What I'd like to see in 4E

(By the time I’ve written this, half of it is probably already wrong, so read it with the idea that I’m just hoping how things will be.)

As I think back on all of the D&D I’ve played, I can think of a lot of good that came out of the game, but I can also remember the rules arguments.

There never seems to be a happy medium with rules and D&D. It attracts both casual players and rules lawyers. I’ve varied between the two extremes in my days, but for the most part I’ve had a good time.

Too few rules = arguments at the table over the tiniest things.
I once had a mild argument on whether the 2E Identify spell meant you lost the 100gp pearl. I didn’t win the argument, but 3E proved me right.

Too many rules = Magic: the Gathering’s complex rules and confusion. I hate having to look up any of the combat options whenever someone wants to use them. If you want a true rules mess, go play the original Star Fleet Battles.

The only solution to the whole thing is simple, clear, and comprehensive rules. But face it, you can really only get two of those.

I personally would go for simple and clear rules as my two picks. I can wing the comprehensive part by making things up on the fly.

With that in mind we travel to the land of what I’d like to see in the new edition.

I will randomly travel through the SRD to find some things that grab my attention and need talking about.

Age:
I have some trouble seeing those who live shorter life spans gaining wisdom, intelligence, and charisma at a faster rate. I would think that an elf that has lived to be 600 years old will be wiser, smarter, and friendlier than a human who is lucky to make it 100 years old. And I don’t want to hear the excuse that humans learn quicker. If elves truly learn at one sixth the rate humans did, then that would make for some truly stupid elves. And besides, how many campaigns have you had where a PC died of old age?

Races:
I’ve heard that gnome is not going to be in the first set of core books. Good. I’ve never played a gnome as a PC, and I don’t even think I’ve run one as a DM. A waste of space he was to me. And whisper gnomes need to die a silent death. EL +0 indeed…please.
Dwarves need to be taken down a tiny peg in power.
Half-elves need a tiny boost in power.
All of the other PHB races are fine in my eyes.

Traps:
I’ve read the section of traps in the SRD several times, and each time it strikes me that whole section needs to be dealt with better. Spending thousands of gold pieces on a CR3 trap is excessive. Yeah the costs are more in line with their effects, but not with the complication of the trap. 1600gp just to dig a 20’ hole in the ground and then to put some rusty nails at the bottom and cover it with branches or a cheap rug just seems off.
But then again maybe the thieves’ guild is using union labor.

Alchemical Items:
Some of these things just have to go.
Tanglefoot bags, thunderstones, and sunrods – kiss them goodbye.
Alchemical capsules from the Complete Adventurer (I think) were just plain silly.

Feat - Power Attack:
There was a time that if you sucked at math you played a fighter. Not with 3E, and definitely not when using the Power Attack feat. Add in magic buffs, circumstantial bonuses, two-handed strength bonuses, and so on and you have yourself a 1 minute’s worth of time doing basic math for a single sword swing. And if you’re like me and you want to put your power attacks to optimal use, you’ll need a chart to determine things (yes, I made one, and it took a long time to get it right).
I shudder at the thought of some people taking their turns where they add in all their hit and damage bonuses, then have to do it again next round because the situations changed.
Part of it can be solved by modifying the magic system, but I think Power Attack needs to be replaced with a level damage bonus without reducing your “to hit” bonus.

Initiative:
I kind of like it the way it is. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.
I heard something about them adding weapon speeds. That sounds good to me so long as it’s only really dealt with just once, at the beginning of combat (like using a dagger adds 2 to your init, while swinging that greatsword gives you a big negative 8).

Attacks of Opportunity:
AoO’s are one of those hornet’s nest rules.
They certainly need simplification, and during combat much is slowed down for everyone as the acting player has to figure out exactly where to move while avoiding giving out free attacks.
So for the sake of combat speed, I’m in favor of reducing one thing that provokes an AoO – leaving a threatened square when moving your standard speed (not a run or a double move).
Sure it could cause some other issues, possibly exploitable ones, but this one change could increase combat speed greatly. And it cuts down the 5’ step dance you tend to see in combats.

Death:
A PC or monster shouldn’t necessarily die at -10 hit points.
I’m thinking double their level or hit dice.
Do not make it constitution dependent. You get that bonus once already in the positives each time you level.

Cover:
Getting cover from this and cover from that is too much to deal with.
The way the rules are set up, a huge creature in melee only receives the +4 AC melee cover in the squares that are being threatened. So you could effectively shoot the monster’s ass easier because it’s not jiggling as much.
This is one time where the D&D minis game has it about right. You only get cover once and it doesn’t matter what square is being shot at.
Just pick your target, see if it has cover, then give it a cover AC bonus.

