s acid spray was fairly damaging, but the PCs focused their attention on it and were able to scare it off. It burrowed into the soil and began bolting to the southwest. This started a skill challenge.  One fun thing of note here was that this encounter also had a hazard – Sheep run Amok – in which the panicked sheep zipped about knocking PCs prone and trampling them. Great fun.

The skill challenge entailed the PCs bounding over earth to keep up with the rapidly retreating Ankheg. They beat the challenge handily, and as the ankheg rose before its lair, Damien was at the ready splitting it from mandible to tail as it emerged.

—-

The PCs next entered into the lair that ankheg was bolting for. From within they noticed two things: a glowing rock (the color of the fallen star) and the screaming pleas for help from a robed half-elf. The half-elf, dressed in the garb of War Wizard apprentice, appeared to have a broken ankle and was feverish . . . he was also cornered by 4 cave rats.

Frost took the initiative and raced to rescue the scholar; the other 3 investigated the rock. A keen perception check by Kettenbar revealed papa ankheg waiting to burst up through the cavern floor. Robbed of its surprise round, the ankheg still attacked and began a long and bloody battle with the PCs.

Kettenbar took the brunt of the damage, but managed to barely hang on to consciousness. Frost dealt with the cave rats, and the scholar, Caldinor (he was more interested in the rock than his infected wounds).  The battle waged viciously until, Pip leapt atop the ankheg and drove his short sword through the beast’s spine.

We left there.

In a fantasy role-playing games sometimes a character finds himself on top of another creature in battle. In my Second Edition days, I had characters that jousted from horses and dragons, and even once fought some sea monsters whilst atop a dolphin. Each 2e sourcebook had some complicated set of rules for the mounts of its worlds. Things got better in 3E with a standardized set of rules for movement, but there was still built-in support for mounted combat and specialized encounters like jousting.

In 4th Edition, I wouldn’t know where to tell where you where are the mounted combat rules in 4e, if they exist at all. Of course, it matters less now that size and height differences aren’t factors in combat.

In my game, we had a situation a few weeks ago where there were some enemies wanting to escape on griffon-back. In course of the session it mattered what kind of an action getting on or off a mount is; is it a standard, minor, or move? Can it be done as part of a move action? Can a dazed, stunned, or slowed character effectively mount? Then there was the situation of trying to get a mount to throw its rider…

I think the 4e designers purposely hid these rules. Mounts in d&d are complicated affairs, and are only effective out of doors (horses are ridiculous in a dungeon) and when everyone in the party has one. I think they would be fun occasionally for an encounter, but as much as some unique terrain piece.

I guess my questions to the group are: (a) are there official mounted combat rules, and if so (b) where are they? And (c) have you effectively used mounts in or out of combat in a 4e game? Do people still have “horseman” as a character identity/trait or do we assume they are all proficient riders that only get on a horse between adventures, if at all?

Today, the last official member of the group (though we may gain a 5^th) . . .

Also, tomorrow I will post a recap of our first session, then in short order I will post some Warhammer Fantasy RPG stuff, and, perhaps, I may let people in on my idea for the New Year.

Anyways, without further ado I give you

Kardis ‘Frost’ Vec

Windsoul Genasi Swordmage (Aegis of Shielding)

Nature: Perfectionist / Demeanor: Penitent

Campaign Hook: Blood Money (gained DURABLE feat)

Frost has been in Maloren’s Rest longer than the other PCs – 2 years. His time here has been spent living the quiet life of the blacksmith’s apprentice. Despite being the soul genasi in the backwater village, people tend think of Frost as a stoic and diligent. He spends a little bit of time each week with the smithy and his wife, the rest of the time is often spent practicing his swordsmanship or pining after Gemma, the young proprietor of the Slippery Stone Inn.

Frost initially came to the Maloren’s Rest to escape a life of gladiatorial fighting in Hillsfar. There he dueled under the patronage of one Jorgen Fell, a pompous ass. But, also the greatest swordsman Frost has ever seen . . . also the swordsman who killed his father in a duel. Frost cannot settle for second-place; he constantly pushes himself to be the best, a struggle that constantly opposes his desire for peace and solitude as well. Frost is a man of mixed emotions, one full of ambition, the other full of regret for not killing the man who killed his father. The latter emotion he hopes one day he can quell by spilling Fell’s blood with his blade.

Connections to Other Characters:

Has caught Pip cheating at dice, cannot trust him.

Is impressed with Damien’s knowledge and skill with the blade.

*ACHIEVEMENTS*

MVPs: 0

Kills: 4

Titles: More than One (Has killed more than one opponent in a single round: 2)

CHARACTER SHEET –>Frost

viking flair

On Monday, I presented part 1 of my vacation report about gathering ideas for D&D from traveling around the world. Today I’ll finish off by describing some ideas I had about tricking out characters with medieval pieces of flair.

