Tales of the City Within, Session 2, Part 2
See part 1 here.
A History Lesson from Beyond the Grave
The PCs got their info-dump dose from the Dwarf Lich. The city’s founder explained that the recent discovery of the techniques to manipulate the energies of the Dungeon and the Nexus would enable the PCs to take the fight directly to the Dungeon and resolve the prolonged conflict once and for all.
The Lich recounted the City’s foundation. He explained how 10 Angels gave their astral lives away to follow Erathis on this world as she wove the defeated primordial’s Eternal Prison and bound most of her divine essence to it, creating the Nexus. Of these 10 newly formed Devas, 5 turned and joined the primordial and founded the Dungeon. The remaining 5, Jaiel among them, remain to this day, the steadfast guardians of the City and the Goddess trapped within it.
The Lich then gave Jaiel a bundle of 5 feathers, each containing a sliver of the souls of the 5 Deva guardians. The bundle could be used to infuse up to 5 creatures with the souls of the founding Devas (That’s what triggered the Drow sacrifice debate).
As I write this, I can’t help but notice just how many story elements I infused into that adventure. While I initially planned this to be a story-light-crap-hits-the-fan kind of thing, I now realize that I’ve been developing all kinds of setting concepts including the city’s creation-myth.
Yeah, I guess I am a story-driven DM after all.
Following questions from the PCs, the founder said that the Zombie plague was likely being caused by some sort of artifact and that it must lay at the center of the current outbreak.
Since Jaiel wanted to go and visit one of the 5 original Devas who lived at the University campus, the PCs decided to head for Unviversity Burg.
We don’t need no stinkin’ Challenge.
I then told the players that they needed to navigate through a Zombie-plagued neighborhood and that this would be a Skill challenge (taken directly from the Open Graves sourcebook).
While I said that I was watching Mike who didn’t know I was looking at him. He flashed this look of annoyance that gave me a strong cue to change tactics.
Chatty: Why do I get the feeling that you guys aren’t all that interested about this skill challenge?
Players: Enough story and Fluff, we wanna kill stuff, not dodge it (I may be paraphrasing a bit here).
Chatty (Flipping through the pages of his notes to the ‘failed skill challenge’ part): Okay okay, hacking zombies here and there you make it to the Burg center square and see this humongous Zombie monster yielding a meat cleaver and a large Butcher’s Fork, surrounded by pestilential zombies, roll initiative.
The fight involved a Slavering Maw, an Elite Zombie with 2 high damage attacks, 2 Zombie Lashers whose entrails slash and grab foes (both from Dragon Magazine) and about 12 or so Pestilence Zombie Minions.
As is often the case the fight was never really in contention. While the Lashers managed to grab a few players and the Slavering Maw seriously damaged some players, the party made judicious use of forced movement, Dazing, slow effects and healing to keep things well in hand.
What was really interesting was when the Invoker’s Summoned angel killed a Zombie Minion.
Chatty DM: As the Angel kills the Zombie, all the pent up plague gas trapped in its body explodes violently, making a Close Burst 5 Necrotic attack.
Math: Close Burst 5! WTF!
Yan: I suppose that the other minions have Resist Necrotic.
Chatty (Checking): Hmmm, no actually, they do not.
10 minutes later, the chain reaction ended with a few players having taken from 7 to 21 points of damage.
After the fight, I had a near-hallucination. For a second, I pictured my players sitting back on their chairs, sighing in contentment and smoking a cigarette.
Yan: Okay, we’re ready for another dose of fluff now!
Hmm, do you think that’s a clue?
The players made their way to the Deva’s apartment and found him slain (by weapons) and the place completely trashed. On the floor of the apartment was a piece of torn tunic showing the very recognizable Wand of Orcus, indicating that the apartment had been ransacked by Cultist of the Demon Lord of Undeath.
In the Deva’s hands was a note saying ” Find me, make me remember”. I told Yan that Jaiel had seen a confused Deva wandering in the Park earlier in the day. The players made their way to the park and found the newly resurrected Deva.
I ruled that given the nature of the role the Devas of the City Within played, resurrection was near instantaneous. It did not, however, guarantee recalling past events or retaining class levels, it all depended on the needs of Erathis).
