Vampire: The Classquerade

Mearls made the big reveal on Monday that the vampire class was deliberately designed, as is, to try and provide a class option that could closely emulate one or more vampire entries in the Monster Manual. This is a reasonable goal that I tried to attain with my homebrew red dragon race/class; take a critter that was never intended to be played on the players’ side of the screen, and make it functional and recognizable despite a lack of flexibility.

To me, making sure that it does what the monster is supposed to do takes priority over trying to saddle it with options that do not really make any sense, but going down the vampire’s list of racial features and powers we have regeneration, necrotic resistance, radiant vulnerability, lethal side effects from the sun, the ability to drink blood/drain life, punch the shit out of people, charm them, turn into a swarm of bats, turn into a wolf and bat, and a bunch of other stuff that sounds very vampiric in execution.

You know, all the shit that this guy does not do.

The big shocker is that after providing a race, class, feat tree (though admittedly a poor one), and a multiclassing/hybrid option, that it is still not good enough for the vocal minority.

Ironically one detractor wanted a theme, which would provide way fewer options than the class iteration (like, 3-6 in total), not to mention that themes are optional rules that players without DDI accounts would likely be introduced to via Dark Sun Campaign Setting if at all, meaning that it is possible that their total number of themes to choose from would be exactly one.

But hey, it is all right because having a theme would open up more concepts, right? I mean, what if I want to play a wizard-turned-vampire? Currently my “only” options are to play a vryloka, go with the dhampyr feats, pick up vampire multiclassing as a wizard/wizard multiclassing as a vampire, or hybrid the two. I suppose I could also try combining these options to get my vampire-to-wizard ratio close to where I want it, probably exactly where I want it.

Could use a pointy hat, but that will do.

Others still cling to the misconception that it is a “poor striker”. I did some number crunching myself, and while it is not strictly as good as an optimized rogue it comes close despite lacking vampire-specific feat support. However, it is important to note that an optimized rogue should not be the benchmark we are looking for. I have also played a vampire, and it was awesome; I did not have a problem with healing surges (not that I got hit), and did an insane amount of damage almost every round. I was able to contribute without being a liability, and felt very much like a vampire in the process.

The Ease of Essentials

Designing a class or sub-class with pre-specified class features and/or powers, aka “Essentials-style”, is easier than one without because there are often fewer choices to make throughout your career.

For example a fighter gets to pick at least four exploits at 1st-level, one at 2nd, and so on and so forth all the way to 30th-level. The only point where new class features are gained is at levels 11, 16, 21, 24, and 30, which depends on the paragon path and epic destiny you choose. Conversely a class like the slayer chooses two at-will stances…and that is it. Your features are preset for you; +1 to attack with weapons, power strike as an encounter exploit, and you add your Dex mod to damage rolls. At levels where a fighter gets to choose utility exploits you get to as well, but a good chunk of level up will have you picking from a handful of class features or just taking what you get, like another usage of power strike.

This difference in complexity has lead some to believe that the designers at Wizards of the Coast are lazy, incompetent, pressed for time, lack the staff to properly design/playtest material, or a combination of all of the above. I think a major thing that the Essential-haters fail to realize is that there are plenty of gamers out there actually prefer these classes, or at least enjoy both, perhaps even at different times or for different game types. They seem to think that despite “everyone hating Essentials” or Essentials being a “failed product”, WotC is simply trying to shovel out subpar content (that anyone could do) because they either have no other option, or just do not give a fuck.

Thankfully Trevor piped in to clear things up by page three, stating that no Essentials was not the result of lazy design or trying to get product out the door, but to provide an alternate entry point (as they have said), and because, yeah, there are gamers that want them, even if they are veterans. He even provides clarification on the vampire; it was designed to evoke the idea of a vampire in the D&D world, something that it does very well despite the limited options and thirty levels. Does a member of the WotC staff coming forward to clarify stuff and address concerns actually help? Eh…not really, which makes it no surprise that they so rarely do so in the first place.

One poster claimed that knights or slayers could have just been fighters, but with most of the choices made for them already. In other words, a pre-generated character that you could choose stuff for if you really wanted to. I…cannot see how this would make anyone happier, as you literally would be buying shit you already paid for. I look at it that the subclasses fill a desired niche. If you want to play a slayer–which plays somewhat differently from a knight or fighter mind you–then you can. If you want more complexity, then play a fighter. Different classes for different needs.

