The Dresden Files

So, what do I mean by making your fey “more fey”? Traditionally, fey have a number of traits that aren’t really translated into D&D to my satisfaction. First, fey are often portrayed as being vulnerable to iron (or cold iron), and resistant to the magic of mortals. Second, there’s the whole idea of the fey bargain. Some of this is captured in the fey pact warlock, but what about fey bargains that don’t involve pledging your eternal servitude in exchange for power? I like the idea of fey bargains that are binding to both parties. Further, fey are often portrayed as being tricky, duplicitous, and deceptive but, paradoxically, there is often a prohibition on lying placed on these creatures. The idea is that a fey creature cannot actually lie to you, but that doesn’t mean you should take what he, she, or it says at face value. Lies of omission are, of course, fair game, as are misleading turns of phrase.

So, since I like to follow the mantra of “show, don’t tell”, here’s something I whipped up. A note to players in my game: this is an NPC that you have met. The fact that I statted her up as a monster doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll fight her (I frequently stat up major NPCs, even if I don’t plan on any encounters with them any time soon). Also, if you do wind up fighting her, you shouldn’t necessarily expect her to have these stats. They’re subject to change. So, if you want to read it, go ahead. If you want to remain spoiler-free, stop reading now.

However, I don’t like the idea of changing the way the stunned condition (or the dominated condition) works. I think these conditions work well in the PCs’ hands, and I don’t like the idea of applying conditions differently to PCs than I do to monsters. I feel it would undermine the PCs’ victories somewhat, to know that they were not really playing on a level playing field. Instead, I thought I’d give the PCs a power that is similar to what I often give my solo monsters.

Grit
You summon your inner reserves of sheer determination to shake off a debilitating condition, lessening its effect on you.
At-Will
Immediate Interrupt * Personal
Trigger: You are affected by the stunned or dominated condition.
Effect: You take damage equal to your healing surge value. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. In addition, if you are stunned, you are instead dazed for the same duration. If you are dominated, you are dazed for the same duration and must attack an ally of your choice on your next turn; you are marked by that ally for the duration of the daze.

Aptitudes
It’s fairly well known that the D&D skill list, while it covers most things you’d want to do in most encounters, doesn’t cover everything. There are a number of mundane skills not covered, as well as a number of very nitch or situational skills that are absent. This is fine most of the time; most of the time you will not need these skills, so it doesn’t make sense for your players to have to spend their precious skill training on skills that are unlikely to be used more than once or twice.

But what happens when you do need those skills? What happens when the PCs are trying to land a rapidly descending airship after the pilot has been thrown overboard? What happens when the PCs run out of arrows in the wilderness, and they must make their own? There is no Pilot skill, nor is there a Fletcher skill, so what do you do? You could just hand-wave these things, or you could try to shoe-horn a somewhat related skill into that role. Perhaps Athletics is used to turn the wheel of the ship, or Nature is used to find the right kind of wood and form it into the shaft of an arrow. But neither of these solutions is completely satisfying.

That’s where aptitudes come in. Aptitudes function much like skills: you are either trained or untrained in an aptitude (gaining the +5 bonus or not), you get a bonus from a relevant ability score, and you get a bonus equal to half your level. They are used the same way, as well: when an aptitude check is called for, you roll a d20, add your aptitude bonus, and compare the result to a DC. Aptitudes can be used in combat encounters, and they can be used in skill challenges.

There are a few differences, however, between aptitudes and skills. First, there is not a limited number of aptitudes. Aptitudes are very specific, and may apply only to a single encounter during an entire campaign. There is not a set list of aptitudes as there is with skills; the DM (or players) create an aptitude when the situation warrants it. Most importantly, you do not spend skill training slots to train in aptitudes. Instead, you are considered to be trained in an aptitude when it makes sense for you to be so.

Let’s look at our two examples above, the crashing airship and the arrows in the wilderness. The players ask you, “What skill should I roll to try to pilot this ship?” You think for a moment and say, “Roll a Pilot check.” They look back at you, confused. That’s not on their character sheets. How do they know whether or not they’re trained? Take a look at your players. The artificer is well versed in creating all manner of magical things, and may have knowledge of airships and how to use them. He doesn’t have anything on his character sheet or in his backstory that contradicts this, so you ask him if he’d like to be trained in Pilot. He says, vehemently, “Yes”, and you ask him to explain why he’s trained. Maybe the two of you do a little flashback sequence to explain it. Now he can contribute to the skill challenge to land the ship in a meaningful way, and you’ve created a little bit of background for him together. The wizard, on the other hand, established in his backstory that she grew up as a hand on an airship, and even apprenticed to the captain for a time. It would make perfect sense for her to be trained in Pilot, so you simply tell her that she is. You tell them that Pilot is Wisdom-based, and ask them to calculate their bonuses.

While tromping through the woods, the party needs to make more arrows. It would make sense for a Nature or Perception check to allow players to find the base materials: good, supple but strong wood, stone or metal for the arrowheads, feathers for the fletching. But to assemble the arrows, neither skill makes perfect sense. Instead, you call for a Fletcher skill. The ranger in the party is an archer, so it would make quite a bit of sense for her to be trained in Fletcher. The fighter, on the other hand, knows a lot about weapons, carries a bow as a backup weapon, and spends a good deal of time whittling during short rests. You ask him if it would make sense for his character to know how to make arrows, and he says, “Sure. My character is a master with wood-carving.” He’s trained, too. You tell them that Fletcher is Dexterity-based, and let them make rolls.