The PCs managed to make the Deva remember. He told the PCs that he had sent a group of adventurers into the Dungeon shortly before the Nexus shifted to the Shadowfell to recuperate a Relic of Orcus. Sadly the relic had the effect of spreading a plague that turned people into Zombies. The Adventurers were last seen staying at the isolated tavern.
The Perfect Evil DM Scheme.
The Deva was killed by some cultists of Orcus and one of its death priests and they stole the Relic. The Deva told the PCs about a ritual to trace it to the Cultists’ hideout. He also said that the relic could only be destroyed by a strong source of energy.
Player: Dude, that’s like the dragon right! Guys, let’s go get the dragon and send him to deal with the Cultists, the relic is what it needs to break its curse.
Chatty DM: So you get the dragon and make your way to the Hideout?
Players: Yes!
So the players got the dragon and arrived at an abandonned Temple full of Zombies. The Dragon charged into the temple, tearing zombies apart. The Dragon then fell on the Relic and ate it.
Chatty DM: You hear an horrible roar of pain and you see the Dragon’s scale crack and fall to the floor. The Dragon’s skin melts away in places as a gruesome greenlight pulses from within the beast. You hear the Death priest’s evil laugh. A few moments after the Dragon’s stomach distends, bursts and the relic falls to the floor.
Death Priest: Kill them Slave!
Yan: You (bleep)ing set us up Phil!
Did I? I guess I did to a certain extent. As Yan just put it on Gtalk: “We had little to go by and you dangled this huge ‘The Dragon could destroy the Relic’ plot point, of course we were going to grab it. I don’t know if it was the hour (it was 15 past 10 at this point) or the need to resolve another quest, but the players did grab onto this situation and pushed forward without hesitation or discussion.
Seeing how cool having an Undead Dragon would be (I had planned for the possibility), I too grabbed onto that and pushed the scene forward. Hence the feeling of being setup of some players.
Lessons Learned
- If you are offended by some social situations like Torture, Religous Debates and sacrifice of NPCs , don’t put them in your adventures.
- If you find yourself saying no to things PCs want to try, stop and take a few minutes to make sure you feel all right. Try to find that sweet spot where saying ‘yes’ is easier. It always leads to better games.
- Be on the lookout for your player’s mood and be ready to change the type of encounter to meet the majority’s needs. (i.e. put a fight for butt kickers)
- If you plan to pull a major surprise on Players based on the choice they make, make sure that you aren’t steering them to the slaugther house. Use numerous Red Herrings and conflicting clues so that the surprise doesn’t feel like a setu but more like a bad choice on the part of players.
Tales of the City Within, Session 2, Part 1
Last Friday we sat down for another session of our Summer mini-campaign set in our homegrown setting of the City Within the Dungeon. See the reports of the last session here and here.
The Myth Debunked.
Franky: “Phil, based on some comments we’ve read, many of your readers seem to think that we’re this kind of super awesome group that roleplays like gods and ace all combat encounters. You don’t really write about all the horsing around we do at the table”
Chatty: “That’s the joys of being a writer, I’m free to spin it in whatever way I feel like”
Yan:”You’re also free to get the facts wrong…”
Chatty: Huh… Shouldn’t we start playing already?
Our gaming group, probably like most, is prone to distraction, juvenile humour and geeky digressions about the latest version of Windows or the decline of good Sci-Fi on TV. It becomes especially true with the advent of the summer months as we are more laid back and care more about hanging out than game.
This last session was very much characterized by very high social energies. We didn’t accomplish all that much, but that’s fine, we had fun all the same.
Ret Con for Great Justice!
I started the session by telling the players that a slight revision was to be done to the story so far. In order to add more breathing space for the PCs (and the DM), I explained that the Lava filled fissure that appeared on the lowest level of the City would not progressively flood the whole city with lava. Instead, if by the end of the 5th day the customary payment/sacrifice had not been done, a volcanic eruption would destroy the city and a portal would open and send the city’s ruins to the Elemental Chaos.
Yan: That’s sounds fun, let’s do that!
Sigh… Anyway, I felt the PCs were rushed enough by the other storylines, thus they could now focus on other plots without having to weigh every decision vs how many thousand people would be killed. Now I know that it would have made for great drama and difficult choices but I didn’t really want to destroy my beautiful city just yet.