Another poster mentioned that the mage and warpriest are very close to the class design of the original classes, which demonstrates that if the designers think that a class needs to use the original progression to evoke a concept they will, as opposed to needlessly limiting themselves. 

D&D Limits Adventure Design?

This is going to be one of those ranty posts, so if you aren’t a fan of those then I would just move along.

So over at Paizo’s messageboards they for some reason have elected to keep the 4th Edition sub-forum, which means that from time to time I duck it and scope things out (sometimes they do adventure conversions, which are kind of nifty). A thread titled “Pathfinder 4E?” caught my attention, in which someone asks the question of whether or not Paizo would do an adventure path intended for Dungeons & Dragons. The immediate answer was a flat-out no. This was expected, as were the follow up comments of thank god, why would they, 4E is probably too boring to write for, etc.

Not far down, a poster (who is also a publisher?) pitched in the following:

From the trunk of D&D 3E has sprung two very different branches: 4E and Pathfinder. And more than just rules divides them. Design philosophy divides them. I dont think you could actually make the adventures Paizo makes using the 4E rules. The two just don’t go together. 4E is all about set piece combats. Just see their adventures. Its so true they even changed the format of how they publish and present adventures. Gone is story and character and development and anything not related to the game table. Paizo is all about story and character. And there is a belief (that is clearly held, whether or not 100% true) that you can’t do what the developers at Paizo want to do with the 4E rules.

While I agree that there is a design philosophy difference (ie, character balance and usability), I think that Clark is outright wrong in his observations.  I cannot tell if he is deliberately trying to misinform or is simply ignorant. Probably both. What is even more fucked up is that on the next page, he states that he does not intend to make absolute statements (despite making several), and is actually congratulated by Sean Reynolds two posts down.

Of course it all made sense after doing some research and discovering that this guy wanted to do 3rd-party material for Dungeons & Dragons. Since WotC didn’t release a license permitting this for quite awhile (I guess since it was done in all of one Edition, that it must be a mandatory thing?), he was not able to do so and is now bitter about it. So bitter that he is resorting to disguising his heavily biased opinions as facts after they had already been challenged and refuted. Seriously. He isn’t even being creative about his trolling; it is the same shit that was being slung back in 2008.

What I would like to know from an alleged publisher (with a website that hasn’t been updated since 2009) is the same damned thing that I have wanted to hear from the haters since 4th Edition was released: why do you think the game limits character development and storytelling? What about Pathfinder makes it “all about story and character”? I’d heard from someone at Paizo that one of the purported reasons that they wanted to stick with 3rd Edition is that they couldn’t do the adventures that they want. You know, those same adventures that people are having an apparently easy time converting, sometimes on the fly?

The truth is that there is no valid reason why Paizo couldn’t make an adventure path for Dungeons & Dragons, except for perhaps spite and bitterness, which makes more sense because of the magazine licenses being pulled (despite giving them time to wrap up Savage Tide) and releasing a new edition. The fact that WotC did not include a third-party license probably just made things worse, but then they were never required to do so in the first place (and I am of the mind that most third-party content in 3rd Edition was ass, anyway). I know Clark thinks that Paizo hoisted the magazines to new heights, but I never used any content from Dragon, and only bothered with the adventure path content in Dungeon. Nowadays I use content from Dragon all the time, and have run plenty of adventures out of Dungeon, so at least for me it has gotten a lot better.

It is funny to see him throwing around comments like, “Paizo gets it” or that they are “gamers to the core”. I guess Chris Perkins’s Iomandra campaign wiki, and all those podcasts and videos don’t mean shit? The best part I think, is where he goes on about how he is glad that he “cannot” support Dungeons & Dragons. Oh sure if he could he’d “probably have to”…except he then follows up by saying that even if WotC did make an OGL for D&D that’d still probably go with Pathfinder. You know what? I am also glad that he “cannot” support Dungeons & Dragons. I think we are better off for it.

Heroes of Shadow Reactions

Due to a combination of some Heroes of Shadow reviews providing misinformation on just how much–if not all–material was Essentials only, and people who believe that stuff in an Essentials book is somehow incompatible (or even more laughably, a separate edition by any degree), I am not surprised to find 20-30 page forum threads of people bitching back and forth. Is it odd that I find it refreshing that at least some are complaining about how crappy the shade is/isn’t?