The beauty of this system is that it allows you to call for non-standard, very specific skill checks, does not require your players to spend mechanical effort on being trained in these very specific skills, and it can even generate some background or flavor on the fly.

Last-Ditch Efforts
Whenever a player character is reduced to 0 hit points or fewer, he or she has a choice. The player can choose to have his or her character fall unconscious and start making saving throws, as usual. If the player wants higher risk for potentially higher reward, however, that player can choose to make a last-ditch effort.

When you make a last-ditch effort, you remain conscious and standing until the end of your next turn, even if your hit point total is currently negative. However, you are dazed. On your turn, you can take one standard, move, or minor action. This action can include using an encounter or daily power; if you choose to use an encounter or daily power during a last-ditch effort, that power is not considered expended. Note that you can only use a single power during a last-ditch effort, even if you have powers that are free actions to use. You can, however, activate extra damage from class features such as Hunter’s Quarry or Sneak Attack, if they apply.

There is, however, a serious consequence associated with pushing yourself so hard when you’re at your most vulnerable. At the end of your turn during a last-ditch effort, you automatically fail a death save and fall unconscious. In addition, you take a -1 penalty to death saves for the rest of the encounter. This penalty is cumulative if you make multiple last-ditch efforts in the same encounter.

This rule interacts with two races in ways that should be called out specifically.

Revenants have a trait called unnatural vitality, which allows them to choose to remain conscious until they would make their first death save. A revenant may still do this; at the point that the revenant would normally fall unconscious, he or she may choose to make a last-ditch effort (effectively remaining conscious for two rounds after dropping below 0).

Warforged have a trait called warforged resilience, which allows them to take the better result of either a die roll or 10, effectively allowing them to never fail a death save. If a warforged character chooses to make a last-ditch effort, he or she incurs the automatic failed save as normal. Further, the -1 penalty applies to the warforged character’s lowest possible result of 10, meaning that the warforged may roll (at a -1 penalty) or take a 9. Once a warforged character has made a last-ditch effort, he or she can no longer rely on pure warforged vitality to keep him or her from dying.

There’s an encounter in the upcoming session that is, technically, a fight but is also, technically, a series of skill challenges. What I’ve done is I’ve built an encounter using actual monsters and terrain and everything, but I’ve used the framework of skill challenges to create a fight that takes place over a series of phases. The skill challenges are a pacing mechanic for the fight, and the fight creates tension within the skill challenges.

Now, if you think this sounds like a cool idea (and I’d totally agree with you if you did), I feel I should point out some things about using this technique.

First, you probably don’t want to use this in every fight. Most fights have a way of pacing themselves just fine, as they involve a number of monsters and a variety of different terrain effects, and a dynamic that changes as the PCs slowly (or quickly, as the case may be) gain the upper hand. I think that a mechanic like this works best in an encounter with fewer creatures and less automatic change throughout, such as a solo encounter or–as is the case with my encounter–an encounter with a pair of elites.

Second, it’s probably best to use multiple, low-complexity skill challenges rather than one big one. You could conceivably build a complexity five skill challenge that simulates multiple distinct phases, granting access to different skills or new ways to use the same skills as the challenge progresses. I think, though, that using a bunch of complexity one, two, and even three skill challenges gives much clearer delineations between encounter phases, besides which it’s just plain easier to do.

Now, one key difference between using a single skill challenge and using more than one is that failure is more gradual. In a complexity five skill challenge, you’re still going to fail when you hit that third failure. If you’ve got five complexity one skill challenges, you need fifteen total failures to totally botch the job. This does not, however, mean that your encounter is a pushover. What it does mean is that you can award partial credit easily. What it also means is that you can do what I did: give earlier challenges consequences that carry over into later challenges. If the PCs fail the first skill challenge, all is not lost; the next one, will, however, be a little bit harder. Similarly, if they succeed on that first one, you can give them a little edge in the next one.

But it doesn’t stop there. Because you’re running these skill challenges alongside a combat, succeeding in that first skill challenge might carry benefits in the fight (as would failure, with drawbacks). The combat, too, could carry over into the skill challenges. Granting the PCs successes when they bloody a monster, or even when they just hit it, in some cases, is an idea I’ve toyed with. Similarly, if a PC gets bloodied or dropped to zero, that could cause the party to incur a failure in the current challenge.

Now, I want to be completely upfront about this: this is likely going to be a very complex encounter for me to run. In my case, I’ve got five distinct phases to the combat, each represented by a skill challenge (the complexities of which vary). In addition, I’ve got to fairly robust elites to worry about, not to mention some other fiddly rules that I won’t get into (no major spoilers here; sorry). If I can pull it off, though, I think it’ll be a cool and memorable encounter. I’ll let you know how it goes.

The idea is simple: elements of the environment can be used to kill creatures. In some ways, this has always been around. Since there have been hundred-foot chasms and pools of lava, there’s been the opportunity to push your enemies into them. What I’m talking about, though, is the idea of explicitly calling out a terrain kill effect and allowing the players to try to use it. There are some things you should think about when you’re doing so, though.

