Virtual Table Overview

After uninstalling and reinstalling Java 6, I finally managed to get Virtual Table to load. I’ve never used other online mapping tools before (or really played online), so while I can’t make a comparison I can go over what I like/don’t like about it. Before I go on please understand that this is the beta software, there is a list of feature requests and reported bugs, and I expect it to get a lot better.

Currently, the Campaign Manager site is the first thing you’ll see before you get to Virtual Table. Here you can search for current campaigns, open campaigns, or start your own. You can filter results by the campaign world, whether it’s an actual campaign or one-shot, min and max users, and–oddly enough–edition. Yep, every Dungeons & Dragons version from 1st through 4th is represented, with Other encapsulating the rest. I doubt this will cause those playing lapsed editions to sign up for DDI…unless they offer it as a separate service (hint hint).

The real meat here is obviously Virtual Table.

It looks like what I’d expect from a virtual tabletop: most of the screen is dominated by a large map, there are menus at the top, with commonly accessed functions occupying bars beneath the menus and on the right-hand side. The right menu bar can be expanded or hidden if you want to increase your map real-estate. At the bottom is a chat window, and to the right of that is your Dice Roller (with a check box to make private rolls). The top menus let you–amongst other things–import/export adventures, maps, characters, and monsters, turn off windows that you don’t need/want, change cursor modes (Normal, Pointer, Map Drag, etc), mute yourself and/or other players, and enable voice fonts.

Voice fonts will purportedly change the way you sound, though I’m not sure how effective it is. Some of the options are deep, male to female, female to male, elf, orc, and paladin. That sounds really cool.

The various cursor modes let you interact with tokens and tiles, drag the entire map around without moving anything, highlight specific elements on the map, draw line of sight, create area of effect zones (Close blast and burst), make parts of the map visible/invisible (likely for light sources and hidden passages), and draw free hand lines, circles, and squares. You can’t move area of effects once you place them; you have to delete them and redraw them again. This is something that needs to be changed for spellcasters that want to display to everyone where they are casting spells, or for those employing zone effects (especially if they can move).

As it stands, you have to manually switch between cursor modes for each object. I think having a kind of “smart selection” would be very handy, having the cursor automatically switch modes depending on what you are trying to interact with. Also, there is no way to Undo an action. You have to manually erase lines and shapes that you drew. Thankfully, there is an option for the eraser that lets you drag over an area, but it won’t remove anything else. This can be useful or a hindrance, depending on your needs. Personally, I’d like a way to erase large areas of tiles instead of having to meticulously remove each of them one by one.

The map has several default textures: typical battle mat, sand, dirt, or grass. Good if you don’t feel like laying digital tiles manually over the whole thing. The Dungeon Tile library looks very basic, being all interior design features. It’s organized into dimensions, so you don’t have to go poking through a massive bin if the only thing you need is a 1×2 door tile. As expected, you can rotate tiles and move them in Pointer Mode after placing them. The oddest thing is that they included the map for the last area in Keep on the Shadowfell, because it shows monster locations from that encounter.

Speaking of monsters, you cannot import monsters from Compendium. To make matters worse, you have to key in everything by hand. The application should at least calculate formulas, though I see no reason why Wizards cannot include a fully functional monster library. Worse, monsters don’t even seem to get full stat blocks, lacking fields for skills, ability scores, languages, and equipment. There is a notes section, but again, they could make collapsing stat blocks to save space. At least you can export monsters to your computer, so if Wizards drags their heels on this, we’ll hopefully see some fan-made monster sets.

Characters have the same problems, but are in a slightly larger boat: they have fields for their ability scores, modifiers, healing surges, surge value, passive detection, but again, you have to do all the math. To make matters worse, you have to also input all the information for each power you have, so hopefully you aren’t playing a high-level character for your first run through. People are clamoring for a feature to import from Character Builder (as well as an online character repository), so here’s hoping.

The last thing of note is a journal feature that both players and the DM can use to store notes (DM’s at least can make their notes private). Entries are saved by name, which is handy for quick reference.

