Blogfade? Kinda...

(I started writing this blog entry months ago. I would start, then stop, then restart and edit, wait and repeat. Now with a new edition of D&D being announced and worked on, maybe it’s time to take a few to write again.)

What has happened to the blog?

I’ve lost interest in playing D&D, especially 4E. I haven’t bought a book since the first year 4E came out. Actually I have only bought the first 3 books and 1 module. Any other 4E books I own were gifts.

That alone should be the one piece of information WotC would see (because I doubt they read this blog).

The Valley campaign went probably six or so sessions more than what I blogged.

It just became harder as time went along to get motivated to write about them.

(And if you’re wondering what happened to my campaign; we stopped at level 17 as things got on a larger scale, plot-wise, were opening up about great evils awakening and all that.)

I quit playing D&D entirely about 6 months ago.

In the end the socializing that came with the game just wasn’t enough to put the effort into making the campaign or even updating characters.

While I’m sure some would blame WoW, I don’t. I played EverQuest off and on for a while and I still played D&D.

To me the blame lies solely in the utter lack of fun I had with this iteration of D&D.

Updating my PC’s turned into a time-consuming chore.
Get a new magic item? Update your math.
Go up an even level? Update your math.

“Why not use their online character builder?”
To put it bluntly – fuck no.
WotC designed a game that has so many pieces that you need to either spend an hour checking your math or pay WotC money to help you with your PC. What a convenient racket.

My first desktop computer was a Packard Bell. And PB computers were junk. If you had a problem with one of their systems, because they were junk, you could call and have them help you. Then one day they wanted to start charging you for them helping with their piece of shit computers!

I’m not paying a company money to fix something they broke.

Then there is the encounter design process.
Ok, I kind of liked being able to design special things about encounters to make them unique.
That is one thing about 4E I’ll give credit for.

But when it comes down to it, combats were over complicated.

Combats should not take more than 15 minutes to complete unless it was designed to take that long.

I played Star Fleet Battles. That game is known for excessive rules and complications and combats taking 2 hours when it came to a 2 versus 2 ship fight. The rule books were thick…and they had nothing on D&D 4E.

If it takes so much effort to design an encounter…then you’re just setting yourself up for a railroad campaign.
If I spend 2+ hours making 2-3 combats, you can bet your ass I’m not wasting those encounters if I can avoid it.
So hello railroad campaign and goodbye random encounters.

But when 4E came out, and it doesn’t seem that long ago (that would be because it wasn’t), I was looking forward to it…a lot.

I was let down…a lot.

4E has earned its rightful place on the bottom of the D&D stack.
Yes, as much as I disliked AD&D 2E, 4E is a worse version.

When 4E was released a friend of mine claimed that they were borrowing too heavily from World of Warcraft to get young players into it.

I agree and disagree with him. The game isn’t totally like WoW, but there are some definite similarities that can not be ignored (everyone has special abilities, WoW’s cooldown abilities vs. 4E’s encounter/daily abilities, trash mobs called minions).

D&D has evolved over time to adapt to the gaming community, and MMO games and other computer/console RPG games have had an effect on D&D.

I don’t consider that a bad thing, but I think they’ve gone too far to mesh the technology into the tabletop pen and paper games.
Technology should be a help, not a requirement.

4E turned D&D into a D&D Miniatures game with more math and dice.
Role-playing became secondary. They even attempted that abortion of a concept of skill challenges…for role-playing, making actual role-playing pointless because what you said didn’t matter, only the roll you made when you shut your mouth.

D&D, in any of its incarnations, was never perfect. It always had tweaks that people felt were needed. It always had poorly designed aspects of it. But those were often easily dealt with by the wave of DM’s hand.

4E was such a disappointment that it has kind of put me off D&D entirely.
I haven’t played in six months and I don’t miss it.

I don’t want D&D to emulate online games.

I don’t want D&D to integrate a computer into the pen and paper.

I don’t want D&D to be a role-playing version of Magic: the Gathering. (How many of you used cards to represent what powers you used? When you used a power did you put the card in a pile or did you “tap” it?)

Maybe I’ll play 5E, but it would have to be something amazing and very different from 4E.

If I were the person in charge of 5E, there would be many staff replacements. I would suspect no one involved in original 4E design would have a job.

D&D4E was not D&D at all.
It was just an “ok” rpg with a D&D skin.
Ironically there were a lot of games like that in the early 90’s, until Magic: the Gathering came along and cleaned them off the game table.

If you want to contact me, my e-mail address is on this blog page somewhere.

Or if you’d like, you can talk with me on the Alleria server, horde-side.
Just do a “/who bobob” and you’ll probably find me…usually at the auction house making tons of gold for no reason other than to say I have tons of gold.

Ryan Dancey

Ryan Dancey talks about things I consider important to D&D

Go there.
Read that.

I consider him to be one of the saviors of D&D from T$R.
His words mean something to me when it comes to my favorite RPG.

The Valley #36-39

The more things change the more they stay the same.

We are currently down to Aaron, Dale, Scott, and me with a potential new member soon.

Glenn’s schedule just wasn’t stable enough so he had to move on.

It seems we go through a lot of players, but what can you do?

We debated taking a break, but we decided not to.

We discussed playing an online game, but we couldn’t agree which one. There are a lot of free ones, but those don’t appeal to me thanks to the kind of people that are attracted to free games and the fact that those games aren’t free. Instead of free, you get a broken or limited game that requires money to unlock certain things.

Then there’s the unavoidable fact that an online game will lose some of the role-playing aspect. Instead of talking to the DM, everyone is reading text for a quest. Then everyone has to go kill 10 foozles or bring back the head of the foozle king.

No thanks. It’s not even remotely the same.

As I’ve written about recently, we’ve discussed dumping 4E. But we can’t agree on what we’d rather play. So we’re not dumping 4E.

(I’m still going to bash together my own system from the best parts of other systems, but that is just me playing around.)

So for the next year or so, we’ll be playing 4E, hoping (probably in vane) that Hasbro pulls their collective heads out of their collective asses.

This entry I’ll be writing about 4 sessions of the Valley that occurred up to 5 months ago.

Please note that this is all from memory. If I miss something, oh well.

First I forgot to mention in the previous Valley entry that the sphinx told the party to “Return to the center of the beginning”. This they assumed was something the bronze disc was needed for.

They did a lot of research as to what the “center of the beginning” meant, and they believed that it was probably the place where the Valley was created so they focuses their research on the days Nafterran came to the Valley and where he cast his great spell to lift the curse of the Silver Veil.

They determined the location where the spell was cast was just north of Crater Lake (named because it looks like a crater - roughly round with a slight lip).

Now Crater Lake is not the most pleasant of places. It is where several of the rivers and rivulets join together, several from goblin territory which brought the lovely odors of that race’s stench.

