Epiro: Episode 106

Cast

• Iola (wood elf monk 3)
• Perseus (human paladin 3)
• Yllian (high elf wizard 3)
• Corvus (human ranger 3)
• Randy (wood elf druid 3)

The characters had been hiking across the Goathills for about an hour, searching for wherever it was the wights that had attacked them last night had come from--ideally an unguarded, treasure-laden burial ground--when they came across a gentle, grassy valley.

Given that Corvus was having no trouble following the trail left by the wights, they decided to cut across as the terrain would be easier on the wagon and it would save time. This worked out well enough until they got about halfway across, at which point they noticed that there were numerous bones scattered throughout the grass (which they were easily able to identify as horse bones thanks to the live specimen on hand).

Pegasus started acting nervously, not because of the bones (which would have been understandable), but because of the griffon doing a poor job of hiding in the grass a couple hundred feet away. It was, unfortunately, just a distraction, and as they tried to turn the wagon around another burst from cover and dived at them. Well, specifically Pegasus, because griffons love them some horse.

Perseus interposed himself between the two, but only managed to graze the griffon as it bolted past. Iola leapt into action, hitting it square in the beak with a kick that sent it spinning to the ground. It recovered quickly, raking Iola with one of its claws as it circled around her towards Pegasus. The other griffon sprung into action, but was anticlimactically chased off by one of Yllian's color sprays. Thankfully I had a third griffin in reserve, which was able to temporarily take him out of the fight with a few good claw attacks.

The griffons were chased off after a few rounds, as I figured that even with the promise of delicious horse on the line they were not willing to die for it. Randy got to take his cat form for a spin, which is pretty brutal with a 2-3 attack routine, but despite going up against a pair of Large creatures Kamon was unable to try out his favored enemy features. Oh well, I still gave them full experience points for surviving the encounter and driving them off.

They found the burial place of the wights a few hours later, a chambered cairn dug into the side of a low hill. Perseus took point, his shield illuminated with Yllian's magic. After a short flight of worn stairs they found themselves in a large, circular chamber. The center was dominated with a stone pillar carved with the likeness of a chimera, and three passages branched away.

Behind the totem was a dessicated corpse of a woman, either human or elf they could not tell, clutching a pair of stone boots. Yllian deduced that she was probably slain by one of the wights. When he went to move her arm to better examine the boots, a stone amulet clattered to the ground as she crumbled into dust: it was engraved with a jagged spiral that he vaguely recalled was indicative of some elemental entity.

The boots were carved entirely of stone. There were spaces that might have once been inlaid with precious metals or maybe gems, and dwarven runes mentioned something about The Lord That Shatters The Earth. Yllian had neglected to prepare any detect magic spells, so if they were magical (they were), it would have to wait until the next day to determine what they could do (something really cool).

Iola discovered the hard way that each of the passages were trapped, though she made her Dexterity save and was able to walk away with only minor burns. At the end of each passage was a burial alcove where it was assumed that the wights were originally laid to rest, and they managed to find a cache of art objects, which included a drinking horn and chimera-skin carpet.

With the place thoroughly looted they made their way to Goathill Quarry to meet up with the caravan. The four-hour walk was uneventful, though they did not make it back until well after nightfall. Given that much of the town's "staff" were indentured criminals the place did not see many tourists; there was only one inn, and a small one at that. Even worse was that it was mostly filled up thanks to the caravan, so most of the characters ended up having to crash in their wagon (at least they had that chimera-skin carpet to keep them warm).

This ended up being just as well, as their respite was abruptly interrupted by a devastating, quarry-collapsing earthquake. Normally this would be bad enough, except for the aforementioned criminals accounting for the majority of the town's population.

Behind the Scenes
The characters finally feel durable and competent enough that I can safely throw difficult challenges at them without it being a total-party wipe. Just a level ago a single griffon would have mopped the floor with them, what with their triple multiattack combo and 11-point per claw average.

Despite being able to fly for a short period of time all of twice per day, the monk still seems incredibly boring. I desperately want to see a monk that gives you something neat that you can reliably do at 1st-level, with a variety of thematic options to choose from as you level up. The traditions are nice, except that you can only do tradition-specific things once per day.

For example, I think that Path of Four Storms should give you a bonus on jump checks, and/or a speed boost, while Path of Stone's Endurance could give you a bonus on Constitution saves, and maybe bonus damage or damage resistance if you do not move on your turn. Not sure what to do with Phoenix...maybe let you spend Hit Dice when dropped below 0 hit points (even as a once per day thing), possibly also fire resistance?

Basically do what 4th Edition did, but tone down the initial amount of options.

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Wandering Monsters: Because Good Is Dumb

I look at this list of monsters, most I am aware of, none I have used, most I would not use (at least, not as presented), and I cannot help but think that there are more pressing questions than what creature type to best shoehorn them into.

For starters, do they really need laundry lists of spells, spell-like abilities, and maybe even psionics? Many of the monster entries mention casting spells like a cleric and/or wizard, with the phoenix getting called out as having "tons of magical abilities". Given that the coautl could cast spells like a 9th-level sorcerer in 3rd Edition, I wonder what the barometer is?

The mythological baku started out as a chimeric creature that could protect against disease and evil. Later dream-devouring would get added to its roster, and its appearance would eventually change into that of a tapir. The concept and capabilities seem fairly simple, so what is with all the the psionic powers? I no longer have a copy of The Complete Psionicist's Handbook, so I can only guess that absorb disease makes sense, but what about animal affinity, metamorphosis, and ectoplasmic form?

For this I greatly prefer 4th Edition for monster presentation: you get an entire block, on the same page, and you do not have to reference one or more other books to figure out what anything does. Just a glance at the "typical lammasu's" loadout of twenty-one cleric spells (of which a merciful few were prepared twice) causes flashes of Edition-induced PTSD.

When it comes to type I disagree that Dungeons & Dragons, at least in both 3rd Edition and Next, have an orderly structure of creature types. For example, in 3rd Edition if you came from another plane, you were an Outsider, but inevitables are considered Constructs. Even mortal, humanoid races like aasimar and tieflings were Outsiders, unless they were born and raised on the Material Plane, in which case they were Outsiders with the Native subtype.

Next not only retains some artifacts from 3rd Edition, but makes things even more confusing. Why does Giant have to be a separate type from Humanoid? I always figured that a size category, or maybe even a subtype would do the trick. Do Fiends need their own type, when there are Demon and Devil subtypes? The same thing goes for the Dragon type: it seems like Monstrosity would do, despite it being divided from Beast by a very, very blurry line.

While some of the monsters in the article clearly come across as celestial entities, like the hollyphant and ki-rin, that does not work for all of them. I think that the baku and couatl would work just fine as magical beasts, though this might be grounds for a spirit type, or at least a subtype. Again, 4th Edition did it better with its origin/type combinations, and with only ten options between them both to boot. You could give them the immortal origin, lock them in a tomb, and call it good.

As for the poll questions, while I do not think that they necessarily need to get rid of any of them, I think a lot of them could stand to have their concepts and/or mechanics revised. For example the lamassu and shedu could be folded into one monster (since they are both the same thing), and you could stick with the bull depiction to help differentiate them from a sphinx.

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Legends & Lore: Exploration And Interaction Pillars

After a two-week absence Legends & Lore returns with a look at two of Next's occasionally-mentioned three-pillar system, which I just now realized that if arranged properly could be referred to as “ICE” (not to be confused with Shadowrun's IC).

I have not used the exploration rules beyond overland travel, and even then I kept forgetting to assign exploration tasks, so removing the 1-day time increment will not affect me much. The addition of weather rules sounds fun, but not nearly as fun as the potential for classes and monsters to interact with them (especially stuff like the bit about the green dragon).

One of the things that I disliked about 3rd Edition was that it was a simple matter to rack up a massive Diplomacy skill modifier early on: half-elves got a +2, three skills could give you +2 synergy bonuses, and you could also lump Negotiator and Skill Focus together for another +5, which meant that at level 3 you could feasibly have a +19 bonus before Charisma became a factor.

