Heroes of Shadow Feats

The last preview for Heroes of Shadow showcases a bunch of feats. I like a lot of them, but some of them seem very…focused. For example, Legioncaller of Moil gives your summoned shadow critters a bonus to attack rolls and defenses, while Executioner of Undeath lets you reroll any damage dice when attacking undead once. While both are focused, Legioncaller of Moil differs in that you have greater control of how it applies to your characters, as well as when it will be used. With Executioner of Undeath? That depends on what the DM throws at you (as well as, I suppose, your knowledge of what the campaign/adventure will be about).

Another potentially problematic feat is Ghost Scorpion Strike. The compendium lists 264 monsters with insubstantial somewhere in their stat block, plenty of which are in Seekers of the Ashen Crown, Scepter Tower of Spellgard, or other WotC adventures. At least 41 of those are wraiths of some sort, many of which have necrotic resistance and poison immunity. This might be fine for wizards packing disrupt undead or mages with the right specialization to ignore necrotic resistance, but honestly how many of these do you expect to fight? Same goes for Tainted Wounds. Yeah, stripping away healing is all well and good, but there isn’t exactly a plethora of monsters with regeneration (or any other healing abilities).

Despite a handful of feats that will invariably be added to the pile of trap options, there are a few really good ones in the mix. I particularly like Spectral Step, which makes you insubstantial whenever you burn an Action Point. It only lasts a turn, but taking only half damage from basically everything can be a big help when you need to move, or setting up readied actions for area-effect attacks. There’s also entire categories of feats that we only see by name (except for the Revenant Racial, which already exist). Shadowborn and Winterkin feats will give you thematic abilities associated with the Shadowfell. How well they will compete against other options? We’ll see, though many Multiclass feats just don’t seem to cut it nowadays.

Bedlam Talks Daggerdale

I’ve played Baldur’s Gate, both Neverwinter Nights, and even gave D&D Online a shot, but when it comes to the digital front I can count on one finger the number of Dungeons & Dragons games that have captured my attention long enough for me to complete them. So given this track record, when I heard that a few new games were coming through the pipeline, I didn’t my hopes up. Mostly this is because they’re centered in Forgotten Realms–a setting that I haven’t cared about since before 3rd Edition–and the fact that they’re multiplayer, which means among other things, that a monthly fee might be involved.

During a kind of mini-interview, Bedlam revealed some additional information about one of the upcoming games,  Daggerdale. What I already knew is that it’s a download-only game that allows you and up to three other buddies tour around dungeons, kill shit, and keep the loot. What I didn’t know was that you only get to pick between four pre-gens, a human fighter, elf rogue, halfling wizard, or dwarf cleric, none of which sound particularly interesting. No word on whether you can at least pick gender and customize appearance, which wouldn’t surprise me if you couldn’t (but would be no less disappointing). Players can jump in and out, and the game adjusts the difficulty based on this, making it similar to Left 4 Dead.

Players will also be able to go through various scenarios with some flexibility, giving the game a minor sandbox element; there’s a set of primary adventures that help push along the plot, with a bunch of side-quests for those with the time and inclination. On the surface it has the kind of game play I’m looking for, but D&D games have rarely delivered an interesting, developed plot that maintains my interest for long. Bedlams claim that the game will feature in-depth character development, but I’ve heard that before. I’m also not thrilled by being able to choose from only four characters…perhaps more will be added as expansions? DDO gave us more flexibility at the start, and that came out years ago.

The game comes out sometime this summer, but I think I’m going to hold off and see how the reviews go.

