D&D Next: Miss-conceptions

Great Weapon Fighting
When you miss a target with a melee weapon that you are wielding in two hands, the target still takes damage from the weapon. The damage equals your Strength modifier. The weapon must have the two-handed benefit or versatile property to gain this benefit.
–Classes, pg 25

Now that is a very clunky read, but given that part of D&D Next‘s design philosophy is restructuring the format so that you have to sift through walls of text to get the necessary details I am not really surprised.

A much easier, yet just as clear way to write it could be:

When you miss a target while wielding a two-handed or versatile melee weapon in two hands, the weapon deals damage to the target equal to your Strength modifier.

(EDITED: There ya go Svafa and Justin.)

Same results at half the text. You are welcome. The only other thing I might change is so that the fighter has to at least roll a 10+, or take a page from 13th Age and make it work on an even/odd die result. 4th Edition had reaping strike, which also did damage on a miss, and that never bothered me or upset the game in the slightest…so of course some people are really upset about it. At least when it pertains to non-magical miss damage because, you know, non-magical.

Personally I do not get it. Dungeons & Dragons has always had, to put it lightly, very abstract rules. Take hit points for example: they represent a combination of your physical fortitude, combat aptitude, luck, mental resolve, “plot armor”, etc. Where some games give you a physical and mental pool to individually track, Dungeons & Dragons kind of lumps it all up together. Certainly it is easier to manage, but then you run into the problem of how cure light wounds restores damage if you are not even wounded.

So why take umbrage with damage on a miss?

Some think that a miss should just be a miss. While this might make sense it discards the fact that a miss has really never meant that the attack failed to connect at all, unless for some reason you believe that wearing plate armor and packing a tower shield makes you somehow better at dodging. Especially for characters without a Dexterity bonus or, worse yet, a penalty, misses more often than not mean that you did get hit, but it just failed to inflict any appreciable damage.

You can see another example of this in Next by taking a look at the barbarian class: one class feature lets you add your Constitution modifier to your Armor Class so long as you are not wearing any armor at all. So what does that mean? Is the barbarian somehow better at dodging because she is incredibly tough? No, it means that she is so tough that she is able to ignore minor wounds, ie “misses”.

Another claim is simulation. As in they do not like the idea of a character that can never miss. This kind of plays upon the previous point, but there the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is not only horrible when it comes to simulation, and hit points do not, and never have universally represented physical trauma. A fighter that takes that feature is not always hitting things. Rather her blows hammer shields so hard that it rattles her foe, or her swings force them to exert themselves trying to keep out of the way, or maybe she is just be scary as fuck swinging a giant axe.

The thing is that what hit points mean has always been dependent on context. If you are attacking an orc then to a point they represent varying degrees of exertion, combat prowess, and physical damage. If you are attacking a goblin then they are likely more representative of prowess, luck, and resolve than anything else. It is when you get into to stuff like mindless undead, elementals, or big, tough monsters that making them represent “meat” points is probably going to be more appropriate.

Here is another exercise in context: if a giant throws a rock at you and hits, do you interpret it that the rock actually struck your character? No, you would be crushed. Even if it was just a glancing blow you would at least have broken bones, something more than some damage that not only affects you in no way, but that you can walk off in a day or so. Same thing for a dragon: do you honestly think any living person would survived getting blasted by fire, or taking the brunt of a multiattack routine?

Now a huge factor is magic. For the longest time Dungeons & Dragons often two different task resolution systems for swords and sorcery (some of the time, anyway), and for some the only way for magic to seem magical is if it continues to use different rules or even ignore them entirely. Why? I have no idea: Mage: The Ascension, FATE, Numenera, 13th Age, Dungeon World, Shadowrun, and 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons all resolve tasks the same way, and I do not hear anyone making the argument that magic in those games does not seem…magical enough.

