Essentials red box
Elmore today
August 28th, 2010liveblogging D&D Essentials Starter
August 28th, 2010Essentials red box
The new Essentials Red Box is bigger than the 1983 Mentzer Red Box. The box is the same height and width, but about 50% deeper. Mentzer D&D just required the two booklets, dice, marker crayon, and MY IMAGINATION. The new box packs two booklets, dice, power cards, tokens, maps, and also, presumably, MY IMAGINATION. There’s also a large triangular cardboard insert propping up all the components, which has the effect of making the box look fuller than it is. Without it, everything would fit in a Mentzer-sized box. I guess the cardboard insert is to protect MY IMAGINATION from getting crushed during shipping.
yams, 1cp each
August 27th, 2010
African Civilizations by Graham Connah
Re-inventing common objects and foods is a worldbuilding rookie mistake. In a novel, it’s annoying if the main character drinks k’jinn instead of milk. It exoticises the main character and distances the reader. In RPGs, it’s even worse. If you say, “In my campaign world, milk is called k’jinn”, players will not start saying “Legolas takes a drink of k’jinn.” You’ll be lucky if you get “Legolas takes a drink of ka-spoon, or whatever milk is called.”
There is, however, a place for exotic foods and names. If a drink has a made-up name, that should mark it as exotic to the characters. If the PCs travel to a new continent, and everyone who meets them offers them a glass of k’jinn, this might make them feel like they’ve actually traveled somewhere.
Ranger’s Apprentice
August 26th, 2010I’ve mentioned that recent young-adult fantasy book/movie series are beginning to look like teen origin stories in a D&D party. Harry Potter is the teen wizard, Percy Jackson is the teen fighter, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, whatever’s his name, is the teen sorcerer.
The newest member of the party is Will Treaty from “Ranger’s Apprentice”. This series already consists of nine books, and there is a movie in the works.
Not a bad party – still light on leaders and heavy on ranged strikers, but all in all, we have a lot of ugly ducklings whose latent heroic gifts make them very special swans – swans with explicit D&D classes.
As far as I know, D&D isn’t really big among young-adult fantasy readers – I think it’s bigger among guys who were young-adult fantasy readers about 30 years ago. But I’m pretty sure that the kids who read and watch these books and movies would like playing D&D – if they knew what it was.
I don’t know if WOTC will be able to capitalize on this market. I don’t think they have the money to put commercials for the Essentials starter set in front of the “Ranger’s Apprentice” movie; get back-page ads in young-adult fantasy novels; get tie-in games with the Artemis Fowl, Inkheart, and Septimus Heap franchises. Too bad, because it would be cool to see what another generation would make of D&D.
D&D 4e Post Errata House Rules
August 25th, 2010UPDATE 9/21/2010: I changed the Expertise section to make it so players get a new feat called Expertise as a bonus feat at 1st level that gives a +1 feat bonus to all attacks per tier. Similar feats may not be taken.
UPDATE 9/12/2010: With the advent of Essentials feats and some more thought in general, I’ve made some tweaks to this list of house rules. Expertise, Item Bonuses to Damage, and Item Properties got updated, and I made a new entry for Damage Focus.
I realized my old house rules list was a little outdated since the latest errata, so I’ve created this new one instead.
This errata includes many of the item changes I hinted at in Item Issues. I should note that many of the item changes might not qualify strictly as errata with the new item rarity rules (since the DM has a lot of control over what items are given out), but could instead be considered as advice regarding which items tend to be very powerful and should be given out sparingly if at all:
- Expertise: All players get a feat called Expertise at 1st level that gives a +1 feat bonus to attacks per tier. No other Expertise feats may be taken. Reason: The Expertise feats are must takes for every character, which makes them boring. Also, they were included to fix a problem with attack bonuses not scaling properly with defenses so they might as well be inherent abilities. This house rule allows non weapon/implement attacks to benefit from the attack bonus too, such as racial attacks, and it supports the use of multiple weapons and implements. I considered allowing players to get bonuses from the new feats in Heroes of the Fallen Lands but decided against it since the feats don’t balance very well with each other and because that’s a lot of a punch to get with a bonus feat. Updated: 9/21/2010.
- Item Bonuses to Damage: All items that give an item bonus to damage no longer do so (making most such items useless). However, all PCs have a trinket that they acquired early in their adventuring career. The trinket takes up no slot (unless it’s something that would, like a hat), and it gives a +1 item bonus to damage per tier. If a PC loses the trinket somehow (if it is stolen from them, for example, or they give it away), the PC may not acquire a new trinket until they level up. Reason: Items that give item bonuses are super powerful and basically must haves for every class. Furthermore, different items give different item bonuses to damage, making for discrepancies in how much damage a class can do with certain weapons/implements. However, I don’t want to ban this entirely since more damage means faster combats, which is usually nice. Plus, I like the idea of players having a personal item that gives them strength, and which they may have had since the beginning of their adventuring life! Updated: 9/12/2010. Read the rest of this entry »
earn your magic perks
August 24th, 2010The more I think about it, the more I think the Essentials magic item rarity system is a huge game fix.
Common Items: no more socks for Christmas
Let’s take a 16th-level party. +3 weapons, armor and amulets are necessities. But all other magic item abilities are perks. D&D is a game about earning perks. In a game about earning perks, we don’t give out unearned perks.