Weapons
Before parts standardization, weapons were hand-made and unique. I saw several museums with wall upon wall of swords, halberds, and the like. Each weapon was unique in size, shape, and decoration. If you’re going to put in the amount of time and money it took to make a weapon that would survive hundreds of years of museum quality, you might as well have it nicely decorated. In-game, once weapons reach masterwork quality, they should have a little unique design; if your character was the one to comission it, you get some say in the matter. A character can show his humor or devotion by the decoration on his arms and armor.

Characters can also carry around small amount of wealth embedded in the hilt, pommel, and scabbard of a sword. Decorative art (aka, generic treasure) isn’t limited to brooches, figurines, and goblets: it can also be weapons and armor that are too fancy to be functional. The real crowns, bowls, goblets, scepters, swords, etc. owned by the medieval kings seem to have a gaudy big jewels haphazardly shoved on  like a kindergarten art project.  I imagine the most powerful rulers in the d&d world probably have astral-diamond studded crowns. By the time your character works up to magic items he’s pretty much guaranteed to have a little bit of gilt. For magic items decorations could  double as a hint to its functionality: snow flakes for frost effects, divine symbols for radiant or necrotic, or a serpent for handle on a poisonous dagger.

In London I found out that Henry VIII had more firearms than wives. He wad a fanatical collector of early cannons, guns, sword-guns, and mace-guns. In his collection you can see the evolution and experimentation in the early days of firearms as the engineers and artists tried to make gunpowder work on the battlefield. Looking an actual arquebus makes me wonder if the d&d stats should have a had a higher misfire rate. I bet its wielders died more often from a sword-gun or mace-gun than its targets; but it must have been exciting for them at the time.  Just as in the real world some people are early adopters of technology, in d&d some characters should be the type to jump to the newest thing, be it weapons, transportation, or spells. This kind of character may adopt a new “main” power at each level, or start using the newest piece of treasure, letting his trusty waraxe gather dust in the handy haversack.

16th C hand mortar

Of Kings and Servants

Another way to trick out your character is with lackeys, servants, and sycophants. In order to go adventuring, you need lots of gold for equipment. Since labor is way cheap, it’s not unreasonable to think that player characters could support a few characters’ yearly wages from their earnings. I couldn’t find good 4e rules for hiring servants, but as they wouldn’t really have any in-game effect, they are probably free. If your character has the least bit of noble blood or the desire to join their ranks, she should get some personal staff. A good start would be to have valet and cook, and you probably want a someone to oversee the running of your estate. From there you can pick up any Victorian era-set novel to see what else you need: a gameskeeper, butler, chauffeur, constable, etc. The rules make it quite cumbersome to take non-PC friends adventuring so let’s assume for argument that you have a way of storing these guys when you’re not actively adventuring, so you probably own a manor or keep.

For time advice, see today’s Dungeon’s Master repost on +1 swords.

Continuing on with the characters of my 4e Forgotten Realms campaign . . .

Kettenbar

Human Hybrid Cleric/Shaman

Nature: Caretaker / Demeanor: Rogue

Campaign Hook: Spelltouched (Gain the STUDENT OF THE PLAGUE feat)

Kettenbar was always a little different, while his father, mother, and brothers toiled away in for a noble in eastern Cormyr, Kettenbar scampered about the forests, snuck into the noble’s study, and pestered the local priests. However, his true difference came out the one night Kettenbar didn’t return from his forest wanderings. His father, always quick to tan his hide, stormed off into the woods hollering for Kettenbar to get his ass home. When he was finally found, Kettenbar’s eyes glowed with wild blue flames . . . a clear indication of the spellplague.

The young man was tossed from his home with nary a word from his father, and even worse, without any support from his mom, the one who seemed to nurture his interests. Kettenbar crossed the country doing odd jobs, eventually meeting Pip on his way out of Wheloon. On the halfling’s advice, the priest/shaman made his way to Maloren’s Rest. Here he does odd jobs for the ranchers surrounding town. This is just to bide time until he can find out where he really fits in.

Character Sheet –>Kettenbar

*ACHIEVEMENTS*

MVPs: 0

Kills: 2

Titles: None

A month ago I set this blog to autopilot while I was on holiday in England and France.  Traveling always fills my head up ideas for adventures and characters.  I’ve mostly visited “exotic” places within the U.S., which provides fodder for interesting adventures, but with a distinctly American theme. Going to London and Paris was like visiting the source material for the PHB.  Those cities have all the basics: knights, castles, kings, royal jewels, priests, grand cathedrals, etc. Most of the gaming inspiration I found was best suited for campaign or adventure ideas, but I want to focus on player aspects where I can.