First things first (again); Essentials isn’t a new edition (or even a half edition, errata, or what the fuck ever). It’s a limited book line that just so happens to have some classes that follow a different starting and advancement structure. That’s not a bad thing, “allowing” designers to think more than a step outside the box. Yeah, past classes did minor changes, like giving you flexibility on making at-wills into encounters (most psionic classes), or giving you up to three at-wills (in the case of the druid). Using an entirely different class structure doesn’t mean that we’ve somehow stepped into a new edition.

Were things really this bad when WotC released Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic, or Book of Nine Swords? Do people even remember how much shit changed between 3rd Edition and Revised? To make things as clear as I possibly can about the content in Heroes of Shadow, virtually all of it can be used by clerics, paladins, warlocks, and wizards of any structure. There are some powers that are tied to class features, but they are way in the minority (unless your DM is sane and doesn’t mind your warlock grabbing a “binder-only” summoning power).

Second, some people are upset that the shade and vryloka have racial penalties, and/or some are also pissed at Mearls for his justifications on why shades lose all of one healing surge. I really see no problem with a small penalty here or there, especially when it’s nowhere severe enough to render the race unplayable as a specific class. I remember back in the day when a real racial penalty was having a net -2 to your stats, and no racial features of merit, or being Small with a Strength penalty and trying to play an inherently dead-end class like the fighter. One less healing surge? One? Wizards get six, though I’ve never encountered–nor heard of–an instance where one healing surge spelled the difference between life and death.

Again, this mentality just serves to irrationally straight-jacket designers. If they make a race that gets a penalty only when using spells or using melee attacks, then we’ll talk.

Others are pissed off that the shade racial is a standard action, and that it allegedly does for the most part that “anyone can do in the right situation”. I’d like to point that using Stealth requires total concealment, superior cover, or the DM’s mercy/leniency/rules ignorance. I know that at night, these requirements might not be as steep, but the fact that they can hide behind allies and create areas of dim light as a minor action at will by 6th level should not be discounted so readily (that, and all those dim-light feats). Others complain that some of the classes that the shade is good at (ie, rogues and assassins) will now have a wasted skill. While I can understand the sentiment behind this, the same thing could also be said for races with weapon proficiencies, racial features whose usefulness depends on the class you play (like goring charge), or skill bonuses for skills that you need a feat to take, or won’t ever use.

In short, I think a the vocal minority needs to take a step back and look at the larger picture. Just because WotC put some sub-classes and races with (minor) penalties in a book does not mean that other classes won’t get laundry-list power articles, or that 5th Edition is coming out, or that Mearls doesn’t listen to you (because he hates you).

Legends & Lore: Minis

Not pictured: the other sandwich bags, plastic tubs, and assorted clutter  on the bookshelves.

I have a lot of minis.

I’m pretty sure a looong time ago, I made a post talking about how much I like using minis in my D&D games. I’ve been using minis since I started out with Basic, which consisted of some solid-red plastic heroes and a bunch of cardstock stands for NPCs and monsters. As time and money allowed, I would gradually buy metal figures from Ral-Partha, up until Wizards launched their pre-painted minis, which were a godsend because now I didn’t have to spend all my time painting a bunch of stuff that would invariably chip and break.

Why do I like minis?

The first reason is that they look cool as hell. Yeah, I can describe how big or freaky a monster is, but being able to let the player plainly see just how small they are can really put things in perspective. Plus, it’s also nice when players get a better image of the monster and proclaim “what the fuck is that?” The other reason is tactical positioning, which falls into the second camp that Mike identifies, which are players that tend to use them to provide “hard and fast” rules, as opposed to relying on the DM’s arbitration.

To elaborate, as a DM I like this because it answers many of the questions that I used to get, such as if the monster is close enough to hit with a ranged attack, is there an attack penalty, will allies be caught in an area effect spell, how close is the monster to a/an [insert hazard], will I get attacked if I do [insert action], and so on and so forth. Most of these answers were based on what I assumed the characters were doing, which often did no match up with what the players thought they were doing.

Basically, players can readily make their own informed decisions, which also ties in with why I like them as a player: I can look at the map and make my move without having to ask the DM, refer back to my abilities, ask more questions, and spend god-knows-how long trying to determine a satisfactory course of action. Remember how long it would take spellcasters to come to a conclusion? Now have most of the party doing a similar song-and-dance as they peruse their options.