Turning and Rebuking Undead:
Just change them into divine spells that heal, injure, or effect undead in some straight forward manner. Turning has been awkward for a long time. 3E did ok, but it really wasn’t all that much of an improvement.

Equipment (mundane):
With a few exceptions, I like the current setup of arms, armor, and other non-magical things that go into your backpack.
Spiked chain needs a revamp, but dealing with my above AoO idea gets rid of its biggest abuse.

Masterwork Weapons:
Masterwork weapons shouldn’t give a +1 to hit because giving a hit bonus makes enchanting the weapon to +1 not that much of an improvement.
Instead a masterwork weapon should increase weapon speed because it is better balanced and resist sundering a bit better because it’s more sturdily made.
And on that note, I don’t necessarily think that magic items must be of masterwork design. So perhaps the masterwork descriptor should be separate from the magic descriptor.
It’s just an idea, but I kind of like the thought of an old gnarly club being slow but still magical or a gleaming polished sword of the highest quality but still bounces off a dragon’s scales because it hasn’t been enchanted.

Magic Items:
I pretty much like magic items as treasure the way they are now, but I would encourage DM’s out there create their own unique magic items instead of always using the same ones over and over again and to sneak in a few more cursed items. (You just don’t see many cursed items anymore.)
But creating magic items is flawed in my eyes.
You have to spend a feat, spend gold, and then dump some of your own XP. If you’re not creating the item for yourself, then that really sucks
I think the feat requirement should be dumped in favor of having a minimum level (slightly higher than in 3E) and of course, XP and the spells needed.

Skills – Craft:
It’s no secret that this skill needs a fix to make it a bit more realistic for times involved to create things (like masterwork full plate armor).
But I think just adjusting times and DC’s would go far towards fixing it.

Skills – Diplomacy:
Depending on how your DM uses this skill, it is totally open for abuse.
I think some big clarifications on what this skill can accomplish are long overdue.
Either reevaluate the DC’s required, or narrow the scope of the skill to specific instances where role-playing is not directly involved.

(Otherwise I’m pretty happy with skills.)

Class – Bard:
This class has to go. (Yay, it’s gone)
Its abilities complicate an already too complicated game.
I would think this class would be better off having been powered up and turned into a prestige class.

Class – Druid:
This class is a 3E paperwork/prep nightmare. If you’re using the PHB2 alternate version then you’ve cut out about half of the problem.
I think getting rid of spontaneous monster summoning in return for something else (more hp, AC bonus, more skills, etc.) would save a lot of trouble.

Class – Monk:
This class needs a retooling.
They can deal large amounts of damage, but can’t take it.
They have all kinds of abilities that usually require some special rules to deal with.
They get plenty of attacks, but don’t hit often enough or do enough damage to stay on the same level of other melee type classes.
I’ve heard that this class won’t make it through the initial 4E cut, and I’m fine with that.

Prestige Classes and Multiclassing:
Due to the excessive amount of min/maxing I’ve seen when using prestige classes to best optimize a PC, I would almost to see a return to the old style multiclassing, albeit with some fair nerfing.
I really don’t expect to see it happening, but hey it’s my blog and my thoughts.

Fear, Nausea, etc.:
Fear needs to be streamlined and simplified. As do things like nausea, sickened, other conditions that all do the same thing with more severe effects.
I would think a list of “fear levels” would work. Fear level 1 means you’re -1 to all rolls and with fear level 5 you drop everything you have and run away from the haunted house, just like Bobby-Sue in Evil Dead 2.

Spell Resistance:
I want to make this simple – stop making spells that get around spell resistance.
What’s the point of having spell resistance or spell immunity in the first place if you have spells that ignore that?
You get Melf’s Acid Arrow and nothing else. Got it?
Wizards and sorcerers should be the iron golem’s bitch, not the other way around.

Feats:
This one people won’t go for.
I would like to see feats taken away and replace by class options or a new standard gain for the class in a manner similar to how the ranger gets to pick between two-weapon fighting and ranged attack specialization or a barbarian gets damage resistance.

Monsters:
One thing I hate about the new stat blocks is that you can’t figure out where some of the information came from. Where before it would list hit dice and hit points, it now just shows hit points. That needs to be reverted back to how it was. Then upping the power of monsters should be easier than just giving it more hp and damage.

Spells:
From what I’ve heard, the whole Vancian magic system is gone in 4E (memorizing individual spells), and has been replaced by spells that can increase in power depending on the spell slot level being used up. I don’t quite understand it exactly (hey I could be way off here), so I’m guessing that a spell like Magic Missile can be used in multiple spell slots with higher slots doing more damage or better effects like quickened. (As a result I guess the sorcerer and wizard classes are going to be combined into one class.)
I’m definitely hoping that all the magical bonuses are changed to only two types, divine and arcane and a plethora of bonuses like dodge, luck, morale, enhancement, deflection, resistance, sacred, profane, and so on.
Seeing Bless as the same spell as cast when level 1 and level 20, but with a more powerful effect would be nice. Prayer would no longer be needed, and all the bonuses would be listed as divine bonuses.