Design & Development: Heroes of Shadow

Robert addresses–for the most part–why they didn’t go the route of a necromancer class, and the differences between necromancy and nethermancy. When 4th Edition came out there was a distinct lack of spells that could be said to fit the theme of a necromancer, and people waited for the day when WotC would finally get around to releasing a necromancer class–or, more likely, an article featuring a shit-ton of spells for the wizard. Well, they did, kind of, but some people are pissed off because it’s being doled out Essentials style. My question is, why?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a fan of most of the Essentials classes. Not because they are necessarily worse off than the rest, but because they are, well, boring. Slayers and knights basically do what fighters did, only in a more convoluted manner, but they lack the variety of encounter and daily exploits that help distinguish them. Others like the mage and hexblade are perfectly serviceable, as they provide solid, interesting concepts that I like. Even if you don’t like any of the Essentials classes, you’re forgetting one very important thing: wizards and mages can interchangeably pick up spells from one another. In fact, this holds true for all Essentials classes, and I myself have a cavalier with plenty of paladin prayers.

Aside from people pretending that they’re somehow Essentials-exclusive, I also take issue with the irrational reasoning that a few people are using to conclude that WotC is just “afraid” of making new classes, and deliberately misinterpret Robert’s writing when he said that they didn’t want to restrict powers to a specific class. Before, necromancy was but a school of magic to help categorize spells for game elements that interacted with them. If you wanted to play a necromancer, you were a wizard (specialized or otherwise) that had a list of spells lumped in the necromancy category. You didn’t have to, actually; it would be an easy feat to label yourself as such simply by picking up a couple spells that let you conjure and/or animate undead.

What WotC has done is provide a method to cater to everyone. If you like Essentials, you now have two new mage schools that let you play a necromancer (or nethermancer). If you don’t you can just play a wizard and use the spells. They don’t, as one poster suggested, need to “make a feat” or anything like that. They work perfectly fine, I assure you, even in Character Builder. If you like mages and wizards? Well, then you just have a compelling choice to make when rolling up a character. Now that we’ve got all the bullshit out of the way, let’s take a look at the actual article.

• Necromancy and nethermancy are divided into magic that let’s you create undead, destroy flesh, and drain life, or magnify a creature’s fears and manipulate shadows, respectively. In a similar vein, necromancy spells will focus on dealing necrotic damage, while nethermancy will largely inflict psychic damage.
• Now, a lot of creatures (particularly undead) have necrotic resistance, so one of the new cantrips is disrupt undead, which is an auto-hit at-will that strips away five points of necrotic resistance. Also, it can be used as a minor action, meaning that you reliably use your attacks on undead without too much trouble. While it doesnt’ scale, a mage feature will apparently let you simply ignore necrotic resistance later on.
• One of the new at-wills, rotting doom, deals necrotic damage, and if the target is undead also imposes vulnerable 5 to all damage. To make matters worse, it also prevents them from regaining hit points in any fashion. Holy shit, that is awesome, especially because the latter part is an effect that applies to all creatures.
• Energy drain is back as a level 29 spell that stuns a target, with an aftereffect that slows, weakens, and imposes a penalty to attacks, defenses, skill checks, and ability checks that stacks on each failed save. If you miss, it instead deals some necrotic damage. Oh, as a built-in effect you gain temp hp equal to your surge value.
• Summon shadow servant lets you summon a creature (presumably from a range of stat blocks that weren’t shown). As with other summons, you have to use your own actions to control it. Unlike other summons, however, it persists even after combat is over (but goes away if you’re dropped in combat, dismiss it, or use the spell again).
• For paragon paths, Robert mentioned that the necromancer option will let you turn dying creatures into bombs, protect allies from dark magic, and conjure up a squad of five skeletons at once. The nethermancer option, on the other hand, will make it hard for enemies to see, crush them with tentacles, and let you utilize your allies senses.
• Finally, finger of death was also previewed. This level 25 attack deals 10d6 damage, plus 20 extra if the target is bloodied by the attack, and kills them outright if their hp total drops to 20 or less. If you miss, it does half, but the instant-death is an effect so it’s all good.

