A Great Spring to Come!

The next few months have really got some great things in store for 4th Edition.

First off, as you probably already know we’ve finally got Arcane Power coming out, plus Death’s Reach, the first epic level adventure. In May we get Monster Manual 2, and coming up here in April we get the first round of Player’s Handbook Heroes miniatures. I’m sure there’s more, however besides the WotC stuff Goodman Games has just updated their Coming Soon page to include some really appetite whetting stuff.

In April, aside from a couple awesome looking new DCC’s that I WILL be running for my group, we have the first issue of Level Up, which means we finally have a magazine devoted completely to 4th Edition. I am really looking forward to this as it will feature “adventures, character options, new monsters, Azagar’s Advice for Adventurers, and the endearing wisdom of Dear Archmage Abby. All for only $1.99! Look for the first issue at your local store in April.”

In May Goodman Games is dropping Hero’s Handbook: Eladrin, the second of the Hero’s Handbook series, which will give you lots of more crunch and fluff options for your Eladrin pc’s. (Click here to check out Antioch’s review of Hero’s Handbook: Dragonborn.) Also to be released is the PDF for the Amethyst Campaign Setting. This setting is built upon the idea of “What would happen if a fantasy world of dragons, elves, and fairies suddenly appeared in our real world?” It sounds and looks pretty cool and I’ll most likely be grabbing this to check it out. The print edition is being released later in the year at Gen Con.

Also in May we have the second installments for both the Forgotten Heroes and Points of Light series. Forgotten Heroes: Scythe and Shroud will feature death as a new 4E power source – that’s right, death as a power source – and will feature Goodman Games’ versions of the the assassin, deathwarden, necromancer, and spiritsworn. While I have always been a huge fan of modules, and especially GG’s modules, I have never been a big fan of 3pp’s versions of races and classes, but the theme is so cool these will definitely be getting at the very least a playtest at our gaming table. Points of Light II: The Sunrise Sea is a systems-nuetral accessory that hooks you up with four new settings, each extensively detailed and mapped for your D&D games, all in Wilderlands style goodness.

And arriving in June, the month I think I am looking forward to most, will be the Adventures of Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer: Shadows of Mirahan. I can’t begin to describe how freaking cool this looks. Anyone who appreciates Frazetta’s rich history of art and cover work will dig this, especially those who have read the Death Dealer comic. This will include setting details, rules variants, and pre-generated characters. I am already itching to run this for my group.

From Here to There is going to be a collection of “nine travelling adventures” to get you out of the dungeon and on the road. Not much more is revealed in the review but this looks pretty alluring. There are a couple players in our group, myself included, who tire quickly of dungeon crawling when that’s all you’re doing. That is why when we finished Keep on The Shadowfell I recommended we put up a vote to either continue with Thunderspire Labrynth or start Scales of War. So far Scales of War has been a lot of fun. 😉 Though our friend Adrian has been running the WotC adventures (Antioch is one of the players) and they are finishing up Pyramid of Shadows. When they start up King of the Trollhaunt Warrens I will be bringing back my Wizard Kendric whom I played in KotS. Blood Mage paragon path – sweet.

This year has been really good so far regarding D&D and our gaming group. Now, armed with the PH2 and looking ahead to all the goodies coming out for 4th Edition just in the next few months, this year is gonna kick ass!

Preview: Summoning Magic

The latest Arcane Power preview is up, this one (again) concerning summoning magic. We already got a lot of this in one of the Ampersand articles, so to me this just sounds like more of the same. Mostly the article goes into very specific detail about how summoning magic works and tosses us a a couple of powers to digest for the next three weeks until the book hits stores.

Small Characters and Two-Handed Weapons

3rd Edition handled small characters and weapons in a very strange way by giving each weapon its own size category. You could use a weapon your size or smaller in one hand, and a weapon one category larger in two hands. I think that a weapon smaller than your size extra benefits from Two-Weapon Fighting (counting as a “light” weapon, if I recall correctly).