For the most part, the lake is calm as no race claims it. Each time it has been claimed by the city or the goblins, or even the dwarves, that side tends to lose their claim in a bloody reprisal. So there is a truce of avoidance for all sides.

It is neither shallow, nor deep, and is moderately clean as it feeds a river that eventually goes underground.

The party’s search led to nothing, so they investigated the lake itself.

They made a raft and swam to the middle. There Adri’s elf eyes spotted the faintest abnormality as the bottom so the party sent their rogue (at the time) to investigate.

The moment he touched the seal a pair of water dragons (and other creatures) appeared and told the party to flee or face destruction.

So they fled.

Then Admon purchased a Water Breathing ritual and cast it the next morning.

Actions repeated but the dragons didn’t pause this time and attacked the party. The challenge was greatly reduced without the need for air. The biggest danger was posed to the party’s rogue who receive quite a few attacks and jolts of electricity.

At the bottom of the center of Crater Lake was a corroded and mostly covered over magical lock which the rogue focuses on and cleaned up enough for the bronze disc to be inserted.

It opened to an air-filled room that let not water in (well, just a trickle).

That room led to another that held an altar and a giant silver door.

When the party approached angels and demons appeared with a shout of “Protect the prison!”

Angels and demons working together concerned the party, but they won much more easily than I would have preferred (bad save rolls for the lead angel).

When the fight was over they opened the prison door after some debate and an appearance of an angelic creature who told them that the prisoner they were about to free brings trouble wherever he is.

Behind the door was a spherical silver room and single silver chair rising out of the floor.

The only non-silver thing inhabiting the room was Narxoom; a young human man.

He stretched and then hopped out of the silver room, animated thanked everyone present, and introduced himself as Narxoom before passing out.

They took him to Edward’s house where we remained stable but unconscious for a couple days.

During that time they researched the name Narxoom but found only that he was a bit of a reckless and powerful mage.

When Narxoom awoke Ander was there to greet him, alone.

Ander and Narxoom hit it off amazingly well. Narxoom was obviously smart and used his magic freely to do almost whatever he wanted. While he did nothing malicious, he was definitely not paying attention to the consequences of his actions.

The two exchanged stories and left the house so Narxoom could see what he, supposedly had caused.

Simply put, Narxoom cast the great spell the caused the Silver Veil to be created, thus “destroying” the lycanthropy that many people had been afflicted with. He remembers nothing but intense light and deep darkness after that moment. He is also 100% positive that his great spell did not cause the Ellicross Mountains to erupt from the ground.

As part of their back and forth stories, Narxoom also examined Ander. He determined that though he is a halfling in appearance, he is most definitely not one, though he is not quite sure what he is.

Much of the day involved Ander showing Narxoom around the city.

(Dale enjoyed this role-playing immensely as he loves having characters like Narxoom around when he runs. I think he does it to torture me.)

Eventually Edward and Admon found the two of them, hoping to contain any damage the two of them could cause to the already beleaguered denizens of the Valley.

At this point Narxoom was on a mission. He refused to believe he had created the Valley and was going to talk to someone with information.

They walked to a semi-deserted section of the Crags when Narxoom turned around and asked “Does anyone have a shovel? We need to dig right here I think.”

The party spent a few hundred gold on shovels and helpers and began digging through a good chunk of the day until a large stone was hit about 6’ down.

“Wake up! You’ve slept long enough! Now get and talk to me!” as Narxoom hit the rock with his shovel.

The ground rumbled and the workers scattered as from the ground stepped up a huge earth elemental almost as tall as the Valley wall.

The elemental bent down and yelled at Narxoom, who held his ground and yelled right back and mentioning that the elemental owed him after he saved the elementals sister from some horrible situation.

The party could only hear what questions Narxoom was asking since they couldn’t understand the language the elemental was using, but Narxoom filled them in when it was over.

When it was over the elemental was about to leave when he noticed the giant hole in the ground. So he grabbed the Death’s Head from its precarious position (about to fall down into the Crags) and broke it in half, shoving one half into the hole.

The other half he didn’t know what to do with, so he threw it over his shoulder. It flew out of sight of the city. He then climbed up the side the Valley wall, leaving a potentially usable trail in the future. He waved goodbye and left their sight.

Later they heard that it landed dead center in one of the goblin clans.

Narxoom relayed to the party that apparently he had made a deal with the elementals that he does not remember making. The earth elementals sent a huge amount of earth to this plane, the creating the Ellicross Mountain range. The air elementals were tasked with keeping all creatures away from the mountains. The water elementals were tasked with keeping the water flowing within the Valley. And the fire elementals were tasked with keeping the Valley warm through heating the land beneath the Valley.

Then Tonus showed up with an “I see you’ve been around for just a short time and already chaos follows you.”

Narxoom: “Tonus! You old gendarme, how have you been all these years.”

As he says that he gives Tonus a slap on the back and reality breaks lose.

The two men are thrown 60’ apart from one another with a tear in reality split between them.

On the other side is a bleak landscape where frog-like man-creatures are slaughtering spheroid and cube-shaped creatures. They turn and see this reality and begin marching to it and stepping into it.

The party sees nothing but malice in the creatures’ eyes, so they fight back to make sure nothing that gets through lives long enough to cause problems.

A few moments into it Tonus and Narxoom come to and realize they have to close the tear before the creatures swarm the Valley.

Each round a new creature steps through to attack the party.
Each round the tear is slowly shrunk by the two powerful magi.

In the end they find that the only way to close it forever is for one of them to be on each side of the tear. Narxoom volunteers and disappears behind the now closed tear.

That day Ander, and probably Dale, was quite sad.

Tonus was torn up as well, but there was nothing he could do or tell Ander that would fix it.

A week passed and there was a knock at Ander’s door. It was Iris, Polaris’s wife. She came to invite Ander and his friends to their lair for a dinner and apology.

Of course Ander said yes and soon the party was at the shores of Silver Lake entering a frozen sphere that would take them to the dragons’ lair somewhere under the water.

Long story short, the dragons had been busy trying to make the area around the Valley a much safer place because they were going to be leaving soon.

Why? Because they had a clutch of eggs and the lair and the Valley itself was not going to be enough “room” for them.

Then a purple (shadow) dragon and his minions burst into the room intent upon stealing some eggs. He had a spell that froze Polaris and Iris in place leaving the party to defend them and the silver dragon eggs.

In the fight the lair had become a bit damaged, leaving the dragons to repair it with their icy breath. Of course that’s when the fire elementals attacked.

I forget the exact reasons why, but it was something along the lines that the fire elementals are fracturing and some are for breaking their agreement with Narxoom and taking over the lands of the Valley. (Losing that jump drive really hurts.)