Another major trend for spells? Half damage on a miss. Not all spells do this, mind you, but enough to where people seem to get hung up and think that it should be the purview of magic for no discernible reason other than “this is how it worked before”. Some argue that it “makes sense” for area-effect spells like fireball, because you have to dodge so much–ignoring the fact that you can still somehow take half damage even in a small pit–but then is it really that much of a stretch to allow a fighter with a specific ability to force one enemy to have to “dodge so much” with a big weapon?

Finally the last argument that I found was that–despite Dungeons & Dragons have a lot of exception-based design–allowing fighters to (not really) “hit” on a “miss” will somehow onfuse players. The d20 system is built around the simple idea that you roll a d20, add some modifiers, and try to beat a number to determine success; if anything were to violate that universal truth? Well…probably nothing, because again there are already many rules exceptions built into the game:

• Elves cannot be put to sleep.
• Uncanny Dodge causing you to take no damage on a successful Dexterity save.
• Magic missile deals automatic damage (except in 4th Edition, for awhile anyway).
• Melf’s acid arrow deals half damage on a miss despite being single target spell.
• Alert prevents you from being surprised, ever.
• Mobile prevents you from taking opportunity attacks against the target you attack.
• Polearm Master allows you to make opportunity attacks against creatures that enter your reach.
• Stealthy allows you to hide when only lightly obscured.
• Goblins can hide at the end of their turn without spending an action.

There are more I am sure, but you get the idea.

So maybe people are opposed to this because they for some reason think that 4th Edition is the worst thing to happen to the game, ever. Maybe they dislike it because it was not in previous editions. Maybe despite all the other rules exceptions, abstract nature of hit points, and other reasonable explanations they do not understand it, or do not want to understand it. Ultimately it is just one ability that–fighter players have to consciously choose, mind you–is guaranteed to inflict a trivial amount of damage on a miss. It is not going to ruin encounters, or break the game.

Legends & Lore: Classic Complexity

Some people like the 3rd Edition fighter because it is simple to the point where it is often used as an introductory class (you do not do much besides roll to hit, and roll damage if you do), while others dislike it for that very same reason (well, that and it is horrendously underpowered mid- to late-game).

Gamers have different tastes, and those tastes can change over time, so if a game get lets you determine–among other things–character complexity on the fly then you are just increasing the odds that they will not only like your game, but stick with it when they feel like switching up the amount of book keeping they want to do.

If you have not checked out the most recent playtest, one of the big changes to fighters is that they choose a Martial Path at 3rd-level. The idea is that if managing abilities on a round-by-round basis will entertain you, go gladiator. If, when you come out to play, you do not want to deal with lots of decisions on a round-by-round basis, then warriors are a good choice. I think it is a good goal, but that they are also executing it poorly.

In 3rd Edition if you rolled a fighter you started with a bonus feat. Not much, but you could spend it to boost your attack bonus (usually my first choice), initiative, or saving throws, give yourself to increase your damage output or Armor Class, and more. There were several feat threes that you could go down that ultimatly let you do stuff like move, attack, and keep moving, attack every adjacent enemy, use various combat tricks without getting hit first, and more.

4th Edition really ramped up the level of customization by letting you choose from several class features at the start, as well as over four-hundred martial exploits.

In Next? You get Second Wind. Period. At 2nd-level you get Action Surge. It is not until 3rd-level that you get to choose from three Martial Paths. Three options is not much, but it is still something, except that this choice locks in five class features that you will get down the road. From then on you just get what the game decides you should have. The article mentions being able to build your own subclass with DM permission, but there is still a hefty chunk of the class that you get no say in.

I guess this is better than nothing, as the current subclasses do not make much sense. Why are maneuvers limited to gladiators? Why do you only get six of them, and stop getting them at 7th-level? Since you have to meet or beat the monster’s ability score modifier on a d6 for a maneuver to work, does this not mean that as you get higher level and fight bigger/smarter monsters that the odds of them working go down? How come only knights can call someone out? This seems like something that a gladiator would be good at doing, too.