What this meant for small characters was that you couldnt use a greatsword, but you could use a longsword in two hands. Since damage dice scaled with size, it basically amounted to the same thing: a longsword dealt the same damage as a “small greatsword”. Where this didnt make a lot of sense is that it implied that small races just didnt make two-handed weapons at all, but instead made their weapons to a Medium standard. You could argue that a human might very well use a gnome’s greatsword as a longsword, but the weapon proportions would be off and you still didnt have some things like a Small spiked chain.
This lead to a problem where they would pitch in weapon’s like a halfling’s kama and a korobokuru’s lajatang, to account for how a smaller race might go about using an iconic weapon. They were basically just standard weapons reduced by size, but with a longer name.
Revised Edition fixed this to a point by just making one weapon and allowing you to size it however you wanted to. Weapons were categorized by light, one-handed, and two-handed, so if you found a Small greatsword you knew that a gnome would use it in two hands, since it was pegged at two-handed. I liked this change because it made a lot more sense, though it did add in a complication of what size the weapon was in a treasure find. I suppose it made more sense in that you could sort treasure by where the party found it: in a dwarf fortress, most of its probably Medium.

Anyway.

4th Edition handles things a bit differently. There are no more weapon sizes anymore. They come in one-handed or two-handed, and some have the Off Hand or Versatile property. Versatile is important because for Medium characters, you get a +1 damage bonus when using it in two hands. If you are Small, you have to use the weapon in two-hands, but get no damage bonus. Kind of like the whole 3rd Edition weapon-scaling-by-size thing. This isnt a big deal, except when it comes to powers that require you to use a two-handed weapon.
Versatile weapons are lumped into the one-handed category, since you can use them in one hand. By definition, Small characters can take but not actually use those powers since they cannot qualify for using a two-handed weapon, except for the shortbow.
This has lead some to believe that you cannot play an effective barbarian, since most of the at-wills demand a two-handed weapon. An oversight on the part of Wizards? Well, I recall that people were complaining that the barbarian at-wills were too good since they all offer constant bonus damage dice. A rogue with barbarian training could really mess things up with those. Wizards said that they would find a fix, and so they did: rogues cannot use two-handed weapons and benefit from Sneak Attack. The downside? Well, they evidently overlooked the little guys in the process.

The solution to this is simple: just suck it up and let Small characters use those powers in your game. A houserule? Certainly, but I’ve houseruled a lot more and a lot more extensively in other games (I had a houserule document that I would email players before starting new campaigns). This is really a no-brainer, and if you’re going to wait for Wizards to make it all shiny and official, then I feel for you and your group. You can get all up in arms about it, or you can stop making such a big deal out of it and actually go play.

Update: Zombie Plague

Looks like we finally got the update.

Infected victims start out by gaining only half the normal healing before taking persistent necrotic damage each time they don’t improve (it cannot be healed). If you die from the disease, you rise as an infected zombie of your level.

Shaman: Caring for your Spirit

A spirit companion is a class feature of the shaman class. It is a conjuration effect, so in addition to the rules cited under call spirit companion, it also utilizes rules that pertain to the conjuration keyword (PH2, pg 220). Since I’d just started playing one, I wanted to figure out all the mechanical bits that went into it, and realized that others might have similar trouble with it.

It takes a minor action to summon a spirit companion, which appears within 20 squares of you. It lasts until you are dropped, or dismiss it as a minor action. As a conjuration effect, enemies cannot pass through it.

If you take a move action, it can also move up to your Speed. I have houseruled this to allow it to make a shift if you want, as a ranger can with animal companions.

