Exclusive Preview: "Real Ultimate Power" Sourcebook
We’ve already seen the Martial Power sourcebook for Fighters, Rangers, Rogues, and Warlords. We also know others in the “Power” series are coming: Arcane Power, Divine Power, and Primal Power are all on the schedule.
However, that’s not all. Our sources* have uncovered pages from an upcoming supplement designed to change 4e 4ever forever. Yes, Real Ultimate Power will soon be coming to a store near you. This sourcebook details the users of the Real Ultimate power source. The iconic user of this power source is the Ninja of course, but we have also found that the book will include options for your Pirate and Cowboy characters that also draw on, in the words of the book, “the essence of totally sweet awesomeness.”
Here’s what the Ninja character class looks like: [Read the rest of this article]
Chrome Compendium
Nope, not that kind of chrome (or that kind), but the browser.
Just a quick tip for a very small cross section of people. If you use Google Docs, the Chrome web browser, and the DDI Compendium, you can copy and paste stat blocks directly into a Google Doc and retain all the formating. This has proven very handy for my games, where instead of referencing books during the game or printing things out, I can just pull open the Google Doc where I’ve done my planning and reference the stat blocks there. (Plus, if I want, I can edit them to change names, adjust powers, or take away hit points).
This works for all kinds of stat blocks too: magic items, powers, rituals, etc. It’s handy not just for in-game reference, but for putting together print-outs of multiple items and rituals you’re giving away during a game.
So far, Chrome is the only web browser I’ve found that does this (Firefox did not last time I checked), but if there are others, please let us know.
Below is a screenshot from my last session’s notes that used this: [Read the rest of this article]
YouTube Tuesday: Doctor WTF Edition
What happens when ou mash-up Doctor Who, Benny Hill, and Eminem? A lot of running, at the very least. Hat tip to Graham.
Fiat Lux: The origin of D&D 4e's stance on light.
I don’t think it was mentioned much but one of the minor things that changed in D&D 4e is the assumption that most underground adventure locales would be lit by a light source. I distinctly recall, in all previous edition, having to ask who held the light and where that person stood in the marching order because everything was always sunk in darkness.
This of course lead to all kinds of ingenious ways PCs used for securing a light source without sacrificing a hand slot. This culminated with my group’s use of a pair of Sunrods attached to the horns of a helmet with wire. Hello stealth!
(Oddly enough, I think it took D&D 4e to make an official ruling about a PC being automatically spotted if he/she held a light source. Check it, PHB P. 188)
(Post publication edit: The D&D basic rules had such a ruling too, see comments, so I stand corrected)
Dealing with darkness, natural or otherwise, was one of those annoying things that you had to deal with… up until D&D 3.5 changed darkness to ‘shadowy light’ (let’s not go there).
In 4e, they decided to do away with all this and the core assumption became that…
Many dungeons and caverns are illuminated to some degree, since only a few monsters are truly at home in pitch blackness. (DMG 4e, p. 66)
Dungeons are often illuminated by torches (some times magic torches that never stop burning), ceiling panels magically imbued with light, great oil-filled braziers or stone channels that burn continuously, or even globes of light that drift through the air.
Caverns might be filled with phosphorescent fungi or lichen, extraordinary mineral veins that glimmer in the dark, streams of glowing lava, or eerie auroralike veils of magic fire undulating high above a cavern floor. (PHB p 262)
Now it can be argued that this comes from the same design philosophy that decided to get rid of the ‘unfun’ parts of D&D. I won’t argue the decisions behind this because, quite frankly, since my players were always being smartasses about light sources, I stop bothering about it. Pretty much like I stopped checking encumbrance and the consumption of food and water in the game. I never was much of a simulationist.
No the point of this post is that when I read those excerpts from the DMG and the PHB, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had read this type of ‘philosophy’ about light sources somewhere else.
I found it yesterday while reading an old favorite of mine:
But mysterious caves and tunnels always have luminous fungi, strangely bright crystals or at a pinch merely an eldritch glow in the air, just in case a human hero comes in and needs to see in the dark. Strange but true (Men at Arms, Terry Pratchett).
There you have it, the new light source philosophy of D&D4e is not merely a Rule of Fun driven decision, it was also inspired by the wisdom of sir Pratchett who called it in 1993 based on common fantasy tropes!
4e Discworld anyone?
Inq. of the Week: Campaigning?
While the Bard came out as a clear winner in the most anticipated class from the PHB2, the battle of the races has come to a less definitive ending. After a rough battle filled with pet badgers and silver bullets, the Gnomes and Shifters are tied for the race that you most want to play! In a very close second comes the new race Deva (aka Aasimar?), and only one vote behind them in third are the half-giant Goliaths. Only one vote behind them, in fourth, are the Shades leaving a surprise last place to the disgruntled Half-Orcs. Perhaps this shows it was a good decision leaving them out of the core books, but I’m sad to see them in last place. This has to be one of our closest polls ever, but I’m pretty sure everyone voting for Deva just thought they were voting for “Dave” with the letters switched around.