Not only did this make it incredibly easy to change most NPC reactions to at least indifferent--going from Hostile to Indifferent "only" required a DC 25 check, which you could make on a 6 if your Charisma "only" was average--but it basically relegated social interactions to the guy with the highest Diplomacy modifier.

4th Edition tried to make it easier for more characters to contribute to these sorts of interactions with mixed results: all to often players--mine included--ended up "spamming" the skills they were best at until they got the requisite number of successes, or just piled on Aid Another bonuses so that someone else could. Or, you know, if they had nothing better to do.

Given that the interaction rules involve "Charisma checks (or other checks, as appropriate)", it sounds like they are to a degree starting with something resembling 4th Edition's skill challenge system. I am of the mind that skill challenges got better over time, so hopefully the designers have learned from this. If nothing else NPC traits, as well as the ability to "invoke" them with varying results (as well as related monster- and character-abilities), sounds both ambitious and interesting.

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DDN Q&A: Wound Modules, Uncommon Choices, and Humans

There are two reasons that can pretty much sum up why I am unsatisfied with hit points in Next: you do not start with enough, and you are largely reliant on magic to get them back.

When I tried running Age of Worms in 3rd Edition several months ago, the characters ended up having to rest every few rooms due to the lack of a cleric. In my Next campaign Hit Dice have made things a bit smoother, but ultimately it depends on how many cure wounds spells the druid and ranger have on tap.

The talk of a variety of hit point modules is good, I guess, so long as at least one of them lets you play without having to have magical healing. I think I have said before that my ideal hit point system would be something like the vitality- and wound-point split that I first saw in 3rd Edition's Unearthed Arcana (and that I maybe saw later in one of the Star Wars games), where wound points are based on your Constitution score, and vitality points are derived from class.

Wound points would recover more slowly over time, maybe based on your Constitution modifier. Certain attacks like poison, maybe critical hits, could directly apply to wound points. Vitality points would recover much more quickly, being the more abstract part generally reflected by combat skill, luck, etc. Things like warlord "shouts" could be used to recover them in combat, as well. I would also do something like Dragon Age: Origins, where getting reduced to zero wound points slaps you with a persistent injury that recovers over time.

As for halfling barbarians, I think that 4th Edition did oddball combinations best by making it so that while certain race/class combinations were more ideal, the rest were still capable of contributing in a meaningful manner. Like, a half-orc barbarian would probably start out with a Strength score of 18, but the benchmark was 16, which a halfling could still do. The ironic downside with Next is that given the 20 cap on ability scores, even before all the talk of stat-boosting feats, everyone will end up with the same score no matter their size category.

Humans used to be a very fun race to play because you got a variety of floating bonuses. Now its just a bonus to all your stats, and...that is it. Pretty easy to build with, but really boring. I do not think that humans should just be the "speed-building" race, especially when it means that they are as strong, tough, fast, smart, wise, etc as other races that are supposed to have those traits as a shtick.

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Wandering Monsters: Demonic Cults

And here I was thinking that we would not get a Wandering Monsters article today. What is even more surprising is that I like a lot of what it has to say (in particular the entries on Demogorgon and Baphomet); though only a few paragraphs, each type of cult has its own defining word--madness, destruction, and decadence--as well as a solid foundation to build adventures on.

The Cthulhu association with Demogorgon is an angle I had never considered before, despite the fact that he is apparently allied with Dagon to some capacity. I dig it, but then I tend to dig many things associated with the Cthulhu mythos.

Demogorgon's appearance has changed several times over the editions, and I am hoping that they keep the more recent renditions, namely this one:

Despite running a Greek-themed campaign, I had not given much thought to Baphomet until now. I love the adventure seed of cultists abducting people in order to ceremoniously murder them in a maze, and will fit that in at some point (though I might have the characters captured, too).

The bit on Graz'zt is the weakest, but still delivers some solid flavor on the sort of things his cultists might do. If nothing else is presents a good argument on why a nice chunk of tieflings might have similar traits, maybe even a thematic warlock pact.

All in all I think that this was a pretty good article. I like the direction they are heading, and each of them has given me a clear idea of how I might use them in my campaigns.

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Faster Combat Review

One of the biggest--and to me, more legitimate--criticisms about Dungeons & Dragons is the length of combat. I remember how, back in 3rd Edition, combat was often resolved pretty quickly, allowing us to plow through a good chunk of dungeon in a given sitting.

When 4th Edition came out, though we were excited by all the options and changes, we saw immediately that combat could drag, especially if monsters took reduced damage or could heal. The kobold ambush at the start of Keep on the Shadowfell? That could eat up 30-60 minutes of game time, and that is just for kobolds.

Faster Combat is just over 260 pages of advice and methods on how to speed up combat in your game. Some of it are things that you probably already know, like pre-rolled initiative charts, average damage results (which is featured in D&D Next's monsters), and reducing monster hit points by 25% or more, but there is a lot of other stuff in here, like noting how long individual players take (along with a variety of ways to establish a time limit, as well as a reward system), ways to identify character strengths and weaknesses (along with ways to challenge or pander to them), and combat terrain to use/not-use.

Even better is that is is not just about combat efficiency; there are sections on how to design more exciting encounters (along with a list of 20 random and fantastic encounter locations), run "cannon fodder" and boss monsters, 50 monster quirks, numerous linked resources relating to whatever it is you are learning about, and more.

It is, in a word, extensive, which is good because even if a DM is not willing to invest much time in an attempt to resolve any of the issues mentioned (which not every group suffers from, or even identifies as such), there are still other things that he or she might find useful, like the aforementioned random encounter and quirks, and encounter building advice.

The ebook runs $20, but whether or not it is worth it depends on what kind of games you play (it is intended for Dungeons & Dragons and D&D-related games), and if you have any issues with running combat and/or building encounters. If so I think it is worth the buy, though even experienced DMs might learn a thing or two. You can preview the book's mind map, but this is where I think a few preview sections would help gamers on the fence.

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A Sundered World: Drow Draft

I have already elaborated at length as to why I do not like drow-as-written, and since I do not expect WotC
to give this iconic Underdark race any depth, Josh and I came up with a different origin and flavor to back them up. As always, let me know what you think.

During the Sundering, the elves opened up gates that allowed them to evacuate to the moon. Other things made it there as well, or later—which we will cover in a blogpost specifically about the Feywild/Faerie/Wyld/whatever we end up calling it—but not everyone did.

Like the drow.

The drow were in a bad place at a bad time. When the barriers between words was shattered, each plane, with their own rules, layout, and denizens tried to fill in the gaps. The severity and end result of which plane, if any, would come out on top in any given place was...unpredictable to say the least; not only were the drow unable to maintain their own gate, but their home was flung into the far reaches of the Astral, and it was assumed that they were lost or destroyed.

They were not.

Drow dwell within the dark regions of the Astral, venturing forth to ambush astral vessels or hunt, though some houses are willing to trade or hire themselves out. Their homes are large motes of stone that vary in size and shape—though generally the more powerful the colony, the larger the mote—and riddled with numerous passages (think floating termite columns). Though gravity on the Astral is usually subjective, these tunnel networks are still useful in disorienting intruders, making it easy to separate and dispatch them.

Physiology
For the most part drow are similar to other elves, except that their skin is very pale, and in some cases semi-translucent. Hair color is generally black or white, but other colors can manifest as a result of one or more transmutations.

Drow undergo ritualistic transmutations as reward for their accomplishments. These can range from additional eyes or limbs, venomous fangs, chitinous skin, and so on. As a rule of thumb the more spider-like a drow appears, the more powerful it is. For D&D, this would be reflected as optional powers that you can add to drow (boosting their XP value), while for Dungeon World this would just add moves.

Society
We are sticking with the matriarchal society, but alignment-wise they would range from Lawful Evil to Neutral Evil, or either Neutral or Evil in Dungeon World parlance. Definitely toning down the random betrayals and murder, as there is really no way that any kind of meaningful society could flourish if almost everyone was Chaotic Evil. Plus, I want there to be other reasons for drow adventurers beyond "inexplicably good renegade".