It can only be targeted by melee or ranged attacks. This seems very specific, discounting area bursts and close blast attacks (a ranged attack is not the same as an area burst despite both being ranged). This means that your spirit is effectively immune to a dragon’s breath weapon.
If it takes damage equal to 10 + one-half your level it disappears, but you can summon it again on your next turn. You also take damage equal to 5 + one-half your level. It is otherwise unaffected by the attack. As a conjuration, the spirit uses your Defenses and is not affected by conditions or ongoing damage.
Also if you do not have line of sight to it at the end of your turn, the effect ends.

Unlike most attacks with a conjuration, if you use a power with the Spirit keyword, you draw both line of effect and line of sight from the spirit, not yourself. This is an exception to the normal rule in that you must have line of sight from yourself.

Interview: Bryan Steele of Wraith Recon

Back in October an original, new setting was released written specifically for the 4th edition GSL – Wraith Recon. I found it to be quite an interesting setting as the player characters comprise a Navy S.E.A.L. like recon squad, performing various assignments to protect a free kingdom within a chaotic and dangerous world. I talked with Bryan Steele, author of Wraith Recon, about the new setting.

The world in the setting, Nuera, is described as “a world beset by magic, wars, and mystery,” and the free kingdom in which the pc’s hail from is Dardarrick, can you give us the basic backdrop of the setting…

Dardarrick is the strongest and most influential kingdom on a world that was forged as kind of a god “experiment”, and it was the favoured son so to speak of the father of all the gods. It was the place where mortals waged the most wars and such over its fertile and central territory. Over the centuries Dardarrick suffered a great deal under the yokke of others, only becoming free once they discovered a powerful artefact that gives them magical superiority over their foes. By the time of the written supplements, Dardarrick has risen to the top of the main Nueraen continent’s power structure and is threatened from all sides and within by all manner of enemies.

So where did the initial idea to have a group of player characters as a recon unit stem from?

Well, to tell you the truth, Wraith Recon was born in the mind of the Master Mongoose himself, Matthew Sprange. He sat me down in Las Vegas last year and we started talking about what we wanted out of the project. In less than an hour and a few more emails later, Wraith Recon took shape and the strike teams were formed.

What are the different roles within a Wraith Recon unit? Are they similar to a typical 4th Edition adventuring party?

Absolutely. The game was designed to be perfect for 4th Edition and we wanted anyone familiar with 4E to be able to jump right in.

So if a player has already made a 4E character, she can just drop it into the game?

It takes a little adjustment to make a normal character “Nueraen”, but the main rulebook has a section in it that talks about how to make that happen…so, yes.

How do these roles work as far as executing the various tasks, such as assassinations, reconnaissance, hostage rescue, etc.?

Well, the Wraith Recon Strike Teams are trained and equipped by Spellcaster Command, their resource management headquarters of sorts. SpellCom sets them up with their targets, drops them in using teleportation and the like, and the Wraiths get the job done. Whatever that needs to be.

Now, the units start out armed with a basic package of resources given to them by Dardarrick, one of these items being the Omnilens, can you tell us what that is?

The SpellCom Omnilens is a magical item designed by the master archmages of Dardarrick that allows the arcanists at Spellcaster Command to watch over, communicate and send aid to the teams in the field. It is also how the Wraiths keep in touch with one another and get a few special bonuses along the way.

Regarding the resource package, how complex does it get when starting out at higher level?

There is a table based on level and class that goes from level 1 to level 20. It is pretty easy to follow, and can be adjusted by some favours earned by the team’s leader or given by the mission’s inherent bonuses.

What was the biggest challenge for you when fleshing all of this out?

Trying to mesh everything together with the new 4E rules was likely the biggest task. Wraith Recon was deisgned for it, but it was still a new rules system to try and surmount while coming up with a flavourful and interesting world that people could play in.

What was your favorite part, or moment, when writing Wraith Recon?

It has to be the creation and fleshing out of the Nueraen Pantheon. They are the real movers and shakers in the back story, and a great deal of it is revealed in Enemies Within, the first rule supplement that should be hitting stores soon.