Why not let the fighter pick from a variety of options at 1st-level, trusting that players who want simple options to pick simple things, and let players that want more complexity do that? What if a player would rather start with a maneuver, or a d4 on Charisma checks? Both of those sound infinitely more interesting and about as simple (especially the Charisma bonus) than being able to regain half your hit points once per day. The subclasses would work just fine for builds/archetypes, but you can still let players choose.

Another thing I dislike is the statement “both race and background have more complexity early on but don’t add anymore at higher levels”. Umm…why not? I miss how in 4th Edition you had the option of making your race matter more if you wanted to, such as by taking Dwarven Weapon Training if you wanted to deal more damage with iconic dwarf weapons, Hellfire Blood for tieflings that wanted to add more oomph to their fire-power, and Fey Trickster if you wanted your gnome of any class to have a pair of neat wizard cantrips. Again, let players make the call as to how much their race affects their character.

D&DN Q&A: Math Check

Earlier this week it was revealed that—for now anyway—attack bonuses sans ability score mods would cap at +6, while skills and saves can, in specialized cases anyway, hit +12. The reasons given for this are that attack rolls tend to be made much more frequently, the range for Armor Class is narrower, and the consequences for failing to hit something less severe.

I agree with the first part. In my experience attack rolls eat up the majority share of dice rolling compared to skill checks, especially if you just count the meaningful ones. I also agree with the narrower Armor Class range, as they want to avoid the issues of the past two editions where numbers scale so that
you can throw bigger numbers at other, bigger numbers.

What I do not agree with are the stakes of the attack roll compared to the ability check. Mind you I am not disagreeing that the disparity exists: a bad Stealth check can bring an encounter down on your head, while a failed Athletics check and bring your head down onto the ground, but in both cases chances are you will survive. Saving throws on the other hand are a different beast. In older editions a single botched roll could prove fatal, or at least snowball you towards a total party kill. What makes these worse is that if a monster has got ’em, they can often use them whenever they please.

Reduce the DCs and boost the saving throw bonuses all you want, but you will still end up with anticlimactic character deaths because for some reason monsters just gotta have their arbitrary instant-death attacks, and little else from their mythological roots.

One of these gorgons does not belong, but that is okay I guess.

While I do not like magic in Dungeons & Dragons, I felt that 4th Edition at least eased up on it a bit by making the attack roll based on your level, Intelligence modifier, and bonuses from feats and implements (which could be easily ignored if you used inherent bonuses or your DM dropped monster defenses by a point here and there). This allowed you to easily multiclass into wizard and, assuming your magic implement is up to par for your level, have pretty good odds of it all working out.

The plan is to roll how magic saving throws are determined back two editions, making them depend on the spell’s level. At the start of the game it does not affect things much, but over time it will end up equating for half or more of the save DC. I guess the idea is to encourage wizards to use high-level slots for offensive magic, burning lower-level slots on utility stuff. I think that encouraging casters to use certain slots for certain spells is indicative of an issue, but what about multiclassed spellcasters that are fighting high-level monsters without high-level magic? What about the 5 to 15-minute work day?

Legends & Lore: Building a Better Subclass & Game Math

One of the earliest goals I can recall for Next is to have modular complexity. So whether you like “simple” fighters or 4th Edition’s martial exploits, both should be doable, ideally at the same time. Granted we have not seen how this will work, or how everything compares in actual play, but since the designers are still sticking to this mission statement I guess they have something worked out.

Yes, I am skeptical about that goal, and adding the option to build your own subclass to the list does not help as D&D has never had a good history of balancing features. I am not just talking about making them equal with other options at the level that they can be gained (both in and outside of the class that provides them), but
making them viable later on, playing well with each other (which can
create broken or over-powered combinations), or even doing what
they are supposed to be doing.

