5e Content: Trade Aspect of Mael

For my 5e game, I nabbed a bunch of additional Domains from +Samwise Seven RPG.

http://samwise7rpg.blogspot.ca/2014/10/cleric-domains-for-dungeons-dragons-5e.html

http://samwise7rpg.blogspot.ca/2014/10/cleric-domains-for-5th-edition-dungeons_23.html

Personally, I feel like Gods having a single Domain is a bit too simplistic, and doesn't really reflect how gods were worshipped historically.  In the Greek/Roman religions, gods tended to have a lot of regional variation and different aspects, which were venerated depending on the location, season and activity that you were engaged in.

So in my campaign, most Gods have 1-3 different Aspects, and a player can choose which Domain they want to follow for that God.  The more powerful/popular a god is, the more aspects he/she/it has.

One of the players in our game is a priest of Mael.  Mael has 2 (and sometimes 3) aspects.  His primary aspects are Trade and the Sea.  Yes, I stole Mael from Steven Erikson.  Shameless theft is an Improvisational Building Block too.  Also Mael is one of the best characters in the books.

Some not-so-nice folks also worship Mael (or seek to placate him) in his aspect of the Storm.

My player worships Mael in his aspect of Trade.  Temples of Mael are all over the Colony, and Mael is one of the greater gods of the Empire, since it is a ship-based neo-colonial power.

I did encounter a couple of issues with the Trade Domain as presented by +Samwise Seven RPG, so here is my modified version:

Trade Domain

Priests of Mael in his aspect of Trade are one of the most important priesthoods of the Ruywick Empire.  Most cities of any size have a temple of Trade, where the priest provide legal advice, accounting and bookkeeping services, scribes and magical contracts.  They advise rulers and masters of business, and act as adjudicators with legal authority to resolve trade and contractual issues.

As you would expect, the Church of Mael is incredibly rich and powerful, with influence in all parts of the Colony and the Empire.

Priest of Mael in his less-fancy robes.

Cleric Level	1st Domain Spell	2nd Domain Spell
1st	Charm Person	Expeditious Retreat
3rd	Enhance Ability	Suggestion
5th	Calm Emotions	Protection from Energy
7th	Dimension Door	Guardian of Faith
9th	Dominate Person	Teleportation Circle

1st Level – Bonus Cantrip. You gain the Prestidigitation cantrip.

1st Level – Skills of the Trade. You can choose two of the following skills: Intimidation, Perception, Persuasion.

2nd Level – Channel Divinity: Barter. You gain advantage on all skill rolls associated with making a deal or trading.

This one was a little bit hard to adjudicate initially because the initial version contained "or getting yourself out of a “jam.”".  That meant quite a bit more leeway on what exactly you could use this skill on, but really, it adds too much flexibility.  Cutting it down to just deals and bartering makes it more manageable.

6th Level – Channel Divinity: Binding Contract. You can create a magical contract. Any intelligent creature that understands and willingly agrees to the terms laid out in the contract is effected by a Geas spell enforcing the terms of the contract until the conditions laid out in the contract are completed. The psychic damage dealt by this contract is non-fatal, but intensely painful, and can trigger up to 1/day.

The contract can be destroyed by the priest who created it, and if the contract is broken by any party (including the priest), then all parties are immediately aware that the contract has been broken, and by who.

This one is a complete replacement for the initial power, which was "create counterfeit coins" that disappear in a few hours.  How fucking up the economy and making people not trust currency is a God of Trade thing completely escapes me, so I yanked it and we replaced it with this, which is much more interesting and has a bunch of in-game ramifications.

8th Level – Words Are Greater Than the Sword. Once per Long Rest you can convince a creature not to attack you. You can do this twice at 14th level.

I'm probably going to have to replace this one too, but level advancement is slow in this game, so we'll get to that in a year or two.

DM Lessons: Mea Culpa

I play a fairly house-ruled version of D&D 5e with lots of more old-school elements to it. One of the most noticeable elements is my Modified XP and Levelling Rules. Different classes have different ways of turning treasure into XP, and carousing is a pretty common one for all the martial-style classes. When you carouse, you spend money, it turns directly in XP, you lose time and you roll on the d100 carousing table which I grabbed from... Reddit.

As somebody who is very interested in keeping RPG gaming a safe space for everybody involved, let this be a cautionary tale.  I screwed up, and hopefully, this will help somebody not screw up.

First off, my group is a bunch of white males. I'm a white male, and these are primarily my friends from university or high school. Most of us have been playing rpg's together for a looong time. We have broadly the same sense of humor and (I think) similar expectations for our games.

We did have a new player in the group last night, though, and that's where the my mistakes started. Actually, my mistakes started earlier when I didn't REALLY read the carousing table I grabbed. I mean, I read it, but I didn't pay a ton of attention to it. That table contains some pretty rape-y elements. It's all implied - nothing like "you were sexually assaulted", but a lot of "you wake up in bed with" and "you wake up naked with" entries.

