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A Cavalier Analysis of the Cavalier

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

I have a soft spot for Paladins, so one of the first things I checked out when I got Heroes of the Fallen Lands was the new Cavalier build. Some thoughts below (mostly good!):

  • Stats: This Paladin uses Strength and Charisma, which is great. The other Strength based Paladin technically relies on 3 stats, Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma, which is ROUGH. Also, the powers the Cavalier uses will go a long way towards filling out the other Strength based build as well (which had it very rough in the PHB1 and has been slowly crawling forward ever since).
  • Defender Aura: Identical to the fighter one, so pretty standard. But an aura 1 is probably more effective than just marking one guy who you’re usually going to be adjacent to anyway!
  • Righteous Radiance: Similar to the effect from Divine Challenge, but the auto damage does go off if the enemy shifts, so it gives the Paladin some nice stickiness.
  • Holy Smite: The Paladin equivalent of Power Strike, it’s noticeably better, probably along the lines of back stab. Does decent auto damage and dazes on a hit, so a nice little power to stack up on.
  • Righteous Shield: There were already a few ways for Paladin’s to get cool powers to take damage for allies, but adding one that all Cavaliers get is very nice. It feels very Paladiny to take the brunt of your allies attacks!
  • At-Wills: I was a little surprised to see all Cavaliers get Valiant Strike, which is in the phb 1, but it is a solid power, so that’s fine. The other powers, which you get based on which virtue you take, both become more powerful when allies are bloodied. That works pretty nice thematically and makes for interesting metagaming theoretically. I like the idea of stuff that encourages people to stay bloodied, since generally most people want to be at close to full HP. It’s nice to imagine enough things, racial bonuses, feats, powers, etc. that swing in someone’s favor for them to want to be bloodied a lot of the time, always on the razor edge between noble effectiveness and unconsciousness!
  • Restore Vitality: A crappy version of lay on hands (because it can only be used once per day, as opposed to several times per day for a Paladin with decent Wisdom), but then again it takes away the need to pump points into wisdom, which no Paladin ever got super happy about, since both types had to pump points into Charisma too (so doubling up and getting only 1 defense boosted).
  • Pace of the Virtuous Chargers: Paladin’s get a bonus to speed when riding mounts in non combat. They also grant the bonus to their party. A bit lackluster, but it is nice to have a nod towards Paladins actually riding mounts!
  • Spirit of the Virtuous Charger: I understand why they didn’t want you to actually summon a virtuous charger into battle (what if you’re already riding a horse or are in a cramped dungeon), but thematically this felt a little silly. Nonetheless, bonuses to speed and damage with charge attacks are fun, and flying at level 18 is super boss, even if it’s just 1 encounter a day!
  • Paragon Path: Valiant Cavalier: I haven’t been super blown away by any of the essentials paragon paths and this one is no exception. It gives a string of okay bonuses and the like (such as +2 to STs, immunity to most diseases, and a bonus to your healing surge value), but compared to the arguably overpowered stuff in the phb1 and other books, this one falls short!

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the Cavalier. It seems like in general it will be able to do its defender job a little better than other versions of the Paladin. It loses some backup lay on hands healing (being able to lay down 3+ heals in one tough encounter is a pretty big boon), but that frees up having to dunk points into wisdom, which is pretty nice.

Was this really a cavalier analysis of the cavalier? Probably not. More like a clinical and dry analysis of the cavalier. But really, that’s not at all catchy. I suppose I was a bit cavalier in my use of the word cavalier!

Hilarious.

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bird mask

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

You know what’s scary? Those beaked plague doctor masks.

They seriously could not be more terrifying. I fear plagues – so much so that I will not play the board game Pandemic – but I still might rather die of the plague than deal with a doctor dressed like this.

The PCs HAVE to end up wearing these at some point.

In 4e, I’d stat these as:

level 1 head slot (common)
The wearer of this mask has a +5 item bonus to defenses versus disease.

I’d have some noble give a stack of these to the PCs and then send them on some mission into a plague-wracked city. It would be horrific, especially when they find that the dying plague victims are stumbling towards the market, where their bodies are joining a colossal monster made of plague corpses.