I usually wait for the final session of a campaign to do that.
Pushing a moral quandary too far
I don’t know if it’s the geek in me but sometimes I latch on to a point of view and don’t let go of it until it’s too late. At a certain point in the evening PCs discussing what to do with the Drow elves they had captured. They learned from them that they had a group of Buddies sitting in a Cavern outside of the city, maintaining a grand illusion that thousands of Spiders and Drow Infantry were waiting for the order to invade.
The PCs had gotten their hands on a pair artifacts that could imbue up to 5 bodies with a sliver of the 5 original souls that created the City (and the first 5 souls that joined the Dungeon). They had also gleaned from ancient texts that a sacrifice of the 5 original souls would prevent the Volcano’s eruption and bring back the Nexus.
The players started arguing about the relative merits of using the 5 captured Drow as the sacrificial vessels. The debate was polarized by Franky’s PCs who was against and Math’s who was for. That’s when I committed the sin of DM interference.
I don’t know why I did it, maybe because I was annoyed about how callously people were talking or maybe I was worried that players would solve the adventure in a few minutes. I don’t know, but I butted in the debate in a passive aggressive manner and said “Not that I care about what your PCs do but you’re seriously considering sacrificing those 5 drow?” When Math said ‘Sure, I mean they’re freaking Drow right?”, instead of letting it drop I went on “But come on, these guys are just Hustlers that got caught!” I kept returning to the argument instead of shutting up.
Then Math launched into a tirade about moral justification and how unaligned heroes in a fantasy world have have no trouble doing such an act, etc etc
I realized that I had gone too far, this kind of debate should have been between the Players as they roleplayed PCs with me as moderator. Instead it became an argument between DM and player about things likely to revert to defensive justification. I freaking hate those.
Needless to say that this exchange affected my perception of the game and I played the rest of the game in defensive mode, saying ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’ and pushing the players toward a pre-destined path instead of letting them choose. i.e. I reverted to my natural, instinctive style of DMing.
And even today I remain unsatisfied about the game session because of that. Not the actual argument, that’s irrelevant, but the fact that I allowed it to disturb my emotional balance.
Yeah, that whole ‘being human’ is annoying sometimes.
Zombie Sit Rep
As the PCs were arguing about the Drow, I once again pulled on Franky’s sleeve and started wiping my nose.
Snotty kid: Sir? Sir? (Snort) When are you goin’ to check with mah Papa?
Franky: WTF man! He’s supposed to be under constant guard! That’s why there are zombies all over the place, he’s the one spreading the plague!
Shortly after, an out of breath Sergent came, apologized profusely and took the child back to the shed he had been confined to. That’s when the PCs decided to check on the Tavern. They learned that the town’s militia had managed to contain all zombies within by barring all windows and doors of the Tavern.
Then, the officer in charge gave Jaiel (Deva Avenger) a message. It was a summon for the whole party, at the Jaiel’s convenience, to the hidden headquarters of the Foundation (a secretive pro-city faction).
Before heeding that summon, the party swung by the University Burg which had been run-over with Zombies (and into which one of the Original 5 devas Jaiel was looking for was). The whole burg was being contained by the Sunless Knights, the city’s equivalent to an elite police force.
Content that everything was under control, the PCs made thier way to the city’s central park where the Nexus (a huge floating piece of Crystal) was located. (While the Crystal was still there, the energy within it, the actual essence of Erathis the Goddess of Civilization, was gone).
A Dry surprise
Jaiel led the party to a secret entrance under the Nexus that opened onto a Temple of Erathis filled with scholars and agents working fervently. A vault door, akin to the one seen in the first Harry Potter movie stood half-opened in the middle of the complex. (It was usually held close by the energies of the absent Nexus) The PCs were ushered in it and got to meet someone sitting at a desk, deciphering various prophecies stored all around his cluttered desk.
The PCs reached the desk and saw that the person sitting there was a Dwarven Lich, the city’s founder.
