Hello, all. We recently played another session of the D&D campaign, the report of which is available now. I think you’ll see some areas where I’ve altered the way things work in the Keep on the Shadowfell adventure, and I like the way things are going. I got a chance to use a bugbear strangler in the last encounter of the session, and I’ve got to say, his body shield ability can be extremely evocative and dramatic when used at the right time (as it was in our session). Also updated in the wiki are bios for Splug and Sir Keeghan.

In other news, I bought and subsequently read the Monster Manual 2, which was fantastic as expected. More so than in any previous edition, I love reading monster books in 4E. There are some great beasties in this book, and some returning classics like the frost giant, metallic dragons (which are all unaligned rather than good or lawful good), and (yay) the rust monster. I recommend this book highly.

The wiki that my group uses as a campaign journal has been migrated to a new wiki software, and can be found here. Also, the two most recent session reports are finally ready for public consumption:

Into the Keep
An Unexpected Ally

Enjoy.

I just got done reading Arcane Power, WotC’s most recent class expansion book, and I thought I’d give my thoughts. In no particular order:

I love the new warlock pact. The vestige pact allows you to choose one of two “sub-pacts” after each short or extended rest, each with its own pact boon and its own augment to your at-will power, eyes of the vestige (which is a very cool power in and of itself). In addition, a lot of the new daily warlock powers give vestige pact warlocks access to additional vestiges that they can switch out for immediately upon using said power, and these vestiges last until the end of the encounter. The daily power vestiges tend to be a bit better than the basic ones you get access to, which is why they don’t stick around too long. The infernal pact warlock in my D&D campaign, Silus, is actually switching to vestige pact now that the option is available, which I’m all for.

Wizards get lots of cool new powers. Some classics return, and there’s a whole slew of summoning spells and illusion spells. What has me really excited about this is that Sredni, the party’s warlord, is multiclassed into wizard, and a lot of these new powers are right up his alley. Summoning servitors to do your bidding? Check. Using illusions to force enemies to do things against their will? Check.

The new sorcerer stuff is very cool. I particularly like the idea of a half-orc storm mage who zips around the battlefield as a bolt of lightning and tosses people around with thunderous magic. Very cool and evocative.

The swordmage now has an aegis that can teleport an enemy to him, and a lot of new powers that go along with that. Cool stuff, though I think I like being able to teleport and attack, personally.

The new prescient bard is thematically odd, but mechanically gets a lot of great stuff. The most interesting thing is that the lion’s share of the powers designed for the new build are ranged weapon powers, meaning that you can be an archer-bard now. Not quite an arcane archer, but pretty close.

The paragon paths and epic destines are all very cool. I like the arch-lich.

Lots of great feats. Some of the metamagic feats from 3rd Edition make a return, and there’s lots of new stuff, too.

Familiars. Oh, yeah. 4th Edition familiars are so cool that two of my players want one. The warlock is getting a familiar as part of his retcon; he had a feat that was only viable for infernal pact warlocks, so he’s swapping it out for a familiar. Sredni also plans on picking one up at the next opportunity, I think. I love the way they work; they’re simple and minimalist, but with tons of roleplaying potential.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

A little while back, I heard about Goozex from the PC Gamer Podcast. It sounded interesting and I had some games that I no longer really wanted, so I thought I’d try it out. It seems pretty intuitive and, if it works, it’ll be a great way for me to continue to get value out of games that I no longer play or plan on playing. It works for all three of the systems I own (PC, DS, and Wii), which is nice. I like the fact that that I can do something with those old games other than eBaying them or (shudder) trading them in to GameStop for a tenth of a percent of their retail value. I also like that I can put together a list of games I want, Netflix-esque, and wait for them to arrive once I have some points built up. I feel I can be a little bit riskier in my gaming ventures, since if I don’t like a game I can immediately trade it back and get the full value that I “paid” for it in return.

This all comes with one caveat, though: while I have traded games to Goozex, I have not yet received a game from Goozex. The issue arises from the fact that you’re relying on other gamers, who may or may not be at their computers for a few days. I was slated to receive a copy of Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword, pending the seller’s acceptance of the trade. However, because he never accepted, I never got the game. I was refunded my points and my trade token and put back in the queue, but it’s still irritating to be looking forward to something and not get it. I’m now slated to get Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and the seller has 25 hours to make a decision on that. Hopefully I’ll get a game this time.

Update: I’ve now received Puzzle Quest and Assassin’s Creed for the DS and Mass Effect for the PC through Goozex. I’ve also got Final Fantasy III for the DS, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time for the PC, and Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker for the GameCube all on the way. Not bad.