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mazes and monsters: holy man in manhattan

Monday, November 8th, 2010
This entry is part 13 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

Raise your hand if you’d like to see Tom Hanks harassed by street toughs! Because it’s HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

While Tom Hanks’ friends are searching for him fruitlessly, he’s totally been subsumed by his Mazes and Monsters persona. As Pardieux, he’s haplessly stumbling around 80’s New York, which as we know is grittier, uglier, more lawless, and generally more old-school than modern New York.

Naturally, it’s not long before he has an encounter with 1d3 human bandits.

Notice that Tom Hanks, in his Pardieux persona, is making no effort to avoid being surrounded by the thugs. Apparently MAZES AND MONSTERS DOES NOT HAVE FLANKING RULES.

The thugs notice Tom Hanks’ little leather dice bag.

THUG: Hey, what is that? Give it to me!
HANKS: It’s my spells! I guard them with my life.

Confirmed: spells are physical objects which can be held in a dice bag.

Spells are small physical objects which you can find in a maze, each of which can trigger a unique magic power. If you have a sufficiently high Level, and are of a spell-casting class, you can cast these spells. Spells are reusable.

Tom runs from the two muggers, but is cornered in an alley. He takes out what appears to be a flower petal from his dice bag and flourishes it at the thugs, but it has no effect.

I guess he doesn’t have enough mana or something. Or maybe they made their saving throw.

One of the muggers lumbers forward, and, through Tom Hank’s Mazed eyes, we see it as a horrible monster!

I think that’s a Gorville, right? Based on the frequency with which Tom encounters them, Gorvilles must be like the orcs of the Mazes and Monsters setting. Where do they get their crazy name? Illinois, I’m guessing.

A Holy Man is supposed to prefer spells and reason to violence. Tom Hanks has tried spells on the thugs. He doesn’t really make any effort to try reason; he instead scuffles with the thugs, and he ends up stabbing one of them with a switchblade. Bad Holy Man! No Experience for you! The Great Hall must be rolling over in his foggy tube.

After a brief interlude of sanity, during which he summons his allies via payphone, Tom loses it again and finds an open door that leads to the tunnels beneath the subway. “A maze!” he breathes.

How do people find these entrances to off-limits subterranean complexes beneath cities? It looks so easy for the guys in Mazes and Monsters, Beauty and the Beast, and Neverwhere. I’ve been commuting in New York for years and I’ve never passed an unguarded door marked “Steam Tunnels: Absolutely No Admittance Unless You Are On a Hero’s Journey.” But maybe the doors are there and my workaday eyes just can’t see them.

The steam tunnels are fairly light on monsters, but Tom Hanks does cower and cover his ears when he hears a train going past. He decides that the noise must be the passing of the “Giant Dragon.”

Bestiary
Dragon: The Dragon breathes fire on his foes.
Giant Dragon: The Giant Dragon’s roar is a Sonic attack that deafens all who hear it.

Next, Tom Hanks meets a crazy moleman (a friendly NPC) and pumps him for information.

Not everyone you meet in a Maze will be hostile. You may encounter other adventurers, wise guides, or peasants scraping out a living among the maze’s many perils. Make sure to ask for aid and information, for foreknowledge of the dangers ahead may spell the difference between victory and death!

“Can you tell me of the Giant Dragon?” Tom asks the puzzled moleman. “Does he stand guard over the treasure?”

Clever, Tom Hanks! Do your legwork before you fight the dragon. It’s investigative chops like that that will land you your role in Dragnet.

The Giant Dragon is a Boss monster, worthy to stand guard over the maze’s treasure.

Note to the Maze Controller: Not every Boss monster guards the maze’s treasure. A Maze may contain a second Boss monster, whose purpose is to decoy rash players into unnecessary danger. Players should make sure that powerful creatures guard a treasure before they run such a risk as to offer battle.

Similarly, a treasure may be hidden with no Boss monster to mark its location. In such a case, you may be sure it will be cleverly hidden and guarded by many cunning Traps!

Next Monday, the LAST RECAP OF MAZES AND MONSTERS, complete with lots of creepy footage of the Twin Towers, and a magificent closing monologue from Tom Hanks that will cement his place in history as America’s Foremost Actor. Don’t miss it!