Chances are if I didn’t mention something, I either missed it or I like it the way it is.
Bust just in case…

I like how psionics has been kept as a form of magic for those of us who don’t want to use it.

I like the CR/EL system, but understand it needs some revamping.

I like being able to class certain monsters to make them tougher and unpredictable. I would like to make it easier to do that and be able to add classes to any monsters to make them scale just as well as a human. I would like to be able to add some fighter levels to an ancient dragon, not just leave them with sorcerer levels guaranteed.

I like the fighter, barbarian, rogue, and ranger classes as they are.

I like the rust monster as is.

And plenty more.

Fourth Edition

Fourth Edition…man…

It feels like yesterday when I picked up the 3E book at a local hobby store and took a chance on yet another new version of my all time favorite game.

With the exception of the original white box OD&D I believe I have played every incarnation of this game and thoroughly enjoyed each one, though some more than others.

Paul, a friend of mine from long ago introduced me to the basic game way back in 1985. I was hooked immediately. It appealed to me in a way no other game had so far, and debatably ever since.

Between Paul and I we had a so-so grasp of the rules, but sufficient enough to get by on to have plenty of fun. Later when I moved to another school system for high school, I heard some future friends talking about D&D. So within a week of moving away from my only friend who played Basic D&D, I found a whole new group of friends to play the next level of the game, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Towards the end of high school AD&D 2E was released. I gave a good go at embracing it, but I just couldn’t keep up with the deluge of books coming out for it. My paycheck just wasn’t big enough.

Later almost everyone learned to simply stop buying anything from TSR because they were producing too much junk while other companies were producing better and more enjoyable games. That gave me a kind of freedom to play the game again without having to worry about a book “arms race”. Eventually I found a stable group and started having fun with D&D all over again.

To me 2E was possibly the worst edition of D&D of the created five so far released (OD&D, BD&D, 1E, 2E, 3E – counting 2.5 and 3.5 as just revisions). By the end of 2E, we were more or less casually house-ruling everything because the game’s core just wasn’t capable of dealing with what we wanted. We would only use magic and poison saves, ability score checks for almost everything, and handing out arbitrary XP awards rather than worry about the way it was supposed to be done by the rules. All in all 2E was not an improvement to the game.

Then I picked up the 3E PHB shortly after it came out. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. The rules had changed so drastically that I had to unlearn the way D&D had been to understand the new and alien design. But as we figured out this new game, we realized that this version improved or fixed everything we had given up on with 2E.

At that point I had a revived faith in D&D and began buying every book that came out for the next year or so. WotC could do no wrong.

Then something changed. Too many books were being released that just didn’t interest me, so I stopped my “buy it all” phase and adopted a more skeptical view. Then not much later 3.5E came out and Hasbro had bought out WotC.

Coincidence? I think not. I, like many others, saw this as Hasbro’s first money grab to get back some of their money from the WotC buyout.

That’s when I knew the new golden era of D&D was over. I understand the need for a business to be profitable, but I’m also wary of companies taking its customers for granted.

I could easily have been wrong about that. I know I’m a cynic, but you can’t help but see the evils of corporations when you watch the evening news and see story after story about corporations like Enron making you pay for not being a millionaire. Whether deserved or not, I started being wary of WotC under Hasbro.

Last year the rumors of yet another new edition of D&D coming out began. I paid attention to some of them while ignoring the rest of them as a “sky is falling” paranoia. Some of them made sense, others not so much. I took it all with a grain of salt, for a while.

Then Code Monkey Publishing lost their license to continue doing their excellent work with the E-Tools program. That concerned me, but didn’t anger me. I heard rumors that WotC was looking into doing some web-based software to make characters and more. If it worked, it would be better overall. And in spite of my statements above about evil corporations, I thought that WotC would probably have better quality control over the program.

So I let it go, but didn’t forget about it.

Then several companies started abandoning d20. That didn’t bug me until I read from Kenzerco that they would be using their Hackmaster rules for Kalamar, and leaving d20. That put me “on notice” and I began to listen to any rumors I heard both online and in person. I also checked around the various blogs of some people in the industry, and they were concerned, but not overly so.

In hindsight I feel that they might have known more than just rumors, but weren’t divulging them for fear looking foolish had they been wrong, or possibly breaking a confidentiality agreement.