Another long time between posts. Apologies all around.

At any rate, I’m in the process of migrating the wiki to a new wiki software, and should be done relatively soon. I’ll post a link (and change the link on the left-hand sidebar) once it’s done, and it will include our newest PC, Silus, as well as any missing session reports.

In other news, I’ve recently started reading a blog called Encounter-a-Day, which is a fantastic DM resource for D&D. Oh, and if you’re a player in my game, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t read it, as I plan on pilfering from it. You wouldn’t like it anyway. Ahem.

Also, a week and change ago, we had another D&D Day, and it was a good one. Sadly, Sredni’s player was absent, so Shava’s player pulled double duty and played him on the side (wouldn’t want the party to be down a warlord; that would seriously hurt the defenders of the party). Here’s the short version, with some thoughts.

The session started off with a big fight against a blue slime in a water-filled cave. This was an interesting encounter because it was the party’s first fight with a solo monster, and the terrain was very much in the slime’s favor. The slime started off by dazing and weakening most of the party with a stench pulse, which panicked them a little, then hitting them with a burst of damage, then attacking Kraygin and Sredni (it burned through both of its action points pretty quickly). After the party shook off the stench pulse’s debilitating effects they were in much better shape, and while it was a tough fight, they won.

They continued on (after an extended rest) to fight a hive of kruthiks. Again, the terrain was against them, and Shava in particular suffered because of this. The normally arrow-slinging ranger had to go melee with the giant bugs, while the other striker, the warlock Silus, was able to teleport out of dodge.

Then they backtracked out of the caves and into the keep proper, and entered a crypt where they fought some zombies (a very easy fight), and encountered a room lined with sarcophagi that continuously generated skeletons. Chance spotted some altars to Bahamut with draconic script on them, and the party decided early on that Kraygin (the only one in the party who speaks draconic) should go read the script, as they were probably important. Turns out they were the key to making the skeletons stop attacking. In this fight, the combination of dragon breath and marking everyone you attack came into play; Kraygin breathed fire on four skeletons (two of them minions) and hit only one of them (not a minion), leaving four enemies marked by him in close proximity. Luckily he was backed into a corner between two sarcophagi, and Silus managed to immobilize the two skeletal warriors, which saved Kraygin’s bacon to some extent.

Finally, the PCs continued into the crypt of Sir Keeghan, an undead former paladin of Bahamut who was initially suspicious of the party. This was a skill challenge, but we played it out as a roleplaying encounter with some skill checks thrown in, which was satisfying and suitably tense for the party. They were never sure where they stood with Keeghan (it’s hard to read a skeleton’s mood), and I think a collective sigh of relief was breathed when he decided not to attack them, and everyone was pretty happy when he offered to help them. He even gave them his weapon, Aecris, a lifedrinking halberd that Kraygin will no doubt put to good use. Also, he told them about a hidden armory somewhere within the crypt that the party is now on the lookout for.

Again, a great session and I can’t wait for the next one.

One final thought: I had the players choose backgrounds for their characters during this session, and while some of the players had already thought out their characters’ backgrounds, this gave the others some impetus to think about it some. It turned out well.

It’s pretty sad that I went an entire month without posting. Yeesh. Anyway, I thought I’d better get my ass in gear and post something here, and I do have things to post about.

I got a new computer, which is causing me to play lots of games on my new computer. I’m currently making my way through Crysis Warhead, and having quite a lot of fun with that, as well as Assassin’s Creed. Good stuff.

Also, last weekend was a D&D Day. I don’t have a session report up yet; this is partially due to the fact that I’m going to be migrating the wiki to a new wiki because my current wiki won’t allow me to insert pictures anymore for some reason. I can, however, tell you some stuff about the game.

We’ve got a new player. Silus, the half-elf warlock, has joined the party, and he’s having all kinds of fun cursing people, teleporting around the battlefield, and dishing out lots of damage. He gets attacked pretty infrequently because he stays out of melee most of the time, and between his cloak of distortion and his shadow walk class feature, he usually imposes a -7 penalty on people attacking him from range, which discourages that somewhat.

The players have finally ventured into Shadowfell Keep, and things are going well. The first encounter started with a bang, with Shava the elven ranger scoring a critical hit with one of her two twin strike arrows on her first turn of the encounter, killing a goblin sharpshooter outright, before it even got a chance to really do anything. In the next encounter, we thought we had lost Kraygin the dragonborn fighter to a pair of guard drakes. Those things are pretty dangerous when they gang up on one PC, and between the two of them they wound up dishing out about 29 points of damage in one round to poor Kraygin, taking him down to -18 (-16 would have been the lowest he could go without dying). However, we had neglected to take into account the fact that Kraygin is a battlerager fighter, and gets temporary hit points every time he suffers a melee attack; with all the forgotten temporary hit points, he managed to squeak by at about -15, just barely surviving the encounter.