Locations

Tower of London

Hundreds of years of wars between England and France meant a pretty steady advance of military technology for attack and defense. Both London and Paris’ main castle/royal residence started out a tall tower with guard wall, which slowly expanded over time. Years of modifications to monumental structures leave interesting architecture for fights (think bridges, stairs, ledges, and corners) as well as passages long ago forgotten. Castle building is expensive and therefore generally unpopular with the peasants, but the kings and queens who build great castles and palaces are among the best remembered and the most accomplished. It’s important to think about where a character grew up.  Whether on a remote settlement or major city, it seems like everywhere was pretty much under the threat of attack, so growing up inside versus outside the walls probably had an affect on a person’s outlook on life.

Culture

The culture of middle ages Europe was different than it was now. There was huge emphasis put on the church. Think of the sheer number of churches, plus their grand scale and opulence combined with how even the secular-powered kings were concerned with their souls and afterlife. Knightly orders had religious underpinnings and often met in churches, with their own reserved rows and altars. Even peasants were expected to live according to church customs. Art and relics traveled across the land to those who could not go on pilgrimage to visit them in their home churches.

Rose Window from Notre Dame

The D&D world is filled with a whole pantheon of gods that have the ability to directly influence the world, but in my experience only the Cleric character has any sense of religion. Players should think about their character’s view of the gods. Did she grow-up religious: going to the temples every week or was she dragged along against her will on pilgrimage by her parents. Does he have a healthy superstition, thinking any unexplained action is the “will of the gods”? Or does he blame Pelor for the conditions that sent him adventuring in the first place. Maybe your character worships the main gods in a non-traditional way, other gods or no gods at all and is persecuted for it, or at least is uncomfortable that everyone just assumes he worships as they do. Customs and beliefs in a fantasy world  is probably not that different than the superstitions of the medieval Europeans.

Knighthood & Chivalry

Both the English and French had several different orders of knighthood. The most prestigious were mainly made up of the King and his relatives, but it is possible for a knight (who in those days was already a noble) to distinguish himself and earn entry in a prestigious orders. Perhaps your character is a member of an order and has taken vows to uphold a certain way of life. Or he has had a knighood thrust upon him by birth that he wants no part of but is afraid to shame the family. Or he is aspiring to be a part of a particular order, perhaps to be in the inner circle of friends of the King.  In 4e, the knight isn’t a class type, so it’s possible to think of most class types permitted in a general order of knights, or having their own order (e.g., Wizards of the Rose, the Warlords of the Misty Mountains, etc).

Treasure

Wandering around the great churches and palaces helps give a sense of spatial and historical context to the age, but so much the stuff that inspires the arcane side of d&d can be found in the great museums. There are items that were already old and had years of legend around them by the middle ages: crowns and swords of the early post-Roman kings, relics from the Saints of early Christianity, etc. By the time wealth started ramping up after the crusades, these items were re-branded with additional gold and jewels. Looking at fancy, 600 year old jewel-encrusted scepter surrounded by history and legend, it takes imagination not to believe that the item holds real magical power. Combine its appearance with the fact that people back then actually believed that certain items had healing or luck powers, or it could be used for direct communication with God, and you get a true sense of wonder.

Crown jewels and reqliquaries with their gold and jewels are the inspiration for many aritifacts and wonderous items listed in the PHB and DMG. A player should not only think about an item’s appearance, powers, and history (including who most recently owned it), but also how NPCs react to its presence. If the GM hasn’t come up with a lot of history for it, feel free to make some up and share it with her. Is its description well known from legends? Does its appearance fit well with your character’s? People may assume you a king from another country or perhaps have stolen the item if it looks to good for you to own. Does the item have religious significance? Will people want to rub it for good luck, or banish you from their town to avoid the wrath of an angry god? Do your items inspire jealousy from other characters (or do you secretly covet another’s)? Does a magical ring start a desire to collect as many different ones that you can, even if you have no intention of using them. How do you store them?

There’s a lot to think about even the simplest item. Fancy items in the old days showed off how rich and powerful you were by giving them away (more so than simply owning them). Kings would give each other fancy crowns and jewels to show off their own wealth. A king could honor a knight or servant with coins, jewelery or gifts. If your character preforms good service, he could expect a token inscribed with the royal arms or visage. If you play in a campaign where you get to choose your own items, instead of founding it in an old tomb, it is a gift from the local lord.

If you’re going to make your own magical items, do think about how they look and and fit into the art and culture around you.

On Wednesday I’ll have more thoughts from my travels, concerning various people and arms & armor.

Continuing on with the characters in my new 4e Forgotten Realms campaign . . .

Damien

Human Assassin

Nature: Deviant / Demeanor: Thrill-Seeker

Campaign Hook: Reckless Youth (Gained ACTION SURGE feat)

Damien grew up on the mean streets of Westgate with his brother, Esteban. After a few years of petty theft, the boys fell in with the much more organized, much more criminal Fire Knives. Initially, things went very well. Esteban had the charm and grace to bring the Fire Knives coin in a variety of ways; meanwhile, Damien’s athletic prowess and skill with a blade found him job after job.