That’s it for a cursory feature overview. Remember, I’ve not yet actually used it yet, and it’s still in beta. At this point, it looks promising, but then I’ve never actually used online gaming tools like this before. Once I get a game or two under my belt, I’ll post my thoughts.

Random Character Flops

Almost two years ago, back when Dungeon Delve was released, a then friend of mine wanted to try running the level 30 delve to see what end-game was all about. I can’t remember if the offline Character Builder was out of Beta at this time, but after spending an hour or so building my own party I decided to let the program have a crack at a character. The result was…terrifying; a waforged fighter, somehow multiclassed into both paladin and warlock. I think the warlock spells had like, +13 versus NADs. Calling it substandard would be a compliment: I’ve seen blind kobold wizards wearing full plate with an Intelligence of 6 in 3rd Edition that were more viable.

Having tinkered around with the online Character Builder, it sometimes did alright in picking elements for me once I’d started doing some of the leg work. As a simple exercise, I decided to give it a shot at calling the shots. What I got was a human  shielding swordmage with a Constitution of 11, Alchemist and Implement Focus (talenta sharrash) for feats, but a longsword for a weapon. To make matters worse, the encounter spell is fox’s feint, which gets a kicker effect for having Aegis of Ensnarement. The only ability that makes sense is greenflame blade since it gave me a Strength of 14 (despite the fact that Aegis of Shielding is keyed to Constitution).

I find that it’s pretty hard to make a 4th Edition character this shitty. You get no bonus to your marking class feature, a feat for a weapon you don’t own, and a secondary stat that you weren’t using in the first place. Unlike the older Builder, this wasn’t generated all at once. No, you gotta go step by step through the ropes in order to gradually auto-build a character. While this is all pretty bad, mind you, this is only level one. I’m sure if I gave this thing 30 levels we could see some serious damage.

Into Dragon’s Den, Part 4

After holding up the game for about half an hour trying to redraw a map I thought I’d lost, the players re-checked the door for traps, and feeling that it was no longer going to disintegrate anyone else, kicked it in. In my last campaign, the players actually complained that there weren’t any traps–in an ancient, undead-ridden castle, no less–so this time I indulged their paranoia since I could rationally explain there existence (also, it would likely be awhile before I could use them in such abundance again).

In the map I drew the “dungeon” is divided into two halves, with each half basically having two ways to go about it. One is trapped, while the other is clean. For the trapped path, the doors are locked, suggesting importance, with traps setup to trigger once it is opened, or when someone steps on the area just outside (pressure plates). The idea is that no reasonable organization would employ mechanical traps in an area that sees regular traffic. I tried dropping hints, such as that the doors appeared to be rusted, or that the dust, mold, and/or excrement around the door didn’t appear disturbed.

Despite this, they pressed on through a heavily fire-trapped-and-locked hallway, until they kicked in a door to find a scarred orc getting ready to take a cleaver to Moxie. Although I’ve never seen an episode of Doctor Who, Beth got it right in that it was a teleporter and not a disintegration ray. The trap, when triggered, teleports the individual into a chamber where the target is restrained by a magic circle. Moxie tried to talk her way out by pretending to be a “new guy”, but the orc wasn’t having any of it. Besides, he needed some blood for a ritual on there wasn’t any on tap.

When the rest of the gang arrived, he tried in vain to draw one of them into a Khyber dragonshard, summoning some legion devils for support. Heien locked down the devils, while Lwaxana weakened the circle enough for Moxie to attack the orc when he got pushed too close. An imp stung Heien and fled invisibly to warn others when he got damaged. It was an easy battle as I’d banked on someone getting temporarily trapped in the dragonshard or knocking someone else into the magic circle, but thats how the 20-sider rolls.

They tried having Moxie trick more of the thieves, but the imp had already spilled the beans. They tried to go pretend to go along with her story, and while she saw through the ruse, the imp had snuck on on her and stung her, too. The rest of the party sprung into action, feathering the thieves with arrows while Heien and Moxie killed the imp before it could get away (again). Another pretty easy fight, but I didn’t want them to peter out of healing before they got to the end, as I liked the idea of them plowing through a thieves guild without having to stop for a nap.