Still the ability to pick and choose your features, instead of being stuck with an inflexible progression is something that I have been wanting from D&D for awhile now. I have said plenty of times that my main dislike for most of the non-wizard classes is because everyone who picks a class will get stuck with the exact same thing. Sure you sometimes get to pick a few things on the side, but that minor tinkering does little to properly evoke any kind of interesting concept. I feel 4th Edition came the closest in giving me what I want, but I would much prefer something more along the lines of Dungeon World, FATE, or Shadowrun.

Another interesting bit is how they are approaching the game math: attack bonuses, saving throw and skill DCs, stuff like that. The math in D&D has for the most part been pretty wonky, especially in the last two editions:

• In 3rd Edition monsters were essentially micro-classes. Each type had its own Hit Die and base attack bonus, saving throw, and skill point progression associated with it, which made monster building a nightmare for a variety of reasons. It might have too many hit points, an insanely high saving throw, an ability might have an insanely high attack bonus or save DC, and/or you might just have to lump on bonus feats to shore up its numbers “because”.
• 4th Edition made things simpler, and in my opinion more elegant, by simply having its math based on the monsters role and level. This made it much more likely that a monster would do what you wanted it to, and challenge the players as much as you wanted with minimal “swing” factor and fuss. The only problem I had was that monsters tended to have very similar attack bonuses and defenses across the board, and pretty much level up with you, making your half-level bonus just a pointless number-based arms race.

It has been mentioned several times that hit points, instead of attacks and save bonuses, would be the key method to reflect your character growing in power. The idea is that by reining in all the numbers, your character can still be hurt by a lowly goblin at any level. I like this in theory because it bugged me how in 3rd Edition you would need to pile a bunch of class levels and/or extra Hit Dice on a monster to make it work, or how in 4th Edition that goblins started as level 1 monsters, and if you wanted to throw them at the party at higher levels you wold just level them up to wherever the characters were.

Since that mace can deal anywhere from 1d6 + 2 to 3d8 + 6, with an ongoing 10 (save ends), you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky?

That does not mean that the numbers will not grow. They will, just usually not by much. Attacks, checks, and saves will have an expected range of +1 to +6, but “strong archetypes” like a dwarf’s Constitution saves and a clerics Sense Motive checks can hit up to +12. That is actually a pretty big range, which concerns me because in past editions the bonus could make tasks that you would expect to be challenging trivial, if you even need to make a d20 roll at all. I am also wondering that if attacks cap at +6 while skills can get twice as high, how that will affect characters trying to do “stunty” things in combat, like swinging from a chandelier, flipping a table, etc.

It is nice to see them acknowledging that things like save-or-screw effects can drastically change the course of a battle. I remember playing in an Eberron campaign where a party of seven fought a pair of cockatrices, but due to a string of unlucky attack rolls and saving throws everyone but the half-orc barbarian got petrified. The problem is that they are still keeping save-or-screws in the game. Reduce the saving throw DC all you want, but having a character’s life hinge on the results of a single die roll is still going to result in random, anticlimactic deaths.

Whatever happened to the whole hit point threshold thing? It is not as elegant as 4th Edition’s multiple saves, but it still sounded better than what we got in 3rd Edition and before.

Frankly I do not understand why monsters arbitrarily adhere to their mythological origins. If you looked at a medusa you got turned to stone, period, so why did previous editions grant you a saving throw at all? Why does it either petrify you completely, or do absolutely nothing? 4th Edition had a great model, where you had to fail multiple saving throws in order to die. It added tension, and made it easier to use them without a total party kill (you had a chance to run if things started to go south).

Even Shadowrun‘s basilisks have to sustain their gaze, gradually turning you to stone depending on how many more hits they got on their opposed attribute test, and when it stopped you would gradually return to normal. This meant that you could use them more often, without having to stash a stone to flesh spell nearby in case someone rolls poorly (hopefully not the spellcaster). It also makes them more interesting, because they do something other than just tear out chunks of hit points.