Damien quickly realized that his jobs were getting increasingly difficult and intensive, and yet he was still pulling them off with a hitch. The success went to his head. It was not long before he began questioning, aloud, his belief that his skills were being wasted in the lower rungs of the guild. Where was the coin he deserved? The respect?

The Fire Knives have too much at stake to sit idly by and let dissenters exist. The guild quickly setup the brothers on a job that was a trap. The duo spent the night in the city jail, getting beat by the local constabulary . . . who were on the guild coin. In the morning they were let free, but Damien refused to report back to the Guild.

They put a hit out on him . . . he fled the town, forced to leave his brother behind.

Damien has been in town roughly 5 months. He’s landed a job tending bar, cleaning house, and repairing things as needed at the Slippery Stone Inn. He is generally well-liked, but his fascination with knives puts more than one townsfolk ill at ease.

Connections to Others:

PIP – Damien thinks he and Pip are somewhat kindred souls. They both tend bar, they’ve both muddied pasts, and so on. However, he doesn’t quite like Pip’s flippant attitude. What’s important to the halfling?

KETTENBAR – They’ve not said two words to each other.

FROST – He enjoys the genasi. They are both warriors and know their way around a weapon.

*GM NOTES*

The quietest member of the group . . . good hooks.

*ACHIEVEMENTS*

MVPs: 0

KILLS: 3

TITLES: 1

Delivering the Hurt! (Campaign’s most damage in a single attack: 20)

CHARACTER SHEET –> Damien

I have an occasional Dungeons and Dragons game that meets about once a month.  My vision for this game has changed since we started last spring, mostly because half the players dropped out (D&D wasn’t for them).  After a few unstable player months, we played again last night to continue the adventure in Dragora’s Dungeon.  There will be some module spoilers below.

The first order of business was to integrate the two pairs of characters.  I suggested that the two newbies build in their connection somehow and they agreed.  It was a relatively simple to have them run across each other in the module’s underground dungeon swamp.

This was essentially the second session working through the module.  Since the group only meets occasionally, I decided to really try to focus.  I had originally intended to include one more significant swamp encounter, but really, the point of this module is the adventure in the lost city of intelligent apes known as the Zain-Kin.

This brings me to something all dungeon masters should keep in mind:  always be clear on the purpose of the campaign components, the adventure and the encounter.  As your game evolves, the purpose may shift, but you need to begin with some clarity on the key components, then you can update as needed.

In last night’s case, I decided to focus on getting the player characters into the lost city without excessive railroading.  The first encounter began when the party’s seeker (a controller class) triggered a pit trap filled with swarming snakes.  This was simple enough, and the real purpose was to give the players a bit of a warm up.   Two of them were playing new characters, and the group had never fought together before.  With his low hit points, the seeker dropped into the single digits rather quickly – leading the shaman healer to have a fun ‘you need to tell me if you need heals’ moment.

After some exploration and an extended rest, the group came out above the lost city.  And were harassed by little drakes.  Here came a decision point for the PCs:  would they kill the little flying lizards, or would they endure?  The dwarven fighter is not the enduring kind, and battle ensued.  Again, this was an easy battle.  I could have increased the challenge by adding drakes or upping their level, but I decided against it.  The purpose of the session was to  contact the Zain-Kin, and the purpose of the encounter was to make them decide how they would enter the city.  They did not enter the city quietly.

After the battle, and after their descent, they were met by a troop of armor wearing, Tiamat worshiping, ape man Zain-Kin.  Objective achieved!

Negotiations began well enough:  the group was generally willing to go with the apes, but when they tried to separate the warlock from the rest, things broke down.

While it would have been a blast to play that fight, time expired, so we ended on a cliffhanger.  This brings two advantages: 1)  it will be easy to pick up next time by rolling initiative and 2) I’ll have time to really optimize this encounter.  To optimize this encounter, first I need to determine its true purpose…

Robilar, Marshal of the Bright Lands

Just fiddling around for Greyhawk 4e purposes; thought I’d share.

In the effort of maintaining a more consistent level of blogging, I wanted to show you the fruits of my pre-campaign gaming session. The players and I spent about an hour or so going through the questions at the back of my campaign brief and these are the characters it spawned.

First up the pint-sized . . .

Pip

Halfling Rogue

Nature: Thrill-Seeker / Demeanor: Bon Vivant

Campaign Hook: Ex-Con (Gained GRIM PROMISE feat)

Pip’s lived a wayward life. He believes only in good women, good gold, and, most importantly, good luck.  The latter has failed him over the past year or so starting with his first internment. A wealthy Sembian merchant, one Malcolm Drake, proved too clever for the halfling and caught him stealing.

The merchant must have had some pull because Pip was sent to the prison city of Wheloon.  However, he did manage to escape (he hasn’t said how yet . . .) and made his way out to the Cormyrian frontier to. Here he helps his Uncle Shelby run the Fisherman’s Tale.

Pip has made passing friends with a variety of people in town, including a halfling prostitute who is madly in love with him. However, his heart belongs to another . . . a lass back home in the Sembian city which he dare not return to.