The night ended with an encounter against some giant rats and an ochre jelly, an encounter that wound up being easier than anticipated because of the narrow tunnels and good PC positioning. I think the rats wound up doing more damage than the jelly, and the jelly was supposed to be the real threat of the encounter. We stopped just before another ooze encounter, an encounter with a blue slime in a water-filled chamber. We’ll pick up there next time.

I’ll post a full session report when I get the wiki sorted out.

Oh, also, I got the Player’s Handbook 2, which is excellent. Gnomes are pretty frickin’ cool in 4E, as are the other four races in the book. I can see some of the racial paragon paths being popular in my group. And the classes are fantastic. I really want to play them all, particularly the avenger and the sorcerer. I have a concept for an assassin not unlike Altair from Assassin’s Creed who is an avenger, maybe with some rogue multiclassing, and I also have an idea for a half-orc sorcerer (much more viable than in 3E) who uses a lot of effects that push people around the battlefield, almost as if he’s brawling using magic. Good stuff.

Although I’m still running my players through Keep on the Shadowfell, I find that I’m modifying encounters a lot, and in some cases rebuilding them or adding new encounters to the adventure that weren’t there at all. I’m doing this mainly because it’s fun, but also because I’m chomping at the bit to run my own material when KotS is done.

The thing that strikes me most about that paragraph is the simple fact that encounter design is fun. Really, really fun. It didn’t used to be in 3rd Edition (at least, I didn’t find it that fun). It was like doing math homework. And it took forever. And, if you design encounters at your computer like me, you had to have several different books spread around your computer in order to create an interesting encounter. Here’s what I do now.

First, I decide what I want the theme of the encounter to be. I come up with some sort of memorable terrain feature or monster or plot element that the encounter is going to focus on because, if there isn’t something memorable about an encounter, it may as well not be in there. Oftentimes I’ll have a monster or two in mind that I want to use, and that helps a lot. Then, I fire up the D&D Compendium (you’ll need to be a D&D Insider subscriber in order to really use that link). I absolutely love the monster search engine in the Compendium; it makes things so easy. I’ll search for the monster or monsters that I want, call up their stat blocks, copy a screenshot of them to the clipboard with the screenshot tool of my choice, then paste the image into a document. Once I’ve taken care of the specific monsters I want in there, I fill it out with other monsters. Usually, this means deciding what role I want those monsters to fill; maybe the monster I picked is a brute, and I want some artillery and maybe a controller in there to make things interesting for the PCs. Maybe I want them to be level 2, and maybe I want them to be undead. I put all those criteria into the search engine and call up a list of potential choices. Then I just scroll through them until I find something that looks interesting, and copy/paste the stat block into my document. If I need a map for the encounter, I’ll usually use Jai’s Dungeon Tile Mapper, but Wizards has a dungeon creation tool in the pipes, so I imagine I’ll use that eventually (Jai’s mapper hasn’t been updated for a while, so not all of the tile sets that I own are in there). And there you go, done. At least, for a simple encounter. I might also want traps or a skill challenge in there (sadly, the Compendium doesn’t allow you to search for those yet, if ever), and that’s another story that I haven’t really tried my hand at too much yet.

Once the encounter is done, I need to assign some treasure to it. I love the 4th Edition parcel system for the ease of use and flexibility of it. If I’m putting magic items in there, I’ll generally either search for items of the appropriate level using the Compendium, or the Character Builder. I like to use the Character Builder to print out my magic item cards, so that’s what I normally use.

At any rate, that’s the process that works for me so far. It’s easy, and it’s fun; it’s kind of like going shopping for cool stuff, and buying it with the XP budget that you’re using for the encounter. The fact that monster stat blocks are small enough to paste a few onto a page or two of a document is pretty nice, but the thing that really makes this whole thing a breeze is the presence of all the digital tools that Wizards is gradually making available. I love the fact that, being an Insider subscriber, I can search the compendium for monsters from any source, regardless of whether or not I own it. It’s fantastic value for money.

