The Ginger Star by Leigh Brackett
D&D-ready encounters of note:
Overall, the book gives the impression of a world, like Middle Earth, that has more and less dangerous “zones”. Eric John Stark is a typical pulp-fiction badass, and in the beginning of the book, in the South, he is the baddest ass in the room. As he heads north, he travels through progressively higher-level areas until he is routinely being defeated and captured.
The PCs find a map marked with a symbol that looks like an ornate X. Arcana checks reveal that it is the Vrksah, the tiefling symbol of the Crossed Tree. Nature checks reveal that wherever two living treetrunks cross is a weak place; here a gate may naturally form, connecting to a similar crossed-tree configuration somewhere else in the world. Thus, a farmer may go for a walk in his own orchard, and, before he realizes that he has left his property, find himself on an entirely different continent. No one knows the locations of more than a handful of crossed tree gates, except perhaps the druids.
Crossed trees can be used as a way for the party to collect fast-travel shortcuts to important parts of the world. They can be an alternative or supplement to 4e teleportation circles, perhaps one more suitable for primal parties. Less prosaically, they may also lead the party to haunted fey groves, shadow forests where trees with human faces scream and mock, or trapped apple orchards where adventurers enter but never return: or if they do, they come back sown with evil seeds.
What, you thought we were only liveblogging Heroes of the Fallen Lands? You’re only 95% right!
I like a lot of the changes/clarifications for running skill challenges and determining DCs in the Rules Compendium. My thoughts below:
Christoph at Free Spacer has a post wondering if technical aids (iPad apps, for instance) will lead to sprawling game rules. In general, my optimism is almost Pollyanna-ish, but I agree that this is something worth considering.
Pencil and paper RPG rules have opposed forces acting on them:
an urge towards simulation creates complicated rules, and
irritation with recordkeeping pares them down.
This iterative process (theoretically) removes dud rules that don’t pull their weight. It’s responsible for a lot of the evolution of the D&D ruleset. (Of course, “dud” is relative: some may argue that the 1e harlot table added to the depth of the game world, and the pared-down 4e skill list doesn’t provide enough scope for epic-level rope use.)
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We last left off with Tom Hanks and his friends in the middle of a new, LARP-enhanced version of Mazes and Monsters. They just encountered a skeleton, so we should finally get a chance to see how they’ll handle combat so we can find out how that mechanic works, and… oh. Oh. They’re not going to fight the skeleton. They’re going to talk to each other. Roleplay.
Girl: Perhaps there is a clue hidden in the skull!
Hanks: (in a squeaky, panicked voice) Beware of the sacrilege!
Girl: Glacia the fighter is not afraid.
As Glacia the fighter approaches the skeleton, it is suddenly pulled up, out of the shot; presumably by a system of ropes and pulleys rigged up by Jay Jay, who, in addition to free run of the Theater Department and Anatomy Skeleton Department, apparently has the key to the Ropes and Pulleys Department. Either things are invisible when they are on the ceiling, or the characters can only see things in-frame, or Jay Jay’s system of ropes and pulleys pulls the skeleton down the tunnel and around the bend, because the skeleton, mouth flashlight and all, is now gone.
Showing bizarre and amazing lumination-location memory, Blondie says, “Look! where the light was pointing!”
Look! Where the light was pointing!
The last page of Heroes of the Fallen Lands is an ad for D&D Encounters. There are lots of D&D props lying around: candles, maps, gold idols… and Spanish doubloons!
D&D Encounters
Spanish doubloons
My guess is that this is paving the way for the next official campaign setting: 16th century Spain! What D&D player hasn’t dreamed of playing Don Quixote, or Pablos from Quevedo’s El Buscon, or Mendoza from Mysterious Cities of Gold.
And, as there are no more pages, we’re done blogging Heroes of the Fallen Lands! Back to one post a day for us.
Here’s the list of common magic items in Heroes of the Fallen Lands:
Black Iron Armor
Magic Armor
Sylvan Armor
Veteran’s Armor
Defensive Weapon
Magic Weapon
Vicious Weapon
Magic Orb/Staff/Wand
Bracers of Mighty Striking
Shield of Deflection
Boots of Striding
Burglar’s Gloves
Diadem of Acuity
Goggles of Night
Helm of Battle
Amulet of Protection
Elven Cloak
Safewing Amulet
Belt of Vigor
Potions of healing/life/recovery/vitality
It’s not a bad list of simple magic items, although I think that the Vicious Weapon, which has one of the better weapon powers, will overshadow a lot of Uncommon weapons.