Connections to Others:

FROST – Not a big fan . . . just thinks the genasi is a bit ‘too’ quiet.

DAMIEN – Likes to joke with him a bit, but doesn’t by the whole ‘emo’ thing he’s got going on.

KETTENBAR – Can already tell he is going to be a bit of an arse.

*GM NOTES*

Going to be a fun character . . . in first session alone, he dressed up like a sheep and jumped on the back of an ankheg.

*ACHIEVEMENTS*

MVPs: 0

KILLS: 0

TITLES: 0

(This area is just for fun mini-game stuff inside the normal game).

CHARACTER SHEET Pip, Halfling Rogue

So on this past Thursday, I started my 2^nd 4e campaign (Star Fall). Set on the western frontier of Cormyr (Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting), the campaign kicks off in the following way . . .

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Prologue: The Last Game of Dice

To start this campaign I had the PCs assume the role of 4 NPCs. They played four fishermen who’d traveled north and camped out overnight in hopes of getting some good fishing in the following morning. Each player was given a motivation and some background info. The PCs then played some pirate’s dice while letting those motivations fueled the roleplaying.  For the most part people did really well: the drunk harassed the man with liquor non-stop, the man with liquor needed to win because he was trying to put his daughter through bard school, the aspiring politician convinced the young grifter to join the militia . . . I awarded roleplay points based on how well the players bought into the motivation. I’ll post my idea of roleplay points soon, but really it is just a riff off of Wyatt’s drama port riff . . .

Once things got heated and players began arguing about who won what, I read the following text aloud . . . Suddenly your campsite is lit up in a blue-green glow. A roar, like the cackles of a house aflame, pulls your gaze skyward. There amongst the million lights of space, a star, a comet is falling. Big as the sun at noon the colorful, fiery orb treks across the sky leaving a brilliant wake. It seems no higher than the trees and after a long moment seems to fade into the north, the swampy birch trees blocking your view. Before you’ve even had a moment to catch your breath, a large splashing noise comes from the north. . . . It couldn’t have been that close, right? Only a hundred yards away?  What do you do?

Well, one of the PCs ran away,  the other 3 tentatively made their way towards the splashing noise. There they found a beautiful, nude woman . . . who’s eyes flared with wild blue flames . . . she kept screaming some word they couldn’t understand over and over again . . . then blew one of their heads off and melted the other two.

By this time, the one who’d run away had become overrun with guilt and arrived back on the scene just in time to see this witchy woman’s massacre of his friends. He bolts off into the dark woods again, huffing, and puffing. Up ahead in the distance he sees a campfire. He shouts out.

And then falls to the forest ground as a crossbow bolt pierces his throat. His last image of the world is two cloaked figures striding out from the campfire and leaning over him. One plucks out the bolt, his breath reeking of whiskey, and says, “Damn, the old witch was right about the starfall. Does that mean we will find the book here too?”

The second says, “These are secrets even Shar herself wouldn’t know. But shut the hell up anways, that starfall is are signal to get to work.”

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Anyways, I will do another post soon. All of that was before the group even got control of their own characters . . . this coupled with our hour long character building session a week ago really heightened that this 4e campaign is going to be roleplaying intensive, and I am glad the players seem to be buying into it.

One of my favorite parts in any adventure movie is the part where the hero has to team up with his or her enemies to recover an artifact or save an ally. For example, in Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Holy Grail Indy helps the Nazis go through the trap filled mountain to recover the grail. In these movies, the hero gets into this situation because (a) he’s stupid. This is denoted by you shouting at the screen for him to not help them and keep the artifact hidden (he can always go back for it later), Or, (b) he is pressured because they are holding a loved one hostage.  Sometimes the hero has half the map and the enemy the other half, but then it’s usually better for no one to have it than risk it fall into the bad guys’ hands.

There are fewer movies with this situation where a whole group teams up with the enemy (i.e. a party of autonomous characters).   For this type of scene to work well it’s best if all the players are motivated to get along with the bad guys.  Only holding one family member hostage works if the characters share a background where they would care about one person’s mom, or they have become such good friends that they would risk giving a powerful artifact to an evil warlord just to save her. Kidnapping everyone’s moms would be tough to do without being too contrived. A player can make this scene work with an open mind about your character’s background so it can be worked in. For instance, if the evil warlord has captured the ranger’s mother, maybe the same warlord also muscled your character’s family off his ancestral farm, or burned his village. Maybe there’s nothing about the villian other than you’d hate see the Diadem of Icarus fall into the hands of a dwarf; yet you’d hate to see the entire Dwarven civilization die out because you failed to help (you are a hero, after all). Having a strong motivation to dislike but also work with the villain allows you stay engaged without just rushing to kill him.