We are also kicking around the idea of giving them something like a "hive mind", making them like Borg, only with spider-bits instead of machines. I think this would be more appropriate if their insect theme was ants or wasps, but as with the alignment shift above I want to make sure that there is a fairly easy way to play a drow.

Hierarchy
At the top of the food chain is the Spider Queen. She appears as a drider, but her entire body is covered in a hardened carapace, and there is little to indicate that she was once an elf. I imagine her face being a largely expressionless mask—kind of like that scene in Mimic where they realize that the bugs are mimicking them—behind which is a grotesque conglomeration of eyes, mandibles, and hair.

The drow worship and offer sacrifices to her, making her the source of their divine magic and considerably powerful, comparable to Asmodeus (Next), an apocalypse dragon (Dungeon World), or a level 30+ solo controller (4th Edition D&D).

The matrons look similar to the Spider-Queen, but the humanoid half of their bodies are still mostly recognizable as elf. Each drow house is lead by a single matron. They are very capable in combat and able to channel powerful divine magic, but tend to keep a handful of heavily mutated warriors (aka, royal guard) on hand just in case.

Priests are drow that have yet received the same "gift" that their matrons have, but are still trained in martial combat—wielding daggers or swords instead of snake-whips—and have access to divine magic.

Warriors who prove themselves enough are elevated to royal guard, ranked just beneath the priests that they are assigned to protect. It is because of this that they are the subject of numerous transmutations, oftentimes retaining only a vaguely humanoid shape.

Weavers are arcanists that specialize in thematic "spider" magic: they can summon spiders—including spider-like demons and devils—conjure sheets of webs, bind creatures, poison, and such.

The typical rank-and-file warrior retains most of its elven appearance. They wield swords (often times two), poisoned javelins, and wear a kind of carapace armor that is mechanically identical to studded leather.

As for spell-like abilities, I am shying away from faerie fire and levitate. Darkness is fine, but I think giving them something like web, the ability to envenom one of their weapons, or even something more mundane like advantage on climb checks makes more sense.

Spidership
Spiderships are, as their name implies, vessels built in the shape of a spider, complete with articulated limbs. I am thinking something like the Necron tomb spiders. Raiders attack by initially launching a salvo of ballista bolts at a vessel. Cables attached to the bolts allow their warriors to board while preventing escape.

Puppeteers specialize in telekinetic magic. This allows them to manipulate the legs, which they use to grasp onto ships, either to prevent them from escaping or to just crush them. The "strands" are visible to anyone able to detect magic, and can be severed with either abjuration magic or a cold iron weapon.

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Dragon's-Eye View: Imagining the World

It is has been quite awhile since there was a Dragon's-Eye View article that I wanted to comment on. While I am not a fan of Forgotten Realms, I do like the quality of this concept art:

They are evocative images that make we want to base dungeon locales off of just so I can show them to my players. I hope that this sets the bar for the quality we can expect.

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Wandering Monsters: Yugoloths & Gehreleths

Even though Planescape was my favorite campaign setting up until Eberron, I do not have much to say about the flavor of yugoloths, and even less about gehreleths.

To me yugoloths are just another kind of fiendish subset that seems to have been designed to fill in an alignment-spoke on the Great Wheel which, surprise surprise, is not enough to get me interested.

Neither does a high concept of, "greedy, unreliable mercenaries", for that matter.

Or a huge list of resistances.

From what I can gather from the article, yugoloths seem to tread the middle ground between Lawful and Chaotic, which makes sense because they are Neutral Evil, and...that is about it. There is nothing about them appearance-wise that even suggests they differ much from devils or demons:

Nycaloth and mezzoloth

A devil, obviously.

I get that Planescape probably has an extensive treatment on both, but that does not mean much to me if I am not running Planescape and/or do not care about the Blood War, or--even more heretical--running Planescape without the Great Wheel (and/or Blood War).

Speaking of the Blood War, I am not even sure what hooks to use with them without having a high-level, full-blown war campaign. I guess a wizard could summon one, only to have it escape? Maybe one gets trapped on the natural world/Material Plane and becomes a warlord? These could work, but they also sound just as feasible for a variety of other summoned/extraplanar things.

It is nice that they are parsing down spell-like abilities, as I have always felt that massive lists of spell-like abilities were unnecessary, but I think all of those resistances are also unnecessary since none of them seem to fit a theme. Like, I get that a lot of devils have fire resistance what with them being in Baator/Nine Hells, but why does every yugoloth have resistance against acid, cold, and lightning, too?

When it comes to individual yugoloths I do not have any issues for the most part; but I would keep the mezzoloth at six legs because of its insect-like appearance, and while I guess the nycaloth could stand to lose a pair, why not have both? A four-armed nycaloth could just be a more powerful incarnation.

Ultimately they will probably all end up looking very similar to their 2nd and 3rd Edition counterparts, which is a shame because as with many of the other Wandering Monsters articles there is a chance to be creative and give them a stronger identity (and, possibly, adventure hooks). I could see them bring rolled into demons given that many of them seem similar, but I do not think it is necessary or will do much to differentiate them. If nothing else, stick to calling them yugoloths instead of daemons.

(Oh, I almost forgot: either call the unique yugoloth Anthraxus or something else entirely. Changing it to Phraxus just to be politically correct is silly.)

And then there are gehreleths.

Sigh...

I had completely forgotten that these things exist, though when I looked up some art online I recall the DiTerlizzi art from one of the Planescape-specific monster manuals. They look kind of like slaads with wings, but they live on a prison plane. Eh, inhabitants of some kind of prison plane has merit, but I think that they need to have much, much stronger flavor material to back them up.

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Epiro: Episode 105

Cast

• Yllian Faraday (high elf wizard 2)
• Randy (wood elf druid 2)
• Iola Talmiel (wood elf monk 2)
• Perseus Eurymedon (human paladin 2)
• Corvus (human ranger 2)

---

Since last week it was decided that the characters were heading to Copper Cairns with a caravan in order to engage in some good old-fashion paid murder, I took the time to add some more towns, a fort, a hex-grid, and flesh out that particular story arc some more. As a result the map changed from this...

...to this.

Normally I would have just told them that they got there in about day without any hassle, as I learned a long time ago that having one or two random encounters a day was basically a complicated procedure that ultimately output free XP and/or treasure. With this I could not only better track their travel time, but I also got the satisfaction of rolling for a random encounter each time they entered a hex (using the convention I started in A Sundered World, where they got to choose the numbers that would trigger one).

The first random encounter was more psychologically scarring than anything else (though I imagine the flock of 2d4 + 1 cockatrices would also do the trick); one of Beth's goals for Perseus is to get something that is a pegasus in more than just name. This is not anything new, as her prior goals usually amounted to something along the lines of getting a horse-like creature, with an extra accessory or two (pretty much a unicorn or pegasus).

Four hours go by smoothly, but when they get to the south-western edge of the Goathills Iola notices something flying south. What could it be, you ask? Oh, a pegasus! Of course Perseus and Iola entertain the notion of dropping everything to follow it--probably because they thought that they could easily tame it--and of course no one else wants to do that because it is flying pretty quickly, and they are kind of on a schedule. Perseus and Iola relented, but at least they knew a good spot to look for one later, right?

Then they saw the rock.

It spun through the air, colliding with the pegasus and sending it spiraling to the ground. By itself this would be more than enough to shock them, but then they saw the stone giant that threw it. They continued to stand there and watch as it walked over to the downed pegasus, produced a elaborately carved stone club from the ground, and smashed its head. It then casually scooped it up, tossed the club over its shoulder--which merged with the ground as it landed--and walked back into the hills.