It's at this point that I keep wanting to say things like "taken the right way, it's mostly funny", but that's a cop-out. It's trying to avoid responsibility for paying attention to the elements and material that I'm bringing into my game. Material that, frankly, doesn't really make my game a safe place or a fun place.

So that was my first mistake - I didn't review and think about my material. My second mistake was that I didn't make the context of the material clear and I didn't talk about it with the new player. We've used the carousing table before, had a fun time with the results and treated it mostly like the throw-away stuff it's intended to be. But I didn't make that clear or understood. I also didn't clarify that the results of the carousing table are in no way binding.

If a player wants to run with them, that's fine. If they want to use them as an opportunity to role-play or start a character arc, that's fine. If they want to treat them like a Simpson's throw-away gag, that's fine too. Although truth be told, that table has more Family Guy style material than Simpsons.

But I didn't make that clear. I just told him to roll on the carousing table. He ended up rolling a 67 on that table, which is "You wake up in a nobleman’s barn. You are wearing a saddle and there are whip marks on your buttocks. You are 1d10 sp richer."  Which could be a funny situation to be in, but could also be a very traumatic and horrible situation to be in.

The player interpreted this as me telling him that his (female) character had been drugged and sexually assaulted.  Which is not a thing I'm interested in having happen in my games.  Plus, the rest of us, who had used that table before as a light-hearted interlude, were laughing.  So at that point, my game is not a safe place AT ALL.

This is also the point where I keep wanting to say something like "it was made worse by the fact that he was playing a female character" but that's also a cop-out.  It wouldn't have been better for that to happen to a male character.  It's poor taste material that I presented badly either way.

It took some work to sort the situation out.  Work I should have done beforehand, but didn't because I made assumptions about everybody being on the same page with the material and the tone of the game.  I fucked up.  It's the kind of session that could easily cause somebody to quit a campaign, and the kind of miscommunication and assumption that would definitely make a table at a Con or game shop an unsafe place for players.

This is also the kind of mistake of communication and tone that I see lots of gamers pooh-pooh as "overreacting" if somebody points out that gaming isn't a safe place.  It isn't overreacting, it's the kind of feedback and critical thought that we as a community of gamers have got to listen to, to think about, and to do better on.  I hope to do better in the future.

DM Lessons: Random Tables

I use several random tables in our weekly D&D campaign. Often, the tables give me something interesting/funny to build on, but last night I had decidedly mixed results from the tables, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about that.

In general, random tables are great Improvisational Building Blocks. They provide a basic framework that you can build upon with other pieces from your toolkit, and as always, the complexity of what you build should be directly related to the level of interest that the players show for the event.

For the first example, I set up a series of regional daily encounters to go with my Moving Groups in the Wilderness rules. I roll each day, and there are a number of positive, negative or encounter events that can happen. One of the events on the table is "Eerie singing draws somebody into the woods. They are not seen again. -1 group member."

I actually rolled this result during the first trip the party made through the forest. One of the freed prisoners they were escorting was a skinny little local named Harlock, who we had already established had lost his family. When the party woke one morning, Harlock was gone, but the party Druid and Paladin were able to track him, and heard the faint singing.

If they hadn't cared and just moved on, I wouldn't have had to do anything. Just another mysterious event in a haunted forest. But they did care, and investigated, so it was time to expand the event.

One of the main Improvisational Building Blocks that you should have as a DM are Factions. I have several factions of Fey in my campaign, so I decided (since I didn't want this to be an automatic combat encounter) to use the Summer Court. They are self-interested and somewhat alien, but not hostile by default.

So the lost fellow had been lured through a portal to the Feywild. I got a chance to describe the Feywild, and expected that the paladin and druid would retreat. Interestingly, they didn't. The paladin entered the Feywild, bargained with the Dryads and checked to make sure the Harkon was ok and wanted to stay there. Harkon did, so the paladin left him to it. The fey were impressed at his chutzpah, though, and he got a sweet magical glaive out of the deal.

So now, with all that behind us, on the SECOND trip through the forest with a group of people, I rolled the exact same event! What are the odds of that? (About 1 in 4, really, since I rolled 3 times on 12-entry table). Of course, this time they had different people with them, including 3 prisoners that they were unsure what to do with.

In a fit of player-character inspiration, the paladin escorted the 3 prisoners through the forest to the portal and walked them through. They were entranced by the music, and the fey welcomed them as they had before. A potential problem was resolved (the prisoners) and a deeper connection with the Summer Court fey was formed. To the point where the paladin is now an Oath of the Ancients paladin... who worships the Raven Queen. This should be interesting.

The second instance of random tables results was not nearly so positive.

Edit: http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.ca/2016/11/dm-lessons-mea-culpa.html

DM Lessons: Improvisation Building Blocks

Sometimes, you can really force yourself to think on your feet if your players decide to do some investigating and look deeper than the surface of things.

In our last Over the Seas and Far Away session, one of the players went off to his temple to inquire if they have any work. As the DM, I want to remind players of the horrible system of oppressive slavery and corruption that the party is working around the edges of. So he does have a job, alright.