Once you get going, it’s your character’s duty to be on the lookout for ways out the situation. You are a prisoner to his evil plans.  Try implementing a plan to rescue the mother so your opponent no longer has any leverage, or come up with a way to neutralize or disable artifact once you reach it. If you have important information for finding or using the artifact, withhold it as long as possible, even if that means bluffing that you have more. Once you no longer have any use, you and your mom are toast. You can try to get your own leverage by using your allies to capture his mom.

Once you reach the artifact, you need to have plan to rescue it from the villain. It helps to have a side meetings with the artifact’s ancient and Secret Order of Guardians. That way they can show up at the last possible moment and turn the tide in your favor through valiant sacrifice. Be prepared for an epic boss battle: have potions, scrolls, and daily power ready for use. Hopefully, you’ve had some time to get know you opponents and have discovered something to your advantage, like they are afraid of spiders or take 5 turns to recharge their breath weapon. If you’ve managed to work together in a combat before-hand, I hope you took good notes.

Once you’ve won the day, make sure all your party-mates are on the same page about being gracious about it. The best possible situation is to turn the villain around around as he sacrifices himself and the artifact to save all of humanity (and elvendom, dwarfdom, etc).  If you’re not on the same page about the villain’s fate I’ll explore that in a future post, but make sure that if the artifact leaves its ancient temple it’s in one of your hand and not the enemies. Otherwise the DM has the next 10 adventures planned of you going after it and cleaning up your mess.

Cause the old post is a long way away…

Rich Baker did a live chat on the new Dark Sun today. Lots of interesting info, some of which speaks to our questions!

Most importantly: “Preserving is the default. If you just cast a spell and don’t say anything, you’re assumed to preserve. However all arcane characters have a new Defiling at-will power, which you can use when you use daily powers, at the cost of hurting your allies (and killing plants, of course).”

That’s very cool. Bonus damage available at a real price.

Also cool: no divine power. The divine power source doesn’t work there, cause no gods. That is a big change to 4e world design philosophy, and a good one.

Well, Gamer Bling finally did it. He finally pried his fellow Charlotte gamers away from 3e just barely long enough long enough to get them at least to try 4e. And with much enthusiasm (Jason), trepidation (Chris), accomodation (Chandler), and grousing (Mark), they tried it.

Basically, we just whipped up some characters and fought a couple encounters from the cheapo micro-dungeon crawl from the back of the DMG. “Skip the role-playing, let’s see how the rules work.”

Naturally, since 4e helpfully lays out the four basic PC roles to help in forming a balanced party—said roles being leader, striker, controller and defender—we ended up with a party consisting of two leaders and two strikers, most of whom had focused on healing. (Lack of healing has been a problem with our earlier teams, as evidenced primarily by Larz “I was a teenaged pincushion” Sangar.) This meant that the team had no front-line tanks and no AOE blasters.

And you know what?

We had fun anyway.

A lot of fun, actually.

Combat was much more dynamic than 3e, which often resembled taking two orbital sanders and mashing them together. After all, 3e is primarily a Gauntlet-like grinder of damage vs. durability. “Elf needs hit points badly.”

The kobolds, which in 3e are generally considered cannon fodder, ganged up on one character and, using the synchronicity of their powers—once Gamer Bling snapped to how they fit together—took down one of the PCs from healthy to dying in one round.

On the other side of the battle, one of the blasters aimed at a kobold that was behind cover and blasted him sideways out into the open, whereupon he was much more susceptible to the PCs’ ranged attacks.

So all agreed to play 4e. And Gamer Bling will, with great alacrity and cleverness, skewer all the denigrations that 4e has suffered since its launch. The latest of which is the unfortunate laying off of Rob Heinsoo, whom Gamer Bling considers to be one of the nicest and least pretentious guys in gaming.

On the reviews front, Gamer Bling has updated the Map Packs review with new entries at the end of the list.

A Christmas card

Christmas Word and definition matching & listening exercises (6 pages)

The snowman –story/song cloze activity

Thank you Mrs Guinan

In a recent Wizards’ blog, Peter gives an insight into the R&D of magic items. He says:

The achievement of this design goal makes the discovery of a magic item often a prosaic event: unless it’s a piece of the character-building puzzle you’d been seeking (in which case you probably already knew how you would get it), it’s not that exciting.

Translated by me… “magic items are intentionally boring.” Peter himself says that the items that they can publish (ones that don’t break the game) don’t feel magical and that they’re’s nothing that they can do about it.

This the same problem I had with Chatty DM’s post on 4e economy which is on the side of allowing players to just choose their items….

Where’s the magic?

Now that I’ve finally be able to put words to my discomfort, this is the first time I’ve really felt let down about 4th edition. The reason why I enjoy the fantasy setting is for the wonderment and magic (if I just wanted super-powered items I could play a superhero game). There’s something neat about coming up with creative uses for invisibility rings, glowing swords, ice bows, and exploding apples. And I do miss the old days of hunting down powerful wizards to get ahold of their spellbooks.