Next was the whole debacle with Dragon and Dungeon magazines. It seemed that half the D&D community was up in arms and ready to abandon the game. I was concerned but nowhere near as much as everyone else.

It seemed that everyone was saying this was the final herald of the coming of 4E.

I didn’t say they were wrong but I had a secret hope from a tiny rumor I heard; what if Hasbro is looking to sell D&D off?

What if D&D had not been as profitable as Hasbro had expected and had chosen to sell it and make a quick buck and divest itself from an underperforming subsidiary? Maybe then the game would have one less layer of management to deal with, and a slight less pull to increase profits at any cost. (Once again my anti-corporation paranoia takes over.)

Then on last Thursday the announcement came.
I was wrong.
I hate when I’m wrong.

…

Initially I was just a shade less than pissed.

I felt that 3E had not been given its full lifetime and this was just another stunt to dole out dividends to shareholders. Maybe had 3.5 not been released, maybe there would not have been any big issue with a new edition, but they did and now we’re going to be forced to buy books again.

After the initial impact was over I began to think about a variety of things, both pro-4E and anti-4E.

(Though remember that I only have so much information to go on, and any of it could be way off. If you watch the same 4 videos on YouTube, you’ll have all the information I have.)

Pro: They promise to reduce the rarely used and needlessly complicated rules, like grapple.

Con: I have been very disappointed with many of the recent modules from WotC (Ravenloft, Cormyr, and Undermountain). Some of those same people working on 4E.
Addendum: I’ve listened to the latest episode of the D&D podcast and they mentioned that most aspects of the recent modules were done by those not directly dealing with 4E. This possibly goes back 2 years as well.

Pro: They have a goal to reduce the immense size of the current stat blocks. I’m really hopeful on this one, but I have a feeling that feats and skills are going to take a hit because of it.
Wondering out loud: Will they reduce feats, or possibly remove them, and instead give classes options to do A or B as they go up in level, similar to how rangers are currently (ranged or two-handed attacks)?

Con: That Baker fellow who designed Eberron is one of the designers of the new game. I just hope that the lead designers realize how much Eberron hate is out there and don’t allow anything from that worthless campaign to seep into the new design.
Yeah, I know my Eberron hate is getting old, but hey my preferred style of D&D is, and always will be classical Western European swords and sorcery.
Wondering out loud: Perhaps they will less push the campaign worlds on us in the more campaign neutral books? Something AD&D 2E did right was making campaign specific monster manuals.

Pro: They promise to make every single level of play to be just as fun as what they call “the sweet spot”, which to me are levels 5 to 10. If they can succeed in this, that would be an immense and great fix. Though I’ve read that Fireball might be drastically changed, which might make Dale cry.

Con: So many books I now have are going to have to going to be nearly worthless. Well at least I didn’t buy Complete Champion.

Pro: Potential foreshadowing from previous episodes of the D&D Podcast shed light on what could be a good concept; having a class level able to use spells of that same level to help reduce confusion of the word “level”. Basically it means that a level 1 caster would cast level 1 spells, a level 7 caster would cast level 7 spells, and a level 15 caster would cast level 15 spells. All you need to do is smooth out the spell list and it would work pretty well, though it would cut out the available spells to take at each level by at least half.

Con: The D&D minis game is going to be revised as well, but they are only going to go back to a couple expansions ago, and with a few exceptions they aren’t going to update cards from older sets. My hope is that they create new versions with updated stat blocks and allow people to use the older minis. If that were the case, then the pain of the revision to that game would be very minimized.

Pro: Reducing the utterly complex nightmare of high level combat that gets so bogged down that it slows to a horrid crawl. I have complained about this many times on this blog. I remember right before the biggest fight we had in the WLD where each PC had at least half a dozen individual buffs plus another half a dozen group buffs with one PC at the center of an Anti-Magic Sphere. Huge chunks of time were killed just dealing with buffs. A simpler system is required.

Con: Always a problem to me; changing simply for the sake of changing and designers putting their own spin on how they think things should be. About a year ago Mike Mearls, one of the main designers on this project, created an alternate rust monster that gradually wore down your weapons and armor rather than the instantaneous way it is now. Why?; because it’s no fun to lose your equipment in a dungeon crawl. Heaven forbid that adventurers face any danger in a dungeon that doesn’t involve hit point loss. The logic behind that change rings too close to losing equipment in a MMORPG.

Pro: Greyhawk is out; Forgotten Realms is in as the common setting for the game that is. I’ve never really been into Greyhawk as much as the Realms. So it’s more of a flavor thing than anything else. Even the Living campaigns are changing (not that I play them).