It Should Require Effort
A terrain kill effect shouldn’t just be a win button for the PCs, a way to bypass the challenge of the encounter. An ideal environmental kill should require some positioning and planning to get it to work just right. Think about Luke Skywalker fighting the rancor in Return of the Jedi. He was fighting against a creature, unarmed, that he couldn’t hope to beat head-on, so he used the environment to kill it. This required him to assess the environment (perhaps a Perception check, as a minor action). It required him to move to a specific area, and hope that his enemy followed him. It also required him to do something difficult (throwing that rock at the control panel), with perfect timing. A little too soon, and he traps himself. A little too late, and he’s rancor lunch. That’s what I’m talking about. An ideal terrain kill should require multiple actions, if not multiple rounds, to set up, but it should be worth it. And that brings me to the next point.

It Should be Lethal
An environmental kill is more than just a damaging terrain effect. You can put lava, or a pit, in an encounter and say it does a lot of damage, and that damage may well kill someone outright. That’s fine. If you’re putting a piece of terrain in the encounter specifically to be used to kill a creature, though, it should do just that. That is, don’t bother with damage; an environmental kill reduces its target to 0 hit points, period. There’s precedent for this kind of effect amongst monsters; bodaks, for example, have a death gaze (which, like a terrain kill, requires multiple successful actions to pull off). Why not give such power to the PCs?

It Should be Limited
Again with the win button. You don’t want your PCs using this effect to kill every monster in the fight; that’s just boring. Ideally, each terrain kill kills a single monster, then it’s used up. This may be because the other monsters now know about it, and avoid it. It may be because the effect can only occur once during the fight (such as Luke’s terrain kill on the rancor). In any case, don’t allow your PCs to over-use your environmental kills; they’re there to be dramatic and cool, and if they happen too often, you’re not achieving that effect. Which brings me to . . .

It Should be Dramatic
Environmental kills are at their most effective when using one swings the direction of the fight in the PCs’ favor. This means that the fight should be a tough one, and the monster that gets killed should be a significant part of what makes that fight tough. You might consider using terrain kills to kill off minions or standard monsters, but if they do, they should kill off more than one. A group of exploding casks of potent dwarven spirits could blow a whole group of orcs up, for example. However, if the effect is going to target a single enemy, that enemy should be an elite, a solo, or a monster three or four levels above that of the party. Don’t waste these effects on your run-of-the-mill goblin archer, unless that archer is doing a lot of damage and is difficult to get to. These effects should give the PCs an edge in the battle when they didn’t have one before.

The PCs Should Know About It
This may seem obvious, but it’s worth stating. Like any good terrain effect, your PCs are only going to use it if they know about it. If you’ve got an awesome terrain kill set up in an encounter that’s otherwise really tough and potentially a TPK, you’d better give the PCs a chance to learn about it (if you don’t simply tell them outright), or they’re not going to think of using it. There’s a tendency amongst PCs to rely solely on their own powers, skills, and items, with environmental powers and effects often not being fully utilized. This is why it’s important to make sure they’re informed. If the environmental kill is out in the open and obvious, just tell the PCs. If it requires some thinking and detection, have them make a check, but make sure the DC is low (or use a technique that I sometimes use: call for a check, but let them succeed regardless of the result). This is one of the reasons that it should take some effort to get one of these effects to work. You don’t want it to be too easy for them, but you do want to make sure they try it, and to try it they have to know about it.

I want to be clear that this is an untested mechanic. I think it would be fun, but I wouldn’t want to overuse it; I’d use it only in climactic and very difficult or unique encounters. I’m thinking I might incorporate one of these into my next session, actually. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Find a Tough Monster
Say you’re DMing for a group of heroic-tier PCs; I’ll use my own PCs by way of example, who are currently level 8. The trick is to find a monster that would normally be a little bit out of their level range. This works best with standard or elite monsters, though you could do it with a solo, too. We’ll use an umber hulk, a level 12 elite soldier, as an example.

Modify It
You want to bring the monster down nearer the party’s level (say, level 9 or 10 for the umber hulk), but still make it seem really difficult. You want it to be level-appropriate for three reasons: attack bonuses, damage, and defenses. You want the attack bonuses and defenses to be pretty standard for a monster of its new level because it’s not much fun to fight a monster that hits you every time, but that you keep whiffing against. The damage should be closer to the party’s level, but should still be on the high side, so that the monster feels powerful when it connects.

Next, you want to make it a solo. More hit points and more attacks is what you want. You want this thing to be attacking as many party members as it can during a round (without angling for a TPK), and you want it to be tough. If your creature is already a solo, give it resist all 10, to make it seem that much tougher.

In the case of the umber hulk, we’ll make it a level 9 solo. Its hit points, attack bonuses, and defenses should be appropriate for such a creature, but its damage should only be decreased slightly, if at all. I’d also think about giving it a recharge power in a close burst 1 or 2 that deals claw damage and pushes opponents or knocks them prone (or both).