Job is: escort these clearly innocent virtual slaves to their new life of hard labor in a logging camp. Temple is getting paid to transport them.

Player winces, but hey, might be something interesting here, so he does some investigating as to why these prisoners haven't been moved already. "Let me see their paperwork".

Instantly, he's getting paid a bunch more because this shit is shady. Also there are about 50 of the prisoners.

So now as the DM, I have to think up several things.

1. Why haven't the prisoners been moved?
2. What makes this shadier than usual?
3. How can I make this scenario more interesting?

One of the keys to running an effective campaign (sandbox or otherwise) is to have done enough worldbuilding that you have components to put together to flesh out a scenario like this. I improvised thusly:

The prisoners haven't been moved because there are a lot of them, they are dangerous, and the company that contracted for them hasn't sent anyone to get them.

This is shadier than usual because the prisoners aren't from the usual prisoner's channel, and everyone knows it, but are being paid to ignore that.

How can I make this more interesting?  The prisoners are of the same persecuted minority as one of the characters.

I need to put this all into context now, so I start pulling worldbuilding from my back pocket. In the Empire, the half-orcs are a persecuted minority, and lots of them live on the fringes of the Empire.

Transported are only supposed to be convicted criminals, but the amount of labor needed in the Colony has created a thriving secondary market for "off-brand" Transported.

Half-orcs are strong and tough, making them more dangerous than standard prisoners.

So now the party has to transport 50 or so angry half-orcs a hundred miles through fairly dangerous forests and deposit them in the same sort of logging camp they LITERALLY just rescued 50 people from. Irony is fun.

Now, this is a really important DM tip: if you set up a scenario, don't get at all tied to YOUR solutions. Just sit back and see what your players come up with.

In this case, one of the players is a half-orc, so make friends is the answer. They spent hundreds of sp getting them blankets, food and clothes, and promised to free them from the logging camp after delivery. The prisoners were suspicious, so Wrenaldo, the half-orc in question, accepted their offer to temporarily join the coffle and get rescued with the rest of them.

Happy day! At least for me. Not sure they're going to enjoy this.

Making Barbarians More Interesting

I was pretty critical of the Barbarian class in my high-level write-up.  Some of that is frustration, because it’s close to being really good.  All the pieces of something interesting are there – it’s just presented in a way doesn't do it justice.  Lots of potential.

This is how I’d do it:

Break the whole leveling set up into 2 discreet chunks:  Level 1-3 and everything else. I’ll talk about name-level thoughts in another post.

Next we identify what features are associated with those level ranges:

Levels 1-3:

Rage

+1 attack Bonus

+2 Rage damage bonus

Feral Instinct

Reckless Attack

1 Path/Path Feature

I’m OK with the concept that levels 1 through three are introductory levels, so I’m fine with keeping these 3 levels as-is.  You get to make quite a few interesting choices during character creation, 2^nd level comes very quickly, and you get to make a major choice at 3^rd level with your path.

However, I see no reason for the linear progression of the Path Features.  I’d allow players to pick a path feature from the list when they get a path feature.  The default progression (if you don’t want to make decisions) could still be as-written.

Path of the Berserker.  Fearless Rage and Mindless Rage should be automatic benefits to the path.  I would also give anyone that picked Path of the Berserker 1 additional use of rage right off the bat.  If they are berserkers, they should have more berserk in them.  I would also make Unlimited Rage a benefit of this only path at Lv 20.

Path of the Totem Warrior.  See – picking the totem spirit is EXACTLY the kind of interesting choice I like.  It is cool stuff, adds thematically to your character, all the benefits are neat and they AREN’T all combat benefits.  I like the idea of making Totem Spirit the default first choice here.  The rest, I'd just let the player pick which path feature they want when they get one.

For the rest of the levels, I would lay things out like so:

Level	Feature
4	Feat/Ability Upgrade
5	2 Class Features
6	Path Feature, Class Feature
7	Class Feature
8	Class Feature
9	Feat/Ability Upgrade
10	Path Feature, Class Feature
11	Class Feature
12	2 Class Features
13	Feat/Ability
14	Path Feature, Class Feature
15	Class Feature
16	2 Class Features
17	Path Feature, Class Feature
18	Feat/Ability
19	Class Feature
20	Lv 20 Path Benefit

If you don’t want to make choices, take the Class and Path Features in order – giving you basically the current progression.

The Class Feature List would look like this.  You could take each option once.

Brutal Critical

Fast Movement

+1 Attack Bonus

1 Extra Rage

Feral Reflexes

Two Attacks

+1 Attack Bonus, +1 Rage Damage

Relentless Rage

Furious Resilience

1 Extra Rage

+1 Attack Bonus

1 Extra Rage

Simmering Rage

Incite Rage

1 Extra Rage, +1 Rage Damage

Primal Might

Death-Defying Rage

Realistically, I’d add about 5 more features so that nobody could ever get all of them.  Scarcity is interesting.  Keep the number of rages and +1 attack bonus' limited, though.  I'm OK with players getting those lower on the level scale if it means they are sacrificing other benefits to get them, but adding more of them means that you are potentially messing with the "bounded accuracy" business.

