Issues with Campaign Guide NPC - minor SPOILERS for players

[Morrus]

That may be fine, but it feels grafted on. There are powers such as the fear ability on the Inquisitor that should be attacks vs. Will (just like dragon fear), but instead happen automatically.

Is there an example in the MM of an aura requiring an attack roll? As far as I know, auras never require attack rolls, and flipping through the MM I can't find a creature with an aura which has one - all the auras apply a flat penalty or effect.

 

[RangerWickett]

Swarms, I think. Stirge swarms, for instance, make an attack whenever someone starts their turn in the aura.

 

[Zinovia]

Is there an example in the MM of an aura requiring an attack roll? As far as I know, auras never require attack rolls, and flipping through the MM I can't find a creature with an aura which has one - all the auras apply a flat penalty or effect.

You are correct. When I looked it up quickly I had thought it was an aura effect that dragons were using to cause fear. I was mistaken. My apologies. Auras do not make attack rolls, the effect or damage just happens (the majority of the time).

 

[merchantsteve]

There are other issues I have had with how the 4E conversion was done in the Campaign Guide and Player's Guide. It seems to me that the conversion is trying to preserve too much of the 3.5 mechanics. You've got rules in there for using the old Diplomacy "faction" levels (Hostile, Neutral, Helpful, etc.). That may be fine, but it feels grafted on. There are powers such as the fear ability on the Inquisitor that should be attacks vs. Will (just like dragon fear), but instead happen automatically. NPC's have too many different abilities (not a big issue, but it doesn't quite fit in with 4E's typical means of constructing enemies). A lot of the crunch rules such as prestige classes that were in the 3.5 version don't translate well into their 4E counterparts.

I really enjoy your tiefling ideas BTW. I chose to be more traditional because this is a conversion and not a total rewrite. Some things are just sacrosanct in publishing... Even so, there are some twists that I hope you will appreciate. Stay tuned!

A quick rules note: the Inquisitor has an aura. Auras do not have an attack. Believe me, there are a number of us constantly consulting the rules to make sure we aren't getting goofy with stat blocks!

A general meta-mechanic for attitudes helps to standardize the *many* interactions that occur in WotBS. The other choice was to create a Skill Challenge for each one, so I opted for a general set of guidelines to make interactions easier to run. This epic involves a larger degree of non-combat diplomacy than what has been seen previously, so the way the adventure is played shifts from the combat side to more of the role-play side. I simply provided the mechanics to help reduce some burdens on the non-combat encounters. If you don't like the ideas, there is more than enough room to craft unique skill challenges. As the first adventure shows, the major interactions will have associated skill challenges. The minor or opportunistic ones now have some guidelines.

Torrent has many abilities because she may be played as a PC. I opted to beef up the blocks for her in order to keep a player in the game until a replacement one comes in. In general, she will not be using all those powers.

 

[Zinovia]

My comments such as they were are not any serious criticism of the project. It's a lot of work to go through and some tough decisions need to be made. I agree that Torrent should have a lot of abilities for just the reason you state - she may be played as a PC in the group. She's not just another "monster" that lives for half a dozen rounds and dies. The Inquisitors likely are though.

I can see why you did the diplomacy changes the way you did. I may well convert a lot of that over to skill challenges, but it's nice to see an alternative to that. The reason I chose to run WotBS in the first place was the amount of social interaction it contains. My group is a mix of players who enjoy RP and combat to different degrees. I didn't want to run an adventure path that was nothing but a linked series of dungeon crawls. That is fun for some groups, but not really for my current one.

Thanks for all the work everyone has been putting in on this. It's appreciated!