Right now, characters have access to every item, and because players can spend a lot of time poring over the Character Builder, they always end up starting with, or buying, their capstone item. Once someone has the +2 Sword of Meshing Perfectly With Their Other Broken Abilities, no other +2 sword is going to interest them. In fact, they might prefer it to any +3 sword (except the +3 Sword of Meshing Perfectly With Their Other Broken Abilities). A DM has no way to please players but by staying on-wishlist, which is boring. Wishlists limit the number of D&D items in the universe from about a million to about 20.
As a DM, when I’m placing treasure, I’m thinking about what perks to give my players. If every character starts with a +2 weapon or implement with no abilities, I know that a +2 weapon, with any ability, will be valued. As it is, though, I often place cool items all over the dungeon; players find them; they decide their current gear is better; and everyone gets a “socks-for-Christmas” letdown.
Now, with players will be able to buy only generic, +x items, they no longer have the ability to ruin Christmas for themselves.
Rare items: cutting the Gordian cake and eating it too
From the article:
The rules assume that the DM hands out one rare item per character per tier. Rare items are meant to be character-defining, powerful objects that help forge the character’s identity in the world. If you find a flame-tongue weapon, you’ve uncovered an important, powerful blade.
People have been long complaining that they want fewer, more meaningful magic items. That’s always been a problem, though, because frequent magic-items drops are one of the big D&D rewards. If Rare items are really character-defining and once-per-tier, then we can have our cake and eat it too: we have a nifty way of giving the epic Excalibur items while still being able to dole out the routine magical junk that gets people back into the dungeons.
Conclusion
So far, the 4e magic system has been very efficient and sturdy without being very exciting, like a German-engineered school bus. I feel like it’s getting an upgrade:
Skills in D&D 4e – Some Simple Math
August 23rd, 2010I was looking through this thread on the wizards forums and it got me thinking about skills in D&D 4e again. The thread was started in response to the Dragon article by Mike Mearls about Item Rarity. One of the complaints some people mentioned was that with new item rarities, players are basically restricted to minor stuff that give skill bonuses. Thus, skill DCs for skill challenges and other checks will be even crazier and wacky as players fill their slots with skill boosting items.
The thing is, skills have already been like this! Between training, ability scores, backgrounds, racial bonuses, powers, and items, the range of skill modifiers is way to wide to really work for any given DC. The only thing that is really sure is that the current DCs are too low!
Some simple numbers to illustrate my point:
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Mazes and Monsters retro-clone 6: Live Action Maze Exploration
August 23rd, 2010We’ve come a long way in our exploration of the Mazes and Monsters rules. The old rules. The old, boring, sit-around-the-table rules. But now it’s time for the next stage of the game:
Evolved Mazes & Monsters
As I mentioned last week, JayJay (the guy who wears the hats) had a brain wave while looking for a quiet place to commit suicide: he invented the “next evolution of the game”, which turns out to be LARPing in a cave. This is an event as momentous as the D&D rules branching into Basic and Advanced D&D, and therefore deserves its own section of the rules, if not its own rule book.
Evolved Mazes and Monsters
Read this book second!
At some point, the psychic danger of the terrifying world of Mazes and Monsters, and the physical danger of death by candlefire, may not provide enough of a thrill for you. You and your players will be ready for an evolution of mazes and monsters, at a more sophisticated level.
WARNING: Evolved Mazes and Monsters is only for the most advanced players! If you have never played Mazes and Monsters at at least Level 9, CLOSE THIS BOOK NOW as its contents will certainly drive you into a mental state from which you may never recover!
There. Now that the less advanced players are gone, we can reveal the terrifying secrets of Evolved Mazes and Monsters: players dress in costumes and stand in a cave.
every book’s a sourcebook: African Civilizations: Ethiopia
August 20th, 2010African Civilizations by Graham Connah
The existence of a powerful Christian nation in Africa may have influenced the medieval Europe myth of Prester John, the magical African king who ruled a land filled with gold and gems where there was no poverty. Apparently envoys to Prester John occasionally delivered their messages to a king of Ethiopia, to his confusion.
Ethiopia has an interesting geography: it’s largely highlands, and the elevation means that there are a lot of climates very close to each other, from Alpine to temperate to swamp to desert to seashore (if you count Eritrea as part of Ethiopia, which it was until the 90s). A campaign set in an Ethiopia-like area would put the PCs in a few day’s travel of almost every terrain type that has its own map icon in the D&D Expert set.
Ethiopian Adventures
Here are some ideas I have for adventures in an Ethiopia-like environment.
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trust me
August 19th, 2010You know what’s spooky? Someone whispering in the dark: “Do you trust me?”
In fact, asking for trust in any way is generally off-putting.
Have a NPC, for no apparent reason, ask the PCs for trust. Make it someone who the PCs have no choice but to depend on (guide, patron, provider of bail). Whether or not the NPC is actually treacherous, the PCs will start casting a lot of glances over their shoulders.
It works the other way too. Right before a combat, have an ally NPC say, “Whatever I seem to be doing, trust me.” Then, during the battle, he switches sides and starts attacking the PCs. “Maybe, just maybe,” the PCs will think, “this is part of some plan to help us.” Is it, or is the NPC just an evil jerk? Who knows!
PC uncertainty in combat can be a lot of fun (for the DM). It works especially well with time limits on how long each PC can spend thinking about their turn. Time for frenzied panic!