Con: The “Digital Initiative”; we pay WotC a monthly fee to get web content and use some online applications they’re setting up. I guess it’s more up to how much this will cost will be, but I’m not hopeful. From the booing I heard on one of the D&D 4E GenCon videos, I’m not alone. I’m hoping those boos keep the design team on the straight and narrow of giving the customer what they want and not turning into something you’d see coming from Hard Eight in the Knights of the Dinner Table.
There’s a rational fear that D&D is going to turn into another World of Warcraft or EverQuest, and I share those fears.
Though, potentially the Digital Initiative could turn out to be a good thing. But hey, I’m one of those guys who can see a silver lining in a dark cloud, or a dark cloud in a silver lining.

I could keep going on, but it would get repetitive. There is still too little information out there to really get a good grasp of what is happening and what is going to happen.

So for right now I’m going to be hopeful, but still be wary.

I do not want this to be a return to the days of 2E. Hopefully the designers in charge will keep their eyes and ears open for our fears, concerns, and approvals.

Now the question is - do I want to try to get in on the play-testing?…

Cormyr #3

(Same spiel as last week: this is all from memory. I made no recording of it. Errors are guaranteed to be in here.)

Joy didn’t make it to this session. She will be appropriately picked on for the miss with inappropriate jokes Justin and me.

Justin returned with another, slightly different, monk. This one lived through the session.

In fact there were no PC deaths this session. This was due to us spending most of our time role-playing, or sitting in a boat and not fighting a combat 4 to 5 EL’s higher than our levels like we did last week (one more time “bad WotC!”).

For the record, I’m not sure I should even use PC names any more as they don’t seem to last long enough to bother with. McDonald’s has a lower employee turnover than our death count (at least while using WotC modules).

Two dead PC’s, 2 unconscious PC’s, and only one standing PC were the results of last session’s conclusion. Some healing potions and wand charges later and we had three standing PC’s (Dale’s druid Morahm, Aaron’s beguiler Dom, and my rogue Faris).

We searched the bodies and the rooms and found treasure and an occupant in a cell. Brian wisely swapped an NPC in the module with Justin’s new monk (your guess on the name is as good as mine).

He had been in this place for about a week and had seen more or less what we had expected (squeaky clean on the outside, dark and evil on the inside). He knew that they had taken away some people to another place down the river and then over land (and we had found a map showing how they went).

We decided to return to town, have Dale and Justin’s PC’s sell our unwanted loot and buy stuff we needed as their PC’s had not been seen killing guards at the temple like Faris and Dom.

Justin did what was needed, but it took him quite a while as there was no one directly selling magic in the open. He did make contact with people who could sell him some magic items (healing wands, Heward’s Handy Haversack, etc.) but not until after dark, when the shopping area was closed.

Morahm on the other hand went to the temple of Chauntea and told them what happened who in turn convinced him to tell the person in charge of Wheloon. Even though we had told Morahm that we were trying to go unnoticed for fear of dominated townspeople or being accused of murder of citizens (who were duped or dominated), of which we were guilty. But everything went fine and he sufficiently warned the leaders of the town, got us an official adventuring charter, and got himself a little XP himself.

(Dom rewarded him with a Sleep spell to the face for ratting us out afterwards, then we searched him and found the charter and such. But we didn’t rob him, yet.)

After all that was done we went to the first location of interest on the map, ruins of some kind.

Faris had Dom cast Silence on his dagger Invisibility on him. His intent was to scout ahead and silently kill the solitary guard at the entrance, in this case a goblin-looking creature (later determined to be a dark creeper). But a roll of a natural 1 ruined that plan, putting Faris on the defensive (because he utterly blows without sneak attack). He had to fight off three of these creatures for a round or two until everyone else showed up. Three more of them were hiding behind some tubes, and shooting arrows through the tubes at anyone in that restricted line of sight.

The fight itself was pretty easy as the things had no hp. A dark stalker was also in the area, but Dom’s Sleep spell made it an easy target for some sneak attacks.

And that’s about where we stopped.

Next week just might be our last session for a while, but I’m not sure.

Cormyr #2

(Once again, this is all from memory. I made no recording of it. Errors are guaranteed to be in here.)

After a week’s delay we finally played again this past Friday.

It was a mostly hack ‘n slash night. For the most part that was our, the players’, choice.

Once again I am under-whelmed with a WotC “mega” module. Brian stated prior to beginning that we’d have a chance to use diplomatic means to win at some encounters and so on. So far I’ve seen nothing that would give an advantage by talking, unless the talking would allow us a first strike from surprise.

Everyone was at this session, so at one point we had 5 PC’s. But not at the beginning of the night, we had only 4. Justin had to sit and wait almost 2 hours before he could actually play so Brian could work Justin’s PC into the game.

We started off forging a note and posting it on the main door entrance of the false temple to Mystra. It stated something about an internal fight and everything is fine, please leave the temple be while we sort it all out.