After looting some beds, they came across a pair of warforged. While most of the party took them on, Lwaxana ran the other way to open a door, adding a trio of minions and a skilled duelist into the mix. Who was also Moxie’s sister. This was a problem. I might not have mentioned this before, but Moxie was looking for her sister, whom she believed had fallen in with Dragon and his crew. The basic story behind Liz’s character is that she got into the dragonshard smuggling trade so that she could get close to Dragon and determine this for herself.

This means that she [Moxie’s sister] is a changling, a race that hinges on the ability to create perfect alternate identities. So, I tried to describe her fighting technique as “very similar to Moxie’s”, what with the graceful flourishes, feints, and two-weapon style, but no one really caught on. I didn’t want to make anyone roll Insight, as once you call for it the players immediately become more paranoid or interested in something than they have any right to be. Kinda like when you ask for a Perception check and everyone fails.

Long story short, they killed her, she turned into a changling, and Liz realized what was going on. After some accusations that I did that to avoid developing the character hook later, or that I’d allegedly forgotten about it, I reminded the players that such a thing as Raise Dead exists in D&D. Since, you know, forever. All they have to do is find a halfling House of Healing and shell out the 500 or so gp (I might up it to 1,000 due to supply and demand, but certainly not out of irritation, so siree. :-P).

With that out of the way, the found a room with tables and gemcutting kits and an attached vault filled with chests and crates. They went after the crates, triggering an explosive trap that also blew up the crates. Which were filled with rocks. When they got around to checking the crates, they say that those were filled with Eberron dragonshards.

The last stop was Dragon’s throne room. Yes, this guy had a throne room, along with an attractive half-elf…well, let’s call her a “mediator”. To the party, Dragon appeared as a big-ass green dragon lounging upon a gem-encrusted throne made of gold. The entire hall glittered with opulent splendor. So, I’m hoping none of the players were surprised when they discovered it was a grand illusion. Dragon was a brain in a jar, while the half-elf was a dolgaunt, with more dolgaunt minions lurking behind illusionary walls.

The battle opened with Dragon dominating Heien and tossing Hawkeye into a dolgaunt infested room. Moxie chucked daggers to no avail, and Lwaxana had a bitch of a time hitting him with any Will spells since, surprise surprise, his Will was his highest Defense. With the ranged guy surrounded, the defender dominated, and the two support characters being directly confronted, they pulled out the big guns dailies. Since none of them had even used daily powers, Dragon lasted a round or two before the head-based puns started rolling.

Next session, it’s off into the Shadow Marches to deal with the orcs, ideally after pawning their shit, doing some research, and gearing up.

Character Concepts: Revenant Chaladin

I thought of this a few days ago, and forgot what thought process spawned it. One of Pelor’s faithful, gifted perhaps with modest healing powers, is captured by a necromancer and sacrificed in his own temple as part of an “unhallowing” ritual (causing statues to bleed, holy symbols to melt, the foundations crumble, etc). The character might belong to a powerful bloodline, or be “pure of heart”, or maybe the necromancer just needed someone. At any rate, he rises the next dawn, gifted with the powers of a paladin, with instructions from both the Raven Queen and Pelor to stop this person.

• Prayers: Ardent Strike, Virtuous Strike, Valorous Smite, Majestic Halo
• Feat: Human Soul

I figure that destruction of your village, while a RPG cliche, is sufficient to prompt most people to action. However I think that it’s much more personal if they actually kill you. The background should prove easy to work into most campaigns, as evil necromancers are a villainous staple of the genre. It also provides a reasonable explanation as to why a dead person is going about chanting prayers and channeling holy light, which to me is more interesting than another human, dwarf, or deva.

(what follows is just my thoughts on paladins over the ages, and has nothing to do with the above character)

I’ve seen people play paladins, thankfully never in the way commonly–and hopefully satirically–portrayed in other media; an annoying pretty boy (or girl) with armor and teeth that never tarnish, loudly proclaiming his intent to invade an orc camp, or complaining when the party wants to try subterfuge regardless of potential consequences, good or bad. Mostly I remember my players running them like they would any other character, with the occasional warning that they would forfeit their powers if they continued to proceed with an imminent infraction, which might have been due to a looser (read: more fun) interpretation of alignment and the paladin code.