“Ahhh Jaiel, so good to see you. Your present form becomes you. I finally managed to decipher the final passage of the prophecy, you and your friends will be the one to destroy the Dungeon once and for all…if you can manage to break this tedious 200 year cycle that keeps interupting my studies”
Up next: Players “rebel” and decide to fail a skill challenge on purpose (It wasn’t as bad as it sounds)
Inq. of the Week: You Got Science in my Fantasy
Last week, my colleague asked about your caffeine of choice to keep you going through those long gaming sessions. The battle was heated, and so was the eventual winner of Coffee (which is appropriate since that’s what I’m drinking right now) taking 34% of the vote. Speeding closely behind it (and overtaking the lead several times) was the old favorite Soda, with iced tea coming in third as a refreshing alternative. I was glad to see last place was the pill-popping option… there are too many other tasty alternatives to turn to drugs to stay awake for your marathon sessions of Twilight Imperium.
Danny brought you his view of the mechanics behind the new Psion class last week, and when the Monk came out, I gave you my views on why I’m biased towards psionic characters. In response to those articles and on other blogs, we heard a lot of complaints that psionics just don’t fit with the D&D milieu. Even for a die hard fan such as myself, it can be hard to justify mental powers (that in other media are often linked to “the next stage of evolution” and other scientific/pseudo-scientific concepts) as part of the D&D world. Dark Sun was a world custom built for psionics, as all the other alternatives for fantastic powers had some issues. I myself have attempted to run campaigns that heavily focused on psionic characters (and try to get some use out of the weird healing and utility powers that were never taken when you had Wizards and Clerics around). In other campaigns, however, there would be one psionic character, and in terms of flavor, they just ended up being a different kind of Wizard.
However, as reminded I’m reminded in the new Design & Development article (sub required):
Psionics have been a part of D&D since the ancient days of the Eldritch Wizardry supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons game. They also appeared in an infamous appendix in the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook, allowing any character to get lucky by randomly manifesting psionic powers.
So let’s try our best to settle this issue right here and now. As far as your preference in all things psionic in your D&D games…
Loading ...2009 Ennie Award Nominations
You can view the entire list of nominees at the Ennie homepage or at this thread on ENWorld. But let’s get this out of the way first:
Best Website
Critical Hits
Dungeon-A-Day
Kobold Quarterly
Mad Brew Labs
Obsidian Portal
Forgive me losing my journalistic composure here, but
WE WERE NOMINATED FOR AN ENNIE AWARD!
Ahem. Voting opens July 24th to the web-voting public, and runs until August 1. Expect to see a few reminders of that fact once it opens…
More commentary on the awards later.
Critical Bits for the week ending 2009-07-11
- Game designer Mike Selinker talks about the Battletech pods
- The Munchkin Super Sekrit Project has, apparently, become available! The MUNCHKIN iPHONE APP! (via @muskrat_john)
- 10 Business Lessons I Learned from D&D
- The first two week publication cycle has begun on Nevermet Press
- UpComingCons.com has launched, providing a listing of anime, comic, gaming, and sci-fi cons, as well as other tools for con-goers.
- 11 Housewarming GIfts for the Dedicated Gamer (via Geek’s Dream Girl)
- Pitch in to help GamerTraveler ‘s mom or just send your best wishes
- Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit!” episode on video game violence aired this week
- 4e Object Lesson, learning from the D&D Penny Arcade/PVP podcast.
- Unofficial: the complete Guitar Hero 5 track list
- Initiative tracker for iPhone
- Ryan Reynolds is Green Lantern
- Is D&D 4e dog food or steak?
- RPG Geek enters Open Beta
Product Tie-in Video Games 101: A Lesson in Love and Paychecks
Good morning class. I’m your, like, instructor today in this important time in video gaming. Unlike your usual university fat cat professors, I’m gonna give you the REAL stuff, ‘cause I’ve been there, man. I’ve seen it all. You can just call me Ryan; I’m cool and informal like that. You can take your shoes off if you want and we’ll, like, rap about this learning thing. Seriously though, if I see you texting to your friends in class, I’m giving out detentions to ALL OF YOU. That’s rude, ya know?