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Posted in advice/tools, fluff/inspiration, game design, legacy D&D, news, other systems, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

Brother Cadfael: The Sanctuary Sparrow

Friday, November 5th, 2010

The Sanctuary Sparrow by Ellis Peters

Putting aside the fact that Brother Cadfael, a crusader/monk who smites and heals, is one of the best literary examples of a cleric, medieval details from a historical novel can spur encounter ideas. Here, a monk is singing Matins:

The height of the vault, the solid stone of the pillars and walls, took up the sound of Brother Anselm’s voice, and made of it a disembodied magic, high in the air.

Take this effect and make it into an actual magic effect in a dungeon. In a vaulting chamber, a disembodied male voice is singing in an unknown language. What could be causing this effect?

It could be that the chamber is the crypt of a holy paladin. The voice is that of an angel, sent by a god to mourn at the paladin’s tomb for 1000 years.

Or it could be the ringing of a magical bell that tolls with a human tongue. If the PCs investigate, they will find that the song of the bell can be imbued in their weapons and implements. The weapons will sing in harmony until the song fades in 5 minutes. During this time, all attacks do extra sonic damage.

The fact that it’s a male voice is, I think, important towards keeping the PCs investigating with an open mind. There are so many female “gotcha” monsters in D&D that any woman, or woman’s voice, encountered in the dungeon will make PCs certain that they’re about to be charmed, or petrified, or bodyswapped, or vargouilled, or bansheed, or consumed by spiders, or something.

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name day: The Monorthodox

Thursday, November 4th, 2010

Recently I woke up from a dream with the phrase “The Monorthodox” ringing in my head.

What do you think The Monorthodox is?

Posted in fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | 6 Comments »

Dost I EYE a Beholder?

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

In one of the most hilarious and delightful sets to date, Wizards is releasing A Beholder Collector’s Set! When? NO ONE KNOWS.

For me the question isn’t “Do I want 4 new beholder minis?”. It’s “DO I DESERVE 4 new beholder minis?” Shouldn’t 1 be enough? Maybe, maybe not. My current one is huge, which makes it virtually unplayable. Ah well! I also have like 3 or so mini beholders (also known as gauth) but ZERO large beholders! Large beholders are the ones you actually use!

But do I really deserve FOUR? How often do you fight FOUR beholders? ANSWER: A LOT MORE THAN YOU WOULD IF YOU DIDN’T OWN 4 BEHOLDERS!

Will I buy this collector’s set? Tough to say! I didn’t buy the Colossal red dragon, but I did put it on my Christmas list. I did buy the gargantuan black dragon and it’s awesome. I also bought the gargantuan Orcus and am unlikely to use him! Likely, this will end up on the Christmas list, right next to my pleading cry for people to give me Kiva gift certificates so I can keep ahead of my friend Laura in the stats!

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separate combat and noncombat abilities

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

I was one of those who obsessively read previews and developer blogs in the leadup to 4e. There was one post – I wish I could find it now – about how, in 3e and previous editions, utility spells and combat spells were mixed together, which meant that utility spells got the shaft. For instance, if you have a choice between memorizing Detect Secret Doors and Magic Missile, you’re probably going to choose Magic Missile – the one useful in combat. In 4e, they made a distinction between attack powers and utility powers. I think this was a great idea – as far as it went.

A suggestion for Fifth Edition, guys! A distinction between combat and utility/noncombat is direly needed in feats. The Linguist feat is notoriously untakeable, because there’s always something you could take instead that would improve your combat build. Sure, you can always choose to make a substandard combat build in pursuit of your character concept, but I don’t think you should have to make that choice.

D&D is focused on combat. Combat is where the rules complexity is. (Skill challenges are the first attempt ever at adding rules complexity and structure to noncombat scenes, and it’s still nowhere near the complexity and structure of combat.) Combat is where the real potential for failure and death is. (Failure in a skill challenge, we are told repeatedly, does not stop the adventure: it adds complication, often in the form of extra combat.) Combat is where we get competition and high stakes – the “us vs the DM” part of the game – in other words, the game part of the game.

Combat is both where players have the most actual power over the outcome, and where the stakes are highest. A party can win or lose a combat. A single combat ability or feat can make the difference between an enemy dead or alive, resources spent or kept, and victory and TPK.