Another benefit to this structure is that it makes it really easy to expand on the class.  Paths are self-contained, so they are simple to build and add, and adding class features is also relatively easy, although you want to go carefully there – too many and we’re right back in 3e country.

But notice – no feat chains.  No stat or level pre-reqs.  So if I want an accurate rager, I can spend my early features on extra rages and hit bonuses.   I haven’t really added anything to the class structure, just formalized what it is already doing and added choices, albeit bounded ones, at each level.

You could also turn this into a d20 chart pretty easily, if you wanted to do random-feature advancement.  I know some people like that.

Anywhoo, that's how I'd do this.  Same pieces, organized differently, with a default progression for those who want a simpler system.

D&D Next Playtest: Dwarves Update

Let’s get things caught up on the DnD Next Dwarves campaign.

The party was initially formed by the Goldenhills Hall Paths Guild – the scouting and special operations branch of the Goldenhills Hall military.  Their first assignment was to investigate the mining outpost of Shalecliff, some days travel to the north.  Shalecliff had stopped replying, and 2 military expeditions had not returned.  A lighter touch was called for, so the special squad was sent out.

The party entered Shalecliff quietly, accessing the mining tunnels via a tailings dump outlet and working their way back to the main hall.  They didn’t take the main access lift up, instead using their Underdark druid - Stalagtite, and their experienced underdark guide - Korrum, to navigate the mining tunnels.

In the tunnels, they encountered an injured dwarf. His eyes have been gouged out, and chunks bitten from both palms.  His ravings are hard to decipher, but he rants about “black diamonds – waking up.  Not diamonds.  Eyes!  The screams.  The eating…”

The Horror that Came to Shalecliff (not done, but close)

Making sure the injured dwarf is comfortable, the party continues into Shalecliff, and finds a scene of, well... horror.  Most dwarves that remain have been transformed into shambling, eyeless abominations, with crystalline claws and jagged black crystal teeth.  Working their way through the old residential areas of the hold, they fought several packs of the creatures, who prove to be little impediment to the skilled warriors.

Near the entrance to the temple of Moradin, they encounter something more dangerous.  A huge beast – a swollen monstrosity shaped like a huge dwarf, but with dozens of distorted faces emerging from it’s body and a huge black gemstone embedded in its chest.  Once again they defeat the thing, along with a pack of the lesser abominations.  As it dies, the gemstone shatters and a fistfull of slick black diamonds pour out…

Wisely ignoring the ominous stones, the party retreats to the temple of Moradin, hoping to find if the priest had survived.  Instead of refuge, they find that the temple has been profaned. The anvil altar is utterly gone, and a great hole has been dug in the floor, leading down into impenetrable darkness.

As the party enters, a pair of creatures emerge from the pit.  Horrid amalgamations of dozens of dwarves, they run along the ground on dozens of hands and legs, biting with extended snouts of jagged crystal.  It is a desperate fight, and the cleric, ranger and druid are all badly injured when a final mighty blow by Hilbo’s maul smashes the second creature into the ground.

After a rest, barricaded in the priest’s chambers and considerable magical healing from the druid and cleric, the party ventures forth again.

This time they head along the main corridor towards the front entrance, with the intention of checking the noble's chambers and the hall of Duke Redhammer for survivors.  They defeat a few other shambling dwarves, and reach the gates of the Duke’s Hall, which are shut and locked, apparently from within.

From his time as a sergeant of the guard at Shalecliff, Hilbo knows the “All-Clear” passcodes which can be hammered on a metal plate set in the door, so he proceeds to knock the code.  After some minutes, the gates creak open, revealing the red-armored form of the Duke himself. Arkask, wielding the eponymous enchanted Redhammer of his house.

Shrieking and clearly deranged, the Duke attacks immediately and Hilbo charges to meet him.  Two armored dwarves fighting each other with mauls is always going to be a brief fight, and a whirling smash from Hilbo ends the fight almost instantly – sending Arkast sliding across the floor, stunned and breathless.   A quick pile-on and ropes later, and the Duke is restrained.

Deciding that they have the greatest prize possible from the complex, and that they have enough information to facilitate reclaiming Shalecliff, the party elects to retreat with their prize.  On the way out, they find and rescue a young dwarven woman who had locked herself in a storage room and 2 young children who were hiding in the midden/mushroom farm.

Burdened by a handful of survivors, the group retraces their steps, pick up Durin, the blinded dwarf and begin to retreat through the mines to the exit.  Unfortunately, they are pursued for hours by packs of Eyeless Hunters, horribly malformed dwarves that use their crystal talons to crawl on walls and ceilings.  After hours of nightmarish running battles and exhausted flight, the party reached the mine exit without losing a single survivor.

Two days back to civilization, and a Paths Guild patrol brings everyone in safely.  The party rests up while a full military expedition is sent to reclaim the shattered hold.  Success on their first mission!