Legend & Lore: Stay Classy

This is pretty late, I know, but I found it while rummaging through the Legend & Lore archives, and realized that I never got around to doing a post about it (but I had totally planned on it). The article talks about the prevalence of the class mechanic throughout games–even today–and how they changed in context to the D&D game over time and editions–specifically, how classes became more complex. Now, I never really played 1st Edition, and while I did play Basic, I don’t really remember anything about it except for only having five levels, races were their own classes, and there were only three alignments. 2nd and 3rd Edition stand out more, both because they were more recent, but also because I played each a lot more than Basic.

Personally, I like the increased complexity in character generation, because it made it easier to differentiate characters beyond just background and personality. In fact, more options made it more likely that I could apply class features and decisions to the character’s background and personality. For example, in 2nd Edition the mechanical decisions you made were basically limited to your weapons and skills. In 3rd Edition the addition of feats and easier usage of skills added layers of mechanical differentiation, but ultimately both iterations of the class were largely limited to making the same old melee attack that just did damage on a hit. Granted, in 3rd Edition you could potentially shake up the damage bonus a bit, but not by much.

4th Edition really shook this up by the inclusion of powers, as well as by how skills were implemented. I can make a fighter that not only uses a two-handed sword, but I can take abilities that make him very much different from how the guy with a one-handed sword and shield operates. Not only does size matter, but type matters, too. In past editions, stabbing a guy with a spear was the same as stabbing with a sword: they both did damage, and that was it. Now, swords can benefit from being agile, spears can push guys around, and hammers can daze targets or knock them on their ass.

Not only that, but new fighter class features help push concepts like fighters that mix it up with their fists or go into a frenzy, or even fight with two weapons without breaking down the class mechanics or requiring lots of rigid optimization to ensure a working character beyond the first few levels. Additionally, since skills operate and scale differently, its much easier to play a fighter who knows his stuff about magic, religion, breaking-and-entering, and more. This kind of flexibility extends to all the classes that existed in older editions, though admittedly not all benefit from as many increased options.

Ultimately, I enjoy the flexibility that has come with the increased complexity.

Legend & Lore: What’s With all the Polls?

So, Mearls has revealed his grandiose plans behind all the polling: dialogue. Yep, that’s right, dialogue. He likens it to “convention dialogue”, with the polls allowing you to respond (that, and the D&D Insider email link inviting you to pitch in your two coppers). Apparently, some people thought that they were for market research (despite WotC obviously already having an actual department for that), which doesn’t surprise me given how a vocal minority seems to perceive WotC’s understanding of the consumer base. Of course, and even smaller percentage are more than happy to take it to the next level.

I find it very odd how a (thankfully) minority of Paizo’s fans are not happy–or even content–with their 3rd Edition re-hash Pathfinder that, to varying degress, does what they want. Apparently, that’s not good enough. They have to put a spin on any D&D release, purported change, and commentary from the staff as not only a sign that 4th Edition is obviously floundering, but that Paizo is likewise obviously much more successful. They hope that any day now the designers over at Wizards of the Coast will realize the “errors” of their ways and come crawling back…but of course by then it’ll be “too late”.

“Many people are leaving 4th Edition for Pathfinder (often coupled with WotC making obviously stupid decisions and/or blatantly disregarding the “majority”)”, “not going with the OGL was a major mistake, and WotC is suffering from it/Paizo is thriving because of it”, “4th Edition is dying, and Pathfinder is set to replace it”, and so on and so forth. These statements, and many more like them, smack of a combination of desperation, insecurity, and ignorance.

Remember awhile back, when that quarterly report was released that showed both D&D and Pathfinder tied for first place? Some fans of Pathfinder took that to mean that either 4th Edition was dying, Pathfinder was picking up, or both…except those sales reports only took into account what store owners reported, and doesn’t include actual sales data (or online sales, including DDI subscriptions). In all actuality, both games are doing well enough that their respective companies still create content to support them (though I doubt Pathfinder is even doing as well as D&D).