The rest of the day went on mostly uneventfully. Among some dialogue trees that I do not care to repeat, I recall Perseus and Iola promising to wreak vengeance upon the stone giant. You know, once they tripled their current level. Night fell, and given they were still three hours away from Goathill Quarry, they stopped to make camp. While Perseus seduced one of the caravan guards, the rest took turns with the watch. As in they helped keep an eye out for intruders, not, you know...

Anyway, everything went fine until they heard the screams. The caravan guards--or most of them, at any rate--were the first to the scene, discovering the dessicated remains of three other guards. As the alarm was raised, Yllian spotted something in the darkness outside the campfire's light. Perseus--weapon and shield in hand, and absolutely nothing else--rushed beyond the wagon circle to look for the attackers. He could just barely make out a humanoid figure in the dark, until Randy illuminated it with a well-placed fire seed.

Its skin was paper-thin, and seemed to just barely contain its bones. It was clad in old, rusted scale armor, with a helmet made from a large ram's skull. It was also swinging a massive club, which easily connected with Perseus since his Armor Class was down some six points. While Perseus, Randy, and Iola fought the undead creature, Corvus, who had hidden himself in a wagon, noticed two more creeping into the camp: they were similar to the first one, except one had a dragon skull for a helmet, while the other wielded two claw bracers.

He shot the one with the dragon-helmet almost point blank with an arrow. It barely seemed to affect it, but it still retaliated with a gout of fire. This attracted the attention of Yllian and Randy; the former blasted it with a few magic missiles, while the latter managed to bind it with an entangle spell. Perseus used Channel Divinity to smite the one with the ram helmet, and Iola finished off the one with the dragon-helmet with a flying boot to the head.

Which left just one. It charged Iola, knocking her to the ground and rending her with its claws Hunter style. One good damage roll and a crit later, and she was down for the count. Thankfully Corvus had access to a bit of healing magic, and was able to bring her back. After a charge from Perseus (which triggered the Boar King's Tusk's bonus damage), and a salvo of magic missiles from Yllian it was destroyed. The worst part--for me, anyway--was that, despite it being a wight, Iola's hit point reduction would go away the next day since she had not taken a long rest, yet.

With all the wights destroyed they inspected them, and discovered that they were warriors from the Chimera tribe, the equivalent of princes by the various trinkets that they wore. This meant that wherever they were buried would likely contain treasure of some sort. Even better since they just re-killed the occupants, it might even be unguarded (HA!). Though they decided to wait until morning to see if Corvus could track them back to their lair, they did not need to: once the sun was up they were able to clearly see the trail of dead grass where the wight's had tread.

The caravan master gave them the go ahead, stating that without them he would have lost even more men, and that they would wait in Goathill Quarry for a day before moving on.

Behind the Scenes
I decided to just let the stone giant do interesting stone-magic-things, making it up on the spot. I did not stat anything out, but would probably let it do it pretty much as often as it wants because it makes sense and is cool. This is the kind of stuff I would want monsters to be able to do, not just cull spells from the wizard's list.

For example, why does the aranea Customization Options include access to shocking grasp, magic missile, and sleep? None of those sound particularly spider-like. This is where I greatly preferred how 4th Edition handled monsters; you could design pretty much anything you want using a minimal of space.

Even at 27 hit points wights go down really quick, especially when over half the party can make ranged attacks that not only do half damage on a save, but allow you to followup with an actual attack. I was only able to use the wight-with-the-dragon-helmet's breath weapon, because I decided to make it a reaction when the wight lost half its hit points (or bloodied in 4th Edition parlance).

I preferred it more in 4th Edition, where healing powers just healed, radiant attacks just did damage, and vulnerabilities were up to the individual creature. As it is the damage is nice, it still deals half on a save, and you can still make an attack regardless of the outcome.

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Epiro: Episode 104

Cast

• Yllian Faraday (high elf wizard 2)
• Randy (wood elf druid 2)
• Iola Talmiel (wood elf monk 2)
• Perseus Eurymedon (human paladin 2)
• Corvus (human ranger 2)

"So, you killed the Boar King."

Despite the players having a week to come up with a snappy comeback, everyone was quiet. They glanced at each other, trying to think of the right thing to say, or maybe the thing that would not trigger combat; since satyrs are not in the Bestiary, it is entirely possible that they feared I would force Wisdom saving throws to avoid dancing until they puked out their hit points.

Eventually Yllian broke the silence with a classic, "Who wants to know?"

Smoothly, because though the average Charisma of a satyr in 3rd and 4th Edition varies by 5 points, the baseline is still above average--and thereby higher than mine--he replied, "Me, if you would be so kind." He then offered them a drink of wine, which I had not decided whether or not if it could impart any sort of magical effects, but they declined.

Yllian began to repeat his question, but Iola, tired of everyone beating around the bush, simply stated that yes, yes they did. The satyr nodded, wished them good luck escaping the forest, and turned to leave. Just before he made it over the crumbling ramparts, Yllian asked who he was working for. The satyr paused for a moment, and without so much as a turn of the head responded with, "The Lady of this forest. You know how it is." And then he was gone.

They did not attempt to follow, instead engaging in wild speculation, which is always fun to listen to. Randy, having lived in the forest for some time, was well aware of a spider-like fey entity, but thankfully had never run into her. They eventually settled on the theory that she had cursed the Boar King, that they had accidentally "freed" him from the curse before she had intended (which might have been never), and that she would likely seek retribution...or replacements. Fey can be weird like that.

Despite the potential threat of an angry spider-fey capable of serving century-long curses, they took a long rest before hitching up their cart full of heads and heading back to Sidon. As before, when they got to the ruined bridge Randy had his familiar scout ahead. This time it noticed a lone goblin camping on the bridge. He transformed into a fox to investigate the trees to see if any more were waiting in ambush. While he did not find any goblins lurking in the woods, he did find a pair of ogres.

Assuming that they were working together he crept up behind the goblin, shifting back into a human to make a grab at him. Since he rolled really well, and the goblin rolled really bad, he was able to not only pin his arms, but prevent the goblin from screaming. Given that he did not share his plans with the rest of the party, and they were some three-hundred feet away, he sent his familiar to go get them. After a few minutes of adorable pantomime, the party followed the owl to Randy.

After a bit of trying to figure out what to do with the goblin, they eventually decided to bargain with it, opening with another classic: "If you promise not to scream, I will remove my hand."

Of course the goblin nodded, of course it screamed, and the ogres came blundering out of the trees seconds later. The lengthy exchange that followed could be summed as follows: the goblin wanted to charge them a lump sum of 10 gp for safe passage past their bridge, or a whopping 2 gp each. 5th Edition characters start with 150 gp, but even with both fighters and paladins being gouged for some 100ish gp worth of gear (armor, shield, and weapon), that still leaves about 50.

Oh, and they found about 500 worth of coins and loot.

They still wanted to haggle about it.

For about half an hour.

In the long run they ended up paying the goblin a forgettable fraction of their profits, including an extra gp to tell them where the "Lady of the forest" could be found, then continued on their way, making it out of the forest without fur  ther incident.

By the time they returned to Sidon it was very early in the morning, so rather than surprise Eleni with a re-enactment of The Godfather (plus a dozen or so human heads) shacked up at the Hungry Hydra. They ran into Yllian's retainers, and the rest of the party learned that he had journeyed from his homeland to seek military aid against hobgoblin armies. Sidon had nothing to spare, what with the people being in desperate need of aid themselves, and so was planning on heading on to Argos.

But first things first, drinking. I love that they were not willing to part with a measly 10 gp in exchange for essentially free XP (and I did give them full XP for getting past the ogres), but have no qualms parting with cash for a completely non-mechanical event.

They next day Eleni gave them their bounty and her thanks for avenging her father, before tipping them off on another regional plot-line problem: townsfolk were being abducted from Copper Cairns. The Green Ridge is fraught to a variety of monsters, from kobolds to manticores to ogres, so this is normally a given. Recently the disappearances have ramped up quite a bit, so the garrison leader and mine managers pooled together resources to pay for bounties on them all.