So far it appears to have worked as no Cormyrian Purple Dragons have bothered to come inside.

Next, most of us healed up and traveled deeper into the temple down below after donning some of the temple robes.

At the bottom of the stairs we found a couple more of those shadowy skinned humanoids, an alive but unmoving earth-type creature, and a glowing statue of the real Mystra (though we didn’t know it at the time).

While Faris (my elf rogue) was sneaking around one part of the stairs, the rest of the party talked with a clueless guard.

The best part about sneaking around a temple to Shar (a goddess of night and darkness) is that everyone can do it without looking much out of the ordinary. So when the second guard asked why Faris was sneaking around when he didn’t have to, Faris told the guy to shut the hell up. I figured it was something a guard in this place would expect to hear, and it worked as far as I could tell.

The rest of the party was able to convince the guards to take us to their leader. One guard led, the other guard stayed in the back of the group.

The front guard opened one of the many doors out of the room and led us down a hall to another doorway. When the guard was about to open the next door we sprang into action. Faris got the rear guard by surprise and dropped him with a sneak attack dagger strike (and critted). The rest of the group took out the front guard before he was aware of what was going on.

We wanted to get into the next room pretty quickly, so Dom (Aaron’s beguiler) checked the door for traps and didn’t find any. But there was an alarm, which Dom set off when he opened the door.

Faris hid near the door to the rear, hoping to surprise the earth elemental thing (genaasi maybe?). But the thing never came through the door.

Mouse (Dale’s warlock) and Saeri (Joy’s ranger) took up covered positions in the hallway for their ranged attacks.

Dom hid near the front door in case the priest came in.

The remainder of the fight was big nasty mess.

Dale had forgotten to heal Mouse prior to entering this level, so he only had 4 hit points when the earth elemental thing earth-glided through the floor and up next to him. It pounded him for 14+ points of damage, killing Mouse. That would be the first oops of the night.

Dom was the next to drop as he isn’t equipped well to handle the earth elemental thing. He stabilized at around -7hp.

Saeri was able to drop the earth thing with her ranged attacks, leaving just her and Faris to fight the priest that had joined the fight a few rounds ago.

Faris was pretty much delaying the inevitable while fighting the priest of Shar until then. He bounced between 1 and 11 hit points for a few rounds, but the priest didn’t run out of spells until the very end.

Basically between the earth thing and the priest’s continuous use of spells, we took a beating. Had Brian rolled slightly better and got average damage rolls it would have been a TPK.

Saeri was the last one standing before the priest finally dropped.

At that point in the module, the designers of it actually tell DM’s to do the next part if the fight was too much for the PC’s. To me it’s a little mark against the module, but I’m probably biased against WotC modules at this point (their own fault).

Every one of us in the area healed up 20 hit points, even Faris, who was at exactly -10hp was healed. But not Mouse, being an outsider and having been killed on the prime meant he was out. So Dale pulled out his next PC.

Afterwards we healed up what little we could and searched around the complex, leaving only one door untouched – a black portal with purple trim, but no substance.

We found a variety of things here and there. The diary of a guard in the place that started off with the guard being concerned about the goings on of the place, but later entries in the diary shown the person as a much darker and evil than the earlier entries did as if he had become tainted. We found a note from lead priest that mentioned the trouble with the legitimate cleric of Mystra. More notes about things I cannot recall at the moment about shipments from the east. A room with headless bodies hung up in it, and another room with heads mounted like trophies (one was probably the bookseller we were trying to find). And finally a torture chamber filled with 2 people waiting to be tortured to death.

They had the PC stamp on their forehead, and their equipment was nearby, so they joined us and we continued on our merry way.

Justin’s PC was a monk. I can’t remember his name, but I suggested Holden McGroin.

Dale’s new PC was a druid who used the PHB2 shapeshifting rules. I don’t remember his name either.

After making sure there were no other paths in and out of the place, we checked out the black portal with purple trim (the holy symbol of Shar is a black circle outlined in purple).

The black part of the portal was just an illusion acting as a door, with three displacer serpents waiting around for us to come kill them. But not before they tore Faris a new one.

Once the rest of the party killed the serpents we checked out the room. It had another portal, but this one an actual portal that we left totally alone. After searching the area we went down another set of stairs.

It led to a small dock at an underground river.

Faris scouted the area a bit, heard something from one direction and saw a couple more of those shadow-skinned guards in another direction across a bridge. We had the ranged attackers attempt to take out the visible guards. They only succeeded in getting rid of one, so combat began.

Faris, figuring correctly that the unseen target from one direction would be passing by, waited and hid around the corner it would have to come by.

Everyone else focused on the last guard, and crossed the bridge to get to him.