Mearls started doing these articles to talk about the history of the game, its future, and to get a handle on what we think about the game, “we” being those that respond to the polls or send feeback email messages. Me? I really can’t go to D&D XP or GenCon, so this is the best (only?) way for me to voice my opinion and ask some questions of my own. I’m glad that he took the chance to engage in some kind of discourse, and it’s kind of petty that people are trying to twist these columns around. At any rate, it’s nice that out of all the people that responded, around two-thirds prefer 4th Edition to the rest. 😛

DDI: Monster Builder "Update"

I was pretty excited to get a message at work that the “brand new” Monster Builder was launched today. Unfortunately, when I got home and fired up Adventure Tools, I was pretty bummed to see that it not only still has the graphic indicating that it’s Beta software, that–aside from perhaps an Import feature–there is nothing about it to differentiate it from the beta software. Naively I hoped it was a mix up, and checked back a few hours later to discover that, no, same old beta-build. Fortunately directly beneath it is a link to download the older, yet oddly more functional Monster Builder, so DMs with a creative itch still have an avenue.

What I don’t understand is why it is taking so long for them to simply take an existing software application and transitioning it to another platform. I know why they want to–mitigation of piracy and hopefully integrate it with Virtual Table and other tools–but it’s been in a second beta for months. At this point, we have a monster viewer, with limited ability to rename a monster’s name and powers, and to adjust its level (again, same as before). In terms of utility, this places it far beneath D&D Compendium, which has the added benefit of being able to view any content. 

Gamma World: Pedal to the Metal

If you think your Gamma World game was lacking in the vehicle department, as well as a slew of rules for operating and modifying them, then you’re in luck. Even better, it’s free (which is ironic, because this is the kind of content I’d readily pay for). This is really something that should have been in Gamma World from the get-go, given the prevalence of vehicles and their usage in the post-apocalyptic genre. I’d actually like to see a hardcover book for Gamma World that contains all of the origins and rules added in the expansions (feats, skill challenges, etc). For now, I’m glad it’s still getting some quality support.

This is a very meaty article: there’s stat blocks for six vehicles (including a motorcycle, various trucks, and a helicoptor), nine vehicle modifications, five stunts, and a bunch of rules to help you get where you need to go. What I like most about this article is that it takes what I’ve largely relegated to a travel abstraction–if the players even have gas–and lets you decide just how relevant you want to make vehicles in your game: how far can it go per gallon of gas, how hard is it to repair, controlling it in combat, etc. There’s also plenty of sidebars with optional rules if you want to add more complexity, such as acceleration/deceleration and critical hits against vehicles.

An excellent, must-have article for anyone playing Gamma World. Did I mention it’s free?

Temple of Yellow Skulls Review

I knew going into this book that it would be picking up where Mark of Nerath left off in terms of overall plot and cast. Not because I finished it (Mark of Nerath), but because I read the preview blurbs for Temple of the Yellow Skulls. I just hoped that if anyone could make me give two shits about the, Don could. While he is usually pretty good in this regard–and I highly recommend The Dragon Below trilogy (as well as the trilogy that follows that)–I felt that this one just wans’t up to par. To be fair I really don’t fully blame Don for this, because it’s not his story with his characters, which is the cause for most of my grievances with the book.

For the most part, the pacing and writing was alright…except for the parts where monsters were referred to directly as brutes and soldiers. That, and at least one part where Hakken tells the other people he’s delving with to “save their most powerful attacks for later”, like he’s telling his fellow players to not blow their encounter and daily attacks. It would be one thing to tell a spellcaster to not use their highest level spells, but to basically tell a rogue and fighter to save their “special moves” for later? I think it would have been better if he’d told them to try not to exhaust themselves too soon, or something like that.

The big problem with the book were the characters. I didn’t like anyone in Mark of Nerath, and nothing changed here. On the plus side, the main cast gets cut down to a more manageable 3-5 (depending on where you are in the book). Mostly it’s Albanon, Shara, and Uldane, others come and go, and no one sees any development. As before, Albanon is continuously derided by everyone for basically no fucking reason. Anytime he says or does anything, he gets called a moron, or someone suggests that he “actually use his goddamned brain”.  Usually its Splendid, though when Kri shows up he happily joins in to keep me guessing why exactly Albanon hangs out with all these assholes.