So, just before our last D&D session (session report here), I allowed my players to do a little re-imagining of their characters. This was mainly because three of them were martial characters (fighter, ranger, and warlord), and characters were made before I owned Martial Power. Everyone jumped at the opportunity (including the paladin, who swapped out an at-will power that he didn’t like; basically I allowed him to retrain mid-level instead of waiting until he leveled up). Here’s what we’ve got now:

Kraygin was once a two-handed weapon fighter. He still uses a halberd, but he ditched the +1 to attack with two-handed weapons in favor of the battlerager vigor class feature, and he swapped out reaping strike (4 damage on a miss) for crushing surge (has the invigorating keyword, which grants temporary hit points on a hit). Basically, now Kraygin gets a temporary hit point every time he gets hit with a melee or close attack, and he gets a temporary hit point every time he hits with crushing surge, and his temporary hit points from crushing surge (and any other invigorating powers) stack with all of his other temporary hit points. Oh, and he downgraded to chain mail, so now he gets a +2 damage bonus whenever he has temporary hit points. The net effect is that Kraygin’s AC is a point lower than it would be, but he compensates by being more durable, and he’s definitely leaning toward striker as a secondary role. He’s got a halberd, which is a pretty high-damage weapon. If he’s bloodied, he gets a +1 to attack (dragonborn fury) and a +2 to damage (dragonborn frenzy); if he also has temporary hit points (which he frequently does), that becomes a +4 to damage, for a total of 1d10+8 damage on a basic attack. If he uses his daily, villain’s menace, on an enemy, against that enemy he’d be at +3 attack and +8 damage (1d10+12). Pretty darned good, if you ask me. The image that this inspires is a warrior who thrives on battle and laughs at pain, who is at his peak when the chips are down and he’s running on pure adrenaline. Kraygin might want to think about picking up blinding smash as an encounter power at level 3, and depending on what you get from multiclassing into barbarian, he might want to do that eventually.

Shava used to be an archery ranger, but has dropped the archery combat style and prime shot in order to pick up beast mastery, along with a predatory bird as a companion. This bird gives her some nice versatility; she can use it to more carefully select her quarry by positioning it near her intended target, and if she’s in a sticky situation where she can’t get out of melee with an opponent, her companion can swoop in and attack for her (and deal hunter’s quarry damage to boot). Shava wants to play up the ranger’s connection to nature, so she may or may not multiclass into a primal class later on. Now, she still uses ranged attacks primarily, and her Strength isn’t that high, so many of the beast-themed powers won’t be all that useful to her, unless they’re powers that allow her beast to attack rather than her.

Sredni Vashtar, the warlord, used to have the tactical presence class feature, but traded it in for resourceful presence. Before, any time an ally spent an action point, that ally got a +1 to the attack roll. Now, they get a +4 to the damage roll if they hit, or 3 temporary hit points if they miss. The nice thing about this is that either is helpful, and it makes Sredni and Kraygin a great team because Kraygin either increases his already high damage bonus, or gets some temporary hit points, which are arguable much more useful to him than to anyone else. Sredni also traded out furious smash (4 damage, and a bonus to an ally’s damage) for opening shove, a much cooler power (in my opinion) that allows him to push an enemy and allow an ally to either attack or shift 4 squares. Between opening shove, wolf pack tactics, and knight’s move, Sredni has lots of powers that allow his allies to move around when it’s not their turn. Between resourceful presence and bastion of defense, he’s got lots of stuff that can grant temporary hit points.

Chance is the least changed character, mainly because he didn’t really have any new options available to him. He dropped bolstering strike because his Charisma is lower than his Strength (it’s a Charisma-based power), and it grants him only 1 temporary hit point when he uses it because of his relatively low Wisdom, making it a trade-off that’s usually not worth it. In its place he took valiant strike, an Strength-based power that grants him a +1 to attack for each enemy adjacent to him. This makes him a great defender, because it encourages him to really mix it up with big groups of bad guys. He’s got a pretty high AC, being the only party member who uses a shield (a magic shield, no less), and it might be to his advantage to make it even higher by picking up some plate mail. There’s also a feat that he’s got his eye on, cleansing challange, that makes to so that every time he uses his divine challenge power on an undead creature, he deals 2 radiant damage to it. This would be a good way to improve the party’s general offense against undead creatures, and would make Chance great at killing minions; even though divine challenge can be used only once per round, being able to automatically kill one undead minion per round with a minor action and no attack roll, as long as its within 5 squares, is pretty darned potent.

Last Saturday, I had the guys over for D&D. The session was mainly combat against a bunch of kobolds and a goblin. In 3rd Edition, that probably wouldn’t have been all that interesting; kobolds and goblins are, after all, basically cannon fodder under that system (unless you give them class levels). These fights, however, were a lot of fun to play out, and made for a very satisfying session. The second fight, against Irontooth and his minions, was particularly satisfying, and came dangerously close to a total party kill (it was a 6th level encounter for my 2nd level party). Through clever tactics and skillful use of their powers, however, the party managed to survive without any casualties, even if they did burn through all of their dailies and most of their healing capabilities (they had a potion left, but everyone had used their second wind, and all healing powers had been used). At any rate, it was great fun.