When it was all said and done the dragons were quite grateful and apologetic that they had to leave the party in the dark about their activities (such as taking over the sorcerers’ cabal).

Then Polaris hands over an odd-shaped crystal to Ander. “Centuries ago, a man named Narxoom gave this to me to give to you. There are two others like it and this crystal will lead you to them.”

Well the party researched the ring but found nothing (why would they, they barely found out anything about Narxoom when they looked for information on him).

In the end the party had to cast one of those “ask the gods questions” spells.

The response to their question was that the name of the completed piece was “Narxoom’s Ring of Histories” (though it was donut shaped and sized, not a small ring) and two conversations.

In the first conversation they heard Narxoom and Ivellios Gallanodil talking about a crystal. Narxoom said “Keep it safe until the right person comes to find it.”

The next conversation had Narxoom and three other men that the party didn’t recognize. Narxoom “The three of you owe me this. Keep this crystal safe until someone bearing an identical piece comes to claim it.”

Finding piece number two was so easy for the party that I think it concerned them. They just went and talked to the Thlyria Isara who handed the dusty piece of crystal over to the party, no questions asked.

Finding the other piece was not as easy.

When two of the pieces are joined, a daily power can be used to power the crystal to lead the wielder to the third piece. It led south. So they moved around a bit and triangulated the approximate location of the third piece.

They did some research, as expected, and rolled well for the history check.
They came up with an answer they did not like.
Three men, acting together, long ago, possible arcane powers, unexplored areas…they may now be the Dark Tribunal.

They are three liches who reside somewhere in the Valley. For the most part they bug no one, and no one bugs them.

The party was not too thrilled, but had to move on.

The next morning they snuck their way past the variety of potential monstrosities that could have ruined their day.

They eventually found a small pass in the mountainside and walked along the narrow passage until it opened up a bit.

There they found a cave and a large, dead, tree.

As expected the tree was not dead, nor was it a lone.

Ethereal type undead really suck in combat, regeneration and half damage makes for a long fight. Add in their draining abilities and it sucks for the party.

Now add in a tree with a threatening reach of 3, with rough terrain all around it, can trip a PC with relative ease, and hits for 15-20 damage a round, and you have a hell of a fight.

The party made a couple of bad calls and had some bad rolls and was forced to flee.

They returned and attempted to parlay with the dead tree. It worked!

Soon they were allowed into the cave.

When they were into the center they were told by three separate voices (and attitudes) to explain their presence. The party came clean about the crystals and the disembodied voices responded.

One voice “We should take their crystals for ourselves!”

Another voice “We made an agreement. We will honor it.”

A third voice “We should test reality; a trial of combat to see if things go as I expect them to. Survive this trial and you shall have your crystal.”

The fight was simple enough, random teleporters, plenty of ghoul minions, and a trio of boneclaws (ok, maybe the fight wasn’t that simple) were all out to ruin the party’s day.

But they still won and we stopped for the evening.

Scratchpad Ramblings

I’m about 4 sessions behind on The Valley blog entries.

There are two reasons for that.

One, I got lazy. I just kept putting it off.

Two, I recently lost my jump drive with all of my information about The Valley. While I did have a backup, it’s about 6-9 months old.

So I will probably write something up for that eventually, with what happened compiled into a single entry. It will probably have something missing, but that’s not really a big issue.

As you’ve read, we’ve recently not been entirely happy with 4E.

It’s currently residing in an area of “don’t hate, but don’t like either”.

That has gotten my creative thoughts running amok.

What if we could combine some of the best aspects of each of the versions of D&D made so far?

We certainly can’t combine everything into some Doomsday Edition of D&D (vague Starfleet Battles reference there), but I’d like to think we could make something usable.

Even if we never play it, I’m going to knock about some ideas.

The ideas thoroughly thought through, but I think they’re a good start.

First, it has to be a simple and elegant design.
Adding too many options and restricting options will kill most games. Sometimes adding a new mechanic can kill a game. I want something that “just feels right”.

Simple:
Initiative does not change from round to round. Roll once and you’re done for the combat (a la 3E).

Unneeded:
Modifiers for the roll based on levels. How much threat could a kobold be to a level 10 rogue? At least give the poor guy a chance at going first, because you know he’s not likely to live long.

Elegant:
Remove all modifiers to initiative and make it a straight d20 roll and that is your initiative order.
Now each PC whose roll + dexterity modifier is 20 or higher gets to act in the surprise round.
Monsters may or may not get to act in the surprise round based off of the DM’s judgment or the encounter’s design.

It gives a simple mechanic, it keeps the value of a base stat, and gives everyone an equal chance to act rather than what we seem to have in 4E where it almost always ends up as PC’s act, and then monsters act.

Here’s something that is so simple I almost forgot it could be done this way:
The only time an attack of opportunity attack occurs is when you leave melee (as in stepping away from an opponent).

Go ahead and cast your spell or use your bow in melee.
It doesn’t seem quite realistic, but dragons and wizards aren’t real either.

I look at it like this. Spell interruptions just don’t seem fun in any edition. But if I remove that then casters can get into melee and cast away.

This a bit unfair to the bow users; why should they get shafted. Roughly a square is 5’x5. I’m pretty sure an arrow or slung rock can do some damage from 5’ away.

So I think that attacks of opportunity should only occur when you try to leave melee; not when you leave a square, not when you cast a spell, and not when you use a ranged weapon in melee.

Then there are things that many find clunky or unneeded, but I’m ok with them.

For example 1E alignments and the Vancian magic system.

I liked having the 9 alignments so long as they were a general guide to follow rather than a list of things you can do, can’t do, and must do.

Every PC can have their Chaotic Neutral “Wolverine” moment, but in the end they should still be the good guys.

It seems that a lot of people hated the Vancian setup for memorizing spells and then forgetting them once they’re cast.

I never truly hated it, but I certainly understood that a lot of spells were worthless the higher level you went.

Then came the 3.5’s Spell Compendium and voila, low level spells are worth something again by giving them a small effect but making them an instant cast.

Now that doesn’t help with the problem of “Oh no! Our thief failed his lock pick check and the wizard didn’t memorize his Knock spell today.”
4E fixed that with rituals.

So now casters no longer have to reserve spells for a “just in case” utility spell and our high level casters can put their low level spells to encounter use.

Of course you let them still cast basic cantrip type spells as an “at-will” and I’m also leaning to giving them a Magic Missile at-will attack as well, but I’m not that far ahead in my thinking.

Now one thing about all editions prior to 4E was that spellcasters were so much better than non-spellcasters at higher levels.

While it has most certainly been awhile since I’ve looked at it, the BECMI Master’s Set (and Rules Cyclopedia) had a tiered weapon skill setup that allowed players to do more with their weapons as they leveled up and specialized more in their weapons.