This book would have been a lot better if the characters had changed, or we got some depth or history out of them. Anything to connect me with them and make me care. Hell, I would have been happy if Splendid had shut the fuck up, or Albanon blasted her with a magic missile. As it stands, we don’t know anything about them, and they barely have any identifiable personalities (well…except for Splendid’s inability to say anything nice). That being said, I think Don did a fair job with what he was given: I’d give it a 6 out of 10.

Design & Development: The Abyssal Plague

The Chained God, the Abyss, and an associated plague? Why oh why didn’t WotC make this into an adventure path? The idea is perfect for one, and it would have been miles better than The Chaos Scar (which I think has potential, just poorly executed). I don’t mind WotC publishing novels, as I think they’re great for a different kind of D&D fix. Unfortunately, D&D novels have always been hit or miss–too often the latter–and while I think it’s admirable to try and get readers to branch out more, I think a better use of their time would have been to apply this concept to the table top.

I know WotC catches some flak for poor adventure design, which frankly I think they do about a good a job as any other RPG publisher out there. Personally, my problem with adventures is that they’re too often isolated from each other, relying on the premise that you can easily cobble them for ideas/place them modularly in your own games. As a DM with not a lot of free time on his hands, that’s really not what I’m looking for: I want a complete, level 1-30 experience that is designed under the assumption that I will be using it, largely as written, through it’s conclusion.

So, in case anyone at WotC reads this, I for one would like to see an Abyssal Plague adventure path (preferably set in the implied setting).

Racial Ability Bonuses

If you’re the kind of group that has the kind of DM that needs to have WotC “allow” a rule before it can be utilized, and have yearned for the day when your deva, genasi, goliath, kalashtar, shadar-kai, or warforged could benefit from a floating ability score modifier, then your wait is over. Yeah, there’s some flavor content mixed in there, but the real gem here is the table tucked away at the end of page 2. Since the article doesn’t require a DDI account to view, I’ll just sum it up here:

• Deva: +2 Wisdom, +2 Intelligence/Charisma
• Genasi: +2 Intelligence, +2 Strength/Constitution
• Goliath: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution/Wisdom
• Kalashtar: +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence/Wisdom
• Shadar-kai: +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence/Wisdom
• Warforged: +2 Constitution, +2 Strength/Intelligence

The rest of the races are organized on the table, too, which could be handy if a player is looking to skim for a race that best suits a class (or if you both don’t use Essentials or the Character Builder). Unfortunately, no word on bladelings, bullywugs, gnolls, or their ilk. Le sigh.

Edit: Was going to put this in the comments in response to dwarf74, but figure I might as well put it up here. While I don’t think that optimal stats is necessary for a concept to work, a few things come to mind that work a lot better with the flexible modifier.

• Devas: Devas can make excellent Charisma-based paladins and prescient bards, as well as better warlocks and sorcerers. Hrmm…deva infernal-pact warlock?
• Genasi: Staff or tome wizard immediately springs to mind, as well as shielding swordmages. Unfortunately, having to pick between Strength or Constitution limits their utility in most melee characters.
• Goliath: A Wisdom bonus means that now they’re suited for the rest of the primal-suite, or any divine class they care to apply themselves to. Unfortunately, none of the primal classes except warden use Strength, and the same goes for the divine with the exception of paladin.
• Kalashtar: In 3rd Edition these guys were ideal for psionic classes, and now that they get an Intelligence bonus they’re good to go as psions, especially telepaths. Infernal and fey-pact warlocks also get something out of Intelligence, as to illusionist wizards and one of the bard-types. 
• Shadar-kai: Hrmm…never really cared for these guys much, but with a Wisdom bonus they make a much better fit for divine classes, especially pursuing avengers.
• Warforged: Artificer is a no brainer, but they can also better apply themselves as psions (psi-forged), and arcane classes like the shielding swordmage or tome/staff wizards.