Despite a lack of harrowing experiences, I’ve never really had any desire to play a paladin. In 2nd Edition it was partially because of the alignment restrictions and paladin code, partially because that the odds of me rolling a Charisma of 17, in addition to the other steep requirements, were slim to say the least, especially when you had to record your results in order. Come to think of it, I think that the only reason any of my friends played a paladin was because they rarely legitimately had the stats to do it, and when the opportunity finally arose they just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

3rd Edition made things a bit easier since you got to roll 4d6, drop the lowest, and place them however you wanted to. Unfortunately 3rd Edition tied ability scores closely to the rest of the mechanics, and paladins wanted Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma. It wasn’t unfortunate that they tied ability scores to mechanics, but that the paladin demands so much. You needed Strength for melee attacks, Wisdom to cast spells, Charisma for a few class features such as lay on hands, and Constitution to not die. And if that wasn’t enough, you were still double-teamed by Lawful Good only and the silly paladin code.

Ugh.

4th Edition paladins are much friendlier to everyone at the table. You don’t have a set alignment, and the ability scores you need are Strength or Charisma, and Wisdom helps. Strength and Charisma are used for your attacks, and there are sufficient prayers that you can pick one instead of spreading yourself too thin. Though divine challenge is keyed to Charisma, you can take a feat to link it to Strength instead, allowing you to forgo Charisma almost entirely. Last but not least, there’s no paladin code, so you’re free to act entirely within whatever character traits you desire.

Class Acts: The Lady’s Gift

If there’s one thing Dungeons & Dragons was missing, it would be a system of magic based around strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ magic swords. Thankfully, that’s been addressed. Like the star pact hexblade article, the new crunch is restricted to levels where you don’t normally get to choose. There’s also a page of flavor to dish up with it, which could provide a solid foundation for a character to go a-questin’.

At 1st-level, you get a renamed blade of annihilation and a pair of spells that let you deal radiant damage or a lot of radiant damage (and making nearby enemies vulnerable to it). Many of the attacks revolve around dealing radiant damage, but as you ascend levels you can also summon undead handmaidens, blind enemies, and transform into a radiant champion that gains a considerable speed boost and can deal automatic damage once per round.

It’s a good variation of the fey pact theme that delivers its own, solid concept of a questing knight, and will be something I’ll use when I revisit my failed primal adventure path.

D&D Comic

I’m not exactly a comic book fan. Yeah, I’ve got the entire run of Hellboy, BPRD, Bone, and a smattering of other titles, but those are exceptional cases as I prefer web comics to their dead-tree counterparts. Also, I don’t like most D&D novels because too often I find the plot, characters, and/or writing to be too simplistic and/or annoying to care. So, when Shazbot and I were leaving Guardian Games over a month ago and saw the Issue #0 freebies, I was skeptical despite the price tag.

Boy, was I surprised.

In a good way, no less.

It’s really two comics in one, with the second half grounded in Athas, delivering a Conan-esque flavor. Though it has promise, I was more impressed with the first half, which depicts a party of adventurers literally kicking in a door, fighting gnolls, accidentally killing a dragon, rescuing slaves, and picking up a new recruit. The party composition isn’t interesting unto itself, consisting of a dwarf, human, halfing, elf, and tiefling all with classes to match. Basically, much of what you’d expect in your “typical” party.

Despite this traditional spread, in the span of a half-comic the author managed to hook me through a combination of witty dialogue, quality art, and characters that simultaneously evoked racial tropes–such as dwarven proclamations to Moradin, and both a backstabbing and paranoid halfling–and didn’t piss me off, or groan and roll my eyes. It’s also very action-packed and delivers, to me, the core D&D experience. This is something that I could confidently recommend to fans of both D&D and fantasy comics in general.

I pre-ordered a five issue set from IDW, and was pleased that as good as the promo issue was, Issue #1 was a lot better; orphan zombies, heh, no one’ll miss them.