Delve: Coppernight Hold

Since Red Jason was out sick and our DM for the night, Adrian decided to run a level 1 delve out of Dungeon Delve, which allowed us to give the PH2 classes a spin. There were only three players, and as in many cases I was called upon to perform double duty with two classes I hadn’t played before: the warden and shaman. Delves are simple three-encounter endeavors, and Adrian was happy to be able to run something with the sole intent to kill as opposed to entertain a prolonged story.

The party consisted of a minotaur warden, dwarf shaman, dragonborn sorcerer, elf druid, and goblin barbarian. We didnt try to do much social role-playing, as the notion of a village hiring up such an unlikely and bizarre band of heroes didnt do much in the way of immersion.

The first encounter was kind of confusing with the way Adrian mapped it out. This makes sense since he didnt map it out in accordance with the actual map, so various terrain features ended up perplexing the lot of us. In hindsight Dungeon Tiles would have made things a lot clearer with a minimum of setup time. Even still, we prevailed without much difficult and with all of our daily powers, something I use as a barometer for when its time to leg it.

Encounter two was far more frustrating, especially since Adrian let the kobolds drop a statue on us as a minor action. I cant blame him: the first encounter went by pretty easily, and I think he just wanted to make us sweat…a lot. He also misinterpreted the save ends effect to include both prone and immobilization, which would have been really bad if my warden wasnt able to make a save at the start of his turn.

The last encounter went by a lot quicker despite the overflow of minions, throwing an extra slyblade into the mix, and an elite dragon: Josh burned his daily, action-pointed an encounter, and wrapped things up with dragon breath to bloody the wyrmling on the second round. On the flipside, it recharged the dragon’s breath weapon, but that only really affected the goblin barbarian.

In the end we succeeded despite Adrian adding more things to the mix. Knowing that it was only three encounters long I hoarded my action points and daily powers, rolling them out on the wyrmling. I had a lot of fun with the shaman, and had more fun with the warden that I thought I would have.
The shaman, as I’d expected, plays a lot like a Final Fantasy XI summoner in that you mostly move it around and trigger attacks with it. You can use a few ranged attacks, but you’re a soft target (I had an AC of 13 I think). The leader-benefits doled out by the spirit companion are very nice, and I found myself teleporting the spirit about and using it as a kind of “ground zero” for formations and setups.
I dont think that the warden is a better defender than the fighter, despite the free marking ability. I never actually got to make any attacks with it, and I didnt get to mark a whole lot of monsters since they didnt try to clump around him. His attacks are thematic and useful: I used one to effectively prevent a kobold from running away, but otherwise was able to ramp up my AC to 20 with the other one. The daily-form power is also really cool, similar to a barbarian rage but still different mechanically and thematically.

We all had a lot of fun tonight, and it makes me feel a lot better about purchasing Dungeon Delve. Adrian and myself are strongly considering pitching this as a monthly event at Knightfall Games, once we are sure we can make even that commitment. I think its an excellent way to introduce new people to the mechanics and get a feel for new characters.

Freedom of Choice

There’s a thread on RPG.net talking about how a friend of the OP didnt like 4th Edition because she felt that it removed decisions from the game, and that that’s what D&D is all about. The OP that he felt she was wrong, stating that D&D isnt about choices so much as archetypes.

I’ve lauded the usage of archetypes before, and I think that they really help to strengthen the game by allowing new and veteran players make what they want to make with a minimal of fuss and/or rules-mastery. If you want to play a sword-swinging armored-guy, its right there for you and it works. Wanna cast spells? Pick your style, because we have wizards, warlocks, sorcerers, and bards, now.
Sure, I’ve had fun with “sandbox” style creation systems in the past, but often I would just pick a few key skills and crank them up to absurd levels. This made it hard for the GM to challenge us properly since it was often way too easy for me to, say, shoot something. If the GM made it hard for me to shoot, then it fell into the range of impossible for the rest of the team to achieve any result.
With archetypes, or classes, I think its much easier to get what you want and have your asses covered in the process.