This I believe may keep a balance between the classes without giving fighter-types “spells” like they do in 4E.

Given that I’ve never been happy with 3E/4E combat speed, it should be no surprise that I would prefer the BECMI/1E/2E designs for most everything else, with reasonable modifications of course.

As much as THAC0 was irritating, I’m ok with keeping it.
One of the best things 3E did was replace it with the Base Attack Bonus design, but the BAB system broke down with…
I could redesign monsters and the armor class system to the 3E style, but then all the old modules that I’d like to use would have to be fixed before I used them.

Multi-classing the 1E way, yeah I’m all for keeping that too.
Naysayers scream that 1E’s multi-classing created broken characters and multi-classed PC’s never really lagged single-classed PC’s.

First off, creating a broken character is going to happen no matter what. It’s a simple reality with gamers. You either accept it and go with it, or you try to stop it until another exploit is found, then you try to stop that one, and repeat. The rules system can change, but exploits will always be found.

Unless something that is found it truly broken, don’t worry about it. Let the player have his day.

As for level-lagging, it’s there, especially at higher levels, but it’s not as pronounced as it was in early 3E.

In my opinion, they were pretty well balanced. Not necessarily perfectly, but I remember envying a straight-classed mage when I played a multi-classed one because they got the better spells faster.

Also, the need for a tank to be “sticky” is gone if you have a couple of PC’s who are fighters that can actually run some blockage to protect the casters. That is best attained through multi-classing.

Here is my recollection of a standard 6 PC group in1E AD&D; 1 fighter, 1 cleric, 1 thief, 1 magic-user, and 2 multi-classed with at least one of those being a fighter. And sometimes the thief was a fighter/thief. There are tons of combinations, but the general design was the same (2 healers, 2 warriors, 2 magi, 1 sneak, and more).

Another thing that I liked more in the earlier editions vs. is now is that permanent magic items meant something and they were not required (barring fighting a monster that needed a magic weapon to be hit).

In 3E, if you were high level and didn’t have magic items, you were in bad shape.
In 1E, if you had only 1 permanent magic item at level 7, your DM was a bit harsh, but you could most certainly survive fights.

Next: Random encounters

3E/4E’s overly long fights made the random encounters extinct. There was no time for a fight that wasn’t crucial to the story unless you had an eight hour long game session.

In the early editions if you didn’t have a random encounter it was because the DM chose to ignore them (usually because he was sick of them). Otherwise it only cost you 10-15 minutes of your time and prevented a 5 minute adventuring day.

Something else the early editions had going for them…you could level up reasonably fast.

In 4E, you usually have to recreate your whole PC if you got a new item or ability. Now one minor change is not big deal and you can probably not worry about it (like going from a simple +1 weapon or armor to +2), and swapping out a power won’t take too much time, and neither will an even level, or stat increase. But when you add all of those together…

But not everything from BECMI/1E/2E is usable, or preferable.

I like that gold value is based on 10.
AD&D 1E had (and I don’t think I’m recalling this correctly), 10cp = 1sp, 20sp=1gp, 2ep=1gp, 5gp=1pp

Save or die effects should definitely be gone from 95% of the effects. A bite from a tiny centipede should not kill a level 10 fighter outright because he rolled a nat 1.

Permanent level drains should not return; though a version of non-permanent level drain should exist (like save every day until you’re back to normal).

Rolling for hit points…not fun if you suck at rolling.

4E has minions. I loves me some minions. That can easily be implemented, even if just using a bunch of low level monsters (kobolds, goblins, etc.)

3E has easy conversions of cleric spells into healing. This can also be easily implemented.

4E has a clear setup of actions; standard, move, and minor. Earlier editions had only vague rules for it. This may be a bit harder to implement, but it could be winged for a while.

4E made critical hits more interesting and less lethal to the party while still making them hurt.

3E/4E gave wizards more spells with a higher intelligence. Also something easy to implement.

Then there’s the stuff that all the editions didn’t quite handle right.

Early editions made magic item creation too hard and taxing while 3E/4E made it almost a joke.

Early editions had limited options while later editions gave too many.

Secondary skills never felt right to me in any edition.
In my opinion PC’s are heroes; they don’t have much time to train for anything outside of their specialized skill-set. A fighter should probably know just enough for basic upkeep of his armor and weapons, but if he’s talented enough to make a magic sword then maybe he shouldn’t be an adventurer.
Return adventuring skills to judgment calls from the DM, usually as a d20 roll vs. a stat.

4E has hit points returning overnight, 1E/2E has 1 hit point returning per day, and 3E had 1 hit point per level returning.
My thought is a bit more complicated and is a decent compromise.
You have two sets of hit points, fatigue and bloodied. Each is 50% of your total hit points.
When you take damage it come from your fatigue hit points first.
When you get healing it replenishes your bloodied hit points first.
When you rest after a combat you get all of your fatigue hit points back.
When you rest overnight you get all of your fatigue hit points back, and a small number of bloodied hit points back.
It’s not quite elegant, so it’s still being worked on, but I like this.

I have other ideas, but they’re all quite nebulous and in need of more thought.

It was easy in earlier editions to not use a battlemap at all and just give a rough explanation of the area.
Unfortunately you have killer DM’s who place every monster on top of the mage even though the mage was being covered by your plethora of 1E fighters, or players who can magically be anywhere at once.
That kind of makes rules for a battlemap required.

And on that thought, while I think it’s a bit harder, I preferred 3E’s system for that (or, if you’re older, the gold-box 1E AD&D computer games); your movement cost is 1 per square or 1.5 for a diagonal and spell radii are measured in the same manner.

Plus some players like seeing a tactical setup.

As long as we don’t turn the game into D&D chess (a la 3E/4E), I’m cool with keeping a battlemap.

I liked 1E’s barbarian from Unearthed Arcana, but its role-playing requirement made it impossible to use unless you ignored them.

3E’s barbarian was more usable, but easily got bogged down in its own math (I made a spreadsheet for dealing with that). The whole fun of playing a barbarian is to not to have to think!

BECMI & 1E gave the party XP for each gold piece they looted.
I’m not sure if I want to keep that or dump it, but if I dump it, then each monster should have its XP increased by the average amount of gold it was designed to have.

1E required time and money for training up a level.
Should that return?

What about level limitations?
I’m against them, but if a race’s special abilities are that strong, then they need to have something going against them.
(It always struck as wrong that an elf could live for over a thousand years, but could never get to level 6 as a cleric – per the 1E rules.)

Some spells will need a redesign.
Should Haste still cost a year of a person’s life? If so, shouldn’t it cost dwarves and elves more?

Buff spells should be kept simple.
Why did 1E’s Bless need for you to not be in melee combat yet?

Should a thief’s backstab ability return? Should we stick with sneak attacks?