I don’t think that minis intrinsically detract from the imagination or description of the scene (I still use dice and tokens, even with my extensive collection). Some DM’s might be lazy and just let the minis and effects of actions do the talking, but then that’s really the DM’s fault. When I move a monster, I don’t sit there in stony silence like a chess-player, I let them know that the orc unleashes a bellowing roar as it rushes towards them, or that the ooze makes sick, slurping noises as it tries to envelope them. An axe doesn’t deal 9 damage, it cuts a vicious gash in your arm, and the oozes slime causes your armor to hiss and smoke as it slowly dissolves. To me they’re game aids, not the foundation of the game.

Magic Item Wishlists

It’s probably just the orange light bulb from the Pulp Fiction Briefcase.

In the last 2nd Edition campaign I played in, we rarely if ever found treasure. I remember getting a +1 two-handed sword (+2 versus undead!) at third level, and I think a suit of +1 chainmail went to the cleric at sixth. I don’t recall how frequently it was assumed that players should find treasure, but I think we were getting hosed pretty badly, but at least it was something that everyone could use. Conversely, I remember running Age of Worms in 3rd Edition, which was fraught with numerous magical trinkets that did little except to serve as fanciful vendor trash, to be pawned off when the party got to a town that had a sufficiently high gp reserve.

4th Edition operates under a very different assumption: players are supposed to furnish wish lists to the DM, so that he/she can tailor valuable rewards in a more…appreciable manner. Wish lists are kind of a touchy subject with 4th Edition, as it’s the first one that I recall explicitly telling the DM to ask for them. Some people take it to mean that the DM should only dole out the items that characters specifically ask for, which can be fine–especially if you are running one-shots, or games where the players cannot easily sell/disenchant/enchant their own loot–though I take a more relaxed stance.

See, as a DM it can be difficult for me to remember what each player has, what their character can use, and what the character wants. To me, a wish list is a way for me to quickly reference all of these things when I’m generating treasure rewards. I try to keep my treasure logical and thematic, so player’s aren’t always going to get the exact thing that they want, and my players know that. When I was running At The Mines Of Madness, one of the players wanted a specific kind of magical scimitar. I don’t remember what it was now, but I ended up giving him a byeshk sword, which was A) a weapon he could use, and B) really useful considering that they were fighting wall-to-wall aberrants.

What he wanted? No. Useful? Hell yes. It’s because 4th Edition is the first D&D edition that I’ve played where the players really don’t need treasure in order to overcome obstacles, that this is something I feel a lot safer doing. In past editions, you might have needed a magical sword to overcome a creature’s damage resistance, and if you went further back, some were immune to weapons without a sufficiently high enhancement bonus. In 3rd Edition, items with static bonuses to ability scores are virtually mandatory. Not so anymore, as characters are mostly defined by their class as opposed by their magic item suite.

Recently a fellow player and I decided that our group should post character information on Google Docs so that the DM would have an easy and convenient way of tracking our personalities, goals, journals, and…wish lists. As a player, this is something new for me. Unfortunately (fortunately?) there’s a lot of items in the game, and I’m playing a class that I’ve never played before (cavalier). I’ve decided to meet the DM halfway, literally by filling out roughly half of my own wish list with a few items and leaving the rest blank, so that I can be better surprised (which is how I suspect a lot of players do it).

Anyway, that’s my thoughts on wish lists: use them as guidelines, not set-in-stone instructions. Try to cater to the character’s needs, but don’t sacrifice the integrity of the game if it doesn’t make sense.

Making a Character

I’m going to open with a very simple visual aid.

…and…

Got it?

The mission statement for Dungeons & Dragons characters is very, very straightforward: you’re an adventurer/hero/glorified vagrant that kills things and steals their shit (often in that order). The game doesn’t even try to hide this fact, and so I find it very odd when a player bellies up to the table and wants to play a commoner or “zero-level” character. That’s not what the game is about, or even assumes that you would ever do. If you dont like it, then play something else.