I am also really bothered that spell DCs are going to factor in the spell’s level, like how they worked in 3rd Edition. This was precisely one of the many problems with spells in 3rd Edition (not that I have ever liked D&D magic), and why it was incredibly important that you either kept taking wizard levels, or prestige classes that gave you full spellcasting: you needed those higher level spells, with their higher DCs, to improve the odds of your spells sticking against higher CR monsters because of their increased saving throws. At this point all I can hope is that we will get a magic module that makes it interesting and/or sensible.

Finally for skills I think that the skill die is great for avoiding the issue of past editions, where eventually the bonus could eclipse the DC. I also think that each skill should have its own skill die, instead of just using one die for everything, and that there should be more opportunities for increasing skills. You could have skill increases across character level in general, and include categories of skill pickups and increases into the classes. So fighters could use a level up to add or increase a physical skill, while wizards can do lores.

DDN Blog: Paladin Versus Cleric

As I said the last time paladins and clerics were brought up, on the concept level they are both very similar. A previous blog post stated that the paladin feels more martially inclined than the cleric, and that they are “exploring” the creative and mechanical space between the cleric and fighter.

A good idea, but only if the end result is not something that can be cobbled together by building your own cleric/fighter. Reading this post it seems like they are trying to ensure that it is not so easy, but I do not think that highly situational benefits are the way to go.

In 3rd Edition paladins got few alignment based class features–sensing and smiting evil–but also Charisma-based save bonuses and healing, the ability to summon a magical horse, remove diseases, a reduced ability to turn undead, and low-level divine magic. Personally I do not think that alignment-based bonuses are the way to go, and I am surprised to see that they are considering giving the paladin more, as well as still emphasizing the special mount.

I am guessing that with lots of evil-thwarting goodness that the paladin is intended to be “better” than normal when fighting them. Does that mean she will have the expected output against Neutral, or even Good opposition? In other words, will it make her outclass the rest when it comes to fighting evil? Will she still be able to meaningfully contribute otherwise?

I also do not think that paladins should be automatically good at mounted combat, as mounts can be tricky to work into a campaign (as well as maintain). I would rather have a class feature option, or a feat or talent tree. With a retraining mechanic players could even test it out and go another route if they do not like it. In any case having variant and/or scaling mounts (Defenders of the Faith and 4th Edition cavalier summon mount feats) would be great. 

What I would like to see is a continued focus on melee combat and defensive abilities that we have seen in 4th Edition, including smiting powers that do not require an alignment to work. Perhaps a reduced effect on Neutral/Good guys, like the extra damage might always be non-lethal or otherwise penalize them, so that they can be subdued instead of slain.

I am also curious if paladins will champion gods or causes (kind of like an inverse of 4th Edition blackguards). Regardless, I would like to see alternate class features instead of lay on hands and curing diseases; a blessing of war that gives out a damage bonus, the ability to inflict contagions, extra saves against magic for God of Magic-serving paladins, etc. Having angels (or devils?) pop in to help out as a higher-level option also sounds cool.

I guess we will have to see what souvenirs they get from Crazytown.

Fighting The Good Fight

Fighters are a tricky business. I remember in older editions (ie, 2nd and 3rd Edition) it was the go-to class for the new guy, a kind of simplistic training-wheels archetype that let you get your game on and pick up the rules as you go. 4th Edition gave it a major overhaul, finally putting its power consistently on par with spellcasters, making it a viable option at all levels of play. Scaling damage, multiple attacks that could actually hit, the ability to actually stop monsters from attacking your allies and impose conditions required that it become more complex. This move was either a feature or a bug depending on who you ask, but the slayer and knight subclasses (introduced in one of the Essentials books) proved that you could make a less complex class that was still viable.

In preparation for a potentially sucktastic new edition (or ideas to pitch whenever the playtest actually starts going), my group is cobbling together a kind of 4th Edition hack using some of the stuff I’ve talked about previously. One of the things I am stuck on is just how complex to make a 1st-level fighter. In past editions they basically made melee attacks over and over again, gaining multiple attacks at higher levels. 3rd Edition added in attack-like options in addition to feats and feat-trees that could modify attacks and actions, as well as give you entirely new things to do. At the end run Tome of Battle brought in a fighter-esque class that got stances and recharging special attacks. Some people were upset that 4th Edition gave the fighter daily abilities (despite there being plenty of mundane classes with daily features in both 3rd Edition and Pathfinder), though later subclasses removed all of these in lieu of encounter-based exploits.