Today we’re going to be discussing one of the biggest money makers for video game studios; Product Tie-ins. They are something that we’ve been accustomed to in video games, and all can form a general consensus when we hear their name said. From E.T. to Chronicles of Riddick, video games based on movies have been around for most of your brief gaming lives. When, though, did they start? Were they always bland and overpriced? We will also be looking at two of the newer movie tie-in games out right now, too, to see if these types of games have bettered themselves through the years – Danny, I’m serious, I will TAKE that phone away. Pay attention. Look at page 87 and we’ll discuss the most important theory in all of movie tie-in video gaming. [Read the rest of this article]
4e Lessons: The Penny Arcade/PVP D&D Podcast, Part 2
In part 1, I discussed common D&D 4e mistakes, taking examples from the excellent D&D podcast featuring the guys from Penny Arcade, Scott from PVP and that wonderboy who used to play in that Sci-Fi show.
Today I want to look at how the two Dungeon Masters, Chris Perkins and James Wyatt, were DMing.
The D&D poscasts covered 2 games played over 3 sessions. Session one covered an initial foray into the Keep on the Shadowfell and was DMed by Chris. Session two was a fast forward in time focused on the final 2 encounters of the Keep, DMed by James. Session three was a level 3 adventure under a ruined tower that was DMed by Chris again.
Let’s discuss generalities and then go into each session.
Wait, they do the same thing I do?
The first thing that struck me when I was listening to the podcasts was how most of what the WotC DMs did, other DMs of similar experience did! In fact, some of the things I thought I did wrong with 4e, especially the part where I became more numbers oriented and less descriptive during fights, were things the WotC guys did too!
So if you want to feel more secure as a DM, listen to the podcasts. Is I’ve said before, you’re not as bad as you think you are.
Oh and both DMs do some awesome voice characterization. This small trick of making funny noises when playing a NPC adds more depth and flavour than any stack of backstory.
Part 1: Chris teaches D&D
The 1st podcast was set before the release of 4e. The 3 players, one of which never played a tabletop roleplaying game, were presented with pre-generated PCs and asked to think up a name for them.
Here Chris showed a textbook example of teaching a roleplaying game. He always explained the minimum required to push the game forward. Whenever a situation came up that warranted new rules, Chris would go ‘and now is a good time to tell you that…’ and explain the necessary options/rules.
Too many GMs, very eager to share the awesomeness of their favorite RPG, drown new players with way too many rules and subsystems. Chris’s approach is really something that teaching GMs should adopt.
When newcomer Mike (Gabe) asked about speaking in character, Chris responds masterfully. While some GMs may jump on such an occasion to explain THE way to rolepay, Chris just outlined the different ways that people played their D&D charcater without indicating that one way was any better than the other.
This then prompted Mike to chose to always refer to his character in the third person (ex: “Jim doesn’t like this”), making Jim Darkmagic one of the most developed and interesting character of the Podcast. In fact all other players end up mimicking him and refer to Jim in the third person.
Classic Roleplaying moment just there.
Another characteristic of Chris’s DMing style was that he would often purposely ignore what a player said so he could keep the game moving. When one of the player was fooling around with a drawing or some unrelated anecdote about past games, he would just push forward and bring everyone back by launching into a description of what came next.
Jim takes the PCs to town…and wipes the floor with them.
What was most striking about the second podcast was how silent James Wyatt was compared to Chris. While Chris would tend to cut short fooling around after some time, James would often let things run their course and wait for a period of relative calm (or prompting by players) before continuing.
I would characterize Jim’s DMing style in this game as ‘neutral’. It felt like he just assumed that players knew everything there was to know about their characters and focused on giving out descriptions, answering player questions and playing monsters.
In that regard, it felt more like a ‘DM as a referee’ than ‘DM as a facilitator” style. Of course I don’t know the story behind the podcasts but something was jarring.
The play mistakes that occurred in this part of the podcast became particularly painful as James didn’t step in to help correct them (as I would tend to do). I recall an example where Jerry (Tycho) would turn undead against zombies, forgetting to push the ones affected and also forgetting about the Immobilization effect. none of that was picked on by James.
That really felt weird to me. I would have expected the DM to at least go ‘hmmm, something seems to be missing here, can you check your power again’.
Another very interesting characteristic of James’ Dming , having seen it too at Gen Con, is how he deals with player failure in combat. When the podcasts’ players got wiped by the adventure’s next to last encounter, James offered the PCs a second chance by having them captured and wake up during some dramatically appropriate event.