For this week what has been on my mind is how my D&D campaign is going to progress into the future, both Dave and I are running games right now and our players have just reached mid-heroic tier, which means there are many new possibilities opening up to them and us as DMs. I began to consider how my game has gone up until now, and had some discussions with Phil and The Main Event about it, but the thought entered my mind about how a campaign might change style mid-campaign either intentionally or through a natural progression because of the players and DM and how they act at the table.
Loading ...Styles:
Dungeon Hack: Raid the dungeon, kill everything in your path, take all the loot. Dungeon crawling is a tough life, but it’s easier than talking!
High Politics: Corrupt lords, a benevolent queen, and the head of the church are all out for the reins of the empire. Assassinations and dirty dealings are rampant, and only your quick wits or silver tongue can save you!
Sandbox / Freeform: That place looks dangerous, let’s not go there, it’s a silly place. You never know what lay over the horizon (hopefully the DM does), but you’re sure to find adventure wherever you go.
Empire Building: Kings and lords aren’t the only ones deserving of a castle all their own, after all you’re the ones who cleared out he monsters and saved the town. A home to call your own, hell why not a nation to call your own? After all, why bother with the monsters when you can make war with the neighboring kingdoms?
Themes:
Heroic: Evil threatens the world at every turn, innocents are in danger, and you’ve got to save them all! There should be no hesitation in executing your swift brand of justice, with praise and glory as your rewards. You are heroes, it’s time to start acting like it.
Villainous / Evil: Those guys are the jerks, killing people with out even blinking. At least you don’t hide behind the thin veil of righteousness and claim to be good while killing masses of living beings, no you’re perfectly aware of how evil you are, and damn proud of it! I expect you to talk, and die, not necessarily in that order.
Gray Morality: It turns out those goblins were only stealing from the town to feed their families, and you wiped them out. The evil lich who has been harvesting souls is only trying to bring his long lost love back to life after she was killed in a demonic ritual.
Progressions:
Heavily Plotted / Railroading: You exit the dark corridors of Shadowfell Keep and see before you the gaping entrance to Thunderspire Labyrinth. The Drow mob boss has your loved ones captive, and you must follow all of his orders exactly or else. OR. ELSE.
Character Driven: You are Ta’varen and the world seems to shift around your actions, probability changes in your favor and important events just seem to follow you wherever you go. Your decisions and actions have a far reaching and vast impact on the future, and it’s time to make a difference.
DM Chronicles: Session 8, Hey! That's actually fun! Part 2
See part 1 here.
When I described to Rocco the Rogue that his recon mission had turned sour and that he was now at the bottom of a pit surrounded by gnashing mandibles and bladed claws I found myself stumped. I had put the player in trouble without giving him the benefit of a die roll against any of his skills or defense. I had assumed that whatever score he would have rolled on his stealth skill, the monsters in the area, a brood of Kruthiks, would detect him with their tremorsense ability.
So before Stef (Rocco’s player) could react to my use of DM fiat to establish a dramatic scene (that’s what it was! Honest!), I told him that he was surrounded with small tunnels that he could try to run into to get rid of the kruthiks.
He said he’d go for that and I told him that he lost them (without having to roll any dice) and managed to come out of a tunnel that lead somewhere in the cave, about 10 feet over the cave’s floor away from the whole brood made up of 6 hatchlings, 3 adults and a large Hive Lord (of which I had a mini for, that thing looks great!).
With things stabilized on the Rogue’s front, I returned to the rest of the party. They got ready to go join the rogue who never came back from its recon mission. Players spent a long time trying to decide what to do with the wagons and the prisoners and decided to leave them where they were and go by foot, leaving the duergars tied up and gagged.
The PCs almost walked right into the Kruthik ambush, Rocco’s warning prevented a surprise round. As had happened to Rocco, the cave’s floor opened under 3 of the PCs (Masaru, Takeo and Naquist). This was done by the hatchlings burrowing underneath the group.
I ruled it as a 3X3 square 10′ deep pit trap (+10 vs Dex, 1d10 dmg). Only Naquist (Elven cleric) fell into it and had to deal with all the hatchlings.
I had set up the fight on one of Paizo’s incredibly useful Flip Maps, in that case one featuring a large cave with a Chasm and a stone bridge. I Set the players near the water pool and put Rocco on the other side of the bridge .
So the fight started with the 6 PCs divided in 4 groups: Rocco alone on the other side of the Bridge with a Kruthik adult in the way, Bjerm (fighter), Masaru (Warlock) and Takeo (warlord) near the lake facing 2 adults and a Hive Lord, Naquist (Cleric) alone in the pit against 6 hatchling and Fizban (Wizard) cut off from the rest of the group by the open pit.