So…how much is too much? I think that as a baseline a fighter should be wear any armor and wield most any weapon, as well as some feature that lets her focus on a weapon (or weapon group) at the start…but what then? Bonus feats? Talents (with talent trees)? Class features? Stances? Some kind of special attack/exploit/maneuver(s)? An entirely new mechanic, like stamina or stunt points?

Rebuilding Thunderspire Labyrinth, Part 2

This time I am going to talk about the Chamber of Eyes. The idea is that, if your players are following the plot of Thunderspire Labyrinth then they will quickly learn about the Bloodreavers, go looking for them, and end up a shrine formerly dedicated to Torog. Inside they find a bunch of hobgoblins, defeat them, and learn that the slaves were conveniently sold to some duergar, meaning they now have to go somewhere else to find them. If it were not for the XP and treasure this entire mini-dungeon would be entirely pointless.

In the module the Bloodreavers generally leave the denizens of the Hall in peace, more out of fear than anything else. In my vision I treat them as a military force to be reckoned with, and while they do not mess with anyone in the Hall consider others found outside its limits—like Rendil—to be fair game. Since the law of the Mages does not extend out of the Hall, this means that anyone who has been wronged by them does not have a valid complaint. It also means that outsiders are ideal in helping them exact justice…or serve as potential victims to get sent off in order to get caught.

Having the Bloodreavers be a thorn in more than a few sides could provide you with more adventure hooks to get the characters involved. In addition to going after slaves someone important could have been captured by them (an ally of Surina or one of Brugg Asteron’s friends?), one of the Mages might give them a task (being unable to directly interfere in affairs), or Rendil or Gendar might ask them to retrieve some goods stolen from them (or in a twist try to sell them out).

Renovating The Chamber of Eyes
Oddly the front door depicts a crude image of a beholder, despite A) the actual art not showing one and B) there being no beholder to be found. Maybe the author had hoped that players would see it and think that, shit, there is a beholder coming up. I mean players from older editions probably knew that they could turn you to stone, put you to sleep, or just, I dunno, kill you instantly. While 4th Edition threw out almost all of the save-or-screws they are still nothing to sneeze at, especially at 4th-level (hell, the mini beholder is a level 5 solo). I am actually going to keep it because I intend to make good on the foreshadowing.

Aside from the statues, the decor is almost entirely nondescript. For a temple dedicated to Torog this will just not do. I decided to changes the statues from winged demons (why?) to crawling humanoids, bound in changes, with jagged crowns that cover their eyes nailed to their heads. If you saw the Silent Hill movie, then the janitor tied up in barbed wire is a good indication of where I am going with this.

Has a greater impact than another generic “winged-demon”.

The walls also look like that the hall was carved out by massive claws, and supported by pillars composed of victims bound in bladed chains…

Like that, but in pillar form.

…and the double doors are kind of like the Gates of Hell.

Could probably do with a minotaur head on there.

These additions will hopefully better convey the atmosphere of an ancient temple dedicated to a sadistic god that crawls through the depths of the Underdark.

A Closer Look
The map I drew up uses the original, with some minor modifications. I tried to include rooms that I would expect to see in an actual temple, including a place where they might hold ceremonies and perform fell rituals. Not all the rooms needed change, and in some cases the encounters and layout is mostly good enough to work with.

1. Narthex
This chamber is basically the same, though the rubble has been repositioned to help conceal the hobgoblins that stand guard in this room. I figure hobgoblins would actually try to modify the terrain in their favor, and I changed the archer to a spear-thrower. I added a few fissures in the floor that just serve as difficult terrain (though I would also have a character make a save or Acrobatics check to avoid falling prone if they are forced into them), along with a pit since Torog is all about pits.