I know I’m not going to bring back specialized magic-user classes (illusionist, abjurer, etc.) and cleric domains aren’t needed.

Should we allow PC’s to build strongholds to attract followers?

You can kiss non-magical alchemical items goodbye.

PC’s should not have to babysit other PC’s who are more than a few levels lower than them.

No magic item should be disenchantable for “magic dust”.

Wands should have charges.

While I like action points, I’m not sure if I want to keep them.

There is no need for PC’s templates right?
It just seemed like an option designed specifically for munchkins.

Should metamagic spells be introduced?
I certainly see no reason why a higher spell slot could be used for a lower level spell and then allow that lower level spell to be counted as its new level for that casting.

There should be no racial modifiers that make you seem foolish for not playing a certain race/class combo.
“Oh you want to play a wizard? Then you want to be an eladrin. Bow-using ranger? Elf.”

What bout the odd 1E classes like monk, druid, and bard?
They level oddly, sometimes you have to kill someone to level, or you have to level up other classes first.
They will require some work.

A lot of things will require some work.
I think it’s doable if done in simple steps, the easiest ones first.

Pick One

OD&D
D&D (BECMI)
AD&D 1E
AD&D 2E
D&D 3.5
D&D 4E
D&D Essentials
Hackmaster
Pathfinder
Homebrewed Rules Blend

To clarify, BECMI stands for Basic Expert Companion Master Immortals. To many I could say Basic D&D and they’ll know what I mean, but I’ll stick with BECMI.

Every version of D&D has its own advantages and disadvantages, and to some people a version’s advantages is a disadvantage.

Vancian magic, or the memorization of spells that go away once cast, is a big negative to many.

Dynamic combat versus simple combat; can you go back to a simple sword swing after getting used to the power of Reckless Strike in 4E?

Does the strive for balance of the later editions ruin the fun you had in AD&D or do you approve of the power of magic-users being kept in check better?

Do you view the incompleteness of the early rules systems as a positive thing or a glaring hole that needs to be filled?

Would you prefer a long combat with plenty of options and tactical decisions on a battle-map, or would you prefer multiple, faster fights that eschew the need for a physical layout entirely?

Let’s go through the list to pick from with pros and cons (from my point of view):

OD&D: Never played it. I assume BECMI is a refined version of it.

BECMI: It was my first D&D experience. It is fast and rules light
Pros – Simple to learn, fast to play, plenty of modules to use
Cons – Missing a lot rules, not many options (especially in the class/race area)

AD&D 1E:
Pros – Lends itself to house-ruling, having a magic item actually means something (and rarely is required), plenty of modules to use
Cons – Has a few too many rules, has a lot of rules holes, not very balanced class-wise, rules vary in interpretation.

AD&D 2E:
Pros – Cleans up a lot of AD&D 1E rules, began adding many PC options
Cons – Its core rules really don’t differentiate itself much from 1E + house-rules, a lot of poor products were released making it hard to tell what was worth using, modules began leaving the dungeons behind, much love for the game on the internet was crushed by TSR lawyers

D&D 3.5 (absorbing 3E into it):
Pros – Streamlined D&D (goodbye THAC0), introduced new ideas and options, began the attempts to keep classes balanced, open-sourced (SRD), the game-designers actively sought to improve the game (pre-Hasbro)
Cons – Too many options leading to munchkin/cheese players, combats slowed dramatically at higher levels, magic items are required

D&D 4E
Pros – Classes are balanced is better, rules were simplified and streamlined, spread some work around to the players
Cons – Combats are too long no matter the level, the rules are no longer open-sourced, players have to recreate their character sheets each time a new magic item or power is gained

D&D Essentials
Pros – Fixed some of the glaring issues found with 4E
Cons – That stuff wasn’t found out in play-testing? Couldn’t it have been fixed with errata?

Hackmaster (I’ve never played it, heard this from others)
Pros – Has its core with 1E rules, aims to bring back the original feel of 1E
Cons – Tries to make the game fun by marrying it to the ideals shown in the Knights of the Dinner Table comics thus placing the DM vs. the PC’s

Pathfinder (I’ve never played it, heard this from others)
Pros – Has its core with 3E rules and simplifies them
Cons – Combat speed not addressed (made it worse maybe)

Homebrewed Rules Blend:
Pros – Mix and match rules of your liking to a system of your liking.
Cons – Have you joined a group and thought “Son of a …” when you found out they used a lot of home-brew rules?

One game-style I read about on ENWorld, I believe it’s called E6, used the 3.5E rules, but maxxed out PC’s levels at 6. After level 6, every 5000xp granted you another feat. There is more to it, but the idea is that it drastically reduces munchkinism, combats never get that long due to the lack of giant buffs, and high level monsters remain scary as hell.

The adult red dragon that has ruled the country-side for a century is nothing for a group of 6 level 15 PC’s to take out.
But that same dragon versus 6 level 6 PC’s, even in the same gear, would be a bit different.

That system kind of reminds me of the Vampire game I played in (for about a month) where you gain power gradually rather than doubling in power every 2 levels.

After the discussion we had at the last game session we concluded that we cannot really agree on what version we want to play.

Roughly each of us would prefer:

Me: house-ruled 1E with things added from other editions, would prefer not to spend money or spend hours reading rules (again).

Dale: Essentials, but would be ok with 1E.

Aaron: would rather stick with 4E or possibly revert to 3.5, he’s also intrigued by E6.

Scott: Doesn’t want to spend money (that’s really about it).

But overall we’re not going to stop the campaigns we have at the moment, so we have plenty of time to think of alternatives.

Recent Fun and the Future

The blog isn’t dead. I’m just behind and not feeling motivated.
(Being a World of Warcraft gold tycoon, and not too bad of a raider will do that to you.)

I’m here to just post something so that you all won’t think I’ve blog-faded.

We’re still playing our two 4E campaigns with a 3 weeks of mine then 3 weeks of Dale’s game.

We’re also down to just Dale, Aaron, Scott, and me.

Glenn is gone.

Joy’s work and social life left no room for D&D.

There are no decent prospects of new players either.

So at our last game we were in general agreement that D&D has a giant fractured and/or diluted player-base.
OD&D, Basic D&D, AD&D 1E, 2E, 2E + options, 3.5E (assuming 3E was absorbed into it), 4E, and finally 4E Essentials (which we believe is a new edition rather than more options), and all of the evolutionary offshoots (Kalamar, Pathfinder, the D20 worlds like Modern, and so on) and games within the games (campaign worlds that stray from the basic swords and sorcery milieu) lead to a giant pot of games for players to play in.

In spite of all of my irritations of 4E, I don’t hate it. I do not like it either.
I believe I’ve given it a fair shot, but in the end, it is not what I want for my D&D.