Mapping in the Underdark

The new Dwarf-based Next playtest game we are starting is going to have a significant underground component to it - which means I've had to think about both above and below-ground mapping.

I'm pretty happy with how the aboveground map is turning out, and combining it with landscape/location shots on the tumlr is something that I think is really nice.  Great to give a visual feeling to the locations.  I'm also setting up a scaling world map, with nested hexes for increased detail.  All very nice and working well.

Underdark mapping is harder, though.  It doesn't lend itself well to a traditional hex or wilderness map, since your choices are limited to specific paths or routes.  This makes it inherently a node or path-based map.

As far as I'm concerned, there are about 4 critical features that I, as the DM, need to know on an underdark map.

1) Physical connections between locations.  Since you are limited to following tunnels or routes when underground, I need to know which routes go where, and what areas/locations they connect to.

2) How physically difficult the route is.  Underground travel is much more physically demanding and difficult than overland travel - similar to high mountains, but with added hazards.  A challenging route would potentially include serious climbs, narrow areas and water hazards.  Challenging routes mean slower travel.

3) How dangerous the route is.  Similar to how difficult the route is, but this measures likelihood of hostile random encounters.  It is also an indicator of how often the route is patrolled by friendly forces, or how well-guarded/secure it is.  Dangerous routes mean more random encounters, and more unpleasant encounters.

4) Connections up or down.  If a route or area goes to the surface, that's a big deal.  Technically, underdark maps should be fully 3d, but in practical terms, it's easier to design in z-levels, like Dwarf Fortress maps, so identifying various "levels" of the underdark and mapping what areas and routes go down or up is helpful.

Now, my feeling is that a good map needs to be able to transmit all important information quickly and in an intuitive fashion.

Underdark Starting Map

This version is a bit zoomed out, but the basics should be visible.  The locations are flagged and ID'ed by name using a gold-medallion icon.  For the tunnels themselves, I use the following key:

Line thickness indicates the physical difficulty.  The thicker a line is, the easier it is to traverse.  Bold black lines are the underdark equivalent of a paved road, down to the very thin lines, which are basically unimproved cavern, with all the hazards that implies.

In terms of travel time, I double it for each of the 3 line thicknesses.  So a 1-day journey would be 2 days on a mid-thickness line and 4 days on a thin line.

Line color indicates the danger level of the route.

Black – Safe. (roll d4 on encounter chart)

Green – Somewhat safe. (roll d6 on encounter chart)

Yellow – Unsafe. (roll d8 on encounter chart)
Orange - Hazardous. (roll d10 on encounter chart)

Red – Extremely dangerous. (roll d12 on encounter chart)

I'm going to use an expanding-dice encounter chart with this.  By scaling the dice you roll, you can use a large encounter chart for all areas, allowing the dice you use to filter out the encounters appropriate for each type of area.  Something like this:

1 Merchant with porters.  Probably friendly, likely inclined to swap stories or trade.

2 Paths Guild scouts/patrol.  Brisk, professional, curious about what you’re up to.

3 Lone prospector.  Roll d8 for reaction (1-4, coming in looking tired and beat.  5-6, going out looking rested and ready to go.  7-8, WTF are you looking at?  You’ll never find it.  NEVER.)

4 Kobold raiders – d6 skulking raiders looking for something to steal.

5 Giant Spiders – d4 Giant spiders with a hunger on.

6 Pechs –d6 pechs doing inscrutable things that probably make traversing the cavern more difficult

7 Goblin snatchers – d10 goblins looking for something to kill, eat or mate with.  They ain’t picky, either.

8 Duergar patrol – 1 fist (5 duergar) on patrol. They will kill to ensure they aren’t reported.

9 Basilisk – d2 Basilisks.  They like their meat with a thin crunchy coating…

10. Grey ooze.  Hard to tell it’s there until your boots start melting.  Oh, you were sitting down?

11. Earth Elemental.  Roll d8 for reaction (1-2 Passing through, didn’t see you.  Roll 1 attack an all party members as it rumbles through.  3-4 Curious.  Will examine the party to see if they are hostile.  5-6 Meat-things bother me.  Will likely attack unless placated or party flees.  7-8.  Goddamn, these things are everywhere!  Attacks immediately)

12. Something really weird from the special encounter list.

Locations generally will have connection up/down info included in the description.  For smaller sites, they are depicted with a circle.  White center means it connects to the surface.  Black center means it connects to a lower level.  Grey center means it connects to both.  Blue center means no connections.

D&D Next Playtest Session 4: Against the Kobolds

When I ran Chapter 3 of Blingdenstone Enhanced, I didn’t get a chance to use my full remake and ended up using the included map instead.  That actually worked out better than I thought it would, but I still wasn’t that happy with it.

For Chapter 2, I managed to get the Enhanced Version finished before we ran it, so I got to use it.  As you may have already seen in Chapter 2 Enhanced, I combined the random-encounter format of chapter 2 as it’s presented in the standard Reclaiming Blingdenstone with a fully mapped-out kobold lair. I also added some additional kobold traps and modified the encounter table to make it more likely that the party would find crystals without having to roll dozens of encounters to find them.