That’s a very nice way of always giving players a choice before failing completely.
Oh and James couldn’t, for the life of him, remind players to roll their saving throws. Of course this isin’t an issue once people learn that anything that lasts more than one round calls for a saving throw.
Chris and Rudy the Undead Hound
In the third and last series of Podcasts, Chris blew me away with incredible description. He’s got a great DM voice and he managed to grab the attention (in deficit and otherwise) of all players right from the onset. His description of the inn the PCs were based in and the Tavern keeper was pure storytelling gold.
Of course he was derailed a few times by overactive players who launched into completely insane off topic tirades. You have got to hear Wil Wheaton talk (and sing) about Rudy the Undead Hound, that guy is an Improv genius.
Anyway, in that series of podcasts, Chris started strong with a great introduction of a new PC (Wil’s sadly handicapped Eladrin Avenger) and set the stage for a cool Ruined tower adventure. Sadly, it seems that Chris had no hand in creating the Avenger because he didn’t catch the 2 fundamental mistakes Wil kept doing again and again with his PC (i.e. forget about weapon prof. bonus and rolling only one d20 vs Oath of Enmity target).
In that Chris was similar to James. At that point in the ‘campaign’ he acted out more as a neutral arbiter than an aiding DM. Except for 2 very specific exceptions.
In one encounter, the PCs were stumped by 4 statues spouting huge gouts of flame, blocking the way to 2 enemy crossbowmen. While two PCs manage to pass, the Cleric and Wizard were stranded behind. After the PCs spent several round trying to find ways to disarm it (or just pass their turn), Chris more or less hand waved the whole thing and let the Wizard flip the switch’ on each statues with his Mage Hand without any skill rolls (after he had succeeded with one thievery roll).
The traps had done their job so Chris allowed the PCs to move on. That’s great DMing (and Rule of Fun) just there.
The second thing that Chris did was to shift the adventure’s Boss demeanor toward the PCs when it appeared that they could fail. He offered to spare the PCs lives if they left. Like James, he made sure that PCs had an out abnd that they had the options of leaving the encounter instead of dying.
Not so different from us
Chris Perkins and James Wyatt are both excellent DMs. They were able to run a game with some of very rowdy and vocal net/media personalities. Seen with the “eyes” of a DM with 25+ years of experience, they seemed to do preety much the same things I’ve seen good DMs do everywhere.
Still, like veteran DMs, they couldn’t maintain a perfect situational awareness of the game. They missed a few rules (mostly dealing with PC powers) and forgot a few things here and there. We all do.
Where they did shine was in the little details. Rich description, free form adjudicating of actions, making voices and keeping pace are all little things that all DMs can get better at.
Did you catch things I might have missed?
4E: Psion – by the Numbers
Yesterday saw the introduction of Wizards of the Coast’s new ‘preview’ content roll out for the PHB3, starting with a build for the new Psion class and an article with developer commentary on the new class and the inclusion of the Psionic power source into 4th Edition. Personally I don’t see much of a difference between the PHB3 preview and what has been presented before as playtest articles (such as the Artificer or Barbarian) except that there seems to be less of a call for design feedback which I think is unfortunate. However, I get the impression the idea behind calling it preview content instead of a playtest is that they will be releasing a lot more content early which is a very good thing, and the reality is that player feedback will happen no matter what so perhaps this is a good move on WotC’s part.
As expected a number of posts quickly popped up on the RPG Bloggers Network discussing the new content, I think the new mechanic was particularly well summarized by one of the Network’s newest members Geek Ken:
…it looks like an interesting class. What I particularly like is how the implementation of power abilities are slightly tweaked. Players slowly expand primarily with their at will powers and get daily and utility powers as normal. They gain no encounter powers. Rather they obtain power points (starting with 2) that they spend to augment their at will powers. Most at will powers can be augmented twice, effectively having 3 ‘levels’ of effects. After a short rest, they regain those points back. They’ll end up with the same number encounter powers as other players, just some differences in the game mechanics for using them.
Of particular interest to me is the fact that introducing a new, and relatively different, mechanic to the game has caused many to instantly decree imbalance and broken status upon the class. The xenophobia runs strong as usual it seems, since it’s different clearly things must be imbalanced! What I’d like to do is take a detailed look at the Psion class by the numbers as it relates to previous 4th Edition class design.