That was a mistake as a large squid (or something with two long tentacles in the water) grabbed out of the water and pulled targets in, holding them underwater.

Faris’s plan went off pretty good though. He scored yet another crit with a dagger sneak attack. Unfortunately it didn’t bring the target down, and worse, the target was at least level 6 fighter-type. Faris was hosed for sure. A level 4 rogue versus a level 6 fighter – I think you know the outcome.

The rest of the party was able to deal with the shadow-human and eventually (once they adjusted and adapted) the squid, bits of the party broke off to face the human.

Justin’s monk ran to face the guy who was about to drop Faris.

None of us paid that big of attention to the fighter at the time because we thought he was just another mook. Nope, he was specialized in the longspear he was carrying.

Justin didn’t bother tumbling into the combat (oops #2), giving the spear dude a free attack. A confirmed critical did 3d6+21 damage to a guy with only around 28 hit points and already hurt. Goodbye to that PC.

(Having spent two hours just sitting there, Justin was understandably not happy having lost a character an hour later.)

A round later and Faris was at -7hp.

Everyone else went after this spear freak.

By the end Dale’s druid had stabilized Faris, another crit from the spear freak killed Saeri, and Dale’s druid was dropped to negatives.

We stopped after the fight was over.

Next week we pick up our pieces.

Future Campaigns

Whenever I’m not running a campaign of D&D, I’m preparing to run.

It’s just one of those things I do to pass the time and “just in case”.

Even when I’m running I’m making mental notes of what I will do again, what I should never have done, and what I should have done instead.

Now why would I go and start prepping a new campaign when one has just started? I’ve got two answers and their names are Jesse and Drew.

Jesse was supposed to join us when we restarted the group and he was supposed to run. But he never showed. I don’t know if it was a miscommunication or what, but we had four people there wanting a game of D&D. So I just ran a game on the fly and it surprisingly lasted 3 months (my “Valley” campaign).

Then there was Drew. He was running a good game, but Drew had to cancel on us, and then he was accepted into law school out of town. We never saw Drew again, except on that T-shirt Brian has with Drew’s just-woke-up face on it.

I believe after that I ran another “Valley” campaign…which lasted until the WLD came out.

So I’m not going to sit back and wait until it’s time for a new campaign to start before I prep for it.

Nor is Dale; he said in our last session that he’s prepping as well.

The randomness of life, as shown with Drew, means you could lose your DM with less than a week’s notice.

But with a 3 to 4 month gap coming up soon, and an unknown amount of time for the Cormyr campaign, both Dale and I should be pretty ready.

Now I have to cover the things I do and don’t want to do for the campaign.

The first consideration is the number of players.

What most people tell you is that the maximum number of players they want in front of the DM is 6. Any more than that and you’re asking for problems.

What I’ve found out is that a 4 person game in 3E is drastically different from a 6 person game. A 6 PC party can, on average, face an opponent that is 2 CR higher than a 4 PC party. But the big drawback is the amount of time it takes for a round to come back to each player. When there are only 4 players in a game, the combats run so much quicker it’s not funny.

Then there’s the role-playing versus party size. The most role-playing I’ve ever done is with a giant 2 PC party. We always were able to fit in the fighting of course, but man we did a lot of good character-building individual role-playing into the game.

With a 6 PC group, kiss any non-group role-playing goodbye. It’s just no fun waiting for the 5 other guys to get their 10 minutes of role-playing in. You’re sitting there waiting for 50 minutes to get your 10 minutes. Granted, it all won’t be one-on-one role-playing, as you’ll have some group role-playing in, but with all the other people playing too, it can get messy, especially if one player likes to be in the spot light all the time. Of course, your experiences may vary.

(I’ve been actively trying not to be in the spotlight constantly when I play in a game, though I do try to step in to get things moving. It’s a lot harder to not talk, but I don’t want to be “that guy” who always has to be the center of attention.)

My solution to reconcile the PC power vs. role-playing issues with a campaign is simple but not easy; I must prepare two campaigns.

If by the time we get around to running it and we have 2-4 players then I’ll run my “Valley” campaign for the fourth time and prepare for plenty of role-playing. But if we have 5 or 6 players, then I’ll run Rappan Athuk: Reloaded.

Either campaign would probably last no more than 4 months. And I’m ok with that.

The Valley campaign is meant to be a bit more like traditional AD&D. By the time the PC’s get to around level 8 the campaign will probably wind down.

Rappan Athuk: Reloaded has a higher potential for killing off PC’s, so at some point the players will be sick of making new ones.

Now what kind of things will I allow and disallow in the campaigns?