At this Yllian sent his retainers ahead to Argos to speak on his behalf, hoping that by currying favor with the nobility it would help his odds (and if not, he would have money to hire people), while he and everyone else teamed up with the next caravan leaving town.

Behind the Scenes
This is kind of what I did in  A Sundered World, giving the characters several plot threads to choose from. They could have gone back into the Tunnelwood to look into the whole Lady of the forest angle (as well as other things hidden inside), or continued to Argos (as I have things going on there, too). The difference is that in A Sundered World, distances were vast and places were pretty isolated. Here, there are things going on whether or not the party is there to deal with it, so we will see what happens with the other loose ends.

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Wandering Monsters: Shadar-Kai

Whether 3rd or 4th Edition I have never been able to take shadar-kai seriously.

They just seem so comically grim, skulking in a realm of perpetual shadow that literally tugs at their soul, which they can only delay through constant pain (including, but not limited to, an armband that impales you while you wear it). Their high concept reads like the kind of angst-y poetry that a teenager would write.

I cannot decide which origin story is sillier, the one where I guess an entire race of fey is on board with a nebulous dark entity bargain that ultimately (and not-so-surprisingly) goes south, or the one where they beg the god of death to help them cope with death, who does so by promising to protect their souls after they die, except when she transforms them into undead soul-reapers.

Thanks Raven Queen, this is much better than eternal bliss.

Of course they are cool with this, moving into the Shadowfell where they build, and I am quoting the article here, "somber cities and grim fortresses". If this is the race that got the most traction from 3rd Edition, I would love to see the ones that lost. Seriously, trying to maintain a degree of inclusiveness is admirable, but I think that, along with many other D&D classics, that they should try pitching flavor that makes more sense. Or any sense.

For example, it does not make sense for an entire race of fey to bargain with a dark power. I could see a group of them doing it and being cursed, but not all of them. Similarly, why did the Raven Queen respond to a whole bunch of humans? Does she still do this, or was it a one-time deal? Why did she just do it for humans? Why would she not warn them against hanging around in the Shadowfell, especially when it is so much more hostile than the natural world? Why would they stick around?

The new story has similar problems.Why would they make a deal with a god of death or despair? What was so important that they would risk their souls (and, I guess the souls of their children)?

This is a part where I think a magical cataclysm would suffice: some necromancer was dabbling in forces beyond his understanding, crossed the streams, and now people are beginning to fade into the Plane of Shadow (where they might become shades). This could make it applicable to any race (or at least more than one), and it could be a kind of sub-race or feat tree that anyone could pick up.

I could also see a culture, or a region where the planes bleed over (like Eberron's manifest zones) where instead of aging the people are gradually pulled into the Plane of Shadow. Or maybe they do age, but when they die they are sucked there. There could have been a war or disaster, and the priests prayed to the god of death, and it "spared" them by drawing them there, marking their souls. What if a whole nation or city died before they were supposed to, and the god of death kept them alive, but they have no souls? What if they are an early, failed attempt at creating life that requires strong emotional stimulus to feel emotions, and/or they have no souls?

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Legends & Lore: Subclasses

The cleric deity and wizard tradition have about as much mechanical impact as, say, 3rd Edition's cleric domains or the bonus feats that monks and rangers got, so I guess I never really considered them to be representative of what I would call a "subclass threshold". No, these remind me more of picking an initial class feature in 4th Edition, like a fighter talent, a warlock's pact, or a wizard's implement.

To me a subclass was better distinguished when 4th Edition started releasing its Heroes line; for example the slayer--a subclass of the fighter--differed from her parent class in that you lost daily exploits, used stances instead of at-will exploits, and had plenty of hard-wired class
features and exploits.

Which, given that the article mentions not every subclass relying on the same mechanics, sounds closer to what it sounds like they are doing with the fighter and rogue, and something that I am mostly cool with. I like the idea of being able to determine the complexity of your class without sacrificing efficacy, something I would argue they did really well with the Essentials subclasses: you could go with the more straightforward slayer, or dial up the complexity by rolling a weaponmaster (the class formerly known as fighter).

One of the things I do not like about this approach are how some of them are geared around titles, like the knight and samurai. This is yet another area where I preferred 4th Edition, in this case themes. Sure, you could make logical combinations like the fighter and mercenary or the wizard and wizard's apprentice, but you could also tack alchemist on to a fighter, or samurai on to a cleric.

Another thing is whether or not you will be stuck with a subclass choice. Like, if I start out as a duelist, can I pick up a "warlord" type class feature down the road (though I think that the warlord is robust enough to be its own class)? I would prefer subclasses to be themed packages that you can stick with if you like the concept, but branch out later on if you feel like changing your focus. So, for example, you could start out as a gladiator, but then switch over to warlord powers after you break out of an arena and begin to rally a bunch of slaves to help you overthrow a sorcerer-king.

Again, I think this is what they should pretty much do with every class: give you lots of class features, themed or otherwise, and decision points so that you can better customize your character as you progress. I get that some decisions, namely gods and perhaps school specialization, should be locked in, but I think most "martial" stuff should allow for some deviation. At any rate I am still at the least interested to see what these changes entail (despite no one in my current campaign playing either a fighter or rogue), as well as how they will play with feats.

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D&D Next: Epiro Map

A map that Victor whipped up for my Epiro campaign. Nothing too elaborate, but definitely nicer than my sketches.

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D&D Next: Character Sheet Contest

Did you know that there is a character sheet contest? If you have not heard about it, there are still a couple days to get your submission in.

Personally I have never been a fan of the "official" sheets, as I find them to be cluttered with lots of unnecessary fields. My ideal sheet would take up a single side of a single sheet, unless spells entered the equation, which is why I whipped this up tonight:

This "bare-bones" style has pretty much everything you need. Even a low-level wizard could get away with abridged spell descriptions in the Class Features area. I even organized the Defense block so that you would be less likely to overlook any resistances (though I had planned on leaving a Notes field in case you used a healing rate/bloodied rules).

The second sheet/back side will have blocks for backgrounds/skills, feats/specialties, and a blank section that you can fill in for maneuvers, magic items, spells, etc: I think that giving players a blank slate that they can adapt for specific needs is better than cordoning off portions of the sheet for stuff that they might never use (spell section, I am looking at you).

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A Sundered World: Bodil's Bounty

One of the problems I ran into during my first draft of A Sundered World, was figuring out where people got the basics like food and water. Since it was not immediately important in the greater scheme of things (like sailing around the Astral Sea to loot the ruined dominions of the gods), I made a mental note about spirits being able to provide food, or maybe that things could still somehow grow in astral space despite a lack of sunlight or water, and left it at that.

Bodil’s Bounty is a free realm located just at the edge of the Bhalen'lad Cluster, near a gulf of unclaimed space that divides it from the Platinum Span. Much of the realm is dominated by jagged mountains and thick forests, though there are enough open fields to support several villages of hard-working humans and dwarves, in no small part due to their patron spirit: Bodil, an old, powerful bear spirit that lays claim to much of the region, though she was not always so.

The Sundering shattered the mountains that represented her corporeal form, wounding her greatly and forcing her into a state of hibernation while she recovered. Some centuries later while she slept dwarves tried to settle, building fortresses and riddling the mountains with tunnels in their search for metal and gems. This wracked her spirit form in pain, but not only was she still recovering from her previous wounds, their work was akin to slowly drilling holes into the flesh and bone of a living creature. She was powerless to stop them, and her pleas were ignored.

A massive horde of orcs arrived and slaughtered most of the dwarves, keeping a few on hand for slave work and other orcish amusements (both of which promised a painful demise). Bodil appeared to them again, offering to free them if they left her mountain forever untouched. The dwarves agreed to this, swearing blood oaths, and with her help were able to drive the orcs off. Though the dwarves could no longer mine the mountains, the rest of the region had plenty to offer in the way of farmland and lumber, so they established fortified villages to exploit those resources instead.