Suspended above the pit is a former “saint” of Torog, chained up and wrapped in bloody linen. The characters can use it to climb up to the balcony, which I made easier than taking the walls (which while scoured are also concave). If the characters learned about Torog while in the Hall (or just make a really nice Religion check), they might know that they can gain Torog’s blessing by making an offering into the pit. In this instance characters that do so gain Torog’s lamentation of the shackled, which will give them an edge against the upcoming beholder and exarch.

Area 4. Guard Room
This room is a bit larger and is filled with bedrolls, not beds (which are probably a pain in the ass to drag all the way down here). Characters can use a standard action to yank on a bedroll that a monster is standing on to deal damage and knock them prone (use knockdown assault as a benchmark, though you might want to make it a little better to encourage players to give it a shot).

If the hobgoblins in this room get surprised, remember to use Aid Another to give the front-liners a bonus (and also emphasizing their phalanx formation), or have them run around in order to catch the characters with a pincer attack.

Area 5. Bath Chamber
I changed this to a slave pen and cistern. For some reason I like the idea of minotaurs having a primitive form of plumbing, and this is where their water comes from. Other rooms have levers and valves that dispense water, and areas with fire pits can dispense heated water.

I would actually keep a few slaves here that can inform the players that some got sold to the duergar. Some of the slaves might even be related and beg the characters to find their significant others/brothers/sisters/children/etc, or have lost family heirlooms that they would like returned (either or both could be minor quests).

Area 6. Sitting Room
This is now an impromptu dining hall and secondary quarters. I guess I could have added a pantry or make it more kitchen like, but I doubt my players will really notice much. Mebbe some crumbling walls to add in more terrain variety (something that could be knocked over).

Area 8. High Priest’s Quarters
The hobgoblin’s new leader stays here ever since the previous one got disintegrated by the beholder. A good spot to keep treasure. I could see the new leader making a deal with the characters to help get rid of the beholder.

Area 9. Refectory
I changed this room up to be both a kind of archive and ritual chamber. The first part has been repurposed to be a kind of armory, where they use the firepit to make repairs to weapons and armor. If the players get caught, this is where I would keep their gear. I suppose if you use martial practices then you could place Forge Weapon and Forge Armor here.

The other part has been sealed up because of a terrible monster–similar in appearance to all the statues–that inhabits the pit. If the players go in here, they can kill it (and gain either a magic spiked chain or flail weapon, or some kind of binding wondrous item), as well as take a secret passage directly to the balcony in Area 10.

Area 10. Torog’s Shrine
Where the characters normally would deal with a dire wolf and some hobgoblins, they now face off against a beholder. Granted it is de-leveled to 6, but the terrain features should help make this a very epic fight to wrap up the Chamber. I also placed a pair of duergar here that came to bargain with the beholder for an alliance against the Hall. The beholder intends on killing both the duergar and the characters, so that he can later claim that assassins from the Hall killed them and hopfully incite the duergar to attack.

By going this route I can give the players an out if they end up losing; the beholder keeps them alive as proof, and they could be taken directly towards the Horned Hold, where they will have a chance to escape. If they defeat the beholder (as planned), then they can speak with the duergar, who while evil are still grateful that they were rescued. Depending on how the social role-playing goes, the duergar might “owe” the characters, or agree to see them later if the characters want to try talking their way into the Horned Hold. In other words, you give the players some options instead of just kicking down the door.

Alter: I added in an alter used for sacrifices. It looks like two chained minotuars holding up a bloody stone slab. It has a latch that causes it to slide back, revealing a pit where sacrifices were dropped and digested by oozes. This could be a good spot to put another encounter and/or some treasure. Characters adjacent to it gain a +1 power bonus when using powers that can slow, immobilze, or restrain a target (ideal if they get the divine boon in area 1 and the chain from the monster in area 9).