Outside of combat, PC abilities – even noncombat abilities – are less important. In railroad-style adventures (a perfectly legitimate and a very common adventure structure), the PCs can do something if the DM wants them to do it, and can’t if the DM doesn’t. There may be some skill checks as window dressing, but it’s mostly for show. In sandbox or player-directed campaigns, the dice are often put aside for long stretches and the DM makes a lot of judgment calls based on the logic of the situation. Rarely do player abilities – their overland travel speed, say, or their History checks – visibly tip the balance between failure and success in the adventure. (But a good DM tries to give the impression that they do.)

Therefore, asking players to choose a noncombat feat over a combat feat is unfair. You’re asking them to give up a concrete benefit in the heavily structured part of the game in exchange for a benefit of uncertain value in the freeform part of the game, which often comes down to little more than character flavor. It’s a choice between roll-play and role-play, which is (or should be) a false dichotomy.

A lot of 4e feats try to offer a balance: they give you a noncombat ability, and because they know that noncombat isn’t enticing enough, they sweeten the deal with a small combat bonus.

Some examples:

  • Light Step, which increases your overland travel speed and the difficulty for opponents to follow you – cool stuff you could probably use in a skill challenge – and you get 2 points added to skills. Prerequisite: elf. Compare it to Skill Focus, which gives you +3 to skills.
  • Wild Senses, which gives you a large bonus for tracking creatures, and +3 to initiative. Prerequisite: shifter. Compare to Improved Initiative, which is +4 to initiative.
  • Animal Empathy: Bonus to Insight checks against natural beasts, and +2 to Nature skill. Prerequisite: Trained in Nature. Compare to Skill Focus: Nature, which is +3 Nature.

    You aren’t giving up much combat ability by taking these feats, but you are giving up some. In my opinion, you shouldn’t have to give up any. By creating the Light Step feat, you are saying that a bonus to tracking and overland movement is worth +1 Initiative. You shouldn’t ever have to compare these – they are in different spheres.

    I have two possible fixes:

    Solution 1: Feats That Do Two Things

    Make good combat feats – not watered-down feats, but feats just as good as combat-only feats – that also provide a noncombat ability. For instance, make the Wild Senses Initiative bonus just as good as Improved Initiative.

    You could actually have several feats, each of which provided +4 feat bonus to Initiative, and gave different noncombat bonuses. Players could choose whichever one fit best with their conception of their character.

    Or, if you don’t want to totally eliminate Improved Initiative, you could do what all the feats I mentioned above did: have a prerequisite. All of the cool noncombat-ability versions of Improved Initiative could require a certain race, attribute, or skill training. If you don’t qualify for any, you can always take Improved Initiative.

    It’s not always easy to see how to combine combat and noncombat abilities. What combat advantage would you tie with Linguist?

    Solution 2: Combat and Utility Feats

    Divide feats into combat and utility feats. At some levels, you get one, and at some, the other. As with powers, combat feats would predominate.

    It might be hard to police this. Someone would always find some wacky ability that lets your Intuition check be used as an attack roll, or something, and then a bunch of supposedly-noncombat feats would become combat-useful. Still, I think it would be a reasonable approach.

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    Mazes and Monsters is a far out game

    Monday, November 1st, 2010
    This entry is part 12 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

    After Tom Hanks’ disappearance, his three friends are interviewed separately by a scary detective, who seems intent on trapping them in an admission that they play Mazes and Monsters. They’re perfectly willing to sell Hanks up the Mazes and Monsters river, though. They claim that he played with a Mazes and Monsters group whose identities are shrouded in mystery.

    Detective: Who’d he play with?
    Kate: I – I don’t know. He never talked about that part of it. … I don’t think he really realized how dangerous the game was.
    Detective: (significant pause) Was Robbie a doper?

    Finally the Detective explains his theory about Hanks’ disappearance.

    Detective: One of the players that Robbie played with… got carried away and killed him.
    Blondie: That’s kind of far out.
    Detective: Mazes and Monsters is a far out game. Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming, killing…
    Blondie: Hey, it’s all in the imagination!
    Detective: Is it…?

    We’re so lucky that the Detective knows so much about Mazes and Monsters game rules!

    Introduction
    Mazes and Monsters is a far out game.

    Equipment
    Poison: Applied to a weapon or to food or drink, Poison instantly kills the subject with no possibility of survival. Similar to Traps, the Maze Controller is obligated to give the following disclaimer to the players about any poisoned – or potentially poisoned – item: “Be wary: it may be harmless… but it may be poisoned.”