I don’t mean for that to sound asinine, but it’s really as easy as that. I dont jump into a Shadowrun game and get all butthurt that I have to play a cybernetically and/or supernaturally enhanced criminal, a Dragonball Z game and expect there to be plot, or a Rifts game and expect decent mechanics/anything remotely approaching game balance. Good games are made to cater to a specific play-style or genre, and D&D is not about going through a routine existence farming, or meandering around a village chatting it up with NPCs.

Players wanting to play an adventure game with a character barely suited for exterminating rats isn’t the only problem I’ve run across in my gaming experience. I once had a group that was professed an interest in the game, and decided to run Stick in the Mud because I like the cut of Aeryn Rudel’s game. Mostly I wanted to run a short session to get the newbies acclimated to the game and see if the veteran enjoyed my game-style. I told them to roll up a small party (which took awhile since one player kept wanting to fucking play Man-Bear-Pig). 

Once we had the party assembled and were ready to go dungeon crawling, I was hit with the following: 

“Why are we doing this?”

I hate, hate, haaate this fucking question. (＃ﾟДﾟ)

To me it’s valid only insofar as you use it to justify to yourself why you are going to dick around in a dungeon and kill things–especially when put into context of a one-shot session. You’re an adventurer. Think up something conducive to acting like one. To make sure that I’m absolutely clear, motivation is fine. It’s great. It can help a player become more immersed in their character and get them more emotionally invested in the game. The problem is that no one else is likely to give a fuck about your motivation because they’ve got their own shit to worry about.

“Oh, you have an estranged brother that you are trying to find? Well fuck you, I’m trying to avenge my father who was murdered by a mysterious figure cloaked in shadows and shit.”

Often times the question seems to be directed at me, the DM. Why the hell are you asking me? It’s your fucking character, you figure it out. Feel free to bounce reasons off of me to see if its kosher with the plot, but don’t ask me to do more than toss a couple tidbits your way, as all too often it’s never what you wanted in the first place. Now, the provided hooks for the adventure were good (and generic) enough for me: get mud samples, retrieve an old staff, or just bring back heads for a bounty. It’s easy and appeals to multiple player tastes. Dont like ’em, then you give me one that you do like and we’ll talk.

Frankly, I prefer it when my players table that shit and work on it off the clock. Don’t grind the game to a halt so you can play twenty-questions with yourself, roll with the flow and exchange email messages with your DM between game sessions. It’s not a goddamn chicken-egg exercise: you can add to your character retroactively. Dont believe me? In many works of fiction, you start out knowing very little about any given character, and gradually learn more as the story(s) progress. It especially annoys me when I get players that seem to want to psychoanalyze their characters. Like, they can’t make a simple decision without pondering for hours if their character would really do that thing, use that item, blah blah fucking blah. The answer is simple: your character does whatever you want it to, because its your character.

I don’t recall if they ever picked a motivation, despite it being a one-shot intro game. However, once we’d stumbled through that hurdle, we immediately hit another.

“Do we know each other?”

Fucked if I know, figure it out between yourselves. ┐(‘～`；)┌

For some reason, players that think that its taboo to start the game already knowing one or more of the other players. Do they think it will give them any sort of advantage over something aside from being able to dodge the awkward, “get to know each other” phase of some games? There’s been one campaign that I can recall where this wasn’t a torturous trial, but that had two DMs and it still seemed contrived. Personally, I prefer operating under the assumption that the group already knows each other, or at least knows of each other. It makes it much easier to get the game going without having to trudge towards a contrived eventuality.

In closing, I submit the following:

• You’re an adventurer, act like it.
• You don’t have to have your character fully sorted before the game starts. Flesh it out as needed.
• It’s okay to know the party before the dice ever hit the table.

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.

The Internet is All Gone?

Trawling the RPG.net forums I found a thread questioning about whether or not people upset at Wizards of the Coast logically protecting their intellectual property from piracy–while at the same time making it easier to implement updates–by adopting an online-only model, would cause fans of 4th Edition to cancel their DDI subscriptions and/or say fuck-all and go play Pathfinder (and not one of many other fantasy-based role-playing games). Frankly, I don’t want to know anyone who would follow that bizarre logical train wreck.

I don’t play 4th Edition because it’s new, or it has all of its crunch-content condenses into one software application. On a similar note, I don’t dislike 3rd Edition Pathfinder because it doesn’t have its own variant of Character Builder, and I certainly wouldn’t go back there if the entirety of 4th Edition imploded out of existence. No, I would have to be the kind of irrational person that boycotts a company because they slightly altered the accessibility of an entirely unnecessary–yet agreeably convenient–facet of their entire product line.