This is not the complete list of 4e Common items, by the way: the complete list, along with other Essentials rule changes, is here.
Uncommon Items
Also included (for fun?) are a handful of Uncommon items, which players can’t get except from DM loot drops. I’m not sure why they’re included in this book.
Orb of Insurmountable Force
Earthroot Staff
Wand of the Hunting Hound
Gauntlets of Blood
I guess these are in here so that wizards, rogues, and fighters can have something to salivate over. The cleric is playing a cleric, so he’s used to disappointment.
Expertise Feats
Heroes of the Fallen Land offers a slew of new expertise feats and a change to weapon focus to limit it only to implements (while simultaneously bringing in implement focus to the mix). Consequences below:
Other Feats
Aside from the expertise feats and implement focus, which I’ve already covered, there are some pretty BOSS feats in Heroes of the Forgotten Lands! Highlights follow:
Disciple of Lore: This feats gives a +1 bonus to skills with which you have training. A pretty efficient feat when you consider how many skills can get the bonus, and fun for maxing out skills with all possible bonuses!
Improved Defenses: Wow, a feat that gives a +1 to all non AC defenses that scales with tier, making it twice as good as Paragon Defenses, which I almost always tried to take if at all possible! The only reason I could see for not taking this feat is that other superior feats for boosting specific defenses while giving other bonuses that I discuss below. Other than that, I suppose there are one or two classes that are so jam packed with crazy powerful feats, that they just don’t have time to take this one, but in my experience, those classes are few and far between.
Melee Training: An errata’d version of the old feat, which brings the power level down a bit. A necessary evil, to stop the purely dex based slayer and other potentially crazy builds with the new figher and rogue. A moment of silence, please, for all the builds that are taking a minor hit so that the warrior and rogue could use basic attacks as their only method of attacking…
Resilient Focus: Dude, I remember when only humans and half-elves could get a +2 bonus to Saving Throws and then only if they had spent an Action Point. Very close to being a must take for all classes by Paragon Tier (when status effects get nasty).
Superior Fortitude: Wow, a feat that gives +2 Fort AND resist versus ongoing damage that scales with tier! Why does it scale with tier anyway? This feat is noticably better than it’s paragon tier counterpart, which granted, never got taken.
Superior Reflexes: Another feat that combines two feats into one, giving a +2 to Reflexes that scales with tier and giving combat advantage against all enemies during your first turn in an encounter. Not amazing, but still a noticeable improvement!
Superior Will: This is one that I think anyone should seriously consider taking: a feat that gives a +2 bonus to will that scales with tier AND allows you to make a ST at the beginning of your turn to end the effect of being dazed or stunned. The three worst offenders as far as status effects are dazed, stunned, and dominated (at least, for those that come up with any kind of regularity). Making a save at the beginning of your turn to end two of those is HUGE.
Also, look how much better Swift Recovery is than Toughness:
Swift Recovery: You gain a +3 feat bonus to your healing surge value. The bonus increases to +4 at 11th level and +5 at 21st level.
Toughness: You gain 5 additional hit points. These additional hit points increase to 10 at 11th level and 15 at 21st level.
Props to the alternate ability modifiers for the classic races. So many possibilities open up for these races now that wasn’t present before:
This level 2 wizard utility power from HotFL is a pretty faithful 4e interpretation of Charm Person, which has been missing from the edition so far. It doesn’t have 1e’s sliding duration based on the target’s Intelligence, which is sad, but on the other hand, it is explicit about what happens when the charm wears off. That’s something that always puzzled me ever since Bargle first Charmed me in the Red Box.
Instant Friends is kooky in that it doesn’t use an attack roll to judge success, but a saving throw. That’s fun because it gives a level-1 wizard a chance (although a small one) to make a friend of a level 27 Storm Titan. What the heck, why not give it a try? (Don’t bother with Orcus, though; he get a +5 on saving throws.)
Wow, a pretty potent utility power for level 2. This seems too fun not to take, especially since a wizard can hide this in their spellbook and bust it out when they aren’t planning to get into a lot of fights that day. I’m not sure how I feel about this; I get nervous when spells become available that risk trivializing skills (i.e. diplomacy), but then again the saving throw does make this pretty risky (though spell focus, as always, throws a monkey wrench into things).
Disintegrate
Yeah, but ONCE PER DAY, Emirikol. That’s a daily power. Let’s not go crazy disintegrating these townspeople.