Build in Vulnerabilities
This is the important part. These are not your standard vulnerabilities, like vulnerable 10 radiant or psychic. These are more like powers that are built into the monster, only they’re powers that the players can use against the monster, instead of powers that the monster uses. Each power should be discoverable with an appropriate knowledge, Perception, or Insight check, and when a power is discovered, you should make sure that the players know that this is a serious vulnerability in the monster’s defenses. You can go as far as handing out power cards for these vulnerabilities, or you can just describe them in the narrative and hope the players catch on.

The trick to these vulnerabilities is that they should require risk, but for a big reward. Requiring the players to ready an action for when they get attacked, or to make skill checks to remain on a monster’s back, or to avoid being trampled while underneath it, are all good. Also note that, if the monster was originally a solo and you gave it resist 10 all, make sure that your monster’s vulnerability attacks bypass that resistance.

By way of example, I’d give the umber hulk the following two vulnerabilities:

Chink in the Armor (move action, at-will) * Weapon, Vulnerability
As part of a move action, you make an Acrobatics or Athletics (DC 20) check to jump on the umber hulk’s back. This provokes an opportunity attack from the umber hulk. While on its back, you can make a weapon attack with any one-handed or light weapon at a +3 bonus with combat advantage (total attack bonus +5); a successful attack deals +10 damage, and the umber hulk is dazed until the start of your next turn. At the beginning of your turn, if you are still on the umber hulk’s back, you must make an Acrobatics or Athletics (DC 20) check to remain on the umber hulk. If you fail, you are thrown off of the umber hulk’s back; you slide 3 squares, are knocked prone, and take appropriate falling damage for the number of squares you slide.

Reflected Gaze (readied standard action, at-will) * Vulnerability
Any character can ready a standard action to use a reflective surface (such as a polished shield or a mirror) to reflect the umber hulk’s gaze back at it; you must be a target of the gaze for this vulnerability to take effect. Doing so is a Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom attack versus the umber hulk’s Will. If you succeed, you negate the effect of the umber hulk’s gaze against you. In addition, the umber hulk takes 2d6+5 and ongoing 10 psychic damage (save ends). If you fail, the umber hulk makes its attack roll against you as normal, with combat advantage.

Play it Up
Remember that this is a level-appropriate version of a very difficult monster. Play up the fact that the monster is shrugging off the players’ blows, and that it’s dealing massive amounts of damage. When they discover and use a vulnerability, play up how effective it is against the monster. Make sure they know that using it is a winning strategy. Hopefully, they’ll be sorely taxed, but they’ll feel like serious bad-asses when they take down something really tough.

Knowledge checks are any check made to determine something that the character may already know. Do I know what a beholder is? Do I recognize the runes on the floor? Am I aware of the history of this place? These kinds of checks require minimal effort during combat, because the character either already knows the answer, or doesn’t. As such, they’re free actions.

Information gathering checks are basically one step up from knowledge checks, and don’t actually always involve a check. Insight and Perception are the common ones here, but cases can be made for skills like Religion, Arcana, or History, too. Can I try to decipher the magic circle, to determine its purpose? Arcana check. Can I try to suss out my opponent, and see if I can spot a weakness? Insight, or possibly an appropriate knowledge skill, like Nature for a natural beast. These are almost always minor actions, costing the player very little, and possibly giving the player critical information or an edge over the opponent. I like to encourage the use of these kinds of checks, as they spice up combat, drive the story forward, and so forth.

Action checks are checks that you make to actually do something. The type of action varies, from minor to standard, depending on what the player is trying to do. Swing on a chandelier? Acrobatics check, move action. Want to try to say a litany to weaken the demon? Religion check, standard action. My rule of thumb is this: if it’s alternate movement, it’s a move action. If it’s an attack on another creature, it’s standard, unless the effect you’re going for is fairly small (such as a -1 or -2 penalty). If it creates a terrain effect, such as difficult terrain or damaging terrain, it could be any type of action, depending on its scope and power. Difficult terrain over one square would be a minor action, while a blast 3 of difficult terrain would probably be a move action and a blast 5 would be a standard action.

A special note on unusual attacks: I try to reward these whenever they occur, and encourage their use. If someone is going to forgo using one of his powers to try something he’s not sure of, I’m damn sure going to make sure that, if he pulls it off, he’s glad he did. By way of example, in a previous session, my players were fighting off some snaketongue cultists on the roof of the lightning rail, and two of them were archers riding atop wyverns. At one point, the fighter (who has a thing for collecting the teeth of his enemies), wanted to try and rip one of the wyverns’ teeth out while it was still alive, since last one that had died had fallen behind the train (thus making its teeth inaccessible). He was unsure, though, and had almost decided to use one of his at-wills instead, because it was the safe and certain thing to do. I told him: “Do it. I’ll make it worth your while.”

So he did. I handled it as a standard action, Strength attack against the wyvern’s Fortitude. I allowed the hit to deal his normal amount of damage (1d10+Str), and told him that the wyvern was dazed until the end of his next turn from the pain, and that it would be marked by him for the rest of the encounter, and that no mark would be able to supersede his mark. Because he gambled on an uncertain attack, I made sure that a successful attack with an improvised (but very cool and thematically appropriate) technique was better than the at-will he would have used instead, probably more on par with an encounter power. And you know what? It was a great moment.