It has indeed given the players a larger share of the game to take care of and allows the DM a bit more freedom in encounter design, but it does not feel like D&D to me.

Sure it has the names in the game, but it doesn’t play the same.

Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s my selective memory only remembering the good stuff.
But in the end, 4E isn’t for me.

That is just me.

Aaron has his opinions, but he generally doesn’t care too much what we play as long it’s not expensive and we play something entertaining.

Scott is pretty much the same.

Dale would like to give D&D Essentials a try, but I’m a great big “meh” on that idea.

WotC (and I mean Hasbro when I say that, not the pre-Hasbro WotC which was run by gamers) lost me as a customer. It has been over 2 years since I bought a single gaming book from them.

I will not be giving them more money because players found exploitable situations, killer combos, and bugs in their game.

You can’t “patch” physical books.

They’ve made a complicated game which made it prone to exploits. Their solution was to release Essentials.

It’s more money for me to spend on them.

“Isn’t that what they’re in business for?”

Yes, kind of.
They have to earn my business. Spending my money on book after book is not good economic sense for me.

So they leave something out of each book; nothing truly essential to play the game, but a few things that they can put in future books to get you to buy them.

How many times have you bought a D&D book only to use a dozen pages or less?
For me it’s far too often in recent recollection.

So, as I’ve told Dale, WotC will not be getting any more money from me until they’ve proven they are something more than a subsidiary company who thinks of players as a money source more than as people who are trying to enjoy their game.

WotC will not be getting any money from me until I can legally use a pdf or other file to prepare a game. (The loss of the SRD I think was the biggest mistake made for 4E. I blame shortsighted profit grabbing.)

In spite of all that, Dale and I still have two active campaigns going on.
Neither of us have any real intention to stop running them in 4E since we’ve put too much work to stop and redesign the game while at level 15.

But after that…then what?

3E?
Not likely. As much as I loved 3E, it wasn’t really usable after level 8.

2E?
It’s possible. But will people who are used to the dynamic play style of 3E & 4E be able to deal with the simplistic setup of earlier editions?

AD&D 1E?
That’s even more possible (Yottaquest has had one going on for over a year now). Dale and I probably have enough books to loan out.

Basic D&D?
That’s possible too. I own a lot of those books.

Hackmaster?
Also possible, but none of us have ever read the books. I do know they’re a lot more like AD&D 1E than any D&D edition following.
Take a break? I doubt it, but it’s possible.

We’ll have time to discuss.
Hasbro will also have time to pull their heads out of their asses too.

Here’s a suggestion Hasbro – sell the D&D IP back to true gamers.
I would love to see Kenzerco own D&D.

The Valley #35

Please keep up the positive comments.
Believe it or not, it helps for me to continue writing (in a semi-timely manner).

Also, if you’d like me to link you I only ask two things; a link to here and to update your blog occasionally.

These two sessions will be the last of Jacob’s. He’s too busy, and although he had fun while here, I don’t think he felt like part of the group (though I personally think he did quite well).

Our group itself always seems to need new players.
Dale, Aaron and I are pretty consistent.
Scott was mostly consistent, but is a foster parent now. So his attendance is a bit random.
Joy is also at a busy point in her life, so she has pretty much disappeared from the game.
Glenn I don’t know enough yet. I fear he may prefer a group that role-plays a bit more than we do or is a bit closer to his home.

And then there were the holidays. They destroy gaming opportunities for us adults. We played twice in November and not at all in December.

Given that Dale’s campaign still has two more sessions, I won’t be running another one until in late January at the earliest.

Now this session was played on Halloween night. Yeah, I’m that slow at getting this stuff out.

For Halloween I wanted to do something that fit the day and I just couldn’t think of anything that would do the job of WTF (look it up) that I wanted. Until I remembered a story I listened to (MP3 player FTW (look that one up too, or leave the internet)).

At the time I couldn’t remember the name of the story or the author, but it turned out to be The Boogey Man by Stephen King.

(Yeah I know…I feel kind of dumb for not remembering that.)

But the story contained things that affected me only because I’m a father. Had I heard the story before that, I would have been less revolted than I was.

So I took the story, and rewrote it with a D&D and Valley feel.

Dale even said I should submit this module for publication.
That would be cool, but since I borrowed heavily to design the module, I’ll just post it here and let you all use it to your preferences so long as you don’t make any money off of it either.

And I do suggest you read or listen to King’s original story. It’s better than his other stuff I read. (Note: Other than The Stand…I’ve not liked King’s other writing. It starts off good, treads water, and then flounders horribly at the end.)

Session 35
Edward (Aaron); level 14 human paladin of Brekaneth
Ander (Dale); level 14 halfling storm sorcerer
Lindorial (Jacob); level 14 elven rogue
Adrie (Joy); level 14 elf cleric

A week had passed since the previous session, allowing for the repercussions of that day to settle in.

First off, the city’s populace has thinned quite a bit. What the city has lost, Theven’s Wharf has gained.

Edward Wootenmorgan the VII has concluded that since he is the last of his line he needs to “get busy” and make some heirs to continue the family name.

As expected he has high standards and only wants a chaste woman with the same beliefs he has.

Adrie decided to help him. Not really.
She decided to turn his search for a wife into a VH1 dating show.
She went to the Crags and found every tramp and gold digger she could and told them that the new Elder Paladin of Brekaneth will be at the Roaring Bull Inn tonight and looking for a wife and he was rich.

Edward attempted to be nice, but these girls were in no mood to take “no” for an answer. Aaron also rolled a natural 1 in an attempt to nicely tell the “ladies” “thanks, but no thanks”.

So while Edward was having drinks dumped on his head, a 12 year old boy entered the bar and went mostly unnoticed thanks to the fun Adrie was having at Edward’s expense.

Ander did notice the boy. He also noticed that the boy appeared to be genuinely scared, but not of what was going on in the Inn.

Ander asked what was wrong and the boy asked him to come see him and his father, because he doesn’t want to die.

That certainly woke Ander up, so he and the others went to the boy’s house. Adrie didn’t want the fun to end and Edward couldn’t leave fast enough. (Lindorial joined them too, but since Jacob won’t be coming back, I’m not going to focus much on him.)

The boy and his father (Billy and Richard) told them their story.

About 10 months ago they bought this house and all was well. (No they didn’t buy the house for cheap. That’s a little too cliché.)

But a few days ago Billy started hearing distant, whispered voices and he told his father about them.
Richard panicked.

When they moved in they found a handwritten book in the house, but thought it to be a bad attempt at writing by the previous owner.

Now he fears that the book was a diary of the last moments of the house’s previous owner.

For the past few days they’ve slept in other places, but the whispers did not go away.
With each day the voices seem to get closer and clearer.