After chatting with Gurmadden and Kargien a bit more, the party loaded up on supplies (a couple days worth of dried mushrooms) and headed out over the barricades into the ruined city.  They brought torches and have the cleric’s orison available for light purposes, and since they leveled up last session, the Halfling thief (Steven Seagal – he fights with a knife and can cook) has low-light vision now, so he was able to take the lead.

Of course, they neglected to mention that they were actually on the lookout for traps or ambushes and strolled blithely right into the first kobold ambush.  On the upside, the thief was way out in front and his high dex and light armor made evading the net and resulting shower of javelins pretty simple.  The rest of the party rushed up and laid the hammer down on the ambushing kobolds, who scattered immediately and only took about 3 casualties.

The kobolds didn’t get off so lightly on the next ambush, though.  Incensed that the monsters were fleeing them, the party pushed on in full alert.  Steven Segal noticed the next net trap, surreptitiously alerted the party and led them around it, then hid and came back to look for the ambushers.  The kobolds didn't really twig to the fact that the trap had been spotted but were staying hidden, so Steven was able to sneak back and start killing them. 

Then the party spotted the hiding kobolds and laid into them – essentially turning the ambush.  Only about 3 kobolds managed to get away this time.  Kobolds are quick little buggers when they are scared.

Afterwards, the party continued on to the Wormwindings (I keep forgetting it’s called the Worm WRITHINGS, so I just changed it to what I keep calling it).  My version of the chapter gave the PC’s the option of asking Miglin to search for the kobold lair directly, which is what they elected to do – after managing to identify the rockfall trap at the entrance.

I rolled a 4 on the amount of time it would take for Miglin to find the lair, which meant that they had 3 random encounters before locating it.  On reflection, I might bump that roll up to a d6 or a d8.  It didn’t seem like it was long enough.  The 3 encounters they had were:  precious metal vein (silver), precious metal vein (gold), crystals…  but they elected not to do any mining on any of them for fear of alerting the kobolds.

When they finally found the lair, they managed to sneak pretty close to the entrance, then launched an assault.  The initial defenders broke pretty quickly since both fighters and the thief were in hand-to-hand range and the cleric and wizard both laid into them with ranged spells.  The 2-h weapon fighter then pursued the fleeing kobolds deeper into the lair, where he was met by a shower of javelins in the secondary ambush, dropping him from 29 HP to 9 HP in one round.

A quick retreat, cure light wounds, then a charge led by the heavily-armored dwarf and a missile barrage from the thief and the spell-casters broke the secondary ambush and sent the kobolds scattering into a network of low tunnels.  The thief pursued them and they had a bad time.

The rest of the party followed the main tunnel and came up on the kobold barricade.  They quickly formulated a plan and opened up with a missile/spell barrage on the barricade defenders.  One of the spells was Radiant Lance, which hit and killed a kobold defender.  I’d been describing the radiant lance kills as bursting the kobolds into flame, so when that happened, I rolled to see what the burning lil bugger would do, and what he did was fall over onto the barricade and prematurely light off the pitch that they had soaked it in…

That, combined with a sleep spell that had caused half the others to drop asleep, cause big problems for the kobolds, and the few survivors fled again, leaving a merrily burning barricade.  The party waited for the barricade to burn down, then crossed and was faced by a fork in the road.  On way let to a kobold dining room, the other to a tunnel for which came a horrible, horrible stench…

They chose the horrible stench.  I’m not sure why players do that – but if you tell them they smell something horrible, they will go and find out what it is, by god.  I think it’s the same reflex that makes us look inside the Kleenex after we blow our nose.

Anyway, the source of the horrible stench was the kobold’s trash-heap, and it’s attendant Otyugh, who was not happy about them attempting to steal his delicious trash.  One short and unpleasant (for the Otyugh) fight later, and the party was able to retrieve a corpse with a masterwork short sword from the pile of garbage.

Turning back, they encountered the kobold scouts who were searching for them.  In a simultaneous ambush, kobolds come off poorly against armored dwarf fighters, and the surviving kobolds fled again.

Things We Learned:

Killing kobolds doesn’t get old.

When pretty much everyone has +3 dmj adjustments, kobolds are pretty much all minions.

Concentrated fire can be very dangerous.  If anyone but the high-hp fighter had run into the kobold crossfire, they would likely be dead.

The thief is AWESOME.  I’ve read some places that the thief is seen as somehow problematic.  If that’s the case, you’re playing the thief wrong.  He has good ranged and close attacks, his skills make him essential for trapped or dangerous areas and his sneak attack makes him brutal if he gets the drop on you.  Last session I really saw the flexibility of the expertise dice for the fighter – this session I saw the versatility of the thief.

Short-range AOE stuff from the wizard can clear out low-hp enemies, but it’s really dangerous.  There is none of the ranged AOE stuff from 4^th on display here yet, so the risk/reward is really high, which is kinda good, I think.