Also, a note on terrain powers. It’s great to include terrain powers in your encounter, but if your players don’t know they’re there, they’re not going to use them. Initially, you’re probably going to have to hit them over the head with your terrain powers, to some extent. What I do is I print up cards for the terrain powers that I’m including, and I include them in the monsters’ stat blocks where it makes sense. That way, the players see the monsters using them, so they start looking for terrain powers to use against the monsters. Once they discover them, I give them the cards so they know exactly what the power will do. I find that players are more likely to use the environment when it’s more of a known quantity.

I’ve heard about people encouraging the use of terrain powers by making them all minor actions, even the attacks. That works for some people, and that’s great; it just doesn’t sit well with me, for some reason. Instead, I make sure that the terrain powers that are standard actions are potent enough that they’re worth using, and I make sure the players know that. What I’ve found, and what you may find if you do the same thing, is that players start coming up with their own terrain powers and alternate actions. And really, that’s the goal.

When Frederick was thirty, only a few years out of his apprenticeship, Kharazh was attacked by a force of drow in quantities rarely seen in the shallows. The drow made quick work of most of the patrolling shieldmains and either killed or enslaved the bulk of the population of Kharazh. Frederick survived because he was patrolling on the opposite side of the town from the attack, and was unable to make it home to defend Kharazh in time; by the time he arrived at the walls, the battle was already over.

Frederick is no expert tracker, and the drow had covered their tracks well. Only a few shieldmains and warmains remained after the battle, as well as a handful of citizens. Rather than hunt the drow down and fight them in their city, possibly losing the rest of the population in the process, Frederick led the remaining dwarves to the surface dwarven city of Hammerfast. Once he was sure they were safe, he left them.

Frederick blames himself for what happened, and longs for vengeance against the drow, whom he hates more than anything now. He knows that he is not strong enough to fight them, so he seeks out those who are, in the hopes of gaining allies in his quest.

Frederick is accustomed to protecting people, but doesn’t trust his own skills. Because of this, it will be some time before he has the confidence to lead; as such, he makes an excellent follower for the PCs (see the ally card above). Frederick can also be a good source of quests, as he will likely try to convince the PCs to go to the Underdark and confront the drow, hopefully saving his people int he process.

Renown Points
I’ve already explained my rationale for using Renown Points, and I like the way it worked in the last session. I monkeyed with some of the values and achievements so that rarer achievements are worth more, and so that they work a little more as intended. Here’s my new score card.

Ally Cards
I shamelessly stole this idea from someone else. I’m modifying it a little to suit my tastes. Here’s how they work in my game.

Actions
Allies do not have their own actions; each ally is attached to one of the players and is under his/her control. Whenever a PC takes a move action, that player’s attached ally can also do so. The PC can spend a minor action to activate one of the ally’s encounter or daily abilities. Allies do not make opportunity attacks or take any other actions on their own. Some allies have passive abilities; these do not require an action to take effect. When an ally uses an encounter or daily ability, no roll is required; however, an ally cannot deal damage automatically. Instead, any ally power that deals damage must do so as a result of a PC’s roll, effectively granting bonus damage to a PC’s attack.

Damage and Healing
Allies do not have hit points; instead, they have hit boxes. When an ally takes damage from any source, mark off a hit box. Like minions, allies do not take damage from a miss, but can take automatic damage from an aura or other effect. When all hit boxes are marked off, the ally is unconscious. If an unconscious ally takes damage, that ally dies. Allies do not make death saving throws while they are unconscious; they are automatically stable.

Whenever an ally benefits from a healing ability that allows that ally to spend a healing surge or heal as if a healing surge had been spent, that ally erases one marked off hit box. Allies do not, however, have healing surges. During a short rest, an ally can erase all marked off hit boxes.

Resistances and vulnerabilities do not apply to allies.

Sample Ally Cards

Healbots
One of my players plays a warlord, and is the only leader in the party. The paladin and warlock can both do some healing, but not much, and both have access to healing on a daily basis rather than an encounter basis. The warlord is often unavailable, and until recently I simply had another player run his character. That, however, slowed things down and was, in general, complicated and not as effective as it could be. I also tried creating a monster version of the warlord, Sredni, so that he’d be easier to run. This, too, left a bad taste in my mouth.

Then, I came across this post, which I’m going to shamelessly steal from (again). I’m modifying the healbot rules a little to give Sredni a little bit more autonomy, and so that the players still benefit from his passive abilities (warlords have awesome passive abilities). I’m also going to continue to have a player run him, but now there will be significantly less for that player to have to keep track of. I give you Sredni Vashtar, healbot:

I tried out the Renown Point system, and my players really seemed to like it. It didn’t overcomplicate things, and it’s always nice to be rewarded. I do think I need to adjust some of the reward values and tweak a few of the Renown achievements.

The second mechanic that I tried out was a system for allied characters, which was a big hit. The party now has group of nine NPCs (one of them a dire wolf) following them around and crewing their new airship, which I think they really like. They’ve gotten somewhat attached to a few of the NPCs, and I think they like having an entourage.