Decisions are key to making a fun game, and all versions of D&D had plenty: race, class, how you distributed your ability scores (and later ability points), skills (no matter what they were called), weapon if you used one, spells if you could cast, etc. 3rd Edition added feats, and 4th Edition has every class making a choice at every level–sometimes more than one. Its not that D&D is about choices, but that choices make a fun game and the desigjners understand this. This is one reason I didnt agree at all with the “review” for 5th Edition in which there is only one choice: the character pack you pick. I dont think for a second that they are going to start stripping away the freedom and flexibility that 4th Edition offers.

Preview: The Vestige Pact

The latest preview for Arcane Power is up, giving us a sneak peak at the new warlock pact that will debut in the book, the vestige pact.

Vestiges were originally introduced in Tome of Magic (3E), where they were associated with the binder class. Binders were one of three new spellcasting classes that Wizards created to try out different spellcasting mechanics. Binders selected vestiges that they could make deals with and bind to themselves in exchange for power. This gave them quite a bit of flexibility, but most of their powers were under par. On the other hand, many of the abilities granted by vestiges refreshed every 3-5 rounds, so they saw more use.

The vestige pact draws on the same theme as the binder did, having the warlock make a bargain with similarly displaced entities and what-have-you. What sets the vestige pact apart from other pacts is complexity: your vestige pact power is eyes of the vestige, and it gets augmented depending on which vestige you have active. Also, your pact boon can get switched about depending on your active vestige.
For example, if you make Ugar the Unforviging active, eyes of the vestige deals fire damage, disables concealment on the target, and lets you move the vestige of Ugar zone effect 3 squares whenever you drop a cursed target.

Is this bad? Perhaps. If you have players that have a hard time tracking their at-wills, this is certainly a road to madness. However with a normal amount of prep time I dont think it will overwhelm them despite augmentations. The vestige pact looks interesting, and I’m looking forward to using it when the book comes out next month.

Dragon: Party Building

I was looking forward to this article, because I was curious how the designers view and approach party building. Before diving into the article, I’m going talk about my personal take on the subject.
In 3rd Edition I didnt much care for party composition outside of “someone needs to play a cleric”. Depending on the players and raw numbers, we could occasionally get by with a favored soul or even a druid if we absolutely had to. This was because while prior editions utilized parties of adventurers, each character was largely self-contained and didnt interact much beyond the cleric spamming cure whatever wounds spells to keep the rest of the gang propped up.
4th Edition relies on teamwork far more than it ever did before. My group preference is that someone plays a leader, and everyone else can just do whatever. We really like having a defender around, but its not always necessary depending on the overall fire-power of the group: we just like being able to burn through healing surges with minor actions is all.

The article itself runs ten pages. You get a basic rundown on the party building approach, which can be divided into two methods: they either build the party in a vacuum or they dont. I personally prefer my group to actually communicate at this stage to avoid lumping up too many roles, but more importantly I find that they can stimulate eachother and come up with better characters than they might have in isolation.

Then there’s a brief recap on the four roles, which expands the definitions we got in Player’s Handbook by a lot. Its mostly stuff we already know, but for newer players it might prove useful to explain things in more detail.

There’re a couple tables on multiclassing combinations and which races do best and crappy in which classes, which again is great for newer players.

My favorite section is Party Themes. This is a rundown of various role and power source combinations, which reminds me of that old Final Fantasy challenge where you were supposed to beat the game with four white mages.
One example is called Tanking, which is a party of one controller, leader, striker, and two defenders. I’d like to see how well a party does with one or two leaders, and the rest as strikers.
Power source themes are just parties where everyone has the same power source, which also has a lot of appeal to me from a challenge perspective (whether the author wanted it to be one or not).

Its an interesting, short read. I think most of it is great for new players, but even for me I got something out of it.