I dig this game.  As does the rest of my gaming group.  Hopefully we’ll see more playtest stuff soon, because I’m already planning out a long-term campaign.

Blingdenstone Enhanced: Chapter 2

Ah... Chapter 2.

I like a lot (but not alot) of things about this chapter.  I like that it presents a tunnel complex as a series of connected events without a specific map.  I like that it uses random encounters to build the structure, essentially making it play differently for each group.  I like that there are both positive and negative random encounters on the list.  These are good things.

But I also hate some things about it.  There are 2 kinds of kobold traps and some weak-ass ambushes.  The frequency of the crystals is also a bit of a bother.  The average number of crystals you'll find is 2 (1-3).  You have a 1 in 5 chance of finding crystals for each hour that you spend in the Wormwindings, and you need 6 crystals.  That means that you will likely have to roll at least 15 times on the random encounter tables to find said 6 crystals.

Since the encounter table only has about 6 entries on it, statistically you're going to see them a number of times, which is not ideal.  Makes the whole thing pretty repetitious, in fact.  Of course, I haven't actually played it yet, but I'm not really willing to run risks on that, so I modified the table to give a higher chance of finding crystals.  That way if the party wants to wander around looking for mineral/gem deposits, they can, but they are likely to find the crystals pretty fast.

I also don't really like the idea that the kobolds are going to be blocked off by collapsing the one passage.  These are KOBOLDS.  They get in places.  That's what they do.  So blocking the tunnel will provide a temporary relief from kobold incursions now, but not a permanent cessation.  Of course, blocking the tunnel does have the benefit of heading off some of the random events that I added in Blindenstone Enhanced, so it's a trade-off.

In this version, the only way to really get rid of the kobolds is either a) kill a bunch of em, a la the orcs, or b) track down the lair and kill a bunch of em.  Kobold tunnel rat work is not for sissies.

So this chapter of Blingdenstone Enhanced features a full kobold lair, along with a 5e conversion of the Otyugh.  Enjoy!

Chapter 2 Enhanced.

Since killing the little buggers is a standard method for control, here is a cheat sheet.

Kobold Cheat Sheet

If you are using a VTT, here is the warren map file.  Pretty sure I got it off Campaign Cartographer, but I went on a helluva downloading spree a while ago and didn't attribute everything.

Kobold Warren.

D&D Next Playtest 3 - Asking "Why?"

We played a 2 1/2 hour session of Reclaiming Blingdenstone last night.  There was one combat encounter.  It was a tough one, and I'll go into why in a bit - but it was also right at the beginning of the session and relatively short.  Maybe 30 minutes all-in.  The rest of the session was pretty much all role-playing.  Which was AWESOME.

The session started with a random event "ROUS" - giant rats invading the storage palisade.  The party led the charge down the stairs and were immediately ambushed by 12 cave rats and 2 dire rats.  This was BY FAR the toughest fight I've done in Next.  If you don't have area-effect spells, minions can be a real handful, and rats can reinforce each other, gaining bonuses to hit.  Additionally, most characters don't have multiple attack options, so missing can really hurt.

Fortunately, some solid healing, a brave charge to the front/burning hands combo by the mage and some skilled use of expertise dice by the fighters (both of them used expertise dice only for damage reduction, and it may have been a TPK if they hadn't), and the day was won.  Hordes of light baddies can be a real issue - far more so than in 4E due to a more limited economy of actions and Vancian spellcasting - plus the party hadn't rested up after clearing the Town Center, so they were low on spells and slightly dinged up.

After the initial fight, that the players spent most of the session exploring various parts of Blingdenstone and talking to a lot of NPC's.  There was one turning point moment in the session where Briddick, an NPC the characters have had some amusing conversations with, casually mentions to them "I heard you gave the crown of Blingdenstone to Kargien.  Why'd you do that?"

The silence was immediate.  I could hear a pin drop.  I couldn't see their faces, but I know they were all thinking the same thing... "Why DID we give him the crown?"  followed by, "wait - not giving him the crown was an option?" and, "he gave us the quest, didn't he?"

One of the players responded with, "Well, he asked us to get it for him, and we just thought..."  and then he trailed off.  Briddick shrugged and said "Oh well, maybe it won't turn out that badly.  We can't get it back from him now, anyways."

And from that point on, the party was off like a hound on a scent.  They started asking Briddick and the other NPC's they met questions. They asked about Kargien, about what the gnomes thought of him, about the history of the expedition. They mapped relationships and identified who supported Kargien and who didn't.  They asked questions about lore and elemental planes and went and learned a lot about the gnome political situation.

They role-played.  It was great.  I thing we all had a ton of fun, and my cheat-sheet really helped - giving me quick prompts about what each NPC was like and what they wanted.