Fool Moon

Sympathetic Ritual Casting
While most any ritual can be cast without using a creature’s true name, such rituals are far more potent when such powerful knowledge is used in the casting. Any ritual can be cast using a creature’s true name, as long as that creature is a target of that ritual. Typically, true names are used in the casting of rituals in the Binding and Scrying categories, but they are equally effective when used in Deception, Divination, Restoration, and Warding rituals that target the creature in question.

When you use a creature’s true name in the casting of the ritual, you may spend a healing surge (in addition to any other costs of the ritual) to create a sympathetic bond between you and the named creature. This sympathetic bond grants you a +5 bonus per tier on any checks required by the ritual. Using a true name does narrow the focus of certain rituals, though; any ritual that affects an entire group or type of creatures affects only the named creature. It is possible to name multiple creatures in the casting of a ritual, but you must possess all required true names, and you must spend a healing surge for each true name used. Note that anyone assisting in the ritual may spend these healing surges in your place, but anyone who spends a healing surge must know the associated true name.

Sympathetic Spellcasting
Spells, prayers, evocations, and hexes can be used in conjunction with true names, as well. Any power with the arcane, divine, primal, or shadow power source can be cast with a true name. You must spend a healing surge to do so (just as with rituals, multiple true names requires multiple healing surges, though using multiple true names does not increase the number of targets a power can affect), and doing so confers one of the following benefits:

• Increase the range of the power by 5 squares per tier.
• Gain a +2 bonus per tier to the attack roll.
• Gain a +5 bonus per tier to the damage roll.
• If the power grants healing or temporary hit points to the target, it heals 5 additional hit points per tier or grants 5 additional temporary hit points per tier.
• The target takes a -2 penalty per tier to saving throws made to resist the power.

Talismans
When using a true name to cast a ritual or use a power, you can also employ the use of a talisman. A talisman consists of two things: the first is a focus item representative of the target (a doll, statue, picture, etc.) worth at least 50 gp per level of the target. The second might be harder to come by: you must combine the focus with a piece of the target. This piece of the target can be blood, hair, a bit of skin, a scale, a tooth, or any other item that came from the target’s body. Once this is combined with the focus, it becomes a talisman. A talisman allows you to invoke a creature’s true name without expending a healing surge, but it can only be used once. Using a talisman does not destroy the focus component, which may be re-used, but does destroy the piece of the target used in the talisman’s creation.

Over at In the Eye of the Beholder, they have a different take. I must say, I like these rules quite a bit. They’re simple and streamlined, don’t require a lot of book-keeping, and allow allies to be important (but not too important) in a fight.

Is one method better than the other? I don’t think so. I think that each lends itself to different uses. I think that the DMG2 rules a great for replacing a PC, making a companion that’s going to be a full-fledged member of the party with an equal share of the XP. If you want allies for your PCs in a fight, but don’t want to cut into the party’s XP, the Beholder method is very good.

I might make a few modifications to the rules presented, though. For example, rather than giving each ally its own standard and move action, I’d have each ally be controlled by one of the players. When that player takes a move action, the ally can also do so, and the ally’s special ability would cost the player’s character a minor action to perform.

In my own campaign, I plan on using both methods. I’m going to stat Sredni out as a full companion character, and he’ll get a share of the XP just like everyone else. However, a lot of the walk-on companions in the adventure will use these other rules.

For my money, these rules work pretty well for modeling cursed items in 4e. I like the idea of magic items that are somewhat more potent than others at their level, but come with a trade-off that could occasionally screw you. However, I’d probably make one change to the way cursed items worked in my own game: I’d make the effect of the curse inextricably tied to the most potent aspect of the item.

I’ve mentioned in the past that I like the idea of aspects in D&D, though the implementation in my own game left something to be desired. I think that cursed items are a perfect place to use aspect-like mechanics; namely, the ‘compel’ action that the GM can use in games like Spirit of the Century. Effectively, the cursed item would have an aspect that could be compelled from time to time by the DM, forcing the player to act in a certain way . . . if he accepts the power that comes with the compel. Here’s an example of what I mean.

The Blood-Soaked Blade
Considered an ill omen by most, the blood-soaked blade demands to be soaked in the blood of the innocent, but grants power in exchange
Lvl 5
1,000 gp
Weapon: Light Blade, Heavy Blade
Critical: +1d6 necrotic damage, or +1d12 necrotic damage if the weapon’s curse is active.
Enhancement: +1 attack rolls and damage rolls
Property: This item gains a +2 item bonus on damage rolls against bloodied targets while the curse is active.
Power (Encounter): Free action. Use this power when you hit with the weapon. The target takes ongoing 5 damage and you can spend a healing surge. This power can only be used while the curse is active.
Curse: The blood-soaked blade demands to be soaked in the blood of the innocent. In order to activate the curse, you must slay a sentient, innocent being. This causes the curse to become active until the start of your next short rest. If, in addition, you spend a short rest (5 minutes) bathing the blade in the innocent’s blood, the curse becomes active until the start of your next extended rest.

In retrospect, the curse on this item bears only a passing resemblance to a true compel, though the idea is the same: do something that the item wants you to do, and you’ll be rewarded. In the case of the blood-soaked blade, you are offered fairly considerable combat prowess (extra damage against bloodied targets, extra crit damage, and an encounter power that deals ongoing damage and heals you), but in order to gain access to any of it, you have to actively engage in an act that is unequivocally evil. If you don’t satisfy the curse, you’ve effectively got a +1 magic sword, and not much else.