Eventually the orcs returned, and given that a fortress filled with dwarven warriors could not withstand them, neither could a handful of villages. The villagers fled to the ruined fortress within mountains, hoping that if they ran far enough that the orcs would be satisfied with easy spoils and leave. They were not: from the mountains the villagers could not only see the columns of dark smoke rise from the smoldering remains of their former homes, but also the black formations of orcs marching towards them.

The story of Bodil and how she saved the dwarves decades ago was a local legend: survivors of that night and relatives of avenged victims occasionally visited the mountains to give thanks to her, and she was the subject of many tales. They would need a miracle if they were to survive this, and so they begged and prayed to her. Her answer was destruction on a scale that neither side had seen before, nor expected: where before Bodil had merely freed the dwarves, giving them an edge, this time she summoned arctic winds to hold them in check, and unleashed thunderous roars to shatter their ranks. 

It has been many years since the Second Orcfall, and the villagers have long since rebuilt. They treat Bodil as something akin to a deity, making regular visits to her shrine within the mountains--now known as Bodil’s Teeth--so that they may pray and offer sacrifices. These acts of devotion empower her, granting her the strength to protect them from more powerful threats, as well as allowing the land to grow food more quickly and in greater abundance. It is for these reasons that Bodil lays claim to the region, something that the Bhalen’lad nobility only grudgingly accepted because they are a notable source of exported food.

However, Bodil is not the only spirit to inhabit the demiplane. Among potentially others the river Sindri also gets along with the villagers, providing fish and water in exchange for prayers, songs, and wine. Bodil enjoys his company well enough, especially since it means that the villagers can bring her fish as part of their offerings. On the other hand the Oak Sisters are an enigmatic pair that dwell within the Blood Forest. While their mother, a large oak tree, spends her time tending to the forest and crafting animals, they embody a more savage side of nature and hunt anything within the forest’s border, something that people have learned through harsh examples.

Characters 
For Next and Dungeon World the druid and ranger make sense, though a barbarian could also work.

I envision Bodil occasionally appearing to the villagers, either in person or through an avatar of stone, to select one of them to teach druidic magic. The commoner and guide backgrounds (Next-only) are obvious choices, but a noble or knight might also be stationed there as a kind of ambassador for the Bhalen'lad Cluster.

For 4th Edition, I would round out the class choice with shaman (especially with guardian spirits), sentinel, berserke, hunter, and fey pact warlock/hexblade. Aside from humans and dwarves, there could be a satyr or wilden dwelling within the Blood Forest.

Adventure Hooks 

• Before Bodil came into power, a darker force inhabited the land. It was almost roused during both orc invasions, but since she has come into power she has been able to keep it dormant. She has been been regularly training druids for the day when it finally re-awakens.
• Dragonborn crusaders from the Platinum Span invade Bodil’s Bounty, attempting to establish a steady supply of food for their crusade against Tiamat’s Reach (or vice-versa).
• A chunk of aberrant star, or perhaps a mass of land with its own dormant spirit, collides with the region. This could corrupt one or more spirits, or cause conflict between them.
• Angels from the Golden Road and/or pilgrims that worship them arrive, hoping to convince them to worship "true" gods.

Bonus Featurette: Duergar 
Dwarves were crafted from stone by Moradin before the Sundering, and as they get older gradually "return" to stone. At first this starts out with skin becoming more rock-like, which can make them resilient to damage (including disease and poison, even more so) and allow them to benefit from rune magic by carving them directly into their skin, but eventually they start to move more slowly and sleep longer, sometimes for years at a time (which can make it difficult to determine when a dwarf has truly, fully returned).

Duergar are the result of devils abducting sleeping dwarves. They take them to the Iron Circle, where ritualists carve infernal signs into their flesh, transforming them into powerful, durable vessels: once possessed, the devil is able to access the dwarf's memories and skills, and dwarves that begin to slumber typically have several centuries of experience to draw from.

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Wandering Monsters: Heirs of Gith

Though I have played a githzerai monk in 4th Edition and used gith in a low-level Dark Sun campaign (also 4th Edition), most of my exposure to things gith-related comes from Planescape: Torment's Dak'kon, and I am not even sure how much that--or even this--adheres to the "official" lore dispersed within a myriad of Planescape supplements.

While part of the reason I have yet to really use them is that not many games I run get to either the Astral Sea or Elemental Chaos, another major factor is that like so many other humanoid races they are incredibly underwhelming, confusing, and at times contradictory.

Taking it from the top, I guess they used to be a race of evil humans. I do not know why they were all universally evil, but this is apparently significant enough to note. Mind flayers conquered them somehow, for some reason, and bred them to be warriors and bodyguards. This caused them to gradually change physically, and they developed psionic powers that either the mind flayers did not notice, or figured that psychic warriors were underpowered anyway, so who cares. Eventually they freed themselves and split into two separate monster entries.

So, basically the mind flayers somehow conquered an entire race of humans, who were all evil, mind you, and then they bred the entire race into warriors? When your default Intelligence and Wisdom scores both clock in at the high teens, I guess I assumed that it granted you a considerable degree of reason and foresight, both things that this line of action seems to lack.

Moving on, the githzerai decided to move to Limbo/The Elemental Chaos, where they all live in fortress monasteries, again, for some reason. They also abide by rules and schedules strict enough to frustrate a modron. They hate githyanki and mind flayers so much that they build monasteries in the Prime Material/natural world to stage raids against both (the former of which also builds fortresses in the Prime Material/natural world).

Why? Why are they still fighting? What does either side have to gain from this? This is not a "rich" history. It just feels flat and forced, like they are constantly going well out of their to fight each other--I imagine interplanar portals are not cheap to make or maintain--just because. They are literally worlds apart, and they still cannot move past this? Do they not have better things to do or worry about?

Githyanki are not any better. They moved to the Astral Plane/Astral Sea again, which might be more inhospitable than Limbo/The Elemental Chaos, somehow made a deal with Tiamat on red dragons, and are still evil because. The bit about silver swords I can actually get behind, maybe, if only because of their association with the Astral Plane/Astral Sea. Mind you, I think it is silly to exclude them from githzerai due to an emphasis on "martial arts", given that in 4th Edition at least monks got a lot of mileage out of weapons.

Really this article just served to bring to the forefront everything wrong with both...races? Should they be separate races? I do not think so. At best I would go with subraces, but I think that they are different enough culturally to make do. Of course, I would also not shunt the majority into alternate dimensions and make them keep fighting each other for no discernible reason. If I really wanted to go that route, I would plop them both on the same plane and give them something to fight for, which should not be hard given that there are plenty of instances in our history where two ideals clash.

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Legends & Lore: Feats AND Skills

This is a pretty lengthy article, so I am going to start out by condensing the already condensed list of the current design goals featured at the end:

• Every class gets ability score increases, though the frequency may vary by class, and you can swap them out for feats (which are optional).
• Skills are also optional (which means that I have to adjust the character sheet I am making for the contest again).
• Backgrounds now give various benefits--of which one category is called benefits--instead of skills.

I mentioned last week that I was not a fan of feats being able to increase your ability scores because it is already incredibly easy to hit the cap: the druid in my playtest campaign already has a Wisdom of 20, and pretty much everyone else has a key ability score in the 18-19 range. If characters no longer gain both ability score bonuses and feats that can also be ability score bonuses, well, that changes things somewhat.

As I also mentioned last week I am not opposed to simplicity (I am definitely a player that prefers lots of complexity), except where the simplest options are also the best. Previous editions saw feats that granted the equivalent of a focused +2 to an ability score, plus something extra. By shifting them so that it takes two to gain a similar bonus to a wider spread, I think it will be easier to balance feats with that are more complex, maybe more focused, but provide more immediate benefits.

Which is a concern: can they design feats that can coexist, without either side of the complexity camp becoming the "correct" choice? I know they intend to design the game so that it is not assumed you are taking ability score boosts, but then players might pile them on anyway to help guarantee success. Technically you might not need another +1 to your attack rolls to hit that dragon, but that still improves your odds by 5%, and your investment provides even greater returns when it is also linked to your ability to climb, jump, and break things.