Peter’s solution to this problem is to have the DM house rule special items or to use artifacts for the cool items. I don’t like the artifact suggestion because I enjoy coolness/uniqueness of an item and not necessarily its powers. Putting the burden on the DM is slightly better because you can tweak the power and fun-factor of item without having to go through too much process. The downside is that this does create a burden for the DM; if she is trying to run a mathematically-balanced campaign, she will need to keep all the party loot in mind when crafting an encounter.

What’s the player to do?

Let’s say you have a Duelist’s Epee +1, a nice but uninteresting weapon? Well you can beef up it interesting factor with fluff:

1. Create a back story. Perhaps it was awarded to great duelist Agamar by Queen Cordelia three centuries ago for winning the grand tournament at the feast of Bahamut. It came into your posession from your father who killed Agamar’s scion in a duel to the death.
2. Add flair. The Epee has a blue ribbon tied around its hilt that snaps in the air when you deliver a quick strike. Perhaps it has red-enameled holster that was a gift from your character’s mother the day he set out adventuring.
3. Add effects. The tip glimmers silvery in the light and whenever you make a critical hit it leaves behind a silver-covered wound. The effects would have to be cool and agreed upon in advance, so they would have no numerical consequences for the game or lasting effects (so much for vorpal).

Another thing you can do is level up your existing magic items. One of the challenges of 4e is coming up with meaningful treasure parcels that suit the characters. Instead of having the DM hand out a 7-level sword in a parcel, convince him to let you level up your 3rd-level sword to the 7th-level version at the appropriate time (plus a monetary treasure worth the sale value of the 3rd-level item). This way you can carry along the item’s back story and fluff throughout the whole campaign.

It would be interesting if there were ability charms one can place on arms an armor. Something like a frost charm that adds the equivalent power of a +1/Frost weapon to an existing weapon (and would stack with its powers). Once again this gives an existing item longer life but allows for some interesting customization and flair. I’d be interested in hearing about any rules that describe how to do this in a balanced way.

Well, for maybe the first time in my brief DMing history, I had the exact same group of people for two weeks in a row. That certainly helps to bring a greater sense of cohesion to the story. I am a fan of that type of gaming set up. Anyway, on to the meat.

Heavy Roleplay

I introduced a heavy amount of non-encounter roleplaying this session. Beginning with the arrival in town and discussion between the party and the gate guard and ending with the characters interacting with the townspeople in the local tavern, the first hour or so of our game session consisted entirely of roleplaying.

I actually had a lot of fun with it at first, but I could tell that it was dragging on for my players before too long. None of us are experienced tabletop RPGers, so I think it was a little uncomfortable for my players. At times they seemed to enjoy the accents and voices that I would do, but at other times they seemed a little put off by the “scene” that I was creating. More than anything else, it just seemed like they had no idea what to do without  map and visuals at which to look.

I think that I need to find a way to ease them into it better. First of all, I will shorten the amount of time that they are required to spend roleplaying. At those times when everyone is just sitting around not knowing what to do, I will have an NPC come and directly engage them in a “leading” conversation. Perhaps for now, roleplaying for this group will basically consist of detective-style roleplaying, where the only times we actually sit down and force the roleplay is when information is needed.

What Was Good

Jed (Carlsberg Torres) seemed to understand immediately that roleplaying can be whatever he wants it to be. He immediately started having fun with his freedom to act out Carlsberg’s personality, ordering some drinks (he wanted to roll to see how many shots his character would do) and then heading to the piano to play some songs. As soon as I mentioned some of the other patrons in the tavern–and that one was a half-elf woman–he decided to go over and get to know her. I must also give credit to Jen (Phillip Rivers) for her wanting there to be a stage (like for karaoke) in the Inn. That was where Carlsberg got the idea to play a song.

Where We Faltered

It wasn’t until Jed started partying that the others began to see the light that there was more to this game than just simply rolling die. However, my other 3 players didn’t ever seem to fully embrace it like Jed did/does.

Even roleplaying in the sense as a plot-driving force for the game did not seem to fully make sense to them. So, I am thinking to re-explain the benefits of roleplaying as a form of detective work; it is the manner of information gathering. At least initially, if they can understand that there is a purpose to roleplaying, then I think they will be open to it (again, as long as it does not take up too much of the game time).

Another thing that made it difficult was that I did not always know how to appropriately convey information. I wanted them to mee tthe cast of characters so I introduced Eilian, Sylvana, and Ninaran in the tavern. They were all intrigued immediately by Ninaran’s sour demeanor and flocked to talk to her. I had decided to make her character very stand-offish (like the module describes her), but this form of response only intrigued them more. We spent a LONG time roleplaying a situation that was just really not going anywhere. They couldn’t grasp that she was unimportant at that time and that she would not offer anything of value to them (again, at that time). I imagine that this was my fault for not finding a way to make that more clear sooner or changing my approach so that she did suddenly become more engaging, because she realized that she could lead them all on a wild goose hunt or something. I don’t know.