Classes:
Valley: Core stuff only with a few things sprinkled in. The nature of the Valley campaign prevents a lot of variety in choices with its limited population and all.
RARe: Core plus a few DM approved extras. While I like some of the new classes like the Scout and the Favored Soul, I do not like the Warlock as a PC class and think the Warmage is way too overpowered. It will be pretty much on a case-by-case basis, but nothing alien.

Starting PC level:
Valley: 1, nice and low
RARe: 4, the suggested starting level

Stats:
Valley: Eh, whatever. 4d6, drop the lowest, arrange as you want will probably be fine.
RARe: 25 point buy. If we do this, I want it to be as tough as it should be.

Alignment:
Both: Whatever you feel like, but no sociopaths or Wolverine wannabes. Playing an evil PC is a delicate thing, and being evil does not mean you’ll kill your group-mates just because you’re evil.

Feats and magic item creation:
Valley: Core only.
RARe: Open with DM approval so long as it doesn’t slow down the game, radically change how the game works, or give the players an unfair advantage against the monsters of the dungeon.

XP:
Valley: If you’re not there, no PC, no XP for you.
RARe: If you’re not there, no PC, half XP for you. You can also have back-up PC’s in the event a player can’t make it.

Treasure collection:
Valley: However the PC’s say they want to do it. Money is hard to come by in the Valley though.
RARe: However the PC’s say they want to do it, but every copper piece and other bit of treasure needs to be accounted for on PC’s. Scheming and backstabbing abound near Rappan Athuk. Otherwise there is plenty of treasure for the taking in the dungeon, so long as the party is willing to work for it.

Spells:
Both: As spells work as per the rules as written. Miracle must fit 100% with your deity’s ideals and domains; otherwise you’ll find yourself with an unanswered Miracle or 5000xp lighter. In other words a god of love will not allow you to use a Miracle to drop a fireball on the orphanage without paying the 5000xp.
Valley: Standard DM hatred of adventurers using ask-your-god divination spells (like Augury) will be in effect. Spell choices are limited to the core books.
RARe: Ask all you want with the divination spells. Spells from the other books will be allowed only if the group researches them or the DM drops them in as treasure.

Role-playing:
Valley: Plenty, if the player wishes to seek it. Player participation is pretty much required.
RARe: There are opportunities to role-play but is not as required to push the story forward as the party can just head to the dungeon.

Hack factor:
Valley: Up the PC’s actions. There are plenty of things to do and plenty of encounters in and out of the city.
RARe: Pretty high as the dungeon is just pretty much a collection of maps, traps, monsters, and treasure.

Adventuring:
Valley: The entirety of the Valley has much to offer for adventuring. The city has political intrigue, dark and light alliances, power hungry individuals, plenty of thieves, and even more secrets. The wild of the land offers many things to worry the PC’s.
RARe: The city itself is a place to rest and shop. The dungeon and the wilderness around it is the adventure.

Player input:
Valley: The goals and ambitions of the PC’s will do much to drive the direction of the campaign, so long as the player is willing to role-play and push that agenda.
RARe: The dungeon is the adventure. Hopefully the players would design their PC’s with that in mind.

DM preparation:
Valley: Pre-designed mini-adventures, in-depth knowledge of the campaign setting (I created it and all), and “winging it” should take care of most preparation.
RARe: The DM must read plenty. But the dungeon is set up to run one level in a session or two for a few levels. There is a chance that the PC’s could side-step a few levels, but in most cases the party would end up running back to where they came from.

DM style and story:
Valley: Whatever comes up on the fly with the PC choices will decide the story of the game. The general DM’ing style will be based on the mood of the day; in other words loose easy.
RARe: The story will be whatever happens in the dungeon, modified with any role-playing excuses I might add in. The DM’ing style will be loose, easy, with a heavy dose of murderous glee.

Game speed:
Both: My temper got the best of me towards the end of my last campaign due to a variety of things; constantly referring to the books for things that should have been known, sleeping players, random attendance, and so on. For the majority of it I’ll have to take the blame for those issues. My want for an epic game just didn’t pan out and I wasn’t giving all of the players a reason to be into the game. It degenerated into a slow-moving morass of pointless combats that didn’t add to the game.
Valley: Fewer players mean more individual involvement. Combat speed should go quickly enough to keep everyone’s attention. Role-playing opportunities will abound, but no one person will dominate. Less treasure means less “paperwork sessions”.
RARe: More players and the DM running out of 3 module books will slow the combats down to the speeds that were done in the WLD. Role-playing will come at random times both in and out of the dungeon. Constant PC death means the fighting style of the group as the whole will probably change frequently.

Basically I want to go back to running the loose and fun games that I ran prior to the WLD, using pretty much just the core rules. I think the players liked it better that way too.

That about covers what I have for now.

I’m sure I’ll fill in more during our time off, but no promises.