Another concern is how many feats characters will get; 3rd Edition had many trees, but few opportunities to see any of them grow to fruition, while 4th Edition gave you many more feats, shorter trees, and built-in retraining from the start, which made it a legally safer edition to dabble in. Currently 5th Edition tops you off at four (about half of what you got in 3rd Edition), but I expect that to change since in addition to ability score bonuses, they are also going to be prestige class/paragon path currency.

While the opener on feats got me interested, even a bit excited, the followup on skills did not. When it comes to skills I am a fan of the skill die, because it provides a variable bonus that helps make the d20 roll remain relevant. In 3rd Edition the static bonus could gradually eclipse the by-the-book DCs around mid-level, while in 4th Edition it was incredibly easy to start out with a +12 to +14 to a skill. When the 1st-level DCs run the range from 5 to 15, is there even really a reason to bother rolling?

When you couple this with the goal to rein in the bonus, it makes their reason to step back to a static-bonus model both confusing and a bit disappointing (though I am fully aware that this can change in the future, maybe even before the next packet is released). What I also found confusing was that despite people being really happy with skills that they are making them optional, and if you want to use them you will need to keep in mind how it can affect the DC's (ideally they will tell you straight up).

What was more silly than confusing was that one of the "challenges" is apparently players incorrectly calling for skills, with the example being Spot instead of Perception. A lot of us have been through two editions of the game at this point, one of which condensed and renamed skills at the midway point, and some of us play more than one edition. I think some initial confusion is to be expected and should not be a factor in determining if/how you implement a skill system.

So that maybe sucks, but the section on backgrounds sounds probably good. Instead of skills and a trait, they will now provide up to three categories of features, though I am not sure if they will provide just one, one of each, or some combination of them.

Areas of knowledge are something that I kind of used in 3rd and 4th Edition, where I always assumed that characters with a Knowledge skill knew everything with a DC equal to 10 + their skill bonus (in essence "taking 10" on the check). It made things go a lot faster and helped avoid player speculation based off of what skill check I might ask for (similar to how players might go on guard if you ask them for a Listen/Spot/Perception check).

I am not sure how to feel about proficiencies. From the sounds of it they will serve as prerequisites to doing things using ability checks that you otherwise could not. The examples include forging a sword or sailing a ship, but I think that these could easily extend to things like crafting magic items or access to things like 4th Edition's rituals, Martial Practices from Martial Power 2, and expanded capabilities with weapons, implements, etc.

Benefits sound like background traits by another name, which I have liked from the start, and I am looking forward to seeing how they change and grow.

Finally, I am so, so happy to hear that classes are being designed with the assumption that you are not using feats and skills, especially where the fighter and rogue are concerned. Though Mearls again mentions them getting the lion's share of feats, I am hoping that with this in mind the classes will still be evocative and flexible enough without them.

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Epiro: Episode 103

Cast

• Yllian Faraday (high elf wizard 2)
• Randy's As Of Yet Still Unamed Druid (wood elf druid 2)
• Iola Talmiel (wood elf monk 2)
• Perseus Eurymedon (human paladin 2)

Since Kamon was unable to play (and we did not have access to his character sheet), we decided that despite a newly uncovered hidden passage leading away from a false tomb, his character would just head back to the surface to make sure that Perseus's horse, I dunno, did not run off with the cart full of precious, precious bounty-heads.

Paranoid, probably due to recent events involving ambush-ghouls and greed-curses, Randy's druid, now able to wildshape into rats ferrets, took the opportunity to discreetly and adorably scout ahead. Without a source of light he was only able to determine that after the passage turned north, that there were two leading east; one around the middle of the hall, and the other at the far end.

They decided to tackle the furthest passage first. Randy’s druid took point, scampering ahead while everyone else followed close behind. I was kind of confused why Perseus stuck so close to the ferret, as a heavily armored man shadowing a Tiny elf-turned-mustela kind of defeats the purpose, but since the only immediate threat was a trap, it was kind of a moot point.

The ceiling collapsed, which dealt a bit of damage to Perseus, pinned Iola under some blocks of hewn stone and dirt (because she failed the Dexterity save), and separated them from Randy-the-ferret, as he was not heavy enough to trigger the trap (and fortunately was outside of its area of effect when it was triggered). It would take a bit to dig Iola out, which would be only slightly inconvenient if the noise had not attracted the attention of a carrion crawler.

Given Mustela-Man's size and Stealth bonus (something like +8, I think), I decided that even though he technically had no cover that the carrion crawler failed to notice him as it moved towards the pile of rubble. Unable to get through, it retraced its steps and went through a southern entrance, where a burial vault linked to the other side of the collapse. As it, well, crawled by this time, Randy changed into a bear to try and grab it.

At the time I was not aware if grapple rules were in the game (they are, page 13 of the How to Play document), but since our d20 results were eight apart in my favor I felt safe in the assumption that he failed.

Even so he still got its attention, which meant numerous paralyzing tentacles and teeth. At this point Yllian's light spell, coupled with whatever noise a bear wrestling a monstrous, tentacled scavenger-worm makes, made it very easy to determine where they were (about 15 feet around a corner, as it turned out), and Perseus went to Randy-Bear's aid while Yllian helped dig Iola out of the mess. It took only a few rounds of clawing, stabbing, and punching before the crawler fled through one of several tunnels riddled throughout the vault.

Their short exploration of the vault turned up a handful of silver pieces, so they headed north before the crawler returned or skeletons started popping out of the walls (a reasonable assumption, in my games). The way was blocked by another stone door, with another boar crest. They tried their hand at checking for traps, a habit which players will temporarily develop after just stumbling into one, but came up empty.

Randy, in a fit of boredom, maybe acceptance, eventually just bear-punched the door open, revealing a grant hall. Unlike the rest of the tomb, torches brilliantly lit piles of shimmering gold and jewelry that were heaped against the southern walls of the room. A dining table, almost as wide as the room, bent under the weight of a seemingly endless array of food and drink. Before it all sat an obese man wearing a golden crown studded with jewels, which contrasted sharply against his robes, which were studded with chunks of old food.

The characters approached, and between noisy bites and gulps the man motioned for them to sit and eat. Yllian introduced himself as a member of the fey courts, Perseus and Iola as his concubines, and Randy as his dancing bear. Being an illusionist and all, he asked if he could try disbelieving, well, everything. I had him make a Wisdom save, and an 18 or so result later told him that if he concentrated he could start to peel it away, but that it continued to reassert itself. In other words, he knew that there was powerful illusion magic at work, but even he could not reliably see through it.

Presuming the man to be King Orsos, he told him that he knew about the curse, and that they were there to help him break it. Of course Yllian had no idea how, or even if he could, but he guessed that performing an act of charity would do the trick, and told the king as such. Orsos stopped eating, if only for a moment, to clearly state that he could not. Yllian told him that he could, and they went back and forth like this several times before Orsos finally started moving for his sword.

It was then that Yllian realized that he was being magically compelled to sit in this tomb, rotting, yet always eating, and that they would need to kill him before he could rest. Iola lobbed a vial of holy water, which despite only dealing a paltry 2 points of damage causing the illusion to falter: Orsos's, stomach had exploded long ago, and everything he ate simply spilled onto the floor beneath his chair, the food was rotten and infested with vermin, the drinks covered in carpets of mold, and the piles of gold were just rubble.

Well, rubble and four skeletons.

Orsos leapt up onto the table while the skeletons closed in. He slashed at Yllian, cutting him badly and forcing him back. Yllian blasted a pair of skeletons with a color spray, causing one of them to attack Orsos. It nailed him with a critical hit, severing his sword arm, which landed next to Iola, who picked up the sword and lobbed it at one of the skeletons, shattering it. As for the other two, Randy changed back into his human form so that he could crush them with an entangle spell.

Which just left Orsos. His rotten flesh peeled apart as tusks grew from his skull, and his feet fused into hooves. He charged at Yllian, knocking him across the room (and at least unconscious). This was pretty much the highlight of the fight, as Perseus proceed to polish him off like he did with most of the undead in this dungeon with a cure wounds spell.