You can read the session report if you want to.

It’s been a little while, hasn’t it? No particular excuse on my part; just laziness and procrastination, mainly. But I figured, since I got a lot of games and game-related stuff for Christmas, I’d better post my impressions of some of this stuff.

Martial Power: This book is just chocked full of D&D goodness. It’s mainly stuff for the players rather than the DM: new feats, new paragon paths, new epic destinies, and lots and lots of new powers. It’s all really good stuff, particularly the new builds for the fighter, warlord, ranger, and rogue. What’s interesting is that some of the powers and paragon paths allow you to branch out a little bit from your class’s role without actually multiclassing. The Guildmaster Thief paragon path is designed for the rogue (a striker), but most of its abilities are decidedly leader-ish. Also, the beastmaster ranger is very, very cool, and I like the idea that, when Wizards decides to incorporate companions, it’ll be on a class-by-class basis, allowing each class’s companion to be unique to that class. I’d imagine we’ll see a warlord build at some point with access to all sorts of followers, and I don’t think that a wizard build that utilizes a familiar is outside the realm of possibilities.

The Draconomicon: Where Martial Power is primarily for PCs, this book is all about cool stuff for the DM to use. The first chunk of stuff is all information on chromatic dragons: phyisiology, psychology, society, etc. It’s not game rules, but it’s really interesting to read, and I feel like a lot of it is useful for role-playing dragons. There are also draconic rituals, some traps, a lengthy section on hoard generation (which could easily be applied to generating any treasure hoard, not just one belonging to a dragon), nine sample lairs, and a bunch of draconic monsters, including new dragons and some lower-level threats, like kobolds. It’s good stuff.

Fallout 3: Wow. Just wow. I’m so hopelessly addicted to this game it’s not even funny. The formula feels a lot like a refinement of Oblivion, but it also feels distinctly like a Fallout game in many ways. There’s a lot of the trademark dark humor and some very interesting post-apocalyptic characters and scenarios. The quest design is fantastic; there’s almost always a twist that you don’t expect, even in relatively minor quests. The combat system (VATS), while not particularly deep (you usually want to shoot the head or, occasionally, the weapon) is fun and satisfying, and slow-motion ultra-gory kill shots never really get old.

Resident Evil 4: Very cool and creepy. I’m not all that far into it, as I’ve been mostly playing Fallout 3, but I am enjoying it quite a bit. I like the atmosphere and the story so far, and there have been some cool set-piece battles, too. I’m enjoying the controls (it should be noted that I have the Wii version, which allows you to aim with the remote) and the combat, and while the voice acting and translation is somewhat silly occasionally, it’s a good survival horror game through and through.

The Growing Hunger: This is the expansion for Last Night on Earth, which is one of my favorite games. The expansion adds some cool new scenarios, new characters to play, new cards for both the heroes and the zombies, and a bunch of optional rules that you can add in or not, as you like. I’ve only gotten a chance to play with the expansion once; I played the Plague Carriers scenario as the heroes, and just barely lost. It was a lot of fun, and it’s very cool to see seven additional zombies on the board.

A Touch of Evil: Another game by Flying Frog, the makers of LNoE. This time it’s a colonial-era supernatural horror game, which can be played competitively, cooperatively, or in teams as a hybrid of the two. It bears more than a passing similarity to both Arkham Horror and Runebound (both games that I enjoy quite a bit), but it’s a much simpler game than either and, once you’re used to it, can probably be played much faster than either. I’ve played it twice now, once with three friends cooperatively (it was fun and we vanquished the Vampire, though we found out later that we had neglected to use a few rules that would have made the game harder), and once on my own. Solo play is not officially supported in the rulebook, but it’s pretty easy to figure out how to do it regardless. I lost, not because the game was particularly difficult, but because the Shadow Track moved really quickly, and when it hits zero, it’s game over. There’s a debate online as to whether to use the competitive or cooperative rules when playing solo, and I feel now that a combination of the two should be used. I think that cooperative rules should be used for the Shadow Track and for the Town Elders, but I think that using the cooperative Mystery Phase Chart makes that Shadow Track move much too quickly, considering that having only a single player gives you little chance to counter its movement most of the time. I believe my game was over after about five or six turns, which seemed way too quick, and I feel like I didn’t really get to do much.

Well, that’s it for now. I may post about more stuff later.