Using internet access to determine legitimacy as well as usability is not new, and in fact has proven successful for more than a few companies like Blizzard Entertainment or Valve. Some people like that Character Builder can be used offline, which has some merit in terms of flexibility in case you like to cart a laptop out into the wilderness and build characters by firelight. In all seriousness, I too have used Character Builder offline in order to browse magic items, but only because I didn’t want to bug Randy for a few minutes about his router’s information. I guess on the 16th I’ll have to set aside a blip of time to get it all sorted.

*sarcastic sigh*

My laptop, as well as most laptops, have WiFi capabilities. So do most routers. This means that at home I can flip it open, get online, and do…whatever, wherever. Theoretically, were I for some reason to go elsewhere and desire to tinker with it, then my options would be limited to coffee shops, most major grocery chains (Fred Meyers, Safeway, etc), any community college campus, any of my friend’s houses, and book stores. In other words, far more places than I would care to go and create characters, monsters, or do adventure writing. Were I to find myself stranded out in the middle of nowhere and find myself arrested by the urge to write, I can always fall back to the archaic process of putting pencil to paper and writing.

This is why I wouldn’t care even if I lacked all the modern commodities of today; I can still jot down notes, go home, and then write it up to look all official-like. While your mileage (or availability) might vary, I think the real reason people are up in arms is the whole piracy angle. Some people only wanted Character Builder and/or Adventure Tools, but couldn’t stand for the seven or so bucks a month that Wizards charged you for essentially all the crunch content of all the books they’ve ever made, and waited for updates to show up on torrent sites. Since Wizards really couldn’t track this offline, it was easy to get away with it. Now, it’s going to be harder, and people might actually have to pay for something.

Keep on the Shadowfell w/ Essentials, Behind the Screen

Paul asked a few questions in the comments of my Essentials-only Keep on the Shadowfell playthrough, which can be summed up as what did I change, and did I encourage my players to create the traits that they did.

First, character traits. Since I was running the adventure more or less on the fly, I had the players make characters and quickly come up with backgrounds that worked for them and made sense. When I make a campaign, I let players make whatever they want, but strongly encourage characters that will best fit and make sense. For example, in Tendrils of Fate I told them that since it takes place in the Shadow Marches (Eberron) that half-orcs, humans, primal classes, etc would work out best. I also don’t like having characters pivotal to the continuation of the campaign, since sometimes players die or want to change characters (which can go hand in hand), but like to tie them in as side-treks or optional quests. For example Devin’s character (Sand) is on the run from the authorities in Fallcrest. This might come up later if they go back, or a bounty hunter might seek him out. 

In short, I like to encourage characters to define their characters at least loosely before we start running, but also encourage them to come up with new things on the way. This is fine because when you meet someone, you don’t see everything about them all at once: often new things come up the more you get to know them.

As for modifying the adventure, the first thing I did was change the story, such as it is. Initially Kalarel is trying to open up a portal to the Shadowfell, which is located under a keep—known as Shadowfell Keep—that he’s for some reason populated with various goblinoids and undead. To top it off, he’s also teaming up with kobolds far to the south for equally unexplained reasons. The adventure starts out with the characters heading to Winterhaven, getting ambushed by kobolds, and then getting tasked with cleaning them out. They go there, fight through a shitload of mostly-minions, beat up their goblin leader, and finding a letter handwritten by Kalarel that reveals the big plot. Aside from being something that only the most cliché of villains would do, I have no fucking clue why he’s working with goblin-lead kobolds in the first place.

Starting with the story, I’m more or less treating the kobolds and keep as two separate adventures. For the keep, the backstory that I’m going for is that it was built before or during the time of Nerath, and some paladins or knights or whatever showed up and destroyed the threat lurking within, and built the keep on top to guard the site (and did not refer to it as Shadowfell Keep). After Nerath fell Kalarel showed up with some direction from Orcus to rebuild the place. He opened up the sealed and collapsed passages, and has spent a good deal of time fixing them up so that he could try and re-open the gate. Simple, easy, somewhat logical. How do the kobolds fit in?

They don’t.