“A Ha!” Moment

In the end, the party found lodging and, despite initial failure in talking Sylvana Wrafton into letting them stay there for free, found that saving Korg’s supplies and horses on the road brought an unexpected reward; Sylvana and Korg are good friends, so when Korg entered the Inn, shouting praises of the heroes exploits, the Innkeeper found plenty of motivation to treat the adventurers differently.

Another Kobold Attack

After gathering enough info and getting a rough map from Eilian (the old drunken cogder), the party got a good night’s rest. The next morning they headed off to the Dragon Burial Site to find Douven Staul. A good ways down the road and outside of town, they were once again ambushed by kobolds. These ones seemed pissed and like they wanted revenge for their fallen comrades (the ones that the adventurers had killed on their way to town). The fight went well enough for the PCs, the kobolds never really offering that much of a challenge to the heroes. At one point Periwinkle the Eladrin Swordmage teleported on top of a nearby rock and cut his sword down into the skull of the kobold standing just below him. That seemed to be a highpoint for him on a night when far too many of his rolls just seemed ineffective.

That is all for now. I believe that it will be a little while before we are able to play again, so I may have some bits and tiddles from a different game before the next write-up. Good night.

For a moment I did.

The 4e campaign guide was sitting there under the DMG 2, under the Eberron Campaign Guide . . . just sitting there lonely.

When I first purchased the book (and the companion Player Guide), I was not impressed. While I liked the PG’s swordmage, dark pact, and spellscarred options, the FRCS felt  . . . meh. I’d spent a lot of my 2e career DMing in the Realms, and the 4e version of Faerun felt different just for the sake of being different. I put the book aside and forgot about it . . .

Due to the fact I will be finishing my Master’s degree and seeking a Ph.D., it is likely I am going to be moving again. This fact got me to thinking (like everything does) about RPGs. I’ve got a pretty solid group of guys to game with here. Consistently show up, want to play, and we are all friends aside – I wanted to run one more 1-30 campaign for them, for me, before I rambled on.

But what?

Initially, I had big ideas of a homebrew world full of grit and darkness and house rules . . . but with teaching, working on a thesis, pursuing my fiction, and my small freelance ‘career’, time wasn’t available to do that. Besides, some of my ideas of fun, I think may run contrary to what my players would want . . .

Eberron seemed a viable alternative. I like the pulp-noir feel, I enjoyed the campaign setting, but as I dug into the setting harder than I ever had before, I noticed something that made me shy away from running it. Points. Of. Light.

I really enjoy the 4e points of light concept, of vast swathes of darkness crisscrossing the land. Eberron with its nations and its conspiracies doesn’t encapsulate the feel I am looking for. I wanted a campaign that could feel more rugged, more episodic . . .

Forgotten Realms! I dug through the book again, and for some reason things really popped with me. The spellplague’s created this world that, while depending on it, has to have grown wary of magic. It is war torn with the shades of Netheril leading the way. It is points of light, Anarauch, Damara, Narfell, and just so much uncharted land in general between the cities on the map.  I got so swept up in the Forgotten Realms fever, I skimmed the boards and the wiki, and I whipped up a campaign guide centering on Maloren’s Rest, a small Cormyrian village abutting the Farsea Swamp.

I’ve already posted the campaign guide (a few posts back), and I don’t want to ruin the game. But I will be posting a campaign journal. . .

Really the point of this post is to just say give the Realms one more chance. I feel it gets some bad raps because of the powerful NPCs, but you know what, that’s a DM thing. I for one am looking forward to uncovering ancient Netherese ruins, lots of magic items, and partaking in high adventure across the width and breadth of Faerun once more . . . and here’s a little treat that my player’s can likely look forward to meeting down the road.

(As always a work in progress)

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One other thing I want to mention is NEVERMET PRESS. You can check them out in my blogroll, but the reason I really wanted to mention them is to ‘pimp’ some writing I did with them.

So here is the skinny:

NMP just released the first of the Portrait of a Villain series; this one details the Desire, a seductive woman who uses her wiles and intelligence to rule her criminal empire with an iron hand clothed in a velvet glove.

The PDF is only $9.95 (I’ve got the link for sale to the right) and you get a lot for that. And the great thing about it is that it is full of drop-in and use material; that is to say it is not all linked together, but it is all derived from different designers view concept of the Desire.

Included you will see: (~ = about)

~ 25 new statblocks full of 4e baddies (arguably the most useful 3 party product for 4e, as it is very easy to cut and paste or put into the Monster Builder)

~ 6 new magic items.

1 new paragon path.

A fully developed city. A handful of fully developed organizations. 3 fully developed encounters. A bunch of art and maps . . . a lot of other stuff I’m missing.

So, if you are a DM and you want material that is comprehensive enough to place a whole heroic level arc around look no further. You will not be disappointed.

Overall, I highly recommend it – and heck you’d help feed a rogue, which keeps me off the streets!