Beholder Collector’s Set

I got this a quite awhile ago, but kept neglecting to post about it. It’s a non-randomized quartet of beholders that not only comes in a badass box, but only runs $35. Oddly, at RPG.net people are actually complaining about this price. If they think that’s steep, perhaps they should scope out singles at eBay, where they only run $15-20 per individual mini. Strangely, some people are offering the entire box for only $20. Personally, I think the tag price is a bargain; it’s cheap, you know what you’re getting, and it comes with a staple beholder as well as a few new additions (though the sculpts are copied).

You get an eye of frost, ghost beholder, eye of shadow, and eye tyrant, and stat block cards for each.

I wish they offered a print for this…

The lamp I used for lighting makes it look like their eyes are glowing…I need a new camera. >_>

Virtual Table Announcement

Invites are going out some time today for the “friends and family” beta for Virtual Table, with D&D Insider invitations being passed out at an undetermined point in the future (aka, “later”). There’s a FAQ here, and a thread about it here. So far we’ve got this screen cap:

There are concerns about increased pricing, but given how long Character Builder was in Beta I wouldn’t expect to see it tacked on for more than a few months. Hopefully it’s not too much more, but given that I have a regular game it might be one of the few D&D things that I don’t buy.

For cynical readers, here is a flying pig:

Into Dragon’s Den, Part 3

With Red captured and delivered to the authorities, the party–not wanting to leave any stone unturned–insisted on making Perception checks to see if they’d missed something in his hideout. Truth be told, they’d managed to avoid a room that the thieves had neglected due to a wraith infestation. Despite my descriptions of a bone-chilling cold and foreboding feelings, they determined that whatever glinting gem lay at the far edge was worth the risk. The room contained a single stone chair where the previous occupant practiced turning fleshy things into stone and/or horribly disfiguring them. They typically died painfully and were discarded, which is the sort of thing that you don’t want to do in a world where vengeful spirits are a very real threat.

When they approached the room one appeared over the chair, dressed in decaying finery and staring with empty eyes. Moxie tried to lift tactics from Shaun of the Dead in a doomed attempt to trick it into thinking that she was also dead. I don’t care what Dungeon Master’s Book says, sometimes you need to say no. The moment she crossed the threshold, it drew a ghostly blade and rush her. So did four others that were lingering in the discarded rubble formerly known as their bodies. I like the cut of the new wraiths (and sovereign wraith), but I don’t like insubstantial. To be fair, the party was both outnumbered, and one was a level 8 soldier. To their credit, they only had one force attack and legitimately killed the sovereign before I got bored and had the rest drift off after only being bloodied, leaving them with a khyber shard of lifedrinking for their troubles (and patience).

Back at town, they convened on the next course of action, which was to find Dragon, kill him, and take his stuff (aka, Plan A). Through the power of narrative and skill checks they found out that a merchant was accepting payment to use his premises as an access tunnel. They went there, paid his guards off with a combination of monetary incentive, skill, and promise of not progressing to physical incentive. Normally I like to think that paid guards are a bit more professional, but when you’re outnumbered two-to-one and the opposing party is clad in magical armaments, the line has been crossed. They glumly accepted about several weeks of advance pay, and strode off to inform whatever amounts to the Zarash’ak law enforcement (which will be addressed later).

Inside, they were pleased to find increasingly paranoid that the merchant’s house wasn’t riddled with traps, but merely locked. The found the access tunnel, (accidentally?) killed the two archers on the roof, and not feeling larcenous enough stole some knick-knacks off of the shelves in his bedroom. The real adventure literally underway, they ventured into the tunnel to face Dragon. I laid out Dragon’s hideout as a kind of old-school dungeon, deciding that the tunnels and chambers were built long ago before the Gatekeepers did their mojo to sweep all the aberrants under the rug so that a future generation of unlikely heroes could deal with it later. Even so, their influence is subtle and memories are short; people were drawn to this place to build atop the sunken ruins.