The kobolds showed up on their own and have been raiding caravans under the rule of a white dragon and his right-hand man, Irontooth (who is not a goblin, but a kobold that got badass by eating an iron dragon’s heart). There’s no letter in the lair with Kalarel blatantly explaining his villainous cliche. At best, Kalarel is aware of the kobolds, and doesnt give two shits because it provides an adequate distraction for the citizens of Winterhaven. The player’s catch wind of the larger bigger due to rumors of undead shambling throughout the woods and nearby farmland. Since the only structure north is the keep, it provides a clear heading. You could also tie it in with any player running a divine class, giving them some kind of vision, or having to head out there because a family member was torn apart by zombies and you’ve gotta foot the bill for her burial. There are ways to elegantly have the players become curious about the keep without explicitly telling them that the BBEG is lurking there with a haphazard army of goblins, hobgoblins, and some undead for good measure.

To address the numerous complaints of repetition and grindage, I compressed things. Players only need ten encounters to level up, not counting major quests and multiple minor quests. So by making the kobold lair and Shadowfell keep major quests (which they get by going to Winterhaven and talking to NPCs), I can remove at least two encounters. Also since the kobolds were raiding merchant caravans, I also made returning their goods a minor quest. Finally, if the players got to the dragon graveyard, they can find an optional item there (dragon skull) to make things easier for them later, as well as get a bit more XP under their belts. Really the only reason I’ve even going for two-levels worth is because I want to try and keep them up to snuff for subsequent adventures.

Finally it’s just a matter of fixing the encounters, requiring a combination of refurbishing the maps and repopulating the monsters (especially the kobold lair and ALL of the keep). Outside the kobold lair is mostly fine, I just added a wyrmpriest working on a magic item in the magic circle (which grants bonus cold damage), and made the river a bitch to get over without using a log bridge. Combined with rocks for cover, this let ranged characters busy themselves trying to pick off the spear-chucking, spell-slinging mobs while the melee characters close the distance to the dragonshields and skirmishers. I think it lets the roles shine a lot better this way.

I redid the entire internal part to be more consistent with a cave system, such as elevation, rock formations that can serve as difficult or even hazardous terrain, and areas where the characters had to squeeze to get into. To make things easy and neat looking, I’d pick up a pack or two of cavern Dungeon Tiles. Since kobolds are allegedly notorious for rigging traps, I’d add some of those in and/or between encounters, such as cultivated mushroom patches that explode, pits, spears, perhaps something that dumps an ooze on them. They can serve as a warning system and soften up the party. With a more expansive network of tunnels, kobolds can attack and flee from multiple directions (perhaps coaxing characters into traps). I had some thunderstones setup at the start that would not only alert the kobolds, but also drop stalactites on them (which Sand easily noticed). Finally, as I mentioned before Irontooth became a kobold that had, “consumed the heart and blood of an iron dragon,” and overall the entire clan was lead by a white dragon. A much more satisfying finale, methinks.

For the keep, the ruined foundation is going to serve as “floor one”. The crumbling foundation and buildings can work great for providing cover and difficult terrain. The underground passages are still there, they just won’t be lengthy hallways that terminate into massive chambers with randomized functions. I’m going to use pillars and crumbling walls to shake things up, as well as try to have multiple paths to each room to allow for dynamic movement. Since I only need to squeeze out about 7-8 encounters (counting traps and the like) before I can wrap things up, I think I’ll have a catacomb floor and a temple floor with about 4 encounters a pop.

As for monsters? I think I speak for a lot of people when I say no. Fucking. Goblins. None. Nadda. Kalarel is the high priest of the demon lord of the UNDEAD. There are numerous things he can use that fall within the 1-3 level range. Kalarel is a fucking necromancer. Use it. Also? What about cultists? You could cultists fill in the niche for living adversaries if you really must (I plan on allowing them to issue free commands to undead, ala the warlord class). Hell, let the party capture one alive and he can fill in some details. The idea of a cowardly farmer-turned-cultist spilling his guts (before he literally does) is much more feasible than a notarized letter in the hands of a goblin. Finally, since Kalarel is a spellcaster, feel free to mix in arcane traps. Glyphs that incite fear or weaken targets, grim totems that cause attack or defense penalties when characters are too close (perhaps they even scream, causing a push effect). The keep is ancient, so you could also use mundane traps like collapsing floors or ceilings, and if you wanna pimp the undead theme, you could have undead lying in ambush within sarcophagi.