If you hand out a weapon like this, try to make sure it falls into the hands of someone with an alignment and personality opposed to to such an act, and tempt the hell out of them. Play up the weapons malevolent influence, suggesting courses of action to the player (in the voice of the weapon) that would allow the player to satisfy the curse. If you really want to put the screws to the player, put them in a situation where those powers would come in really handy, and let them know about the situation beforehand so that they have the opportunity to satisfy the curse.

I’ve tweaked a few of the Renown achievements, and lifted a lot of the per encounter/per session restrictions. None of the once-per-session achievements still carry that restriction, but some of the point values have been changed a little. As far as the ones that were once per encounter, I’ve lifted that restriction sort of. What I’ve done is I’ve created a score card for keeping track of your Renown Points.

For the stuff that is free of restrictions, basically the DM tells you that you earned that achievement, and you immediately add those Renown Points to your total. For the encounter-based ones, I included four spaces for check marks for each of those. Any time you hit that achievement, put a check mark in one of the spaces; when all your spaces for that achievement are full, you can’t earn any more check marks. At the end of the encounter, each check mark that you’ve earned turns into a Renown Point, and you erase all of those check marks so you can earn them again in the next encounter.

Because you can earn these achievements multiple times in an encounter, I’ve tweaked a couple of them. Now, instead of hitting for 15+ damage (which my strikers do pretty often), you have to hit for 20+ damage. It’ll happen a little less often, but it’ll still happen. Also, the achievement for taking 50 damage in one encounter seemed like too much book-keeping, like it would get forgotten a lot. Now, instead, you have to take damage equal to your bloodied value in a single round to earn a check.

You’ll also notice that the costs of the rewards have increased a little; specifically, each one is 5 points more expensive. This is to compensate for the fact that players will likely be earning more Renown Points than they would have before. Anyway, take a look at it, and feedback, as always, is welcome.

Now, my players level up plenty, and the lethality rate of my home game is probably a bit lower than that of Encounters, so I expect them to level up and gain all sorts of cool gear. I do not, however, like handing out experience rewards to a single player; for book-keeping purposes, and for the sake of simplicity and balance, I try to make sure that everyone gains experience at the same rate, and everyone levels up at the same time. In terms of monetary and gear rewards, I try to provide magical gear that is good for specific players, and I try to reward my players equally. These reward mechanics, therefore, reward the players for pushing the main story forward, but not necessarily for pushing their own stories forward, or for simply doing cool things in play. I’ve been trying to think up a reward mechanic that allows me to reward individual players without disrupting the balance of the game too much, and I just realized today that Wizards has already done a lot of that legwork for me.

That said, Renown Points aren’t going to work in my–or your–home game without a little tweaking. Some of the Renown achievements don’t make sense in campaign play, or in your home game, and there are some achievements that I’d like to add for the sake of story and character development. So, here’s the list of Renown Point achievements that I plan on using in my home game:

• Hit a milestone: 2 points
• Complete a minor quest: 2 points
• Complete a major quest: 3 points
• Create a personal quest: 3 points*
• Complete a personal quest: 3 points*
• Revive a dying ally: 1 point**
• Hit for 15+ damage against 1 enemy (25+ at paragon, 35+ at epic): 1 point**
• Kill 3 minions with 1 attack (4 minions at paragon, 5 minions at epic): 1 point**
• Take 50 enemy damage during one encounter (75 at paragon, 100 at epic): 1 point**
• Score a critical hit: 1 point**
• Moment of Greatness: 2 points*

*Can be earned once per session per character.
**Can be earned once per encounter per character.

This is a working list, and things may be added or dropped. Now, what can you actually get with those renown points? Poker chips. At least, that’s what I’m going to be using. Different colors correspond to different effects (listed below), and both your chips and your unspent Renown Points can be carried over from session to session.

• Yellow (10 Renown Points): +2 bonus to any one skill check, ability check, saving throw, or attack roll OR +5 bonus to any one damage roll.
• Red (15 Renown Points): Re-roll any one d20 roll or damage roll, take the higher result.
• Blue (20 Renown Points): Immediately regain one spent encounter power OR immediately regain one healing surge
• White (25 Renown Points): Immediately regain one spent daily power OR immediately gain one action point that you must spend before the end of the encounter (you can spend this action point even if you have already spent an action point during this encounter).

Again, this is a working list; values and effects may change. At any rate, I like this idea a lot, and I think I’ll float it by my players and see what they think. What do you think?

Overall, it worked fairly well; the players used the terrain powers, and they used them to very good effect. There was one thing missing, though: my monsters never really used the terrain powers, because I forgot to. While the players had a handy visual reminder of what they could do with the terrain, I had neglected to give myself one; as the DM, I had a lot of powers to keep track of, and without something to remind me that they were there, I tended to focus on what my monsters could do by themselves. There is, I realized, a very simple solution to this problem: put the terrain powers right in the monster stat blocks.