After the fight they gathered up all the loot together so that Yllian could cast detect magic on it, and discovered that only the sword--the Boar King's Tusk--was magical (of course, the coins and gems were not, but you cannot blame him for trying...maybe at some point I will make a magic coin just to throw them off). Since we could not identify any sort of identify spell, I just gave Josh the mechanics of it: if you move at least 10 feet before attacking, roll a d10 instead of a d8 for damage.

Thoroughly drained, they eventually voted on resting outside, which was good because it allowed me to leave the game on a cliffhanger. When they got into the fortress level, they could hear the sound of someone softly piping coming from outside. They go to check, because that is where they left the aforementioned horse and bounty-heads, to find Corvus unconscious and bound. Sitting above him, nonchalantly feeding Perseus's horse an apple, is a satyr.

He spots the characters, tucks his pipes away, and stands up. After a few moments of everyone staring at each other, he finally speaks up.

"So, you killed the Boar King."

Behind the Scenes
Not much to report, here. I mean, I made a magic item and a wereboar skeleton, but to use Josh's words "I am having fun, but not necessarily due to anything inherent in the system or mechanics." It is pretty much isolated to hanging out with friends and creating a story on the fly, which are unfortunately things that I can do in a lot of games.

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Wandering Monsters: Modrons & Slaadi

Modrons and slaads represent the most extreme cases of the Law and Chaos spectrum, so it is surprising to see them sharing an article together.

What was even more surprising and refreshing is that after so many Wandering Monsters columns asking if a fairly cut and dry monster was “iconically D&D enough”, Wyatt pitches some tougher questions in the poll, like if modrons are too silly and/or make sense, and in the case of the slaad even goes so far to suggest a fairly drastic change to their identity.

As a long-time Planescape and Tony DiTerlizzi fan, I am all too familiar with modrons despite never using them: they look weird--which is saying something in a campaign setting where, for starters, the most iconic city is built within a hollowed out, vertical floating torus--live in a heavily regulated world made up of gears, lack individuality (at least for the base ones), have a set population (creating and advancing as necessary), and, well, that is about it.

I have always felt that they are pretty boring and forgettable, which might explain why they seemed to slide into later editions near the end of their run as a Dragon article (which I would read then promptly shelve). 2nd Edition made note that they trade with other races, but for what? What do modrons need that they could not make or get themselves? Given all their rules and regulations, would anyone want to deal with them? I guess you can also maybe hire one to do clerical work, but I have no idea what you could possibly offer, or why any such request would even be approved.

Even if you ignored that, one of the few plot hooks that I could think to run with would be to have them try to continually expand across the multiverse in an attempt to bring order to everything, but even that would not work since there is always a set population and--according to 2nd Edition, anyway--they lack the resources to do so.

It is because of this that I am fine with giving them more personality, even for the base ones, and making rogues more commonplace. Anything to shake things up, making it so that their rigid concept of paradise is not so perfect, and in fact something that they must constantly strive to maintain. I would also change it so that they freely trade with other races (which could include hiring them), and even invite them into their cities, if only to show them the benefits of their particular brand of order.

I would also run with the idea of them gradually expanding. In uninhabited areas they simply claim, constructing foundries and stripping away necessary resources to reshape the land. For inhabited areas, they offer to improve their lives and give the inhabitants new roles and functions, kind of like Warhammer 40,000's Tau, or the Alliance from Firefly, conquering those that refuse. Since modrons have a set unit cap, you could take a darker route by having them convert other races into things like Mass Effect's husks, or the Cybermen from Doctor Who. Maybe Exalted's alchemicals?

(Note: Jot all this down for my treatment for them in A Sundered World.)

Actually, on that note, I would re-flavor their magic to operate something like the alchemicals' Protocols. It would make them more interesting, and could even pave the way for another school of wizardry.

(Note: This, too.)

As for their appearance, I actually do not mind it all that much, though I prefer 4th Edition's more machine look. Their odd shapes seem to keep with the idea that simple modrons are capable of only simple thought processes; as they become more human in shape, they become more capable of complex thought and individuality. I think the only thing I would like to see less of are the steam whistles.

My opinion of slaads is a bit more succinct. I have never used them, but am always for more aberrations, especially if they can corrupt others. One of my main problems with them is that despite being chaotic outsiders they are still nicely, consistently color-coded. Even their creator described them as his "independent exploration of Lovecraftiana", which not only makes it easier to accept their color scheme (which makes me think of the xenomorphs from Aliens), but also the existence of slaad lords (which I would compare to Lovecraft's elder gods).

As for the psionic angle, I can take it or leave it. Though I do love psionics, I think that if insanity-inducing magic is good enough for the rest of the Cthulhu mythos, that it is good enough for slaads. This could work out great for a warlock pact, though I guess if they had psionics you could end up with a kind of crazy-psion discipline, too...

Ultimately, if you want to keep slaads as creatures of chaos, I would do away with colors and just give us lots of optional powers to tack on as we see fit, in a similar manner to Planescape's hordlings.

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Legends & Lore: Feats

I remember first reading about feats during the 3rd Edition previews that ran in Dragon magazine, where they were touted as another layer of character customization. Having come from 2nd Edition, where unless you were a spellcaster there was not much in the way of mechanical deviation, I found this to be a welcome addition.


When we actually sat down to play however, I noticed that most of my players tended to stick to feats that just boosted your numbers, like Improved Initiative, Skill Focus, Weapon Focus, Iron Will, etc. This really came as no surprise, as they were simple-yet-solid choices that you just add to your other numbers and forget about.

Which is why I considered many of them to be pretty boring.

This is just one reason why I consider 3rd Edition's treatment of feats largely to be a mess; you only got a handful over twenty levels, many were severely under-powered (Weapon Specialization) if not outright traps (Cooperative Casting), and by the time you wrapped up a feat tree the capstone benefit was likely not worth it. 4th Edition was not nearly as bad, providing plenty of interesting feats that shook up what your race and/or class could do, but it still had its share of static number-boosters even before Essentials introduced the auto-scaling revamps.

When it comes to 5th Edition I like what it has to offer, or rather I like what I think it is trying to offer, which are more interesting options. As an example Arcane Dabbler lets you pick two cantrips at 1st-level. Granted it is a small list, and I do not think it needs to be, but it is still meatier than a lot of the initial offerings that we saw from past editions. This complexity is understandably not something that everyone wants, and is something that the designers are aiming to address along with a few other changes.

While simplicity is not necessarily bad, I am not a fan of feats boosting ability scores. Already I find it incredibly easy for at least one character in the bunch to hit the cap, oftentimes before they get around to purchasing equipment. Given that some feats are also going to have level requirements--which is nothing new, as a minimum level was kind of passive-aggressively enforced even in 3rd Edition--depending on what the rest do I think that a lot of players are just going to ignore the low-level stuff until they either max out their key stats, or something down the road catches their eye.



I am also not a fan of classes gaining access to feats at different rates, especially when the rationale is that rogues and fighters "will gain more feats than other classes to reflect their versatility". Why are they more versatile than other classes? Why do their features need to be delivered via feats? Why not take a page from Star Wars: Saga Edition or Dungeon World by giving each class a batch of talents/moves to pick from at set levels, and then adding in feats that lets you pick up a feature/talent/move from another class?

This way every class--all of them, but particularly the barbarian, druid, monk, paladin, and ranger--gets some much need flexibility, but you can also expand on them later by simply adding new features, instead of having to introduce entirely new classes. Kind of like 4th Edition, but without having each and every new decision adding yet one more card to the deck. Well, unless a player wants to.

Ultimately the more I think about feats, the more I am starting to feel like this is just what they should be doing (and may be slowly driving towards): make a list of general feats that allow characters to bend or break the rules, or to just gain access to an entirely new option--which 5th Edition already has, with feats like Superior Footwork and Seize the Advantage--then make focused lists that you gain access to by virtue of taking enough class levels.

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