Note – Hallowed Saints Day is an obvious rip-off of Halloween, but the party (through skill checks) knows it to be to a special day to the believers of Brekaneth; A day when the early saints cast out the evil mages of Valley. Those outside the church see the data differently. It’s a day when the Valley’s strongest mages had enough interference from the Church of Brekaneth so they attacked killed the leaders of the church and then fled the Valley to never be seen again.

Richard hands the diary to the party and they read it. It is a small book, but most of the pages are blank.

(Beginning of writing)
I will surely pay for what I’ve done, but I pray that these words will save another’s soul from the damnation I have succumbed to.
An evil resides within this house. I do not know where it came from, but it is most definitely here, though I have never seen it.
It only exists as a voice in my ear and hot breath hovering above me in the darkness.
Every year for half a decade it has come. For a week prior to the…incidents I can hear the voice as a faint whisper. As each day comes and goes and the moon emerges over the Valley, the voice grows stronger.
On the Eve of Hallowed Saint’s Day, the voice is strong. I can only describe the voice as a deep, smooth, oily, and wholly malevolent. I could almost hear the smile in its voice the last time it threatened me.

It was this monster that took my first son.
My wife was concerned that he had been having nightmares of the monster in his closet.
We accepted the stories as nothing more than the bad dream of a child whose mind is dealing with the realities of the world he’s beginning to explore.
The perceptors wrote his death off as crib death, though he was a bit old for that.

A year later I began hearing an odd thing or two, like the edges of a conversation around the corner, but nothing was there.

Though my wife was doting over our second son, born shortly after the death of our first, her thoughts kept returning to losing him a year ago.
On the night of Hallowed Saint’s Day she decided she would sleep in his room in a vigil for him while I watched our second child in our room.

At midnight I awoke from a nightmare of something in the blackness of my dreams hunting me down.
My son began crying moments after I awoke. After soothing him back to sleep, some kind of dread in the back of my mind pulled me to check on my wife.

Her eyes were open, hands clutched to her heart.
She was still warm, but there was no pulse.
I felt a sudden coldness in the wind, could swear I heard a deep voice say “So delicious”.

Once again the perceptors claimed it as “one of those things”.

As we had tried with our first son, I handed my hard earned gold over to the priests of Brekaneth to have her raised back to life.
As with our son, it did not work.
They claimed that there were many reasons for the failure of the ritual.
“Perhaps she’s happy to be with your son and can’t bring herself to be away from him.” said one of the younger priestesses, hoping I could see the wisdom of her idiocy.

Rather than rebuke the girl, I smiled and returned home.

The next year was very hard on me, raising a son, keeping the business running, and keeping the household from falling apart, but I managed.

My son became the pride of me.
I did everything to give him what I felt my wife would have wanted.
There was nothing I would not do for him, and our bond of father and son was unbreakable.

As the year came around to the anniversary of the deaths, I felt a horrible dread grow inside of me.

I contacted priests of Brekaneth, and even those dwarven and elven priests.
I told them my story and asked them to assuage my fears.
Each in turn checked my home for any signs of evil, but found nothing.
Per my request, they each blessed my house.

A week before Hallowed Saint’s Day, my beloved son had a nightmare and asked to sleep in my room.
I agreed.

The next evening he didn’t want to go into his room at all.
“Monster in closet.” he cried to me.

I pulled him into his room and showed him that there was nothing in there, and even checked his bed for good measure.

But I could deny him nothing, and allowed him to sleep in my room.

Each day his protestations of sleeping in that room became more desperate.
Each day I relented to him.
Each night I had dreams that turned into nightmares.
Each night I awoke from the nightmares, sweating, and terrified.
Each night I awoke with the words in my head “I will be sated”.
Each day I convinced myself that this was all just foolishness caused by stress.

On Hallowed Saint’s Day we repeated the routine.
That night I awoke from the nightmare with “I will not be denied! I will be sated.” clinging to my thoughts.
I could hear something else in the room as I awoke.
I heard something hovering above me. I could feel something’s hot breath in my ear, coming from the closet.
I felt hunted; like a rabbit from a wolf.

Then, in a panic, I committed myself to damnation.
I took my sleeping and trusting son, and put him in his bed.

I will not recount what I heard that night.
I heard things that no man should ever hear.
But I had done something that no man should ever do.

I was different after that night.
Everyone knew it.
Another crib death in my family was the news.
They said that my children had inherited their mother’s weak heart.

People looked at me with pity.
Each night I would return to my empty house, and mourn my lost world and hate myself for what I became.

Heavy drink could not mask the emptiness where my soul used to be.
My attempts at socializing were sad affairs of a man who is obviously not what he pretends to be.

The change in me was obvious to anyone who knew me, and once the pity wore off, people simply avoided me.

No aspect of my life went untouched.

I was alone in every sense of the word.

Until the year went by and that damned holiday returned.

The nightmares returned.
The voice returned.
The dread returned.

It was coming for me this time.

Unless…

Unless I gave it someone else.

It did not take much to find someone easily fooled and easily forgotten by society.
There are many in town that beg for copper and spend it on drink.

I never knew his name, though I’m sure he told me in his ramblings.
It was easy enough to act as the nice yet lonely man to someone so drunk.
I told him a simple story that my wife and children of were gone, and that this time of year I needed a companion for drinking.
He was eager to help me drown my sorrows and tell me his stories.

He out drank me with abandon.
I even had to slow him down on his drink for part of me knew that it wanted its food to be aware; to know what was happening.

When it was late I led him to the room.
He was immediately beset paranoia and began to make excuses of having to be somewhere else.
I struck him with a rock and bound his unconscious body in rope.

Later I heard him coming around and he yelled for someone to help him get untied, I stayed in my room and waited with dread in my stomach.
Then I heard the “other kind of scream”; a scream that erupts from a person who has seen his doom.

“So delicious.”

When I knew it was over, I returned to the room and saw the same expression on the man’s face I had seen on my wife’s.

A trash-well is just a few dozen feet from my door, so it was not hard to dispose of the body and hide the evidence of my guilt.

I returned home and no longer felt dread. I did not even feel guilt. I felt relieved.
In time I had even convinced myself that I had done the city a service by removing a vagrant from its midst.

By the time the year came around again I had actually begun looking forward to being a secret hero and using evil to defeat evil and thus I was doing a good deed for all.

This year the drunkard was another middle-aged man who had let his life get away from him.

No one ever came to my door asking about him.
No one ever mentioned anything anywhere.
Just another vagrant had gone missing and presumed dead.

When I attempted to lure a third victim from the gutters to my house, no one followed.
This holiday had become a bane to them, as each year for the past two; one of their numbers had gone missing, and no one cared.

The dread returned to me. I needed to find someone or my damnation would consume me.

Luckily for me society has many who will one day become a drunken drain on the coffers of humanity.

A young man named Harold had been receptive to a benefactor helping him drown his sorrows at that dwarven tavern.