Thanks to the Monster Builder, it’s easy enough to modify monster stat blocks and to copy terrain powers from one monster to another. Having terrain powers in the monster stat blocks acts as a handy reminder of what tactics are available to your monsters, as well as a good reference for how powerful those powers are in relation to their own. You can also use this technique to remind yourself of specific tactical tendencies of monsters. If you’re running a combat with a lot of different terrain powers, it’s easy enough to only put the powers in a given stat block that that monster is likely to use. Is there a mounted ballista that does less damage than your artillery monster’s own weapon? It doesn’t need that power. The skirmisher or brute might, though, until the PCs close the distance. Zombies aren’t likely to utilize the environment a lot, but orcs and goblins probably will, and you can bet your bottom dollar that kobolds will.

Here is a very simple example, an encounter from my last session that I modified after the fact. I encourage you to experiment with this technique, and I also encourage you to share your results and modifications here on this blog.

Aspects: This is the big one, the obvious one. In Spirit, each character starts with ten aspects; these are words or short phrases that collectively give an overall impression of who the character is. They may be physical characteristics, personality traits, notable quotes, goals, important NPCs, or other, similar things. In addition, players get fate points that they can use to invoke their aspects. Whenever a player makes a roll, he or she can spend a fate point and invoke a relevant aspect in order to get a bonus to the roll after the fact, or re-roll the roll altogether (though the second roll sticks, unless another aspect is invoked and another fate point is spent). You can also tag other peoples’ aspects, which is functionally the same as invoking an aspect except that you’re doing it to someone else’s aspect for your benefit. Finally, the GM can compel an aspect, offering the player a fate point in return for the player acting in accordance with the aspect in question; this typically restricts behavior in some way, and often complicates things for the players.
In D&D: I plan on starting each PC with one aspect from the outset, as well as two aspects that they can choose at a later time, whenever it seems dramatically appropriate. When a player invokes or tags an aspect, it can grant one of three effects. First, it can allow the player to reroll the d20 roll, taking the second result. Second, it can grant a +5 bonus to the roll, after the roll is made but before success or failure is determined. Third, and this is really a very D&D combat-specific use of an aspect, if an d20 roll comes up 18 or higher on the die, an aspect can be invoked to treat it as a natural 20. Compels work in much the same way as described above; there’s really no need to convert.

Declarations: Spirit has a number of skills that can be used for gaining information, such as Academics, Mysteries, Art, or even Burglary. Gaining information is one thing, but players can actually make skill rolls in order to declare facts about a situation. For example, let’s say the players walk into an ancient temple full of traps. A player could say, “According to my extensive knowledge of the history of this temple, I know for a fact that there are numerous secret passages that we can use to our advantage.” The GM then calls for a roll, maybe Academics, and if it’s high enough, the statement is true. In Spirit, this usually means placing an aspect on the scene, one that can be tagged later for the players’ benefit.
In D&D: The knowledge skills (Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature, and Religion) can all be used to make declarations as above. I’d also allow skills like Insight, Perception, or Streetwise to be used to make declarations given sufficient justification or under the right circumstances. Declaration can cause a narrative effect, can place an aspect on the scene or on a person that can be tagged, just like in Spirit, or might create a terrain feature or power that can be used during an encounter. Now, to limit how often this happens, I’d probably cap declaration usage at once per scene per player, a scene being roughly equivalent to an encounter.

The single greatest modification that I made to the published adventure was in the final battle of the adventure, against Kalarel. In the published adventure, Kalarel is accompanied by some skeletons and a wight, and there’s a trap in the form of the Thing in the Portal, which grabs and draws nearer adventurers who draw too near in the first place. When I first read the adventure, I thought it was a cool encounter, but that was before I had experienced more of the breadth of what 4th Edition had to offer. I do think that, for those who are still undecided about the new edition, taking D&D for a test drive with the adventure as written is perfectly viable, and probably lots of fun. But I wanted to do something different.

So, I completely rejiggered the final encounter. For starters, I created the corpse mound that I talked about before. Then I added a couple of hazards; one represented the darkness emanating from the portal, the other the subtle and seductive call of said darkness. Then I reduced Kalarel’s level a bit and modified some of his abilities so that the encounter’s level was a little more in-line with my party’s level.

It’s a level 7 encounter, all said, but with a lot of potential to be very, very difficult. There are some nasty threats in there, and all of them had at least a couple of levels on the party. So I staggered things a little bit. Initially, Kalarel is involved in completing the ritual, so the party only has to contend with the corpse mound. After a couple of rounds, Kalarel completes the ritual, joining the fray. The following round, the two hazards activate, and every round thereafter the darkness expands, filling more of the room.

Now, I had a way for the PCs to reverse the effects of the ritual built into the encounter, but I’m a firm believer that a big failure should not be a show-stopper, but should rather make things more interesting. Thus, I created a skill challenge that would trigger if the darkness expanded too much. This had the effect of also putting a time limit on the encounter, which prevented it from turning into too much of a slog.

At any rate, here is my writeup of the encounter. The experience per party member assumes a party of 5 characters, and there’s no treasure included in that writeup (I had that in a separate document for some reason). The encounter does use the standard battle map that the original encounter used; Kalarel starts in front of the altar, while the corpse mound appears as a mere pile of corpses in the pool of blood in the center of the room. The darkness, as you’d expect, emanates from the portal once Kalarel has completed the ritual. Enjoy.