    Maiming
    Whenever a character is hit, the Maze Controller should roll a d12. On a roll of 1, the character is Maimed. The Maze Controller should roll again on the Maim Subtable.

    Maim Subtable
    1: The character is instantly killed.
    2: Loses a hand or arm.
    3: Loses a foot or leg.
    4: Loses an eye.
    5-6: Facial disfigurement. Character takes -2 on all Charm spells.
    7-8: Concussion. Character is Mazed.
    9-11: Permanent scar; character looks awesome. No other effect.
    12: Flesh wound: Character got lucky… this time. No effect.

    reporter

    The chiastic structure is a literary device used in The Odyssey, Beowulf and Mazes and Monsters.

    In the next scene, we’ve finally caught up with the beginning of the movie, which, as you remember, started with a bunch of cops and reporters gathered around the entrance of Pequod Caverns. They’re looking for a missing Mazes and Monsters player who’s lost in the caves. This is the moment that’s been foreshadowed for the whole movie: cave jaunt after cave jaunt has promised us tragedy, only to deliver anticlimactic safety. And… that’s what happens again. After the search for Hanks in the cave turns up empty, we see Hanks stumbling through Times Square, looking lost, confused, dazzled – just like every other Times Square tourist, in other words. Tom Hanks isn’t in Pequod Caverns at all!

    So the whole uproar at the caverns was for nothing. It’s almost as if the message of the movie is that clueless adults are creating a media frenzy based on misinformation and speculation, and that you can’t trust reporters and writers to get their facts straight before they propagate panicked jeremiads. But of course, that’s not the case. Mazes and Monsters IS dangerous. Just look what happened to Tom Hanks.

    Hanks’ friends decide that since the cops haven’t found anything, they’ll have to find Hanks themselves, using their GAME SKILLS.

    Kate decides that “The Great Hall” isn’t a place – it’s a person! Hanks’ little brother ran away to New York City on a Halloween past, and he was named Hall.

    By the way, here’s how popular “Hall” is as a first name. Not very popular. Its best year was 1881 where .007% of boys were named Hall.

    Also Kate didn’t really use her GAME SKILLS to remember that fact, unless “game skills” and “knowledge of Tom Hanks” are synonymous, which, in a way, maybe they are. After all, you can’t write a real history of RPGs without frequently mentioning Tom Hanks. My RPG group did enjoy many sessions of FASA’s ‘burbrun, and who can forget the hit White Wolf scored with Joe: The Volcano?

    While Kate recreates Tom Hank’s family tree, the boys apply game logic to determine his next move:

    JJ: Where would a Holy Man go?
    Blondie: (thinking with visible effort, then having a Thought) On a quest!
    JJ: Exactly!

    Holy Men go on quests.

    More precisely, Holy Men go on quests to New York.

    Next week, we’ll catch up with Tom Hanks in the Big Apple. Will his spells be enough to defeat these goofy New York hoodlums?

    Hoodlum One looks like Indiana Jones just told him not to look directly at the Hanks.

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    how do you even mummify a robot

    Sunday, October 31st, 2010

    Happy Halloween!

    Enjoy this wrestling match between Minoru Suzuki and a robot mummy.

    Posted in fluff/inspiration, RPG Hub | No Comments »

    jewels in The Jewel of Seven Stars

    Saturday, October 30th, 2010

    The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker


    The stone, of one piece of which it was wrought, was such as I had never seen before. At the base it was of a full green, the colour of emerald without, of course, its gleam. It was not by any means dull, however, either in colour or substance, and was of infinite hardness and fineness of texture. The surface was almost that of a jewel. The colour grew lighter as it rose, with gradation so fine as to be imperceptible, changing to a fine yellow almost of the colour of “mandarin” china. It was quite unlike anything I had ever seen, and did not resemble any stone or gem that I knew.

    Here’s a peculiar treasure: a beautiful stone of rare appearance. It has absolutely no magical qualities. What do the PCs do with it? Well, if they give it to a sculptor, they will be able to commission one small statue of surpassing quality and loveliness – that sculptor’s master work.

    What will they do with the stone? Will a PC commission something personally meaningful? Will they give it to a patron NPC to curry favor? Will they commission something stupid? or will they let it sit unclaimed on someone’s character sheet?

    I have a feeling that a lot of groups will take such a stone as a challenge to come up with something cool, and that will increase their investment in the game world.

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