As can be guessed with such a setup, each player focused on the nearest threats. It didn’t take long for the players to notice that the fighter and warlords were being torn to shreds while the other PCs were busy. Seeing what I felt was a going to end in a PC death, I pointed out the tactical situation to the players and that maintaining the ’3 groups fighting separately’ strategy would likely lead to PC deaths.
As it turns out, the fighter was savagely damaged on the next round, much more than the warlord could deal with. That’s when players went into team work overdrive and things shifted back! The Wizard had a cloak that allowed someone to teleport when damaged by an enemy. He threw it on the cleric in the pit. The cleric put it on and moved besides the hatchling (which damages anyone that ends its turn beside it) and promptly teleported outside of the pit and was able to heal the melee fighter on the following rounds.
(Awesome!)
During that time, Masaru went to help the rogue and dispatched the adult kruthik that was making his friend’s life miserable.
A short while later, the Hive lord died and the sole remaining Kruthik fled. Hurray for teamwork!
Looking around the cave, they found a half buried statue of an apparently half-fey/half-Elemental humanoid bearing glowing disks at key point on its body (head, neck, arms, torso, etc). An inscription on it (in proto Eladrin and Abyssal) said ‘give sacrifice to receive my bounty’.
After some experimentation, Bjerm took out his old +1 Delver’s Scale mail and put it on the statue. It started glowing and the armour became +2 (that a treasure trick given in Adventurer’s vault). Players found the idea neat and it added some lore to our game about some past alliance between the fey and the forces of the elemental chaos.
It was 8h30 PM and already I could see that the group was tiring fast. I checked if they wanted to go on and they all said that they were able to go on. Good thing we did, as the energy level rose somewhat after that.
After recovering from that semi-successful reversed ambush, the PCs decided to chuck the wagon and leave the duergars to fend for themselves. They walked on to the Grey dwarf forteress.
Said fortress consisted of three buildings spanning a 300′ deep chasm. Upon arriving the PCs saw that anything else short of a full frontal assault on an orc guarded portcullis was too dangerous to attempt.
At this point, the players discussed their options. Being none too interested in going the ‘Hulk smash’ way, the players asked me if there could be a way back.
Now here’s the thing, the duergar hold did indeed feature a back entry. One sitting only one encounter away from the hold’s boss. However, the adventure doesn’t have a full map of Thunderspire labyrinth, but it does have a section about players exploring blindly. So, inspired by the rules given in the adventure, I told the players that we’d play a dungeoneering skill roll to see if they would be able to navigate around the hold and look for an alternate way in.
We discussed about assisting and other skills that could be used. In fact, players discussed long enough for Eric (Fizban’s player) to reach his breaking point and unleash his slumbering instigator. While people were discussing, he picked up his dice, rolled and said “Look guys, stop arguing, I rolled a 24, we made it”
He he he! Teamwork hath its limits.
So I described how they managed to find one path with some signs of wagon traffic leading to a huge 10′ iron portal.
Players:” Ha! The way to the ambush was actually the way to that back entry! So if we had proven our worth by defeating the Kruthik, the duergars would have accepted to see us after all”
Phil: “Hmmm, yeah… yeah, that’s what I was planning all along! Damn you guys are good”
Players: “Yeah right, we bet you’re going to write THAT in your blog”
Phil: “Who me?”
Long story short, the PCs got to use the Knock ritual to unbar the gate, surprised a group of orcs and one Ogre (Hey, isn’t this supposed to be a Duegar hold?) and won that fight in a 2 or 3 rounds. The wizard’s timely use of Icy Ray froze the ogre in place for one round and allowed the group to attain inevitability easily.
One orc managed to open a door and run away, banging on the door to the dungeon’s boss room crying for help. Alas, the leader decided to stay in the room and the poor orc fell to the blades of our heroes (there’s a whole article just there about adventures that clumsily bow to the ‘let the PCs rest’ trope… heck, I’m guilty of having done just that in my own “to be published” adventure).
As expected, our heroes took 5 and bashed in the boss’ door.
Duergar #1: “I call this 5 minutes and 18 seconds”
Duergar #2: “Damn, you win the pool again!”
Lessons Learned
- Don’t judge a 4e adventure by just reading it. If you are willing to let players get creative and go outside of what’s written, it can become very entertaining. That’s why all 3 of my last game reports have the word “Fun” in the title. I expected that adventure to be dull because it looks so on paper… and so far my players have proven this wrong.
- My idea of using skill challenges to make an abstract combat worked exactly as I had envisioned it. Expect to read more about this soon.
- Saying “yes” and winging it is really the way to go.
What players liked
- Kicking butt with superior tactical advantage once again
- Planning the counter ambush (pity it backfired)
- Playing the skill challenge
What player disliked
- Being responsible for a failure in a skill challenge. Franky thought that it was a heavy burden to bear.
- Some players found the inter-player deliberations of the various planning phase too long… that prompted some repressed Instigators to act out.
All right! See you later this week!