Heroic Tier (10th level) – PHB class
- 2 At-Will Powers
- 3 Encounter Powers
- 3 Utility Powers
- 3 Daily Powers
Heroic Tier (10th level) – Psion
- 3 At-Will Powers
- 6 Power Points (augment cost 1 or 2)
- 3 Utility Powers
- 3 Daily Powers
In any given encounter, you can expect a Heroic tier character to use all three encounter powers, 1 daily, and 1 utility power. The Psion regains power points during a short rest, so in one encounter you can expect them to use three fully augmented powers. However, the Psion has added versatility in the ability to instead use six lower augmented powers, or any combination of the two in addition to having the ability to re-use the same augmented power multiple times.
Paragon Tier (20th level) – PHB class
- 2 At-Will Powers
- 4 Encounter Powers
- 5 Utility Powers
- 4 Daily Powers
Paragon Tier (20th level) – Psion
- 3 At-Will Powers
- 9 Power Points (augment cost 1 or 4)
- 1 Encounter Power (augment cost 2)
- 5 Utility Powers
- 4 Daily Powers
A paragon character is expected to use 4 encounter powers in each encounter, and with one use each this is pretty cut and dry. The adaptability of the Psion really starts to shine in the Paragon tier, with 9 power points to choose from they can manifest their one encounter power, one fully augmented paragon level at-will power, one fully augmented heroic tier at-will power, and one lesser augmented at-will power. On the other hand, the Psion could choose to use two fully augmented paragon at-wills and then have 1 PP left to spend on a lesser augmented power. In the first example the Psion is actually using the exact same number of “encounter” powers as any other class. If they really wanted to spread things out they could decide to just use nine lesser augmented at-will powers.
Epic Tier (30th level) – PHB class
- 2 At-Will Powers
- 4 Encounter Powers
- 7 Utility Powers
- 4 Daily Powers
Epic Tier (30th level) – Psion
- 3 At-Will Powers
- 17 Power Points (augment cost 2 or 6)
- 1 Encounter Power (augment cost 2)
- 7 Utility Powers
- 4 Daily Powers
The epic tier looks much the same as paragon, with the highest level at-will powers costing 2 or 6 PP, the Psion can use two of them and have 5 PP left over to use another two encounter powers. UH OH! Now we see the Psion has one lonely power point left over to use on a lesser augmented at-will power. This is the first hint I’ve gotten of the new Psion class having any edge over other classes except when it comes to versatility, which is really an advantage that can only be determined during actual play.
So is the new Psion class unbalanced? In the preview as presented, it might be, but from what I can tell only at the highest level of epic tier play does that advantage begin to really show itself mechanically. Some people will say they have the advantage of more diversity in at-will powers, but because of that they also lack the diversity of being able to choose different types of attacks/effects in their encounter powers, so I see this as a very well balanced class in that regard. The big question becomes, is the ability to use a large number of weaker encounter powers or a smaller number of regular encounter powers (or a mix of the two) a mechanical advantage over just having a regular number of encounter powers?
4e Lessons: The Penny Arcade/PVP D&D Podcast, Part 1
I’m almost done listening to the Penny Arcade/PVP D&D podcast (which I enjoy immensely) and it makes me realize just how many good D&D 4e lessons are in there. The numerous play mistakes made by the inexperienced players, while annoying to anal retentive rules freaks like me, probably reveal a lot about the parts of the 4e rules that are harder to master .
Additionally, listening to the tricks that the 2 DMs (Chris Perkins and James Wyatt) use to entertain and contain Mike (Gabe)/ Jerry (Tycho), Scott and Wil Wheaton are a goldmine for experienced DMs looking out to help new players.
So I thought I would write about some of the common mistakes players do in D&D 4e (and how to avoid them) in part one. Then, in part 2, I’ll discuss what I could glean from listening to the WotC DMs.
Leaders Heal thyself
Jerry has played D&D before and he rapidly embraced D&D 4e. He decided to play a cleric and, as many of you know, they have multiple bonuses to their healing roll. The one that seems to be forgotten the most is the Healer’s Lore class feature that grants all your healing powers bonus Hit Points = your Wisdom modifier (usually 5+ if you max your wisdom).