By the end of the session, the party talked to the Pechs, found out about the Boon and the Bane and got a little political intrigue started.  Since Kargien is hostile to the Pechs, and the party wants their help, and the Pechs want the gnomes to let them continue to live in Blingdenstone, the party had to find a way around Kargien.  Fortunately, they now knew that Gurmadden and Henkalla generally opposed Kargien, so they put the plan to coexist with the Pechs to Gurmadden, who got Pingtu, a general supporter of Kargien, but practical and influential gnome onside.  The plan should push through, allowing the party to enlist the active help of the Pechs in getting rid of Ogremoch's Bane.

The next order of business seems to be to scout out Entemoch's Boon and clear out the kobolds in the Wormwindings, so I better get that part of the upgrade done, as that chapter has some serious problems as-presented.

Incorporating High Level NPC's

When I started this blog, I wanted to talk about two of my favorite things (but not brown paper packages, tied up with strings).  Those things are RPG's and fantasy novels.  Fantasy novels are great mind-fodder for any RPG player or GM.  They often have wonderful characters, settings, antagonists and ideas for you to crib, incorporate, rework or generally just assimilate into your games.

One series that I'm particularly fond of is the Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson.  The amazing scope, breadth of history, compelling characters and epic plots of the books really have to be read to be believed, but I think it's safe to say that, other than the Wheel of Time, another sort of series altogether, the Malazan Book of the Fallen is the most ambitious fantasy series ever written.  Lord of the Rings was ground-breaking and fantastic, but Erikson is a much more sophisticated writer.

One of the things that I like the most is the way that the books incorporate characters of various different power levels.  From the demigod-like ascendants, all the way down to the frequently deranged swamp-dwelling High Marshals of the Mott Irregulars (they are ALL High Marshals in the Mott Irregulars), pretty much every level of combat prowess or arcane power is represented.

I think that any DM who would like to work high-level NPC's into their game can learn a lot from Erikson's books.  In many cases, these high-level characters are powerful forces whose actions effect the less-powerful like natural disasters or forces of nature.  When titans clash, the wise get the heck out of Dodge.  

High-level NPC's don't just have to be mentors, rulers or antagonists.  They can also be inscrutable wanderers who occasionally devastate a continent for reasons only they know.  Or warring heroes whose battle destroy towns or countries.  It's possible to set all kinds of adventures around these kind of events.  Rescues, attacks that take advantage of the overall chaos, or even serving and supporting one of these powers, with or without their knowledge.  

So if you want some inspiration on creating a world where level 30 characters exist, then give the Malazan Books of the Fallen a read, and tell Kharsa Orlong I said hi.  From a fair distance.

Writing an Adventure, 4e-style

One of the things that I like best about 4th Edition DnD is how easy it makes the adventure creation process.  I can honestly say that in 20 years of role-playing, I've never come across a system that makes the raw numbers of encounter creation so accessible and user-friendly.

This means a lot to me, since I'm a DM.  I really like that the guessing game of "too strong or too weak" is gone the way of THAC0.  The ability to quickly calibrate the difficulty of an encounter give me a lot more time to work on the cool stuff - creating interesting encounter locations, memorable NPC's, interesting lore and great story. 

In this series of posts, I'm going to go over my process for creating an adventure for a group of 4-5 1st level PCs, taking them to second level.  Ideally, this will help novice or inexperienced DM's with the mechanics of adventure creation, as well as giving everyone else some neat campaign idea.  I'll try to post encounter maps and stat blocks for everything. If people want to use the adventure, please feel free.

Step 1: Inspiration

The inspiration for this adventure came from a very vivid image I had in my head of a tower on a steep cliff with a cresent-moon shaped roof.  The tower is set on a ridge, with a cliff behind it.  The ridge is wooded, and at the bottom of the ridge a sheer chasm falls away.  At the edge of the chasm is a bridge, with a small keep made up of two small round towers guarding one end.

One of the characters in the game is a priestess of Sehanine, the elven goddess of night and the moon, so I decided that the tower was a place holy to Sehanine - not a temple, though.  It's a monastery, where a seer of the goddess lives.  I decided to call it the Sanctuary of the Waning Moon.

Step 2: Antagonists

I'm going to crib the basic idea for the villain of this piece from the second book of Peter Morwood's amazing series about Aldric Talvalin, called The Demon Lord.  The entire series is 4 books, the Horse Lord, the Demon Lord, the Dragon Lord and The Warlord's Domain.  If you can find them, they're a great series.  The antagonist here is a demon-god, called Ithaqua - previously a god of harvest and growth, the disappearance of its worshippers has caused it to degenerate into a demon representing rot, blight and corruption.  I'm not going to put the PC's up against the demon here, just have them investigate a symptom of it's corrupting influence - in this case, a seer of Sehanine who has been possessed and driven mad.

Since Sehanine is an elven goddess, and the demon is a nature-related one, I'm going to have links to the Feywild scattered throughout the early adventures, with the idea that the PC's will eventually have to go there to stop the demon, ideally at around 10th level, but that's further down the road.

So the basic plan here is to have the PC's sent to investigate the Sanctuary of the Waning Moon, to find out why the seeress there has not communicated with the regional temple in some time.