Legends & Lore: Skills in D&D

My response was “somewhere in the middle”, because it seems like a good part of what Mike Mearls is musing about already exists in the game–just written in a different way and/or in a different spot–and the other stuff seems fairly situational (likely making it harder to remember, especially if you get a lot of “talents”). I do like the idea of making it more explicit as to what abilities can do; 4th Edition kind of glosses over them and sticks to direct benefits, such as telling you what defense or skill(s) it affects as opposed to giving a broader explanation.

As it stands you can play Dungeons & Dragons without skills at all and just default to ability scores (for example instead of Athletics, just use Strength), and characters can already at least try any skill application except for detect magic (Arcana) or reduce falling damage (Acrobatics). Aside from that being trained in a skill just drastically increases the odds that you will succeed. With the proposed system you still get small bonuses, but you also get some sort of passive benefit.

I like the concept that Mearls is going for. Groups that want a skill-less game can do so, while groups that want skills can choose their complexity (skills as bonuses, skills with benefits, etc). Even better groups can dial the complexity up and down as they want without having to switch between editions. The problem is that groups can already do something very similar with relative ease by removing skills from the game (modifying DCs, of course), sticking with skills, or using skill powers.

My final verdict would depend on whatever edition of the game this ruleset is actually intended for; in 4th Edition I would not like it because players already have to deal with a lot on their plate, and adding skill talents to feats and powers would just bog down things even further. I recall something similar near the end of 3rd Edition, though I never used it and I do not think it was particularly popular. In a theoretical 5th Edition though, who knows?

Homebrew: Seeker Evocations

I wrote up some seeker evocations with a desert theme in mind for those that read this blog and actually use third-party/homebrew material. It is a hard class to write for because the concept seems kind of un-refined; you throw axes or shoot arrows, and spirits pop out to beat shit up. That much is made clear in Player’s Handbook 3, though some of their powers let them knock critters into the feywild, grow quills, and ignore difficult terrain because the “land recognizes you and your allies as friends”. It really makes it difficult to put some boundaries on what sort of things a seeker should be doing, as well as how to explain it.

Legends & Lore: Setting the Bar

Mearls contines to expound upon his concepts for a modular game system, and the more he talks about it the more I am in favor of it.

I think.

My understanding is that every class, or perhaps power source, starts at a baseline level of power. Groups that desire more complexity do so, effectively increasing their level of power. For example, fighters can add in an exploit system like 4th Edition has, while wizards get a more complicated spell system (something like rituals, perhaps).

As with all Legends & Lore columns it is a hot topic with gamers asking questions, voicing concerns, deriding the concept without knowing how it will work, and speculating if this will be a new edition entirely or just a new rules supplement.

One gamer asked about how classes will be balanced across the board. For example, if fighters get to use exploits, how will that work out for wizards, clerics, and the rest? Well, as Mearls puts it in the article, “each other class also gains access to a rules module that makes it more powerful (wizards might get more spells, clerics gain access to domain abilities, rogues could get maneuvers like fighters or a trick or stunt system).”

So for groups that went to maintain an equal degree of balance between power sources the solution would be quite simple, assuming the system works as intended, while groups that want to simulate magic being superior could feasibly get away with that by giving spellcasters more “modules”, while leaving martial characters high and dry. How does the DM deal with this varied and scaling power? By “dialing-up” the monster difficulty. Two examples given were to increase the number of monsters, or use tougher ones.

Other things of interest were using “double-feat” rules, adjusting the amount of XP required to level up or going “XP neutral”, as well as packing rules into modules with identifiers to allow you to pick and choose your rules to suit a campaign. This very much sounds like it could be done using the current edition, especially since Gamma World seems to have been very rules light experiment, though I could just as easily see them cleaning up 4th Edition for the next edition.

They do have products slated for next year, though, so who knows what is going to happen. I am kind of excited to see where this goes, and if I do not like it I have enough D&D material (and Gamma World) to last me a life time as is.