One thing that would avoid forgetting is to have Power Cards with all bonuses worked right in. While you might not want to pay for a D&D Insider subscription to get access to the Character Builder, you can make your own power cards and put all bonuses in it. Thus, you won’t have to worry about them.
Mark my words Defender
When a player chooses to play a defender class, he/she needs to understand that the “raison d’etre” of the new PC will be about getting hit. All defenders have class features and powers that give monsters incentives to attack the defender, the main one being Marking.
To that effect, understanding how the marking mechanic works is crucial. A defender should always, always mark as many targets as possible. If you want to play a Defender but don’t want to have to remind yourself to mark after an attack, the Warden (Players’ Handbook 2) can mark all adjacent enemies as a free action anytime in his turn.
Also check your other powers and class features because every defender can do something to marked enemies, either when they move or when they fail to attack the defender.
In order to avoid forgetting to mark opponents, the defender player should keep a stack of tokens (poker chips are good, if a bit large) on the character sheet or near dice so they can act as a reminder. When you mark an opponent, you just put a chip under the mini.
Pay Attention now
One of the interesting things about the Podcasts is that it shows how different each player is at the table. Scott Kurtz does not seem the most attentive type. He often draws when it isn’t his turn and often finds himself playing his character in reactive mode when his turn comes up. That’s why he forgets to mark opponents, or forgets that Dwarves are harder to push back and can use Second Wind as a minor action.
D&D 4e is a brutal game for people with any type of attention deficit because it’s full of little things that add up in combat encounters. I remember playing a Ranger at Gen Con and I kept forgetting to use my Hunter’s Quary feature (+1d6 damage vs one chosen target), not using it made my PC into quite the inefficient Striker.
If you have trouble staying focused in a game and you keep forgetting your class features and powers, I suggest that you review your character before each game. Whenever you read a class feature try to associate it with a likely event in the game . For a Dwarven example, you could go “Okay, if a monster tries to push me, I have to remember that I’m hard to move, dwarves are like mountains!”).
Avenge this lack of Proficiency
Poor Wil, he introduces this badass new class (The Avenger) to the Penny Arcade/PVP group and he misses almost every attack he does. At one point the DM asks about his bonus because he finds it low. While the Fighter, Cleric and Wizards of the party had attack bonuses around +7 to +9 or so he was stuck with a puny +4.
(I’ll assume that he never rolled 2 d20s for his Oath of Enmity attacks because he was playing an earlier pre-release version of the Avenger, but I think Wil might have just missed it)
While I have no issue with a non-optimized PC (Wil’s Avenger had a Wisdom score of 16, giving him a +3 bonus, +1 for being 3rd level), he totally forgot (or didn’t know about) his weapon’s proficiency bonus (+3 for a longsword) for all his melee Power. He also didn’t factor in his weapons/implement enhancement bonus.
In his defense, he seemed to have made his character shortly before the game, without knowing the rules. So when his powers said ‘Wis vs AC’ he only took his Wis bonus (and added 1/2 his level when he was reminded).
Shame on Chris Perkins though for not spotting the Avenger’s suckiness, but I’ll get to that in part 2, the DM had a lot on his plate.
The way to avoid this is to have a more experience player (or the DM) pay attention to the new character in the first few encounters and help out the player chose the better plays and learn the rules. After a few encounters, the new player will have gotten most of the tricks and any kinks in the PC should have been ironed out.
A Striking Controller
Mike, was probably the one who made the fewest mistakes. However, he played his wizards mostly as a ranged striker role and hardly ever used his controlling spells (Thunderwave and Ray of Frost). Now that the game has more classes than when it first came out, if a player wants to have a cool ranged Arcane PC that dishes out lots of damage, they should go for a Sorcerer (I’m not much of a Warlock fan) instead of a wizard.
Also, I think the Invoker makes for a more effective Controller, mostly because of the extra damage it can deal to undead.
So that’s about it. Use power cards to take care of all the math (including weapon/implement bonuses), use tokens to mark opponents and associate each of your powers and classe features to a likely scenrio where they would come into play in order to remember to use it at the table.
Up next: What we can learn from WotC DMs.