When he was sufficiently inebriated, I made up a story about my sister being a good woman needing a good man to keep her company.

He eagerly agreed and followed me to my home, telling me many a tale of his lost loves; tales that rang familiar to my ears from the two drunkards before him.

But damn his youth!

He recovered from my assault before I could sufficiently bind him.
In the struggle he managed an act of the cruelest irony.

My leg, now broken from my fall in the struggle, now prevents me from leaving this accursed room.

Read these words and heed them.
Evil lurks in this house.

I am soon to be taken by it, though I know it would prefer someone else, someone whose soul is…cleaner.

I hear the whispers now.
And I think, yes, footsteps.

Footsteps are coming from the closet.
(End of writing)

The party just had a few days until the All Saint’s Day, so they went to work.

They studied and experimented.

Ander believed that whatever was in the closet was in another dimension and each time this year the two dimensions synch up for a day. This was why there was nothing wrong detected before and why voices were so distant at first but became closer.

They found out that the house was built where Lord Velserrad’s tower used to be, but the general populace knows nothing of the evil that man possessed, so there was no PC information there.

They tried having the boy and father sleep in the church for a night, under armed protection and observation, but it changed nothing.

If anything the father and son were even more terrified. They had gotten the best protection the Valley could offer and it wasn’t helping.

The party had only one option left – return to the house with the father and son, and protect them from whatever comes out.

They place both father and son in the son’s bedroom and the party blocks the closet while keeping an eye on the father’s bedroom as well.

They are not disappointed.

As the cheers and other noise from the celebration outside, the party can hear faint footsteps walking up some stairs…coming from inside the closet.

A deep and greasily cheerful voice says, “I see that you have prepared extra guests this year. A pity. I guess I shall wait until next year.”

Then the footsteps begin walking down stairs.

Inside the closet is the faint red-glowing outline of a door. Edward pushes it open and is rewarded with a foul, rotten meat stench.

The party, one by one, walk downs the stairs. At first the stairs are made of stone, the same as the house is, but the farther they go down the five hundred feet of stairs, the stairs turn into a solid mass of flesh that barely feel like they can support a person.

At the bottoms they’re in a large “room” complete with rotten fleshy walls and columns, and a pillar in the center that they notice is covered in thousands of fine hairs.

There is also a thin membrane in the room that reminds the party of a door to another room.

A bodak and a pair of devourers live here, waiting for their time of year to feed.

I thought the bodak would be a tough challenge to the party. But my poor rolling and the party’s good job of keeping him off-balance prevented him from using his Death Gaze (encounter power to reduce a weakened target to 0hp).

The column covered in cilia was just an obstacle for the party to avoid, which limited maneuverability.

And the last little bit of fun was when the “room” was damaged, it would squirt some acid into the room. But the party never stood where the acid blasted.

Now the spirit devourers were nasty for the party. With their ability to trap a party member inside of them while draining the PC of life, they could (and did) keep two members of the party out of combat a lot.

The party did learn how to deal with the devourers and took them down, but it took some time.

The party did not like this room. They likened it to a giant intestinal track.

They were not happy in the slightest about having to cut open the membrane door either.

The next room reeked of vomit rather than rotten meat, and it was slightly more “alive”; a stomach to the party.

This “room” was about the same as the last one except there were no undead and there was woman in her mid-twenties, whose hands and feet were bound at the floor and ceiling by fleshy manacles, and surrounded by five demonic, winged statues holding hands in a circle.

“Please help me. Once these things awaken my soul will be stolen from me. There is a creature in the room next to this one that refuses to help, but it has a key that can free me. Please hurry; I’ve seen what these demons can do to a person.”

The reasonably suspicious party asker her questions while trying to find other ways of freeing her. The answers to their questions led them to believe she was the mother in the story. The attempts to free her ended in failure.

They did find one thing odd. When they cut her hair, it changed color from blond to black (this occurred before the movie Tangled came out.)

So they did as she suggested and cut open the membrane to the next room and proceeded.

Other than the PC’s footprints, this room was immaculate.

The room was large with polished marble floors, with a sphinx at the far end laying in front of a small chest.

It yawns then opens its mouth and says, “The choices are many. The results are simple. Flip a coin, or trust your instincts, or trust your logic, or trust nothing. Fight once, or fight twice, or flight nevermore. A key you seek. A key I have. A key to a lock that is not a lock. Whether your hearts are noble or greedy the results will be the same. You may not ask questions. You may only commit to action. Success will grant you a key. Commit to an action and challenge your prey.”

I repeated that statement at least half a dozen times.

After each repetition the party would attempt to pick it apart to figure out clearer what was truly being said.

“The choices are many. The results are simple.” = blah blah blah

“Flip a coin, or trust your instincts, or trust your logic, or trust nothing.” = also blah blah blah

“Fight once, or fight twice, or flight nevermore.” = The number of fights the party wishes to have, or they can flee and die in the process. One fight is if they make the right choice. Two is if they don’t.

“A key you seek. A key I have. A key to a lock that is not a lock.” = He has a key to a non-standard lock.

“Whether your hearts are noble or greedy the results will be the same.” = The reason you’re here is irrelevant.

“You may not ask questions. You may only commit to action.” = exactly what it says. Whenever the party asked a question, I repeated the whole speech.

“Success will grant you a key.” = If you win, you get a key.

“Commit to an action and challenge your prey.” = Make your choice.

Quite simply the sphinx gave his challenge to the party (see the MM1 sphinx entry) and the party had to make a choice to either trust the bound woman or not. If they believed her and attacked the sphinx, they made a bad choice as they would have failed the sphinxes challenge and would have to fight him while he was much stronger. And then they would have to deal with a death hag and her friends (vrocks).

But the hair thing clued the party in the right direction and they returned to talk to the lady…who then attacked them.

Sadly the fight was not really that difficult and the party freed the souls of the innocent people (both sons, mother, and both men) as they were freed from the statues and flew away as tiny balls of white light, while a sixth soul, a black one, fell to the ground never to be seen again.

When they returned to the sphinx’s room the sphinx was gone, but the chest remained.

Inside was a bronze disc (the key), some other treasures, and a level 17 magic item to choose from:
Red-tinged Glowing Robe: Robe of Bloodwalking +4 (chosen I believe)
Golden Ring of the Saint’s: Ring of Protection
The Bard’s Opening Number: Horn of Blasting

They also were able to choose one of the items below from the fight with the hag:
The Witch’s Silver Circlet: Headband of Insight (chosen I believe)
Glenda’s Pulsing Red Glass: Orb of Mental Dominion +4
Glenda’s Clawed Gloves: Shadowfell Gloves (Level 16)

Afterwards the party walked back up the long flight of stairs, never to see this disturbing place again.