The underground passage lead to an iron door, beyond which they could hear talking. Moxie changed into a non-descript human and pretended to be wounded. She got someone to open the door and booked it, which did not cause the thief to give chase (as she’d hoped). Instead he crane his neck around the corner, and upon spotting the rest of the party brilliantly silhouetted by Heien’s glowing shield, shouted a warning and attempted to close the door. Some of the characters won initiative and managed to put a stop to that plan, which was good because it locks from the inside. The combat that ensued involved a close-quarters skirmish that allowed Heien to easily maintain battlemind’s demand on most of the opposition, and Hawkeye to deal lots of area-effect damage (something I’ll need to consider in the future).

The next room had a large hole in the center that reeked of shit and rot. Beyond that they spotted a pair of warforged talking to a hobgoblin. Again, Moxie pretended to be a wounded guard and tried to convince them that intruders had arrived, but that she’d captured them. They told her to toss them in the hole, but she persuaded them that she needed their help. They followed her into a well setup ambush that allowed the party to easily triumph despite all the low rolls. They didn’t kill the hobgoblin, and after some interrogation convinced him to take a handful of coins and a few weeks off. Before he left, he clued them in about a magic item-toting elf that’d shown up recently and got pitched into the hole during a “misunderstanding”, which contained refuse and an otyugh.

Moxie lit a barrel of spirits on fire and pitched it in, lighting up the otyugh and causing it to climb out. Thanks to her smart thinking, she seared off about a quarter of its hit points before initiative even got rolled. To make matters worse, Heien saved against its filth fever. My goal is to one day strip away all 13 or so of his healing surges. It did not–as they’d hoped–eat the bow, which would allow them to easily retrieve it. No, they had to go into the pit and get their hands dirty. Heien couldn’t find anything after some extensive rifling, so Hawkeye went in next since he felt that he had the Endurance to shake off any diseases (or corn) that might “crop up”, digging up both a +2 venomous songbow and monkey’s paw +2 lucky charm.

This made Lwaxana happy, and I didn’t inquire as to if she would use a bow that had poo in the wood grain, +2 or no. From here they had two doors to choose from, and in true Gygaxian fashion one was trapped, while the other wasn’t. They chose the one that was, or rather, had a trap in it’s immediate vicinity. See, Moxie checked it for traps, as per routine, but I figured that a thieves guild wouldn’t keep traps in a room that sees a lot of traffic for fear that something might set it off. I felt it was logical to place it on the other side, if for no other reason than to avoid the cost of rearming it. She opened the door, and lacking a sufficient Passive Perception, stepped on the plate, unleashing a salvo of poisoned crossbow bolts.

They missed.


Everyone.

However, there were also several gray oozes slithering about a stream of water nearby, which proved a minor distraction thanks to lock-down powers and Heien’s high Fortitude.

They found themselves in an illogically large sewer tunnel, built in accordance to high fantasy requirements: about 30-feet wide, stream of water in the center, and the ends capped by metal grates. The only things missing were dungeon-grade rats and/or insects, which the guild apparently skimped on due to economic shortages. Oh, and two more doors. Moxie was smart and found the trap in front of the door this time, but rather than scope out the other door the party decided to go with this one. A botched Thievery check triggered it, causing a circle of runes to appear and zap her with a green ray. She disintegrated, leaving a fine cloud of dust, an ominous note that I felt appropriate to end the game on.

Next Time!


Is Moxie really dead? Just what is Dragon? Will Lwaxana disenchant her other songbow into chainmail that we didn’t know she didn’t have? Will all those paid guards really stop their life of crime, or will they create their own adventuring party,and do totally awesome things that will have repercussions later? Will Randy ever get his very own trained owlbear? Will anyone use Gary’s acid spray attack?

Make Your Very Own Character Builder Button

If for some reason you’d like to be able to just click on a desktop icon to launch Character Builder–as you did before–here’s how:

Navigate to Character Builder page and add it to your bookmarks (any bookmark will do, actually, as we’re going to change the URL it points to), and drag the shortcut to your desktop (or wherever you want your icon).

Launch Character Builder, and then highlight and copy the URL.

Right-click on the shortcut and select Properties, then paste the previously copied URL in the URL field.

Booyah (to get the old CB icon, you’ll have to go to Change Icon and navigate to the folder where you installed the old CB, and select one of the .exe files).